Curse

RhanoctJocosa · Apr 19, 2010, 01:10 PM // 13:10

it's the monks' job to keep their wars clean for at least a few minutes, by then you really need to either wipe their team or at least start shutting down some of the hexes yourself and scoring kills (i.e. dchop, shock, kd chain etc)

Sankt Hallvard · Apr 19, 2010, 02:04 PM // 14:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by RhanoctJocosa

it's the monks' job to keep their wars clean for at least a few minutes, by then you really need to either wipe their team or at least start shutting down some of the hexes yourself and scoring kills (i.e. dchop, shock, kd chain etc)

From my extensive RA experience I'm sorry to inform you that you are going to spend a rather large number of games before you team up with a monk that bothers to pre-veil the melee(s). The number is further increased finding a monk that does not crumble in the first minute due to hex/condi overload. Given all the monks saying: "The mesmer shut me down, and you didn't kill him!!11!" there is no wonder so many people like to run vor mesmers.

Unless you do something "drastic" like holy veil, pspike or dshot on your warrior you are going to have to accept the fact that hexes will stick on you most of the time. Ironically you will be less exposed to bsurges just because of the existence of hex mesmers and necros. (Fighting fire with fire, replacing one evil with another or however the saying goes.)

Strife17 · Apr 19, 2010, 03:05 PM // 15:05

the theory about keeping wars clean only goes for exp warriors
most of the warriors don't have a clue what they are doing, even if they are kept clean.
the irony: if we lose, it's the monks fault

and holy veil takes an extra slot in your bar, taking into acount you take cure hex.
since every veil cast during a fight will be most likely interupted.
you can predict when he/she is going to cast veil + its 1 sec cast which makes it easy to interupt.
cast cure hex with HCT set

RhanoctJocosa · Apr 19, 2010, 09:55 PM // 21:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sankt Hallvard

From my extensive RA experience I'm sorry to inform you that you are going to spend a rather large number of games before you team up with a monk that bothers to pre-veil the melee(s). The number is further increased finding a monk that does not crumble in the first minute due to hex/condi overload. Given all the monks saying: "The mesmer shut me down, and you didn't kill him!!11!" there is no wonder so many people like to run vor mesmers.

Unless you do something "drastic" like holy veil, pspike or dshot on your warrior you are going to have to accept the fact that hexes will stick on you most of the time. Ironically you will be less exposed to bsurges just because of the existence of hex mesmers and necros. (Fighting fire with fire, replacing one evil with another or however the saying goes.)

well maybe you're unlucky, because i don't have that difficult a time finding monks that understand the importance of keeping melee clean. regardless, running veil/dshot whatever on a war is retarded. also if you're beelining straight for the monks every match you're just bad at war... obviously a dom mez left untouched will shit all over your monk even if they aren't that talented- vor/backfire/div spam. train = key

ps: lol @ u

Greedy Gus · Apr 19, 2010, 11:14 PM // 23:14

Most RA monks are pretty terrible, just able to redbar and keep their stances & self-prots going. Unfortunately, instead of working on emulating the best players' skill & ability, most just emulate their armor/weaponset skins and those players' high evaluation of their own competence. Isn't it strange that most monks can barely get to 10+ streaks as the only team defense, yet all know they're supposed to instantly throw away teams with an additional healer?

superraptors · Apr 19, 2010, 11:49 PM // 23:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Greedy Gus

Most RA monks are pretty terrible, just able to redbar and keep their stances & self-prots going. Unfortunately, instead of working on emulating the best players' skill & ability, most just emulate their armor/weaponset skins and those players' high evaluation of their own competence. Isn't it strange that most monks can barely get to 10+ streaks as the only team defense, yet all know they're supposed to instantly throw away teams with an additional healer?

cause they run bad bars, have wrong armour and equipment setup.

ive seen ra monks getting pressured out by single warriors who use pve skills with maybe a retarded ele support who also doesnt use real skills

ok

Monks please use this bar & equipment setup so i dont have to play monk cause there are so many bad ones out there.

14 healing 12+1+1
8 or 9 tactics depending on ur shield req
rest of the points in divine favour

Full disciples insignia, with sup vigor obviously and health runes

Obviously 4040 healing, 4040 divine if ur running deny, i guess a healing staff with ench mod for vig doesnt really matter, furious spear with health mod or armour mod(i prefer armour) if vs degen then use health i guess. Shields with +10 vs what ever the majority of damage is

Woh,patient,vigorous spirit,(signet of rejuvenation, or divine spirit as energy managment), dual hex removal(cure hex and deny hex if running divine spirit or holy veil or cure and spotless) it doesnt matter, but DUAL HEX REMOVAL IS A MUST IF U DONT WANNA GET OWNED BY VOR AND CURSE NECROS. Then run dual stances probably bonnetis and balances or bonnetis and dolyak signet.

Instead of woh u can run pnh/cure with vigourous signet of rejuvenation and patient for healing. This can keep up decently and bar push is ok actually tbh. The thing is if they have mass damage it can get a little bit hard but this will keep ur warriors and physical 100% clean so they can own.

Dont run shield bash it is horrible, it doesnt block long enough and what is disabling 1 skill going to do when they might have 3 physicals.

Reasons why i dont have gaurdian and condition removal. I think its already been said before earlier in this thread but ill say it again.

The benefit of running gaurdian is very little, because it is easily interupted by any decent ranger or mesmer, it can get stripped by ench removal easily and there is alot more hex overload and caster damage in ra rather than physical damage.

Even if u do vs heavy physical if ur half decent u should be able to power heal through their damage.

Reason why i dont run condition removal. This might be a pain in the ass say maybe u vs a good b surge ele and have no shut down. But even in that case if ur warriors and casters are good enough shouldnt be problem.

Even if u get deep wounded and all people in ur party get deep wounded or what ever condition u should still be able to power heal with that bar. Vig spirit is very under rated in RA its counters alot of pressure ur sins/warriors/rangers save u alot of energy just by healing themselves for 30 seconds say it lasts that duration.

If u are paired up with any decent people or classes say a warrior+ranger+caster this is pretty much a gauranteed 25 win

If you monks out there persist to run single hex removal, condition removal(debatable but i think its a waste), gaurdian(waste), then STOP complaining about hex overloads and it is ur fault u cant keep ur warrior clean of hexes because those 2 skills do nothing vs hexway.

Also dont blame ur warriors/rangers/sins they havent killed shit if u got 1 hex removal cause chances are they will constantly have 2-3 really bad hexes such as feint(most annoying physical hate)

Even if u vs 2-3 hexes this setup can hold up much longer then the monks bars i generally see out there giving you more then enough time to kill.
If you kept up long enough and they are clean for mostof the match and they cant kill you got bad damage dealers.

O yea if u vs very big physical like 3 wars sins or whatever the variant is, just stay on ur shield if they are bashing u build for bonettis asap use dolyak and balance if they are about to kd.

Ok i really hope to see more monks bring vigorous and dual hexremoval so i can play melee.

Sankt Hallvard · Apr 20, 2010, 12:08 AM // 00:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by RhanoctJocosa

well maybe you're unlucky, because i don't have that difficult a time finding monks that understand the importance of keeping melee clean. regardless, running veil/dshot whatever on a war is retarded. also if you're beelining straight for the monks every match you're just bad at war... obviously a dom mez left untouched will shit all over your monk even if they aren't that talented- vor/backfire/div spam. train = key

ps: lol @ u

No, dshot/veil on a war is not retarded. It's retarded if you plan on making 100+ restarts to get a good ranger and competent monk. If you are somewhat human you will go insane before that happens.

Who said I go straight for the monks and leave the mesmers alone? When I play war I'll obviously target the most dangerous enemies first. That's not to say I'm not bad at war, you were right on that.

With your logic a team of 2 eles and a derv(for instance) is just fooked when they face a team with a dom mesmer(every 2nd game) seeing as they can't stop the mesmer from rayping your monk.

And Gus here is touching on something significant. Most monks run great bars, have female sexy characters and wield tormented weapons. Often with gold or silver capes and chaos gloves as well, but they still don't match the skill level they think they do. They can be pretty good at self-protting and stancing but can't remove the right stuff in time and can't prot allies worth a sheet.

1 monk simply can't carry a random RA team to 25 wins without a great deal of support(ff nec, good interrupter, off-monk hex removal). I'll make an exception if the monk is Karla or some similar high-caliber healer, but a gold cape is obviously not enough these days.

Incidentally I've long since given up playing melee in RA and now only take on supportive roles. However the frustration is perpetual, it takes days and weeks between getting both a good melee and a monk. (I ragequit teams with hexes or spam-spam builds for honor purposes)

Wow, long post. Gonna get banned now I'm pretty sure.

RhanoctJocosa · Apr 20, 2010, 02:05 PM // 14:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sankt Hallvard

No, dshot/veil on a war is not retarded. It's retarded if you plan on making 100+ restarts to get a good ranger and competent monk. If you are somewhat human you will go insane before that happens.

Who said I go straight for the monks and leave the mesmers alone? When I play war I'll obviously target the most dangerous enemies first. That's not to say I'm not bad at war, you were right on that.

With your logic a team of 2 eles and a derv(for instance) is just fooked when they face a team with a dom mesmer(every 2nd game) seeing as they can't stop the mesmer from rayping your monk.

And Gus here is touching on something significant. Most monks run great bars, have female sexy characters and wield tormented weapons. Often with gold or silver capes and chaos gloves as well, but they still don't match the skill level they think they do. They can be pretty good at self-protting and stancing but can't remove the right stuff in time and can't prot allies worth a sheet.

1 monk simply can't carry a random RA team to 25 wins without a great deal of support(ff nec, good interrupter, off-monk hex removal). I'll make an exception if the monk is Karla or some similar high-caliber healer, but a gold cape is obviously not enough these days.

Incidentally I've long since given up playing melee in RA and now only take on supportive roles. However the frustration is perpetual, it takes days and weeks between getting both a good melee and a monk. (I ragequit teams with hexes or spam-spam builds for honor purposes)

Wow, long post. Gonna get banned now I'm pretty sure.

I can honestly say I don't think I've ever died to a dshot/veil war in RA (let alone anywhere), pspike maybe (was pretty big a while ago). You're just gimping your bar for no reason. The usual utility skills for war (dchop/shock) create more pressure than the ones you mentioned ever could, and do a MUCH better job at creating windows to score kills. Do you ever see *good* wars running that crap? I haven't.

Gus is pretty spot on, but I'd still rather a monk with proper armour/weps/skills/attributes than the ones who go anything other than /W (/A works but usually these monks are a lot more talented).

There are a few monks who are that good with skill usage, energy management, field observation (especially following warriors) & veil usage that they can carry teams to 25 even if there's a major lacking of support (keep in mind if there's no support you're bound to be more on the damage side). I agree though, Karla, moko before she quit & some of the korean monks (especially T) do good jobs at keeping their teams up and clean to allow them to do their jobs. Still, you can't really keep it up for a whole 10 minutes if your team isn't doing anything. It's nice getting monks like these because you don't have to babysit them like 99% of the shitters in RA.

Though you can sync and not deal with any of this crap

PS: patient/bonettis/vig spirit/spotless mind/balanced stance/woh/draw/cop = key

Sankt Hallvard · Apr 20, 2010, 02:38 PM // 14:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by RhanoctJocosa

Though you can sync and not deal with any of this crap

PS: patient/bonettis/vig spirit/spotless mind/balanced stance/woh/draw/cop = key

You haz no honor. (No srsly, if I only HAD friends I'd sync all day long)

That's a pretty solid bar, but again it shows your lack of honor. No veil and no guardian = lame imo. Also you might want to run dolyak over bala.

And you seemed to miss my point earlier. OF COURSE shock is stronger than dshot or veil, that's not even up for discussion. The point I'm trying to make is that this is RA and you can't pick your teammates(ignoring syncing). If you run w/e and wait for a solid team you're set for a good run, but given that this will take a while(more than just a while tbh) you need to take some matters into your own hands(hex prevention) for the sake of your own sanity.

PS. If you see a funky para in RA these days that's probably me. Don't ragequit on me plz like 50% do.

RhanoctJocosa · Apr 20, 2010, 02:49 PM // 14:49

Honour? Friends always give me crap for running gale blackout mes, charge sword war, boon monks and other 'honourable' builds

It just so happens that these days the more powerful builds are the ones which are seemingly dishonourable, and when it's srsbsn (which is funny cos lolRA) I run those.

PS: I don't care what people say, syncing makes RA so much more enjoyable, especially because there's quite a lot of rivalry with the higher ranked glads, and when it's sync vs. sync it gets pretty intense

urania · Apr 21, 2010, 07:55 AM // 07:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by superraptors

DUAL HEX REMOVAL IS A MUST IF U DONT WANNA GET OWNED BY VOR AND CURSE NECROS.

SIR YES SIR.
BTW SIR, cure+veil will still get steam rolled by any curse necro and partially vor mes, SIR.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sankt Hallvard

No, dshot/veil on a war is not retarded. It's retarded if you plan on making 100+ restarts to get a good ranger and competent monk. If you are somewhat human you will go insane before that happens.

1 monk simply can't carry a random RA team to 25 wins without a great deal of support(ff nec, good interrupter, off-monk hex removal). I'll make an exception if the monk is Karla or some similar high-caliber healer, but a gold cape is obviously not enough these days.

Incidentally I've long since given up playing melee in RA and now only take on supportive roles. However the frustration is perpetual, it takes days and weeks between getting both a good melee and a monk. (I ragequit teams with hexes or spam-spam builds for honor purposes)

Wow, long post. Gonna get banned now I'm pretty sure.

D shot is actually not THAT bad on a warrior (better than mending, at least

), since you can get woh after a knockdown VERY often and on most monks (at least if they dont expect it).

But I definately don't do the carry-your-team-as-far-as-you-can thing, it simply
1) isn't worth the time
2) isn't worth the nerves seeing them fail
3) a team loaded with shutdown/disruption/damage will own you, which is why 1) and 2).
(the last time i dragged a team [well, more like a newly joined doliaks hammer warrior..) was months ago, when they joined after we had 15 wins...brrrrr.)

I'll be honest, I barely ever still monk, let alone RA - it makes me a very sad panda each time i try it.

Fate Crusher · Apr 23, 2010, 05:12 PM // 17:12

Draw conditions to pressure harder imo. Combined with Vigorous Spirit, you see a higher return, in terms of the team, since you're the only one poisoned. (example)

Even if you are a good 4v4 monk, your team will struggle versus different teams. The moment you meet a team with a W/P Stunner with half a brain, any monk without bonetti's charged is screwed.

On top of people saying monks may be good at protting themselves, think of it this way. On a team with no decent rupts, You need to watch out for dom mesmer, KD hammer and a pet ranger all piling on yourself. You have no assistance from your team mates because they're doing the exact same. And therein lies most of the reasons why nabs take guardian/people complain about the monk not being uber at healing. And i'll tell you all something if you didn't realise already. It's not running out of energy, it's trying to make things recharge faster.... (Sometimes. Most times it's because of non-kiting eles or tanking sins draining your energy).

That's why I can never trust my frontline, so i go warrior. And when i don't trust my backline, i monk. And when i'm not stranded on holiday because of volcanic ash, I go dom mesmer because nothing's more fun than rendering the other team's offense..

Regulus X · Apr 23, 2010, 05:59 PM // 17:59

When rolling monk, you have to understand that you have one sole purpose in there: to kill the opposition! And the only way you'll do that is if you keep your teammates clean from blind and hexes as well as redbar them. Can you win if your warrior is permablinded/weakened/Hexed by Lame Surgers, Me/N Blood Spammers, Curse Necros, or VoR Mesmers, etc.? It's better that the monk die trying to clean and save his/her teammates than to let them die and risk not killing fast enough. Another tactic that every monk should have under their belt is that you baaaaackliiiiiine! I can't stress this one enough: If a monk stays within the cast range of a Diversion/Shame Mesmer, you're just ASKING to get owned! To counter the mesmer, simply run far back so that it forces the mesmer to chase you, luring them into your group's range to open a can of whoopin' (if your team doesn't suck that is...).

Draw Conditions, Spotless Mind, Veil, WoH/LS, PS, Guardian, and two /W Tactics stances/skills to counter auto-attacks, kd's and melee spikes, are a MUST.

eduh · Apr 23, 2010, 09:04 PM // 21:04

hey guys, can someone explain me what is the point of a -e set for a monk? i keep seeing people recommend it. thx in advance.

Sankt Hallvard · Apr 23, 2010, 09:24 PM // 21:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by eduh

hey guys, can someone explain me what is the point of a -e set for a monk? i keep seeing people recommend it. thx in advance.

Not often needed, but you should keep one in your backpack for those cases you run into e-denial. Esurge, eburn, deb shot to name the most common.

The benefit is that you can "hide" your energy by swapping to your low set. When it reads "0 energy" on your blue bar you don't lose any, and when you need to cast you swap back to your cast set.

Used to be more common and needed before, now you can probably focus on most everything else before you should worry about this. But if you want to make use of every advantage you can this is one such small thing that will improve your game.

chaos warrior zane · Apr 23, 2010, 09:25 PM // 21:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by eduh

hey guys, can someone explain me what is the point of a -e set for a monk? i keep seeing people recommend it. thx in advance.

It's so that, for whatever reason your energy drops to almost nothing you immediatly gain energy, usually 8-10 depending on the weapon

RhanoctJocosa · Apr 24, 2010, 06:38 AM // 06:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by Regulus X

When rolling monk, you have to understand that you have one sole purpose in there: to kill the opposition! And the only way you'll do that is if you keep your teammates clean from blind and hexes as well as redbar them. Can you win if your warrior is permablinded/weakened/Hexed by Lame Surgers, Me/N Blood Spammers, Curse Necros, or VoR Mesmers, etc.? It's better that the monk die trying to clean and save his/her teammates than to let them die and risk not killing fast enough. Another tactic that every monk should have under their belt is that you baaaaackliiiiiine! I can't stress this one enough: If a monk stays within the cast range of a Diversion/Shame Mesmer, you're just ASKING to get owned! To counter the mesmer, simply run far back so that it forces the mesmer to chase you, luring them into your group's range to open a can of whoopin' (if your team doesn't suck that is...).

Draw Conditions, Spotless Mind, Veil, WoH/LS, PS, Guardian, and two /W Tactics stances/skills to counter auto-attacks, kd's and melee spikes, are a MUST.

*applause* Seriously, this. Also, ffs: monks you have 72 energy. USE IT ALL before you let your team wipe.

PS: -ve energy sets aren't that big enymore because edeny isn't that big... usually your 35e set suffices. Only time I use it is when I face that elord build that seriously drops your energy to 0 in about a minute, even then you'll still get drained when you're swapping up to cast

drunknzelda · Apr 24, 2010, 09:40 AM // 09:40

I've been monking in RA for years now, but the WoH build bores the hell out of me.
For the last year or so I've been playing a HC Monk, simply because it counters pressure amazingly, while still redbarring quite nicely (although not as powerful as a WoH cast on a target below 50%, of course).
Bar is: Patient Spirit, Dwayna's Kiss, Vigorous Spirit, Spotless Mind, Spotless Soul, CoP, Healer's Covenant, <utlity skill>.
For the utility skill you should consider things like Return, Dark Escape, Shield Bash, Bonetti's etc. Yes, this makes you more vulnerable to things like a hammer war but the beauty of this build is that you are able to keep your frontline clean by maintaing both Spotless enchantments on them (costs only 2 energy each), just fire and forget I might say. Then you have your powerheal: since you should always have vigorous up on every teammember, and you are maintaining HC, you get an extreme heal/condiremove/hexremove when you activate CoP, as well as a big healing burst (300-400 if coupled with patient spirit). Then just re-apply the enchants. This build is especially effective against VoR-mesmers, Stunning Strike wars etc.
Yes, people will complain when you run this because it isnt "meta", but it's fun to play and in some situations it's the best you could have.

RhanoctJocosa · Apr 24, 2010, 09:55 AM // 09:55

multiple ench removal (ce/rip, drain on dom mes are common ones) will shut hc down very quickly, not to mention wars will have a field day training you with rupts and kds.

i know some monks that run it well, but it's still a fragile bar. fair enough to play for a change if you are bored of woh, but i dunno... not a fan

urania · Apr 24, 2010, 10:03 AM // 10:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sankt Hallvard

Not often needed, but you should keep one in your backpack for those cases you run into e-denial. Esurge, eburn, deb shot to name the most common.

The benefit is that you can "hide" your energy by swapping to your low set. When it reads "0 energy" on your blue bar you don't lose any, and when you need to cast you swap back to your cast set.

Used to be more common and needed before, now you can probably focus on most everything else before you should worry about this. But if you want to make use of every advantage you can this is one such small thing that will improve your game.

well, another important aspect of running a low e set is that you die in it.

and to all the people saying how draw, guardian etc is a must - taking either or both of those means you'll be sacrificing either your defense or your hex removal or an anti pressure skill or part of your e management and neither of that is worth kicking in the long run. You either get a good team that will foremostly need hex removal and red barring or you keep on leaving till you get one.
Moreover, draw is a double edged sword...for obvious reasons. If you think its there to draw poison with then you really have no clue to start with.