Optimal way to experience trilogy? and other questions

New to GW, purchased the trilogy (EotN will come at some future point) and I'm curious about the "best" way to experience the three chapters. "Best" in quotes because this may mean different things to different folks. But assuming one is going with one of the core six professions (my N/Me is 11 atm), does it make more sense to start in Prophesies to get all the skills for free? Or to start in Nightfall and get a hero quicker? (Does having a hero make a huge difference over having henchmen?) Or perhaps rush to Lion's Arch asap and then travel?

Speaking of henchmen, if one is soloing does it make any sense NOT to have a full party of them if I'm soloing? The majority of XP seems to come from missions and quests, and it definitely makes things a lot more survivable, if less profitable gold- and drop-wise, to have them all along.

Lastly, which chapter currently has the highest population for group play? I'd like to meet people and see how different guilds operate before committing to one.

Henchman were updated recently to have somewhat decent skill bars compared to what they used to have, so I wouldn't bother about getting heroes as fast as possible. In fact you can use henchman for almost every mission there is.

Until maybe Hard mode, but thats a bit far from you at the moment.

Prophecies is nice for all the free skills, but the quests in Factions and NF give you some good gold to counter the skill cost anyways (If you do secondary quests and not just primary).

Choose a class you like, don't worry about being a core profession or not. I prefer new players to start in prophecies just because its the easiest (yet most time consuming) of the three so its a nice starter campaign. Just keep in mind if you don't start in prophecies, but then go there to finish all the missions with your character, than most likely 90% of the game will be boring since you will be so overleveled/skill decked out compared to other campaigns.

For some strange reason I want to tell you to play factions though.

Oh yeah, don't worry about the number of henchman, go ahead and always bring a full team. No reason not to really.

If you care about story & spoilers, you should probably play Prophecies or Factions first (I recommend Prophecies) before you play Nightfall.

The events in Prophecies and Factions lead up to the story events in Nightfall.

I suggest you play Prophecies first so that you really get to experience the Charr (you'll miss out if your character is not "born" in Ascalon). That way when you play Eye of the North -the Charr & Ebon Vanguard storyline makes more sense & has more weight.

All of my suggestions center around experiencing the storyline.

The easiest would be to begin in Nightfall, grab heroes, and thrash your way through the other two in whatever order.

The traditional way to do it would be to go Prophecies > Factions > Nightfall, and the expansion after that, if you have it.

I'd go for this, which however means you'll need to make one of the 6 core professions (which isn't necessarily a bad thing).

This worries me, as I wish to play a Dervish.

You can still play as a Dervish if you like. You can start in NF, complete the training island and then move to Prophecies/Factions as you please and return to NF later. Creating a Dervish simply means you must start in NF and must return to NF to purchase Dervish skills.

One of the great things about GW is the freedom to move between the different continents as it suits you.

Wonderful news! Thank you.

If you do not start with Prophecies, you will miss on probably the most beautiful location in the whole of Guild Wars - that of Pre-Searing Ascalon.

The location is not available to non-Prophecies characters.

Regards,
Ruemere

I went Proph - EotN - NF - Factions.

Proph. is probably the best place to start, although once you get to Lions Arch it might be worth going to Nightfall or Eye of the North briefly to get a few hero's

I would recommend to start with Prophecies.

This way you can experience the storyline without spoilers.

Play till you reach Lions Arch. Then make a little detour to Eye of The North. Just do the 'What Lies Beneath' Quest that takes you to the Far Shiverpeaks. This way you get Ogden Stonehealer and Vekk as a hero. Since you have all chapters you can get M.O.X. in Lions Arch too (i think), just talk to him outside the city gates.

Now continue Prophecies. The heroes should be enough to last you all through Prophecies. If you want some more go to Nightfall and get the heroes at the start of nightfall. If you do this don't forget to get Olias, as a necromancer minion build is really useful in the Maguma Jungle.

Then continue with Prophecies. I would recommend to play Factions next and Nightfall last. But this is just my preference.

Oh and it makes no sense not to take a full party. Since you do not get more loot with a smaller party but you can kill things much faster with a bigger party.

If you want to know more:
http://guildwars.wikia.com/wiki/Loot...g#Loot_scaling

I personally would start in NF (becuz I think it has the best character designs) and work your way through Istan. Once availible, travel to Kaneing Center and Lions Arch. I would recommend doing Factions first, as it is the easiest of the campaigns to beat. Then move to Prophecies and do missions from D'Allesio Seaboard onward (or get a run to droks and just do the last few missions, not recommended for new players though). Then move on to Nightfall. Mostly because the end of Nightfall has some spoilers for the other 2 end-games if you didn't complete them.

If you are new to the game, not much. Once you get better aquainted with the game and the skills list it will make alot of difference.


Henchmen are a great way to play through the game if there are few-to-none people in the parts of the game you need to complete. And if the money loss seems a bit much, think about how much you would lose if you didn't live long enough to kill the monsters.

I would say eye of the north has the most players. that, or the beginning of NF or proph.

Not a bad idea. You should get a feel for the community and decide how YOU want to play. That will help you make a better guild choice. However, I would sudgest maybe getting guest invites to guilds rather than join and later leave.

What is being insinuated in this thread is, that you could choose either to play the game in your own pace, following the storyline, and experience both beating and being beaten by the enemies. Or you could stock up on level 20 heroes, getting powerful skills and grind through the game.

If you favor the story and want to see Guild Wars expand its vast world in your own speed, start in Prophecies.
If you're here for the high-end loot and fast money, start in Nightfall and go to Eye of the North as soon as you can.

My opinion here would be to start in prophecies, don't get runs anywhere and try to do as much as possible (within your attention span limits ).

I say this because it is the slowest paced game, which I think is a good thing. There's plenty to learn when starting out, so I figure the more time you spend learning the game (whilst still progressing), the better you'll be when it comes to harder areas.

I'd certainly consider jumping into Nightfall as well though, but make sure you've got a decent amount of skills for when you get heroes, otherwise they'll be hindered.

Prophecies is the best campain if u are new to Guild Wars but when u get more experienced u could go Factions for the more xp and beeing able to reach lvl 20 in 5 hours

Having started and finished Nightfall a few years ago and just finished Prophecies a little while ago, I recommend doing Prophecies first. When you get to Beacon's Perch in the Southern Shiverpeaks, get a run to Droknar's Forge (which will give you access to more skills/max armor). Then continue on the Prophecies campaign until you end up in Lion's Arch, where as people have said before, you'll be able to switch continents.

Then do the beginning sections of Nightfall available to your Prophecies characters to get some heroes (which you'll discover are much more useful than henchman, especially as you progress... also if you walk outside of LA at one point you can pick up M.O.X.), finish Prophecies, then do Factions, and do Nightfall last.

The reason this order is the best is that Prophecies is the slowest and the most new-player friendly of all the campaigns (although Nightfall is also long, it's frankly more beautiful and has better pick-up groups), and as someone who finished Nightfall first I found the campaign to be tiresome as a not-new player. The complicated storyline will be easier to follow if you do it in this order anyway, and your gaming experience will become progressively better as you play, rather than progressively worse.

You may also wish to do the very beginning of EoTN at level 10 (you can get the quest for it in Kamadan, Lion's Arch or Kaineng), because then you'll get access to Vekk and Ogden Stonehealer.

On another note I recommend starting a PvP Ele or Ranger and working your way up to Zaishen Elite and RA on the Battle Isles. You can make a fairly easy 6k worth of Balthazar faction every day to equip your PvE heroes with skills by learning to trap. When you unlock skills with the Priest of Balthazar, not only will your PvP characters have access to them, but so will your PvE heroes.

So, if I start a Dervish, at what point will I be able to switch continents so that I can go through with the Prophecies > Factions > NF route?

Prophecies is the best place to start, but also tedious at times. It's the best way to get a feel for the game.

Factions is good for a faster pace gameplay and NF is in between.

I would begin in Proph and then move on to Factions as it is the easiest of the 3 to complete. NF has the best elites IMO and heroes are pretty good.

I recommend taking your time and enjoying it instead of speed rushing it. Many people dislike PvE, but if you want a relaxing experience with some fun in it, you don't want to go in breakneck pace.

For now I'm going to assume that you have both the trilogy and expansion.

You have to complete Terror in Tyria to get to Prophecies, Sunspears in Cantha to get to Factions, and Hole of Istan to get to EoTN. These quests are available after completing The Time is Nigh, which itself can only be done after completing a bunch of other different quests and whatnot. Here's a link for The Time is Nigh... I'm pretty sure after you finish up all of Istan's quests & missions you'll have met all the requirements necessary to receive the quest.

In your case aliadim, you can either start a new character in Prophecies and work from the beginning or move your Derv over to Tyria...or both. If you start a new character you'll be able to do 100% of the Prophecies campaign...if you do it with your Derv instead, you'll start all the way in LA and you'll do roughly the second half of the campaign instead (although I suppose you could even work your way backward in the Prophecies campaign up to Ascalon if you really wanted to, kind of a weird way of doing stuff but if you expect that your Derv is your real hardcore "main" across all three campaigns there's nothing stopping you). Keep in mind this all depends on how much time you expect to invest in Guild Wars -- if your answer is "a lot" it'd probably just be better to start a new char in Prophecies and get back to your Derv another time.

I actually will not have much time to play and this will likely be the only character I will be making. Thank you for your points.