User:GW-Zaq

So. I'm Zaq. I'm much more heavily into PvE than PvP, though I'm trying to get more involved with Heroes' Ascent. I've been playing since August 2005, less a one-month hiatus in January 06. Listed below, in chronological order, are my characters. Here's something interesting: All but three of them (Zaq The Controller, Kulka Sheendo Dak, and Overture Tannhauser) draw their names from the same source, but to date no one who doesn't know me personally has been able to identify what that source is. If you can identify the source, drop me a PM ingame and we can have a nice chat about days gone by (that's your first hint. The source is no longer "current"). There might be a prize. We'll see. No fair using Google, by the way. In the spirit of AGF, only try to guess this if you know it from prior experience.

So, for those of you keeping track, the four character names you want to find a common theme for are All High King Korg, Lanyx Cadell, Agram Eliwan, and Roger Strag.

But, to those of you who don't know or care what the common theme is, here's all of my characters.

Zaq The Controller
Mesmer/any (I have and, more importantly, use skills from every secondary profession except Dervish, and given the rate I'm going, that's only a matter of time).

Notable achievements: Adept Skill Hunter title, spent over 350 skill points and counting, working on FoW armor (have the tunic and I'm halfway to the pants).

Favorite builds: Interrupter, no-Domination Energy Denial, Fast Casting/Mantra of Recovery Curses

Current "weird" build project: Me/P Domination/Motivation. Yes, it's working. No, I'm not sharing. It's mine.

What bothers me on this character: General mesmer hate (getting groups as a mesmer is... less than easy), the assumption that Backfire and Empathy are staples on my bar (I use neither, there's no challenge).

All High King Korg
Necromancer/Monk

Notable Achievements: solo-healing UW with reasonable success

Favorite builds: Soul Reaping healer, Soul Reaping protector, Soul Reaping smiter (notice a pattern yet?), Vampiric Spirit close-range soul-sucker

Current "weird" build project: None right now; haven't taken him to Elona yet. Contemplating a revamp (yuk yuk) of my old Vamp Spirit build.

What bothers me on this character: The assumption that all necros are either "MM or SS." If I join a group and the first thing I see is "Korg, are you MM or SS?" I just leave.

Kulka Sheendo Dak
Elementalist/Ranger, considering switching to Elementalist/Assassin

Notable Achievements: Ascending at level 14 (first time I'd ascended at less than 20), solo tanking UW, completing THK without a healer.

Favorite Builds: Geotank, Ether Renewal fire user, Earth-protected Starburster

Current "weird" build project: Same as Korg, I haven't taken him through Elona yet, but I'm thinking about something using Glimmering Mark. That skill needs some love, and badly.

What bothers me on this character: Warriors who don't understand that a geotank can indeed take aggro, groups who don't let me "tune up" and cast my enchantments (attunements and otherwise) before starting a fight.

Overture Tannhauser
Ranger/Ritualist

Notable Achievements: Um, not many really.

Favorite Builds: Beastmaster, offensive spirit spammer, defensive spirit spammer, Glass Arrows spiker, Quick Shot machine-gun.

Current "weird" build project: Weapon Spell-using beastmaster. Imagine, if you will, a tiger ripping your face off, buffed with Brutal Weapon. Or Guided Weapon. Or maybe Splinter Weapon. I'm workin' on it.

What bothers me on this character: The presumption that I use Barrage. I hate Barrage. I don't like being assigned the role of "interrupter." Rangers, in my honest opinion, make lousy interrupters compared to a halfway decent mesmer (There's no way you can defend an interrupt of 1/2s + flight time vs. one that's 1/4s - fast casting. Not to mention that mesmer interrupts are far more versatile, more devastating, and take more skill.), and I don't like abetting the notion that a ranger is any kind of substitute for a proper mesmer.

Lanyx Cadell
Assassin/Warrior

Notable Achievements: solo tanking Shiro in Gates of Madness, defeating Varesh in under five minutes by keeping her on the ground constantly.

Favorite Builds: Anything Moebius Strike (particularly with Horns; which is the only time, incidentally, I use Horns); Shattering Assault/Blades of Steel; really long, over-complex (seven or eight-step) attack chains that don't actually work but are good for a laugh.

Current "weird" build project: Tactics-wielding Assassin. I think "Fear Me!" assassins are the wave of the future. You heard it here first, folks.

What bothers me on this character: General assassin hate (not as bad as mesmer hate but it's still frustrating), enemies that die too fast for me to finish a combo, people who A) get mad when I stay in the fray but B) also get mad when I retreat.

Agram Eliwan
Ritualist/Ranger or Ritualist/Necromancer

Notable Achievements: Doing the highest damage of anyone in the group when we fought Shiro in Imperial Sanctum

Favorite Builds: Rit-with-a-bow (Spirit's Strength, bitches), offensive spirit spammer, Explosive MM (Explosive Growth + Jagged Bones = fun) (edit: scratch that. Explosive Growth + Jagged Bones = NERFED.), Channeling-based weapon spell spammer.

Current "weird" build project: What, rit-with-a-bow isn't weird enough? Fine, Ritualist/Paragon, Commanding spirits. This will probably migrate over to Morgahn, though, as I think Paragon/Ritualist is a better choice.

What bothers me on this character: Being presumed to be a standard "Rit Lord" (only job more boring than life bonder or barrager), actually BEING a standard "Rit Lord," groups who don't wait for me to cast my spirits, groups who run away from my spirits.

Roger Strag
Warrior/Paragon

Notable Achievements: Survivor title (which I got as a joke. Any warrior who looks out for their own safety over the safety of the group is not the kind of guy, or girl, you want on your team. A warrior should be the first in and last out, life or death be damned. Sadly, few people seem to see the humor in my title.)

Favorite Builds: Steady Stance user, Build:W/any Ntouka's Sword. I don't give a damn if it's unfavored. It works for me. Not saying that makes it good. Just saying it makes it good enough.

Current "weird" build project: Motivation warrior. I do damage with my warrior skills and heal pretty consistently with Motivation skills.

What bothers me on this character: The fact that I'm not really that good at being a warrior.

Titles
Some build names which are so good (or so mind-bendingly bad) that they really, really need to have builds based on 'em.


 * Jumpin' Jack Flash. No idea what this one could be. Some kind of shadow-stepper with blinding flash? Dunno. Alternately...
 * Crossfire Hurricane. From the first line of the aforementioned Jumpin' Jack Flash. Tell me that's not a badass name. Maybe something with Mystic Twister?
 * Divine Bane. This was more appropriate when Divine Boon monks were everywhere, but it still strikes me as clever. Whether it's the opposite of a Booner (i.e. something that can kill a Booner easily) or a Monk dealing some unsavoury damage (Smiting? Curses? Both? Why not?) is yet to be determined.
 * Iron Man. What? MORE song titles? Yes. Bite me. Has he lost his mind? (echo mending.) Can he see or is he blind? (Sight beyond sight.) Can he walk at all, or if he moves will he fall? (Fleeting stability.) Maybe this is more of a team build.

Concepts: Silly
Some build concepts which are more silly than practical. Note that this does not necessarily preclude them from being AWESOME.


 * All-in-one Pantheon. A dervish build with one, and exactly one, reference to each and every god in the Tyrian pantheon. Lyssa's Haste. Balthazar's Rage. Grenth's Fingers. Dwayna's Touch. Melandru's, um, Resilience. I dunno.
 * Mirror image. Maybe this can be the Divine Bane mentioned above. So many Curses and Smiting skills parallel each other that we need to make a build out of 'em. Consider the following: Barbs is a hex which adds damage on hit, Strength of Honor is an enchantment that adds damage on hit. Sig of Mystic Wrath is a sig that does damage for each enchantment you have, Sig of Suffering is a sig that does damage for each hex they have. Scourge Enchantment punishes them when they become enchanted, Pain of Disenchantment punishes them when they become disenchanted. This build practically writes itself.
 * Hammer and Sickle. So many Scythe Mastery skills are melee attacks, not scythe attacks. Why not shove them in a hammer build? It'd be more useful than the joke that is Strength. (Why a hammer, not an axe or a sword? Because it gives the build the coolest name, duh.) Tell me Twin Moon Sweep, Eremite's Attack, and the like wouldn't be fun on a hammer.
 * OK, I'll give YOU my word. The disadvantage of Assassin's Promise is that you can't really be sure if your target will die in that time, or if they'll be spike healed, get some hex removal, etc. Well, bring Malign Intervention, or alternately a standard Animate Bone Horror, Verata's Aura, and something to remove the enchantment. Either way will leave you with a weak, hostile bone horror on the field, which you or your Assassin teammates can freely use Assassin's Promise on and kill. Hell, let's make this a full team effort; you can Swap it into position, then have a dervish use Banishing Strike on it to kill it and trigger some AoE holy damage. ...It could work.
 * Tank Buddy. Warrior/Necro. 16 points in Swordsmanship or Axe Mastery, 10ish in Death, remainder in Blood. Your only necro skills: Flesh Golem and Dark Bond. That'll let you divert a hefty 75% of your damage to your golem (or "tank buddy"), and when it dies, just make another. This could also conceivably work on an Assassin/Necro, or maybe even a Dervish/Necro.
 * Minimalist Caster Monk Let's see what happens when you cast Divine Boon, Healer's Boon, and Holy Haste in that order. 1s spells become 1/4s cast that have a really whopping huge bonus to 'em. For example, at 16 healing 13 divine, Orison would cast in 1/4s and heal for 42 + 54 + (73x1.5= 109.5, round down to 109) = 205 health. At 16 Div 13 Heal, that total's even higher, at 208 health, with a 1/4 second cast. And that's with Orison. Use Dwayna's Kiss, Ethereal Light, Healing Whisper and you'll get heals of upwards of 250 depending on your point spread. The problem, naturally, is that you have to maintain two enchantments, one of which is the energy-guzzling Divine Boon. So you have these incredibly overpowered near-instant heals, but you have to have nerves of steel and reflexes to match in order to use them effectively. If you overuse them, or use them too early, you're in trouble. You'd cast maybe when the target was around 50% health at the very earliest. You'd only need one or maybe two casts to catch a spike, though. I have yet to meet a monk who could so finely balance the obscenely buffed over-heals with the inflated costs to match, but I would be DAMN impressed if I saw someone using this, wouldn't you? I don't even want to think about what kind of heals you could churn out with the extra investment of Infuse. I bet you could hit 600, which is overkill by any stretch of the imagination, with "stance-with-aftercast" type speeds. Then of course you'd have to spend the energy to heal yourself, but oh well. Point is, if you had AI-style reflexes, you could cast that sucker on, like, the Guild Lord, even with four assassins on him. I'd like to see it done.

Concepts: Less Silly
Some build concepts which warrant a little more scrutiny. If you come up with a viable build from one of these, I won't necessarily ask for credit, but let me know that you did so, would ya?


 * Siphoning Dervish. Siphon Strength is a great skill, but it seems kinda wasteful on an assassin. Why not put it on a Dervish? We already know from builds like the A/D Way of the Assassin scythe user that scythe crits hurt like a mother (by which, of course, I mean that the pain you feel when you are struck with them is comparable to that felt by women giving childbirth. What did you THINK I meant?) with 12 scythe mastery. This would be a way to get some fairly reliable crits with 16 mastery.
 * Holy Backbreaker. Berserker Stance -> Burst of Aggression -> Backbreaker -> Crushing Blow -> Holy Strike -> Stonesoul Strike -> Renewing Smash -> Repeat. Only problem is the really, really high (by warrior standards) energy costs. Taking suggestions.
 * Overzealous Axe. Dismember -> Critical Chop -> Protector's Strike -> Magebane Strike is a pretty nice one-man spike by any standard, but the energy costs are absurd. I think the solution lies in Zealous Renewal, which requires no Mysticism to use for strictly energy management. Just cast it, whack away a few times with a Zealous axe to get your energy up to full, unleash your spike, and cap it off with Twin Moon Sweep (which does not require a scythe and the damage of which does not vary with scythe mastery) to pop your energy back up to full.
 * Energy hate team. This is a team build. Let's pretend it's HA, so a six-man group. You've got three warriors without a single energy skill on their bars; I'm thinking a Decapitator, a Crippling Slasher, and let's say a Dragon Slasher just for kicks. Then you have an R/Rt with 16 Expertise and 12 Communing, laying Infuriating Heat, Soothing (to counter it out for the other team) and some various defensive spirits, Union/Shelter/etc. Then you have a severe energy hate ranger, with 16 Expertise and 13 Wilderness Survival, bringing Quicksand, Roaring Winds, Quickening Zephyr, all that neat stuff, to really screw with the other team's energy management. Finally, to offer some modicum of healing, we have an E/Mo Ether Prodigy/Heal Party spammer, with Glyph of Lesser, Sig of Rejuvenation, and some other generic heals. This team would follow a definite "steamroller" strategy, kill-or-be-killed. They'd have a crazy huge advantage over the other team in terms of energy (i.e. they don't need it, the other team needs it but doesn't have it.), and the warriors would be unaffected by Quicksand et al. but would be feeding off Infuriating Heat for some really nasty damage. It needs cleaning up but I think it's a viable premise.
 * The return of Dark Apostasy. Everyone falls all over themselves to gush about how crazy wonderful Avatar of Grenth is supposed to be, but I contend that a smart (that's important, so I'll repeat it: SMART) Dark Apostasy user can be just as effective. It doesn't have a downtime, it doesn't become completely useless if you die, and Assassins are pretty much always better damage dealers than Dervishes, especially in the downtime when their precious Avatar is recharging. An assassin with DA can remove a stack of enchants just as fast as Grenth can, given the attack speed, especially with guaranteed crits like Critical Strike (not one, but two), Malicious Strike, and so on. Also, Shadow Steps are crucial. The problem: Dark Apostasy CAN be stripped. In the past this was less of a problem thanks to Assassin's Remedy and Sharpen Daggers, but Anet nerfed them to hell and back in the Feb 01 update (Remedy's nice in that it can remove Blind now, but the fact remains that these two skills no longer last the entire duration if you're spamming attack skills, as any good assassin should be). Also, Wild Blow is as lovely on a DA user as on Grenth, so using enchantments from your secondary is out, since we want A/W. So that leaves us in a nearly IW-esque situation... much less so than IW itself, of course, but still a sticky problem. Anyone can come up with a solution to this, let me know and we'll conspire in an exaggeratedly sneaky manner about how to make people forget about boring, overrated Grenth.

Builds that need REAL testing before wikifying 'em
These builds are more than just ideas, they're real, fleshed-out bars (to some extent or another) that need to be tested by me or by others.

Mystic Cultist
Alternates: Consume Corpse, Taste of Pain, or Soul Feast instead of Pious Restoration or Vow of Piety; for more offense, Test of Faith or Mystic Twister instead of Lyssa's Haste or the res.

Equipment: Radiant armor or Undertaker's armor, Staff with +20% enchanting mod

Usage: Cast Cultist's Fervor, Dark Aura, and Vow of Piety and go snuggle up close to your enemy. Spam Dwayna's Touch, Pious Restoration (replacing Vow of Piety each time you do so), and Mystic Healing. Doing so will cost almost no energy thanks to Cultist's Fervor but will trigger Dark Aura from the health sacrifice, however, you'll also be constantly healing yourself. The health lost from Lyssa's Haste sadly is not a sacrifice and will not trigger Dark Aura, but it's still an excellent skill for kiting, anti-kiting, and energy management.

Strengths: Good armor-ignoring damage, good energy management, constant powerful self-healing, party support via Mystic Healing.

Weaknesses: Losing Cultist's Fervor hurts. A lot. There's about a natural 6 second downtime that you can't do much about, and you have two good cover enchantments, but if it gets artificially stripped, your offensive power drops to zero and your defensive power is, while still good, far from fantastic. I bet this would be fun in AB, at least, and probably in some areas of pve.

More to come.

Things That Bug Me
Surgeon General's* Warning: Long-winded, highly opinionated rants follow.

(*not really.)

Avatars.
They're NOT THAT GOOD. Most of the effects are... dicey, and the recharge? Oy. Anything that gives you a 60 second downtime or worse can't honestly be the be-all and end-all, can it? It especially kills me when people base their ENTIRE BUILDS around being in the Avatar. As for the effects themselves, yeah they're powerful, but they're not gamebreaking.
 * Avatar of Balthazar is a joke; the speed boost is nasty, yeah, but the holy damage and the armor are overrated. The armor will protect you from elementalists, but you'll still die to hexers, assassins, blood necros, you know, most of the things that were killing you ALREADY.
 * Melandru is totally overrated; Conditions are a pain but honestly they're not THAT bad. Most self-sufficient builds that attack have some kind of Blind and/or Weakness removal (Mending Touch, Sig of Malice, Remedy Sig, whatever), and for the rest of the time, most monks spend half their time working around conditions anyway. Hell, chances are good that having conditions to remove will trigger some kind of heal. The synergy with Wearying Strike is fun, but kind of leaves you with TWO skills that are useless during the recharge instead of just the avatar itself, don't you think? Certain skills synergize well with the avatars, but bringing skills that are useful ONLY when in avatar form is kind of shortsighted. The HP bonus is decent, but you can get the same effect from two Life Sheaths, not to mention that it gives a nearly Deep Wound-esque spike when it ends.
 * Grenth, people laud Grenth for being "devastating in PvP," but I'm a hell of a lot more scared by a Dark Apostasy wielding assassin than I am of an AoG wielding dervish. Not to mention that it's predictable; you get into HA and see a group with one Dervish, you've got even odds you're staring down Grenth, so people know to just keep away, spike him out of his form ("can't remove a form?" Sure you can, kill the bastard), or drain his energy so he can't use his attack skills.
 * Lyssa I actually approve of. The additional damage is really hefty, for a condition that's not hard at all to meet. Ironically, Lyssa is the avatar I see used least frequently.
 * Dwayna I have mixed feelings about. It's almost decent in PvE as a "panic button," the kind of thing that you use when you aggro that other group that you really shouldn't have aggroed, and the dervish-cum-Dwayna can take care of themselves and probably survive long enough on their own for the rest of the group to retreat to safety. However, I'm leery of any build that uses its elite slot on such a purely defensive skill that (this is important) cannot be kept up reliably or at least mostly reliably; there are, I admit, exceptions, such as the undeniably effective Heal as One or even the much-put-upon Healing Hands (which gets a bad rep because so many of the people who use it are indeed "whammo nubs," but it can be a lifesaver when used WELL), but I still feel like you could probably choose a better elite. There's plenty of defensive skills you can bring that won't force you to decide what is and what it's a panic situation, and in most places in which AoD alone will save you, if you plan well enough you probably shouldn't have to expect a panic situation. Naturally, it's useless in PvP, as people will just change targets, but it's not fair to judge an obviously PvE-oriented skill by PvP standards, or vice versa.
 * I'm not saying that the avatars are useless, but they're definitely way, way overused. There's just so many better choices for an elite on your dervish, both within the derv class itself and within your secondary of choice (you ever try "Coward!" with a dervish? It's pretty deadly.). The really ironic thing is, there's almost nothing that the avatars do that some other skill doesn't do just as well.


 * Balthazar, the holy damage is laughable but easily mimicked by Heart of Holy Flame, the speed boost is respectable but there's no shortage of speed boosts within or without the dervish line, and for the armor, there's plenty that will make you much more resilient than a simple armor buff (Stoneflesh Aura, Prot Spirit, Shield of Absorption, Vow of Silence... the attributes might be tricky, but almost all Avatar users run 15 mysticism, right? I contend that without an avatar, you'll barely notice the difference if you drop Myst down to 12 and put the spare points in whatever other attribute). "But Zaq." you say, "none of those skills does all THREE of those at once, like AoB does!" This is true, but as I've made clear earlier, I don't think that it's necessarily that great to have all of those effects.
 * Melandru, you want resilience against conditions, bring Resilient Weapon or even Melandru's Resilience (which is a fun skill but has its own problems.) There's no shortage of skills which change your damage to Earth, not that there's really much reason to without EDA. As for the HP buff, I'll classify that under "defensive skills," of which there is no shortage in nearly any secondary, or indeed within pure Dervish skills. I won't list them all. Pick your favorite.
 * Grenth, there's no shortage of enchant removal if you look around. As I mentioned earlier, a smart Dark Apostasy assassin can strip just as well as Grenth can, only without that bloody downtime. What? You thought that I was going to limit myself to skills that the dervishes could use themselves? This is a team game, and while I respect role-bending (I love my N/Mo soul reaping Protector, my Rt/R Rit-with-a-bow, my R/Rt Communer, and don't even get me started on the roles I squeeze my mesmer into... so don't claim that I'm "closed-minded" or "insist on going by the book"), make sure that you can do it equally well as, or ideally better than, the "traditional" class for that role. Enchantments are everywhere. EVERYWHERE. You can't avoid them. While that may originally seem like an argument in favor of AoG, it's really not. The enchantments aren't going to wait patiently while you recharge. What's more, the enemies are going to know to watch for Grenth, and will save their important, offensive enchantments until Grenth expires (whether that means that the avatar wears off or the player is killed depends on the team). If you really want to have domination over enchantments, bring a necro with Well of the Profane or Gaze of Contempt or Rip Enchantment or Order of Apostasy; a mesmer with Shatter Storm or Discharge Enchantment or even Lyssa's Balance, an assassin with Dark Apostasy or Shattering Assault or Assault Enchantments or Expunge Enchantments or Shadow Shroud or Sig of Twilight, or better yet some combination thereof, but don't think that Grenth is going to be enough to keep your enemies disenchanted. As for the cold damage, if you're really the concerned about Conjure Frost or Spinal Shivers, bring Grenth's Fingers or something.
 * Lyssa, I repeat, I approve of, partially because there is indeed nothing which does its job so well. Unlike the other avatars, it's not just a really shiny package of seemingly nice effects that can't sustain itself. (Granted it CAN'T sustain itself, but at least it serves a unique role.)
 * Dwayna, again, I can just point you towards any number of "defensive skills."
 * I'm hardly the first person to complain about this, but this is my page, so that's what I want to say.

Monks.

 * Now, that's a pretty hefty accusation, that "monks bug me," and not the message I want to convey, so allow me to elaborate. You're a good ways down the page here, so I'm pretty sure I have your attention, so indulge me. Monks are a good class. Though I've never played a primary monk, I have filled the role of "healer" many a time on my N/Mo soul reaping pseudo-monk and on my ritualist, and I respect their work and their skill level. Being a good monk takes a lot of practice, skill, and dedication, and I respect that. What I don't like, though, is how indispensible they are. Think about it. In most high-level PvE areas, you can get by without any other class, but you NEED monks. Warriors are replaceable ; the role of "meat shield" is important and they do decent damage, but they're replaceable. Rangers are nice but certainly disposable. Elementalists add good damage, but they're hardly the only class that can do so. Mesmers, well, how many times have YOU gotten through a high-level mission or quest without a mesmer? Pretty often, right? I love my mesmer to death, but as evidenced by the sheer amount that they're ignored, they're hardly "necessary." Necromancers really depend on the situation, but there's nowhere that a necromancer will fill a role that under no circumstances can be filled by anyone else. Assassins, see mesmers. I love 'em, but we've all worked without 'em. Ritualists come closer to filling a truly unique role, but still, it's easy to work without them. Paragons and Dervishes, well, we got through Prophecies and Factions just fine without them, right? They're handy, but not indispensable. (Note: The reason I don't apply this to rits and sins is because Prophecies is, in my opinion, extremely different from Factions and Nightfall, but Nightfall is significantly closer in gameplay and combat style to Factions than Factions was to Prophecies. That's just my opinion, but then, this whole page is my opinion.). But monks... well, you'll never find a group that says "pfft, we don't need no steenking monks!" Most people will even refuse to join or stick with a group that doesn't have at least two monks, sometimes even three if the mission or quest is especially difficult. Hell, I do that myself sometimes. But I hate that the situation is like that. Yes, monks are indisputably the best protectors and very probably (but not indisputably) the best healers in the game. I'm not denying that. No one is. But I don't like that we feel that (maybe we really do, but maybe we don't) that we "NEED" monks.
 * There's a few reasons for this. First of all, it's a bit constrictive with the group size. Urgoz and the Deep notwithstanding, we've only got eight slots to work with, right? Well, it's just assumed from the get-go that two or even three of those slots will be monks. That leaves five slots for other classes. There's ten classes in the game. Monks are accounted for, but that still means that a minimum of four classes will be left out in every single group. That's almost half. Add in the perception that a warrior and one or even two elementalists is "standard" and we're left with very little wiggle room for creativity. Even if we don't accept the "tank-nuker-healer holy trinity", still, it's easy to see that the preferred treatment given to monks kind of crowds out the other classes. This is especially true if you happen to play a less popular class, like mesmer or ritualist, but even warriors and elementalists are surely no stranger to the flip side of monk affirmative action.
 * Secondly, it allows us less of a chance to have a true team of eight players working together, coming up with new strategies and so on. Let me elaborate. Let's accept the nearly universally (if not 100% so, as nothing is 100% so) given fact that every group in a high level area will have a minimum of two monks. However, there's a lot more spots in groups for monks than there are human monks to fill those spots. Rather than acting creatively (say, bringing one monk and asking all the players in the group to have a self-heal or some kind of defense, bringing in a so-called "second string" healer like a motivation paragon or a restoration ritualist, etc.), monk NPCs are usually used to fill in these gaps. Whether these NPCs are Alesia and Lina or Tahlkora and Dunkoro makes little difference; they're still spots filled by NPCs and, therefore, NOT filled by humans. Yeah, it's awfully convenient to have NPC characters at your beck and call. I'm not anti-hero or anti-henchie flat out. I use them frequently. But I don't like how often it happens that I, or ANYONE, gets turned away from a group of 5 or 6 humans in favor of Alesia or Dunkoro. Yes, Dunkoro will get you through the mission, but what I object to is the notion that the other player would PREVENT you from doing so. You might have to make some changes, yes. You might not be able to go full-out offensive. You might have to bring some hex removal, or a heal or two, or some self-defense, to accomodate for the lack of monks. But is that the end of the world? Isn't working alongside another human worth the loss of your fourth or fifth attack skill? I dare say that it's quite worth it, but it's hard to get groups that agree with me.
 * I don't want to suggest we "boycott" monks. I don't think this is the fault of the monks. The players who choose to play monks put in a lot of effort to their causes and I'm not saying that we should "punish" them or anything. But I'm calling for people to be a little more open-minded about groups with one or even NO monks. It can be done if you're willing to change the way you play a little bit. Even in areas like the Realm of Torment, you might have to be more cautious than you usually are, but two or three monks are not a necessity. I'm not saying that your standard group could just kick their two monks, toss in a mesmer and a necro, and go to town. Planning is required. Effort is required. But it only seems like "more" effort because we're not used to it. We're conditioned to think that playing with two monks is "standard," or "the way it should be." But it's not necessarily like that. Just because you're used to playing with two monks and you anticipate (consciously or unconsciously) just how much defense they'll provide and just how much defense YOU'LL need to provide doesn't mean that it's "harder" to do so with fewer monks. You're just not used to it, so you can't really do it without thinking. The amount of defense that you provide with the "standard" two-monk setup isn't the only possible amount. Hell, an argument could be made for four monks and four wildly offensive, almost reckless players who have incredible damage output (Assassins with Frenzy! Elementalists and Necros using touch-range skills with no defensive skills! The general mentality of "I don't give a damn what happens to me so long as I can get off my damage," made possible by the combined efforts of four monks!). That's not impossible. I've run that in a few guild groups just for fun before. It works just as well as what we call the "standard" two-monk setup. The point is that the two-monk setup is not the only way to go. It's not necessarily the "best," the "only one that works," or anything like that. It's just what we're USED to. And I say that's not the best way for things to be. We need to be a little more open-minded about these things. I think it'll be fun.

Staple self-heals.
Maybe I'm fighting a losing battle with this one, but too often when I see a build, I see what seems to me to be a totally unnecessary point investment for one skill which doesn't fit the build and isn't that helpful. The prime offenders here are Healing Signet and Shadow Refuge. First, Shadow Refuge. It's not really that good. It'll provide at best +8 or +9 regen for four seconds, a net gain of 72 health, whoop-de-friggin'-do. As for the spike heal at the end, that's really unlikely to save you. A conditional heal that only occurs after four seconds is unreliable at best. I don't like Shadow Refuge. I think there are many, many better options. Crit Defenses to avoid the damage in the first place. Heart of Shadow for a significantly larger heal and an escape route if desired. Or spend the 6-8 points in Shadow Arts somewhere else, like a secondary attribute, and give yourself some defense with Healing Prayers, Blood Magic, Tactics. I just feel that 1) not every build needs a self-heal (if that point investment in shadow arts makes the difference between my spike working and my target getting infused... well, I say it's worth it to get your kill and need some healing from a monk.) and 2) Shadow Refuge is a really lame self-heal. Now, Healing Signet. It's a staple skill. And it can be useful, definitely much more so than Shadow Refuge if you use it well. But too often I see people sinking 8 or 9 points into Tactics for Healing Signet and nothing else. Huh? I say that's a waste of points. Things are different in RA, yes. You should have a self-heal in RA. I accept that. But this isn't limited to RA builds. I see this in HA builds, PvE builds, whatever. Look, your points and your TIME are precious. If you're going to take points out of your weapon mastery or out of Strength (I don't much care for Strength either, but I admit there's a significant difference in damage between 4 strength and 10 strength) for Tactics, use some skills that will actually increase your battle capabilities. Disciplined Stance, Thrill of Victory, Riposte (yes, Riposte. Just because some people assume that the same Riposte build they use to solo Sskai will work in PvP doesn't mean that Riposte itself is automatically bad in PvP). Healing Signet just because "u hav 2 hav healsig lol" is, well, counterproductive.