What is with Monks today?

I agree with Effigy on the support role.
I like playing support and my characters and builds reflect that.
Even my Sin is just a monk /caster killer and avoids large mobs.

What's furthermore 'wrong' is stated in arcady's post:
Quote: However in the past every PUG group -needed- a monk player Why does a team need a monk player and not monk hench? Or both monk hench?
It's not that they are entirely worthless. In Prophecies all missions can be henched and the same goes for almost all Factions missions.
Of cource, the hench sometimes do stupid things a good human monk would not do. But I have not seen that many screw-ups.

So it must be the teams play style that is wrong.
I cannot think of any other reason.
With carefull aggro controll and some time to 'rest' the hench do an exelent job.
I have walked all the high end prophecies and factions areas with hench and they never failed, unless I made a mistake.
Sure I died sometimes, but that's part of the game.
Total team whipe only when I got wrong aggro.

I know a good human monk probably has a better skill set and will therefor do a better job.
But that's bonus.

On all the missions I have done with PUGs, I can recall only a few rude monks.
But not more than any other profession.
Perhaps that's just luck.

About the charging issue.
When I don't play monk, I don't charge, so why should I when I do.
I think in many cases my other characters can do a better job achieving the teams goals (missions/masters most of the time).
Not that i'm a bad monk, but I've seen most missions more than once and know what character/build works the best in the mission.
So when my monk is online, I want to monk and therefore will not charge.
Add to that that most high end missions give about 1k gold (including drops, excluding purp/gold) and my 'expences' are somewhat covered.
Sure I could make better money, but that's not why I play the game.
But I do understand that some monks want to charge and I have been offered gold myself sometime.
Like the whole GW economy, it's all about availability and demand.

If you're spending 90% of your time watching the red bars, you are not playing correctly. Every class has its own version of 'tunnel vision' (warriors, for example, get too focused on one target and may end up ignoring what's going on around them), and the party window is the tunnel for monks.

You'll find you monk much better if you pay attention to what is actually going on. Where is everyone standing? What is everyone doing? If you look at the party window and see a warrior's health dropping rapidly, it can be hard to tell *why* he's dying so quickly. That 'why' is critical to a correct response. Depending on the case, you may want Prot Spirit, Spirit Bond, or Healing Seed - all for different circumstances that you can't know without looking at what's actually going on. Most importantly, looking at the screen allows you to identify problems before they actually occur. An elementalist standing way ahead of your backline is going to draw a lot of fire - pre-prot her. Warriors in the backline means your casters are going to take a lot damage - which ones? One of your own overextending warriors might require you to reposition, but you won't know if you're just staring at the red bars.

You also don't want to keep everyone at full health. This means a lot of overhealing. In general there's no point in healing relatively healthy people if they aren't under active attack. For instance, a backline caster might have been clipped by an aoe attack, but if she's still at 70% health and nothing is hitting her, you shouldn't concern yourself with healing her unless nobody else is taking damage. Of course, in order to make judgements like this you need to look *away* from the party window!

I swear to god monks are becoming rarer and rarer in RA. a team with a monk will usually beat a team without and having one in your groups is not a given. of course like busses, wait long enough and two come along...

Quote: Originally Posted by arcady

By god, is this thread about the quality of monks these days in general, or did you just start it to see who all the arrogant players are.....Now i remember why I am not "1337."

On topic, monks are not becoming rarer, GOOD monks (and players in general) are becoming rarer....By the looks of it, the worst player here has to be the guy with a list of rules for his healing....absolutely awful. This is a game, and the better players seem to be the ones who realise that...the ones who come to have fun. The people who come to rush throught the game however, they seem to be the bad players. Is t not fun to have a challenge? From a monk's perspective, it could be keeping the group alive because the idiot aggro'd too many mobs, or maybe it's that ele who persists on tanking everything (not hard to do, slap on Prot. Spirit and Spirit Bond, even after the nerf they'll be fine). I love playing monk with PUGs simply for these challenges! Of course, i try to correct people's errors if they do these things, but they're still pretty fun to play with even if they do realise what kind of a mistake they've made. Now i might get flamed from this, but go ahead, won't change me at all....and that's the kind of attitude we should all have. If we get flamed as a monk because the group failed and it's someone else's fault, don't /ragequit, don't leave the group, let the kids play, the bad players will filter themselves out for you (by kicking you or leaving).

Come on guys, have so many of you forgetten this is only a game?

1. A game is for having fun
2. Playing with morons is not fun
3. GW is a game
4. Therefore, GW is not for playing with morons.

I have never understood why anyone would advocate tolerance for stupidity.

If you're talking about challenge, it's also hard to play warrior with 0AL and no weapons, but I don't see people doing that for fun. It's no excuse for incompetence to say, "oh, but it's harder, so it's a challenge, and that must be better! Yeah!" Good monks can keep idiot teams alive, sure - but who says they want to?

I would have to say is that Monks need to be praised for the work they do or even maybe a hug /hug like Devona said you gotta love a Monk.

Quote: Originally Posted by the_jos

Ok, that's something I understand.

A couple of days ago I was in a very very very bad mood and decided to take a shortcut in at a car parking and drive against the traffic (i've seen no signs that it's forbidden, just common practise).
The aged couple heading towards (specially the man driving) was very upset and waving their hands and stuff.
Guess he must have cursed all 'young' people.
The same as I sometimes get annoyed by those old people in the supermarket (did they drop a whole old-age-house or something there, it's 25 of them or none) blocking the way.
It's not that they are all like that (probably just one, once a month).
But it's very easy to forget that and just think they are all like that, as you say.

Its funny how everyone critisizes a monk for "just using orison of healing" or "Just getting a WoH build off the net" when the process of aquiring skills in this game is so retarded and fundamentally flawed i lack words at how this game ever got released.

I have played this game for several weeks now, i hace done 8/20 missions, and am lvl 20 (naturally) and have unlocked serveral heroes
I also play NF, the only game i have

When i started NF i had like 2 skills or so, and after the first mission and doing the quest where you need to talk to [expert] of your profession i got some more, so now i had 9 i believe
When i got to Kamadan there was 1 skill to learn
When i unlocked dunkoroo and talkhla, the 2 monk heroes, i got 4 more skills
When i unlocked the [skills] trainer in sunspear sanctuary i got 3 more skills available

WOHOO
I HAVE A WHOPPING 20 SKILLS OUT OF THE SEVERAL HUNDRED IN THE GAME !

I dont have a single skill of the skill mentioned in all the builds online

The only useful HEAL i actually have is orison of healing
I have a crappy heal that has zero range, and a heal that heals a small bonus amount when someone has a condition, and thats it
No more pure heals, or bigger heals, or slow heals, or instant heals, or team heals
Yeah this sure makes it easy to start creating a build off my own, with my incredibly extensive selection of useful skills to use !

This was an issue i noticed already at lvl 5, and the only thing the pedants on the forums are able to vomit up is "go to the [skills] trainer to learn skills", when every single one of them has failed to notice me saying that what i have problems with is making more skills available, not going to a npc and clicking the "learn skill" button

Now i dont know how you aquired/unlocked new skills in prophecies and factions, but in nightfall its nothing short of frustrating and highly undocumented

Yes, this is a rant, its a problem that either isnt being noticed because everyone that started before NF has been pampered with an abundance of skills available at the trainers, or the method of getting skills in NF is just not forthcoming to newbies (and not mentioned either, i might add)

Using the SAME single heal from lvl 1 and through mission 8, several weeks in a row, is so fun that i havent played the game for 3 days, and im unsure if ill ever pick it up again

Yeah, Prophecies was nice to give you the skills...

I've gotta say, I've had some bad experiances with Monks in the original game recently. One monk (level 20, in Aurora Glade) had this bar...

Mending (applied on himself), Purge Conditions, Heal Area (for the warriors, of course). That's all I saw him use. -_-

And the other was in Dunes, who complained we were moving too fast for his energy to recover. So then I notice he has Divine Boon... Heal Party. So he applies Boon, sticks breeze on two warriors, HP... "OH NOES NO ENERGY", ugh.

Monk is my favorite class, and I really like getting a team through a mission. It feels good to keep everyone alive. But it's sad with the attitudes of other monks I meet, who rage and leave after their cap or bonus

@Yadee:

I understand your rant.
In Prophecies, a lot of skills/spels were given as quest rewards.
This changed in Factions and stayed the same in Nightfall, you get a small set of skills and you have to buy the rest at the trainer.

For new players, having skills as quest rewards works very good.
You learn the skills while you progress. At some point the skill quests stop, but then you should have a nice set.

When I started new characters in Factions, I soon found out that buying skills was the way to go. Almost no skill quests, just a couple of basic ones.
That's knowledge you don't have and I don't remember if there is a skill trainer that hands out quests in Nightfall (to give a hint to new players).

I'm not sure which system I prefer.
With the quests, you could get some crappy skills (depending on build/profession). But for new players, it's a way of learning the profession.

With the trades, I figure out which skills I want and just get those.
I don't have all those hundreds of skills that are in the game, just a few basic and a couple of skills that make a good build.

On my two Nightfall character I have only bought a few skills.
The rest are the basic skills I got from quests.
And I captured a couple of Elite skills (that's a quest in Elona for sure).
I'm at the mission after sunspear sanctuary right now, but that's only because I want to balance my Tyrian and Elona characters progress in the game.
My D and P are lvl20, but don't even have max armor yet.

When looking at my own monk skill bar, for regular healing monk I run one elite, a couple of 5 energy spells (including Orison), a condition remover from the protection line and a hard res.
With the right attributes (all on healing and devine favor in this case) and some runes, you should be able to heal almost all damage, except some boss-spikes.

So, while it's not clear for new players how to obtain skills and in the early game there are not that much skills at the trainer that are really worth the gold, I think you should be able to make a decent monk with those skills.
Perhaps not the best monk on earth, but good enough to get to the next trainer.

prophecies you had skill quests throughtout the game, which gave you normaly 2 skills as a reward (along with xp/money), and you had skill trainers...

factions has VERY few of those, mainly you just get given skills at some point, like in nightfall, plus there was skill trainers..

ive been critisied for my build before, but then when they all ran off and i babysat the guy at dunes of dispair, they all died in 45secs , they had alisa... they hadnt died previously, dispite the ele wanting tobe a frontline fighter :/

Being a more becomes more and more Frustrating..
Just Yesterday, Tried to do a quest at 'Nightfallen Jahai' The group needed one monk, so why not - I decided to come along..
The W/Mo rushed out, aggro'd two of the groups, of which taking one down is rather difficult already.
Lastly, after being jumped by the two groups of monsters, I was the one to blame for not being able to keep the team alive - Right.

In my opinion monks do deserve more respect than others, because theyr job, being equally important, but just a chunk harder then the others..

You're a Warrior - Charge in a Group, Skill1-Skill2-Skill3 - Rinse and Repeat.
You're a Necro - Stay Behind, Make Minions, Blood of the Master - Rinse and Repeat.

As a monk, you have to actually check the Radar, Check the Screen for Mobs. Check the Red Bars, Check your own Energy for Management, Usually aswell call out targets (Because as good as noone else does it) Also do most monks - since we're already so bored - work as tacticians, tell people what to do and where to stand, cause simply most just aren't able to use common sense..

What I'm trying to get at, that being a monk is in almost any case more difficult than playing another class, you usually get blamed for teams failing missions or quest, and you have to deal with pseudo-pro players, who think they know all better, but actually don't.

I'd guess the reason that monks lost respect is that those monks that are pretty well, up to good at the game, rather go with friends, guildies, or henchmen, than trying to actually find a group..

Those that are decent, or below, are mostly those you find in PUG's, along with the pseudo-pro monks..

Not to mention overhealing aswell. You can fine manage your energy even without being /me or /n for skills that recharge your energy, you just need to learn when to use what spell and not to overheal..

Lastly, Not healing people for doing mistakes is pretty stupid, also here counts common sense, where you should take a good look if people just accidently misstepped, or ran into those 3 groups and drew aggro just for the fun of it.. I still try my best to keep them all alive, even so far that I sprint over the half map just to heal that W/Mo that head of.. (Lately I foudn the joy of watchful spirit. :P)

And to the one who said your job as a monk is to keep at least 1 member standing at the end of the fight - that should be your goal in PvP maybe, but not in PvE
Your job as a monk is to make sure, that non of the red bars drops to zero,
and if that means that your entire team is the whole time at 50% health and not 100%, then they just have to accept that.. Just ignore the ' Heal me Monk ' spam..

Quote: Originally Posted by the_jos @Yadee:

I understand your rant.
In Prophecies, a lot of skills/spels were given as quest rewards.
This changed in Factions and stayed the same in Nightfall, you get a small set of skills and you have to buy the rest at the trainer.
. Well, i specifically said that its not the process of buying the skill at the trainer that is the problem, but getting more skills to appear in his damn list (this hasnt happened yet so far)

These are the skills i had available before going to mainland (doing this from the top of my head, i have bought all the skills so they all appear at all trainers)

Divine FavorBlessed Signet Signet of Devotion
Healing PrayersHealing Touch Orison of Healing Words of Comfort
Protection PrayersMend Ailment Pensive Guardian Reversal of Fortune
8 Skills

My heroes (dunkoroo and tolkara, spelling?) unlocked these when i got them

Divine FavorDivine Boon Watchful Healing
Healing PrayersHealing Breeze
Protection PrayersProtective Spirit
12 skills total...

And finally, getting to sunspear sanctuary had these:

Divine FavorHoly Haste Healing PrayersMending Restful Breeze Protection Prayers]Shield of Absorbtion Dismiss Condition Guardian Shielding Hands
Yay, 21 skills now, out of the 41 that exists

So, where is (list gotten from balthazar npc)Heal Party Healing Ring Healing Seed Infuse Health Renew Life Aegis Convert Hexes Draw Conditions Life Bond Rebirth (Plus the 10 elite skills i didnt mention, since they dont really apply here)

(i didnt add smiting skills, since im not interested in that branch, i made a monk for support)


This is quite frustrating

I'm sry but monks are contantly abused nowadays. I've been a monk, for my whole year of playing. I've almsot beaten the game. last mission atm. I can't stand people that yell or blame monks for not healing. I mean really i jsut go to the biggest battle and ditch to show them off. ^.^ But people it's not my falt u stand their while it's raining fire and meteors and ur standing in a fricken chaos storm.

Quote: Originally Posted by Yadee Well, i specifically said that its not the process of buying the skill at the trainer that is the problem, but getting more skills to appear in his damn list (this hasnt happened yet so far)

These are the skills i had available before going to mainland (doing this from the top of my head, i have bought all the skills so they all appear at all trainers)

Divine FavorBlessed Signet Signet of Devotion
Healing PrayersHealing Touch Orison of Healing Words of Comfort
Protection PrayersMend Ailment Pensive Guardian Reversal of Fortune
8 Skills

My heroes (dunkoroo and tolkara, spelling?) unlocked these when i got them

Divine FavorDivine Boon Watchful Healing
Healing PrayersHealing Breeze
Protection PrayersProtective Spirit
12 skills total...

And finally, getting to sunspear sanctuary had these:

Divine FavorHoly Haste Healing PrayersMending Restful Breeze Protection Prayers]Shield of Absorbtion Dismiss Condition Guardian Shielding Hands
Yay, 21 skills now, out of the 41 that exists

So, where is (list gotten from balthazar npc)Heal Party Healing Ring Healing Seed Infuse Health Renew Life Aegis Convert Hexes Draw Conditions Life Bond Rebirth (Plus the 10 elite skills i didnt mention, since they dont really apply here)

(i didnt add smiting skills, since im not interested in that branch, i made a monk for support)


This is quite frustrating I understand your problem, but the thing the skills around wich builds center are not just click and buy. Elite skills are the things wich complete builds. Now in prophecies you didn't have any elite skills until quite a LONG way in the game. But in factions and nightfall that changed, as soon as you left the beginner island there were atleast 2 elite skills close-by, ready for you to capture. This is what these skill trainers where balanced about, they expect you to have those 2 easy to get elite skills.

In your case there are both Glimmer of Light ( Orison of Healing with superman suit on it. ) and Light of Deliverance ( Heal Party with superman suit on it ) very close to the sunspear hide-out. They both have bosses that are extremely easy to kill with henchies, or even with heroes that aren't lvl 20 yet ( My lvl 8 koss tanked the first, and at lvl 9 he tanked the second. )

There are 2 ways to get these skills. You can either get the exact location of them ( GWwiki, other players ( PM me if need to be, Gobla Goodheart ) etc. ) or you can explore all the zones while questing and hunter for sunspear promotion points.

So I wouldn't say the way in wich you get skills is flawed, it is at most a bit confusing to new players as they have no idea about these elite skills. But then again, that's what the manual is for :P. And personally I really prefer this system in wich you are expected to have gone out and captured elite skills over a system in wich you walk to the skills trainer, give him 1k and get the skill you want.

Quote: Originally Posted by Yadee Its funny how everyone critisizes a monk for "just using orison of healing" or "Just getting a WoH build off the net" when the process of aquiring skills in this game is so retarded and fundamentally flawed i lack words at how this game ever got released.

I have played this game for several weeks now, i hace done 8/20 missions, and am lvl 20 (naturally) and have unlocked serveral heroes
I also play NF, the only game i have

When i started NF i had like 2 skills or so, and after the first mission and doing the quest where you need to talk to [expert] of your profession i got some more, so now i had 9 i believe
When i got to Kamadan there was 1 skill to learn
When i unlocked dunkoroo and talkhla, the 2 monk heroes, i got 4 more skills
When i unlocked the [skills] trainer in sunspear sanctuary i got 3 more skills available
..... Yadee, I really agree with you. It's pretty sad things are this way, but I think it was mostly so that the returning players wouldn't have it too easy. Of course that means that new players get the shaft..
If you play through Prophecies, I don't know how many skills you get, but it has to be pretty huge. A lot of the quests will give you two more skills, one for your primary, and one for your secondary.
With factions, and nightfall especially.. people that haven't unlocked the skills are very limited on their builds. It's almost like forcing you to play PvP to unlock skills you need. I know what you're going through, I hate having the same skills on my characters for level after level.
Not much we can do about it at the moment, though.
Don't give up! The game is fun after you get some more spells. XD

Quote:

Originally Posted by the_jos @Yadee: I understand your rant. In Prophecies, a lot of skills/spels were given as quest rewards. This changed in Factions and stayed the same in Nightfall, you get a small set of skills and you have to buy the rest at the trainer. For new players, having skills as quest rewards works very good. You learn the skills while you progress. At some point the skill quests stop, but then you should have a nice set. ........ I think what you aren't getting is that she hasn't UNLOCKED the skills, so she just doesn't have anything show up at the trainers.

Quote: Originally Posted by gobla I understand your problem, but the thing the skills around wich builds center are not just click and buy. Elite skills are the things wich complete builds. Now in prophecies you didn't have any elite skills until quite a LONG way in the game. But in factions and nightfall that changed, as soon as you left the beginner island there were atleast 2 elite skills close-by, ready for you to capture. This is what these skill trainers where balanced about, they expect you to have those 2 easy to get elite skills.

In your case there are both Glimmer of Light ( Orison of Healing with superman suit on it. ) and Light of Deliverance ( Heal Party with superman suit on it ) very close to the sunspear hide-out. They both have bosses that are extremely easy to kill with henchies, or even with heroes that aren't lvl 20 yet ( My lvl 8 koss tanked the first, and at lvl 9 he tanked the second. )

There are 2 ways to get these skills. You can either get the exact location of them ( GWwiki, other players ( PM me if need to be, Gobla Goodheart ) etc. ) or you can explore all the zones while questing and hunter for sunspear promotion points.

So I wouldn't say the way in wich you get skills is flawed, it is at most a bit confusing to new players as they have no idea about these elite skills. But then again, that's what the manual is for :P. And personally I really prefer this system in wich you are expected to have gone out and captured elite skills over a system in wich you walk to the skills trainer, give him 1k and get the skill you want. Yup, i have started getting elite skills now (i have 4, all the ones up to the areas i have gotten to)
But this has been more of a process of getting them just for the heck of getting them, as i am a bit of a collector/completionist, not because i had a build in mind

Im using glimmer of light in my build atm, but this is just because its actually a heal, the only other HEAL i have is orison of healing, all the other "heals" available have some condition for their usefulness, like words of comfort

I still havent gotten around to creating a build that synergizes several skills' usefulness and weaknesses with eachother to create extra effects


this is the "build" im using atm, lets call it "random placement of useful skills"
(and im struggling in pve i might add)

Orison of Healing
Words of Comfort
Glimmer of Light (elite)
Mend Ailment
Remove Hex
Divine Boon (i dont actually use this, not sure why its on my skill bar)
Holy Haste (same as above)
Resurrect

My attribute placement is 12 in divine favor and healing prayers, the rest (3?) in protection

The elite skills i have gotten so far are Healer's Boon, Glimmer of Light, Light of Deliverance, Zealous Benediction

Quote:

Originally Posted by jesh I think what you aren't getting is that she hasn't UNLOCKED the skills, so she just doesn't have anything show up at the trainers. bingo

I play boonprot in RA for glad pnts
(only because every other monk that seems to play...sucks? whats with that i swear....)
so i get 10 wins, 8 flawless and get compliments all around from my team

We hit TA

we lose right away to 3 thumpers + e denial mesmer
...all of a sudden im a total noob and i should learn to monk properly (still the same team)

Excuse me, but who just got you all that faction and the glad pnt?
Gosh.... =[ so harsh