Healing would have been better?

Joined a PUG the other day for the mission that leads to Sanctum Clay, Riverside Province. Just before entering I spammed my build:

Life Sheath
Guardian
Aegis
Protective Spirit
Rebirth
Reversal of Fortune
Draw Conditions
Divine Boon

Maybe not the best build, but it represents what I have having not completed the game, but taken a run to Droknar's Forge and a stop in Kaening in order to be able to cap something elite and have good armor.

The Elementalist in the group replied with 'Heal would have been better'.

Is a healing monk ever a better choice? Variations on the above build have gotten me from Ascalon to Riverside fairly well, with a lot of PUGs since the Shiverpeaks.

And I -know- Divine Boon is not in favor anymore, but without access to ZB I find it still very effective - better than my Healer hero can keep up with. Once I do get ZB I plan to put it where Divine Boon is and swap out Life Sheath for a Hex Removal spell such as Convert Hexes or Remove Hex.

Throw on Gift of Health and do both...
Pure healing builds are pretty fail, if you don't suck at prot then LoD & Kiss with liberal RoF usage can pretty much keep the red bars high, and.... you know... not suck whilst doing it *cough*all the pug monks with WoH and healbreeze *cough*

Nod. Will look at your skill suggestions when I get home.

The comment came at the gate of the mission, so before I had a chance to prove how good or bad I was.

I think I do a good job, but that's outside of this one, as this was sort of a 'pre-mission' critique of the very idea of having a Prot monk.

I forget my exact attributes, but they are maxed into Prot and Divine only, with 1 minor rune for each, and this character has not yet ascended so doesn't yet have those last 30 attribute points that my Nightfall monk got just for reaching level 20 in one piece.

If they played smart, I don't see any problem with that build. Were you the only monk in the group?

Yes. Often I'm either the only monk, or somebody brings along a hench monk and a second monk - seems PUGs end up as 1 or 2 all too often and not the magic two.

This was in fact my second try at this mission. First run out, the party leader invited another monk as well, and then promptly added a third monk in the form of the local henchy monk - Alesia.

Shortly into that ran, with the other three all being WaMo's, they charge the entire mob of NPCs after the gate, rather than one tower at a time. We're in a fight of some 20-30... the second monk hasn't cast a single heal or prot the entire mission, and she goes down then rage quits, then party leader quits, and next thing I know everyone has quit save for me, one WaMo, and Alesia...

Mind you, even with a mob that size, I was able to keep the one WaMo up, but we couldn't make an impact and I mostly kept him up by spamming rebirth because he kept running away from me and back into the thick rather than edges of the mob...

Second run, I was the sole monk, and thankfully we only had one warrior and no dervishes - so no wammo-style play. That said, I was way 'off my game' - I kept everyone else alive the whole mission, but went down twice myself... Only the second time I've gone down during a PUG mission on this character. That left me wondering if the Elementalist had a point and the content is just going to start getting too rough for my build, or if it was just me being 'off' that night, or if it really did need a second monk.

Quote: Originally Posted by arcady

if you going full prot then it is generally a good idea to bring a heal monk to make the red bar go up. If you are the only monk just run a hybrid prot/heal. Either Lod with some prots or ZB with gift of health.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say something that's going to be massively unpopular:

Yes, for NM Riverside Province, heal would have been better.

Given that set of monster's numbers, damage ranges, and AI response to what sounds like typical PUG aggro tactics, it's both easier and more energy efficient to just heal the damage rather than trying to prevent it. What you get out of prot is a function of how much damage (and in what number of what sized packages) your foes throw at it. Below a certain point, low foe damage leads to returns on prot that are so low you'd be better off healing. (Extreme-case example to illustrate the point: The devourers outside Ascalon City hit your lvl 20 with end-game armor for 0-2 damage per hit. That means RoF -- super-revered skill of the prot pantheon that it is -- is going to prevent 0-2 damage, and heal for 0-2 + DF bonus. You'd be better off spending your 5e on orison.) The damage output in NM Riverside Province is definitely waaaay below the point where prot performs as well as heal. A lot of people seem not to want to hear it, but the damage output in most of the rest of PvE is below that point too.

Now, please stand back and watch as I get flamed by a bunch of idiots who insist that "prot ALWAYS >>>> heal" because "the best PvE builds are based off PvP builds" and "lolz don't you know that 11 prot, 9 heal, 7 dagger mastery is the meta? Noob!" and therefore I should "qq uninstall now qq noob!"

Draw conditions might fail if only one monk, gaurdian and aegis arn't both needed. Boon is bad, rebirth is bad.

Quote: Is a healing monk ever a better choice? Better than that, yes.

Yeah Boon id not needed unless you plan on doing a crazy smite (not a terrible idea there). Also you could drop guardian for hex removal. Keep rebirth as its good to keep the habit of a rez in pve. And in place og boon you can GoLE for aegis.

pink

just yell at them instead. heal won't save you from retards

plus that chton guy wins

Quote: Originally Posted by holymasamune

Quote: Originally Posted by arcady

I guess that goes both ways. In a PUG, if you don't bring a rez, these guys cause a wipe, but if you do bring a rez, they cause a nuisance.

Mostly I enjoy PUGs, and I'm used to the nuisance from doing a lot of PUGing in both this and WoW. As long as the warriors are a minority, they can't cause things to go too poorly - but I do find that PUGs without any tank do better than ones with a tank, even if the tank is a dervish rather than a warrior. Likewise in WoW, if the 'tank' there is a class thank 'alt-tanks' like a Paladin or a Druid, the PUG will do better than if it is a warrior or, worst of all, a hunter with pet.

But back to the topic here, I tried some monking last night with my Nightfall monk that does have ZB, and I kept failing until I put Divine Boon back in - ZB just doesn't fit with my style very well as its so heal focused rather than pre-prot focused. Its hard for me to remember when to use it.

The reason I keep guardian around, even with Aegis, is that Aegis runs out before it recharges, and at only 5 energy, I can spam Guardian as a gap filler whenever RoF is on a recharge cycle.

I've considered putting in Shield of Absorption instead, but that has a very slow recharge.

You could always bring along the old Wammo shock collar, Vengeance, to "help" the hard chargers figure out that overaggro and dying sucks.

Cheers,
TB

Quote: Originally Posted by Tarzanboy

Why noone suggests Signet of Rejuvenation? Nearly almost the teammates are attacking or casting, so you heal nearly as much as Gift of Health.
Or is the longer recast killing it?

Quote: Originally Posted by Desert Rose

Quote: Originally Posted by Desert Rose

When I monk for FoW I use Zb/prot as a healer position