Invincible Monk

Description
An Invincible Monk, often shortened to "invincimonk," "solo monk," or "55 monk" is a family of monk builds designed primarily for farming, although it can be useful in parties under some circumstances.

These builds essentially take advantage of the fact that by making use of Protective Spirit (or less popularly, Protective Bond), a monk can cause damage to become a fraction of his total health, while health regeneration remains denominated in absolute pips. By reducing his health total as low as possible, the monk can reduce the damage he takes dramatically, while cause the relative rate of health regeneration to increase.

Compare two characters:
 * A regular monk (no runes) under Protective Spirit, with +5 health regeneration.
 * An invincimonk (with runes as described below) under Protective Spirit, with +5 health regeneration.

The first of these will have 480 hp, and so attacks against him will do 48 damage. He regenerates health at a rate of 10 life per second (each pip is 2 life per second). So it takes him a little less than 5 seconds to regenerate the damage from each attack. The invincimonk will have 55 hp, and so attacks against him will do 5 damage. He still regenerates health a rate of 10 life per second. Hence each attack takes just one half of a second to regenerate.

As a result, the invincimonk can tank quite a number of creatures doing physical damage without them overwhelming his regeneration.

Reducing Health
The health reduction is accomplished as follows. A level 20 monk with no runes has 480 health. Adding five superior runes, one of each monk attribute and one duplicate, which does nothing, reduces the 480 by 375 (75*5), leaving a total health of 105. Additionally, the invincimonk uses a quest reward Grim Cesta which has a -50 hp modification on it to reduce his health to 55.

Ascetic's Armor is recommended, as the nature of this build requires energy and the AL of the armor is irrelevant; taking a hit outside of Protective Spirit is generally instant death.

As the invincimonk build requires the above Grim Cesta, the monk is constrained to using a one-handed weapon. Helpful modifications include lengthening enchantment duration and extra energy.

The Build
There are many variations on the invincimonk build; not only do different players have different preferences, but different farming situations require different skill changes. Additionally, changes in the game have caused a move away from AoE smiting damage dealing because of enemies' tendencies to flee.

However, an invincimonk must solve the following problems with his skills:

Damage Reduction
 * Protective Spirit is the usual choice here.
 * Protective Bond is seldom used any more, as the energy cost, even with very high Protection Prayers skills, is prohibitive.

Additionally, some other skills that are sometimes employed actually serve as damage reduction. Bonetti's Defense, while primarily an energy management skill, additionally serves to slow down the rate at which damage is done. Likewise for Shield of Judgment, which knocks many types of enemies down, reducing their attack rate.

Health Regeneration


 * Mending is popular for situations where the skill bar is not taxed by the necessity of having many specialized skills.
 * Healing Breeze is often essential for additional regeneration while under attack by many enemies. When farming areas with high monster density, attacks (even with reduced dmg) can come fast and furious, and can overwhelm Mending's regeneration. Supplementing this with Healing Breeze in those cases is important. Additionally, some popular farming areas contain enemies that cause Bleeding, which can single-handedly wipe out Mending's regeneration.

When running these two skills, the decision to make is how many attribute points to put into Healing Prayers. For Mending, 8 Healing Prayers is +3 regen, while 13 Healing Prayers is +4 regen. For Healing Breeze, 9 Healing Prayers is +7 regen, while 12 is +8, and 14 is +9.


 * Watchful Spirit is another skill sometimes used for health regeneration. It provides +2 regen without any requirement for attribute points.

Another additional source of health regen is the Divine Favor healing bonus which occurs when casting a spell. Frequently if the invincimonk's health is starting to slip from overwhelming attacks, simply casting Protective Spirit will give a health boost of about 25-35 points, healing the monk immediately.

Energy Management

This build requires a lot of energy. At least two and sometimes up to four or five maintained enchantments will be used, and the build must be able to cast Protective Spirit and Healing Breeze every ten to fifteen seconds, as well as cast damage-dealing spells. As a result, base energy regeneration is not nearly enough.

There are two enchantments which provide energy on being attacked:
 * Balthazar's Spirit is the better of the two for this purpose, because it also provides adrenaline on taking damage and is not limited to physical damage. It provides one energy on being attacked.
 * Essence Bond is the other, which also provides 1 energy on being attacked.


 * Bonetti's Defense is an excellent energy management skill which requires a Warrior secondary profession. This short-lasting stance provides 5 energy per attack blocked (75% of blocking) and is especially useful when fighting smaller groups of enemies, if there are not enough hits to refill energy fast enough from maintained enchantments. Addditionally, as noted earlier, Bonetti's reduces the total amount of damage dealt by reducing the number of hits taken.

Damage Dealing

Smiting Prayers is the usual mode of damage dealing for the invincimonk.
 * Shield of Judgment. Keeping with this build's expectation that enemies will continue to hit it, Shield of Judgement is the most popular and powerful damage spell invincimonks commonly use. This elite skill causes 53 damage per hit (at 16 Smiting Prayers) and also causes knockdown. For many of the popular farming spots, this skill alone can kill the enemies, as they will not stop attacking the SoJ monk until dead.
 * Zealot's Fire is a low-cost way of leveraging the fact that the invincimonk is generally spamming Protective Spirit and Healing Breeze, doing some fire damage with each skill.
 * Symbol of Wrath is a low-cost spell that is weakened by the fact that enemies flee its effect; however, often before the enemies will actually flee, three of the five seconds worth of damage has been done.
 * Balthazar's Aura was once a staple of the invincimonk build, this spell has fallen into disuse because of its high cost and reduced effectiveness.

Utility

Additionally, a number of skills can be used in particular situations or to enhance the ability of the build to function in a certain area.


 * Balanced Stance is important for farming areas where enemies will knock you down, such as Hydras in Skyward Reach.
 * Spell Breaker can be invaluable against enemies who strip or Rend Enchantments, such as Dying Nightmares in the Underworld. Note that using Spell Breaker precludes using Shield of Judgment, as both are elites.
 * Mantra of Resolve can aid against enemies who interrupt spells, such as Mountain Trolls or Bladed Aatxes.
 * Blessed Aura can add to the duration of all cast enchantments, sometimes killing a group with just one Shield of Judgment instead of two.

Attribute Allocations
One excellent feature of the invincimonk is that because of all the superior runes, his attributes are quite high. No other character type can boast such high values in such a broad range of skills. Allocating attributes is often a matter of personal preference and depends on the area to be farmed. However, each skill affects the build in different ways.


 * Healing Prayers affects the pips of regeneration from Mending or Healing Breeze.
 * Protection Prayers affects the duration of Protective Spirit.
 * Smiting Prayers affects the amount of damage done by Shield of Judgment (and also the amount of adrenaline gained from Balthazar's Spirit, which is normally used to charge Bonetti's Defense)
 * Divine Favor affects the duration of Spell Breaker, the effect of Blessed Aura, and the amount of healing gained from casting normal spells.
 * Tactics affects the duration of Balanced Stance and Bonetti's Defense.

Use
Invincimonks are primarily useful against melee attackers, especially those that hit hard and fast. As the build relies on enemies that hit it, both for energy management and damage dealing, it is primarily successful against warrior-type creatures who do not heal themselves such as Desert Griffons. The build is also an excellent tank against more powerful warrior-type creatures. One popular two-person build in The Underworld pairs an invincimonk (who acts as a tank) and a damage-dealing caster.

Drawbacks
Invincimonks are extremely susceptible to enchantment removal, health degeneration, and to a lesser extent, interrupts. Spell Breaker can serve as cover against enchantment removal and hex-based health degeneration, but even with Arcane Echo and various enchantment prolongment, the gap in coverage of Spell Breaker is still dangerously long. Thus Invincible Monk builds are primarily used in areas that lack Mesmers or Necromancers.

The monk can protect himself/herself against some enchantment removal skills such as Strip Enchantment and Drain Enchantment by covering the important enchantments with a less important one like Reversal of Fortune (the game mechanics will remove the most recent enchantment put on). The most deadly forms for an Invincimonk to face are Shatter Enchantment and Rend Enchantments. Shatter will deal armor ignoring damage that could kill instantly and Rend will remove as many as eight enchantments, so covering enchantments is virtually impossible.

Life stealing skills at high ranks of Blood Magic are the absolute bane of 55 monks. Not only do they go right through the damage reduction protections (since they aren't classified as damage), Spellbreaker is also useless (since they aren't spells). Vampiric Touch can easily steal 60+ health, which means instant death to 55 monks regardless of their health regeneration capabilities, and its short activation and recharge times means a 105 monk won't beable to sustain two hits either.

Using this build in a party is normally not indicated because most missions and quests contain a mixture of creatures. Additionally, if the monk accumulates too much Death Penalty, he will die immediately upon being resurrected. One way around this is to have a party monk bring Vengeance or Unyielding Aura, which will give you enough health to at least stand up. Before you die again, quickly unequip the superior runes which brought your health so low, so when you die again, you can be resurrected normally (and then reequip whatever you removed).