A couple of newcomer questions

Hello there!

I'm totally new to Guild Wars, which means I've only bought the game 4 days ago, but I'm hooked! Currently, I own Prophecies but I'm thinking about buying Nightfall and possibly also Factions in a couple of days.

Here are my questions:

I usually have very irregular playtimes, which means I don't quite enjoy grouping (obviously because of having to leave in the middle of something, etc), so henchmen (and possibly also heroes, I don't know yet!) are a feature which I really like. My question is, is it possible to play through the entire storyline of all 3 campaigns and the expansion by only using henchmen and never grouping? I know that may sound quite antisocial, but hey, it's the way I like it.

My first char and also the one I'm currently playing is an Ele/Mesmer around lvl 15 with which I'm exploring the storyline right now. I've chosen these professions because of the fact that I've always enjoyed casters. Yet, I was wondering, which other professions are good at solo PvE gameplay? I'm interested in Ritualists and Necromancers, thinking of combining the two. Do their summoning skills synergize well? Is this a good idea at all? Would they be effective at solo play?

Also, I've heard Mesmers are not quite effective at PvE gameplay, yet I love the concept of this class. Perhaps if I combined one with, say an Ele, would the added plethora of offensive skills ease the gameplay?

Other questions: It seems like Dervishes aren't exactly casters, but they do have some really fun spells which I guess I'd enjoy experimenting with. Are they still melee when utilizing their different forms/avatars? Granted, I haven't quite researched this class, but Earth/Wind Prayers reminded me of casters.

How about Ritualists? They do have some offensive spells, right? Are they worth using, or are they mainly support classes? And what's up with Paragons? I know they use spears, but all the various Shouts seemed quite magical too, so I'm not quite sure whether they are more melee or caster-oriented... If anyone could clear that up, I'd be grateful.

Oh and are Necromancers effective when not using minions but simply offensive spells? I know that would make them look like Elementalists, but I'm still interested.

One last thing about professions: What are some fun pure caster combinations? And which combination would be the best from a purely survivalist standpoint (= playing through the storyline using henchmen and without dying a lot)?

And the real last thing: I have to admit I'm a long time WoW-player and as some of you may know the real game begins at the level cap there. While I really enjoy the storyline part of Guild Wars, I'm interested what the "endgame" of this game is like? What do you do once you've played through the various campaigns and the expansion? Dungeon grinding for better items? Is there anything similar to the raids in WoW, in case anyone knows those?

I know this was quite long, but I hope some of you could help me out, I'd be really grateful.

Thanks in advance for the responses!

- Vivi

I played through most of all 3 games with henchies and heroes, although there is one or two missions in each campaign you will need to PUG for, simply because of having to do multiple things at once, especially if you want some bonuses.

I think warriors are supposed to be good at soloing with a monk second. It's not really a bad decision for secondary, they're probably more usefull with an ele than some others, as you can interupt and such.

Dervs are always melee, as they have a melee weapon, but they can use spells and things, although you can use the spells in the front line as they have high armour.

Rits can be used to heal support, and attack, the spirits are the best way to do damage, although weapon spells help to, although the spirits could be classed as support, paragons shouts and stuff are supporting, powering up the team, and the spears are ranged weapons.

Necros can still be good using offensive spells, usually the health degeneration and weakness kind.

For a hench.heroes party, I guess ele/nec would be good, giving you minions/degeneration plus magic. Although Im not to sure about that.

Once completing the game you can go and cap elite skills, PvP, or go for titles. Theres also lots of secondary quests you can do. The dungeons are fun too, a lot of pve guilds play them in guild groups for fun and items. Theres also a hard mode you unlock, which makes everything harder obviously.

http://guildwars.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

Guild Wiki (official or unofficial) Is your friend.

I have to go to work, but this site should answer some of your questions about skills. http://guildwars.wikia.com/wiki/Index_of_skill_lists


Dervishes are still melee atackers while in their avatars.

Paragons are kind of weird, but extremely powerful when used correctly. They're much like warriors with armor and damage, but their shouts provide party buffs (although not as powerful as monks).

Ritualists can use quite a bit of offensive spells, but can be pretty good healers too.

I wouldn't use Necromancers for pure offence, because having minions is just too much fun. I'm also pretty sure that you won't be able to do enough direct damage (degeneration is key) for some of the stronger enemies.

Oh, and heroes are basically customizable henchmen (you decide weapons and skills and movement), although at rare times, they behave like they have no idea what they're doing.

Heroes/henchies should work fine. Ele is your best bet for offensive casting.

indeed thats a lot of questions. ill try to answer as many as possible but forgive me if i might not answer all.
1. yes it is possible to Finnish all the games and the expansion with henchmen/heros, however some missions maybe a bit hard.

2. depends on what you mean soloing, if you mean being able to do a mish all by yourself without heros/hench then i dont think there is any proffesions, however if you mean being able to farm stuff then eles, assasins, monks, and even dervishes are good options.

3.usually when combining necros and rits people use necro/rits to utilize soul reaping, which allow for energy gain and thus allow for the use of high cost ritualist healing spells. however there is a build that is rit/necro that utilize explosive growth along with minion raising skills.

4. The thing about memsers is they are one class that actually require the use of the brain, this is something most gw players fail to do thus they believe mesmers suck. this is a complete illusion, and there is a mesmer/ele build that use mesmers fast casting combined with water spells to blind and snare foes, this is very popular in GvG, although skill balancers are trying to remove this build from the meta.

5.dervishes are melee, unless you use a dervish/necro build that use pure spells. Even in their forms as long as you wield a scythe you are reuired to go up close to attack. they are warriors that has lower armor but make up for this by being able to use enchantments better, most dervishes are nothing without enchantments, thus enchant removal is deadly for them

6.there is a good ritualist build that rely on the channeling elite caretakers charge, its a fairly decent build.

7.paragons are also like warriors, some shouts require energy while others use adrenalin, its more of a melee than caster as shouts are not classiefied as spells.

8.minion master is just one way a necro can go there are a lot of other useful builds a necro can run. most popular is a build that utiize Spiteful spirit elite along with a lot of other supportive spells.

9.well the ele/mesmer combo is a fairly good pure caster combo.

10. in guildwars you will probably reach the lvl cap about halfway in the storyline, after you finish a campaign you can redo the mishs with a new proffesion or try to finsih up the titles

at first i would say
find a class you like to play with and play it

dont think about what to do with it in future

every class has its own use

just go thru the story
if you get stuck dont give up
try again
if it simply doesn't work
PUG or ask friends/guild/forums (like GwG)
there's always helpfull people about

then later when you've found something you want to do

(i would advise you to do that once you've finished the story as you will have quite a bunch of xp )


try it

don't give up

GW is a great game

play it you'll love it or... well stop playing^^

Hi, welcome! Looks like folks above have already answered a lot of your questions but I wanted to comment on one in particular.

Yes, it's "possible." Lots of people have done it, but it requires a lot from the player sometimes. The majority of missions don't require too much planning, but there will always be at least a few that give people trouble. (Which ones depends more on your playstyle. I think it varies.)

- You need to know the missions, their maps and challenges, and think about how to beat them. You need to have a feel for how the AI works and learn what to expect from your h/h AI.
- If you plan to get NF and/or GWEN to use heroes, realize they'll only be as good as the builds you give them. Heroes can use any skill unlocked on your whole account. For GW veterans that have most/all of the skills unlocked, this means they have very versatile heroes. For new players just starting to unlock skills, this means your heroes will be rather limited.

Personally, I play with h/h most of the time, too. There's nothing wrong with it. It's a game, do what makes it fun for you. If the devs wanted people to always play with other real people, they wouldn't have put henchies and heroes in the game. The ads and info for the first game wouldn't have said we'd have the option of playing with others OR AI henchmen. (If the ads hadn't said that, I never would've bought the first game back in 2005.)

If you're just starting out and you're wanting to play mostly on your own with h/h, I'd say go for it! Explore about, do primary and secondary quests, do missions at your own pace. If you run into something you can't manage to work your way through on your own, ask for help. Anyone that puts as much time into formulating their questions as clearly as you did in your OP shouldn't have trouble finding a veteran to lend a hand when needed.

Oh, and I think it's great that you're starting with Prophecies. I've played them all, and I still love Prophecies the best.

Cheers,
Luny

Hello again everyone!

Thanks for your kind replies! They really did help me a lot.

I've decided to keep on playing with my Ele/Me a bit and possibly finish the Prophecies storyline - I just escorted a bunch of Ascalonians through the Shiverpeaks, it's been a cold day for me!

Then again, I'll probably purchase the other two campaigns quite soon too, I'm really keen on experimenting with a Ritualist and a Dervish - Avatar of Lyssa just looks too cool! And also, me being a huge lore/quest freak, can't wait to get into Elona and Cantha!

Once again, thanks for all your kind replies, seems like I'm not alone with my love for henchmen and heroes, that's good to know. If anyone else still wants to express their opinion regarding my questions, please do so!

Thanks in advance.

- Vivi

Lions arch is the crossover point for the other games and your pretty close to that.

You could jump across to nightfall "when you get it" and start getting heroes or you could jump to eye of the north perhaps and do the same.

Since you may well be playing a lot of the time with AI help, going for heroes where you can customise the skillbar makes sense.

Also henchie level is dependant of the town you are in while heroes can be leveled up to 20th.

Heroes are infinitely superior to henchmen, esp, if you give them good weapons and customize their skill bars. Check the corresponding threads here for good hero skill bars. Get a hero Minion Master, a Crit Barrager her , and a Buffing Paragon hero and then a tank henchie and 2 monk henchies and you will roll thru almost all PVE areas with relative ease. XD

welcome!

Don't worry about the anti-social perception, many people DO play alone because of their own personal reasons (don't want a screw-ups, don't have time, want things done in their own ways, etc) AND yes, you can totally finish the game with Henchmen.

Although, I need to add that the AI and skill-set for henchmen in Prophecies is not the best, but that what makes it more interesting I guess.

My suggestion, is to play and finish at least 1 campaign with your ele BEFORE making another new profession. If you are stuck somewhere and make new profession every time, it will warrant a boredom.

On the same page, please DO get a FRIENDLY guild to join. Joining a guild doesn't mean you need to quest with them all the time, and mostly don't require you to do anything after joining. So, fret not!

(don't join the one who are spamming in the city, usually those are a new guild and/or the one that puts their life into their guild). Try to join from this website under one forum there down below.

It is quite possible to play through the entire game using only henchmen. There are, however, some parts of the game which are easier to handle if you group with others - but that's your call in the end.

The Rt/N is a good combination, as the Ritualist's primary attribute also gives a health boost to any necromantic minions you summon. Ritualists also have skills that are useful when you summon or destroy creatures, which also kick in when you summon minions (as well as spirits). The N/Rt is also powerful, and can make for an exceptional caster of Ritualist spells using the Necromancer's primary attribute as an energy battery.

The main focus of PvE gameplay is to kill things as quickly as possible. This can put Mesmers at a disadvantage, because while Mesmer skills are exceptionally powerful they require longer periods of time to be fully effective. If you play alone, this is less of an issue as you can use an AI team to draw fights out longer, thus letting your Mesmer skills reach a fuller potential. And yes, you could combine a Mesmer primary with another spellcasting secondary - the Mesmer's primary attribute accelerates the cast times for all spells and signets, not just the Mesmer's native magic.

Dervishes are still melee when using their avatars, but their melee attacks are given additional effects on top of the basic properties of the weapon you wield. I would class Dervishes as "meleemancers", using magic to enhance their melee strength and endurance.

Ritualists are primarily support casters, although they are capable of doing some impressive nuking if you plan ahead a little. Some of their better damage options involve casting a spell on an ally, so even though they tend to take a back seat in the party they can still pump out some impressive damage by channeling their strength through others.

Paragons are primarily martial characters. Their shouts and chants are very powerful party support abilities, but they are not magical in nature (which on the plus side means that enemies can't forcibly strip them off once they're on, much like the Paladin's auras in WoW). I tend to think of Paragons as being like cheerleaders with attitude - shouting commanding and motivational lines while dealing some impressive damage from the midline.

Necromancers do have a number of very powerful curses which can inflict a great deal of pain on opponents. Many necromancers use curses instead of minions, and still prove to be a valuable asset to a team.

When in doubt, take Monk or Ritualist as a secondary. Those professions have access to hard rez skills, allowing you to revive your party over and over again if things take a turn for the worse.

You won't need to grind for better equipment in Guild Wars. Gear with max stats is commonly available at very reasonable prices (or even for free, if you take advantage of collector NPCs dotted around the game world). There are flashier options for gear, although these have exactly the same stats as their more mundane counterparts despite the elevated price tags.

In the expansion, you'll find a place known as the Hall of Monuments, where you can record your characters' accomplishments for posterity (and for unlocks when GW2 comes along). You can grind for special character titles which can be displayed in the Hall (some titles also improve the effectiveness of certain PvE-only skills, so the grind can be worth it), record your wardrobe of prestige armor sets and your collection of rare weapons, and there's even a podium for your minipet collection.

PvE also offers a few "elite" areas, which are more difficult than regular areas. These special missions have additional rewards for completing them. They're not quite as large scale as WoW's raids (most use the standard party size of 8, though two of them allow a party of 12), but that just adds to the challenge. You'll also find that after you complete a campaign, you gain access to Hard Mode. Hard Mode allws you to replay the whole game again with a much higher difficulty setting (and vastly improved loot drops to boot).

You also have the option of diving into PvP - any level 20 character can enter the main PvP arenas. PvP ranges from the regimented team and tactical structures of GvG (Guild versus Guild) to the insane mayhem of AB (Alliance Battles, which would require you to have Factions and be in a guild that is aligned with wither the Luxons or Kurzicks). There's a PvP arena to suit everyone's tastes, I think, so it's worth looking into.