24 May 2005 at 04:14 - 2
If you're going to use Channeling, also consider Balthazar's Spirit or Essence Bond [I'll go into them later]. Having both, while under fire, unless they're capable of out-damaging your healing, you'll be able to keep yourself alive quite easily.
Every time you take damage, +1 energy. Every time you cast a spell, each foe around you gives you +1 energy. If you're being pounded on by 3 warriors, that's 3 energy after each hit, and another 3 for each spell, and you can just spam away.
You're not the monk under fire? That's OK, move next to the enemy anyway. If they DO aggro on you, it's a good thing. If they don't, then you'll still gain the benefits of channeling. If they continually ignore you, cancel Balthazar's Spirit and recast it on your ally, and they'll gain the extra energy from it as they get pounded on, which can be a real help to a monk. If you have Essence Bond, then you can do the same thing, and instead of your ally gaining the energy, you do. Either way, the net change in energy is the same.
As to which to choose from Balthazar's Spirit and Essence Bond, either one works to the same effect on yourself without needing points in any attributes. Balthazar's Spirit will help get energy to the person it's cast on, while Essence Bond is always focused to you. Really just depends on whether you need the energy more when you're not the one being attacked, or the other monk in your group.
Anyway, I've rarely had resource management problems using the Channeling + whichever maintained enchantment combo, except where the enemy uses a lot of enchantment removal. You pretty much recover energy too fast over time to be hit badly from energy control tactics, although it's bound to hurt still.
It's hardly perfect, but I suggest trying it nevertheless. Good luck with whatever you do use.