A few questions from a newbie

Been reading up on what i could find, but i've got a few questions if you all dont mind

made it to 20 mostly thru prophesies... that was painful... but i've got a lot of heroes unlocked and started into the nightfall story. i'm still having a hard time in some areas, always feel a bit under powered or like i dont know quite what i'm doing. I've found what i think is a decent warrior build (the main i'm currently playing) but i was curious if there was something else i should focus on before finishing the expansion stories. anything thatd make it easier? good n quick armor and weapon upgrades, any heroes or skill sets in particular that i should unlock?

I've read about the supposedly uber necro sabway combo and got one of the necro heroes unlocked... but those arent really worthwhile unless youve got all the skills needed unlocked, right? any quick way to do that? I only have like 12 plat (the money after gold right?) so the hero skill buys seem like itd eat through that quickly.

Also, with builds like that necro sabway bit, does that mean thats all you bring with you (the 3 necros) or is that just part of your normal group with a healer or two and a tank type?

I havent been doing a lot with my heroes armor either, but it sounds like most people only give them collectors items anyway huh? should i try to get them upgraded with stuff from those, or does that not make a big difference?


sorry for all the questions, but thanks in advance if you can help this newb out! ^_^

I'm not sure how you are real-life money-wise, but the way I unlocked the skills for my heroes was buying them from the in-game store. That includes all the elite skills, and unlocks them for your PvP characters and heroes. That way, you don't have to run around capturing them all. You just have to know which campaign skill set that you need.

You don't necessarily need elite armor right away, as a warrior, if you can get to Cantha, you can get maximum AR armor from collectors around and in Kaineng. If you hover your cursor over your armor, it will show you your AR. As a warrior, you can get max 80. I would suggest getting it soon, before you reach harder parts of the game.

With hero armor, you can only upgrade it with certain items (Cloth of the Brotherhood, Ancient Armor Remnant, Stolen Sunspear Armor, etc, http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Hero_armor), and can only upgrade once you reach a certain point in the game. I think you have to finish the campaign corresponding to the hero. But with weapons, I am pretty sure you can make them wield any weapon that your character can.

Those hero armor upgrade pieces don't have any practical value -- they're cosmetic only and allow you to add the hero to the Hall of Monuments. They don't enhance your hero's survivability or performance in any way.

Runes and insignias (which you can ID and salvage off of drops or purchase from a rune trader) do affect your and your heroes' performances, however.

Skill unlock packs from the store are probably the fastest shortcut for heroes, but aren't necessary. You could just as easily unlock a number of skills by creating temp characters and buying skills from skill trainers for less than a plat each. You could also do some training arenas/Zaishen arenas/actual PvP and unlock skills with Balthazar Faction.

regarding hero armor and weapons, i'v made it through campaigns nm without giving them anything, so if you have the right builds you dont need to worry about it. seeing as you're doing nf (have you got all campaigns/expansions?) you should have gotten 1 necro 2 monks 1(or 2) eles and a war. now unfortunately giving them good builds will mean spending some money or balth faction. I personally suggest you forget about the sabway (which i personally dislike even though it has proven to be very effective) and look up simpler builds. http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/d...t10490961.html here is a good team build i always recommend. the only necro here is to support you team's energy supply making your healers pump out heals and your ele damage.

http://www.gwpvx.com/PvX_wiki

The correct runes and insignias on you and your heroes make a lot of difference.

elite armours only change the appearance, if your armour has an armour level of 80 as a war then you have the max.

Sabway is a part of the team. In general, unless people are explicitly farming something, they always take the maximum sized team for the area.

Many people have mentioned the skill unlock packs. They will most certainly make it easier to get good builds on your heroes. If you're okay spending a bit more real world money, you can also buy Mercenary packs, which will let you make more heroes of any profession you want. (roll a PvP char of prof, register, then delete the char, repeat until you have your fill)

However, if you *don't* have the real world money to spend on these things, don't fear, you can still enjoy the game just fine. Some tips:

1) Use Henchmen.
- They're completely free.
- While no one they're better than reasonably equipped heroes, they will likely have better builds and equipment than what you can come up with at your stage.
- It is very possible to win all the chapters with just henchmen (barring the NF missions w/ req'd heroes)
- Simple test: pick an area, go kill stuff. Then swap out heroes for hench, or vice versa, and see which is working better. As you get more skills unlocked, and a better idea how things go together, you'll use hench less and less.

2) Get the 'free' skill unlocks.
- Hero Skill Trainers in Nightfall give skills for points earned from rising in some titles.
- Skill quests across Prophecies give you gold and skills for playing the game.

3) Max armor on you is the most important thing. Also, get a good max AL shield.

4) When going with runes, I've seen too many early players sacrifice way too much health with them. Be very careful with those Major and Superior runes.

5) Do you have all 200 attribute points? Several players don't know they exist, but the chapter your character was born in has two quests which get you 15 more points each. Search the Wiki for "Attribute Point Quests"

6) When making a build, don't spread your points too thin. Try to stick to one of the following splits: 12/12 12/9/9 11/10/10 12/10/8. Doing much else, and you're likely not going to get much useful effect out of your skills. It's possible, but you really need to know what you're doing with build making.

7) Stick to a balanced team for now. For a team of eight, this means:
- 2 heal/prots. As henchmen, this will be the Monks, and sometimes the Rits.
- 1 minion master necro, if at all possible. (I'd focus on this for your first hero and skills)
- 2 pure damagers. The Ele hench are good choices here.
- 2 damage/utility mix. Mesmers and Rangers.
- You, up front bashing in skulls.

We've all been there. Yes, it gets much better; to the point that you will feel like a god striding across the maps. I run modified Sabway, you are going in the right direction.

Buy the skill packs if you can. You can also unlock skills for heroes by rolling a PvP character and heading for Fort Aspenwood and The Jade Quarry. If you have the skill packs, you can use the Balthazar faction to buy Zaishen Keys when money is short and these sell to other players for around 6k each last time I checked.

Type in /bonus in the chat line and see if anything happens. Depends on your version. You may find some good weapons for heroes suddenly appear. You can do this as many times as you like. Though it is true that heroes come with usable weapons so if nothing happens don't worry about it.

Look up hench individually on wiki. This will show you what skills they are using. Good starting place for making a hero build. If you have a necro it is probably Olias. He makes a good minion master. So does Master of Whispers who you can also get in Nightfall.

OANEUstX82A0OqohuAmoegHQjA take this code over to PVXwiki and on the left side you will see a "Decode" link. Go there and you can read the skills. Blood of the Master and any minion summoning skills will start you off. Taste of Death will provide a self heal for your MM. Get enough undead tottering about and the mobs will waste a lot of shots on them. Death Nova will cause dying minions to become bombs. Exploding minions are best of all. The build provided above uses wells which are a nice place to stand while fighting. Some health degeneration on the targets helps a lot. The flesh golem (elite) is a big favorite of mine. The big guy gets AI attention and hits fairly hard too. A disposable, explosive, additional warrior for your group.

Normally sabway is now just the front end of a good 7 hero party build. But in some areas you can eventually go out with just the Sabway and pick up a bit more loot. Useful around holidays to get special items. But to play the game, stick with maximum party size.

An excellent list of advice. You really don't need to be worrying about specialized team builds like Sabway at this point. The content hasn't changed, and it can still be done with a mix of heroes and henchies if necessary. A balanced team works just fine for getting through normal mode.

To expand a bit on point 7:

Dunkoro is a required hero for more Nightfall missions and quests than any other, I believe. Make him a healer or heal/prot hybrid, and he'll always have a place in your party.

Talhkora will be more use to you as a smiter, removing hexes and conditions and buffing your damage with skills such as Judge's Insight and Strength of Honor. You can fill the second heal/prot spot with one of the henchman monks. (I usually go with Khim for her protting, since my Dunkoro is set up as a WoH healer.)

Using Tahl as a smiter is also good when you have additional martial heroes on your team, such as when doing quests and missions requiring Koss or Melonni. You can also use one of these heroes to fill one of the damager slots in the party, since it is a good idea to get them leveled up before they're really needed. Not to mention that smiting is really great against the undead in the Desolation.

A single necro hero is a great asset to a team as a Minion Master or Minion Bomber, and there are a number of good builds for this. Many of them make the necro an N/Mo with some protection spells, providing additional monking for your party.

You won't have a mesmer hero at this point, so you should definitely include Odurra in your party as a henchman. She's pretty good, and interrupts are a must when dealing with packs of Ruby Djinns and Roaring Ethers.

If you haven't picked a Zaishen acolyte yet (Jin or Sousuke), I would recommend going with Jin. She's your only chance at a ranger hero until you get much deeper into Nightfall or into EotN. Most players usually choose to go with Master of Whispers rather than Margrid later, which means you won't get another Nightfall ranger until you finish the campaign. Even if you don't use Jin regularly, there are some places where she can be highly useful. (I never do the Rilohn Refuge mission without her. Choking Gas and Winter make the bonus on that mission a breeze.)

Until you get Zhed Shadowhoof (and perhaps even after), Herta is a good addition to a team. As an earth-ele henchie, she has a good mix of damage and support, and one of the best earth elite skills (Sandstorm).

Don't be afraid to change your team around according to the needs of the area, mission, or quest. You will pretty much be forced to do so by the Nightfall system of requiring certain heroes at times. As much as this "feature" is hated, it does teach you something about team building, unlike areas where you can just always use the same team.

Regarding skill unlocks for heroes:

I unlocked everything by trapping in the Zaishen Elite. Zaishen Elite is an outpost in the Battle Isles (where the Great Temple of Balthazar is). You unlock that outpost by following the pvp-tour quest on the Isle of the Nameless. You earn Balthazar faction in the Zaishen Elite, just as if you are doing real pvp. It's only limited to 6000 points every 24h there. There are some team builds that do flawless runs in about 15-20 minutes. Create a pvp ranger or pvp elementalist for that task and ask for the builds in the outpost. Then join a team or ask in your guild/alliance. Usually, a team consists of 1-3 ranger trappers and the rest finishers (usually elementalists).
6000 Balthazar faction mean 6 skills (6x1000) or 2 elite skills (2x3000) you can unlock at a Priest of Balthazar.

It's the cheapest method to unlock skills for your heroes after you used up your hero skill points.

You spend the first two days unlocking the skills for the Zaishen Elite builds themselves (2 days * 20 minutes = 12000 points = 12 normal skills or 2 elite + 6 normal). After that, it should be easy to unlock your teambuild skills the following week or so.

I very much agree with a couple statements in the replies:

Very True. There is an Elite out in Marga Coast(http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Light_of_Deliverance) that I would recommend to get you started with Dunkoro. Focus on Divine Favor and Healing, maybe a smack of Protection, but mostly the other two.

Herta is awesome, and I used her throughout NF and EotN before the 7 Hero party, and at times I will still include her.

Insignias/Runes and the right weapons are crucial for good hero performance, but can get costly. Salvage, Salvage, Salvage!

I would also agree setting up a solid Minion Master or Minion Bomber can help you out a lot. You can do a basic MM or Minion Bomber even without an elite, but an Elite helps.

There's lots of different warrior builds, I have been playing a warrior as my main for my whole time in GWs. Warrior/Elementalist, Warrior/Ritualist, and Warrior/Ranger are the profession combos I use most often. I'll be glad to post some builds if you like to help you out. Let me know a weapon preference, or if you're like me and like Sword, Axe, and Hammer. I do have to admit, I run axe most of the time, but they are all fun.

If real world money isn't as issue, I would highly recommend buying the skill unlock packs. I've played with some people whose heros were so woefully underskilled that they were next to useless.

If you get a blue, purple or gold armor drop from an enemy, always identify them to see if you can salvage runes or insignias off of them. Look for survivor, vitae, radiants, vigors, attunements, blessed, and class specific minor runes such as minor strength for you or others such as, healing, fire, expertise, etc... for your elementalist, healer, ranger, etc...

Oh, and I got my legendary vanquisher before the introduction of the 7 hero party and Herta was ALWAYS a member when I could add her. Odurra, too. I did the Crystal Overlook trick from NF and took them to vanq the crystal desert in Prophecies. Great place to have an 8 member party for vanqing.

Thanks all for the great replies, very handy info!!

and yeah, i love olias so far. havent had him long, but those minions are just fantastic and i'm just using his starting skills.

i think i've got a decent axe build for my warrior, but i'm always open for more cool builds if you have any. and yes, i do like the axe style ^_^

oh and as far as unlocking elite skills for myself, or even for my heroes via capturing the skills... i just have to equip the signet of capture and use it on a mob that has that skill right? still havent tried that out yet. does pvx or the guild wars wiki have a good list of where to find the mobs with specific elite skills?


oh yes, as far as the unlock packs go, whats the difference between the "core" skill pack and the rest of them. i wouldve thought the "core" pack is the original prophecies stuff, but then there's a prophecies pack too...

Core skills are skills that are available in all three campaigns. Axe Rake, for example, is available in Prophecies, Factions, and Nightfall. The campaign-specific skill packs would be all the skills available in a particular campaign... including the core skills.

It has to be a boss, and you have to kill it first.
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Quick_access_links -> http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/List_...warrior_skills -> click a skill you're interested in, you'll get full description and info where to acquire it.
Core skills = skills present in all three campaigns, under the same name, with the same picture and functionality.

I'm a big fan of the Norn skills, and the Sunspear skills...understanding that you may not have access to these yet, here's a Warrior/Rit build I find works pretty well:

Vampirism :: I Am The Strongest :: Enraging Charge :: Flail :: Cyclone Axe :: (E)Triple Chop :: Dismember :: Agonizing Chop (In this build I rely on heroes to keep Splinter Weapon on me.)

Taking into consideration you may not have the first 2, I suggest the following: For "Vampirism", I would substitute "Spilnter Weapon" for spreading the axe love.
For "I Am The Strongest", you can substitute "For Great Justice" for extra adrenalin or "Endure Pain" for that extra health kick when needed.

I use a Razorstone Axe(for the adrenalin boost) and I have a -5/20% +30Health shield. Not the best shield config per some players, but it seems to work for me.