Curse

CaptainRansom · Jun 22, 2006, 04:03 AM // 04:03

Captain Ransom's Guide to Surviving as an Elementalist

So you're looking over those titles, and you've decided that you want to shoot for a Survivor title. Or maybe you're just bored with the haphazard gameplay that usually runs rampant in GW. Or maybe you're like me, and you want to eventually get every single title you can maxed out. This guide will help you achieve all of those ends, and net you some nifty comments from fellow players such as "wtf how do u get surviver?" or "omg troll frmer" or maybe even "dude, that title is for sissies". Nothing says "I run scared!" AND "I'm super hardcore-awesome!" like a Survivor title. Especially on Elementalists... we're not exactly known for being the sturdiest of professions. This guide is aimed at both those with significant Elementalist experience, and people like me who have never really played one before. Using this guide, I'd like to hope that you could get at least the first rank in Survivor if this is your first Guild Wars character ever.

Without further ado, my guide-in-progress on snagging Survivor as an Elementalist.

Step 1) Create your Elementalist. I prefer Cantha for this, as leveling to 20 and getting the first rank is ridiculously easy compared to Tyria. I prefer a female Elementalist, because when I'm playing for hours on end, I'd rather stare at a female posterior than a male. This choice is merely aesthetic and will have no bearing on your effectiveness, but rest assured that male Canthan Elementalists look kinda... weird.

Step 2) Do the tutorial. I don't care if this is your 2398567th character in GW:Factions, do it. You should get enough in drops to open up your storage, allowing you to twink yourself right off the bat. It's not exactly necessary, but it helps a little - and every little bit counts! Not to mention it will add to unfogging the map, which helps for getting the Canthan Explorer titles.

Step 3) Get new clothes. If this isn't your first character and you have some money in storage, I recommend upgrading your armor as soon as possible. I know it's not MUCH of an upgrade at first, but every little bit counts. I highly recommend Archmage's Armor for the +35 health. Not only is the +health obviously good for someone looking to Survive, but from most of the studies I've read, as well as my own personal experience - mobs target people with lower health and lower armor. There isn't much you can do about the armor right now, but you CAN help the health problem! This leads into the next step...

Step 4) Run with henchies! Henchmen will have the base health for their level, so with your spiffy Archmage's Armor, you'll have more health than them, which will help immensely in dodging agro. Learn to control and abuse your henchmen. They're robots, they don't have souls - don't worry about hurting their feelings. I have YET to see a henchman /ragequit on me because he has 60% DP. Controlling and maintaining your henchmen is quite easy. For the Shing Jea Monastery/Tsumei Village areas, I recommend bringing the Fighter, Healer, and Spirit henchmen. As you progress into new areas (Seitung Harbor, Kaineng, etc.) you can fine-tune your army of soulless drones to suit your tastes, but I'll address that later. Now that you have selected your henchmen, learn to make them do your bidding! If you attack a target or cast a spell, they will run at the target and attack it as well... which is all well and good, except they wait until AFTER you attack to run in - this means you struck first, and this means those Afflicted Warrior are going to be running straight at you. This is considered a "bad thing". Instead, try holding down CTRL and SHIFT and then hit your SPACEBAR key. This calls a target and doesn't force you to auto-attack. Your henchmen will run in while you sit comfortably in the backline, where you SHOULD be. The best place to use the CTRL+SHIFT+SPACE method is when the mobs you want to destroy are JUST outside of your agro radius. Experience will tell you just how far outside your radius henchies will pick up on your target and charge in. After the henchmen have engaged the enemy, THEN you are free to let fly with spells and attacks.

Step 5) Quests. Do them all. Every. Single. One. This will get you familiar with game mechanics, the region you're in, henchmen controls, your spells, everything. Not to mention that in Cantha, doing all the quests will have you close to level 20 by the time you're off the island - this is a good thing. When you're working on your secondary profession quests, do the Mesmer quest in Sunqua Vale first - it's the only one that actually requires you to use a certain spell. By the time you finish all these quests, you should be at least level 10. I -HIGHLY- recommend taking Monk as your secondary profession. There are two quests in Shing Jea that you really need to watch out for - Quimang's Last Stand and Captured Son. For Last Stand, I highly recommend you bring guildmates, or go to the outpost after Minister Cho's and take the level 10 henchmen through Kinya Province into Panjiang Peninsula. The level 6 henchies in Tsumei just won't cut it. As for Captured Son... doing it with just a 6-person party can be rough. With henchies it can seem impossible... so why limit yourself to 6 party members? Do the primary quests in Jaya Bluffs, then meet the four NPCs in the Lagoon. Do their quest, then they'll want to follow you to Zen Daijun. Time to make some detours: bring those four henchies over and use them to finish Captured Son, Thieving Nanny, etc. I saved all my Lagoon quests until I had those 4 NPCs in my party. Having four extra people to act as cannon fodder makes your life MUCH easier, trust me. Once all that is done, THEN take them to Zen Daijun.

Step 6) Builds. I started off with a Fire build, as that seems to be where most of the good skills are early in the game. Flare does decent damage with low cost and is spammable. Aura of Restoration is pretty much a must-have, healing yourself for 150-300% of the energy cost of your spell is like a mini-Divine Favor for yourself. Not to mention it makes a superb cover enchantment. I used Fire through Nahpui Quarter, but in retropect, I wish I had switched to Earth as soon as I hit the mainland - my life would've been much easier. Fire is a good line to get through Shing Jea with. Once you get to Kaineng Center, I highly recommend switching to Earth. The build I'm currently using looks like this, and works like a CHARM for me:

Earth Magic: 15 (12+1+2)
Energy Storage: 10 (9+1)
Healing Prayers: 10
Protection: 3 (throw-away for Rebirth)

Elemental Attunement {E} (Can be replaced with Earth Attunement until you cap this)
Armor of Earth (Gives a whopping +60 armor at Earth Magic 15, putting you at 120AL - Jade Brotherhood Knights Triple Chop and Cyclone Axe hit me for around 18-25 damage, bosses for about 40-50)
Aura of Restoration (This not only keeps you alive, but is a WONDERFUL cover enchant for Armor of Earth and Elemental Attunement)
Ward Against Melee (At 15 Earth, this lasts for 20 seconds, with a recast of 20 seconds - causing melee foes to have a 50% chance to miss. I generally put this around my casters to keep them alive)
Dragon's Stomp/Teinai's Crystals
Aftershock/Obsidian Flame (DS+AS gives a knockdown and nice damage spike - but beware the 25 energy + exhaustion cost of Stomp. This is good for when too many pesky Jade Knights surround your Monk hench. I've since switched to TC+OF for a nice armor-ignoring spike to finish off foes - just be wary of OF's exhaustion and short recast, the temptation to "spam" this 5s recharge spell is high, but you'll drain yourself VERY quickly)
Heal Party (Spam this when you're not renewing enchants, Warding, or spiking/knockdown...ing... I sometimes substitute Healing Breeze for a nice +7/8 regen)
Rebirth (The absolute most awesome rez ever - I saved my guildmates' posteriors with this spell in Tahnnaki Temple)

Conclusion: Using the above steps and the below general advice, you should be able to get quite far as a Survivor:

***I've only had to ragequit once on a PUG in Zen Daijun because they were complete and utter newbs, and I learned a valuable lesson - henchies > 80% of the players out there. A quick slamming of F12 -> Enter will save your hide when things go south (lag, err=7, you spill soda on the keyboard, whatever). People will say that ragequtting is for sissies. I say it's for Survivors. Don't do this in a PUG if you can avoid it, it's generally frowned upon. XD But hopefully with my advice you won't NEED to. If you stay back and SUPPORT your party, and run the hell away (not quitting, RUNNING) when things get rough, then come back and Rebirth them - things should be fine.

***If you're running with henchies, don't be too afraid to ragequit out - they don't have souls and won't get their panties in a wad over it.

***ALWAYS warn PUGs that you are working on a Survivor title and that if they're all dead and you're the last one standing with 5 mobs beating on you and no way out, you WILL be leaving. A LOT of people will immediately kick you, but some understand and will let you stay. Don't ragequit unless it's ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY. There have been PLENTY of times where I wanted to ragequit, but instead just turned around and ran away to shake agro, then came back and Rebirthed the party and continued on.

***A lot of people say that Survivor is a troll/ettin/whatever-farmer title - but this is not true. Go through all the quests you can find, do the missions, and cap elites whenever you can (fun fact: Capping all 180 elites that are currently in the game will get you a total of 900,000 XP - you need 1,337,500 for Legendary Survivor - do the math).

***Do research, get decent gear for yourself (I use 20/20 staves of each element with +30 health wrappings and +5 energy heads, bought from the weaponsmith in Kaineng), but above all else - have fun! Surviving is a great challenge, if you make an effort at it, you will be a better player because of it.

***Don't sweat getting Master ratings on every mission at the risk of dying - you can always come back to them after you finish getting Legendary.

***Don't PvP until you get your title. This should be a no-brainer, but it's in here just-in-case. XD

I apologize for the wall of text, but I hope this guide was useful to anyone who took the time to read it. I welcome all comments and criticisms, and can be reached in-game on my Elementalist (Archmage Aurora). I plan on adding more specific sub-guides for missions and quests as I find the time. I'm currently a level 20 E/Mo in Arborstone with ~255,000 XP and running strong. This guide was written at work with information from the top of my head - some place names, skill names, attribute distributions may be wrong - I'll fix them later. =P

CaptainRansom · Jun 23, 2006, 05:14 AM // 05:14

Just an update: Remember that time I said to do research? I should've followed my own advice. Having never been run to Droknar's Forge before, I didn't know that it was a guaranteed death in Dreadnought's Pass. I tried to /ragequit, but just got spiked WAY too hard. In the split second between hitting F12 and Enter, I was degen'd and spiked down from 200 health to 0. I saw my Ele fall and the DP condition as the screen was fading to black.

/deaths = 1, gg.

Lesson learned, starting over.

The Great Al · Jun 23, 2006, 07:41 PM // 19:41

i would substitute healing breeze for hp...and i'd also try to fit kinetic armor in somehow, you have keep it going, but it gives crazy AL

WinespringBrother · Jun 23, 2006, 10:26 PM // 22:26

Nice guide, having gotten survivor on my Mesmer though, I have some things for you to consider:

1. Don't bother with PUGS, due to the possibility of you qutting when the going gets tough. I used hench exclusively.

2. I also started out in Tyria, since many newb quests provide cheap skills.

3. I did all the missions through Divinity Coast, then travelled to Cantha through LA. I was level 14 by that time. When you travel over to Cantha, watch out on the docks - I was almost killed by 2 popup afflicted.

4. Take all the Kaineng Center and Marketplace quests - that plus 5k xp for 1 sig cap got me my survivor title. Without too much difficulty, I must say.

I did this on a mesmer since I thought it would be a challenge. It wasn't that hard, actually. Maybe the 2nd level of survivor will be though.

Xpl0iter · Jun 27, 2006, 10:24 AM // 10:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by CaptainRansom

Just an update: Remember that time I said to do research? I should've followed my own advice. Having never been run to Droknar's Forge before, I didn't know that it was a guaranteed death in Dreadnought's Pass. I tried to /ragequit, but just got spiked WAY too hard. In the split second between hitting F12 and Enter, I was degen'd and spiked down from 200 health to 0. I saw my Ele fall and the DP condition as the screen was fading to black.

/deaths = 1, gg.

Lesson learned, starting over.

Lesson #2 :P
u should have met me and discussed with me ( being sarcastic

)
I just ran a person from beacons to droks, who is going for survivor title, without a death.

Simple method: KEEP A MONK partner with u who is going to make a 55 char.
Try asking war to have Holy viel, and monk with SB on ur butt, and prot spirit with all the possible heals u can have.
Ask the war to charge u until u pass the very first area on right hand side, and stand n that small valley area before u meet all those mesmer and summits.
Ur runner and monk combination should get u through without much of a sweat.
get ur self a nice power leveler too.
Regards
Darkest Soldier