Survivor Questions

I want to try for a survivor the old fashioned way without Hammers or boxing. What Profession would this be the easiest to accomplish on and what tips or strategies would you suggest to me, like what game to start in ect.

I would say ritualist. Currently the most OP PvE class (imo) and also has restoration which might help. The main thing, though, is that you can use an SoS build which will mean the damage will be focused on your spirits, not you.

Speaking only from personal experience (and preference) I would go with either Ritualist or Ranger. Both can run an SOS build, which would provide a defensive "wall" or protection and helps with farming.

Before EotN came out, I got Legendary Survivor on my ranger simply by farming the Summit Slaves quests (including Krak Flamewhip quests) .

For my second survivalist (a ritualist), I just farmed the ten snow-worms outside Boreal Station on HM and using exp. scrolls.

1. Dont Die - may sound daft but many survivors get a to point on their chr where they seem to feel indestructable and do something stupid and die.
2. Think carefully and choose carefully how and where you are going to get xp and remember heros/hench will share your xp.
3. The suicadal way - is doing dwarf boxing , its not 100% safe.Its also fast but carries risk of death thru lag.And you will see as many survivor deaths as survivor rank 3`s in gunnars.
4. The slow but 100% sucess rate - as davehall said its wurms outside boreal.Any profession with degen skills can do this with a bow.Wurms wont attack ranged foes so you can stand back and degen them to death.Lag / disconnection or anything short of a nuke attack wont cause your death unless you get close by human error.Soon as you hit lvl 20 and as long as you have hm eotn - switch to hm and farm the 10 wurms and use scrolls to boost xp.This as i stated is slow as hell but often you get 1 or 2 chests spawn so you can grab them as well - slow but it got my mesmer r3 survivor on days with extreme lag.
*sos spamming will also work - if possible grab summon spirits skill as that will be very usefull.

You say as soon as you hit level 20, but doesn't EotN boost you up to level 20 stats anyway?

More classes then Rit and Ranger can run an SoS build.
Prolly any class can run it atm, as long as u have enough energy.

There r a few easy, but boring, methods of getting Survivor, any class can do those.

The "normal" way, i would say would be a bit more difficult for melee classes.

Yes, but u r not really lvl20 yet

Skill capping in Kourna - LOTS of XP there and it's relatively safe. (double XP weekends really help!) Kaineng City quests can get you 150k + fairly quickly.

Thanks all for the replies and if I do the HM Wurms I just get s bow and degen them? Thats all there is to it?

Farming wurms is hardly the old fashioned way. If you're gonna farm wurms, just box.

I did mine more or less the old fashioned way. I took an ele (I would suggest a caster or ranger...not melee--too much of a chance of dying).....I was very careful to flag my heroes in front of me (I started in elona)...and getting to level 20 wasnt too hard. Next I went to LA and went thru the jungle, yeah yeah yeah...its still xp and the chances of death arent as great (and I did the missions up to sanctum cay). Next over to cantha for the fed ex quests (did NOT speak to tosai). Then over to eye for a few easy quests and some wurms--got bored of that so did insects in kourna instead (triple xp scroll and sunspear bounties)....did this until I no longer could get the bounties....did skill capping when there was a double xp weekend there as well.

I did NOT do Vizunah Square since there is a chance at dying in the cutscene, and same for sanctum cay--just too chancy.

I only did boxing the first time and did Deeprunner's Map for the 15k xp (had plenty of map pieces from other characters).
Then just normal playing while making sure my heroes/henchies were WELL infront of me (and I used a bow a lot)...

by the end of the double xp for elite caps weekend I was at 1.2k so it was easy to get the last without too much chances of dying.

I currently have two LS characters done without boxing or hammers. The first was a rit that I ended up rerolling several times before I finally got through. The second was a paragon that I got to LS without rerolling. Both of them took around 87 hours of regular gameplay to make LS.

Having previously played through all the campaigns and quests with several characters, I had a good idea of which missions and quests were too risky to attempt with a survivor, and I followed each campaign up until the "danger point" beyond which most of the missions were very risky, doing all quests that I felt were not too risky. YMMV, and you may find certain quests or missions to be an acceptable risk that I did not, and vice versa. You are the best judge of what makes you nervous, and you should trust that.

The main risk is that you are going to have to do the Vizunah Square mission at some point, because you will need the XP from the Factions missions and quests in the territories beyond Kaineng City. You will need at least one good friend you can trust to help you on this, who will understand if you need to back off from the battle or even bail out of the mission if things get bad. Beyond that there should not be much difficulty, though you might want to consider using a conset in Tahnnakai Temple for safety's sake.

Regardless of which campaign you start with, get the first few Nightfall heroes as quickly as possible and be sure to rune and equip them properly. You should never, never PUG or get a run with a survivor, so these heroes are essential to your longevity.

Second, plan your approach so that you Ascend in the Crystal Desert for a 50k XP bonus. If you start a Nightfall survivor, go as far as the Consulate Docks mission, but do not do Hunted. Head for LA and work your way to the Sanctum Cay mission. Likewise, if you start a Factions survivor, get to the mainland and head for LA without doing Nahpui Quarter.

Get a big supply of summoning stones and a pile of morale boosters (either personal, like pumpkin cookies, or team boosters, like honeycombs or rainbow candycanes). Use a summoning stone and a 10% morale boost just about every time you leave town. Also, remember to kneel at rez shrines with statues and take any boosts you can use, if the world has Favor.

Also get a big supply of XP scrolls and use them as often as possible. Have a few of the more expensive scrolls in stock to use whenever a quest or mission involves massive wave attacks, particularly when you're sure you'll be killing at least once every 30 seconds for an extended period of time. (But don't be afraid to let the scroll expire rather than doing something ridiculously risky to keep the killing spree going.)

As you get further along, after you and your heroes are level 20, remember to grab a Young Heroes of Tyria book. You should be able to do most or all of the missions in that book in HM, giving you lots of XP. Turn the book in to the NPC in LA for even more XP.

There are also some things you will be able to do in EotN that will give you large amounts of XP with little danger, though you should probably skip the solo quests. Just going to EotN is worth 10k XP, as is finishing one of the story arcs. You should be able to finish the Vanguard and Norn arcs without any problem, and some of the quests with big rewards such as "Anything You Can Do".

Take any Zaishen missions and bounties that you can. If you're going to be doing a mission or killing a boss anyway, then the extra XP is welcome, and you get all of it even if you do them in NM.

YES. This can't be stressed enough. It's how I lost my first 2 attempts at the title (the third was just plain lag). Over-confidence is a killer.

Spirit spamming is much faster IMO -- each run will be approx. < 4 minutes.

any non-melee class lol.

Though slower than boxing -- farming wurms is like 1000% more forgiving on mistakes and can be done a more leisure pace. You can be half or full cut drunk IRL not get killed (unless you do a really really stupid action).

IMO the old fashion way (and perhaps more proper to the title) would be like completing all the missions and/or quests all the way through a chapter(s) without dying (and without getting a run).

IMHO

Best class is the class you have the most experience with and most comfortable with.

Lots of good advice, and BrettM said most of what I would have said.

I will add that any class can do it, because any class can go ranged. An assassin can do critical barrage. A warrior can go spear, as can a dervish.

Your heroes are often more important than what you personally are doing, though, since they'll be doing a lot of the work and taking a lot of the risk and abuse. Equip them well, and remember to flag them ahead in dangerous fights. Always run with a minion master.

And while spirit walls are great, remember that they also attract AoE, so you don't always want to be sitting in the middle of them.

Use the storybooks and the Zaishen quests to your advantage. Do what's comfortable for you (I tend to do Prophecies up to Droknar's Forge, Nightfall to the Desolation, hardly do much of Factions, do up to the Deldrimor line in North, and always skip Zen Daijun for the Young Heroes book). Always be on the lookout for easy XP (North has a ton).

Always have an escape plan. Keep your guild tab open so that if things go bad, you're just a click away from safety.

My current survivor is at 1.1 million xp, having Grandmaster Cartographer in both Tyria and Cantha. There's no reason to avoid any of the non-elite areas of the game.

You just have to be attentive and know what you're getting into.

Never done it, but if I was going to, I'd probably do this.

Play though the game as a monk, with a bunch of minion master heros. Just focus on keeping yourself alive and let the minions do all the work, take all the damage, body block dangerous foes, etc. Use tomes to get good skills early. Teleport if you think there's a chance of dying. Avoid risky quests with huge mobs. Start in factions to level up quickly, and then go to prophecies and do all the easy quests (designed for lower levels) and missions there.

There are one or two reasons: Lag. Disconnects.

If one has a stable connection and ANet's servers are behaving, yeah, a well-versed player who's on their toes can tackle anything. It just depends how much one trusts their heroes to keep them alive while they're just standing there defenseless trying to resync or reconnect.

I know I said old fashioned way and I plan to do so but every one in awhile I would go to box or do Wurms, last question lets say I was to try survivor on a Warrior should my build focus more on skills such as Defy Pain and Endure Pain to Tank and stay alive?

farming vaettirs on a sin, r3 in 2 hours

Maybe you don't agree with me, but I would say paragon. Mine hasn't die yet and I wasn't trying to get another survivor. It just happened and she has ended nightfall and factions, most of the missions with bonus. Paragon has max armor and a lot of protective skills, so that's an advantage.

I did LS the same way with my warrior that you are planning on doing, advancing in the campaigns with the occasionally boxing / farming session and I would not take Defy Pain assuming you got decent defensive heroes. Endure Pain can be good to have though, I used it and it helped me a couple of times where I lagged / overcommitted etc. Just be ready to micro some prots onto yourself and you won't need a "tank" build.

Imo - and you've already got a lot of these. The easiest to get survivor on is the paragon; for a number of reasons:

1) Very high armour - comparible to a warrior.
2) Ability to use even more armour increasing/damage reducing shouts (there's nothing to fear).
3) Ranged damage, so easier to move out of AoE and unlikely to get jumped on by assassins.