monks aren't meant to be offensive?

[nuble]

i don't understand why people keep saying that "monk heals! if you want to nuke, be an elementalist!". when i counter with "i want to heal and res", they'd go "then be E/Mo, that way you have more energy to nuke".

my main character is a monk primary, and most of the times i'm a smiter(i change my attributes/skills a lot. a LOT. sometimes i go farm just to get xp for refund points). just thought i'd share with you people why a primary monk smiter can be powerful.

first of all, you get monk runes. being a monk 2ndary, you can't get 16 in smiting prayers, and as people familiar with the smiting line know, most the smiting skills have pretty long recharge, so being able to do maximum damage with one cast is important. at 16, my banish does 58 damage that ignores armor. using it with symbol of wrath(34 per second), bane signet(58), followed by holy strike for another 90~, i can help the party take down a high def monster really, really quickly(especially those nasty things in the desert). my scourge healing deals 82 damage to the healer.

i won't use balthazar's aura til i get the glyph of energy elite.

secondly, i have divine favor. any ally target skill i use can act as a heal. these include balthazar's aura, strength of honor, smite hex, judge's insight, shield of judgment, and the other enchantment spells i rarely use. what i prefer to do with my build, is slap in some protection prayers spells, like aegis, guardian, reversal of fortune, or even mend condition even. this way i double as a protector/minor healer.

all my 3 weeks of playing, i've set my build as a pure healer only once. it wasn't so fun. protection prayers is more fun, imo.

and before anyone comment on the -75 health penalty saying that i'm much easier to kill in the party, i'm fully aware of it. for now i have +30 from a minor vigor, +19 from a staff head upgrade, and +20 from the other upgrade. i'm still looking for a good fortitude upgrade.

[~Kazama Fury~]

I think it is because it's hard enough to find a monk to be in your party. And the reason they want a monk is that they can stay alive through their healing. So if you made a smiting prayers spec monk, they would be rather disapointed and most of these players are really narrow minded.

As I finished the Chapter, I've respecced to smite and am having a lot of fun.

Before that, at first, I was specced for healing but as I continued through the game, I captured useful protection elites, so I decided to try out protection. Not to mention I was lucky to find a +14% enchantment duration staff as well. If you really don't like healing, I guess you could give protection another chance (though my protection spec offers some heals too). It'll be a favor to them and less hassle for you. Just try to ignore the obnoxious "heal me monk!" spams.

This is what I use for my protection spec:
Signet of Devotion, Reversal of fortune, Shielding hands, Protective Spirit, Aegis, Mend Ailments, Blessed Aura, Rebirth.

Max Divine and Protection attributes.

This build is a bit energy intensive, so I have signet of devotion to patten this issue. Not to mention you offer a type of heal, which is also free to your teammates. If you want to capture a skill, replace Mend Ailment with a SoC.

edit: Remember to take off Rebirth for PvP.

[Corrodias]

they say things like this because they want you to feel bad about (supposedly) not knowing as much about the game as they do. it's a superiority thing.

but the reason they think that all monks should be about healing is because most monks are, and they cannot comprehend anything but the most popular being viable. this is about fitting everyone into neat little boxes: "healing monk", "tanking warrior", "nuking elementalist", "traversal necro", and "crap".

[nuble]

i've personally tried the protection prayers build myself. i have to say i liked it. instead of a healer that pushes party members' health up when they get hurt, protection prayers focus mainly to prevent the health from going down in the first place. i'll do that again once i get a good elite or two.

i'm kinda disappointed in players who fill their bar with all offensive skills, and not a single self supporting healing skill. each profession has their own way of self healing, and i personally think it's foolish and unfair to just bring firepower and leave all the healing to the party monk. when/if they die, the monk gets the blame.

it's like football, you know. if the team wins, it's thanks to the goal scorers. if the team loses, it's the goalkeeper's fault.

[Mcdeath]

Hmmm.

Some people just want a healer dog. *shrug* Not many, but some.

[nuble]

i've just been reading a lot of build threads or threads about monks on these boards, and a lot of people seem to think that monks are only good to heal. that smiting prayers are useless. that being a monk primary is useless unless you want to be an uber healer. that other classes are far more superior when it comes to offensive.

and people keep telling me how useless i am because i don't heal.

[~Kazama Fury~]

That's the way of the pugs. It will never change.
Just ignore them, and go for protection if you are in a group. I can fully agree with you that smiting prayers IS fun, however the bottom line is the group does need support against damage, while they IMO should focus on the dps anyways. I agree with you, players should have a way to self-heal/protect themselves as well, but you and I well know that many don't think like that. Unless they themselves make a monk.

So far, people really didn't mind having me on their team. I usually tell them, I am a protection monk, so you still need a healer. And they are forced to get another monk, or just the henchie. Because of that, we have a lot steadier group, instead of other teams who expect just 1 monk to take care of the whole team. Elementalists love having a protection monk on their team as well for Ether Renewal. I help them, they help the team with a more constant flow of dps and the monk healer's energy bar doesnt get hammered.

[Mcdeath]

Hmmm.

I'd have to agree that 1 x Prot + 1 x Heal is much better than 2 x Heal. One problem with having two healers is when both healers try and heal the same target. You waste energy and, more importantly, time that way. So two healers tend to step all over each other. Unless you carefully defined who is healing whom. But then someone might get swamped and then everything goes downhill from there.

*shrug* it's all how you play it I guess.

[~Kazama Fury~]

I'd definitely prefer Protection and Heal instead of 2 Heals as well.

Mainly because they have seperate and distinct roles. As stated above, the healer heals any damage that by passes the protection. The protection monk can also be useful with signet of devotion on while he recharges his energy as well. And I really emphasize on Rebirth for PvE. Rebirth saved us many times when we run tough instances such as Fissure of Woe.

Above all, who doesn't love having Aegis and Protective Spirit? I simply love those spells.

[nuble]

me and a friend of mine just did elona reach(4 henchies). i was a protection prayers build, and the monsters couldn't kill us. but at the 2nd part with the time limit, we took more than 20 minutes just to get the first shard. we couldn't dish damage fast enough, and the forgottens had healers.

i switched to a full smiting build, and we got the first shard within only 5 minutes.

[chin]

well.. im an e/mo11 and i love it

as an ele, i have the bloody scent that monsters really want.. so i get swarmed by 5 stone summit things and i would have gotten raped if it wasnt for monk spells :)

for me, im gonna be a smiting/healing monk when im lvl 20, im gonna go smiting/healing all the way :D

id rather have a mixed char than a pure one.. i wouldnt go all smiting, cause if theres no other monk in your party and mobs aggro you, ur pretty much doomed if you dont have heals

but im getting tired of healing my whole party.. theres always some idiot whos played the mission 50 times and goes ahead and trys to aggro like 10 monsters.. then i have to run after him, while my whole party is sitting with the necro with well of blood, and heal breeze him..

it gets soooooo annoying when theyre like wth u guys doing!! hurry up, im getting owned here after we recover from our whole party being hexed or something

well yeah, thats my 2gold and if you didnt read my whole post, i agree that monks shouldnt be all healers, but they shouldnt be all smiters either :)

[nuble]

oh no, i'm not full smiting. i heal, but only myself. i try to be as self sufficient as i can be, as to not strain the healer too much. with 16 in smiting prayers, i have barely enough to get my healing breeze(the only healing spell i carry with me, apart from a res spell) to 7 regen pips. this lets me tank 7 minotaurs while killing them with symbol of wrath and zealot's fire.

i think everyone should try their best at self supporting and minimizing damage received. rangers should use healing spring and any of those dodging skills, warriors should use proper stances and shouts, elementalists should know to make use of their wards or slow-down spells in the water magic line, necromancers can leech off of dead bodies, instead of going full commando with 8 attacking skills and depending solely on the healer to keep you alive.

and smiting prayers don't suck.

[Corrodias]

indeed, professions don't need to fit into the neat little shoeboxes.

i was a healing + protection monk for a while, until i discovered that, during pvp, i was the primary target and without another monk around, i had to fend for myself. i switched to /E for the protection spells of earth and water, but i will always have a place in my heart for those days i was actually able to use Life Bond on someone. :(