Before I start back I've got a few questions. (pretty long)

Now let me start off by saying I havent played this game since about a month before factions was released so its been a while. I have pretty much forgotten everything about the game (part of the reason I want to start back is the game will be quasi-new to me) and I have a few general questions about the xpacks and game mechanics.

Alright first off; As of now I only have phrophies. I still have a left over 20 Ra/Ne from before but as expected when I tried to play him I was completely lost. Hell it took me about 30 min before I remember you can change around your "points" (dont remember the real name) anytime in town. I decided that it would be best to just start a new character. My first question is about how the other expansions start off. What level do each of them start out at? As in, does lets say factions start off with a level 20 creatures? how do do they tie together?

As many others I have been switching between WoW and Gw for the last ~3 years. One thing I liked about WoW is the infinate possiblity to make your character stronger with so many different armor sets and such. If I remember right in GW there are some pretty stick limits to how powerful you will become. One thing I remember on my ranger is buying his current bow that was advetised at "Max dmg". Now since the new expansions, have the progressing characters become that much stronger if at all? or is it simply more areas/story(by far GW strong point in my book)?

This may be a hard question to answer but just give it a guess. My ranger has I think about 7 plat. Now just as in everything else in life I know there has been inflation since I left. How much has the value of 1 plat gone down since the time before factions? (_____ used to cost about 4 now it costs 8. * displaying value of 1 plat being cut in half).

I figure since I am just now starting , and playing the oldest version, there will be sevearly less people to group with so I was wondering (prophesies included) how soloable is this game? I kinda remember running around with a bunch of henchmen side quests but does this change much as you progress?

Lastly, I have always thought of GW as a balanced game from profession to profession which on one hand is an truely great thing when it comes to pvp as far as I'm concerned but it seems to lead to a large similarty from character to character (this is increased I think by the 2nd professions). At least to my untrained and forgetful eye it seems like there aren't any "class roles" (a concept I have reluctently grown accustomed to in WoW). Of course the warrios with be in the front blocking the enemies and the monks will be in the back saving our butts but other then that it is all just a blur to me. If anyone could clarify this subject a little more or add in a more expierenced opinion it would help a lot.

Well thats all I can think of at this point. If I can get into what ever character I make I plan on buying an xpack or 2. THanks for bearing through that and for the answers.

for all expansions u start off as a lvl 1 and have to lvl up to lvl 20. ONly exception would be GW:EN which requires u to already have LA or some part further in Factions or NF. So unless u got ran to those places u should be around lvl 20 anyway.

erm max dmgs are the same but depending on when u last played sundering mods are up 10% so now max is 20/20. And u can always make your character stonger just depends on what skills u use.

um no. Prices are pretty much the same. Some items are over priced but personally i think prices have gone down. Ecto being 7k now down to 4-5k and most max dmg mods like +30hp for sowrd went from like 50kish to 20k or less

u can pretty much hench everything if you know how to. just pick your battles. If you have NF then you might enjoy the new hero system if you feel like "soloing". Also the mission areas aren't ghost areas as u might be thinking.

yeah u pretty much hit it on the mark. But certain builds let professions move over to the other side. But the truth is primary proffession are best when they do what they were made to do.

Welcome back to GW - I trust you enjoyed your time away



New PvE characters, no matter which campaign they're created in, always start out at level 1. Each expansion has its own levelling curve though; Prophecies characters take quite a while to reach the level cap, Factions characters level up extremely quickly (due to the much faster storyline and rapidly increasing difficulty level), and Nightfall characters level up at a rate somewhere between the two extremes. Eye of the North is an expansion rather than a chapter like the others and filled with only high level content, and doesn't allow you to create a new character for instant access. You will have to create a character in one of the first three games and level him/her up to level 20 before you can move into EotN.

Since the new chapters and expansion, progressing characters can become stronger. The max stats of weapons and armor haven't changed, nor has the level cap. However, access to more than one campaign on your account does allow characters to learn skills unique to each campaign allowing for much greater versatility when it comes to designing builds. Characters with access to Nightfall and Eye of the North also gain heroes; superpowered henchmen that you can customise (you choose the skills they use, the weapons they fight with, and the bonuses on their armor).

I can't really answer that, as I've only been playing for about a year now. I have noticed that some things have been becoming cheaper since I started though; since the introduction of the armor insignia system on all continents, non-prestige armor prices have been given a global reduction. A lot of the more expensive things have been lowering in price too over time. And every so often ANet does a weekend special to help prevent prices from increasing too much (if dye prices are starting to get too high, for example, ANet increases the drop rates for dyes for a weekend to get more units into the economy).

The game is quite soloable with henchmen. If you can keep the monsters away from the healer henchmen they do a fantastic job of keeping the team standing. While there are a few missions here and there that are considerably easier if you can get into a group with other people, by and large you can just hench your way through with little to no real trouble.

For solo play, definitely look into getting Nightfall or Eye of the North for the heroes they offer. They are much more adaptable than henchmen and can be designed to do their respective jobs within the party more efficiently than henchmen can, although you can only control 3 heroes at once.

Each profession has the ability to fill a variety of different roles within a party, depending on how they spread their attribute points and which skills they bring into the field with them; for example, a monk can be a powerful healer/protector, but can also be a very competent damage dealer/reflector (without starting to tap into a secondary profession). Although each profession still has a few things that they were originally designed to do, and those roles are where their greatest strengths lie. A warrior is always going to be the best at tanking, an elementalist is always going to be the best nuker, a paragon is always going to be the best vocal buffer and so on and so forth.

Short answer is "no" - it's still pretty much the same game as when you stopped playing.

The new campaigns simply added new content and new professions (along with their associated skills, weapons, armors, etc) - ritualists and assassins in Factions, dervishes and paragons in Nightfall. You still start out at lvl 1 and progress to lvl 20.

There have been improvements to how some things work without changing what they do.

Armor, for example. In Proph, if your char wanted extra energy, you bought one type of armor, if you wanted extra health you bought a different type, etc., and you were stuck with what that armor looked like (whether or not you liked it) if you wanted that type of armor bonus. Now, they've made those armor bonuses available in the form of Insignias, which work the same way runes do; you buy a basic set of armor and you apply both an Insignia and a rune to each piece. this way, you get to buy armor which you like the look of and customize it to the type you prefer. But basic ALs for the different professions haven't changed any. This change was introduced with NF but since made retroactive to both Proph and Factions (and any armor you already have).

Pretty much the same thing with weapons - swords still do 15-22, axes 6-28, wands/staffs 11-22, etc. The one thing that has changed with the introduction of NF is that whereas before, weapons could accept 2 mods (prefix and suffix), the inherent mod (the 15^50, the 15/enchanted, etc.) is now an Inscription which can also be changed at will. Wands and off-hands/shields can now also be modded, with 1 Inscription & 1 mod (as opposed to 1 Inscription and 2 mods for swords, bows, staffs, etc.). This applies only to weapons and off-hands in NF - they have not (and probably will not) make this change retroactive to Proph or Factions items. (Good news is that most Proph-skinned weapons, including Fellblades, drop in NF also).

Prices have come down quite a bit on a lot of stuff because they introduced something called "loot scaling" to combat botting/gold selling and people now complain they can't make any money, which is why prices have gone done - people have less money to spend. So I guess it's kind of working.

If you're considering adding another campaign, Factions has the fastest lvl'ing up and is the shortest of the three; in NF, the lvl'ing is certainly faster than Proph, but (after 2 NF toons) kind of boring, imo. So, unless you absolutely want to play a para or derv, better to just take your Proph or Factions char there. NF does have heroes, though, and heroes rock. BTW, your Proph or Factions chars get the heroes, too, if you take them to NF; heroes gained this way are minimum lvl 15, whereas heroes aquired by NF chars are scaled to your toons lvl when aquired and lvl up along with you.

As far as proffesions/builds go, I'm of the opinion that the different profs work best when they do what they're meant to do - Ws hack on stuff, monks heal stuff, nukers burn stuff, etc. Still, there's always room for variety and in my time I've seem people using what I'd consider pretty strange builds, some that actually worked and some that kind of worked, along with many that didn't work, period (my favorite here is still the Mo/MM nec). But, hey, if that person's having fun playing the game with that build, who am I to deny them? I always have the option of not grouping with them.

As Toutatis said, pretty much everything is still "henchable" in Factions and NF; however, in Factions they changed the mission bonus system - instead of additional goals forming the bonus, missions are timed and you bonus lvl (they also introduced a 3-tier bonus - standard/expert/masters - in Factions, rather than the 2-tiers in Proph) depends on how fast you complete the mission (the exceptions being the very 1st mission and 2 missions later on, only 1 of which you need to complete the game (it's a "branching" story-line thing), but both if you want the Protector title). So, while they can be henched, you might not always get Masters bonus doing it that way. NF went back to the additional goals system of Proph (though still 3-tiered, like Factions), with a couple of timed missions thrown in.

THanks alot for the detailed responces. You guys answered everything I was wondering about. I plan on going through proph with a new character for the tutorial and to get down the mechanics. Once the price drops a little bit I would like to get NF ( or EN if I can get the money) From what I hear and reading around on lot on the wikis I'm getting into this game more and more.