Mo/N

I've been running this Mo/N build in PvP (arenas mainly) and PvE recently (just about to finish the game with him), and was wondering if people could give any suggestions on how I might improve my build. At present I'm running:

Healing 14 (+3)
Divine Favour 10 (+2)
Blood 10
Protection Prayers 2

Healing Touch
Orison of Healing
Dwanya's Kiss
Comtemplation of Purity
Mend Ailment
Divine Boon
Offering of Blood {E}
Res Sig/Restore Life

My basic strategy is that I throw up divine boon and try to heal allies with Orison/Dwanya, and self-heal with healing touch. I have a net +10 energy gain on my offering of blood, so I almost never actually run out of energy. I keep mend ailment around to treat poison and weakness or allies, and things like cripple on myself (if I'm getting chased, for example). I just recently dropped heal other for comtemplation of purity, because I've been having problems with mesmers and fragility rangers. This way, with the 1/4s casting time on comtemplation, I can sometimes get rid of a primary hex (like a backfire) before the secondary lands on me, then just recast divine boon and keep going.

The problems I've found so far are that without a spell like heal other, I have a hard time keeping up with heavy spike damage. If someone is really getting hammered, even if I spam orison and dwanya, I have a tough time keeping them afloat. Additionally, I don't have any hex removal for allies, just myself, but I just can't stand the casting time on remove hex.

Finally, just as an aside, I'm wondering if I could safely drop res signet. In the arenas, I've found that if the other team is any good, I'm the first one dead or the mesmer is, so could I safely drop it (particularly for say 8v8), for a spike heal or something like healing seed?

Thanks in advance

Rico

That's a pretty solid build. Yeah, I think you can probably safely drop the Res Sig and go with some sort of Hex Removal like Smite Hex or something like Healing Seed, although Seed might be too much for a Booner.

Prot Booners are much more effective against things like Hammer Warriors, and they give a nice boost to Contemplation with all the enchants you can sling around. Maybe consider that.

Personally, I prefer /mesmer secondary on monks, but /nerco is very playable.

well if you stay to blood necro, you could perhaps think about some other nice spells, like:
*Replacing your signet by a Well of Blood.
*Blood Renewal could be good, if you want more self healing and sparing of energy.
Its a very nice lifesaver for necro monks.

My concern with blood renewal is that the sacrifice on it is really big. If I'm getting pounded, the last thing I want to do is take off more ~130 damage. Sure, I'll get it back later, but chances are I'd have to use a healing hands right after it anyway, so I don't think that looks particularly good for a PvP build. I may give it a try though. I've used Well of Blood for PvE a little bit before, but again, in PvP I think it might be too situational. The casting cost/casting time are both quite high, and there has to be an ally close enough to a corpse (which aren't nearly as common in PvP anyway) for it to be useful.

Rico

Quote:

I run a build very similar to this, and it works quite well. First thing I noticed is your helm. The skill helm you're using should ALWAYS give +1 the the attribute you have the most base points into. Having a +1 divine favor helm instead of healing is a waste of attribute points. True, this doesn't always matter, but there's no reason to do otherwise. Secondly, if you're not going to be using any blood skills other than offering of blood, I would recommend having 7 in blood, going up to 10 isn't worth the 1 mana. Those attribute points would be better spent in divine favor.

Personally, I go with the following attribute points:

Healing 11+1=12
Divine Favor 11+2=13
Blood 7
and 6 in either smiting or protection depending on the setup

If you feel the need to use a superior rune in this setup, use sup divine favor. Orison, healing touch, mend ailment, and when you recast boon benefit more from divine, while Dwayna's Kiss is the only skill you're using that benefits more from healing than from divine favor. Only reason to use healing would be if you were using Vigorous Spirit, Healing Seed, or some other healing spell that benefits more from healing than divine favor.

Quote:

The Monk's protection line has the best tools to handle spike damage. Spells like Aegis, Protective Spirit and Reversal of Fortune will take care of spikers easily.

Pax