Curse

Draginvry · Oct 20, 2007, 06:17 PM // 18:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by arcady

but I do find that PUGs without any tank do better than ones with a tank

That depends on the tank. If your tank is the average Joe Wammo with a skill bar full of 8 sword attacks who goes charging into a group of 12 monsters...you are probably correct. But believe it or not, there are warriors out there who know how to tank. And even better, warriors who know how to properly aggro. But they probably aren't W/Mo.

I could make the same criticisms about a lot of monks that I see who spam away their energy with Healing Breeze and Vigorous Spirit, thinking that they are somehow helping the team, when in reality they are only slightly more usefull than the aformentioned Joe Wammo.

zwei2stein · Oct 20, 2007, 06:27 PM // 18:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by Draginvry

That depends on the tank. If your tank is the average Joe Wammo with a skill bar full of 8 sword attacks who goes charging into a group of 12 monsters...you are probably correct. But believe it or not, there are warriors out there who know how to tank. And even better, warriors who know how to properly aggro. But they probably aren't W/Mo.

I could make the same criticisms about a lot of monks that I see who spam away their energy with Healing Breeze and Vigorous Spirit, thinking that they are somehow helping the team, when in reality they are only slightly more usefull than the aformentioned Joe Wammo.

Most of the time, is the idea of having a tank where it starts to go downhill.

Any warrior worth his slot in party would know that there is one situation where hacving tank is better than damage dealer: DoA. and even that is questionable.

Warriors are THE best damage dealers in game, failing to utilize one is ...

---

Anyway, good healing monk (read: does not overheal, manages energy ...) would be better than ops build.

Its not that prot is bad, quite oposite, but you need to move red bars up, in energy eficient way. Thats where hybrids shine since they do both and without loss of efectiveness.

Also, such low level pve as sanctum does not require good builds, proven by many succesfull pugs.

Wish Swiftdeath · Oct 21, 2007, 12:47 AM // 00:47

if you're the only monk healing/hybrid is the way to go, that or bring zb...

did i mention that life sheath fails?

Coloneh · Oct 21, 2007, 06:49 AM // 06:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Draginvry

That depends on the tank. If your tank is the average Joe Wammo with a skill bar full of 8 sword attacks who goes charging into a group of 12 monsters...you are probably correct. But believe it or not, there are warriors out there who know how to tank. And even better, warriors who know how to properly aggro. But they probably aren't W/Mo.

I could make the same criticisms about a lot of monks that I see who spam away their energy with Healing Breeze and Vigorous Spirit, thinking that they are somehow helping the team, when in reality they are only slightly more usefull than the aformentioned Joe Wammo.

no. you either do not understand the game at all. or you just dont know what types of builds are called. ALL frontline characters should be able to ball up foes. this is not tanking. tnaking is used in DoA and FoW. In tank 1 caracter who is only designed to stay alive aggroes everything and then the rest of the team nukes the crap out of it. frontliners are everywhere else in the game, they aggro the groups, ball them to a degree and deal tons of damage.

elektra_lucia · Oct 25, 2007, 06:38 PM // 18:38

I don't think people realise warriors do a lot of damage.

arcady · Oct 25, 2007, 09:59 PM // 21:59

Wa/Mos do see that warriors do a lot of damage. The problem is that this is often all they can see.

Snow Bunny · Oct 28, 2007, 06:32 PM // 18:32

Remember, healing vs. Prot can fall along these lines.

Orison of Healing vs. Reversal of Fortune. You get both early, they have comparable costs/casts/recharges (Yes, I know RoF has 1/4 cast but w/e)

Warrior A. Gets hit for 50 damage. You Orison him once for ~70. 5 Energy, and you healed through the damage,

Warrior B. Is about to get hit for 50 damage. You RoF him in time, damage is negated, and he gets healed for that 50. Essentially 100 health heal.

For the same amount of energy, one heals for 70 and the other heals for 100.

Guardian will save you a lot of energy healing through Eviscerates and dismissing them.

Chthon · Oct 28, 2007, 07:10 PM // 19:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Snow Bunny

Remember, healing vs. Prot can fall along these lines.

Orison of Healing vs. Reversal of Fortune. You get both early, they have comparable costs/casts/recharges (Yes, I know RoF has 1/4 cast but w/e)

Warrior A. Gets hit for 50 damage. You Orison him once for ~70. 5 Energy, and you healed through the damage,

Warrior B. Is about to get hit for 50 damage. You RoF him in time, damage is negated, and he gets healed for that 50. Essentially 100 health heal.

For the same amount of energy, one heals for 70 and the other heals for 100.

Guardian will save you a lot of energy healing through Eviscerates and dismissing them.

However, OP is playing in NM Riverside Province. Pretty much nothing there hits for 50. They don't even reliably hit for 35. The damage in NM Riverside is so low that orison would have been better than RoF.

The same trend holds true for Heal Vs Prot generally: The effectiveness of all the "good" prot skills is a function of the number and/or size of the damage packets coming in. What you get out of prot depends on what the monsters put into it for you. Below a certain level of monster offense, prot is less efficient than heal. The monster offense in NM Riverside is waaaaaaaaaaaay below that level. OP would have been better off with heal.

I might further add that MOST of PvE is also below that level of monster offense. Heal is at least as viable as prot, if not outright superior, for most PvE situations -- and almost all of the situations that the "average" player confronts just trying to reach the end of the NM mission sequence.

The common "obsession" around the forums with prot being infinitely superior to heal derives from the flawed assumption that whatever works best in high-end PvP automatically also works best in PvE.

Stormlord Alex · Oct 28, 2007, 07:32 PM // 19:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

The common "obsession" around the forums with prot being infinitely superior to heal derives from the flawed assumption that whatever works best in high-end PvP automatically also works best in PvE.

Moreover, the 'obsession' assumes correctly that what works in top-tier PvP either works best in PvE, or the PvE area in question is so easy it doesn't matter either way.

elektra_lucia · Oct 28, 2007, 08:08 PM // 20:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by arcady

Wa/Mos do see that warriors do a lot of damage. The problem is that this is often all they can see.

They don't, because they bring too many things to protect themselves and not enough damage.

Chthon · Oct 29, 2007, 12:18 AM // 00:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stormlord Alex

Moreover, the 'obsession' assumes correctly that what works in top-tier PvP either works best in PvE, or the PvE area in question is so easy it doesn't matter either way.

Maybe it doesn't matter to you. Maybe you can play a prot bar anywhere in PvE with no problem. But clearly it matters to other people. If people can't get past an area, moving up to a more efficient builds matters. If someone's having trouble in NM Riverside, mocking them for being a noob, or calling the zone so easy that nothing matters (which really amounts to the same thing as calling them a noob; the implied subtext is: "You're so bad you couldn't beat a zone where your build doesn't even matter, noob!"), doesn't help them beat the zone next time. It just makes you an asshole. If that's all you've got to contribute, you might as well keep silent. As for giving the person who finds NM Riverside challenging actual advice that might help them, there's no reason at all to insist that they use a prot build because it works well for you in PvP when a heal build would be more efficient for the task THEY are trying to accomplish.

Whiskeyjack · Oct 29, 2007, 12:35 AM // 00:35

Well if the damage is so low in riverside that it barley triggers prot's then LoD would easily clear up any dmg that your party was taking. I can't see the logic in deciding to switch to a full heal bar on the basis that the enemy is doing hardly any damage. Aegis, SoA etc still prevent dmg occuring and Lod clean's up whatever does get through. A heal bar on the other hand will probably be regularly overhealing, burning energy and teaching these "noob" monk's nothing about monking in the process.

Chthon · Oct 29, 2007, 01:54 AM // 01:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by Whiskeyjack

Well if the damage is so low in riverside that it barley triggers prot's then LoD would easily clear up any dmg that your party was taking.

Probably. But OP doesn't seem to have access to LoD.

In any event, LoD IS a healing prayer. If LoD alone can deal with the damage in Riverside, that supports rather than refutes my point that healing is more efficient than prot in this sort of area.

Quote:

I can't see the logic in deciding to switch to a full heal bar on the basis that the enemy is doing hardly any damage. Aegis, SoA etc still prevent dmg

Ah, but they aren't. At least not energy efficiently. Why spend 10e for Aegis to stop a dozen 10-damage attacks (total = 120 damage prevented + DF on yourself) when you can cast orison twice (total = 146 damage healed + 2x DF on the targets of your choice)? Orison is just more energy efficient than aegis in this case -- and it's one of the worser healing prayers.

Quote:

A heal bar on the other hand will probably be regularly overhealing, burning energy

Skill, not bar, determines overhealing. Since healing prayers heal for fixed amounts, you can always avoid overhealing through player skill alone. Moreover, even handled poorly with lots of overhealing, a heal bar is still going to be more efficient than a prot bar for NM Riverside.

Quote:

and teaching these "noob" monk's nothing about monking in the process.

This thinking is circular. What exactly do you mean by "learn [something] about monking"? You mean "learn how to play a prot bar." You think these "noobs" should learn how to play a prot bar so that they can play a prot bar. You take for granted that OP has anything at all to gain by learning a prot bar. For all you know, OP may never venture out of the game modes where the kind of prot bar you want him/her to learn is simply inferior. What would OP "learn about monking" by learning to play a bar that will always be inferior for the parts of the game s/he actually plays? Is this perhaps the arrogance of the PvPer who thinks that PvP really is the endgame for everyone?

Whiskeyjack · Oct 29, 2007, 03:05 AM // 03:05

I'll try and keep this short because i need to get some sleep.

1.Yes i realise LoD is a healing prayer, but generally when I talk about prot bars i am in fact referring to hybrids(apoligies if that was unclear), LoD is able to mop up all dmg because prots reduce dmg to the level it is more or less insignificant.
2.You kind of chose the best case scenario for your argument there bud, I hope you are not seriously comparing orison to aegis for efficiency, any half decent monk knows which of these skills deserves a slot.
3.I would like an example of where a prot hybrid bar would be outclassed by a pure heal bar, i have never seen such an area across all 4 campaign's. If the OP even bothers to get to the end game a prot bar would be noticably more efficient than pure heal even in easy mode, I am not sure what other "game modes" you are referring to.

Re "noob monks", what i meant by learning to play is how to use the class efficiently, which however you want to cut it means using a hybrid prot bar, prevention is always better than cure.
While i do PvP from time to time i am mainly a PvE player, whats your deal with the whole PvP angle you seem pretty fixated on that, people having been using prot bars in PvE for ages.
Arrogance? Way to go with the insults bud, do you always insult people who disagree with you? In future you may want to look at the tone of your own post's before you start accusing others of arrogance.

(apologies for any typo's, i am half asleep.)

LightningHell · Oct 29, 2007, 03:31 PM // 15:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

In any event, LoD IS a healing prayer. If LoD alone can deal with the damage in Riverside, that supports rather than refutes my point that healing is more efficient than prot in this sort of area.

However, LoD so conveniently wipes out any odd bits of damage that the other skills that are there hardly matters, and it just so happens that prot would be a better choice, with Shielding Hands and Shield of Absorption.

Unless the damage there doesn't even reach the point where SH/SoA prevents over 50 damage, of which I doubt somewhat.

Chthon · Oct 29, 2007, 04:03 PM // 16:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by Whiskeyjack

2.You kind of chose the best case scenario for your argument there bud, I hope you are not seriously comparing orison to aegis for efficiency, any half decent monk knows which of these skills deserves a slot.

No, I chose the scenario that OP started this thread with. A middling NM PvE mission. That it also happens to be the best case scenario for heal (and the worst case scenario for prot) is my entire point. You can change builds in town you know. You can select the optimal build for the challenge ahead. For NM Riverside Province, heal, heal, heal, condition removal, and more stupid heal is the optimal build. It's silly to insist that people should use a sub-optimal build for the mission THEY are trying to beat because you think they should be learning YOUR favorite one-size-fits-all build.

Quote:

Re "noob monks", what i meant by learning to play is how to use the class efficiently, which however you want to cut it means using a hybrid prot bar

Again, you're asserting that learning how to use a specific type of bar -- YOUR specific type of bar -- is an end in itself. It's not. Keeping the party alive in whatever zone you're playing is the purpose of monking. People should use whichever build does that best for the zone at hand.

If and when they start to play zones for which hybrid is the optimal build, that's the time to learn hybrid. Alternatively, after they reach the level of skill where the NM Riverside sort of zone isn't a challenge for them any more, they can experiment with replaying it with suboptimal builds if they like -- and doing it again as a hybrid is certainly a choice. But for now, so long they are at the level of skill where success or failure may turn upon the choice of build, please don't insist that people should use a build other than the one that's optimal for the area they're in.

Quote:

prevention is always better than cure

I'm beginning to feel like I'm talking to a brick wall here. No, prevention is not ALWAYS better than cure. Prevention is only inherently better than cure in ONE situation: SPIKE. If the damage is large enough to kill the target before you get a chance to cure, obviously you should have tried to prevent instead. Outside of the spike situation, where both prevention and healing are viable options, whichever is more energy efficient is better. By-and-large, PvE is devoid of spike situations; you usually have more than ample time to respond to damage with 1 sec casts. So the question is: Which heals and/or prevents more damage per energy? As I've said too many times before now, that depends on the number and sizes of the damage packets coming in from your opponents. Above a certain level of opponent damage, prot is more efficient; below that level, heal is more efficient. For most of PvE, the opponent damage is below that level. For NM Riverside Province, it's way the bloody heck below that level.

Let's take another oversimplified example: One of those silly white mantle knights unleashes 10 hits on a particular team member for 10 damage each. What's you're best option? RoF every other hit? That will stop all the damage for 25e, or 4 damage/e. Guardian? That will stop half the damage for 5e, or 10 damage/e. How about ethereal light? That will heal all the damage for 5e, or 20 damage/e. (Yes, I simplified DF out of this example.) At such low damage input, heal just performs much better. Sure, the situation would be reversed if the monster was hitting for 60 every hit. But he's not; this is NM Riverside.

As for hybridizing with LoD: How does having one good skill on your bar justify filling the rest with poor choices? Yeah, I admit that LoD and 7 blank spaces would probably be more than adequate for NM Riverside. But if you're going to fill those other 7 spaces, you might as well pick the best skills for the task at hand. And the fact that you already have one very good heal on a 5 sec recharge does nothing to alter the efficiency of your healing/prevention choices to cast during its downtime. If anything, what LoD gives you license to do is change out redundant healing/prevention for a second condition removal, since Riverside is somewhat condition heavy.

Whiskeyjack · Oct 29, 2007, 05:00 PM // 17:00

Quote:

Again, you're asserting that learning how to use a specific type of bar -- YOUR specific type of bar -- is an end in itself. It's not. Keeping the party alive in whatever zone you're playing is the purpose of monking. People should use whichever build does that best for the zone at hand.

If and when they start to play zones for which hybrid is the optimal build, that's the time to learn hybrid. Alternatively, after they reach the level of skill where the NM Riverside sort of zone isn't a challenge for them any more, they can experiment with replaying it with suboptimal builds if they like -- and doing it again as a hybrid is certainly a choice. But for now, so long they are at the level of skill where success or failure may turn upon the choice of build, please don't insist that people should use a build other than the one that's optimal for the area they're in.

I still don't see how a heal bar would be in any way more efficient for this area even the dmg is as low as you claim(lets face it if the dmg is that low a monk is not required at all).

Quote:

Again, you're asserting that learning how to use a specific type of bar -- YOUR specific type of bar -- is an end in itself. It's not. Keeping the party alive in whatever zone you're playing is the purpose of monking. People should use whichever build does that best for the zone at hand.

If and when they start to play zones for which hybrid is the optimal build, that's the time to learn hybrid. Alternatively, after they reach the level of skill where the NM Riverside sort of zone isn't a challenge for them any more, they can experiment with replaying it with suboptimal builds if they like -- and doing it again as a hybrid is certainly a choice. But for now, so long they are at the level of skill where success or failure may turn upon the choice of build, please don't insist that people should use a build other than the one that's optimal for the area they're in.

Again i ask for an example of a PURE heal bar that would be more efficient than a hybrid.

Quote:

I'm beginning to feel like I'm talking to a brick wall here.

Funny, thats what i was going to say.

Quote:

No, prevention is not ALWAYS better than cure. Prevention is only inherently better than cure in ONE situation: SPIKE. If the damage is large enough to kill the target before you get a chance to cure, obviously you should have tried to prevent instead. Outside of the spike situation, where both prevention and healing are viable options, whichever is more energy efficient is better. By-and-large, PvE is devoid of spike situations; you usually have more than ample time to respond to damage with 1 sec casts. So the question is: Which heals and/or prevents more damage per energy? As I've said too many times before now, that depends on the number and sizes of the damage packets coming in from your opponents. Above a certain level of opponent damage, prot is more efficient; below that level, heal is more efficient. For most of PvE, the opponent damage is below that level. For NM Riverside Province, it's way the bloody heck below that level.

For sure SOME prot skills are better when dealing with spike dmg, but prot can also be useful against pressure-you knew that right?

Quote:

Let's take another oversimplified example: One of those silly white mantle knights unleashes 10 hits on a particular team member for 10 damage each. What's you're best option? RoF every other hit? That will stop all the damage for 25e, or 4 damage/e. Guardian? That will stop half the damage for 5e, or 10 damage/e. How about ethereal light? That will heal all the damage for 5e, or 20 damage/e. (Yes, I simplified DF out of this example.) At such low damage input, heal just performs much better. Sure, the situation would be reversed if the monster was hitting for 60 every hit. But he's not; this is NM Riverside.

Ok, lets take your highly idealized example of the white mantle knight who hits for 10dmg(sorry i dont believe that to be the case, even a low lvl warrior will hit squishies harder than that), of course RoF is not the best skill to use in that case, thats the equivalent of me claiming a heal monk would use Infuse health on soemone suffering from blind.

Lets say "Barry the Noob" is using a hybrid bar and notices a 2 white mantle knights from your example are running towards one of the parties squishies and casts shielding hands on said ele. Using your dmg figuires the ele is now invincible for 10 seconds with the expediture of 5e, leaving "Barry the Noob" free to look after the rest of his party. What would barry have learned? The effectiveness of pre protting and battlefield awarness instead of just watching for red bars to go down (which only bad monks do imo). This is a lesson that will serve "barry the not quite as noobish as before" well in any area of the game and not just a specific mission.

Quote:

As for hybridizing with LoD: How does having one good skill on your bar justify filling the rest with poor choices? Yeah, I admit that LoD and 7 blank spaces would probably be more than adequate for NM Riverside. But if you're going to fill those other 7 spaces, you might as well pick the best skills for the task at hand. And the fact that you already have one very good heal on a 5 sec recharge does nothing to alter the efficiency of your healing/prevention choices to cast during its downtime. If anything, what LoD gives you license to do is change out redundant healing/prevention for a second condition removal, since Riverside is somewhat condition heavy

Who says they are bad choices? I didn't even post a bar.
Also since most condition removals are more effective when you have specced prot what exactly is your point here?
I am not sure if you have ever played prot(your claims of the skills being bad leads me to suspect you have not), but frankly I would be amzed if you could find 7 "good" skills under the healing line to fill a bar.

Snow Bunny · Oct 29, 2007, 06:35 PM // 18:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

Probably. But OP doesn't seem to have access to LoD.

In any event, LoD IS a healing prayer. If LoD alone can deal with the damage in Riverside, that supports rather than refutes my point that healing is more efficient than prot in this sort of area.

Ah, but they aren't. At least not energy efficiently. Why spend 10e for Aegis to stop a dozen 10-damage attacks (total = 120 damage prevented + DF on yourself) when you can cast orison twice (total = 146 damage healed + 2x DF on the targets of your choice)? Orison is just more energy efficient than aegis in this case -- and it's one of the worser healing prayers.

Skill, not bar, determines overhealing. Since healing prayers heal for fixed amounts, you can always avoid overhealing through player skill alone. Moreover, even handled poorly with lots of overhealing, a heal bar is still going to be more efficient than a prot bar for NM Riverside.

This thinking is circular. What exactly do you mean by "learn [something] about monking"? You mean "learn how to play a prot bar." You think these "noobs" should learn how to play a prot bar so that they can play a prot bar. You take for granted that OP has anything at all to gain by learning a prot bar. For all you know, OP may never venture out of the game modes where the kind of prot bar you want him/her to learn is simply inferior. What would OP "learn about monking" by learning to play a bar that will always be inferior for the parts of the game s/he actually plays? Is this perhaps the arrogance of the PvPer who thinks that PvP really is the endgame for everyone?

Don't start the pvp/pve argument, ffs.

If you understand this game at all, you'd realize why LoD bars these days are mainly Hybrid bars, mainly because LoD is so powerful, and allows for prot, when other bars would not.

And a heal bar will cost more energy to heal through the damage prot prevents, if you think about it logically. If the damage in Riverside is that low, then some simple prot like Guardian, Rof, and SoA should easily be enough, right? I mean, by your own logic....

Tab · Oct 29, 2007, 06:45 PM // 18:45

Anyone that says a single attribute monk is better than a hybrid is bad at Guild Wars.

Amalek · Oct 29, 2007, 07:36 PM // 19:36

RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GO it and take a smiter's boon monk yeyeyeyeyeyeyeye