Zechnophobe

When I play as ice TB, throughout a game I have serious issues with killing any general with monks+ because I can't do enough burst damage to kill them, and by the time ability cooldowns are back again, they have healed the damage.

Ends up with me going out of mana, and TB struggles to kill anything with only autoattack, even with mageslayer + skill points in stats.

Good players using generals almost always outlast me. You can try killing the priests, but they just resummon them, and all the time wasted dpsing priests, the enemy demigod will be eating your face.

Agreed.  A team with monks early always has a big advantage.  It doesn't decide games, but it sure gives the edge.

Never really thought of this as a game started (except with Sedna). Thanks for the tips guys, going to have to try this out.

monks are superior. you'd better have a damn good reason not to take them if you're playing a general. 

also worth noting that they scale directly with your HP pool so starting combo of Blood of the Fallen with Monks is incredibly strong. 

Even though they nerfed the exp and gold, as a TB player I still find myself leveling much faster and able to save up gold easily. 

Plus it gives me more targets for BotS.

One of Sedna's ability buffs "priests" Does that mean it only buffs the Holy Priests idol or does it also buff Monks/any healing Idol? Sorry for the newbie question, I just don't know.

Awesomeness thanks for the reply SoFFacet!

I'm not entirely sure how the mechanics of monks work.  Do they heal themselves?  When they do, are they not healing you?  Is it their priority to heal you before themselves?

As Sedna, I can't help but feel that monks off the break sometimes leave me weaker- unless I get blood as the favor, or the cloak of the night which has inherent mana.  Granted, that is most of the time, but occasionally I get swift anklet on her, and when that happens I often find my monks getting owned and me running out of mana from having to recast them, and as a result of no mana helm and recasting monks, I find my mana pool tapped, my monks dead, and my health low.

I'm also bad at saving my monks.  I usually just let them get whacked on.  I suppose I should work on pulling them back.  Or just not use swift anklet on her.

Priests prioritize healing DGs. A single unit may be healed once per 8s. Priests will heal themselves if you are not injured or have already been healed within the last 8s. Since you get two monks, they end up healing themselves quite often without detracting from the healing they give you. Unless you have an allied DG with you, in which case they will heal him. 

Don't know what to tell you. Sedna with BotF + Monks is very strong early game. 

A fair bit. I micro mine to attack enemy DGs that I attack, run away from people attacking them, run over mines for me, etc. 

Correct. 

A few notes on Monks/priests/etc

• They have a range that they heal in. They cannot heal someone outside that range.
• Just because you are stunned, doesn't mean they are. If you are, for instance, running away by giving a long move command to your and your army, and get foul grasped, your monks will continue running on... outside of your range.
• Monks heal 10% of your total HP.  Increasing your HP total makes them heal more.  This includes the ever awesome Sigil of Vitality.
• If you select one of your monks, and right click on an ally, that monk will follow the ally around, and heal them when possible.  Note, they often die to towers eventually if you do this.  Still, it is good idea to do if you are returning to base to shop.
  

Right.  I was referring to Sedna with swift anklet having issues.  I don't really have issues with BotF and Cloak of Night early game when I grab monks.

Also I saw some post where someone mentioned a "smart team would stagger their ranks of priest".  What is the benefit of this?  Wouldn't having all of the highest rank of priest (sedna bug excepted) be ideal?