Monk Hero, More Health or More Energy?

I have a monk hero that I plan to use for PvP battles such as Zaishen Elite and Hero Battles. Without any insignias, he has 560 health and 42 energy. Now I can't decide between radiant insignia or survivor insignia to put on him. Everyone says that health is important, but having 8 more energy from radiant insignias will allow for a healing spell that heals a lot more than 40 health gained from the survivor insignias. So which insignia should I use? Thanks in advance.

Use Survivor, and include energy management on the monk bar. Increasing max energy is not energy management.

Is 40 more base health really worth more than a heal of more than 150 health? I do have energy management, that's not the issue I'm talking about. I just wanna know which one is worth more.

For PvP, you would do better with Survivor or Blessed (if the build being used uses enchantments like Healer's Boon, Blessed Aura, etc.). More energy is not bad, but it is not the best option. Zaishen has opponents that use armor ignoring damage, so Survivor would be better. If 8 energy makes a difference in the build, there are other problems you need to address.

I also lean toward extra health as opposed to extra energy.
It always seems like a waste to me to use Radiants on the head hands & feet anyway. They only add a total of 3 energy (1 each), which should be easy enough to ignore with energy management/regen. Some of my heroes use Survivors on the head, hands, & feet (for +15 health) and Radiants on the chest and legs (for +5 energy) as a compromise.

I understand what you are trying to say. Thanks for the effort to help, but your argument seems completely one-sided.

More energy has nothing to do with armor ignoring damage. You are not making any comparisons. So how does your argument make any sense? Plus survivor give 40 health, but 8 energy gives 150-200 health.

Why? Really? Then can you not also say: "If 40 health makes a difference in the build, there are other problems you need to address."


I'm not trying to be difficult. I just wanna find the best solution based on facts and not peer-pressure.

Adding a lot of health on your monk heroes is always a good thing. The enemy AI always target the person with least armour and health, saving health on your monk will have him/her constantly monkstomped.

I once made the error of adding a superior rune to Dunkoro, thinking that he could manage with the reduced health. He couldn't, and often he'd find himself with more DP than I'd've wanted.

Survivor, obviously.
As others mentioned, nrg management > high energy

I will say what the rest are saying survivors and use good weapons,off hands and staff to supplement your energy needs.Forget it heros can only use one use a good staff.

If you have e-management there is no reason why you would want a higher energy pool than more health. Of course, if there aren't any pros/cons to choosing either one, then +8 energy would be better. But there are pros and cons to choosing each, and the pros/cons of +40hp outweigh the pros/cons of +8 energy.

8 energy does not give 150-200 health. It gives you the energy needed to cast a spell that may provide that health. Managing energy would do the same thing. Besides which, it takes 1/4 to 1 second to cast that spell. Sometimes that is not enough time.

40 health may make a difference. If your character (or hero) has 480+40+30(weapon mod)=550 health and faces 5 Obsidian Flame Elementalists, you can survive (if they all have 14 Earth Magic). At 14 Earth Magic, they each deal 106 damage, and they do pretty good at spiking. 5x106=530. You would have only 20 health left, but enough time for the Monk to heal.

Now, using Radiant insignias, you end up with 480+30=510 health. That would mean the 530 spike would kill you.

Granted, you won't always get hit by 5 at once. However, you won't always be at full health either. Having the extra health means you have more time to provide a heal when spiked. Won't matter if there is 8 energy extra allowing for the use of Infuse, Other, etc. if you aren't alive to have it cast on you.

Survivor > Radiant

The extra energy doesn't matter if you're spiked and dead.

Sigh... another biased one-way argument. Having 40 less health doesn't guarantee that you'll die from a spike; having 40 more health doesn't guarantee that you'll survive a spike. And even when you survive a spike, it doesn't guarantee that you'll live very long afterwards. Thanks for the effort anyways. Thanks to everyone for helping.

The only way you can compare is to make a comparison to when it really matters.

Using Survivor Insignia means you're more likely to be alive when the spike hits, but wanding. Using Radiant means you'll have enough energy to cast ~1 more spell, assuming your energy management let your energy get down that far, but you're also more likely to be dead when that spike hits.

When it comes down to it, you want that player to be alive, but contributing less, than one who contributes nothing because they're dead.

If you want an unbiased answer Sir Tydus, instead of shooting down everyone who's trying to give you information why don't you just try out both sets and find out for yourself. If everyone elses opinions are not good enough for you trying them out yourself seems to be the next logical step. It's affordable to buy a set of each...try them both out and that way you can report her and tell US what - in what i'm sure will be your balanced and unbiased expriment - you have managed to come up with...

Monster AI ALWAYS targets the character with the lowest health.

so, all survivor and vigor runes to put your hero in +605hp is the best option. Heros don;t heal well when they are the target of attack themselves, they heal better when they are not being attacked!!! With heros you should put in some energy management and or some type of self survival skills.

If you play hero battles you will soon find out that Smoke Powder Defence or Return on your hero monk is better than extra energy. Even Channelling heros use very well.... this helps

Unless you run something like Shield of Regen, then stick Glyph of Lesser Energy with it. Or try using Zealous Benediction on yoru monk. They generally use it very well. Sometimes you might want to take out two suviivor insigs and put on 2 radiants on the chest... try and make sure your hero is above 570Hp. Remember... try and use only minor runes on heros... treat them like they are doing pvp.

In HA i run on my ele 650Hp with 61 energy on my low set and 630hp with 90 energy on my high set.

Knew it was around here somewhere, this thread contains a fairly lengthy arguement involving Radient, Survivor and Armour-based insignias (etc.). It may help, however there is a bit of name-calling dotted about.

Personally I go with an even split, as I can easily get energy from foci. However I'm now leaning more towards health (yay, I'm getting better at sucking less :3), as it means I get targeted less by monsters (this is on my monks, and applies to heroes).

Despite the risk of receiving another rude retort from the OP, I'll add my 2 cents.

In the opening post, you said having 8 more energy will allow your monk to cast spells which will heal for more than 40 health gained from Survivor Insignia.

First of all, that 8 more energy should not be too big of an issue if you're able to put at least some kind of energy management onto your monk. If your current monk set up has no energy management skills, +8 energy would keep your monk casting little bit longer. However, once you acquire adequate energy management on your monk's skill bar, the rate at which your monk runs out of mana eventually should not differ by too much.

The thing behind +40 health is that it will give your monk a better chance of survival. The fact that +40 health could determine whether your monk is spamming healing spells on himself or lying on the ground with a dagger sticking out of his nose makes it that much more valuable. Benefits of having more health or armor outweights that of energy by far, as the latter can be compensated for by adequate skill managements.

Hope that wasn't too biased for you. If you were hoping for step-by-step analysis of pro's and con's of each, that'd be running out the patience of most posters. Do please try and be nicer to people who take time to reply to your questions that you wanted answered.

More health. AI gets silly when it's under fire, more health reduces the chance that the enemy AI will target the monk.

You don't want your healers running round like a headless chicken when they should... you know... be healing.

Why ask a question and then proceed to shoot down all suggestions. The higher your health the AI might ignore your monk and give it a better chance.