Revamping Divine Favor for Smiting

As of right now I see Divine Favor as a very good attribute for Monks who use Healing and Protection skills, but due to the fact the Monks primary attribute Divine Favor only affects spells that target allies, the vast majority of the Smiting Prayer spells for Monks do not receive any benefit because they primarily target enemies. For this reason Smiting Prayers are rarely used by monks because of the lack of benefit they receive from Divine Favor. I believe revamping Divine Favor so it adds a benefit to Monk Smiting spells that target enemies would revitalize the idea of Smiting Monks. This could be easily implemented into the preexisting Divine Favor attribute and into Guild Wars lore as well.

I believe the simplest change would be to reword the current Divine Favor text,

"For each rank of Divine Favor, allies are healed for 3.2 whenever you cast Monk spells on them. Several Monk skills, especially spells related to Energy gain and healing, become more effective with higher Divine Favor."


to a newer more versatile Divine Favor,

"For each rank of Divine Favor, allies are healed for 3.2 whenever you cast Monk spells on them, and enemies take 3.2 fire damage whenever you use Monk spells or signets on them. Several Monk skills, especially spells related to Energy gain and healing, become more effective with higher Divine Favor."
(The reason I gave the damage benefit to signets as well is simply because many of monk smiting skills which deal damage directly enemies are signets, and otherwise without the damage benefit to signets the number of monk spells which target enemies would be far too few to make this additional damage useful.)

The lore of this could be explained as follows; allies recieve the extra health from Divine Favor because the Monks are favored by the God, Dwayna. (The goddess of life and air, Dwayna is the even-tempered leader of the old gods. Her followers are mainly healing Monks and Elementalists specializing in Air Magic (though in times of war, there are few denizens of Tyria who have not let fly a prayer to the Winged Goddess to spare them or their loved ones). Dwayna is often depicted as young, tall, and slender rising over the ground on huge feathered wings.)

The extra fire damage could be explained by Smiting Monks being favored by the God, Balthazar. (The god of war and fire, Balthazar is often worshipped by Warriors and Elementalists, though there are Monks who have been known to follow his scriptures as well. Army commanders and guild lords will often say a few words to the Bastion of Martial Glory before leading their followers into battle. Balthazar is frequently shown holding a greatsword, its tip lodged in the ground, with a pair of battle hounds sitting at attention at his feet.)

This would be a simple change which would not overly power monks, but it would enable Smiting Monks to be viable and respectable class throughout Guild Wars.

P.S. If the damage is found to be too much of a benefit it can always be decreased slightly.

Actually, I think most monks don't use smiting because it's trash compared to the benefits gained from healing and protecting monks - and monks are (were?) rare enough to find as it is.

Or people would get more frustrated at all the smiting monks around instead of finding the prot/heal monks they actually want.

I'm not opposed to the idea. I just don't think it will have the beneficial impact you expect it will.

That could be a bit too much.


I'll add just:
... and foes receibe 1..2 Holy damage whenever you activate Holy damage dealing skills on them...

For each rank of Divine Favor, allies are healed for 3.2 whenever you cast Monk spells on them and foes take 1 Holy damage whenever you activate Holy damage dealing skills on them. Several Monk skills, especially spells related to Energy gain and healing, become more effective with higher Divine Favor.

Why extra holy damage? See the Avatar of Balthazar. Holy damage.Yeah, the thing would be fire, but Balthazar seem to use holy damage to punish and fire to have fun, hehe...

And limiting it to skills that deal holy damage only, we prevent Mo/E using supernuking builds with a necromancer providing energy..

Why 1 or 2? Because 3.2 would be too much. With divine favor 16 would be over 50 extra damage per hit, and a monk can have a build composed or various fast direct-damage skills. Hit, hit, hit... 600HP in a blink of an eye.

The point is to make smitting skills a bit more effective for Monks than for Elementalists and Mesmers.
It may be hard to find monk for parties, but if a monk just want to make a AI party not being the healer, with this she would do this without getting bored of waiting between castings and seen how crappy damage he does.

@Lafayette
I wasn't expecting this to be an end all cure for smiting, but I'm thinking that this could be a step in the right direction to make Smiting a useful attribute.

@Mithran
Holy damage could be good too. I was just thinking fire damage because it is something that can be less abusable because of the fact that armor and many other skills can reduce the damage taken from it.

Well truth is that I've been thinking about this some time ago, and I couldn't think anything better.

Most Smitting skills deal holy damage, not many other skills in other professions deal holy damage (with exceptions like mysticism) and there are skills, touches, spells, enchantment that deal holy damage, so just by making the attribute checking only if the skill deals holy damage and adding a bit, we make Monks better without giving bonuses to other professions.

ever heard of a smite backer ??

and yea i like the idear, i'd like to be able to roll a monk midline/support smiting build with out having to be backline healer/prot

/signed to enchance DF to include smiting
Let anet determine the balanced benefits.

To Lafeyette:
Monks that don't use their character for smiting at all lose out. =O
I'd definately prefer 2 smiters over 2 nukers in HM areas with undead.

Honestly I'd rather see smiting removed completely, as well as damage from any other healer class. Or healing removed from damage classes. Having both damage and heal in one class leads to trash like rit spike and paragon spike.

There aren't to many skills effected by Devine Favour for smiting or even protection.