Curse

voidvector · Feb 02, 2011, 11:51 PM // 23:51

Does anyone feel that ST Protect (or any other elite + protective spirits) is rarely seen and rarely requested in PuGs?

I found it to be one of the OP builds in the game and yet the general public doesn't care for it.

Lord Mip · Feb 02, 2011, 11:57 PM // 23:57

That's because pugs still think HB is the best PvE healing build in the game..

People are stupid, a fact that goes as much for the GW Community as the real world.

Cuilan · Feb 03, 2011, 01:02 AM // 01:02

I see it fairly frequently sometimes and other times not much. It caught on but you could always try to ask another player if they already have that build or if they mind running if you ping the bar.

Kunder · Feb 03, 2011, 01:09 AM // 01:09

1. Players like dealing damage. Playing the heal bitch of the group is boring for most players and even more so is rolling your face over skills 1-4 like a ST rit does. Also, given the disparity between Hero and Hench ability players naturally lean towards damage builds whenever they are soloing, and this carries over into group play. So 95% of players are going to want to use SoS.

2. Inverse synergy with MMs, to the point where ST rits are completely useless in most areas with MMs. MMs are extremely powerful PvE builds and they also do damage which makes them much more popular by #1. Probably 3/4ths of PvE groups are using minions of some kind so that throws out ST rits for all but 25% of groups.

3. SY exists. Its incredibly rare to need more prot than that, and a Warrior/Dervish/Ranger with SY can protect your entire team with 1 skill while dishing out considerable damage with the other 6 or 7. ST rits aren't doing that. Then there are Paragons whose entire purpose in PvE is to keep up SY, while Rits have plenty of other non-sucky builds to run.

So essentially the only reason to be running an ST rit is because either you have an all-caster group (also not including any MMs, incredibly rare) or because all of your physical characters are incompetent (disregarding crit scythe sins, the one physical class not using SY for a decent reason). In those cases it is certainly supremely powerful, but they are rare and 95% of guild wars players are not smart enough to identify the instances in which an ST rit would be a good addition to the team.

voidvector · Feb 03, 2011, 01:52 AM // 01:52

When running this build, you empower the group significantly. It is fun if you enjoy that role. Sadly SY is easier and simpler to use, and pretty much all paras carry it.

LifeInfusion · Feb 03, 2011, 01:56 AM // 01:56

I run a ST hero when I monk by myself with another person bringing the damage instead of running a second monk. This way I get no overheals AND don't need to prot spirit everyone.

If I run with another heal I only bring prot spirit, party heal and spike heal (gift/dwayna's with mass enchant users) + condition removal if the areas has conditions. I avoid condition removal generally since Mend body and soul/foul feast is so much better most of the time.

Usually I run 12+1+1/11+1/6+1 prot for a decent (13 second prot spirit x 1.2 with staff wrap) prot level. Prot spirit + seed + 5 (6 w/ enchanting) second SoA should be enough to cover anything.

BTW SoS is lamer than ST. ST requires paying attention to your spirits and using summon spirits when you need to heal them. SoS you just spam the dam things and summon spirits to move them.

The only problem with ST is you need to devote points to spawning power and communing so unlike with SoS you can't put points in Restor for Mend body & soul + spirit light or channeling for Splinter weapon. And it doesn't work well with minion bombing. Mend body and soul works better on a SoS anyway.

12+1+3 Communing, 12+1 Spawning, 3 restor
ST, Shelter, Union, Displacement, Armor of unfeeling, Summon spirits (if player), 7, 8
12+1+3 Communing, 11+1 Spawning (breakpoint for 3 rituals), 6+1 Restor/Channeling
ST, Shelter, Union, Displacement, Armor of unfeeling, Summon spirits (if player), 7, 8

ST:
[email protected] for 3 spirits

Shelter:
16 communing is the breakpoint for lvl 13 Shelter, 15 communing is lvl 12. The difference is 365 vs 395 spirit health and 45 vs 43 damage taken by the spirit. So 16 hits vs 18 hits (under armor of unfeeling) and 74 vs 80 armor.

It's a difference of 4% more health for each rank of spawning, which is +/- 10HP (365vs355 or 395vs385) between 13 spawning and 12.

Displacement:
it takes a fixed 60 damage so lvl 15 spirit @16 and lvl 14 spirit @15 will be 456 vs 426HP which is 1 extra hit. The spirit goes from 86 to 92 armor.

Spawning adds +12HP to the spirit when you pump it to 13 instead of 12, which is <1 hit.

Union:
Same level spirits as shelter. Since it takes 15 damage, it lasts 48 to 52 hits.

None of these 3 spirits can be used reliably without ST, shelter in HM especially.

Skill 7,8 options:
* Boon of creation for better energy management
* Flesh of my flesh
* Shadowsong, Disenchantment, Anguish, Dissonance, Soothing, Earthbind (15+ energy spirits)
* Dulled Weapon (expensive and redundant with union)
* MB&S (Mend Body and Soul)
* Hex removal
* Great Dwarf weapon due to high spawning
* Technobabble so Shelter lives longer against elementalist groups
* Breath of the Great Dwarf for party heal
* Ebon Battle Standard of Courage (+24 armor)
* Ebon Battle Standard of Wisdom
* Ebon Escape for a no attribute heal
* Ebon Vanguard Assassin Support
* Tryptophan Signet
* "You Are All Weaklings!" to make shelter last longer
* "You Move Like a Dwarf!"/"Finish Him!"

Lowering attributes
11+1+1=13 Communing , 11+1=12 Spawning, 8 something (Pure was li ming removes 3 conditions party wide at 8)
10+1+2=13 communing, 11+1=12 spawning, 10 something (148 spirit light, 90 Mend body and soul, +65 Protective was Kaolai if you go 10+1 Restor ; 38 damage splinter; Ward of stability w/ 20 duration and 30 recharge; Smite hex + Strength of honor; Draw conditions + Shield of absorption; Frozen Soil, Edge of Extinction, Winter; enfeebling blood, weaken armor, rend enchantments; blood ritual, blood bond, rip enchantment; leech signet+ power drain)

Lvl 11 Shelter that takes 49 damage --> 326HP = 13 hits
Lvl 12 displacement --> 355HP = 11 hits
Lvl 11 Union --> 326 HP = 43 hits

Still usable when you consider ST is on 15 cooldown.

A neat use I found for ST is saving NPCs you need to defend like in Thunderhead Keep. SY can't do that.

Chthon · Feb 03, 2011, 06:06 AM // 06:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kunder

2. Inverse synergy with MMs, to the point where ST rits are completely useless in most areas with MMs. MMs are extremely powerful PvE builds and they also do damage which makes them much more popular by #1. Probably 3/4ths of PvE groups are using minions of some kind so that throws out ST rits for all but 25% of groups.

This is a common misconception. Minions minimally increase the drain on the spirits. Let's compare the scenario of defensive spirits with no minions (SitA) with the scenario of defensive spirits with minions (SitB) and work through this step by step.

Displacement:
In SitA monster X attacks a player. With 75% likelihood, Displacement triggers and loses hp. The full damage from the attack is prevented.
In SitB monster X probably attacks a minion. With 75% likelihood, Displacement triggers and loses hp. The full damage from the attack is prevented.
So, what's different? Almost nothing. The monsters generally do not get to make extra attacks because minions are present. It's just the same attacks getting blocked either way, only the targets are different.
The only potential difference is AoE. Dervishes and Barrage users and such may score extra hits by virtue of there being more targets.

Union:
The analysis is identical to the analysis for Displacement.

Shelter:
In SitA monster X attacks a player. The damage is reduced by the player's armor, then checked against 10% of their max hp. If it's over, Shelter triggers and loses life. The damage beyond 10% of max hp is prevented.
In SitB monster X probably attacks a minion. The damage is reduced by the minions's armor, then checked against 10% of their max hp. If it's over, Shelter triggers and loses life. The damage beyond 10% of max hp is prevented.
So, what's different here? Three things, potentially.
First, there's the same AoE issue. AoE might cause Shelter to trigger more simply because there's more things to hit.
Second, minions have different armor than players. At 16Death+Masochism, horrors have 80AL, fiends have 60AL, and bone minions have 42AL.
Third minions generally have less health than players because they don't get runes and weapon mods. And bone minions have significantly less life because of their lower level.
The combined effect of #2 and #3 is that a hit which would do <10% damage to a player might maybe do >10% damage to a minion. Most of the time, a hit is going to be over for both or under for both, but a few hits near the border will go over on minions but not players.

Generally speaking, horrors will be more likely to take a >10% hit than a warrior, but less likely than most anything else; fiends will be marginally more likely to take a >10% hit than casters; and bone minions will take a >10% hit a lot more often than players. That's a pretty decent reason not to run Shelter together with bone minions, but not much of an argument against the others.
(There's also the possibility that SY! will make all the players much less likely to take a >10% hit than any minion, but, as you say, Shelter is wasted in that situation; so you might as well use it to help the minions.)

So, in sum, your spirits are generally only going to drain out a little faster using minions than not using minions. (Except bone minions, which will drain Shelter very quickly.)

The other concern about running Shelter and minions is the possibility that Shelter is your only wtfpwn preventer. In that case, even a tiny bit of downtime on Shelter can be really costly. It's debatable whether your team build flaw is that you brought minions or that you didn't bring PS.

Kunder · Feb 03, 2011, 06:20 AM // 06:20

AoE is thing I'm most worried about. The majority of high level areas have enemies with some kind of AoE abilities. The majority of major enemy races overall like destroyers/tormented demons/white mantle also pack some on one of their character's builds. Any instance in which a ST rit becomes (almost) completely useless means you shouldn't be using that build as far as I'm concerned. Furthermore, you aren't taking into account the fact that you need spirits to either stay up several seconds to use Armor of Unfeeling, or you need to waste Armor of Unfeeling on single spirits.

Against any kind of AoE Union has a 50/50 chance of dying before the 1.75s it takes to cast Armor of Unfeeling. Union is basically useless with minions.

Shelter depends very highly on exactly how much damage enemies do. If its hundred blades warriors then it won't evaporate instantly. On the other hand, if its a Energy Surge from a margonite you can also lose shelter before you even cast Armor of Unfeeling. Splinter weapon in WiK? Oh my, you won't even see the spirit appear.

Displacement is the only one that has a chance of surviving, since multi-hit attacks are at least decently uncommon. Worth it? I dunno. If you are running minions you aren't concerned about direct physical attacks most likely, the minions tank those well.

To throw another facet into the puzzle you aren't considering: Damage is not dealt equally. Protecting the minions is simply not as important as protecting players. Why? Because if one minion takes 100 damage from an attack, does it matter if its reduced to 50? No. The Necro is using BotM anyway to keep minions up. Minions of course die very easily to any AoE, and as far as single target damage goes who cares? If a few minions die because they took 100 damage instead of 50 nothing bad happens, the Necro is constantly cycling minions anyway. The fact is that being a MM it is much easier to counter damage with either more heals or more summoning then a healer has countering damage on players. So there is an inherent weakness in any protection on minions, you have to scale the effect to about 1/2 to 1/3 as strong based simply because minion healing is more effective than player healing. The only instance in which spirits will really show a benefit with minions is if Shelter completely protects your entire force from being instagibbed by an AoE, but it can only do that once.

Daesu · Feb 03, 2011, 06:57 AM // 06:57

I fully agree with what Kunder said. Besides, bone minions are still the most common minions to bring for a minion bomber and it is totally reasonable for PUGs to bring a hero minion bomber when they need a MM. Minion protection runs counter to minion bombing. With enough damage, an Aotl MB should not have much of a problem creating new minions in most HM areas. Using defensive spirits in that case would be wasteful.

Chthon · Feb 03, 2011, 08:12 AM // 08:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kunder

To throw another facet into the puzzle you aren't considering: Damage is not dealt equally. Protecting the minions is simply not as important as protecting players.

One doesn't protect minions for their own sake. If you assume that the monster AI is not going to switch targets, protecting a minion from a would-be-fatal hit means you've protected a player from the next hit, which is now being used to kill the minion instead.

Monster AoE is not as bad as the parade of horribles you describe. Very few mobs pack that much AoE and aim it that well. And in those worst-case situations, like WiK Splinter-Barrage, Shelter is going to go down with or without minions, but the minions can at least block the next one for you.

Which brings up an interesting question: What does Shelter do if an AoE causes more than enough simultaneous triggers to kill it? Does everyone get prot? If not, what's the algorithm for deciding who gets protted?

@ Daesu

It's certainly true that protecting minions is counterproductive to minion bombing. You win on that one. ST and minion bombing do not mix.

AndrewSX · Feb 03, 2011, 10:38 AM // 10:38

Use ST with a spirit spammer instead MB. Or use a MM without death nova and bone minion(like AotL+Bone Horror), who focus on create long lasting minion. End of the problem.

Wenspire · Feb 03, 2011, 11:22 AM // 11:22

STprotect isnt really needed with an MM in-party. The minions themselves generate enough damage mitigation that it would be overkill in protection, IMO.

Normally when I run STprot, I just bring along one healer class in the group. Though, I do also have Blood Ritual on my bar to further make things easier for them.

Kunder · Feb 03, 2011, 01:52 PM // 13:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

One doesn't protect minions for their own sake. If you assume that the monster AI is not going to switch targets, protecting a minion from a would-be-fatal hit means you've protected a player from the next hit, which is now being used to kill the minion instead.

This only matters if monsters are routinely killing all of your minions and then hitting players. If, like in the vast majority of areas, enemies only kill 1-5 minions before their death (which are then re-raised before the next battle), it doesn't matter if you saved those minions, they were going to be replaced anyways. Think of BotM spam + minion creation spells being the most obscene source of overhealing in the game. Protecting from damage, unless it is saving your entire army, is just wasting that healing.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

Monster AoE is not as bad as the parade of horribles you describe. Very few mobs pack that much AoE and aim it that well. And in those worst-case situations, like WiK Splinter-Barrage, Shelter is going to go down with or without minions, but the minions can at least block the next one for you.

Against splinter barrage in WiK without minions, players can at least spread decently enough that it doesn't create more then 4 or so packets I would hope. With H/H hopefully you can flag well enough that 8 is the limit. A far cry from the 28 packets minions will almost certainly take, or nearly take. The point against MMs is that there is no monster 'aiming' to take in consideration, unless you are trying to have players tank damage for the minions or something funny like that. We wouldn't considering 8 players standing under AoE and protting them all with prot spirit a good thing, would we? Why should we say it is so when minions do it?

As for the overall distribution of AoE attacks, I agree that not every group is going to have it or use it perfectly. But considering the difficulty of PvE, I would say that the hardest enemy groups are generally going to be those with some kind of AoE attack. Do you really want to bring a prot character whose ability takes a nosedive during the hardest battles you will fight? Especially considering that bringing a MM already makes you vulnerable to (strong) AoE, you are setting your team up as strong against everything but AoE with a critical weakness to anything that has AoE.

Quote:

Which brings up an interesting question: What does Shelter do if an AoE causes more than enough simultaneous triggers to kill it? Does everyone get prot? If not, what's the algorithm for deciding who gets protted?

I'm going to go ahead and place my bet on everyone getting protted. The game has always seemed to have a small lag between updating the effect of a spirit on my skill monitor, so that might soak up the hit.

roses are blue · Feb 03, 2011, 02:40 PM // 14:40

ST rits are standard in DOA HM clears using frostway. I've run that build myself a few times.

As others have stated, it is really boring to play. One neither deals direct damage, nor casts spells on one's team members. You're just keeping an eye on the spirit exspiration time; re-cast as needed and tag along with the team, feeling all along that you're not really doing much, even it that's untrue.
I don't find ST rit fun to play, and I play for fun.

At least when playing a monk, you get the satisfaction of keeping those red bars up, and knowing 'hey, I just kept that guy from dying' and it's a far more interactive play style.

Daesu · Feb 03, 2011, 03:48 PM // 15:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by AndrewSX

Use ST with a spirit spammer instead MB. Or use a MM without death nova and bone minion(like AotL+Bone Horror), who focus on create long lasting minion. End of the problem.

It is not so simple. There could be several reasons why you would want to bring a minion bomber. If there are no human MMs and you have to bring a hero MM, you probably want the hero to play a minion bomber because that is the role that heroes excel in. Besides, a good minion bomber bar provides excellent damage and decent tanking even in HM for most areas.

In other words, human necros are better at playing the role of a regular MM where you rely on damage from your minion attacks and you preserve your minions as much as possible for tanking. Not many human necros like to play this role though, because it is a tedious role. On the other hand, hero necros are better at playing the role of a minion bomber and of course they do that well and willingly.

Tender Care · Feb 03, 2011, 06:31 PM // 18:31

Becuase Paragons can do it better

Vazze · Feb 04, 2011, 06:41 PM // 18:41

One more reason for you: the first rit is gonna be SoS (SoS>ST), the second rit is gonna be resto because it is hard to find monks, the third rit could definitely be ST, but it is very rare to "be forced" to take a third Rt into a PUG.

The Baphomet · Feb 05, 2011, 01:06 AM // 01:06

ST is one of the most boring builds to play. You're not killing anything, you're not actively healing. Spirits up and afk zzzz. Also rather have an imbagon as Tender said.

FoxBat · Feb 05, 2011, 02:42 AM // 02:42

Reasoning here seems really backwards. What do you do vs. mass AoE that is big enough to trigger shelter, when you don't have shelter? You die.

There's only a handful of good AoE counters:

1) Spreading out (good luck with h/h)

2) Imbagon

3) Panic vs mobs, or daze spam vs bosses.

4) Prot bond on E/Mo (hope your energy is good vs AoE spam...)

5) Shelter/Union spam.

Hell in really hard spots, the effects even stack. Whenever a gap appears in the other measures, shelter picks up the slack, and 80% of wipe hits being prevented lets your shelter last longer against those 20%.

Shelter isn't the best answer to AoE, but I'd call being in the top 5 far from a liability; and it's far better than not bringing any of the above.

LifeInfusion · Feb 05, 2011, 04:32 AM // 04:32

Shelter is the best answer to armor ignoring AoE with pre-cast or fast cast (such as Energy Surge spam, Death nova, cry of frustration, wandering eye, Hex Eater Vortex, ancestor's rage, smite hex, crystal wave, Balthazar's Rage, Heart of Holy Flame, Zealous Renewal, etc) though. Feast of corruption, Desecrate enchantments on enchant stacked monks are not that bad since you can see them casting.

Splinter does 50-65 to 3 targets so it's not like it's going to nuke Shelter unless everyone runs 450ish HP. (17 channeling for HM WiK=56) Spirits have 74-80 armor as well.

Union reduces stuff like conjures, fragility spam, monster skills (giant stomp), any ele damage under Save yourselves.

It's just that when you run 2 monks, armor ignoring stuff isn't that big a deal because most are on 10+ cooldown so you can wipe them up with party heals.

ST would just replace a backliner.