Curse

Antithesis · Jan 25, 2008, 04:37 AM // 04:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kwan Xi

is it alright if I say I overreacted and apologize? Will this stop this flame war before it gets way out of hand?

I'm sorry

I for one am thankful you started this thread Kwan Xi, it's been an informative debate on pure vs hybrid monks for those of us who are new to playing the class. Thanks to the great contributions from the GWG mods and boffins, i now understand the benefits of running dual hybrids over pure bars for general PvE.

Not being a Monk myself and knowing little about monking in PvE (other than 55'ing & 600/smiting), i 'assumed' a pure heal + pure prot was the way to go simply because the henchy bars do the job more often than not. I have always struggled to find decent monk bars for heroes (on the odd ocassion that i found a need for one) and at least now understand the reasoning and benefits behind hybrid bars, even if heroes don't understand pre-prot'ing or energy management.

Stormlord Alex, is there any chance you can post your skillbars (from post #3) in the Monk Build Directory Submissions? That's the first place i looked for a decent Monk bar - most of the builds in that thread are a year or two out of date or trash, and the builds on PvX are predominately pure heal or prot.

Div · Jan 25, 2008, 05:09 AM // 05:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Antithesis

Stormlord Alex, is there any chance you can post your skillbars (from post #3) in the Monk Build Directory Submissions? That's the first place i looked for a decent Monk bar - most of the builds in that thread are a year or two out of date or trash, and the builds on PvX are predominately pure heal or prot.

I made a thread on popular monk builds nowadays. You can find a lot of good builds, but there is also a lot of bad ones in there. It's up to you to decide what you want to run.

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10222858

I also listed some builds in my thread.

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10222589

Amy Awien · Jan 25, 2008, 07:25 AM // 07:25

If you don't want to discuss, you don't discuss and you don't post. But you did. Cthon has made some good points, you don't. This leads me to conclude that you don't have any and in stead of presenting some useful argument and insights, you resort to attacking the person who's opinion you disagree with.

Dogma does not equal popular. Some idea's can be popular, nothing wrong with that. It becomes dogma rather then popular when people refuse to examine other idea's, or accept other approaches may even have merit and attack those who do want to discuss other idea's openly.

Edit: btw, this was in response to Burst Cancel.

Antithesis · Jan 25, 2008, 08:37 AM // 08:37

Thanks holymasumune. I've checked out both threads, it'd be nice to see your LoD, HB and Word builds in a more obvious location, just to make it easier for us monking noobs to find them. The builds thread is bad at the moment and could use a few decent builds to prop it up

JoeKnowMo · Jan 25, 2008, 08:42 AM // 08:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amy Awien

If you don't want to discuss, you don't discuss and you don't post. But you did. Cthon has made some good points, you don't. This leads me to conclude that you don't have any and in stead of presenting some useful argument and insights, you resort to attacking the person who's opinion you disagree with.

I smell a troll.

You haven't posted a single point yet. Those in favor of hybrids have posted several reasons why they are much better than running pure heal/prot while refuting every single point made by advocates of pure prot/heal.

I recommend you follow your own advice, "If you don't want to discuss, you don't discuss and you don't post."

Anyway, back on topic. Here's another reason why hybrids are superior: They allow monks to pay attention to the battlefield.

In a pure heal/prot combo, the prot monk will run low on energy quickly or will not be able to do much against AoE or damage that is spread out from a spike damage mob. This puts more pressure on the pure heal monk to focus all his/her attention on the red bars and make them go up.

Two hybrids are much better at preventing red bars from going down as they can prot more allies. Even if red bars start going down rapidly, one monk is not forced into being solely focused on playing ping-pong with the red bars because the other monk can contribute to making red bars go up too.

Not staring at red bars and paying attention to the battlefield pays huge dividends by allowing the monks to prot targets quicker, thus making their prots more energy efficient. It also allows the monks to monitor the skills of foes and respond accordingly. Although your entire team might have conditions on them, if you are able to pay attention to enemy skills, there's a good chance you'll see an enemy ranger use Concussion Shot and you can respond by removing just that condition off your teammate, instead of randomly removing conditions off of teammates who have low health.

In short, instead of using condition removal purely as a heal, being allowed to focus on the battlefield enables you to strategically remove key conditions that might be hampering your team.

Another example: If you're able to paying attention to the enemy skills while fighting destroyers, you will probably notice the Destoyer of Lives using Incendiary Bonds. So instead of wasting your Cure Hex on an ally with low health and removing something harmless like Mark of Fury, you can remove Incendiary Bonds. Incendiary bonds hits for about 130 damage. If it would have ended up harming 6 allies, your well-timed Cure Hex just negated 780 damage.

Amy Awien · Jan 25, 2008, 09:46 AM // 09:46

Perhaps you are catching your own smell there, Joe.
Was there anything in particular in my posts that you feel crossed a line?

As a non-monk I am interested in these issues for the sake of equipping my monk heroes with an appropriate build when necessary and I personally don't care one bit if they go hybrid or focussed. Either way, or both, I'd like to read through discussions - rather then post on a profession I do not play myself - and thus enrich my knowledge with the experience of veteran guru's.

Unfortunately, in stead of finding arguments that would inform me objectively of the pros and cons of both approaches I find this thread. Needless to say I am somewhat disappointed when posts here fail to go beyond statements like 'only a bad monks brings a pure heal bar'.

Your point about task-splitting and watching red-bars versus the battle field is noted though, mental factors might well be more important then numbers.

The approach you talk about, scanning the enemies for skills used, would suggest combining protection with disruption/interruption and it might make sense to bring an interrupt or two, rather then a heal or two, to prevent, for example, this Incendiary Bonds from affecting anyone.

Pyro maniac · Jan 25, 2008, 11:54 AM // 11:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Let's have a discussion on whether or not the Earth is flat. I think it is flat, I mean, duh, it looks flat! Pull out a map, look at it - flat! Up is up and down is down, why do you think that is? Hello, are you paying attention? Flat! Consistent direction! WTF is wrong with you scared, insecure, dogmatic round-Earthers! You won't even debate my points! I don't know why I even bother, I am done with this thread.

Hoping Chthon is still reading this thread

afaik hybrid isn't new. All popular monks builds have had some form of hybrid in it. It's just untill recently the combination of both semi-high specced prot in a heal bar became popular. But Boon-prots relied on prot spells with a heal bonus from DB. Blessed light monks used Divine Favor spells as healing, ZB monks was hybrid but without healing prayers due to the healing capability of ZB (tho combined with dismiss and sometimes GoH).
People have always been running the most efficient builds they could make, if a pure healer and a pure prot was better or at least equivalent we would have seen it before. (not talking about those pre-made builds of 2 years ago)

Lyger · Jan 25, 2008, 11:59 AM // 11:59

To be honest, I prefer to run a hybrid bar. I'm not saying it's necessarily better in all situations that running a dedicated healer and dedicated prot bar, but it does suit my playstyle. Basically, I see Healing as reactive in a situation, and Prot as proactive. Since I figure that situations in PvE or PvP can change from the proactive 'Stop those red bars going down' to the reactive 'make the red bars go up', I just prefer to be able to react to any given situation, whilst still having the capability of stopping/delaying the reactive situation in the first place.

My 2 cents.

Burst Cancel · Jan 25, 2008, 03:22 PM // 15:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amy Awien

If you don't want to discuss, you don't discuss and you don't post. But you did. Cthon has made some good points, you don't. This leads me to conclude that you don't have any and in stead of presenting some useful argument and insights, you resort to attacking the person who's opinion you disagree with.

Dogma does not equal popular. Some idea's can be popular, nothing wrong with that. It becomes dogma rather then popular when people refuse to examine other idea's, or accept other approaches may even have merit and attack those who do want to discuss other idea's openly.

Edit: btw, this was in response to Burst Cancel.

I've actually had little part in this argument except to point out that Word is a hell of a lot more efficient than other heals, and that screaming "dogma" isn't persuasive when the topic at hand has been debated at length in the past.

You continue to act as though the entire hybrid vs. pure discussion has only now surfaced, when in fact it is a regularly recurring topic. None of the viewpoints discussed here are new - including Cthon's constant assertion that those who argue in favor of hybrid monking are merely mouthpieces for GvG-based "dogma". This thread has been re-hashed numerous times, the points are always the same, and Cthon always pulls the dogma card. This is what makes people (well, I, at least - can't speak for the others) unwilling to repeat the discussion here.

Consider all of the Healing Breeze threads that periodically pop up. Do you really think any of us is going to sit around and go over why HB is bad, again? And again? And yet again? No. We're going to say the skill is bad, and leave it there. There will be no discussion on the merits, because the horse is dead and beaten to unrecognizable mush. Is there, then, some anti-HB dogma? No. The skill is bad, for reasons well-known and thoroughly discussed. Although this topic is arguably more complex than the merits (or lack thereof) of HB, it falls into the same situation.

In the end, you can conclude whatever you want to conclude. If you think hybrids are without merit, you can continue to play whatever you want to play - nobody is stopping you, and none of us (not even Ensign, I'm sure) will care one iota about what bars you use in-game. And that's really the crux of all GWG discussions - nobody actually gives a damn anymore.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amy Awien

As a non-monk I am interested in these issues for the sake of equipping my monk heroes with an appropriate build when necessary

Reading threads directed to players is a terrible way to spec heroes. A hero monk bar with just Word, Cure Hex, Dismiss/Mend Condition, Aegis (disabled), and a Res is better than most of the bars you'll see used by competent players, simply because the hero AI doesn't use situational skills very well, and most of the best skills are, in fact, situational.

JoeKnowMo · Jan 25, 2008, 03:28 PM // 15:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amy Awien

Unfortunately, in stead of finding arguments that would inform me objectively of the pros and cons of both approaches I find this thread. Needless to say I am somewhat disappointed when posts here fail to go beyond statements like 'only a bad monks brings a pure heal bar'.

The more experienced monks here have already been through this issue numerous times before. They're a little tired of it now as the answer is obvious to them. So they don't post long arguments about it anymore. They just state it as fact.

The less experienced monks, like myself, are the ones posting longer arguments. That's probably because I haven't encountered this discussion as many times as the expert monks have.

At this point, the pure heal/prot vs. hybrid debate is similar to the creationism vs. evolution debate.

The experienced monks aren't in support of hybrid because it's dogma or anything like that. If people prove, or better yet demonstrate in an actual match, that pure heal/prot is better than hybrid, these monks would switch in a heartbeat.

Quote:

Your point about task-splitting and watching red-bars versus the battle field is noted though, mental factors might well be more important then numbers.

The approach you talk about, scanning the enemies for skills used, would suggest combining protection with disruption/interruption and it might make sense to bring an interrupt or two, rather then a heal or two, to prevent, for example, this Incendiary Bonds from affecting anyone.

Back in the day, some monks used to bring Power Drain as an interrupt but mostly for e-mgmt. However, there are enough cheap spells now that energy management isn't essential. And if you do have more expensive spells like Heal Party, GoLE does the job without requiring any attribute point investment.

Tab · Jan 25, 2008, 03:50 PM // 15:50

Here's the hard facts of why hybrids are better than pure heal/prot monks, and always will be:
The best healing skills are WoH, Gift and Dwayna's. All have a very low recharge.
Running more than two of the heals worth running is a complete waste of your skill bar, as even spamming them back to back, you're not going to need an entire bar of heals.
Prot is useful - nobody can argue against that. Even if you're playing PvE, you can drop a few points out of heal and one skill you'll be using rarely due to the reasons I stated above for PS, and you're instantly a far more effective monk.
So let's take into account what I just said. The staple skills on a monk bar would be a hex removal and a condition removal. Thats only two out of eight skills.
For the sake of an example, let's say you're going to run Word of Healing along with Dwayna's Kiss. That gives you four empty skill slots. Even if you take Glyph to manage energy, you've got three left. You're already at the point where you have enough healing power to cast pretty much continuously if you need to, so what's the point in taking more heals?
What's more - if you run a pure healer and a pure protector for your backline, what happens when one monk is low on energy? What happens when one makes a mistake. Having both monks capable of stopping your party taking damage in the first place is never a bad thing, and having both monks capable of healing up after damage does get through is never a bad thing either.

Every time this argument surfaces - and it happens alot - the same things are said over and over. Rather than going on about dogmas and people getting into false mindsets that you absolutely MUST run two hybrids to be successful, why don't you stop and look at the builds posted at the start of this thread?
The ZB is decent enough, but the LoD is amazingly inefficient. Having Orison and Dwayna's on the bar alone allows you to cast continuously, what's the point in running all of the other skills then? They're simply there to fill in the space because it's a 'pure healer'.

Then there's the fact that unlike many other games, keeping teams alive in Guild Wars is based largely around damage migitation - be it through positioning or protection - and not healing. Healing alone is nowhere near powerful enough to keep up with a single semi-decent axe warrior. Healing is only effective when it comes to mopping up damage after it has been lowered to managable amounts or recovering from mistakes.
Having two hybrid monks both reduces the amount of mopping up needing to be done and the amount of mistakes that will be made, aswell as making the mopping up that is done more energy efficient. I'd much rather have two monks throwing out incredibly energy efficient heals such as Gift and WoH when needed than one monk stuggling to prot all the damage alone and the other monk spamming inefficient heals untill their energy dries up.

While having a heal monk and a prot monk may work - nobody has said otherwise as far as I know - it's not a case of the builds not working. It's a case of hybrids being more effective. Generally when you post builds asking for feedback on a forum, people are going to tell you if there is a more effective way to do it.

Chthon · Jan 25, 2008, 08:18 PM // 20:18

Wow, with the amount of Chthon-baiting going on in this thread, I can't resist at least trying to defend myself here. Since it seems that I'm getting criticized at least as much for things I never said as for the things I did say, let me try to put the record straight:

1. I've never said that 2x hybrid is bad. 2x hybrid is pretty good. Sometimes it's optimal. The rest of the time it's very near to optimal. (2x good hybrid anyway. For now, I'll assume that all hybrids are good hybrids.) What I object to strongly is this "hybrid >> all" mentality. That's bad.

2. I have never before "pulled the dogma card." True, I've been thinking it for a long while, but I've never said it until now.

3. In "playing the dogma card" I perhaps overstated the unwillingness of the entire "hybrid >> all" side to intelligently justify their positions. While most of its proponents have been thoroughly blockheaded, some have at least tried to justify their views. In particular, Joe, Grammar, and IBreakToilets have made admirable efforts, which I'm going to address in a minute.

(On the topic of "this debate is old, so I'm just going state my position dogmatically without justification": First, if you're not at least going to provide a link to an older post where you did justify your position, don't even bother posting. Second, unless I missed it (in which case a link could help), there's never been a real debate about "hybrid >> all." There's been expositions on "hybrid > crap build with 6 spot heals," and there's been a whole lot of "lolz wtf noob hybrid is teh meta QQQ go uninstall," but there has never been any real debate with both sides adequately represented.)

4. I have never advocated running a bar full of 6 redundant spot heals. Admittedly, Kwan Xi's bar in the OP had a bit too much redundancy, but I don't think anyone, not even Kwan Xi, is seriously advocating a bar full of 6 redundant spot heals. Attacking this position is attacking a straw man.

5. What I am advocating is taking a serious look at the merits of both of the following options:

Filling the space left after the spot heals with prot.
Filling the space left after the spot heals with versatility that doesn't require an attribute sacrifice (such as party healing, hex removal, condition removal, bar-topping (even though some folks around here hate it), and possibly rez (if you use rez on a monk)) to make a "versatile healer." And then using a "prot-heavy" hybrid for the complimentary build.

What I want to see -- and what I have not seen -- is a reason why prot is always a better use of that space than attribute-agnostic versatility.

I've seen a few arguments why prot is a good choice. For example:

Quote:

Originally Posted by ibreaktoilets

Prot is useful

Or several more long-winded posts that boil down to "a hybrid can cover the other monk's job."
These are indeed valid reasons why prot is a good choice for that space. But they don't say anything about why prot is a better choice. That's what I want to see from the "hybrid >> all" camp -- an explanation of why prot, despite its attribute sacrifice, is a better use for that space than attribute-agnostic versatility.

The only argument that I've seen that directly addresses which choice is better is a pretty bad one: "Hybrid is good. The attribute cost is trivial." The problem with this argument is that the attribute cost is not trivial. As I said before, from the moment you take the first bit of damage until the moment you reach full hp again (which could take awhile if your monk doesn't believe in bar-toppers), health missing off the bottom is functionally equivalent to health missing off the top. It cannot be true that being 35hp closer to dead because of a major rune is unforgivably bad play, but being 70hp closer to dead because of three or four weaker heals is trivial. (Now, I might at least entertain the triviality argument coming from someone who consistently asserted that sup runes were also OK because the life loss was trivial. But, ttbomk, every serious advocate of sup runes argues that they're "worth it" not that the cost is trivial.)

(Even internally, the above argument isn't sufficient. If we accepted arguendo that putting prot in the leftover-after-spot-heals space was cost free, we still don't have an argument for it being better than attribute-agnostic versatility, which is also cost free. Someone might be able to convince me that, if they were both cost-free, then Aegis would deserve a space more than Heal Party, or SoA more than Cure Hex or Dismiss Condition, or RoF more than Sig of Rejuv, etc.; but no one has tried.)

6. Now, I'm going to address a couple of the better-reasoned arguments for "hybrid >> all" in an attempt to show (1) why they have not convinced me, and (2) what is missing that might convince me if it was there:

@ibreaktoilets

Quote:

Originally Posted by ibreaktoilets

Here's the hard facts of why hybrids are better than pure heal/prot monks, and always will be:
The best healing skills are WoH, Gift and Dwayna's. All have a very low recharge.
Running more than two of the heals worth running is a complete waste of your skill bar, as even spamming them back to back, you're not going to need an entire bar of heals.

I agree. But no one is advocating a bar full of 6 spot heals.

Quote:

Prot is useful - nobody can argue against that. Even if you're playing PvE, you can drop a few points out of heal and one skill you'll be using rarely due to the reasons I stated above for PS, and you're instantly a far more effective monk.

I agree, prot is useful. But so is party healing. And party healing benefits from your high healing spec, while prot requires you to sacrifice some of that spec.
You've convinced me that prot is good, so hybrid is good; but to convince me that "hybrid >> all" you must convince me that prot is a better use for that space than some versatility skills that don't require an attribute sacrifice.

Quote:

What's more - if you run a pure healer and a pure protector for your backline, what happens when one monk is low on energy? What happens when one makes a mistake. Having both monks capable of stopping your party taking damage in the first place is never a bad thing, and having both monks capable of healing up after damage does get through is never a bad thing either.

This is an argument for why hybrid is good. It shows one advantage hybrid has. It's not, however, an argument for why hybrid is better. (Unless you want to pretend that there's no other factors at play, in which case it would be a fallacious argument for why hybrid > all.)

Quote:

Healing alone is nowhere near powerful enough to keep up with a single semi-decent axe warrior.

And mitigation alone won't ever stop anyone from dying, just slow the process down. There's no doubt that both are needed. The question is how to distribute them among your two monk bars.

(Apropos of nothing: Though I disagree with your thinking on how to get there, it seems that I often end up designing similar builds.)

----

@Grammar:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Grammar

- When you regularly have more than 1 spot heal fully recharged and ready for use at a time, that's inefficient (Redundancy).

True, but this is an argument against a strawman; no one is suggesting using a bunch of redundant spot heals.

Quote:

- When you heal someone with WoH for ~250hp when ~230hp would have been enough to get the job done, that's inefficient (Law of Diminishing Returns).

True, but this is an argument against bad monking, ie overhealing. As between a good dedicated versatile healer and a good hybrid, this comment has nothing to say.

Quote:

- When a heal monk spams spot heals on someone suffering from massive degen because they lack condition & hex removers, that's inefficient (Lack of Versatility).

True, but this is an argument against a strawman; no one is advocating not taking removal. And, besides, spot heals + removal does not equal a hybrid. ("Hybrid" seems pretty much reserved for a build that has spot heals + damage mitigation + specs both heal and prot attribute lines. Though I think the debate could benefit from better terminology that reflected the fact that monks have more than 2 roles to fill. For example, you could say that I am advocating a spot-heal/removal/party-heal/bar-top hybrid (among other possibilities) as being on-par with a spot-heal/damage-mitigation/removal hybrid for one half of your monk pair.)

Quote:

- When a prot monk spams multiple small prots on a target near death because they lack a large direct spot heal, that's inefficient (Lack of Versatility)

True, but this is an argument against a strawman; no one is advocating a dedicated prot without at least one big spot heal (usually ZB or WoH).

Quote:

- When you sacrifice one attribute (heal or prot) altogether so that you can max out the other, just so your heal spells can heal for ~5% more or your prots can last an extra second or so, that's inefficient (Law of Diminishing Returns)
- When you max out your divine favor attribute so your spells heal for an tiny extra 3hp or 6hp, that's inefficient (Law of Diminishing Returns)

This is half right and half wrong.
You're mostly right on prot -- Sometimes higher attributes are pushing a variable that you don't care about very much (like the maximum on RoF) or not pushing any variable at all (like ranks 10-13 on SoA), or pushing a duration variable out beyond where you can predict a need for damage mitigation on that target (PS at high spec).
You're wrong on heal & DF -- The returns are linear, not diminishing. See above on why the marginal linear gain is not trivial.

Quote:

- When you have multiple low recast time spells on your bar that all do the exact same thing, that's inefficient (Redundancy).

True, but this is an argument against a strawman; no one is suggesting using a bunch of redundant spot heals or a bunch of redundant prots.

Overall, you've done an excellent job of thoroughly trashing a build concept that no one is seriously suggesting here. (But a lot of players do use it in-game, so it deserves to be trashed I guess.) What I'd like to see you try, is taking a moment to go back and actually read what sort of build I do advocate, then, if you disagree, see if you can formulate an argument for why prot is always a better use of the space left after the spot heals than attribute-agnostic versatility.

Tyla · Jan 25, 2008, 09:36 PM // 21:36

Chthlon, people have already gone over the points of why Hybrid is better.
Because "bar toppers" include putting useless skills into a bar that can have great potential by putting in skills that are good, instead of having those random heals which only make your skill bar absolutely crap.

Pyro maniac · Jan 25, 2008, 10:19 PM // 22:19

Chthlon, while I agree with your post. I don't know what you're trying to say. You're agreeing your putting a prot spirit in the last spot. While minimal, that is all where hybrid is all about ..

Burst Cancel · Jan 25, 2008, 11:01 PM // 23:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

2. I have never before "pulled the dogma card." True, I've been thinking it for a long while, but I've never said it until now.

Plainly untrue; I even remember where you got the idea of the "hybrid dogma" from - your position in the past has been that people just run what they see on obs mode in GvG without thinking through whether there's any merit in those bars. Thus, your contention was, the support of hybrids was merely a bandwagon based on GvG rather than a result of careful consideration on the merits. I distinctly remember you saying this, in threads that most of us participated in, which is one major reason for why I'm wary of getting sucked back into this duplicated argument.

But here: give us a bar with your 'attribute-agnostic versatility' and we'll discuss why those spots would be better filled with prot. So far here's what I see: we all agree that heals cannot fill every spot. We also agree the prot is a good option. We also agree (I think) that both heal and prot are necessary. Where we disagree is how to distribute the heals and the prots, and how much attribute points and skills slots are worth.

What I see you doing, basically, is trading skill slots for attribute points, and trying to find skills to plug the extra holes in the healer's bar (as the protter's bar is overloaded). You cannot, obviously, take two hybrid bars and redistribute them evenly into pure prot and pure heal, because it would require duplicating skills. That should indicate something - some skills are worth having two copies of. By splitting the bars into heal/prot, you're filling slots with potentially sub-optimal skills because you can't, for instance, have the healer carry two copies of Kiss, or the Protter take two copies of RoF. Give us some bars to look at, rather than some conceptual idea of "well, you can use some utility that doesn't require attribute sacrifice", and we'll likely to see this concept in play.

Finally, I'd like to clarify that, as with most online discussions about largely trivial matters, I don't take anything in this thread personally, and nor do I wish my comments to be taken personally. If you feel targetted Cthon, it is only because you happen to be the only viable target on the opposing side, not because I feel any particular animosity towards you.

JoeKnowMo · Jan 25, 2008, 11:14 PM // 23:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

That's what I want to see from the "hybrid >> all" camp -- an explanation of why prot, despite its attribute sacrifice, is a better use for that space than attribute-agnostic versatility.

Because you don't have to sacrifice much at all. Furthermore, most attribute-agnostic skills aren't worth it on a monk.

I'd like to see the skill bars you'd advocate on the 2 "pure" monks. I have a good guess, but I'll wait until you post the bars so as to avoid any of the "attacking of the strawman."

Then, I'd like you to tell us why your pure prot/heal bars are better than these below.

Monk 1 - Healing 12 + 2, DF 8 + 1, Prot 10 + 1

[skill]Healer's Boon[/skill][skill]Dwayna's Kiss[/skill][skill]Ethereal Light[/skill]OR[skill]Orison of Healing[/skill]OR[skill]Words of Comfort[/skill][skill]Aegis[/skill][skill]Glyph of Lesser Energy[/skill][skill]Heal Party[/skill][skill]Shield of Absorption[/skill][skill]Protective Spirit[/skill]OR[wiki]Cure Hex[/wiki]OR[skill]Signet of Rejuvenation[/skill]OR[skill]Mend Condition[/skill]OR[skill]Dismiss Condition[/skill]

You are sacrificing 13 HP a spell due to not having max DF. In return, you get access to Aegis and SoA/PS or a condition removal with a decent heal.

The reason this bar trumps a pure heal bar is because you sacrifice very little, but end up with more useful stuff on your bar than redundant spot heals or attribute-agnostic skills (whatever they may be). The 13 HP loss works out to be a very small percentage loss thanks to the bigger numbers from HBoon.

Monk 2 - Healing 11 + 2, DF 10 + 1, Prot 10 + 1

[skill]Word of Healing[/skill][skill]Reversal of Fortune[/skill][skill]Dismiss Condition[/skill][skill]Protective Spirit[/skill]OR[skill]Spirit Bond[/skill][skill]Shield of Absorption[/skill]OR[skill]Shielding Hands[/skill][skill]Aegis[/skill] Pick any two:[wiki]Cure Hex[/wiki][skill]Glyph of Lesser Energy[/skill][skill]Guardian[/skill][skill]Dwayna's Kiss[/skill][skill]Healing Seed[/skill][skill]Signet of Rejuvenation[/skill]

You are sacrificing 7 HP a spell due to not having max DF. You are sacrificing 1s off of Aegis, 1s of SoA or 3s of Shielding Hands, and a few seconds off of PS or 12 HP each time SBond triggers In return, you get access to WoH and other healing spells.

The reason this bar trumps a pure prot is because Monk 2's bar is far more energy efficient simply due to the presence of WoH. ZB is nowhere near as good as WoH because it will often cost you 10e thanks to the HBoon monk getting spells in before you and also because you won't use it on targets in the 55-75% HP range because it's terribly inefficient to do so.

Quote:

The problem with this argument is that the attribute cost is not trivial.

The attribute cost is trivial compared to the opportunity cost of not having heals and prots on both bars.

The monk builds above are capable of handling spike damage mobs, physical damage mobs, and heavy degen mobs much better than the pure prot/heal combo.

When the pure prot/heal combo have used their single copy of Aegis they have serious trouble against a physical mob. When facing a heavy degen mob, the pure prot monk becomes almost useless and the pure healer will soon run out of energy from spamming heals and using the occasional party heal. Having a second copy of SoA/PS comes in handy if the monsters suddenly switch from an already protted target to an unprotted one.

When you consider the efficiency of monks as a team, 2 hybrids slaps a pure prot/heal combo silly.

As a team, the 2 hybrids push red bars up far more efficiently than the pure prot/heal team. As a team, the 2 hybrids prevent red bars from going down far better than the pure prot/heal combo.

Age · Jan 25, 2008, 11:50 PM // 23:50

The only thing here is that all this is good for a fully lvled ascended 20 players not no lvl 10.

Grammar · Jan 26, 2008, 01:56 AM // 01:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

True, but this is an argument against a strawman; no one is suggesting using a bunch of redundant spot heals.

Then how do you fill a pure heal bar? There simply aren't enough good skills there to fill 8 slots. Redundancy is inevitable.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

True, but this is an argument against bad monking, ie overhealing.

No no, I think you misunderstood me. I was comparing a ~250hp WoH to a ~230hp WoH, or more specifically, a pure heal monk's WoH to a hybrid's WoH. The question I was posing was what does the 250hp WoH do for you that the 230hp WoH doesn't? Both get the job done and save the target, so why bother with the extra 20 or 30hp (which means nothing; all that matters is that you saved the target from death)?

The rest of your difficulties on this issue seem to stem from a too-specific definition of what a "hybrid" is.
- A prot monk with WoH IS a hybrid.
- a heal monk with a condition remover and Prot Spirit IS a hybrid.
They might not be as "hybridized" as other hybrids, but they're hybrids nonetheless. And in truth, even something as simple as adding a spot heal to a prot bar or adding Prot Spirit and a condition remover to a heal bar makes a HUGE difference in efficiency. I think you'd agree with me there.

Antithesis · Jan 26, 2008, 02:09 AM // 02:09

As an outsider looking in to an obviously long-running saga, this all seems pretty simple to me.

There are many valid arguments to running a 2 x hybrid setup including better team energy management, better team damage mitigation, better team healing and better team skillbar optimisation.

The only defense from the pure camp is that a 98% efficient heal does not equal a 100% heal, therefore a pure healer is better...WTF? Who's the one running the strawman argument!!! The end result based on the evidence presented in this thread is quite simply pure bars = crappier team energy management, crappier team healing, crappier team damage mitigation and crappier team-wide skills which is no defense at all. This is a team game afterall, not a pissing contest about which individual can cast the biggest heal.

It seems pretty conclusive to me and I'm going hybrids. Thanks again to all contributors and veterans for helping me see the error of my ways.

Chthon · Jan 26, 2008, 02:26 AM // 02:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Burst Cancel

Plainly untrue; I even remember where you got the idea of the "hybrid dogma" from - your position in the past has been that people just run what they see on obs mode in GvG without thinking through whether there's any merit in those bars.

W T F?!
While I agree that there's a lot of mindless importation of PvP builds into PvE (without even checking to see that the builds will even work, much less optimizing them), I'm pretty sure that I have never blamed obs mode for it. And, if I did, I was wrong; obs mode is not responsible for this level of blind adherence to foolish ideas -- that sort of thing can only come from people having egos to defend, for instance on a forum. So, like they say around here, "o rly? link or it didn't happen."

Quote:

Give us some bars to look at

Let's use Joe's bars.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JoeKnowMo

Then, I'd like you to tell us why your pure prot/heal bars are better than these below.

Monk 1 - Healing 12 + 2, DF 8 + 1, Prot 10 + 1

[skill]Healer's Boon[/skill][skill]Dwayna's Kiss[/skill][skill]Ethereal Light[/skill]OR[skill]Orison of Healing[/skill]OR[skill]Words of Comfort[/skill][skill]Aegis[/skill][skill]Glyph of Lesser Energy[/skill][skill]Heal Party[/skill][skill]Shield of Absorption[/skill][skill]Protective Spirit[/skill]OR[wiki]Cure Hex[/wiki]OR[skill]Signet of Rejuvenation[/skill]OR[skill]Mend Condition[/skill]OR[skill]Dismiss Condition[/skill]

Call this the dedicated (not "pure") heal bar.
- Orison and WoC are terrible skills, so we can toss them.
- Sig of Rejuv gets to stay on one bar unconditionally. I usually leave it on this one, so let's leave it here for purposes of discussion.
- I don't need GoLE on this bar. If there's time enough to use GoLE when you need it without someone dying, then there's time enough to conserve energy by using Sig of Rejuv to keep damage from piling up until you really need to pull out the big heals. If aegis stays on, maybe GoLE will have to come back.
- Aegis, PS, and SoA are presumptively off because they require a spec change. If they get to come back in, that's something to decide at the end.
- Unless you don't expect to face any meaningful conditions/hexes, removal is in unconditionally.

That leaves:
[skill]Healer's Boon[/skill][skill]Dwayna's Kiss[/skill][skill]Ethereal Light[/skill][skill]Heal Party[/skill][wiki]Cure Hex[/wiki][skill]Signet of Rejuvenation[/skill][skill]Dismiss Condition[/skill] + 1 free space.

If you like rez on a monk, that's your free space, spec 12+/12+/3+, and we're done. (And rez might not be such a terrible idea with HBoon and the ever-falling cast time on monk hard rezzes.)
If you don't like rez, then it's time for a real (damage-mitigation) prot, since we're out of things worth doing that don't use a prot spec. PS and Aegis are probably the two best prots for the money. I don't think SoA is quite in the same league, but I don't really object strongly to it. So pick one of the three for the free space. Specs would be 12+/10+/8+, which would hit the same breakpoints for Aegis and SoA as Joe's 12+/8+/10+ and have 2 more DF. Maybe 12+/9+/9+ if you picked PS and really wanted a longer duration.

Couple of notes:
- If you really wanted to make space for more prot, you could flip Sig of Rejuv or Heal Party to the other bar, but you'd take a big hit to that skill's effectiveness (especially heal party) for very little gain in my eyes.
- You could gain 1 more free space by replacing ELight + HBoon with WoH, at the cost of weakening DKiss, Heal Party and Cure Hex.

Now for the other build:

Quote:

Monk 2 - Healing 11 + 2, DF 10 + 1, Prot 10 + 1

[skill]Word of Healing[/skill][skill]Reversal of Fortune[/skill][skill]Dismiss Condition[/skill][skill]Protective Spirit[/skill]OR[skill]Spirit Bond[/skill][skill]Shield of Absorption[/skill]OR[skill]Shielding Hands[/skill][skill]Aegis[/skill] Pick any two:[wiki]Cure Hex[/wiki][skill]Glyph of Lesser Energy[/skill][skill]Guardian[/skill][skill]Dwayna's Kiss[/skill][skill]Healing Seed[/skill][skill]Signet of Rejuvenation[/skill]

This is actually pretty good for a "prot-heavy" hybrid.
- Sig of Rejuv can drop since it's on the other build and I doubt you need two copies.
- DKiss should be disjunctive with RoF, since RoF is a quasi-spot-heal so the two serve very similar purposes.
- Cure Hex should almost be mandatory unless you expect light enough hexing that the other copy can handle it alone.
- Since I don't buy into the "no rez, ever, under any circumstances" school of thinking, rez should at least be an option for those last two spaces.
- Consider moving one more attribute point to prot to hit the next aegis breakpoint.

---------

Now, a funny thing has happened. Despite all our bickering, our builds look very similar; I don't think your builds are terrible; and I don't expect you to be too unhappy with my variants either. How the hell did that happen?

I'm not really sure. Maybe our two different approaches converge to the same endpoint. Maybe there's so little difference between "passable" builds that it doesn't matter how you conceptualize them; they're going to be awfully similar. Maybe I've subconsciously convinced Joe, and that's why he posted what was essentially a heal bar splashed with prot and a prot bar splashed with heal. (Kidding...) In any event, we seem to have been arguing about concepts that have made very little practical difference in our bars.

----------
Edit:
@Grammar:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Grammar

Then how do you fill a pure heal bar?

Who ever said I was out to fill a pure heal bar? Haven't I been saying "dedicated healer" all along? I've never questioned the idiocy of bringing a bunch of redundant heals; it's the wisdom of making damage-mitigation, and the accompanying sacrifice to your attributes, your immediate, automatic first choice to fill the remaining spaces, despite the other 4 remaining monking functions that don't need a prot spec, that I doubt.

Quote:

No no, I think you misunderstood me. I was comparing a ~250hp WoH to a ~230hp WoH, or more specifically, a pure heal monk's WoH to a hybrid's WoH. The question I was posing was what does the 250hp WoH do for you that the 230hp WoH doesn't? Both get the job done and save the target, so why bother with the extra 20 or 30hp (which means nothing; all that matters is that you saved the target from death)?

Your error is in bold. Even if you're not in immediate danger of dying, being further away from dead is a good thing. If it wasn't, we wouldn't care so much about max hp, would we? After all, 400hp, 500hp, and 600hp are all out of the danger zone. More current hp is your safety buffer against being wtfpwnt or watching your life drain out before a stressed monk can get around to you. As I've said twice before now (apparently without it sinking in for anyone but myself), during the period from when you first take damage until you get back up to 100% health, the effect on your current hp of weaker heals refilling X less hp is identical to the effect of X less max hp to start with -- your safety buffer is lower; you are closer to dead. While the target may be out of immediate danger with the 230hp heal, they are 20hp closer to being in danger again.

Quote:

The rest of your difficulties on this issue seem to stem from a too-specific definition of what a "hybrid" is.
- A prot monk with WoH IS a hybrid.
- a heal monk with a condition remover and Prot Spirit IS a hybrid.
They might not be as "hybridized" as other hybrids, but they're hybrids nonetheless.

If you want to define "hybrid" in that way, then I would agree that "'hybrid' > all," and "all" is a pretty narrow subset of really sucky builds. I've consistently defined "hybrid" as a build that has spot heals + damage mitigation + high specs for heal and prot, mainly because that's descriptive of what most people seem to post when they label their build as "hybrid" (see the old LoD hybrid for example); "not-very-hybridized" hybrids are a rather late development and have only really come about since people finally realized that LoD was dead and they needed more healing on at least one of their bars to replace it. It's also pretty meaningless to define a term that encompasses pretty much every non-sucky build, therefore I try to give "hybrid" a narrow enough meaning that the term is actually useful. But, like I said, if you want to call every build that uses a skill from the heal line and a skill from the prot line a "hybrid," then you can, and I'll agree they're better than anything else. Let's just make sure we're clear in our terminology first.

Quote:

And in truth, even something as simple as adding a spot heal to a prot bar or adding Prot Spirit and a condition remover to a heal bar makes a HUGE difference in efficiency. I think you'd agree with me there.

I do.