Newb GW Player - I'm doing it wrong?

That's what a healer henchmen is for ^.^

Try using window mode instead of minimizing. It's an issue with GW.exe changing to low cpu priority when it goes into the background and the client & server trying to resync.

When playing Prophecies with henchmen, try to avoid adding the warriors, mesmers, and rangers - they have bad skill bars.

Imo, casters are easier to play with compared to frontline professions. You'll deal more damage and won't have to depend on the henchmen as much. Melee classes usually die more often...

I see where your problem with teh Necromancer is. It is good that you are spreading your attribute points over as few lines as possible. but you are spreading them in the wrong lines. For now, only go for one type of damage line (Blood, Death or Curses) and spread the points between your chosen line and Soul Reaping.

The Soul Reaping line gives you energy when creatures near you die (one energy per level of Soul Reaping and limited to 3 triggers every 15 seconds). This is an extremely good energy management system which not many other classes can match up to. Soul reaping lets you cast more high energy cost skills over a shorter period of time as long as you / your group kills stuff.

Dont dissmiss Curses just yet as it is one of the easier and stronger skill lines available to the Necromancer Primary (Blood has some high health sacrifice penalties and Death Magic basically peters out to Minionmastering quite often which is a lot of work and can become overwhelming very quickly).

I agree with the poster above

Do not delete your Necro as far as I am concered its one of the best classes there is as they are so diverse in what they can do.

As you have only played 20 hours and in Proph yes its a slow learning curve there but skills you obtain by doing quests are free..unlike others were you have to purchase.

All your chars can obtain heros nomatter where they are created so take your time dont rush it and learn as you go on synergy and how as a team it all works together to create a taem that will do areas .

You can Map travel anywhere as often as you like once you have arrived at the port city.

Like wow when you have did this once all you do is press M and click the Boat to tavel back and forth to whatever campaign you wish to go to.

This is skill based not gear based although always remember MAX Armour is max...there is no difference from one costing 5k a piece than one costing say 100k a piece its cosmetic only, so always refer to our campfire section on the profession you have chosen to give yourself a better insight to the class in question

More importantly its about fun and welcome to GW and enjoy your stay

1. Ctrl Spacebar will call target for your hench. Hench will often do a good job of finding the most important target, but not always. Kill the enemy healer at the earliest opportunity.

2. Double clicking on a party member's name will make your character run to them. See your healer's health bar beginning to dip run to them and defend.

3. Holding down Alt will let you see stuff on the ground. Or powder kegs for catapults, remember that. Holding down Ctrl will let you see individual members of an enemy group ahead.

4. Keep the U map, mission map, open at all times. You can slide stuff off the main menu by holding down shift or control, forget which, and thus be able to open inventory, world map, and such more easily.

5. Find a no attribute required longbow or flatbow. You do not need a ranger secondary to use a pulling bow. These have maximum range. Use them to pull targets. Pulling just one group where two are close together makes life much easier.

While leveling up, it may be more efficient at times to keep firing with your little pulling bow if the targets can freeze you or slow you down. When fully leveled this is usually not necessary.

6. "c" spacebar will target nearest and attack. I use Options menu to change Tab key to target nearest because that works best for me. Your mileage may vary. Do note though that you can change key bindings, even assign to mouse side buttons.

7. Why don't you try Nightfall! Warrior or Ranger, maybe one of each! See what you like. In Nightfall, stay on the starting island as long as you can find quests. This will get you to something like level 18.5 and get you some heroes who only add to the fun. Then you hit the mainland with your first heroes and are level 20 in no time at all. The starting island in Nightfall is a lot of fun and quite large.

After finishing Nightfall, you can take your heroes to Lion's Arch in Prophecies and pick up another hero on the way! You can work backwards to prior areas of Prophecies, but only Prophecies characters can do pre-searing. So you lose nothing really.

And to add to Highlander's point on armor. Although those elite armors are cosmetics only, if you are doing H.O.M, you may need to invest in a couple cos they are the only ones counted and the only ones you can put into H.O.M.

Can anyone correct me if I am wrong cos I am not sure about the Lux and Kurz ones. I would think it is the same though cos I have a warrior's Kurz's amor but remember that I couldn't put it in as it wasn't the elite one.

Thanks all, so much to digest. A lot of the named items/places are going over my head, but I think I have a general, short-term goal outlined.

Get to Lion's Arch. I can keep plodding along through Prophecies or start over in Nightfall (seems like the consensus agrees this isn't a bad idea now that I have a general understanding of the game, and most recommend Warrior or Ranger if the Necro isn't doing it for me at the moment). Once I get to Lion's Arch I can jump between campaigns (Proph, Factions, Nightfall)? After that, most seem to advocate jumping into Nightfall for Heroes and skills?

If the game gets too difficult at any point I should probably take a more careful look at my skills and what my enemies are doing or quest/redo missions to level up.

Melee Henchies are bad. Just got some more choices in Yak's bend, so I guess I run with the healer, mage, and necro. Being able to focus fire should help a lot, thanks for that tip.

I have no idea what H.O.M. is or why that's relevant, but I guess it should be a long term goal I have been to that beach place that looks like a jumping off point for the entire world. It pretty much blew my mind and I just went back to the Northern Wall.

Realistically, how far away am I from being able to change my secondary profession? If I create another character and get him through pre-searing, do I have access to their secondary on my other characters?

Ranger isn't a very good choice tbh, a lot of people have one, but it's not an optimal class. It needs a rework and pronto, it's mediocre at everything it does and everything it can do can be done better by other professions.. If you wanna play melee, try a dervish instead of a warrior, they recently got buffed beyond being needed and they are fun to play.

You can change your secondary prof once you get ascended. Judging from where you are in the campaign now, it's gonna be a while. In proph that takes an incredible amount of time. If you can get a guildy to run you to Sanctum Cay, you can do that mission and skip like half the storyline to get ascended, upon which you can change your secondary prof and you can jump back into the story if you really want to. But so early in game, secondary professions don't matter that much and you should be fine doing the campaign using just your primary.

Seems like a lot has been answered for you, but here's my two cents:

Prophecies is probably harder to start out in than the other two, simply because of the time it takes to level and the lack of really usable skills. The henchies were originally designed as fillers for parties that couldn't get a particular profession or enough players at that moment to play, and even after several updates are still inferior to Heroes.

My recommendation would be to find someone to run you to LA so you can do the quests that open up Factions and Nightfall. Go to Nightfall, and follow the story-line quests and Consulate Docks mission, which will allow you to get to the Hunted! quest. That is the Nightfall "ascension" quest which will allow you to change secondary. I have only changed secondaries for those times when it was easier to complete one of the EotN solo quests. I have never felt the need nor desire to change professions on any of my characters, even on those with Ranger secondaries which are just used so that character can have a pet.

While you are in Nightfall, you will get Hero Skill Points when you start leveling up your Sunspear and Lightbringer title tracks. This will essentially provide you with free points to get additional skills with in Nightfall. Be careful though, several skills can be obtained through the Prophecies quests for no cost, so it is better to make sure you have all of those unlocked first before wasting points on them.

Hanok

If you have all three campaigns, I would suggest you start in Elona. Prophecies takes a long time to plow through, and its very slow to accumulate elite skills - which you can't even get until you're about halfway through the campaign. Elona isn't as much of a maze, you get heroes to manage right away, there's PvE skills and military titles right off the bat, and elites are available to capture after the 4th mission. Its just much more engaging than Prophecies, which I think also suffers from forcing you to go through all this horrible wasteland at the beginning, its just not very pretty.

On the upside, Prophecies enemies are a lot easier than NF and Factions, and the leveling curve is much more gradual. Also, there are skill quests in Prophecies, and there are almost none of those in NF or Factions, so you can save a lot of money with the free skills. Also, you'll understand the story much better if you start with Proph, then Factions, then NF, then EotN.

To chime in on a few other points:
* Maps get better and more open in the later campaigns (Kaineng City in Factions excluded, mainly because it's intended to feel claustrophobic and oppressive). Prophecies is infamous for its maze-like maps that only give you one good path from A to B.

* Itemization takes a much different form in this game. You can get max power items very quickly (relatively speaking; you're still decently far from max stuff) and cheaply. The economy is mainly based on weapon skins and luxury items, stuff that doesn't impact your gameplay at all. That's the beauty of the game, really: once you've hit max level, your potential is the same as any other player (with just a few exceptions), and your effectiveness all comes down to personal skill and skill choices.

* HoM = Hall of Monuments. Basically, it's how ANet is letting GW1 players take some of their acquired wealth and achievements and turn them into titles and items in GW2. See: wiki. It's worth pursuing, but don't worry about it now. You'll get to EotN eventually and can start filling it then. This lists the rewards you can get in GW2.

Welcome to the wide world of Guild Wars!

You've got a good start and the advice here is great. Best I could give is take it slow, pay attention, and most of all, have fun.

I've dropped you a private message with my in-game name in case you'd like to add it to your list for on-the-fly questions and whatnot. I'd be happy to help in whatever way helps you most.

Hey setcamper, plz leave your in-game-name for me on this thread and I will pm you as soon as I am able or you can pm my i.g.n.-Nhoj Revrac. I am 10k hour veteran who would love to help you out

I would definately say stick with the necro. You will find that once you unlock more skills you have a great, flexible and fun profession to work with.

I'm sure most people have given you the standard paths to take in order to build up some skills. Here is another one that can be quicker or slower depending upon you.

1) create a PvP only character.
2) join a guild
3) do some Alliance battles/Fort Aspenwood/Jade mine combat
4) use Balthazar points to unlock skills
5) Purchase some Necro Tomes from players and use them on your PvE Necro.

Not the most conventional method but it certainly does work for some people.

To ascend and be able to change your secondary, you need to move all the way till you get to the Crystal Desert and finish the three missions there (two are tough!) and then you will have to fight you evil twin (that one isn't that hard). After that you will ascend, and there will be quests that will give you the chance to change your profession for free after you completed them. This means you have at least 10-12 mission starting from Lion's Arch to finish before you can ascend.

H.O.M is the Hall of Monument that you will find in Eye of the North town up in EotN. It allows you to display your accomplishments. Most players are now doing that because it is tied with Guild Wars 2. You can get special armors, weapons and pets/minipets in Guild Wars 2 by finishing that.

Besides that, it is a great idea to leave your in-game name here too. We can contact you and help you out in there as well.

Not sure if someone mentioned it in the posts below, but if you're going out with a party of 4 in Yak's Bend I suggest you take 2 more henchies. From Yaks onwards the party size is 6 and it gets up to 8 later on. This may be very well be the reason why you're having such a hard time.

There's a lot of good advice in the replies above. (I've been playing for less than a year.) As far as using henchmen compared to heroes: you can give heroes weapons, armor, and runes, and can even give them a secondary profession; but you can't modify henchmen. It's true though that at first it may be better to use henchmen until you have modified the heroes into a sufficiently powerful force.

I'm playing all four games in the series but I don't really like "Prophecies" either. The series gets better. I recommend not travelling to the Eye of the North until you're at least level 14; though the game will treat you as a level 20, EotN seems to be intended for level 20 players.

I'm newbie to GW, too. I started playing last week with a Warrior/Monk and after a while I was very frustrated since my character died a lot too. I found a couple of advices on the wiki and on this forum, and I haven't die since then:

1- Heroes kick ass while Henchmen suck in the long run. Simple as that. I was doing Quests pass Lion's Arch and gor killed a lot. Then I read something here about Heroes way better than Henchmen, so I completed "Sunspears in Cantha" (*), went to Nightfall, talked to a lady who gave me 3-4 Heroes, did the "Acolyte Suosuke" quest (to get another Hero) and then returned to Prophecies. My gameplay was improved a lot and I haven't died a single time since then. Also, if you have all 3 campeigns, don't forget to get you hero M.O.X outside Lion's Arch (or any other Port City in the other campeigns).

(*) I made "Sunspears in Cantha" (Factions Quest) rather than "Sunspears in Kryta" (Prophecies Quest) because going first to Factions to do the Quest is a lot easier than doing it in Prophecies, since in Faction you have 7 Lv 20 Henchmen while in Prophecies you have 5 Lv10 Henchmen. If you already have "Sunspears in Kryta" acepted, first you have to abandon it before going to Cantha.

2- If your party size allows 6+ characters (and you have Heroes), I've found that two monks are better than one. Have one Monk focused on Healing Prayers and the other Monk focused on Protection Prayes (have them both avoiding combat so that they only focus on using skills on the party, not fighting). With the monk focused on Protection Prayers, equip him with Vital Blessing, shift + clic on the icon to disable it, press "F" key to select your character and then clic the icon again. That way your character will always have 150+ extra health points. With other temporary buffs the heroes can give you (if you equip them well) you can easily reach 1.000+ health on several circunstances.

3- Equip your Heroes with Insignias and Runes, speacially the aforementioned Monks. Gave +3 Healing to the Healing Monk and +3 Protection to the Protection Monk. This will reduce their health by 75, but since they are going to avoid combat anyway it doesn't matter. Also give them at least +1 rune for Divine Favor.

4- Another thing I'm doing (but this highly depends on your strategy) is giving all my Heroes Monk as second profession with Non Attribute skills (that way you can spend all your Atribute points in their main profession Atributes) like Resurrect, Purge Condition or Remove Hex.


Anyway, I hope this helps.

Yes, this is what I always tell people when they want to go to nightfall from prophecies: it's much easier to go to factions first and then from factions to nightfall.

Don't get frustrated. My wife and I got stuck at Yak's Bend for a while, too, but we figured out how to power through it. We learned how to pull guys so that we weren't constantly overwhelmed, we learned to watch the dwarves to see when we had the opportunity to isolate a group and take it out, and we learned how to focus our characters' builds to become more effective.

Yak's Bend is an easy place to get stuck. Once we made it through there, we were pretty much okay until we hit an even harder wall at the Crystal Desert.

It's very possible to make it through this, and it's a good way to learn some of the skills you (not your characters) will need to make it through parts of the game.

I don't know what your idea of a game is, or what you expect to get out of playing one.

If you're playing the game so that you can get to the end as fast as you can... get a run.

If your goal is to "play" as little of the game as possible... get a run.

If you only want to get to the current "poser" district to show off your leet armor... get a run.

If you want to brag about how many stacks of ectos you've "farmed", while complaining
that you don't like games with "grind"... get a run.

In my mind a game is a "waste of time" by definition. I don't expect to gain anything of real
substance from it. I play to kill time, have some fun in my free time, and maybe to overcome
a few challenges the game designers created for me.

Guild Wars does that for me. I don't start a mission thinking "God.. I just want this to be over
with!" (I've actually heard that from a team mate). I see what obstacles the designers have
thrown at me, and then try to beat them while expecting nothing more from it than the enter-
tainment I get from it.

I've gotten stuck in the game a few times too ( I still had my presearing weapon when I got to
Yaks Bend on my first character ), but always manage to move on. So here it is six years later
and I'm still logging on regularly long after I dropped out of WoW. I guess it just depends on
why you're playing the game, wether you like it or not.