User:Ryuu Desu/Musings/Good monks are good

Fail; this page has been closed 1 time before saving, and had to be completely rewritten.
This article should probably be re-written in certain areas to reflect changes in meta, and changes in my understanding of the monk profession. (HA, btw.)

Monk is my favorite profession, hands down. Lately, I've found myself getting mixed compliments and insults in RA relating to my healing. Insults mostly because I pack Resurrection Signet, and compliments mostly because... Well, I'm not sure. "Good monking". What exactly is monking? How do you get good at it? Why should you get good at it? And for that matter, what exactly -is- being a good monk? What does it mean? I find myself asking these questions day in and out now; and without proper answer. Perhaps I'll find it in rant form.


Monking:

In technical terms, monking is healing allies, or preventing damage from ever occurring on them, in order for them to stay alive and defeat the opposing team. But wait, this term sounds somewhat familiar to other professions, no? What makes the term "monking" so special? Why are monks superior?
Divine Favor
The attribute that causes every monk spell cast to have an additional healing bonus. This increases a monks overall efficiency, and also allows them to heal for more heath in a single spell. In pvp, every second counts, so this additional 30 health per spell is nothing to be scoffed at. In pvp, 30 heath in one moment could mean the difference between your life, or your most certain death.

That being said, monks also have the option of any sub profession that they choose, whereas some gimmick/builds simply do not have this option open to them. With these sub professions open, monks can focus on one for defensive purposes, to allow them to survive easier, and thus keep their team alive easier, or one related to energy management, allowing them to cast more spells more frequently, and thus keeping their team alive easier; another notable sub profession which is useful in some situations can provide skills which act as support AoE heals (Notice a trend here? Second professions based on randomness aren't used, because your goal as a monk is to keep stuff from going boom).

To be frank, monks have a very limited energy pool provided their goal, and even the most efficient of monks still require the most obvious of passive energy management forms eventually. The energy management I speak of is downtime. When the team has reached a point to where the opposing team is either drained of energy, and cannot attempt a spike, or when allies have pressured the opposing team to the point where pressure on your team is reduced significantly. In other words main profession monks have virtually no energy management tactics beyond relying upon you eventually to reduce incoming pressure.

With all this in mind, monking has become increasingly difficult due to many obvious reasons. We have enough problems worrying about those fricking red bars without noobs like you making us panic and fail. Do you think I enjoy looking bad as a healer? Do you expect me to bring skills to accompany -your- needs? Do you expect me to use up my energy just because you can't use a real build? Bottom line, no matter how good a monk is, if they're in a team with poor players, thing's won't go well. A good monk can drastically improve a team to the point where victory is possible, but you have to be able to at least try and spike the pinged target. If you can't even follow simple orders and common PvP logic, please stay out of my team; if you insist upon coming, then ffs, do -not- call -me- a noob after we lose. If you can't do your job, mine is pointless. If you can't kill, I can't heal you forever, my energy will be depleted. Although I can go entire matches without switching to my high energy set, I can still indeed run out. If you can't kill, and I keep healing, we can't win. Wins are based off kills, kills are only accomplished with living damage players. See the link here? I need you just as much as you need me. I need you to be good at what you do just as much as you need me to be able to keep your stupid fricking red bar from reaching that pitiful 0%. So, when you over extend and I come running over to save you, only to find that you're dead because either A, your build was terrible when over extended, or B, you fail, I'm left vulnerable, and you're dead. The game has become 3v4, and they've all pinged me for a spike. Even if I live, you're still dead because our allies are too moronic to learn to play PvP. Figures. GG.


Practice makes Perfect:

Monking is an art that can take months or years to master depending on your knowledge of Guild Wars. To keep this section short and sweet, I'm just going to note key points.

1.If you haven't done it, stop telling me that I can't do it.
So, we lost the match, and you're all yelling at me for one reason or another. I ask you, have you ever monked, good sir? If your response is "no", than congratulations, you've become one of my most hated types of people. An ignorant moronic rageist. You cannot even begin to comprehend the challenge of monking, and how fricking random it is. No matter what you do in PvP, you can -never- -ever- predict your enemies bar. So, before you start flaming me for pinging all the skills our enemies use at the opening of a battle (Fire attunement means a fire ele, recovery means a resto rit, ether prism means a healing ele), back the f*** up, and think for a second. Is having a general idea of what our enemies are running going to give us an advantage? No s**t.

2.Pve first, learn to heal stuff, then get used to the pressure in pvp.
This is self explanatory, if you can't even handle the concept of healing in PvE, you're not ready for pvp.

3.If at first you don't succeed, look where you went wrong, and THEN try again.
See the part in the middle there? This phrase often doesn't use it, so take careful note of it. If you don't know where you went wrong, you can't correct it. 'Nuff said.


Why should I monk when you can just do it for me?

Excellent question, when I first played Guild Wars I asked this question too. This can be broken down into both PvE and PvP concepts.

PvE:
Ever find yourself looking forever for a group to complete a mission? Ever stuck in a campaign for months because your primary profession is exceedingly common? Look no further than monk. We're among the most desired professions in Guild Wars, and it really shows. If you think you can put up with the pressure and occasional hate, you should really consider joining us sometime ^^

PvP:
Ever find yourself never getting a monk when you need one? Or maybe you can never get one to heal your pvp team? Find yourself getting terrible noob monks who simply can't heal as they should be able to? (Perhaps you should see the reasons as to why above before you make this judgement, but it does indeed still apply). Maybe you should get good at monking, and do it yourself. Less downtime, less QQ, less rage. More fun. More GG.


If the above wasn't enough... What -is- a "good monk"?

I decided to ask my alliance and friendlist the above question to see how answers might vary; here is some of the replies I received.

"A monk that can keep a cool head while being pressured, that can keep the team alive, but that doesn't mean 100% health all the time. You know, like pushing the redbar?Plus, I think if the group plans on sucking, they should bring BiP. 'Nuff said."

Notice the mention of group ability and the monk's energy management? I mentioned this above.

"You're a good monk. You pay attention to who needs healing, and yet you don't die yourself either. You also know what you're doing"

As I said, a monk needs to keep absolutely everyone alive; they need methods of distributing healing equally across the team as it's needed.

Unfortunately, it seems there is no consistent definition of a "good" monk, but there are a variety of qualities that one can posses that will improve there abilities. And then there is a variety of situations which can make even the best of monks seem horrible.
In conclusion, there is no "prefect" monk, and it takes a lot to be a good monk. I hope that after reading this, you'll take all these factors into consideration before you flame me for not keeping you alive in PvP. And I hope you know that when you call me a "good" monk, it is much appreciated in this ever growing hostile world of PvP. A little encouragement can go a long way. ~ Ryuu'[ Talk|Contributions ] 05:10, 16 June 2009 (UTC)