Feedback:User/Aquadrizzt/Skill rebalance/Monk2

Skill rebalance/Monk2
User	Aquadrizzt
Categories	Skill feedback → Monk  → Other

This suggestion is based on the format of the Dervish overhaul update, and will include changes to Monks and other support abilities.

Goals

1. Make primary Monks more versatile, rather than just perpetual supports.
2. Revise Smiting Prayers to allow Smiting Monks to be a viable playstyle (rather than a gimmick).
3. Tweak balance on Healing Prayers and Protection Prayers skills to allow for greater build diversity.
4. Revise skills to allow for hybrid Monks to be flexible but not over-powered.

Overview

This section is under construction.

The Role of Monk

Monks were the original support profession in Guild Wars, pumping out large amounts of healing, mitigating damage, and removing negative effects on themselves and their allies. Unfortunately, as new professions and skills were released, Monks eventually became outclassed at most of their functions, especially by Spirit and Restoration Ritualists. Ritualists provided more reliable sources of damage mitigation and healing than Monks, and thus eventually began to replace Monks in PvE and even sometimes in PvP.

The Monk has now been overhauled to be a versatile and powerful supportive spellcaster. While Monks will lack the large AoE abilities of Ritualists, they will make up for it in powerful single target heals and damage mitigation. They will also have a variety of powerful condition and hex removal options, which will allow them to shine in a way that Ritualists cannot.

Divine Favor

• Divine Favor: changed functionality to "For each rank of Divine Favor, allies are healed for 2 and foes take 2 holy damage whenever you cast spells on them."

One of the most notable issues with Divine Favor was that its effects only applied to Monk spells that had been cast on allies. This limited primary Monks' viability, as every skill that wasn't a Monk spell targeting an ally gained absolutely no benefit from Monk's primary attribute. While primary Monks maintain their place within PvP as healers, they have been usurped in PvE by Necromancer/Ritualists, Elementalist/Monks, and Elementalist/Ritualists, builds that have innate energy management that primary Monks lack. It is important to note that primary Monks often must look to their secondary profession for Energy management, and that is an integral part of their class balance.

Another issue with Divine Favor was that it had very limited synergy with Smiting monks, offering a small amount of healing to some of the Smiting Prayers enchantments, as well as the popular Smite Condition and Smite Hex. Obviously, as Smiter's Boon highlighted, those small amounts of healing can stack up quickly. Pumping out so much healing while also doing large amounts of area of effect holy damage caused Smiting Monks, as well as hybrid Monks, to be far too versatile and powerful, ultimately resulting in ineffective skills and the occasional nerf.

The changes made to Divine Favor are designed to combat some of these issues. Divine Favor now triggers on any spell cast on an ally (rather than just Monk spells), which allows other classes with extensive access to supportive spells to benefit from a Monk's primary attribute. The other major change is that Divine Favor now also deals small amounts of holy damage to enemies targeted by a Monk's offensive spells. This bolsters not only synergy with Smiting Prayers, but also allows other offensive caster playstyles to become available to Monks. To balance these changes, the amount of healing provided by Divine Favor has been reduced (from 3.2 per rank to 2).

Players will notice that Divine Favor still offers no innate energy management options for Monks, and that is intended. In order to remain true to their original class design, primary Monks must still find energy management through their skills and their secondary profession.

Providing Unparalleled Support

Restoring Health

• Karei's Healing Circle: changed to ward; increased energy cost to 15; increased recharge time to 15 seconds; changed functionality to: "You create Karei's Healing Circle at your current location for 5 seconds. Allies within the ward are healed for 10...42...50 each second."

Resurrection

As a support class, Monks are usually expected to bring reusable resurrection skills ("hard res") to help their party recover from difficult fights. However, outside of Unyielding Aura, which offers a substantial amount of bonus healing and an almost immediate (in PvE) resurrection skill, most parties choose to run Ritualist resurrection skills ( Death Pact Signet and Flesh of My Flesh) instead as they are typically cheaper and bring the resurrected ally back to life with more Health and Energy. Furthermore, other than Healing Prayers, there aren't many universally useful resurrection skills; part of this update includes the creation of viable resurrection skills for Protection and Smiting Monks as well.

• Vengeance: changed attribute to Smiting Prayers; decreased casting time to 2 seconds; decreased recharge time to 20 seconds; changed functionality to "Resurrects target party member (full Health, full energy). For 5...17...20 seconds, this ally deals 10...26...30% more damage and does not incur death penalty. This enchantment ends early if the target earns experience from killing an enemy. End effect: If this enchantment lasted its full duration or was removed, this ally dies."

• Vengeance (PvP): changed attribute to Smiting Prayers; decreased casting time to 2 seconds; decreased recharge time to 20 seconds; changed functionality to "Resurrects target party member (full Health, full energy). For 2...8...10 seconds, this ally deals 10...26...30% more damage and does not incur death penalty. This enchantment ends early if the target earns Balthazar Faction from killing an enemy. End effect: If this enchantment lasted its full duration or was removed, this ally dies."

Vengeance is the perfect option for a Smiting Prayers resurrection skill. Its functionality is combination of its current design and the Vengeance skill from Guild Wars 2. The reduced cast time is to emphasize its niche of being used while in combat, and the split is designed to keep it from being too reliable in PvP situations.

• Rebirth: increased energy cost to 25; decreased casting time to 4 seconds; changed type to enchantment spell; changed functionality to: "Target dead party member is teleported to your location, resurrected (25% Health, 0 Energy) and has their skills disabled for 5 seconds. For 1...4...5 seconds, damage dealt to target is reduced by 10...62...75%.

Rebirth is the meant to be the safe resurrection skill and is intended for use by Protection Monks. The teleporting effect was important to the design of the skill, and as such has been maintained; this effect is now also unique to Rebirth (it has been removed from Unyielding Aura and is otherwise only available from the PvE-only Sunspear Rebirth Signet). As a Protection Prayers skill, Rebirth now also grants the recently resurrected target substantial resistance to damage for a brief duration, which should help prevent them from immediately dying again, even in the middle of combat. The cost has been substantially increased to make up for the removal of the "lose all energy" effect.

Synergizing with Supports

While players understand that Monks are supposed to be the "dedicated support" of Guild Wars, their skill design often results in them being outshined at their core functions. A number of skills, including many in the Divine Favor attribute line, have been changed in order to make primary Monks the true masters of their domain with powerful support boosting abilities.

• Blessed Aura: changed functionality to: "While you maintain this enchantment, enchantments you cast on other allies last 10...26...30% longer."

• Divine Boon: increased energy cost to 10; increased recharge to 15 seconds; changed functionality to: "While you maintain this enchantment, your spells that target other allies have double the Divine Favor healing bonus. This enchantment ends early if you use a spell targeting an enemy."

• Holy Haste: increased recharge to 20 seconds; changed functionality to: "For 0...24...30 seconds, your spells that target other allies cast 50% faster. This enchantment ends early if you cast a spell on yourself or an enemy."

• Unyielding Aura: changed functionality to: "While you maintain this enchantment, your spells heal for +5...33...40% more. When this enchantment ends, resurrect a random other party member with full Health and Energy."

Blessed Aura allows primary Monks to make better use of their numerous beneficial enchantments while also providing some synergy with other professions that make use of allied enchantments. Holy Haste allows Monks to excel at a backline role within a party while also allowing primary Monks to utilize other professions' supportive spells more quickly and with less risk of interruption. Divine Boon has been modified to provide increased Divine Favor healing (to slightly above the pre-nerf amount) for all spells, rather than providing an arbitrary amount of Health for using from certain attribute lines. Unyielding Aura has been changed to boost healing from all spells, instead of just Monk spells, improving synergy with other professions and has also seen its healing bonus tuned down as well as the teleporting effect removed to further emphasize the teleporting resurrect as Rebirth's niche.

Hex and Condition Removal Options

• Withdraw Hexes: decreased energy cost to 10; increased recharge to 20 seconds; changed functionality to "Remove 0...2...2 hexes from all party members."

Withdraw Hexes has been made a party-wide hex removal skill that requires a sizable investment into Divine Favor to get any effect. This gives primary Monks exclusive access to this powerful anti-hex skill.

• Spotless Mind: added upkeep cost of -1; decreased recharge to 10 seconds; changed functionality to "While you maintain this enchantment, target other ally loses 1 hex every 10...5...4 seconds."
• Spotless Soul: added upkeep cost of -1; decreased recharge to 10 seconds; changed functionality to "While you maintain this enchantment, target other ally loses 1 condition every 5...3...3 seconds."

Enabling Offensive Playstyles

Players have long complained that Smiting Monks, outside a few niche builds, have never received the necessary love to become a viable Monk option. With changes to numerous Smiting Prayers skills, as well as some Divine Favor skills, Monks should finally be able to provide decent damage abilities if necessary. While they might see the damage numbers of other professions, damage-oriented Monks will still provide useful support and utility options through damaging enchantments, as well as hex and condition removal.

• Smiter's Boon: added upkeep cost of -1; increased energy cost to 10; increased recharge to 15 seconds; changed functionality to "While you maintain this enchantment, your spells that target enemies have double Divine Favor damage bonus. This enchantment ends early if you use a spell targeting an ally."

• Smiter's Boon (PvP): merged with PvE version; this skill now functions the same in PvE and PvP.

Smiter's Boon was the target of one of the more infamous nerfs in Guild Wars history, due to its ability to make Smiting Monks crank out high damage while keeping their team member's health bars topped of with skills such as Smite Condition and Smite Hex. This change to Smiter's Boon allows aggressive Monks to get an extra boost of holy damage, regardless of their exact build.

• Holy Strike: changed to spell; changed functionality to: "Touched target foe takes 10...46...55 holy damage. If you are enchanted, your target is set on fire for 1...3...3 seconds."

• Stonesoul Strike: changed to spell.

The first change to these skills was to make them spells to allow them to take advantage of the new Divine Favor bonuses. Holy Strike's functionality has also been changed to provide some differentiation between the skills.

• Spear of Light: reduced recharge time to 5 seconds; changed functionality to "Spell. Spear of Light flies towards target foe and deals 15...43...50 holy damage if it hits. This spell strikes all foes between you and your target."

Spear of Light now functions similarly to Lightning Javelin without the attack interruption. It provides Smiting Monks with a simple, reliable source of damage that also rewards good positioning.

• Kirin's Wrath: activation time reduced to 1 second; recharge reduced to 15 seconds; changed functionality to: "Target foe takes 20...68...80 holy damage. Allies adjacent to target foe lose 1 condition."

• Symbol of Wrath: changed to ward; reduced activation time to 1 second; reduced recharge time to 10 seconds; changed functionality to: "You create a Symbol of Wrath at your current location for 5 seconds. Foes within the ward take 5...29...35 holy damage each second."

Kirin's Wrath now provides a strong damage spike with some additional area condition removal. Symbol of Wrath retains much of its original functionality but has been improved in most areas in order to be an appealing option for damage-oriented Monks.

Energy Management

This section is under construction.

Improving Build Diversity

The skills described in this section have been changed in order to open up new synergies and encourage creative builds.

• Scribe's Insight: changed functionality to "For 10...30...35 seconds, your signets that target allies heal for 0...24...30 and your signets that target enemies deal 0...24...30 holy damage."

Scribe's Insight rarely saw play as it was an elite skill that had internal anti-synergy: you typically do not require energy management when you are running enough signets to make it a worthwhile choice. The new functionality of Scribe's Insight allows players to extend the benefits of Divine Favor to their signets. This will hopefully enable signet-based Monk builds to exist and provide an interesting Monk playstyle.