As has been mentioned here a few times, Aria and I have recently started playing the Guild Wars Trilogy after purchasing the game on sale from Amazon. I’ve rolled a Necro/Monk, she is a Ranger/Elementalist, and we started in the original (Prophesy?) campaign.
So far things are going well, although the amount of running seems to be a bit high (I’m sure we are not doing the quests in the most optimal order). I like the setup of the quest log and how you get a pointer on the map directing you; this makes jumping into the game and casually playing for an hour or so very easy, and that’s exactly what we were looking for. We are still very much in the learning phase when it comes to stats, skills, and overall strategy, but so far nothing we have come across has been a serious hurdle (we both died on one quest to defend a town, but the NPC with us was able to finish of the mobs and we still won. Kinda funny to read quest text telling you “great job in the defense” when you died though).
Two questions for any GW veterans reading this: the first and obvious question is will our class setup ‘work’? We don’t plan to group with others, so we will be a duo most nights. I’m not looking to complete the highest-level content, but I would like to see most of the GW PvE content.
The second question is about the starting area: I believe we did 3-4 quests before reaching a quest that warns us that if we accept it, we will leave the area. We declined and started working on other quests, but I’m wondering how serious this decision is, given the amount (10+) of side quests we seem to be picking up. Is the option to leave the starting area available so soon to allow veterans to move on quickly, or am I over-thinking the whole warning? We are both level 4 right now, but the option to move on was available at level 2 I believe.
Hardcore Casual 
It’s mostly for veterans – I wouldn’t do it if you like the look of the starter area, and the starter area doesn’t really take that long to do.
Yes, the option to leave the starting area after only doing a couple of quests is to allow vets out quick. But I’d suggest continuing on the side quests until level 5 or so.
As for whether your builds will work, it comes down to how you customize. Necromancer/Monk is a fine pairing, and is especially nice if you go the Minion Master route. Ranger/Elementalist is a little more unique. Many Ele spells will be expensive for the Ranger’s 25 energy, especially since the Ranger primary can’t put any points in the Ele primary stat, Energy Storage. Also, the Ranger primary stat Expertise doesn’t work with most Ele skills. Still, you can keep an eye out for 5 energy spells or energy management glyphs. Later in the game, when you get down to the desert, there will be an opportunity to train a new secondary profession, if you decide you need to do that. Both Rangers and Necros have a strong place in the late game dungeons.
The opening area is more like a tutorial than anything…you can use the extra quests to pump up a little more xp before leaving the area, but level 4-5 is not a bad time to exit it. The only other reason to stay in the starting area is because dye drops more frequently, but that’s not really important, just fun.
Sorry to double post, but I wanted to mention that Ranger pets can be excellent off-tanks, or even main tanks if they grow into hearty ones. The Necro especially will need to kite a bit to allow the pet a chance to get aggro. It’s a dance, but you’ll get it figured out. Also, once you leave Pre-Searing (the starter area) you’ll have the opportunity to take Henchmen out on missions. Casters and monks have been better henchmen for me in my experience.
Oh Rangers get a pet… good to know. The one thing I don’t like about the necro atm is the minions don’t last very long, and healing them seems to be pointless. Does that change later, or is a minion necro always re-summoning his pets as you PvE?
There are skills to help with that, but you won’t get them in Pre-Searing. Blood of the Master allows you to sacrifice some health to heal all of your minions, and Heal Area works on minions as well. For a general idea, check out this build. http://pvx.wikia.com/wiki/Build:N/Mo_Minion_Master It’s written up for level 20, but the basic skills (minions, Dark Bond, Blood of the Master, and Heal area) are there. For Pre-Searing, I’d focus on Blood Magic spells, Deathly Swarm, and then fill the rest of your bar with Monk spells.
The Ranger has to get the Charm Animal skill from Master Ranger Nente. http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/List_of_Pre-Searing_trainers
Once you charm the pet, you can take that skill off your bar and use Comfort Animal.
Make sure you do all the quests associated with both your primary and secondary professions. You’ll get extra skills and won’t have to buy them later.
I started as a Monk/Necro (same thing only reversed) myself though I do have a Necro also. I tried the Minion Master build and, while I know some players who do it very well, I prefer to just use Minion Master Heroes instead. I have one helluva time actually targeting the minions whereas Heroes can do it perfectly and they have inhuman reaction times.
Rangers do get a pet, she’ll get a quest to get her first one fairly soon while adventuring in Ascalon. Check out the wiki on how pets grow so you can decide how you want to handle it.
The downside to Prophecies is no Heroes. You’ll be stuck with Henchman and they’re not exactly the brightest candles in the box.
Starting to think I might re-roll into another class. I was thinking the necro would be more like a DAoC necro, with a more permanent army of minions. I’ll have to look over the Prophecies classes to see what will fit my style best.
You’ll be able to switch secondary professions later in the game, if you want. I’d recommend joining a guild, as that’ll help you get answers when you need them, as well as valuable support when the game gets inevitably harder as you progress (trust me).
Like others have mentioned, the pre-searing area you’re in right now is to prepare new players and show them the ropes in a less hostile environment. Either way, you won’t be missing much if you decide to leave noob land.
Also, you will not be able to go through the game as a duo for very long (in some missions and quests the henchmen become somewhat useless). In Nightfall you’ll be able to have heroes though, eliminating the need to group up as you can have a very capable full party with 2 humans and their heroes. This makes the game a lot less social, though, which is the tradeoff. I just started a nub Prophecies a few days ago, so if you’d like to party up some time my IGN is ‘Sugar Tlts’ (the I in Tlts is a lowercase ‘L’. Cheers!
Also, there’s no need to reroll, as the main point of GW is that you change skills/sec professions depending on the situation and quest/mission. The strongest GW players are the ones who know what skill combo (or ‘build’) to run for each specific situation.
There are several cookie cutter builds that have become standard in the game (it is 5 years old, after all). One of them is the minion master. The MM is most effective once you reach level 20, as you’ll be able to have the maximum number of minions (10), they will take a lot of damage before going down, and you’ll be able to keep them alive almost indefinitely, using Blood of the Master and Verata’s Sacrifice.
If you want to learn more about builds, go to
http://pvx.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page
They have a knowledge base (accumulated throughout the 5 years of the game’s existence) of commonly used skill combinations and what each of them does. They have regular PvE builds, farming builds and PvP builds.
I like to create my own builds, but you start doing that as you gain more experience and knowledge of how each skill works. GW to me was a much more exciting game 4 years ago when a lot of these now standard builds weren’t very popular. It made creating your own successful builds all the more rewarding.
Also, for info on quests and gear and skills, type /wiki in the in-game chat and it’ll open a browser window with the official Guild Wars wiki, which is invaluable for getting around the game.
You class setup is less than optimal. The ranger’s energy pool isn’t large enough to support anything of substance from ele. I logged about 2500 hours on my ranger before I quit and most of the time, for normal missions/quests, I ran with a r/mo build, pure ranger skills and Rebirth for a resurrect.
As a necro/monk, you’re not going to see much usefulness until you get quite a bit closer to level 20. However, if you stick with minions (which you should, they’re great for PvE) you’ll eventually reach the point where you can steamroll any mission pretty much solo. I reccomend switching to Bone Fiends (ranged minions) if you want raw damage.
But in any event, get out of presear asap. Crazy boring.
If you’re considering re-rolling anyway, I would highly suggest switching to Nightfall instead of Prophecies. The leveling pace is much better, the “noob island” teaches you everything you need to know while leveling and also playing through the back-story of Nightfall then right around level 18 to 20 it puts you over onto the mainland to start the real game. It kinda brings the way GW is supposed to be played into better perspective than Prophecies, which levels you as you go.
Not to mention, you get Heroes in Nightfall…
I was under the impression that if we start with Nightfall, we can only roll the two included classes, is that correct? Or is it the original options PLUS the Nightfall ones?
No, you also can roll the 6 core classes in Factions and Nightfall in addition to the new ones, but you can only have the new classes starting in that specific campaign. So, for example, a dervish can only be created in Nightfall.
I don’t agree with the suggestion to start in nightfall. Prophecies has a much slower levelling curve which is better in my opinion for new players. In Nightfall you reach max level round about the time you leave noob island so most of the game is actually end game.
I have to disagree with the anonymous post stating that you’ll be limited as a duo in what you can accomplish. I completed the entire prophecies and eye of the north campaigns solo. For eye of the north I had heroes, obviously, but prophecies was all henchmen. It’s hard, but it’s doable. With a duo it should be quite doable, especially since you can now pick up heroes to help you out once you reach Lion’s Arch.
Definitely doable with just henchmen, but certainly not optimal. Once in Lion’s Arch it does get easier once you get some heroes on board. Also, when you get to Lion’s Arch you can travel to Elona (Nightfall land) and do the quests that get you the first few heroes. Then you can travel back to Tyria (Prophecies land) and continue on, now with heroes in hand.
Just a general comment on the stuff in here: Are the things you guys are suggesting and recommending needed info, or more min/max stuff? Like if I ignore it all and just play the game as it comes at me, am I just not going to level/quest in the most optimal fashion, or am I literally going to get stuck due to difficulty or lack of X?
It’s just not the most optimal. With two human players, you’ll be in good shape for the vast majority of content. You’ll learn what works for your play-style and what doesn’t.
You’ll enjoy it just as well if you just play it as it comes. Just that as the game progresses and you get to more advanced areas, it’ll be a lot less frustrating if you know what you’re doing… but that doesn’t happen until long after you’ve reached lvl 20, so no worries.
First off, check the website presearing.com for all kinds of guides, available skills, etc., for characters starting out in Prophecies. Be sure to type “/bonus” when in town, if you haven’t already, to get bonus weapons and your Fire Imp summoning stone. The bonus shield can be useful to any new character regardless of profession (if you are using a one handed weapon) and some of the weapons are useful (the Nevermore Flatbow looks great and has both 15% and 20% damage stats you can use right away), although they often require higher level characters to really take advantage of all their stats. You can throw away the ones you can’t use or even all of them, as you always type “/bonus” to get them back at any time in town.
As first time players, I’d say stay in Pre-Searing until you have fully explored it. It isn’t very big, but once you leave you’ll spend a good portion of the game in pretty bleak and ugly areas for quite some time. Enjoy Pre while you can and get all the skills and XP available. Learn to fight the Charr in The Northlands, check out The Catacombs, enjoy exploring Green Hills County, find Nicholas and his friend to trade 50 flowers for a free mask. Might as well get a full set of upgraded armor before leaving Pre.
You both might want to consider also rolling a character in Nightfall and one in Factions. This will give you access to holiday events, let you learn about heroes, and go through the tutorials in those campaigns as well. It is nice to be able to change characters and play in very different areas once in awhile, as well as try out different professions. Factions allows Ritualist and Assassin, Nightfall has the Dervish and Paragon profs; in addition to the core Prophecies ones.
GW is a great casual game, so no need to rush through stuff. Just explore and have fun!
Correction: free mask – I should have typed head armor piece, not a mask like the holiday ones.
As someone already mentioned, you can create the Core classes in each campaign, but can only create a Dervish and Paragon in Nightfall, and Assassin and Ritualist in Factions. If you stick with Prophecies, once you reach Lion’s Arch you can do some quests to travel to the other campaigns and get Heroes from Nightfall that way.
As for the “slower leveling of Prophecies” someone up there preferred, that was also *part* of why people used to think GW was an MMO back then. (Not starting that argument here, suffice it to say it wasn’t supposed to be one then, but “MMO” doesn’t mean what it used to.) GW would have been *much* better off if it hadn’t had those 20 levels at all because it made a lot of players think levels actually matter like they do in the WoW’s and EQ’s of the world. Only thing that 20 over your head tells me is you’ve completed the tutorial part of the game (except in Prophecies), you have max armor and weapons, and you have enough skills to come up with a build to at least be useful to the group. Factions and Nightfall each made a “noob island” thing where you level there then the rest of the real game was all level 20 where you see how GW is actually played.
I’ve often thought of GW as just an extremely good casual game.
I’m sure someone has said this, but the opening area of prophecies is a lot of fun compared to the immediately following area, so stay there until you’re bored with it.
Don’t worry too much about builds, min/maxing, or “optimal” gameplay. Who cares? You’re playing GW to have some casual fun, not maximize your play time. Find your own builds, and play what’s fun. If you get stuck on a mission, then you can research an optimal build or just look at a guide for the mission, but otherwise you really don’t need it.
Don’t worry that Ranger/Elementalist is not an optimal build, there are still plenty of fun things you can do with it. I’ve run a Warrior/Elementalist lots of times, and that’s even WORSE for energy. Just look for synergies between the class skills, especially the ele buffs. For example, get a flaming or icy bow string and combine with conjure fire or ice to massively boost your ranger’s autoshot damage for a piddly 10 energy.
Just play around and you’ll figure it out. Optimized farming builds are boring anyway.