Curse

NJudson · Mar 28, 2006, 12:52 AM // 00:52

I'm trying to get through Dragon's Lair with my Mo/Me and at this point I'd have to say that I'm apparently a pretty crappy monk. I cannot seem to get past the first facet area that has -3 health degen. I've beaten this mission twice before with my tank without much trouble, but now that I'm going through with my monk it's really hard. One time I'm not sure if it was entirely my fault because the other monk got creamed before I could even try to heal. I had rebirth for rez, but everytime I tried to rez the monk she immediately died. What is that all about??? Also, people still haven't seemed to grasp the concept of calling targets at this point in the game either.

Anyway, I'd like to hear some monk suggestions for this mission since I'm really struggling. I've tried maxing healing attribute with 9 divinity and rest protection mostly. The skills that I was typically bringing were

Word of Healing
Orizon of Healing
Dwayna's Kiss
Healing Breeze
Aegis (tried this once)
Heal Party
Power Spike (for fighting glint)
Signet of Capture
Rebirth (should I swith this out for restore life or just ressurect?)

Is this the wrong attribute settings or skill set that I loaded? Thanks for any suggestions.

Mister Overhill · Mar 28, 2006, 03:12 AM // 03:12

Put two smiters through there without a problem, as well as a nuker, and that may be the trick -- as long as you keep moving and keep fighting, your health drops much slower. Stop and it goes down pretty fast.

Hockster · Mar 28, 2006, 04:11 AM // 04:11

The other monk was using a 55 build. It couldn't heal anythng at other than itself, and couldn't even do that properly.

Just use hench. They're better than 99% of the human players. The only hard section with them is the mesmer one. And only because the monks have a horrible tendancy to heal with enchants that get brutally shattered.

Edge Martinez · Mar 28, 2006, 09:30 AM // 09:30

My suggestion... Dump the protection skills and go maxxed healing and divine. You can use Heal Party every so often to offset the degen in the first part and break even on energy. Don't heal too quickly. Let your finger hover over Word of Healing until someone's bar drops just under 50% and then hit it. If you need to heal someone else before it regens, just use an Osiron to give them that extra second, then pop WoH again. The reason I say dump the protection is after that first mission, you can pretty much heal over everything else you face.

Caged Fury · Mar 28, 2006, 09:50 AM // 09:50

As Hockster said, the other monk who kept dying when resurrected is a 55Hp Monk.

Anyway, IMO, keep Rebirth. I find this the most useful due to it's teleport action. There's been afew times when I was the only one left standing and the mob stayed within the dead member's aggro bubble. Rebirth brought them back alive and to my safe position. Alot better than resurrecting someone and only for them to be killed straightway by a nearby mob, or them running to you and leading that mob to you. The draining of all your energy and your target's skills being disabled for a while is a small penalty. Rebirth shouldn't be used while in combat, but then you shouldn't be resurrecting anyone during a fight unless it is VERY safe for the rest of the party and yourself to do so. IMO, while in a fight, the monk's aim is to keep the surviving members alive, not to bring back the dead. You don't have to spam heals or heal someone the moment they take damage, even if they scream for healing. You should be in a better position to know when someone actually needs healing.

Your skillset is pretty much what I normally use and what I took for Dragon's Lair, except I had Reversal of Fortune instead of Power Spike. Also, I'm not sure why you would want to take Power Spike since you're mainly a healing monk. Power Spike is a nice interrupt and does very high damage if you have high Domination. However, if you really want to take an interurpt, I would suggest Power Drain so you can reclaim some energy back.

When I play healing monk, my main skills are:

Word of Healing (mainly used when someone's health is below 50% to get the addition bonus)
Healing Touch (for myself or someone very nearby)
Orison of Healing (for anyone or myself)
Dwayna's Kiss (mainly used when someone is enchanted or hexed)
Aegis (protect the party and to get the bonus heal from Dwayna's Kiss)
Rebirth

Two spare slots for: Heal Other/Heal Party/Reversal of Fortune/Guardian/Healing Breeze/Protective Spirit.

My attributes tend to be something like:

Healing Prayers = 11 + 2 (rune) + 1 (headgear)
Divine Favours = 11 + 1 (rune)
Protection Prayers 8 + 1 (rune)

My monk wears Judge's chest piece and the rest Ascetic.

Most of the time, I stay away from the party and just close enough to be in healing range. If someone strays from the party I ignore them and stay close to the main party. If a monster takes a liking to me and beat on me, I hold position for a while and self heal before I kite. I tend to look for another squishy teammate and run to them and hope the monster will take fancy to them and lose aggro. I can heal them better when they have taken aggro. If things goes bad, everyone's health is dropping and I'm running out of energy then I run far away. Better to live, resurrect and fight another day.

Dragon's Lair is like any other missions, just with certain conditions per level. Just stay calm and focus on your job. If you do find it hard to do with pugs then take a team of henchmen.

NJudson · Mar 28, 2006, 11:55 AM // 11:55

Thanks for the suggestions everyone. I thought about trying it with henchman, but I kinda thought that I would learn more and become a better and more efficient healer if I continued to try it with PUG. I typically like PUG better just because I like engaging with other people better. Unfortunately we all know the some of the downsides one can experience when playing with others. I did however, decide to do Elona Reach with hench. That mission took 10-12 times with PUG when I was running my tank and 3-4 times with PUG using my monk. I was tired of trying to get into a group that would not listen to an experienced player.

The 55 monk didn't even cross my mind. That must be what that other monk was. One monk trying to heal a group of 8 in a health degen area is a bit difficult. I like the idea of adding healing touch to skills. I was thinking that it was only heal other ally, but if I can use it to heal myself that that would be great. I typically don't carry it cause I try to stay out of range. Heal area is another powerful one that I'd like to carry, but there just doesn't seem to be enough times you can use it except after battle. I've thought about infuse health, but I was concerned with my own heal, but maybe use infuse and then heal touch on myself would then help. Can get expensive on energy though, which is partly why I tried to keep the skills that only cost 5 energy. Thanks again everyone. I'll give it another shot tonight.

striderkaaru · Mar 28, 2006, 05:45 PM // 17:45

drop healing breeze and power spike. put some points into inspiration and add some energy management. you should be able to heal party your way through the first domain.

NJudson · Mar 28, 2006, 11:06 PM // 23:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by striderkaaru

drop healing breeze and power spike. put some points into inspiration and add some energy management. you should be able to heal party your way through the first domain.

Thanks for the suggestion. I guess that I threw power spike in there so our group had some sort of interrupt for Glint. Little good that does if I can't even get to Glint though.

Nilator · Mar 28, 2006, 11:47 PM // 23:47

Hench=Much better than the nubs in Dragon's Lair.

tuperwho · Mar 29, 2006, 12:04 AM // 00:04

Don't think I can contribute much more to the monk side, but I sure can from the mesmer perspective. FYI, Glint's heal that you want to interrupt is a skill, not a spell. So power spike will be worthless. You need things that interrupt any action, not just spells. I recommend Leech Sig.... never leaves my skillbar as a mesmer. And while I'm on the subject, You can't knock Glint down eitehr to interrupt. So it's ranger interrupts, leech sig., and distracting blow.

Phoenix Arrows · Mar 29, 2006, 06:24 AM // 06:24

I have a crazy idea...

Bring Mending and use it on everyone. Don't forget Blessed Signet too ^^.

13 Healing Prayers would mean a +4 Mending. Think about that. Get high enough Divine Favor that you get 24 Energy from all 8 enchantments though.

Haven't tried it out, but seems like it might work ^^. The problem is the Shatter Enchantments later on in the mission.

If anyone's not busy and wants to try it out, tell me how it goes ^^.

BTW, good luck!

NJudson · Mar 29, 2006, 12:11 PM // 12:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phoenix Arrows

I have a crazy idea...

Bring Mending and use it on everyone. Don't forget Blessed Signet too ^^.

13 Healing Prayers would mean a +4 Mending. Think about that. Get high enough Divine Favor that you get 24 Energy from all 8 enchantments though.

Haven't tried it out, but seems like it might work ^^. The problem is the Shatter Enchantments later on in the mission.

If anyone's not busy and wants to try it out, tell me how it goes ^^.

BTW, good luck!

Huh, that's an interesting take on the mission. I don't have Blessed Signet, but I could buy it. This just might work pretty good. I've researched this a bit more and with my attribute point level and fact that I only have minor runes on my armor I would only have 12 in divine favor which would give me +20 energy from Blessed Signet. And since the signet only has a recharge time of 10 seconds (+2 seconds activation time) then if I stay on top of it well then technically I could give myself a +20 energy boost every 12 seconds. By loading spells like Word of Healing, Orizon of Healing, Dwayna's Kiss...etc that only cost 5 energy then this may work pretty well.

One question though....you mentioned maintaining 8 enchantments. How could someone do that with only 4 pips of regen?

Hockster · Mar 29, 2006, 01:35 PM // 13:35

That's why you spam blessed signet. But doing that really limits your healing ability. If you're going to run mending on everyone, and I wouldn't, you need to run essence bond on the tanks as well to help with energy management.

Every class has some form of self heal. If they can't figure out how to maintain a bit of life on their own at that stage of the game, it's not worth having them around.

NJudson · Mar 30, 2006, 02:55 AM // 02:55

I just beat Glint and I got into a really great group of people. For the most part it was a piece of cake. We nearly got beat by Glint because we didn't not have the game plan set before we starting fighting her, but fortunately 1 person survived the initial onslaught and we all got rezed and re-grouped. I was the only monk primary in group, but we had an E/Mo that healed as well and was running Succor on me to keep my energy up. I was spamming heals like crazy (predominately Word of Healing, Orizon of Healing and occasional Heal Party) and I still had quite a bit of energy. I must say that one of the best feelings in the game is teaming up with a good group of people.

Cherno · Mar 31, 2006, 04:54 PM // 16:54

We usually take mending for the first section and put it on some key positions. Doesn't need to go on everyone. Mending on just a few will help you to free up some time to use smaller insta-heals on those not enchanted and heal party works nicely.

Phoenix Arrows · Apr 10, 2006, 06:06 AM // 06:06

Nice job NJudson. Just a pointer: If you don't maintain at least 3 enchantments, Blessed Signet is a waste. Only works with maintained enchantments. Also, the way you maintain 8 enchantments at a time is because even though the energy regeneration is only +4, you can have a maximum of -10 energy regeneration, which means you are maintaining 14 enchantments (or 7 under Nature's Renewal).

So...anyone try the crazy Mending idea? ^^.