If Ether Renewal is/isn't Nerfed...

Dervish fixes first; then worry about caster skills.

I, for one, don't. Not because it isn't overpowered (it is), but because it's the only option most eles have for HM. Due to the insane amounts of armor in HM, eles can't do much outside of utility. Sure, they can blind and ward, but that gets old fast and no team in an elite area needs that.

Until Anet provides HM alternatives to ER for eles, I think this skill should remain untouched. Nerfing it w/o somehow improving eles' ability to do what eles should be able to do in HM (elemental damage) would be ridiculous.

I think the skill is OPed. But, as many have said, eles don't have many other viable options. When Anet gets around to buffing eles (which is going to be awhile) then they can nerf ER. Even then, idk, it's a build that doesn't work everywhere...

ANet don't care about balance, why should we?

I'm in the process of revisiting my elementalist right now. It's a great skill but even in NM it can be stripped and leave you dead in the water. As was discussed in the other ele thread, the profession is weak once you start hitting armored monsters. Any nerf to ER needs to be balanced by some sort of buff making the ele nuker viable again (which needs to be done).

I was thinking about a buff to the currently worthless skill Intensity. I was thinking of something along the lines of:

Intensity - Enchantment, for every rank of energy storage your spells have 3% armor penetration for foes with more armor than you. (Make it maintainable with 13 energy storage and a 20% enchant mod)

I'm indifferent. The build seems easy and spammy at first, but it does have a bit of a learning curve. I prefer playing with ER eles over monks because monks tend to be the more retarded players.
We should care because we play the game...?

The players don't care about balance, so why would ANet work on it?

ER is a powerfull skill, but eles do not take the place of monks in any way, they add something to teams. ER isnt in the way of anything, or causing any trouble in PvE. Its not affecting the economy or the community, its used by the community. Its not like ToA is full of ppl shouting "Group looking for 6 ER's to go"

I really do not see the problem.

/notsigned

nothing in this game "takes skill." just because you click more skills doesnt mean it makes you a better player. ursan was just overpowered

also, i didnt hate ursan because it was overpowered or SF or 600. all these builds made me rich and SF still does with all the SCing

Nerf or change ER and buff eles' damage.

Wouldn't making Intensity more maintainable and making it give armor penetration pretty much solve eles' damage problems? I don't play ele so I could be making it more simple than it actually is, but to me, that seems like all eles need to be viable damage dealers. Also, it wouldn't require any PvE/P splits. And even if that's not all that needs to be done, it's something relatively simple that could surely be tacked on in the next update.

I absolutely love this skill and always loved it even after the heavy nerf in 2005. I was using it in some builds even with just 8 seconds duration (just like the pre buff SF), so obviously the way-over-the-top buff was as much of a shocker for me as the SF buff.

The skill is now blatantly overpowered, but PvE seems to be all about that - OP skills. At least it doesn't have anywhere near that devastating effect on the game as other imba skills did. And quite to contrary, it has quite a positive effect of providing another healing profession, which reduces the pain of needing to find 2 monks to complete a team. It's better to have more viable backlines and now almost all HM content can be defeated with just 1 monk + 1 Rit or 1 monk + 1 ER/infuse. Practically even zero monk backlines like ER + rit or 2 ER do very fine, yet players still pick monks above everything else - as a monk I don't see ER eles making it harder for me to group.

I'd like to see a minor nerf to it so it can't be maintained and so it requires more skill to time it properely, BUT before doing that Anet should better rebalance the entire Elementalist profession. Eles do have some uses in HM gameplay but they're mostly reduced to gimmicks like the ER or Obsidian Flesh, as their damage output is pretty crappy vs heavily armored HM mobs. Eles should be a Damage and Utility class, yet neither dmg nor utility spells are useful in high end PvE.

ER is the only reason to have an ele. I don't even think it's overpowered really. In order to permanently maintain it you need an enchant mod and another skill (or cons). It only heals and gives energy to you. What's the problem? Nerf the skills that get abused with it (heal party infuse ect...) if you want to tone it down. Ele's more so than paragons need a bone. Or they'll have nothing at all to stand on.

Due to the bad builds of many PvE monsters and by absolute standards bad AI the originally role of the ele (burst damage and (defensive) support) is helpful to have, but not as powerful as other options and therefor rather unpopular. Ether Renewal is often the only ele build that is better than other options and therefor quite popular.
ER is overpowered, but with the current design of PvE I don't see how nerfing ER will improve the game as a whole.

ER is overpowered and therefore needs a nerf. I use it and I love it but I'm not going to delude myself saying it is fine as it is. Nerf it at the same time intensity or elemental lord is buffed to give armor penetration.

If they make Ether Renewal last longer and shorten the recharge; but have it only effecting elementalist skills, I'd be fine with that.

Really? Nerfing the only thing eles can do to be in the meta teams of elite area's? and its only "overpowered'if they have the ER infuse build, so KEEP IT.

BTW Shadowform always survived the nerfs... so why would ANET kill ER off.

This may still end up being the best healer as there are already heavy bonding ERs spamming burning speed for energy. However I think this is a good first step towards making the skill sane and would be a good starting point for the test crew.

Its been said before, but needs repeating. ER is not Ursan, SF, 600 or Rt Solo. 600 required at the very least a Hero, and therfore was not truly soloable. SF was barely nerfed, it just got a little slap on the wrist. SF is still popular in many SCs, and makes you almost invincible at all times. Rt SoS solo combines the mindlessness of Ursan with the near invulnerability of SF. The beauty of Rt solo is that it takes no skill, can be used in any area, and doesnt even require you to engage the enemy with anything but one pull from a longbow.

ER on the other hand is not used to solo farm. It does however provide more options for a team, in the form of a possible healer or orders. And most people would still prefer to have at least one real monk. Yes its a damn good healer but it doesnt make monks obsolete. If two ERs were more in demand than 2 Monks, then I might agree it needs a nerf. But until that happens its fine the way it is. And like everyone else has said, PvE Ele damage is subpar and could use some love.

And the people that want a DwG nerf make me lol myself. Name somewhere besides DoA that a DwG team is being used. No its ok, ill wait..... cant do it can you. Now take into account that you can replace DwG with ANY caster spike and get the same effect. Its just a popular build to use right now. As matter of fact there are builds for DoA HM that use Mesmers and take the same amount of time. But I dont see any QQs to nerf Keystone Signet.

Ether Renewal is a balanced skill, only when not taking secondary professions into account.

As against the balancing option of "Ok, lets just have it disable non-ele spells for 20 seconds" as I usually am for skills, in this case, it's just what Ether Renewal needs.

Have it disable all monk skills when used, and you'll have a balanced skill. Elementalists have enough energy management options that this would not kill being a 'healing ele' per-say, but stop it from being spammed to death with infuse.

But yes, it needs a nerf badly.