PuG Monks driving me INSANE!

Because most allready did that and know from experience how bad most monks suck.

I haven't had any problems using healing breeze in the areas I usually monk. I don't use it in areas where enchants are removed. I don't use it when orison would have sufficed (dwaana's kiss if they're hexed).

There have been many times, when multiple players are taking steady dmg in the pug I'm monking, when I would cast hb on one member to keep them at nearly full health so I could concentrate on the rest of the group. I wouldn't do that if they were taking heavy dmg, but it just makes it easier to manage when there's a lot of people taking steady dmg.

I also use vigorous spirit on people taking steady, but not heavy dmg. I know a lot of people would advise me to use healing seed instead of breeze or v. spirit, but h. seed has a terribly long recharge time, like 30 seconds I think.

All throughout this forum you see people stating hb is bad for a healing monk, but there have been many times it has kept me alive along with healing touch while I ran into the group to do a quick heal to keep a party member or two alive.

Also a few people here have stated that with proper placement, a monk shouldn't worry about self heals. So are you saying that you're just going to let a party member die to keep from being attacked? When your pug gets spread out- and it will, you sometimes have to run into aggro range to keep a member or two alive.

Heal party is also a great skill for when your party is taking heavy degen. Just wait till everyone's at about 3/4 life then cast it. Also it's great for when someone has ran far away from the group and is taking dmg. Sure, they might deserve to die, but if I can keep someone alive even though they're being dumb, why not?

P.S. I primarily use my monk in THK, my fav mission. With pugs, it's a different mission every time

I henched most of factions playing my monk in the first weekend, then i stopped playing him, played war, necro, ranger, ele, rit through factions.. always brought a self heal, heal sig, taste of death, troll unguent... always needed to use them.

But really it is frightening, someone commented on monks that are eager to join, theyre mostly like that, but the ones to watch for are the ones that say.. "monk lfg that has mm or another monk".. you know the other monk hafts to do the efficient work.

HB hasnt been on my skillbar since i killed my doppleganger and had a stab at playing 55, and HP is great in factions, just dont need to spam as some do. Heaven's delight..? As if heal area on a monk wasnt bad enough IMO.

Another thing, heal monk lfg is not a boon prot!! Playing my rit, I was using a weapon spell build.. resilient weapon down the drain, atleast i was using attuned was songkai.

2 letters:

HH

GG



Heal party is actually the most efficient heal in the game (seed/hands/mark of prot excluded) but it's certainly not a spam skill. Having it on your bar = good. Having 1-target heals on your bar along with it = good as well. But I bet your average HP-loving monk never frequents these forums, so why are we collectively bitching at them?

Don't rely on the PUG monk to heal you if you want to spam BOTM. I play MM all the time I bring my own heals and take care of myself. I bring breeze and heal area. Heal area gives you a nice big heal and if your minions are around you they get an extra heal. Energy is never a problem I have with my necro so using this skill shouldn't be a problem. It allows me to spam BOTM whenever I wish with out burdening the busy monk. A lot the time I stand in the middle of the all the casters and we all get healed. I guess it’s because I usually play monk and can relate better to the monk position. I like OoB. I hear ppl dissing it but I never run out of energy. In a pinch that extra energy boost comes in handy. I also usually bring both of the healing sigs (rejuvenation and devotion). As far as dissing HB and HP wow. As long as you use them wisely they are great heals. I will probably get called a Noob for this post but thats ok because I always get asked to come heal and get complimented on missions and thats all that really matters.

I almost never carry any actual energy management skills on my bar. I can carry a full healing bar and still be fine for energy. I often roll my monk into missions as Mo/W. You can manage energy without skills that give you energy, you just have to know how to do it.

I'm Mo/W so I don't need to go to Senji's when I want to farm, you have plenty of energy as a pure heal monk. You think they would make a profession that is crippled without a particular secondary? Every other class is fine managing their own energy, so is monk. Only gimmick builds need e-management.

E-management is less important in pve because you can stop after a fight and rest up (this is not so in pvp). Although, whenever I do monk in PvE, I always bring one just incase. There are some builds out there that do not rely on energy management, such as WoH builds, as they require less energy to play anyhow.

Well yes this is clearly only related to pve monking. I can only remember a single time I've asked my party to 'rest up' - when I was the only monk in the energy drain room of dragons lair (they didn't listen, but it still worked out). Usually I'm at full energy and waiting for everyone else to go.

I love PUG monking!
I never feel more alive in this game then when I actually have to make split second decisions, dealing with my mistakes, and testing my split second reflexes in mouse clicking and keyboard pounding =)

..maybe I'm just a GW masochist?

I don't usually monk for missions these days because they're a bit boring.. I never had a really good guild.. only those "omg, we need a monk! hurry, stop what you're doing and come monk for your guild", or the guild's w/ fresh faces that you're embarrassed to be in the same guild w/. The thing about guilds is sometimes you feel obligated to be there 100% of the time, or sometimes they have specific builds they'd like you to run, but most of all they can be too effecient and you can be bored out of your mind as a monk!

Anyway, it's never right to make sweeping generalizations such as HP or HB is always bad, or mending sucks, or OMG, how can a healing monk be mo/w!? There is always a time and place for most skills out there.
While I never use mending, and 99% of the time don't carry HP, I have found heal party to be very useful in b/p groups (those rangers usually know how to avoid damage, drink their troll ungent like a good little boy or girl, and run/uses stances when necessary). HP is also a neccessity in the elite missions w/ those annoying area/environment things that can throw -9 degen on an entire party. But mostly I find the 15 energy hit of a blanket party heal to be not only wasteful but SLOOOOW. heal party has a long cast time, and I cry when I see a monk who spams it in UW. It's very helpful as a backup heal on the chaos planes w/ the mesmer degen, but against spike damage, by the time you finish casting HP, those who needed healing are likely dead.

HB I always bring, but there's a difference between monks who are mindless skill spammers and think and reason before casting a heal. HB is good for areas that aren't heavy on enchant stripping/shattering. HB is good for an ele who knows how to stay in back and when to run from mobs that is only taking minimal non-spike damage. HB is good as downtime self heal when you have plenty of energy and aren't in enchant shattering range. HB is good vs the occasional degen or keeping a player at a fixed level of health (not losing much but not gaining much either) while you charge up your energy or wait for a skill recharge.

HB is NOT good for - casting when your eles or monks are being spiked by enemy eles, when you are surrounded by enchant shattering mesmers, when you need a fast heal and don't have time to wait for healing breeze to cast, when you are with range of such spirits as nature's renewal.

Good pug monking IMO is all about knowing when and why to cast your heals & knowing how to stay out of trouble. One very simple and basic energy management skill for PVE is simply to not stand there and act like a tank, wasting all your skills healing your self. All too often I've had second monks in my FOW groups who just stand there while being torn apart by 2 shadow warriors, spamming prot spirit and healing touch. Then I'm stuck keeping the other monk alive, protecting/healing the rest of the casters, healing the tank and trying to mitigate damage from SS due to everyone being all clustered around the tanking monk.

Because I monk exclusively for UW/FOW these days, I run a sort of hybrid heal/prot (16 heal/13 div/9 prot) set up for worst case scenarios (other monk drops/sucks/55 leech and strength based tanks). I consider sprint my best self heal and energy management rolled into one - gets me out of trouble, loses aggro if the mobs turn on me, I can run then cast instead of wasting a heal on myself then having to wait for it to recharge, can run in and spike heal a war then run back out, can dodge fireballs, chase after leeroys or panicked casters. Seriously, the less time/energy/skill recharge you have to waste healing yourself, the more energy and charged up heals you will have.

I've also dropped orison a while back in favor of ROF for my self heal. The only problem w/ rof is that it's an enchant so enchant shatter areas I cast it right before someone is about to get hit. Where as orison is not to great at outhealing spikes, ROF will at least keep the current health from going any lower.

I run essence bond as my energy management, but you have to know when to take it off or put it on, and on who. It's not the best skill for all circumstances, but it's very useful when you're the only monk left in a group 7 in uw/fow. Although I'm am curious to experiment w/ /me or /n energy management skills a lot of other monks use.

I've always equipped a running or damage avoidance skill on my characters whenever I can probably due to my early days as an E/R concerned about my survival w/ my al hench groups.

Remember, a dead monk casts no heals =)

when I PuG as a monk, i ALWAYS have manta of recall and a monk henchie. I dont lik erelying on human monks, and i know that a henchie might do the job better then any other player.

manta of recall is the best energuy managment i know. with my play style i never have energy problems, and i dont have to rely on PuG necro to BR me.

PvE Monking takes mostly none of that stuff, I can say from experience.

Mostly the skill bar is the only problem in PvE - The monk will blow all his energy on 2-3 Heal Partys or Breezes and sit there for 5 minutes spamming he has 0 energy.

If you have a good N00b to decent player ratio on your team, Monking in PvE isnt that hard - I hardly have to ever use anything more than Orison of Healing except in those areas you know you have to use something more, like a Heal Other if they are serious low. Unless we have leeroys I usually dont let anyone die or anything, and get complimented.

Alot different than PvP. Where I basically..Lets just say I never monk for GvGs.

Healing Monks in GvG use to or 8vs8.That is if you don't have E/Mo to do it for you.The thing with some of these Monks and I am one becuase I group with pugs.These Monks didn't learn how to Monk properly so there are bad Monks out there and doing it in Factions for the first time is not a good idea.It is far better to get one the slow learned in Prophecies.

I find it funny that people think e-management is all about having that ONE perfect skill in your build that gives you energy. If I'm not let into a group because I don't have a mesmer energy stealing skill in my skillbar, then that's their loss and not mine. I, like others who have posted in this thread and many more in the game, use solely monk skills when I play.

It's not about having one skill that gives you energy when you need it. That's nice and all, but what is really important is knowing how to manage your energy with your monk skills so that you can keep your party alive and not burn through your 40+ energy like a fool. You have to learn when to cast certain spells and when not to, when to risk getting into the aggro bubble of the enemy and when to stay back just a little more, and most importantly when to let that annoying warrior that clicks every weapon set die because he needs to learn a lesson... uh... I didn't say that. I've never let someone die on purpose, I swear!

I'm really hated in PUGS when I'm playing as my monk. I keep getting spam in the chat saying "WTF heal me" or "why'd you let me die n00b".

It get's even better when I point out that my monk, Triumph Dolosmite, is a smiter and not a protection or healing monk. I'd have thought her name would have given some clue as to her main job.

For twitchy finger monks, you can always push them towards Glyph of Renewal/Divine Spirit spammers. Gets all the jitters out and usually gets the job done. Unfortunately, most crappy monks never make it to Perdition Rock. Ahh, THK, you're a wonderful filter.

I don't know if you're kidding or not But you do let your pug know before you start that you're Smite right? hope so

Naaaa you gotta be kidding

"Insert random Pro-smiter line here."

PvE monking is easy enough to not require dedicated emgt skills or even a full skillbar. I roll with just WoH and a res if I can get away with it.

If you're PUGing and don't need an elite, bring Unyielding Aura. That way you can keep the scrubs on a leash. If they die from being stupid, res them with Aura. If they start being stupid again, cancel Aura.

That made me laugh.

Bring Vengeance too while you're at it.

(to those whining about pugs)

What cracks me up is that either we have every good player in GW here posting or about half of you are the very players the other half are complaining cannot play.

...

I can confirm that. When i'm referring to Energy Management i'm mostly referring to a timed use of skills, watching your energy constantly and knowing when to go in a heal frenzy and when to just calm down. I came to think, maybe a lot of monks are that bad on energy (besides not accepting any critique) because they're focussed on keeping their party at 100% while that really isn't necessary in PVE. Not like anyone will really spike there. Keeping them at roughly 75% is a lot more energy efficient. You know, more than 100% health is impossible. And if your target lost 40 health, healing him with heal other sure will do the job, hnnng. Yes i've seen that. Quite often sadly.

P.S.:
Divine Spirit is God in PVE.

lol, i love vengence. it's still amazing how you still get people in end game areas who are screaming "wtf!?" when vengence ends on them.

but about "training" your pugs, i forgot to mention in my long post no one probably read =)

that healing breeze can also be a good training/control tool. For those pug players who may get into trouble a little too often w/ aggro or just plain trying to tank as a caster, using breeze as opposed to a spike heal like word or even orison can help keep a caster out of trouble. Most squishies are aware of the the fact that they are pretty "squishy" so by not giving them instant full heals, as a monk you can keep them in the back lines via a little psychological pressure.

It's similar to not healing the leeroy in your group, they'll learn that rushing off w/o back up or support may not be a good idea. If you keep a player constantly a low hp or barely alive w/ last minute non-spike heals, they'll generall stay back and play it safer - I've noticed it works well to control your pug except w/ the absolute worst players.

On the other hand I've also had cowardly warriors in pugs that need to be trained to rush in without pulling back, hesitating or back pedaling once they hit < 50% hp. Maybe their behavior has been reinforced a few to many times be monks who can't keep them alive under pressure, maybe they're just afraid of pain. With those warriors I have to keep them near 100% initially to gain their trust after which time I can conserve a bit more knowing that that they'll do their job and not cut and run.

Psychological mind games? perhaps.. cruel and unnecessary? not at all =)

But like another poster here I use almost all monk skills.. 7 monk skills and 1 warrior skill - sprint. I never have energy problems except when I have a party of 7 all trying to tank aatxes w/o a bond monk. Managing energy is as much about your skillset as it is about when to cast, who to cast on, what to cast, how often, and where you cast from.

Playing a PUG monk sometimes seems to be also what kind of psychological pressure you can exert over the group. Of course this is never discussed in front of the team.. only via whisper w/ the other monk occasionally, especially if they're a good monk, we'll comment on what sort of psychological tactics to use.. shhhh! it's a monking secret !

A quick question? Instead of NOT healing and using pointless Anti-Leeroy skills, why not actually heal/prot for a change.

I cannot remember ever being relieved of blindness in a mission, ever, no matter the amount of pinging...prolly because Vengeance was there, just in case Leeroy Jenkins appears.

vengence is not a "anti-leeroy" skill though.. being rather pointless as it only keeps the player alive for 30 sec
I think some monks just like to have some fun, albeit at another player's expense.

I've never seen an appropriate place for Vengence except for 55 monks (Res chant is better though it you have it), and maybe RA pvp for fun. Or if you have an extra slot and don't need extra heals, etc. Unyeilding Aura is usually just a waste of an elite slot to me, but I've seen it work pretty well if you happen to have a corpse using necro in your pug =)

So what? While this is a gross generalization, you don't generalize enough, because this is in no way limited to monks. What you describe is a noob...

Well, what about bringing your own condition removal then? Warriors spam-pinging their conditions like mad annoy me, no matter what profession I play. "It's not blind, it's the cheap helmet, stupid!"
With W/Mo I usually have my own removal, with W/R I usually bring the signet, W/N has plague touch, and so on. If I can't remove blind, I try to regenerate energy or heal me.

Try poison, traps and necro hexes. Especially when your whole group's health bars are violett or green, mixed with funny grey triangles the monk feels the pain...
If you want the feeling back, just step out of Aamnoon with a PUG of lvl +-17s.

I started a Ritualist for the exact reason that monks have too greater part in a PuG... I am trying, with every PuG my Restoration Ritualist joins, to alter people's perceptions of the healing Ritualist...a lot of pople still believe that healing Ritualists are crap and occaisonaly when I am in a team, for example Raisu Palace, with one other monk, there is always a warrior (usually a wammo) spamming "We need 2 monks".... Umm...no. Monks are not the only healers any more and there do seem to be a few bitter people out there about that. My healing Ritualist has been known to be the only healer in many missions...including Zen Daijun, Dunes of Dispair and half of Sunjiang (when the other monk left)...and yes, we completed them.

When I make a group that requires a healer I always advertise "GLF Healer" rather than "GLF Monk"...I am not saying that healing Ritualists are replacement monks because some missions, I feel, do need monk powers as a Ritualist alone cannot heal to the extent which is needed....but 2 monks are never necessary. No doubt people will now say "actually, you don't need any monks" to which I respond "if you have good enough self heals or are hardcore enough...good luck with that, personally I prefer some sort of healer"

Hopefully if Ritualists get well enough used they may cause Monks to stop being so damn lazy!

i. personally, don't really care what other monks are using on their skill bar. I think that if you have a good skill bar you should be able to keep the entire party alive even if you are the only one.

heros are good imo but then monk......i gave him my skill bar and he doesnt know how to use it lol..so im basically their playing 3 chars at once (the war hero included)

btw have you thought of just not healing until that hp,hd spammer is out of energy? then you can show the group whos really doing the healing. :P

hmmm you make a good point celestial.....but i would find that situation much like our pooor assasins..
sins aren't bad but ppl just have this set of mind that anyone who plays a sin doesn;t know how to play it. (yeah your the one to talk, i bet you've never even touched one) - sins if played right are one of the best killing machines and same for a rit ho actually has many many different purposes. - healing, prot, dmg dealer, fort (spirit spammer)

This is why I pretty much gave up on trying to give sound advice and teach monks better and more efficient methods of healing because most the time the view advice as an insult and that your just trying to flame them. It is apparently way too easy for people to mis-interpret innocent advice and turn it into a flame war.

When I see poor monking it's just better for my blood pressure to bite my tongue and find my happy place so the party can just continue on and hopefully finish a quest/mission.

You are correct, sir. What was I thinking? I'll reserve a slot or two for mending and HB while I'm at it.

BTW, I do carry Plague Touch in PvE for reasons already explained.

Let me in on your secret of not starting a flamewar when you see a warrior, or even worse - assasin, use Frenzy+Heal Sig in the midst of 3 gropus of Afflicted he "didn't" aggro. I can tolerate mistakes, everyone makes them, but the sheer stupidity of some actions makes me lose control.

Moreso we even had one ctrl+clicking heal sig as proof he's being careful with full aggro on him. After repeatedy being told not to.

Please all of you who hate PUGS so much just go play a single player game or stick to Guildies only. Complaining on here won't ever change anything in terms of how other players play, and all you're doing is perpetuating the "henchies are better than humans" attitude, which will be the undoing of the game if everyone ends up using henchies. Teamplay? What's that? Never heard of it... and yes, I know they can be bad experiences but there can also be good. To just dismiss the whole thing because of the bad experiences isn't right. It's the internet, everyone will find someone "worse" than them in some way.

Addition: the only things which should not be tolerated are grief and abuse. Just because someone doesn't play as well as you (in your mind) or matches your expectations... so long as they don't behave abusively towards you, or deliberately grief/screw things up... what right does anyone have to slag them off? In the case of the OP it sounds like he was attacked and abused, which is wrong, but that's a seperate issue. One which should not be tolerated.

I <3 PUGs.

Wow, Amity and Truth! The entire Prophecies campaign (for my healer) and well into the Maguuma with the second monk, and I was/have *never* been paid for a mission - period, treated as though my healer was a goddess OR been told I was doing a great job - UNLESS, of course, I WAS DOING A GREAT JOB.

Think of all the gold and adoration I've missed .

PuGs are the work of the devil.

I invite anet to think of some way to develop superior ingame mechanics for both finding groups and guilds in the forth coming chapters, as PuGs trully scare me.

The main principle is you do more with less, both in pve and pvp. But before you can do that there is lot to learn.

we're maybe touching the off-topic here...
Together with the tank the monk is the most visible character in the group, so he will get the most comments. I disagree that he will as a rule start the flaming though; and most people don't argue with bad warriors anyway as they're armored between their ears...

I know the thread. The trouble is, the worse the PUG, the more unwanted and often false "advice" or requests the monk gets - and more abuse. A mediocre ranger or caster can hide in the crowd. A monk can only look as good as his group lets him, and so a mediocre monk in a mediocre PUG will look bad when things go wrong.
When you're new to the monk business you still care for your team and still have to learn about triage
Its the group as a whole that wins or loses. If there is a weak link, the group has to adapt; if there are too many weak links no single player can save the day.

I cried through every page of this post. 99% of pug monks suck is rough. I like to think of myself as being a solid monk, pug'ing through most of the game. True there are some that aren't very helpful, like the M/R with 7/8 ranger skills + mending, ah yes 'keeping Mhenlo alive with his bow' or so he explained.

Much thanks to all the people along the way who have appreciated me monk with a 'ty awesome work'.

There are a lot of suggestions (most commonly used, effective strategies) that can help, especially a lot of new monks. But if the monk is doing a solid job with his/her own build don't be hating. There isn't always a right or wrong.