Monk Build

Monk is the one profession that I've never used as a primary, so of course it's the weakest in my field of knowledge.

I've had a look around at the various builds listed and have come up with my own amalagam of them. I know there are builds that are very close to this one, but I don't know if this particular one has been posted or not, but I would like some feedback on it to see how it might stack up to others.

Right now I am using it for my Hero monks, but if it proves effective I may try using it as my skill bar with a Monk character.

[skill]Orison of Healing[/skill][skill]Word of Healing[/skill][skill]Glyph of Lesser Energy[/skill][skill]Heal Party[/skill][skill]Healing Seed[/skill][skill]Vigorous Spirit[/skill][skill]Restore Life[/skill]

And either [skill]Smite Hex[/skill] [skill]Mend Condition[/skill] or perhaps [skill]Extinguish[/skill]

I don't know how energy management would go with Extinguish though, but I think usually when conditions are an issue, most of the party is getting hit at once so it might be more efficient that using [skill]Mend Condition[/skill]

Any thoughts?

Livingston

I prefer Mend Ailment over Mend Condition.

I also prefer Remove Hex over Smite Hex because of the recharge.

It is still better to have Rebirth over Restore Life (touch range is very bad against a party wipe).

Otherwise, it seems fine to me.

I like it, its close to what i use, depending on areas, replacing orison for dwayna's kiss might be a good idea since it wouls stack up well with healing seed and vigorous spirit or any hexes that you can't remove right away. I agree with mend ailment since you can also use it on yourself. Restore life is a good idea, resurection chant might also work altho it takes longer to recharge, this can allow for rez during fights if the pressure isnt too high.

i personally always take Signet of Devotion because i usually run 15+ divine favor, but depending on your build... it might not be the best choice.

At 15 Divine Favor SoD heals for 100 health, going up by ~6 each level, so i would recommend it anywhere from 12 divine favor because it is no energy and heals for 80+ health. Some people dont like it because of the cast time... but it cant be interrupted by spell interuptions and can be used on yourself (your missing a good self heal ... maybe healing touch.)

But i would recommend either Signet of Devo or Healing Touch in place of vigorous spirit

and i would also recommend dwayna's kiss over orison of healing... i prefer it and if you heal someone with an enchant or hex it more than heals for its energy cost

If you have NF I would get dismiss conditions for a conditional removal and maybe throw in a hex remover as well if you got Factions get res chant.

replace orison of healing with dwaynas kiss, replace remove hex with holy veil. That way you can cast veil, use dwaynas kiss, get bot enchant and hex bonus from dwaynas kiss, drop veil and remove the hex. Remove hex has the best recharge but the cast time sucks, a lot can die in 2 sec.

I would take either Vig spirit or healing seed, not both. If team set up has more than 1 warrior, I take seed, otherwise vig spirit. Holy veil and Dwaynas kiss are great skills, and always on my healer monk. For PvE rebirth is generally (but not always) my favoured res.

Mend ailment and condition are superior to extinguish in most situations, 12 second recharge and high energy cost (i know glyph on lesser E, but you also have Heal Party).

I prefer a ranged res skill (if its really going to be necessary, I used restore life when I first started, then Rebirth through Prophecies, in Factions I brought rebirth about half the time, and Nightfall, none most cases).

I still like to use Inspired or Revealed hex myself.

[skill]mend condition[/skill][skill]Orison of Healing[/skill][skill]Dwayna's Kiss[/skill][skill]Word of Healing[/skill][skill]Glyph of lesser energy[/skill][skill]Heal party[/skill][skill]Healing seed[/skill][skill]Rebirth[/skill] or [skill]Restore life[/skill] or some other res

Bah, no hex removal,

[skill]mend condition[/skill][skill]Orison of Healing[/skill][skill]Dwayna's Kiss[/skill][skill]Word of Healing[/skill][skill]inspired hex[/skill][skill]Glyph of lesser energy[/skill][skill]Heal party[/skill][skill]Healing seed[/skill]

I kept dwayna's kiss in there, but maybe [skill]vigorous spirit[/skill] instead of healing seed it would be better, it all depends on the situation.

Now no res! Oh well, a good medic knows he can't save everyone..

Ok, correct me if I'm wrong, but he's looking for a hero build. Taking Rebirth on a hero is suicide unless you have the skill *disabled*.

As far as condition removal, I usually take 2 copies of Mend Condition. You have two monks, right?
Extinguish on an ele is nice in the Ring of Fire missions and possibly some other areas I can't think of offhand.

For a monk hero, I'd rather take Power Drain/Leech Signet/Ether Signet than GoLE. I don't really think that the monk heroes are smart enough to use it on only high cost spells.

Word of Healing just the best elite skill for a healing build for heroes. Mostly because it's a cheap, spammable, big heal, and allows versatile builds.

In my experience:
- Heroes don't use Heal Party
- Heroes don't use reusable resurrection skills if team members still have Resurrection Signets unused

So I would first take HP out. Because this is a WoH build, no energy management skills are necessary but mesmer skills such as Power Drain, Leech Signet, and Drain Enchantment are used effectively by AI, and can be useful because those skills also harm enemies. But take GoLE out, it's too big energy buff unless you're running Healer's Boon (on yourself, not on a hero).

Mend Condition and Dismiss Condition are what I'd recommend for condition removal, mainly because of the low recharges. I prefer MC over DC, especially if I'm running two monk heroes (only when playing with guildie, though).

Remove Hex is the most spammable hex removal so I'd pick that. The two second cast time hardly matters in PvE. Reverse Hex is something you could also check if you put points into protection prayers.

For healing skills there aren't too many good choices.
- Dwayna's Kiss and Words of Comfort are in conflict with hex and condition removal skills but otherwise are nice cheap heals
- Heal Other and it's duplicate Jamei's Gaze offer big heals but the AI has a nasty habit spamming those. Take one of them if you want, but not both
- Healing Breeze is just no
- Ethereal Light and Gift of Health require brains to use. Ethereal fits better into a Healer's Boon build thanks to HB's faster cast, and Gift is better suitable to a protection/hybrid build
- Healing Seed works fine. Heroes don't use it very often, though
- Heroes only use Healing Touch for a self-heal, but it's a viable choice if most your other healing skills are "target other ally"
- Healing Whisper seems to be a leet skill for a hero healer. They wander too close anyway. For some reason I haven't remembered to test this skill on a hero
- Orison of Healing is decent because it has no real drawbacks other than having Orison on your build
- Dwayna's Sorrow is something to consider if you have room and you have a minion bomber in your team
- I'm not a fan of Vigorous Spirit, but it goes nicely with Dwayna's Kiss so why not

Signets are kinda meh in a WoH build because they don't get the Divine Favor bonus and energy is not a problem.

However, if you have a necro hero in your team, you should add Blood Ritual to him. That benefits greatly the AI's overhealing and other casters too.

After all this typing I would still run a protection hero over a healer. Let Mhenlo be your WoH spammer. He can do that decently.

Oh crap, thought it was a general monk build, didn't notice he wrote hero monk.. I keep res sigs on my heroes, and I don't usually bring any res. Heroes rarely cast healing seed, and I remember having to manually cast vigorous spirit from my hero's bar, so I haven't used it since NF came out on a hero.

Thank you all for the suggestions. Some conflict with others, so I'll just have to test them all out myself and see what works.

The main thing I was concerned about was having a build that most decent monks would take one look at and dye laughing, as I've had similar reactions myself when friends have shown me the builds they are running for professions that I am familiar with. It's obvious to vets, but for people who don't use them regularly, they have no clue, as some skills look really really good when reading them on a skill list, but they may not work the way you think they would in practice.

And if you read the OP I am looking at it for both a Hero and Player build. To be used for Heroes now and for me later (PVE). And yes I realize that Hero builds and Player builds must be different as the AI goes only so far, so it is good that Roadkill has pointed out specific Hero limitations.

Note to Stemnin: Your second build has Monk/Mes/Ele skills in it. :P

I'm going to test out the following build now:

[skill]Orison of Healing[/skill][skill]Word of Healing[/skill][skill]Healing Whisper[/skill][skill]Dwayna's Sorrow[/skill][skill]Dwayna's Kiss[/skill][skill]Dismiss Condition[/skill][skill]Remove Hex[/skill][skill]Renew Life[/skill]

I like the looks of the synergy with Dwayna's Sorrow + Kiss and Dismiss Condition, and I have been using Olias as a regular MM latelty, and though he isn't bombing with them, they do die on a fairly regular basis.

Though I will need to make sure another NPC monk is in the party to keep Dunkoro alive as I doubt Orison alone will do it.

I think I will also test:

[skill]Orison of Healing[/skill][skill]Word of Healing[/skill][skill]Healing Whisper[/skill][skill]Healing Seed[/skill][skill]Healing Touch[/skill][skill]Dismiss Condition[/skill][skill]Remove Hex[/skill][skill]Renew Life[/skill]

Heroes may not cast Healing Seed often, but it doesn't take much attention to manually click it every 25 seconds.

Livingston