The Invinci Monks - no fun anymore

If everyone is doing it, the PvE part of this game has become a shallow farmfest, and much like a bot-infested game is unappealing for people actually playing the game, the same will happen here. I hope it won't come to that. But you're missing the mid-way point in your argument - half the people are doing it, and the other half pays the price.

My main point is that I believe Protective Bond and Protective Spirit can be used in a way that ArenaNet did not design it for, in a way that can be abused to severely dumb down the quest for optimal builds to meet PvE challenge. I could be entirely wrong about this, and as was concluded earlier, it's up to ArenaNet to decide what they want to do with it. But I'd prefer Guild Wars with a 'fixed' Spirit/Bond, personal opinion, that's why I do my part to discuss in favor of a 'nerf'.

I'm sure 55/105 bond monks are used to address a lot of other problems: bad PUGs, difficulty to get gold, difficulty to get ectoplasm, you name it. But those are seperate problems that have nothing to do with Protective Bond. Even if there wasn't a single 55/105 farmer left in the game, I'd still be advocating a nerf to the skill, as I have long before this became such a 'hot topic'.

The economic problems you mention are a seperate issue: I was hopeful when I read ArenaNet promised more 'constant' prices, if they however still allow for the buy-low sell-high exloitation then they once again screwed up the traders. This kind of 'commodity farming' has been around since the betas I believe, and simply drives up the prices for regular players while putting money in the pockets of the have-alls, and one good thing the broken traders did before this latest reset was a complete shutdown of this sort of activity - there was no 'sell-high' anymore. If it's back now, that's a sad thing, and I just hope it gets addressed.

But I mentioned the changed prices for superior monk runes specifically as an indication of the scale at which the 55/105 build is used - if it's influential enough to drive those prices to 10x the other superior rune prices, you can't just dismiss it as a minority causing trouble. That was all.

Nobody wanted a hammer W/E to come with them to UW anyway; what's the difference if I sub monk and play the game by myself?

Don't ruin other people's fun: The UW solo build is not an exploit, it's a build. What is more, it does not hurt the game for other people - it just enables me to be able to go to UW.

You Rangers are just disapointed that there aren't many prot monks still left around to help you do those smite runs.

Let's make the AI so that all the monsters in UW auto target any ranger setting up a trap. Trapping is an exploit

(Note the sarcasim)

/signed Nerf the 105/55 Monk builds
/signed Nerf the runners to Droknars and other elite places make lvl 16 required for Ascension and entering Droknars, Increase Attribute to 12 for max damage weapons.
/signed Nerf Rangers spamming spirit builds
/signed have fixed prices on NPC merchants for Dyes and Runes and unlimited stocks.

I'm through discussing this, every day more people join the 55/105 farming legion, we'll just have to wait and see how this ends.

The Aatxes aren't complaining... Why are you?

/signed Bring Stalin back from the grave making him supreme GM over Guild Wars, and declare GW a communist state.

And my point is that instead of it being rampant monk solo farming, I'm countering it's nothing more than simple commodity trading gone insane. It's nothing more than pure greed, nothing different than the stupid sigil hoarding done by select few guilds, who owned a monopoly on the sigils, and drove the prices and availability through the roof.

Is the solo monk build driving this behavior? Obviously. But it's not a mad rush/influx of farmers, it's people with tons of money buying up the runes to drive up the prices because they saw a commodity that people were wanting, and are exploiting it's need by the community. For all of the people that know about this build, there are probably 10 casual players that DON'T.

Two months ago, people could by superior monk runes for 250g because there are so few monks in the game. I spent probably a total of about 4K for all of my runes to outfit my farming monk, before the prices suddenly shot up. A sudden spike in rune availability doesn't mean suddenly everyone became solo monks, it means someone wanted to corner the market.

And there is nothing wrong with a "lively" market economy, it provides an outlet for players to play the game how they want. It is NOT destroying the PVE "experience" since it has no effect on whether you complete a mission or not - except for the fact that there are less monks available than before, because a lot of them suddenly have something better to do than sit and take abuse from other players for not healing them fast enough. At least Alesia and Lina don't talk back.

The green numbers on skills are determined by a formula with the main variable being attribute level, not by some pre-set setting that ANet has implemented. Instead of hating on Protection Bond for it's formula why don't the haters get to work on finding out what OTHER skills get just a bit more powerful at 17 attribute? There are probably +1 offhands out there for almost every attribute available, if not all.

This game doesn't need LESS of these types of builds. They need MORE. This is the kind of creative build that I'd certainly like to see more of, and instead of nerfing Prot. Bond or anything that hinders the 105/55 Monks out there, I'd actually like to see ANet power-up some other classes' skills so they can have a nice uber-build potential as well. IMO many of the skills in this game use too much energy/have too long a recharge time for a not powerful enough/not long enough effect, and aren't even worth bringing ever. This is the biggest problem in the game right now IMO. 90% of players use the SAME skills and avoid the SAME skills. Make some other combo powerful like this and build variety will follow. Don't break something that works because other stuff doesn't. Adjust that OTHER stuff.


Two other points:

I do agree that in a party everyone should be able to see the other players' hitpoint max/energy max/infused or not/skillbar. I'd actually like to spend the time I idle around in a mission gathering point waiting for the party to fill up by trying to organize the party's build as a whole before going in. (Obviously for most missions in a game this isn't really a factor, but it would be nice to have in any case.) You shouldn't have to ask a monk what kind of monk they are, you shouldn't have to ask your party midway through a mission who brought res signets when the monks are dead, etc....

Money isn't that hard to get. I don't see how people are always crying that they don't have enough money. If this is your first character or if you've just gotten to Lion's Arch for your first time of course you aren't going to have a million dollars. It takes time to build up a sum. If you are in the late game and for some reason your account is low, then just go to one of the later areas/missions and help assist a skillcap group or something (Perdition Rock is a great example). Those groups are always looking for non-party-ditchers and you'll make several plat just on the trip if you ID unpriced items and then sell them to merch. It is my belief (and I strongly stand by this) that by the time Chapter 2 comes out everyone who plays this game frequently will have max account $ anyways (or close to it).

Great idea! Lets all be invincible! Fun. Not.

Sorry if this is a noob question.

What exactly is the Invincible Monk build?

Thanks.

Are these 105 monks the reason my "normal" monk keeps getting crap drops?

Was in FOW Monday night, on one of the rare occasions Europe had favour, and all i kept getting was Piles of Glittering Dust, must have ended with 30ish, and lots of other worthless stuff. Even when doin the last 3 missions to finish the game I got nothing worthwhile.

I hope they don't nerf the 105 build cos it seems the only way i'm gonna get anthing half-decent is to go solo.

Has Anet made it so monks get rubbish cos of these soloer's or am i just that unlucky?

great, a new conspiracy theory on how drop is randomly assigned...

what the hell kind of skills do these monks use to make them so invincible, ive watched a few in action and they just wont drop

I run a straight monk build, I've seen other variations but this is mine.

5 superior runes for -375 HP(105 HP total @ lvl 20)
off-hand Item -50 HP
off-hand item for +1 protection prayers(20%)

55 HP Total

Healing 12
Smiting 9
Protection 16
Divine Favor 6

Cast Protective bond holding the +1 protective prayers icon until you get a lvl17 protective bond cast. this way you are only losing 1 energy per hit.

take out the -50HP off-hand item so you only have 55 HP and each hit is only doing 3 dmg per hit.

Cast an essence bond then balthazars spirit.

then juggle your stats to this:

Healing 14
Smiting 15
Protection 6
Divine Favor 6

cast a mending for the +4 pip regen.

Complete Skill build:

Zealot's Fire
Balthazar's Spirit
Balthazar's Aura
Protective Bond
Essence Bond
Healing Breeze
Orison of Healing
Mending

aggro up as many enemies as you can and them cast a Zealot's fire, Balthazar Spirit and spam Healing Breeze and Orison until everything is dead.

*bowsdown*

I can tell you one easy way they can nerf the 105 smiter build.
Protective Bonds is the key to the success of this build. When you have 16 Protection Prayers and a 20% chance of casting with +1 more...(i.e. equalling 17 protection prayers) then you can get Protective Bond to the point where it only costs one energy to reduce the amount of dmg you take. If they changed that to where at 17 it would require 2 (like it does for 16) then the 105 smiter monk would actually be seriously detrimented. Probably to the point of no longer being effective at soloing in UW.

I'm glad there's finally a good way for someone to make good money. Unfortunatly, it's only one very specific template. It's a bunch of BS if you ask me. They need to nerf the 105 smiter and increase gold on drops by x3 at least across the entire game.

Actually thy can b ressed all u need is a res sig restores u to full life and energy therefore ur ressed.

The DP works off your entire HP it does not take into consideration your runes. So -15% DP with 5 superior runes leaves you at 33HP -30% DP leaves you at 1 HP anything over this (assuming you are running the 105 build and not the 55) and you won't be able to rez. After a death or two the DP is so high that you actually have negative HP with your armor on. Resurecting to full life won't erase your DP and thus you'll insta-die as soon as you are rez'd.

True i guess i should have specified that they can b ressed once huh?

Invici monks are my favorite.... once they are tanking drop a natures renewal, then after they die cast unyielding aura so that his life is at your mercy.. it did this to my friend once it was very humorous

Monks are pretty tough in general. I am playing a straight healing monk no frills, using Superior Healing and Superior Divine, with about 350 or so hitpoints. We were doing Thirsty River last night and after killing one enemy team, I typed "afk 1sec" and went to tuck the kids into bed. When I came back, the rest of the party was dead except for me as they apparently didn't see my afk message and all ran off to battle without a monk to heal them LOL.

Anyway, I rezed them a few times but the DP was just too great at that point so we decided to start over. So I said I would go kill myself. So I went to a group of forgotten swords and arcanists and started hacking on the arcanist with my 9-req long sword (me with a 4 in swordsmanship lol) to see if I could kill it. With just Healing Breeze and Divine Boon I managed to stay alive plinking away for 2 dmg per hit until the arcanist was down to about 20% health and ran away, at which time I finally ran out of E and died.

My point? It does not take much for a monk to survive certain hazardous conditions for quite a while, even with a "normal" non-105 build.

Nature's Renewal and Shatter Enchantment aren't the only way to take one down. Ever try tossing a health degen spell or condition on one like Conjure Phantasm, Poison, Bleeding, Fire etc.? They don't last very long with 105 or 55 health.

I wouldn't be suprised if the Underworld has a couple new monsters or monster spells used there after the next update. I've run the 105 monk and it works great, gets boring though. It's just for those who need an ego boost and want to feel empowered as a monk. There are only a few areas in the game that will allow one to survive for a long time though. I don't think it's a problem with the build as much as with the areas like others have said. You'd never see one last in PvP especially since monks get targeted first.

I say give the squidies in the UW a couple of mesmer skills. They're not hard now even if you play them normal.

Enough of this! Whenever this build gets nerfed, either in skills or in adding mesmers, poison, fire, bleeding, phantasm to monsters all monks will join the Monk Union and STRIKE: no more help in parties... Mwhahahahahaha!!!

Oh, so instead of seeing 1-3 monks in a city location (1-2 of which are henchmen), it will turn into 0 monks in a city location. Unless of course they are spamming something to sell in local chat.

Heh, I haven't seen so many "Nerf teh MONKZ!" threads since the "Wamo ONRY! group" days.

Not like most of the Underworld Soloers were joining parties in the first place.

Yeah, nerf the monks!
And while you are it, nerf the idiocy and the amount of morons that flood this game.

Geez, whats your problem with the build? I certainly do understand those that go down alone. For example i went to FOW yesterday with a party. The party royalty sucked. They didn't manage to keep the aggro and basically everyone was running around like a total chicken. Needless to say the party failed even through constant healing...
Whose fault was it? Well you know, most certainly not the fault of the Elementalists that kept pumping out spells too early or the fault of the warrior who went straight for one mob without aggroing the others, and well surely not the fault of the ranger who was standing next to the monks when he kept on firing his big bad lure the baddies bow.
NO! It was the monks fault, crappy healing... noob monk. Scum. Moron. Idiot. Looser. And whatever where the things that came in our direction. Now that is fun... and you guys really... REALLY wonder why we prefer to do things alone?

It's most likely not for the loot. At least not for me. It is because i don't stand those moron teams so i'm either partying with my guild or if no one is there go down there alone. What is your fricking problem about that? Is it because it is called Underworld? Oh geez, go read your own skill descriptions. A lot more classes than monk can solo down there. And EVERY class can fight there in a 2 player setup so what is the fricking matter?

All you guys are pissed about is the fact they can do it alone...
Are you pissed because they can do it alone? Not really. Whats pissing you about that is that you can't get monks for your standard "bash the monk" party. And it is allways like that as soon as somethings starts to go wrong.

Conclusion:
I will party with anyone who can behave.
No one can behave in Underworld or Fissure, especially if another realm just captured favor.
So i won't party with you there.
Fact. Period. Whatever.


/oh edit:
/signed: Nerf Ranger Trapper Teams. Why? Because of the because
/signed: Nerf Warriors. Why? With a protective Spirit they live too long down there
/signed: Nerf Elementalist. Why? They do damage thingies.
/signed: Nerf Necromancers. Why? Because they are necromancers
/signed: Nerf Mesmers. Why? Who in his right mind would fight in THAT dress?
/signed: Nerf Monks. Why? Wait... you're allready bashing those


/edit 2:
Yeah, Natures Renewal while fighting Aatxes. Have fun getting that Protective Spirit taken from you.
For your information: The behemoths DO spam Natures Renewal. And there ARE mesmers down there with heavy health degen. All the monks can do is run a certain path and kill certain mobs. Not solo the whole underworld.
Bringing enchantment removal anywhere on that path will make it impossible for normal teams. Really, go and fight that Aatxe without any form of damage reduction on you (because damage reduction is enchantment based...)

While thinking about it... yes, yes. Make a global enchantment in Underworld that you can't revive who is dead, that you can't cast any enchantment. That every spell with a cast time of more than 1 second fails instant. That you suffer from 5 points of energy loss while you are down there...
yes, do it. NErf the 105 Monks and watch yourself getting owned the next time you're down there in a full team. Why? Because you nerfed your monks to hell and they can't do shit there anymore other than healing spam.

wether it be right or wrong...i had one trip where monk runs off and leaves team to die.

end result...i now dont trust monks and the fissure has lost its appeal.

so this one thing may be the cause of me going to another game.

NERF IT...NERF IT WITHIN 3 DAYS
or i suspect you`ll start loosing players interest.

Great thing. I afterwards then demand to nerf the Wa/Mos because they can do Griffon Runs. If they are not nerfed asap i will leave the game in 3 days... and stuff and whatever. When do people understand it should NEVER be nerf others but strengthen yourself?


About the other thing you mentioned. I had lots of partys. LOTS of partys where one or more Warrios ran off and left their team to die. Am i now supposed to never party with them again?
I also had lots of teams where the rangers lured the mobs right to the monks. Am i now supposed to never party with them again? Same goes to ANY class out there. I've had crappy play by any of those. If i wouldn't party with them i would be constantly soloing every mission.
Can someone (for example the one stating that) explain me why you expect your monks to endure this, while you yourself take the right to say "change it or i quit". Could you please?

well for a start if a warrior runs off and leaves group it fdoesnt really hurt.
he dies quick so doesnt do it again.

when one of these monks does it in fissure,he not only leaves his team to die but usually provokes the nasties to kill group while he is farming.

the balance of fighters and healers should be kept...as what use is playing if one doesnt need other.

soon have nothing but 105 monks at fissure,then market flooded with items making the economy crash.



especially dirty tactics as most monks go for free to fissure.

Hate to say it, but it looks like you got no real idea what you are talking about. First off, it is farming Underworld which the monks are exceptionally good at at. While it is still possible to do the same in Fissure it is kinda harder due to a higher amount of Spells that totally ignore Protective Bond (yes there are some), do health degen or remove enchantments.
A Warrior who is leaving his team is leaving it just as weakened as the monk does. And he is probably aggroing the same mobs the monk would have aggroed. And little do you know, a warrior who rushed a mob once will rush it again and again for it is his playing style. Else us monks wouldn't be talking so bad about that class alltogether.
Sadly, the balance is kept. Just because the Warriors Farming Place does not have the Name Underworld or Fissure its by no means a worse farming place. If it is for the Underworld stuff, there are places outside where you can get them too (as a hint, one of them is located in Dreadnought Rift and requires a good running build to get there).
And finally...
By now every class has been said to crash the economy, every change or not coming change is said to crash the economy. So basically, can we say EVERY drop is crashing the economy? I think we can.
The same thing you folks now say about the monks, you said about the Ranger Trapper Teams last month or about the enchantment heavy Wa/Mos aforehead.
Compare it with the Hall of Heroes. First off it was purely warrior. After that we had purely Aeromancers and now we have purely Natures Renewal. ah well and we had the healing ball in the betas. And the next step seems to be warriors again (Energy Denial through Fear Me!).

Do you see what i am talking about? So far every class had its fair share and everything looked out of order and outbalanced for a while, but settled itself as the next hype came.

Lol, sorry I could not resist the temptation in my latest post

But seriously, this game has been nerfed more than enough. The solution is to do the opposite: Give other classes a way to combine skills to make a clever build like this monk build. Not meaning that the result should be exactly the same (being able to solo some mobs), but it should give the same 'this is our own unique class build' satisfaction. Look at the vivid discussions of the monk smiter build. Thats the way we want GW to be, for every class!

Haha, that shit is just so fun.

That's easy enough: make a 1000 AL armor with +3 to all primary attributes, +7 health regen, and -400 HP. That'd simulate the invincimonk build quite nicely.

Actually go and try it. It is not just warriors with fear me. No doubt. But have your mesmers drain them dry and KEEP them dry with fear me. Thats what that skill is for.
That stops natures renewal in the tracks as they simply can't put out more spirits without the energy for it. It is no hex, it is no enchantment and it is semi spammable. You won't suck someone dry with it, but you'll keep him dry.

/edit:
Did i halucinate something about Warriors? Like seeing them raid Perdition Rock all alone or clearing the desert in a wink? Or farming chests no other class will get without help? Hm, certainly must have done that.

I've obviously also dreamed about Ranger Teams in the Underworld that put down so many traps the mobs died the very second they entered. Must have been another dream.

Same goes to the elementalists farming Thunderhead keep, using Jalis as a tank. Must have been another dream too. Yep.
GEEZ, people... be honest and look at the possibilitys of your own class, get inventive and farm at YOUR personal place. If it sucks, just get another place. There are enough of them for any class (except maybe for mesmer primaries without the use of secondaries). But why oh bloody hell do you all insist on nerfing someone else? Damnit, go and nerf yourself. Yes yes i'm quite sure when it suddenly is "Nerf the Warrior Spot to death!" all you warriors suddenly go "oh no, thats not fair!". And if its "nerf the ranger teams" all the rangers go moo. But if it is "Nerf the monks!! They are healers and not meant to get money" all jump on the train and scream hooray. That is shizophrenic to a high degree.

Gee, anyone who cant figure out a way to counter uninspired melee damgage needs to rethink how to play guildwars. Only part of a "griffon run" that warrriors become more reliable about, is the fact that the scorpians can popout in inconvient places and the warrior can deal with them while in a mixed group slightly better than other jobs. Any job combination can do that segment of the area area, while some can do the entire zone. It doesnt end up being as flashy as the video made by someone who did it with a w/mo, but it doesnt have to be in order to be sucessful.

Comparing the invincible monk setup versus bladed attaxes against any other profession combination in any instance in the game away from that is fairly laughable. This is due to the order of magnitude of difference in offense and defense between the monsters involved. It is compounded by the fact that once it is setup, it will never end unless enchantment removal occurs. This is part of the imbalance existing within the monk profession and causes the imbalance between non-NR enchantment removal versus enchantments.

Using their monk skills, yeah. And even so a 105 monk can tank griffons & hydras better than a warrior primary.

Monk is teh uber in PvE, I don't see why you guys try to deny that. It was even before the 105 build, it is twice as much teh uber now.

I thought OldIron here was an Evil Monkhater, but then I thought of Hanlon's Razor:

Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity

Sigh.

First they nerve the 105invici's, after that the Earth/Ele-farmers, then they delete all classes except the Mesmer cause it's the only class that has a very hard time Farming on his Own. Stop blaming a class and stop asking for nerves! After the 105's we'll get a new flavor of the month that can farm even more ecto's or gold items or run in 1 minute to Forgemaster.


/signed Nerf monks - stupid Monk-monsters heal themselves!
/signed Nerf Rangers - Rangers+Pet = TWO ENEMY!!!!
/signed Nerf PreSear - Too many black dyes drop there
/signed Nerf Skills - We only need one attack and one heal skill
/signed Nerf Spells/Hexes/Curses - You can all use swords, can't you?
/signed Nerf Players - Only thing they're good at is creating Forums

---Oh, the irony.

So, anyone else has a slippery-slope logical error they want to share?

Those aren't completely fair comparisons because Rangers require a team and the rest don't yield Fissure Armor materials.