Guide to PvE
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[edit] PvE
PvE (Player versus Environment) is where most Guild Wars players will start their career. It is the perfect place to learn about the game and the concepts used in it, but it also has a rising difficulty curve: What starts out very easy will become demanding in the end. This guide is meant to help new players master this playing style of Guild Wars, mentioning important tactics and common mistakes. Some of those are similar in PvP, but mentioned here as well, because PvE is likely to come before PvP for most players.
[edit] Team build
In almost every PvE situation, you will play together with others - be they henchmen, heroes or other humans. It is important to consider the composition of the team before heading out to slay enemies. The "standard" balanced PvE team consists of:
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4 party members |
6 party members |
8 party members |
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Notes:
- The distinction between melee, midline and healers stems from the different roles these characters will play in the team, as shown in the tactics section.
- Despite using a melee weapon, assassins are classified as midline characters here, because their play style resembles a midline character much more than a warrior or dervish.
- The number of healers (monks or ritualist) is usually set. Too few, and you can't keep your team healthy. Too many and you lose efficiency in your damage output.
- There is some leeway in the number of melee (warriors and dervishes) and midline characters. Melee characters can be substituted by minion masters and pets. For example, for a party of 8 members, you could use 1 minion master, 2 healers, and 5 midlines with 1-3 pets.
- You might want to avoid melee henchmen, because those make pulling (see below) very hard.
- Another very common, though controversial team build, is to have 2-3 healers, and the other team members use the skill Ursan Blessing at a high rank. This is mainly used for elite or difficult areas, and often used in conjunction with consumables.
[edit] Know your enemies
Like in most computer games, the difficulty in Guild Wars is raised by increasing the number and raw 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 the AI's limitations and to exploit these.
The AI only attacks you if you venture into its aggro bubble. Many groups fail because they aggro too many enemies at once, but this can almost always be prevented by knowing the path of mob patrols and 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 team for a second chance. Players can make the AI focus on one target. Aggro control helps your healers greatly since they can concentrate their healing power on only one team mate, making it much easier to keep everyone alive. Finally, the AI is somewhat "stupid." It will 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 cast through hexes that punish casting.
Finally, there are different kinds of enemies in different areas. You have the advantage of being able to check beforehand and prepare yourself for what is up ahead.
Note:
- Some creatures, like the Kournan Spotters, have an increased aggro range and will move to attack you (along with the rest of their group) from farther away.
[edit] Tactics
[edit] Frontline, midline, backline
The frontline usually consists of the melee fighters (plus pets and minions), the backline is formed by the healers, 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, while healers typically are at the most distant point from the enemies. This distance from the enemy is reflected in the ability of different classes to take damage. Melee characters can absorb a lot of it (via armor or damage prevention skills), while midline and backline classes die considerably faster when under fire. Therefore one of the most basic PvE tactics is to keep a rough order in the parties 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. And of course to learn about the cases when there are exceptions to the rule (e.g. during pulling).
[edit] Target calling
A basic rule of warfare is to concentrate fire. Having 4 enemies at 50% health means having 4 enemies fight back, having 2 enemies at 100% health and 2 at 0% health means half the damage coming your party's way. 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 persons calls.
Targets should be called depending on what hurts your party most. More often than not, these are the enemy monks, because they keep the rest of their group from dying. Therefore the normal target calling sequence is: Monks => 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 team attacking a less dangerous foe is preferable to everyone attacking whatever they think is best and ignoring calls. (Mesmers and Necros spreading hexes over the enemy group are somewhat exempt from this.)
[edit] Pulling
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. Like target calling, pulling requires some experience about mobs 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 tank after having pulled a group. Pulling is one of the cases where overextending can be advisable, since pullers usually want to avoid to "lose aggro" to other party members who might be too far up front.
[edit] 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. It is a good way to prevent your backline from being overwhelmed in their healing job. 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.
[edit] 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, it 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 parties 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 prot also should usually stand and tank rather than leading the monsters to attack a less well protected party member.
[edit] Reviving team mates
As a general rule, all PvE players should bring a means of resurrection ("res"). If there is a reason for you not to field one, inform your teammates of that fact! Nothing is worse than being the last person alive, but not having a means to revive the team.
There are two general methods of reviving your fallen teammates: during battle and after battle. The former has the advantage of enabling them to fight again, potentially turning the battle around. The disadvantage is that during the act of resurrecting, not just one but two people 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 are fast to use and resurrect the fallen teammate with full health, preventing them from dying again straight away.
In contrast, the latter method is safer, both for the resurrected and resurrecting player. So if the battle turned bad, a retreat is often the best solution. After you have lost aggro, you can carefully go about resurrecting your team (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. And there is really no excuse for not having them (trade if you don't own EOTN).
Note: To prevent two people from wasting time resurrecting the same fallen teammate, it is best to "call" your action (by pressing control while clicking on the skill).
[edit] 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 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. 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.
[edit] The Professions
This is just a very short overview of what parties expect from certain professions in PvE. For more information, read the articles and guides about the respective profession.
Warriors (frontline) are the usual tanks and often the pullers. Your party will expect you to bring a bow for pulling and at least some means of staying alive under fire. If there is more than one warrior in the party, agree beforehand on who will tank.
Dervishes (frontline), despite having low armor, are a Melee class. Thus, you will be expected to soak up some damage without needing a monk to hold your hand all the time. Bring a decent self-heal, but don't neglect your damage output, unless you are the designated tank.
Assassins (melee midline) are hit-and-run experts, and should not stay in melee range for extended periods of time. Assassins are unpopular in groups because many players blindly charged mobs and expected they could tank. Learn to use hit-and-run tactics for precise, high damage output strikes.
Elementalists (midline) in a party are mainly expected to do heavy damage. Fire Magic is most typical in PvE for it's AoE spells. Other builds will still generally be accepted as long as they have a high damage output. Elementalists are also sometimes used for snaring, using water spells to prevent mobs from dispersing away from AoE damage.
Mesmers (midline) are more situation-specific, and should know the enemies beforehand in order to plan their build accordingly. Because they are more difficult to play effectively, they are also a rarer PvE profession. Mesmers typically play shutdown, via interrupts and hexes, although other builds are viable. Inform your group of your role in the upcoming fights so that they understand your importance.
Necromancers (midline) are usually expected to play a straight damage dealer (e.g. with Spiteful Spirit) or to boost the frontline via being a minion master. Tell your party what you plan on doing, especially if there is another necro around. Necromancer not falling into one of those two builds will often have a hard time finding a group; it be prepared to explain why you use another build if you do so.
Paragons (midline) can produce decent damage, but shine in a support role, bringing skills that benefit most of the party members (i.e. Arias for spell casters, Anthems for physical damage dealers, bring "They're on Fire!" if the party can cause a reasonable amount of burning, etc). Bringing Signet of Return can also remove the burden of resurrecting from healers, so that they can concentrate on healing.
Rangers (midline) are often expected to either deal damage via Barrage or to shutdown spellcasting via Broad Head Arrow. They are the most common pullers in the group as they can use their bow and run back to bring back a small group of monsters while using either Whirling Defence or Lightning Reflexes. If you play a non-bow ranger (e.g. touch ranger or trapper) tell your party before starting. If you plan on bringing any spirits, inform the other party members. Don't bring a pet without pet-res.
Ritualists (midline/backline), as a class which can play both as Damage Dealers and Healers, need to make sure the party knows what they are getting. If you plan on using spirits, educate your team mates on the time needed to set those up before a battle, or bring Summon Spirits to keep up with the moving group.
Monks (backline) are the healing mainstay of Guild Wars. If you are not the only monk, coordinate with the other monk whether you use healing or protection. Usually it is easiest to have one of each. Definitely tell your party if you plan to use smiting.
[edit] 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 the respective profession.
[edit] Frontline
Warriors sport the heaviest armor, and so killing them is harder to achieve than 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. Elementalists and hexes 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 classes are ususally either quickly focus-fired and killed or ignored and left until last, depending on their build.
All melee characters 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.
[edit] Midline
Elementalists, necromancers, 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 often 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 their long casting times, interrupts work great against elementalists.
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 calling 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 fairly 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).
A notable fact of assassins, rangers, and earth elementalists is that some of them have skills that make them temporarily unbeatable. If this is the case, try hitting the mob 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 simply bring disenchantment and stance removal skills.
[edit] Backline
Monks and ritualists, when in a healing role, are important targets because they keep the rest of the foes alive. However, it is often 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, sometimes it is beneficial to take out a few frontliners/midliners first.
[edit] Related articles
Guide to hard mode - tips for PvE in hard mode.
