Curse

Kabale · Dec 06, 2005, 09:52 AM // 09:52

This is a setup for a Life Bond monk with a lot of versatility. Depending on what your team is facing, you can apply enchantments to your allies which can counter, or help protect against all kinds of foes.

Profession: Mo/* (Can be anything secondary)
Name: Bonder
Type: PvP (Tombs, GVG)
Category: Support

Attributes

12+1+1 Protection (Hat and minor rune)
12+1 Divine Favor (Minor rune)

Skill set

Life Bond (Protection Prayers)
Guardian (Protection Prayers)
Aegis (Protection Prayers)
Restore Condition {Elite} (Protection Prayers)
Vital Blessing (Protection Prayers)
Blessed Signet (Divine Favor)
Holy Veil (Unassigned)
Balthazar's Spirit (Smiting Prayers)

Summary

Known as a 'Passive' Protection Monk, the Bonder aims to maintain helpful enchantments on his allies to reduce damage dealt by the enemy. Usually replacing the 'Active' Protection Monk, he/she fits well with 2 other Heal monks on an 8-man team.

If you are facing an Elementalist-heavy enemy, Vital Blessings in most cases will stop a spike or give the healers a change to react, unless of course the enchantment is removed. Holy Veils help a lot against Mesmer & Necro heavy teams as it makes their hexes take twice as long to cast (like a Shadow of Fear but for spells). Bonds work great against Warriors and Rangers, especially IWAY.

With this build, it may be hard keeping up the bonds on everyone as there is nothing to make your main energy source, Blessed Signet, recharge faster, but usually it won't be necessary to bond everyone. Balthazar's Spirit gains you energy whenever Life Bond is triggered on any of your allies.

Restore Condition can be subbed out for Martyr, but I prefer Restore Condition considering the amount of trappers (and IWAY) in the current metagame.

Notes

It is very important to have a healthy supply of energy in your reserves always, as losing the bonds due to lack of energy makes it very difficult to put them on again. Nature's Renewal and Primal Echoes are very dangerous spirit as NR will make your Enchantments cost you twice as much as usual to maintain and Primal Echoes will make your Blessed Signet cost 10 Energy to use.
Watch out for interrupting rangers, make sure they do not distracting shot your Blessed Signet either.

If you're facing a melee/ranger heavy team, 90% of the time you'll have a full Energy bar, unless they brought with them the above named spirits.

CAT · Dec 06, 2005, 02:10 PM // 14:10

Martyr is so much more effecient for bonders, restore takes too long against heavy condition teams.

Also id take out balth spirit in tombs or guardian in gvg for mantra of inscriptions

judge1121 · Dec 06, 2005, 04:24 PM // 16:24

u need balt spirit is ur main way to gain energy from enemies atking the ones u bonded. but mantra would be more helpful to spam blessed signet.

LotharOvsothian · Dec 06, 2005, 04:36 PM // 16:36

aye. balth spirit definitely needs to stay on the skill bar when playing bonder. however, ive never found a practical use for guardian as it only works on one player for 5 seconds and in order to spam it, you need to have lots of energy, which a bonder doesnt really have. and i agree that restore should be switched out for martyr, and that holy veil be switched out for mend conditions. holy veil can be useful, but conditions are more prevolent in tombs, i've found, than hexes. the healers can handle hex removal w/ either remove hex or inspired hex.

~lothar

Kabale · Dec 09, 2005, 11:33 AM // 11:33

Keep in mind this is for Tombs, and guardian is a must-have for protecting the Ghostly when he caps (unless someone else has a Shielf of Deflection).

The Martyr/Restore debate is tricky... but I prefer Restore by far. With the vast majority of conditions coming from trappers, and balthazar's spirit triggering from the trap damage, I've got plenty of energy to be getting rid of conditions with Restore. Not only that, but the heals I do are very nice. Someone with 3 conditions on will be healed for around 180~, for just 5 energy. This puts a lot of pressure off the monks. Also, the nature of traps is that they get reapplied if removed too soon with a martyr and the recharge on that is a killer.
Restore is a beauty against IWAY too, especially when they're trying to take down a ghostly hero. Traps+warrior conditions can heal the ghostly for around 250~ and getting rid of a deep wound. With martyr, there's no heals and you're left with all that crap on yourself. Bear in mind also, that you're the prime target when it comes to HoH, and you don't want to be crippled as you'll want to kite around all over the place.

I usually play this build with a ranger spike team. Even though they are 4 rangers who would be useless if blind, Restore does the job anyway between spikes. When we were holding yesterday, we came across a team with 2 copies of Blinding Flash which was easily Restored in time. If I had Martyr, at least one of our spikers would pretty much have been useless every 10 seconds if they knew how to time their blinds.

I guess it's a matter of preference, but I really can't see what's so great about Martyr.

Holy Veil is a godsend. When I see 2 or 3 mesmers on an enemy team, I immediately put up veils on monks and any other important spellcasters. As hexes are covered, I can remove a hex once I see it land on someone, and then just reapply it and not have to worry about the cover.

damocles · Dec 09, 2005, 03:15 PM // 15:15

Maybe you want to use Mantra of Inscriptions, or Divine Boon to get some poweful heals out of your spells.

Yamat · Dec 09, 2005, 08:42 PM // 20:42

I'm with Kabale on the Martyr vs Restore debate... if you really want it in your team put it on a -/Mo. Putting it on a Mo/- means some other monk in the party needs to bring Restore, or you need to make room for Mend Ailment. Having to spam Mend on yourself all day long is gonna kill energy...

Not so sure about bringing both Aegis and Guardian. I tried this for a while and found energy to be a real problem, resulting in me really only getting use out of Aegis at the start of the battle, or late in the fight when we had them on the ropes (in which case it didn't really matter and was more of a "yaa-boo-sucks-to-be-you!").

dansamy · Dec 09, 2005, 09:28 PM // 21:28

I play a bonder in Tombs. Prot (both active and passive) is how I earned the majority of my fame (1730 at the moment). My typical bonding skill bar looks like this:

Mo/Me
15 Prot
13 Divine
Rest in Inspiration

Aegis
Guardian
Martyr/Restore Condition (I take what the team prefers for their build.)
Mend Ailment
Life Bond
Balthazar's Spirit
Blessed Signet
Mantra of Inscriptions

Using that setup, I have easily maintained bonds (and the balth's for myself) on all 7 players, the ghost and the priest when there is one. I only guardian the hero while he's trying to cap. Most of my time is spent maintaining bonds, which is what a bonder should do.

Farin · Dec 10, 2005, 12:13 AM // 00:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yamat

I'm with Kabale on the Martyr vs Restore debate... if you really want it in your team put it on a -/Mo. Putting it on a Mo/- means some other monk in the party needs to bring Restore, or you need to make room for Mend Ailment. Having to spam Mend on yourself all day long is gonna kill energy...

Martyr + Purge Conditions.

dansamy · Dec 10, 2005, 12:59 AM // 00:59

Purge has a heinous recharge time.

badd · Dec 11, 2005, 09:16 PM // 21:16

isnt ur ener -3 if u maintain it on 7 people not including ghost and preist, :/ u do blessed everytime when ug et the chance?

leeky baby · Dec 11, 2005, 09:20 PM // 21:20

RS
life bond
vital blessing
mantra of inscriptions
aegis
balthazar spirt
guardan
ROF

what i use

dansamy · Dec 11, 2005, 11:42 PM // 23:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by badd

isnt ur ener -3 if u maintain it on 7 people not including ghost and preist, :/ u do blessed everytime when ug et the chance?

Yes, it is. A bonder will always be in degen if they have the whole team bonded. The only time I am not in energy degen is when some sucidal necro brings bip. Even then, the energy regen is only +1-2. IF NR is down on the field and I can't get away from it, I drop bonds on the hardier characters and work my ass off keeping them up on the squishies. That's where having mantra with you or not makes a HUGE difference. The only time I don't take mantra with me on my bonding skill bar is when I have an oath shot spirit spammer dropping QZ. And I make SURE he stays alive.

Yukito Kunisaki · Dec 14, 2005, 04:20 PM // 16:20

I definitely would suggest using a secondary because pure builds [except the damn ranger...] aren't ever as efficient as could be... I don't run into trapper teams that much [that and my team has a tendency of waiting vs. fighting them] so I'm definitely more for the draw conditions plague touch combo... [good thing you heal yourself for a chunk each time you draw... ^_^

TomD22 · Dec 29, 2005, 03:06 PM // 15:06

Can i just ask: balth's spirit is mentioned, but without any points in smiting prayers. Is that right? Does it give you enough energy even without?

ump · Dec 29, 2005, 06:25 PM // 18:25

Balthazar's Spirit is link to smiting, but even a 0 points, you get 1 energy per damage. Extra points in smiting only increase the amount of adrenaline you get, which is useless to a non-warrior.

Liquidus · Dec 30, 2005, 07:27 AM // 07:27

Am I right in guessing that lifebond monks don't work in arena because they can't heal themselves very well? I'm trying it in CA and I realized theres only mend ailment to heal myself

ump · Dec 30, 2005, 04:47 PM // 16:47

I think this build is more suited for 8 man PvP teams when you can be the protector while you have one or two other healers.

Quote:

Known as a 'Passive' Protection Monk, the Bonder aims to maintain helpful enchantments on his allies to reduce damage dealt by the enemy. Usually replacing the 'Active' Protection Monk, he/she fits well with 2 other Heal monks on an 8-man team.

It would be really hard to make a bonder work in CA as you cannot guarantee a healer in your group and you will very likely be the main target.

dont feel no pain · Dec 30, 2005, 04:51 PM // 16:51

hmm nice build but when i bond i always take this combo

martyr + mend ailment. such a nice heal for 10 energy , not to mention removes condtions from whole group :P

taxed · Dec 30, 2005, 07:32 PM // 19:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Liquidus

Am I right in guessing that lifebond monks don't work in arena because they can't heal themselves very well? I'm trying it in CA and I realized theres only mend ailment to heal myself

For a CA bonder:

Mantra of Resolve (interrupts are murder when you are the only monk)
Blessed Signet
Shield of Regeneration
RoF
Mend Ailment
Divine Boon
Balth's spirit
Life Bond

Ups - you can heal yourself nicely, RoF heals party member for about 120 before Reversing the damage, Mend ailment will heal for close to 200 if there are 2 or more conditions on your target.

Downs - You are screwed if you die. period. Energy drain will suck big time as well. Hexes are not so bad, just cover the nasty ones with Shield of Regeneration (11 seconds at 10 pips is not bad...)