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Jan 15, 2015, 11:13 PM // 23:13
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#1 |
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Ascalonian Squire
Join Date: Sep 2014
Profession: E/N
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Wolftail's Welcome Back Guide
Seeing how there are multiple people out there (even in gw2) that wish to go back or buy a new copy of gw1, I decided to make a guide showing off and describing various aspects of the game, content, the community, useful tools, as well as the current state the game of said aspects.
** Note to forum mods: I wasn't sure where to place this guide so i went on general discussion. Feel free to move it to a appropriate place if this one is wrong ** Contents of the guide: 1) The Community and the state of the game 2) PvE 2-X) Pre-Searing Ascalon 2-A) Embark beach 2-B) General PvE exploring, quests and missions. 2-C) Dungeons 2-D) Elite areas/dungeons 2-E) Farming items / Factions 2-F) Zaishen Missions 2-G) Events 2-H) Reputation Title ranks 3) PvP 3-X) Low level PvP arenas 3-A) Random Arenas 3-B) Codex Arena 3-C) Heroes Ascend 3-D) Guild Vs Guild 3-E) The Jade Quarry 3-F) Fort Aspenwood 3-G) Alliance Battles 3-H) Zaishen Challenge/Elite 4) The campaigns 4-A) Prophecies 4-B) Factions 4-C) Nightfall 4-D) Eye of the North 5) Resources, Apps, Tools 6) Few tips and tricks 1) The Community and the state of the game As we all know since the release of gw2, the population and the community in gw1 has been reduced. Is the game dead? Absolutely not! But what about all of those ghost towns and outposts where i never see anyone at all? You have to understand the position of the majority of the community and their habits. Gw1 is a 10 year old game now, most of the players that play the game now are old veterans. In 10 years they have all most likely been trough all the missions and quests several time (both in NM and HM). So what else is there to do for a long term veteran player? Elite zones, dungeons, speed clears, farming, helping out a guildie,Z-missions, Nick farming and other daily repeatable things to do in the game. This is why you most likely see other players in zones close to dungeons, elite areas, farming places, Holiday events as well as wherever the Z-missions take you. But Wolftal...Im nowhere near any of those "1337" areas..how can i play with other players? The best way to experience guild wars in any aspect of the game is to join a large alliance. You could also try a bit harder and find a few like minded friends and make your own guild (or join another one) and play together. NOTE: As said,the large part of the community are veterans, if you wish to follow them try following Z-quests as well as events. One day alliance battles can be deserted but as soon as that double alli battle reward event pop ups they will be full of players Also note that the entire population is siting in American District 1. Expect to play most of the NM missions,exploring and questing alone with henchmens (and heroes, you can have 7 heroes now in your party). But rest assured the harder parts of the game such as elite zones and dungeons are runned by player teams. 2) PvE 2-X) Pre-Searing Ascalon Pre-Searing Ascalon is a large tutorial area in Prophecies that has a constant community living in it. Because it is cut off from the rest of the game it has its own market,economy,community,short as well as long term goals. Short terms could be your daily nick farming for presents, getting the better collectors armor, or doing daily missions once lvl 10. Long terms could be leveling to lvl 20 for LdoA title, or using Nicks gifts for consumable titles. Farming Charr lands behind the wall to equip your self with the best possible purple weapons and mods. Runes and insignia's. If you wish to make some friends, chill back in guild wars this is one of the place you can go to. It has all the basic features of a "mmo" on a smaller scale. 2-A) Embark Beach In short, this is a town to create PUGs (pick up groups) This area can be reached the same way as you reach The Great Temple of Balthazar.There are also Zaishen Scouts in every Mission outposts that can take you there. The point of this zone is to place all players in a single town to advertise their LFG for various missions,dungeons as well as Z-missions. The Beach has several camps equipped with various NPCs and banks. Each camp represents a campaign and once you found a group for your mission you can talk to the Zaishen Scout and he will take you back to the mission outpost you wish to complete. At first glance the population in the Beach isn't impressive, but in my personal experience it took me around 3-5 minutes to find at least 1 other player to help me out with my mission You can also meet other players to trade here, or simply a location to create a party with your guild mates and enter directly to the mission outpost form there. 2-B) General PvE exploring, quests and missions Not much to say about exploring. You still follow the primary quests that lead you from mission to missions in order to progress trough the game. There are also side quests that reward you with exp, skill points, gold, skills, and sometimes a rare quest item (-50hp grim cesta is still worth 5k and used for 55 farmers) 2-C) Dungeons EotN Dungeons are still being runned tho as always there are some that are more popular than the others. Most people create a group within their own guilds, share a "meta" speed clear team build and run them.Tho they are also doable without those kind of builds. 2-D) Elite areas/dungeons Urgoz Warren, The Deep, UW, FoW, DoA ,even Sorrows Furnace. They are all runned frequently. The 2 faction elite areas are mostly runned by alliances in order to get faction that they can donate to said alliance. UW is mostly runned during halloween events since there are a lot of quests and rewards inside UW. FoW is being runned for obsi shards and armor. DoA is being explored and runned for maxing out reputation titles as well as farming. NOTE: As i said before, most veterans are doing these parts of the game. Expect Speed clears party to happen 90% of the time. Best way to do this content is to join a guild and alliance and do let the other team mates know if you have the skills for the SC build or if you even know how to SC the zone. You might be rejected sometimes, other times they will make a more casual team ,and sometimes they make learning teams as well. It all depends what sort of people there are in your guild /alli. 2-E) Farming items / Factions Farming items is mostly done solo. Tho some might say otherwise, currently Vaettir farming is the most fastest and easy farming there is in the game. Raptor farming is still viable with some specific builds and a specific class. Gates of Kryta is also good. NOTE: Some people farm only during special events so they get even more drops and profits (ToT bags form halloween drop nicely from monsters, but Gates of Kryta also drops decayed orr emblems that you can trade for even more consumables) As for Faction farming it all depends on your alliance. There are several Fast Faction Farming paths one could go, but sometimes they are completely ignored during special events such as double alliance battle rewards, or double Jade quarry faction rewards. NOTE: In case you didn't know there is also a Imperial faction now. You get it from doing any sort of faction farming and can be exchanged for any other faction there is (1 Kurzick/Luxon faction = 1 Imperial faction. Also 3 Imperial faction = 1 Balthazar faction) 2-F) Zaishen Missions Every day there are new Zaishen quests you can take (can only hold 3 at a time) in Embark Beach. Depending on the quest you might get gold, factions,but you also get Zaishen coins. You can exchange Z-coins (copper,silver and gold) for various rewards. From normal to elite tomes, consumables, extra weapon bags to very rare Envoy Weapons You can also spend them on unlocking new pets in the Zaishen Menagerie You also get extra rewards if you finish the quests in HM - Zaishen Mission Task: Finish a mission, extra rewards if you do the bonus, or on HM - Zaishen Bounty Task: Find and kill a boss. Extra rewards if done on HM. NOTE: Some bosses are in dungeons, also a nice way of capturing a elite skill - Zaishen Vanquish Task: Vanquish the area given by the quest. NOTE: Also a nice way to progress with the skill capture track,as well as VQ title, cartographer title, treasure hunter (as there are locked chests in HM) as well as wisdom hunter title. You can also make quite a profit selling unidentified items, elite tomes and other goodies that drop. - Zaishen Battle Task: Win in a specific PvP match. This quest can be repeatable by turning it in, switching districts and picking it up again. Depending on the type of pvp that you need to finish it can be a great way of farming faction as well as z-coins 2-G) Events Every week there are new events that,if rewarding enough,they might turn the community in a different direction. As mentioned before one day alliance battles might be completely abandoned,but once the double alli battle faction rewards pop up, its full of players. Holiday events are also very very popular. While not all holiday features are populated,others such as UW skelly farm during halloween is packed full of players. It was amazing to see so many random players grouping up and organizing each other in order to be able to gain a TON of rewards. So if you feel lonely and wish to see some other players try checking the events. To check the status of the Favor of the Gods type /Favor NOTE: While not a weekly event, Favor of the Gods is a thing to know about. This feature now increases the drop rates of rare items. Some players use this time to go farming. Know that rare items that are affected by this include things such as gold weapons and elite tomes, but NOT "rare" items such as armbraces or ecto. 2-H) Reputation Title ranks They changed the function of the rep title ranks such as Asura,Norn, Kurzick and other rank titles. As you might know, some rank skills scale with the rank of its title. Now you do not need to have a maxed Title rank in order to max the efficiency of your skills. For example, your Norn rank must be R5 to max the efficiency of all norn skills. Your Kurzick rank must be R6 to max out the efficiency of skills 3) PvP [/CENTER]3-X) Low level PvP arenas[/CENTER] Ascalon arena, Shiverpeek arena, Kamadan arena,Shing Jae arena. These are the arenas that you can only join only if you are in a specific range of lower levels. Most,if not all of these arenas are deserted. Of course you are free to get a friend to do it with. But considering you are required to be a low level it will be hard. 3-A) Random Arenas Not much to say about this. You join a 4v4 fight with random players from the RA outpost. This Arena is still somewhat populated 3-B) Codex Arena It is a 4v4 match with specific rules and limitations. Here are some of them. -Skills you may add to your bar are limited to a specific set of fixed and randomly changing skills -Most skills are changed each week on monday -You can only use elite skills form your own primary class. -Each team is only allowed to bring 1 type of primary profession to the team. You cant have 4 monks in team for example. -There are no henchmans and no heroes to pick up. You have to create your own teams The population of this is low-medium. You will see people around but expect to wait a bit before you can start playing. Again, you can improve this by going there with friends or guildies. 3-C) Heroes Ascend Currently this place is being deserted. You can always start something with a friend or a guildie. But most of the fights that are going on are 1v1 +7 henchmen. As mentioned before,the old veteran community found other pvp grounds to be more rewarding than HA. 3-D) Guild Vs Guild As the name implies, you are required to be in a guild,and fight a opposing different guild Most of GvGs are done within the same alliance. The requirement is low: 1 officer+1 more member or guest vs a 2nd guilds officer and another member Henchmen are allowed and there is a wide array of them within ones guild hall. Heroes are forbidden. Its still popular, but again, very situation as it requires at least 4 players form 2 different guilds 3-E) The Jade Quarry A very popular PvP ground (specially during double JQ and FA faction rewards event) ,both with players as well with bots. Yes there are bots in this arena and while they tend to speed up the process of joining in a match they also ruin it since most all bots are N/A bombers. They dash to the point,curse ,shadowstep and blow up in the NPC. Poisoning and bleeding them long enough so they can dash back and repeat it till they die and capture the spot. Anet has been banning botters and gold sellers, as well as gold buyers and other kind of bannable actions. However even with botters you will still have a lot of fun fighting other players(and their botters),capping and defending points. While nuking builds, Charge,Retreat and Incoming is still a good option for JQ, some weird builds are also viable in JQ. An example would be a player using a build specifically made against botters. Aoe healing skills as well as condi removals in order to stop the N/A bomber bots from killing even a single NPC is very powerful as it keeps your points rolling trough out the match. On the other side a enemy player can put a lot of pressure on you as you might have no way of fighting back. 3-F) Fort Aspenwood Sadly, my favorite PvP match is deserted. Not even bots are trying to play this. You might see a bunch of players here and there but those are just premade guildies that decided to play FA a bit. Expect them to come with a full team and that you might not be able to join them. However you can do the same with your friends and guildies (if they are up for it) 3-G) Alliance Battles Most of the time this is deserted. Rarely it is organised with a alliance just as FA is. However double Alliance faction reward event instantly revives this masterpiece. [CENTER]3-H) Zaishen Challenge/Elite[CENTER] Challenges allow you to create a arena (of your choice) and pick a team of enemy NPCs to fight against. Z-Elite is the same thing except its gives off a more gauntlet feeling. You make your team (with players or henchmen) and fight trough random enemy teams trough random arena types. Each time you win you get a new arena with a new team to fight. The only exit is when you lose the match. Assuming you are doing flawless victories it takes around 16 matches (i think?) to get your daily 6k Balthazar faction cap. Personally i used to solo this everyday and used to unlock 6 new normal skills. But some people spend it on Z-keys (5 days = 6 keys) 4) The campaigns 4-A) Prophecies The first campaign ever released. I won't be making a review about it cause this guide is already becoming long. Instead i will be talking about the state it currently is in,where the community is mostly concentrated as well as some noticeable points of interest this campaign has to offer. -Pre Searing Ascalon This was already mentioned and described in the PvE section of this guide. There are quite a lot of players out there that focus only in this part of the game. *Noticeable things to do here: +Nick presents, Ldoa title, Trading in its unique economy, making friends chatting and relaxing in Ascalon, Charr lands,charr bags, charr salvage kits, Runes, Insignias, Weapon mods, helping other players out, daily missions (after lvl 10) -Main world Most of players here are concentrated in Lions Arch, Temple of the Ages and Ascalon. There are also some other areas people go to during the time they are doing War in Kryta missions *Noticeable things to do here: +Finishing the main mission story line and getting a Unique Deldrimor weapon, as well as crafting a gold Deldrimor weapon. +Doing the War in Kryta quest chain +Doing War in Kryta daily quests +Sorrows Furnace elite quest chain +Titan quest chain (Some of them reward you with Z-coins +Tomb of Primeval Kings +UW and FOW (Compared with other temples in NF or Factions,ToA seems the most popular +Gates of Kryta farming +Halloween and Wintersday events +Special quests that give you special items such as -50hp grim cesta, or the "blankets" bow +Numerous runs (Ascalon-LA,Droks run,Desert run,WiK outposts run,Infusion runs) +Contains Old school weapons +Armor infusion 4-B) Factions Factions seem to be slightly more populated than Tyria...or it just might seem like it since it is smaller. Most players are concentrated in outposts and zones that are near Faction farming, Shing Jea Monastery as well as Winds of Change outposts. *Noticeable things to do in Factions: +Faction farming +Faction skills +The Deep and Urgoz Warren (for fairly cool and unique weapon skins) +Running the final mission of killing Shiro +Charming a Phoenix pet +Making the Emperor of Cantha bow down to you  +Getting an Amulet of the Mists for a unique weapon,including Shiros blades +Using Assassin and Ritualist skills +Shadowsteping outside zones for cool "break out the map" feelings as well as extra exploration title track progression +The Canthan new year +The Dragon festival +FIREWORKS +Being able to pay 500gold to unlock the other 2ndary professions +Tease Cynn +Watching the credits in game while surrounded by Imperial guards and FIREWORKS +Contains old school weapons (and pretty shiny ones too) +40/40 weapons in Vasburg armory and Leviathan Pits +Enjoy all that is Canthan, cause you will never be able to in gw2!  +Killing Shiro with 8 assassins and make him bow to you before exhaling his last breath 4-C) Nightfall This might be the most popular campaign of all 3. A big contribution to this might be that you can get a lot of heroes to play with you,even early in the game. Most of the community is concentrated in Kamadan here, As well as Chantry of Secrets and some other outposts. Kamadan is still well known as "Spamadan" as it will always have at least 2 districts full of players selling and buying their stuff. *Noticeable things to do in NF: +Finishing the game for a Book of Secrets that you exchange for a cool unique weapon +Collect all heroes in NF, as well as cross campaign heroes such as Olias +Trade in Kamadan +Use Dervish and Paragon skills +Do NF treasure runs (at least once per month) +Vabian armor..one of the most expensive armors in the game +Various story paths and decisions +Go for Margrid the Sly story path instead for Master of Whispers.  +Collectors offer nice consumable foods as well as alcohol and sweets +Domain of Anguish +Get served by Abbadon +Hope for a black/white dye from the dye quest in Kamadan +Ride a Junundu wurm +Enjoy NOT dealing with any consequences for releasing Palawa Joko +Take a long walk trough the Desolation so you can visit the Crystal desert +Exchange trade contracts for rubies,sapphires and diamonds +Find a Docks ferry  +Sunspear skill trainer +Sunspear rank skills +Torment weapons 4-D) Eye of the North This is a expansion that changes how "missions" work,and it takes you on a great story driven journey throughout different races and different parts of Tyria. It also features lots of new PvE skills,challenges, dungeons ,heroes and unique items. Player base is mostly spread out throughout the world of eotn.Tho some noticeable towns and outposts would be:Eye of the North, Gadd's Encampment,Longeye's Ledge,Olafstead, Sifhalla. Players mostly spend time doing dungeons, completing their dungeon and eotn books for reputation, farming reputation, farming vaettirs, learning powerfull specific PvE only skills such as Pain inverter. *Noticeable things to do in EotN: +Finishing the game for a Droknar's key to exchange it for a cool unique weapon +New heroes +Go back in pre searing ascalon and get 2 tapestry shards for special gwen quest +Bisons tournament +Kilroys Im-gonna-brawl-my-way-to-lvl-20 dungeon +The beginning of Black Moa scavenger hunt +M.O.X. +Dungeons +Hall of Monuments +Logan Thackerays great-great-great-great-great-great father +Asuran,Norn,Vanguard,Deldrimor Rank title skills,go get that pain inverter! +Eye of the North tour runs +Side quests that are relevant in gw2 (mursaat,aspects of the gods...) +Asuran,Norn,Vanguard and Deldrimor themed weapons and armor +Those OP consumables that every speed clear team is using +Super cool special looking gloves +Super cool special looking head pieces (that aren't festival hats) +Follow the cute white rabbit down the snowy road :3 +Look for hidden hints and clues about the elder dragons that show up 250 years later,when the world isn't even near as epic as this one. +Pick up Iris flowers +Jingle Moa and Jingle bear pets! +Hidden snowman dungeon that people spam during wintersday in hope the will finally get that super rare mini Jingle bear mini they been farming for years. +Light of Deldrimor Guild wars Utopia Yeah right...you wish... 5) Resources, Apps, Tools 1) http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Main_Page This is the best source of info about ANYTHING in the game. Period. 2) http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/ A gw1 forum, while it doesn't seem very active there are still people lingering around and other players do seem to come occasionally to price check something or catch up on some news. 3) http://www.reddit.com/r/GuildWars/ Might be more popular than GWGuru, certainly more random topics show up. 4) http://gwpvx.gamepedia.com/PvX_wiki Some builds might be outdated,but its still a nice guide for new players 5) https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...s.live&hl =en Great phone app. Shows Z-missions,WiK daily,Pre searing daily mission,Pre searing nick item, and events (tho events are sometimes shown wrongly) The app updates the content mentioned above even if you are offline on a daily basis. 6)https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...ldwarshandbook Contains info about all skills (even pve skills)tho some might be slightly outdated(unless i have a outdated version of the app), a walktrough and maps for all dungeons and missions in the game (including elite zones, challenges and bonus mission packs) Also works offline 7) https://www.facebook.com/GuildWars?fref=ts The Official GW1 Facebook page. Most of the time they announce the next upcoming events. Also a good place to start looking for friends to play gw1 with. 8) http://kamadan.decltype.org/ This is a website that records the chat of Kamadan. Consider it as some sort of auction house where you can see the offers people are giving, as well as people who want to buy something. Search for a item you wish to buy, check who spammed it, PM in game,trade, profit. 9) http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Guide...raphics/Texmod Textmod is a 3rd party program so use it at your own risk. It colors up your map and points out all the tiny parts of the map that you missed exploring for the cartograhper title. Its a great mod when you are 99% and you just cant seem to find that last 1% that you missed. 6) Few tips and tricks +Whether you are a returning veteran or a new player try joining a active guild. Its simply a great thing to have while you play this game. +Old returning veteran that has no idea where to go or what to do? Try making a new character and play trough all the content with some few imaginary rules and challenges. http://www.reddit.com/r/GuildWars/co...ogy_challenge/ This one is a pretty good set of challenges +Festival events are a great way to farm a ton of bags,gifts,alcohol,sweets and party points. You can either use them your self for 3 titles, or sell them for massive profit. +Festival hats are not given on festival finales any more. Instead we now have 1 quest in Lions arch, and another one in Kamadan. Both give a Festival token that you can trade for a festival hat. Note that some Hats are available only in LA,and others only in Kamadan. However you may exchange both tokens in the same city for 2 new hats. +You can exchange your tournament points for Zaishen Keys. You can use them for loot and title progression or sell them for a nice one shot boost in gold. +Z-coins are tradable +On the battle isles there is a place called Zaishen Menagerie. This is a hub for your ranger pets. You can capture pets and bring them here and pick them up later as you wish. You may also unlock and level up pets using Z-Coins and Balthazar Faction. +Guild Wars Faction and Nightfall quests can give you Reward Trophies. These can be exchanged for various kits,exp scrolls and consumables as well as chest keys. Note that some higher level reward trophies can be exchanged for chest keys that can contribute to your treasure hunter rewards. Also NF Trade contracts can be exchanged for very expensive rubies,sapphires and diamonds. Hopefully this helped you get a insight about the current state of various aspects of the game regarding playerbase and its popularity,and helped you stay a bit longer in the game giving you new things to do and try out. If you think i missed something or forgot to mention leave a reply and ill add it. If you have any more questions about the game or wish to find me in game send me a Private Message here on the forums. Im kinda regular here. PS: If you're wondering why i haven't explained anything from Guild Wars Beyond its because i haven't finished them yet. I could copy paste stuff from the wiki... but i prefer to add my own experiences into this guide. Someday i will finish them, and i will add them in the guide Last edited by Wolftail; Jan 16, 2015 at 04:31 PM // 16:31.. |
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Jan 16, 2015, 03:44 AM // 03:44
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#2 |
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Pre-Searing Cadet
Join Date: Dec 2014
Guild: ICE
Profession: A/Mo
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Hey this guide is actually pretty damn good, I started reading it just because I wanted to see if it had anything useful. It may have not really told me I didn't already know but it reminded me of certain missions and events I actually forgot were there
 Thanks for putting in the time and effort, this surely will help out a few people who are lost on what to do and find themselves standing around in Kama doing nothing all the time :P
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Jan 16, 2015, 04:05 AM // 04:05
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#3 |
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Ascalonian Squire
Join Date: Sep 2014
Profession: E/N
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yeah i wasn't trying to make some sort of review on campaigns or about the various pvp parts.
It was more like : Here are the parts of the game you can play, but do know some might be more and some less populated. Also check these noticeable pieces of the game. Personally when i returned back to the game over a year ago i was vaettir farming once and done the NF treasure running. After that i had no idea where my progression on my character stopped and had no clue what to do. So i made a new proph char and decided to follow some made up rules and set my self some challenges. That was over a year ago so it was before the Chronology challenge on redit (tho it is similliar in rules) Do you think i should add a new part of the guide with "Other things to do in gw"? |
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Jan 16, 2015, 01:57 PM // 13:57
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#4 |
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Lion's Arch Merchant
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Under a blanket drinking tea and being British n_n
Guild: Brothers of Other Mother [BoOM]
Profession: N/
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Small suggestion for an addition, the Zaishen Vanquishes are also good for progressing Cartography, Treasure Hunter and Wisdom. People often forget about those.
Zaishen Combat is also repeatable (once you turn it in, you can rezone and take it again until it changes). Zaishen Elite is probably worth a mention too for pretty much a free key a day (6k daily cap on Balth earned from it). Great guide though, found some new resources that I didn't know existed! Maybe link to TexMod/Multilaunch too? |
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Jan 16, 2015, 02:32 PM // 14:32
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#5 |
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Ascalonian Squire
Join Date: Sep 2014
Profession: E/N
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* Added info about Z-vanquishes, Z-Combat and Z-Challenge/Elites
* Also added info and a link for textmod (did not add info about multilaunch cause i don't see any uses for it other than trading between 2 of your own characters from 2 different accounts on the same computer...or setting up multiple bots on 1 computer...) * Added a few additions to the noticeable lists of some campaigns I'm not sure if i should keep posting everything that i add to the guide. Every now and then i remember something i forgot to mention or i notice something worth mentioning as i play the game. This could result in a lot of small replies coming from me saying that i added 2-3 things on the list. Last edited by Wolftail; Jan 16, 2015 at 02:48 PM // 14:48.. |
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Jan 16, 2015, 10:41 PM // 22:41
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#6 |
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Lion's Arch Merchant
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Under a blanket drinking tea and being British n_n
Guild: Brothers of Other Mother [BoOM]
Profession: N/
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Multilaunch is actually useful to be your own Gate Monkey in pre as well as collecting Nick (both pre and post) on multiple accounts (which is basically what I use it for)
As for updates, you could always put a changelog at the bottom of the first post and note there the things you've added. That way people can see what you've added right away and no one can say you're just bumping your guide or trying to raise post count. |
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Jan 28, 2015, 02:14 PM // 14:14
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#7 | |
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Ascalonian Squire
Join Date: Jul 2006
Guild: Crimson Hydras
Profession: D/E
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Quote:
I'd include it, but actually I'd put it up for both returning and for new players (or returning players on new accounts). Suggest that they start on Prophecies, enjoy pre-searing (no need for the legendary title unless it's desired), then progress through the game with henchmen from start to finish, move onto Cantha finish that, do Nightfalls - finish that, revert back to Prophecies and do it all over again in hard mode. Also, 9/10 the advice throughout that should be; use henchmen, do NOT use heroes or go running out to find heroes at Lion's Arch/whatever. Reason being, if it's a new account then henchmen are likely to have more balanced skillbars than heroes and you're unlikely to have the skill points to build up a collection of elites on top of skills for heroes. It's particularly useful to remind people that the skills unlocked as they progress are usually enough to do the job for each given mission (hard mode excluded) from start to finish (I should know, I henchway'd Prophecies with all bonuses and Cartographer on my old, now lost account :'( ) It annoys me that on the wiki people suggest using all these fancy skills in early missions, which unless you're a veteran, you won't have unlocked. Never mind that they're total overkill for the level difficulty of those missions! The henchman skillbar rebalance has made the game a LOT easier, I remember The Breach being tricky to do if you were with the level 3 hench, mainly because Alesia would do some touch skill and get owned, now it's a lot better. AI is good too, henchmen stop attacking under empathy (ooh) and so on. Other things to note? "Best" profession for hench/hero way -Mesmer / Ranger / Necromancer -Elementalist -Warrior -Monk Reasoning: Mesmers and Rangers are the 'best' hench/hero way classes for a few reasons: +Mid/Back-line characters, allows you to 'view' the battle field +Interrupts - Very useful, it's often just that one skill an enemy uses that kills off henchmen in particular, maybe an AOE-knockdown or whatever, being able to interrupt the most lethal target at any one time makes things so much easier. +Versatility - Rangers in particular can be built to spread conditions or interrupt or just give everyone a bad day at the office, Mesmers just make things fail. Versatility is also very useful to the player because once heroes become unlocked, in theory you'll want to assign them to do the interrupting roles (superior reaction times), while you do something else and maybe hold an emergency interrupt skill on your bar for anything the heroes miss. +Safety - Rangers are OP in this respect, the elemental resist in particular means they don't go down very easily and can get out of trouble when things go wrong. Having a reusable rez is the bees-knees, it'll also make survivor quite managable without any exploiting exp gains etc. Mesmer is more fragile on this front but still has enough in the locker to shutdown and get out of trouble (in theory). Necromancers - Utterly amazing for swarming the battlefield with heroes/minions/henchmen. But a lot of people seem to neglect that for the Necro, in the original campaign they start with limited minion skills and don't really get the new ones until a lot later in the campaign. Their versatility comes later, but they're still pretty useful, a popular class with plenty of versatilty. Always good to ignore the 'big builds' such as minion master, battery and whatnot and just build as you go along until the skills are unlocked. It's never good to be pigeonholed into one build. Elementalists: As above and above. +AI Elementalists aren't that good. -Player Elementalists seem to think they have to rely on fire and only fire. Some of the skills unlock-progression encourages this, but I honestly believe a versatile Elementalist is going to be a lot better than one that rigidly sticks to a flame build. In that sense, Ele's aren't that much different from Mesmers in that, they should be looking up the enemy types before going into a zone and rejigging their skillbars. A mesmer will adjust to counter the enemy, Ele's should adjust to focus on an enemy weakness - I wouldn't run water in the shiverpeaks I guess? Warriors: +Superb Armour +Versatile weapon choices +You can control the battlefield with tanking and blocking - Limited view of the battlefield - Limited mobility Warriors are in my experience, the 'expert' mode of henchwaying, not good for newbies because they get right in the middle of the fight. The result is they can't always see the entire battlefield and it can be particularly difficult to manage blocking/movement on top of henchmen management and killing the enemy. Those who tank in other MMO's however, might find this a non-issue because a good tank is more naturally aware of his surroundings. But this isn't an easy talent to pick up and I reckon most players won't be suitable for this profession for henchway. Also, warriors get a bit of a rough reception; they can be shutdown painfully in so many ways it is ridiculous and borderline frustrating! Don't get stuck in a sword/board or axe/board mentality. Absolutely no point running around with bleed/gash in Kryta with all the undead milling about. Skills need to be adjusted for each area, always bring an oh-crap defence skill, and have fun with Alesia! Monk: I only rank it so low because this is going to be a limited sort of playstyle. Call-targetting and then healing or protecting seems to be the way to go rather than smiting. A tricky thing to do at first but it does get easier. Whether this is enjoyable is really down to the player, but I would think it would be annoying, like playing with a really bad PUG that you have to overheal to keep alive? :P The expansion classes I can't comment on at this stage. Oh dear, looks like I wrote far too much. ^_^ |
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