So, I have seen talks of SK's saying they use their Bond spells on multiple mobs. I have tried it a little, but not much. The problem may only be a perception of how I feel they are working, I am not sure. I have however stopped even memming the spell. I just can't justify in my head using Bond with such a high global cool down as opposed to just a normal life tap. I could see using it on a distance pull perhaps. Where the time it would take for mobs to get to camp would be long enough to hit them with a terror before they get to the group. Maybe if I dropped Hemofax and Spear out of spam spells I could see it. When grouping though, generally the mob everyone is attacking lasts between like 10 and 20 seconds and that 3 seconds of no casting feels like an eternity. I could see using it on multiple mobs on maybe a raid or a missing that have mobs with a good amount of HP's, just not in normal grouping. Can you more experienced SK's help me understand if my line of thinking is wrong? What is your general opinion on the spells? What ways and situations have you found to best utilize bond?
Maybe you mispoke, but Hemofax isn't a good 'spam' spell, just something to recast for the buff every 12+ minutes if you want it (lifetaps are better damage, or dots ---anything). It's not just you, Bond is pretty forgettable. It's useful if kiting (particularly on raids). You can try and squeeze some use out of it during a shield flash/deflection/safe moment in a fight versus a lifetap, or on incoming if long travel time as you said. Sometimes i cast it on a named as first spell if i think it will live for a while. In raids, sometimes i keep it on named if both i can afford the spell gem, and the named can afford the debuff slot (necromancers). If I need to make room for another spell, it's usually one of the first things to go.
I use Hemofax at the end of my spam. Because I am lazy and don't feel like monitoring it. I should probably stop like you say though and set up some Gina's. Thanks for the information on bond. Wanted to make sure I wasn't horribly mistaken and missing out on something worthwhile.
I also keep hemofax as the last spell in my spam (6th spell, I think), but it only gets cast if I'm not paying enough attention (i.e., watching another box). As long as the hemo buff is up, I will cast something else instead - but usually the alternatives require manual control: Insidius Denial (more damage than hemo, but AE), or a dot (including Bond). One consideration for keeping hemofax mem'd all the time is that it can trigger Alliance spells. Hemo has a quick cooldown, and just one SK can pretty much always trigger another SK's Alliance, regardless of the state of your other taps' cooldowns. Without hemofax, I think you might miss some fulminations if your cooldowns aren't just right when the other SK casts their Alliance. As for Bond - I cast it when I can, but I don't worry about it. I have enough room on my spell bar for all our dots, including Bond, so why not? If you've got multiple mobs that aren't dying really fast, it does seem to help a little to get Bond on each one. I also try to dot the mobs that the rest of the group is NOT attacking. For quick fights like you describe (10-20 seconds), I wouldn't bother with any dots at all (except for pulling).
Hemofax really isn’t worth it. It’s really not powerful enough to be very viable especially in current content. And even without hemofax, alliance is still very easily triggered. I’ve been using bond, spear, even bite of xalgoz from time to time. The buff can be nice, but I really don’t need the extra agro as I do just fine with VoT and bold attacks
If you're using VoT, you should be using Hemofax instead. Hemofax is VoT with an HP buff, the aggro percents don't stack (only the highest is used).
