Ultimate Monk Gladiator

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Ultimate Monk Gladiator (UMG) — a monk designed to participate in Random Arena (RA) battles with maximum possible effectiveness. Because of great balance of Guild Wars there is no such thing as perfect character for any in-game task. So in particular there is no perfect RA monk and cannot be. However there are basic concepts of what can increase your effectiveness there and what can lower it. The goal of this guide is to enlighten everything or near everything related to RA monks.

Please note that you never know what you will face after you start a new battle session, so you will never know what part of your build is the most important. Materials here are given without particular order.

Another important thing to turn your attention on is that there is no objective definition of "good game". Win is all everyone want, but you may lose but still have a good game, or you may win but have a poor game. The difference between good game and bad game lies within your heart and nowhere else.

The point of the guild is to light most of monk's abilities, needed for good game.

Accepting Destiny (by Paulo Coelho)

"The moment he starts walking, a warrior of the light recognizes the Way. Each rock, each bend welcomes him. He identifies with the mountains and brooks, sees a little of his soul in the plants, animals and birds of the field. Then, by accepting help from God and God’s Signs, he allows his Personal Legend to guide him towards the duties his life has reserved for him. Some nights he has nowhere to sleep, on others he suffers from insomnia. He discovers the suffering of certain lost illusions, and the despair of bestowing too much expectation on important moments. "Such is the Way," thinks the warrior. "It was I decided to take this route." All his power lies in this phrase. He chose the path along which he walks, and must not complain."

Getting Started

You don’t need much to become Ultimate Monk Gladiator. Only one thing required, a battle spirit. Whether you have it or not you will be told by your heart and nothing else. That who is not a gladiator within leaves the arena immediately. That who cares about rewards of battle more than the battle itself leaves the arena soon after getting needed or getting bored.

True gladiators come to arena to take a look at it but fall in love at once. They fight because nothing is better that good fight for them. Everything that they want is eternal perfection of themselves in battles. Matching another gladiator in arena in a good fight is only thing that makes them happy.

Gladiator is the one with an unique state of a soul no matter how experienced he is. However the state of an Ultimate Gladiator is almost unreachable state of a warrior who hit the perfection in fight. Hundreds and thousands of hours in training lie between them.

Thus, so if you willing to be an Ultimate Monk Gladiator, go create a new PvP monk take three henchman with you and visit Isle of the Nameless that is right at the north form Balthazar's Temple. Be patient there, learn all what trainers want to teach you there. Then defeat all masters that are offensive there to learn their techniques of fighting.

These basics are enough to start Random Arena. However for advanced practice visit Training Arena fallowed by Zaishen Challenge and Zaishen Elite. Knowledge there is invaluable.

PvP versus PvE

The title of this chapter should be read as "Player versus Player versus Player versus Environment". :)

PvE character has access to anything but must spend time and energy interacting the world to get what he needs. PvP character has most that is needed for battle to start right here and right now. The speed comes at price of freedom. PvP character is less customizable.

The best advice is to use a PvE character as a main UMG and many PvP characters for training.

Heal, Protect and Smite!

These are the purposes of monks in a battle field. This role means support and usually it is very important support. Having no monk in a ream is a serious handicap. To be effective one should know his place in the team and to know it well. Of cause you may place an accent on your secondary profession, however being primary monk means having monk runes and divine favor, which are intended to support a team.

Healer. This role is most popular among monks not only because they like it but also because it is highly demanded by other players. Whole half of monk's skill and attribute lines provide healing: healing prays and divine favor. Usually healers are very weak and are primary targets of all spike classes that deal lots of damage in short time (more about spikes later). Perfect example of healing monk is Master of Healing on Isle of Nameless.

Protector. Since this role is usually combined with some healing it is popular too. Protection monk really shines when combined with healing monk, since this combination is hardly being able to be beaten. His skill and attribute line is Protection Prays. One should be aware that there is no better target for shutdown mesmers than monk, especially if he is specialized on protection. Perfect example of healing monk is Master of Enchanting on Isle of Nameless.

Smiter. Such monk is based on smiting prays line and utilizes the fact that holy damage ignores armor. Smiters are not so popular in random arenas because of relatively small team size, however when implemented right he still can make a viable part of a team. Moreover, since most enemies expect a weak harmless monk off you, dealing lots of irresistible damage to them could be a big surprise. This role is well represented by Smiting Monks team in Zaishen Challenge.

Suggested Build for Starting Healer

Profession: Monk Mesmer
Skills: Word of Healing, Orison of Healing, Dwayna's Kiss, Healing Touch, Mend Ailment, Distortion, Inspired Enchantment, Inspired Hex.
Attributes: Healing Prayers: 11 + 1 (head) + 3 (rune), Divine Favor: 10 + 1 (rune), Inspiration Magic: 9, Illusion Magic: 3, Protection Prayers: 3.
Weapon: Healing staff with fast cast and fast recharge.

Stay back from fight. Use Orison of Healing mainly but try not to over-heal to save energy. Use Word when anyone has life level below 50%, Healing Touch on self or if someone is close. As soon as anyone will be under condition cast Mend Ailment, for many conditions watch for its recharge and recast as soon as it is available. Inspired Enchantment and Inspired Hex are not only very useful on their own but also give you back their energy cost, try to use them as much as possible. In case of getting attacked activate Distortion and run away healing yourself with Touch. If you inspired a slowing hex or protection enchantment use them at your advantage.

Suggested Build for Starting Protector

Profession: Monk Mesmer
Skills: Reversal of Fortune, Guardian, Mend Ailment, Mantra of Recall, Signet of Devotion, Protective Spirit, Inspired Hex, Divine Boon.
Attributes: Divine Favor: 11 + 1 (head) + 3 (rune), Inspiration Magic: 10, Protection Prayers: 10 + 1 (rune).
Weapon: Protection staff with fast cast and fast recharge. Another good option is +30 life sword and +30 life off-hand.

Stay back from fight as all casters without heavy protection do. Always keep Divine Boon on you. Right before the fight starts cast Mantra and recast it every 20 seconds as soon as previous one has gave you energy; do not recast it too early, though. Reversal of Fortune and Guardian are your main spammable spells. Each has good healing side effect through high divine favor and divine boon, while providing protection from future damage for a couple of seconds. Use them as often as your energy allows. Mend Ailment, Inspired Hex and Protective Spirit are used to counteract conditions, hexes and spikes respectively. Every 7 seconds use Signet of Devotion as free 100 health giver.

Suggested Build for Starting Smiter

Profession: Monk Mesmer
Skills: Signet of Judgment, Bane Signet, Signet of Rage, Spear of Light, Banish, Healing Breeze, Mending, Mantra of Inscriptions.
Attributes: Smiting Prayers: 12 + 1 (head) + 3 (rune), Healing Prayers: 8 + 1 (rune), Divine Favor: 2 + 1 (rune), Inspiration Magic: 10.
Weapon: Insightful Smiting Staff of Fortitude for life and energy.

Playing Smiter is like playing healer, who is able to shut down any attacker, since they tend to target monks. Right before battle activate Mantra of Inscriptions but you should regenerate all energy back before you start to use your spells. Always keep it up by recasting when necessary. At the very start of fight stay back where monks are usually standing. You are not a tank. Start to act like usual healing monk occasionally using Mending and Healing Breeze so the enemy will be fooled by your acting like a typical healing monk. Find a right target, usually an attacking warrior. Don’t do it too late, you can use healing during recharge time of your signets. At the moment of his attack cast Spear of Light to release its bonus damage to attacking targets. At his next attack activate Bane Signet to release knockdown with its damage. As fast as possible add even more damage with Banish, Signet of Rage, and then Signet of Judgment to knockdown him once more. If your target was trying to attack you try to increase distance by running while he is knocked down. Save Signet of Rage for warriors, or use it for extra damage. Use Healing Breeze as needed. Interrupt key spells and skills that have long activation times with Signet of Judgment. If you see someone in opposing team is near death, delay its using to interrupt resurrection.

Know Yourself

Ultimate Monk Gladiator can everything and has no limits. To accept this is to become the one. To be UMG is act perfect. Having doubts is limiting you abilities.

Perfect warrior is only perfect because he mastered use what he has by the best way. Every action may be done too earlier, at the right time and too late. UMG knows the difference.

Resting from battle Ultimate Monk Gladiator spends hours of free time mastering every single skill and each of endless skill combinations that he possesses. While you can do this in real RA match it is not recommended to do it there. Your team is alive players and expects the best from you. Better use training grounds instead. Isle of the Nameless available at any time and have more then anyone could ever need including artificial teams to train with. Use it wisely.

Know Your Enemy

No doubt that to defeat opposing team first you need to know it more or less. Actually better you know strong and weak sides of every opponent more chances you have to win.

It would be better if you play each game class at least once. Unless you have significant experience with a given class it is recommended to pass Arena Training, Zaishen Challenge and Zaishen Elite courses with this class. Pick classes one by one, load standard templates and pass training courses. Harder in training easier in battle!

Remember again, good gladiator knows what other players do, what helps them and what they fear.

Key things Ultimate Monk Gladiator monitors is skills of opposing team to counter, hexes and conditions to remove, long casting spells to interrupt, predictable spikes to care about, preparation skills to alert your team and even psychology of actual players to play on. ;)

Guild Wars utilizes famous balance concept "Rock, Paper, Scissors". Each skill has counter-skill. Every action has counter-action. For everything your enemy does you may find a counterpart. The key of victory is not in using an ultimate skill, there is no such one, but in using the right skill in right time.

Skill Set

To win at RA you don’t need specific skills, any good set of skills should work. "Good" in this case means been tested well and proving to work as supposed.

However Ultimate Monk Gladiator never stops mastering each skill and each set of eight skills available in the game. You have no limits in changing your second profession and selecting exotic skill sets for battle. First master the skill sets, that was chosen by many, then use every possibility to research better combos. This is how currently popular builds was invented.

Yes, it means that Ultimate Monk Gladiator unlock all normal and capture all elite skills available in The Mists.

Healing

In the game balance healing is counter-action to damage dealing. This trivial concept has not so trivial conclusion. Since there are several damage dealing techniques, there are several healing techniques.

1) Fast Healing is used after spikes of damage. The purpose of it is to restore one's life to maximum as fast as possible before enemy attempt to do another spike. The price of speed is its cost. Average arena fighter has about 500 life, more or less. To restore it from near zero back to maximum monk usually needs to cast several healing spells at once. This means large energy consumption and may lead to its complete lack, making you useless monk. Each UMG knows it and usually uses one energy management technique or another.

2) Slow Healing is used in long battle where forces of competing sides are near equal and the battle becomes a test of patience. The only hope of enemy team is ether to force you to spend all your energy on healing, to deal more damage over time than you can heal, or simply to kill you to stop constant health restore of your side. You can do good Slow Healing when you are able to constantly restore good amount of life over time as long as needed.

3) Health Regeneration. The slowest of all healing is used to counter health degeneration. Good health degeneration master is very guileful fighter. His constant degeneration could damage more health in total than spike spells or constant adrenaline pressure of warriors. If you face a team with several life degenerators then condition and hex removing with low cost Slow Healing spells are not enough or may be not efficient. Of cause health regeneration spells can be used for Slow Healing too. The difference between Health Regeneration and Slow Healing is in that spammable low cost healing spells are more suitable to drive the accent of your monking from one party member to another, and regeneration spells provides more total life.

4) Zero Cost Healing should be used all the time when no extensive healing needed. Don’t waste your energy to heal back each bit of life drop even if your teammates cry for your to do so. Good spikers usually start with low damage dealing to force opposite side to waste some of their energy on healing or simply to waste some important skills which will be recharging when spike occurs. Your can use healing signets, spell cost decreasing enchantments, native health regeneration after combat or even allow your party to heal themselves.

5) Self Healing. Some spells have different effect when applied on yourself. Even more, some spells works different when applied to hexed or enchanted target. Some spells requires touching. Some spells may be used only on self or only on other ally. You should consider all this facts when choosing whom to heal. In hard times Ultimate Monk Gladiator must decide who will die due to a lack of healing. Only he knows the answer, he is ready to make such decision whether it should be he or someone else. Dead party members can be resurrected or they may resurrect you. All depends on the situation on the battlefield.

6) Over-Healing should be avoided at all cost. If you have restored one's life from 50% to 95% the job is done, no need to waste energy and charges of your spells to heal every pixel of life bar unless you expect spikes.

Enchanting and Other Protection

Wise man says: "Battles are won by preparation". Guild Wars has so many defensive magic that it is divided into several schools. Stances officially are not magic, however they aren't much differ. Each school of protection magic differs by the way of its implementing and thus the way to counteract it. Monks on arena usually expected to use not only some kind of self-protection but a party protection too. Even if Ultimate Monk Gladiator uses only healing magic he has a skill or two for self-protection because everyone usually targets monks first.

Any action you are going in battle can be canceled by interruption. This tactic has many aspects itself and will be described later.

1) Enchanting is probably the most effective and then most frequently used defensive method. Enchanting means that a character becomes improved by a spell for a limited time of forever. Protection Prays are mostly enchantments. Enchanted character can be identified by a yellow up arrow at the right side of his life bar. If monk casts an enchanting spell from his primary profession the effect of Devine Favor triggers and the target is healed in addition. This feature is very important for any protection oriented monk.

Because of its great popularity enchantment is usually expected by both sides in the battlefield. The main way to counteract it is using disenchant spells, usually maintained by Mesmers and Necromancers. Ultimate Monk Gladiator knows that using enchantment is very predictable and constantly monitors what enemy monks and some other classes are doing to effectively use both enchanting and disenchanting whenever possible.

2) Spirits are summoned allies from other planes to aid you in combat. Usually they are widely used by Ritualists and Rangers, however they may be used by monks who aren’t much dependant on secondary profession and have a free skill slot or two. Protection spirits could be a good choice in this case because they provides effects similar to popular protection enchantments but are invincible to disenchant spells and give protection to everyone in their area of effect. The drawback of spirits is their vulnerability to damage. Once a spirit has killed his summoner should spend quite a lot of time and energy if he wants to replace it. Summoning spirits by monks is very unpredictable action and can be accomplished in the heat of battle in the back line without a notice.

3) Ward Spells are exclusive to Elementalist profession. They create area of influence that cannot be removed or avoided while its target stays inside. Monks can use Wards as a great alternative backup protection especially against warriors partied with disenchanting necromancers or mesmers, who usually love to attack monks.

4) Shouts are another kind of protection that cannot be removed by any mean. Moreover, shouts are instant and cannot be counter-acted even by interruption. Since they affect all allies in the range of earshot, Untimate Monk Gladiator could choose 1-2 of them for backup party protection.

5) Stances are bonuses working much like shouts with one exception that they affect only their user. As well as shouts stances cannot be prevented by any way unless they meet their limitations. Due to their incredible protection effects they are widely used by monks on arena in cases of being attacked. Good example of such stance is Dark Escape, which is very popular among PvP monks now.

6) Chants are very similar to shouts, but are used exclusively by Paragons. Unlike shouts chants have long activation period and thus can be canceled by interruption. Chants are a new addition to Guild Wars by Nightfall. Many paragons showing outstanding defensive class were seen in arena, however potential of chants as a backup protection for monks is yet have to be realized.

Smiting

Usually intended to heal, monks also have an ability to show some teeth, and these teeth are sharp. Completely ignoring armor smiting prayers are a big surprise for any attacker of monk forcing it ether to run back or die trying to kill the monk first. Though most direct damage smite skills do good damage to 100 armor stand, compared to damage of Elementalist's spike spells on it, monk offensive skills have ether high energy cost, big recharge cost, or both. Offence-only monk could be effective in some cases, however among arena monks smiting prayers are usually used as a compliment to healing or protecting.

Healing / Smiting hybrid monks do less amount of health restoring per time than standard medics however they are able to seriously harm any warrior, who dares to approach them without appropriate support. When not being attacked their direct holy damage could be a nice addition to team spike as well.

Protection / Smiting hybrid monks usually do indirect holy damage through their teammates. Such smiting skills enchants target with additional holy damage, converse their damage to holy type, reflect damage back to attacker or do similar things. For example popular smiting pray Zealot's Fire damages all, who is standing near your targeting ally, while you frequently cast spells on him / her.

Making Conditions and Their Removing

Guild Wars has many kinds of negative effects, which can affect characters. However conditions seem to be the most popular of them. Each profession have one or several skills, that cause conditions. They usually are cheap, easy to reapply and very effective. Blind or weakened warrior is useless warrior; dazed casters are just crying children; bleeding, burning, poisoning and disease really kill people; deep wounds greatly prevents effective healing; and crippling negates running. This is not surprising that many arena fighters are built around conditions and heavily depends on keeping their targets under conditions until death.

A player under a condition has a brown down arrow at the right side of his life status bar.

Removing conditions is another job of monks, even more, sometimes the rest of your party can heal themselves (as most of RA builds) but strongly demand condition curing as fast as possible. To satisfy this role monks have more than enough condition removing skills with different positive side-effects (not counting usual healing from divine favor).

So that means that Ultimate Monk Gladiator always considers to equip a condition removing skill before going to arena. When no emergency healing or protection required you should remove conditions as fast as possible. Since most such spells are from protection prayers skill set the best is to have special weapon switch for it with 20/20 protection wand and 20/20 protection off-hand. See equipment chapter for detailed fast casting weapon description.

Hexing and Hex Removing

Hexes are another group of negative effects, which every monk should be ready to counteract. As conditions are usually favored by melee and range attackers, hexes are tools of spell casters, especially mesmers and necromancers. Unlike conditions most of which are side effects of attacks, most of hexes are independent spells. It has many conclusions, hexes are more expensive than conditions, they have longer recharge and casting times, and they can be interrupted as other spells. The good side of this class of effects is that hexes usually very powerful and last long.

As hexes are widely used to completely shutdown others, you should constantly pay attention to statuses of your teammates. A hexed player has purple down arrow at the right side of his life bar. Unfortunately you cannot see under what negative effect other player is, unless he calls it, so watch at what others are telling you.

As well as in other cases fast cast weapon is recommended to effectively clear your team from hexes.

Equipment

Gold means nothing for UMG, he leave only to perfection himself. However he need gold for a reason.

There are no small points in battle, everything matters. One single point of health can save you life, you may miss one single point of energy to cast a healing spell on your ally and save him, small fraction of second of skill recharge may lead you to killing you opponent before he will be healed by enemy monks.

It is not the willing of Ultimate Monk to use the best equipment -- he must use the best to survive in arena.

Fortunately, "Rock, Paper, Scissors" balance concept works there as well. Higher attributes comes at price of life and energy.

Mastering your skill sets you should note what you will benefit most of. Knowing this Ultimate Monk Gladiator works hard to get enough gold for his experiments. He is not greedy snob accumulating money for nothing useful, he is a scientist who needs big investments for life-saving research, he is an explorer who needs gold for organizing a long expedition to unknown lands. Perfect Warrior needs a perfect weapon to realize his potential.

One thing Ultimate Monk Gladiator should remember. Even the best sword is just a peace of metal in wrong hands. It is your abilities what makes it the best. Guild Wars is designed so that any item could be beaten by right skill: basic spike spells negates any +life, basic healing spells negates any +attributes, "enchantments last longer" means nothing if enemy disenchants you in no time and so on. However when used right each item attribute is vital, like one additional point of life can save you from organized enemy spike to be healed back to full life and turning lose into victory.

The wins are not made by items, and not even by skills. The spirit of warrior is all you need.

Speaking in particular UMG experiment with all kinds of unique and collector monk's weapons, off-hands, all runes, insignias, upgrades and other.

Prestige

If you think you are important in the world you waste invaluable self energy needed for battle to feed your pride. If you think you are important in GW you have a weakness in arena. If you care about self importance in arena you act selfish and ruin team play.

Ultimate Monk Gladiator knows this thing and uses it for his advantage. Ability to identify weak targets in opposing team may lead you to a victory in the match.

At the other hand prestige look also has its value. To win random team must act like a team, not like a group of undead monsters speeding over a field. One player in a team must be a leader. Usually standing in the back line of battle monks have a very good opportunity to monitor the whole situation and can make a great team managing. However, unlike friends in your guild people of your random arena team know nothing about you as well as you know nothing about them.

In armies of all times and all nations leaders were distinguished by their uniform. Having a prestige look may mean being an experienced player who knows the game and may give valuable commands in battle.

To be a leader or not to be one Ultimate Monk Gladiator should decide by himself. Each way has its advantages and disadvantages.

Leaders should care about self importance trying to force other members of the team to listen to them. They constantly worry about what others think about them, how they must act, what impression they produce. Sometimes all they care in battle is do others like them, do others respect them and do others admire them. At first, being a leader means high responsibility and more work. It is not as easy as it looks from distance. Another use of prestige is making your enemies to fear you, playing on their feelings and imagination.

Being ascetic doesn't always mean being poor and pitiful. If a warrior can give up his feeling of self importance, he gets two important things. The first is release of energy which his illusion of self greatness feed on. The second is appearance of free energy that is enough for penetration to the sphere of second attention, the stance in which it is possible to see the real greatness of Universe. In the battle sphere of second attention allows warrior to know what others did, are doing and going to do as well as what he must do. It is a stance of warriors in minutes of great danger when you know exactly what to do, but cannot describe how you have found an exit when it is all over.

Being ascetic without second profession wearing starting PvP armor dyed grey is a great way to foolish your enemy to your advantage. Playing fool you lose nothing but win important battle initiative by surprising opposite side in key moments and forcing it into doubts. Your precious stuff and rare titles have better use when you need to form a party in PvE, team arenas or other places.