Curse

Hawkeye · Dec 11, 2005, 10:58 PM // 22:58

EDIT BY FROG: Changed the build name, as the other one is now copyrighted by Makkert.

Profession: Monk
Name: Bonder
Type: General PvP
Category: Support

Attributes

12 + 3 Divine (Base + superior rune)
12 + 1 + 3 Protection (Base + hat + superior rune)

Skills Set

Revesral of Fortune
Shielding Hands
Signet of Devotion
Pacifism
Life Bond
Blessed Signet
Mend Condition
Unyielding Aura {Elite}

Replaceables

Resurrect Signet
Essence Bond
Guardian
Peace and Harmony {Elite}
Shield of Regeneration {Elite}

Summary:

Okay, James Bond, that's corny, but it got you reading this. This build has been tested quite thoroughly, and seems to get nothing but good praises. It is designed around 4v4, but this could just as easily be for 8v8 as well.

The beauty of bonding is that blessed signet regains all energy lost by enchantments to a limit. In this case, that limit is 8 (regain 3 energy per enchantment up to 24 energy... 24/3 = 8 enchantments). Lets do the math. It takes 10 seconds to recharge and 2 seconds to cast. That's 12 seconds minimal time between castings. And since each mana regen tick is 1/3rd energy per second, if we have one enchantment, we stand to lose 4 energy every 12 seconds. We gain back 3 energy for that enchantment, so we only lose 1 energy every 12 seconds for having an enchantment! This means essentially, we suffer very little energy deprevation.

The focus of this build is to maintain bonds with the other members. This means casting as many bonds as you can in the beginning (using blessed signet to boost energy and continue). If protection is at 16, the half the damage that goes to you is reduced by 32 points. This really does cover about 90% of all attacks done to people, and the 10% of the ones that do are usually from 1-20 damage and no more.

Why Life Bond and not Life Barrier, you ask? Life Barrier, for one thing, takes additional energy to cast, which isn't a whole lot in the long run, but it considerably burdens your energy storage to start the round with when life bond will leave you with about 20 energy to spare (assuming you cast blessed signet whenever available). In addition to this, the damage done to you through life bond is minimal. It is probably better not to have a conditional in which if your health drops below 50%, you lose the bonds. It might happen that your life drops below 50%.

If all your other team members have bonds on them, then healing them should be relatively easy. This is where signet of devotion comes in. Signet of devotion has such a good recharge rate, that at the rate a player's life is probably falling, your signet of devotion will replenish. However, if it gets worse, use shielding hands. Your ally's damage is already divided by half. This makes shielding hands twice as effective.

And always a good skill to have handy is reversal of fortune, for a quick enchantment if they are taking serious damage, but keep in mind they are healed for the damage they receive. In other words, it works best on an ally without life bond (which woudl take more damage) or yourself!

Mend condition can be swapped with remove hex/smite hex. It is really a miscellaneous slot. I like to put mend condition for his healing benefits, and more often than not, the player getting the pounding has some sort of condition on him.

Finally there is pacifism. It is arguably the best defensive spell you can carry with you, and I'll tell you why. I remind you that with this, there is no life bond on yourself. This means it is imperative that you can keep yourself alive. This is perhaps even more important than keeping the players themselves alive for the reasons of the bonds on all players you are maintaining. Pacifism will remove that pesky tank chasing after you because you have a big target with the words written "Mo". Pacifism will completely disable a tank or ranger (disrupter hint hint) or even illusionary warrior. Just be SURE to call first and hopefully if you prepped your team about this before and they are smart enough, your target will set out of the fighting for about 21 seconds. Since pacifism recharges every 30 seconds, you could seriously give your team the advantage. Just remember only to use if your teammate's life bars are in good standing.

And the last spell is Unyielding Aura. Alot of you might call this a newb spell to add, but I'll tell you my reasons. A) You are equipped to deal with lasting enchantments. B) Energy degen drawback aside, it is the best ressurect spell in the game restoring 100% life and 100% energy C) It is the fastest ressurect spell in the game, taking 3 seconds only and D) When you die, they DO NOT die (yes that's right.. is this a bug?). Though that is really a matter of preference. If you wish to swap unyielding for res sig, and make one of the other spells an elite, that is equally viable.

Notes & Concerns:

You should realize that this build is ideal for a protection type build, and as you know, a protection build alone is not always best. It does brilliantly with a healer monk (yes even in 4v4, though you should make sure the other two players are heavy damage dealers).

One of its strengths is its ability to basically almost entirely bypass interrupters. Many interrupts centered around stopping monks involve interrupting spells, not skills. The two most common skills you will use are signet of devotion and blessed signet, which are not spells at all. If you are backfired, just avoid using spells and stick with signet of devotion if someone needs healing.

However, a notable weakness is a shutdown mesmer. Even though lifebonds need nothing to keep going, a shutdown mesmer will put migraine on you and use blackout and generally make it difficult to do anything. And since YOU are the vulnerable one, you need to be able to keep yourself alive. A shutdown mesmer and an aggressive warrior will bring you down.

Another weakness is a necro with strip enchantment. You have to continually reapply, and it is easy to lose track which ones have and which ones do not. In cases like that I like to wait until someone is being damaged before casting it on them again, as to not lose time on casting bonds when someone needs attention.

And also a weakness is that although pacify stops one warrior, it won't stop two or three. There is only so much you can handle. Hopefully if your other monk is a good healer, he can keep you alive in addition to you casting shielding hands on yourself. Just remember to not panick. Give the player with the lowest life that is continuing to go down the highest priority and cast signet of devotion and shielding hands on him.

Nature's Renewal is suicide for this build. If a ranger casts nature's renewal, lose all life bond enchantments and try the best you can without. Stick to quick cast spells like reversal of fortune, and signets still cast without trouble, so use signet of devotion to heal.

Credit:

This is a build I made through continual experimentation that I am quite confident about. If you ever catch "Peace and Love Monk" on, that would be me.

lishi · Dec 11, 2005, 11:34 PM // 23:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hawkeye

Profession: Monk
Name: James Bonder
Type: General PvP
Category: Support

Attributes

12 + 3 Divine (Base + superior rune)
12 + 1 + 3 Protection (Base + hat + superior rune)

Skills Set

Revesral of Fortune
Shielding Hands
Signet of Devotion
Pacifism
Life Bond
Blessed Signet
Mend Condition
Unyielding Aura {Elite}

Replaceables

Resurrect Signet
Essence Bond
Guardian
Peace and Harmony {Elite}
Shield of Regeneration {Elite}

I dont where the build supposed to work but it wont in gvg and hoh here the reason.

1) unyielding aura have ha big probrem remove the enhacement , target are dead and since ever decent team will kill you first or drain you until all your bound are gona it will be almost useless , plus the prot monk are supposed remove condition , restore condition will help also monk healing or marthy will help your team in crytical condition.

2) pacifism , even if you have manage to tell everone to not attack your target ist hex : that one will get removed and warrior will bash you again.

here a good bound setup

Reversal of fortune
Blessed signet
Aegis/Prot spirit
holy veil
Balthazaar spirit
restore condition[E]
life bond
Mantra of inscripion

with balthazaar spirit/bound combo you will get one energy for each time someone bounded get a hit and you can spam your skill pretty well :P

that one leave a lot of good prot spell out like guardian but you can take out mantra of inscritption to replace him

megaforcetkd · Dec 12, 2005, 11:13 AM // 11:13

Change the name please, this build name is already taken, AND it's on the front page of GWG..

ump · Dec 12, 2005, 08:42 PM // 20:42

I don't really see how effective this build is for PvP except against random groups who completely focus on damage. This build seems vulnerable to enchantment removal (Life Bond, Unyielding Aura). This build seems vulnerable to hex removal (Pacifism) especially when it relies on that for defense. This build seems vulnerable to energy denial (energy degeneration when factoring several maintained enchantments). This build seems vulnerable to interrupts (Blessed Signet needed for energy and Signet of Devotion needed for healing considering both have a casting time of 2). If any of these deficiencies are exploited (and it's not hard to find a decent player with even one of these), this build doesn't seem to work.

Now, let's try make this build better. To shore up the enchantment removal, you will need cheap cover enchantments. One possibility Holy Veil. It can double as hex removal. Sorry but Unyielding Aura has to go. Leave the resurrecting to either a signet or someone else as everything else is just too slow (unless you are a mesmer primary with fast casting). To shore up the hex removal, simply get rid of Pacifism because it really isn't that good. To shore up the energy denial, first remember the trick to swap to a 15 energy/-1 energy regeneration rod and focus. If you use it on the weapon switch, you have a quick burst of energy that you should use to cast another energy managment skill. Second, Balthazar's Spirit works really well with Life Bond because you will get energy for every damage you take (even if it's reduced to 0). Ignore that it is linked to smiting because it is equally useful at 0 attributes for energy concerns. To shore up the interrupting, go to quicker casting spells. You already have Reversal of Fortune, but you might include Protective Spirit for more quick-casting protection. Also, with Unyielding Aura gone, that leaves a free slot for the elite skill (maybe spell breaker will help against interrupters or as a previous poster mentioned Restore Condtion to also free up Mend Ailment). You end up with a build similar to to the previous poster (that I just noticed after I typed this paragraph - at least you get a description of why).

badd · Dec 12, 2005, 09:00 PM // 21:00

this is more like a support for one person rather thena team of 8.

Brody · Dec 12, 2005, 11:39 PM // 23:39

Bonding is garbage to begin with. It only redirect attack damage. The only two builds that I can think of that sue this type of damage are IWAY and Ranger Spike. Both of those teams bring counters to bonding (rend enchants for ranger spike, and natures renewal for IWAY)

In a nut shell the build is garbage simply because life bond is a useless skill, unless your facing teams that you could have an AFK prot monk and win.