New player: Click vs Hotkey and group play

Hello all. I'm not really a brand new player, but I may as well be. I played briefly almost 3 years ago and again 8 months ago, but each time I got frustrated and quit. I'm beginning to get to that place again, so I figured I'd ask a couple of questions here and see if anything can be done to help me.

First of all, I cannot figure out how to comfortably navigate my character, use my abilities and see the playing field. No matter how long I play, I cannot get used to my character turning to attack something behind me while the camera stays still and gives me a view of nothing. Is there a setting I'm missing that will cause the camera to ALWAYS follow the way I'm facing *without* having to press the "turn around" button or manually swinging the camera with yet another binding?

Second, do most of you just click your skills? I have all of my spells bound to hotkeys and something this works really well, but other times, I'm forced to click spells because I have to constantly hold down Ctrl to get my henchmen to attack the right target. So I get frustrated and try clicking all of my spells, but then I can't use my mouse for spinning the camera. I need to be able to see what's going on around me to figure out where to drop a ward or to step out of AoE attacks. This drives me crazy.

Finally, unless I'm healing, I cannot figure out what the hell my roll is in the group. I mean, I understand that I may be there to deal damage, or to debuff the mobs or take most of the damage, but once I engage a group, I don't understand the mechanics behind the fights. For instance, if I'm playing my Elementalist, I figure it's my job to damage the enemy and not take damage myself, so I stay far behind my group and wait until they engage the group, but even if I stand far back and do *nothing*, they start attacking me. A lot of fights, I'm killed before I get a chance to do anything.

I'm used to games like EQ and WoW where I can avoid damage by adjusting my damage or spell casting, but on here, I can't seem to make things attack me when I want or avoid things from attacking me, regardless of making any action against them. It's just "run up to this group and start randomly casting stuff" and pray I don't die. It seems you're not rewarded for attacking the same target or using organized gameplay.

What am I missing?

GW's AI is different from EQ or WoW: Here there isn't any "aggro" level.

AI will "analyse" every teammate/foe they have in range. If a foe is attacking your team, he will chose the easiest target (less HP and/or armor).

That's why you are being attacked: you're a caster, so you will have less armor than Ranger, Assassin, Dervish or Warrior.

And, if you aren't running max AL armor, or any major/superior rune, you will have less health than the other casters in your team, so you will be the easiest target to AI.

If you have problems surviving, try to use some utility skills (Fire isn't everything) like [[ward against foes], [[ward against melee], or any kind of blind / block skills (you can use [[Aegis], @9 in Protection, to help every single member of your team).

Gameplay in GW is different than EQ or WoW, because every member of the team has to do his job. It's not "I have to stop attacking to get the tank get some more aggro".

If you need to ping your skills, you can change targets with TAB and shift+tab, and pinging skills with CTRL+skill hotkey. It can be hard at the beggining, but you will be able to do it automatically soon.

Just relax, and enjoy. You will learn everything you need

Typically in GW you have three basic templates for characters in GW, often referred to as the frontline, midline and backline.

Generally the frontliners job is to get up close and personal and dish out damage. Warriors, dervishes and assassins most commonly fall into this category, though some ranger builds do also.

Backline classes basically keep the team alive and free of hexes and conditions which impede the rest of the team from doing their jobs. Monks and ritualists are most commonly seen in this role.

Finally, the midline - commonly comprised of elementalists, mesmers, necromancers, rangers and paragons generally use use their abilities to support both the frontline and backline. Pure damage builds are a pretty big mistake on midline characters, as they are generally somewhat squishy, your backline will have difficulty keeping them alive without defensive support from the midline.

Usually on a PvE elementalist you would carry a couple of direct damage skills, often AoE. Loading your bar with 7 nukes is nearly pointless, several of them will be redundant, as by the time you have got through 3 or 4 of them generally the first will be recharged again. So the rest of an eles bar should be comprised of utility skills. Some examples of useful utility:

[deep freeze] - A nice AoE snare which has full duration even at zero spec.
[aegis] - Amazing defensive skill, basically partywide godmode against melee mobs. Can be chained for even more godliness.
[splinter weapon] and/or [ancestors rage] - Makes your frontline do big damage.
[ward against melee] - Nice defensive utility.
[eruption] - Decent nuke if specced in earth, plus an excellent AoE blind for defence.
[enfeebling blood] - Often better on a hero, but very useful defensive utility.

These are by no means all of the possibilities, just a few suggestions. For most it would also be advisable to drop your energy storage attribute to either 8 or 10, and use the rest of those points in the attribute your utility skills use.

If continuing to play an ele I would also suggest you learn to kite. This basically means whenever you're being pounded on by a melee mob and not casting, keep moving away from it. However, keep an eye on where you're kiting to so you don't get out of range of your backline or aggro extra mobs. You can also dodge a lot of projectiles by moving in a quick zigzag fashion.

As for the Click/Hotkey question, I prefer to use hotkeys for my skills 1-4, which I usually set to either skills that require decent timing (interrupts etc.), or skills that are used frequently. Resses/long recharge skills I usually throw as far to the right on my bar as possible, and click to activate them. I would suggest you get used to using hotkeys for at least a few of your skills, as once you get used to them they're far quicker to activate than moving your mouse halfway across the screen.

how to navigate your character i recognize your problem.
my preference is clicking and not hotkeys so i wont explain that.

u can watch the battle field on compass see all the red dots there.
u can recognize groups on it 2 groups on nm is nothing 3 groups can be a problem.
in HM 2 groups is already to much so pay close attention to it

as for the big screen yes the camera point always the way you face that really isnt a issue. it can only get frustrated unless u want to see ur enemy.

learn tab to switch ur targets i have a red bar saying what my enemy is and thats really enough like tab "lvl 20 jade brotherhood knight"tab again "lvl 20 jade brotherhood mage"
and so on tab tab tab. now pick ur target learn the weakest target it will always be casters especially monks.

now another way to once u learned the names of the weakest target
u can simply press ctrl u see the names and u can just click on it and kill it

and there ar threads here in the campfire how to play your character
u have to study abit otherwise you will never be good in gw.
if you dont read how to farm you dont know how to just that simple.

oh just discovered when not playing with the mouse just rightclick to change angle and ctrl to see the enemies

Use the keys whenever possible. I only click to activate res sig, typically. Make sure you hotkey your skills to something easily reached by your left hand - it'll improve your overall reaction time and leave your mouse free for camera adjustment/precision movement.

You've missed the way Guild Wars is played, probably because you're looking at the battle in the wrong way. GW combat is somewhat different from WoW.

PvE in the manner you describe is largely similar to PvP - there is no tanking or aggro. I could go in-depth on how GW organized gameplay works, but really, nobody will read the post because of how long it'll have to be. I'll summarize here and if you want, can go into more detail in PM.

Combat overview.

Two teams/groups. Both have the objective of destroying the other team. Both have a certain amount of various functions (offense, defense, shutdown). Hence, to achieve the goals, combat is organized in properly deploying these concepts where they are the most effective - shutting down defense in conjunction with applying offensive pressure to break a backline, for example.

Your role.

In general, your role in the party is to know your task, and to perform it to the maximum efficiency. I'll talk about the Elementalist since that's what you mentioned.

As the ele, you are (generally) a midliner, which is a support class. Guild Wars has three groups: the frontline, the midline, and the backline, also known as Those That Kill, Those That Let Them Kill, and Those That Don't Let The Other Side Kill. Your job is to provide support to the other two areas to help them perform their job more effectively.

In the scope of an actual battle, this means (example: Fire ele with wards) providing damage for priority targets (in PvE, usually the monks) as well as positioning wards to benefit the party the most and hence reduce damage. As a midline character, you are also best situated to observe the field of battle and hence it is usually your aim to be able to note targets/inbound threats.

The Battle

Remember your primary objective is always to eliminate opposition. This is generally done by overloading the defense with enough pressure to cause deaths, and is not usually done through DPS. There is massive importance in following targets, simply because focusing damage can break defense much easier. A thousand damage done to an enemy team is irrelevant if all ten retain functionality by not dying, but all that dumped on the healer can break the back of a team. So yes, target calling is important.

This might be tricky for you at this point, but once you are comfortable with camera angles you should be able to begin watching the battlefield. If you are taking damage, move. Melee can be kited, projectiles can be dodged. Both teams are trying to wear down the other side's defense, so every bit of damage you avoid through constant positioning adds up.

From the sound of it, you're playing PvE on c-spacing autopilot. That is to say, just blasting away at things without focus on target prioritization, damage focus, or timing. Unfortunately, 'blasting away at things' is really what PvE is, because the AI isn't going to properly apply tactical play back at you, or even play well.

1-8 are your skills activation keys
arrows keys to move forward, backward, turn left, right. X turn your character around. \ to select closest target, tab - go to next target.

numeric keys must be set up to target your allies, bring up your party panel so you know who needs what heal/prot. pink arrows pointing down are bad, yucky green health bard are bad, yellow up arrows on health bar are good. not good if its on the enemy health bar. dark read are very bad :P lol

U for mini map tells you where you've been before, gives location of res shrine and collectors.

Look at radar for enemies in range. tiny transparent circles is the agro limit.

i think q is to travel left while looking front
and e is travel right while looking front

click your character out of a sticky situation.

most importantly read your skill descriptions.

hope that helps
and

Avarre
i wouldn't mind reading on the "in-depth on how GW organized gameplay works" if you want to write it. it sound interesting.

try rebinding the 5 6 7 8 skills to Q E R F and leave mouse for movement, camera angle and selecting targets

You're wrong. But I'm not sure it'd be worth your time.

aggro is roughly based on 3 things: proximity, health, armour
there is no "threat" level

gw is more like an action game
and will be more demanding in execution than a game like eq or wow (imo)


so theres a few things u can do to stay from being attacked often:
1. try to stay outside of aggro range (spell range is larger than aggro range)
2. make sure ur health is fairly high (i.e. do not wear 3 superior runes, and survivors r good too)
3. max armour is a given (if u havent upgraded yet, it would be a good time)
4. if u do manage to get one on u, learn to kite when necessary
5. if all else fails, have a backup shield set for emergencies


one last note...it sounds like u've rebinded all the keys?
i'd recommend using the default setup for now
ur using wsad for movement rite?
and 12345678 for skills?
right-click for camera movement?
ctrl+shift+space to target and send in heroes/henchies?

u'll get the hang of it over time


edit: one more thing...
camera

it sounds like ur playin in either first-person view or extreme close-up
stop tryin to play this as if it was eq or wow

its better played from isometric zoomed-out akin to diablo or even an rts like starcraft
its important to kno wuts goin on in the whole battlefield (which is why u get a radar and minimap)
try not to jus focus on 1 single enemy at a time (even if u focus attack on 1 enemy at a time, u r still aware of ur whole surroundings)
so zooooom that camera out!

It sounds like you are really overthinking and trying to do a lot of things at once and its really not necessary.

Pve in this game is really getting easier all the time, you just have to make sure you are using the best skills for the job. There is no need to tank or look for aggro or think about damage levels. You are playing an Elem and basically they kick ass in Pve as they have great AOE. Your role in pve is to wait til the battle starts and then engage and blow stuff up with AOE.

And as someone said it sounds like you are trying to view the action from really close in and it dont work, zoom the camera right out and then you can use small touches of the right mouse button to keep your view on the action. And also go back to the default key setup, have skills on the 1-8 keys and move with the mouse and WASD. This way you can either click all skills or use the keys for 1-4 and click 5-8 if you feel like it. I wil usually key move and mouse move depending on the situation im in.

As for you dying a lot it sounds like your using the wrong skills too. Elementalists are not made for healing, let the monks do that. Maybe you should post your skill bar here and if you have heroes post their skills too. If you dont have heroes i suggest picking up an expansion as they are so much better than the henchmen.

Thanks for the replies so far. Let me clear a few things up.

* I am still a *very* new player. I have one level 20 that went through Factions (e.g: very fast) and a few others, all below 15.

* I hotkey all of my spells currently. I have a mouse with several buttons, so the only spells I have bound to my keyboard are 1, 2 and `. I use my mouse buttons for the other 5 abilities.

* I almost always play with the camera at max length. I don't know who gave some of you the idea that EQ and specifically WoW are played in 1st person, but that's far from the truth. I can pan much further out in WoW than GW, which only goes about halfway as far out -- one of my complaints about not being able to see the battlefield as successfully. But from seeing the responses here, it's not as important to be looking at what you're attacking.

* I didn't think that the combat in GW was going to be the same as WoW -- that's one of the reasons I came back to GW in the first place.

So with that out of the way, thanks to those who explained the combat AI. Whereas WoW is more of a "buff once and battle for hours or until you die", it seems GW is more about preparing individually for every single fight.

I think some people gave some advice about PvP and while appreciated, I doubt I will ever get into it as the learning curve seems incredible and the build possibilities endless. I'm never one to participate in PvP unless I feel I will be competitive and it will take months if not years for me to feel that way.

I only have Pre and Factions, so unfortunately, Heroes aren't an option. I find the Henchmen to be decent most of the time, but I no matter how many times I use Ctrl to get them to attack the target that is currently kicking my butt, they seem to just ignore me and do whatever they want. My experience playing with other players has been even worse. It seems to be one of two scenarios. I'm either grouped with someone so powerful that they trivialize all of the content, or I'm with other poor/new players like myself and we get beat down. I feel the need to mention that with my latest character (E/Mo), I didn't die until trying to take on level 20 mobs at level 15, so I'm not completely incompetent, but I have a lot to learn.

So, if I am understanding correctly, I believe I've been playing my E/Mo correctly. I have Deep Freeze (no points, because it lasts 10 sec regardless), a single target DD spell (Boulder, I think), Ward vs Melee and the self Armor buff for survivability and Healing Breeze, with some others I cannot remember. I feel that I make more of a difference in fights with my N/Me using Well of Blood and things like that, but I suppose every class brings something to the table.

My last source of frustration comes from debuffs. All I see on my party bars when someone gets debuffed is a color change and/or up and down arrow. I still don't understand the difference between different colors, but that's something I can look up, so that's on me. I know it would be helpful to use a remove hex or enchantment spell, but it takes me so long to figure out what effects are on me or my group members that it's finished it's duration or I/we are dead. Should I be working more on using abilities that stop these conditions in the first place or ones that react to them? There just doesn't seem to be enough room on my skill bar to be useful at more than 1-2 things.

And finally, it seems that different groups of enemies require different builds to defeat. So is it normal to run into a group of unfamiliar enemies, get killed, return to the city to respec and then go back out?

Three things:

Get max armor, don't use things that lower your Health.

Don't spread your skills out too much. Put all your points into no more than three different attribute lines until you get a handle on damage and such. Fire, Earth, Energy Management. Once you start spreading out, damage goes down much too quickly. You want to focus on doing damage effectively, not planning for every contingency.

Read this: http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10314574

Scroll down to 'common tested builds' and see how they are put together.

Shoot me a PM in game: Scion of Hodr, if I'm on we can talk more in depth on not dieing.

Yes.

Or you can type /wiki (or go to guildwars.wikia.com , which is the older one, and my personal preference) and research the area you are going into. It depends on whether you are going for survivor or not.

In general, you can decide whether you should prepare for hexs, conditions, lots of melee, healers-shutdown, etc. Many times you will have a basic build that you will change a couple of skills depending on the area you are in.

Unless you get NF/EOTN and run Sabway Necros, in which case you run slipshod over everything.

Els do damage in NM, but go more for support in HM. While you are supposed to be backline that doesn't mean don't get involved at all. BTW, if you are dying fast is this in normal mode or hard mode? If it is NM, you might have added too many superior runes. Go down to the campfire section, read up on els and if you are still having problems, post your build down there and explain what you are trying to achieve.



If you plan to do upper end PvP as a warrior, I think you should learn to click move and use your keyboard to interact so you can chizuu dance*.


*If you click and press space to attack at the same time you can move a short distance and swing your weapon... normally you can't do that.

Look at your Radar to see what is behind you and if it is getting close to your agrro bubble then move.You can do this by either clicking on the map or using your wasd keys.I spend about 50% of my time watching my Radar.I use my hot keys for my skills 1,2,3,4,E=5,R=6,T=7 and Q=8.