A monk's perspective

Howdy, I am new to this PvP stuff so I am still trying to figure it out. The monk was my second character and I like keeping everyone alive so I stuck with it. Hard but rewarding. My main problem is keeping my weak armored self alive. Since I am new, I have been made fun of by random teammates for my unique style, so I am asking for opinions on this style of build:

Healing Breeze – (10e) casted a lot to keep team mates alive and healthy
Orison of Healing - (5e) as their or my health gets low
Divine Intervention - (10e) for others and myself
Healing Touch - (5e) good heal
Rez signet - a must have
Sheild of Judgement (Elite) - (15e) Costly but keeps me standing for 15 secs or so as long as nobody remove this enchantment
Empathy - (10e) seldom used to keep warriors off me
Backfire - (10e) help the team take out the other monk

I can't quite remember my attribute level on each but it is something like this for my Mo/Me combo:
Healing - 10 +2 bonus
Divine - 10 +1 bonus
Smiting - 10
Domination - 5

Of course this is very costly in energy and I often find myself waiting for energy to regen. But it seems to work and in the random teaming arena I usually make it to 6 or so consecutive wins with several flawless victories so I think I am doing something right. I have weaknesses just like all builds but that is something you have to risk. Any thoughts on how to keep me alive while healing the party? Hopefully something that uses less energy.
Thanks and to all you Monk hating Warriors out there let me know what works so I can take you out of the game...
George

replace emathy with pacifism

replace backfire with hex breaker

other than that it looks good

Personally, I'd drop the Empty and Backfire for something else. Like twicky_kid said, I'd put Hex Breaker in or maybe even Inspired Hex for the extra mana. Instead of Backfire I'd put in either Healing Seed or maybe a big heal like Heal Other. I'm also a big fan of the E Drain mez just because its common that the other heal monks are likely to be running it also. The best way to fight off E Drain on yourself is to pretty much to run it yourself. It also depends what kind of PVP you're doing. In Tombs Healing Seed and some form of energy regen is a must. However, in 4v4 you're better off going with lower cost heals and dont need something like Healing Seed as much.

Don't you mean spell breaker?

Well, I think your first big problem is a total lack of energy management skills. I recommend at least one skill devoted to regaining energy, and you might even want two. I've been using Offering of Blood along with Bathazar's Spirit for energy management, but there are plenty of options. OoB gives pretty good returns (~9 net gain every 15 seconds with 8 Blood Magic). The good thing about Bath Spirit is that you get 1 energy everytime you get hit (which tends to happen a lot) and you don't need to raise any attributes to benefit from it.

If you wanted to stick with Mo/Me, there are plenty of options. Energy Drain is a very good choice, since it gives you energy and steals it from the enemy. Channeling is good, but requires you to be standing near one or more enemies to get the benefit. Drain Enchantment and Inspired Hex are other good options, but a little bit more situational. You'll probably want to have ~8 Inspiration to reap the full benefits of these skills.

Second, your attributes are too spread out. I would recommend focusing on only three, with either a 12/10/8 or 11/10/10 setup. Your lowest one should probably be the energy management attribute, since it isn't quite as vital to your role and generally has less of a return for increased levels. For a pure healer, I'd recommend 12 Healing, 10 Divine Favor, and 8 Blood/Inspiration, then put leftovers in Protection if you're using Mend Ailment or the like. You'll want to wear a +1 Healing hat, Wanderer's or Judge's (I prefer the latter) chest/legs, and Aescetic's hands/feet, with Minor runes for every applicaple attribute equipped. Major and Superior runes on a Monk are generally a no-no. For weapon, I'd either go with 20% Healing recharge wand and 20%/20% Healing offhand, or a 20%/20% Healing staff with +5/+5 AL mods.

For skills, I agree with several of your choices but also suggest a few changes. Orison and Healing Touch are staples; you definitely want those. However, with the recharge times it's often necessary to have another spammable heal. Orison is self or other, but Touch is generally used self-only, so I recommend another other-target heal.

Dwayna's Kiss is what I use, because it increases healing based on the number of hexes/enchantments are the target (which are both common), and only costs 5 energy. Heal Other is another good choice, but costs 10 energy.

I like Healing Breeze, although my experience at this point is limited to 4v4. It works quite admirably in this setting, but I've heard it's less effective in 8v8, so keep that in mind.

I'm not too sure about Divine Intervention, at least in the 4v4 setting. I'm sure it can be effective in 8v8, where a target is coming under a lot of fire. In 4v4 though, a skill that relies on your target "dying" within 10 seconds is questionable, especially if you're doing your job effectively. You might want to consider swapping this out, unless you do 8v8.

Res sig seems like a no-brainer, but it's not necessarily (on a Monk anyway). There have been a number of articles on the subject which you may want to do a search for. Suffice to say, it may be wise to swap this out for more healing power. I did it on my Monk, and it's given me considerably more versatility.

Shield of Judgement seems out of place to me on a healer, considering it takes your elite slot and requires investment in Smiting. I recommend taking it out and looking for a different defensive skill if you need one.

Empathy and Backfire are both out of place on a dedicated healer. Ideally you should be focusing only on your team, only diverting your attention to the enemies if you need to steal energy or whatnot. Debuffing the enemy means you're distracted from your team's healthbars, you're spending time not healing, and you're using energy that could be used to keep your guys alive. I'd recommend looking for a dedicated hexer if you need these services.

Other skills I would recommend you look at are Healing Seed (great against focus fire on other teammates), Mend Ailment (if there's no prot Monk on your team), and Remove/Smite/Convert Hex (each is good, but for different reasons).

Hope that helps a bit. Good luck with the Monking!

No, they mean hex breaker. Less costly and you can keep it up forever, essentially.

As both a Mo/Me and a W/Me in random arena, I've found it insanely useful. Warrior because what do those squishy mesmers and necros do when they see you barrelling down on them? Why, they hex you, of course!... and monk because it pretty much owns mesmers. Fragility-users giving you problems? Use hex breaker.

My only problem is that it gets expensive with very hex-heavy teams. Normally, though, with random arena, they try to put on the most important hex first. I can deal with a phantom pain for long enough to heal myself and mess with the condition, but with fragility or spinal shivers? No thank you.

To the OP: As much as I hate to encourage cookie-cutter builds, what the enemy is doing isn't all that important to you. Yeah, I'm serious. You shouldn't be spending the time to watch the enemy and keeping your hexes on; that's for necros and mesmers. Your job is to heal and to avoid dying; in Random, I've found my prot/heal hybrid Mo/Me is very useful. Yes, it's foregoing a ton of healing power- but complete spike teams in random are fortunately rare. I wouldn't use her in tombs, but this is generally how she looks:

-Heal Other
-Orison of Healing
-Healing Touch
-Reversal of Fortune
-Remove Hex (for other allies)
-Mend Ailment
-Hex Breaker
-Res sig (necessary in random, NOT in tombs)

You can toss in a Breeze if you like, but playing my Me/N has given me good enough reason to not use it; if a Mesmer with shatter enchantments is attentive, they can catch it right off the bat, and with points in Dom, they can probably deal more damage than you heal.

My strategy generally goes like this- if one person's being picked on, spam Orison and RoF, with an eye on your energy. Same goes for yourself, only use healing touch. I've been pretty successful at keeping myself alive (the majority of warriors in random get tired of bashing at me only to be RoF'd and touched to death) and helping my allies. Of course, it can be a problem when you get an enemy team who works well together, but eh.

I've also seen some excellent prot monks in random, one of whom was absolutely phenomenal; she had a whole team pounding on her with a smiter, a nuker, and two warriors and didn't go down, allowing my warrior to pick off the tasty elementalists. She was a Mo/W and she said she was using the sample but with a few adjustments. The only problem she had was when we ran into a whole team of serious degen N/Mes. No good way to counter it as a prot-er, and it's hard to spam remove hex.

As a monk, I've also had a smite/backup on my team who really helped me out with a balth's spirit. It was pretty awesome, actually; not something I'd use, but if you're debating being a supporter or you're a secondary monk, you might want to cast it on your monk. :3

For me, healers need to be pure healing. it is hard managing your energy without the mes or necro skills, but I believe that you really need to fill your slots with healing skills. what i use for energy management strangely enough is signet of devotion. Might sound weird, but if you use it for healing at the right times (and it takes alot of practise to get right) the fact that it is a signet, and a pretty long casting one, means your energy has picked up nicely during the cast. You cant use it if your team is taking heavy damage, but if your prot is doing his job, there are certainly plenty of times you can. I aim to get this off every fourth of fith spell if the battle is going well. Rarely run out of energy ever.

Why sig devotion? Well, for one thing I dont like to take the targetting off the party bar, which all the various mes energy skills do (excpet chanelling, which isnt that effective), and at least using this i am delivering nearly 90 healing heal points while reganing energy. i also dont need to take any attrib points out of healing or divine. i pretty much run with 16 healing and 13 divine, or sometimes the other way around. yes, if a mesmer gets my energy I'm in trouble, but at least i have this I can cast to be of some use to my team, instead of going off, finding an enemy spell caster, casting energy drain, and then switching back to healing. how many of my team have died while I was doing that for maybe 5 seconds?

By having all my points in healing and divine I can pack a massive healing punch also, which i find is greatly reduced if i put points into inspiration.

My usual build is made up of as many low cost healing spam spells as i can manage, plus a couple of big hitters

Word of healing, orison, dwaynas kiss, vigorous spirit, healing seed, healing touch, signet devotion, divine healing

Another trick to the energy management in this build is the accurate and proper use of healing seed. Put it on the right person at the right time and you wont have do any serious healing for a few valuable seconds as people are getting the healing bounce from the seed, which is pretty high with that attrib set up. it may seem an expensive spell, but its great value. I use it as often as I can.

I've had alot of success with this, earned alot of fame. I know its different to the standard build, i guess it just suits my play style.

note, this is tombs build, doesnt work for arenas. For arenas you'd need a rez sig and some prot skills. in tombs you need to focus on your job, and hope that the other guys in your team are doing theirs.

Hi There,

I'll give you my blunt opinion (and its only my opinion). It wont be informed much of the time.

Healing Breeze – (10e) casted a lot to keep team mates alive and healthy
This is a PvE skill. Maybe with very good energy management you could have some fun with the low recast time and spamming it.

Orison of Healing - (5e) as their or my health gets low
A staple healing spell.

Divine Intervention - (10e) for others and myself
I do have to take a look at this one myself after reading it. Got some prot like properties but dont need points in prot to use it. But I think I'd still prefer hybrid some prot skills on them for damage mitigation.

Healing Touch - (5e) good heal
Yes, good self heal.

Rez signet - a must have
I dont think its a must have. But I concede many do.

Sheild of Judgement (Elite) - (15e) Costly but keeps me standing for 15 secs or so as long as nobody remove this enchantment

All those points in smite just so you can do this? Put them in prot and open a whole new world of possibilities of damage prevention. Or even beef up heal and run around a lot more.


Empathy - (10e) seldom used to keep warriors off me
Backfire - (10e) help the team take out the other monk

I'm going out on a limb here and saying these have no place in any monk build. Let the others damage, shutdown etc.

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Discussion:

The differences between PvE and PvP are that PvP players will (arguably) be a lot smarter and more focussed in their attacks and PvP evolves and this week's good monk build might not be next week's. That said here are some suggestions. And its all must my opinion.

There are 3 main types of group defence monks. Heal, protect and hybrid. What you need depends on where you play and who else is in your team. The 3 main factors are be able to keep group alive (have some heal and/or prot spells), have enough mana to keep doing it (energy management) and keep yourself alive (monks are not as good at keeping themselves healthy as they are others so you may have to take special measures).

One more thing. Lots of people think that in the time it takes a monk to res somebody more damage will be done to the team than is recovered in the res. Many monks, including me, dont carry res signets. Pretty much everybody else should.

4v4
A lot of new PvPers start out here. In my opinion hybrid monks work much better here. Protection is the only way to stop really big hits and heal is needed to counter degen and smaller hits and top people up over time. Also you will frequently be the main target in this setting. Usually you wont have any help so you have to do it all yourself. You might like to try something like.

Mo/E: Even spread of points across Divine, Healing, Protection and a little less in Earth magic.

Osiron of Healing, Healing Touch, Healing Hands (E), Shielding Hands, Reversal of Fortune, Mend Ailment, Smite Hex and Armor of Earth.

You could play Mo/Me with Inspiration for Inspired Hex, Energy Drain(e) and hex breaker. Especially if you wanted a bit less defence and a bit more energy management. Remember in 4v4 you cant hope to counter everything you will encounter. The quality of play is generally low but you will every now and then lose to a strong group that you cant easily counter.

I dont recommend Empathy or Backfire. You have enough jobs without taking on the killing of enemy players. Think, stay alive, keep others alive and having enough power to keep doing it. I dont think breeze cuts it at all. I have no experience with divine intervention, though I have heard it can be used in a tricky manner with unyielding aura (bug??).

<after rereading your post, the below might be a bit OT. But, wow, I had a lot of fun writing it. And maybe it will be useful to somebody!>

8v8
I think this is where the fun is. And I have a lot more experience in tombs than I do in GvG. Though I think for the most part its transferrable. In this setting popular builds change very rapidly so your healing setup will have to change to meet new conditions. Also there is no good build that doesnt fit in with the rest of your group. So vary to match your group. Its generally accepted that there should be 2 heal specced monks and 1 prot specced monk (but there are lots of alternatives here. I think there is a real place for hybrids here too, especially in the current environment). Energy managment is much more important here. You will have 2 other monks to help keep you alive so self preservation is a little less important.

To start, I'd say pick either Protection or Healer spec and go with it.

Prot, something like:
Mo/Me Aegis, Reversal of Fortune, Shielding Hands, Guardian, Protective Spirit, Mend Ailment, Inspired Hex and Energy Drain(E)

Heal, something like:
Mo/Me Osiron of Healing, Dwayna's Kiss, Healing Touch, Heal Other, Healing Seed, Mend Ailment, Inspired Hex, Energy Drain(E)

I am keen on Energy Drain, but lots of people like to use Offering of Blood instead.

These are pretty generic builds. The group I run with tweaks it for current conditions. Right now smiting is still popular, mass attack with enchanted warriors (called IWAY) is popular, enchanted ranger spam is popular (or starting to be). These mostly involve lots of smaller quantities of damage.

One last thing. With the basics in mind, understanding of game mechanics, current strategies and what your team mates are up to is much more important than build. Build is just a starting point.

Cheers,
pin

Quote: Originally Posted by mebegeorge