Monks - And why they are underplayed -

LOL! It's amazing what ???/W types will run up and do. I've seen some amazing things come from these secondary class warriors. But you are absolutely right: They can't take the damage that a warrior can and need to stay in the back.

However, while I agree in spirit with not healing and/or not resurrecting someone who's being a jerk, I can't agree in practice. I can't leave a teammate, even a bad one, unhealed or dead just to make a point. Must be the Girl Scout in me.

The point is that with long cooldowns on hex removal, and 7 people to watch, and mobs that do 3-6 different hex's it drastically slows down any type of efficiency in removing the best hex. Control clicking buffs is tedious at best to broadcast them to the group, not to mention most people don't care in the first place. I can totally empathize with the Death necro thing. There is no valid reason why we can't at least have condition icons when we target an ally that list their buffs / debuffs on the right side of the life bar opposite of what their current action shows up under.

All told its not that a monk should expect thanks, but we shouldn't be the goat when other player's failures are really what cause a group to die or them to die.

A great mezmer is something good people notice, they decimate stupid AI with extremely overpowered spells. I can honestly say I've only grouped with 1 mezmer who played effectively in two characters to Hell's precipice. I even started my own. I've henchied every mission since kryta cause no one will invite me, Aurora Glade was a sweet mission to henchie cause you pretty much have to get the bonus to manage to activate the gate before the Mantle do =P

Myself I enjoy being a monk. Despite the far-from-perfect GUI and despite the occasional abuse from PUGs. Usually I have fun playing with humans, even PUGs. Yes, humans are a little more difficult to play with than henchmen, but I enjoy the challenge.

As for the abuse: I'm very picky about my PUGs. Usually you can tell the level of maturity by looking at the names in the group and by listening to their chat while still in town. If a guy named "Death Killa" spams "WE R GOIN TO KILL GALRATH NEED MONKS AND WARRIORS!!!11" in Temple of the Ages then I usually refrain from joining.

Form your own group per my post:

Well when I play Monk I play full healer. Full healer to me means bringing along some form of hex removal & some form of mend condition/ailment spell. I tend to carry Smite hex & Mend Ailment. I have always considered the removal of hexes & particulary conditions as part of my pure healer's job. How can someone call themsleves a Healer if they dont have anything to treat Bleeding? Cripple? Immolate? & so on? That's just me tho... can't speak for others.

Your definition is different that most. Monk people think a pure healer is some who only carries healing spells and nothing else. You have the same idea about a monk as I do.: you are really a medic with many tools and skills to keep a group alive.

"(Also, what's with warriors checking out each other's swords? Anyone else notice that?) "

They obviously want to say "Mine's bigger". I don't compare my healing spells with other and then go "I heal for 20 points more than you, n00b"/

See thats the number one reason why A: PUGs suck ass, and B: people like monks get so much abuse.

Whatever you do in your own time is up to you, but when I join a group, or people join my group I expect each and every person to give 200% dedication to just doing what is required, and leave all the juvenile bs and macho ego behind. If you want to run around being spiteful to other players because they annoyed you, go do it somewhere else, ideally not at all. This is a competitive game, that requires team work. A team does not play to the monks/warriors/eles desires, ever. Its a team with a mission so it gets done, period. Otherwise you are playing the wrong game.

Often when I read posts regarding monks and their hurt feelings I see 'I dont heal so and so cos he insulted me' That kind of utter crap is why so may people use henchmen, and why so many people get abuse from others.
Iv yet to see a Warrior say 'ill just not tank if the monk yells at me' or an ele say 'nah im not casting any AoE cos you said my flare was weak' Iv only seen monks EVER threaten to wreck and abuse teams because they feel insulted.

Granted Warriors might wreck teams pull mobs and die instantly, they do it out of over enthuisiasm, over estimating their power/ under estimating the enemy, bu do you see warriors threatening to pull mobs cos theyre upset?

If I have a new character, and take it to the under 20 arenas, im afraid to ask monks if they heal now (which they seldom do ) incase the dude gets offended and wont heal me. WTF?

I play as a W/R.

My main role is to protect Monks and occasionally lure enemy when required.

I'm normally stood next to the Monk and apply long range poison via my Bow to enemies. If anything gets near the Monk, I revert to my primary of Warrior, and use the sword. If the Monk takes damage, I will use healing spring on them. Monks are the best team players in the game, IMO, and for that they get my respect and also my protection.

Not all Warriors agro/tank/rush.

No, that is not a big problem.

Only if you know every player well, it would help to see these things, but with random groups or even casual guild plays, it won't help much.
It will clutter the interface and hardly help you.
Why?
Because I don't know what hex, conditions are most dangerous to the different players. For example: a backfire on a caster is easy to decide: it is dangerous and has to go.
But what about a backfire on a Ranger or Warrior? It all depends on the play style if this backfire is very dangerous or just a little annoyance. Same with most other hexes.

So the Ranger shall just announce that he is 'backfired' when he wants to get rid of it. And then someone removes the hex. But removing a hex that hardly harms your ally won't help much.

Same with conditions. A Ranger may have a antidot signet (the one that remove poison and stuff) with him, so it doesn't bother him that he is poisoned. He just needs to finish his attack combo and then get rid of it by himself. No need for a monk to do anything.

Of course: the interface can be improved, for example a guy that announces something could blink, or have a dot next to his name or whatever. It would also be nice to see how many hexes/enchants/conditions are on one guy...

But the interface really isn't bad.

I agree with the original poster, as I have been forced into the role of healer many times before (it's fun for PvP, but for PvE, I MUCH prefer smiter... I still like smiter in PvP though). I always did my best to help out a team though. I have a geomancer E/N that uses both Earth Magic protections such as Ward Against Melee/Elements and Well of Blood, among high damage attacks. Incompetant groups are no rarity in Guild Wars, unfortunatly. I've never seen such a huge population of people that truley suck at video games. It would be like teaching my grandma "now this is backfire. don't use spells when you see it."... nah.. grandma would catch on faster...

I play a "medic" monk (to borrow funbun's terminology). I only play PvE with him and have received small thanks about a half-dozen times which I greatly appreciated. I agree that thanks shouldn't be expected, just like warriors shouldn't expect me to thank them for tanking. But whenever anyone seems to be doing a particularly effective job I try to give some praise. I have only been blamed once and that guy hounded me in PMs until I added him to the ignore list. It certainly puts a damper on things but I do like playing a monk.

Even in the face of that though I think that monks shouldn't take it out on that player by refusing to heal them. I dont think it is good PR for the profession, even if we don't care what the idiots think. The line between taking it out on someone though and triage/energy management is thin. Some battles I can not keep everyone alive with my 50 energy. At those times I choose who needs to stay alive and focus on keeping them fighting rather than spreading my healing so thin that everyone dies. While I try not to let personal feelings affect that judgement the plain fact is that the problem-people are usually also the worst players and the ones you should let go first. People don't understand it, but I find if I dont mention that I let them die they usually don't get really upset that they did - they understand death is part of the game - and for the most part they understand that a monk doesnt equal invincibility, otherwise where would the challenge lie.

So while I agree monks get a lot of unfair treatment it is simply the product of immature, unthinking, self-centered, twinks who are always the bane of every online game. Complaining about it is therapeutic and therefore useful but I dont think that anything can be done about it. Certainly throwing your power in their face by not rezzing them is not going to give that person an injection of maturity and cause some life-altering realization that they need to be more fair to you and also help their mom with the dishes more often.

I personally don't like playing monk I was forced into it quite a bit by old guild *cough* yea Weezer the DA *cough* (I'm just kidding) I think its a bit boring. You watch a lot of health bars... I like my W/Mo way better

If you're a healing monk and don't have hex/condition removal, you're not a monk. You're a healing bot.

My little rant about monks and the quality out there:

Why do I, as a monk, have to heal a second monk in the party? I stay in the background healing those on the front lines doing battle. Why is that schmuck running up there and getting "in the thick of things"? Grrr! I wasted a LOT of my last mission healing the stupid other healer.

/rant

Um.. I have found that removing the conditions or hexes or whatever is just a waste of time and energy since they always end up back on again soon in a fight, and after the battle you can run up and heal area beside them or whatever is needed. Now the mesmer skills people use on me I find a big problem but can't get rid of. And if I did expect the other to get rid of it whats to say he doesnt have the same condition.

sorry if there is any bad typing I am in a rush

I can only blame a few things....

1. No pretty yellow numbers for the "younger" members (warrior/monks) :x
2. Too much responsibility, Monk Failure = Group Failure.
3. Get targeted first in PvP.
4. Always have to be alert and responsive.

It's definately a challenge being a Monk, that's no lie. However. Hex/Condition removals are a moot point when they're most likely going to be slapped right back on. Nothing short of a good skill bar makes a good monk. I've walked an entire party through Hell's Precipice with few deaths. (and the only reason that happened, was because the ranger was ignorant and didn't bother keeping winter up.)

Monk's ability to keep a party alive is directly related to everyone doing their job. Plain and simple.

Hmmm... I guess I've always played a "medic monk". As to healing your fellow monk, was s/he using Life Bond/Draw Conditions or other protection spells that would cause her to take damage?

And I have a question - how many slots are you all putting attribute points into? I'm concerned that I'm spreading my points too thinly, because there always seems to be just one more skill in a different area that I want to bring....

I am mainly focused on healing and a decentish amount divided between smiting prayers and animal companion. :P

As far as the other monk on my mission: He was a healer as well. Didn't have time to plan otherwise before we were dumped into the mission.