11-04-2004, 04:14 PM
My Guild Wars (GW) World Preview Event (WPE) Experience (3)
Day two, the official starting date for the World Preview Event. I logged on as Soul Edge Da Second and made a party with a friend who played a Necromancer/Elementalist (exact opposite of my character!) to do the first coop mission, we took the warrior and monk henchmen with us. The game went faster than when I was playing solo, mainly because I was not the one leading, a really good choice honestly, for I am rather slow at navigation. We went through the mission at a comfortable pace, the level of challenge was about right, not too tough but still required close attention. I soon got used to the partner's combat style, he would charge into melee range for he has a lot of skills that required touching, I would bombard with spells to assist. We completed the first mission but missed the bonus quest, I was a bit worried when I was viewing the animation after mission completion, because I did not see my character knighted, it only showed the leader (my friend) being knighted. For a second there I thought we would have to redo the mission to get my character knighted, that would have been really silly, luckily it was just me being silly. We both got the credit and we went on to try the second mission.
Again, the level of challenge was still about right. I was confident that I could do the mission solo with the warrior and monk henchmen, just slower, but definately doable. But I prefer to do it in a party anyway, not only it was more interesting and faster paced, I didn't have to navigate! :) All went well, we got the spooky eye and sent those chosen ones into the hands of the Shining Blades, meh. Again we didn't get the bonus quest, and my curiosity was starting to bubble up, I just had to find out what the bonus quests were!
But before we could carry on, there was a message saying the GW server needed to do an emergency maintenance, and we had to log out in fifteen minutes time, and log back on after a while. So we headed to town to do some shopping and selling and logged out. I am not sure how long it took for the server to be up again, I tried a few times but after I logged on, much slower than normal, my character would only be able to move a few steps before being rooted to a spot. It was the prime time for the poeple in the States to start playing, probably the sudden influx of players has flooded the server? Anyway, I took a break and checked the GW site, there was a gameplay guide for the WPE (http://www.guildwars.com/preview/guide/default.html), I learned some new slash commands and emotes, as well as ways of acquiring skills. I logged back on after an hour or so, everything was working again, though there seemed to be a slight lag now, but it could just be my imagination.
My friend has gone offline, so I was back to solo game. I heard from the chat that there was a skill trainer in Northern Kryta Province, named Captain Greywind, situated in a settlement. Hmm... I remember finding a settlement, but all the NPCs I met had nothing to say, but how could I pass up a chance to learn more skill? So I headed out with warrior and monk henchmen and worked my way to the settlement (consulting the world map a lot). Sure enough, Captain Greywind was there, and I picked up a few skills, and bought two Signet of Capture, I then explored the area as thorough as I could, found a "mist wall" to another area on the north east but when I ran through it, I was sent back to Northern Kryta Province, perhaps the area was not available at that time? I also found the way to Farmer's Market, a small town that added another icon on the world map. There was a crafter in Farmer's Market that can craft level 19+ items. Since I was not keen on crafting at that time, I readied my new skills and headed to the staging area of second mission, Divinity Coast.
Initially I wanted to do it solo so I could explore thoroughly and find out about the bonus quest, but I was invited to a party as soon as I arrived so I just joined. Typically the leader just wanted to rush through everything, party members scattered all over the map, most of them just trying to catch up with the leader. I selected the leader in the party member list and use space bar to aut-follow him, I had to ask him to stop every so often to let the others catch up, sometime he listened, sometime he did not. I did informed all to select him in the party list and use space bar to auto-follow, so towards the end it was not so bad. The thing with auto-follow is that once the leader stopped and you stopped, you would have to press space bar again to auto-follow when the leader starts to run again.
However, I learned a very handy thing in that game, there were constant messages from the party leader informing us which monster he was targeting and we that could use "T" to target the same monster. Of course I could have just asked how he did it, but on a hunch I press the "ctrl" key, it showed the names of all the monsters within mini-map range and when I click on one of the names, I got that message and party member could use "T" to target what I have selected! Woohoo! Instantly I fell in love with that, I called it "calling a target/call target", it was so handy to focus fire and kill the enemy one at a time instead of spreading out the damage to various ones. It became my preferred choice of engaging enemies, I would press "ctrl" to see what's lurking ahead, and assess the danger level of the enemies, I like to take down healer type and caster type first, then only the warrior type, if all the enemies were of same category, I would check with "C" to make sure I select the nearest, and "ctrl + click", then "space bar". My character would start running towards the selected target, and I would press the shortkey for Life Siphon, so when she reached casting range, my character would stop and start casting, I would que the skills I want to use, and since I already pressed the "space bar", whenever I was waiting for the energy or the skill to recharge, my character would use her default attack (I used a cold damage wand).
Oh, new skills. I bought Fireball, a projectile direct area effect spell, I like it very much; Inferno, most damaging direct area effect spell I had but it only hurts those around me, so I seldom use it since I was usually not in melee range; Water Trident, a fast recharge low energy usage direct damage projectile spell that knocks down moving target, it's an elite skill; Mist Form, an enchantment spell that makes me immune to physical attack for a short duration, but cannot inflict physical damage as well, also an elite skill. I tried the Mist Form but picked Water Trident as the elite skill to bring into mission most of the time, we can only bring one elite skill. Some of the skills I bought from Captain Greywind, I also used the elementalist ring I obtained from loot to learn from skill charm bought in Lion's Arch. I was constantly broke buying new skills and the expert salvage kits.
After that mad rush through mission 2, which we didn't get the bonus quest as well. I decided I had enough of that mission for that day, I went back to Northern Kryta Province with my Signet of Capture and found the Fire Imps, I wanted to get their Immolate skill but when I tried to use the Signet, it informed me that those Fire Imps were not boss monster, meh. I ran around trying to find a named enemy that uses Immolate, no luck there, and apparently I could only capture the skill of either my primary or secondary class. While I found a few named enemies that used necromancer's skills, they were either purchasable from skill trainer or were not something I want, Life Siphon was the only skill I used from my necromancer class in the end, touching skills (melee range) and skills that required sacrificing of health just did not interest me. I had decided to use only the Blood tree of necromancer class, and used my time during the WPE toying with the Fire, Water and Earth trees of the elementalist. I only found one named enemy that used elemtalist skills in Northern Kryta Province, but it didn't have anything special.
After the unfruitful attempt to use the Signet of Capture, I retired for the day and got some much needed sleep.
Day two, the official starting date for the World Preview Event. I logged on as Soul Edge Da Second and made a party with a friend who played a Necromancer/Elementalist (exact opposite of my character!) to do the first coop mission, we took the warrior and monk henchmen with us. The game went faster than when I was playing solo, mainly because I was not the one leading, a really good choice honestly, for I am rather slow at navigation. We went through the mission at a comfortable pace, the level of challenge was about right, not too tough but still required close attention. I soon got used to the partner's combat style, he would charge into melee range for he has a lot of skills that required touching, I would bombard with spells to assist. We completed the first mission but missed the bonus quest, I was a bit worried when I was viewing the animation after mission completion, because I did not see my character knighted, it only showed the leader (my friend) being knighted. For a second there I thought we would have to redo the mission to get my character knighted, that would have been really silly, luckily it was just me being silly. We both got the credit and we went on to try the second mission.
Again, the level of challenge was still about right. I was confident that I could do the mission solo with the warrior and monk henchmen, just slower, but definately doable. But I prefer to do it in a party anyway, not only it was more interesting and faster paced, I didn't have to navigate! :) All went well, we got the spooky eye and sent those chosen ones into the hands of the Shining Blades, meh. Again we didn't get the bonus quest, and my curiosity was starting to bubble up, I just had to find out what the bonus quests were!
But before we could carry on, there was a message saying the GW server needed to do an emergency maintenance, and we had to log out in fifteen minutes time, and log back on after a while. So we headed to town to do some shopping and selling and logged out. I am not sure how long it took for the server to be up again, I tried a few times but after I logged on, much slower than normal, my character would only be able to move a few steps before being rooted to a spot. It was the prime time for the poeple in the States to start playing, probably the sudden influx of players has flooded the server? Anyway, I took a break and checked the GW site, there was a gameplay guide for the WPE (http://www.guildwars.com/preview/guide/default.html), I learned some new slash commands and emotes, as well as ways of acquiring skills. I logged back on after an hour or so, everything was working again, though there seemed to be a slight lag now, but it could just be my imagination.
My friend has gone offline, so I was back to solo game. I heard from the chat that there was a skill trainer in Northern Kryta Province, named Captain Greywind, situated in a settlement. Hmm... I remember finding a settlement, but all the NPCs I met had nothing to say, but how could I pass up a chance to learn more skill? So I headed out with warrior and monk henchmen and worked my way to the settlement (consulting the world map a lot). Sure enough, Captain Greywind was there, and I picked up a few skills, and bought two Signet of Capture, I then explored the area as thorough as I could, found a "mist wall" to another area on the north east but when I ran through it, I was sent back to Northern Kryta Province, perhaps the area was not available at that time? I also found the way to Farmer's Market, a small town that added another icon on the world map. There was a crafter in Farmer's Market that can craft level 19+ items. Since I was not keen on crafting at that time, I readied my new skills and headed to the staging area of second mission, Divinity Coast.
Initially I wanted to do it solo so I could explore thoroughly and find out about the bonus quest, but I was invited to a party as soon as I arrived so I just joined. Typically the leader just wanted to rush through everything, party members scattered all over the map, most of them just trying to catch up with the leader. I selected the leader in the party member list and use space bar to aut-follow him, I had to ask him to stop every so often to let the others catch up, sometime he listened, sometime he did not. I did informed all to select him in the party list and use space bar to auto-follow, so towards the end it was not so bad. The thing with auto-follow is that once the leader stopped and you stopped, you would have to press space bar again to auto-follow when the leader starts to run again.
However, I learned a very handy thing in that game, there were constant messages from the party leader informing us which monster he was targeting and we that could use "T" to target the same monster. Of course I could have just asked how he did it, but on a hunch I press the "ctrl" key, it showed the names of all the monsters within mini-map range and when I click on one of the names, I got that message and party member could use "T" to target what I have selected! Woohoo! Instantly I fell in love with that, I called it "calling a target/call target", it was so handy to focus fire and kill the enemy one at a time instead of spreading out the damage to various ones. It became my preferred choice of engaging enemies, I would press "ctrl" to see what's lurking ahead, and assess the danger level of the enemies, I like to take down healer type and caster type first, then only the warrior type, if all the enemies were of same category, I would check with "C" to make sure I select the nearest, and "ctrl + click", then "space bar". My character would start running towards the selected target, and I would press the shortkey for Life Siphon, so when she reached casting range, my character would stop and start casting, I would que the skills I want to use, and since I already pressed the "space bar", whenever I was waiting for the energy or the skill to recharge, my character would use her default attack (I used a cold damage wand).
Oh, new skills. I bought Fireball, a projectile direct area effect spell, I like it very much; Inferno, most damaging direct area effect spell I had but it only hurts those around me, so I seldom use it since I was usually not in melee range; Water Trident, a fast recharge low energy usage direct damage projectile spell that knocks down moving target, it's an elite skill; Mist Form, an enchantment spell that makes me immune to physical attack for a short duration, but cannot inflict physical damage as well, also an elite skill. I tried the Mist Form but picked Water Trident as the elite skill to bring into mission most of the time, we can only bring one elite skill. Some of the skills I bought from Captain Greywind, I also used the elementalist ring I obtained from loot to learn from skill charm bought in Lion's Arch. I was constantly broke buying new skills and the expert salvage kits.
After that mad rush through mission 2, which we didn't get the bonus quest as well. I decided I had enough of that mission for that day, I went back to Northern Kryta Province with my Signet of Capture and found the Fire Imps, I wanted to get their Immolate skill but when I tried to use the Signet, it informed me that those Fire Imps were not boss monster, meh. I ran around trying to find a named enemy that uses Immolate, no luck there, and apparently I could only capture the skill of either my primary or secondary class. While I found a few named enemies that used necromancer's skills, they were either purchasable from skill trainer or were not something I want, Life Siphon was the only skill I used from my necromancer class in the end, touching skills (melee range) and skills that required sacrificing of health just did not interest me. I had decided to use only the Blood tree of necromancer class, and used my time during the WPE toying with the Fire, Water and Earth trees of the elementalist. I only found one named enemy that used elemtalist skills in Northern Kryta Province, but it didn't have anything special.
After the unfruitful attempt to use the Signet of Capture, I retired for the day and got some much needed sleep.
- SoulEdge -
"*burp* too many pots, I need to pee..."
"*burp* too many pots, I need to pee..."