The questions never end!!

Hey,
So I've been making progress reeeeaaally slowly when I'm not working. I only ever thought that I'd maybe get one point (on top of the "free" three)......and I've now got two so far.
I've got just over 60k and got hold of a mini (although I don't have a Tapestry to use it with yet).
I've got a full group of Heroes but I know that specific characters are used with specific "builds" for steamrolling content.
So I still have a few questions relating to all of this.....

1 - I'm a Necro with Mesmer as my second Prof, I've seen some folks say that you should stick with your Primary instead of using any of the secondary Skills; is that right? I'm now using nothing but Necro Skills and so far haven't come across any mobs that have Elite skills.

2 - If I try to get Nightfall completed am I ok bypassing side-quests for the sake of speed, or will it be a detriment to do that?

3 - My Storage has heaps of blue and purple items that I've picked up in the Post-searing Ascalon area and throughout me making my way to Kourna; none of this stuff can be used by my Heroes and myself, do I Salvage all of it or sell it somewhere?

4 - I'm certain that I get a Tapestry as a reward for completing the EoTN Primary quest-line; is it long-winded? I'm kinda wondering because I obviously need a Tapestry for my Mini, but then I also see folks talking about getting myself higher-end armor + a Destroyer weapon.......but they also require a Tapestry each and I'm thinking they'll cost a fortune in resources and Plat as well which I assume may take so long to get that sort of thing that it may be a lost cause for me at this stage.

As usual, any help is appreciated =)

You'll definitely be able to get more than a few points pretty easily so don't worry. Tapestry wise, if you finish Eye of north then you'll have enough tapestries to fill your entire hall, and im pretty sure you get atleast one pretty early on.

In terms of skipping side-quests, thats pretty much absolutely fine, the only ones you want to worry about are your attribute point quest. In terms of skills, yyour now at the point when you can start hunting them down with the help of wiki, so you'll want to have a look through pvx or here on guru for the type of build you want to aim for, depending on what you have access to.

If you want to hit me up in-game @ Last Healy i'll be able to go into alot more detail and be able to offer more advice

1. In the early stages - before you 'ascend' or get to level 20 - it's best to just concentrate on your primary, for various reasons. But, once you've gotten all 200 attribute points, etc, feel free to experiment. Some builds use more of the secondary than others.

2. You will, of course, get fewer experience points and less money, rewards etc, but overall, no, there is no great problem with skipping side quests.

3. Some blue and purple items - especially armor drops - can have useful mods on them which you can salvage, but generally speaking, just sell them to the merchant.

4. You end up with all 4 tapestries by the time you finish the EotN quest-line.
http://www.guildwiki.org/Monumental_Tapestry

Thanks guys, I'm gonna have to get some quests done maybe later today; I'm excited though.......Thanks!

To be more specific about the salvage question;

If something is highly salvagable, always salvage it for materials (or expert salvage off the mod and put it on another weapon that will then salvage for a material you want).

If something has "improved sale value" or is marked "precious", then you'll probably get more selling it to the merchant than salvaging it and selling the components.
If a Gold or Purple item isn't highly salvagable, it's still probably more profitible to sell it to the merchant straight instead of salvaging it in most cases (unless of course it has an upgrade you want or could sell for good money; in which case take that upgrade off, then sell it). Bear in mind a handful of Purple and/or Gold items are still in demand in the player markets, so if you've got the time to spare it might be worth keeping a few items in order to sell them to other players. To see what's in demand you'll have to check the trade forum though.

As for what to salvage in general; Anything that will salvage into Iron or Granite. Feathers are also items of note, though not many weapons will salvage into them. These materials have good market value and are in demand. Plant Fibres and Glittering Dust are often also worth salvaging items for, and in some cases you might try to Expert Salvage something for Steel or Parchment (which will usually get you a bit more than you would get selling the item straight). If you are lucky you might get Rubies, Sapphires, Diamonds, Amber or Jadeite from expert salvaging a few items, but in most cases it's too small a chance to risk it.

If something will salvage into Cloth, Hide, Bones or Wood, it's generally not worth salvaging (unless the item is marked as Highly Salvagable, as stated above) as these materials have very low market value, due to lack of use in some cases, or over abundance of easy farmability in others. Highly salvagable is worth it due to the sheer amount you'll get though (4 wood may be only 16g, and items are normally worth about 50g, but 40 wood is 160g).

To see what an item will salvage into in particular, check the wiki. People have tried salvaging most items to give you a heads up of what you get from what when you salvage, and these are recorded on the wiki.

Yes, stick with your primary/necro skills as much as possible. The only none necro skills youd want to use are the pve only skills you pick up along the way doing stuff in EOTN. For a full list of all those skills simply google/wiki "guild wars eotn skills" (google/wiki are your friends and just about EVERYTHING you can ever need or want to know can be found there). Some of the best/most popular EOTN skills include Ebon Vanguard Assasin Support, Ebon Battle Standard of Honor which synergizes well with minions.

Depends in what youre after. There is benefit to having high Lightbringer ranks which require farming LB points. Also there are 2 key heroes for most of the more potent 7 hero builds that require you select and do specific quests. Those 2 heroes are Master of Whispers (instead of Margrid) and Norgu (instead of Goren).

Identify everything. For armor pieces you need to become familiar with what mods are valuable and salvage them from it (youll need at least an expert salvage kit to do that). To get an idea of what types of armor runes are valuable simply check with the rune trader. Anything she sells for a lot you can sell to her for a lot (after her cut of course).

For weapons, knowing whats valuable is a little harder but not impossible. Use argos net (google 'guild wars argos'. It will give you a rough idea of what mods or inscriptions people are looking to buy (the WTBs) and what people are selling it at.

Blue and purple weapons, unless the are really rare skins (crystallines, etc) or req 8 or less, after any mods or inscriptions are salvaged from them, pretty much not worth trying to sell to anyone. Without getting too complicated, sell the purples and the increased value blues to the merchant. You can apply "measure for measure" runes to some purple inscribables if the generally salvage to high end common mats (iron, granite) but it may be too much to grasp right now. For blues that dont have increased value tag salvage if it has an increased salvage tag to it. Even if the mats it salvages to isnt valuable (ie. wood, bone, etc) you can sell them to the merch for more than if you just sell theblue. For generic blue items, salvage if they are known to salvage to iron or granite or dust, etc. (renember google/wiki are your friends here as well).


Well you can always buy tapestries from other players but there is inherent value in doing the EOTN quests in terms of HOM, getting real nifty/powerful skills AND unlocking heroes (especially one of the 3 ritualist heroes...Xandra...which can only be gotten by doing a none mandatory/side quest chain.

Wow, thanks for the detailed reply Dar, I think I'm at an impasse at the moment though.
This is my progress (or lack of) in the HoM:
http://hom.guildwars2.com/en/#page=details&details=AAAAAAAAAECAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAABAAAQAAAAAA

With my work schedule being what it is right now I've only got four days where I'll be able to play left; I've got tomorrow as well but technically I could also end up working again.
My toon has been on nothing apart from Nightfall content, I gave up on EoTN stuff because of how I was getting my ass handed to me and couldn't seem to get a group going. I bought the second "Devotion" Tapestry off another player.
At the moment he's parked at Kodonur Crossroads, I haven't managed to do the mission yet and so my campaign has stalled. I've got 62k in funds, I was thinking of buying a Rare mini for the point.
I also wondered if anybody ever sells the Stolen Sunspear Armor and for how much; according to the Calculator I'd only need three Heroes fitted with the Armor.
I'd also looked at taking a guy up on his offer to help me get the Black Widow pet; being a Elona toon I'm assuming that I'd need to have access to somewhere specific in order to be able to go with the guy?

I think with there being so little play-time afforded to me in the next couple of weeks or so this is gonna be all I can do.

Am I right in thinking this?

Your mostly right, but with your tight amount of hours I doubt if finishing nightfall is the best thing to do.

If you concentrate on doing HoM points I would suggest to go into nightfall as far as unlocking the town called sunspear sanctuary. From there it is easy to go to Dajkah Inlet where you can get your two stolen sunspear armor's relativly easy (trick there is to kill the guildlord in the first map and fight/run to the portal behind the mobs. in the second map, after you kill the guildlord you run and use flags to get to the second and when he goes down you do the same to get again to the portal. on the third map any progress is a bonus). It should take 3-4 runs (first being to practise) to get 2 stolen sunspear armor. The you can quit nightfall and turn to factions. Factions is relativly easy and short. After bout 6 missions you find yourself in House zu Heltzer. There you can take and do a quest called beak of darkness (or find someone that did that quest) to charm the black moa companion. It counst as a rare pet. if the 2 heroes from nightfall (with the stolen sunspear armor) and the black moa are added you'll have 3 more points (9/50).

As an alternative for the black moa, you can also only do the first 3 missions in nightfall and find someone to help you get the black widow spider (the other day someone was offering free runs for it here on guru). The spider is a lot harder and there are people charging a fee for helping you get there, but its saves you doing 3 factions missions.

After that you can finish at least one campaign (again factions is the shortest and easiest) to get another 2 points.

Beside that it pays a nice amount of money to finish factions, leaving you to be able to get atleast 2-3 points in the miniatures monument.

Just a quick question.....
If I try the Dajkah Inlet I'm assuming that you only get Stolen Sunspear Armor pieces for completing the whole thing? I mean, If I got killed repeatedly and my weakness percentage hit 60 and I gave up would I lose anything that I gained in there?

Nope, it is a challenge mission. So there is no way to actually win. This is how it works.

map 1: you need to kill one corsair guildlord wich is surrounded by his corsair guildmembers. after that the portal to map 2 opens.

map 2: you need to kill two guildlords, both surrounded by his corsair guildmembers before the portal to map 3 opens.

map 3: again two guildlords, but the mobs are bigger and harder to get through. the end portal brings you back to map 1

map 1 revisited: same as the original map 1 but with higher level foes.

etc. etc.

Everytime you kill a guildlord you have a change to recieve a stolen sunspear armor. This is placed directly in your inventory (so no visible drop nor any message that you got it, make sure that you have room in your inventory).

Bout the change you get one I'm not really sure how it works but it is my thought that the "droprate" (although it doesn't drop but i hope you got what i mean) decreases when you get one. My first 3 where earned in the first 4 attempts. The last two took me ages, I think roughly 20-30 times (I always fail at the first or second map revisted).

I don't know what happens if you have a party whipe. The mission is timed. You get an initial time of 10 minutes and one extra minute after you kill a guildlord. Cause in my cause it takes me longer then one minute to kill one guildlord I always run out of time and get kicked out because of that.

Okey doke, I'm gonna give it a few runs and see what happens.

Thanks for the help! =)