Technicality questions about 55 builds

Hi, short backstory here, but I'm a casual Guild Wars player and have been playing on and off over the past year. Initially, I made a few characters but found owning a single campaign too limiting to make a character effective and left my highest level (level 14 R/Me, like wtf? right?) to rot whilst I took ~8 months away from the game. I finally got access to all of the campaigns when my friend bought me the Guild Wars: The Complete Collection about 2 months ago. Now, more determined than ever to make a successful PvE character, I began to look around google and stumbled across the 55 N/Mo build.

I've finally got her the armour and most of the skills required, with exception of SS/SV due to them being Elite Skills and Insidious Parasite because I'm too lazy. However, when running about with Protective Spirit, I was shocked to see 60 damage fly from my health bar in one foul swoop by Barbed Signet. My question is:

Which skills (if any) can bypass PS and its reduction power?
Is there any way to prevent bypasses effectively?
Is it possible to farm pre-20 with this build?
For a beginner, which is better? SS or SV? (Keep in mind that as a Canthan born character, SV would be easy as hell to get)
And, off topic but still would like answering: Can Elite Skills be unlocked in PvP and learnt through their respective skill trainers in PvE, or do they *have* to be "capped"?

Thanks in advance =]

1. Any skill which steals life, or causes you to lose life, is not damage, and PS can not reduce life steal.

2. See above. You can run a "600" build with [[Spirit Bond] and low armor. As long as you are taking damage above 60 in addition to life steal, Spirit Bond may be able to heal you up.

3. Level doesn't matter for "55" builds, but max health does. Use whatever combination of runes to lower your health. Keep in mind that leveling up will boost your health by 20.

4. It's up to you which you like more. SS kills groups faster.

5. You can unlock any skill with Balthazar faction and then use a tome to learn it. You'll need Elite Tomes for elite skills, naturally. You can't learn elite skills from skill trainers, only from tomes(if you have already unlocked it) or from [[Signet of Capture].

In addition:

3: Having less health is sometimes better for a 55 build, because you can aggro more monsters. If you reduced health is 30, then you will only take 3 damage per hit. This is why 55s often incur death penalty. This goes away as DP disappears/you level up.

4. SV is also often preferred for farming bosses. It is worth the investment for both. Equip the one you will need for whichever purpose you need. If you are farming for lots of loot, go for the fast mob kills with SS. If you are looking for a specific boss green/skill/tome, go with the high individual damage of SV. Keep in mind that they are different attributes as well, and require different armor sets and synergize with different skills.

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