Some questions from a Newish player

Thanks in advance to anyone that reads this and responds

Just started GW like a couple months ago and I'm loving it. I have a W/N and I'm near the end of prophecies. However, I have a few questions:

- Pulling: I've been pulling with my warrior and using the ol draw a line on the mini that people stay behind trick. I flag back the H/H and pull with a bow and the mobs follow but it seems like the squishies (be they players or H/H) always blunder right in and get aggro anyway. Any way to avoid this?

- Healers: Along the same line as the last question: I'd like to have myself and another warrior with aggro and not the squishies. However, when there are healers we need to kill I feel like I need to call target on them and concentrate on killing them, but when I do that it exposes the squishies to the melee mobs and everything else. What to do?

- Keys/Chests: I've read these are "gold sinks" and I understand what that means ... but is it worth it to use keys/lockpicks? IE, will the loot I get be worth the cost of the key?

- Getting a good weapon: I'd like to get an axe with a fiery upgrade on it. I think I know where to get the fiery upgrade ... but where can I get a good axe that will take the upgrade. I have a green axe a friend gave me ... but greens can't be upgraded. Right? Is it just a matter of buying a good rare axe? Is there anywhere I can get a drop? I don't have much for gold

- Finding people to play with: as I'm sure you guys know ... pugs are not so fun. I have a couple friends that play but not enough to fill a group. I'm in a guild but it only has like 2 people on at any given time and they usually don't help. Is there a good way to find an active/mature guild out there?

1. Yes, a warrior's job is pulling. Pull the mob to the furthest extent of the casters. This should keep them from running up to you as they will begin casting before they are in aggro range of melee.

2. Henchmen healers have no sense of danger. There is not much you can do about that.

3. Nothing in the chests nowadays that is worth the cost of keys and/or lockpicks. Everything in Prophecies has been overfarmed and the pricing has bottomed out. Your chances of getting a low-requirement, nicely-modded, non-inscrip gold is miniscule.

4. Unless your heart is set on a certain skin, just buy any r9 axe and mod it to your taste. In fact, I probably have a free one you can have. PM in game.

5. Check the guilds section of guru. Most spamming guilds are looking for faction-farmers or are start-ups.

1. I'd prefer warriors pulling, by taking less damage from everything it's nice not having to spam energy on a ranger. Just grab any cruddy long bow and keep it.

2. Healer henchies are pretty bad, but better than nothing. But don't think they are the worst, there are some people with hero bars that insults the smartness of mankind.

3. Chests and lockpicks... eh, Money > lockpicks. I only use them when they drop of in elite areas such as the deep. Other than that, save then for a rainy day.

4. You probably want something better than an elemental upgrade mainly because some enemies will take half damage to a element component. On the other hand you can do more damage but that effect is short lived because near the end of the game foes don't take extra damage from anything.

5. Friends > Guilds > Alliance > Heroes > PuGs. Guilds are 4th from the food chain.

If you need help PM me, Zodiac Ele, I am the best healer EVER!!

If you can get in touch with me (or PM me on the forums and set up a time), i have a ton of weapon upgrades for staves, axes, swords, and bows from when i previously played (i quit about 3 years ago and just came back this week). There are a few nice weapons in there, and i know for a fact that i have a fiery upgrade for a sword and for an axe.

character name should be Sakura Hawado or Kira Chan

1,2: There is nothing you can do to prevent stupid henchmen and/or humans from stealing your aggro, but you could try to put in a spamable cripple attack in your build or deep freeze on one of your heroes or something if it really bothers you.
Maybe you could spend an awful amouth of time to aggro, and keep it, every foe in the mob, but that would be time consuming.
Maybe you can call a target and attack something else yourself to prevent them from reaching your backline?

Playing with smart guildies and/or friends is another solution.

3: I've never bothered with chests (exept when I was new, but I stopped pretty fast when I realized that I lost more money on it then I got), and I still don't think they are worth it.

4: A wonderful thing with guildwars is that a near perfect weapon is very easy to get, as you pretty early get maxed out wepons, the problem is the inscriptions... It is just to stand and smile and scream in LA or Kamadan (if you have NF) that you want whatever you want. It can take some time to get all weponsets you wishes to have, more if you usually run different builds for different areas.

5: I'd try the Guru and be very selective and spend time with talking with the guild leaders of each guild, or officers. Especially if you find them in game. Make sure the guild strive for the same things as you do, a good recruiter should check this on the ones he recruits.

1. Keep in mind that when you flag the H&H, they will come forward about an agro bubble distance, to attack. So, when you're pulling don't drag the mobs back too far.
- tanking really only works well if you have a team of people who are familiar with your style and are setup to work with a tank. If you can't form a group from guildies or people you regularly play with, don't bitch about agro.

2. To help protect the squishies, bring along an MM. Also, keep in mind that, if you target a foe who is "past" the front line, those in your group who try to attack it, will naturally have to get into agro range of the front line foes in order to attack the target. No sense bitching about "stupid" people.

Thanks for the pointers all.

Darcy: I'll try to look you up. I won't look a gift horse in the mouth =).

Zodiak: I'll look for you when we need a healer ... if you're free. Also, once I get into the high end PvE stuff ... what weapon upgrades are good if not fire or something?

samuraiken: thanks, I'll try to find ya.

Kendil: I agree, I'm going to try to get into a guild so I can actually have people to group with. Also, I didn't think of using a snare, I'll have to try that.

Quaker: As for flagging H/H I do flag them realllly far back (like 2 aggro bubbles back from me) so I can actually pull the mobs forward some without the melee henchies running up and aggroing everything nearby. As for targeting mobs in the back line: I realize if I do that it will cause the healers to have to come up at the very least and likely everyone will come forward. I guess it's best to take out their front line first ... it's just hard to do that sometimes when there are 1 or more healers behind them. I guess it's easier if you're grouped with people who are good.

• Flag your henchman, or tell your fellow teammates, a little farther than you normally would to avoid aggro.
• Kill the healers faster, or, if the healers aren't that much of a threat to your team, kill the strongest, deadliest foe that's attacking you, which in this case are the physicals.
• I wouldn't entirely put your money into chestrunning since you're so early in the game; wait until you have around 100k plus and go from there.
• You could get a gold axe, and since you have low money, make sure the axe is req. 12. After that just buy the upgrades and you're good to go.
• There's an entire section of these forums dedicated to guilds looking for members, or vice versa.