Few *more* newb questions...

Hi all,

I've posted very few times on this site, as I normally am on the TQnet forums... a lot, and I am still fairly new to GW.

1st question would be-

I currently have a level 20 R/Fire E, and it's very fun and I guess an active class, but I seem to be lacking energy very much. I can only get out 2, maybe 3 skills out before I run out of energy, and without energy storage or any energy modifiers besides the default armor one, it is taking too much of a toll on me. Are there any skills in the fire mastery that have a relatively low cost and are useful?

I dunno if I should post my build here; I'm currently using

Penetrating attack
Troll Unguent
Marksman's Wager
Some dodge/movement/block skill or throw dirt
Inferno (if I ever get surrounded without this, I'm dead meat.)
Flare or Fireball
Phoenix (Same with Inferno)
Res Signet

Marksmanship - 12
Expertise - 6 or 7?
Wilderness survival - 5 or 6?
Fire magic - 8

I know it's crud...

2nd question-

Currently I'm stuck in Elona Reach, I've attempted the mission probably 6 or 7 times, failing. Last time I tried it was with a full PUG, and we all failed. Well, actually we lost the monk somewhere...
But basically I can't get past the forgotten without losing major amounts of health, even with dodge stuff and blocking. The sages are incredibly pesky, and it takes forever to pick them off. I've tried to rush through the place, but I end up getting blocked or lost. I've referred to the wiki a few times, but I still can't pass this mission. Any tips on this, maybe bypassing groups, shortcuts, etc?

Other questions-

In the Xunlai chest, there seems to be a few more tabs that are faded out. I'm guessing they're awarded on birthdays, are they?

Who exactly is Rotscale and how strong would he be? I've met it before in some jungle place in Kryta, but I didn't get very close to him, I just selected him, then I died. I've heard he drops some unique bow, but how hard is he to kill? Would I have to fight him multiple times to get the bow, or does the bow drop every time he's killed?

Last question-

If I were to travel from Prophecies to Factions or Nightfall, would I start where new Factions/Nightfall characters start? If I traveled from Factions/Nightfall to Prophecies, would I start in Pre or go to Old Ascalon?


Thanks in advance, and thanks for tolerating these questions.

Hi there, and welcome (back?) to Guru.

In response to your 1st question: I don't mean to sound condescending here, but Rangers really aren't built for spell-casting. You'll notice on your Ranger that your energy bar only has 3 "pips" (the little arrows), meaning that they regenerate energy at 75% the rate of a profession with a "caster" level of regeneration. Only Ranger, Paragons, and Warriors have less than 4 energy regeneration pips, and it makes them unfavorable candidates for high-energy spells like many of the Fire Magic skills are. So, if you want to play around with Fire, you really ought to play Elementalist, or at least one of the caster classes (Mesmer, for example, can use Elementalist skills very well). In any case, the energy management skill is going to be Fire Attunement (or the Attunement skill respective to the element you're using).

2nd question: While I'm not too knowledgeable in Prophecies, I can redirect you to gw.gamewikis.org or wiki.guildwars.com, which are wiki-style websites for Guild Wars and have a large pool of knowledge you can access. You can pull up the Elona Reach mission (or any mission) in there, and they'll give you hints and tips as to what to do.

Xunlai Chest question: The greyed out tabs are purchasable from the in-game store for $9.99 apiece.

Rotscale: Rotscale is incredibly powerful. He's a Dragon that guards a mysterious gate, the other side of which is completely unknown. Unless you're an experienced player, you should avoid him at all costs (which it sounds like you learned a bit on your own !). For more information on how tough he is as well as how to defeat him, consult the wiki articles on him. His green (the bow that he drops) is not incredibly rare, but don't expect to get it until you've killed him several times. In other words, it's not worth it to spend a bunch of time and money preparing to kill him when you could spend the time playing the game and probably accumulate enough money to just buy the bow from someone else .

Continent travel: No, there are built-in tutorial areas in each campaign (Pre-Searing Ascalon in Prophecies, Shing Jea Island in Factions, and Istan in Nightfall) that you don't have to do if your character is from another campaign. You can access those areas (except for Pre-Searing Ascalon, as it's more of a time period than a location) for various purposes, but when you go from one campaign to another, you enter the storyline where native characters have finished the tutorial area. If you travel to Cantha (Factions), you start in Kaineng Center, to Elona (Nightfall), you start in Kamadan (which is where a lot of new players are as well, but you start the story at a different point), and to Tyria (Prophecies) you start in Lion's Arch.

Hope that answers all of your questions. If you have any more, post again!

Expertise is the ranger's energy management, but it will only work with certain skills: all ranger skills, attack skills, binding rituals and touch skills. As you can see, spells are not included. As FengShui pointed out, rangers also have less energy regeneration than spellcaster classes. This combination doesn't favor rangers acting like elementalists.

As for the Elona Reach problem, a prepared party goes a long way. That means checking out one of the wikis for tips. If you can't manage it at all, I can offer to run you through the mission quickly with my assassin. If this is your first time through prophecies, it would of course be better to just figure out how to beat missions for yourself, that's much more fun! But I know how frustrating some missions can be, trust me.

Ah, thanks. It was my first (and only) character, and I wanted to play something like a Bombardier-nuking-archer character. Would the Glyph of Lesser Energy work okay with energy management too?

Heh, encountered him on the way to the Temple of Ages. How much would the bow be worth? I don't have very much money, only like, 8k.

So, I'm guessing I'd have to get a runner to get to the beginning of each campaign?

Oh, I think I have made a bad choice in the "Bombardier" thingy. I was thinking of changing to a warrior or a necro after ascension, but, well, that's the problem... I think I'm fretting about the timer too much, though I have plenty of time.

I wish I could even play GW, much less get my computer to work, but recently my display driver burned out, the one that was ordered about a week ago wasn't compatible, and I haven't ordered a new one yet.


But thanks all for your help. I appreciate it.

Glyph of lesser energy takes the top off energy costs, but it works on only 2 spells in 30 seconds (no shorter recharge on glyphs) and for only 10 energy for secondary elementalists, saving you 15 energy per 30 seconds. You'd really be better off using a proper ranger build with bow attacks.

If you travel to Elona (nightfall) you'll end up in Kamadan, which is the starting point for nightfall characters as well, so no running necessary there. In Cantha (Factions) you skip the whole tutorial island. For non-factions characters, there is nothing to do there except the first 'tutorial' missions.

If you want to make use of elementalist spells, the conjures give a nice damage boost (Note: you must have the correct bow mod).
You don't need to get a runner to go between campaigns, when you reach a certain point in a campaign (Consulate Docks, Kaineng Centre, Lions Arch) there are quests to travel between the campaigns.

FSD answered most of your questions. Refer to that post.

If I were to add anything, it would be this:
1. Rangers are not casters. Get rid of the fire magic from your build.
2. Rangers are rangers. The answer to killing those annoying monks is to be a ranger. Try interrupts like savage shot, distracting shot, and concussion shot. That should make them much easier to kill.
3. Elona Reach is meant to teach you two lessons:
First, aggro control. With the skills available to you up to that point, you absolutely must make sure to take on groups one at a time. You'll never kill 2 monks at once.
Second, self control. The timer is there to induce you to panic and do stupid things. In reality, you're given so much time that you'd almost have to try to fail the mission because you ran out of time. Learn to ignore the timer and focus on the task at hand.

For the conjures - So far I can only take use of Conjure Frost... I have yet to find a Fiery Bow.
How useful would the bow I'm using be, an Icy Flatbow of Shelter? I think it's Q12 however you say it and 15-28 damage. I'm not a big fan of Flatbows for no particular reason, probably cause they have such a long flight time, and it gets annoying wasting good bow attacks when I miss.

Also, I don't get this "determined shot" skill. If I miss, will it recharge my attack skills as in when an attack skill is recharging, it immediately finishes recharging it, or when the skill is full charge it makes it recharge again?

I can't seem to get the hang of aggro control. I try pulling them one by one, maybe two (and no, of course not with a shortbow ) but they all seem to charge at me at once. I re-specced my build for interrupts, distracting shot, savage shot, some traps, meteor which did come in handy in the PUG...

If I get rid of fire magic, what should I invest the points in? More Expertise?

I can barely work under timers, though. I remember in third grade, we were given an extremely simple test, but it was timed, so I freaked out and got some wrong... heh.

the best way to work with timer, is to ignore it completely. don't worry, there should be ample time to finish the mission.

rangers typically should just run ranger skills, with very few exceptions. they're the oddball of the GW professions, in that it's not a melee, and not a caster. trying to get them to fulfill a caster role is gonna be difficult even under the best of circumstances.

PS: though i must say, they do actually make very good melee characters given the proper circumstances. the latest powerful (overpowered, tbh) melee character in pvp is a R/A with dagger skills and ranger stances.

But, but, it's in the middle of the screen! I try to ignore it, but I die anyways...

Also, I wanted to try one of those "bunny thumpers", not to mention I want to use those clubs I've been saving all that time...

Really now the only fire skill I use is Meteor, even though it causes exhaustion. I seem to only be using that and one bow attack, and the energy is enough to get out 1 or 2 penetrating attacks.

So basically I'm thinking the only ele skills I should be using are the conjures?

Pretty much. You don't pick two professions. you pick a PRIMARY and a SECONDARY. You are a Ranger, not an Elementalist. Rangers kill stuff and interrupt with bows. Elementalists use big damage spells to nuke. Don't get those confused. Secondary professions are there to support the primary.

Visit the Campfire sections Ranger subforum and read the basic ranger thread http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10261054
There is a Tyria Starter build that is very effective using only ranger skills. You don't have all your attribute points yet, so really don't have points to spare for ele skills.

For the aggro control part: Enemies are normally grouped in what we call mobs. That means typically 4-5 enemies who are either patrolling together or stationary. If you attack one of them or cast a spell, they will react together. So you must fight the whole group. A flatbow or longbow arrow is fine to aggro a group. Then make sure to position yourself so they will run towards you before the fight. What you dont want is to aggro another group nearby.
So you cannot aggro just 1 enemy and fight it, its the whole group. They are normally manageable, but if you happen to aggro 2 mobs then you might be overwhelmed and loose the battle.
The mobs are not always 4-5, in harder areas they will be larger. With some experience you will learn to judge which enemies are together in a mob and which ones are not.

Flatbow is good for pulling aggro and bombing otherwise unreachable monsters, but horrible for normal combat, as it's easily dodged and too slow for interrupts. Ideally you need a recurve bow (fast arrows) for interrupts and hornbow (armor penetration) for damage.

Also, you can have more than 1 weapon, so get at least flatbow/longbow (whichever) and a recurve. You can use F1-F4 to swap weapons, check the wiki. Basic info: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Weapon_Set More advanced tactics: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Weapon_swapping

You can always buy a Fiery Bowstring from other players and upgrade any bow with it. But you mentioned you don't have a lot of money so this might not be the best choice.

Yes, for general PvE, a longbow or recurve bow might be a better choice.

The first one. If it misses, all your attack skills that are recharging are fully recharged and ready to use, including Determined Shot itself! To get Determined Shot to miss, a flatbow might be a good choice .

Enemies are generally grouped into small groups which aggro together. In Elona Reach, for example, there are all these small groups of 4 or 5 enemies. If you aggro 1 enemy in such a group, all members of the group will come attack you. The only way to control aggro in such situations is to make absolutely sure you don't accidentally aggro another group.

These two comments go hand in hand. If you check the wiki page on expertise, you will see a nice table on energy cost and how it decreases with higher expertise. With 0 expertise, penetrating attack will cost you 10 energy and determined shot 5 energy. With 4 or 5 of such attacks, you will already be running out of energy. Add in the exhaustion from Meteor (not a good idea with a small energy pool) and you're down to just auto-attacking with your bow. Let's say you have 9 expertise. Now penetrating attack costs 6 energy and determined shot 3 energy. Now both of the attacks are cheaper than just penetrating attack at 0 expertise!

You can always move stuff in your screen with Options -> Interface.

Yes, you should probably give that a try. But I would suggest you first try a basic build and get your marksmanship and expertise nice and high.

Just using ranger skills works well too. If you do not feel for a cunjure (myself thinks it takes too much energy while being unreliable, du to enchantment stripps), try a build with 11 markmanship, 10 expertise and 10 ws. Bring low-cost bow attacks like crossfire or hunter's shot, dshot ofc. Some elite bow attack Burning arrow is great (nf skill), And then a preparation of some sort (like apply poision to quickly spread poision if you run out of energy or want more pressure) a stance and selfheal and/or condition removal.

This would give you a decent DPS, and due to your high expertise still have little energy problems.

If you tend to gain lot of aggro, it might be useful to have two stances, like whirling defence, but you shouldn't, as a ranger, be the first target of the mob.

As you have problem with energy I suggest you do not use skills that takes more than 5 energy (maybe 1-2 10 energy, but they must be effected by expertise, the preparation being the exeption.

For more info on how to make a build, check out wiki http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Guide_to_making_a_build

Thanks for all the input, guys! Now I just have to get myself a new display driver...

Strangely, so far, all my gold/good purple bows have been mostly flatbows, the rest shortbows.

I found this blue bow, I think it was something like, "icy shortbow of shelter" with a "highly salvageable" bonus on it. If I were to salvage that, say, with a normal salvage kit (idiotic, I know), would it give me more components than a shortbow with the same stats except for only "highly salvageable" on it? What if I salvaged it with a higher class salvage kit?

How much would a Fiery Bowstring sell for, then? I think my excessive exploring around might be able to compensate for that. I hope. I've got a shocking, icy, and ebon bowstring, but since I guess there's no "conjure earth" skill, I can only take advantage of conjure frost and lightning. Which brings me to a few more questions. Do lightning skills generally have a lower energy cost than fire skills? And if I use my shocking or ebon bowstrings on the icy flatbow, will it just swab the bowstring types out, or will it replace it?

Sorry for the numerous questions, and thanks once again for your tolerance.

I'm not sure, but I think somewhere around 500g to 1k.You are right, there is no 'conjure earth'. An ebon bowstring can still be beneficial in combination with skills as Ebon Dust Aura, but you're not that far in the game yet.
Air Magic and Fire Magic (and Earth Magic and Water Magic, for that matter) are very different attributes with different strengths and weaknesses. Air Magic is more single target damage with armor penetration and condition inflicting skills. But again, I must advise you not to try to be an elementalist with a ranger primary.
New mods will overwrite present mods. So if you add a Shocking Bowstring to a bow which already has an Ebon Bowstring on it, it will replace it. With expert, superior and perfect salvage kits, you can extract mods from weapons to use on other weapons. This way you can first remove the Ebon Bowstring and then apply the Shocking Bowstring. Then you have the same bow as if you had directly applied the Shocking Bowstring, but you will have the Ebon Bowstring in your inventory as well. Be aware that by using an expert or superior salvage kit to extract mods or runes, there is always a risk of destroying the item you are salvaging the mod from. However, you will always get the mod. Therefore, salvaging an Ebon Bowstring from the bow in the example, you might be left with just an Ebon Bowstring and no bow. There is very clear information about salvaging and the chance to retain the item salvaged on the Salvage wiki page.

That's what this forum is for. We all learned all this for the first time at one point too .

Ah, okay. I guess no ele attack skills, only a conjure. But how about a dodge/protection skill? I was thinking of moving 4 or 5 points from fire to water just for use of the conjure, and putting the remaining into Ranger attributes. Would there be any good/okay water protection skills? All I know of is the Swirling Aura, and I think that's all I have. Actually, I don't want to "neglect" any of the ele skills besides the conjures, so I want to use at least one other skill, be it an attack or defensive skill unless it totally conflicts with the Ranger primary.

So basically if I found a blue bow with some kind of affix on it, I could salvage it with anything higher than a normal kit, and get that affix to be able to equip to something else? And if I have two affixes, I guess a string and a grip, I could put those on a random white bow and it would combine and provide those bonuses, etc? Wow, you could never do anything this awesome in TQ...

Another question (sorry) -
I looked up this skill "Crystal Wave", I thought it was sorta stupid not showing much damage at max level, curing enemies of negative conditions, and also causing exhaustion, but the wiki description said it was armor-ignoring and could be combined with other skills that cause conditions. So I'm guessing the condition removal is applied before the conditions added? By armor-ignoring, does that mean the damage is absolute and can't be reduced in any way besides direct damage reduction?

Thanks for all the answers, and sorry for being an utter noob.

All skills are listed on the wiki. You can quickly read through all elementalist skills on the List of elementalist skills wiki page. This page also lists from which campaign the skills are and if you click on the skill names you can see where you can learn or capture them.
Yes, most weapons can have both a prefix and a suffix mod attached to them. Like with a bow: a bowstring and a bow grip. There are also inscriptions for items from nightfall or eotn, a third kind of weapon modification. For example, you can add both a Fiery Bowstring and a Bow Grip of Fortitude to a bow and get a Fiery <bowname> of Fortitude, like a Fiery Shortbow of Fortitude.

First, you are right about the armor ignoring damage. It indeed ignore damage, so a warrior with 80+ armor will get the same damage from the skill as an elementalist with 60 armor. It can still be reduced by damage reduction skills such as Dark Escape or Protective Spirit.

I think the person who added the note on wiki mean that by combining many condition inflicting skills with Crystal Wave and Fragility, you can continually inflict damage by casting Fragility -> inflicting conditions -> removing conditions with Crystal Wave -> inflicting conditions again -> etc.

No problem at all.