Boon Protection vs. Healer Monks

Dear Monks,

This long thread will answer your question why Player vs. Environment Monks is superior to Player vs. Player Monks because of the ability to switch armor & discuss the power of boon protection monk.

After a long thought and debate & considering both side of arguments of our officers & myself, I have concluded this following build for the guild.
Before I go on, I have done some research and made some input of my thoughts to the build, and this is as following.

-> Difference between Divine Boon & without Divine Boon <-


As being a guild monk, I have provided this research between the difference between divine boon and without divine boon.

In order to compare these two skills, the following skill line has been used.

Boon Healer
Orison of Healing
Divine Boon

14 @ Healing Prayers
12 @ Divine Favor

Divine boon at 12 Divine Favor heals the target for 61 points for 2 energy points for having 12 points in divine favor. In total, every protect spell that was cast would heal in addition of 61 + 36 = 97 hit points at 12 points in divine favor.
Total benefit of Divine Favor is 61 points of healing for 2 Energy points. We will assume Orison of Healing at 14 Points heals for 68 Hit Points.

Now, we have to calculate energy regeneration. Divine Boon brings +3 Energy Regeneration, (1 energy per second, total of 300 Energy in 5 minutes) vs. Non-Divine Boon that brings +4 Energy Regeneration, (1.3333 energy per second, total of 400 Energy in 5 minutes)

Points healed with divine boon healer
Amount of Healing:
68HPs (General Healing Skills @ 14 pts)
61HPs (Divine Boon @ 12 pts)
36HPs (Divine Favor @ 12 pts)
Total Healing of 157 Healing per cast

With 300 Energy to spend in a minute at 7 energy per cast, you are able to cast 42 casts total of 294 energy. In about 5 minutes, Divine Boon Healer monk can heal about 6930 (165 * 42) Hit points.


Points healed with Healing Monk without divine boon
Amount of Healing:
68HPs (General Healing Skills @ 14 pts)
36HPs (Divine Favor @ 12 pts)
Total Healing of 96 Healing per cast

With 400 Energy to spend in a minute at 5 energy per cast, you are able to cast 80 casts total at 80 Energy (5 energy * 80 casts) = 400 Energy.
In about 5 minutes, Healer monk can heal about 8320 (96 * 80) Hit points.

As in comparison to 6930 hit point heal for boon healer monk vs. 8320 hit point for non-boon healing monk, (difference of 20.0577%) not having divine boon seems to be much more favorable.

Wait a minute… Does this mean we have been foolish all this time with divine boon? Is that skill really not worth it? Why are some monks really good at boon protection while some are not? It is all about energy conservation and offering of blood.


Now, let us factor in Offering of Blood in our guild monk build…

Offering of Blood (Elite)
Boon Healer
Orison of Healing
Divine Boon

10 @ Blood Magic
14 @ Healing Prayers
12 @ Divine Favor


Let us factor in Offering of Blood. Offering of blood can be cast every 15 seconds, and it costs 5 energy for 16 energy. This will make the total cost of 11 energy per cast and 44 energy a minute, total of 220 energy over 5 minutes.

Assuming 300 + 220 (20 casts of OoB), you have 520 energy.

Points healed with divine boon healer
Amount of Healing:
68HPs (General Healing Skills @ 12 pts)
61HPs (Divine Boon @ 12 pts)
36HPs (Divine Favor @ 12 pts)
Total Healing of 165 Healing per cast

With 520 Energy to spend in a minute at 7 energy per cast, you are able to cast 74 casts total at 518 energy (7 energy * 74 casts) = 518 Energy.
In about 5 minutes, Divine Boon Healer monk can heal about 12210 (165 * 74) Hit points.


Points healed with Healing Monk without boon
Amount of Healing:
68HPs (General Healing Skills @ 12 pts)
36HPs (Divine Favor @ 12 pts)
Total Healing of 96 Healing per cast

With 620 Energy (400 + 220) to spend in a minute at 5 energy per cast, you are able to cast 124 casts total at 620 Energy (5 energy * 124 casts) = 620 Energy.
In about 1 minute, Healer monk can heal about 12896 (104 * 124) Hit points.

As in comparison to 12210 hit point heal for boon protection monk vs. 12896 hit point heal for healing monk, (difference of 5.6183%) that not having divine boon with offering of blood is still favorable as comparison to not having divine boon with offering of blood.

However, this is what makes a difference in our guild over other guilds. We use player vs. environment characters for armor switching, and here is a core example why our divine boon is ultimately better.


Now, the typical boon protector monk, 14 Protection Prayers (10@ attribute points, +1 for head gear & +3 for superior) and 12 Divine Favors (11@ attribute points, +1 for minor rune), Will replace Headgear with Divine Favor Rune (11@ Attribute points, +1 for head gear, +3 for superior) giving 15 points on Divine Favor when initially casting Divine Boon. Of course, after casting divine boon, you switch your armor back to normal. This will modify the existing build to the following…

Points healed with divine boon healer
Amount of Healing:
68HPs (General Healing Skills @ 12 pts)
70HPs (Divine Boon @ 15 pts)
36HPs (Divine Favor @ 12 pts)
Total Healing of 174 Healing per cast

So instead of typical 61 heals for each spell with divine boon, it will now heal 70 points.

With 520 Energy to spend in a minute at 7 energy per cast, you are able to cast 74 casts total at 518 energy (7 energy * 74 casts) = 518 Energy.
In about 1 minute, Divine Boon Healer monk can heal about 12876 (174 * 74) Hit points.

Now comparing to non-divine boon monk, 12876 vs. 12896, the difference is now narrowed down from 5.6183% to (9.054%).

Using a divine favors off hand item, that will give you +1 to divine favors @ 20% chance, you can boost your healing to 10089 vs. 10816, (0.1553%) difference in overall healing.


Now, on top of this, we all know we use boon protection monks, not boon healer monks. Protection Prayers Spells will not provide the extra healing that healing skills provide, but reduction of damage which in most cases, more beneficial. On top of this, anti-spiking ability provided by divine boon monk is far superior as in comparison to regular healing monks. The faster casting spells, providing over 100 hit points of healing for every spell and giving a protective enchantment makes a boon protection far more superior than boon healer.

Yet, there is a way to make boon protection monk even more superior.

If you get an offhand item that does +1 to divine favors @ 20% chance, and you continue casting divine boon until you get +73HPs, instead of 12876 vs. 12896, you will end up with 13098 vs. 12896, this making your boon monk 1.5664% superior in comparison to healer monk. Keep in mind, this is just Healing.

ULTIMATELY Player vs. Environment Divine Boon monks purely based on healing offers more healing over non-divine boon monks. Imagine that. Ideally, you just became the best possible monk than any Player vs. Player character out there. It gets even better if you factor in Aegis in the boon protector build.

I notice boon protection monks are one of the most difficult monks to use, due to the fact that every spell you cast must be purely efficient and you must never over-heal. Every second you wait to cast offering of blood, your boon protection monk becomes less and less efficient. Every time you get energy denied, if you fail to switch off your focus item to cast offering of blood, you will again, be much less efficient monk then standard healing monk.

I hope my explanation has provided ample guidance of becoming one of the best monks in the entire game.


Clan Intel Resurrection Guild Leader (Magical Arrows a.k.a. Magical Heal)

Now the problem with this analysis is enchantmentstripping, meaning to keep your basis you have to switch back to your div.fav headset, cast boon and switch back. That takes time in pvp...
Another factor is that you calculate the raw healing power. But raw healing power isn't everything, as you allready pointed out yourself.
The boon-prot can deal with a variety of threats, it is a great monk for arena's. Conditions, hexes, the boon prot can take a lot. I don't think for this reason that it is fair to judge solely on raw healing power.

Is armorswitching a boon in pvp? Yes, pve chars can be better in pvp then pvp chars. But it takes some time investment to get them there.
Still, nice job on numbercrunching. You put some thought in it, which is a lot more then the average post on GWG.

greetings Makkert

What I love about being boon prot is that boon still works when you have only 5 energy and cast a 5 energy skill.

Boon just puts a -2 on your head but still heals for a load

I'm just a noob monk, but I'd like to point out healing breeze and healing seet for providing prolonged heals. With a 16 heal 15 div. favor monk, running Boon, throwing a +9 healing breeze + 90-something instant heal really helps out a tank that is taking serious agro.

I had a group the other night playing through Hell's Precipice, which started with 2 monks, but the other monk err7'd part way through. We made it the rest of the way through with only my one monk (with help from an awesome necro who was assisting me on the heals with both BiP and WoB). While I did throw Healing Hands and Orison frequently, I sustained the 3 tanks almost completely with Healing Breeze and Healing Seed.

Breeze is mediocre for PvE and just plain sucks in PvP.

IMO as a somewhat long-time monk, raw healing is rather worthless. With the energy you expend healing damage you could have prevented from ever being incurred, you're just throwing away time spent doing something else.

This is especially evident in PvE, in the later parts of the game, especially on the Titan quests or in the UW, FoW, whatever. You can heal someone back to full health in one or two spells, but their health will be gone in seconds once more anyway.

The same flip side goes for Bonders. With the exception of something like runing Oro runs in GF, you can't throw a bond on someone and expect it to work anywhere near as effectively as protective boon spells mixed with emergency healing (healing hands, breeze perhaps). It will for a time, but the lack of energy will kill you and everyone else in the long run without a backup monk, even with Blessed Signet.

If you want to bring math into it, you'd better calculate in spell-specific damage and percentages of how often your team will avoid damage. I've noticed that players in your party that are healed back their total health after damage are far more prone to stand in the middle of damage than those with protective spells on them. Being protected makes them cautious rather than headstrong, and subsequently causes them to concentrate on keeping alive rather than blindly hammering away at a stronger enemy in a vain attempt to overwhelm them.

It does?

I hate it. The only use I've found for it is keeping a life saccing necro alive, which admittedly is at least a use for it. When I am playing prot, I groan when a healer puts it on me because I'm always under the watchful eye of the enemy's mesmer. Breeze is bound to get shattered or rended or drained, etc. I'm just not crazy about it. I'm also not crazy in love with holy veil since double-click to cancel sometimes takes 2 or 3 times. (And no it isn't my mouse or my clicking. It doesn't always cancel it when you double click the 1st time.)

How much DF do you come up with after you switch armor to protection gear? Just curious, because having a lower DF would lower your effectiveness on heals, regardless of how good your boon is.

Spike Heal FTW

I still like boon with Offering better then anything else in pvp.