Every class has energy management built in.....except the monk

Elementalist:
-Energy Storage
-At least 4 skills associated with energy management/recovery

Warrior:
-Very few, but decent energy management/recovery skills
-Adrenaline created as an alternative to energy

Ranger:
-Expertise
-Very few, but decent energy management/recovery skills

Necromancer:
-Soul Reaping
-Very few, but decent energy management/recovery skills

Mesmer:
-Every attribute line (except fast casting) has a decent energy management/recovery skill in it with Inspiration being the best in the game

Monk:
-Screwed
-Has the crappiest energy management/recovery skills in the game (Divine Spirit is laughable)

Yes, everyone likes to have a monk but the monk has to depend on everyone else. It sucks that the monk is so crippled in so many areas (damage, energy management, armor, etc).

Peace and Harmony is nice to use..
then again, that is what secondaries are for
i like to think that it adds to the strategy and keeps us monk players from being mindless heal bots

The Monk are like Rangers, what they lack in energy recovery they gain in energy efficiency.

Rangers lack in energy recovery?

Divine Spirit is better than you think, Granamyr, and as Bgnome already pointed out there is also Peace and Harmony - it's not much, but it's something.

Well monk is a support class, if it's just to support your teammates or your main-class...you may be able to play a pure monk but i think it's build for classcombinations...if you need any of those enegry-skills/attributes just use monk as 2nd class...

Well, Rangers do have to choose either Mark's Wager which is elite, or the newly made Ferocious Strike which requires a pet afterall.

that's why you use your secondary, and not only your primary.

Word of Healing is a powerful skill that helps you manage energy.

The only other class that doesn't address energy concerns as a passive attribute is the mesmer (warriors are excluded because of adrenaline). This is why the mesmer has such great energy management skills and they exist in 3 of their lines.

Every other class is fully capable of addressing every need they have be it healing, defense, damage or energy management. They then get to use their secondary to emphasize any one of these needs.....usually damage.

Ha! Name for me a worse energy management spell than Divine Spirit. Here's a hint: you might be able to find one somewhere else in the monk line of skills.

You do know that the ranger primary is no longer Stealth, right? Don't forget Melandru's Resilience, Storm Chaser or Energizing Wind either.

Blackace is right in that Necros are "energy challenged" as well however their options are more plentiful than those for monks. Monks are easily the lowest on the energy totem pole.....hence the abundance of so many mesmer secondaries among monks.

2/3rds of your examples aren't particularly valid, given how conditional they are. "Curses I'm low on energy, looks like I'll have to jump into that Firestorm..." And Energizing Wind can be a double edged sword, and not a skill I would use spontaneously when I find myself low on energy.

Can't disagree about Necros not being good at managing their 'own' energy, though I rarely found myself low on energy when I'm a Necro, only when I'm creating minions.

i feel energy managment on monks come from learned player skill rather then attributes. some monk players are really good at knowing what spells and when to use those spells so that they dont run their fuel to hell and still keep people alive.

and then there were subclasses
and the people rejoiced
yay

You also fail to account for armors. the monk can get enough armor/weaponry to recieve 60 energy.

I think energy management is the monk's biggest problem, and if this class didn't have this problem then maybe nobody would ever die.

Last BWE in PvP I tried using Blessed Signet and Essence Bond to constantly regenerate energy. I would cast 2 Essence Bonds on either warriors or monks (players who looked like they'd be attacked the most) and perhaps another damage reducing enchantment so that Blessed Signet would give me 9 energy when I cast it. Usually, this would really slow down or even cut off your normal energy regen. But as long as the players with Essence Bond are in the thick of it and taking damage, my energy would be going up at a pretty steady rate. And if I needed to cast a couple healing spells in a row, then right after I would cast Blessed Signet to boost it back up again. The only problem is this technique takes a lot of practice and there were lots of times I forgot to cast Blessed Signet and wasted precious moments with less energy than I should have had.

I'm sure there are other ways monks can manage their energy too, it's just hard to find a really good one.

Everyone has to depend on everyone else. That's why you fight in teams. There's a reason no profession is great at everything. Where is the fun in that? You have a secondary profession for a reason. If you don't take advantage of that, it's your own fault and there is nothing wrong with the game (on this topic).

what about esscense bond cast it on your tank and you could be ok in energy department

also couldnt divine favor count somewhat it can turn a monks small heal into almost the same health heal as a non monks big heal

Making what you do more efficient is energy management in itself. Monk primaries are the best healers, because they spend less resources keeping people alive, and get more out of their energy.

There are items such as Ankh's and Grim Cesta's for a reason. Even after that bonus, as well as possible weapon bonus, your energy should suffice to keep your team alive. If not...get cheaper spells.

Divine Favour is a type of energy management. It maximizes alot of your skills potential. Instead of paying 10 mana in 4 seconds or something for 100 heal, you get to pay 5 mana in 1 second for 100 heal. It even makes interrupting less dangerous to you.

Soul Reaping is a joke

Agreed.. Divine favor IS awesome, if you invest a large amount into it you can heal a heck of allot for low energy. A protection prayers monk with divine favor is near unstoppable.

Monks would be terribly overpowered with good in-class energy management skills. They are already very good with out of class ones.

Plz don't add energy management to this profession. It's perfect as it stands. Energy saving and good timing is part of the monk profession. That's why many players can't play monks correctly. Adding energy management would be good for the average player but way overpowered for competitive PvP players.

Essence Bond and Balthazar's Spirit provide a lot of energy when used correctly. Mostly a PvE/GladiatorArena trick but it can be very handy anyway. If you need more energy, then use the Inspiration line and you'll get all the energy management you need.

Monks do seem a little too good sometimes; don't forget that secondary monks get monk skills too, and so Warrior/Monks or other combinations can get real mean, real fast. Making monks more powerful only hurts primary monks in the end.

Exactly. Divine Favor is one of the best things in the game in that regard.

The monk gets an F in 2 categories (damage output, energy management) and is tied for last in armor. No other class fails in this many categories. This hardly meets my definition of "balance" or "fairness".

Now I know most of you are saying/thinking, "Well monks aren't supposed to deal damage" or "that's what secondary classes are for". I was always under the impression that no class was pigeon-holed into one role and that you could make any class into what you want it to be. How is it then that we've all come to expect....nay, demand that all primary monks are dedicated healers!? Do you demand any other primary class to always perform a certain function?

Divine Favor doomed the primary monk to always be a dedicated healer. Fine, I don't think it's right (especially considering all the diversity of the class structure that ANet and others always harp about) but I can accept that. So now that we've already pre-determined the primary monk's role we have to choose a secondary class that compliments it and you only get two choices.....mesmer or elementalist. Again, this is so formulaic it's sickening.

You'll find all over these forums, "What's my best choice for a secondary if I choose X primary?" Every time, the answer comes back....."It's up to your play-style....there is no wrong answer." This isn't the case with the primary monk. "What's my best choice for a secondary if I choose monk as a primary?" Well, we already pre-defined what you have to do (HEAL) so the question is easily answered....Mesmer or Elementalist to address the failing of the monk class: energy management.

There are tons of ways to change this too. Divine Spirit went from one of the best skills in the game to easily one of the worst. Divine Favor is so narrow in its scope as to only apply to those that want to heal......what other primary attribute is that narrow in scope? I would think ANet would want to promote the diversity of each class so that you would find a generous amount of primary monks not all dedicated to healing. That's not the case looking at the current structure of the monk.

Monks get screwed! Tip your monks.

I think they should have more armor that gives more mana to the monk only.

Protection Monks really benefit from a high DF as well. i havent seen too many people play them, but they can work just as well as a Healer Monk. at least you are not locked into maxing out 2 specific attributes like practically every primary ranger out there..

Not really. Elementalists are worse, they're about tied with mesmers.

I really don't see this as a huge problem for monks, I play almost exclusively primary monk and the only reason I feel forced into being a healing monk is because that is what the team needs most often.

Also protection monks work wonders, I ran with divine boon once, and with blessed aura once, blessed aura gives a pretty nice kick on those enchantment spells, making them last 1/3 longer is nothing to sneeze at, but it does make them a little more prone to removal, divine boon was really (really really) nice on with protection... reversal of fortune was healing something along the lines of 85hp with that thing on, again nothing to sneeze at.

Also tried divine spirit while running blessed aura, nearly 17secs of -5 energy costs was really workin' it, especially with some other enchantment spells.

No one here is responsible for your mistaken impression, and I don't remember ever reading a statement from Arena Net saying that all 30 profession combinations would be equally powerful in a competetive setting.

You can cry all you like about how monks are forced into healing roles, but that's how the game has evolved, and that's what they are best at doing. It doesn't mean they can't play to their secondary, if they want to.

If you don't think other professions are typecast, then you need to take a harder look at them.

Necro primaries are a joke- mediocre at a bunch of things. I'd rather be an awesome dedicated healer (I actually play 3 attributes, healing, protection, and divine favor) than a minionator or bust.

Warriors are probably the most typecast of all- you'll be hard pressed to find a warrior that can really play to his secondary. Why not harp about that? I mean, Strength's Armor Penetration doesn't help you AT ALL when you're trying to cast flare on someone.

Rangers are dealt the same hand as monks- their primary is the most limiting, while at the same time the most powerful effect among all the primary attributes. Ranger/Warrior using a sword is just about the only type of ranger that can put his primary attribute to good use, and it looks like a fun Arena build, but I'd hardly argue that a Ranger/Warrior is the equal of a Primary warrior in damage potential.

So really there are 2 primaries that translate well into other professions-
Energy Storage and Fast Casting.

Let's look more closely at these two.
Any spell casting character can take advantage of a bigger energy pool or faster cast times. I think that's terrific- fast casting necro spells is one of the only ways I can imagine dealing with all the 2 and 3s cast times they have.

So why don't you see people trying to make divine favor work with a necro secondary? You wont see it because it wont work- it wasn't designed to. The effect of Divine Favor is much more limited, but at the same time the effect is more powerful in those limited cases.

And that's how you design games and classes. When something has a far-reaching effect that's useful to many different types of characters, you need to reduce it's effectiveness because it has so much inherent utility. The contrasting example is Divine Favor, or Expertise. Depending on how you approach the issue, you limit their scope because of their raw power, or you increase their power because of their limited scope.

The same argument can be applied to Soul Reaping as well- it has a very large scope, enemies are always dying around you, and every character needs energy, so every profession combination can take full advantage of a few points invested in Soul Reaping.

Long ago Soul Reaping gave 2 points per death, and the developers found out the effect was simply far too powerful for an attribute that had such widespread use. Characters could be made primary necros for the sole purpose of pumping sole reaping. When that was common enough to be spotted, Arena Net toned the effect down. (NERF! OMG!)

4 Months ago there was a huge debate over elementalist monks versus primary monks, for a similar reason. People would make characters with 12+runes+hat in energy storage and 12 in healing that were very arguably as effective as primary monks at healing, especially with the energy storage linked skills.

To combat it, Arena Net pumped the power of Divine Favor to 4 extra healing per rank, and nerfed Ether Renewal and Ether Prodigy.

I don't want to go on beating the same horse, but when attributes have far-reaching effects, the power of the effects are limited, and narrow effects are inherently more powerful. That's how the system works, Arena Net has realized that, and they're working to enforce it. Is the system perfect? Not yet, we still have soul reaping. :P

Good luck doing that. While you are out trying to make a Monk whatever you want, I will be making my Warrior the team healer... oh wait, I can only heal myself. Well, let me try to make my Elementalist a tank... no, scratch that... maybe my ranger can be an AoE caster... er, that doesn't work either.

Obviously the classes have specific roles, though some are not as limiting as others. It's like that in all games. But that's why there are different professions and you can combine them to make unique characters. No one says you have to be a monk that heals.

Stop thinking that just because it's called "monk" that it has to be like every other monk in other games. It's a monk by looks and more of a priest by abilities. GW has already planned out the profession. If it bothers you that much then play another primary.

Yes and you'll notice that I have accused "no one" of being responsible for my opinion. Glad we could establish the obvious.

Good, I don't remember ever writing a statement saying that all 30 profession combinations should be equally powerful in a competitive setting. I might ask who exactly you're responding to with the above statements?

That's my point....you can't combine a monk with something to make him anything besides a healer. If you're a monk primary, you're a healer, end of story. That isn't true of any other class nor is it demanded of any other class. A primary mesmer could be anything, same with an elementalist. A primary warrior not only has strength but the best armor.....this also provides him with a wealth of roles to play.

Why are you people arguing with me on this when you know it's true? You guys defend a position you know to be flawed.....why? Who are you trying to score points with? Anet?

Hehe. You're pretty funny. Not only are you dead wrong, but you're so blind you can't even imagine the possibility...

no need to get into a flame war, but i must admit this made me laugh

now i think a warrior well be restricted to melee(that is why he has str and better armer) and a elementalist is manly gonna be a nuker.

i coulnd be wrong tho, enilghten me is you can

How many options do you think a warrior primary has for not doing melee damage? You can be a war/monk to....deal melee damage since your mana pool is too low to do anything with your monk chunk aside from a few protections and rez. You can be a war/ele to...what, drop nukes on people from range?
20 energy +2 regen is really pitiful when you consider every class but warrior uses energy to fuel their powers. Thus, warrior primaries are locked into doing melee damage.

I could list more 'pigeonholed' classes, but to disprove that statement i only need one.

Laz

From what I read, you are basically complaining the lack of energy and damage output from monks. So, would you like to play an elementalist instead? Would you like to complain about the lack of health management skills in that profession then?

"Energy Management"
Energy management relies on the player, not on the skills. You find yourself running out of energy? Look at your skills, your team's skills, and how well you are using those skills. Monks don't have good energy skills? Peace and Harmony {elite}, +1 pip; Word of Healing {elite}, most effective healing/en; Essence Bond, good against focus-fire (same as Balthazar's Spirit). I got 4 skills that can help a player to manage their energy off the top of my head. Monks do have energy management skills. Some of them might be weaker than another, but you may find some more useful depending on your specific build. What you are complaining right now, about the unfairness to monks, is absurd to me, since all players who play monk get the same treatment.

Monk builds require some thought and planning, and they work best when you have a team build alltogether. I know there are also monks that do not rely on secondary classes at all and still have enough energy to give his team enough health for a win. If you are saying that your team build is stressing your monks out, perhaps you need to adjust the build.

Monks have plenty.

Essence Bond,
Peace and Harmony,
Blessed Signet,
Divine Spirit,
Balthazar's Spirit all add directly to your energy or cut your costs.

Aura of Faith,
Blessed Aura,
Divine Boon,
Life Attunement all increase efficiency of your energy.

Seems fine to me.

A class doing melee damage is hardly what I would call pigeon-holed. Melee is too broad a category because you can then only have two classifications: Melee and Range.

Healer only is a pretty narrow definition of a role. A warrior can be a tank, a dueler, an area of effect damager, monk/caster assassin, bodyguard....the roles are endless and there are secondaries that match each of those roles. What can a primary monk be? A healer.....a protective healer.....that's about it. What are the only secondaries that compliment that role? Elementalist and Mesmer. Pretty narrow.....pretty pigeon-holed.

Maybe instead of coming up with ideas of where other classes are narrowly defined, actually try proving how wrong you all say I am.

The problem is with the primary attribute more than the skills (although I will still crusade for how bad Divine Spirit has become.....unforgivable). If Divine Favor bestowed its bonus every time you used a skill, monk skill or otherwise, then it would start to make a monk primary more attractive to other roles except healing. Now it would need some tweaking under this sytem so as not to be overpowered but I think this new system would apply more to ANet's diversity approach.

Every other class has wide reaching primary attributes with the exception of the warrior however the warrior has an indirect primary attribute in that it has the best armor. It's impossible to argue against the fact that the monk primary is too narrrowly focussed.....or at least no one has argued it successfully. Instead of futilely trying to do the impossible (and for who knows why), come up with ways to remedy the situation.

Nobody said that you had to play as a healer when using primary monk. When the pre-made character debuted a while back one of the choice was a mo/wa called zealot or something which is a smiting monk (the only healing skill it had was orison). I tried a mo/n bipper/smiter the last BWE and it somewhat worked too.

If you're saying a primary warrior has all these options at equal strength, you're mistaken.

Beyond that, most of your classifications are *extremely* narrow and are seperated by perhaps one out of 8 skills - i mean, you're seperating something like tank and bodyguard? dueler and caster assassin?

Everyone can play this game - how about this, a monk can be a reverse damage healer, a spot healer, a heal over time healer, a protection healer, a smite healer, an anti-heal smiter, a protection smiter, etc.


the main problem you're having is that you feel there is a massive split in choices for something like melee damage, while there isn't such a great wealth of options for more defensive or healing characters.

Consider that since there are so many ways of doing damage in this game, there are also many ways to counter that damage, which the monk has a great deal of access to.

right, so soul reaping is less situational than divine favor.

You see healing (and by corollary defensive support) as narrowly focused because you don't distinguish between the different types of damage reduction options a monk has which work with divine favor. You can be a monk and not cast a single healing spell yet still make good use of divine favor. You wouldn't be making the best use of it, but then again neither would a primary warrior only using stances, or a primary mesmer only casting interrupts.

As for futility and arguing the impossible...i'll just say that you might be viewing the entire situation backwards.

Laz