Im thinking of playing...

Im a WoW nerd, and im thinking of giving GW a shot... looks fun but i do have a few questions....

Now before i ask.. heres what i kinda know, as my brother played, but that was several xpacks ago... so things have likely changed...

My brother played as a Monk/Warrior.. and from what i could tell was immortal... (AKA seen him take on insane things with no problem)
soloed a boss of some kind, and got a monk only spell that had a 30 sec cd that healed him fully if that helps identify the boss.. , soloed hell walks or something like that...
seemed to have 14+ healing arrows at all times or something... with a vampiric golden 2h mace.... thats just what i recall... also saw him kill 5 players by himself in an arena multiple times.... so he had to be doing something right...

well, it looked fun as all hell the way he played, and i am curious if such a class combo is still viable...

altho it looks fun, i am personally more of a ranger player myself, and was considering ranger/elementalist, but preist/something seems too fun to pass up... is preist/elementalist any good?

Also, is the endgame content all pvp like he remembers mostly? or are is there more to it than that? im not gear obsessed (like most wow people are..) but i do enjoy the raid encounters and fighting the mechanics of interesting fights...

If anyone could help me decide on a class combo, i would be quite pleased..
I tryed playing (years ago) and somewhat enjoyed elementalst if i remember right. In WoW i play a mage, a DK, a rogue, a warlock, and a preist(Shadow).

Out of these wow classes i love DK pve play tanking, rogue play, and mage play... a class combo somewhat like one of these would be ideal...

And sorry if i seem noob, i am. but i want to make an informed choice... and getting help from experienced players seems like a good start...

Thank you very much.
-Patchy

I don't even know where to start so I'll let someone else help you, but I can tell you that the game is nothing like WoW in any way.

First off all, the build your brother used was probably a "55hp" build.

It still works on bosses, but it's not a popular as back in the day. Also it doesn't work in PvP anymore.

If it's a different build I still highly doubt it still works the way it does, since skills in Guild Wars tend to get changed quite often.

As about picking a character. Guild Wars doesn't take that long to play through. You can reach maximum level withing a few hours if you really want to, and "beating" the game doesn't take very long either (a few days if one's experienced and plays many hours/day though)
So you can try multiple combinations. Also it should be noted that the secondary proffesion can be changed as often as you like. So it's only about the primary proffesion.

Because of the easy to beat gameplay many players have multiple max. lvl characters so you can try out multiple too.

However after you "beat" the game (play through all missions once). You get acces to the so-called "Hard Mode". This mode is... well Hard . You can do missions again in Normal Mode or in Hard Mode. If you get both the normal objectives as well as the "bonus" objectives on all missions you get titles (for doing in Hard Mode there's a seperate title).

There's also Titles for exploring the world, getting all "Elite" skills, killing all foes, getting high reputation with certain factions in the game.

These Titles are an aim for many players after they beat the game, so it can be considered endgame content.

Also there's dungeons and other instances like "The Fissure of Woe", "The Underworld" and dungeons in the Eye of the North campaign.

PvP is a whole seperate part of the game in GW, and you don't even have to play PvE to get acces to it.

You can participate in PvP matches on special islands with both normal characters as well as special "PvP" characters, which are lvl 20 (max) in an instant, so you can try out all classes in PvP.

If you have more questions you can always ask.

I play some WoW too. This is a very different game. GW is party oriented and leveling up you are usually going to be out there with a full party of 3 heroes and 4 henchmen. Or, up to 7 other players if you are in a guild. You need to finish one chapter to get access to hard mode which is where the real solo farming fun is.

I would recommend Nightfall since it happens to be the chapter I liked most! And you get a full set of heroes doing that as well.

Look up pvx wiki and on that site look up "invincible monk" and "invincimonk". The warrior weapon and/or "sceptre" was likely for +5 energy and to make a 55 hit point monk which is a farming build. Farming builds work in some areas but not others. By farming, I mean out there solo without your party.

Elementalist is interesting to play and has some farming capabilities. From what you say, an ele is going to be most fun to play leveling up. You can now change builds and secondaries easily, so perhaps Ele/Anything and find out what works.

Earth, Air, Fire, Water! Sadly, GW has no Death Knight. I really like mine too!

Guild Wars 2 will be out in a year or so. Whole new game. GW2 is far more oriented to a solo play style where you expect your character to be a really mean dude in all situations. Just 'tweenst you and me, given the tone of your post, it might be GW2 you really want.

Look up "Guild Wars 2" for the main site and Guild Wars 2 guru. Then too, Cataclysm is coming one of these days! For you, there is a lot to look forward too.

For profession information check out the subforums in our Campfire section. There is a stickied basics thread for each one. As there is no penalty for rerolling a character (and if you purchase the Trilogy you have eight character slots) you can try out every profession available to you. The two favorite caster professions are ele and necro. A ranger is fun and very durable (often the last one left standing).

Unlike other MMOs, in Guild Wars there is no uber profession. Each one has it upside and downside. The purpose of the secondary profession is to fill in the gaps. Once you reach a certain point in each campaign, you are allowed to change your secondary anytime you are in an outpost. That allows you to alter your build to suit the mobs you will be fighting next.

There is also no uber weapons or armor. You can access max damage weapons and max protection armor fairly early in the game (along with level 20). The point of GW is to amass skills and learn how to use them in builds, and what builds to bring to synergize with teams.

There is lots to do. I've been playing over 4 years and haven't finished everything.

Darcy brings up a key point about professions/builds.

GW is a very flexible game in terms of skills and setup. Like s/he said after a certain point you can change your secondary freely while in towns. This means you can change pretty much anything but your primary ready for the next challenge - So you no longer have to plan 50 steps ahead to build a certain type of character.

Something you have to realise though is that a secondary doesn't perfectly merge the classes, playing a monk/elementalist won't let you heal everyone while calling down fire from the sky.

(technically it does but it's really ineffective)

It does allow you to dip into other classes to pick key skills to cover your weaknesses.

Anyway I'm rambling, Put bluntly - GW is a very different (and refreshing) playstyle - And with how cheap the game is and the lack of fee, what do you have to lose from trying it?

I just started playing Guild Wars a couple of days ago. Like you I played WoW, although I have not played it in around 6 months.

As a rookie player, I have been very pleasantly surprised in Guild Wars. I have tried out a number of the professions before settling on my Ranger. I definately recommend trying Guild Wars out.

My local Wal-Mart has all 4 Guild Wars games in a complete collection for $40.00. With what I paid for it, and the amount of play time it seems I am going to get, it is one hell of a bargain.

You could also, like me, download the free trial (10 hours of free play time to try it out) if you are not sure. I am confident that you will not be disappointed!

Either 600 monk or 55 monk, both are just farming builds but not very common anymore.

The arrows are regen, normal for a 55HP monk. He uses protective spirit which reduces damage by 10% and if he has 55 health he can only take 5 damage. With regeneration from spells like healing breeze can easily recover any small damage instantly. To a max of 20 health per a second.

No, it has been outclassed by perma sins.

Can't go wrong, Rangers are fun to play with and so are elementalists. Monks are always welcomed in groups so finding a team for a hard mission would be cake walk.
Although endgame rolls for elementalists are better for support than damage due to high enemy armor.

PvP is broken into low-end and high end. Heroes ascent, GvG and Codex Arena are high end. Random arena's, Allaince battles and so are low end.

If you like spell casting, Elementalists are great for area of effect damage while monks are great for healing team members. Typically playing a monk is harder as your team relies mostly on your skill to heal. Monks can't spam spells left and right, plus good monks are hard to come by.
Elementalists are damage dealers for most of the game, but Hard-mode or other end game area's they deal less damage because foes have higher armor. It's not a game changer difference but Elementalists can play great support roles. Ether Renewal Ele's are highly regarded as "best healers" but that might change soon.

There is a warrior class but in this game tanking is a dumb idea, as tank taking damage hurts the team more than dealing damage. Simple because most melee classes can hit hard and making them tank is taking away their best attribute.
To top this off, although there is skills for tanking, the NPC's would easily consider attacking some one that can take more damage.
In other words, if you being blasted with 0 damage the NPC's would rather target the monk instead.

Everyone starts fresh, what matters is how you start that can make a difference if your a newb or noob.

pointless to start playing guild wars at this point in time honestly

Now we've had the required GW2 doooooooom post (I assume its GW2 doom rather than regular doom) lets get cracking.

Recently returned to the game myself so Always happy for the an excuse to play, if you give it a shot feel free to add me in game:

IGN = Sant Leo

I'll be happy to tag along if you need a hand or just have general questions you can't be bothered to wiki ^^

nothing to do with gw2 and restarting is alot different then starting new. the game is in the process of dying and slowly being polluted with bots and crappy updates/support.

@Mr. G - I guess you didn't notice, but a while back they removed your Character names from your post profile. You might still have them on your account profile, but they no longer show up on your posts. Guru did this to increase your GW account security as character names are part of ownership proofs.

haha, sorry - Still living in the past I think. Seriously, NF is still "the new expansion" for me.

I'll edit my post, cheers as usual Darcy. good to see standardsa havn't slipped while I was gone