Monk Hate

Let me get one thing out of the way up front: like it or not, the 105/55 nerf is coming. Though this thread does deal with the subject, it isn't intended to debate this nerf; there are several threads going strong on that topic already. I should also mention up front that I play primarily as a monk. Hopefully that won't invalidate my observations and opinions expressed here.

It seems to me there is a growing tension between the monk and non-monk populace of GW, something that has been building for some time now. Complaints of excessive arrogance from monks or a lack of gratitude from those being healed began surfacing on GW forums soon after launch. That discord has blossomed since. Irritation has been expressed on the difficulty of finding monks for groups, and some monks have fired back that they want more robust roles than strictly healing. Of course lately monks have become associated with farming via the solo builds, and a great deal of hostility has sprung up over this. A casual browse through this forum will turn up numerous posts abusing monk soloers with derogatory names, and many more with monks railing against the perceived jealousy of their detractors. We're almost 4 months into the retail launch of GW, and these examples of "monk hate" - animosity towards/from monks - seem to be increasing in frequency and vehemence.

There are three questions I'm posing here. One, do you think monk hate is truly an issue in the game today? As I said up front, I play a monk and therefore my natural bias has to be taken into account. Although I don't believe so, I may be projecting my personal experiences on the macro scale. Assuming you do believe monk hate is real, do you admit to feeling monk hate now or at any time (and if so, why)? Finally, what would be your suggestion for dealing with the problem? Since I'm asking the questions, I guess it's fair that I go first. Obviously I do see monk hate as a problem, and I admit to feeling a level of resentment towards non-monks at times. I think the main reason for this is an attitude I sense at times that because I picked to play a monk it is my responsibility to spend all my in-game time staring at health bars. I certainly accept that is part of my role, but I believe to reduce me to just this aspect is insulting in the same way as me saying that a ranger's role is solely to shoot his bow or a necro's role is solely to serve as my energy battery. On the flip side, I have at times expressed monk hate by threatening to withhold healing/rezzing services to party members that were irritating me. Certainly this isn't the best choice on my part.

As for possible solutions to the monk hate epidemic, I'll suggest three. Note that these aren't my original ideas, just positive suggestions I've seen mentioned here in the forums. These ideas address the two core issues that I believe drive monk hate: a perceived advantage in resource acquisition for monks and a perception that monks are a uniquely critical component to any party build. I also recognize that these solutions are much easier to suggest than implement. Still, forums are a place for dreaming, so here then are my wishes:

One, instead of limiting options for monks soloing I would love to see an avenue made available for each class to solo different areas in their own unique way. I think there's a real sense amongst those who play monks regularly that their class is being singled out, picked on, persecuted, what have you. Further limitations to monk playing options without corresponding changes to other classes are likely to add to that sense and fuel greater monk hate. A better (albeit complicated) solution would be to make it such that each class has their own high-level area(s) where they are well suited to solo, and make the tactics required to solo reasonably different to promote diversity of play. With that in place, rotate the value of the drop rates between these areas so different classes are getting choice drops at different times. Remove the monk's singular advantage in resource acquisition without removing the monk's ability to play solo and/or farm effectively and I think a good number of complaints over monks would disappear.

Two, increase the resource acquisition rate for those who play in groups. It seems a lot of people solo because they feel (correctly) that it's far and away the best way to acquire wealth. Since, as mentioned earlier, monks are perceived as having an advantage soloing, many people feel compelled to create monk farmers (reinforcing the "greedy monk" perception). It seems like a fundamental flaw for a game designed at least in part to be played cooperatively to punish people playing in groups with far fewer drops than those playing solo. As someone who enjoys playing GW on my own, I'm not asking for solo players to have all their drops nerfed. But it would make sense to do something to bring the rate of acquisition rates for solo and group players in line, either by lowering the solo drop rate or increasing rewards for groups (my preferred choice). Give people incentive to group together and the number of monk "farming toons" would drastically diminish in all likelihood. One major cause of monk hate would be eliminated.

Three, and this should be obvious, there needs to be a global attitude adjustment towards/from monks. Every time a monk charges to enter a party or threatens to withhold healing/rezzing (I'm guilty there), they're feeding monk hate. Every time a non-monk belittles a monk's healing efforts or hurls derogatory terms at them (like "monkroach"), they're feeding monk hate. A lot of this disrespect stems from a common belief (once again, correctly or incorrectly) that monks are essential to successful party formation. This seems to bring out the worst in some people, with some monks developing a superiority complex and some non-monks looking for ways to exert dominance over monks. To monks, my suggestion is to refrain from responding to disrespect. If someone is giving you attitude outside of a mission, leave the party and ignore them. In mission, finish up your task silently, then leave the party immediately afterwards and blacklist the troublemaker. And please don't bring down the rest of us with silly things like charging for services. To non-monks, recognize that those monks you depend on are played by humans who are, like you, just trying to unwind and enjoy themselves. If they want to do that by staring at your health bar, bully for you. Cut them some slack if they aren't able to keep you up 100% of the time. And if sometimes they want to get away from it all and go off on their own, let it be. Hopefully after some alone time they'll be refreshed and ready to help you out again.

I'm not much of a forum poster (evident from my low posts/day ratio), so this is practically a month's worth of writing for me. I'll check back in periodically to see what anyone who cares to respond has to say, but hopefully this will be a launching point for more active posters to have a say on the (non?) issue of monk hate. I'll leave it off with the hope that we can keep the hostility in this thread to a minimum; there's enough of that out there as it is.

Monks are overpowered in alot of ways. They are one of the hardest targets to kill, and the deadliest class to leave alive. The fact that they can solo UW is just a offshoot of a much larger problem. Teams w/o a monk almost always die to those with. No class impacts a group more, and yet a smiter monk can do extremely good damage.

If there was a jesus class in GW it would be a monk. Ive got a monk, and it was fun to level up with and to PVP with for awhile, but there is no denying the monk overpowered, especially in PVE and 4 on 4 arenas. In 8 vs 8 monks are still mandatory but decent counters are more easily available on a more flexible 8 vs 8 team. In PVE and 4 on 4 arenas nothing rivals a monk in terms of power.

A monk can run around and essentially take 2 warriors out of combat, and stop in a split second and erase all the hard work of all damage done to targets. In 8 on 8 its a little better but a huge portion of people dont play 8 vs 8 arenas.

Hence the monk hate.

alot of the superiority complex that you have witnessed stems, atleast in part, to the fact that the majority of monks around now are playing a second character. My monk is my second character. I witnessed first hand the monk role, what monks were capable of, switched my secondary to monk on my first character to check out the skills available, and in the end decided that I wanted to play a monk based on several key factors. The monk can be a heavy dmg dealer...built properly the monk can be an amazing tank(this was later turned into the solo build) and ofcourse there is a lot of fun in weighing the benefits of healing vs protection for every mission. This is why I chose to play a monk and I would assume that others did for similar, if not the same, reasons...because of this I have a lot of experience with the areas post ascension...more aptly post thunderhead. I know what it takes to make a good team and it gets to me when party members continually make the same boneheaded decisions after I've informed them what they are doing wrong. I don't feel superior to any other class or player....but I DO know how to beat the missions and how to work as a team and people that don't listen to sound advice (even when multiple party members are saying the same thing) are an annoyance.

as far as monk hate goes...there are a lot of players out there that think it's unfair that the monk can solo....I assure you other character class combinations can solo as well...it's not just the monk. The "invinci-monk" term was almost assuredly coined by someone who never played the build(or a similar build)...because the "invinci-monk" is in no way invincible and I often find myself having to rework the build for different areas of the map.

as far as how to change what's going on....I think nerfing protective bond will pretty much wipe out this problem...do I think it's right, no...but atleast it will shut people up for a few days until they find something else to bitch about.

My monk is my fourth character. I don't really care for being a monk because no one can see your energy being drained, only their HP going up, so they assume they're immortal. Aside from that, it's very difficult for me, personally, to balance between damage and healing. I'd love to Smite as well as Heal, but I can tell that later in the game, it just will not be possible.

So, at the moment I'm at the same conclusion I was at when I wasn't a monk: the healer archetype is too heavily relied upon in GW. There's no reason at all why a single class should ever be a necessity in a game of strategy. I think a monk's "real" potential as part of a balanced game lies in its protection abilities.

I'm not one to say, "This is how it should be," but if it were up to me, the damage flow of skills and attacks in GW would be much slower, and health recovery in mid combat would be difficult, so that you're both essentially starting at the same level and trying to wear another down from that point using a damage-focused strategy, not a healing-focused strategy, which is what GW's PvP and much of PvE is to me - trying to counter healing practices, not trying to outweigh the damage being done to YOU. Just look at the bosses - even the ones not gifted with being a monk, having troll unguent or life siphon or healing signet have natural health regeneration. Rather than facing a boss you're basically just trying to cut down a big tree.

Of course, as far as how everything works in GW, it's unfixable, as far as how I'd like it to go. The classes are so laughably archetypical, aside from possibly the mesmer, that it's hard to grow beyond that, the monk class, or more accurately, the "healing syndrome," being the greater problem that's caused the most damage to the game.

Quoted and /signed for truth. All of the suggestions in this post were great and a step in the right direction, not only for monks, but for the entire gw community, seeing how its gotten quite negative lately.

I personally dont think monk hate is that bad. The only times I ever really had a problem with hate being directed at me because I'm a monk in the game is when I've had some teamate who I couldnt keep from killing themselves with stupidity, or if I came across some other monk who wanted to charge my party for services, or demand payment of trip fees to FoW or anything like that. I have very little patience with monks who think they they can charge for services, when in most cases they'd be just as boned if the warrior or mesmer or whatever weren't also there.

I think something that exascerbates the "monk hate" is how bad the bad monks are. Poorly played warrior, with the exception of a poor puller, is not unmanagable. A poor nuker usually just slows things down a bit. Nobody ever seems to notice the contributions of mesmers so a poor one usually goes unnoticed. But a poorly played monk.... Hate Magnet.

I know what some of you are thinking, how can I say monk hate isnt that bad, after posting the rant about bandwagon monks. I can say this because while I dislike the current situation, I dont hate monks in general. Spare me any flames and lets keep this on the OP's topic, which was not focused on the 105.

This is a great topic, thanks for starting it.

My monk was my second character, and the main reason I started her was because of the shortage of healers. Now though I play her as a protection monk.

I think one of the main issues here is that people see the role of the monk as being to keep you alive, so if you die, it was the monks fault. We can debate all day long on good primary/secondary combos to ensure survival, but at the end of the day, people like to create highly specialized builds that are often only good in a small focused way. Therefore, a dedicated healer becomes an absolute necessity because they are set up as a caster killer, damage dealer, crowd controller, whatever... I'm not saying there is anything wrong with this, but it makes the role of the monk healer that much harder, as he has to keep a team of damage takers alive. Now these other party members have to rely on someone to keep them alive, and if one of the team members is not there as an energy battery, you either go through slowly and allow for recharging, or someone dies.

As for how to deal with it, once I refused to heal two party members because they weren't giving me a chance to recharge my energy, so I saved it for the other 5. I know there are people who hate the "no heals for you" approach, but sometimes you have to deal with these people like the little kids they are... no cookies for you.

Regarding solo-ing monks, nerfing is so not the right approach to this. I think the idea of having drops proportional to the number of party members is an awesome approach. It can't be a linear scale, because a team is benefiting by having greater numbers, but something in this area should be seriously considered by ANet.

There is no "monk and non-monk" populace in guild wars. Virtually anyone who's played the game for more than a month has a monk.

Part of the monk hate comes from the fact that most people are intimately familiar with the monk class, and it's brutally easy to spot a bad one, and with the recent surge in people making monk alts for unlocking purposes only, there are ALOT of bad monks out there. It's frustrating to play a monk yourself, well enough to make a bad team good, and have to put up with the terrible healers out there when you want to hop onto the game with your mesmer or ranger. It's doubly bad in pvp, where alot of people just throw together monks in order to get onto a team more easily.

There are plenty of monks out there, but the lack of good ones has forced me to play nothing but my monk for quite some time if I want to be assured success, and it's very frustrating, as I really don't like playing the class (health goes up healt goes down health goes up ...etc).

As for more monk roles, monks already perform a comparable number of roles compared to other classes. They have healing, damage mitigation, and a unique sort of nuking. Compare that to the warrior for instance, who only has damage and damage mitigation, with a token energy denial skill. If you need more roles, use your secondary!

once again i'm with Elistan. i have rescently ascended a new Mo/Me and i have never heard anything but good things from my groups... and they are always PUG's. from my experience part of the problem is that some monks act as if they should get their own temple and this is the problem with 'monk hate'. some monks are very very self absorbed.

my monk was given a superior Favor rune after being the only monk in our party i which no-one died (on thirsty... see a good thing just happened). if someone does die because you have no energy then ping your energy. they can't blame you then. some will try but most will spring to your defence if they do.

monks integral? yes... but then again a team without any warriors will have a hard time (no-one say spikers), a team without ele's will have a hard time they may not have enough dmg output to kill their foes.

monk hate is brought on by the monks (in the most part)

well yes a class that meant can heal itself would take a longer time to kill than a class that was not

anyways i dont see whats so bad about putting a rend enchantments on a few monsters in UW, all this fuss would be gone.

I've not really noticed any monk hate at all when I play. My monk gets invited into parties alot more often than any of my other character and when I play my non-monks (especially my warrior) I certainly do appreciate a monk healing me.

Sure, there are uppity warriors who believe they deserve to be kept alive at all costs (even if they're ran off to aggro everything they can see), there are uppity monks who are full of self-importance because of everyone's dependence on them and there is the odd necro who thinks he's a tank and gets upset that you can't keep him alive. But in most cases any tension within groups I've played in is usually personal, although when it's not personal it more often than not is a monk-warrior thing.

Maybe I've been lucky but I don't really think any of the PUGs (I almost exclusively use PUGs) I've been in have had more than a couple of idiots in them.

Finally, I think the 105 build is a cheesy exploit but I don't hate monks because of it.

How do you or others assume this 105.55 build is going to get nerfed?What evidence do you have or proof of it?I have seen no proof of this so as far as I am concerned it is all mere speculation or gossip.I do play Monk as well and it is my main char. I do prefer to do other thing than heal but like Warriors we are along the same lines.

the 105 build isn't necessarily gonna get nerfed in the normal sense, because it's actually underpowered in pvp, but anet should definitely add enchant removal to UW. It's stupidly easy to solo in the hardest place in the game with a monk.

Monks are hated and harassed because the majority of people have never played a monk (exclude the solo build that everyone is now creating; that's not a "real" monk for cooperative play). A large portion of hostility also stems from the Smiters who parade around mission areas claiming to be healers. Healing Breeze and Heal Party DO NOT make you a healing monk, sorry to burst your bubble. If people bothered recognizing which armor sets specific character types use, things would go smoother. I may be old fashioned, but I refuse to accompany "healing" smiter monks anymore. I got screwed into healing everyone solo too many times, and it's not the most fun to do in Hell's and Thunderhead. >.> It does say something that we completed the missions on first try, so my healing owns you silly smiter hybrids. :P

To keep the hostility in perspective on the "invinci-monk", elementalists can solo UW just as easily! Nerfing a build or skill does not solve an issue. Kill the invinci-monks and you'll just see a new wave of solo farmers built for UW/FoW. You'll also have to realize that monks are limited to smites/spirit town ONLY. If those behemoths didn't have NR, I'd like to sink my holyness into those flesh golems. ^.^

People just dont understand how difficult to manage energy while healing 2-3 people and getting ganked by the opposite team. I occasionally get a stupid warrior who charges the ebermy team before anyone is ready, dies, and starts flaming me for bad healing.

Also, if you play Smite, you get flamed for not healing, even though you told people you are smite.

People just dont understand that monks dont have 129002341082 energy and cant heal YOU all the time, thus you need to have some way of self preservation.

Hmm... my first char is a monk... and while I'm not that good at it.. (somehow, if we're with henchies, at least one of them manages to die).. I do enjoy it. Yes, I have a healer.. got her before I realised all the drama associated with that.

For the most though, I've avoided being hated for what I do, and people generally respect my pinging low energy.

Hmm... the person who wrote the thing claiming that everyone was persecuted a while ago was right though, no one class is better or worse than any others
On the positive side though, I've learned to never rely 100% on a monk with my other chars.

They are forgetting that Monks are also protectors and isn't that what prot. bond is for.This was the first role I played as a Monk and then into smiting after most groups wanted healers I then went into healing.I never got a chance to practice with real group.When I left pre searing and into post I wa a multi purpose Monk which I used everything.When I am healing and low on energy I always wait for it to charge up and heal those below 50% first then the rest or myself.

Most of people I know have only one monk on their accounts.
They would be pretty shizopremic if thet had "monk hate"

Seriously, 105/55 is a game bug and will be nerfed. As long as they forget about boon, I'm ok with the changes

My new automated remark:

NADMT: Not Another Damn Monk Thread

Areanet, could For example make drops be worse when doing solo, and drops increase if several classes are present in the party, making a need for a diverse team. Or some other positive factors that would make it beneficial of having more diversity in a team.

That would diminish frustrations of certain classes from feeling out of the loop in teamplay, as well as the frustrations & envy of L33T solo builds.

Heh I love it.

A couple of people have expressed that their monk hate stems from experiences playing with poor monks. I can understand the frustration to some extent. When a member of my party starts aggroing a number of mobs at once or aggroing before the party is ready, certainly I feel frustrated. There's a tendency to feel like these individuals ruined my play session. Monk failures tend to be more spectacular in nature (since most party builds lean heavily on their healing capabilities). When you're playing a monk and things go bad for you, you can be sure your failures are going to be cast into the spotlight.

Still, I don't think this is a great reason for monk hate, and if anything it's a good example of how we could all use a dose of tolerance. There's going to be bad players and good players in any game; that's of course a given. Sometimes even good players can have off days. I've had my share, and I know how frustrating that can be. When I'm playing party healer and an oversight on my part leads to a party death (or worse, totally party collapse), I already feel like crawling into a hole. But if that situation occurs and one or more party members start heaping abuse onto me, that's just adding insult to injury. Some people are going to respond to that kind of treatment with monk hate of their own, and that's where you start to see an increase in monk arrogance.

There's always going to be people that are going to give attitude even after you witnessed them fail their teammates. If that applies to your monk teammate, I suggest just walking away and putting it out of mind. No reason to exert effort trying to cut him down to size; he's doing a good enough job of it himself. On the other hand, if your party's monk lets your team down and he's not spewing out the monk hate himself, try to at least thank him for the effort before departing for another group. You never know if that "bad monk" is actually a decent monk just having a bad day, and if so he could probably use a kind word. Or maybe he really is a bad monk - even more reason to pick up your teammate. Monks who are disparaged for their failures aren't likely to stick with it. With a modicum of patience and support, however, that bad monk you just got done partying with might develop into a halfway decent monk in the near future.

Kamikaze Chicken, I wholeheartedly agree with you about monks who misrepresent what their focus is. That's a prime way to create monk hate. Certainly this isn't a problem unique to monks, but it does happen all too often that a monk will at the minimum not make clear what role he intends to fill in a party. This relates directly back to respect: if you aren't going to respect your party enough to be up front with them about your specialization, what right do you have to expect respect in return? Something to consider for monks who want to cut down on the hostility directed towards them.

Plague, I kind of like the fact that GW leans more towards healing focused strategies, but perhaps it is a bit overdone (again, thrusting the monk into the spotlight which of course breeds more monk hate). I wouldn't be surprised if future expansions shift the focus more to what you're talking about, giving classes a greater range of skills to offset the monk's healing capabilities. And even for new monk skills I suspect they might eschew straight-up healing for more subtle damage reduction or avoidance.

(from a PM)

I asked you once today to not PM me again, ever. Please listen this time, spammer.

I think the only rule I may be breaking is making personal attacks, which you are doing too. If WE got warnings for it, thats fine. I am not worried in the least. You also keep breaking the rule about same topic over and over again, and whining about stuff but offering no solution to the "problem". Go kick a wall or scream like a nancy in a pillow, stop polluting the forums. Do you like the NADMT thing because you are part of the problem? Freaking hypocrite.. I expect nothing better from the likes of you.. I give up on you I see no hope.. I will continue to contradict your opinions when needed but will leave you alone ok? If you have anything else to say to me come visit me on this great, uncensored site -- Just post in the noobs forum or make your name similar. The hounds will be fast upon you. I freaking DARE you to come up with something witty.

Signed,

Your Master

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Dragou, I am dreadfully sorry for going OT in your thread. Thanks for putting the reason to stop reading at the very beginning. There might be some interesting stuff in there.. but I am just burnt out on this forum. Adios muchachos y muchachas.

The only reason why there is a "class-type X" hate is because of the natural tendency of humans to be ignorant about at least one subject in their life time and yet sill voice their ill-formed opinion(s). We, as a forum base, need to reeducate these individuals. On subject, my 55 monk is my 4th character. I fought through the game to get to the point where I could solo the Underworld and I am using a rather "inefficient" build to do so. It is easy to do but I worked for that prize of ultimate farming. I enjoy the fact that I do not have to explain what to do and how to do it every time I try to join a PuG group.

We definitely need a professional grade walk-thru for dummies for Underworld and Fissure of Woe on this forum. I suggest a team get together and set down a good guide based purely on outlining the quests, monsters, objectives, and enemy skills used for each area. Then, we could just toss a quick link to it everyonce in a while during an idle period in The Temple of Ages. It isn't that they are new or that they are stupid, it is just that they do not know any better; no one has helped them complete the relatively easy quests in each area and they are just too much against the process called thinking.

I do not think that I could participate on this "project" full-time as I have many a pound of homework to furiously finish each night. I just *love*these AP classes. I will, however, contribute as much as possible when I get the time. Have fun, and remember, all of this negativity can be solved with one thing: you turning the power off to your computer tower.

This right here, is all the reason anyone would ever need to become a monk hater.

Think about that statement for a second, "well enough to make a bad team good". The fact is that's not an exageration and we all know it. A good ele on a bad team is a dead ele. That goes for any other toon as well, with a W/Mo being more survivable but not strong enough to make up for a bad team. There are tons of W/Mo's out there who THINK they can drag an entire team along behind them, but if wishes were horses ...

While there are other builds that can solo, and the 105/55 build is NOT as all powerfull as has been implied, the fact remains there has never been a build this strong in GW. Even the beta's never say a single build anywhere near this dominant.

On top of being the ONLY mandatory party member, AND having the best solo, most dominant build the game has yet seen, AND having more options than ANY other class (no matter what element you choose, you're still casting damage with the occasional buff), monks have become the defacto commanders of the game. You can't do much without a monk, and they know it. So they're in charge, and if you don't like it, they'll leave.

I'm not one of the monk haters by the way. Well, I am sort of, but it's a personal hate. I have no interest in playing one, even though I have one, so I'd much prefer the game not require them. I don't like needing anyone.

The better a team is the fewer Monks it needs. Now don't get me wrong... I'm not saying all groups don't need Monks. What I am saying is if a team is skilled enough, if a team use enough teamwork, if a team communicates, plans & strategizes then they can get by w/o one. Sure it will be difficult, sure it will be more work but playing w/o a Monk can be done... if your team is good enough.

That's not a bad idea at all. I'm still kind of green with the Fissure, but I've managed to work a ways through the UW with my solo smiter. Actually, the other day I did a search through the forums to find out details on the Reaper of the Ice Wastes quest (how many groups of dryders spawn in before the Ice King finally summons his elementals??) and came up with nothing. A UW/FoW guide would be useful for both vets and newcomers alike. Maybe I'll pool some of my notes and post something up in the Tyrian Explorers' League forum, and people with more experience playing in parties can add the best group strategies to use.

Most of the monk hate I've seen in the past stemmed from complete ignorance of a monk's energy, cast and recharge time limitations as well as the remarkable tendency of many players not to bring their own healing no matter how insignificant. Having played primarily as an e/r, i always carry both troll ungent and dodge on me at all times for pve. I personally don't like relying on others and i know that one can't be expecting someone else to heal me all the time like some sort of personal assistant. both troll ungent and dodge have saved my ass numerous times in both pve and pvp.

However I've seen many .. inexperienced, let's say, warriors who do behave like they are invincible and charge right in seemingly completely unaware that they are 1 of 8 that a monk has to heal. Couple that with a terrible aggro job in which said warrior pulls all enemies to the casters and the 1 or 2 monks are forced to waste their precious energy on weaker elems and necros that shouldn't have been attacked in the first place. AOE nukes take longer because the monks are fleeing while trying to heal both themselves and the warriors + other casters, and what should have been one or two tightly packed mobs are split into 3 or 4 running all over the place.
If the warrior dies, often the blame game may start to take place. And of course it never matters that the warrior neglected to bring a heal of any sort, because the monk was "supposed" to keep him alive.

Then there are the amazing casters who love to aggro asap. I've seen these in both UW and FOW of course, in which before the monks can even recharge their meager energy, the caster runs out to aggro the next mob. How they ascended to level 20 without learning a thing about how mobs aggro is beyond me. And then they wonder why the monk didn't keep them alive as after they got pounded by an abyssmal and 2 shadow rangers firing barrages.

Or the w/mo's that bring no res skill because they thought they had a monk in the party.. of course what they didn't realize was that it was their responsibility to keep the monk alive because monks, like elems, have the lowest armor in the game and no sup absorption runes.

The examples are countless.. but this is getting long.
The point is that most monk hate stems from those in pve who do not realize that the relationship with a monk in a party is a symbiotic one. A monk can't do his or her job well if their energy is being wasted by one suicidal player, or if they are busy avoiding death from mobs w/ interrupts or large swords while the wars are flailing away elsewhere. The other problem is an apparent ignorance of monk energy and cast time issues.

These problems are only reinforced by the pigeonholing of monks as healers. As a heal/prot monk, how many times have I heard some variation of the phrase - "you monk. heal." Most people are do not care whether a warrior is sword/axe/hammer, or what type of necro you are, they probably aren't even aware of the different mesmer attribs, and if you're an elem as long as you can do some aoe damage you're in the party. But if you're a monk, it's "can you be a full healer" or "i guess a prot monk will do since we can't find any others".. and of course the "smite? you're not a heal monk? /kick"
i would imagine that would breed a bit of resentment among monks.. no one likes being told how to do their job

and that attitude seems as ingrained as the "gotta have 2-3 monks" syndrome. i've run with many groups that do fine with 1 monk or none, if you have necros w/ well of power/blood, and everyone brings their own healing. in fact, in general these players are smarter and better and as a whole the group performs better in places like uw/fow.

that's one thing i love about the monk tank build though, it challenges the deeply ingrained perceptions about how uw/fow is "supposed" to be played partywise. there's no need to "pull" if you can control the size of an aggro'd mob and know how to move them out of the patrol range of another. a tank that aggros correctly and player that know how to stay out of aggro makes the job easier for everyone. a war tank who aggros correctly needs to know both the skills to stay alive until the monk can get in range as well as how to keep the casters out of aggro so they can do their job.
a party doesn't have to consist of 2-3 wars, 2-3 monks, etc, etc... and necros, mesmers and rangers are excellent additions to any uw/fow party.

but yeah, until everyone has actually really tried to play as a healer monk, i don't think monk hate is going to go away any time soon...

That attitude that you need more than one Monk amazes me.. how'd people survive the dessert when there was only one healing henchie?

I can understand a second monk early on in the game due to one of the two monks being smiting.. but.. smiting monks exist in gw about as much as females do on the internet

And yes, I'm enjoying the dessert imensly second time round with a prot and a healing henchie.... it was HARD work with my healer when I did it.

I cannot convey how annoyed I get with some teams, but most of the monks on the forums know so I don't have to bother. Point is, there are teams that just give us gray hairs, and there are teams that are awesome.
Unfortunately, the gray hair groups far outnumber the good ones, and so unless I'm playing with guildees I usually have to put up with the warrior in starter armour lying at the feet of a Forgotten Sword in the Crystal Desert screaming "rez me rez me".
I originally made a monk to heal my guild mates, he was my third character (since release) and we just got a new infusion of new members. When their activity dwindled, I decided to powerlevel my monk, as I hadn't powerlevelled any characters before... I went from Piken to Grenditch to Yak's to Ice Tooth Cave to Beacon's Perch to Gates. By now I was lacking appropriate skills, so I went and did the North Shiverpeak missions and got some healing skills from Captain Ossiric. I then went the normal PLing route (LA->Bergen->Temple->Fisherman's->Sanctum Cay->Amnoon->Ascension Trials). I beat my level 20 doppleganger at level 14, and jumped to level 20.
I got to Droknar's, got Balthazar's Aura and Zealot's Fire, and realized how amazing a tank my Mo/W could be. (I had previously chosen the Warrior secondary for stances.) So after I was party healer in the South Shiverpeaks for a while (a month) and got completely fed up with healing idiots, I turned smiter tank.
Able to match the warriors stride for stride if my enchantments weren't stripped, I then turned to farming a little on my own to get some money (the market was getting more and more expensive every day).

That's my story of farming, I didn't create my character to be some ub3r m0nk r4p3 m4ch33n, I made him to heal. It was the average idiot who made me want to rip out my hair that turned me to show you how to tank by providing more firepower than your uber leet chaos axe you bought for 20k could ever do.
I still have yet to defeat Thunderhead Keep - all the groups I get into are completely inept except the odd one which still, somehow, manages to fail... even on the last ... friking ... battle!

quoted for truth

When you resurrect a thread that was discussed 4 months ago, I was expecting something a little more... profound.

Rico

OT I just though that playing with more than 1 spell type/element/whatever makes you strong on everything, everything except a monk, its easither all heal or all prot Oo

EDIT: ooo i didnt know this was old, sorry

Well I added a monk as my third character and breezed through the game, begged to be on missions and picking and choosing my teams carefully. I always stuck with it and rarely got crap, except from other monks who blamed me for not keeping them healed.

Perhaps the high point of all this was running a group of players through Thunderhead Keep calling all the strategy, keeping the Warriors on the stairs (not easy to do), and finishing the mission. Not one player died, and I was still able to get some smites in during the mission.

It was my high point so far as a monk, and I was praised and thanked at the end of the mission by the team.

If you have a good attitude and explain your actions to the team and jerks on the team you can do fine. Much of the problem with monks stems from their lack of experience being anything but. I have a warrior and ele and I can see the needs from having played the other charachters.

My 2nd character chronologically, primary by play time is a monk. Most groups greatly appreciate having me on board, and very few players give me "stoopid n00b monk why cnat you heel me? 2 stoopid." A good portion of the time there is one of those in the group, i don't even have to say anything -- the rest of the group defends me.

I really enjoy playing the healer/protector. I don't think it's "limiting" at all to have a monk be only a healer or protector. It's far more complicated and demanding than my other characters (W and R), and consequently more rewarding, imho.

I'm usually too pragmatic to deny healing just based on insults, but I will deny healing to someone I cannot possibly keep alive anyway (and the two often go hand-in-hand). If they just won't stop abusing me, and especially if more than one is doing it, I just leave. If they don't appreciate my help, I'll find a party that will.

I have never charged to enter a party, nor do I expect people to take me to the underworld for free. Also, I've never played solo monk. I don't have a moral objection to it or anything, just don't have the equipment.

Amen - thats what I tell everybody. Monks should be used as a last resort you should be able to take care of yourself first. This will be better for everybody else in the same group.

And as for that mentality that every group absolutely must have a monk, well it's utterly stupid and only exposes their level of skill at this game. A group made up of truly skilled players do not need healers, period.

Point being, how often does the average PUG consist of those truly skilled players?

I play Ranger myself for the most part, and I know for a fact that Troll Unguent is only seen as good because it's the only self-heal Rangers have. I never bring it because, well, I feel that standing there waving my hands in the air for three godawful seconds while the region's Melee-ist of Choice cuts off about half my health bar, despite my max-defense armor and Whriling Defense kinda defeats the purpose of a brief span of added regeneration.

The point was made above - a good Monk can make a mediocre team good, whereas no other class enjoys that capability. This is because, for the most part, no other class has any sort of real self-healing capability, aside from the Necromancer. As a /N, I have found myself playing pseudo-Monk with Well of Blood before in a game simply because nobody has anything for self-heals. If a Mesmer slips up, even just once because he's having a rotten day, and gets caught by the enemy, he has all of Ether Feast to keep him going. Ahem: wow.

My solution would have to be implemented in an expansion, and thus is never going to come true, but I would say that by giving each class reasonable, if not stellar, self-healing capabilities, you lessen the games current utter dependance on Monks. This would make a bad Monk in a party of average players a survivable experience, and since Monks aren't so bloody special anymore, the hate would considerably lessen. Hell, if Troll didn't take so long to cast, rendering itself useless, I'd bring it every time. Because I don't like javing to rely on the unknown skill levels of someone else to keep me going.

First off, I agree truly skilled players can get by without a monk.

But, I'll tell you right now, sometimes monks have to be used as a PRIMARY resort. Example? Try doing Hell's Precipice without a monk. If you can do it, you deserve to be bowed to.

Sometimes it truly can't be avoided. You will have to grab a monk. But most of the time, if the players get the mentality, "I can heal myself too, to make it easier on the monk" Which hardly anyone does aside from troll unguent users and wammos..everyone expects you to heal them. This is where the ctrl+click mana bar comes in handy. If people continue to rush, this is where I reprimand them. If they continue, I just drop group. No sense.

But the mentality you "have to have monks" only should apply in certain situations, I agree.

My 2 cents.

--The Shim

I play a healer monk, and I agree that you always don’t need one. I’ve been in groups where I did very little healing at all, and that was just so I could do something not because anyone needed it. I’ve also been in groups where I have exhausted all my energy trying to keep groups alive, and failed.
I think that people have it in their heads that only with a monk can they complete missions and quests. I also think that some monks think this too. (can you imagine I was in one of the Ring of Fire missions, and some monk was advertising himself available for 3000 gold).
A good monk, and I consider myself a good one, might be able to pull a Rambo group through a mission or quest. Maybe, if you’re lucky, and put up with the insults, but a monk with a good group is mostly just like an insurance policy. There if needed.

I got my first personal monk attack yesterday in Elona Reach. I use Elona as my test run when I change my skills, or move them around on my skill bar so I know exactly where they are. So I am very familiar with the mission. An inexperienced PUG invited me. None of them had done the mission before. So I thought it should be a piece of cake, no preconceived notions, no conflicting commands.
We start, and I should of known it wasn't going to be a peaceful mission when they managed to attract every minotaur within a hundred miles. Everyone survived although it was close a couple of times. We get to the second part, and I circle the group to attack, and tell them sages first. They attack, and that group goes down quick. I cross out the bridge so no one will try to cross it. Although one stood there and took a couple of hits before he moved on. I drew a line so no one would cross it, circled the group to attack, and crossed out the ones we didn’t need to right then. The battle was joined, and they managed to attract all three groups, and they all died. I rebirthed them, drew a line so they wouldn’t advance, pinged my energy so they would know I didn’t have any. Of course they didn’t listen and immediately attacked. Which might have been survivable had they all attacked the same group. They didn’t and they all died again.
That’s when the insults started. NOOB MONK, WTF HEALER, HOW COME YOU DIDN’T HEAL ME.
Well I couldn’t heal you, because you guys were to scattered. It takes me a couple of seconds to get to you; it takes a second to get off a spell. You’re dead. I try to save another, but they are dead before I get to them. I try to get you to retreat, but no you want to take on two enchanted swords and a boss by yourself. I stand behind you, and throw every healing spell I got at you. You’re dead. I know it. You just haven’t fallen down yet. I retreat, and once again I’m the only one still standing. I am not the NOOB here.
I got pissed once the insults started, and ran into a group and promptly died. That ended the mission.
I left the group once we got back to the town. The leader did whisper me, and say that the insults were uncalled for, and that I had really tried. Anyway, I was mad so I parked the monk. Went and got my elementalist, joined another inexperienced group. They listened, and we breezed right through the mission. They were happy, and the group I was first with was still trying to get through it.

good points made here. Just find it disappointing that people do not (seem to) bother to try make themselves self-reliable and learn when it's time to pull out instead of staying in the fray and letting mobs rend apart your remaining health.

But that's my ideal playing approach. Why so many people are bend on standing there without any kind of self perservance and hoping someone else will heal their sorry backsides - I will never understand.