I hate people now.

Group Hug time!!!

Wow I haven't visited the forums for a while and it's S.O.S. only the names have been changed.

I have also had an encounter with a 55hp monk pretending to be a healer.
she basicaly ran off as soon as we entered nad started farming.

if someone wants to solo farm they should SOLO farm, not enter a grop under false pretences just to reduce the entrance fee from 1k to 125g.

i have a 55 monk and solo on my own but at times its way funner bringing ppl along, atleast for me, and i always state that what i am before ppl even ask. hell i even have freinds who whisper me to tank for them as my 55 monk in UW. oh and the really the best way to know when u bring a killer with u is VERY VERY SIMPLE. look at what items they r holding. Ie if it looks liek the grim cesta it is. and dont forget u can always trigger the shadows if that monk runs into the group and dont heal them and let them just die. simple solution. u can do things about it. that or just follow him/her and let them do all the work for u and then clear out what u want after they realize u actually no better. and if ur party isnt quick enough to realize it, u all obviously have known a while that it does happen.
ive done lots of groups and had them in them, just dont let them run off on there own, soon they either get the message and get disgruntled and usually leave after they have all done the work for u. they r yes trying to take advantage of u so y not rreturn it in kind.

I would have to say just because they're smart. Smart in a jerk way, but still smart. Infact it's the kind of smartness you find in people who rip off noobs for good items.

You dont have to be Mo/W to solo farm . . . U can be Mo/? (anything)

If your in a guild group . . .your screwed. It would help when those people who enter Ice Caves infused and aggro Mursaat and Jadesfor laughs.

You cleared the past the behemoths and got to the banished dream riders and the monk was STILL farming away at the smites?... SLOWPOKE!

And for discerning whether a monk is 55 or not by calling their HP, watch their armor, yes, but also switch your language to korean or french or something.

When anyone calls anything, you see it in whatever language you have your game set to... so if you see 'My Health is 466 of 466' rather than some weird korean symbols, that's an easy way to tell they're lying ^^.

I have a monk.. who until recently didn't do the 55 thing. Now that I have the runes for it, I have attempted it. Doesn't mean I'm gonna be partying with you though if I'm running a 55 build, that means that I'm there for farming purposes which doesn't include other people.

And yes, it's sad that people try to ruin UW for others.

Easy solution: Wait for them to whisper before joining your team. sure, it takes longer to get a group together that way, but at least you can be reasonably sure you got decent people.

btw, the energy staff head doesn't cost an arm and a leg, and even some of the cheaper green items will give you the 5 energy bonus. Alternativly, collectors focus items are wonderful.

I have 55hp monk, I generally use her only for desert farming. Having said that however there are a number of monks in our guild who use the 55hp build in general play and I've never found any fault to them. If they like to play that way I don't have a problem with it.
I suppose the big thing is that you are getting people you don't know in your group, and there is no "idiot alert" built into the game. I avoid this by sticking to guild/friends of guildies/friends groups. Plus I have more fun with these people because I know right from the start that we have more in common than your average PUG.

Very good tip!

I recommend Burk Burk!

im a mo/w 55 for when i want, but when i party i never do something like this...

yea, i wish i never discovered farming. A friend taught me ettin farming way back when and then tengu and so on. I wish i didnt learn, its to addicting

im a mo/w who doess 55 farming

but i heal to...

I have 2 monks, both have the armor for the 55hp build, but that isn't for team play. it's just for soloing. Today,I ran into a group for FoW,and one of the monks came in as a 55hp build.My W/E died ridiculously fast b/c we had two monks and the imonk. He was doing his own thing and just didnt care about the team. I was angry at first, but in the end I lost nothing and paid nothing. Just that it was not a cool thing to do. There is no "I" in team.

There is nothing wrong with Farming for money and there is nothing wrong with wanting FoW armour...some people use this as reason to continue playing if they dont like PvP.

The problem is when someone joins a group (M/Wo) in UW who uses them to pay most of the fee and get them past the first mobs so they can ditch everyonelse and farm.... IF YOU JOIN A GROUP THEN YOU JOIN THE GROUP... I posted about this before and it p!sses me off when you waste time and money just so the monk can run off....IF YOU WANT TO SOLO FARM THEN SOLO FARM DONT USE THE GROUP TO GET YOU THERE AND ABANDON THEM FOR YOUR OWN SELFISH REASONS....GO SOLO!

sigh another nerf...when will it end!

Never, God willing. Game's too easy as it is.

But, to the OP, I hear ya' on UW and FoW. I can never find a group that just wants to go in for fun. I always end up on 3-4 man Trapping teams. It's still fun, but I never really get to explore. Ectos are fun to get and all (I like money), but I want to explore, too

it's a misconception that uw solo monks are only mo/w
there are many mo/me (some monks say mo/me woks vastly better than mo/w) soloers out there as well who have infiltrated many of my uw groups. even a mo/r w/ a pet once. you can read my tales of solo monk jerkness on the jerk thread.
i run a mo/w and i'm a heal monk. i like to carry sprint to lose mob aggro or to get to that errant ele or war who thinks they can tank 3 aatxes on 50% hp.

anyway, there are many ways to discern a suspected uw solo monk...
for one they often will not say much when asked about what type of monk they are. they often don't talk much. they often refuse to ping their hp because they seem unaware that they can simply type it out. switching your language will expose them however.
99% of the solo monks that i meet who infiltrate groups wear the nasty all tattoo armors. not all, but the vast majority. check out their armor if you tink they might be a solo monk.
if you are still worried, ask one of the monks you trust in your group to bring along vital blessing, or a ranger to bring symbiosis.
i've killed many a monk w/ vital blessing.. it's quite amusing.
it's very easy to tell a solo monk once you get in.. are they holding a bone cesta in their offhand? are they carrying a sword or axe in their weapon hand? do they cast balth's aura on themselves? do they hang back and wand the enemy, casting no monk skills. usually these monks are too selfish even to cast soj to help out the team.
do they cast prot spirit on themselves and run when the mobs get too close?
if so, you can easily get that solo monk killed. due to his low hp, mobs will go for him like a magnet, and not many solo monks will live under a full assault. then have your other monk help him out w/ vital blessing =)

Bring symbiosis. Plant it as soon as a 55 monk decides to go off "soloing".
Vital Blessing also works.

how does symbiosis stop a solo monk, it may reveal that they have a lot of enchantments, but that's it. How does Vital Blessing and/or symbiosis kill?

My ranger is barrage and interupt.

Solo monks use protection to lower the amount of damage they can suffer based on it being 10% of their health - then health regen is enough to heal it.
For example, with 8 pips of regen going, a 55 monk can take roughly 3 hits from an aataxe per second, as healing 16 per second is 30% of their health back per second.

Giving them extra health per enchantment ups the amount of damage they can take per hit; even with NO points in BM (symbiosis) you grant them 27 more health per enchantment - they typically have a few on. If you have a few points there (say, the 3+1 I like to keep for TF) you grant about 60 per enchantment. Since this extra health boosts the amount of damage they can take per hiit, they can't heal enough with regen to match it. They die, you laugh. The key to their build is having a low health, and you negate that by giving them health. At 60 per enchantment you could easily be granting them 180 extra health, allowing the aataxes to do 24 damage or so per hit which would be more than they could keep up with using 10 pips of regen.

Thanks

Once again, the build is not at fault, it's the players that play them. You are simply prejuidiced due to your past experience.

This is the same deal with Wa/Mo. Many veteran players have issues with the Wa/Mo, but the truth is that not all Wa/Mo's out there are immature twits. (Yes, I do have a Wa/Mo, but then I have 6 chars at this point in PvE who's completed the game).

So, judge the players base on their actions, please do not generalize.

If I am a party leader I dont accept Mo/W's that I do not know personally into my party. If I am in someone else's party at ToA & the leader takes a Mo/W, particulary one with a Chinese/Korean name, I let my suspicions be known &/or leave the party.

Call me a jerk, call me a idiot, call me racist(I'm not), call me a classist, call me whatever but I have had to many FoW trips ruined by 55'ers masqerading as normal Monks to care what you call me. If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck & quacks like a duck odds are it's a duck.

As for hating ppl... I have always hated ppl. I am what you would call... anti-social.

Pointing your fingers at all 55 monk builds and asking for the "nerf bat" is plain stupid. Just because someone left your UW group and went off farming, is no ones fault ... but the leaders fault in not verifying and asking the necessary questions before entering UW.

I myself have a 55 monk and yes it is a Mo/W, but when I am required to heal ... u bet, i'll be in my healing gear. A Mo/W doesnt mean the monk cant heal for crap. I hold my own with a Mo/W with all monk skills in 16 heal and 15 divine. Energy management is not a problem, even with boon. You just have to know when to remove and when to use. Its called "healing smartly" and not "over healing".

I find this thread dumb. There is no difference between what just happened compared to someone joining my group, claiming they are in for the mission ... and dropping out after they "capped" an elite skill or achieved the "bonus" xp.

Quit complaining about the 55 monk, its been over done already.

I feel for you here, as I used to have the same problem with going to UW (lol with my 55monk)

I didn't want to just go there to farm ecto, I wanted to start to explore further in.

The trouble was that most people wanted to do the smite run and that's it.

Well, time pays for this as now my friends list is filled with people who I know I can go UW or FoW with and spend a good 4+ hours in either. And that's just from trying out different people.

Just today, spent 6+ hrs in UW with just 2 friends and myself.

We cleared areas and summoned reaper in Chamber, Forgotten Vale, Ice Plains and Twin Serpent Mountains. We defeated some dream riders and their 3-6-9 Mindblade spawns, then one of us had to go (driving test I think)

Anyway, during that whole trip, 2 ectos dropped and a load of gold stuff etc. which was a bonus.

Personally I consider clearing everything up to the Chaos Plains a reward in itself.

Anyway, my point is: the more time you play the more people u meet and then from those people their must be a few good apples!!!

Pyrea

Actually this is a valid point regarding the 55hp monks and should be addressed so that everyone is wise to their game.

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...ht=unfortunate

The problem is that some M/Wo INTENTIONALLY join groups who wish to party in UW with absolutely no other intention of doing anything else other than to solo farm...they dont care about the other peoples money paid to get in, or the time they wasted forming a group and getting past the first aataxes. IF YOU JOIN A GROUP THEN YOU JOIN A GROUP. I mean honestly how many monks do you think will get accepted into an UW group if they shouted..."55hp W/Mo lfp to use you to split the cost for my entry to UW then leave you as soon as you have helped me get past the aataxes to solo farm"... seriously how many do you think would be accepted if they were honest about what they were going to do? and of course Im not saying all M/Wo are like this its just a large minority in ToA.
I dont approve of nerfs in general and I still dont for W/Mo...good on em if they can solo UW.....JUST DONT USE OTHERS TO GET YOU THERE AND WASTE THEIR GOLD AND TIME. Also your giving your build a bad name.