Curse

MiraBlackhand · Oct 23, 2008, 11:58 AM // 11:58

Lately I have been doing misc arenas (primarily RA), HA and GvG and I find the constant monk harassment to be unbearable at times.

How do you guys avoid monk stomping? I pre-prot with guardian (and maintain it), sometimes spirit bond or protective spirit variant on what kind of spikes I am anticipating, I have tools to avoid conflict for periods of time (dark escape / return primarily, I prefer the Mo/A play style over Mo/W), but for the life of me I cannot keep myself up in solo monk situations. I have shield swaps for every type of damage which I frequently shift to and often times I am forced to sit in my spear/shield setup.

This is overly apparent in RA, where almost every team just sees the monk and guns for him/her. The primary issue I seem to have is hammer wars and spike sins with their knock down, but I lack bar space for efficient use of aura of stability. However, even with just regular dps (not knockdown, such as axe wars, death blossom spam sins, air ele, etc) I just can't manage to keep myself up long enough for the team to win when I have 2-3 people on me.

Is there anything I can do in this situation, or do I just need to find teammates who can body block and possibly peel enemies off of me? Should I be self-sufficient enough to take that kind of a beating?

Artisan Archer · Oct 23, 2008, 12:41 PM // 12:41

You mean you run out of energy, or that you just take too much damage?

If you run out of energy, you may want to adjust your bar.
If you take too much damage, try using your team mates as body blocks.
Even if they don't body block, you can make them, by positioning yourself behind a teammate.

MiraBlackhand · Oct 23, 2008, 12:54 PM // 12:54

Generally its damage wise, energy wise I tend to be fine unless I get overwhelmed by a massive condition / hex team and can't keep up with the degen and damage output (especially if holy veil doesn't remove something like say backfire).

I monked in RA for about 8 hours today, got about 5 or so 20+ game streaks as a solo monk, but it seems the primary issue is death's charge spike sins, hammer wars, and AoE eles (self target areas, not like meteor swarm, but like flame burst / crystal wave type skills) that manage to either death's charge to myself, or ride the lightning, I generally don't have the time to pay attention to their exact skill lineup before all 640 of my health is gone (in shield setup).

Due to the sporadic nature of the spikes its quite difficult to know when they will occur, since they can easily swap to myself, especially if its right after a guardian is placed and is on cooldown, allowing a few seconds of unblocked damage to hit directly. If its evident they are running to me as a spike I make it an effort to run as far out as possible before hitting Return and forcing them to run the distance again (then Dark Escape if they choose to stick on me, this generally gives me enough time for warrior adrenaline to go away and force them to re-build a spike).

My skill line is...
Patient Spirit / Guardian / Word of Healing / Dismiss Condition / Holy Veil / Spirit Bond / Protective Spirit / Return at the moment, but I often times replace Protective Spirit or Spirit Bond for Dark Escape.

PyrAnkh · Oct 23, 2008, 12:55 PM // 12:55

the bodyblocking advice is pretty bad.
I assume he means that he is being trained by melee all the time or that the enemy team just focusses all damage on the monk, wich happens a lot in RA.

To avoid this, you can use mo/w (or mo/d). Shield bashing their KD skill not only saves you from the KD, but also makes it impossible for them to charge that skill for a while. Stances help a lot against assasin and warrior combo's. Aura of stability cannot be used on yourself so do not bother.

Try this: change your assasin secondary to warrior secondary, and swap out return/dark escape for shield bash + disciplined stance or balanced stance.

Rothan Celt · Oct 23, 2008, 01:09 PM // 13:09

Sheild bash and D-Stance = ftw on a monk make sure to get swap sets for each type of dmg i personaly have 7 sheild swap sets one for each element + Blunt ,Slashing and pirecing.

S-Bash and D-Stance will pretty much save you from KD wars make sure to have S-bash or guardian on you if u try to kite from a KD war as they always bring bulls strike.

jiggles · Oct 23, 2008, 01:22 PM // 13:22

I just kite. As simple as it seems, only stop moving if you have to heal and when you do throw up a stance. As for the sins, the second they tele to you throw up shield bash, their lead attack will be disabled for 20 secs which leaves them with no damage at all. as for teams in which you cant just kite, throw up guardian and try and maintain it, and dont worry about hexes on the melee.

Hanma l · Oct 23, 2008, 02:10 PM // 14:10

I myself like to monk every so often on RA. My monk uses the Mo/W balanced WoH and so far it hasn't let me down yet. This might help you out a bit when facing sins or wars, i noticed that sins always come behind the tank to try and finish off the monk with a quick spike when u notice something like this happening don't panic, when the war hits enraging charge let him hit u the first time this is usually just a swing to build adren (if u try to kite ull get hit with bull's strike which automatically puts u on a disadvantage) after the first strike hit balanced stance to counter the KD's, around this time the sin should be running towards u to spike, again stay calm, as soon as u see the sin shadowstepping next to you or that it got into melee range hit shield bash, if all goes well the lead attack will be disabled allowing you to more easily cope with the team pressure. Note i am not an expert monk but so far this has worked great for me hope it helps.
Here's the build that i use http://www.pvxwiki.com/wiki/Build:Mo...ield_Bash_Monk just change DS for Balance Stance.

Ben-A-BoO · Oct 23, 2008, 03:42 PM // 15:42

Some pretty good advices already that should make your life easier in the arenas.
Here is one more from me:
Notice that the Build Hanma suggested has only 5 energy skills?
Don't bring prot spirit and spirit bond into the arenas. You are much better of with power healing in most cases (Ghetto infuse: patient spirit + WoH). Might even wanna bring a signet (rejuv, devotion) or 'passive' energy management skills with heal over time like vigorous spirit. Battles can be pretty tedious and you don't wanna burn all your energy in minute one.

Stances are cheap but great in the arenas. Note that you can activate them while being KD'd o_O ...

And yeah, few know how and when to lineback their monk ... its random in the end and those no healer 4 spike build teams can make an end to ya.

Good luck and have fun.

Winterclaw · Oct 23, 2008, 05:25 PM // 17:25

Quote:

This is overly apparent in RA, where almost every team just sees the monk and guns for him/her.

Then you should consider yourself lucky to not be facing good teams on a regular basis.

Usually when I'm in RA and someone calls the monk, if I'm on my el or warrior I'll go after another character while they monkstomp.

Chucky333 · Oct 23, 2008, 05:41 PM // 17:41

First of all there's no reason to bring both SB and PS, carry only one of them, its your choice which one, i go with SB.
Some people dump those altogether and go with sig of rejuv or vig spirit, i tried that and i suggest against that, you'll be sorry when youll face WS dervs or the E\A AoD Ride the lightning spikers which are very common in RA.
And monkstomping is the reason people bring all those stances.
Shield bash in praticular will save your life, especially if you time it right and pull it off a sin's lead attack.
Also preveil yourself, one of the things that can really shit on you when you get monkstomped is hexes like backfire and VoR.
So other than bringing some stances, preveiling and keep kiting there's not much you can do, you can ping your health like a maniac and hope someone in your team gets the message and helps you with anti melee hexes\linabacking, whatever.
AoS can't be casted on yourself by the way so it won't help you at all in that matter.
Usually when i get monkstomped like that (and yes, spike sins, especially the insta-daze ones and hammer wars are the biggest probs youll face in RA as a monk) i just hope my team can wipe them faster than we wipe ourselves, and keep up with the resses.

MiraBlackhand · Oct 23, 2008, 05:54 PM // 17:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by Winterclaw

Then you should consider yourself lucky to not be facing good teams on a regular basis.

Usually when I'm in RA and someone calls the monk, if I'm on my el or warrior I'll go after another character while they monkstomp.

That is fine and dandy, but that doesn't help me. I can heal another person under a wave of 3 dps beating on him perfectly fine, its when I have a ranger, a caltrops sin and a hammer war of just about any variant beating on my face where I am lucky to get a WoH off and am forced to stick with lucky half cast prots and patient spirit or reversal of fortune.

On my warrior I do the same, pressure and then swap to a soft target someone else is already targetting to hopefully spike them down.

Rak Orgon of Beowulf · Oct 23, 2008, 07:35 PM // 19:35

From a person who rarely PvP movks, me, simply because i suck, if i see a Mo/W, 80% i know its going to be a tougher time takin it down than say Mo/E ,Mo/A. when this is the case i usually do what winterclaw says and take down a mes or necro or something. When a monk is getting stomped/kiting, the other toons are more vulnerable. thats just imo

xDusT II · Oct 24, 2008, 03:03 AM // 03:03

Kiting and more importantly, pre-kiting is highly important in Random Arenas. A lot of the times if you let yourself get into a bad situation, your team isn't going to have the co-ordination to get you out of it. Most shadow step players in RA tend to monk stomp right off the bat due to the high recharge of the shadow step. Positioning yourself well so that they are forced to overextend or push deep to get to you is probably your strongest defence. If your running Disciplined remember it gives you +24AL which can help in some situations. Also if you run 8 Tactics, grab a r7 or 8 15/16AL shield for the added defence.

Looking at your skillbar, I would drop one of your big prots (Prot Spirit) or not run one at all. You won't have the energy to run both efficiently. Mend Touch is also important for removing covered conditions quickly.

Winterclaw · Oct 24, 2008, 07:28 AM // 07:28

As dust said, kiting is important. Try hanging back towards the rear for as long as possible as well.

If they insist on monkstomping you further, try to keep guardian and SoA on yourself as much as possible. Channeling helps that a little. Last time I RA, I just took balth's spirit and channeling and did my best to tank. That worked a little. Since you are /A, try putting 10 or so in daggers and bring flashing blades to make things interesting.

In GvG and HA, you just need to do your best to communicate with your team and have a sound gameplan before you go in. IE dedicate someone as a linebacker or something like that.

ALF71BE · Oct 24, 2008, 07:36 AM // 07:36

If you want to have fun, run a monk tank. The other day I saw someone in my team with Healer's Covenant and Kinetic Armor. We won, lol.

People in RA don't actually see what skills you're using and do 123 to the monk.

Jeydra · Oct 24, 2008, 08:33 AM // 08:33

Just want to say something ...

Monks aren't expected to keep their team alive under all circumstances. It's simply not possible. A Dom Mes who's allowed to spam on you freely will seriously decrease your heal output. So will a Shattering Assault Sin, Hammer War, Lyssa Derv with Daggers, etc. They won't kill you - it's my belief that you can't kill a Monk 1v1 with any character, and I've not found a build that can kill a Monk 1v1 - but they will shut you down. If your team dies because such a character is freely attacking you, it's not your fault.

While a single Monk will survive 1v1s, 2v1s or 3v1s when the other players have competent, damaging builds is just a matter of time. You are going to die, usually not because you run out of energy but because you cannot output enough heals to outheal the damage you are taking. You might be able to prot some of the damage, but if there's enough of it getting thrown at you you cannot hold out forever.

What you can do is to buy your team some time. A stance like Dark Escape or Disciplined Stance usually guarantees you survive for its duration. Return would buy you some time; Shield Bashing Golden Fox Strike or similar would give you some breathing space as well. But it's all only temporary: if the other team does not change targets and your allies do not help, you will only be able to delay dying.

So don't be discouraged. If it takes 15 seconds for three players to kill you, then that's 15 seconds for your allies to kill someone or come to your aid. If they fail, they aren't as good as the other team, and the team as a whole deserve to lose. It is not necessarily the Monk's fault if the team wipes, so don't take it too hard when it happens, although of course be aware of what you could have done to prevent the wipe (maybe a Sin got off a spike chain which you could have protted against, or maybe the Mesmer Diverted WoH when you could have paid attention, etc).

Good luck

deluxe · Oct 24, 2008, 08:53 PM // 20:53

Mo/W is the key to winning in RA.
You get dazed and you're not a mo/w, what do you do?

Div · Oct 27, 2008, 03:58 AM // 03:58

RA: Run Mo/W
TA/HA/GvG: Tell your team to stop sucking and actually kill something so you don't die.

Daenara · Oct 27, 2008, 08:00 AM // 08:00

When I run Mo/W in RA, I'm quite happy to see a couple of melee charge my way. I know that I have stances on my bar, a shield, and I will kite, as opposed to the 60al mesmer which might just stand there and take it.

I always select the guy who is standing next to me, and I've made their skill bar on my interface huuuuge, so I can see the instant that the Dev Hammer/Magehunters/Whatever knockdown skill is coming, and shield bash it.

Once you go /w, you never go back. Shield bash for lyfe babi.

moriz · Oct 27, 2008, 01:26 PM // 13:26

real men use return.