The 55: accident or on purpose?

Wrong SV...this one ends with "Visage".

sympathic visage and ancestral visages.

When I first started playing this game and heard of the 55 monk... probably back in July/August '05 or so, I remember doing some digging and saw a thread on some random forum (no clue what it was) that everyone pointed to as the creator of the 55. It was a guide that pretty much told a whole story about how he used to joke around with people about the idea of putting on a bunch of runes to get his health low then using prot spirit/prot bond to take NO damage. Initially I don't think this build was first created with the UW in mind, memory's pretty fuzzy here though. This guy went through some serious pains to get to certain points in the game at low levels... I believe his ideal health was 10 or something. He had it set up so that he could tank an unlimited number of foes due to Guild War's sketchy rounding math... but he was only able to do it once or something because he leveled up upon killing whatever they were (trolls i think). Anyway, what makes me think it mightve been the first guy is that later versions are much more "relaxed", i.e. it's not necessary to be a particular level and such... It was optimized as more people used it and "discovered" it. It was also mentioned that after releasing the guide was when the monk sup runes first skyrocketed. Anyone remember anything like this?

Heres my memory, I bought the game about 2 weeks after release. I was getting my ranger through the game when I stumbled upon the TOA I remember pugging up for some quest with a monk who asked everyone in the party if they had superior runes that he would buy for 10k. Because he wanted to get his health really low, never said why. (That was alought back then!)

This brings up my question, how did people aquire superior runes back then?? I remember beating the whole game before they put in the rune trader and never say a superior rune. Heavy farming some how or just buying them whenever they could.

Side note: I remember selling my HOD sword to the trader when I brought my warrior through the game

Mmmm, thats true. That dates the guy I remember because he definitely mentioned prices at rune traders going up. If somebody did it and publicized it before rune traders were introduced, then the guy I remember went to all that trouble for nothing.