Some Questions after reading through the forums

Hi everyone,

I just started playing Guild Wars about 2 weeks ago.
I have a lvl 14 W/E. (Almost 15)
After reading up through this forum and getting alot of usefull information I just have a few more that I would like to ask.

1. What are skins? I read people talking about finding a rare gold skin. Is this something that kan be applied to a weapon to change its attributes or simply something that could make it look better perhaps?

2. Some people in game advised me not to try and spend my points on more than 2 attributes (like lets say swords and strength). At the moment I have my Tactics and Strength rather low with my swords at 9 (boosted to 10) so I can get full damage form my Fiery Dragon Sword which requires lvl 10 swords. Should I balance out my attribs. or should I pump the one I need most?

3. Really noob question I know but exactly how does stacking and non stacking modifiers work?

4. Is warrior/elementalist a good combination? (I sure hope so because I would hate to start over)

5. Can you change your secondary class later on in the game?

6. How do you determine if a build is efficient for a certain task or quest (trial and error would be my guess) and does build refer to attributes aswell as skills?

7. If you use a weapon that has a requirement higher than your current attributes (eg. sword requires lvl 10 and the char is only lvl 8), what penalty do you get? At the moment I can't really see the difference.

8. I see people selling items and anouncing their attributes before they have been identified. How is this possible?

9. What are "Clean" weapons, possible the items mentioned above?

10. What is Max Damage everyone is always talking about? Does it differ from weapon class to weapon class and if so what are the different Max Damage values for each of these?

11. After I started playing Guild Wars I got some of my friends (even my brother and his wife) to join me and we started a Guild. We are about 6 people now ranging from Lvl 12-17. How and where can we get a Guild Hall and how much does it cost?

These are some of the questions I have, I will maybe post some more later on.
I must say that I have really fallen in love with Guild Wars and its an awesome game so far. Pitty it was only released recently in my country (South Africa) or I would have been playing for longer.

Thanks in advance people...

Well I can't answer all of them, but I'll do my best.

1. Well skins are just the look of a weapon. You know how everybody like the fiery dragon sword? Well thats because it has a cooler skin, than say a long sword.

2. Well I think since you can now change your attributes, you should try to go with the best combo for your level. When you hit 20, make sure to have 10+ in swords if that is your weapon requirement, but maybe you should find a lower req. weapon.

3. Don't really know my self.

4. W/E is a fine combo. Warriors don't have a lot of Magic power to attack with, but use some of the ele's defensive skills like armor of earth and you have yourself a tank.

5. Yes

6. Probably trial and error.

7. Don't know

8. They run out and use the un-ided item, and then determine its stats from its performance.

9. I think clean just mean it has no mods.

10. Max damage is the highest bas damage a weapon can inflict. For example, look at the damage of your sword, that is its base damage, now that will go up as you get better swords. I think the highest it gets is 21. But I don't know for sure.

11. Go to lion's arch, down at the docks, talk to a guy on a boat, he will take you to one of the islands that are guild halls. Celestial sigils are around 25k I think now.

Welcome, ask away!

What people are refering to here is the "look" of a particular item. Brute Swords have a particular graphic, Fiery Dragon swords another. Each :look: is called a skin.

This is not an easy question to answer. It really is recommended to specialize as much as possible. For a warrior you will need ranks in your weapon attribute for sure. As you mentioned since your weapon requires a rank of 10, thats what you'll need in Swordsmanship to get full use from your sword. If you have less than this the sword will act like a regular starter sword with a damage range of 3-5 (if I remember correctly). Concentrating the rest of your Attribute points in the Attribute line of the skills on your skill bar is important. Since at level 14 (almost 15) you don't have a lot of attribute points to play with, selecting skills to put on your bar is very important. Spreading across too many attributes means that everything is weak. Concentration on 1 or 2 attributes will mean that the skills you do use in those lines are stronger. Which you chose is up to you, it's definitely worth some thought.

Stacking means you can have more than one of whatever it is and you will get the benefit of whatever you stack it with. Non-stacking means more than one will have no benefit. Example: Helm with +1 to Swords will stack a rune of Swordmastery. 2 Runes of sword mastery do not stack you will only get the benefit from 1 of them. If you have a Major and a Minor, the benefit will be from the major rune with the minor doing nothing. 2 Majors will however result in twice the Health penalty.

Nothing wrong with a W/E. Pretty much any combo will work. Depending on how you play there are certain combinations that work better in certain areas. But any combination will be able to get all the way through the game.

You betcha.

(Insert creaky old womans voice here) Trial and Error definitely works and is how we figured it out way back in the old days when Guild Wars first started. (Clears throat) I'd suggest looking at the Campfire section for build ideas and skill combos that might help you out.

See question 3 above.

If you equip an unidentified item, you can tell what the mods will be in some cases. For example a fortitude mod will increase you HP even if it hasn't been identified.

Just means that the items has no mods already on it.

I'm going to send you to Guild Wiki for that info. Max damage does refer to the highest damage range available for a particular weapon type. Guild Wiki has a good listing as well as all the mods available for each weapon type.

To get a guild hall you need a Celestial Sigil. I think they're running about 25 - 39 K right now, but I could be wrong. There is a Sigil trader at each of the guild halls when you take the tour available at the docks in Lion's Arch. Or you could try winning one by capturing the Hall of Heros.

You're welcome. Enjoy!

I'll anwser the quistions that has been skipped

1. See above and no, can't be changed.

2. This will matter more once you get further in the game. Do you use a lot of strenth skills or tactics skills? What kind of skill does your shield require?

3. Non-stacking runes don't stack (say two non-stacking runes +1 dont become +2) Stacking does stack (two stacking attr. +1 becomes +2) Non-stacking stacks with stacking (one non-stacking + 1 stacking becomes +2, two non-stacking + 1 stacking becomes +2, one non-stacking + two stacking becomes +3)

4. In my opinnion it is not, however you can change your secondary later on in the game (warrior has too little energy, however earth ele spells are handy)

5. See above

6. See above, mostly it's mentioned together with the build. But if your making your own, its trail and error.

7. No penalty, just minimal dmg, once you have a max. dmg weapon you'll see the difference.

8. See above

9. See above

10. http://www.guildwarsguru.com/content...ies-id1275.php

11. see above

Dont exert yourself to buy a Guild Hall right now, it has little benefit besides GvG.

-Runes affecting the same attribute do not stack, period. Minor Swordsmanship + Minor Swordsmanship = +1 to Swordsmanship. If you have a Superior and a Minor of the same attribute, only the superior will be applied.

-Headgear stacks with runes; Helm of Sword Mastery + Minor Swordsmanship Rune = +2 to swordsmanship.

-Health penalties from runes stack. Sup. Sword Mastery + Sup. Sword Mastery = +3 to Sword and -150 health (-75 each).

-Armor that says "Reduces damage from attacks" (Knight's Armor) does not stack. You only need one piece of the armor for maximum benefit. Most people pick boots or guantlets. The reduced damage does stack with a Rune of Absorption.

When it says "Reduced Damage from Attacks" It means a solid -2 damage on Knights/Ascalon armour.

On the contrary, it is a very easy question to answer. For levels below 10, I wouldn't reccomend spreading beyond 2 attribute lines. For Beyond 10, starting on a third can be done, but I would still mainly invest points into the first two. Once you hit 20 and get the full 200 points, you can specialise up to 5 lines. Be sensible about it though because at 5 lines you're going to be thinned out. I'd go with four maximum and three as an ideal amount.

Do not be under the false impression that once you reach the requirement of the weapon that you will receive the max benifit out of it. You will only receive 100% benifit out of it if you put 12 attributes in that line. Putting more (up to 16-17) will increase the min and max damage of the weapon, only by a slight amount, but significant enough. On top of that your weapon skills will have a much greater effect as well.

Refer to here for more information: http://www.guildwarsguru.com/content...nics-id674.php

I thought I'd just add a little more depth to the skins explanations above.

Sometimes, weapons will have identical stats but a different appearance. In those cases, the weapons have different "skins." For example, nearly all swords have identical possible stats. The only difference that makes a Fellblade or a Crystaline Sword more expensive than a Long Sword or Wingblade is its appearance, its skin.

Some weapons, however, will have a functional difference that may or may not be accompanied by a difference of appearance. A Fiery Dragon sword, for example, while definitely having a unique appearance, also has the limitation that it can only ever deal fire damage (you can't change the sword hilt that determines damage type). So when someone refers to a Fiery Dragon Sword, they're talking about not only a unique skin, but also a different weapon than a normal sword.

The bottom line is that all weapons will have two classifications. One is what their stats behave as. The second is what their appearance looks like.

So when someone says they've found a rare gold skin, the fact that it's gold means its stats are likely to be great and the fact that it has a rare skin means it will look nice too.

sigils are like 19k now, and do not worry about guild hall there is nothing to do there, its for gvg only and you are a long way off from that

as far as not meeting weapon requirements: if you do not meet the requirement the weapon acts just like the "starter" weapon it coincides with so for a sword thats like 3-5 damage. works the same for all things, shields, bows, staffs, focus

Welcome to GW - Hope you have a great time playing.

1. Skins are what the weapon looks like, the only thing you can do to change the appearance is to dye the weapon, but it doesn't show up well on many.

2. What I do with atribute points is adjust them to the skills I'm using - If I'm not carrying and strength skills, why put any points in it? Nice thing is, you can change them around as you change your build.

3. Stacking modifiers add up - say if you have Knight's armor, you can get -1 absorbtion on each piece, but as they don't stack, you only get -1 total. Now, if you add a Rune of Minor Absorbtion, you get an additional -1 giving you a total of -2 (stacks with the armor). But if you add another minor absorbtion, it won't stack (No runes stack), so you still have the -2. (If you add a Major Absorbton, it will go to -3::: -1 for the armor, -2 for the Rune)

4 & 5. I'm playing a W/E and having a lot of fun doing it. There are limitations for the Elemental side because of the low energy a Warrior can have (Get Gladiator's armor to help that), but if you only use 1 or 2 elemental skills to compliment the Warrior skills, you should have no problems. And YES you can change secondary professions in the latter part ofthe game.

6. There is a lot of trial and error in equiping your character for missions, especially your first time through - but the early stages of the game are set up so you can experiment with different builds & skills without getting beaten up too badly. And your build consists of attribute points, skills and armor/weapons that you're equiped with.

7. No penalty there - the requirement is for how many attribute points you have in that attribute. The only time your level comes into play is if you don't have enough attribute points to spend on it.

8. The "Unidentified" mark applies to the modifiers of the weapon, not the damage or damage requirements.

9. "Clean" weapons don't have any modifiers on them. you can tell if there's a modifier if you see a prefix or a suffix in the weapon's name: FIERY Chaos Axe of FORTITUDE, for example - If it were "Clean" it would be "Chaos Axe."

10. Max damage varies from weapon to weapon. Axes: 6- 28, Swords, rods, and staffs: 11-22, Hammers: 19-35, Bows: 15-28

One of Guild Wars greatest feature is that it has a very smooth learning curve, because there's no penalty for any mistakes. You are free to distribute your attribute points however you like, use whatever skills you want, and use anyone weapons you find. Once you've go beyond lvl 12 or so, you should already have a good understanding of how the game works, and by lvl 20 you will be able to answer most of these questions.

Have fun.

Knights and Ascalon Armour is -2 damage, not -1.

Sword damage is 15-22, not 11-22.

You can't do full dmg the req is attribute of swords or whaterver, if you have any other mods on the sword like enchant u can use that but just not full dmg