Curse

Windf0rce · Oct 17, 2008, 11:18 AM // 11:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by bungusmaximus

Why are monks so highly thought of? most RA monks are so atrocious that I'd rather have an extra damage dealer instead.

I believe the psychological factor plays a huge factor, maybe more than the healer itself. I myself get rather stressed when I am playing a damage healer and the opposing team has a "monk" while my team does not (monk = any healer, be it a Mo/X, Rt/X, D/X, N/Rt, N/Mo, E/Rt, E/Mo, Me/Mo, Me/Rt...). Players panic and do stupid things to get the opposing healer killed, I know I did it a few times.

For example, their Monk is at around 10% health and I am an Ele hexed with Backfire... I will surely try to pull off a Shatterstone through Backfire, taking the damage but killing the Monk, seems worth the trade off while usually casting a spell through this hex is unadvisable. But imagine the Monk manages to heal around the same time I finish casting, he does not die and I spent Energy and took 133 damage from Bfire trying that.

Some healers are an easy kill, but there are good ones around. Ritualists can be extremely dangerous too, as they provide strong heals and their blind shutdowns are very annoying. Dervishes can be sneaky and go as healers unnoticed for a while, if your team is inexperienced they will probably go for a Mesmer or another squishy and totally ignore the Derv.

Mr Emu · Oct 18, 2008, 07:48 AM // 07:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by X Cytherea X

it is possible to have an IMS, IAS, hex cleanup, condition cleanup, self-heal, knockdown, interrupt, snare, resurrection signet, and still have slots for killing skills. FALSE

Rush-good IMS
Frenzy-good IAS
Empathic-Hex+Condi+Heal on you and others
Disrupting Chop-Interrupt
Bulls-good Snare+KD
Dismember-Kill
Rezsig-Rez
Executioners-Kill

not saying it's a great bar, but it is 10 for 10...

X Cytherea X · Oct 18, 2008, 11:21 AM // 11:21

^very lite on damage, so it wont be the main "killer", which is what i like to be. but it has all the utility to hold significant weight on a team, good job.

Mr Emu · Oct 19, 2008, 07:56 PM // 19:56

i can guarantee you frenzy+bulls+dismember+execs+dchop will kill shit

Chucky333 · Oct 19, 2008, 09:22 PM // 21:22

Excellent guide, most of it doesn't apply to me as i monk most of the time in RA, but monks above all feel the wrong target priorities damage dealers in RA have.
One thing that makes me really, really mad is when the melees in my own team ignore everyone but the enemy monk, letting mesmers shit on me with diversion\shame spam and the new flavour of the month VoR\backfire combo followed by talentlessly spamming Wastrels worry, and then some random R\P spearchucker or some sin to further shit on me.
You don't need to be a freaking rocket scientist to understand that when the monk is pinging VoR, backfire, daze, WW, and a shitload of other conditions on him like mad, he might just want you to leave the enemy monk alone for a while and pressure the motherRED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing mesmer or some other trouble maker.
But i guess that's too much common sense to ask from people, so for now i'll just keep waiting for some warrior in RA who has a remote clue what he's doing.
Meh.
Untill then, great guide and i hope alot of people read it and pass the message along.

X Cytherea X · Oct 19, 2008, 10:14 PM // 22:14

^i sympathize with your pain, Chucky.

Quote:

i can guarantee you frenzy+bulls+dismember+execs+dchop will kill shit

yeah from 1/4 health

LifesRestorer · Oct 19, 2008, 10:35 PM // 22:35

no, it will. cytherea you're dumb.

erk · Oct 19, 2008, 11:45 PM // 23:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chucky333

Excellent guide, most of it doesn't apply to me as i monk most of the time in RA, but monks above all feel the wrong target priorities damage dealers in RA have.
One thing that makes me really, really mad is when the melees in my own team ignore everyone but the enemy monk, letting mesmers shit on me with diversion\shame spam and the new flavour of the month VoR\backfire combo followed by talentlessly spamming Wastrels worry, and then some random R\P spearchucker or some sin to further shit on me.
You don't need to be a freaking rocket scientist to understand that when the monk is pinging VoR, backfire, daze, WW, and a shitload of other conditions on him like mad, he might just want you to leave the enemy monk alone for a while and pressure the motherRED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing mesmer or some other trouble maker.

I understand exactly what you getting at, however from the other teams perspective, they have successfully "Monkstomped" you and taken you out of the equation for a period of time, that Monk pressure is why things like Contemplation of Purity, and Purge Signet are still often seen on RA bars but nowhere else. Now assuming your team has taken their Monk out as well for a time then it's a 3v3 battle to see who is better, it's not unlike those priest swap maps in HA.

The thing you have to remember about RA is that there is very little communication between players, when you ping an annoying Mes, you risk the chance that all players will focus on the Mes and their Monk will have time to kite and recover, if he is any good he will also keep the Mes alive. If it were TA you would just tell one player on vent to shut down the Mes just like in GvG, RA is not GvG. I often see players from the top few GvG guilds in RA, and they tend to target like they are practicing for GvG, often not very effectively. The top HA players seem to adapt better to RA targeting.

The enemy is going to target your Monk, there is no easy way to co-ordinate a spike, other than perhaps the first target called, though it's often ignored, so you have to generally get kills some other way. If you can shut down the enemy healer it makes killing so much easier, otherwise you have to pull the enemy to you. When I play a Necro I often try and get one of the enemy to overextend out of their Monks range and chase me, by throwing an annoying hex on them. Works well against melee, I usually get the kill. When I play Mes, I try and get a hex stack onto their Monk and you will often see the Monk drop back to recover. That's a sign for you team to kill whoever they can. BTW I am not afraid to cover something important like Backfire with something silly like Empathy, just to stop the Monk cleaning himself with veil.

Yue · Oct 20, 2008, 03:44 AM // 03:44

Step 1: Play a BA ranger or prot monk.
Step 2: Win.

Winterclaw · Oct 20, 2008, 04:50 AM // 04:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by bungusmaximus

Why are monks so highly thought of? most RA monks are so atrocious that I'd rather have an extra damage dealer instead.

Having a good WoH hybrid who knows how to prot and not over heal means your team's red will stay up longer for you team to kill the other one. If the other team has one, that means you will probably be getting fewer kills and getting them slower if you have a bad player on your team who tries to attack through guardian.

Also a lot of monks don't carry a res and if dropped, the other team will res him. That puts them in a res sig hole (res sigs are probably another important resource in RA). If you camp the monk when he dies and quickly kill him again after he is ressed the other team is further in the hole.

That said, while taking out a good monk helps, you have to go after the other team's most important character first. After that you should keep him killed to prevent the other team from coming back.

bungusmaximus · Oct 20, 2008, 07:33 AM // 07:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by erk

The thing you have to remember about RA is that there is very little communication between players, when you ping an annoying Mes, you risk the chance that all players will focus on the Mes and their Monk will have time to kite and recover,

Teams that communicate just a little bit usually get the win streaks, the others fail anyway. Besides, you don't have to sit on the annoying mes 24/7, just whack him a couple of times to make him stop casting. While the mes recovers you can sit on the opposing monk again.

When I warrior in RA I'm constantly swapping targets faster then a rabbit gets f*cked, I wanna crank out DPS one way or another.

Chucky333 · Oct 20, 2008, 02:46 PM // 14:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by erk

I understand exactly what you getting at, however from the other teams perspective, they have successfully "Monkstomped" you and taken you out of the equation for a period of time, that Monk pressure is why things like Contemplation of Purity, and Purge Signet are still often seen on RA bars but nowhere else. Now assuming your team has taken their Monk out as well for a time then it's a 3v3 battle to see who is better, it's not unlike those priest swap maps in HA.

The thing you have to remember about RA is that there is very little communication between players, when you ping an annoying Mes, you risk the chance that all players will focus on the Mes and their Monk will have time to kite and recover, if he is any good he will also keep the Mes alive. If it were TA you would just tell one player on vent to shut down the Mes just like in GvG, RA is not GvG. I often see players from the top few GvG guilds in RA, and they tend to target like they are practicing for GvG, often not very effectively. The top HA players seem to adapt better to RA targeting.

The enemy is going to target your Monk, there is no easy way to co-ordinate a spike, other than perhaps the first target called, though it's often ignored, so you have to generally get kills some other way. If you can shut down the enemy healer it makes killing so much easier, otherwise you have to pull the enemy to you. When I play a Necro I often try and get one of the enemy to overextend out of their Monks range and chase me, by throwing an annoying hex on them. Works well against melee, I usually get the kill. When I play Mes, I try and get a hex stack onto their Monk and you will often see the Monk drop back to recover. That's a sign for you team to kill whoever they can. BTW I am not afraid to cover something important like Backfire with something silly like Empathy, just to stop the Monk cleaning himself with veil.

Good post.
But, i'm not saying i want everyone on my team to drop what their doing, but even for my ranger if i have one, to leave the monk, and camp the mesmer for a while.
You don't even need to be a decent ranger to interrupt 2s cast time spells like Diversion and Backfire.
When you have one or more of those: Diversion, shame, backfire, VoR on you for the entire match, you know that your midline is doing something wrong, like monkstomping.
Even if a single warrior pressures the mesmer, he forces him to kite which means he's not casting his shit on me, or, he stops to cast and risks getting spiked easily. (and Backfire and Diversion can be easily dchopped as well)
Either way, the monk's ass is saved, and the warrior can go back to happily rampaging the monk.
And still, no situation you'll face in RA justifies monkstomping like that.
By switching targets that get protted you cause the monk to waste his energy, and then, after causing enough pressure and when you know their monks energy is dry, that's when you attack the monk, attacking him at the beggining when he has full energy and a bunch of defensive skills on his arsenal is the most stupid thing a warrior can do, really a shame no one in RA seems to realize such a simple thing.

X Cytherea X · Oct 20, 2008, 06:46 PM // 18:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by LifesRestorer

no, it will. cytherea you're dumb.

i didnt say it wouldnt

Quote:

yeah from 1/4 health

so back to target selection. it really depends on what build you're running. there's little point switching to the backfire/vor mesmer if you have no kds or interrupts. in that case, it might be better trying to get a kill on a dying target, or continuing pressure on enemy monk.

as for you monks, bring less stances and more hex removal. srsly 1 veil aint enuf. you and your teammates will be happier and finish matches faster.

Celeborn10 · Oct 20, 2008, 07:09 PM // 19:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by X Cytherea X

yeah from 1/4 health

1/4=x/600ish. x=150? Might want to crunch the numbers a bit more. The Warrior's spike is a wee bit bigger than that. Take it to the Master of Damage, check the spike and also check the amount of damage the spike+pressure outputs over 1 minute (under the best of circumstances) to see if the build can give enough damage over time to put a dent in the monk's energy pool.

Edit: Whoops, thought the bar was Eviscerate. Still the disruption with a 3 second KD can be enough to kill when considering the axe's random DPS range.

Jeydra · Oct 21, 2008, 02:01 AM // 02:01

Quote:

Which leaves me to the question why people NEVER tend to take any self-cleanup/heal. It doesn't completely neuter damage output imho. A skill like Natural Healing is very OP in random battles such as AB or RA. Even a warrior with a low energy regen can hold out quite a while. Of course it requires investments in points, but heck, since when do people still run tactics?

of course with a shock bar you will have just that little bit more pressure, but you can't pressure things while you're dead. You're not very likely to insta-kill any decent monk, even if you stomp him, the rest of the opposing team won't just sit and let that happen if they got 2 or more braincells.

It is, I believe, a question of style. A player who does not bring self-heals into RA will do better if he gets a balanced team (Monk, damage, semi-defensive character, etc). If the players are good he might make 20 wins for example. On the other hand he will lose many games while waiting around for the balanced team, and his chances of making Gladiator points without a Monk are seriously decreased.

If you bring self-heals, the situation is reversed. Now if you do get a balanced team you will do slightly worse (unless of course your self-heal serves other purposes, eg. Parasitic Bond as a cover hex or Insidious Parasite as a semi-damage tool), but if you don't then you will do significantly better. It is a matter of style. I personally prefer the second option, but I know several good players who prefer the first. Whichever works for you.

As for Monk-stomping, if you have the right kind of offense (eg. Assacaster + unblockable Lyssa Sin) you can kill a Monk in 10 seconds unless his team defends him, but this is rather off-topic.

Quote:

Originally Posted by X Crythera X

IN CONCLUSION: a skillbar with epic damage and self-cleanup to greatly increase the likelihood that your epic damage will go through is an optimal skillbar to bring. TRUE

Not necessarily true. Say three people think the same way as you and bring a skill bar with epic damage and self-cleanup. You're lucky and get a Monk. You still might not win. If you run into a team with 2 players with epic damage + 1 defensive midline (eg. EDA Dervish) + 1 Monk you will lose first because there's little you can do to defend your Monk. A single healer cannot outheal three player's damage without defense - that's why all successful TA teams carry some other defense aside from a single Monk like a second Smiter, a Necro with some anti-melee, a Water Elementalist, etc.

There is no optimal skill bar to bring into RA. Some bars work better than others (eg. the Burning Arrow / Prot Monk Yue mentioned), but if a team has four players using those two bars they're not going to do well.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bungusmaximus

Why are monks so highly thought of? most RA monks are so atrocious that I'd rather have an extra damage dealer instead.

Seeing you play sin I can understand your reasoning, not much room for self heal when you NEED high spec in critical strikes.

"self-healing fails, it only delays the inevitable."
lol, I had many matches that proved otherwise, you just got to adjust your tactics. A self heal makes me a good split character, my tactic would be to force the opponent to split as well to gain an advantage and kill him.

Delaying the inevitable isn't always bad, when I know I'm going to die I might as well buy some valuable time. When I'm lucky my teammates score a kill in the meantime.

Surprising - I find that the class with the most good players in RA is Monk. Yes there are bad Monks, but there are a lot more good ones.

And self-healing does fail. Unless your opponents are terrible, you cannot win in TA with only self-heals and no Monk. The Monk simply heals a lot more than what you can achieve with self-heals, and you will lose, it's just a matter of time. Although of course self-heals has its uses in RA (see above).

By the way there's very little to be gained by splitting in RA. Only times when it can even matter is when there's a priest on the map, but the priest is usually such a small advantage that I usually rejoice whenever someone does that, crushing the remaining 3 people with 4, and the mopping up the last guy.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr Emu

Rush-good IMS
Frenzy-good IAS
Empathic-Hex+Condi+Heal on you and others
Disrupting Chop-Interrupt
Bulls-good Snare+KD
Dismember-Kill
Rezsig-Rez
Executioners-Kill

not saying it's a great bar, but it is 10 for 10...

Empathic Removal doesn't really qualify as a heal. It's 50 health - big deal. Natural Healing heals twice that much, Glyph of Restoration might give you 200 health over both spells, Healing Breeze with 8 Healing Prayers is 14 * 18 = 252 health regained. If you're going to rely on Empathic Removal to actually keep you alive, good luck to you. Sure it's better than nothing, but not by a lot.

You can't have everything, and what to bring and what not to, what to give up and what to retain is a matter of style.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chucky333

Excellent guide, most of it doesn't apply to me as i monk most of the time in RA, but monks above all feel the wrong target priorities damage dealers in RA have.
One thing that makes me really, really mad is when the melees in my own team ignore everyone but the enemy monk, letting mesmers shit on me with diversion\shame spam and the new flavour of the month VoR\backfire combo followed by talentlessly spamming Wastrels worry, and then some random R\P spearchucker or some sin to further shit on me.
You don't need to be a freaking rocket scientist to understand that when the monk is pinging VoR, backfire, daze, WW, and a shitload of other conditions on him like mad, he might just want you to leave the enemy monk alone for a while and pressure the motherRED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing mesmer or some other trouble maker.
But i guess that's too much common sense to ask from people, so for now i'll just keep waiting for some warrior in RA who has a remote clue what he's doing.
Meh.
Untill then, great guide and i hope alot of people read it and pass the message along.

Lol I can sympathize with you, thanks

And I really should add somewhere that shutdown Mesmers make for the single biggest threat to Monks.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr Emu

i can guarantee you frenzy+bulls+dismember+execs+dchop will kill shit

You'll do a lot better with Eviscerate, and I'm sure you know it. Giving up Eviscerate for Empathic Removal means you sacrifice some damage for some self-cleanup + self-heal. It's part of the balance that all RA players play with.

Quote:

Originally Posted by X Crytherea X

so back to target selection. it really depends on what build you're running. there's little point switching to the backfire/vor mesmer if you have no kds or interrupts. in that case, it might be better trying to get a kill on a dying target, or continuing pressure on enemy monk.

Not really. If you're attacking a Backfire / VoR Mesmer, he either kites or tanks your damage. If he tanks your damage he dies a lot faster (or his Monk runs out of energy a lot faster). If he kites he can't cast. If he does choose to cast then he'll be in the same place for 2 seconds as he activates Backfire, which translates to a lot of damage for you.

Never leave Dom Mesmers alone, they will shutdown your Monk.

Mr Emu · Oct 21, 2008, 03:54 AM // 03:54

its pretty obvious I was just pointing that bar out for cytherea's sake

X Cytherea X · Oct 21, 2008, 12:46 PM // 12:46

Quote:

Not necessarily true. Say three people think the same way as you and bring a skill bar with epic damage and self-cleanup. You're lucky and get a Monk. You still might not win. If you run into a team with 2 players with epic damage + 1 defensive midline (eg. EDA Dervish) + 1 Monk you will lose first because there's little you can do to defend your Monk. A single healer cannot outheal three player's damage without defense - that's why all successful TA teams carry some other defense aside from a single Monk like a second Smiter, a Necro with some anti-melee, a Water Elementalist, etc.

There is no optimal skill bar to bring into RA. Some bars work better than others (eg. the Burning Arrow / Prot Monk Yue mentioned), but if a team has four players using those two bars they're not going to do well.

it is AN optimal skillbar to bring, not THE optimal skillbar. there are many "optimal" skillbars but the one i describe contributes more directly towards a team winning than other skillbars would.

let's say team A has (1 melee with epic damage an IAS and another offensive support skill but no cleanup, 1 monk, 1 antimelee, 1 anti-monk) and team B has (1 melee with epic damage and self cleanup, 1 monk, 1 antimelee, 1 anti-monk).

i think team B is more likely to win because both monks will be harassed by the antimonks and both melees will be harassed by the antimelees. melee B is less dependent on his monk to get his kills. melee A wanders around uselessly once any form of antimelee gets on him. monk A probably only has 1 hex and 1 cond removal each. and remember this is RA, so he has no idea what the most vital hex and vital cond to remove at any given time is.

Quote:

You'll do a lot better with Eviscerate, and I'm sure you know it. Giving up Eviscerate for Empathic Removal means you sacrifice some damage for some self-cleanup + self-heal. It's part of the balance that all RA players play with.

Quote:

its pretty obvious I was just pointing that bar out for cytherea's sake

in the most unfavorable situations, he just might get more kills with that bar. im looking into Empathic Removal myself, it's like 6 skills in 1!

moriz · Oct 21, 2008, 03:16 PM // 15:16

blessed light is 3 skills in one. unfortunately, it sucks at all three functions. ditto with empathic removal.

btw, only bad players "wander around uselessly" once antimelee goes on him. good players can pressure and score kills in spite of those antimelee, and do not sacrifice valuable skillslots for removal.

X Cytherea X · Oct 21, 2008, 06:58 PM // 18:58

for its cost, recharge and effect at no attribute, it's a good elite if you have a free slot.

maybe, but why allow your killing efficiency to be reduced by 50-90% when you can achieve close to full functionality by taking matters into your own hands?

Quote:

Unless you change your build to something utterly pointless like what Cytherea plays you may as well not RA.

everyone should play like me and thus not fail tbh

Krill · Oct 21, 2008, 08:36 PM // 20:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by moriz

blessed light is 3 skills in one. unfortunately, it sucks at all three functions. ditto with empathic removal.

btw, only bad players "wander around uselessly" once antimelee goes on him. good players can pressure and score kills in spite of those antimelee, and do not sacrifice valuable skillslots for removal.

1. Empathetic removal doesn't suck, it's really a pretty good skill now. Whether it fits on a warrior or sin bar is a different question.

2. What exactly do you do as a warrior with IP or empathy on you to not be useless if it's not removed? You can attack through it and incur pretty significant health loss or you can do nothing. Maybe at best you finish someone off with very low health, but what usually happens in RA is you get hit with anti-melee strait away and then again when the skill recharges. By the it's over and you haven't done much.

It's the same story every time with these crappy VoR mesmers. Backfire, VoR monk, empathy melee, use warrior stances or shadow arts to avoid damage. Unless you change your build to something utterly pointless like what Cytherea plays you may as well not RA. The only reason I use to play RA is because it was nice to practice stuff I don't get to play much elsewhere. If you were good, you won a lot. Now it's mostly just a bunch of shitty glad farmers that want a PvP title in HoM or to impress people I guess.