Calling all survivors

It's quite easy to get survivor on a paragon. I managed to get legendary survivor on mine despite not actually having that as a goal until I started getting close to it. As for this stuff about farming or exiting or staying out of aggro... I think you can take far more pride in achieving the title by just playing the game normally.

I hero/henched all of nightfall with my paragon, and did every quest except for the troubled keeper (evil masters quest in RoT) and the DOA quests, of course. I made sure to farm a reasonable LB rank as early as I could to make things easier later. I also did the easy quests around Kaineng and capped a bunch of elites during the double xp weekends, which got me the rest of the way there.

The things that kept me alive were: self-defence skills, letting the henchies take aggro first, and knowing exactly what to expect in all situations (having gone through the game many other times, and having capped all elites on my necro). Never do anything for the first time with a survivor character.

Key to getting survivor title, never EVER over-aggro. Also know your limit. Don't try to do too much on one day (like me I ruined 5 of my characters from getting survivor title) Basically, do few quests and missions at a time. Never try to do too much or else you'll bound to made a mistake.

Never gotten Legendary...but I have gotten indomitable 2-3 times...and tier 1 like 20-30 times (sometimes when I wasn't even paying attention to it).

Over aggro is the key factor...stop that from happening and your survivor will survive for the most part.

Playing with heroes/henchmen or humans you trust with your survivors life.

Avoid PUGs at all costs. Not only will this keep you alive

Knowing when to get out of Dodge and when to stick out a fight. This part can only be learned through practice. Tip: If you're in a guild and you're coming up on a situation you're not sure about...keep the Guild Window up...that instant travel to the Guild Hall button has saved my butt a few times....make sure to only use it if you are in a Hero/Hench only group or a group that know and accept that you will port out if you come close to getting killed.

As for professions...I'm partial to Ranger as they have slightly more armor than casters and have the ranged attack to keep them a little ways away from the fray...making it easier to escape a fight if it goes south. I usually run R/Mo for the healing when I'm going for survivor.

Unless you want a specific look for your character...Factions would be the best campaign to start your character in. You can get Tier 1 pretty easily. You can get to level 16 or 17 or so just by doing the quests and missions on starter island...and then you can use the am fah allies trick on the mainland to get a bunch of xp from Wajjun Bazaar Quests.

I don't know why but this thread triggered another urge for me to work on Survivor again. In the last Double xp for Elite Capture weekend I died while capping in Mineral Springs (damn Avicara at the entrance on my fourth time through) ...just after getting Indomitable Survivor. Time to start her over again. For this particular character I'm making a Prophecies character...there's a particular look I like in prophecies...

This is a good place to start. I did my Prophecies ranger in much the same way. She made it to T1 survivor (my only goal at the time) and promptly died due to reckless behavior.

I just recently made an Elonan Mesmer(/Necro). It took me roughly 35 days (120hours of play) to get her to Legendary Survivor.

Tips for beginning:
1. Life stealing is your friend. It hurts them and heals you. Best set of skills for starter characters.
2. Use bounties EVERY time you go into an area - they double XP, and combined with a scroll this can be a very efficient way to capitalize on kills.
3. Every quest, every mission... to a point. There are certain missions with a a high chance of dieing once. Personally, I drew the lines at Grand Court (Elona), Vizunah Square(Factions), and Ring of Fire (Prophecies). Your comfort zone might be earlier or later than these - Know your comfort zone. I actually ended up doing Ring of Fire and Abaddon's Mouth successfully. She died for the first time at Hell's Precipice (@1,365,000xp). But, like my Ranger, i had met my goal and was slightly more reckless.


Ascension:
All campaigns have an ascension mission. Prophecies is the only one to give 50k XP for it. That's equivilant to 25 Prophecies M&B, or 11 Masters rewards in the other two chapters. So it is well worth your while to ascend here, even if you are from a different campaign.

The final few 100k XP...
After doing the steps I've mentioned above, and many of those I quoted from KooK, I found I had made it to roughly 750k XP, and did not relish the idea of grinding the rest out by farming mobs with a group of hench. I took a calculated risk. I found a unique solo farm in Kurzick territory. It generates about 3k xp per minute if you use the right scrolls. To get to it i had to make my way through Vizunah - Sunjiang District. I had friends join me for the last three missions, and I henched the first three.

A note on Vizunah. I nearly had a heart attack when i saw a L13 Assassin on the local team. None the less, I couldn't be the "Leaver survivor" so I stuck it out. When we cleared the last room- before the shiroken, I requested that everyone skip the cut scene for my survivor... no cut scene should mean no minion death. They agreed, but didn't follow through - typical of PUGs. So I closed the program before Shiro killed us all, and immediately logged back in. Logging out and hoping could leave your character on the map for 10 minutes. If you log back in immediately, you can choose to rejoin the party or not. Oddly enough, i wasn't presented with this option, likely because the mission was technically over. I was relieved to see no death on my Mistress Eva Lynn. Anyhoo, it was a short trip through the rest of the missions to get to my farming spot, and I made my way to Legendary survivor in about 3 hours of grinding (rather than the 45 hours of grinding I had anticipated farming Plains of Jarin in HM).

The Results:

That's probably the quickest way to Tier 1. Just to add...one potential pitfall is the Ritualist Boss near the end of the second mission. I remember that ended progress for one of my characters. Everything seemed way too easy through that point, and I just underestimated that boss as I was looking forward to moving forward onto the mainland and getting max armor. Be sure to upgrade armor in Seitung Harbor. I think I still had armor from Shing Jea Monastery at that time.

I have 2 toons that managed to get survivor... a rit/w he was just lucky, I really didnt do anything special to keep him from dying. My second is my ele/r....she has gone out of her way to make sure not to get killed off----my guildmate and I started new elonian toons together the first set was dervish (his) and paragon (mine) made it to level 19 when he aggroed tooo many things and I died so my ele paired with his necro tried to stay clear of any possible death situations (and no longer travels with him either!).
I have also tried on my canthan monk, she got owned by Tin Dao at level 18, my canthan mesmer died in the seige at tsumei village....and my ranger, well she died durng skill training .

my only suggestion is to play by yourself, use scrolls when possible to gain xp...and read up on the quests before you do them.....and then decide if you could possible die during it or if you should do ok.

good luck!

I only hate the fact they didn't let us have a shot at survivor with our old toons... like my ele...

I'm building the titles on my 1st char (19 months +) but the survivor is kinda unlikely with thousands of deaths in her story. But how on earth could I (and all of us) predict a survivor title??

Skillcaps are ftw.

As far as how far I went with missions before turning strictly to skillcaps, it went something like
Tyria: Beat Hell's Precipace
Cantha: Stoped after Gyala, Eternal Grove may be safe with a good team too.
Elona: Didn't exist when I was going for survivor, I figure I'd stop around grand court or gates of desolation

Learn how to kite, and how to pull, and just don't play with a deathwish like most PUGs seem to do. I don't think it is all that hard if you're patient enough with it.

Honestly...I would have left if I saw a lower than level 17 or so character on that mission...there's no excuse to not be at least level 17...considering you're facing large groups of level 20's. If someone did most of the quests on the starter island you can easily get to level 17. Combine that all the basically free xp in the Wajjun Bazaar when you have the am fah as allies and even someone who rushed through the starter island (read not run through missions...just skipped the extra quests) would be able to get to level 17 or so with very little difficulty. Leaving because you don't like the composition of the local team is a valid reason. If you truly believe that you may be in danger of having a party wipe because of that composition...that's a perfectly valid reason for not continuing. Vizunah square is one of two missions that require you to play with other players. I can understand people who do not like survivors leaving on other missions because you chose to be in that PUG....but with Vizunah Square you are forced to accept the content of the entire team...which you have no direct control over. There's two ways to try to assert control over that process...by playing the mission at a time when there's not likely to be a human team on the other side (which I usually try to do)...or leaving when something as stupid as a level 13 shows up. That is a valid reason to leave on those cooperative missions. Leaving because a team doesn't have the exact make up you want (but all are level 17+)...I would look down on. Leaving because the other team consists of only one human player...I would look down on. Leaving because some level 13 rushed through the content of the game and now wants to force others to carry him through the rest of the game...I have no problem with. I am normally against leaving groups regardless if you are a survivor (which is why I always play with heroes/henchies)...this is the one exception to that.

And I am certain they fixed the bug that caused the death to count in the cutscene at the end of the mission.

Tihark Orchard on HM can net a couple thousand xp in a few minutes with scrolls. HM is actually easier than NM because all the NPC's are lvl 20 and take **M O S T** of the attacks. The Skree do hit hard though, be careful of letting them smack you around.

I got my Rit to Legendary Survivor by repeating the T.O. mission like 50 times. Was not really all that fun, but hey I got a TON of skree wings.

Any death in a cutscene does not count, this one included, so you had nothing to worry about. There is also a 'death' for new characters in factions which is not counted (when teaching about res sig before entering Shing Jea).

that would have been hilarious: taking the tutorial and getting the survivor title screwed in the first map ever.

Actually, this one death has been known to be bugged.

If u get a runner make sure u know him or agree with him that u can zone back to the last region if there is an annoying/grieving person in the run group (aggroing and luring mobs). First possibility to kick the person agree to do so, and give a tip to the runner for that effort. Otherwise book a solo run.

Explain this well to the invitees.

got legendary survivor on;

Necro
Warrior
Ele
Monk
Ritualist
Assasin
Paragon
Dervish

Ranger and Mesmer have LDoA

Simple things really, good playing style, use of heros over hench, good pulling, doing every quest you can and dont be affraid of getting out of tricky situations. It is a dif playing style to how I normally play at times. Dont do mission that have a chance of instant kills, i.e. u can go through factions till harvest temple, tyria till fire isalnds, nightfall till end of desolation. Cap any and all elites in the ares you go through.

Thats about it really, oh and F12 + Enter is your friend.

Good luck

This I have done. Although I rarely bought runs anywhere, I did buy a run to Lion's Arch from Ascalon to get the Canthan max armor. I did inform the runner that I was working on a survivor, lvl 6 Mo/R, and would rezone when threatened. The runner said that it was ok. The other passenger, a lvl 3 necro, said, "OOOOhhh a survivor, huh?" When we zoned into the Diessa Lowlands, the necro deliberately aggroed the Hulking Stone Elementals and came running back at me with 4 elementals in tow. Without hesitation, I step thru the Vale. The runner was "WTF?" The necro said it was his fault. In Grendich Courthouse, the necro was kicked. I paid double for the run as a tip and a thank you.

Current survivor effort, 2 R/Mo, 1 in NF and 1 in Factions. On 2 different accounts, one with all 3 chapters, one just P & F. The 1 in Factions is 5 hours old and level 12, just finished the first mission, no scrolls. The 1 in Nightfall is 3 hours old and level 9, max armor, only opening mission completed, using scrolls. Thought maybe the pets would help tank, but have shed both for the added condition and hex removers.

Lots of great info coming in. Thanks a bunch all.

i got it last week on my warrior (max)

did lots of quests, factions upto vizu square, propocies upto chunderhead keep, and nightfall upto grand court

capped some 90 to 100 elites (now going for skill hunter titles too)

dont pug.

heros i used was olias, standard mm build but with blood ritual on for monks and ele's, zhed on earth, with ward against melee/ele, and sandstorm/unsteady? ground

jin with broad head arrow and interupts, 2 healer henchies, 1 melee type and one other.

was lucky, i only had 2 close shaves, one was with tengu in talus shoot, other in wilderness of bhazidar. didnt havetodo a sharp exit tho . very rarely directed heros to fight aswell.

use + health armour, minor runes and runes of vitea where u can

My ranger did it by being born in Cantha, taking the earliest boat to Lion's Arch, heading for the Desert and ascending. After that, it was "spend all my skill points on caps and cap skills that I don't need". Meh.

I did a survivor rit but she died 1,000xp away from tier 3. That time, there were no frivolous skill caps, just quests. Every. Single. Quest. I wiki'd the list of quests in cantha and did them ALL. Then I did the same for Elona. Restoration magic, Generous was Tsungrai, and careful henching along the way and it was no worries. Towards the end, I decided to go farm some monkeys in Arkjok with the VwK build. Worked great! Then one evening, I logged on, went to go kill the monkeys, and forgot to switch my armor/hat to my farming set. It really made a difference and I died before I knew what was going on. Grrrrr.

So this new ele of mine is doing the same "every quest i can get my hands on" trick, and it's working great. I popped an ele tome and got stoneflesh aura while still at shing jea monastery (omg <3). Instead of going for ascention, however, I hauled ass to Urgoz' Warren and abused the vampire farm while I still could. Only one scary "OMG ONE GOT THROUGH" moment down there, and I'm 1/4 of the way through tier 2 with a whole truckload of quests still to do in my log. Woots! I even went out and solofarmed the Protect The Halcyon quest a couple times too. She's been in a Stone Striker + Stoneflesh Aura + Mantra of Earth + all geomancer's armor setup for quite some time, and is pretty tanky.

Cantha + Quests = survivor.

actually sin is one the easiest characters to use to get the title, ever wondered why all the FF alliances have legendary survivor on there sins? just run the quest outside couple hundred of times, its a piece of cake too.

Do it the easy way - http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10155813

Can be done in 15 hours

The most important thing, in my opinion, is to PLAN your route, don't just wing it. This is a plan of someone who wanted to:

a) Do it with as little outside help as possible.
b) Do it while fighting and being active, not sitting back like a wuss and having someone else get them the title (offense intended to all those wusses out there). :P

So, here's the plan:

1) I started with a Tyrian Mesmer. Cantha allows you to level up faster, but Tyria gives you faster access to max armor. Took my time in Pre-Searing, left around level 6 or 7.
2) I got her a run to LA from Ascalon, fairly uneventful.
3) NEVER, EVER, EVER AFK while getting a run. Even if the runner is a consumate pro who knows what he's doing (not some lame one who requires an entorage of meat shields), the other people getting run might be total jerks or noobs and pull aggro needlessly. It's amazing what people do when bored.
4) From LA, she went to Kaineng and got herself max armor (she was level 8).
5) Did the one risky thing, loaded up on henchies and started the mini-mission to get to Elona. There are Lionguard that help you now, and with a few timely interrupts, was able to prevent the Wrathful Storms from pwning my crappy henchie party. This allowed me to get to Elona and get the basic heroes, Dunkoro, Tahlkora, Koss and Melonni.
6) Using them, and Devona, Mehnlo, Aidan and Cynn from the Ascalon Settlement Quest and a bunch of Lionguard, I got Olias (using the old quest, not sure if this is harder or easier now). Olias is the key to everything else.
7) Set up Olias as Jagged Bones Minion Master and went back to Kaineng. Did the bus load of errand running quests there. If you avoid any big Jade Brotherhood mobs (staying west in Bukdek Byway and Wajjun Bazaar), you can do almost all of those quest with minimal fighting.
8) While I was under level 20, I had Tahlkora set up as a dedicated bonder for me (Life Barrier, Life Bond, Vital Blessing + Life Attunement).
9) By the end of those quests, I was level 20 and ready to rumble. So, I did Elona missions till I got to Grand Court. That was a hard one where I often had a death or two on my other chars, so I decided to stop there.
10) Went back to Tyria, got run to Sanctum, did the mission with heroes, then did the desert missions (paid runners when available). Ascended and beat my doppelganger with Empathy + Insidious Parasite.
11) Went back to Kaineng and did missions and quests all the way to Kuunavang. With skill, patience, knowing what you're up against and occassional help from guidies and friends... I never faced a dangerous situation.
12) Skill capped like crazy everywhere I was, changed secondaries all the time.
13) Paid my dues. Got my character and her heroes top notch gear.
14) I eventually had to get help with Grand Court to keep advancing without repetitive farming of Sunspear/LB points. I also did kill Kuunavang before getting the title. However, I did NOT try Shiro in Cantha. And as expected, when my char finally died after getting level 3, it was by Shiro in Imeprial Sanctum... Meditation of the Reaper wipe.
15) I did not make good use of scrolls, often forgot them or forgot to renew them.
16) When I got the title, I had completed all missions and bonuses in Tyria past Droknar's Forge, all misisons on masters in Cantha except Imperial Sanctum and all missions in Elona on Masters. I did not farm XP much however other than skill cap and do lots of quests along the way.

I did take a few more risks that necessary, but I would encourage anyone goign for the title to NOT go for the easy wussy way of having others do the work for you. Play for the title, use skill and wit to survive, and you'll be amazed how much better it will make you as a player. I have learned a LOT about successful PvE play and greatly improving your odds against mobs by playing my survivor aggressively. I think it's one of the main reasons my ele is the first documented character to vanquish all three continents on these forums.

All the info you got from the posters sum up what you need to watch for. I'm pretty sure I mastered the staying alive part by completing all 3 campains before going for Lsurivor and in record time.

3 Campains Completed with 0 deaths

No scrolls used or enemies farmed.

I started a new Ritualist in hopes of Legendary a couple of months ago and got it on first attempt, and without any close calls that I can remember. No farming, no running, no PUGing, and absolutely no F12.

My advice is just to stick to what you know. Play a class you enjoy, and know well. Know the game well. Know your enemies, and how to counter them. Know an escape route. Know the missions, etc. etc.

I found it useful to take another character through missions I'd not done in a while ahead of my survivor, to remind myself of it, and to plan my strategy out.

And cap skills. Cap every darned skill you come across =p
I stuck mainly to Cantha, as it's the chapter I know best, and has nice exp rewards. By the time I hit Legendary, I was 108/120 towards Canthan Skill Hunter.

Bump your health up too. With health in the 600s the enemies will barely look at you, squishy or no.

All in all, I think I capped about 150 skills, ascended and went as far as the Southern Shiverpeaks in Prophecies, did every mission and quest in Factions bar Imperial Sanctum, and as far as Vabbi in NF over the course of 110 hours.

It wasn't as hard as I'd expected, once I'd got myself into the right mindset. Yes, you have to be cautious - but planning ahead and being a little more tactical about things will only make you a better player in the long run =]

rccollins thats impressive

Or do it the easier way. Did mine in under 10 hours on first try.

I got my Sin first level of Survivor just by playing through missions and quests. Its funny I've got a lot of people asking thing like "So you quit whenever you are about to die right?" lol Its hard to believe Sin dont die

I started the Sin from Cantha (of course no other choices). I then quickly rushed to Kaineng and moved to NF to get heroes. They have been extremely critical to my survivor. At the beginning I used daggers but I was in great troubles many times. So I then switched to Critical Barrager and it has been much easier to survive.

still 200,000XP to next tier but it's interesting since you have nothing else to do in this game.

Now that Lightbringer Scrolls are showing up at the Rare Scroll Traders at about 2K each you will find the time shortened and more survivors running around in game. It is an expensive way to go, but it does give you triple XP for 10 minutes.

Personally, i didn't notice i got survivor till i reached rank 2 (on my paragon). Then i managed to get legendary survivor and have completed all 3 campaigns and am still at 0 deaths.
I just played as i usually do, with real teams in a few nightfall missions such as bastion but hero/hench most of the time.

I got my Paragon Legendary Survivor + 3 Protector titles and still haven't died!

I see the AFK'ing you did for the Favored title, but damn, close to 80hrs in 10 days?!?! Wow.

a moron just pulled group of hydras to my Sin when he just got Survivor 2 while I was afk for like 30s to read news on another computer! jesus

Every time one of your survivor characters die, you learn a hard lesson that makes you a better survivor. I too died during a similar event and learned that going afk with any human players in your team can be disasterous. Now that you learned this lesson the hard way, be glad that you weren't just under tier 3.

I have a Dervish, Paragon, Assassin at level 1 Survivor, A ritualist at level 3, and a ranger at half way between level 1 and 2, from Nightfall

Gaining level 20 is easiest on Elona because you have heores leveling with you, do the quests and the missions avoiding master ones till you are high enough and can have 8 man party.

Ritualist was easy because you can use spirits to do more damage and give protection, again doing the quests that are relatively easy, you possibly can get to level 20 before goign to the mainland if not go to elona as soon as possible and get heroes.

Getting to level 3 is a lot easier with heroes, its how my ritualist did it

I would avoid Tyria its very hard to get up level until you get to Lions arch and get heroes.