Curse

Lord Ertihan · Jan 09, 2006, 01:56 PM // 13:56

I call it "the Triumvirate", the trio of monks in those parties that actually utilize monks (aka basically any build that isn't IWAY). I merely wished to know what's a decent setup for this trio, so that should I ever try my hand at it I would know what to bring.

So here's what I've been hearing:

SB/Infuse - which I take to mean Spell Breaker + Infuse Health
WoH/HP - I'm guessing this means Word of Healing + Heal Party
Prot/Martyr - this quite obviously means Protection Prayers + Martyr, the elite that the Prot monk is best suited to carry

So how the heck does this work? Let me try to go through each member of the Triumvirate one by one, try to puzzle them out:

SB/Infuse
probably 16 healing, 13 Divine Favor. Rest into Prot but it probably doesn't matter.
Spellbreaker {E}
Infuse Health
Heal Other
Orison of Healing
Healing Touch
Signet of Devotion (Glyph of Lesser Energy?)
Holy Veil
Ressurection Signet

My interpretation: I interpret the SB/Infuse monk as the answer to spike groups. Spellbreaker protects the target from being hexed too heavily (or maybe Spellbreaker's intent is to protect the SB/Infuse monk from getting too much heat from Mesmers, I don't know), Infuse Health and Heal Other are obviously to heal other people while Orison and Touch are self-heals, primarily. When I first heard of the SB/Infuse monk I was confused, since the 15 energy cost of Spellbreaker itself, plus the 10 energy cost of Infuse Health, seemed to be pretty darn hefty. That's why I stuck a signet or a glyph, was thinking the build needed SOME kind of energy management.

WoH/HP
Probably the usual. 16 healing, 11 Divine Favor, 9 Prot.
Word of Healing {E}
Orison of Healing
Dwyana's Kiss
Heal Party
Aegis
(Glyph of Lesser Energy?)
Holy Veil
Ressurection Signet

My interpretation: I interpret this monk as the primary healer of the group. He runs around and does heals when the Infuse monk's massive infusion of HP isn't required (usually when the opposing party isn't a spike build). He has Aegis to help shoo away IWAY, and Heal Party for when the entire party needs some lite healing. Once again the lack of any decent energy management worries me to no end, thus I was wondering whether it needed a Glyph of Lesser Energy, for use with Heal Party and Aegis.

Prot/Martyr
Now here's where I'm REALLY confused. There are two possibilities for this particular monk to take. One is the Lifebonder/Martyr, the other is the non-lifebonder prot/Martyr. The Lifebonder/Martyr, I imagine, would look something like this:

16 Divine Favor, 13 Prot.
Martyr {E}
Mend Ailment
Aegis
Holy Veil
Blessed Signet
Life Bond
Balthazar's Spirit
Ressurection Signet

Whereas the non-Lifebonder/Martyr probably looks more like this:
16 Prot, 13 Divine Favor.
Martyr {E}
Mend Ailment
Reversal of Fortune
Guardian
Protective Spirit (? Or perhaps some form of energy help like Glyph? Or Channeling?)
Holy Veil
Aegis
Ressurection Signet

My interpretation: The prot monk's job is not to heal at all, but to use his spells to protect the team. Idea is to stay as far from danger as possible and to use the team-helping spells (Aegis and Martyr) as often as possible (but only when needed of course). This is easiest for the Lifebonder since Life Bond doesn't even require you to be particularly close by to work, but for the non-lifebonder it can be difficult. For the Lifebonder, I'm imagining the damage coming in from Lifebond being converted to energy via Balthazar's Spirit, plus the energy from the Blessed Signet could generate enough to Aegis every once in awhile, and to Martyr whenever possible. The non-lifebonder, I feel, like the other monks, needs some form of energy management, but what? I can't think what would be useful.

I would like some feedback on my interpretation of the Triumvirate. Have I got their basic skills and roles down correctly? Or have I grossly mis-interpreted them?

Shen Xi · Jan 09, 2006, 03:05 PM // 15:05

For starters, in tombs or gvg NO RES SIG on the monk characters. So that's one slot freed up.

My standard SB/Infuse monk

Healing Touch/Orision
Infuse Health
Heal Other
Spellbreaker {e}
Healing Seed
Heal Party
Inspired Hex
Channeling

Spellbreaker is mostly just used for altar matches for the Ghostly Hero to cap due to the amount of gale that is being used in tombs as an intterupt.

WoH Monk

Orision
Dwyna's Kiss
Word of healing
Healing Seed
Heal Party/Aegis
Holy Veil
Inspired Hex
Channeling

Prot Monk

Guardian
Reversal of Fortune
Restore Condition [e}
Prot Spirit
Shielding Hands/Holy Veil
Aegis
Inspired Hex
Channeling

That'd be a fairly standard "Active" prot build, most people in tomsb want restore rather than martyr as it acts for a big heal as well, espcially seeing as their are so amny trappers in tombs and conditions in general.
Could change it to a mo/e and swap out channeling for glyph of lesser energy and change inspired hex to Holy Veil, and ahve smite hex or convery hex as secondary hex removal if you don't want shielding hands (whihc i personally don't take)

Bonder Monk

Life Bond
Balthazar's Spirit
Blessed Signet
Restore Condition {e}
Guardian
Reversal of Fortune
Prot Spirit
Holy Veil

The last few spots are negotiable but the top 3 are not.
Cast Balthazar's spirit on yourself
Life bond all the squishy casters, monks first as if you drop to 0 energy you still keep your first 4 bonds
Balthazar's spirit gives you energy everytime you take damage fomrt he bonds, even if it's -0 damage.
Blessed sig is your other energymanagement skill as it gives you energy for each maintained enchantment that you have.
if you are using lots of bonds, i.e. whole team or stuff liek life attunement then you will want to take mantar of inscriptions which recharges your blessed signet faster.

glenn_rolfe · Jan 09, 2006, 08:41 PM // 20:41

The current tombs staple monk set-up of sb/infuse, woh/hp, restore prot is dull, unimaginative, ineffective and gay. Gees, it just blows me away that people use this as a standard. Seriously monks, do you really think this set-up is effective?? I mean, every one knows the other teams monk set-up before you go in.

Makes me laugh. And what makes me laugh even more is PUG monk arguements;

"I play a good mo/n, can't spam heal party as mo/me"

"Dude, sb goes with infuse","not necessarily","yes it does you noob"

Copy and paste monks, useless, and unskilled imo.

Bakaender · Jan 18, 2006, 11:55 AM // 11:55

Good Bonding monk setup is
Guardian
aegis
Martyr
blessed signet
mantra of inscriptions
balths spirit
life bond

kmg · Jan 18, 2006, 12:17 PM // 12:17

Yeah, people are gonna want mantra inscriptions on a bonder. Also SB works very well as a self-prot vs any spell spike like blood or something, though the recharge is rough. I really don't like SB, not nearly elite enough =D

And yeah, you basically have the choice of running either channeling or mo/n with OOB, but most people want the mo/me. Channeling you have to get used to at first if you haven't used many aoe spells before, but it's amazing sometimes, especially vs minion factory, oh my god, I have screenshots it was so good. And yeah, you're gonna want to put into inspiration for channeling.

As far as touch is concerned, a lot of more inexperienced people have never heard of not bringing it, but you only need touch if you don't trust the other healer to heal you. You should be his biggest healing priority and he is yours, because monks have crap self-heals. There are a lot of rules to this kind of monking that really make a monk. First of all, read the kiting article on GWguru, mobility is really important, and then read that monking guide on GWguru lol, because overhealing monks suck. Anyway, one of those rules to this kind of monking is if you are healing yourself your team is screwed anyway, unless you are the only healer or it's GVG or something, not in tombs.

And on your woh monk, lots of people don't like inspired because of the 20 second recharge, so if you're going to bring two hex removals make it something else if you can manage the energy management with just channeling, which you should. Just bring remove hex or smite hex or something. And I also prefer restore over martyr in tombs.