Hi, new to GW. - Guild Wars Forums

Anti-Flag · Oct 20, 2006, 01:52 AM // 01:52

Hello, I just started Guild Wars two days ago. I play the Prophecies campaign currently with no access to Factions. So far I'm pretty hooked. I'm playing on a Ranger/Mesmer which is really enjoyable but came up upon some questions that I'd hope you'd be willing to answer.

First, I haven't partied yet as I've found that I can do most things with just my henchmen. Will I be able to go through the entire campaign this way? I think I am still not playing my class properly and maybe a party would benefit me, but I haven't found a need for one yet. Although I just made it to Yak's Bend and I find it to be incredibly difficult as the enemies seem to swarm over my mage and healer henchmen!

Is there a certain way my attributes should be distributed? I've been putting quite a few into Marksmanship and Expertise, but with my shortbow I'm still only doing about 20 damage with my specials sometimes hitting upwards of 40-50.

Should I bother bringing my pet? He's level 11 but not doing an extreme amount of damage and he takes up a slot on my bar.

These are all the questions that have arisen right now, I thought I had more. If you can, please take the time to answer them.

FrOzEnMaGe · Oct 20, 2006, 02:14 AM // 02:14

first off, welcome to guildwars,

-the game is made so you'd need a party sooner or later and no its VERY hard to play with henchs in later missions.. some people can do them with hench but not their first time.
its also fun to play with people, they can help you out when needed and the best way is really to join a guild or even start your own and invite your own friends.

-try getting a bow with higher dmg on it "15-28" is max in this game, and also try to meet the req. "amount of points in marks" needed for the bow to do the full amount of dmg. [side note] best way id use a ranger is by using skills that add more dmg called preperations such as "ignight arrows" or can do dmg-over-time by poisoning the target with the skill "apply poison"
*basic arrow will always seem low.

-in PvE pets seem to be a bit useless "the dmg output part" but at higher levels they seem to tank good.

try this site for more inside info on anything that has to do with guildwars:
www.guildwiki.org

Kook~NBK~ · Oct 20, 2006, 03:36 AM // 03:36

Welcome! Glad to hear you're enjoying yourself!

Yak's Bend is where things start getting tough. You can get things done with henchmen, but it keeps getting tougher as you progress through the game. Getting into groups with real players (PUGs) generally helps out, but sometimes things don't go so well with them either. Taking the mage henchman isn't recommended, he casts Fire Storm, which has it's neat graphics, but scatters the enemies. (He usually sets it off just as the last enemy is dying anyway!)

Setting up your skills and attributes is the trickiest part of the game. Does this skill work well with that one? What defenses do I have? All that stuff. Most of your skills should come from 1 or 2 attributes. What I do is set up my skill bar first, then set my attribute points to cover the skills I've got set. (tip: Ignite Arrows is a very nice skill for the Yak's bend area) With the damage you're doing at this point, you're doing just fine.

To deal with enemies "swarming," try pulling. What this does is brings smaller groups (3 or 4 baddies) out and away from large groups. That way, you're not taking on more than you can handle. A long bow is very good for this.

Having your pet along gives you another body to help keep the enemies away from the back lines. Try running without it and see if it suits your playing style better.

Vermilion Okeanos · Oct 20, 2006, 04:21 AM // 04:21

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/content...ies-id1092.php <--- short read, basic

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/content...ies-id1275.php <--- short read, basic

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/content...nics-id674.php <--- important

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/gameplay-id276.php <---- read it at your own pace

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10062447 <---- may help you get use to the forum and extract info.

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...ad.php?t=89491 <---- you will want to know this

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s....php?t=3047282 <---- want to make yourself pretty looking? this is it

l)l2UNl( · Oct 20, 2006, 05:06 AM // 05:06

well lets see i would definitly want to get a party cause later on it will be very hard with just henchmen especially if youre r/me and the pets will start becoming useless...

DeanBB · Oct 20, 2006, 03:24 PM // 15:24

Good advice so far and getting in a good, friendly guild can be a big help and make the game more fun.

Pets really need to be treated like any other skill line to be truly useful in normal settings, aside from ranger B/P farming teams. You wouldn't use your bow with only 2 points in marksmanship and expect it to be good so using a pet without investing in Beastmastery and equiping some pet attacks is the same kinda thing.

Whether I use my pet or not even with low attributes just depends on what I'm doing. Sometimes I just want to bring it along to level it up and the area isn't terribly challenging to where I can equip charm + comfort without worrying about lowering my effectiveness.

If I were using traps I'd definitely leave it behind as I wouldn't want it drawing aggro and blocking the critters from hitting the traps.

Doing damage + interrupts it can be useful as another tank, drawing attacks to lessen damage to the team. If you find it gets slaughtered too quick and is just disabling your attacks then perhaps that is not the best time to use it though.

Alex Weekes · Oct 20, 2006, 03:48 PM // 15:48

Welcome to Tyria

.

Looks like there's some good advice already been passed on. I wanted to comment, however, that it *is* possible to do the storyline stuff with just henchmen. It'll take time, and it takes a lot of patience with the idiosyncracies of the hench AI, but it can be done. Later missions especially can be extremely difficult with henchmen teams.

The addition of just one more human player to your groups can make a huge difference. Oh and of course, with Nightfall soon to release there will be improvements to your ability to control the henchmen and therefore it will become easier to complete the story on your own (or with a regular playing partner) if you do not feel like joining up with human groups.

Anti-Flag · Oct 20, 2006, 04:17 PM // 16:17

Thank you all for the replies. And also thank you for the links, I'm slowly reading through those when I get time away from the game. I had my first human party last night, between level 11-14, and we ran through two missions in the Snowy areas. And it is definitely a different experience, there were less things for me to worry about and was just a whole lot smoother overall. However, my pet seems to just run off on his own sometimes. As I'm fighting, he seems to just do his own thing, especially when I'm trying to retreat. Is there special commands to specifically control the animal or is he just a hero for distracting the monsters for us while we run?

Now with the expansion coming out so soon, if I were to purchase it when it was released, can I just bring my Ranger through the campaign of that? Or do I want to finish the campaign with all the characters?

Vermilion Okeanos · Oct 20, 2006, 04:34 PM // 16:34

Once you reach a certain point of the storyline, you can travel to another campaign. For prophecy, you need to reach Lion's Arch (the major city of Tyria). For Faction you need Kaineng Center. Nightfall would have another town that I do not know the name of. From these places, you can recieve a quest if you were to combine your CD-key into one account, and use that quest to travel between campaigns (continents).

You can switch campaign anytime you want after that, just by clicking the boat icon near the major city once you press M to call up the map.

Whether you want to or not... well, that's for you to decide.

Akhilleus · Oct 20, 2006, 04:44 PM // 16:44

to answer your question about pets...
unlike with WoW, there are no specific pet commands (there are skills you can equip on YOUR skillbar and use on your pet)such as attack, retreat, etc.
in general your pet should attack the target you attack, but getting them to retreat can be annoying.
my suggestion to you, honestly, is to remove your pet from your skillbar, as well as all pet skills, and sub them out for preperations, damage attacks, or defensive stances (or a ressurection signet/skill if you dont already have on on there). why? because while pets are useful, unlike with most rpgs where you have pets, they take a while to learn how to use propperly, a skill which is best learned after you figure out how to use the ranger itself in regular combat.
though, this is just my opinion. that having been said, my ranger was my first character, and i figured out reasonably quickly, regular attack skills would overtime do more damage than my pet, unless i equipped further pet skills (at the cost of my own characters damage/defense).

Anti-Flag · Oct 21, 2006, 03:20 AM // 03:20

Another question comes to mind when I was playing, I'm level 15 now and I just got a Signet of Capture. I read the information Wiki had on it, but I was wondering - How will I know if the monster is carrying a skill I can use? And should I just carry around this signet everywhere I go? And how much does it cost to purchase a new one once I've used this?

Knightsaber Sith · Oct 21, 2006, 04:22 AM // 04:22

You can only cap a skill from a boss of your primary or secondary profession. You can only get "elite" skills through the cap sig, but you can also use it to get regular skills. Really the only time to use it for non-elites is in Tyria if you want a skill before you get to a trainer offering that skill (in Factions pretty much all the skills are available early on).

The cost of another cap sig is one skill point and some money depending on how many skills you've purchased already. Basically it costs the same as any regular skill. You can carry it around everywhere if you want to, but most people use it to go after a specific skill. You can look on guildwiki for what bosses have what skills and where they can be found.

*You can spot the bosses cause they're glowie and the color of the glow indicates their profession and they usually have unique names. You can tell elite skills cause they have a yellow border around them.

Kook~NBK~ · Oct 21, 2006, 06:59 AM // 06:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anti-Flag

Another question comes to mind when I was playing, I'm level 15 now and I just got a Signet of Capture. I read the information Wiki had on it, but I was wondering - How will I know if the monster is carrying a skill I can use? And should I just carry around this signet everywhere I go? And how much does it cost to purchase a new one once I've used this?

2 things that tell you an enemy is a Boss - first, it has a glowing aura (Yellow = Warrior, Blue = Monk, Pinkish purple = Mesmer, Red = Elementalist, Dark Green = Necro, green = Ranger [sorry, i can't tell diff. between the 2 greens, LOL]) Second, the bosses have names, like "Ipillu Whupwup" (there are couple of Mursaat Bosses in Ice Floe that don't have names, but they're the only ones)

Most people save their capture signets for Elite skills that begin to appear in the desert area. As you buy skills & capture signets, the price will go up each time you do, until the price hits 1k. So be selective in which skills you buy or capture, as not only do they cost money, they also cost 1 skill point each. You can buy additional capture signets at skill traders from Lion's Arch on.

EDIT: Here's a link for a complete guide to elite skills locations: http://www.xennon.co.uk/eliteskills/#ele

Thomas.knbk · Oct 21, 2006, 07:20 AM // 07:20

Hi and welcome to guild wars
The only way to know for sure if the boss you're going to face has a skill you want, is looking it up on GuildWiki.
Oh, and congratulations on not making a W/Mo

draxynnic · Oct 24, 2006, 03:36 AM // 03:36

I've found, depending on your build, the henchmen start to get a little lackluster after you hit Kryta. There are, unfortunately, some missions where the current henchmen controls are inadequate (although this will be improved with Nightfall), where you need a character filling a particular role that isn't fulfilled by the henchmen (usually interruption - Monk bosses later on can prove very difficult to kill unless you can shut them down) or when the henchmen just don't have the power to take down the enemy (usually in Kryta and the Jungle). However, I haven't found any quest that I haven't been able to hench - and there are even people around who have claimed to have henched the entire game, but I wouldn't suggest trying it as a newcomer to the game, and I'm willing to bet they were playing Rangers or Mesmers. So you're halfway there

.

As Alex said, however, one or two good human players at your side can make all the difference - in fact, there have been times when I've failed with a PuG, then come back with a couple of competant people backed up with hench (sometimes even people from that same PuG) and passed with flying colours. Artificial intelligence may leave a little to be desired, but it is better than natural stupidity - although I do find that examples of true stupidity aren't quite as common as you may think by reading the forums.

Regarding going to other campaigns... With Factions, be aware that you'll be going straight into a level 20 area. You'll have level 20 henchmen, so if you did so it'll be a chance to get powerlevelled and pick up some new skills (possibly even an elite or two), but on the other hand you yourself will be low for the area, and when you return to Tyria you may find that the enemies stop giving you experience for a while. It's up to you, really - just keep in mind that some Core and Prophecies skills can be acquired via quests, so you may want to consider holding off on purchasing some skills until you can get them on quests. On the other hand, you may find a particular skill so glorious that getting it early is worth the cost of buying a skill rather than acquiring it from a quest.

With Nightfall - I don't know how quickly you'll get heroes from jumping into Elona from overseas, but I'd suggest getting heroes as soon as you can. You'll find Kryta and Maguuma Jungle much less frustrating with heroes at your side - they may (or may not) start off lower level than your henchies, but they'll probably overtake your henchies in short order.

Oct 20, 2006, 01:52 AM // 01:52	#1
Anti-Flag Pre-Searing Cadet Join Date: Oct 2006 Profession: R/Me	Hi, new to GW. Hello, I just started Guild Wars two days ago. I play the Prophecies campaign currently with no access to Factions. So far I'm pretty hooked. I'm playing on a Ranger/Mesmer which is really enjoyable but came up upon some questions that I'd hope you'd be willing to answer. First, I haven't partied yet as I've found that I can do most things with just my henchmen. Will I be able to go through the entire campaign this way? I think I am still not playing my class properly and maybe a party would benefit me, but I haven't found a need for one yet. Although I just made it to Yak's Bend and I find it to be incredibly difficult as the enemies seem to swarm over my mage and healer henchmen! Is there a certain way my attributes should be distributed? I've been putting quite a few into Marksmanship and Expertise, but with my shortbow I'm still only doing about 20 damage with my specials sometimes hitting upwards of 40-50. Should I bother bringing my pet? He's level 11 but not doing an extreme amount of damage and he takes up a slot on my bar. These are all the questions that have arisen right now, I thought I had more. If you can, please take the time to answer them.

Oct 20, 2006, 02:14 AM // 02:14	#2
FrOzEnMaGe Frost Gate Guardian Join Date: Jul 2005	first off, welcome to guildwars, -the game is made so you'd need a party sooner or later and no its VERY hard to play with henchs in later missions.. some people can do them with hench but not their first time. its also fun to play with people, they can help you out when needed and the best way is really to join a guild or even start your own and invite your own friends. -try getting a bow with higher dmg on it "15-28" is max in this game, and also try to meet the req. "amount of points in marks" needed for the bow to do the full amount of dmg. [side note] best way id use a ranger is by using skills that add more dmg called preperations such as "ignight arrows" or can do dmg-over-time by poisoning the target with the skill "apply poison" basic arrow will always seem low. -in PvE pets seem to be a bit useless "the dmg output part" but at higher levels they seem to tank good. try this site for more inside info on anything that has to do with guildwars: www.guildwiki.org Last edited by FrOzEnMaGe; Oct 20, 2006 at 02:23 AM // 02:23..*

Oct 20, 2006, 03:36 AM // 03:36	#3
Kook~NBK~ Grotto Attendant Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: A little chalet outside Drok's Guild: Natural Born Killaz	Welcome! Glad to hear you're enjoying yourself! Yak's Bend is where things start getting tough. You can get things done with henchmen, but it keeps getting tougher as you progress through the game. Getting into groups with real players (PUGs) generally helps out, but sometimes things don't go so well with them either. Taking the mage henchman isn't recommended, he casts Fire Storm, which has it's neat graphics, but scatters the enemies. (He usually sets it off just as the last enemy is dying anyway!) Setting up your skills and attributes is the trickiest part of the game. Does this skill work well with that one? What defenses do I have? All that stuff. Most of your skills should come from 1 or 2 attributes. What I do is set up my skill bar first, then set my attribute points to cover the skills I've got set. (tip: Ignite Arrows is a very nice skill for the Yak's bend area) With the damage you're doing at this point, you're doing just fine. To deal with enemies "swarming," try pulling. What this does is brings smaller groups (3 or 4 baddies) out and away from large groups. That way, you're not taking on more than you can handle. A long bow is very good for this. Having your pet along gives you another body to help keep the enemies away from the back lines. Try running without it and see if it suits your playing style better.

Oct 20, 2006, 04:21 AM // 04:21	#4
Vermilion Okeanos Forge Runner Join Date: Feb 2005	http://www.guildwarsguru.com/content...ies-id1092.php <--- short read, basic http://www.guildwarsguru.com/content...ies-id1275.php <--- short read, basic http://www.guildwarsguru.com/content...nics-id674.php <--- important http://www.guildwarsguru.com/gameplay-id276.php <---- read it at your own pace http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10062447 <---- may help you get use to the forum and extract info. http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...ad.php?t=89491 <---- you will want to know this http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s....php?t=3047282 <---- want to make yourself pretty looking? this is it

Oct 20, 2006, 05:06 AM // 05:06	#5
l)l2UNl( Frost Gate Guardian Join Date: Oct 2006	well lets see i would definitly want to get a party cause later on it will be very hard with just henchmen especially if youre r/me and the pets will start becoming useless...

Oct 20, 2006, 03:24 PM // 15:24	#6
DeanBB Forge Runner Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Arizona Guild: Wizardry Players Guild, http://4guildwars.7.forumer.com	Good advice so far and getting in a good, friendly guild can be a big help and make the game more fun. Pets really need to be treated like any other skill line to be truly useful in normal settings, aside from ranger B/P farming teams. You wouldn't use your bow with only 2 points in marksmanship and expect it to be good so using a pet without investing in Beastmastery and equiping some pet attacks is the same kinda thing. Whether I use my pet or not even with low attributes just depends on what I'm doing. Sometimes I just want to bring it along to level it up and the area isn't terribly challenging to where I can equip charm + comfort without worrying about lowering my effectiveness. If I were using traps I'd definitely leave it behind as I wouldn't want it drawing aggro and blocking the critters from hitting the traps. Doing damage + interrupts it can be useful as another tank, drawing attacks to lessen damage to the team. If you find it gets slaughtered too quick and is just disabling your attacks then perhaps that is not the best time to use it though.

Oct 20, 2006, 03:48 PM // 15:48	#7
Alex Weekes Krytan Explorer Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Brighton, UK	Welcome to Tyria . Looks like there's some good advice already been passed on. I wanted to comment, however, that it is possible to do the storyline stuff with just henchmen. It'll take time, and it takes a lot of patience with the idiosyncracies of the hench AI, but it can be done. Later missions especially can be extremely difficult with henchmen teams. The addition of just one more human player to your groups can make a huge difference. Oh and of course, with Nightfall soon to release there will be improvements to your ability to control the henchmen and therefore it will become easier to complete the story on your own (or with a regular playing partner) if you do not feel like joining up with human groups.

Oct 20, 2006, 04:17 PM // 16:17	#8
Anti-Flag Pre-Searing Cadet Join Date: Oct 2006 Profession: R/Me	Thank you all for the replies. And also thank you for the links, I'm slowly reading through those when I get time away from the game. I had my first human party last night, between level 11-14, and we ran through two missions in the Snowy areas. And it is definitely a different experience, there were less things for me to worry about and was just a whole lot smoother overall. However, my pet seems to just run off on his own sometimes. As I'm fighting, he seems to just do his own thing, especially when I'm trying to retreat. Is there special commands to specifically control the animal or is he just a hero for distracting the monsters for us while we run? Now with the expansion coming out so soon, if I were to purchase it when it was released, can I just bring my Ranger through the campaign of that? Or do I want to finish the campaign with all the characters?

Oct 20, 2006, 04:34 PM // 16:34	#9
Vermilion Okeanos Forge Runner Join Date: Feb 2005	Once you reach a certain point of the storyline, you can travel to another campaign. For prophecy, you need to reach Lion's Arch (the major city of Tyria). For Faction you need Kaineng Center. Nightfall would have another town that I do not know the name of. From these places, you can recieve a quest if you were to combine your CD-key into one account, and use that quest to travel between campaigns (continents). You can switch campaign anytime you want after that, just by clicking the boat icon near the major city once you press M to call up the map. Whether you want to or not... well, that's for you to decide.

Oct 20, 2006, 04:44 PM // 16:44	#10
Akhilleus Forge Runner Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: If it aint expensive, it aint worth buyin'. Guild: Leading/Co-leading Bretheren Of Chaos [Dark] Profession: W/Mo	to answer your question about pets... unlike with WoW, there are no specific pet commands (there are skills you can equip on YOUR skillbar and use on your pet)such as attack, retreat, etc. in general your pet should attack the target you attack, but getting them to retreat can be annoying. my suggestion to you, honestly, is to remove your pet from your skillbar, as well as all pet skills, and sub them out for preperations, damage attacks, or defensive stances (or a ressurection signet/skill if you dont already have on on there). why? because while pets are useful, unlike with most rpgs where you have pets, they take a while to learn how to use propperly, a skill which is best learned after you figure out how to use the ranger itself in regular combat. though, this is just my opinion. that having been said, my ranger was my first character, and i figured out reasonably quickly, regular attack skills would overtime do more damage than my pet, unless i equipped further pet skills (at the cost of my own characters damage/defense).

Oct 21, 2006, 03:20 AM // 03:20	#11
Anti-Flag Pre-Searing Cadet Join Date: Oct 2006 Profession: R/Me	Another question comes to mind when I was playing, I'm level 15 now and I just got a Signet of Capture. I read the information Wiki had on it, but I was wondering - How will I know if the monster is carrying a skill I can use? And should I just carry around this signet everywhere I go? And how much does it cost to purchase a new one once I've used this?

Oct 21, 2006, 04:22 AM // 04:22	#12
Knightsaber Sith Furnace Stoker Join Date: Aug 2006 Guild: Few Fallen Heroes [FFH] Profession: W/E	You can only cap a skill from a boss of your primary or secondary profession. You can only get "elite" skills through the cap sig, but you can also use it to get regular skills. Really the only time to use it for non-elites is in Tyria if you want a skill before you get to a trainer offering that skill (in Factions pretty much all the skills are available early on). The cost of another cap sig is one skill point and some money depending on how many skills you've purchased already. Basically it costs the same as any regular skill. You can carry it around everywhere if you want to, but most people use it to go after a specific skill. You can look on guildwiki for what bosses have what skills and where they can be found. *You can spot the bosses cause they're glowie and the color of the glow indicates their profession and they usually have unique names. You can tell elite skills cause they have a yellow border around them.

Oct 21, 2006, 07:20 AM // 07:20	#14
Thomas.knbk Forge Runner Join Date: Jul 2006	Hi and welcome to guild wars The only way to know for sure if the boss you're going to face has a skill you want, is looking it up on GuildWiki. Oh, and congratulations on not making a W/Mo

Oct 24, 2006, 03:36 AM // 03:36	#15
draxynnic Furnace Stoker Join Date: Nov 2005 Guild: [CRFH]	I've found, depending on your build, the henchmen start to get a little lackluster after you hit Kryta. There are, unfortunately, some missions where the current henchmen controls are inadequate (although this will be improved with Nightfall), where you need a character filling a particular role that isn't fulfilled by the henchmen (usually interruption - Monk bosses later on can prove very difficult to kill unless you can shut them down) or when the henchmen just don't have the power to take down the enemy (usually in Kryta and the Jungle). However, I haven't found any quest that I haven't been able to hench - and there are even people around who have claimed to have henched the entire game, but I wouldn't suggest trying it as a newcomer to the game, and I'm willing to bet they were playing Rangers or Mesmers. So you're halfway there . As Alex said, however, one or two good human players at your side can make all the difference - in fact, there have been times when I've failed with a PuG, then come back with a couple of competant people backed up with hench (sometimes even people from that same PuG) and passed with flying colours. Artificial intelligence may leave a little to be desired, but it is better than natural stupidity - although I do find that examples of true stupidity aren't quite as common as you may think by reading the forums. Regarding going to other campaigns... With Factions, be aware that you'll be going straight into a level 20 area. You'll have level 20 henchmen, so if you did so it'll be a chance to get powerlevelled and pick up some new skills (possibly even an elite or two), but on the other hand you yourself will be low for the area, and when you return to Tyria you may find that the enemies stop giving you experience for a while. It's up to you, really - just keep in mind that some Core and Prophecies skills can be acquired via quests, so you may want to consider holding off on purchasing some skills until you can get them on quests. On the other hand, you may find a particular skill so glorious that getting it early is worth the cost of buying a skill rather than acquiring it from a quest. With Nightfall - I don't know how quickly you'll get heroes from jumping into Elona from overseas, but I'd suggest getting heroes as soon as you can. You'll find Kryta and Maguuma Jungle much less frustrating with heroes at your side - they may (or may not) start off lower level than your henchies, but they'll probably overtake your henchies in short order.