Curse

primitiveworker · Aug 27, 2006, 10:12 AM // 10:12

Summary
Provides the utility of Blessed Light builds, the protection of bonding builds and the efficient healing of Boon Prot builds all in one build. Designed and tested for Random Arena, but may be useful elsewhere.

Attributes
Divine Favor 12 + 1 + 1
Protection Prayers 12 + 1

Skills
Empathic Removal {Elite}
Reversal of Fortune
Mend Condition
Signet of Devotion
Blessed Signet
Life Bond
Balthazar's Spirit
Divine Boon

Equipment
* Ascetic's Armor
* +5 Energy/+30 Health Sword or Axe
* +1 attribute or 20% recharge time +30 Health off-hand
* -optional- +15/-1 weapon and +15/-1 off-hand for temporary energy boosts

Usage
* Cast Balthazar's Spirit on yourself and cover it with the much easier to re-cast Divine Boon.
* Cast Life Bond on everyone else.
* Use Blessed Signet to keep your energy up.
* Use Mend Condition and Signet of Devotion as your main heal-other skills.
* Use Reversal of Fortune to keep yourself alive.
* Use Empathic Removal to remove nasty hexes and conditions. But be sure not to waste it -- the long recharge time is the price we pay for a +100 heal with 2 hexes and 2 conditions removed for 5 energy.
* Do not over-heal -- your energy management is more important than keeping everyone at full health.

Why It Works
Life Bond reduces your party's damage by half, effectively taking a huge healing burden off of you while you manage kiting and healing yourself in the early stages of the match. Balthazar's Spirit will constantly feed you energy any time your team takes damage due to Life Bond dealing you damage. And because Empathic Removal, Reversal of Fortune, Mend Condition and Signet of Devotion are so efficient on energy for the healing and cleansing power they provide (with the help of Divine Boon), you will generally be more consistent and effective than the enemy support.

This staying-power translates into steadily overpowering the enemy team in the long-term. In 4v4 terms, long-term is 3-5 minutes.

Counters
* Nature's Renewal hurts, and can spell disaster if not dealt with immediately.
* Energy Degeneration of any kind is particularly painful, due to the fact that Focus swapping to end the degeneration will drop some, if not all, of your maintained enchantments.
* Direct Energy denial can completely disable you as well if you are not careful.
* Excessive Health Degeneration is a problem for this build, like it is for all Bonder builds.
* Excessive Enchantment Removal may out-pace your ability to re-bond.
* Repeated Interruption or Diversion of Signet of Devotion will also disable you.
* Signet Counters can be deadly to this build.

Variants
* Take Healing Light instead of Empathic Removal for greater healing ability. You can already bump Healing Prayers up to 4 with a minor rune with the left-over points to get the 2-energy return break point. This will effectively negate the Divine Boon -2 Energy penalty. Not such a bad idea if there is sufficient hex and condition removal in your team already.
* Take Boon Signet instead of Empathic Removal for greater energy management. It is much easier to recover from death this way. This version is much more resistant to Energy denial and Interruption. But other than that, offers no additional utility to the team. Not such a bad idea if there is sufficient hex and condition removal in your team already.

Notes
* This build is not easy to run without basic energy management chops. If energy is a problem for you, try running a build like this one with a Mesmer secondary which may include Mantra of Inscriptions to speed up your Blessed Signet.
* Effective kiting is as essential with this build as with any Monk build.
* Boon Prot is usually pretty weak in the hex removal department. Holy Veil is usually the answer, but it's got a 12 second recharge time and requires you to dispell it to pull off the hex. Inspired/Revealed Hex take about 21 seconds to be ready again. Empathic Removal comes around every 10 seconds, not much better than Holy Veil and twice as long as Blessed Signet. But it removes 2 hexes--one from your target and one from you. Plus 2 conditions in the same manner. And with Divine Boon up it heals for 100. So it's a cheaper Blessed Signet with a longer recharge and some bonus removal.
* Blessed Light builds tend to crumble under prolonged pressure due to the build's reliance on the inherent energy efficiency of the main skills rather than a true energy manegement strategy. This build is at its most stable and consistent while under prolonged pressure due to the synergy between Life Bond and Balthazar's Spirit.
* Bonding builds tend to be one-dimensional, offering little in the way of hex removal or raw healing. Empathic Removal and Divine Boon change all that.

Tark Alkerk · Aug 27, 2006, 10:22 AM // 10:22

i have to say now just as a genreal question,
and else were?
where is esle where
is that in pve or pvp?

because techinally this is in the wrong section.

primitiveworker · Aug 27, 2006, 10:35 AM // 10:35

A monk build, in the Monk forum, is in the wrong section?

Quote:

Monk Builds and Discussion.

And "elsewhere" is anywhere other than RA. I've only tested it in RA. Perhaps it's useful in AB and PvE. I strongly suspect so. It would be interesting to see if it is useful in TA, HA and GvG as well.

xiao1985 · Aug 27, 2006, 12:52 PM // 12:52

can try to put in some mantra of inscription for SoD and BS

nice build btw...