Monk Skill Ideas

For awhile I’ve been thinking about how monks are more and more getting stuck as a sort of one trick pony class. In the current metagame, smiting is all but worthless and healing prayers has very limited functionality… mostly LoD and one or two other skills. In other words, monks are pretty much encouraged to be protection prayers or some prot hybrid. So below I have tried to come up with some skill ideas to bring balance back to the class.

I should also note that unless I specifically note a progression, all skills are listed at 12 ranks. Also note that I may forego mentioning things like energy costs and recharge because these are skill concepts and meant to encourage discussion only. So please don’t complain if you don’t see them. Likewise, elite status can be worried about later.


Healing Prayers

Blade of Life Spell. Target foe takes 80 holy damage and you are healed 64 HP. This spell has half the normal spell range. Note this is intended to be like a zealous benediction of healing prayers in that it doesn’t fit the normal bill.

Dwayna’s Denial Spell. For 7 seconds, target foe’s healing prayer skills are disabled.

Dwayna’s Scorn Hex Spell. For 10 seconds, target foe cannot receive any benefit from healing.

Healing Winds Spell. For 10 seconds, all allies in the area of the location this spell was cast are healed for 20 HP every second.

Recovering Shield Enchantment spell. For 20 seconds this spell does nothing. When this spell ends, target ally other is healed for 50% of the damage he took while this enchantment was active.

Share Healing Enchantment Spell. For 20 seconds, the next time target other ally is healed, all adjacent allies are healed for half that amount, up to 80 HP.

Signet of Energy Signet. Target ally other gains 3…7 energy and all your non healing prayers skills are disabled for 10 seconds.

Signet of Revival Signet. 3 second cast, 30 second recharge. You lose 10 energy and target ally is brought back to life with 50% health and 15% energy.

Steal Healing Hex Spell. For 12 seconds the next time target foe is healed, the heal fails and you are healed instead.


Protection Prayers

Ablative Armor Enchantment. For every 40 health target ally has 1 damage reduction (max 16).

Defensive Loss Hex Spell. Target foe loses one enchantment. The next protection prayers enchantment cast on this foe fails and you receive it instead.

Defensive Reversal Hex Spell. For 6 seconds, the next protection prayers enchantment spell cast on target foe is applied to all nearby allies as well. In other words if you have 2 wammos wailing on a foe, you cast this on that foe and the other team’s monk casts something like RoF, your wammos will have RoF on them as well.

Paradox Armor Enchantment spell. For 8 seconds for every 5% health below max, target ally gains 1 damage reduction.


Smiting Prayers

Armor of Light Enchantment spell. For 10 seconds target ally has damage reduction of 10. Whenever that ally is attacked or the target of a hostile spell, one adjacent foe takes 30 damage.

Balathazar’s Mirror Shield Enchantment Spell. For 12 seconds this spell does nothing. When this spell ends, all foes adjacent to target ally other are knocked down and take damage equal to the amount of damage taken while this spell was active. This spell ends once 120 damage is taken.

Blast Defenses Spell. Target foe takes 20…80 damage and loses 1…3 protection prayer enchantments.

Dwayna’s Rage Spell. Target foe takes 40 damage. For 10 seconds whenever target foe gains health, energy, or a skill recharge from an ally dying, that foe takes an additional 40 damage.

Funeral Pyre Enchantment Spell. For 15 seconds target ally other is enchanted. If that ally dies while this enchantment is up, all nearby foes are set on fire for 7 seconds and take 75 fire damage. This spell exploits target ally’s corpse on death.

Focused Light Enchantment spell. For 30 seconds all of your holy attacks do an additional 10 damage.

Last Action Smite Skill. Target foe takes 50 damage. For every 10% of health you have lost, this skill does an additional 10% damage.

Light Burst 5 Energy 1 cast 2 recharge. Spell. Target foe takes 40 holy damage.

Scourge Summoning Hex Spell. For 30 seconds, whenever target foe uses a ritual or creates an undead minion, that foe takes 74 damage.

Scourge Transfer Hex Spell. For 20 seconds, whenever a condition is transferred from target foe, that foe keeps the condition and takes 30 damage per condition transferred (max 150 damage).

Signet of Deathbane Signet. Target foe takes 30 damage and additional 12 damage for every necromancer skill equipped.

Smite Wounds Spell. Target ally is healed for 60 health and all adjacent foes take 50 damage.

Wall of Reflection Elite Enchantment Spell. For 30 seconds the next 1…8 spells foes cast against target ally fail and the caster receives their effects instead.

I think they are a bit overpowered, the healing prayers are at least.

I was thinking GW2 actually. I'd hate for monks in GW2 to continue being as limited as the ones in GW have become because of power creep.


EDIT: Protection also needs it's own version of Dwayna’s Denial and Dwayna’s Scorn.

Unless alot of these skills are designed as PvE only you are only going to break the game. And if they are for PvE only then... it doesn't matter and ignore the next section of my post.

Dwayna’s Denial Spell. For 7 seconds, target foe’s healing prayer skills are disabled.
Unless this was like a 5 second cast with 60 second recharge, the monk push it would provide would be incredible... its practically a blackout on LoD monks with no downside.

Dwayna’s Scorn Hex Spell. For 10 seconds, target foe cannot receive any benefit from healing.
Skills that disable all healing are rediculous, its practically asking for people to play overpowered spikes involving this.

Steal Healing Hex Spell. For 12 seconds the next time target foe is healed, the heal fails and you are healed instead.
Unless this triggered on divine favor and then you couldn't just play a spike and get the infuse with this, it would be silly.

Defensive Loss Hex Spell. Target foe loses one enchantment. The next protection prayers enchantment cast on this foe fails and you receive it instead.
Same deal except youll probably remove prot spirit and catch the spirit bond or something.

Blast Defenses Spell. Target foe takes 20…80 damage and loses 1…3 protection prayer enchantments.
This would provide an almost Shatterstorm effect, so unless its elite/has a very high cost/recharge. Its going to give you that omega-spike effect of monks spending 30 energy on enchants and them disappearing and the target still dying.

Thats just a few ideas I had about the ones that are obviously overpowered to me.

Now onto some ones that I liked the concept of...

Recovering Shield Enchantment spell. For 20 seconds this spell does nothing. When this spell ends, target ally other is healed for 50% of the damage he took while this enchantment was active.
This one is interesting. But in the current form mostly useless it seems to me like a variable healing Patient Spirit but the problem is that 20 seconds is far too long in advance to do very much.

Signet of Energy Signet. Target ally other gains 3…7 energy and all your non healing prayers skills are disabled for 10 seconds.
Interesting idea but I really dont think Healing Prayers needs to be able to buff energy. Guildwars also tends not to like skills that give energy gain because most of them are overpowered or useless. I think this would make more sense as a Divine Favor skill though regardless.

Defensive Reversal Hex Spell. For 6 seconds, the next protection prayers enchantment spell cast on target foe is applied to all nearby allies as well
This is interesting, but seems alittle useless, I guess its basically free prot... but its on people who probably dont need it. To me its one of those skills that I think is cool but will never actually get to play in any serious form. So overall its fine.

Balathazar’s Mirror Shield Enchantment Spell. For 12 seconds this spell does nothing. When this spell ends, all foes adjacent to target ally other are knocked down and take damage equal to the amount of damage taken while this spell was active. This spell ends once 120 damage is taken.
This is kinda interesting too. I would probably consider taking it unspec'd just for the knockdown because it would be funny. But it also looks like a skill that ends up on farming bars and no where else.

Wall of Reflection Elite Enchantment Spell. For 30 seconds the next 1…8 spells foes cast against target ally fail and the caster receives their effects instead.
Depends on the recharge as to whether this would break stuff. Its kinda cool though I guess... but only really if it had an SoD style duration/recharge. 30 seconds gives too long of a window and would need to have a recharge of about the same so you couldn't just keep say 3 people covered with this. And with a 30 second recharge you wont see the elite enough for it to be there if you needed it, making it useless. To me its on of those skills which is overpowered or useless and there isn't much inbetween.

Light Burst 5 Energy 1 cast 2 recharge. Spell. Target foe takes 40 holy damage.
I think this would help smiting abit, for the most part I find smiting to be lacking any quick recharge spells... it could be overpowered but its smiting so who really cares.

Blade of Life Spell. Target foe takes 80 holy damage and you are healed 64 HP. This spell has half the normal spell range.
I dont exactly think this would be overpowered but I dont think it should be in Healing Prayers, it just doesn't fit, doing damage doesn't fit Healing Prayers at all... but getting a secondary effect of healing is fine in Smiting. But I guess it just allows the bar to be alittle more diverse even though its a touch useless. I could see a spike with it (it is alot of damage) and some other skills but I dont know that it would be that effective due to half range. If you were really set of it being Healing Prayers, the damage should be lower than the healing I think.

Thats just a few ideas I had looking at it all, take them as you will.

Spank.

Um, I don't really think monks are a "one trick pony", I've actually seen (and used) some very effective smiting builds, and lots of healing builds are useful too... My own personal smiter build is actually about as effective as a tank build, in pvp anyway (useless in pve...). You just need to try different things instead of just copying + pasting fotm...

In GW2, monks will likely be missing, or have a combat role.

GW2's combat will be solo, with completely self sufficient characters (everyone can heal themselves), with a fixed skill set (warriors get 10 skills specific to their class). The difference in what those 8? skills will do will depend on level, gear and the way you execute them.

The reason for this change is that, apparently, GW players have lots of problems reading long and complex skill descriptions. So in GW2, skills will not have descriptions at all, you'll discover what they do as you use them.

So don't waste time with skill suggestions - they aren't applicable to GW2.

I think those statements need some proof to back them up.