Curse

Mister Pride Man · Aug 03, 2005, 06:13 AM // 06:13

First post =)

Trying to perfect my Protection Monk (for PvP, of course), thought Id ask for a bit of advice. Heres what Im currently running:

Reversal
Guardian
Mend Ailment
Shielding Hands
Protective Spirit
Channeling
Peace and Harmony
Ress Signet

Protection 12
Favor 11
Inspiration 6

Thoughts?

ElderAtronach · Aug 03, 2005, 07:00 AM // 07:00

I'm guessing this is for 8 man groups like Tombs? If so, take out the res signet. You should get other team members who are not monk primaries to res. Take Remove Hex instead, or Smite hex if you expect to run into teams with Quickening Zephyr (or your own team runs it). Remove hex is 2 second cast (bleh) but just 7 second recharge. You may want to try Shield of Regeneration for your elite instead of P&H... its a nice armor boost for anyone as well as a good regenerator. Also helps out your team's heal monk as well. Another option is to take Echo, since you're already running Channeling for mana gain. Echo shielding hands or remove hex or prot spirit, whichever one is needed at the moment.

I'm not convinced on guardian. I've tried running it, but its short duration/high spammability leaves me low on energy if I try to semi-maintain it someone. Wards or even Aegis are more efficient, if you want warrior defense. I'd say put in Hex Breaker. You don't need any points into domination for it to be effective, and it really is effective. As soon as it goes down you can recast instantly, as it's a stance.

Mister Pride Man · Aug 03, 2005, 09:07 AM // 09:07

Mainly been playing 4v4 in Team. Signet is really the only skill that I cycle a lot, so yeah, Im open for suggestions on the 8th slot.

When I carried Remove Hex previously, it seemed like I was spending too much time casting it (and you cant even hope for a speed proc because its not linked to anything), and I was often interrupted as well. I generally try to stay away from long cast times, especially as a Monk. Ive been thinking about taking Inspired Hex along with me, as its cheap and has a short cast time, AND restores some Energy. Who knows, I may even steal something decent from it. 20s cooldown bothers me, though =\

I had been running Shield of Regen for quite some time, but it seemed that I never had the mana to cast it. When I traded it out for P&H, adding in Channeling, I could spam Reversal and Guardian a ton. Maybe if I found another Energy management option, I can trade it back in =\

About the Guardian thing: Remember, though, that the basic idea of the build is to spam low energy Protection skills and heal off some of the damage with Favor. On a side note, do you think taking Arcane Echo over Guardian and using it for 2 Reversals has any merit?

I switched my secondaries recently, and totally forgot about Hex Breaker. Thanks for the reminder, definitely going to put that in =)

ElderAtronach · Aug 03, 2005, 09:33 AM // 09:33

If I arcane echo'd anything it would certainly not be RoF. It would be smite hex. I know the problems with remove hex, which is why I suggested smite, but the recharge of 15 seconds is bad. 20 seconds is even worse for inspired hex. Arcane echo kinda solves the problem but not really. 15 energy is a lot, and if you didn't find enough to be casting shield of regen, then arcane echo is not for you. The elite version, Echo, costs only 5 mana, so you should look into that.

RoF's recharge is 2 seconds, and with a 20% rod and a 20/20 icon, chances are good that it'll be recharged near-instantly, so you can spam RoF all day if you wanted, until you ran out of mana.

To be honest though, I've not had much experience as a pure prot monk in the 4v4 arenas. Most of my time as a protector has been spent in 8-man situations, so take that as you will.

NIB · Aug 03, 2005, 09:34 AM // 09:34

Get energy drain instead of peace and harmony. Much better elite. It gives you more energy and you even steal energy from some enemy. With energy drain you earn 11(16-5) energy every 20 secs(with 10 inspiration). With peace and harmony you earn only 6 every 20 secs. Of course energy drain has 1 sec casting time, but still.

Res signet is a must IMO, even if you are a monk, especially in 4vs4. You might want to remove channeling or shielding hands and get hex breaker(i just love this skill) but i dont know how efficient it is with low domination. Getting a hex removal/protection skill is a must IMO(for the arena at least). I'd rather get energy drain than echo, since most of the time you wont have enough energy to spam skills(even with channeling).

ElderAtronach · Aug 03, 2005, 09:51 AM // 09:51

Channeling is not needed if you run energy drain, but shielding hands is a must. There are 2 problems with energy drain that I've encountered: when I need energy, I hit C then energy drain for fast draining of a nearby enemy. A lot of times, that's the warrior. A lot of times, that warrior has low energy when I drain him, therefore I just wasted 1.75 seconds gaining 1-2 energy. I guess I'm not skilled enough yet to target-cycle, kite, and keep an eye on the party status bar at the same time. Energy drain is just great in PVE, don't get me wrong, but the monsters have large, large pools of mana that you can drain from. The second problem is, you need to pump inspiration to about 10 to make it worthwhile, as your own example demonstrated.

With P&H, you can just focus on prot and favor, with runes to boost them. If you're running tandem to a heal monk, you can put P&H on the other monk as well when the skill recharges (provided a high enough rank in favor).

I'm assuming he's running in conjunction with a heal monk. The 2-monk teams are popular for a reason. If that's the case, the monks will be the primary targets, and it would be your job to keep each other alive, and the other team members jobs to res you if something goes horribly wrong. I've never been an advocate of res sigs on monks, and never will. They are a wasted skill slot that could be used for something more helpful to keeping the team alive instead of a panic button when someone does die.

NIB · Aug 03, 2005, 02:06 PM // 14:06

Since he already is using channeling, i assume he has points on inspiration. Thats why i suggested energy drain. Also you can still keep 12 prot, 12 divine and 10 inspiration. I dont think this will make him any weaker than 14 prot 13 divine. You sacrifice 3 attribute points and you gain 10 attribute points. And yes PH can be casted on both monks but going for 2 primary monks(and with none of them being a smiter) is a huge waste of time for the arena. You cant kill crap.

Yukito Kunisaki · Aug 03, 2005, 03:59 PM // 15:59

12/10/6?

What the heck? No runes?!

10+2 Protection
10+1 Divine Prayers
11 Inspiration

That should MORE than make up for any energy problems you may face. 12/11/11 is an excellent focus point you can use while moving about. Trick here is to move about.

Tab cycling isn't that tough to pull off. But it is annoying when the enemies you want to steal from, Elementalists, are a mile out from the battlefield bombing you.