I've been grinding away at this game for the last 8 or some months (since it was released) and have been enjoying it fairly consistently with a variety of primary/secondary class combinations. Even after one has beaten all of the PvE missions and optional quests, there always seems to be more to be do. Be it solo farming areas you used to have problems with full groups, to tackling some of the optional Titan quests one can keep themselves occupied for months on end. But the factions expansion should be a breath of fresh air. It will be cool to see how the new weapons/armor/items effect the economy and how the new classes will change the overall game play dynamic and balance of power between classes. So I will definitely be picking this up, (mainly for the two additional character slots).

I have not been able to play it as consistently nowadays however, mainly because work is taking a big chunk of my time. Usually I try to do Fissure of Woe or Underworld/New Tombs runs on weeknights starting at 7pm CST if America has favor and I am always on Friday, and Saturday evenings. A list of my current characters can be found by clicking on the link in my signature.

I guess what I didn't like about the game is that it's not about the grinding at all, it's about "questing". I haven't paid any attention to the story thus far, and I've only been playing quests to lvl me up. I'm almost lvl 20, so I'm just kinda losing the will to play. One day when I decide to play again and reach 20 I'll probably just quit altogether. Quests can be fun in some games, but in this game they're mostly just "go talk to someone, then come back and tell me you talked to that someone" or "go kill all the monsters". I stopped playing because everytime I'd get anywhere in a long quest, all my teammates would leave the game for no reason leaving me all alone, then I'd get raped by an onslaught of monsters. I don't have any friends who play it, but if I did I could probably get into it a little easier. Everyone i know just plays that damn WoW game. :aargh:

Dude, thats why I love this game! I can't stand grinding.. I can't. Sitting there, doing nothing but killing stuff over and over and over, hoping to reach the next level before bedtime. It drives me nuts, theres no substance with it. In GW, the lvl 20 cap is perfect. By that time, you just got to Lions Arch, if not a bit furthur, and the story line is all aruond you, you're finding out whats happening to the chosen, etc..

Its just a refreshing change of pace compared to most MMO's out there.

This game sucks pretty much for the people seeking to do more than pve all day long honestly. I know so many people right now who are having a hard time finding guilds, even though they are decent players. You really got to have some connections usually. :\

Or join XoO. Haaa~

BTW, that top 8 prize we should be getting soon enough! :D

Does anyone here gvg at all?

Woaahh its Kitty, Hey =o!

I've hit the endpoint in PvE and I've been looking to do some GvG for the longest time, but it doesnt help when you don't know the basics in PvP.. what good skills are, good builds, how to use em, etc.. Its hard to find pugs, hard to find guilds willing to take in a PvP noob and help them learn the ropes...

Nice job on getting into the top 8 :) You should've gone to Taiwan Kitty :p

Yeah, well my guild yells at me a lot for not going to Taiwan with them...but I had a lot too do, and it costs $$$$$...so D:
If you are looking to start GvG, yet you don't have much experience, you might as well try to join Xen Of Onslaught. They create guilds that teach people who are seeking to GvG how to, or at least get the basic gist of playing. :)

What's your IGN? If you need basic tips on builds/skills/stuff, ask me. :cow:

Your guild had the chance to go to Taiwan? I thought everything was pre-paid, flights, hotel, food, etc..

In game, my main is Mors Inocentae and sure =) I want to, if not get into a pvp guild, at least know my stuf so I can be useful in pugs or whatever... I bet it doesnt help that I'm a W/Mo.. I have a R/El but she's still at ascalon.

Ahh, I just got my copy last week and I've been playing it pretty much nonstop haha. I'm sure I'll calm down soon enough, but seeing as I'm still in Pre-Searing, I know there's a bunch more of the game left to see, not even counting the PvP and GvG stuff, which I hope to get into soon enough.

I'll be keeping an eye on this thread. I'm really looking forward to Factions as well, even though I haven't finished up with the main game yet either. I've been also following GuildWiki pretty closely to see what I should and shouldn't be doing.

Hmm, if you're still in pre-searing, let me know either ingame, gff PM or in this thread when you sear. My ranger is still in ascalon and we could go on together or something.

I've been in Treacherous Empire for a little over a month now I think, though I haven't been playing much since the start of this school year. Been busy with a lot of things. Getting to know some of the korean guilds like EvIL and War Machine is a lot of fun too though. If I had more time I would get back into gvging more frequently.

Tombs just sucks now with IWAY and stupid euro edenial and trapway and all that same shit.

Thats pretty neat. All these builds, trapaway, IWAY, wheover else is popular, I cant go into any of the pug maps and go "W/Mo lfg" I get outright ignored.. and I can't say anythign else cause I don't have a specific build.

Sux to be me I guess

LOL

Hey, instead of us flooding the ever-dying forum, why don't you just log into GW right now, and let's have a chat. :D

PS, just so I don't waste a post, I'll throw in a random something!

http://homepages.nyu.edu/~hyk223/afkmac.JPG

Im logged in sitting in Lions Arch :P hmm, what can I throw in... I can't :( Im guildless.

^

Honestly GvG isn't that hard, since if you've at least played around with various skills you should have a decent understanding of what is good and what isn't. It's not about the skills, but the skill of the player. You can have the best build in the game and if you don't have a clue how to adapt depending on the situation you're no better than the worst build that knows where and when to act. Of course it's not plausible to require everyone to know how to respond to every possible situation unless they are dedicated to it and work really hard.

It is a bit disheartening that most guilds only want:

• Close Friends
• Professionals
• High Ranked (6+ at least I suppose) Players
• No Drama ( Because Guild Wars is Serious Business >=0! )
• IWAY fags so they can farm fame in HoH all day long ~

Although if you look around you can find a few good guilds (Sup XoO) that are willing to take in new recruits and turn them into decent players.

It seems EoE bombs are popular again, although they aren't pulling them off effectively and so the whole guild just plops dead and the Ghostly Hero is left standing like "wtf is wrong with you guys".

I've kind of retired from GvG until Factions drops or someone comes along and smacks me in the face. More concerned with unlocking things for Ritualist and Assassin instead of farming or whatever (maybe I'll beat the game a 6th time before getting ready for Factions) since I have already unlocked everything for the classes we have already. :cow:

Hey guys, good to be back. I see everyone's getting ready for Factions. After seeing the trailer for it, I'm pretty excited for it as well. Can't wait to play an assassin. I had one during the beta event, but since i don't PvP alot, I didn't have any faction to unlock skills beyond what the template build. I'm usually around so look me up on my characters. I'm currently working on my monk so gimmie a holla if you need some help with anything =).

The hilarious thing is I logged on after 8 months of nothing and I find out I'm still in DSB (Defenders of Serious Business which is like.. defunct, archaic, historical guild).

My brother is pre-ordering it. Me? I may drop in but I lost interest 5 months after I bought it.

I play Guild Wars very casually... I'm really into MMOs but I wouldn't even consider GW one. The other thing is I really dislike team competitions so I don't see myself ever being in one of those seriously competitive guilds any time soon. That combined with the fact that the game's PvE is not all that great, what's keeping me playing? I have no idea... the obsession with trying to unlock every skill and reveal the whole map, finish all quests, those sort of things. I like to have a sense of completion (reaching lv. 20 does not count.)

So anyway, character names...
A Nude
Action Hotdog
Despair And Agony
-reserved slot for nightly Random Arena char-

In the end, I'll probably pre-order Factions since I have money with literally nothing else to spend it on.

It finally arrived, the update that will hopefully change how things work now.

Update - Thursday March 2

General

• Updated Adrenaline behavior so that death removes all Adrenaline.
  
• Updated Exhaustion behavior so that if you cast an Exhaustion spell while your maximum energy is below 10, your maximum energy can be reduced to below zero.
  
• Fixed a bug that allowed attack speeds to stack past 33%.
  
• Fixed a bug that prevented attack debuffs from reducing a target more than 33% (maximum is 50%).
  
• Fixed a bug that kept speed boosts from having an effect on you if you had a debuff slowing you by 50%.
  
• You are no longer considered "attacking," "using a skill," or "casting a spell" while you are running to get in range of a target.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused attack skills with non-weapon attributes to calculate damage and critical hit chance incorrectly.
  
• Clarified various skill descriptions

Equipment

• Added two +30 Health, Received Damage -5 (Chance: 20%) shields to the PvP character creation screen; updated monster drops to make the Received Damage -5 (Chance: 20%) drop possible.
  
• Shields on the PvP character creation screen with the “while Hexed” bonus now have +60 Health and -3 damage reduction.
  
• Reduced the Lieutenant's Helm Hex duration bonus to 20%, and added it to the PvP character creation screen.
  
• Increased the Monk’s PvP Ascetic Leg Design to +2 Energy to match the armor bought off of vendors.
  
• Increased the PvP hammer with additional damage while hexed to 20%.

Mesmer

• Mantra of Resolve: increased Energy cost to 10..4 when interrupted.
  
• Distortion: increased Energy cost to 4..1 when you "evade" attacks.
  
• Signet of Weariness: reduced area-of-effect to nearby foes.
  
• Mantra of Recovery: reduced Energy cost to 10.
  
• Ignorance: decreased casting time to 1 second.
  
• Chaos Storm: decreased casting time to 1 second.
  
• Epidemic: decreased Energy cost to 10.
  
• Ineptitude: increased damage to 30..135.
  
• Fevered Dreams: increased duration to 10..25 seconds.
  
• Energy Drain: decreased recharge time to 25 seconds.
  
• Energy Tap: decreased recharge time to 25 seconds.
  
• Blackout: increased recharge time to 12 seconds.

Necromancer

• Offering of Blood: increased sacrifice to 20%.
  
• Unholy Feast: reduced number of targets affected to 1..4; increased damage to 10..65; reduced recharge to 20 seconds.
  
• Enfeebling Blood: reduced recharge to 5 seconds; reduced sacrifice to 10%.
  
• Chilblains: Poison now only lasts 10 seconds.
  
• Deathly Chill: increased unconditional damage to 5..50; decreased conditional damage to 5..35.
  
• Shadow of Fear: reduced recharge time to 5 seconds.
  
• Plague Sending: reduced cast time to 1 second; increased recharge time to 5 seconds; fixed a bug that caused this skill to transfer default durations instead of remaining duration.
  
• Blood Renewal: fixed a bug that allowed the heal to heal twice when stacked.
  
• Insidious Parasite: fixed a bug that prevented the numbers from displaying.
  
• Mark of Subversion and Soul Leech: changed their damage from normal to life stealing to match their skill descriptions.
  
• Order of the Vampire: no longer triggers if you have other Necromancer Enchantments on you.

Elementalist

• Gale: increased Energy cost to 10.
  
• Conjure Flame: no longer removes Enchantments.
  
• Inferno: increased damage to 30..135.
  
• Fire Storm: decreased cast time to 2 seconds.
  
• Rust: decreased recharge time to 15 seconds.
  
• Conjure Frost: no longer removes Enchantments.
  
• Conjure Lightning: no longer removes Enchantments.
  
• Whirlwind: decreased recharge time to 8 seconds.
  
• Flame Burst: increased damage to 15..120.
  
• Rodgort's Invocation: increased damage to 15..120.
  
• Mark of Rodgort: decreased recharge time to 5 seconds.
  
• Lava Font: increased damage to 5..35 per second.
  
• Searing Heat: increased damage to 5..35 per second.
  
• Lightning Javelin: decreased recharge time to 2 seconds.
  
• Mist Form: decreased cast time to 1 second.
  
• Lightning Surge: fixed a bug that caused this skill to not trigger properly when its duration was reduced.

Monk

• Mend Ailment: increased recharge time to 5 seconds.
  
• Holy Veil: increased recharge time to 12 seconds.
  
• Shield of Regeneration: increased duration to 5..13 seconds.
  
• Purge Signet: reduced recharge time to 20 seconds.
  
• Shielding Hands: reduced cast time to .25 seconds.
  
• Resurrect: reduced cast time to 6 seconds; increased recharge time to 5 seconds.
  
• Restore Life: increased recharge time to 5 seconds; increased percentage of Health the target party member is returned with to 20..65%.
  
• Scourge Sacrifice: decreased cast time to 1 second.
  
• Watchful Spirit: decreased cast time to 1 second.
  
• Shield of Deflection: increased armor bonus to 15..30.
  
• Aura of Faith: decreased recharge time to 15 seconds.
  
• Peace and Harmony: skill reworked. Now ends if ally casts a Spell on target foe or deals damage to a foe; reduced recharge time to 30 seconds.
  
• Unyielding Aura: decreased recharge time to 15 seconds; when this Skill ends, it now exploits the ally's corpse.
  
• Mark of Protection: now only disables your skills for 5 seconds.
  
• Healing Hands: increased the amount healed to 5..35; now triggers on damage instead of attack.
  
• Live Vicariously: increased amount healed per swing to 2..17.
  
• Light of Dwayna: decreased recharge time to 20 seconds.
  
• Martyr: increased cast time to 1 second.
  
• Heal Party: increased recharge time to 2 seconds.
  
• Balthazar's Aura: fixed a stacking bug.

Warrior

• Eviscerate: increased adrenaline cost to 8 swings.
  
• "I will avenge you!": reduced attack speed to 25%; fixed a bug that caused this skill to trigger off of dead ally minions.
  
• Thrill of Victory: decreased recharge time to 8 seconds.
  
• Bull's Strike: now triggers on moving instead of fleeing.
  
• Defensive Stance: increased duration to 5..20 seconds.
  
• Crude Swing: increased damage to 1..20.
  
• Shield Bash: Skill reworked. "The next attack skill against you is blocked. If the attack was a melee attack skill, that skill is disabled for an additional 15 seconds, and the attacker is knocked down."
  
• "Shields up!": now blocks 50% of the time.
  
• Defy Pain: decreased adrenaline cost to 6 swings.
  
• Protector's Strike: reduced swing time to .5 seconds; increased recharge time to 3 seconds.
  
• Griffon's Sweep: increased damage to 5..20.
  
• Deflect Arrows: now ends only when you successfully hit with an attack.
  
• Warrior's Endurance: increased duration to 10..23 seconds.
  
• Dwarven Battle Stance: now also increases attack speed by 10%.
  
• Disciplined Stance: reduced recharge time to 45 seconds.
  
• Wary Stance: reduced recharge time to 45 seconds.
  
• Riposte: increased damage to 20..80.
  
• Deadly Riposte: increased damage to 15..75.
  
• Shield Stance: decreased recharge time to 45 seconds.
  
• Flurry: fixed a bug that reduced your damage more than 25%.
  
• Thrill of Victory: fixed a bug that caused you to gain a little bit of Health when you hit with the attack.
  
• Gash: fixed a bug that caused this skill to deal its damage twice; increased damage to 5..20.
  
• Bull's Charge: now triggers on moving foes instead of fleeing foes.

Ranger

• Dust Trap: reduced Blindness duration to 3..8 seconds.
  
• Crippling Shot: increased Energy cost to 15; Crippled duration now scales 1..8.
  
• Power Shot: increased damage to 10..25.
  
• Precision Shot: increased damage to 10..25.
  
• Determined Shot: increased damage to 5..20.
  
• Maiming Strike: decreased recharge time to 5 seconds.
  
• Scavenger Strike: increased damage to 10..25.
  
• Symbiotic Bond: increased Health regeneration to 1..3 pips.
  
• Bestial Pounce: decreased recharge time to 10 seconds.
  
• Feral Lunge: increased damage to 5..35.
  
• Melandru's Assault: increased damage to 5..35; decreased recharge time to 5 seconds.
  
• Predator's Pounce: increased damage to 5..35.
  
• Brutal Strike: increased damage to 5..35; increased conditional damage to 5..35.
  
• Practiced Stance: increased bonus duration to 30..150%.
  
• Melandru's Resilience: increased Health regeneration to 3 pips.
  
• Quick Shot: fixed a bug that caused the arrow to move at a normal speed.
  
• Determined Shot: increased damage to 5..20; fixed a bug that prevented the arrow from being "blocked" or "evaded"; fixed a bug that stopped this skill from recharging when missed from obstruction.

Guild Battle Updates

• Added silver and gold trims for the guild capes of tournament season winners and runners-up.
  
• Improved the paths that guild NPCs take when running out of their guild hall during Victory or Death.

Map and Quest Updates

• Kepkhet Marrowfeast, Queen of the Scarabs, has brought her brood to the desert, drawn by the plentiful corpses of griffon, minotaur, and even other scarabs. The insect brood now infests the "Prophets Path," so travelers be warned!
  
• Removed chests from Dreadnought’s Drift and Ice Floe.
  
• Fixed a non-aggressive Charr group located in Regent Valley.
  
• Fixed a problem in the "Army Life" quest where Old Mac talked to Joe even if he was dead.
  
• Moved the spirits in the Underworld to help them avoid blocking enemy pathing.
  
• Fixed the entrance to Beacon's Perch from Lornar's Pass so you can't sneak around the edge of the zone portal.
  
• Fixed a bug with the "Slaves of Menzies" quest where players had to kill more enemies than the Shadow Overlords to complete each step of the quest.
  
• Fixed a signpost pointing the wrong direction in Divinity Coast.
  
• Fixed a bug in the "Khobay the Betrayer" that required the players to kill all his guards to complete the quest instead of just Khobay as the Quest Log indicates.
  
• Fixed a bug that prevented anyone but Necromancers from getting the "Recruits for Hollis" quest after completing first mission, "The Great Northern Wall."
  
• Fixed a number of locations where Aidan, Cynn, Devona, and Mhenlo were not appropriately displaying as Henchmen.
  
• Fixed a zone portal in Bergen Hot Springs that was zoning players to various parts of the outpost other than the zone portal.
  
• Removed an NPC who had no functionality from Stingray Strand.
  
• Fixed a bug that prevented you from having to click on the gravestone to complete the "Husband's Epitaph" quest.
  
• Removed a potential chest exploit from the "Deserters" quest.
  
• Fixed a crafter in Deldrimor Bowl so he could no longer be killed by monsters.
  
• Fixed a bug in the "Hungry Devourer" quest that allowed the Junipers to be killed before the players arrived, preventing the players from getting food for Joe.
  
• Fixed a bug in the "Elementalist Path" quest where the target NPC was not at its quest marker.
  
• Fixed some maps where the same bosses were spawning multiple times: Ice Caves of Sorrow, Kessex Peak, and Deldrimor Bowl.
  
• Fixed miscellaneous bugs with the wurm monster AI.

User Interface Updates

• Expanded availability of Japanese language support to include non-Japanese accounts.
  
• Fixed a target calling bug that prevented secondary called targets from being promoted to the primary called target when the previous primary called target expired.
  
• Fixed several bugs that caused the incorrect display of Energy.
  
• Changed the color of GM chat text from green to purple.

Yeah, I (unfortunately) have been playing this game constantly for the past 2 months or so in a guild with a couple of friends and a bunch of random people they invited. We aren't very good at PvP (I think our rank is 6,000 something) but it's still rather fun anyway. The biggest problem I seem to have is that all my character slots are full and generally it's best to make a PvP character since they start out with all the best equipment, and so if I wanted to be on par with a PvP character I'd have to do a lot in PvE to reach that level. But yeah, my characters are and I don't know the secondary professions cause I tend to change them a lot:

Master Phat (Ranger Lvl 20)
Aranel Dorthonion (Monk Lvl 20)
Mesmer Cakes (Mesmer Lvl 11..I think)
Wilibald Brandybuck (Warrior Lvl 20)

Just made the jump to Searing today. Bah, it's a lot harder ^^; Of course, that's a good thing, I couldn't stick around in Pre-Searing all day. I found it interesting to see Level 2 characters making the jump so quickly, but I figure if you've done it before, you probably want to get to the main game quicker.

Yeah, Pre-Searing is just to get a feel for the game and your character. The only thing you really should do in Pre-Searing are the skill quests, the resurrection signet quest, and if you want to, the skill point quest. Other than that it's just experience which you can always get later on and in larger quantities.

Nice job :) send me a PM or post here if you wana go questing together. My Ranger is still in old ascalon

Monk Strike? Huh, never heard of that. Then again, I haven't had my monk among other characters on the past couple of months due to a fried video card. :(

The strike is still going on? I thought it was over already. Last few times i went by THK, I didn't see anything other than groups forming for the mission. Honestly though, the mission is pretty easy if you know what you're doing. Why some people have so much trouble with the mission I can't imagine. Now, Defend North Kryta Province...now THAT quest is challenging. =d

By now the strike should be over except for a few diehards.

An update to the update:

Update - Friday March 3

Fixed the following newly introduced bugs:

• The skill Bull's Charge was knocking down moving foes when used with any type of weapon, not only with melee weapons.
  
• The skill Fevered Dreams was incorrectly spreading Conditions to allies of both the caster and target, rather than just enemies of the caster as specified in the skill description.
  
• The skill Warrior's Endurance did not correctly match its description in the update notes.
  
• Monsters were not responding to damage taken from the skill Balthazar's Aura.
  
• Certain elite skills, such as Peace and Harmony and Blood is Power, could not be captured using a Signet of Capture.
  
• Kepkhet Marrowfeast was neglecting to guard her nest.
  
• The Party Window was periodically failing to display certain team allies such as Bodyguards.
  
• The Skill Monitor was not correctly displaying skill interruption.