Curse

Accurax · Feb 09, 2006, 08:59 AM // 08:59

OK, i need some help and assistance. I allways seem to get owned by either a ranger or a warrior.

As yet i havnt found a skill that successfully saves my skin, pacifism buys me a little time, but, takes too long to cast & as i say only really buys me 10 seconds or so.

I tend to run a boon healer with either Mesmer or Necro secondary.

The core skills i allways choose are:

Orison of Healing
Dwayna's Kiss
Healing Breeze
Divine Boon
Restore Life

This leaves me 3 skill slots to fill with other goodies (or change the skills im allready taking)

The way i see it i need to add both energy managment & effective defence against warriors / rangers.

These are my ""tactics"" as we stand...

Cast Boon before gates open

Hide somewhere

Heal as many people as possible

Suffer from poison &/ or nasty mesmer Degen skill (4get name)

Cast healing breeze on myself to counter the effects of health degen.

**Then one of two things happen

1) I become the target of choice of a given ranger... If this happens i cast pacifism and hide, normally they leave me alone as more pressing issues of there own survival develop.

**Rangers whilst an annoyance are not my main problem, allthough it would be nice to have a more "delapidating" counter measure for them.

2)A friendly warrior decides he's fallen in love with me and starts persistantly chasing me.... In this situation i tend to opt for the ever popular run like Bo-Diddely method ... however no matter where i run, or how far... the annoying armoured thug continues to follow me...

I find that whilst being chased by Warriors i dont have enough time to cast pacifism (and it doesnt last long enough anyway).

Now, even though i'm effectivly ""removing"" a warrior from the game by running like Forest Gump on Amphetimines, i cant help feeling that this is not my destiny as a monk... surley i should be spending my time healing my fellow team-mates.... The warrior has removed me from the game in the same way as i have removed him.... and in the long run he will allways win.

So, ignoring all the waffle (mmmm waffle's)... WTF should i do... i want to hurt the nasty warriors... blind them, cripple them... sting them so hard they leave me alone..... or at least have some decent defensive tactic to deal with them...

Please help

tafy69 · Feb 09, 2006, 09:10 AM // 09:10

Yes running or kiting as its more widely known as is a good tactic, just run in circles rather than away from the action.

Maybe try running a boon prot instead healer so you can use guardian, use that and kite and a warrior will need assistance to kill you.

Another thing you could do is play a warrior and see how monks survive you and your team, also remember that good teams help their monks in some way e.g blind, hexes, cripple etc

Accurax · Feb 09, 2006, 09:27 AM // 09:27

but i like being a healer ... sob sob .... hmmmm but going to look into guardian now ... any suggestions for energy managment .. apart from offering of blood??

Cold · Feb 09, 2006, 09:55 AM // 09:55

I'll always own you with my axe gale warrior. I love monks who use healing skills

) But if you were boon prot monk, you could hold a couple of warriors like me with ease.
And get rid of restore life - you are not supposed to res others, it's not PvE.

Cold · Feb 09, 2006, 10:03 AM // 10:03

Try this one:

Offering of Blood[elite]
Reversal of fortune
Guardian
Protective Spirit
Mend Ailment
Holy Veil
Contemplation of Purity
Divine Boon

put 10 in blood and take in both hands items for faster blood recharge. If some warriors is on you, cast protective spirit and guardian, then cast reversal and mend from time to time. And move all the time. Don't run away - you don't need to.
If you have hexes on you, cast some additional enchantments first then hit contemplation of purity - you are "pure"

Holy veil is to remove hexes from others.

kais · Feb 09, 2006, 10:03 AM // 10:03

well for energy management, you can use channeling, which is really useful when there are a lot of enemies around. although that isnt always good for a monk, having extra energy for each spell you cast when you have someone chasing you is good. also you can move near enemy casters, which wont change anything since they hit you from a distance.
ah, hmm i have also seen people use mantras of recall (elite mesmer skill) in combination with contemplation of purity as an energy management.

also, as a side note, since this is for pvp, you should bring a res signet or vengeance ( or nothing if you think noone will die

the time taken for res is time lost to heal the remaining members of your party ).

although you are a healing monk, i think you should still use mend ailment( forgive me if its part of the 3 skills you didnt list), even if you wont benefit from it completely. bring a hex remover too, like remove hex, or holy veil.

Accurax · Feb 09, 2006, 10:24 AM // 10:24

Hmm interesting.....Guardian seems a little awkward to use.... only lasts 5 seconds... is there a problem with constantly casting it... does it open u up?

tafy69 · Feb 09, 2006, 10:41 AM // 10:41

you can boost it to 6 seconds with a 20% enchant mod

JR · Feb 09, 2006, 10:47 AM // 10:47

It is also broken, and gives you a 2% bigger chance to evade than the description states.

fenix · Feb 09, 2006, 10:59 AM // 10:59

hmmm...now thats a fact I didnt know. It gives more evasion than it says? Thats kinda handy. Shame it doesnt last longer...

Age · Feb 09, 2006, 11:56 PM // 23:56

If you want to stick with healing that is fine but remove devine boon out and stick with spells for the most part.I would use orison,healing touch for your self,word of healing.dwaynas kiss or vigorous spirit,healing seed,heal party.res siig and vengence.If you are constantly bing attacked heal up your self up and get the attention of your offence.

glountz · Feb 10, 2006, 12:33 PM // 12:33

By the way, as the gale warrior and hammer warrior are becoming more and more popular, the anti-KD warrior skill balanced stance helps a lot but hurt severely your E-management (so you have to keep on Heal SIg/Dev sig to heal yourself and others, protected behind G and RoF, without loosing energy).

asdar · Feb 10, 2006, 01:02 PM // 13:02

Try the Mo/Me with: 16 divine 8 protection 10 Inspiration

Energy Drain
Mantra of Resolve
reversal of Fortune
Mend Ailment
Boon
Holy Veil
Contemplation of Purity
Res sig

This won't hurt you against non-interupters and will help against rangers.

Kick off boon and then hex or no hex Contemplation of Purity is your first self heal, followed by boon reversal contemplation again.

This isn't a build where you can hold up someone, other than yourself forever but energy isn't horrible for this and it'll get you through those nasty interupts.

It doesn't help against knock downs but what can you do?

tafy69 · Feb 10, 2006, 01:33 PM // 13:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by asdar

It doesn't help against knock downs but what can you do?

Take distortion, swap energy drain with mantra recall

asdar · Feb 10, 2006, 01:49 PM // 13:49

I'm not against your idea, but I'd have a couple reasons I wouldn't go that way.

Distortion doesn't help against gale or shock and you have to keep hitting it every five seconds. It's one more bit of confusion when you're trying your best to spam heals. It's in illusion too so you have to either split stat or live with worse results. The good thing is that you completely avoid attacks, but the bad is that you have to always be using it or you're open to interuption or knockdown.

Mantra of Recall is awesome once, the second time when you have to save up 15 energy to get back 5-15 net it's less good and the time after that it's trouble. If you have time to save up 15 energy then you didn't need mantra and if you don't you can't use it.

Energy drain will net you nearly the same for a 5 power skill and mantra of resolve is always up so you don't have to worry that in the one second that it's down and you need it you'll get hit.

Both are good ways I think.

The Real Roy Keane · Feb 10, 2006, 02:52 PM // 14:52

If you're usin this build in RA or TA,and you don't have another monk to back you up,it's not really your fault you're dying so much: healers struggle badly on their own. If you want to be able to survive and save other party members by yourself, you'll want to swith to Mo/Ne prot..and Offering of Blood really is your best friend in 4x4.

JR · Feb 10, 2006, 02:53 PM // 14:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by asdar

I'm not against your idea, but I'd have a couple reasons I wouldn't go that way.

Distortion doesn't help against gale or shock and you have to keep hitting it every five seconds. It's one more bit of confusion when you're trying your best to spam heals. It's in illusion too so you have to either split stat or live with worse results. The good thing is that you completely avoid attacks, but the bad is that you have to always be using it or you're open to interuption or knockdown.

Mantra of Recall is awesome once, the second time when you have to save up 15 energy to get back 5-15 net it's less good and the time after that it's trouble. If you have time to save up 15 energy then you didn't need mantra and if you don't you can't use it.

Energy drain will net you nearly the same for a 5 power skill and mantra of resolve is always up so you don't have to worry that in the one second that it's down and you need it you'll get hit.

Both are good ways I think.

Energy Drain is a trash skill, since the nerf. It's terrible energy management, and even worse energy denial. If you don't believe me, do the math. Compare it to Offering of Blood, Mantra of Recall, Drain Enchantment... Energy gain per minute with Energy Drain makes me cry.

Mantra of Resolve? Boon, CoP, RoF.. .25 second casts, not going to be interrupted.

No offence intended, but your build is terrible. Out of everyone in this thread, Cold was most on the money with what he suggested.

JYX · Feb 10, 2006, 03:11 PM // 15:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by asdar

Distortion doesn't help against gale or shock and you have to keep hitting it every five seconds. It's one more bit of confusion when you're trying your best to spam heals. It's in illusion too so you have to either split stat or live with worse results. The good thing is that you completely avoid attacks, but the bad is that you have to always be using it or you're open to interuption or knockdown.

I think the idea is that you hit distortion and run. It cancels out the massive crits you get from axes that'll punish you if you decide to bolt it. Therefore you really don't have to keep spamming it, you can tell easily and use it when they're gaining ground on you or if you get galed, if you need to stop and heal for a sec then so be it. If you wanted simply to tank the warriors then Physical Resistance is an obvious and pretty good choice. It'll reduce damage by quite a bit while is long lasting, thus energy efficient. But it won't stop skills being used on you, more importantly won't stop knockdowns/evisc on you. The energy problem with Distortion though is a real one, the break points are 4 illusion for 2 energy per hit then all the way to 12 for 1 energy. Ok so you want 4 illusion, notice how thats not good for a 11/10/10 12/10/8 or really any other sort of setup?

Quote:

Originally Posted by asdar

Mantra of Recall is awesome once, the second time when you have to save up 15 energy to get back 5-15 net it's less good and the time after that it's trouble. If you have time to save up 15 energy then you didn't need mantra and if you don't you can't use it.

Mantra of Recall on its own costs 10 energy, theres no law that says you HAVE to use CoP with it. In fact I advise that you don't for exactly the aforementioned reason. Looking at it now though, you say 5-15 net so I assume you don't mean a CoP combo, you must be working with old stats then.

Quote:

Originally Posted by asdar

Energy drain will net you nearly the same for a 5 power skill and mantra of resolve is always up so you don't have to worry that in the one second that it's down and you need it you'll get hit.

Right, again I think you must be working with old stats. Blood is for Offering of Blood is undoubtedly the most efficient single cast energy management, not only does it net lots of energy but it synergises well with faster recharge equipment which key Inpsiration e management do not. Inspiration is good for utility, you get the use of mesmer stances, also you can use more than 1 energy management skill plus some hex/enchant removal on the side (I prefer MoR and Inpsired Hex). Assuming we have inspiration/blood at 10 these are the figures we are looking at, energy drain now isn't even close. These figures are rounded.

Mantra of Recall[e] 13 energy net over 21 (20 recharge + 1 cast) seconds.
That translates into 0.62 energy per second or 1.86 pips.

Energy Drain[e] 11 energy net over 31 (30 recharge + 1 cast) seconds.
That translates into 0.35 energy per second or 1.06 pips.

Energy Tap 7 energy net over 31 (20 recharge + 1 cast) seconds.
That translates into 0.23 energy per second or 0.68 pips.

Drain Enchantment 8 energy net every 26 (25 recharge + 1 cast) seconds.
That translates into 0.31 energy per second or 0.92 pips.

Inspired Hex 6 energy net over 21 seconds (20 recharge + 1 cast).
That translates into 0.29 energy per second or 0.86 pips.

Offering of Blood [e] 11 energy net over 15.25 seconds (15 recharge + 0.25 cast)
That translates into 0.72 energy per second or 2.16 pips.

Doctor Death · Feb 10, 2006, 03:52 PM // 15:52

The Monk build I use which stands up well to Warriors and rangers well is this:

Divine Favor 12+1+1 (14) Only minor runes needed
Protection 12+1 (13)

Divine boon
Balthazaars spirit
Essance Bond
Holy veil
Blessed sig
reversal of fortune
Mend Ailment
Res

This is the most effective monk build I have come across not only to survive but to get better with warriors and rangers attacking you.
The more they hit the more energy you receive to spam RoF and Mend Ail.
You can stand there with 2 warriors beating on you easily and heal yourself and team.

The problem you will have is when they realise that attacking you is futile and switch targets you will probably not have as much energy to heal the team which is when Blessed sig comes in handy. Another tactic I use is to cast essence bond on the team member being most beat on and cancel soon as they stop being hit but ideally you want to be the main target

, which is not hard.

go ahead try it in team or random, I have had lots of whispers from confused opponents after battles, some amased at the amount of self healing, some asking was I using the 55hp build

and some wanting to know also how to survive the mass warriors and rangers that populate CA.

asdar · Feb 10, 2006, 04:30 PM // 16:30

I run a mo/nec OOB prot monk and I'd agree that it has the best energy management but the OP was saying that the rangers were disrupting him. Mo/nec won't help at all against that. He'd still get owned by rangers.

I know the energy management numbers too but you still have to build up 15 energy just to use MoR. I like the skill the first time, but after that when you actually need the energy is just when you can't get it.

Energy Drain isn't awful, it's the third best and I didn't put it in there to deny the opponent but that's a nice tiny positive whereas 10% health is a tiny negative.

Whatever, just because you can copy what every monk in the top guilds are using doesn't mean that nothing else is even decent.