Guild Wars 2

I apologise if this has already been brought up on this sub-forum but I’m new to the class, currently leveling up my Norn Elementalist as my 3rd character and having a great time. I’m running a D/D build, focusing on Fire and Water for most things with cantrips and conjure weapons as skills (lightening hammer has to be one of the most fun skills in the game!).
As great as I’m finding elementalist, I’m having a few issues deciding on which healing skill is best. I don’t need condition removal as I have that covered through other skills, which makes Ether Renewal semi-useful to me. However, the quick cd on ER is quick attractive. As for Signet of Restoration, I’m suspicious of just how much healing it can provide; especially when your in a bit of a mush and need lots of healing in a hurry. I guess that leaves Glyph of Elemental Harmony, but then when you take cd into consideration, and the fact that to be super-effective you really need to be in water, it just seems a bit lack-luster.
I’d appreciate anyone’s thoughts on this, as I’m loving the class and want to pin down which healing skill to stick with.

With decent healing power, signet of restoration is nice. I get about 250hp by spell. If you’ve decent healing power and you need a heal burst, just switch for water, skill 2, skill 5, signet. If you have evasive arcana, dodge for more heal.

Elementalists have 3 of the most balanced heals across the different classes. They all have a purpose and are strong in their own way.

Personally, I am a staunch supporter of Ether Renewal. You can’t have too much condition removal and the CD alone makes it one of the most powerful heals. The only true downside is the fact that you are extremely vulnerable to interrupts which means you need to be very smart about when and how you use it. Ether Renewal is tough to use correctly and requires you to be aware of what skills other classes have that could potentially interrupt it.

Signet of Restoration is good. It provides so much passive healing coupled with Water traits (the passive over time heal and the instant heal) + Regeneration simply from attuning. It does a great job of mitigating fairly medium damage and will serve you well if that’s what you intend to do. I do not like it as I feel it forces me too much into kiting, loses efficiency from no healing gear (which I also am against for WvW usage) and simply does not hold up in 1on1’s or 1vX’s versus very strong damage builds. Others swear by it and cite daphoenix and his D/D guide, opinions differ.

As for GoEH, it’s a good overall heal – remember that you can switch attunement while it’s mid-cast so it’s quite easy to ensure that you cast it in Water most of the time. I still rank it above the Signet. The fact that GoEH being interrupted simply puts it on a 2-3s CD means it’s easier to use than Ether Renewal where an interrupt can truly screw you over.

That’s a quick opinion of the 3 heals we have. Try them all and make up your mind on what you prefer. I went GoEH into Ether Renewal as I got more comfortable with it (and they buffed the cooldown to 15s).

Thank you both for your input. I’ve currently been using Ether Renewal as well, the CD makes it especially attractive for me to use and as you say, extra condition removal isn’t entirely wasted.
I don’t want to have to go so far into arcana to get evasive arcana, but I still think I’ve got enough healing with a collection of passive water regeneration, healing cantrips, dagger skill 5 as well as the heal skill.
I think mostly I felt I was missing something on the Signet, that it was far more awesome than I was seeing and that I was just missing something.
For now I’m probably going to still to ER then.

I am another proponent of Ether Renewal.

I find with GoEH, it’s a bit redundant because I can keep up boons just fine through attunement swapping and auras.
With the Signet, I find that I just don’t heal enough per hit.

Ether Renewal is just great. With 700 Healing Power, it heals me for around 5000 plus 5 or 6 conditions. Plus that 15 second CD.
If you’re worried about being interrupted during casting it, throw on Armor of Earth beforehand for stability. (I know the CD for that is longer, but it helps in a tight situation.)

I remember when ether renewal rooted you and had a longer cooldown. It was terrible. I only picked ele back up recently and it has been changed. Didn’t know it’d be the recommended heal over Glyph.

I still personally like glyph because the boons can be good, as long as you’re not in fire. I’ve used it to kite in air, and I’ve used it in earth to brace for a hit that might otherwise have killed me when I was out of endurance and burning retreat and mist form were on cd (desperate, but it has worked)

I’m up in the air about signet, I’ve not used it since beta.

Personally switched out signet of restoration for Ether Renewal and dropped my cleric’s rings and amulet for knight’s rings and berserker amulet so I have more punch, while I do miss the massive amount of passive healing I think is a step in the right direction requiring more attention and finesse to use correctly. Although I’m a firm believer that each of our heals have their place depending on your build and weapon choice.

MarzAttakz.9608:

Personally switched out signet of restoration for Ether Renewal and dropped my cleric’s rings and amulet for knight’s rings and berserker amulet so I have more punch, while I do miss the massive amount of passive healing I think is a step in the right direction requiring more attention and finesse to use correctly.

See, this guy is smart~

Many people gear way too defensively and use Signet.

Intigo.1653:

MarzAttakz.9608:

Personally switched out signet of restoration for Ether Renewal and dropped my cleric’s rings and amulet for knight’s rings and berserker amulet so I have more punch, while I do miss the massive amount of passive healing I think is a step in the right direction requiring more attention and finesse to use correctly.

See, this guy is smart~

Many people gear way too defensively and use Signet.

I’m thinking soldiers myself, what kills eles and thieves is not sustained damage, which you can heal through, but sudden burst damage, which if you miss a dodge or something, you’re downed almost instantly, while higher hp pool classes can survive it and then heal.