How to use protection prayers?

Actually you don't need a res in most of the PvE content. Better take some skill for e-management or protection. For good builds just take a look at pvxwiki.com, standard ZB prot with GolE and maybe aegis are a good start.

You will need some time to get used to prot, it's a bit more complicated to see damage coming than pure outheal.

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Actually what I meant is that unless there are four people ready to use the Heal LoD or LoD/H it isn't worth it for a protect monk to have the res LoD or LoD/R. My logic is that unless all the mobs are dead, you have multiple people who have low health and DP... meaning they can easily be killed again. However if all the mobs are dead, it really doesn't matter if you raise people one at a time or as a group. Thus you'd be better off with a res you can use on someone if you were forced to pull back.

ZB doesn't belong on good monk bars.

Shield of Absorption and Protective Spirit are strong.
When it comes to Hard Mode in particular - Shield of Deflection is one of the most attractive elites.
Aegis is a solid choice.

Hard Resses on monks are bad - o ok.

^correction: ZB is inefficient when theres 2+ copies of said elite or you already have a decent healer on the team. ZB by itself is probably the most efficient heal/self heal skill there is in the prot line, otherwise why do prot monks use it everywhere in 4 man pvp situations?

uh, what else to say. prot spirit is a staple skill (spirit bond takes time to learn how to use it properly, plus it doesn't do squat vs loldamage ele bosses).

prot spirit is your bestest friend, hell with the grammar. it limits damage from nasty hexes like backfire, ineptitude, etc when theres no hex removal to be had. it makes dp'ed out teammates last 10 hits at least regardless of their condition, and it lasts long. using it with GoLE means you can preprot 3 people for very little energy cost before a battle.

since you're going prot, most of your bar are enchantments, so invest in a 20% ench mod.

As far as rezzes go..focus swapping with Rebirth isnt that bad in pve...pvp monks dont bring rezzes of any sort. Monks shouldn't rezz anyway unless everyone else is dead. I don't know why everyone here's touting rezz skills with such a tiny cast range..thats no-go if there's a bazillion monsters standing squarely on where your teammates died.

If you wanna run death pact sig, give it to a ranger hero or something. if you use DPS as a monk and the rezzee dies on you, gg.

as far as self-defense skills as a prot monk goes, technically you wont need it, but it never hurts to mention, right? guardian works ok in pve for antiphysical, but in pvp its way too slow vs a decent 'sin or interrupt ranger..frenzied def (ONLY to be used in conjuction with PS), disciplined stance, shield bash are much better defensive abilities if you ask me.

if im doin pvp, usually i bring both mending touch and mend cond. peeps will daze and cover it with other conditions, meaning you need touch to get both off of you, and it's also a large heal if you get both conds off. mend cond is pretty much the only thing besides RC that can keep condition spam off your teammates.
as for PvE, usually i just bring mend cond or dismiss, and extinguish on the ele hero if i've got one. its not worth using extinguish as a prot monk imo, the spell is way too expensive to use. mostly extinguish is just to counter disease/trap conditions when running H/H teams.

Aegis is fine to use in 8/12 man situations, but in 4 man teams it's false economy. Same goes for Extinguish.

i saw channeling being mentioned earlier..thats a pretty goddamn dumb idea in pve if you ask me. GoLE and learning focus swapping seems perfectly fine though. channeling takes a bit getting used to for pvp, but its pretty nice once you have an intrinsic idea of its effective range (like casting near a ranger sitting on a spirit with his pet on you, thats 3 energy gained back per cast among other situations.)

As far as hex removal goes..i suppose remove hex works OK in pve, but i prefer veil (pre-cast it on a tank before going in and stuff. much more effective if you ask me) if you're running signet of devotion, Deny Hexes synergizes quite well with that in removing hex stacks.

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ZB is bad if you have more than 1 monk in your team. there's a good chance you won't always get the energy return from it and it becomes nothing more than a Heal Other you can use on yourself. Therefore except for small 4 man areas it's bad

In 4 man PVP I use Shield of Deflection. RA monks are barely the standard.

I don't know if it's mentioned above but for a monk the most important e-managemant is the player self, don't overprot or overheal saves loads of energy, using the correct spells against a decent type of enemy and don't spam your skills, in PvE Channeling or GolE is 90% of the time enough e-management.

I mainly use this in PvE, please note that i mainly play dungeons so i take Prot Spirit instead of SB.

Signet of Devotion
Reversal of Fortune
Shield of Deflection
Protective Spirit
Remove Hex
Channeling
Shield of Absorption
Dismiss Condition

Also and important thing is that an protection monk should change his build to beter counter the foes you are facing. For example:

When facing lots of conditions i swap out Dismiss for Guardian and SoD for Restore Condition.
When facing heavy hex i use Divert Hexes instead of SoD, Divine Spirit for Remove Hex and Hex Breaker for Channeling.

I typically run a prot monk with:

Elite: Restire Condition, Sheild of Deflection, Life Sheath or Divert Hexes(depending on area)
Shield of Absorbtion
Shielding Hands
Reversal of Fortune
Glyph of Lesser Energy
Spirit Bond (2 free casts with GoLE)
Optional (condition removal if not rc)
Rebirth (you should not have to res unless your the last one left)

Honestly I have very rarely run low on energy, I typically use a a +5energy 20% enchantments weapon and a -5/20 +30hp shield. Only switching to my +20 energy staff on a few occasions. The main thing is not to just spam your skills on every single person, you have to watch the battlefield and cast on who is in the most danger. Sometimes I even turn off the party hp bars part of the interface and practice just watching the battlefield while protting (only with guildie team).

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I always pack Rebirth on my monks. Especially in PUGs where you're bound to get at least one go-go-go player, multiple PC deaths are nearly guaranteed at some point not matter how well the monks handle things - and in such moments the monk is usually the only one left standing, having been the only one not fool enough to follow the go-go-go player into the thick of it (or, as I've done before, to step out when I saw it was going south faster than the two monks could handle. Step away, let them wipe, then rebirth them all - nothing funnier than soloing a mob that the group wiped on with you all defense monk, simply by not over-pulling them like the go-go-go had done).

Back to topic, I like Rebirth for how it ports the rez'd target to me - very handy in the above scenario, as its often a situation with the other 7 players in a pile at the foot of big nasty.

Aegis and Reversal of Fortune are my other two standbys, and usually Guardian as well, and everything else on the bar gets tweaked constantly. And I do still bring divine boon about half the time on my prophesies monk, as she hasn't gone through Nightfall to get ZB. My favorite condition removal is Draw Conditions. The healing this gives me outpaces the damage it does to me, and if I'm properly watching my own aggro, it will be the only damage I take. Its low energy cost and quick recharge means I sometimes even spam it on targets without conditions just for a low cost heal if everything else on my bar is recharging - but that only happens when the go-go-go has overpulled and I'm trying to keep that last bird from flying south for the winter...


My 'key advice of the day' though would be to take pieces from this thread, put together a build, and go hero+hench it for a while in content you know if tough, with your warrior or dervish H+H's set to bad over-aggroing builds and intentionally bad flagging so they that overwhelm you... A lot like PUG players... but they won't get mad when you fail to keep up with their foolishness. Instead, see how long you can take it, and adjust your build skill by skill starting with ideas in here, but not stopping there, until you get the build that can handle the worst players for the longest time... :P