General bonder guide

Overview
'Bonding' is a Monk Protection role using Life Bond or Life Barrier to reduce attack damage to the party by a half. While this is very beneficial from a battle-of-attrition perspective (long term damage-healing ratios), it is also very useful to fend off typical spike attacks (short term kills). Bonding occupies about half the Bonder's resources (time and energy) but does allow the Bonder to support the party in other ways.

The word 'Bonding' comes from the build's primary skill Life Bond. 'Bonding' has also come to mean builds that primarily maintain other sorts of enchantments on party members. However, these 'Smite Bonders' and 'Mending Bonders' etc. are not further discussed here. This guide focuses on builds based on Life Bond and comments on builds based on Life Barrier as reasonable alternatives.

Only a Primary Monk can be an adequate 'Bonder' for the party, even though a Secondary Monk can 'bond' one or two other party members.

When a Bonder is present, the party generally only needs one Healing monk to round out Monk support. While Monks are in general high demand when forming PUGs, Bonders are even more desirable in many areas where parties form to farm. A Fissure of Woe party, for example, is typically composed of a Bonder, a Healer, and just about any other 6 damage dealers. See Party Bonding Guide for strategies Bonders have with coordinating with other party members, especially coordination with the Healer.

2 of the 3 required skills are Core skills, but one is a Prophecies Campaign skill. If you don't have Prophecies you won't be able to bond affectively. However, a 'Bonder' that users Life Barrier instead of Life Bond doesn't need Prophecies.

Starter Strategy
New Bonders can use this starter strategy.

Starter Build
Be a Mesmer 2ndary, take these skills: Blessed Signet Life Bond Balthazar's Spirit Mantra of Inscriptions Heal Party Reversal of Fortune 	If you need Signet of Capture, put it here Signet of Devotion Resurrect

Equip a Divine Favor Superior Rune, Protection Prayers, Healing Prayers Minor Rune, and a Divine headgear.

Attribute levels Divine 15, Prot 12, Heal 8, Inspiration 5.

Form a party of Heroes and Henchmen including one healer. Bringing along a 'blood' henchmen will make your life easier as she will cast Blood Ritual on you when your energy gets low, which will happen often.

Starting Setup
Cast Balthazar's Spirit on yourself and Life Bond on all the others, casting Blessed Signet whenever it comes available and Mantra of Inscriptions when it expires. Realistically, after casting the 1st 4 bonds you will end up rounding out the rest of the party by casting Life Bond only once for each Blessed Signet recharge cycle. It takes about a minute to 'set the bonds'.

Always keep Mantra of Inscriptions active. If you find yourself casting Blessed Signet when you have a 30 or more energy, recast Mantra even if it hasn't expired yet. Note that you can cast Mantra even while Blessed is casting.

Get used to it, you'll be watching your energy bar and casting Blessed Signet repeatedly.

Starter Adventuring
Go out looking for trouble. Stop a long way from a mob you see. Command your party to a spot in front of the Mob, which should be far enough to be outside your agro circle. Stay way back, let the party conduct the battle, and never allow yourself to be engaged by the enemy. Spam Blessed Signet and Heal Party, which realistically will be cast only once per Blessed cycle. Use Signet of Devotion when you take damage from the Bonds. Keep an eye on your energy levels and don't cast skills if it will cause your energy to drop below 15, as you are losing energy and Blessed Signet takes a little while to recharge and to cast.

After the battle, if your energy degen isn't 4 then someone has lost bonds. Check the names on your maintained enchantments (hover the mouse over the icons), re-cast Life Bond, including on those resurrected.

You can Rez the Healer, otherwise let the Healer do the Rezzing while you are re-bonding.

Rinse and repeat the next mob.

Understand that staying way back means you won't get Experience for foe kills, but you will still get your share of loot.

Starting End
When you are confident you can always prevent your energy from reaching zero and losing bonds, when you can reasonably quickly detect who has lost bond and reset it, and when you understand the <> below, then your 'starter' bonding days are over and you can try some of the more <> techniques below and are ready to bond in a live group.

Required skills
There are 3 basic skills for the Bonder:

[1] Life Bond is cast and maintained on all other party members and redirects half the attack damage of the target to the Bonder instead, and reduces much or all of that redirected damage.

[2] Balthazar's Spirit is cast and maintained on the Bonder and provides 1 energy every time the Bonder takes damage. Life Bond redirected damage counts, so the Bonder gets one energy any time any party member takes attack damage.

[3] Blessed Signet provides the caster 3 energy for each maintained enchantment. With typically 7 maintained Life Bonds (one for each other party member) and Balthazar's Spirit maintained on the Bonder, Blessed Signet can provide the Bonder 8x3=24 energy.

Basic Attribute Levels
In order to optimize the expected need for 24 Energy from Blessed Signet, the Bonder's Divine Favor should be 15, which usually means a Superior Rune, Divine Headgear, and a level of 11 (11+3+1=15).

Max out Protection Prayers. Combined with a Minor Rune will make that level 13. Major or Superior Protection Prayers rune is certain acceptable. In PvE, it’s reasonable to have 2 identical

pieces of armor, one with a Minor Protection rune and one with a Superior. Equip the Superior when not in combat when setting the bonds; equip the minor when in combat or when you take damage. This rune swapping is only worth 4 points of damage reduction but tiny advantages add up.

This leaves 26 attribute points for your support attribute, typically Inspiration.

Equipment
Bonders (in fact, all characters) should have an emergency +energy weapon set (perhaps in F4) where energy is available to prevent loss of the bonds. Use this only when you are about to run out of energy. Revert back to the normal weapon set after the emergency energy has allowed you to cast Blessed Signet.

Equipping melee weapons should be done mindfully if at all.

Basic Bonder requires no particular primary equipment. However, since the extra skills a Bonder takes are often Enchantments, having an enchantment enhancement staff is desirable. Protection weapons are desirable, possibly a Defensive Protection staff of Enchanting with a Spell Recharge inscription.

Basic Math
Life Bond damage examples: With Protection Prayers of 15 Life Bond reduces 30 damage, then when the original damage to the ally would have been 42, the ally takes only half =21 and the Bonder takes 21-30=0. If the original damage was 70, the ally takes 70/2=35 and the Bonder takes 35-30=5.

Life Bond and Balthazar's Spirit, like all 'maintained' enchantments, costs the caster 1 pip of energy to maintain. Since the Bonder typically maintains 8 enchantments and has a base 4 pip energy gain, the Bonder now has a 4-pip net energy loss. This loss corresponds to 1-1/3 energy loss per second. Since Blessed Signet has a casting cycle of 12 seconds, the Bonder will lose 16 energy during the cycle, gain 24 when its cast, for a net gain of 8 energy cycle, or 2/3 energy per second, the equivalent 2 pips of energy regeneration.

Life Bond triggers only when the defender takes at least 1 damage. High-level foes with high armor against low-level foes will typically take zero damage, in which case Life Bond does not trigger.

However, Balthazar's Spirit triggers even when the enchanted takes zero damage.

The Bonder will gain 1 energy whenever Life Bond redirects damage, even when that damage to the Bonder has been reduced to zero. The Bonder will see -0 and +1 symbols overhead showing damage taken and energy gained.

Should the Bonder forget to use Blessed Signet and energy would reach -1, all but 4 of the enchantments are lost, leaving the Bonder with zero energy, zero energy regeneration, and 4 maintained enchantments, and leaves some party members unprotected.

Maintained enchantments range is a little larger than Radar. If you can see your party member in the Radar then you can maintain; if you cannot see the party member then you are about to lose the bonds. Since the Bonder has to stop to cast Blessed Signet, groups running very long distances often find that party members outrun the Bonder, losing the bonds.

Basic Strategy
The Bonder casts Balthazar's Spirit on herself and Life Bond on each party member, and casts Blessed Signet as often as it recharges. Once set, the Bonder's job is to avoid death and keep casting Blessed Signet to maintain the bonds. Balthazar's Spirit should be one of the 1st 4 enchantments cast since you want it to be one of the one preserved in case you run out of energy.

The Bonder should routinely start combat way behind the rest of the party to insure avoiding initial agro. Once combat is joined, the Bonder moves up to provide support.

When bonds are lost, the Bonder has to consult the maintained enchantment icons to determine who is not bonded, and recast Life Bond. It’s a difficult choice to attempt to re-bond during combat and therefore expose oneself to enemy attacks, or to simply wait for combat to end before re-bonding.

Postures
There are two basic Postures for the bonder:


 * Stay-In-Back: the bonder stays out of agro range of enemies, maintains the bonds, and provides supports as possible from the back. This posture has the considerable benefit that the bonder is not in jeopardy and can reliably maintain the bonds. Two support options are available [1] maintain lots of enchantments [2] provide Support with skills that don't require allies to be within selection (agro) range such as Heal Party and Martyr.  Stay-back bonders must provide themselves self-healing (to heal redirected damage) such as Signet of Devotion since they will often be outside

range of the healer.


 * Stay-In-Agro: the bonder starts in the back, but moves up after combat has been joined. This posture exposes the bonder to death and loss of bonds, which is a disaster for the party.  This posture is needed in the more difficult areas since a single Healer may not be able to keep up with expected damage.  Most of this guide is geared toward this posture.

Reapply Bonds
The art of Bonding is the ability to quickly identify folks who have lost their bonds and to re-bond them quickly during combat. When you notice your energy degen is no longer exactly 4 you know you've lost a bond. If you Hover the mouse over your maintained Bond enchantment icons you'll see the names of folks bonded, and can deduce from that who is not bonded. You can also single-click on these icons which will select that character, which may make it easier to identify who is still bonded. Be sure not to double-click as that will cancel that enchantment.

It may be easier to bond folks in the exact order shown in the Party Window. After combat you may need to cancel some bonds and reapply them so that they are displayed in an order that makes it easier to identify who has lost the bonds.

Adrenaline
Adrenaline gained from Balthazar's Spirit is insignificant and does not provide the Bonder the reasonable option to use Adrenal skills.

Math: Balthazar's Spirit provides Adrenaline 'points', where 25 'points' roughly equals 1 adrenaline 'strike', which is quoted in all the skills. With Smiting Prayers of 3, Balthazar's Spirit provides 3-Adrenaline points per hit so it would take 8 hits to get one strike, or 32 hits to charge enough Adrenaline to cast a 4-strike skill like Watch Yourself!; that same 32 hits allow the Bonder to cast a 5-energy skill 6 times.

However, the rare offensive Smite Bonder may end up with enough extra adrenalin to reasonably equip adrenal skills, although may not have enough skill slots available to do so.

Problems
Unlike most folks, the Bonder actually has more energy problems outside of combat than during combat. Getting used to the weird energy realities is the most difficult part of becoming a competent Bonder.

The main problem with bonding is against foes that strip enchantments. Foes that strip enchantments often, and foes that strip all enchantments of a kind create an environment where bonding isn't realistic. Foes that strip enchantments sometimes doesn't prevent bonding, just make it more interesting.

Some Dervish skills 'lose one enchantment' which regrettably often means the bond. If you cannot talk the Dervish out of using such skills or to only use them when some other enchantment is 'on top', then don't bother trying to bond the Dervish.

Foes that interrupt can cause havoc with Blessed Signet and loss of energy and therefore loss of bonds. However, the Bonder can realistically stay far away from such foes (once they are identified) and thus maintain the bonds, even if providing no additional support for the party.

Bonding reduces attack damage, it does not reduce Life Loss, Conditions, or Hexes. Foes that use those sorts of combat reduce the effectiveness of the Bonder.

ADVANCED
The Bonder must never lose sight of the primary responsibility: Maintain the bonds. This requires the Bonder to [1] stay alive, meaning either avoid combat or bring self-defense, and [2] never run out of energy, meaning it must be constantly monitored tended. All other considerations are 2ndary.

Never-the-less the quality Bonder supports the party in these 2ndary ways as described below.

Life Barrier
The elite skill Life Barrier can be substituted for Life Bond. If so, Balthazar's Spirit is not needed. The differences between these skills are that Life Barrier ...
 * is Elite and precludes another Elite
 * has protection level comparable to Life Bond but it protects from all damage, not just attack damage
 * enchantment is canceled if the Bonder loses half health
 * doesn't redirect any damage back to the Bonder which is good, but also its bad since the Bonder cannot use Balthazar's Spirit to acquire more energy.

Due to its energy limitations and loss of bonds when the Bonder takes a lot of damage, a Life Barrier Bonder should adopt a stay-in-back Posture and avoid combat.

Life Barrier can be used in addition to Life Bond, see Dual-Bonder below.

Number of Skills
With 3 required skills, plus a Rez, plus an energy skill, and possibly a Signet of Capture, the Bonder has only 2 skills slots left for self-defense and party support. Tough decisions need to be made, evaluating the effectiveness of the skill vis-a-vis how well its cost and recharge rate compare favorably with the expected energy levels of the Bonder.

Number of Enchantments
Bonder's can maintain more than 8 enchantments, but the increase cannot be compensated for by Blessed Signet (max of 25 points). 10 maintained enchantments results in 6-pip energy loss, which is 2 points per second, which is 24 energy loss per 12-second Blessed Signet cycle time. Thus, without additional energy source the Bonder cannot increase energy outside of combat. 8 enchantments is the minimum for a standard party; 9 is realistic; 10 enchantments is tough, 11 is too difficult, 12 is practically impossible. With 10 or more enchantments the Bonder can expect to provide very little additional support for the party.

Usually, it’s not worth it. Stay with 8 maintained enchantments and consider going to 9 carefully; usually that is Blessed Aura. If you do go to 9, up your Divine Favor to max 16 so Blessed Signet gets more energy.

Rez
All monks should bring a Rez, Resurrection Chant is a common choice for Bonders. While Healing Monks should be reluctant to Rez during combat since the monk cannot be healing during that long cast, rezzing during combat for the Bonder is realistic since the long casting time of Rezzes can be accomplished while Blessed Signet is recharging. Since Rebirth causes complete loss of energy which will result in loss of all but 4 bonds, Rebirth is a poor choice for Rez for the Bonder.

Resurrect is a reasonable option since it allows the Bonder to stay at agro length from Combat, even though the target is very weak after rezzed. The Healing Prayer's rezes provide more health and energy to the rezzed party member (even when Healing Prayers are at zero), but require the Bonder to touch or be close to the target, which is a significant disadvantage.

Who to Bond
There is controversy over who should be bonded. In a full party of 8, some bonders prefer to single-bond all party members while other prefer to dual-bond (see below) only a few of the party, leaving the others unprotected. The Dual-Bond-a-few argument has merit in disciplined parties (most guild organized parties) when there is a disciplined take-and-hold agro tank (or two). The Single-Bond-everyone argument has merit in less disciplined groups (most PUGs) where you expect somewhat chaotic melee.

If there is an Ally required for the completion of a quest or mission, then this ally should be bonded. If one of your pets is designated as 'Tank', then this pet should be bonded. There is little benefit in bonding other allies, pets, or minions. Consider doing so only if you don't have enough party members to maintain 8 enchantments.

Dual Bonding
Dual-Bonding is when Life Barrier and Life Bond are both maintained on the party members, to gain 3/4 protection against attack damage. Life Barrier should always be applied first as this drastically reduces the damage redirected to the Bonder. When enchantments are lost, the bonder may need to strip Life Bond in order to insure that Life Barrier is applied first. The Bonder's maintained enchantment area shows enchantments, where those on the left are applied before and those on the right.

Dual-Bonding is common in these situations:


 * Typical 5-folk farming teams


 * Full party, where only key members are bonded and the others left unprotected


 * Full party PUGs after party members quit leaving the party short handed


 * Certain massive damage areas where redirected damage quickly kills the bonder

Additional Energy
If the Bonder intends to support the party in any way other than Bonds, the Bonder should bring a gain-energy skill, in addition to Blessed Signet.

Its not realistic for the bonder to actually use all the energy available. Much of the energy will be wasted since its very difficult to consistently balance Blessed Signet energy gain with support skill energy use, especially since energy gained from Balthazar's spirit is variable. The bonder will sometimes be doing something else when Blessed Signet comes available thus postponing its casting, and sometimes the bonder hasn't spent enough energy when it becomes ready thus wasting energy. Expert bonders can expect to spend at best about 3/4 of the energy specified below, less experienced bonders realistically may only actually be able to make use of half this energy.

The choice is made based on which other support skills the Bonder wants to equip:


 * Mantra of Inscriptions from Mesmer's Inspiration Magic is the standard choice, and rightfully so. It reduces the  recharge time of Blessed Signet and therefore provides additional energy.  With 26 attr points you can make Inspiration level 6.  This makes the signet recharge 35% faster, which reduces the cycle time from 12 seconds to 9.4 seconds.  Math: 1.333 energy per second loss over 9.4 seconds is 12.53 energy loss, +24 energy gain when the skill finishes for a net gain of 11.47 energy every 9.4 seconds.  That's 66 energy over Mantra's life of 54-seconds minus cost of 10 energy, for a net gain of 56 energy in its 54-second duration; a little more than 3-pip energy gain, thus increasing Blessed Signet by about 55%.  Pre-casting Mantra and clever timing of re-casting it provides a little more energy.


 * Mantra should be cast before combat to reset its duration. If during combat the Bonder finds a Blessed Signet cycle where while having around 30 energy, Mantra should be recast to to extend its duration.


 * Glyph of Lesser Energy from Elementalists is useful to reduce the initial time to put the bonds on the party and is useful if Bonder figures to use high energy skills.s. Glyph has a casting cycle time of 31 seconds and can save a max 15 energy, or 1/2 energy per second.  That's at best half as effective as Mantra of Inscriptions, but doesn't cost any attribute points.


 * Essence Bond is useful if there is a take-and-hold agro tank who can expect to take a lot of hits.


 * Ether Signet can produce emergency energy when you are about out. Its unrealistic to get its max 15 energy every 45 seconds, or the equivalent of 1-pip energy regeneration.  Using a +energy weapon set is more useful than this skill.  However, this is a pretty good skill for Hero bonders who are sloppy with their energy expenditure and cannot have a 2nd weapon set.


 * Channeling is tempting since its Inspiration Magic, but it requires you to be very close to several enemies to be effective, and Bonders tend not to cast Spells all that often.


 * Echo when used on Blessed Signet (with no Mantra of Inscriptions), increased Blessed Signet casting 3 times over the 40 second cycle time, for a net gain of 76-5=71 energy over 40 seconds, for a whopping almost 1.75 energy per second. (When used with Mantra you CAN get 4 casts but trying to do so is tricky and throws the timing of your other skills off.)  To use this energy the Bonder needs a high-energy spamable skill such as Heal Party, or an additional enchantment, possibly Succor on a few party members.  Understand the Bonder will spend most of the time with Echo-Blessed Signet and will get to cast only one other skill during that quick cycle.

Aegis
Aegis is a standard choice for Bonders. The range of Aegis is agro forcing the Bonder to be exposed to hostile action. Mindfully position yourself to include as many party members within your agro circle, and is tricky especially if the tank gets too far into the enemy group. Aegis makes for a good 'cover enchantment' in areas with low-level enchantment stripping, effectively protecting the more important Life Bond enchantment from getting stripped. Aegis blocks attacks which results in the Bonder gaining far less energy via redirected bond damage.

Unless the Bonder can keep Aegis up almost indefinitely, its best to wait a few seconds into combat until party members have taken a little damage, before casting Aegis. This is consistent with the overall strategy of waiting for combat to be joined before moving up and providing support.

With an enchantment staff, Aegis will provide 13 seconds of protection out of its 32-second cycle time. Adding Blessed Aura extends that to 17.55 seconds.

Echo-Aegis provides 52.65 seconds of protection out of 64 (two-Aegis cycles), but then there then a down period while Echo recharges. <<<>>>

Elementalist Glyph of Renewal lets you keep Aegis up indefinitely (even without Blessed Aura) which is very desirable. Glyph of Swiftness reduces Aegis cycle time from 32 seconds down to 24.5 seconds, or reduces Aegis down time from 14.45 seconds out of every 32 seconds (45.16% down time) down to only 6.95 seconds every 24.5 seconds (28.37% down time). Both these skills disallow Mesmer's Mantra causing you serious energy issues precluding you from doing much else. These should be used only if for some other reason the bonder needs to be an Elementalist 2ndary.

Defense
The daring Bonder should have extra defense. Some options here are Kinetic Armor, Shield of Regeneration.

AoE DoT offensive skills can be used to cause the AI foes to flee, effectively defending the Bonder.

Bed of Coals, Fire Storm, Eruption etc are effective defense even if they do little offense damage.

Area defense Aegis, Ward Against Melee, Ward Against Elements, [Ward Against Foes]], and Ebon Battle Standard of Courage are reasonable options.

Kiting is a typical defense. That is, when attacked by melee folks run for your life. Moving and changing course and speed often somewhat randomly should reduce the number of ranged hits you take. That is, move around erratically.

Support Skills
The Bonder should be reluctant to spend a lot of attribute points in anything except Divine Favor and Protection Prayers, and therefore the support skills should generally be in those attributes. Since the energy available to the Bonder is variable, it’s important to have at least one spamable skill.

Long Recharge skills may leave the Bonder with excess unused energy.

Overall, the Bonder should enhance her role as 'Protector' and avoid spike-healing support, which can and will conflict with the Healing monk; where both monks spike heal the same ally at the same time, wasting energy.


 * Hex and/or condition removal are reasonable choices for the Bonder.


 * Divine's Signet of Devotion heals quite a bit and costs zero energy.


 * Zealous Benediction is a good support skill, lots of healing and quick recharge for 3 energy, so long as you only cast it on folks with less than half health, which is a serious restriction. If the other monk is a maintenance monk (Healer's Covenent, Vigorous spirit, Healing Breeze, Hex and Condition removal) or full Protection monk, then this skill is a good one for the Bonder as a spike healer.


 * Blessed Light spike heals and removes hexes and conditions.


 * Shield of Regeneration can be combined with an enchantment staff and Blessed Aura to extend its 12-second duration to 18.9 seconds for a whopping 340 health and whopping extra 40 armor, overshadowing its 15 cost and 8 second recharge. The 8-second recharge blends well with Blessed Signet's similar recharge cycle.  This support skill doubles as the Bonder’s self-defense skill.  While the total healing per energy is a lot less than Zealous Benediction and isn't as spamable, it has the significant advantage that it doesn't collide with the Healer's job of spike healing (both don't heal the same ally) and does a magnificent job protecting an ally that you expect to stay under enemy attack.


 * Shielding Hands seems to reduce the damage after Life Bond is calculated, and thus reduces a higher % of the damage than without Life Bond.


 * Dismiss Condition is a low cost fast recharge skill that heals for 48 (Divine bonus) plus 67 for 115 health. Getting rid of a condition is just a bonus.


 * Martyr is reasonable in high-condition areas for stay-in-back Bonders.


 * Watchful Spirit provides a paltry 2-pip health regeneration, but more importantly provides a spike heal when the Bonder deliberately cancels the enchantment. This technique requires some practice.  This skill can be used as a clumsy and expensive spike heal, cast it on a target and immediately cancel it.  Healing Monks will rightfully snub their noses at such a technique, but then its a reasonable spike heal for monks with no Healing Prayers and cannot equip Zealous Benediction.  This skill is a reasonable choice in short-handed parties.

Offense
Since basic Bonding does not require you to target allies (for healing), using your non-Bonding skills for offense may be a reasonable option, so long as there are two other defensive monks (not just the standard one-other). The main problem with this is that unless you use Inspiration, you end up draining your Bonding attributes to gain offensive attributes (e.g. in Fire Magic), reducing your effectiveness as a Bonder. Thus, offense is not recommended for the Bonder. However, you may end up choosing an offensive skill if it synergizes with what your allies are trying to do (e.g. Mark of Rodgort or Steam or Epidemic). Inspiration Interrupts may be viable offense skills.

Bad Skill Combinations
Protective Spirit is as effective when the target is bonded as when he is not; target takes 10% max damage. But it doesn't add much more protection to a bonded character. If the character would have taken a whopping 30% hit, PS would reduce that to 10%, for a 20% max hit point reduction. Life Bond will reduce it by 15%. Using both you get 10%, for an additional benefit of PS of only 5%.

Reversal of Fortune heals less than it would with Bonded, since the target 'would take' less damage. Never the less, this cheap spamable skill remains a reasonable option for the Bonder.

Only Monk
Its difficult to be a Bonder when the monk is the only monk in the party, as all parties, no matter how well protected, still must be healed. Lots of protection combined with a reasonable amount of Healing makes it somewhat reasonable. In these parties, party members should bring significant self-healing.

Ironically, the 'Starter Strategy' above may prove useful in these high-end small party builds, where the Bonder keeps Life Barrier and Life Bond and Watchful Spirit on all party members, and spams Heal Party from way back at a safe distance, providing each party member a single spike heal by canceling Watchful Spirit, and hope the party can wipe the enemy mob before getting overwhelmed themselves.

Hero Bonding
Heroes can be Bonders, but its tricky and requires significant monitoring and intervention by the character.

Heroes will normally only maintain an enchantment when in combat. However they will maintain skills that are 'disabled'. So you should 'disable' Life Bond and Balthazar's Spirit (shift-click on that skill on the Hero's skill bar), and then you must cast them manually. Keep Blessed Signet and Mantra on the left side of the bar to insure the Hero casts them regularly. The Hero will cast Mantra only when in combat, so you may need to cast it manually when outside of combat.

The 2nd main problem with Hero bonding is that they will often cast spells irresponsibly and lose energy and lose the bonds. You can alleviate this by always posting the Hero Bonder well out of combat, and can also put other Signets on the Bonder's left side of the skill bar to insure they get priority in casting. Long recharge skills like Aegis are also desirable. Generally, though, disable the Heroes other skills ..err.. other energy skills figuring to cast them manually.

After combat, the character must consult the bonds and recast them manually for the Hero.

Its possible to re-Enable Life Bond on the Hero (shift-click on it again) during combat as this lets the Hero cast (on his own) Life Bond on a party member that has lost it. Heroes are actually pretty good at that. Just be sure to disable it as combat winds down, as if its enabled when combat ends then the Hero will cancel all the Bonds.

Non-Monk-Primary
Blessed Signet cannot provide non-Monk primary Bonders with enough energy to maintain a lot of bonds. Thus, while 2ndary Monks can maintain one or two Bonds, they cannot adopt a role of 'Bonder' for the entire party.

Weird Bonding
Having more than one monk cast Life Bond on the same party member offers no additional protection to that member (still receives half damage), but the redirected damage is split between the Bonders, and is THEN reduced. This significantly reduces the damage redirected to the Bonders. It’s very doubtful that the additional Bonder compensates for the loss of another party slot. I've never done this, but perhaps this has some merit [1] when low-level Bonders are adventuring in high-end explorable areas, or [2] when the party features a take-agro tank who can be expected to take lots of spike damage which he can heal, and you don't want the Bonder to die from the passive redirected damage and you want two monks deriving energy from the redirected damage.

Life Bond cast on the Bonder will not reduce the damage the Bonder takes from re-directed damage, since Life Bond reduces 'attack damage'. However, it still reduces direct attacks against the Bonder.

Sample Builds
In addition to the standard 3 skills and a rez...
 * Blessed Aura, Glyph of Renewal, Aegis, Dismiss Condition
 * Mantra of Inscriptions, Blessed Aura, Aegis, Shield of Regeneration or Zealous Benediction
 * Mantra of Inscriptions, Echo, Aegis, Reversal of Fortune
 * Echo, Mantra of Inscriptions, Heal Party
 * Life Barrier, Mantra of Inscriptions, Aegis, Dismiss Condition

Or this:
 * Life Barrier, Blessed Signet, Blessed Aura, Glyph of Swiftness, Aegis, Glyph of Lesser Energy, Heal Party, Rez.

Areas good for Bonding
Here's a list of areas known to be good for Bonding due to their scarcity of enchantment-stripping foes.


 * Fissure of Woe Enchantment stripping occurs but is sparse and manageable.  Be advised that the 'Forest' area therein features ??? which doubles the cost of maintained enchantments and makes bonding practically impossible.  The counter to this is simply for the Bonder to stay way back, maintaining the bonds but not otherwise being useful to the party.  Alternatively you can give up on Bonding and just adopt a role as a marginally useful Protection Monk, spamming Aegis and Reversal of Fortune.


 * Sorrow's Furnace Bond-Barrier 5-man teams are common farming groups.


 * Alliance Battles Bonding is marginally useful if your group figures only to capture control points from the NPC defenders.  Bonding can be very effective if your group figures to engage enemy players, but note that the Bonder is particularly vulnerable and players know to target monks first.

You must have some way to disengage from enemy Assassins such as Recall. Bonding can also be used to defend a control point, Bond-Barrier each defender NPC figuring to drastically slow down the enemy capturing cycle, forcing them to bunch up, allowing your side to control more points longer.

Areas bad for Bonding
Here's a list of areas known to be bad for Bonding:


 * PvP locations other than AB. This is because just about all PvP groups feature forms of Strip Enchantments, and the folks know to target Monks with Nasty spike combinations.


 * Tomb of the Primeval Kings Far too much Enchantment Stripping.


 * Elona's Realm of Torment Far too much use of xxx massive enchantment stripping.  Having said that, I have had some luck Bonding in this area, being sure to spam Aegis as basically a cover enchantment for Life Bond.