Curse

byteme! · Aug 11, 2011, 01:38 AM // 01:38

The build is mediocre and may need some work but at least YOU AREN'T USING AP! Kudos for that.

Anet needs to nerf AP so all these people can shut up. "Your build sucks use AP! STFU GTFO!"

Chthon · Aug 11, 2011, 03:22 AM // 03:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by byteme!

The build is mediocre and may need some work but at least YOU AREN'T USING AP! Kudos for that.

Anet needs to nerf AP so all these people can shut up. "Your build sucks use AP! STFU GTFO!"

1. Monk is the one caster class where AP is not such an overwhelmingly superior choice. Monk's can't afford an AP miss like offensive classes can.

2. AP's usefulness stems from much deeper design flaws than one single skill.

Xenomortis · Aug 11, 2011, 11:01 AM // 11:01

I'm not even convinced AP is all that useful.

I Hate Chips · Aug 11, 2011, 04:11 PM // 16:11

For monk pretty much waste of eliteslot imo D:

HigherMinion · Aug 11, 2011, 06:19 PM // 18:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xenomortis

I'm not even convinced AP is all that useful.

AP is used to recharge Aegis and Seed, isn't it, with the added effect of supreme e-manage. Though, yeah, you don't really need it.

Lanier · Aug 11, 2011, 08:08 PM // 20:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xenomortis

I'm not even convinced AP is all that useful.

any skill that can allow you to completely forgot about recharges AND energy management is overpowered. A skill like this can make other skills (in any build), which would normally be well balanced, extremely abuseable.

If you're just referring to prot builds though, I would agree that AP is kind of unnecessary. With the exception of Aegis, all of the useful prot skills have very manageable recharges. Permanant selfless spirit is nice, but not necessary for a good monk.

Xenomortis · Aug 11, 2011, 09:25 PM // 21:25

You've not understood.
There are two main causes for deaths in your team beyond simple errors from your backline:

1. You eat way more frontloaded damage on aggro than you should.
This is often the case when facing large groups of Elementalists or something; you mess up aggro and over half the team gets nuked hard when only a couple of people are under Prot Spirit.

2. The fight drags on because you aren't getting kills, allowing physicals (or hard hitting casters) to rock you hard.
This is often the case with bad pick-up groups when you get beyond the first stage and only tends to manifest against the harder groups in PvE (WiK mobs, Slaver's Exile Summit, WoC Afflicted).

Assassin's Promise helps in neither of those two cases. Even without considering that, I really don't think a fast recharge on Seed of Life or Aegis is worth the loss of the elite; certainly not when that means you don't have a good single target heal. Seed of Life is nice but often it only ends up doing what Shield of Absorption does, just not as well.

Wenspire · Aug 11, 2011, 10:50 PM // 22:50

Also, AP requires an investment of points in the skill tree if you want to benefit from the EN bonus aspect of it, where-as GoR requires none.

Xenomortis · Aug 11, 2011, 11:03 PM // 23:03

GoR suffers it's own problems; chief among them being that it doesn't really do anything. An effective 'faster recharge' on SoA is all I can see it being useful for.

Wenspire · Aug 11, 2011, 11:43 PM // 23:43

I would figure an extra Seed of Life for party-wide healing would have be nice, especially for a prot setup.

LifeInfusion · Aug 12, 2011, 12:21 AM // 00:21

Neither in particular are very appealing to me, but if I had to choose I would go Mo/E too.

Boon prot isn't as strong as it was back in the day and boon prots were mostly used in PvP anyway. (Rationale: heals = WoH /Blessed Light/gift and that's it. D-Kiss isn't too reliable... now we have patient which is somewhat better.)

Guardian used to be 5 seconds all the time with varying block rate, mend ailment was 2 recharge, and draw had 2 recharge. WoH didn't heal as much; Healing Burst was a joke.

Boon prots have advantages:

No healing spec / Less healing spec needed compared to a healing build (if using Gift)
1/4 cast spot heals via RoF
condition removal via mend condition heals more (who cares, UA does too...just less)
ability to use Aegis constantly if you use AP version of Boon prot

and disadvantages:

healing at 75-80% rather than 55-60%HP is unintuitive if you've been playing monk (not rit) for a while
crap powerheal even if you use gift ... this is mitigated by having Prot spirit
lacks adequate party healing
crap energy management (10en costs 15, 5en costs 8) unless you use Selfless Spirit or other stuff (in the past, Energy drain/Mantra of Recall / Offering of Blood) : with Divine spirit, 5en=1en and 10en=8en
No way to heal self reliably (same problem as UA that uses Gift although UA can use DH/HD for mediocre 90ish+DF)
RoF is a pain to use in PvE, and with "Save Yourselves!" in the team it heals for almost nothing on its own
extremely dependent on enchantments, more so than a hybrid (can be problematic with Shadow Shroud) ... the only non-enchantment heal is Gift

Recharges:
RoF=2r
Mending Touch=2r
SB=2r (10 energy is equal to 14 energy with Divine Boon up; equal to 8 even after Divine Spirit)
Dismiss=3r
Draw=4r
Guardian=4r
Prot Spirit=5r (10 energy is equal to 14 energy with Divine Boon up; equal to 8 even after Divine Spirit)
Mend ailment=5r
Pensive Guardian=5r (conditional)
SoA=10r
Deny hexes=12r
Shielding Hands=15r

When you consider the only 3 monk strengths in PvE (other than insta-res at 100%energy):
power healing while being able to have stackable prots such as seed/prot spirit /aegis (non-situational Healing Burst does 180+ easily without the drawbacks of Spirit Light, Gift gets 200+ easily, WoH easily gets 230+)
and
party healing (outdone by Avatar of Dwayna Dervish these days)
stack hex removal via Deny Hexes
...then it falls short.

Without power heals, you're better off with a Restoration magic ritualist IMO. It has prots in there:Weapon of Shadow, Weapon of Warding, Vengeful Weapon/Xinrae's Weapon. You can't use all of them at once though, so a Rt/Mo with Prot spirit+SoA+Aegis solves that (although you lose Seed of Life and the DF bonus). Realistically the Boon prot heals for ~90-130 which is roughly that of Mend Body& Soul , Wielder's Boon. That's even if you use Gift of Health at moderate spec (96+DF). Spirit Light/ Spirit Transfer, while conditional, heal more than that.

For example a redbar rit with a few prots:
12+1+1=14 Restoration magic, 8+1 Spawning, 10 Prot
Soothing Memories (+94)/ Mend Body and Soul (+109)
Spirit Light (+172)
Empathic Removal (+50)
Aegis/Weapon of Warding =10en
Life (+140) =10en
PwK (+80) =10en
Prot Spirit =10en
SoA

Or a prot-oriented rit
12+1+1=14 Restor, 10 Prot, 8+1 Spawning Power
Xinrae's Weapon (+76)
Mend Body and Soul (+109)
Spirit Light (+172)
SoA
Aegis =10en / Selfless Spirit
Prot Spirit =10en
Life (+140) =10en
Holy Veil

The only difference is Seed of Life. 1/4 cast spotheals (such as the conditional +128 from Wielder's Boon) generally don't matter in PvE, although 1/4 second prots do.

I favor the Mo/E Glyph of Renewal option more, since it doesn't require getting in range of interrupts when casting Glyph of Renewal + Selfless Spirit / Divine Spirit. None of the spells besides Seed of Life and Aegis are on very long recharge anyway (and Divine Healing without UA is a very small heal).

Lanier · Aug 12, 2011, 04:49 PM // 16:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wenspire

I would figure an extra Seed of Life for party-wide healing would have be nice, especially for a prot setup.

Outside of tank & spank settings, I don't find Seed of Life to be particularly useful.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xenomortis

You've not understood.
There are two main causes for deaths in your team beyond simple errors from your backline:

was this directed at me? I was in agreement that AP is not particularly useful on a prot monk.

My reasoning is different though. AP is used (obviously) for two purposes - negation of recharge and energy management. I simply don't think either of these is worth the use of the elite skill over others available and the attribute point investment. A good monk should have a be able to manage energy just fine without it. In fact, I don't even think that selfless spirit is really worth bringing - I usually try to rely completely on passive energy management when monking, as it opens up more skill slots for me to bring a wider variety of tools to use (thus further increasing my passive e-management AND my party's defense). I would rather use one of the prot elites instead.

Chthon · Aug 13, 2011, 02:13 AM // 02:13

All that was old is new again.

A lot of things have changed since this post (Selfless Spirit nerfed, HBurst buffed, we learned how to make ProtBond viable on ER ele), but the fundamental points are still true: If you want a monk build that's not rightly condemned by "it's just plain worse than ER," then you need to do crazy stuff with e-management so that you can throw PS with some real frequency and play heavily to the few things monks can do that ER can't.

maxxfury · Aug 15, 2011, 03:06 PM // 15:06

as devils advocate, Id be inclined to ask, "But i AM playing a monk, how does it rate?"

Yano, as a monk bar...ignoring the outside broken factor of the ER for a moment

Just purely in the monk tier of builds...

Chthon · Aug 17, 2011, 06:20 AM // 06:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by maxxfury

as devils advocate, Id be inclined to ask, "But i AM playing a monk, how does it rate?"

Yano, as a monk bar...ignoring the outside broken factor of the ER for a moment

Just purely in the monk tier of builds...

The same characteristics that make a monk bar (even sorta kinda) competitive with ER tend to make them superior to other monk bars.

And at this point I pretty much repeat my same analysis of how this has some of the same strengths as good AP monk builds (strong management for PS) but lacks others (Aegis self-chain, etc.). I also stand by my previous comments on what would make the build stronger.

The other major basis for comparison is the (relatively) new HBurst. HBurst builds bring a lot to the table because they offer respectable party healing, plus respectable spot healing, plus anything you can do with 7 non-elite skillslots. (Almost all of my build tend to end up looking like HBurst, PS, SoL, Aegis, Selfless Spirit, Air of Superiority, optional (usually 2nd spot heal), optional (usually removal). See what I did there? It's HBurst plus a mini AP bar powered by AoS.) TBH, I can't think of a good way of making a direct comparison between OP's bar and HBurst because they have such different goals. I guess for now I'll just note that they're competitors for a position in the backline.

Xenomortis · Aug 17, 2011, 11:25 AM // 11:25

Healing Burst barely counts as party healing; it does something against light pressure, the rest of the time it doesn't do anything.

Quote:

Originally Posted by maxxfury

as devils advocate, Id be inclined to ask, "But i AM playing a monk, how does it rate?"

Losing a big healing skill like Word of Healing or even Healing Burst without having a substitute is a big cost.
The gains are marginal; a more frequent Seed of Life doesn't really match up. A maintainable Divine Spirit counts for something though, but there's not much point spamming Prot Spirit and Spirit Bond on recharge.

DRGN · Feb 23, 2012, 04:12 PM // 16:12

Yeah, the only time I run AP on my monk(when I still play him) is when I'm just dicking around and don't feel like really healing. I prefer to run a WoH or Healing Burst hybrid if I'm playing for real.

Also, all the people hailing this as "new" and bashing AP either weren't around back then or forget that GoR+DS is a +6 year old idea that people ran in places like RA in 2005-2006 when they didn't use Inspiration e-management(I ran Guardian/MC/CoP in place of the new skills; sometimes people ran Kinetic Armor for the lulz). I'm not bashing the build, I'm just saying you can't really rip on AP when this is an ANCIENT build