Curse

Jerich · May 30, 2007, 01:46 AM // 01:46

After failing with three factions monks in the past at 300, and 500 xp, I finally got legendary survivor with my Elonian monk. Heroes made it so much easier.

Here is the build I used for most of it:
Reversal of Fortune
Guardian
Dismiss Condition
Blessed Sig
Life Barrier
Protective Bond
2 x Signets of Capture

This is a terrible build overall, but it works surprisingly well for a survivor. With Life Barrier instead of life bond, you don't have the risk of dying to bond damage. Protective bond makes sure you never get one shotted by an elementalist boss group.

Heroes and Henchies
For most of the game I used, Souske and Zed as Searing Flames Elementalists and Olias as a Jagged Bones minion master. There are plenty of good builds for these two so I won't bore you with the details. Right now I have added Morhgan as a TOF tank instead of Olias.

For Henchies, I typically used two monk and two warrior hench when I could get them. If only one warrior was available I would use an earth hench.

Strategy
The nice thing about this build is that it allows you to help out while staying out of danger. I used the flag to place my minions ahead of me a lot, especially before I had protective bond. I also made sure that I had a lot more life than all my heroes and henchmen so that the monsters target them first. Again, I won't go into more strategy since so much has been written. If you are having trouble getting to level 20 easily time you try a survivor character, make sure to look and read more guides.

Path
There are tons of paths you can take to get survivor. The path I took was as follows:
1. Getting to lion's arch and cantha ASAP so I could run back to beacons and cap life barrier
2. Progressing Elona till I got Zed and Norgu
3. Progressing in Prophecies till Ember Light Camp
4. Progressing in Factions till I got to the Harvest Temple
5. Finishing some quests and capping some skills
6. Finishing the last 400k xp henching the Jade Arena.

The Next Step?
I am going to see how far I can go before I die. I beat Nightfall and am on Hell's Precipice with Prophecies, have finished the prophecies quests and plan on trying finish more missions, cap more skills and complete more quests.

Right now I am at about 1.6m xp on my Survivor Track, and will update this thread every so often or until I die.
Hopefully this helps some of you going for Legendary Survivor with a monk.

- Jerich

Blame the Monks · May 30, 2007, 02:12 PM // 14:12

Light of Deliverance is the key to survivor on a monk. You will never die -- just hang back and spam LOD through the rough spots.

Div · May 30, 2007, 04:15 PM // 16:15

Healer's Boon-Heal Party is also pretty hot for survivor monks. Just remember to pack a prot spirit for those nasty bosses.

October Jade · May 30, 2007, 07:44 PM // 19:44

My third character to reach LS was a monk...and *gasp* a smiter.

Nothing against heal or prot; I just didn't feel like staring at red bars through the storyline again...plenty of time for that afterward. Also, if the hench monks aren't good enough to suffice, you should probably reassess your entire playstyle before even thinking about the survivor thing.

14 SP/7 HP/12 DF with this bar:
[skill]Banish[/skill][skill]Smite[/skill][skill]Signet of Judgment[/skill][skill]Healing Touch[/skill][skill]Shatter Enchantment[/skill][skill]Smite Hex[/skill][skill]Mend Ailment[/skill][skill]Rebirth[/skill]

For survivor hopefuls I only use skills acquired through questing (barring elites) since there's always a minute chance of death and consequently a reroll. I prefer not to spend a lot of gold on a potentially ephemeral character. Clearly there are more efficient options for a few of the slots if you want to fork over the cash.

As for the setup itself, it's pretty straightforward: offense with some utility thrown in...it does just fine in general pve.

asp1988 · Aug 20, 2007, 10:22 AM // 10:22

hows progress so far jerich? wish you good luck, im about to take some of the advice i've scrounged to get the basic survivor before EN is out, cheers for the help

Snow Bunny · Aug 23, 2007, 04:06 AM // 04:06

Mmm...if you're unafraid of the Bergen Ban Hammer, and you have the un-creative spark in you...

get yourself Shield of Judgement, and the rest of the Mo/D 55 build.

Turn on hard mode, farm the rangers outside of bergen. Farm 16 of them, rinse, repeat. It's like 250 xp per ranger. Couple dozen scrolls, you're set.

I've known several people that have done this.

Jerich · Nov 06, 2007, 04:42 AM // 04:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by asp1988

hows progress so far jerich? wish you good luck, im about to take some of the advice i've scrounged to get the basic survivor before EN is out, cheers for the help

Thanks for the reply asp. I stopped playing guild wars for a while but have messed around last month and progressed more.

Build
I am using pretty much the same build, with Life barrier and protective bond as the corner stones. I have had a couple close calls, but I protective bond seems to help mitigate them.

Heroes
For heroes, I am mostly using three searing flames elementalists for my heroes and swapping them out for necros (MM, SS, Spoil Victory, or Blood Spike), warrior(Dragon Slash), Ranger (Barrage, Pet) or ritualists when needed. I have noticed that three elementalist heroes seem to make normal mode very easy (and even the hard mode areas I have done so far).

I no longer use the warrior henchmen and usually use two monks and two casters. I find it is easier to control aggro with them, especially in hard mode.

Progress
I still haven't died, have about 3.1 million experience and am slowly working on various titles.
So far I have:
Canthan Skill Hunter
Tyrian Skill Hunter
Elonian Protector (I found Dzagonur Bastion, The Grand Court of Sebelkah, and Ruins of Morah the most difficult)

I have beaten:
Prophecies
Eye of the North
and Nightfall

So far I have avoided beating Factions because the last mission kind of scares me, but I plan to do it soon.

Up next
Finishing Protector of Tyria and Canthia
Finishing my Elonian Skill Hunter
Finishing the Gwen Dungeons and hoping for a polymock piece so I can get summon ice imp. (Polymock is kind of scary since you can die)
Finishing My Asura and Dwarf Titles then starting to vanquish areas.

- Jerich
- Edited to add titles to make it easier to read.

Age · Nov 07, 2007, 12:04 AM // 00:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blame the Monks

Light of Deliverance is the key to survivor on a monk. You will never die -- just hang back and spam LOD through the rough spots.

That is if you can cap it without dieing and i have pre Monk I want to get survivor on but I am terrified of taking her out of pre.

The best strategy although boring and tiring as heck is to farm all over the pre areas and get up to as much as 100K.Then you want to get runs here and there and to get missions ran for you in otherwords lets some else do the work for you while you pay them.

Asrial · Nov 07, 2007, 06:51 AM // 06:51

Very nice Jerich

Winterclaw · Nov 07, 2007, 05:22 PM // 17:22

Quote:

So far I have avoided beating Factions because the last mission kind of scares me, but I plan to do it soon.

Bring a echo warrior and a sin you can trust (both have to be players and not H/H) and you can beat shiro in under 30 seconds.

Raisu palace has always been the one to worry me though.

wolf-rayet · Nov 19, 2007, 07:12 PM // 19:12

A simpler way to get Survivor 3 is simply to 55 your way there. My char is Wolf Cephei if you want to see.

Jerich · Nov 20, 2007, 11:36 PM // 23:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by wolf-rayet

A simpler way to get Survivor 3 is simply to 55 your way there. My char is Wolf Cephei if you want to see.

I tried to get a 55 monk to legendary survivor and died due to lag. With the prot bond build, I lag all the time and still don't die. The main difference is that prot bond allows you to take more hits and is less micromanagement.

Update:
I recently got protector of tyria and cantha and
just finished legendary skill hunter.

The closest call was fighting Shiro in the last Cantha mission. Prot spirit went down, I was under a quarter life and I xed out two hits from death. I was sure I would have 1 death when I logged back in. Luckily I did not.=P

- Jerich

Here is a screen of me getting legendary skill hunter:
http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/e...killHunter.jpg

Here is a closer in picture of just the titles:
http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/e...Hunterzoom.jpg

Hikeotron · Nov 23, 2007, 11:31 AM // 11:31

agreed. very nice Jerich

xReLx · Nov 29, 2007, 12:19 AM // 00:19

Nice Jerich,you've inspired me to give it a try

Keep updating!

Jerich · Nov 29, 2007, 06:05 AM // 06:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by xReLx

Nice Jerich,you've inspired me to give it a try

Keep updating!

Thanks for the encouragement xReLx and Hikeotron. Right now I am working on Legendary Cartographer. It may take a while to finish all three continents, but I will update when I either finish it or die.

Once I get to hard mode (if I haven't died yet), I will start listing the individual hero builds I used to clear each area.

Thanks,
Jerich

P.S. Keep me updated on how it works for you xRelx.=P

therangereminem · Nov 29, 2007, 06:10 AM // 06:10

i did thisd i nelonia but i went to proh and factions to get most xp famring outside of market place and the 51k from asscendingin phorp and so on gotit in under 12 hours spent about 100k though for runs and what not to make is easyand fast

Mist Walker Skarloc · Nov 29, 2007, 07:35 PM // 19:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by therangereminem

i did thisd i nelonia but i went to proh and factions to get most xp famring outside of market place and the 51k from asscendingin phorp and so on gotit in under 12 hours spent about 100k though for runs and what not to make is easyand fast

Does anyone know a good translations website?

xReLx · Nov 29, 2007, 10:50 PM // 22:50

Bad news, I went AFK when my friend was running sanctum (lol) >__<.

But,I'm going to try again in a week or so.

Keep us updated Jerich, I don't plan on giving up.

Age · Nov 29, 2007, 11:30 PM // 23:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jerich

I tried to get a 55 monk to legendary survivor and died due to lag. With the prot bond build, I lag all the time and still don't die. The main difference is that prot bond allows you to take more hits and is less micromanagement.

Update:
I recently got protector of tyria and cantha and
just finished legendary skill hunter.

The closest call was fighting Shiro in the last Cantha mission. Prot spirit went down, I was under a quarter life and I xed out two hits from death. I was sure I would have 1 death when I logged back in. Luckily I did not.=P

- Jerich

Here is a screen of me getting legendary skill hunter:
http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/e...killHunter.jpg

Here is a closer in picture of just the titles:
http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/e...Hunterzoom.jpg

Protective bond doesn't work on the 55 anymore.

Jerich · Nov 30, 2007, 12:11 AM // 00:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by Age

Protective bond doesn't work on the 55 anymore.

I never said I used protective bond with a 55 build. I said that I had used 55 builds in the past, but now use a build that uses protective bond (it is not a farming build). Check the original post and you will see my current build.

When playing a legendary survivor with henchmen/heroes I have found that I
A. Want as much life and armor as I can have.
B. Set my heroes to have less life than me.
C. Either use protective spirit on yourself or protective bond on yourself.

The reasoning behind this is that monsters tend to target the characters with low armor and life first. Following steps A and B (and using good pulling and positioning techniques) means that I am targeted much less than I normally would be.

Step C is to help for the rare times I do get targeted by a large of monsters at once. I was one shotted by elemental boss packs on an earlier survivor attempt.

I tent to favor protective bond over protective spirit for the following reason:
Most of the time monsters attack me it is my fault. If I was always at the top of my game and sent my heroes in to attack first every time it would almost never happen. Sometimes however, I run into a group of enemies on accident.

Protective spirit needs to be recast a few times a minute to be always on in the case of emergency. Protective bond on the other hand, only needs to be cast once and then reapplied every time it is dispelled. Since most of the time when I get targeted it is due to a lapse of focus, I would not have had the foresight to precast protective spirit in most of these cases.

I would personally use protective bond over protective spirit for my build, even if protective spirit was 5% and protective bond was 10%.

- Jerich