Dumb Questions

[alchamy]

So I grabbed a copy of Prophecies & Factions yesterday. Figured I would give the whole GW thing a try.

I am a "hardened" WoW player so forgive my absolutely stupid questions. But I would appreciate some help. (WoW/Diablo style question in brackets)

1) If I create a party with henchman or summon a minion how do I control those henchman? (Where is my pet bar?)

2) How do I identify items? (Where is Deckard Cain?)

3) How does agro work, I noticed yesterday if I attacked something it seemed to stick to me and almost completly ignore the warrior, are warriors tanks. Do you need tanks? (Where is KTM?)

[Jonny Two Shoes]

1. AFAIK you cannot control your henchmen at all. If you are a Ranger you can control your pet through assigned spells/abilities only, otherwise it just attacks whatever you attack or protects you.

2. Identify? as in determine what it's hidden special attributes are? You can buy an ID Kit at any merchant.

3. Not sure what is agro but probably a spell of sorts, they give descriptions of every ability or spell in game. Yes tanks are a big part of team work when playing against other factions or PvP modes.


I speak from no WOW experience and stopped playing GW since Factions so hope sum1 more experienced can answer better.

[flarkit]

Pretty much right, except for:

1) You can control them to an extent. First, If you look on the mini-map/radar window, you'll see little green flag icons. You can use that to send the henchies somewhere specific. Just select the flag, then click on the ground somewhere. Secondly, if you select a target (either using "t" to choose the closest, or preferably, "Tab" to cycle through targets), you can go "Ctrl-Space" to dbl-click, to tell the group to attack that target.

2) Buy an ID kit from a merchant. Also get a Salvage Kits. Both range from basic, to Expert to Superior. The latter 2 occasionally salvage rare materials

3) Also on the mini-radar, you'll see a big circle around your character. If a creature is touched by that circle, they'll attack you. AI creatures tend to go for you and/or the nearest healer 1st, which sux.

HTH
:D

[alchamy]

Thanks for the advice,

1) Perfect, okay I now understand how to control my stuff. Was a bit weird last night trying to get the warrior to attack mobs before I did.

2) Right, ID kit easy enough. Salvage kit? Is that like disenchanting magical items?

3) Okay, This still makes me wonder a bit. There is no "agro" list like in WoW. So even if the warrior is tanking the mob will still attack me? Obviously I have a WoW type understanding which is based around threat on a mob. The more you damage a mob or heal a group member the more threat you generate and the mob will always attack the party member with the highest threat

[Jonny Two Shoes]

2) Salvage kit. You will occasionally pick up creature "backpacks" or something similar that requires a salvage kit to be opened. In it you will usually find pieces of materials you can use to make better armor or equipment or barter with. If you use a superior salvage kit which you can buy from merchants later on you have more chance of finding rare materials used to make better armor or sell for higher prices.

3) someone else please answer, I dont know what is agro lol. :) a WOW thing obviously. In general people always target healers first and same goes for AI.

[alchamy]

Okay, Salvage kits make sense then. Regarding trading. Is there an Auction house or something similar or do you just use trade channels?

[Jonny Two Shoes]

You can sell materials at different types of merchants and what not but you should be able to get better deals for many items if you announce them and hope someone comes along and gives you a decent offer.

You will notice in towns that a lot of people are calling WTS (want to sell) 19k etc...etc****** or WTB (want to buy) etc...etc** and you just work like that. Items you have to watch out for are really good weapons and armor and black dye and silver dye to a lesser extent. hint**--> Do not let anyone fool you into buying an awesome piece of armor or weapon that is customized **NB** a customized item is useless to everyone other than the person who it is customized for.

But all trading happens mainly in the larger cities and you just call it. Just keep an eye on all the chat dialogue at the bottom and you will get the picture pretty quick, make sure you have all chat fields enabled so you dont miss anything.

Maybe it was similar in WOW I do not know :/ but use the merchants for some items like material and dye to give you an idea of supply and demand but don't use merchants to get an idea of weapon pricing. The system is usually bad at telling how good a weapon or armor really is with all it's special attributes and something the AI wants to buy for 500 is actually worth 10000 sometimes. (I dont know if this has been fixed in later versions of GW)

To practice trading with people maybe ask someone to help you just get used to the menus etc just to practice, Im sure someone would help...this is important just so you dont stumble across a good deal only to find yourself fumbling with menus while dealing with an impatient person who runs away.

As for point (3) above anyone care to answer alchamy yet?

[dakeyras]

Ok, I first played GW, then played WoW (for about a year), and now taking a break from it and playing GW again. So I will try to answer your questions.

1. You have no control over henchman and pets except in the sense where you can 'call' the target (ctl+spacebar once you have it selected) and they will attack. Alternatively they will attack anything that comes into your aggro bubble, or when you attack something. You have more control over your heroes, as you can bring up their skill bar (by clicking the number next the name) and manually select the skills they use.

2. You can just buy an ID kit, double click on it and then on the item you want to identify.

3. The only real way to manage aggro is to stay outside the aggro range (aggro bubble) For a warrior or other melee type to gain the aggro they basically need to get enter the aggro bubble of the monsters while the rest stay outside of it. Once the mob has aggro on you, they will in general not let you go. The only way for a caster to lose aggro is to start kiting. If you kite long enough, it will eventually switch target to the nearest ally at that moment. GW also has this thing where the mobs will flee from AoE or very sustained damage from one source. This is a bit of a simplistic explenation, but the mechanics is fairly difficult to explain. So lets say your warrior has aggro, and your elementalist decides to thrown down some heavy AoE. They will flee from the area. Once they are out of the area, they will retarget the nearst person again...

Hope that makes a bit of sense, and dont hesitate to PM me ingame if you have any problems.

IGN: Melk Tert

[lilDeath]

So I grabbed a copy of Prophecies & Factions yesterday. Figured I would give the whole GW thing a try.

I am a "hardened" WoW player so forgive my absolutely stupid questions. But I would appreciate some help. (WoW/Diablo style question in brackets)

1) If I create a party with henchman or summon a minion how do I control those henchman? (Where is my pet bar?)

2) How do I identify items? (Where is Deckard Cain?)

3) How does agro work, I noticed yesterday if I attacked something it seemed to stick to me and almost completly ignore the warrior, are warriors tanks. Do you need tanks? (Where is KTM?)
Firstly, welcome to GW :)

1/ Like someone else said, you can control henchmen 'to a degree' with the buttons below the radar.
Pets are contollable a little bit more. You should get a number displayed next to the pet name in your party (typically 'P' when in a zone) window when there is a ranger with a pet in your party, which you can then click on and this will expand the pet skill menu. The ranger must have Charm Animal equiped in his skill bar though for the pet to display.
Minions (typically raised by Necromancers) cannot be controlled at all. Think of them like being zombies, mindless, they just whack stuff, their attacks and damage potential can be drastically buffed though :D
ANet introduced the Hero system in Nightfall (you should then have 4-5 clickable buttons below the radar) whereby they are even more controllable / customizable than henchmen from Prophecies / Factions, i.e. you can set their skill bars, tell them when to use their skills, who to attack and also set them on a specific target till it is dead (iow, take the agro), whether the hero must be in attack 'mode', not to attack (defend), etc.

2/ ID items with a identification kit, which you can buy from any merchant and later on you will get a Superior ID kit that you can use 100 times before it is consumed. You can also exchange certain items for ID and Salvage kits at certain NPC's in certain towns / outposts. In Kaineng in Factions for instance, there are quartermasters that will allow this.
When you ID something it can unlock items, and weapon upgrades, on your account, which will make it available to all other chars on that account as well, once it is unlocked. You will be able to determine an item's worth as well by ID'ing it. When identifying GOLD items you gain levels in a specific Title track, called the Wisdom title.

Unlocking skills works on the same principle, once it is unlocked on your account, any char can learn it and a PvP char that you create can use it as well as any hero, providing it is the correct class.

3/ The first person to attack normally receives the agro. This is normally what happens when you attack first, but this is AI for you, and targets are known to switch agro if they deem it necessary, if a more sever threat is discovered. Kiting will cause you to lose agro as well. This is where selecting your target, by pressing "C" (closest target) and then CTRL+double-clicking on that target or do a CTRL-SPACE which will then display a little bubble above your char's head saying" "I'm attacking devourer!(eg)". This will get the henchmen party moving, providing they have not been moved by the commands below the radar. They must also be in close proximity to the target before they will start attacking, this normally means your party can be just outside the transparent circle in the radar, which indicates your agro circle's border. there is another method of attacking too, which is CTRL-SHIFT+DoubleClick or CTRL-SHIFT+SPACE which displays "I'm targeting Devourer(eg)". This will also get the henchies / heroes moving, and you will not attack, ensuring you wont take agro. This is mostly the better option imo.
In Normal Mode the NPC's AI is scaled down a bit, whereas in Hard Mode (introduced in April this year), the AI of the enemies are a lot sharper and better as to make it not as easy, iow more challenging. they also kite more and quicker than enemies in Normal Mode. ANet made the same AI changes regularly if a certain farming build became too popular for instance, forcing players to design new builds.
(For Jonny Two Shoes - 'agro' essentailly means when your target is made aware or becomes aware of your presence and then starts attacking you. The person that attacks or comes wuthin agro-range first is normally known as 'taking agro'. This is typically done by Warriors, due to their higher armor rating.)

BTW, Warriors can defenitely tank, but this is not their sole purpose. other classes can tank quite well with ceratin builds. It is widely accepted that in serious PvP, if you call a warrior a tank you will get flamed. Warriors are still accepted as being the chars with the highest consistent DPS (Damage Per Second) than any other char.

Thanks for the advice,

1) Perfect, okay I now understand how to control my stuff. Was a bit weird last night trying to get the warrior to attack mobs before I did.

2) Right, ID kit easy enough. Salvage kit? Is that like disenchanting magical items?

3) Okay, This still makes me wonder a bit. There is no "agro" list like in WoW. So even if the warrior is tanking the mob will still attack me? Obviously I have a WoW type understanding which is based around threat on a mob. The more you damage a mob or heal a group member the more threat you generate and the mob will always attack the party member with the highest threat
1/ :)

2/ Salvage kits are used for removing certain items (ranging from materials, weapon upgrades, runes, etc.) from salvageable material items, that are typically dropped by monsters. Once the material has been removed the original item may either be destroyed or can be sold to a merchant or further salvaged.
When your rank in certain titles increase your chance of not breaking items when salvaging from them, increases, meaning you can salvage more than once from an item, but only if there are more than 2 different things to be salvaged that is.
Salvaging is done in order to gather Materials and Rare Materials, which in turn is used to craft armor and weapons and also to gather any weapon upgrades or runes to increase your attributes or give health or magic buffs.
Some materials are worth quite a lot. Ecto's (short for Globs of Ectoplasm - Rare Material) are used as an ingame currency for buying high-end weapons and items, because when trading with a fellow player you can only give 100K in gold, but one ecto is typically worth 4.5K each, and you can easily fit more than 1000 ecto's in a trading window, which equates to way more than 100K. There are quite a few items that are worth 100K + xx ecto's.
Additionally, certain items and weapons only drop in certain places as well, for instance, Ecto's only drop in Underworld and "Tombs" (The Tomb of Primeval Kings) from certain monsters. And you can only go to UW (Underworld) once you have 'ascended', which is when you reach a certain point in each chapter.

Okay, Salvage kits make sense then. Regarding trading. Is there an Auction house or something similar or do you just use trade channels?
No auction house unfortunately, it would be great if we had one. :(
Trading is done in real-time, you initiate it all ingame and do the trade, etc.
ANet had an update this year whereby certain posts are regarded as a trade, which automatically appears in the trade channel.
These are typically WTS / WTB. You advertise your wares with WTS and follow with what the item is and it's stats and also your asking price.
ANet have tightened the public chat down as to keep trade "spam" out of it. You will be banned for a time if you are found to be trading in the public channel.
People do not really sell "common" weapons or non-max items / materials. These just go straight to the Merchant. It is typically "Greens", Gold items / weapons and other rare material or wanted items that are sold to other players ingame.

There are certain web sites that specialise in Guild Wars information, some even have Trade Auctions. I would highly recommend checking these sites out, as they will be invaluable for a new guy.
Check out http://www.guildwiki.org (Elite GW fansite) and http://www.guildwarsguru.com (Elite GW fansite) and go from there.
Oodles of information between these 2...

I hope what I have said made sense, once again welcome, have fun and enjoy. ^^ :)
If you need help ingame, msg me ingame, my IGN is Cortine Muerte.

[Glordit]

you forgot...
http://wiki.guildwars.com

[alchamy]

Thank you very much for all the responses, been an interesting read so far. I have only hit lvl 8. (still got wow raiding) but its actually kind of fun. Should spend a few hours this weekend getting to know the game better.