The 55-monk as the perfect example of Guild Wars design choices

[Egal]

The big mistake you make here, is that players never used 55 or 600 for missions. With 55 you can't simply do your own thing because you die in 99.9% of areas. 55 is a pure farm build. It can not be used to normally play the game. So this build actually didn't create scrubs. The people who finished the game, always did so the regular oldfashioned way.

I'm sure I'm not the only person who found themselves in a mission group with a 55 monk. It happened to me on a few occasions, as far into GW as Pogahn Passage. Whether the build worked to normally play the game or not didn't always stop some players insisting it did, and wasting everybody's time with arguments and, inevitably, failure. So, the mistake is yours; get under the table.

I don't have the experience with other games to make a useful comparison. I've never rolled a monk so I've never given this build a go. I also never had enough interest in the game's economy to care about the effects of farming. For me, the 55 monk was the first really impressive example of player ingenuity. As such, I think I'll always think of it rather fondly. My perspective differs from the OP's, which is one I'd never considered. Interesting.

[harniq]

It would be trivial to add a minimum damage to PS that would destroy the 55 and yet not make a difference in PvP (where people don't tend to use 55's other than trolling). Consider that the vast majority of PvP has 400+ life (usually closer to 600) adding a minimum damage of 30 would be more than enough to destroy 55's and yet would have no effect in PvP.

If you ever pvp'd you'd know that death penalty exists, which can seriously dent your hp and which is actually why prot spirit is so important. Also in proph (high-tide for 55) there were no survivor insignia nor vitae runes, while +3 runes were common, which meant most characters actually had less than 480hp. With a bit of death penalty, reaching 200 hp was pretty easy for many builds. With no split skills at the time, it was impossible to nerf prot spirit without destroying pvp. After factions, 55 lost much of it's value.

[raspberry jam]

If you ever pvp'd you'd know that death penalty exists, which can seriously dent your hp and which is actually why prot spirit is so important. Also in proph (high-tide for 55) there were no survivor insignia nor vitae runes, while +3 runes were common, which meant most characters actually had less than 480hp. With a bit of death penalty, reaching 200 hp was pretty easy for many builds. With no split skills at the time, it was impossible to nerf prot spirit without destroying pvp. After factions, 55 lost much of it's value.

Alaris did play PvP.

Still, you are right about that the right way would not be nerfing Protective Spirit. Instead, make runes of the same attribute not stack their health penalty (monks only have 4 attributes, so the 5th rune would not count) and remove the -50 from the cesta, or rather, make the -50 apply only if you do not wear two or more superior runes. This would place the health of the monk at 180 instead of 55, severely slowing down farming.

[shawn]

The problem is Alaris mentioned a min damage of 30. Even a minimum of 10 or 15 per hit damage would have killed a 55, while having no discernible effect on pvp.

If you're at 60 dp in gvg, the few hit points saved by prot spirit sure wasn't going to suddenly make you win.

[raspberry jam]

The problem is Alaris mentioned a min damage of 30. Even a minimum of 10 or 15 per hit damage would have killed a 55, while having no discernible effect on pvp.

If you're at 60 dp in gvg, the few hit points saved by prot spirit sure wasn't going to suddenly make you win.

Actually it could, and have done so. There's been matches where several players on both sides have been dp'd to 60, making prot spirit handling be quite important.

The changes I suggested would have zero effect on PvP though, but would kill the 55 build for good. Not to mention that it would make more sense (why would you get a health penalty for a rune that doesn't give you a bonus?)

[Alaris]

The problem is Alaris mentioned a min damage of 30. Even a minimum of 10 or 15 per hit damage would have killed a 55, while having no discernible effect on pvp.

Thanks. That's just it, even a rather insignificant nerf PvP-wise would have killed the build in PvE. And even if it's such a big deal, you can split the skill for PvP and PvE. The reason ANet kept the build wasn't because they couldn't nerf it, it was because players enjoyed it (perhaps for the wrong reasons, a lot of them).

The point remains that it could easily have been fixed.

If you ever pvp'd you'd know that death penalty exists, which can seriously dent your hp and which is actually why prot spirit is so important.

Alaris did play PvP.

Thank you!

Got my rank 3 zaishen and about 66% (if I recall correctly) of max kurzick solely in PvP.

[shawn]

Both teams at 60? Lol. What was that, some rank 400ish scrubbery? Someone should have pushed a flag.

[raspberry jam]

Both teams at 60? Lol. What was that, some rank 400ish scrubbery? Someone should have pushed a flag.

Well yeah. Also, we lost. It was a quite horrible match, not that I've played a lot of GvG but that was probably the least fun match.

EDIT: both sides did take the stand but no one could hold it.

[Alaris]

Sounds like this rarely happens, so not a biggie PS-wise.

[MisterB]

The problem is Alaris mentioned a min damage of 30. Even a minimum of 10 or 15 per hit damage would have killed a 55, while having no discernible effect on pvp.

You need more than 15 as a minimum, because you don't need 55 health if you run dual shields. It doesn't matter if 15 minimum kills a 55, since you can stop being a 55. 20 might be enough to at least make it more difficult to use builds centered around PS. There's still E/Mo and Rt/Mo that have 330.



Anyway, ANet has proven they don't intend to eliminate solo builds or farming. Instead, they have repeatedly chosen to limit their effect and ability.