Monks... Are they truly overpowered?

ROFL. People in my group do that all the time too. They click their own energy bar like it was a fun game to let everyone know how much energy we had, not like it was important to let the energy regenerate or anything...I mean, who does that?

Monk overpowered?

Erm... It's easy to shut one down...

There's 4 ways to neutralize a monk...

1. Kill him (easier said than done)
2. Disruption [late game disruption > damage by far] using many many conditions at once followed by spell interruption.
3. Daze him. Similar to disruption but if he/she's dazed, she's pretty much useless if you and you're teammates have any brains.
4. My favorite and probably the most effective. Overwork the monk. [Warrior pinball] By dealing chunks of damage and more importantly, spreading conditions over many many opponents instead of one, that monk will burn a LOT more energy removing them instead of healing just one guy. That and you'll keep the monk on their toes since you're forcing the monk to heal many targets in sequence....

Wow, someone with a brain. Work their energy for a while, then attack them works very well.

Or just hit them with a good mesmer, some else to do damage to them and have the rest of your team work on other players. This will make them think faster than they probably can. Healing yourself is easy, healer others is easy, removing a hex is easy, but multiple hexes while healing is needed can get very confusing very fast.

Other very effective trick is to use a skill that slows recharge time for a skill or a set of skills. Since I am usually spamming my more effective heals this can really mess me up.

I just made a messmer / monk, so the mirror should be a pain.

mesmers in pvp and even pve are my qorst nightmare. They slap like 3 or 4 enchantments on you and you are severly ****ed.

....I only have a Monk so my guild has one for PvP. It's a Mo/Mes, i use Illusion magic to do damage, but i only use it if im being attacked the rest of the time im handing out healing and potection prayers. Monk is so damn boring, and it cost so much money for there armor. Theres ups and downs to being a monk...if you like to hit hard aviod the monk class....Most of the time i dont even target an enemy.

-Dan The Healing Man

Monks are 100% without a doubt overpowered. There is no way they are not.

They are the ONLY class that is basically required for a fight. The are the only class in game that is difficult in one on one to kill, mesmers would be second. They are the only class in teh game that take a very specific method to kill as they can out heal most damage put on them. Most groups wont fight without a monk, name one other class that has this distinction.

It's gotten so bad with monks that i'm really losing interest in playing. The entire game is pivotal around them. You hardly see any warrior secondary anymore other than monk and those that aren't w/mo's don't get in PU groups. My super high damage w/e could drop about anything in seconds yet I got no groups. I quested over to w/mo and got groups constantly, tells you something there as well.

They NEED to tone down monks healing to be just a little better than damage received. PVP battles are running at 30-40 mins sometimes due to unkillable monks causing stalemates. This is NOT fun.

Are monks unkillable? No, but they take more work to kill than any other class and that means they are unbalanced.

go play everquest....

Do you really think that? How can they be doing damage to you if they are constantly having to keep themselves alive? They are sortof like walls in Magic/Etherlords, they can take a ton of damage, but are they really hurting anyone? I just don't think being harder to kill = unbalanced.

Look at it this way:

------------ Damage/Toughness
Healing monk: 2/8
Smiting monk: 4/6
Warrior------: 5/5
Elementalist-: 8/2
Mesmer-----: 5/5

The numbers are just for illustration purposes, but they put the situation more in terms of Magic creatures and how they would be balanced to represent the classes of this game. I would say that an elementalist is the opposite of the healing monk in this game, hence the reversed numbers. I would put a healing monk way down on damage, but a smiting monk would be better at damage and sacrifice toughness (healing). Warriors and Mesmers may not be that equal on damage/toughness but from my experience warriors are only really tough against other melee damage so I sacrificed some of their toughness for that fact.

As you can see, in my example each character has a total score of 10 if you add their damage and toughness together. Just because monks are harder than any other class to kill, doesn't make them unbalanced in my example, so why should it in this game?

Original Poster is a tard for starting this thread.. Yes, you're uber and we should all bow to your "OP" monk.. Is that what you want us all to say? Make you feel good about yourself? Monks are weak against "X" just like every other character in the game...

Difficult in one on one to kill, eh? How about an elementalist trying to kill a warrior, or a necromancer trying to kill a mesmer ? Are they any easier? This game is about team kill and teamwork, ok? And by the way, monk isn't essential, necro, ranger, mesmer, and warrior all have their own healing or life stealing spell. Just monk has more powerful healing, that's all. Dude, you should try to play different characters before making these statements. Better yet, go play a monk, and see how you like it.

If they aren't overpowered, then I wonder why in PvP teams, 3 monks is better than 2 monks. 2 monks is better than 1 monk. and without any monks, why are you wasting your time? There is no other class as essential as the monk, for they are the life of a team. Damage can be taken by almost any class, but who can heal? only 1. having 2 healers and a protecter gives you a distinct and seemingly unfair advantage over the enemy team, because it is impossible for them to outdamage those 3 monks - even if their entire team was devoted to damage and shutdown.

If they're overpowered, can a monk kill anyone? Or can a group of four monks kill a group of four other characters, any character? Playing well they can't lose, but they can't win either. They have purely defensive roles, and the team's power resides in the balance of offense and defense. Why can't your team get two mesmers to deal with three monks? A group of mostly monks cannot beat anyone, nor a group without a monk. That's balance, not overpowered.

And again, monk isn't essential. In pvp if the other team doesn't have a monk in their team, then is it essential for you to have a monk in your team? Of course not. If the other teams have lots of monks, then the essential ones are mesmers, not just more monks. Use your brain, not every team should be made of tanks and healers.

I absolutely agree. lol

???...

"OP"? Not sure what that means. Whether I'm uber isn't the case, and I'm not trying to present myself as "uber". This thread was simply a Q&A for a fairly simple question to deal with the monk. There has been a fair amount of contraversy about the monk class being overpowered, or needed too much.

Retoricle... of course not.

You know, right now you're trying to put me down. What does that show? I think somebody has a low selfesteem.

Monks are weak to mesmers, definately. Monks do poorly against hammer warriors. Monks can get beaten down upon by different elementalist skills. Monks can be worn out, and slaughtered. Monks will get slaughtered in a "gang-bang" (...usually). There's a lot more monks can't withstand.

I believe hearing the thoughts and oppinions of others helps benefit one's own take on anything. I am still not 100% sure the monks aren't balanced, as they are a very important, needed class (in an 8v8, 2-3 main-class monks are generally needed...). Although, the way I see the monk class has changed after reading what other people have said.

This thread was started by me, for a simple purpose. I don't understand how you can think I'm trying to brag, or feal good about myself.

Is the Q&A section supposed to have extremely important, relevant, and lengthy questions in every thread?

Earlier in this thread, someone stated that monks decide "who lives, and who dies". This statement is true to the extent that the monk will decide whether he will heal a teammate and keep him going, or let him die and do something else.

The answer is no, realistically. The only monk build (being mainly monk) that can kill anyone is a smiter, and smiting monks aren't so great. (although, shield of judgement is real cool).

If that is true, then monks are overpowered.

I'd say that's probably true. But, in an 8v8, the monks prolong a battle while their allies deal the damage. Of course, this doesn't mean the team will lose. Just as any class has a counter, the monk has a counter that will beat it down.

True.

What is sad is the fact that a group can lack warriors and still win. A group can lack rangers, and still win. A group can lack necros and elementalists, and still win.

The two classes a group cannot lack is monks, and mesmers.

The mesmer is the counter to most anything.

The monk is the solution; he keeps your team alive.

Am I correct that the monks and mesmers are the most valuable classes?

If you do, you will have a distinct advantage.

True... but we're talking essential. It is always practical to have a monk, and an evenly balanced team. You will always want to have a monk... to be successful.

Ya, I know what you're saying. You're probably more correct than me, in my argument... I don't even know why I'm arguing. Though, every team should have a monk.

I would agree with your replies Canadian if you would have posed your original post as it is now (the edited version 3 days later). Your original post was a statement, not a question. To which I replied in a way I felt was appropriate.

I have an Ascended Wa/El Ra/Nec and Mo/Me. All of which have strengths and weaknesses. I have won the hall of hero's with 0 monks in the group and 3 monks in the group. The only thing overpowered in this game is a well played and well thought out group. There is no cookie cutter can not be beat group makeup.

We won the hall of hero's with nothing but Ele's using wards and Ae spells. You ever try running through a 50% slow ward stacked with a ward vs melee and ele while being hit by 6 Ae spells?. We finally lost when a couple necros were smart enough to just disease us while the mes and ranger used disrupt and backfire on us. (btw that team only had 1 monk)

And my self esteem is fine.

Ain't that the truth! I started a monk/ranger build. When out, all I do is stare at the life bar of the team when we are fighting, trying to keep them alive. When I am attacked, my party is in trouble, since they aren't getting the healing they need on the front lines, or in the rear where some come and target the elem/mes classes as well as me.

One of the very reasons for the Ranger subclass, is for the pet who will help me to fend off an aggressor.

Pet may not be a good idea, Darkest Dawn. Pet has its use in pve, but in pvp it's you who are the target, as people tend to ignore pet. But the worst thing is when pet dies, all of your skills get shut down for 10 sec., which means your team is going to have to do without your healing for that long. Having played a lvl 20 ascended R/Mo, I pretty much ignored pet as it is more a liability than help.

In GW the only truely balanced class is ranger, but it is exactly for that reason a ranger is not really needed in a well-balanced team. Monk with high healing, on the other hand, is on the opposite spectrum of high damage elementalist. While people complain about monk being hard to kill, you don't hear people complain about elementalist's high damage. So monk isn't balanced by him/herself and isn't meant to. People should not confuse the concept of "overpowering" and "importance". Monk's importance is only relative to the make-up of your team and opposing team. A team of W/Mo and rangers have less need for a monk than a team of elementalists and mesmers. I don't know if people's frustration with monks has to do with a known hack. There's one bug that allows teams with multiple monks to stack Balthazar's aura on one target, which was just fixed in the most recent update.

A very good point! When I get more involved with PvP, then I'll probably go without a pet, and arm myself with a bow and one or two ranger bow skills like distracting shot or pin down. What do you think of this setup to accompany the healing/res spells of my monk?