Curse

Makkert · Nov 17, 2006, 12:08 PM // 12:08

MONKING - Decisions & skills in perspective
~ a widescreen profession analysis ~

§1 INTRODUCTION
This write-up aims for beginner and mid-level monks. Veteran players won't find much new information here, except maybe a few handles how to teach their guildmembers.
A lot of players don't feel comfortable to monk. They feel responsible for keeping the team up, and feel bad if someone dies. If you want to learn how to play a monk, this is a bad starting point. If you can keep everyone up forever, you would be the best monk in GuildWars history. Now, I don't think you should ask that from yourself, since you are a starting monk right? Also remember that everyone in your team is as responsible to keep himself alive as you are. You are just helping your teammates a bit in that task, but you are not superman. So if you can accept that players will die while you are monking, you can focus more on that which you can do. This write-up will deal with the things it takes to monk in various environments.

§2 MICRO LEVEL SKILLS
This group that I named micro level skills, are things you can do alone without any interaction with your teammembers. It focuses on your own decisions and plays you can make. The basis for a good monk lies here, the skills that are needed to play a decent monk on this level will be needed everywhere.

§2.1 Equipment
The armor and weaponset choices you make before a match can influence a match. So what is the 'right' equipment? That depends a bit on the environment you play in. Note that 'right' is debatable, players tend to have personal preferences on this issue. As long as one can argument why he makes a certain choice for equipment, it's all good.
There are however certain equipment picks that are definitely wrong. Using a weaponset with a '20% longer enchantments' modification while playing with Mantra of Recall is for example just the wrong pick. But since the environment you play in can affect your choices, I'll wait with this subject till a later paragraph.

§2.2 Your skillbar
The tools you choose before you go into a match. Basically, you'll want to run a checklist for yourself:
1) What are my options to heal?
2) What do I have for condition removal?
3) What do I have for hex removal?
4) What do I have for energy management?
5) Are there any skills that work against each other?

If you play in a teambuild, these questions should be looked at teamlevel. After playing some games, you might notice that hexbuilds are giving you a hard time consistently. Then it might be time to rethink the skills taken. Rethinking your skillbar because you run out of energy is something that should be done somewhat with care. The problem may not lie with you, but with your teammembers that didn't do anything to minimize damage on them. They may have been balling up too much against AoE damage, have been Frenzy-ing too much, or walked through lava for instance. There do however exist builds that have proven quite solid. So if you are unsure about energymanagement, compare your energymanagement with that of these builds.

Some skills require some attention, that they don't hinder the effectiveness of your other picked skills. An obvious example is that bringing Gift of Health means that you should be watching out that your bar isn't full of Healing Prayers skills. A maybe less obvious example is when you bring Infuse Health to catch spikes, having skills that are 2 second cast time can affect your response time to catch spikes with Infuse Health. Sure you could cancel your 2-second cast and then use Infuse, but that's not ideal energywise and still costs time to do so.

Whatever skills you pick, be sure you know their workings inside out. I'll give some of the more known things that every monk should know.
Contemplation of Purity (CoP in short) is for instance a skill and not a spell, making it a perfect way to get rid of any Backfire or Shame on you. You also could opt to use it when an enchantment is almost wearing off you, giving it a nice extra heal/removal if you need it at that time.
Holy Veil is also used on allies before they are hexed, which is called 'pre-veiling'. Especially before the match starts, pre-veiling is a good thing. You can cancel the Veil anytime after all, and having a 'free' hex removal is always nice. If you are quick enough (and the mesmer doesn't have 16 in Fast Casting ), you can remove a key hex with Veil before it's coverhex lands. Veil also synergies nicely with CoP in that the removed Holy Veil will remove 2 hexes then.
If you are hexed with Phantom Pain, using CoP while having one enchantment up will remove the hex, and you'll get the Deep Wound. If you however have Holy Veil on yourself while you hit CoP, the Holy Veil will remove a hex before the effect of CoP is taken into account. If the Holy Veil then removes Phantom Pain, CoP will immediately remove the then inflicted Deep Wound.
Inspired Hex is one of the very few skills that have little problems with Diversion. If you target a hex other then Diversion with Inspired Hex while you have Diversion on you, Inspired Hex will be replaced with the removed hex and the Diversion effect will be nullified. This copied hex can on its turn also be cast on an enemy to easily remove another Diversion on you, since after 20 seconds it will turn back in to Inspired Hex anyway.
Spirit Bond has synergy with Protective Spirit. The protective spirit can reduce the damage to below 60 damage, but despite of this the Spirit Bond will still trigger it's heal. It synergies the same way with Shelter.

§2.3 Energymanagement
About energymanagement a lot has been written, which is logical as it's often the lifeline of a monk. A monk without energy is a dead man walking. One can split energymanagement in two categories: direct and indirect. Direct E-management are skills that grant you energy, such as Offering of Blood, Blood Ritual and Power Drain. Indirect E-management are skills that are cost efficient. The baseline skill on which to judge other healing potential is Orison of Healing. A Word of Healing can give an huge heal for the same 5 energy, and thus can save you energy. The same holds true for skills such as Healing Whisper, Healing Touch, Gift of Health or Dwayna's Kiss. They all can give a larger heal then the baseline Orison of Healing, with a drawback/requirement to balance them.
Direct energy skills can often be compared by transferring their energy gain to energypips.

attributelevel assumed in respective attributes: 10
* I choose 10 because often 9 or 10 is used for the respective attributes
* 20/20 Fast Recharge equals 36% fast recharge for calculations

When looking at this, I think it becomes fairly obvious why nobody runs Peace and Harmony. Blood Ritual shows it power clearly when comparing with these skills on the other hand, although it could be stripped easily. Some of these numbers should be taken with any precaution. So is it pretty much impossible to interrupt every time a spell the moment Power Drain recharges, and is the health penalty of Offering of Blood not taken into account. Also other issues should be taken into account.

Makkert · Nov 17, 2006, 12:09 PM // 12:09

As an example the debate between Mantra of Recall and Energy Drain, which are both regularly used on booners.
- E.D. couples better with weaponsets that have Fast Recharge inspiration
- mantra gives more energy, and is unconditional unlike E.D.
- the energy gain of E.D can be quite reliable net the full energy by targeting a spirit or minion
- mantra can be stripped, disrupting energy management since your energy will come at times when you don't want it to release.
- mantra has synergy with CoP
- mantra is a form of energy hiding
- mantra is harsh after getting ressed after a kill. it takes some time to get fully back in the fight. Energy Drain is faster on this since it doesn't take 20 seconds (of energy investing) to get the energy.
- mantra has in the recent GWFC been target by enemy monk with Inspired Enchantment

These things should be weighed with the raw energy potential of the skills.

When using energymanagement skills, it is key to use them before the point where you are getting low on energy. Use them to replenish your energy on the moment they would refill your energysupply to maximum again. In case of Mantra of Recall, it's best to use it whenever it is possible (although you don't want to cast it when it still is up, as it then will simply refresh the duration of the enchantment) because the energy will come free in the future.

For indirect energymanagement, you could express things in heal / energy. Taking 12 Divine Favor - 12 Healing Prayers:

These numbers only apply when overhealing doesn't take place. Overhealing takes place when a monk heals his ally up to 100% health, and wastes some of the heal at the same time because the heal would have healed for more then was needed to bump the ally to 100% health. A monk should always watch out that he doesn't overheal too much.
It's interesting to see that Heal Other isn't exactly an economical heal. Gift of Health is as a non-elite skill quite the efficient heal. Healing Touch and Healing Whisper are at 12-12 attributebreak relatively close together. So in this case taking Healing Touch with intention to heal someone else then yourself isn't exactly worth it. The economy healing of Healing Light clearly outshines everything else. It is however important to realise that you can only continue to use indirect energymanagement as long as you still have energy. Energy lost isn't going to be regained with indirect energymanagement, in contrast to direct energymanagement. The best builds tend to be a mix between efficient heals and direct energymanagement therefore.

§2.4 Energy hiding
When playing monk, you'll be faced with this sooner or later: energy denial. They'll try to drain your energy pool dry, making you unable to cast anything. Because of this, it's vital to understand the principles of energy hiding.
The monk comes with a basis of 30 energy, and with a normal staff that will be 40 energy. If you also have a weaponset with a -5 energy sword or axe, you can switch from your 40 max energy set to your 25 max energy set. The 15 energy difference between these sets is then hidden safely, as energy you don't currently have can't be hit with Energy Burn or the like. You can switch to your staff, cast a spell or two, then switch back to your -5 energy set again so that your energy can regain itself without fear of being burned away by the enemy team.
This also works very well with hexes such as Malaise and Wither, since they end the moment your energy reaches zero. With focus swapping to your -5 energy sword, it's not too hard to artificially set your energypool at 0 energy for a moment.
A neat trick with energy hiding sets is when you know you are going to die very soon; it's favourable to swap to your energy hiding set. An example to explain this:
Your have a normal +10e staff and a -5e hiding set. If you get ressed with Resurrection Signet while having your staff on, you will have 25% of 40 energy to start with: 10 energy. If you have your energy hiding set on when you died, you'll get ressed with 25% of 25 energy: 6 energy. If you then swap back to your staff, you'll have 15 + 6 energy, for a total of 21 energy.

§2.5 Kiting
This term basically means nothing more then 'running away from danger', moving around like a kite in the wind can do. This form of damage migitation can be very effective. The simplest way to show this is to do a guild scrimmage. First let a warrior chop (no skills used, simple attacks, only Sprint and Frenzy on his bar) into your monk, while you only cast Healing Touch and see how long you can survive while standing still. Then repeat this, with only difference that you can run around. You'll then realise what an huge difference kiting can make.
Kiting doesn't only affect warriors or other melee characters. Also arrows of rangers can miss if you kite around, as well as any other projectiles. I'm sure some of you remember the Dodgeball game during the 'Dragon Festival', where the trick was to kite Lightning Orbs.
Kiting can also take place before the damage starts hitting you. If you see a warrior coming for you, you might as well run away from him before he gets to you, which lets him waste precious time if he continues the chase. This is what some players call 'pre-kiting'.
Running forward moves faster then strafing sideward or moving backwards. However if you are hit while running, this hit will automatically be a critical hit. On the other hand makes strafing an easy target for a warrior that is using Bull's Strike or Bull's Charge.
When you kite, make sure you don't let yourself be totally chased away from the team, since you still will need to be able to throw a heal here and there.
The nice thing is that if you are kiting from a warrior, you can steer the warrior to a position you want. You can force him to choose to either overextend or quit chasing you. Or you can force him walking through your team's Ward Against Foes or other wards, minimizing his efficiency.
Another neat trick is that if you have a warrior chasing you, you can press 'c' to target him. If you see him use Bull's Charge, it's good to stand still for a moment and take the hit, so that you at least don't get knocked down. Personally I still haven't completely mastered this trick, but it's a nice trick to work on.

§2.6 Interface
The interface is customisable in GuildWars, so it's best to set it up in a way that feels best for you. There isn't an ideal set-up. The most important rule is that it should help you and feels comfortable to you. It is after all your interface. Finding your ideal interface is not something that is done with a finger snap. Most players tweak their interface repeatedly over a period of 2-3 months till they find something that works for them. To understand what to pay attention to, I'll take my own interface as example to comment on.

When looking at this interface, you can see some elements that come back in the interfaces of many pvp players.

Energybar & Healthbar
In the default interface, those are on top and smaller. It's hard to see the info they provide in default interface, so I made them bigger. By placing them under my skillbar instead of on top, I prevent that the bar isn’t overlapped with the skill descriptions that pop up when you hover over a skill with your mouse.

Partywindow
I placed mine on the right, close to the center of attention on my screen. Like most monks, I try to keep my partywindow a bit broad so that it is easier to see how much damage a partymember takes.

Statusbar
As a monk (or actually any profession) it's important to be constantly aware of the conditions, enchantments and hexes on you. As such, I gave my statusbar a prominent place in the center of the screen almost. Once again, placed it in such a way that the annoying skill description pop-ups won't overlap it.

Makkert · Nov 17, 2006, 12:09 PM // 12:09

Maintained enchantments
Playing a bonder or using Holy Veil means you should be able to cancel your maintained enchantments if you want to quickly. On my set-up, I've placed mine outer right, so I don't have to mouse search for the icon much: it will be outer right. It's a vertical bar that goes up next to the partywindow (I make my partywindow a bit smaller if I'm playing a bonder). If I run Holy Veil, I always run it in slot 8, so that I can cast and end Holy Veil shortly after each other. The icon that represents the maintained enchantment is made larger so it is easier to click on.

Scorechart
In my humble opinion, this is an underestimated tool. Usually I keep it on 'health' and watch occasionally during the fight how the pressure is on both teams. If both teams are going down, casting one or two spells from your extra energy set may be just enough to let them break and give you the room to regain your energy again. It also gives you a clue that if your team is pushing in but can't apply much pressure on the opposing team while your energy starts to get hurting, it's time to make a temporary retreat. Seeing on the chart that the opposing team applies more pressure damage then your team gives a sign that it's time to change the strategy a bit, and place your interrupters on different targets perhaps.

Radar
The default radar is quite small in size; it's really hard to see anything on it. Many pvp players make the radar bigger in size because of this, so that they can have a better view on the positioning of their team and opponent. War Machine even made their radar huge, a big part of their screen, so that they can draw on the radar for strategically movement. My radar is placed right top, but many prefer it more to the bottom, where it's closer to them.

Less is more
Personally I've disabled Dialogues, Hints and Mission Goals. They weren't providing me with any valuable information, and we're clogging up the screen. Also the 'used skill'-icon of the target I’m selecting isn't my top priority as a monk. It provides me info in a sense that you can see a spike coming, but you can't fully follow which skills the opposing team is using 24/7. If I were playing an interrupt mesmer, I'd likely make this a lot bigger. In Observation mode, I've made this skill icon huge, since then I want to clearly see which skills they use.

Keyboard
The keyboard makes the second part of the interface (The graphical outlay being the first part). Here also counts: it has to feel good to you.

Either keyboard or mouse does movement. Mouse movement has the advantage that you move the shortest way to the new position and that you can turn rapidly without effort. Which makes dodging of projectiles easier. Personally I have opted for keyboard movement, as it keeps my vision clearer on the battle if I strafe. Probably the best way is a combination of the two, using keyboard for strafing and mouse for movement to certain spots.

The keyboard set-up varies from player to player. Some monks prefer moving with mouse, and having skills at qwer-asdf and partymembers at 12345-t-gh.
Others value movement by keyboard, and use wasd or qe-wasd for it. Which leaves them 12345-r-fg for skills or partymembers.

Besides the hotkeys for skills, partymembers or movement, there are also other keybinds that are worth considering:

* target nearest enemy (for casting on yourself and/or watching enemy)
* cancel casting
* target nearest item (for opening of gatelocks / returning flags)
* target next / previous enemy (for browsing through enemy team)
* 180 degrees turn (for keyboard movement users)
* weaponset hotkeys
* target partymember 9-12 (for guildlord & bodyguard)

Since interface tuning is so personal, I'll add some links here to discussion threads on this subject on diverse fanforums to give some set-ups used by other players. The ideas of others may help you find your ideal interface set-up faster after all. Note that these are general discussions on the subject 'interface', and not specifically pointed towards the interface set-up of a monk.

http://www.team-iq.net/forums/showth...tid=414&page=1
http://www.guild-hall.net/forum/showthread.php?t=33187
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...ead.php?t=9346

§2.7 The Environment
The environment can basically splitted in four components:
* skills (what does it do?)
* metagame (what is used?)
* maps
* pvp format

Beyond your own skillbar, you should have good knowledge of the effects of skills, and be able to recognise the most important ones at sight. If you find yourself looking at your statusbar and thinking: “What do all these hexes do? Where did I get those conditions from?", then you probably need to work on your general knowledge of skills. If you don't understand what the source of your trouble is, how could you counter it ever effectively?

Having this knowledge at hand, it's welcome to have some idea of what you are likely are going to face when playing pvp. The metagame, the ever changing collection of builds that are popular in a certain moment of time, can give you some idea on this. Observer mode (Obs mode) can you give some idea what you'll likely be facing when playing either HA or GvG. You'll see after watching a few games on Obs mode that the same type of characterbuilds are placed into groupbuilds. It doesn't take a genius or hours of watching Obs mode to see and learn this. Matches are won and lost in the first few seconds of a match because teams were unable to identify what the opposing team was running correctly in those precious first few seconds. A fine example is mistakenly assuming that the opposing team is running rangerspike, while in fact they are running Barrage-way. The team is too balled up because they were unable to recognise the threat appropriately. Being able to identify threats quickly is a vital issue that should be carried team wide. Having even a small idea of what the opposing team is running makes responding to it much easier.

Knowing the maps on which you play is also part of knowing your environment. Obstacles to hide behind and break the Line of Sight (LoS) against rangers; environmental mapeffects such as Coral, Acid Traps or Miasma; high ground positions; trebuchets; NPC's; the paths to walk on; chokepoints... Knowing these things on the diverse maps can help you in your play. There are several map guides, so I suggest those are read if you want to know more on this issue.

The pvp format you are playing also can give some handles, but I’ll get deeper into this in a later part of this article.

§2.8 Handling spikes
First off: a perfect (perfectly timed, not pre-protted, not interrupted) spike cannot be saved. I don't care how good a monk is, it could be Soul Wedding for all I care, a perfect spike can't be saved. It's up to the team to disturb the spike so much that it becomes doable to save it.
Part of the breaking of spikes is what caused the use of the Mo/A. The Mo/A tends to use skills like Dark Escape and Return, to stop any spike on them. They can hit Dark Escape even when knocked down, and the Return can take them away from any difficult position. The downside of the Mo/A is it's lack of energymanagement. A Mo/A is therefore best used in builds in where the entire (or most of the) team has some form of damagemigitation.

Pre-protting is trying to protect the target that is going to spiked just before a spike hits with Protective Spirit and the like. Some hints given for pre-protting:
- watch the spikers. They might have 2s cast spike skills which give you a good heads up when a spike will hit.
- watch animations of the spikers. You can see where they are facing towards, in that direction the target will be. The important thing is not to hesitate; if given the direction they are casting there are two possible targets go ahead and prot one straight away. This means you can switch to the other knowing the first is somewhat pre-protted.
- watch for enchantment strip animations
- let your team spread out as much as possible, so it's clearer to see which way the spikers are facing
- some suggest training against the Zaishen Obsidian Flame team. Problem with this is that they constantly try to spike the monk making this practice not workable unless you got 3 friends to help you here....
- predict which teammate is the biggest annoyance to the enemy team. He could very likely be the spike target.
- adrenaline spiking (spiking with 2 or more warriors) means that the warriors need to be in melee-range to do their spike of course. So follow the movement of the warriors as much as possible, and if they all converge on a target, you can be pretty sure they will spike that target.

This and other remarks towards spike handling can be read here: link

§3 MESO LEVEL SKILLS
Meso level skills are skills that by my own set rules, are based on information sharing. It is the things you can accomplish by communicating information about your personal situation with your teammembers.
Also communicating about skill use of your teambuild and the skills used by the opposing team fall under mesoskills in my vision. You can't solve something alone; need one other individual in your team to help you out.

Makkert · Nov 17, 2006, 12:10 PM // 12:10

§3.1 Communicating your situation
This is something I see many newer monks struggle with. They see themselves as the backbone of the team, the ones that have to keep everyone up. But then they forget that the team on its turn has to keep their monks up by regulating the pace of the battle. Yet your fellow monks and other teammembers can't mind read. You'll have to coach them by informing them of your situation.
So what should you communicate and what can they do for you? Well, the options are quite diverse. And depending on the build there is run of course. If your energy is getting low, letting the team know means the stratcaller knows he shouldn't take any extra risks by pushing in hard. Because that will very likely lead to deaths. Or it may give your blood necro the hint that he needs to Blood Ritual you.

Letting the team know a certain skill got hit by Diversion is informing your other teammates that they can't build on you to perform that function (i.e. condition removal because Mend Condition got diverted), and that another monk should take this function fully over if possible. Letting the team know you are being harassed badly by an anti-caster mesmer gives a sign to your team's disruptive characters and warriors that they should apply some pressure on this mesmer which can relieve you so you can perform your job of keeping the team up normally again. Pointing out that warrior that keeps pressuring you by following you all the way in GvG, gives the targetcaller the hint: 'This target is overextended and makes a fine target to be spiked'. Saying you get hit by Blackout gives any other monk a signal that it's quite possible that the opposing team might perform a spike and that they should monk for a few seconds for one man extra. Telling your warrior that he's overextended and should come back a bit because you are currently in no position to heal him is another example. Point is that if you are getting in trouble as a monk, some of your teammembers can maybe help you out.

§3.2 Communication on builds
This can basically be divided to communicating based on your own build, and communicating on the opposing team's build. If you run with 2 or more monks in your teambuild, having the monks communicate essential things can help. One can think here about:
- chaining Aegis by casting it after each other'
- calling out your hex removal so that you both don't try to remove the same hex at the same time if hex removal is spread among the monks;
- casting Protective Spirit on your ally, you don't want both monks casting Protective Spirit on the same target;
- communicating that the opposing team uses Well of Profane will alert the monks to switch to non-enchantments as much as possible for as long as your team remains in the Well.
- telling your team that the opponent's build apparently has AoE damage because you see several bars making a jump at once is something your teammembers should be aware of.

§3.3 An example of mesoskills: HA monking
HA was long filled with a standard three monk set-up, that almost every team took. Even today this set-up is still quite powerful. The fact that it was deemed 'standard' should give an indication that there must have been something right with this backline set-up to deserve such a status in a changing environment as pvp. More experienced teams were able to get more out of the backline because they were more skilled and were able to use communication / interaction between them better then newer teams. To give an example of how deep the skill level of mesoskills can go, here an explanation of the backline that was deemed standard in HA.

First, let's take a look at the builds that made this backline:
WoH healer
Orison of Healing
Healing Whisper
Word of Healing
Healing Seed
Heal Party
Inspired Hex
Channeling
Holy Veil

SB/Infuser
Spell Breaker
Infuse Health
Orison of Healing
Healing Whisper
Healing Seed
Inspired Hex
Channeling
Holy Veil

RC prot
Restore Condition
Protective Spirit
Guardian
Aegis
Mend Ailment
Inspired Hex
Channeling
Holy Veil

These builds may vary slightly from one team to another, but this is the basic outline. Some preferred Dwayna's Kiss over Healing Whisper, and some took a second Heal Party on the infuser in favor of Inspired Hex. That doesn't matter much all, it still keeps it dynamics.

Now what separated the good teams from the worse teams, is the way these skills were used and how well the players communicated.

We have to place this build in the metagame where it fully blossomed. The HA metagame at this point of time had teams that had double migraine mesmers or double surge mesmers that would sit on the sb/infuser and the woh monk, effectively shutting down both healers. Also condition based pressure builds that shut down the RC prot with Signet of Humility & Mantra of Inscriptions weren't unthinkable.

There were some nice synergies in the backline that were fairly obvious to most players. The infuser could infuse a spike, and the WoH monk could bump the infuser's health right back up with Word of Healing. The Spell Breaker worked nicely to protect the Ghostly Hero from being interrupted when he was capping in combination with Guardian and protected the runner on relic run maps. Healing Seeds could be chained by the monks to protect the Ghostly Hero, since kiting is something he refuses as a genuine hero he is.

It became more interesting when the pressure was placed on the backline with the dual migraine mesmers on opponent's team. Many know the trick of pre-veiling. This helped to some degree, but if a Migraine got through because your cancelled Veil took a coverhex instead of the Migraine, things could get somewhat nasty fast. The key lied often in the RC prot monk, that had to help its migrained fellow monks out. A little known thing about Holy Veil is that you can pre-veil someone that has already pre-veiled himself. Cancelling of both Veils (one of the ally, one yourself) would then lead to removing 2 hexes of that target. If the RC prot, that rarely got harassed by the migraine mesmers kept consequently an Holy Veil on both his fellow monks, there was little problem removing the Migraines. He'd be a 2 energypips, but a lot of the pressure from the opposing team came from counting on the fact that the healing monks couldn't fully do their job. Another tactic here that came from communicating with your teammembers is that the RC prot kept the SB/infuser clean as much as possible, who on his turn kept the WoH monk as much clean of Migraine as possible and gave the backline's main healer protection in the form of Spell Breaker.
The other situation of having the RC prot harassed with Signet of Humility was more easily remedied. It required the RC prot to ask his team to baby-sit the mesmer and disrupt the 2-second signet consistently, so he could do his job of removing the pressure damage inflicting conditions properly.
When coming back to the infuser and the WoH monk that work together on spiking, the role of the RC prot monk should not be overlooked. It's his job to protect the infuser with either Guardian or Protective Spirit, since he can't Infuse Health himself. This is alongside the pre-protting job the RC prot might have in those matches.

What I've tried to show with this little example of use of communication and interacting with your fellow monks / teammates, is that the depth of ways you can interact with your teammates is something that can mean the difference between loss and defeat. The more proficient you are in finding solutions by communicating with your team, the better the team will do overall. It's not always the build or your personal play that determine victory or defeat, but also the ability to communicate and work as a team.

§4 MACRO LEVEL SKILLS
Macro level skills are the things you can accomplish with positioning as a team. It usually requires the team as a whole to pull of correctly. I'll go in short over some of them. One of the things is holding your backline-midline-frontline positions during a fight as a team. If you are as a monk too much forward, you'll quickly become an attractive target. In relation with this is to push up and retreat as a team, to keep the lines as much in tact.
Body blocking certain points as a group is another thing. Chokepoints (i.e. Vine bridges) can provide an advantage if properly body blocked. The same goes for blocking the flagstand of for a runner or other critical points such as gates or trebuchets. As a monk, you must be aware of these strategical plays of your team, or you'll end up standing in unfavourable position.
Of course you also should know where you should be going if your team decides to split up. If your team is going for a 4-4 split, you better know which team you are going with. And what this split team of yours has on its skillbars that could potentially help you if you ask for it. Just like any teammember, you should keep your eyes open for movement of the opposing team, and not let yourself fall into fighting in an unfavourable situation. The radar helps to keep track of movement of the opposing (and your own) team.

Makkert · Nov 17, 2006, 12:10 PM // 12:10

Positioning games for control of map points often mean that your team is moving partly or as a whole. For instance if an enemy is at the Trebuchet into your base, and your runner needs to run the flag, this often will result into your team's frontline trying to chase the enemy player off, and you as backline monk may try to sneak a Protective Spirit on the runner, so that he can run the flag safely through the zone the Trebuchet might hit. In such cases, basically the whole team moves as a result of movement of the enemy team. These things can go over and forth, and having a good grasp of the underlying logic that propels these strategic plays means you can concentrate more easily on keeping your teammembers up.

§5 MONKING IN AN ENVIRONMENT
Random Arena [RA], Team Arena [TA], Heroes Ascent [HA], Guild versus Guild [GvG] and Alliance Battles [AB] all have their own characteristics. Which one you choose can influence what to take into battle.

§5.1 The environments: type of skills needed
RA is, as the name already says, random. The consequence of this is coordination between teammembers is non-existent. So don't expect much in the form of spikes, it will mostly be pressure damage you will face in RA. The uncertainty that there isn't a monk on your team makes players take a self-heal as pre-caution. The consequence of this is that the builds that float around in RA are from time to time not as powerful as they would be without the need to pack a self heal in one of their precious skillslots. RA favours builds therefore that both have decent defence and offensive, yet masters neither. The touch ranger is a good example of this. The result is that the skills you need in RA are micro-based skills, and the level of play is not as lethal as constructed teams.

TA is a different beast as RA. Teams are constructed, and fights are often short and fierce fights of both teams facing each other of. There are no real positioning games in Team Arena, it tends to be a game of killing the other team faster then they can kill you. There is some form of communication and interaction between the characters often, coordinated spikes and defensive plays exist in Team Arena. The interaction- and communication-level between 4 characters is however smaller obviously then between 8 players. Battles are often decided by the personal (micro) skills of the 4 players on a team.

AB is relatively new as pvp format compared to the other ones. A big part of AB is having control of the 7 control points on the map. Because of this, the little 4 man teams need to make choices on how they want to move and position themselves. They need to be aware that they don't position themselves into situations they can't handle with the 4 of them. So AB requires macro-skills to play it right.
The teams that are found in AB are however of debatable level often. Whether this comes with the fact that AB is relatively new as a pvp format I do not know. But it's not uncommon to see teams without a monk, or having character builds with questionable set-ups. There aren't many guildteams found in AB for some reason, and the result is that the level of micro-skills needed to be successful in AB isn't exactly high.
An indirect result of the macro and micro traits of AB is that the meso-skills aren't very prevalent either in AB. Most opposing teams require little communication to deal with, and the harder teams are often not fought head-on, but simply left aside by moving towards a different control point on the map. It's also near impossible to communicate with the other teams of 4 that make your alliance-based team of 12. This results to the issue that in personal experience, meso-skills aren't exactly dominant in AB.

HA is, as I've shown in the little example write-up in the meso-skills paragraph, a place where meso-skills matter. You should communicate and interact with your team. Although HA is often plagued by dominant 'Flavor of the Month' - builds, the individual skills (micro skills) of the players are still quite important. Better players that are more prepared on how to deal with FotM builds will perform better then other players.
A characteristic of HA is that it's often one big ball of players fighting it out. That's because there are little ways to out position your opponent. It leads to fights depending on individual player skill and meso-skills. The big ball of fighting players is a consequence of the fact that it's hard to keep front and backlines in HA. It also explains the popularity of skills like Healing Whisper and the energymanagement skill of HA: Channeling. Marco-skills come into play on Relic Maps, where body blocking the opposing runner is important. Aside from Relic Maps, macro skills are however hard to find in the big ball of fighting players.

GvG is different from HA in the fact that the maps are bigger, meaning there is more room to move in and play positioning games (macro skills). Also the fact that everyone resses every 2 minutes as long as they don't have 60 dp gives more room for positioning games. The battles last longer because of this, and give a team more time to try out a different splits after finding that the current fight isn't going favourable for them.

This leads to the following table:

Again, this is my personal view on what guildwars pvp formats require. It does give a small overview for new pvp players what they can expect and need to know (and can learn) when fighting in a certain environment.

§5.2 Consequences of the formats for equipment
Let's take a quite standard booner monk to explain how the environment you play can change what you take equipment wise.

E-Drain booner
Divine Boon
Energy Drain
Reversal of Fortune
Guardian
Mend Condition
Contemplation of Purity
Signet of Devotion
Inspired Hex

Now let's see what equipment is favourable...

E-Drain booner - RA
An environment that has little to no spiking or coordination? A good place to sacrifice some health for extra bonuses.

E-Drain booner – TA
An environment that has no other monk to back you up and is known to spike a bit? Better take some extra hp to survive the spikes... 90% of the teams in TA spike with a warrior or other physical damage dealer.

E-Drain booner – HA
HA is often dominated by FotM builds. IWAY is one popular FotM build, and changing your equipment a bit towards IWAY if it is what you expect to

Note that this set-up is an example of gearing towards an HA metagame (in the example IWAY, a heavy warrior based build), the current HA metagame is different. When in doubt, health armor is never a wrong choice.

E-Drain booner – GvG
An environment that tends to spike hard. Where spikes consist largely of armor-ignoring damage (any +X warrior attack, shatter enchantment, degen, life-stealing, ..) and where targets frequently are stripped of enchantments on a spike. Health all the way...

These equipment picks aren't the ultimate truth, but I hope it shows that the same build can take different equipment depending on which environment you want to take it.

CREDITS
- guildwarsguru.com
- team-iq.net
- the guild-hall.net
- anyone I've forgotten

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APPENDIX A: Equipment in detail
There is a lot of useful equipment for a monk. As §5.2 has shown, preferable equipment picks can change on the environment you play in. In this appendix I'll try to go a little deeper on available equipment in general for monks.

the equipment modifications

"+5 energy with hp ^50 (wand)"
Conditional energy has one big problem: it disappears when you need it most. Darn, you get spiked, and suddenly that 5 energy is disappearing? Though luck.

Makkert · Nov 17, 2006, 12:13 PM // 12:13

"+45 hp when enchanted (focus)"
This focus is sometimes used by booners. But if your enchantment gets hit with Shatter Enchantment, you suddenly lose +- 150 hp....
The only format I'd consider taking the "+45 when enchanted" is when playing RA where enchantment stripping is a strange thing, and spiking is virtually non-existent.

"+5 AL when enchanted (focus)"
Clearly the less dangerous brother of the '...hp when enchanted' modifications. If you lose your armor, you lose some resistance, but at least you don't take a hit in your health. Still one should ponder if it is worth taking such a modification, and if it won't desert you when you need it most.

"fast recharge when using spells (20% chance)"
One simple basic rule when it comes to these items. If you are going to have a modification that does something 20% of the time, it better be game breaking those 20% of the time.
For this reason, having such a modification on your energymanagement spells is still very nice. Koreans have been known in the past to have a 20 recharge - 20 recharge set specifically for casting energymanagement spells in the past before. Personally, I find the difference between 20% and 36% (20-20) often somewhat slim, when looking at the table in §2.3.
The difference is often around 0.3 energypip. Which equals around 3 energy every 30 seconds.... Not to be ignored, but if it warrants weapon switching and giving up a weaponslot I have doubts upon.

"fast cast when using X spells (20% chance)"
In my humble opinion the weaker brother when it comes to the 20% chance modifications. A protectionmonk isn't going to be blown away with a fast cast on his Reversal of Fortune. The only prot spell that has a noticeable benefit from this is Aegis.
As for Healing Prayers, most casts are around 1 second, with some exceptions such as Heal Party or Healing Seed.

+5 AL vs. +30 hp
Often debated in the past. The breakpoint lies at 361 damage. After 361 armor based damage, the +5AL outshines the +30 AL. The problem is however that many spikes consists largely out of armorignoring damage, meaning the +5 AL doesn't reach the breakpoint of 361 damage to beat the 30 hp mod when you get spiked.

+5 energy
One should be aware of what this mod actually gives you. It isn't exactly 'more energy'. Do one cast, and you already have spend 5 energy. The value of a +5 energy modification lies in something else.
For one, it increases your bursting power. Your ability to shoot several spells in rapid succession after each other, which can be valuable on spikes.
The other often overlooked benefit is indirect energy hiding. If you have a -5 energy weaponset and a normal staff, the difference between those 2 sets is 15 energy you can easily hide away. If that staff has a +5 energy modification, the energy that is easily hidden away suddenly becomes 20 energy. It means you can easier away of Malaise and Wither as well.
The question always remains: how valuable is this and does it way up against the other modifications?

20% longer enchantments
I don't think this mod will need much explaining to show its usefulness. If you pack several enchantments on your bar, this always worth considering. Note that the usefulness can be diverse for enchantments. A Reversal of Fortune for example won't get much boost from this mod, and as said before a Mantra of Recall doesn't want a longer duration. A longer Healing Seed, Channeling or Aegis are things that do help.

The miscellaneous items
I've already mentioned the -5 energy sword (with 30hp mod often) before. This item is used widely by monks, any good monk should have an energy hiding set. This set, that often makes 'weaponset #4', consist next to the -5 energy one-handed weapon often out of a -2 energy focus, for a total of -7 energy on the weaponset. The used focus is one of the Fans (Forgotten, Frozen or Tattered).
Another option is that instead of a Fan, some casters prefer a Castershield. Shields give +- 8 AL when not meeting the attribute-requirement. Castershields come in all forms, but here as some examples of often used ones:
- Jacqui's Aegis
- Sunreach's Shield (note: also in Collector Item form)
- 16 AL , 10 AL vs. ........ , 30hp (i.e.: Geoffer's Bulwark)

The pick between Fan or Shield is mostly up to the player's preference. Some players prefer starting the match with their negative energy set always on, only switching to 'normal' sets if they need the energy. Their philosophy is that you shouldn't endanger your energypool by opening it up for e-drain attacks until you actually need the energy. For those players, that frequently will try to stay on their negative energy set, having a castershield with a bit more defense probably makes more sense then the Fan. The downside to their play is that they often miss bonuses from Fast Cast or Fast Recharge modifications, as well as that their healing burstpower is harder to manage, since it requires focus swapping.

The castershield with '10 AL vs. .....' makes also a nice item to have around in inventory, only bringing it out when facing spike teams that use the specific damage type. For example a spike team consisting of Air Elementalists, a castershield with: 16 AL, 10 AL vs lightning 30hp is quite nice. Likewise, Geoffer's Bulwark is nice against rangerspike teams, etc etc..

The extra energy set is another often used weaponset used by monks. The 15 energy/-1 energyregen focus (also several collectors: i.e. Div Favor based) and wand are used for this. Some players use only 1 extra energyset (either 15/-1 or 30/-2), and some like to spread it out over two weaponslots (one 15/-1 and one 30/-2). Whatever you choose, these are sets you want to spend a minimal amount of time on, since the -1 energyregeneration starts hurting pretty fast. Only for emergency casts, or casting that Energy Management skill to bump your energy again.
Toghether with the negative energyset, this gives the following picture:

The casterweapon is basically nothing more then an one-handed weapon with an initial bonus. They are popular among casters for their ability to put a mod on them, which is impossible with normal wands of course. The most popular one is the +5 energy weapon.
An other variation on this weapon is the Fiery Flame Spitter, which gives a nice recharge bonus to your spells.

A few last remarks when you now go out and pick your weaponset. First the obvious: if you pack less then 4 weaponsets, you are doing yourself short. Then the less obvious: be careful on the differences between weaponsets. If there are differences in the hp bonus that each set offers, this may result in a sudden unwelcome drop in hp. The times that a monk killed himself by weapon switching are probably larger then most expect. For this reason, personally I tried to keep all sets at the same amount of hp bonus. Also note that from time to time, you want to be able to wand. When your team is clearly winning. When your team is killing the archers on top of the enemy base entrance. For that little bit of extra damage to make a kill. So having at least one weaponset where you can wand with is a nice thing.

Makkert · Nov 17, 2006, 12:14 PM // 12:14

APPENDIX B: Know your enemies
As a monk, you are fighting. You are fighting against all those characters that want to disrupt your healing. Know your enemies, and you have a better idea how to respond. This is, to recap, part of knowing your environment and your own responsibility of keeping up to date. But I’ll ad some of them here.

Interrupt ranger
Around in diverse versions. One thing remains the same:
Savage Shot
Distracting Shot

Breaking the rangers Line of Sight helps against this. Many rangers embrace the fact that they are ranged class, and stay at end of aggrobubble of you. If you run around a sharp corner, he'll be forced to run all the way up to you to be able to hit you again. In this time he needs it's even often quite possible to even squeeze a 2 second cast through.
A Guardian will help, unless he uses Seeking Arrows. Asking for a Blind/Blurred Vision/etc on the ranger will work. Countless options. Some Ranger/Mesmers pack Blackout, and will try to time an interrupt right after the ending of a Blackout, where they count on you to have the urge to immediately cast something after the Blackout effect. If you see this happening, adjust your play to this and don't cast immediately after Blackout, or maybe only 1/4 second skills.

Choking Gas ranger
Currently mostly used in HA. The bar tends to look like this:
Choking Gas
Practiced Stance
Flurry
Savage Shot
Distracting Shot
...

The annoying thing about Choking Gass is that it interrupts even if the arrow misses, since the gass that the arrow spread has an Area of Effect. Blinding the Choker, guardian, evasive stances, etc: It won't help you. Balling up with another caster will of course worse the problem.
What you can do is finding refuge behind a wall. Although I haven't tested this, it is said that there must be some room between you and the wall, else the gass will still affect you. Another thing you can do is asking for an interrupt on his Choking Gass. Lastly you can try to 'slip one through'. See the red damage notion 'X damage (choking gass)' appear next to you, then immediately try to cast a short cast time skill. With arrow flight time / refire time, there is a short window of opportunity to slip something through.

Migraine mesmer
Migraine
Conjure Phantasm
Mantra of Persistence
Power Drain
Cry of Frustration

probably one or two extra interrupts on top of these 2 interrupts.

Already mentioned before, some teamwork on hex removal goes a long way. An off-monk Expell Hexes helps a lot.

A fun trick to try, like against any interrupter, is to see if you can make him waste his interrupts by performing a fake-cast. Fake casting is nothing more then starting a cast, then cancelling the skill yourself before the interrupt hits. By doing so, you can immediately retry casting this skill, although your energy that was used for (trying to) cast it is lost.
For this reason, Signet of Devotion makes an excellent skill to try a fake-cast. Also note that the Signet isn't affected by Choking Gas or Migraine.

E-burn mesmer
Energy Surge
Energy Burn
Signet of Weariness

Focus swapping helps here. Signet of Devotion helps here, as it enables you to keep healing under e-denial pressure. You can communicate with your team to apply pressure on the mesmer. And like many casterharass characters, you can try to lure the mesmer so that he / she overextends himself, and makes an easy target.

Hammer kd chain
A hammer warrior can pose quite a threat if you are playing in arena's alone without a second monk. There are some version of knockdown chains.
Frenzy
Devastating Hammer
Crushing Blow
Heavy Blow
Irresistible Blow

Some may use Hammer Bash instead of Heavy Blow.

You'll have to understand that a hammer warrior will always have Stoneskin Gauntlets. Combined with Frenzy, there is very little room to cast between the knockdowns. Basically you'll have time to squeeze a 1/4 second cast through. This means a Reversal or CoP if you are playing a booner. The CoP has as advantage that it will remove Deep Wound, which will up your chances of surviving the hammerchain considerably.
Guardian is nice before the spike lands, but while in the spike, it may prove a pain if it causes an extra kd through Irresistible Blow. Another reason why CoP is a nice play then, since it can remove the Guardian before I.B. hits.

Spiritspam ranger
Oath Shot
Nature's Renewal
Tranquility

or something like:

Oath Shot
Energizing Wind
Quickening Zephyr

These type of spiritspamming rangers can be quite a pain. There is not much you can do except asking your team to kill the spirits or interrupt the spammer.
Sometimes it is difficult to kill the spirits, when they are placed in the back and trapped with Dust Trap or the like. If you are playing a booner in this situation, you'll have to ponder if you are willing to give up your Divine Boon for some time by cancelling the maintained enchantment. The loss of one extra energypip is usually quite devastating over time, so sometimes you'll just have to work as a booner with heals from Mend Condition, Signet of Devotion and the like, till your energy is somewhat ok again to carry Divine Boon for some time again.

Bull's warrior
uses either:
Bull's Charge
or
Bull's Strike

Tends to punish you for kiting. The best way to deal with this type of warrior is probably to take a stop and go style of kiting, making the Bull's Strike hit you the moment you stop, which prevents a knock-down. Hitting 'target nearest enemy' might help to keep an eye on the warrior to see if he uses Bull's Charge, as well as enables you to heal yourself at the same time.

Nivryx · Nov 17, 2006, 11:07 PM // 23:07

very well written and extensive. only thing i'd suggest adding is with nightfall now out theres a collector that offers a req 9 divine symbol, +12e, -2 enchant, +45 enchant. similar to enchant shields except lacks the armor given by not meeting the req, though you do make up for it by getting 12e. good for RA use where, like you said, enchant stripping is rare.

JR · Nov 17, 2006, 11:10 PM // 23:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nivryx

very well written and extensive. only thing i'd suggest adding is with nightfall now out theres a collector that offers a req 9 divine symbol, +12e, -2 enchant, +45 enchant. similar to enchant shields except lacks the 3 armor given by not meeting the req, though you do make up for it by getting 12e. good for RA use where, like you said, enchant stripping is rare.

You get 8 armor from a 16 AL shield when you don't meet the req.

Nivryx · Nov 17, 2006, 11:13 PM // 23:13

eh, was confusing with energy reqs, sry, just a bit tired.

Senator Tom · Nov 17, 2006, 11:40 PM // 23:40

Nothing really new or revolutionary...one more nice guide for beginners

Age · Nov 18, 2006, 12:13 AM // 00:13

Nice guide but not everyone when starting out plays Mo/Mes and in PvE you can really be anything.

Kuja · Nov 18, 2006, 03:32 AM // 03:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Senator Tom

Nothing really new or revolutionary...one more nice guide for beginners

Didn't you read the Intro...

Anyway, nice compilation of information : )

Makkert · Nov 18, 2006, 09:42 AM // 09:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Age

Nice guide but not everyone when stating out plays Mo/Mes and in PvE you can really be anything.

Aye, this guide was written primarary with PvP in mind. Its principles apply everywhere though, also in PvE.

Yes, you can be a Mo/R or whatever you want in PvE. Fact still remains that a bit of energymanagement never hurted a monk and would be an improvement over picking [skill]Charm Animal[/skill] on your monk.

EDITED by Arya Nibelrund What??? And what about my black widow then?

wyld fang · Jan 09, 2007, 09:58 PM // 21:58

groovy guide, got me back into monking :O, the mighty llama returns to the field after about 6 months in retirement!, and dies almost immediately!, so thats what I've been doing to people with my sin >.>, *adds hex breaker* huzzah!, back in business.

Saphatorael · Feb 26, 2007, 12:04 AM // 00:04

Well written, and quite complete.
Also, I'm glad to see now that I've learned alot of good tactics by my own, guess I can be seen as a veteran (even though you won't see me monking alot in a GvG

) ^^

NamelessBeauty · Jan 28, 2008, 07:13 PM // 19:13

Nothing to say, this is an almighty guide. WOW. Just a big WOW lol

Though you might want to update the skill bar for monking nowaday. It's changed!

Trylo · Jan 28, 2008, 07:31 PM // 19:31

this was written more than a year ago. it's outdated. and i personally wouldnt use some of the information given here even back then.

dont bring dead posts back to life?