Two Player Pairing

My husband and I just broke a 6 year WoW addiction and picked up GW1 last week in anticipation of GW2 to work on the HoM. Absolutely love it and wish we'd started playing sooner!

We're working our way through Prophecies atm and as our intent eventually is to do all the hard-modes, what we've noticed so far is that the henchman healer AI is somewhat lacking in the 'I'. Now that may not be true for the heros where there's more control, but it still feels like a human healer might be preferable for managing aggro.

We're currently playing a Mes/E and a E/Mes (we're 13, and just reached Yak's Bend). What I'm wondering is would we be better off with a Mes/E and Mo/E combo instead as we work our way through the HoM stuff if we're using heros/henchmen in our party the majority of the time? Normally I'd raise both and play around with it, but just don't have the time to play two characters right now.

I've been a healer for the past 10 years in MMOs, but I'm finding healing without the ability to mouse-over a bit frustrating, which is why I chose DPS. So if we went that route we'd probably use 2 healers, me and one hero/hench so I could sort of hybrid heal/dps. If the above pairing is more viable, is having 2 healers in the party feasible for most encounters or will we be lacking too much in the DPS department?

Power Creep has affected Guild Wars a bit. People usually do more DPS than they need to. Things have been buffed on a regular basis.

Go ahead and use the two healer setup. You'll do plenty DPS.



Part of the trouble with the healer AI is that they're equipped with skills that they can't use very smartly. Healing Touch is great when you have someone near you... You're a human and you reserve its use for close-by targets. But the AI says "oh look a touch-range healing skill! i will run up to the warrior to spam it!!" Bad healer.

Later on in the game you will get heroes to replace the henchmen. Heroes have fully customizable skill bars, so you can give them skills that they won't screw up. They'll be much more effective then.

Play whichever one you prefer. You won't be better off or worse off either way. If you both want to heal, your heroes will deal enough damage to kill everything. If you both want to deal damage, your heroes can keep you alive. If you want a mix, that will work too.

I find the problem with henchmen is that they try to follow the party actions and the healers especially can end up running from player to player and back again before they can cast anything.

If you stick together and attack the same targets it works pretty well.
When you get heroes of course then each player can have their own heroes and its not so much of a problem.

2 Monks well I don't think you need to do that but having them wouldn't hurt too much.
I think your up to 6 person parties at that point so you can still take on the missions.

I am lucky in that I bought the pack that gave me the ignious summoning stone so till I reach lvl 20 I get a mad fire imp of my level to back up my party.

This early in game, it's more important to experiment and try things you find more fun, rather than trying to find what's most optimal. Once you're both at level 20, then it's time to try focus more actively on serious builds. But by that time you've had the chance to try out a bit of everything and hopefully found what roles you prefer better.

Another option you have is to play a profession that can do both. Both elementalists and necromancers are good DPS, but they can also turn into some of the best healers around. Their primary attributes makes their energy management the best around, which you'll know from playing wow, is better than throughput. Mostly.

http://www.gwpvx.com/Build:E/Mo_ER_Infuse_Bonder
http://www.gwpvx.com/Build:N/Rt_SoLS_Healer

13 is too young to be married.

Since you are at the point where you have only 6 in a party, you sort of want to have 1.5 healers. I usually do that with a Hero that is half MM, half Healer. Another way would be for 1 of you to be half a healer, but neither of you have Monk as a secondary. And, if I recall, you only have 1 healer henchman available, so.... you're screwed.
Actually, you could re-roll as an E/Mo and change your secondary to Me (or whatever) later. But, more realistically, you will just need to use a henchie Monk and be more careful with pulling and agro. Soon enough you will be to the point where you can have 8 players in a party and then 2 healers is the norm.

Note #1. You can change your secondary after you ascend, which is still a ways off from where you are.

Note #2. When you get to Lion's Arch, you can travel to Nightfall or EotN (if you have them) and pick up some heroes.

Note #3. You can upgrade your armor in Yak's Bend. That will help your survivability.

I never had a problem with henchmen AI myself and have done everything with just the AI healers provided among the henchmen. Really.

Anyway, a human healer is perfectly acceptable, but here you will have issues with henchmen AI, as the henchmen tend to try to always attack your target, and healers don't have targets selected most of the time...

At level 13, at Yak's Bend is a difficult part of the Prophecies campaign. The enemies are tougher than they have been and progress will be slow.

Any profession will have difficulties in that area, at that level.

I would recommend finding some guildies that might help you with some of the grindier parts of the area, and help you get the skill quests in the region.

Even one lvl 20 buddy can help with the more troublesome aspects of the area, I went as a bunny thumper (ranger with a hammer) as a joke to help some alliance members through the area, and we still had no problems.

Welcome to Guild Wars. I see you've met Aleshia. Other Monk henchmen that you'll meet later on aren't nearly as bad. But they're still not as good as well set up Heroes (that's true for all professions.)

If you want to roll a Monk and handle healing yourselves, go ahead. Being new players, you may want to hold off on you Mesmer, since one of the keys to playing that profession well is knowing and understanding the enemies and their skills/capabilities.

BTW - At Yak's Bend, the difficulty level jumps up a bit and one of the pit-falls that many new players encounter there is taking all the quests at once and causing boat-loads of enemies to spawn on top of each other in Traveller's Vale. I strongly suggest you take those quests one a a time.

Here's a few notes in no particular order:

* I don't see the point in recommending an ER infuser bar or a Rt bar to a couple of beginners in Yak's. They don't have neither ER nor a Rt.

* If you did the Althea quests and came on foot via Ascalon Foothills then the areas after Yak's are perfectly in tone with the skill level you should be at around now. But if you came via the Nolani mission then yeah, it's gonna be a bit of a shock. And you're not gonna like the Frost Gate mission. :/

* As a rule of thumb, the number of Monk henchies in an outpost it's how many are needed for the area.

* Prophecies was designed to be played with exactly the henchies you see in the outposts (no heroes). You've already got an advantage since you're using two live players. So man it up.

* Alesia doesn't have touch healing skills. (I don't think any of the monk henchies in the entire game has any, though I may be wrong.) Her only touch skill is Restore Life, the res. She's running around because she's kiting. Which means the melee aren't doing a perfect job. Which is to be expected since they're AI too. Try calling targets, it helps.

* Bad hero bars will be even worse than henchies. The AI is the same.

* Don't underestimate GW just because you're WoW veterans (with apologies if you weren't doing that). Reconsider your party formations carefully and consider reading some of the beginner guides in the profession sections on the forum if you haven't already. You may also be interested in this guide; not suggesting you reroll, but it might give you some fresh perspective.

* Since you're E and Me, take from Yak's the 2 melee, Alesia and your choice of Claude or Reyna. Normally you shouldn't need Dunham since you have a mesmer (plus he's very squishy, so's Claude). But I have this nagging suspicion that you didn't get any hex removal skills. You're gonna want one pretty soon (if not in Anvil Rock then in Kryta). BTW, the ele is also missing some cool skills if you haven't fully explored the quests and outposts before Yak's.

* Generally speaking, don't expect to do much with your second profession with the skills you've got. Or even later. Spreading attribute points too thin aside, a 13 ele and mesmer in Yak's have enough on their plate without trying to be a monk at the same time. You have your own specific skills if you want to provide party protection. It's true there are hybrid bars out there, but they're usually part of specialized teams, put together by experienced players, and/or designed for specific areas.

* Don't try to beat the game senseless, just go with the flow. It's easy enough, no need to get heroes and whatnot. Learn to work together, to work with the henchies, don't jump over entire areas, there's no hurry. Do all the quests and let the game lead you, it's the most enjoyable way. Have fun.

Urcscumug has given you great advice. Visit the appropriate sub forums in the Campfire section and read up on your profession in the stickied basics thread. And Kook's mention of the quest problem is very accurate - don't take more than one quest at a time. You can bring up your Quest Log and abandon any extras. They can be retaken as needed.

There are always shortcuts in every game, but it doesn't let you learn the game. Prophecies was designed to slowly teach you how to play. Your skill access is sufficient for the area you are at. The henchmen, while not perfect, will get you through the whole campaign as long as you plan out your attacks and use caution in the execution.

Don't over aggro; use a longbow to pull when possible
Watch the patrols
Take out some enemies from the rear of the area when possible

I just want to say this community is amazing, and cannot tell you how much I appreciate the well thought out responses.

TLDR version is I did choose after reading your comments and researching more to switch to Mo/E... am loving it atm.. but we'll see if that holds. I do a LOT of our damage via Ele fire spells ... probably not a nice monkly choice.

@Ghull Ka
We knew the hero changes were coming for us eventually, the AI irritation is the healer running around in circles like mad when under attack. Not her running up to mobs.. but her desire to then run away from them The healer AI seems to take kiting to a farther and more dangerous distance with a flag down than any of the other henchmen. That being said, I've been working on managing flag placement better, but even so, I did finally opt to go monk as well and find myself dropping ~75% of my heals on her :P

@Bristlebane
Preaching to the choir.. we've been trying to experience the game as 'newbies' as much as possible. We explore every inch of territory, we don't do missions until WE find the entrance portal (even after the previous mission sends us there, we backtrack and don't do the mission until we discover the portal via land), only reference the wiki when we're trying to figure out what to save or sell, etc. I'm loving my Monk/Ele build now.. my guess is it will fall apart later on

@Quaker
Thanks for the tips.. the 1.5 healer was what I thought we should try. And yeah.. if we WERE 13 irl .. would be WAY too young.. let's just say, we're FAR, FAR beyond spring chickens. Old as dirt might be more apropos.

@Kook~NBK~
Hubby is a glutton for punishment.. looks for tough classes first in any new game, Before we started he read up on Mes and threw himself in. We took all the quests in Yak's before I saw this post and had a blast figuring out everything.

@Urcscumug
We've done EVERY quest we could find and got everywhere by foot on purpose.. we certainly don't underestimate anything in GW (except for the terribad UI) coming from WoW :P Entering 6 years late, it is absolutely daunting what I need to learn to play this game well, but I'm amazed at it's complexity and how well done it is. As I said, I wish I'd picked it up sooner! Is funny, we have 2 pre-sear toons we're working on to get the LDoA and learned SO much about the AI just from that. So far I think this game is challenging and WAY cool

@Darcy
Agreed! We bought the 3-pack, but have been working through Proph first and not skipping ahead. Not looking for shortcuts at all, we just wondered since I enjoyed both Ele and Mo without the time to play both, what you guys thought.

I can't thank you all enough for taking the time to respond.

Well it looks like you covered all the angles so really the only thing left is to wish you a good time.

Oh, and one last piece of advice. Whenever you have a choice to make in GW PvE, the right answer is: "whatever looks like the most fun". And I mean anything, no matter how silly it might seem and what conventional wisdom has to say about it. If you want to run around naked equipped only with "Can't Touch This!", go right ahead.

Thanks Urc.. I was having a little newbie stress, so we ran Borlis Pass once with me as E/Mes and then again with me as Mo/E and by the end of it had so much more fun with me backing up poor Alesia. :P

Learning to move the henchmen around and position them is super interesting.. cannot fathom what I'll need to learn to do the same with heroes.

In the end, . I'm having more fun than I've had in the last 3 years of MMOs playing GW1.

So now my only concern is that I keep falling back into healing roles even when I TRY to stop.. I really like healing.. will I be happy in GW2 dumping the triad?

Hi all - I'm the hubby!

That made me laugh out loud, as that's exactly who we're annoyed with.

I'm the Mesmer, and I can certainly see your point - my play GREATLY improves after I've been in an area for a bit and understand what the mobs do. Still, I'm loving the challenge (most of the time...occasional bursts of foul language come out when I hit new areas )

Wow, wish we had read this before we did YB - that is EXACTLY what happened to us. We got through it though...fortunately dying has never been a big deal to us.

Thanks everyone for the tips & suggestions - we're really enjoying this game and have been reading everything we can!

I suspect that some people will concentrate on healing in GW2 anyway.

One thing you might want to play around with, as an Mo/E, is Smiting Prayers. A smiting Monk might not deal as much damage as other casters, but it depends of course on the available skills, energy usage, etc.. With the proper headpiece and Rune, you can get up to 16 in SP as opposed to only 12 in any Ele attribute (with Ele as secondary).

I'll bet you're not as old - relative to people on this forum - as you think you are.

By the way - I have NO illusions - I'm a TERRIBLE Mesmer at the moment! I'm getting better though...it's a tough class to play (IMO).

GW2 is anybody's guess at the moment. There's also a GW2 guru forum if you want to speculate on that.

Since you enjoy monking yourself, Elisabet, let me outline two possibilities. They're both valuable, teach you useful things, and frankly you should try both:

1) Get rid of Alesia on occasions and be full time monk. You should be able to outdo her. But don't go full healing, start looking into hybrid bars. These are bars that hold a mix of healing, protection and hex/condition removal. A simplistic hybrid bar would hold 2 healing spells, 2 protection spells, a hex and a condition removal, a hard res and an utility (/E usually go for Glyph of Lesser Energy).

Protection spells are interesting because they focus on preventing or mitigating damage rather than patching it up afterwards, but in exchange they require that you pay attention to the battle and foresee where the next damage will land. An /E also has some interesting protection spells in the Earth line, particularly wards.

1') The smiting is also interesting, but not necessarily outright for the damage skills (although those can come in handy) but for the various buffs you can put on your melee.

2) If you take Alesia, try to complement her build instead of outright duplicating it. Try to focus more on what she does not do, like protection, hex/cond removal etc. This will be a great oportunity to start practicing the fine art of balancing two monk bars, which you will have to do anyway later on. It's a somewhat delicate task, depends a lot of the specifics of each zone.

Since you brought up heroes -- using them will borrow the basics of flagging and learning to work with the AI from the henchies. But in addition you will be able to decide their bars, and that requires decent knowledge of their primary profession. As luck would have it, by the time you get to Lion's Arch you should have that knowledge for Monk, Mesmer and Elementalist. Coincidentally, a quick trip to Eye of the North will grant you those exact heroes.

On the flip side, I personally think Prophecies is simple enough in Normal Mode that you don't technically need heroes of any kind, especially if you have 2 humans. Furthermore, having duplicate roles in the team will tax your ability to balance bars.

Try them on and decide for yourself. But I recommend limiting yourselves to those and not picking up even more heroes from Nightfall -- it tends to become overwhelming if you know nothing of those professions (W, N, R, D); plus it'd be extremely overpowered for Prophecies and tends to ruin the fun if you just roll over everything.

@Emmerich: practice your interrupts. And if you guys ever meet a particular hero that might try to steal your job on the team, don't let her. ^^

Yeah, some of those mob casts are FAST!

Currently I run:
Power Spike - To interrupt obviously
Fragility - I like to pull with this unless I have any concern about additional groups
Empathy -Try to debuff any melee on my healers
Backfire -Toss on any caster I'm not focused on for interrupting
Shatter Delusions - Nice for finishing them off or occasionally for good AoE if the mob stays grouped up
Ether Feast - The least useful from what I've seen so far, but I like having an "oh shit" heal.
Aura of Restoration - Heal me every time I cast? Mmmm

Power Spike's on a 12 second (as adjusted by Fast Casting I presume) timer, so that's generally been enough to keep things somewhat under control. The only other interrupt I even have access to right now is Power Leak, but it's on a 20 second timer so less helpful, or so it seems.

The biggest habit I've been trying to break myself of after years in WoW is the ABCs of mage play - as "always be casting" doesn't really seem to work out too well in GW

We had the 30 AL armor made with salvaged materials - I've since read opinions that suggest it was a waste of money, but oh well - it was fun to do!

I think this set can carry us through until 20, or is there another set suggested along the way?

No more armorers until Bergen or Beetletun. What level you're gonna be when you get there is irrelevant but yeah, around 20.

But the question is, why didn't you get 30 AL armor in Ascalon. No money?

Anyway, it's not a waste of money. If you had 15 armor, the switch to 30 means -23% damage. If you had Pre 7 armor, +23 AL = -33% damage. And if you had 5 armor, +25 AL = -36% damage. Tables here. Granted, mesmers, necros and monks deal armor-ignoring damage, but it still helps with physical and elemental damage.

@Emmerich: pretty decent build. Empathy and Backfire are very basic and solid skills. Consider Cry of Frustration as well, you're supposed to have 2 interrupts and use them. Don't be afraid to ditch Ether Feast and Aura of Restoration if you find nicer skills, healing is why you have monks.

Now, Shatter Delusions is not outstanding. I suspect you're hanging on to it since Pre, but you have other options now. For instance, you may want to help your monks with hex removal: notice the purple arrow on a teammate's bar, click bar, hit Shatter Hex, boom, AoE armor-ignoring damage.

Think of mesmer skills as martial art moves. There's simple, direct moves you can do... and there's more complex moves, that flow into each other. Try to think of devious combinations (but keep it simple and efficient at the same time).

Since you mentioned Fragility: don't just let conditions occur, cause them. Consider following up with something that causes conditions -- look around in your /E skills or at skill traders or have a teammate do it, or watch for your melee to cause Bleeding and Deep Wound -- and then slap the foes with Epidemic. Necros do this really dirty trick by using Foul Feast to suck the conditions from buddies and Plague Sending to put them on foes -- just to give you an idea of the havok that classes like the Mesmer and Necro can cause.

Incidentally, this is true for all caster classes in GW, at least in PvP, where the real reasoning behind the combat system becomes apparent. Either they play Mesmer and have to watch the other team or they -are- on the other team and will be interrupted and shut down by the enemy Mesmers if their casting is at all predictable.

Plus, everyone's spellcasting is constrained by tight energy management, except (up to a point) for Necros. In particular, this is why protection Monks dominate in GW - spamming heals after the fact is extremely hard for the Monk class over any period of time, while a single protection spell can negate hundreds of damage points, if placed correctly.

As for GW2, they seem to be eager to preserve the concept of protection monks, although they're spreading the damage mitigation ability over just about all the classes. Several classes also have healing abilities, but much weaker than self-heals that everyone will have. In fact, the system seems a lot like Costume Brawl arena builds (check it during Halloween). But this is all second-hand information for me, I haven't played the demo yet.

Fast casting reduces the casting time, not skill recharge time. So, for example, you can cast Backfire in 2 seconds, rather than 3, but it still recharges for 20 seconds. EDIT: THIS IS OUTDATED INFORMATION - the update for fast casting was in May 2010, and now it works on skill recharge, too. Thanks, Silmar Alech, and sorry, Emmerich I should've checked the wiki; and I only play Mesmer in PvP, so I never noticed the difference.

Note that all spells have 0.75 seconds aftercast delay, during which you can queue the next spell but it won't immediately start casting. Basically it works like a hidden global cooldown. So fast casting can be used to speed up bursts of multiple spells, but it generally won't double your casting rate. It still helps a *lot* for reliable interrupts: if the enemy takes 0.75 seconds to cast, and your reflex time is 0.25-0.35 + ping time of 0.2, then the difference between 0.25 and 0.15 casting time becomes very significant.

Fast casting indeed reduces skill recharge for mesmer spells - this was updated in the last bigger mesmer update. It reduces 3% per attribute rank, and since Backfire is a mesmer spell, its recharge with fast casting 9 is reduced to 20s*(1-(0.03*9) = 14.6s.

Good luck with learning the game the way (imho) it should be played .

And when you get to THK, give me a call

Some people get very weird about "money" in GW. They seem to forget that it's play-money - it's impossible to "waste" it - you really can't take it with you, and it's only purpose is to buy in-game stuff.

IMHO it's never a waste of gold to upgrade your armor. I can't exactly recall where the armor crafters/collectors are in Prophecies, but it's well worth it to keep upgrading your armor until you get to max AL armor, which in your case is 60AL. Once you get to "max" armor, the rest is just cosmetic. I do recall that max armor in Prophecies is not until quite late in the campaign (Droknar's Forge?). So, once you get to Lion'a Arch, you may want to travel to Kaineg Center (Factions) or Boreal Station (EotN), to get some max armor early, or even travel to Kamadan (Nightfall) to do a few small quests, get a few Heroes, and get max armor at Consulate Docks. (You can freely travel back and forth between the campaigns once you've been there.)

Btw, have you checked the wikis?
http://www.guildwiki.org/Main_page
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Main_Page

A handy reference:
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Armorer

Let me first say, congratulations on going with Prophecies, it's the best end-to-end experience, IMO. If you like it, you'll love Eye of the North.

When I started out, it took me a long time playing in Old Ascalon before I could afford it, it helped enormously and was one of the biggest hurdles I remember. Granted, back then, groups were forming for doing everything.

@Elisabet and Emmerich Your mileage will vary. Glad to see you're experienced and willing to learn. I definitely recommend not becoming altoholics until you know how each profession expresses itself. And I can't stress this enough: you've no doubt seen skill quests, you should keep seeking these out. Prophecies is a campaign that rewards incrementally, so do as many quests as you can to gain XP, and try to do bonus objectives in missions. I average level 20 usually by the time I get to the desert. By then, you will start to face some tougher challenges. Best of luck you guys, you sound very capable. Don't be afraid to ask for help around here!

As Proph is not a great cash earner a little thing to add

Once you get to the desert area playing the game as you are doing..check what materials you can collect in the desert for collectors armour ...hence you will not be spending any money for max armour if you collect the items from the desert and exchange them at the collectors based there.

It is maxed armour yes and it will assist you to save on cash till you see another maxed armour you like.

Just to point out there is no difference from a max armour costing 1k a piece plus materials than one costing 100k plus materials per piece its purely cosmetic so save what cash you get and then buy one you like later.

The path you are taking is good to get to know what skills have synergy with one another and to be honest dont be afraid to hop over to nightfall to collect a few heros or eye of north .

The hench may be fine as you go but with the two of you to-gether you can add a little punch to the party you have made as your party size will increase to 8 as you go through the game.

Good luck and nice to see guys/gals playing the game without rushing through the content

@Urcscumug - I probably didn't make myself clear regarding the armor - we're both wearing the armor you can buy in Ascalon from cloth + gold (iirc).

Also, Cry of Frustration looks cool, but I haven't gotten to it yet. I'll definitely try out Shatter Hex though (Note to self: purple arrow means Hexed ).

Also: "Necros do this really dirty trick by using Foul Feast to suck the conditions from buddies and Plague Sending to put them on foes -- just to give you an idea of the havok that classes like the Mesmer and Necro can cause." THAT sounds like fun! My Pre-searing character is a level 11 Necro - he's been a blast so far too.

@shillo - no worries on FC - now we both learned something! And thanks for the example on the casting.

@Mouse - thanks...we love taking the "long" way when learning new games...it's only fresh and new once, so why cheapen it? And sure, we'll look you up when we get to THK...when we figure out what that is!

@Quaker - yup, we've been using the wikis, PvX (or whatever that build repository is) + this site. We're just trying to be careful - learning how to do things better is good (for instance, we want to eventually get to 30/50 HoM so understanding what's important to hold onto in terms of loot has been helpful)...getting spoilers is BAD!

@Xiaquin - Thanks! I have to say, to you and to EVERYONE who's posted on here...bravo! I've tried a LOT of online games over the years and this is easily at or near the top for quality of online community, at least from what we've experienced so far.

@Highlander - Oooohh, thanks for the tip re: armor!

Ah, sorry about Cry of Frustration. I tend to forget that once you get a skill somewhere it also becomes visible at all the "lower" traders as well, so I was under the impression it was available in Ascalon. (My "baby" mesmer cheated and got it via skill tome from her older E/Me sister.)

Still, the rest applies, if you can get 2 interrupts no matter how lame the effect, train with them.

Cool...ok Lis, get ready to do all our healing...if I start dying more we'll blame Urcscumug

heya Emm

welcome to gw!

just wanted to point out, dont forget your mantras iirc, you get mantra of frost at yaks. and i think you already have mantra for fire (though not needed in that area accept against char)

its an excellent opportunity for defense and pwr regen that literally costs no skill points to use. I think i did yaks on my mes with just emp, feedback, spike, ether and mantra. the problem for me was the mob grouping, especially when trying to clear the path as the groups tend to be pretty close. friggin dorf mesmers were a problem as well with there feedback. but as suggested before.. a good hex removal is important there.

one last pro tip.. before you res any hench.. make sure to set your flag far away to a clear area as they will immediately try to run to that area once rezzed. they may not make it all the way (especially if they are dead center the group).. but they will try to make it.. making it easier for the next rez and so on.

lot of good times there.. and at least the scenery isnt so grey/red/burnt

cheers
d

Yeah, that was the most awesome thing after roaming endlessly through all the seared areas, to finally see a nice looking place again. (And consider that I first got to Post Ascalon during the Xmas festival, when it's dark and gloomy! No sunny dunes for me.)

Traveler's Vale got to be my most favorite place in the whole world. Later on I got to see green hills again, but the Vale is still special for that moment.

never better said Urcs, agree with you completely. reaching the vale is like hearing voices

first time i reached there felt like a complete transition, almost as though a new game had started. that is a "turning point" for sure, but very few games i have played where the scenery drove it home, instead of the items/skills/spells whatever.

cheers
d

And that's why so many like Prophecies, because of the way it makes you feel. BTW, if you haven't already, turn on the music. Turn it down if it gets distracting, but never off. It's the music that makes a fun experience into an incredible one.

Take for instance Crystal Desert; with the music on it is not a chore, it's a goosebump-giving experience that reaches deep inside you and grabs your gut. And the sense of empowerment you get as you get through it, just you and the henchies and their dry humor -- it's outstanding, it really makes you feel like a legendary hero, it's not just words in the plot anymore.

Hats off to Jeremy Soule for every game he's worked on -- Morrowind and NWN were other epically enjoyable titles. This is what he does, I'm very glad he agreed to work on GW and look forward to his work in GW2.

What the heck?

Ok, either I'm senile or they changed it. I could swear that Alesia (and also Mhenlo, later in the game) both rocked Healing Touch.

Soooo many memories of Ms. "bad touch" running up in to a wall of red dots because her other healing skills were on cooldown, so well, why not just run up into touch range? :P

Edit: I was right, hehe: Old Alesia was the touchy-feely one. Seems she's been through some counseling and is keeping her hands to herself now!

You were right, until an update.
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Game_...022#Prophecies

Same update
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Game_...1022#Nightfall

But removing Alesia's Healing Touch did nothing for her "I'm melee" or "daydreaming" attitudes.

Wow apparently most monk henchies used to have Healing Touch until that update. I wonder what made them put it in in the first place... I've never considered touch healing skills to be much good, except perhaps for self heals. Am I missing something?