Monks: Defensive uses of Spire of the Sensei?

Discussion in 'Melee' started by Quatr, Jan 10, 2021.

  1. Quatr Augur

    When I need to tank a non-trivial mob on my mostly group-geared 107 Monk, I use Earthforce and Shaded Step. Once they are down, my options (as described in the Monks Strats 2.0 post) become limited.

    However, that post was put together in 2018, before the Spires were consolidated in 2019. Checking Lucy, I see that its description of "Spire of the Sensei XII" says, among other things:

    * Increase Chance to Avoid Melee by 80%
    * Add Defensive Proc: Sensei's Guard IV rate mod 100 (Mitigate Melee Damage by 25%, 20000 total, 1 tick)

    Has anyone parsed this in the field to see how much this helps with tanking?
    Garglak likes this.
  2. Quatr Augur

    For reference purposes, the Evasion component of my monk's AC stat is 2693 without the Spire and 3600 with it.
  3. Lisard Silly

    usually i use spire alongside Infusion of thunder and i stack those into either 1.heel or 2. speedfocus. with additional Eagles Poise, Composite, Zanfi, ton pos and or Destructive force where applicable

    if im the tank of the group i usually start out with my burn + blooddrinkers coating + epic heal + Mend + shaded step as needed, once Heel, speedfocus, shaded step and Blooddrinkers are down, i begin the daisy chain of Earthforce -> Counterstrike Discipline -> sprinkling in Diplomatic papers, Armor of Experience, Glyph of Dragonscales, Terrorpalm, Iron Hand between earthforce / Counterstrike refreshes and again cycling back to my heel/Speed + blooddrinkers and again applying shaded where applicable.

    i also have reflex on my bar but i prefer to use curse of X line in my spam as a dps boost since they share the same timer.


    you can also go as far as swapping from Flying kick to Round Kick for the stun. again preference i prefer to just dps the mob faster then try and Stun it. but its entirely up to your speed/comfortability tanking
  4. Quatr Augur

    Interesting points, thanks!
  5. Astral64 Augur

    Blood Drinker's Coating has got to be one of my most used items.

    Synergizes real well with our kit.


    On Topic: When tanking group content Spire can cover a defensive gap in t1 CoV, it helps but is not sufficient on its own in t2. I still use it with my big burn most of the time for the proc mods but you can definitively get some defensive use out of it as well. It isn't as impactful as Shaded Step or Earthforce but it could be the edge you need in a close situation.
    Quatr likes this.
  6. I_Love_My_Bandwidth Mercslayer

    Counterstrike + Spire is a decent defensive combination after EarthForce and Shaded Step are down.
    Quatr likes this.
  7. Sokon Augur

    Once you get max AA and can burn glyphs at will, you will find dragon glyph is amazing. So far I have been able to molo all named in ToV teir 2 and several in CoV teir 1.

    Aside from using dragon glyph my current line up is:

    Tank the named until I have to use mend and then hit earthforce before dying.
    As soon as earthforce is over I will hit counterstrike, I'll let counterstrike run until I have mended once more and before dying.
    During counterstrike I will hit all my clickies, CoP 4, infusion, zan fis(if not already on), composite, blod drinkers, flower click from cotf for more heals from merc and tigers poison, ton pos etc etc etc.

    I will let counterstrike run until I have to hit shaded step, used mend aain really early into counterstrike and/or counterstrike's detrimental has procced on the mob.

    As soon as I hit shaded step I click off counterstrike and hit heel of zag, then speedfocus after heel and destructive force as soon as ton po's is over.

    If I've used a good duration of counterstrike I will find earthforce refreshing near/towards the end of speedfocus, which allows me to right back in a virtually-can-not-die mode. I've found that I am killing all named by myself, while mostly raid buffed, during the second duration of earthforce.

    Main idea is to have as much rolling as possible during your main dps burn for maximizing heals from blooddrinkers.

    Using counterstrike can be very dangerous as it only provides 15% mitigation, but as I am always using a dragon glyph when solo/moloing these names I've found it's detrimental it places on mob to be a dps bonus(more hits landing) and the possibility of dying while draogn glyph is rolling to be alot lower than without.
    Quatr likes this.