Curse

Age · Feb 20, 2007, 12:13 AM // 00:13

@Melody Cross Your hot key set up is good if you do nothing but play Monk but most of us play other char. so that really wouldn't be a good idea and everybody has their own hot key set up they are comfortable with.

Grammar · Feb 20, 2007, 12:31 AM // 00:31

I hear you creelie, and trust me, it takes some time. But you'll catch on and never look back.

I suggest bringing 2 kind of prot enchantments:
1. anti-spike (Prot Spirit or Spirit Bond)
2. anti-pressure (Shield of Absorption or Shielding Hands)
For most situations, I recommend Prot Spirit and Shield of Absorption.

The key is to immediately identify what kind of damage people are taking.
With pressure you can be a little more reactive than spike, but you still need to be quick and get SoA on them as soon as possible to catch all the hits and make good use of that 7 seconds (I usually cast RoF -> SoA).
Spikes (particularly bosses) are trickier, because ideally you want to Prot Spirit someone BEFORE they takes the spike, or at the very least immediately after the first hit (in which case, I cast RoF -> PS). This just takes practice and experience, and it's definitely easier on a good team that manages aggro well.

Keep with it though, there's nothing more satisfying than seeing an ele bosse's big nuke hit for a measily 50 damage, or a teammate stop taking damage when getting pounded on by a mob of guys.

(And the funny thing is, even without the prot enchantments, ZB + GoH + RoF will STILL outheal any heal bar out there anyway)

easyg · Feb 20, 2007, 08:17 AM // 08:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by creelie

The ideal situation is to have a protector reducing damage and a healer repairing what does get through.

Yeah, that would be ideal. I guess the followup question is, providing there's a good ritualist available, who should do the damage reduction and who should be assigned the healing duties?

Arrows[PURE] · Feb 20, 2007, 12:16 PM // 12:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by creelie

It's the prot spells part I'm having trouble with. I have over 500 hours of experience churning out 100+ health every 1-2 seconds, and virtually none with watching the actions of foes and enchanting allies appropriately. I'm a newbie all over again, AND I have to work against my inclinations. I guess there's really no way to smooth out this learning curve.

I never really played my monk much before ZB, I never learned to watch allies at first but the 1st thing I used to do is preprot the casters, such as myself, other monks, ele's necro's etc. But eventually you just learn to watch the battle, I do it now while im healing so i can precast the heal and as soon as they take the damage it will be healed over

elektra_lucia · Feb 20, 2007, 03:08 PM // 15:08

Not going to read all this but I use my FPS binds :

ESDF for movement.

Then I use QWRTGBVA for skills. Then mousebuttons for vent or whatever. Then -5 weapons, switch before you die, or when being e-denied. The rest you can teach yourself.

Look at character animations for spikes too by the way.

Quote:

Well, just to clarify, my point is just that it takes some brains and tactical awareness to play protection, whereas healing takes hardly any at all.

Infusing is healing, and that takes more awareness... Your point is mute, imo^^.

creelie · Feb 20, 2007, 05:23 PM // 17:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by easyg

Yeah, that would be ideal. I guess the followup question is, providing there's a good ritualist available, who should do the damage reduction and who should be assigned the healing duties?

A skillful restoration ritualist is interchangeable with a healing monk in my experience - there are a lot of rit fans in my guild, and I think under their influence I'm becoming one too. They lack a huge, fast-recharging targeted heal, but if there's a protector around they shouldn't need one.

Before the nerf, a Ritual Lord was like having permanent Aegis and party-wide Protective Spirit up all the time. Now it's like having them less than half of the time. Moment of silence, please.

There are a number of protective weapon spells as well, and a healing and protection rit combo is quite doable, but I think on the whole a rit makes a better dedicated healer than dedicated protector.

Provided, of course, that the rit can be convinced to go restoration instead of nuking the enemy to kingdom come.

Yeah, I'm sort of a rit fan.

BUT this is the monk forum. Back to the trials and tribulations of players changing the way they monk!

Melody Cross · Feb 20, 2007, 06:02 PM // 18:02

I'm sorry for the confusion Arrows[PURE]. I thought it was clear that the build I posted was for RA. Thats the best place I can think of for a monk that is unsure of itself to start practicing (or vets to farm glad points). You're not likely to see many 3-man rit spikes in RA. The spikes you will see are stuff like burst sins or SP sins working together. They are very slow spikes and easy to catch with ZB on other people or shield stance on yourself.

And I agree with Age that the hotkey setup is bad for anything but support characters. I really wish Anet would make it so we can save our hotkey setups too. Whenever I do something other than play monk I have to change back. It can be a pain but I think its worth it to get the most out of my build.

GGs

PS: are boonprots still good in PvE? That might be a good place for you to start if you want a build that is built to be prot, but you still tend to heal a lot. boonprots are really heavy on energy too so if you learn to use them well, your energy problems may go away.

Other than that I guess a Shield of Deflection Mo/E with Glyph of Lesser Energy is high protection, but most still carry Gift of Health. Stick Aegis on it and it might be a good PvE build, but I don't PvE much anymore.

olly123 · Feb 20, 2007, 07:16 PM // 19:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Melody Cross

PS: are boonprots still good in PvE? That might be a good place for you to start if you want a build that is built to be prot, but you still tend to heal a lot. boonprots are really heavy on energy too so if you learn to use them well, your energy problems may go away.

there still useable more and better moves have updated them, if u want to concentrate entirely on E manage meant its a good road to take, and its also a mid point between heal/protection, u make red bars go up, but u also prevent them form going down

Kuja · Feb 22, 2007, 02:54 AM // 02:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by Heavenly Lily

The sad part is, I still, (after much PvPing), don't see the harm in having Healing Breeze in your bar. Many people would prefer having something like 'Heal Other' (which is very helpful) but I find that it can be used for emergencies and "quick fixes" against hexes and the added +9 health regeneration can quickly mitigate the damage that was caused, thus preventing the person from dying.

Heal Other and Healing Breeze both cost 10 energy and are both 'instant casts' so to speak. So it's not a problem of energy.

I suppose people prefer a sudden instant heal as opposed to an unreliable mass health regeneration though. -.-

The answer is found by looking at monking as protecting 1HP on every party member rather than keeping the party alive in general. If a person has 1HP left and you have both spells and they have degen on (assuming both will cast at 1hp) heal other is still better. The person now is protected by 200 some odd health points whereas healing breeze gives only 50 points of instantaneous protection. If the next strike is an axe attack for 70 dmg, it's apparent which is superior.

You also speak of it as "emergency" cast, but if i saw monk putting this on me while being spiked I'd be very concerned about the longetivty of the party. Healing breeze is viable to set and forget for some degen management but its not likely to be able to save you in the long run, and skills like Signet of Devotion should be used for bar topping. It has its place on a some utility ele bar, but has no business on a primary monks a likely never a PVP monk.

AerosX · Feb 24, 2007, 08:39 AM // 08:39

Ok it seems this thread is dead now. Thank you all very much for your comments, they are much appreciated.
Now, lets hope my monk skills improve

.
Cheers,