Monk WOES!

To the OP: the experience you are describing is obviously one where you landed in a group of people that are not very nice to play with. As elementalist I have experienced the same problem often: on to attack the next mob despite the fact that I am pinging an energy of 6 out of a total of 81!

There isn't much you can do about such a group except note their names and remember not to join up together with them again. One thing you could have done, although it wouldn't have made you very popular with them (but that probably doesn't matter, does it?) is to start to lag behind while you wait for your energy to recover, and not heal so much until your energy recovers. When your party members complain about that just say you can't heal if they can't wait for you to have the energy for a new battle. I guess, hey, they aren't being very nice to you, so are you obligated to be very nice back to them?

This is sort of what I do when a party ignores my low energy pings with my elementalist. I "sit out" a battle by using only my staff attack and I don't use any elementalist spells at all. Then I am recharged for the next battle.

Here a question (observation?): I am playing a monk as my 4th character, and decided to go out a lot with only henchies as I did with my previous 3 chars, you know, in order to get the missions and quests done. But it seems to me to be very difficult or very boring to play healing/protection monk with just henchies. Firstly, henchies generally target who I am targetting, and this sort of focus gets lost when I am targetting my own party to apply healing. In the thick of things, when all my attention is being spent on healing my party, I don't get a chance to target any enemies. This means that I not only can't direct the attack of my henchies (as I could with my other characters) but I can't get an overview of the progress of the battle since I can't see the enemy health bars if I don't target them (ok, the little ones over their heads are hard to see). Any comments?

Kampfkeks.

tell me how exactly i am supposed to keep up with the healing when 2 warriors charge in immediatly after an encounter both start beating on the monk while they have spiteful and a meteor shower over their head?
i'd be very hard pushed to keep them alive even if i had infinite power.

Eles are different. yes they can manage their energy like you say. unless they are an echo nuker. in which case they will be suffering from a lot of exhaustion.

with most monking situations you can indeed keep up with fast continued battles. simply because at the end of a fight you tend to be able to regen most of your energy. the enemies become so ineffective at the end as to mean you can just leave your allies to themselves and concentrate on your energy.

Breeze is good. this spell probably saved my party a number of times when i was the only monk on a Sorrows team. remember that Kiss takes it into account as an enchantment. and it is a great cover buff for other enchants. and it is one of the very few effective self heals. when i have glads defence up and breeze myself i am nigh unkillable for combat mobs.

First off... what you mentioned is not an energy issue but an outdamage issue. Which is partly off topic.

Second... where do you encounter said PVE Situation? The only time i've seen an enemy use Spiteful Spirit was either down in Fissure or near a bossmob. All three bossmobs are nowhere near a mob casting Meteorshower (Mhego Hydra, Lava Imp).
Do you mean firestorm? That is another situation, really. If you're not prepared for it (you should be when you head down into the Fissure Oo) you can still fire a Healing Seed on them. Even if spiteful won't probably trigger it... the firestorm will set it off.
But well, just assuming you are speaking of Fissure. And if you mean the Mhegos down in Fissure... well if you got that far, you should allready have basic teamplay anyway.

But back to your question. Your best way to keep up with it is to have a protection monk along. This game is about teams and teamplay after all. You don't need those 2 healers when one healer and one protector can "heal" by far more efficient.
The protection monk will cut down the damage to single digits which you should be able to keep up with then. The scenario you mentioned wherever it might be is at a place in the game where a second monk really is no shame to have.

You are way too optimistic about Monk energy, Kampfkeks. What you are talking about is *good* party, that barely takes any damage, so you only need occasionaly orision/word to keep them in top form. Such parties barely need monk at all. However, there are times when things get messy, half of party gets hit by strong aoe spell, meaning you have to either use Heal Party, which costs a lot, or spam 5energy spells, which quickly drains your energy.
What you fail to take into account, is that rushing ahead not only doesn't let Monk regain energy, but can also result in fighting multiple groups, or putting monk him/herself into danger, since he isn't protected. I don't know about you, but when I'm getting hurt, I will heal myself first and run if necessary. It's warriors fault for not tanking for me.
Personally, in FoW/UW I make some simple heal/prot hybrid, with aegis/prot spirit - simple protect spells that help greatly and last decent amount of time, meaning they will help party survive through the toughest part of any battle = it's beginning. Sacrificing 1 point from HP/DF will hardly matter in the long run.

Seriously KaPe.
I'm a monkplayer myself. And no.. i'm not assuming a good party at all. All i say is that energy is never a problem. Skillrecharge Times are... yes. Getting outdamaged due to the lack of a protection monk... yes... but energy. No.

There are just so many damn effective ways of regaining and maintaining energy out there. Like i allready mentioned.

Offering of Blood - with 9 basic points in blood you get a nice 15 Energy quite often.
Energy Drain - The same. I haven't used it ever since the "nerf-buff" but energy wise it should be about the same for you
Divine Spirit + Glyph of Renewal - Cast the Glyph, Cast spirit. As soon as Spirit wears of recast your glyph, recast spirit. Rinse, Repeat. A constant energycost reduction of 5.

Besides adjusting your casts to not bring multiple Energy Impact Spells. When you're playing an elementalist... you don't bring more than 2 Exhaustion Spells to spam them, do you? Why do you bring more than 2 high energy spells as a monk then? :/
Adjust your layout to have a maximum of 1 high energy spell (15 or more energy cost) and a maximum of 2 medium energy spells (10 energy). Make sure the rest is 5 energy spells.
It is all about scalable spells. Spells that grow in power as the situation gets out of hand more and more. For example bring spells like Dwaynas Kiss or Mend Ailment.

Know what? Feel free to try my typical Monkbuilld...

9 Blood
15 Healing (15 (-3 superior) (-1 headpiece) -> 11)
10 Protection (10 (-2 major) -> 8)
9 Divine Favor (9 (-1 minor) -> 8)

Orison of Healing
Dwaynas Kiss
Heal Other
Healing Seed
Offering of Blood
2 free Slots for:
Mend Ailment, Protective Spirit, Aegis (aye.. evil 15 energy monster), Divine Spirit. Just adjust to the situation ahead.

For example for UW you bring Protective Spirit and Aegis. For Fissure you bring Aegis and Mend Ailment. For all other situations the suiting things. If your enemies are heavy on conditions or blind your friends you brind mend ailment. If they however shoot around with lots of high damage numbers you cut them with prot spam.
Last slot goes for your favorite res... probably rebirth.
And keep in mind this is no PVP Build, but please... go ahead. Try this build or a similiar one (for example exchanging Offering with Energy Drain or Mantra of Recovery or the allready mentioned Divine Spiritspam Build...) and after you did... come back here and tell me you had severe energy problems and where not able to keep up with any given teamspeed. Also note that this build is far from being perfect... it is moreover a tribute to bad PUGs (hence the hybrid).
All you need to do is cast your spells calmly. Give them time. Especially dwaynas kiss will sometimes heal for absurdly high amounts when your tank has lots of attention on him.

Same goes for getting aggro.. it's your own personal fault for getting attacked. The tanks can't do much when the casters get personal with the mobs. Besides... warriors are not the best choice in tanking anyways. That is a common thing i see amongst pickups. The casters bashing their tanks that the mobs go for the casters. SURE they do... if you were a badass mob and only had a very limited 360 ° point of view... reaching several metres. Who would you attack? The warrior which you most probably won'T damage anyways or the caster that does baddy ouchy to lil mobby? And keep in mind, once you are locked on a target you can't change it unless your target moves. Sure as hell you'll go for the squishy.
Now imagine the same scene with no squishy in sight. Just that lousy warrior. You lock on, and you're locked to him until he is either dead or he moves. You are no longer capable of noticing the enemies now entering your "normal" viewing range.

I probably should make a short movie to document aggro control, to prove it actually IS possible and to also prove some common believes are wrong (like saying, tank rushing ahead = noob for example). Maybe write a guide for it when i got the time for it.

Oh Oh, I want to share my monk woes too.

So I forgot to cap Word my first go though the desert (unlocked it previously with my E/mo but wanted it on my Mo/Ne for PvE). No problem, I map to thirsty and immediatly get 3 blind invites and one whisper...of course I go with the whisper over the others. Well first group of rockshots and all three warriors have green degen bars which come back even after I mend ailment.... I clicked over to the necro to confirm my theory that yes, infact he was using Rotting Flesh. I asked him to please not do this as it would cause me no end of worry throughout the match. To which, he responded I'm a necro, that's what I do, that'd be like me asking you not to heal.... O_o

Well since I couldn't ask him not to do his job, I mapped back to try again. Mr. Necro gets the same district and spams local for "LF Monk who's not a n00b" to which I reply "Why because I asked you not to try and kill our team with disease?"...He left the district :-)

Somewhere inside FoW .. the cave full of bugs ...
Warrior : LOOK ! OMFG ! A FREAKING CHEST !
Me/Team : NO !
Warrior : Good thing i brought a key
Me/Team : Wiat that cave is full of ...
Warrior : OMFG ! AMBUSH !
Warrior : HEAL meeeeeeee ~
: Poof :bite the dust ..
Warrior : OMFG you monks are lame should F heal me !
Me : Byebye

that cave is fantastic fun. the way the spiders spawn infinitly while the dryders are alive is great. farm farm farm. obsidian shards yay.

i have been in that situation a couple of times. both times in FoW.
i have played as my monk for months. i can play smite, heal and prot effectively.
Good groups almost negate the need for healing. its amazing to watch. but there are 7 others on your team. that is 7 random items to take into account. you cannot blame death on poor energy management when there are that many peoplr avaliable to make mistakes.
i make mistakes, you make mistakes.
our team members also make mistakes.
bad luck also comes into it.

One word, "Henchies".

Problem solved.

Two words : UW/FoW.

Problem not solved.

Friendslist.
All problems solved.

Hear this, I am a ranger and have met some warriors who even tell the team to say when regen is needed.... too bad this was at Hells

I agree with you guys that a warriors (rangers probably as well) need to w8 for others to regen. But good energy manage on your part is important as well.

About the people that are complaining about (I believe) 'Rotting Flesh'. You should have talked through which skills people use. Before you enter a mission ofcourse . Saying that he needs to stop using that skill, is like wasting a skillslot.

Talk about skills before starting Medion? What kinda insane idea is that? I mean that could lead to organization, better teams, less time spent yelling at each other....nah GW doesn't need that kinda rubbish. /end sacrasm

In so many missions, teams stand around waiting for 1,2,3 more monks and when they finally manage to snag one, before the monk can say 'hiya' they've hit enter mission. And even if there would've been a small window of time, I just don't see our boy saying "Hi, I'll be working for the monster's today by spreading 3 pips of degen throughout our three warriors...Enjoy!"

That's bullshit and you know it is.

Sorry but you are wrong. Monks and elem do need time to recover, unless you have a battery necro around, which isn't always the case.

Even though i don't like Ollj... he sadly is right about that. People need to learn to bring energy management into the game. Sure you could just take a battery necromancer but that won't happen in 90 percent and you can't rely on them anyways.
In Guildwars there is only one thing you can rely on, and that is yourself. So be your own battery, don't rely on anyone to fill up or wait for your energy. And you will all of a sudden notice you're no longer running dry on energy. Especially the Elementalist Class has so many energy management spells i sometimes wonder how folks actually do manage to run out of energy.

You know... folks will run ahead... so why don't you plan for it? When an average PVPer sees some specific thing he thinks about a counter. When a PVEer sees some specific thing he screams for a pause and someone else to fix it for him. No offense to the PVE Crowd. I'm mostly PVE myself.

Good point mate, good planning is the key to success, but even the best laided plans don't always work. That and you can't always find a attery necro about, sometimes there isn't one.

Still to say that someone build is crap simply because you cannot manage energy that well is a pretty stand statement to say the least. Energy management is pretty diffcult when dealing with a dymanically changing battlefield, where one min your team is doing great, and then next you getting your asses handed to you

Still what he said was partly right, but mostly trolling and out of order IMHO.

That is what he is known for.
Sorry if my post came as an offence and yes, there is no such thing as perfection. All i'm saying is that ENERGY should never be a problem with a bit of planning ahead on your own build. And that is something your team can't do much about (except for that suicide necro).
It might just be my awesome luck, but when i'm healing and my team is about to die it mostly is due to my heals getting outdamaged and skillrecharge/casting times prevents more healing. Those situations your target looses 300 hitpoints in a second while you're healing for 250. You're bound to loose this race. After all, there are no miracles are there?
All i am saying is that when this situation comes... you lose due to recharge and casting times, not due to energy when you bring a decent energy management. I never wanted to state invulnerability or the fairytale of ubermonks. You can only heal for that much damage but a decent energy management will keep you atleast up and running.

I wouldn't just post this much text if i hadn't seen many a two bad monks bash their teammates for energy reasons. And when i look at their classes i see "Warrior" or "Ranger" Secondaries. When i ask them why they did not bring energy management they totally freak out. When i friendly suggest they should do something about their energy themselves... some accept it, we talk some, i give some advices, a new flist entry is made and you can really see them improve their performance afterwards. If not... typically freaking out.

I run an ele with 90 energy and *most* of the time have no problems with energy management. It's those few times when, for whatever reason, the team can't seem to put a dent in that pair of bosses and call for some heavy firepower and I let lose with three meteor showers followed by two firestorms that I NEED to regen. If you don't want my support on that next pair of bosses, go ahead and do it on your own, 'cuase I just used most of my energy and have a heavy exhaustion penalty.

funny a 600 hour necro..... 1. 51 energy means you have a 15/-1, nOOb alert
2. healing wind...... nuff said.
surely in 600 hours of playing time you would have noticed healing wind is a dungeon siege II spell... not a GW one.
3. Orision.... are we talking about the same profession?

If monks need to regen - group needs more monks or a better one

If eles need to regen - get better eles, thing called elemental attunement... so much better than your idiotic echo nukers.

vigorous spirit eh... (this is entertaining me bear with me)

I feel your pain.I as monk had a couple of similar experiences. Didn't left, but well, sometimes i think i'm too patient (cough stup cough).

And wellcome to the life of the monk. You are either God or a Noob .I think i'm not going to get back to it for quite a long time (playing a Me actually)

I can only say to your build to bring energy management. it's a key feature and have saved my ass many times in UW and FoW. Actually i use my Elite for that.It's not optimal i know, but PUG-s are far from optimal and you have no idea how are going to play your party members most of the times.

Just my 2 cents

Never argue with stupidity
it will inevitably win by experience
and it will invariably bring you down to it's level.

Listen to these word of wisdom.
People who complain or don't bother to show respect for other players in game are not worthy of your time and effort to prove wrong or right.

So I say: Warn - If they continue: Quit

It's time wasted but in the quest or mission you where playing but you'll save 5+ minutes of arguing and a big headache if you do.

A word to the wise: Don't treat people like you've been treated. It just breeds hatred to other players who in turn do it to others who in turn do it to others and so on and so on.....

I can steal your thing cause someone else stole my thing,
I can swear cause others swear
I can do what I want cause someone else did what he wanted

Is childish and a very stupid reason to do those kinds of things.

Thats why I PvP. (but I did finish a PvE monk)
TS makes everything you can SCREAM at people when you are low on energy.

If monks need to regen it means that the team took a lot of damage.

Alternatively, I enjoy having a few secs to recover after as I seem to be looking at life bars keeping the team up rather than enjoying the view or having random discussions during battle, which is the norm in most groups.

Elemental Attunement? LOL. There are skills that strip enchantments you know. Monsters love using them. I'd much rather echo nuke.

And to the OP: Thats the same reason why Kool Pajamas is no longer with us...

My new monk in my second account will be smite once I get enough skills to make it work good enough.

Waiting isn't just about getting energy back, some skills have a long recast time, like the meteors you want your eles to use.

IMO if a monk is at full energy at the end of combat the team is built for defense not offense. The most efficient monk should always have just the right amount of energy to cast the spell he needs to cast at that exact moment in time. Anything more is a waste.

Now in reality that's impractical, and it pays to have more in case someone misses an opportunity and hits a wrong key. If you have a monk with full energy at the end of combat, you didn't need that monk. Get something else.

The thing that screws monk is not energy management, but how some idiots just can realise that there is a limit to good energy management. Even if u do run energy drain tap oob u still can face energy problems if your teams are full of idiots. And alot of PUGS are full of idiots.

Sidenote, the cultist henchmen uses an energy management spell - and for the love of god, i cant remember wat it is. The sacrifice health to give an other some extra regen for a limited period of time.

The cultist henchman also kills himself because he's trying to help you after rebirthing you... many many problems with a suecidal cultist there

Consider this: I play GW a lot, but I not in such a serious fashion that I care to fine tune my character's skill list to the most optimal and then stick with that list for all times. I like variety, and I like to enjoy the game. I am now working up a Monk char. And in doing so, I am varying the skills I take with me, just to try them all and just to have something different. So I am not going to use any one particular skill list and build that optimizes energy useage, at least not for very long in PVE.

So what happens? Do I as a monk stay away from all PUG groups? Or do I allow myself to be taken into a party as healing and/or protecting monk, and then find out the group is composed of a number of these types that don't care to wait for E and Mo energy regeneration? And then be called a terrible monk and a noob?

No, I will tell you what happens: I join the group, I do the best I can do, I note what skills I took that seem not to be working, or ones that I don't care to use in the future. If the group rushes too much and my healing can't keep up, well, then I hold back and let a few die.

There are a lot of players out there with the attitude that energy regen is something that they couldn't be bothered to wait for. I've recently encountered many playing as my Elementalist. Heh heh, probably with me around as Monk they will quickly max out their DP.

Um, you can easily get to 51 energy without using a 15/-1. Monk has 30 energy + 8 from drak's armor + 12 from focus is 50 already. 55 if you use an energy wand. If you're using a 15/-1, you want to be shooting for ~70 energy.

I've already been informed that this is actually a 5 energy spell. That said, its use is still quite limited, and I would never take it considering the far better options that are available.

Rico

my first character was my Mo/N
up until the beginning of kryta, i had been a blood/heal/divine monk

that was a big mistake. good monks shouldnt attk and heal at same time.

then, i mastered healing.
my build is 15 heal, 15 divine, 3 prot (for no reason)
orison, kiss, touch, breeze, word, seed, vig, and restore life

a good monk has to master a skill bar. you cant keep changing it, or else you will lose your edge. always heal a damaged ally even when hp is |--------_|.

do not spam heal, learn how to conserve. make the person taking the most damage a priorty. enchant any people to keep your health safe.

divine boon is also a good skill, but can also kill your mp fast. stop using it as soon as you get to your mp half mark, dont resort to it, other spells use less energy in the long run.


i dont know if any of this is useful, but thats how i got better. your group always depends on you. just remember this, if the whole team falls because the second monk on the team dies, you need to practise

Still waiting

My Nec/Mo has 51 energy (regen +3) at lvl 10 with only Ascalon bonelace armor......it's not hard if you pay attention to what you're equipping, etc. (And no, she does not have any purple, gold or green items yet. She uses a cane and grim cesta combo) As I get more comfortable/able to play that profession, I expect I'll be able to raise that exponentially without trouble.

Oh, and Orison (@a previous post) is a monk skill even though it was given as part of the '600hr nec's' lineup.

I was in a group today that included a lvl 5 monk "that actually HEALS" (as she advertised herself--and she did well for her level). Found out she only had rez sig (party member went down).....so I had to remind the party that I had the unlimited Resurrect (never leave home wthout it!) which luckilly was not needed .

My experience with PUGs has not been very good. They either leave in the middle of a quest/mission or they keep acting like leroys.

I agree with people who say to just take henchies especially since you are a monk. With alesia on your side, that's at least 2 monks in your team in the maguuma jungle. You're better off doing this until much later in the game.

Elemental Attunement doesn't always give you enough energy back, expecially if you're nuking with spells that cost at least 10 energy. Call me a newb for using such fire spells, but at least it works when people let me regen my energy after a battle. As for monk energy management, I haven't gotten far enough with my monk to experience PUG pains yet. Henchies are still my best friends. They don't mind waiting for half an hour while I go do the dishes, grab some food and wait for my energy to regen.