Will Monks be forced into early retirement?

The thing you got to remeber is that you have to supply your hero with weapon,shield and offhands etc.I don't think we will see the end of the use of real ppl vs AI anytime.I can use my heros else where but in a mission what would you really prefer.I did a good healing build on my Monk hero but it lacked energy and so did my Warrior hero which i made a W/Mo for ressing they did pretty good but i haven't tested them in a real mission.Who knows what the missions are going to be like in NF?I don't think i would take these heros in a mission like THK the commands my help or any mission with an NPC you have to keep alive.

I kept fooling around with Koss for the whole event. One time even making him into a spirit spamming Rit (which he was horrible at). But when I made him into a Smite W/Mo, I found that he couldn't resist running off after targets that were maybe walking through an area we just fought through, or targets near an area we just fought in. Seemed once he started smiting, he did not want to stop. This resulted in the aggroing of other groups right after a battle (typical W/Mo style), so with little to no energy left, I just turned around and ran...

Anet not only captured the powerful essence of player-made builds but also the noob aspect of them as well =D
But anyway, Necromancers will never retire =D

i tried bond monk on the hero monk and it worked fine, he bonded me the other monk and the tank then he casted blessed signet, he never ran out of energy and even if that would maybe happen i always had a hero with br. the only anoying thing is that sometimes he would bond the npcs like sunspears guards but i found that they were pretty awesome

Ahhh...but did he know when to remove the bonds...hmmmm??? Or did they just get shattered?


Ummm...you do realise heroes take drops right?

If you have a decent player, they will be better than a hero or hench.

Pretty big if when it comes to pugs.

Actually, I'm just bitter. In reality most players are decent enough for PvE. Mostly it's just that pugs bring out the worst clashes of egos and the worst pugs have multiple prima donnas trying to dominate each other instead of playing the damn mission. It's also the reason I hate pugging because I hate not being the prima donna. Henchies have really spoiled me that way.

An experience monk will always be better than any AI. I wouldn't sweat it.

Heroes is the best thing ever done for pve (at least for me). I hate waiting for a long time getting into a mission with PUG group. With Heroes I only require to have 1 other player for hard missions. For solo players I think 2 monks Heroes, 1 option, and 4 henchies is the best way to go.

I bet you still won't be able to take hero's to FoW or UW.

Yeah I don't know about you guys but I did NOT like the Monk Hero. Drunko wasn't even as good as the Healer henchie... after two or three party wipes I stopped bringing him if I could. Sometimes I'd pack him AND the healer henchie but that guy was... just... bad henchie. I did't like him. (( Nor his look which didn't help me watch him running around my screen for hours))

Maybe it's just me, or my personal play style, but i didn't like him at all. Koss I liked, Mel I liked. Drunko I didn't.

Depends on the mission.

If a mission would req your party to split heros and henches would not be usable.

Other than that I'd use the AI over real players.

The henches are 5x better than real players mojority of the time and the Heros are better than the henches.

The only problem I saw with Dunkoro is that he didn't use his healing spells sparingly, and thus ran out of energy fast. Just make him Mo/Me and give him Energy Tap, Energy Drain, and one other energy manipulation skill, then set him to passive. He'll usually just sit back, suck some energy, and heal like there's no tomorrow.

Oh yeah, one more thing, don't let him have Healing Breeze. He casts that even more than Orison.

Well I changed my Monk Heroes to Prot first chance I got, and used the heal hench as backup. Give the Hero spells like Guardian, Reversal of Fortune, Aegis, Shield of Regen, etc, and you have nothing but good defense being spammed. Gotta love a hench that spams Incendiary Arrows, as well.

I love playing with these Heroes and seeing how the AI reacts to certain builds. Gonna be very fun when we get lvl 20 toons--my first guy I set up will be an SS Necro, of course. Come to think of it, Well of Blood being spammed automatically should make life much easier as well.

Love the Heroes, bottom line.

Typical idiot > Hero > Experienced Monk.

There will be replacements for crap monks, but nothing will ever replace a dynamic healer.

I think we should be more concerned about mesmers. After all, the ungodly reflexes on the AI certainly spells doom for aspiring countermages XD.

Yeah, I hear a lot about people being smarter than bots, but to be honest, its not always the case.

Allright, I might get falemd for this but…

The main problem is… your typical PuG monk is an idiot, most good monks can waltz through most missions/quests with henchies, so we mostly are left with guys who waste all energy in first 10s of a heated battle and than start ctr click their energy bar .

Heroes might not be great, but they are predictable, and enough for most situations. Random PuG in such case not worth the effort, 50% available monks are crap, 25% about hero level of skill, and last 25% are really good, but they really do not need a PuG to finish missions.

In other words, you are risking more taking a random monk than taking a hero.

IMHO the behaviour/AI of the healing monk hero could be improved.

OTOH, the 2nd monk hero, set as protection, did her job (specially after I gave her Aegis and Shield of Regeneration)

One think I didn't like was that Jin, the Ranger hero, didn't use her charm animal to get a pet Hope that gets fixed in the final version.

People who play PuGs are already voluntarily entering into an inefficient system (hey, it's a game, who cares?). As has already been mentioned, for someone who knows how to use them henchies were already better than pugs.

...anywho, there was already "no" reason except fun (which is a pretty big one!) to take anything but Warriors, Necromancers and Monks into a group unless you could put together a full B/P setup. Anything else is people being sub-par, informal and exploratory... Which is why you'd join a PuG in the first place!

From a monk-only player:
Is hero-monk better than average PUG monk? Hell yeah. Even hench are better. But the point is: do you really take average PUG monk with you or do you search for a good one? I think the hero system will decrease time to make a party as you won't have to look for a good monk 15 minutes. If you find one in 5 then OK, if not take hero.

If anything, the Hero system is going to force me to learn to play a Monk. I admit, that after a few tries at my own builds, I will be browsing the forum here and stealing builds to see what works, what doesn't and try to figure out why.

I've been fooling around with a noob monk in Factions now for a bit, and I think I might actually go a little further and try to actually learn to play a Monk before Nightfall comes out. Otherwise my Dunkaro is going to be the worst Monk ever.

I think the Hero system will make people want to learn more of the other classes. I typically play Warrior or Necromancer. Learning to play a Monk so I can have a competent Monk Hero is going to be necessary.