Originally Posted by Patrograd

In PVE you are possibly correct, but in PVP both self heal and healing seed are 100% required - nothing to do with positional play, it has to do with the enemies targetting priorities and the huge potential damage that you can take very quickly - the kind of damage that is co-ordinated by the enemy team and you just dont see in PVE. In PVP it is not unusual for a team member to get taken down in less than a second from full health to dead, even with a 10% morale boost. There isnt anything positionally you can really do about that sort of thing, If you are the target then you are the target whether you are in their midst or on the other side of the map. The trick is knowing who the target is and doing something about it - this is where skills like healing seed and healing hands come in.

In PVP you will take damage as a monk, either from direct enemy attacks or from AoE attacks. You cant avoid it. So you do 100% need self healing - Healing touch beats orison on self heal because of the DF bonus, which will kick in for an extra 70 odd HP at 12 divine and will heal you after taking such incidental damage, or from the kind of damage inflicted on you by a warrior. Its not going to help you through a co-ordinated spike with you as the target, for that you need the other monks on your team to help you through, but like I say, for those times when you get caught up on the edge of some AoE effect then the use of healing touch will get you back to 100% health.

healing priorities;

Self->other monks->squishies->hard targets