The State of Monks in PvE

With a small Patient Spirit Nerf, and a nerf to Selfless Spirit, I now find myself wondering why people play monk at all. The state of monking is as such, and is a petition for things to change.

1. Boonprot heals more then healing builds, not taking account for elite skills. It's a little less viable with Selfless Spirit nerfed, but then again, Selfless spirit was never really the problem. Prot monks should not heal more then healing monks.

2. Healing monks are severely underpowered in PvE. The only good, widely usable Healing spells are WoH, Patient Spirit, and usually Dwayna's Grace. Typically, everyone runs Hybrid bars now because of this fact. Rits heal better then healing monks in most cases nowadays, but Rits aren't really the problem. (AKA, they don't need nerfs on the healing side). It'd be nice to see other healing skills be buffed to a usable state, and healing elites that aren't WoH be buffed a bit to be more useful in situations (in other words, don't try to compete with WoH)

3. Ether Renewal. With just two skills, ER and Aura of Restoration, Ele's can outheal or outprot ANY monk without breaking a sweat, and people have been bugged about it for quite some time with no hope of change in site. I don't think anyone can name a single thing that monks can do that ER eles can't.

On a basic level, I believe that ER should be nerfed to be not usable with monk skills.

Selfless Spirit's recharge should be brought down to a level that would make it widely usable again (25-30 seconds), and perhaps make it only usable for healing and smiting skills (at least not usable for Prot skills. in this case, make it maintainable again?)

Other healing prayer spells need a bit of a buff. Not much, mind you. Many have good potential (Ethereal Light, Healing Whisper) but are unfavored. Others (10 energy spells like Heal other, those AoE spells that can heal enemies, Orison of Healing, and a few others) just aren't usable by monking standards, and most elites (Healing Burst, Healing Light, Healer's Covenant, Glimmer of Light) fail to warrant use instead of WoH

The reason why full heal bars suck and hybrid bars are much more favored is not something that you can fix by buffing healing prayers. Healing sucks because prot always is - and always will be - more energy effective, more efficient, and more effective overall than red bar pushing. A single PS can stop more damage than the effective health of the protted character, which means that you can pump up the heals all you want on all manner of healing spells and they still could never compete with a hybrid bar. This really isn't anything that I see in need of a change; proper monking (read: not heal-botting) requires pretty much the most skill of any job in PvE, especially in a PUG where you literally are all that stands between your team and a wipe, constantly. And yet, monks still manage to be both desired and useful everywhere in PvE, despite the effectiveness of ER healers (which, yes, should be touched a tad, but it's so far down the totem pole of OP-ed s*** in PvE that there's little point). In short, I don't see a problem here.

Yes, I believe there is an awful problem on the monk-cure role.

I also dislike a lot that monks doesn't have much felxibility in the use of different skills as other professions, most of monk skills are underpowered for viable use on pve.

Elite areas are only done successfully using only a few skills and bar templates, not entering into the debate on whether the elite areas are supposed to be hard, the point is that monk players have a great disadvantage of free play vs any other class.

As said, ele with Ether Renewal and IH is just too much to compete in the pve eviroment. My solution, besides of nerfing ER+IH combo, would be to give a buff into the Divine Favor attribute so monks could really get into curing role without being outcasted by secondary prof chars. IMO monk skills should be only viable to use by primary monks, and should less effective (about the half of the heal)for second classes as a self heal.

ER sucks balls. Infuse spam? Noobish thing ever, you fail 100% of the time unless you were an Infuser God with "Imma Firin Mah Rojway" title. Which we all know doesn't exist. AP Monks > everything, end of story.

Noobish but it still exists. Anyways I don't need monk classes to be changed to like them, but any monk loving skill update would still be appreciated.

What about Healer's Boon...that's pretty great raw healing power. Even with the Patient spirit nerf, WoH monks are still more effective monks than boon prots

Exactly! I saw your post regarding this in the relevant thread. Ele infuser fails even in NM!

Now, we all know everything works in NM. How to respond to this paradox?

Ele infusers force the other team's monks to heal them constantly, thus doing the impossible and actively killing their team in a situation where the monsters can't.

UA says hai.

ether renewal isn't comparable to a healing monk. one enchantment strip or interrupt and you're useless. I play an Ele and no one wants me in groups anymore, monks, mesmers and necros took the solo farming, nuking and support positions :/

Anyone remembered before patient got buffed, how it was never used?

It was the ice ages then. . .

Generally not dieing is preferred instead of fast rez if you are H/H. If you're PUGing, it's your own fault XD

spamming a no recharge skill that can bring a character to full health while maintaining protective bond and many other characters is definitly something that should not exist.

This is actually the first time I've heard anyone say that infusers actually suck. I don't honestly see how they could possibly suck.

heroes are dumb and when they see how quickly you lose health, they waste all heals on you while rest of your party dies

Monks are fine in pve atleast they can still use the proper form of Aegis unlike its pvp counterpart.They still are the best at removing conditions except Paras.Healing is still good in hex heavy areas no one can do that as best as Monk can.

the idea behind a hybrid bar is exactly what this game is based off of. You create a build combining two professions to increase the effect of your skills.

In other words, learn to play.

Rits are much, much better.

And why are you using other healing heroes when you have a skill that can bring a person to full life in one second with no recharge?

-Thinks- No, not always. You can't play Prot in FA on the Kurzick side because the turtles rip all your enchantments, you end up using too much energy to cover your enchants, that it is NOT more effective. That is one place that a full heal bar is better.

But, aside. This selfless spirit changing is making absolutely no sense to me. They changed it in the first place because they said no one used it and that at inopportune times you might accidentally cast something on yourself and then you're left with nothing. I DID use it before all the changing that occurred and found it to be very effective at what it was, energy management. They changed it, which made HBing a whole hell of a lot easier and yes, it was OPed, but it's PvE... Anyway, this change basically reverts it back to how it used to be EXCEPT it only reduces energy cost by three (BFD) and it doesn't end when you cast it on yourself.

So, for the tl;dr people, they took a skill they said was crap, buffed, and then nerfed it into something that was worse than what it started out as. It doesn't make ANY SENSE. >,..,< I hate the developers.

With 5 enchants on your bar..who would actually bother to cover ER, but you know, useless

Selfless Spirit was too powerful and too easy too use, it deserved a nerf, now it's more in line with other e-managment skills.

WoH should recive a small nerf and other healing prayers elites a small buff, but overall monks are fine in PvE, and buffing them over the top because another broken, overpowered build exists is stupid.

Roll an ER Ele, head over to Slaver's and take on the first group in Duncan HM.* ER builds cannot cope well with heavy pressure very well and cannot pack hex or condition removal (their bars are very tight as it is).
A Monk in team with an ER Ele should try to fulfill the roles the Ele can't. Namely, cleaning and party heals.
For once, I would advocate Healer's Boon and Heal Party, or perhaps Restore Condition.

Ether Renewal has weaknesses. It has weaknesses a Monk can build around without too much of a problem. Ether Renewal does not make a monk redundant. It just makes accepted builds redundant.


*You may succeed, but that mob and what you face in the rest of Slaver's should point out the weaknesses.

@ Desert Rose,

Why on earth does WoH need a nerf? Its the ONLY decent heal elite. You don't nerf it so other, less-used elites get a look in thats just retarded.

The nerf to Patient Spirit has done little harm and is still as good, just not spammable, which you shouldn't be doing anyway. Which leads me to Selfless Spirit "nerf", if you need that much E-management then you're spamming to much. Learn to use the skills correctly and you shouldn't run into energy issues.