Curse

phr33ksho · Aug 31, 2005, 02:47 PM // 14:47

Ok this is an experimental build ive been working on, ive run it a few times in tombs, and its done ok, and in team arena is unstopable. The build goes like this
10+3 Energy Storage
12 Prot
10 (i think it is at 10 cant check right now) Smiting Prayers
Skills are:
Reversal of Fortune
Draw Conditions (can be replaced with mend conditions or other spamable spells)
Life Bond
Life Attunement
Balthazars Spirit
Ether Renewal
Aegis
Aura of Restoration

Gear i use:
20/20 pvp prot staff
+20% enchanting wrapping
+5 energy insightful head

You play the build like this (for team arena, i havent quite tweaked my tombs strat yet)
Begin by laying down Life Bond and Life Attunement on 2 of the people in your group, and put down Life attunement on yourself. Then put aura on yourself, then put up ether renewal, aegis, reversal on yourself, then put life bond and life attunement on the last person in the party. Right now you should have 3 energy degen and 80 something energy.
Put down balths aura on yourself and have all the attackers go in. Because life bond diverts 50% damage from allies its on to you, but reduces the damage diverted by like 28 you will see a lot of -0's above your head. However the game still registers these as taking damage, and as such you will get energy for this from balthazars aura. Your energy should stay about constant as if you had no degen. Then spam RoF on allies who need it, or draw conditions if they are poisoned or crippled or w/e. once my energy is around 40, i throw up aegis, ether renewal, rof on myself for the extra enchant, and then spam rof and draw conditions on an ally. This will heal you if you are being FF'd and usually they will change targets before ether renewal is over, and you should go back up to full energy. Another advantage to this build is often times you are never focused because people dont know you have life bond and life barriers up on everyone in your party, because you are an e/mo. even when you are focused, reversal of fortune is often times enough to keep you alive until you can get aegis and ether renewal up.

If for some reason you die, ie forget to cast ether, or ether gets interrupted, once you are up, wait until you have 15 energy and throw up ether, then Rof yourself, then aura yourself, then attune yourself, then aegis, then rof yourself again, then spam rof and draw on someone until ether renewal ends, then get your prots back up asap. start by putting life attune ont he monk if he is getting ff'd or life bond on warriors/monks if everyones health is ok, then balths aura on yourself, then attune the monk, then bond everyone and attune everyone. by now you should have 30 energy, throw up aegis, renewal, and spam as before to regain energy. I have had several matches where my renewal is interrupted and i go down along with the monk, and been able to come back get all my enchants back up and win the match.

Advantages to this build:
Good energy management
Good against spike groups b/c of life attune + high rof spamming
Good against smite groups b/c of life bond protection against warriors and the fact that you dont usually need to be casting at any time, so knockdowns arent generally a problem
Great against warriors b/c life bond pretty much renders them useless
Can self heal very well
Life attunement makes monks job much easier
Aegis is always a good thing
Even if ether renewal is interrupted, balths aura brings in amazing amounts of energy because of the life bonds

Problems with this build:
Need to watch out for well of the profane; it isnt a big problem if other teammates get their enchants stripped, but if you do, it can be game over.
Cannot use prot runes, so attunement isnt as good as it should be
Can be hard to finish matches quick as attunement reduces damage dealt by 30%
Requires a healing monk, because attunement is based around having a good healing monk

Overall i think this is a very strong build, i will adjust the strat for tombs and post a detailed explanation of what im doing later.
Possible changes to the build:
Today im going to try switching out ether renewal for Life Barrier, and using just balths aura to keep energy up: i have a feeling it probably wont go too well once most of the enemies go down, however by then your enchants will be less necessary. Also, life attune can be switched out for vital blessing, for higher damage dealing, however i prefer the attunement. also, balths aura can be switched out for a res sig however if your ether renewal is interrupted or stripped, its gg for you.
thats all, any questions, comments, and espcially sugesstions are greatly appreciated

zehly · Aug 31, 2005, 03:03 PM // 15:03

Are you recommending this as your alternative to the presently used smite monk, or are you trying to perfect it, because it looks really similar to me.

Xero Silvam · Aug 31, 2005, 03:09 PM // 15:09

Woot why not use this to farm griffons:
Ether Renewal
Restribution/Aura of rest.
Armor of Earth
Ward Against Melee
Balth. Aura
Symbol of Wrath/Zealouts Fire
Orison of Healing
Healing Breeze

Cast Armor of Earth -> Ward Against melee -> Restribution/Aura of Rest -> Balth Aura -> Ether Renewal -> orison -> Breeze -> orison -> Breeze -> Balth. aura -> Done.

Btw I used this build for almost 2 months now so dont tell me im being unoriginal

phr33ksho · Aug 31, 2005, 03:28 PM // 15:28

This is basically a prot version of the currently popular e/mo smite build

zehly · Aug 31, 2005, 03:43 PM // 15:43

In that case, I'll give it a try... it looks pretty reasonable.

neoflame · Aug 31, 2005, 03:51 PM // 15:51

Balthazar's Spirit, not Balthazar's Aura, and since you don't get any extra energy from Balthazar's Spirit for raising Smiting, and you have no other Smiting skills, drop Smiting to 0 (or 3 if you really care) and raise ES to 12+2.

Yamat · Aug 31, 2005, 03:58 PM // 15:58

Don't put Life Attunement on your team members--you'll never kill anything! In fact, ditch it entirely and take a hex removal.

Also, if you're going to be spamming, why take Balth Aura? You should be taking Zealots Fire--it does more damage.

phr33ksho · Sep 01, 2005, 01:37 AM // 01:37

ha my bad i didnt mean balths aura i meant spirit. ok well heres my tombs strat, it is as of yet untested, but its sound in theory. its made to work in conjunction with a smite team. Your team looks liek this
E/mo Smiter
E/mo Smiter
E/mo (you)
W/E kd warrior
W/E kd warrior
Mo/? heal
Mo/? heal
me/n/r/whatever for -whatever
ok you first life attune and prot bond the 2 heal monks, then you throw up aura of restoration on yourself, then ether, then aegis, then reversal on yourself, then put up a prot bond on both of the e/mo smites and spam RoF and Draw conditions until ether renewal ends. Basically what this does is make it easier for monks to heal themselves, makes the smites take less damage. Another way to run this build is to take out aura of restoration and put in zealots fire. basically you wiat till ur energy is around 35 or so, throw up ether renewal, then aegis, the rof yourself and spam spam until your energy is full, then spam rof on whoever needs it, rinse and repeat. I havent had the chance to try it yet, but thinking about it the strategy seems pretty sound. its not hard to get peoples enchants back up if they go down, and even if your ehter renewal is stripped/interrupted, the balths spirit can keep your energy steady even at 4-5 degen against certain types of groups. The fact that you will rarely get ff'd means that it is easy to keep the prots up, as usually a mesmer will not go for you.

NightOwl · Sep 01, 2005, 01:52 AM // 01:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by phr33ksho

If for some reason you die, ie forget to cast ether, or ether gets interrupted, once you are up, wait until you have 15 energy and throw up ether, then Rof yourself, then aura yourself, then attune yourself, then aegis, then rof yourself again, then spam rof and draw on someone until ether renewal ends, then get your prots back up asap. start by putting life attune ont he monk if he is getting ff'd or life bond on warriors/monks if everyones health is ok, then balths aura on yourself, then attune the monk, then bond everyone and attune everyone. by now you should have 30 energy, throw up aegis, renewal, and spam as before to regain energy. I have had several matches where my renewal is interrupted and i go down along with the monk, and been able to come back get all my enchants back up and win the match.

That seems like a whole lot of things to do just to return to your normal, fully enchanted state, for coming back from a death. Er...was the team you were fighting when you made that comeback...um...competant? I just don't see a decent team giving you that much time.

Mercury Angel · Sep 01, 2005, 02:01 AM // 02:01

On a related note, bring a +15, -1 regeneration wand, and a +27, -1 regeneration focus and refilling your energy is a lot easier.
You have your staff on the first slot (+20% enchantments), and the energy bonus equipment on the second slot. When you need more energy to begin an Ether Renewal spell chain, just swap, and you'll have +30 more to do it with. Restore fully in that chain, and switch back to your staff.

That is SOP for any Ether Renewal build, and many others in general.

phr33ksho · Sep 01, 2005, 04:53 AM // 04:53

Update:
Just tried this build in the tombs, and it worked much better than expected. heres waht i did (i was in a smite grp with two smites, two warriors, a mes, two heals, and myself) bond and attune both mo's, attune self, zealots fire, ether renewal, rof self, aegis, draw and rof one person (doesnt matter who), bond the smites, draw someone if ether renewal is still up (you gotta be quick), right now ether renewal should be just going down adn you should be near or at full energy. put balths spirit on yourself, wait for ether renewal to go back up, rof self, then bond the mes, and warrior, then spam urself up to full energy. now go into battle. You may think its impossible to maintain this many enchants and still be able to spam rof on party members: however all the life bonds which divert damage to you, then reduce it, means you are almost constantly taking -0 damage because everyone in your group is bonded (except 1 warrior, who can be bonded but its a bit risky). Because of balths spirit each -0 gives you energy, keeping you above 40 at all times. basically you enchant urself with all you ahve (aegis rof zealots) after casting ether, and spam ur energy back up, and then spam rof after ether goes down. it worked very very well, espcially when run with a symbiosis me/r. The reasons we lost were :incompetent warriors, well of the profane (gotta watch out for this one its a killer), and bad healing monks. Oh and we lost one relic run because no one bothered to run the relics. Made it to hoh and got screwed by profane, but overall i think my part of the build was extremely effective, and i highly reccomend it. if you know how to e/mo smite it will be easy to pick up the cast order even tho it seems a bit complicated. imho, this is one of most effective prot builds available.