Does anyone still use prot bond?
Studio Ghibli
Howdy,
Was simply curious if anyone still used the spell--and for what?
Was simply curious if anyone still used the spell--and for what?
Lasher Dragon
Yes, I use it sometimes for farming with a guildie. Also, I have used it on missions before, like if I see someone really getting hit hard I'll throw it on them.
Skuld
hell yes, bonding, i don't bother with life barrier any more, this combined with balth's spirit is far superior

Turbo Wombat
I believe you're thinking of Life Bond, Skuld, not Protective Bond. Personally, I don't because the energy drain becomes too much if someone is really being hammered on. Once my energy hits 0, the enchantment ends and I have no other way to heal them. While the 'not more than 5% health loss' thing is nice, I'd just rather keep Prot Spirit and use a boon protect build.
Haggard
and the fact theres a chance it can end with every hit can be annoying too.. meaning you have to keep recasting it adding to the already out of control energy drain
Epinephrine
I'm working on builds involving this skill; it seems useful in some places, but it is a tricky one to run. The problem with it is that the decision point lies in the spectrum of damage normally taken, a mere 24 damage (*)will trigger the protection, and far too many hits are that size. In order to use this skill you have to determine what the damage ranges are coming in, and tweak its use to compensate. For example - if you are facing a combination of melee/direct spike damage, you don't really want it triggering on aevery swing of a sword, but you do want it intercepting the 100+damage obsidian flame. So what do you do? Use methods to shift the decision point to a level more likely to indicate a spike - either increasing the armour vs some forms of damage or increase the natural health to the point that you are only catching the true spikes.
So, what works? Well, combined with a Life Bond for example, you can artifically shift the decision point - if the target suffers only half damage from attacks that will result in the decision point being 48 damage vs attacks, a more reasonable level - after all, any attack for over 48 is worth stopping a portion of - it indicates a larger than normal attack. Physical resistence is an interesting one; since most damage being dealt is physical in many areas, shifting the armour value for physical damage up by 40 halves the incoming as well - you can use this effect to screen the damage, making it less likely to trigger vs swung attacks, but more likely to trigger vs elemental, and not altering it vs armour ignoring damage.
Who to bond? Well, a warrior is a pretty safe bet. Anytime a warrior is taking damage for over 24 in a shot he's probably being hit with something big-ish; after all, a warrior with a 16 AL shield, knights boots, superior absorption and a -2 damage mod on his shield would need to be hit with a base damage swing of ~81 damage to trigger it if it were physical, so it's not going ot go off from ordinary stuff. Even elemental damage would need to be 58 or more damage to set it off, so you won't be wasting energy defending him from a stone dagger, but it'll catch the obsidian flame or meteor shower just fine, and it'll blunt an energy surge or the like as well. By having it only trigger on certain types of hits it's actually not a bad investment, though one questions the value of it for the energy spent m,aintaining it if you are facing the worng build. I can see it as a useful skill for a few situations; you can start with it on certain team members, and if it is not triggering or triggering too often it's the wrong skill.
(*) For the purpose of the above I'm using a 480 health as the base - if you tweak that value it also tweaks the break point. I think that the priciple though remains to have it catch things that would be very harmful, like armour ignoring spikes, but not react to normal damage ranges.
So, what works? Well, combined with a Life Bond for example, you can artifically shift the decision point - if the target suffers only half damage from attacks that will result in the decision point being 48 damage vs attacks, a more reasonable level - after all, any attack for over 48 is worth stopping a portion of - it indicates a larger than normal attack. Physical resistence is an interesting one; since most damage being dealt is physical in many areas, shifting the armour value for physical damage up by 40 halves the incoming as well - you can use this effect to screen the damage, making it less likely to trigger vs swung attacks, but more likely to trigger vs elemental, and not altering it vs armour ignoring damage.
Who to bond? Well, a warrior is a pretty safe bet. Anytime a warrior is taking damage for over 24 in a shot he's probably being hit with something big-ish; after all, a warrior with a 16 AL shield, knights boots, superior absorption and a -2 damage mod on his shield would need to be hit with a base damage swing of ~81 damage to trigger it if it were physical, so it's not going ot go off from ordinary stuff. Even elemental damage would need to be 58 or more damage to set it off, so you won't be wasting energy defending him from a stone dagger, but it'll catch the obsidian flame or meteor shower just fine, and it'll blunt an energy surge or the like as well. By having it only trigger on certain types of hits it's actually not a bad investment, though one questions the value of it for the energy spent m,aintaining it if you are facing the worng build. I can see it as a useful skill for a few situations; you can start with it on certain team members, and if it is not triggering or triggering too often it's the wrong skill.
(*) For the purpose of the above I'm using a 480 health as the base - if you tweak that value it also tweaks the break point. I think that the priciple though remains to have it catch things that would be very harmful, like armour ignoring spikes, but not react to normal damage ranges.
Lasher Dragon
Quote:
Originally Posted by Haggard
and the fact theres a chance it can end with every hit can be annoying too.. meaning you have to keep recasting it adding to the already out of control energy drain
OoB combined with the +27 energy offhand makes it much easier to control.
swordfisher
I combined Prot bond with shield of deflection, reducing a) the number of times the target was physically struck at all and b) reducing the damage of the strike, in order to less frequently trigger the 5% protection. It worked passably well, but was not really efficient or stable.
Applying life bond -> prot bond would cause life bond to apply first and cut all that attack damage in half, putting a fair amount under the 5% threshold. If you have say, three under-threshold hits to every 1 over 5%, you could run balth spirit and be situationally stable, energy wise.
The problem with prot bond is that it's too demanding- in the ideal situation, you want it to be useless about 66% of the time. In order to push it to that level, you've got to boost armor, or apply other protections to reduce damage, or just give yourself one enormous energy machine.
Applying life bond -> prot bond would cause life bond to apply first and cut all that attack damage in half, putting a fair amount under the 5% threshold. If you have say, three under-threshold hits to every 1 over 5%, you could run balth spirit and be situationally stable, energy wise.
The problem with prot bond is that it's too demanding- in the ideal situation, you want it to be useless about 66% of the time. In order to push it to that level, you've got to boost armor, or apply other protections to reduce damage, or just give yourself one enormous energy machine.
shardfenix
What do you mean by "still?"
I've never seen anybody use it, except testing builds in random arenas.
I've never seen anybody use it, except testing builds in random arenas.
LouAl
I am also trying to come up with a good use for this skill. It just seems like it could be really great if combined well.
I came up with the same thing as others where I use it with life bond, but I have also been adding essence bond on there just to recoup some of that energy loss.
It seems to work well if I put life bond and essence bond on 2-3 people, then use prot bond on 1 or 2 of those people (1 is a lot easier, obviously), and use holy veil when I need it. I also used RoF when ever someone was taking really bad damage. I am forced to use blessed sig and OoB constantly, but there is enough leeway that I am able to put that occasional RoF on someone. I really get toasted when someone is using chilblains (sp?) because it takes a little bit to get the enchants back up, and all I am left with is spamming RoF until I get a break to put them up. The life bond does help to lessen the number of times that PB triggers and essence drops the energy per trigger down to 2.
All in all, it seems workable, but needs something more in order to be very useful in a wider range of areas (degen owns the crap out of this setup). I can keep a team alive without a healer in some of the areas in the desert, but not in S. Shiverpeaks.
I came up with the same thing as others where I use it with life bond, but I have also been adding essence bond on there just to recoup some of that energy loss.
It seems to work well if I put life bond and essence bond on 2-3 people, then use prot bond on 1 or 2 of those people (1 is a lot easier, obviously), and use holy veil when I need it. I also used RoF when ever someone was taking really bad damage. I am forced to use blessed sig and OoB constantly, but there is enough leeway that I am able to put that occasional RoF on someone. I really get toasted when someone is using chilblains (sp?) because it takes a little bit to get the enchants back up, and all I am left with is spamming RoF until I get a break to put them up. The life bond does help to lessen the number of times that PB triggers and essence drops the energy per trigger down to 2.
All in all, it seems workable, but needs something more in order to be very useful in a wider range of areas (degen owns the crap out of this setup). I can keep a team alive without a healer in some of the areas in the desert, but not in S. Shiverpeaks.
Murder In China
I believe someone on Game Amp is using a 55 monk using Protective bond.
Here it is: http://guildwars.gameamp.com/guide/v...2.php!orderBy=
Here it is: http://guildwars.gameamp.com/guide/v...2.php!orderBy=
LouAl
Here was my setup. It made THK an absolute breeze with all henchies but Lina (only Thom died, and he only died once).
Prot 13
Divine 14
RoF
Holy Veil
Prot Bond
Life Bond
Essence Bond
Balth's Spirit
Divine Boon
Blessed Sig
Before the end I kept DB and BS on me all the time with EB, LB, and PB (and HV when needed) on Devona and Thom all the time. Total of 8 enchants up. Spammed Bless Sig and never had energy problems.
At the end, I kept DB, BS, EB, and PB (HV when needed) on me all the time with EB on Thom and Devona (and sometimes the King). I also held the torch so almost all attacks came to me. Total of 6 enchants and never had energy problems.
While fighting I never had to use the Blessed sig, I just gained energy like crazy and had enough left over to spam RoF on everyone (even if they/I just needed a heal).
Anyway, give it a shot. It was pretty fun.
EDIT: I just noticed that in the picture I had mistakenly put BS on one of my henchies...oh well it didn't cause any problems with energy. The LB, EB, PB combo works great to cut down on energy loss from PB.
Prot 13
Divine 14
RoF
Holy Veil
Prot Bond
Life Bond
Essence Bond
Balth's Spirit
Divine Boon
Blessed Sig
Before the end I kept DB and BS on me all the time with EB, LB, and PB (and HV when needed) on Devona and Thom all the time. Total of 8 enchants up. Spammed Bless Sig and never had energy problems.
At the end, I kept DB, BS, EB, and PB (HV when needed) on me all the time with EB on Thom and Devona (and sometimes the King). I also held the torch so almost all attacks came to me. Total of 6 enchants and never had energy problems.
While fighting I never had to use the Blessed sig, I just gained energy like crazy and had enough left over to spam RoF on everyone (even if they/I just needed a heal).
Anyway, give it a shot. It was pretty fun.
EDIT: I just noticed that in the picture I had mistakenly put BS on one of my henchies...oh well it didn't cause any problems with energy. The LB, EB, PB combo works great to cut down on energy loss from PB.
Zakarr
Greater Conflagration + Storm Chaser + Protective Bond = gg
sh4ft3d
Interesting concept^ I mght try it out.