Questions about solo'ing for HoM (New to GW!)

Firstly, Hello everyone! Please take into consideration that i have never played Guild wars before, this is my first ever time, i've bought all 4 expansions, that's, EOTN, Factions, Prophecies & Nightfall.

My main question is i'm after the HoM (Whatever they are) bonuses and such, i thought this would be a great time to give Guild wars a go, as i'm looking to purchase GW2 in the future, the only problem is, i'll probably be doing this solo on my own, and with so many variables i'm having a very difficult choice in figuring out where to start, with professions and the expansion choice and such.


I've been doing some googling, but most of what i've been reading has just gone over my head and i've not understood any of it, any help would be greatly appreciated.

What i've understood so far is that a Ritualist on the Factions expansion is the way to go to begin? But i wouldn't have a clue where to start, what to do, etc.

Firstly, Hi! Welcome to GW and to Guru

Where to start?

A popular question asked almost daily on the forums! Lots of newcomers recently, we like newcomers! I would strongly recommend looking through the recent threads in this Q&A forum as you'll get a *lot* of opinions and info for newcomers. Similarly, check the sticky threads for a comprehensive HoM guide. It may be a little overwhelming but seriously, don't worry about it. We understand you want the rewards, but you need to crawl before you can run a marathon. Enjoy the game for the game. I can't stress this enough. Play, quest, kill monsters. The rewards will come by themselves.

In terms of which campaign to start in, it's my personal preference to start in all of them! Obviously you can't do this on just one character, so roll up 3 characters, different professions, in each of the three campaigns and just have a play around. A lot of guides will tell you to focus on one character for your title accomplishments, and this is all well and good, but you don't want to set yourself up to play a character / class you hate. Maybe spend 2-3 days on each of the characters before you decide if that's the one for you. Also, each of the starter areas offers something new in terms of playing, gathering information on the game and different ways of obtaining skills and items.

Ritualists are a great class, but then so are necros, and warriors and dervishes and monks and .... and so on! Really, you can do quite well with anything. Play around!

You say you want to solo, but I would *strongly* recommend getting yourself into a nice guild. Have a look around the Guild Recruiting forums further down on Guru. You will have more fun with guildies than just your henchman and heroes, and they will be able to help you out when you're drowning in a sea of info.

My general advice to all newcomers recently is basically: Take it slow, have fun, try everything, and take it slow.

Thanks for the speedy and in-depth reply!

I did give the HoM guide sticky a look, but given that i don't understand anything about the game at this current moment in time, pretty much everything i read went straight over my head!

I'll give the recruitment forums a look and see if i can find a guild suited to my playstyle, i'm used to playing a tank, but i was mainly looking for a class that's suitable at solo'ing all the HOM rewards, i'll take the advice you supplied though and see what i can find, i'm most definetly looking for enjoyment as i want something to play in the mean time until GW2 is released, and i'm hoping for guild wars to fill the space. :-)

What expansion would you recommend is the most beginner friendly? I'd hate to pick an expansion only to find that it's muddled with a ton of advanced things!

Again, thanks for the reply!

Prophecies is most beginner friendly, it has a slow learning curve and it takes time before you meet the real tough enemies.
Also take into consideration that there is solo and then solo. Playing all alone as only player on team is generally not advisable for a newer player, A lvl20 rit with max gear and the elite skill Signet of Spirits can go out and solo kill lots of things and earn money. Other classes can also do so. But basically it is a bad idea to solo the missions that way.
But playing alone with no other humans is possible, just using henchmen and heroes, you can do the entire game that way.

As said, you should find a guild. There are lots of them out there. Look for one that is helpful to beginners. Not all are that.

Welcome to Guild Wars. The game may be a bit old now, but still fun to play

There is really a lot to tell, but that overwhelms a lot of new players. Sometimes its better to read a bit (at your own pace). Here are a few important links:
* Guild Wars has an excellent wiki: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Main_Page
* A site that covers most populair builds (skillbars): http://www.gwpvx.com/PvX_wiki
* and these forums ofcourse (but you already found them)

Important things to look for on wiki:
* armor (how to get better armor), how to upgrade armor using runes and insignia's
* weapons (requirements, max damage, how to improve them, etc)
* skills (how to get them, limits, balancing your team)
* heroes and henchmen (your help ingame, when there are no real players around to help you)
* indentifying and salvaging items
* if you want to wiki also has info on every quest and missions (warning: it may contain spoilers as well)

I think this list covers most of the basics... if not i am sure someone will correct me

Again, have fun with Guild Wars.

I just wanted to clarify some things about this part.

First of all, Guild Wars doesn't really follow the typical MMO roles in the classic sense -- so what you know as a "tank" might not be exactly what GW considers a "tank."

The main questions you need to ask yourself when picking a profession are:
1. Melee or ranged?
2. Spell caster or physical damage?

If you like melee, your choices are warrior, assassin, or dervish (the latter two will determine your starting campaign for you since they are unique to Factions and Nightfall respectively). These classes are also mostly physical damage, with assassins and dervishes also having some utility spells.

If you prefer to be ranged, your choices are paragon and ranger as physical damagers or elementalist, necromancer, mesmer, monk, and ritualist as spell casters. (Choosing ritualist or paragon will also lock you in to their starting campaigns since they are also unique to Factions and Nightfall respectively.)

Thanks to secondary professions, you have a little wiggle room (e.g. rangers can do melee with assassin skills; assassins can be ranged with ranger skills; a lot of casters have point-blank spells), but those are mostly exceptions to the rules of the standard roles outlined above. Not all primary/secondary combos are a good idea (e.g. big spell-casting warrior/elementalist = very very bad). And any primary that mostly relies on its secondary is vulnerable to a skill or mechanics tweak at any time, whereas the the standard roles of the professions can always be counted on.

Understand that all professions are capable of getting through the content and filling their Halls, even mostly with the use of just heroes. However, certain professions utilize specific builds that are desired in certain farms and elite area speed clears that make earning some titles a bit easier.

(I guess I should disclose here that a majority of the community currently considers rangers and paragons in need of a little love from the devs. Those professions can still do things, but they don't see a lot of demand from meta teams. Don't let that stand in your way, though -- ranger, especially, can bypass his perceived limitations by exploiting his secondary.)

But that doesn't mean you should fret over that for your first character.
For the most part, your HoM accomplishments are account-wide.
Many people have multiple characters that they use to accomplish various things. They may use a ranger as their "main" who does all the missions and vanquishes areas for those titles, while using an assassin and/or ritualist to farm and complete elite areas for those titles and items.

The most important thing to consider when choosing your "main" character (and you will have one -- especially if you go for the "God Walking Amongst Mere Mortals" title) is how much you enjoy playing it.
It makes absolutely no sense to pick a profession because someone else said "This is good for filling your Hall" if you absolutely hate playing it. You're going to be spending a lot of time with that character. Make sure you have FUN.

Listen to what Kamara said -- start several characters in various campaigns. Experience the backstory of those campaigns. In the meantime, you'll be unlocking starter skills for your future heroes (a cool bonus!). Only that way can you get a feel for the professions and make an informed decision.

Welcome to Guild Wars. Good luck!

One other quick note:

You will be able to take whichever toon you decide on as your "main" toon to all the campaigns and EotN once you reach a certain port town and take a specific quest. Since you bought the trilogy and EotN, a message will pop up instructing you who to talk to once you reach the proper city. You'll only miss out on some of the tutorial stuff at the beginning of the non-native campaigns. You'll want to wait to travel to EotN though. It's designed for players who have finished a campaign and have more experience with the game mechanics/etc (imo).

And welcome to GW!

Ritualist is recently nerfed and has a limited amount of builds available, so while powerfull they're only fun for so long. In the current state of the game I'd reccomend either starting and Elementalist, Dervish or Assassin.

My most important advise: Start playing the game. Almost everything you do will contribute to your Hall of Monuments. The Hall of Monuments rewards roughly 2 kind of rewards. 1: those that take time. 2: Those that needs a lot of gold (in game gold).

So my advise is to start playing the campaigns and the main quest lines. It rewards some statues for your HoM and it unlocks the towns and outposts. You can't make mistakes in Guildwars that can't be undone and the game got a very good learning curve.

A few small remarks
1: like said read the wiki and the faq's
2: there are two forms of solo-ing in GW, a: going out alone (very hard!) using henchman and later on Hero's (very much doable). Going out alone is only done when farming (your henchman and hero's are robot's but they "share" in the drops).
3: To equip yourself and your hero's with runes and weapons you gonna need money. so don't overspent.
4: Join a helpfull guild. Most guilds don't mind if you wanna enjoy the games alone. But they don't mind to give you advise either. Besides that, if you are stuck you can ask more experienced guildmembers for help. Some people have been playing this game for almsot 6 years and they know every group of enemy's and every corner in every mission of the game.
5: Don't think bout the HoM untill you've finnished all campaigns and expansions. Just make sure you do every mission with bonus or masterreward. It gives you already 9/25 rewards for GW2. And it gives access to all skills and outposts in the game. That is needed to get the other points.

I also started GW alone aiming for the HoM and now I'm 40/50.
All I did was:
1 - Finished all the campaigns w/o thinking about the HoM, I did in the chronological order (prophecies -> factions -> nightfall -> eye of the north)
2 - Then I did all the missions in HM doing the bonuses for the titles
3 - Did the zaishen vanquishes everyday for the coins
4 - Did the Zaishen Elite daily for the baltazar points
5 - With the coins and points from 3 and 4 I got a PvP title (Zaishen rank 3)
6 - Did the last things for the points like FoW, The Deep, the black moa chick mini, bought 1 gold mini, bought some elite armors and done 30/50.
All the above done just with heroes and henchmen.

Advice: Learn to play the game. Learn basic mechanics before you start chasing skills and builds, and thinking of HoM or Gwamm. Please do yourself and everyone else that favor. Be humble and help others when you figure things out. Contribute to the community.

My wife and I just recently came back to the game a few weeks ago. When I finally re-discovered the purpose of the Hall of Monuments, I started working on it. It seems to be VERY daunting but you have really inspired me. For the most part, I too will be doing it alone so it's good to see that it can be done. All the Zaishen stuff is still like a foreign language but I'll get the swing of it.

@OP: Good luck! I think we'll both need it.

Try playing through the game from prophecies - EoTN at least one time. The story is decent and it will give you a feel for the game. It shouldn't take too long and do it ASAP with a toon you can eventually farm with.

Normally, I recommend you try a few different toons. But if you are only interested in the hom, pick a character you can solo farm with like a sin, monk or rit. You will need to make gold/ectos to help pay for some of the titles.

Search for the fast hom guide. It has very good info and will be easier to understand after playing the game through once.

Farming events super important IMO. No reason to work on cart, vq, etc. during event when you can farm alcohol, sweets, or party pts.

Titles like cartographer, vanquisher, and some skill hunter can all be farmed at the same time and will net you some gold. Booze, party, sweet tooth, lucky/unlucky will cost a lot if you don't farm them during events.

What I recommend is to set aside more time to play during events if you can and grab money/title items. In between events grab the other titles you need/want. Map it all out using the guide. 50/50 or 30/50. No reason to go 1 over either if you just want it for hom.