It's all Seek-the-Monk

I have done that in more than one occasion. But I'm not doing it to show off.
I'm trying to convice the tankers to not use their little worthless healing signet in the middle of a fight just because they lost a 1/5 of their health. It's my way of telling him.."I've got you dude...just keep on hacking and don't worry about a thing"

But when the whole group is in trouble I go into energy conservation mode and use my spells as efficiently as I can. But then it's when you have to deal with the other thing. Luck of trust.

I let people drop in health so that my next spell's points get all used up as efficiently as possible but people start panicking and run around scared or using there own secondary heals instead of focusing on their jobs.
But that doesn't bother me too much. Trust is earned and if a group sticks together for more than 1 mission, people learn to trust me as I do them.

Speaking about noob/absent minded/not elite monks...lol...
Yesterday I was getting ready to do Elona's with this group that was asking for a monk. I finished a couple of secondary quests in the desert just prior to that where I was using my Els skills along with henchies. Redeployed my atts
and took my normal healer skills (or so i thought) and off we went.
Well, the mission starts and the 2 Ws manage to aggro every "mad cow" in the map at once. We managed to some how survive with only one casualty.
That's when I realised I didn't bring a rez with me
I mean isn't that the most appauling thing you ever heard in this game..."A monk without a rez??"
I felt terrible and I apologized several times and the group was very nice about it. I thanked them for their understanding and on we went to beat the map....ahhh...on the second time.... where the noob monk had the right skills...lol

Sent.-

Hehehe... The first thing I tell any PUG, "Stay offensive... I got your back." Once we reach our first confrontation as I'm watching the health meters the tanks will start getting down a quarter of the way and they'll pop back up to full without me doing anything... It's almost like some of thes players out there have never played with a monk before.

Of course not all healers are experts.

But it's fairly pointless to request healing, anyway. By the time it's really necessary, you are either getting it or you are going to die. If you think you are in serious danger (this is especially true for all caster classes), you should already be running. When my Elementalist primary starts getting beat on, it's time to hoof it, not request healing.

If you have ways to take care of yourself, you should know when to use them. Protection should always be used early, of course, and every class has some kind of self protection. If you are the only warrior getting seriously hurt, the healer probably has you covered. But if the party is getting thrashed, it might be time to run or use your own emergency healing, if you have some.

If you are one hit away from dying, there's no point in asking for a heal. It's too late. Heals aren't instant, and likely the healer is in the middle of something anyway

Sure they do. What do you hope to accomplish by chatting?

It is definitely insulting to tell someone to do what they know they should already be doing, especially in a selfish, "don't let me die!" manner.

If two healers are working things out, fine. If the leader is trying to give some kind of direction, fine. But saying, "heal plz" doesn't accomplish anything useful. At the least, as a healer, I'd actually prefer you ping your life. At least that's merely informing, rather than demanding or requesting something. It leaves open the idea that the healer can figure out what to do themselves -- and sometimes the right thing is to let you die so that others may live.

Whenever an elementalist starts taking massive damage and the rest of the group is in danger, the elementalist usually dies. I'd rather heal the warrior, because it will actually save him. The elementalist is dead anyway.

I overheal, but I do so with my 5 pt energy Heals, which I have 3 of in my bar. I overheal on purpose, you never know when someone is going to get hit right before they get your heal. I would rather keep everyone topped off as much as possible instead of scrambling. Good tankers make my job much easier as if only one or two folks are getting pounded, this lets me concentrate on them.

But in the early seconds, Seed of Healing goes out to a warrior or whoever is tanking or taking the most damage.

Mid fight, between the wee 5 pt heals, which like Dwayna' Kiss can add up to big pts when it stacks on enchantments, I look for anyone who slips under 50%, they get the whopping 161 pts of heal from Heal Other.

I rarely, RARELY have energy problems. I can toss 5 pt heals for a long, long time. I also carry the Healing Sig, which is slow, but by the time it goes off, I have another 5 pts to throw Dwayna's Kiss.

Thanks so much for your words of advice. I too have been subject of the same verbal badgering. All to often I would take it personally and threaten to leave the game...God love my boyfriend for supporting me and telling me that dying party members were not my fault.
I love my monk and the power she posesses. Now I simply turn a deaf ear on the critisim that comes from those that do not know any better, to consider the source and go on.

As I am bringing a monk along and expect to be in Lions Arch in the next day or two, I look forward to having some of these experiences you are sharing. Most of my time is as a warrior, and I never ask for anything, politely wait for rez, and may announce I'm dead after the battle is over.

The abuse of monks is something I rarely see, but I have seen a lot of monks leave the party before we get going, in the middle of battle, or once when he realized we were going to FoW instead of Underworld - and yes we were already in FoW less one monk.

I'll see how it is when I am healing for idiots. Right now I just use henchies.

help for 5 people

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...ad.php?t=86080

As sad as it sounds, when there is "healer" in the game, that healer instantly becomes the MOST important thing. I've played so many RPG games and you always need at least one healer in the party.

I've made a few threads about this. Personally, I think Healer ruins the balance of the game but it's just my opinion.

I am sure most of you have played D2. I love D2 because there's not much healing in the game except for healing potions. Every class has equal chance to heal and deal great damage without worrying being shut down by a healing freak. That's one aspect of D2 I love but of course D2 has a lot of flaws. lol It's just an example why having a true healer can ruin the balance of the game.


I still don't think GW is as BALANCED as most of you think. Monk is still the most important aspect of the game because Monk is useful in ANY situation whereas some builds may not be useful in certain situations. Healing can cover a lot of mistakes and become the most annoying thing in the game.


I think the biggest problem we have in Guild Wars is not enough counters to Monks. We need more enchantment stripping skills. Every class should have one IMO. We have enchantment removal skills but all of them have very long recharge time, whereas Monk's protection spells are super quick, cheap energy cost and highly effective.



Oh well, I have nothing against Monks. I can harrass them long enough for my team to win.

I think it would be useful to have healing potions in the game. As it would cut down on the necessity of a monk.

If you need a monk, especially later in the game, whisper them to see if they are interested. Do NOT do blind invites, because most monks (and other players too) will become more disinterested in group with you.

I whispered a monk to join my group for Thunderhead, and the player joined soley because I asked before inviting.

Probably because Mhenlo is dumb. The Protection monk isn't that great by herself either. I tend to go all henchman or all people. They don't mix very well. If you have all henchmen then everyone listens. If you have 1 healer hench and 6 idiots, then AI is trying to figure out why everyone is attacking someone different and doesn't know who to prioritize.

my solution: henches ok? sure. invite, invite, walk out of town.

i have died on most mission 5x faster from having a real monk then the henches.

Yeah.. I don't know why people waste hours looking for a real monk. Most (more like 99% of) PvE monks are horrible...

Mhenlo + Lina do the job quite well.

This has been raised in the another similar thread, but monks probably get more criticism than any other class as well (I've one too) As mentioned above, it does essentially boil down to watching some red bars moving left and right and sometimes changing colour. After a while you want to do something else

I suspect that this applies to all the other professions as well. IMHO you are just confirming the view that when things don't go to plan - it's always the monk that's to blame.

Just maybe it's down to the 99% of horrible non-monks.

Me too. And I also praise a well timed, well placed, AoE spell if I see it. Often, like many have said, I'm watching the health bars... so I miss stuff that is being typed.

One trick is to compliment early in the mission. Give people a nice feeling and then it is reciprocated. Also, you set the tone early, most folks will respond... defenses between players goes down a bit, communication goes up.

I've had absolutely awesome PUGs at times... as well as the disasters. But treat folks the way you want to be treated. Karma is very powerful in Guild Wars... I respect it.

I made a primary monk to help out my guild. Needless to say, I don't have a problem when I want to join a group. I enjoy monking but I agree with a lot of the comments I've seen in this thread. I'd like to add a couple and apologize if I'm repeating anyone:

- Henchmonks are excellent, they heal and protect very well. However, they currently have a little trouble in the late missions. The henchmonks have a tough time in fire islands because they don't run away from the seal energy degen. They are also not very good at staying out of the aggro area.

- Monks are not necessary, but they allow the player base in pve to make unbalanced characters. Without monks, the non-monk players would need to be more intelligent with their skill and attribute selection. Essentially, monks bring the other characters quality down by allowing them to make fragile, heal-needing builds.

That being said, I also felt bad last night waiting for my guildies at abbadon. As a monk, I got 8 invites in the first minute I arrived and watched people desparately fight over monks for at least 15 minutes. The henchmonks aren't very helpful there because of the degen seals.

When I'm doing a fire-island mission and I feel like PuGing instead of henching the whole thing, here's how I get a decent group:

1.) Invite Mhenlo and Lina
2.) Advertise my Group Looking For request and specifically state I'm using monk henchies

There, now any half-decent player who's sick of waiting for monks can join me. The only ones to join will be those who understand that monk henchies actually work.

Couldn't wait to complete the game. Now my monk just farms and the only red bar I have to worry about is my own.

i am personally a monk, i was being yelled at because i could not heal a guy fast enough because he was standing in Seige range attaking a Stone Summit.

We had 2 monks, the other was a lvl 10. gg nubs

As a monk, you'll be surprised how few will ping health. Its because of a dirty little secret called Hit Point Abuse. Players with this affliction overload on Runes and enchantments, believing that "skill steroids" are the road to success. Nevermind the fact that their lvl 20 character can be killed instantly by the enemy's first volley. Diagnosis is difficult, since a "full" health bar can mean any number.

If you are tired of DP and need counseling, call the Clinic of Dwayna for an intervention.

In Beta I don't recall ever having a monk on my team. I guess that is why I had an E/Mo healer.

I'm playing 4 characters now, and a Monk is one of them. And I can understand why it is so difficult to find Monks as human players. Because the class is just less interesting to play. In most cases, a Monk needs to set all its skills to heal/prot/divine and needs to spend all its energy and time focusing on a team member with a healing or protection spell. Leaving no time for smiting, no time for using any secondary skills, e.g. my Monk is necro as secondary but I never seem to be able to take any necro skills with me.

Last night I went to FOW as monk because my group of friends lacked a monk. We were 8 people so no one wanted to drop out to find another monk, so I played monk. I played ranger the night before. Comparison? For me last night was completely boring! And my friends who also have Monk characters say basically the same. They rather play another character than Monk.

This is definitely a problem with this game. As long as this is the situation, there will never be enough human monk players. The obvious solution is to take henchy monks, which we do, but unfortunately this cannot be done for UW and FOW.

I made a monk just so I could be picked at any time I desired. It worked. I'm done with the game now, though, aside from the Titan quests, which I'm limited in doing by the number of random people I can find doing them.

I feel like GW is very improperly balanced, with any kill being fairly fast until you get a healer. Any game with the ability to heal back damage or prevent it will focus on that, unless it's balanced to be a support function.

Example: In an old Dynamix/Sierra game called Starsiege made in '99, shields were the main focus. It's an old mech game, except instead of pure armor, everything was based on shielding, with armor being paper-thin. So, unless you're using up all your device slots to power up and restore your shielding, you will lose 1 on 1, which isn't an exaggeration.

Monks are basically living shields. Why in the world they were made the way they were, doing almost absolutely nothing but healing back damage, I do not know. I imagine it's just a product of A.Net's unimaginativeness again. The game probably would have been more properly balanced for PvP if monks used primarily, less effective protection spells, and if Divine Favor did not focus on healing, but could also work with smiting damage. Really, if you just removed healing totally and made it impossible to heal back damage, just prevent it, it would be at least a little better.

That's not as bad as seeing a monk in the desert refusing to stay with a group unless they get at least one more monk. Having played monk a ton in pvp and finally taking a primary through pve, I can honestly say they're incompetent if they need another monk to back them up in that portion of the game. A single monk is enough for any party for any part of pve (though I can understand having two for the RoF missions). My monk's party was almost flawless on the DNK quest (imo the most challenging pve currently in the game) with me as the only monk.

Monks should not be expected to heal eight people. It's stressful, hard to find that many good people in a PUG, and there will ALWAYS be something that goes wrong.

Don't get me wrong, I've been on so many missions where the other monk has dropped and/or contributes nothing but the occasional Heal Party (is there actually a valid use for that spell?) and I've got to bear the whole burden. But it's really, REALLY nice when I ain't the only monk.

Monking is quite possibly the most stressful profession. Not only are you under a lot of strain because you can't afford to make a mistake, but you've also got to keep an eye on almost every window on the screen. There's a reason my father watches me play my monk, shakes his head, and goes "how can you watch all that stuff?" ESPECIALLY when I'm the only one who knows the mission and thus has to point out stuff to my group, which happens far too many times.

But I'm very cynical about many of my fellow monks. I play healer most of the time just so that I don't end up healing while I'm supposed to be protecting, because the healer can't do his or her job. I find it's easier to get a good prot monk than a good healer. D:

just a quick anecdotal view ...

after taking a 4 months long hiatus of playing my monk, i took her out for a spin last night. i first practiced for a bit. then, once i am certain that i can play her reasonably well, i went to the Ring of Fire mission (where i had stopped playing the monk months ago).

it was easy to get into a group, but i was the only healer there. we managed to complete the mission, despite numerous deaths. however (and here is the rub) -- i was EXHAUSTED afterwards...

compare to playing my warrior, mesmer, necro, and elementalist, the healing monk is, by far, the most stressful. not only did i have to keep an eye on all my teammates at the same time, i needed to keep track of myself (monster AI got better, they definitely target the monks EVEN MORE than before), and i had to remember to manage my energy.

now, this could certainly just be me, as i know that there are other people out there who can multi-task far better than me. but after a night of fitful sleep due to neck pain and back-ache, i can say for sure that playing a monk is darn stressful... and i really do appreciate the monks that played with my other characters...

the stress, couple that with the frequent abuse monks receive from people, it is no wonder that there aren't that many monks around...

Definitely, I never realized the diff. between a good tank, and a bad one until I started a monk. My previous char is a R, and I am always at a distance, using dodge skills in a jam, so I never realized how difficult a bad tank could make things

I've never played a monk until the one I created last weekend...I've gone through 2 rangers and 2 necros....my first ranger was retired for a stronger build: my new Mo/Ra! Actually, It's a spoof build. I get so sick of people taking an hour forming a group and never picking the ranger/mesmer/necros...so I created a monk, guaranteed a blind invite by the unwary....My beastie/smiting monk tanks from a distance and does double damage on the undead...made especially for Gates of Kryta mission runs. "what? you're not a healer?" and I say, "You invited me, I accepted..." *kicked*....then I run noobs through the mission for tips...all good fun

Whether a monk needs a second monk in the party depends on how the party plays, doesn't it? I agree that only one monk per party should be necessary. Better yet, there could be two monks but enough slack in the healing/protection duties of the monks to allow each of them to partially enjoy smiting or something from their secondary professions. For example, my monk is a necro as secondary. Wouldn't it be great if I could use some curses to "prevent damage" to my party?

I don't think it is the case that many monks NEED a second monk in the party because they are not competent. I think it is because many parties play in too much a chaotic hack/slash mode without regard for their health bars. This makes monking very frustrating and very boring. So who then wants to be a monk?

Twin Ravens post is of course funny but true: Monk gets a blind invite. Party starts quest or mission. Party finds out that the Monk is a smiter. Party gets angry at monk. Why? Did the party ask after the invite whether the monk was a healer? Indeed, I think I will try this neat little trick tonight and see what happens. Equip myself with only two healing spells and a lot of necro curses and see what happens.

Now that isn't true! I am a warrior primarily, and when I die, I don't scream profanities at monks, and then leave, and any advice is always welcome, as I know there are alot better people out there then me, and I am glad to learn stuff from them. So please, don't generalize all tanks/rangers/mages/people into one group.

Heeh! Somebody has finally noticed the way to attract us monkies I have a nice collection of monks (mostly heal) and I am NOT joining blind invites unless I really need the mish done. But something like that would catch my eye, make me smile and give me a reason to try it out.

I remember once seeing a group spammin for "2 Healers, 1 Prot". Now, if I was in any PvP area, it wouldn't even raise an eyebrow. I'd just be all "GL with that, mate"

But, sadly, no. This was in PvE. In an area with a max party size of 6. I suddenly realized that I was in said group, packed my bow, and took off running, never to look back. If you need THAT much healing, there's something SERIOUSLY wrong.

Absolutely. Humour and niceness is key.
I started off as a Heal monk, moved onto Prot monk, and now run a fairly competent Bond Monk. I don't accept blind invites. I use humorous recruiting messages, and myself look for people posting humorous LFG messages.
As rule I try to do the team recruiting myself - even if I am not the leader (I often team up with friends who lead while I take charge of recruiting )

Often if someone isn't the precise build the party is looking for, if they are literate and witty I will take them in preference to someone playing a more popular build. It's usually a strong sign that they will work well as a team player.

In my experience most PVE runs and missions can be done with less than a full group, which means if you're making a full group you have some margin for error - it's not essential that everyone is uber powerful. However, if you've taken a bunch of people who don't work together, or moody people who drop at the first problem, then you're far less likely to succeed. Getting team players is much more important to me than fitting specific character build slots.

Monking is pretty dull visually - I almost never know my way round missions - even when I've done them a few times, simply because I spend my whole time in missions watching the health bars. At least it gives me an opportunity be humble as I openly admit I am no good leading the mission as I have no clue where I am going

Re thanking ...
When I was a heal monk I fell in love with necro batteries - and would actively compliment them (and swoon at their feet)
I don't need them with my bond monk as it sustains it's own energy - but I still like Necro support characters as their attitudes are often good - so I actively compliment them and tell them they don't need to give me energy unless I spam low energy (which is only likely if I have messed up or if others run off and lose their bonds)

I teamed up with a Warrior in FOW - he did an excellent, thoughtful job of leading -always checked people were ready, waited for regens etc - I gave him lots of compliments about that - and we now regularly buddy up. I also notice that when I am monking with him (just the two of us in Lornars pass) he actively compliments me even when *I* know Im not being that good (he's excellent)

I do compliment people more generally - 'good work, nice team work, *whew*,' etc - will try to notice more specific stuff now - though it IS hard when I am glued to the health bars.

Sister Spice