Curse

catharsis · Jun 02, 2007, 01:01 AM // 01:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oso Minar

[skill]Vengeful Weapon[/skill][skill]Weapon of Remedy[/skill]

I'm just kidding! I love Monks, and the ones I've partied with love me. End of story.

Exactly. Two great tastes that go great together.

Oso Minar · Jun 02, 2007, 06:11 AM // 06:11

The main point of my post was that Monks and Ritualists should get along GREAT together! Things shouldn't be this "Who is the better healer?!?!" debate, people should just get along and have fun together. In the end, we're all playing whack-a-mole with those red bars anyway, we don't need to be adding drama to the mix.

mrpiffatc · Jun 02, 2007, 07:38 AM // 07:38

1 cast of spirit transfer heals for 265 in 1/4 of a second every 5 seconds...no monk can match that

sorcees · Jun 02, 2007, 07:43 AM // 07:43

a HB monk with healing skills can match that.

RhanoctJocosa · Jun 02, 2007, 08:04 AM // 08:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by mrpiffatc

1 cast of spirit transfer heals for 265 in 1/4 of a second every 5 seconds...no monk can match that

It's also extremely conditional, as you need spirits (which take time to cast) in order to do that.

On topic, it's PvE, a mesmer can heal in PvE.

Bye

LifeInfusion · Jun 02, 2007, 02:01 PM // 14:01

I actually thought about it for a while, and while the argument is convincing it really isn't worth arguing since Damage mitigation is key, no matter what kind of profession it is. Restoration and Healing Prayers will always be a back seat concern to reducing the insane amounts of damage mobs have sometimes (elementalist/ritualist bosses anyone?). As such, I wrote up this long discourse to disparage the differences between a straight up Healing Prayers monk versus a straight up Restoration Ritualist.

On the side of monks, Light of Deliverance similarly yields much better returns than the entire Ritualist line against degen and re-applied conditions like Poison/Disease if you think about it since 80ish *8 is 640ish. It trounces Protective was Kaolai's 10 energy and 20 recharge...they ought to make it 8 recharge or something. It trounces Feast of Souls which requires a spirit. But wait, LoD is an elite. Oops? (I promise I won't joke like that again...)

The similar skill, Heal Party isn't worth mentioning since it is actually more efficient on a non-monk character with elite energy management (A ritualist with Attuned was Songkai; an elementalist with Ether Prodigy). +1 to Rits' side of argument.

If we are talking about a Ritualist versus a Glimmer of Light/Word of Healing/Orison of Healing/Heal Other/Ethereal Light/Healing Breeze/Healing Touch/Signet of Rejuvenation Spammer Monk it is indiscernible because they are on a level playing field. The only difference being hex removal, which can be outsourced to the secondary profession (on a Ritualist). Basically, when a monk uses purely Divine Favor and Straight heals (no prot or conditional heals) and no nice elites like Healing Light or Healer's Boon (ala Mhenlo) it is rather comparable to a Ritualist.

What it comes down to is what you are healing, and whether it is practical to plop down a 10 energy cost spirit of "Life". ("Recuperation" is utterly expensive, so I don't know why people run it. It is like running Watchful Healing on a Monk. "Recovery" is useless when running Mend Body and Soul and it costs 15 energy.) Once a spirit is plopped down ("Life" is a good example because it casts and recharges rather quick) Mend Body and Soul becomes attractive, when you compare it to single condition removals such as Dismiss Condition and conditional heals as Words of Comfort. Moreover, it fuels Spirit Transfer which is multitudes much more efficient than Heal Other/Glimmer of Light and to a lesser extent, Word of Healing. Spirit Light, (especially) if you include the health sacrifice risk and the spirit energy cost, is inferior to a Heal Other with minimal Divine Favor.

This brings us to the problem of AoE. You see, AoE smashes spirits badly (especially spiritual pain). That 300 damage spirit rift from bosses will fry your spirit before you can recast it after 20 seconds. Or that 151 damage scythe attack in Hard mode. That is an inherent flaw of Ritualists that rely on spirits: they lack flexibility and mobility.

For the monk side, the true strengths of a monk healer are heals that react to the situation (pre-prot, removal of key hexes/conditions). While ritualists' healing is more efficient on paper, Dwayna's Kiss with no Divine favor boasts the conditional effects of Hexes/enchantments when under a ton of pressure from hex-happy mobs that don't carry heavy enchantment removal. Most GOOD monks bring Dwayna's Kiss, especially when the other party members carry enchantments (Elementalists/Dervishes/Prot monks/etc.). I regularly heal for 130+Divine Favor on my monk with Dwayna's Kiss. Words of Comfort is effective as well, but only if there is no mass condition removals such as Restore Condition; Cautery Signet (Sogolon Paragon Hench); Martyr (who runs that anyway nowadays); etc.

Ritualists have access to Weapon of Remedy, Vengeful weapon, Resilient Weapon, and Weapon of Warding, which no one can deny are useful and un-strip-able. But when you go and look at them, the reason why they are useful is because of their ability to not top the bars off: they pre-prot instead. So before the monks come and trounce me for making the scales tip to the Ritualists, I will go on excluding them because they aren't straight up heals (although to be fair they are in the restoration line).

In the Ritualists' repertoire of conditional heals, the only one that stands out is Wielder's Boon. It can easily heal for the same amount as Heal other with Divine Favor with a 1/4 cast time.

Monks wise, there is the prot monks with Gift of Health (the ever popular Zealous Benediction is a protection prayers skill). But that is not "Healing prayers" (at least not the whole bar) so yeh. Ritualists also have to go /Mo or /Mes to get their hex removals. (BTW Blessed Light and Divert Hexes were popular because of their ability to remove debuff hexes.)

Efficiency aside, another problem I have with Ritualists is no ON-DEMAND condition removal (Weapon of Remedy annoys me because it removes the condition when it steals health and when in between battles removing disease it doesn't do jack squat) once your spirit goes boom from the mobs (granted Weapon spells like Vengeful weapon + Wielder's Remedy with a few Spawning Power points could work). Casting time is also an issue, but it is also a problem for Healing prayers monks without Holy Haste or Healer's Boon. There's a reason why Infuse Health is used to catch spikes! For ritualists, only Spirit to Flesh has the power and cast time of Infuse and HEALTHY spirits are required, which may not always be available.

As far as attributes go, Ritualists win out because they don't have to put major amount of points in their primary attribute, even when running "Life" or "Wielder's Remedy". Monks don't have the luxury since a low Divine Favor makes you about as effective as a Elementalist with Ether Prodigy spamming Heal Party and Heal Other.

All in all, it still comes down to what build you run and how well you as a player run it. My main problem with Ritualists as healers (like Monks that go straight healing prayers), is that they are just that. Red bars go up kind of Healers. The spells don't really impress since they are stagnant, they don't adapt and are plain predictable 1 second casts like the majority of the Healing prayers line. A channeling & Restoration weapon buffer is a different story, but Restoration on its own isn't that great. Restoration Magic is better than the "strawman argument" created by comparing it to Mhenlo and pure Healing Prayers monks though.

P.S. #1 Why is Vocal was Sogolon in Restoration again? It ought to be in Channeling since it is a buff that has no defensive values (unlike Vengeful was Khanhei; Vengeful Weapon).
P.S. # 2 Preservation sucks.
P.S. #3 Razah is braindead 90% of the time.
P.S. #4 Monks have energy management called Signet of Rejuvenation and Signet of Devotion. It also is compounded by not spamming things when using LOD.

vergerefosh · Jun 02, 2007, 02:24 PM // 14:24

I've had some good times with Rit healers, when going through Factions with pugs, would ask for healer, not specifically monk, as I found a lot of rits seemed to be left out

But they're good at what they do, all credit to them when they're played well

gobla · Jun 05, 2007, 01:05 PM // 13:05

I find the ultimate backline to be 1 protection prayers monk and 1 resto rit.

The Prot prevents the red bars from going down too much. The Resto prevents the red bars from getting too low.

That being said, hybrid monks are the only way to go when PuGs are concerned imho.

They're both very good at preventing red bars from going down too much and making them go back up. And in a PuG you can't depend on others doing your job.

A Rit is a great healer. Provided he has a good prot monk backing him up. In PuGs you can't rely on having a good prot monk. You have to cover both protection and healing yourself. And this is where the monk shines. A monk is able to both protect his allies and heal them at the same time. A rit can't do this.

And in PuGs you need both. You never know if that other healing suddenly went for a damage built ( had it happen so many times... ) You never know when that warrior decides to heal sig while being hit by 10 enemies. You never know when that ele decides to solo the next group.

And as a PuG healer you need to be prepared for this. You need skills like prot spirit and guardian combined with dwayna's kiss and LoD to keep your party up in all situations.

The rit really is in the same category as Paragons and Mesmers. They can be great, even in PvE. But only in very organised and professional groups. And let's face it, 75% of all groups simply aren't.

I'm 100% sure that a group with Rit healers, Mesmer DPS, Paragon Support and Dervish Tank can clear DoA. I wouldn't be surprised if it was in fact 10 times more effective then the standard cookie-cutter. But it would require extreme amount of coordination. Mesmers would need to constantly manage their hexes and make sure that they don't cast hexes on mobs that already have them from the other mez. The Dervish would need extreme amount of enchantment management, making sure that they end so he gains energy but aren't down for more then half a second or he'll get killed. Paragons would need extreme shout management. Making sure that all shouts are used at the right time and that another paragon isn't using them at this time. Rits would need to keep a constant eye on all spirits making sure they don't replace one that's already there and a constant eye on health bars making sure they don't summon a spirit when someone's about to be spiked. In the meantime they'd need to manage weapon spells, making sure everyone had the correct one for the correct situation and making sure that they don't overwrite the weapon spells cast by other rits.

Now ask yourself, is the averge PuG capable of doing this? No way.

Rits are great healers, but only in organised group where you can depend on your allies.

XvArchonvX · Jun 05, 2007, 01:29 PM // 13:29

A rit can surely heal as well as a monk, but a rit sucks at prot. For this reason, you don't see Rits in most GvG groups unless they are running some gimmick build.

KlutzySpy · Jun 05, 2007, 03:42 PM // 15:42

Man, how i ahte those cookiecutters that swear that only monks can heal any good.. makes you wanna starngle them..

However, every time i go heal, i get good feedback, even from other monks.. was in the Deep the other say, and while we were in the corner waiting for the group to clear the other rooms, me and a monk startet healspamming eachother, we was truely amazed that i could heal so fast, so much and not really run out of energy.. he was one of those saying "no take a other build, you cant heal"-sayers.. that was cool

i usually combine some heal with some prot, such as weapon of warding, recovery, resilent weapon etc.. Prot monks' encha's can be removed, a waponspell can't!

KlutzySpy · Jun 05, 2007, 03:46 PM // 15:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by RoadKill97

Because monks don't need spirits to be around for their spells to be effective (and creating spirits before a battle slows the team), monks can easily spec into protection if needed, they have superior condition removal

Niether do Rit's? they just get a bonus if there is a spirit...

Ever heard of the fast and really effective Mend Body and Soul? Recovery? Resilent weapon?

FoxBat · Jun 05, 2007, 04:37 PM // 16:37

If pure resto rits were just as good as monks, there would be imbalance because they achieve it with half the attribute points. Where you do see restos in PvP, it's either necros pushing soul reaping, or resto/chan hybrids doing ritspike or helping eurospike.

In PvE spawning power does offer some too-fragile-for-PvP options (AwS, Weilder's Zeal) that can give ritualists an energy edge at least.

Arrows[PURE] · Jun 05, 2007, 04:45 PM // 16:45

Well , I'm not really sure if a rit can actually outheal a monk as my rit has only just reached kaineng, but I think I'd probably pick a monk to heal, just because I think they are a little more versatile, and I think they can heal the party on a whole better , especially with Light of Deliverance. With the hex removal argument, my solution would be dont bring it. For me there's never any reason to bring it apart from the odd mission like Ring of Fire which has Migraine but thats about it. I'll sometimes bring Divert Hexes if I'm monking but thats just because I can get massive heal/condition removal/ hex removal against margonites all in one. The only reason I bring it though is because of its efficiency, not because the hexes are extremely bad. Normally Ill just heal through with dwayna's kiss

Mekkakat · Jun 05, 2007, 05:18 PM // 17:18

I dont play anything high end without at least one resto rit. someone mentioned a great backline is prot monk/resto rit, and thats exactly correct. people saying "oh, well.. rits are too condtional!... they need uh.. spirits.. and urns and junk!", are just inexperienced playing as a rit, because i have yet to not meet those conditions. theres 3 great spirits you can keep up all the time, bloodsong, pain, and preservation. obviously preservation needs a little fixing, but its not even important to worry that you're using it as an elite, seeing as 90% of resto moves that heal are non-elites that cost 5 energy, which blows the hell out of a monk using .. Healing Burst.. which is a really bad move. or say Jameis Gaze.. 10 energy? no emanagement?

rits have build in power, 16 resto, 12 insperation, take channeling, hold Generous was Tsunrugai for emergency self heal (monks dont have emergency self heals that heal for well over 200hp at the drop of an item.. healing touch? not even worth it), use soothing memories, mend body, spirit light, and all of those are great, none conditional other than soothing which has built in power control, and they all cost 5 energy, and are SUPER spammable. heck, spec for a little communing, take weapon of quickening, turn on channeling, use soothing memories every 2.5 seconds, and you'll gain more energy that you're using.

not to mention all the enchant removal, we all know hexes are getting way too overpowerd, and weapon spells are unmatched. max spec resil weapon? super leet. weapon of warding destroys shield of deflection/guardian.

to the guy who said resto rits running the backlines of a DoA trip, i use an all rit team in FoW/UW/DoA, and we've never had a problem. the "oh noooo spirits take so long to set up", is inexperience talking, and just childish, because for our team to set our spirit box up, is less than 15 seconds, and thats for 13 spirits. from there, painful bond everyone, sig of ghostly might some of the pains, target the first guy, and watch the spirts mow the field in miliseconds.

Toilet Oni · Jun 05, 2007, 06:05 PM // 18:05

True, rits can heal, but not protect.

70% of the time i have played with a rit healer in my group, the rit forget to heal because he is making a spirit or occupied with his channeling :|.

Ares Ainia · Jun 05, 2007, 06:20 PM // 18:20

I like using a combination of weapon spells and Spirits, the Weapon spells ( eg - weapon of warding) helps them take less damage, while spirits (eg - Preservation) can help heal them. 122hp every four seconds? I ain't complaining.

Or Recuperation + Spirit light weapon = 3+32hp regen, again, i don't see monks giving that much regen...

KlutzySpy · Jun 05, 2007, 06:45 PM // 18:45

if he is doing channeling then he's not all heal..

yeah they can protect very well.. union? shelter? WoW?

Toilet Oni · Jun 05, 2007, 08:04 PM // 20:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by KlutzySpy

yeah they can protect very well.. union? shelter? WoW?

Shelter: 25energy and 5sec cast time, union 15 energy 3secs cast time, wow 10 energy.

you can't protect and heal at the same time.

XvArchonvX · Jun 05, 2007, 08:11 PM // 20:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by KlutzySpy

if he is doing channeling then he's not all heal..

yeah they can protect very well.. union? shelter? WoW?

Spirit spam prot wasn't bad before the nerfs, but now it's certainly nothing to compare to a prot monk. Three second cast prot spirit? I think not.

Trylo · Jun 05, 2007, 08:12 PM // 20:12

@Toilet Oni: [skill]Soul Twisting[/skill] mean anything to you? its pretty awesome with union.

@Globa: a rit can protect and heal... its just harder and requires more skill...
[skill]Shield of Deflection[/skill] vs [skill]Weapon of Warding[/skill].
i would say that is a fair comparison. one is oriented for pvp play, one pvp and pve compatable (warding). It depends on how good you are at seeing spikes and how fast the opponents are at spiking. i would take SoD in a pug, but definitely warding in a guildies group. But if were comparing the ideal rit and ideal monk players... id say theyre pretty equal. One is not elite but requires more time and has a 25% higher block rate, enough time to be too late to save an adr spike and with warding at least some of the hits are going through. one gives healing, one gives armor. fair enough, i would personally take healing over armor, but with the current meta being oriented towards spell spikes the armor is appealing. did i mention the elite lasts half as long? no i dont think i did.

Mekkakat hits one of the branches of restoration, the item holding branch. You can have so many variation with urns for a restore rit and still be awesome. Attuned was songkai, tsungri (im not fond of tsungri though), koali, even noami is good in dire situations. Renewing Memories might be a little harsh on attributes, but i find it awesome when coupled with WoR, WoW, RW. Its also an ench., so yea it can be stripped. oh well, its not like it has an insane recharge like 30+ secs...

ps - i didnt know this would be such a big discussion O_o