ArenaNet talk:Skill feedback/Monk/The Problem with Healing Prayers

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GW is far, far, far too prot-based. RC, for one, ought to be looked at; Guardian is another. (In fact, I favor reducing all block chances to 25% maximum, but not until overpowered high-damage shit (not always ranged shit) is brought down to a reasonable level. -- Armond Warblade 22:49, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

(Since GWEN skills came out and WoH/HB/HC were buffed you almost never see dedicated prot monks anywhere, neither in PvE (zero!) nor in 4v4 (very seldom, I'm one of the last ZB protters left in RA/TA). I agree with you prot has been very dominant before. But today it's just a limited niche build in big PvP teams - although many prot skills are used on hyrid monks. If you want to eliminate blockfestivals then take a look into havily abused warrior's and ranger's 75% blocking stances - enchantement removal is really not a problem and guardian is a 4v4 skill only.)

But to adress the problem: removing conditions is not a healers' task. Either the players should carry individual condition removal themselves (like in RA), or rely on a RC monk (HA/GvG) or maybe use Draw Conditions and Mending Touch (maybe even with Frigid Armor) as a last resort. Make heavy use of Patient Spirit, Vigorous Spirit and Dwayna's Kiss (that's current meta for single monks anyway). And why not put in Spotless Soul? Or use Smite Condition without putting skill points in the attrib ute line, and there's still Purge Signet which can be quite useful in many circumstances. --Xer 21:28, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Guardian is a 4v4 skill only? You never see dedicated prot monks in PvE or GvG? Wow, who have you been playing with? Guardian is the best anti-melee skill in the game; every GvG and HA prot monk anywhere carries a copy of it, unless they're running Healer's Boon. In PvE, bad players don't bring prot monks because they can't comprehend the idea of preventing damage instead of healing over it; the same generally applies to RA or TA, except there's a minor comprehension of the fact there due to bonders.

The problem is not that removing conditions isn't a healer's task (it really is); it's that preventing all sorts of damage turns the game into a slugfest of inactivity and makes the warrior's job hell. What's the point of me running up and wailing on a monk or mesmer when I can guarantee they'll have at least a 50% block chance? -- Armond Warblade 15:33, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

What I meant is that Guardian shows its undeniable usefulness only in 4v4 (and the monk would finally be dead in 4v4 if you nerf this skill). In 8v8 its still present but its importance is drastically reduced for some obvious reasons.

The Protection Prayers line is of limited use because it consists almost exclusively of enchantment buffs. Enchantments get removed - in all arenas -, period. This is the reason why monks in organized PvP nowadays must rely on secondary healers and that's why single monks (except very few imba players) in unorganized play are useless and even harming the team due to eating up a team slot without helping much.

Players found the answers to these problems themselves. And funnily its the answer to this request page also: the resto rit. Restoration Magic offers unremovable blocks and really great healing. Additionally the rit has much better energy management skills that compensate for missing Divine Favor. It's like a merge of healing and protection prayers as suggested by the IP (e.g. Mend Body and Soul!). A resto rit is like a monk on steroids. He may even survive if being alone, monks can only work in teams now.

So this is what I perceipt as the reason for blocking annoyances in 8v8, its mainly a problem of my ele putting Weapon of Warding on my monk (playing balanced). And take a look into the never dying most popular build for HA ever: Sway. What do you see? 3 Melee's use Escape as their elite. The freaking most annoying block skill ever that's mainly used for griefing in RA for some reason. 75% block and 33% speed bost 2/3rd of the time. And they all have Lightning Reflexes to cover the rest of the time. I don't see any prot monks in this builds but 2 unremovable Weapon of Warding rits. This is what I wanted to say with "If you want to eliminate blockfestivals then take a look into havily abused warrior's and ranger's 75% blocking stances."

A single prot monk can't do that much in 8v8. He maybe manages prot the infuser and to keep himself alive and maybe he can try to help out a bit on the rest of the team. But he's far from being putting blocking or damage reducing skills on 2/3rd of the team (unlike Sway where most of the team is permanently blocked for at least 50%). The source of great blocking annoyances is definitly not the protection monk. --Xer 14:37, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

So in your world, nobody runs SoD monks? You might want to obs a dR match, they're running sod/woh backline. SoD was, for the longest time, the single most broken block skill ever; not only would it completely mitigate spike damage, it would also completely mitigate melee autoattack damage (something SB and PS never did). The recharge was bumped up a bit, but it's still a ridiculous skill. Also, Aegis - party-wide, non-scaling block. Both of those skills are a hell of a lot more annoying than Escape on a shitway ranger or some monk running disciplined stance in gvg.

Prot monks are the biggest problem for blocking, hands down. Ward Melee is annoying, but is just one of the weaker standalone skills clumped into defense-ball builds that form a block web. WoWarding is the same; on its own, rather trash. When combined with a blockagon or aegis(es), it just increases the block to ridiculous levels.

Outside of that, effective blocking only exists in a few select war stances (and natty stride, which isn't too much of a problem anymore). Since warriors never use those stances anyway, I don't see a problem with nerfing skills like Disciplined Stance to hell.

Escape is a powerful skill, but the IMS is a much bigger problem than the block; who the hell targets a ranger if his backline isn't dead, seriously? If you're training the R/D's, you're doing it wrong. Kill the N/Rts and the R/D's will drop, 75% block chance regardless. Don't get me wrong, shitway is still an imbalanced build, but the block from Escape is honestly not one of the problems.

Your summary of resto rits is far from accurate. They have powerful heals, but ineffective block skills and absolute trash energy management. A few select skills are worth their slot on the bar; MBS is a slightly OP non-elite version of RC. PwK is a 10 energy partyheal, that also boosts armor temporarily. However, the better skills in the line all have huge drawbacks. SLW is the most energy efficient heal in the game, but it cancels out other weapon spells (like splinter). The other heals are all expensive, and the rit has no way to recover energy. Notice how everyone runs N/Rt in shitway builds? They do it for soul reaping, because that's about what it takes to fuel the 10 energy heal skills that rits have to spam to be effective. Some spirits are nice, but most have been nerfed to oblivion; Union, Shelter and Displacement are simply unplayable, while Recuperation is too expensive for the weak effect. Recovery and Life are passable, but are costly; both in energy and in the time spent constantly re-casting them. Oh, and rits lack hex removal, period. That's kind of crucial for a support character :/

In all, blocking is bad for the game. However, the need for block webs is what really needs to be addressed; melee characters being the king of damage. If base weapon damage was reduced, attack skills gave less bonus damage across the board, and spell damage was increased to a playable level while viable caster counters were added (to prevent gimmicky spike BS like searing flames), the game would improve tenfold. -Auron 15:15, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree with you in many points. SoD can be annoing as hell if playing melee. But it has many drawbacks, expecially after the last nerf, so tbh it has fallen out of favour for most teams. Maybe it is still used in elite teams, but mediocre and bad teams don't rely on SoD monks. Btw, even shitway simply removes SoD faster than the prot can recast it.

Second, DA paras is exactly what I mean. Unlike the nerfed now very costly Aegis that is easily countered by Rending Touch, OoA or Mirror of Disenchantment this kind of shit can't be removed and thus it's imba. But... it's not a chant from Protection Prayers.

Dependings rits and nrits I disagree, but this is not the place to discuss this matter. In 4v4 energy management can be done rather efficiently e.g. with Energetic Was Lee Sa or Essence Strike, not to mention the inherent conditional effects like Soothing Memories. In 8v8 energy management is indeed done abusing Soulreaping; but with some undeniable success. (Although this sucks hamsters after the last SR nerf and I wouldn't play it even for money).

And last but not least I agree with you that blocking is generally bad for the game. But you both recognize where the underlying problem is: melee damage is ridiculously overpowered. Shitway rangers kill any unprotected squishy target within 3 hits. It's a shame they can do this because they abuse buggy skills that badly need repair. And before someone fixes the insane physical damage problem some blocking is sometimes still needed or we may just toss a coin who is winning a game, because then we may as well remove any healers entirely from the game to free the slots for even more damage. --Xer 15:59, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

The problem is, bad teams are going to lose no matter what they bring into a balanced build. SoD is still pretty nuts (75% block = warrior ragequits GW), and you seem to be thinking that SoD and soul reaping are bad because they were nerfed. Paragons got nerfed all to hell, too, and they're still broken as fuck. Soul Reaping isn't any better at this point, and while SoD is sort of in line, good players know it's still insanely useful. -- Armond Warblade 17:29, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't think they're bad at all. IMHO they are just no longer too OP to be called IMBA or are in need of some further nerfs. We all know that a lot of useful and more or less balanced skills can be abused in gimmick builds (like SFway, Invoke Lightning spikers, ritu spike, blood spike ... ) and this will never change, no matter how much effort you put in balancing skills.

Well, you may call me a bad player if you think I am lacking insight about the game's workings, that's perfectly ok with me. But I don't understand what you mean with your first sentence. Bad teams are supposed to lose, even if playing balanced, aren't they? --Xer 18:58, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Healing prayers are powerful enough already and quite a few need to be nerfed. The reason why healing prayers take longer to cast is because they replinish health and not just decrease the amount of health or absorb damage. Further nerfing protection prayers and buffing healing prayers will make protection prayers obselete.William Wallace 20:23, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

I would just like healing prayers to cast much faster (without the aid of enchantments), because healing is reactionary, while protecting is precautionary. --People of Antioch 17:20, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

You obviously neither played healer nor prot monk in PvP if that's a serious proposal of yours. Why'd you think almost all of the important prot spells do have a 1/4 cast time? --Xer 09:27, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Yeah its the other way around Prot prevents redbars from going down. Healing makes red bars go up. Healing is precautionary Prot is reactionary. (Some exceptions may apply about cast time Infuse Health)--74.61.209.219 09:47, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Not exactly what I meant, though I should have been more clear. That (my earlier message) was the premise of Protection (preventive) and it seems like we have deviated from that. We "catch" spikes now, rather than really preparing for them. I still think healing is something that comes naturally to a monk, so (though it maybe radical) some skills should have a cost of 1 , faster cast, and a slightly longer recharge to cover for that (minus things like Glimmer of Light). That would require a rework of Divine Favor to prevent abuse by secondaries, but I think I'm just rambling now. :-) --People of Antioch 14:40, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

The problem with healing prayers is that there is simply no need to have 8 zillion red bars go up skills so that's all there is to it. In GvG, gift of health, patient spirit, infuse (which is 1/4th by the way), and word of healing are normally the choices for red bar goes up. Junk like orison is worthless. At the same time, you'd have a hard time doing without some part of that red bar goes up power (though I know lod/divine healing/etc was being pushed by dR and others for awhile.) I personally consider most uses of Hboon monks in PvP to be synonymous with N/rt healers (or rather replaced by n/rt healers.) A bit more depth was added to the healing line with the advent of eotn and the spotless line but all that amounted to was a broken team build in TA with HC. Regardless, the line isn't worthless and is quite necessary. People used to split between healing and prot for GoH during ZB teams anyway. I do think the healing line could use some other condition removal such as mend condition though but I'm not sure if RC should be moved this late in the game especially with the current popularity between RC/WoH monks in GvG. PlacidBlueAlien 17:51, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Exactly - healing prayers mostly consists of hundreds of skills which simply heal. It would make more sense if some at least of the condition removal was move to the healing prayers line since currently the only real skill you can use there is Spotless Soul, which as an enchantment can be removed, is slower (you have to wait for it to remove each condition, which is fine against pressure teams but not very helpful in a spike) and can't be used on yourself when monks are normally the most targeted characters. I also agree that Protection Prayers have moved away from proactive which doesn't seem right either. Many of them should probably have durations lengthened but recharges reduced or something, but that's not what the discussion is about. Like someone said above, if you want to remove conditions, take RC or a Restoration Magic rit, but that's exactly the problem - you have to take something *other* than the healing monk. Which seems silly because conditions are generally afflictions or injuries (Deep Wound for example) which should surely be healable (you cure Poison or Disease, heal wounds etc).

I don't really see that as an issue really - again, current monks normally dual spec healing/prot well enough for red bar power meaning both lines are at least somewhat viable and necessary. It's halfway pointless to run a pure heal line and a bit harder to run a pure prot line even with ZB (especially with the current dervsmite fetish.) I agree that the healing line could use additional condition removal, but I don't feel like transferring over elites (especially RC) is the right way to go just because "it makes sense." That's like saying assassins should be 1 hit solo killers in GW which just doesn't fit the type of gameplay we are seeing. Both lines right now I feel have a good enough balance between them with the WoH monk meta and some of the new Gwen skills. I somehow doubt that everyone feels the same way as I though. PlacidBlueAlien

Phew, well, that's a lot of discussion... anyway, I don't think Prot Prayers necessarily need to be nerfed and Healing Prayers buffed as per say, more just that there should be some tweaks and more for specific skills than the whole line (for example healing prayers can't really handle conditions yet nowadays the actually handle hexes better than prot prayers, when it should be the other way around. That and the fact that the current meta is massively condition-orientated are the reasons you almost never see any 8-man team without RC (apart from SWay ofc).

Rather, Prot Prayers should be changed to things like "For XX seconds, whenever you suffer from a condition it lasts only YY% as long" or whatever rather than heal a condition then heal some health.

The other thing I think should be done is some Prot Prayers should generally be made to last longer but have less effect. That would encourage actually using them to "protect" people before they rush into battle rather than them being reactionary as they are now. You'd have to be careful, of course, to avoid massive numbers of permenant buffs, et.c.

The thing is that thematically, from a flavour point of view, it makes more sense for healing prayers to remove conditions than it does for prot prayers (though possibly prot prayers should have more anti-hex skills), because think about it - if someone's lying there injured with a gaping great hole in them, how would protecting them make them better? They would have to be healed. You see what I mean?

From a more balance-orientated point of view, healing prayers monks can't really survive without taking condition removal from another line, which doesn't seem right (I know ArenaNet wants to encourage hybrids and that's great, but they shouldn't be the only viable builds). The only thing is that in 4v4 matches, where you typically only have one monk, they can't afford to go all prot either because they need something at least to heal people with. However, if you look at HA teams for example, those that take monks take a pure RC prot monk and an infuser (nowadays normally HB) who is mostly healing but will normally take Draw Conditions at least. So overall there's more prot going around than healing.

Personally, I believe that given the nature of both lines, it should be possible (though ofc for balance reasons probably not wise) to take simple two healing monks and still have condition removal even without them dual-speccing (I'm not saying I'd like to encourage this, but it should be just about possible). Thus I feel we should move hex control more to prot prayers and condition removal mostly to healing prayers. --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:82.25.180.160 (talk).

The suggesttion skills

I love them.

• Whole Body
• Holy Aura

There needs to be a few more skills introduced into the game to make it more varied. it's good right now, but there are several skill possibilities left out completely.

Things like:

• Thunderstorm - Air Aoe spell that is DoT
• Foot Crush - Warrior Hammer attack that causes cripple
• "Stay Your Hand!" - Paragon shout, next skill that requires health sacrifice does not require the caster to sacrifice health.
• Gift of Support - Monk healing spell that heals for X...X heath for each ally within earshot
• "Don't You Quit On Me!" - Paragon shout, if target ally is below 20% health they are healed for X...X health
• Foxes Teeth - Assassin enchantment, next time you critical, you inflict bleeding and cracked armor.
• Frozen Fingers - Elementalist spell, if target foe is under the effect of an enchantment, that foe suffers x...x cold damage and moves 25%-50% slower for X...X Seconds.
• Burning Anger - Warrior Stance/Skill, your next attack deals Burning for X...X seconds and you gain 1 Strike of Adrenaline
• Bloodlust - Warrior Skill, your next X...X attack skills also inflict bleeding
• Evil Laugh - Mesmer Spell, Target foe is hexed with evil laugh, the next time target foe takes damage, that foe is interrupted and suffers from 1...4 health degeneration.

Etc...--72.189.85.14 01:00, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

uhhhhhhhhhhhh — Skakid 03:05, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Needs another AoE water magic spell imo... anyway, shame there isn't really a sensible place to put these (I mean they're nice suggestions, but have like nothimg to do with healing prayers). :-) 86.26.63.60 15:18, 8 February 2009 (UTC)