(Rant warning) F the bandwagon monks.

This is all so hilarious to me. I never read about anyone complaining of 'broken' pro bond until this build surfaced to the general public. Pro bond is NOT broken. Easily removed if you know what you are doing in PVP. For anyone to complain about someone using this build in PVE is really really silly. Why do you care? Cause they are richer than you? PVP is the only instance where a skill might be 'broken' because you are competing againt other actual persons,but in this case it just ISNT. Imbalanced? maybe but i still dont think so, a simple strip does it--how can you call something removable broken?? Try playing some MTG for experience with truly BROKEN spells. This just doesnt make the cut so I have to write it off as jealousy. Broken means something very serious so don't be throwin the term around if you dont know what you are talking about.

You didn't read the thread did you? Or did you read the first and last pages? A simple strip has already been beaten to death and proven as not the right answer. The bond as stated by several people (and given great examples by two people) is broken.

You all go for the simple answer... sorry the answer is obvious the skill is broken.

-back from a nice nap.

For those who whined about grind in this game, lets not turn this into another UAS thread ok? And seriously, ROFL @ Grind complaints. Go back to quake or wherever you came from if you think the grind is so terrible in GW.

For anyone else who asked, I never stated that solo monks in UW hurts me particularly in any way. I was set up properly before monks became like penisroaches (sorry wont let me say RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GO) so no I didnt have to spend huge amounts of money, but its not like they help anybody or anything but themselves, which is lame. The pure simple fact of the matter is that Protbond is broken and that build is an exploit, thus it should be fixed. It doesnt get more complicated than that.

Oh and I do bitch about runners blue, but thats for a different thread. Hell when I'm bored I have a fun little game where I get into a runners group and let them get about halfway across the zone then zone back into wherever we started from and play all innocent, "what? how did that happen? Oh, me? Are you sure??" just to see how many times I can do it before they finally go "to hell with this" and quit. The record is 5.

Sigh, man I'm really getting tired of having to repeat myself, I know four whole pages of posts is alot of material to expect the averge person to read, (sad) but I dont see how you think you can talk to me about what I dont know when you make a post on the thread with and OBVIOUS lack of knowledge about the conversation at hand. But here goes, I'll repeat myself just for you, feel special.

I'm not jealous.

I dont care how much money they make.

I'm a monk too.

I could do this ALL day too if I so desired.


We're not talking about pvp, because obviously the odds of no opponent with
debuffs are astronomical.

we've conversed about the fact that removal stops the build, and also about how removal is not the answer for pve play, unless you really want disenchant mobs EVERYWHERE, of course, you sound like youre one of the uas pvp only folks so I dont expect you to give a damn about pve.

Yes, if you fix this exploit, monks will probably go solo someplace else, but it wont be UW where no other class has a chance at doing it. And please, if all these people really wanted to solo for the fun of it, or to get away from people they could go to any of those places that arent UW to do it. Its greed pure and simple that causes there to be a god damned monk convention at greneth every time we're within 1 win of favor. Its disgusting.

So now that youre up to speed, I'd hope that you'd read whats going on before you tell anyone else what they dont know again.

I unlocked all Monk runes, 1/2 the Mesmer/Necro/Elem/War just by killing monsters.

Id love to see the trader go >.> It killed the Rune economy.

Hey look instead of 3-4 paragraphs...
I payed for the game to play it how i want.
Fin.

You didnt solo in the sense of the word we are talking about. He is talking about SOLO as in without henches, just you.

Well there is a point in what SOT said, every class can solo. You just need to know the locations for soloing for each class. The following list is based only prime class.

-Monks: Currently everywhere that there is no enchant removal (broken).
-Warriors: Any non anti melee/enchant/mesmer area. Also non elemental spike damage areas.
-Mesmer: Anywhere abundant with casters and lots of walls. I'd say Mursaat, as the effects of SA is easily countarable once infused. Not sure about melee.
-Ranger: Anywhere with alot of elemental damage, such as imps or grown up ice golems.
-Necro: Perdition and all of Fire Island Chain.
-Ele: Go super ER ele and you can farm everywhere. (that lacks interupts and removal)

I beg to differ. I complain about all of those. That's why I am not fire ele. or w/mo

No,He never plays pvp,he's a friend of mine and we are all pretty much strictly pve,and one does not have to read this entire thread to know what he's talking about,even though I have read it through,I still cant even begin to stress any of the points I feel are valid as to why pb isnt broken because I would rather not add to a pointless seemingly endless debate,all I'll say is I am very happy with Anet and the job they do,If I had one complaint it would be how easy I hear of good people getting scammed by childeren who figure out trade glitches and how even if they have screens they still pretty much screwed and the kids keep on scamming,why not worry about the wellbeing of the players and not some stupid build /rant

Yep, anyone can solo if they know where to do it. Yet, only monks can solo in UW, and if it werent based on greed and was instead predicated on one of the false pretenses forwarded in this thread (payback, sick of players, blah blah blah) then who would care if they lost the ability to solo UW and had to do it elsewhere??

The biggest problem is indeed what ensign said about the fact that the game doesnt reward group play appropriately, that having been said, I still hold to the issue that the only way to deal with that singular borked skill is removal, its unbalanced and needs fixing.

Yes well as excellent as that contribution was, it doesnt address the fact that the 105/55 is an exploit and needs to be fixed. Congrats, play how you want, enjoy the exploit while it lasts if you want, after anet fixes the exploit you can find all kind of other ways to play the way you want.

Yes, I agree with Ensign on the idea that team play needs more rewards. Perhaps as was stated in this thread, or I believe, a more dynamic drop of items based on players present or atleast some reward for doing things with a group and playing some of the missions again.

I find my self going to help people do Hell's and Abbadon's sadly the only rewards are some average drops and a little money, which I can easily go squeeze from endless imps outside of Marhaan's. I will say however that the sheer joy of helping someone complete some of the harder missions is always fun.

Edit: Wanted to add:

-Monk Farming If 105/55 is Nerfed: Anywhere without enchant removal or places with undead, minus UW now. Look at that astounding difference. All of one thing changed.

I think all of you are using a bad argument.

The real problem is that IT IS POSSIBLE TO BE INVINCIBLE. Doesn't matter how you can get rid of that invincibility, it shouldn't be possible in any MMORPG to be completely, utterly invincible without a major penalty.

Strip the enchantment you say. Not all PvE monsters can remove enchantments, and when you can just chew through a level 28 mob by yourself its just not funny anymore. No other class can do that.

The 105 combo ruins ArenaNet's entire "Skill is the key" mantra. When i can just pay for a bunch of runes and then laugh as i leave my monk in UW and go to sleep, and be able to expect that i am alive tomorrow, you'll know that it wasn't skill that kept you alive, it was an utterly broken combo that was never intended to exist.

It's not a question of soloing UW or not, after all, it's the complainers that demanded to

* nerf the monk skill set or specific monk skills

and/or

* place enchantment whackers in all areas suitable for solo monk builds.

So let's call it what it is, this is not about soloing UW, this is about monks going out on their own ANYWHERE.

I think it's more about monks being invincible and soloing while taking advantage of that invincibility, not the mere fact that they're soloing.

For what it's worth, your post wasn't lost on me. In a thread filled with people trying to impose their personal view of the "correct way to play" on others, this post is just about the most sensible one offered up. And as someone who enjoys finding builds that enable me to explore on my own, I completely agree that removing that option to appease a vocal minority is not the best answer. By all means, increase the rewards for groups. People who were in it for the cash will gravitate back to groups, and people like me who just enjoy having fun solo can continue to do so without being labeled an "exploiter", a "greedy milker", a "flavor of the month sheep", or whatever other nasty bile those who get so worked up about this can dredge up.

Promoting group play eh? I think NCSoft know how to do that, as they've shown in their 'other' MMORPG, Lineage 2.

Short guide on how to promote group play:

1. Make it impossible to solo.
2. Make it impossible to solo.
3. Make it impossible to solo.

In L2, it is virtually impossible to solo. We have it easy here. Stop complaining, and if you want to argue, find a good argument.

Oh, and i found this:

You know, Mirra, this is pretty hilarious to me too. Your argument about people not complaining about prot bond until the build surfaced is like asking someone to complain about a leaky roof without the roof actually leaking water. How are they meant to complain about something if they don't know what it can be used for, or what it can do?

And that strip argument has been beaten to death, i won't even comment on it.

As for playing MTG, yes, i used to play MTG. MTG's Type 1 format still is pretty broken.

BS, I managed to solo almost any area in L2 on my 56 Necro, owning up red mobs without problems. I quit after because I could do it with my eyes closed, click, click, click, click, find next target, click, click, click, click, find next target and so on.

Guild Wars is quickly turning into those toddler games where the game pretty much gives you 0 options in where you want to go or what you want to do. You cant farm, you cant group because there is no point, exploring areas is useless if they dont have towns there, Trading is retarded, gaining skills can only be achieved by lame rewarded faction, or making 3 chars and going through the game 3 times.

Heh linage is a poor example for a game that promotes group play. Look to FFXI, DAOC, or even EQ2 for stronger examples of group play. Heh, in FFXI its actually ramped up so that you really cant do much alone at all beyond farming very low end creatures compared to your primary job level.

Go fight a real monster in L2, you'll die like an ass. There are monsters that you can't solo with level 75's.

I used L2 because GW and L2 were developed by the same company.

Did you perhaps skip that little blurb about how every class can farm, I even made a list... Exploring, I personally like exploring so what you say offends me, I find it fun to find new things, heck just to go with people and kill avicara is fun. So you want every thing to be easy? I wish to be given more than one instance of a game where everything was handed to you on a silver plater to meet YOUR exact desires.

Right... So the fact that you can smack any undead army across the head is not good enough. Ok how bout the fact that even with Enchant Removal you can still smack undead across the head.... not good enough?

We are only asking that one, maybe two things get fixed... and thats a big maybe. I am sorry that we are shattering your milking cow, but there are many many more options. You go alot of places on your own btw, all that healing and smite can go along way... don't forget your second class.

Did you even read my post?

I like exploring, and farming, and PvPing, but when you have such limited options, for example in PvP, it kills the game. I wouldnt mind if unlocking all the skills was HARD, but in GW, its not hard, its just extremely repetitive. You have to do the same thing, exactly over and over 3 times, which is boring, not hard. ANet said this game was about skill, not time spent... then how the hell can anyone PvP without spending hundreds of hours doing the same repetitive stuff?

Define "real"? I soloed BQs and other things in Cave and Gateway, which were red, much higher level than me. Yes, I agree, bosses are hard to solo, and I only played during C2, not C3. Yea, ok, I got killed by Karik before, hes lvl 75, whats your point?

The 55 Build is FAAAR from invincible in the UW. The only real thing you can do is the first quest and the smite run. Looking at the map over in another post, that's only a tiny part of the underworld. There's a part off to the left where you head out to go to the rest and, whattaya know, nature's ritual. This so called invinci-monk wouldn't last seconds doing the real quests or going to the rest of the UW.

I'm up for any team to go in and clear out the whole thing. I've got a 55 build myself, but it totally does not compensate for a real team. It does however beat those teams that do stupid shit like talk to the ghost with no hesitation, no idea what pulling is, etc.

In reply to Sainte:

The fact is, the focus of GWars was always supposed to be PvP, and other areas are definitely lacking. The trouble is, PvP is now screwed up as well by NR, so a lot of people are becoming increasingly frustrated and unwilling to put up with things that didn't bother them when they first started playing. This hasn't been helped by some truly poorly thought-out patches by the ANet team that managed to piss off about everybody.

Right now I'm sort of in a holding pattern with regards to GWars (I've spent more time today in these forums than playing, for instance). I'm waiting to see the improved item drops they say are coming, because how they implement that will tell me whether their view of this game's future is going to work for me or not. This -could- be a much better game, but it's been out for awhile now and the ANet team just might not have the resources or will to take it to the next level. That would be too bad, but certainly not unheard of in the computer gaming world. :/

In reply to the topic of this thread:

I really don't care if there is a particular pseudo-invincible build, I really don't care if one type of build can farm UW in parts, I'd only care if for some reason these facts screwed up -my- game, and so far they only have affected it because of some poorly done nerfing by ANet in -response- to this build. So in other words, the build hasn't screwed me up, ANet has by their reaction to it. So I'll stick the blame where it belongs.

INDEED, thankfully I have a set of armor for my farming build and my other armor to heal in. I am actually one of those nice players that goes to missions like thirsty river/thunderhead and help people through. Yes, I do, aren't I a nice f-ing person. I am also an elite healer, I can get ANY TEAM through thirsty river. Even if they're bloody newblets and can't even call targets. Somehow we make it. It's good fun, and I suggest it to any bored monk that is reading.

Because hey, lets face it. Soloing all the time is mighty boring. Especially when drops are sparse.

Everyone hates monks, they always have. There are never enough, or they're doing some fotm crap. I dunno deal with it. Or make your own monk, however, they probably will nerf the build soon. Regardless I have a plan for when they do that As I'm sure do many others. The next fotm will be......

I've been farming for about a month at least now so I don't care either way

Agreed, it's not invincible at all. If anything the W/Mo is more invincible than this build :P

PS- must edit again. If they are going to nerf the monk build, I will fully expect them to nerf the W/Mo that can farm basically anything that doesn't interrupt. (even then, skill gets u through) or the E/Mo that can farm as well. Or how about the pvp smite monks with ether renewal? The examples are pretty much endless. No matter how much nerfing they do, the players are always going to find a way around it. The best solution is probably to put disenchanters. Do I want them to do this? Heck no, I will be disappointed. However, if that is what it takes...

In all honesty, it's NR and pvp that needs to be addressed more. Us Pve players are getting a nice fat update that is going to keep us happy for hopefully longer than a weekend. Why doesn't everyone just go out and make an invincimonk and then everyone can farm. Yay! We're all happy!

That can't be right. If we're talking about a 55/105hp monk, health degen seriously hinders the build. If we're talking about a pvp prot monk, the prot bond can be overcome by rapid-fire low-damage attacks (ranger comes to mind) to whittle down the enemy's energy and the target's health.

In this sense, there are many other "broken" skills or skill combos that can only be overcome with enchantment removal or cannot even be countered at all. Healing seed + protective spirit is one such combo. Energy tap/drain doesn't really have any counter other than itself, same with putrid. With plenty of enchantment removal options, calling prot bond broken seems foolish.

As for the PvE farming, well if you find it uninteresting, how about not doing it? Nobody's forcing you into doing it, really, and if others are willing to spend the time to do so, let them have their fun. What is the big cause for concern, if a solo farmer doesn't ruin anyone's day?

Truthery.

Prot Bond's weakness lies in the key thing that makes it work. Prot Bond itself actually does nothing to make you 'invincible', it just causes damage to be reduced to a point that no matter what your max health is, you lose lose proportionally the same amount of health. Healing spells ignore this though, and that is what truly makes the build.

So, since healing keeps the build going, anti-healing stops it. Just as healing spells ignore the effects of prot bond, so does health degeneration. Also scourge healing would stop a 55 monk too.

I built my monk as a smiter monk...will always be a smiter monk...don't ask me to heal because I don't want to.

btw: I could solo with my ranger well before I even began working on my monk.

So funny, I went to Random Arena and the first team I fought I got owned by Conjure Phantasm.

Seriously, that build is weak in PvP.

The Earth Elem we fought owned the invinci-monk build. 4 people beat on her for 2 minutes and barely killed her. Although the damage was rather low.

I didn't say skills that cannot be countered. There are entire classes of skills without any real counters. No, I'm referring to enchantments that will single-handedly win you the game if they are not removed. Not 'will disrupt your opponent's strategy' or 'will force them to play around your buffs' or 'will make your opponent fight through it at reduced effectiveness'. Enchantments that if they are not removed or otherwise neutralized are good game. Extend the hand, because there's no way you can win with that enchantment up under most circumstances.


The Protective Spirit is largely unneccessay, really. Healing Seed is a ridiculous skill that is simply not realistic to kill through. Either you remove it, or you find another target for 25 seconds. As you might have noticed, that was the other skill that I mentioned as being grossly overpowered and in need of a serious nerf.

As far as I know, Protective Bond and Healing Seed are the only two enchantments that fall into this category. There are several other powerful enchantments in the game, but most of them can be powered through or only work on a particular subset of damage - those that do give universal shutdown, like Mark of Protection, have prohibitive cooldowns that make waiting for them to expire a reasonable option. Healing Seed and Protective Bond do not have any of these drawbacks - it is simply unrealistic to power through either skill.


There are plenty of strategic options for dealing with energy denial, from running your own energy management to counteract it to increasing your intrinsic energy efficiency, or getting proactive with initial energy outlays. It's a solid strategic point, but calling it uncounterable is downright foolish.


Putrid is a problem in certain gametypes, and no, there aren't any real counters to it. It's a skill that needs a fix and you won't find many arguments to the contrary.


Did you even read the large section of text that you quoted? I put forth the notion that any buff that *has* to be removed if you are to emerge victorious is inherently unbalanced. Pointing at enchantment removal options does absolutely nothing to undermine this argument. Go and read what you're responding to as I've already addressed this point.


See my above comments about your reading comprehension skills. But just to reiterate:

1) If there are enchantments that automatically beat encounters, regardless of difficulty, if they are not removed, and
2) You desire to have a reasonably balanced PvE environment, then either
3a) Every single encounter has to involve enchantment removal to prevent degenerate farming strategies, or
3b) Unbalanced autowin enchantments need to be nerfed.


You're right, who cares about gross imbalances in the game? If you actually care about becoming rich in this game go and make the retarded character just like everyone else who cares about being rich. 30 profession combinations, 450 skills, diverse characters and strategies - who cares about any of that? Wanting things to be balanced so diversity can thrive is for scrubs. No, the future of this game is ten thousand Monk/Warriors streaming into the Underworld one at a time, never talking to anyone else, and anyone who seems to think that there's something wrong with this is just a whiner who needs to mind his own business. Isn't it obvious?

Peace,
-CxE

If people like doing it, why stop them? It is a game for the players' own enjoyment, isn't it? I'm sure there's a huge number of people who play to do other things--nobody'll miss those who don't do anything but farm.

If Anet feels that they should change it, they will, and rest assured they'll take into consideration what's already been posed to them. But till then I don't think telling anyone they're wrong for playing how they enjoy the game exactly assuages any malcontent among the population

As far as PvP, my opinion differs. This is definitely something that holds too much power in the arenas, but then again, there is no Underworld entrance in the arenas

hit the nail on the head. The op lost all credibility by saying they soloed too. I don't get why they would want it nerfed. Unless they got all the gold they could carry and now want to prevent others from doing the same thing.

the 105/55 monk build holds too much power in PvP??? If you want to nerf this build it's because you're an arrogant asshat that has nothing better to do than bitch and moan on forums about perfectly legit PvE builds....cuz let's face it the invinci-monk build is a PvE build. This build is absolute trash in PvP and if you're using it in an Arena or GvG you should simply uninstall Guild Wars and go find a board game with less thought involved in play.

Any team that enters a PvP match without a way to strip enchantments deserves to lose. a Team of 5 warriors two monks and an elementalist DESERVES to lose.

If you actually look at what kind of protection the skill offers, you can see that in one skill it does what a number of other skills must be combined to do. Of course there's counters, there are for everything. But it's a skill that basically amplifies healing spells, reduces all damage to you, and nets you 100% of the benefits of energy regen all in one package, for the cost of -1 energy regen. The imbalance is in that mixture of attributes that takes what should be strategy and just hands it to the player in one spell.

Sure, strip it. Then it sucks. But how many times will you have to strip before you actually reach it? 1 nature's renewal, 1 lingering curse. The rest, if the player knows what he or she is doing, have to go through all enchantments applied after bond in order to get to it. If you're focusing all your resources trying to break an enchantment off of one person, then perhaps there's something to wonder about it. Dismissing it as a thoughtless skill won't stop people from using it, because a lot of people just want the easy way to do things.

Of course, that would make me an arrogant asshat I guess, but gaining so many benefits from one spell just seems odd, regardless of how easily it 'might' be removed.

Areanet is not the same as E&G. Both are under the same publisher ncsoft though.

PvP Protective Bond builds don't look anything like the 55 UW soloing dork.

Why? Different environments, different constraints, different goals. The PvE Prot Bonder can safely assume that his enchantments will never be stripped, so he can forget about any sort of protection for that skill and just focus on killing enemies as fast as possible with the slots he has left. Because he knows he can dodge all removal (by choosing his opponents carefully) he ends up being a painfully polarized build that fails spectacularly if his Prot Bond is ever removed.

In PvP, you *know* that the other team is going to be trying to remove your Protective Bond, because as long as it stays up they have virtually no chance of actually killing you. You, *knowing that you'll win if they can't drop the bond*, create a grossly polarized build that centers around keeping Protective Bond up at all costs, from loading up on chaff to eat up the various strips, to running disruptive elements to shut down relevant removal from the other team.

While the PvE Prot Bonder takes his build to one extreme and avoids the hate, the PvP Prot Bonder goes the other way and shoves his abusive enchantment down his opponent's throat. They're just different faces of the same problem.

Peace,
-CxE

With NR being spammed everywhere, there's really no point to trying a similar build in PvP... or using many enchantments at all, for that matter.

I still don't understand why people say it's unbalanced. The only half decent argument I've seen in favour of it being unbalanced is that "It forces you to bring enchantment strippers". Come on, seriously. You want to fight a proper team with a protection monk and no enchantment strippers? Good bloody luck.

The only 'unbalanced' part I see is that people seem to have a somewhat hint of jealousy or hate of the bandwagon, which is a bandwagon in itself. Every class has ideal situations in which it would literally be invincible, look around Tyria and I'm sure you'll find places like this. It just so happens that the Underworld, or should I say the START of the Underworld is ideal for this class and the 55 is the build that proves this.

Personally, farming it myself has proven reasonably fruitful. Probably not the best drops (not that I really care), but at least a steady flow of cash that isn't too small or too mind bogglingly big.

Why am I farming the Underworld? The economy. You say this influx of 55/105's will crash the economy? Yeah, bring down ecto's in price.

1. You still have shards going at 5k.

2. Have you taken a look at the price of ecto lately? 10 plat a peice from the open market.

How much do you need for FoW armour now? 105 ecto x 10 000 = More than you can chuck in storage. On top of that, you need 105 shards x 5 000 = combined more than you can chuck on your characters. Not to mention the price of the normal materials and the price of crafting which isn't as much, but adds up nicely.

I would seriously much rather going in by myself, killing a few things, say about 2-3 times, then maybe head into FoW or back into UW with a full team to attempt to clear it. We all know how fruitful that is, regardless of your class.

THAT is grind. Not necessary, no. It's pure vanity, but god damn. I'd say the economy needs some fixing up before they start going around nerfing things again. I doubt the Protection bond 17 with 1 energy was not intended by Arenanet, but if it wasn't then changing it would continue rising the prices of ecto. It's expensive enough as it is, even with the solo builds running through, the prices have kept on a straight line.

Perhaps it is the people who know this and would much rather drag a Mo/W through a few times to get that Fissure armour they wanted while avoiding the ridiculous prices.

I still would like to join a group that has the capability to go heading in to clear out the underworld properly.

I cannot believe this, what is wrong with you people? Sure, go ahead, nerf the monk out of existence, reduce the skill set ... better yet, take away all the skills ... that should do it. Well, next time a team of n00bsters lines up for a whack job, don't come crying to me for not getting good healing anymore.

PS: Oh, and by the way, assuming this proposed monk nerfing takes place, remind me why I should pay for GW Chapter 2 ...

gasp 1 rend enchantments > 105 monk -_- hell double shatter enchantment = 180 damage GASP A DEAD 105 MONK OMGUD!@#@!#!@#