Guild Wars: Getting My Monk On

Last night I logged in for my nightly round of PvP practice. Despite the fact that I'm on break, I still want to get an hour's worth of playtime a day to keep my skills from rusting. The night started out pretty rough. I went up against a pair of Necromancers who'd hexed me into uselessness – Malaise and Backfire and Reaper's Mark and tons of covers. And there I was trying to fight through it with just Holy Veil and power healing (Which, you know, as I'm running what amounts to active prot with infuse, that's not exactly a good idea.). It didn't go well. And it wasn't until the end of the match when I realized “Oh yeah, I swapped in Divert Hexes last night because I was getting sick of this kind of thing. It might have been useful to, I don't know, cast it once.” That's not the worst part, though. At the start of the match I'd glanced at my bar and grumbled because I'd forgotten to swap it back out for ZB because it would help me deal with pressure better – once I got into the flow of things I completely forgot what Divert Hexes did! It was that kind of a night, really.

Still, after flaming out that round, I headed back in determined to make Divert Hexes work for me – because I didn't think I'd given it a fair enough test. I'd finally gotten sick of being neutered by hex pressure and had made the switch late the other night. That was pretty much my only change to the whole RoF, Shield of Absoption, Gift of Health, Dismiss Conditions, Holy Veil, Shield Bash, Balanced Stance I've been rocking. Basically, I'd stuck with ZB because I thought it was a better heal for dealing with damage pressure and resigned myself to taking it up the ass whenever I ran into a hexer. However, I'd been running into them match after match and I realized that I was using Zealous Benediction a lot like an infuse. Not my go to heal and only when the target was in trouble – it's the biggest heal I threw around but that cost made it unspammable if I wanted to last more than thirty seconds. So, I tried to use it only when I'd get that energy back while relying on everything else on my bar. Leaving it out means I lose a bit of that safety net but it's worth it to fight through those hexes. If I hit three Divert is an even bigger heal and it takes out any conditions on its way out the door – it's a beautiful thing. I can't reliably get that because no one ever calls out their hexes but when I do it's great – I find I don't worry about the first third or so of a hexed person's health bar when there's a hexer around because that hp is coming back. I probably couldn't have made this switch when I first picked up Monking again but I've gotten much better at learning when and where to use my other skills – anticipating, reading, the red bars to tell what's needed and quickly getting the needed protection out there.

In other words, I'm getting my Monk fu back. All the subtle things born from hard won experience and repetitive practice that a simple “make sure the health bars are full” doesn't cover. I'm able to tell now just by watching the health bars what kind of damage people are taking. What kind of conditions they have. Who's in trouble and who's not – are they taking degen damage? Are they getting spiked by a Sin? Are they hexed with something nasty? These aren't things I'm thinking about, these are things I'm internalizing and instinctually reacting to. Which, you know, makes it hard to talk about because it's at a level of cerebration below the verbal one. But after that initial disastrous foray I had some very strong matches. Still no glad points and I'm starting to worry about bad habits and the level of competition (Positioning, for example, and kiting around I think I'm getting solid at but it's hard without an organized team. I need to start hanging around TA or HA, I'm thinking, although I really don't have the time or enthusiasm.) but I'm leaps and bounds better than this time last week. And I'm damned tough to kill. My matches either go quickly because my team manages to roll the other one or they last forever because no one can get a kill – and that last one is, generally speaking, all about the Monking. I'm not invincible, mind, and I still lose teammates but it's because I'm sucking the zero point or they've overextended not because I'm misclicking. I'll still lose matches but only because I can't actually kill anyone myself – and I don't care how good I get, I can't singlehandedly fight off another team forever until my teammates get lucky. That's not what being a Monk is – it's all about delaying the inevitable. Hopefully, delaying it to the point where it doesn't matter anymore but you can't keep people from dying, you're just extending their life bars.

But, alright, here's something I'm proud about – Shield Bash. I'm getting nasty at smacking an attacker in the face with it (Multiple attackers I have a bit of problem with because it's single target and I can't tell who to concentrate on right away. But that's when I power through it. Since Shield Bash is there to keep me from getting spiked down while I'm concentrating on other things, I'll take it.) and spoiling their kill. To the point where I'm not just throwing it up blindly, I'm watching them and trying to get something juicy. It's easiest, of course, with hammer Warriors (And, okay, to ratchet down the cockiness I'm not completely on the ball. Last night I saw a Warrior with a two handed weapon coming towards me and instinctively put up the Balanced Stance – turns out it was a W/D with a scythe. Still not a bad move as it took away the scary crits from that thing but humbling and all.) but I'm at the point where I don't even need to C+Space and poach (Although if there's nothing better to do, I will. It's, you know, much easier.) – I'm learning to recognize the attack animations that presage pain. And I'm at the point where I'm starting to complain about pings and the desynchronization that makes my computer think a little differently about the timing of events than the server when, for example, I press the button in plenty of time but the icon doesn't flash up before I get hit. Shield Bash should be instant meaning as long as I press it before the hit lands, it should work. That it doesn't sometimes is down to latency and a host of other things that you care about when you're trying to interrupt. Because, that's what Shield Bash amounts to – an interrupt. And that I'm getting the reflexes to pull it off reliably pleases me no end. But it's that I'm doing it while keeping the healing flowing that impresses me.

Once upon a time, I was talking with an extremely good Monk about a common topic, energy management – Monks have, traditionally had poor energy management options like the wretched Peace and Harmony or Succor (There's a very good reason for this, of course. Healing is very powerful, relatively speaking. And if the energy tap is wide open then it's free flowing and the game turns into a defensive slugfest. That Monks have to scramble and claw for every point of energy to convert it into something else for their team is a good thing – doesn't stop me for looking for ways around that crunch and all but, you know.). And they suggested I use Power Drain which they personally loved. I politely insisted they were insane because hyped up on 100% caffeine I wouldn't be quick enough to pull that off while focusing on healing. It's the passive stuff like Mantra of Recall or Offering of Blood that I liked because it wasn't dependent on the enemy. But he claimed he was able to pull it off. And, you know, I believed him. Even though this was in the days of the old skill activation bar and getting an interrupt off wasn't as easy. It's definitely possible to keep one eye on your opponent and wait for the opportunity – for those visual clues – and pull off an interrupt without even looking at a skill bar. That means you can focus on another bar. Say, your teammate's.

For me, though, doing so requires being deep into the reactive zone I call Monk fu (Still not going to be able to scroll through targets and find a juicy cast for a Power Drain. I'm not sure that's really viable anymore, anyway. This game's gotten, if anything, a lot faster. And there aren't as many three, four, and five second casts and people aren't as likely to use them.) It took me a bit of a running start to get there last night but here's the scary thing: Without ZB on my bar, I don't have any energy management. I'm doing it all through weapon swapping and managing my casting. And I'm not having many problems (besides the odd dying on a bad focus but I'm generally swapping up for more energy when I'm in trouble so that's understandable.) - I'm playing on difficult mode and it's really paying off.

So, of course, perfect time for me to get busy with other things, isn't it?