Just felt like posting the monk build I used for Competition Arenas when I needed faction. This is by no means anything original and credit goes out to certain guildies when tweaking certain aspects of it
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Monk/Necromancer
Level: 20
Divine Favor: 16 (12+4)
Protection Prayers: 9 (8+1)
Blood Magic: 10
Mend Ailment (Protection Prayers)
Reversal of Fortune (Protection Prayers)
Guardian (Protection Prayers)
Holy Veil (Monk other)
Contemplation of Purity (Divine Favor)
Offering of Blood [Elite] (Blood Magic)
Divine Boon (Divine Favor)
Resurrection Signet ()
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Equipment: I'm still somewhat undecided on this - I currently use the 20% Recharge Blood Wand and the 20%/20% Casting/Recharge Blood Focus - which gives a 32% chance of OoB recharging faster (I think)
On the chest and legs I wear Judges armor (used to be Ascetic's but a guidlie thought this was risky, and I agree) - On arms and feet use ascetic's designs
With 16 Divine Favor and Boon active a reversal of fortune will heal 124 HP - and reverse 54. Which in effect is 232 healing (51 + 73 + 54 (prevented) + 54 (healed)) - and for just 7 energy.
Contemplation of Purity makes coping with mesmer and necromancer hexes relatively easy - covered hexes can still be removed quite easily as long as you throw up a guardian first, even if more hexes are added the recharge on CoP is quite low - it's also the answer to hammer warriors and is very good at breaking knockdown chains having just a 1/4 of a second casting time.
The build is generally quite good at everything all round - condition removal, hex removal, healing, and not having to rely on others - which is somewhat important in competition arenas in particular. When you get good with the build you pretty much guarentee yourself victories unless your team is really bad
CA/TA CoP Boon Prot Build
yesitsrob
remmeh
yup. this build is very effective in CA where hexes are usually a non-issue... unless you have 3 TF warriors chopping away at you.
ump
I use Mend Condition instead of Mend Ailment for the extra heal on teammates especially since conditions are usually not stacked in CA. I use Contemplation of Purity when I need to remove conditions on myself. I always precast Divine Boon and Holy Veil (on myself) before a battle. I usually don't recast Holy Veil in the middle of battle and rely on Contemplation of Purity.
I need a weapon switch for a +15/-1 energy wand and focus because occasionally I run out of energy. I'll have to try your weapon suggestion exclusively for recharging Offering of Blood. Currently, I use the 20/20 protection staff with insightful (+5 energy) staff head and enchanting (longer enchantments) staff wrap, but now that I think about it, it's probably not the best option for CA.
I've already done quite well with my monk in my short PvP career so far. I love it when everyone tries to kill me (and hardly ever does) while the rest of my teammates kill them easily. I get lots of consecutive and even flawless victories with this character.
I need a weapon switch for a +15/-1 energy wand and focus because occasionally I run out of energy. I'll have to try your weapon suggestion exclusively for recharging Offering of Blood. Currently, I use the 20/20 protection staff with insightful (+5 energy) staff head and enchanting (longer enchantments) staff wrap, but now that I think about it, it's probably not the best option for CA.
I've already done quite well with my monk in my short PvP career so far. I love it when everyone tries to kill me (and hardly ever does) while the rest of my teammates kill them easily. I get lots of consecutive and even flawless victories with this character.
Racthoh
Quote:
Originally Posted by ump
I always precast Divine Boon and Holy Veil (on myself) before a battle.
What I'll do myself. Usually after I'll scroll through the players we're fighting. If I see signs of a mesmer or necro then I'll keep the veil on until I'm targeted. If there isn't any, drop it.
yesitsrob
i cast the holy veil on myself at the start of the battle along with boon - once I've used it I don't tend to use it as an upkeep enchantment then - just as a hex removal
JR
Quote:
Originally Posted by yesitsrob
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Monk/Necromancer
Level: 20
Divine Favor: 16 (12+4)
Protection Prayers: 9 (8+1)
Blood Magic: 10
Mend Ailment (Protection Prayers)
Reversal of Fortune (Protection Prayers)
Guardian (Protection Prayers)
Holy Veil (Monk other)
Contemplation of Purity (Divine Favor)
Offering of Blood [Elite] (Blood Magic)
Divine Boon (Divine Favor)
Resurrection Signet ()
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Equipment: I'm still somewhat undecided on this - I currently use the 20% Recharge Blood Wand and the 20%/20% Casting/Recharge Blood Focus - which gives a 32% chance of OoB recharging faster (I think)
I also don't run a superior, you are generally the target, so having 590 health can make all the difference.
Quote:
On the chest and legs I wear Judges armor (used to be Ascetic's but a guidlie thought this was risky, and I agree) - On arms and feet use ascetic's designs
I personally chose to use Ascetics chest also, the extra energy is nice, and if you kite warriors shouldn't be hitting you too much anyway. Also, the Ascetics legs are bugged in that they give you one less energy than they are supposed to on PvP characers. As such, I use full Ascetics with Judges legs.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by yesitsrob
Contemplation of Purity makes coping with mesmer and necromancer hexes relatively easy - covered hexes can still be removed quite easily as long as you throw up a guardian first, even if more hexes are added the recharge on CoP is quite low - it's also the answer to hammer warriors and is very good at breaking knockdown chains having just a 1/4 of a second casting time.
In concept, I like CoP, I just dont think it works that well in practice. If you are hex/condition stacked, and taking damage, the last thing that appeals to me is dropping all of my enchantments. In my experience, a pre-cast holy veil, and being fast with recasting it is all you need against hexes in arena. You can get unlucky and hit a team with two heavy hexers who target you, but in that case you can probably afford to just kite around untill the worse ones wear off.
The build I use is this: Boon Prot Monk/Necromancer Level: 20 Divine Favor: 14 (12+2) Protection Prayers: 9 (8+1) Blood Magic: 10 - Protective Spirit (Protection Prayers) - Reversal of Fortune (Protection Prayers) - Guardian (Protection Prayers) - Mend Ailment (Protection Prayers) - Holy Veil (Monk other) - Signet of Devotion (Divine Favor) - Divine Boon (Divine Favor) - Offering of Blood [Elite] (Blood Magic) Prot Spirit is occasionally subbed for Shielding Hands. At the moment there are a lot of elementalists in arena, so Prot Spirit stays on my skillbar. You can't really beat it for damage limitation. Signet of Devotion isn't very popular due to its long cast time, but I think the fairly fast recharge makes up for it. Its a completely free and fairly significant heal, good against teams with a lot of degen but not much spike damage. theclam
I tried putting CoP in my Prot/Boon build and it works great. It makes fighting Mesmers SO much easier. Here's what I do:
DF: 12+1+1 Blood: 10 Prot: 8+1 Divine Boon Res Signet Contemplation of Purity Offering of Blood {E} Protective Spirit Shielding Hands Reversal of Fortune Signet of Devotion An interesting variation of this involves Mantra of Recall. If you've got it up and you use CoP, then you'll get its energy boost instantly. Mantra: +Another enchantment with CoP means more life and more Hex/Condition Removal. +Gives slightly more energy than Offering of Blood. -Recharge time is longer than Offering of Blood. -Costs 5 more energy to cast it. -To get the energy, you have to either wait the 20 seconds out or cast CoP (which costs 5 energy and makes you lose Boon).
yesitsrob
The thing about CoP - even if you are taking damage, it heals an awful lot too 85 at 16 divine favor - I can't remember what the value is with a minor rune. It also seems to be a good last resort to staying alive. I honestly feel CoP works rather well
I used to use Protective Spirit but I think in Arenas RoF is plenty enough for damage prevention. 4 people (one of which is generally a monk) doesn't tend to have enough damage to be able to spike somone straight off.... though I suppose they do sometimes (like today when te steam rolled over us in TA ¬ ¬) If I was using a staff personally I'd choose Defensive blood staff of defense - Over the course of a battle I think the added 10 armor will do a lot more for you than the added 60hp. I occasionally run with just a minor rune too
JR
Quote:
Originally Posted by theclam
Mantra: +Another enchantment with CoP means more life and more Hex/Condition Removal. +Gives slightly more energy than Offering of Blood. -Recharge time is longer than Offering of Blood. -Costs 5 more energy to cast it. -To get the energy, you have to either wait the 20 seconds out or cast CoP (which costs 5 energy and makes you lose Boon). |
A post that Ensign made on the matter a while back, which relfects my feelings:
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've tried Mantra of Recall on several different characters, and while it isn't *bad*, and actually had some nice things going for it, I wasn't terribly impressed. It's easily the most rigid energy management skill in the game. You can't use an enchanting part with it, which is annoying, and you absolutely need to recast the skill as soon as it expires. It's actually easier to manage than conventional energy management in a vacuum (you gain 20+ energy, then spend 10, instead of spending 5-10 to gain another 15-20), since you should always have the energy to recast it. That makes it a bit stronger at low energy, but weaker at high energy since you'll waste a lot more often. Once you get off that clock, though, it gets ugly. In particular if you find yourself in energy hell, the Mantra will bury you, not help you get out of it. If energy is tight having to spend 10 on an effect that won't go off for another 20 seconds is absolute hell. But if you don't do it you're basically buried forever. That makes the Mantra a lot more swingy than I'd like for an energy management skill, when things are going great the skill is acceptable or even great, but if things get ugly the skill starts to stink. I don't find that encouraging since I'm usually taking energy management skills to smooth out my energy. It has rather poor synergy with other game mechanics as well - for instance, a fast recharge on the skill does absolutely nothing. I don't really like how it locks you into a cycle that if broken makes a mess of things. It's just too inflexible to make me really like it. Which isn't to say that the skill is bad, it's just kinda blah and, in my experience, not worth all the trouble unless you can really abuse the odd properties of the skill (Comtemplation being one of them, and it's mildly interesting as a cover enchantment in certain parts of the PvE game). I personally played for a long time with Stepn's MoR/CoP boon prot in arena. It was a lot of fun, but I think in the long run OoB is just better and more user friendly energy management.
ecirbaf
This is a similar setup with CoP althoug I'm using Mesmer secondary :
Mark of Protection [elite] Healing Touch (self heal) Dwayna's Kiss Vigorous Spirit Protective Spirit Spirit of Failure (energy management) Contemplation of Purity Res Signet Effectively, CONTEMPLATION OF PURITY with 10+ Divine Favor is great vs Hexes. SPIRIT OF FAILURE seems to work nice for energy, I cast it on warriors, I think they dont bother removing it. I've experimented with HEX BREAKER. It's easy to use since you can leave it there for a bit, it will make one hex fail, and you can recast it as soon as it drops. Won't stop energy shutdown mesmers but may make them work a little harder. This may be a better option than HOLY VEIL when you are Mesmer secondary ? I've yet to try DIVINE BOON. Seems most people carry some sort of self heal ability in CA, so I prefer protection skills. |
