Easy-to-play Build

I'm playing again for the first time in years and am having trouble designing a workable PvE build. Looking at various posts and walkthroughs, I've become bogged down in acronyms and a billion different choices, so I thought maybe a kind and knowledgeable person could help me out.

I'm looking to play with only my wife and henchies/heroes. I'm a gamer and can fill any role, but my wife is less of a gamer. She loves games like Titan Quest, Torchlight, etc, but is not into complicated stuff (she is not a good Mesmer candidate).

AI 'bots are said to pull aggro poorly, so I figured I'd be a warrior tank. My wife is unlikely to enjoy healing, so I figured elementalist or ranger were the best options while also being simple to play. I'm worried she won't do interrupts well, however. How important is that function in a PvE, normal mode playthrough?

What is a good secondary profession for a ranger that focuses on pure damage and isn't super complicated? Is Ranger/Elementalist (Or Elementalist/Ranger) viable?

Thanks in advance!

First off, welcome back. Second, I am not a real expert, but I will throw out an idea or two.

First question - What campaign do you plan on starting in? Each have their own merits, but if you start in Nightfall (NF), you will be able to build a capable team fairly quickly. If you play together from the start, you will each gain a warrior, a dervish, and 2 monks on the starter island. There will be a point where you each get to choose between a necro and a ranger. One take the necro, the other the ranger. When you reach level 10, you can go into the Eye of the North and each get another warrior, monk, an Elementalist and a Mesmer. You will have the makings for a pretty good team.

As for your own characters, E/Mo and R/Mo, would pair up nicely. In my opinion, they are easy to learn. Early on, your secondary won't really matter, because you will be able to change it soon after you start building your Command Center. The Monk (Mo) secondary will let you carry a hard res.

As for interupts, let the mesmer heroes handle that. The monks can be set up to run heals and protections and the extras can run a smite build. The hero ranger can be used for spreading conditions, bleeding, poison, etc. With multiple warriors, you can experiment with swords, axes, and hammers.

I hope this helps some.

It does help some. I was planning to start with Prophecy, as I heard the learning curve was gentle. I'm not sure I need a super-easy learning curve, but it will definitely help my wife.

I was going to avoid monks as they don't usually do much damage; my wife is all about the damage. And for my own character, I was going full-on tank under the impression that bots don't pull well. Are you saying the bots do ok pulling? Or that monks aren't always dedicated healers?

Another thought. "Back in my day" certain pre-Searing items were worth a pretty penny, namely some dyes. These could be farmed early on and gave a substantial gold boost when sold post-searing. Is that still the case? Where can I get a reliable list of prices (to players) to work from?

Someone who has played a Warrior through all the campaigns will have to address the tanking issues. I do know that the mobs AI has been changed and it is harder for a warrior to take aggro and hold it. The mobs now run around you looking for the lower armor ratings, lower health, and your healers.

For the past 3 or 4 years, the only time I have a monk in my party, is for healing/protection, until I have 2 or 3 necros, or maybe a Restoration Ritualist. After that, I run a smite monk or 2 when dealing with a lot of undead. There are people that run Elementalists as healers. I mostly use the necros for heal/protect.

As far as the learning curve, I am not sure how to address that. In Prophecies, you level slower, less experience received as rewards for quests. In Factions and Nightfall, you receive more experience rewards, so you do level quicker, but Factions throws you into stronger mobs much sooner than the other 2. If you concentrate on all the quests and do a little extra mob killing, you will leave pre-searing, around level 6-8. In Factions and Nightfall, when you leave the beginner isles, you will be level 18-20. Early on in post-searing, you will still be fighting low level mobs. I would say, the first 14 of 25 missions are relatively easy. In Factions, the 3rd mission is a real challenge, and in Nightfall, the 4th mission is not easy your first time through.

Pre-searing dye drops- Dyes do drop frequently. All colors do drop, with orange and yellow filling my inventory quicker than the others. My experience shows that black dyes seem to drop more frequently than in post. I get one about every 10-15 hours of farming. Right now, there are people buying them up for as much as 13k each. They are the ectos of pre. White dyes are running in the 2k - 3k range, the others 10g to 200g. For best profitability, sell the black dyes in pre and take the others to post.

As a warrior, collect around 50 iron ingots, and the other classes, collect a few(10-15) tanned hide squares and some (5-10) bolts of cloth. These are for your first armor upgrades in post.

Don't make it too easy for her though, if you give her a role of mostly passively follow around and throwing some random spells, that's surely going to cause boredom.

Many women I played with were a lot more interested in the quests and scenery rather than just rush from point A to B. So take your time to enjoy the game and do the quests you come along.

As for builds there's basically. Starting with the mindless builds.
"1234.." - Just target something and hit the skills in sequence. With occational 5-6 or for buffs/enchantments.
"3654365635437645" - Builds designed where you can just mash keys on your keyboard. Not recommended for anything but monkeys.

Then there's of course the builds where you must pay attention to your environment. Interrupts comes to mind. This can be action based, or preventive. The preventive skills (ie. Shame/Guilt/Mistrust) are easier to learn and doesn't require quick reflexes.

All this said, here's some things she could do:

* Call targets. Hold CTRL, pick out the healer or target you want to kill quick, and CTRL-Space. Or Ctrl-Shift-Space if she's a support character staying away from foes.
* Enchantment removal, and spreading a bit conditions to soften up foes. Cracked armor, Weakened, or Deep Wound.
* Support role, removing hexes and conditions, maybe with prot skills like Aegis if party takes heavy damage, or Protective Spirit when a single player is, or about to take heavy damage.

Builds and Professions?
Some builds require a lot of setup and E-management which makes learning curve steeper. I would recommend starting with a Necromancer.

Why Necromancer?
- She can rely on passive E-management from Soul Reaping and thus just focus on other things.
- Necromancers can take on many different roles allowing her to try find a role that seems more fun.
- Female necromancers can be quite good looking. (hehe)

Did I say build? Ok, I'll make an easy Necromancer build using only Prophecies skills, and you can see if that's what you want or not.

Necro Protter

Or something more aggressive:
Necro Curses

I didn't add any elite skills and limited the skills to Prophecies, assuming you would begin there. They're by no means optimal meta-builds, but it might give you a start on what role she enjoys more.