Curse

Phaedrus · May 15, 2005, 03:55 AM // 03:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lazarous

Nothing you can't reverse in a moment. All enchantment removers are on a hell of a lot longer timer than 2 seconds for breeze. They all cost a pretty penny in mana to cast as well.

I will agree that strategy is the key to winning battles, but enchantment removal is a weak strategy right now.

Laz

Right, but you can hex my target to bait me into a long cast of my own, shatter enchantment, then scourge heal that target as I prepare to repair what you've just done. Right there I'll have wasted between 15-30 energy and all of my focus for about 10 seconds.

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Lazarous · May 15, 2005, 05:06 AM // 05:06

How precisely do you bait a healer into a long cast as a mesmer or necro? There are no burst damage spells available to either class that don't require the willing cooperation of the target, except for possibly dark aura + blood magic or a smaller burst from timing wastrels worry and shatter delusions on something like phantasm. Breeze is fast and totally counters your dots - in fact as a mesmer i view phantasm as a way to mitigate breeze, not the reverse. A way that, while not winning at least can recycle fast enough to keep breeze from doing anything substantial to the target - unlike the enchant removes. Not to mention remove hex - 5 mana, 2 sec cast, 5 recharge. Enchant removal wishes it had a spell this powerful, but as is your scourge is going to be quickly removed unless you pile on a ton of hexes.

For enchant removal, you have to only consider 2 cases to see if it was worth it. First is - you remove an enchantment and the healer doesn't feel the need to renew it. This is often the case with breeze, reversal of fortune, any of the quick, cheap fire and forgets a monk has.

Second is the healer does care, and you are actually disrupting what they're doing. Thats the case with stuff like healing seed, healing hands, mark of protection, but also if they simply recast breeze.

In the first case, your enchantment removal has merely brought you even with the game. It cost more than the healing enchant, and the target already benefitted from divine favor. Its still a bit of a loss, really, but at least shifts momentum.

In the second case, if they recast something like breeze, you lost. Flat out, you used a skill that has a long cooldown timer and noticable cost to offer perhaps a second of non-enchantment. If its a bigger spell like seed, you have to ask yourself if this is every going to happen. How many healers dump a healing seed on someone and then fail to shield it with something like healing breeze or reversal of fortune? The enchant removal is fighting against the cheapo disposable enchants, not the big ones underneath and only in the case of rend will it be able to break through. Yet rend has some high costs - 40 life per monk enchant removed (so you're looking at minimum 80 life loss on any target you actually want to cast this on), 30 second cooldown and not insubstantial cost of its own in mana and cast time.

Yet rend is the only enchant removal i would seriously consider bringing to pvp. There are cheaper spells in a mes/nec arsenal that are more effective at keeping healing from happening than fighting a losing war against defensive enchantments with substandard weapons like shatter enchant or inspired enchant. You can make a case for drain enchant merely as a mana refill, but as an enchant remover on a focus fired (and focus healed) target? no. The cooldowns on all these skills make them unusable except to offer momentary (1-2) second - if that - weakness on a target every 30 seconds.

If monks are overpowered - the fault lies with this mechanic. Teams can deal with spammed orison with enough damage, they can't deal with healing hands, mark of protection or the other flat out invulnerabilities monks can dump on targets. These require a target change or a rend which has a good chance to kill the necro casting it.

Laz

Phaedrus · May 15, 2005, 06:24 AM // 06:24

Healing breeze is about mitigating damage as it comes in. You cast it on someone who's taking damage, whom you don't think you'll need to suppliment with much healing once they have breeze. It costs more than the quick-cast heal spells most monks stock for PvP (word, kiss, orison). If you break that enchantment while its bearer is taking damage, I have to focus my healing on that person. If I recast breeze, I lost 20 energy for my effort. That alone is 40% of my mana, which assumes I haven't cast anything else. If I healed with anything other than sig of devotion, I've lost more than that, totalling half or more of my energy.

As for baiting, not all monks just sit idly while their teammates get hexed. I'll perform hex removal if hexes get called, it's a pretty common practice.

Healing hands doesn't cause invincibility. That's why rangers, monks, and elementalists can switch damage types...hands only heals on physical damage. It also doesn't heal much, depending on how you're focusing attacks. Hands may be cheap yet expensive to counter, but that's just it...a lot of monks don't work under the premise their enchantments will be countered or otherwise stopped. That's one of their biggest weaknesses and liabilities.

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Lazarous · May 15, 2005, 06:35 AM // 06:35

Quote:

Healing breeze is about mitigating damage as it comes in. You cast it on someone who's taking damage, whom you don't think you'll need to suppliment with much healing once they have breeze. It costs more than the quick-cast heal spells most monks stock for PvP (word, kiss, orison). If you break that enchantment while its bearer is taking damage, I have to focus my healing on that person. If I recast breeze, I lost 20 energy for my effort. That alone is 40% of my mana, which assumes I haven't cast anything else. If I healed with anything other than sig of devotion, I've lost more than that, totalling half or more of my energy.

As for baiting, not all monks just sit idly while their teammates get hexed. I'll perform hex removal if hexes get called, it's a pretty common practice.

refer to post above.

Quote:

Healing hands doesn't cause invincibility.

Substitute mark of protection, and then continue with your point.

Quote:

ut that's just it...a lot of monks don't work under the premise their enchantments will be countered or otherwise stopped. That's one of their biggest weaknesses and liabilities.

So a retarded monk casts healing seed on someone and doesn't cast breeze or some other mask immediately after...this makes enchantment removal good?

Laz

Phaedrus · May 15, 2005, 07:19 AM // 07:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lazarous

So a retarded monk casts healing seed on someone and doesn't cast breeze or some other mask immediately after...this makes enchantment removal good?

The point of enchantment removal is to waste the monk's mana. If you nullify a healing seed or a mark of protection, you've eaten 15 of their mana. You can then combine that with other interrupt or energy-stealing abilities to cripple a monk. With long recharge times and reasonably large energy costs (for monk spells), it's an effective strategy. It's not as effective against "cheap" spells like reversal or healing hands, no. But then, those aren't the most effective monk enchantments either.

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Manaburn · May 15, 2005, 05:10 PM // 17:10

The way I see it, using mesmers to shut down healing is unrealiable theorycraft.
There is a very specific way to shut down monk-massing. I'm currently trying to convince my guild to give it a try.

It involves targetting the tanks first. Yeah, the tanks.
3x Mo/Me, standard healing and support.
3x DPS... R/E or some other damage dealer. W/? would work too.
1x extremely specific char to attempt to counter the monk massing... an E/N to spend 35 mana and 30% health to lower healing of the target to 17%.
1x Me/Mo to maximize smiting prayers to like 16 or some such. Spread out the scourge healing and mana tap/drain. Just keep spreading it.

Now this would work a few times maybe before people start recognizing E/N and taking them out first, crippling the strat, and losing to the monk-massers.

Loralaiy · May 15, 2005, 05:37 PM // 17:37

Me/Mo can't get 16 smiting prayers. Mo/Me can.

IMHO it has no chance. You leave three monks open to defend one guy, and a W/Mo at that, he ain't dying. Aside from that, generally groups only carry one or two warriors.

Mesmer shutdowns are insanely reliable. Our shutdowns include more than just backfiring -- generally they'll just run around and it's very uneffective. Personally I like to mana drain my targets.

Manaburn · May 15, 2005, 06:53 PM // 18:53

I dont know, I think it'd work pretty well.
The idea is to actually let the warrior live through the focus fire, tricking the monks into healing him for 30ish damage and nuking themselves for 90ish.

Mesmers to counter healing really just doesn't work that well. Throw spell breaker on yourself and your immune for a good while. And no group is gonna run with a mesmer for each monk. You'd be left with no dps. Congrats you shut down the healing. Now wand them to death?

Jab · May 15, 2005, 10:22 PM // 22:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by Manaburn

I dont know, I think it'd work pretty well.
The idea is to actually let the warrior live through the focus fire, tricking the monks into healing him for 30ish damage and nuking themselves for 90ish.

Mesmers to counter healing really just doesn't work that well. Throw spell breaker on yourself and your immune for a good while. And no group is gonna run with a mesmer for each monk. You'd be left with no dps. Congrats you shut down the healing. Now wand them to death?

Lol that happened to me yesterday during elona's reach mission. Only me a Me/N and a Mo/E were left to fight a mesmer boss. Due to all the ether feast and my one power spike , it took us 5 minutes to kill the boss with my crappy cane and her crappy wand.

Pevil Lihatuh · May 15, 2005, 11:04 PM // 23:04

Ok its midnight here so I read the first couple posts and the ones on this pagethen gave up, so forgive me if this has already been said. But I'd just like to throw in this small point.

From what little I've read, the healing monk is being compared against one other character. In which case fine, yes, it is overpowered. But nowhere in guild wars (unless both PvP teams get down to one player left each) is it just one on one. And the point is that a monk which focuses on healing has to concentrate on more than one player. So they either heal only one player and let the other 2/4/6 die, or they spread between all the players and either get killed themselves, or only prolong the lives of their team long enough to hopefully wipe out the other team.

One on one damage vs heal, damage would stand no chance. But when you have perhaps 3 people chipping away at one character and one monk attempting to heal that, no way can you outheal. you can only pray that the person you are healing has the strategy, self heal and brains to be able to take out at least one of those 3, if not all 3, before your healing reaches the point that it is useless. And this is also assuming no one uses something like distracting shot on the monk.

Loki Gladius · May 15, 2005, 11:24 PM // 23:24

Il be honest, i personally think the W/M are abit overpowered, Guildwars needs to balance it. Everytime i go to PvP everyone is just a W/M... 4v4 people just use 2 W/M and 2 primary monks and can pritty much maul everyone that doesnt use the same sub class. I keep hearing people say that mesmers and necros can pritty much shut them down.. Well that isnt very helpful if your a W/E, doesnt it difie the point of pick up and play?, which is what the game is about. Instead it seems to be that PvP is just about finding skills and changing your subclass to take out W/M and primary monks.. I think it gets boring fast.. Finding when i go into PvP and i see only W/M running around mauling people with different subclasses, and even when you get into a 1v1 with them, they just heal themselves back to full health?.. :sigh:. I was originally a W/E, and after constantly getting mauled i had to change to W/N just to stand a chance to taking on W/M..

My solution to solving it, "Make healing prayers cost more energy, and give the primary monks more energy capacity". Just my thoughts

Loralaiy · May 16, 2005, 04:47 AM // 04:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Manaburn

I dont know, I think it'd work pretty well.
The idea is to actually let the warrior live through the focus fire, tricking the monks into healing him for 30ish damage and nuking themselves for 90ish.

Mesmers to counter healing really just doesn't work that well. Throw spell breaker on yourself and your immune for a good while. And no group is gonna run with a mesmer for each monk. You'd be left with no dps. Congrats you shut down the healing. Now wand them to death?

The problem is that the monks aren't going to fall for such a pathetic trick. They'll just remove the hex and keep going, or go ahead and cast through it since it doesn't matter if they're taking damage -- no one is attacking them anyway. They'll heal themselves when they get too low.

Nobody brings three mesmers to counter three monks. Well, actually, some groups do, and they make it work well. The way my group often does it is attack your main focused monk, and have a mesmer on your team keeping another one busy. Feel free to use your elite slot on Spell Breaker -- I hope that 15 seconds is worth it when your Ghostly Hero on King of the Hill or Relic Runner could use a Word of Healing to keep 'em going.

wucc · May 16, 2005, 04:56 AM // 04:56

I must agree with first post there are WAY WAY too many secondary monks. plus if none of you have noticed whenever your going for the hall of heroes all anybody cares about is monk primary or warrior monk. I think the devs should think of a fair way to make this sort of thing not happen. I have A Raised from scratch R/E that can deal massive long range damage with air magic and arrow attacks (ignite arrows). I spent about 30 min looking for a group in hall of heroes area. I through together a pvp warrior/monk.....boom in zone not 5 sec before im in a group, what do u know everyone in it is a primary or secondary monk. we get to last round and lose to spirits of war....thier good. but do you see my point, the devs need to fix these types of problems.

Skrilling · May 16, 2005, 05:16 AM // 05:16

Another thing to realize is that you don't have to be a monk secondary to heal yourself. The monk secondary is just a go to guy for the healing because it doesn't require much skill to use, and since people still don't know what they're doing, its a good place to start. Really, the only difference between my W/N and a W/Mo is that my healing is conditionalized. Healing breeze for 10 sec? try 20 and your damging the guy at the same time (dual life syphon or life transfer for less time). Getting smacked and need health fast? try unholy feast (large radius really if you haven't tried it), vamp gaze/touch, or soul feast if your really really lucky. Hate monks? you'll love them now, for about 80pts with mark of subversion. Yes the hexes can be smote, but so can enchantments and they will be packing for both. The only huge difference (highly notworthy strategy wise) is that you can't help your teamates except by trying to take the heat. Or giving them an energy regen bonus, but warriors usually don't tip you for that.

goldfinger · May 16, 2005, 05:41 AM // 05:41

See, the problem here is not so much the power of the spells but the usage of the classes. Monks are terribly easy to use, yet countering monks is VERY tough 1 on 1.

Phaedrus · May 16, 2005, 04:12 PM // 16:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by goldfinger

See, the problem here is not so much the power of the spells but the usage of the classes. Monks are terribly easy to use, yet countering monks is VERY tough 1 on 1.

I'd actually clarify: monks are easy to use if you're only using the class for one or two abilites. Any class is "easy to use" if you just stack in some skills and hope you do okay. No class is easy to use well, not if you're up against skilled and talented players familiar with strategy.

I've had my ass kicked by several anti-healing builds. They exist, and they're incredibly effective at what they do. That it isn't necessarily common knowledge to put one together, well...it's pretty much like the elite skill capturing argument. You have two sides to the argument and neither will ever be persuaded to agree with the other. :P

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