Note to PUGs: Re: HB Monks

Players would understand that prot > heal if we still taught our children problem solving skills and mathematics. But we don't.

Further, there's a major selection effect in PUGs. Good players like playing with good players, so they become friends with other good players and play with them more often than not. As a result, PUGs usually contain several idiots that can't get into good groups because they are failures.

Therefore, you should expect the standardized PUG build to be suboptimal (since it has to be something idiots can play) wherever you go. You should also expect to be forced to contend with idiots for leadership of your PUG.

Posting about it won't solve your problem. The problem players in a PUG either don't read forums or are too stupid to understand them. Your best bets are to either develop relationships with good players, or learn to fail less so that good players will have you.

Oouch... please stop thinking like that... The human race would put itself on the endangered species list if that were so. Darwinism doesnt work on Humans... most of them are too dumb to kill themselves reliably.

But back to the OP...

One heal one prot is always better than 2 HB monks. This however only works if the prot monk actually knows what hes doing. Protting isnt too hard, but more than enough mess even that up.

Thats why 2HB monks will always be looked for in PUGs... the basic idiot switch for the average player (please reffere to the first part of my post for deffinition of average PUG player).

yea and Heal + Rt or Para support > heal & prot combo

AHAHA. Thank you for the laugh.

And this. This is not to say that you can't find decent players in PUGs - but they might be running subpar builds just for the lolz. If you're a good player and just PUGging for the lolz, you probably wouldn't bother arguing with the leader about the bar.

And, of course, in a team with people you play with frequently, you can mod your bar to work better with each other's. You can sit there and work things out if something goes wrong, and then you can try again. This is not likely to happen with a PUG, because 1. you don't know how good the other players are; 2. the tendency is for people to /ragequit once the party fails. Therefore people ask for the most idiotproof method, even if it is subpar. Hence, HB. Of course, this doesn't stop people /ragequitting if/when the party fails.

Party-wide damage reduction is not a full substitute for a targeted Prot Spirit or Spirit Bond. Nice, yes, but if your war is going in to draw aggro he needs more than a TNTF!, and Save Yourselves! won't last until you can get back in shout range.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA!!!!
Thank you!!! I needed that laugh so badly!
You sir, are a winner!

Well this basically counters it, so no need to answer it anymore

And following your line of thought, we dont need the +100 armor from "Save Yourselves" and "There is Nothing to Fear" is a waste of 15 energy.

That is a pretty arrogant statment coming from a person like you comparing a game to the real world of humanity.The Police and Doctor analogy is not great one more like infantryman and field medic in the army.Those two get paid the same.

Cuz i gotsta luk stylish on mai furst weak bak Loot.

Very nice.
12 char

lol, the troll made the thread!

Ask guys patrolling Iraq if they prefer protection or healing. I think they'd rather not get wounded than get good treatment afterward.

I don't see how the occup... liberation of Iraq has to do anything with this.

It's a metaphor.

It's simple. As Damian said, "If red bars don't go down they don't need to go up."

You could bring the army into this, and that is actually a good metaphor. People don't want to get wounded then healed, they would rather just not get wounded.

HB monks are good at getting DPed out in under 8 minutes in GvGs...and brainlessly button-mashing big heals while not even paying attention to the game.

I have to agree that two hb monks is a bit overkill. Usually when I'm playing on my monk, I go hb and my prot hero goes prot with zb and aegis on the bar as well. That combo has always worked effectively for me as long as my hero doesn't cast himself into oblivion. *shrugs* Pugs are funny that way though.

I prefer spamming party heals when a PUG is not paying attention to positioning. If people ball up in AoE prot won't save you, try PS-ing 4 people at once :P. Dual HB will suit PUGS better simply because it's more idiot proof. Staying alive is not just the responsibility of the monk.

I tried to introduce exotic builds in tomb of primeval kings back then when people still played that. Lots of attempts failed because people didn't play the builds right, but when they did, we usually finished way faster then the average B/P/orders team.

This is why pugs are /fail...

Don't pug, take 2 WoH Hybrid Prots Heroes, a damage dealer hero and hench instead.

pugs are bad

pug monks are bad

bad pug monks need easy to run button bash builds

bad pug monks run hb

I wouldn't call it fail tbh. It's a method for the lesser talented players to achieve their goals, and it works. When I was among that group I joined bad PUGS too, but since I didn't know any better I didn't care as long as it got the job done.

Nowadays I'd rather drink emulsion then go through that again ofc. but that's another story .

That's kind of suboptimal because pushing red bars up is (almost) all about reaction in which AI beats human just because of effectively zero reaction time or lag, and protting is (also almost) all about anticipation in which every human handily beats AI just because the AI cannot anticipate. Thus the optimal combo is human protter and hero healer.

Lol yeah when I run prot heroes and i really NEED to run them I usually operate them manually (Put PS on the tank myself for example). Therefore I usually run healer N/Rt or heal monks and use party wide prot such as wards or Watch Yourself.

Party wide damage mitigation is king in PvE, and healers can easily mop up the rest (when you use NPC's that is). Some areas in the game have too much enchant strips to begin with anyways, so I would go with 'prots' like resilient weapon (grossly underrated) or weapon of warding anyways.

Monks are going the way of the dodo anyways. It seems to be all N/Rt now a days. (at least in dungeons and the more challenging areas)

Let's just say live players are going the way of the dodo, and N/Rt heroes are better then monk heroes by a long shot.

I wouldn't change my monk heroes for n/rt's for anything.

As a person who has gotten most of his fame points playing RC monk, I'm a big believer in prots over red bar pushing. The problem is, is that pug monk in a FoW group going to have the ability to view the playing field and say "hey, that squishy has 3 abyssals on him, I better slap a guardian or SoA on him!"? Two monks chaining aegis negate sooooo much attack damage but really, what pug monk out there knows how to chain aegis properly? The really hilarious thing is, if I decide just for lulz to go to ToA and find a FoW pug group, theyre gonna boot my ass if I ping a WoH hybrid bar, even though my monking skills are way more developed than a typical pug monk that only knows how to mash buttons. Just being real here

OK I think that it is time that a monk weigh in on this.

It seems as though for a monk to get into a group it is VERY difficult. I have been to many areas where I can not even get in cause there are H E R O's now. So your arguments of having pugs with one thing or another are no longer valid.

All you need it 2 player and then you can control the monks as you see fit since there are MONK HERO's.

When I run I run with JORA and My HERO monk and I bring the PROTECTOR HENCHMAN. Simple. I run SMITING cause HOLY damage is ARMOR IGNORING.

I love the smiting monk. BUT I know that NONE of you, NOT ONE want to run with a SMITING MONK. Yeah yeah who who wants to run with a smiting monk.

Someone once said to me after join a group that monks do not SMITE the HEAL. They told me change my skill or get the hell out of the team.

What sort of crap is that. If monks did not SMITE then why are the SMITING SKILLS.

You people think that monks are this or monks are that well just shut UP.

Remember BEFORE there were HERO's you dimwitted people could not do anything cause there was a MONK STRIKE. WHY? Because you do not know how to TREAT PEOPLE. IT IS A GAME. its a GAme its a game its a game.

I stopped playing my monk for a LONG time cause you people make me sick.

If you people want a protection monk MAKE ONE and see how you get treater. Don't tell me oh this is the and that is that dumb (*& MAKE ONE. MAke a Monk and be a prot. Just shut up. You are so stupid. Make one Make one. Make one Make one and see how moronic it is to have to listen to people like you all the time if you want to Join a group to do a mission or to farm.

MAKEs me sick to my stomach to think that you can just BOSS the monks around. You do this and You do that. Do it yourself. I am tired of listening to a 12 year old tell me what to play in MY game. If I want SMITING I will be SMITING or I do not play at all.

So thank. Just thanks. I no longer play my monk at all.

I play a Dumb but war and I agro everything that I can! What your energy is 2 of 46? ok I will go and get that mob of 12 over there. Then I type why did you not heal me or protect me. What type of monk are you anyway.

SOUND FAMILLIAR.

So after that period in my life I started to monk again. I go SMITING and I have my Protector monk and my Healer monk as HERO's. I just add Jora and some Henchies and i play BY MYSELF. I do not NEED you anymore telling me what I should and should not do.

Thanks ANET for the Hero's so that i no longer have to put up with stupidity.

I don't see how that would solve the problem at all.

My monk found that hench were far more reliable, long before heroes. Got through all of Prophecies and Factions easily. Prophecies, I was still learning, so I went healing. Then I found protective spirit and other protection skills. I had one of the protection hench with me to show me just how useful it is and decided to use protection builds ever since. Can't say that even when I pugged that anyone rejected me for using a protection build.

Ok.

I find this is sort of wrong. If I ever PUG a normal mode mission or something, they usually prefer real monks over heroes. PUGs are actually intelligent for once.

Monk heroes suck. N/Rt WoR > heal heroes, N/Rt Weapons > prot heroes.

Physical heroes are terribaed. Smiting is pretty slow to be honest. Unless you're running leet discord spam.

Only in SoO. And when I'm discordwaying. Which is like all the time. Smiting in general sucks though.

Smiting is pretty much reserved to PvP. Overall damage output of Smiting is pretty low unless you can group mobs, in which case there are still other higher damage/condition dealing classes.

You just told yourself to shut up. >_>

PUGs blame the monk if they die. It's something I gotta put up with if they over aggro. Usually I don't heal anyway, I just run discordway and tell them to put up or shut up.

Monks are fun to play. Don't know why you'd quit unless you... don't have an alliance.

Protting is epic win. Much more props than healing/condition removal, which Olias does better.

Um ok go ahead and run an inefficient build and waste a slot. Just not one of my slots.

You seem like a pretty immature and terribaed player. Might be a good thing you only H/H. Protip: Don't H/H with physical heroes... Also discordway with a hex, a ward, a prot, and a physical hench to tank is lulzy when you don't feel like backlining.

I wouldn't say that I consider myself a pug Monk and I don't use HB as most are just doing what the party is asking for.I mostly use hybrids either WoH or RC.

wow...why complain its all really based upon the skills of the monk...even monks with crappy builds can outheal monks with good builds

Well, i obviously run 1 healer and 1 prot hero (or 2 hybrids).

And about heroes, there is one point we are missing here:
We could have far more acess to different roles (role as in what the character provides, support, heal, dps, etc) if some aspects of the AI were fixed. Aspects wich obvisouly are WRONG. For example, everyone knows that Faithful Intervention is and enchantment you cast before the battle, just like Illusion of Weakness, Attunaments etc. But when they first introduced Heroes, we had some once-again-obvisouly bad programing at skills that MUST be used one way, with no expections (hence the exmaples above). But we only saw Heroes using Attunaments correctly about 3-4 months later, not to mention Faithful Intervention, wich too like what... 1 year to be fixed?
With this, we are restricted to only some heroes and with that we are facing a limited gameplay.
For example, if anyone ever played with a Restoration Ritualist should have seen how different the heal comes from this role, it is a indirect and persistent BUT dependant heal (Recovery, Life, Recuperation), making it different from monks (wich have a direct and usual but independent heal). But heroes cant play this role! One of the common example of Healing Rit is the http://www.pvxwiki.com/wiki/Build:Rt...Songkai_Healer. Taking this build as an example, heroes cant use this build because they just CANT use Attuned Was Songkai properly! They they dont priozie it, wich is obvisouly essencial for this, sometimes they use Recuperation first and waste 25 energy, energy wich would be necessary for later use. Because of this, people opt for N/Rt, because they already have a passive energy gain. At the end we see this class beeing replaced for another one, because of the AI.
Im sure you can think of many examples.
It is really frustrating to create a build, give it to your hero and see that you wont be playing with this role because the AI wont let you.

Thank goodness! The lack of backline players in this thread is astounding!

I've been monking since I've been playing (for two and a half years) so it's pretty safe to say I'm experienced as a monk. The only areas in which I am not an experienced Monk in are Hero Battles and GvG.

For anything decently difficult in PvE, prots are absolutely the way to go, especially if you're a human Monk. Red-bars-go-up is generally a waste of energy, and besides, why let your party get so low on health? Skill such as [guardian] [aegis] [shield of absorption] [protective spirit] [spirit bond] do wonders to mitigate damage. More so in PvP, skills such as [reversal of fortune] allow the player to ignore some damage and get healed for it, sounds a lot better than healing afterwards.

[[healer's boon] has no place on my bar or on my heroes'. I'd much rather use that skill slot for [Word of Healing] or [unyielding aura] for H/H in some of the nastier areas. Healer's Boon uses up both your elite and space on your bar for heals you usually don't need, and to heal damage that should've been avoided.

What are these Monk creatures you speak of?? Don't you know you just need a Wa with healing hands and breeze to trample everything? ^.^


btw, I like HB sometimes (prefer WoH or ZB tho) depending upon what my fellow monk is running - at least its an elite that has some use......but these days I H/H everything anyway.

Flamebait? I mean, you can't be serious.

Once heroes learn to pre-prot alot more efficiently and manage energy alot more efficiently, no.

He's actually right, who doesn't like healers with unlimited energy (Soul Reaping) and huge heals that don't cost squat. Weapon spell's can't get stripped either, so there's never a spell wasted.
Boo, dragonslash heroes FTW, my koss rapes some.

I can't be the only one that micro-manages, amirite?

If you can micromanage three skillbars that efficiently that nobody dies or the energy doesn't run out, be my guest.

Are you suggesting nobody dies with n/rt heroes?

Both monk and necro-healer heroes spam spells with reckless abandon (watch them heal minions with Protective Spirit, f.ex.), but N/Rt's have infinite energy, whereas monk heroes must be loaded exclusively with 5e spells or they quickly run out of steam.
Human monks, at least decent ones, don't have that problem.