PuG Monks driving me INSANE!

Like I've already said, 99.99% of PUGs in PvE are absolutly horrible players. You just notice it more with Monks because they actually need to do their job, and most of the time can't let the other players pull their weight. This means that they can't be the Monk equivilent of W/Mos with Mending and Defensive Stances.

QFT

When I was playing through both campaigns with a monk I did only a few missions with players, and mostly of goodness of heart (yup, I'm one of these ego heavy monks ) Honestly, I felt that playing with controllable, patient henchies is waaaay easier.

Well, that leaves the social aspect, but to be honest, henchies have way better personality than most PuG players . I’ll take crappy one liners over your usual “lol I died, you noob” anyday.

QFT, running around like scared chicken and trying to heal-touch me, and dying in the process, lol. But I'd lower that number to, lets say 80%. Other day I had a wonderful team in Ice caves of Sorrow, monk being e-prodigy driven healer elmo. Worked like a charm.

I have to admit, I've started to see the comeback of the Heal Party Monk, something that before Factions I only really saw in B/P Tombs groups. It's a nice spell to have on your bar, especially for those nasty AoEs or full party degens that can catch you a bit offguard.

But I tend to find that the people who spam it constantly use it at moments where I wouldn't even consider casting a single target heal like Dwayna's Kiss.

And for the record on the whole Healing Breze thing, comparing it to Orison is laughable because Orison is the most inefficient heal ever, so for me I really don't feel the need to put the second least efficient heal ever on my bar just because it's better than the least efficient...

LMAO!

Major QFT!

Guildies/Henchies FTW!

Major pet peeve: healing breeze on me when I have less than 50 health... Obviously I'm being spiked and one more hit (no matter if I have HB on me or not) will kill me. Spike heal please...

It's also amazing to me how many monks need advanced energy management. If you play monk right, you'd only need extra energy in long, drawn-out battles (a la FoW)... and that's what energy switching weapon slots are for. Wasting the elite spot on MoR or OoB is beyond me (aside from Boon Protect monks). (speaking for PvE)

WoH and 5 energy heals FTW.

ever heard of divine favor? makes orison quite a bit more useful, in the earlier sections of tyria/cantha.
healing breeze is something my e/mo uses when he goes all healing :|
Mending is something i put on the monks with my warrior when he is using the all adren tanking sword build.

at 14 healing 11 favor (8 in insp, all minor runes) orison heals for 102 hp, and you can use it every 3 seconds... its a great skill. any healer should have it in their bar, right next to woh and d.kiss.

11 Divine Favor, 14 Healing (Fairly Standard Attributes, you should be running 8 insp)

Orison 35+35+67+67=204
Healing Breeze 35+180Hp=215
Healing Breeze+20% ench 35+218Hp=251
Healing Touch 70+70+57+57=254
Healing Wisper 35+35+96+96=262
Dwaynas Kiss(one enchant) 35+35+90+90=250


numbers above assume that healing breeze lasts its entire duration, which with the pletiful enchant removals, just rarely does, a dwaynas kiss is the same efficiency as a 20%ench HB if there is already and enchantment on them(most of the time, esp with prot monk), healing wisper beats all other options, and as long as you have some common sense, its easy to keep within range (its my primary heal, i very rarely need to move to use it)

Healing touch also beats healing breeze as a self heal, but cannot be stripped or shattered

Healing breeze is just not a good skill, to get full use (i.e not overheal) you would have to put it on an already seriously wounded target, one shatter enchant later and your down 10 energy, with a critically wounded target

Not to mention, if they are wounded enough to use healing breeze on, they are wounded enough for Word of healing to muscle ahead of any other heal


there is just No Reason ouside of 55hp to use it on a primary monk

Just say No Kids, Say No To Healing Breeze

Oh, I love them when they tell me I'm wrong. A few days ago I had a "healing breeze" debate with a pug monk. He was spamming it like crazy and even dared to say its health regen is better than orison insta-heal. The fact we were fighting Afflicted and you needed insta-heals didn't bother him too much. What's worse, it didn't bother other players in the group, too.

I sometimes use HP with cultist fervor.
Does that make me a nub too?

Read the article "the art of tanking", choose your position visely and you won't need any self-heals. I don't.

I load that mode only when people upset me enough. That includes spamming "I have blind on me!" while I'm healing the other monk, or a squishie that's under attack. Leeroying with frenzy and pinging the health decrease followed by WTF! OMG! HEAL ME NOOB! (had an assasin like that yesterday - told him to stfu and stop being a prick ) There's more things people can do to upset me, but all in all I'm a pretty easygoing person and will get along with everyone. Except utter and complete idiots. And Frenchies refusing to speak english even if no one understands french.

Agree completely.

HB is for nooby's who don't know how to set up a good skill bar.

YES there are times that HB is good... in 55 hp Monks especially. No, its not a "horrible" skill as some people say.

It just will NOT be better than a lot of the alternatives.

Now were posting actual builds. Lol.

Few things bad monks don't have a clue about:

- Positioning
- e-management (omg rusher my energy is 00000)
- overhealing
- hex and condition removal (ok, u can mitigate with HP for awhile, but remove at least blindness plx?? kkthx...)

Bad builds aside. Another matter altogether.

HB is good in certain conditions. It is like the enchant equivalent of Troll Undigent. Cast and forget. For monk primary it is not that efficient - since it is 10 energy and it is not an emergency spell, but for cross classes is very usefull self healing. Warriors can cast it on themselves and continue to deliver adrenal skills while being healed. Ele runners also can use it and continue their running and so on. Noone will take that to prevent spike or similar dmg.

Btw this new Glimmer of Light looks imba.

I dunno, i rarely use HB or even orison simlpy because EVERYONE and their dog already does so.

As a monk i have 13 DF ,11HP and 10PP and 8 Bloodmagic i am mostly busy removing hexes and conditions instead of pure healing. I just think that works beter in most situations.

I can only remember using Heal Party once for one mission in Factions

Only time I use breeze is sometimes on my non-monk characters for a self heal

The only time I really ping my energy status is on the odd occation I’m in a considerate PUG informing them that I already still have a full energy bar and that there is no need to wait for me to regen

I dont get all the people saying they would not monk for PUG anymore. First, if you really need the other monk, you should look at your own skill bar first. There is only a handful of places where a single monk wont be enough, you can play almost the complete storyline as single monk. Second, if you have a good team of guildies, with 2 good monks, good warriors, a good ranger, good MM and good elly ... the game gets so easy, it is boring. For me, it is part of the satisfaction to get through the mission even with crappy pick up groups. And third, just one word: Rebirth. Apart from the few missions where you have to guard NPCs, just let the warrior that aggroes 3 groups at once die. Let your whole party die if they dont know when to fight or run. A monk should always be the last one alive and with rebirth, you can get your party back as often as you want.

- Xeeron

PS: Heal party is an awesome skill, dont diss it.

I kind of enjoying monking for pugs. I like the challenge of keeping everyone alive. I've been extremely lucky in that most of the pugs I get while monking are fairly decent. All my other characters are cursed when it comes to pugs.

I'd rather go into a PUG as monk than as any other profession - at least then I have a better chance at success because I know I'm a rather decent monk and I'll try my hardest.

Then again, monk is just my favorite anyway.

I've said it before and it sparked a flamewar everytime. There is NO excuse ever in PVE why a monk should have no energy except for a certain farming build. If you run out of energy you're either playing very poorly or have a very bad skillsetup.
If anywhere in your plan is the skill "Blood Ritual" scratch that plan and make a good one. But sadly for many many many PVE Pug Monks out there BR and BIP is a requirement. Not a bonus.

So i agree, many Pug Monks need to get much better or stop playing their class. And not start a fricking drama everytime someone dares to critique their holyness.

P.S.: I'm playing a monk so these words are coming from experience.

A well played boonprot can single handedly carry 7 people in all but the most extreme PvE areas. Back in the halcyon days of 10% sac OoB, our guild used to routinely clear the FoW with just one monk. Even nowadays I often see 1 monk P/B builds for FoW. (P/B is so broken that in most instances you can do it with 0 monks, but that's another story.)

EDIT: Yes, I know I'm not the only one in this thread to have said this.

Agreed, moreso, EVERY class/build should mindfull of its energy requirements and management.

Well, I've kind of adopted the attitude that it's just a game and people can play their characters however they choose. If they choose to used Heal Party and Healing Breeze and other costly skills then so be it.

I too was a 2nd monk in a Sorrow's Furnace run a few days ago and the other monk seemed to do be doing little because he was constantly out of energy. Personally, at least 95% of the time I only carry 5e skills with WoH as elite. I have max 52e and very rarely run out. I feel that I typically do a pretty good job at keeping team alive, but lately I think I've been experiencing a bit more lag than normal (and this is even before the Nightfall load). It then becomes quite difficult and frustrating on everyone's part when I have trouble getting heals off quickly. One time I lagged out for about 1 full minute. Surprisingly enough though noone in the team died during this time.

So back to the topic....it's just a game and although it does get frustrating playing with monks who we feel are being 'stupid', try not to get too worked up.

Oh boy, when I last depended on a monk pug with my MM, after doing the previous missions with good old henchies and guildies, I raged! Every time I did botm, I relied on the pug monk to heal me properly in order to keep the minions alive in combat....well he/she/it casted just healing breeze EVERY time, well it's good regen right...well it was regen 7...Thanks dude =/ So everyone died \o\ I have nothing against breeze, just if youre a monk for gods sake make it 9 regen ¬_¬ But it is a problem, most pug monks dont seem to use instant heals with divine stacked like woh, very annoying.

Meh...I HATE to monk PuG's soooo much.....specially when i went through factions....I always had the groups with the assassin that thinks they can tank anything or the warriors that were scared to aggro anything and stood there waiting for the casters to go up and aggro before going in and attacking at all (That pissed me off more then anything else a warrior could do.). Now i normally only monk with guild groups or friends.

In PvE when i first started my monk sure i had problems with energy and learning out to play a monk but didn't everyone? The question is, Is the person monking with you new to the game or been playing for a while? If they are new ofcourse they will have problems with energy and knowing what skills to use...It would not hurt if you made suggestions during the mission on there build/skill useage.

As for the Hero's...Meh I tried the monk hero in PvE and sure its extreamlly better then most Monk PuG's but i would not give it to much credit since it still has the AI just like the other monks, it just has the skills/stats/items that you give it. The setup i gave my PvE Hero monk i used for over 7 monks while on my monk and never had a problem with healing/energy at all and the Hero was always at 5 energy and would over heal its target 90% of the time (Btw just a tip with the Monk Hero set them to passive and they will not focus on fighting they will actually kite and heal you and your party.)

I love monking PUG's, there is no thing more challenging. As long as ppl don't flame I'll try to heal every player as good as I can. It gives me a tremendous kick to know the party wouldn't have made it without me. When it comes to using hench monks when I don't play monk myself I can only say Prophecies campaign sucks monkey-balls with a hench monk, Alesia is sooooo retarded. I'm very grateful they put better monks in Factions (especially Sis Tai and Redemptor Karl) because that bald woman makes me want to hurt myself. It is possible to do Prophecies with henchies, but it's worse then a bad PUG IMO.

But what most posters here seem to forget is, there's a big difference between skills a first time player knows about and has access to, and an optimal skill set.
I remember my first encounter as a monk with the desert very well. Today's fights here are not even close to the later days' challenges.

Access to skills got a major boost when I could just ferry over to Kayneng from LA and buy core skills I'd usually not get before shiverpeaks. Or buy advanced skills there, already unlocked by another character.

Healing breeze has some uses in kryta or the jungle for example (where you have it, but skeleton mesmers e.g. have no shatter enchant). It's usefull basically always when there's heavy degen, no enemy mesmers and removal of cause is impractical (like poisoning from archers). Or when casting time is as scarce as energy.

On the other hand I've seen Orison spammers in the desert lately, when the whole group encountered heavy degen. A losing game...

And how exactly is that taking away from the fact that someone is either playing poorly or has a poor skillsetup? Of course a new player is not instantly a good player but read on, he has to learn his class.
But sadly the first thing PUG monks actually do learn is to start some fricking drama everytime someone dares to mention something about their playing style. This furthermore leads to a stop in evolution and they stay on their Ascalon Skilllevel 'til the end of days. Simply because they discard every critique about their build as "Monk Bashing" and think Healing Breeze for example is a mighty fine skill to counter degen with.
Besides, up to the desert one can allready build a basic but efficient skill-layout if he did the skillquests (like he should do if he started playing the monk for the first time) and read what those skills can do.

And that is my gripe with PUG Monks. One of the reasons i state (and will allways do) that no energy is no excuse for a PVE Monk. Because it isn't if they are willed to learn about energy management. One of the most basic skills that is required to play Guildwars to some success.

However, PUG Monks refuse to learn how to play but instead learn how to find imaginated errors and mistakes in the playing style of others. The thing you'll see coming the most from PUG Monks will be flames and harsh words. Arrogance to the brim. Acting all mighty about their mighty fine and inhuman skill. When in fact they suck big time. But well, try telling a PUG Monk that his E-Management is nuts, that this skill might not work in the area you're playing in... Watch the flames coming in, just watch it. Watch the whole party turning onto you simply because they're affraid they'll lose the monk, no matter how bad he is. It's worth a good laugh.

And the thing that amuses me the most, those PUG Monks think that a monk who has still energy after a fight did not heal to the fullest. They even take it as a sign of their skill. They think they took the "majority" of healing. When that happens i invite them to a healing duel. Cast your spells til your energy is gone on each other. It's quite funny. Everyone should try it at times simply because you will see the PUG Monk lose after a few seconds while the good monk keeps on going and going and going and going. And when the PUG Monk starts whining and complaining simply ping your energy once which is probably around 30 while the other monk would have probably blasted 3 times his energypool. Watch them rage that same second. Fun.

I can't recall anywhere where there's heavy degen in the desert >.>

Anyway, I think sometimes the reason monks seem terrible is because players rely on them too heavily and don't worry about self healing or negating. Also sometimes the monk is a heal party/healing breeze spammer.

Same here. The ease of beating the game as a monk never ceases to amaze me. When I go as any other proffession - instant trouble. No amount of self heals and defenses can't help if the monk has an IQ in the range of room temperature. Celsius.

I used to offer advice on energy management to PUG monks. Dozen of them listened, argued their point of veiw, I explained some more - they acknowledged it and embraced the advice. The other 99% of them flamed and I even got kicked out of the team. That taught me a valuable lesson - now I only do that when I play monk. And that's 90% of the time. I don't get kicked ever but the flamers do.

Troll Ungent is good because it costs 5e (reduced by Expertise down to a possible 2e) and cannot be removed. HB, by comparison, costs somewhere between 2-5 times as much energy and can be easily removed. If it gets Shattered, you take even more damage.

HB has a few very limited uses, 55 farming being one of them. It might also be effective on a W/Mo with very high damage mitigation. Other than farming though, it should practically never be on the skillbar of a Mo/**.

I'm not quite ranting on the quality of monks here; I'm ranting how horridly tedious it is to get one to join, just to have him spoil the mission. And all the inherent elitism of those horrible monks.

I'm not going to say I'm the best monk in the world because I'm not, I do know though that I am pretty decent at it (or maybe thats just my ego and i'm rubbish really ). I don't run out of energy, don't have healing breeze and don't spam healing party when I do have it in my skills. I only boon-prot with my brother as I trust him not to be an idiot.

However I'd just like to say that being a monk is a double edged sword, I'm not denying that alot of PuG monks are not so good (hell, I've had one quit the group and actually not noticed that he left). But alot of PuGs are not good in general, and its always in my experience the monks getting the blame if anything goes wrong due to over aggroing and so on when it would be so much easier just to pull the monsters or wait 2 seconds for them to split.

Maybe this is pulling it offtopic but sometimes its not always the PuGs monk's fault.

EDIT-> I don't make sense most of the time!

I like playing a monk in PvE (glutton for punishment, I suppose) - kind of penance for being on the damage end, as in giving and getting . I've got a Smiter (who can obviously switch to fullheal) in Tyria and a Healer training in Cantha. Had a healer finish Prophecies with little trouble.

My beef isn't so much with the 'bad' monk or even the idiot party members who think they're invulnerable until they're lying in the dirt. It's the MORON 'healers' who go AFK in the middle of a freakin' mission - timed mission, at that!!!!!!! (Ones who leave without notice after they cap a skill rate right up there, as well.)

Don't be dissing Breeze quite so much . My Ele/Mo helped (at least tried to) a couple of monks yesterday in a couple missions after their co-healer mapped or went AFK indefinitely. She only has +4 but I'd like to think it made things a little easier.

If the rest of the party would remember to bring and USE self-heal if they had it, the monks would have a much easier job, you know. Why should a ranger be healed if he has Troll Unguent at +8 (Lili has +9)? If there's no MM, a Blood necro can self-heal with several skills. Heck, even a Wammo can help heal himself if he uses that -Mo part of his class. A team is a TEAM, not all y'all over here and the healer over there!

Did you notice you can actually "use" your heroes' skills? you can click on the icon in their bar and it will be the next skill they cast. This works very well with Koss, who somehow refused to use 100 blades, which is easily the best sword elite at 3 swordmanship. It might be a bit harder with a monk hero, but possible. Even if you don't control them directly, they'll still make some good use of their skills. Did you think of the fact that AI has godly reflexes so Pdrain as emanagement would absolutely pwn?

What pisses ME off is Monks with W as secondary prof telling me it's better than my mo/me because of bonneties. Or the monks saying "I only have monks skills on my bar" and when I ask them why no e-management they say "so I can focus on healing more" often followed by a "you noob". In nightfall we're going to see a lot of monks without a second profession thinking they're uber leet and e-management is for pussys

I can see that happen, too, Thomas. (Monks who think they are uber since they eschew a secondary.) I've been tempted to that with my girls -- any class -- since I use nearly exclusively their primaries. BUT my ranger carries Rebirth (only monk skill she carries) and uses it constantly in some parties, it seems. And I like my monks to have at least one defensive skill in case they're caught by the baddies and need to teach a well-deserved lesson in the 'sacredness' of a monk . For the one who finished Prophecies, the only defense she carried was SS -- and before anyone says "omg! Not WoH? You nooob!", I will say that 1) it worked extremely well, 2) as part of her personality (the sassy bit, after all she was a Celtic monk), Curses fit, and 3) her parties seldom needed anything more than the heal skills she brought - which never included WoH since she never capped it.

One of my soapbox topics -- how many people simply cannot wrap their brains around the idea that there IS more than one way to efficiently and effectively play any given profession!

Though monk is a very popular class, it is underestimated by many. It takes a lot of feeling and practice to become experienced at it. To become an expert you need to know all about this class, energy management, timing, effective builds, flexibility, dexterity, positioning, priotities, insight, etc etc

There are a good number of monks out there, but not as many are as skilled as you would like them to be.

Why don't all you people whining about Monks just roll one yourself?