How to be a utility monk and class combos

Hello all! For starters, I know about the search function, but I'd rather get a selection of opinions and experiences. And second off, I am a monk noob so don't hate me

I have noticed the apparent lack of useful monks in the game. Whether its a random arena or a mission, you almost never get a good healer in your team. Damage is fun, but so is keeping your whole team alive.

That brings me to my question - what monk builds are useful? And which ones are fun? My latest idea was to combine ranger with a monk to benefit from ranger's survivability abilities, traps and that extra damage. But in afterthought I realized that a R/M that likes bows and pets is very useless.

So what I'd like to know is - how to be a utility monk that is usefull? I have a good experience from WoW (i know, its not the best example...) in being a support healer, yet its different here.

What kinds of skills do I need? And which ones are just plain fun?

Also if someone could tell me about the class combinations for monks, and whether its better to go first or second class monk, I'd be very grateful.

Thanks all!

Well, it really depends on what you mean by "utility" and "support healer." Utility, to me, means bringing something to the team other than straight healing; i.e. condition/hex removal, defensive enchantments, etc. In that sense, protection monks generally have more utility than pure healers. You can also make a hybrid heal/prot monk that fills both roles.

"Support healer" is generally a player (not always a monk primary) who takes pressure off the main healer. This can be accomplished by a healing monk, a protection monk, an E/Mo with Heal Party, and so on. It just depends on how to set up your skills.

Teams don't always look for support as much in PvE, but it can be helpful. In you're just playing with PUGs, you'll generally be expected to bring utility skills like condition and hex removal, but beyond that they tend to want a primary healer. Guild groups tend to be more organized and might include more support characters. Also, if you have Nightfall you can design your hero characters to fill necessary support roles.

We can't really recommend builds unless we know what campaigns you have.

Read this overview monk article first then come back with specific questions.

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/content...ive-id2138.php

Generally speaking, you want to be a primary monk for the primary attribute (Divine Favor) and skills linked to it. This isn't what you're limited to, of course, but if you want to primarily monk, you'll probably do best by having a Monk Primary (hehe).

Heal Party spamming E/Mo's come to mind when thinking support/utility healing. pretty much anything with condition or hex removal. Me/Mo maybe.

Mind failure atm, sorry :E

Utilizing skills from another profession such as elementalist can help in supporting a team. I use a Mo/E with a combination of Wards and Aegis, along with other general protection.

The problem with a Mo/E warder is that it will further tax your energy as well as requiring additional attribute investment. Better to have an E/Mo warder with Heal Party and maybe Extinguish imo.

That guide is handy, but it still doesn't quite answer my questions.

So the most effective "background" monk is a Me/Mo, a survivor/"power" monk is E/Mo while a "main monk" should be Mo/Anything?

ok, here comes one hell of a long post:

normally if you want to go as a healing class, you have three choices for a primary: monk, elementalist, or ritualist. in certain situations, a necromancer can also handle heals well thanks to soul reaping, but due to the conditional energy gain of soul reaping and the effectiveness compared to a monk, its not the best option.

monk is generally perceived to be the best primary healing class, due in part both to the passive benefit of divine favor and access to monk runes. the monk attribute lines have access to almost every form of healing, protection, and support you could want from a primary healer (single target healing and team-wide healing, regen healing, single target and team protection, hex removal, condition removal, as well has "hard" resurrect skills, ie not rez sig).

the only thing they lack within there own lines is dedicated energy management (not counting signet use or simply knowing how to conserve your energy, both of which make for great energy management though). for a very long time, a mesmer secondary was seen by some to be a necessity, or at least desired, for a primary healer monk. however, the inspiration line of the mesmer has suffered several nerfs over time, the most recent being the changes to mantra of recall. because of this, many monks have turned to other secondaries looking for other benefits (assassin for evasion/dmg reduction skills, elementalist for glyphs). the inspiration line still has several valuable skills for energy management. however, for the most part, you can find most of what you need in the monk lines without having to investing in secondary class lines.

as for the elementalist, they can make a fine secondary or support healer. access to the energy storage line as well as glyphs gives them the ability to sustain their heals for a longer time than a monk. the problem arises in the strength of their heals. without access to monk runes, elementalist are limited to a max of 12 in healing/prot prayer, limiting their healing power. plus the lack of passive bonus of divine favor further reduces their healing power. where the elementalist shines is as a support healer. using the skill ether prodigy, you have the ability to spam skill like heal party, which is one of the most powerful heals there is. at 12 healing prayers, it heals each party member for 67 points: with 8 team members, thats 536 points of healing. spamming heal party helps take pressure off the monk(s), thereby increasing the survivability of the team, hence to term "support".

the ritualist, while neglected, can be very useful as both a secondary and even primary healer/protector. using the restoration line, the ritualist has access to many powerful and efficient healing skills. many of the better skills are dependent on meeting certain conditions, such as holding items or being near a spirit; this can make them less effective under unideal conditions. also, this line focuses more on smaller, straight heals rather than large spike heals or protection (aside from some of the weapon skills), so its sometimes seen as less favorable to the healing of a monk. i personally find the ritualist to be an adequate healer who has the ability to sustain his heals for a longer time than a pure monk. but the power of the heals, lack of protection, and, most notably, no hex removal, makes it hard to argue a ritualist over a monk.

i do, however, like the combination of skills such as attune was songkai, life, spirit transfer, spirit light, soothing memories, and mend body and soul. this give you several spammable straight heals, condition removal, powerful spike healing, as well some of the best energy management available. id put a build incorporating these skills up against a pure healing monk most of the time (might get flamed with this last part ).

the ritualist also has access to the communing line, which offers several very powerful protection skills. although much stronger prior to one of the recent skill balances, a communing rit, sometimes called a ritual lord, after the skill originally used in the build, or the more generic spirit spammer, still has the ability to offer all team mates in spirit range some very nice protection. using the three skill shelter, union, and displacement, rits have the ability to reduce dmg to the team to no more than 10% health, then reduce that dmg even further, all while adding a team wide evasion ability. since the skill balance, the rit lord has almost completely died out, although the build can still be used to some effectiveness, although not nearly as strong as before.

i could say some more stuff, but ive alrdy wasted too much time on this. may be more to come at some other time.

I rarely use my monk's secondary. Signets and good skill management is much better e-management than what the other classes provide. The only skill I use out secondary is inspired hex.

There are issues with weapon spells and the conditions of their healing abilities that prevent the ritualist from being a viable healer in competitive gameplay. Specifically, weapon spells are still rather weak, and don't stack.

At the original poster--Monks aren't a utility class. If you want to play utility go e/mo with heal party, or perhaps a necro with heal other or aegis. No one wants a gimped monk.

DJ already went over the main points at all viable healing+support builds, so I won't go over them, but I will repeat my main point: monks aren't utility.

Monks are a "core" profession for a reason.

Seeing a Mo/E running flags and support healing makes me cry.........leave that to Thom and the rest of his Ele buddies...

sigh...more long paragraphs no one likes to read :

thom nailed the biggest reason why you will never see the rit as a healer in high end pvp: their healing is far too conditional. you have to have a spirit near or you have to be holding an item or your target must have a weapon spell on them. under ideal conditions, yes the rit can be a solid healer, unfornuatly, you do not always have ideal conditions in high end pvp. in the end, a monk offers stronger and more reliable healing and protection than a rit is able to sustain, even if the rit has ideal conditions more often than not. still, if we assume pve, all bets are off so a rit has the potential to match/approach the power of a monk.

as for the rit weapon skills, there is a reason why i skipped over them in my previous post: most just arent that useful. weapon of warding is probably the best non-elite weapon spell, and because of the cost i dont think its too viable outside of an attuned was songkai build. as for weapon spells in general, i can live with the whole "only one weapon per person at a time" thing, but we either need some buffs to the skills themselves or at least some better/other choices.

one issue with the whole "primary"/"support"/"utility" roles of healers is what your definitions of these terms are. if you use the terms "support" and "utility" as meaning the same or similar things, than yes a primary monk should never run this kind of build. but maybe you use "utility" to mean "able to do several different thing". take a monk like this for example:

zealous benediction
prot skill
prot skill
sig of devo
gift of health
hex removal
condition removal
prot skill if pvp : hard rez if pve


one might say that this could be a "utility" monk because it seems to be able to handle just about any situation (powerful heal, prot skills, energy management in sig, spammable heal, both hex and condition removal).

my definition of "primary" would be that the team is relying on you to supply the majority of the healing/protection for the group. without the "primary" healer(s), the group is most likely going to fail. then i would use "utility" to define the specific role of the "primary" healer(s); as opposed to a "straight healer" or "straight protector" or some combination of the two. by my definition of "utility", a "utility" build would be a good thing for a monk to run.

for me "support" means just that: support the "primary" healers in the group, whether that means aegis, extinguish, heal party, or whatever else you are using. the point is to take some pressure off of the "primary" healer(s), not take their place. it should still be possible for the group to survive even without your "support". in this case, a necro can make an effective "support" healer along with the elementalist.

again this is all just my definition of these terms, but i think the basic ideas behind the descriptions still apply.

what he said.

(my definition varies because from a team build standpoint, support and utility are basically the same thing, whereas on an individual you bring quite a few utility skills, such as hex removal and everything else you noted)

DJ summed it up pretty nicely. And Thom has a point, in that players who bring utility (Heal Party, Aegis, Extinguish, Draw Conditions, hex removal, etc) help to take pressure off the primary monks. If you really want to argue over semantics, the primary monks are supporting everyone else on the team, while the "support" healers are supporting the monks.

Anyway, the main difference is that primary monks will be concerning themselves primarily with healing/protecting teammates and keeping them free of conditions/hexes. A support healer will generally be doing multiple tasks, only one of which is heal/prot or condition/hex removal. An E/Mo might be using Heal Party, but he'd also be dealing some damage and blinding enemy melees or casting wards. When choosing which role you want to play, you have to ask yourself whether you'd rather devote yourself solely to team support or whether you'd rather multitask. In PvE, support healers aren't always necessary so in that setting E/Mo, N/Mo, and Me/Mo will often play a purely offensive role.

I would like to know are you asking if a R/Mo would make a good utility class healer well the answer is No as you have no devine favour.You could use healing spring but that is it.If you are asking about a Monk then you could go heal and protect but moslty heal and learn how to do it and with protect it is a little special.Healing is the better place to start for firsrt time starting to learn the role.You could do what Effigy is saying but that would be good for an organised guild or GvG or HA.Go and do what the rest of us have done and learn how to heal.