Curse

PrimeHealer · Jun 14, 2005, 11:45 PM // 23:45

Ok well I was in a group in the tombs and there were 4 of us monks and one of the monks asked me if I knew how to do a "healing ball"...I said "no" and he then explained it to me and it worked well. So for those of you that dont know it here it goes (gonna try my best to explain it so hang in there with me lol) First off you need at least 4 monks 3 monks need to equip Balthazars Aura, Life Bond and Healing Seed, then the 4th monk just has his regualar healing abilities and heals the group like normal. Now the 3 monks that are doing the "ball" 1 monk cast life bond on 2 monks, then the 2 monks with Life Bond on them cast it on the the remaining monks, ok with me so far...Now the 3 monks stand pretty much on top of each other and as soon as people come in to attack, they all cast healing seed on each of them, always keeping it going so you are casting it about every 10 seconds, then they all cast Balthazars on themselves and now you are pretty much invincable. Bacause whatever monk is getting hit is healing the other monks with healing seed and vice versa and anyone near them is getting nailed with balthazars and damage is being mitigated by life bond. The fourth monk is healing the party like normal and if anyone had thier HP going down then they could jump into our "ball and be healed as well without the 3 monks ever casting a heal. We also used Amity (stops people from attacking you for 18 seconds) which made it even worse for the opposing team. So basically we all moved in unison in the middle of melle and did the "ball" technique and it worked extremely well, noone seriously could touch us as long as everything was coordinated right (meaning if debuffed...rebuff..healing seed...etc) The fourth monk could move around freely to give the ocasional spot heal or rez if someone happened to die. Has anyone tried this? My main question is though, if you got a group of eight monks and did this technique (It would have to be extremely coordinated and orginzed with the right spell lineups to take out the opposing monks) do you think it would be successful?...well anyways just a thought because it was a quite interesting tactic that I learned. Hope you got the jist of it and any comments would be appreciated..thanks

Kha · Jun 14, 2005, 11:56 PM // 23:56

Moved to Gladiator's Arena.

Gerbill · Jun 15, 2005, 12:20 AM // 00:20

What about mesmers interrupting this ?

Darc.Syde · Jun 15, 2005, 12:25 AM // 00:25

the sheer number of monks should be able to stop a single mesmer, however, skills like chiliblains, well of profane, and nature's renewal are all good counters to this strategy.

also, a team of monks doing this wont get you anywhere...

Deathlord · Jun 15, 2005, 04:13 AM // 04:13

Unfortunately Darc is right. I have experimented/used/seen varieties of monks staying alive, and it works great in 4v4's, but on a much larger scale, you either won't stay alive as long or there's simply no point. Chilliblains is simply fun to use (Even though it's sort of costly to cast) and really would take away half of the enchantments. They could also try major AOE (Hopefully you don't have a major aoe on your team since they won't be needed in a variety of situations) to take them out. Simple mesmer skills like backfire could kill you if you were careless and kept casting. Chaos storm could prove deadly once it drains some mana out (If there were 3 monks doing this then each one would gain 3 energy while being drained 6. If you weren't using peace and harmony or some other kind of energy boosting skill then it's possible you could end up losing enchantments because of negative energy). Diversion could also make them unable to heal for a short while...

Ellestar · Jun 15, 2005, 05:56 AM // 05:56

Life bond doesn't defend from spells as i understand. Air Ele build will steamroll it.

PrimeHealer · Jun 15, 2005, 05:57 AM // 05:57

hmm yea guess that makes sense, yea if we get debuffed and drained of our energy that would be pretty bad. Oh well we'll just keep it like it is then. thanks for the replys

Ahad · Jun 15, 2005, 03:47 PM // 15:47

I have faced a tactic like this where 8 people were in this ball with ward against ele going, they also had a smiter along for the warriors. Not sure if they did or not but a couple of people with spell breaker and maybe one with martyr aswell would be kinda awesome.

Aug · Jun 15, 2005, 03:58 PM // 15:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ellestar

Life bond doesn't defend from spells as i understand. Air Ele build will steamroll it.

I'm pretty sure Life Bond/Barrier prevents spell damage. The description on the spells says nothing about the type of damage.

Ollj · Jun 15, 2005, 07:46 PM // 19:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gerbill

What about mesmers interrupting this ?

yeah. its TOO easy to even explain it here.
Mesmers can choose between 20 spells to interrupt this.
And Water Eles have Malestorm against that.

Red Locust · Jun 15, 2005, 08:20 PM // 20:20

Life barrier works on all damage, life bond works on attacks only. And life barrier doesn't trigger balthazar's spirit like life bond does, so that strategy gets killed by elemental damage (which just happens to be the most dangerous source of damage right now).

SauceD · Jul 14, 2005, 05:50 PM // 17:50

Healing ball is a tactic mostly used HoH to hold the Alter. You seed your priest (or whoever is getting attacked) and everyone circles around him and casts heal area. This is a perfect counter to the Smite build (Balthazars aura, Z fire and warriors running around using the effect). It crushed my guilds Smite build during a HoH run and is still usable while doing a spike group. It is damn effective and I want to know a counter. I know stripping the enchantment is the simple way (nature's, chillbains, and necro/mes one) but would putting scourge healing on the one with seed work? Are they considered the one who is doing the healing? If that worked it would kill a guy really fast if they where in a healing ball (8ppl getting healed x 50+ damage = dead seeded person). If that doesn't work I might have to convince my guild to go to a lame spike build or even lamer spirit build.

Tellani Artini · Jul 14, 2005, 06:10 PM // 18:10

What's that? You need AoE? You mean fire and water eles are good for something? Naw..

Some basic tips to beat a healing ball as described:

- Don't attack the monks in the ball. That means no melee, bows, or wanding. This makes healing seed and life bond a waste of energy.

- Kill the people outside the ball. If they try to retreat to the ball, snare/KD them. Try to lure people out of healing range of the ball.

- Harass the ballers with elemental and mesmer AoE to keep them busy. Chaos storm and signet of weariness will force them to move real quick or run dry.

You don't need to use a "lame" build, just use your heads.

SauceD · Jul 14, 2005, 07:43 PM // 19:43

Quote:

What's that? You need AoE? You mean fire and water eles are good for something? Naw..

Some basic tips to beat a healing ball as described:

- Don't attack the monks in the ball. That means no melee, bows, or wanding. This makes healing seed and life bond a waste of energy.

- Kill the people outside the ball. If they try to retreat to the ball, snare/KD them. Try to lure people out of healing range of the ball.

- Harass the ballers with elemental and mesmer AoE to keep them busy. Chaos storm and signet of weariness will force them to move real quick or run dry.

You don't need to use a "lame" build, just use your heads.

To your 1st point not attacking is really a great way to win. This tactic must get you far in HoH. If you don't attack the monk they won't put it on the monk they will put in on whoever you attack and then that seed will heal everyone still. To your second point of killing people/luring them outside the ball, that only works against people who don't know what they are doing or have a warrior in the group (people using this tactic wouldn't want a warrior because they would need to leave the ball). Maybe against PuG you could do that but the top 300 guilds that wouldn't work (Mine is 700 something and that wouldn't work on us so imagine the really good guilds). While trying to win HoH that won't happen. At peak hours in HoH almost everyone past the 2nd round knows what they are doing. In reference to your AoE remark whats to stop them from doing what is always done when you get AoE'd, just step out of it? All you need is a little coordination (which TS gives you) and say "everyone go right or left" when thats 2 ticks of damage and you with a wasted skill slot. You seem to think this is a protracted battle too, what I am thinking of is where they are dropping one of your people (possibly 2-3) everytime chainlightning and lightning orb are up. So wearing them down is not really an option.
Also about the question I asked about scourge healing and healing seed, does anyone have any ideas on this? Does Scourge Healing consider the person with the seed on them a healer thus giving them damage or (as I suspect) they are unharmed and stripping enchantments is the only way to go. If I am critical its only because I am tired of Korea always having HoH and I want to be able to do something about it.

Eonwe · Jul 14, 2005, 07:49 PM // 19:49

We used to run this early in retail and would hold the hall for like 4 hours. The only thing we worried about was chilblains, Nature's renewal, and well of the profane... which we started using putrid to counter which everyone then started using. But that was also when essence bond wasn't nerfed

.

I love adam.

SauceD · Jul 14, 2005, 08:16 PM // 20:16

Quote:

That's not how it works. You don't throw random seeds on people being attacked.

Why not? While in the ball everyone gets healed the same. Since you can't Life Bond everyone together and seed anymore (doesn't effect elemental damage and so many people using natures renewal) how else would you do it. I'm not trying to say you are wrong but please don't just walk in and say you are wrong without explaining why.

Eonwe · Jul 14, 2005, 08:21 PM // 20:21

I love adam.

Gedscho · Jul 14, 2005, 08:29 PM // 20:29

just a thought....

if i run life bond with LOW a protection attrib i would take damage from the others being hit, right?

if i would be seeded.... i would have a MASSIVE OMFG heal output?
is that true?

if yes, id say, theres how you do it...and thank you, for letting me think about this myself.

and if this was a major spoiler or something, i am sorry, but i want to know this AND I WONT play today. i want to go outside.
i want to see if there is something left from my real life.

thinking a bit more about it.... noooo i think thats bs...
but anyway.. bond damage should trigger the seed, shouldn't it? (do i see pve fun here?)
oh ... and i guess seed healing wont trigger zealots..

ICURADik · Jul 14, 2005, 10:49 PM // 22:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eonwe

I'm not going to tell you how to run it, lol. I think the fact that we perfected it and used to hold the hall for hours a month or so ago is enough to tell you that I'm not wrong.

So let's see.. Chillblains, Well, Nature's Renewal are what beat you. And you don't place the seed on a random person. So you must seed the prot monk. This strat has already been posted like 3 times in the this thread. I think your reading comprehension is lacking.

Does Life barrier activate Seed?

Sarus · Jul 15, 2005, 12:02 AM // 00:02

Quote:

So let's see.. Chillblains, Well, Nature's Renewal are what beat you.

Those beat us the first few times until we adapted to them. The thing that really beat us was the Dev's and their nerf stick. The healing ball strategy will still work against certain types of teams but it isn't nearly as effective as it used to be. Add on to that the countless ele spike builds running around and the fact that every team and their mom has a copy of nature's renewal if not 2 and it's easy to see why we stopped using the healing ball tactic a long time ago.