Few Questions From a New Player

Hello folks. Although I have played Guild Wars in the past, it was my first MMO, and at this point is just a far off memory. I got interested in GW2, and remembered I had a Prophecies account still open. So, I logged back in (with the help of NCSoft support, since I had forgotten my character's names), and started up a Mesmer. So far, I've been having a lot of fun. Just a few questions for now:

1. Can I change my secondary profession?

2. I don't own EotN yet. Will the feats I accomplish in game now, such as completing all the Prophecies missions, still count towards the HoM after I buy EotN? Or will I have to redo them all over?

3. When people say "6k", do they mean 6000 gold coins (so 6 plat), or 6000 plat?

4. On the topic of money, what's a fast way to jump start my account? Just finished Ascalon at lvl 11 and 2.5k gold coins (I did all the quests in Ascalon, but not all the pre-searing ones). I know that once I reach Lion's Arch, I can go to the Temple of Balthazar and register my account for points to buy a key and sell it. Anything else similar to that? Any general tips on gaining money?

1. Yes, you can change your secondary profession later in the game, although if you only have the Prophecies campaign, that "later" is much later, certainly more so than in Factions or Nightfall. But once you reach that point in the game, you can freely change between available professions as often as you wish.

2. Yes, they will count. I myself completed Prophecies before I later bought the other campaigns and then EotN. No problem.

3. 6k = 6 plat = 6000 gold. You may also see references to "e", short for ectos, short for Globs of Ectoplasm, a rare crafting material that is also used as currency for high-end trading.

4. See this post.

Thanks. Follow up question:

Now that I'm in Shiverpeak Mountains, I'm finiding questing a lot harder, with 5 henchmen to manage instead of 3. Is it a good idea to fill up my party with henchmen to quest through the game? Or should I be going alone/with only a few henchmen/with player groups only? What about for missions?

People might choose to go alone if they're farming for something, but aside from that there isn't really much of a reason why you shouldn't fill your party with whatever you have available to you at all times; be it fellow guild mates, other random players, NPC heroes from other campaigns or henchmen.

The main argument against henchmen (as opposed to anyone else) is that their skillbars can't be customised. But it works both ways, some players are so bad with their builds that henchmen can actually rate pretty well compared to them. Of course, their builds aren't exactly optimal either, but nevertheless, they were designed as valid alternatives to real people, and you can play through the entire campaign that way if you wish (I did).

Welcome back. My advice, always go with a full team. Most people don't quest with groups except within their guild anymore, preferring to use heroes (customisable henchmen) and regular henchmen when available.

It might be worth your while to get the other campaigns esp. nightfall and eotn to acquire a few heroes, but prophecies is finishable with only henchmen.

Should I be using a regular Salvage Kit or an expert salvage kit when just starting out?

Expert. Always expert if you can afford to. Expert can extract rare materials and not just common materials. Expert are also the only thing able to salvage weapon mods and armor runes from drops (non-white colored items might have something you can salvage besides crafting materials).

An expert is the exact same as a superior kit, just a superior kit has more uses but costs more per use (superior is only used for convenience factor).

Also, use an id kit on everything, especially later in the game. Even white items with no new stats have their value increased by iding them. Later in the game, white weapon's merchant value can double just from iding them, more then making up for the cost of the id. All id kits work the same way, the more expensive ones just have more uses for convenience sake. Use the regular ones.

I've been using the expert salvage kit, and have a bunch of upgrade components. Should I be trying to sell these to other players? If I find a purple named sword with a value of 100g, should I sell it to a merchant or salvage it for components?

Also, what does "Q9" and "Q11" mean when people are selling items?

I found an orange/gold coloured Fiery Recurve Bow of Warding. Should I try and sell it to other players, or just salvage/vendor it?

Personally I tend to just merch my purples (after identifying them of course), unless they have a particular mod that I'm looking for or know is worth at least a little bit in its own right, such as max Fortitude (+30 HP), max Insightful (+5 energy), certain inscriptions and so on.

Q is short for reQuirement, meaning the item has an attribute requirement of the following number in order to get the most out of it. Q9 is the typical requirement for max stat weapons, though apparently there are a few max Q8s in circulation as well (never seen them myself). As long as the other stats on an item are maxed, the lower the req the better/more valuable.

Why Q and not R? Because R is also used to denote Rank in a title.

As for the bow, I'd probably just merch that, unless you're really looking for a fiery bowstring or a grip of warding. Neither are especially awesome, although the former may be useful if you're a Ranger in the Shiverpeaks I guess.

Thanks, I appreciate the help!

I have a few objections:

1) Not all items contain rare mats.
2) Chances to get rare mats when you salvage are not great (5-10% in my experience).
3) Cost per use is 4g for regular kit and 16/20g for exp/superior.

So, exp/sup kits are kinda risky to use, chances are you lose more than you gain. I for one prefer to use regular kit, get common materials and sell them in stacks for cash. It's simple, steady, guaranteed profit. When I need rare mats, I buy them with said cash.

The only exception is when a certain type of item has very good chances of salvaging to a rare mat, or when the value of the rare mat is so good that it's worth taking the chance. Usually, pieces of non-wearable armor dropped by mobs (even white ones) have a higher chance of rare salvage.

Of course, you should still keep a sup/exp kit around, but only for saving runes/insignia/mods.

Regarding merch vs salvage: look at the price after identification. If it's good (above a certain threshold) I merch it, if it's low I salvage it. The threshold depends on my current need for cash -- when I'm low (or for a new player) it can be as little as 10g.

PS: you can get all kinds of salvage kits for free, from certain NPCs, by exchanging quest rewards in Factions and Nightfall (imperial commendations, monastery credits, kournan coins, sunspear commendations).