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Thursday, January 26, 2006

Guild Wars: PvE Beginner Tips

Another day, another painful pick-up group. It still never ceases to amaze me that people can get this far into the game and still have no idea how to play. Elona Reach is not even a hard mission - unlike Thirsty River which is significantly trickier - but the group was so bad that it wasn't even close.

Just in case you're just starting out, here's some beginner tips for PvE. The group I just had managed to get every single one of these wrong.
  • It's a good idea to fight as few enemies as possible. If there's a bunch of monsters all together comprised of more than one group, wait till the groups separate. Get someone with a longbow to shoot one of the monsters then run away so they'll follow. If they don't follow, shoot them again till they do. You don't care about damage at this point, all that matters is making sure you don't aggro everything at once. It doesn't have to be a Ranger - in fact, you should be carrying a longbow just for this no matter what your class. This basic technique is known as "pulling". For everyone else in the group, wait for the monsters to come to you, don't run to the monsters.
  • If someone draws a line on the minimap perpendicular to your path, that means "don't go over the line".
  • Keep an eye on the minimap. If you see something coming up behind the group, ping it on the minimap so other people realise - not everyone is alert.
  • If you're playing a Warrior, you normally want to be up front attracting aggro since you have more armour. Once everything is dead, don't run on into the next group of monsters until you're reasonably sure that your casters have energy and there's no ambushing patrol about to gank the rear of your party.
  • Bring a self-heal if possible - e.g. Healing Signet - it'll take a lot of the load off your monk and if the monk dies you might make it out alive.
  • Bring a resurrection spell of some kind to missions - Resurrection Signet if you're not a monk primary or secondary. If you're the last one alive after a disaster, you'll be really glad you did. If you are a monk, Rebirth isn't a bad choice because it's good for disaster recovery. Pretty bad for resurrecting in mid-battle but things have already gone pear-shaped if you're doing that.
  • If you're a Warrior or Ranger, don't use expensive spells from your secondary class. Your energy regeneration will suck compared with the primary casters so you're better off leaving that stuff to them.
Sadly, I suspect that posting this is a bit pointless. I suspect a lot of the worse players I've had in pick-up groups don't read anything anyway - so if you made it this far you're already ahead of the curve.

6 Comments:

Blogger Josh said...

I'm up against Thristy next in GW, once I get my ass over there. I find that a lot of the players at this level seem to understand strategy OK, but have less tendency to follow the leader's orders or sometimes even stay with the group.

Fortunately, I keep running into people I know who happen to have lvl 20's laying around :)

BTW, I blanked out that you were the Clamatius from the Fireflies ILB wiki. I was working on that as GunsmithCat :)

1/27/2006 11:00:00 AM  
Blogger Clamatius said...

It's a small world on them thar Internets! Hi!

I think the most common mistake I see from my list is W/x (usually W/Mo) charging everything that moves, often not even waiting till the last group was dead. The most painful thing is when you ask them not to do it, they say "ok" and then do it again immediately anyway.

If you need a hand (and you may at Thirsty, it's the first actually tricky mission to complete) definitely let me know. Here's my in-game contact info. I'm usually on late-ish (9-10pm+) PST.

1/27/2006 01:07:00 PM  
Blogger Josh said...

I'm just embarrassed to realize why that name sounded familiar...

I might have to take you up on the offer, too, because the missions definately have seemed to kick up a notch around the old Dunes of Despair. My 20lvl is Whisper Serene (other characters end with Serene, interesting how many GW players have such conventions)

1/27/2006 01:50:00 PM  
Blogger Clamatius said...

I think it's because the multiple-word requirement makes people think of their own names, so they give the characters a shared surname or forename - siblings, if you will.

Out of curiosity, if you didn't end up here from my ARG adventures - why I originally started this blog anyway - what brings you into these parts? (I'd guess via AcidForBlood? Maybe?)

1/27/2006 03:44:00 PM  
Blogger Josh said...

Yeah, I think I was just blogrolling and then noticed the FFWiki link. I've swung by this way a couple times in the past ... probably via Brin's via Guild Wars related topics.

I've gone mostly into lurk mode with ARGs now :( I just don't have the man hours to keep up with them. I played Jamie Kane, but that was very odd by ARG standards ... although some of what the BBC did I think could be a lesson for other ARGs.

1/28/2006 07:36:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'll put my hand up, I was one of the players but I quickly found the error of my ways, with the support of the tiny guild I was in (there were 7 of us). My Monk Mae Taeg, really was awful though. I've got a little bit of Ranger blood in me and I spent most of my time wandering around discovering areas rather than concentrating on completing primary missions. I still haven't finally completed the original GW, but I'm having too much fun in Factions to get overly worried about it.

6/06/2006 05:19:00 AM  

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