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Intro:
This build is primarily used for Bonding a tank while doing the book trick. For those of you who don't know, the book trick is when a tank holds an item so that all the aggro is automatically transferred to himself. This makes healing and damage mitigating a great deal simpler. It is your job as a Bond Monk to reduce the amount of damage the tank takes, and help prevent the tank from dying.
Equipment:
You'll need some Ascetic's Armor (+7 Energy) and a Defender's Scalp Design (+1 Protection Prayers). Equip a Minor Divine Favor Run anywhere on the armor, a Major/Superior Vigor Rune anywhere on the armor and a Superior Protection Prayers Rune to be put on the Scalp Design.
As far as weapons go, Kephkat's Refuge works perfectly. It gives the +20% Cast and Recharge Bonuses to Protection Prayers, which is nice to have. The Enchanting bonus is good if you're also a Mesmer, but more on that later.
Attributes:
The key to bonding is Protection Prayers. The two major damage reducing bonds both rely on a high level of Protection Prayers to be at peak effectiveness. A high level of Divine Favor also helps when maintaining bonds with Blessed Signet. I recommend you max out Protection and Divine Favor. With the runes and scalp design, you should get 16 and 13 respectively. You'll have 6 points left, but they are utterly useless in any of the other stats, unless your secondary is a Mesmer. More on the Mesmer issue later.
Protection: 16
Divine Favor: 13
Skills:
The following Skills are based on a 16 Protection Prayers and 13 Divine favor.
1. Reversal of Fortune
2. Blessed Signet
3. Life Attunement
4. Vital Blessing
5. Essence Bond
6. Life Bond
7. Life Barrier (E)
8. Rebirth
Reversal of Fortune
E: 5
T: 1/4
R: 2
The next time target ally would take damage, that ally gains that amount of Health instead, maximum 84.
Reversal is a wonderful skill to use in order to prevent damage and to some minor healing. Because of the bonds you'll have on tank, enemies won't be doing much damage, and thus, reversal won't heal much. It's more of a damage preventer than it is a healer. It's cheap and quick, and has a short recharge time making it a useful skill.
Blessed Signet
E: -
T: 2
R: 10
For each enchantment you are maintaining, you gain 3 energy, maximum 21.
While maintaining all of your bonds, you won't have any energy regeneration pips. Blessed Signet makes up for that by giving you 3 energy per bond you are maintaining for up to 7 bonds. This means that if you have all 5 of your bonds casted on the tank, you get 15 energy every time you use this signet. This more than compensates for the energy degeneration. This is an absolute MUST have.
Life Attunement
E: 10
T: 2
R: -- (-1 Energy Regeneration)
While you maintain this enchantment, target ally deals 30% less damage in combat, but gains 52% more health when healed.
Life Attunement is a nice skill to help the healer monk heal the tank. Since the tank literally does no damage, Life Attunement's downside of the 30% damage reduction is utterly irrelivent. The 52% healing bonus, however, is a nice way at giving the healing monk more effective healing powers on the tank.
Vital Blessing
E: 10
T: 3/4
R: 2 (-1 Energy Regeneration)
While you maintain this Enchantment, target ally has +211 maximum Health.
Vital Blessing does exactly what it says; it simply gives the tank 211 more HP. The advantage to having 211 more health is pretty self explanitory.
Essence Bond
E: 10
T: 2
R: -- (-1 Energy Regeneration)
While you maintain this "Enchantment", whenever target ally takes physical or elemental damage, you gain 1 Energy.
Essence Bond is so you can gain energy during combat. Everytime the tank gets hit, you gain 1 energy. The tank will be taking tons of hits, and you'll be getting tons of energy.
Life Bond
E: 10
T: 2
R: -- (-1 Energy Regeneration)
While you maintain this Enchantment, whenever target other ally takes damage from an attack, half the damage is redirected to you. The damage you receive this way is reduced by 32 points.
Life Bond is a key skill in this build. It effectively halves the damage taken by the tank, and sends the other half your way. The half that is redirected towards you is reduced by 32, so must of the time you won't feel a thing. If used in conjunction with Life Barrier, the damage would have to be 142 or more to cause you any damage.
Life Barrier (Elite)
E: 10
T: 2
R: -- (-1 Energy Regeneration)
While you maintain this enchantment, damage dealt to target other ally is reduced by 52%. If your Health is below 50% when that ally takes damage, Life Barrier ends.
Life Barrier is the other key damage reducer. As long as your Health is above 50% (which it should be, because you shouldn't be taking any hits), the tank will recieve less than half of the damage he or she is supposed to. When combined with Life Bond, the tank should have the damage done to him or her cut in half twice. That's 1/4 of the damage.
Rebirth
E: 10
T: 6
R: --
Resurrect target party member. Target party member is returned to life with 25% Health and zero Energy, and is teleported to your current location. All of target's skills are disabled for 3 seconds. This Spell consumes all of your remaining Energy.
Rebirth is a ressurection skill used in emergencies. If you have to use this, your team is in bad shape. Not only will you lose all your energy, but you'll lose your bonds past your 4th one (unless it was the tank who died, in which case you probably don't have any bonds left).
Using Your Skills:
The beginning part is always the hardest, as you have to bond your entire team. Avoid using Life Barrier unless you have a Blood Necro with Blood is Power. Bond up your entire team with Life Bond. If you are in an area, such as the Fissure of Woe, that has 8 players, cast Essence Bond on yourself. More often than not, all attacks that transfer damage to you will be enough to excede the 32 damage reduction. This actually works to your benefit if you have essence bond on, as you gain energy when that happens. If you feel that the damage comming your way is too much, cast a Vital Blessing on yourself for more health. If you are in a smaller party, such as a 5 man Sorrows Furnace team, you can cast both Life Bond and Life Barrier on everyone. Note that you should ALWAYS cast Life Barrier BEFORE Life Bond. In that order, the damage redirected to you will only be 1/4 of the damage done to the tank. If cast in the other order, you will be getting 1/2 of the damage instead. Avoid casting Essence Bond, Vital Blessing, and Life Attunement on the Tank until the Tank has the gear, book, keg, etc. Monsters have a bad habbit of not attacking the people you bond unless they have the item, thus bonding the tank prior to gaining the item is a waste of energy. Cast Blessed signet often, call for Blood Rituals and/or Blood is Power when you need it, if it's even available.
Once you get the book, gear, keg, or whatever, life gets soooooo much easier. Break all of your bonds with everyone. Cast the following spells (in order) on the tank: Life Barrier, Life Bond, Essence Bond, Vital Blessing, then Life Attunement. These are the only 5 enchantments you'll need to maintain at this point. The energy degeneration will only be at -1, so you won't need to cast Blessed Signet as often, and even less often in battles. Because of Essence Bond, you don't need to worry about your energy as much durring battles. This leaves you free to spam Reversal of Fotune on the Tank, reducing his damage intake even further, and healing the tank a little bit.
Mesmer Secondary:
When Bonding, it is highly recommended that your secondary class is that of a Mesmer. Mesmers have access to the spell called Mantra of Inscriptions. Mantra of Inscriptions helps by reducing the recharge time of Blessed Signet, allowing you to cast this crucial spell more often. Replace Rebirth or Reversal of Fortune with this spell. If you are a Mo/Me, put your remaining 6 attribute points into Inspiration Magic, bringing it up to 3. It might not seem like a lot, but 3 is sufficient.
Mantra of Inscriptions
E: 10
T: 0
R: 20
For 30...78 seconds, your Signet skills recharge 25...45% faster.
At 3 Inspiration Magic, Mantra of Inscriptions lasts for 42 seconds and recharges 30% faster. The difference between 3 and anything slightly higher is so insignificant that it would not be worth the extra points in Divine Favor that you'd lose.
Places to Bond:
This Bond is specifically ment to be performed with a Tank holding an item, but can be effective even if you aren't doing the book trick. This works very well in Sorrow's Furnace and in the Fissure of Woe, two common places where Bond Monks are used for the Book Trick.
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