Curse

lioka pelenoria · Feb 15, 2007, 08:28 PM // 20:28

Are you tired of gettin sacked by a boa sin every time you monk? or how about just not being able to keep up with pressure?

This build will make your team Invincible to all but heavy degen, mass enchantment removal, and probably interrupt spams against the monk. If you get another monk with this, your almost garaunteed to go 10+ flawless. No joke. Tips for using this monk to maximize effectiveness

* at the start use your glyph of lesser energy to put your bonds up fast.
*once the battle starts, there will almost always be a warrior or assassin comming at you. Use glyph of lesser energy with shield of regeneration and shielding hands to make the guy useless.
*Dependant on team makeup you could be getting alot of energy from your bonds or a little energy. Regardless of the case, use your glyph with shield as much as you can, but dont wait for it. Try to use only shield when glyph is up for maximum energy endurance, and blessed signet to further increase energy endurance .
*you will become a prime target, and this is a good thing (unless theres degen). Just rotate your Shield of regen with Shielding hands and Shield of absorption to keep the damage out. Kite away when you have Dazed to refresh your SoR and SH. DOnt try to remove the daze, just let it last its duration.
*when the damage moves off you to your allies, they will take even less damage then you would when you cover them as you would yourself.
*Mass degen and mesmers will be the death of you, be careful when these are around.

ALL you monks out there, spread the word and end the hyper damage craze (and make people take enchantment removal to RA again)!!!

Age · Feb 15, 2007, 11:47 PM // 23:47

I sure hope you have the energy to maintian those bonds and use SoR at the same time and I would replace mending touch with dismiss conditions.I use BL on my bonder.

Ki Chimera · Feb 16, 2007, 12:10 AM // 00:10

what do you do when you run into a group with nearly or all spell casters, no hex removal or high dmg mitigation (other than life bond)?

if SP/BoA sins are really giving you a hard time, run /w for [skill]Shield Bash[/skill] and [skill]Disciplined Stance[/skill] or [skill]Balanced Stance[/skill]. I prefer disciplined b/c thumpers really aren't that much of a problem now.

[skill]Reversal of Fortune[/skill][skill]Zealous Benediction[/skill][skill]Gift of Health[/skill][skill]Shield of Absorption[/skill][skill]Dismiss Condition[/skill][skill]Holy Veil[/skill][skill]Disciplined Stance[/skill][skill]Shield Bash[/skill]

(option: [skill]Shielding Hands[/skill] instead of [skill]Shield of Absorption[/skill], depending on how i feel that day)
that's what I prefer to run in RA (since that seems to be what this is for) The only real problems occur when you are shutdown and a sin spikes someone, but that's always a problem, or if 2 sins go for 2 different targets (neither being the monk).
So, there are certainly other ways to keep up with pressure and sins besides a one-dimensional build. Life-bonding does work well in RA though, given the high number of assassins running around =\

to Age: its easy to maintain it with just Balthazar's alone, and there's blessed sig to fall back on if the energy doesn't come quick enough. the down fall of the build is that the larger the damage packets, the less effective it becomes. It works decently with boon and rof/guardian spam too without much energy problems, but boon got nerfed and not too many elites have great synergy with that build

I certainly wouldn't spread this build around, its much better to learn to deal with spikes using versatile builds, not a build designed entirely around stopping them.

Effigy · Feb 16, 2007, 12:59 AM // 00:59

Personally, I like running 2 condition removals in RA: Mend Condition for others (more spammable and a guaranteed heal, compared to Dismiss) and Mending Touch for myself. Conditions are such a big part of the RA meta that MT is too good to pass up. I've gotten a lot more use from it than any other self defense skill I've run.

lightblade · Feb 16, 2007, 01:05 AM // 01:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Age

I sure hope you have the energy to maintian those bonds and use SoR at the same time and I would replace mending touch with dismiss conditions.I use BL on my bonder.

Glyph of Lesser Energy = 25 energy equivilent

Burst Cancel · Feb 16, 2007, 01:17 AM // 01:17

This build has a number of critical weaknesses:
- Blessed Signet is dshot fodder. It is highly visible, extremely slow, and critical to a bonder's energy.
- No cover enchantment for Balt's Spirit, no reliable covers for bonds.
- As a corollary to above, build fails even against light enchantment removal.
- Bonds are only effective against attack damage, and bond+spirit only returns energy against attack damage.
- As a corollary to above, build is over-reliant on particular skill combos for both protting and emgt. The problem is made worse by the fact that most of those skills are easy to interrupt.
- Low overall healing strength.

Dr Dem · Feb 16, 2007, 10:50 AM // 10:50

Interesting, could be good, really good against the right teams.

I'd swap mending touch with dismiss conidition, since you will be healing them if they have Life bond on them.

Perhaps swap out Shielding hands for Aegis, used with GoLE, provides nice protection and a cover enchanment for initial enchant removes.

Id maybe swap out Sheild of Regen for Zealous Benediction, mainly with Life Bond > Sheild of Absorbtion > Dismiss conidition to top up health, and use ZB when their health slowly droops below 50%

Also using ZB with GoLE provides a free cast, and +10 energy if they are under 50%, which provides even more essential energy for a bonder.

Blessed sig is an easy interrupt as mentioned, which could possibly be fatal... But hopefully you shouldn't have to use it too much when your in battle, if your team's getting pounded enough, so not all's bad.

I might try something along the lines of this, I've always been a bit skepical about being a bonder in a 1 monk team though ^_^

African War Lord · Feb 16, 2007, 05:31 PM // 17:31

I tried this last night and I'm quite impressed. I've never tried a bonder before this but once I got the hang of it, the build felt quite unstoppable. We got 19 consecs on the second team I tried it with.

You can keep even the most mediocre of players alive. I had this N/R with a bow on my team who for whatever reason, receiving superior heals and taking hardly any damage, insisted on casting only troll unguent the whole match. And the warrior with his constant heal sig.. After about a minute of this and seeing no damage on the other side I left. But you get even a half decent team and your goin places.

I got many comments like: damn monk!! and why can't I hit for more than 10!! it was pretty fun lol. I did use dismiss condition instead of mending touch. It's a solid build good work!!!!@$!

moko · Feb 16, 2007, 07:14 PM // 19:14

probably nice for ra, definately a no for ta.

Quote:

- Blessed Signet is dshot fodder. It is highly visible, extremely slow, and critical to a bonder's energy.
- No cover enchantment for Balt's Spirit, no reliable covers for bonds.
- As a corollary to above, build fails even against light enchantment removal.
- Bonds are only effective against attack damage, and bond+spirit only returns energy against attack damage.
- As a corollary to above, build is over-reliant on particular skill combos for both protting and emgt. The problem is made worse by the fact that most of those skills are easy to interrupt.
- Low overall healing strength.

all valid points right there. id like to add, no hex removal, no condition removal for party members.

i think bonding, especially in ra, is one dedicated build to keeping melee damage down, but when it comes to hexes and degen, you will get owned badly. with other builds, you have a lot more options to counter these - with bonds your already wasting 3 skills.

ah well, just my bonder hate.

<3 [skill]Nature's Renewal[/skill]

oh btw, why arent you using 14 prot 13 divine?:|

Quote:

If you get another monk with this, your almost garaunteed to go 10+ flawless. No joke. Tips for using this monk to maximize effectiveness

i lol'd on a sidenote. if you cant solo monk a 4 man team, the build is a failure. hoping for a second monk is pretty..weak.

Burst Cancel · Feb 16, 2007, 09:21 PM // 21:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by African War Lord

I tried this last night and I'm quite impressed. I've never tried a bonder before this but once I got the hang of it, the build felt quite unstoppable. We got 19 consecs on the second team I tried it with.

You can keep even the most mediocre of players alive. I had this N/R with a bow on my team who for whatever reason, receiving superior heals and taking hardly any damage, insisted on casting only troll unguent the whole match. And the warrior with his constant heal sig.. After about a minute of this and seeing no damage on the other side I left. But you get even a half decent team and your goin places.

I got many comments like: damn monk!! and why can't I hit for more than 10!! it was pretty fun lol. I did use dismiss condition instead of mending touch. It's a solid build good work!!!!@$!

It's a bad idea to judge a build's effectiveness based on its performance against morons. Clearly, nobody on the opposing team actually knew how to play GW.

There is really nothing unstoppable about this build. Any kind of enchantment removal, degen/hex pressure, or interrupts will crush you like an egg in a trash compactor.

African War Lord · Feb 16, 2007, 10:40 PM // 22:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by Burst Cancel

It's a bad idea to judge a build's effectiveness based on its performance against morons. Clearly, nobody on the opposing team actually knew how to play GW.

There is really nothing unstoppable about this build. Any kind of enchantment removal, degen/hex pressure, or interrupts will crush you like an egg in a trash compactor.

It's also stupid to think everyone in RA and TA are morons. Give me some credit geeze. You act like all I faced was teams of wammo's. We survived some scary teams in TA. Duo necro's with reapers and spoil, that wasn't fun. A grenth derv who stripped all my bonds. I still don't know how we won that one.

Anyways, like I said I never bonded before and still managed 19 wins losing only to an overpowered rit spike team on voice chat. Imagine what a good monk could have done.

Burst Cancel · Feb 17, 2007, 02:32 PM // 14:32

My judgment of your opposition is based on the fact that they couldn't beat you while you were running this monk bar. I've already listed all the ways in which it can fail - the weaknesses are non-trivial and easily exploitable.

19 wins doesn't mean anything. There are any number of factors that contribute to a RA/TA win streak that don't have anything to do with the monk. As many people will tell you, it's not uncommon to get win streaks even without a monk on the team. My point being "look, it worked for me" is not a good argument for the effectiveness of any build, especially when your testbed is RA/TA.

African War Lord · Feb 17, 2007, 05:04 PM // 17:04

for me RA/TA is where it's at. I like the arena's so if a build is effective in there I'm happy. I don't care if it would suck in gvg. Anyways I'm off the whole monk thing now, tried it for a couple days, was fun.. moving on.

FoxBat · Feb 17, 2007, 05:19 PM // 17:19

Enchant removal is fairly rare in the crowded skill-bars of RA, you'll only see mesmers packing shatter enchant and that's about it.

I don't particularly see the point of bonding everyone else, monk is often high-priority target, and shield of regen is enough to counter the generally mediocre damage rate of unfocused (all RA, not just idiots) teams. I'll go divine aura just to make those shield of regens and SoA last that much longer. Dismiss condition then makes a good direct heal because your targets will almost always be under enchants (and the condition removal part is handy as well either.) Hexes and edenial are a pain but something based on SoR+divine+enchant mod will generally do better than ZB if minimal enchant removal (RA), you only need to get 5E to get glyph off for 400+ health and armor on two targets (conveniently regening to counter degen.), wheras waiting for everyone to hit the 50% ZB mark at once from dispersed hex pressure may get some people killed.

There's enough reasons to run something more traditional like ZB, but I've found SoR to be a very solid choice against the RA meta, due to rarity of enchantment hate. Bonding just seems overkill though.

Flashy · Feb 18, 2007, 10:21 AM // 10:21

U never faced Oink into TA do you?

They run a 5x KD build with Gaze of Contempt

Something a bonder can't do anything against

Against BoA Sins... Veil only will already work

Age · Feb 18, 2007, 10:37 PM // 22:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by lightblade

Glyph of Lesser Energy = 25 energy equivilent

I know but we are not talking about a Mo/E although it could be.But around Sins and such I would use
[skill]Bonetti's Defense[/skill] or [skill]Shield Bash[/skill] along with [skill]Balanced Stance[/skill]

Evilsod · Feb 19, 2007, 01:37 AM // 01:37

Wouldn't runing Wary Stance be better? It would completely tear an assassins combo apart, works without a shield and more importantly... returns energy. Even Shield Bash can be uneffective since some BoA sins bring along 2 vs hexed foes attacks which would both act as leads.

The problem still remains that you have 0 hex removal and no actual healing. You could be killed with heavy degen easily and some necro builds focus on over degen. If you got a team with a healer though you'd probably be on track for a glad point.

eggs0wn · Feb 19, 2007, 03:03 AM // 03:03

Holy SHIT! I just tested it. This build was awesome. I started in RA. Won 10 consecutive flawless. Went to TA. Won 3 then lost on fourth. All 3 of those were flawless. We had 13 straight flawless victories. One of em was at the map where you keep score, we won 14-0.
My group had:
-two BoA sins
-Warrior w/ Pious Sig+Vital Boon
-Me SOR Bonder

I reccomend this.

EDIT: Oh, I brought Mend Ailment because I don't have the other skill unlocked(Skill #2 on the Op's post)

Arrows[PURE] · Feb 19, 2007, 12:19 PM // 12:19

@EvilSod, I also thought wary stance would be better, iv got enough in tactics for it to last 3 seconds which is enough since BoA assa combo is done in that time and so yes, i think it is better than shield stance because for me, i have to use my pve monk and dont really want to buy a shield for him. There's a 7 second gap in which I cant use it, but i normally only use on demand, it also means i can block 2 BoA sins at once, not just stop 1.

And to the build: Spoil victor/backfire/any other hexes will pwn you

Effendi Westland · Feb 19, 2007, 01:38 PM // 13:38

Some assassins actually use cover hexes o0

This is my favorite in RA: [skill]Expose Defenses[/skill]

Bring me more non-kiting stance using monks ^^