Curse

moriz · Aug 15, 2006, 02:12 AM // 02:12

variants on the boon prot and BL monks:

GoH Boon Prot

div = 11+4
prot = 8+1
heal = 8+1
ins = 9

revealed hex
protective spirit/spirit bond
reversal of fortune
gift of health
mend condition
contemplation of purity
mantra of recall {e}
divine boon

this variant gives a huge healing punch, at the cost of the free healing from sig of devotion. however, the presence of GoH allows this build to run decently well with divine boon turned off, which gives you better e-management than the standard boon prot, as well as a faster, harder heal. when you're low on energy, turn off divine boon and heal by cycling GoF and RoF. you'll need to heal sooner, since you won't heal for as much. your natural regeneration and MoR will bring your energy up in no time. use protective spirit/spirit bond on heavily pressured/spiked target.

BL monk

div = 11+4
prot = 8+1
heal = 10+1
shadow = 6

signet of devotion
blessed light {e}
reversal of fortune
gift of health
mend condition
protective spirit/spirit bond
return
dark escape

this is pretty similar to a build posted here by Wasteland. however, the stat relocations makes this one more efficient. GoH will heal for 114 health with 11 healing, which makes it almost the same as BL (115 health at 15 divine favour). i prefer mend condition because removing conditions using a 10 energy spell to remove conditions is extremely inefficient. use BL sparingly, and use sig of devotion to top off health bars. you'll almost never run into energy issues if used correctly. if you're being attacked, use return on an ally to spread cripple and get away. if they presist, use dark escape to run and reduce their damage to half. this build doesn't heal for nearly as much as a boon prot, but its mobility and adaptibility makes it very worthwhile.

yesitsrob · Aug 15, 2006, 07:33 AM // 07:33

Quote:

BL monk

div = 11+4
prot = 8+1
heal = 10+1
shadow = 6

signet of devotion
blessed light {e}
reversal of fortune
gift of health
mend condition
protective spirit/spirit bond
return
dark escape

I've personally fallen in love with monk builds similar to this. In randoms though I find a few problems with it. With it having no energy management, you've got to hope that your team isn't completely awful. As soon as the eviscerate warrior on the enemy team discovers your tanking mesmer who just refuses to kite he's going to drain your energy dry, especially when you're really going to struggle to fit the likes of guardian on your bar. I just think that to play a monk without energy management in randoms with the not so high standard players that play there is a big risk

Sacho · Aug 15, 2006, 08:10 AM // 08:10

In general, Protective Spirit/Spirit Bond is not very effective in RA. Instead, you should bring an emanagement skill. By the way, that build does have e-management - sig of devotion.

I personally think you could replace dark escape with guardian. That way "that tanking mesmer" with guardian on will still be able to tank some. With the reduced cost on guardian and rof you can basically spam these, showing the truly awesome power of protection prayers. Just try dropping some healing points(and shadow? You don't even need return, you could always use another e-management or distortion or whatever), and put them into protection. Warriors will simply enjoy beating on a target with 40% block and trying to outdamage ImbaFortune spam. Did I mention assasins will hate you?

Imo, relying on purely blessed light for hex removal is a weak point in a build. Holy Veil gives you a HUGE(HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGEEEEEEEE) amount of flexibility, it simply owns alot of shutdown combos that would otherwise put your solo monk behind out of business. It also provides a small amount of healing, is an extra enchantment(for whatever purposes), and more, and more! You will often find yourself disabled badly that you need to cast blessed light on yourself, only to find out that people like interrupting 1s cast spells when you're under hex pressure

In short, Holy Veil is awesome and any solo monk facing hexes should have it.

yesitsrob · Aug 15, 2006, 09:34 AM // 09:34

When you talk about dropping return and dark escape then we're getting to the stage when we are referring to completely different kind of monk builds though. it's the dark escape and return which make the build somewhat entertaining to run in random arenas.

Even with guardian, with someone who won't kite you still have to dedicate so much to him. the fact you pretty much have to spam guardian on someone like that means you're not doing other things you'd prefer to be doing.... removing hexes for one, or ultimately, keeping yourself alive.

While I agree that prot spirit and spirit bond aren't great in arenas I think without it hammer warriors may cause a problem, you can have dark escape to fall back on. But the only skill you'll get off in the middle of their chains is an unbooned reversal, which may or may not be enough to save you, or a return, now having never tried to get a return off, i'm pretty sure that the swing they started even if you warped away will still connect so maybe this isn't a great option.

The Mo/A build also doesn't fair that well against e-denial, yes the build has energy management. but it's in the form of gift of health (150 w/divine favor heal for 5 energy is energy management imo) and signet of devotion. But none of these e management skills are going to allow you to get energy to maybe cast a needed blessed light maybe.

And I also like to run veil on Mo/A, as always with monks the problem is what can you afford to drop for it :S. I've not actually used /A secondary outside of team and random arenas, but I've always found hex breaker to be so so good on blight monks too

Sacho · Aug 15, 2006, 01:24 PM // 13:24

What I meant is, Dark escape can be replicated by Guardian. You can't afford to not cast spells for long enough to run away from your chaser. Also, precasting guardian before a hammer warrior can unleash their combo will save you many times.

About return, while it may be an interesting choice, it closes up the mesmer powered energy management, which complements monks so well. Considering TA fights are usually packed close, it wouldn't take your chaser long to get to you again anyway.

I don't know why you would spam guardian. After all, it lasts 5(or was it 6?) seconds...

ease · Aug 15, 2006, 01:43 PM // 13:43

Sacho said "What I meant is, Dark escape can be replicated by Guardian. You can't afford to not cast spells for long enough to run away from your chaser. Also, precasting guardian before a hammer warrior can unleash their combo will save you many times."

Precasting guardian with hammer warrior bearing down on you is a very bad idea. Hammer wars usually have irresistible blow which pwns guardian(you get knocked down). So dark escape or return is a viable choice here. But the best choice as always is to watch the playfield and prekite before you get smashed.