Curse

Yamat · Aug 19, 2005, 09:49 PM // 21:49

IMHO, I think you can't be a serious healer without running Divine Boon, the benefit is just too great--less casts needed cause you heal more. And if you also run Peace & Harmony, the effects of Divine Boon are gone.

But in PvE, it takes a long time to get P&H... so are people using or not using Divine Boon?

Energy management is tough without energy drain, offering of blood, etc, and you won't have those until post ascension. So what is the early PvE monk to do?

Mercury Angel · Aug 19, 2005, 11:52 PM // 23:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yamat

IMHO, I think you can't be a serious healer without running Divine Boon, the benefit is just too great--less casts needed cause you heal more. And if you also run Peace & Harmony, the effects of Divine Boon are gone.

But in PvE, it takes a long time to get P&H... so are people using or not using Divine Boon?

Energy management is tough without energy drain, offering of blood, etc, and you won't have those until post ascension. So what is the early PvE monk to do?

I like Divine Boon, and I hate it.

With Divine Boon, the healing power is just immense. However, because of this, overhealing is a problem, often, or worse... Underhealing, and allowing your allies to die because of strict energy management. (I've overspent and underspent at various times in my monk career, and think I've settled into the happy medium) [And a similar thing is said of Word of Healing sometimes- It encourages monks to wait to heal, which can lead to excess deaths]

In places like the arena especially, when fighting, say, knockdown warriors-
You let the person damage you a bit, so that you don't waste too much energy, you get ready to heal, and then bam! Knockdown, and it's too late.

Peace and Harmony only pays the upkeep cost, but not the additional 2 energy drain, which is interesting in and of itself-
If you healed at 5 energy, you'd lose 5, have 0, and lose no additional energy.

I think one of the greatest uses of Divine Boon is with Protection Prayers-
Healing and damage mitigation all at once.

Often, when you heal someone, they've taken damage (duh >.>). That means they'll most likely CONTINUE to take damage. When combined with protection prayers to help prevent damage, you both recover them and reduce the amount of healing needed in the future.

This is especially true in places like the Underworld, where pure healing just won't cut it when the monsters can smack your squishy allies for over 100 per hit.

Yamat · Aug 20, 2005, 07:02 AM // 07:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mercury Angel

I think one of the greatest uses of Divine Boon is with Protection Prayers-
Healing and damage mitigation all at once.

I've never tried that... seems like a great idea. When I'm playing protection, which is my favorite nowadays, my divine favor skill is around 6, so not that effective an add, but another 40'ish on top of that from Divine Boon would be kinda nice... hmm... might experiment with that a little.

Still, energy management is tough if you don't have something to help (I'm a Mo/Me, and I have Energy Drain so I'm ok), but it's still gonna be tough for the monks in the early game...

Eonwe · Aug 20, 2005, 02:15 PM // 14:15

I like booners, but only prot booners.

Spike Kenji Minoda · Aug 21, 2005, 01:51 AM // 01:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yamat

IMHO, I think you can't be a serious healer without running Divine Boon, the benefit is just too great--less casts needed cause you heal more. And if you also run Peace & Harmony, the effects of Divine Boon are gone.

But in PvE, it takes a long time to get P&H... so are people using or not using Divine Boon?

Energy management is tough without energy drain, offering of blood, etc, and you won't have those until post ascension. So what is the early PvE monk to do?

Running P&H wont make the effects of Divine boon be gone. It still Has the -2 energy after each spell. I find running divine boon and P&H pretty bad. First P&H wastes a elite slot. Running signet of devotion with divine boon helps alot more on energy management as well as divine spirit. Divine Boon is great if you aren't the only monk on a team.

Old Dood · Aug 21, 2005, 01:57 AM // 01:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yamat

I've never tried that... seems like a great idea. When I'm playing protection, which is my favorite nowadays, my divine favor skill is around 6, so not that effective an add, but another 40'ish on top of that from Divine Boon would be kinda nice... hmm... might experiment with that a little.

Still, energy management is tough if you don't have something to help (I'm a Mo/Me, and I have Energy Drain so I'm ok), but it's still gonna be tough for the monks in the early game...

When I use Mend Aliment or Smite Hex it is nice to have that extra kick of Boon.
Even Healing breeze brings them back from near death. I run with 13 Divine Favor so my Boon is like 64 points. Also when I use Healing Touch on myself it is like a poor man's Word of Healing since I can't use the Elite spell on me. Also I have given up trying to "Time" Word of Healing with Boon..I just use it. It is only 5 energy and so what if I dont get the full effects. I am usually pretty busy and have to move on to the next guy anyways.

Jczech · Aug 21, 2005, 02:00 AM // 02:00

I don't find it very useful - either HP has to get dangerously low for it to be effective, or you end up over healing. Energy management also becomes an issue. The only cases I can think of it being useful would when everyone has 700+ hp, or when you need a cheap, spammable spell for farming.

NIB · Aug 24, 2005, 01:46 PM // 13:46

Here is what i wrote on a different thread about boon

Quote:

With boon, you cast less spells(cause you have less energy). By casting less spells, you take less advantage of the divine healing bonus. Boon was good back in the day, against spike teams. Then you needed spike healing to counter the massive dmg done in minimum time on 1 specific target.

Here is an expample that proves that boon isnt as godlike as some think. Assume we have a monk with 14 healing and 12 divine. With those stats, boon heals 61hp, divine bonus is 38hp, orizon heals for 67hp and our monk has 40 energy pool. Now lets see how will that monk perform during a 3minute nonstop battle. I assume that boon isnt removed and that boon is used only on 1 target(which is the ideal usage for boon).

Without Boon
Total energy = 40 + 240(from the 4 arrow regen)
Total orizons casted = 56
Total hp healed = 56x67 + 56x38 = 5880hp

With boon
Total energy = 40 + 180 (from the 3 arrow regen)
Total orizons+boon casted = 31
Total hp healed = 31x67 + 31x38 + 31x61 = 5149hp

So its obvious that you can heal more hp without boon, than with boon. And that’s the ideal scenario where you don’t have to recast boon. Of course, you lack the spike heal ability, but you also don’t waste healed hp by overhealing(which is common when using high hp healing skills).

IMO boon sucks for pvp. There is simple too many rend enchantments/nr going around. Any decent team changes targets every 10secs or attacks 3-4 different targets at the same time. And for pve, its simply overkill. 95% of the time, 1 healing seed is enough to counter all dmg caused by mobs.

Hippie Crack · Aug 24, 2005, 01:58 PM // 13:58

Boon has its place in PvP. I use it on my E/Mo smiter. Not only does it allow me to solo ghostly's/take down spirit walls on relic runs(E/Mo smiters are rather useless otherwise on relic runs), but it also gives the person i'm smiting off of 25 health/cast when i'm spamming draw conditions, and its an extra enchant to feed ether renewal.

Neo-LD · Aug 24, 2005, 03:36 PM // 15:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by NIB

IMO boon sucks for pvp. There is simple too many rend enchantments/nr going around. Any decent team changes targets every 10secs or attacks 3-4 different targets at the same time.

Living in a vacuum, with retarded monks who dont bring energy management, thats true. But smart boon monks bring skills to replenish energy. Offering of Blood, energy drain, etc.

All it takes is Boon, Offering, Devo Sig, and 5 spells from either prot or heal to make an excellent tombs monk. In arena, going boon/prot is one of the most effective sombos available, since prot/boon doesnt overheal very much, it heals about as much as a non-boon healer, and gives after effects like removing conditions, reducing damage, casuing evasion, etc.

Worrying about NR with a boon monk is retarded. It takes 1/2s to recast (under NR) and a whopping 5 energy. Since boon monks often carry energy management, they are among the most resilient types of monks in the game in today's energy denial atmosphere. One of the most attractive features of a boon monk is that he operates AS GOOD OR BETTER under QZ cus offering recharges so fast. Also, combined with contemplation of purity boon can get rid of nearly any problem you may have (deep wound, backfire, etc) and like I said, is recast instantly.

Now you may say "but you can do the same thing with a non-boon monk that uses offering". Thats true, but with energy management you only get DF and one attribute cus offering demands high blood and drain requires high insp. With only one attribute, boon IS A MUST or you wont be healing enough. You will be sitting there with full enegry the entire time, not being able to turn your energy into allied hp fast enough. Heal/Prot arena monks can get away with no boon easily, and they would suck if they tried to use it anyways cus it just would drain their energy too much and heal/prots cant use energy management.

So IMO, Boon is practically the best, most required skill that every tombs monk must bring, and it is also very effective in arena. I mean, come on:

Excellent Energy Mangement, Excellent Logetivity/Resilience, Excellent Healing, Excellent fit in the current metagame. Whats not to like?

Kabale · Aug 24, 2005, 04:11 PM // 16:11

Yep, I'm running a Protection+divine monk with boon running. Effective in Tombs under any conditions (NR doesn't bother me). OoB is a must have.

NIB · Aug 24, 2005, 05:14 PM // 17:14

Quote:

Boon has its place in PvP. I use it on my E/Mo smiter

Yes for smiters is ok cause you have pretty much unlimited power and boon can give you even more(with ether renewal). But 99% of the time you are casting smiting enchantments on a warrior, so chances are that you wont be needing the extra healing bonus. You could use it to help with the healing a bit, but most ele/mo cast spells on the warrior so that they can do dmg with zealot fire(so you rarely go target some other ally and use boon to heal him/her). So you dont actually use boon for a healing purpose, you just use it as energy gaining skill.

And sure, using boon to tank as ele/mo to kill the spirits is a good way to keep yourself alive without needing much support on relic maps(assuming the warriors are doing relic runs, etc).

Quote:

Living in a vacuum, with retarded monks who dont bring energy management, thats true. But smart boon monks bring skills to replenish energy. Offering of Blood, energy drain, etc.

Here is what i wrote about on this some other thread

Quote:

Anyway, you can still use offering without boon. That extra energy is better to be spent on multiple orisons than on fewer orizons+boon. Its not only the -1 energy regen that hurts your efficiency, its the fact that you cast less spells therefore taking less advantage of divine healing bonus.

Lets see how blood works. 10% sacrifice of max hp = 50-60hp. Plus the 5 energy cost, you are looking at roughly a 7-8 energy cost(lets say 7 cause I want to be nice :P), if you include the cost of getting yourself healed. And you gain 16 energy(with 10 blood). So the actual profit is 9 energy every 15 secs. Now lets do some more math again. I assume you cast blood every 15secs.

Without Boon
Total energy = 40 + 240 + 108(with offering every 15secs and 4 energy regen) = 388
Total orizons casted = 76
Total hp healed = 76x67 + 76x38 = 7980

With Boon
Total energy = 40 + 180 + 108 (with offering every 15secs and 3 energy regen) = 328
Total orizons+boon casted = 46
Total hp healed = 46x67 + 46x38 + 46x61 = 7636

Again, you can heal more without boon than with boon. But cause you have a secondary energy income source, the difference is smaller, cause energy regen isnt your only source of energy income anymore.

As you can see, even with offering or whatever, healing without boon is still more efficient. And even with qz, boon remains slightly less effective, but the gap closes dramatically(they are pretty much the same). And that if we assume that the enemy will always attack the same target and that we will never need to recast boon. If i calculate recasting of boon every 30secs(cause of stripping/changing target), then boon becomes even worse.

Quote:

Worrying about NR with a boon monk is retarded. It takes 1/2s to recast (under NR) and a whopping 5 energy

5 energy is 5 energy. A primary monk doesnt have unlimited energy. Just cause you have some energy management skills, doesnt mean that you have unlimited energy.

Quote:

Thats true, but with energy management you only get DF and one attribute cus offering demands high blood and drain requires high insp. With only one attribute, boon IS A MUST or you wont be healing enough. You will be sitting there with full enegry the entire time, not being able to turn your energy into allied hp fast enough.

You must be kidding me, right? You can get 12 healing(14 with sup rune), 12 divine, 10 insp/blood. You can heal more than enough. There arent spike teams anymore. Most teams are ranger/warriors/smite teams. This means that they do little dmg but on multiple targets. So there is no point into having "spike" healing. You dont need it. I have played a million times as a healer monk in tombs and i never had problem using all my energy. And i had energy drain, insp hex and sig of dev. And i cast energy drain/insp hex the second they are recharged(and on an apprioriate target).

And i always managed to keep my energy on 0.

Quote:

Excellent Energy Mangement, Excellent Logetivity/Resilience, Excellent Healing, Excellent fit in the current metagame. Whats not to like?

The fact that you overal heal for less hp? The fact that you do spike healing when it isnt needed? The fact that you waste energy by overhealing someone? The fact that you usually play on a heavy energy denial enviroment with heavy disenchanting spells? The fact that most teams attack many different targets at the same time so you need many but not so strong healing skills?

rii · Aug 24, 2005, 06:42 PM // 18:42

Use the Fi Boon Healer. Thats my most-played pre-made, due to the fact that it kicks butt.
A quick mathematical fact: for booning to be more efficient than just using orison (the most likely thing youll use) you need to cast orison every 4 seconds or more. after that its not worth it. recasting can be a pain though with nr everywhere.

stumpy · Aug 24, 2005, 07:36 PM // 19:36

hmm ... question do you like ice cream or ice cream with some rum poured over top?

divine boon can be exceptionally beneficial. Just be aware of when it gets ripped off ya. Common sense ftw!

Howling Wind · Aug 24, 2005, 07:43 PM // 19:43

Energy is strict for a healer monk at times and divine boon can sometimes do more harm then good. I usually like to stick with boon for prot monks but rarely use boon with a pure healer and plus when you get word of healing and healing touch, boon is rarely needed as they are pretty much the best heal other and self heal spells (with high divine favour of course).

stumpy · Aug 24, 2005, 07:53 PM // 19:53

i have to disagree with you on Word of Healing ... a monk who you even quoted 'needs strict energy management' should never concede his elite to Word of Healing over Offering of Blood or Energy Drain. It just doesn't make sense ... you will run into energy issues there. Sure you can argue well I will use this and that ... but again nothing outlasts energy drain or offering of blood ... the rest is situational, hardly self sufficient.

Hippie Crack · Aug 25, 2005, 11:34 AM // 11:34

@NIB
I only started running Boon over smite hex when the sudden rise of EoE came about. The non-stop +25 on the warrior will usually ensure he's left standing when the edge bomb hits. Monks dont have to worry about him from AOE damage as long as i'm standing(nobody spike a warrior unless the battle is allready over), and it keeps him at >50% at all times for his weapon's bonus.

The only hex's i've really been seeing lately are the Me/N fragility builds, all the good team's i've seen running those builds have buffer hex's anyway, so smite hex was no longer worth carrying.

Divine Boon still has its place in tombs, its just not used for its obvious purpose anymore(spike healing).

NIB · Aug 25, 2005, 12:46 PM // 12:46

Quote:

divine boon can be exceptionally beneficial. Just be aware of when it gets ripped off ya. Common sense ftw!

The problem isnt the fact that you need to recast it, but the fact that it costs 5 energy to recast it. And the fact that you can heal more without it(as i explained above). And the fact that you dont need spike healing.

Quote:

I only started running Boon over smite hex when the sudden rise of EoE came about. The non-stop +25 on the warrior will usually ensure he's left standing when the edge bomb hits

Ok fair but still, i dont think we are argueing about the use of DB with ele/mo smiters. I am argueing about the use of DB with primary monks(healers and prots).

aznhalf · Aug 25, 2005, 01:58 PM // 13:58

*agrees with NIB 100%*

Monks are about energy managment. Boon is inefficient. Spike teams are done. If you want "spike" healing use heal other.

And about the edge bomb...uh..just use healing seed or shielding hands. Your welcome.

Neo-LD · Aug 25, 2005, 08:40 PM // 20:40

Update is coming... spirit groups are dead.... care to change your tune NIB? I do believe that while spike groups are not prevelent, groups that produce large amounts of damage are still around, and now that Fertile cant save their butt theres only a few ways to be able to put the healing where it needs to go. Go watch a vid of high level pvp and see why boon is not only good, but necessary.

Overhealing is not as much of an issue as dying. If offering or drain didnt exist, then boon would stink. In arenas, boon makes monking needlessly stressful somtimes. But its still effective. But where boon truly shines is tombs and gvg.