Life Bond / Life Barrier in PvE - Is the combo worth the elite?

Question for ya alls:

I often run Final Assault with a group of 5, playing as the Protection / Heal Monk. I usually use the following skills:

Blessed Signit
Life Bond
Mend (+4)
Essence Bond
Healing Breeze (+8 or 9, can't remember)
Dwayna's Kiss (about 250 heal for warrior)
Word of Healing (200 ish healing)
Rebirth

I'm set for a single purpose: Keep the aggro warrior alive. I cast Bond / Mend / Essence on the warrior, and Mend myself, so my regen is zero. Bond others as needed in emergency. Dwayna's for the warrior, Word for emergency aggro. I've tried other builds, but this always seems to work best for me.

Now the question: am I being stupid by not using the Bond / Barrier combo? In most cases Bond / Mend will mean that I only have to occasionally heal the warrior (Mend is to counter conditions, not really for healing). Or is there another combo that is more effective?

Word of Healing has saved my team countless times when the other Monk gets overwhelmed, so I really hate to part with it.

Any ideas how I could improve this build? I've tried using Mark of Prot (recharge too long), Shield of Regen (yawn, not much better than breeze in Furnace), Restore condition (they just put them back on...) et. al.

Looking for help improving my Monking, specifically in Sorrow's Furnace (but also in FOW for 1 warrior groups). I'm pretty experinced with over 100 runs. Thanks.

Try this it was fun for me

Life Bond
Life Barrier
Blessed Signet
Balthazars Spirit
Protective Spirit
Mend Ailment
Rebirth
Reversal of Fortune
16 Prot
13 Divine Favor
Rest into Smiting

that would reduce the agro tanks dmg to Boom..

Moved to the campfire (builds) forum for a more precise discussion

Na, you need to have mesmer secondary to have fun with it...
Mantra of Inscriptions rulez

Oh Yea that one too

and also to heal Reversal should be enuff

My PvE Mo/Me -

14 Protection
11 Divine Favor
10 Smiting Prayers
7 Inspiration

1. Mantra of Inscriptions
2. Blessed Signet
3. Mend Ailment/Mend Condition
4. Guardian/Aegis
5. Shielding Hands/Aegis
6. Smite Hex
7. Life Barrier {E}
8. Rebirth

Dedicated protector. No direct healing to speak of, so it might not be what you're looking for w00t!. Life Barrier is a wonderful, wonderful enchantment. I usually put it on 4-5 members of the party, and use Mantra+Blessed Sig for my energy management. Unless I run into mass enchantment stripping at a horrible time (Well of Suffering can do it, especially if my teammates refuse to move out of the well), Life Barrier makes things very easy on the healer monk. When under heavy fire, Guardian and Shielding Hands are nice ways to soften the damage some more. Sometimes I swap in Aegis, like when I'm sharing monking duties with one of the other monks in my guild who is prot, so that we don't accidently Shielding Hands the same person. We share the Aegis - one puts it up, then the other puts it up. With our enchant-lengthening staves, our party is without Aegis for only a short period.

Smiting could be dropped some, since I only use it for Smite Hex, but I love Smite Hex. It does about 60 dmg in an AoE and removes a hex, which is essential if I get hit with Rust. I hate Rust. Makes activating my Blessed Sig a pain in the arse. Only thing I don't like about Smite Hex is the recharge, but I can deal.

Anyway, that's how I use Life Barrier. No Life Bond, no Balth's Spirit, no Essence Bond... just straight-up Barrier. When it's on, it's that effective. I'm beginning to see why its an elite.

EDIT: Oh, one more thing. I don't have Reversal of Fortune in there, and I know many monks will bash me for being a protector without RoF. Let me explain. Life Barrier reduces the damage my teammates take, which makes the life-gain associated with RoF minimal. I prefer to prevent the damage all-together in the form of Guardian or Shielding Hands. Sure, Guardian only works against physical attacks, and Shielding Hands has a recharge, but I find it works. RoF was a drain on my energy and I didn't see it doing much more than preventing one attack every two seconds and not healing much. Guardian has the protential to prevent much more than that over the course of 5 seconds, and Shielding Hands has the potential to reduce the damage taken to zero with the help of Life Barrier, which I think is a great use of 5 energy.

Yea, drop smiting to min. and get protection to lvl 16.

What to do about hex removal though, Dmitri3? Remove Hex? Holy Veil?

I always use smite hex, even though it's always around lvl 3... when I play supportive role.
Don't think you have to care about the damage, you removed the hex in one sec - that's all /clap .

ADD: Using that many attributes for one single skill, not even elite is kinda sick!

Thing is that in Sorrow's Furnace you can't keep up with hexes and conditions, so I don't even try. I just counter their effects with the combo of Mend / Breeze (+13 counters a max of -15 pretty well).

In my experience there are only a couple of places where damage spikes; where the Bond / Barrier is merited. In those cases I just spam Kiss and Word.

The crux of my problem is that I just can't seem to get rid of Word. One healer in Sorrow's Furnace isn't enough, even with a keg holder. I need the bigi bang of Word with the small energy cost. I just can't shake the feeling that I could be doing this more efficiently tho.

Good idea on switching secondary to Mez. I've only kept Warrior for Sprint, as I don't solo. Doesn't do me much good in FoW or Furnace, so I might as well drop it.

Hm, hm, what about these warriors running all around the place? lol

Yea, you're probably right. I used to use more smiting spells and I just never went and reduced my smiting attribute

/duh

I'll fix that poste-haste.

For FA farming in SF, I either go protection or healing, depending on which my guildie goes. We're a monk pair XD

As a protection monk, I use:
Protection Prayers: 16
Divine Favor: 13

Life Barrier
Life Bond
Vital Blessing <- sometimes as a spike heal, or even kept on self.
Blessed Signet
Mend Condition
Reversal of Fortune
Rebirth/Res Sig <- if something goes wrong, can't afford to lose all energy with Rebirth
XX <- spell of choice: Life Attunement, Aegis, Guardian

In my opinion, if you're trying to keep tanks alive (for example, SF farming), then yeah. With a good group, you can take tough areas, though you'd have problems with enchantment shattering, so you better have some overups.

I don't really think that way... Tanks can survive by themselves lol... It's the casters, nukers and all other sorts that need this protection. Plus, the mob changes targets very often :P.

In other words, you're wasting yourself on just one ally, instead of all group... and notice that YOU CAN protect all the party, it's not like you're limited to one person.

this seems like an appropriate place to put this:

as a bonder in sorrows (assuming the tank is holding a keg/gear), do you find yourself having to replace enchantments alot, or are a few cover enchantments enough to stop the removal on the important ones?

I've been curious about this because I ran a bond/barrier monk for the Defend Droknar's Forge quest, and it was just insane how often I was having to reapply enchantments, even when I was attempting to cover them as best I could. (which obviously wasn't good enough :P)

y just not insp hex.

Inspired Hex is nice, but I can only use it every 20 seconds because it becomes the hex that was removed for 20 seconds. I all ready dislike the recharge of Smite Hex, and that's less than 20 seconds.

I've been doing a lot of PvE protection recently with a build that uses the Barrier/Bond combo. I've been using it in FoW mostly and don't know how well it would work in Sorrow's with all the heavy degens and enchant removal, but here it goes:

Mo/Me
Protection Prayers: 10+1
Divine Favour: 11+4
Inspiration: 8

Skills:
Life Barrier {E}
Life Bond
Balthazars Spirit
Blessed Signet
Mantra of Inscriptions
Divine Boon
Reversal of Fortune
Rebirth

At the start I barrier + bond the tank(s) and cast boon and balth's spirit on myself. Bond triggers balth's spirit, so that's a decent amount of extra energy. I usually allso cast barrier on my fellow monk, just to be on the safe side (I play with PUG's mostly and aggro can be very bad sometimes)
During battle I allways keep my eye out on 4 things:
1. How's energy? (Keep hitting that blessed sig and mantra!)
2. Are the enchants still on the tanks (replace ASAP if gone)
3. Which of the non-tanks are taking heat? (Use bond for that extra energy )
4. Who needs some extra healing? (boon + RoF helps out a decent amount)

This build has worked wonders for me, but as stated: in FoW. Haven't tested it yet on the sorrow's quests yet, so could be very bad over there.
One thing noteworthy is that in some areas (restore temple quest for example), I use balthazars spirit on the warriors as a cover-up enchantment.

Hope this has been helpfull!

How many maintained enchantments are you usually maintaining at once, nakama? I imagine this build gets kinda tricky when you approach the Wailing Lord with all the Nature's Renewal spirits laying around.

I maintain about 6-7 enchantments at a time (8-9 at most). So you're right about that wailing lord quest, NR makes me very sad. I usually ask not to do that one, because it kind of renders my build useless.
If the PUG does insist to do that quest, I'd probably just run boon and help out with the healing (pretty hard with only 2 regen). Often times there is a battery necro in the group and he could help out with energy.
But many people seem to hate wailing lord anyway, so most of the times I won't encounter NR. If I'm told in advance we will be doing that quest, I'll either just switch to my healing build or make a build that is not so dependant on maintained enchantments.
Thanks for pointing that out though Schwitz, never did wailing lord with this build and never crossed my mind that NR is used over there. Now I'll be better prepared!

Good build suggestions so far; lots of stuff for me to try.

One thing to realise is that this build is NOT MEANT to protect the party. The entire Sorrow's Furnace proposition is built around a single tank aggroing, using either good teamwork, a gear, or a powder keg. In the cases where other aggro occurs (without the keg or gear, or in mesmer heavy areas), the healers handle it and the casters know how to clear aggro (pick plays, etc.)

Our team is almost always:
1 Tank
2 Echo Nukers (either E/Me or Me/E, funny, it doesn't seem to matter much)
1 Pure healer
1 Prot / Heal or 1 Prot / Smite

Monking as a pure healer is easy, whereas monking as a Prot or Prot hybrid takes real finesse.

And to Super Dooper's point, yes, the enchantments will get knocked down; depending on the area anywhere from 1 to 4 will get taken down. To counter this, cast your spells in a specific order - I use Life Bond, Mend, Essence Bond. That way the Life Bond will be the last to go. Also, just before the warrior draws aggro in buster areas we two monks will cast Breeze, Seed, and Vigerous Spirit. That way those enchantments are busted first.

The build I'm using and want to fine tune is very specific; I realize that this is not a good general-purpose build, and may not even work well for FoW (though it seems to thus far.) But I really enjoy running Sorrow's Furnace with a group of 5 in an area designed for 8. You're dancing on a razor's edge most of the time, even when using the gear or keg exploit. We can do a FA run in 45 minutes, hitting 7-8 bosses along the way. Lots of fun, and everyone knows their job. Also, gives me lots of greens to give to guildmates.

This is a build for a 5 person, 2 monk team. Looks like many of the suggestions have come from people who are used to that setup. 5 seems to be the magic number for competent teams to clear areas quickly and share in lots of loot.

Just gotta watch out for Summit Dark Binders, w00t! Well of the Profane will knock all those wonderful enchantments down at once, which makes me a sad monk :-(

in pvp, a life bond monk is awesome as the restore conditions member of a martyr/restore combo.

they only use Well of Suffering though, I'd be sad too if they used Profane..

I'll try to be a bit more on-topic with post (Comparing our 2 builds makes me say that they are pretty different)

I'm wondering how your attributes are spread out. WoH and Dwayna's seem to do some pretty high healing so I think most points are in healing prayers?

The build Esona posted used life attunement, I'm thinking you might consider switching mending with that one. Maybe the tank in question won't be thrilled by the prospect of dealing less damage, but that's what the nukers are for anyway ... With all the enchantments up and by using life attunement, dwayna's kiss should be able to do some serious healing, probably way better then the extra 4 pips mending gives. (of course all the other heal spells will profit from it as well (excluding breeze) )

Just a little tweak, but imho sounds sounds like it should work.

EDIT:
You might allso consider switching essence bond to balthazars spirit.. Cast it on yourself, it will trigger on life bond (having the same net results). The advantage of using balthz over essence bond is that you can allso cast it on the tank as a cover-up enchant, so it will be first to go.

does balthazar spirit get trigger on 0 damage from life bond?

Short answer: yes

Seems a little buggish to me, but works!

Heres my build for FA farming, Mantra of Inscriptions pfft. Not needed with this energy machine:

Life Barrier{E}
Life Bond
Essence Bond
Balths Spirit
Protective Spirit
Reversal of Fortune
Vigorous Spirit
Blessed Signet

Prot 16
Divine 15

I kept the 4 man team alive without a healing monk doing this set up many times, altho a healer can help if he isnt inept. Heres the order I start with in grenths. Barrer/Bond/Essence on Tank, Balths spirit on myself, hit blessed sig then proceed to bond everyone else to make things go smoother. I then essence bond myself to bring total enchants im maintaining to 8 (max for divine favor at 15 with blesses sig of 24 energy return) just becauase aggro gets messy prior to SF at times. I dont need mantra at all

Now some of you may be wondering why Vigorous spirit. Well in SF theres two things that remove enchantments you need to constantly be looking for: Tasmasters and Dark Binders. You can tell which is removing, as you will see a spike in the tanks life if he gets Shatter Enchanted from Taskmasters, or a green aura around him from Strip Enchantment of Dark Binders. Prot spirit isnt even needed for SF, as barrier and bonds reduce the dmg the tank is taking to way less than 10% of their max life, but its good in GF at times and its another buff i can put in front of the bonds. Vigorous Spirit lasts 30 seconds no matter what you have in healing, yet 4 second recharge, so it is very spammable. Prot spirit for me lasts 24+ seconds with 5 second recharge so it can be spammable aswell. It is a rare instance in SF when one essence,bond, or barrier gets removed off the tank im protting. If anyone has any questions about it you can pm me in game, i dont check these forums much. name is the same in game. gl

gah double post, disregard >.<

even better is if the tank brings balthazar's spirit and retribution and puts spirit on bottom, and retribution on top of all the enchantments the prot monk puts on him. That way he can always keep a cover up and never needs the prot monk to re-prot him. Plus once he gets the keg he has infinite energy almost.

Good build. I tried a very similar one to this with great success. In fact, this build is so good that it's almost boring. The only modification that I made was to remove Protective Spirit and put in Divine Healing as an emergency heal.

I totally agree with you about the value of Vigorous Spirit. I use it to great effect in SF as there is lots of minor damage and degen that Vigorous Spirit can negate just as well as breeze. In fact, it's better than breeze and you can "cast and forget", especially if you're using a Yakslapper. Next time down there I'll try Balth's Spirit and see if it works even better. Thanks much for the advice.

Pretty similair to what I use on my monk when I chose to fill that role.. except I've always been to lazy to cap life barrier. I use life attunement instead. Instead of Vigorous I just use RoF. The elite I take is Aura of Faith, and I use 16 DF and 13 Prot, with a DF 20/20 item and a +5 henge sword with +20% on enchants.

It's true that SF/GF is supposed to be about teamwork, blah blah.. but the cold hard truth is, unless you're not in a PUG, you never get a group without a moron or more. All it takes is one to mess up, which is why EVERYONE needs to be bonded.. this is more directed at the original poster with his mending. *shudder*


Anyway, when I go to SF/GF I always party with my friend Stew. He plays a healer boon monk. It's not uncommon to see him throwing around 600 point heals. And word is crap. It takes up a slot you could at least use on a real energy management skill.

I dont know if it helps but I have done many FA farms and as long as you have a team that understands the tank aggros this build works great for me.

Casting in this order
Life Barrier
Life Bond
Mending
Essance

I also then carry

Orison
Remove hex...for other than tank
Blessed Sig
Bals Aura

Now I know many will chastise no rez but I warn the group up front...if the group makes an attempt at staying out of aggro no one ever dies through the entire run. I also found that when the tank gets good aggro bals aura does so well with the added dmg that things die so quick they cant do enough damge in such short order.

I do admit that I have to keep very good eye on enchants but over all this build seems to rock with a decent group and have gotten many compliments on the protection.

BTW I do this with SUP heal, prot, and smite....= 321? hp...but I dont ever seem to die

Well, the thing is, PUG's are a sure route to faillure down there. Probably 90% of the players don't understand aggro management. If they do, then there is no need to Life Bond anyone else in the party. If they don't, then Life Bond is only going to prolong the pain of being in a bad group.

I also disagree about the value of Word. There are times in SF where you need significant healing (like when the tanks enchantments are stripped). Life Bond is spammable in those circumstances and can keep the tank alive.

Having said that, I'm going to switch to the Barrier / Bond build, as I like it better. So there's no room for Word even if I wanted it.

The build that's worked for me the last couple times, with no deaths in my regular group during FA speed runs is:

Blessed Signit
Life Bond
Life Barrier
Essence Bond
Balthazar's Spirit
Vigerous Spirit or spammable healing to keep me from getting bored
Reversal of Fortune or spammable healing
Rebirth (try as I like, I can't ever get rid of rezz's as a Monk)

Thanks for all the great advice from everyone. I'm going to keep tweaking things, but your posts have already made me more effective (and this comes from someone with several hundred hours experience monking).

Uh .. what? No offense, but me and my friend can keep any pug alive, no matter how incredibly bad they are. That's why you prepare for the worst, not for a super ideal that is the very best situation imaginable. If you're playing with guild mates, you could probably do fine with just OoB and Heal other. I don't see what your point is.




Please tell me how Word of Healing heals for "significantly" more than Heal Other. It doesn't. And it wastes your elite.


You keep spelling "signet" wrong.