Starting Derv (new Player) - Factions or NF

As I read these guides I see a lot of people stating to go with factions leveling for the faster leveling speed, but if I understand correctly only NF and EotN have heroes to acquire.

Should I thus focus on factions until level 20 or is getting heroes the priority?

Also, if Factions is the key, how do I get there as a new dervish char?
Trying to learn, thanks in advance!!

If you started with a Dervish, you took Nightfalls as your origin campaign.

When starting a new character, you could get a ferry to the Sun Docks unlocking the ''Travel'' option in the map and change continent.
Factions is great to start out, but if your not getting any heroes, you might have to work a bit harder with henchmen.

Nightfalls is a bit boring at the beginning because of the required ''sunspear quest'' which require you to do some hunting or finishing some quests.
You should get to the mainland and do some missions there, some heroes like Master of Whispers come very handy in the Player versus Environment part of Guild Wars for the popular Minion Master, Sabway & Discord way builds.

Thanks for the reply, so it sounds like stick with Nightfall for the heroes?

If you want the other campaigns to be easier, than yes.

But if you do not own any skills (unlocked) in your account, might as well stick with henchmen.

Play whatever campaign you feel like playing. All are fun, personally I like NF over factions.

Heroes do come in handy, so doing nf and eotn before the other two is a good idea as long as you use your heroes in an optimal way (spend some time fixing their item- and skillbuilds).
You will most likely have to do some pvp and/or zaishen elite in order to gain balthazarfactions in order to gain skills for your heroes: they use all skills which are unlocked for your account.

ok, thanks.GW Wiki seemed to downplay the Balthazar faction points, so hearing that is not the case may impact how soon I look at PvP

Quote: Originally Posted by oldweasel

ok, thanks.GW Wiki seemed to downplay the Balthazar faction points, so hearing that is not the case may impact how soon I look at PvP wiki is focused on playing the game "straight".
By using Balthazar faction to gain skills, it allows you to get the skills you want for your heroes sooner. You have to get to the end of the game and cap almost a dozen elite skills to get your heroes to the point you want them.

Since you own factions, you might want to create a pvp only character and do the Jade Quarry and Fort Aspenwood missions to farm Balthazar faction. You not only gain faction for kills, but you can trade in imperial faction (for a 3 to 1 rate) to get B-Faction sooner.
You can also farm the Zaishen Challenge and Zaishen Elite with a pvp only character.

The simple answer is stay in Nightfall, get the heroes. Max level is 20. Level does not take long. What takes longer is skills for you and for the heroes. PvP at Fort Aspenwood is anonymous. You just press an Enter Battle button. Earn Balthazar faction and Imperial faction that you can convert to Balthazar faction. Use the Balt faction to buy skills for heroes that would otherwise be hard to find.

Thanks for the advice, I thought GW was complicated when I left 3 years ago, now with heroes, etc it's even more fun trying to catch up!

Maybe I should try a warrior to start with since I'm starting all over again...

For future reference (if you plan on creating some more 'core chars' (war, mes, monk, ranger, necro, ele) or a sin/rit) the fastest way I've found is the following (did it with the last char I created, which was an ele):

1. Start in factions (so make ur char in the factions campaign).
2. Rush thru the starter island (really easy)
3. Get urself to Kaineng Center (you'll get there once you finished starter island)
4. Hop over to eotn via doing the quest in Kaineng Center (you'll get a message that will tell you to which npc you should talk whenever you enter KC as long as you haven't finished it)
5. Get ur 3 lvl 20 heroes.
6. Complete the ebon vanguard quest chain (and get ebon battle standard of honor while ur at it, you'll only benefit from it)
7. By now you should be lvl 16-17? So hop over to KC again and now dont get instaraped by the mobs at the mainland.
8. Continue the factions story campaign. You should hit lvl20 by the time you get ascended (for me, the xp reward from getting masters at nahpui literally was the thing that pushed me to lvl20)

Now you can do whatever you want cause a) ur lvl20, b) you have 4 heroes already (the vanguard chain rewards you with another one), c) ur ascended so you can change second prof at will and d) you have ebon standard of honor so you can mow thru almost anything without any problem.

Keep in mind however this is for the more 'experienced' players. But if you read up on the wiki before you do each mission in the ebon quest line, you should be fine.

Hope this helps.

Edit/ forgot to add that you also can get max armor in the outpost where you end up after doing the eotn quest in KC. Yet another benefit.

Quote: Originally Posted by oldweasel

When starting a new character...first and foremost make sure your equipment is all set(for a dervish: a defensive set, vamp scythe, zealous scythe, sundering, ebon/elemental scythe, max armor of course) grind out lvl 10 and then travel to EotN and make your way to gunnars hold to farm kilroy to lvl 20(takes about 5 minutes, 10 if you're inexperienced at it) The easiest way i've found to get weapons cheap is either the BMP, or crafting them in EotN from the weapon traders. Now you're max level, max armor, and perfect weapons. Choose which campaign you're going to start with though i would recommend nightfall simply due to the heroes. EotN has a couple heroes but the useful ones can be obtained rather early on so you could even get those before going to nightfall. Once you've got your hero build make sure to rune/insignia them and then BMP for weapon sets for them....a full team of heroes with runes and insignia with perfect weapons is nearly unstoppable if you know what you're doing. Once you're through nightfall, tyria or cantha...take your pick, canthas fun and quick, tyria has a great storyline, but takes a little while

Thanks for the great advice everyone!

Now my only question after reviewing lots of builds is that they all seem end-game geared, how do I find a build for leveling, or am I making it harder than it really is?

Most builds you'll see on fansites are based on level 20 characters since you will reach that pretty quickly (unless you're playing prophecies straight), well before the endgame. If you want to adapt a build to a lower level character, keep in mind that you generally won't need a super strong build to get up to level 20. You can build your way up to the build you want to use as you get the skills and attribute points to fill it out, replacing what you don't have yet with something you find useful. For some builds that rely on their elite skills this won't work as well, but I've found it to work rather well. Or, you can just experiment and learn how your professions' skills work together.

I would personally start off in Factions and get to level 20 and then get to Kaineng and teleport to NF. Once you get to NF all your starter heroes will already be level 15 therefore it will be easier to get your heroes to level 20. Beat NF and then level all NF heroes to level 20, get some good builds start EOTN, get a run to Vlox's and Gadds and get Livia. You're set! Do any campaign with ease now (EOTN, Prophecies, Factions, heck even Nightfall over again!). Hope this helped.

Problem is that he's a derv, which means he has to start in Nightfall. He should definitely head to EotN at level 10 though and grab the 3 easy level 20 heroes from it at least. He'll also be boosted to level 20 stats there which makes leveling quite easy.