Brand new to the game and have read the guides

Greetings all..
A friend and myself have recently picked up the GW campaigns (we have chosen to start in Nightfall first). I have read up on as much information for beginners on this site as I could stomach and found it very helpful, but have a few questions.

1) How important is cash flow and armor/weapons for a beginner?

2) How important is it to quickly find a guild, and how do you sort through the onslaught of guild invitations to find a solid one? We are fairly casual players and prefer a laid-back environment (PvE and PvP).

3) I found some information regarding this question, but haven't had enough experience with the game to put it all together...What are the minimum actions required to prepare a toon to be reasonably competitive in PvP.

Thanks in advance!

Playing a Dervish currently named Tak Foo

1) armor is helpful, but don't really care too much about it. just wait till you get the chance to get max AL (armor level) armor. For you, since you are doing NightFall first, will be at Consolute Docks.

2) a guild is very helpful at all times. if they are the "right" guild, they will probably answer your questions and help you if necessary. Best way to get a good guild that suites you is to try so in the PvE Looking for Guild or thePvP Looking for Guild forums. Describe yourself and what you are looking for out of a guild in a new topic there.

3) Be level 20. Have ideas of what you might have to deal with in a PvP match.
For example, in RA (random arenas) you should be expecting there to be one or a couple melee classes, one or more spell casters, and one or more healers. You have a build to do whatever to counter/spike/kill-them-fast. Another example, in AB (alliance battles - factions required) you should expect 1 of each class. So have a build that will counter/kill in general. Do not have a build that will kill just 1 or 2 class types.


Hope I helped.

If you care about the storyline, play through and figure things out for yourself. If you don't get a ferry to docks and buy max armor there. Anything else is a waste of money. Try to buy a max scythe/whatever weapon you need for no more than 1k. For PvP, just make a touch ranger and do random arenas. 0 skill required and you'll learn how to play other classes through watching.

Well if you have almost no experience in guild wars u DO NOT want 2 make a pvp char so just go through the pve until u get pretty far and kno ur skills kno a good build that sorta stuff

I would try 2 find a guild as fast as possible 2 get help with the game like me i found a guild as soon as i could (about an 1 hour into my first time playing) and if ur guild u find isnt rite for u just quit it and find a new guild

as for armor and weapon u dont want 2 be lvl 6 and still have a starter scythe try and get a better scythe ok and for armor against the first monsters u wont need very good armor but if some1 gives u better armor take it and if they sell it cheap then buy it

hope i helped

You have to buy your armor from the NPC or a Collector yourself. All armor is customized to the purchaser.

If you want to PvP, you can create a PvP character that is level 20 from the start. But as Slaveman said, the experience in using your skills you can get more thoroughly through PvE.

Thanks for the great information so far. If I find a ferry to the docks, how much gold will I need to have the armor crafted when I get there?

a piece of golden advise anyone would give you is to meet http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Main_Page

it's the wiki for GW and can be used to look up armors, weapons, npc's, cities, maps, missions, strategies, builds, tips, hints and other useful stuff
you can look your armor up on the wiki and see what it will cost to make and how many materials, also screenshots are available so you can choose easily your favourite that you find best looking

a ferry to docks is about 500g nowadays
but i think it's cheaper now

What Rexion has told you is good advice. I probably shouldn't comment because I do not PvP at all. But I agree that you should get a PvE character at least 75% or more through the game before trying to get into PvP seriously.

For PvP play, a lot of the game involves understand the game mechanics and response times. The other aspect of the game is learning the various skills and how they interact with each other (synergy). With all game products their are over a thousand skills, you will not need to memorize all of them (most are not viable for PvP play), but you will need to learn a couple hundred. This will generally happen just from battles. But if you're observant in the game and good at working on builds, you'll enjoy PvP more from the start.

Also be aware that you're probably going to loose most of your first... say, 100 battles (guessing) and try not to get too frustrated. Win or lose, expect that a portion of your opponents are going to be rude - say that you're a bad player, etc. In which case know that your opponent's unsportsmanlike behavior is their problem, not yours. Just walk away.

Edit: Armor should cost 5000 gold total, plus materials. It's the first elite armor. Armor generally sells in "tiers" of 1k and 15k and this is the first 1k location you will find.

If your both new I suggest you play the original guild wars first as this has the easiest learning curb and will help you getting to grips with the game alot easier.

Though some will disagree, the basic philosophy of GW remains skill>time.

Therefore, cheap max armour with appropriate runes does you as much good as the most "prestigious" set in the game.

A purple or green weapon with an unfashionable skin will be just as effective as a "prestige" skin weapon with the same stats.

You will have a max lvl of 20 which you can reach reasonably quickly.

However, there are hundreds of skills that you can pick from between your primary and secondary professions. Some work well together, some are useless in combination. As you will only have 8 in total to choose from, therein lies a lot of the skill

P.S. I exclude Ursan from the above for obvious reasons....

Above all - this is a game HAVE FUN!!!!!!

never forget what he said kids!

But seeing as you already have Nightfall, you can just ignore this , as Nightfall has a pretty easy learning curb too.

Don't give up when you fail something! Practice makes perfect. Dervish isn't really the easiest class to play imo, not when you're new. Look around the forums for a bit for advice.

The Dervish forums is a useful place to look around, too! http://guildwarsguru.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=238

I would start with Prophecies first, and play the games in order. Don't get run anywhere on your first character, just play though the game as normal--its really the best way to learn how to play.

There is a lot in GW, and going from Prophecies to Factions to Nightfall to GW:EN will help you not to be overwhelmed.

As for pvp, don't bother until you've played through all the pve areas in all the campaigns, as you will need the skill and item unlocks if you ever decided to "roll" a pvp only character. After playing though all the pve you will have a better understanding of the general skills and game mechanics. But if you do want to pvp, use the observe feature and watch matches to see how people kite and what types of skills are used.

Don't get a ferry to docks in your first character. You should play through and level up first just to get used to the learning curve.

Money isn't that important and you can get by.
A good guild helps, but I did make it through the first ~6 months of this game guildless. If you prefer the loner act and don't want to deal with drama, you can stay guildless and do alright.

Not at all. You'll have the cash and weapons you need, when you need them. You do not need best armor and weapons early in the game, don't let anyone tell you differently.

That's entirely up to you. You don't actually need a guild, but a good guild means you'll always have other people to help you out if you hit a rough spot.

Minimum action is to create a PvP avatar. They're level 20 and have access to top armor and weapons from the get-go. PvP avatars do not have access to the world outside the PvP arenas, though.

I agree with the other players: don't let anyone run you through the game, and don't ask for items outside your level, and try missions and quest first, and only read up on them on guildwiki if you after several attempts really find them too difficult. There is no promised land of wonderful high-end PvE you should rush through the game to get to, the game is the getting there. And getting there is enjoyable if you avoid letting people spoil it for you.