Each non-monk class needs 1 more self-healing skill.

Hi, I think the chorus of "Group LF Monk" cries in every mission area, every town , in the Team pvp arena, etc indicates a problem. There's no other class that is considered as *essential* as a healer. You can skip ranged damage, skip spell damage, skip warriors, without any problems, but skipping healers usually means trouble.

So, I think Elems, Warriors, and Rangers should each get another self healing skill. (I've never played a Mesmer, so I can't speak for them, and I think Necros are ok.) It should be different to the existing self-healing skill, and if you sacrifice 2 slots to equip both (or heaven forbid, 4 slots to equip both from each of your classes), it should make you more self-sufficient with regards to healing. (But at a severe cost to power, of course).

It also gives more options to those who want to only devote 1 slot to self-healing. They can choose a self healing skill that complements the skills that their party monk has chosen.

I consider this problem important enough that the skills should be added to the basic game rather than as part of an expansion.

Here's some ideas, but my basic point was the above.

Elem skill: Energy Storage. Cast time 1 secs. Energy cost 5. 30 secs recharge.
When used, player will be healed 50..100 percent of max health. However, player will lose all Energy. This skill causes Exhaustion.

Warrior skill: Tactics. Instant cast. No energy cost. 30 secs recharge.
For 30 secs, gain health regen of 1..3, and energy DEGEN of 2.

Ranger skill: Wilderness survival. Preparation.
Causes arrows to become vampiric, player gains 1..4 health when they hit.


So you see, nothing too powerful, but handy in certain situations, and used differently from the existing self-heal skills.

PS.

I'd also like to see more classes being able to remove conditions, enchantments, and hexes, but do it much more poorly than the classes that can do so at the moment. Say, Elem can cure hexes, Rangers can cure conditions, and warriors can shout away enchantments. But the skill that they get to do it is much inferior (high cost, chance of failure, etc) to similar skills that Monks, Necros and Mesmers have.

Giving every class a poor alternative to monk healing/removal will not do anything to make monks less desirable, because groups of eight autonomous individuals will get trampled by eight people who brought a monk along, freeing up their self-heal slots for effective class skills. As it is, teamwork will always prevail over individualism and that's how it should be.

It might have a marginal effect on PvE but that's it.

the eight autonomous individuals you speak of... don't get trampled
they get trapped and raped because the other classes are rangers/monks and mesmers
their abilities which are CHEAP, NON ELITE... instantaneous non deniable denying of your abilities as a warrior/self healing monk... but this is of course... was in my other thread

AND YOU GUYS.. are so good...

Darren Jasper: Ah, but it makes a no-monk team a little more viable than it is now. So maybe if the no-monk team is more skillful than the other team, then the mere addition of a monk to the other team won't even the odds to such a large degree.

And a group of pve'ers will feel a little more confident in setting out on their own with some tweaks to their skill line up, rather than standing around shouting "LF Monk".

Like I said - I don't want a drastic change. Just a little something to give us more options to narrow the gap.

Your complains about mesmers class, while they are hilarious, really don't belong in this thread.

Sure, if you want these skills to feel safer in PvE, that's one thing. That's fine. I just think you're profoundly mistaken if you think these kinds of shoddy self-heals will replace a monk against a solid team.

so you must be a mesmer then?

Nope. But every time I see a mesmer lock down a pine-fresh noob who can only think to counter it by holding his breath, kicking his feet and shouting "nerf", I crack a little smile...

One more self-healing skill won't do anything. The real dilemna is this: Give non-monks EFFICIENT healing, or no? Right now, non-monks do NOT have efficient healing, and this is why you want change.

HOWEVER, let's see if other classes have efficient healing, what's that leave? Monks are pretty much useless, except for a few talented Smiting monks. Other than that they will be outclassed in every aspect.

Yeah, and people refusing to invite monks because they are essentially worthless indicates a problem as well.

Try playing monk sometimes. It's amazing how many people bring up stuff like this without even experiencing monks first hand.

i didn't say nerf...
i said... THIS GAME IS BULLSHIT...

warrior cuts your dick off
you die...

(of course i'm defending warrior and i'm a monk/necro... warrior meets my shield of judgement along with a bunch of other retarded spells which allow me to win INSTANTANEOUSLY TOO... so yeah.. we're all in the same faggot boat... we beat the warriors)

BASICALLY MY STANCE IS NOT I LOVE WARRIORS
i am a selfish monk who doesn't want to HEAL!! HAHAHAHAHAHHAHA
kiss my ass mesmer lover

Well, whenever you're done making a big spazzy racket and want to explain what your stance is, be my guest.

500+ heal for 5 energy, non-interruptable and 30 sec recharge? I'd say that's pretty powerful.

oh i didn't even read his post... i was just fighting with the other guy
hahaha... um that's a bad idea

Hey, I've played a monk. And like the other person said, having a monk specialising in healing will always be important. Even IF individuals have efficient self-healing, it will come at a severe cost in skill slots - that's the beauty of GW's 8-slot system. And I'm not even arguing for efficient self-healing, anyway.

As I've said again and again, I'd just like to narrow the gap. 1 extra self heal won't change how we organise our builds and our groups - but it might give us more viable options at the fringes. (like 2 monks vs 3 monks? Or which 2nd class to choose for a character focusing on his primary?) etc.

Oh - one place the extra self-sufficiency might make a difference is in random pvp - (I know people look down their noses at it, but it's fun sometimes too, right? Like selecting the "random char select" option in a fighting game) You can gamble and make a self-reliant build, and if you end up getting a monk on your team, then you've wasted a slot or two on your inferior self-healing skills. But if you don't have a monk, then you have a better chance than you used to against a random team that does.

Well, fine. Up the recharge time and energy cost then. Or make it a one-use signet. Or come up with a completely different idea for the alternate Elem self-heal. I was just trying to illustrate my point with some examples.

Hmm, I seem to have misinterpreted your motives, but you need to understand that 1 single skill of the same calibur as the current ones (like...Healing Signet #2) is pretty much a waste of time to implement.

If they were really to provide you with truly viable options, then that would make monks unnecessary. Anything less and it's not really viable, is it?

...This is rediculous, honestly. Monks are valuable for a reason, because everyone wants to sit there and do damage, I mean "pwn ppl."

So the newbie suggestion? GIVE EACH PROFESSION MORE HEALING!!!11!!!oneone

Some of the healing abilities of the profession are strong enough, maybe you should look at entire skill listing before screaming about changes.

Whilst I said I do play a monk, it's a monk secondary and I use it primarily for healing. And my monk is not high level, nor do I pvp with it. So, ok, I don't know a huge amount about monks.

So, are you saying that apart from healing, monk skills are useless? Their condition removal, protection spells, and various enchantments don't contribute to a party at all? I know they're -supposed- to, but are you saying that, in practice, if a party doesn't need healing from a monk, then the other abilities that monks have aren't useful enough to justify using a party slot on them?


I don't personally know about GvG and such - but say any class could become self-sufficient in healing by sacrificing 4 skill slots on all the self-heals. One or two tankers in a group does so, whereas the mesmers, elems and stuff choose not to. In this situation, the party gains the option of choosing 1 monk instead of two. Or if they have 2 monks, one of them can focus on something other than healing. (Whereas currently, you need both monks to be healers.) Would this be a good thing or a bad thing? I thought it would be a good thing because the team has more choices - the original 2 healing monks, plus the additional 1 healing monk and another class (with some members of the group going self-sufficient), or 1 healing monk and 1 protection/smiting/other monk.

I guess from your point of view it would be a bad thing - since the party gains the option to have 1 less monk, thus lessening the demand for monks. I dunno - would it reduce the essentialness of monks to a balanced level? Or will it nerf them out of existence? I guess it depends on just how good those extra self heals are. And how crap a non-healing monk is. Any experienced players care to comment?

As for wasting of time, I think, out of all the changes people have been suggesting on this board, adding more skills is probably the one thing ANet has the tools and processes to do easily - since their expansions will hinge on it.

They all have not just heals, but methods to prevent damage as well. No matter how many 100's of monks may be on a team, if you can spike the 500 damage it takes to kill someone fast enough, your target's still going to go down unless they have damage prevention.
Elementalists have defensive buffs for themselves, and ones that aid all party members in the area in addition to Aura of Restoration and Ether Renewal. Other methods of avoiding damage include movement debuffs+buffs, which enable them to move to a better location in order to avoid damage, and inflicting status effects, such as Weakness or Blindness.
Rangers have Troll Unguent, and Healing Spring for actual healing, defensive stances to avoid attacks, movement buffs+debuffs, and they can inflict blindness as well.
Warriors have many tactics skills to keep damage off of them, and Healing Signet for a heal. Healing Signet is best used in conjunction with a defensive stance to help prevent damage while vulnerable. (Not x2 damage anymore, now it's a 40 reduction in AL.) They have the Weakness condition (at least, one of the weapons does), Crippling condition for a run debuff, and run buffs for themself to get to a better location.
Mesmers have Distortion, Illusion of Weakness, Ether Feast, Ineptitude, Interrupts, Illusion of Haste, 4 movement debuffs, 2 casting slows, and a lot of inspirations stances to choose from to reduce damage. And Ether Feast heals for quite a bit as well.
Necromancers have quite a bit of options for self healing at their disposal, I'm not even going into it.

It's not so much as a matter of needing more heals, as needing to make the most of the ones you do have, which're pretty potent. Toss on a second class, and you've got even more options at your disposal. Although, I do enjoy the prospect of more skills, all of the ones above have liabilities to them except the necro ones, and adding more might mess with that. Ether Feast doesn't recharge rapidly enough to keep yourself healed under fire. Troll Unguent takes an ungainly amount of time to use, and Healing Spring is easily interrupted. Healing Signet gives you an armor reduction. Elementalists don't cast spells to spike the healing when appropriate. I've never heard of an elementalist saving a high cost fast casting skill just to trigger aura of restoration at a good moment, and ether renewal is elite with a recharge time 3x longer than its duration.

You know, Ive suggested something along the lines as this before too.

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...ad.php?t=17398

Curiouslly enough, I think it read like, "blah blah blah gimp monks blah blah".
At least, thats how people responded.

My take is. If you consistanly need 2 or more of one class as opposed to anyother...then that class has an advantage the others dont.

Now,...time may tell. As we all learn and play the game, there may be builds that damper the "monk" nessecity. The closest thing to my mind now is, have a team of all secondary monks.