Curse

Simath · Jan 11, 2009, 09:42 PM // 21:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Napalm Flame

Since we do top300+ GvG, I think we DO know how to RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing play tbh. So I herd GvGers going PvE results in much lulz to be had.

Zodiac Meteor · Jan 12, 2009, 04:41 AM // 04:41

Ouch burn!

Wait, what were we talking about again?
Oh yeah! The build!

[[selfless spirit] is useless. The only spell that you would be targeting with is [[Life bond].
The Deep REQUIRES splitting. There is a reason why monks bring a tanker and enchants them with [[seed of life] and [[healing seed] and let the PBAoE from another player finish the mob off.

Even if you can basically play this anywhere else. The big question here is, can it out class the Imbagon?
At 9 smiting prayers you get 4 points of adrenaline. [[save [email protected]] needs 200 points.

MATH TIME

[[Focused anger] and for great justice multiplies by 1.5. A spear attack gives 25 points.
25
x
1.5
____
37.5

Attack interval: 1.5 seconds
37.5 x 6 attacks = 225 = enough for [[save yourselves]
1.5 x 6 = 9 seconds
Now, combine that with IAS of [[aggressive refrain]
1.5 x 25% = .375 - 1.5 = 1.125

1.125
x
6
_____
6.75 seconds = [[save yourselves]

Yay!

MATH TIME 2
7 party members are taking damage every 2 seconds.

[[Balthazar's Spirit] Gives 4 per damage.
7 x 4 = 28
28 x 16 seconds = 224 = enough for [[save yourselves]

Now combine it with [[for great justice]
7 party members x 6 adrenaline
42 x 10 seconds = 210 = enough

Overall, it fails to be a imbagon. A regular Imbagon can keep up [[save yourselves] every 6.75 seconds. That's without adrenaline gain skills such as [[spear of fury]

To match the imbagon one party member must take 50 hits. Or, across all party members take 7 hits. To build enough for [[save yourselves].
Even with [[for great justice] one party members must take 33 hits or across all party members take 4 hits and that's with the 25 second downtime.

bladiblah364 · Jan 12, 2009, 06:32 AM // 06:32

Spears attack in 1.33 seconds
with Aggressive Refrain = 1 second
With x2 adren thats 4 hits or 4 seconds
that r3 (?) necessary to maintain it forever (without anti shout/anti physical stuff)
also you dont have to use a kurz skill...

cataphract · Jan 12, 2009, 10:30 AM // 10:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by ac1inferno

I would rather have this for a bonder:

[build prof=monk/mesme divine=10+1+(3) protec=11+(3) inspir=10][Life Barrier][Life Bond][Balthazar's Spirit][Blessed Signet][Mantra of Inscriptions (PvE)][optional][Ether Signet][Rebirth][/build]

This.

I usually take [Shield of Absorption] in that free slot. Sometimes [Shielding Hands].

bungusmaximus · Jan 14, 2009, 10:51 AM // 10:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by Napalm Flame

Let's see... Dwaynas kiss is one of the heal skills you DO take in urgoz. Also, tank'n'spank is the best way to roll urgoz tbh.

I rolled it countless times with splinterbarrage and fire eles, well, in that case pets and minions tanked, so in a way it's also tank and spank. The difference lies in what you use to tank with.

byteme! · Jan 14, 2009, 11:45 PM // 23:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Simath

I didn't want to butt in on the conversation but after seeing this I just had to say something.

OWNED!

Wish Swiftdeath · Jan 17, 2009, 08:27 AM // 08:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by byteme!

I didn't want to butt in on the conversation but after seeing this I just had to say something.

OWNED!

Awwwh! where's he hiding now?

_Nihilist_ · Jan 18, 2009, 07:58 AM // 07:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Saraneth

On another note, have you tried to see if wielding a furious wep affects the adren gain off of the dmg from Life Bond and the bonus from Balth Spirit? I know it alters the adren gain on skills like Lion's Comfort, but I'm not sure about Balth Spirit.

As a Warrior main, yes. The Furious mod can (and does) trigger on Adrenaline GAIN, not from attacking, not from using Adrenaline-giving skills, but ANY time you can gain Adrenaline, having a Furious weapon gives a 10% chance to double the gain. This includes taking hits, and the gain from [[Balthazar's Spirit].

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ariena Najea

I'm not sure, although it's a simple test it would require time I'd rather not spend for the small benefits. You'd only get any benefits from this when facing the remainder of a small group, at which point you don't need SY! up constantly anyways. Furthermore, I'd argue that the extra energy from the staff setup outweighs the benefits of using a martial weapon and focus.

You get the chance of benefits of the Furious mod any time you would gain adrenaline. That includes when you gain it through [[Balthazar's Spirit]. Sure, it's a 10% chance, which is slim, but honestly, with "SY!" having a duration of 4-6sec before it needs to be recast, if I were to run this setup, seeing as how "SY!"/"FGJ!" are taking up 2 skillslots, I'd be using whatever I could to get an advantage.

Also, Adrenaline gain is capped @ 200%, meaning that while "FGJ!" is active, the Furious mod isn't going to do anything, you'll already be @ 200% gain. While I understand that this information conflicts with my previous statement about how I would use a Furious-modded weapon with this build, think about it: You aren't weapon-swapping at all. At ALL. Why not break the monotony with a weapon-swap when "FGJ!" goes down? Even @ 10% double Adrenaline gain, that still increases the duration of buffed gains... Also, your Staff setup is:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arinea Najea

Insightful Staff of Enchanting with "Hale and Hearty" inscription

Which means that you will have +20e with the staff. What will you have with the offhand/Furious Melee combo? +17e. We're talking about a difference of 3e here. You already depend on, or at least seriously request BiP and/or Blood Rit, to maintain all of these Bonds, despite using [[Blessed Signet], where is -3e going to hurt?

If I'm out of line, so be it. It just seems like you threw together an Extreme Bonder Build under the premise of wasting 2 skillslots for "FGJ!" and "SY!", and aren't willing to try suggestions that are applicable, even tho this is gimmicky, and by your own admission, is failed in theory.

Why failed in theory? Read below:

Post #1 (your initial proposition):

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arinea Najea

If an ally loses bonds, have them retreat slightly so that you may recast it. Do not enter aggro range of any foes to do this.

Why spend several skill slots to keep up SY! on a Monk, when it can be brought on a Warrior? Simple, this way the frontliner(s) gain the armor bonus, and can use more adrenaline to power damaging skills.

I'm sorry, Arinea, but in order to place "SY!" 's buff on your frontline, they have to be in Shout range, which, coincidentally, is also aggro range. You can't do what you said you intended to if you aren't going to be within aggro range, or else you won't be covering your frontliners, and it will end up making more sense for an Imbagon to provide your entire PARTY the +100ar from the midline.

Post #13 (after you've been told of your contradictory statements, you prove that your statements were contradictory):

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arinea Najea

The bonder then takes the position of backliner, far enough to be out of the enemy's range but still close enough to maintain (though not recast) bonds.

If you can't recast the bonds, you can't affect allies with "SY!". Shout range = Casting range. You are either a) not following your own tactical approach and moving closer than you say you should be to guarantee coverage by "SY!", or, b) on some really, REALLY good hallucinogens (care to share, please? :P)

I realize that both Alexander Burn Victim and Silverfox said the same stuff, but to be honest, I pulled a tl;dr then typed this up. After typing it up, I read page 2, and seeing as how I had already spent a decent amount of time on this, decided to post anyways.

@Napalm - I warned you about that tongue of yours in the Warrior Forum, mate. Don't piss in Avarre's Cheerios, in Singapore, they cane ppl. At least he was nice enough to warn you about the impending (short) ban if you kept it up. He could have just put bamboo to ass. And from experience, that shit hurts.

--***---***---

In no way am I saying that I actually believe Arinea is high on a hallucinogen, or that Avarre has a fetish for caning ppl. But it's fun to be a smart-ass. Thanks for putting up with me.

Ariena Najea · Jan 23, 2009, 10:36 PM // 22:36

I wanted to let a few of the trolls out before posting again in this thread to clarify things. That seems to have happened so let me continue.

Clarification Time

I am part of a small alliance consisting of guilds ranging from 1-3 active members. As far as professions go, including myself there are only 2 players in the entire alliance that play Monk. A few play Warrior, but in all honesty they are not very skilled at tanking. Furthermore, many players either no not have all the campaigns or do not play enough to have all the skills they could have to make things easier. The entire reason I looked for a new bonding approach was because our alliance consists almost entirely of casual players who rarely do elite areas except on sporadic alliance outings. As a rule of thumb, no one is ever asked to run a specific profession, although we do coordinate somewhat for synergy. We prefer not to fill party slots with PUGs on most alliance outings, and thus rely on heroes extensively much of the time.

With this in mind, I wrote up a few possible ideas for making a two-man backline for the 12 man areas. Ideally, the build would need extensive party-wide damage mitigation for the frequent times when everyone in the group is playing a caster or support role and thus no melee or tank is present. Furthermore, an optimal setup would not require more than one or two players bringing anything specific, allowing more freedom. We don't aim for speed clears, we aim for just beating the area and chatting as we go. If possible, the build was intended to be run in conjunction with a hero monk, seeing as if either myself or the one other monk player were not available we would otherwise be out of luck.

With these requirements in mind, playing a Bonder seemed efficient, due to the sheer damage mitigation that [[Life Bond] gives. I have almost always run [[Life Barrier] on the same bar for even further damage reduction, however, for a twelve-man area, it is not possible to maintain two bonds per player. As I said before, our runs are somewhat casual and frequently have no tanks, and so most midliners are at a constant risk of taking damage. While debating other sources of party-wide damage reduction, I did consider skills such as [[Aegis] and some of the Paragon skills, however, Aegis seemed insufficient and the Paragon skills in order to be effective would have required another party member to bring specific skills. With the exclusion of a [[Blood is Power] player, we did not want to force anyone to bring anything. The decision to try [[Save Yourselves!] was made when I realized how feasible it is to maintain using [[Balthazar's Spirit]. Furthermore, without guarantee of having any physical damage dealers, it seemed that the only efficient way SY! could be brought would be on the Bonder. Its ability to reduce armor-based damage so well fit perfectly into a two-man-backline that it seemed a waste to not bring it.

I had not intended on receiving so much negative feedback regarding its place on the bar, although I did expect some due to my choice of [[For Great Justice] taking up one of the precious skill slots. Several posters commented that the player should be doing more than simply maintaining bonds and using SY!, but I suspect that none of those posters had ever played Bonders in the past. When Bonding an entire team, even with [[Blessed Signet] energy is a real problem. For a standard Life Bond + Life Barrier build like the one posted on the first page (which does work wonders in 6-8 man areas), you can expect to barely have enough energy to cast minor heals, such as [[Dismiss Condition]. The condition removal can help sure, however, is the heal really worth the trade-off of SY!'s extra damage reduction? Unless everyone knows something that I haven't learned from playing various Bonder builds for over two years, using your small supply of energy on small heals is a horrendous waste. Life Bond is expensive to re-apply, and it is very easy to use too much energy between uses of Blessed Signet and lose nearly all of your maintained enchantments. In-between fights this is merely an annoyance, however, in the middle of a fight this can cost a party dearly.

As for the usage of this build, I apologize for how I wrote that entire section. As the introductory sentences of my opening post stated, this version of the build was intended for players who were looking for easy-to-play prot builds. Everyone who mentioned the problems inherent in what I said about staying out of battles was exactly right as that pertains to the shout range of SY. When I used the build myself, I ran it a little differently that I posted here, because unlike my intended audience, I have been Bonding for over two years now. My experience worked against me here, in that I typically run Bond + Barrier builds which can function outside shout range. I instinctively instructed readers as I would have to describe a more standard Bonding build, and forgot about the shout range entirely. When I run this, my skill setup was the same with the exception of swapping out [[Unyielding Aura] for [[Signet of Removal] and [[Healing Touch] for [[Shield of Absorption]. Healing Touch is superior for Bonder builds that do not require the player to be in danger, but SoA makes use of the insane number of damage packets that make the Bonder essentially immune to straight damage while kiting foes. For equipment, I used a defensive set with an Enchanting Axe and Shield and brought Survivor insignia, and Vitae runes instead of what I listed for the first post. Why did I change this when I posted it here? As I just mentioned, I had forgotten about the shout range and intended players to be away from danger where Health and Armor were non-issues. As for my defensive equipment choices, having higher armor from the shield increases survivability on the whole, and the health bonuses double to both allow me to take more hits, as well as decrease my priority as a target for the AI. I have frequently used what I call "active bonding" builds, which utilize skills that require being in the backline, and as such have extensive experience in PvE kiting, and have had no trouble at all running this type of build before; this SY! Bonder is no exception.

I am working on making this build more friendly to newer Monks and Bonders, and am re-writing the guide on how to use this build. I apologize for the confusion caused by my haste in its initial writing, and will just stick to my exact methods during the re-write. I will also address the excellent points brought up by several posters, including the use of the Furious Mod, which I did not initially suggest using due to my suggestion of using a staff for its energy safety net. These revisions will replace the entire contents of the first post, and hopefully make things clear from the first read.