Curse

Manfred · Oct 23, 2005, 07:04 PM // 19:04

This is the monk I use to farm for favor in 4v4. why? because it's the only monk a team of 4 needs.

offering of blood [e]
sheilding hands
reversal of fortune
prot spirit
guardian
divine boon
holy veil
mend ailment

little needs to be said about this build. it's solid, dependable boon prot, adn the only dange you're in is if you overcast. There's nothing wrong with casting a spell once every 3 seconds, because you still keep team members alive regardless.

use offering of blood every time you can unless you're under 2/3 hp. make a mental note to never ever just cast until you drop, because boon is mana hungry.

And yes, I realize that this build isn't so hot in 8v8, and I have other builds for that, but this is the best, most winningest monk I have for 4v4.

JYX · Oct 23, 2005, 08:32 PM // 20:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by damocles

Standard Prot-Booner anyone?

doesn't mean its not good...by the sounds of things...he may just have come up with it himself O.o;

Neo-LD · Oct 23, 2005, 10:04 PM // 22:04

veil is good but not worth energy to maintain. the rest of the build is solid, similar to mine in 5/8 skills.

Ghost. · Oct 23, 2005, 10:23 PM // 22:23

yeah i think neo is right

JYX · Oct 23, 2005, 10:29 PM // 22:29

Don't maintain it then. Click it on and click it off. Yeah you can't do it the EXACT second it goes on for lag etc. Also it has slightly longer recharge than remove hex. But you know...if you really can't handle the cast time take it. Either works.

audioaxes · Oct 23, 2005, 10:33 PM // 22:33

holy veil is for hex removal and cancel it right away
but this is a pretty standard dime a dozen boon-prot monk build i have done since a very long time

in 4v4 monks need a res sig too. Id ditch either prot spirit or guardian and bring a res.
energy drain > offering of blood

Sarus · Oct 23, 2005, 10:41 PM // 22:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neo-LD

veil is good but not worth energy to maintain. the rest of the build is solid, similar to mine in 5/8 skills.

You don't usually maintain it but you put it on someone when they're hexed and then take it off. It's essentially a hex removal tool like smite hex etc. The added benefit is that you can cast it on yourself to fight off backfires etc.

I'd probably drop prot spirit just because it looses a lot of its effectiveness in 4v4. Prot spirit gets better the more damage a team can dish out. In 4v4 the damage isn't usually so big that you're gaining much out of prot spirit.

Even a front loaded team with say an axe warrior and 2 earth ele's using obs flame would do about ~300 damage (100 damage each in a spike). That's just an estimate to give you a rough idea of course. Assuming you got prot spirit on the guy before the spike (a very big if) the spike would be 150 damage (rough estimate, it would actually probably be a little less, closer to 135)

Now lets say you have no prot spirit and you just use a 9 prot rof which gives a 54 point reversal. Lets further say you miss the first spike but get the rof in for the next 2 parts of the spike. So 100 damage is already through but the rof hits the next 100 point attack. It'll reduce that attack by 54 then heal for 54+divine boon (73) + divine healing (51) for a total damage of +132 (in other words a 132 point heal). So with 1 rof you're now going to take -100 + 132 - 100 for a total of -68 damage (68 points of damage).

So with the prot spirit at 12 energy you reduced damage by 150 and with the single booned rof at 7 energy you reduced the damage by 232.

Obviously this example is overly simplified as prot spirit is a fire and forget sort of spell that keeps working for a long time but most teams will spike a target then move to another if the spike fails. As a result the prot spirit becomes wasted after the intial spike and is very expensive.

Unless you're wasting it all the time (i.e., using it on non spiked targets) having the prot spirit on your bar isn't really hurting your build but it's probably not buying you as much as you think.

(I apologize in advance for any incorrect math)

smurfhunter · Oct 23, 2005, 11:53 PM // 23:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sarus

So with the prot spirit at 12 energy you reduced damage by 150 and with the single booned rof at 7 energy you reduced the damage by 232.

i think that if you crunch through some more numbers and consider the fact that prot spirit will last for more than one 'spike', its reasonable to assume that based on this simplified model prot spirit would win (or tie) in the long run, just purely in terms of energy spent/damage reduced.

so to give you an idea of what i mean, after the first spike, the second spike will be reduced by about 150 damage under prot spirit (but this time at 0 energy), while rof will do the same thing.

so adding it up you get prot spirit reduces 300 damage for 12 energy, while rof reduces 464 at 14 energy... so rof is still ahead.

another spike will put prot spirit ahead, and then the you would have to re-apply it, meaning you gain some bonus from DF... etc.

so... its not a clear win on either side

NightOwl · Oct 24, 2005, 12:40 AM // 00:40

I see plenty of people say good things about Offering of Blood, but I just don't see it. I love coming across monks that use it, when I'm playing a dps class/build, though. If they're running low on mana and I'm attacking, I just spike with whatever I have available, and thanks for dishing out an extra 17% max life damage to yourself. While you could Prot Spirit yourself first, reducing the damage taken (and hindering my assault), you're effectively paying an extra 10 mana to use it.

Anyhow, I just don't get it. No biggie, I use other means. I just don't think OoB is worthwhile in 4v4, myself.

smurfhunter · Oct 24, 2005, 12:48 AM // 00:48

its only 10% and in either case prot spirit does not reduce damage from sacrifices

NatalieD · Oct 24, 2005, 01:08 AM // 01:08

This is pretty similar to the boon prot build I've been using lately, except I use Res Signet and Pacifism in place of Guardian and Prot. Spirit. I don't find Spirit to be terribly useful in 4v4, and Pacifism works great in the light-on-hex-removal environment of random arena. Plus I like having something I can cast on an enemy, even when I'm a monk.

And Offering of Blood is spectacular on a monk. The vast energy it supplies is well worth a bit of self-damage.

Sarus · Oct 24, 2005, 02:35 AM // 02:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by smurfhunter

i think that if you crunch through some more numbers and consider the fact that prot spirit will last for more than one 'spike', its reasonable to assume that based on this simplified model prot spirit would win (or tie) in the long run, just purely in terms of energy spent/damage reduced.

Prot spirit lasts 16 seconds at 9 protection. With an enchanting staff it'll last 19.2 seconds. Any spike involving a warrior requires at the absolute minimum 10.4 seconds to charge (8 adrenaline to get eviscerate ready at 1.3 seconds a swing). So IF your warrior is beating on a target that does not move and has no guardian/aegis/block/evade stances or skills then you can still only get 1 spike off within the duration of prot spirit. Even with an attack speed boost (other than frenzy since you only use that to spike now) you're realistically going to take at least 10 seconds to charge up a spike. The point I'm making is that any spike involving a warrior cannot "recycle" fast enough to make two attempts within a single prot spirit duration.

So what about ele spikes? Well with an ele spike there really is no downtime. So in the case of a spike involving 3 or 4 ele's then yes, prot spirit is going to give you better returns over the course of 3 spike attempts.

This however leads us to another question. What kind of braindead ele spike team attempts to continously spike out a target with prot spirit on? I don't know about you but I don't create builds to beat idiots. I create builds to beat good teams with intelligent players. It's never a good idea to try and beat the lowest common denominator.

-- Edit because I thought of a reason to include prot spirit

The one argument that is valid here is that prot spirit essentially "saves" a target. In other words, good teams will see the prot spirit go up and then switch to another target. So is it worth bringing prot spirit to force ele spike teams to switch targets? Maybe. With a ranged spike team is doesn't take anytime to switch so you're not buying much time in my opinion. You are however wasting their spike attempt at the cost of 10 energy. Somethign I think you can do almost equally as well with a single RoF.