Curse

WillOrWil · May 29, 2005, 09:28 PM // 21:28

Well, it finally had to happen. Last night I encountered one of the monks everyone is complaining about. OMG...what an idiot. Ever see someone RUN into the middle of a LARGE pack of monsters and then spam the chat with, "LOL I can't die!!!"? As soon as he said that, I wrote back, "That is because I am healing you." I did another large heal spell and wrote, "Watch what happens when I stop" and he died. Well, that was the straw that broke the camel's back. After several weeks of playing a monk I am going to quit playing that character for a very long time. Monks are underappreciated, abused, taunted, hated and I am just tired of it. On the bright side I was able to cap five elite skills for my W/Mo today.

Phantom Force · May 29, 2005, 11:31 PM // 23:31

Hehe well we all have funny stories about good monks and bad monks. The problem is it's tough to recognize them from the get go unless you've seen them before. You really don't start to see how they are until you get playing and they begin talking. If it's negative and usually stays that way you can guarantee they are gonna be the kind of monk you hate to have. I played with a monk that died and had a DP of 60 during Abaddon's Mouth. We had 2 people drop/quit the game. The Mo, the E, and the Me, stuck with me and the other warrior. We ended up making it all the way to the end and taking out those obnoxious seals that basically tear you up if you don't have a full organized group. Our healer stayed with us and did his best, no one complained and we got the mission done. I will be posting a full story soon with a pic of me and the people who did it.

Keep playin, remember to good ones and never forget the bad ones.

kimchipoisen · May 30, 2005, 01:24 AM // 01:24

i'm a ele/monk

healing/energy storage

some newb complained about how i didn't heal him and what not. He kept insulting me and my style of play. So next battle, i didn't heal him and he was almost dead. He then told me he was just joking, blah blah blah. Decided to heal him. Feels great to have the kind of power that dictates Life or Death in an instant.

funbun · May 30, 2005, 02:18 AM // 02:18

The Purpose of a Monk:
1. To keep the group alive.

How to Keep Group Alive:
1. Smite: kill the enemy before they kill you!

2. Protect: prevent damage from happening in the first place!

3. Heal the group once they've already begun to die.

Which would you rather do? I choose #1 and #2.

WARNING: SOAPBOX RANT

The reason Monks die so fast is because they only use healing spells. They never use Protection or Smiting spells. If a Monk is being attacked they had better learn to SMITE or they DESERVE to die.

During Ascension the only way for a monk to kill his Mirror is to smite him straight to H***

Why do you think there are so few Ascended Monks?

Most Monks only use 12% to 25% of their true power. Think about it. If a monk pumps up his warriors with protection prays they become SUPER TANKS. Likewise, if monk pumps his warriors full of smites like Retribution or Soldier of Fortune they become SUPER DAMAGE DEALERS.

Loading up with 8 healing prayers limits you to 12% - 25% of your true power. It's like Goku only fighting at Super Sayajin. It's at SS2, SS3, SS4(if you count that as cannon) are really where he does the most damage.

Quote:

I hope you never tell an Earth Elementalist packing Armor of Earth + Wards that he can't tank.

My point, exactly. That's a guy who understands his character. And knows how to customize his character for the job at hand.

Xavz · May 30, 2005, 04:57 AM // 04:57

So a winning strategy is to remove your energy regeneration so you don't have it when you need it to mitigate the damage that inevitably gets through your shields? A healing monk is needed for a group in either PvP or PvE; Protection Prayers are also excellent, but I can't see any reason for a character that is acting in either the healing or protection roles to spec Smiting. Most of the skills are just not energy efficient enough to justify using.

funbun · May 30, 2005, 12:11 PM // 12:11

When did I say you have to remove your energy regeneration? I'm just saying you can't beat the Ascension Mirror Quest without using Smite. Most monks use Censor's armor in PvP which takes away energy so there is no arguement there.

Balthazaers Spirit takes care of any energy needs.

Have you beaten your mirror yet? Have you Ascended? Also, in Krtya Monk smite spells get an extra 200% damage against undead. Is that a good enough reason?

I'm just saying try every ascpect of your character. Learn all you can. Don't limit yourself to one highly specialized thing. You have to change your character around from time to time depending on the mission/Area.

zola · May 30, 2005, 12:45 PM // 12:45

Hello,

I spent most of the W-E doing the last mission with my monk, accepting join requests from random groups.

It was instructive how for some groups I was the best healer they had ever met (one warrior even proposed to marry me - thanks, but I feel we hardly know each other) and for others, the worst monk of their career.

I feel I don't deserve that much honor, nor indignity. Some groups are easy to heal and others are pretty much impossible, at least for me. Blaming or lauding the monk for the overall group behaviour seems a bit silly? A bad monk can ruin a party but other than that extreme case, it's the party that counts and not the monk.

I decided that I would not leave the group in any case, but that promise I could not keep. I don't get paid to do this and play for fun. Taking abuse from teenagers (?) is not my idea of fun...

Just another day in the life of a monk and I still had a blast :-).

--zola

PS: We had good success with teams with one warrior, two healers (one of them can be mhenlo) and assortment of ranged players.

igormak · May 30, 2005, 12:47 PM // 12:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yojinj

Anyone else getting sick of those registered henchman users? It's just silly.

no imagination..

EinValentine · May 30, 2005, 01:34 PM // 13:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by funbun

I'm just saying you can't beat the Ascension Mirror Quest without using Smite.

This is untrue, even if we disallow tactics from the secondary professions. You can do it with Divine Favor alone.

A pumped up Divine Favor, and the skills Divine Boon, Essence Bond, and a good Holy Rod or Staff are all you need to kill the mirror.

As Divine Boon is an enchantment, the Mirror will only cast it on himself once. But you can spam it on yourself and be healed each time. Essence Bond will give you a point of energy each time he shoots you. You have healing; he doesn't. You win. (Well unless your rod/staff really sucks anyway - which happened to me the first time I tried this).

This is not to say that Smite isn't a nifty attribute, but it isn't needed to beat the Mirror.

(You can use Balthazar's Spirit instead of Essence Bond if you like, but since it is linked to Smite I didn't include it in the example.)

Edge Martinez · May 30, 2005, 01:45 PM // 13:45

Awesome thread. I just want to say one thing though... I'm a monk player as well and get lots of praise and lots of ridicule as well. I'd never blacklist anyone though. That warrior or elementalist who talks you down? You may need them later on without them having a 60% DP. Just realize that like life, not everyone in Guildwars is a nice person, but you still have a job to do.

Eos · May 30, 2005, 04:18 PM // 16:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by dansamy

Actually, I'm a fairly humble and "serving" person. I play an ele/mo, who 9/10 is more sought after for healing than for AoE, and a mo/wa who is not very far along. We were in a mission and Alesia and my ele/mo were the only sources of healing. An @$$hole got pissed off beceause he died, called us all n00bs and ditched. (BTW, he died because I announced, "My energy is 2 out of 75." and he said, "Who cares how much energy you have?" and walked into a pack of red dots.) After we were defeated (only after 2 more people dropped), we refilled our party and went on to easily win the mission that had seemed so difficult with a less cooperative party.

Which actually does bring me to a point.....anytime a caster announces their energy, thay are not doing it to be cute or show off that they know how to ctrl+click. There is a reason I am telling you what my energy level is and the meatheads need to stop and think before galloping headlong into the nearest mob of monsters.

I'm quoting this for emphasis. I realize that warriors and (some) necros have a really good reason to rush to the next battle (adrenaline, minions), but what good will that little extra damage or few more minions do when the nukers cant nuke and the healers cant heal?

I think of it this way, you can either spend 30 seconds standing around waiting for regen, or you can make the next battle take 30 seconds longer because the eles and monks are effectively gimped. Either way you are spending 30 more seconds, and if you choose the latter option, you are just making life harder for everyone.

Sometimes with PUGs i really do wonder "why the hell are these people rushing like crazy?" I mean if you dont have the time to invest in a mission, go do something else. If you are rushing because your attention span can't sustain a 30 second downtime, then you need to read a book.

Neo-LD · May 30, 2005, 04:41 PM // 16:41

About monks using "their true power".

Most monks rely on healing prayers. This is true. Some monks use prot, and few use smite. This is also true. But there is a reason why most monks you see use healing: you play alot of PvE.

In PvE, using a protection prayer, like reversal of fortune, will prevent and heal only a small amount because monsters do so comparitively little damage. A monk using protective spirit, rev of fortune, guardian, and divine boon will never do as well in PvE as a monk using orison, heal other, word of healing, and res.

In PvP, players can do so much damage so quickly that it just isnt as fast to heal them as to prevent the damage in the first place. Monks sporting protective spirit, reversal of fortune, guardian, and divine boon will do way better in PvP than a monk using orison, heal other, word of healing and res.

That brings me to my last point. Monks arent supposed to res in PvP. They cant or the will die. Me/Mo's are the actual res characters since they can cast restore life in half the time.

Santosh · May 31, 2005, 03:12 AM // 03:12

A very nice thread this is. Great insight and information. Good job Will.

funbun · May 31, 2005, 03:18 AM // 03:18

I'll say it one more time: you can only beat your mirror as a monk using smite prayers. If you don't pump up on smite you will lose the mirror. Have you Ascended yet? Let me guess: you HEALED the mirror to death?

The Kryta missions monk smite spells get and extra 200% damage why not take advatage of that?

In PvE at the Post-Ascension lvls there are almost always 3 Monk in a group. 2 Main healers, why not have a smite/protection monk just to round things out?

I'm playing Smite/Protect and my groups are staying alive. I make sure I have balanced groups. I don't care how many healers you've got if your group sucks you will die: smite, heal, protection or other wise.

Quote:

Monks arent supposed to res in PvP. They cant or the will die. Me/Mo's are the actual res characters since they can cast restore life in half the time.

YES, this is all true! Monks shouldn't res. Let every one else res and let the monk keep the group alive.

I tell people before going questing that I'm not a healer. They respect that they always find a healer for the group but I let them know up front I have a different view on Monks. It always balances out in the end.

Neo-LD · May 31, 2005, 11:19 AM // 11:19

3 monks to a group and sure one of you can run smite/protect. But honestly most groups have trouble finding one monk.

funbun · May 31, 2005, 11:26 AM // 11:26

Not in the Post-Ascension Missions. Because the only Monks in Post Ascenstion are the one's who have true mastered their character.

Spirit Firefly · May 31, 2005, 11:36 AM // 11:36

My favourite is the "Res me res me res me" as they watch on the screen me running with 4 warriors about 2 foot away. I inevitably die after thinking this is pointless and try to res them. Recieving the reply "Omfg noob monk why didn't u res me"? Yet for some reason that w/mo who has res never seems to like to use it considering he could probably actually just about pull a res off with 3 warriors hitting him yet he would prefer to try and solo the whole opposing team.

Spirit Firefly · May 31, 2005, 11:44 AM // 11:44

oh and i'm post ascension and am constantly changing my skills and moving my attributes to find the best tactic for hoh so no i wouldn't really say i have mastered being a monk by any stretch....maybe for taking quests and missions but anyone with half a brain can heal effectively vs mobs but playing an organised team is something different altogether. 3 lightning orbs or water tridents and im pretty much dead it gets kind of tricky to stay alive let alone heal the rest of the team. So i'm not entirely sure if this is because i suck or the offense sucks. I do know that i managed to stay alive for over 10 minutes once while having the whole oppositions offense chasing me and during this time 7 players were not able to kill any of the opposition.

Ensign · May 31, 2005, 06:19 PM // 18:19

I think that some of this can be largely mitigated by the Monks themselves, but bad players are going to be bad players and you can't do much about that.

Players are going to want to run from battle to battle. Standing around waiting is bloody boring, energy regeneration or not. But as a Monk you should be finishing most battles at around half energy anyway. Why? Because as the battle starts to draw to a close heals become less neccessary, allowing you to just mill about and regenerate energy instead of cranking out heals. In general once the opposing pack is down to just a couple of warriors or rangers you can keep up with the damage pretty effectively just using Signet of Devotion, putting you on a zero energy commitment.

You are running Signet of Devotion, right?

Another thing is to always remember and exploit the fact that players regenerate health naturally, so once the battle is over people should not be getting heals if they're in reasonable health - sure, toss a SoD at someone at a quarter health, but guys up around 2/3 health should not be getting Orisons. Save your energy, let it regenerate, as their health will come back by the next pack. This also has a nice, natural dampening effect on rambo as he's a bit more patient when he can see the empty bars. Your low energy isn't on his screen. His missing health is.

Granted there are going to be battles that are tight and you will be drained of energy at the end and need to stand around for a bit. But if that happens once in a while, against huge mobs or boss fights, then people are more willing to wait than if it happens after every battle.

One thing I make abundantly clear at the beginning of a mission is that if someone goes rambo and runs out of healing range, I'm not going to run after him. I have an entire team to take care of, not one scrub, and if they decide they want to wade in deep out of healing range they'll get to see firsthand how long their platemail lasts. The vast majority of missions fail because of rambo, but is that lesson ever really learned?

The other thing that'll drive me nuts is said rambo, or anyone for that matter, yelling at me for a res mid battle. I'm not sure where this particular strategy came from - so the idea is that, during a difficult battle during which my defenses has been overwhelmed at least once already, I need to stop healing for 6-8 seconds, likely resulting in even more casualties, to res your dead ass? If you're going to be screaming for a res, you should be yelling at everyone but me.

That said, I am one of those 'unreliable, evil monks' who readily bail out of bad pick ups. If I'm in a pick up with my Monk it's because I just want to relax and not think too hard about strategy and tactics, so I'm pretty accomidating of the 3 Necro teams or whatever that grab me, more inclined to laugh at Tainted Flesh than be annoyed. It's just PvE after all. But I'm there to relax, not get yelled at by some rambo scrub. If you're going to run in out of healing range, die, scream at me for not healing and then not ressing you, and generally make my life unpleasant, I'm cutting out. There are thousands of people playing this game, and I'll go find a group of them that doesn't make this game unpleasant.

Peace,
-CxE

stumpy · May 31, 2005, 07:07 PM // 19:07

MENDING ... BAD SKILL ... plain and simple ... whether or not your party utterly insists you bringing it ... LEAVE IT OUT. Anything damaging my energy regen is bad enough (I justified a +23 energy offhand item for -1 regen) and that even shows its flaws sometimes.

I do find one amusing thing ... the power of Elementalists definately get to there head ... Far too often do I see nukers thinking they are the all powerful running up into battle and getting chopped down in 4 hits, only to lash out at a monk *blaming* the monk for him dying. This level of intelligence far contradicts the elementalist role and to these people I believe they should play a different class.

I enjoy my monk role but equally share all the frustrations you have shared and suggestions you have offered ...

Next time, I'm not a in with another monk, I'm gonna send that person a thanks, smile, laugh, whatever ... even if I am only an appreciative monk myself.