Guida al PvE

Un Derviscio che combatte delle Arpie in PvE.

Nota: Questo articolo è rivolto ai nuovi giocatori. Si prega di mantenere i suoi contenuti conformi a quelli che i nuovi giocatori possono ragionevolmente comprendere e utilizzare.

La modalità Giocatore contro Ambiente (Player vs Environment - PvE) è dove la gran parte dei giocatori di Guild Wars inizieranno la propria carriera. È il luogo ideale per imparare il gioco e i concetti utilizzati, con una curva di difficoltà crescente: inizialmente molto semplice, in poco tempo diventerà estremamente esigente. Questa guida si pone l'obiettivo di aiutare i nuovi giocatori a padroneggiare lo stile di gioco di Guild Wars, menzionando importanti tattiche e errori comuni. Molti consigli sono simili a quelli del Giocatore contro Giocatore (Player vs Player - PvP), ma vengono menzionati anche qui, in quanto questa sezione è più probabile essere visionata dai novizi.

Iniziare una campagna

Dopo la creazione personaggio ci si troverà nella Città di Ascalon (Prophecies), sulla Panoramica del Monastero (Factions) o sull'Isola di Shehkah (Nightfall). Indipendentemente dalla campagna, l'area iniziale è una zona d'allenamento che permette ai nuovi giocatori di apprendere i tasti ed il funzionamento di Guild Wars, e per ottenere alcuni livelli prima di progredire con la trama.

Composizione squadra

In quasi tutte le situazioni PvE, il giocatore agirà assieme ad altri - che siano seguaci, eroi o altri giocatori. È importante controllare la composizione della squadra prima di dirigersi a trucidare nemici. La squadra PvE bilanciata "normale" consiste in:

4 membri	6 membri	8 membri	12 membri
1 prima linea 2 mediani 1 retroguardia	1-3 prime linee 2-4 mediani 1-2 retroguardie	1-4 prime linee 2-5 mediani 2-3 retroguardie	2-4 prime linee 4-8 mediani 2-4 retroguardie

Note:

• La distinzione tra prima linea, mediano e retroguardia deriva dai diversi ruoli che i componenti della squadra ricoprono, come evidenziato nella sezione [[#Tattiche|]].
• Il ruolo interpretabile da una professione dipende dalla sua barra delle abilità; di conseguenza è possibile vedere dei paragon o esploratori in prima linea con pugnali, o assassini mediani con un arco. Questa libertà creativa è una delle parti più interessanti di Guild Wars. Tuttavia, avventurandosi con altri giocatori, essi potrebbero aspettarsi un ruolo solitamente associato alla professione.
• Il numero di retroguardie (mistici o ritualisti) è, di solito, impostato rigidamente: averne troppo pochi non permette di mantenere la salute della squadra, mentre troppi ridurrebbero la quantità di danno prodotta.
• Solitamente si ha un po' di margine nei numeri della prima linea (guerrieri e dervisci) e linea mediana. La prima linea può venire sostituita da minion masters , spirit spammers e mascotte. Per esempio, con una squadra di 8 membri, si potrebbe utilizzare 1 minion master , 1 spirit spammer , 2 retroguardie e 4 mediani con 1-3 mascotte.
• Si consideri evitare l'utilizzo di seguaci con abilità corpo a corpo, perché rendono più difficile attirare nemici (vedere sotto) molto difficile se non posizionati appropriatamente.

Prestazioni individuali

Le prestazioni del gruppo non sono dovute solo dalla sua composizione: dipendono anche da ogni singolo giocatore. Questo è vero soprattutto in squadre composte da giocatori.

Il terzo insieme di fattori importanti è costituito dal livello, armatura e abilità disponibili. Anche l'arma utilizzata gioca un ruolo importante: nel caso di professioni corpo a corpo l'intervallo di danni è una parte vitale, mentre per gli incantatori i modificatori che influenzano le abilità sono più importanti.

Livello

Il livello detta la salute massima e il numero di punti attributo da poter investire. Aver la possibilità di investire più punti in un attributo per raggiungere un grado maggiore, significa abilità più forti, più benefici intrinseci dagli effetti dell'attributo (come più energia ottenuta da Sottrazione dell'Anima o maggiori colpi critici attaccando con l'arma relativa nel caso di attributi associati alle armi), e nel caso di attributi legati ad armi - Scherma, Precisione e gli atri attributi "Abilità con...", si ha un incremento dei danni inflitti attaccando con tale arma (circa il 9% in più per ogni grado inferiore a 12, 3.5% dal 12 in poi). Un alto grado permette anche di maneggiare armi migliori, essendo che le armi più performanti solitamente richiedono un grado elevato dell'attributo.

Anche magie e altre abilità che non infliggono un danno prefissato (come la maggior parte delle magie che infliggono danno elementale) scalano direttamente con il livello del lanciatore (5.3% di danno in più per livello).

Generalmente si possono usare i seguaci come linea guida di massima: quando il proprio livello è inferiore a quello dei seguaci, solitamente significa che si è rimasti indietro rispetto ai contenuti da affrontare, necessitando di mettersi in pari.

Armatura

Le armature solitamente possono essere prodotte da armor crafter s nelle città principali o scambiate con trofei dai collezionisti nelle aree esplorabili.

La categoria dell'armatura è una valore visibile su ogni pezzo dell'armatura, che varia da 2 a 80 e dipende dalla professione del personaggio. Le parti dell'armatura con una Categoria d'Armatura elevata sono importanti quanto un elevato livello, e possono facilmente cambiare la situazione: da cadavere steso nel fango, impossibile da mantenere in vita, a membro della squadra capace di contribuire.

La parte di armatura utilizzata per il calcolo del danno subito è selezionata casualmente ogni volta, quindi avere pezzi con categoria d'armatura più bassa può portare ad alcuni colpi più dannosi di altri.

Il valore dell'armatura incrementa in base a quanto ci si è addentrati nella campagna, ma armature con valori massimi possono essere acquisite molto presto, come alla Città di Kaineng, alla Stazione Boreale o Banchina del Consolato.

Approssimativamente, +10 di armatura equivale al 16% di riduzione dei danni, armatura +20 riduce del 29% e +40 riduce del 50%.

Le rune ed insegne possono incrementare ulteriormente la propria armatura (insegne), la salute massima, l'energia massima, alcuni attributi (rune) o forniscono effetti vari che possono essere di grande aiuto.

Skills

Having a good selection of skills is one of the most important things. Without the right skills you can not perform your role efficiently or even at all.

Hero skill trainers and skill quests can supply quite a few skills free of charge but for some skills visiting a skill trainer is unavoidable and useful. As the cost of skills gradually increase to reach 1 platinum per skill, it can become far too expensive to buy all of them: make sure to check with your guild members or friends if a skill is worth buying or not. A skill that may look good on paper, such as Flare or Power Shot, can turn out to be less effective than expected. The notes section or talk page of the dedicated skill on the wiki, or other websites such as PvX can help you in your choice as well.

When you reach a certain point in the storyline, usually around level 20, you will encounter bosses with an elite skill and should try to capture one that fits your preferred style of play. Try to acquire PvE-only skills if you can, as in various cases they can provide a very strong effect without investing in any attribute.

Weapons

If you wish to specialize in the wielding of a martial weapon (sword, axe, hammer, bow, daggers, scythe or spear), make sure that you always use such a weapon with the highest damage range available while still having an attribute rank to meet the requirement. When playing you will acquire stronger weapons through drops as you progress while also increasing your level and unlocking higher attribute ranks, so you shouldn't have troubles in that regard, but sometimes you may want to acquire stronger weapons from Weaponsmiths or Collectors.

"Perfect" weapons (with maximum damage range) almost always have a requirement of at least 9 in their attribute, and some of them can be generated for free through the /bonus chat command, if you have them unlocked.

Weapons can be upgraded similarly to armor, but are not as important to upgrade. However it is highly recommended to customize your weapon, as a 20% extra damage can help a lot.

A shield can help you survive longer by increasing your armor, and even if you are not a fighting class and do not meet the requirement of the shield. If you don't meet the requirement you will still get a bonus, which can be as high as +8 armor. The Serrated Shield is a bonus shield that provides such armor and also comes with a 30 bonus to maximum health.

For casters, more damage on staves or wands is not advised, as your damage will comes from spells and not attacks. As such, weapon modifiers that affect your energy pool, casting or recharge time of spells, or increase the duration of enchantments are very valuable. Classical weapon sets are 40/40 or 40/20/20.

Others

Make also sure you get your extra 30 attribute points as they become available.

AI Party Members

Henchmen

For situations where teaming up with other players is not an option and heroes have not yet been unlocked, it is best to add henchmen to the party. Not all henchmen are equally viable options, with causes including but not limited to bad skill selection, a lack of energy management, or even questionable artificial intelligence. Some are therefore detrimental to your party's specific composition. As players unlock better skills and equipment, henchmen are often replaced with Heroes.

Heroes

Players who have access to them should keep in mind that heroes need to be upgraded while henchmen do not. They can be customized along with the player's game progress and should be considered when obtaining drops. For instance a new acquired weapon may not be of use to the player but a hero may benefit from it. Follow this same pattern with runes, insignias and skills. Once deep into the storyline these allies may be of great value but if left to their original poor status, they may become a problem instead.

Heroes are also a smart way to learn other professions that players don't understand yet. Have their skill bars open to monitor and watch their behavior.

Unlocking skills for heroes should also become one of your priorities. Skill quests and Hero skill trainers are great for that, but some PvP challenges offer interesting opportunities for earning Balthazar faction which can be used to unlock skills, especially elite skills. Buying skills from skill trainers or capturing elite skills with Signet of Capture can prove to be more expensive and tedious.

Know your enemies

Gaining aggro as seen on radar.

Like in most computer games, the difficulty in Guild Wars is dependent largely on the number and power of your foes - the enemies' intelligence (AI) stays the same (hard mode is a notable difference). A large part of being successful in PvE stems from knowing and exploiting the AI's limitations.

The AI only attacks you if you venture into its aggro bubble. While many groups fail because they aggro too many enemies at once, this can almost always be prevented by knowing the path of mob patrols and by clever pulling. Additionally, the AI will "break" aggro if you run away for long enough. That is, if a fight goes bad, the survivors can retreat and try to resurrect the party for a second chance. Players can make the AI focus on one target: usually a tank or tank substitute calls targets. Aggro control helps your healers greatly, since they can concentrate their healing power on only one party member, making it much easier to keep everyone alive. Finally, the AI is somewhat "stupid." It will sometimes stand inside the effect radius of strong spells (AoE damage) without running away, will kite or follow you into traps, will attack through hexes that punish attacking and will cast through hexes that punish casting.

Finally, there are different kinds of enemies in different areas. For example, some enemies are considered non-fleshy, such as skeletons or ghosts, so having skills that poison your foes or cause them to bleed would be less useful. Such creatures also leave no corpses for a minion master to exploit. Depending on the mix of creatures in an area, you can adjust your skills, keeping in mind that many areas have a lethal mix of different kinds of creatures. You have the advantage of being able to check beforehand and prepare yourself for what's ahead.

Tactics

Positioning: frontline, midline, backline

The frontline usually consists of the melee fighters (plus pets and minions), the backline is formed by the healers, and all other characters are midline. The names come from the distance towards the enemy: Melee characters need to be right next to the enemy, midline casters and long range weapon users can afford to stay back a bit more, and healers typically are the most distant from the enemies. This distance from the enemy is reflected in the ability of different professions to take damage. Melee characters can absorb a lot of it (via armor or damage prevention skills), while midline and backline professions die considerably faster when under fire. Therefore, one of the most basic PvE tactics is to keep a rough order in the party's lines. Monks should not be the ones running into enemy groups first; warriors should not hide at the back of the party. Once the party gets more sophisticated, warriors should learn not to overextend, midline characters to keep enemies at maximum casting range and monks to have all party members in casting range. Of course, there are exceptions to the rule (e.g. during pulling).

Target calling

A basic rule of warfare is to concentrate fire. Having 4 enemies at 50% health means having 4 enemies to deal with (and thus much less chance of wiping out any individual enemy), whereas 3 enemies at 75% health and one enemy at 5% health means that your party is much more likely to efficiently wipe out that one enemy and proceed to the next enemy in sequence. The method of choice in Guild Wars to achieve concentrated fire is to call targets. In PvE, it is almost always advisable to designate one single person as target caller, with the rest of the frontline and damage dealing midline characters following that person's calls.

Targets should be called depending on what most affects your party's chance of successfully destroying an enemy group (without, of course, being destroyed yourselves). More often than not, these are the enemy monks, as they can keep the rest of their group from dying. Therefore the normal target calling sequence is: healers => midline => melee. If possible, the target caller should be an experienced player.

Monsters in PvE rarely have the ability to resurrect their fallen party members, but if you know or notice an enemy type with a possibility to revive other enemies, go for those first. Examples are Afflicted Ritualists and Awakened Acolytes.

Note that even if you disagree with a particular call, you should still follow it, as the whole party attacking a less dangerous foe is preferable to everyone attacking whatever they think is best and ignoring calls. (Mesmers and Necromancers spreading hexes and conditions over the enemy group are somewhat exempt from this.)

Pulling

File:Cornerblocking.gif

An example of a tank pulling a group and cornerblocking afterwards. Click to watch animation.

Pulling is the act of deliberately getting aggro from a mob of enemies to make them move into a direction favorable to the party. This could mean away from other mobs, into pre-set traps or spirits, or towards a terrain more favorable to the party. Pulling can be done either by attacking the mob with a long range weapon (flatbows being the best choice) or by "touching" the mobs' aggro bubble (i.e., running closely so that the enemies just barely enter your aggro bubble). Like target calling, pulling requires some experience about a mob's behavior and should be done by an experienced party member. Since the mobs will attack the party member which pulled first, pulling is often done by tanks who proceed to use their higher defensive capabilities to stay alive after having pulled a group. Pulling is one of the cases where overextending can be advisable, since pullers usually want to avoid losing aggro to other party members (such as midline or backline party members) who might be too far up front.

Tanking

Tanking means concentrating aggro on one player who is especially well equipped to absorb damage. This is usually done by warriors, due to their high level armor and defensive stances, but dervishes and rangers can also prove to be efficient in tanking. In high-end areas people rather tend to prefer assassins, for their more powerful protective enchantments and stances. Tanking is a good way to prevent your backline from being overwhelmed; however, both the tank and the other party members need to work together to achieve good tanking: The tank needs to grab the aggro of as many enemies as possible, while the other party members should try not to take away aggro from the tank.

A tanking character should also do the pulling, but usually not the target calling, since the target calling benefits from being able to select the best possible target, while tanking requires the tank to be mainly stationary. If you have more than one melee fighter, it is best to have one designated tank, with the others as protectors or damage dealers so as not to split up the enemies too much. Also, area of effect skills will work better with one tank than two.

Terrain

While it may not seem valuable from a tactics standpoint at first glance, you can actually use terrain to your advantage. Pulling groups around corners, with a tank holding a corner block or finding a bottleneck in the terrain, can bunch groups tightly together and pin them out of range of the backline. You can also take advantage of obstructions with ranged attackers, rendering nearly all enemy paragon and ranger attacks as well as enemy caster wanding damage null. Additionally, holding the high ground during a fight produces a slight tactical advantage at range for this same reason (ranged attacks deal more damage from higher up). Knowing the general layout of an area can provide you with better ways to flee should you need to as well as avoiding hidden pop-up groups.

Kiting

Kiting is the simplest, yet most effective method of damage prevention: Run away from the enemy (or its projectiles or casting range) and you won't get hurt. Despite sounding simple, this is not always easy. Good kiting requires a complete overview of the battlefield, so you can start running away before the enemy gets to you. This is especially true for monks, who often focus on their party's health bars, instead of concentrating on the battle field. While kiting, try leading the mobs into the tank or obstacles to help shake off the aggro. Of course, the tank should not kite while tanking, and players who just received heavy Protection also should usually stand and tank rather than leading the monsters to attack a less well protected party member.

Reviving party members

As a general rule, all PvE players should bring a means of resurrection ("res"). Discuss with your party members if you feel you have a reason not to bring a res. Nothing is worse than being the last person alive and not having a means to revive the party.

There are two general methods of reviving your fallen party members: during battle and after battle. The former has the advantage of enabling the revived party member to fight again, potentially turning the tide of battle in your favor. The disadvantage is that during the act of resurrecting, not just one but two party members are not contributing to the battle effort. Therefore, resurrection during battle should only be done with a Resurrection Signet or Sunspear Rebirth Signet; Resurrection Chant can also work quite well if combined with a means of speeding up the casting, such as being a primary Mesmer or using the enchantments Holy Haste and/or Healer's Boon. These cast quickly and resurrect the fallen party member with full health, preventing them from dying again straight away.

In contrast, the resurrecting after battle is safer, both for the resurrected and resurrecting player. So if the battle turns bad, a retreat may be a better solution. After you have lost aggro, you can carefully go about resurrecting your party (without attracting aggro, again). For that purpose, the monk skill Rebirth is unbeaten.

If you don't like "wasting" a skill slot for a resurrection skill, get a few Scrolls of Resurrection. They are worse than a Signet at in-battle resurrection and worse than Rebirth at out-of-combat resurrection, but hopefully that 8th skill will help you prevent deaths in the first place.

To prevent two players from wasting time resurrecting the same fallen party members, it is best to "call" your action (by holding down control while clicking on the skill).

Defeating the professions

This is only meant as a very short overview of the weaknesses of each enemy profession, how to avoid their damage, and how to defeat them in PvE. For more information, read the articles and guides about each profession.

Frontline

Warriors sport the heaviest armor, and so killing them often takes more time than does killing other professions. Unfortunately, they also tend to deal a high amount of damage, and so it is not always best to leave them until last. Dedicated anti-melee Mesmers, Elementalists and Curses-based Necromancers tend to work well against them.

Dervishes and assassins have greater damage potentials, and potent self-heals and protection skills, so they can become a nuisance if they focus fire on your squishies. Dervishes have the added ability to inflict damage on multiple opponents, so spreading out is advised. Assassins have the ability to teleport around and gain health from it, and blocking skills. Since very few monsters are good at both offense and defense; however, these professions are usually either quickly focus-fired and killed or ignored and left until last, depending on their build.

All melee NPCs have the weakness of not stopping their attacks when hexed with anti-melee skills, making those a good choice to bring them down. To prevent their damage, blindness and weakness (the AI groups rarely remove conditions) or protection skills (Melee attacks are more easily predicted) are best. Crippling or snaring melee opponents can also help your team in kiting and provide you with more time to damage your opponents before they reach your team members.

Midline

Elementalists, necromancers, and ritualists are potent damage dealers, whereas mesmers can often prevent you from launching your attacks. However, except for earth elementalists, they all are typically easy to pick off and thus present the best targets to gain numerical superiority, and quickly reduce the mob's damage output. As such, they are sometimes preferred as targets over healers.

Against elementalists, spread yourselves to reduce AoE damage, and move out of the location that such spells are targeting. Due to the fact that many elementalist spells have long casting times, they are also quite prone to interrupts.

If necromancers do summon minions, sometimes retreating and waiting for those minions to die off naturally is better than staying in the fight, especially if the tide has turned against you. Enemy summoners in PvE often lack the ability to heal their minions. If they use hexes, assess how hurtful the hexes are. Prioritize the necromancers only if they cast hexes that severely hinder your party. Having a player necromancer who uses up corpses can deny corpses to NPC necromancers.

When fighting against ritualists, determine if they are healers or damage-dealers to determine their target priority. Keep an eye on the spirits they cast.

AI mesmers are usually a tame bunch, but watch out for those casting damage over time hexes or the potent Energy Surge. Also, interrupts and Diversion can hurt a lot, even if the AI uses them somewhat randomly.

All of the above have low armor ratings and therefore die quickly to melee characters whacking at them.

Paragons and rangers deal moderate damage at long range, and are usually more resilient. They are dangerous via their use of conditions and interrupts. They should be attacked only after the other midline characters are down and go down quickly if you interrupt their self-heals (e.g. Troll Unguent). The effectiveness of rangers can be decreased by waiting until they use their preparation before aggroing them and interrupting the activation of the preparation.

A notable feature of assassins, rangers, and earth elementalists is that some of them have skills that make them much harder to kill for a short time. If this is the case, try hitting them a few times so that it will activate, and then move on to the rest of the enemies, after the skill has ended you can attack them again. Another way is to bring disenchantment and stance removal skills.

Backline

Monks and ritualists, when in a healing role, are important targets because they keep the rest of the foes alive. However, it is sometimes easier to concentrate on a single non-healing squishy first so that protection spells be used on that foe, and then quickly switch focus to healers, leaving the healers unable to protect themselves when their turn comes. This also reduces the damage output of the enemy group should the first foe die.

For difficult fights, if you find you are unable to kill the whole group at once, killing the healers and retreating to recover may be an option. Bringing a group-running spell (e.g. "Fall Back!") can help move out of aggro range in those cases.

Be aware that reaching for healers also puts your group into a more dangerous position. The risks and benefits have to be weighed, and while healers will always be prime targets, it sometimes is beneficial to take out a few frontliners/midliners first.

Types of PvE

All of the above concerns all types of PvE combat in general; however, there are different types of PvE in Guild Wars and sometimes it helps to prepare for the exact type.

Cooperative Missions

Usually just called missions, these form the backbone of the storyline in each campaign. Missions form the most diverse part of PvE, in each one, the party will have to reach different goals. It pays to look at the wiki page of the individual mission for specific tips, such as skills to bring. In general, the party fails the mission if every member dies, so running to safety (to later resurrect the others) when the fight goes badly is more important than usual.

Explorable Areas

The second mainstay of PvE. Unlike missions, you can usually party wipe in explorable areas without grave consequences, since you will be revived at a resurrection shrine (there are exceptions!). Most importantly, explorable areas are where quests are taken and played out. Unlike a mission, players can work on several quests at the same time. But be careful, some quests make it much harder to complete other quests.

Dungeons

Subterranean explorable areas in the Eye of the North. Considerably harder than normal explorable areas. Have "hidden" chests, so consider bringing the skill Light of Deldrimor. Elite Dungeons are even harder than normal dungeons.

Challenge missions

A special form of mission that is not part of the main story line. Unlike other missions and quests, these theoretically never end (with one exception), but get ever harder the longer one manages to stay alive.

Elite missions

Extra hard missions, with an 8 or 12 player party size. Having a correct team build is a must, so coordinate with other party members.

Related articles

• Guide to hard mode - tips for PvE in hard mode.
• Guide to maxing titles - most titles can be earned in PvE.