Curse

Effigy · Dec 30, 2006, 10:32 PM // 22:32

Good point. Distracting does have the speed advantage. The thing I don't like about it is that it's only good for interrupting skills that already have a considerable recharge. If you interrupt a 5e spam skill with Distracting, both teams end up with the same energy cost and you've only cost the opponent a second or two.

The normal swing speed on Disrupting means you have to predict more, but the overall effect is greater. Disabling SoA or BSurge for an extra 20sec is enough to make Disrupting Chop attractive, at least to me. Then again, the speed and adrenaline cost means it might not be there when you want it.

Thomas.knbk · Dec 30, 2006, 11:04 PM // 23:04

Assuming you mean Shield of Absorbtion with SoA, that's going to be very hard. You'd have to be really lucky to interrupt a 1/4sec cast with an axe attack. Same goes for Bsurge to a lesser extend, and for A LOT of other skills (basically anything with cast time 1 or less). It's attractive to interrupt an Aegis or Heal Party with it, but anything else is coming down to dumb luck.

Effigy · Dec 30, 2006, 11:19 PM // 23:19

That's what I mean about predicting. If you know enemy is spamming a skill on recharge, there's a good chance you can catch it by firing off Disrupting a shortly before it recharges. Not always easy and it does involve some luck, but the effect can be devastating. Frenzy will also decreases the swing speed, which is nice.

Distracting is less risky, true. I just prefer a disabling skill to a simple interrupt in most situations. And then there's the energy management problems I mentioned before--assuming you spike with Shock/Frenzy/Crit, that's 15e right there plus exhaustion. You'd have to be using Distracting Blow sparingly when your max energy will be hovering around ~15-20. Even if Distracting were the better skill, Disrupting is a more usable skill on a Shock Axe.

I didn't mean to imply that Disrupting Chop was strictly a better skill choice, if that's how I came across. I was just making a suggestion.

stueyman2099 · Dec 31, 2006, 11:01 AM // 11:01

The choice between disrupting chop and distracting blow should really be made by the warrior playing it IMO. If you are good enough to use that skill such that you get consistent interupts with it (difficult but not impossible) run it. 99% of players will probably need to stick to distracting blow though.

n44b · Jan 01, 2007, 03:57 AM // 03:57

Reading your original post makes it obvious that you dont play TA that often

JR · Jan 01, 2007, 04:00 AM // 04:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by n44b

Reading your original post makes it obvious that you dont play TA that often

Would you like to expand on that?

I mean really... I don't play TA that often - but you imply that there is a significant gap in my knowledge.

Zui · Jan 01, 2007, 08:34 PM // 20:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by n44b

Reading your original post makes it obvious that you dont play TA that often

Hi, I play Team Areans all the time. Who are you?

Second, I read the first post again. Then read it again to make sure I wasn't missing anything. There is really nothing that implies that JR doesn't play Team Areans much in that post. There is also nothing to suggest that he has somehow created a flawed build because he doesn't have any knowlege of the Team Arenas metagame. In fact, it's a pretty good build.

Legendary Shiz · Jan 01, 2007, 08:43 PM // 20:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thomas.knbk

I dunno, maybe Shatter? Or do you think you need Shame AND Diversion to shut a monk down during a spike?
edit: I misread wastrel's skill description. I thought it was +7dmg for each equipped skill, not spell. This makes it a lot less nice.
Just leave the mesmer as it is lol

Wastrels is a good after spike, however taking shatter out is laughable. I see you retracted your statement, just wanted to point out how horrible of an idea it would have been. Sidenote: Just to let you know how genious the mesmer build is, I already had the beast rolled before I read this thread

This is a pretty fun build to run, however the one I ran had ob flame on the emo and Sandstorm as it's elite.

On your monk bar, I see you've done this on purpose. I'm curious as to why you'd have two condition removals but no prot spirit? IMO drop them both, and bring dismiss conditions and prot spirit.

BTW you're one of the few monks I've seen love so hard on devotion sig.

JR · Jan 01, 2007, 08:47 PM // 20:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Legendary Shiz

BTW you're one of the few monks I've seen love so hard on devotion sig.

Nobody will ever take my Sig Devo away.

- Also, I dropped YAA for Blessed Light. Having tested this more extensively in TA there were just so many Thumpers that it was near enough pointless.

holden · Jan 02, 2007, 02:37 PM // 14:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by JR-

Nobody will ever take my Sig Devo away.

- Also, I dropped YAA for Blessed Light. Having tested this more extensively in TA there were just so many Thumpers that it was near enough pointless.

it's true. but in RA, yes yes i know i know but we must go in sometimes, YAA on the monk rules supreme.

but do you take Blessed Light because you want it or because you want Sig of Devotion?

n44b · Jan 02, 2007, 02:54 PM // 14:54

No offence but using a warrior in team arena isn't so impressive anymore, simply because of frenzy abuse and the pressure that a warrior can create(if you compare it with thumper) while being shutdown by anti w. I myself never found it hard beating balanced/good teams using W in their builds. Offcourse I see the obvious idea of the use of this perticular warrior because of the spike, altho I think this spike wont work vs decent teams.

bashar pvp · Jan 02, 2007, 03:07 PM // 15:07

I prefer your monk now

But it still do not understand why you don't go for zb, which really shines in arena. Bl is ok, but you can roughly take any other elite you want, and a big free heal may be priceless in arena.

Oh, and i'd drop mending touch, because your emo got a draw, and i'd take hex breaker instead, it needs no points in domination, and it helps a lot (there are so many shutdowns in ta...).

And last, i must say, i agree: <3 sig of devo

TheOneMephisto · Jan 02, 2007, 06:01 PM // 18:01

But if he takes ZB he won't have enough points for sig of devo to be worth it, and of course juniordash can't run a monk without devo sig, because then the world would end.

bashar pvp · Jan 02, 2007, 06:15 PM // 18:15

Why would you max prot, if there's only zb that needs high spec in prot? 12 prot gives a 150zb+df, and allows you to bring both devo and gift.

holden · Jan 02, 2007, 08:55 PM // 20:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by bashar pvp

Why would you max prot, if there's only zb that needs high spec in prot? 12 prot gives a 150zb+df, and allows you to bring both devo and gift.

but it wont allow you to get Divine to 14. not without loss of life.

anything less than 14 divine and sig of dev isn't worth it imo. and he wanted to keep healing at 11 for the nice gift of health.

Agyar · Jan 05, 2007, 07:00 AM // 07:00

Looks pretty solid now, I know I've seen the essence of this type of spike used in TA before (the mes/ele combo at least, I can remember one time where the warrior was substituted in favour of another mesmer, running Mind Shock). Having the ele and mes is great, as you can get the extra goodies running a B-surge mes (as opposed to having one ele running b-surge and support skills as in the standard dual-thump/spear styled teams.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JR-

Nobody will ever take my Sig Devo away.

- Also, I dropped YAA for Blessed Light. Having tested this more extensively in TA there were just so many Thumpers that it was near enough pointless.

Sig of Devo is nice (edit: should say, the combination of sig of devo and gift of health, since that's the real package), I had a hard time letting it go in favour of a ZB build a while back now. And dealing with thumpers is probably the number one priority for every TA build these days, so no surprises there =P.

Thomas.knbk · Jan 05, 2007, 10:28 AM // 10:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheOneMephisto

But if he takes ZB he won't have enough points for sig of devo to be worth it, and of course juniordash can't run a monk without devo sig, because then the world would end.

I really have to suggest dropping SoD *gasp* when running ZB. ZB actually IS SoD, exept better. (1c, 4r heals for 150). My ZB bar would look like the one that's in the build, exept ZB for BL (duh), Divine and Prot atts switched, and probably secondary skills instead of mending touch and signet of devotion, with 5 or 6 in shadow/tactics. 14 prot is also nice for the 8 sec (!) Shield of Absorbtion you get. (20% enchant) I mean, 8 sec SoA=hax
And Shiz, yeah dropping shatter was a stupid suggestion.

moko · Jan 07, 2007, 06:02 PM // 18:02

changes i'd make;

turn your monk into divert. emos convert isnt enough to beat hexway. blight is fairly useless. zb is useless on a GOOD monk. b id run draw on the monk, no touch tho. Mo/D with cop should take care of any dazed. <3 also kick soa and take PS, soa wont really help much in wards, will it? (divert, gift, rof, devotion, draw, cop, prot spirit, vital boon)

mes is fine i think xD

kick convert and draw on the ele, add a damage skill and purge conditions in case your monk drew dazed without having ps or vital boon on and cant cop it off.

war is fine as well.

just my thoughts of playing ta daily. both would work i guess, its just that this is still very vulnerable to hexes when it shouldnt be a big deal with the right monk build.

and yes, when your using zb, you kick signet of devotion, gof as well, zb will be your only heal you really need. :S if not you suck at using your protection skills.

bashar pvp · Jan 07, 2007, 06:12 PM // 18:12

Quote:

when your using zb, you kick signet of devotion, gof as well, zb will be your only heal you really need. :S if not you suck at using your protection skills.

And playing ta daily, you never met any sig of humility, or diversion, or anything? Obviously, zb is not enough :/

Quote:

zb is useless on a GOOD monk.

Nonsense...

moko · Jan 07, 2007, 07:20 PM // 19:20

yes ive met signet of humility and it screwed me over, but that is why its called team arenas, your team brings interrupts against it and hardly any team runs two sig of humilities so its easy to take care of.

and yes, a good monk doesnt really need zb. theres actually someone who solo monks TA without gift. his only actual heal devotion and he does a fine job.

and uh, i play monk daily as well in ta, im doing a pretty fine job without it, and i found myself using it less and less when i used it. so yes, a good monk doesnt need it in 4 vs 4, and its coming from a HUUUUUGE zb fan.