On campaign superiority

Hello, I remember a long time ago when we were told no one campaign would have any advantage over another, thats great, etc.

Now, however I cannot afford Nightfall right now as I am just starting a new job, and am trying to scrounge enough money to sublet an apartment in a new city.

Why is this a problem? Take a look at random arenas, Its a rare thing to see a build composing of purely prophecies skills. Why is that? New skills= Advantage over old skills.

In fact a few certain dervish builds I won't release here because Im sure we are all woefully aware of dominate. I plan to purchase Nightfall when finances permit, but I should not have to feel pressured into buying it- World of Warcraft pressured me, and I no longer play it. That and the ridiculous cost involved.

Im sure I'll be flamed heavily, "Get a job nerd" etc, but I just don't appreciate being mislead is all. I really love Anet, and I love guild wars as a game, I just think its possible to have new and better content without punishing some of us.

You can still play the game with Prophecies/Factions skills, but of course it's possible to create a more effective build when you have all three chapters' skills to choose from. Introducing new skills doesn't have anything to do with "punishing some of us", if they hadn't introduced any new skills in NF nobody would have bought the game.

You haven't, you still have all the content you paid for do you not?

that isnt what Im discussing, we were told no campaign would have superiority, yet it happened anyway.

*In a mid-western accent* Well there's your problem.

U expect Anet to provide a NEW game free of charge? The chapters were always explained as stand-alone.

Sorry but your just crying over spilt milk.

Imagine if you only have the nightfall campaign, you would miss out on quite some nifty skills too.

Succes with your appartment and new job.

There does seem to be a progression, but that might just be from the wider choice with every additional chapter.

A question then, is a (core-profession) character from a Nightfall only account superior to such a character from a Prophecies only account?

that isn't what I am discussing, and your little adage made no sense at all.

I was not asking for anything FREE. I am asking why we were told one thing, yet another occurred.

Well, sorry bud. You're missing out on all of the advantages NF provides.

I kind of understand what Rotgut was saying. Some skills in NF are a lot better than those in CH1 or CH2, and it's a bit unfair to those who don't have NF. In term of build and such, then again some skills from Factions are far more powerful than those in CH1 and 3. I'm talking about core classes ofcause.

All I can say is save up! I don't know where you live but in the UK, NF is now £20 in GAMES also in Game Station as well.

Then for starter your in the wrong place. Try Anet support. The guys who created the game and have all the answers

Bitching and crying on here isn't going to get answers, Gaile has abandoned Guru (sorry if its wrong Gaile, but it seems like that).

And if you get and answers, its not going to change anything!
You still won't have Nightfall, you still won't have the skills, you will still be inferior.

Sorry its sucks, but your just ranting on here and looking like a cry baby in the process.
But best of luck.

IMO this is what the OP was stating .....I personally have no clue because I have all 3 chapters...but it would be interesting to find out....for all those that think the OP was whinning....don't jump to conclusions...he posted and said this was not the problem...he was just asking...albiet in a whiny way...is one core profession from a specific chapter better than from another chapter...

I for one would like to know...but don't have the knowledge of the skills to say yes or no

Actually. I paid from game because I liked past Guild Wars games too and how they tell story etc rather than WoW "nearly storylineless" style. Of course even games like WoW got storyline but GW just do it better when it comes for telling it, in my opinion.

I do think the Dervish profession, specifically, is overpowered. They are too powerfull attack wise and way way too powerful in healing for a melee profession. I often see secondary monk traded for secondary Dervish... I've seen dervishes taking on 3+ oponents in Aspenwood and they did not have an earth tank build, it was a plain dervish one, and I don't think that's plain "skill", to me it's plain "dervish skills". How can a profession with skills from only one campaign make other professions fall back when they have skills from all three campaigns, to me that shows that skills from that campaign are overdoing it. Maybe it's they wanted to compensate for that same fact (skills from only one campaign), but I think they over did it.

Lets face it...
You can manage the PvE campaigns you have just fine with the skill sets provided..... but unless you have all three campaigns, PvP is going to be much tougher. I'd strongly recommend just ditching PvP until you get Nightfall, or at least the PvP version of it...

It can't be helped really.
If A-Net were to make special versions of all the PvP arenas for every possible combination of campaigns (e.g. non-Nightfall arenas for those with only Prophecies and Factions) ... things would just become ridiculous...

You severely underestimate the number of useful skills that are only available in Prophecies and Factions.

Edit: BB > HTML.

And answer would be class dependant. and alot of "imho"

Ele: Nf > Proph > Fac
Monk: Nf > Fac > Proph
Warrior: Fac > Nf > Proph
Ranger: quite equal actually
Mesmer: Proph > Fac > Nf
Necro: Factions > Prophecies > Nf

Assassin: Nf > Fact
Ritualiust: Fact > Nf

By me, each class has its best, must have chapter.

Some classes feel buffed over time, while other feel left alone (this is special case of mesmers, where new skills are almost all inferior to previous skills)

*Laughs*

Can't play Assassin without Factions. At all!
And furthermore, even if you could, I'd sooner have a Factions-only Assassin than Nightfall-only Assassin. In fact, I don't have any Nightfall Assassin skills on my skillbar at all... Not with my standard Assassin's Promise build, nor my boss-beating Moebius Strike build... =P


That IS rather off the point though.

... As is this: By the way, I like the "Sexy Losers" clip avatar!

Isn't it obvious that the more skills you have the more options you have to make a better build, what else would be the point in adding skills.

You get what you pay for.

I would expect nothing less to have superior builds to other people if i bought three chapters and they didn't.

Seems coridan is the only person who gets what I'm saying.

Seems coridan and unbound are the only people who get what I'm saying.

None of the campaigns is overall superior.... That is the long and the short of it.

However, as was noted in earlier posts by other people, certain campaigns are more advantageous to have for certain classes... and indeed for certain styles of play.
A Nightfall-only Elementalist might well be tougher than a Factions-only Elementalist, but a Factions-only Necromancer will probably win out against a Nightfall-only Necromancer.
Prophecies produces a lot of low-level characters because the levelling progression is much slower. The progression in Factions however is very much faster, and will result in many more level 20 characters per unit time.

... Nightfall does have Heroes though.... and the difference those make to PvE cannot be easily expressed in few word.

If you ask me, that fact alone makes NF the superior campaign. Heroes make a PvE player's time a lot less stressful. I wouldn't mind seeing heroes added for those who don't have NF, but of course, that was a major selling point for the campaign.

Yeah, but that are your builds, NF gave assassin lots of nice toys (deadly paradox, etc.), as i said, its imho

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Glad you like my avatar, kudos for recognizing it

Honestly, I'd be pretty upset if I paid more for a new campaign only to have new skills which don't add anything useful to my characters.

Sure you'd like to have the best build in PvP without paying extra, but think of those of us who have actually paid for the game.

I don't understand your point. A conjure shock axe can still dominate, and a prophecies only rc or sod can still fair quite well.

Rend enchants, backfire, ignorance to stop signet of pious light, any kind of melee shutdown...cmon man, stop whacking away with a warrior or fire ele.

You're right, one campaign is way better than all the others in terms of PVP skills: Prophecies. Now go away.

I'm sorry you can't play the "gimmick build of the moment".
You are not at a disadvantage. There are plenty of builds that are fully efficient still from the older campaigns. They are not the new builds, they don't try to be. If you want a new build for a different purpose, then you should pay the money. A prophecies only account, in my opinion, is still just as competative as a newer account. The difference is flexibility, not competition.

1. New skills do not have an advantage over old skills. Having the ability to combine both of them (due to synergies) DOES have an advantage. As in almost every aspect of life, more choices = advantage. You pay for that freedom of choice.

2. I love Random Arena dervishes. I just bring my N/Me and *POOF* - they die. If you are frustrated by enchantment-based builds that dominate, simply have fun by frustrating those who use them.

I didn't say I couldn't handle them, in fact I love seeing them going down, but the fact is that before I enter an Aspenwood match, for instance, I got to make a decision: will I make room for a Dervish-measure in my build? In other words, my build is good all around, be it casters, melee, npcs, but if I wanna go against a dervish I HAVE to sacrifice a part of the build just because of them, otherwise I can't compete. To me that's overpowered. It's not like when I'm gonna decide on the build and think "will there be a MM build or a bonder build that I might wanna counter?", no, it's not a build, it's an entire profession, "will there be dervishes...", which doesn't happen regarding any other profession.

As I read it, the original poster implied through his opening statement that Nightfall was a superior campaign to Prophecies and Factions, and through his subsequent statements, he very much implied that the reasons for this are because only Nightfall builds are viable in PvP (or more specifically, RA) and that Dervishes are overpowered. I feel all of these statements are blatantly wrong. I own all three campaigns, and I don't feel any of the campaigns are outright superior, but I do feel that each campaign has its own strengths.

In respect for Amy's question: the answer is very simple, that none of the campaigns are superior to another. Prophecies has a lot of very powerful skills that people overlook in a casual pass. Dust Trap. Spiteful Spirit. Shield of Judgment. Eviscerate. Restore Condition. Balthazar's Spirit. So far as I care, it helps to define (among other things) the SS / curse necro, the 55 monk and several ranger builds, and many core-heavy builds can be constructed from simply the Prophecies skill set and the core skills alone. That doesn't include some details that are often overlooked: for example, if memory serves, a Tyrian character can flesh out a great deal of his skills (from quests) and simultaneously gain more skill points (from missions) than a character from any of the other campaigns.

About the Dervish: it's not overpowered. The problem is that quite a few people are entirely unprepared to deal with it, not so much in terms of enchantment removal but more in terms of how to react in the presence of a Dervish. For example, there was an AB game where I played an Avatar of Lyssa spiker, and I literally had free reign over several games where the Kurzicks fielded a heavy assortment of elementalists, warriors and ritualists. They would literally sit down and try to spam spirits, or establish their protective enchantments, or activate Healing Signet in the midst of battle, and they died quickly and painfully. The problem is that people are entirely unfamiliar with the class and what it can do. Under the right circumstances, I'd say a good dervish is overall only slightly better than a good warrior, and I've never heard anyone complain about a good warrior. I'd certainly be loathe to raise the dervish to godlike levels when it's far more susceptable to disruption. And I can say that most dervishes aren't really any good, so you don't really have to worry about them. They just spam some standard protection array (Conviction, Mystic Intervention, Vital Boon, Mystic Regeneration, etc.) and hammer away with some conventional bar of attacks and buffs (Reaper's Sweep, Mystic Sweep, Heart of Fury, Chilling Victory, etc.), and sometimes bring an Avatar like Balthazar or... well, Balthazar's usually what you see. That doesn't strike me as overpowered in the least. You don't need a dedicated solution like Rend Enchantments to deal with a dervish, although it's hilarious when you have one. They're perfectly susceptable to a standard beatdown.

I would have to say that NF is superior to the others - but in a few ways the original poster hadn't mentioned.
I don't PvP, so I can't comment on whether a particular class/build is stronger than any other.
However, there are several things that make NF the "superior" chapter imho. These mostly have to do with things that were introduced in NF (and Factions) and that weren't "retrofitted" to earlier chapters.
One thing, that was first introduced in Sorrow's Furnace, and expanded in Factions and NF, is Green weapons.
Another ones is the introduction of "Heroes"
Another is the introduction of "Inscriptions"

Think of this scenario - you want to go Vanquish an area (not SF) in Hard Mode (or just farm). If you have only Prophecies, you go out with you and your team of Henchies. You kill the bosses - the best thing you can hope for is the "runner up" prize of a gold scroll. You open chests - almost all of the stuff is purple or gold things with crap base mods (+13% while hexed).
Contrast that to NF. You go out with you're team of well tuned Heroes and Henchies. Each boss has a chance of dropping a nice green. The chests still contain mostly purple and crap gold, but at least some of them have a nice skin you can add a good inscription to, or a good inscription you can salvage.

Overall, I'd have to say that, if you can only have one chapter of GW, Nightfall is the one to have.

Why in the hell are there so many 12 year olds running around trying to put others down. I'm actually getting tired of it now.
To start off on this post, if you send a message to Anet support, thier automated message tells you to post on a forum. Secondly, Gaile has not abandoned Guru, and another, he was simply commenting on the fact that Nightfall skills are more powerful in general then the other campaigns, and that can't even be argued.
And obviously an answer isn't going to change anything, but the OP does raise the question of why the skills in the campaigns have become increasingly powerful (Crippling Slash/ZB/LoD and many more obviously). I believe it is happening only to keep sales up. If someone has Prophecies and Factions, but doesn't have Nightfall, they are out of the league when it comes to PvP. PvE is effected by it also, but not to the same degree (in my opinion) that PvP is.

If you want my opinion, the only one looking bad is you for trying to put someone down when it is not needed.

jetoc covered it pretty well

each chapter isnt superior -but owning more than ONE is

besides the skills dont get better id take [card]Physical Resistance[/card] over [card]Balthazar's Pedulum[/card] any day

Haha I love the American Dream

I dont' think it's the new skills alone that give people an advantage, it's the fact that they've learnt to use them in conjunction with the old ones to maximum effect. You are not at a disadvantage because you don't have NF, and Anet didn't mislead you, but new content is going to change some people's play style. You just need to find a style that makes you equal, using the old skills.

New characters are in no was 'Superiror' to the old ones, they just have a different advantage to them. Other characters can team against them just as well, you just need to know how.

There has to be new content, or the game ceases to be interesting.

They don't have an advantage, they jsut have somethign you dont' have. It's not better, it's just other. I'm afraid it's just something you'll have to get used to.

Excuse me, but, is not Prophecies the "superior" one? The other two just add skills to Prophecies professions (the best professions, the CORE) BTW, I don't see ANY superiority in Dervishes at all.

There are only ONE thing making Nightfall really needed: Heroes.