User:Verde/Boon Prot Guide

Armor
In my opinion there is only two sets or armor to choose from for a Boon/Prot Monk. I keep getting told that there are three because having a little bit more energy can be more helpful than a considerable amount more armor. I disagre, but nevertheless there are still three armor types commonly used by boon/prots.

Acolytes Armor

 * 60 Armor
 * +10 Armor (while Enchanted)

This is my hands down favorite armor for boon/prot monks. The extra armor while enchanted will almost always be applied because a boon/prot really has no buisness not having divine boon up, and with MoR being the most common energy management skill not having any enchantment on you is almost inexcusable. This along with some bonuses from equipment can boost your armor to 80, which is a warriors base armor.

Shepherd's Armor

 * 60 Armor
 * +15, 10, 5, 5 Health

Some people like to use this armor for the health bonus. I often use the hands and feet to give me just a tad more health. But for the most part, it is my opinion that having 10 extra armor benefits you more than having 35 extra health. This would be a great armor choice for a monk who didn't use Divine Boon or MoR, but as a boon/prot uses at least one of those Acolyte's Armor is a better choice for the main body peices.

Ascetic's

 * 60 Armor
 * +3, 2, 1, 1 energy (more than other monk armors)

7 extra energy, really? I seriously doubt 7 extra energy will help more than 10 extra armor, and because the hands and feet only give 1 energy each, theres really no reason to use them without the rest of the set. If you find having 7 extra max energy is really helpful, you might want to consider practicing energy management through personal restraint.

Runes
When it comes to runes, I find that less is more in the monks case. A Monk might as well run around with a target on their forehead. they will ALWAYS be a big target for enemy teams. So being that big target, I find it beneficial to have as much health as possible so that I can stay alive to heal myself as well as others. However healing for an extra 20.6 per heal can also be very helpful, and not just for you but for your whole team. For this reason superior divine favor runes can be nice to have, although I find having 75 more health to be more helpful. Also if your planning on using Boon Signet for energy management, a superior divine favor rune is neccessary to get 6 energy per use.

Weapons
As far as weapons are concerned, staves are now limited. You can get a better effect from wand/focii and it allows slightly better versitility. Because of this it seems many, many people use PvE monks. This allows them to have a larger variety of weapons to switch between for various occassions. But being as I play a PvP only monk so I can have all the skills at my disposal, and use differend secondary classes depending on the team strategies, I assume use of PvP only characters, and will discuss several weapon sets you can switch through. This doesn't mean you have to use these weapons, I am going to do my best to describe why you might want to use the different combinations so that you can decide for yourself which one better suits you for the situation you will be in.

Maximum Energy
It used to be that the best choice for energy with no drawbacks was a maxed Insightful Staff. This gave +15 energy with no drawbacks. For more than that you had to sacrifice energy regeneration, but those days are gone. Now the days of wands, or more appropiatley swords, and foci are here. With a wand/sword/axe with a +5 energy modifier and a focii with its max +12 you can get +17 energy with absolutly no drawbacks, if you ignore the >50% mod on the wands which I will for right now. Having this extra energy has the obvious benefit of being able to cast more spells rapidly. But sometimes you need a little more. It is possible to get 10 to 25 more energy by sacrificing one or two energy regen pips. This greatly increases your immediate usefullness, but also greatly reduces your future usefullnes, as after you use the extra energy switching back to a normal energy level will leave you with negative energy, and you will have to wait a long time before you can cast anything else. In my opinion these "extra energy" sets have far too many drawbacks than benefits now, and should be avoided as much as possible. This is a unique weapon mod as it is the only one a Monk has real use in having reduced. Item's that reduce the characters Maximum Energy can be extremly useful in specific situations where the enemy is lowering your workable energy. Being able to reduce this as much as possible during these occasions can become extremely helpful.

Health and Armor
This is a pretty easy one to describe. The more health you have the longer you can take damage without being healed. The same goes for armor really. The higher you can get these two the longer you will live. The only difference is in certain monks which are always protected by prot spirit or something, but because of enchantment removal it's not good to rely on those, so having these as high as possible is much better survival practice.

Faster Casting and/or Faster Recharge
Faster Casting and Recharge aren't really that important to a Boon/Prot Monk. Most of the spells which would be affected, these weapon mods only affect spells not signets of skills, have less than one second casting times, and small enough recharge times that having either of these mods kick in doesnt really help alot. The only spells that can be helped by these are the inspiration or blood magic elites used for energy management. I, myself, often use faster inspiration recharge weapon sets as I find myself being stripped of MoR enough for it to be helpful in increasing my energy management. If you find this isn't the case for you, and you aren't using EDrain or OoB, you should probably stay away from these modifiers.

Direct Damage Reduction
Direct damage reduction is, as far as I am aware, only available on shields. Because of this it's an aspect which is overlooked by many good monks, but regardless of how underused it is, I have found it to be a nice effect to have when either hiding energy, kiting from a lone warrior, or retreating from a losing battle. In all of these ocassions a very high maximum energy is not neccessary, so losing that in favor of some health, armor, and damage reduction can be very beneficial to your survival.

List of Useful Weapons and Off-hands

 * Normal Casting Weapons


 * PvP Sword/Axe
 * +5 energy
 * Helpful Mods:
 * Fortitude +30 Health
 * Defense +5 Defence


 * Rajazan's Fervor
 * Enchantments Last 20% Longer
 * +5 Energy


 * Normal Casting Off-Hands


 * PvP Divine Symbol
 * +12 Energy (req. 9 Divine Favor)
 * +5 Armor (while Enchanted)
 * +45 Health (while Enchanted)


 * Inspiration Casting Weapon


 * PvP Cane
 * Halves skill recharge of Inspiration Magic spells(Chance: 20%)
 * +5 Energy (while Health is above 50%)


 * PvP Cane / Garbok's Cane
 * Halves skill recharge of Inspiration Magic spells(Chance: 20%)
 * Halves casting time of Inspiration Magic spells(Chance: 20%)


 * Inspiration Casting Off-Hand


 * PvP Jeweled Chalice / Garbok's Chalice
 * +12 Energy (req. 9 Inspiration Magic)
 * Halves skill recharge of Inspiration Magic spells(Chance: 20%)
 * +1 Inspiration Magic(Chance: 20%)


 * PvP Jeweled Chalice
 * +12 Energy (req. 9 Inspiration Magic)
 * Halves skill recharge of Inspiration Magic spells(Chance: 20%)
 * +30 Health


 * Energy Hiding Weapons


 * PvP Sword/Axe
 * -5 Energy
 * Helpful Mods:
 * Fortitude +30 Health
 * Defense +5 Defence


 * Ironclaw
 * -5 energy
 * +30 Health


 * Energy Hiding Off-Hands


 * PvP shield / Malinon's Shield
 * 16 Armor (req. 9 Tactics/Strength)
 * +45 Health (while Enchanted)
 * Damage Recieved -2 (while enchanted)


 * PvP Shield / Exhalted Aegis
 * 16 Armor (req. 9 Tactics/Strength)
 * +30 Health
 * Damage Recieved -5 (Chance: 20%)


 * "Cities of Ascalon" Quest Scroll
 * +6 Energy (req. 5 Earth Magic) [Note: +3 without the req.]
 * +25 Health
 * +5 Armor
 * -5 Energy


 * Kiting Weapons


 * Defensive PvP Staff of Defense
 * +10 Energy
 * +10 Defense


 * "Charr at the Gate" Quest Sword
 * +5 Armor (while Enchanted)
 * Helpful Mods:
 * Fortitude +30 Health
 * Defense +5 Armor


 * Kiting Off-Hands


 * PvP shield / Malinon's Shield
 * 16 Armor (req. 9 Tactics/Strength)
 * +45 Health (while Enchanted)
 * Damage Recieved -2 (while enchanted)


 * PvP Shield / Exhalted Aegis
 * 16 Armor (req. 9 Tactics/Strength)
 * +30 Health
 * Damage Recieved -5 (Chance: 20%)

[Note: If you can find/afford a gold shield like these PvP shields the actual armor bonus of them will increase from 3 to 8, which can possibly make a large enough difference to warrant the difficulty of obtaining.]

From the above selection several different combinations can be made to fill 4 weapon sets. Generally I like to have one for normal casting, one for energy hiding, and one for kiting. Some people like to use the fourth for the bigger maximum energy bonuses for the chance that they need to cast when they are at zero energy, others like a set to switch to when using MoR for slightly better energy gain, faster casting, and faster recharge.

You might not even have or want a kiting set, as it seems several of the normal casting items work well to balance in the armor and health areas. But if you happen to have a gold max shield with health and damage reduction while enchanted or all the time, you might find it very helpful in living just long enough to get away.

Positioning
Even more important that healing yourself, this is the primary survival skill of any monk. It's not a hard thing to do, but soo many monks are so bad at it. If you find yourself dying all the time, this could be the reason why. It is important for a Monk to stay away from damage. Kiting is a way to avoid damage, but before you have to kite you should be positioned to avoid damage. This means staying barely in casting range of your warriors. If you don't know what casting range is, it is just a little larger than the aggro circle on your radar. The ideal arrangement of the dots on yoru radar will be your warriors brushing the outside of your aggro circle, and all the enemy dots on the opposite side of the warriors. As this is generally impossible, you want to concentrate on having as many enemies outside of your castng range, while having as many allies inside your casting range as possible. If the lines mix, and warriors and assassins move through your frontlines to get to you, refer to the next section, which is on...

Kiting and Luring
Arguably the most important difference between a good monk and a mediocre monk is their ability to Kite. And one of the major differences between a good team and a mediocre team is their ability to Lure. Kiting and luring are almost the same thing, so I have listed them together and will describe both of them in one section. Kiting is, in a nutshell, running away from enemy warriors, and now assassins. When being attacked you can clearly see the melee attacker on your screen, right next to you. A general conception of kiting, and often a bad idea for your team, is to run away from the enemy group. This however leaves your party behind with the enemy, and you generally out of range to heal them. (Note running away from the enemy group is actually good practice in high ranked GvG, as enemies know better than to follow you too far. But I'm covering general Kiting here.) The better way to avoid being hit by an enemy warrior is to run around allies. In a PvE situation players call this "Rubbing Aggro." While it doesn't work quite the same, often the allies body will block the warrior for at least a moment, allowing you to move out of their range. When they run around the ally to get at you you run around again, becoming sort of like what my brother and I like to call the "car game." I'm sure everyone remembers that from when they were little kids, running around a car or a table while playing tag to avoid being tagged. Same concept applies here, except substitute tag for attack. A dumb warrior will continue to attempt attacking you, and will be rendered totally useless, a smarter warrior will attack someone else. With a good team however, speaking here of your party not neccessarily the enemy team, a strategy of "luring" may be more appropriate. This strategy applies more to casters like mesmers who like to annoy monks than for warriors, as the warrior's armor will more often than not save them. If you become the target of a mesmer, you should run backwards and away from the battle. At this point communication is neccessary between yourself and the target caller, or just a really good target caller is neccessary. As you run backwards, slowly but as fast as they will follow, the enemy mesmer will follow you to the point where they are just out of heal range of their monks. With low armor this creates the perfect time to spike the mesmer down. It can also be done with warriors, but the enemy warrior needs to be pulled much farther out of heal range as they generally take more than a single spike to knock down.

Energy Hiding
If you have just made the monk using the equipment I listed you will notice there is a significantly large difference between the casting weapon set, and the energy hiding set. In fact you almost half your maximum energy by switching to your energy hiding set. At zero energy with your energy hiding set, I believe you have 22 energy hidden. As soon as you see the mesmer hex Mind Wrack, or any negative purple numbers over your head, you should switch to this set. After the mesmer uses three e-denial spells, Surge, Burn, and Signet of Weariness usually, it is safe to switch back to your normal set for a while. Usually a msmer only uses Mind Wrack before they burn energy, so that can be a big clue for when to hide your energy. Otherwise battlefield awareness comes into play, watching for mesmers to move up into the frontlines and begining to cast can be almost as obvious to a seasoned monk, as a Mind Wrack hex. That, however, comes with lots of practice.

Energy Management
Energy management is more than just recasting MoR whenever is comes down. It's using your heals when every point of health healed will matter. Using RoF on character who is at 90% health will usually result in a small waste of heal, as RoF can heal for nearly 150 points of health. Don't use RoF to "top off" characters hit points, and don't use Mend Condition to remove blind from a caster, or dazed from a warrior. Try to use Signet of Devotion whenever the healing isn't of grave urgency. Signet of Devotion heals for a significant amount of health when compared to what it costs. Also, I cannot stress enough how important it is to not use CoP when unneccessary. Removing both divine Boon and MoR is not good practice, and even if MoR is recarged, recasting Boon and MoR after casting CoP negates the energy gain of MoR, and that is the lifeblood of this character.

Reversal of Fortune

 * This is your primary Healing Spell. Not only does it heal from Divine Favor and Divine Boon, it also causes the next attack's damage against the target to be negated. It kills two birds with one stone and is the reason this monk is so effective. DO NOT LET THIS SKILL BE DIVERTED. You can work with almost every skill but this one disabled.

Gift of Health

 * Quickly becoming a favorite of Boon/Prots, this spell offers a large unconditional heal that is much mroe effective against pressure than RoF, which shines against spikes. To me however, Mend Condition is better against condition pressure and RoF is better against damage pressure. I guess that leaves just Hex degen pressure. Although I have found it's heal useful, it's difficult to squeeze on your bar. Plus by bringing this you need to redistribute your attributes between four specs.

Mend Condition

 * While this skill does heal effectivly, it is not quite as effective as RoF, so this skill should only be used in healing when RoF is cooling down. Aside from that use this skill only to remove important conditions like Blind, Crippled, Dazed, or to remove a condition from a player who is relativly low on health.

Mend Ailment

 * This skill is like Mend Condition in the aspect that it removes one condition from the target, it is different however in the way it heals and the fact that it's target can be its caster. It's heal is based on how many conditions are left on the target after one is removed, and since there generall aren't that many it's not a favorite for its healing abilities. This skill is often brought along for its ability to target its caster. This makes it a good choice for a split build where one or more of the groups will rely soely on the monk for condition removal. This can possibly make up for its longer recharge and more conditional heal. However, it may not be neccessary to use mend ailment on yourself as CoP removes conditions without having a cast time which can be affected by Dazed(with dazed almost never being used however, this is a moot point).

Protective Spirit

 * One of the two skills which costs 10 energy. For that reason this is not spammable and should only be used if a characters life drops dramatically in one attack, as that is usually a player who spiked a little earlier than their team. Also if your watching player movements, use this when you see multiple warriors move to the same target. The best thing about this skill is that it gets more and more effective as your team gets DP'ed. It helps to overcome the disadvantage of having been killed a few times, and in turn helps your team to more easily comeback for a possible come from behind win.

Spirit Bond

 * I haven't done much testing with this skill, but I know it would be used against spikes like Prot Spirit. Crunching the numbers says this skill is more effective against spikes than Prot Spirit, so it might be worth trying.

Guardian

 * This skill can be used like Protective Spirit against adrenaline spikes, but the addition of assassins brings a new usefullnes to this skill. It breaks an assassins attack chain. To do this you need to watch enemy assassins movements, which can be difficult because of their shadow stepping. Because of the 1 second cast time, combined with human reaction time, it might be difficult to put this skill up in time to break an assassins chain. If you don't catch the chain before it is started you would probably be better off using RoF to heal, instead of casting this skill which will most likley finish casting at the end of the attack.

Signet of Devotion

 * This would be your second most useful heal. While it might sick against spikes, it being a signet means you can use it at zero energy to top off a character. This means while hiding your energy you can still be maintaining your team, which is a big deal since against e-denial mesmers you will be hiding your energy as often as possible. Switching to your casting set only when neccessary.

Holy Veil

 * This enchantment can be exelent hex removal. It has a low casting time and a relativly low recharge for a hex removal. What it really shines at however is it's excellent synergy with Contemplation of Purity. Removing this enchantment alone with CoP removes two hexes and one condition for only 10 energy. Also it is more usable as hex removal for a small team which relies on the monk for hex removal. This makes it a favorite in Arena's and a viable option for teams designed for the split.

Drain Enchantment

 * This is one of the best non elite energy management skills. It is slightly situational, but finding enchantments on the enemy team is almost gauranteed. The main drawback to this skill, as well as several other inspiration skills, is that you must first find a proper enemy to use it on, which can possibly slow a monks reaction time enough to let a spike get through.

Inspired Enchantment
[Revealed Enchantment is the Factions Equivilent]
 * Some people like to bring this when playing without use of MoR. The argument is that MoR is such a common energy management skill for Monks to bring, that you can steal it from enemy monks and have two elite energy management skills for yourself. However, to pull an enchantment off of a monk, you need to be well within range of enemy warriors and you put yourself in danger of being spiked. Use this at your own risk.

Energy Tap

 * This can be a great energy management skill at times, but is generally not used because of the very long casting time and it being conditional to the enemy having enough energy to tap into.

Inspired Hex
[Revealed Hex is the Factions equivilent]
 * With a mesmer hex remover on a team this skill is almost unneccessary as it's use for energy management is very conditional. This skill does however give the monk a nifty way of removing diversion. If hexed with diversion while another party member has a hex on them, using Inspired Hex will bypass the diversion, giving you the target hex with no recharge added. If Diversion is cast on you again, you can use the hex knowing that when the twenty seconds has expired Inspired Hex will not be diverted by it. If you find yourself bringing IHex along only for hex removal, you might want to think about using Holy Veil in its place.

Mantra of Recall [Elite]

 * Recast this ONLY when it is removed either by time or an enemy. If the fast recharge of your wand/focii kicks in you should still not remove this using CoP, as casting CoP, Boon, and MoR almost completely uses the energy gain from it.

Energy Drain [Elite]

 * Some monks like to use this instead of MoR to take full advantage of the chance of faster recharge on wands/focii. In my experience it works well enough for the majority of the time, but because it is dependent on a nearby enemy who was enough energy to be burned it can be very situational. For instand, a shock/axe war may have exhasted all but 4 energy(3 energy gain if drained), or an assassin may be at 3 energy because they just unloaded their skillbar on someone(1 energy gain), or maybe the enemy team is all caster/rangers and is keeping their distance. Using Energy Drain requires you to be within casting range of an enemy, which is often times not a place you want to be as a monk. If you do use this, move into range of an enemy when using it then immediatly back up. Also keep track of which enemies seem to have more energy to give you, you don't want to continuously drain someone who is always very low on energy.

Offering of Blood [Elite]

 * This used to be the primary energy management skill of the Monk. It offered, and still offers, a very large instant and unconditional energy gain. The problem with it is that this skill sacrifices health, which makes it bad energy management for times you are being attacked. After the energy it takes to heal yourself of this, the energy gain from its use is less than that of Mantra of Recall. Also because this skill does not synergize with Contemplation of Purity, this is much less used. It does remain usable however because the sacrificed life can be made up for with a heal party E/Mo on your team (which also makes its energy gain much more effective than MoR), and because it is a skill in a premade PvP build, it can be used by anyone who doesn't have any other elite energy management.

Boon Signet [Elite]

 * This is becoming a fairly popular energy management skill. It is an interesting choice because it is possible to use it when at zero energy because it is a signet. to get it's full effect however you will need to use a superior divine favor rune to reach 15 divine, and you will have to use it on a character with at least 3 enchantments on them. Many monks I have seen who use this often use channeling, which is generally a no-no, and keep themself protted with Prot Spirit all the time, which is in itself a benefit. The main drawback, and reason for its controvesialness, is that it must be used every few seconds to get its full effect. This causes a monk to lose some effectivness as their reaction time can be limited if a spike begins while the monk is using Boon Signet. The Cost/Benefit is still being argued, so this is at the moment a personal choice.

Contemplation of Purity

 * Use this with caution, as using it removes MoR and forces you to recast Divine Boon. The combination, as explained above, uses up the energy gained from MoR. For that reason this should only be used to remove conditions like Dazed, or Hexes like Backfire or Shame. Even then it should only be used when it is absolutly neccessary to cast.

Divine Boon

 * Don't forget about maintaining this enchantment. I myself have even forgotten about it after having been stripped of enchantments. It sucks to see a party member get dropped and then realize the reason you couldn't keep him healed was because you forgot to recast this after using CoP, or after being stripped.

Channeling

 * This is a skill which should be mentioned not for it's usefullness, although it can be useful, but to explain why it shouldnt be used. Because this gives energy for each foe in the area, about the size of an elementalists wards I believe, around you you have to be far closer to many enemies than you should be for it to give you enough energy. Basically, using this skill to its fullest is near suicidal. Although it can be useful with the emerging energy management skill, Boon Signet.

Thanks

 * Productivity @ Team-iQ.net for Inspired Hex's effect on Diversion, and for bringing up Holy Veil and Offering of Blood
 * Starfox, Falcon213, and Judo Hobo @ Team-iQ.net for their opinions on the drawbacks of +5e^50% wands
 * EisHex @ Team-iQ.net for his opinion about kiting weapon sets and reminding me to include notes about positioning
 * Iraqalypse Now @ Team-iQ.net for reminding me to mention several skills, including channeling
 * Zrave @ Team-iQ.net for info about defense of shields when their req isn't met
 * Minor @ Clan-NBK.com for asking my opinion on Spirit Bond
 * Cedo @ Team-iQ.net for mentioning the benefit of Prot Spirit when making a comeback