Demonic Flesh and Vital Blessing

I'm really missing the old functionality of Demonic Flesh, where you could boost Health for about 1 minute. Very useful in regions whith high damage spikes to survive the first blow.

The new functionality looks odd to me: when engaging battle, depending on energy management, it is unlikely that you will use more than 15 skills/minute on a hostile target. That makes doing 255 (15x17) dmg to foes adjacent to you about max. Sounds great, but this only works if you are surrounded by enemies all the time. Alternatively there are spells in the Death and Curse range doing more dps to groups of enemies, and easier to 'land' on the right group. Not to speak of the Elemantalist range.

My suggestion: Either turn back the old functionality or change Vital Blessing so that it no longer needs maintenance, but instead expires after 40 -50 -60 seconds. Being a Monk enchantment makes it easy to apply to a wide range of skillcombo's.

Uh... Protective Spirit?

Demonic Flesh is clearly in its present form not really intended for use by N/x.

No. A matter of playing style I suppose. There are players who interrupt, there are players who reduce damage, and there are players who buff their chr. as much as possible to survive the first blows and than return fire. A mixutere of all styles is often best. Yet everyone has his/hers preferences, I prefer to buff. Ursanway without Ursan Preferred health of partymembers: 750-800.

It's presence form is quite... Useless. There are other and better ways to apply AOE damage.

Agreed...but, protective spirit.

That's all very well, until you start getting hit by lots of 200+ damage skills.
Prot spirit on a 500 health party member will make them live longer than nothing on one with 800 health.

Anyway.
The trouble with the old Demonic Flesh is that it was useless. It was only really an option for blood necros and given that the only worthwhile blood builds involved heavy health sacs, DF was useless. Indeed, it would have been useless even if that was not the case.

Even now, I don't much like it. Necs can't really use it and I'm not sure a physical gains enough by speccing into Blood to get something out of it.

I feel the same. You'd think if they we're going to 'buff' a useless skill they would at least start by giving it a decent use.

It was terrible, now its slightly less terrible. Im pretty happy with this.

I used Demonic Flesh to increase my maximum health when using Grenth's Balance builds.
But for nothing else.

Now it's a neat skill when you use touches and PBAoE skills, so it's good too.

Whirlwind Attack says hi.

As if that skill weren't powerful enough when combined with Hundred Blades and Mark of Pain. Now, throw demonic flesh into the mix and it's completely overpowered.

/signed for that reason and that reason only. I couldn't care less about what the OP is talking about.

Guild Wars: Reading Comprehension test #1.
Correctly deduce how a skill functions based on its skill description.
Note that Whirlwind attack is a single skill. Note that it does not cause you to activate many skills in quick succession. Note that Demonic Flesh only causes damage to all other foes adjacent to you when you activate skills on a target foe.
From this it is easy to conclude that Demonic Flesh will only activate once when you use Whirlwind Attack (and Sun and Moon Slash and other multiple attack skills).

Indeed, very simple testing can confirm this.


The previous functionality of the skill was next to completely useless. It served only to strengthen or make viable, the effect of Grenth's Balance and Ravenous Gaze - two very weak elites. At least now it has a functionality aimed towards builds that are viable, although I doubt it will see any real use.