Meanwhile, in another part of the galaxy... there are those of us who just happened to create a new monk character around the time that the whole "105" forum explosion happened, with the intent to create healers and to make getting into PvE pugs easier than with a necro or mesmer. That they also are able to solo and do basic farming for gold and materials doesn't hurt either.
/rant on
When creating this monk, I'd spent several days researching the skillsets of all the possible secondaries, narrowing it down to Warrior or Elementalist since I already had a Mesmer and Necro primary. I recognized that it would probably be more fun to go with a Warrior since the skills cost less, offer more defense earlier in the game, and it's fun to carry an axe. Plus I'm just not a big fan of the Elementalist's glyphs or waiting until late in the PvE game before the really helfpul skills, like Water and Earth, show up. It just made sense, so I went Mo/W.
One month ago, this wouldn't have been a big deal at all... now if you're a Mo/W then you're obviously a 105/55 bandwagoneer. People make snide comments to you ingame, they don't take you in PuGs becaue they assume you're a smiter/farmer, and there are all these players on the forums and in the local chat going on about how Mo/W's suck and are lame. Geez... I mean give me a break.
Not all Mo/W's are 105 farmers.... it's a really good combination on it's own, and without the 105/protection exploit. Will I use Protective Spirit/Bond when I find them? Possibly so, since they are great skills. I use runes to save attribute points, not to lower my health. The only superior rune I want or need is a Superior Healing Prayers... but can I find one for sale at a reasonable price? No, because 105 Mo/W haters are hoarding them and taking just as much advantage of the exploit as the monks themselves are.
As this is my 4th character, a dear friend offered to run me down to Droknar's because he wanted the practice, so we did the run together. I got my tatoos and a couple of skills, and then went back to PvE as normal... I've never once entered the low level arenas, and often switch to my normal-level collector's armor because silk just looks nicer than running around half naked all the time. I also like to hang out and log on/off from Droknar's, because it's just nicer down there and the music is prettier, and I'd kinda gotten used to it being the main port of call with my previous characters.
I mean let's be real... one can't even get into the UW until after ascension, and it's likely that a very small minority of the lower level Mo/W's running around, even if they have Droknar's armor, are a) ascended, b) have gotten Protective Bond/Spirit, or c) can realistically afford five superior monk runes. These so-called 105 bandwagoneers have a very long, steep uphill climb ahead of them before they even reach the UW... this whole idea of a swarm of 105 Mo/W exploiters running all over the place is a bigger issue in the collective GW forum community's imagination, rather than an actual reality.
It's my intuitive hit that the reason that all of the superior monk runes are sold out all of the time isn't because there's a horde of newly created 105 bandwagoneers buying them and going into the UW... it's because of guilds and hoarders buying them out with the hope of turning them over at an insanely high mark up to all these supposed 105 monks, who don't really exist except in the collective imagination - I mean that's the real exploit here. It's like manufacturing an illness because you have the cure and can sell the medicine at an increased profit when there's a demand... this whole 105 issue smacks of that. And I'd even wager that if one asked these hoarders point blank, that the majority of them would admit to having a 105 monk or uber farming character of their own... self-righteous hypocrisy at it's finest.
So anyway... here's at least one Mo/W healer below lvl 20 that you may see hanging out around Droknar's that isn't a 105/55 UW bandwagoneer. I'd be for Anet nerfing the build just so that the upsurge of stereotyping and prejudice/hate against all Mo/W players would stop soon. It could be argued that this Mo/W hate/sterotyping has more of an actual effect than the supposed horde of 105 exploiters really does. I created this monk to be a healer and get in PuGs easier, and this growing ingame prejudice against monks with a warrior secondary is getting really tiresome.
/sigh... rant over
