Monk Domination

Does any else get annoyed by the fact that all monk groups nearly always win?

I have seen entire guilds with nothing but monks in them.

As long as you are half monk no matter what the other side your are almost invincible. No group I've seen is able to out muster the healing factor. In fact they even seem to have redone things to give them an even greater advantage in the newer builds.

I'm not saying one on one the monk is unbeatable, but they are one of the few classes that are so noob friendly with easily repeatable wins, that as long as everyone in a group is the same its ok. Everyone in the group pools mana no other class is able to take turns on something that provides a juggernaut affect to another person.

I don't want to have to log on and see everyones a monk of some variety.

Does anyone else feel the same?

Well our guild came up agaisnt a team that was 8 Monk/Warriors. We pretty much tore through them for the first 5 minutes, but then I dropped leaving the team a man down. Plus I was the healer debuffer.

Scourge Healing->Lingering Curse->Defile Flesh-> Malign Intervention

As soon as they could get their full benefit from healing, even focus fire was almost completely ineffective because when you focused on one person, the other 7 on the team healed him and cast Life Bond etc to make it almost impossible to kill. We did however manage it and killed them one after the other. We killed them and killed them and killed them and killed them... but every time one dropped, someone else resurrected them. They all had 60% death penalty in short order. That still didn't keep it from taking us over an hour to beat their team down. We probably killed each member at least 20 times.

The moral of this story... um.. dunno. But it's kinda funny isn't it?

Well I was expecting to see a few replies, I find it quite lame that I'm asking a very valid question on an unoffical forum with little to no response or does everyone just plain agree and go on? Which raises my second question whats with no forum for offical use?

Sounds like a poor monk group, I mean crazy Koreans would just back it up with martyr and there are some enchantment or hex cures or what not as well.

I'm just thinking Korean level those who push so far as to go to the point of exploitation.

I don't think all monk groups are very good at all. Sure they are a pain to kill, but they have no hitting power either. The ideal group has 1/4-1/2 monks so they have ample healing but can also shut down and kill the other team. Secondary monks (except maybe el/mo) are not a huge concern healign wise, although they can still have very effective protection prayers. There is no reason to be upset that you did not get 10 replies. For one, everyone is playing BWE now not posting, and also just because you post does not mean people respond. Personally I disagree with your point and think having monk secondary generally just dilutes the damaging potential of a build unless its there for a good reason.

The problem isn't that monks are too powerful- it's that people aren't bringing counters. 3/4 the groups I run into are composed of 3-4 warriors and 2-3 monks- with an elementalist or two thrown in the bargain. Generally speaking, monks are the counter to damage- you deal damage, they heal it back. Rather than trying to kill your opponents by bulling through their healing, stop them from healing in the first place- use mesmers to stop spellcasting, necros to reduce the effects of heals and to remove enchantments, etc, interrupts from Rangers or Mesmers. One good mesmer can pretty much keep a monk from being able to help their team at all, and kill them at the same time. It takes 2-3 warriors to have the same effect. Not that warriors are weak, but healing counters damage, and disruption counters healing- if you want to deal damage, a warrior, ranger, or elementalist can be good at dealing out a large amount of damage. However, if you want to kill the enemy, it's best to stop their healing- which is most easily done by disrupting the monks, not bull through their healing with damage alone.

It's just one of those things. They can't very well nerf monks, because they aren't really being abused in the classic sense of the word. I think it will would probably stop being a problem if they would just introduce counter spells. Like perhaps one that can be cast on a person and strips them of enchantments and makes it impossible to cast further enchantments on that target for 5-10 seconds. (that'd have to be elite though, or everyone would use it) There is well of the Profane, but that's just a little stationary for my tastes and also requires a body. (they have a bad habit of falling where they will do no good)

They should also do something about Martyr--> Purge Signet. (but not before I use it a little)

Maybe throw in 1/2 healing effect while the skill(hex) is active, and call it Lingering Curse?

Martyr/Purge Signet isn't a bad combo, but it only removes conditions, which tend to be less of a problem than hexes, and more easily inflicted. You can generally be just about as effective using purge conditions as purge signet for this as well, at 5 energy cost, faster cast time, and not losing 10 energy per condition- save that purge signet for someone with 10 hexes on them.

Sorry, I meant Plague Signet actually... but it seems that it is elite now (and probably has been for a while) sigh.

Lingering curse doesn't prevent further enchantments, just strips all the current ones. While very effective, it isn't exactly a solution. Especially at 25 energy and a 20% life sacrifice.

Ah- I thought that Lingering Curse prevented enchantments from being cast on the target until the hex was removed.... I'm pretty sure it used to be that way, but it likely got changed at some time- I haven't used it for several months, as I don't tend to play Necromancers. The mass enchantment removal plus 1/2 healing effect is still really powerful, though. I've lifted it off of teammates a couple times using inspired hex, and it's one of the few hexes that I've actually used that I didn't have the linked attribute for- my mesmer was happy to spend the energy and sacrifice cost, even without the benefits from points in curses.

Yes, I think all Monk groups are annoying.

But I find all Warrior even worse. They gang up on Rangers like me.

I dont even wanna think about all W/Mo...

The problem is the counters for healings spells are continuelly being downgraded(balanced) while healing powers remain the same, which makes them out balanced. If necro had comparative gains as far as stealing life while being a warrior, or if even you could warrior mesmer and be able to drain life as much as a healer gains or even counter a healer you would see that.

But the fact stands that to counter it ussually costs more to counter than it does for them to cast the spell and for a realistic counter this shouldn't be. Eventually you'll just run out and they'll heal full again.

I've tried all these ideas in these last two weeks they just don't work against a real good monk group. All it takes is two W/Mo not for there ability to heal but there ability to rez the Real Monks. Two Ele/monks with almost 70 mana, is kinda hard to stop.

just to note, orison of healing has been scaled down. it now requires an attribute level of 14 to reach what it was at 12 before..

I have come to the conclusion of a couple of things in GvG multiple targets are actually better than focusing because then all healer also focus on that person. Multiple people getting hit multiple people trying to heal themselves rather than others.

I have found a build that is awesome I have ran into no one absolute no one with the same build and I hope it stays that way. I have been 2v1 then beaten when it became 3v1 since they feared losing they rezed.

1v1 Pally dead in a streched fight (sometimes).

So in conclusion I just plain didn't look hard enough. I've been working on it for days, didn't find it untill the last 4 hours of playing and I am sad.

ALL WITHOUT GOING DOWN THE DREADED MONKEY PATH!