Deathless Iron-GWAMM

I returned to Guild Wars in 2019 with the goal of re-experiencing all of the nostalgia the game had to offer. From this notion, my first project, Legendary Survivor of Guild Wars (LSoGW), was born. I aimed at smashing all of the game's content and titles on a single character by any means necessary without dying. After the more or less successful completion of this task, I took a break. However, the spark has been renewed in ways that I had not expected by participating in a similar project with a new twist: Ironman. I call this challenge a Deathless Iron-GWAMM.

Meet 'Beyond Stone':

The objective is to create a character that experiences the game’s content as it was chronologically provided to the players from 2005 onward and never die.

I'll be taking my time with this project. Slow and steady is the pace, but I'll also be documenting my progress and important happenings/strategy in an activity log.

After 15 days of casual play, I have arrived in the Crystal Desert and am currently headed for ascension.

Any questions, comments, or suggestions are welcome! Best of luck to everyone else with their deathless Iron or LSoGW attempts.

Just a quick update. I've been concentrating on PvP recently, but today I finished the Crystal Desert. Hydras were definitely the scariest part.

I'm hoping the Southern Shiverpeaks aren't too painful. Check out the Activity Log for more detail!

Prophecies is completed. Hell's Precipice was actually very easy with all of the shutdown and damage negation I had taken with me. I decided I wanted to try and gamble some of my hard earned cash on some Darkstone chests in case I found something useful. Surprisingly, I did get a nice staff that I'll be able to use on an Ineptitude hero in Nightfall. Now onto Factions!

Factions is complete! Parts of it were pretty challenging given the rules I'm confined to. For much of the campaign, I was able to rely on interrupts to mitigate damage, but Shiro proved to be extraordinarily difficult with Ranger only skills. So, I was side-tracked into capping a new build for the battle. Please visit my Activity Log for additional commentary!

Nightfall was pretty easy. The biggest scare I had was fighting the Drought (Rilohn Refuge). That's a really easy place to die, unprepared.

Now, to save Tyria from The Great Destroyer!

Hard mode unlocked.

My plan is to farm Dragon Moss for materials and cash to craft cons and farm Pcons over the next two holidays.

I hope to obtain the Anniversary Sword and cap "Together as One!" during the Birthday Celebration and plenty of cupcakes to last a year.

Eventually, I'll farm enough Zaishen Bounties and Missions to upgrade my bags as well.

Let the solo farming begin!

Just a quick update:

From the Sweet Treats Week, I was able to solo farm 500 Golden Eggs and Chocolate Bunnies. Then, from the Anniversary Event, I was able to stock up 750 cupcakes, over 250 Honeycombs, and over 20 consets. I also collected 15 Proofs of Triumph to make two "Prominence" swords and one Proof of Legend.

Shown below, I am trying to make an effort to see what builds I can come up with that use two elite skills during the zone I want to vanquish. I typically follow the current Zaishen quests or weekly PvE bonuses. It helps keep things interesting!

Here is another more successful example in Silent Surf from a few weeks ago:

Next, I have adopted some minor tweaks to my Ironman rules:

1. I will allow my character to use normal tomes that are found by her, but I will continue to transfer off Elite tomes. Capping the skills is a challenge fit for an ironman.
2. Once completing Factions, the only way to obtain certain skills is to purchase them from a skill trainer. Therefore, I have allowed myself to do so.
3. I am not allowing myself to purchase Ecto, Shards, Rubies, Sapphires, Diamonds, Onyx, Amber, or Jade from the Rare Material Trader in order to craft Prestige Armor and/or weapons. Simply farming cash to purchase these is not prestigious!

Lastly, it was brought to my attention by PyroLobster that perhaps using skills that were previously unlocked on my account for my heroes skill bars (starting in Nightfall), but not purchased or capped by my iron character herself, would violate the rules.

1. I am in agreement that in a perfect scenario the skills would need to be purchased, unlocked, or capped prior to hero use. However I do not feel my use of unlocked skills made a meaningful impact on my success.
2. Fortunately, I did not mistakenly use EotN skills (such as Wandering Eye) prior to Nightfall's completion. That would have been a bigger issue.
3. It was our conclusion that the only way a person, today, could easily prevent oneself from making this mistake would be to do this challenge on a freshly purchased account with nothing unlocked.

All I can say about this, is learn from my experience and, if it is your intent to have this boundary, not to forget about it. Personally, it was never my intent to need to unlock skills, but merely to succeed by using things in the order they were originally obtained.

Thanks for reading!

Activity Log

notsteve So the point was to keep some of my vanquishing interesting by killing 2 birds with 1 stone. I take a signet of capture to cap a skill I need along with 'TaO!" so that I have 2 elite skills during the vanquish. Before zoning, I'll theory craft a skill bar for the new elite's use. Here is a new example:

Also, I've included some hero skill bars this time because I've been asked what I use in the past. Nothing is absolutely concrete. However, two things I've found particularly useful when trying to maintain survivor are using wards on my Me/E and single target prots on a Mo/Rt (or Rt/Mo). The hero AI works very well for these purposes and they are also easy to precast if needed. I always take at least 1 ward with me everywhere I go because they are so useful.

I hate to say it, but Frostmaw gave me wurms. I've included some of my best drops, inventory, still no chest access, and title progress.

It was a good run while it lasted, but I don't think I'll be making another attempt any time soon, if ever.

Again, best of luck to anyone else on their Deathless Iron-GWAMM attempts.

Quote from Baklawa

Hello. Thats such great thread. Was really pleasant to read all of that but Damn I wish it did continue. I wanted to ask is your ranger by any chance still ironman and do you have proof of triumph on her ?

I stopped the project once she died. I've made multiple characters on multiple accounts throughout the years and this was really the only thing I could think of yet to accomplish that would have held any meaning for me. I've laid out my rules as an in-depth guideline for others to consider when making their attempts.

Quote from ACWhammy

I'm very impressed by this. How were you able to survive for so long? What kind of escape plan or preventative measures did you have for yourself in case of an emergency? Just the fact that you got Legendary Survivor like this is impressive. You should not retire the character and continue as Iron Gwamm, as there are still many challenges that will present themselves, maybe even try for 50/50 HoM as an Iron-player.

It really just comes down to preparation, doing things in the right order, and understanding that sometimes the fast way for survival is taking the long route. So really, other than just general knowledge of the game and skill choices, there are two things I did. Sometimes, I would have to practice run the quest/mission on a separate character. Secondly, I suggest using a keyboard with software that allows you to create keystroke macros in order to resign with the press of one button in an emergency.

Quote from BJWyler

It's really just a matter of paying attention and having decent hero builds. There's only a few areas that pose a real danger. I, myself, have a 0 death character that I am wrapping up EotN with and simply played through each campaign as normal. In fact, when I originally started, I got through to the final Prophecies mission before I got careless and ran him too far just to clear some fog and he died. At that point he was about a year old (playing only casually and not daily as I had in the early going). I ended up deleting him and recreating to start all over again. That was a few years ago now.

I'd say it's more than paying attention and decent builds. There's definitely a lot of strategy, patience, and nerve involved. I specifically chose a Ranger for this task because of their ability to effectively solo farm, being ranged and less prone to dying from melee, and having +30 vs elemental on all armors. Farming the materials, nick sets, and consumables, especially during events that only occur once a year, takes a lot of patience. And finally, the fear of failure (dying) keeps the player on edge no matter the task. The further the progression, the greater the defeat. We aren't talking about spending a week on something and dying here. This is months to a year of daily work that disappears with one wrong move.

Thanks for enjoying my thread and good luck to each of you on your journeys! What will your legacy be?

Quote from Snake D James

Hello Purely, I died on my LDoA @ Seabord or whatever its called

He was LDoA mesmer, however, I did use Fire Imp to level. On my new mes, so far I have not used Fire Imp. Did you use Imp on your LDoA chars in Pre?

On my Legendary Survivor of Guild Wars, I did. However, I did not on this Deathless Iron-GWAMM because in order to be deathless in 2005, you could not obtain LDoA. In order to reach level 20, a character had to death level. No Imps or Vanguard quests were available.

Quote from Stinky Smurf

However, I dont quite understund how you farmed that many pcons, where did you farm and do you have tips for solo farming during events? Also I am dreaming about TaO skill, how you obtained it? Thanks in advance!

I started the character at the beginning of the year in prophecies, that way I would be able to be in a position to solo farm important pcons. I love Echovalds, so my favorite solo farm was the dragon moss outside St. Anjeka's. Yes, this is always risky. but as you can see, the risk gave good reward.

The same timing allowed me to obtain the Proofs of Legend required to obtain the PvE anniversary skill during the birthday event.

Good Luck!