can anyone give me of ideas of characters that arent very common but are very useful in pve parties when they show up?
edit: or some type of healing monk that can do a little damage too
non-common
Jetai12
icecomet
healers are about the only thing i ever have a problem finding for a pve group, so i'll answer your second question.
in pve you dont have to be an amazing healer to win, so you could always take a monk secondary.. say for example an elementalist monk with lots of energy storage, then focus on healing prayers and fire - if your party doesnt need much healing you can just use your fire skills you've brought along. glyphs will help with this.
in pve you dont have to be an amazing healer to win, so you could always take a monk secondary.. say for example an elementalist monk with lots of energy storage, then focus on healing prayers and fire - if your party doesnt need much healing you can just use your fire skills you've brought along. glyphs will help with this.
Epinephrine
Sure: Less common variants that I would pick up in a heartbeat...
Necro that advertises as Curse Necro. Certian to have the ability to reduce the effectiveness of melee mobs, probably has enchanment destruction, spells that do unpreventable AoE and so on. If he's Curses/Blood with wells all the better.
Ranger with Choking gas. Really, I mean it. Too many areas in this game have a group of little casters that will huddle up and rain annoying crap on you. A ranger offering to bring Choking Gas/Tiger's Fury along knows how to shut these down - and being invested in Wilderness probably has a few other neat tricks up his/her sleeve. If I am choosing a ranger it is for the skills like this, not for a barage/Conjure element build. Sure, those can be cool, but they're just daamge and honestly damage is dime a dozen - there are El/* and W/* and so on all over thrying to be damage dealers, adn as a ranger I want some nice flexible stuff - some blindness vs melee, a trap perhaps, poison and interrupting. You go Ranger dude!
A mesmer who isn't trying to be a speed-cast nuker, and recognises that Conjure Phantasm really isn't very good. If they have Conjure Phantasm as a main damage source I want to shake them... I mean, 10 energy per casting, sure, it's 5 pips but on a single foe, easily removed, often the enemy dies before it finishes damaging him, doesn't stack that well if you have lots of degeneration in the party and is inefficient at that, compared to the other degenerations - after all, a ranger can give 4 pips of degeneration for longer, for 2 energy with apply poison, or for as little as .7 or so energy per target using Apply Poison. Given that many warriors are using bleeding, and that the poison is almost a given with a WS ranger around you only need another 3 pips of degen, which can be done so much more effieciently (disease for example...).
An Elementalist using Wards. Yeah, you heard me, in PvE. Wards are amazing tools, much like Wells and Traps - you just need a party that can think a bit. If I were looking for a player to fill a spot on a team in the Fire Islands and a guy said "Aquamancer with Ward against Harm LFG" I'd snap him up in a second. I'd also kick a warrior to get a ranger with Greater Conflagration in there, though they're pretty uncommon (Especially as they need to cap it so late in game...). There is a reason why that's an Elite ward - it gives nearly 40% reduction vs most damage, and a 66% reduction in damage from fire. Tell me you're running Water/Earth/Energy storage (Lets say 15/11/11), have 3 wards and a variety of slows/damage spells and you are my new best friend... the monk will be thrilled and the party will be safer than they ever have been.
I tend to think in terms of reducing stress on the healer, keeping the party safe while being able to deal damage - a mage using a Ward can help out the party damage through spells - a Curse necro while reducing damage can still AoE using Spiteful Spirit, Desecrate Enchantments and Mark of Pain for example, and a ranger carrying Choking gas can still deal powerful attacks with bow attack skills and so on.
Necro that advertises as Curse Necro. Certian to have the ability to reduce the effectiveness of melee mobs, probably has enchanment destruction, spells that do unpreventable AoE and so on. If he's Curses/Blood with wells all the better.
Ranger with Choking gas. Really, I mean it. Too many areas in this game have a group of little casters that will huddle up and rain annoying crap on you. A ranger offering to bring Choking Gas/Tiger's Fury along knows how to shut these down - and being invested in Wilderness probably has a few other neat tricks up his/her sleeve. If I am choosing a ranger it is for the skills like this, not for a barage/Conjure element build. Sure, those can be cool, but they're just daamge and honestly damage is dime a dozen - there are El/* and W/* and so on all over thrying to be damage dealers, adn as a ranger I want some nice flexible stuff - some blindness vs melee, a trap perhaps, poison and interrupting. You go Ranger dude!
A mesmer who isn't trying to be a speed-cast nuker, and recognises that Conjure Phantasm really isn't very good. If they have Conjure Phantasm as a main damage source I want to shake them... I mean, 10 energy per casting, sure, it's 5 pips but on a single foe, easily removed, often the enemy dies before it finishes damaging him, doesn't stack that well if you have lots of degeneration in the party and is inefficient at that, compared to the other degenerations - after all, a ranger can give 4 pips of degeneration for longer, for 2 energy with apply poison, or for as little as .7 or so energy per target using Apply Poison. Given that many warriors are using bleeding, and that the poison is almost a given with a WS ranger around you only need another 3 pips of degen, which can be done so much more effieciently (disease for example...).
An Elementalist using Wards. Yeah, you heard me, in PvE. Wards are amazing tools, much like Wells and Traps - you just need a party that can think a bit. If I were looking for a player to fill a spot on a team in the Fire Islands and a guy said "Aquamancer with Ward against Harm LFG" I'd snap him up in a second. I'd also kick a warrior to get a ranger with Greater Conflagration in there, though they're pretty uncommon (Especially as they need to cap it so late in game...). There is a reason why that's an Elite ward - it gives nearly 40% reduction vs most damage, and a 66% reduction in damage from fire. Tell me you're running Water/Earth/Energy storage (Lets say 15/11/11), have 3 wards and a variety of slows/damage spells and you are my new best friend... the monk will be thrilled and the party will be safer than they ever have been.
I tend to think in terms of reducing stress on the healer, keeping the party safe while being able to deal damage - a mage using a Ward can help out the party damage through spells - a Curse necro while reducing damage can still AoE using Spiteful Spirit, Desecrate Enchantments and Mark of Pain for example, and a ranger carrying Choking gas can still deal powerful attacks with bow attack skills and so on.