Best *opinionated* Build for Soloing the PvE Campaigns?

Just want to solo through it with Henchies/Heroes to see the story. Not hard modes or any of that, I'll deal with that later. I have Prophecies, Factions, Nightfall and Eye of the North.

Any recommendations or thoughts?

There is no single build that is best for all missions and primary quests. For example, you don't want to use the same build for Hell's Precipice (lots of burning and fire damage) as you would for Imperial Sanctum (lots of physical damage). You don't want to use the same build for doing a solo mission, like Augury Rock, as you would for a team mission.

You can't simply load up some recommended build and just play it all the way through the game without changes. (Well, you could, but you would fail hard.)

It might help if you would tell us what profession you are. Are you just starting Guild Wars? In that case, any build we could give you would change dramatically as you move through the campaigns and acquire more skills. We really need more info to help you out.

I've done all the campaigns with H&H on characters of several different professions, and it wasn't terribly difficult for most of them. (My first character -- starting with no heroes, no experience, and no skills -- had the hardest time, naturally.)

Well, I have a 20 Dervish/Monk (Though so far I've yet to even put a Monk ability on the bar, Dervish skills just seem to out-class them) and, being the Nightfall campaign isn't actually that far in. Currently just finished setting up the Command Post in the Sunspear Hall on the second continent.

I'm not 100% sold on Dervish, it's entertaining so far, and I like having Avatar's up 100% of the time. (Usually Grenth or Balthazar) I'm fine with a class switch, Primary of Secondary. I'm not 100% new to GW, I've played it off and on for awhile, but I've never done all that much in it.

Your dervish should be fine. I'd recommend you get the Elite Skill Wounding Strike as soon as you can. If you have Eye of the North, get a Ritualist hero for splinter weapon and Spirits for backup. That will go a long way for sustained damage against the mobs you're facing.

Spiritway would be your best bet for an all-purpose h/h. I've used that to vanquish most of NF. However, you need to beat the NF campaign in order to get the second rit. So in the meantime, check out PVX and try out some of the builds they have suggested there. Secondly, I suggest you play through Nightfalls before you proceed to any other campaign. For two reasons really, you're A) a Derv and B) you get all those heroes unlocked.

I personallly recommend you to stay with Avatar of Grenth and get as soon as possible Alliagance derv skill (Aura of the holy might) and maybe Save Yourselves (also allegiance warrior skill) to keep your heroes alive in hard places. Allegiance skills are Kurzick or Luzon skills just in case you didn't know it

Avatar of Grenth is the best dervish elite avatar imo (pve version). It gives u an additional life stealing which is really high, non absorbable except by few skills. Concentrate on dealing dmg and if u want spam Save urselves in hard places to keep ur party alive . Don't take any sort of self healing, ur heroes do it.

Best build I can think of considering its PvE NM with no other people is SoS + Summon Spirits (you can bring a hero to do this but they won't have Summon Spirits)

This pertains to any PvE character but it is hella boring after a while (set up spirits then /dance your way to victory...)

Don't use any melee henchies / heroes, they A) play midline / backline more effectively and B) just plain suck at playing melee. Luckily you have a frontline primary so you can easily just run a frontline bar.

For Dervs I suggest Zealous Vow until the derv update comes about.
http://pvx.wikia.com/wiki/Build/W_Zealous_Dervish

I know its from PvX, but its probably the most awesome Derv build out there.

Key skills according to the link are Eremite's Attack, Mystic Sweep, Protector's Strike and Zealous Vow.
A-scan is in EOTN (Tarnished Haven), AOHM and SY! are allegiance skills (Factions - Kurz / Lux). There are many variants to this, I would recommend bringing a hero or two that can give you Overpowered melee physical buffs to take advantage of the fast attacks (Strength of Honor, Splinter etc)

discord way can clear most zones

I would avoid and ignore any advice that tells you to use any of the avatars or Wounding Strike.

How bad are Rangers for PvE?

That's how bad rangers are: http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/r...t10447989.html

But if you play your dervish in hard mode, for the love of all that is holy bring some form of prots, whether it is Conviction, Watchful Intervention/Faithful intervention, shroud of distress, ... because as a monk it is hell to keep melee Dervishes alive (orders and caster dervishes don't count) whose skillbar consists solely of attack skills and asuran scan. 70 armor on the frontline is a bad idea. If you go D/W with 12 Tactics, Fear Me! + Soldier's stance will give you 13 seconds of 75% block on 15 recharge.

Even with Avatar of Balthazar's +40 armor you still only sit at 110 armor. A baseline warrior has 80+20 vs physical + 16 from shield = 116 armor vs physical. Keep that in mind.

For PVE I prefer Reaper's Sweep. It packs utility in that it can remove enchantments from Shadow formed assassins (afflicted), spell breaker-ed monks, obsidian fleshed elementalists (chromatic drake), and Vow of silenced Dervishes (whirling wisps) and pack in +30ish damage (which is high relative to all other Dervish attack skills). If you carry signets, going D/W with symbolic strike could work too (wild blow works better on assassins and dervishes as well) if you run res sig + Signet of Mystic Speed or signet of pious light. Eremite's attack and mystic sweep are good too, in that they have an activation that speeds up attacking.

Any physical buffs such as orders, splinter weapon+ ancestor's rage, strength of honor, etc. should be run on your heros.

The best class for PvE would probably be necro or rit. You can N/any SS, N/any Orders, N/any MM, N/Rt heal, etc. Rits can go SoS, DwG, or restoration.

EDIT: Sneak attack is pretty nifty for a Dervish; "I Am Unstoppable!" adds 24 armor and is stacking with other armor buffs past the multiple skills armor cap of +25.

I rolled up a Ritualist, only Lv8 so far, but I can see how this would be pretty devastating with more spirits...

Thanks for all the replies so far guys, lots to keep me busy here.

Rangers are fine in PvE if you don't mind attack spam builds.

Nearly all the self preservation skills Life Infusion mentioned are really bad, except for maybe Conviction (6 earth to maintain).

Not at all.
I use my ranger for everything. Literally everything.
I've never had any trouble completing anything with my ranger, normal or hard mode. People who say rangers are terrible at PvE have clearly never played as one.

Started playing Ranger when Prophecies went live April 2005. Now more than 5 years later Ranger is still my primary, all 3 chapters and Eye of the North. The Ranger remains my all around favorite for solo with heroes and henchmen; and yes I run Beast Master most of the time including Hard Mode.

With a Warrior, Monk, Elementalist, Dervish, Assassin, Mesmer, and Paragon also completing all 3 chapters and Eye of the North I do have a good feel for the other professions, except for Ritualist and Necro; both of which the AI can play as heroes better than I can. Warrior and Paragon for me come in tied for second place for solo H&H, although Paragon is harder to level these days.

The mileage of others has obviously varied and everyone has their favorite vehicle for driving through the game in comfort. A lot depends on play style and how much you like the profession skills. Any of the professions can work fine in solo H&H, but all of them require patience, study, and practice to do so.

The Ranger is said to have less DPS than some of the other professions. And this is true if you are attacking target dummies that just stand there quietly. But in the field where the targets fight back and are obnoxious the Ranger stays alive best for me and allows the most fluid control of the combat.

My one general piece of advice for any of the melee professions is this. Always carry a longbow or flatbow in weapon slot 4. When you need a bow you need it bad. With higher end mobs with lots of casters, it is usually advisable to start combat with a bow. Let the hench warrior lead the charge and take the initial blasts from the casters; that is why there are hench warriors! Usually a couple shots with your little bow is enough time for the mob to aggro the hero and hench party. Then go in with melee and cut 'em down.

My ranger gets ~125 sustainable DPS on the MoD, just buffing himself. I could go a lot higher with heroes (or players) buffing him. Yeah it's single-target and a bit below what, say, a scythe sin can do, but it's also ranged, so I don't waste time swapping targets.

The problem I have with rangers is that traps and spirits are largely useless in PvE.

NM PvE can be done with any class with just about any sort of "reasonable" build, provided that your Heroes are properly, fully equiped and they also have reasonable builds that work with your build. I've taken 10 characters through the 3 campaigns and EotN without using any special builds or "ways". My only recommendation - one hero should be an MM.

I would ignore this guy instead...

Avatars (some of them) are a good choice for PVE: Balthazars: +40armor, HOLY DMG (u know armor ignoring dmg? and not coming from any enchant which can be removed), speed buff....

Grenth: life stealing 17 at 12 mysticism! Deal cold dmg which can be good for fighting some fire foes....Cannot be blocked by enchanted foes, which in Gwen are lots, Margonites Monks also use Aegis and so on.....

Melandru: immunity to conditions...+100 hp...go in the Shards of Orr and laugh at them

Avatars cannot be removed..and if u bring Eternal Aura u can keep them constantly...
Since dervishes rely much on enchants would be better not to abuse of them. Most necro/mesmer and some assassins foes have enchantment removals. Don't rely on them too much.

This is pretty decent advice. SoS is brainless but it works. Also the comment on the discord heroes is accurate. Perhaps not optimal and doesn't work in every area but for NM you should be fine 95% of the time and it requires little effort to get you through the game.

+40 armor is a pittance if you have a good monk or imbagon and it doesn't help you do damage...it basically just makes you have a warrior's AL. Holy damage != armor ignoring damage; your attacks are still reduced by armor, they just do double damage against undead. Speed buff is nice, but there are plenty of nonelite ways to do that.