Guild Wars

Hi,

I first played guild wars when it was released. I got a character, elementalist/mesmer, to level 20 and stopped playing; my friends were playing other games and I wanted to play with them.

Recently we have become bored of the majority of mmo's and are interested in playing guild wars, there are 4 of us. We ideally would like to spend as little cash on expansions etc. as possible.

I reinstalled the game and managed to find out how to get into some team battles, but my elementalist/mesmer character seemed to suck pretty hard(maybe it was me sucking). This has led me to quite a few questions about whether we would have to buy all expansions to be competetive. Any answers you could give would be much appreciated.

Can I make a competetive character out of my elementalist/mesmer character using only the original games spells and skills, if so which skills would you advise?
If I wanted to make a really strong elementalist character which expansions would I need?
What items are good? At the moment I have light blue 'pyromaniac' items.

If four people were creating four new characters with any build, from all expansions, what should they be?
Is it possible to make a good team of four using only the original game, classes and spells; if so what would that build be?

Is it worthwhile playing the game for pvp as four people? Or do you need eight to gain full enjoyment?

Also at the moment whenever I switch zones I have to download files which takes about 30+ seconds, I guess these are updates I do not have - is it possible to download these in one go so I dont have to do this when I zone?

Many thanks for any help you can offer,

say10

If you want to play GvG you most likely need all 3 campaigns and the expansion. Of course it all depends how serious you want to play pvp.
If you get Factions you can play Alliance Battle(AB) and for that pvp you dont need all the skills. In AB you make a team of 4. When the battle starts two other groups of 4 players also plays on your side. So AB is 12v12.
There is no constant best ele/mesmer build, it changes as the Arenanet often make skill changes. But you can have a look here: http://www.pvxwiki.com/wiki/Main_Page

You can get all the files you are missing in one go by making a copy of your GW shortcut. In that new shortcut you select properties and add - image to target field, so it may look like this: "C:\Program Files\Guild Wars\Gw.exe" -image
Remember space before -image. That shortcut will only download new files you dont have. If you want to start the game after download you need to use your normal gw shortcut.

Thanks for your help, this pvxwiki site is exactly what I was looking for - and your tip for updating game files is extremely useful :).

Originally posted by say10

Hi,

I first played guild wars when it was released. I got a character, elementalist/mesmer, to level 20 and stopped playing; my friends were playing other games and I wanted to play with them.

Recently we have become bored of the majority of mmo's and are interested in playing guild wars, there are 4 of us. We ideally would like to spend as little cash on expansions etc. as possible.

I reinstalled the game and managed to find out how to get into some team battles, but my elementalist/mesmer character seemed to suck pretty hard(maybe it was me sucking). This has led me to quite a few questions about whether we would have to buy all expansions to be competetive. Any answers you could give would be much appreciated.

Can I make a competetive character out of my elementalist/mesmer character using only the original games spells and skills, if so which skills would you advise?
If I wanted to make a really strong elementalist character which expansions would I need?
What items are good? At the moment I have light blue 'pyromaniac' items.

you need not worry much about items, only if they fit with your build. you have pyromaniac items meaning your build should consist of fire spells mainly. you might want to add to it some runes and/or insignias to give you a slight def boost depending again where your weakeness are. as an ele i don think you need more energy or energy regen (if you have high energy storage stats)

If four people were creating four new characters with any build, from all expansions, what should they be?
Is it possible to make a good team of four using only the original game, classes and spells; if so what would that build be?

yes, just make sure one of you is a monk with healing the rest can vary with whatever you want, you just need to compliment eachother and most importantly be smart. the opster on top gave you a good site.

Is it worthwhile playing the game for pvp as four people? Or do you need eight to gain full enjoyment?

You can enjoy it with 4 and yes it is worthwhile and yes better with 8 (but you can use henchmen or heroes(if you have nightfall or Eye of the north)

Also at the moment whenever I switch zones I have to download files which takes about 30+ seconds, I guess these are updates I do not have - is it possible to download these in one go so I dont have to do this when I zone?

on the shortcut of the guildwars (most likely on your desktop) right click and on the target box add -image at the end (make sure there is a space between the target and the -image) when you double click on the shortcut it will download the whole game. when its done you just remove the -image from it. and play the game with less than 1 second of loading.  (Note: game must be installed in the default location c programfiles etc....

 

Many thanks for any help you can offer,

 

say10

the expansions in this game arent like expansions in other games they're pretty much a whole different game by themselves, they dont continue from the orignaly except for Eye of the North expansion which is considered the only expansion of guild wars(continues the story from the oringal) The rest are called chapters, they dont continue anything from the original theyre pretty much a seperate game. They do give you new skills which you can use in any of the expansions or chapters. You only really need them if you want to be competative in pvp, but you wont be competaive in pvp at the start so theres no real reason to buy them all at once until you get to that point where you need all the skills to be good in pvp or need more content after you beat pve. Start with the original and go from there, if you think you need more then get the rest, youll know by then and you wont miss anything in the mean time, infact youll be plent busy before you even think about getting more, i played the original 2.5 years before I had the urge to by an expansion.

Well it really depends on what you want to do in the game. If you want to do more PvE I would just get Guild Wars Prophecies. If  you really want to do PvP you need all the expansions. I would get Prophecies first and play through the story. It will give you a good idea of how the game works. Then you can decide if you want to do PvP or PvE. If you just jump straight into the PvP without any PvE experience you will be in trouble.