Shepherd Brandon     OGC Guild Character: Shepherd Brandon Type: Monk Player: Mike Brandon Guild: OGC Weapon Armour Attributes Health 405 Energy 48 Divine Favour 15 [3 from bonus] Healing Prayers 11 [2 from bonus] Smiting Prayers 8 Skills Build Commentary The general aim of this build is to closely support the main battle line, as such Vigorous Spirit & Reversal of Damage function as combat aids, as opposed to direct healing, so I suspect my subjects to work a bit! Word of Healing is the pull out spell, healing for almost 200 health when critical, this makes up for a series of healing prayers, and requires a bit of trust from my allies. Healing Breeze of course is the classic and serves as a response to Health degeneration or when a character is luring or facing some sore of environmental obstacle. Divine Healing is a rarely used spell but has managed to hold a place on the build recently as, given the usual necessity for my character to run close to the main fighting, a battle that is 50/50 can quickly be turned around when all combatants suddenly return to max. health. Its a tricky spell to use but has turned then tide in a parties favour many times now. It is also a good response to hard area damage effects, however it is susceptible to interrupts. The direct smiting has less of a presence on this build than previously however these particular spells have a key role and have been distinctly pivotal in many missions (including all human parties), as well as making the build a bit more fun to play as. In particular, close combat in with powerful enemies can be turn with Bane Signet, as it has a knock-down effect it can also serve as an interrupt and in many cases, it is better to drop this than a healing spell. Smite is probably the least tandem skill on the build, however it serves a dual purpose. Firstly it allows me to fight back and even beat opponents with high armour, a common occurrence when the battle-line is swarmed and as a monk, I become a prime target. Also, in combats between enemies with high armour and healing abilities, its drop 50ish damage nature can help whittle the enemy down fairly quickly, and push an enemy health bar to zero when it is managing to sustain itself. Again, this has proven so useful that it has forced its way onto the build, which, like Divine Healing seems less obvious on paper, it makes its presence felt in 'real' action. The build of course is constantly evolving, I have ridden myself of enchantment skills, as my Monk takes on more of a frantic skills using style and so I require the maximum amount of energy regeneration. Reversal of Damage is up for review mostly, as it is far less useful than it was earlier in the game. Now I can destroy weaker enemies myself easily enough, and against high armour opponents this spell has little effect, its main use is combining a quick heal (+48) with a saver from damage, however I am looking for a skill that can deliver much more now. Resurrection has replaced Restore Life, which quite frankly was awful for mid- combat raises, and Resurrection works well with Word of Healing, combining to make a dead player one with typically 80%+ energy in a few seconds, ready to fight. However the zero energy starter is a concern so I am still looking at trying this out. I am also open to switching Smite with a more powerful spell, however Smiting is on the Build to stay, for two reasons. Firstly, whenever I have replaced them with healing spells, I have not had the energy to sue the extra skills, and they have been notably missing as enemies have attacked and I have not been able to use Bane Signet to escape, or Smite to deal a killing blow. Most importantly however, Smiting is fun, intense combats are great when on healing duty but for skirmishes and exploring, having no smite is pretty boring, an having invested in the entire Guild Wars package, I'm not going to approach it as a job! Last update: 8-8-07