Curse

Byron · May 27, 2006, 06:50 AM // 06:50

Since the release of the new factions skills, some monk elites seem to have been filtering their way into a standard role, bringing their own strengths and weaknesses to the heavy monk metagame.

I realize this forum hasn't addressed these elites very well yet, maybe because the understanding isn't there. Hopefully, through this discussion, some light can be shed on the formation of the new metagame. Before the appearance of these skills, monks were likely either healers running WoH or boon/prots running elite e-management. Now, it is possible and effective to run a team with smiting-speced monks, as well as develop new hybrid healing power due to new skills.

Most of all, 4 skills interest me:

Air of Enchantment: (Protection prayers) 5e | .25s cast | 5s : Elite Enchantment Spell. For 4...9...10 seconds, Enchantments cast on target other ally cost 5 less Energy.

Blessed Light: (Divine Favor) 10e | .75s cast | 5s : Elite Spell. Heal target ally for 10...94...122 Health and remove one Condition and one Hex.

Healing Light: (Healing Prayers) 5e | 1s cast | 4s : Elite Spell. Heal target ally for 40...88...104 Health. If your target has an Enchantment, you gain 1...3...3 Energy.

Empathic removal: (Monk other) 5e | 1 cast | 10s : Elite Spell. You and target other ally lose 1 Condition and 1 Hex.

Air of Enchantment has already seen what seems to be its best function: working with smiting prayers to enhance offensive power or punish attacking melee enemies. It's use beyond that doesn't seem to be great in HoH play, but in GvG play, running air of enchantment can be a great energy help to fellow boon/prots. As an active protect, ie being run on a highly spec-ed protect monk, it doesn't seem to be at all effective. It does make possible, however, considering its cast time and recharge, to pour on prots in a short amount of time. A stack of protective spells has its own appeal, but the effectiveness of such a tactic has to be questioned; especially when considering that all condition removals are spells, it doesn't seem like air of enchantment has further use.

Blessed light is a spell that I feel has some solid potential even in a two monk GvG backline. It's power is pretty amazing: moderate heal with both a condition and hex removal that can be targeted on the monk who is casting it. High DF only makes the heal bigger. I see this as a great counter to warrior spikes, since it will likely remove deep wound, heal for a large amount, and take any necro hex off as well. Of course, it is too costly and has too much a recharge to be counted on as a full-time heal(as WoH could almost be), which brings on some metagame problems. Nontheless, I feel with a monk spec-ed to DF and healing, it could have some solid potential in GvG.
I was thinking something like this:

11+1+3 divine favor
10+1 healing
10 inspiration

Blessed Light
Orison of Healing
Heal other -or- Heal party
Infuse health
Mend ailment
Inspired hex
Drain enchantment
Hex breaker

I really don't like orison being the spammable heal, but with 15 in divine favor it will heal for almost 100 health at 5 energy cost, and no penalty to energy recharge (ie, what divine boon would bring).
With a blessed light monk spec-ed to prot, it could go in very a different direction. Mend condition with high DF and moderate prot could be a very effective heal. Then there is always the convenient appearance of gift of health to help a non-healer out. I'm not entirely sure which path is better, but I am convinced of the power of blessed light.

IMHO, Healing Light seems to be a nice alternative for a healer who before only had WoH to work with. It heals a moderate amount and has no recharge or other ill effects, but suffers from a relatively long cast time in comparison to a boon/prot. It also requires some other monk activity happening to activate the inherent energy management, where WoH can heal big by itself.
When run effectively, a Healing Light monk does afford the use of a lot of big heals such as heal other and heal party. Its potential and its practice are two far different things, I imagine. This skill is what I'd like to more especially hear about.

Empathic removal, first off, I feel has little to no use on a monk primary. There are far more effective elites to bring to the table. However, on a monk secondary (say, a mesmer or necro), I feel it has potential. The long recharge means that it cannot be spammed quite as effectively as expel hexes, unfortunately. But where a monk secondary is already required (eg, a fast-cast resurrect mesmer), empathic removal seems like a solid option. For its cost, it has the possibility of removing 2 hexes and two conditions.
I'm not sure how best to use it, but I think there is a build out there for which empathic removal is meant for.

I'd like to hear from the community, start a discussion, so that these elites can be better understood. Personally, I would like to see some builds. And not only for GvG play (though that is what I'm most interested in, obviously), but for HA, 4v4, and factions battles as well.

Patrograd · May 27, 2006, 06:25 PM // 18:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by Byron

When run effectively, a Healing Light monk does afford the use of a lot of big heals such as heal other and heal party. Its potential and its practice are two far different things, I imagine. This skill is what I'd like to more especially hear about.

In a build with lots of party wide enchants (eg Aegis chains, bonds, tainted flesh, orders) this is really a very, very nice skill in my opinion, preferable in such builds to WOH. As you say, it allows the consistent use of heal party and heal other as your main "spam" heal is only costing 2 energy. In HA builds where you get the benefit of channeling it is better than free, and you cant argue with that IMO.

It also has the advantage of being a self heal also.

WOH is imo a clearly superior skill where these party wide enchants are missing though

Rey Lentless · May 28, 2006, 02:19 AM // 02:19

I've used some of the new monk elites and skills in HA and have been impressed. I think some of them are more HA specific (like healing whisper), but they could have use in other places as well.

Blessed light. I think this is best used with a 16 divine build and performs decently. It gives a 173 heal at that level, and it gives you the opportunity to use Deny Hexes. Here's one blessed light build I've used:

16 divine
11 healing
8 inspiration

Blessed light
Healing whisper
Healing Seed
Heal Party
Divine Spirit
Deny Hexes
Channelling

The last spot, I've used different things including: Contemplation, Healing touch, Divine Healing, Divine intervention. Some odd choices, but blessed light and healing whisper are spammable and can be your main heal spells and any additional long recharging divine skills helps make deny hexes a great skill. Whisper gives a 135 heal with this build. Heal other would give less than 20 more healing than Blessed light, so I don't think it's worth using here. Divine spirit is in there to get an energy break occassionally, and you can use channelling w/ healing whisper to power yourself back up to full energy quickly. The only thing I don't like about this build is the weaker heal party, but divine healing can be put in there as well for a situationally huge heal party like spell that benefits the build.

Healing light. I think in HA, this is superior to woh almost all the time. The monks all carry channelling, and even if you don't have a passive prot, multiple aegis's, orders, etc.. you can make good use of this with almost any build. Common bar for me with this:

16 Healing
11 Divine
8 Inspiration

Healing light
healing whisper
healing seed
heal party
channelling
holy veil
contemplation
heal other

Light and whisper give 139 heals, where word only gives 119 most of the time. Heal other is in there to give a big heal when a word would be needed, and gives 35 more than word would. Overall, I think it's a much more efficient build than a normal woh bar.

Air of enchantment. I agree that it's basically just a smite skill at this point, but could be something for boon prot's to consider. I haven't tried that out, so I don't know if the frequent changing targets that you'd be dealing with would be worth trying to make use of this.

Empathatic removal. I don't think this is worth using. Expel hexes seems superior in most ways, and if you want superior hex removal.. you could make better use out of a blessed light build.

There are some non elites that I've made use of as well in the monk lines. Healing whisper is absolutely great in HA, with it's 1 sec recharge, better than normal heal, and good synergy with channelling and divine spirit. Deny hexes is a great skill if your bar's set up for it, but that's a very specific bar and won't be very common beyond blessed light builds. I really love extinguish, although it's high cost can be a problem. It does however free up teams to drop martyr or RC and thus is worth the energy IMO.

Those are the skills I've integrated into my monk bars thus far and have been happy with them.

Byron · May 28, 2006, 08:17 PM // 20:17

First of all, thanks to JR- (assuming it was him) for cleaning up this thread.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patrograd

In a build with lots of party wide enchants (eg Aegis chains, bonds, tainted flesh, orders)

The effectivenss of such a tactic in cooperation with easily spammed necro enchantments is something I hadn't even considered. The healing power of a healing light monk working on a team with tainted flesh is very appealing.

I'm still concerned with its cast time. However, it is much less of a diversion concern than WoH would be.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rey Lentless

It gives a 173 heal at that level, and it gives you the opportunity to use Deny Hexes.

It is interesting to afford the use of deny hexes, which can quickly and cheaply remove up to two hexes, assuming both your divine spirit and blessed light are recharging. In conjuction with blessed light, that removal power is definitely impressive. Though, such a tactic is only applicable in HA with channeling-fueled e-management.

As for the healing whisper/divine spirit sync, that power in HA is no doubt extremely useful. Spamming a moderate heal like that while gaining energy (from channeling) has a great use versus the aoe, eoe, and hex based teams. And while recharging, it is only fueling deny hexes. I really like that HA build - so if you are the pioneer, credit is due. Used effectively, it has healing and holding power.

Quote:

Healing light. I think in HA, this is superior to woh almost all the time.

Of course there are advantages to both - WoH has more power. I don't know if I would feel safe running a healing light bar without heal other, so I agree there. Especially considering that channeling will probably be bringing a lot of energy back in sync with light. Whisper is very nifty in HA, I'm sure, but the range seems like a big factor.

Quote:

Overall, I think it's a much more efficient build than a normal woh bar

I agree there, since in HA orison is usually garbage. Against GvG pressure, I can see the use of small, cheap heals. But few HA teams exercise damage pressure, it seems - its either massive damage, spikes, or dom mesmers/spike.

Tainek · May 28, 2006, 09:17 PM // 21:17

Atm ive been looking at an interesting energy management build

Blind Was Mingson (easly replaced)
Soothing memorys
Healing light {E}

with these two skills you have dual 100 point heals that can be used almost constanly, and still regen energy faster than you can spend it

you also now have access to all the sexy abilitys from the ritualist restoration line (weapon of warding=suped guardian, and you dont need points in prot, and blind was mingson is great self defense)

Edit:

ok lets have a look

14 healing
12 Resoration
Rest Divine

Spirit light (96)
Soothing memorys (82)
Blind Was Mingson (8s)
Generous was Tsungrai (244 point heal and +122 health Vs Spike)
Infuse Life (no sup rune, with generous in hand is close to a 400 point heal)
Heal Party (76)
Weapon of Warding (10s Duration, +4 Regen) (cast is begging for intturupt, so easly replaced)
Recuperation (team +3 regen) (again easy to replace, but this one is very useful)

infuse would be 480 +122= 602 , 602/ 2 *1.34 = 403 +df bonus