The Monkunist Manifesto

I hate to be disparaging to those groups, but the fact of the matter is, if that particular group believes they need three monks, the likelyhood is you're better off with henchmen.


Like Epinephrine, I found that most groups with few monks actually work better. One monk is sufficient to ward off damage and to reverse death for players that need it. If those two other monks slots were freed for Elementalists, we would have more damage, or if for Warriors, we would have more front-line defense and thus the casters have an easier time (better because warriors are hard to kill), if there's Mesmers, enemy healers and casters will be less of a problem... and so on and so forth.


Monks are, as people say, merely a safety net for reckless groups.

When will you people learn that monks are the masters? Obey us! J/k

You don't believe in having a res signet handy in case your party monks die.
You don't believe that if your party gets poisoned in the middle of a battle that everyone should help out in the effort of keeping the party alive by getting rid of the poison on you.
You don't take along a self healing spell in case you're already at really low life before you can put on your damage reduction spells and your monk(s) is/are dead. Making them have to waste energy RESURRECTING you when they're brought back.
Wow.

Remind me to never party with you with my monk.

This is the typical mindset taken to monks. You take them for granted and come to rely on them. Then complain when you seem to need them so bad.
We're not babysitters! We're there to get you out of a fix, and keep you above that 50% health mark so that your weapon does more damage/you get more energy.

A party member who: makes an effort to self-heal, carries a res signet in case I die (tends to happen in PvP where the entire team goes after me), and will mend their conditions so I can help out those who HAVEN'T brought along a skill to shed negative conditions... is my best friend. Then I can focus on the f@#$stick who has run into the mob all alone screaming "heal me heal me".
Alright, I admit, I usually let those people die. And then I ignore them when they start screaming "rez me rez me".
Firstly, it's 'res', short for 'resurrect'. Secondly, it's your own damn fault you ran off without me. Take a time-out and learn your place. You have starter armour in the Crystal Desert and you've happened to forget your Healing Signet in favour of a sword skill when you use a hammer.

Nice post. Finally a monk chimes in. I was wondering when one was gonna show up. Overall I think we can all agree that the problem with monks is as more or less the problem of a virtual society taking advantage and becoming dependent on a system designed for balance, thus skewing it in crazy proportions. Correct me if my assumption is wrong.

Hmm, though I would have to argue (I have a monk as well) that if a player does their specialized job right (a warrior that can plug up the enemy or a mesmer that's keeping the enemy healers negated) is just as welcome as any player that makes themselves self-reliant.

A specialized tool that needs a bit of maintainance is just fine in my opinion as long as it does its job.


Though I would usually tend to agree on the ressurection signet. If that person happens to be the last one left in the party, it would be a good thing if they were able to ressurect me so I could go about ressurecting everyone else.

Here's an idea: Give players visible markings or numbers signifying thier "rank" (not so much a rank against other players but a rank against PvE baddies) just as generals, officers etc in the military get ribbons and badges for thier victories in battle. Then we would know who sucks and who doesn't! Then, we could take just one monk and not have to worry about the sucky warrior running five miles ahead because he's two years old and just learned what the W button does. J/K. But seriously...having a row of badges and bars on my warrior's chest would be awesome.

With my E/R we did elona's reach w/o any pc monk, we couldn't find one and i had figured out a good way through the mission so we did it with merely the healerbot!

And we had one smarter Wa/Mo that didn't have very many heal spells and i think a Wa/N. The rest were casters. We actually blowed through the mission without dying once if i remember right.

And i've also run through with a Mo/Me but it was annoying because everyone has their own 'best way' through elonas and wouldn't listen to me. But im just the lowly prot healer so i just weasled along and did my thing :P

And how will your suggestions help to fix all those players that are rude to the monk (or any other player in the group, basically)? There is as much morons among monk players than among any other class, and I personally have met more intellectually challenged other classes than monks.

Noooo - where's the fun in taking some kind of self-heal or damage prevention with you?! That is nowhere as cool as yelling at the poor monk for not healing you, after you run in the middle of the mob, having your skillbar packed with only damage skills :P

There is no absolute must to have pure healing monks anywhere but pvp (Alesia + Lina work fine enough) - although many will not like to acknowledge that, since it forces them to THINK about their own character builds. And thinking hurts

<----**Coughs and points to his character**

I haven't had this experience. When I spec Protection, I rarely have problems finding a party. In fact, I'm more likely to get a good group, since experienced players know how well Protection Monks work. Elementalists are most definitely not ignored. I often see people saying, "LF Nuker," in general chat. As for Necros, yes, the average player doesn't see the need for them in a group. However, an experienced player who knows about Well of Power, Blood is Power, or their numerous debuffs, will pluck a good Blood/Curse Necro up in an instant.

Are monks too powerful for GW. Yes they are, both PvE and PvP wise.

PvE wise, you will have less success beating a mission without a monk. Not that you can't beat missions, you'll just have less success. (As I've beaten missions and quests without monks.) Unfortunately, I've found more success fight along side healer rather than without one.

PvP the monk healing ability is ludicrious. Three monks can easily win competition/team mode if do nothing more than heal themselves. I was on a team of three monks and I fought against a team of three monks. The first time I was Wa/Mo and the second time I was a ranger and we had mesmer to boot, we could not kill one monk because they chain healed each other. It's almost impossible to stop a ranger unless you use hexes. Healing monks are better than protection monks because they don't have many enchantments to break. Monks have several healing abilities, which allow them to chain heal and they have several protection enchantment that allow them to heal through chain enchanting.

Monks can also both chain heal and smite at the same time. Yesterday I met a E/Mo who chain Divine Boon/Orion's Heal while using Zealot Fire. I couldn't her for nothin.

Monks need most of their multiple heals removed and be given spike heals with longer recharges times. (7 or more seconds to recharge.) Like how Ether Feast has slightly long recharge time. There protection spells that heal and hexes that prevent people from fighting should be removed too and be give more moves like protective spirit and mend aliment. Zealot's Fire should be removed and smite moves need longer duration so the monk think twice about going offensive. I mean smiting is so good that monks now better DPS than warriors and can to boot. Where the balance in that?

Same here

But I do disagree with you regarding monks . Monks are not as integral as many people think. I have beaten many missions (a lot of them supposedly "hard") with not one monk primary on the team. All you need is a more open minded team who actually move out of strong focus fire and heal themselves (generally easier said then done though )

Ex: I beat Thunderhead Keep in a group with 2 rangers and 6 necros. Easily, I might add (1st try, only like 1 or 2 deaths. Very smooth )

Edit: On the aforementioned monkless teams, most of the missions were finished in a neat and timely manner. If the team is open-minded enough to go without a monk, chances are they are pretty good. Not to say monks aren't good or useful, because they are; but they are simply not as necessary as everyone thinks.

Wow. I thought I couldn't disagree with anyone more than Gilded... and then I read CaptainGuru's post.

As a monk player I'll say that I have only recieved attitude and never dished it out. We are just another profession. Just because groups of people will sit in town for three hours typing 'Need Monk for mission!' does not make it the monk's fault. My mesmer character would kick my monk character's ass, but nobody wants the Mesmer in the group, and it's not the fault of the monk profession. Just because some folks are set in their ways and pass up elmo's and necros to get a monk, and then come here to complain about it... that's no reason to penalize a whole profession.

Hehe. Nothing like a warrior running up to me only to meet my zealot's fire and symbol of wrath... or if I'm in a really naughty mood, shield of judgement. But you know how to overcome all that? Have an ele nuke me while a mesmer disables my skills. Instant monk souffle. If you're having issues charging me as a warrior, it's because I've brought protection against warriors, and the solution to that isn't to nerf my protective abilities, but to develop better attack tactics (if I've cast zealot's fire, running into melee range probably isn't the best idea in the world).

This applies to PvE mainly:
Also, as a primary monk, I don't think that each class should bring along a self healing spell. Most of them are just wastes of energy and time. For instance, ether feast. 2 second cast, 8 second recharge, about 150 healing at 12 inspiration. In the 2 seconds it took the mesmer to cast that spell, I could fire off a reversal of fortune followed by an orison for a total cost of 10 energy (14 with divine boon) and a heal of possibly 300+ (any healing done by reversal actually counts double, since it also negates the damage that would have been done,) not to mention the fact that they've gotta wait 8 seconds to cast it again. If I have a necro keeping me buffed with BR, I can keep my healing up forever practically... as long as the other players keep the mobs off me. So I'd much rather that mesmer brought along something else, say, another interrupt, that will keep the mobs distracted for a while. The better everyone else can do their job, the better I can do mine

I don't care if this post get erased, but what you said was the most damn moronic thing I ever read. What you said equalivent to saying that a spider live off of fruit. Nature build the spider to be a carnivores and kill other creatures to live. The warrior was build to combat other classes at close range. Long range isn't much of an option for them and moreover they would not be as good as other classes if they did.

Better tactics? Like what shatter enchantment? That isn't going to do me any good and you can still chain heal and you still have other methods to smite me with.

Don't attack you while you have Zealot's Fire? You can just run up to me and cast the spell and if I don't attack you, I am both 1) A sitting duck and 2) useless to my team.

This applies to PvE mainly:
I know, but this is the third where the healer were over power yet again. In NWN it was the armor wielding clerics, in WoW it was the ShadowPriest and it's the smiting monks. Instead of giving them spike heals like WoW, allow them to enchant armor and weapons and making their smiting options limited or put special penalities on their holy abilities, game companies load them with crap, making them to overpower.

If you nerf Monks, then you'll have to make missions easier, as well, since casual players would complain about them being too hard. If you make the missions easier, so that you don't need a Monk, then skilled players will complain about them being too easy.

In 4v4 Arenas, a team of Monks would be too strong, since it's difficult to have enough anti-caster skills to counter it effectively. However, in Tombs and GvG, every team should pack at least a dozen anti-caster skills. Monks are very susceptible to energy denial and interrupts (they only have a single counter to this in the whole class, which would be Spell Breaker) and moderately susceptible to Hexes (if you just Backfire him, he'll be able to remove it without taking much damage; if you Backfire, then cast Conjure Phantasm and a couple other quick Hexes, he'll either be out of comission for 10 seconds or kill himself trying to remove them). Still, it's beatable. We faced a team of 6 Monks + 2 Rangers in the tombs with a balanced team (a couple Monks, a couple Necros, a couple Elementalists, a Warrior, and a Ranger). We were about equal until about 15 minutes in, when another team came (this was in the 6 team battle) and started dropping spirits at the outskirts of the battle (Frozen Soil screw you when you're fighting so many Monks).

Drain her energy. Boon Monks require lots of energy to use spells.

How about we leave the Monk class pretty much well alone and you learn how to counter them effectively? There are several Ranger skills, several Necro skills, half of a Mesmer's skills, several Warrior skills, and several Elementalist skills that are hard counters to any caster class, in addition to a few more that work specifically against Monks.

Captain, you're a Warrior. Bring a few knockdowns that can be chained. There's nothing I can do against that.

Monk should be nerfed not because they cause other class to be ignore; that is in fact, an entire different problem all in itself. They should be nerfed because their importance in a group is supersided. You know what brought balance to the classes of WoW? They had 3 class that could heal: the paladin, the druid and the priest class could all heal. If you couldn't find a priest, just get 2 paladins or a druid who was dedicated to healing and you were set. I did an instance being the primary healer as a paladin and while the other paladin would sub after I ran out of power.

GW doesn't have this option so the monk is seen as the foundation of a group and there is no way around it. Self-Heals don't work to well and I've come to ignore my own heals and finding myself putting more and more faith in a monks healing. In a way, you could say I lose confidence in my characters. I know I can't fight without a monk because I'll have less of chance to win quest/pvp battle nor fight against a monk since they can chain heal themselves to full health.

Either their abilities have to be nerfed or another healing class has to be made.

Wow has Priests, Druids, and Shamans/Paladins.
GW has Mo/*, E/Mo, and N/Mo.

Why? So there can be another class with very similiar abilities? GW has relatively clearly defined classes, which you can hybridize by picking a secondary class. It's a different system from a game like WoW. Each class should have a unique role, no class should be too similiar to any other class. If a second healing/damage mitigation class was introduced (let's call it a Cleric to simplify things), how would you differentiate the two? A Monk heals and reduces the amount of damage someone takes. A Cleric heals and reduces the amount of damage someone takes. How would newbies choose? Even skilled players would probably have a hard time choosing, since the choices are so similiar.

Plus, this would exacerbate your complaint that Monks are too powerful in PvP. A Mo/Cl or Cl/Mo would be even more unkillable than Monks are today.

Not if you have spike heals. Spike heals can ranger anywhere from 100 to 180 and have recharge duration of 10 to 15 seconds. Though it wouldn't hurt if they lower the number of monsters and up their A.I.

I said it in the other forum, a team monks are overpowered because they only have to focus on themselves. They don't have to heal a whole team. In a way, a team of monk can farm the arena.

Also you can create a team of mesmer to counter them, but those mesmer would be at a disadvantage because they'll have no protect against melee and ranger types

Now they have to focus on the team. Their health is not a secondary priority not a first so monk easier to kill in this situation.

You seem to forget that monks also have access to the same classes when cross classing and those class have protection against offensive spells. A monk easily use shame against a mesmer to eat away at his energy or obisidan skin to avoid being a target rather than throwing pacifism on opponent.

No one is saying they are invicible, they have too much power as a class.

There is no real skill in tombs because in Tombs/Burial Grounds because a noob team can easily win by fighting two teams who have already engaged each other.

I was Warrior, I didn't have anything to stop her except Disrupting Chop, which had no effect.

Except for certain hexes and reses, most healing and protect spells have a 1 second casting time. Good luck using an interrupt attack against them. Choking gas only works as they cast spells. After they are hit by the arrow, they can cast spells. Trust me, I was shooting a Healer Henchmen during unrated GvG and she still healed. The only time CG took effect is when hit her using a res spell.

Those necro spell are good against monk who don't use hex removers or are heavily protection based.

They can virtually counter any class one on one. That's pretty null.

Amity, Pacifism, defense stance (I.E. Bonneti's Defense) or use spells from other classes. (I.E Ward Against Melee, Soothing Images)

The elementalist and monk can be countered with their own spells.

Read the counters I spoke about warriors.

I was just pointing out that I brought skills to protect me from warriors. If you're a warrior, go attack someone else or get the mesmer to shut me down first. If you attack me despite the fact that I've come specifically prepared to take you out if you try to hurt me, you're asking for trouble. End of story. I'm not overpowered, because I can still get the tar mashed out of me by any team that brought along a decent mesmer who manages to interrupt my symbol or disenchants my zealot's fire. If you strip my fire, I have to wait 30 seconds for it to recharge. If you interrupt my symbol, it'll take 30 seconds to recharge. That gives you a half minute during which I'm practically defenseless. Know what's great against chain healing? Diversion. If I heal or even disenchant for 6 seconds, that skill is disabled for almost a minute. Even a good old backfire will trip me up. Didn't bring a mesmer to counter the enemy healer? Again, not my oversight. A warrior is supposed to run up and attack squishy things, true, but there's nothing that says that those squishy things can't bite your butt for trying. If I've come prepared to be attacked at melee range, your team should either have a way to counter that or stick to ranged.

Anyway, I was playing my W/N the other day in the arenas and was happily smacking away at who I thought was the opposing team's healer when she suddenly cast zealot's fire and balth's aura and started spamming divine boon. Know what I did? I ran away (we ended up winning thanks to our ranger's poisoning. Another good way to trip up a healer.)

At any rate, a monk's purpose in GW is first and foremost to heal, and to heal alot. That's the whole reason for divine favor. None of the other classes' special abilities are as limited as divine favor, since there's really only one thing it can do: let you heal more (and then only with monk spells!). Energy storage, fast casting, expertise, soul reaping and strength all give more universal benefits. So of course the monk is going to be able to dish out alot of spam healing, since that's the purpose of the class, which means that if you're just standing there spamming sever artery, gash, sever artery, gash, you're probably not going to get anywhere if you didn't bring along any interrupts or disenchants, even if I had no smiting skills at all (I can't tell you how many times in the random arenas I've had a warrior just run up with a sword and hack away while my healing breeze and occasional RoFs simply undo the damage.) Monks were designed to be able to undo massive amounts of damage, so brute strength generally isn't the way to go about killing them. You instead need to undo their ability to heal damage (might I suggest a hammer? )

E/Mo are just monk who abuse the Energy Storage for more energy, N/Mo are only good for PvE since they use Death and Soul Reaping to abuse corpses for Well of Power, etc. these various still have one thing in common...they all have monk abilities.

WoW classes were made so they could speed up the partying process without having character waiting all day for someone to make a priest.

Why do you seem so surprised when both the Ranger and Mesmer were built for anti-casting. Both Elementalist and Necromancer were built to take out the Warrior. Except for the monk and warrior, no class here has a unique role in a party.

While I suppose I can, in essence, understand part of how you feel about the immense popularity of having multiple monks in the party, I cannot see why you would want to grant other class more healing options, or "monk abilities."

I was browsing around www.guildwars.com, and I found this description of the Monk: "The servant of divine spirits, the Monk uses prayer to protect, preserve and restore the well-being of companions."

I did not see any of the other classes having a description remotely resembling this.

This leads me to believe that the Monk's main purpose is to aid their teammates in damage prevention and maintainence of health. Smiting is always, of course, another option for a Monk (one that I find very interesting), but not their primary purpose. Taking this in stock, we realize that the Monk is GW's version of a D&D classic: the Cleric. The Cleric, while not vital for the party's survival in D&D, could make things far easier for them, therefore there would usually be a place at the gaming table for a Cleric who seemed to know what he was doing.

Could a party survive without a Cleric? Yes. Was it nicer to have someone who could heal you or even resurrect if the situation was dire? Yes!

A healing class is a staple for most RPGs...especially those involving gods! When the game involves gods, it's almost a guarantee that you will run into a healing-type character (the sole exception that comes to mind is Dragonlance, before the Old Gods returned to Krynn).

So, to try to summarize my ideas in a logically fitting sense (and in case you weren't able to much out of the above type), here's what we've established:

Monk = Specially suited to be a Healer/Protecter.
*Cleric = Specially suited to be a Healer/Protecter.

Monk = Cleric.
Cleric is not vital to the success of a party, therefore a Monk is not vital to the success of a GuildWars party. However, like the Cleric, the Monk can make things easier on the party.

Also, in regard to your comment concerning the behavior of Monks, I'm sure that you're aware that there are many, ah, trolls stalking the various districts of GW. So some Monks are rude? Are they any worse than Warriors who get ticked at the party and stop guarding the casters? How about certain party members who constantly aggro large groups than complain when Healer Monks can't heal them fast enough? There will always be people like that, there is no reason to single out a class. Some Healer Monks, such as me, attempt to do our job to the best of our abilities. I always try to be humble, and respectful to my fellow teammates. Maybe next we should petition to only give certain people the ability to aggro monsters? =P

Well, thanks for reading...and sorry if my point didn't come across to some of you.


*Clerics also handled most undead encounters...however I refrained from bringing this up as Monks were not given the ability to Turn Undead based on their level.

P.S: I leave groups whenever they have 2 Monks already. Also, I always petition to have a Necro and a Mesmer in the party. Just thought I'd get that out in the open.