Pre-empting a spike?

I read alot of people saying good prot monks will pre prot against spikes, but how do you know who is going to get spiked.I've only just started monking in HA, this is my first experience at high end pvp.

I came up against a team with a derv who was used in the spike, and just followed him around watching who he was going to as they were the target. However another game there was a warrior building adren on one target, then deaths charging to another, so I couldnt follow the target. The same happened when I came up against a paragon spike a while ago, build adren on one target then switch to another.

How would I know who is going to get spiked so I can pre-SB?

Edit-Dont know if this belongs here or in the HA section so just stuck it here for now

This is the PvE forum.

I'll explain anyway. The idea to stopping spikes is to watch the battlefield. It would be harder to stop spikes if more than 2 melees are around, because you will have to concentrate on both of them.

Usually a spike begins with a Hex, a condition -- there is practically ALWAYS a sign before a spike.
Positioning of the enemy offense plays a huge part in it aswell, make sure you keep your eyes on the battlefield.

Monking with your party window closed will help you learn to observe the battle field and watch for spikes. You have to observe where the spike leader [generally melee] goes. If there is a Me/E on the enemy team, watch for his Air Magic casting symbol and catch whoever gets cracked armor. Monking with your party window closed will also cause mass rage in your team, so only do it with friends~

Ranged spikes are a lot harder to catch - keep your mouse near the key targets in party window and hope you can click + infuse/sb fast enough~

Thanks for the extremely quick replies.

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Deep wound is a good indicator. Some spikes have cracked armor or hexes. You watch the important char for the condi/hex that's being applied and prot accordingly. That way you don't have to guess what hex it is or waste time for someone to tell you.

(Easy)
Warrior stuff: watch where the warriors go

(Medium)
R/D shit: keep track of all the scythe guys while avoiding trapper, protting against important attacks on important chars on your team
Casterspike: see which way they face during a spike

(Hard)
Teleporting spike: watch their teleporter and as soon as they teleport see where they go and which guy on your team is going to be taking massive damage
Rangerspike: watch the caller and see which direction he faces, and prot the guy that's taking big damage

Remember it's as much your midline's job to shut down spikes as it is your job to catch them with prots/infuse. When in doubt, rage at your midline for sucking. (See: rawr vs Euro. The cry of frustration was much more effective at saving shockwave spike than Awowa's infuse or Pound's prots)

^^Win

Tele spikes and caster spikes are often a tough catch. Theres little more to add about them except when someone on the other side sucks and telegraphs. You may get lucky if the other side has a midliner who tends to "T" and wand pre-spike. Thats another indicator but much less likely to occur, as they will get chewed out hard.

Lots of people say watch the frontline. Most assume this means only watch where they are going on the screen/field of play. Actually targeting the the other sides players so you can tab target them helps a lot in my estimation. Seeing their skills tells you their tactics and order as well, and many spike builds lack the pressure to force both monks into "spam" defense.

The spike may be "clean" too. This can mean one of two things: first it may be that there is so little warning between the start of the spike and the end that pre-prot is nearly impossible. This is where your midline comes in, negating part of the damage through disruption to allow your prots to come in a little later than they would optimally. Blinded frontline, diverted/interrupted casters, etc. This disrupts pressure and spike enough to save a team mate many times. Its up to the midline to know which skills require focus more. Monks: don't bitch if you can avoid it. Its counterproductive and other players will learn to either tune you out or completely ignore you (the last thing you want). Tell them, be persistent in your warnings and requests for shutdown, but don't bitch when they miss a skill.

The second type of clean spike maintains shutdown long enough to get a kill. KDed monks, diversions; even e-denial can play a factor in such a spike. Midline plays a considerable factor against these spikes as well, but the best pre-prot against them is keeping your backline from getting shutdown. KDs need to be disrupted with WoS or some other anti-KD measure if possible, pre-veils strip Diversion faster than casting a hex removal skill can.

The most important thing to do against a spike build is to not get discouraged when someone dies. Its easy to say "its easy to catch spikes"; in practice, if spikes were easy to catch then they would not be a successful tactic to play.

GGs

A few points:
- Keep enemies targetted. As you gain experience you should be able to recognize builds (both team and individual) early in the match - this tells you who needs to be watched.
- Corollary to the above: as stated by others, most spikes have some kind of windup. Spikes are a lot easier to catch if you're expecting them, even if you don't know exactly who the target is.
- Try to keep track of time intervals. Teams don't necessarily spike on recharge, but you'll be aware of when a spike is possible and when one is not. Obviously more useful against skills that have recharges (or require adrenalin) than low-cooldown spikes.
- Positioning is key. This applies to both your team and theirs. In regard to their positioning, you need to watch where their spikers are and check who on your team is within range of all of them (particularly true for purely ranged spikes) - these are the only possible spike candidates. In regard to your own team's positioning, it really comes down to not being a target of opportunity - if your entire team is within range all the time, it's a lot harder for you. Presenting moving targets is a good idea too - if the target is at max range, just backpeddling a little will throw off the spike timing by forcing some people to run up; people running up to cast is also a dead giveaway. Granted, good teams will try to minimize the amount of effect positioning has by maximizing the number of targets available and making sure a little movement won't throw anything off, and you won't always be able to control positioning much (especially in HA), but keep it in mind.

Don't blame the monks .. (alone)

If a team member gets adrenaline spiked just outside of a ward, it is mainly his fault, not yours =) (although you still could have saved him )

It's easier to catch spikes on a 22 inch monitor as opposed to my 15 inch lap top monitor--been getting smeared all over the place in TA as of late. Though that might be more due to the current state of the meta.

Incidentally one thing not mentioned above, the more you play, the more spikes/builds you come up against, the easier it gets to see and catch the spikes. Though that might be fairly obvious I thought it worth mentioning. Also, if you have free time, go into observer mode and watch the best monks in the game do their thing.

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The preprot usually depends on what kind of spike it's going to be. For standard spikes like rspike or blood spike, i'll usually just avoid preprotting, anticipate what target the opposing team is more likely to spike, i.e., DPed targets, key members of the team, and infuse them accordingly. For a spike that does big domage from each packet, i.e., IV spike, Eurospike, etc., i usually have glyph up and just cast SB on the anticipated target, that is, of course, if the other team is lacking a brain .