What to do against Burst Sins?

Hi everyone,

I wanted to ask you monks out there, how you <effectively> counter attacks by these most deadly attackers. I'm running a Zealous Benediction Build with standard RoF, GoH, SoA, Dismiss Condition, PS, Holy Veil and Hex Breaker for self protection.

I can almost always save my teammates but I loose very much energy during that emergency heal. I try to put up SoA and spam Dismiss Condition and RoF.

So my question: Is there a better way?

RC.



Not "the" best elite to have EVERY time but for the most part I use it and love it for RA. No sin can kill any of my teammates. RC = Uber Heal

Divine intervention, aegis, or guardian. You just need a little leg room, tis all.

If you want a RA build that can counter SP sins, I would suggest the following:

[skill]Shield of Regeneration[/skill][skill]Glyph of Lesser Energy[/skill][skill]Blessed Signet[/skill][skill]Shielding Hands[/skill][skill]Mending Touch[/skill][skill]Balthazar's Spirit[/skill][skill]Holy Veil[/skill][skill]Life Bond[/skill]

Shield of Regeneration is usually all you need against a SP sin, but you can use Shielding Hands as well for additional protection. Mending Touch is optional and Dismiss Conditions also fills the slot well, but they both work as both a condition removal and small heal. Dismiss gives more flexibility on healing the party, but I like Mending Touch since most hate is directed to the monk anyways. The build is still pretty weak against "Fear Me!" assassins, but you won't encounter them much unless you go in TA.

Shield Bash is often the cruelest way to punish single melee attacker, but it requires good timing and a shield. Other good choices IMO are Deadly Riposte, Wary Stance and Discplined Stance. What exactly do you mean Burst Sins? They used to be assassins with Burst of Aggression and Shadow Prison, and Hex Breaker works decent against Shadow Prison anyways; but since BoA got nerfed, I doubt you're referring to that. Also, since many sins carry Expose Defenses now, Holy Veil should be utilized to make sure your stance(s) block their attack(s).

all u need is 1 skill, Holy Veil. You see an assassin? Pre veil. If you fail to dos, Spirit bond. If u don't use SB, then PS and ZB quickly. There are so many ways to counter it but unlike what some of the people said above. Blocking does work assuming smart assassins will use expunge defenses or other sorts of counter blocking.

As an R/mo with burning arrow, ive countered Sp before by striding after the hex is on me, and then using mend touch. Mend touch tends to stop it dead, since alot of the damage is from deepwound and poison is supposed to finish you.

So mend touch.

- Pre-veil and pre-prot yourself
- Run away before they can reach you
- Equip defensive weaponset: Crippling Axe/Spear/Sword of Defense + Shield of Fortitude with 10 vs Piercing
- Use Return or Grasping Earth
- Draw Conditions + Mending Touch is fun :P

countering a sin spike??? use any skill on your bar and target yourself and you will counter the spike...get a +10 piercing shield with +30 hp

heres the bar i run when im bored and deicde to RA:

rof , divert hex, mend cond, mend touch, heal touch, goh, return, dark escape


i highly suggest using all energy armor, nothing else is really useful enough in terms of +armor in RA , with high energy you can stick to your sword/shield combo and swap shields as needed vs damage types, negating a ton of damage without using enegy

also

Now that i think about it, its kind of surprising how people think SP is overpowered. So many counters...

[skill]restore condition[/skill]

[skill]shield of absorption[/skill]


Those two skills alone pretty much counter shadow prison...If using a different elite, SoA and being able to remove the deep wound is all you really need to do.

i agree with the pre veil thing
if he is the only one attacking you let him finishes his combo (or maybe throw a rof in between) he cant kill you
when he is done-->mending touch
well if you're in RA where monk stomp is so common, try to get rid of SP as soon as possible and kite
rof yourself to earn some buffer time

RC does not counter if you are the target.

Not the best build around, but what I use is
[skill]Dismiss Condition[/skill][skill]Shield of Regeneration[/skill][skill]Mending Touch[/skill][skill]Reverse Hex[/skill][skill]Blessed Signet[/skill][skill]Glyph of Lesser Energy[/skill][skill]Balthazar's Spirit[/skill][skill]Life Bond[/skill]

12+1+1 prot
12+1 divine
I use enchanter's armor, spear with +5 energy and +5 armor/20%enchant/+30 health. Shield with +10 vs piercing. I switch around with weapons as needed.

Pretty straightforward, you have life bond + balthzaras is some prot and energy management, glyph and sig also energy. Dismiss is condition removal and a standard heal. Shield of regeneration for some prot and regen is also nice, mending touch is for yourself and sometimes allies if they're closeby.
I think reverse hex is the neatest skill, with the very short cast it is great against most hexes in RA. When facing a team, watch and try to analyze which opponents carry the most nasty hexes. the moment they start castiung some hex with a nice gold trim around it, and you know it's going to hurt, watch your team, and as soon as a purple arrow pops up, reverse the hex. Nine out of ten times you will be able to remove it before they can cover it.
This also works well against SP/Burst sins. If you see them at the edge of your aggro circle, and you see them popping up besides you, press reverse hex and they are often useless for another 20 seconds.(I know, some bring expose defences, but not alot of them.)
Works pretty well for me, but I'm sure there are better builds around.

Smite Hex and Hex Breaker should do the job and theres another nice skill
[skill]Shield of Deflection[/skill] 10 sec duration 55% longer enchant

Holy veil+hex breaker can take care of both the sin hexes. SoA owns them by preventing a huge amount of their spike. Mending touch is like a 200+ heal given that you remove deep wound.

as mentioned before, you want to throw off his attack chain, either take the hex off before he get his hex required offhand attack on you or..
use shield bash to mess up the chain at the worst time .

a flexible general purpose build that works most of the time is:

ZB Rof SoA GoH Dismiss Condition [Smite Hex or Holy Veil] Shield Bash Sprint

you can replace sprint with mending touch for faster condition removal

When you get the hexed or sin starting pounding you, smite(if hexed) and shield bash, Sprint -> Rof/ZB spam.

You need to weapon set swap and know when to do it. You do not need high energy most of the time, seek to maximize armor level for your regular low energy/high armor weapon set.

But if a mesmer comes with the sin....adding 3-4 more painful hexes on you... lol... gg.

Divert Hexes if you get hex raped, I mean its obviously not fool proof, but depending on the hexes you could remove up to 3 of them. Then remove the most harmful conditions while kiting. Your team should help to put some pressure on those stomping you.

I like Dark Escape or Return when they pop up in my face. When those are recharging, for me, I try to feel out when that deep wound is gonna show up to dismiss it. Pre-protting works too I suppose.

As one mentioned sprint away from the Sin.It is to bad sprint is not in tactics to get a longer duration.

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pre-prot yourself with balanced stance. They can't get critical hits so their damage drops considerably and their energy starts to get messed up too. They can't KD you to get their combos off most of the time either. This works well for me for most sin builds out there.

In RA I like to run Disciplined stance as well and...rank 8-rank 9 in tactics. Keep a +armor versus piercing shield handy and swap that onto your main set when you see a sin.

If they are spiking your teammates, RC is great. I like to run ZB in RA most times which seems to work better with prot spirit. And I like prot spirit more than SB because I can pre-prot another team member early and it will stay up for a long time. Once you have the damage reduced on two or three targets, it becomes easier to fend them off with a straight heal (GoH or ZB). Sometimes, SoA is good too.

Mo/A with dark escape and return is a great combo too. I just like Mo/W a little better because balanced stance can help avoid some types of shutdown.

GGs

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For kicks I ran the old Boon Prot in RA

[skill]Contemplation Of Purity[/skill] This skill was used by Boon Prots, and proved very useful against Shadow Prison sins. A few of them would try to kill me then when I hit CoP, some would leave the game lol

Disciplined Stance or Protector's Defense

Burst sins do suck [skill]Healing Hands[/skill] or [skill]Blessed Light[/skill] ftw

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