Could anyone assist with a PvE Smite build?

SotiCoto

Banned

Join Date: Jan 2007

Drazach Thicket

Temple of Zhen Xianren [Sifu]

31 Oct 2007 at 14:52 - 41

Quote:

Originally Posted by LightningHell

This is where we differ in opinion. In my opinion it is always best to optimize and stretch your offense and leave minimal, survivable defense in order to decimate PvE in the fastest time possible.

I'd rather a slow but guaranteed success than go twice as fast with a 50% chance of failure... personally. I'm a planner; not a reflex guy. I'm only 23 years of age, and I'm sure that I'll be playing Guild Wars until the servers eventually go down. I have plenty of time.

Quote: And therefore, they res, not the Monk. They are the emergency res for me... i.e. for when the Monk isn't able to.
It didn't bypass my notice that team-mates dying is more of a hinderance to the Monk doing their job than to the other team-members doing theirs. Afterall... every dead member is a health-bar that cannot be brought back up again until that person is up and active.
Still... you have your reasons and I don't get them. That is something I hope to remedy.

Quote: Generally, in PvE it matters much less whether you watch the battlefield or not, as it is a pretty forgiving environment. But you do need some common sense, i.e. slap Prot Spirit on a guy when he's getting pummeled by a HM ele boss. Hard Mode would disagree on it being forgiving... as would the elite areas. I'd like to go there some day.... and if the Remnant of Antiquities is anything to judge by, Hard Mode ele pummelling would equal death before I could engage Protective Spirit.
I guess I'll only be farming there with my Monk. It is my Sin that I plan to try Vanquishing with.

Quote: As said above, it matters much less in PvE. However, in PvP, you do need to keep track of such - you probably'll also have communication aids like Ventrilo and such - and odds are it'll be somewhat easier to keep track of 16 people with tagged names and numbers than it is a horde of monsters. Probably... though clicking on individual people or places when everyone is moving around certainly wouldn't be easy for me.
As for Ventrilo... I have heard a lot about that... but I also heard there is a charge for using it. Sounds useful... though I doubt many others use it in PvE.

Quote:

Mousing while moving also allows one to maximize movement advantage, and as such is preferred. WASD is easier though, imo. Mousing for moving also frees up WASD, which as said before gives you really nice keyboard setups for ally selection/skill selection. From what I can tell, mousing fails at compensating for movement of other characters. There have been several times when I've tried to click on someone and ended up clicking on the space where they had been standing instead (often causing my own character to move and cancel a skill they had been using)... or the complete opposite: clicking a character instead of a point I wanted to move to... which often results in being left in a damage-zone.
I just trust QWEASD more.
And yes.... I strafe. A habit picked up from playing Quake 3 and Tribes a lot back in my highschool days.

Quote:

This references your single-mindedness. You need to try to get rid of that, as it will make you literally inflexible in playing. I can't. I'm programmed to be single-minded at the very core. I have medical papers to prove it. I can't really afford to lobotomise myself just to get rid of my one-track-mind.

An amusing story as example perhaps:
The whole reasoning behind this thread in the first place: I wanted to get my Monk to get to better farming spots. This requires I get her further in the game. I decided I didn't like healing (i.e. I'm crap at it) and wanted to smite stuff instead. For that though I needed smiting armour (or at least a different headpiece, but that didn't occur to me at the time)... and since I liked the look of Norn Armour, I decided to go for that. This of course required upping my character's Norn rank. I did the main GW:EN quests on the Norn side and started on side-quests. This led to the one that required me to kill the Fragment of Antiquities. I decided that while I was at it, I might as well do the rest of the dungeon. I then decided that while I was at that, I might as well use Light of Deldrimor. I decided from there that I might as well do a bit of damage with Light of Deldrimor... SO I started off through Varajar Fells to get to Verdant Cascades... to then get to the dwarf with the Secret Lair of the Snowmen quest.... But before I got to Verdant Cascades, by pure chance alone I managed to get rank 4 Norn Bounty (just fighting Berserkers)... so I decided I might as well just kill everything in the Fells.
I get the feeling I rather lost track somewhere around that point... and had to remind myself, after killing the undead boss... that I was supposed to be getting to the Lair of the Snowmen to up my Dwarf Title to get better Light of Deldrimor, to use it in Sepulchure of Dragimmar, to make the most of the dungeon while killing the Fragment, to get that part of a certain quest out of the way, to get Norn points, to get Norn armour, to continue further in PvE, to get more farming spots.... And as it happens, I got more Norn points from that Varajar Fells run alone than from two runs in the Sepulchure of Dragimmar and the quests (including Cold as Ice that followed) together. That is to say nothing of my doing a Drakkar Lake run while doing the FIRST boss-killing quest that was a precursor to the second..... and that I forgot to even bring Light of Deldrimor the first time through the Sepulchure.

Basically: I can only concentrate on one thing at a time... which results in my mind going off on wild tangents. This, to the best of my knowledge, cannot be changed. I've been that way my whole life.

Quote:

That is what I mean by excess party members. Why bring them when they accomplish absolutely nothing? Not excess; Buffer.
They are buffer party members.
They add more damage and better protection... but aren't strictly "needed" per-say. However, accidents will happen... and random members of the party will occasionally snuff it.... and we bring them back and carry on.
If we didn't bring them however, not only would the protection level overall be worse... but if we lost even one of them then it would result in wipe every single time.
Questions?

Quote:

Return is win. Also, while I agree in that basic defensive manuevering is each player's responsibility, self-heals are oftentimes pointless, as you don't split in PvE all that much. Generally speaking (in a damage dealing point of view), 1) PvE mobs have a predictable damage pattern, and therefore is an easily neutralized threat; 2) If it is such an easily neutralized threat, then your backline should be able to cope with ease; 3) and you bringing a self-heal detriments from you doing damage, or such, so...why bring a self heal unless your monks absolutely suck balls? Last I checked... I don't do any more damage on my Sin with 6 attack skills than with 4. Most classes in fact can do one job at optimum ability with just a few skills.... and the rest serve support purposes to allow the first 4 to be used correctly. It certainly doesn't make enough of a difference to justify requiring the Monk to be superhuman.

Oh... and the monks DO suck balls.
One word: Henchies.
I'm talking about Mr 60% DP Mhenlo here.

LightningHell

(????????????)???

Join Date: Aug 2005

Hong Kong

Guildless

Mo/

31 Oct 2007 at 16:26 - 42

Quote:

Originally Posted by SotiCoto

Generally, if you trust in your party members, there is no need to bring a lot of extra characters to survive. It's better to play safe when you know they suck/you don't know, though.

Quote:

They are the emergency res for me... i.e. for when the Monk isn't able to.
It didn't bypass my notice that team-mates dying is more of a hinderance to the Monk doing their job than to the other team-members doing theirs. Afterall... every dead member is a health-bar that cannot be brought back up again until that person is up and active.
Still... you have your reasons and I don't get them. That is something I hope to remedy.

Simply; if somebody dies, you are probably under pressure already. If you are casting a res under pressure as a monk, your team will inevitably collapse within that frame of a few seconds, or at least reach a very critical level. You'd be lucky if only one other person died. Better leave the hard ressing to the midline, and get everybody else to bring ressigs. (Discluding yourself and the other monk.)

Quote:

Hard Mode would disagree on it being forgiving... as would the elite areas. I'd like to go there some day.... and if the Remnant of Antiquities is anything to judge by, Hard Mode ele pummelling would equal death before I could engage Protective Spirit.
I guess I'll only be farming there with my Monk. It is my Sin that I plan to try Vanquishing with.

While hard-hitting, high level stuff is daunting to look at from the start, they still have predictable damage patterns and skill casting, which makes it much easier to predict them and survive.

Quote:

Probably... though clicking on individual people or places when everyone is moving around certainly wouldn't be easy for me.
As for Ventrilo... I have heard a lot about that... but I also heard there is a charge for using it. Sounds useful... though I doubt many others use it in PvE.

You don't get charged for using Vent. You do get charged if you're hosting a vent server.

Quote:

From what I can tell, mousing fails at compensating for movement of other characters. There have been several times when I've tried to click on someone and ended up clicking on the space where they had been standing instead (often causing my own character to move and cancel a skill they had been using)... or the complete opposite: clicking a character instead of a point I wanted to move to... which often results in being left in a damage-zone.
I just trust QWEASD more.
And yes.... I strafe. A habit picked up from playing Quake 3 and Tribes a lot back in my highschool days. Generally mousing takes a bit of time to get used to, yes.

I just like having more keys for my skills, since I don't strictly need the WASD to move anyways.

Quote:

I can't. I'm programmed to be single-minded at the very core. I have medical papers to prove it. I can't really afford to lobotomise myself just to get rid of my one-track-mind.

An amusing story as example perhaps:
The whole reasoning behind this thread in the first place: I wanted to get my Monk to get to better farming spots. This requires I get her further in the game. I decided I didn't like healing (i.e. I'm crap at it) and wanted to smite stuff instead. For that though I needed smiting armour (or at least a different headpiece, but that didn't occur to me at the time)... and since I liked the look of Norn Armour, I decided to go for that. This of course required upping my character's Norn rank. I did the main GW:EN quests on the Norn side and started on side-quests. This led to the one that required me to kill the Fragment of Antiquities. I decided that while I was at it, I might as well do the rest of the dungeon. I then decided that while I was at that, I might as well use Light of Deldrimor. I decided from there that I might as well do a bit of damage with Light of Deldrimor... SO I started off through Varajar Fells to get to Verdant Cascades... to then get to the dwarf with the Secret Lair of the Snowmen quest.... But before I got to Verdant Cascades, by pure chance alone I managed to get rank 4 Norn Bounty (just fighting Berserkers)... so I decided I might as well just kill everything in the Fells.
I get the feeling I rather lost track somewhere around that point... and had to remind myself, after killing the undead boss... that I was supposed to be getting to the Lair of the Snowmen to up my Dwarf Title to get better Light of Deldrimor, to use it in Sepulchure of Dragimmar, to make the most of the dungeon while killing the Fragment, to get that part of a certain quest out of the way, to get Norn points, to get Norn armour, to continue further in PvE, to get more farming spots.... And as it happens, I got more Norn points from that Varajar Fells run alone than from two runs in the Sepulchure of Dragimmar and the quests (including Cold as Ice that followed) together. That is to say nothing of my doing a Drakkar Lake run while doing the FIRST boss-killing quest that was a precursor to the second..... and that I forgot to even bring Light of Deldrimor the first time through the Sepulchure.

Basically: I can only concentrate on one thing at a time... which results in my mind going off on wild tangents. This, to the best of my knowledge, cannot be changed. I've been that way my whole life. That's very hard to get around, mm.

...Can't think of anything.

Quote:

Not excess; Buffer.
They are buffer party members.
They add more damage and better protection... but aren't strictly "needed" per-say. However, accidents will happen... and random members of the party will occasionally snuff it.... and we bring them back and carry on.
If we didn't bring them however, not only would the protection level overall be worse... but if we lost even one of them then it would result in wipe every single time.
Questions? When one trusts in the characters and the players playing them, it's acceptable to have a much smaller buffer as it reduces your efficiency.

Last I checked... I don't do any more damage on my Sin with 6 attack skills than with 4. Most classes in fact can do one job at optimum ability with just a few skills.... and the rest serve support purposes to allow the first 4 to be used correctly. It certainly doesn't make enough of a difference to justify requiring the Monk to be superhuman. [/QUOTE]

There generally are better uses for that space when playing a character; for example, I wouldn't ditch Savage Shot for Troll on Ranger, nor will I ditch my IAS for a selfheal on a DSlasher. As such, it's generally better not to bring a selfheal if your monks are semicompetent. However, if you have a free slot and don't know what to do with it, selfhealing isn't really a bad choice then.

Quote:

Oh... and the monks DO suck balls.
One word: Henchies.
I'm talking about Mr 60% DP Mhenlo here. My bad. Ignore what I said above.

Age

Hall Hero

Join Date: Jul 2005

California Canada/BC

STG Administrator

Mo/

01 Nov 2007 at 21:50 - 43

You could use the 55 build at full health as I have.