How to Be a Better Guild Wars Player

Just starting out in Guild Wars? Here's some important information you should know.

1. Protect your healers (Monks).
A good healer can take care of themselves, but since they're usually the primary target in any battle, keep an eye on their health and help out when they get low.

Without a healer, your group is almost certainly doomed to failure (unless it's a really easy mission, or several people in the party have Monk secondary classes).

Healers keep the group alive by casting healing and buff spells, and they resurrect players when they die (although other classes have resurrect capabilities, they're usually more limited than healers).

Watch how fast everyone's health falls next time your healer dies.

2. If you're a healer, keep YOURSELF alive.
You can always resurrect someone who dies, but if you're the only one with resurrect capabilities, and you go down, then what? So keep yourself alive first, then your fellow group members (although this doesn't become an issue until your own health bar is below 50%).

3. Only take enough henchmen to get the job done
If you're looking for maximum return on gold and items, only take a minimum of henchmen to help (or party members). This is because gold and items are shared with how many people (or henchmen) are in your party. The more henchmen (or party members) you have, the less you make or find for yourself.

How do you know how many is minimum? If you walk out the gate and are killed in the first 2 minutes, you probably don't have enough. Go back and add another henchie.

4. Don't Split the Group
Pick a leader (usually one who knows the mission goals and how to get there). Don't split into 2 separate groups. Stay together.

5. Don't start a group for a mission if you have no idea how to get to the goals
Geez, this was frustrating for me. I joined a group and we all went off to battle, and we just stood there, asking "Do you know where it is?"

We didn't have a directional pointer on the mini map, so we just kind of went in a general direction and eventually found our goal, but it sure wasn't much fun trying to figure it out (I like exploring as much as the next person, but sometimes I just want to get through the mission).

6. Don't join a group until you know the specifics of what the mission is
Are they going to do the mission only? Bonus only? Mission and bonus? Find out first before joining. Even if you ask, you may not get the proper answer.

I was told we were going to do the mission AND bonus so I joined a group. We finished the mission and everyone said thanks and started to leave. I protested that I thought we were going to do mission AND bonus, and someone said "Stop whining. You can always do the bonus later if you want". Geez.

Those henchmen are starting to look better and better.

7. If you're the type who likes to rush in without thinking-don't. At least not until casters have recharged
As a monk, this was one of the most frustrating aspects of playing with people in groups.

After a major battle, the monk's energy (as well as other caster classes) is usually empty and recharging. If someone (such as a warrior for example) runs to the next group of enemies and starts taking damage, the monk can't heal them without energy!

Admittedly, a warrior can take damage like no other class and can probably take whatever he jumps into, but what happens when the 8 Charr beating on him suddenly head for the casters in the group who are still building energy to cast spells?

Wait for your casters to recharge.

Since none of us are mind-readers, it's also the Monk's (or other caster's) responsibility to send a message informing the group "I'm recharging-please wait."

8. Which brings us to the next tip-be courteous to fellow group members
Nothing is less fun than everyone blaming everyone else for the last battle going badly. There's some intelligent people out there who are ready to explode all over someone else because things didn't go right.

Even if someone does something absolutely stupid, geez, give 'em a break-perhaps this is the first time they've played with a group, perhaps they got caught up in the moment and didn't think. Regardless, say "Hey, please don't do that again-it's getting us killed".

If they persist in doing stupid things, and you've asked them not to, and you started the group, kick 'em out of the group. Perhaps they'll learn something.

9. Check your skills before leaving for a mission
This sounds obvious, but once you leave a city, you're stuck with the skills you have in your skill bar.

Since skills can change depending on the mission, what you built last mission may not be appropriate for the current mission, and it's going to be very annoying if you ask the guy whose group you joined if you can start the mission over because you forgot to equip the proper skills.

An example: Skills that deal holy damage are VERY important for a monk if you're going on a mission with lots of un-dead, (skills that deal holy damage do double damage against un-dead).

And, if you're a monk, did you forget to equip resurrect? Not good.

10. As soon as you can afford it, get a better weapon
This mostly applies to players who use swords, bows, axes or hammers.

The game will RARELY present you with a prime weapon drop. Hoping to find one may take a while (I was 10th level, and still didn't have a sword that could do more than 11 points of damage!)

I was pretty unhappy with the damage my 10th level warrior was dealing until I bought a Fiery Dragon Sword that essentially doubled my damage. It actually did a LOT more damage when I threw in my attribute score, level, etc. I now look forward to getting into fights due to the damage this sword causes.

11. If you're a tank (warrior), get in there and start hacking (as long as the rest of the party is ready!)
This was REALLY hard for me to get used to after playing a monk for 17 levels.

Monks and other casters always hang back since they can't take a lot of damage, but a warrior can take huge amounts of damage (they're affectionately referred to as "damage sponges" after all).

But because I was used to playing a monk, when I first started playing a warrior, I was a little timid about rushing into a battle.
Now, I'm the first in line (as long as the rest of the party is healed/recharged that is).

How to Make Money (Or Keep From Losing It)

12. If acquiring funds is a priority, don't sell to merchants!

This applies to almost anything you want to sell, but especially to dyes.

If you pay attention to the chat channels, you'll soon realize that dyes are like currency here, but I was a noob at the time, so I
actually sold 1 to a merchant once for 1 lousy gold piece.

Hey, I didn't know. Now I do.

Always check with the dye trader in Ascalon City (post searing) for the latest dye prices. They change by the minute.

Black dye will bring you 7000+ (sometimes more) gold on the trade channel, but a merchant will only give you 1 gold for it! Silver, blue, green, red and purple are pretty popular as well, and commonly will bring 300-500 gold if sold to another player.

Stay away from that merchant when you want to sell!

13. If you really want to sell high volume, offer customers a bargain

Especially early in the game, where players' funds are limited.

If it's a dye you're selling, always undercut the dye trader by a bit. If silver dye is selling for 1,000 gold with the dye trader, offer yours on the trade channel for 700-800 if you really want to sell it. Offering it for 50 less than the dye trader isn't much of a bargain.

Give people a reason to buy it from you instead of everyone else.

14. Don't sell anything to other players until you know how much it's worth

Go to the merchant, the material trader, the rare material trader, or whoever has what you're selling, and find out the price first.

If the material trader is selling tanned hide squares 10 for 180 gold, that equates to 18 gold per tanned hide square. Think about selling yours at 12 or 15 so people want to buy from you instead of the material trader.

If it's a weapon you're looking to buy, go ahead and ask openly on the public channel what people think it's worth. You'll probably get a range and can go from there. If 3 people say a sword is worth 1.5k (1500 gold), but the seller wants 5k (5000 gold), pass it up until someone who actually knows the value of what they're selling comes along.

Hopefully these tips will help the new Guild Wars player to become a better player in the long run. See you in Ascalon!