Curse

Liquidus · May 16, 2006, 04:40 AM // 04:40

Hi, thanks for looking. This is my current Boon Prot Monk for a balanced team build I am using. I can't post the other chars right now, but they are a hammer warrior, surge mesmer, and blinding E/Mo.

I'm looking for any suggestions to any possible improvements to my build. It is pretty standard, although I havn't really looked at the factions skills, or maybe there are some useful alternative weapons, armors, or prophecies skills I havn't noticed.

Mo/Me

12+1+3= 16 Divine Favor
10 Inspiration
8+1= 9 Protection Prayers

Reversal of Fortune
Mend Condition
Guardian
Contemplation of Purity
Mantra of Recall
Protective Spirit
Inspired Hex
Divine Boon

Acolyte's chest and pants
Ascetic's hands and feet

+5 energy sword with +5 defense pommel
Divine symbol: +12 energy, +5 armor and +45 health while enchanted
Inspired Hex

-5 energy sword with +5 defense pommel
Regular 16 armor shield (dont' remember stats)
(This is a pvp char so I only have two slots, although I am contemplating getting that -2e focus, how much do those cost?)

I chose mend condition over mend ailment because I feel that RoF and CoP should be enough to heal or take conditions off myself and mend condition is better for healing teammates.

I want to put in Holy Veil somewhere but I'm worried if I take out inspired hex I won't have enough energy. I'll have to try it and see how it works.

Any input is appreciated, but please explain the reasoning behind your opinion. Thanks for the help.

liquiddrool · May 16, 2006, 04:08 PM // 16:08

Sounds like a normal build. I wouldn't bother with holy veil, it wastes your mana regen and you have contemplation of purity. Hex removal is a bit tough on boon prot, holy veil may help but I usually have someone else in my group handle hex removal. A mes with expel hexes usually works fine or a secondary mes with it. If you really need to remove hexes deny hexes works well if you can work your build around it.

remmeh · May 16, 2006, 04:39 PM // 16:39

on my boonprot i skimp on guardian and take protective spirit... guardian is only what, 38% block? crappy.

so i end up with 2 hex removals.

rof
mend condition
protective spirit
mantra of recall
inspired hex
holy veil
contemplation of purity
divine boon

main reason for veil is you can precast it (on yourself).

dgb · May 16, 2006, 05:08 PM // 17:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by remmeh

on my boonprot i skimp on guardian and take protective spirit... guardian is only what, 38% block? crappy.

Guardian's strength isn't blocking standard hits. It becomes invaluable when it breaks up an assassin chain, or a hammer KD chain. 38% is well enough to do that, it only needs to block one in three hits.

Divineshadows · May 16, 2006, 05:21 PM // 17:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by dgb

Guardian's strength isn't blocking standard hits. It becomes invaluable when it breaks up an assassin chain, or a hammer KD chain. 38% is well enough to do that, it only needs to block one in three hits.

Not only that, a monk that is able to observe the enemy warrior(s) and use guardian pre-emptively to mess over warrior adrenal gain. Even if you are running a blinder, an ineptitude mesmer, or whatever to deal with melee, you cannot assume that you are going to have enemy melee under control 100% of the time. Guardian lets you go one step further by slowing adrenal gain even more in addition to messing up melee attack skill chains (often you'll see sever blocked and a warrior just go ahead and fire off gash and final thrust -- makes me laugh everytime).

Protective spirit is really the skill you can live without. Very few damage packets are going to exceed ~50 in TA and those that do can be handled by reversal->guardian->reversal in quick succession to keep someone alive. If your team has enough support for you (like mend condition, draw conditions, or mend ailment on another player and an off target hex removal), then consider dropping contemplation of purity as well. I see it as a selfish skill now considering the 10 second recharge. With the 5 second recharge, it was a life saver and basically a must have for TA.

Kabale · May 16, 2006, 05:32 PM // 17:32

Work with the other players in the build, have them take some responsibility for things like hexes and conditions. Spreading them around will make you a much more effective monk and take pressure off of where there will be the most pressure out of your whole team.
For example, draw/mend condition on your ele, additional hex removal on your mes. This allows you to open up at least one slot for something, which is much appreciated on a boon prot's skillbar.

Liquidus · May 17, 2006, 12:10 AM // 00:10

Thanks for the help everyone.

@Divineshadows- I thought about it and it's true I could probably make do without protective spirit. I'll try replacing it with inspired hex. You have never had problems against hammer warriors or ele spikes in team arena though?

@Kabale- I realize that sharing the healing work is important in a good team. The air ele has draw conditions and heal other while mesmer will either have inspired hex or remove hex.

Divineshadows · May 17, 2006, 01:33 AM // 01:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Liquidus

@Divineshadows- I thought about it and it's true I could probably make do without protective spirit. I'll try replacing it with inspired hex. You have never had problems against hammer warriors or ele spikes in team arena though?

Large half naked man wielding a 100 pound hammer running at me? I can see this guy coming at me more than a full second before he arrives which is enough time to pre-prot yourself with guardian and start running. If all else fails, the E/Mo or N/Mo on my team can save me with a fast draw conditions (bye-bye deep wound) and/or heal other. If I had it to do over, then I would probably have given my PvE warrior the smallest frame possible.

Reversal of fortune does everything I could want and more against ele spikes (though mind shock->orb is quite annoying yet completely non-threating if your heal other player is on the ball).

EnvyHax · May 17, 2006, 08:15 PM // 20:15

Here's what I run for TA on my boon/prot:

Reversal of Fortune
Guardian
Mend Condition
CoP
Inspired Hex
Revealed Hex
Energy Drain
Divine Boon

I have pretty decent hex removal (can remove 2 hexes every 20 sec), and I usually only have energy problems if I'm up against a team that uses no hexes.

sno · May 17, 2006, 10:28 PM // 22:28

Quote:

12+1+3= 16 Divine Favor
10 Inspiration
8+1= 9 Protection Prayers

Reversal of Fortune
Mend Condition
Guardian
Contemplation of Purity
Mantra of Recall
Protective Spirit
Inspired Hex
Divine Boon

Acolyte's chest and pants
Ascetic's hands and feet

+5 energy sword with +5 defense pommel
Divine symbol: +12 energy, +5 armor and +45 health while enchanted
Inspired Hex

I 100% agree with your attributes, and only have one suggestion for your skills. As said before, PS is not needed for TA, so drop that in favor of another hex removal. If your team has another hex removal other than just on the monk, take revealed hex for the energy management, but if not take Holy Veil for the lower recharge.

I recommend getting either the -2 earth scroll from the cities of ascalon quest (cheap as hell, do the quest yourself or buy one from someone who just finished it,) or a christmas shield (peppermint or gingerbread.) Those shields give you much more than the 16 armor shield, since you don't meet the req of the 16 armor ones.

Also I recommend running 3 weapons sets, one wand with +5 energy 20% inspiration recharge for Mantra of Recall (it helps when theres a mesmer on you shattering it every other time.) and a 20/20 inspiration offhand (fastcast is nice for inspired/revealed, as well as MoR.) Also a +energy set, I use a +5 energy sword and a +27/-1 offhand with +30hp. That's good to use in emergencies, and often comes in handy. The third set obviously would be the -7 energy set, or -5 with shield. You can even use a 4th set with +15/-1 rod and +27/-1 offhand, but I think that using a -2 regen set does more harm than good when you get into an energy hole.

Liquidus · May 18, 2006, 01:30 AM // 01:30

Thanks for the help, EnvyHax and Sno.

@Sno- Concering your recommendation about the 20 inspiration wand and 20/20 inspiration offhand, am I right in guessing if MoR fast recharges I can cast it right away to remove my old MoR, giving my the energy bonus? And wouldn't it have no effect on inspired because it says inspired becomes the targetted hex for 20 secs. Do you think the extra chance of MoR recharing is better than the +10 armor and +45 health while enchanted on my current set?

I've taken out prot spirit for holy veil, it's useful for slowing down hexes and works well with CoP too.

sno · May 18, 2006, 02:26 AM // 02:26

Fast recharge is good for MoR because chances are pretty good that it'll get removed before the 20 seconds anyways. Either with a mesmers shatter enchant or by you CoP'ing off a hex. Either way it's nice to have it ready again. The only thing that effects inspired hex would be the fast cast, which can prove invaluable against a good interupter. I would say that set is better than the +5/+45, because you should have the +5 armor sword and +5 armor scroll (or +10 armor shield) that you can switch to if pressured.

Squirrelly · May 18, 2006, 05:44 AM // 05:44

I agree with sno on everything except the attributes.

11+1+3 divine favor
10+1 protection prayers
10 inspiration

It makes guardian and mend better and the loss of healing from boon with this setup is negligible.

AdamKebhammer · May 22, 2006, 12:57 PM // 12:57

What I find is underused by boon/prot monks for TA/RA is pacifism... if you have a smart team, or atleast educate them on what you are doing....this can easily take out warriors/sins/rangers for a good 1/3rd of the match....keep spamming and they will eventually leave, its like playing 4v3 for the majority of the match, that and its funny to watch... feel free to comment

JR · May 22, 2006, 01:04 PM // 13:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by AdamKebhammer

What I find is underused by boon/prot monks for TA/RA is pacifism... if you have a smart team, or atleast educate them on what you are doing....this can easily take out warriors/sins/rangers for a good 1/3rd of the match....keep spamming and they will eventually leave, its like playing 4v3 for the majority of the match, that and its funny to watch... feel free to comment

A tactic that is good against bad teams, and bad against good teams. I know who I would rather put more effort into beating.

zulu123 · May 22, 2006, 07:11 PM // 19:11

I really have no experience playing as a monk. But I had a question.. why do people use 'Inspired Hex' which can be used only once in 20 seconds instead of some skill like 'Remove Hex'? Is there some obvious advantage that I am missing?

Yanman.be · May 22, 2006, 07:21 PM // 19:21

Inspired gives energy, and is 1 second cast.

sno · May 23, 2006, 12:17 AM // 00:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by JR-

A tactic that is good against bad teams, and bad against good teams. I know who I would rather put more effort into beating.

I personally love it when teams bring pacifism, since it's so easy to inspired off, and then I can turn around and use it on enemy warriors :P (same with spirit of failure and amity.)

Quote:

I really have no experience playing as a monk. But I had a question.. why do people use 'Inspired Hex' which can be used only once in 20 seconds instead of some skill like 'Remove Hex'? Is there some obvious advantage that I am missing?

Remove hex being a 2 second cast means it'll usually get interupted, and if it doesn't, that's 1 extra second you're spending a: not healing, and b: not kiting. The only player that usually runs Remove Hex would be a mesmer with high fastcast. For a simple hex removal, holy veil is what people use, since it still has a low recharge (now 12s, but it's still good,) and it's a 1s cast (well, just over 1s, since you have to remove it, but you can be casting something else while you're removing it.) People use inspired/revealed hex because of the energy return, because having more energy is always better than not

. It's good secondary e.management, especially after a death, when MoR isn't viable.

pah01 · May 30, 2006, 01:16 AM // 01:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Divineshadows

Large half naked man wielding a 100 pound hammer running at me? I can see this guy coming at me more than a full second before he arrives which is enough time to pre-prot yourself with guardian and start running. If all else fails, the E/Mo or N/Mo on my team can save me with a fast draw conditions (bye-bye deep wound) and/or heal other. If I had it to do over, then I would probably have given my PvE warrior the smallest frame possible.

Reversal of fortune does everything I could want and more against ele spikes (though mind shock->orb is quite annoying yet completely non-threating if your heal other player is on the ball).

In team arenas U can go without prot spirit.

/agree with divine :P

Sacho · May 30, 2006, 03:23 AM // 03:23

yeah, what pah01 said. Prot spirit is really a waste on your energy in RA/TA, since coordinated spikes are few and far inbetween, and only eles and the like do more than 50 damage consistently(and eles suck anyway

) I find that pre-protting with RoF or Guardian is fine.

I prefer energy drain to mantra, but you have to pick your edrain targets carefully. I also prefer to bring sig of devotion as extra energy management, as usually PuG TA teams and RA teams don't have enough anti-warrior/caster on them and you need the extra efficient healing.