Curse

jrmunch · Dec 30, 2010, 02:38 AM // 02:38

When on a hydrid arena monk bar, does dwayna's kiss replace double hex removal, or is it in addition to?

Fate Crusher · Dec 30, 2010, 04:38 AM // 04:38

Q&A or what? This is too generalised. A "hybrid" monk bar encompasses lots of elites. And lots of players will choose to use what they think is best for A. Their playing style and B. What they think they will be fighting against (faceroll metas or choo choo trains).

Personally, why would you consider another healing skill that has no versatility and relies on MORE pressure for it to be effective?

Patient and WoH, coupled with VS heals for more than enough. It's also smart to bring guardian again. Many sins have learnt that they can afford to lineback for a while. Also the best pressure against double stance monks is to drain their energy from pressuring all except the monk. Means they can't prot others and you drain their energy without giving him a chance for bonnetti's. Hence my choice for Guardian. Therefore I only bring veil. And if you're strong enough, that's all the hex removal you'll need.

But I guess I'm not reading your extremely generalised question. If you're talking about a PnH bar, then yes you defenitely will only keep veil or even drop that if you're pro with PnH, an take Dwaynas because it's your only viable non-elite healing skill.

Again, why bother? WoH reins supreme in 4v4.

Sirius Bsns · Dec 30, 2010, 05:17 AM // 05:17

There is no one build to rule them all. Hex removal gets rid of nasty hexes like Empathy, Insidious/Faintheartedness, and Backfire. Those are the only real hexes to worry about, because everything else is either negligible, or one you just have to wait out [i.e.: Shame, Diversion, etc.]. Veil can help make Diversion and Shame take longer to cast, but can be interrupted or removed. And since it's not 1/4 cast, it's rupt-fodder to extremely good [or rupt-bottery] rangers and mesmers.

Dwayna's Kiss vs. Cure/Veil/Spotless: I think removing hexes is better than healing through them. That, and you can't use Dwayna's Kiss on yourself, but you can use Veil and Cure Hex on yourself. Spotless removes up to 3 hexes on your melee, also. This can benefit them to the utmost!

jrmunch · Dec 30, 2010, 10:34 AM // 10:34

Sorry, that was a general question. I suppose I was really asking if it is better to heal through hexes or remove them. Thanks!

kedde · Dec 30, 2010, 03:06 PM // 15:06

Kiss gives decent heals, but the reason hexes are there are not only to deal damage. They're there too because of hindering effects, ie. Faintheartedness, Migraine etc.
Healing through those is pointless if it means your team still can't do shit.

Corporeal Ghost · Jan 01, 2011, 10:56 PM // 22:56

There isn't anything really wrong with Dwayna's Kiss. Of course it's low on utility; it's just a bar push skill, which you need some minimum amount of to keep people alive against certain teams/templates. The "problem" with Dwayna's is that just to break even with Patient Spirit on single targets, you need two hexes or enchantments, so you might as well bring Patient which is a good deal less work to set up (and has a little added utility in the form of a cover enchantment if you're fast).

A skill that heals for more when you're under pressure seems like exactly when you want a skill that heals for more.

There are hexes you want to heal through, hexes you want to remove, and hexes that don't actually matter. Those you heal through are generally the "damage" variety, like Backfire, Empathy, or Conjure Phantasm. Those you need to remove are the ones that keep your team from winning, like Faintheartedness, snares, and Empathy on a non-hammer. The ones you can ignore are the cover trash, which no one really runs anymore, like Parasitic Bond, as well as stuff that's designed to work against things your team doesn't have, IE Faintheartedness when you don't have physicals.

There are some situations where they have enough "damage" hexes that you're actually going to start taking deaths before you wipe them. You need to make some choices here. I find I still want to be removing their defense most of the time. We can take a few deaths and still win as long as the deaths are the right people (ideally our monk so he has full energy again) and well-timed. Some people like to hunker down and try to outlast them here, but I'm not really a fan of that strategically.

It's pretty rare that I don't want dual hex removal in a 4v4 setting. It's generally only when I have an interrupt or an elite removal. Veil is the best of the non-elite removals, but it's not enough alone, no matter how good you are with it. I used to run Veil/Spotless. I'm also partial to Purge Signet, but if you run that, Veil is going to do all of your heavy lifting and you need to be able to cancel like a boss against Ranger/hex teams. I think Karla was running Veil/Deny when she last played, and she's possibly the best Veil I've ever played with. I think Deny is probably the best at actually removing hexes, but it requires you to bring a third skill to power it, so I kind of look at it as 2 skills, in which case I think it loses to both Purge and Spotless. (Spotless needs a cover enchantment, but you should have one anyway.)

urania · Jan 02, 2011, 01:07 AM // 01:07

i stopped veiling months ago because of the sheer stupidity of ra (i use cop now) and that is where my veiling "art" died. sniff.

Reverend Dr · Jan 02, 2011, 08:23 PM // 20:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fate Crusher

Personally, why would you consider another healing skill that has no versatility and relies on MORE pressure for it to be effective?

Exactly that reason. Its effectiveness scales with the pressure. As far as versatility goes, all healing skills just push bars, none of them are versatile.

But its arenas. What is most effective (in this case, but also in general) varies greatly upon your random team composition, your random opponent composition, and whatever is being run at that time of the day. For the most part, you are gong to have to figure out what you prefer.

Sankt Hallvard · Jan 02, 2011, 08:28 PM // 20:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by urania

i stopped veiling months ago because of the sheer stupidity of ra (i use cop now) and that is where my veiling "art" died. sniff.

Why would RA stupidity make veil a worse choice?

kedde · Jan 02, 2011, 09:22 PM // 21:22

When the rest of your team utterly fails at taking any sort of advantage that good play with veil gives them, then it most certainly has an effect on the choice.
That much should be pretty damn obvious.

Sankt Hallvard · Jan 02, 2011, 10:44 PM // 22:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by kedde

When the rest of your team utterly fails at taking any sort of advantage that good play with veil gives them, then it most certainly has an effect on the choice.
That much should be pretty damn obvious.

Ah my personal fanboy comes to have a bite at me again.

Even if veil gets more effective the better your teammates are it does not mean veil can't be better than its alternatives still. You can still remove the right hexes off other targets more easily and get a head start in the hex-race.

And it's not THAT far fetched to assume you get someone with an interrupt on his bar that might appreciate a veil.

kedde · Jan 03, 2011, 04:38 PM // 16:38

I have zero idea who you are, both on this forum and in game, I believe this is mutual.

It isn't a matter of speccing what will make a good(enough) team slightly better, it's about going for the lowest denominator in a game mode revolving around the lowest denominator. It's a pretty simple concept which has been mentioned in this game since the beginning. You don't want to make your easy matches easier, what you want is to improve your chances in tough matches.
Therefore, bringing what is more effective in cases where you need it more is in theory the best choice.

Random being what it is means theories and statistics will always be proven faulty once in a blue moon, but noone gives a shit about that.

Corporeal Ghost · Jan 04, 2011, 01:48 AM // 01:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by kedde

It isn't a matter of speccing what will make a good(enough) team slightly better, it's about going for the lowest denominator in a game mode revolving around the lowest denominator.

Don't forget to temper this by removing all of the teams you won't stay with from the equation.

I also find this (correct) philosophy at odds with the popular monk bars in RA. Most of them are structured for maximum survivability with as little support for the rest of the team as possible. It seems like the low quality of your teammates should make you want to run even more utility, provided you can stay alive for a reasonable amount of time. It's much more important, for example, to be able to Draw a mediocre warrior who doesn't have a prayer of shutting down a BSurge-on-recharge than to Draw one who will have it DChopped inside of a minute. "He's not going to score a kill anyway" doesn't really work here; all you're doing is prolonging your loss if that's true.

urania · Jan 04, 2011, 06:53 AM // 06:53

mediocre warriors rarely let you make 25 wins. unless you're lucky enough with team match ups and have 2 more that are good enough to carry them.

another reason i decided to drop veil (apart from the fact i just killed my e regen for no real benefit or major advantage) was also because i wanted self cond removal, and cop is just the best choice for that (a shame patient+cop combo was nerfed thou). but i prefer to run ff curse nec instead of a mo now anyway - it lets you control a match far more than a monk does.

The Baphomet · Jan 08, 2011, 09:04 PM // 21:04

Dwayna's Kiss should not be used in 4v4. It is viable in HA because you have a full prot contributing to your +heal bonus, there are often hexes, and there are not many other heals that give you such a strong bar pusher.

In 4v4, a decent ranger will dshot it (unlike patient) and, patient typically heals as much or more because stuff needs to be enchantment stacked for dwaynas to have a strong effect. That costs energy and you can't just assume you will get 2 elementalists and a dervish on your team.

And no, healing does not replace hex removal ever; see kedde's post