Career/Campaign Choice

I'm taking a break (maybe permanent) from Warhammer. So I've decided to check out Guild Wars, which I played briefly at launch. I own the trilogy plus EOTN.

Last week I started a D/W in Nightfall, and have been enjoying it. But I'm more comfortable playing a ranged profession. I'm usually a healer, but have healer burnout from playing my Zealot in WAR. I'd like to play a ranged damage or buff-debuff support class.

Both Necromancer and Ritualist look interesting to me. Mesmer looks good too but the AoE nature of N and R look more appealing. And I'd like to play either Prophecies or Factions for my second character. Do experienced players have any recommendations? Are any of these professions viable for solo-pve with henchmen?

My goal is to eventually experience all three campaigns plus EOTN before GW2 launches.

*You can run anything in PvE and be successful (it's not like one weak team member will cause the entire team to fail). Some professions are more powerful than others, some (like the Dervish) are completely outdone by other professions. If you want to play with other people a lot, you'll have to get a guild/friends who are happy to play with you if you don't choose a powerful profession (you'll be with heroes/henchies a lot anyway).

*Both Necros and Rits are incredibly powerful nowadays. Theres no penalty for creating or deleting characters (other than losing their progress), so you can just make one of each and then play which ever one you feel like playing (or delete the other one if you don't have any more slots and want to try something else). Note that you can only make Rits in Factions (but they can go anywhere after a while) so if you want to make one in Proph and one in Factions you won't have a choice about which goes where.

EDIT: Theres a PvE based update coming next month (we're supposed to get one, anyway) and it's likely to address some of these profession balance issues. Even if it doesn't, you're better off playing a profession you like (it's a game remember, you're supposed to be enjoying it) thats slightly weaker than something thats super powerful but boring.

What Marty said.

It's so funny that you made this thread, you are a bit like me two months ago when I started (and have now both finished) a Necro and Rit in Prophecies and Factions, respectively (oh, except that I did Nightfall in 07' with a ranger... shhhh). I also planned on finishing all the camps and EoTN before GW2... then I discovered I finished all the campaigns quicker than I thought I would, but outfitting my Hall will occupy me well into 2011.

While I had kinda-of-a-good time with my ranger in NF, both my necro and rit were very fun to play and strong (or perhaps more precisely, flexible) in PvE. This is true for both low and high-end PvE... and especially with heroes/hench.

Also, I can definitely understand burnout, and the two classes that interest you are particularly helpful in making sure that never happens. Necros frequently go curses (de-buffer, sometimes includes blood magic), minion master (summoner-esque), minion bomber (summoner-esque but you have to be skilled with the keys, most people just let heroes do this), or orders (team buffer, generally only seen in high end PvE for Physicalways). Rits can go Resto (support healer and/or buffer), various different Signet of Spirit builds (high damage summoner/nuker-ish), and many other builds that are in between or are too specialized to provide a general name for at all.

I also expect that most of these builds will survive the update... or maybe weaken just a bit (*whistles*)

Good luck!

I'd suggest creating at least one character in Prophecies, so you get a chance to experience presearing Ascalon. Necro is a very viable class for PvE, so maybe go with that.

Optimal Class Tier (a wide array of effective builds, always useful)
Monk
Necromancer
Warrior

Usually Useful Tier (usually effective with a wide variety of builds, difficult to go wrong)
Ritualist
Assassin

Subjective Usefulness Tier (sometimes powerful with certain builds, but otherwise pretty weak and pointless)
Ranger
Elementalist
Paragon

Useless Tier (pointless, redundant, not useful at all)
Dervish
Mesmer

*This list assumes the player is decent. A stupid person can make even the most effective classes worthless.

EDIT: This is also only for PvE, obviously, since in PvP you'll of course be using a PvP character that you regularly delete and replace with whatever class is needed at the time. Thus the question of "what profession" becomes irrelevant.

opinion posts make me laugh.

Just play whatever you like.

Assassins and warriors can use melee can use melee weapons very well for high damage and constant damage, especially when buffed by other players or heroes. The dervish can too...

Rangers are worthless. Same with paragons with the exception spamming of a defensive skill called Save Yourselves.

Ritualist spirit spam. Nobody wants em much for much else. They have some niche physical weapon builds.

Mesmers are a wonderful profession when played well in PvE. Not many of those people are around.

Quote: Originally Posted by Weathervane I'm taking a break (maybe permanent) from Warhammer. So I've decided to check out Guild Wars, which I played briefly at launch. I own the trilogy plus EOTN.

Last week I started a D/W in Nightfall, and have been enjoying it. But I'm more comfortable playing a ranged profession. I'm usually a healer, but have healer burnout from playing my Zealot in WAR. I'd like to play a ranged damage or buff-debuff support class. Ah WAR, a prime example of what happens when the devs don't listen to their playerbase. I played a zealot myself- they were really fun to play.
There are three professions that are always popular for pve: monks, warriors, and necromancers. I'd start with the necro based off of your prefrences since they do both of those very well. Necros are also popular in high-end areas as well.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cuilan Mesmers are a wonderful profession when played well in PvE. Not many of those people are around. Unless I run AP spam, most pugs refuse to accept me as a mesmer, which is why I do h/h nowadays. Gotta love stigmas eh?

Generally with human groups (PUG, guild, etc.) that can easily be changed when you present yourself as confident and willing to adjust. At least that works for me and mesmers have other builds, not just AP variations. People can't tell often the difference between a good, bad, modern, or useful build even when pinged.

With that said, I actually enjoy dealing with those kinds of groups. Better than just having them accept me, not talk to me, or interact. It's amusing.

Do half of Nightfall first until you get decent heros. Than I'd do Prophecies. I played each campaign as they came out. Prophecies (seriously) is probably the hardest, and Anet did a good job at making it the hardest because it's a great campaign to teach you how to play the game.

Factions - honestly - I hate factions. The PvP content and classes are really good, but, maybe I'm just racists and don't know about it, but the terrian and music in that game really bugs me. You may be different, but it just bugs me. The creatures also use the most annoying skills. And chasing around Shiro was annoying as hell. I just didn't feel the intensity that Anet wanted me to feel. The biggest threat, seriously, is probably creatures you don't ever have to fight to just finish the campaign. The afflicted were easy, the Shiro'kin were easy... the game was easy. The only nice thing is the final mission is just a final battle, instead of having to do 3 hours of a mission or whatever and wipe at the boss like what could happen in Pophecies.

Nightfall was my favorite by far. The music, the terrian, the creatures, the bounties, the new classes - all really good. There wasn't an annoying same scene, same terrian feeling. It also had a very interesting campaign.

EOTN was short and boring and the Great Destroyer is too easy. The hardest thing was the Disc of Chaos or whatever that you kill at the final outpost before you get the outpost. It seems they added it just to create the best farming places, like Raptor farming, dungeons, and running the campaign to get rep. It's basically one big farming campaign, and explains a tiny bit of what GW2 is to become.

Just my thoughts.

All classes can be played in PvE to some successful degree, some more than others. There are certain builds that are OP and work very well and generally welcome in most teams.

P/W - Imbagon
E/Mo - Ether Renewal Infuser
W - 100lolz!
Something/A - Assassin's Promise with Nukes/Mark of Pain/PvE skills
Rt - SoS Ritualists
W or A - Scythe Warriors or Assassins.

These builds come to mind for high power and defense. I'm sure there are more, but these are some bars to look into if you want to really breeze through PvE.

I would start with Prophecies so you get an idea of the game. Factions to finish the campaign quickly, Nightfall for strong elites, and EotN for the PvE skills and extension of Prophecies. You will find that each have their own unique characteristics that you will like or dislike, it really depends on taste.

I highly do not recommend farming at an early stage. It's not only inefficient early on, but a good population of GW find it tedious and a game killer.

I have a Phpbb forum and would like to place builds on it. At present i have a Phpbb2 version.

Does anyone know where I can get a Gw build manager to link to my phpbb forum?

gwshack.us is long gone!