Curse

Byron · Jul 31, 2006, 07:44 AM // 07:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by Katina

this useless thread.

I am offended. (lol)

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going from interupt mesmer to infuser usually results in great infusing,

It works the other way round, as well. I've been monking and meleeing my whole Guild Wars career, and have only recently been getting into the art of the mesmer. Playing mesmer is nothing short of outstanding, and I've found the guild wars metagame largely underestimates the power of mesmer hate. To put that mesmer slot to migraine interrupt is, by and large, handicapping a team, IMHO. 2 copies of my favorite skill (CoF) utterly trash any type of spike, and most HA teams that take mesmers take 2. It's just- mesmers are much more than monk hate; I especially like a mesmer dimension to adrenal spikes.

As said previously, though, there just aren't many good mesmers in HA, nor builds to accomodare for them.

Guillaume De Sonoma · Jul 31, 2006, 07:47 AM // 07:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Byron

there just aren't many good mesmers in HA, nor builds to accomodare for them.

I feel this was. I mean an Edianal Ranger can beat them out when it comes to their primary use. I find Choking gas to be better than Migrane interupters also.

Aryn Rand · Aug 02, 2006, 10:19 AM // 10:19

Migraine is good because it allows your interupts to recharge and not because its needed for interupting. THou when the warder on relic runs gets a fc on the foes ward migraine is quite usefull.
Migraine also opens up for more hexes since removing migraine will be all the monks can do.

SS necro with anti war hexes then becomes viable(it wont be removed instantly.)

Most Feared · Aug 02, 2006, 11:17 AM // 11:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Divineshadows

Spike catching as an SB/infuse monk is rare. Sometimes, you can pick up a telegraph of who the spike target is like an enchant removal from a party member when you had Aegis up or seeing the brief moment of pink from phantom pain on an ally. In such cases, you can cast infuse on your ally and basically heal at the same time the spike arrive. In the general case, however, catching spikes is not the way to counter spike teams. Really smart spike teams can make moves to throw off the information you are receiving as the infuser to cause you to infuse the wrong person leaving you in a position where it is not possible for you to get healed back to full health and infuse again in time. It is far simpler for your team to just interrupt part of the spike to make it non-lethal and then you just infuse before the afterspike comes.

Against spike teams, an SB/infuser should wear a minor rune. Against adrenal spike and IWAY teams, the SB/infuser should wear a superior healing for for a stronger heal party and healing seed. It's that simple.

Due to the nature of HA and an unmoving ghostly hero bound to an altar, spellbreaker and healing seed are still very critical skills for capping and holding. Not 100% necessary, but they do make holding go much smoother. Spellbreaker+guardian makes for a very difficult hero to interrupt when capping. Spellbreaker+guardian+ward of stability makes it extremely difficult for an opposing team to interrupt your ghostly. So for those reading who are still looking to use an SB/infuse monk in their build, I feel there are 4 core must-have skills:

Spellbreaker - for the ghostly, but can find a multitude of creative uses
Infuse Health - for dealing with afterspikes, for healing your ghostly fast
Heal Party - for the party, how can you pass on this skill when you have so many points in healing prayers already
Healing Seed - for the ghostly, happens to also be a nice counter to smite teams

This leaves 4 skill slots open and you still need some energy management, some means to heal yourself (they certain team builds may allow you to get by without a self heal), and perhaps some condition and/or hex removal (again depends on what your other team members are using). For energy management, I would avoid using channeling as this skill only encourages you to cast your cheap crappy skills often which is not what a SB/infuse monk is about. Solid choices for energy management are drain enchantment, inspired hex, and power drain. For a self heal you still want to be able to heal others with it and the ghostly as well, so I find orison and ethereal light to be the best options. Healing touch is just too limited in how it can be used. For condition removal (if your team needs you to carry it), consider mend condition or extinguish. For hex removal (again if your team needs you to carry it), holy veil and inspired hex are the best options.

I have played around with many different setups for SB/infuse over the past two months, but here is my favorite one to use:

Spellbreaker
Infuse Health
Healing Seed
Heal Party
Orison
Aegis
Drain Enchantment
Power Drain

Healing - 15 (11+4)
Divine Favor - 9 (8+1)
Protection - 7 (6+1)
Inspiration - 10

Tips for use - combine it with a prot monk and a heal monk that each have a condition removal skill and each have one or two hex removal skills. Avoid casting orison as much as possible and use as much of your energy as possible on your money spells - Heal Party, Aegis, Spellbreaker, and Healing Seed. Use drain enchantment and power drain to quickly gain back large amounts of energy fueling your next round of money spells. On non altar maps, play it like a GvG flag runner and stay out of the main fray using your party spells from afar. On altar maps, consider yourself the personal protector of your ghostly hero. Against spike teams (the non-adrenal variety) use most of your energy on Infuse Health, Spellbreaker, and Aegis (against ranger spike or to help mess over the opponent's Oath Shot).

so i assume you have a bip on you're monk at all times? to run sb, aegis, and heal party you must have what 10 pips of regen? and sweet heal bar, you have 1 direct heal other than infuse, which is awesome considering orison gets d-shot'd by the ghostly hero at least twice a game. order of apostasy iway> you're sb infuse build. sorry bud

Dinkytowner · Aug 02, 2006, 08:01 PM // 20:01

Since I run infuser almost all the time I thought I would put my build in this thread:

SB
Infuse
Orison
Kiss
Seed
Inspired Hex
Veil
Channeling

Healing 15 (12+1+2)
Inspiration 9
Divine 11 (I think, but I am sure of the other levels)

Armor: Tats with sup vigor and major healing, healing scalp design

Weapon: Scar Eater (20/20 healing, HP +60, energy +10)

I like to have two hex removals just in case, but if the team wants me to fit something else in, I usually switch out veil. I keep inspired usually for the e-mgmt it provides but you could switch out either hex removal. With inspired and channeling you will rarely hae energy problems. I use orison for two reasons. Touch I find to be too selfish, and orison is a cheap, spammable heal that can also target yourself.
One thing that might help some infusers is to set your infuse skill in a place that you can easially reach with ur fingers in a comfortable playing position. I use the 2 slot so that I can easially get to the infuse skill with my hands still in a position to move my character around with the wasd keys. (I assume that everyone reading this thread has realized that you cannot move your mouse and click on both player bar and skill to catch spikes.)
When playing the infuser position two things have to be remembered when playing spike teams. First, trust your WoH to heal you btw spikes. If they consistantly don't heal you after spikes make sure he is aware of it and if it continues, leave the team. You have to have cooperation btw monks to make a good balance work. Second, you have to watch ur energy. In the case of bloodspike try to keep SB up, but that 10 energy for infuse is more important than a SB. Trust your prot and WoH to be watching for spikes on the infuser. Last, you need to watch for spirits like QZ. Bloodspikes are easy to infuse once you get used to the position. The only way a bloodspike will beat a good infuser is by draining them with QZ. B*tch at the offense in ur team to constantly hunt down the spirits, no excuses. Saying things like "QZ needs to go down or the next one dies" when you have 7 or so energy usually works.

Hope this is helpful.

Divineshadows · Aug 02, 2006, 11:03 PM // 23:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by Most Feared

so i assume you have a bip on you're monk at all times? to run sb, aegis, and heal party you must have what 10 pips of regen? and sweet heal bar, you have 1 direct heal other than infuse, which is awesome considering orison gets d-shot'd by the ghostly hero at least twice a game. order of apostasy iway> you're sb infuse build. sorry bud

Who rezzed this thread from the dead? My post was from May 17th at which time order of apostasy iway was just coming onto the scene and still rarely seen. I quit playing HA at the end of May when I disbanded the guild I led that was formed for GvG but had fallen into the abyss due to the guild's success running balanced in HA (There Is No Cow Level) and complete lack of understanding about how to run balanced in GvG.

Run the numbers on power drain and drain enchantment at 10 inspiration and you'll realize that BiP was not necessary to fuel this monk's energy.

The last week of May, OoA IWAY started showing up more and I realized that Aegis just wasn't as useful anymore so I subbed it for extinguish. When facing OoA IWAY, when my teams won it was by strategic placement of ward against foes, using two copies of cry of frustration on key skills of theirs, and kiting like hell.

The bar worked great for its time frame (early April to mid May) at maximizing healing with heal party (and letting the WoH do the grunt healing), draining key enchantments, interrupting key spells (diversion, e-surge, migraine, ward v melee, ward v foes, spellbreaker, earthquake, shadow strike, order of pain, heal party, aegis, phantom pain, rodgort's invocation, etc.), and observing the opposing team's actions to determine the best person(s) on my team to cast spellbreaker and healing seed. With this bar, it was like my team was playing with 2.7 monks and 2.3 mesmers which is what we were looking to do.

The bar would probably suck now in the current HA enviroment with the popularity of choking gas and nature's renewal, but why should I care since HA is the least competitive form of PvP in the game (I rate RA and Alliance Battles above it)? SB/infuse/seed is a crappy basis for a monk's bar anyway, but trying to protect a stupid unmoving ghostly bound to an altar forces players into retarded spellbreaker bars.

What are you on about with orison? Orison is a junk skill and option C at all times. For everything that it offers in flexibility, it sucks it up with lack of power. When I noticed the ghostly was on me against weaker teams, I would purposely throw orison to let him interrupt it so I could freely cast heal party for the next 10 seconds without having to completely re-position.

The Noble Savage · Aug 03, 2006, 02:31 AM // 02:31

Id like to offer some advice... Don't use your party bars to infuse. You need to select the caller and use him to tell when the spike is coming. When you see it coming you should watch who they turn towards and then check your party bar for the quick health drop.

Fanta · Aug 04, 2006, 07:53 PM // 19:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Noble Savage

Id like to offer some advice... Don't use your party bars to infuse. You need to select the caller and use him to tell when the spike is coming. When you see it coming you should watch who they turn towards and then check your party bar for the quick health drop.

LIES!! i perform a chant for dwayna and she gives me the power to infuse with my eyes closed!

shardfenix · Aug 10, 2006, 01:28 PM // 13:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ado

I wanted to share my expierences and thoughts to help people out who want to try this very interesting build.

First, playing this build ain't easy, but like every other build, it can be learned.

Attributes

Healing: 15
Divine: 12

WAIT!!!!
5 lines into your post I realize you have no idea what you're talking about.
Let's look at the differences between
16heal + 11divine :: 11heal + 16divine

Infuse Health - heals 138% + 35 :: heals 126% + 51 (higher healing is better when your health is more than about 450 (if youre running a superior, this means never))
Orison of Healing always gives more health with higher divine favor.
Dwayna's Kiss - 98 + 37 per hex/enchant :: 99 + 28 per hex/enchant.
Higher healing is better as long as target has at least 1 hex or enchantment.
Healing touch is always better with higher divine favor.
Spell Breaker - lasts 18 seconds with 16 DF, lasts 14 seconds with 11.

So of all the monk skills an infuser has, 80% of them function better when divine favor is maxed and healing is at 11 or 12.

If you're asking about seed, infusers don't bring them. They can't stand the energy consumption. The other 3 slots infusers have are channeling, holy veil, and a free slot (most infusers use inspired hex in the free slot.)

Also, you forgot to say something about watching the direction in which spikes are headed. (for example, when facing a blood spike, when they start casting their shadow strike / barbed sig, you can tell immediately who they're going to spike before they take damage. I stand in the middle of bloodspike teams because if I see all of them facing me, i press 8 and spellbreaker pwns them.)

JR · Aug 10, 2006, 03:37 PM // 15:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Noble Savage

When you see it coming you should watch who they turn towards and then check your party bar for the quick health drop.

I find it much easier to do it by spell casting animation in a lot of cases. If you know who it is going to hit, and you can watch them casting the spike, you can infuse just with timing. Shifting your view to the party bar isn't as efficient, as you have to react to damage being taken, not time your infuse for damage about to be taken.

Lord Dark Genie · Aug 10, 2006, 03:54 PM // 15:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by shardfenix

WAIT!!!!
5 lines into your post I realize you have no idea what you're talking about.
Let's look at the differences between
16heal + 11divine :: 11heal + 16divine[list][*]Infuse Health - heals 138% + 35 :: heals 126% + 51 (higher healing is better when your health is more than about 450 (if youre running a superior, this means never))

You need to look at health levels with 10% morale, because that's the most usual situation. Even with a sup, you're going to have 500ish health.
On my PvE monk I usually swap to minor only, +60hp staff and health armor. That's 670ish health with 10% morale...

Quote:

[*]Dwayna's Kiss - 98 + 37 per hex/enchant :: 99 + 28 per hex/enchant.
Higher healing is better as long as target has at least 1 hex or enchantment.

You don't want to run kiss if you can't consistently trigger the bonus. Orison is already bad in terms of efficiency, kiss without bonus is worse.

In the current HA "meta" which is nearly hex free, you need a lot of enchants to justify bringing kiss on your infuser. I tend to bring Heal other, it's a lot more consistent and energy efficient.
Heal other scales at 10hp / point in healing, which makes it more efficient at high heal rather than DF

Quote:

So of all the monk skills an infuser has, 80% of them function better when divine favor is maxed and healing is at 11 or 12.

With Infuse, orison, kiss/other, touch and SB on your bar, it's 60% but it doesn't really matter. With that bar I'd go with 16 Divine too, just because of those 5 seconds you get on SB

The fact that you run channeling kinda forces you to run 5 energy spammable though. I don't run channeling and energy is fine, even with HP AND seed on my bar...

Byron · Aug 11, 2006, 05:11 AM // 05:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lord Dark Genie

You don't want to run kiss if you can't consistently trigger the bonus. Orison is already bad in terms of efficiency, kiss without bonus is worse.

I'm a dwayna's kiss advocate, due to the presence of taint and aegis, as well as its huge use agaisnt hex pressure.

Quote:

With that bar I'd go with 16 Divine too, just because of those 5 seconds you get on SB

High DF spec on a HA infuser is ftw.

Lord Dark Genie · Aug 11, 2006, 06:37 PM // 18:37

Tainted is build depend, single Aegis doesn't really justify running kiss.

The point was that if you consistently trigger the bonus, more healing prayers makes kiss better. Saying more DF makes it better most of the time means that you're not going to use it efficiently....

Messner · Aug 11, 2006, 09:14 PM // 21:14

Ask yourself this if you're running a Monk with WoH would you run anything other than a Sup healing if you're using a superior rune? Would you use anything other than a Sup domination on a HA Mesmer running Surge? Sup Marks on a Ranger running Punishing? The answer is no, so why on earth should it be any different for a Monk with SB? It shouldn't. It makes about as much sense as a Me/Mo running Arcane Mimicry on a necro with BiP in my mind...

Balanced/Non-Holding Infuser Bar
Kiss, Touch, Orison, Infuse, Veil, Seed, SB, Channeling
16 DFavor, 12 Healing, 6 Inspiration

Spike Group/Holding Infuser Bar
Kiss, Touch, Orison, Infuse, Leech Signet (Pwns Ghostlies, Lively, EoE's, Fertiles, Choking Gas Preps, Seeking Arrows Preps), Blessed Aura, Spellbreaker, Channeling
16 DFavor, 12 Healing, 6 Inspiration

The thing most people dont get about infuse health is it's not about pumping 5000000 health into an ally, it's about the speed at which a big heal gets there, even if the infuse only hits for 200 (second infuse without a followup heal) it's in all liklihood fine with the caster followups these days. Honestly if you're infusing and your allies are taking the full health of the heal a lot of the time that means you're a little late and they're probably dying 50% of the time anyways.

Zui · Aug 11, 2006, 09:33 PM // 21:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Messner

Would you use anything other than a Sup domination on a HA Mesmer running Surge?

Is this a trick question? I know most HA players are absolute scrubs and all, but this is alittle too far, unless I'm really missing somthing... I was under the impression that you reach the important breakpoint for Energy Surge and Energy Burn at 14 domination magic, so why the need to run a superior?

Lord Dark Genie · Aug 11, 2006, 10:36 PM // 22:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Messner

Ask yourself this if you're running a Monk with WoH would you run anything other than a Sup healing if you're using a superior rune? Would you use anything other than a Sup domination on a HA Mesmer running Surge? Sup Marks on a Ranger running Punishing? The answer is no, so why on earth should it be any different for a Monk with SB? It shouldn't. It makes about as much sense as a Me/Mo running Arcane Mimicry on a necro with BiP in my mind...

That just doesn't make sense, the sup rune you're going to run depends on your bar. It doesn't depend on your elite.
Last time I checked, Boon prots with 10 in inspiration (attribute of their elite) work fine. Eles with Ether Prodigy don't run superior Energy Storage. Blood spikers run elites that aren't in their primary attribute....

I know and see A LOT of people run HP and/or seed on the infuser. In this case running sup heal is about as good as sup DF. Not every Infuser runs channeling, in which case they need more than 6 in Inspiration...

Quote:

Balanced/Non-Holding Infuser Bar
Kiss, Touch, Orison, Infuse, Veil, Seed, SB, Channeling
16 DFavor, 12 Healing, 6 Inspiration

So... kiss and seed are better at higher healing SB and touch better at higher DF.

Divineshadows · Aug 11, 2006, 10:56 PM // 22:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lord Dark Genie

So... kiss and seed are better at higher healing SB and touch better at higher DF.

Armor swapping was the best tactic for me. I ran heal party to deal with pressure based teams and wanted high healing (sup healing rune). Against spike teams, I'd run all minors. Once I got into a holding situation in halls, I'd switch off the sup healing rune and put on a sup divine favor rune for a longer spellbreaker. The best of all worlds...

BuddyLeeX · Aug 12, 2006, 12:07 AM // 00:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by JR-

I find it much easier to do it by spell casting animation in a lot of cases. If you know who it is going to hit, and you can watch them casting the spike, you can infuse just with timing. Shifting your view to the party bar isn't as efficient, as you have to react to damage being taken, not time your infuse for damage about to be taken.

It all depends on your preference really. I look at two things, party bar, and a foe that will most likely participate in the spike. Here are some examples.

Bspike :: Straight up Spike, only other dmg is usually from Ghostly Hero. Watch/target a spiker/caller and react accordingly to the party list to infuse. If your infuse bar does not consist of interupts for energy, such as power drain, then make sure a fire ele, ranger, or warrior on your team always keeps QZ down to help you out on energy.

Rspike :: Straight up Spike, only other dmg is usually from Ghostly Hero or a Ranger interupting certain spells. What I do is try to zoom in or get near a ranger and also watch/target a spiker/caller. Watch where the rangers turn to do their dual shot, and react accordingly by infusing that person. If your WoH or other healer monk can't do the same, and you get spiked, then gg get another WoH. This spike really relies on both healers to be very good, this has to be the toughest straight up spike to infuse when all arrows hit without damage negated.

Mixed Spike :: May sometimes consit of straight up spike, but some teams add pressure between spikes. This may consist of rangers, eles, rits, necros, etc. So you have a variety of skills the team uses in order to spike a target down, which can be very high in damage if on time. If they don't add any pressure, treat this like bspike, and watch a necro, or an ele. If they DO add pressure between spikes and you have to heal, just keep in mind you must always be targeting a foe to see when they spike. So after a heal, immediately target, and hopefully you brought Pdrain to keep your energy up, if not you may have a hard time infusing spikes and healing the applied pressure.

Adrenaline Spike :: Adrenaline with most of the time a couple of caster aided spike skills (i.e. Lightning Orb, Obsidian Flame, Shadow Strike, etc). Treat this like a mixed spike that adds pressure, and always always figure out who the caller is. It is very easy to see who it is, because they are usually the first people to reach the spike target, or they stand still to watch who they want to spike, etc. If your facing newb warriors, just get ready for a spike when you see him targeting someone or standing still, and try not to use the party list to infuse, rather infuse as you see it happening. If you like using party window, then once you see the warrior use eviscerate, search the party screen for a condition (usually never any other conditions in adren. spike other than that, so spike person usually the person with a condition) and infuse them immediately because these spikes can be very clean and quick if on time. Still very easy to infuse if the pressure added is weak. Only works if other team can apply a lot of pressure between spikes.