For Heroes: 2 Hybrids or 1 Protector 1 Healer

For Heroes, is it better with 2 hybrids or 1 protector and 1 healer? or other mix?

The issue i am trying to address is that if I give a hero monk low cooldown protection spells (Guardian and Reversal of Fortune), they tend to spam those until they are low on energy (even with 2 e-management skills). So I am trying to keep those off one of the monks for insurance, but doing so the protector would always be on low energy.

Whatever you see fits depending on the situation and what configuration your comfortable using. Personally I don't see much of a difference in PvE 2 Hybrids or 1 Prot, 1 Heal. As long as you realize and take into account the AI limitations you shouldn't have a serious problem.

Hero/Hench Monks do a pretty decent job using direct healing spells, however protect Hero/Henches don't do as well as a good Human because part of playing a protect is knowing what Protection to cast on what person and when to cast.

Since hybrids are the trendy thing on this board, except to hear a deluge of "USE TWO HYBDRIDS!! ITS TEH META!!" any moment now...

Seriously though, the LoD hybrid was very overrated in my opinion, and what's left now that LoD has been nerfed to dust is not very good. True hybrid build are staying "viable" on nothing but wishful thinking, and one day folks are going to look back and think how silly they were to insist on them so forcefully.

That said, most good heal builds are going to "splash" one or two prot skills, and most good prot builds are going to "splash" one or two heal skills. I suppose you could say that these are "hybrids" after a fashion, but I think that's stretching the concept of "hybrid" a bit far. As for common splashes: Heal bars frequently pick up dismiss condition; often pick up prot spirit or aegis; and sometimes put RoF in place of a straight heal. Since WoH got buffed, it tends to show up a lot on prot bars. Prot builds also tend to pick up cure hex. Much more rarely, signet of rejuv shows up.

I would recommend 1 heal and 1 prot, with the caveat that you can, and probably should, splash a spell or two from the other line on both builds.

Perhaps a better way to think about it is:
1. Most prot skills, and some heal skills (cure hex), are nearly as effective at 9 or 10 spec as even 15 or 16 spec. Most heal skills, and some prot skills, require a high spec for maximum usefulness.
2. There's a certain list of abilities your monks together must possess. (Ie. spike heal, party heal, heavy prot (read "PS/SB"), small prot, bar topping, condition removal, hex removal, etc.)
3. Circumstances will require more or fewer copies of a given ability. (By "copies" I mean instances of spells that produce the desired effect, not literal copies of the same spell. For example, most straight heals are simply "copies" of the straight healing ability.)
4. Some abilities benefit greatly from having two copies used simultaneously. Some suffer because the duplicates conflict or act redundantly.

Bearing in mind what abilities you need, how many copies of those abilities you need, which ones require high attributes, and which ones benefit from simultaneous use, you can start to construct two complimentary builds:

Start by identifying the abilities that can only be done with highly attribute-reliant skills, select the skills for those tasks, and sort them into two piles -- these will become the cores of your heal and prot builds.

Now look at the abilities that you want multiple copies of and divide them into two groups: those that really benefit from simultaneous use and those that don't.

Take the abilities that you want simultaneous use of and put a skill for them on each bar.

Now fill in your redundant abilities that don't need simultaneous use and your not-so-attribute-dependent abilities as space permits, favoring placing them on the "on-attribute" build when possible.

I run a Healers boon hero, and then take the prot henchi. also xandra as a resto/commun rit nearly always comes along with me, vengeful weapon and weapon of remedy, and mendbody soul with usualy 3 spirits hanging around between her and the dismiss condition on my monk conditions don't stick very long on my party. my hero monk runs deny hexes and cure hex, and with divine spirit to fuel deny hex's arn't too much of a problem either.

Quote: Originally Posted by Chthon

Hybrid means heal monks having effective prots on your bar, or prot monks having a few good heals. It has nothing to do with # of heal/prot prayers skills on the bar. I don't understand Chthon's point. Your logic is bad.

i'm always a big fan off hybrid monking, however done also a lot off prot only and at times healing only.

most protection focussed hybrids have mostly 2 spells out off healing prayers, i would call a GoH on a prot focussed bar a hybrid, but just a prot build. same as ZB prot builds.
most healing focussed hybrids have 3 or even at times 4 protection prayers skills.
the hybrid i use now has 14 heal, 10 prot and 10 divine with 3 healing spells, where one off then is the hexremover.

If you will give a hero a build, think about it as giving a brainless the build. if the build is hard to play, it fails. if the build is easy to play, it will do well to perfect. straight heal spells will do better then pre-prot spells.

Surely if you use two hybrid monks, if one is busy casting Aegis and someone is in desperate need of a Protective Spirit, the second monk would be able to provide it, which wouldn't happen if the second was a pure healer?

I tend to use 2 hybrid monks, but one having a greater focus on healing prayers, and one having a greater focus on protection prayers. This means the monk with a healing headwrap uses a Healing elite, along with 1-2 other heals, condition/hex removal and a couple of key protection spells, while the other monk has a protection headpiece, with a protection elite, 2-3 protection spells, condition/hex removal and a couple of spot heals.

Divine Favor seems almost redundant to me...and the "bonus healing" from it is surpassed by the utility gained from using skills from both Protection and Healing Prayers lines.

How about no hero monks and just using the hench?
At least when you play with 4+3.
When I team with someone else, I usually bring a BL prot hybrid and a pure healer with condition+hex removal.

I actually use the N/Rt Restoration Necro build that Sab posted, not at home so I can't post it, but between me or a hero as WoH or even the healer henchie I have no problems staying alive. The N/Rt can hold his own as the lone healer in the 4-man areas. But if you want to keep it with 2 monks, then I suggest 1 healer(WoH) and 1 prot(SoR+GoLE, RC or LS).

Quote: Originally Posted by the_jos

Go Hybrid, always.

'Pure' Heal and Prot are wasteful, one dimensional bars; a healer can only push red bars up, and a prot can only stop them from going down... and you don't need 8 prot/heal skills to accomplish that.

You mostly want a pure healing monk. The reason is exactly as mentioned before: AI limitations. A lot of prot skills that are very useful for a human player are nothing more than a neverending energy sink for a hero monk, and a fairly large number of creatures don't pack enough of a punch to make prot that useful. If you're super clever and the area isn't overly hostile to enchantments, you can also micro and run the prot monk as a dedicated bonder. Prot monks are also tremendously awesome in hard mode for the four person areas, where they can harden your entire party. Otherwise, I wouldn't even bother with a prot spec, or maybe go "hybrid" for one or two skills that could really help you clean up specific areas.

A pure Healing Prayers bar usually contains some crap skills (Healing Breeze) and given the recharge of most healing spells is terribly redundant. You may as well include some useful prots instead of bringing bad skills.

Even a pure protection bar can benefit from having Gift of Health at the very least.

Going hybrid has nothing to do with the meta. It has to do with avoiding bringing a bad bar like most of the pure healing bars you see out there with 3 points in Protection so they can include Dismiss Condition.

In my experience, when 2 monks are needed, a hero hybrid bar always outperforms a pure heal bar being run by a hero or player.

I usually run two hybrids. Recently they've had the same skill set.

Quote: Originally Posted by LightningHell I think you forgot Dwayna's Kiss as a viable Healing spell. Dwayna's Kiss is more than viable; having at least one copy around is virtually mandatory, IMO. But it's not a skill that shows up much on primarily prot bars. RoF tends to get run in its place. That's why it wasn't on that particular list.

Quote: Originally Posted by holymasamune I don't understand Chthon's point. Your logic is bad. Ah yes, "I don't understand it, therefore it must be wrong." Moving right along...

[edit: I changed my mind; I'm going to try to explain so that you can understand my point:
"Hybrid" means (or at least used to mean) something more than merely using skills from two lines. "Hybrid" used to mean a build that could (arguably) do it all -- a single build that had everything you needed, so all you had to do was bring multiple copies. That sort of build is dead now. Without the old LoD, an attempt at a build that does it all just can't provide adequate heal/sec, no matter how skillfully the prots are used. The "solution" to this lack of healing power is to bite the bullet, uncompress your bars, sacrifice your least valuable prot, and get back some of your healing power by adding more straight heals to increase chain healing ability, bringing <sigh> Heal Party, and often to bringing HBoon. You could distribute your LoD-replacement skills evenly across both bars, but that's not desirable because straight heals are highly attribute-dependent and HBoon only works if it's on the same bar as the heals. That means you end up with one bar that's got a bunch of heal skills together (probably ELight, DKiss, HParty, and HBoon) and needs a high heal spec. At that point there's not enough space left to make a "hybrid" in the "does it all sense." On the flip side, the other bar had to pick up the prot skills displaced by that confluence of heal skills and no longer has the space to bring enough healing to "do it all" either. In the end, neither bar is robust enough to do everything, and they have to be designed to compliment each other.

Perhaps in a weak sense of the term, these builds may be "hybrids" in that they use skills from both lines. But they are no longer the "one build fits all," "just bring two or three copies of the same build" hybrids that were (arguably) the be-all-end-all during LoD's reign.
end edit]

Quote: Originally Posted by Chthon

When alone I take Henchies. They are sufficient.
Just pack support on your heroes like Save yourselves, There's Nothing to Fear!, Wards, blind, dazed, Necro curses or weakness, motivations shouts, wall of minions, etc...
I don't quite get the fuss about hybrid monk. The efficiency of your team doesn't lies that much in monks in PVE, except if you want to do HM Shards of Orr and need smite, and a lot more on what support you're bringing with you.

Quote: Originally Posted by glountz

Heroes are really, really bad with Heal Party BTW. You're better off with a Protective Was Kaolai or Song of Restoration than trying to get much milage out of Party on a hero. Party healing really isn't the province of Monks anymore.

If you have player Monks though, you can kludge by with Heal Party if need be.