Guild Wars 2

Currently, whenever a skill gets interrupted, it goes on a 5 second cooldown. The only exception to that are skills that have an effect while channeling, such as churning earth, which cripples while it’s channeling and ether renewal, which pulses condition removal and heals as it is channeling.

Something that I have found very bothersome however, is that during the wind-up time of ether renewal (before the first pulse and after clicking the button), which is quite lengthy, the skill still goes on full recharge when you’re interrupted. This has led to quite a few lost duels because of people accidentally interrupting my heal.

I understand that getting interrupted is supposed to be the weakness this skill entails, but I find this punishment excessive. If you have experienced it for yourself, you’d know how anti-intuitive this feels. You’ll be getting CC’d a milisecond after casting and have no heal for 15 seconds.

Opinions? I would consider this a bug that needs fixing. Any interrupts before the first pulse, or at least during the first half of the windup, should not put the heal on full cooldown imo.

Excellent points my man. I have been advocating for a long time for this heal to receive a change to a gradual cooldown so that it is more intuitive.

This would improve skillful play and the survivability of eles.

The change would go as such: when you start casting the skill, the first pulse happens .25 seconds after casting, and after that first pulse, the cooldown is broken into fractions based on when the skill is ended. This gives users the option to heal two pulses, but dodge an incoming signet of spite or eviscerate, and have the heal come back in a matter of 4 seconds.

The fraction would be the length of the cooldown divided by each pulse.

Not bad at all I like that suggestion.

Mbelch offers a nice idea, aye.

It’s actually not a bug, it just is a channeling skill : from the moment you start to channel it, you’re gaining from it. You gain benefit from a usual skill when the cast is over, and since you’ve probably healed a little bit and it’s been interrupted, well…it goes on full CD. It makes sense and it actually was kind of okay before all the nerfs on the other ele sources of heal, so now if you’re interrupted you’re pretty much dead.

This is how they designed channeling skills and yes it could and should get reworked a bit, like so many other things in the game…

For sure it’s bothersome when ER gets interrupted but it’s your job to prohibit that. You can spec into earth for stability, CC the enemy or outrange him with movement spells. You can also flash away while channeling, etc.

So overall this spell fits eles perfectly – high risk, mediocre reward.

I still like Mbelchs suggestion though. Reverting the change of mistform might also be a good start.

Gorni.1764:

For sure it’s bothersome when ER gets interrupted but it’s your job to prohibit that. You can spec into earth for stability, CC the enemy or outrange him with movement spells. You can also flash away while channeling, etc.

So overall this spell fits eles perfectly – high risk, mediocre reward.

I still like Mbelchs suggestion though. Reverting the change of mistform might also be a good start.

About that, I would like to add that the decision to make it impossible to use your heal, utilities or elite was a very stupid move. All they had to do was authorize only heal skill during mist form (same for elixir S). And tbh it’s not like being able to use 1 or 2 skills while being immune for 3s is a big deal (and it made possible to use the res glyph to self-res) : warriors can be immune to direct damage and condi damage and still use all their skills =.=

Uhtameit.2413:

Gorni.1764:

For sure it’s bothersome when ER gets interrupted but it’s your job to prohibit that. You can spec into earth for stability, CC the enemy or outrange him with movement spells. You can also flash away while channeling, etc.

So overall this spell fits eles perfectly – high risk, mediocre reward.

I still like Mbelchs suggestion though. Reverting the change of mistform might also be a good start.

warriors can be immune to direct damage and condi damage and still use all their skills =.=

So can we with focus off hand. I’m surprised our focus earth skill hasn’t get nerf. ER is a very powerful heal and thus it needs this minor setback. Like someone already stated there are various ways to prevent from getting interrupted and gain the full benefit of the skill.

Gorni.1764:

So overall this spell fits eles perfectly – high risk, mediocre reward.

Not really.
It provides full condition cleansing and huge healing, which scales with healing power better than any other healing skill in the game, while also having an insanely low cooldown.

The channel is the only real downside of the skill, but if you manage to cast it without getting interrupted (so while having stability or invulnerability), it is worth the slow.
That’s why you should run 20 earth or focus+Armor of Earth when running Ether Renewal.

huge healing

nope not really. You usually don’t get all ticks from the spell and you should also keep in mind that it’s a very obvious 4s-chanel. During that time you can do nothing and the heal can easily be outdamaged (if not interrupted) during that time. (15s CD and 4s cast-time = 1/4 of your time running around trying to heal when kept on CD … not really efficient playstyle, yet necessary to stay alive. Ask again why eles are struggeling atm …) Running berserker you usually just “negate” the incoming damage while chaneling and in the end you will have the same amount of health as before the chanel – just with conditions cleansed.
If it wasn’t for the ele’s vulnerability against conditions I’d never use this spell for it’s “good heal” that even requires a specific build to work. Signet would be the way to go for eles without this stupid condi-meta.
Compared to warriors’ healing signet ER is nothing but a weak spell.

Ether renewal removes 8 conditions and has the best consistent healing per second out of all the ele heals. Yet, people complain that it actually has counters and weaknesses. Without the full cooldown interrupt and long channel, renewal would be the most op healing skill in the game.

I hope anybody that wants the current weaknesses gone or diminished is ready to accept a quarter of the condi removal, a 30% healing reduction, a longer cooldown or any combination of the three.

Gorni.1764:

huge healing

nope not really. You usually don’t get all ticks from the spell and you should also keep in mind that it’s a very obvious 4s-chanel. During that time you can do nothing and the heal can easily be outdamaged (if not interrupted) during that time. (15s CD and 4s cast-time = 1/4 of your time running around trying to heal when kept on CD … not really efficient playstyle, yet necessary to stay alive. Ask again why eles are struggeling atm …) Running berserker you usually just “negate” the incoming damage while chaneling and in the end you will have the same amount of health as before the chanel – just with conditions cleansed.
If it wasn’t for the ele’s vulnerability against conditions I’d never use this spell for it’s “good heal” that even requires a specific build to work. Signet would be the way to go for eles without this stupid condi-meta.
Compared to warriors’ healing signet ER is nothing but a weak spell.

Any healing skill compared to Warrior’s Healing Signet is a weak spell, that’s why it is going to be nerfed the next patch.
Also, I don’t see how you can compare two different skills on two different profession which have different settings. Except for healing signet, Warriors have no sustain at all, which isn’t the case for elementalists.

By the way, Ether Renewal heals for 5000 with an 1.2 healing power coefficient on a 15s cooldown. That means about 263 HP/S, assuming channel time is 4s. That is way above any other elementalist healing skills

In comparison, GoEH heals for 233 HP/s when traited for 20s cooldown, while Arcane Brilliance heals for 273 HP/s when 5 enamies are hit, so slightly above Ether Renewal.
SoR is on par with ER only with 1.5 casts per second, which is quite impossible to obtain that average of casts/s.

That assuming you have no healing power at all, because in that case, ER scales way better compared to any other healing skill. Also this caluclations are made regardless of the DPS you’re not taking because of the condition removal of Ether Renewal.

Of course there are drawbacks of the skill, which is the long channel time, but if you manage to work around it (which is more than possible if you’re smart enough), it is an amazing skill and that’s why there are an huge number of elementalists, especially the ones who don’t run 30 water, that prefer ER over other healing skills.

Mesmers running Power Block after the patch could be the bane of Ether Renewal (25s cooldown on interrupt). I agree with the proposal of the thread to not put Ether Renwal on full cooldown if it is interrupted before the first pulse, though I don’t usually have trouble getting off ether renewal, since I usually just make some distance before using it, or throw up Armor of Earth if I know I’ll be CC’ed and can’t avoid it.

Also, I don’t see how you can compare two different skills on two different profession which have different settings.

I was solely talking about HPS, therefore I think it’s ok to compare different spells on different classes.

Arcane Brilliance heals for 273 HP/s when 5 enamies are hit, so slightly above Ether Renewal.

so you get the point. Like Arcane Brilliance ER can in theory be better than other ele-heals in terms of HPS without taking other things into consideration (like already mentioned that you would have to heal 1/4 of the time and that it can be interrupted for example).

I still think that the main reason why people are running ER is its condi-cleanse, not its HPS.

Nevertheless this is offtopic… Like stated in my first post I think ER is quite fine as it is (though I’d love to see a talent like Obsidian Focus that gives stability on chanels or something like that).

Cecilia.5179:

Mesmers running Power Block after the patch could be the bane of Ether Renewal (25s cooldown on interrupt). I agree with the proposal of the thread to not put Ether Renwal on full cooldown if it is interrupted before the first pulse, though I don’t usually have trouble getting off ether renewal, since I usually just make some distance before using it, or throw up Armor of Earth if I know I’ll be CC’ed and can’t avoid it.

Ooooo I didn’t think about that! Oh my gonna have to try 30 dom on my mesmer.

sorrow.2364:

By the way, Ether Renewal heals for 5000 with an 1.2 healing power coefficient on a 15s cooldown. That means about 263 HP/S, assuming channel time is 4s. That is way above any other elementalist healing skills

In comparison, GoEH heals for 233 HP/s when traited for 20s cooldown, while Arcane Brilliance heals for 273 HP/s when 5 enamies are hit, so slightly above Ether Renewal.
SoR is on par with ER only with 1.5 casts per second, which is quite impossible to obtain that average of casts/s.

That assuming you have no healing power at all, because in that case, ER scales way better compared to any other healing skill. Also this caluclations are made regardless of the DPS you’re not taking because of the condition removal of Ether Renewal.

That scaling is why I changed my outlook on ER the healing power that many eles love gets the most love from ER. I think there are only 3 other heals that have a 1.2 coefficient or higher IIRC Guardian signet heal is 1.3 coeff, Engineer turret is 1.2 coeff, Consume conditions is 1.2 coeff with 3+ conditions. Thats off top of my head so not 100% accurate.

Gorni.1764:

I was solely talking about HPS, therefore I think it’s ok to compare different spells on different classes.

Not really.
Elementalists have many other sources of healing regardless of the build, Warriors have not, so it is not fair to compare directly the HP/s of Warrior’s healing skills and Elementalist’s ones.

Gorni.1764:

so you get the point. Like Arcane Brilliance ER can in theory be better than other ele-heals in terms of HPS without taking other things into consideration (like already mentioned that you would have to heal 1/4 of the time and that it can be interrupted for example).

I still think that the main reason why people are running ER is its condi-cleanse, not its HPS.

Nevertheless this is offtopic… Like stated in my first post I think ER is quite fine as it is (though I’d love to see a talent like Obsidian Focus that gives stability on chanels or something like that).

You have a way to prevent the interrupt, it is Rock Solid. Just switch in earth while you start channeling ER and you get both stability and damage mitigation to cover the eventual DPS you’ll get during the channel.

When you look at it this way I’d say warriors have overall way better survivability (and also damage if you want) than eles and yet they get a better heal. So it is more than fair to compare the heals and judging based on your argumentation eles should even have a much stronger heal than warriors. Yet, it is vice-versa.

And I already wrote about Rock Solid, I am actually running a build including this trait … I guess people aren’t reading my posts properly.

and if you aren’t running rock solid you can take earths embrace which is only an adept trait if your armor of earth cantrip(if you use it) is on cool down. After using ether renew for so long theres no way i could use our other heals no matter how easily its interrupted, especially with how absurd conditions are now. As Cecilia said, its all about anticipation, create distance/pop stability if its up and use renewel.

Random, I so wish I could have rock solid and geomancers freedom without putting 30 in earth.

Tei.1704:

Ether renewal removes 8 conditions and has the best consistent healing per second out of all the ele heals. Yet, people complain that it actually has counters and weaknesses. Without the full cooldown interrupt and long channel, renewal would be the most op healing skill in the game.

I hope anybody that wants the current weaknesses gone or diminished is ready to accept a quarter of the condi removal, a 30% healing reduction, a longer cooldown or any combination of the three.

I think what the OP is suggesting is to apply the 5s interrupt cooldown if none of the eight pulses from ether renewal actually occur. Basically, there would be a small window during the start up animation of the ability during which you would receive kitten interrupt cooldown, but once that window passed then you would receive the full cooldown.

I feel this is fair because you haven’t actually “used” the ability. When non-channeled abilities are interrupted, they do not produce their effects and go on kitten cooldown. But if a channeled ability gets interrupted before any effect is produced, they go on their full cooldown. In both cases you were shut down completely, but one is much more punishing simply because it’s a channeled ability.

Obviously it would be imbalanced if the 5s cooldown applied to ether renewal no matter what, but having just a small window before the ability takes effect to allow for kitten cooldown shouldn’t really make it an issue. Most interrupts that happen to ether renewal at that stage are likely not deliberate either, unless they managed to make that sort of read.

Unfortunately I don’t think the game is equipped to handle such a thing at the moment, but I feel like this would be a good thing to apply to a lot of channeled abilities.

I know what the op suggests, but even that supposedly moderate change is asking too much. It’s actually not very hard to interrupt renewal before a single pulse occurs. We’re talking like 3/4 of a second here. Instant cast interrupts, like updraft and power lock, are very easy to do this with. Also, I don’t see a reason why people that react very quickly should be rewarded less than people that were slower.

If we’re talking about consistency, the suggested change would make renewal the only skill in the game that favors waiting for the effect to happen before interrupting.

Ether Renewal is a model for what healing skills should be. Use a skill in conjunction with it if you’re worried about it being interrupted. Break off from combat if you can if you’re going to use it. Overly forgiving healing skills is one of this game’s many cancers. Stop encouraging more.