New player. A few quick questions!

Hello everyone.

I know I'm a bit late to the party but I just picked up the Guild Wars Trilogy with a friend of mine and we were hoping to get going on it soon. A few quick questions arose though:

From what I understand, Nightfall is the 'chapter' with the most content (heroes/all classes) but Prophecies is the best to start with since it introduces you to Guild Wars and has the best learning curve/longest length/etc.
Would starting your first character in Nightfall to unlock these, maybe get a class that isn't available in Prophecies, and then traveling to the Prophecies campaign as early as possible work? Would this make Prophecies any easier/difficult? Would it make finding equipment for this 'undiscovered' class impossible?
Or would just starting from Prophecies with the core classes to avoid any headaches and downtime be better (no spoilers from the other campaigns/confusion with finding your wary to the continent/extra levels/etc)? Keep in mind this would be for a complete newbie who doesn't even know what the cities are called yet.

I ask this because my friend accidentally created her character in the Nightfall campaign. I was wondering if it'd be easier to just join her there and then travel to Prophecies as soon as possible or if she should just delete her character and start up in Prophecies. I was leaning for starting from scratch in Prophecies but I really don't know what most of the content means (we'll be using these characters through all of the campaigns too).


Is it possible to run through all the campaigns as a sort of co-op thing?
I read that you can get npc heroes to join you and fill out a party in prophecies (with more customizable ones in Nightfall). Would this be sufficient if we were hoping to run the campaigns together?


And finally, what are two base classes that have the strongest/best chemistry with eachother?
If it is possible to run through most of the content on our own, what two classes would have the easiest time working together and getting through everything (challenge is good too)? She tends to enjoy the more supportive/caster roles while I usually round things out with the tanky/offensive/caster types if that helps.

I'm sorry if these have been asked before. I browsed through a few pages on this forum and did a few searches but didn't really see anything that answered my questions.
Thank you for any responses!

You're going to get a lot of diverse answers to your questions... just wanted to warn you of that in advance.

Prophecies starts you with what is referred to as "pre-searing." It is essentially an immersive training area. Party sizes are limited to two. There are no heroes or henchmen. The entire area can be done solo, other than a) one quest which is meant to teach you to "party" with someone, and thus requires another participant and b) access to an area which requires someone to open a gate for you. It's a laid-back introduction to GW and sets a lot of the historical lore in context.

Nightfall & Factions both have training areas too, but they're much shorter in duration than in Prophecies and, in fact, can be easily skipped.

One note - Nightfall does not give you access to all classes when choosing to create your character. All three campaigns allow you to select Elementalist, Mesmer, Monk, Necromancer, Ranger or Warrior as your primary profession. Factions allows you to also create an Assassin or Ritualist. Nightfall allows you to also create a Dervish or Paragon. You cannot start an Assassin/Ritualist in Nightfall, and you cannot start a Dervish/Paragon in Factions.

But no matter "where" you create your profession or "what" profession you select, it can be taken into all of the other campaigns freely via the appropriate initial access quests. That's true for all professions.

Now, in the spirit of "if I knew then what I know now..." - here's how I would have done it had I had the knowledge and understanding of the game that I possess today. I would start a toon in Prophecies, and go through the entire quest line in pre-searing. You could honestly do most of it in a day or two. Then I'd just sort of leave that toon there for a bit and go start a new toon in Factions - a ritualist would be what I started that with. I'd also start another toon in Nightfall - I don't really care for dervish or paragon, so I'd probably pick one of the core professions there.

In both Nightfall & Factions, I would play through the story line until I "left the island." In Factions, that means until I took the ship to Kaineng Center... in Nightfall that means until I got sent across to Kourna. Again, this could be done in a day or two.

We have eight toon slots with the Trilogy, so I wouldn't be worried about deleting any... I'd want to explore the early parts of each chapter until I felt comfortable with how the game as a whole is played, more familiar with the game mechanics, and thus better able to decide which storyline I REALLY wanted to work through first.

The other advantage to doing it this way is that you don't miss out on any of the very early content/lore. Then it won't matter if you finally decide which of your toons you really want to play through all the chapters with... you'll know the full background of each chapter and you'll have that knowledge when you start jumping from chapter to chapter.

Just remember - it may all feel really overwhelming at the start... that's ok! It takes time to learn about the game, to learn what is where, to learn what is really important and what is not. Take your time... and above all, have fun! If it's not fun for you, there's no point in doing it!

Edited to add: On the yearly "birthday" of each toon (not the birthday of your account, but the birthday of each individual character) you create, you get a birthday gift from ArenaNet in the form of a miniature animal. So I would avoid deleting toons, like the one your friend started in Nightfall.

You can indeed travel to prophecies early and play throught it.

You will not get some nightfall stuff (nf only skills from later areas, heroes that are further in storyline), but it is not all that important: you can unlock skills and then use tomes/elite tomes to gain them. You will be able to buy max armor early on and trade for runes/weapons. Starting as core class in NF is preferable if you plan to move to prophecies, but nf only class should not be too challenging.

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You can also both start in prophecies, visit NF just to get heroes (as foreigner you will get several of them quite fast) and then continue playing throught prophecies. You can also get some heroes very quickly in Eye Of The North.

Yes, you can play game only two of you and fill up party with henchem/heroes, it is not hard at all...

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As for combo, you could play curses necromancer + warrior for example with stuff like Barbs or Mark of Pain supporting warrior damage.

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Oh, and she does not need to delete character, unless you are out of character slots, she can just create new one.

to add:
you can make multiple characters (with the trilogy I believe you get 8 slots) so you can make nightfall characters, factions characters and prophecy ones as well.

While nightfall does offer the heroes option--without having any skills for them the heroes are very useful until you can give them better skills and weapons.

Prophecies would be the best place to start since it shows you how to play the game, gives you time to learn how to do everything. You can both start characters there and then pick up the nightfall characters later...so no worries there.

And yes, you will be able to travel between the chapters once you reach the city with the travel option (in prophecies that is Lions Arch, factions-Kaineng city, and nightfall its really early Kamadan--however, nightfall characters wont be able to leave until they have done a bunch of quests first).

so play around, dont worry about doing things 'right' at the beginning (heck never worry about it)...its a game so have fun exploring it!

If your friend started in Nightfall you could join her there get a few heroes/skills/levels then move to Prophecies (or Factions) when you reach the requirements. Tbh I didn't go straight through any of the campaigns, I done a mission or two in one then would go to another to do some quests/missions there

Yes and no.
If you are into the lore (and perhaps even if you're not), then doing what TheGizzy said would be best - starting a character in each chapter.
Starting a character in Nightfall will give you access to "Heroes", but at first you won't have the resources to properly equip them. It would make Prophecies easier if you have a few fully equipped Heroes, though. But, even a character started in Prophecies or Factions can eventually travel to Nightfall to get Heroes. You'll want to get Eye Of The North too, btw.
If you start one of the Nighfall-only characters - Paragon/Dervish (or a Factions Ritualist/Assassin) - you won't find much (if any) gear for them in Prophecies, but you should have enough by the time you get there AND you can travel between the campaigns freely, once they are "unlocked".
This won't be a problem.
You both should have 8 character slots, so you both should be able to start characters in each of the campaigns - no need to delete anyone.
Most people find "pre-searing" - the starter area for Prophecies - to be one of the best areas in the game, so you should at least do that.

Not sure what you mean by "co-op" - you can play together as just the 2 humans and fill the party with Henchmen and Heroes (H/H). Many people play most of the game with just H/H.
I can't say that that would be any sort of concern. It doesn't make too much difference what class you play, you can fill any needed party roles with H/H. So just play whatever class floats yer boat.

Prophecies is the longest and draggiest campaign of them all and it'll take your character the longest time to mature. In the same time that it takes to reach level 20 in Prophecies simply by playing through all the missions normally, I could probably finish the entire Nightfall and Factions campaign.

Apart from taking the longest time to level, there are also the attribute quests which grants an extra 40 attribute points. In Nightfall and Factions both of these are obtainable quite early on in the game. In Prophecies, you're only able to obtain it when you're about 75% through the game.

But also note that this is just my own personal bias opinion of Prophecies, and not everyone has the same opinion as me. As for me, I've owned this game since 2005 and during this whole period, I've made 4 attempts to try to finish Prophecies. None of them made it very far. The furthest one only made it to the Crystal Desert which is about 60% of the game through. It has clocked about 50 hours of gameplay but it's not even level 20 yet. I also get headaches from the extreme boredom of playing Prophecies and end up quitting.

my 2 pennies.....

she already started in Nightfall..... go ahead and join her

as far as class combos.... try a few classes and see which you like most

yes you can use a nightfall toon in any campaigne once you unlock the proper travel missions
(from nightfalls finish a time is nigh, OR just pay to get "ferried")

Start in Nightfall its likely to be a more rewarding experience.

But I urge you at some point to start at least one character in Prophesies and experience the start area and if you like progress from that point through all the games your character development will be far slower but it has a great storyline.

Thank you everyone for clearing up my questions and helping us out.

After reading through all of the replies we decided to start out in Prophecies and finish the early parts of it then check out the other two campaigns with new characters to experience all of the early content. From there we should have a feel for the game's mechanics and maybe a class we really enjoy to continue on in the Prophecies story (or possibly a different one if we really enjoy something else more).

We already created our Warrior and Elementalist earlier today so we'll get going on it sometime tomorrow. If the Prophecies story really is genuinely good then I don't think there will be a problem with it dragging on though. We enjoy immersing ourselves in the quests and reading into the lore of a game. It really does sound great.

As for Eye of the North. I saw it on Amazon for $8.29 earlier today. Definitely picking that up soon so we don't miss out.


But yeah, thanks again everyone! I really appreciate the fast and detailed responses.
Quite an awesome community here.

Well, of course, the whole "dragging on" thing has a lot to do with how you approach the game. Some people play GW like it's a console game that they want to "beat" as fast as possible. (Note LifeInfusion's post below, for example.) RPG players realize that "beating" the game is a nonsensical idea, and the more play-time they get, the better.

My 2 cents worth,

Prophecies is the best storyline but a little help along the way ,pick up everything you find and sell it onto merchants ect.

The reason is that it will enable you to feel your way the drops re gold are not as good as the other 2 campaigns....so take your time and when you get to desert area get max armour from the collectors there as,

Max armour is max armour nomatter what so save your gold till you wish to buy one that is cosmetic to your taste.

As cross camapigns by just doing a quest to the other 2 since in Proph you do this in Lions Arch.....advise there to go to nightfall as you will get 5 heros right away(level 15) and will level up with you on your journey through it.

NF is the best place to start due to heroes and it takes about 20-30 hours to finish. They even give you a minor vigor and dye. Factions is much too fast for a new player and Prophecies takes at least a week of casual play to get to LA where you can travel to NF/Factions.

Supportive: Necro (curses, blood), Ritualist (defensive spirits: shelter, union, displacement ; restoration magic), or Monk (Mesmer is for "advanced players" according to Guild Wars)... Paragon is boring as hell since all you do is spam shouts, Ranger is a pain because you need decent equipment to pump out damage (i.e. new players typically gimp themselves by not customizing weapons)
Tanky: assassin (Shadow form)... Dervish/Warrior scythe user with Save yourselves! and "I am unstoppable"
Offensive: Necro (death magic, curses), Ritualist (offensive spirits), ... Dervish, or Warrior (customize your weapon and run 12+ weapon)

Do not play an ele for offense. It will suck in Hard mode and you will wonder why they are falsely advertised as damage. You'll also need to waste 2 to 3 slots for "energy management" such as attunements so that you can use overpriced spells.

I think your going in the correct path starting in Prophicies. I would suggest you play though the entire campain, all of prophicies, with at least one character before you start making new ones.

Once that is done you should try to play every class at least for a few missions and quests, maybe all the way to lvl 20. That will give you a great grasp on what each does and how each contributes to the party.

If you have any other questions or need some help feel free to whisper me in game and add me to your freinds list.

Crom The Pale