Curse

Immortal Flame · Jul 06, 2005, 04:59 AM // 04:59

So I was in the Team Arenas today, with this team: E/Me, Mo/Me, N/Me, W/N. The other team had a monk, and ele, a war, and a mes. I immediately cast backfire on the monk, and started to attack with air spells, while our warrior attacked him as well, and the N/Me there to re-backfire the monk. Being reasonably sure that no one else was healing him, the monk would not die, and he just stood there and took all our attacks. Couldn't even get him to half health after almost a minute. I would like some insight on how he stayed alive.

Minwanabi · Jul 06, 2005, 05:05 AM // 05:05

divine boon/healing touch, Harea, ooh, healing hands, mark of prot, hex removal, any number of things, really.

theclam · Jul 06, 2005, 05:06 AM // 05:06

Here are a few examples fo what would work:
Mark of Protection
Healing Seed
Life Bond
Protective Bond
Healing Hands

Kha · Jul 06, 2005, 05:37 AM // 05:37

If your team had no interrupts, then there's a good chance that might be why the monk lasted so long. Even heavily hex, the right build and/or support from team members can keep a monk alive a long time. My monk lasted 30 minutes once against a team just because they were too heavily reliant on damage. Mark of Protection can get you a long way in the arean.

s0m31 · Jul 06, 2005, 05:38 AM // 05:38

I'm one of those monks who can tank. Just use the protection monk template and change convert hexes to smite hex, bonetti's defense to devotion signet, and rebirth to rez sig. Stats are 16 protection and 14-15 divine. Weapon must have enchantments last 20% longer to be more effective in battle. Aslong as you have shielding hands on you, warriors, rangers, and eles should do 0-10 damage on you. Just be scared of hammer warriors, they tend to hurt even if shielding hands and shield of regeneration is on you. Healing your team would be difficult though.

Red Locust · Jul 06, 2005, 05:52 AM // 05:52

Good monks don't die to damage alone, especially not to a 4man team. You need knockdowns, energy drains, interrupts, enchantment removal, that kind of stuff. That Necro on your team wasn't doing much work. Lingering curse alone could end his life just like that.

Immortal Flame · Jul 06, 2005, 06:03 AM // 06:03

I was spamming javelin as an interrupt, but no we didnt have knockdowns etc. I was considering bringing energy drains but that would cost me in damage output as an ele.

so since monks are primary targets, they should have high prot and divine favor, and use skills such as shielding hands, mark of protection. I have a question though...can upkeep enchantments still stay active even if you reach 0 en? Such as, say you cast mending on 5 party members, giving you en degen of 1. once you reach 0, what happens to the mendings?

theclam · Jul 06, 2005, 06:07 AM // 06:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Red Locust

Good monks don't die to damage alone, especially not to a 4man team. You need knockdowns, energy drains, interrupts, enchantment removal, that kind of stuff. That Necro on your team wasn't doing much work. Lingering curse alone could end his life just like that.

Or Soul Leech or Mark of Subversion or Malaise or Wither or ...

You're right. With Reversal of Fortune, Healing Touch, and an enchantment or two, I can heal myself for a very long time. You do need to use something besides raw damage to kill a Monk. Unless the Monk is using something like Spell Breaker, 3 Mesmers and a Necro can destroy him very quickly.

Quote:

I have a question though...can upkeep enchantments still stay active even if you reach 0 en? Such as, say you cast mending on 5 party members, giving you en degen of 1. once you reach 0, what happens to the mendings?

I just tested this.

If you have positive energy regeneration and you hit 0 energy, all your enchantments will stay up.

If you have 0 energy regen and hit 0 energy, all your enchantments stay up.

If you have negative energy regeneration and you hit 0 energy, you lose enchantments until you hit 0 energy regen, starting with the last enchantment that you cast.

Yukito Kunisaki · Jul 06, 2005, 06:52 AM // 06:52

Yes, I'm creating an inspiration/curses based Mes/Nec in the hope that FAST spike energy denial followed by energy degen from 3 hexes: Malaise, Wither, Ether Lord, will be just enough to put him out of commission. The energy drainers would be Arcane Echoed Energy Tap + Power Drain... [to give me a very hefty energy steal + boost]

Red Locust · Jul 06, 2005, 07:15 AM // 07:15

It's been discussed many times already, but malaise + wither are ridiculously easy to counter. You unequip your focus/staff, your energy hits 0, malaise and wither end, you reequip your focus/staff and you're back to whatever energy you had, with 4 arrows of regen.
Now I know quite a few people don't know about this, but you don't really want to make a build that relies on your enemy's incompetence now, do you? Especially when the counter can be done by anyone and doesn't even require a skill slot.

Schorny · Jul 06, 2005, 08:15 AM // 08:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Immortal Flame

Couldn't even get him to half health after almost a minute. I would like some insight on how he stayed alive.

I currently trying out such a build. A Monk purely focused on staying alive.

It's quite funny in Arenas, I doubt it will work in Tombs or GvG, but for Arena it is really nice:

Mo/E

Orison
Signet of Devotion (always love it, when i'm out of energy or need to bypass a backfire)
Healing Touch
Armor of Earth
Healing Breeze
Reversal of Fortune
Auro of Faith
Devine Boon

Only problem is enchantment removal, but besides that I can stay alive all day long (except for energy draining and Diversion). So a Mesmer can beat me rather easily...

Funny thing: a backfire won't hurt me. It may damages me for 150 but my orison easily outheals this. But Diversion is bad, really bad. But that is why I have orison and healing touch. and devine boon if I'm out of skills. So it needs a Diversion spam...

I can hardly heal my teammates, but as I'm drawing all the fire, that doesn't really matter.

So my advice is: if the monk isn't going down and you see him enchanted, just remove his enchantments (something that isn't done in arena very often, even in Tombs many teams don't do it much) or split you team. Let one guy stay focused on the monk, and the others focus fire an someone else.

Just because a Monk is normally a soft target, doesn't mean he always is

Sometimes I also take kinetic armor with me, so I have around 120-130 armor and can heal with devine boon and aura of faith an orison for about 270 and a healing touch which heals for even more: about 315
I can spam those two, so you really need to stop me doing it. I'm running 1 enchantment that drains my energy, that means I can't stay alive for ever, because armor of earth and auro of faith need big energy to be recast and without these I'm easy to take down.

So if there is a energy support necro, I have no problem (except the mesmers I mentioned).

It works pretty well and it's really funny. Allthough in high level PvP (Tombs and GvG) it won't work.

Neo-LD · Jul 06, 2005, 11:38 AM // 11:38

Coulda been life attunement :P Signet of Devotion allows him to heal without taking backfire damage... Protective Spirit reduces backfire's damage to like 50. Alot of other possibilities have already been mentioned, so I wont relist them.

Immortal Flame · Jul 07, 2005, 06:07 AM // 06:07

Cool, thanks for the information. If anyone is willing to help a new guild start in PvP, please message Fayth of Flame in game