PvP Lives Here

Straight Up: I am a pretty bad monk, but want to get better. Yeah I know, game is dead, there's no point, blah blah blah, but I have always loved to monk, but have felt kind of mediocre doing it. So I decided to actively try to get better, and the first step in doing that was to get some tips from you monk pros out there (you know who you are).

Here's a couple of videos of me playing. I tried to get matches of me losing, or playing very badly, so you guys could accurately see my weaknesses. I find that an outside view is best for this kind of thing as I tend to (unsurprisingly) be biased when judging my own skill.






I know a couple of things I need to work on right off the bat, just by re-watching the videos:
a) I click to weapon swap. For some reason, whenever I use f1-f4, there is a delay before the weapon set changes, so sometimes I find my myself stuck in the wrong set. Maybe binding "Cancel Action" to f1-f4 as well might help. Any thoughts?
b) Clicking party member's names is really cumbersome, and sometimes distracts me from the battlefield. However, I find that I cannot figure out a comfortable way to bind member 1-4, let alone 1-8, on my keyboard. No matter how I set it up, it always seems to be slower as I have to remember the correct key, and then reach for it.

Any other tips/hints/critiques would be greatly appreciated! Feel free to tear me apart, as I am asking for it by putting these online.

you got very very very slow reaction to things, you need to keep an eye on your target all times so you know whos getting attacked or being casted on so you can prepare. you should be tabbing through enemies constantly to see where they are and what they are doing if you can't see them because thats where the damage is coming from, you are basically there to negate that damage from ever happening and if it does then that is where the heals come in.

you basically let the necro down in the first vid to 25% hp in 3-4 seconds which is terribly slow and took you 5 seconds to react, you casted a signet of rejuvenation which should have been a woh 3/4 > 1second

1 major problem is you not facing your enemy, i dont know why you are looking in a blank space 90% of the time

you are camping on a 40/40 with 2 MESMERS first videu, this should ring a bell, you are basically red barring 99% of the time because you have 0 map awareness, you need to switch between your shield set and your 40/40 when ever you cast woh, its only 1 hotkey you need to press to change, you got 5 fingers on your left hand start using them.

you should have a staff set with 20% ench aswell, all i see is a 40/40 set a high set, a low set and 1 normal shield set, in turn that makes ur spotless mind/soul last 14 seconds instead of the break at 15.

At the beginning of each match tab through all the enemies, see what type of damage they have, if they have multiple dervishes then slap on an earth shield, if they have multiple warriors then slap on a blunt shield, if they have multiple assasins then slap on a piercing or slashing shield or if they use conjure use the corresponding shield, same with eles etc.
I like to have 1 of my bag inventorys opened with all my weapons so i can switch them efficiently.
You basically should have atleast a minimum of 8-12 shields.
you need a high set in dire situations
you will need a 40/40 set
you will need all of the shields from above + a spear with 10%hct or 15/-5e with a +5 armor mod
a 40/20/20%ench prot staff for guardians.

you are casting guardian on a 40/40 heal which is just screaming interrupt me, you also aren't casting it enough, through out the 2 minutes on the second video you casted it about 6 times when its should have been easily more, it will relieve alot more pressure then just spamming direct heals every second.

watching 3rd video, why you are you targetting yourself for no reason when a mesmer is spamming you, you are just pressuring yourself out and switching your weapons for no reason at all when you dont even know what your enemy is doing, keep your enemy targeted if you plan on healing yourself because your skills will still target you automatically even if an enemy is targeted.
its a reason why you ate that meteor when you could have easily avoided(twice) among other skills and edenial.

not even going to watch 4th video(2 monks)

there is absolutely no reason to bind your keyboard if you dont feel comfortable with it, you can learn in time(although not much left), im not sure if the monking role is for you because its a very self awareness role which you lack ALOT but if you insist you need to start playing some FPS games to get them reactions pumping, i suggest some old school counter strike 1.6

ill give you 2/10

Mostly my thought. Prots are very useful in preventing damage, but you need to watch the field all the time, even if you are under high pressure. Otherwise it would still be easy for a war/sin/derv or whatever to kill your teammate + that it saves you a lot of energy, especially using a 40/20/20 staff and that you, like said, can get those breakpoints on both spotless mind and spotless soul. It's even useful on Holy Veil to get that chance of 20% halve skill recharge.

You should indeed have an assortment of shields in your inventory with +10 vs damage types (and -20% for conditions is optional, but can be useful). Mostly important will be that you take the damage of the ele (if they have it), especially when it's an invoke, in my opinion at least. They can deal tons of damage, also i.e. an MB ele who can spam his skills almost all match long on you, not having a fire shield will let you burn through your energy.

Also try to get the hang off the weapon swapping (with f1-4). Like said with 2 mesmers and already with 1 Esurge mesmer you are pretty much done if you stay at your 40/40 set, since having to use your high set for it is a pain. Try to switch back after almost every cast, or at least watch the mesmer when he is casting. Having a -5 energy spear is very useful, it saves you energy on your 40/40 set and you will suffer from less damage with esurge in eburn. Also useful since you can still click your party members, while swapping your weapons.

A tip to watch the field is basically learning to play without UI, no chat window and stuff. Having a party window is optional, but not recommended, watch conditions this way, who's being attacked, hexes may be hard but still have their own animation, is the best thing you can do, not through the party window.

Also a thing is that it is not useful to run away from damage from i.e. an ele, especially not turning your face in the opposite direction is important. It basically turns into an 1 vs 1 fight, while all other teammates are vulnerable.

That's about it, correct me if im wrong on something

In terms of watching the field, i'd recomend just going into RA with a normal restore condition prot monk bar from GvG. Preventing red bars from going down in the first place is even better than pushing them back up! It has enough heal power on the bar to keep ur team alive long enough to win vs any opponent if you play well. Equally if you play shit you are going to die in approximately 30 seconds. Just dont spam RoF, it has enough healing if you make good use of it, getting it to trigger on invokes and rodgorts etc, wildly spamming it everywhere will do nothing except drain all ur energy. Your rof usage should probably be no more than 20% of ur total skill usage, RC probably making up another 30%, with ur prots and hex removals making up the remainder. This could change from game to game ofc, but its a reasonable guideline. If ur using rof/rc on recharge, ur doing it wrong.


Either way, if you dont think ur up to the more difficult challenge of entirely watching the field with prots, and not relying on heal skill spam, at least change ur skill bar so you can do ur job properly. monks need to clean their frontline QUICKLY, its just as importantlas it is to keep them alive. Old TA monks who tell you that condition removal is not necessary cos midline should take it are living in the past, as midline simply wont bring it in RA, so as a monk ur job is to see blind (and weakness if they have it) get applied, and then remove it, ideally before the warrior on ur team even has a chance to ping that hes blind. When you manage that, you'll start going to 25 virtually every time. Offensive monking to help ur team get kills, is a lot more beneficial than just passively healing bars back up. Whats the point of healing up a blind dervish who is never going to kill after all. If you dont kill, u lose, simple as that

ie - get draw conditions.

a quick tip and from what floor said, you need to kill them before they kill you. you're not a 'we dont die' card. your job is just to delay the inevitable deaths and keep your damage clean so that they can kill before the other teams will kill you. good monks of course will delay the deaths by longer, making it seem like a 'we dont die' card because the your team dies first and no-one died on theirs.

keep em clean!

Thanks for all the great tips guys! I have a couple of questions though:

About draw conditions: How do you use it effectively against the Invoke Lightning Eles that are so common in RA? I find that draw my melee that often, I quickly run out of energy.

Also, does anyone have any videos of any good monks? I would like to see how they played to learn from them.

to be honest, in RA it's quite hard to use it effectively because there isn't much communication between the 4. i've had 25 wins before and none of the 3 teammates said a word until the end when they said 'gg'

for this reason some people will actually prefer the spotless.. soul?mind? the one that does conditions, as it doesnt require as much energy but other than that, try and work out when they are going to use their chains. e.g. Dev hammer>Crushing blow etc
if you have more than one melee and they have more than one blind. you're at at a disadvantage straight away, try and figure out which melee is going to do more damage&when.

i don't have any videos that i know, but a lot of people play differently. i know some players that play default interface, click to target etc (e.g. floor, gold cape prot monk )
personally i have a different interface, but use WASD to move, 1-8 for skills, f1-f4 for weapon sets and click to target.

the best thing you can do, at least in my opinion is to understand the game better, through obs, reading threads/talking with players. etc. then the rest should fall into place.

I agree with what josh said. What i sometimes used when monking a lot in RA is to skip a draw, by which i mean you wait 1 time with removing blind (if it's up for like 2 secs already) and look at the field for the next blind).

I totally agree. Clicking party members was definitely what was limiting me as a monk even while playing top end gvg a long time ago. No matter how good you get, you will never be as good as you would if you were to target party members with keys.

My key setup:
Players: 1,2,3,4,5,t,g (t,g are 7,8 since I am always on 6, i use 'C' (target nearest enemy) to select myself)
Keys: Q,W,E,R,A,S,D,F (most used/important spells on R,E,F)
Target priority: Tab
Target nearest enemy: C (I use this to select myself)
Movement: Click to move only
Weapon sets: I don't weapon swap ever, literally, shield set all day

I changed to this key setup about 2 years ago? Not sure. The first week or so after I changed, I was so fucking terrible; I would get kicked out of HA groups because people thought I ebayed my account and shit lol, I would suck in RA. My guild had to bare with me losing us matches the first couple days, I was focusing on doing everything right instead of doing fast/messing up or going back to clicking the party bar. It took me a good 2-3 weeks to get good at it, but maybe almost 2 months to get very efficient at it. Changing to these keys was the best choice I have made in GW lol. With this setup, you don't need to take your view off the other team to select the party bar or your player's name on the field; everything is much more efficient and fast. Also, click to move is so much better in general, which I had a hard time doing with clicking the party bar in the old method.


Also, you need to use guardian a lot more, like, a whole lot more. Monking is more about energy management and playing offensively rather than anything else (If you obs me, you'll notice I rarely aura stab the WoH monk). As a monk, if you can stay in shield set energy the whole game and keep the team alive, you know you are doing it right.

Edit: Also make sure you have the correct armor:
+5 armor spear, +10vs armor shields q8/16ar shields with 8/9 spec in tactics, +15 armor while condition on all worn armor

You need to weapon swap and not take damage in shield set.

Don't red bar.

If someone doesn't need healing- don't heal them.

Use guardian more.

Bring your party bar closer to you skill bar if you're going to be clicking some skills.

Don't click to weapon swap.

Your reaction time is a bit slow- work on that- it's not your computer because you're able to record ths.

Use enchantments that matter (spotless) on staff sets.

Definately use guardian more- and use it on an enchantment duration increasing weapon set.

Use veil on a staff (20% HSR).

You don't target the enemy enough to see incoming skills.

Weapon swap.


Concerning tips that you should work on:

1) There are other ways to cancel out the delay besides canceling action using the esc key; for example, you can side step.

2) Clicking the party bar is fine, just don't click anything else (besides clicking to move to dodge bulls).



Use draw conditions for weakness/blind/deep wound. Everything else isn't as important.

Here is a clip of me playing an RA match. I have more glad points than most people who use this forum so my opinion matters more. Not to be conceded or anything.





Here is a video of me side stepping to cancel action in order to weapon swap.

just learn to watch the game better, the way i learnt was when I was learning to prot (and just generally to get better at field-watching) They took a defensive build into HA (so we didnt get stomped) with me on prot, and with my party window completely turned off. So it was literally impossible to red-bar and I had to click every player I wanted to prot. Within like no time I got much better and when you're forced to watch the game, you read plays better and can judge what the other team are gonna do. Just jump into RA and switch off party window and take a few more prots than you normally would to get used to it, using patient early as well also can save some spikes against a good ele jumping on their warriors kds. so you can get a patient + woh heal in the same second.

Also, I use divine spirit + deny hexes, I never used it before zurrie suggested it in a thread a while back but I was surprised at how much energy I could save and literally game-changing moments. You can clean your whole team, push all your bars back up, and reapply vig to every1 and the other team crumples. Energy-management was always my weakest point though, so its usefulness to me may be different to other people. I don't use guardian though, most midline these days if they dont suck balls take a self-prot (I sure as hell on all my casters take armor of sanctity or shield bash) and with the high number of eles carrying blind, its just something I tend to leave with the midline and find another skill more useful.

And as everybody keeps saying, use draw all the time. Offensive monking is better. I always watch my warrior and I draw as soon as anything lands on him, a good warrior that is always clean wins games. The linebacking potential of a good warrior is awesome, some games all I need to do is draw/remove hexes and maintain vigorous on everybody, because nothing can get through the frontline. Use balanced just before knock aswell, make sure their warrior wastes all their adrenaline.

Don't worry about RA much though either, I've been carried to 25 wins before with 3 gold capes in my team and literally i've basically been leeching because everything was rupted, everything was linebacked, any dmg was shrugged off with the correct +AR shield and vigorous kept everything floating. Other times i've gone in with a hundred blades war, a pve sin and a staff mesmer and obviously everything has died in like 2-3 minutes.

Edit: Just saw another video, don't use veil like remove hex, maintain it on your warrior and leave it on if the hexes on you arent that bad - the double casting time of hexes means they sometimes just dont bother casting on you, or is easily rupted! mesmers /rangers dont love you more when you can keep veil up making their job twice as easy! At the time you think 'veil is doing nothing, time to remove' but in fact it is preventing all hexes landing on you.

I didn't Monk a lot. So, don't take this as anything other than feedback as someone who has casually played Monk in the past. I did get to play Monk with a variety of people ranging from terrible to really good. Some of the better players were able to give me feedback on where they were carrying me. Playing with bad people pushed me to be better to help compensate for them.

In other words, I think it's great to get a foundation of things to improve on by making this post, and it's a great initial effort (also great to see good responses from others). However, I'd recommend playing with different Monks, and asking the better ones where your deficiencies are as well.

What no monk said even if i didnt switch my keyboard setup to rawr-style one.
In addition it's better to focus on understanding of an actual match than to try on increasing your micro level. Average abilities are fine. You just have to know how to kite, manage energy and watch the field. Swapping, to be fair, doesn't give you so much.
The crucial monk ability is to be a part of your team and react on every enemy threat as fast as possible. Of course, in a correct way. The other one is cleaning your offence correctly.

RoF really is pointless on a prot bar in anything other than RA. It's just an excuse for monks to spam their energy and red bar. It's good in RA because of the healing capacity but SoA is more useful in GvG etc, mind you I have no idea what is meta is though. A good (and difficult at first) way to start watching the field is to turn off the party bar completely. Minerva told me that a few years ago when I first started monking.

nonsense.
1/4 sek casttime is what makes rof strong, with soa its super hard to play against interrupts and rof is also a good heal if u spam it in a spike.