Guild Wars 2

I have to say, sometimes when engaging in discussions on forums it is easy to get pretty hateful when your behind a keyboard. However it does also show a lot of players have some pretty good idea’s. So maybe time to be positive and add some thoughts towards guild wars 3 IF it should ever happen.

I personally think the removal of monk was 6 parts good and a half dozen bad. I know a lot players don’t dig playing the red bar game, they prefer the big numbers game. I like that now any group can try their hand at dungeons and stuff without feeling the need for LF monk. However if the monk was to be reintroduced, some idea’s I would like to see investigated (and contributed to.) Would be;

The attunement/kit swapping concept.
A lot players like being the core damage to their team. Monks have always lacked this ability. If we use the mesmer template of great sword skills and add a touch of engineer kit swapping, I don’t see why a monk can’t have an aggressive skill bar, but with a kit swap the skills change that if targeted on a team mate they provide healing. The team mate in question need only be highlighted by clicking their name or hot tabbing. Much like in guild wars 1 (GW1) The monk had certain skills that could only be used on specific targets or self targeted. This essentially means in solo play the monk would keep their weapon aggressive and rely on utilities and the self healing slot much the same as other players. Even though the monk is not needed for higher level content teams, it would still allow teams to have a monk that will contribute to damage overall, but can also add a viable amount of healing in between team mates self heal cool downs. Obviously the timing of these healing cool downs would need to be controlled, we can’t really make them so they can have their cake and eat it to at 100% up time.

The player balances the role;
As with any class the player can choose to trait into more heavy damage abilities. This would affect healing when kit swapping to healing skills and vise versa. At this stage if the proposed monks weapons were some what limited to appropriate weapons maybe including scepter/focus-staff-greatsword (maybe even develop new weapons. perhaps assign them a mace that works similar to guardians wards in function without actually just making them a a near duplicate of wards. Maybe even assign a weapon that is mostly defensive in all senses of it’s use ). Basically the player can choose their preferred weapons. They can run a primary set(Lets just say scepter+focus) which focuses on single target damage and the healing kit swap would then provide them with mostly single target healing. Their second weapon set can be more focused on AoE damage (Let’s say staff) and on the healing kit swap it now functions on more AoE based buffs/heals/protection. As mentioned above..the assigned weapon skills to each weapon when in healing mode will have some skills that can’t be self targeted and some that can be to avoid the monk simply attacking-healing kit swap-massive self heals-kit swap to damage-attack-rinse-repeat. The focus of this design is still provide contributing damage to mobs and bosses etc..it just also has a strong secondary use that if you see a team mate getting dangerously low on health you can step back for a moment and assist them and your team to provide a moment of relief whilst they don’t need to back down and can hold their ground. Obviously as stated above, the timing of how fast they can do this needs to be controlled so players know the monk can help in a tight spot, but they can’t be relied upon to just play the red bar game for everyone. It is gratis that players will have their permanently assigned self heal slot.

Isn’t this kinda what guardians already do with shouts and wards?
In guild war 2 it basically kinda is. (Hence I direct at potential guild wars 3 thoughts.) However anyone who has ever played gw1 see’s the guardian as a hybrid warrior/smite monk/paragon. And players from gw1 know a warrior/paragon/monk can all still exist in the same team without over lap. The guardian position of providing fleeting buffs and healing steadily would still be appreciated, the monk would only fill out a certain dynamic that can be used in situations. At the end of the day with assigned self heals, trait allocation and utilities players are still responsible for themselves and the meta of having no heals and relying on a dedicated healer is still absent from game play. Players can still perform dungeons etc without a monk..the monk can just help avoid certain wipes at times, or keep a reduced team alive long enough to rez without way point restarting if you get my drift.

Just food for thought..it makes monk a class more friendly to players who have long just played D.P.S classes and still provides a certain flavour to game play to people who liked playing the healing role.

Generally I like the lack of monk in gw2 in concept. It means people don’t feel dependent that they need a monk in order to achieve higher level content. However, I do miss monk..I got a lot of enjoyable play time being a dedicated healer in random arena’s in gw1 simply because it was so very random. You didn’t know what you’de be paired with or who you’d face. This post is not about returning the monk perse’..it more just about returning some of their elements and adding a new and refreshing twist to them. Giving them the ability to be damage dealers (In keeping with Anets philosophy that any profession can perform any role.) But it also opens up the path for some variety in PvP..that now more annihilation matches can be formed, still with an emphasis though that players are responsible for their survival..they can just get assists now and then. Obviously the glaring question in PvP would be, “What if the entire team was made of monks.?” Well, that is a good question and maybe if others post concept idea’s this could be addressed in some way so mirror teams of 5 monks vs 5 monks would be avoided.

Thanks for gw1 and gw2 Anet..I do hope one day there may even be a gw3..maybe even this idea would come to life. After 7 years of playing Anet games a single post about future idea’s can’t hurt among all the stealth hate and nerf this and buff that posts.