coming from wow...help!!

I am coming from wow, trying to take a break and play a game that is a little more friendly to casuals. I own all guild wars campaigns with the exception of EOTN but quit playing a few months into nightfall due to boredom. I am wondering where to find information about MAJOR changes in the past year or so without having to run through patch notes...things like UI changes....explanation of the whole pvp versus pve skill thing.

I am probably going to start a new character as opposed to playing my old 20s since im SOoo out of touch. Which campaign should i look to for a somewhat populated leveling experience? Do any of yall reccomend starting one campaign and trasnfering?

Also...i have Never looked at this game in a pvp sense, but what does the pvp have to offer over something like wow? are there small arenas? battlegrounds? pvp currency?

Is eye of the north worth it?

I greatly appreciate any and all answers...dont flame me for being a wow player, since i have enjoyed both games but find that wow is taking up too much time.

i would go through nightfall so that u get heros to start lvling up and to play with. finding random groups of people to play with inside towns for missions and such will be difficult. the ability to do these on ur own though is greatly improved by having good heros. if ur looking for people to play with, it would be best to try and join a guild.

u can do pvp on a scale of 1v1 to 8v8. the 8v8 pvp is kinda hard to get into as a begginer because people don't generally lie teaching newer people. 4v4 in RA is a good learning area. 1v1 is u and 3 heros vs another person and 3 heros.

so does that mean there are 2v2 brackets? or is that just 2 people and 2 heros on each side? ALso, what do you gain by winning these matches?

Congratulations, and welcome to the dark side.

If you want to level quickly, start in factions and do as many quests as you can - even the storyline ones get you high pretty fast (about lvl 11/12 depending on what you do). It's easiest to level there and then once you get to the mainland, you can change campaigns if you're bored.

For starting PvP Aliance battles is good also. This is 12vs12 battle. But you need find Kurzicks or Lukson guild first for getting in battle.

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

This will help you get started again. Will also have notes on the major changes.

A few things also to take note of.

Someone already mentioned that you may want to finish NF so that you can have heros, this is one of the very first things you should do. It will help you move through the game much easier.

The next thing you should do is join a guild. I would not recommend joinning the ones that spam in invites in major cities for they will be less helpful. Checkout the "join a guild forums" section here on guru.

Yes if you have the cash buy EOTN, more heros, skills, and dungeons, not necessary though.

Finally, guild wars has a large focus on pvp. If you have not noticed already, you can create pvp characters so that you can jump right into battle with max equipment and items, (skills and other items will need to be unlocked either through pve and spending faction aquited in pvp, again check wiki for more details.) That being said, high end pvp is very competitive and you will most likly have to start small.

This is another good reason to join a guild, so that you have axcess to allience battles. This is just from my experience but this was the best place for me and my friends to start learnning pvp when we started playing 2 years ago. Mostly because it is a blast to play and teaches you more then just kill kill kill.

Hope that helps, and again, wiki is your friend

there is 1v1 matches in which each opponent controls 3 heros each. so it's 1person+ 3 heros vs. 1 person +3 heros. when u win matches, u gain points toward your commander title. There are also daily and monthly tournaments. Winning matches in tournaments is a fast way to gain rank. You also gain title points for winning matches of course and also tournaments points for wins and depending on how well u place in the tournament. tournament points can be exchanged for pvp gear or z-keys. (pvp gear is just for looks)

Hero Battles
u can find a more detailed description here.

i suggest that u browse around on wiki a lot. it can answer ur questions more thoroughly than forum posts usually can ;-)

Major Changes over the Past year
-Major GvG rule changes
-A boatload of underpowered elite skills were buffed. PvP Meta is different ( but still feels the same )
-Major changes to a ton of titles. Mainly to make them account based and decrease grind.
-PvE skills received a bunch of major changes in terms of scaling. They are now much more useful at lower ranks ( Again, a grind reducer )
-More weapons and stuff can be added to the HoM now.
-Various Hero AI and monster AI changes ( Whether they were improvements or not is debatable. )
-A few new missions were added in the form of storybooks. The rewards are good and the missions are fun, so go to Lions Arch and do them.



* if you want all the details going through patch notes is unfortunately the only way as far as I know.

RA = Random Arenas. Your are randomly teamed into a group of 4 people, generally it takes a few times to get into a team thats reasonable.
TA = Team Arenas. Make a team of 4 people and go fight. Generally, only guilds do this these days, and even then its dead, dont waste your time here.
AB = Alliance battles. 12v12, pick your team of 4 and get randomly grouped with 2 other teams of 4. Large map with shrines that can be captured. If you wantto do this youll need to find a guild of the faction you waqnt to play for.
CM = Competetive Mission. 8vs8, teams are assigned randomly. Large maps with lots of NPC's, usually it takes quite a while to get a battle.
HB = Hero Battles. Human + 3 Heros vs Human + 3Heros. Each map has shrines that can be captured, providing bonuses.
HA = Hero's Ascent. 8vs8. Make a team of 8. There are various diferent maps and play styles. Relic Runs, 3 team free for all, capture the altar. Generally quite hard to make a start in, because to get Hero rank you need to HA, but to get a team good enough to HA, you need Hero rank.
GvG = Guild vs Guild, or Guild Battles. 8vs8, your guild vs another. Maps are large and each team has a base with NPC's and a guild lord. Genrally hard to get into, as you need experience to get in a reasonable team.

Eye of the north has the highest population (excluding Kammadan), so if your looking to play with other people, this is the best place to go.

There is a pvp currency somewhat. When you win a battle or make kills in PvP, you are awarded with Balthazar Faction, this can be traded in at a Tournament Agent for Zaishen Keys, which can be sold for 4-4.5k (the price is steadily declining atm), So its not realy a PvP currency, just a way of making money through PvP.

Welcome back! ^^ i would suggest NF for quick leveling and gaining heros. Check out the main wiki page for updates, and builds. As for PvP i would suggest joining a guild and trying your hand at Jade Quarry for faction. Great way to build faction for your guild and get a feel for pvp.

I bought Nightfall and Eye of the North because of heros. I found sometimes teaming up with groups can be hard and difficult at times.

With heros you can give them better weapons, and stats for fighting in different areas in PvE. As well as Hero Battles.

A quick note regarding heroes.

It's good to have a lot of heroes. However, a human > Hero. Heroes are scary at interrupts, make good healers when there is no healer around. However heroes lack energy management (except for necros) and is bad at skill combo's (glyph of energy + searing flames etc.) and a more important thing is they don't have high powered PvE skills. For the harder missions, I highly suggest getting a team. Ask the guild before asking in all chat.

If you want to skill combo your hero's you can micro manage them but you can quickly go blind as you have 4 characterless you are controlling all at the same time and not much screen space left to ....look out AGROOOOOOOO