A skill over looked?
Nevin
I went to Grendich Courthouse on a hunt for skills to make a new build.. And I saw Physical Resilance with 10 inspiration it gives +40 armor vs physical for 70 seconds and -16 vs elemental... I thought it'd be perfect for IW builds, I'm suprised I didn't have it before.
calamitykell
I love Physical Resistance. I absolutely refuse to try to solo anything without it. The +40 armor is great, long as hell duration, and it's a stance so no stripping of it (in PvE. I don't think I've seen enemies use Wild Blow or whatever.)
Mesmers actually get numerous defense buffs (Elemental Resistance, Physical Resistance, Mantra of [element], Distortion [does it count? lol), but all are stances I believe, so you can't stack any.
Only ones I ever really see in builds are PR and Distortion though
Mesmers actually get numerous defense buffs (Elemental Resistance, Physical Resistance, Mantra of [element], Distortion [does it count? lol), but all are stances I believe, so you can't stack any.

Only ones I ever really see in builds are PR and Distortion though

Avarre
Under no circumstance should a mesmer be taking direct, constant damage. This weakens the use of having Phy res, which is inferior to distortion (evade chance, which stops interrupts, knockdowns, other such things that phyres doesn't).
A usual IW build runs some sort of inc. attack speed (flurry) which would cancel PR, while it can be quickly switched around with distortion.
Imho, PR / ER are wastes of a slot. Unless you seriously are trying a full-hp mesmer build for soloing, then PR isn't too bad. Use distort for anti-warrior or anti-ranger jobs, however.
A usual IW build runs some sort of inc. attack speed (flurry) which would cancel PR, while it can be quickly switched around with distortion.
Imho, PR / ER are wastes of a slot. Unless you seriously are trying a full-hp mesmer build for soloing, then PR isn't too bad. Use distort for anti-warrior or anti-ranger jobs, however.
calamitykell
Like you said, when a mesmer is the only one there, damage is pretty much going to hit. I'd rather take half damage from physical attacks than spend 5 energy to lose 1 energy everytime I dodge an attack.
SnipiousMax
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Originally Posted by Avarre
Under no circumstance should a mesmer be taking direct, constant damage. This weakens the use of having Phy res, which is inferior to distortion (evade chance, which stops interrupts, knockdowns, other such things that phyres doesn't).
Yup, this was a hard lesson learned for me.
Kai Nui
All the mesmer manra stances seem to be useless in my oppinion. Why waste a skill slot for Mantra of Flame when for all I know, I'm going to be attacked by a geo mancer.
Dodo The Extinct
Ahh, yes physical resistence. A CA monks best friend. Nothing beats whammos like physical resistence.

WoofWoof
Mantra of Front could be usable with the Ranger's Winter Spirit as it will convert all elemental damage to cold damage. But, as said here, I am not sure these defensive mantras/stances belong in PVP...
icemonkey
honestly if you think about it skills like mantra of flame encourage builds that isolate and prey off of one type of enemy in PVE. Did they honestly think there would be inspiration mesmers that would take these skills, when really all they are used for is like maybe a warrior trying to solo hydras with mantra of flame
Str0b0
Well I'm not so sure of their use in PvP but in PvE I've had a lot of use for physical resistance and elemental resistance with my ranger build. They cast quick, have good duration and pretty good bonuses for not a whole lot of point investment. It's too bad you can't stack them. A Ranger with Druid armor would be looking at a small physical reduction and a nice elemental bonus if this were possible. Alas it is not.
JYX
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Originally Posted by Kai Nui
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Originally Posted by Dodo The Extinct
Ahh, yes physical resistence. A CA monks best friend. Nothing beats whammos like physical resistence.
![]() Whatever floats your boat. Katari
Hehe. I love seeing someone use Phys Resistance in CA. My warrior promptly swaps to her Elemental Axe/Sword. Good times
![]() Phys Resistance and Ele Resistance seem to be better in PvE, where you know what you'll be facing. Two April Mornings
this + watch urself + shield + base 80 warrior armor FTW
SnipiousMax
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Originally Posted by Dodo The Extinct
Ahh, yes physical resistence. A CA monks best friend. Nothing beats whammos like physical resistence.
![]() This is all stuff that people have told me...it took me a bit before I realized that they were right. JYX
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Originally Posted by SnipiousMax
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Quote: Originally Posted by SnipiousMax or is using Wild Blow (which I always have) so you end up with a stance that is actually hurting you (due to elemental damage) or nothing (cause it was ended by wildblow) It recharges every 20 seconds, which also happens to be the exact time of fallout from Mantra of Recall so you're not short on energy to recast.
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NOT TO MENTION, that while your sitting there chuckling about your increased armor vs. physical, that said wammo is building up his/her Adrenaline for such jewel's as Evecsirate, Final thrust, etc.
Eviscs will do about half damage, under 50 barring a crit. Final thrust more than that, but also far more conditional seeing as you'd be harder to get under half hp.
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Originally Posted by Everous
It recharges every 20 seconds, which also happens to be the exact time of fallout from Mantra of Recall so you're not short on energy to recast.
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That's not the point. The point is that the stance is worthless once the Warrior switches from Physical Damage. It doesn't do MUCH more damage, but it does do MORE instead of LESS which is what you were trying to acomplish by using PR in the first place.
Originally Posted by SnipiousMax
It's better to lose a bit of energy with distortion than to provide the wammo with exactly what he needs to kill you faster.
Assuming the wammo is at full preparedness and I am at minimal preparedness, he will gain an advantage over me that is the equivalent or even lesser to bleeding.
Problem with distortion is that its not a bit of energy you're losing, its a ton. You're already blowing up to 1 energy per second just keeping the thing up, the equivalent of 3 pips of energy regeneration or about the same as Offering of Blood and Energy Drain put together. You're also going to get -2 energy per evade, which is pretty poor, assuming you're only evading him once every 3 seconds thats still 5 pips of energy you're using up. Physical resistance is pretty much set at 0.43 pips, or 1.5 if you're constantly recasting due to wild blow. Theres a massive gap in energy usage there, now I'm not saying the effect of distortion is not better, but you need to realise you're also paying for it. Theres also the issue of distortion really cutting into territory thats already handled by aegis and guardian...maybe later shield of deflection. Then theres the problem of stat distribution into illusion, in which you're basically looking at 4 points. Therefore if you were going 11/10/10 before you'd need to drop 1 point somewhere along the way, if you were going 12/8/10 then you need to drop 3 points somewhere along the way, 4 is seriously not a magic number. Avarre
Physical resist sets your armor level versus warriors to the same level a warrior in glads armor is at. And I see glads armor warriors getting torn down by rangers and warrior all the time.
It's also a death sentence versus rangers with kindle (IE: many), elementalists, and plenty of other builds. Distortion functions better than these and also gives you the benefit of being protected from interrupts. If you kite while using distortion, it's a meagre fragment of energy you lose. You really should try to avoid using it if you're going to lose more than 1 (in PvP), although WM's rangers have -2 distort. For monks, you're better off with aegis or guardian. Cirian
Although the focus of this thread seems to have become PvP, the inspiration stances are extremely useful in PvE where the enemies are known.
Physical Resistance is excellent in melee heavy areas, and it makes 'while in stance' bonuses from shields and weapons very easy to maintain. It's simplicity to switch between a focus and a +45 life / -2 damage shield. Likewise, the elemental mantras can be matched to the zone you're in. In PvP though, yeah, it's not a worthwhile gamble I'd agree. Elemental Resistance was the most useful, although it's worth pointing out just for giggles that Mantra of Earth works against armour-bypassing earth attacks (unlike Elemental Resistance, which just adds armour...) Avarre
Mantras also reduce after prot spirit, meaning a 55hp build will take 4 fire damage farming hydras or whatever
![]() Robster Lobster
Winter+ Greater Conflagration + Mantra of Frost = IWAY warriors doing ~4 damage when they swing at you. Add wards and Aeigis for more fun.
I know the point of this topic was Physical Resistence (useless seeing as most W/Mo carry Fiery Dragon Swords), but people brought up some of the elemental mantra's. SnipiousMax
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Originally Posted by Everous
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Quote: Originally Posted by Everous Eviscs will do about half damage, under 50 barring a crit. Final thrust more than that, but also far more conditional seeing as you'd be harder to get under half hp. I'll give you that, Again, unless they're using Elemental Weapons, where the armor has no effect. But you'll still be recieving conditions....
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Are you referring to serpent's quickness on the warrior on on the mesmer? You can't run sq on a warrior and you obviously can't run it on a mesmer using pr/distortion, so I'm not really sure whats going on here.
Originally Posted by Everous
Problem with distortion is that its not a bit of energy you're losing, its a ton. You're already blowing up to 1 energy per second just keeping the thing up, the equivalent of 3 pips of energy regeneration or about the same as Offering of Blood and Energy Drain put together.
You're right there. It is energy heavy, but I always make sure I'm losing only 1 energy per hit dodge...which isn't much better but hey. And I only use distortion if I'm planning on making the Warriors run after me. In which case I'm not gonna be much help to the battle anyway, aside from temporarily taking the warriors out of it.
Yes but that's also not taking into account serpents quickness, etc. And even if you can cast PR every 20 seconds...then they can end it every 20 seconds. I don't see how it helps that you have the energy to cast it.
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The point of that part was to demonstrate that even were they to come prepared, they would still not gain much of an advantage. In the original post you said that this stance actually hurts you should the warrior take precaution. I am trying to quantify and thereby put into perspective the amount of hurt the stance could possibly do, attempting to demonstrate that it is almost negligable.
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Also you said in the original post that the skill had an "insane" recharge time, here I was trying to demonstrate that this was not true. 20 seconds, and the energy even for a monk to consistently supply the energy needed, adding some protection at least and also forcing the warrior to refresh his adren. You'd waste a lot more energy healing up and removing the deep wound.
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You're right there. It is energy heavy, but I always make sure I'm losing only 1 energy per hit dodge...which isn't much better but hey. And I only use distortion if I'm planning on making the Warriors run after me. In which case I'm not gonna be much help to the battle anyway, aside from temporarily taking the warriors out of it.
This part you're also referring to a mesmer primary I assume. Seeing as how the break point for 1 energy is 12 illusion...a monk can't realistically make that. Its also harder for a monk to drop everything and kite. This is also where the overlaps with your existing skillsets come in.
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Originally Posted by Everous
The point of that part was to demonstrate that even were they to come prepared, they would still not gain much of an advantage. In the original post you said that this stance actually hurts you should the warrior take precaution. I am trying to quantify and thereby put into perspective the amount of hurt the stance could possibly do, attempting to demonstrate that it is almost negligable.
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Yup I misunderstood the first post I qouted...and So I've been aurguing the wrong points. That said....PR is still a worthless skill for a monk. (just that distortion isn't much better)
Originally Posted by SnipiousMax
Again, I'm not saying PR doesn't have it's uses...Like when you know exactly what your up against. But it doesn't hold a match to distortion in keeping you alive against PvP'ers.
On a mesmer primary? No, you're right I don't think PR would be an appropriate skill at all. I would take distortion or nothing at all. On a mo.me though again I would say that both are valid skills. You're going to be speccing into inspiration anyway. Its not as good as distortion, but theres no need to spread your attribute points and its a lot cheaper. Again I'd say you get what you pay for.
SnipiousMax
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Originally Posted by Everous
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Are you referring to serpent's quickness on the warrior on on the mesmer? You can't run sq on a warrior and you obviously can't run it on a mesmer using pr/distortion, so I'm not really sure whats going on here.
It's entirely possible (if improbable) that a warrior could have SQ, but your right its not a popular build. I was trying to point out that even if you could cast it every 20 secs, the warrior's wild blow would recharge just as quickly (or potentially quicker) than your PR. So everytime you put it up, he could tear it back down.
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Originally Posted by SnipiousMax
Yes, your right that the additional damage is negligible...but that isn't including conjure warriors, or Kindle Rangers, or Ele Spikers...or a combination of them. Your right the dps from a single warrior wielding an elemental weapon is negligible...but especially as a monk, you are the target of more than one person....so that 4 dps, might be closer to 12, and in that case it would hurt you. Even if it was just one warrior. You just cast a spell that is doing you no good. Even if there was no elemental penalty, you just wasted energy. That also hurts.
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Playing devil's advocate here, but it would appear distortion is already a commonly accepted skill on a monk. iQ used it at least...I think it was against TE but can't be sure.
Originally Posted by Everous
Also you said in the original post that the skill had an "insane" recharge time, here I was trying to demonstrate that this was not true. 20 seconds, and the energy even for a monk to consistently supply the energy needed, adding some protection at least and also forcing the warrior to refresh his adren. You'd waste a lot more energy healing up and removing the deep wound.
20 seconds is a very long time compared to other monk protections spells that would be better suited here. You can die easily in 20 seconds. Especially if you were depending on PR entirely. I got a little carried away in saying INSANE...but it still comes out to the same, wether it takes 20 secs or 50 secs, its time you aren't protected.
Anyway, I still wouldn't use PR with a monk...especially with the monk skills mentioned before. There are better, less fragile ways of protecting yourself than using PR. Avarre
You do know that eles target you too?
Lets recap: Physical resist : less damage from most warriors, about half rangers, more damage from eles. Distortion : 1/4 damage approximately from warriors and rangers, general immunity to adrenal skills and interrupts (because they rarely get lucky on those and can't build adren while missing horribly, plus you're running). No penalty versus other classes, and 1 energy every infrequent attack is not crippling. For monk -> Guardian Cheap, fast, a good 120+ heal as protboon, 40% block at 10 prot giving protection against adrenal and interrupts. Best for mesmer = distortion Best for monk = guardian (divine favor bonus), maybe SoD but costly. This is not a debatable thing, this is a statement of fact. The debateable things is what is second best. Physical res will never compare to distortion due to its incredible one-sidedness, the failure to protect against the major risk (conditions, knockdown and interrupts), and the unknown factor on whether the enemy even uses physical. JYX
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Originally Posted by SnipiousMax
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Quote: Originally Posted by SnipiousMax It's entirely possible (if improbable) that a warrior could have SQ, but your right its not a popular build. I was trying to point out that even if you could cast it every 20 secs, the warrior's wild blow would recharge just as quickly (or potentially quicker) than your PR. So everytime you put it up, he could tear it back down. Hrm. I still don't think its viable to put SQ on a warrior. You lose both your IAS and your speed buff for long periods of time. I got that, and yes it would be torn down every time, but I meant that in this case it would be cheaper for them to tear down the stance than it would be for them to keep all their adrenaline and use it on you even through this stance. Sadly for Wild Blow this is the case even though PR is one of the more expensive and long recharging stances.
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Wild blow doesn't require adrenaline. You could use it with no hits at all. So nothing is keeping the warrior from dumping his adrenaline skills like an experienced player would do (thus causing conditions and forcing heal) THEN whiping stance with wild blow. So monk would have to heal, mend condition, AND use stance again. So I don't see how it's cheaper.
Originally Posted by SnipiousMax
20 seconds is a very long time compared to other monk protections spells that would be better suited here. You can die easily in 20 seconds. Especially if you were depending on PR entirely. I got a little carried away in saying INSANE...but it still comes out to the same, wether it takes 20 secs or 50 secs, its time you aren't protected.
Sympathetic Visage is another lose all adrenaline skill. Thats 30 second recharge. Aegis is 30 seconds, pacifism is 30 seconds, amity 45 seconds, shield of regeneration 20 seconds.
...I meant that in this case it would be cheaper for them to tear down the stance than it would be for them to keep all their adrenaline and use it on you even through this stance. Sadly for Wild Blow this is the case even though PR is one of the more expensive and long recharging stances.
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Since IWAY warriors are attacking faster, wouldn't that partially take away the advantage of PR. I'll do the math later, but it seems that the increased attack speed would at least partially overcome PR, assuming they weren't using elemental weapons, in which case PR would be completely ignored. Don't alot of IWAY warriors use Vampiric Weapons? PR wouldn't stop them leeching your health away. But I guess it could be argued that the increase in attack speed partially take away the advantage of dodge/block skills as well... And while DPS might not compare to a warrior, the threat of an air spike or a Ranger Kindle spike can't be ignored (and lots of rangers use kindle...) A burst of Elemental damage is still gonna hurt more, however small the extra DPS is with -14 armor .(assuming you have enough points in Inspiration to get it down to -14, it could be as high as -24.)
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Thats assuming too much, you'll have 42% evade when those things hit anyway. Maybe aegis layered on as well. Under these circumstances, yes it is cheaper than using distortion with guardian and aegis. Even were this not the case, and assuming you're constantly recasting PR plus mendprotting yourself...assuming you mend yourself every 4.2 seconds on average which btw is an overestimate...you'd still most likely be cheaper than distortion.
Originally Posted by Everous
Oh definately. But not a lot cheaper ways.
I'm sorry, but you can't say its cheaper when it doesn't work. It will cost you more in other ways. (ie. skill slot, wasted energy,etc.) It's like buying a T.V. from some guy in a van. It may be cheaper, but with no guarentee that it's even gonna work, or end up costing you more in the end.
Wild blow doesn't require adrenaline. You could use it with no hits at all. So nothing is keeping the warrior from dumping his adrenaline skills like an experienced player would do (thus causing conditions and forcing heal) THEN whiping stance with wild blow. So monk would have to heal, mend condition, AND use stance again. So I don't see how it's cheaper.
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No self respecting organised ranger team will use kindle.
IWAY won't use elemental weapons.
The increase in attack speed will deal proportionally more damage right across the board for the actual weapon yes. The advantage distortion has here is that of course PR won't ignore orders, so there will be a disproportionate increase of damage inflicted to the guy using PR. For the price though its still far and away worth it.
And no, a inspiration monk would have 10 in inspiration which would give him -16 again elemental damage. Take the wanderer's set and any + armor focii you can get and the armor loss gets very small. Quote: |
Also if the warrior using wild blow chooses to dump all his skills onto you before wild blowing you, PR has definately been useful.
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Okay, I know that it does look like anything that lessens Physical Damage is going to be the end all here...but you've gotta take other things in mind.
Originally Posted by SnipiousMax
Given, but the general purpose is the same, so the skills can be compared. Its aimed at making you harder to kill, so how well it does in that purpose can be compared to other availible means. It's like saying you can't compare Eviscerate and Cleave. Its true they serve different purposes, but you can easily compare how well they work in practice.
Have you compared how well this works in practice? From your replies I gather you have not even tried a distortion/PR monk. This is a lot more complicated than Evisc and Cleave, it depends on the rest of your skillbar for a start, what enchants your team are using overall, your ability to kite an enemy, the enemy's skillset etc. When forced to use them for about a month...you'll end up using these skills in completely different ways.
The 'Meta' hasnt changed for... months. All teams are warrior heavy at a decent level and involve gale axe warriors and the occasional hammer or sword.
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And a blind one-armed monkey can find a win in GvG if he's team can cover up his idiocy. I don't buy that Elitism garbage. A good player is a good player regardless. Yes you could run anything and pick up a win in CA. But the good players are distanced in winning consistantly in CA. Players that frequent CA/TA/ and even HA are forced to be self sufficient, and the good ones can EASILY carry a four man team by themselves. Few exclusively GvG player's can boast carrying half their team, cause they're too dependant on everyone else. GvG is based on TEAM builds, not on any one person's part. You're not going to lose from 1/64's of your collective skills breaking down, so throwing that little jab in there will just skew the perspective. But I'm so glad people have that attitude. Seeing people flash their /rank emotes, and procceding to flawlessly smash them into the ground make my day. Then I flash my 'rank 0' emote. Don't get me wrong. Experienced GvG'rs are among the best of the best, but hardly hold the monoploy on good players.
And I would also direct your attention to the original post that this debate is based on...which I also misunderstood, as it specifies CA. Quote: |
Since these groups depend on Physical damage, there are a few things used to slow them down. Blind is one. Stance's are another. Since these groups (assuming they're full of intellegent players) are gonna prepare for these inevitabilities. The single best skill to use against a stance is Wild Blow. Not only does Wild Blow end the stance, it delievers a Critical Hit as well. Not to mention allowing team mates (since you opened the team door) to deliever well placed and timed spikes. And since you were kind enough to allow them to build up their adrenaline (aside from the kind soul that lost his to end your stance) they have plenty of nice skills to lay down on you. Where as, with Distortion (I assumed from your post you opened the discussion back up for mesmers?) there's a 75% chance you avoid Wild Blow, and 75% chance to avoid spike attacks which have 75% less adrenaline to spike with. I think the cost per benefit is easily justified there.
I'm not buying this 'lower's dps better than distortion' thing either. Even if the stance was up the whole time, you're still giving them adrenaline. Which lets them keep their DPS up at least a little bit. Now I know your gonna say "well you could use Sympathetic Visage/Soothing Images" and yes your right. But I think its worth pointing out that Distortion not only avoids 75% of damage compared to 50% of damage, it prevents damage AND keeps warriors from getting 75% of adrenaline by itself! So you should factor that into your nifty little cost/benefit comparisons.
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Quote: Originally Posted by rii Since pR dents both, and both without the big energy loss of distortion, it already looks better without even thinking. Again, I've shown you how distortion fills several roles for its energy cost. Conditions, interrupts, KD's, Spikes, adrenaline, AND damage are all covered by one skill 75% of the time. Which is REALLY cheaper?
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Energy efficiency is key for a CA monk, you're looking to heal a team of 4...and yes there are a lot of warriors in CA...and no most warriors in CA do not come prepared with a full elemental set besides their normal one....
Originally Posted by rii
Spiking skills are icing on the cake, and frankly your prot monk should be able to deal with a warrior spike under reduced circumstances (i.e. pR and preferably something like guardian or blind - flashbots are common)
Again, they can't spike if they don't have the adrenaline to do so. And if your stance fails, what will you fall back on? If distortion fails, you have a very short time to wait. But since your talking about monks now, instead of distortion, why not a better (even cheaper) monk skill.
And I would also direct your attention to the original post that this debate is based on...which I also misunderstood, as it specifies CA.
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You do this...with your SQ warrior I assume? Again, the game is not well balanced for 4v4, even if you were to pwn up CA completely, would this prove that you were a "good player"?. I don't think it would, not least to the extent that GvG would.
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For 5 seconds, you have a 75% chance to "Evade" attacks. Whenever you evade an attack this way, you lose 3-1 Energy or Distortion ends.
Wild Blow - Melee Attack
Lose all adrenaline. If it hits, this attack will result in a critical hit and any "Stance" being used by your target ends. This attack cannot be
blocked or evaded.
You need to rethink your theory.
Quote: Originally Posted by SnipiousMax I'm not buying this 'lower's dps better than distortion' thing either. Even if the stance was up the whole time, you're still giving them adrenaline. Which lets them keep their DPS up at least a little bit. Now I know your gonna say "well you could use Sympathetic Visage/Soothing Images" and yes your right. But I think its worth pointing out that Distortion not only avoids 75% of damage compared to 50% of damage, it prevents damage AND keeps warriors from getting 75% of adrenaline by itself! So you should factor that into your nifty little cost/benefit comparisons. I did. But I'll do it again if it pleases you...assuming you evade 1 attack every 2 seconds...distortion takes the equivalent of 6 pips to maintain. Or 1 attack every 3 seconds meaning 5 pips. We'll work with 5 pips since thats probably an under-estimate. Physical resistance takes 0.43 pips of energy to maintain constantly, by this calculation then you can afford to mend or use touch...or word of healing...every 3.2 seconds on average and still be more efficient than Distortion.
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Originally Posted by SnipiousMax
Again, I've shown you how distortion fills several roles for its energy cost. Conditions, interrupts, KD's, Spikes, adrenaline, AND damage are all covered by one skill 75% of the time. Which is REALLY cheaper?
PR is cheaper. Quote:
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