Curse

JoeKnowMo · Nov 11, 2007, 03:24 AM // 03:24

Here are some of the builds I've been trying out in PvE since the update. I just wanted to say how I feel about some of these builds and see what others think about them.

First, a look at the build I used to run the majority of the time.

Build 1: LoD hybrid

[skill]Light Of Deliverance[/skill][skill]Reversal of Fortune[/skill][skill]Dwayna's Kiss[/skill][skill]Shield Of Absorption[/skill][skill]Protective Spirit[/skill][skill]Glyph Of Lesser Energy[/skill][skill]Dismiss Condition[/skill][skill]Optional[/skill]

Advantages: Prots and heals well and LoD provides an ok party heal for low energy.
Disadvantages: 2s cast time on LoD.

Build 2: WoH hybrid

[skill]Word Of Healing[/skill][skill]Dwayna's Kiss[/skill][skill]Shield Of Absorption[/skill][skill]Protective Spirit[/skill][skill]Glyph Of Lesser Energy[/skill][skill]Heal Party[/skill]][skill]Mend Condition[/skill][skill]optional[/skill]

Advantages: Good single target healing.
Disadvantages: Heal Party is expensive so you run into trouble in areas with mass degen or high aoe damage.

Build 3: HBoon hybrid

[skill]Healer's Boon[/skill][skill]Dwayna's Kiss[/skill][skill]Shield Of Absorption[/skill][skill]Protective Spirit[/skill][skill]Glyph Of Lesser Energy[/skill][skill]Heal Party[/skill][skill]Mend Condition[/skill][skill]Ethereal Light[/skill] or [skill]Orison of Healing[/skill]

Advantages: HBoon buffs single target healing and party healing. Faster cast on heals.
Disadvantages: No optional slot. Can run into energy problems with party-wide damage or degen but does better than the WoH hybrid due to bigger party heals.

The 2s cast time of LoD is rather annoying. I'm not confident about using it when party bars are low for this reason.

The WoH hybrid can run out of energy if you have to use Heal Party more than a couple of times. The 2s cast time of HP doesn't inspire confidence either, although the slightly larger heal compared to LoD helps a little.

The HBoon build has a crowded bar. The optional skill I usually take is Aegis or Guardian. If I take one of those then I have to sacrifice condition removal. The 1s cast time and big fat party heal from HP is nice. But you're forced to rely on the other monk for condition removal or blocking enchantments.

Taking the old LoD hybrid was pretty much a no-brainer. Now, none of these builds is a clear winner, in my view. Although I'm leaning slightly towards the HBoon hybrid.

Discuss.

Rexion · Nov 11, 2007, 04:50 AM // 04:50

could just use Divine Healing instead of Heal Party... its less energy req. and is a huge heal. Yeah there isa 30 second cooldown, but its not like you should be doing a full party heal every few seconds.

horseradish · Nov 11, 2007, 07:25 AM // 07:25

It's also a 2 second cast time and damn useless when ur party is under massive pressure....

nooooooo contest.

Chthon · Nov 11, 2007, 06:19 PM // 18:19

Cure hex.

Especially on bar 3.

Grammar · Nov 11, 2007, 06:24 PM // 18:24

I've tried every LoD, WoH, HB, and Glimmer build you can imagine since the nerf, including the 3 you posted, and I still find LoD to be the clear winner in PvE.

[skill]Light Of Deliverance[/skill][skill]Reversal of Fortune[/skill][skill]Dwayna's Kiss[/skill][skill]Shield Of Absorption[/skill][skill]Protective Spirit[/skill][skill]Dismiss Condition[/skill][skill]Cure Hex[/skill][skill]Optional[/skill]
Optional usually ends up being Aegis in most situations.

The problem with Heal Party isn't just the energy cost, but the clunkiness resulting from the need to precede it with Glyph of Lesser Energy as to not destroy your energy.
The problem with GoLE is that it adds about a second and a half of cast time onto the front end of HP. Even under Healers Boon, HP still takes about 2.5 seconds to cast (including GoLE's cast and after cast). And without Boon, it's 3.5 seconds.
IMO, if it's going to take that long to cast Heal Party anyway, you might as well just use LoD and save yourself the 2 slots.

Maybe it's just me, but I have never liked HP on a monk, even back in the day when it was somewhat popular.

horseradish · Nov 11, 2007, 06:37 PM // 18:37

I must agree with Grammar. That's a good build *points up* for PvE.

Jaigoda · Nov 11, 2007, 06:45 PM // 18:45

I'm surprised no one's mentioned ZB+GoH yet.

[skill]Reversal of Fortune[/skill][skill]Zealous Benediction[/skill][skill]Gift of Health[/skill][skill]Guardian[/skill][skill]Protective Spirit[/skill][skill]Dismiss Condition[/skill][skill]Remove Hex[/skill][skill]Glyph of Lesser Energy[/skill]

You've got a very versatile build with nice heals, good e-management through your elite (GoLE+ZB is insane), some nice prots, and cond. and hex removal. Your only disadvantage is not having a party-heal, but really, I very rarely feel I need a party heal, and when I do, LoD or HP wouldn't save the party anyway.

LightningHell · Nov 11, 2007, 09:20 PM // 21:20

ZB and Gift of Health together is pretty redundant.

Jaigoda · Nov 11, 2007, 10:08 PM // 22:08

Would you like to elaborate? Imo, it's not at all redundant when ZB has a 3s recharge, which means you're often short of a needed heal. GoH helps fill the gap, and you've got a heal available much more often. How exactly can you say it's not useful?

JoeKnowMo · Nov 11, 2007, 11:00 PM // 23:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by Grammar

The problem with Heal Party isn't just the energy cost, but the clunkiness resulting from the need to precede it with Glyph of Lesser Energy as to not destroy your energy.

I usually don't use GoLE on my first cast of HP as I generally have the energy for it.

Quote:

The problem with GoLE is that it adds about a second and a half of cast time onto the front end of HP. Even under Healers Boon, HP still takes about 2.5 seconds to cast (including GoLE's cast and after cast). And without Boon, it's 3.5 seconds.

Yes, GoLE makes it clunky especially in the latter case (3.5s cast with GoLE, 2s cast w/o it).

However, under HBoon your first HP (w/o GoLE) casts in 1s and heals for about the same as 2 LoDs. In combination with GoLE, you have a .5s longer cast time than LoD but are still healing for twice as much.

To compare the time taken to provide similar amounts of healing at Healing Prayers 13:
LoD is 2s of cast time. [5e & 61HP]
2 LoDs is 4s of casting time (and 5s of recharge in between). [10e & 122HP]
HP under HBoon (w/o GoLE) is 1s of cast time. [15e & 123HP]
GoLE + HP (under HBoon) is 2.5s of cast time. [10e & 123HP]
GoLE + 2 HPs (under HBoon) is 3.5s of cast time (and 2s of recharge). [15e & 246HP]

When I look at these numbers, LoD doesn't look like a clear winner to me.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jaigoda

I'm surprised no one's mentioned ZB+GoH yet.

Probably because WoH + Dkiss is better?

horseradish · Nov 11, 2007, 11:04 PM // 23:04

If you're gonna put points into healing prayers for GoH, then you should take Infuse Health instead.

Div · Nov 11, 2007, 11:11 PM // 23:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jaigoda

I am bad at the game.

Please uninstall before you lead more new monks into running bad bars.

That ZB bar might've been good a week ago, but with the new WoH, who runs ZB?

P.S. Remove hex is stupid.

Jaigoda · Nov 12, 2007, 02:50 AM // 02:50

Ah, I feel stupid now. I wasn't thinking about WoH's buff. Change ZB to WoH, GoH to DK, Remove Hex to Cure Hex, and GoLE to SoA.

And by the way, I was using Remove Hex because none of the other hex removals were viable. Cure Hex gets disabled, Deny Hexes wouldn't remove more than one, and Holy Veil is crap in (general) PvE.

And Holymasamune, please try and consider someone else's point before you flame them, aight? While my build wasn't quite as great as a WoH hybrid, it's barely less efficient (seriously, they do almost the same thing, though WoH heals for a bit more), But that's no reason to tell someone to uninstall. While you might not be face-to-face with people on here, you can still cause hurt feelings.

Grammar · Nov 12, 2007, 03:48 AM // 03:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by JoeKnowMo

To compare the time taken to provide similar amounts of healing at Healing Prayers 13:
LoD is 2s of cast time. [5e & 61HP]
2 LoDs is 4s of casting time (and 5s of recharge in between). [10e & 122HP]
HP under HBoon (w/o GoLE) is 1s of cast time. [15e & 123HP]
GoLE + HP (under HBoon) is 2.5s of cast time. [10e & 123HP]
GoLE + 2 HPs (under HBoon) is 3.5s of cast time (and 2s of recharge). [15e & 246HP]

When I look at these numbers, LoD doesn't look like a clear winner to me.

It does when you take the number of skill slots into consideration: 3 vs. 1.

The only time those 3 slots might actually be worth it is the last scenario you listed, GoLE + 2 HP's (under Boon), which is pretty kick ass I'll admit.
But there are still 2 key problems with that combo that make it far too clunky to rely on:
1. You can only do it once every 30 seconds.
2. You need to cast 2 HP's in direct succession, with no spells in-between, which you might not want/need to do. So after you cast your first HP, you find yourself sitting there for at least 2 seconds waiting for HP to recharge, if not longer, waiting for enough red bars to make it back down low enough for another HP to be worth it (which you're pressured to do, because you'll be waiting another 30 damn seconds before you'll have that opportunity again). That time is better spent protting and removing and such.

The other problem is that it's near impossible to fit Boon/HP/GoLE on a hybrid bar without making some major sacrifices such as hex remover, Aegis, RoF, etc.
And that makes me a saaaaaaad panda.

JoeKnowMo · Nov 12, 2007, 05:22 AM // 05:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by Grammar

It does when you take the number of skill slots into consideration: 3 vs. 1.

I usually carry GoLE for Aegis or PS/Sbond. So it's more like 2 slots (HBoon + HP) vs. 1 (LoD). On a monk bar, though, every slot is extremely valuable.

Quote:

The only time those 3 slots might actually be worth it is the last scenario you listed, GoLE + 2 HP's (under Boon), which is pretty kick ass I'll admit.

If you compare them without GoLE, you're spending 5e more to do the same as 2 LoDs with 1/4 the casting time and not having to wait 5s for a skill recharge.

Are those advantages worth the extra 5e? Probably.

Anyway, 2 uses of DKiss under HBoon technically saves you 5e, so I'm not too worried about energy.

Quote:

The other problem is that it's near impossible to fit Boon/HP/GoLE on a hybrid bar without making some major sacrifices such as hex remover, Aegis, RoF, etc.
And that makes me a saaaaaaad panda.

That makes me a sad panda too.

The loss of a skill slot really hurts on a hybrid bar.

I'm not a fan of losing one skill slot (HBoon), 2s cast times (LoD), or lack of efficient party healing (WoH build), since I've been spoiled by LoD for so long now.

In an organized/guild group, the LoD build is probably the best one still because the your teammates are smart enough to not die while you're casting LoD.

In a pug, (yes, I prefer pugging over h&h despite the downsides

), the HBoon build is probably better because people will find ways to die while you're busy casting LoD.