The GvG monk

[Lurker Wyrm]

So, I thought I'd start a discussion on what it means to be a monk in GvG. Monks seem to be the hardest profession to play and alse are one of the most complicated, maybe moreso than being the leader/spike caller. There was a recruiting post on the QQ forums for a top guild (not sure if they're top 100 or 200 atm) looking for a strong monk. Here's the extract about what they were looking for:

Monks

- Experience or willingness to play in builds with large extra defensive infrastructures or little to none at all (full range)
- Voice opinions about the viability of different builds' defenses
- Allow your first instinct to be playing with less defense and improving/relying on player skill, rather than starting off as safe as possible
- Skilled at constantly having small prots in place to mitigate damage
- Good reaction time for spikes, and knowing exactly what is needed at different times to be efficient and keep people up (rof, big prot, infuse, gift).
- Awareness of the field, used for pre-prot, pre-kiting, communication, and:
- Follow the enemy offense, rather than feeling restricted to a certain circle of ground at the flagstand. This means leaving entirely at times, to heal a split the opponent collapses on, pushing forward when the enemy tries to spike our overextended frontline, etc.
- Judge the enemy offensive threat at the flagstand, and understand when/where you're not needed.
- Be highly communicative when necessary, be prepared to command the defensive strategy & call retreats (whether partial or full)

As you can see, "watching the red bars" wasn't even listed since, well, basically, that's something every monk should be doing. Either out of the corner of their eye or just keeping a semi-constant glance on them. Thoughts? Opinions? What to you think makes a good monk?

For myself, I used to think that as long as you could keep people alive it was enough. Lately, however, I've been realizing more and more that it's not enough, and that monks are responsible for the overall well being of the team, not just the red bars. In a way, you could say it's like trying to teach an old dog new tricks, but hey, at least I'm willing to try and learn.

Really, this can be applied to all forms of monking, but I'm more interested in limiting the discussion to GvG for now.

[FoxBat]

Go into RA or AB with some typical ZB variant and turn off your party bars. You can still see health bars above your allies, but you'll have your eyes on them instead of the bars and hence the foes attacking them as well. Then you can see what's coming and get that reversal or spirit bond on an ally before they start hurting rather than after. Learing to watch the field instead of red bars is one of the main things noobs like us should focus on improving.

No, I haven't done this often enough myself.

[Lurker Wyrm]

That's a rather good point you make there. Often times in AB I've watched the field red bars instead of just the party window, but only when there are multiple teams around and I'm healing people that aren't neccessarily in our party. I think I'll try it in a more conscious effort next time we go in.

[Hawkmoon]

Question for you guys:

I find it *far* more efficient to use my numeric keypad to select allies for casting spells on them. I actually am pretty slow at clicking in the right spot to select an ally (or a particular monster, for that matter). I'd like to blame it on my mouse, but I suspect it's me... How in the heck do you manage to select non-party allies fast enough to prot or heal them in time?

I can see the advantage of watching the field rather than the party window - I will have to try that next time!

[Lurker Wyrm]

When I'm selecting someone not in the party window I usually hold down alt and then click on the name I want, which is sorta the only way you can do it currently.

I recently changed my entire control schemata to be more mouse movement friendly, something that's pretty useful in the long run since it helps avoid rubber banding issues and makes kiting a bit easier. Basically, I still have 1-8 as skills, but the keys below them, Q-I, are now used for party member selection. Unfortunately, I'm still adjusting to that so it's going to take a while. The idea behind it is for movement to be done with the mouse (aka right hand) and the party member and skill selection with the keyboard (aka left hand) since it's faster to do direct selecting instead of having to mouse over something to select. After 2+ years of doing things the other way around, it's taking a bit of adjusting. I might need to tweek it a bit more so that I don't have to move back and forth down the keyboard (this is where a G15 would come in handy) but we'll see.