Monks - And why they are underplayed -

There is a huge issue for monks however, people are really really really inconsiderate to just how craptastic the interface for healers is. Namely the decision to not know what hex or enchants people have. You only get an on off toggle. This sucks, I don't know why you arn't allowed to know what hex or enchant someone has. Second, conditions are a little better, bleeding shows a pale bar, disease and poison show yellow, cripple/deep wound just the arrow. But at least you can discern that... oh crap poison is MORE dangerous than cripple.

Now on to how people treat monks, and apparently how many crappy monks there are, and every group needs 4 monks out of 8 slots to live. You never ever get a word of thanks or compliment and always get blamed. People play stupidly then blame you. Mob casts empathy on the tanking warrior, the warrior continues to melee and wonders why I can't keep up with mob damage + his stupidity. Elementalists have 3 or more mobs run after them, they decide its a good time to go toe to toe and cast an AE instead of training back to the warrior or JUST running around. How many /mo's load hex or condition removal? how often does anyone load skills that help with condition removal? I can tell you, I had one w/mo load mend ailment in all the missions to the end.

Most players do not bring some defensive support skills. How many elementalists have you played with load up some ward against melee or elements and actually uses them in tough situations, positions them near tanks or protects the casters in shitty situations? The only one I've ever had is my close friend. Blood necro's are great and rare, and when you have a good one, the rest of the team is stupid and doesn't kill a corpse usable mob first... they kill the 5 golems instead. I can go on and on, Most mezmers play a crappy nuker never interupt, and don't use their skills that punish stupid mob AI. (Empathy, Backfire) They all spam Chaos storm and energy burn.

This really is the root of the problem. I solo healed my _first_ time in underworld, and was told we'd wipe out of the gate, we completed all of the ghost town part, and only wiped when an idiot triggered the event to protect the shade while we were discussing what to do next, and had the invulernable mobs in the hall spawn on us or whatever.

This is a huge rant, but monks get no thanks, they don't deserve to be paid to monk, but people need to own up to being shitty players. A great monk can carry a stupid group through the majority of the missions in the game. No other class is given this power. So people need 30430840384 monks to win, or when they get a great monk they play so stupid (cast or attack empathy backfire, no support skill help in wards etc!)

This one going to be a reply, but I decided to stick it here instead.

Smart monks avoid the crap you have to deal when partying with idiots and just go with henchmen. For missions, you always have 1 less npc monk than needed following yaks bend. Beating missions with henchmen is cake if you're a monk and not hard otherwise.

People want too many monks though, yes. I've beaten the mursaat ring of fire missions with 6 ppl and my nec/monk as sole healer. Pve is just not difficult; people just run very bad builds and most are very bad players.

I'm quite aware of the henchmen thing, I explored 100% of the game with mostly just my gf's necro and a party of henchmen, its honestly not about winning. Its a lot more fun to be in a cohesive party, than with henchmen, the sad part is that henchmen are more cohesive most of the time. I'm plenty smart, and that doesn't mean these issues don't exit in underworld or fissure, or any other number of places. If my only concern was bragging rights to "beating" the game I wouldnt have posted any of this, but thanks for your super reply on how to avoid idiots, as opposed to what my post contained. I think I pointed out that people are very bad players above too? but thanks.

What I like about henchmen is they actually target the same enemy. The warriors may not try to intercept the mobs rushing towards the squishies but when they kill things faster its always a bonus. I also almost never take the mage with me as he is pretty much useless with his firestorm.

I actually like the variation of player skill. It makes the game less predictable. Good players are good in the same way. Bad players are bad in their own distinct manners.

Gotta say that I don't really mind not being able to see what hexes/conditions are on people. When I'm running with removals I just tell people to broadcast when they get something nasty on them and I'll get to it ASAP.

I can completely agree that Monks often take the blame. "Well I would've lived if I was BEING HEALED!!" Get that all the time. I try to be considerate when dealing with Monks. If I run up and aggro stuff, I don't expect to live. If I run off from the group, and die, I realize it's my own fault. If I die during battle, I do understand I'm not going to get Rezzed in 10 seconds or less. You just have to be aware.

However, while I can understand a "Thanks for the Rez" or somesuch, to what degree do you actually expect people to thank you for playing the game? Nobody thanks Warriors for tanking, or Necromancers for Bloodwelling. I think that sometimes, going into it with a bad attitude, as some Monks do, make it all the worse for everyone. I don't think you should expect to be thanked though, as much as I do and enjoy it when people do.

This is partly from the fact that people often need to SEE some sort of damage or healing to believe you're in fact participating worthwhile. Mesmers work in disfunction, and it's not apparent in the least. Things like Chaos Storm or Energy Burn involve visual damage, and it's obvious why these choose these. Otherwise, people often begin to question whether or not the Mesmer is doing anything at all. This could also stem from the fact many people playing Mesmers are used to raw damage, and set up their character skills as such. But perhaps, when you don't see a Backfire or an Empathy..they're using other skills you just aren't aware of.

I'm every monk's number 1 friend with my N/Me
I know when to retreat, I know how to listen and ask before taking quests, I cast Blood Ritual on them, and Well of Power (2 energy and 6 health regen in 19' AoE for 21 secs), and heal myself thru Vampiric Gaze and Life Siphon.
Last but not least, I use Empathy and Backfire (and every once in a while when I feel like it Chaos Storm, lol).
So I make it easier for them to heal and manage energy, and cover the majority of my own healing.
And I bring res signet for emergencies ofc.

_Zexion Sixtin

If you think the monk interface is bad, try the summon necro's. Seriously... theres no key to cycle through undead animated henchment, so you have to click on them and its rather difficult. Its the biggest reason why Death Nova is a pain to run in PvE even though it is really good.


I can say from experience that it is a lot more fun to kill things than to be a healer... the only exception is that when you are winning in PvP. And this is exacerbated by parties that want to be composed of more than 1/6 monks - if one out of six people were each primary class, there would still be a shortage of healers.

i feel your pain.

I don't expect a TY every time i heal or rez. I do expect a little respect though. Ive stood there casting one heal after another on a target because they were getting mobbed badly and no matter what I did I could not keep them alive and keep everyone else going too. their life bar would drop just way too fast. when something like this happens...don't blame the monk. blame your self for not pulling the mob else where to stronger players that can help, giving the monk enough time to get you healed.

a little respect goes a long way.

What I've found as I've "grown" my monk is that people -will- indeed thank you on occasion and, for me anyhow, it is ALWAYS appreciated and I try to recognize the person who offered thanks.

I do agree to a certain point that people don't spend time thanking warriors for tanking, rangers for aggrivating monsters, etc. HOWEVER....when the party dies, who is the first one to be assigned the blame for the party's failure? That's right, your friendly neighborhood monk. I'm not saying that this happens 100% of the time. But it happens way too much and makes a lot of monks not want to party up. As others have said: It's easy to beat this game as a monk with henchmen. But it's much more fun to play with humans on the other side.

I never ask for or really even expect thanks. I like the challenge of keeping the party alive. But I -do- wish that other players realized that they are just as culpable for the team's failure as is the monk...probably even moreso.

As a healing monk, I don't expect thanks any more than any other team player expects it. Sure, I hate how often aggro-mad, andrenaline-junky warriors dive into doom, then proceed to spam that they're dead. I also hate how often they brag about killing with x damage (can you imagine a monk bragging like that? "Dude, I totally healed you for 170 points!"). (Also, what's with warriors checking out each other's swords? Anyone else notice that?) However, I assume players like this are just kids or drunk.

Still, there seems to be a monk shortage (relatively speaking) at the higher levels, and I think it's because it's just not a sexy role to play. Let's face it, we're blamed often, we stare at health bars nearly the entire battle, and we don't get that action hero gratification. Most of all, we don't get as much understand as we probably deserve; never mind THANKS, just understanding and smarter play would be great.

One simple thing would relieve our grief and get more monks in the world: other classes should be a monk as an alt. My main was a warrior, and I noticed quickly in arena that a great monk could make a team rule and a bad monk could be miserable, so I decided to try one for myself, just to see how it works firsthand. Now he's level 20. I would never, and could never, be the same warrior (or elementalist, or any other class) again. If people spread out in the game a little more and took their turn at monking, we'd all be better off for it, for sure.

Or not, it just worked for me . . .

Having now played a bit as a monk, I can sortof see what you guys mean.

Still, if you want to feel truly unappreciated, play a shutdown mesmer/ranger. Noone ever has a clue you do anything at all.

Never a truer word spoken.

Haven't we got enough threads about the Monk Situation though? People know we're poorly treated.. Unless we barrage TPK and stand in a group refusing to play and demand Monkey Rights, there'll still be the same problems though. It's ongoing. We know we're cool, and it's great fun to be a monkey, but they don't.

There's a load of good, monk-friendly people out there. Lots and lots. It just takes a few absolute mongs to ruin the whole monk experience.

You said it. In Hell's Precipace I was the only character who had mend condition to help remove immolation the other monks wheer pure healers thinking they could out heal those lvl 28 buffs and conditions: STUPID.

The best team i had was one with Ranger pulling/calling targets, Ele ful of wards, ONe healer monk, one Protection monk (most spamming mend condition), Necro Blood Well, 2 tanks, the other guy left. We had proper defensive capability and the offese took car of itself.

Every word you said is true. Most monk think of them selves as heal bots. It's a shame. Monks keep the group alive. Removing hexes and conditions are part of kepping a group alive. These buff are what kill you from Lion's Arch on. The melee hits aren't bad at all.

Same point. Most people don't understand a Mesmers job is to weaken the enemy. They don't realize the enemies are much easier to kill wit ha Mesmer.

When I do PvE with my Mesmer I always form my own group. I specifically ask
"Necros, Rangers, Mesmers, and other odd unwanted builds needed. Join My Group."

I get a group going in no time. I find that these "odd" build make much beter teammates. These people have studied their characrter and know it role in the group. I have NEVER had an "oddball group" fail a mission.

That was a very good post Rethan. You bring up good thoughts and I totally agree with them. I am also noticing a drop in the number of monk players out there. Is it due to this fact? I don't know, but there is a lack of monks out there now. And unfortunatly most of those monks out there really suck. I am a monk, a good one i consider myself when I don't lag. But most monks out there have no clue what they are doing. I hate the mo/war builds going out now. It is ridiculous, a monk is meant to heal, you don't have the health or armor to be a warrior up in the action so don't try. These are some of the monks that give us bad names and reps.

NO, Anarchist. You're wrong. That's just what I'm talking about. Monks are meant to keep the group alive. Heal is only one way to do that. You can't out heal lvl 28 buff in Hell's Precipace. You need protection/smite prayers to remove/smite hexes and/or conditions. You will spend a lot less energy healing if you just use Mend Condition to get rid of immolation.

Role of Reversal is the most spammable heal in the game and yet it's a protection prayer. An most monks won't use it because it isn't a heal. Think of yourself as a medic with many tool and techniques for keeping people alive not a heal-bot.

*nods at all the comments* My first and only ascended character is a Me/Mo and she is one tough cookie. When the battles are all fought, people are astounded at how much more quickly things died with her around! LOL! When I get "chosen" -- and I do use that word loosely -- to accompany parties in the higher levels of the game, it's usually accompanied by something like this,

"Dood, can u heal? Can u be a prim healer, dood?"

*eye roll* I hate that. She's a decent healer but her specialty is sucking the lifeforce and magic force out of the enemy. If it wasn't for her nifty pirhouette, no one would suspect she was doing anything but standing there and looking good (which she does, BTW)!

As for my Mo/R, who is now a level 17 and somewhere in the middle of the game, I love her and I love getting with a group that allows me the opportunity to heal and remove hexes and whatnot without having to worry about baddies. That's actually sort of a nice change of pace from KILL KILL KILL!

when i play my monk and some1 is giving me attitude that i dont need. such as a tank that has poison on him empathy and backfire and he ignores all of them and my healing doesnt do anything. he dies then he starts yelling. Then wanna know what happens. No more healing for him. one of these times he may not get a rez either. usualy shows him who is in charge and he shapens up. works for me

I play a primary monk a good 70% of the time and the one thing im starting to hate is these mo/war that think they should be up in the action tanking. They need to learn that even tho they have warrior secondary they cant take nearly the dmg a warrior can. I was wasting mana trying to keep that bastard alive tho it was easy since the rest of the group knew how to play. i only had to spam vigorous spirit on the warriors and that took care of most of thier healing.

LOL! It's amazing what ???/W types will run up and do. I've seen some amazing things come from these secondary class warriors. But you are absolutely right: They can't take the damage that a warrior can and need to stay in the back.

However, while I agree in spirit with not healing and/or not resurrecting someone who's being a jerk, I can't agree in practice. I can't leave a teammate, even a bad one, unhealed or dead just to make a point. Must be the Girl Scout in me.

The point is that with long cooldowns on hex removal, and 7 people to watch, and mobs that do 3-6 different hex's it drastically slows down any type of efficiency in removing the best hex. Control clicking buffs is tedious at best to broadcast them to the group, not to mention most people don't care in the first place. I can totally empathize with the Death necro thing. There is no valid reason why we can't at least have condition icons when we target an ally that list their buffs / debuffs on the right side of the life bar opposite of what their current action shows up under.

All told its not that a monk should expect thanks, but we shouldn't be the goat when other player's failures are really what cause a group to die or them to die.

A great mezmer is something good people notice, they decimate stupid AI with extremely overpowered spells. I can honestly say I've only grouped with 1 mezmer who played effectively in two characters to Hell's precipice. I even started my own. I've henchied every mission since kryta cause no one will invite me, Aurora Glade was a sweet mission to henchie cause you pretty much have to get the bonus to manage to activate the gate before the Mantle do =P

Myself I enjoy being a monk. Despite the far-from-perfect GUI and despite the occasional abuse from PUGs. Usually I have fun playing with humans, even PUGs. Yes, humans are a little more difficult to play with than henchmen, but I enjoy the challenge.

As for the abuse: I'm very picky about my PUGs. Usually you can tell the level of maturity by looking at the names in the group and by listening to their chat while still in town. If a guy named "Death Killa" spams "WE R GOIN TO KILL GALRATH NEED MONKS AND WARRIORS!!!11" in Temple of the Ages then I usually refrain from joining.

Form your own group per my post:

Well when I play Monk I play full healer. Full healer to me means bringing along some form of hex removal & some form of mend condition/ailment spell. I tend to carry Smite hex & Mend Ailment. I have always considered the removal of hexes & particulary conditions as part of my pure healer's job. How can someone call themsleves a Healer if they dont have anything to treat Bleeding? Cripple? Immolate? & so on? That's just me tho... can't speak for others.

Your definition is different that most. Monk people think a pure healer is some who only carries healing spells and nothing else. You have the same idea about a monk as I do.: you are really a medic with many tools and skills to keep a group alive.

"(Also, what's with warriors checking out each other's swords? Anyone else notice that?) "

They obviously want to say "Mine's bigger". I don't compare my healing spells with other and then go "I heal for 20 points more than you, n00b"/

See thats the number one reason why A: PUGs suck ass, and B: people like monks get so much abuse.

Whatever you do in your own time is up to you, but when I join a group, or people join my group I expect each and every person to give 200% dedication to just doing what is required, and leave all the juvenile bs and macho ego behind. If you want to run around being spiteful to other players because they annoyed you, go do it somewhere else, ideally not at all. This is a competitive game, that requires team work. A team does not play to the monks/warriors/eles desires, ever. Its a team with a mission so it gets done, period. Otherwise you are playing the wrong game.

Often when I read posts regarding monks and their hurt feelings I see 'I dont heal so and so cos he insulted me' That kind of utter crap is why so may people use henchmen, and why so many people get abuse from others.
Iv yet to see a Warrior say 'ill just not tank if the monk yells at me' or an ele say 'nah im not casting any AoE cos you said my flare was weak' Iv only seen monks EVER threaten to wreck and abuse teams because they feel insulted.

Granted Warriors might wreck teams pull mobs and die instantly, they do it out of over enthuisiasm, over estimating their power/ under estimating the enemy, bu do you see warriors threatening to pull mobs cos theyre upset?

If I have a new character, and take it to the under 20 arenas, im afraid to ask monks if they heal now (which they seldom do ) incase the dude gets offended and wont heal me. WTF?

I play as a W/R.

My main role is to protect Monks and occasionally lure enemy when required.

I'm normally stood next to the Monk and apply long range poison via my Bow to enemies. If anything gets near the Monk, I revert to my primary of Warrior, and use the sword. If the Monk takes damage, I will use healing spring on them. Monks are the best team players in the game, IMO, and for that they get my respect and also my protection.

Not all Warriors agro/tank/rush.

No, that is not a big problem.

Only if you know every player well, it would help to see these things, but with random groups or even casual guild plays, it won't help much.
It will clutter the interface and hardly help you.
Why?
Because I don't know what hex, conditions are most dangerous to the different players. For example: a backfire on a caster is easy to decide: it is dangerous and has to go.
But what about a backfire on a Ranger or Warrior? It all depends on the play style if this backfire is very dangerous or just a little annoyance. Same with most other hexes.

So the Ranger shall just announce that he is 'backfired' when he wants to get rid of it. And then someone removes the hex. But removing a hex that hardly harms your ally won't help much.

Same with conditions. A Ranger may have a antidot signet (the one that remove poison and stuff) with him, so it doesn't bother him that he is poisoned. He just needs to finish his attack combo and then get rid of it by himself. No need for a monk to do anything.

Of course: the interface can be improved, for example a guy that announces something could blink, or have a dot next to his name or whatever. It would also be nice to see how many hexes/enchants/conditions are on one guy...

But the interface really isn't bad.

I agree with the original poster, as I have been forced into the role of healer many times before (it's fun for PvP, but for PvE, I MUCH prefer smiter... I still like smiter in PvP though). I always did my best to help out a team though. I have a geomancer E/N that uses both Earth Magic protections such as Ward Against Melee/Elements and Well of Blood, among high damage attacks. Incompetant groups are no rarity in Guild Wars, unfortunatly. I've never seen such a huge population of people that truley suck at video games. It would be like teaching my grandma "now this is backfire. don't use spells when you see it."... nah.. grandma would catch on faster...

I play a "medic" monk (to borrow funbun's terminology). I only play PvE with him and have received small thanks about a half-dozen times which I greatly appreciated. I agree that thanks shouldn't be expected, just like warriors shouldn't expect me to thank them for tanking. But whenever anyone seems to be doing a particularly effective job I try to give some praise. I have only been blamed once and that guy hounded me in PMs until I added him to the ignore list. It certainly puts a damper on things but I do like playing a monk.

Even in the face of that though I think that monks shouldn't take it out on that player by refusing to heal them. I dont think it is good PR for the profession, even if we don't care what the idiots think. The line between taking it out on someone though and triage/energy management is thin. Some battles I can not keep everyone alive with my 50 energy. At those times I choose who needs to stay alive and focus on keeping them fighting rather than spreading my healing so thin that everyone dies. While I try not to let personal feelings affect that judgement the plain fact is that the problem-people are usually also the worst players and the ones you should let go first. People don't understand it, but I find if I dont mention that I let them die they usually don't get really upset that they did - they understand death is part of the game - and for the most part they understand that a monk doesnt equal invincibility, otherwise where would the challenge lie.

So while I agree monks get a lot of unfair treatment it is simply the product of immature, unthinking, self-centered, twinks who are always the bane of every online game. Complaining about it is therapeutic and therefore useful but I dont think that anything can be done about it. Certainly throwing your power in their face by not rezzing them is not going to give that person an injection of maturity and cause some life-altering realization that they need to be more fair to you and also help their mom with the dishes more often.

I personally don't like playing monk I was forced into it quite a bit by old guild *cough* yea Weezer the DA *cough* (I'm just kidding) I think its a bit boring. You watch a lot of health bars... I like my W/Mo way better

If you're a healing monk and don't have hex/condition removal, you're not a monk. You're a healing bot.

My little rant about monks and the quality out there:

Why do I, as a monk, have to heal a second monk in the party? I stay in the background healing those on the front lines doing battle. Why is that schmuck running up there and getting "in the thick of things"? Grrr! I wasted a LOT of my last mission healing the stupid other healer.

/rant

Um.. I have found that removing the conditions or hexes or whatever is just a waste of time and energy since they always end up back on again soon in a fight, and after the battle you can run up and heal area beside them or whatever is needed. Now the mesmer skills people use on me I find a big problem but can't get rid of. And if I did expect the other to get rid of it whats to say he doesnt have the same condition.

sorry if there is any bad typing I am in a rush

I can only blame a few things....

1. No pretty yellow numbers for the "younger" members (warrior/monks) :x
2. Too much responsibility, Monk Failure = Group Failure.
3. Get targeted first in PvP.
4. Always have to be alert and responsive.

It's definately a challenge being a Monk, that's no lie. However. Hex/Condition removals are a moot point when they're most likely going to be slapped right back on. Nothing short of a good skill bar makes a good monk. I've walked an entire party through Hell's Precipice with few deaths. (and the only reason that happened, was because the ranger was ignorant and didn't bother keeping winter up.)

Monk's ability to keep a party alive is directly related to everyone doing their job. Plain and simple.

Hmmm... I guess I've always played a "medic monk". As to healing your fellow monk, was s/he using Life Bond/Draw Conditions or other protection spells that would cause her to take damage?

And I have a question - how many slots are you all putting attribute points into? I'm concerned that I'm spreading my points too thinly, because there always seems to be just one more skill in a different area that I want to bring....

I am mainly focused on healing and a decentish amount divided between smiting prayers and animal companion. :P

As far as the other monk on my mission: He was a healer as well. Didn't have time to plan otherwise before we were dumped into the mission.