Curse

Asplode · May 28, 2005, 02:16 PM // 14:16

Two words: God Complex.

Trust me I know, I play a monk myself T.T

Zombie · May 28, 2005, 03:29 PM // 15:29

I, fortunately, haven't had the bad luck to play with a unhelpful monk. The ones I have played with, at the very least, do their best to keep everyone alive. The couple really good one's I've teamed with damn near keep everyone at full health. I always make it a point to thank a monk (or anyone, for that matter) for rez'ing me and always congradulate the monk and the whole team for a job well done when we complete a mission or quest. There's nothing like being told you've done well by someone you barely know to make you feel good.

As an E/Me, I tend to stay far back from the dogpile, but when I do occasionally get drawn in, my almost constantly used Aura of Restoration and my commonly equiped Armor of Earth go a long way towards keeping the monk from having to worry too much about me. Also, being a Fire focused El., I'm occasionally -having- to get into the pile in order to do much of the damage (especially for huge, nasty mobs). Remember, us other casters have a job to do as well

.

eventhorizen · May 28, 2005, 03:37 PM // 15:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xellos

My vision of the game was that everything was balanced, at this point in tombs, I could care less about necros. Rangers and warriors aren't even that desired for me, and I'd only grab a mesmer if I was sure the mesmer was set up to counter something specific that my strategy cannot. Otherwise, their just not important. Same with elementalists back awhile bit. When KOR introduced Life Barrier War/Mo, who cared about eles back then?

The point is that throughout the entire change, monks remain strong. Sure, they suffered a bit in the beginning, but ever since beta 1 or so, they became the main dominant counterpart in any party. Name one class that has a "must have" in a party. There is only one. And that is monk. Flavours of the month control which classes are useful and which aren't at the moment, but monks are not even affected by the slightest.

My vision was that under the right circumstances, a secondary monk would work just as well or even better then a primary monk. As of right now, that is impossible. Monks are solidly hogging the defense department in every way possible.

Lol and why do you think that is? Every class has some healing/defence boosting skills, but the other classes are focused on other styles of play than healing. Thats the whole point.
No other class should be able to get close to a monk primary in terms of healing abilities, because thats what the monk IS.
Mesmers shut down, drain and do a bunch of other stuff to an enemy, eles have massive AoE or direct damage spells plus armor buffs and more.
I would have though you understood all this by now.
This game isnt about balancing one build against the other, what would be the point in reducing elementalist damage e.g. but increasing its defencive abilities? Absolutly pointless. Take a 2nd proffesion as a monk lol.

Quite simply imo the monk is the only purely defensive character, the only character thats geared towards fighting his own teams death, rather than the other teams life.
It would look rediculous imo if a mesmer only build was to fit their 'healing' skills and take the place of monk in a fight.

'The monk class monopolises healing, its miles ahead of any other character in life giving ability' ---- I say good. Thats what I personally prefer, massive variations in skills, abilities, character performance, and playing style. If they were to introduce another healing class, or a class that had high defence and life powers, then it would be same as adding another warrior class.

The only possible argument you could make is that some classes are sorely lacking in the ability to survive a fight, but id say thats down to lack of skill, experiance, and decent skill combos on the players part.

"My vision of the game was that everything was balanced"
It is, you want to keep your elementalist alive then you can choose a monk secondary if you want. Or you could decide instead to go mesmer second and be really vulnerable if your not cautious, but exceptionally deadly to any opponent.

The balance in the game depends on what YOU choose, and how well you use your character.

Prince Daniel · May 28, 2005, 05:38 PM // 17:38

Great post, i feel that people dont realise what a monk can and cant do, people shouting heal me heal me is not helpful as if you could heal them you would heal me, and people insulting the monk when the party loses saying you didnt heal me, res me etc is not nice. Ive also been insulted when i stayed at the back of the group,or out of the way,?, do people not realise i can heal just as good not being attacked than being attacked.

WillOrWil · May 28, 2005, 08:38 PM // 20:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by LathalDraugr

Yes, how to be a monk friendly group which is not how not to die all the time generally. Anyway my problem is not with you but rather the kind of people who are attracted to the monk class because of people allowing some monks to dictate terms.

Wrong and out of line? Why, because I have an opinion thats different from yours? Look you seem to be assuming I'm saying things i'm not. Could you go back and reread my post then pick the bits out that are actually wrong or out of line please because I'm not seeing any.

It was late when I worte this so maybe it's not clear. I am not saying all monks are bad players, I'm certainly not saying you are. What I am saying is that thanks to the attitude "the monk is always right" that you seem to be suggesting there are plenty of bad players choosing the monk class because they want to be centre of attention or order everyone else about. I'm saying that the monk class attracts egotistical and self-centred people, not that it is comprised of nothing but such people. I also pointed out other classes attract different sorts of bad players.

I'm happy to discuss but I would also like to point out I'm complaining about bad players not monks in general.

*sigh* Once again go back and re-read my post. Then go back and re-read what I have quoted you saying. Once more you will see you are wrong. And try "actually" reading it this time without letting your bias and dislike for monks taint what is "actually" written. *sigh*

OvertheHill · May 28, 2005, 08:43 PM // 20:43

The vast majority of those who complain about monks are the worst of the uBeR l33t d00dz who complain bitterly about anything and everything that doesn't directly testify to their own uBeR l33t-ness.

Personally, I won't refuse to heal someone, no matter how much of a jerk the guy is being. I put that in the same category as dropping out of groups in the middle of a mission. I can tolerate anything once. I simply won't group with them the next time.

That said... everyone prioritizes. A player that seems to be playing better than others gets more attention that the elementalist that is spending their time swinging swords, not casting spells. If a talented, respectful player and a loudmouth aggro-er are both at 1/2 hp and dropping fast, and I have two spells up on the bar, it doesn't take a lot of imagination to figure out who gets the "Heal Other" and who gets the "Orison of Healing."

One other thing.... I am a dedicated healing monk with almost all my points in divine and healing. I have Rebirth on my skill bar for a reason. I don't survive in melee very long. I don't care if you like Restore Life better. Run a monk and put Restore Life on YOUR skill bar. I also not going to empty my energy reserves that's supposed to be for the whole group's healing early in combat if someone does something stupid to get themselves killed. They are going to wait till combat ends or my energy reserves drop to the point where I'm not dumping 35-40 points of energy into the ether to rez them... or even better, someone else in the group with rez on their skill bar that is standing next to their corpse can rez them with the rez they are supposed to have on their skill bar.

Neo-LD · May 28, 2005, 09:05 PM // 21:05

I was once in Sanctum Cay and there were 4 groups all shouting "group of 5 needs monk for mission". Besides me, there was not a single monk primary anywhere in the district. (This was an active district, at least 50 other people running around)

I typed "monk lfg mission" and immedeatly got 4 requests to party.

Once in mission, they all yelled that I should carry the scepter of orr. Then they all complained I died too often (wonder why). Then, after pulling the most 1337 healing job ever, saving our entire group from mantle and undead at the same time, the one guy who died screams "WTF why didnt you heal me"

My feelings:

Dude. I am tryng to keep myself and 5 other people alive. At almost all times, Half of my spells are always havent even recharged yet. Monks have a maximum mana pool and maximum cast rate. I cant save everyone every time. Especially when mr necro over here is saccing all his life while being focused by 4 mantle at once.

In other words the Original Poster is right 100%.

buggsy · May 28, 2005, 09:17 PM // 21:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by LathalDraugr

Well I have to say that my experience is that of all the classes monk is generally the home to the most egotistical, self-centered and often just plain bad players. From my experience of primary player monks about 80% are worse than the henchmen, about 10% are better and very handy to have and another 10% are also better than the henchmen but remind you of it every 5 seconds. Not complaining about the good monks out there but many monks are in it just to be the centre of attention and feed their egos.

WRT to the points you raised number 1 applies to all spellcasters, Necros, Elementalists and Monks. It's just sensible teamwork, warriors should take the hits.

Number 2 is a good general rule but has no relevance to warriors in general and W/Mos in particular as they have to run ahead to keep up their adrenaline and to keep aggro away from the casters and rangers.

3. I've seen plenty of monks stand about in poisoned water too.

4. If they're using a vampiric weapon then don't heal them perhaps? It's not a monks job to keep the health bars at maximum contrary to what a lot of players seem to think, it's to keep the team alive.

5. As far as being "armchair gamers", there are plenty monks who are terrible for this.

6. Instead of lecturing others about what it's like to play a monk try playing another class. When you have learned how adrenaline and summoned minions work come back and we can talk. Casters are not the only players in the game, both warriors and summoner necros are far more effective if they can keep up a good momentum. While your average monk is sitting there waiting for his energy to reach maximum because he tried to keep everyones health at max my summoned minions are dying very quickly but if we just ignore the monk my minions take most of the damage while dealing some of their own rendering the monk redundant for a bit, meaning they don't need to use energy.

7.Again something relevant to all classes and players, please don't assume you being a monk and you being a good player are connected. All classes can be used by players of all types.

8. Yes co-operation also involves listening to others. Being a monk does not make you an expert at how the game works usually it doesn't even make you an expert on how your class works. Learn how others work before demanding that parties fit solely around you please.

9. Again nothing to do with being a monk or not and it should be pointed out that up until Kryta most level 20s are effectively invincible unless you just stand there doing nothing. Both my lvl 20 N/Mo and W/Mo can wipe out the Charr army in the wall mission and survive opening the gates in Nolani easily (both solo). If a level 20 player gets killed in a party before Henge and probably further it's entirely down to laziness on their part.

10. Be nice to all other players , monk or not. If they make a mistake or simply don't do what you thought they would instead of flaming them try to explain what you thought they were going to do or make suggestions to improve the quality of play. Unfortunately i've seen far too many players go "OMG u guys suck, NOOBS" and run off and the funny thing is 9/10 the mission gets easier after that.

I've also seen plenty of players let their tempers hurt them more than any hurridly typed insult ever hurt anybody else. For an example see the people who didn't believe me when I said it was ok to attack glint and quit causing them to have to restart a mission, all because of a lack of trust or patience or the countles number of players who have gotten angry at a simple mistake made by a new player and quit minutes from the end of a mission we go on to complete.

As for keeping in mind what you said about keeping alive those nicest to you. Well I do, thats why with the exception of Mursaat heavy missions i prefer to play with healer henchmen. I think you'd be hard pressed to find players of other classes who confess to lowering the effectiveness of a team solely to feed their ego. I know I certainly play to the best of my abilities regardless of whether the team is letting me order them about or is "being nice" to me.

Basically the problem is that the monk class seems to attract the most egotistical and self-centered players in the same way the warrior class attracts the more headstrong no-tactics zerg-rush kind of crowd, thats not to say all the players who use this class are like that just that certain classes attract certain kinds of players.

After creating a monk, I found myself barking orders at an elementalist once to get out of melee (I didnt care how much damage he did). Later I found myself barking tactical advice about aggro control to the group. And when I think nobody is paying attention I madly ping the map to make lots of pinging noises.

Im not normally a jerk, or am I trying to be, but playing a monk, your always looking at health bars and the radar map. When a caster blows all of my mana in under 15 seconds, or Joe blo who wasnt paying attention to the radar map aggroes 5 other monsters, then it gets the team killed. Im not mad cause I got to work harder, im mad that we all got slaughtered because of ignorance. Its not that monks are armchair generals or jerks, were just aware of the entire picture where all the other players are concentrated on one monster at a time. I never noticed this when I played my necro, or when I played my elementalist, but as soon as I created a monk it all became perfectly clear.

When your a warrior, your eyes are fixed on your adrenaline skills that are recharging.

When your an elementalist, your eyes are fixed on the immediate surrounding monsters that are grouped together so you can time your next Area Effect damage spell.

When your a necro, your eyes are fixed on a monster's health bar to see if it your DOT's are still working. Your mind is also focused on remembering the last time you cast a DOT on the last monster, or the last time you cast Vereta's Sacrifice.

Havent played a ranger yet.

A team without a leader is just a gaggle of failures. You got 3 people drawing 3 different directions on the map, and 3 different targets. A monk who knows exactly how much mana he has and always has an eye on the bigger picture makes a great leader. (not necissarilly leader who knows where to go, but in the middle of the battle their tactical info is far more vast then every other player in the group). If I bark, sorry, didnt mean to, just got a little emotional.

buggsy · May 28, 2005, 09:41 PM // 21:41

13 healing
13 protection
11 divine healing

Reversal of fortune (for the heavy hitters)
Orisin of Healing
Heal party (most mana efficient healing spell sometimes)
Word of healing (I see you have less then half health)
Healing breeze
Aegis
Vengeance (helps in hairy situations, when mana permits)
Normal rez

With my level 20 monk with maxed out ascetic armor, maxed attribute points, who finished the game, I decided to go exploring in the desert with a group of level 17-20's starting in Amnon Oasis. Maybe finish a few quests up. We couldnt get 100 feet out the door without being ganged banged by 10 scarabs, and 3 of those scorpion things all at once. We died pretty quick.

Sometimes areas are just too hard to go on a skipping along merilly without a worry in the world. That area was nearly impossible when I was level 17, it was nearly impossible when I was level 20 with killer spells to back up. Same with those Hydras. Why dont the mezmers use backfire on them, I mean Hydras are using spells, Ill never know.

We can play the blame game all day long, but thats really going to get nowhere. Its why I created a monk in the first place. I wanted to be the best monk I can be. I never wanted a party member to die, so when one does it really sucks.

The rest of the classes should try to be the best they can be.

AND STOP StANDING IN A TiGHt gROUP WHEN YOUR BEING HIT BY A AREA EFFeCT SpELLS LIKE A HYdrAs MeTEOR!!! SCATTER!!! My cap key is broke, I held it down as hard as I could.

DismalClown · May 28, 2005, 11:15 PM // 23:15

The reason monks may seem egotistical:

Everyone else is focused on bringing the enemy down, we are focused on the team staying alive. So if anyone is doing anything that hinders our goal (keeping the team alive) we are obligated to start telling people how to play (things people should know anyway by level 20); focus fire, stay together, rest up, necro stop tanking.

Lets say you are a warrior and I had the ability to make your job harder (like healing the enemy) you wouldn’t be very happy about this and would tell me to stop. Well that’s what healers have to do. If you are making our job harder than it has to be we have to tell you to stop. So we may come across as egotistical but we are just trying to keep you alive. Play when a death penalty just makes things harder.

cristidam · May 28, 2005, 11:23 PM // 23:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by WillOrWil

1. Most of the time you NEED a warrior in the group. The warrior has higher AC than any other class. The warrior is the perfect meat shield to sit there and take the full brunt of the enemy's attack. If a warrior is shielding well, I can heal an entire group easily and also attack with no problems at all.
An elementalist is NOT a good meat shield. I don't care how much damage you do. All it takes is one spell caster (from any profession) who sits there, taking hit after hit after hit (without running away), to drain ALL of my energy healing them so I can heal no one else not even myself. For the good of the group and a successful mission...please...casters...RUN when you are taking heavy damage. Why? Because if you don't it is your fault people die or that I let you die so I can heal everyone else. You are not a warrior, do NOT tank!

I would like to add up on this. While doing a Fissure mission today we had a team with 2 monks, me being one of them. So we go ahead and kill stuff and we do so well, we can even take two groups of monsters at a time. But all is not that well it seems, as the other monk is like " Oh, im a monk. I can heal myself so those puny monsters can bash away at me as long as they want, i wont die" and he just stands there without trying to run or something. And the battle wasnt that tough as to say "I better lose my life than to let that warrior die." The point is, although we were lucky to get out of the fights alive, he was draining both our energies, greatly diminshing the chances of survivability in case of an imediate danger. And the times when he would ctrl+click his energy bar with low energy weren't that rare and thanks to my essence bond on the warriors i could at least keep up with the healing.

Jwh6913 · May 28, 2005, 11:30 PM // 23:30

I agree dismal.

Jimbodan · May 29, 2005, 03:05 AM // 03:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by buggsy

Sometimes areas are just too hard to go on a skipping along merilly without a worry in the world. That area was nearly impossible when I was level 17, it was nearly impossible when I was level 20 with killer spells to back up. Same with those Hydras. Why dont the mezmers use backfire on them, I mean Hydras are using spells, Ill never know.

The problem with that is that Backfire has a really long recharge time, we can't spam it on all 6 hydras attacking. My first character was a mesmer, whom I beat the game with. When I was fighting a group of 2 hydra's it wasn't much of a problem, as I could backfire one and interrupt the other, but with more then 2 it was a lot more difficult.

Willow · May 29, 2005, 03:19 AM // 03:19

If you're fighting 6 hydras, that's your problem right there.

Shoujo · May 29, 2005, 08:41 AM // 08:41

Monks - My impression of monk players are largely negative. They're the only class that frequently charge gold for their services, taking advantage of the fact that other players need them and they're scarce. Extremely lame in my opinion. Also, because they know they're practically guaranteed parties, monks seem to be the quickest to ditch a party if something doesn't go their way. It just doesn't seem very nice to screw over five people just because there's usually one jerk or idiot.

Leaders - Are monks really suited for being the leader? I've been getting a monk to 18ish, and I've found that I'd make a crappy leader because I'm usually just looking at health bars (how low and how fast they're going down) rather than evaluating the battle itself and I'm virtually unaware of what skills are being used against the party unless it's a hex. If a leader had to be selected based solely on class, I would think it'd be the warrior since they have the least variables to worry about and most of their actions don't require much attention unless they're trying to disrupt a skill. Thoughts?

Henchmen - I'm a registered henchmen user. They're reliable, they don't have a personality (= they're not jerks), their predictability makes it a lot easier to plan a fight and have a rough idea of what to expect, and they're available when I want to go whack stuff. They make mistakes, but they're ones you can familiarize yourself with by grouping with them often, and also, depending on your class, come up with ways to deal with those mistakes. What's not to like? If they actually got their gear infused, I probably wouldn't bother playing with people unless I was in a weird mood. I've already given the grouping with players thing a shot, and didn't find it to my liking. It's not like the Guild Wars community as a whole is made up of humanity's best and brightest.

Neo-LD · May 29, 2005, 03:04 PM // 15:04

I have never charged any group gold to monk for them. A clan once offered me gold to monk for their HoH team though. =D

Monks get blamed if anyone dies. Monks have the hardest job in the entire group. Monks die very fast. Monks have a maximum mana pool and maximum cast rate.

btw on that monks dies very fast part, is there any way to stop taking 200+ damage from one hydra spell? It sux. Keep in mind the best armor is not yet available to me.

Jana · May 29, 2005, 03:27 PM // 15:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neo-LD

btw on that monks dies very fast part, is there any way to stop taking 200+ damage from one hydra spell? It sux. Keep in mind the best armor is not yet available to me.

Yep, easy...

Protective Spirit 4tw

Jana

Jwh6913 · May 29, 2005, 05:06 PM // 17:06

I never charge gold

once in a while I may ask if they mind taking me to aboss so I could capture a elite, most doesn't mind cuz that only adds to my usefulness and diversity of my skills

I went back to thirsty river to get word of healing, that group thought I were the most leet monk evar just cuz nobody even died, and succeeded in the mission cuz i knew what to do.

I know I'm not leet anyways

Kaido · May 29, 2005, 05:41 PM // 17:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by WillOrWil

1. Most of the time you NEED a warrior in the group. The warrior has higher AC than any other class. The warrior is the perfect meat shield to sit there and take the full brunt of the enemy's attack. If a warrior is shielding well, I can heal an entire group easily and also attack with no problems at all.
An elementalist is NOT a good meat shield. I don't care how much damage you do. All it takes is one spell caster (from any profession) who sits there, taking hit after hit after hit (without running away), to drain ALL of my energy healing them so I can heal no one else not even myself. For the good of the group and a successful mission...please...casters...RUN when you are taking heavy damage. Why? Because if you don't it is your fault people die or that I let you die so I can heal everyone else. You are not a warrior, do NOT tank!

Yes, generally, an elementalist is not a good tank, but I hope you never tell an Earth Elementalist packing Armor of Earth + Wards that he can't tank.

Rajamic · May 29, 2005, 06:27 PM // 18:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shoujo

Leaders - Are monks really suited for being the leader? I've been getting a monk to 18ish, and I've found that I'd make a crappy leader because I'm usually just looking at health bars (how low and how fast they're going down) rather than evaluating the battle itself and I'm virtually unaware of what skills are being used against the party unless it's a hex. If a leader had to be selected based solely on class, I would think it'd be the warrior since they have the least variables to worry about and most of their actions don't require much attention unless they're trying to disrupt a skill. Thoughts?

Yeah, monks shouldn't be leading, at least not from a battle perspective. If they want to decide what fights you get into, fine. That should go to the most experienced player (though it usually falls to the dumbass, no matter what the rest of us do). But in combat, when it comes to calling targets, no, not the healer. When I'm on my El/Mo, I'm paying so much attention to the party window that I usually don't even look at my radar to see if new enemies are on the way.

I can see 2 perspectives on it.
1) A Warrior should call. Playing a warrior is one of the more mindless tasks in the game. Also, Warriors have to get to a given target in order for focus fire to happen. If they are always calling the nearest target, you can bring all your guns to bear quicker.
2) A Ranger should call. Rangers are a tactical class. Therefore, if you find a good Ranger, the player most likely understands battle strategy. Also, they have a better perspective of the battle to pick the best target than warriors have down in the trenches. A Ranger who is anal about being in the high ground probably has a better perspective than the mages too.