Curse

awry · Oct 13, 2009, 06:49 AM // 06:49

I've got tired of playing meta monk builds and decided to run some of my own monk skill bars with slight variation to the basic woh build. I've found some fun skill combination that in my experience have served me pretty well, especially in random arenas, but could come handy elsehwhere as well. Although they give up the defensive stances of mo/w, they're still pretty versatile and do somethings better than the mo/w can do. Suggestions and counterpoints welcome, trolls and people who go "lol it's not on pvx, fail" are not.

My core monk skills are-[Woh] [Dismiss] [Guardian] [Vigorous spirit] [Patient spirit] [Cure Hex]

Mo/N
Recently i've had much fun going mo/n and doing 6 in curses, giving up 2 pts in divine favor, taking plague send and enfeeble. 18 seconds of weakness for 5 e and 1/4 cast + virtually free condition removal on myself and an ability to gain offensive potential is worth the trade in for stances imo. Makes game quicker and more fun to play, especially with a team that has lackluster offensive capability. Enfeeble is like offensive preprotting that has the advantage of lasting even if the target swaps target. In organized play, it wouldn't be as effective, but in ra, few people call status afflictions and weakness easily gets covered up by the plethora of status effects your teammates do. A hammer war loses much of their danger when they cannot kill you in their kd chains. The 10% health loss of plague send can be dangerous, but when you have deep wound, the tradeoff is very helpful. It is especially helpful against ws spammers and caster sins in the right situation. It is a good energy conservation tool and it wreck havoc on the opponent's monk.

Mo/D
Instead of traditionally using the derv seconary on earth prayers i decided to use one slot for a wind prayers skill. The recently buffed Vow of Piety and the other for Contemplation of Purity. Vow of piety if used right can last the whole match for a very cheap upkeep of a few enchants that in all likely hood would be cast on you anyways. The advantage to this build is the reduction of the threat of elemental damage, physical and hex on yourself. For the most part you need to woh on yourself less because you are less prone to spikes and have a natual mending effect (granted its only +2 but that does help overtime to reduce the impact of conditions and restore health when kiting). You also need to guardian on yourself less when an interrupting ranger is not present and hex stacks become easy to deal with when you can contemplation of purity quickly out of bad situations in a quarter of a second before a cover hex or even if there is a cover hex you can get out with multiple enchants. All of this means that you can guardian your teammates more, save woh for them and only require patient on yourself to regain health and also maintain the stance. The main threat here is the assassin who does bonus dmg and can possibly use wildstrike to render your free +24 bonus and +2 health regen null. The primary appeal of this build is the virtually free passive buff that only needs to be maintained every 20 seconds. It may get annoying remembering to maintain the stance, but the extra armor does have many perks

Fun Builds
Mo/Me

Power Spike+Shame. Yes lol, shame on a monk. This is when i get tired of team members in ra who cannot kill or rupt. So being the kind and generous monk I am will both heal them and help them kill the opposing team monk. When my teammember have vigorous up and I'm comfortably sure that no one will get spiked in the next 2 seconds, i shame their monk when they're low on health. They cast a spell and I only wish I knew the reaction in their head as they check my team thinking what the hell, they don't even have a mesmer on their team. Shame is good that it lasts 6 seconds regardless of attribute investment, my goals is to make them fail on a critical spell. Power spike is there for obvious reasons. I would have preferred dshot, but I didn't want to use a bow. I can't rely on my teammates to interrupt the enemy's rodgort's, stop someone's backfire in ra, or stop the caster sin, so i do it myself :P. When this build works, it's hilarious, sadly it's more for fun that for serious use as I can attest to. Its major flaw is its lack of any counter for melee. Good melee can really tear this build apart, but it always makes me crack up whenever the complacent monk on the other team suddenly gets his woh rupted and dies.

turbo234 · Oct 13, 2009, 08:33 AM // 08:33

less serious but fun to run skills

"none shall pass"
counter blow
dshot(obviously)
grasping earth
gale
slippery ground
augury of death

and my favorite skill to run on my monk

backbreaker. nothing is more satisfying than leaving someone on the ground for 4 seconds thinking did that monk just use bb on me?

Gift3d · Oct 13, 2009, 12:03 PM // 12:03

dshot and natural stride, has got to be the most fun build i've ever played. dshotting vor, diversion, dev hammer, is extremely effective if you can weapon swap right. plus an emergency block stance and speed boost is nice also.

Kaon · Oct 13, 2009, 12:24 PM // 12:24

kinetic armor
armor of earth
stormchaser

I Jonas I · Oct 13, 2009, 02:56 PM // 14:56

bulls strike

/thread

God_Hand · Oct 13, 2009, 03:13 PM // 15:13

Melandru's Resilience, to a certain extent.

Sankt Hallvard · Oct 13, 2009, 03:45 PM // 15:45

Wild blow
12 chars

turbo234 · Oct 13, 2009, 03:49 PM // 15:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gift3d

dshot and natural stride, has got to be the most fun build i've ever played. dshotting vor, diversion, dev hammer, is extremely effective if you can weapon swap right. plus an emergency block stance and speed boost is nice also.

actually, natural stride has been my favorite stance to use. quick recharge, 4-5 second duration and a speed boost to kite.

IronSheik · Oct 13, 2009, 07:54 PM // 19:54

Dshot ftw, can;t top it

deluxe · Oct 13, 2009, 08:06 PM // 20:06

Heart Of Shadow + Return is amazing to get up on walls without anyone being there.

Trenixz · Oct 13, 2009, 08:12 PM // 20:12

I always wanted to run a auspicious parry/riposte build on a monk.

Reverend Dr · Oct 13, 2009, 09:45 PM // 21:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by turbo234

less serious but fun to run skills

"none shall pass"
counter blow
dshot(obviously)
grasping earth
gale
slippery ground
augury of death

and my favorite skill to run on my monk

backbreaker. nothing is more satisfying than leaving someone on the ground for 4 seconds thinking did that monk just use bb on me?

don't forget hammerbash
also
d-chop
whirlwind
gale

turbo234 · Oct 13, 2009, 10:57 PM // 22:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by turbo234

gale

Quote:

Originally Posted by reverend dr

gale

o.o
........

Reverend Dr · Oct 14, 2009, 05:20 AM // 05:20

I think you may be underestimating gale

turbo234 · Oct 14, 2009, 08:34 AM // 08:34

lol no i quoted myself saying gale already in my first post and then quoted you saying it again

Darth The Xx · Oct 15, 2009, 08:43 AM // 08:43

Grasping Earth is pretty funny at times.

Also D-shot as mentioned is pretty awesome.

urania · Oct 15, 2009, 05:09 PM // 17:09

as sankt said, wild blow. bye bye prage/melandrus resilience/lightning reflexes/bonettis/balanced stance/any stance

Osiris_sam · Oct 15, 2009, 05:27 PM // 17:27

i once played a monk who used mirrored stance on me (playing pr warrior)... frenzy = dead monk, hilarious.

i have sometimes played wild throw/spear of redemption or some other spear attack

The Drunkard · Oct 15, 2009, 05:36 PM // 17:36

in RA, I sometimes go /r for antidote sig and nat stride. Nothing is more amusing than when a paragon or ranger dazes me, and I strip it off without any problem.

The only problem with my build is that I loose out on guardian and balanced, which spells certain death.

Cale Roughstar · Oct 15, 2009, 06:05 PM // 18:05

Dshot is the best skill evar.