Too many beginner questions :P

Hi again

My Guild Wars Trilogy package has finally arrived at my friend's, I might get my hands on the key in another 8 hours, so after playing a while with trial keys I am now ready to create my first serious character.

Q0. Can I apply the new key to my trial account so that I can continue playing my existing character? Or Is it preferable to create a new account?

Q1. I don't like Melee fights, so I want to test Ranger/Necromancer/Elementalist first. (Already played Necromancer in trial.) What is a good combination for these professions for first time players? I was thinking Ranger primary and Necromancer secondary. Or is it very beneficial to have Monk as secondary for beginner players? I don't mind slow fights but I hate dying. Is there any profession that can self-resurrect(like Warlock in WoW)? Or is that asking for too much

Q2. Are there good quest guides for Pre-searing so that I don't miss out on important quests before I move to the next level? Last time I think I moved on at level 6, this time I want to be sure. Is this good: http://www.presearing.com/index.php?...4&Ite mid=41?


Q3. Anything specific to keep in mind? Like learning professions as you level up in WoW. Or constantly upgrading armour. Doing some dungeons at correct times(not being too low level or too high level). I like PVE and soloing. Are there quests in Pre-searing that require me to team up like dungeons/instances/killing bosses?
Is it easy to team up by just chatting with people in a specific channel or is there a procedure to do so? What are good times to find tons of people for such quests? Weekend evenings?

This is an amazing forum. I have been reading stuff here for the past two weeks and I am already liking GW even before playing it much
Is this like the official forum supported by ARENANET? Why do people keep saying GW is dead/is dying when there are such active GW forums like these?

q 0. yes

q 1. try whatever combo sounds interesing but e/mo is a nice way to start out...no you cant self rez...WoW= EVIL (J/K)

q 2. presearing.com is the best place to get walkthrus, missions, ECT.

q 3. you can only upgrade your armor 1 time in pre-from collectors. there is 1 quest which requires teaming up-to get your rez sig, but most ppl spam in ascalon, team up, get the rez, then map back out (same with gate monkeys. Just spam in all chat what mission you need and Im sure you'll have plenty of ppl to team up with. there are plenty of people on at all times, if you dont get any takers in a town, just switch districts to a lower one which has more people in it.

Gwguru is an awesome place, most ppl who QQ about the "death of GW" are people who've been playing since the beginning and are kind of bored after beating the games in NM and HM..don't sweat it..have fun & play at your own pace. GL!

Also, with the exception of Pre, GW is not a solo game, you should have the maximum party size at all times.

Although with addition of heroes and henchmen , soloing is quite okay ...I am solo guy as well and very new to the game

Cheers

Not to sound like a troll and redirect your questions to GuildWiki, but having it around really does help new players. It can answer most questions like what professions can do and what are some good combinations for them, a list of quests in the areas, and where to get armor and what you need for them.

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

It's nice to see players appreciating Pre-searing for once. I say this because a large majority of players besides those that are "permanent" presearing characters, just rush through Pre-searing since it's a such a small world compared to Post-searing. I love the innocence of new players since it reminds me of when I first started.

As for upgrading armor, in Pre-searing you start with a set of armor and then the only armor will be collector's armor that you can get by giving the necessary materials. After you leave Pre-searing, the world opens up and you'll be able to buy/collect materials for different levels of armor.

There is no "official" forum for Guild Wars. Guru is just an "elite fansite." I don't know how many of these are still active, but the elite fansites should be the most active.
http://www.guildwars.com/community/fansites/
Players say GW is dead because honestly, GW has seen better days in terms of active players. Since you like soloing (which in GW usually means 1 player and henchmen), you'll find empty outposts that'll force you to solo. Try to find a helpful guild and you should be set.

Pre-searing.com is most likely the better site for pre-searing but after you leave, http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Main_Page will be your best friend.

Thanks for the info, I feel more confident now. Except for Q3 which I am still confused about(lilraceangel3's response) but I guess I will read it again once I play for little more while.

Glad to know most of Pre-searing is solo-able. I will try to solo other places as much as possible with henchmen/heroes but will also try out if there are any PUGs interested in casual players like me. Guilds generally don't seem to like members becoming inactive for long periods >_>

Thanks and see you all with more questions once I reach level 10

And there are two wikis available. The one linked by ac1inferno and the official one (server supplied by ArenaNet) that is available in-game through F10 or Help on the Menu or /wiki in the chat bar.

The in-game one is also available at http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Main_Page

While starting a character in Prophecies means you won't have heroes available until you reach Lion's Arch and do the quest to get Nightfall or Eye of the North, you can access your Fire Imp ally through the Igneous Summoning Stone you received with your bonus package.

the http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Igneous_Summoning_Stone

Welcome to GW and the Guru. Anet does sometimes creates posts here on this site.

As for your choice of Ranger. I think that you are wise in that as you can have better armor than the monk and Neco is a great secondary class cause you can have LOTS of Minions to do the dirty work of Meele and "blocking" the foes as well as providing Meat Shield for the foes.

setting traps and then pulling the foes to you with the bow is also very nice... I should make a ranger!!!

OK I digress. No you can not Res yourself. Once your dead someone else has to res you or you res at the res shrine or during a mission you fail and go back to the outpost to try again...

Yes, apply the key to your existing account and you can continue playing your existing character. There would be no reason to start a new account.
For a first time player, it's best to have no secondary at all, so you can concentrate on learning your primary profession and how things work. Of course, you can't do that, so taking Monk as a secondary is the next best thing. But not to be a healer or anything - just for the better rez skill and some self heal. (No self-rez.)
You can change your secondary later on in the game, so the choice is not critical.
As far as I know.
You should upgrade your armor until you get to max level armor asap. (After that it's a vanity choice)
There are no WoW-like professions, like crafting or fishing, to learn in GW.
There are a couple of quests in pre that require you to team up with another player, but they are not necessary to do.
Since you are getting the Trilogy, you might want to consider starting a character in Nightfall so you can get Heroes to help you. (Heroes are like customizable Henchmen)
When in a town/outpost, use ALL chat and the Search button in the Party box, to find people to quest with. Evenings and weekends are most active, but there's always someone around, and you can always go to another region where the time zone is more favourable.

Compared to how GW used to be, it is dead/dying. But for a new player, it's a new game. Enjoy.

P.s. The wikis are great sources of information, but they can sort of take all the fun of discovery out of it. Use them, but use them wisely.

What about Lively was Naomei? Anyway, better to have someone else res you

So I'll see if I can clear up Q3 for you some.

As lilraceangel3 said, you can upgrade your armour one time while in presearing from a collector. Collectors are NPC's that take various items (5 scale fins or 3 spider webs, ect, ect...it can be pretty much anything that drops) and give you stuff for them. You can buy new and better armour at most areas in the game (ascalon, the desert, lions arch, and Droknar's Forge for example) until you reach your max armour level.

If you choose a caster this will be 60. Rangers are 70 with 100 against elemental dmg and warriors have 80 armour with 100 vs physical damage.

Max armour can first be gotten at Droknar's Forge. Sometimes its worthwhile to simply go straight from one of the beginner armour sets to the max one but it'll take some money that you may not have on your first character. If you choose to do this you just need to get a run from Beacon's Perch to Droks.

Ok now about your question on team creation.

If you are going to do a mission (lets say The Great Northern Wall) just type in All Chat "LFG Mission/Bonus" or whatever. As long as you have the "LFG" part in your message it will add you to the party search list. To see this list of people searching for groups or trading or anything hit 'P'. That's the default button I believe. Same thing goes for quests. From there you'll be able to join other groups doing what you want to do.

As for the game being dead. Well yea some outposts you get to will be completly empty and you'll probably be forced to do some quests or even missions with henchmen or maybe just a few real people but the game is still just as fun as always so dont worry about.

Sorry for the wall of text ^.^ but I hope that cleared up Q3.

Oh btw, on what charater you're going to make: I have an ele, ranger, and necro character and I would say that necro is the most fun/usefull of the 3 and ele comes in second. But thats just my opinion. If you're looking for more survivability you can always go with a monk secondary and whichever class you choose.

My friend, I fear you have some misconceptions about this game.
First of this is NOTHING like WoW, get anything you learned from WoW out of your head right now. People tell me its similar to Diablo II but I don't have firsthand experience with that game so I cannot tell you for sure.

Q0. To your first question, I would say it is preferable that you add your key to your existing account, because that allows you to keep your progress on your characters. In fact, you must add your new key to your trial account if you wish to use the same email.

Q1. First I would like to address this: Why do you hate dyeing so much? The peanalty is nothing like in WoW where you have to trek back to your corpse. In GW you get ressurected in 10 seconds at the nearest resurection shrine if no one in your team has a ressurection skill, which everyone should. So dying isnt as big a deal as it seems. You might want to read up on Death and Death Penaty.
Q1a. Since you don't like playing melee your other options are anything except Assassin, Dervish, or Warrior. Each class has its specfic advantages and disadvantages, its up to you to choose your playstyle. Here is a handy link to the guides to playing each profession. At the bottom of each page is a list of what each secondary profession can do to benifit your primary profession. A R/N is probably a bad idea as the necromancer secondary for a ranger would provide little to no benifit unless you want to make a Touch Ranger(I wouldn't suggest this build, its bad in PvP and useless in PvE).

Q2. The only nessacary quests in pre searing are your skill quests(threre should be 6 or 7 of these), your ressurection signet quest, and your primary quests that are needed to leave pre-searing. 6 is an ok level to leave pre. I would shoot for levels 5-8 my first time but ive been perfectly ok leaving at level 2 after I already knew how to play the game.

Q3. Some things to know: Theres an agro buble around your character on the compas, if a monster gets within that they will see you, don't rush into groups of enemies unprepared. Armor in Guild Wars can only be crafted(or in some areas you can get it from a collector), not found, all armor is automatically customized to the player who gets it so it can not be bought from other players and worn. If I were you I would get max armor as soon as I can because it can more than halve the damage taken from enemies. You will hear about Elite armor pretty soon, know that game wise it is NO different than standard max armor, it just looks prettier . Also find a good guild to join as soon as you can! A guild is VERY benificial beause they wil help you, explain things to you, do missions with you, maybe even give you things Almost nothing in PvE requires you to have a group of real people, you should check the wiki about Henchman, they are AI that are availible in every town and you can add them to your party like normal people. Usualy real people are smarter though and funner to talk to. there are many ways to join a team or start a team. Usualy just say "LFG for *quest*" Where LFG stands for Looking For a Group. Or you can press "P" in a town to bring up the party menu to see advertisements for people looking for a group or selling things.

In my opinion GW is not dead, it's just in kind of a slump waiting for GW2(theres still plenty of time to finish all four GW1 games and the servers will remain open after GW2s release so don't worry)people have just stopped playing the game and started standing in their guild halls chatting. There is no official forum, but this forum and http://guildwars.incgamers.com/(commonly refered to as GWO) are loosley supported by Anet and Anet employees will post on these two from time to time.

Wow guys, this is some REAL informative stuff for a new comer like me. Thanks a bunch. I will play pre searing with diff secondary professions, starting with monk, to see what I like.

I applied the key and someone in the game asked me to type /bonus and voila! I got an Imp summoning stone Liked it but I also got bunch of other stuff. Is it fair to the other players who may not have bought a similar GW edition? Why should I get all this stuff without doing quests? It's confusing.

I also saw an option called "Observer" and loved it, two great teams fighting out each other, fun to watch Is there anything like a combat info window where I can see who hits whom for how much damage? It would be helpful to me in PVE too(my party vs. enemies). I am tempted to say "Something like Combat Log or Recap/Recount addon in WoW" but someone suggested to remove WoW from my mind

The weapons and the Igneous Summoning Stone can actually be purchased in the Online Store, and also came with the Prophecies Game of the Year / One Million edition bought in stores. It's reasonably common for 'special' versions of the game (Collectors edition, pre-order) to have unique bonuses. These bonuses are however not super valuable, as you might think. Unlike WoW - GW focuses more on skill than on grinding to get the best weapons and armor. Here, this is mainly a case of vanity. The expensive items aren't expensive because they're better - they're just expensive because they're rare.

As for Observer mode (which observes the top ranked Guild versus Guild, top Hero battles and Heroes Ascent / Hall of Heroes matches) - the only way to see the damage a character is taking is by clicking it. As for PvE, there is by default a damage monitor on your left side of the screen, but stuff fades out fairly fast - and it only records attack skills or hostile spells.

Keep in mind that Guild Wars isn't an MMO. If you play it expecting it to be like WoW you will be really disappointed because the PvE in Guild Wars was originally intended to be just a simple tutorial for PvP. You ask about what level you should do a dungeon or whatever but the level cap is 20 and that's really where the game starts since by that point you should have the best armor and weapons you can buy.

@OP - don't listen to this guy, he's obviously a PvPer and thinks that PvP is all there is to GW. The PvE aspect of GW is way too involved and lengthy to be only a tutorial for PvP.

The only "tutorial" you need for PvP is to observe a few matches, make a PVP character and load the build-du-jour from PVXwiki.

Actually, GW was always intended to be both a PvE game and a PvP game.

Yes, you do learn about the mechanics of the game and how to fight, by doing PvE, but that's just as much to learn to PvE as it is to PvP. The Arenas and GvG (Factions) stuff is the real PvP tutorial.

[lively was naomei]

You actually cán ressurect yourself, but it's as good as worthless because you will spawn with no full health and 0 energy. You will be dead in a few secs again.

If you still want to do this, just keep this item up all the time, when you die you drop it automaticly and you will get ressed.

Q0: U can add another trial key to ur exsiting acount to contionue playing with ur exsiting char

Q1: It's a good idea to have a monk as a secondary proffesion if if ur a new player(this is my opionion) as u can self heal.

Great! How does one acquire it btw? wikia wiki says Lively Was Naomei is trainable skill; are there any pre-requisites for it like level, quests completed, etc.? Profession must be ritualist I guess.

Alternatively, can I take a hero with me if only for resurrecting me when I die?

I may be overreacting to possibility of dying, experience might be diff. in GW from WoW but actually, being able to run as a corpse means you get to your old place without having to face all the mobs yet again. Couple of times I died in GW, I had to kill the mobs again as they respawned quite quickly.

Edit: Restoration skill is a bit difficult to understand.

You must have killed a new mob b/c there are no
"respawns" in GW unless you leave and reenter the area. As far as rezing, GW dots many rez shrines all over the landscape so if you do die, you wont have far to go back to where you were. If youi want to creat a Rit, you have to start a charicter in Factions. Pre searing, only available in Prophesies, does not allow you to have "heros" or henchmen (you dont get them until post), but there is no death penalty in pre so dont worry about dying too much...post is a different story...

The mobs in GW don't "respawn", as such. However, if you don't kill an entire group, the monks (and/or others) can resurrect their dead companions.
For example, lets say you run into a mob consisting of 3 warriors and a monk. If you kill some of the warriors and the die yourself, the monk in that group can rez the warriors while you are respawning and getting back to them. However, if you kill the entire group including the monk, the group will not "respawn" (like your party does) and you won't have to kill them again. (Monks from other groups will not rez them.)
In GW, "vanquishing" an area means to kill every enemy in that area. That can only be done because the enemies don't respawn.
There are a few exceptions to this though. There are a few places where some enemies will respawn. These are always dungeons or missions.

In that case, I must have evaded those mobs in the first run and had to kill them after resurrecting! I am really liking the way GW has been designed, this is thoughtful stuff. It is SO frustrating in WoW to clear tons of mobs, get to the center, die there and then having to run to that location, rez with 50% health/no pet/no buffs, so die again, run again, rez, die again, lol! Or accept 25% damage and 10 min downtime(and all mobs get 100% health back).

After Map Travel, this is going to be my next most favourite feature