Curse

kamp0002 · May 29, 2006, 02:55 PM // 14:55

The following Mo/Rt build has given me 3 glad points in 2 days, extremely effective in random arenas and team arenas.
It is based on the premise that monks have alot of time on there hands in between healing, so I bring you the healing spirit spammer.

1) Rez signet
2) Spirit of Dissonance
3) Spirit of Bloodsong
4) Spirit of Pain
5) Healing touch
6) Orison of Healing
7) Jemeis Gaze (same as heal other)
8) Word of Healing (elite )

12 Healing Prayers (10 + 2)
9 Divine Healing (8 + 1)
12 Communing (12)

I have done a lot of testing on this build, replacing word of healing with a weaker heal and throwing in wonderlust the elite commune spirit, but I find my party members tend to die alot more when the going gets tough and you only have that 5 mana to save people with and there is no equal to word of healing.

The awesome part about this build is that all 3 spirits get to be layed out cause you always have the extra mana between healing, then they dont need tending to and you get to heal for the minute it takes to recharge the 3 spirits. I use damage/disrupt spirits because they are the most distracting and actually do quite a bit of damage.

Also, sitting as a healer in a group of spirits is an awesome way to not get targeted, I find I get targeted alot more as any other type of healer, when I'm hiding out among my spirits people are more afraid to stand next to you.

Some people might argue that you cant heal enough because 9 divine doesnt give a huge healing bonus, but I've yet to have a single complaint about my healing, plus the distraction from the spirits more than makes up for it.

If anyone has any suggestions for skill improvements etc I will be checking on this post regularily.

Enjoy

sno · May 29, 2006, 06:03 PM // 18:03

I'm sorry to say, but I think this build is absolutely horrible in every possible way. Not to be mean, but seriously you couldn't make this build worse if you tried. To give you an idea, I'll list (some) things I dislike about it, in no order of importance (I'm just typing as they come to me)

1: monks do not have any time on their hands between healing, not vs a good group
2: monks shouldn't bring res
3: bloodsong and pain are fairly useless, especially in this build.
4: without spawning power, and without the spirit-helping skills (ie. ritual lord) dissonance will die extremely fast, and won't be able to be reapplied often
5: you have absolutely no energy management
6: you have no condition removal
7: you have no hex removal

kamp0002 · May 29, 2006, 07:31 PM // 19:31

I have been testing this build quite abit, and I have answers to all of your points above.

1) if you are in a good group you have extra non healing time, if you are in a group with more than one monk you have extra time, if everyone in your group is half monk you have extra time, in random arenas you only get to stay in if your in a good group

2) there is no monk ability that can rez as fast as signet, next closest is 6sec and it doesn't bring enough energy back as apposed to 3sec on signet, in random arenas you don't have enough time to rez because they will be disrupting anything that takes a long time to cast if you are a monk; often you are the only monk, I'm also pretty sure I am not the only monk with a rez signet

3) bloodsong and pain do 17dmg a shot for a min and a half which is a huge amount of damage over time, also the effect of being hit by spirits continuously drives opponents away from me and people find it enough of a bother to keep moving away or spend time attacking them, pain I find even better because it has 3 sec cast so is harder to inturrupt, and time spent attacking spirits is time I have to heal others, these spirits are highly noticeable if im the only ritualist (or half ritualist) on the team

4) dissonance is the first spirit I lay, it is extremely powerful often swaying the battle although its true if its taken out it takes a while to put back out again, but I find when I do lay it out again people forget to attack it the second time and it wreaks havoc giving me ALOT of spare time to heal people

5) you dont need as much energy with this build, you only need energy once a minute so the spirits can be layed out, when the fighting gets furocious I find spamming word of heal is still extremely effective and its only a 5 mana cast so you get to pretty much chain cast it without extra skill slots for energy boosting

6) you dont need condition removal if you are spamming heals, never is anyone killed by a condition under my watch its always the damn spikers that cause trouble, not damage over time, plus I find alot of builds come with anti condition

7) hexes still cause me problems, backfire mainly; my current strategy is lay the spirits down and let them do there job till I can cast again, running around the spirits works too heh they can still attack if I'm running around like a backfired baby

Its surprisingly a powerful build, try it out in random for yourself but it is a build in progress, also I am gonna take your pointers and see if I can improve the build further.

Isaac Lunoa · May 29, 2006, 07:43 PM // 19:43

I definitely agree with Sno. Monks should not try to lay random damage spirits and heal at the same time...

sno · May 29, 2006, 08:26 PM // 20:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by kamp0002

1) if you are in a good group you have extra non healing time, if you are in a group with more than one monk you have extra time, if everyone in your group is half monk you have extra time, in random arenas you only get to stay in if your in a good group

if everyone else is spending time healing, they're not doing damage, so the match will last unnecessarily longer. Relying on another healer to justify a TA monk build is sad.

Quote:

2) there is no monk ability that can rez as fast as signet, next closest is 6sec and it doesn't bring enough energy back as apposed to 3sec on signet, in random arenas you don't have enough time to rez because they will be disrupting anything that takes a long time to cast if you are a monk; often you are the only monk, I'm also pretty sure I am not the only monk with a rez signet

MONKS SHOULD NOT RES ANYONE IN PVP EVER, NOT WITH REBIRTH, FLESH OF MY FLESH, RES SIG, OR ANY OTHER BRINGING BACK THE DEAD SKILL.

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pain I find even better because it has 3 sec cast so is harder to inturrupt

Implying that 3 second casts are hard to interupt is ... ludacris. In fact, every skill on your bar, with the exception of Word is quite easily interuptable. Any half-decent interupter would have a field day stopping you from casting anything at all.

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4) dissonance is the first spirit I lay, it is extremely powerful often swaying the battle although its true if its taken out it takes a while to put back out again, but I find when I do lay it out again people forget to attack it the second time and it wreaks havoc giving me ALOT of spare time to heal people

I agree that dissonance is powerful, but my point was that with no spawning power or ritual lord, it will die extremely quickly, and won't be any good again until the match is likely over.

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5) you dont need as much energy with this build, you only need energy once a minute so the spirits can be layed out, when the fighting gets furocious I find spamming word of heal is still extremely effective and its only a 5 mana cast so you get to pretty much chain cast it without extra skill slots for energy boosting

You need energy to spam your heals, a good team can easily outdamage word of healing. Even a bad team can outdamage this build.

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6) you dont need condition removal if you are spamming heals, never is anyone killed by a condition under my watch its always the damn spikers that cause trouble, not damage over time, plus I find alot of builds come with anti condition

Um, blind? dazed? Air eles with blinding flash are EXTREMELY common in TA, as are rits with shadowsong. What are you going to do if all your warriors are blind?

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7) hexes still cause me problems, backfire mainly; my current strategy is lay the spirits down and let them do there job till I can cast again, running around the spirits works too heh they can still attack if I'm running around like a backfired baby

And if your warriors have SS on them? or casters with backfire? or you with diversion, or shame? If a mesmer wants to shut you down, you'll never cast anything, period. It wouldn't even be hard, just backfire you (lasts 10s) then diversion (lasts 6s) then shame (lasts 10s) then another diversion (it'll be recharged by then.) by the time that's done, backfire will be ready again, and the whole thing restarts, and theres nothing you can do about it. they could even partially shut down another of your party since you'd be so mindlessly easy to shut down.

sno · May 29, 2006, 08:36 PM // 20:36

I forgot to add this, but I'm afraid to edit my post, since guru is lagging really bad for me. I'll merge them later once I'm stable.

Quote:

you only need energy once a minute so the spirits can be layed out

Once every minute? How long do you expect the match to last? TA matches are usually over before the 2minute mark, ideally 1:30. That's why I don't think your dissonance does any good, since it's only there for a minute part of the battle and will likely only give you enough time to lay your offensive spirits before being killed. Then the opposing team is totally free to do whatever they want to you.

Think of this: when you design and run a TA build, you have to consider what the other people are going to be doing to you, and plan accordingly. A team knows they will face a healer, and they know they will face damage. Everything else is optional, although with experience you learn the metagame and what to expect in each match. The team then plans offense, a damage strategy designed to somehow get around the healing. This can be done in lots of ways, including shutting down the monk, by use of hexes, or simply with heavy brute force. Either way, they're ready for damage and healing. With your build you're not doing anything to offset their offensive strategy. You can't remove hexes, you can't remove conditions, you can't negate damage in any way. This allows your opposition to play their game exactly how they planned it, which if they're not idiots, will yield a victory nearly every time.

Zui · May 29, 2006, 09:38 PM // 21:38

I have to agree with Sno on all points.

By the way, RA is by no means a measure of a good build. You can easily make 10 wins in RA with a pathetic build, such as this one. Try it when you're facing a compitent team, you're toast.

kamp0002 · May 30, 2006, 12:47 AM // 00:47

Quote:

I definitely agree with Sno. Monks should not try to lay random damage spirits and heal at the same time...

I thought so too until I thought I'd see what I could do, my first build earned me 6k faction in a matter of hours out of RA and earned me 2 glad pretty quick, 2 seperate runs. This is the best a random build creation of mine has ever done, so I took a look at it.

Being a monk insured I always had a monk in group, being a ritualist ensured there was a dissonance spirit; the best, in my opinion, spirit in game out which disrupts everything it hits. Laying out the 2 damage dealers has several purposes, they confuse targeting on the dissonance spirit which wastes time, and in the first 2 min every second counts. They also do a sick amount of damage if left untouched and laid out quickly, 17 * 2 spirits * 1 attack atleast every 3 sec for a min and a half is just over 1k dmg, enough to distract enemy healers for a couple seconds.

All 3 spirits can be played when the battlefield is determined and just before combat begins in 13 seconds, long before any damage needs healing by you.

First pain, a single spirit will slow the enemies approach and make them reconsider their attack strategy to encorporate a spirit spammer.

Then bloodlust, now they really think there is a spirit spammer, there is a good chance the warrior may be pissed off enough to consider attacking the spirits quickly first before attacking the healer, or make the opposing team back off and slow the pace of the game down.

Dissonance is played and its too late to target it, the warrior has already chosen a spirit, or the monk (usually the monk if smart enough). All 3 spirits usually attack the warrior, causing him to flee dissonance, or attack it; giving enough time to heal from the warriors first assault, it also works well against inturruptors, as the dissonance spirit will inturrupt some of the spells, backfire has a long casting time.

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Relying on another healer to justify a TA monk build is sad.

I agree, but this build does not rely on another TA monk build, my best games in RA I am the only monk, but having another monk will definately slow down the game.

Also, a group does not require a monk to be successful; following is a link to a pic of a group with 10 consecutive wins in a row with no monk
http://guildwars.gameamp.com/gallery...shots/6959.php

And following is a link to a group with 42 consecutive wins in a row with no monk
http://www.coldblackeyes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=834

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A team knows they will face a healer, and they know they will face damage. Everything else is optional, although with experience you learn the metagame and what to expect in each match.

I agree, although you do not necessarily need a monk to be a good team, so a team can survive with you only using healing spells and voiding the hex removal and condition removal, although I do not by any means condone a monk wandering from the primary goal of keeping the team alive.

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MONKS SHOULD NOT RES ANYONE IN PVP EVER, NOT WITH REBIRTH, FLESH OF MY FLESH, RES SIG, OR ANY OTHER BRINGING BACK THE DEAD SKILL.

I am going to try this, it makes sense and hopefully a hex or condition removal will work in its place, but there are going to be times where having a res can definately come in handy.

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Once every minute? How long do you expect the match to last? TA matches are usually over before the 2minute mark, ideally 1:30. That's why I don't think your dissonance does any good, since it's only there for a minute part of the battle and will likely only give you enough time to lay your offensive spirits before being killed. Then the opposing team is totally free to do whatever they want to you.

I expect to make my team survive to the 2 minute mark, turn the battle in our favor and let me have breathing time to cast the spirits again at the 1 min mark and a 3rd time at the 2 min mark if healing allows.

Servant of Kali · May 30, 2006, 10:41 AM // 10:41

Sno:

Quote:

MONKS SHOULD NOT RES ANYONE IN PVP EVER, NOT WITH REBIRTH, FLESH OF MY FLESH, RES SIG, OR ANY OTHER BRINGING BACK THE DEAD SKILL.

Not true. Having rez signet on a monk is NOT bad in 4v4. If monk doesnt have it - ok, no big deal, but it does not certainly hurt. As a matter of fact the longest run i had in TA (100 consecutive wins) was WITH a monk who used a rez signet. Ok true that was half a year ago, but i didnt notice something drastically changed in TA metagame.

Rez signet takes 3 seconds, and it is by no means a long time in TA, if your team setup is good. Good team setup means enemy will have only 2 dmg dealers at most. 1 is their boon prot, and the other is disabled player no matter what profession.

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Relying on another healer to justify a TA monk build is sad.

Agreed, but only in general (see second paragraph). There's something i noticed. In 99% cases a team in TA which is using 2 monks, have 2 avg monks. This means that, a team with 1 very good monk effectively does almost the same as these 2 monks. A good team in TA, from what i've seen so far, does not need 2 monks at all. It's better to use 1 monk and 1 disabler (whether interrupt ranger, blind mesmer/ele or SS necro, doesnt matter). Usually teams of two monks are too confident, and monks tend to have slower reactions because they always except other monk will heal if they dont. And usually none does at a critical moment. Not to mention, two-monk teams are tedious to fight with, and tedious to fight against.

Of course there are situations where 2 monks is pretty much ok, if one is having abit of offense for instance.

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Any half-decent interupter would have a field day stopping you from casting anything at all.

Yes but you need to take into consideration the current metagame. To me it seems all rangers lately in TA are thumpers. Their only interrupt is knockdown. Before, people used to ask alot for interrupt rangers, now no one does. And interrupt ranger is the only serious threat when it comes to interrupting skills. Others are really not that dangerous.

Quote:

3: bloodsong and pain are fairly useless, especially in this build.

They are good, especially with the right build.

I agree with the rest, no hex removal is.. problematic. But if he relies on another monk it's ok i guess. Personally i dont like the whole combo because i prefer specialized builds. If you do dmg, do dmg. If you heal, heal

======

As for the original post... and build.

It's.. an interesting combo, but to be honest it's kinda RA oriented, not really TA build. The only thing im not really sure is Dissonance. Considering that RA is full of mending warriors, here and there IWs etc.. maybe... Disenchantment? It will last around 33% longer iirc. Shadowsong is nice, but ur looking for dmg i guess.

The problem with dissonance is that RA is usually full of warriors/assassins/rangers... and well it wont do much against them. Even if you run into more casters, any with more intelligence will move out of spirits range once hit with dissonance. Or he will take cover, hide behind an obstacle and alike.

btw this is just in theory, i havent played much with dissonance since i didnt like duration and cost (compared to disenchantment for instance). It is quite possible that it works for you in practice.

The good thing in RA is that most people will still target players than put spirits as priority. That's why your build will be ok in RA, but im not sure how much success u had or would have in TA. The priority of warrior/thumper in my TA team would be to smack your spirits. You have no Ritual Lord, no spawning attribute. They go down fast.

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Also, a group does not require a monk to be successful

It doesnt, that's true, but it IS more difficult unless you have very experienced team, and a good team build. For instance, as a huge mesmer fan i made a 4-mesmer guild group in TA, just for fun and demonstration of how mesmers are good in pvp. This was before Factions. We managed to have several _flawless_ before i logged/lagged out. Now, none of the mesmers was a healer, the only heal skill everyone had was Ether Feast. However this still doesnt mean that no monk is easy. It's very tricky, and most of the time not worth the trouble

If you're trying to gain Glad points in TA, i suggest monk

it will save you alot of unneccessary frustration.

btw that 42 no-monk wins had a Rt

sure even tho he wasnt a healer he did have spirits... and Rt's are so underestimated in TA. Personally, as a Rt fan i love it

Taurus · May 30, 2006, 10:45 AM // 10:45

If I get a good group in RA I can even own with stupid W/Mo Paladins with swords.

Servant of Kali · May 30, 2006, 12:22 PM // 12:22

lol that's true Taurus, but it's easier to 'get a good group' if ur build is better

If u know what i mean.

Anyhow, kamp0002, if you like spirits, u can check my Rt build

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s....php?t=3046094

sno · May 30, 2006, 02:27 PM // 14:27

Forgive my ritualist ignorance, I assumed when you said "dissonance" you meant "displacement" which is why I said what I said about it. knowing what you actually meant makes me feel even worse about your build, but as a few people here said, it is a half-acceptable RA build.

IMO it should never even be considered for a decent TA group.

EDIT: just so no one thinks I'm actually saying this is a good build (because I would never do such a thing) let me explain why I said it's a "half-acceptable RA build." The fact that you don't know what team you're going to have makes you useless if you end up with 2 boon prots. If another monk should group with you, at least you'll have some damage for it. However if you're going to use the Paladin-mentality of "self-sufficient damage dealer" you might as well make a paladin. Hey, at least they have an FDS to wave around.

Quote:

Ok true that was half a year ago, but i didnt notice something drastically changed in TA metagame.

Tons has changed in the TA metagame since factions was released. My guild used to be able to run an infinite number of matches consecutive/flawless every night until we got bored. We would do 40-60 each night, just FSAG. It was never hard, and we very rarely met up with anyone who knew what they were doing (even high level/respected guild groups generally don't know much about TA.) Now that theres a gladiator title, people are actually thinking about TA, and playing it competitively. We still have no trouble getting multiple points, but in general the 50+ streaks are no more. There are too many specialized meta-counter builds, each one with its own little niche. We've managed to create a build that works against most all of them now, but each of our 3 main builds has one minor weakness.

Servant of Kali · May 30, 2006, 03:00 PM // 15:00

Quote:

Tons has changed in the TA metagame since factions was released.

I was referring to the need of rez sig

Having rez on a monk in TA is optional. Neither case is worse in my oppinion.

btw i do agree with the rest of your post, basically all you said is true. I had the same experience before. However, now it's different because most of my guildies are not around yet, and few that are aint often at the same time as i am. If the guy who monks is around, we dont have problems with streaks.. it's not as good as before true but still decent.

Yes it seems that with Gladiator TA got more interesting, i was honestly abit bored of it before. There was less challenge. Once we got to 100 wins and quit due to boredom and tiredness (5 hours of gameplay). Going 20+ wins wasnt all that difficult, we tried different builds like 4 WMo's just to make it spicy

Oh hey we even won few as WMo's! :P or we would get 4 smiters and bodyblock someone :>

Ok back to the point, when do you usually TA and is there a spot for my dmg Rt in ur team build? :P I wouldnt mind getting r2 glad abit faster

Havent played the game for 3 months till i got Factions. Gave acc to a friend in the meantime so my friends list got wiped out heh. And pugs... pugs .. u know

sno · May 30, 2006, 03:25 PM // 15:25

I actually find res sig on a monk to be very much worse, since the monk skillbar is packed full of 8 highly important skills, all of them aiding very much to the wellbeing of my team. Having res means a: you have 1 less skill, and b: you may actually use it. If you spend 3 seconds ressing, you're not healing, or kiting, and someone else in your team will likely die in the process. Wouldn't it make more sense to take an 8th skill that will keep your party alive, instead of planning for death? Rule of thumb: if you need more than 3 res sigs in one match, you're doomed to lose it anyways. We often run with just 2 in fact.

As for the rit: We do use a ritualist in one of our 3 main builds, but it's very specialized (works flawlessly with the build it was designed for) and is nowhere near the same as yours I'm sure.

Servant of Kali · May 31, 2006, 04:01 PM // 16:01

Actually even 1 rez skill in TA is enough but in a specialized build. And monk doesnt always need to have 8 most important skills. For instance he could just run CoP and mesmer runs inspired and revealed hex. Depends what boon prots use these days anyway.

I understand your other points, i dont 'plan' to die either. However, sometimes u get overwhelmed by a team go kills fast but cant last long. Eh carrying 2 rez only? I see i'll need to start playing my interrupt ranger again

Besides, carrying 4 signets doesnt mean u'll need all 4. It just means when someone dies, 3 people can rez someone, instead of let's say two.

ps: if ur just looking to get a glad point, it's all fine, but for 20-30+ consecutives u need abit more 'versatility' in my oppinion. 3 sec is nothing in TA, it's not as big a deal.

ghostof · May 31, 2006, 04:21 PM // 16:21

Relying on another monk to heal/condition removal/hex removal makes you a rather crappy ritualist.

kamp0002 · May 31, 2006, 08:54 PM // 20:54

Quote:

Relying on another monk to heal/condition removal/hex removal makes you a rather crappy ritualist.

I'm working on putting either condition removal or hex removal into the original build, since many people have mentioned these 2 over and over, any suggestions? What is the best hex remover? I am not giving up on this build because it keeps working for me, I am also considering going to a higher divination like I've seen many monk builds have, taking protection with RoF as a main heal with 9 protection, in which case I will be replacing the other heals with useful divine/protection prayers instead. If I can replace the elite word of heal i can work wonderlust spirit back into the build which would be preferred.

What is the best way (skill/skill combo) for a monk to remove hexes and conditions?

nethrandr · Jun 09, 2006, 06:29 PM // 18:29

This is a very bad build. It offers nearly nothing to your team and is a waste of 8 slots out of the 32 slots you have in 4 vs4
First:
You cant counter hexes, having hex removal is very important in a ta team, simple hexes such as faintheartedness can can reduce a warrior's damage output by 50%, add in enfeeble and its gg warrior.
Other hexes can completly shut down any caster on your team including you.

Second:
Your self healing is very bad. As a monk you'll want to survive an attack from the other team and still be able to heal your own team efficiently.
A simple shock war doing an adren spike will kill you very easily. Healing prayers is generally bad in 4vs4 as it has slow casting times and does not have any damage prevention.

Third:
You need condition removal. Its the same reason why you need hex removal. For example blind can completly shutdown your team's melee. Condtions can easily shutdown your whole team making your damage output close to 0.

Your ritualists spirits are close to useless as once they are destroyed you will have to wait for a long recharge before you can cast them again.

I suggest you try playing the boon prot build as its the most versatile monk build there is. Its good in 4 vs 4 because of the limited amount of players you have. Add in a few support skills and a boon prot can easily keep a whole team alive.

Iraqalypse Now · Jun 09, 2006, 06:38 PM // 18:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by sno

MONKS SHOULD NOT RES ANYONE IN PVP EVER, NOT WITH REBIRTH, FLESH OF MY FLESH, RES SIG, OR ANY OTHER BRINGING BACK THE DEAD SKILL.

There are monks that aren't healers per se that can and often should bring resses. The only examples I can think of right now are smite monks and 105 bonders with unyielding aura.

JR · Jun 09, 2006, 07:36 PM // 19:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iraqalypse Now

...and 105 bonders with unyielding aura.

This is PvP?