mesmer or monk

[matt the man]

i like to farm and like to try new farms

wondering which has better farms and are more fun
monks or mesmers
thx for your thoughts

[nghwee]

Monk primary is much much more versatile for a farmer imo.

Versus KD mobs, take warrior sub for balanced, dolayt.
For running (to tricky farm spots, eg IDS), warrior or ranger sub.
Versus interrupts, take mesmer for mantra of resolve. To help with triggering SB, physical or ele resistance. And obviously there's arcane echo......
Take ele sub for the sliver armour build to kill bosses.
Take necro sub for the blood touch farmer. Of coz necro prime deals more damage, although for some mobs the heal from divine favour helps a lot.

Mesmer primary is better for harvest temple with fast cast, but once u get the hang of it, there really isnt much difference. Not sure what AOE damage there is for mesmer primary. Avarre has a nice solo uw guide using IW, but it's not meant to be a fast farm.

Just my 2 cents.

[matt the man]

anyone elses thoughts?

[Pick Me]

Monks are the best for farming, why?

They can solo (primary or secondary)
Every farming team needs at least 1 healer, so you should be able to get in


Mesmers are much more fun to play with, so, if you want to farm be a Me/Mo.

If you are grouping with other people for farming, then be Me/x.

Mesmers, to me are more fun to play.

[Abnaxus]

More than about the primary class, it's important to classify the skills.

Monk skills are normally part of most solo farming builds: protective/healing/energy skills are used to recover from damage or gain energy (healing breeze, protective spirit, mending, spirit bond, live vicariously, essence bond, balth spirit and so on).
These can be used in either in a primary monk or in every X/Mo build.

When we consider the damage dealing skills, I think it's possible to make some distinctions:

- Monk: smitings are effective in situations with several mobs: Shield of Judgment, Retribution, Holy Wrath. Just a couple (Spear of Light, Banish, Stonesoul Strike) are oriented to a single target.

- Mesmer: Illusionary Weaponry is probably one of the most efficient DPS skill, so in my opinion mesmer skills are among the best to deal with a single high level target, e.g. boss farming.

- Elementalist: besides area damage (risk of mobs fleeing) Sliver Armor is maybe the best choice to deliver huge damage in the shortest time to a single target, although targeting can be unpredictable.

- Necro: SS/RH/IP are both area and single target damage dealers, touch skills and Spoil Victor are very effective too against a single target.

- Warrior: both area and single target damage.


So the question is not what primary class is better, but "what is the target? single or multiple?" and then decide which skills to pick from both primary and sec class.

[Bloodied Blade]

Monk is better for it unless you're talking ToPK. Monk can be Mo/anything and mesmer usually has to be Me/Mo.

[Age]

If you pick Monk you will have to play the Role as well and learn it.

[Vladmir Mironov]

Monk is the most versatile farmer while Mesmer is limited to a small number of farmeable creatures, places and bosses.