Curse

jelly samwich · Aug 30, 2005, 08:37 AM // 08:37

Heres my current skillbar.. any input??

Reversal
Guardian (5 sec * 1.64 = 8 sec)
Protective Spirit (23 sec = 38 sec)
Divine Spirit (12 sec = 20 sec)
Spell Breaker (18 sec = 30 sec)
Glyph of Lesser Energy (For Aegis/SpellBreaker/Divine spirit in a bind)
Aegis (11 sec = 18 sec)
Blessed Aura (37% longer enchants)

W/ a +20% to enchant wrapping and a 20/20 recharge prot staff
wrapping 1.2 * aura 1.37 = 1.64

Now that NR has been nerfed enchantments seem viable to me.. 20 secs of divine spirit lets me get of 10 casts of guardian and 10 casts of reversal for a total cost of 30 energy over 20 seconds.

Now if another monk (w/ 8+ divine favor & a 20% wrapping on an alternate weapon) were to bring arcane mimicry it'd be possible to say cover the GH in the ~15 secs of remaining recharge..

nebuchanezzar · Aug 30, 2005, 11:15 PM // 23:15

Thanks for all the good posts. Im new to the monk thing pretty much but my guild is finally getting into GvG and monks was a spot that was sorely needed so Im swapping. I want to know about the staff wrapping of enchanting..or pommel or whichever. I remember reading a thread somewhere, maybe here maybe elsewhere, that stated that the +20% is only applied to enchantments on yourself. This sounded like bs to me but others concurred. I still use it as I have 20% unlocked for my staves but would like a final say. Im definately gonna respec my protector though as I have way too much into my prot as it is and yes I swear by energy drain and hex breaker...I always run them..period. Knowing I can block 2 hexes aimed at me if Im paying attention is nice and energy drain is helpful even if I dont need the energy....ok I always need the energy but since my guild has 0 mesmers(argh) every bit I can hit a monk for helps. Just wanted to say thanks for all the experienced info here. Im a much better necro than a warrior and better warrior than a monk but I do what I have to for the team.

edit: Jelly if the duration boost is real then I may be adopting a build more like yours as in the last week Ive seen rend enchantments only 2x albeit I havent been in tombs this week at all just drok and a couple GvGs. With the NR changes were back to a much lower amount of enchantment removal available and long cooldowns between..I need to read up on more mezzi skills though as I know they have some too..hell I just need to know more of why they hose me or anyone else so bad lol. In the new environment I really think your build can shine though.

Scaphism · Aug 31, 2005, 12:16 AM // 00:16

@jelly
Blessed Aura + Spellbreaker is a win combo.

Consider Serpent's Quickness for your last slot in place of GLE.
Drop the Prot staff and pick up a Divine Favor 20/20 staff- fast recharge Reversal and Guardian are irrelevant. It's nice on Aegis but not necessary- you can cope with the downtime. Getting off a fast recharge Spellbreaker or Divine Spirit would give you a big boost, likely far more noticable than a fast recharge Aegis.

I'm not comfortable running without hex and condition removal, but your build would be excellent at its job. Find a way to squeeze those two things in there and it would probably get a lot of playing time.

EinValentine · Aug 31, 2005, 02:16 AM // 02:16

This may be courtesy of Captain Obvious, but in the case that it isn't I'll mention it. Aegis synergises rather nicely with both Offering of Blood and Energy Drain in that it provides a very worthwhile way to quickly spend energy at the opening of battle and thus justify using your management skill of choice right away.

Perhaps it's just a bugaboo but it irritates me to have my energy management skill sitting idle. I want it "working" (ie recharging) all the time. But I dont want to use it just to recoup nothing, or to waste energy by superflous casts at the outset of battle. So I pop off the Aegis, recoup most of the energy and then go about business. Usually by the time I need it the energy management skill has recharged. A very minor point, but perhaps worth noting.

jelly samwich · Aug 31, 2005, 04:42 AM // 04:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scaphism

@jelly
Blessed Aura + Spellbreaker is a win combo.

Consider Serpent's Quickness for your last slot in place of GLE.
Drop the Prot staff and pick up a Divine Favor 20/20 staff- fast recharge Reversal and Guardian are irrelevant. It's nice on Aegis but not necessary- you can cope with the downtime. Getting off a fast recharge Spellbreaker or Divine Spirit would give you a big boost, likely far more noticable than a fast recharge Aegis.

I'm not comfortable running without hex and condition removal, but your build would be excellent at its job. Find a way to squeeze those two things in there and it would probably get a lot of playing time.

good suggestions, thanks. in the past ive been w/ healing mo's that have brought condition/hex removal spells..

Scaphism · Aug 31, 2005, 06:00 AM // 06:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by EinValentine

This may be courtesy of Captain Obvious, but in the case that it isn't I'll mention it. Aegis synergises rather nicely with both Offering of Blood and Energy Drain in that it provides a very worthwhile way to quickly spend energy at the opening of battle and thus justify using your management skill of choice right away.

Your Captain Obvious should visit here more often. I've seen a too much of Captain Stupid and Captain Flamebait around here recently, and Captain Helpful is getting lonely.

Honestly though, good advice.

Arima · Aug 31, 2005, 08:33 AM // 08:33

What's the opinion on restore condition, now that it's basically the strictly better then ailiment and condition? It doesn't seem worth the drop of the energy managment elite, but even removing two conditions at 50 a pop seems valuable. Is it worth considering now, at least?

Kabale · Aug 31, 2005, 08:47 AM // 08:47

Quote:

You really need to be a necro or mesmer secondary with an energy managment elite if you are running boon, and usually aegis and protective spirit suck on boon builds.

And particular reason for this?

This is the build I've been playing for quite a while... Really enjoying it in Tombs now...

Protective Spirit
Reversal of Fortune
Aegis
Mend Ailment
Shielding Hands
Offering of Blood {E}
Divine Boon
Res Sig/Balthazar's Spirit

The heal from boon + high divine is a really nice touch, especially when I'm the target (which I usually am). As I play with PUGs I like to be self-sufficient on the healing front as I feel pretty vulnerable without boon running.

This build is a blessing with Balthazar's Spirit on.

Would appreciate any comments on what I could improve on this.

stumpy · Aug 31, 2005, 06:21 PM // 18:21

@ Khymera ... you have made many good suggestions but I stopped dead when reading your basing some facts off 'the edge'. Get that off your computer and always ... always see in game results yourself for your facts. After all ... say they reduced the duration on aegis by 2 seconds and your edge team failed to implement that 1 modification. Incorrect skills when planning a build can potentially mean win or lose a battle for you. But keep up the good suggestions.

Now for my turn ...

Most of what I see here is personal preference ... running Mo/N, Mo/E, and Mo/Me ... depending on what your team is doing may also be a factor in what your secondary is. E drain for e denial is good but if it gets stolen/picked your energy management is going down hill. I dont like offering my blood when I am going to be one of the top 4 targets ... I don't really like helping the enemy and don't feel comfortable running it in my bar. Prot monks really shouldn't be runing wards ... leave that to another designate like and earth spiker .... you only have 8 skills and are playing probably the most important role on your team. I like glyphs ... they are not spells, so things like power spike, power leak and power block are knocked out, still have to watch for diversion but your key problem (interrupts) has just been stregnthened ... I know there are a host of arguments against glyphs but personally I like to see them utilized.

Anyways back to a prot monk ...

Necessities

Aegis
Prot Spirit
Mend Ailment

(MAKE SURE YOU HAVE THOSE AND IF ASKED TO DROP THEM - HOLD YOUR GROUND) too many teams don't realize the value of condition removal/control. I was in a decent pug last night, all ranked guilds from 41-350ish ... and it 'sounded like it had potential' I raised the question so how is our condition removal? ... anybody ... nobody here? .... nothing ... no one answered. So I asked again ... while the team was saying come on I'm getting tired can we go already ... nothing ... I said don't you f-cking dare hit enter yet. Prot monk can I see your bar ... well unfortunately he just never had the skills necessary to play a prot monk ... so we had re rolled him to healer and had a healer re roll to a prot. Its kinda weird ... how teams don'tthink about this stuff before they 'gogogo' thats the difference between guilds, pugs and I guess where you are looking.

Things I like to see on a prot monk (but depends on team):

Matyr (unfortunately is elite and battles against other types of elites)
Sheilding hands (can't say enough about this skill)
Reversal of Fortune

Other options

Hex removal ... (I personally like smite hex on EMo smiters but their bar is so tied up it usually will fight for a slot with JI depending on team needs) I like managing my warrior 'animal' and letting him run rampant knowing he will be taken care of when Im EMo smite giving the Prot Monk more focus on the rest of the team.
If you are absolutely stuck without any sort of an earth ele (and conditionall happen to be an ele secondary) and are asked ... *sigh* you can bring
Ward of Foes for your back row casters who may need a gap. sacrilige

I went against my own word.

2 free slots for the team needs

Im not a fan of enchantments as of recently

, they are picked, chewed up and spat out all too often and all too fast. If this prot monk is for teams or tombs you can usually get away with enchantments like life bond, etc but in tombs ... I don't like em atm.

If you have E/Mo Smiters running draw conditions then Matyr may not be needed, but should never be overlooked.

So in the end you can either run matyr or not but this is a suggestion:

Mo/Mes (with a team with more condition removal)
E Drain
Aegis
Prot Spirit
Mend Ailment
Shielding hands
Reversal
Inspired Hex
Free Slot

Mo/E (with a team in desperate need of condition removal)
Glyph of Lesser Energy
Aegis
Prot Spirit
Matyr
Mend Ailment
Sheilding Hands
Reversal
Free Slot

But you can see a strong resemblance in builds here. But it really depends on your team needs.

Maiyn · Sep 01, 2005, 03:31 AM // 03:31

Playing any monk build in tombs makes me want to pull out my hair. It's NOT ALWAYS MY FAULT!!!!!

Ok, jk, but in all seriousness. I thought 'blaming the monk' syndrome was bad enough in pve.

jelly samwich · Sep 01, 2005, 07:02 PM // 19:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scaphism

Consider Serpent's Quickness for your last slot in place of GLE.

I've been experimenting w/ serpents quickness.. i find that without GLE i'm spending too much mana (aegis, spellbreaker are both 15, divine spirit is 10) especially if im being drained by a mesmer... however w/ GLE i can get any one of these great spells up under energy constraints... GLE -> Divine Spirit -> reversal/guardian is a great way to get out of trouble

ElderAtronach · Sep 01, 2005, 07:27 PM // 19:27

GLE for prot spells is nice, but when they see your class combo, you become more of a target. Mo/E are usually prot or smite, and sometimes ward too. Smart teams will focus fire and try to disrupt you first if you're the only Mo/E and they see you casting prots. Just something you should be aware of.

Scaphism · Sep 01, 2005, 07:29 PM // 19:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arima

What's the opinion on restore condition, now that it's basically the strictly better then ailiment and condition? It doesn't seem worth the drop of the energy managment elite, but even removing two conditions at 50 a pop seems valuable. Is it worth considering now, at least?

Personally I'm stuck on Energy Drain. After I started using it regularly I found it hard to play any other elite and not make comparisons.

The new Restore Condition is basically a buffed version of Mend Condtion+Mend Ailment, but it's target other ally, which I don't really like.

I still wouldn't play it, and here's why:
A few conditions, used sporadically, don't worry me. 2 copies of mend condition is more than enough to counter the normal bleed/deep wound/cripple you'll see in a fight. Restore Condition is overkill because they're not stacking multiple conditions onto one person as part of their strategy.
Condition Stacking builds, where they pile up a ton of conditions onto one character, are generally a waste of resources for the team using them. Sure you can stack blind, weakness, and cripple onto one of my warriors, but how much effort did it cost you? 2, 3 skills, costing 25 or more energy? Two mends at 5 energy each will take care of most of those conditions and the third will already be wearing off. Stacking conditions on one target is not a great strategy in my book. This is the sort of situation that Restore Conditions excels in.

The exception to that rule is the popular Fragility build. It's entire strategy is based on stacking conditions onto one target to spike them out. Removing the conditions just makes the spike work faster and allows them to reapply the conditions again while Fragility is still up. A better play is letting the conditions run their course so they aren't set off so quickly. Or use Mend Ailment- it excels at dealing with conditions stacked on one target, but only removes them one at a time. If it's decently specced you should easily be outhealing the damage they'll take from having one condition removed at a time. And an even better option is to remove the offending hex, Fragility. Most Frag mesmers make the mistake of opening with fragility- hex breaker owns them, as does quick hex removal. If you see a fragility spike coming it should be your priority to get the hex off as quickly as possible- the "best medicine is prevention" method. Most mesmers will cover Fragility with Phantom Pain, so you may need 2 hex removals to fight it effectively, but you should have at least 2 copies of hex removal at all times anyways.

None of those options require your elite slot, and the non-elite Mend Ailment can handle Fragility pretty well on it's own. And you can cast it on yourself.

The final condition strategy is one we saw a lot of in tombs as ranger heavy builds began to dominate. One ranger with Melandru's Arrows and another with Poison Arrow/Apply Poison can quickly spread conditions to the entire other team. The degen isn't scary alone, but 2 copies of mend ailment or mend condition will quickly be overwhelmed. This strategy differs from stacking conditions on one target- as I said before, Restore Conditions and Mend Ailment eat those strategies up, and you win the resource battle. But when a team of rangers quickly overwhelms your entire team with lightly layered conditions, suddenly 2 copies of Mend Ailment/Condition aren't enough to combat the conditions flying around. You start to lose the resource battle, and they can sneak in more disabling conditions like blind and weakness on your warriors, or cripple on your monks. This is especially bad because your monks can't see what conditions people have on them because the display doesn't show it, either by design or by flaw.
In this situation, Restore Condition is an improvement over Mend, but it's still not a good solution. You still don't have enough removal to fight their strategy, and they are still winning the resource battle. (Rangers get expertise to spread their conditions around.)
If you are fighting that kind of a build, which I clearly view as the most dangerous kind of condition build, Martyr is your best option. It's a failsafe that shuts down the thinly layered, spread out condition builds that sap away your monks' energy.

No, I still don't think Restore Condition is worth the elite. If someone knows of a dangerous scenario where Restore Condition is clearly the best solution I'd like to hear it though.

Rossaroni · Sep 01, 2005, 10:03 PM // 22:03

I think you covered everything relevant there. Seems that Martyr is a bit more versatile, anyways. Bring it + Mend Ailment if you're worried about conditions, because that combo is useful in more situations than Restore Condition. Disease, for example, is best combatted with a Martyr monk. Spamming RC, while it may be healing for quite a bit, most likely won't be able to contain a disease if it spreads to 4+ players.

Atronach makes a good point, but IMO given the current environment in Tombs, elmos, necros, and mesmers tend to be the first targetted. In the rare occasion when two groups fighting aren't smiting, then yes, a Mo/E might be targetted above, say, a Mo/Me. But I don't think that's enough to justify dropping GLE and the /E for something like energy tap from the mesmer line. If jelly's build didn't run Spell Breaker, then I'd defintly go with the /Me for Energy Drain over GLE. But...as Scaphism said, Blessed Aura + Spell Breaker = win

Mitsu Bishi · Sep 01, 2005, 10:36 PM // 22:36

I tried jelly's build today in random with Mend Ailment instead of Protective Spirit (no big spikes in random) and it was an instant 10 flawless. I used the 20/20 Divine Favor staff though, as Scaphism suggested. I guess that's not bad considering the other players were standard wa/mo's

No real proof of the build's abilities but I can definitely see where it'll excel.

Don't know whether it will be appreciated by tombs groups though - they tend to look for other kind of prot monks.

Voltaire Arcanum · Oct 10, 2005, 06:30 PM // 18:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scaphism

Personally I'm stuck on Energy Drain. After I started using it regularly I found it hard to play any other elite and not make comparisons.

Since e-drain was 'changed' in the recent skill update, are you still stuck on it? If you don't run another elite, do you still like e-drain, how much has the tone down effected your choice?

It seems to me that, most of the time, mend ailment is enough to deal with conditions - hexes are the far more serious threat - except when the mass conditions get to a point that martyr doesn't cover everything anyway because there are too many multiple conditions. However, I have been asked specifically to run martyr and it is growing on me. So if I am to take Martyr, then what do you think is best for energy management? I like inspired hex, what about channeling too? Or just twiddle my thumbs while I regen and don't spam the RoF too much?

A related question concerns Aegis. I have seen a few times someone say "run another copy of it." Do they mean arcane echo, which at 15e seems too expensive, or do they mean that someone else should take it? If I'm the only one to take it, what do you recommend - just using the 20% enchant wrapping and live with the downtime, or is there some other devious way to extend it? What about blessed aura now?

Shielding hands I have a love-hate relationship with. That recharge time is frustrating. It really is that good I guess?

I have been playing prot monk a lot lately and this thread has invaluable information, a big thanks for all this juicy stuff guys!

Especially Scaphism - "take him out, the man knows too much."

smurfhunter · Oct 11, 2005, 12:46 AM // 00:46

on my prot monk i use channeling and inspired hex, as the only energy management. it works for me... edrain was barely affected, maybe it even got better (or monks)since they never did it to drain energy but only to regain energy, and if you steal less but get the same benefit it might actually be good since you have a smaller chance of stealing from someone with low energy...

ive actually tried using both mend ailment and restore condition... its worked really well for me. that way i have an incredibly efficient way of removing conditions, and since im a channeling adict its not even that bad on energy. it also takes a big load off of heal monks, i like it more than martyr but... idk.

i was never a fan of rof... maybe its bettr since smiting got removed (the rof would always be eaten up by BA or something).. but it drains energy too fast. i never liked it, and if you really want something to spam try spamming prot spirit. this one absolutely kills teams with sloppy debuffing.

shielding hands is amazing, if you really need to protect someone throw down shielding hands and prot spirit and theguy just wont die.

another copy of aegis means the team has 3 monks cycling it, keeping it up forever that way. never a big fan of that either....

conditions are like super popular now with all the trap teams, and i havent really seen any serious hex stacking beyond migraine + conundrum + phantasm. ive actually been pretty good using just inspired hex, but holy veil is amazing too.

one skill which i think has huge potential for monks is physical resistance (its like a mantra only it gives +40 armor against physical and -__ to elemental). you obviously wouldnt use it against a spike team, but against warriors it should be really cool. havent really had the time to test it yet tho

Neo-LD · Oct 11, 2005, 01:03 AM // 01:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by Voltaire Arcanum

Since e-drain was 'changed' in the recent skill update, are you still stuck on it? If you don't run another elite, do you still like e-drain, how much has the tone down effected your choice?

What are you talking about? In terms of monk-energy-management, EDrain got buffed, since now you can steal a full 16 from someone at low energy. Before the potential to get a bad drain off was high. Now its very low.

As for you channelling addicts, what do you do, just wade into the thickest portion of the enemy ranks and start casting? Usually I try to be as far away as possible while stillin healing range of my allies.

Anyways, getting away from the abstract and getting to a solid build, how would this do?:

Shielding Hands
Prot Spirit
Aegis
Channeling
Mend Ailment
Restore Condition
Inspired Hex
Reversal

spend the entire game mending conditions, while putting prot spirit/shielding hands on anyone under serious attack. Aegis up whenever it recharges of course.

smurfhunter · Oct 11, 2005, 01:12 AM // 01:12

yknow Neo-LD if you switched out rof for guardian thats exactly what i use... you spend the entire time putting prot spirit up and keep conditions away.

i miss the days when my group wouldnt get pissed when i ran laps in the hoh/courtyard.

Earendil · Oct 11, 2005, 02:50 AM // 02:50

Scaphysm - referring to your 1.09 post on Restore conditions

In the current fast trapping tomb/GvG metagame, how would you organise you condition control ? Martyr or Restore Conditions? Both ? None?

Earendil