Curse

Mithie · Mar 02, 2006, 08:04 AM // 08:04

Okay, so if you walk into a random arena, team arena, GvG, or even sometimes HoH (Less so, because of Nature's Renewal from IWAY), and you see a Mo/N, there's a 99% chance he's running the classic boon protting build, spamming cheap, 5 energy insta-prots with divine boon and backed up by Offering of Blood for energy management.

Boon prots are pretty resilient, since they can kite against warriors with 1/4 cast insta-heals, guardian against rangers, prot spirit vs. spikers, CoP vs. hexes, and mend ailments against conditions.

Energy denial seems marginally effective, but the good monks can just swap focus and OoB when it comes up. So in this thread, I'd like to explore the possibility of using Signet of Humility combined with energy degen to make a boon protter impotent - at least for a short duration until your teammates can take down a target.

Yes, yes, I know Blackout - knocklock chains can wipe out a boon prot, and mass mesmer/necro degen will also knock one out, but both of those options take multiple players under coordination to pull off. How about a mesmer using Signet of Humility combined with her other ED skills? Do you think it'll work better? You wait for them to hit OoB, degen them, and a few seconds later hit Sig of Humility... FTW?

Patrograd · Mar 02, 2006, 08:25 AM // 08:25

To make humility viable for monk shutdown you also need to run mantra of inscriptions and a high inspiration attribute. even then you will leave a small window that the monk can cast OOB in, and a good monk will use that window. It seems to me that bringing two skills to counter one leaves your team one skill behind, you have effectively 63 skills on your team, against 64 on theirs.

E-denial is very effective against boon prots, as they have a very high energy demand. Yes they can focus switch and OOB, but that's pretty much where you want them. Surging right after they cast offering seems the best solution to me.

I was reading somewhere that the best use of Humility is to counter eviscerate, and it seems hard to argue with that. whether that makes it worth a spot on the team is debateable. It has its place in some builds, but almost certainly not as a counter to offering.

tafy69 · Mar 02, 2006, 08:35 AM // 08:35

Humility on warriors is great, u dont even need the mantra for it as it resets their adrenaline.

Mithie · Mar 02, 2006, 08:36 AM // 08:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patrograd

To make humility viable for monk shutdown you also need to run mantra of inscriptions and a high inspiration attribute. even then you will leave a small window that the monk can cast OOB in, and a good monk will use that window. It seems to me that bringing two skills to counter one leaves your team one skill behind, you have effectively 63 skills on your team, against 64 on theirs.

Ah, but you can also use humility to shut down adren spikes, disrupt crippling rangers so your flagger can get a capping window, or a dozen of other uses. That one skill is pretty versatile for a lot of things.

Quote:

E-denial is very effective against boon prots, as they have a very high energy demand. Yes they can focus switch and OOB, but that's pretty much where you want them. Surging right after they cast offering seems the best solution to me.

Naw. They can swap, cast, swap back pretty fast. All you'll nail with that E Surge after they hit OoB will be their primary energy pool.

Quote:

I was reading somewhere that the best use of Humility is to counter eviscerate, and it seems hard to argue with that.

Yep.

Quote:

whether that makes it worth a spot on the team is debateable. It has its place in some builds, but almost certainly not as a counter to offering.

It's a pretty solid counter though, to keep that monk dry for at least 10 or so seconds. That's a pretty big window.

JR · Mar 02, 2006, 10:41 AM // 10:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mithie

It's a pretty solid counter though, to keep that monk dry for at least 10 or so seconds. That's a pretty big window.

The problem is that OoB already has a long-ish recharge. Unless you can time your Humilty to hit JUST before it recharges, the Monk isn't going to be hugely bothered considering the attention you are giving him. In a degen/attrition build I would probably run it and use it on monks with OoB, but not in a standard DPS/Pressure build.

Patrograd · Mar 02, 2006, 01:48 PM // 13:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mithie

Naw. They can swap, cast, swap back pretty fast. All you'll nail with that E Surge after they hit OoB will be their primary energy pool.

Sure, but thats OK.

boonie has 0 energy after being drained. Boonie switches, casts OOB at a typical 10 blood (cast cost 5, so now has "-5"). OOB netts him 16, so after switching back to main pool he's now on 11. My surge at 16 domination takes him down 10 to 1, and his next OOB is 15 seconds away, with a 20% chance of it being quicker. so now he has to switch to his higher energy pool for every single cast, very quickly sending him into energy hell, as I am slso hitting him with SoW and energy burn, and possibly even power leak.

The Real Roy Keane · Mar 02, 2006, 02:34 PM // 14:34

I reckon Signet of Humility would be viable, if Diversion wasn't so damn good..

Lorien of Mandos · Mar 03, 2006, 02:40 AM // 02:40

what about this set up:

16 dom, 5 death, not sure on points left for fast cast and inspiration

1. Energy Surge
2. Energy Burn
3. Signet of Weariness
4. Signet of Humilty
5. Diversion
6. Consume Corpse (standard on the me/n esurger)
7. Mantra of Inscriptions
8. Rez

I dont often play as an esurger (Im far better at active prot monking) but when I do this is usually the bar I like to run...Humilty is very flexible and can find a spot in many builds. For example, if you are a heavy hex/degen type of team you can shut down the spell breaker monk. If you are heavy on conditions you can shut down the martyr or RC monk. Also, when not focused on a monk ( a good mesmer should be able to cycle through multiple targets) you can stop some of the offensive elites as well.

iggk · Mar 03, 2006, 03:08 AM // 03:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Real Roy Keane

I reckon Signet of Humility would be viable, if Diversion wasn't so damn good..

diversion is absolute crap vs any boon prot worth his spot on a gvg team.
with the extreamly low amout of enchantment removal in gvg i never hesitate to divert my boon since its allready up anyways. i've done this dozens of times and never once had my boon removed while it was recharging under diversion.

wheel · Mar 03, 2006, 03:49 AM // 03:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by iggk

diversion is absolute crap vs any boon prot worth his spot on a gvg team.
with the extreamly low amout of enchantment removal in gvg i never hesitate to divert my boon since its allready up anyways. i've done this dozens of times and never once had my boon removed while it was recharging under diversion.

The value of diversioning your Boon is that you can't bring it back up to CoP it off. If they get either CoP or boon you're fairly gimped against hexes. Also, there's a lot more enchantment removal in GvG than you think. When they're running Diversion in an effort to ruin your Boon or CoP, they're going to run Shatter Enchantment or the like. As an experienced GvG boon prot, I'm much more scared of Diversion, Shame, Backfire, etc, than I ever am of Signet of Humility. Signet of Humility just slows my efficiency down, if they time it right, which is hard to do with dual 20% blood recharge mods. A good dom mesmer will completely subvert my ability to heal short damage bursts, making it much more likely for someone to drop.

Thock · Mar 03, 2006, 03:52 AM // 03:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by iggk

diversion is absolute crap vs any boon prot worth his spot on a gvg team.
with the extreamly low amout of enchantment removal in gvg i never hesitate to divert my boon since its allready up anyways. i've done this dozens of times and never once had my boon removed while it was recharging under diversion.

While that is a nice counter for the first Diversion what about the second, third and fourth Diversion? Diversion has a 10 second recharge, any Mesmer worth his spot will continue casting it on you over and over. On a side note any dom mesmer worth his spot also brings shatter enchant in GvG to help with spikes.

On topic, while Signet of Humility has its uses disabling OoB is not the best one. Id rather see it used on a CS ranger or a War with an attack elite.

icemonkey · Mar 03, 2006, 04:14 AM // 04:14

if you really invest in inspiration you can easily 100% lock an elite out with mantra. Its a good lockdown and can hurt every player on the other team because its so universal. Different builds are geared towards their elite to different extents but it can have a serious affect on any build. Just doesnt seem to be that popular, i havnt read any good reasons not to use it but i am assuming there are out there because none of the top guilds run it

Lorien of Mandos · Mar 03, 2006, 04:50 AM // 04:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by icemonkey

i am assuming there are out there because none of the top guilds run it

not to say that your point is not valid, it very well may be - but this type of thinking is the sort of thing that keeps them a top guild and you just copying their builds and running them with less skill. At some point, someone in all of these top guilds tried something that has not been done before, found a way to make it work with the people in their guild and thus rose in rank to become a top guild. If you refuse to try an idea in the game simply because 'the top guilds don't run that' I feel sorry for you.