Why do you call them "Invincible monks"

Invincible means cannot be killed last time I checked enchant removal > solo farming monks simply throw in a few monsters with enchant removal and you will be fine. If they are so invincible how come no one brings them into PvP? Because they will get owned simple as that, rend him and hes finished. You dont need to change the game simply throw in new monsters with a few of the many types of enchant removal and the problem is fixed. No need for 15 page debates.

Oh and another thing how is that skill "OVERPOWESERDR AND ABUEST TO MAX~!!~!~!" if it can be easily removed with 1 type of skill that amost every type of character in the game has? I suggest you learn the game before you cry about it.

Throwing in new monsters is changing the game, and for more than one class. Dont cure the symptoms, cure the root cause.

Oh, and I've never called them invincimonks, Its horribly inaccurate and used by the clowns buying the piece of shit necro focus off noobs for 75g and selling it by advertising it as part of the "invincible monk" build for 20k.

I've always called them monkroaches cause first there were a few, now they are all over the place, and also because of how grenth crawls with monkroaches right before we win favor.

when you throw in new monsters you need to evaluate what this will do to everyone..not just the farmers. Have you been through prophets path lately...the rockshot idea was great. Lets add a bunch of rockshots to the map so that farmers have to know pull up all the rockshots..then suicide grab their +20 health icon run back out and solo the griffons/minotaurs without aggroing the rockshots. Easy enough for the farmers, takes an extra 2 minutes. But for everyone else that has to play that area....they now have to deal with the most uncreative monster ever put into a video game....and it gets incredibly tedious.

invinci-monk, the term, was most assuredly coined by someone that never played the build and only saw that they can take massive amounts of damage(albeit it's only physical)

Actually no, that would be changing the level, nerfing skills would be changing the game, why not counter the problem with one of the many skills in the game that amost every class has.


A skill or skills only become unbalanced when there is NO way to counter it or you have to change most of or all your build to counter it making you vulnerable to every other build out there (spirit spamming). Since monsters are not limited to 8 people they could throw in a few extra or, if that would make it too hard for you simply change the professions of the monsters in the UW.

Enchantmens however, are NOT overpowered as they can easily be removed.
until you remove the enchants they have on them, but then again you dont know how to do that. do you?

you n00b...you can't remove enchantments

INCORRECT, elemental/dark/chaos/light damages also have no limit of reduction thru the abuse of protbond. the only things that do not are degens Phantasm/bleed/poison.

ok how about this, changing the lvl is changing the game, the level is a part of the game, thus it IS changing the game, but for EVERYONE who goes there. Changing the skill is also changing the game, but if its done correctly it will only effect ONE class.

Again, deal with the root cause, not the symptom.

it would have been more apt for me to use a term other than "physical" as I meant physical in that anything that hits you...singling out degens as the only thing that prot bond doesn't protect against. You are correct, an oversight on my part.

The root cause being that it's much more beneficial to solo than it is to have a party.

Certain life steals will go through prot bond, but the numer is so low its sad. What maybe one skill, Shadow Strike. Actually I think all skills with a second damage based on condition ignore prot bond. I have tested only Shadow Strike, I will test Chill and some others later.

correction*

the root problem being that 99% of the playerbase is either
A) semi to fully retarded
B) immature enough to think that dick and fart jokes are humerous
C) incapable of playing the game properly
D) a waste of time


I don't see this problem ever being fixed...soloers will continue to solo because they don't want to deal with problems A through D....

Those are some of the benefits, yes. =D

Or maybe they are all elitists like you who are to good for everyone else? Thats what I gather: "I really don't want to put up with people who aren't as good as me." Good job. You must not enjoy the company of people.

Theos, that's crap. The vast majority of PUGs suck. They really suck. You can't blame people for not wanting to deal with them and the frustration that goes along with them.

EDIT: For the record, when I said soloing is more beneficial I was referring to XP, drops, and gold. Not just the precarious social situations that being in a group involves.

Okay, I can get in on this one. It is incorrect to say that the vast majority of PUGs suck. The only time I have ever encountered multiple PUGs that could not do the job was at the Elona Reach mission the first time I was there. I spent 4 hours one night and walked away without success (had to go to bed). The next day I grabbed all henchies and successfully completed the mission on my first try with 5 minutes to spare. However, every other place in the game I have gotten involved with PUGs has met with great success, and even a few additions to my friends list.

Thus "The vast majority of PUGs suck" statement is 100% false.

He is right there are a lot of dumb people playing the game. Refer to my thread in the screenshot section.

I can also remember countless times where I tell people, ok we are going left when times hits zero, hmmm it looks like they are smiting ok lets try to stay spread and and dont stand in balths. First thing that happens is they all rush in and croud around 1 person who has mass smites on him and we end up dieing in 5 seconds meanwhile they are calliing all our monks noobs for not being able to out heal their idiocy.

I see your anecdote and raise you this entire forum's collective experience with PUGs.

Bad PUGs are a seperate problem, and should not influence the debate on whether protective bond setups are in need of a nerf. Stop using it as an excuse for unrelated issues.

And about adding enchantment removal everywhere... I'm getting rather tired of being chilblain'ed at every corner already on non-enchantment heavy characters. Encounters in PvE are boring enough as it is, if every single one of them contains enchantment removal, the number of applicable builds you can use simply plummets. The casual playing teams using a few enchantments should not pay the price for those that stack them high just so they can go out without a team.

Easily countered (Forum's collective experience with PUGs)

1. There are many thousands that play this game and don't post on forums
2. This is but one forum on one site, among many
3. As with all things, you only hear about the bad. The complainy bitchy stuff. Point out a post about the awesome time a person had last night playing Sanctum Cay and meeting that new friend. Perhaps use that "search" function that people are always trying to push.

Therefore I can easily conclude that "the vast majority" is a poorly chosen phrase and does not reflect the truth of the matter.

I would have to say you have crappy luck, all pugs I have encountered have been good or on par. Minus one or two new people who just didn't know UW, but that didn't ruin the game, made it more of a challenge. I have yet to encounter so bad of a PUG that you just want to shoot the people you just partied with. The only frustration I could see from people would be if they were monks who got idiots that did't know what energy was.

I'm not using bad PUGs as an excuse for the 105/55 build. I'm saying the benefits of soloing, bad PUGS included, outweigh the benefits of partying in PVE. I'm saying this is why we see the farming builds, the 105/55 build in particular, become popular quickly. I'm saying this is the real cause. If you and your whole party got the same amount of XP, the same amount of gold, the same amount of drops as when you were out there by yourself, wouldn't that put a decisive end to most of the soloing/farming out there?

sounds like someone is getting mad his mending keeps getting taken off. Also I never said make disenchants massive everywhere, I just said have enough of them so if 1 person goes in by himself they will all get removed because he is they only person to target. If you go in with 8 people your not going to feel the same level of disenchantment because there are 8 targets. Also there is another lession to be learned here, dont rely on all enchantments, if you arent then you should not run into a problem in the first place.

agreed. A fact I use to counter the argument that anets inaction on protbond proves its not an abuse. Perhaps before they take away the monkroaches lollypop, they are trying to address the fact that theres not enough incentive to group.

The benefits of soloing very much outweigh that of partying (purely in the loot sense). If loot and xp were not divided amongst people in a part and was equal with that of soloing then yes there would be no need for the solo builds that exist. Wouldn't put a decisive end to farming itself though, as it would become far easier to do so in groups. There will always be farming of some sort or another, however this is not entirely bad.

I will agree with this, though exp I like sharing as it goes with credit for the kill . The rest can be multiplied xNumber of Players. That be nice.

Precisely. The problem is, how do you do this?

That's what I would like to see suggestions/debates on.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe it works like this: each monster has x XP, y drops, and z gold. x XP is then divided up into how many players are on the team, z gold falls to the ground and is then split up into the party once picked up, and one of the y drops is assigned to one of the party members.

So a solo player gets the best of everything. I think what it should do when a monster dies is make it so that x XP and z gold is given to each member of the party. One of y drops would be assigned to each member of the party, with common drops in y drops fall more often so as to avoid an absurdly high amount of rare drops falling.

Let me know if clarification is needed on the "y drops" part. It might be kind of confusing.

then you'd completely through the common denominator(difficulty) out the window. XP is split because it's easier to kill the monster the more people you have. The fewer people the lower the split is. Not that I have a problem with this...but it does change game dynamics.

There are quite a few dumb people everywhere doing anything they want. Case in point is forum, guild wars, people in my class at UCF, people at my work, people driving while reading newspaper and talking on cellphone, people buying SUV when gas prices keep going up and they are single with no cargo whatsoever to haul around, rednecks with rebel flags shouting at black people, george bush jr, people who make fun of michael jackson, this guy who tried to sell me pot at the grocery store. In fact the only smart people are animal-people. Like squirrels and cats.

Monks made to be corny farmers, why do you care. Don't group with them if you don't want to. Don't look at them if you don't want to see them swarming around. Ruins game, bullshit. There is more in this game that ruins it then people making monks to get money with. If these people want to level to 20 just to farm (since their first character is no good, or whatever reasoning they can come up with) then I believe they should be allowed to do so.

Scarabs and Dryders use chilibans which will kill any of these monks. My E/me can kill these and they cannot. Woop de do.

Back to people being dumb, so what. If you would stop treating them as stupid retards, but more like actually people who breath and think and feel, then maybe you wouldn't sink yourself BELOW being dumb and actually rise up to become a better person.

IMO If you complain about somebody being retarded, then YOU are the retard. Its one thing to point out someone being a touch slow-witted, its another thing to make fun of somebody being less fortunate than yourself. This is what nobody seems to understand.

Personally I find if somebody is not behaving correctly in a PUG, simply talking to them in a clear and polite manner will sometimes sway them into taking your lead, or perhaps just informing them a little on how to properly complete the mission as a team. I find that when these people argue they are correct and WTF screw yourself, it is not a "retard" but one of you "leet" stupid jerks trying to be leet and to hell with everyone, even if it causes the whole mission to fail.

Case in point: W/mo in Iron Mines. Runs ahead of everybody, calls us all noobs for not doing enough damage and for not knowing this mission. Strangely enough, some of our group had done this mission three or four times before. So we get to Evennia and he runs her into the mursat. Good job Leet jerk. Way to show leet = retarded.

So basically, if you aren't here to enjoy your game which you or your parents had to dish out hard earned moola to get, then go around being a leet-jerk and mouth off to everybody, call everybody morons and dopes, tell them what they are doing wrong with WTF OMG NOOB. If you are here to enjoy your game, then stop trying to force people into having your fun. Not everybody wants to follow in the footsteps of leet idiocy. Some players ARE actually new to the game and being a jerk to them won't help them continue playing. Some of them haven't played 600+ hours yet. Some of them do not know the current mission. Some of them do not know many things. If you yell at them, I consider you a problem worse then being new. You are quite essentially the factor of this game which kills it. People too good for everybody, but forgetting that you and these "retards" you have to deal with are actually playing the same god damn game together for whatever reasons and you both enjoy it.

Of course, all is said in vain. I know, its one of the harsh realities of the world. Good changes can't start with other people, it has to start with yourself, no? And any rude comments, I have only one answer:

WHATEVER!

Yes good idea.

It's unfair to people who are doing it alone of course, but the areas were designed for groups, so those people should shut up and find a group.
And as there's so many people who think PUG's suck, they could easily group with those people.

And instead of wining about the fact that it would be unfair, they should ask for areas that are disigned for soloing, and can only be done soloing.
Those areas should be a bit harder (compared to how difficult a group area is for an intermediate group), but would also give better drops than you would get in a group area.

I'm not talking about mending, I'm talking about things like Conjures, Armor of Earth, Aura of Restoration, Channeling. I can assure you that my monk has absolutely no trouble killing packs of critters using Chilblains, she just lets them rip off Divine Boon time and time again since they all take turns. It's not stopping farming as much as it's dumbing down play for casual players. This isn't a team killer, I never claimed that, but being denied casual enchantments in a build just because some people use enchantments irresponsibly kills off fun and variety for the wrong reasons, I think.

We had an invinci-monk in our PUG going skill capping in mineral springs last night... she died so much that I couldn't res her any more!!!

As for PUGs, that was one of the absolute worst ever... we got owned in mineral springs... but the people were a good bunch so I stuck around and went through the whole kill one, all die, kill one, all die, kill one, cap skill, all die. You can do that place with henchies...

Invinci-monks are by no means invincible. I'm sure every one of us who have solo'd UW has died there. All it takes is a couple of interrupts on healing breeze when you're bleeding and it's all over... bonnetti's doesn't always save you.

I think the XP and gold would be taken care of pretty easily by scaling the mobs to the party size. Alot of other games do this.

The drops are more difficult to handle. I like the way items are reserved to prevent fighting over the good stuff, and am not sure how to handle this another way with real players.

One thing I would like is to be able to trade with henchman. Something like a one-for-one trade, say a staff for a staff, regardless of stats.

In my opinion, partying (with people and/or henchman) is just more fun and should be encouraged.

With Henchmen, I'm thinking there should be a way to actually hire them. As in, you pay them a set amount of gold as you add them to the party or you agree to split loot as it normally is. If you pay them, everything drops and it's for you or it's split from what I said above between player characters. I still see no reason why henchies should collect experience.

Scaling the size of mobs depending on the how many people are in the party, I think, is the balancing feature between what I want and the common denominator that Algren brought up.

Hopefully some other ideas will branch forth from this thread because, out of all the 105/55 threads, I think this is the most productive.

That's a great idea! I'd go for that.