difficult, very difficult

When playing with henchmen, I'm finding it almost impossible to avoid being killed many times over by packs of monsters. How can you possibly keep track of the targeted monster (in order to target another one when the 1st one falls) AND click on the next one even though the size of the text is tiny and all the monsters are moving around AND check to see if you're being attacked (so you can run away and lose track of everything else) AND monitor your health bar AND check your effects icons (to see when you have to remove a hex or condition) AND and check your skills to see which have recharged...

And why is the death penalty so severe? The more you get killed, the less health you have, so the easier it is to die and the less chance you have of getting to the next town or outpost?

Thanks,
Wrayk

Be sure when attacking you use ctrl+space. This will help focus all the henchies on one target. A "T" will be beside your name that you can click on if you happen to change targets, it will stay there until the called target dies.

The "c" key targets the nearest mob. Not sure if that helps much.

If you see little red numbers next to your char then something is wailing on you. Figure out who it is, call the target and take it down or move a little. Sometimes w/ henchies its better just to mow it down. Take out melee mobs first if there are no healers works for me.

All conditions are yellow in color and most hexes are either purple or green. Your health bar also will change color depending on which it is. The official wiki has a nice picture and explanation if your game for some reading.

You'll know that skills have recharged or not based on the little "timer" that circles around the skill slot. When you use a skill it gets a duller color and it regains full color in a clockwise kinda fashion (kinda hard to describe). You'll just have to learn which skills take a long time to recharge and which don't. After a while you can just look at it and guess how long it'll be. Experience is the best teacher

If you're still having troubles you may want to create a new character and spend some time in pre-searing (assuming you started in Prophecies). Pre-searing is a really good area to learn and experiment in: no death penalty, no need to worry about henchies, very few swarms of mobs.

The death penalty is there to keep ppl from being reckless. Learn to love it.

Hope I answered your questions. I would suggest checking out either GW wiki, official on un, both contain a few getting started guides that I think you'll find very helpful.

Tab for the next possible target (I'm unsure how the game's AI chooses with Tab).

C for the closest enemy.

Regarding targeting, 'c', 'tab', and 't' (if someone else is calling) will help. Also, zoom the camera out as much as it can go.

Regarding battlefield awareness, get better at the game. That's it really. You need to know what is important to your profession and be able to check them at a glance. Optimise your interface (eg, move the effects monitor if you don't like having to look up to that corner of the screen).

Regarding death penalty, if you're dying reliably enough that you quickly become unable to do anything, you need to change your build (and heroes, if you have them) and your tactics. Learn to flag heroes, aggro properly, prot well, use skills appropriately, watch the radar, pull, etc.

Don't aggro a huge group of enemies thinking you'll be fine. We all know Alesia sucks at healing you and the party and the rest of the henchmen aren't that great.

Also know your limit. Don't take a low lvl character into a high lvl area thinking the henchmen will protect you. Also If you are playing a magic character know what role you have in the group and don't treat them like a front line character.

MAny areas and made where you have to be patient and wait for a good time to attack or you might have a large group of enemies that wander by and join the fight. Take Perdition Rock for example. If you rush in you'll end up having 10 or more things on you very fast.

If you would like more specific advice, let us know your profession, level and area. We want to help but can only give general advice without that info.

...and which henchmen you are bringing with you. If you dont have a healer with you, etc.
let us know more before we can give the best advice.

Do you have max armor...another big question esp since your lvl 20 and all

That. As for how to get better, it is just like real life. It takes practice, and a willingness to learn.

Fixing your interface: Lower left hand corner "Menu," then "Options," then "Interface," then drag stuff around and resize to make things work easier for you.

Whatever your profession is, you should have a longbow or flatbow to pull enemies. Flag your heroes/henchies, then pull. Pulling will make you more effective by bunching up your enemies and avoiding overagro. Your side also often gets in the first shot, as the enemies are not harming you while running toward you. Lastly, damage prevention is at least as important as healing. Consider that when selecting hero skill and henchmen.

Thanks everyone for your help. I'm a level 20 fire elementalist with Ogden, Vekk and Jora (not Pyre or Gwen). Each of them have upgraded armor and weapons specific for their talents. Since only Jora is melee, I choose both melee henchies (Devona and Talon). Also, since only Ogden is the only monk, I choose another monk (Mhenlo or Lina, I'm not sure which is better). The last spot I use for another magic user, usually Eve since she can do both offensive and support spells.

My armor: Flame Eye: 30 armor, fire magic +1; Elementalist Robes: 30 armor, energy +8, fire magic +2, health -35; Elementalist Gloves: 30 armor, energy +5, armor +10 while attacking; Elementalist Leggings: 30 armor, energy recovery +1, armor +10 vs physical damage; Elementalist Shoes: 30 armor, fire magic +1, energy recovery +1. I also use a Pyrewood staff: fire damage 11-22, 20% chance to halve spell recovery time, damage +11% when attacking, customized (+20% damage). My attributes are 15 fire damage, 10 energy storage.

I guess what I was saying before is that it's hard to keep tabs on all of those things while in battle. There's so many things to watch out for. I know to avoid big mobs, and how to pull (I flag Jora to go near the enemies, then flag her back when the 1st few get aggro'd). One thing I DON'T know well are the different spells and hexes and conditions that the enemy uses -- there are so many, and I don't want to spend hours memorizing things on Guild Wars Wiki. But maybe that's what it takes, in order to know what spells and tactics to use to counter an enemy mob. I started playing Guild Wars just a few weeks ago, and got into EotN halfway through Prophecies, and I've never played Factions or Nightfall, and I've never joined a guild or played with other players (well, I played with 2 other players once, and it was a lot of fun, but I like to explore and go through the story at my own pace), so even though I'm level 20, I guess I'm still a newbie.

Wrayk

If your only experience prior to EotN was half of Prophecies it isn't surprising you have so much trouble. The difficultly was designed so it would give the players who have finished the other campaigns something to do. I recommend playing the other campaigns (at least finish Prophecies) so that you get a feel for how to do things rather than just be thrown in the deep end.

Get a good balance of henchmen, your obviously going to need a healer and you going to have to keep him out of trouble.
So maybe warrior Mage healer for a 4 person group.
With 8 its often 2 fighters 2 mages mesmer 1 or 2 healers and prob necro and or ranger.
But it really depends on where I am going.

Choose you ground carefully ideally you want your fighter types holding the mob in places while the ranged attackers keep back out of melee.
If the terrain is constricted I find the AI often causes a henchmen to run in the wrong direction often into the mob your fighting.

Know your enemies
I usually mark out their healer and attack when he is closer to my group than the rest of the mob, then go for a quick kill.

Then its the Mages and or necros then mesmers and rangers and finally their melee classes.
Its not always possible to do it that way but its my preferred order of kill, sometimes I have to target their assassins and warriors if they go for my soft targets.
Problem is when I do that all the henchies go for my target and it shifts the center of the battle to my back line, which is not good.

I find it harder to control henchmen when I am a melee character, I get drawn into the mob and my henchies get too close following me.

When you see things going badly consider a retreat as long as you preserve one party member with res your ok.
If its a total party wipe when you return at the res shrine consider attacking small groups till you lose some of the death penalty.

I would just like to say...that over all Melee AI sucks...I would recommend more caster henchman.

Couple quick things. Get max armor...can be gotten at boreal station. Also...the fire magic runes dont stack...so one of them is really just wasting a spot.



tbh at this point the particular weapon isn't the most important factor.

battlefeild awareness comes with practice and ui customiztion.

your goal should really be to find something that works generally...and if something is to hard... change a skill or two to better suit that area.


Welcome I spose

Thanks. I suppose I made a mistake doing EotN when I did, but the storyline opened up and it seemed more urgent than the Prophecies storyline. Anyway, I'm going back and finishing Prophecies (now in Maguuma jungle), but the combat is awfully easy.

Thanks,
Wrayk

thats because...proph was made for slow leveling and your going back after I assume gaining a few levels in eotn...

What build did u use for Vekk?
It prolly sucked.

A Mesmer hero (Gwen) with a good build that interupts (caster foes) and annoys melee's might be very usefull in EotN.

If the rest of your party can handle it u can take only 2 (good) monks.
Otherwise, like me, i take Ogden, Mehnlo and Lina in EotN.

The only thing Eve is good for imo is Blood Ritual, but its also an extra drain for your healers since the skill requires sacrificing health.

3 Melee's i never take, i usually take 1 Melee Hero and 1 Melee Henchman (when i am a Caster).

So, for EotN i take Ogden, Gwen and a melee Hero, and Mhenlo, Lina, Cynn and a melee for Henchmen.


But as mentioned, for EotN u really need max AL armor.

If you entered EotN halfway through Prophecies, you have several problems. You are not Ascended, can't switch secondary professions, and don't have all of your attribute points, so you're pretty gimped in several ways.

I would guess you probably don't have any elite skills to give your heroes, since you can't cap them, and can't buy the other skills needed to give them decent bars. So your heroes may be far worse than henchies for doing difficult content like EotN, unless you've bought all the skill unlock packs from the in-game store. (The EotN henchies have some of the best NPC skill bars in the game.)

You will be much better off going back to Prophecies and playing through to the end of the campaign. That will give you a chance to get Ascended and start building decent skill bars for your heroes. (My first character in GW was an earth ele, and I used Ogden, Vekk, and Gwen to do both Prophecies and Factions before moving on to Nightfall and picking up more heroes. This may not be the perfect hero team, but it was adequate, and I even did the titan quests with those three.)

Max armor for an elementalist is 60 AR, so you are taking almost double the damage that you should be. In an area like EotN, where damage is high to begin with, you might as well be wearing tissue paper. Get max armor in Boreal Station ASAP.

You are using three Fire Magic runes. However, these runes do not stack with each other, so only the major rune (+2) counts and the other two are wasted spots. You might be better off to use only a minor rune, on your headgear, for now. But, if you want to keep the major rune, put it on your headgear.

The Armor +10 runes are also pretty useless for an ele. First, +armor runes only apply to the piece that they are on, not to your whole set, so only your gloves and leggings are going to be +10. Second, spell casting doesn't count as "attacking", so you only get the bonus armor on your gloves while you are wanding things. You shouldn't be spending much time wanding things, because the damage this does is pathetic.

All professions should have a rune of their primary attribute somewhere on their armor, so you should have a +1 Energy Storage.

My suggestion, once you have max armor, would be to rune it as follows:

- Survivor or Blessed insignia on all pieces. I prefer the Survivor, myself, but this subject has been argued to death. Either one will work for an ele in PvE, assuming you are religious about keeping your Fire Attunement up. You do not need Radiants as an ele -- learn to manage your energy.

- Headgear: Fire Magic +1 (or +2 at most). You will need more experience before risking a Superior rune.

- Chest: Energy Storage +1

- Gloves and Boots: Attunement or Vitae, or one of each.

- Leggings: The best Vigor rune you can afford, or a Vitae at least.

Prophecies was the first campaign and was designed with slow leveling so you could learn how to play. Now that you are level 20, it will seem very easy until you reach the Crystal Desert where the difficulty level rises dramatically. Finishing Prophecies will give you that foe knowledge you want to learn. As stated, EotN was designed for players who had finished at least one campaign. It was later opened up to lower-level players (who would receive the auto area buff), but is not a great idea for new players, except for grabbing the first few heroes.

As far as melee henchmen, just take one. Too many melee can overwork you monk. Whether I am using my main, a warrior, or one of my casters, I seldom bring more than one melee character.

pm me here, if you want a hand sometime. I'd love to help you. Although timezone could be a problem, but anything else, I'll help.

EotN is doable even if you're a rookie - it's not that hard once you get a balanced team and have a decent build of your own. The only difference is that you might learn the basic game mechanics the hard way - aka pulling with a longbow or flagging/micromanaging the heroes.

If you're using those heroes, i'd suggest you to bring Mhenlo, Lina, Cynn and Herta as henchmen. You might want to run Ogden on smiting prayers (Mo/Me Arcane Echo + Ray of Judgement works miracles, especially in NM) or a hybrid build (or more sophisticated prot prayers that you may micromanage, as Lina is pretty decent protter). I'd still suggest switching him for Gwen and using as many interrupt skills on her as possible - ignore Empathy and Backfire, focus on things that disrupt. I'm sure you might also tweak Jora and Vekk to help you better than they do now.

If you'd like more help, possibly including in-game hints as to pulling and other basics + some builds, feel free to pm me in game - hit N, add Sarv Samarth to your friendlist and pm me if you see me online.