Guild Wars 2

There was talk during stream ( time 34:+ ) that Ether Renewal may become a cantrip , that sounds absolutely great and this is why:

-Cantrips are instants
-New soothing disruption will decrease CD by 20% and apply regen and vigor
-Ether renewal remove several condition but it’s too easy to interrupt

Of course in case ER becomes a cantrip, I can see its CD going up and number of condition removed will be decreased…still assuming the CD will go up to 30s CD, a 20s CD reduction would means a 4-5k healing every 24s that remove x conditions and applies regen+vigor….how awesome does it sound?

Why awesome?

-Celestial will be nerfed by 10% overall
-Base HP of ele is quite low
-Signet of restoration depends heavily on healing power and soon Celestial amulet will be nerfed.

Let’s say that ER will be nerfed in number of condition removed, from 8 to 3 or 2, the added boons will make this a strong alternative to SoR for zerker/soldier or any eles not heavily invested in healing power( those who will equip an amulet with healing power in it – no more healing power from trait line)

What are your thoughts?

I doubt Ether Renewal will ever be instant cast. Look at the arcana utility skills, which are all instant cast, yet the healing skill Arcane Brilliance has a casttime.

If they make it a cantrip why do you expect it to be an instant? Heal as one or healing breeze will be non-instant shouts, just as “Guard Me” is. Or you have a non-instant stance, a meditation or an arcane.

There probably won’t be much of a rebalancing because the only reason they want to categorise skills is to make them affected by traits and runes so they can compete with other skills.

The cast time on arcane brilliance is like 3/4 of a second, anything below 1s is amazingly great, unless you get a heal like shelter which sits in another category.

To have a 1/2 or 3/4s cast on a “nerfed” ER would be amazing definitely, give me a 1-2 condi clear every 30s ( reduced to 24s ) but with vigor/regen and 3/4s cast…I’m sold

rotten.9753:

If they make it a cantrip why do you expect it to be an instant? Heal as one or healing breeze will be non-instant shouts, just as “Guard Me” is. Or you have a non-instant stance, a meditation or an arcane.

There probably won’t be much of a rebalancing because the only reason they want to categorise skills is to make them affected by traits and runes so they can compete with other skills.

I strongly doubt they would leave Ether renewal as it is, as I could have 6s regen/vigor every 12s with the buffed soothing disruption

Supreme.3164:

I strongly doubt they would leave Ether renewal as it is, as I could have 6s regen/vigor every 12s with the buffed soothing disruption

Unless they made those boons appear only after a full cast of ER.

rotten.9753:

Supreme.3164:

I strongly doubt they would leave Ether renewal as it is, as I could have 6s regen/vigor every 12s with the buffed soothing disruption

Unless they made those boons appear only after a full cast of ER.

That would still be overly strong, because you don’t have to necessarily use ER in front of a crowd, or under heavy pressure, including the casting time, that would still be 6s regen/vigor every 15s.

Supreme.3164:

That would still be overly strong, because you don’t have to necessarily use ER in front of a crowd, or under heavy pressure, including the casting time, that would still be 6s regen/vigor every 15s.

There are a lot of overly strong stuff upcoming with the balance patch.

If they do nerf it because it becomes a cantrip, then they might as well lock all PvP builds into water, due to conditions.

dietzero.3514:

If they do nerf it because it becomes a cantrip, then they might as well lock all PvP builds into water, due to conditions.

If you’re facing heavy condi specs, then you will go water regardless, you can’t expect to survive against heavy condi specs by not going water.

If you want to play fresh air, then a “nerfed” ER that has reduced casting time will instead become mandatory compared to SoR which should be used in spec that have access to better passive/acive cleansing

I really hope Ether Renewal doesn’t become a cantrip, mostly for flavor reasons rather than balance honestly. I don’t see why ANet don’t just make it the heal you start out with in the tutorial so it doesn’t need to fit into a reward track?

Supreme.3164:

rotten.9753:

If they make it a cantrip why do you expect it to be an instant? Heal as one or healing breeze will be non-instant shouts, just as “Guard Me” is. Or you have a non-instant stance, a meditation or an arcane.

There probably won’t be much of a rebalancing because the only reason they want to categorise skills is to make them affected by traits and runes so they can compete with other skills.

I strongly doubt they would leave Ether renewal as it is, as I could have 6s regen/vigor every 12s with the buffed soothing disruption

I have doubts that Ether Renewal will be untouched. If anything, they’ll probably increase the cooldown time. If you ask me, increased cooldown times should accompany shorter cast times to compensate for the punishing effect of being interrupted. However, with the way balance has been handled, I doubt there will be reduced cast times. Anet doesn’t seem to like to compensate for nerfs and it has shown in past updates.

DanteZero.9736:

Supreme.3164:

rotten.9753:

If they make it a cantrip why do you expect it to be an instant? Heal as one or healing breeze will be non-instant shouts, just as “Guard Me” is. Or you have a non-instant stance, a meditation or an arcane.

There probably won’t be much of a rebalancing because the only reason they want to categorise skills is to make them affected by traits and runes so they can compete with other skills.

I strongly doubt they would leave Ether renewal as it is, as I could have 6s regen/vigor every 12s with the buffed soothing disruption

I have doubts that Ether Renewal will be untouched. If anything, they’ll probably increase the cooldown time. If you ask me, increased cooldown times should accompany shorter cast times to compensate for the punishing effect of being interrupted. However, with the way balance has been handled, I doubt there will be reduced cast times. Anet doesn’t seem to like to compensate for nerfs and it has shown in past updates.

It will probably just receive an increased CD an nothing else, and put out to pasture as another worthless skill left to die. Anet doesn’t care about fixing core ele problems. They are focused on more exciting things, like engineers!

BlackBeard.2873:

DanteZero.9736:

Supreme.3164:

rotten.9753:

If they make it a cantrip why do you expect it to be an instant? Heal as one or healing breeze will be non-instant shouts, just as “Guard Me” is. Or you have a non-instant stance, a meditation or an arcane.

There probably won’t be much of a rebalancing because the only reason they want to categorise skills is to make them affected by traits and runes so they can compete with other skills.

I strongly doubt they would leave Ether renewal as it is, as I could have 6s regen/vigor every 12s with the buffed soothing disruption

I have doubts that Ether Renewal will be untouched. If anything, they’ll probably increase the cooldown time. If you ask me, increased cooldown times should accompany shorter cast times to compensate for the punishing effect of being interrupted. However, with the way balance has been handled, I doubt there will be reduced cast times. Anet doesn’t seem to like to compensate for nerfs and it has shown in past updates.

It will probably just receive an increased CD an nothing else, and put out to pasture as another worthless skill left to die. Anet doesn’t care about fixing core ele problems. They are focused on more exciting things, like engineers!

That would be something we must all strongly complain about, we can’t let them simply increase the CD of ER without reducing casting animation, this is where energies should be used I believe

Supreme.3164:

BlackBeard.2873:

DanteZero.9736:

Supreme.3164:

rotten.9753:

If they make it a cantrip why do you expect it to be an instant? Heal as one or healing breeze will be non-instant shouts, just as “Guard Me” is. Or you have a non-instant stance, a meditation or an arcane.

There probably won’t be much of a rebalancing because the only reason they want to categorise skills is to make them affected by traits and runes so they can compete with other skills.

I strongly doubt they would leave Ether renewal as it is, as I could have 6s regen/vigor every 12s with the buffed soothing disruption

I have doubts that Ether Renewal will be untouched. If anything, they’ll probably increase the cooldown time. If you ask me, increased cooldown times should accompany shorter cast times to compensate for the punishing effect of being interrupted. However, with the way balance has been handled, I doubt there will be reduced cast times. Anet doesn’t seem to like to compensate for nerfs and it has shown in past updates.

It will probably just receive an increased CD an nothing else, and put out to pasture as another worthless skill left to die. Anet doesn’t care about fixing core ele problems. They are focused on more exciting things, like engineers!

That would be something we must all strongly complain about, we can’t let them simply increase the CD of ER without reducing casting animation, this is where energies should be used I believe

Energy put into the forums is wasted if you are trying to CHANGE an opinion. The devs don’t read the forums, especially the ele forums. This is just a place to vent, honestly. Don’t for a second think that your voice will be heard or Anet cares about your opinion.

Why is celestial nerf listed as a reason that could be awesome? Celestial and healing power etc etc. So many builds are not celestial. Including any sort of healing power in your build is not necessary. I sense someone is a celestial ele.

ER should be left the way it is currently. It’s a great heal for eles and fits many builds allowing us to not spec into water for access to better condi cleanse. The pros of this heal is obviously the condition removal on a low cd; risks to using it are that it is easy to interrupt due to a long cast time. So although it has a short CD it is important for the elementalist using it to be responsible and aware, so that when they cast it is less likely to be interrupted. I think the risk:benefit is fair as it is at the moment.

I do not see any need for it to become a cantrip, as this would just cripple other builds who are no cantrip centered. Not all elementalist builds spec into water or arcana, some do not include access to soothing mist or regen, for these sorts of builds ER is the best heal in my opinion. Short cd + condi removal. Also really great for glassy specs as 1-2 hits can take large chunks out of your health, making access to a low cd heal important.

I also do not see the benefit in it being an instant cast if it would still remove 8 condis – ER is great for when you’re alone and running away from multiple people in wvw or pvp. Everyone behind you using all their ccs and condis to slow/stop you ->use ER and watch as conditions are cleared as you go.

If it were a cantrip then I imagine CD would be increased. Also to get the added boons the OP mentioned, you would still NEED to spec into water atunement. If CD were increased and the number of conditions it cleared were reduced to 2-3, then it would seem that to make this heal viable you would need to spec into water. Also to offset the theoretical reduced condi clear you would be required to trait for more condi clear or take more condi clear in your skill bar.

Thinking about it all – I don’t see why anyone would want ER to become a cantrip, I think they’ll be making a big mistake if they do that.

Edit:

Additionally there are a number of runes that give you an effect on heal (ex. rune of air gives swiftness for 5 sec, aristocracy 3 stacks of might etc. use wiki if you want to look up all the runes that give you boons, effects w/e) many of which are on 10 sec CD. Untraited our other heals are on 25 sec CDs. ER is the most logical choice for individuals who chose these sorts of runes and want to take the most advantage of their effects. Most other professions have more than 1 choice for short cd heal.

What happened to cleansing fire if ER becomes a cantrip?

Fuzzion.2504:

What happened to cleansing fire if ER becomes a cantrip?

Not much, ER would most likely get a nerf in the form of a reduced amount of pulses with increased healing per pulse (which equates to less condition removal because it’s 1 condition per pulse atm), or a crazy high cooldown (which is any amount greater than 15 seconds because the channel time is the big weak point) to keep it in line with the other cantrips. Cleansing fire, at least in PvE, has never really recovered in popularity once the stun breaker was removed, I can’t say a thing for PvP/WvW though.

My ideal of a post update cantrip ether renewal would be:

1. 2.5 second channel time
2. 25 second base cooldown
3. 5 pulses total (1 condition removed per pulse)
4. 1000 base healing per pulse with a 30% healing power modifier (basically each pulse would heal 20% of the total health the original version would heal)

Basically, if the cooldown is increased by five seconds, the punishment of being interrupted and failing a full channel grows greater. Therefore, the channel time should be reduced by .5 seconds for every 5 seconds the cooldown increases. However, that would mean faster pulses and faster condition removal, which then makes the spell too good against conditions. Reducing the amount of pulses down to 5 could reduce the counterplay against conditions a bit and make bringing cleansing fire a bit more desirable—assuming cleansing fire were to be buffed a small bit.

Eles desperately need an active heal with a max of 1s cast and good working conditions.
I’m praying that ER become a cantrip and for that gain a much lower casting time with a necessary longer CD.

In my opinion one of the reasons why burst ele doesn’t really click in PvP, it’s the lack of an active heal, the passive healing of SoR will be even less now that they will remove healing power from water.

It’s fundamental for eles to obtain a viable active heal, the glyph as it is with its 1-1/2 casting time +casting animation doesn’t cut it at all.

An increased healing ( say 4k to 5k ) + regen and vigor would more than justify an increased in CD and reduced number of conditions cleared, assuming ofc the casting time get reduced

No, it would be too powerful as a cantrip until they nerfed it, it would fit better in the glyphs category after they remove GoEH.

I wouldn’t mind Ether Renewel becoming a cantrip with the cast time and cool down that it has now. Making it a cantrip alone would be quite generous.

Make all cantrip traits trigger on every pulse of ER, and I’ll even forgive the Elemental Harmony/Evasive Arcana choice nerf.

Hell, I’d forgive the RtL nerf for that. Guardians get to pump up the entire party with Empower.

Let ele’s fortify themselves with their weakest and most easily interrupted heal, yah? Maybe? Please?

I was thinking about Ether Renewal, in my opinion making it a cantrip and keep it as it is, makes it too op, since you can buff it through traits.

Keeping in mind that cantrips are skills focused on a more defensive game play my idea is to change it into a flat heal like the rest, while reducing the healing effectiveness and cast time and increasing the reuse time. In addition to that, instead of removing conditions off of you, it can now give you the new resist buff for a small amount of time, something like 2 secs. It is still defensive but since can be buffed with regeneration, vigor, might, should have less base heal and the condition removal not to be permanent. Instead you can just avoid condition affects for a very small period of time.

So my suggestion is something like:

Ether Renewal
Heal your self and gain resist for 2 sec.
Healing: 3150
Cast time: 3/4
Recharge: 30 sec

The basic recharge should be higher than the rest of the elementalist heals, since you can reduce it by 20% by traits. If you have the trait the recharge will be 24 sec.

Jaetara.4075:

I was thinking about Ether Renewal, in my opinion making it a cantrip and keep it as it is, makes it too op, since you can buff it through traits.

Keeping in mind that cantrips are skills focused on a more defensive game play my idea is to change it into a flat heal like the rest, while reducing the healing effectiveness and cast time and increasing the reuse time. In addition to that, instead of removing conditions off of you, it can now give you the new resist buff for a small amount of time, something like 2 secs. It is still defensive but since can be buffed with regeneration, vigor, might, should have less base heal and the condition removal not to be permanent. Instead you can just avoid condition affects for a very small period of time.

So my suggestion is something like:

Ether Renewal
Heal your self and gain resist for 2 sec.
Healing: 3150
Cast time: 3/4
Recharge: 30 sec

The basic recharge should be higher than the rest of the elementalist heals, since you can reduce it by 20% by traits. If you have the trait the recharge will be 24 sec.

Ew. No.

Even if ER as a cantrip did all the things I wish/hope it would do, at 30/24 sec CD, it would become worthless as a heal compared to our other options and double as a massive nerf to our only cleanse outside of water.

It needs a buff, not a nerf. Given that prospect, I’d prefer it be left alone.

It’s easily interruptible so a straight buff is fine.

They’ll probably keep ER as is. It probably has the most counterplay vulnerabilities of any heal, and is very risky to use vs builds that have decent CC, esp. trickery thieves and mesmers, who can strip stability + interrupt nearly instantly.

As far as theory-crafting goes, I think it’s pretty obvious that A.net is trying to give Ele an easymode supertank class. Earth/Water/Arcana, with Rock Solid & Stone heart, so you can start casting ER then attune to earth when the enemy tries to CC it. You’ll be immune to crits (and effectively immune to condis cause of ER pulsing) while you’re channeling ER, and you’ll have a stack of stability to make it harder for ppl to interrupt you.

The soothing disruption synergy is definitely a plus, but I don’t see it as a huge deal with the above build. You’d already have permavigor from renewing stamina + fury, and near-perma regen from Soothing Ice + Elemental Attunement. So soothing disruption just helps you maintain vigor + regen in situations where your rotations are off. The 3 second CD reduction on ER isn’t huge, either, but it’ll help you recover if ER gets interrupted.

So run around to contest the point, soaking as much damage as you can with perma protection, regen, vigor, soothing mist, the passive 20% geo defense trait, and occasional frost auras. Rely on rock solid to help you get most of the ER channel off (even if they have 2 CCs, you’d probably get most of your healing pulses off by the time they interrupt you). Your damage will be worse due to the cele nerf (might even be better off running clerics), but you’ll be able to tank damage like crazy.

ResJudicator.7916:

They’ll probably keep ER as is. It probably has the most counterplay vulnerabilities of any heal, and is very risky to use vs builds that have decent CC, esp. trickery thieves and mesmers, who can strip stability + interrupt nearly instantly.

As far as theory-crafting goes, I think it’s pretty obvious that A.net is trying to give Ele an easymode supertank class. Earth/Water/Arcana, with Rock Solid & Stone heart, so you can start casting ER then attune to earth when the enemy tries to CC it. You’ll be immune to crits (and effectively immune to condis cause of ER pulsing) while you’re channeling ER, and you’ll have a stack of stability to make it harder for ppl to interrupt you.

The soothing disruption synergy is definitely a plus, but I don’t see it as a huge deal with the above build. You’d already have permavigor from renewing stamina + fury, and near-perma regen from Soothing Ice + Elemental Attunement. So soothing disruption just helps you maintain vigor + regen in situations where your rotations are off. The 3 second CD reduction on ER isn’t huge, either, but it’ll help you recover if ER gets interrupted.

So run around to contest the point, soaking as much damage as you can with perma protection, regen, vigor, soothing mist, the passive 20% geo defense trait, and occasional frost auras. Rely on rock solid to help you get most of the ER channel off (even if they have 2 CCs, you’d probably get most of your healing pulses off by the time they interrupt you). Your damage will be worse due to the cele nerf (might even be better off running clerics), but you’ll be able to tank damage like crazy.

Don’t know if you realize it but geomancer’s defense is the equivalent of 300 toughness ( exactly 18.64% dmg reduction by maxing earth line…so a 2% buff in dmg reduction lol), base toughness is 926, add 330 toughness and you get your 20% dmg reduction…anet doesn’t give gifts away.

Basically your super tank is already possible , a 0/0/20/30/20 would cover your set up at 80-90%, truth be told the only difference is stone heart…but now there is no super tank….so it’s safe to assume that the easy mode super tank you’re talking about, it’s nothing more than a fantasy

-edit- as there is no apparent replacement for a maxed water line, the supposed super tank will even lose 300 healing power and 30% boon duration on top of 300 vitality……if anything the ele will be a hard mode “tank”..forget super easy mode tank

Don’t know if you realize it, but they’re increasing the stats on amulets to compensate for the loss in stats from traits. So that kind of defeats your entire argument.

Your damage calculations for toughness are also way off, which also defeats your entire argument. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Damage

ResJudicator.7916:

Don’t know if you realize it, but they’re increasing the stats on amulets to compensate for the loss in stats from traits. So that kind of defeats your entire argument.

Your damage calculations for toughness are also way off, which also defeats your entire argument. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Damage

Hmm yeah..they’re increasing the stats on amulets and so what?…it’s not like they’re adding vitality to cleric or valk or settler. Atm it’s possible to have a cleric ele(don’t start with your personal idea of viability), after changes it won’t be possible….because cleric got no vitality and they won’t add vitality to it

They’re removing options, not increasing them and for my dmg calculations..head over to the other thread

I would place bets on Ether Renewal becoming a Cantrip.

My problem will the the synergies with Cantrip traits (+might, + regen, +vigor), including the reduced cool down to 12 seconds.
With ER getting better, the Dev’s logic will demand a compensation (longer base cool down, less heal, less condi removeal – chose one or a combination).
A cantrip meta Ele might get a better ER in the end, every other build will be left with a worse option when choosing ER for their heal slot.

PS: Anet’s inability or pure defiance to make us play anything else than Cantrips is what is bugging me.