Hard adjusting to old Guild Wars from Nightfall

I want to play the old Guild Wars some just for historical purpose and to know what people are talking about, im about a quarter of the way through Nightfall but wanted a vacation. Since its the first version it has a lot of negatives that I don't like. Few outposts between areas, having to travel far through unbalanced NPC infested zones (Takes a lot more to kill them). I tried it and traveled around, it was fun because its like going back in history and realizing what its all about but its just hard for me to get adjusted to because of the difficulty of the PvE there. Any tips?

Sorry, your post has totally lost me... Could you be a bit clearer?

I have no idea what you just wrote...

I think, it's about going back to Prophecies from Nightfall and finding it hard. It's strange, not so much because I still like and frequent areas in Tyria, but since I found that most people find Nightfall harder...

I believe DarkDervish is saying that he started playing GW with the release of NF, and has now purchased Prophecies and is finding it to be more difficult than NF.
I can understand that, I've found NF to be much easier.

DD, the only advice I can offer for Prophecies is to group with players as much as possible. The henchies in Tyria are morons.

Heroes pwn Tyria.
No, really.

Unfortunately, if you started with Nightfall, it's unlikely that you have the skills for other classess you don't play, making customization of Heroes much harder than those of us who unlocked all skills from previous campaigns before the release of Nightfall.

Tyria is so mind-numbingly easy with decked out heroes, it's insane.
I actually sat back and watched my heroes lynched the heck out of Glint, with the right anti-Glint build. Aside from plunking down spirits, I didn't have to do ANYTHING.

Maybe he hasn't reached lvl 20 or gotten max level armour yet. A lot of missions to get through before you reach level 20 or Droks.

Specific examples would bring specific advice. The majority of NF buyers already did Prophecies and have long forgotten their problems as a new player there.

Did you bring over your NF character or start a new one?

Prophecies is neither harder or easier than NF, merely more straightforward. For prophecies, all you need is a longbow for pulling and a little patience. Truly mixed and balanced mobs are few and far between compared to the two other campaigns and if you have heroes, Prophecies is much more easily handled.

I hope I responded to what you actually asked, as your post was nigh indecipherable.

Prophecies IS harder. I thought the NPCs use alot more degen, which is annoying what your level is.

BUT, I will say that Prophecies is still my favorite. It's so much more complete, varied, interesting, and colourful.

Prophecies is far easier than the later NF areas. Its just mind-numbingly tedious to walk 2 steps, kill some random pair of mobs popping up from the ground, walk another 2 steps etc.

Basically, if you move slow and purposeful, you ll never get into trouble except maybe in some areas in the crystal desert, where the degen stacks up, and Alesia is crap.

Prophecies is balanced through the horrendously bad henchmen.

Yes, how things have changed.

Prophecies - forced grouping through ineffective henchmen
Factions - less grouping due to better henchmen even in beginning areas
Nightfall - mass non-grouping due to heroes and decent henchmen

To all who have played Prophecies, Alesia is the icon for ineffectiveness. Make sure to bring a good self-heal. (She's the cause for all the wammo's.)

Tyrian creatures are the EASIEST thing in the game to kill; there's nothing unbalanced about them. The entire Prophecies campaign could use a drastic overhaul to increase difficulty to a level closer to Factions or Nightfall, not that either of those are that hard.

If you're having trouble in Tyria, I'm inclined to believe your "vacation" from Elona wasn't your own choice.

I really loved Prophecies, and while I thought some areas were challenging I never thought they were impossible. I had a lot of help from my guild (they're awesome) and they spent time teaching me how to use my skills and put together effective builds. I suggest trying to find a helpful guild (if you don't already have one) or grouping with people in-game to ease your frustration. And you're always welcome to message me in-game if you need help.

IGN: Zephyr Rose (I'm a monk)

Old Ascalon is tougher than anything in Elona Pre-Vabbi

Charr with Ignite arrows, ground popping scorpions that interrupt spells, annoying gargoyles hexing you

What so challenging about Elona before Vabbi ? Skale ?

The difficulty level in Profecies is relevent to the way that we have to level our Tyrian Characters. In Factions and NightFall the rewards for quests is higher than in Profecies. Making getting to LVL 20 easy. In Profecies it requires you to actualy think and plan your next move, do I want to do this quest or wait til I am higher LVL (Villany anyone). Plus ascension for a Tyrian character can be a struggle, but when attained gives you a sence of pride that you actualy accomplished something. In Factions the ascension is fairly easy and can be quite quick, while Nightfall has no real ascension mission or time that I have found. Where is the sence of accomplishment there? In Profecies everything that you do feels like you are actualy doing something to better the world and you do not find out who the real bad guy is til nearly half way through the game. In Factions you learn about SHiro almost from the start, and Nightfall we all know that we have to defeat Abbadon.
I hope in chapter 4 they give us a mystery like in Profecies, don't let us klnow who we are supposed to go after til we are almost through with the game, give us something to work for, let us have the sence of accomplishment again. That is what made Profecies so fun.

Mega Mouse

I really should pay Galrath a visit with my pimped out heroes.

it *used to be* a struggle for some classes but the mirrors been nerfed badly to be as weak as a puppy

Prophecies did have alot of twists and turns but it really made no sense

you start with the Charr invasion and by the time you get to the Jungle, Charr threat disappears from the storyline -- huh?

One thing I noticed about Prophecies, is that mobs have several times higher health than in NF. NF compensates that with larger skill diversity.

As an example, putting backfire on a dervish (yes, it really is the best way to kill them - almost all dervish mobs use lots of spells) will kill it in 3 casts. Putting backfire on mursaats casters will hardly hurt them. It varies somewhat between areas and mob types, but prophecies is much more brute force dependant that NF. Once you adjust your gameplay style to NF mobs, you realize how far a little skill will bring you.

And keep in mind, that all except RoF and Southern Shiverpeaks missions in Prophecies do not even expect you to be max level or have max armor. That includes entire desert, and all of SShiverpeaks can be done at 17-20, as long as you bring some extra defenses.

All of NF mainlaind however is scaled towards 20.

Those skale are the same level as everything in Tyria through the Maguuma Jungle; keep that in mind.

EDIT: Just to clarify, the skales I'm talking about are the ones on NOOB island in M. Keys. Anything off noob island Elona is already past the desert in Tyria.

Ah the days of "#$!# Alesia I only had 10 health left and you healed Orion?!!!!!" (Orion being the NPC with 7/8ths health that obviously has precedence over me, when it comes to healing ) I swear I hated her, though once I think I had a smart Alesia. Not sure I was probably just dreaming though.

Overall, I think both Nightfall and Prophecies are pretty doable, although I've not played Nightfall with henchmen. The builds on monsters really only get tricky when you get to the Torments IMO. Of course, this is with the experience of playing them for a little while. If you don't know what to expect from a mob, any of the advanced areas (Ring of Fire, Desolation, etc) can be pretty rough.

Lina Ftw

I've been able to hench almost every mission in Prophecies, and so far in Nightfall I've been able to hench every mission up to, but not including, the Gate of Pain, for some odd reason. Seeing as how Prophecies henchies are the worst of the bunch, I'd say it was harder.

I started playing with Nightfall when it was first released. I beat it in about a month and I did heroes/henchmen for every mission except the Consolate Docks. I just started Prophecies last week and I agree that it takes a little bit of getting used to.

The mission format is completely different. So far they seem to be in a "Follow a mostly linear path through the wilderness, fighting along the way while accomplishing minor tasks" format. Nightfall's missions had a much different feel, they almost felt almost like an arena or something. Also, its funny you can do the bonus objectives without doing the rest of the mission

Way too many creatures pop out of the ground in Prophecies. It makes me want to punch the wall.

Since the henchmen seem to have bad DPS I have been doing the missions with real people. Despite the typical headaches associated with grouping with the average joe, it is more fun to play with real people. Too bad decent groups were kind of hard to find in Nightfall because I don't think I ever want to play through it again solo, it was kind of boring.

I love the skill quests in Prophecies, they are 100x better than the way Nightfall did it. To be honest, I was really struggling through Nightfall before I even learned that you COULD buy skills. I kept waiting for some NPC to teach me them to me but it never happened. Its great to get to a new area in Prophecies and be able to do a few quests to pick up skills.

Also, in Nightfall it seemed like there were far too many worthless quests in between missions. Maybe I'm just not far enough into Prophecies yet but I like how the missions seem to flow together better. There are still quests to go do and places to explore along the way, but so far none of the "Go tell person X something. Return to person Y for reward. Go find person Z in the wilderness and listen to them. Return to person Y for reward" series of quests between missions. Like I said though, it may just be because I'm not far enough along yet.

I can't tell if one is harder than the other yet (Nightfall wasn't hard until late in the game, and Prophecies isn't hard yet), but switching does take a little getting used to. Hopefully the devs combine the best of both games for the next chapter.

I'm currently stuck at Gate of Pain in Nightfall and found that enemies in Tyria and Factions are easier compared to those in Nightfall. Not to mention, the missions and quests are different (structure-wise) in all the chapters.

Hmmmm the last area is something else, though. It just doesn't compare with the rest of the game. Not because they're uber strong, but it's just the st00pid area effects and the duplication. (God I hate it when heroes attack something else than a monster that's almost dead, and it clones with 1 HP remaining)

ok let me help you:

MM = GG

I wouldn't say that yes the Warrior and Ranger may do as well as Dunham but not Alesia or Lina as well as Claude.It is Alesia doesn't have no protection before the desert and her heals are very good.It is that most of the mobs have better skills than than Stefan or Thom and Reyna but the whole idea was not to use all of them at the same time just a substitute.

I hate the way you can't skip missions in Nightfall like Prophecies and do it later.

@Age - you are a very forgiving person.

(wrote and deleted a rant about Alesia)

@ darktyco - The henchmen get better when you reach the Crystal Desert. Not as good as heroes, but better than before.

The skill quests are wonderful. And if/when you change your secondary, you can go back and do the profession specific ones for that secondary. Check guildwiki.org for the quest list.

There are a few of those types of quests. I know there is at least one in the Northern Shiverpeaks and in the Maguuma Jungle area.

Skill caps in the Southern Shiverpeaks can be difficult because there are several areas where the bosses keep rotating locations which means you might have to clean the whole area to get the cap you want.

There are skill quests in all areas up to and including the desert. None after that. Also, the quests where you can change profession and go back to do them are all in ascalon and the northern shiverpeaks, so I'm not sure you can do them with a non tyrian. Not sure about that.

You'll find that in tyria, all the monsters are pretty supid and weak. So the game compensates by having lots of them. Pop ups from the ground, drop downs from above, or wandering patrols. If you've got the skills to set up your heroes properly you can go through with brute force pretty easily, but if you're new and haven't unlocked too many skills then you have to be a bit slower. Learn to pull mobs away from their position and back towards you rather than attack them at their position. Also, it may pay to stand and observe before you attack, just to see if there are any wandering patrols nearby. Oh, and like duncan99 suggested, get the skills for a MM (necro minion master) and stick them on olias (in Lions Arch quest starter) or master of whispers. Having minions evens out the numbers and spreads the damage you take as well.

Anyway, good luck and have fun in tyria.

Earlier i ran my level 20 paragon from LA to northern shiverpeaks.
I died at the hands of some level 8's.

lol prophecies is funny, in nightfall cut scenes, the people move their lips when they talk, in prophecies they don't.. looks funny when you havent been to tyria for a while.

Im a level 20 Dervish, that has played to Vabbi in Nightfall so maybe I am just using the wrong heroe builds for Tyria. I have not even put any thought into hero builds sadly, its overwhelming enough to learn my best builds. Nightfall is ALOT easier than Tyria, I'm having mainly a big problem with the Undead in Tyria and the degen spells are the biggest pain i've found. I can't even get through the Black Curtain (Though I love the area, very brooding looking, and the horsemen).

I like to use as my heroes Dunkoro, Koss, and Acolyte Sousuke (packs a punch). Maybe I am using the wrong heroes for this though? Anyone have an idea what is best for Tyria? I may use the Master of Whispers more now.

Also, I have four of the Dervish Avatar Forms so far so what is the best for fighting undead?

Tyria has a more Lord of the Rings feel almost, lol, but then an exotic feel I did not expect from a medieval fantasy environment. (The costumes of the White Mantle, the weird look of some of the buildings)

What on earth are you people talking about? Tyria is retardedly easy whether you played NF first or not.

@Kazjun - the OP had left it unclear whether he brought over his NF character or started a new one. Darktyco's post was about a new Tyrian character, because non-Tyrians cannot get quests prior to the desert according to guildwiki.

@OP - yes that part of Kryta has been a joy to many players. It's part of the longest quest in Prophecies "The Villany of Galrath" which takes you all the way through Kryta through the Black Curtain to the edge of the Maguuma Jungle (and now Rotscale's home). People would try to form a party in LA, be told it's shorter to start from TOA, but should form their party in Bergen Hot Springs as everyone standing around TOA is waiting for favor and won't do quests. Ah, memories.

And check here http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Holy_damage for info on dervish skills that do holy damage (double damage to undead).

Really? Prophecies seems so freaking simple now after playing Nightfall and trying to play through DoA.

Infact I've learned so much from Nightfall that I've been soloing all the missions from ascalon right until sanctum kay where only my warrior managed to solo but before that mission all my characters from my Ranger, Necro, and Dervish were able to solo them. Only the missions in the desert need to be grouped but for normal quests you can just solo as well. Its not really until Thunderhead that things start to get challenging.

Warrior of course is best at soloing with Ranger second then Dervish and Necro at about the same. I'm sure that if I had other classes they would do well too. I know my friend that plays a Paragon could probably do just as well if not better then my Warrior because of the massive energy management.

Ahh, so I need the Dervish form of Balthazaar as he does holy damage, and perhaps make one of my heroes a Paragon as secondary and equip Dunkoro with some smiting prayers.

And it was REALLY easy up until I got to the Cursed Lands and the Black Curtain. The undead degen was killing me and my heroes.

Cantha is still annoying and laggy....

But prophecies is fun. I went back with my Paragon and, starting in Ascalon, worked my way back to LA. It was pretty fun to go back, though pretty much everything went down with one swing.

I just finished NF with a mesmer, you can bet your but I'm going back to Prophecies with him, there are too many good elites there not to :3

Foreign characters can't get quests prior to LA in the story, but can get most of the ones in Kryta and all but one or two thereafter (I know there's a Tyrian-only quest in the desert)...