Feedback: The big monk problem

Costs? I am confused. My charm animal enchantment worked as long as I had it equiped. I cannot go look at it now, but as I remember it, Mend is the same. Or, that is the impression I got when I purchased this skill. If this is not the case, this needs to be much more clear.

Does this mean that Live Vicariously is the same?

I agree, if I have to cast mend and/or Live Vicariously then these are worthless spells, not enchantments. I would rather cast heal other, or orison of healing and get all that health at once.

I chalenge that these be made into what they claim they are, enchantments. When you target an ally you give them healing powers. Maybe what they are set up to be is to strong to run continiously, but I only wanted something to take care of the little pains so I could cast the occasional smiting spell.

Both Mending and Live Vicariously hang around until dispelled.

OK so, I am dumb, but here is the way I see the way this works.

I cast these "enchantments" in PvE and they stay active untill it is dispelled/ I die/ (we go into a town)????

Or do I have to casts these "enchantments" every battle? I would like to use Live Vicarioulsy, if it works to take care of those nasty arrows that come out of nowhere while I heal.

I am ok with casting these "enchantments" once a battle even, but they hardly seem worth casting every XX secconds.

I may just see some open slots in my skill bar if these "enchantments" don't work like they should.

I love being a Tank I just wish they had auto stike. I hate killing the fist bad guy and just standing thier taking hits while my char. gets pounded on until I target the next one.

I find that monks in general are quite hard to kill, unless you have a mesmer to assist you. Even with focus fire, they take some time to go down, especially if backed by other monks. A lot of people like to target monks first, but in general our highest priority on the kill list is always the enemy's mesmer. Once you get rid of the pesky mesmers, your casters (including monks) are safe and you can concentrate on the battle.

You can also ask someone to bring ward against melee if you are having problem with being ganked by melee characters (the exception is IW mesmers; ward against melee does nothing to stop them).

Unless you go into mana degeneration (unlikely, or otherwise you've got too many enchantments active for a warrior IMO), someone hits you with an enchantment destruction spell and dispels your enchantment, you leave the combat area, you die, or you cancel the enchantment yourself, Mending or Live Vicariously will stay on you (assuming you cast it on yourself) forever. Thus, in general, you'd only have to cast it when the mission begins and after each time you die.

This is the information I needed when I purchased these skills.

IMOHO these are not enchantments, these are spells that have no durration limit and should be labeled as such.

Thanks everyone for straightening me out.

Obviously you havent tested it out that much, on paper you can say that there are more cost effective skills than mending, but on a W/M it takes him to the next level. He becomes a much better tank and combined with Healing Hands makes him impossible to kill unless there is both a mesmer and warrior focusing on him 100%. Thats what noticed after playing many games. Mending is by far not a useless skill. With mending and Healing Hands a warrior could easily tank 2 people, which is what I normally do (in arena). Unfortunately at the moment for secondary professions, Monk is the most obvious and benificial choice, unless u have a very specific build useful only in certain situations. (Note that does not mean every GvG battle you play)

W/M is better than any other W/combo out there. Not sure about other primarys but from what ive seen the team with the most monk secondarys wins.

Mesmers are effective against monks if they prepare properly but with higher numbers you ebtter hope to have 2 good mesmer players with you (a rarity)

Both Mending and Live Vicariously are maintained enchantments.
If you look at the description of the skill, you will see they cost 10 energy to cast, and then have another -1 next to them.
The -1 means it's a maintained enchantment, and while the enchantment is still going, you will recover energy more slowly. Your energy regeneration is commonly referred to as "pips of regen" or "arrows of regen."

Monks, Necromancers, Elementalists, and Mesmers all have 4 pips of regen.
Rangers have 3 pips of regen.
Warriors have 2 pips of regen.

Each pip of energy gives you 1 energy every 3 seconds. Losing a pip to a maintained enchantment means that a caster goes from 4 to 3 pips, a ranger from 3 to 2, and a warrior from 2 to 1.

To simplify the math a little, one pip of energy will give you 10 energy over the course of 30 seconds. Energy is the lifeblood of a monk, and if you try to maintain too many enchantments you wont be regaining enough energy to use effectively to do your job.

Mending is bad because it heals only 240 health max over 30 seconds, yet continues to cost you energy even when it's not healing you at all. That means you'll have less energy when you're in a crisis situation- and as a monk your job is to deal with crises and make sure they don't result in your team dying.

*Edit*
Playing a Warrior Monk is nothing like playing a Monk primary. Additonally, as Nash pointed out, playing in the Arena is nothing like the rest of the game.

That's exactly what I said and what I will continue to say. The healing prayers line has a bunch of skills that are more effective than mending, and as a monk, every last drop of my energy matters. If I only have to spend 5 energy to keep someone alive with 1 word of healing, instead of spending 20 to have mending on them for 30 seconds, that means I've saved 15 energy that I can spend to save someone else's butt.

If I have more energy, I can heal more damage.
If I can heal more damage, my team has a better chance of winning.

Let me put it this way:
If a target comes under focus fire, you want a spell that will heal a lot of damage, FAST. Mending works slowly.

If I can keep a target that's under fire alive using mending, then he was never in any danger to begin with, and I don't worry about those situations. In the real crunch, when someone is taking hundreds of points of damage over the course of a few seconds, 240 health spread out over thirty seconds does zip. That's when I want to bust out a skill that's actually valuable and save someone's ass. But you can continue to run Mending on a healing monk if you like. Just realize that you're going to be less effective, in your own words.

Which is why you should have mending on a sacrificing necro
OoV/OoP

W/M is overrated, W/E and W/Me (maybe W/N too) are highly underrated. I could swear the arena only gave me a really good match-up for smart opponents and balanced teams 1 out of every 6-10 games. The chance of finding a player with the perfect W/N build in beta arena, for example, is probably rather rare.

I definately have to disagree with you- the only time I'd take Mending into PvP is if I'm running a W/Mo that's intended to stay at 0 energy, and I can't find something better to maintain on somebody. Sure, it'll give you 6 health per second, but almost any other healing spell in the game is better. As for mending making your W/Mo take both a warrior and mesmer focusing on him 100 percent, they aren't skilled warriors or mesmers- while I was playing arena this last weekend, I'd kill W/Mo's using mending and healing hands with my mesmer in about 10-15 seconds, solo, without them able to kill me- and that was with a character based more on shutting down casters... Yeah, the two skills will make you strong against all the other people running around with W/Mo's in the arena, but when you play against people who know what they're doing, your mending and healing hands won't help much.

I do agree that W/Mo is a good combination, though- and most of my team builds run them- they're perfect for maintaining Life Barrier on the monks on the team as well as bringing Purge Signet to remove all those hexes that get stuck on the healers. However, outside of the arena, when you can count on having someone else keeping you alive, almost any other secondary will help you out more than W/Mo- elementalists have conjures to boost your damage, and hammer knockdowns with aftershock is pretty sick too. Necromancers, you can use hexes to deal damage while healing yourself, and use nifty skills like Mark of Pain to do some AoE damage. Mesmers, you can throw on some life degeneration, slow down casting speed to help with skills like Disrupting chop, distracting blow, savage slash, etc, Rangers can give you preparations and some nice stances, and a good self-heal via Troll Unguent. I'd recommend W/Mo if you want to help out your team more while dealing damage, but if you're looking for a solid character rather than a team character, I'd recommend something other than W/Mo.

If you just leveled up to lv 3 and joined the academy right away. HUGE MISTAKE!!!

Couple of things to do. MUST really...

Get 2nd profession...

Get additional skills with 2nd profession

Get Belt

Get healing signet

Get resurrection signet

If ranger get pet EARLY so it levels up with you. Stalker, Warthog, Moa bird, Snow Wolf. (Regular Wolf , or Bear MAYBE SOMEDAY!!!!)

Level up in the northlands (Two Player Party Required)

There are level 8 charr in there. so I use the logic once you can do this level with little problems. your ready to go to the academy. I was level 8 before I went and was very happy post searing with my performance and ability to finish quests / missions... And I often got questions like How you get such a good pet already? and what do you mean I cant get a belt or 2nd profession now? you mean I have to start all over again? D'oh!! sorry try exploring a little first next time...

Ingram of Haz

Oh PS: In the previous beta weekends if you go into the academy and played a Pvp battle then logout and you could continue to be in pre searing. Not this time. you are REQUIRED to go to post searing and it will not let you back. so just don't do it till your ready. I kinda wish we could have a practice arena without going to the academy. I want to keep one character in the past for training my buddies when they come to the game. and for general recruiting purposes. I also wish I could go to my guild hall from pre searing, but that is VERY unlikly!!! One could only wish... Hey maybe a small tavern or something could be used in ascalon for guilds?

Hehe unlikly but keep wishing...Pre Searing isnt really even the actual game. Its just kinda one big newb tutorial. I strongly advise moving on after you have visited everyone that can give you a skill...witch BTW there are secret people out there that give skills...for instance I stumbled upon a ranger way back at the southern end of the map who gives...I think ignite arrows is one of the skills, and mabey dual shot as well I dont know. But he wants you to go kill the little aloe seeds.

Anyone else find one of these "hidden" trainers

I've found the Necro's hidden (curse) trainer this BWE. I found him when I was lost inside the catacombs. I think you'll have to take a left turn once inside the catacombs, keep going pass the hordes of spiders and you'll eventually find him in a place flooded with undead. He taught Soul Barbs and another skill I'm not 100% sure on (Faintheartedness?)

For every class there is a counter. This is why healers are primary targets (or should be for the opposing team). I.e. your team has two healers... if the other team has an anti-caster mesmer (like myself). Your team is screwed healing wise... unless you take me out.. hence I become a primary target. Personally I think it is a well balanced system that makes people develop strategies on the spot and coordinate.

Lansing Kai Don

Remember even the best battle plans sound great till the battle begins

And that was my tactic in Arena (and sometimes during PvE): building a nice purple wall around a healer. Sometimes I would cast a Conjure Phantasm or a Phantom Pain on someone passing by, but most of the time I focused on the main Monk. Monks can be stopped...

(too bad some W/R saw that too often and decided to take me out the minute he saw me )

Well.. DOTs don't really bother me too much either.. just disruptions.

I would LOVE it if all mesmers used DOTs only. In my little dream world, they do. To all mesmers, care to make my dream come true?

Tell you what, if all the monks promise to only use orison to heal, then us mesmers will consider using DOTs only

Back to what Bunny Master was saying, a great way I found to take out monks with an e/me strat if you're full on energy is to first cast firestorm, then cast phantom pain. Then since your energy rebuilds while youre "charging" phantom pain you have enough left for a conjure phantasm. That should wipe out a monk in that order if you're a decently leveled e/me with stacked attributes in proper e/me areas.