Are two monks really needed for *EVERY* quest/mission?

I have noticed a new trend since Factions has started. Every group I have been in whether for some quest or a mission insists on getting two monks!!!

I am aware that there are some hellish missions out there like THK, Ring of Pure "Hell" missions, etc. But I think this obsession with two priests each and EVERY time is becoming too much.

And if this game does need two priests for everything then something needs to be changed in the quest/mission design.

not *EVERY* mission/quest needs two monks, its just that people have gotten used to the classick team build that has X warriors, X elementalist and two monks.

personally i always have the two healing henchies and the ritualist.

I successfully did THK (the bonus way) and Ring of Fire missions as the sole monk. The key is to work together and wait for the monk to regen. So I would say no you do not need 2 monks in every mission.

I like 4 monks to be safe.. we can't kill anything but who cares my w/mo can just logout when things get bad- I also bring my own healing in mending so they don't have to work so hard.. that's what makes me good and the monks need to do thier job!

one time I went into the fow (spent the last of my money) and the whole group got mad cause the monk drawed some monkeys on him after I pulled the first group back in.. what a loser

I'm not sure this is a "new" trend, but I will agree that it is an annoying one.

Having 2 monks in a group just gives the groups a little larger margin of error, but aren't necessarily critical to the success of all missions/quests. Unfortunately, people can't get away from the old standards.

Truthfully, since the release of Factions I find that having one Monk and a healing/spirit Ritualist works just fine on most missions, and is even preferable in some cases. Shelter and Union are great for minimizing spike damage and make the Monks job alot easier.

The other thing I notice is that when you only have one Monk and a Ritualist, most PUGs tend to be a little more careful with aggro, movement, slowing down to recharge, etc.....On the other hand, I find that PUGs with two monks often disregard these things, as having two Monks gives them a false sense of security.

No, two monks aren't necessary for every mission and quest. However, in many missions and quests (especially in factions) you are forced to face unbelievably large mobs of high-damage dealing Afflicted, etc. (Vizunah Square, anybody?) In that case, when you have Afflicted spattering shrapnel innards everywhere, it really is helpful to have that second monk--few solo monks could keep up with that (I certainly can't).

I'm going to assume that "Mustache Mayhem" is being sarcastic and move on.

2 monks is great if you can find them. 1 monk and 1 ritualist can work out just fine also. It really depends on the skill of the group as a whole. I mean, you can have 2 good monks on your team, but if the rest of the team sucks you could still lose the mission or quest.


I've played my Ranger in "all ranger groups" before and we didn't require a monk because most rangers bring an evasive skill and self healing. It really just depends on the skill of the players in the group.

Two monks (or a monk and rit) does make things easier. You're doubling your total defense but only taking away a small percentage of total offense. A skilled and/or properly specced group can get by with less, but especially when pugging, why take your chances?

The only thing that annoys me is when groups insist on two human monks. The hench can generally get the job done just fine. Why stand around for a half hour competing with three other pugs for that last monk when you can just grab Jamei and go?

Unfortunately two monks is more like a requirement than an option. Common players like go berserk and ignore defense because monks will save their asses. Playing as a monk is very boring. Tried playing as smiting monk but so many get upset if I tell them that I'm a smiter. Usually get a kick after invitation. Guild Wars is at best when most of your party members are guild members. Pugs always follow certain formulas when getting party members. That is a pity because the skill system is meant for versatile and interesting builds. It will require teamwork. Most builds are useless with pugs.

As I see it you have three options (only one of which is ever commonly considered, as you point out):

1. Bring two monks
2. Bring one monk and a good healing ritualist
3. Bring one monk and a self-heal for everyone

To answer the OP's question, no. You definitely do not need two monks for every 8-man quest/mission in the game.

absolutely not 2 monks are not needed on virtually any mission in the game. ive done THK and Hells precipice with a single monk ... myself... and im not that good a monk

the problem is that noone wants to take responsibility for thier own health and pay any attention.. nor do they want to give up a slot on thier skill bar for a heal, they want to have that monk crutch so they dont have to think

with the powers of the ritualist, a second monk is even less needed now that it was before

in some cases its actually a hinderance to have too much healing as the more healing you bring the less damage you bring... ive sene many mission reach stalemate becuase of this. you get to a point that you cant kill what you need to even though he cant kill you either.

i was in Raisu Palace last night hilariously watching 5 groups of of 6 constantly spamming "GLF 2 monks" for the longest time when there were no available monks to be had at all.

even if you think it IS needed, there just arent enough monks to satisfy this guys ... and you need to start thinking of ways to get by without that crutch, or be prepared to sit and wait for a looooong time. those guys in Raisu... i went through twice and found them still sitting there

bottom line, absolutely not it is not needed, what is needed is more communication and cooperation from the players and a little bit if taking responsibility for thier own arse

People are just lazy! End of story really. Two monks makes everyones life easier and they dont have to concentrate so hard. Personally I like a challenge and did the convocation mission with just a ritualist to heal. It was a mess but we made it thanks to an astonishing effort from a warrior. There's a monk shortage enough without people hording them. I was on today and some idiot was taking monk only groups. What in the hell use is 8 monks? It's nice to see that there seems to be more of a trend towards balanced groups though nowadays.
I've personally given up on my monk char except for tombs now because people no longer bring there own heals. Ho hum maybe in a month or two I'll dust her off again

No class is essential. The cookie-cutter, formulaic party builds are largely the creation of W/?s who need a specific set of support characters for their poor tactics and lack of imagination.

That said, some scenarios work best with specific professions in the party -- I can think of a few where rangers and elementalists make things easier, and any "escort" mission can use a monk to heal and babysit the escortee.

The idea that this game only requires monks and warriors is silly. I've played through with PuGs, and have created plenty of groups that lack forumals -- heck, we took down Glint without *any* Warriors (thoguh we had a healing and a boon prot monk).

Also, a ritualist can often prove the additional services usually provided by a second monk. My R/Rt carries Flesh of my Flesh, for example, so I can do resurrects and save the monk some energy.

GQ isn't about formulas, it's about using your head.

Two monks are by no means necessary. However, when pugging it's always a good idea to take 2 because you are unsure of the competancy of the monks in question. Even Urgoz doesn't require 2 monks, however (another reason to take 2), you cannot rely on a single person's connection or rely on the err fixes in the game. If you only take 1 and that person is the one who gets hit with the err-stick, then you could have easily boned yourself.

No, u dont need 2 monks for every quest/mission. I'd recommend for the harder ones like Thunderhead Keep, Hell's precipice, Ring of Fire u take 2 monks.

Basically it all depends on the team you're in. If you work well together and position yourself in a right way and such you'll be fine with 1 monk.

For example, i managed to get an 8 man team through Hell's precipice as the only monk. How? By simple tactics. Let the ranger lure a couple and kill those, after they're dead let everyone regen before u move to the next group. It takes a bit longer but it gets the job done.

My 2 cents

No, two monks aren't necessary. I play a monk and have managed to heal a full party on my own. Half the time I'm in a two monk group I'm bored because I have little to do.

That said, I prefer to have the extra monk (or healer rit) as a safety net. Monks sometimes lag out, or ragequit, or go mysteriously afk, or just plain suck. I'd rather not have to redo a mission because we lost the only monk near the end.

When I play as monk and do quests/missions with henchies (which I mostly do), Im the only monk in the group.

I did FoW the other day with 2Ws, 2Es A necro, 2 Rits and a Monk.

Monk droped 5 mins into it, and I was the only healer of the group (the other Rit was channeling/interupting mainly) We managed to clear up to the beach, and were doing fiarly well, a couple of all died except me moments, but we coulda done very well, until people had to leave for the World Cup games.

So now, you dont need 2 monks, hell, some places can be done with no primary healer lines at all.

I have solo monk'd (as in with a group) at least the following, and more:

Thunderhead Keep
Abaddon's Mouth
Hell's Precipice
Fissure of Woe
-- not done UW yet, pretty sure I could though
Tombs of Primeval Kings
Vizuana Square
Arborstone
Unwaking Waters
Raisu Palace

Each of those I got Master's on, btw... Vizuana, Unwaking and Raisu were Masters on first try, but my first Arborstone team was sorely prepaired to fight the Dredge.

No, you do NOT need 2 monks for every mission/quest. A good Rit can help enormously, as well as having/explaining the need for all party members to be PATIENT. Having a balanced group is nice, but in no way an absolute must.

This thread is pointless. You have no question, no arguement, no topic up for discussion. Just another spam thread about monks.

I have a warrior and a monk so heres my opinion:As My Warrior im fine with 1 monk because im good with self healing if i need to be.But when im a monk i like to have two monks just in case.Now i only use 2 monks on harder things but normally im comfortable with only me as the monk.So I think people want to monks for more support and so its easier on the monks.

OP:
So you're one of those annoying morons that thinks one monk will do. Two healing sources is only fair to the team and the monks. It's too much pressure on the monk with only one IMO. Whenever I monk I DEMAND another healer or I find another group. And yes I've been the only healer before and made the WHOLE team survive. Was it fun? NO Do I play Guild Wars for fun? Yes

There is no logical reason why ANet would design a game that has a variety of professions but requires 25% or more of any party to be one of those professions.

Think about it, right now, monks make up 12.5% (statistically, realism will vary) of the professions. Following that line, most parties would be about 12.5% comprised with monks. What we see in the trend everyone talks about is 25% or more.

That leaves 75% of the party to be comprised with 87.5% of the remaining professions. So we lose balance, we lose variation and we get "cookie cutter" builds.

Just wait how bad it is in Chapter 4 when there are 12 professions (monks at that point will make up a statistical 8.33% of the population.) At that point, we would need 3 times as many monk players than ANY other profession just to keep up with the 2-monk demand. And this isn't including how many monks just become solo farmers.

--

With that out of the way, I'll move on to the mentality of things.

What is the primary reason everyone wants 2 monks?

In my opinion, safety. They want to play it safe, they are already calculating in that the Whammos will over-aggro, that two or more people will err7 or rage quit, the assassins will die when someone sneezes, the ranger is going to plant flowers rather than do anything, the nuker is going to burn out of energy or over-exhaust, etc

They EXPECT to FAIL, and so they plan around that.

I've been in several groups that have said "Eh, let's just try it" in reference to going without 2 monks when they can't be found. Guess what? I would say a majority worked out fine.

I've also been in no-monk groups. Those are often more fun. The 'danger level' is much more present, you have to *gasp* think and be careful. Every class has self-heals, every class has access to res signets.

Once people get over their fear of failure, passed their expectation to fail, they can see the true dynamics that Guild Wars offers.

Tanks are not essential to a group.

Monks are a SUPPORTIVE profession, not a required one.

Mesmers CAN be a good addition to a group. Rangers and Assassins as well.

---

If you want to try experimentation, to see the true dynmaics Guild Wars offers and to see how different professions can synergize... invite the first 7 people to your group, regardless of who they are. (Now as a side note... idiots can hurt any group, even if there are 7 monks and 1 idiot, so those situations you just have to ignore.)

There's also nothing wrong with wanting to "build" a PUG. That is after all why we can chose are team mates. (Another side note... I'd love to see this game if every mission was ran randomly like Fort Aspenwood or the such. Granted there would definately be an issue with leechers that would need to be addressed, but I think people would get passed their fear then.)

Just don't think that 2 monks are essential to any group. No profession is required. Then, maybe we can get passed the "2 Tank, 2 Nuker, 2 Monks, MM and SS for EVERYTHING" build.

1 good Monk = 2 decent Monks = 3 bad Monks

Some Monks can solo heal any mission, but some can't even do a third. Some groups need less healing because they aggro wisely, some need more healing then one Monk can give because they aggro like complete morons.
You don't need 2 Monks, but in a PUG, you really don't know if your team can aggro or not, and you don't know if the Monk(s) you invited can handle their job(s) so I advice taking 2 Monks, just in case they're not that great.

2 monks are only needed if ya got a group full of newbs/noobs/pugs

just like ppl wanting a battery for fissure..not needed but ppl dont like thinking outside the box in this game

1 monk is perfectly fine if most can self-heal to a reasonable standard and u allow rest breaks for regen

PUG: regen? wtf u noob!! (logs) <~~happened many a time in FoW

Hi

" monks is IMO a must for pugs, fo rthe simple reason that one monk can cope, so you need two :P

The amount of times i have been in a group and seen the other monk either pure smiting, or not healing (if i think theyre not i stop for a bit watch their char and see if tehy heal, but wont let anyone actuially die)

The other thing is, that having two monks will generally make things go faster, and faster is better (this is going faster, not rushing and dieing so going slower)

oljomo

From Dragons lair on two monks have always been standard in groups. Are they needed? no. I just completed Hells Precepice with Me playing monk A necro 2 rangers and an Ele. It definately makes the missions easier in my oppinion though.

I usually like to have a healer and a prot in my pugs. However for the THK bonus we had 3 monks - a healer, a prot, and another using a combination. We sorted the bonus, very easily.

With the ammount of new kamikaze 'sins and whammos about since factions, I like to have 2 monks when in Cantha to keep up with the fast pace of the careless attackers. As an ele, I just watch and laugh as pugs with only 1 monk go tits-up because someone's decided they're indestructible and ends up face down in the dirt. Seriously, you need 2 Mo's, almost always. I don't trust Rt/Mo's too much yet because I just don't think their restoration is as effective, but that's just my opinion form what I've seen so far...

speed kills...take the mission slowly then you have no problems

what i hate is

getting invited to a group, entering mission then..

KID: hurry up noob!! i only have 5mins b4 my dinner is ready..the wammo (99% of the time its wammos) then goes and aggros every group..dies calls the monks noobs then logs <<this is why i no longer do missions with anyone beside hench

ive done THK with 1 hench monk and every one els had self heal becouse we couldent find a monk and we did the mission pretty fast, we had no prob with it

yea lets face it THK wasnt hard tho

watch the king..man the catapults..job done

QFT... You know the quality of your support if they're guildies. With a pug, you don't know if the monks will heal just like you don't know if the warriors will tank. That E/W might be using armor of earth and an axe with attrib points in fire and hammer. I think two monks are required for pugs because the chances of one being almost useless are pretty high. [sarcasm] Breeze spammers ftw. <.< [/sarcasm]

I usually go with 2 monks, though 2 monks is not a must. As stated before people just want two monks because they dont have to think about what they are doing. The only time i am the only monk is when i go with my guildies. That is because they are smart. They dont run in and aggro everythign they can and expect me to heal. They dont get mad when i say my energy is low. Most groups get mad and ask why i dont have any energy management skills. They dont think that maybe my energy regen skills are recharging. People just get into a rythem where they dont have to do anythign except pick a target and hit space bar and maybe 1 or 2. You can do almost all the missions with just 1 monk. Alliance battles for example usually only have one monk in them if that. I have won many battles when i was the only monk due to the fact that i healed only the NPC's. Why? Because they are the what helps you win. Players that die are resurrected automatically with no DP. So really the monks need to be smart as well. If they dont overheal and dont do stupid things like aggro groups, everyone should turn out ok.

It's funny, but my monk was my favorite character in Prophecies, but I don't really enjoy playing him in Factions... and I think it is because of the two monks.

First off, people seem to have devalued Protection, because groups all want two healers. I hate playing two healers because if I have good communication with the other monk, it's far too easy keeping three people alive. If there's poor communication, we're healing the same targets all mission.

Second: With Master's rating based on time in most cases, the emphasis needs to be on dealing out tons of damage, killing mobs and running to the next mob. Two monks (and often a Communing Rit) sucks too much offense out of the team.

Most of the best groups I have been a part of in Factions had a monk and a Communing Rit. That's all it takes.

And a final note: As a monk, I never expect others to take a self-heal. I'd prefer them to worry about doing their jobs. The best way to help me is to avoid as much damage as possible by not standing in DoT areas and not powering through hexes like Spiteful Spirit and whatnot.

LOLz So funny because it's happens a lot.
(I hate "QFT" and I hate anyone that uses it, thxkggbye) lol

I think factions groups need two monks because basically, the average assasin needs a whole monk for him/her alone. I play a boon prot in pvp, healer in pve and christ 9 out of 10 pug assasins go down faster than a 2 dollar RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GO, seconds into combat. Once they've soaked up my energy so that the other party members begin to suffer, they're ressed, rinse and repeat.

Two monks are definitely not needed. With only one monk, things may get tough, but if everybody designs their build around it then it's not hard at all. One of the builds I use on my warrior does not need any healing at all, I can keep myself healed fine. However, most PUG warriors require healing or they will die within a few seconds. Some PUG Necros playing MM would just sacrifice themselves to death if they don't get healed. Basically, many players have designed their builds assuming there are two healers healing them.

There are other very good alternatives to 2 monks. As a monk player, I prefer having a good mesmer on my team rather than another monk. Two monks won't keep the entire team alive when those crazy ele bosses fire off their 2x damage, 2x fast cast, 2x fast recharge spells. A mesmer will prevent it from happening completely. A ranger can do it pretty well too. An illusion mesmer can shut down several melee enemies and do significant damage in the process, effectively "tanking" them, it's possible to do missions with no "tanks" at all. There is no need for a secondary healer if the damage never occurs in the first place. However, the most popular way of playing the game is to have tanks, nukers or minion master, and 2 monks. It works well in many missions, and doesn't work well in others (which is why there are certain missions that many people regularly complain about).

Too bad it's hard to find a party that is willing to try something out of the ordinary.

Definitely not needed.

I played monk for a group going through the Dragon's Lair with no other monks. There were some sketchy parts, and a few people died, but we almost killed Glint (with a PUG that was going for mission only!). I'll admit that the party was sensational and Dragon's Lair isn't the hardest mission, but I think the point is still valid.

EDIT:

Did they make THK easier recently? I did the bonus a few days ago with my mesmer (set on full illusion) and a whole mess of henchies and no living players...

It really depends...
I've seen some valid pointers so far where states that the power of the group will reflect on the succes of the team.
I've been in FoW loads of times as battery Necro with only one monk.
Ok that team was well worked on coz we ALWAYS went in with the same 8 so we knew what to do.