Newb GW Player - I'm doing it wrong?

I've played just over 20 hours of GW's, did every Pre-searing and Ascalon Quest I could find, and made it to Yaks bend. I've got a N/R (I know, probably should have been a monk), knocking on level 13, but I feel like I've hit a wall and my enthusiasm is starting to wain.

I understand this game is 6 years old and in a lot of ways the ship has sailed for players like me. I played a lot of WoW in my day, so I can understand what it would be like if I wandered into Azeroth 6 years too late for the party.

With that said, I purchased the trilogy because I loved what I read about this game. So much potential, so different from all the MMO's I played. I want to love Guild Wars.

Here are my thoughts after giving Guild Wars a fair shake.

-Quests are a waste of time. Maybe down the line if the reward is a skill I don't have or the items get way better, but for the most part it seems like I should just focus on the missions. Rush through the missions, enjoy the ride?

-Are all the maps a mess, frustrating to navigate? In pre-searing I felt like I was in a standard MMO, large open map. Post-searing I feel like I'm playing a mix of early console RPGs. I can't walk 10 feet without getting into a meaningless group fight or stuck in some labyrinth of narrow corridors with no direct route anywhere.

-There's really no itemization, I don't feel like a level really means anything. While finding a blue or purple gets my blood pumping, every time I identify one I think "Oh, that's it. I guess I could equip that but it's no different from what I have." Same for leveling. I can be 5-6 levels above a pack of monsters and don't really feel that much stronger than them. I recently arrive at Yak's bend, which is nowhere as far as progression goes, and I'm stuck because all my henchmen get run over on my way to the next mission. If the game got this hard jumping to a new zone, I can't see finishing the campaign.

I'm sure I sound impatient and naive, but I'm really looking for some insight beyond the very basic stuff. Everything I look up about GW guides is for people who have been playing for years, I feel lost for resources to get me over this hump.

If anyone is still reading and could offer any insight for enjoying GW as a new player I'd be grateful. Thank you.

1. Quests in the beginning are to help you level up and give you skills to use in Prophecies. They aren't a waste for them to be there, it's a waste not to be utilitized for beginners.

2. You think Prophecies is hard to navigate? God forbid, you enter the main land in Factions.

3. You're still in the early, nooby parts of Prophecies, of course you're still going to get crap.

Guild Wars isn't about loot, and it isn't about levels. You'll get to level 20 quickly, and you'll get the best armor and weapons you can get soon after. Everything else in the game is for aesthetics, the story, and the challenge of getting titles, elite areas, and filling your HoM.

If you're expecting loot to be important or for leveling to be a big focus, this probably isn't the game for you.

-Quests are a waste of time, yes.
-Items are just for epeen, yes
-It's all about the skills, not levels
-There's a lot of annoying mobs
-Get heroes in Elonia
-Get heroes in EOTN
-Necros with proph only skills suck hard yes

I stopped playing for half a year because i encountered the same problems as you, I played a necro main and yeah it was annoying. I got hooked by playing with groups and then later I got hooked with customizing skills and builds. It's a different game when you can decide to take heroes with you and then you can relax and enjoy the ride.

quick advice, get do the missions to get to la (or get a run), go to nightfall, get heroes, go to eotn and beat it, after that you'll have experience and have an exciting way to get to that point

I agree with awry. Fortunately for me I started gw as ranger 5 and a half years ago so it was considerably easier. Hang in there, the game becomes easier as you unlock skills (especially pve only skills in Nightfall and Eye of the North) and when you get access to heros.

Also, one more point I'd like to make is that title hunting helps you with making pve skills more powerful. Not all titles are just vanity. Do some research and find what titles are worth leveling for you.

http://www.guildwiki.org/Main_Page is extremely helpful and can answer almost any questions you have. Good luck!

GW isn't WoW (But you already know that). GW character development isn't about gearand leveling, it's about skills. All those side quests you've been doing will help you level up, but there are better options for that once you're able to travel to Cantha and Nightfall Campaigns.

Lots of players get stuck at Yak's Bend - Abandon all those quests you took there except the Primary one for now. That will get rid of most of the mobs that are whippin' your party's butt. You can always go back and pick them up again later (one at a time)

As others have said, this is not a standard MMO. Yaks is one of the places you hit a spike in the learning curve.

Don't expect to be overpowering mobs by gear and level. TBH for most of the game, if you are doing level appropriate content, they will have at least an attribute advantage on you if not more. This is where you need to start recognizing what mobs use, what they do, and how you counter that. You are not going to get very far thinking you can gear or level up to a point to just spank things.

Stone Summit there have a couple things that can decimate hench AI, empathy mesmers that wreck your hench physical damage dealers and melee mobs that love wrecking your healers and casters. You need to look hard at what skills you are taking, what hench, and what tactics you are going to use to deal with those mobs. You need to decide on target priorities and how to control the fight, pulling, flagging, terrain, etc. A player who has finished everything and goes back to Vanquish travelers vale in HM has to think of the same things and has to counter the same things. Stone Summit Mesmers and Necros are evil little buggers if unprepared for them.

It is all about skills here. Yours, the mobs you fight. It is about tactics and counters. It is not about gear or levels. To me.. it is why GW is a cut above most typical MMOs.

I beat Proph with just hench. I didn't buy the expansions till after. It is harder, but is far from impossible to do with just Proph skills and hench.

You will always have one thing the mobs do not. Flexibility. They will do and act as their AI dictates. You have options. Use them. Think.

I only started playing in October, and just recently finished the last of the campaigns. Like you, I started in Prophecies, and like you, I found post-searing to be a huge adjustment from pre in terms of maps, mobs, etc.

In all honesty, I nearly quit playing not too much further along than where you are now. It took finally making the decision to venture into the Nightfall & Factions & EotN areas to reignite my enthusiasm... and in some ways, I had to sort of "force" myself to finish Prophecies.

Here's the thing that I've realized about GW - it's a thinking geek's game. It's not a shoot-em-up-fire-bomb-'em-to-hell kind of game. The foes get more diverse the further along you go, and you have to strategize... your build, your approach, what heroes/henchies you take, what builds they use, how you flag them, etc. Being a huge DiabloII fan (with a level 80-something sorceress who could kill Baal by walking into the room with Thunder Storm activated), this was a bit of a culture shock for me.

In Prophecies, you can skip quests and just do missions. If you're considering giving up on the game, then I'd suggest bypassing quests and getting yourself to Lion's Arch... and then venturing into Factions & Nightfall from there. Probably Nightfall... most of the areas are much more "open" like pre-searing than in Factions (which initially made me want to tear my hair out).

I DO find the game very worth playing now. I still loathe Prophecies, and with trying to do my Vanquishing in Hard Mode, I'm forced back there to accomplish that and I dread it each time... but I get a great deal of enjoyment out of the rest of the game, enough that it makes the annoyances of Prophecies worth it to me.

You might also consider starting new characters in Nightfall and Factions right away, and playing those for a bit. You get to the "good stuff" as it were much quicker in those two chapters... and you can actually benefit your existing Prophecies toon by doing so since you'll begin getting better weapons and drops a bit quicker in those as well.

It's worth sticking it out, I think.

I can only tell you how my experience went with GW.

First rolled a monk, thought I was good enough to run out into the world at level 5 only to delete her and rolled a necro.
Lesson learned: Do not leave pre until at least level 8.

So I rolled a necro because of some stuffs I read about it being a really good profession to use. I took her out only at level 8. She did ok. But eventually, I deleted her and made an elementalist.
Lesson learned: play something that suits my personality.

My Ele did really well until end game for Prophecies. That was when I personally understood why more experienced players say that elementalist's skills are lacking at end game.
Lesson learned: Read more up to date infor on the classes because skills can and may get nerfed.

So after playing through prophecies anyway, I started a ranger in Fractions. I am using her still for H.O.M and even through prophecies again. I do my prep before actually running out wildly and blindly and am doing well.
Lesson learned: Playing effectively is what GW is about.


With that, about your concern:

Gw is seriously not about leveling. Level 20 is the beginning of the game and the end of your leveling. While you do not see yourself getting any higher in level, you see yourself being more experience in using the combination of skills that you use. Anything before level 20, you can safely call it tutorial.

The quests are there to help you get to level 20. You can don't play them if you want, but in the end, you may be lacking in areas like 1) level 2)gold for armor 3) experience for the skill use.

The mobs are there the same reason the quests are. On top of that, I think a lot will agree with me that GW has really good story and unless you are only interested in getting titles and playing through the game, the quests are there to give you more background about the lore. For example, whatever happened to the duke's daughter after the Charr invaded? etc. The mobs are a product of the lore. The reason why the Charr are everywhere is because the Charr ARE EVERYWHERE at that point in time in the storyline.

The maps should not be hard at all. Like someone already said, wait till you get into the city in Fractions if you think the maps are this bad. Check on gw wiki if you find it hard to navigate. They have the direct route drawn out for each quest and mission.

Identifying the items helps you unlock the runes and insig which you will find useful next time when you seriously start equipping your character and your heroes. Most times, i.d-ing the items helps to fetch a higher price at the merchant. Plus, when you get to higher level, you will not be looking at blue and purple items. You may find yourself looking at the gold items.


I would say the GW is not just your average MMo but that it is a thinking man's game. The skill combo needs thinking through. The mission need some prep. The quests need some prep too. The mobs in an area needs a different skill set than in others (eg, not a good idea to use spirits in an area where there are lots of mobs that love to stomp their feet because it kinda make it hard to keep your spirits alive) Places with lots of mobs needs to be pulled and some bosses need kitting. And on top of that, if you play alone with hechies and heros, you will need to not just understand you play style and skills but that of your heroes and hechies because you are like the commander of the team and needs to know what each's weaknesses and strengths are and how to position them for best effect.

And while we are at the topic of being a commander, I would seriously ahve to stress prep before running out again. It is a war zone out there.

GW is not about level and it is definitely not about itemization. If you bring this traditional mindset into GW, you will be disappointed. You may need to see GW more like games such as maybe Resident Evil then WOW.

P.S. - knocking on level 13, but I feel like I've hit a wall and my enthusiasm is starting to wain.
* Level 13 and at Yak Bend? No wonder you are getting your butt kicked.

This is typical Prophecies, a new popup every 10 feet. It will get better as you progress in the game.

I brought GW over WoW and played it for a couple of days then forgot about it for 4months. It quite simply bored me.
Then i decided to re-visit it again and joined a guild. It was more fun having people to talk to and helping you though abit.
Needless to say i haven't looked back and have been playing for over five years.
I hit walls in pre let alone the rest of the campaign and i still hate gate of madness.
I say stick at it. The start can be a bit slow. But then again my first char left pre at lvl4
Or try the PVP side of things.

I think Yaks Bend is where I first hit a brick wall till I learned what I was doing wrong.
Problem with some quests and missions is where you take more than one.
Each one you take in Yaks adds a mob for you to run into which gets overwhelming.
I got to one point where I had 2 mobs coming in from the left while fighting uphill on the path.

Eventually I abandoned all missions and quests and explored eventually finding the next town.
When I felt a little more prepared I did all the quests one by one some of them starting from the next town and fighting back towards Yaks.

Prophesies is the oldest of the games and while it is a beautiful piece of work its getting a little creaky in places.
Popups are an example you spend a lot of time getting creatures burrowing up from underground just as you make contact with a surface mob.
Its predictable and annoying once you realise its always going to happen.
All that changes is the creature type and power,expect it most of the way through Prophesies.

Character progression is also very slow, if you find this really annoying then put that character on hold and try one of the other games in the series.
In fact its no bad thing to start one character in each play for a little while and see which games appeals to you the most.

Bit over six years ago rolled a Ranger in Prophecies and headed out. These days you have many more options. Prophecies is not as hard as it once was, but it is still very tough for a new player. If you can finish Prophecies, you will have the personal skills and knowledge to become an elite player in the rest of the campaigns.

Try a Ranger or a Warrior if the going becomes too hard. Ranger is my primary with Warrior a close second.

I hope the 2 who sugested to get hero and beat GWEN are joking. Heroes (customisable henchmen) are good if you have builds for them, for a beginner they are most of the time worst than henchmen. and GWEN is only the second hardest content so far...

Concerning quests, they don't give much unless you are having difficulties. Focus on missions while you're not blocked by difficulty.

As they said, itemization is simple and much smaller than most other rpgs. On that point, the quests generally give nice weapons, you might also want to checks collectors. They generally have the most interesting weapons. Again, it is still simpler than most games.

And maps in generaly are convoluted and the mobs are dense in GW.No question about it, you WILL meet a fight every 5 steps in most areas. Let's just say the northern shiverpeaks are normal maps, you'll see a lot worst, you'll also see a lot more open.

Wow, so many great responses overnight. Thanks all, I appreciate it.

Haha, I had no idea picking up quests added monsters to a map. Very good to know, might help me actually reach the next mission.

You're all right, my approach to GW has mirrored my approach to just about every other RPG; specialize in something and expect to run over most of the early/mid content.

I think I'm going to shelf my Necro for now, while i like the sound of the skills I've read about, the ones I currently have don't make for a very interesting single player experience. Single player GW feels a little to demanding for a 1st time caster. Maybe try a warrior in Nightfall or just start over in Prophecies.

I see what you mean about customizing skills to your opponents- I'm too used to games where investing a lot of points into attributes or skills alone will make you strong enough. I do findplaying with henchies a little frustrating– the fighter goes off on his own, the melee enemies spend all fight chasing around the healer, and nobody focus fires anything (maybe there's a command to force them to do that I haven't learned). We run over the easy stuff, but if I ever need strategy these guys could be a liability.

Are there leveling builds, tips for getting through the campaigns for the professions? Every build or guide I read seems to assume you're an end-game player with most/all of the skills. I only put points in 2 attributes, but I have no idea if the skills I'm using are holding me back. For example on my necro I was going mostly death magic, with a bit of blood magic. Between those two schools there doesn't seem to be many options for really countering anything specific0- deal damage, get some life back. I tried curses but that seemed to slow me down.

My problem with using a wiki while playing is, for whatever reason, if I tab out of GW the games gets really really choppy for a few minutes (my character ends up warping all over the screen, even if I'm not moving, weirdest latency issue I've ever seen). I play through Steam, not sure if that creates the issue. Only game I've ever had this problem with.

I guess I need to pay more attention to the enemies. In post-searing all the zones kind of blended together, so I figured a Charr was a Charr and a scorpion was a scorpion, didn't really matter where I was.

I thought level 13 at Yak's bend would be much higher than the curve. The sticky I read about hitting level 10 assumes you might not even hit double digit level before arriving at Yak's bend (The whole guide seems to emphasize getting to Lion's Arch by level 10…)

In the end I really do need to find some good Samaritan guild that could hold my hand for a while. There are just too many things I don't know and don't know I need to know.

Actually, I think it's more that you've started a Necro in Prophecies :P Necros are so nice and easy to use. Pop up minions. steal health or do direct damage, not to mention the fact that we have the best energy management in the game (that would be the Soul Reaping attribute).

In all honesty, before changing from your Necro, I'd say get a run to Lion's Arch, get max armour/weapons if you haven't already, and pop to the other campaigns. You'll also find guilds recruiting there as well as in Kamadan (which is the trade capital of the game really) and sometimes in Kaineng Centre. There's also a guild recruitment section on these forums with guilds advertising for members as well as a place you can request a guild.

Factions is great in that you can buy almost any skill from that campaign in Kaineng Center which is the first major city you will come to and is a very short distance from where you will enter the campaign. You can even run from the docks to Kaineng without taking any damage. That's how simple it is. With Nightfall, you can buy skills from Kamadan which again, is the first port you will come to. Trying to create a build with only Prophecies skills is painful in my personal experience.

While you're getting skills, open up EotN as well if you have it and grab some heroes. You get 4 when you arrive in Nightfall (Koss, Melonni, Tahlkora and Dunkoro) as well as 3 from EotN (Gwenn, Vekk and Ogden). While you may not have a load of skills right now, in places they'll be more use to you than henchies as you'll be able to control them more, skills that you buy from skill trainers will also be avaliable to them, and you can also equip them with runes and so forth to make them stronger than henchies.

Oh and protip here: your characters have birthdays so you may not want to delete your Necro until you're 100% sure it's not the class for you or really need the character slot. That way you're not waiting longer for your first birthday gift ;D

No reason to shelf your necro, necro's are after mesmers the strongest caster profession. They can deal massive AoE damage or go minion master and flood the screen with tiny little humps of flesh and they are generally fun to play. I don't know what you prefer to play: caster/melee but see what you prefer and go for that.

Avoid melee AI as much as you can, melee henchies and heroes are retarded, seriously. If you want to bring melee, go yourself..
The command for focus fire for henchies is Ctrl+Spacebar, it will make you say "I am attacking/using skill X on monster Y" and you henchies should turn to that monster.

It's good not to spread your attribs too thin, but since you're a necro, try to have some points in Soul Reaping as well. It's the best energy management there is to find in game..
Death Magic combines well with Curses if you have the right skills, but normally only Death + Soul Reaping or only Curses + soul reaping (again with the right skills) should be enough damage. But since you're new and don't have all skills yet, it might be better to see what you like yourself.

There are plenty of such guilds around, try in the guild recruitement section here on guru and you should find some friendly layed back guilds who will always be happy to help you out.

Hope I get the answers for you.

1) If you wanna call target, press shift and attack. The hencies will attack the target you are attacking. But of course, they sometimes will get into the mode of doing somethings else. But 90% of the time, they will follow.

2) There are builds based not normal skills and not elites but same as other skill bars that you see, most require you to have finished the campaigns. What I would recommend is for you to use them as guides. What I did was to try some of the skills that they recommended and if I could not get the rest, to fill the bars up with what I thought were the best alternatives. Right now for you, that may be the best you can do. Sometimes, you hit the jackpot. Sometimes, you may need to go back in town and change some of the skills because you are dying too quickly or that your energy level isn't following up nicely, etc.

3) There is a primary attribute for each profession you will need to place your points in. For my ranger it will be expertise, etc. Primary attributes helps sustain the attributes you want. Here is the list.
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Primary_attribute

4) If you find going into wiki for maps are hard, try the textmods in the wiki. Download the mission maps (In Game Mission Maps - IGMM). There are some other good ones too to choose from. I usually use that and the cartographer one and the one the gets rid of health bar over the head. Makes life easier. And for missions that are time... well makes it so much faster to finish.

5) I think I remember that only at level 15 was I able to maintain a nice kill from the mobs in Yak's Bend.

6) I still see a lot of Guilds looking for people at Lion's Arch and Kamadan in the American district so you should be ok.


Lastly, even though Fractions is everyone's favorite place for new character, I would agree to a new player going for Nightfall first. You can learn more about your heroes and you may find the derv a nice profession to try out too. When Nightfall gets closer to the end, it gets more difficult but it is fun difficult as compared to Prophecies' annoying difficult at the beginning.

And for all that,

Enjoy your game. We are all here to help.

P.S:
Do not delete any characters. Keep it as a mule But don't delete it. I regretted deleting my characters because I would have had more birthday gifts now if I had not. That is a couple less mini pets for me. :X

Don't worry about running over to EOTN whenever you can from where ever you are. Once there, you character is buffed to level 20 no matter what level you may be. Will help you with 4 easy heroes to start with. May not be the best right now but playing with their build will help you understand more about each profession. You will also get M.O.X once you hit level 10 right outside Kamadan if you are in Nightfall.

What is your in game name? I am heading to the zoo with my daughter but will be back in a few hours. I have nothing better to do then help a new player as I have accumulated enough money for rank 10 zaishen, 50/50 in my HoM, and 35 max titles on my main. I would love to walk you through GW and if you have ventrilo and a mic, you can pick my brain on any aspect of this game. My in game name- Nhoj Revrac