The need to team!

Been playing GW as a monk for 2 weeks, almost done with NF. The thing is: I want to join PEOPLE in instances, NOT just my heroes.

Which instances do people get together for fun/loot and how do I get there?

I am REALLY tired of playing GW as a single player game. The few times I have been in a team for a mission I have been hopeless. Why? Well I have had NO PRACTICE! I really need to mission with people to sharpen my healing skills. Healing a team of NPCs is easy, they are predictable. Koss suddenly doesnt get scared and bolt away when his health drops with a spike, he stays put and doesnt go out of healing range. People do it.

I just want to be the best healer I can be, I want people to want me in teams because they know they can depend on me. Sadly, so far I have had little practice and I want MORE!

So to ask again: Which instances must I aim for, get to and do PVE team monking?

I would say most of the later game or mid game areas have players that are looking for a monk. OR even go to some of the Lower lvl missions and offer to monk for them...even if you are "hopeless" you can usually keep a player alive in a lower lvl area and it will give you some experience. You just need to broadcast yourself in Chat MONK LFG or use the party search panel.

My IGN is Coridan A

put me in friends and i will group with you.

Go practise in the lower end PvP - RA, AB etc. 'tis good practise, and if you fail miserably... who cares?

I realise that it isn't PvE, yet the same tactics and good monking skills work well in both PvE and PvP.

Alternatively, get a PvE guild and go on an outing with them.

So there is no place where people PVE team all the time?

What kind of game is this?

I have been playing MMORGS for over 8 years since EQ started and I find it hard to believe that this "MMORG" has no place where people team up regularly for PVE.

Dont get me wrong, I dont want a quick fix, I am willing to work/grind through whatever solo as long as I know that the places I get to have people PVE teaming and needing healing.

Please dont see this as a whine post ;-P

Unfortunately, "the need to team!" isn't there anymore in GW for several reasons:

1. A-Net's "policy" of a new game every 6 months has people pushing to finish the game with all the characters they have before the next chapter comes out, or finish enough to farm the high-level areas

2. The introduction of controllable Heros (which I do like) makes building your own team very easy.

3. The introduction of HM and the virtually "dumbed down" normal mode make henchies a viable part of any team.

I have been playing GW for over 18 months now. When I started playing, henchies were worthless for virtually anything outside of questing. PUG's were easy; just type in your profession, level & LFG and you'd have a group normally in 5 minutes (especially the monks, even if they sucked). There was the feeling that a bad PUG was better than a good henchie group. Not so much so anymore.

With the Devs putting out new games so fast, people have found inventive ways to use heros & henchies to get through any quest/mission in the game. I have fallen into the same trap. I only use heros & henchies because I know what to expect from them. I have beaten all 3 chapters with just hero & henchie groups because a PUG is far too unpredictable. And why waste time grinding through a mission with a PUG when you can bust it out with heros & henchies.

Unfortunately, Stormlord Alex has your best answer. If you wanna learn to be a great PUG monk, you'll more than likely have to delve into the world of PvP. Outside of HM, the PvE world makes the "locals" far better.


edit: grammar

there are places where people team all the time, but these are high level PvE area, and if you have been playing your first character for 2 weeks you are no where near any of these areas. people usually get teams for missions, but quests are better with heroes/henchies.

There's no doubt real monks can be much better than heroes, but my monk heroes are probably better than the average player. Join a large PvE Guild or make some friends!

Most of the PUG forming gets done at the end-game / elite mission areas.

But as A Monk, you shouldn't have too much trouble getting into a group. Something you maywant to do right off is check out the builds section here and try out some of those. One thing you may not be aware of is that raising your devine favor attribute will give your healing skills a boost.

Unfortunately, you can't do anything about other players who do dumb things like over-aggroing or running away from heals.

PvP could use some monks looking to improve on their game.

For PvE you could try out the "high-end" areas if you can't team up with your guildmates

Prophecies, Factions, Nightfall:
Fissure of Woe (FoW)
The Underworld (UW)

Factions:
The Deep - Accessed through Cavalon
Urgoz's Warren - Accessed through House zu Heltzer

Prophecies:
Sorrow's Furnace - Unfortunately people usually only farm certain quests here.

Nightfall:
Domain of Anguish (DoA - not to be confused with Realm of Torrment) - Available after beating Nightfall.


All of these areas have people looking to team up. Some probably want a specific build so you can research whatever people usually use there until you get a hang of things yourself.

Now that is an answer I can use! Thanks Taki! Now I have something to work towards. My current guild have a go at Urgoz often, so I will work to finish NF and then I will whack factions ASAP to get there.

Q F lol factor

Somewhat agreed

PUGs were dead by then anyway - did little to them.

This ties in with below, but normal mode is still harder than release.

Hench are worse than they ever have been. Their horrid skill selection is even worse after years of skill balances and the AI is smarter. While arguable by how much, it still is smarter - even in normal mode you can't have the warrior pick something up, the ele cast firestorm, and clear the whole area like you could for many months into release. Aggro was simple to gather, simple to hold, and there was *no* scatter from AoE allowing the nukers to go to town. Heck, even the ele hench was OK at it - her issue was that she tended to cast the AoE spells on something that was to die quickly, not that she caused scatter or the other "problems" we see today.

A decent hench player has never had any trouble with any mission in the game and still doesn't. What has changed is that you now have two wiki's and several forums that will fix all your woes with henching any mission whereas before you had to go out on your own. Heck, there isn't a prophecies mission out there that one of my character did not hench the bonus on before the release of Factions, you can find screens of people who henched (with bonus) every mission in prophecies with no weapons, no skills, and no attributes - only the hench.

That is true - more because that feeling did not match reality than anything else. Heroes simply speed up the process somewhat. It was once considered impossible to hench Thunderhead Keep - and with no nerf/buffs whatsoever at the time this first occurred (just how to do it becoming common knowledge), it is one of the easier missions now. More likely to get err7'd than fail (though it is as much a PUG killer as it ever was).

Wa? Putting out games so fast made this *harder* to do. Most of the "creative" ways they are used are standard human team builds that people have found the hero's do OK with. It still is no where near what a decent human team can do, for one thing you really have access to four man team builds as a solo player. Anything that would make a one person, three hero, and four hench team "unbalanced" would allow an 8 person human team to complete with both eyes shut and one hand behind their back (and is why a full party of humans that are decent players blow through the game - they have to balance to about the lowest level player). A longer release cycles just allows more creative ways to be found - a shorter one promotes PUG'ing (the first few weeks after the release of the later chapters saw many random groups forming).

PUG's suck the same as they ever have, hench are pretty much as good as they ever were - the only difference is the players.

To the OP - as a monk you should have an easy time forming a group in most missions (most people play quests with the AI). Though the best bet is to rely on your guild - if they will not group for general gaming you really ought to be looking for a different guild. Until GWEN is released the vast majority of players are "veteran" and either are in a guild that plays the way they want or play with the AI.

Well I would think a solution would be:

1. Make a mission giver that allows access to an instance if
2. It is a full 8 man group (no solo farming)
3. Allows no Henchies
4. Allows no heroes
5. Make the mission repeatable with bonuses
6. Make it REALLY hard with good loot and/or LB/SS points

Just my 2c

*shrug* - you still will not get what you want. People that want to group do so right now, people who do not want to do not. Those that do not want to group will not play such a thing and you know the player base that chooses to form random groups. The vast majority that want to group with humans do so with their guild, PUGs are 95% or greater incompetent and the above does nothing to fix that.

It is too late to "fix" it if it were ever possible. The game catered to the so called "casual" and/or cheap player. The casual player tends to play in short spurts and has a limited amount of time, they can range anywhere from horrid to expert players. They are going to hench (and now hero) or play with whatever guild mates are on line due to the time constraints - they can not spend an hour getting a good focused PUG when you only have an hour so to play. The cheap player almost always sucks, can't play with the hench (as they are only as good as you are), and can not get in a decent guild so they PUG it. Even at it's best that was the case, now even worse (however, for the AI or guild player things are as good or better than they ever have been).

As the initial question has been answered, and this isn't the forum for discussing the in's & out's of the effect's of henchies, hero's, etc on PUG's..

Thread Closed.