Curse

super dooper · Apr 26, 2006, 05:48 AM // 05:48

Extinguish is 15e, I don't think I'd put that on a monk. (I guess you could argue that it's slightly comparable to having Heal Party on the bar, but.. Heal Party is better. :P ) I see it being ran on E/Mo's or N/Mo's (with OoB probably), but not primary monks.

the thing with Martyr is that you can throw it on a Dom mesmer or a character who can sacrifice their elite and still function well. (and if he's re-spreading the disease after using Martyr you should slap him)

JR · Apr 26, 2006, 08:39 AM // 08:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by super dooper

Extinguish is 15e, I don't think I'd put that on a monk. (I guess you could argue that it's slightly comparable to having Heal Party on the bar, but.. Heal Party is better. :P ) I see it being ran on E/Mo's or N/Mo's (with OoB probably), but not primary monks.

The difference being that you need to spec into Heal Party to get juice out of it, you really don't with Extinguish.

Ensign · Apr 26, 2006, 09:07 AM // 09:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Byron

And now this little argument, if you can call it that, has turned into something bigger than one skill, IMHO. My experience comes mostly from Heroes Ascent. What's common there probably isn't common in GvG. We already know Ensign's contentions with HA, so that may be the underlying and real problem.

Actually I think a lot of the problem can be attributed to something that touched on earlier - Channeling. Channeling is a very realistic option for a lot of monks in HA, particularly in the Hall of Heroes itself, and that colors skill evaluations heavily. With a Channeling hitting a couple of guys, it isn't a 10 energy vs. a 5 energy debate anymore, but, say, 8 vs 3 or 7 vs 2. Are you so used to having Channeling up that you're subconsciously evaluating skills with it in mind? =p

Quote:

Originally Posted by Byron

But if it isn't spike to be worried about, then the 5-energy heal may have been the better choice. Certainly an orison will frustrate warrior pressure for enough time to make another decision, and if it doesn't, then it is a spike situation.

I don't agree with this, people take lots of damage for all sorts of reasons. But I don't think focusing on that is terribly important because it feels like we're losing track of the basis of this discussion. It has never been about running a 10 energy Heal Other instead of a 5 energy Orison as the only heal on the bar. This has always been about the use of Heal Other as a power heal while accompanied by at least two other healing skills. It's not Heal Other vs. Orison, it's Heal Other vs. Dwayna's Kiss when Orison of Healing is already on your bar.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Byron

So what we're looking at isn't about skills, it's about monk philosophy. It could be that I am objectively wrong, but I still feel right in my argument from the pressure build perspective.

If all that's coming in is pressure then the damage is predictable - you lose nothing by having a Heal Other on your bar instead of another trash heal. Actually you gain raw healing power because the Other counts as two.

The argument you made was about a situation where two people got rocked in quick succession while your energy was tight. While I will give you that blowing all of your energy on one guy in that situation with Heal Other might not be the best play, I question the assumption that the proper response to people getting rocked is more Orisons.

Orison and friends always do something, which is why they're so brainless. But they are very rarely the best response to any situation, and sometimes aren't even sufficient. I'd argue that multiple people getting rocked hard is one of those situations where Orison Man probably isn't going to be performing very well.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Byron

The healer metagame seems to be a gauge of evaluating risks, so if the other team performs correctly, in essence, there should be no chance for you to heal, right?

Depends on how they're trying to break you. Nothing is perfect in the game though, it's tightening the cracks and slipping through what's left. What you want on your bar are the best tools for staying alive despite whatever the other team uses to break you.

If it doesn't go without saying, Orison and friends are the worst skills in the line for this, they are never completely dead but similarly they are not the skills that you want to be using to counter another team. If your only plan against a particular offense is Orison you are probably going to die very quickly.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Byron

That statement scared me for a moment, but ethereal light is a 5s recharge. So a second reliable small heal is, I feel, necessary, and kiss is nice in its specialty.

I think you get a lot more milage out of even that second heal than I do. If I have Word of Healing and Orison of Healing on my bar, I'll probably be using Word of Healing twice as much as the Orison, at the very least. If the character is set up with a robust third heal (such as Signet of Devotion) then it's not uncommon for me to go an entire battle without touching Orison of Healing.

The rest of it follows from that. I'm not an Orison spammer. If I'm not using Orison all that often I'm not really getting a lot of milage out of that recharge, so something like Ethereal Light can slip in easily. A second copy or Orison is a skill that I'm rarely, if ever, going to use.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Byron

Because of light's heal value, it can't be so easily discarded as a junk heal.

It heals for a bit better than a quarter more than Orison. It's slower than Heal Other as well. I don't think you could even imagine running it in that slot. It needs to go into one of the other slots, and the value of Ethereal Light is that it's actually useful on its own merits (actually efficient, etc) unlike Orison, which is really only there because you need enough heals on your bar to cover high damage situations.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Byron

Ouch, my pride. If this is true, then I should probably quit GW right now. I'm not being sarcastic, either: what is the fundamental that I seem to be missing? Surely that is important.

Well a bunch of different things really.

One is that the guy looks like a Channeling machine, without Channeling.

Another is the energy elite without either of the skills that you'd want to power with it. If all you want to do is spam direct heals then take the Word of Healing and milk it for all that it's worth.

The big concern of mine is how you basically glossed over the depth of the healing line for a bunch of Orison variants.

I was a bit harsh on the build, perhaps overly so because of how you were touting it. But honestly it's a very primitive build, the kind of thing you'd scrawl on a napkin when you get an idea or two for skill synergies and never really finish fleshing it out.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Byron

Anyway, I've become curious now: Ensign, what is your healer build? Let's end this mystery.

There's no general purpose healing build. Skills swap in and out depending on what other characters are in the template and what a particular character's job is.

If you're the only healer in a build, as is almost always the case in GvG, a basic template looks something like this:

Word of Healing, Orison of Healing, Healing Touch, Infuse Health, Heal Party, Mend Ailment, Inspired Hex, Drain Enchantment

The Heal Party slot has become more flexible in GvG with the prevalence of E/Mos with powered Heal Parties, and the Drain Enchantment slot is a general EManagement slot. But in general it gives you the tools you need - Word of Healing to heal others very efficiently, Healing Touch for yourself, Orison in case either one needs a bit of a followup. Infuse for spikes. IHex for energy and a bit of removal, and Mend because the other monk isn't always there.

The template changes slightly in a 3 monk backline instead of a two - you go with a Mend Condition instead of a Mend Ailment because the healer isn't the guy who ever splits off, and the second emanagement slot becomes more optional as your energy becomes better. It really doesn't change all that much though - Word, Orison, Touch, Infuse, IHex, Mend*, two skills.

If you don't want Word of Healing (and I think you do, it's one of the big reasons to run the character) and you still want a healer, you absolutely need Heal Party and Infuse, otherwise you shouldn't even bother with the guy. Your template starts to look like Heal Other, Orison of Healing, Healing Touch, Infuse Health, Heal Party, Inspired Hex, Mantra of Recall, slot.

Now for HA things get a bit more complicated because you get two healers. This makes you distribute the goodies a bit better. At the same time other skills get better and almost become neccessary because of how the HoH works. Hence you get the two archtypes, the Channeling guy and the SB/Infuse guy.

Channeling guy is your basic training wheels monk. He's templated something like Word of Healing, Orison of Healing, Dwayna's Kiss, Healing Seed, Heal Party, Channeling, Inspired Hex, Holy Veil. You basically just sit in the front and milk the Channeling for all it's worth. It's the easiest monk to play in all of Guild Wars, but given the attributes and distribution of labor it's basically what you want.

SB/Infuse is a weird guy to build. Your energy is all wonky, and your attributes aren't terribly nice either. Also you have to design him knowing that the Channeling guy is going to be there doing the bulk of the healing, so your job is more specialized, to keep Channeling guy alive and fill in the gaps. A basic template is Spell Breaker, Infuse Health, Healing Touch, Signet of Devotion, Heal Other, Healing Seed, Inspired Hex, slot. I'm not completely sure what to do with that slot. I feel that without a trash heal in that slot that your healing foundation is a little shakier than I would like, but it isn't strictly neccessary and becomes more superfluous if you have a good Channeling guy. It's really flexible, basically, and can shore up whatever you think is a weakness, either through more hex removal, another condition removal, an Aegis, or whatever.

If I'm playing PvE with a healer, Vigorous Spirit and Signet of Devotion are the most used skills on my bar, followed by Word of Healing and Healing Seed. The rest of the skills really don't matter.

Peace,
-CxE

Byron · Apr 26, 2006, 04:00 PM // 16:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by icemonkey

where you are comming from byron, the word, orison, kiss area is that its difficult to spend all your energy spamming these even if you throw a seed or something in there every so often, because of the cost and cast times.

Somewhat true. What I tried to say in my heal other spiel is that it is 10 energy that could be split on 2 5-energy heals. 2 heals has the possibility of being put on different targets, but the sacrifice is almost 2 seconds of cast time. So, put simply:
Heal other = 2x orison for 1 target in .75s for 10 energy
2x orison/kiss= 1 heal other for 2 targets in 2s for (2x5) energy
WoH= 2x orison for 1 target in .75s for 5 energy

Judged to mathematic standards with all factors being equal, the score becomes:

*Heal power x (targets/time) x (5/energy cost)*

Heal other= 1.3
2x orison/kiss= 0.5
2x ethereal light/orison= 0.5625
2x ethereal light/healing whisper= 0.625
Word of Healing = 2.6 -or- 1.3 for targets over 50%

Of course, heal other loses a little ground in recharge time. And realistically, you won't often get 2 1s heals off in 2s, unless you queue it up. So those factors kinda even themselves out. WoH is clearly the champion heal.

Quote:

This strikes you as energy efficient, regardless of whether it is the best heal/energy ratio

Not so much efficient as a dimension of flexibility. Heal other is a committment that I feel could become a mistake. More often though, and most often on a skilled player, it is not.

Quote:

that your bar is a hard to break bar, or idiot proofed as he said.
yes no?

Well, the subtext there is that only an idiot would run that bar(ie, me). That's yet to be seen...but yes, I'll concede that it isn't a hard bar to run.

Quote:

Ensign vs Byron round 4
LETS GET IT ON!

It hasn't been an argument so much as me trying to maintain some credibility. I've already conceded to pretty much everything Ensign has had to say, given his great experience.

I would still really like to hear a third opinion on the issues presented, being:
Extinguish
Devestating Hammer
Hundred Blades
Value of 5-energy heals
Value of heal other

I'll respond to Ensign's posts ASAP, but time is already straining.

minor · Apr 26, 2006, 04:50 PM // 16:50

Extinguish will be interesting but not sure it will destroy martyr. with martyr you burn an elite for a character and then you have to have a skill to deal with the martyrs conditions. Extinguish is only removing one condition per person, but of course its not elite. If you run Extinguish on 2 characters you will be able to deal with a lot. O yes and ensign , you were asking anet to buff eles burning spells for more damage i thougth. Nice of them to make a skill that makes burning even less dangerous lol.

Ensign · Apr 26, 2006, 06:15 PM // 18:15

Just a couple of nits:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Byron

2x orison/kiss= 1 heal other for 2 targets in 2s for (2x5) energy

2.75 seconds. Remember the aftercast.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Byron

Not so much efficient as a dimension of flexibility. Heal other is a committment that I feel could become a mistake.

What I'm trying to explain is that the playstyle of addressing everything with Orison *is* a mistake. It's not a mistake in timing or play choices, but in your fundamental strategy.

Orison spammers are only slightly higher on the chain than Flare spammers. Flare spammers would actually make similar arguments. Of course you could pump all your energy into better, more expensive spells, and be left without energy for Flare. But if you don't, you have a character who, while he always has his Flare available, *sucks balls.*

Peace,
-CxE

super dooper · Apr 26, 2006, 07:31 PM // 19:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by JR-

The difference being that you need to spec into Heal Party to get juice out of it, you really don't with Extinguish.

indeed, but chances are you're a healing monk if you have Heal Party on your bar, so you're already spec'd into it. I can't see Extinguish being useful on a primary monk, or rather, a monk who is actively healing or protecting. If you're going to use it to get rid of mass conditions, while trying to do your normal healing/prots, you'll burn through energy too fast.

Unless you're the 3rd monk in a build who sits back spamming Heal Party, Orders, Dark Fury, etc. Then you'd probably get some good mileage out of it.

Byron · Apr 26, 2006, 07:50 PM // 19:50

This is a continuance of the last post of mine. My interest is consumed by this thread at the moment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

That's not to say that it won't have any role anywhere, because it probably will, especially in a multi-warrior spike. But replace Devastating Hammer? You have to be out of your mind.

This was posted in Ensign's first post, but I quickly forgot about it in light of all the healing qualms. So let me get away from healing for at least a moment, and put this little beauty to math.

Lets keep it simple, but realize that KD is the most important factor in a hammer warrior's arsenal; I don't think that point is debatable. All the combos should rightly use crushing, so I didn't take the deep wound factor into play. I'll break it down thusly:

[seconds of KD x (damage bonus/total adrenaline+energy cost)]/time to perform

*Why total adrenline? Because that's the factor of the skill slot coming into play. Certainly, your devestating and heavy blow adrenalines overlap when you're building up, but they are occupying 2 slots on your precious skillbar, so I took that into consideration. The adrenaline stacking is directly involved in the second step, so don't worry.

One-combo power-factor:

Backbreaker/crushing/irresistable = 4.93
Backbreaker/crushing/protectors = 4.24
Forceful/heavy/crushing = 3.96
Devestating/crushing/heavy = 3.92
Devestating/crushing/fierce = 2.3
Devestating/crushing/irresistable = 2.08
Devestating/crushing/protectors = 1.0

But, in order to fully understand the potential of a combo, it should be put in time ratios, yes? So, assuming 1 adn/second for all combos, the highest potential rate of each combo comes to 6 combos/minute, thanks to the 10 sec recharge time of crushing blow.

So lets safely assume assume we have kiters, and ideally we get 1 adn every 1.5 seconds.

Backbreaker/crushing/irresistable = 4/min
Backbreaker/crushing/protectors = 4/min
Forceful/heavy/crushing = 6/min
Devestating/crushing/heavy = 5.7/min*
Devestating/crushing/fierce = 5.7/min
Devestating/Crushing/irresistable = 5.7/min
Devestating/crushing/protectors = 5.7/min

So the more realistic rate of adrenaline gain shows the more realistic max combo rate. (*And I'm being leniant with the devestating/crushing/heavy combo, not taking into consideration that heavy would remove the strike of adrenaline gained from crushing blow.) Now its just a matter of multiplying the two values to get the final *power rating*.

1. Forceful/heavy/crushing = 23.76
2. Devestating/crushing/heavy = 22.34
3. Backbreaker/crushing/irresistable = 19.72
4. Backbreaker/crushing/protectors = 16.96
5. Devestating/crushing/fierce = 13.11
6. Devestating/Crushing/irresistable = 11.86
7. Devestating/crushing/protectors = 5.7

So, by my math, the most powerful stand-alone combo is backbreaker/crushing/irresistable. The most powerful combo over time is Forceful/heavy/crushing. But that's strictly numbers; the build of the team should be the first concern whe deciding what skills to take. Just as well, we're not taking any special niceties into account, such as irresistable blow's always-hit policy. So, to judge the combos on this math alone isn't too wise. However, it does show that my concern about devestating hammer being replaced wasn't too ill-founded.

Back to healing.

Quote:

Are you so used to having Channeling up that you're subconsciously evaluating skills with it in mind?

That could very well be, since my first training (if you will) in monk was with channeling as e-management. I think you're right to say that it's having some effect on my judgement.

Quote:

This has always been about the use of Heal Other as a power heal while accompanied by at least two other healing skills. It's not Heal Other vs. Orison, it's Heal Other vs. Dwayna's Kiss when Orison of Healing is already on your bar.

Yes, you effectively argue that its a blunder to have 2 5-energy heals and heal other on the skill bar (unless one of those 5-energies is Woh), where I have said this could be good in some situations. I don't think I'm making any headway in this argument: you know my points, so I won't reiterate them.

Quote:

I question the assumption that the proper response to people getting rocked is more Orisons..

And I don't think having 3 orison-types on the bar is going to solve the problem either, but having 2 and heal other opens up some flexibility on a pure healer who doesn't have the luxury of WoH.

Quote:

If your only plan against a particular offense is Orison you are probably going to die very quickly.

No doubt. But I would argue with only orison and other on the bar as pure heals, the possibility opens up to choke that monk. A diversion or distracting shot could ruin your day in a hurry. Signet of devotion is unlikely to save you at 2s cast time...This is true of all monks though, and must be a factor that is avoided as often as possible.

As for the GvG build commentary, it is very helpful. Doing the math and thinking of the values of an elite e-management makes it more sensible to run a WoH in a 2-monk situation now. And as for mend ailment, that never even came to mind.

For the HA commentary, that WoH build you posted is almost the exact build I run, only with signet of devotion instead of orison. The Sb/infuse running heal other is a bit risky if you ask me, considering the WoH monk probably has a mental line drawn on the party screen at half-health. Putting heal other on an infuser is asking for over-heal, so unless your communication is very solid amongst monks, I wouldn't be so quick to take it. That's the reason i pack breeze instead of other, and in the slot you've left open: dwayna's, veil, heal party, divine intervention, convert hexes, or purge conditions, depending on the type of build.

Quote:

Remember the aftercast.

Of course, but I didnt take that into consideration for any of them, heal other included. Other presents no problem in multiple castings required, but it does still have aftercast when you need a second heal right away.

Quote:

Orison spammers are only slightly higher on the chain than Flare spammers.

But, there is a difference in that players start at full health, and perhaps have some ability to self-heal or, at least, run away and regen. Flare has to first deal with all that health, and then worry about the healers healing, where orison-types already have the health or self-healing helping them. Maybe that's why you said "slightly higher" though.

Byron · Apr 26, 2006, 08:00 PM // 20:00

Would one of the mods be so kind as to rename this thread to something like "Factions skills and PvP evolution," or something similar?

My great thanks to that mod.

I didn't expect the thread to get this serious...

minor · Apr 26, 2006, 09:06 PM // 21:06

Just an a point on hammers wars in factions, they may have a problem if ppl bring ward of stability. Hammer war that can't KD=not very good. The ward scales from 10 at 0 to 26 at 16 earth so it can be up most of the time; it also makes gale and shock useless.

As to the whole channeling in Ha thing. It was really amazing to me how this works in HA. I play gvg mostly, its crap there, but alter matches you go stand there and get 5> energy with every cast. As has been stated before in the forums Ha and gvg are not the same at all; therefore crap in gvg can be "money" in HA and make for very different builds.

icemonkey · Apr 26, 2006, 09:15 PM // 21:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Byron

I didn't expect the thread to get this serious...

I'm glad it did, good opinions all around

Now I can feel both sides of the argument presented by Byron and Ensign

Similar to Byron i learned to monk as a tombs channeling junk heal spammer. and i still have a problem with heal other. I only take it for the cast time, I dont see very much advantage in it other than that. The drawbacks of overhealing make it less efficient than it is in theory. If you don't overheal then yeah heal other is great.

now on to your discussion of hammer attacks, well you've done something pretty amazing Byron. You made up a mathematical formula to weigh all of the complex variables in a reasonable fashion. Yer like the guy that made up quarter back rating, doesnt make much sense but in the end it manages to rate things pretty well. The results came out pretty well, except for the one with protectors. Protectors strike is like an insta hit if i remember correctly, and with a hammer thats kind of big deal, not saying its not the worst combo, but i don't think it is accruatly reflected by the numbers.

Divineshadows · Apr 26, 2006, 09:16 PM // 21:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Byron

You're certainly right for time efficiency. What i was trying to say is that, if you're at the point where you need that 10 energy spell to keep an ally alive, then it is because there is some spiking going on. If your prots and/or hates arent doing the job against the warrior spikes or whatever, then an infuse is going to be the same idea as a heal other: prevent sudden death. You said sometimes health just gets knocked down on a teammate fast, beyond your control, form blackout, KD, or what-have-you. I would see that as the only situation to require a heal other. Of course, your experience exponetially outweighs my own, but I'm still not convinced that heal other is a necessary skill. I see its utility, and I've played enough WoH in HA to know how valuable it could be in a pinch. But that 10 energy is still bugging me; its somewhere between 15-25% of your total energy pool spent on one person.

For healing efficiency, infuse health is just horrible. I have been quite vocal with an infuse monk on my team either in GvG or HA when the skill gets used against teams that have pressure based warrior damage as all it serves to do is add further pressure to your backline. There are special circumstances where an infuse makes sense against these types of teams, but it is very rare indeed. Against such teams heal other >> infuse health.

On the topic of healing efficiency, heal party is king in 8v8 settings. Some monks try to wait until all of their party members have sustained the amount of damage that it heals for before using it. This is just wrong. All it takes is a situation in which you can get half of the healing from heal party and it is still more efficient than virtually any other choice available. This skill is great at keeping a lot of party members topped off. It does not synergize as well with channeling in HA as some of the other choices available, but it does not have to because keeping your team's health topped off means your prot monk can focus on the target the opposing team is trying to kill. How anyone can pass on this skill when running with a high level of healing prayers is beyond me. You can even start casting this spell pre-emptively when you see some AoE that is about to hit your team. Not to mention that this spell (along with Aegis) cuts straight through the shame hex ftw.

Orison of healing -- I hate this skill. For all of its flexibility in its fast recharge and ability to be cast on anybody, it is the weakest choice available for healing efficiency in almost every situation. Like Ensign, when I play a healer I often go whole matches without using this skill. If I could find a way to get this skill off of my healer's bars, then I would. The problem is that there are not any really good substitutes -- the alternatives either are target other ally or healing touch which has a longer recharge and cannot be used realistically to heal anyone other than yourself. In a three monk backline for HA, the WoH/Heal Party monk is definately the hardest to screw up, but I have seen plenty of monks screw up this role too by almost exclusively using orison while under channeling. I have considered running the healing monk and the SB/infuse monk without a self heal (aside from heal party), but I am concerned that this would create some weaknesses within the monk backline particularly on relic run maps.

Word of Healing -- this skill is great in terms of healing efficiency. It is always strictly better than orison and it only gets better as more pressure is being applied to your team. All I can say is use it often and the bonus healing will happen on its own without even having to try too hard.

Dwayna's Kiss -- I like this skill better in PvE than I do PvP. I do not like counting on the other team to use hexes and, in addition, enchantments tend to disappear quickly from a focused target. Given this it ends up being weaker than orison in many circumstances with a longer recharge and inability to target self. When running party enchants like Aegis or orders, you can use it to get big heals on non-focused targets but here we are talking about damage that should be getting cleaned up by heal party anyway. In an extremely heavy enchantment based build, it can work. Typically though if I have room for this in my bar I would rather run heal other.

Healing Seed -- great in PvE (except in PvE tombs) and great in HA. If you are running balanced and looking to hold you will have at least two copies of this. Not usable in PvP in other forms aside from HA because of this nifty little counter called the tab key. Healing hands suffers from the same problems as healing seed.

Byron -- your monking interest seems to be with HA at the moment. Here is the 3 monk backline I have had success with:

Active Prot monk
Restore Condition {E}
Protective Spirit
Aegis
Reversal of Fortune
Guardian
Holy Veil
Channeling
Drain Enchantment

Protection - 14 or 12 (not sure which is best)
Divine Favor - 12 or 14 (not sure which is best)
Inspiration - 10

WoH/HP monk
Word of Healing {E}
Heal Party
Healing Seed
Orison
Mend Condition
Inspired Hex
Channeling
Drain Enchantment

Healing - 16
Divine Favor - 10 or 9
Inspiration - 9 or 10
Protection - spare points

SB/infuse monk
Spellbreaker {E}
Infuse Health
Healing Seed
Heal Party
Orison
Aegis
Drain Enchantment
Power Drain

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

My experience has been that far too many balanced teams are overly paranoid about hex removal (probably due to the migraine interrupt scrubs that infest HA -- who are so easy to counter without using hex removal) and completely overlook condition removal aside from restore condition. Nobody removes deep wound and crippled off of their active prot on these teams. Humility signet also can really nail these teams. Another puzzling thing about balanced HA teams is that many of them have very few enchantment removal skills. With HA being even more enchantment heavy than GvG, I like to go with 5 or 6 enchantment removal skills spread across the mesmers and monks on the team. Drain enchantment is extremely reliable energy management for HA while inspired hex is not. Nothing sweeter than draining the opposing monk's channeling after it gets cast and then watching them spam

Ensign · Apr 26, 2006, 09:22 PM // 21:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by Byron

[seconds of KD x (damage bonus/total adrenaline+energy cost)]/time to perform

I don't feel that [knockdown time] * [damage bonus] is a reasonable metric at all. It places far, far too much value on rather small amounts of damage. It's about as valuable as one of ollj's formulas for making skill decisions. Just to demonstrate one of the logical extremities of it, Devastating -> Normal Attack -> Hammer Bash is worth a grand total of *zero* points of effectiveness under your scale.

Knockdowns are so much more valuable than damage additions that they aren't even in the same league. A knockdown is a perfect mes effect, not only can they not cast to save themselves, but they can't try and kite either. As a warrior, you don't just hold him in place to beat on, you hold him in place for the other warriors as well. The amount of damage that you get out of a single, well placed knockdown is in the hundreds.

If you want to adjust the formula to at least be mildly interesting, it absolutely needs to use total weapon damage, not total damage additions. Even with that modification, I still feel that your formula would be grossly undervaluing knockdowns.

Since I feel the premise of the argument is so flawed I can't take any of the argument itself seriously. Sorry.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Byron

Yes, you effectively argue that its a blunder to have 2 5-energy heals and heal other on the skill bar (unless one of those 5-energies is Woh), where I have said this could be good in some situations.

Decouple 'Orison' and 'good' please. Orison is the weakest skill on your bar. It is something that is only used if all of the good options are on recharge, if you've been presented with something completely unexpected and nothing on your bar is any good, or during low-stress situations when your energy is good.

What you have to understand, is that if you're addressing a very common, important situation with Orison, then you need to take a step back and re-evaluate what's on your bar. The reason Orison is even useful is because while it is *never* your 'Plan A' skill, it is at least a minimally effective 'Plan B' for enough situations that it's worth giving one skill slot to. It should never be the most important skill on your bar in any fight, but it should see some play in every game. If it is seeing significant usage against a certain strategy, you're almost certainly missing an important skill on your bar.

They key term there is minimally effective. That's a far cry from 'good'. That's also why I'm harping on a second copy of Orison being a sign of a poor monk. The *only* reason you'd ever want that second copy of Orison is because you have the intention of spamming it. Spamming Orison is *never* good. Orison spam is a reliable level of minimal effectiveness. That's all.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Byron

No doubt. But I would argue with only orison and other on the bar as pure heals, the possibility opens up to choke that monk.

You usually have other skills on your bar that can contribute - hell, that's why they're there. I'm never scared of having my Orison diverted because it's not a skill that makes or breaks a battle. If you lose your Other or Word, though, you're in trouble. More Orisons are not going to fix that. As I've been beating on, if the only plan you have is to ride Orison to victory you are in trouble.

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Originally Posted by Byron

And as for mend ailment, that never even came to mind.

It's not something you're really concerned about in Hero's Ascent, because movement isn't very important there. But being split up without a Mend will get people killed, so you need redundant copies of removal.

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Originally Posted by Byron

For the HA commentary, that WoH build you posted is almost the exact build I run, only with signet of devotion instead of orison.

I don't understand why you'd run Signet of Devotion on a Channeling guy. Kiss plus Orison is rather redundant on that character, you don't need both, but there's nothing better for that bar given how he's played and his attribute setup. I like Signet of Devotion too, but it doesn't make any sense to me on a high healing, medium divine guy who's entire purpose is to abuse an energy engine.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Byron

The Sb/infuse running heal other is a bit risky if you ask me, considering the WoH monk probably has a mental line drawn on the party screen at half-health.

Normal healing isn't this guy's job though. That's the job of the Channeling guy. If things are going normally you won't use the Heal Other much at all. What it's needed for are situations where the Channeling guy can't keep up with the damage, or has been incapacitated and you need to 'fill in' and stabilize things. Heal Other is the strongest, most compact tool for that job, even at the relatively lower spec.

There's nothing really comparable, either. Healing Breeze is a 3rd or 4th heal, it's going to be awful in the situations where this guy wants to get involved. Again you shouldn't be involved in the clean-up healing at all, you already have a guy who's orders of magnitude better than you at that and all you're going to end up doing is overhealing. Orisons aren't going to be good either for the same reasons. Again - fast, strong heals to stabilize a sketchy situation.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Byron

dwayna's, veil, heal party, divine intervention, convert hexes, or purge conditions, depending on the type of build.

Dwayna's is poor on that guy for reasons already mentioned. I kinda like a Heal Party on the guy, even if it isn't a very high spec one, because he's in a much better position to use it - comparative advantage and all that. Of course his energy sucks too. I do like the Divine Intervention because it does help in the situations you're worried about, and you have a good spec in it already. Veil and Convert are good choices if one of those isn't already being run, but I'm not all that big on running multiples of either. Two Converts create a lot of vent traffic, and you end up doubling up the casts pretty often - basically the second Convert is a whole lot weaker than the first one. Veil becomes a bit more suspect in a build that already likely has triple Inspired Hex - I think that one is good for the maintained aspect, but the fifth single removal is really pushing it. Purge is something I really would only want to pair with a Draw or Martyr, on its own it just seems weaker than a Mend of some sort.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Byron

Of course, but I didnt take that into consideration for any of them, heal other included.

It becomes relevant as soon as you start mentioning chaining Orisons on a single target to duplicate the effects of a Heal Other. The second Orison is going to arrive almost two seconds later.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Byron

But, there is a difference in that players start at full health, and perhaps have some ability to self-heal or, at least, run away and regen.

You're looking at too specific of differences. The two are comparable because you are taking the worst tool available to you, and using it for every situation because *you can*. There are better tools available, and you'll do much better if you learn how to use them effectively.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Divineshadows

If I could find a way to get this skill off of my healer's bars, then I would. The problem is that there are not any really good substitutes -- the alternatives either are target other ally or healing touch which has a longer recharge and cannot be used realistically to heal anyone other than yourself.

Well the problem for me goes something like this. I rarely have any problems filling up my bar with skills that fill important roles - Mend, Infuse, Party, hex removal - or are very strong depending on the build, like Signet of Devotion or Vigorous Spirit. You basically have five slots that you get to use for those, and you want more. Word or Other is automatic. Then you're left with those two slots, that need to cover your basic heals so that you can at least function in that role. If you use something like Kiss as one of those slots, you've put a lot of restrictions on what sort of heal has to go into that last slot - has to be able to self heal efficiently in the case of Kiss - and none of the options are all that hot. Plus you have to consider that Kiss isn't exactly rocking to begin with. If you put Orison in that slot though, it doesn't put any real strings on the 3rd heal - it covers all the conditions so the only real requirement is that it's there. Hence the value of Orison, at least to me, is that it lets me run Word/Other + six skills that I want, instead of Word/Other + five. It isn't that Orison can't be replaced, it's that replacing the flexibility of Orison takes *two slots*

My hope with Ethereal Light is that it's strong and flexible enough that I can construct a bar with Word/Other and seven skills that I want, bypassing the chaff entirely. Because if there's a way for me to effectively heal without Orison or Dwayna's Kiss on my bar I'm going to jump on it.

Peace,
-CxE

Byron · Apr 27, 2006, 06:03 AM // 06:03

Thanks for the third opinion divine.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Divineshadows

heal party is king in 8v8 settings

Ah yes, perhaps the most used skill in the game, for good reason. I don't think there's any need to bring in heal party to this argument, because it has a different and enshrined place on the healer's bar.

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The problem is that there are not any really good substitutes

Hopefully ethereal light can solve that problem. But yes, even I sometimes wince when I see my buddy's health bar climb a meager 20%.

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All I can say is use it often and the bonus healing will happen on its own without even having to try too hard.

Yes, part of being good at WoH seems to be guesswork, as the person your healing may drop to below 50% before the spell is cast. That's a small satisfaction in a healer's stressful life.

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I do not like counting on the other team to use hexes

It seems this is a matter of setting again - in HA, I can pretty safely count on hexes. In GvG, they may be scarce indeed. However, i would take dwayna's over orison(and do) for a WoH monk, since 1 hex or enchantment makes it better than orison, and we want to milk the WoH.

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Byron -- your monking interest seems to be with HA at the moment.

Nay, my interest is expired in HA. If I were arguing for an HA monk, it would be no contest. What I'm trying to understand is the value of certain spells as compared to others, and the significance of what heals are placed on the skillbar. There have been varied opinions, to be sure.

I'm very familiar with a 3-monk backline for HA, but thank you.

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Drain enchantment is extremely reliable energy management for HA while inspired hex is not.

Until channeling gets nerfed, for a 3-monk backline, drain enchantment doesn't seem necessary. I think if you run out of energy in HA, it's either because a mesmer is camping you, or your team is bad. Neither of these things you can fix.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

If you want to adjust the formula to at least be mildly interesting, it absolutely needs to use total weapon damage, not total damage additions.

Then I shall have to integrate total damage somehow, though I was hoping to avoid that mess. As for the value of KD, I'd think that having it to be the primary muliplier was enough, considering the damage itself is placed secondary. But nevertheless, I'll reconsider the equation, some other time...it's bloody late.

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Just to demonstrate one of the logical extremities of it, Devastating -> Normal Attack -> Hammer Bash is worth a grand total of *zero* points of effectiveness under your scale.

So the weakness of the equation is clearly the "damage bonus" factor. I'll ponder on it, but feel free to throw some suggestions my way.

Quote:

Decouple 'Orison' and 'good' please.

Will do. My only arguments for orison have been very conditional, and that should be a measure of my endorsement. It could be that I'm shoving my orison argument into the hole labeled "most effective in a situation." Perhaps the argument belongs in the hole labeled "most effective in every situation"

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I don't understand why you'd run Signet of Devotion on a Channeling guy.

Mesmers and mesmers alone. It sometimes saves lives when your being camped by an e-denial chump.

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or has been incapacitated and you need to 'fill in' and stabilize things.

Now there's a factor I hadn't properly considered. If there's a mesmer sitting on the WoH, a second big heal would be a welcome addition. And what's more, heal other used on the WoH would be quite effective. I may have to try running other next time I play an infuser, then.

Quote:

Veil and Convert are good choices if one of those isn't already being run, but I'm not all that big on running multiples of either.

Neither am I, but if for some reason either of the other two monks aren't taking it, it is essential. Veil removes migraine on your convert hexes guy, which is very nice. Convert on an infuser is pretty nifty since its doesn't have any significant spec mods anyway, but it should only be run if that active protter doesn't have it already. Divine intervention is my personal favorite: in situations where you've already blown an infuse, it comes to the rescue. It is incredibly effective at keeping other monks alive. It can also do wonders at guessing spikes. And most importantly, it can be targeted on yourself so you can't be spiked by most chump ranger or blood groups (After all, you can't infuse yourself). I'm very surprized to not see this more often used. And yes, purge should used on a martyr bulid so the active prot doesn't have to waste a spot.

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The two are comparable because you are taking the worst tool available to you, and using it for every situation because *you can*.

I'm still searching for the best healer while trying to avoid bias. But, I'm not gonna go recharging the old arguments, so I'll take just take the flare metaphor into some consideration.

Thank you both, looking forward to continuing.

Xellos · Apr 27, 2006, 01:10 PM // 13:10

Well, the thing I can see from the hammer arguement is that by going Forceful->Fierce->Heavy/Hammer->Crushing->Irresistible, you get a net of 169 or 137 damage plus. Sure, you lose KD. But it isn't about hammer being KD. It's about hammer contending to for a spot on the damage+ against sword and axe. Now, the compressed spike value is obviously smaller because crushing is at the end, but perhaps the meta-game will change or someone will find a way to make full use of the damage (Perhaps the best build coupled with assasin shadow step thingy for npc gankage?).

The most notible part about hammer doing damage, is that under the effects of frenzy, hammer is undisputed in damage per hit. The adrenaline gain might be slower, and I'm no math whiz like Ensign, but the 6 adren of Forceful/Fierce/Heavy seems rather neat on more stationary targets. The fact that unlike sword with 11 minimum and 22 max, or axe with a crappy 6 min and 28 max, you get 19 min and 35 max per hit to add onto the plus damage. Under the effects of frenzy, are you not gaining more damage out of these new skills?

I completely understand that no decent team is going to remotely let you get off all those moves, but I still find it a neat idealistic combo for damage. Perhaps PVE, or like I said NPC ganking. You only get 1 KD, but you get damage that might exceed even axe or sword in their current forms as far as damage goes across a slightly longer scale.

But like I said, the combos are mostly gimmicky and unrealistic to use in GvG.

Still, I'd like to get your thoughts on the new skills for the weapons of a warrior Ensign. Which spec do you believe got the shaft and which spec got upgraded?

EDIT: Nevermind. Enraged Smash totally owns Forceful Blow. Can't believe I didn't remember that skill. Pointless post here.

Xasew · Apr 27, 2006, 03:12 PM // 15:12

Anyone interested in Life Sheath? Looks like a pretty good spell on every part, can be kept on 3 guys all the time against spike teams(=those 3 are safe, and if the enchantment gets removed they can just call it). And it seems good against Warrior pressure, too.

Entropius · Apr 27, 2006, 04:12 PM // 16:12

The whole Kiss vs Other debate is one I've been debating with myself recently. I typically play the SB/Infuse guy in Tombs, for which the standard skillbar (at least, the one that most teams ask for) is:

Orison
Kiss or Other
Infuse
Seed
SB
Party
Channeling
Veil

I've stopped suggesting my own skillbar to groups, because if I run Kiss they'll want Other, and if I run Other, they'll want Kiss. If I run Veil they'll want Inspired Hex, but then I'll tell them to shove it, because Veil is ninja.

As everyone knows SB/Infuse guys are about as bad as boon prots for running out of energy -- you've got all this expensive stuff to do... and channeling to pay for it. Granted Channeling is pretty amazing in HA, since (as one poster aptly described it) HA is one large positional clusterflick.

As SB/Infuse you've got three jobs: your primary job is to make spike teams not kill anyone, in which case Kiss is pathetic. Other is better, since it's marginally fast enough to catch slow spikes which you can't Infuse for one reason or another. Your secondary job is to throw Spellbreaker on random things, like ghosts trying to cap altars and relic runners, and yourself once spike teams figure out who you are. Your tertiary job is to help out as much as you can with the healing against nonspike teams, considering how much you had to gimp your skillbar to shove both SB and Infuse on there.

The trouble is that you spend most of your time doing that tertiary job: healing random people ... and you have to do this without running dry on energy. In this limited case Kiss is competitive, since it costs less than half of Other. With Other you're getting one triggering of Channeling per ten energy; with kiss you're getting twice this. This means that spamming Orison and Kiss is almost an energy-neutral proposition, while if you use Other you'll find yourself out of energy and with no way to get it back.

I suppose the argument goes like this, then:

Kiss is competitive on SB/Infuse guys in HA because it is more efficient than Other with Channeling active, and that character needs all the energy efficiency that they can get.

Whether it's better is another story, because the ability to drop an unconditional huge heal on someone's head is worthwhile.

***

On breaking Air of Enchantment: I see two ways to go about it. The first is to use it as an efficiency mechanism as Ensign implied, in which anyone getting beaten on gets Air thrown on them, and then buried under an avalanche of free prots (some of which have Boon on them for heals), forcing a target switch.

Keep in mind that a booner can do the weaponswap dance: swap down, use your boonprots for free because of Air of Enchantment, lose no energy to Boon because you're at 0 energy, then swap back up later.

The other way I see to break it is to use it with Vampiric Spirit and Zealot's Fire to manufacture rather disgusting smite-bombs.

Divineshadows · Apr 27, 2006, 05:08 PM // 17:08

For GvG, I think having two prodigy powered E/Mo with heal party and extinguish is going to rock. Draw conditions on one will likely still be more useful though due to its fast recharge. Some of the new hex removal options look decent, but I really cannot see anyone using one of the elite hex removals.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Byron

Until channeling gets nerfed, for a 3-monk backline, drain enchantment doesn't seem necessary. I think if you run out of energy in HA, it's either because a mesmer is camping you, or your team is bad. Neither of these things you can fix.

A mesmer camping you can be fixed. Fall back to safety and either the mesmer will lay off or will follow. If the mesmer follows, then inform your team quickly and kill the mesmer that is out of range of their monks. Divide and conquer.

Yeah, I did not explain the main motivation for drain enchantment on monks in HA. It is two-fold really -- assist the offense in killing by removing key enchantments and as a back up plan in case your channeling gets removed. Negative energy sets is assumed on all monks so should not run out of energy even with a mesmer camping you. IWAY teams do not run hexes (or very rarely) and most spike teams are very hex light. That's a high percentage of HA teams right there. Every team has enchantments, even IWAY, and not just some enchantments but a lot of them.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Entropius

The trouble is that you spend most of your time doing that tertiary job: healing random people ...

Spending most of your on plan C sounds like a poorly formed plan.

Channeling on an SB/infuse monk only encourages that player to do the least efficient thing possible which is get in the enemies face and spam orison. I may be different than everyone else in this regard, but I prefer the SB/infuser to play more like a GvG flag runner (hang out in the back and cast Heal Party and Aegis and toss an SB in on whomever is having nasty spells cast on them) except against spike teams. Against spike teams I want my whole team including the infuser to get right in their face.

LamerFlamer · Apr 27, 2006, 05:44 PM // 17:44

Monk's got an anti EoE Bomb, that I think that is going to be run in pvp sometimes. The skill is called Dwayna's Sorrow, the description is, All nearby allies are enchanted with dwaynas sorrow for 30 seconds, if an ally dies with this enchantment on, the whole party is healed for x ammount. I think that this would completely stop an EoE bomb.

Wasteland Squidget · Apr 27, 2006, 06:18 PM // 18:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by LamerFlamer

Monk's got an anti EoE Bomb, that I think that is going to be run in pvp sometimes. The skill is called Dwayna's Sorrow, the description is, All nearby allies are enchanted with dwaynas sorrow for 30 seconds, if an ally dies with this enchantment on, the whole party is healed for x ammount. I think that this would completely stop an EoE bomb.

If you are carrying a skill on your bar solely for anti-EoE bomb, please do not monk for my team.

Dwayna's Sorrow will probably see heavy use by IWAY and any build with minions, but I don't see any other major utility to it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xasew

Anyone interested in Life Sheath? Looks like a pretty good spell on every part, can be kept on 3 guys all the time against spike teams(=those 3 are safe, and if the enchantment gets removed they can just call it). And it seems good against Warrior pressure, too.

It's an interesting enough skill, but I'm not really impressed with it. I'm not sure if it's so much better than Reversal in a lot of situations. At high prot you'll probably prevent a little more damage than Reversal, but not enough to warrant an elite slot unless you're dealing with something like Ranger Spike.

The bigger problem with this skill is that it wants to replace Reversal on your bar, but it can't because of the cast time. 1 second is too much to do the things you normally want to do with Reversal (quick heals/protection against large spikes of damage.) As such, you end up carrying both Reversal AND Life Sheath on your bar, and then the skill just starts to look like crap.

Boon prots still need their elite energy management, so if this finds a place it's going to be on an active prot. There it's competing with Air of Enchantment, which is simply a more effective skill for supporting your team, IMHO.