Profession: Monk
Name: Bonder
Type: General PvP
Category: Support
Attributes
12 + 3 Divine (Base + superior rune)
12 + 1 + 3 Protection (Base + hat + superior rune)
Skills Set
Revesral of Fortune
Shielding Hands
Signet of Devotion
Pacifism
Life Bond
Blessed Signet
Mend Condition
Unyielding Aura {Elite}
Replaceables
Resurrect Signet
Essence Bond
Guardian
Peace and Harmony {Elite}
Shield of Regeneration {Elite}
Summary:
Okay, James Bond, that's corny, but it got you reading this. This build has been tested quite thoroughly, and seems to get nothing but good praises. It is designed around 4v4, but this could just as easily be for 8v8 as well.
The beauty of bonding is that blessed signet regains all energy lost by enchantments to a limit. In this case, that limit is 8 (regain 3 energy per enchantment up to 24 energy... 24/3 = 8 enchantments). Lets do the math. It takes 10 seconds to recharge and 2 seconds to cast. That's 12 seconds minimal time between castings. And since each mana regen tick is 1/3rd energy per second, if we have one enchantment, we stand to lose 4 energy every 12 seconds. We gain back 3 energy for that enchantment, so we only lose 1 energy every 12 seconds for having an enchantment! This means essentially, we suffer very little energy deprevation.
The focus of this build is to maintain bonds with the other members. This means casting as many bonds as you can in the beginning (using blessed signet to boost energy and continue). If protection is at 16, the half the damage that goes to you is reduced by 32 points. This really does cover about 90% of all attacks done to people, and the 10% of the ones that do are usually from 1-20 damage and no more.
Why Life Bond and not Life Barrier, you ask? Life Barrier, for one thing, takes additional energy to cast, which isn't a whole lot in the long run, but it considerably burdens your energy storage to start the round with when life bond will leave you with about 20 energy to spare (assuming you cast blessed signet whenever available). In addition to this, the damage done to you through life bond is minimal. It is probably better not to have a conditional in which if your health drops below 50%, you lose the bonds. It might happen that your life drops below 50%.
If all your other team members have bonds on them, then healing them should be relatively easy. This is where signet of devotion comes in. Signet of devotion has such a good recharge rate, that at the rate a player's life is probably falling, your signet of devotion will replenish. However, if it gets worse, use shielding hands. Your ally's damage is already divided by half. This makes shielding hands twice as effective.
And always a good skill to have handy is reversal of fortune, for a quick enchantment if they are taking serious damage, but keep in mind they are healed for the damage they receive. In other words, it works best on an ally without life bond (which woudl take more damage) or yourself!
Mend condition can be swapped with remove hex/smite hex. It is really a miscellaneous slot. I like to put mend condition for his healing benefits, and more often than not, the player getting the pounding has some sort of condition on him.
Finally there is pacifism. It is arguably the best defensive spell you can carry with you, and I'll tell you why. I remind you that with this, there is no life bond on yourself. This means it is imperative that you can keep yourself alive. This is perhaps even more important than keeping the players themselves alive for the reasons of the bonds on all players you are maintaining. Pacifism will remove that pesky tank chasing after you because you have a big target with the words written "Mo". Pacifism will completely disable a tank or ranger (disrupter hint hint) or even illusionary warrior. Just be SURE to call first and hopefully if you prepped your team about this before and they are smart enough, your target will set out of the fighting for about 21 seconds. Since pacifism recharges every 30 seconds, you could seriously give your team the advantage. Just remember only to use if your teammate's life bars are in good standing.
And the last spell is Unyielding Aura. Alot of you might call this a newb spell to add, but I'll tell you my reasons. A) You are equipped to deal with lasting enchantments. B) Energy degen drawback aside, it is the best ressurect spell in the game restoring 100% life and 100% energy C) It is the fastest ressurect spell in the game, taking 3 seconds only and D) When you die, they DO NOT die (yes that's right.. is this a bug?). Though that is really a matter of preference. If you wish to swap unyielding for res sig, and make one of the other spells an elite, that is equally viable.
Notes & Concerns:
You should realize that this build is ideal for a protection type build, and as you know, a protection build alone is not always best. It does brilliantly with a healer monk (yes even in 4v4, though you should make sure the other two players are heavy damage dealers).
One of its strengths is its ability to basically almost entirely bypass interrupters. Many interrupts centered around stopping monks involve interrupting spells, not skills. The two most common skills you will use are signet of devotion and blessed signet, which are not spells at all. If you are backfired, just avoid using spells and stick with signet of devotion if someone needs healing.
However, a notable weakness is a shutdown mesmer. Even though lifebonds need nothing to keep going, a shutdown mesmer will put migraine on you and use blackout and generally make it difficult to do anything. And since YOU are the vulnerable one, you need to be able to keep yourself alive. A shutdown mesmer and an aggressive warrior will bring you down.
Another weakness is a necro with strip enchantment. You have to continually reapply, and it is easy to lose track which ones have and which ones do not. In cases like that I like to wait until someone is being damaged before casting it on them again, as to not lose time on casting bonds when someone needs attention.
And also a weakness is that although pacify stops one warrior, it won't stop two or three. There is only so much you can handle. Hopefully if your other monk is a good healer, he can keep you alive in addition to you casting shielding hands on yourself. Just remember to not panick. Give the player with the lowest life that is continuing to go down the highest priority and cast signet of devotion and shielding hands on him.
Nature's Renewal is suicide for this build. If a ranger casts nature's renewal, lose all life bond enchantments and try the best you can without. Stick to quick cast spells like reversal of fortune, and signets still cast without trouble, so use signet of devotion to heal.
Credit:
This is a build I made through continual experimentation that I am quite confident about. If you ever catch "Peace and Love Monk" on, that would be me.
