Curse

Age · Nov 18, 2007, 10:20 PM // 22:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by isamu kurosawa

thats why you take other people with either death pact sig, sig of return or if its a mes then res chant.

What if they don't have it skill cost Gs and skill points I hold off on buying skills possibly like most do.That is why I much prefer to make up char in Proph. were you get free skill rebirth being one of them.When playing in Faction and Nightfall for the most I never seen hardly anyone with res on their bar as they expected the Monk to do it for them I guess it is the whole hero thing.They don't bother using a res as their hero Monks can do that and that is what I hear all over in game and besides if there is wipe I would rather not have to wait another 10 to 15 min getting group together.In Proph. you could get away from carrying a res. but not anymore and besides there were lots of good W/Mo that would do it.

Now a days with heros and alliance battles were no one has a res and if you do have one you are called noob.It goes to show you that AB is not competive {team play} like the real PvP.But this is PvE and all Monks do carry a res it is not wasting a skill slot and if you are on your own doing quest and it is your first Monk best to have it can't rely on henchies alone.

Chicken Ftw · Nov 18, 2007, 10:25 PM // 22:25

I'd consider SoA in the spot of Shielding and maybe Mend Cond in Dismiss' place. Other than that, looking decent for general PvE imo.

I'm not even getting into the Rebirth argument, since people are typically firmly cemented in their opinions on this subject. I'd drop it for an 8th skill, but it's your choice.

isamu kurosawa · Nov 18, 2007, 11:13 PM // 23:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Age

What if they don't have it skill cost Gs and skill points I hold off on buying skills possibly like most do.That is why I much prefer to make up char in Proph. were you get free skill rebirth being one of them.When playing in Faction and Nightfall for the most I never seen hardly anyone with res on their bar as they expected the Monk to do it for them I guess it is the whole hero thing.They don't bother using a res as their hero Monks can do that and that is what I hear all over in game and besides if there is wipe I would rather not have to wait another 10 to 15 min getting group together.In Proph. you could get away from carrying a res. but not anymore and besides there were lots of good W/Mo that would do it.

Now a days with heros and alliance battles were no one has a res and if you do have one you are called noob.It goes to show you that AB is not competive {team play} like the real PvP.But this is PvE and all Monks do carry a res it is not wasting a skill slot and if you are on your own doing quest and it is your first Monk best to have it can't rely on henchies alone.

If you wish to keep running subpar builds thats up to you, you don't need to try and keep thinking up excuses.
If people didn't use their gold on crappy skills they'd be able to afford the decent skills, of which there are considerably less than there are sucky ones.

Anyway. As stated all over this forum, hybrid builds are the most efficient as you only need one or two heals with decent recharges, the rest should offer more utility such as prot skills. a list of some of the most effective skills are

Reversal of fortune
dwayna's kiss
shield of absorption
guardian
cure hex/holy veil
dismiss/mend
prot spirit
spirit bond
aegis
signet of rejuvenation

Ensign · Nov 18, 2007, 11:57 PM // 23:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by TEB Elite

is that you assume your ability to keep everyone alive will never fail.

Not at all. The assumption is that when someone dies, it is the responsibility of someone who *isn't* a Monk to res.

Here is the progression:

Someone dies. This often means that the situation is bad and your Monks are being stressed.

You need some mechanism to get that player back up ASAP.

The last person on your team that you want to be responsible for that res is the Monk. He is already stressed, and he very likely cannot afford the additional burden of combat ressing.

Hence, some of the non-Monk characters on the team need to bring resses. Some of those will inevitably be re-usable, hard resses. The best bing Signet of Return, which every Paragon should have (since Paragons are rarely the ones to die first), and Death Pact Signet, which can easily slip onto anyone with a free secondary.

In the case of a partial team wipe, those existing hard resses are more than adequate to recover fallen teammates and try again. Monk resses are redundant.

It has nothing to do with 'no one ever dies'. Of course people die. You have mechanisms to deal with that, and they aren't Rebirth. Those are functional elsewhere too. Rebirth is *only* justified when you have an *expectation* of messy team wipes that you need to run away and recover from - this means, generally, bad players with bad builds. Hence, if you need Rebirth on a Monk, you are experiencing a high level of suck in Guild Wars, either on your part or the part of your teammates.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

You never seem to disagree with me that straight healing is the optimal response to most of the NM PvE monster set; rather, you seem to vehemently deny the need to go optimizing one's build for fighting the bulk of the NM PvE monster set in the first place.

The process of optimizing one's bar for normal mode PvE is not to add more heals to their bar; it would be to take absolutely everything else off of their bar so that they cannot possibly screw up and use the wrong spell. You do not put more direct heals on the bar, that will simply have them using the wrong heals. Give them Word and Dwayna's and maybe Signet of Rejuvenation; ignore everything else. They'll only screw it up.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

Look, you may be able to handle most of NM with glimmer and 7 empty slots, but the people asking for advice here (and, I daresay, most of the people giving advice here too) most certainly cannot.

Look. If the person we are giving advice to is incapable of using prot effectively; if they cannot aim their removals appropriately, then Glimmer of Light and 7 empty skill slots is very close to an optimal skill bar for that person. What other heal are you going to put on the bar? Casting Glimmer again will be faster and better most of the time. New or weak Monks tend to have issues in three general areas; first poor skill selection, both in what they put on their bar and what skill they use. Second, poor response time. Third, overuse of skills - overhealing and protting safe targets. A bar with Glimmer of Light and no other skills directly addresses points one and two; there is no decision to make on what to use, and the fast cast makes up for the slow player. It partially addresses the third point, as there's nothing to prot - the only thing a Glimmer Monk can screw up is constantly overhealing.

So really, Glimmer and 7 empty slots (ok, 6 slots and Rebirth) is actually pretty close to what a bad player should use without any explanation. Glimmer and 7 slots is the complete noob bar; Word, Kiss, (and Signet of Rejuvenation) is the next step, then the removal (Dismiss / Cure), then any Prot you want to use.

What is not the answer, ever, is adding weak, redundant skills to someone's bar. It really does become addition by subtraction; if you take one of those bars with Word / Other / Kiss / Orison / Touch, and watch them play, they do use the skills haphazardly for the most part. If you take off everything but Word and Kiss, they become a better Monk.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

Conversely, these forums do a downright crappy job of helping people improve their "nuts and bolts" skill level.

That's an inconvenient hole, and honestly we'd need a new business model to sort it out. Personally I come to these forums for discussions that I find interesting, to pick up some new perspectives to try and pass along things I've picked up that I found interesting and worth sharing. The nuts and bolts of playing a Monk are not something that I find terribly interesting, and simultaneously it's a complicated enough topic that it would take a good bit of effort to do a fair job of writing it up. Is anyone surprised that there aren't a bunch of people volunteering to teach new players how to do a decent job of playing the class? You get exactly what you'd expect, the people who know what's up talking about newer innovations and the cliched blind leading the blind on the simplest topics. You see this play out the same way in every game.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

3. I'm not a huge fan of RoF for general PvE purposes.

RoF is one of the best skills in the game. However it's also a tricky skill to really get the hang of. Sometimes it's going to be a great heal, other times it isn't. It's at it's best for managing and manipulating the time aspect of Monking; something that isn't very relevant until you're fairly adept at the profession. I wouldn't touch the skill until I was familiar with the basics - you'll notice that I never give my heroes the skill. A newer player should stick with the basics.

Burst Cancel · Nov 19, 2007, 12:03 AM // 00:03

<- Blind leading the blind :/

RoF is actually a good measure of early monking ability, because it requires a good grasp of general field awareness to use correctly.

Age · Nov 19, 2007, 12:26 AM // 00:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by isamu kurosawa

If you wish to keep running subpar builds thats up to you, you don't need to try and keep thinking up excuses.
If people didn't use their gold on crappy skills they'd be able to afford the decent skills, of which there are considerably less than there are sucky ones.

Anyway. As stated all over this forum, hybrid builds are the most efficient as you only need one or two heals with decent recharges, the rest should offer more utility such as prot skills. a list of some of the most effective skills are

Reversal of fortune
dwayna's kiss
shield of absorption
guardian
cure hex/holy veil
dismiss/mend
prot spirit
spirit bond
aegis
signet of rejuvenation

I got all those skills except cure hex and sig rejuvenation and Spirit Bond I would not use SB I will use PoS anyday over that.When I was talking rebirth or ressing in general think of low lvls who are at say level 5 or 6 or 10 and only have Proph or Factions.What if they die by listening to to you on a quest or mission just using henches alone no heros and now they have to redo it most ppl just want it over and done with.Think back way back when you were all in presearing at lvl 1 and went to post if Monks aren't suppose to res then why bother doing the res signet quest.I would say ressurect should be a presearing skill and restorelife the post skill.

Most of my builds are hybrids I only have 1 or 2 heals in them.

isamu kurosawa · Nov 19, 2007, 01:22 AM // 01:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by Age

I got all those skills except cure hex and sig rejuvenation and Spirit Bond I would not use SB I will use PoS anyday over that.When I was talking rebirth or ressing in general think of low lvls who are at say level 5 or 6 or 10 and only have Proph or Factions.What if they die by listening to to you on a quest or mission just using henches alone no heros and now they have to redo it most ppl just want it over and done with.Think back way back when you were all in presearing at lvl 1 and went to post if Monks aren't suppose to res then why bother doing the res signet quest.I would say ressurect should be a presearing skill and restorelife the post skill.

Most of my builds are hybrids I only have 1 or 2 heals in them.

My guilds emphasis is helping new players learn the basics, and i've yet to have any problems helping new monks. I let people know the general skills that are useful, a basic skillbar structure (without stating specific skills) and then let them see if they can work out why the skills are better than others and build a decent bar from it. If they create a bad skill bar then i simply explain why its bad and let them try again.

Its a great way of judging someones skill level at an early stage. And monking early on doesnt require the best skillbars as its easy, but its best to let new players get into the habit of playing a more structured build early on.

Also, if your running 2 hybrids then its best to have one PS and one spirt bond, stops them PSing the same target.

Chthon · Nov 19, 2007, 02:13 AM // 02:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

The process of optimizing one's bar for normal mode PvE is not to add more heals to their bar; it would be to take absolutely everything else off of their bar so that they cannot possibly screw up and use the wrong spell. You do not put more direct heals on the bar, that will simply have them using the wrong heals. Give them Word and Dwayna's and maybe Signet of Rejuvenation; ignore everything else. They'll only screw it up.

For TEB, at least, the process has involved removing heals. His revisions have constantly grown more prot-heavy. One the other hand, for those unfortunates who take "hybrid > prot >>> heal stoopid noob QQQ wall of fail go uninstall" to heart, the process involves getting heals onto the bar, since they generally have none, or the wrong ones.

In any event, by and large, I agree with your endpoint: WoH+DKiss+SigOfRejuv is nearly all the healing you need. The only thing I'd add is Heal Party. (Although managing energy well enough to afford heal party seems to be a mess-up point, so maybe it should come back out...) (Or you could do basically the same thing, only with HBoon.) Rest of the bar should be dedicated to hex/condition removal, splashing a good prot skill or two, and maybe a rez.

Quote:

What is not the answer, ever, is adding weak, redundant skills to someone's bar. It really does become addition by subtraction; if you take one of those bars with Word / Other / Kiss / Orison / Touch, and watch them play, they do use the skills haphazardly for the most part. If you take off everything but Word and Kiss, they become a better Monk.

I agree completely. And I think I seriously need to work on my communication skills if you ever thought this is what I was advocating.

Quote:

That's an inconvenient hole, and honestly we'd need a new business model to sort it out. Personally I come to these forums for discussions that I find interesting, to pick up some new perspectives to try and pass along things I've picked up that I found interesting and worth sharing. The nuts and bolts of playing a Monk are not something that I find terribly interesting, and simultaneously it's a complicated enough topic that it would take a good bit of effort to do a fair job of writing it up. Is anyone surprised that there aren't a bunch of people volunteering to teach new players how to do a decent job of playing the class?

Yeah, it's a dirty job, and no one has to do it. So it doesn't get done. It wasn't so much my point that we should do this, as that telling people to improve their skills without offering them any help with doing so is pretty useless advice. Optimizing builds for NM PvE isn't going to turn them into great monks, but at least it will help them do what they're having trouble doing right now.

(Now, I DO think that we should be providing guides for those nuts and bolts skills. I just wasn't making that my point because I'm no more likely to actually get off my butt and do it than you are, so I would be "the pot calling
the kettle black" if I did so.)

Quote:

RoF is one of the best skills in the game. However it's also a tricky skill to really get the hang of. Sometimes it's going to be a great heal, other times it isn't. It's at it's best for managing and manipulating the time aspect of Monking; something that isn't very relevant until you're fairly adept at the profession. I wouldn't touch the skill until I was familiar with the basics - you'll notice that I never give my heroes the skill. A newer player should stick with the basics.

I agree. (Well mostly agree; without coordinated spikes, I'm not sure that the time aspect in PvE is vital enough to make it worth the potential whiffed heal in every situation. But let's ignore my nitpick here and pretend that I totally agree.) And that's the reason I would never recommend it to 99% of the folks looking for builds.

Stormlord Alex · Nov 19, 2007, 02:47 AM // 02:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

"hybrid > prot >>> heal stoopid noob QQQ wall of fail go uninstall"

My 'wall of fail' comment was pretty much spot-on, actually.
There's far too much petty bickering over trivial things on the Monk forums nowadays, the same tired arguments all over again.
All these walls of text debunking the crappiness of Rebirth and why Hyrbrid > all aren't helping anything but our own e-peens (and especially not the poor lil' monks looking for advice), and it's really grating.

Not aimed specifically at you, Chthon, but just... well... everyone, tbh.

Burst Cancel · Nov 19, 2007, 02:54 AM // 02:54

If you want fewer walls of text, give us a sticky to link to.

The problem with just saying, "this is true, period" is that it sounds too much like, "this is true because I said so". Furthermore, telling a new player "X just works" without qualification, context, or explanation doesn't help them a damn bit. If players don't understand why certain tactics don't work, or why certain skills are bad, they fail the moment they deviate outside of the specific situations that they've seen addressed.

This is why I sit and argue it out, even if it's a re-hash. I realize that at some point it becomes self-defeating because nobody other than the person I'm arguing with will bother to read the wall, but aside from being less long-winded I don't see a good way around it without leaving arguments full of holes and unaddressed issues.

Stormlord Alex · Nov 19, 2007, 02:58 AM // 02:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Burst Cancel

This is why I sit and argue it out, even if it's a re-hash.

Ooohh, I've been half-tempted to start discussion threads (like the Healing Breeze one, except not so one-sided) for Hybrid > All and Rebirth: Why It Sucks, if only to keep the confusing arguments outta threads where they're not really helping.
If I've got support... I'll go for it.

... I am a nice guy

anyho, need sleep... catch you all tomorrow

Ensign · Nov 19, 2007, 04:46 AM // 04:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

In any event, by and large, I agree with your endpoint: WoH+DKiss+SigOfRejuv is nearly all the healing you need. The only thing I'd add is Heal Party.

Heal Party is ok, it's at least a much faster heal per time than the other options. It's not significantly better than Word or Kiss on a health per energy basis however. If you want to run GLE you can get good milage out of it, otherwise I wouldn't bother. Signet of Rejuvenation is usually fluff by the way, just something to take until you can manage more abilities on your bar.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

I'm not sure that the time aspect in PvE is vital enough to make it worth the potential whiffed heal in every situation.

It's pretty simple in PvE once you get used to it, actually...you get used to a pace of damage that you can take care of with your spot heals, if someone is getting blasted harder than that RoF tends to be awesome.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Burst Cancel

If you want fewer walls of text, give us a sticky to link to.

You're still going to have to link to it every time; the people who start these threads don't read stickies.

Age · Nov 20, 2007, 12:27 AM // 00:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by isamu kurosawa

My guilds emphasis is helping new players learn the basics, and i've yet to have any problems helping new monks. I let people know the general skills that are useful, a basic skillbar structure (without stating specific skills) and then let them see if they can work out why the skills are better than others and build a decent bar from it. If they create a bad skill bar then i simply explain why its bad and let them try again.

Its a great way of judging someones skill level at an early stage. And monking early on doesnt require the best skillbars as its easy, but its best to let new players get into the habit of playing a more structured build early on.

Also, if your running 2 hybrids then its best to have one PS and one spirt bond, stops them PSing the same target.

It is nice you can get some in your guild as I can't but not you don't get them all.The advice I say now is to do your research and to get to know what the role of the Monk is.I don't talk about skills if in game and Monks want to use bad skills bars they will just have more of a struggle through it.I might back them up or let them flop on it.When I first started in PvE I played with henchies and pugs or back in beta I played Monk in the TomPs.that is why most suggest Prophecies for Monks for the slow learning curve and getting to know your skills and building a build.

I don't use SB in PvE as it is more easy to strip.

I will say this over some Monks as I helped an alliance memember out in gates of madness mission we had a protect and a healer Monk in our party I was on my Ele.the healer was father better and our performed the the protection Monk hands down I noticed he was using Word before the update and had a few other good heals.the protection Monk kept dieing his build wasn't that bad don't know why he kept dieing.The healing Monk only went down once compared to the protect.

Mark Nevermiss · Nov 20, 2007, 10:34 AM // 10:34

There is ONLY ONE way to play this game. All other ways are sub-par and n00b. [/sarcasm]
There are lots of people play the weirdest builds one could think of and get by, not to mention those who run decent builds [but not the L337 ones] and also do great.
I invited a monk to my Duncan HM group and he has a Word of Healing based HEAL build, and people start complaining that this is rubbish and he should switch to HB. The guy says trust me I am a good healer. I say he stays since its my group, and you know what he does great, and thats all that matters in my book.
The other day I was bond prot-ing in Thommis/Rand and the healer disconnected or whatever before we even reached Thommis, and yet we made it without a healer because everyone played their role well.
Sometimes you are in a PUG where everyone has the "standard" build copied off PVX-Wiki or I dont know where, and the group fails miserably.
This game feels like its rocket science. So many snobs who take it more seriously than their real lives.

LightningHell · Nov 20, 2007, 10:59 AM // 10:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mark Nevermiss

There is ONLY ONE way to play this game. All other ways are sub-par and n00b. [/sarcasm]
There are lots of people play the weirdest builds one could think of and get by, not to mention those who run decent builds [but not the L337 ones] and also do great.
I invited a monk to my Duncan HM group and he has a Word of Healing based HEAL build, and people start complaining that this is rubbish and he should switch to HB. The guy says trust me I am a good healer. I say he stays since its my group, and you know what he does great, and thats all that matters in my book.
The other day I was bond prot-ing in Thommis/Rand and the healer disconnected or whatever before we even reached Thommis, and yet we made it without a healer because everyone played their role well.
Sometimes you are in a PUG where everyone has the "standard" build copied off PVX-Wiki or I dont know where, and the group fails miserably.
This game feels like its rocket science. So many snobs who take it more seriously than their real lives.

Your first statement is partially right; by using subpar builds you limit your effectiveness. However, nobody's stopping you from using them. However, some people like to maximize their effectiveness, especially in PvP.

JoeKnowMo · Nov 20, 2007, 07:37 PM // 19:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mark Nevermiss

I invited a monk to my Duncan HM group and he has a Word of Healing based HEAL build, and people start complaining that this is rubbish and he should switch to HB. The guy says trust me I am a good healer. I say he stays since its my group, and you know what he does great, and thats all that matters in my book.

I've played in Duncan HM groups where the heal monk ran his/her own build with varied results.

- Heal monk ran Glimmer, we did just fine. I had to use PS, ZB, and Life Bond quite a bit when aggro broke, so I was more active than usual. The glimmer monk also needed blood ritual constantly.

- Heal monk ran post-nerf LoD. Claimed he was an awesome pvp monk and us noobs should stfu. I almost quit the group (mostly b/c of his attitude) but I thought I'd give it a shot... who knows, maybe I'll learn something. We wiped early and often and people left.

- Heal monk ran Hboon with breeze, infuse, and healing touch (and heal party with no GoLE). He wasn't willing to change build or play bonder instead. We were constantly dying. He kept running low on energy since he used breeze at the first hint of damage. We finally beat Duncan but it took forever and most people in the group became ornery and thought about quitting many times due to lots of deaths.

If you're running a subpar build and doing well it's because the other members of the group are doing their jobs well and picking up your slack. When the other members slip up (tank doesn't hold aggro, casters get too close to aggro, blood rit necro is forgetful, etc.), that's when the subpar build hurts the team.

Imo, you should take the best build available so that you're able to pick up the slack if your teammates mess up.