Outhealing spike

Morganas

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: May 2005

I'm having trouble dealing with spike damage with my current mo/me monk build, using the skills hex breaker, healing touch, orison, healing hands, healing seed, dwaynas kiss, drain enchant, and a res spell. I have no energy problems, or problems keeping people alive against normal teams, it's just the darn spikers. I also think that my healing seed is getting stripped against the first spike target in most cases.


My last build, a boon protector with energy drain as elite, easily protected from spike damage, but had severe energy problems, and couldn't deal with NR well.

Is there some happy medium where I can both defend from spike and do regular healing against other sorts of teams?

Btw, this is for 8 player maps, the build can actually handle spike from 4 player teams (though it's still a close call usually).

knives

knives

Jungle Guide

Join Date: Jun 2005

USA

Grenths Rejects [GR]

Me/

Bring a prot monk running low casting time enchants. (RoF + Prot Spirit ftw). Even with NR down 1/4 - 1/2 cast times doesn't really devstate it. Also if you are really scared of spirit teams bring signet of devotion, all the cool kids are doing it. Mend ailment + martyr anyone?

Morganas

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: May 2005

My problem with the protector is I can't heal effectively without divine boon, and then I have energy problems against a normal team. Also, alot of spirit teams use that +hp spirit that makes prot spirit completely worthless, and they tend to have lots of "machine gun" rangers that run well under NR, making RoF useless too.

Syno Nym

Academy Page

Join Date: Jul 2005

Les Grosbilloux

R/W

A protector isn't supposed to heal, it's supposed to "protect" as its name indicates. That means Prot spirit, Mend ailment, Reversal, Smite hex or Remove hex or Inspire hex, Aegis, etc... All that can PREVENT your mates to take damage.

I tried playing with boon a few times, but I definitly think it's not that great for a prot.

smurfhunter

smurfhunter

Banned

Join Date: Aug 2005

my w/mo uses mending, orison, and healing breeze. you cant kill him.

Sand Scorpions [SS]

W/Mo

this is a leetle bit off topic but ive had similar problems in 4-4 team arenas.

watch as i smoothly transition into my problems...

as the only monk on a 4-4 team, duh everyone runs after me and its quite the circus. only problem is i die in like 10 seconds. any suggestion/builds which can theoretically survive against an onslought of like 2 warriors and a caster? (please no uw builds... im sick of those)

oh and you have to be able to heal as well

Morganas

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: May 2005

Hex breaker, healing touch, and orison is all I need to stay alive, that and a good deal of running. If you're up against warriors, run, long before they can catch you. It REALLY helps to have a snare character on your team for this.

If you start out far back from your group, if you get targeted, you can force even the elementalists to chase you and waste time. If the other team's chasing you, you don't need to heal anyone else. Also, make sure your warrior knows that you won't follow them into battle, and will run to you if they need healing.

smurfhunter

smurfhunter

Banned

Join Date: Aug 2005

my w/mo uses mending, orison, and healing breeze. you cant kill him.

Sand Scorpions [SS]

W/Mo

thats what i *try* to do.... only i once met this dude who did like 100 damage a hit with a hammer and knocked me down to the point where i was doing situps.

ouch

Morganas

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: May 2005

Going protection for pacifism can be a temporary fix, but this is where your teamates come into play.

Earth ele for wards, air ele for blind, water for slow, illusion mesmer, curses necs, even other hammer warriors can all potentially counter high damage warriors. Warriors are the most devastating class in the game if left unchecked, so make sure you have some good anti-warrior skills on your team, and don't just group with damage oriented characters.

Having a nec on your side can deal with your warrior problems entirely, to find one, ask for curses necs, then when they join, ask them if they're good at dealing damage. If they say yes, boot them and find another.

Yukito Kunisaki

Yukito Kunisaki

Forge Runner

Join Date: Mar 2005

Chicago, IL

W/N

What's a monk's second class for again?

Oh yeah, to trick the enemy team into thinking you have more than just monk only skills...

*note sarcasm...*

Rossaroni

Academy Page

Join Date: Jun 2005

Knight Vision [KnV]

Mo/

What kind of spiking? Air ele spiking? Signet spikers? Regardless, what you need is bigger heals. Heal other, healing seed, word of healing (why would you use healing hands anyways?), and then just spam. You shouldn't be the only monk on an 8-man team. At least there should one more healing monk.

Anyways, I suggest finding a way to prevent or buffer damage instead of trying to match the damage with healing. Tip: winter.

Fr3sH

Academy Page

Join Date: Jul 2005

Doers of Evil

Mo/Me

Spell breaker

Vermilion Okeanos

Forge Runner

Join Date: Feb 2005

If you don't want to use enchantment because of NR... then stances are the next in line... try out some stances such as mantra of lightning and dryder's defense.

If you are talking about a well coordinated obsidian flame... your chance of blocking that without enchantment are... praticaly none.

smurfhunter

smurfhunter

Banned

Join Date: Aug 2005

my w/mo uses mending, orison, and healing breeze. you cant kill him.

Sand Scorpions [SS]

W/Mo

Quote:
Originally Posted by Rossaroni
What kind of spiking? Air ele spiking? Signet spikers? Regardless, what you need is bigger heals. Heal other, healing seed, word of healing (why would you use healing hands anyways?), and then just spam. You shouldn't be the only monk on an 8-man team. At least there should one more healing monk.

Anyways, I suggest finding a way to prevent or buffer damage instead of trying to match the damage with healing. Tip: winter. this is 4-4 team arenas. and it was a warrior with a hammer bigger than me.

and uh... correct me if im wrong but winter works on elemental damage, and monks dont have that special defense against it unlike rangers.

and see the problem with asking your teamates to help you is that they just turn around and laugh at you because the enemy team ganked you in about 10 seconds >.<

and i am a mo/n with offering of blood, any good blood prots?

and all the heals you mentioned wont work on me, and its all about me in this post

thats what i hate about 4-4, the monk has to be a prot, heal, warrior, etc.

im going on strike

Zeru

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: May 2005

Infuse Health and Divine Intervention are two of the better anti-spike spells out there due to the 1/4 second cast and rather large heal. Infuse Health is absolutely terrible in terms of energy efficient healing unless you are an el/mo with 14 estorage, ether renewal, and aura of restoration. Divine Intervention is not that great but it has uses, especially under QZ.

Vs a good air spike team you will have no chance to stop the spike unless you are using fertile. The key to those matchups is getting your monks ressed and outlasting them.

I've been messing around in random arena lately and the two builds that have worked decently well are an aura of faith healer and a prot booner. On the AoF user I rarely have to switch to my second focus since 160 health sig devos are extremely good. The prot booner offers good damage mitigation but energy is quite taking even with energy drain as energy management.

Give this a try if nothing else works in random arena:

16 DF
10+1 HP
8 Insp

Aura of Faith {E}
Orison
Healing Touch
Hex Breaker (must-have in arena)
Heal Other
Inspired Hex/Channeling
Signet of Devotion
Healing Seed/Divine Intervention/Channeling

DI is halfway decent here because you don't have reversal and therefore cannot stop a good hammer chain with anything else besides prot spirit (only have time for 1/4s casts in between dev hammer and heavy/hammer). lvl 16 DI with AoF on you is a 380 hp or so heal which is a huge help when you're the lone monk facing a hammer.

Ender Ward

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: Apr 2005

Protective Spirit is your friend. You don't need to be a "Protector" monk to use it. Simply having 9 ranks in Protection Prayers and using a 20% longer enchants staff gets you 19 seconds duration. That's way more than necessary, especially taking into account NR spamming with Oath Shot + QZ.

Ofcourse if you meet a 'good' spike team that coordinates NR/Lingering/Rend with their spike, then nothing short of being clairvoyant with Spell Breaker, or using Fertile Season is going to save you. Nothing realistic, atleast (Mantra of Frost on a Monk + Winter need not apply).

So your best bet is to have Protective Spirit yourself and to have a Ranger on a team with Fertile Season.

Schorny

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Apr 2005

If you go down to fast, try some things to protect you.
For example protective spirit (may be cast from another char), armor of earth, kinetic armor, balanced stance, some defense stance like dryders or something, have someone life bond you and/or life barrier you...

just a few ideas look through all the other classes defense skills and see if anything can fit you...

smurfhunter

smurfhunter

Banned

Join Date: Aug 2005

my w/mo uses mending, orison, and healing breeze. you cant kill him.

Sand Scorpions [SS]

W/Mo

my biggest problem with that i guess is that i have to funnel about 9 attribs into blood magic to get my offering of blood to work. i.e. no prot for me.

anyone know some good energy management skills with a heal/diving/prot attrib?

meh i guess ill just look in teh database. thanks for the advice tho

EmperorTippy

EmperorTippy

Jungle Guide

Join Date: Jun 2005

Bring a protection monk and you bring protective spirit with only whatever left over attribute points that you have in protection. If your up against a NR-Spike team that is corrdinated extremly well then nothing short of a mirical will allow you to live (5 chain lighting right as NR drops anyone? Only MAntra of Frost+Winter will save you then. Usally though the team isn't that cordinated so as soon as you see NR drop put up Protective spirit. Chances are that if a spike is coming you will block it even if protective spirt only lasts 6 seconds.

Schorny

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Apr 2005

Quote:
Originally Posted by smurfhunter
anyone know some good energy management skills with a heal/diving/prot attrib? for example: Signet of devotion, peace and harmony, devine spirit

NIB

Academy Page

Join Date: Jul 2005

LF top 100 guild

E/Me

Why try to coordinate nr, when you can use rend enchanments or lingering and do the same thing but easier? Anyway if you are having problem with spike teams, use oathshot+fertile+qz ftw. Not to mention that you can easily interupt 1-2 spikers and thus pretty much make the enemy useless(since their spike wont be enough to instantly kill 1 of your allies). Spike teams are like so 2 months ago.

Quote:
Signet of devotion, peace and harmony, devine spirit Peace and harmony is useless since it will be removed easily by nr or whatever. Divine spirit is semiuseless with the 60sec recharge. Only use divine spirit if your team is using qz. Sig of dev is very good. Watch for primal echoes though and dont use it when its up. And personally, i would advise you to either go prot or healer and go for inspiration. For example go mo/me and get 12 healing, 12 divine, 10 inspiration. Get energy drain and inspired hex. Here is a typical generic healer monk build for tombs

1. Orizon
2. Signet of devotion
3. Heal other
4. Healing touch
5. Heal area/heal party or whatever
6. Inspired hex(or some other hex removal or hex breaker or whatever)
7. Energy drain
8. Healing seed

smurfhunter

smurfhunter

Banned

Join Date: Aug 2005

my w/mo uses mending, orison, and healing breeze. you cant kill him.

Sand Scorpions [SS]

W/Mo

aaah guys i dont know how to stress the fact that this is 4-4, not tombs. in tombs i go all healing and let the prot and 3rd monk save me if i get ganked. BUT this is 4-4.

lemme say that again: this is 4-4

ok?

im interested in... self healing/prot with either an attrib in blood magic, or a good energy management elite with an attrib in one of the monk attribs.

i just dont want you guys wasting your time writing things that really dont apply. i mean thanks for the build NIB...but...

Schorny

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Apr 2005

Quote:
Originally Posted by NIB
Peace and harmony is useless since it will be removed easily by nr or whatever. Divine spirit is semiuseless with the 60sec recharge. I thought we talked about arena?

And all I gave were some examples what a monk can do for energy management.

Neo-LD

Neo-LD

Desert Nomad

Join Date: May 2005

USA

[GSS][SoF][DIII]

In 4v4 you either have 2 monks or if you are the only monk, you go heal/prot. Healing Touch + Prot Spirit > spike.

Or you could run pure healing with divine boon vigorous spirit healing touch and contemplation of purity, in which case you can use a booned touch (16 DF) and then hit contemplation (1/4s cast) for the most insane self healing in the game.

Lumanis

Pre-Searing Cadet

Join Date: Aug 2005

www.cracknight.com

Mo/W

Sherman Tank
www.cracknight.com

9 Divine
9 Tactics
Rest Healing [+3]

Orison
Healing Touch
Healing Breeze
---Optional Slot--- (Healing Seed)
Rez Sig
Shield Stance
Bonnetti's Defense
Gladiator's Stance


The 3 defensive stances allow you to virtually ignore warriors.
The only time they punch through your stances is if you are not able to get in enough standard attacks between heals (bonettis).
Gladiator stance IS optional, but the 30 second recycle makes helps you keep near 100% uptime on stances.

This is my base build.
I've made about 10 useful and fun variations of this; all of them pwn in the random arenas.
You can swap Gladiator's Defense with Defensive stance to experiment with other elites in your optional slot (spell breaker, etc).

Honestly; playing any monk build w/ out a shield and stances makes me feel like a naked pu$$y.
You can just heal through spikes while you ignore warriors.

smurfhunter

smurfhunter

Banned

Join Date: Aug 2005

my w/mo uses mending, orison, and healing breeze. you cant kill him.

Sand Scorpions [SS]

W/Mo

interesting idea Lumanis, but for some reason i usually go through my energy faster than you, and i dont think i can last without the +12 on the ankh *and* without some kind of energy management.

on the other hand, i saw this ridiculously amazing build someone used to basically outlast other monks (in 4-4), and keep us alive while we slowly cut down the enemies monk. it was about 20 wins in team arenas, strating in random arenas (fyi)

the build (as far as i could see) was this:
attribs:
all divine favor and all prot. as far as i could see secondary wasnt used.

elite:
___ aura. i forget the exact name, but it was the enchant that lasts 60 seconds and says 'target gets +50% healing from all sources'. (its +50% only because he has alot of divine favor)

he used essence bond on himself, and spammed prot spirit alot. other than that he used his like 42 hp divine healing bonus with reversal to heal me.

its a kind of rough idea but he didnt really 'heal' per se, he let you *last*. since starting from random arenas, almost everyone in the group had a self heal, and that elite spirit was letting me heal about 200 with healing signt.

and the entire team went after him, i would see his hp kind of steadily, but really slowly, work its way down. (keyword slowly). while most monks i was with had a kind of 'spike heal', they would use things like heal other and healing touch, ie health going all over the place.

once we managed to drop the enemy monk, it was like knocking down a tower of playing cards, the players fell one by one, and never really recovered.

i never saw a team kill/beat him, because he quit before that.

can anyone fill in some of the blanks in this build i outlined?

*edit* the build as far as i know:

1) protective spirit
2) ___ aura {E}
3) mend condition
4) reversal of fortune
5) essence bond
6) -unknown- (blessed signt? never saw it used but its a possibility)
7) -unknown-
8) -unknown-

Lumanis

Pre-Searing Cadet

Join Date: Aug 2005

www.cracknight.com

Mo/W

interesting idea Lumanis, but for some reason i usually go through my energy faster than you, and i dont think i can last without the +12 on the ankh *and* without some kind of energy management.

---------------------------------------------

Bonneti's defense is your energy management.
Breeze yourself; hit bonneti's; and your back to full in a few seconds (as long as somebody is attacking you).

Sometimes I throw a seed and and extra breeze somewhere else to dump my energy to 0 before I hit bonneti's (assuming somebody is on u).

I run with 30-35 energy with a shield and a wand; U can also sub out Shield stance w/ a stance that doesn't require a shield (bonneti and gladiator don't require shield).

About 15% of the time groups have trouble killing me after my team is dead.... this depends on group make-up. Sometimes they just outright can't do it.

smurfhunter

smurfhunter

Banned

Join Date: Aug 2005

my w/mo uses mending, orison, and healing breeze. you cant kill him.

Sand Scorpions [SS]

W/Mo

no offense Lumanis, but im trying to balance surviving and healing. personally your build looks more geared toward personal survival. but thanks for the advice, i will definetly give it a shot

Ensign

Ensign

Just Plain Fluffy

Join Date: Dec 2004

Berkeley, CA

Idiot Savants

Monk/Warrior Stance builds like that are incredibly effective against mediocre teams actually - they'll spot the monk (you), and keep attacking you despite how poorly they're faring. It isn't particularly effective against really bad teams (who attack whoever), and good teams (who realize you're more of a tank than a healer and wipe out the rest of your team instead). Of course you don't see good teams in random arena, so...

Peace,
-CxE

smurfhunter

smurfhunter

Banned

Join Date: Aug 2005

my w/mo uses mending, orison, and healing breeze. you cant kill him.

Sand Scorpions [SS]

W/Mo

actually i usually am one of those persons in bad teams that continues attacking despite how poorly im faring. my rationale is if no one harrasses the monk, he can easily keep 3 people alive unless he really is terrible. but ill try to spot one that uses too many stances and thus disables most of the healing. (dont get me wrong - im not dumb enough to sit on this range using a 15 second whirling def... but i make usually change my strat when near healing monks)

trouble is all you see from a stance is 'evade' 'block' and possibly damage, as well as the animation. kinda annoying. (which reminds me, back when you had to hit the cap sig when the boss used it, capturing glads d was a nightmare)

but you are essentially right, it barely matters alot in random arenas because the team usually sucks horribly anyway

gah why do all the forms of pvp have to have such radicly different styles

NIB

Academy Page

Join Date: Jul 2005

LF top 100 guild

E/Me

Ok my mistake, i thought we were talking about tombs. Anyway, for arenas, i liked armor of earth. Most teams are noobs and dont even remove it. And even if they remove it, it has low recharge and casting time and its dirt cheap.

Van the Warrior

Van the Warrior

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: May 2005

In Yak's Bend like always...

W/

shielding hands and echo....or just have a ranger spam oath + shielding cause dmg redux is nice

Lumanis

Pre-Searing Cadet

Join Date: Aug 2005

www.cracknight.com

Mo/W

I've tried every monk build combo I can think of; and thats the one that rules random 4v4... and does quite well in team 4v4.

I bring heal seed; cause the 1-3 warriors realize they can't hit me after a stance or 2.... then I seed their next target.

It's not like your gimping your healing... you have like 16 heal and 9 divine with 4 slots for heals.

I'd love ideas for other 4v4 builds that I havn't tried.... post em if you got em.

Neo-LD

Neo-LD

Desert Nomad

Join Date: May 2005

USA

[GSS][SoF][DIII]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Lumanis
I've tried every monk build combo I can think of; and thats the one that rules random 4v4... and does quite well in team 4v4.

I bring heal seed; cause the 1-3 warriors realize they can't hit me after a stance or 2.... then I seed their next target.

It's not like your gimping your healing... you have like 16 heal and 9 divine with 4 slots for heals.

I'd love ideas for other 4v4 builds that I havn't tried.... post em if you got em. As said before, the build is good vs ok opponents, but good teams will make you pay because:

1) You have no ability to deal with conditions
2) You have no way to deal with hexes
3) Unless they are attacking you (which they will stop doing) you dont have any energy management.
4) Though you can heal ok, no energy management + low energy (cus of no focus) means you will not keep up with the damage for more than ~10-15 seconds.
5) While those stances own warriors and somewhat rangers, eles, necros, mesmers, and smiters will walk right through it.


If you ask me, a much better apporach is a boon/oferring monk (heal or prot pick one, it doesnt matter that much) he can easily keep up with spikes and he can replensh his energy. If you need to brutally deny warriors just bring an earth ele to drop you a ward. (remember, arena is made up of 4 person teams, and 4 people that work together well will beat 4 people with Im-so-cool-I-can-do-everything characters that happen to be on the same side)

Lumanis

Pre-Searing Cadet

Join Date: Aug 2005

www.cracknight.com

Mo/W

It's all theorycraft @ this point, but you can't do any of the things above when your running from a hammer warrior (or 2).
In addition... you can't even heal your own team.

Either way; try the stance builds if you havn't already.
I gave you a base template, and it is easily modified.

You can add Hex removal; condition removal; spellbreaker...
You can run 2 stances instead of 3.
You can throw a weapon skill up to 9 and use a style (Faster attack speed = more bonnetis = more energy)
You can throw protection up to 9 and use protective spirit.
You can put Smite @ 9 for Wrath (Wrath + Gladiators on warrior = hurt).

I run the sherman tank so many different ways that it never gets boring.