Curse

creelie · Feb 16, 2007, 06:09 AM // 06:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seef II

Healers do not mitigate damage, they heal over it. Hence they are reactionary instead of proactionary monks, and in general suck.

I agree that in PvP and elite PvE, protection is the way to go. But healing does NOT suck! Even the majority of protection builds combine prevention with repair, or count on having a healing counterpart.

easyg · Feb 16, 2007, 06:10 AM // 06:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seef II

Healers do not mitigate damage, they heal over it. Hence they are reactionary instead of proactionary monks, and in general suck.

This is a generalization, and like most generalizations it is mostly BS. The reason for this is this: a mediocre healing monk is actually a hell of a lot more useful than a mediocre protection monk.

Protection is definitely more powerful, particularly in PvP, when played with skill. But most monks that you meet randomly here and there are going to be mediocre monks, whether they are of the protection and healing varieties.

Get used to the fact that most players will behave in reactive rather than proactive manner. That's the way it is, and prolly the way it always will be. That being the case, healing fits their natural talents better than protection does, and telling them to switch to protection will make them more useless rather than less useless.

Healing breeze represents this in microcosm. Yeah, everyone knows it's not as efficient as other skills, but lots of people carry it anyway because it can be somewhat beneficial even in the hands of an incompetent player. Why? Cause it's a fire-and-forget type of skill that doesn't require good situational awareness or reaction time.

Meanwhile, ROF always cast too late or on the wrong target sucks completely and is totally useless.

To sum up, the advantages of protection over healing only exist in the upper echelon of monk players. When you are talking about average or below average players (this by definition is most of the gaming community), the situation is totally reversed.

bungusmaximus · Feb 16, 2007, 12:15 PM // 12:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Burst Cancel

I cannot stress this enough:
Healing damage is less efficient than preventing it, with few exceptions (ie. LoD/HP vs. mass degen). This is common knowledge by now, so I have no idea why some of you continue to say otherwise. Also, while bonding may illustrate some of the advantages of prot, it requires no skill to play and therefore is not an accurate representation of prot monks in general.

The only (very important) reason is that there are areas in PvE with heavy enchant hate. That makes prot. suck eggs every now and then. As for the rest, you are ofc. right. Still, if I play a prot. monk in a team I like to have a healer too to fill up the gaps I can't fill.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Heavenly Lily

The sad part is, I still, (after much PvPing), don't see the harm in having Healing Breeze in your bar. Many people would prefer having something like 'Heal Other' (which is very helpful) but I find that it can be used for emergencies and "quick fixes" against hexes and the added +9 health regeneration can quickly mitigate the damage that was caused, thus preventing the person from dying.

Few examples:
-If a person is hexed and he gets -15 degen, only 10 degen will show. Use a +10 breeze on the target and all of a sudden the remaining -5 degen shows too. Result: you spent 10 energy on a problem that wasn't there in the first place.
-Removing the hex is more efficient and cheap then healing up to it. If a target has a degen hex on him you better cast holy veil+dwaynas kiss on him. Holy veil is an enchantment and dwaynas kiss has a heal bonus for every enchant and hex on an ally. After you heal him for a shitload you remove veil and the hex is gone too. Breeze isn't gonna give you that for the same 10 energy, it just heals.
-You particularly want healing if there's lots of enchant hate around. Breeze will suck then because it can get shattered and therefore hurts more then it heals. If not, it's more efficient to run Prot.
-I don't know of a healing bar with spells on it that cost above 5e to use in the first place (that is, if I play healer, not all expensive healing spells suck), there's simply no need to do that. Heal party costs 15, but is already outclassed by Light of Deliverance.

Heavenly Lily · Feb 16, 2007, 09:19 PM // 21:19

Of course I wouldn't just cast Healing Breeze on someone instead of removing the Hex / Condition. It's common sense.

Anyways, I thought about it last night and realized, "Hey wait a minute! I haven't had HB in my bar for a long time now..."

/doh

Thanks for the explanation though.

Burst Cancel · Feb 16, 2007, 09:46 PM // 21:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by easyg

The reason for this is this: a mediocre healing monk is actually a hell of a lot more useful than a mediocre protection monk.

To sum up, the advantages of protection over healing only exist in the upper echelon of monk players. When you are talking about average or below average players (this by definition is most of the gaming community), the situation is totally reversed.

Assuming that the goal is to encourage more skillful play, it makes no sense to use 'below average' players as the standard. The fact that a certain player may be more effective with healing rather than prot is the fault of the *player*, and that's what needs rectifying. Sticking someone with a healing bar and saying, "Well, you'll do better with this because you aren't good enough to prot" is only doing them a disservice.

The 'average' warrior is a moron with Power Attack, Dolyak Sig, Gladiator's Defense, Healsig, and Mending. Would you say, then, that shock warriors or shadow prison warriors are poor builds because the average player is too incompetent to play them correctly?

Effigy · Feb 16, 2007, 09:53 PM // 21:53

I agree with Burst here. Switching from a bad but comfortable build is like changing your control configuration. There's a transition period where it's really hard to play and you keep doing the wrong things at the wrong times. Once you get some practice with it, though, your performance will improve drastically.

olly123 · Feb 17, 2007, 10:48 PM // 22:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by easyg

This is a generalization, and like most generalizations it is mostly BS. The reason for this is this: a mediocre healing monk is actually a hell of a lot more useful than a mediocre protection monk.

Meanwhile, ROF always cast too late or on the wrong target sucks completely and is totally useless.

first of ur talking total BS, healing doesn't migrate, otherwise PS, and RoF would b in healing line. and the bit a bout medicor healing/protection is depending on (A) the situation and (B) the monk him/her self.

and with the RoF, its why, this has been stressed, u don't look at the party window, u look at ur soundings, of course, shadow stepping sins r an acception. u can see a warrior about to aggro a horde of foes so first thing i do is cast RoF, saves about 50hp worth of healing. then i w8 to see the ele that then ruses and is casting MS, so aggro's the group to the right, PS straight on them. and etc

( sorry about that, i know my spellings is bad, but since my firefox screwed up ( wont save bookmarks) i dont have an instant spell checker, now i use Flock, and i have found one)

easyg · Feb 18, 2007, 07:48 PM // 19:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by olly123

first of ur talking total BS, healing doesnt migrate, otherwise PS, and RoF woudl b in healing line. and the bit a bout medicor healing/protecrtion is dipending on (A) the situation and (B) the monk him/her self.

and with the RoF, its why, this has been stressed, u dont look at the party window, u look at ur sourandings, ofcousts, shadow stepping sins r an acception. u can see a warrior about to aggor a hord of foes so first thing i do is cast RoF, saves about 50hp worth of healing. then i w8 to see the ele that then ruses and is casting MS, so aggores the group to the right, PS stright on them. and etc

Dude, I'm not tyring to be mean or anything, but try using the "check spelling" button in the message window.

Age · Feb 18, 2007, 10:21 PM // 22:21

The difference in healing and protect is when a Warrior is being degened by hexes and is taking physical damage at the same time the last thing they want to do is hit that healing signet.That is more like death to them hitting it in your normal coop mission they would prefer healing over protect if this were to happen. That is why most ask for healers as healing can cover both hex degen and physical damage..Btw it is negate not mitigate look at your protection prayers skill list.

[skill]Reversal of Fortune[/skill][skill]Guardian[/skill][skill]Life Sheath[/skill]Hopefully this says it.

Effigy · Feb 19, 2007, 01:44 AM // 01:44

Ironically, prot would be better than healing in the Age's example of a warrior using Heal Sig while under aggro. Prot Spirit or Spirit Bond would control the damage easily.

easyg · Feb 19, 2007, 03:41 AM // 03:41

Well, just to clarify, my point is just that it takes some brains and tactical awareness to play protection, whereas healing takes hardly any at all.

My proposition is that the vast majority of players react rather than anticipate. Sounds snobbish, maybe, but I've been playing GW for a long time and that has been my overwhelming experience. Not always the case, certainly, but it is usually the case.

I can agree with Effigy that when a player sucks it's really his responsibility to improve his skills.

But here's the thing. People in a PUG aren't going to wait around for an incompetent protection monk to get his skills up to par. All a PUG cares about is getting past mission X, Y, or Z as painlessly as possible. Which is why, and here I totally agree with Age, most groups will prefer a healer over a protector.

It isn't that protection can't be a hell of a lot better in the right hands. Rather, to use a legal term, a group's liability exposure is less with a healer.

Mhelnos Smiting Bro · Feb 19, 2007, 04:06 AM // 04:06

Max Prot 8 Heal Rest Divine has always worked for me... I have a 7 mill xp monk...

New Players:
Prot Spirit-RoF-Heal Breeze... Healin touch for the occassional self heal...

Melody Cross · Feb 19, 2007, 05:22 AM // 05:22

They should sticky one of these threads…

For the OP:

The best place to un-learn clicking is probably RA, TA or another area where you can devote yourself to just 4 characters. The reason behind this is so you can more familiar yourself with the use of a different keyboard setup than the one GW gives you.

Most of the better monks I know and play with do not use the original 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 skill hotkey that Anet provides. This is because it can be very awkward to reach over to skills 5 through 8 when you need them.

So we go into options and change the buttons that will activate each skill. Currently my setup is:

Skill 1=q
Skill 2=w
Skill 3=e
Skill 4=r
Skill 5=a
Skill 6=s
Skill 7=d
Skill 8=f

By doing this, each skill is in easy reach with your left hand. Just as important, it lets me set my player select up by curling the hotkeys around those eight buttons. 1 suggestion is:

Player 1=1
Player 2=2
Player 3=3
Player 4=4
Player 5=5
Player 6=t
Player 7=g
Player 8=v

Click to move with your mouse, and I like to use x and z for forward and run too. C is backwards walk. Frankly, all are useful when you need to kite a little, cast, and kite a little more.

It will feel a little unwieldy at first and reaching for t, g, and v will take getting used to. But once you do it will become second nature and all your skills and the players you need to heal are in easy reach of your left hand. If it still feels weird to you, try something a little different.

That is why I recommend an area where you can focus on just the first 4 members of a team while you get the hang of using a different hotkey setup. This way you have less to think about while you re-learn.

Playing against people is much harder than playing against a computer. They tend to be a lot smarter and build to fight you, the monk. Because of this I recommend honing your skills in a PvP setting. You may get some nasty insults, but don’t let it get to you. Being a monk means you get the hostility of people dying. As you learn, you will come to know when it was your fault, their fault or no ones fault. That just takes time.

Once you learn how to monk there, PvE is quite simple by comparison.

If you want to learn in RA then a good build for you to use would be this:

Zealous Benediction
Signet of Devotion or Gift of health
Reversal of Fortune
Dismiss Condition
Guardian
Holy Veil
Rez signet or Purge signet
Shield Stance

I run 12 Protection Prayers, 9 Tactics and the rest in Divine Favor. My headpiece is prot too. I like a sword with +5 energy and +20% to enchantments with lots of tactics shields for 16 armor and different types of condition combats. Plus armor sets can further boost your armor up to a max of 86 with 35 energy. That’s not really that bad for a castor.

The other weapons you may need will be:

A set that reduces your energy (I use and axe with +15% damage but -5 energy and a shield
A plus 15 energy set (I use 2 pieces of equipment that give plus 15 energy for -1 pip of regen. Useful when you need to get a spell off or someone will die
A spare cast set (something midrange energy around 40 to 50) when other people are under pressure, its nice to swap to this instead of the plus 30 set because it has no energy interference.

Divineshadows gives good advice for strategy, so I just hope you read the other thread and consign it to memory.

It’s a “spam” build designed to cast often to keep the team alive. Its not a build designed to sit back like bonders, so it requires quick reflexes, timing and awareness of what’s going on to use to full effect.

I rarely carry a rez in PvP, but while starting out it would be a good idea to. Take four different types of weapons and some extras too. I don’t take prot spirit because I already have ZB to counter spikes, and when I use it that way it is free. Shield stance can be cast on yourself even when you are knocked down, so it is very useful in combating pressure or thumpers or whatever attacks you. It stacks with Guardian so that can mean a very high block rate for yourself for 5 out of 15 seconds if you cast that and shield stance on yourself.

Once you learn to cast ZB without eating your energy, you can take out signet of devotion and put in Gift of Health (personally, I still like my signet for the free self-heal).

As you become more successful you may decide to drop your rez for another skill. I recommend Purge signet and weapon swaps. In the middle of a fight you can use Purge with a low energy set to remove hexes and conditions from yourself and your team for free…you just have to get it off in 2 seconds, and that can be hard.

That way you have 2 hex and 2 condition removals on one bar with lots of heal and a little pre-prot. I prefer to keep my team healthy by removing bad status though, since monks have the best skills to do that in the game. Others disagree and prefer to heal the damage done or to keep it from ever happening. In the end, it comes down to how you want to play monk and not how others tell you to.

GGs

Anarion Silverhand · Feb 19, 2007, 09:50 AM // 09:50

As others have said in the past, good monking is about 20% Build and 80% Experience.

Basically keep at it, and you'll learn things along the way, and you'll find yourself improving.

Examine the misision or area you're doing, GuildWiki is great here, and set up a skillbar to counter. If there's lots of hexes, consider bringing Blessed Light, lots of AoE, Heal Party or Light of Deliverance is the answer, a bunch of melee monsters to fight, Shield of Deflection or something as simple as guardian works. You get the point.

Arrows[PURE] · Feb 19, 2007, 11:57 AM // 11:57

@Melody Cross-ZB is not anti spike , its like saying WoH is anti spike when its not, for spikes i tend to go with RoF>prot>ZB/Rof because if i try cast ZB straight away they will die. Also another reason it is not anti spike is because you have ZB/Infusers. I suppose it could be anti spike for RA but i came up against a team last night of 3 rit all running rit spike, which i couldnt have caught with ZB, I could only use the above combo i suggested or pre prot

creelie · Feb 19, 2007, 06:11 PM // 18:11

This thread has made me more aware of the "healing ceiling" - I healed my way through 3 campaigns, and there are some situations where even a good healer can't stay ahead of the damage coming in. The ideal situation is to have a protector reducing damage and a healer repairing what does get through. Since most of the support characters I meet are healers, I guess the onus is on me to learn protection.

So far it sucks. I'm trying a ZB hybrid build, and under pressure I revert to a healer mentality and just spam ZB and GoH, with predictably lousy results.

Does anyone have some suggestions for a PvE build which is pure protection? I think I should get used to pre-protting and *then* re-integrate some healing capacity.

Arrows[PURE] · Feb 19, 2007, 07:23 PM // 19:23

I think ZB can only get you so far in PvE, in end NF area's everywhere is full of hexes and divert hexes works wonders here. If youre after only protection build, id suggest [Reversal of Fortune], [Protective spirit], Aegis as skills to highly consider. Probably [Dismiss condition] as well, and I would suggest Gift of Health] as most prot bars tend to use it anyway, or if you dont want that maybe [signet of devotion]. [Shielding hands], [guardian] and [shield of absorption] are also some nice skills and for hex removal thats personal preference really, I used to like inspired for the free hex removal but prefer veil now. And thats about all I can think of for now. Anybody else can add or suggest changes ???

Grammar · Feb 19, 2007, 09:03 PM // 21:03

PvE monking can be broken down into two different situations:
1. When times are good.
2. When times are bad (or "when the s*** hits the fan" as I like to call it).

The thing is, when times are good, it doesn't really matter what skills you run. ANY healing and/or prot bar will do just fine when times are good.
The measure of a PvE monk is what you bring to the table when the s*** hits the fan. This is where ZB absolutely shines. More particularly, this is where a prot bar with ZB, RoF, Prot Spirit, etc. shines like the sun. Prot spells plus a free 200+ heal every 4 seconds will completely dominate anything a healing monk can bring to the table when the s*** hits the fan (LoD, WoH, Glimmer, Boon, you name it).

The interesting thing about ZB is that it takes some practice and getting used to before you learn to use it effectively. Way back when I first capped it and tried it out, I didn't like it. But I stuck with it and have monked well over 100 hours with it in my prot bar, and I've since come to this conclusion: for PvE, ZB = god.
A well build and played ZB prot bar can kind of make you feel invincible in PvE. As long as aggro doesn't get WAY out of control, you can solo-monk pretty much every mission in the game (assuming your team isn't terrible beyond belief).
I would argue with the above poster that Divert Hexes is really more of a PvP skill. Hexes just aren't as destructive in PvE as they are in PvP to warrant bringing that skill instead of ZB IMO, unless of course you already have a ZB prot monk in your group.
In PvP, I think skills like Divert Hexes and Blessed Light are definitely be better than ZB in many situations (which is probably why ZB wasn't and shouldn't be nerfed).

Arrows[PURE] · Feb 19, 2007, 09:47 PM // 21:47

Well I agree with you completely with ZB being god in PvE, but the big but is providing you have a good team and dont over aggro. I tend to find teams other than my guild do over aggro, and I quite often see this happening. And I dont bring Divert because the hexes are devastating or destructive. I bring it for the 250 heal , 3 hex, 3 condition removal in 10 energy, although i mainly tend to get around 170 heal, 2 hex and 2 condition removal.

creelie · Feb 19, 2007, 10:50 PM // 22:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Grammar

Prot spells plus a free 200+ heal every 4 seconds will completely dominate anything a healing monk can bring to the table when the s*** hits the fan

It's the prot spells part I'm having trouble with. I have over 500 hours of experience churning out 100+ health every 1-2 seconds, and virtually none with watching the actions of foes and enchanting allies appropriately. I'm a newbie all over again, AND I have to work against my inclinations. I guess there's really no way to smooth out this learning curve.