Curse

CAT · Sep 08, 2005, 12:12 AM // 00:12

As a well experienced monk(if i say so myself) I see a lot of monks sticking to same basic skill sets and playing the same build over and over. I'm just going to brush over some of the not well known monk skills that I've learned to love.

Standard Healing:
Heal Area:
Amazing Healing spell, heals 190 points to all people around you. Almost ALL monks stick to healing touch for self healing, but not only is this a great alternative to self heal with a prot/heal hybrid(lower DF), but works hand in hand with healing touch to keep yourself alive while other monks can get higher heals(seed, divine intervention) or prot(spellbreaker, MoP, guardian) on you. Very commonly I see monks die in tombs because when a monk is low on hp and keeps moving down, obviously lower heals arnt going to be able to save him. Then the other monks start laying down a huge heal, and in the 1-2 second cast time, the monk dies.

Infuse Health:
Basically the opposite of healing touch, its a major heal other. The spell heals for a HUGE amount, amazing for monks getting spiked(like above, one monk lays a large heal on him while you infuse him), and is a game winner in alter matches with the ghostly hero. Altar spells are key to a good build. Sure your build can win buriel mounds or relic runs, but when you get to hoh, if your not prepared for the most important battle(you'd be surprised how many teams arn't, your gonna go down)

Standard Protection:
Convert Hexes:
Nowadays, (especcialy with natures being gone) alot of teams like frag builds or necro/war builds and are very hex heavy. A good hexing team can keep important hexes on you like no other. Although a 2 second cast time and 15 energy, convert hexes SHUTS DOWN hex builds. If your going to keep prot spirit for spike builds, why wouldnt you bring convert hexes for hex builds. All monks bring hex removal, but with stacking/breaking hexes(used to break a hexbreaker or to stack on top so they are removed instead of the more important ones) you cant outsmart a hexer while your frantically running and trying to heal your entire team while getting pounded.

Life Bond:
Natures renewal is gone, we can bond again! No no, not a bonding team. Good prot monks should carry life bond. Think of it this way, its an enchantment that reduces damage by 50% and lasts forever(losing energy of course). If you practice with life bonds, adding and removing on targets is a snap, and its basically like giving your ally 100% more max hp. Reducing damage also adds to the effect of spells like healing seed, and makes kiting much more effecient.

Restore Conditions:
Sure its an elite, and spellbreaker is nice, but cmon. Its basically a heal for conditions. With a 16 prot you heal around 100 pts for EACH condition you remove. Also it has similar cast time and mana cost ect as mend ailment. This is an amazing healing spell to use if your short defense(no wards or another defensive player). Too many times i find prot monks draining their mana with reversals trying to heal someone, then when target is switched they have no mana to lay prot on. This is a powerful and quick heal as long as they have conditions. A similar spell is mend condition(not an elite, but only loses one condition and is an "other ally" spell.

Energy Management:
The key to energy management is use something you can use well. If your being told to do a mo/me with channeling, but your not very effective with it(i most certainly am not unless i can take the time to arrange myself in battle which usually means we're winning and its not needed anywya)

Divine Spirit:
With an enchant staff and high divine, lasts for 12 seconds and basically makes all your healing free. Not only an amazing lifesaver in tight situations, but you can revolve your build around it and that is a good enough energy management for whatever else you want to run. a 20/20 divine staff with enchantment +% and energy on the head makes this a very fun and effective skill to use.

Stormchaser:
A very fun skill to use, with enough in wilderness it gives +3 energy and a decent amount of time. A kiting monks dream. This also opens up for more experimental builds(serpants quickness or healing spring on a monk mabe?). I've yet to experiment with a monk/ranger outside of stormchaser, but it makes very effective energy management when channeling just wont work(good enemies or being next to enemies=dieing). Also, normally when you are kiting you are either taking too much damage to heal yourself or are low on energy to continue healing. Stormchaser helps with both situations.

Glyph of Energy:
Amazing skill for prot/heal hybrids. Can make poerful enchantments like aegis and healing seed stay up more then they would with a standard monk.

Ether Prodigy/Ether Renewel:
These are very complex but effective elites, a good monk that can master these skills will heal very efficiently. I've seen amazing ether prodigy prot monks, but it takes alot of skill and practice to use.

Victory is Mine!:
This skill is basically an uber channeling, works well with an experienced trapper on your team. Gets energy AND health off of nearby foes, but it only cost 5 energy and you dont have to stay in the fray for it to be effective. ViM builds with trappers are very fun, and using ViM also opens up the ability to use defensive stances on a monk.

Echo:
Again, more running into the fun monks as opposed to the more effective monks. Echoing skills like orison provide amazing quick heals and energy management with another skill like channeling.

Inspired Hex:
A FREE hex removal tool(takes longer to recharge, but free none the less).

Elemental Resistance:
At max level, +40 armor(50% damage reduce) and -14 armor against phys damage. Also a stance, great for keeping along to stay alive, there are better stances out there(warrior stances, hexbreaker maybe) but for a Mo/Me channeler this is a very good defensive alternative.
Note: Physical resistance works the same way, so depending on the FotM you can switch out stances.

Comments? Questions?
What are some of the monking skills that you use on your monk that you think others dont? I'd love to test out some new ideas for the red bar game.

ElderAtronach · Sep 08, 2005, 12:36 AM // 00:36

Just a note about Echo... you want to copy your long-recharge skills, not your spammables. Echo fits better on a prot monk, as you can copy things like Aegis or Shielding Hands or Convert Hexes. The thing is, you'll run into energy management problems unless you run channeling as well.

CAT · Sep 08, 2005, 12:40 AM // 00:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by ElderAtronach

Just a note about Echo... you want to copy your long-recharge skills, not your spammables. Echo fits better on a prot monk, as you can copy things like Aegis or Shielding Hands or Convert Hexes. The thing is, you'll run into energy management problems unless you run channeling as well.

I havn't used it in a while, but I remember copying orison and being able to spam double orison while channeling off of it as an easy heal. orison, orison, touch, area, seed is plenty healing for your party if you have 2 other monks. Unless the echo goes off after the first orison cast(like turns back to echo) i thought it recharged normally like it was 2 orisons on your bar.

ElderAtronach · Sep 08, 2005, 12:49 AM // 00:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by CAT

I havn't used it in a while, but I remember copying orison and being able to spam double orison while channeling off of it as an easy heal. orison, orison, touch, area, seed is plenty healing for your party if you have 2 other monks. Unless the echo goes off after the first orison cast(like turns back to echo) i thought it recharged normally like it was 2 orisons on your bar.

Yes.... my point was, Echo is *more useful* on a longer recharge skill. You effectively get around some of the recharge time by Echoing it. There's nothing inherently wrong with 2 copies of orison, but you'd be better off running boon if you wanted the heals that bad. 2 copies of reversal, I could see... maybe.

Satire Elexus · Sep 08, 2005, 11:31 AM // 11:31

Well thats all good information. Thanks for the time in writing all that. I would like to add a little something from my experiences.

First thing I don't have a big ego..

but I would like to say that my monk is very very successfull. It would seem more than often that in PvP, monks are the primary target and get ganged up 90% of the time. IMO/experience a good monk is a monk that hard to kill. It's all good and well being able to heal ppl well and having good energy management, but it is all of no use if your dead.

I have a build which is a Prot / Heal Hybrid and it is very successfull in PvP. More than often I will have 2 warriors hacking away at me plus another character chipping in with the assisination of poor old me. But with much to my delight and glee. They waste their time as I stand there taking it all and wait for my team mates to dispose of them one by one.

This is the build I use.

1) Shield of Regeneration - Can be cast on yourself also which is VERY
important.
2) Reversal of fortune - this can be easily spammed on top of Shield of
Regen. They work very well together
3) Healing breeze
4) Heal Other
5) Heal Area - The best self heal IMO (used when I'm in trouble as a last
resort.
6) Essence bond - This is great for PvP nrg managment as normally one target
is picked on at a time. I normally cast this on myself as I am the primary
target
7) Glyph of lesser energy - When nrg does get low this seriously helps. Let's
me cast Shield of Regen for free every 30 secs.
8) Signet of Res

It's not the be all and end all of monk builds. I dont believe there is one. But for any PvP monks out there please try this build out and let me know what you think.

I do however struggle when it comes to degen hexes and conditions. Ranger teams with applied poison arrows really scare me.

Calimar · Sep 12, 2005, 02:53 PM // 14:53

ME, I've been playing monk on PvP only - and I'm a healer.

I started with h.area as self-cure but it just didn't work for me, maybe because I was healing my attackers too, I just *felt* it took too long and didn't heal enough (don't have the numbers here). Now I stick to touch and I'm REALLY hard to take down unless mesmers or 2+ warriors are on me. I also bring protective spirit against spike teams.

I heal with horizon, h.other (mostly it's this skill), h.breeze, h.touch (only on myself).
Energy management is energy drain & inspired hex, then I've got prot spirit for protection and the rez signet.

En.Drain will drain 15 energy off the target for a quick recharge - I usually use it on the current team target (it's T + 6 and I'm off), if enemy uses hex I've got inspired hex - doesn't help much in hex removal but does help in energy management

I'm far too far from the enemy for channeling to be useful usually. Another choice I had was offering of blood - pretty standard, works great.

Racthoh · Sep 12, 2005, 03:11 PM // 15:11

I couldn't agree more with heal area. Seeing as how anything attacking your monk will probably be dying last you need not worry about the healing it will give them.

Convert hexes is a great spell, very useful for SF. Everyone is tossing around hexes in that place.

Almighty Zi · Sep 12, 2005, 05:24 PM // 17:24

I like that fact that you have tried something different but when I was reading your post I couldnt help but notice that the skills you have chosen are more expensive than the usual skills that monks choose and seem to favour focused healing above distributed healing. For instance, infuse health is a big heal and will save someone low on health and receiving a lot of hate, but it's not a skill that you can throw around onto multiple targets as the energy cost, especially considering you have expend more energy to heal yourself back up after use, is just too great to be able to do this.

For condition and hex removal you chose restore condition and convert hexes which are great when one person has stacked conditions or stacked hexes but arent as effective for removing spread conditions and hexes. The cost of restore condition is too great to use on multiple targets and with the recharge time of 20 seconds on convert hexes, it's just going to take too long to effectively spot remove hexes. The fact that restore condition is also an elite skill precludes you from equipping energy gaining skills such as drain energy, offering of blood, glyph of energy or even ether renewal and this further convinces me that you will run into energy issues.

I appreciate that this is not a list of the skills that are on your skillbar at the same time and I also appreciate that that you wont be the only monk in your group, however, I feel that there are better skill choices to be made and this is why they are more popular. I hope you dont take this reply the wrong way; I dont read these posts to poke holes in people's builds. Credit to you for doing something different.

Katari · Sep 14, 2005, 12:46 AM // 00:46

For energy managment I think you skiped three of the better skills.

Sig of Devotion: While its not going to save someone from spike damage, its a decent (with highish DF) heal, at zero energy. Be ready to cancel it if you're sorried about the cast time.

Offering of Blood{E}: At 10 blood, you gain a net of 11 energy with a fast cast time, and insignifigant sacrifice of HP, with a 15 second recharge. Points in blood are largely wasted however. Unless you carry something like Well of Blood.

Energy Drain{E}: Same net energy gain as OoB, more offensive, and no sacrifice. The downsides are, slower cast, offensive (requires more attention) and a 20 second recharge. But if you need other inspiration (or just mesmer) skills (channeling, arcane mimicary, hex breaker, etc). Then this is the way to go.

Some other ideas:

If you plan to run Life Bonds, try bringing balth's spirit as well. The damage transfered via Bond, triggers Balth's, even if you take 0 damage.

Use Divine Boon, at a high divine, its around 70 healing, for 2 energy, and a pip of regen. Not a high cost if you use some form of energy managment, and it works wonders with pront spells. A RoF that heals for ~120 HP (DF bonus + Boon) is more versitle than an orison, at 1/4 of the cast time. Suddenly your Mend Aliment is healing for ~180 when a condition is removed. Guardian seems more useful when it heals a useful amount in additon to acting as a personal, 5 second ageis (Great for targets under focused fire from attacks).

Arcador · Sep 14, 2005, 11:51 AM // 11:51

Live Vicariously - is pretty good if casted on some warrior axe/sword user. A single hit of his can heal you up to 11-13 hp, and this acts as pasive healing. Warriors attack 75% of the time and if that warrior uses furry and similar stances/shouts it can get a quite handy.

A similar spell is Vigorous spirit, but it acts for the target. Good for self-preservence warriors or some memsers...and it is only 5 mana and got 4 secs cooldown - which means it can be spammed across the party.

Divine Favor has a lot of usefull spells that do not act directly:

Peace and harmony is pretty good spell - it remains for a very long time, costs 5 mana and gives +1 energy regen. Drawbacks is it elite status.

Divine Intervention is similar to infuse health but you can "miss" with it and it got cooldown...but you do not give your health.

Contemplation of Purity - is a last ressort skill - you boom your enchantments and healyourself hoping the next 5 seconds your allies will do the trick and you will survive, also it can save you from backfire, and similar hex combos. Drawback - you need active enchamtnets.

Watchfull spirit is very good spell too - it can be used as normal hp regeneration and in "dire need" it can be transformed into healing. Some mix of Mending and ..infuse health?

Blessed aura can be godlike spell for protection monk. Combined with staff upgrade that gives 20% longer duration it is devastating. Giving ~60% bigger duration.

Aura of Fiath is perfect for ghostly hero healing, even self healing (and combined with Contemplation of Purity it can save you not just once). It remains 60 seconds and gives 50% more healed ammount. Pretty cool. Drawbacks are its 10 energy cost and elite status.

Melandru's reseliance is very veriste elite stance. Drawbacks is it wilderness atribute and elite status but it can give you a long survival vs some builds which place you 4 conditions and 6 hexes. While you will have +6 energy regen and around -4 hp (considering there are bleeds and degen hexes).