Curse

SebaZ · Mar 10, 2011, 02:06 AM // 02:06

These days I play a lot of Fort Aspenwood on the kurzick side, since I'm trying to max the title and this gametype allows me to win 90% of my games while playing as a monk. One thing I've noticed while playing here is that barely any other monk knows how to effectively play the map. I've now seen so many clueless monks that I felt the need to write a guide on how to effectively play this map. Hopefully people that enjoy playing the kurzick side will find it helpful.

The skill bar
It's important that you don't just go in with any monk bar. This bar covers everything you need in FA.

Healing breeze: great way to keep npcs alive without constantly spending energy and attention on them.
Protective Sprit: necessary to negate the turtle attack's damage.
Vigorous Spirit: a cheap, long lasting enchantment that is perfect to keep healing breeze and protective spirit from getting stripped by the turtles' attacks.
Word of Healing: you primary healing skill. Try to use it well and make the bonus healing trigger as often as possible.
Patient Spirit: your secondary healing skill. Better than WoH in some cases due to the low casting time. Can be used as a cover for other enchantments when vigorous spirit is not available.
Infuse Health: this is a key skill for last second saves. Also useful when you need to heal a lot and have no time to waste.
Draw Conditions: best way to get heavy degen and deep wounds off of npcs.
Glyph of Lesser Energy: lets you bond someone with breeze+ps for just 5 energy.

Every match is divided in four phases. You will have a specific task for each of these four phases. You may find this way of playing a little repetitive and boring, but if your goal is to win as much as possible I think this is the most effective way of playing.

1st phase
Your objective in this first part of the game is to stall the right turtle and keep the orange gate alive as long as possible.
At the beginning of the game, take the right road and use the teleporter to teleport outside the outer orange gate. If people from your team have followed you (doesn't usually happen), they will most likely attack the mine point. Use healing breeze+protective spirit on the ally that is likely to survive the longest, as the enemies will most likely attack him before they engage the npcs at the gate. After you've done that, or if no ally followed you through the right teleporter at the beginning, take place at the left side of the gate. Place yourself so the turtle attacks will not hit the npcs, but you will be able to heal them quickly if they are attacked.

As enemy players draw close to the gate, use healing breeze and protective spirit on one of the gate npcs, then protect youself with breeze+protective spirit+vigorous spirit. The first turtle attack should come soon after, and strip your vigorous spirit. Recast it so you will be protected from one more turtle attack.
The enemy players should now be attacking the gate npcs. Try keeping the npc you bonded before alive (don't worry if the second one dies, you don't have the resources to keep them both alive and in the end it's not needed) and make sure you always have protective spirit+vigorous spirit on so you won't die from the turtle's attacks.

Now, if the enemy players are only attacking the gate npcs and ignoring you, just make sure you have protective spirit covered by vigorous spirit all the time and spend most of your energy to keep the gate npc alive.
If most of the enemy players are after you, drop a single breeze on the gate npc to keep it alive and use the rest of your energy to keep yourself alive.
If the enemy players split between the gate npc and you, make sure you always have protective spirit covered by vigorous spirit and do you best to keep both you and the npc alive.

Eventually you will die and respawn at your base. If at the time the outer gate npcs are still alive and there is at least one player from your team around them, you can go through the right teleporter again and do some more turtle stalling. If not, take place on the high ground near the orange corridor and begin the second phase.

2nd phase
Here you try to stop the turtle from getting past the inner orange gate. Note that it's not necessary to keep the door from getting breached.
The key to this phase is to keep the ranger npc alive. He will stop the turtle from going deeper into your base. Keep him constantly bonded with protective spirit+healing breeze, and cover the enchantments with vigorous spirit after each turtle attack. Use your energy mainly to keep yourself and the ranger alive. Don't bother healing the assassin npcs as they will go down quickly no matter how much energy you spend on them, and they will often get out of your range. Keeping the inner gate npcs alive is helpful but not required. If you're high on energy you can try keeping both the ranger and a single gate npc alive, but if you're running out of energy just make sure the ranger survives.

3rd phase
This phase starts when one turtle has gotten past one of the inner gates. If you're still in the first phase when the purple inner door gets taken down, go back to your base and start the third phase.
Your objective here is to keep as many npcs alive as possible, especially key npcs. In order to do that, you will need to keep an eye on each and everyone of them. If that sounds difficult to do, try this: every time you heal an npc, check your radar for incoming enemies and then rotate your camera to check the status of all the other npcs. If you remember to do this every time you are finished healing a target, you shouldn't have problems keeping npcs under control.

If multiple npcs are taking damage at the same time (mainly from the turtle attacks' splash damage), try to keep their health at an acceptable level with word of healing and patient spirit.
If multiple npcs are getting attacked by players at the same time, leave some lasting enchantments on the ones under light fire and then focus your attention on the ones that are under heavy fire. Remember that if turtles are around, you will always need to cover healing breeze and protective spirit with vigorous spirit.

The npcs you must try to keep alive are, in order of importance:
- Juggernaut. This one must be the last npc to go down, as it keeps the green gate up and can tank a lot of damage. If you are really bad at multitasking, focus all your attention on the juggernaut.
If for some reason the juggernaut gets taken down early (before most of the other npcs), it could be a good idea to let all the other green gate npcs die and hope someone will repair the gate, making the juggernaut respawn.
Remember that standing near the juggernaut will increase your energy regeneration, although sometimes that will not be the best thing to do.
- Rangers (middle). Of all the static npcs in the middle of your base they can tank the most damage, so keeping them alive takes priority over the elementalist npc and the necromancer npc.
- Necromancer/Elementalist (middle). It's important to keep these alive since they will stop the turtles from advancing further, but considering how frail they are it's best to give priority to the juggernaut and the rangers if you're running out of energy.
- Warriors (right side). They can tank a lot of damage and stall the turtle for quite long, so try to keep them alive. If your juggernaut/middle npcs are under attack, forget the warriors and go heal those instead.

Other npcs that you don't really need to keep alive are:
- Green gate casters. These go down easily and are not required to keep the green gate up. Heal them only if you have energy to waste.
- Assassins (left side). Ignore them, they are not worth wasting energy on.

NEVER waste your energy on a human player (players respawn, most npcs do not), unless:
- he's tanking a turtle
- he's tanking a bunch of enemy players that would otherwise swarm into your base
- keeping him alive is essential in a particular situation (for example, if he's taking down a turtle no one else is paying attention to).
- you really have energy to waste

4th phase
Once the green gate has been breached, your objective will be to keep the main npcs alive.
If some of the middle npcs are still alive and you have other monks on your team, it could be a good idea to try and keep those npcs alive and leave the main npcs to the other monks. This will keep the turtles from getting in range of the main npcs and will give you more chances to win the game.
If all the other npcs are dead, place yourself between the main npcs and the spawning point and try to keep them alive. Healing breeze and protective spirit won't help much in preventing damage, so you will have to work a lot with word of healing and infuse health. Use breeze to keep your life up while you spend most of your energy on the npcs. If you're about to die make sure you spend as much of your energy as you can, because the npcs could die before you get back there.

If the turtles are not around, you shouldn't have many problems keeping the main npcs alive for a few minutes. If the turtles manage to get in range, ask some of your teammates to go tank their attacks, as their damage will make keeping the npcs alive a lot harder.

Other random stuff
Dying is a great way to recharge your energy bar. If someone is targeting you and you think you will be able to get back to the npcs before they get killed, use all your energy on enchantments and then let the enemy kill you.
Remember that when you respawn your last target will still be selected, so just get back in range and you will be ready to heal it.

IronSheik · Mar 10, 2011, 03:34 AM // 03:34

Tl;DR

Don't stand outside on first part..majority of luxons go east, you'll die in seconds, stay inside gates and bond.

Odds of getting a good enchant stripper on luxon is extremely low, run this.

Healing breeze is good in pretty much no form of PvP. Vigorous is a bad cover enchant, the NPCs aren't spamming attacks. Time turtle attacks and use PS as cover enchant, as it ends in 3 seconds and the strip just heals faster.

With the large amount of melees on luxon, SoA should be a staple.

As far as which green gate NPC to prot, I prefer ele

Reasons? Ele has two anti melee skills, and stays mostly stationary, the juggernaut can go completely out of range, and it's always safest to bond behind gate.

Balistic Pve · Mar 10, 2011, 03:50 AM // 03:50

Tl;Dr as well
Just looking at that first screen, makes it kinda pointless.
Staying in range where both the turtle and luxon players can hurt,with little defense/prot will make you die quite a few times.

Nice guide, but can be easily out done.

FallenAngel_ · Mar 10, 2011, 04:20 AM // 04:20

I run aura of faith, soa etc. Aura of faith for damage reduction and massive heal with remove condition. I can keep Gunther alive for a long period of time.

Saborath Gilgalad · Mar 10, 2011, 05:15 AM // 05:15

Yes AoF is fun and is even more effective if you have monk partner.

I also wouldn't run the OPs bar, why would you run prot spirit, heal breeze and infuse?.

Why are you protecting only the orange gate when everyone on the luxons rush purple?

1st phase positioning makes no sense.

The Ranger NPCs are the most important in the base imo since they can keep the turtles at bay. However, simply letting the two Mesmer NPCs die is dumb, their rupts are very useful and I would say the second most important NPC.

The warrior npcs aren't as important compared to the others in the base. The Necro is more important then the ele in the middle.

Healing another player is not a waste; they take away pressure and provide a great distraction for the opposing team. Also the few seconds that it takes for them to rez can be key for the other team to make a push.

I do agree with the position on phase 4 though. The orange gate keeper is also expendable.

wilson · Mar 10, 2011, 07:21 AM // 07:21

As has been stated before, hiding behind the gate is the far better option. Sadly, a majority of Luxon players will not attack the Monk protting the NPCs when he's hiding behind the gate.

I wish there was DP in FA.

Elnino · Mar 10, 2011, 08:19 AM // 08:19

Some constructive criticism: that build is extremely weak and your phase 1 is just asking for the outer gate to fall. The build lacks defense and adequate energy management. If you were standing on the other side of the orange, maybe, but in this case, when you're standing outside, you'll be worrying about healing yourself too. Also, if your plan is to stall the orange turtle, why not just stand behind the orange gate and heal the npc which subsequently, will also stall the turtle? Less strain on your energy imo.

Quote:

Originally Posted by IronSheik

Time turtle attacks and use PS as cover enchant, as it ends in 3 seconds and the strip just heals faster.

If you're talking about Patient Spirit, it doesn't heal when stripped.

Aeronwen · Mar 10, 2011, 09:18 AM // 09:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by SebaZ

These days I play a lot of Fort Aspenwood on the kurzick side, since I'm trying to max the title and this gametype allows me to win 90% of my games while playing as a monk. One thing I've noticed while playing here is that barely any other monk knows how to effectively play the map. I've now seen so many clueless monks that I felt the need to write a guide on how to effectively play this map. Hopefully people that enjoy playing the kurzick side will find it helpful.

Nice idea Sebaz,

and on the whole a useful addition for all the healers (not necessarily monks) you see in FA who ignore the npcs and heal the players.

Everyone has their own strtegy for FA and it is useful to know what they are.

I would always stand behind the gate to heal the relevant npc's as most Lux are stupid and will go for the monk.

For those Kurz that get annoyed I don't heal them - notice that its random teams, you are not guaranteed a monk, bring a build that allows you to take care of yourself and leave me to keep the npcs alive.

For other monks, if we are either side of the green gate and I am letting myself die - it is because I judge that the few secs out is worth a full energy bar - unless you can keep me and npcs alive don't heal me ^^

SebaZ · Mar 10, 2011, 10:12 AM // 10:12

wow, I'm surprised so many people think the build is worthless (I stated that I win 90% of my games with this, didn't I?). Actually, thinking about how bad most of the monk on FA are, I think I get it now. There's not much that can be done about that.

All I'll say is, if you're playing the map just to farm points as fast as possible, try the build out exactly as it is doing exactly what I've described. See if it works as well for you as it does for me.

Quote:

Originally Posted by urania

srs tactics in srs "pvp" mode are serious.

Losing too many games would be a serious waste of my time, so yeah, I take every gametype I play seriously.

IronSheik · Mar 10, 2011, 02:32 PM // 14:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Elnino

If you're talking about Patient Spirit, it doesn't heal when stripped.

You are correct, I missed October-January on updates, I would eliminate PS entirely then.

Killed u man · Mar 10, 2011, 02:35 PM // 14:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by SebaZ

wow, I'm surprised so many people think the build is worthless (I stated that I win 90% of my games with this, didn't I?). Actually, thinking about how bad most of the monk on FA are, I think I get it now. There's not much that can be done about that.

All I'll say is, if you're playing the map just to farm points as fast as possible, try the build out exactly as it is doing exactly what I've described. See if it works as well for you as it does for me.

Losing too many games would be a serious waste of my time, so yeah, I take every gametype I play seriously.

Alot of people on guru are alot less "educated" in Guild Wars matters than let's say 4 years ago. You can throw a good build at them, and they'dd massively troll and ridicule you for not running wiki bars/tactics.

On your actual post:

Any bar works. Saying you win 90% of the time isn't proof you or your bar is good, but rather that you have a better team-setup than the luxon. Note here that I say better, but in reality FA is heavily favored towards Kurzicks due to the numerous turtle glitches and shit AI, aswell as the redicilous strength of skills such as Shielding Hands and SoA which on their own can win you a game given right usage and situation.

Your bar in particular is a nice overal bar which can be used in more than one ways, unlike the Air of Enchantment bar, but it's more a question of what your team needs. Truth is that atleast 6/8 of the players on your side will be clueless (Cough, read my Low-End PvP thread for further detail) and they will die regardless. They have no clue what they're doing, and as such aren't really valuable to keep alive.

The times you have that valuable player that's linebacking like mad, or shutting down a lot of damage is really rare, and thus you're really better off focussing on keeping NPCs alive.

So altough a gimmick, I'dd have to say that the Air of Enchantment bar does a better job at winning Kurzick side for the reason that Turtle AI is so bad they barely ever even reach the Green gate and actuall nuke the gate rather than random people behind them. Shielding and SoA will be able to keep any NPC alive for atleast 5 mins, regardless of enchantstrips or whatever. They simply recharge too fast, and you have enough fail safe (Prot spirit) to deal with unforseen conditions (Big enchant strip).

Whenever I play luxon side and there's a WoH monk, random damage is usually enough to completely overrun the teams forcing a Green gate push which only results in the Air of Enchantment bar severely outplaying the WoH bar.

So in short:

It's not a question of having the "best" bar, it's a question of having the bar that'll be most usefull in the majority of the cases. WoH is too all-round to be effective in the "keep a single NPC alive and win"-playstyle that FA is for Kurzicks, and thus the Air of Enchantment bar ultimately will take the upperhand.

urania · Mar 10, 2011, 04:41 PM // 16:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by SebaZ

Losing too many games would be a serious waste of my time, so yeah, I take every gametype I play seriously.

if i were you id rather go back on that statement. for your own good.

and no, this is by no means a threat of any sort.

Reverend Dr · Mar 10, 2011, 07:52 PM // 19:52

The only redeeming quality of FA/JQ is that you can deliberately play less effective gimmick bars with less effective tactics and still win.

Mercury Angel · Mar 13, 2011, 01:14 AM // 01:14

Honestly, as long as you have all of your bases covered, it doesn't really matter what you bring. You need a way to manage large packet damage (only Protective Spirit suffices), small packet damage (Shielding Hands, Shield of Absorption, Healing Seed, and Healing Hands can all do the job), a cover enchantment, and an efficient source of healing.

There are more and less optimal builds that tend to perform better according to the team compositions (and some are just plain sub-optimal), but as long as you've got the four core components stapled to your bar you should always have an absurdly high win rate. Assuming you're not rolling your face on your keyboard, anyway.

Elnino · Mar 13, 2011, 07:41 AM // 07:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mercury Angel

only Protective Spirit suffices

No, protective spirit is not the only skill that can handle large packet damage. It also depends on what type of large packet damage you're dealing with. If it's the siege turtle attack, even a well timed Word of Healing can suffice and it hurts less on your energy. If the large packet damage is from, lets say, fire ele nukes, Shield of Absorption is godly against them. It beats Prot Spirit easily.

pinkeyflower · Mar 13, 2011, 08:29 AM // 08:29

Monking in FA is just standing behind the gates and if you're running AoE mindlessly spamming enchants on NPCs. But if you want to max kurz why don't you just MTSC? More efficient and just as boring as playing FA. Or play JQ for faster games.

Mercury Angel · Mar 13, 2011, 08:30 PM // 20:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by Elnino

No, protective spirit is not the only skill that can handle large packet damage. It also depends on what type of large packet damage you're dealing with. If it's the siege turtle attack, even a well timed Word of Healing can suffice and it hurts less on your energy. If the large packet damage is from, lets say, fire ele nukes, Shield of Absorption is godly against them. It beats Prot Spirit easily.

Shield of Absorption cycles in 11 seconds, takes 2 seconds to cast and cover, and only provides massive single packet damage reduction towards the end of its life span. It's insane in the format, but it does not fill the same role as Protective Spirit.

Word of Healing is never damage mitigation, which should go without saying. If you're in a situation where Protective Spirit is not going to be needed, don't cast it at that time.

Moonstalker · Mar 14, 2011, 05:23 AM // 05:23

I win 90% of my FA with a WoH bar and the only 2 prot skills are Mending Touch and Draw Conditions. And no e-management on my bar.

Cool guide. I didn't read it, but cool. If you're monking and you know what you're doing, it comes down to what bar you're most comfortable with and best running.

makosi · Mar 14, 2011, 01:47 PM // 13:47

Don't run an Air of Enchantment spammer.

Even though you think you're safe behind a gate, a Luxon caster can solo you since all you can do is use Reversal of Fortune or Patient Spirit on yourself. This will causes you to burn your energy, since AoEnchantment cannot self target, and you probably won't survive long or your NPCs will be slain and you panic about staying alive.

The turtles' attack also removes enchantment which might take your Air of Enchantment or Paitent Spirit off.

I recommend staying with your team and helping them to run amber because repairing gates (or accelerating Gods' Vengeance) and stalling the Luxons is a better tactic than standing alone while your team is being killed.

A Word of Healing spammer is a much greater nuisance to the Luxons whilst being more versatile and sustainable because you can swap targets without being completely drained and, where Air of Enchantment is strong at Gunter, WoH can prevent Luxons getting there in the first place.

IronSheik · Mar 14, 2011, 03:28 PM // 15:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by makosi

Don't run an Air of Enchantment spammer.

Even though you think you're safe behind a gate, a Luxon caster can solo you since all you can do is use Reversal of Fortune or Patient Spirit on yourself. This will causes you to burn your energy, since AoEnchantment cannot self target, and you probably won't survive long or your NPCs will be slain and you panic about staying alive.

The turtles' attack also removes enchantment which might take your Air of Enchantment or Paitent Spirit off.

A Word of Healing spammer is a much greater nuisance to the Luxons.

A luxon caster can solo you...okay...but find me one that actually targets you.

If anything is a nuisance to luxons it is a good bonder.

A turtle can remove enchantments yeah..but if you let a turtle remove your most important enchantments you don't know what you're doing and should be running a WoH.