Official GW Advice to Monks: Cast stolen Hexes

Here is the link to the Article on the Guild Wars site that I want to discuss.

http://www.guildwars.com/competitive...r/zaishen2.php

Now, the quote:

The above quote is a tip for a Boon-Prot Monk in PvP. I think this is terrible advice, since a monk will likely not have the attributes to support its use, and a monk should simply not waste the energy or take the time to stand still to cast. I think teaching such a tip to the general masses, especially to those who could learn from an article discussing how to beat the Zaishen is a terrible disservice to the community.

Please discuss your thoughts on monks casting hexes that they steal.

It is the normal practice of a boon/protect for pvp to use I hex to gain energy as well they do put points into inspiration and it is perfectly fine.There is nothing wrong with it.

Ah, c'mon, it's fun. It does specifically say only to do it if you don't have anything better to do 'cos the enemy team has little damage.

Sure, most hexes don't wory well with no attributes. But it can be funny to chuck migraine back on the mesmer, or wither back on the necro even if it doesn't last long.

I'm not talking about the use of inspired / revealed hex. They are excellent skills for monks to use. I'm referring to the casting of the hex that replaces inspired / revealed hex for the 20 seconds.

I've highlighted the important part.

Yeah, i thinks it's fine in pve, especially if you steal an inspiration hex (although i don't think there are many of those). But for pvp, thats pretty poor advice. Most hexes you steal last for about a second or do such minmal damage that wasting e on recasting them is totally pointless. I do however think that getting into the pratice of stealing hexes is a good idea, since there will be (i believe) a hex stealer that mimics attributes. Anyway if you're going up against a team with a lot smaller damage output then your team, you prolly won't have any useful hexes to steal anyway :P

I don't believe that this is done in normal practice and I don't think you can do this with I hex or R hex recast the hex.

If anything you can use the inspired hex as a 'dummy' to psych out the enemy. How often do you mouse over backfire to check it's dmg?

deep freeze still works fine with 0 in water, 25e isnt something to sneeze at though

Surprising it works. You can cover a hex that might be more important and if your going into randoms your not likely to have the same hexes as your team. case in point a casting of SS had me stop attaicking from a twitch reflex, I used smite hex the thing blinked away the monk healed his buddy and then I got emp on me D:

ummm spirit of failure anyone?? cast that bad boy on a warrior and ur getting 4e every 4 swings for 30 seconds..
lightning surge is fun too.

I agree with a few of the recent replies. Obviously you are a healer first, but there is nothing wrong with being creative in the moment, depending on how the situation is unfolding. Just place the extra points in the mesmer attribute you think you'll maybe have a shot at using. You never know.

In Alliance Battles I have killed enemy MM's with a well-placed Backfire and gotten warriors off my back by reusing Images of Remorse. They dont know if it came from a primary mesmer or a lowly monk and as said above, a number of hexes work just fine irregardless of point spread (better yes on a primary mesmer of course).

Diverting Diversion is fun

There are several skills that can prove useful even at 0 attributes. Its up to the BProt to use his judgment as to whether his team will need that energy for a heal of if he should drop a little somethingsomethin into the offensive. many elite hexes are well worth the cost due to their enhanced effects. many skills have unconditional uptime or an effect outside the attribute (ex; cast guilt or shame to wreak a little extra havoc on spell spammers with a poor mans interupt).

Knowing what to use and when to use it is part of being a BoonProt. @OP: I suggest you start learning instead of dismissing a tactic out of hand.

The thing is Monks cant really "spare" any energy, unless the other team just isn't pressuring at all. But I love it when I see a Monk attempt to cast a 3 second skill that he just IHexed off, just so I can -26 him. You can never spare 26 energy mid-battle. Just my opinion from a Mesmer. =]

Recast those ele water hexes nicely

I do it all the time in PvE, because with Boon Prot, you pretty much OVER-heal people. In PvP there's a few you can reuse, but most of the time it's best not to.

Deep Freeze, Spirit of Failure, and Shadow of Fear are effective.

Everything else is a waste of energy, for the most part.

lol. mesmer:'im using migrane on xxx monk"
Mesmer"shit" "i have migrane on me!!"

If you're being hit by mantra of recovery/diversion spammers, then you remove diversion from the other monk (removing it from yourself) then you use the hex you removed to remove the next cast of diversion on yourself, and you can cast a whole lot better that way.

If you have spare energy and time, meh, why not? If you are wise on it's use, it could actually be helpful to cast a random hex, even if you have no attributes in that category.

Cast empathy on a tank and they will likely stop attacking since they are not likely to notice that the Empathy cast on them does almost no damage to them.

If nothing else, it could be a nice cover hex for your teammate.

I did test this and it does work apparently neat trick.

Another reason to use the stolen hex is to make enemy monks spend energy to remove it. They will likely not know that the cast hex isn't at full power.

yes u can - f/ex u can recast ss that u just i-hexed off the teammate, but u'll waste 15e for hex that lasts 5sec and does no dam at all.... not mentioning the casting time of cos

however u can steal scourge healing if u're smiter and cast ot bac, it can be funny, but in 90% of situations its a complete waste

Your thoughts are welcome, just as everyone else's, but your suggestion is, well, somewhat confusing. Why do you think I created the thread? Why are we here, if not to learn from each other ? I stated my opinion and I asked for others'.

There is only one time to cast the hexes you stole with revealed / inspired hex, and that time is when you have diversion on you and you need to cast.

For PvE > You shouldn't be using the boon prot build for pve, it's terrible.

Boon Prot isn't terrible in PvE, it's over-powered. When I run it in PvE I end up healing for too much, so I just stand around and spam Signet of Devotion most of the time. It's much better at healing than 99% of the PvE monk builds that people try (and fail at)

That's exactly why Boon Prot is terrible in PvE.
Sure you can heal for alot really fast, but you're just going to run yourself out of energy.
A standard healing builds can heal alot more than a Boon Prots in PvE.

Boon Prots are only good vs. spike damage (1/4s heals), very good vs. interrupts (1/4s casts) and very good vs. hexes/conditions (CoP, inspired hex & mend ailment). All those things are golden in PvP but generally useless in PvE because the AI can't spike well, the AI will either not attack the monk or will still be able to interrupt 1/4s cast, and the AI can't use hexes and conditions well if they use them on the monk at all.

It is a bad idea to cast hexes back on the enemy team, a waste of energy as others have said. If your team does not have many hexes, it will most likely help enemy teams if they have inspired hex/revealed hex (most monks do usually).

It does depend on the situation, but in the vast majority of the cases, I can safely say it would be a bad idea to cast a hex (particularly one that isn't linked to any attributes) back at an enemy team.

Whoa! Slow down there sparky. You obviously dont have a clue how to run a Boon Protect in PvE. I get compliments on my healing in almost every pug. They don't even know I have no points in healing.

I never have any energy problems. Divines Spirit at 16 DF takes care of all of my energy needs. The only heal I have other than bonus heals is Blessed Light. Boons are not there to heal (Although a well placed protect spell can heal for over 0ver 250 points) They mitigate damage in the first place so healing isn't an issue. The little damage the party does take can be reversed or topped off with a condition/hex removal heal bonus.

[/quote]


I disagree. Boon Protect is greater than Heal in PvE in most situations and especially when Hex and Conditions are prevelent. I used to run a Heal Monk so I know the differences between the two... The only place I consistently run Heal now is in the Deep and I can even get by with my normal Boon Protect build there. It is just easier with high Heal for Heal Party.

Just to make things clear, a Boon Prot is a standard PvP build.
Protection builds ARE good in PvE, and Divine Boon is an useful skill for Protection monks, but simply bringing Divine Boon on a Protection monk doesn't make a Boon Prot.

I dont run out of energy at all playing a boon prot in PvE. It in fact does really well and better than most other healing builds. I was the lone monk for a team of 4 in Abaddon bonus after a few players left in a pug, as well as also getting Gyala masters under the same conditions. There are times of stress, yes, and there are some instances I need to swap to the high energy set to ride a wave, but this is true of any monking circumstance.

Translated to English:

A rebuttal to OP: Don’t forget, you call this tactic both a “disservice to the community” and “terrible advice”. All this leads me to believe that you’ve never done it and that you had made up your mind going into this thread that it was and would remain poor use of a skill. So: I’m glad to hear that you are more open minded than your OP makes you sound but I stand by my advice. Learn this tactic and learn it well. The benefits to using IHex and RHex to their full potential are pointed out multiple times in this thread. Keep in mind, many hexes have the potential to REDUCE damage as much as some prot spells while they are up by slowing attack, increasing miss % with attacks, increasing %chance for interrupts (shutdown a skill=what damage?), or snaring targets. And all this in turn can help you help your team kill targets more quickly. Dead players deal less damage and players casting a 3 second sig are sitting ducks.

About "healing": an E/Mo Heal Party spammer will outheal a monk when it comes to keeping your teams red bars up in most forms of PvP. Monks exist in the PvP game to counter conditions/hexes, reduce damage and combat spikes/single target pressure. It’s a very different role than most players see and use them for. Frankly, if BoonProts needed their energy to heal their team then they need to swap to Healing Prayers now and save themselves some trouble.

Why BoonProt: Players Boon Protect for 2 reasons primarily: it has the single best self healing in the game (meaning that a Boon Protector can keep himself alive with much less aid from his duo) and it has excellent skills for combatting spikes. All this boils down to BoonProts being solid single target healers...but horrible with a group. This is good for both facets of the game. Since most PvE warriors should take and hold agro for the majority of the game, the Boon Prot is an effective support class for good PvE groups that show restraint and solid tactics. For PvP, most of their skills are not easily susceptible to interupt. That means your prot spells go through to counter spikes even when an interupter is sitting on your head.

The build itself is largly outdated now (something I'm not happy about; but its a fact that changes in skills and counters to the build are rampant in PvP today) and most players will be shifting even further away from the staple BP when Nightfalls skills hit the game in a few days. So while I've enjoyed this discussion as a simple exercise, the entire point is somewhat moot.

Well if you're rolling their team, why not have a little fun with deep freeze. >.>

Oh, and Spirit of Failure is awesome to toss back at their warriors - that is if they don't remove it, you will get more than 10 energy in that span of 30 seconds.. Ofcourse that is if you have high inspiration.

This is what I said:

Maybe it didn't come through clear enough, but what I was trying to say was that I feel this advice will be taken by new players (see "especially to those who could learn from an article discussing how to beat the Zaishen") who really don't take into account the issues discussed in this thread. My point was that this is not something I think should be taught to new players, as it is GENERALLY a bad idea. Yes, there are some limited, good occasions to recast the hex, but they are rare. You mention that many hexes are able to do many good things, such as reduce damage, slowing attacks, increase miss %. Yes. But how long do they last and what is the miss % when you have 0 points in their attribute ? Not very. There are others, like Deep Freeze, that has a 10% snare regardless of Water Magic level, but that costs a whopping 25e. Also, when you mention "shutdown a skill", I am assuming you are talking about removing Diversion from a teammate, because you can't use Inspired Hex to remove it from yourself. Anyways, my point is, and it has been discussed by various posts in this thread, that it takes experience to be able to make good decisions about whether to recast a stolen hex, and this article is directed at an audience without that knowledge. So, no, I haven't dismissed the idea of recasting it out of hand, but I do believe it is terrible advice to its intended audience, and is thus a disservice to the community to give such advice with only the caveat that you have excess energy and your team isn't taking damage. Parts, which, in my opinion, will be lost on the new monk looking to do damage because it's fun.

Again, you and other experienced players consider this build outdated, but guess what, ANet just put this article on their website, so people who don't know any better will use it. It's not that moot.

BTW, there have been many posts with various good times when recasting can be a good idea - good info.

check -this- out:
http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Image:S..._Illusions.jpg
too bad its elite but it's gonna rock when my mesmer reveals SS and chucks it back at 16. think of the ele hexes, necro hexes etc that this will combo with nicely for secondary prof. I know its unlikely that a boon prot is gonna run this instead of MoR, but still the concept of chucking back hexes is there.
If the boon prot is under heavy edenial, casting a useless hex is roughly equal in my eyes as hiding the energy with weapon swap... yes, the total energy is lower, but most hexes will at least have a few seconds of usefullness.

I dunno, maybe against a scrubby team yes..

No?

Hiding energy with focus swaps will get you the energy back when switching back to the primary set.

Casting a useless hex, may add some pressure to the other team, but it's not helping against e-denial.

Right, so, like I said, its a roughly equal tradeoff, on one hand you hide the energy and can get it back, and on the other you use the energy to help the team... obviously situational to the hex in question and how you use it, but where's your doubt about the equivalence?

Edit(later): I just did noticed a possible point to clarify - from my last post I had stated that throwing captured hex or hiding energy could be equivalent value under edenial.... but from your (The truth itself) response I think I need to make it clear that I don't mean casting a hex helps you deal with edenial... I mean casting the hex could help the team while you are under edenial. Its my argument that if cast correctly, even a less usefull hex *can* do your team as much good as hiding your energy with a swap.

Its GENERALLY a bad idea to let the general masses monk for you in the first place, now ain't it? If the remainder of your posts are going to be "thats what I said, but its not what I meant", then I suggest you take a closer look at how people interpret the english language. Most folks around here listen to what you have to say and don't search for hidden meanings in the syntax.

And so you know: based on your rebuttal, what you "meant" is NOT what you said in your OP. You're twisting the meaning of your OP widly just because you left yourself one word for wriggle room. Be grateful you posted this in Riverside. Put it in the PvP sections and you wouldn't just be dealing with me right now; the majority of the community would be eating you for breakfast for bashing a tactic that has long been accepted practice in-game.

I'm really starting to hate people pulling the "in general" card out to defend themselves. @all: say what you mean and defend it or accept you were wrong. Don't flip flop and bounce around your words; stand behind them for crissake or keep you mouth closed.

Also: if you want the %slow attack rate, the %chance to miss, etc of every hex in the game, go to guildwki and get cracking. Don't ask me to do your homework for you. Generally: the best way to learn something is through expierience. Its not a diservice to anyone to tell them "hey; learn about this because you may need to use it someday". Will they suck while they are learning? Yup. But they will learn if they want to and they'll become stronger for the practice.

Let me be perfectly clear. I don't think you're that bad a monk. Rough around the edges and still has a lot to learn, but thats not a bad monk imo.

I think you were a bad BoonProt if you're just now jumping into a discussion over the skilluse of a build that has been used for nearly a year and now has much reduced value in PvP; a build that has been discussed ad nausium.