Curse

Raiku · Jun 04, 2005, 02:13 AM // 02:13

Does this still work? Because they nerf essence bond now only taking physical damage.

Sausaletus Rex · Jun 04, 2005, 03:59 AM // 03:59

Yes, it does.

In fact most of the, by now, stereotypical and, to my mindm a bit broken and degenerative Bond chain still works. The only thing that's changed is that you can't use Essence Bond triggered by a Life Bond to reap massive energy for anyone linked to a Life Bonder (Does anyone else automatically think "Wait a minute, Bender's name isn't Bonder! It's Bender!" whenever they hear the phrase Bonder? No? Alright, then...). Life Bond won't trigger Essence Bond any longer but it will trigger Healing Seed and Balthazar's Spirit and pretty much anything else that's set off "on damage".

Red Locust · Jun 04, 2005, 04:29 AM // 04:29

Question is, what's the best way to keep your energy up now that you can't essence bond a life bonder (haha, it's getting complicated)? If you're the life bonder, you could get someone to keep balthazar's spirit on you while you life bond the whole team and technically be able to keep it up. But if you're a healer, no more piggy backing on the life bonder with essence

Minwanabi · Jun 04, 2005, 06:36 AM // 06:36

Quote:

Question is, what's the best way to keep your energy up now that you can't essence bond a life bonder (haha, it's getting complicated)? If you're the life bonder, you could get someone to keep balthazar's spirit on you while you life bond the whole team and technically be able to keep it up. But if you're a healer, no more piggy backing on the life bonder with essence

And there's the million dollar question that outlines this dilemna. There are a number of halfway solutions, but I doubt we'll ever see anything on the scale of essence bond. With a fully bonded team, as a monk, I was reaping around 8-10 energy per second, and 200-250 HP per second on the dias of the HoH. Frankly, I'm glad it no longer works, it's time to get creative again.

Red Locust · Jun 04, 2005, 07:27 AM // 07:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by Minwanabi

And there's the million dollar question that outlines this dilemna. There are a number of halfway solutions, but I doubt we'll ever see anything on the scale of essence bond. With a fully bonded team, as a monk, I was reaping around 8-10 energy per second, and 200-250 HP per second on the dias of the HoH. Frankly, I'm glad it no longer works, it's time to get creative again.

Speaking of getting creative, I recently tested out a replacement for the old essence bond, and it works. It involves the life bonder doing the same thing - life bonding everyone and casting balthazar's spirit on himself (unfortunately casting essence on himself doesn't do anything). Then, all the monks and casters cast life bond on the life bonder and balthazar's spirit on themselves. That way, each time life bond registers damage on the bonder, let's say a 0, that 0 is registered by everyone who has life bond on the bonder, and that triggers balthazar's spirit on them.

So to make a long story short, when the 0's start flying above the life bonder's head, he as well as anyone maintaining life bond on him gets energy. It sounds more complicated than it is, and it really works out nicely. Only drawback is that people now have to maintain 2 enchantments rather than one. On the bright side, if you're the one getting hit, you're getting 1 energy per hit directly from balthazar's aura, and 1 energy per hit from damage that transfers to the life bonder and back to you.

ugh, I hope they don't make it more complicated than it already is. It's hard enough to get PuGs to follow target calls, let alone execute all this complex ****

Asplode · Jun 04, 2005, 09:35 AM // 09:35

Well my guild likes to call this the seedbomb, we have 1 prot monk that lifebonds everyone and balthazar's himself, and our 2 other monks will alternate casts of healing seed on him, and all our casters/healers will gather around the "seedbomb" and never drop below 90% health. If we get AE'ed, our seedbomb moves, and the casters follow, and it works like magic. If we see a necro coming we cast Aegis to absorb his chilblains, but we still get wrecked with a well-targetted Rend Enchantments. Usually, we can tell a necro rended our monk when we hear a spontaneous necro deathcry. ^_^

Oh, and in response to Locust's post, you sure lifebond triggers on a lifebond, because I'm pretty sure they changed it so that it absorbs damage from ATTACKS only, like wands/bows/melee, rather than spells...

Red Locust · Jun 04, 2005, 05:39 PM // 17:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by Asplode

Well my guild likes to call this the seedbomb, we have 1 prot monk that lifebonds everyone and balthazar's himself, and our 2 other monks will alternate casts of healing seed on him, and all our casters/healers will gather around the "seedbomb" and never drop below 90% health. If we get AE'ed, our seedbomb moves, and the casters follow, and it works like magic. If we see a necro coming we cast Aegis to absorb his chilblains, but we still get wrecked with a well-targetted Rend Enchantments. Usually, we can tell a necro rended our monk when we hear a spontaneous necro deathcry. ^_^

Oh, and in response to Locust's post, you sure lifebond triggers on a lifebond, because I'm pretty sure they changed it so that it absorbs damage from ATTACKS only, like wands/bows/melee, rather than spells...

I think they just changed it so that essence bond only responds to physical damage and not to life bond damage. Apparently damage from life bond still triggers life bond, 'cause I tried it out with another monk and it was working just fine. But spell damage never triggered life bond in the first place, did it?

And yeah I'm familiar with the healing seed combo, that's what the original poster was referring to. I don't think it's that vulnerable to rend, since most people only have 1 enchantment on them and the life bonder has 2, only 1 of which he himself needs to maintain. So it's quite easy to recover from a rend in little time, definitely less than it takes the necro to recast rend enchantments.