Advice on getting the max survivor title with a monk

I am thinking about trying to get the top survivor title with a new monk and was wondering where you guys would suggest leveling, for safe and (reasonably) fast experience? My old monk has 55hp gear, but I don't think I want to risk 55hp with this monk, since one death and it is a reroll.

Have any of you gotten the max survivor title (or even the second) with your monk? If so, where did you level, and did you use hench, or a solo build?

Thanks,
Jun Stormweaver

P.S. I have both factions and prophecy

Start on Shing Jea and level yourself solo on mantisses until lvl 7. They are easy to kill, even for a monk, and can even lvl you until lvl 8, if you are patient.
Do every secundary profession quest possible, but don't collect at Master Togo untill you've done them all. Do every quest possible on the Island. When you have played it well, you'll be lvl 17 when you leave the island.
After the Island go to Lion's Arch as fast as possible, don't do anymore quests in Cantha, until you at least have done the Desert and decended. Once you have decended, do the Dragon's Lair for Word of Healing (Elona's Reach?).
After that, you go back to Cantha and make sure to team up with lvl 20 players only. That is not fail-save, but the most secure way.
A better way would be to join a good guild who are willing to help you with your quests.

[QUOTE=Silent Kitty]After the Island go to Lion's Arch as fast as possible, don't do anymore quests in Cantha, until you at least have done the Desert and decended. Once you have decended, do the Dragon's Lair for Word of Healing (Elona's Reach?).[QUOTE]

Ascended

Word of Healing is located in the 3 desert missions of ascention. I recomend trying to cap it in thirsty. Get a run through elona. and fight dunes. Also don't attempt to be ran to droks. You'll never make it through dreadnoughts drift alive. XD

Brother Gilburt

Quote: Ascended

Word of Healing is located in the 3 desert missions of ascention. I recomend trying to cap it in thirsty. Get a run through elona. and fight dunes. Also don't attempt to be ran to droks. You'll never make it through dreadnoughts drift alive. XD

Brother Gilburt At that time you'll be lvl 20, so you should be able to survive that. It is just degen you have to fight. Breeze and some Orisons will help you there.
Anyway, getting yourself ran to Droks doesn't give you the survivor title. It even lessens the chance. The storyline quests are pretty easy, even with pugs. You'll have your survivor title about when you arrive in Sanctum Cay. That is just before the desert, and still much easier than anything around Droks.
I have a healer (Lvl 18), who is going that way, currently just did the Wilds mission.
I am to busy farming, so I'll continue my journey later. I am pretty sure that I'll get the first Survivor title soon

My goal was rank 2, Indomitable Survivor, playing the game straight-up. By that I mean if I was in a group and death seemed certain, I would not quit out to avoid it. It entailed always keeping sure the party would not wipe.

Mooncloth Bandages got off the island at 18, Mo/Me. A few quick easy quests in Wajjun Bazaar and I had my first rank. I then just proceeded to find XP anywhere I could. When I completed the Imperial Sanctum mission I was less than 10k from rank 2. I cashed in a bunch of commendations and things for the XP scrolls and did some grinding in Ferndale and Pongmei Valley. Eventually an Am Fah Assassin yielded the XP I needed for rank 2! I ended up making it to 664k of 1337k xp for Rank 3 before I died needlessly trying to get masters on Unwaking Waters Luxon side even though I already had it Kurzick side. :/

Here are some tips:
Upgrade your armor ASAP. On my non-survivor chars I will often skip buying new armor until I get off Shing Jea because I know how quickly you can get the highest AL armor. If you want the Survivor title, you should not be doing this. Since I primarly boonprot, I chose the +10 armor while enchanted set.

Self-preservation, duh. I also use a +5 energy under 50% health wand because if I drop under 50% health at low energy, I'm guaranteed that I will have 5 energy to heal myself. When I'm out doing stuff with henchmen I take Assassin secondary for Dark Escape.

Take advantage of the 5k xp from capturing elite skills. Getting the first rank in the skill collector title would be 450k.

Getting a run to Droks is possible but iffy. I think it was Snake Run that I zoned into and basically had agro right off the bat. You'll need to run and heal right away. Dark Escape is useful here.

Find good areas to grind in. I used henchies for quests and mapping and pugs for missions. While out with henchies figure out if you can drop some to increase your xp gain per kill.

Quests, do them all. Factions quests hand out an absurd amount of XP. There are a number that give you 10k on hand-in. In fact, once you make it off the island, there is something like 50k+ xp in very easy quests to do in Wajjun Bazaar. Just do the initial part of the Seek out Brother Tosai quest and you're free to run around 95% of the zone with no agro doing the easy quests.

Try here for some more feedback.

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s....php?t=3030423

Quote: Originally Posted by Silent Kitty

Start on Shing Jea and level yourself solo on mantisses until lvl 7. They are easy to kill, even for a monk, and can even lvl you until lvl 8, if you are patient. I usually only level from 2 to 3 at the start as I can't be bothered spending too much time farming XP on the Mantises. I did it once, but then died later and had to reroll. After that I looked back on the Mantis farming as an unnecesary grind considering how much exp it takes to get to each Survivor level, and the experience gained from quests. More care and less grind I thought. It also wasn't very fun .

Thanks for the guys,

I am kind of doing a bit of what all of you are suggesting.
I like the idea about the wand!
Right now I am at 450k xp: Here is what I have done so far...

Level 1-3: Mantids (with assasin hench)

Level 3-7: Naga, Tengu (with assasin hench) (In retrospect this was not needed, I could have just done the 13-16 part longer)

Level 7-13: Secondary Profession Quests (war, rit, healer hench)

Level 13-16: Dragon Lilys (with assasin, war, healer hench)

Level 16-20(160k): Shing Jea quests/missions (full hench)

160k-444k: I have done all the quests, missions and zones up to Tanaki Temple (I have also beek capping elite skills (27 so far)). The part of factions I am doing right now is not that bad. I am assuming it will get harder.

Next up: Tanaki Temple...

- I am mainly using hench when possible. I am useing all ranged hench so that I can control how many groups my henchmen activate.

- My skill bar right now is: Orison, Healing Touch, Word, Breeze, Heal Party, Healing Seed, Cap Skill, and Rebirth. I know healing breeze is ineficient, but I like having three skills that I can heal myself with.

- The one mission so far that I had to group with people was the second mission: Vizunah Square. When we did it, the second group never showed up, so it was scary.


Here are some questions that I have for you guys:

I am new to factions. Are there any quests or missions that I really have to watch out for? Which ones do you think I need to group for?

I am noticing that factions gives a LOT more experience than prophecy. I am pretty confident that I could do prophecy most of the way without dying, but I am not sure how much it would help unless I capped all the elites... does factions start to get as hard / harder than zones like iceflow?

Thanks,
Sen Fi - hoping to make survivor 2

make 55 monk
buy a lot of xp scrolls
farm trolls

Quote: Originally Posted by phasola

Make a Canthan Monk (don't forget to get 0.9% exploration in the tutorial if you're going for that title!) and then go through the entire Shing Jea island (you should be about level 15 by now). Then run yourself to Kaineng City (it's easy, you won't come across any enemies). Go to Lion's Arch and get a run to and through Sanctum Cay, and then to Elona's Reach.
Get the skills Spirit Bond and Protective Spirit and a skill you like to kill with, get the 15 Armor Sheperd's Armor (from the Shing Jea Monestary), make sure your Health is 600+ and farm Minotaurs in Elona's Reach untill you're a Legendary Survivor.

Quote: Originally Posted by Jerich

Make a tyrian monk. Get all the skills in the pre sear then advance(You will be around level 3or4). Be sure to bring lots of self heals for the battle and kide in the corner and try not to be noticed. If they see you and kill you heal your self like mad. Then get straight runs all the way to amnoon. Now get the desert collectors armor or at least armor from amnoon oasis(You will need help from higher levels to get the desert collectors armor at this point). Now go back to ascalon and do some of the quests and missions to earn XP and skills. Do Althea's Quests and some or all of the missions at least. Also you can get power leavelers in Elona and Augury. I recommend you get 1 in Elona. Hydras Metoer can own a lower level if the notice you. When your higher level do some of the shiverpeak quests.

When your level 20 and have a decent amount of skills from quests and purchasing Get the collectors armor(If you didn't try getting it at a lower level). Now get ascended. You can hench Dunes. If you can get warriors to dual or solo thirsty(if they still can) do so. If you have to fight thirsty be careful and stay back. If you group looks like they won't make it you might want to quit and start over(warn them your going for survival before you start). Get a run through elona(You can get a run through it earlies if you wish to get the XP from the mission and bonus)

After your ascended all you have to do is beat the doppleganger. I'm not sure how you should kill him but whatever you do be careful! After you beat him hench dragons layer. Bring Heal Party and rebirth in your build. If the henchmen start dieing to run! Then resurrect them later with rebirth. And at the end don't try to kill glint! Now buy droks ascentics armor. Now play out the rest of the game with people!

Brother Gilburt

Quote: Originally Posted by Jerich

Quote: Originally Posted by Jerich

Yeah, I will try again, but perhaps not right away. This time, I think I am just going to try and get through missions to the end of the game without dieing. If I can do that, I will go back and do the caps. That way, I get most of the high risk stuff out of the way before doing the less high risk, more time consuming parts.

Thanks,
Sen Fi (Now remade as Seng Fi=P)

Edit - I died in a part of the temple that I really shouldn't have. In the Ritualist room, Mhenlo decided to run ahead for some reason and agro the entire room. When I went to heal him (mistake I know), all the elementalists decided to mind burn me at once. In hind site, I probably should have pulled the first few guardiants in the room with a long bow instead of using proximity pulling.

Yes, use your long bow and reteat a bit before the arrow hits. That way you don't instantly lose all your henchies, and you'll have a lesser chance in aggroing the whole mob. Not very likely, but there still is a chance. At least the henchies will retreat with you, since they only attack when your arrow hits.

Thanks for the longbow advice Kitty, it worked great! Since so many people in this thread suggested going the 55 route, I decided to try it. I wanted to test how hard it is to cap SOJ without being run and without dieing. Here is how it went:

Levelign Up
1. Leveled from 1-20 -Shing Jae Island: no problem as usual. I tried the longbow and it made soloing things like captured son a lot easier. (about 8 hours)

Getting to the Desert
2. Took a group of hench from lion's arch to the toa to the seaboard. No problems. (about 2 hours)

3. Henched the seaboard. (half hour)

Getting To Droks
4. Henched my way to all 6 to desert areas, henched elona's and dunes. (4 hours) (Long bow made this easier than it would have been. I was careful getting to dunes (take eastern side as the route) and thirsty river (after the first teleporter) since those are the most difficult parts of the run.)

5. Got a Pug for Thirsty River (they were not that good (they had been trying to do it all day), but we managed to finish it) (1 hour)

6. Ascended: Yeah! (half hour)

7. Henched Dragon's Lair. (1 hour)

Capping SOJ
8. Henched my way to the Granite Citidal (I had to finish the first mission and go from iron mines to copperhammer mines, since killing the first group in grenths caused problems). The hardest part was the group right before the granite citidal. (3 hours)

9. Henched my way into capping SOJ. (The groups of 5 aviak fierce were the worste part here) They almost killed me (< 200 life) twice. Other than those two groups of aviak fierce, capping was not that bad. (again, long bow pulling helped a lot).

Proceding to Farm
10. I was feeling pretty good about capping SOJ with no help and no deaths at this point so I started testing the troll run a few times on Jun Stormweaver, my non-survivor monk.

11. Ran trolls..... (overall you get about 5k xp per run with a blue scroll. that means I would need about 200 runs to get max survivor. Since runs take about 10 mins, that would be 40 hours. Not too bad.)

An Unanticipated Demise
12. During the 15th run, my connection lagged for a couple seconds right when prot spirit was blinking... when it came back I was dead! Overall I had 45 hours played, and 20k invested in my new monk. I was at 350k xp.


Thoughts

Viability of Capping SOJ without Help
Capping SOJ without dieing and without help is not too bad. I did get lucky a couple times I think in mineral springs, so you may not make it each time. So making a 55 hp survivor is not too terribly difficult.

Getting to Survivor by 55 hping?
But, I think that the 55 build is a bit too fragile to get to max survivor unless you always have perfect conectivity. I do have DSL, but sometimes guildwars lags for a couple seconds (rarely). I don't think 55 hp is viable for me.

Plans for the next attempt.
I have been testing Sprit bond and prot spirit on Jun. This build has several advantages over the 55 build. One, you save about 10k in runes. Two, if prot spirit wears off you don't immediately die. After experimenting with survivability, I think energy management is more important than damage, so here is the build I am thinking of using:

Prot Spirit, Spirit Bond, Zealot's Fire, Shield of Judgement, Blessed Sig, Blessed Aura, Balthazar's Spirit, Essence Bond.

Armor: 15 armor ascetics, Zealot's hat with a superior smiting, minor divine favor and minor protection.


What do you think? Think this next attempt will work better than 55 hping? Is there something you would modify about my suggested build?

Thanks,
Sen Fi, the third incarnation,

How I got to Survivor (and on my way to the 2nd and eventually 3rd Survivor title) is by solo'ing Minotaurs in Elona's Reach. I started a Canthan Monk (which got a Necromancer secondary proffesion) and bought him the Sheperd's Armor in the Shing Jea Monestary (which is needed for my solo'ing build) and completed the whole Shing Jea island. After that I ran myself from The Marketplace to Kaineng City and traveled to Lion's Arch. From there I got a run to and through Sanctum Cay and then a run to the three missions. I completed Dunes of Despair and Thirsty River with Henchmen and then got a run though Elona's Reach. Then also ascended (and so got to Droknar's Forge). I used a Protective Spirit/Spirid Bond build combined with Spiteful Spirit (which can be capped near Camp Rankor, and which you should be able to cap with Henchmen), there should be a PS/SB somewhere in the Monk section.
Solo'ing Minotaurs in Elona's Reach isn't that risky with the PS/SB build as with a 55 Health build. You can also solo Mountain Trolls near Droknar's Forge, but they're a bit harder and take longer, but they are l4 levels higher then Minotaurs, thus giving more experience. I used blue scrolls that double experience, since I find the gold ones to expensive It still takes quite long to get 1,337K experience, but it's doable. I hope to get there soon

And Jerich. You should consider capping Spiteful Spirit instead. It's easier to cap and the damage is great. You should also use a 15 Armor Sheperd's set and no Superior runes (you need more then 600 Health, so this'll make it far easier).

Quote: Originally Posted by Maxiemonster

Just play the game, do all missions capture all elites and try not to die, and since you're a monk, make sure noone else in your party dies either.

Thats how you should do it.

Or did you want an easy way out ?