Playing a Factions character in Prophecies/Nightfall?

I only recently started playing GW again when a couple rl friends from my College picked it up, I played in last years Beta Weekends and for a while after retail hit, I'm using my old account so we all currently only have the original Prophecies campaign, but the Assassin looks to suit my playstyle perfectly, I'm currently playing an N/W.

The problem is, when I look through GuildWiki Builds for my potential Assassin it seems all skills are learned at various stages throughout the Factions campaign, so playing from 1 on Tyria would mean I could never learn skills without first completing the PVE missions, and aquiring my skills in Cantha, is this true and absolute?

I would love to play an Assassin to do the Prophecies Campaign (then Factions, then Nightfall) with my friends, but I do not want to have to play through Factions (without my friends) to enable me to go back (probably at 20) and play through the menial missions again.

So basically, is there any other way I can get Assassin skills other than doing Factions missions/quests/trainers? Can I even go back to Tyria without having done a bunch of Cantha stuffs?

TIA for any help you can provide.

If you unlock the assassin skills you want via pvp you can buy them from any canthan skill trainer, that would allow you to get all the skills from kaening and move into tyria, ofcourse you would have no elite but theres plenty of em around kaening.

hmm, I'm confused, does that mean the kind of skills you get in the Skill Unlock Packs on the GW Store? I was under the impression you could only get those skills on PVP-Only characters, could you elaborate a little on how exactly I could obtain Assassin skills without doing the Factions campaign on a Roleplaying/PVE character?

you cannot start an assassin in the prophicies campaign it must be started in factions becasue it is exclusive to that chapter. so in order to join your friends you must advance you assassin past the beginning "noob" island of the game and go to lions arch from kaining center. hope that helped

I think that dekciw refers to obtaining skills for his assasin in Tyria as opposed to cantha, i assume that he does not want to play through factions without his friend but would buy it, make his assasin travel back to tyria and then play through with his friend, but wants to know if his skills can be obtained in Tyria.

That wasn't really what I was asking, I kinda knew that already, I was more concerned about after moving to Tyria, how I would get my Assassin skills, if the skill trainers I need are all in Cantha, somebody mentioned getting all the skills I need via unlocking them in PVP, I was looking for elaboration on that point, in so much as how I could do it, and if it applied to Skill Packs on the GW store.

Once you make an assassin, you get a lot of skills on "noob island" (shing jea island, equivalent to pre-sear). After that, you hit the main area, Kaineng Center. The skill trainer here has ALL of your non-elite skills (unlike Prophecies, you do not have to obtain them slowly). There are no skill quests after you leave Shing Jea. You will need massive skill points and gold to acquire them all, so probably can't buy them all in one shot. You will need to go through Cantha if you want any Assassin elites.

From Kaineng Center, you can also travel to Lion's Arch. You will be about level 10-15 at this point (depending on how many quests you do on noob island). From Lion's Arch, you could meet up with friends and continue the Prophecies campaign, or you could run backwards and do Prophecies from Old Ascalon (NOTE: you will not get any quests, nor any experience from missions pre-lion's arch, but you can do the missions).

Also, you can not get run places in Cantha. Gates are locked, you need quests to open them, etc. A few quests (if you do only primary and skill quests) and two missions will take you to Kaineng, from there you can go to Lion's Arch. (as stated before, anywhere from level 10-15, I believe).

Hope this helped?

Assassin skills are only available in Factions.
For PvP use only, you can purchase the assassin skill pack to unlock all the skills for assassin for PvP use.
If you create an Assassin in Cantha for PvE, you have to get off the starter island to be able to travel to Tyria. By that time you should have Kaineng Center where you can get the majority of assassin skills from the trainer.
And once in Tyria, you can map back directly to Kaineng to get your assassin skills there. That should not be an issue.

The skill trainer at Kaineng does NOT have all the non-elite skills. Skill trainers and the skills they offer is similar to Prophecies. At various points in the storyline, you will encounter a skill trainer that has an increasing number of offered skills. The skill trainer at the Harvest Temple, which is very near the end of the storyline, is similar to Dakk at Ember Light Camp in Prophecies, in that they are the trainers that have ALL non-elite skills.

The way this works is, any skill that you unlock using Balthazar faction from PvP becomes available at all skill trainers on the continent for that skill. For example, let's say there is a skill that is only available at Harvest Temple. If you want to get that skill before following the storyline that far, you can use 1,000 Balthazar faction and unlock it at a Priest of Balthazar in the PvP areas. This unlocked skill will now be available for purchase at any and all skill trainers in Cantha for your PvE characters. Canthan-only skills will still not be able to be purchased in Tyria and vice versa, but this enables you to acquire skills much earlier than you normally would.

As for the skill unlock packs, first, they are only available right now for Prophecies-only skills. Assassin and Ritualist skills are not yet available to be unlocked under this method, likely until a bit after Nightfall is released. I have not bought any unlock packs, but I believe I remember reading that they would not affect your PvE characters at all. Meaning that buying the unlock pack would not cause them to be available at all skill trainers as if you had unlocked them with faction, but I can't confirm this absolutely. I would have thought that an unlock is an unlock, but I remember reading to the contrary, so maybe somebody who has purchased an unlock pack could confirm.

I believe this should answer your questions.