Offering Of Blood 20 percent health penalty now(from 10)

Well guys, now I know how the players who heavily relied upon AOE spells feel.

OoB was the #1 reason why I picked Necro as a secondary(Monk/Necro, 2.5 million xp), and now putting this spell on my skillbar gives me pause.

I am not happy about this.

How do you guys feel about this aspect of the update?

It was easily the most powerful energy maintainance spell for Monk... and imho the generic Mo/N boonprot was getting rather excessive. Most of the common pvp builds (gale war, cripple/distort ranger, oob boonprot) took a hit in the update...

Time to start experimenting with Mo/Me again

I don't think it was nerfed because of the monks, I think it was nerfed because of the offensive casters in GvG - proly in particular the necro hexers.

Nevertheless it affects the monks. It basically means you can't spam it as much. You have to be more aware.

Useless? No. Need more skill to use? Yes.

Do not adopt the "Who moved my cheese?" concept.
Adapt to the new changes and survive.

Holy crap! Great reference and one I never thought I would see used on boards of this nature! Big thumbs up to you!

Well, I have never PvPed, GvGed, or used boon protection yet. Up to this point I have pretty much been a PvE player.

I liked my cheese.

In seriousness, as a non-boonprotter mo/n with 1.8m xp who nonetheless used offering of blood extensively/excessively I'm planning to continue to do so. You never sacrifice under attack in any case and though unwelcome is a change I can nevertheless accept. Though I've already got Mantra Of Recall, should I wish to experiment. I was Mo/N from the start for OoB, maybe this will give me a push to properly trial channelling, or other non-elite mesmer energy gain skills - it's a reason to look and see if something else might be better.

The OoB change affects my necromancer rather more, my minion configuration usually relies on it to ensure I have 25 energy every time there's something to use it on - and with that there are 3 sacrifice skills which all add up very quickly. While inconvenient though, it's not crippling, and the sky is not falling.

Screwed my "perfect" N/Mo Minion Master. Now I have even more downtime between moving my army.

This skill wasnt really changed because of necros. They have a lot of self heals and wont really be effective. (yes, even non blood necros will be fine) Its for the other classes that were using it without a drawback...like your monk.

I tested the change whith the usual boon/prot setup in RA just now.

To be honest the nerf on mend ailment hurt the build much more than the OOB change. The build is still very effective and you still have no problem tanking a single warrior(while u wand hm to death ).

In pve why would you worry? 1 osiron and you have back what u lost.

I'm yet to try OoB Booning in GVG yet but I find it significantly harder now in Team Arenas to be sure - at 515 health I take 103 damage... that hurts. It's still a lot more convenient than recall - but I think you'll need something to back you up if you're to be losing this much life to get some energy - 103 is a significant amount to be sure.

If distortion didn't get nerfed I'd probably switch to a Recall Booner without hesitation myself, as is, I'd like to see if I can manage the 20% sacrifice. In fairness OoB was getting over used. And not so much in 8 man, but in 4 man matches a booner was infinite healing.

With a heal party spammer (which I still think will be common) and another booner backing me up - I'm not sure if the sacrifice will be as significant - though I wouldn't know yet

Please don't cast scourge sacrifice on me

Yep, too bad, I just starting using my good old OOB build again.. I'll just have to switch back to Mo/Me, 20% is seriously too dangerous in battle, where the 10% used to be famous about (but in that time it wasn't true).

Guess ANet wants us to play Mo/Me

EDIT: "Mantra of Resolve: increased Energy cost to 10..4 when interrupted."
Damnit.. My Mo/Me build will be different too then

Actually if you read my post, I said "casters." Yes I pointed to the necros. Even though, necros have self heals, that was not the problem. Necro (spikers and hexers) had pretty much unlimited energy with OoB. Using hexes like Parastic Bond, Faintheartedness, etc, one necro could shutdown 2-3 warriors constantly all by himself.

OoB on a boon monk did not give you a free pass with eneryg management. You still need needed to manage it carefully. You can easily be shutdown with one mesmer, hell even on ranger with Dib Shot can give you trouble.

I still think it was not the boon monks that caused the nerf - it was the necro and mesmers using it to feed their habits

Well, I actually don't have anything againts the +10% more sacrifice for OoB. I use it for my Monk everywhere I go and so far it's not really bothering me since I'm a healer and I should stay at the very back. I cast OoB everytime it recharges and I heal myself using Healing Touch when my HP is going under 50%.

For any Monks who uses a Necro for secondary, try using a Gordac's Needle (or the collectors counter part of it) and a collectors Idol (Blood) that you can get outside Droks. +40% Faster recharge for OoB = almost unlimitted Mp. My teamate's HP barely goes down under 50%. --Just thought I'd share it with all of you guys!--

Peace!

But still, about 5 OOB = 2 Healing Touch, which makes the Energy gain a bit worse, and 20% is quite dangerous, since you always have the 3/4 second that you can't cast, so when you're attacked by a Warrior it's scary to cast this now..

I'd say you should use Mo/Me with Mantra of Recall, seems better to me now.

Honestly after using it in a few guest gvg's last night, The mend ailment and veil recharge time hurt boon prot a lot more than the OoB nerf. OoB it still probably the most reliable form of energy management for a monk. the extra dmg can be easily healed through.

However with the new 20/20 prot staff, i find that mend ailment isnt as bad and acts like it did before the nerf.

mantra of recall still has all it's flaws that it had before though - and they are numerous to say the least. Easily interrupted, unpredictable, will be drained at unwanted times - it's energy manage you can't really.. manage . Combine this with the distortion hit, you aren't going to be be able to afford 8 points in illusion on a boon monk anymore which was a reason to run this skill before. there is drain enchantment though, and inspired hex - so I guess options are available, Has anyone tried running an oob booner in GVG yet, if so is it much different?

the way i figure it is if you keep a prot spirit on yourself, which you should anyway, you still have 8 hits left before you die. not that big of a deal to me, but we'll see. i can't play for awhile because i dislocated my finger on tuesday...

I can see why it needed nerfing, but for 4v4 matches it just doesn't do the job for monks anymore.

Less healing from mend ailment and now you need to keep your heath almost full before you can risk using OoB, then immediately after you're forced to heal yourself again. With 5 energy cost then more from the heal, you end up making very little back. With poorer energy management and less self healing you run out faster and die. After a res you can usually only get 1 fast OoB off before you immediately run into energy problems again.

Man, you actually read it? They forced this down my throat at the last company I worked for...

You do realise this is a form of pervasive control for the weak of will, so that they will not question a change, but rather accept it blindly.

Same sort of thing happened in Germany in the 30's....I rest my case