A Guide to becoming better Guildwars player.

(Was this ever done before? Some kind of "readme" for newbies?, oh and btw, this is directed at PvE crowd mostly.)

Hello, there.

You might be newbie, wet behind ears. Or you might be seazoned player with loads of titles on your main character and who thinks he knows how to play. There is one thing you need to realize, its deceptive nature of GuildWars.

a) There is always room for improvement, your trusty build might have worked for you just fine, but it can work better.
b) Guild wars is team game, even if you play with heroes and henchmen, team is always there. Recognize that sometimes your inability could have been masked by excelent perfomance of your teammates. Inverselly, if team fails, dont ever blame other players, try to look for your error (which of course, could have been accepting party of incompetent people.)
c) When sometimes in game gives you hints or gives you pointers, consider them. If someone laughs at specific skill you equiped, ask him why its wrong choice, even if he kicked you from party for that, he can stll give you insight (that is more important tha being in party with kicking jerk).

Now that I made you hate me a little, let me apologise, but what I outlined is true: most people rather blame others than themselves, refuse to listen to advice and refuse to improve.

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Now, before you enter explorable area or mission, you have to have decent build.

If you ever followed debate about builds, you might have noticed cookie cutter label, and lots of implied negativeness about it. On the other hand people talk about snowflake builds and their implied betterness. Dont join either side, care oly about builds that work and builds that dont work for you. Never stop using build because you see it being overused, if anything, overusedness of build is sign that you are on right road.

Your profession is basis of your build. Common early mistake is using your secodnary profession too much. Get to know purporse of your chosen profession in your party. Only after you got experienced enough with your primary profession you should be experimenting with secodnary skills.

If you find out that ideal use of that profession is not your playstyle, dont work around it. Also, if you find youself using too many skills from secodnary profession, you are better of making primary character of that profession.

If you have i.e. Assassin that stays long in fights and tanks oponents, you should make warrior.
Similary, commonly seen Monk/Elementalist player who use fire magic to do damage should create elementalist and play him instead. (And vice versa for E/Mos who want to heal.)

Next mistake is pet abuse. While pets are cool to have, they usually mean sacrificing skillslots that could have been used for achieving your goals, not mentioning blackout caused by pet death that could mean life or death for couple of party members if pet master was monk.

Another mistake is going "all out Damage" which usually means that physical damage dealer has most of their skillslots filled with attack skills and similary, spellcaster skillbar filled only with offensive skills. Mirror of this are "all out healing" build where monk takes lots of healing spells with little thought an without ability to support their usage.

Spreading attributes: Be wary of using skills from too many skill lines. Ideally, you shouldhave to invest only in two or three skill lines.

We now get to how your build should look like, ideall build does not go to extremes, is usually focused on its purporse and should have ability to withstand lack of monk attention for short period of time.

With outline like this:

1) "Business" skill
2) "Business" skill
3) "Business" skill
4) Business skill enhancer
5) Energy management
6) Self healing
7) Defensive skill
8) Resurection skill

Which gives you solid baseline. Once you get comfortable running your build of choice, look for skills you never use and find replacement for them, do same with skill you use most - look, for example for elite skill that is its enhanced version or look for skills that have great comboability with it.

Look for multi purporse skills, and skills which are usefull to party too. For example, warrior might use "Watch Yourself" in defensive slot to give party damage reduction, just as Curses necromancer can use Enfeebling Blood to weaken group of enemies.

Since its best to get lead by example, look for working builds, PvP primers in oficial pages contain waried working builds which while not being suitable for PvE give good idea how decent build looks.

For example, baseline warrior build should look like this before you start fine tuning it:

1) Sewer Artery
2) Gash
3) Dragon Slash
4) Flail
5) Enraging Charge
6) Healing Signet
7) "Watch Yourself!"
8) Resurection signet

Anyone experienced can tell you that while this build is kinda decent it requires a lot of improvement.

/Too tired to write tactics talk about rushing, non rushing and stuff/

Nicely written. I'd also like to point out that having a hyper-focused skill bar is just as bad as one that's spread too thin. For example, if you're a monk, you don't want to put all your power into straight healing. Consider shuffling a little around to put something into protection for condition or hex removal, or divine favor for the great energy management skills. If you specialize too much with one attribute line, there will be gaping holes in your ability.

For example, let's look at a very common healing skill bar.

Healing Prayers 12; Divine Favor 12
[skill]Orison of Healing[/skill] [skill]Healing Breeze[/skill] [skill]Word of Healing[/skill] [skill]Heal Other[/skill] [skill]Heal Area[/skill] [skill]Heal Party[/skill] [skill]Healing Touch[/skill] [skill]Rebirth[/skill]

At first glance, that bar looks like it has some awesome healing ability. It does, but your energy wouldn't last 30 seconds into a fight. What do you do when one of your casters is being smacked around by warriors? You sure can't afford to spend a bunch of skills (and energy) on them, ignoring everybody else. What do you do when you're facing monsters that spread poison or disease?

A more advanced monk build would generally focus on Protection and Divine Favor, and for good reason.

[skill]Shield of Absorption[/skill] ... [skill]Zealous Benediction[/skill] or [skill]Blessed Light[/skill] ... [skill]Reversal of Fortune[/skill] ... [skill]Mend Ailment[/skill] or [skill]Mend Condition[/skill] ... [skill]Signet of Devotion[/skill] [skill]Gift of Health[/skill] [skill]Smite Hex[/skill] [skill]Rebirth[/skill]

Any seasoned player will recognize the basis of this build, and for good reason. It spreads attributes a little bit, and allows you to deal with a much broader range of situations. This doesn't only apply to monks, of course. Any class will suffer from focusing too much on one attribute, ignoring the others.

sorry, double post

Dont forget channeling on that monk bar :P

Channeling in PVE is simply crazy energy management for monks. Mobs of 5+ enemies suddenly become fun.

Learn to res AS SOON AS SOMEONE DROPS.

Learn that protting (stopping damage) is far better in most cases than healing after the damage hits.

As an addition.

Learn that kiting and prekiting are "prots" that don't even take skill slots. Talk about value!

/signed

Learn to pre-prot when you know someone is about to take damage, ie: prot spirit the assassin that's the first to rush in.

As a bonus, cover the prot spirit with rof so the important enchant doesn't get stripped first.

unless you're a monk with rebirth, in which case this can and will be hazardous
and also know that protting is all enchantments, which can be stripped or even be detrimental if against necromancer mobs. one chillblains and all protection is gone.

here's the monk build I came up with a long time ago that still works quite well in most situations:

12+3+1 Healing Prayers, 12 Divine Favor, 3 Protection Prayers
[skill]Orison of Healing[/skill][skill]Dwayna's Kiss[/skill][skill]Word of Healing[/skill][skill]Healing Touch[/skill][skill]Healing Seed[/skill][skill]Mend Ailment[/skill][skill]Smite Hex[/skill][skill]Rebirth[/skill]
replacing rebirth with resurrection signet, rebirth signet, flesh of my flesh, or a non-resurrection skill as needed. works really well alongside a protection monk or with a ritualist or paragon. Healing Seed is mostly used on the tank just before he enters agro range to keep him alive while he generates hate, as well as on NPCs that the party has to escort.

This thread should be stickied. To many people dont understand energy management and defining roles.Each class has its upsides and downsides, and you cant maximize its upside and limit its downside without spreading out your skills to much and making yourself pretty much worthless to your team.

P.S. With a healing skill bar like Miral's, you could use [skill]resurrection chant[/skill] which gives them a lot of life when the come back to life like a rez sig does.
Or you can use [skill]renew life[/skill], even though you have to touch your dead party member which can be hazardous if it is a warrior inside a mob, it still heals nearby party members.

This is fine for a situation in which you don't know what anyone else is bringing (Random Arena, PvE PUGs when you're in a hurry, et cetera) but if you have the time, by all means, find out what the other warrior is bringing, or the other monk, or whatever--highly specialized skillbars are fine in the right team builds.

no offense meant, but it could use a lot of editing for spelling and grammar before it should be considered for a sticky.

those two rezzes would also work, yes.

oh, and it should be of note that my monk almost never has under 25 energy when running that bar except for right after using rebirth

Best typo ever.

If you meant as a monk, no. You should be concentrating on healing/protting the damage your other party members are taking first. If you stop doing your job to res, someone else will likely die. Some other char should use their res way before the monk ever has to stop healing to res someone. Monk res is best used after battle.

If you meant as some other profession, then yes. Using res right after someone drops is usually one of the keys to preventing wipes. I'd like to add, if you're the last player alive, the situation's horrible and you still have a res, don't waste it. You'll just give someone else extra DP, and if your res was res sig, it's gone. Just wait for the res shrine to kick in.

Miral, the energy management part wasnt meant to you. It was meant to the people I've seen that run similar builds to what combatchuck posted. Spamming healing breeze as if it was the greatest skill ever and when the party is starting to loose health across the board spamming heal party a couple of times and they are worthless for 10-15 seconds because they have no energy.
I noticed the spelling mistakes but I dont remember grammar mistakes, but writing is definately not my strong suite. Just think that some players should realize that mending+healing breeze is not the shiznit and that your build can always get better. Sometimes it takes getting out of the game for some to realize it.

Very wise words. Also, to add to that even, just about everyone should be carrying a Res, period. Of course unless your ABing (also FA/JQ for the same reasons - frequent respawn) or soloing. You begin to feel the damn fool if your party gets wiped except for you in a mission, and you're left standing there with no res on your bar. Try to ignore the stream of insults that are then headed your way.

Monks are only as good as the materials provided, like builders.

If you insist on run a retarded build that causes you to take heavy dmg, don't rant when you die.

Losing 10-15% of your health is not reason enough to spam HEAL!!!

I'm just going to throw something out there and you can tell me if this is a "good" combination.

[skill]Healer's Boon[/skill] + [skill]Restore Life[/skill]

Most people don't like Restore Life because it's a so called "touch res"... But when the strongest (?) res skill in terms of restored Health/Energy is given the casting time of a Res Signet, it can have some uses. At least I think so.

I am looking for ideas to improve this part of my job (ressing) so if anyone has a better suggestion feel free.

One of the biggest mistakes players make when out and about is "Bad Aggro." To prevent this blunder, there are some very simple things you can do:

1. Warriors in front, Casters in back(outside warrior's aggro circle if possible.)

2. Patience is a virtue! Watch mob patrol routes. If you KNOW that there's only one group in the area, let the tank go in and draw aggro so everything's beating on him. (Hopefully your monks are ready with prot spells & quick heals)

3. Wait for multiple mobs to split up and then bring one mob at a time to you. A Longbow is a very useful thing to get a mob's attention. Even if you only hit for 2-3 damage, they'll come to you. This is especially helpful when there are nearby mobs on the other side of the one near you. It's better than using the edge of your aggro bubble because with the longbow you have a bit more range and better control on who you're targeting.

4. Don't pull mobs toward rez shrines. If you're near one, pull them away from it. That way, if you do wipe, you've got a better chance of being out of aggro range when you're brought back to life there.

5. Know your party's limitations! If you do over aggro, be prepared to run. Be sure that everyone's on the same page on this one. If someone says "RUN" do it!

6. After particularly long battles, waitfor everyone to re-charge before tackling that next group. There is nothing worse than aggroing a fresh mob when half of your party is low on energy, especially when it's your monks that are depleted. 0 energy = 0 heals!

If someone kicks you from a party without any explanation and it was simply because they didnt like your build. Is their opinion really worth asking?

I personally find that kind of behaviour to be the back-bone as to why the community in GWs is so childish at times.

When ever I have seen another team members build and not quite agreed with it, I have politely made a suggestion to change it or i've asked do they have this alternative skill.

But its extremely rare that I've ever come accross a player who has had a really bad build. To the degree they deserve to be kicked. But even if I have seen an extremely bad build, myself and the other team members have tried to explain why its bad and asked them to change.

Then if they dont, you have the right to kick them.

An example being an elemental who wanted to join a HM pug I was in. Me being an elemental I knew instantly what is good and bad, and this players build was unbelievable.

It took ages just to make him ping his build to check, but once he did, I nearly died. No attunement, 3 scattering spells and 2 that caused exhaution and most were high energy spells.

I tried to ask where his energy would come from, but he didnt answer and just spammed his energy level to the team. The leader whispered me to ask if she should kick him and I said yes unfortunately!

But that in a rare example of when a player is being a complete noob and refusing to accept advice. Most times a players build may look strange, but the player is good at using it.

The player who is kicked, shouldnt have to ask the leader why their kicked. The leader should have the decency to explain first, and justify it before kicking them.

oh yeah i know it wasn't to me, I was just mentioning that what I posted is a good example of being able to perform a main duty without using too much energy