Farming Help

Folks,

I've been running a 330 Rit farming build:

[build=OAOk4gPaITKjFreoFJe4V8h+QeA]

With my HP at 330, I only lose 33 hp per hit, but Vengeful gives me 37 per hit. So...I stay alive and they die. It works great against melee, I use it to farm the minotaurs in the mountains, the bugs outside Kamadan, etc. Anything that doesn't really cast spells or heal themselves.

I just picked up Spell Breaker, and decided to go the 600 smite way:

[build=OAOj8whM5M1Dt4d1iR80HhE6BA]
[build=OwQTQGHD5IlRsT5DfyDgyEA]

So...why am I giving myself all this HP and stuff? If the main support from the monk is Spell Breaker why not something like...

[build=OAOk4gPaITKkFT9gWExDeFc5Ej+A]
[build=OwET4YIXnIlRMA0DfyDgyEA]

With the normal 330 style, now I have enchants, SpellBreaker, stuff against conditions/hexes, and a little PvE skill action.

Right?

Scion
[build prof][/build]

From what I understand, Vital Blessing is there just for faster killing. However, in builds such as this, I usually look at Vital Blessing as an optional skill because you can still manage without it, but I take it if I have the room. The reason it's in the build is because the damage that monster take from Retribution and Holy Wrath are based on the damage they do to you after Protective Spirit. So, the higher your health, the higher the damage you'll take after Protective Spirit. The higher that damage, the higher the damage (until it reaches it's maximum limit) Retribution and Holy Wrath will inflict. Since your health is now higher than VwK can effectively heal, you'll need Spirit Bond, especially to counter things such as Bleeding and Poison. Since you are running a Ritualist primary and do not have access to a longer lasting Shield of Absorption (through Blessed Aura and a Protection Prayers rune), Vital Blessing is a lot more important on your build. The speedy killing will help make sure you don't go down because Spell Breaker wore off or because VwK was interrupted. Life Attunement is there to increase the healing received from Spirit Bond. Since you're running 330 health, it's not as important than on a 600 Monk, but it comes in handy a lot of times and can save you in tight situations.

I'm assuming this build is generally going to be used for CoF. Shield of Absorption is there when you're taking heavy damage. Spirit Bond only lasts for 10 hits which can run out pretty quickly in some situations. Shield of Absorption will cover that so you can stay alive even if Spirit Bond is not active and waiting for it to recharge, which won't take long anyway. I personally would not take Resilient Weapon. That +24 armor will hurt you in the long run. It can slow down a run since monsters are dealing less damage to you. It can also lower their damage so much that Spirit Bond will no longer trigger, thus leaving you with nothing in the way of effective healing if VwK is recharging, especially since VwK will last 11 seconds at the most unless you get 17 Restoration Magic.

Also one last note just in case you were wondering: It does not matter how high your health is for Spirit Bond to work. Even if the hits after Protective Spirit are less than 60, you will still get healed as long as the original damage was higher than 60. Spirit Bond always goes into effect before Protective Spirit reduces damage. At 55 health, 330 health, or 600 health, it'll work the same way as long as you're initially being hit for more than 60 damage.

Pretty much what Animus said. Higher health means more damage from Holy Wrath and Retribution because the damage they do is calculated after being reduced by Protective Spirit (but not Shield of Absorption). That's why a Smiter teamed up with a 55 Monk is pointless; enemies take around 5 damage per hit. The damage done by Holy Wrath and Retribution with 16 Smiting maxes out at 80 damage taken, so I generally aim to have 800ish HP with Vital Blessing on. This isn't really feasible for a Rit though, since you need a +3 Resto rune to make VwK as effective as possible. Still, I'd suggest getting your health as high as possible, since the whole point of running with a Smiter is for Holy Wrath and Retribution to kill stuff quickly while you simply tank it. The Rit version just uses VwK to help speed the killing and to help a little bit with survival (particularly when SoA is down).

One other thing, when running a 600-ish build, you want to use the lowest armor rating you can find (15 if you didn't keep your starter armor). The reasons are the same as what Animus stated regarding Resilient Weapon; if your armor is too high enemies die more slowly and occasionally hits won't trigger Spirit Bond, which can lead to your death. That's why I use starter armor, with its 5 armor rating, for my 600 gear on my monk.

-Jonathan

I played around some. Holy Wrath doesn't expire, even if Energy is 0, which is crazy, cuz I sort of figured it would.

Resilient Weapon is just for those places that aren't CoF and I'm going to bleed/degen out after a fight. Which I guess, with gazooks of HP, I don't need.

I just had to wrap my brain around the concept, and it was not happening on my own.

Thanks fellas.

Scion

SIGH....STOP BEING LAZY AND JUST GO HIT THEM WITH A SWORD.


Pampered

Scion wrote:I played around some. Holy Wrath doesn't expire, even if Energy is 0, which is crazy, cuz I sort of figured it would.

Resilient Weapon is just for those places that aren't CoF and I'm going to bleed/degen out after a fight. Which I guess, with gazooks of HP, I don't need.

I just had to wrap my brain around the concept, and it was not happening on my own.

Thanks fellas.

Scion

Ah yes, I should have mentioned the energy thing regarding Holy Wrath. It does seem far less useful when you don't know it doesn't end. :p

Regarding bleed/degen after a fight, that's why the Smiter carries Purge Signet (typically).

-Jonathan

So this is working, only not nearly as well as I had seen. It seems Spell Breaker doesn't last long enough for things to blow them selves up, mainly the Charged Wraith or Lightning Spirit or whatever the crap those things are called that are ghostly and use air magic.

Anyways, I charge in and things start taking damage and then they scatter? Does this happen with the Monks? Maybe Vengeful Weapon, Reversal of Damage, VwK, cause scatter in HM?

With my 330 it does, and I don't care, because I can stay alive forevers. But now, on a 30 seconds timer for Spell Breaker, it seems that scatter is bad.

Anyways, Monks, do you normally have scatter issues? Or do things waste their spells then start in on the killing of themselves? Or yea they scatter but who cares they die anyways?

I've never had scatter issues. It's not VwK, either, as my Ritualist did a lot VwK farming a long time ago to farm for feathers and other things. He spammed Vengeful on recharge, so I doubt that's it either. However, Reversal of Damage might, but I don't think it recharges fast enough to have any effect. I really have no clue on why it would cause scatter, perhaps Jon knows something about it.

And yes, those undead that use Air Magic or the ones that cast stuff like Bloodsong usually go down last because they spend a majority of the time spamming failed skills or by putting up spirits. There's not much you can do about them.

And I just checked the talk page for the VwK page, and it has this in the discussion:

Does this skill cause AI scatter? I'm assuming yes. --67.142.130.25 21:37, 23 December 2006 (CST)

Why? It's not AoE. Hashmir 18:09, 7 January 2007 (CST)

Yes, it does. Only three melee attackers will stay around you, the rest of them will flee. --Olivenmann 05:26, 8 January 2007 (CST)

I never have scatter issues with the melee in CoF, but occasionally a melee will run back and attempt to heal up when low health. A single wand/spear hit causes them to come back. Still, this is pretty rare when running 600/Smite. The casters will always kinda run around randomly for a while alternating between casting (failed) spells and hitting you, until they burn all their energy. This is the main reason the air eles take so long, because they have a lot of spells and energy to burn through before they give up and hit you. They're almost always the last thing to die in undead groups for me for this reason. PS + SB can easily cover them though.

As for VwK causing scatter, I've never used it so can't say for sure, but I do know that several spells that don't cause scatter in NM will cause scatter in HM if >3 melee are getting hit by it. Shield of Judgement an example of this, and since it's mechanics are very similar to VwK's it would not surprise me if VwK had the same limitation.

-Jonathan