Curse

pagansaint · Oct 08, 2005, 05:07 AM // 05:07

Actually the ability to take one character and make the monk devote so much of his/her time to keeping just that ONE person alive makes this build work even if the damage is cut drastically by mend ailment.

The only real "counter" to this build is a mend ailment cast inbetween Hamstring or the other starter condition and Virulence. Which is exactly one second for the monk to register whats happening, not shrug off the cripple condition which A) he ignores because it doesn't hurt him B) doesn't realize that its a W/N doing the crippling/conditioning C) Doesn't react fast enough.

This is another reason I like hamstring over any of the other conditions that can be used to start this, they have no idea what exactly is going on until AFTER you rip off Virulence.

Breeze? yes it CAN counter the degen a decent bit, but thats a reason I like savage slash/distracting blow, cast Virulence on the monk then immediately use the interrupt if you are targetting the monk, 9 out of 10 times you will catch his first attempt at countering, even if its mend ailment, and that will throw even more pressure on him buying the REST of your team time to deal more damage, knock off a different enemy, throw their hexes/conditions elsewhere.

The worst thing for this is Martyr/Purge Conditions and/or Restore Conditions.

Which I expect to see more and more of in all likelyhood soon.

EDIT: While you may be able to throw a 200hp Mend Ailment out, how much time do you devote to keeping that one person alive compared to the rest of the team? How much do you think the priority of that target would drop if YOU were being targetted by a W/N Virulence conditioner also?

Just some thoughts, you can't look at it in a bubble, but have to look at what it does with having to keep 3 others alive for TA and 5-6 others alive in Tombs/GvG while 4-5 OTHER people are doing their thing to your people not just that one W/N.

AtomicMew · Oct 08, 2005, 03:59 PM // 15:59

I don't like mass conditioning because mend ailments owns it hard. You're not going to run a monk dry with no E. denial AND giving him the ability to heal to near full with one mend ailments.

pagansaint · Oct 08, 2005, 05:28 PM // 17:28

I really don't see any single build BUT an E. Denial build running a monk dry by itself.

The heals from mend ailment are a problem, but we knew that to begin with from post one

Effigy · Oct 09, 2005, 12:28 AM // 00:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by pagansaint

EDIT: While you may be able to throw a 200hp Mend Ailment out, how much time do you devote to keeping that one person alive compared to the rest of the team? How much do you think the priority of that target would drop if YOU were being targetted by a W/N Virulence conditioner also?

That's just it, I don't need to spend a lot of time keeping the guy alive. -10 degen = 20 dps. All I have to do is cast Mend Ailment once every 10 seconds to cancel the damage from conditions.

pagansaint · Oct 09, 2005, 07:42 AM // 07:42

Except for the fact that the first condition removed is weakness.

Which isn't a degen condition. So you have to cast mend ailment atleast twice to cancel SOME of the degen which is 5 seconds. thats 100 damage at 10 pips of degen. thats if you cast immediately as Virulence is cast. if not thats 120-140 damage if you use mend ailment twice.

That's 4 casts of mend ailment to remove all of the degen in my final build of it.

thats still a decent chunk of damage.

And btw, I already stated mend ailment/martyr/restore conditions hurt this build.

But incase you didn't read it. It does. Looking for improvements for the build. Being as it is one of the most damaging and hard to counter builds there is for a W/N. Martyr/Restore Conditions/Plague Signet are the only "best" counters to this build. Mend Ailment/Condition is an "ok" fix to the problem but until the 2nd/3rd cast it doesn't effect the degen. It may heal but that health will be gone in another 3-4 seconds.

So really, read the skill descriptions, and all builds have an "ideal" counter.

Final Build:

Hamstring/Savage Slash/Distracting Blow
Sever Artery
Virulence{E}
Galrath's Slash/Savage Slash/Distracting Blow
Final Thrust
Berserker's Stance
Plague Touch
Res Signet

Effigy · Oct 09, 2005, 04:08 PM // 16:08

Dude, not to rag on you but you're overestimating the power of conditions. 1 pip of health = 2 hp/sec. So at -10 degen (the max) the person is taking 20 dmg/sec. If I can get a 200+ hp Mend Ailment, that means I can completely cancel out the condition damage for 10 seconds.

The healing amount goes down as the conditions thin out, but I don't necessarily need to spam Mend. Once I see that +192 +27 from Mend, I know you're stacking conditions so I won't worry about removing them all since it would be a waste of energy and I can take advantage of them if they stay on. This is why I bring Breeze to 4v4. That 20 dmg/sec turns into 2 dmg/sec for 10 sec, and most of those conditions won't last longer than 10 sec anyway. If the target starts getting too low, I can always drop a Mend or Orison/Kiss and bring them back up.

Of course this build can work, but don't rely on the conditions to do all your damage. Conditions are definitely not the "most damaging and hard to counter" form of attack out there, if monks have anything to do with it.

pagansaint · Oct 09, 2005, 11:09 PM // 23:09

LoL, no, not relying only on conditions, the Galrath's Slash, Savage Slash and Final Thrust I have been carrying lately tend to do more than the 200 hp heal you get from Mend, Also breeze is not the most common heal available since most would rather remove the condition/hex causing the degen.

But like I said to start with, Mend Ailment and Purge and Restore Conditions take a GOOD bit of damage away from this build.

So continue stating the same thing I did in post #1. Please.

Or do you have something to contribute? Because if all you have to say is Mend Ailment! 200+ hp! Breeze! You are ONLY focusing on 2 of the 6 offensive skills I have loaded. Congratulations, you can beat 2/6 of my bar with two skills. Have any improvements or are you saying that the build doesn't work? If not...

Savage Slash does some wonders for this build though, after playing with the build abit and beating on a monk that IS using mend ailment you'll get the timing down needed to interrupt it by using Savage BEFORE they pop it off.

Had one monk who wised up after being ressed for the 3rd time who targetted me and waited until AFTER I struck with Savage Slash to use Mend Ailment. But it was too little too late. Most teams get knocked off within the first 2-3 minutes, had one team that had a ranger built to just run and res (which didn't work, he just got interrupted) that took us to near 20 minutes, but finally stuck him with a plague touch for his blind and got a cripple through on him.

And anything about oh, I'll use Healing Breeze and there goes your damage! Wrong, I've started to carry Strip Enchantment instead of Soul Feast just for you. Ha! Counter of a Counter of a Counter that!

twicky_kid · Oct 10, 2005, 02:13 AM // 02:13

this build works fine i've use the almost exact same build. there will always be counters to anything that is the nature of the game. use it and enjoy.

xcutioner · Oct 10, 2005, 04:16 PM // 16:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Effigy

Dude, not to rag on you but you're overestimating the power of conditions.

blah blah blah degens blah

This is why I bring Breeze to 4v4.

So you argue that conditional degen is not so great, then say you use breeze. I want what you are smoking. If you think about this logically, I can turn your argument over and say breeze sucks because it's a regen, and you are over estimating the power of regens.

Which I agree with, healing breeze regens are expensive and not that effective.

You admitted you only use it in a limited setting, ie 4v4, and I'm not so jaded to say there aren't any uses for healing breeze, especially if it's at +9 regen. Just thought it was an interesting argument you were trying to put forward.

jesh · Oct 10, 2005, 06:23 PM // 18:23

For random arenas, I've been notice that plague signet is such a great skill to bring. Warriors like this, those dumb fragility mesmers still trying to do something, most trappers, and those stupid condition stacking rangers can all eat it. Plague touch is great too, but sometimes it becomes a back and forth thing, and nothing gets accomplished...

Effigy · Oct 10, 2005, 06:42 PM // 18:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by xcutioner

So you argue that conditional degen is not so great, then say you use breeze. I want what you are smoking. If you think about this logically, I can turn your argument over and say breeze sucks because it's a regen, and you are over estimating the power of regens.

Which I agree with, healing breeze regens are expensive and not that effective.

You admitted you only use it in a limited setting, ie 4v4, and I'm not so jaded to say there aren't any uses for healing breeze, especially if it's at +9 regen. Just thought it was an interesting argument you were trying to put forward.

Well you have a point. However, I bring Breeze more as a counter than for pure healing power. If someone is stacked with conditions and degen hexes, it takes way too much time/energy to remove them all. It's much easier to just spend 1 sec and pay 10e to neutralize the effect rather than trying to remove it all.