Domain of Anguish tips required

First of all, I've typed 'DoA tips', 'DoA strategies', 'Domain tips', 'Domain strategies' and 'Anguish tips' into the forum search and not got a suitable result.

If someone can reply with suitable threads that discuss the following I'd be grateful.

I'm a monk who's never bonded, so play prot or heal. Got to DoA yesterday for first time and got wiped with the first 3 groups who'd have me, all of whom revolved the build around tank/bond.

We never got past the second mob.

Now, I've also never played with a bonding monk before (never been to Sorrows is probably why) so I wanted some advice on what kind of team I should look to join (because their build will give them a chance of succeeding) and what I should do.

I felt I did ok, took spellbreaker to help tank, and cast prot spirit wherever i saw damage starting on anyone in party (used that divine spell that reduces casting cost).

Is there a build of skills I should really take for either heal or prot?

My current prot build is:
RoF, Prot Spirit, Guardian, Mend Condition, Spellbreaker, Divine Spirit, Ether Sig and Rebirth

Heal build is:
Orison, Dwayna, WoH, Infuse, Mend Condition, Holy Haste, Ether Sig, Rebirth

All advice on this area and what a good DoA build looks like welcome.

Thanks

Well the 3 standard monk builds for DoA are the HB(Healer's Boon), SB(Spellbreaker) and the bonder.

The HB bar goes something along the lines of: HB, dwanyas kiss, ethereal light, essence bond(to put on the tank) and just healing skills.

I'm not sure about the SB monk bar but I know that it is a prot monk.

The bonder is fairly simple: Blessed Signet, Life Barrier, Life Bond, Balthazars Spirit, Life Attunement, Vital Blessing and a free slot.

There is also a trick to this area where people sac and one of the monks changes to necro secondary for consume corpse or necrotic transversal to glitch through the gate and then rebirth everyone except for one person. This is done in order to skip most the mobs.

This is pretty much all I know and maybe someone else can you give more in depth info on this.

yep, you see, i'm totally not familiar with 'glitch through the gate' and rebirth etc. etc. as nobody's discussed it

I'm interested to know what people think about the tank and having a load of mesmers with SV/AV and other interrupt/damage/drain skills on the mobs out there. Isn't there a cleverer way than just nuking while a tank aggros?

since the AI update tanks can no longer preform their job correctly. the new definition of a "tank" in my opinion would be a warrior that is the first to aggro a mob and keep them distracted as long as possible. (which isnt for very long). if this were the good old days, a tank would hold aggro and a necro would nuke ss on them and that would be that...but things arent so simple anymore =P

i know very little about DoA and like you, i just get slaughtered after the first mob. whats also hard about it is that the enviorment effects work together with the mobs and the AI they use, making it extrmley hard.

Well, pet exploit is only for Foundry as far as I know

You'll need a tank, 3 SF eles, 3 monks and a BiP necro
Essential skills for a healer monk are Hela Party (only way to heal tank who is far behind the closed gates and pulling), Essence Bond (on tank for energy), Dwayna's Kiss (heals crazy amounts for an enchanted/hexed ally).

BiP necro should be N/R with a pet and two spirits - EoE and Symbiosis
When tank has all the bonds and enchantments on him, he/she will have more then 2000 HP due to Symbiosis

The pet trick:
Necro kills his pet by forcing it to move back and force (environmental effect) right next to the gates. Everyone takes the quest and enters the room. As soon as the gates are closed, bonder (Mo/N) uses necrotic traversal on pet to jump out of the room. Team dies, Bonder rebirths them on the other side (everyone except tank) and bonds the tank and eles. necro puts the spirits. Tank agroes mobs and slowly pulls them into the reach or eles, who nuke them afterwards

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Well, as an update I did get some healing monk build ideas from a guy who dropped me from his group last night, so that was helpful.

He proposed Healer's Boon, Healing Seed, Ethereal Light, Essence Bond, Dwayna's and a couple of others.

I didn't have Boon most importantly so I can go back hopefully as a better healing or prot monk.

It's frustrating that groups don't want you if you're inexperienced, denying you the chance to get any experience

I've got to say I haven't seen any AV/SV being used out there, I'd have thought wiping out the energy of the casters would be really important, along with the adrenaline of the melee mobs.

Quote:

sv/av aren't dependent on damage, so as long as he's getting hit, adjacent foes lose energy. Standing near casters would help, especially as spellbreaker isn't constant.

ah well, i guess i was thinking about gaile's comments where she hinted that the standard way of taking out really tough mobs wasn't meant to apply to DoA, yet that seems to be the most popular way to do it. By standard I mean bond a tank and nuke while he keeps aggro.

Is anyone doing DoA differently, and with more success?

Tanks tend to bring obsidian flesh to make themselves immune to spells.