Curse

Zaw · May 20, 2009, 11:35 PM // 23:35

Hey GWG'ers, i am trying to earn my salt at prot, so im starting at AB (as it's a good place to get a basis for general play imo :P). Do any of you have a decent prot build that could be ran succesfully? Can't find one on the wiki, so i turn to you :P.

Thanks guys!
~Zaw

Xyon the Greatest · May 20, 2009, 11:55 PM // 23:55

Zealous Benediction with prot spirit in AB owns.

Celeborn10 · May 20, 2009, 11:58 PM // 23:58

What old men run:

1. Reversal of Fortune
2. Shield of Absorbtion
3. Spirit Bond
4. Guardian
5. Offering of Blood
6. Contemplation of Purity
7. Divine Boon
8. Mending Touch

A Make Haste! Zealous Benediction monk (Mo/P) also works but you might want to try the variations using Return and Dark Escape (Mo/A). Real men use:

Zealous Benediction
Reversal of Fortune
Guardian
Shield of Absorbtion
Distracting Shot (seriously this is really a prot in the right hands)
Holy Veil
Natural Stride
Mending Touch

The reason people like ZB is because it leaves points that you can put into survival skills.

Zaw · May 20, 2009, 11:58 PM // 23:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xyon the Greatest

Zealous Benediction with prot spirit in AB owns.

Prot spirit? hmm, k, i'll try

.

Edit: thank you celebron, trying now.

Celeborn10 · May 21, 2009, 12:04 AM // 00:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zaw

Prot spirit? hmm, k, i'll try

.

Edit: thank you celebron, trying now.

I think Prot Spirit has diminishing returns as your team gets higher health compared to Spirit Bond. If deciding between them, ask your team to ping their health... The results may be painful.

Oh and I've been out of the meta for several months now. If Wastrel's sins are as common as I think they might be, you may want to bring along a signet or make sure you preprot with Guardian before they come into casting range.

An alternative suggested by Moriz would be to cancel-cast a signet and hopefully fake them out. Options for that would be Divine Signet, Signet of Rejuvenation (in a WoH build), or maybe Purge Signet. The downside is that you're effectively shutting yourself down. I'd go with Preprot.

Lux Aeterna · May 21, 2009, 12:35 AM // 00:35

Prot spirit and spirit bond are optional in AB.
Mostly I like spirit bond cause I can go frenzy at the elite ele shrine...

One thing about protting in AB is that you absolutely absolutely have to be able to redbar. Without a dedicated healer monk, a dedicated prot monk simply won't be able to keep your team alive - I've seen this many times with life sheath and the like. Non-healing pure prot builds lead to teamwipes and ignore list additions, SO

Run a Zealous Benediction build.

They're great, often I'm not able to tell the difference between a good ZB protter and a
good WoH. Remember to bring both mend condition and mending touch if you have bar space, as mend condition provides valuable redbarring and mending touch is good for saving yourself from sin spikes.

Zealous benediction
Guardian
Reversal of Fortune
Shielding Hands
Mend Condition
Mending Touch
Holy Veil
Optional

You can substitute dismiss condition for the two condition removals here, or take out reversal/shielding. Obviously there's quite a bit of variation...

Zealous benediction
Guardian
Reversal of Fortune
Shielding Hands
Dismiss condition
Holy Veil
Balanced stance
Shield Bash

^ This is a build from one of the better monks I've had.

You can also go Mo/R and bring natural stride for both IMS (important) and a blocking stance, although it's a bit fail in hex heavy fights, I'm pretty sure that's the version on wiki.

Krill · May 21, 2009, 01:32 AM // 01:32

ZB
RoF
Guardian
Spirit Bond or SoA
Dismiss Condition
Holy Veil
Signet of Pious Restraint
Signet of Mystic Speed

Run around with Holy Veil for your signets, toot toot.

Eliza Deathblade · May 21, 2009, 01:40 AM // 01:40

I like Life Sheath and ZB best, throw in RoF and SB, and some hex removal and you should be fine.

Zaw · May 21, 2009, 03:29 AM // 03:29

Thanks for the feedback guys. Also, do most of you use 1-8 to usse skills or click on them? I click on them, and i am wondering if that is an inferier tactic (i have skill 1 bound to my mouse so i can infuse fast tho)

turbo234 · May 21, 2009, 03:44 AM // 03:44

Using the keyboard is by far the best way.
As for a build I usually use:
[zealous benediction]
[reversal of fortune]
[mend condition]
[mending touch]
[holy veil]
[guardian]
[spirit bond]
[natural stride]

Oh and rebind the keys for the skills. 1-8 is pretty dumb. I use qwer/asdf.

Lux Aeterna · May 21, 2009, 05:47 AM // 05:47

Yes using keyboard is really the only way especially for monking.

Jeydra · May 21, 2009, 06:23 AM // 06:23

I find some of the builds posted here pretty amazing ... I'll post one here, and the breakdown.

Mo/A
14 Protection Prayers, 9 Healing Prayers, 11 Divine Favour, 2 Shadow Arts

Zealous Benediction / Gift of Health / Spirit Bond OR Prot Spirit / Dismiss Condition / Guardian / Remove Hex / Dark Escape / Return

Zealous Benediction: obvious choice because it's the only Protection Prayers skill that heals. There aren't any alternatives unless you start using Divine Favour elites, which tends also to be more fragile (Blessed Light for example is a great skill, but push come to shove it takes a lot more skill to keep your team alive).
Gift of Health: although ZB is the obvious choice, it's also obviously inferior to WoH with longer cooldown, less heals and a crippling drawback if you miss. Gift helps shore up this weakness.
Spirit Bond or Prot Spirit: since you're running 14 Prot, it's natural to take advantage of these two skills. It's largely personal preference which you prefer, as well as team composition somewhat (eg. if your teammate is running Primal Rage, take Prot Spirit).
Dismiss Condition: another redbar skill as well as general condition remover.
Guardian: Spirit Bond / Prot Spirit prots against Elementalist damage while Guardian takes care of physical - an obvious choice too since there aren't any comparitatively good prots.
Remove Hex: AB being AB, you do not engage in protracted fights long. Under these situations you don't really need Holy Veil; if hex overload becomes too much of a problem you turn around and run away. I've always preferred Cure Hex here, but it is a Protection Prayers build ... still with 9 Healing Prayers you can try Cure instead.
Dark Escape: general speedboost, not to mention the most versatile defensive stance in the game that reduces ALL kinds of damage (Backfire / VoR, Elementalist damage, physical damage, everything).
Return: AB emphasizes mobility and this skill is thus absolutely necessary. Repeat, this skill or one of its variants (Death's Retreat for example) is absolutely necessary. If you do not have this skill you can't keep up with good teammates; they will out-teleport you around the map.

I repeat this again: Return, or Death's Retreat, is absolutely necessary on an AB Monk. That's because there are all sorts of walls and obstacles around which you need to teleport. Example - on Etnaran and Grenz, it is possible to shadowstep from the cliff below the Res Orb shrine to the Res Orb shrine. Any competent team leader will exploit this opportunity. If you cannot shadowstep after him, you will be left behind for maybe 10 seconds. Way too long, and severely handicaps your team leader's options, and means you are out of the capping cycle the whole time. On Saltspray, you can shadowstep up and down to the Dragon shrine; on Ancestral and Kaanai, you can shadowstep up and down the bridge (eg. front door to Battlecry shrine). Since Return / Dark Escape / Death's Retreat are also great defensive skills there is no reason to run anything else.

What about ...

Mo/W + Stances? - is slightly more sturdy in prolonged teamfights, but loses the shadowstepping ability that I value so highly. Run it if you want but if your teammates leave you behind, it's your fault of build choice ...
Mo/R + Nat Stride? - Natural Stride is a great defensive stance but also highly vulnerable, eg. you can't prot yourself while in the stance without ending it, your opponents could kill it with a simple Wastrel's Worry if they have it, etc. Still it is a speed boost. If you want to try it I suggest doing it after learning a bit more about Monking in AB (i.e. try Mo/A and Mo/W first).

Wish Swiftdeath · May 21, 2009, 03:02 PM // 15:02

i sometimes bring sprint and shield bash on my AB monk

Um Yeah · May 21, 2009, 07:18 PM // 19:18

[Reversal of Fortune][Gift of Health][Aura of Faith][Protective Spirit][Shield of Absorption][Mend Condition][Mending Touch][Return]

Don't rof people you've AoF'd. SB can be used over PS, but I like PS for the ele shrines and I play with sins+wars who use frenzy. I don't find hex removal too necessary in AB. If you do, run dismiss+veil instead of mend condi+mend touch. Everything else should be self-explanatory. Much less boring/more fun than ZB. Also, don't play with bad people.

Lux Aeterna · May 21, 2009, 11:04 PM // 23:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

Return: AB emphasizes mobility and this skill is thus absolutely necessary.

QFT

Another use of this is shadowstepping out of the middle of a large mob fight.

If you're stuck and need to retreat out of a big mob, you can just warp to a teammate well out of harm's way. The equivalent Mo/W, despite being slightly tougher, would be unable to escape without just teleporting off a mob swamped bridge.