Newbie questsions reguarding to armour, crafting and selections

Hi all, it has come to another part of the game I rather enjoy, which is arming your character with protection.

Currently, I play a Ranger, and am looking at possibile good armours in the future.

From the list, I feel it is best to pick your armours as a set, and I am looking at the one that provide fire protection.

It said I am required to collcect a number of "Scales", I would like to ask, where is the best place to collect such item, and from which type of monsters ?

Secondly, what is your advice on the decesion on picking armour? Would you say, a set is a wise idea? Or would you break them in parts, pick and mixed?

totally depends on which character you're looking at.

for warrior and mesmer, i would mix stuff, because Knight's and performer's armor have a bonus (-2dmg and +15armor while casting) which is applied global, meaning you only need 1 piece to get the bonus for every hit you take.

in your case, for a ranger, i usually go for druids, cause extra energy is always nice, and you already have +30 armor versus elemental anyway.

if you info on anything involving armor, or other guildwars stuff, i suggest visiting www.guildwiki.org . It also has a list of crafting materials and which kind of monsters drop them

taken from http://www.guildwiki.org/wiki/Scale :

The following mobs (and their bosses) sometimes drop Scales directly, so you can collect it from the loot:

* Skales
* Drakes
* Forgotten Ones
* Trolls
* Imps
* Hydras (?)
* Gargoyles

Does the +30 ele, and the +15% fire protections stack?

Gargoyles outside Nolani Academy drop a very large amount of scales and are easily soloable.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean. If you are referring to whether the +30 against elemental damage and additonal +15 against fire on Drakescale armor stacks then yes, it does. You'll have +45 armor vs. fire damage with Drakescale.

If you're asking whether the +30 of Druid's armor and the +45 of Drakescale stacks, that depends entirely on the part being hit. If you're wearing drakescale gloves only, you'll have +45 armor against any fire damage that hits your arms.

Thanks for the infos guys.

I am too stucked with the info and the game system of an old RPG I used to play a lot for the last 4 years, so I had no idea that the damge is taken into account of different parts of your body.

I now understand why I was suggested the Durid armour, as energy means many options and in a way flexiablities. I will certainly look into that.

Though it seems that would require and outstanding amout of wood, would that require the elite savg. tool to collect? Or do they drop them stright? Or just use standard elite savg tool?

Wood will be made with just a standard salvage kit.
Your best bet is to salvage 'wooden' appearing items. Such as bows and staffs. Generally speaking, the 'better' the item, the more you'll get from it.
Eg, if you salvage a simple 5-7 damage staff from a gargoyle outside ascalon city ... you will probably get 1-3 wood. If you salvage a 11-22 damage raven staff from trolls around droknars, you will get 10-20 wood.

You can also get wood from players in towns at a reasonable price, 10g per piece seems to be the standard price from a player, in large quantities maybe a little cheaper. When you get to the city called Droknars forge (which is where you can get the armor with the best stats), that is also the city with the biggest player market for materials you might need.