Guild Wars Is up and Running.

[LochnarITB]

Maybe the most memorable moment I had was in the mission where a large mob was guarding a catapault part

The catapult was fun. The people in my group hadn't done the mission before. Once we had the catapult put together, it was fired. It laid waste to the entire monster encampment below. Everyone said "Wow" or "Amazing" almost simultaneously. I tried firing it again but it wouldn't fire. :angry: I hoped we would have to fix more of them just to see the devastation it brought to the monsters our party struggled against.

All the classes were effective, but warriors (tanks) and monks (healing + rez's) seemed to be pretty essential for almost any mission.

The most effective parties I was in seemed to be half and half warrior/anythings and ranger/monks. I was a ranger/monk and I would fling arrows until the warriors that waded in got low and then a quick click on a name and a click on a heal skill and we were back in business. A quick rez after battle for anyone that did fall and off we went to the next bunch.

They still have to work on the skills (e.g. for rangers, poison arrow was quite powerful, but as far as I could see ignite arrow made a nice explosive ring and did absolutely no additional damage). But, for an alpha, there were remarkably few bugs, even though I never did find a Lynx.

Poison arrow was great but time consuming. It took excessive time to prepare for the shot but worked wonders on the monsters that self healed a lot. Ignite arrow damage depended on the monsters it hit. For example, if I used it on a Resurrect Gargoyle, it would strike twice but the total would be half what a normal arrow would do alone. However, if he were surrounded by his Gargoyle crew, the explosion that hit them would do more damage to each than if I was hitting each with a single arrow. A couple single arrows to knock the big guy down and then ignite arrows as energy allowed and it would wipe out the entire party.

The lynx was fun to have but hard to control. As soon as I started shooting something, it would attack and it seemed to attract all the monsters in the immediate area. I did have a spell that healed only the Lynx but it couldn't be cast fast enough to keep up. If the monsters weren't finished quick enough, my pet would go down and it couldn't be rezed. I was able to grab a new one before each mission though. Not many people must have discovered where the Lynx was because I never saw another ranger with one. There was a solo area called Wastes just off the mission 4 staging area. If I entered and went down the little valley under the bridge to the right I would get to the end and be able to exclaim "There's my kitty!" After a long spell cast, I had a couple claw marks and a brand new pet to run with. I kind of wondered if kitty was glad to see me since kitty was the only occupant of the entire area. It's too bad others didn't know where to grab them. I think an entire party of ranger/monks each running a pet would have been extremely powerful.