Grind

Darth Marth

Darth Marth

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Jan 2006

USA Midwest

Order of Celestial Guardians II [OCG]

Me/Mo

With all the factions to join and reputation to gain in order to access many of the features in this game, I'm becoming worried that doing lots of the things I hope to do in GWEN will involve far too much grind. Have others gotten the sense that the game is just forcing you to farm reputation of one faction or another? It could become a problem for me, as I hope to get to level 5 in all the factions to unlock armor and such...

randomperson

Academy Page

Join Date: Jul 2007

Playing through the storyline will get you to rank 2 or 3 in each, then giving one of the factions a finished Hero's Handbook will bump one up to rank 5. The rest is dungeons/quests or grind, or more books.

Darth Marth

Darth Marth

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Jan 2006

USA Midwest

Order of Celestial Guardians II [OCG]

Me/Mo

What is the overall best way? I wasn't really familiar with the books, but is this method really worth it? (Re-completing at least 8 missions vs. farming in Arbor Bay, etc. with apparently about the same reputation award)

randomperson

Academy Page

Join Date: Jul 2007

Farming is faster, but it's worth going through the main quest line once on each character, and it's more fun to do a master dungeon guide for one of the factions .

English Warrior

English Warrior

LEET HAXXOR!

Join Date: Feb 2007

Random Arena

N/A

Depends if you use the book it isnt soo much grinding because you may get good drops but if your going to raptor farm, boss farm or snowman it will become boring and you will grind your heart out for them.

mazey vorstagg

mazey vorstagg

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Aug 2006

Nodnol

Meeting of Lost Minds

E/Mo

Playing through the storyline and dungeons will give you about 5 in everything. Hand in your books and you can get up to 8 in one of your choice. It's not hard to max a title at all. Maybe 3 trips round the HM missions and you can get rank 10 from rank 7. If you're aiming for Master of the North too then the HM dungeons and their book will be useful too. You can max all four without it feeling like grind at all.

Anduin

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Jul 2006

Ice Dragon Berserker Lodge

W/

Quote:
Originally Posted by mazey vorstagg
Playing through the storyline and dungeons will give you about 5 in everything. Hand in your books and you can get up to 8 in one of your choice. It's not hard to max a title at all. Maybe 3 trips round the HM missions and you can get rank 10 from rank 7. If you're aiming for Master of the North too then the HM dungeons and their book will be useful too. You can max all four without it feeling like grind at all. I wouldn't really agree with it not feeling like grind at all, as I am in the process of filling four Hero's Handbooks to max 3 of the four titles. I have done everything for Master of the North except two dungeons (I am currently at 971 points, though I have three dungeons left to fill my book).

After the second or third time (I've already done each quest at least twice on this character) it does tend to get tedious. I now only have to do The Elusive Golemancer and Destruction's Depths four more times each, and do 40-53 more Secret Lair of the Snowman runs(and the last three dungeons) to max all four titles.

CyberMesh0

CyberMesh0

Jungle Guide

Join Date: Jul 2005

Charter Vanguard [CV]

N/Me

Getting to the armor rank is cake- you can farm a NM book (20k points) in roughly 3 1/2 hours of raw questing. Special circumstances exist, but only for certain reps.

strcpy

strcpy

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Jul 2005

One of Many [ONE]

Rank 5 is pretty easy to get in all the classes. You should be rank 2-4 in the divisions by the time you beat GWEN. Your heroes handbook for your first completion should get one track to rank 5 (or so close it isn't really grind to get it there).

After that Dwarven points are trivial to get to rank 5 from Secret Lair of the Snowman runs - don't ever spend book points on dwarven ranks because of this. Norn, Asuran, and Vanguard titles do not (as far as I know) have anything close to the Snowman Lair - the fastest way is with hero handbooks. Personally to get my rank 5 in them I spent the first book on Asuran (I used Pain Inverter a lot) and then went through the primary missions needed for the book twice to get the other there. From now on out I do missions when I feel like it which is rare.

Up to that point it didn't really feel like "grind" to me as it was all still a learning experience - I was trying ideas out that I had or had read on the internet on fast way to beat the missions. After that books were still pretty much the fastest way but I was back to grind.

I generally have always advanced anything in GW (titles or gold) by finding a 10-15 minute run that nets OK per hour gains. So far the only things that there is no such thing for is Norn, Asuran, and Vanguard titles (if anyone knows of them I would be happy to hear, but so far none are seen). You either Vanquish areas or do missions that take MUCH longer than 10-15 minutes at the beginning or end of a gaming session - I have to play solely to advance those ranks for the hour or so I have to play.

In that sense it is the first "grind" I have found in the game and is also why they pretty much remain at rank 5 (Luxon/Kurxic faction is a longer reach, but both have less than 5 minute factions runs to start/finish with). However I have access to everything and the PvE skills are quite effective with little to no grind so I guess I can't really complain

Jagged

Academy Page

Join Date: Jan 2008

SoFla

Dangerously Incompetent (DUI)

N/

Like others have said, getting to 5 is pretty easy just playing through the game. Going for max is a grind, i'll probably just settle for 7-8.

Just can't decide if I want to use my books in Norn, Asura or Vanguard. Surprisingly Norn seems like the hardest for me (yes, I have Path to Revalations, but HM is too hard!)

Darth Marth

Darth Marth

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Jan 2006

USA Midwest

Order of Celestial Guardians II [OCG]

Me/Mo

I'm wondering about how everyone says A Time for Heroes is the easiest mission to do for reputation on hard mode. I just tried it and it's completerly ridiculous--the warrior destroyers hit for 200 damage and the Great Destroyer seems to have several ways of wiping out multiple party members instantly. Yet people seem to be able to beat him easily with h/h. How?

Celestial_Kitsune

Celestial_Kitsune

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Jun 2006

Me/

Quote:
Originally Posted by Darth Marth
With all the factions to join and reputation to gain in order to access many of the features in this game, I'm becoming worried that doing lots of the things I hope to do in GWEN will involve far too much grind. Have others gotten the sense that the game is just forcing you to farm reputation of one faction or another? It could become a problem for me, as I hope to get to level 5 in all the factions to unlock armor and such... You play the game as you want. Sure some faction requirements that should not be there are in place, but you don't have to farm at all. I never farmed for GWEN faction and I have r5-r7 on all faction related titles. Just complete the main story, do some quests, have fun - no need to turn play into work

How to slay The Great Destroyer? Pain Inverter + degen + wards + couple of LoD monks.

mazey vorstagg

mazey vorstagg

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Aug 2006

Nodnol

Meeting of Lost Minds

E/Mo

Yeah, Great Destroyer can be hard first time. you need very wierd builds. Something like Ward Against Harm, Maelstrom, pain inverter, MM (for extra PI hits), Ward Against Melee, Monks with LoD, you with Great Dwarf Breath.

It gets easier and easier with a high Dwarf rank

Esan

Esan

Jungle Guide

Join Date: Jul 2007

Wars

Quote:
Originally Posted by Darth Marth
I'm wondering about how everyone says A Time for Heroes is the easiest mission to do for reputation on hard mode. I just tried it and it's completerly ridiculous--the warrior destroyers hit for 200 damage and the Great Destroyer seems to have several ways of wiping out multiple party members instantly. Yet people seem to be able to beat him easily with h/h. How? My best advice is to take Echo, Pain Inverter, one spammable interrupt (a ranger hero with Savage Shot works, but disable it and trigger it manually), and max out on defense. Bring at least one blood necro with Spoil Victor and Order of Pain (the Order is to enchant the party against Flame Jet.) Clear out the Destroyers of Lives and the two mobile destroyers (they will aggro from very far away), then get out of the lava to heal up. For the Great Destroyer, cast Echo before aggro, then PI it. Interrupt Lava Wave, Lava Blast or Call of Destruction. (Don't bother interrupting Searing Breath or Lava Ground.) Refresh Pain Inverter as often as possible. It will die pretty soon.

The whole run should take 3-4 minutes in HM after you've got the hang of it.