New Player - Getting my butt kicked by level 7 mobs

JC10001 · June 14, 2017 at 5:38 AM

I know virtually nothing about the game. I am going through the Prophecies campaign. I only have the base game + EOTN.

I picked Ranger/Monk as my profession. I can't even get to Pikes Square. The charr that are in that zone just rip through my entire party.

I haven't found a single piece of gear since level 2... a flat bow that was barely better than the starting bow.

My pet is dead. I have no idea how to get it back and there are no wildlife creatures where I'm at.

I seriously regretting ranger. He attacks so freaking slow and his auto attack does like no damage whatsoever.

Where do you buy armor and weapons? I checked npcs in town. None of them are clearly marked on the map. You have to put your mouse over each one to see if they are a vendor or trader or whatever? Not a single one I've come across has had items I can use.

I'm super frustrated. I've been at this literally 3 hours and I cannot advance past this part.

Can someone tell me what I'm doing wrong? I have never had this much frustration in a game in a very, very long time. Like decades.

Marty Silverblade · June 14, 2017 at 5:58 AM Official Post

What level are you? I recommend staying in Pre-Searing until level 7-8 before moving on. It's not strictly necessary, but for a new player it'll save some grief. The impression I get is that you're really underleveled due to charging straight through the main quest.

What skills + attributes are you running?

Are you filling out your team? Pre-Searing is built for people soloing, but everywhere else you should have a full party. There are henchmen you can add in outposts if you don't have other people to play with. The Warrior, Monk, and Ele will be your best bet.

Hold alt in towns to show all npcs. Ctrl will show other players in town and enemies in explorables.

Armor can be obtained via crafting or collectors. There are two armorers in Ascalon City who will offer better stuff than you have now. Upgrading your armor here is recommended, and especially pertinent if you didn't grab the upgraded set in Pre-Searing.

Weapons can be obtained via enemy drops, quest rewards, and collectors. You can craft them too but I don't typically find any with particularly worthwhile stuff.

Resurrect your pet by using Comfort Animal.

I also suspect that trying to get to Piken Square isn't something you should be looking to do just yet? Have you done the The Great Northern Wall mission? Or largely cleared the Old Ascalon + Regent Valley + maybe a few more areas around there?

JC10001 · June 14, 2017 at 10:25 PM

Thank you for your reply.

I'm level 6.

Some of the skills I'm using are the power shot (one of the first skills you get), the bleeding arrow skill, the starter monk healing skill, the monk spite skill, retailiation, and signet of retribution.

My henchmen are all level 3 or 4. I'm using the ones in Ascalon City - the healer, the fighter, and the elementalist.

Is the upgraded set of armor from the pre-searing era worth restarting for? What exactly is it btw?

I mainly left the pre-searing area because I did all of the quests and there didn't seem like much else to do there.

What about restarting with a different class? I don't have access to ritualist (which seems to be the one most folks recommend). Is necromancer any good? Who is the easiest to clear the main questline with if its your first playthrough? Which 2 professions should I choose?

Jayson · June 15, 2017 at 12:35 AM

Pets are quite useful in PvE as they have bonuses added to them, and playing a R/Mo should be just fine.

Leaving Pre earlier has put you at a disadvantage and I'm assuming you're low on money and equipment, so the best thing for you is to play around the area and kill anything for money if you don't have enough saved for new armor, skills and runes.

I'd be glad to help you out, if you want.

cosyfiep · June 15, 2017 at 1:03 AM Official Post

have you checked for "!" quests? That will help you level up a bit as well (there are a few in ascalon city).

There is also a wiki for assistance too... https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Main_Page
you can checkout some of the ranger armor and quests from that page as well.

as for what profession, ranger is a good profession to start with (my guildmates all started with it), and /monk is a good choice as well. Necro is a good profession as well (was my 2nd character), but I would give your ranger a bit more time before starting another character (you do have more slots to make other characters).

You might also want to find a guild--I know there were a few that were working on help new people, cant remember which ones right now.

welcome to guildwars and welcome to Legacy!

JC10001 · June 15, 2017 at 4:31 AM

I've been doing the quests as they show up. When I logged on today my henchmen all went from level 3 to level 6 just like that. I was able to make it to pike square today. I'm level 7. I got a whole bunch of new quests to open up. I've been doing what I can do.

I purchased the burning arrow skill. It's helped some. It works nice when the enemies clump together but I noticed that when I hit them with it they like to scatter. I think that may be my biggest issue with Ranger... not enough cleave damage (at least not from what I can tell).

I was also able to trade an npc for a better bow. Its helping some.

I'm really surprised at how slow/methodical/tactical the gameplay is in this. I thought I would wiz through it like Guild Wars 2. LOL, nope!

Marty Silverblade · June 15, 2017 at 5:26 AM Official Post

With respect to your second post:

-The armors you can get from Ascalon City are both better than the upgraded Pre-Searing set. It's nothing revolutionary, just a better version of what you started with. There are a few different sets but they differ only in appearance.

-Play whichever profession you want. Playing something you don't like for whatever reason defeats the purpose of playing in the first place. I wouldn't turn your back on the Ranger based on your experience thus far - the issues you're having will have occured regardless of which profession you picked.

-People recommend Rit because there are builds you can run which are effective even if you have a single digit number of brain cells. This is ideal for GW2 players who play GW1 just for rewards in the former. If you actually give a damn about GW1 you ought to not feel any incentive to play Rit just for the sake of it. All professions are perfectly capable of completing the content so focus on finding the one that suits you the best. You can always make more characters to see how you like them.

-You don't have a lot to work with so I won't be critical, but in terms of builds:
--Power Shot is trash. It's just x damage rather than +x, and if you're not underleveled/facing other rookie issues you'll be spending a skill slot and 10 energy on what amounts to nothing more than an auto attack. If it's worthwhile now then ok, but keep in mind you ought to outgrow it.
--Generally speaking you don't want to split your attributes more than three ways unless you have a good reason for doing so. For a Ranger, Expertise and a weapon attribute (Marksmanship is the only one Rangers have natively but you could get others with the relevant secondary profession) are a given. If you want to take a pet, which you should at least for now, then Beast Mastery makes three. If you want a heal (also a good idea, at least for now) your best bet would be Troll Unguent, which is in Wilderness Survival, so you'll have to split four ways in that case. Heavy attribute splitting is something that plagues Ranger builds generally, so I wouldn't worry about it. Just don't go for five. That's never worthwhile.
--To be clear, you pick a primary and a secondary profession. Those labels are very deliberate. You are a ranger. You do ranger things. Your secondary is there to supplement your primary. If you take /Monk to be a healer or /Elementalist to be a nuker you're doing it wrong. What you should do is look at particular skills in other professions that you can use to complement your existing skills. Given you're /Monk, something like a reusable resurrection skill and maybe a hex removal would be the things you'd look at. Bane Signet (with 0 Smiting) could be worth keeping just for the knockdown. Also know that later in the game you'll be able to switch your secondary freely later while you're in a town, so if you end up not liking Monk you can try whatever else you like.

-A list of skills obtainable via quest can be found here. You can also check skill trainers for new skills.

--------

With respect to your third post:

-Henchman levels are based on the outpost you got them from. So Piken Square has level 6 ones, but if you went back to Ascalon City they'd still be level 3.

-Ignite Arrows, presumably. Combining it with Dual Shot makes for a nice punch. GW1 has scatter mechanics, so they will flee after a time. At least if they're moving they're not attacking or using skills. I don't know what you mean by "cleave damage".

-I've undoubtedly got some bows in storage which are trash for me but useful for newbs. Add me to your friends list (Marty Silverblade) and I can give you one. Hopefully our timezones overlap.

--------

As an aside, Nicholas the Traveler is collecting Charr Hides this week. If you want to make financial issues a thing of the past, at least for the medium term, you'll want to trade hides for gifts. You can obtain a maximum of five. Each (UNOPENED) gift can be traded for ~4 globs of ectoplasm, which can in turn be traded for 6000-8000 gold. Here is his current location. He'll move at the end of Sunday (American time, not sure exactly when or what that is for you), so get on it. If we meet up to trade bows I can give you a hand with this if you need.

JC10001 · June 15, 2017 at 10:51 PM

Thanks again for the reply. I will add you in game. My character's name is Bastion Silver.

I will try combining the ignite arrows w/ dual shot.

And thank you for the tip about Nicholas. I traded 2 sets of hides to him already and opened the gifts because I didn't know what they were.... but I will try to get the next 3 gifts and hang on to those.

Just to clear up my previous post, I really meant to say AOE when I said cleave. I was thinking about changing to a class that could hit multiple enemies at the same time with melee attacks and whatnot.

Marty Silverblade · June 16, 2017 at 1:55 AM Official Post

If you got any rock candies then you can sell those for a sizeable amount of cash. Those are what people want. It's better to sell them unopened so you'll still get something if the contents end up being largely trash.

The only melee profession available in Prophecies is Warrior, so that's what you'd have to play if you wanted that. A melee Ranger/Warrior works well though, so if you wanted to be able to use bows, melee weapons, pets and so on (though not all at the same time) sticking with Ranger would be your best bet. It's a better option than Warrior/Ranger. You're ages away from being able to switch secondary professions though, so making a Warrior and seeing how you like that might be preferable if you don't like Ranger or are willing and able to play two characters. Note though that hitting multiple enemies with attacks is something you can only do with a scythe (limited to Dervishes, which are from Nightfall) or with certain attack skills, such as Cyclone Axe. This isn't GW2 or a similarly unrealistic(/stupid, depending on your point of view) game where you can swing weapons around in massive arcs as if they were made of paper.

Jayson · June 16, 2017 at 10:11 AM

"I'm really surprised at how slow/methodical/tactical the gameplay is in this. I thought I would wiz through it like Guild Wars 2. LOL, nope!"

I find this quite disheartening to see how low Guild Wars has sunk as a game based on posts like this.

The idea that people "whiz" through a game because of its lack of difficulty, where they push gem sales as content, where you read their GW2 forums posts where people are looking for more sparkly boots, just shows how this franchise will probably never recover.

At this point, it feels like that game is one of those online fashion/dress up F2P games your little sister used to play online that has micro transactions for new outfits.

oh, wait...

Bear in mind JC, this post in not directed at you in any way, but at the corner Arena Net has currently chosen to paint themselves into.

My offer for help still stands as well.

zaishen · June 16, 2017 at 1:02 PM

If you have the correct edition of the game, typing /bonus in an outpost will give you some max damage weapons.

Looney · June 16, 2017 at 7:15 PM

Don't forget the imp summoning stone from /bonus as well, it is a great help until you hit lvl 20.
A added ele in the party to help nuke stuff is very useful.

JC10001 · June 16, 2017 at 10:28 PM

Thank you for the /bonus tip! The new weapon and imp are great to have.

JC10001 · June 16, 2017 at 11:59 PM

So I was in the middle of a long mission, and i was looking up how to do the bonus quest and my party just up and died for no reason whatsover.

This game kills you if you go AFK for 5 minutes?

I was looking at the screen when it happened. There were NO EMEMIES around.

What the hell?

I really don't even want to have to go through it all again. When it restarted me at the output and I went back in everything I killed was back.

Marty Silverblade · June 17, 2017 at 12:20 AM Official Post

Which mission? The server will kick you off if you don't do anything for 12 hours or something but certainly not five minutes. Possible explanations: you were killed by a mob who wandered out of compass range by the time you looked back (though you can discount this one because you were watching), there was a timer you were not aware of that expired, an NPC you were meant to protect (namely Rurik) moved onwards and got killed promping mission failure, you got killed by something other than enemies (some missions have enemy catapults or hostile environmental effects).

JC10001 · June 17, 2017 at 12:52 AM

OK - I know what it was. The prince went off and got himself killed. Its happened twice now on 2 missions. Very annoying.

cosyfiep · June 17, 2017 at 1:00 AM Official Post

yes, Rurik is annoying like that---some missions you have to keep watch of an npc and make sure they dont kill themselves off. Unfortunately, you have to follow him for most of that mission. (we call it Kilroy'ing...you might get to meet Kilroy later and you will understand).

Some missions are timed as well, but the only one in prophecies I recall that on is the first one (great northern wall) and if you have gotten to rurik, you have passed that one already.(oh yeah, there is a much later one in the desert that is timed, but you wont see it for sometime).

and yeah, gotta love that imp
ps. going afk during a mission is probably not the best time to do that...

JC10001 · June 17, 2017 at 2:31 AM

So is there any way to resurrect your party members? If I have to restart this Borlis Pass mission 1 more time...

Marty Silverblade · June 17, 2017 at 2:41 AM Official Post

There are skills that allow you to do so. All professions have access to Resurrection Signet (you should have gotten it in Pre), though you need a morale boost (typically via boss kills) to recharge it. Monks, Rits, Paragons and Dervishes have access to resurrection skills that recharge normally. Given you're /Monk, you have Resurrect and Restore Life available to you from either quests or trainers in Ascalon.

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Resurrection

JC10001 · June 17, 2017 at 2:49 AM

OK - I'm just getting so frustrated by this game. I made it to the end of the long ass Borlis pass quest. I was at the boss and I started teleporting all over the place and I died. According to the game I have a good connection (green light). I appreciate all of the tips so far... but I'm starting to regret getting the game. I bought it for the story and because I like GW2. The hall of monuments was a nice bonus. I would have been happy with clearing the story and getting like 10 points for the hall... but I don't even think I can clear the story. This is taking forever.

Marty Silverblade · June 17, 2017 at 3:10 AM Official Post

Were you alt-tabbing between full screen and something else? That tends to produce rubberbanding for some reason. If you're a frequent window switcher either play in windowed mode or minimise by clicking the button in the corner.

GW isn't a game you can blitz through. You need to take care in every aspect to get through. This is why I asked you to post your skills+attributes+level+gear initially (and I'll do so again now) and took the time to explain some key concepts to good build structure. Getting better takes learning and realistically that involves failure. We'll help you as much as we can, but aside from beating the game for you you've got to invest yourself into getting better. If you're not prepared to do that then GW just isn't your kind of game.

JC10001 · June 17, 2017 at 7:59 AM

Thanks again for offering to help. I really do appreciate it.

My attributes: marksmanship 9, expertise 4, wilderness survival 3 - everything else is at 0.

My build currently...

Distracting shot - which I found absolutely necessary for stopping healers and big hits like those stomper guys
Ignite arrows - for some AOE
Dual shot
Hunter's shot - for the bleeding
Favorable winds
The resurrection signet
Retaliation - I throw it on my front line guy
Comfort animal

One most fights I will open with ignite arrows, then dual shot, then hunters shot - then autoattack and use those skills as necessary when they are off cooldown. For big fights I will drop favorable winds beforehand.

My armor is still the exact same as what I started with. I'm level 12 now.

I would invest in armor but I've come this far and I find that usually when I die my party has already died long before me... so I would probably be screwed even with good armor. I don't think you can put armor on your henchmen (right?). I can't wait to get the mercs that you can put armor on.

Edit: I made it through borlis pass and the mission after that. It would have been nice if when I arrived at Borlis pass the game told me I could add 2 more henchmen to my crew. I didn't notice until I failed borlis pass 3 times. After I hired them it was much easier.

Also, I think you were right about the alt-tabbing. I was doing that.

Ixl Ra Ixl · June 17, 2017 at 10:13 AM

I think you should look for a guild. Would help you with many questions you've got right now.

About armor, it is one of the most important aspects of guild wars to have high armor. It does prevent tons of damage even if you don't die, it will relieve alot of pressure off your monks.

Looney · June 17, 2017 at 5:33 PM

I agree armor would help. You may not die but if monks are helping you stay alive they have less time/energy to keep themselves alive.

The ranger set from Corwen or Breyshaw is probably the best you have access to now.

If you still have starter armor your headgear is especially useful to upgrade. Better headgear will give a +1 to an attribute. For ranger I would probably go with the +1 Marksmanship headgear. Adding runes and insignia to your armor will help you out as well.

cosyfiep · June 17, 2017 at 6:55 PM Official Post

since you are a /monk...I would get rid of the rez signet since its one use only and go with resurrect (no attribute so no points are wasted to carry this). And yes, even if you are not dying, your healers are spending energy to keep you alive since your armor is so much lower than everyone else's, so yes, upgrade your armor.
I would not be worried about using mercs/heroes either as you still need to unlock all the skills to use them and that is a long way away.

JC10001 · June 18, 2017 at 7:38 AM

I got to Lion's arch and took a detour to EOTN to unlock the 3 heroes there. I feel like its helping a lot to have level 20 people in my party. I went back to prophecies with them and now I'm at the Bloodstone Fen quest. Things are progressing a lot more smoothly now. Having a party of 6 is a huge help.

Ixl Ra Ixl · June 18, 2017 at 10:21 AM

That's nice. Don't forget to update your hero bars once you unlock more skills. Especially at the start of the game when you don't have many skills unlocked yet, it might be better to use henchmen when they are level 20 than heroes.

I think in eotn where you got the heroes you can also get maximum armor. Which means you can invest once into max armor, instead of having to wait untill you're 3/4 into the story to get max armor.

Looney · June 20, 2017 at 12:09 AM

The armor guy in boreal station is a cheap set of max armor since you went into the eotn expansion. His armor is 1k a piece + materials. It's definitly worth doing if you are using the heros so your armor rating isn't the lowest in the party. The games foes Ai usually targets the lowest armor first. (https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Foe_behavior)