Advice for going through Factions and Nightfall efficiently

Hello all,

I played the heck out of Prophecies but stopped playing about a year ago. I unlocked all the skills for the core professions and now I am keen to play again and go through the two expansions. If I wanted to play two characters through Factions and Nightfall with primaries and secondaries from the four new classes (i.e. paragon, ritualist, assasin and dervish), what combination would be most efficient and effective?

Since I will be going through a lot of these missions after most players have completed them, I would want to have a class combination that would be able to do the missions solo+henchies.

Thanks for the advice in advance.

Well, in general, most of the builds in prophecies would suit you well anywhere, and with heroes your build won't be that influential on your outcome until you reach places like Realm of Torment, etc. I suggest you just go with what you know first, see what each area throws at you, and learn for yourself interesting combinations with other professions. This strategy worked for me at least. :P

Do NF and get the 2 ele heroes and cap searing flames. Get the the necro hench from proph. Steamroll just about everything. Toss in a broadhead arrow ranger once in a while.

What a big question, one I'd love to help with!

If you care mostly about beating the game efficently, than go through Nightfall first. Doing this will get you Heroes, whom are incredibly effective. I gave my Elementalist hero the Searing Flames build, a World of Healing Monk (Dunkoro or Talkhora) and I switched with Koss who had "Charge!" and Olias as a Minion Master.

If you still care about beating the games the most efficent way, than go to Guildwiki (you can google it, I never remember address). It gives some very nice tips for beating missions, quests, etc. and gives sample builds for your character and heros.

Hope this helps.

Factions: been though almost 5 or 6 times. Super fun wish any character.
Nightfall: Only once but it was fun.

Change your build around for variety so you dont get bored.

Thanks for the responses guys, but what I want to do is unlock as many of the skills for the new professions as possible. So which 2 combinations based on just the 4 new classes would be best for PVE content? For example, should I try a Ritualist/Assassin and a Paragon/Dervish? Or a Ritualist/Dervish, etc. etc. I don't know how effective these classes are or what sort of combinations are particularly powerful, so your experience with the missions and classes is invaluable in answering this.

Most Dervish builds can do well without a secondary so I would pick a combo among the other three and use the dervish as the primary for the odd man out if you just want to cap the skills. I think the Sin and Rit can be pretty self reliant too so it depends on what kind of role you want. I've seen some P/D builds but never any P/A or P/Rt builds (doesn't mean they don't exist of course). If you like Mele, go A/Rt and D/P, or if you like support go P/D and Rt/A. You can change secondaries very easily now, so ignoring all my other babble, I would choose the primaries that most interests you and just switch to the secondary when you need to cap or buy skills.

First off, if you want to do cross-chapter combos (such as Dervish/Assassin or Ritualist/Paragon), you'll have to cross over to the other chapter to change your secondary- you can't create an assassin or ritualist in Elona, or vice versa. This means you'll miss out on a few free skills from the starter quests, so it isn't recommended if you're going for most efficient method of skill acquisition.

Second, hero skill trainers- get as many skills as you can from these guys, since they're free (instead of the 1k/skill from normal skill trainers). Try to reach level 8 Sunspear and level 3 Lightbringer, that'll net you like 20 free skills.

As for class combos, it doesn't really matter too much- you can do a lot of builds without relying on your secondary at all. Assassin and dervish might benefit from each other's skills, but that's probably about it for synergy. If you really think you need a certain secondary, you can unlock it and switch back only when buying skills.

If your doing both chapters... Do nightfall first, as said previously get the ele hero s... not jin (the ranger) and cap (or buy searing flame and a bunch of other stuff) get olias from proph as said previously and since you have most of the skills make an MM with him and just use the 2 healer henchies and herta and devona. that will get you through nf pretty well. don't forget to level ur heros though like dunkoro, talkora, melonni and... margrid/whisper guy since they are "required" for certain missions. anyways thats the best tip i can give. and use the heros in factions it will make it very easy.

Good builds = searing flame eles
= mm

those are the main things. and intterupters at times. look on wiki for what to expect in missions to help you along
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I think Scutilla nailed it! Select one primary from each campaign that sounds the most fun to play. Pair it with a good secondary, with good synergies, and only switch to the unplayed profession when you purchase the skills. (Just realize that you will need to get a fair way through each campaign before you change your secondary. But if your goal is to unlock skills, that shouldn't deter you.)

As for the pairing of the two professions from each campaign, they don't really play well together (in my opinion). You'll probably find that if you do choose this path, you'll probably end up playing just with the skills of your primary profession, with a secondary that frequently recedes into the depths of your memory, and rarely sees the light of your skill bar.

For what it's worth, here are my thoughts on each of the four classes:

Assassin - takes time to learn to play well. You'll probably die a lot, especially once you encounter the Afflicted. Can be tough to get into PUGs for missions, due to the bad rap this class got initially. I had to switch to a Bloody Barrager to get through Factions. Went back to daggers for Nightfall, and (once again) I'm having tons of fun!

Ritualist - Restoration support role can play somewhat like a monk (watching red health bars all the time). Defensive spirit role is more fun. But I prefer the offensive spirit builds *much* more. For me, my Rit is the most enjoyable toon that I have! (Great for those Triple Green weekends too!)

Dervish - good melee class. Once you get the hang of working your enchantments for maximum effect, this class gets pretty fun. (I'd recommend a secondary that has loads of enchantments!)

Paragon - decent support class, with some offensive power. If supporting your (hero/hench) team isn't your cup of tea, you may want to relegate this to a secondary. If you choose this as a primary profession, it's best paired with something that uses shouts, (which pretty much means Warrior).

(So what did I play, and what would I recommend? Well, I have all 10 primaries, and have switched up the secondaries a bit. But I'd say a Rit/Necro in Factions, and Dervish/Ele in Nightfall. Again, you can switch out the secondaries to purchase the Assassin and Paragon skills. And leverage those Hero Skills!)

Remember these are just my opinions, and I'm sure that many will disagree with me, so please, take it with a grain of salt.

- Grunntar

Playing through either game isn't the fastest way to unlock - you now have to purchase all but a VERY small handful of skills you get at the very very first of the chapters.

Most efficient for Unlocks is to play Factions up to the mainland and blow all your skill points - redo until you have all unlocked what you want. You get to level 20 in a few hours and skills are cheapat first. There are only a very very small handful of skills not available in Kaineng city that you will need to unlock with faction.

Nightfall, dunno. It isn't fast enough to really do what I suggested above, nor do you have access to 99% of the skills right off the noob island. My guess would be to go through to where you first enter Vabbi and spend the hero skill points.

After that it is faster to unlock with faction. While it is a grind, you can now earn up to 6000 faction a day playing "training" against AI in PvP areans. The first 2000 or so take about 15 - 20 minutes and then you can do real PvP for more (personally I hate PvP so I do not do it, I will do the AI thing from time to time for unlocks for my heroes). This will definitely be the fastest way to unlock elites.

If you just want to play and the unlocks are just nice - then I would suggest a ritualist/assassin for factions and both a Dervish or a Paragon primary work well in Nightfall (personally I'm partial to the Dervish, but I found them both equally as easy). Assassins tend to be difficult to play and I've found even more so with hench/heroes - ritualist play very well with them. But, if the unlocks are just a nice sideline I would also agree - just take your old characters over for a bit. Lots of new skills, new builds, new weapons, and they work quite well in the other campaigns.

I made an A/Rt for Factions and a D/P for Nightfall for just that reason: I wanted to unlock all the new profession skills with the same character. Having taken my Assassin all the way through Factions and my Dervish all the way through Nightfall, here is what I think on the subject:

1) The Assassin can "fake" being a Ritualist due to 4 points of energy regeneration. Just get a generic +5 energy staff (Kole's Torment and other cheap greens from Tombs work great) and spam those spirits. Or Channeling skills. Or Restoration heals.

2) Take the melee class as your primary unless you don't intend to melee at all. Paragon's low energy recovery and lack of Mysticism prohibit a P/D from being effective with Dervish builds. Similarly, Ritualist's lack of Critical Strikes hampers a Rt/A greatly. (Learned this one while testing both before settling on my current characters.)

3) Assassins have a hard time in PvE, especially when henching. Ignoring the social stigma, an Assassin needs to dash in and out of combat to be effective, which works only so long as the bulk of the party is engaging the enemy. Unfortunately, heroes and henchies have been patched to break away from combat when you do and kite along with you, so you'll be hard pressed to play as a tank - rush in and attack to keep them focused. Without the extra armor of a Warrior (or Dervish with Avatar of Balthazar) or the extra range of a caster weapon/spear, you'll have a really hard time with this.

4) Dervishes are the most PvE-friendly class since Warrior. I wanted the "authentic" Nightfall experience with mine, so I took her through the entire campaign with heroes and henchies alone before I brought any of my existing characters over. Yes, that means no Searing Flames or other Nightfall skills were on my heroes. I only hit a road block once, on Ruins of Morah, for which I had to team up with another stuck Dervish. When I brought over my elementalist, I actually found myself having a much harder time in the areas my Dervish breezed through by rushing in and hacking away.

So that's my experience. Hope it helps you decide for yourself.

Go a Rt/A with weapon skills (offensive and Defensive), and Dash/Dark Escape/Return/Other assassin defensive skill. Spirit spamming is pretty dull, and slow.

For Nightfall, I'd say go D/P, as Dervishes pretty much destroy mobs. You might want to use some Paragon skills while getting skills to optimise your bar, but in the end, a bar full of Dervish skills is likely to be much more effective.

Or Instead of unlocking double Eles, if you are a physical attacker, unlock the other ranger, unlock both necro and build one in MM and the other in Order/Curses necro.
Then make a Barrage/Pet team, and steamroll everything.

If you are a Necro, make yourself the order role or the MM role, use Olias for the other role, and unlock Jin and Margrid, the second ranger, instead of the Master of Whispers, the second Necro.

This is my tip, and it'll win the game for you (easily).

N/E - Searing Flames
N/E - Searing Flames
P/W - Defense + Offense (D/W with high offense until Morgahn)
Mhenlo
Other Hench Monk (name slips my mind)
Devona/Derv Hench
Cynn/Herta/Sogolon

N/E's have 12 Fire and 12 Soul Reaping, as things die they gain massive energy and can spam SF FOREVER.


If you want to play more conservatively:

D/W - damage or E/Mo with SF bar
P/W - offense + some defense
Mo/Me - ZB + Gift of Health + Leech Sig + Power Drain
Mhenlo
Healer Hench
Sogolon
Devona

This works better in the hard zones.

Hope that helps, basically you want SOME defense, but if you can kill real fast, it's better

I just want to say this:

Choosing secondary for unlocks is pointless, this is not prohecies where you has lots of quests that rewarded you with nice unlocks for your secodnary.

In new Factions are no skill quests beyond starter island (and you can do most of em with one single character BEFORE choosing secondary, and the ones you need more characters for are usually core skills which you haveu nlocked already), beyond starter island, you can charge secodanry very soon and simply buy skills from trainers.

But, you can do that by jsuttaking highlevel character frop prohecies anyway.

Now, NF features even less skill quests and again, you can get starte skills fro all classes in training area very soon before you choose secondary.

After that, you can use hero skil trainers to unlock skills, but you dont even have to have primary or secodanryu class to ulock and learn from hero skill trainer (so, as P/W you can learn dervish skill no problemo).

Thus, being A/Rt or Rt/A or D/P or P/D just for unlocks is pointless, because it wont give you any extra ... just pick best secodnary power-wise and change it when you are able and buy skills after that to unlock stuff.

Or. even simpler, bring over oyu L20s with unslend skillpoints and blow em off at unlocking.

Any class can easily beat any part of the game with only hero/hench. You can also do it with just about any build, so that is not an issue. Instead, just focus on what you enjoy playing. Probably the most popular two pve primaries are warrior and monk. Unpopular classes include mesmers, rits, and asses. None of them are particularly effective or interesting to play.

But that doesn't mean anything. Just read up on each class and see what sounds interesting and try it. You are looking at 40 hours of gameplay per chapter, so don't sweat it too much if you get bored with one PvE toon and want to make another. It beats the hell out of farming trolls ;0

D/P GFTE! Spammer FTW!!!!!!!!11!!1!!!!!!!!

Any profession is solo-able with AI. And once you have completed atleast one campaign or that same compaign, moving through it a second time is sooo much faster anyway.

Choose what you want and do a profession you will enjoy. Dont just choose something because it will be fast to level up. Play to have fun and try something different.

If youve already done one campaign atleast, then there isnt much anyone here could advice you about. You will have more then enough knowledge and exprience to know what your doing.

Just have fun.

This is what I played in Nightfall.

Go for the Eyes works great with a dervish since you're building adrenaline that would otherwise go to waste. And scythes do more damage on a crit than any other weapon.

Just get the heroe's first and you can easily finish both factions and nightfall. You can pretty much set whatever skills you want. You're just there to command the troops, anything you actually do, offense or defense, is just a bonus. Two SF spammers, a MM, take two monk henches, a warrior hench and one other hench can steamroll just about all non elite pve.