need some help - getting crushed

Then I would definitely go for Berserker Stance instead.

Berserker Stance: Stance. For 5..10 seconds, you attack 33% faster and gain 20% more adrenaline each time you hit in melee. Berserker Stance ends if you use a skill.

About the group just outside of Yak's though, that must be the act of grenth himself. It's devilish. I don't think I've ever gotten past it without anybody dieing. With henches, I usually end up at about 15-45 DP. Whenever I create a new char nowadays, I just don't accept the quest "Shiverpeak Stragglers". That's what spawns that massive group.

Where can I find the bezerker stance? Ascalon?

Joh...THAT"S what I needed to hear. Sure I realize my skill bar needs some work and maybe I should be adventuring with a few more people, but that dwarf group outside yak's is just TOUGH. Thank you!!!!

The dwarf group outside of Yak's is a lot tougher than anything you've seen before. It's not just you.

When I played through the game the first time, I liked to solo things. In Ascalon, that was pretty practical (I was/am a nuker). In the Shiverpeaks? No way. Anyhow, in a new town I'd pop outside alone or maybe just with Alesia to see what things looked like. I'd get killed fast, usually. After not many tries, I'd go to the other extreme and take a full set of henchies. With henchies, you can do just about anything without undue trouble, missions and special cases like the Drok's run notwithstanding. Worst case, you die, get rezzed, and keep going with ever more of the monsters being dead each time (something that might be hard to keep a group of humans together for if their mother's are making them get off the computer Right Now).

This is harder in missions, of course, since in a mission you've lost if there's a Total Party Kill.

That's good to know. I figured I was doing something wrong, but I had been soloing up to this point too. I'm hoping to get on tonight and try out the new stuff I've learned.
I'll have to stop stressing about the drops/xp and just take a bunch of henchies with me.

If your wanting xp around yaks their oftern groups doing a selection of missions in one go. I find i just take all the yaks missions i can and do whatever the group wants.

Thats a bad idea. Some quests make extra mobs spawn. If you take a quest that the group isnt doing it just makes it harder.

Thanks again for all the advice.
I adjusted my skill bar and joined some PUG's. With the exception of one group, things went MUCH better.
I did keep frenzy in my skill bar, and I used it when I wasn't a target. Like if I was a step slow in joining the fight and had no one targeting me...I could unleash a bunch of attacks before I had to worry about taking damage.
Where can I find bezerker though?

You won find it for a long time... You can only buy it in ember light camp, port sledge and cap it in snake dance..

Do you use target calling to let the henchmen focus fire on your target? This helps to bring one enemy quickly, so you can attack the next one.

Select an enemy (the one in front of you will do nicely )
Press ctrl + space
Henchmen will now all press T and attack the target you called.

As soon as you get to the next big city with a skills trainer I would recommend swapping Frenzy for Flurry. You can get it before that by doing the 'Hungry Devourer' mission.

I did switch our frenzy for flurry, its working much better.
I'm on tot he kryta missions now, I finally got thru the yak's bend part. (it didn't take me this long, I've been away from the game a little)
Thanks for all the help.

capping a skill? I'll have to look that one up, not sure what that means.

Cap, or capping is short for capturing. When you get to Lion's Arch there is a quest where you get a signet of capture (cap sig) which you can use for capturing skills from dead bosses. This is the only way to aquire elites skills, which can be found once you get to the Crystal Desert missions.

ah...thanks quickmonty....I'd heard that term before but never knew what it meant. I just made it to lion's arch last night, so I'll be looking for that mission.

To make that area dumbly easy:
- Consider using Axe. Early in the game you have a MUCH better skill selection with axes than swords, plus you get Cyclone Axe...
- Drop Frenzy. Your Attack speed isnt important here
- Drop Heal Area - if you NEED a monk self heal consider healing breeze only. Though heal sig is more than enough to heal you
- when going with henchies, go wtih a full party - NOTHING drops in that area that warrents you wantign the drops (just some crap you merchant for a few coins).
- Real people are NOT required. henchies are acutally better here because they listen to you and follow you..

Now. Instead of heading on the quest path and into that big group of 20 or so dwarves, go another way.

When you go into Yak's Bend, theres a path to the left, and a path straight. quest arrow tells you to go straight. Dont. Head left.

You'll reach a spot where there are some ice golems and summit next to a bridge thing, kill the ice golems, but keep going left, not over the bridge (that just leads you straight nito the 20+ dwarves area).

You'll reach a little path where you can zone into Ascalon Foothills. If you need the crafter quest there, then go, but otherwise, keep going on the path your on.

You come up around the back fo the area right infront of the Ascalon peopple one of the qwuests wants you to lead back, kill the spawns here but DONT talk to the people.

You can come up behind that mesmer boss one in the primary quest here and kill his spawn group easily.

Now you are on the other side of that huge group. From here, it is MUCH MUCH MUCH easier to pull off individual 3-4 man summit groups and kill them peice by peice instead of having to rush into 20 of them.

Now just work your way back to the yak's zone point killing everything. go back and pick up the ascalon people, take them to yaks, dont zone into yaks, just go back and zone into the Borlis now.

And boom...you have every quest in that area done (minus class specific ones) with minimal effort.

Dont worry if you keep dying, just keep going at the mobs constantly. You will always be ressurected at the shrine. Even if you take out one dwarf before you die it will be some progress .

Jedi, I should be on tonight after about 6 central and if you want I can help you go through a few things and talk about some good practices.

FR, thanks for the tips, that was a good post.

Cherno...sorry I missed you, I haven't been able to get GW to run right after the factions thing. But tech support got me up and running as of yesterday. I should be on tonight, I'll look for you.

i remember picking off grps one by one way back when i was a ranger. Dont worry bout ur secondary too much, as u can change it later. If ur getting killed loads, try takinf support skills *shudder* such as purge conditions, that can help a great deal. Hex removal is also nice ( i believe empathy is order of the day in shiverpeaks) so u will find that invaluable.

Not me. I cast Life barrier on him, and he will be alright. Frenzy is cool, if the monk has some protective skills on her/him.

Here's a useful tip regarding the acquisition of skills that you normally can't get until much later (on RP characters)

Skill trainers happen to sell any skill that you have unlocked on the account, and you can unlock ANY skill in the game by spending faction at a priest of Balthazar.

So if you want your low level RP character to get a specific skill (like Berserker Stance) make a PVP char, win some fights until you get the faction, use the faction to unlock the skill, then buy the skill from a trainer on your RP character!


The only trick is, it's hard to win PVP if you don't have very good skills in the first place