Curse

Chaynsaw · Jun 10, 2005, 12:14 PM // 12:14

I just have to say...

...never underestimate ANY well-executed build...
...and that goes for ALL builds.

Radical · Jun 10, 2005, 06:37 PM // 18:37

That is one of the best things about this game, the sheer number of builds that are possible.

stumpy · Jun 10, 2005, 07:28 PM // 19:28

imo ...

air elem are a great build if they catch a team off guard ... seeing 4-5 ele/X and a couple monks can be a big tip off and usually (now, commonly prevented) .... thats when they hit a trouble area. However, if they do catch a team sleeping ... consider yourself lucky they never made it painful and slow. Unfortunately many people have taken to this build, but dont know how to play it and far too many I have seen not following a target ...

Smiting - smiting can fit into any other build ... thats the poower of it, chosing complimentary skills to your team is where your butter is. Stacking a warrior as a potential 'loose grenade' can really cause a team frusterations ...

Protection - earth secondary to a prim monk ... divine adds minor heals to capitalize your protection

fire elem ... far more often I have seen these elementalist fail time and again in pvp because, like smiting, people getting damaged by AoE ... dont stand there and wait until they die. They leave the area. So DoT AoE's are very tough to incorporate unless you can effectively pin em in between a rock and a hard place.

rangers - greatly under used. the little 'plink, plink' of the ranger arrows are not a rangers strong point. A couple strong rangers can really assist your team. draining energy from an opponent renders them utterly useless ... problem again is ... in skill ... and 'do you really know anyone that takes a ranger over a monk? (superman of gw)'

getting where im going with this ....

Doesnt matter about the build, skills, or your weapon. Based on your team ... your ability to work within a team, cooperate as a team, and compliment eachother with a working strategy. Find a strategy that works, stick to it ... and work together ...

this_barb · Jun 11, 2005, 06:31 AM // 06:31

signet of judgment + holy strike is a cute combo.

thats a good 75 + 100 damage and knockdown in 3 seconds.

maybe compared to air elementalists, its nothing.

but monk's werent meant to nuke.

it just goes to show that they indeed can do very well

Akshara · Jun 11, 2005, 10:11 PM // 22:11

The other night a high level Smiting Prayers monk kept casting Strength of Honor with a +8 bonus on my warrior, and I gotta say that is one of the coolest enchantments I've come across in any party. Much more helpful than mending or some other healing buff. Now when I'm looking for a party, I kinda hope there will a good smiting monk in the group who happens to have that equipped.

Howling Wind · Jun 11, 2005, 10:44 PM // 22:44

Strength of honour and vigorous spirit are some favourite enchantments that I like to carry for my warrior or ranger, really helpful, sometimes i'd swap the strenght of honour for live vicarously and i get to last in battle quite long...until someone uses rend or shatter enchantment..

ComMan · Jun 11, 2005, 11:28 PM // 23:28

I've been killed by Smiting monks, but that's because I suck.

The big draw to Smiting Monks is pure shock value. Like many people, I see a Mo/W and think, "Heh, I can take him out real quick." So I pin down, poison arrow, and proceeded to be smote (smitten?). It's unpleasant.

My biggest problem with Smiting Monks, as opposed to Eles, is that they knock down almost as much as the dastardly Hammer warriors, and they can cast Pacifisim, which I HATE.

Deathlord · Jun 11, 2005, 11:44 PM // 23:44

If you're pvping then nobody on your team should assume your a healer monk. If you're even trying to get into a party then you'll have to shout out pretty loud what you are and what you're meant for. I highly doubt a lone monk can take out an entire team.

First of all, if you can't heal yourself, exactly how long are you going to stay alive against 4 or 8 opponents with 60 armor? That's a load of crap.

Second, Their main power comes from AOE Aura. It's capable of tricking begginer warriors of running into you and taking some damage (It's quite possible, half of them already have no idea about empathy). But like fire AOE, more knowledged people know how to run past it. If they run out, even with a bunch of AOE auras the most you could do is maybe 80. If you compare it to a nuker then game over.

Smiting monks are great, but monks were designed in mind for one thing. Support. Keeping themselves alive is already enough support. If you were doing a 4v4 and you are capable of keeping yourself alive from two warriors, then you basically changed the playing fields to 4v2's, and if you've played them before, the team with 2 people just tend to leave. If you try to go pure smite then you'll get pommeled in a few seconds and the most you're capable of doing is taking 50% of the hp off some sword warriors.

Moral of the story? It's possible for a smiting monk, but don't exxaggerate how well they are. Monks weren't meant for killing, they were meant for supporting.

Santosh · Jun 15, 2005, 05:49 AM // 05:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by stumpy

imo ...

Doesnt matter about the build, skills, or your weapon. Based on your team ... your ability to work within a team, cooperate as a team, and compliment eachother with a working strategy. Find a strategy that works, stick to it ... and work together ...

This about sums it all up. It's not the builds you got in your team, it's the teamwork that counts.

It's about player skills, not the skills they have, but when and how to use them.

Miridan · Jun 15, 2005, 01:47 PM // 13:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nightsky

Smithing Monks are weak against experienced players. Mainly because no one stays into melee range to get hit by Symbol of Wrath, Zealot and all that crap. Smithing Monk get snared, backfired, drained and then they get sniped by Ele and Rangers with little to no resistance.

THANKYOU - my thoughts exactly.

A PBAOE ele can do more damage more quickly and longer than a smiter - the only difference is that people might not think of a monk as a threat and just charge it.

Smiters are good against warriors, but any team with more than one warrior is noob anyways (in my opinion)

shalafifred · Jun 16, 2005, 02:42 AM // 02:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Miridan

but any team with more than one warrior is noob anyways (in my opinion)

i would like to say i disagree with this, i often run 2 axe warriors in tombs, builds similar to the one from this post from ensign
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...ghlight=ensign

Cleave, Penetrating Blow, Disrupting Chop, Frenzy, Sprint, Judge's Insight, Strength of Honor, Restore Life.

Axes: 12 + 3 Rune + 1 Hat
Smiting: 10
Strength: 8, +1 Rune
Healing: 2

Zealous Haft

That's a pretty vanilla Axe build that should dish out around 70 sustained DPS once skills are taken into account. You should have a critical chance above 25%, 115% normal damage, +7 damage per hit from Strength of Honor, plus the armor penetration from JI. Combo that with 9 attacks every 8 seconds with Frenzy, and that should get you up to the mid to high 50s in terms of DPS. Plus we haven't looked at Cleave and Penetrating Attack yet, which should easily make up the difference. The math starts to get ugly and the exact number depends on the order things stack in, but this should be reasonably close.

I wouldn't be surprised if a dedicated damage build could get DPS up into the 80s. There are plenty of attack buffs to stack, and no shortage of attack skills to top them off. The formula isn't all that hard - buffs + attacks - so get on it.

Peace,
-CxE
the build works great, everyone ignore us and sees us as no threat, and it then works perfect

also said early in this thread someone said assuming holy damage ignores armor schapism has a perfect post to explain this, im trying to find it

Akshara · Jun 16, 2005, 08:10 PM // 20:10

Quote:

I wouldn't be surprised if a dedicated damage build could get DPS up into the 80s.

Just to confirm, I run a heavy damage axe build that focuses on inflicting deep wounds with conditions on top, followed by spiked damage attacks. My average hit is +80, and I've seen single hits against certain creatures go well over 150.

I've got +13 Axe Mastery, +7 Strength, +10 Curses and three customized max damage axes with bonuses to damage under certain conditions. Inflicting a deep wound with weakness and then hitting with Executioner's Strike is extremely effective for bringing down creatures, especially self healing ones. Throw in Mark of Pain on a powerful creature in a group, and the aoe dps is pretty high.

grimmolly · Jun 16, 2005, 08:16 PM // 20:16

Holy damage does not ignore armor. Smiting, necro spell, and mesmer spell/Illusionary weapon damage ignores armor. Lightning spells, not damage, penetrates armor. Holy and dark damage both ignore all bonuses vs elements or physical damage on armor, which is still very nice against rangers and warriors, for example.

Akshara · Jun 16, 2005, 08:59 PM // 20:59

Quote:

Holy damage does not ignore armor.

Actually, holy damage inflicted by a smiting skill cast directly (ie. Banish or Smite) does ignore armor. Holy damage inflicted by a weapon does not. Weapon damage converted to holy damage from a spell does not.

grimmolly · Jun 16, 2005, 09:19 PM // 21:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by Akshara

Actually, holy damage inflicted by a smiting skill cast directly (ie. Banish or Smite) does ignore armor. Holy damage inflicted by a weapon does not. Weapon damage converted to holy damage from a spell does not.

So, to clear things up, you're saying exactly what I just said except you ignored the armor bonus part.

Vindexus · Jun 16, 2005, 09:38 PM // 21:38

Smiting is the best line to compliment warriors. If you're running a warrior heavy team, grab a smiting monk with Strength of Honor, Judge's Insight, and Balthazar's Aura. Or even an E/Mo with zealot's fire and some spammable monk skills.

Akshara · Jun 16, 2005, 09:55 PM // 21:55

Quote:

So, to clear things up, you're saying exactly what I just said except you ignored the armor bonus part.

Umm, no... I was correcting this statement specifically:

"Holy damage does not ignore armor."

It does.

Regarding your other comments, they all seemed fine.

KrisTof · Jun 17, 2005, 04:57 PM // 16:57

I had fun experimenting with smitting with my monk, loaded for heali/divi/smitt, in one of the arena.

There was another monk full healing but just balthazar aura so I loaded up balthazar's spirit, aura, wrath, plus some other enchantments to heal myself and convert dmg to health.

I started by sending a chat (by mistake hehehe

claiming I will heal x and y...
I then proceeded with a few healing skills launches. The other team's warriors of course engaged me as soon as they could and started running after me. After a little run, I ended up with 4 of the other teams players around me, then I launched balt aura, wrath while one of the elem spams some wards and other spells that froze them ni place. We timed it right and about 10s later, the other monk came down and launched his own aura. It was beautiful to watch all their health drop to zero in less 20 s. In the meantime, our warriors were succesfully targetting their monks...

Now, I bet next time they see a monk in team play, they will think twice about coming at it that hard...

Smitting rules... I dont even use my elem skills anymore (maybe a ward in some rare cases)

grimmolly · Jun 17, 2005, 05:00 PM // 17:00

For the last time, holy damage does not ignore armor. Smiting direct damage spells do. Judge's Insight or holy damage weapons only ignore armor bonuses. How often do I have to repeat it?

Akshara · Jun 17, 2005, 10:57 PM // 22:57

Whatever, Mr. Wise Ass... nowhere in the original post that I was clarifying did it say, "Smiting direct damage spells ignore armor class." This is exactly what it said...

Quote:

Holy damage does not ignore armor. Smiting, necro spell, and mesmer spell/Illusionary weapon damage ignores armor.

Hmmm... ok, upon re-reading this quote for like the fifth time now, I recognize how you might think you actually said that after all. But what that quote actually says if one removes the compound subject from the second sentence is, "Holy damage does not ignore armor. Smiting damage ignores armor."

As has been posted numerous times on this site, no damage type inherently ignores armor... however as this is a thread discussing Smiting Monks, and since all the Smiting Prayers that directly inflict holy damage do ignore armor, to come in here and say, "holy damage does not ignore armor," is being somewhat pedantic, however accurate it may be.

To then follow up your much needed correction with a statement like, "smiting damage ignores armor," when there is no such thing as "smiting damage" at all, and when not all of the smiting prayers skills ignore armor, meanwhile giving me and others a hard time about our misuse of the term "holy damage"... well, if that's not an example of the pot calling the kettle black, then I don't know what is.

Bottom line, and what we're both trying to say is, Smiting Prayers skills which inflict direct holy damage ignore armor. Maybe it would have been simpler to just say that to begin with and leave it there.

Oh, and feel free to quote me if you want to repeat it one more time.