Curse

Khymera · Aug 13, 2005, 09:14 AM // 09:14

My main character is a Mo/W protection monk, who is currently fighting almost entirely in the Tombs. I've had a lot of experience with this character (made it almost to rank 3 with this character alone). I've gotten a build that runs very smoothly, but I know it's not optimized...I don't even use my secondary. I'd like some advice on what I could do to make it even better. Here's my current build:

Martyr
Mend Ailment
Reversal of Fortune
Guardian
Protective Spirit
Aegis
Shielding Hands/Signet of Devotion
Resurrection Signet

My stats are pretty poor...12+4 Protection and 12+1 Divine Favor. I'm using the +5 energy sword from Denravi with a +20% enchantment pommel. I think all the skills are pretty self-explanatory. I recently switched to Shielding Hands from Signet of Devotion, and am still trying it out, but I think I like it better.

None of my skills are useless...I use everything on my bar regularly, but I can't help but feel that something's missing here, especially a secondary profession.

I'd really appreciate some ideas on what I should do for an ideal protection monk, particularly from Scaphism, as I agree with just about everything he says. I've gotten very good with Guardian, but the cast time under NR really is a killer. I'm rather attached to Martyr as well, but I feel that there are stronger options. Rather than ask to be spoon-fed a setup, I'll put down what I've gathered from this thread and ask for criticism on that. Please feel free to offer changes. Here's what I'm thinking at the moment...

Mo/Me: 12+1 Divine Favor, 9+1 Protection, 9 Inspiration

Energy Drain
Reversal of Fortune
Signet of Devotion
Protective Spirit
Aegis
Shielding Hands
Mend Ailment
Resurrection Signet

The skills here are really not too different, but the attributes certainly are. Think this setup would make for a better build? Energy Drain seems to steal the same amount at 9 and at 10, so may as well get the extra point in Protection. Are there any other Mesmer skills that I should be using? Any I might want to capture for specific situations? I'm very interested in making this the best monk that I can. How am I doing? What would you do differently? Thank you very much for any advice you can give.

Edit: Also, what armor would you recommend? My current armor situation is a bit of a mess...I have tattoos for arms and feet, Saintly for chest, and...collector's for pants. I have materials to make Saintly pants or tattoo legs, but am not sure which to go for. I originally went with Saintly chest because I thought it might come in handy for auto-targeting elemental attacks, but now I'm really not so sure it's worth it, and am considering just outfitting myself fully in tattoos for energy. Is this a good idea? Any reason to get Saintly pants?

Scaphism · Aug 13, 2005, 09:43 AM // 09:43

Some quick and dirty tips, because I need to go to bed:

Drop Rez signet- you are the monk, and can't afford to spend raising corpses- you need to ensure that the rest of your team doesn't drop while the dead guy is being brought back. Especially when you (or another monk) is the dead guy- you need as much of your defense to be active as it can be in those situations.

Energy will probably be tight running Aegis and Protective Spirit, especially with the amount of Quickening Zephyr I've seen in tombs recently (felt like every match tonight was against a QZ ranger-condition build).
You're going to rely heavily on energy drain- the good news is that you can EDrain spirits for full gain. Hooray!

You'll want something in addition to that- Inspired Hex is my recommendation.
You're right about 10 being a dead spot on your bar- you need 11 in inspiration to get the next point of energy from EDrain and Inspired Enchantment. 9 is suitable for most builds.

If possible I'd ask someone else to run Protective spirit- in focus fire situation you'll lean on shielding hands first with ROF spam mixed with Signet of Devotion and Mend Ailment when needed. You need to know which button to go for when a target starts getting spiked, and the hesitation between choosing Shielding Hands or Protective Spirit can make a world of difference against an organized team.

If you do get someone else to run Protective Spirit you'll have a slot free and a fair bit more energy to throw around. I'm sure we can come up with something to go in it, but at the moment I need to sleep more than tinker this one build.

Good job getting to Rank 3 solely on one build- I'm sure you know the intricacies of your build better than most.

Armor:
Tattoos on hands and feet is mandatory.
I like tattoos on the chest- the +3 energy is really nice there. Spells no longer auto-hit the chest, so it's not such an important tradeoff. Things like firestorm now have a greater chance to hit your head, while I believe there are other spells more likely to hit your feet. The point is that you no longer need buffed up elemental resistance on the chest.

Pants are up to you. If you want a full tattoo set for continuity it's fine, be vain. Otherwise I kind of like Judge's Pants- your legs still get targetted 2/5 of the time and there are a lot of warrirors and rangers out there. I believe attacks like Pin Down and axe rake have a higher likelyhood of hitting your lower body as well. I'll bug Ensign for those figures tomorrow.

Ensign · Aug 13, 2005, 10:13 AM // 10:13

We don't use Ascetics pants because they are still inexplicibly bugged for PvP characters and only give +1 energy.

Judges Chest and Legs are good choices because they only cost you -1 energy while the fair tradeoffs would be -3 and -2, respectively.

Wanderers really doesn't do enough to be worth giving up the energy for. +8 energy vs. +5 armor against elemental is a no brainer. Only Wanderer's armor worth using is the pants, and that's just because they're bugged.

Peace,
-CxE

Khymera · Aug 13, 2005, 01:24 PM // 13:24

Thanks for those replies...let's see.

Switching out the Resurrection Signet for Inspired Hex is a great idea. Done. I notice that Inspired Hex does return 1 more energy at level 10 as opposed to 9, but don't think it's worth changing the stats.

Protective Spirit...mm. In my experience, protection monks tend to step on each other's toes when there's more than one in a group...a lot of the spells overlap to little effect, moreso than with healing monks. 95% of the time I'll be the only monk with protection prayers in the group, so I'm not so sure I can get someone else to use Protective Spirit.

However, I do have a lot of experience with the build I listed above, running both Aegis and Protective Spirit - without any real energy management. I'm usually all right with the energy by only using Protective Spirit when necessary. Against some groups, I never really have occasion to use Protective Spirit unless I've got plenty of extra energy - it's just not necessary. When I really need Protective Spirit (mostly against spikers) then I'll focus on that spell instead. My groups call out what they think the opposing teams strategy is before we close, so I have an idea of what to be prepared for.

I don't really have a problem deciding when to use Protective Spirit or Shielding Hands...as I said, I'll usually have an idea which the priority is going to be before the fight. I can almost always catch someone being spiked with a Protective Spirit before they hit 40% health...the bar goes down differently when someone is being spiked, smited, etc.

The basic point of what I'm saying here is that I think I can handle Aegis and Protective Spirit without too much difficulty, unless you feel strongly enough that it'll give me energy problems. I've never really played a Mo/Me or a protection monk with this low a protection attribute, so I may be off about this. I may also have to try it out to get a feel for it. I'm curious to know what sort of spell we might use if we did drop Protective Spirit though...it bears thinking about, though I'm not sure what might be used off the top of my head.

Now for armor, these are some interesting ideas. I never really thought about Judge's before, but I do have a few questions. Also, I don't think I would have a problem using Ascetic's legs - I know the PvP ones are bugged, but I'm not a PvP character, so they should work all right.

So...Ascetic's or Judge's, for chest and legs? Stylistically, I don't care so much. I'd rather go with what is functionally best. I would be interested in finding out whether Pin Down, Axe Rake, etc hit the legs more often...though I suppose it's just the damage on those attacks that would affect this. The tradeoff for the pants is 3 energy vs some physical armor, or 4 energy vs armor for chest. I see how it's a better deal to get Judge's on chest and legs, where you get hit most, but it's also a good deal to get Ascetic's there...more energy. I don't know. We're a bit worried about energy management with this, but I'm not sure if 3-7 more energy at the start will make much of a difference compared to the armor.

My inclination is to go for Ascetic's chest, but I'm less sure on the pants. The 2/5s armor bonus does seem like a good deal for the loss of 3 energy. When I start thinking about though, it begins to seem as though the Judge's chest might be a good idea. The loss of just 1 more energy than the legs for even more armor coverage...seems efficient. And then I start going in circles. I've got no experience with the various armors; I'm not really sure how to choose the best.

Ah well...this has gone on longer than I meant it to, and I should go to sleep now. Hopefully some of you got through all of that and have a few pointers. The search for the ultimate protection monk continues. Thank you for all the ideas thus far...hopefully there will more to follow. Thanks again.

Tuon · Aug 13, 2005, 02:13 PM // 14:13

Boon, divine spririt, divine intervention, spellbreaker.... Protection monks imo are best designed as DF hybrids although healing prayers or even smiting hybrids work ok. Please don't max out protection. It's such a waste of points...

Entropius · Aug 13, 2005, 04:22 PM // 16:22

I play an E/Mo hybrid protection/healing monk. Protectors have very quick-cast spells (Reversal and Prot Spirit are both 1/4 sec, Mend Ailment is 1 sec) and lots of enchantments, so taking advantage of Ether Renewal seems like a solid choice.

My build also has a gimmick: Infuse Health. The logic behind it goes as follows: Ether Renewal and Aura of Restoration feed me massive amounts of life. All of this life is wasted currently, unless I'm being hit. Why not run Infuse Health to transfer some of this massive health boost to someone else? Infuse Health is also a quick-cast, no-recharge spell, so it's suitable for casting while Ether Renewal is up.

Since I'm getting so much healing from Aura and Ether, and since every point of life I gain can be shoved onto someone else using Infuse, I run Life Attunement to give me more healing.

The build is:

Reversal of Fortune
Mend Ailment
Infuse Health
Protective Spirit
Aegis (or Shielding Hands)
Ether Renewal {E}
Aura of Restoration
Life Attunement

Protection Prayers 12 (mainly for Shielding Hands and Life Attunement)
Healing Prayers 8
Energy Storage 10+4

Stick with +20% enchantment duration; two +15/-1 items on weapon switch

This works pretty well. You can spam Protection spells without that much concern for running out of energy. When Ether Renewal is up, you can spam Infuse Health, since the combined healing from Ether Renewal + Aura of Restoration + Life Attunement is equal to about half your max health.

Without the Infuse Health gimmick, the build would go something like this:

Energy Storage 10+3+1
Protection Prayers 10 (or 11)
Earth Magic 11+1 (or 10+1)

Reversal of Fortune
Mend Ailment
Protective Spirit
Aegis
Shielding Hands
Armor of Earth
Ether Renewal
Ward against Elements / Ward against Melee / Kinetic Armor

NIB · Aug 13, 2005, 08:59 PM // 20:59

@Khymera

Energy drain drains 16 energy at 10, 15 at 9. I suggest to get 12 divine, 12 prot, 10 energy drain. You could drop prot to 11 and get divine to 13(with a divine head tatoo), but then your guardian and especially your aegis wont be that efficient. So get either 12,12,10 or 13,11,10(thats without any sup prot/divine runes).

Hex breaker is a very good mesmer skill that works decently even with low domination. Channeling is also very good and it doesnt need much inspiration to be efficient. Drain enchantment can be useful, depending on the setup that your team runs. Inspired hex is also decent since it can get you a bit more energy. If you think you dont need more energy, you might want to get smite hex instead(with qz, its recharge becomes really low). And mantra of frost can be extremely useful if your team is using winter.

About the armor. I like using wanderers or judges(lately i use judge) on chest and legs and tatoos on hands and feet. Chest and legs are the most likely to get hit(many spells hit only the chest so wanderer is nice) so i like having a bit more armor there.

And since feet and arms dont get hit that often, i like getting a bit more energy from them. Many ppl carry more than 1 armor type with them and change armor, depending on what they are against. But armor isnt that important. You can go full tatoo or full judge's and it wont make that much difference. Also since monks dont have skills that cause exhaustion, max energy isnt that important(woohoo, i can cast 1 more orison, yeah).

Res signet can be ok for protector monk. Having 1 more signet can sometimes mean the difference between win and defeat. And as long as you have 2 more healers on your team, you can afford having 1 prot with res sig. I remember many times that went down to which side had the more res sigs. And prot monks can have enough skill slots for res sig. Personally, 90% of the time i dont use res sig when i am a prot monk but its up to you.

If you are really low on energy, its better to use energy drain on an enemy spirit(or elementalist) so that you get full advantage of it(since they will have enough energy to drain). If you are holding ok with energy, then just use it on an enemy monk/spellcaster.

Quote:

Spells no longer auto-hit the chest, so it's not such an important tradeoff

I think many spells still autohit the chest. Have they changed that? I mean sure firestorm hits your head but who cares about firestorm? :P

Quote:

Wanderers really doesn't do enough to be worth giving up the energy for. +8 energy vs. +5 armor against elemental is a no brainer

Its +8 energy vs +5 energy/+5 armor vs elemental. That extra +3 energy mean nothing. Woohoo, you can cast 3/5 of a rof more than the enemy for 1 time during an entire battle. Then again, +5 armor means also nothing. So you have to choose between 2 nothings.

I am not a big fan of boon. The way i see it, you can heal more without it than with it. I made a pretty big analysis about boon and why i dont think it is that good here. Also life attunement isnt that good with NR. Too expensive(10 energy/-1 energy regen), too long casting time(4 secs with NR) and 1 NR can render it useless. I might be wrong, i dont know. Seed works with NR but IMO seed is a much superior skill.

PS Protective spirit is almost useless if your team is running fertile(spam fertile). I mean if you have 800hp(which can go like 1200+ with symbiosis), prot spirit reduces max dmg to 80 and thus its useless.

Zeru · Aug 13, 2005, 09:18 PM // 21:18

Judges armor reduces the damage you take from physical attacks by 16% or so. That's a pretty big bonus to me, and I'd rather have that than a couple extra frontloaded energy anyday. Hands/Feet only get hit 25% combined, so energy is more useful here.

It's just like with staves. If you don't need the enchant mod having 70 AL vs everything is a huge bonus. Having higher starting energy is nice but since monks are very high priority targets being able to reduce damage by up to 30% (70+10 vs physical AL) should not be overlooked. If ascetics armor gave energy regen, that would be a different story. I rarely find myself at or even near max energy as a monk, especially with edenial being so prevalent. If you don't reach max energy besides the beginning/end of a fight, what's the point? Armor ignoring damage is generally not part of the metagame anyway; disease/PA is the exception but most people don't bring signet of humility to shutdown the martyr user making it not a huge deal.

Entropius · Aug 13, 2005, 11:47 PM // 23:47

Life attunement is used on me only (or, maybe, on hero or some other target under heavy, sustained focused fire) in order to boost the constant healing I get. The energy cost is honestly trivial, since most of my energy income comes from Ether Renewal.

Yes, NR messes with it, since it takes four seconds of precious time to recast, but the boost is worth it.

Khymera · Aug 14, 2005, 06:56 AM // 06:56

According to both GWfreaks and The Edge, Energy Drain drains 16 energy at both Inspiration 9 and 10. Unless those are wrong, I think 9 Inspiration is sufficient.

I just realized that I forgot to factor in the scalp tattoo on my previous attribute layout...not sure whether I'd be better off with 14 DF or 11 Protection. 11 Protection seems to add another second to Aegis, and would probably be the main reason to go for that tattoo. Is that worth it though? Protection too high?

As for other skills, I think a mesmer stance is a good idea, if I can find the room. I'd like to be able to run Hex Breaker as a matter of course, and Mantra of Frost could replace Hex Breaker if I'm fighting on a Ranger team (assuming I could find one that would take a protection monk...). What to take out though? With the current setup, I could switch out Protective Spirit for Mantra of Frost if I'm on a ranger team...no need for Protective Spirit with Fertile Season. Hex Breaker though...the only thing that I could see dropping for it would be Shielding Hands, but I'm really not sure that it would be worth it, especially if I'm running Inspired Hex as well. Should I just forget about Hex Breaker in this case? I'm still not really seeing dropping Protective Spirit as a viable option.

As for the armor, well, I think I'm convinced. Judge's Armor for chest and legs seems like a really good idea, and unless anyone has a reason otherwise I think I'll buy the Judge's very soon. The +armor mod on a weapon in conjunction with Judge's Armor seems nice too...but I think, as a protection monk, that I've got to stick with the + enchantment length.

Thanks a lot for the ideas, I've found this thread extremely helpful. Still have a few questions, but I think I'm nearing the final setup here. Please keep the thoughts flowing.

JackOften · Aug 14, 2005, 07:07 AM // 07:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blackace

because if you dont add them your numbers are off for energy regen

They're perfect for what we set out to do, describing the effect of a l0 Ether Prodigy. You want to keep base regen out of that.

Aug 14, 2005, 08:35 AM // 08:35

You only want to keep base regen out of the equation when comparing regen skills. But I assume you were just looking for "whats 4 regen over X seconds" instead of "+4 regen over x seconds"

NIB · Aug 14, 2005, 09:17 AM // 09:17

Quote:

According to both GWfreaks and The Edge, Energy Drain drains 16 energy at both Inspiration 9 and 10. Unless those are wrong, I think 9 Inspiration is sufficient.

9 inspiration = 15 energy drain.
10 inspiration = 16 energy drain.

^^^FACT^^^

Quote:

11 Protection seems to add another second to Aegis, and would probably be the main reason to go for that tattoo. Is that worth it though? Protection too high?

I like going for 12 divine, 12 prot, 10 insp(with divine head tatoo, but you could prot tatoo and still get the same stats). 12 prot gives 1 more sec duration to aegis than 11. If you dont use any skills that greatly are affected by prot prayers, you could raise your inspiration and divine. Raising your inspiration to 11, you can gain 1 more energy from all your inspiration skills(energy drain, insp hex, drain enchantment, etc). Thats a lot more important than healing 3 more hp IMO.

Quote:

As for other skills, I think a mesmer stance is a good idea, if I can find the room.

If you write your skill bar, we might help.

Khymera · Aug 14, 2005, 09:43 AM // 09:43

I'll have to test Energy Drain myself then. I've heard from everyone else that both 9 and 10 inspiration steal 16 energy, but I'll see and adjust accordingly.

Also, I posted my skill bar in an earlier post. At the moment, I'm thinking:

Energy Drain
Reversal of Fortune
Signet of Devotion
Protective Spirit
Aegis
Shielding Hands
Mend Ailment
Inspired Hex

I may or may not decide to change Signet of Devotion or Shielding Hands out for Hex Breaker - undecided.

Ensign · Aug 14, 2005, 10:12 AM // 10:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Khymera

I'll have to test Energy Drain myself then. I've heard from everyone else that both 9 and 10 inspiration steal 16 energy, but I'll see and adjust accordingly.

Everyone else is wrong, then. The dead levels on Energy Drain are at 3, 8, and 13. Level 9 Energy Drain steals 15 energy, level 10 steals 16 energy.

I'd guess that they're using one of those character builder programs that consistently gets the breakpoints wrong, instead of looking in game.

Peace,
-CxE

Khymera · Aug 14, 2005, 10:44 AM // 10:44

Yeah, I just captured Energy Drain to take a look at the stats breakpoint for myself. It certainly does increase to 16 energy at level 10.

As for attributes, this means I could do something like 10+2 Protection, 11+1 Divine Favor, and 10 Inspiration (leaving 1 spare point I could put into Domination for Hex Breaker, if I work it in), or I could do 12+1 Divine Favor, 8+2 Protection, and 10 Inspiration (2 points in Domination). The first option certainly seems more powerful/efficient, but some people are of the opinion that no more than 8-10 points in protection are needed for this...if that's so, it may be pay off more to just increase Divine Favor. Any thoughts?

ratatass · Aug 21, 2005, 04:31 AM // 04:31

All I can say is that you have recieved some very very good input in this thread and so have I

I have found that you shouldn't try to do everything, so I agree with some of the posters when they say: drop some skills.

Focus on as they say:

1) Energy managment: Offering of Blood, Energy Drain. I have seen Melandrus work somewhat ok...but but.
2) Drop Res Signet. You don't have the time.
3) Aegis, take it just in case. nice if you at least can get it off once.
4) Focus on a few skills that you can get off in a hurry and heal a lot.
5) Don't try to do everything. Focus on a task and trust the other to do it.

6) Pick Heal or prot or both. I have found that many monks have reversal (PUGS). So to compensate in PUGS I use High Divine Favor with Divine Boon, so if my reversal overwrites some of the other monks healing focus fire. Boon and Favor at least heals the sucker and quick.
7) Healing Touch for yourself.
8) Drop Word of Healing for Energy Management. It is to hard to time. game is to fast.
9) Customize your interface. Move your skill bar up to the Team Health bar. It made my game more efficient.
10) Use shortcuts on at least 3 skills. More gets complicated for casual players.
11) Focus on 5 energy heals only.

Gotta Go!

Ratatass

Dazzler · Aug 25, 2005, 02:04 PM // 14:04

I was playing with this build in the 4v4 arenas with pretty good success:

Reversal of Fortune
Shielding Hands
Draw Conditions
Mend Ailment
Shield of Regeneration {E}
Divine Intervention
Hex Breaker
Rez Signet

I don't remember my exact attributes, but it was something along the lines of:
Inspiration: 6-8 (enough for Hex Breaker to last about 119 seconds)
Protection: 13 or so
Divine Favor: around 12.

It as fairly effective in 4v4 even if I was the only source of healing. I could usually even survive a 3-on-1 ganking session from warriors for 10s-15s when the rest of my team was being clueless.

After reading through this thread, I am thinking about subbing out something for Aegis. I guess I would trade Divine Intervention for Aegis if I had to pick one skill that I used the least.

Question: Does Life Bond stack? If 2 monks each cast Life Bond on a 3rd player, will that player only take 1/4 damage?

Wrane Latrobe · Aug 25, 2005, 04:47 PM // 16:47

No one has mentioned the Elm as a secondary for Glyph of Energy/lesser energy. Both are non-linked allowing you to keep to 2 lines (Divine and Prot), It would turn those 15 energy ageais into 5 energy maybe allowing for the flexibility to run prot spirit as well. Sample builds below:
Monk/Mesmer

Skill 1: Energy Drain
Skill 2: Inspired Hex
Skill 3: Divine Boon
Skill 4: Aegis
Skill 5: Mend Ailment
Skill 6: Reversal of Fortune
Skill 7: Shielding Hands
Skill 8: Signet of Devotion

Protection Prayers 8 + 1
Divine Favor 12 + 4
Inspiration Magic 10 + 0

or

Monk/Elementalist

Skill 1: Divine Boon
Skill 2: Aegis
Skill 3: Protective Spirit
Skill 4: Reversal of Fortune
Skill 5: Mend Condition
Skill 6: Shielding Hands
Skill 7: Glyph of Lesser Energy
Skill 8: Glyph of Energy

Protection Prayers 12 + 1
Divine Favor 12 + 4

The downside of going mo/E is no hex removal (Unless you want to run remove Hex) and you lose the disruption of e drain. The upside is you get to run both prot spirit and aegis, the aegis would last 10 seconds at 12+1 or 12 seconds at 12+4 the boon bonus changes from 73 at 12+4 to 64 at 12 +1.

So with a +20% wrapping and maxed prot, your aegis would last 14.4 seconds your prot spirit 24 seconds. The debate on the recharge of the glyphs and aegis I will leave to others to do the math if you are under QZ, and at what attribute levels are of QZ.

The question boils down to me as is the disruption and hex removal worth more to me than being able to run both aegis and prot spirit at max attributes?

Repleys and debate welcome.

Note: The numbers and healing damage were pulled from a cal not from in game notes.

Iraqalypse Now · Aug 29, 2005, 06:53 PM // 18:53

glyph of energy sucks, don't use it. Its a major waste of an elite, and while the recharge time is better than GLE, you only really need to be casting it once every thirty seconds for aegis anyhow. 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.

glyph of lesser energy I use sometimes when I am taking a monk elite... it works well with spell breaker when you are the antigank monk and you can see the rush on the guild lord coming. GLE is kind of slow for everything a monk does other than aegis and spell breaker on guild lord. A lot of the random cute elites just plain old suck compared to running energy drain/offering of blood and getting 11 more energy to cast monk skills every 20 seconds - theres a reason why theres so many mo/mes running energy drain, inspired hex, and drain enchantment, and that is because they are tons better than doing random cute things.