Curse

spiritofcat · Aug 29, 2005, 04:16 AM // 04:16

Protective Bond and Divine Boon were being exploited, the non-bond and boon builds are mostly just doing what the skills are meant to do.
Protective Bond was never meant to take only 1 energy per hit, and Divine Boon was never intended to fuel Zealot's Fire.
The skills that are now being used are being used as their descriptions make it appear they are intended to be used.

Nuke_Dembastages · Aug 29, 2005, 04:44 AM // 04:44

with the current build, even though you can solo parts of UW, it doesn't make you invincible like the prot bond exploit did.

I die. Quite often. Just not to the guys that drop ecto, which is my goal. Well, that and gold max storm bows

monkeyink · Aug 29, 2005, 01:40 PM // 13:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by spiritofcat

I still do the UW with my E/Mo build which uses:
Balth's Aura
Ether Renewal
Zealot's Fire
Healing Breeze
Prot Spirit
Mending
Balth's Spirit
Essence Bond

I used to use boon instead of breeze for a faster kill rate, but I've always done well with breeze too.

Do you use the same type of setup as the 55/105 monks (Superior runes in every armor piece and -Health off-hand) or are you able to solo with this build by having a large energy pool?

I've got an E/Me (recently changed from E/Mo) that I do all my farming with but I hadn't considered trying to solo the UW.

BoricuaAce · Aug 29, 2005, 04:56 PM // 16:56

This is my 55hp build I use for smite runs, works very good for me:

Essence Bond
Mending
Shield of Judgement
Balthazar's Aura
Protective Spirit
Zealot's Fire
Bonettis Defense
Reversal of Fortune

Ive been using this build since the "Bond" nerf and it had done wonders for me. Had to mess around with other skills first to finally find this build and I like it very much. I can take on Large groups of Attaxes and Darkness plus groups with 7 smites easily.

I truly am God when i go on a 2-man smite run, my partner casts Watchful Spirit and Succor on me, plus other nifty skills we use on different runs.

Kio · Aug 29, 2005, 06:52 PM // 18:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nuke_Dembastages

I've found that because of the required use of prot spirit, its easier to equip the following:

Healing Breeze
Prot Spirit
Balth Aura
Zealots Fire
Bonetti's
Essence Bond
Mending
Balth Spirit

With this setup, you have 1 energy regen left. Use the attribute stats listed above or modify your own, it doesn't really matter as long as you have a +4 mending.

Going in, hit the prot spirit/zealots. I can still do 5 or 6 aatxe easily because I'm spamming prot spirit and healing breeze as soon as the timers come up. This makes it actually faster than when using prot bond. I've found that using these two healing spells as a damage dealer stops you from forgetting about prot bond and taking a 280+ shot to the dome.

my 2 cents.

Which attributes?

Kinhu · Aug 29, 2005, 09:08 PM // 21:08

what about this build?

mending(4 bars of health, -1 bar of energy)
essence bond(-1 bar of energy)
Balth spirit(-1 bar of energy)
peace and harmony(+1 bar of energy)
protection spirit
balth aura
healing breeze
mantra of resolve

in the end you have 2 bars of energy regain plus you can gain 2 for each physcial hit which is more than enough to keep your energy high
with healing breeze on you have 12 bars or regain but this drops to 9 once you begin bleeding, still not a problem
mantra of resolve keeps you from beign interupted which could be very fatal, even though you may lose more energy when you would be you have enough energy regain to make up for it

maybe zealots instead of peace and harmony or soemthing like that for more damage

ShadowWrath · Aug 29, 2005, 09:46 PM // 21:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by FVC

I've done pretty well so far, as far as not forgetting... but once after talking to the lost soul, I accidentally cast PS on him instead of me... it took me a few seconds to realize why I died so quickly

Blah I do that all the time... >.<

Severe · Aug 29, 2005, 09:50 PM // 21:50

Same here

derrtyboy69 · Aug 29, 2005, 10:24 PM // 22:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by xxinsainxx

you know what else might work. using the same strategy on griffons. think bout it bring cyclone axe to get bonetis straight up. with the enchants on u shud be fine for energy live vicariously wud work with this i think a bit beter then the wand. sure u loose out of the faster recharge chance but think about the alternative ur healing urself alot.

umm dude, this tactic has been sued forever by warrior/monks

zehly · Aug 29, 2005, 10:36 PM // 22:36

omgz lol n00bs dont j00 know a.net like nerft teh whole invicnimonk build 4 a reason lol b/c tehy don't watn j00 2 b farming lol, u idiost, u r just going 2 get nerft and banned lol. b sides, w/mo pwns monk @ everytihng else LOL. i r teh owned j00 newzb.

That's what you will be reading in about a week. BUT,
Very nice job at finding a way "around" the so-called "nerf". Ironically, however, *some* people already used a build like this, because they felt the "nerf" was inevitable, and they wanted to stay ahead of the game.

Props to you tho

FVC · Aug 29, 2005, 11:11 PM // 23:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nuke_Dembastages

I have not tried dryders...they've never dropped ecto for me :P

I just like to kill the Dryders for the additional challenge, if possible. They were tough even with the old "invincible" builds. Plus you get the 5,000 exp and can go down to the Vale then.

Since your build only differs from mine by 2 skills, I added your strategy to my original post as an alternate strategy, so that more people will notice it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kio

Which attributes?

Check the attributes listed in my original post, as they will work with that build as well. As was said, the most important thing is 13 healing to get +4 mending.

Nuke_Dembastages · Aug 29, 2005, 11:51 PM // 23:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by FVC

Since your build only differs from mine by 2 skills, I added your strategy to my original post as an alternate strategy, so that more people will notice it.

cool. Same thing different story either way. I'll have to try yours out as well.

As far as going into the valley....no aatxe there. J ust grasping and coldfire etc. To get TO the aatxe you have to go through lots of disenchanting guys which is more of a pain than its worth.

Plus I have 47 skillpoints available...I don't think the exp is gonna help

Calibretto_9 · Aug 30, 2005, 03:20 AM // 03:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by spiritofcat

I still do the UW with my E/Mo build which uses:
Balth's Aura
Ether Renewal
Zealot's Fire
Healing Breeze
Prot Spirit
Mending
Balth's Spirit
Essence Bond

I used to use boon instead of breeze for a faster kill rate, but I've always done well with breeze too.

Hey, I didn't mean to get to the thread so late after you posted, but I have a question for you. I've played through GW and have been heavy into PvP, but lately found a newfound fondness for farming. Who da thunk it. Anywho, ele/monks can farm the UW? And if so, is it more difficult for them than for Mo/W? In your opinion, is soloing the UW reasonable with your ele?

Nuke_Dembastages · Aug 30, 2005, 10:53 PM // 22:53

one other build that seems to work pretty well....

the sword from umm, crap, forget where, but its +5 energy. I put a +19% enchantment on there, replaced essence bond with blessed aura. With all runes on my skills are

13
12
12
12

3 tactics, 2 extra points, still trying to figure this out better :P

With a 19, or idealy a 20% enchantment combined with a 12 divine favor, you get a 50% longer enchantment. Breeze lasts 15 secs, as does balthazar's...which is the same as its reset time. Prot spirit lasts 90 seconds.

you have less energy regen, but with the amount of guys we face i ts not a problem. Just use bonetti's. The extra 5 energy doesn't hurt either. But you can pretty much keep balthazar's on all the time. just be sure to switch back and forth each time bonetti's charges with a breeze/prot spirit then baltha/zealots and you have continual damage output.

Seems to work pretty well. I'm all for speeding up the farming. This is my quickest one yet

**edit** if anyone tries out replacing zealots with essence bond and using just a continous balth spirit let me know. I'm getting lazy in my old age.

2nd edit**

ok forget being lazy, this one works absolutely beautifully withougt trying essence bond for zealots. even with 1 energy per hit gain and 1 energy regen, using bonetti's you get plenty, even if its against 1 or 2 aatxe, which is normally what takes a while. Due to the 50% longer enchantments, you use less energy casting and can have backup for an extra prot spirit or breeze in case of interrupt.

FVC · Sep 02, 2005, 10:49 AM // 10:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nuke_Dembastages

cool. Same thing different story either way. I'll have to try yours out as well.

I did try yours, and found that indeed, a bigger mob size was possible... but that if I missed the Healing Breeze cast in a big group, I usually only had one chance to re-cast it before becoming food. But that was not a common occurance.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nuke_Dembastages

As far as going into the valley....no aatxe there. J ust grasping and coldfire etc. To get TO the aatxe you have to go through lots of disenchanting guys which is more of a pain than its worth.

Plus I have 47 skillpoints available...I don't think the exp is gonna help

True, I have over 30 myself, but I like to kill as many things as possible just on principle. And I like to see how many quests I can finish, for the same reason. So, naturally, I tried the Terrorwebs too. I was able to kill them. I went in with PS and Breeze on (but not Zealot's Fire yet)... then ran around to get them to cast their meteors. After that, I moved in close, got ZF going, and just cast PS and Breeze over and over. I had very little chance to get Balthazar's Aura in, because if Breeze went out then I was dead (since they constantly set you on fire). And they don't hit fast, so the energy regen was slow, especially after the first one was dead. I probably did most of the damage to the last one with my wand. But it does work as long as Breeze stays active.

timmo567 · Sep 03, 2005, 03:17 AM // 03:17

Is it eaiser fighting the terrorwebs without essence bond and Baltazars spirit? because I seem to never have enough energy to continually cast PS and HB

Nuke_Dembastages · Sep 03, 2005, 04:48 AM // 04:48

for the terror's, just like if you solo thirsty river and need to kill wurms, I take off balth's and blessed. Gives me 3 regen, enough to get off some spells.

But its not worth it for ecto farming if ya ask me.

wiz12268 · Sep 03, 2005, 11:11 PM // 23:11

Even if they nerf this one there are others that work. If Anet keeps making spells useless then no one will play the game. It isn't even about being able to do it, it is about how bad the drops are. I would rather go kill griffons for a couple hours and make 5-6K on just wings (FOR FREE), than spend 1K to go into the UW and get a bunch of demonic remains. I took about 3 weeks off from the game. I went back in and I think I have gotten 1 ecto in 5 runs. And not a single colored weapon other than blue. It isn't hard doing the runs, it is what you get when you go in there. Which is basically nothing. Not to mention that ectos are worth about half what they used to be, so if you are doing smite runs to make money you are pissing up a rope.

I was doing them to get a nice gold storm bow. Well I have done probably 200 solo runs and I have gotten exactly one storm bow, and it was purple. I have gotten quite a few ectos and some rubies here and there, so the 200K wasn't wasted by any means, but I spent 200K to do those runs.

I think doing griffon runs and even regular salvage farm runs are definately more profitable long term.

But some guys like the aura of being able to solo the UW I guess.

FVC · Sep 05, 2005, 12:54 AM // 00:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by wiz12268

Even if they nerf this one there are others that work. If Anet keeps making spells useless then no one will play the game.

I can't really see them nerfing any of the skills involved here. I can see why Protective Bond was changed, if you really think about it. It's a powerful enchantment that was meant to have a cost associated with using it - the energy lost per hit. An enchantment like Mending was meant to be cast and last permanently (or until removed), but Protective Bond was not meant to last permanently due to how powerful it is. That is why they changed it. Not really because people were using it to solo in the UW - that just brought it to everyone's attention.

Quote:

Originally Posted by wiz12268

It isn't even about being able to do it, it is about how bad the drops are. I would rather go kill griffons for a couple hours and make 5-6K on just wings (FOR FREE), than spend 1K to go into the UW and get a bunch of demonic remains. I took about 3 weeks off from the game. I went back in and I think I have gotten 1 ecto in 5 runs. And not a single colored weapon other than blue. It isn't hard doing the runs, it is what you get when you go in there. Which is basically nothing. Not to mention that ectos are worth about half what they used to be, so if you are doing smite runs to make money you are pissing up a rope.

Well, the 1k to get into the UW doesn't make a big difference - you will quickly make it back just from the money drops, sometimes before you even get out to the smites. But, yes, the drops can be a lot worse in UW depending on when you go. I have always had the best luck, by far, in the extreme early morning hours when less people are playing (think 4 AM - 7 AM eastern). I have had a gold storm bow drop at those times, as well as what clearly seems to be a larger amount of ecto. In prime time hours, on the other hand, I've seen quite a few runs where all you really get are tons of remains and residue. I'm convinced the drops are affected by how many people are in a particular area at a given time.

Quote:

Originally Posted by wiz12268

But some guys like the aura of being able to solo the UW I guess.

True, and some girls do too... me included.

Amused Observer · Sep 06, 2005, 12:02 AM // 00:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by FVC

Well, the 1k to get into the UW doesn't make a big difference - you will quickly make it back just from the money drops, sometimes before you even get out to the smites. But, yes, the drops can be a lot worse in UW depending on when you go. I have always had the best luck, by far, in the extreme early morning hours when less people are playing (think 4 AM - 7 AM eastern). I have had a gold storm bow drop at those times, as well as what clearly seems to be a larger amount of ecto. In prime time hours, on the other hand, I've seen quite a few runs where all you really get are tons of remains and residue. I'm convinced the drops are affected by how many people are in a particular area at a given time.

That's a very interesting theory. unfortunately I need my zzzzz during that time slot.