Curse

torquemada · Sep 26, 2006, 07:18 AM // 07:18

Bring Vengeance too while you're at it.

Sep 26, 2006, 07:24 AM // 07:24

I monked a team of morons through Naphui Quarter using a boon prot build. I was teh only monk and we sustained heavily casualties(i never died, of course). THey called me a waste of space, told me to use heal party and said, "we asked for a healer, not whatever you're doing." Ah, how i Love pugs.

Manic Smile · Sep 26, 2006, 07:25 AM // 07:25

(to those whining about pugs)

What cracks me up is that either we have every good player in GW here posting or about half of you are the very players the other half are complaining cannot play.

...

Amity and Truth · Sep 26, 2006, 08:17 AM // 08:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kha

I find it funny that people think e-management is all about having that ONE perfect skill in your build that gives you energy. If I'm not let into a group because I don't have a mesmer energy stealing skill in my skillbar, then that's their loss and not mine. I, like others who have posted in this thread and many more in the game, use solely monk skills when I play.

I can confirm that. When i'm referring to Energy Management i'm mostly referring to a timed use of skills, watching your energy constantly and knowing when to go in a heal frenzy and when to just calm down. I came to think, maybe a lot of monks are that bad on energy (besides not accepting any critique) because they're focussed on keeping their party at 100% while that really isn't necessary in PVE. Not like anyone will really spike there. Keeping them at roughly 75% is a lot more energy efficient. You know, more than 100% health is impossible. And if your target lost 40 health, healing him with heal other sure will do the job, hnnng. Yes i've seen that. Quite often sadly.

P.S.:
Divine Spirit is God in PVE.

saphir · Sep 26, 2006, 09:01 AM // 09:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by torquemada

Bring Vengeance too while you're at it.

lol, i love vengence. it's still amazing how you still get people in end game areas who are screaming "wtf!?" when vengence ends on them.

but about "training" your pugs, i forgot to mention in my long post no one probably read =)

that healing breeze can also be a good training/control tool. For those pug players who may get into trouble a little too often w/ aggro or just plain trying to tank as a caster, using breeze as opposed to a spike heal like word or even orison can help keep a caster out of trouble. Most squishies are aware of the the fact that they are pretty "squishy" so by not giving them instant full heals, as a monk you can keep them in the back lines via a little psychological pressure.

It's similar to not healing the leeroy in your group, they'll learn that rushing off w/o back up or support may not be a good idea. If you keep a player constantly a low hp or barely alive w/ last minute non-spike heals, they'll generall stay back and play it safer - I've noticed it works well to control your pug except w/ the absolute worst players.

On the other hand I've also had cowardly warriors in pugs that need to be trained to rush in without pulling back, hesitating or back pedaling once they hit < 50% hp. Maybe their behavior has been reinforced a few to many times be monks who can't keep them alive under pressure, maybe they're just afraid of pain. With those warriors I have to keep them near 100% initially to gain their trust after which time I can conserve a bit more knowing that that they'll do their job and not cut and run.

Psychological mind games? perhaps.. cruel and unnecessary? not at all =)

But like another poster here I use almost all monk skills.. 7 monk skills and 1 warrior skill - sprint. I never have energy problems except when I have a party of 7 all trying to tank aatxes w/o a bond monk. Managing energy is as much about your skillset as it is about when to cast, who to cast on, what to cast, how often, and where you cast from.

Playing a PUG monk sometimes seems to be also what kind of psychological pressure you can exert over the group. Of course this is never discussed in front of the team.. only via whisper w/ the other monk occasionally, especially if they're a good monk, we'll comment on what sort of psychological tactics to use.. shhhh! it's a monking secret !

torquemada · Sep 26, 2006, 09:10 AM // 09:10

A quick question? Instead of NOT healing and using pointless Anti-Leeroy skills, why not actually heal/prot for a change.

I cannot remember ever being relieved of blindness in a mission, ever, no matter the amount of pinging...prolly because Vengeance was there, just in case Leeroy Jenkins appears.

saphir · Sep 26, 2006, 09:23 AM // 09:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by torquemada

A quick question? Instead of NOT healing and using pointless Anti-Leeroy skills, why not actually heal/prot for a change.

I cannot remember ever being relieved of blindness in a mission, ever, no matter the amount of pinging...prolly because Vengeance was there, just in case Leeroy Jenkins appears.

vengence is not a "anti-leeroy" skill though.. being rather pointless as it only keeps the player alive for 30 sec
I think some monks just like to have some fun, albeit at another player's expense.

I've never seen an appropriate place for Vengence except for 55 monks (Res chant is better though it you have it), and maybe RA pvp for fun. Or if you have an extra slot and don't need extra heals, etc. Unyeilding Aura is usually just a waste of an elite slot to me, but I've seen it work pretty well if you happen to have a corpse using necro in your pug =)

Braggi · Sep 26, 2006, 09:53 AM // 09:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amity and Truth

However, PUG Monks refuse to learn how to play but instead learn how to find imaginated errors and mistakes in the playing style of others. The thing you'll see coming the most from PUG Monks will be flames and harsh words.

So what? While this is a gross generalization, you don't generalize enough, because this is in no way limited to monks. What you describe is a noob...

Quote:

Originally Posted by torquemada

I cannot remember ever being relieved of blindness in a mission, ever, no matter the amount of pinging...

Well, what about bringing your own condition removal then? Warriors spam-pinging their conditions like mad annoy me, no matter what profession I play. "It's not blind, it's the cheap helmet, stupid!"
With W/Mo I usually have my own removal, with W/R I usually bring the signet, W/N has plague touch, and so on. If I can't remove blind, I try to regenerate energy or heal me.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ateddybear

I can't recall anywhere where there's heavy degen in the desert >.>

Try poison, traps and necro hexes. Especially when your whole group's health bars are violett or green, mixed with funny grey triangles the monk feels the pain...
If you want the feeling back, just step out of Aamnoon with a PUG of lvl +-17s.

Cebe · Sep 26, 2006, 10:26 AM // 10:26

I started a Ritualist for the exact reason that monks have too greater part in a PuG... I am trying, with every PuG my Restoration Ritualist joins, to alter people's perceptions of the healing Ritualist...a lot of pople still believe that healing Ritualists are crap and occaisonaly when I am in a team, for example Raisu Palace, with one other monk, there is always a warrior (usually a wammo) spamming "We need 2 monks".... Umm...no. Monks are not the only healers any more and there do seem to be a few bitter people out there about that. My healing Ritualist has been known to be the only healer in many missions...including Zen Daijun, Dunes of Dispair and half of Sunjiang (when the other monk left)...and yes, we completed them.

When I make a group that requires a healer I always advertise "GLF Healer" rather than "GLF Monk"...I am not saying that healing Ritualists are replacement monks because some missions, I feel, do need monk powers as a Ritualist alone cannot heal to the extent which is needed....but 2 monks are never necessary. No doubt people will now say "actually, you don't need any monks" to which I respond "if you have good enough self heals or are hardcore enough...good luck with that, personally I prefer some sort of healer"

Hopefully if Ritualists get well enough used they may cause Monks to stop being so damn lazy!

Loki Seiguro · Sep 26, 2006, 10:48 AM // 10:48

i. personally, don't really care what other monks are using on their skill bar. I think that if you have a good skill bar you should be able to keep the entire party alive even if you are the only one.

heros are good imo but then monk......i gave him my skill bar and he doesnt know how to use it lol..so im basically their playing 3 chars at once (the war hero included)

btw have you thought of just not healing until that hp,hd spammer is out of energy? then you can show the group whos really doing the healing. :P

hmmm you make a good point celestial.....but i would find that situation much like our pooor assasins..
sins aren't bad but ppl just have this set of mind that anyone who plays a sin doesn;t know how to play it. (yeah your the one to talk, i bet you've never even touched one) - sins if played right are one of the best killing machines and same for a rit ho actually has many many different purposes. - healing, prot, dmg dealer, fort (spirit spammer)

NJudson · Sep 26, 2006, 11:04 AM // 11:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by cataphract

I used to offer advice on energy management to PUG monks. Dozen of them listened, argued their point of veiw, I explained some more - they acknowledged it and embraced the advice. The other 99% of them flamed and I even got kicked out of the team. That taught me a valuable lesson - now I only do that when I play monk. And that's 90% of the time. I don't get kicked ever but the flamers do.

This is why I pretty much gave up on trying to give sound advice and teach monks better and more efficient methods of healing because most the time the view advice as an insult and that your just trying to flame them. It is apparently way too easy for people to mis-interpret innocent advice and turn it into a flame war.

When I see poor monking it's just better for my blood pressure to bite my tongue and find my happy place so the party can just continue on and hopefully finish a quest/mission.

torquemada · Sep 26, 2006, 11:37 AM // 11:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Braggi

Well, what about bringing your own condition removal then? Warriors spam-pinging their conditions like mad annoy me, no matter what profession I play. "It's not blind, it's the cheap helmet, stupid!"
With W/Mo I usually have my own removal, with W/R I usually bring the signet, W/N has plague touch, and so on. If I can't remove blind, I try to regenerate energy or heal me.

You are correct, sir. What was I thinking? I'll reserve a slot or two for mending and HB while I'm at it.

BTW, I do carry Plague Touch in PvE for reasons already explained.

cataphract · Sep 26, 2006, 11:47 AM // 11:47

Let me in on your secret of not starting a flamewar when you see a warrior, or even worse - assasin, use Frenzy+Heal Sig in the midst of 3 gropus of Afflicted he "didn't" aggro. I can tolerate mistakes, everyone makes them, but the sheer stupidity of some actions makes me lose control.

torquemada · Sep 26, 2006, 11:50 AM // 11:50

Moreso we even had one ctrl+clicking heal sig as proof he's being careful with full aggro on him. After repeatedy being told not to.

Xenrath · Sep 26, 2006, 01:14 PM // 13:14

Please all of you who hate PUGS so much just go play a single player game or stick to Guildies only. Complaining on here won't ever change anything in terms of how other players play, and all you're doing is perpetuating the "henchies are better than humans" attitude, which will be the undoing of the game if everyone ends up using henchies. Teamplay? What's that? Never heard of it... and yes, I know they can be bad experiences but there can also be good. To just dismiss the whole thing because of the bad experiences isn't right. It's the internet, everyone will find someone "worse" than them in some way.

Addition: the only things which should not be tolerated are grief and abuse. Just because someone doesn't play as well as you (in your mind) or matches your expectations... so long as they don't behave abusively towards you, or deliberately grief/screw things up... what right does anyone have to slag them off? In the case of the OP it sounds like he was attacked and abused, which is wrong, but that's a seperate issue. One which should not be tolerated.

cataphract · Sep 26, 2006, 01:39 PM // 13:39

I <3 PUGs.

FalconDance · Sep 26, 2006, 01:41 PM // 13:41

Wow, Amity and Truth! The entire Prophecies campaign (for my healer) and well into the Maguuma with the second monk, and I was/have *never* been paid for a mission - period, treated as though my healer was a goddess OR been told I was doing a great job - UNLESS, of course, I WAS DOING A GREAT JOB.

Think of all the gold and adoration I've missed

.

AhuraMazda · Sep 26, 2006, 01:57 PM // 13:57

PuGs are the work of the devil.

I invite anet to think of some way to develop superior ingame mechanics for both finding groups and guilds in the forth coming chapters, as PuGs trully scare me.

Gun Pierson · Sep 26, 2006, 02:14 PM // 14:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Former Ruling

PvE Monking takes mostly none of that stuff, I can say from experience.

The main principle is you do more with less, both in pve and pvp. But before you can do that there is lot to learn.

Braggi · Sep 26, 2006, 02:14 PM // 14:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amity and Truth

Actually that is not right. There is not a second class in Guildwars, whining so much about getting all the abuse as the monks do. If you join a PUG, you know beforehand who will start the flaming - the monk.
<snip>
There was a monk whining thread a while ago on this board. It was quite funny how they were complaining about all the abuse. Quite strange, as i never got any abuse on my monk as soon as i started to understand the class. Except for the occasional noob, but guess what, he would have flamed anyways, be it monk or not.

we're maybe touching the off-topic here...
Together with the tank the monk is the most visible character in the group, so he will get the most comments. I disagree that he will as a rule start the flaming though; and most people don't argue with bad warriors anyway as they're armored between their ears...

I know the thread. The trouble is, the worse the PUG, the more unwanted and often false "advice" or requests the monk gets - and more abuse. A mediocre ranger or caster can hide in the crowd. A monk can only look as good as his group lets him, and so a mediocre monk in a mediocre PUG will look bad when things go wrong.
When you're new to the monk business you still care for your team and still have to learn about triage

Its the group as a whole that wins or loses. If there is a weak link, the group has to adapt; if there are too many weak links no single player can save the day.