Bonders

I have recently been confronted by a interesting verge of events.
I have been going to fow a lot, switching to healer / bonder (which ever one was needed). A few days ago, a group and I got ready to head off to fissure, as I set my attributes to healer. We all connected and started taking out enemys, yadda yadda yadda, so then I notice, the bond monk, doesn't have any enchantment on him, and is taking out his frustration of low energy on our SS/Battery necro. I ask him, " Where is your balthazars spirit", he responds to me like he just saw Elvis, that spell "sucks", I wouldnt get energy if I put it on you all. I said back to him, put it on yourself, you will get energy every time an ally gets hit. He didn't believe me, and kept himself in denial that what I said doesn't work.

And another day... same story except I was the bonder, I got set up with a fow group, they looked good, our warrior had 15k platemail and fow helm. dyed all black, so I thought he was an expirienced leader, and the group would go well. On the other hand, I was taught a very valuable lesson, not to judge a book by its cover. The guy thought he had a incredible understanding of what he was doing, but he didn't have a clue. He made so many mistakes writing them out would take a few threads. But anywho, we get by to the part of fow where you get the book quest, and ofcourse the all knowing warrior aggros two groups of skeletons and we get overwhelmed and killed, one of our casters escaped, and ressed. I confronted the warrior in the american way of guild wars, "What the hell are you doing you noob". And ofcourse the genious fights back."You are saying im a noob, you brought one bond to fow and call other people that". I was pretty mad, and explained to him that there was only one bond, and that he should kindly quit guild wars,but he said theres 5 bonds, that a bonder takes each run, meaning I am quite frankly supposed to cast 5 enchantments on 9 people, and maintain each one with blessed signet and a battery necro. Ofcourse, with my american background I flashed my Rank 3 emote at his face and rage quit. Back to why I made this thread, to clear up confusion, or not knowing at all, there are a few bonder builds, people use their personality to tweak their build, and make it suit them.
THERE ARE TWO TYPES OF BONDERS. BONDER 1 IS THE BASIC, ENERGY UPKEEP PROT BUILD.
Mo/W Bonder [Life Bond][BlessedSignet][BalthazarsSpirit][BonettisDefense][ProtSpell][ProtSpell]][ResSpell][Elite] -Used for 7 man bonding,
Mo/X Bonder [Life Bond][BlessedSignet][Balthazarsspirit][LifeBarrier{e}][VitalBlessing][ResSpell][ProtSpell][SecondaryProfSpell] - Used for Sorrows Furnace, Farming. Build to suit 1 Man PROTECTION, not bonding.
Mo/X Bonder [Life Bond][BlessedSignet][BalthazarsSpirit][ProtSpell][ProtSpell][ResSpell][EliteEspell] -Used for 7 man bonding,
There are many more custom bonder builds. Take note, {e} = elite
THE SECOND BONDER BUILD IS TECHNICALLY NOT A BONDER.
This build consists of having life barrier as your elite, and blessed signet + a mantra from the secondary mesmer proffesion. This is moslty a PVE build because Tombs/Gvg Energy denials EAT this build.
I hear a lot of crap about... Wow that skill isnt supposed to be used, and Wow Peace and harmony is way better then that and this is better then that..... Guys, if you have been playing for 4 months, and a guy is fighting with you, while you have a gold deer in your face, just give up. Knowledge can only help you, not hurt.

Any comments, dissagrements, ect, Similar stories maybe.... are welcome.

From Bane, Stay pretty.

While I understand your frustration, just learn to ignore incompetent players who won't take advice. If they won't take constructive criticism, they deserve to keep sucking.

Yeah I sometimes too feel like I give too much, sharing valuable information that they all put to waste because of their stubborn ego.

So just what elites are you using? Why don't you run Mantra of Inscriptions on builds for larger parties? Why would you bother with Vital Blessing and not Life Atunement? Why wouldn't you run Life Barrier? Why do you think an 'american background' means you get to act like a jerk?

Hmm, yea, at first I sort of agree with you, but then once you started saying what you were saying to these people and flashing a deer in their face or whatever, sounds like maybe there's an ego issue on both ends? Knowledge is good and all, but not all americans are mouthy and expect nobody to argue with them when they flash a deer in one's face. That would almost imply that you don't want anyone to argue with you on this thread either. So what is there really to say?

I have the ultimate example of this - yesterday I was doing a mission in the FPE with a very famous person indeed. I won't mention names but lets just say hye was the first person to get a very special emote. Anyways, he did possibly the worlds worst leeroy (save the originial), into a mob of Kurzicks who were the complete opposite way of where our turtles were headed.

While he was doing this, we tried to make him turn around but after 20 seconds of franitic spamming he did not, AND our turtles were being attacked by a different mob as he was running towards the one who didn't pose a threat.

I guess i agree with the 'never judge a book by its cover'

I'll share some knowledge of the FOW bonder. First of all a true bonder is a passive bonder. This means he stays way in the back bonding the whole party with life barrier or life bond and throwing in 18 secs lasting aegis time after time. Yes 18 secs and with the proper items he'll have 20% chance he can cast an aegis just before one has ended. In the meantime he keeps up 9-10 enchantments, with or without a battery. This way, the party can't hardly die even if they agro several groups at once. So no bonetti's and balthasar's spirit for me.

If the warrior goes booktrick, you can life barrier, life bond and essence bond him. throwing in aegis again for fun, just to be sexy.

My last piece of advice...No matter what a stripper tells you, there's no sex in the champane room.

Peace!

Why, in the name of Rurik's mother, did you think that a war with 15k platemail and fow helm is any good? Armor and fancy weapons is NEVER an indication of skill/experience/anything-resembling-a-brain.

Gun, what is exactly wrong with having massive amounts of energy with Life Bond+Balthasar's? And why would you go for life barrier over life bond? I'm completely lost on the logic here. You can have a free elite spot and more flexiblity leaving life barrier at home. I'm not a farmer, but I thought I had a good grip on the monks skills.

Theres nothing wrong with any bonder builds in PvE, since most of them work as long as the bonder has mantra of inscriptions, for FoW i normally use... (barrier, lifebond, balths spirit, vital blessing, life attunement, blessed sig, sig devotion, mantra inscriptions) heh i dont even bother with a hard res, your party shouldnt even die and if they do you just stick more bonds on that person thats half the fun in PvE how much energy degen can you sustain while still healing on the kite.. just make sure you have 2(just incase 1 drops) healers for the degen areas in FoW.

I dont think i could play a passive bonder in PvE, just to boring...heh

Bonding has come to have two different meanings. In one sense it's putting a protective sheath around everyone, but that all changes with "the book" or gear/keg/etc which makes it redundant to do so, and the tank in question wants you as a personal slave to make him for pve intents and purposes invincible. The builds for doing so are (not so) subtly different. When I play bonder I'll go with the former concept except in certain cases, but my base build includes enough commonality to work with or without item holding in most places just so I don't have to waste my time. I've played the role a lot and it's not yet happened, but if anyone has complaints about me being a bad bonder I've the simple retort that only a bad tank needs a book AI exploit to do his job, but I'd bet most people's experience with bonding comes from sf *exclusively* and what they expect to happen is to get to run around heedlessly while every monster attacks one godmode target. Unfortunately reality is what people make of it, and 'real' bonding in pickup groups will take second place until/if/when Anet ever hire an AI programmer.

I'm just going to dissagree with everyone here on every topic/post they have and call it a day.

Good question. I used to choose life bond over life barrier too. But I'm using 3 superior runes: div, prot and healing. This way I can heal too if the healer leaves for example or support him when needed. This also means my health is not that high and I have to watch out using life bond on full groups together with stepping in to heal. I have enough with blessed signet for my energy so no need for balthasar's.

I know where you're coming from and though there's nothing wrong with the other builds, I prefer this one.

More than anything, I'm concerned about you call him an egotist. Using the word "noob", flashing an emote, and blaming him are all things that should not be done. Saying you're an American and doing that stuff doesn't help either. You make me feel disgraced for being American. Besides, it doesn't matter where you're from, you shouldn't be a jerk.

That's all I really took out of it. Anyone who flashes an emote to prove a point is a moron, in my book.

anyone who needs to flash an emote in an argument has LOST the argument most of the time...

Leave Rurik's mum out of this. I have it on good authority that she was a fine lady.

Before this thread gets closed, here are my 2 cents. The OP sounds like he knows what he's doing, but emote flashing and ragequitting are not the best ways to get your point across.

I wanna change some things in your post,i were that warrior who played. First of all it was me who aggroed the group, so that was my fault.
Second Sparrow (party member) and me started to blame on you, because you only used one bond in combat and even didnt use aegis.
Third i didnt say it was 5 bonds, i told you it was more than 5 bonds.
We were going for the book-trick to the Forgemaster and i told you before we entered FoW , and you maybe know what that means = You shall bring Essence Bond and Baltazars Spirit for unlimited energy.
Second i didnt do a misstake att all unless when i agroed the group and the weaponsmith, and what you think of that i dont care of because i dont wanna hear bad comments of you im doing wrong.
And it was certain i didnt like your bonding, have you heard of "elite skills"?

And when you showed your R3+ emote, my rage werent restored.
You just left and thought you had done the right to teach people of your experience and call people noobs , and you think thats ok?
It makes a player sad to know anyone is hateing your game-experienced.

I dont get it, why balthazar spirit, why dont you use essence bond as well?

well what can i say - find better tank, cos honestly good bookholder dosnt need any bonds on him... i'm not going to post any names as well but i know tanks who able to survive for 3-5 min without any healing in chaos planes in UW - lets say if we were ambushed and most of squishies got killed such tank can run in grab all mindblades and stay still buying me some precious time for rez... i'm doing fow runs since betas, i saw HUGE amount of diff tank builds - some were adequate, some were dreadful and some were almost flawless... but all tanks were absolutely sure they're doing EVERITHING right - no matter how often we had to rez, run and such...

ur monk is 1 person who's watching u all the time - all ur movements, aggro control, skills u use - just because in many cases thats the only way to keep tank alive - and if ur monk said that theres smth wrong u better listen.

truth is u dont need bonder in FOW. not for a dedicated bookholder at least. of cos it dosnt mean that u cant bring bonder to FOW - yes u can. protector monk can be really useful to any team - active prot is better for FOW imo 'cos with huge amount of mesmers and necros u cant guarantee that ur bond stays on all the time and shattered bond can kill squishy pretty fast - i'm sure evr1 saw nukers with 2 sup runes and relatively low hp being spiked by mesmers at the entrance to the forge tower - 3 shatter ench = 1 dead nuker yelling WTF.... on the other hand if u have 1 healer monk who's able to keep team alive alone all the time and mesmer (primary or 2ndry) who's removing all hexes all the time u can take bonder with u - just for the comfort of mind

@the sinister: u overaggroed - thats bad. u died - thats even worse, cos being w/r u have to be able to survive any overaggroing - so chances are u dont have the right build for this area and have to work on it. any critics have to be appreciated and analysed unless u want to be stupid hysterical teenage noob blaming ur team for ur own mistakes. fyi good active prot (a.k.a. boon prot) is able to keep ur team alive alone, even if ur healer monk leaves the team, lagging, afk or just dumb u'll be fine. bonder cant do it, so its always a good idea to tweak ur build and be able to soak more damage without monk baby-sitting u.
as for blaming ur monk for having wrong skills/bonds whatnot - u know that was ur mistake. u're the tank ur job is to control the aggro and take the damage. u overaggroed and died - what monk has to do with it? alot of tanks think that monks are here to be 'personal slaves' - thats cos they dont know what good tank can do for his/her team... i played with few unbelievable tanks (pro tank usually have few monks in his/her friend list who's rdy to leave any group and join tank's group at 1st notice cos they know it'll be a great run) and i know the diff pro tank can made. again - no names but person who tanked in this run prolly remembers it cos it happened not so long ago - we farmed fow with the book cleared all areas did all quests got lots of exp and decided to return the book and call it a nite - it was quite late - when tank said 'sh** wheres the book?'. he dropped it and NOBODY noticed any diff. we spend like 15 min looking for the frigin book evrwhere then finally found it and had a good laugh about it... he dropped it in a midrun if u're curious.

so PLS keep in mind that when monk critisize she/he does so not with the sole purpose of yelling at smbdy - good tank can make every run easy. if monk suggested some changes - listen to monk.

edit: why platemail?

As a guy just learning to bond, reading your thread has taught me a great deal. Attached is a link to my "bonder" thread.

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...d.php?t=142026

As you can see, there's some great advice about builds. We all can learn something.

I personally prefer barrier to bond when I'm farming, forget the extra elite. Sometimes I will take bond and SoJ though in Sorrow's Furnace. What I can't stand though is having someone tell me I'm an idiot for taking Life Barrier when I could be taking Life Bond. I've had them kick me out of their groups before in SF runs because I take Barrier. Doesn't matter to them if my groups seldom die, or if I prefer not confusing my healer by taking damage every time the tank gets hit.

People have their own builds for these things, some of them flat out don't work. But just because someone else is going a different route in their build, doesn't mean they are a noob.

I remember before the AOE nerf trying to get a group to pick up a smiting monk instead of an Ele in Sorrow's Furnace brought only laughter. But my Ele groups failed much more often than my smiting groups. I also remember trying my dangest to get these Ele groups to take an echo SS necro instead of an Ele, but that didn't work either.

Fact of the matter was, people read that the true five man build was 2 monks, Warrior, and Ele back before the AOE nerf and they refused to listen to anyone else.

Even now, try to talk an SF group into letting you take Sympathetic Visage and you'll get booted 9 times out of 10. People get set in their ways and refuse to try new things, thinking those of us who do are somehow idiots.

Flicka

Bond and Barrier both suck in PvE. Warrior takes aggro, warrior only one taking damage, warrior has good armour. Every other mob has Shatter Enchantment, and quite frankly I don't like running into battle with 100 health missing from my bar. Unless for some reason you like when the battle turns into complete chaos, everyone is getting attacked, curses are spread out, you need to kite. Seriously, with the way everyone exploits everything why every other warrior can't take aggro is beyond me.

If you're debating on taking Barrier, bring Spell Breaker instead. Warriors have 100+ AL vs. physical, with that single spell you can make them immune to their weak spot long enough to take out the threats.

"Ofcourse, with my american background I flashed my Rank 3 emote at his face and rage quit."

Typical americans

I'm not american but I would have quit anyway. Not rage quit of course.

Just no point in wasting time.

At time i play FOW 2 times by day, the trick is a warriror agroo first and get all care from monks prot and heal... this allways work for me... never see a monk spree enchant for every ones... at last the mesmers will take off the enchants and deal damage... and what we will get? a helling monk crazy trying to heal everyone and a prot monk stoped with enchants...
In the time of elite partys everytone care about yourself...

Seeing threads like this, where most everyone is perfect, makes me glad I almost never put up with PUG's.

Ha, got you beat, never pug'd before....well, do infusion runs count?

Maybe I'm an idiot, maybe I simply don't understand how to bond in SF. But I always assume the stance tank is a moron and plan accordingly.

I run Barrier, Bond, and Watchfull Spirit (I've yet to see anyone else run this one there).

The tank gets all 3, the rest get Barrier and Watchfull. That's 9 total.

Watchfull is there to cover, and if the healer goes down I have used it to keep everyone alive long enough to rez him. It also seems to help the tank run for it, but I'm not sure how bad that tank has to be to need it.

My personal biggest problem is teams that don't seem to understand that Bonders and MM's need to stop a lot, and we tend to get left behind. That's not the end of the world for the MM, but as a bonder it leaves a ton of work to start over.

The other prob is how few guys seem to realize that giving me a single E boost cuts my set up time at least by half.

It would be easy to claim that the build only works because of the AI workaround, but I've had the tank drop his item and try to fight at least 1/3 of the time in PuG's. I've also had the tank not be a tank at all, but set up for smiting as though he were solo farming. I've had the healer run way too close to the fight, and the Nuker act like he was invincible.

One thing I've never done is flash an emote at someone. But that's just me.

Personal note to Gun: You're just going to the wrong clubs my friend. If it weren't for this pesky war going on now, I'd suggest you join the military. They say you'll see the world, which will be mostly a lie. But you WILL see a very large number of very poor but attractive women, who are more than willing to be your friend as long as your money doesn't run out.

I'm not really recomending that as a lifestyle choice, if you have any sort of moral compass at all you'll feel at least somewhat guilty about it. But you do seem to be searching, so I thought I'd let you know what you've been doing wrong. Might I suggest the PI, or even Juarez or TJ as places to start?

I've not seen warriors survive long against 20 dredge warriors and rangers in the heart of SF without a bond. Sure maybe if you want to pull them 4 at a time, he'll be fine. That method takes all day. But if you want in and out within a 1/2 hour, bonds are required.

As to taking out threats quickly, a warrior is all but useless dealing damage in SF when facing two priests of sorrows, or worse, two priests and healing boss. He's pretty much just there to absorb the aggro.

Flick

Ya you had my sympathy until you started talking about the leet deer emote, and the american way of GW. Give me a break, your just as bad as the idiot, just you might know how to play better. And you show your own noobishness by assuming because of his armor that he would be an experienced player.

B.S. is nice and eveything to get enrgy back and all but you don't need to throw bonds on everyone just those who are in melee range.I was a bonder once but never used B.S. as you get it later in the game after Life Bond.I only threw it on those in melee range this was at level 13 around Kyrta.I used it in Gates mission worked really well and that was last May.I didn't have great enrgy supply to boot either.

I had a good laugh reading this

I'll be happy to inform Chris Rock, the one who used the champane quote in a song. Those places you suggest might be good places to start 'bonding' for some of us.

Bonding is inherently a lazyman job. It isn't so much with the active play. That said, anyone who can't do it without a battery necro is simply an idiot.

Gold deer means you are right? Prolly as true as black 15k plate and a fellblade make you good.

As i was wondering through the forums I found a fame farming service. Yes i guess you can call it the occasional iway deer but i earned mine with a bunch of friends.... had fun owning unexpirienced players and had even more fun getting owned by expirienced ones. We learned a lot by losing and i think that makes me a better player. On the subject I have never seen as much disrespect at a european server as i have in american, im not trying to be stereotyping but im pretty damn sure the word noob was around in america sooner then it was europe. As for the disrespect and ego on both sides, i dont take it lightly, if im sure of something, sure what the hell ill go off on the person untill he sh!ts his damn pants. I dont like dealing with kids but thats just a factor of the game and its totally fine. As far as bonding goes, to reply to one of your comments, bonders arent needed in fow huh? Well then pal u try outhealing a 140 dmg deepfreeze to multiple allies while getting maelstormed and energy surged. The hell u dont even need healers the tanks armor is so high!!!!!

Reply to sents: The other day I decided to go to fow, i came across a pretty good looking group, the monk had fow armor. At this point i could think two things, A: Monk sucks, Ebayed his way to armor. B: Monk is good, worked hard and spent time on the game improving his builds. This time sterotyping worked positivly, i suspected the monk will be good, and what do u know, 2 hours later and 25k richer im sitting here writing to you guys. As far as me stooping down to his level, but being more expirienced, your totally right, i 100% agree with you..... EXCEPT WITH ONE FACTOR, He messed up, i confronted him, i finished it. done. IF, IF , IF , IF he didnt say he was so gdamn good with fow, telling me what to do, telling me that i should bring 5 bonds? i wouldnt have reacted like that, cause and effect he had it coming and it came to him strong.

Firstly, bonds don't trigger on magical damage. Second, if your idiot allies are dumb enough to bunch up knowing full well that AoEs are coming, how you managed to get to the skeletons in the first place is beyond me. Personally I just slap a Spell Breaker on our aggro grabbing tank and watch them wand our warrior for 0.

Active prot ftw.

Wrong again man, after the icehands and ethers waste some spells on the warrior, they go straight for the near by nukers and monks. Thus making the warrior sit there like an idiot while the team gets owned. As far as the AoE spreading.... oh please i cant tell u how many people never spread out at the skeletons. You tell them to spread out, sure they'll do it now u gotta chase em around trying to heal.

Active prot isnt an option because of the low conditions caused by the enemy and 1 infuser could not handle the dmg spike from the lvl 24-28 monsters, thus making bonders the best avialable choice.

You have no idea how to play an active prot then.

Reply to age: People in who go into fow must be ascended, with that said they should have a good majority of skills unlocked, i dont suggest bonding in the early process in the game because you just DONT need it. Anyway, most people nowadays have droknars armor at low levels so bonders are a waste, boon prot and healer is what u should use at low level. Balthazars spirit SHOULD be used by people who use life bond, anyone who doesnt take advantage of the energy upkeep it gives you should reconsider their build.

From exirience it is easy to assume people with larger values of armor are more expirenced because their playing was worth while. HE HAD A piece of fow armor. Hmmmm lets see, would u think he is expirenced if he had something worth 100k from the place??? I didnt make a bad mistake and i am not just as bad as the idiot, Noobishness has nothing to do with judgement, so once again your wrong. The american ways are the american ways, as i said before there is 10 times as much disrespect in american servers then u will ever see in european.