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Should I start a monk?
Nirdop
Member Posts: 5
in Guild Wars
I figure since not many people have a character that is devoted to healing, it would be neat to create one to go pvping with or even helping people in pve. So, should I go through the hassle, or not. Anyone have monks that they have fun with?
Comments
A smiter is a fun solo monk build to play, especially with a warrior or mesmer secondary. However, I went to the trouble of playing a healer all the way through the game, and I have to be honest with you, I'll never do that again.
As I wrote on another thread, a healing monk's job is the most thankless jpb of all in this game. I once solo-healed an eight-man team in the Thunderhead Keep mission (one of the tougher ones in the game) and only one player died - a necro who thought he was a tank. When the mission was over, not only did I not receive one word of thanks for keeping the team alive so we could beat the mission, but I actually got bitched out by the idiot that got himself killed through his own, sheer stupidity.
So here's the bottom line: if you can live without thanks, if you can live with warriors going "Leeeroy Jenkins" on the team then bitching YOU out for not keeping them healed, if you can live with people refusing to take your advice then complaining that "you suck" as a healer, then by all means, a healing monk may be the job for you, otherwise go with a damage-dealing profession and let someone else take the abuse.
FWIW.
BTW, I hate teaming with Leeeeroy Jenkins-esque warriors often choosing - instead - to build teams composed soloely of casters and rangers for damage and henchie healers. A pair of barrage/trapping rangers and a warding elementalist with a minion master necro on the team gives you all the offense and defense you need without putting anyone directly into harm's way. And all-caster teams kill a lot more quickly and efficiently, too.
I really enjoy it, and find it fun and challenging. As a strictly healing monk, it sucks with henchies as they only attack when you do, and if you stop they will generally stop too. And you don't get to fight really at all in a group. I attack level 17 and up creates for 12 damage at most. Undead are higher, but monks get bonus against undead. The first portion of the game is horribly painful, as you die a lot. You are expected to fight and keep other NPCs alive, which is no easy task with the limited skillset you start with.
Really it all comes down to preference. My favorite character I have is my monk.... and it will probably always be that way. If you can get really good with a healing monk you can get into a very small niche that is often very high in demand.
My 0.02 cents worth....
DAoC - Mentalist TL + Tons of other Toons
Healing monks are hard to find, and good ones are even harder to find.
If you are looking to be up in the front lines hacking and slashing don't pick a monk. Combat isn't a monks strongpoint. They have some good smiting skills, but aren't nearly as hardy as a warrior. And in PvP monks are often the first targeted players as they can strip debuffs, heal, protect, and res innately.
I've done some GvG stuff and it usually happens I'm one of the first to get targetted. It is definately an advanced build, and takes some learning to get the hang of it. But I find it really rewarding to be the linchpin of a good GvG battle.
I hope its a good analogy.. hehe.. take it easy
I had a monk/ranger to level 20 (which I solely played when duoing with a friend) made it to level 20 and hated every minute of it (even though I had a friend with me for the ride and support). He is now DELETED. (The monk, not the friend)
It's a thankless, boring, repetitive task that I'd never want to do again. Go down the arcade and play "whack-a-mole" for 30 hours and you'll have almost as much fun.
That being said, when the new "additional character spots" go on sale I'm going to buy 2 more and complete my "professions set" with a Monk and an Elementalist (the 2 I don't have), just for completeness sake...I'm not relishing playing a monk through the game again (though I know I'll play it completely differently this time), but if I play it through Factions storyline at least it'll be fast.
A profession is as rewarding as you make it, and where your taste lies. If you aren't sure if you'd like to be a monk, you probably wouldn't like it. They are pretty pitiful at combat, and are often the first targets in PvP (from random arenas to AvA battles). But they are the linchpin that can keep PvP battles raging for long times, and can pull a player/party back form the brink of death.
It's all personal preference. I don't go around telling people that playing "x" character is incredibly boring. Let people form their own opinions of it. A simple "I personally couldn't stand it" is more than sufficient.
And I have yet to hear anything about them "selling" additional character slots. Their last official word on their website says that 6 is where they are staying for now. There's no real need for that, and the game wasn't designed to grind the storyline over and over.
And to the OP: I never regretted making a Monk. It all depends on whether you like to play a support class. Just make one, try it out for a bit, and if you don't like it, you can always delete it again
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Playing: Final Fantasy Online: ARR, Destiny
Most memorable games for me: UO, GW1, LoTRO
Well, FWIW, I ALWAYS thank the team I'm playing with for the job they do, and when a monk or other character does something above and beyond the call of duty, I'm effusive in my praise of their effort.
Furthermore, when you have seven characters who's sole job is to kill things and one who's sole job is to keep the other seven alive - ESPECIALLY when most teams have at least two monks - then wouldn't you agree that something like that would merit something more than being bitched out by the one idiot who did get himself killed?
At the bottom of it all though lies this simple fact: this is a game. Not a job. Not life and death. It's a game and as such should be an all-around pleasurable experience for the greatest number of people playing it. Expressing appreciation is one simple way I try to make sure that happens for others. I wish others felt the same way. Since they don't, I don't play my monk much anymore.
Your mileage may vary.
Monk is a very special type of job that is often thankless other than the generic "gg" or "gj" that the whole team gets at the end of a mission/quest. I find that I get less loot, less kills, and often the first target in PvP. Overall, I wouldn't trade if for anything. I find it a fun challenge.
Well, FWIW, I ALWAYS thank the team I'm playing with for the job they do, and when a monk or other character does something above and beyond the call of duty, I'm effusive in my praise of their effort.
Ah, but that's something different from EXPECTING to get thanked specifically for healing every single time, which your previous post ('NOT ONLY did they...') implies.
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Playing: Final Fantasy Online: ARR, Destiny
Most memorable games for me: UO, GW1, LoTRO
Your inference is not my implication. You play as you will, I'll play as I will.
I would like to add to this post that for making money there is almost nothing better than a 55 monk using sb and farming uw. Grab a friend, get him/her to make an ss necro and you are set for life! I recently created my ss necro and my friend created his 55 monk, we've been farming griffons outside Destiny's gorge until I am able to grind to level 20, ascend and do my last 15 atbp quest. Even simply farming griffons is rolling in the cash for both of us, between chests and rare drops off griffons and carrion devourers we are easily able to fund our needs and soon the needs of our guildies as well. We recently both purchased green items for our characters and we are well on our way to having handfulls of ecto to sell. DO NOT take this as a brag post, this is simply a suggestion, a classic success story and some inspiration for those of you who have no clue how to make money. Superior monk runes are much much cheaper than they used to be and starting a 55 monk has never been easier, get a friend, maybe a guild and get ready to afford anything you want. 55 monk builds can be found all over the internet, I suggest trying guildwars guru however make sure the build is up to date as arenanet has recently nerfed AoE skills for PvE, because of this the ss necro is the entire damage dealer for uw. If you want an up to date ss necro build just send me a personal message with your e-mail adress and I would be happy to send you mine.
Good luck and happy farming!
I agree: SS Necro has become the uber damage dealer in the game, supplanting elementalists in this role. For this reason and this reason alone, you can probably expect it to be nerfed. (The elementalist AoE nerf was supposed to work on behalf of all NPCs, friend and foe. Problem is, henchies will still stand in a Hydra's meteror shower if you don't move, whereas enemy NPCs will try to run from yours. And Firestorm, Maelstrom, and Chaos Storm - among others - have made most elementalists and AoE Mesmers a laiblity on the team if they bring those skills. Still, you can't believe how many elementalists will bring Firestorm to the Abaddon's Mouth mission and try to beat the bosses there with it. Having 2 E/Mos myself, this just pisses me off).
BTW, yesterday I capped SS for my Me/N and turned him into a fast-casting echo SS nuker. With Awaken the Blood, I'm getting 14 aps on curses (SS) for 25 seconds. Never made playing my Mesmer so much fun.
Still, to beat Glint in Dragon's Lair, I'm going to have to take my Mesmer back to Domination with Monk secondary (for rebirth). To beat Glint you have to interrupt her. Constantly. A good Ranger, Ritualist with Dissonance and an interrupting weapon buff, or a domination Mesmer fills the bill quite nicely. Damage alone isn't enough to beat her.
One more thing for anyone wanting a tip on playing Necro primaries or secondaries in the later stages of Prophecies: Minion Master Necros are virtually worthless against the Mursaat and Jades. This is because minions are not infused and are killed quite easily by their spectral agony attacks. Combined with the fact that you can't pull a minion from a dead Jade Armor or Bow, and it means you're reduced to whatever pitiful attack skills you have left on your skill bar. MMs against Mursaat and Jades usually become a liability because they can't do enough damage without minions to pull their weight on a team. A Flesh Golem does a little more damage than an MMs fiends or horrors, but - again - suffers from a lack of defense against SA, and so, too, dies quite quickly.
So here's the skinny: MMs excel in Maguuma Jungle (Kryta) and in Crystal Desert where there are Minotaurs, Griffons, Devourers and certain types of Scarabs. SS (Spiteful Spirit) Necros excel wherever there are lots of Mursaat and Jades: Southern Shiverpeak missions, and Ring of Fire Island missions. (And, of course, vs. Titans).
[rant]
Not wanting to hijack the thread, but I think A-Net saw the supplanting of the Ele (by the Necro) a while ago and added lots of spike dmg to the Ele repertoire with the Factions campaign skills. For sustained AoE though, the Necro still outshines the Ele (in fact even the Ritualist outshines the Ele in dmg, with channelling, now).
Unfortunately the "favored class" syndrome is hitting with a vengeance and no one wants Ele's (or 'sins now) in groups, it's really quite annoying the prejudices you get in this sort of game...the thing is the syndrome spreads and everybody believes you can't get a mission(s) done without certain classes, which is generally totally untrue, but leads to massive frustration.
Nothing worse than a "group-nazi" that says "we need an x else we'll never get this mission done...drop that useless Assassin". It spoils the whole fun of the game!
[/rant]
I think part of this lies in the fact that elementalist AoEs, for example, aren't as powerful as they used to be, sinmply becaue enemy NPCs run from them every chance they get. Using Abaddon's Mouth as an example, again, I don't know how many times I've been on a team where we repeatedly had to tell a fire nuker to forget using Firestorm on the 2-boss set inside the second gate. It causes them to flee and if a warrior pursues, he ends up aggroing everything in that area.
The other problem - of course - lies in the fact that too many people who started the game as one profession now think they know how EVERY profession and skill set works, and instead of learning how to play new characters through the game, choose to take runners to the higher-level content, where they often simply hurt the team through ignorance. (I've ranted about running and its effects on the game before and I think this is one area where it really hurts PuGs.)
While many elementalists are not asked to join teams because their jobs can better be done by other professions now, many others - like Assassins - are rejected because people simply don't know how to play the character, treating it like a tank.
But I understand your point: I'm often passed over for teams when playing my ranger because rangers are not perceived as "uber damage dealers". There was a time when an elementalist was just as valuable to a team on a mission like Abbadon's Mouth as an SS Necro is now. Unfortunately, the AoE nerf combined with people who don't know how to play under the new rules makes them almost useless unless you happen to know the person you're inviting to the team. It's a damn shame, really.
Personally, I'd like to see a return to the day when a balanced 8-person team was the best path to success. Don't know if we'll ever see it, though.
And to bring the point back on topic, there seem to be fewer monks than ever in mission areas these days. Forget finding 2 player monks, you're often forced to play 2 henchie monks or a player and henchie monk combo. So if anyone wants to play a monk, you'll get invites to teams rather easily.
I think it ruins a part of the game to bu run everywhere.... I didn't get to Droknar Forge until I actually earned it. I made it the whole way using just collectors and other armor, and made it just fine. A level 10 with 60 armor still dies in a couple shots from level 20s in the area.
If you are gonna cheat and bypass the whole game, why even play? There is a lot of content that gets missed.... for example in Cantha there are missions that are different for every major profession. There are also a couple of those scattered around Ascalon. Which you never see if you don't go explore the areas.
As to your 2nd paragraph, you are right, there is a shortage of monks in the game. I've had people offer me multiple plat level incentives to join their group. I often find that a lot of the monks out there aren't that good. In a 2 monk group, I've often found that I end up having to do a lot of the healing and res'ing work. In some cases I prefer the henchie monk partner because I always know they will at least try to do their job. I've even seen monks that try to do the warrior job and be the first in. Then cry and complain when I didn't heal them. I've personally gotten to the point that if someone is gonna act like an idiot in a group I'll just let them die. Often they become more of a burden alive then when dead. Sure they'll get credit if the mission completes, but at least they had to sit there for the whole time, and not get impatient and leave (of which most do). It usually takes a lot for me to consider someone an idiot and do that, but I have done it before. Actually the first time I did it was at the request of several of the group members because the one char was running around aggroing everything in sight.
I find that before I've even loaded into a zone I'll have invites. They must be showing up long before the screen even shows the city. Which by the way, I never accept random invites. People assume that I'm there to do a mission/quest, but I may not be. All it takes is a polite request. I've gone on missions I've already done because of a nice polite request. People assuming I want to help them makes me not want to.
I currently have a monk, and I enjoy it a LOT, whether I get thanked or not, taking a backseat from offense was a nice change of view. However, it turned out that healing was harder than attacking, but I managed. Just go with it, and you learn as you go along, if you're one of the smart players who learns to adapt.
Monk was my second charecter in Guild Wars and still one of my favorites a year later. It's a versatile charecter to play, you can take them most anywhere and know you are going to be popular and depending on secondary can be a real pain in the ass.
Mostly I play a healer monk, both in in PvE and GvG/PvP and it was really good to work out teh different builds required for the different jobs. At teh minute I play a Prot Boon monk more often as my guild is big on going out hunting the new greens and that has brought lots of new challenges, not least that a monk can't run!
Yes the job is sometimes thankless, yes you will die becasue some people will never work out that they can't tank, mostly eles for some reason, but ther are plenty of upside, not least soloing UW as a 55 monk.
I'd say give it a go, what's the worst that can happen?