Is this game really this hard?

I'm a new player and i have no right to judge this game, but what i have noticed is that this game requires more skill then any other game i have played.
I'm playing fire elementalist at the moment, and right now I'm playing Nightfall campaign.

After level 6, monsters are getting much harder. I'm dying literally every 10 minutes. Am i missing something here? My henchmen die in like 5-6 seconds too.

Should i go alone? Should i somehow rearange my skills? Throw some nice tips to this QQ-ing noob

Best regards and happy christmas!

We need more details.
Where are you up to in the game (Current level, location and quest/mission)?
Have you been progressing gradually through each quest in order or jumped to a harder section?
Have you checked all skill traders to get the skills required to play at your level?

I use the wikis extensively, they are your bible for help/advice:-
http://www.guildwiki.org/Main_Page
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Main_Page
http://www.gwpvx.com/Main_Page (Builds)

Having said all that, I have to say this is about the only game I find relatively easy (while not playing Hard Mode) and therefore play most and I'm next to useless playing games.

bring a way to heal yourself or mitigate damage. As an Ele: armor spells from the Earth or Water line are excellent. Boost your attributes to get more effectiveness from your spells. (Hit K)

Bring heroes in favor of henchmen. They will gain levels with you, and you can teach them new skills. You can also equip them with better weapons as you find them.

Use the links already provided for an excellent resource.

When in doubt, try to find someone in game to assist. Maybe join a more relaxed PvE guild not focused on faction farming to get you into the game.

Bring a monk, always, always, always, until you get the hang of skill building sets for heroes where everyone brings a little healing/protection to the table. Without a dedicated healer and/or proter your survival drops very sharply at higher levels.

Make sure you have up to date armor, bring 1-2 monks depending on the team size, don't forget to set up skills on your heroes. That should get you through the game in normal mode, post screenshots of your current build/team and area so we can see where you're having problems.

Details and we can help. I play an ele among other things and they are not that fragile. A balanced party of heroes and/or hench are capable of clearing most groups on their own. So something really wrong.

^This. Can't tell you how many times I've forgotten to check armor on a new character as I'm pushing through, or new characters heroes skill bars.

Also... check out the guild recruitment thread and find yourself a helpful group. The BEST thing about this game is the community you find here.

Honestly? Are you trying to rush through the game? Sounds like it. How high a level are the monsters you are facing? Except for the bosses, they shouldn't be more than 2-3 levels higher than you. If they are then youve likely bypassed most if not all the side quests along the way which, for a new player, you should not be doing...for numerous reasons. Slooooow down...the game is not a sprint...theres nothing gained breaching the end quickly.

Also one of the reasons the game is called "Guild Wars" is the guild part. New players should always be in one. Your guild mates can help show you game mechanics and other basics a whole lot better than can be provided to you in this thread. They can also help you through quests and missions you have trouble completing on your own (and nightfall has a few in particular that is difficult to solo).

always try to bring a monk hench or hero in the beginning, they're the only real thing that can heal you in early nightfall.
also, armor is usually a big deal. the max armor your ele can get is 60, so if you still have low level armor, try and hang back and move away from enemies. enemies will often target you if you have lower health and/or lower armor than others around you. just do your best to stay away from danger and attack when you have the chance

Henchmen are actually more useful for a new player as he wont have many skills yet.

I'm thinking that he is forgetting to take the healer hench, and just picking a bunch of other ones.

I would add that for a totally green beginner, Prophecies is by far the best way to dip your toes in the waters of GW.

Well, your opinion.

My opinion; Prophecies is nowadays the best campaign to loose new players.


OT:
More details are needed.
What armor level do u have. Did u put Major or Superior Runes on your armor?
What primary quest and mission are u at at the moment?
In what explorable area of Nightfall are u dying?
If your Henchman die in 5 secs, thats not good indeed.
What henchman do u use?!
Its important to use 1 or more healing Henchman (or Heroes)!
In Nightfall Monks and Paragons provide healing.
In a party with a max size of 4, one Healer should do.
In a party with a max size of 6, 1 or 2 Healers should do.
In a party with a max size of 8, 2 or 3 Healers should do.

I take from your post your character level is 6 or 7 (u say the dying part happens after level 6).
U can mention your skill bar, what skills u use.

Why would you say that? 6 years later and it's still the best.

Yeah, nowadays, start doing only Prophecies with therefore no heroes and thus only with the Prophecies Henchmen...

I am glad u have good memories of Prophecies from 6 years ago, but then there were no other options.
Nowadays, Heroes, new players that r in more hurry (for HoM).

The tutorial aspects of prophecies, along with the 'hand-holding', nudge you along, pace of pre-searing and much of the game up to the crystal dessert are very newbie friendly.

NF is for experienced players. That is why the OP went from start to furious wipes with great speed. Yes, heros are great. But when you're new you have enough trouble mitigating your own character, let alone 7 others.

His problems obviously go far beyond not bringing a monk. A healer hench/hero does NO GOOD if you don't know how to set your hero up, and/or you over aggro and behave in a way that creates sudden wipes.

The simple reason to avoid starting in NF is that this campaign was designed for players that are familiar with the GW engine.

Being in a hurry is defined as impatience, and that will reap you failure. Slow down, learn the mechanics and find friends that will answer every so-called "dumb" question you may have.

3 healers? i don't think i've ever had to use 3 healers in pve. i use 1 and a support even in HM.

I'm a traditionalist and a bit of a purest when it comes to team builds. I like balanced builds.
In a party of eight I have a full healer and full protector. One or both take care of hexes if need be. My Necro (usually Minion Master) takes care of conditions and energy management. Everyone else does damage and damage only (plus interrupts of course) and may carry a resurrection skill of some kind.
In my experience with this balance you bring down enemy healers fast and keep your team alive fairly easily.
It depends on where you are fighting of course, variations are needed in some special areas but for general questing it works for me.

Well I experienced the same thing as you in NF, I played the starting areas of both Prophecies and Factions and I leveled just fine all the way to 10. However NF was a pain in the ass, yeah the monsters were a LOT tougher and different henchie setups never seemed to make it easier.

You just have to stomach your way through really...
The only thing I can recommend is the following,(again this as another relatively new player);

#1 Get a monk and a support in your party along with Koss.
#2 When approaching a group of mobs order your Heros/henchmen to stay a little ways back from the mobs, also have heros set to defensive.
#3 Equip a flatbow and attack the closest mob and as soon as you fire the arrow turn around and run behind your group of heros/henchmen.
#4 Assist your team from the back and focus fire enemies down(do this by clicking just once on an enemy to highlight it and then press Ctrl+space, repeat the Ctrl+space a few times if the team is not responding)
#5 Try to figure out which of the mobs you are facing is buffing and healing itself and the other mobs and focus it down first.

This seems to work best, I played WoW a few years ago and the pulling in that game was MUCH easier than in this one. Figuring out which enemy is the healer or the buffer is a pain in the ass as well but you'll figure it out as you go. Take your time to set up before the attack and you should be able to pull it off just fine.

Wiki is a great resource for this info. Makes targeting healers etc., very easy.
One way is to press F10 then the quest/mission you are doing.

You can set the behavior of your heroes. I *never* have a hero set to attack, but always on guard... unless the role of the hero is to heal (or maybe another fulltime support role), then i set it on avoid.
I think you heroes listen better (do less stupid things like over-aggro) this way...

More on behavior: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Heroes

Yeah never used 3 healers either.

Take henchmen, at least take one healer. The game is hard if you try and solo shortly after the training areas. My very first toon was a warrior, I'll always remember standing for ages to regen health outside Ascalon thinking "This is boring" after each kill/fight (pre-henchy), doh!

In haste i didnt clarify that well enough.

With a Healer i meant an Hero or Henchman that provides healing or protection or a combination.
And they can be a Monk, Ritualist or Paragon (or Necro/Rt !)

As for the 3 part.
When i started playing GW i had often enough that 2 healer/protector Hechman/Heroes were not enough to prevent deaths or party wipes.
I then started to use 3, the fights take a little longer but deaths and party wipes happened much less.
Until ofcourse i was able to make better hero builds.
New(er) players will NOT immediatly have the best builds, best heroes, best weapons and best runes and insigs.

So yes, if new(er) players find they die or party wipe to much while using only 2 healing/protection Henchmen/Heroes, i advise to use 3 !

I have to disagree with having 3 healers under any circumstances. I understand the logic if your party is wiping regularly but improved strategy IMHO is the key and doesn't require the best weapons, builds or upgrades.
"Know Your Enemy" I think is key and anyone can get this knowledge from wiki, even the inexperienced.
Basically target healers first, then the big damage doers.
As an example, some NPCs have good res skills and need to be interrupted or killed. Some put down nasty wells that can make your team ineffective. Others may be minion masters and we've all seen (particularly in dungeons) how the enemy don't even need bodies to make minions (not an even playing field ArenaNet!).
These are skills that can be developed early. Also clever placement of your hero healers and don't allow them to fight and draw attention to themselves helps markedly.

Not to be an arse, but if you are a new player, and you're unlocking the skills one-by-one for your heroes, just don't. Bite the bullet and buy (from the ingame store at the character selection screen) the skill unlock pack which unlocks all the skills for both your pvp characters and (most importantly) your heroes. Yeah, it's more money to spend, but it's totally worth it, even on alt accounts. In a very real sense, this game is buildwars, in as much as that, at any given level in PVE, the better group build will win. So always have at least one healer.

Also, if you have EoTN, you'd be best advised to go there asap, since all EoTN heroes are level 20. Check GWPVX (literally google that, or add .com) for cookie cutter builds, especially for heroes, but a key element of ROFLstomping GW is synergy between individual builds in the team, which doesn't really come across in a lot of GWPVX builds and can be hard for beginners (it took me long enough to figure it out...).