Monks for Hire

I'de rather pay a Shadow Monk first.

That's a rather broad statement.

Want to increase the number of monks availiable in the high-end missions? Treat them with respect and stop blaming them everytime someone screws up and dies! (It's ususally the knot-head that died that's pointing the finger, BTW) I don't mind playing my monk from time to time, but hearing people whine and complain because I can't save them from their own stupidity keeps me from playing my Monk as often as i do.

And yes, I realize there are Monks out there that aren't that good, but that's true in every profession. This has been testified to many times in this very thread. People over-aggroing instead of letting someone with a longbow pull (My Warrior carries one just for that purpose ), ele's, mesmers, and necros who think they can tank, etc. And always beware of anyone who says "I know what I'm doing." Because they ususally DON'T, and they often have no idea what anyone else is doing!

The reason monks for hire exist is because some players want to pay for monks. I have seen people offer to pay monks because they have difficulty drawing a monk to their group. A really good monk doesn't need you to finish the missions. I have found the hencmen consistantly do the job better than most players. They are annoying as hell because all of the henchmen are absolutely horrible, but many players are far worse.

Remember monks are one of two professions that can really carry a team. A single really good monk can keep your team alive extremely well and even compensate for a degree of stupidity and overagro. I know I have carried a team many times myself (other monks on the team being dead weight.) A good monk can perform extremely well on the ropes and make excellent judgement calls.

In addition the job as a monk is thankless, there are many times where I have had to pull a team out of horrible situations focus swapping, mid battle ressing, having to run through the enemy to escape so I can rez later, nearly killing myself with double infuses, ect. The best I get is the warrior declaring "Man, I am the best warrior ever!" Monks don't enjoy dealing with PuGs for a reason. When something gets wrong they get all the blame and when they do everything right they don't get any credit. If you want to be able to pick up, free, decent PuG monks start learning to treat them better.

See, that wouldn't work at all simply for the fact that for every one that charges, there'd be 10 more that would join the group without charge.

Let's take a look at the other classes:

Mesmers: some people have said that the mesmers should be the ones who pay to join a PUG. Sadly, it seems its quite true, as most PUGs have no idea how useful mesmers are. The fact that mesmers are a much harder class to play than the other classes doesn't help the image either.

Elementalists: Highly favored until the the recent AoE nerf, now not very popular in most missions (except for Tombs, UW, etc, where people sort of know what they're doing). If they start charging, most people would just kick them and find another elementalist who would love to get a group, or even just one of the bajillion warriors standing around in each mission.

Rangers: They were never really that popular in PUG missions, and still aren't. Many groups would rather take their 5th warrior than add a single ranger.

Necros: Huge rise in popularity with SS/Sv, or even massive minions, could possibly charge money if they were scarce.

Warriors: Probably something like 50% of the players in Guild Wars are warriors. One charges? Boot him and get another. There's plenty to choose from.

As you can see, monks are pretty much the only class that can currently get away with charging fees for a "service" simply because there is this demand for them, coupled with the limited supply for them. In the eyes of most PUGs, any other class can be replaced by warriors, and there's more than enough warriors to go around.

My 2 cents:

Most PUG monks suck.... period... I'm a monk and I will generally monk for an entire group and take one henchie for backup support. Since most pugs think they need to mix prot/heal/smite and attack lol monks... lol monks...

If I'm not on my monk I would have NO problem paying a GOOD monk like my self to do a mission with me.. however the problem is how do I know the monk is good? I don't.... that is the problem... IMO is the monk is good why do they need 2k for a mission? A mission I've already complted for 2k isn't worth my time.. since I can solo I rather make money like that then running missions for people for 2k...

If the monk is good I doubt they need the money for missions..

On the other hand I think its WRONG for monks who have NOT completed a mission to charge for services, they problem suck anyway, so I would stay away from them.

Theres not a lack of Monks. They r just all at Augury Rock.

Go there and sit at the exit and watch the griffin farming monks. I bet u cant count to 10 without a monk running out the door.

Paying monks to heal is OK
Im going to offcially start ppl allowing to flame runners. i mean! come on running and charging ppl!!!!!! thats . . . .thats DISGUSTING! *Aims flame gun* BAM BAM (/sarcasm)

Technically you are right, but have you ever tried to use henchies near lava and swamps. They aren't programmed to understand "Uhoh I'm standing in 3000 degree molten rock. I had better move. " In this case, unless you have extreme experience in controlling the henchies positions then you are gonna be frustrated. I want real players for these missions and I am gonna be forced to pay someone to just do their job. That's total BS. Again the answer is. Why don't you have a guild by the time you get to THK and ROF? and Why aren't they helping you?

I'm with King Symeon here. I have played a monk, have taken the abuse that most monks have. I don't think it is right to pay a monk to do what a monk does. If that is the case, then I can start charging for my Battery necro. A wa/mo can charge for his tanking services,and an ele for his nuking (or warding) abilities. Just something to think about. A monk who enjoys the game and enjoys playing the monk wil not ask to be paid. Why? Because they enjoy it.

However, think of it this way, what if there were no monks in the area? Would you wait forever until a monk comes to do the mission? Or would you take henches or even not take monks at all? Now think of it this way, there are 4 groups all trying to get through the mission, but none of them have monks. Suddenly, a monk comes, now which of the four groups should he choose to join?

You can't divide a single monk 4 ways, and he obviously doesn't want to come back and do it 4 times for each group. He could randomly choose a group, but then, perhaps some groups ares more in "want" of a monk than the other groups. Thus, the groups who would "want" the monk the most would in some way have to entice the monk to join them, and thus the payment.

The other groups could try to outbid if they really "want" the monk, but then, if they realize they value their gold more, then they'd either wait for another or just take the henchies. And thus, people developed the habit of paying for monks, and monks developed the habit of getting paid to get through missions.

Sure there are people who would never charge and just randomly choose a group, but then of course, there's nothing abnormal in having a monk choose a group that offers him money as opposed to nothing.

It basically comes down to the fact that there is not enough monks to go around, and whoever wants to have the monks in their groups the most are willing to pay for it. The only thing A-Net can do about it is to somehow make it more enticing to play monks, or completely rebalance the game so that the other classes can beat missions without monks, but without making the monk completely useless.

Did you think before you made this topic.... ppl souldnt pay monks because monks cannot do missions without tankers or other people to begin with. Unless your 55, your depended on a party or henchies.

A very good point. While it is impossible/extremely hard to do things without a monk, so it is to do without a warrior/ranger/etc to take damage. This a game meant to be played with multiple people, thus why it is online and MMORPG ( or a CORPG or whatever you want to call it). There are very few things that can be done truly solo.

Unfortunately, a lot of people seem to over-value some professions and under-value the others... too bad they haven't realized that a balanced group is (by far) the best and most fun.

But anyway - if you want to pay a monk to get you through the mission, pay Mhenlo and Lina (as they do take a portion of the gold) - their AI is better than other players' AI at times.

Personally, I'd never pay a player to join my group (any player, ever) - if someone is demanding money, I probably won't like their personality much anyways and wouldn't enjoy trying to work with them. (Read: if they think they're important/good enough to demand money for their "services," they're a bit full of themselves and probably not fun to be around).

I play a monk because I enjoy it, plain and simple. I would never consider charging for my services, and monks that do tend to tick me off..royally. Why? Because all monks tend to be judged by their actions, and that is honestly, not fair. But..such is life.

On the converse side, I do find it rather amusing that it has become so popular to 'flame' monks while lauding the praises of the henchie ones (no offense Mhenlo, Lina, and Aleshia). Henchies do indeed have their uses, in fact, I myself, make use of them quite frequently. However, if there is absolutely 'no use' for REAL monks, then why do I find myself bombarded with invites the minute I reach an area, and why are so many people standing around spamming "group lf monk"? Just a thought. Cheers.

Hey look, someones playing the what if game, let me join in. What if because monks charging became so popular that word got back to Ascalon and even the brand new players adopted this mentallity. Now a level 3 monk thinks its perfectly acceptable to charge other noobs who don't know any better and will pay.

"Jealousy turns to greed. Greed turns to hate. Hate turns into suffering." -Yoda

This is an area where the AI definitely needs improving. One of the things that can be a showstopper with henchy monks is when they start to res people in a lava field. If the henchy monks are the only ones in the party that can res, then mission over. However, usually there is at least one human party member that has Monk as secondary. And in this case that party member can do a rebirth or whatever to solve this problem. Because of this, I always switch my character's secondary to Monk whenever I go out in parties of only henchies.

These AI problems with swamps and lava fields can indeed make things difficult when using henchies, in particular henchy monks. But only rarely does the situation become impossible. It just takes a bit more effort on the part of the human players regarding positioning to keep the henchies out of danger. At any rate, I will take henchy monks any day rather than waiting for that non-existent monk to join the party, and instead of using a Monk for hire.

Based on the current conditions of this game, people generally will always gravitate towards actions that will be in some way or another be based on greed. You're not going to convince the people who are already acting this way to stop just by saying its immoral, the only way to curb it is like I said, for A-net to take action and change the game so that either there's more of a incentive to play monks or there's even less of a need for real monks.

Unless you do something about the causes, monks demanding cash will always exist. The shortage of monks in the later missions is a undeniable FACT, and even people who normally wouldn't charge money would have more incentive to with a group that offers money as to offering nothing.

Greed is part of human nature, some people might have better control over it than others, but it is still the fundamental mentality that our current society is based on.

That is the reason why I would never pay any monk for this 'service'. I would rather go monkless then pay for a monk.

This thread however inspires me to go to THK and look if anyone would be willing to pay my ranger to join

you are bombarded because

1. players have a negative view of henches
2. most players don't know how to use the hench effectively

every mission can be done with hench I myself beat Hell's and bonus with 7 hench and me on my mesmer and THK is ridiculously easy with hench(i have heard people saying that they done every bonus with hench but i don't know that for a fact). They follow targets, you retreat they will to, just make sure to bring a longbow to pull and you will be fine with them.

as for people charging for monking i don't care what other people do with there money. If they want to pay for monks go ahead doesn't effect me in anyway. I have a monk finished the game and i couldn't care less about all the monk abuse i took. If people have a negative view of all monks because of the ones that charge so what, let them think what they want, monks have no problem finding groups and add the good people to your friends list and you will be fine.

The best things in life are free
But you can keep it for the birds and bees.
Now gimme money (that's what I want)
That's what I want (that's what I want)
That's what I want, ye-ye-yeh,
That's what I want.

Money don't get everything it's true.
What it don't get I can't use.
So gimme money (that's what I want)
A little money (that's what I want)
That's what I want, ye-ye-yeh,
That's what I want.

Yeh gimme money (that's what I want)
A little money (that's what I want)
That's what I want (that's what I want)
So gimme money (that's what I want)
That's what I want, ye-ye-yeh,
That's what I want.

Your lovin' give me a thrill
But your lovin' don't pay my bill.
Now gimme money (that's what I want)
That's what I want (that's what I want)
That's what I want, ye-ye-yeh,
That's what I want.

Money don't get everything it's true.
What it don't get I can't use.
So gimme money (that's what I want)
A little money (that's what I want)
That's what I want, ye-ye-yeh,
That's what I want.

Yeh gimme money (that's what I want)
A little money (that's what I want)
That's what I want (that's what I want)
So gimme money (that's what I want)
That's what I want, ye-ye-yeh,
That's what I want.

The best is a all human party... in some partys the ele, rangers, mesmers and tankes and necros are so good that them cant need heal... the foes die like hell open at u feets... but if u cant find some party like these, u need a good monk to heal... or like me, dont whant wait for AFKs, stupids conan tankes or fire storm nukers u can make all mission and quest just with henchs... henchs are "cool", because if tame them , they will do all how u whant... and the shame for defeat will only urs

I have no problem with the concept, but the recent one I hired complained he was lagging for the first 3-5 mins of the mission (who knows if he actually was) and then quit with the money in his pocket. Really I was just stuffing around so I didn't care much, but got a chuckle out of it (the things people will do for 250g)..

Really, the average PUG monk, or even a hench is going to be of more use and less offensive than the average pay per monk. On the subject, I do tend to hang out a lot at places like THK with my monk and just monk for teams doing the mission. Of course I don't charge .

I swear, the henchie monks will be 100% better if they just remove healing touch from them, or only allow them to use healing touch on themselves. Also, give them rebirth instead of restore life/ressurrect.

You can't really argue with monks charging to help on a mission, because the demand is there, and it's not a new thing either. When my monk was due for Thunderhead, months ago, I got several offers as an incentive to join parties* within seconds of loading the area. Naturally, people will pick up on that: when there's a demand, someone will supply. There's really just one key issue here, being 'Why give a damn?' Some people will want to be paid, some people will be willing to pay. So be it. Be a part of it, or don't.

____________________________________________
*: I joined a party that had 2 people I played with before, without paying much attention to the gold offers. When we finished, 3 people in the party were ready to pay me 2k each. Apparently they'd been offering gold for almost an hour before finally getting the 2 monks they wanted. One of them was so insistent I accepted just to be rid of him.

I would like to see you solo monk a group of 8 near Ember.

Personally I dont like people that charge for anything except for trading.
Although the community seems to disagree in game.
As an experiemnt I went to Thunderhead and said "Monk willing to do mission for 1k if we pass"
Surprisingly I got 4 invites almost instantly.
We did beat mission but I didnt charge them. Just shows you that people are willing too much for this to go down anytime soon.

All this from someone who tried to charge 100k(yes 100platinum) for a run(?) to the forgemaster in the FoW.
That was good for laugh let me tell you. Is the fact that you were trying to charge such an amount supposed to allude to your talents as a monk? You must be awesome indeed.LOL

So far I have been in 3 guilds, they basically suck, unless the guild happens to be made up of very generous people(ya right), or they happen to be a group of friends, your still on your own if you have the guild 'tag' after your name or not. And I dont recall reading anywhere that joining a guild was a requirement for finishing the game. And no I dont need to be reminded what the game is called, not everyone has the time, desire, or inclination to belong to a guild. Nor should they have too.

well with myself i love farming and i can gaurantee over 80% of PVE monks are meant to farm if we can encourage them to go do missions every once in a while we can end this or if your a monk and your bored you can just go to a random mission and help people with the mission thats what i do i mean the fact that monks are for hire is absurd to me but is still a service and if people want to pay for it be my guest.`But most PVE groups are dumb and just aggro too many mobs, then they die and blame it on the monk, and then they beg you for a res. And when you res you think why did i do that they're gonna go die again 10 seconds later (ten seconds later) "wtf monk y didn't u heal me!" i applaud any monk that really wants to put up with this crap if you have a monk on your team be greatful i mean with the shortage of monks its insane P.S. also if anyone has that one extra slot on their character select menu please make a monk and stop this

well with myself i love farming and i can gaurantee over 80% of PVE monks are meant to farm if we can encourage them to go do missions every once in a while we can end this or if your a monk and your bored you can just go to a random mission and help people with the mission thats what i do i mean the fact that monks are for hire is absurd to me but is still a service and if people want to pay for it be my guest.`But most PVE groups are dumb and just aggro too many mobs, then they die and blame it on the monk, and then they beg you for a res. And when you res you think why did i do that they're gonna go die again 10 seconds later (ten seconds later) "wtf monk y didn't u heal me!" i applaud any monk that really wants to put up with this crap if you have a monk on your team be greatful i mean with the shortage of monks its insane P.S. also if anyone has that one extra slot on their character select menu please make a monk and stop this

Point 1: Where exactly in this game do you need 3/8 Monks, or even 2/8? If the bulk of the playerbase would get off this two-Monk mindset and learn how to play with Geomancers, Hydromancers, Mesmers of all sorts, etc. so much damage would be negated, reduced, or prevented, that one Monk is more than capable of healing the one or two Warriors on the front.

Point 2: I'd love to see hard figures there. Basing my assumption off personal observation, I'd rate Monk as the second most-played profession. I wouldn't call being able to waltz into town, slap up a "Monk LFG for X," and having a sudden influx of invites to choose from as putting up with crap. The Monk is at least regarded as a useful addition to the team, unlike the aforementioned Geomancers, Hydromancers, Mesmers, et al, who more often than not do not receive the invite.

Point 3: In spite of what I've already said, and I hope my tone didn't come across as hostile (its really not), I agree with you. Some players are pricks. Henchbots don't talk back. Pretty easy decision to make there. You can hench nearly every mission in the game. There's no reason to resort to paying someone else to play the game with you.

/semi-rant off ^^

I, as a MO who's currently at Ring of Fire, am against this. Having people pay for something I should already be doing is pretty retarded.

I'm up for doing Ring of Fire, because there is never anyone there when I'm on. I usually have to resort to attempting it with henchies (a Mo/W calling targets is not the best thing at the end missions -.-), which usually fails.

Since I get home from work at 1:30am, there is usually no one at the Ring of Fire. If I'm on, I'll help.

IGN: Ember Loreweaver

You never should take or need 3 monks in a party of 8. If you think you do, its because you are trying to make up for lack of offensive/defensive strategy with extra healing, but then you are reducing the total damage abilities of your party, making things worse.

Take henchies, take henchies, take henchies is a good mantra. Human monks are fine when they are there and play like a team, but there is no reason to wait more than 5 minutes for that nonexistant monk to join your party. You can deal with the failings of the henchy AI if you play carefully and wisely.

Filling up your party early with henchy monks is an excellant way to filter out bad players. The players who complain about the henchy monks are the ones you should not take along.

Sad little fact right there, yeah. Some people will try to solve any tough spot by throwing more monks at it, and telling them otherwise often sets you up for abuse.

For the most part I'm a non-nuking Elementalist. I'm impervious to abuse from the unwashed masses. ^^ Two Monks = crutch. Three Monks = life support.

Your reply and several other posts on other threads made me think of something that I think a lot of GW PvE players don't consider: Move around during a battle when there is a need to. Move your butt out of danger. All too often I see players take a stance somewhere, and start to fight or spell cast, and continue to do so even when suddenly being pounded on by melee foes, shot at by ranger foes, or cast at by spell casting foes. Like, not moving out of wells of suffering or maelstrom. Cast your spells and then move away! Best advice for squishies and it actually makes the battle more fun.

I remember one of the funniest times I had was playing with an air elementalist in FOW. She constantly ran around in circles when not casting, because the melee enemies were constantly on her tail. But she never died, not even once. It was actually funny to watch! She was constantly in motion and so never really took deadly damage.

I also remember monking recently for a team trying to do Dunes of Despair. They got to the point where the ghostly hero opens the gate, but instead of waiting at the gate door (so that only 2 or 3 enemy come at them at a time) they took a stance in front of the door, and thus attracted all of the enemy at once. Assuming they were new to this mission, I can understand that they may have chosen to stand and fight in the wrong place. But what was unforgivable was the fact that none of them fell back to safer grounds. In short time my monking energy was used up and one by one the entire team died.

If people played a bit more defensively and a bit more wisely, less monking power would be necessary.

People pay runners to do certain missions. Why you wonder that some monks do the same? You asked for it.

But the real problem is: it's no fun to play with pug's (usually) When I played through the game with my monk char I quickly started to prefer henchmen over pug's. Now I only play with friends or guild. When I ever play with a pug I'm testing a new build.

On the one hand, monk is a key position in a team, on the other hand it's no fun when the team does not behave or play far below the standard of the henchmen. The result is - no monks - and the few who play take money, what else could be the reason to play with a pug?

People seem to forget something really important here. Most of the monks selling their help wouldn't be there otherwise. They don't take anything away from you by offering you a new choice. I like to have more choices open.

I am not a monk player myself, nor do I use the help of player monks. I find henchmen as good as a monks need to be.

If I had a monk and if I were good with him, I would offer my help for a fee. is people wouldn't pay me, I wouldn't bother helping them on areas I have allready completed. I would do something else.

i have to agree with king symeon, i think its ridiculous a monk would charge to heal ppl. somebody said earlier why should monks not charge, its their time they are using to provide a service. now come on its everbody's time and service then, should everyone start charging?

i have a monk myself, and why did i make it??? it makes money more than any other class i have, and iv got them all. ANY monk worth the 2k he is asking for in RoF missions or THK would be able to do uw or fow 2 man or 3 man. in the most part these monks are doing this service because they are not very good enough for uw and see an exploit in these missions. the difference is that hell is a mission and new players find it hard to play with henchies, and hell has few monks at any time. uw is not an essential place to go, hell is the last part of the pve story line.
do you really think it is fair to charge players to finish the game? running doesnt do that it helps players get 2nd 3rd 4th etc characters through the game faster because they have done it already. power levelers on the whole charge prices new players would not be able to afford and in general who would want to power level through the game for the 1st time they play. these monks in hell are generally no better than the players they are charging, that is unfair.
all missions are doable with henchmen yes, but hell is the last mission in the game and as such is very hard to do with henchmen unless you are an experienced player. one problem i see with these hell missions is that repeating the mission does not hold much reward for anybody, drops are not that great there and there is not much incentive to go there again once you have finished it once.
anyway, in general i dont see these monks making enough money for it to be worth while, just dont hire them. as somebody said earlier the best way to do everything imo is ith a guild.

alot of people keep saying "why doesn't everyone start charging then" well let's break down the classes

Warrior- are you kidding me? They are everywhere more of an overabundance then a shortage. Therefore they can not charge to be in mission groups remember monks are charging because of a shortage of monks.

Mesmer- I am not a mesmer hater but seriously they have no chance at charging for missions. Most pugs will pick up something else over a mesmer.

Ranger- Same boat as the mesmer except in hell i thnk rangers are so happy that they are finally wanted they don't think about charging.

Elementalist- as the warrior plenty of these around. If a ele wants to charge you simply get another one, no shortage here.

Necro- Even though necros are viewed higher i still find it hard to get in groups as my necro. The necro population is rising imo. Talked to many people that deleted the eles they had for necros.

The monks are charging because not that many in the later "hard" missions.

i don't think these monks do it because they can't solo UW. Maybe they don't want to. Buying 5 sup runes and -50 focus item just so you can duo run UW and hope you get an ecto drop over doing final mission which takes about an hour and charging 2k each so 14k in an hour vs the amount of ecto you get in a UW run which someone would split with the necro. Getting 2 ecto drops for myself in a duo run is considered good for me and they take about an hour. So if i sell the ecto at 7k each i get 14k not counting if i get another good drop but not that many good things are dropping in UW cause of the over farming. So it evens out to about the same and this way the don't have to ruin any armor.

out of curiosity i played my monk yesterday and zoned to THK. got tons of blinds acouple of PMs. My response was do you know how easy this is with the hench. Most of them won't even attempt it with hench even though THK with hench has to be the easiest of the "hard" missions to do.

I have to agree with the economists here- where there is a demand, a supplier will arise to fill it. I don't see anything wrong with this- assume that these folks are now doing this mission for the twentieth time, they aren't there to have fun, or playing the game "normally" as some have posted. I wouldn't do it myself, but I don't resent those who do.

I don't think it is a coincidence that you start to run into this at the stage in the game where your equipment can't carry you through anymore. Say you have bought a bunch of gold on eBay, gotten run to the forge and spent some of that money on nice armor and Uber weapons. You can glide through the first part of the game, and even skip the desert. But around THK, you will run into enemies you can't just walk up to and whack.

So, you need help? What to do- well, some of that gold is still left over, and better weapons aren't helping. There aren't many monks around, because a good monk will get through the mission on the first or second try. But it can take an inexperienced player a long time. That's another reason that there is such an imbalance. So, just pay to get past the darn thing. After all, paying got you this far, and eBay is only a few clicks away...