Monk WOES!

GRRRRRR!!!!

Is it me or are a vast majority of players complete retards. No offence meant to those good players out there.

A couple of days ago I started playing as a monk. I've just got myself to the maguuma jungle. Now as a monk I'm ussually expected to heal, especially if I'm the only monk on the team. And to heal you need this magical sustance we like to call energy. If one has energy one can heal, the coverse being if one has no energy one cannot heal. Its a simple concept, which I would expect most people to understand. However I'd be wrong in assuming this of course, since the vast majority of players don't.

Lets set the scene. I play as healing monk with 11 heal, 8 smite and 9 divine. I use orision of healing, healing seed, vig spirirt and healing wind in order to heal my team. I also have boon for that extra healing. Thats -1 energy regen. In total I have 51 energy with boon on since my extra energy comes from being enchanted.

Now I'm playing blood and smoke. I get a team. Its reasonably balanced, but with just me to heal. So we leave ventaris refuge and someone aggros the white mantle mob and whats this our warriors are dying very fast. One is level 19 and nearly dies in a few secs. Hmmm possibly a frenzy warrior. I sigh!

We manage to scrape through and move on. We reach the next mob. And oh look our lvl 15 warrior is aggroing groups which he should be ignoring and oh look our other warriors brought us another mob. So I'm now on a healing frenzy. I'm doing Ok until, whats this our warriors manage to get another mob involved. By this time my energy is low and the team is falling. I manage to keep one warrior alive and keep on having to res another. We evntually suceed. However I notice that while all this is going on the necro in the team says we would be Ok if our team attacked together and our healer healed. And I'm like "WTF?!?".

Now mildly annoyed we carry on. But whats this. Hey guys my energy is low can you wait. I ping my energy. I type "wait". I draw on map. People respond by pinging their energy and health. I sigh again. Fortunately my energy has regened by the time we get to the next mob and this time we do OK. However after asking them to wait again for me to regen I am ignored and as a result I struggle to heal. This keeps on happening with me asking the team to wait. eventually the necro pipes up and says something like "STFU with all this waiting". I then explain that I can't heal with no energy. And he says what you will regen on the way. I then tell him that yes I will but not fully and then I won't be able to heal them. I then get everyone on the team having a go at me. I mean what the??? What is wrong with these people? I then tell them I won't heal them. They laugh at me. I tell them that if they won't let me regen I will let them die. And hey they do it again. So ... I let them die and bid them farewell. As I hit the warp to town button I see a warrior begging to be ressurected, since no one else has ressurect he is screwed! I leave with a grin on my face.

Now I'm not normally a malicious player for anyone who thinks I am, but theres only so much I can take. And I can't play with a crap team who doesn't listen.

It is so sad this is the level of most gamers out there.

BTW I already have a 600 hour necro. SO I am not inexperienced with regards to gameplay.

i bid u welcome 2 the world of online gaming.

I know, I know, but nearly every group a bunch of egits. It's enough to drive you insane.

i feel ur pain, but after a while when u know the game better u can do the whole thing with henchmen or with friends/guild. but the people u meet in GW r basicly the same as in any other online game, buss, diner or hockeygame.

I never really had a problem with my monk, i guess i was just lucky. Give henchies a try though, things are easy when you heal them.

Would do but henchies give me such a headache. Alsesia makes me so angry, running back and forth healing herself whilst aggroing entire mobs.

Deja Vu.
how many threads like this have we have seen now?
way to many. I sympathise, but starting a new thread on this is a bit unnecessary.

1) You took the inverse, not converse, of your statement.

2) I play a lot of PvP. What I usually find are idiotic people running away from the main group, so I've gotten into the habit of telling people to stay by my location or encounter the very misfortunate visit to Mr. Reaper. Usually, some idiot who insists on playing the game while drunk needs to run off alone to the other side of the arena, and I just roll my eyes, say "warned you," and then drop in hopes of finding a better group.

So, yes, I quit on idiots. But at least I give people the benefit of the doubt: You are ignorant until proven idiotic. I start off assuming that people don't know anything. So if I tell you to stay by me, you stay by me. If you are set on running to the other side of the arena, proving yourself an idiot, fine. But don't expect me to stand around, unless I'm using /laugh.

My first character to finish the game was a healing monk, and yes, sometimes you get a group that you just can't do anything with. If you get such a team, just do what you can, and if everyone ends up dying, well, you did what you could. Move on and forget about it. On the other hand, you'll also get some groups where everything is working perfectly, and you can really have a good time healing. Nothing is more satisfying than making it through a tough mission with a full team, nobody dead, and one healer.

Since you mentioned it in your post, I'd like to make a few recommendations for what you could do to try to make healing a little easier on yourself:

-First, you're using WAY too many 10 energy spells. Healing breeze, healing seed AND vigorous spirit? You only need one of those spells--for PvE, I'd strongly recommend healing seed--healing breeze is actually one of the worst healing spells in the game. Pick up Dwanya's Kiss and Mend Ailment instead of breeze and spirit. Dwanya's kiss you can spam while orison of healing is charging. Both are excellent healing spells for 5 energy. For mend ailment, don't worry about putting points into protect prayers for it, your divine boon will pull it through, but you can use it to treat a quick spider bite or blind or something, which people always appreciate. If you want to use these high energy spells, you're going to need to drop divine boon, otherwise your energy management will fall apart too quickly.

-Second, if you want to use boon full time, try to figure out some way to manage energy. Since you've got points in divine anyway, you might want to look at, I think it's called Divine Spirit. Whatever it's called, it makes monk spells cost 5 energy less to cast, to a minimum of 1, and lasts for a decent amount of time now. That means, particularly if you don't have boon on at the time, that you can spam orison of healing and dwanya's kiss for 1 energy each, and you will actually be GAINING energy (through your regeneration) while healing constantly. If not, look to your secondary for energy management skills. If you're Mo/Me or Mo/N, or even Mo/E, you have a number of great options available that will let your restore your energy, try experimenting with those. Hopefully by time you get to about Forge (via story of course), you should never have to stop and rest for energy.

-Finally, this is purely my opinion here, but I would drop the smiting prayers. It is difficult to be both a smiter and healer at the same time ESPECIALLY if you're trying to run divine boon as well. You just don't have enough energy to manage it all at once. Re-invest those points into either your secondary for energy management, or pump them into divine favour. Remember that for every point in divine favour, I believe you get ~7 points of healing on orison (including boon), versus only 3 for every point in healing prayers.

Now, please, I don't want you to get the idea that I'm saying you were at fault in the situation you described: you weren't, your group were a bunch of idiots, and they got what they deserved. But the recommendations that I'm giving here will hopefully mean that you will run out of energy less often, meaning that it is less likely you will run into these types of situations in the future.

Rico

monks and elementalists that always beg for a waiting time show a pathetic team build.

When i take my level 20 healer into an earlier level, i take unyielding aura and blessed signet.
Anyone who doesn't understand the concept of teamwork will then be at my mercy.

As for people expecting the monk to save them time after time...they should bring a self-heal.
Monks are not God and should always be regarded as a saftey net....not a babysitter.

As someone who has played through the game as both a Monk and an Elementalist, I have to agree with Ollj. I've rarely had problems with my team having to wait on me to begin with as a Monk or Elementalist. But, that's due to me using Mesmer as a secondary on both.

Yes, rushers drag the team down, but so do casters lacking any sort of Energy Management. If you end up hitting 0 energy in battle or even after a battle, you might want to rethink your build.

look into skills that heal for 5 energy MAX 10 energy.. never more then that. Boon works great if you have everything in heal and divine.. I use 1 superior in healing.. for 16attrib...

I also use divine spirit to get those 5 engy down to 1 engy when its starts getting REAL intense. Basically when you see you are down to 10engy.. cast that spirit and use your 3 5 healing spells very quickly on everyone that needs it. by the time its worn off you should be back up to around 20 engy... hopefully that's enough to rest up for a sec. if not prioritize your casts... till spirit recharges. Maybe drop boon for a while. yes you are healing less but you are getting more energy.... For these builds the more +Energy bonuses you have the better... Of course the +12 energy icon is a must... Armor with plus energy is also very important. Some bonus on a wand would be great... Like a green wand or something... I am using a purple holy rod with a +8 energy bonus while enchanted. So while I have the boon on I have more energy to work with...

Also a secret I love to do is in a pinch I change my armor in battle. Yes I get less health, but if I have a +10% health bonus, its really REALLY nice to have both Superior Healing, and Superior Divine, on you. So plan out your armor sets. I messed up the first time and had my superior divine on the chest, and my superior vigor on my primary chest. OUCH... Next time I learned to match up armor sets with same runes. If minor on one set, then superior on other set same piece. then I can switch out on demand and get the attrib boost... This works well with eles too btw...

Hope some of that is useful to you, Good luck...

ingram.

i have an e/mo character that i do prot/heal/smite on, and i rarely have problems with energy, except when i do the 4x meteor shower thing (glyph of renewal, arcane echo)

Please, please tell me English is not your first language.





As for the monk problems, enjoy being wanted in teams while you can. When PvP is the thing that remains challenging to you, you will miss the days of being wanted... every so so and his dog has a rank 2+ healer up his ass that puts us non-power-PvPers out of luck because we have jack all to show for however excellent we are at PvPing.

I'm playing a monk now, after paladin & mesmer/necro, and it's a whole different game.

Unfortunately not in a good way.

With my mesmer it was real hard to find PUGs, but I just took henches instead, no biggie, but with my monk...

Wherever I turn up, I get invites instantly. If I 'reject' they invite again. And again. If I ignore I start getting "accept plz" whispers.

And I'm suddenly starting to get attitude from asshats. For instance, I mapped to Thirsty River, sat down on the ground and started selecting skills. Some wamo runs up, sits on my avatar and says "I shit on u". WTF? While I sometimes had hard time finding groups, none of my other avatars got attitude from other players for no good reason.

Then I enter thirsty river mission. I'm one of two monks in the PUG. Turns out the other monk is really an elementalist nuker, so I'm the only healer. Fight starts, a ranger uses a speed buff and runs ahead to kill the priest while the other fight outside. I run back and forth, trying to keep everyone alive, but eventually the lone ranger dies. "WTH didn't you heal me?!?!"

Feh.

And that was actually a good group, we finished the mission quite easily.

*Smack*

Anyway, with my necro trying to get into FoW or any other mission I usually end up with a group similiar to what you mentioned. I have never really came across a bad monk, jus mostly bad Warriors. Never want to wait and just want to rush in. That's why I try to group with the least amount of 'em. No offense.

Always the same, will never change.

Just telling my story is all, thats what this thread is for is it not?

con·verse

adj.
Reversed, as in position, order, or action; contrary.

n.
Something that has been reversed; an opposite.
Logic. A proposition obtained by conversion.

True. I give people the benefit of the doubt too. I did stay in that game for quite a while. As I said I don't just leave a game for the hell of it.

You can't expect great team builds with random PUG's. When I play there's often only enough people to make one group. So I expect people to hang on those few secs for me to recharge. Thats not much to ask. Its great if you have a necro on blood rit or if you are far enough into the game, BiP. However this is not always the case.

Also if you do post try and be constructive.

Divine Boon skews your energy. I wouldn't use it unless specified to and given a damn good reason. So far I haven't seen or can think up any reason to use it other than for a large heal party.

I'd like to mention my energy was low for most of the aforementioned mission because the team was crap and I had to heal way too much. And since the mobs were very close together I was having to heal non stop. With regards to the boon comments, I do take it off when I can. The reason I have smite 8is for energy bonus i.e wep req is 8 and gives me bonus. With regards to vig spirit its energy cost is 5 and helps keep my warriors in health while I heal stupid eles and necros. Healing breeze is an emergancy spell for degen conditions. Removing these conditions ussually results in them being re-applied with mobs. And I tried the divine spirit spell. I found the cool down and its lifetime to make it quite useless. I need to cast around 3-4 5 energy healing spells to make it worthwhile. I found I never used it. In all fairness I'm working with what spells/items I have at the moment. I've found this to be the best combo so far. I never go into low energy if the team can play properly.

Yes, the vast majority of players unfortunately are morons.

I'm surprised it took you, OP, until maguuma before you noticed that. You should consider yourself lucky that you got to experience the game that far without being bogged down by this several times before then. In that way, you have been most fortunate.

It is because of things like the OP has mentioned that I no longer play Monk with PUGs. I only play my Monk with guildies or close friends.

I'd love to play with my guild but it is too small really. Shame. I'll to join as a guest in another guild.

Hm, I feel lucky, I've had very little problems with groups. Admittedly, I did the entire game with my boyfriend as team leader.

The worst one was getting a team for thunderhead keep... failing the mission, and someone in the group deciding that we need a monk. Pointed out that last time I checked, I was a monk.

Now that I finished the game though, I randomly join groups if I feel like being helpful or want to look at life bars

Healing wind!? Heh. Your frustration shows. Been there as well bud. Being a monk can be irritating. It gets better when you're the only healer for a team of 8. God forbid someone dies.

hmm, so why does a healing monk have 8 in smite anyway

Get over it. It's easy enough to tell what he is saying.

Having a forum rule against nonsense typing is good and well, but give it a rest guys.

And yeah, as a monk, you'll find that henches never do that stuff. Can be frustrating at times, but just remember the times you had with PUG's and press on.

I only play with my guild, or with friends.

As a healer, there will be occasions where you will be called upon to heal A LOT. Regardless of whether or not your team is good doesn't really make a difference, there will be times when you will have a good team, and you will STILL have to fight for 2-3 minutes of almost constant healing. That's why energy management is SO essential for a monk.

This is where you use healing seed. If someone's getting mobbed, that should keep them alive and at full health for the full duration of the spell.

If it is a weapon, you should be able to use it with no investment into smiting and still get the energy bonus. Sure, if you try to attack with the wand you'll do 2-3 damage max, but that doesn't matter for a healer. Unless the item requires smiting for the *energy* (not the damage), then don't waste your attribute points. For that matter, if your weapon does require smiting for energy, I would look for a new weapon.

My bad, I thought it was 10. That said, I still wouldn't bring it into my build. Most characters simply don't have a high enough rate of attack to make this type of a spell useful. If someone is in trouble, healing seed. Otherwise, orison or dwanya is fine.

True, often mobs (especially Maguuma spiders) will re-apply poison or other degen conditons very quickly. The thing is, if you let the poison run its course, it only does 80 damage. For that matter, even conjure phantasm only does ~150. That's still well within the range of a single orison of healing, especially with divine boon. Healing breeze heals ~8 pips of healing x 2 health/pip/second 8 10 seconds = 160 health, which isn't much for 10 energy. And I would still never put it in the same build as healing seed. If you need an emergency heal, take heal other instead; it costs the same as healing breeze, but it heals for more health, and heals instantly. Although if it is condition spammers you're dealing with, I would still fall back on Dwanya's kiss or mend ailment.

I've heard good things about divine spirit, particularly after they beefed it up after the patch, but haven't experimented much myself. You probably need 12+ Divine favour, and possibly something like Aura of Faith to make work really well. I'm simply recommending it as one of several energy management options available since I don't know what your secondary is. I think part of the point is, you should be able to keep alive both good and bad groups, to some degree or other, because if you just wait around for a perfect group, you'll never get anywhere.

Rico

whats with u morons and flaming others when they dont write something in perfect english? so what? did i offend u or r u just some little moron that has 2 point out everything thing thats wrong in someones statement? go find something better 2 do.
btw: english isnt my first langauge.
AND FOR THAT I APOLOGIZE AND FOR EVERY1 THAT HAS OFFENDED U WITH POOR ENGLISH.

Useful in FOW for the W who is holding the unholy text and gets hit with the 20 degenerative conditions at once. I just spam breeze and word when needed on him

I find that healing breeze is great for when lots of people are getting mobbed/degened at the same time - healing breeze, unlike healing seed, can be spammed and doesn't require the entire team to be collected.
Casting time is an issue too - it's faster to cast one healing breeze than two orizons.

triple6: its n0t ur spelling dats d pr0blem its ur 1337 5p33k u r using.
Basically it's hard to read and annoying as hell.

/noted

In another forum I would agree, but isn't the Riverside Inn about conversation? To add your own grievances to an existing thread would only dilute the emotion. In fact, hasn't just about every topic been discussed at least once? So you're suggesting that there should be no further new posts unless the topic is new? It's gonna get mighty quiet around here.

Anyway, back to the subject at hand.

I sympathise with the OP. My favourite character is my monk and I have suffered the same abuse at times. Maybe it has been down to me sometimes - I do need to concentrate on energy renewal.

I must say that more recently I tend to get praised more than abused. Is this because I'm getting better? Maybe it's because people generally have a better appreciation of a monks task. Maybe it's because when they try a mission or quest without a monk they fail more often than not.

Hopefully as you progress to the higher levels you will encounter the same positive reaction - though don't imagine for one second the the abuse will stop completely. Hang in there - being a monk can be very rewarding.

Some people seem to think we monks have a magic wand (errr .. we have a magic rod).

Re. OP: Sounds familiar! In fact, after the first warnings you should have left the party. Really, this game is about fun and not about getting frustrated by persons who do not want to play as a team.

I sat out too many PUGs with my monk to receive comments like "noob, you retard, bad healing, blabla". That was the reason why I started to play with henchies only.

With respect to your smiting attributes: I can provide you with a healing ankh from the desert for free, req 9 healing prayers, +12 energy and 20% chance for faster cast/ recharge healing prayer skills. This way you can use the atrribute points in a much better way! Just PM me ingame and I will get you one.

Haha, if someone called me n00b or retard, he'd do his own healing & rezzing from then on. If I'm so bad, then he doesn't need my help.
I'm a good team player, and I can take criticism, but it better be civil.

To be honest... sorry if i offend someone with it... but a good monk or a good elementalist can keep up with the healing or spells no matter how fast the group is advancing.
The more you advance into the game, the better your methods of energy management get. As someone allready mentioned; by the time you get to the Jungle you should have Divine Spirit. With the time boost it now has a use, though you can't do much (yet) about the slow recharge. Once you're at Droknar the excuses to NOT have energy dwindle even more. Energy Drain, Offering of Blood, P&H (sigh, a lousy LOUSY spell.. really... but if Warrior is your secondary you should consider using it -.- However you REALLY should consider changing your secondary to either Ele / Necro / Mesmer).
Once you're at the ring of fire there really is no reason to beg for energy.

Offering of Blood - Constant Energy Engine (my favorite)
Energy Drain - Conditional but powerful Energy Engine
Divine Spirit + Glyph of Renewal - Your healingspams never cost more than 1 energy. That should be affordable now, shouldn't it?

You should also consider kicking out healing breeze. Sure, according to some it has some nice healing. But in the later missions of the game you get a lot of enchantments handed back to you in portions of nice little "100"s. And now those healing breeze isn't doing anything.

Also have a look at your teammates. If you see a Wa/Mo... go berserk and be aware. Insist on him bringing "Succor" or something like that instead of his measly mending. Tell him you're gonna do a lot more healing magic with that "Succor" than he will do with his mending.

As a mesmer/monk 20, I play only my primary when solo and then bring in Resurrect and healing when in a PUG. This usually works great.....but the other day I was going as 'guide' for my husband to the War Camp since I'd already been there. We were building a group specifically to fight through, not run (unless absolutely necessary on the final stretch).

I had equipped my healing skills since it looked as if we'd have to take the henches when a monk said she'd like to join in (she was capping, I think, and wanted to tag along). We again explained the plan and what healing I could offer the group (which, granted, isn't a whopping amount but it helps if the others can take care of themselves in any sort of way). We trans out and she apparently finally looks at our roster then says, "I'm not monking solo for you guys" and warps away. While it upset me no end, it turned out that the group was (with two exceptions) a bunch of strategy-poor idiots who thought it fun to aggro everyone onto the caster--me (also the only one who could rez them).

She was the fifth monk in two days to abandon a group I was in (with two different chars at different levels). One left in the middle of a co-op because we'd nerfed the bonus, some left when they died (after aggro-ing instead of staying back), some just....left. Overall, I've only had maybe two positive experiences with player healing monks. Can't count Alesia .

A good healer monk is a treasure.