Pumping Irony

In a perfect example of my short attention span, I specifically stated I was intending to actively pursue my Asuran reputation to get Benjeth his first-ever set of elite armor. Somehow I wound up repeatedly trying (and repeatedly failing, badly) to compete in the Norn Fighting Tournament to unlock the final hero, Kahmu. The Bison Cup too, just for the hell of it, but Kahmu is my primary motivation. Next I ended up in Elona working on my Lightbringer points to achieve rank 3 to get the final skill, an elite signet. Farming points got me curious once more about the ever-vaunted “55 Monk.” I’d gotten all the requisite gear for the build last year, but had never actually practiced 55-ing. No time like the present, eh?

Experienced Guild Wars players are probably shaking their heads that it’s taken me this long to do it, but I figure better late than never, right? For the rest of you, I’ll give an explanation of the 55 Monk concept, which is essentially one of the most effective ways to solo farm with a monk in PvE. In this case, “solo” specifically means your monk is the only character out there; not grouped with anyone else. Non-Guild Wars players often consider the notion of having a full group of AI Heroes and Henchmen to be soloing, but to a GW player, that’s still a full group. The number of human-played characters is irrelevant; solo means only one character.

So, the concept behind the 55 Monk is, with a specific combination of armor (the lowest armor level possible, we’re wanting to be hit to pull this off), superior runes, a one-handed weapon with a bonus to enchant duration, and a unique focus item with a health penalty, our monk ends up only having 55 health.

Then we put together a set of skills that will negate most/all physical damage and keep a positive health generation while also dealing damage every time we’re struck. There are a few builds out there, but Benjeth has been a Monk/Necromancer since launch — from a role-playing perspective, I find opposing paradigms deliciously appealing — and I wanted to focus on using his Necromancer ability for this. So, I ended up with a 55 Spiteful Spirit build.

Going in reverse, right-to-left, the skills are:

Essence Bond, Mending, Blessed Aura, Balthazar’s Spirit. These four enchants get cast first, prior to combat. Each is a permanent (unless a mob strips enchantments or I cancel it) enchant, each also carrying a -1 energy regeneration penalty. Normal energy regeneration is four ticks, so after casting the final enchantment, we’re left with zero energy regeneration. Luckily, Essence Bond and Balthazar’s Spirit take care of that: each give 1 pip of energy every time we’re struck. Mending maintains a continuous +2 health regeneration, while Blessed Aura makes enchants last 28% (with 11 points in Divine Favor) longer.

Next is Blessed Signet, which is the “oh shit!” button for when I’m running out of energy, such as immediately after casting the fourth enchant prior to combat, or if I’m not being struck enough to raise my energy.

Then we have the elite necromancer skill, Spiteful Spirit. When I cast this hex on a mob, for 18 seconds (12 points in Curses) every time that mob strikes me, damage is dealt to not only the attacking mob, but every adjacent mob as well. In other words, it’s an Area of Effect (AoE) hex. This single elite hex is how I’ll be doing damage. If I was concentrating on fighting single mobs (or only killing one at a time in groups) an alternative would be the elite hex Spoil Victor which does more damage than Spiteful Spirit, but only to a single target.

The next skill is Healing Breeze, a healing enchant which provides an additional +6 health regeneration for 15 seconds. I need to maintain this so I always have a +8 (remember the +2 from the Mending enchant) bonus to my health regeneration since I only have 55 health.

The final skill is the meat and potatoes of the 55 Monk: Protective Spirit. While it’s active I can only lose a total of 10% health from physical or spell attacks. At 55 health, I don’t care how hard I’m technically hit, I can only lose 5 health and a continuous +8 health regeneration overcomes that immediately. This skill is the entire reason for going through all the trouble of getting our health so low so that we minimize the actual damage incurred.

Obviously from the descriptions I’ve given, I need to be somewhat choosy of my opponents. I need to be physically struck in order to regenerate my energy, so I’ll need to choose melee monsters. With only 55 health, I need to avoid mobs that have health degeneration hexes. Mesmers and Necromancers have some particularly nasty ones. Finally, every Monk skill except Blessed Signet is an enchant, so mobs who strip enchants are to be avoided at all costs as well.

Ok, so Benjeth has the 55 gear, I put together the 55 SS build for him, where to practice? We need to find a place that offers Lightbringer bounties where we can fight the demonic minions of Abbadon. How about the Domain of Secrets in the Realm of Torment? It took a few times to kinda get a feel for the timing and how the build would actually play for real, but eventually I was confident enough to capture video fighting a group of Titans. Here are the results:

You can see during the fight how Benjeth’s health never really moves much, thanks to Protective Spirit and the +8 health regeneration. The more melee mobs hitting him, the better, which keeps his energy topped off. You can see fighting the final mob where energy management becomes much more crucial and I have to be on top of things. Benjeth isn’t being hit very often now, so I’m really using that Blessed Signet to make sure I have enough energy to keep Protective Spirit going and for Spiteful Spirit since that mob, a Madness Titan, has a health regeneration skill. The nice thing was that with only one mob, the +2 health regeneration from the Mending enchant was plenty so I didn’t need to cast Healing Breeze, which is a little expensive energy-wise.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 5th, 2008 at 4:14 pm and is filed under Guild Wars. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.