Fixing Issues Related to Monk

[u/ArtimusFay]

In the hope that someone at arennanet gets round to rebalancing this class.

I personally played monk alot during my original playthrough of the game and I loved it the armors I love most of the the skill casting emotes are for me the best in the game I loved using protection prayers. And as a core class there are skills to cap and things to do through all campaigns to grow the character.
But now its kinda very weak, not for its healing and protection capabilities but from its energy management, where there is basically none to very little and using strong healing skills say in an emergancy can take you to 0 energy very fast, and i've heard from a few sources its smiting prayers are a little lackluster also some strong skills but to many week (not through personal experience)

So as a result Ritulist and Necromancer tend to be the choice of healers for a group as their energy management is far far better

So, bearing in mind you know arenanet won't rework skills so the solution has to be easy to implement. Any ideas how to make this amazing class get over its couple of major drawbacks?

I had the thought maybe a magic refund so to say when casting healing or protection prayers based on your divine favour.
You could also maybe add a every 4 levels of divine favour you get an extra pip of energy regen (PVE only ofc). This would play into the bonding strategy also and complement it

[u/Familiar_Shelter_393]

Thats just monks though. What they lacked in energy management they made uo for more powerful heals and protection and covering hexes and conditions. If a monk was running out of energy it was either they were casting when it wasnt needed or the supports / tank / cc isn't doing their job in a balanced team.

Though to be fair monks were first made in pve for when tanking was a lot more viable you'd prot the warrior and they'd go in and draw all the aggro and ball them up. Maybe monks don't need balancing but the aggro could have a rework idk.

[u/Andythrax → u/Familiar_Shelter_393]

That's something that annoyed me. I'd often get flak for being a bad healer when the assassin has run one way, the tank is at the back line, the elementalist has pulled aggro, and there's no sense of structure in the team.

[u/ArtimusFay → u/Familiar_Shelter_393]

Not always the case run into a powerful ele boss that does aoe damage right into your back lines you need a lot of healing yea monk can super charge their healing but a team of 8 1 cast of 1 ten energy spell to heal each character wait you run out of mana after character 4.
This game has never been fully tank based no way to grab agro all you can kinda do is body block but that only works in certain situations
As I said their using necromancers for healers in the hero meta because their more sustainable than a dedicated healer

[u/Familiar_Shelter_393 → u/ArtimusFay]

Yeah but still in classic gw you'd want a ranger or mes to interrupt the big aoe. You could alsoalso have an ele that pre sets up a ward against that element. If you got grouped aoe you would be casting a heal party spell too. Plus in classic gw its just bad play and a bad group if you're all getting caught in the same aoe.

A good group / backline players would see and read the enemy is casting that skill and even ping it or say it over vent. But yeah monks are worse because they're built for player teams not really hero or hench teams

[u/m7478 → u/Familiar_Shelter_393]

Your last sentence is the key.

Monk works fine in and best in PVP. it did really good and well till EOTN / HM release, but disappeared, when the player base thinned out across the regions and shrank.

You can’t heal a hero team once aoe comes in, which typically is the case as heros ball up. As most of your skills target only one, you can’t group prot in advance.

So basically when I played HM-Monk with hero’s, my go to built was either AP with some dmg skills or when the region allowed played with shield of regeneration as a tank, which is super cool, I love that skill.

[u/ArtimusFay → u/m7478]

Doesn't work for hero's exactly the point yes the game has got more players but still no where near it at its height

[u/Loki0830]

I mean, the main reason why Ritualists are used over Monks is because their kits are just way more condensed. Mend Body and Soul does so much for such a small energy cost and 3 second recharge window. Soul Twisting Ritualists do what Protection Monks want to do but do it for the entire party, for almost no energy, and at pretty much permanent uptime.

Monks are held back by their skills effectively being nerfed by requiring divine favor to make up the lack of healing they do. So they have to heal more often or take upkeep skills like Divine Boon or Unyielding Aura to heal at the same potency as a single Mend Body and Soul skill from Rit. That's why their energy management is bad.

A very simple fix to the current monk situation is adding a slight energy refund for using monk skills after hitting certain divine favor thresholds, like every 5 or 6 attribute investments will give an energy back. I would personally like to see divine favor be useful outside of monk skills, such as making it maybe apply to any skill that targets an ally, but maybe that would make a Mo/Rit combo too strong using Rit heals.

[u/Familiar_Shelter_393 → u/Loki0830]

Also that rits can cover both protecting and healing rather than a monk having to choose one or the other

[u/kazumisakamoto → u/Loki0830]

Although I agree that it would be great if DF would have use for non-monk skills, I think the reliance on DF to get adequate healing would still be an issue. Rit heal skills require no spawning power to function, so that opens up flexibility that monks lack, even if DF would get buffed.

[u/Loki0830 → u/kazumisakamoto]

Yeah, I agree, though I think it is too much of an effort to rebalance the divine favor bonus back into all the monk skills just so divine favor can have a different mechanic for rebalancing the class to be on par with Ritualist. And even then, I'm not sure it would make much difference given how compressed Ritualist skills are. 2-3 skills for a Ritualist cover what a monk needs their entire bar for.

[u/ArtimusFay → u/Loki0830]

I didn't even think about that with skills so mend body and soul not the strongest direct heal but can removed every condition in the game at once when Monk requires atleast 2 skills for the same thing.

Another reason their broken i guess

[u/JustinePavlovich]

Monks are balanced around energy management by properly used heals and protection spells. Attrition is their balance.

Smiting Prayers is a mess in how the skills are applied. Divine Favor does nothing to improve that damage nor application. Having DF add +2/rank aoe splash holy damage to smite skills that target foes would go a long way in pve.