Curse

Squishy ftw · Feb 23, 2011, 10:34 AM // 10:34

Enchantment Spell. For 22...40 seconds, target ally has +24 armor, +60 maximum Health, and an additional +24 armor against Destroyers.
(Uses Deldrimor rank)

So, Great Dwarf Armor, when I look at it I see a very long lasting (48sec) 35% damage reduction enchantment that can also serve as a cheap cover. Has some good synergy with D-kiss and it helps keep those 400hp 60AL eles survive more than 1 hit.

When I play my monk it's either in PuGs (daily z-mission/bounties) or guild/alliance groups and when there's no SY-spammer in the party, I'll usually end up bringing this. My bar will then look something like this:

Healing Burst
Dwayna's Kiss
Signet of Rejuvenation
Seed of Life
Shield of Absorption
Great Dwarf Armor
Protective Spirit/Spirit Bond
Aegis

Now, when I ping this bar one of the first comments I usually get is: 'Great dwarf armor ?????'.
So now I'm asking you, are there better options for general PvE stuff and am I wrong in thinking it's a good skill to bring as a monk?

What should/could I replace it with?
The obvious ones are hex/condition removal but rarely do I find these worth removing in PvE and when I know I'm facing a particularly nasty nasty hex/cond, I will bring the removal instead.

So, what say you guru?

Perfected Shadow · Feb 23, 2011, 10:49 AM // 10:49

By Ural's Hammer. Chain it with the other backline. Heck make everyone bring it. Wait do groups even need a backline if all 8 have BuH?

Bristlebane · Feb 23, 2011, 02:44 PM // 14:44

You do know By Ural's Hammer was changed,
or are you implying no backlines needed because everyone now can insta-rezz?

Back to original topic:
I think it's a great skill on a healer/prot, if and when it's needed. It's cheap, it's spammable, and it's self-targetable.

LifeInfusion · Feb 23, 2011, 02:54 PM // 14:54

How do you play with it? Do you just cast it on people beforehand? If you cast it mid-battle instead of prots it's a waste of energy IMO, since SoA is better for packets and Prot spirit is better for stopping all HP spikes. If someone's running a +24 armor enchant like Vow of Piety then it's pretty useless, since armor stacks to +25 only (which is why 2 copies of SY! is all you need). +24 armor isn't going to save someone from 140+ damage hammer/fire hits but spirit bond and prot spirit will.

Great Dwarf Armor is usable against Destroyers though, because then it is +48 armor and you can rationalize it reduces >50%of the damage (reduced to 0.4353x damage), which is akin to using Guardian.

When I'm playing with another monk I tend to run prot heavy and with a condition removal if necessary for blind/cripple/daze. Most PUG monks carry cure hex but few carry mend ailment or dismiss condition.

Also with the Dervish update I don't feel that Healing Burst is as strong since Dervishes have 38-50HP/enchant ending, once every 4-6 seconds easily (whirling charge+fleeting stability, rending aura, Mirage cloak, staggering force/dust cloak, harrier's haste). 140-150HP targeted before DF is still good though. Even if you pump out D-Kiss on a UA bar, it only comes out to 130-140 with Great Dwarf Armor (1 enchant). UA's D-Kiss needs 2-3 enchants to outdo burst , but none with gift of health @9+1 (165-171 every 5 recharge before DF). UA is still a stronger party spike healer due to chaining DH+HD for 180 to 200HP. AoD dervishes need to use Fleeting Stability + Mirage Cloak + whirling charge at 0 spec for +150ish total.

The maximum spike heal on a AoD Dervish w/ only Mysticism 15-16 is 300-318 but realistically 265 since only 4 will end almost instantly (Fleeting Stability w/ 2s base delay + Mirage Cloak w/ 1s base delay + whirling charge w/ 1 attack delay or 1s + harrier's haste w/ 3s base delay). Due to 1 recharge on all flash enchantments on cast, it will be 265 over 7 seconds with a net gain of +2 energy under meditation (plus 4pip energy regen).

Frankly your bar has enough prot that it wouldn't matter if you brought the Great Dwarf Armor skill or not. It really depends on what your monk teammate is running. If they're running UA/HB like 90% Of PUG monks, then GDA will boost their D-Kiss. If they are worse than a normal PUG monk and run stuff like Ethereal Light, words of comfort, and orison (which heal less than or roughly equal to Healing Burst even after HB, and are about equal with UA) then there's no hope.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lillium

The real thing you'd need to check for is do they have an armor boosting skill of their own. All melee should bring their own, so its really only viable for caster heavy teams.
... Also those 400hp 60AL eles need to at the very least grab a Vigor, if not re-rune. You should kindly nudge your alliance mates if they're the ones with that setup.

melee should be running SY! unless they're running A/D. W/ have no excuse. A/ with daggers have no excuse. The only armor skill I would run on a melee that's not partywide is "I Am Unstoppable!" because it stacks with "SY!".

The only other armor skills that see use are Armor of Earth (SF sins), Stand your ground (tell your Paragon to pick up "SY!"... but this makes the Great Dwarf armor useless), Avatar of Balthazar (no idea but people run this), Critical Agility, Conviction (not anymore), Defy Pain (lame), Ebon Battle Standard of Courage (invalidates Great Dwarf armor), Resilient Weapon (PvP mainly but also Restor rit), Protective Was Kaolai (less than 24), Dolyak Signet (rarely). I expect Vow of piety to see use too.

Lillium · Feb 23, 2011, 02:58 PM // 14:58

Bit unconventional, but I don't see any particular problem with GDA (as long as you realize the +24 vs destroyers doesn't work correctly). At the very least its a long lasting, cheap feeder for Dkiss. Sig of Rejuvenation is probably not a good choice, however, since you will get much more out of casting Dkiss or healing burst. Try an active energy management such as GoLE (for your 10 energy skills) or Selfless Spirit (for everything else).
The real thing you'd need to check for is do they have an armor boosting skill of their own. All melee should bring their own, so its really only viable for caster heavy teams.
... Also those 400hp 60AL eles need to at the very least grab a Vigor, if not re-rune. You should kindly nudge your alliance mates if they're the ones with that setup.

Spiritz · Feb 23, 2011, 04:31 PM // 16:31

Ok i dont use monks really myself but even i would be surprised to see gda on a monks build.Monks usually have a hard enough time in hm with crazy players taking dmg and usually the idea of monks is to heal/prot and not give gda to players - there should be monk skills that are more usefull.I only tend to use Gda myself on a few farming chrs for self use and rest of time its never used.

Chthon · Feb 23, 2011, 05:46 PM // 17:46

1. Doesn't stack with SY!, so it's meaningless if someone brought the better skill.

2. 35% reduction against armor-sensitive sources is not that great. Other skills can do a better job. From the PvE skill standpoint, I'd much rather see Selfless Spirit and/or Air of Superiority so you can use PS/SB/Aegis that much more.

3. The +60hp is actually detrimental for the same reasons that Endure Pain is such an awful skill. It essentially does 60 non-preventable damage to the target when it ends. GDA expiring on someone who's under heavy fire can help kill them. Strips, particularly Shatter, are even worse.

LifeInfusion · Feb 23, 2011, 06:19 PM // 18:19

Selfless Spirit allows you to spam Prot Spirit on recharge

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lillium

The OP already gave the condition that there is no one with SY! in the party - Thus no W/, no A/, no paragon, and no R/W. ... And frankly no D/.
The melee left is A/D, R/(Rt,A,D), and D/(not warrior) which should be carrying Critical Agility/IAU!. And even a bad warrior w/o SY! should be bringing his own armor boost (IAU!).
Also, new Avatar of Balthazar only gives +20 vs physical.

Avatar of Melandru now gives +30 vs elemental, which is situationally convenient if you're running her for the +HP/condition removal anyways.

If he's PuGing, however, then there's plenty of groups have 6-8 casters without anyone that can (and thus should) be spamming SY!.That's more the situation I meant to check your teammates skills for. Casters can and do use EBSoC, Resilient Weapon (usually on an NRt), Stand Your Ground (usually on a hero), PwK, IAU!, Convert Hexes (necro hero again), Shadow Sanctuary, Ward Against Elements, Vow of Piety, Shield of Regen, IW aaaand even GDA. I'm not saying all of those are good choices, not even remotely. But they are used, and they can and/or do all make a monk carrying GDA moot.
I'm not disagreeing at all (or at least I don't meant to). I just mean to point out that PuGs have a much wider variety of situations (albeit usually unideal).

D/A can't run critical agility and IaU stacks with armor boosts.

Ranger isn't melee and they have stances so with 100 armor to elemental they shouldn't be dying so fast that you can't prot/heal.

The only reason to run a paragon hero is for Stand your ground, fall back, and GFTE!... the former 2 can be put on a N/P. A paragon hero is only good in Normal mode to pump out minion (40-50 ish *1.41=56-70ish) and AoE attack damage (via criticals). Criticals for Scythes are not what they used to be (62 on 60 armor) but are still decent; if you're running minions, bows, spears, axes which all have 27-28 max damage which results in 55 damage crits or hammers (68). Swords don't crit very high (22*1.2*1.15*1.41=42.8) and neither do daggers (17*1.2*1.15*1.41=33).

I monk for ZB/ZM all the time. All I have on my bar usually is Prot spirit, SoA, seed, aegis. Never bothered with GDA since there's not that much room with 2 heals and a hex/condition removal. Never once did I say to myself "I wish I had GDA", which is what I was getting at.

Lillium · Feb 23, 2011, 11:12 PM // 23:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by LifeInfusion

melee should be running SY! unless they're running A/D. W/ have no excuse. A/ with daggers have no excuse. The only armor skill I would run on a melee that's not partywide is "I Am Unstoppable!" because it stacks with "SY!".

The OP already gave the condition that there is no one with SY! in the party - Thus no W/, no A/, no paragon, and no R/W. ... And frankly no D/.
The melee left is A/D, R/(Rt,A,D), and D/(not warrior) which should be carrying Critical Agility/IAU!. And even a bad warrior w/o SY! should be bringing his own armor boost (IAU!).
Also, new Avatar of Balthazar only gives +20 vs physical.

Avatar of Melandru now gives +30 vs elemental, which is situationally convenient if you're running her for the +HP/condition removal anyways.

If he's PuGing, however, then there's plenty of groups have 6-8 casters without anyone that can (and thus should) be spamming SY!.That's more the situation I meant to check your teammates skills for. Casters can and do use EBSoC, Resilient Weapon (usually on an NRt), Stand Your Ground (usually on a hero), PwK, IAU!, Convert Hexes (necro hero again), Shadow Sanctuary, Ward Against Elements, Vow of Piety, Shield of Regen, IW aaaand even GDA. I'm not saying all of those are good choices, not even remotely. But they are used, and they can and/or do all make a monk carrying GDA moot.
I'm not disagreeing at all (or at least I don't meant to). I just mean to point out that PuGs have a much wider variety of situations (albeit usually unideal).

Wenspire · Feb 24, 2011, 12:47 AM // 00:47

Rather than GDA, it would probably be better to run the Ebon Standard to cover an area. Though range is more limited, the effect cannot be stripped. It's pretty much comparable to the question of running Guardian or Aegis. In factoring EN-cost vs coverage, the AoE versions come out ahead. Though, I've never found a need to run GDA or the Ebon Standard when I monk.

Kaida the Heartless · Feb 27, 2011, 06:19 AM // 06:19

Great Dwarf Armor is bugged and will NOT provide the double bonus for destroyers. There are much better options and they are plentiful.