The Basics
Before you even consider starting on a Legendary Vanquisher, it is important that you master some of the more basic game mechanics. Things like calling targets and energy management should be mastered before you set your game to Hard Mode. Learn to kite, learn about corner blocking and learn about aggro management in general. This wiki has a few excellent articles about several of these topics; I will focus mainly on things that don't have their own article.
There are a few concepts that are relevant to any vanquish you start. Know them by heart.
- Be ready to die. No matter how pr0 you are, your team can still wipe. Pick yourselves up, go back, and show the enemy who's boss. Accidents happen, it's not the end of the world.
- Be willing to learn. You're probably not as pr0 as you think you are. If someone else has more experience with vanquishes than you do, it might be a good idea to hear them out and let them lead.
- Be open-minded. No matter how many vanquishes you've done, someone with less experience could still have come up with a genius bar. Allow people to try things, you might be surprised.
- Be flexible. There is no single bar that works in every single area. Accept that you may have to swap one or two skills around for maximum utility.
- Work as a team. A vanquish works best if there is only one leader. Follow target calls, focus fire, and work together. If something goes wrong, learn from your mistakes.
Preparations
The key to any successful vanquish is to come prepared. Make sure that you know what you are up against and work out your skill bar accordingly. Check out the wiki page of the area you're vanquishing and get informed about the various foes you will be facing. Before you do anything else, ask yourself the following questions:
- What town or outpost will the vanquish start from?
- What is the maximum party size available for this vanquish? (4, 6, or 8 players?)
- What type of foes will I be facing?
- Is there a specific damage type they are sensitive to?
- Are they big on enchants or even enchant removal?
- What type of damage will pose the biggest threat to my team?
- Is the area hex-heavy or condition-heavy?
- Are the foes likely to cause party-wide damage or are they single-target spikers?
- Are there specific caster classes that I will need to look out for?
- Are there specific bosses that may pose a particular threat?
Setting up your skill bar
The questions above should be familiar and obvious once you get a few vanquishes done. They serve to identify the strengths and weaknesses of your foes, and they make you look for anything that could be a particular threat to you and your team. The success or failure of a vanquish sometimes depends solely on how well your team can handle a single boss or monster group, so make sure that your skill bar or team build includes something that deals with these particular things. Protective Spirit is a very good friend.
Depending on the class you are vanquishing on, your objectives within the party may differ greatly. Most classes can perform multiple tasks so pick one that suits the coming vanquish best. While raw damage is always appealing, you may need to swap your Pew Pew bar for something with less damage and more shutdown or some type of defensive skills.
Especially when playing with humans over heroes, make sure that your key pressure points have more than one counter. If you're a Ranger, don't rely on the Mesmer to take out that big bad Ele boss. If the Mesmer goes down, lags, disconnects, ragequits or turns out to be otherwise incapable of fulfilling the task, you want to make sure that you have a Plan B. This concept can be applied to almost any task and any profession. Even if you have the best Monks in the game with you, there may come a moment when they don't have a heal ready for you. Consider self-heal a form of life insurance. Hopefully you won't need it, but if you should, you'll be glad that it's there.
Enemies like to scatter from AoE skills, particularly in Hard Mode. If you're going to bring AoE skills, consider taking a way to snare your enemies. Water Magic hexes like Deep Freeze can be very useful even if the rest of the skill bar is set up for Fire Magic or Earth Magic. Put snares in the middle of the mob to make sure you hit as many enemies as possible. If there are multiple AoE damage dealers in the team, call the target you are snaring and focus fire. This will make short work of big groups if done right.
Enemies in Hard Mode are pretty resistant to elemental types of damage. Consider skills with armor penetration, skills that apply Cracked Armor, or skills that deal armour-ignoring damage such as Spiteful Spirit and Energy Surge.
Building your team
Make sure you have at least one dedicated healer. This can be an old school Monk, a Resto Rit, a N/Rt healer or something else entirely, but whatever you choose, make sure they are geared up right. If there is a lot of party-wide pressure, a Word of Healing-based anti-spiking skill bar may not be your best choice. Similarly, if your foes like to spike single targets, basing a skill bar solely on Healer's Boon and party-wide heals is probably a bad idea.
If you're facing lots of hexes, make sure that you bring enough hex removal to relieve pressure. If an area is more condition heavy, bring condition removal. Ask yourself if they focus on a single target, or are easily thrown on your entire party. Consider taking Dismiss Condition versus Extinguish, for instance, or take multiple skills for easy adjustment to the situation at hand.
If your foes like to remove enchantments on a regular basis, a regular Prot Monk may not cut the mustard for the vanquish. Consider less enchant-heavy forms of party protection, such as Union, Ward Against Harm or Defensive Anthem. Think outside the box- Monks are not the only class geared up for support. Ritualists, Paragons and Elementalists have a lot to offer. Consider further ways to reduce damage dealt by your foes, even on the more offensive members of your party. It doesn't hurt to have your SS Necro bring Enfeebling Blood, for instance.
Ask yourself if you will need a dedicated interrupter. There are plenty of areas featuring big groups of Elementalist foes, but not all of these will form a real threat. Are they mean, lean, killing machines that need to be shut down quickly, or can they be ignored until other threats are dealt with? Do you have enough damage to take out the enemy healers, or will you require additional shutdown?
Question the use of an MM! Minion Masters are almost always a good addition to the team, but exceptions do exist. If you're entering an area where very few enemies are fleshy, even an Elite skill like Aura of the Lich might not be enough to keep a viable minion army going. There are also areas heavy on smite users. Minions take double damage from holy damage, and will melt away faster than you can recreate them if you're unlucky. Further counters to MM builds can be found in the form of minion snatchers- foes that like to use skills such as Verata's Gaze or Verata's Aura. If your MM proves more of a bother than a help, or less useful than an alternative damage dealer, don't bring one along. Your party has a limit to its size and you don't want to waste space.
Hybrid builds can work pretty well. An Earth Ele can be both a damage dealer by taking 2 or 3 Wards and several damage spells like Unsteady Ground and Churning Earth. This improves both your team's overall defense and its damage output. Remember, though- if you take skills that scatter, find ways to keep your foes in place.
A balanced team generally consists of 1 dedicated healer, 1 dedicated support character, 1 tank, 1 damage/defense hybrid, 1 interrupter and 3 damage dealers. The exact format of your team may vary based on the maximum party size of the area you're vanquishing but the concept remains the same. Remember: even damage dealers can take support skills.
- You can learn from Genericway. Sabway and Discordway are popular because they work well in most areas. Assuming that you have a lot of skills unlocked, they are also easily adaptable. Have a look at these team builds and ask yourself what it is that makes team builds like these strong.
- Create your own team builds. Never forget that there is usually more than one solution to the vanquish problem, and the generic answer is not always the best or fastest answer.
Sorting out equipment
Once you have your skill bar and team build sorted out, take a close look at your equipment. Is your armour suitable for the type of damage you're facing? Do your weapons have stats that fit your skill bar? Use common sense and apply some general rules.
- Weapons
- Weapon choice is largely a matter of preference. However, choosing your equipment carefully might give you just that extra edge that you needed.
- If you're an Assassin, Dervish, Paragon, Ranger, or Warrior, consider taking a Zealous weapon if your build may not provide you with sufficient energy management.
- If you're taking skills that rely on certain damage types, make sure you are able to deal said damage. If you bring Spinal Shivers, for instance, make sure that at least one person has an Icy weapon.
- If you're running a non-caster bar, make sure you know your weapons and their corresponding damage types. Familiarise yourself with their strengths and weaknesses. For instance, a Ranger running a BHA-based interrupt bar benefits most from a recurve bow, while a Barrager would be better off with a flatbow.
- If you're a caster, consider taking at least one weapon swap for your favourite staff or wand+offhand combo. Consider a caster weapon like a +5 energy sword you can switch to if necessary, like when you're up against foes that use Shroud of Silence. A simple weapon-swap can prevent you from getting hexed sometimes.
- Runes and insignias
- Just like weapon choices, the runes and insignias you choose to put on your armour can be a lot of help. Have a good look at the options available to your specific class, as well as the general options, then select a combination that best suits your skill bar and play style.
- Superior type runes can be immensely helpful to increase your damage, but they chomp your health down significantly. Consider Survivor Insignias or other ways to negate this effect. Take a +30 health weapon, or add a +health skill like Vital Boon to your bar.
- Blessed Insignias are great for classes that involve being enchanted a lot, like Elementalists with their various attunement spells.
- Radiant Insignias are good if you could use that little bit of extra energy to keep you going. Elementalists shouldn't really need these, but Monks and Mesmers might want to resort to these.
- Heroes
- Love them or hate them, you're unlikely to complete all your vanquishes without ever needing to resort to bringing a few NPC helpers along. I personally prefer Heroes over Henchmen just about everywhere, but you might disagree depending on how many skills you have unlocked across all professions.
- Don't merch greenies- give them to your heroes! You might not be a big fan of green weaponry, but heroes don't complain about weapon skins and many greenies have pretty decent stats.
- Don't be stingy- rune them up! Don't just stick one or two runes on them, either; pimp them out to the max just like you did for your own gear. It might cost some
the first time round, but their increased usefulness earns it back quickly.
- Spend your cash on the heroes you'll actually be using. Dunkoro and Livia are far more likely to end up in your party than, say, Anton or Zenmai.
General Rules
Some additional Guild Wars 101 may be required before you set out. Below are some obvious, but oft-forgotten rules of the Guild Wars universe.
- Welcome to Guild Wars: You cannot go from A to B in a straight line. Learn to utilise your radar and mini-map.
- If an area looks clear but you haven't been there yet, there will be pop-ups. Always. This is especially relevant to lonely Locked Chests just begging to be opened.
- Life stealing is not damage. Skills like Vampiric Gaze will chomp you equally hard with or without something like Protective Spirit. Your only real defense is a quick heal.
- Enemies like to go for whichever ally has the lowest health. Consider swapping to a high-health armour set or high-health weapon set if you somehow start racking up DP.
- Death happens. Guild Wars has this amazing feature called the Damage Monitor. Make sure it is easily visible in the interface you set up and study it if you die unexpectedly. The answer to how this death was possible is usually there.
Setting out
Once you finish all your preparations, it's time to enter the explorable area you have chosen to vanquish. Take the bounty if it's available and go. Following a logical path will save you time later if it means you don't have to backtrack so much. Sometimes you will have to adjust your route if your party is not instantly prepared for the monsters directly ahead. When vanquishing Eastern Frontier, for instance, it is easier to head south first and deal with the Devourers before going off to face the Grawl and their 4-healer groups: that way you'll have a nice minion army going before you get to them.
If you've opted to bring along a tank of some form in your party, take advantage of the terrain. Aggro is less likely to spill to your back line if the tank knows how to block monsters on a corner and keep them focused on a single front line target. This form of aggro management relies a little on your foes not scattering, but if you can prevent that, it's very effective.
Aggro management comes in many forms. You might have opted for a single tank, but you can also spoil your enemies for choice with minions and spirit walls. Learning how to keep aggro away from the actual party members is crucial. Try employing a tactic of pulling your foes to your minions, then running behind the minion wall. Bomb away.
Patience is a virtue. Speed and success don't always go hand in hand. Make sure you watch patrols carefully in areas with many foes, and pick on patrols one by one if you're not sure you can take on all those foes at once. String your foes out if you're having trouble and pull them as far back as you can if there is a risk of healers from another group running in to join the party.
Learn to identify the threats in enemy teams before you engage. If you come in at full force and take down the greatest risk factor first, the rest of the mob will soon follow. If something makes it hard to kill your enemy, tab through your targets quickly to identify the problem. Focus fire on this, shut it down, and go for the next potential problem. Being able to quickly adjust to a shifting battle is often the key to victory.
This also applies if another group comes in before you finish the one you had engaged. Don't panic and keep your team together. Quickly check your radar to get an idea of just how many baddies came in as extras, then identify the pressure points as quickly as possible. If you manage to identify something potentially harmful, take that out first. As long as you keep your wits about you, it is usually still possible to win the battle relatively unscathed.
If you want to have an easy way of keeping track of your vanquishes, consider using a full list of available vanquishes that you can edit to show what you've done and what you have left to do. I have made a wiki-based vanquish overview that you can copy and use on your own userspace.
Even the best of us still face failure sometimes. I wrote this guide based on my own experience with vanquishing, so I want to close off with some important last remarks. If you are intending to vanquish more than one area without returning to an outpost first to reskill, make sure that you are equipped to handle all areas you will be vanquishing, not just the one you started in. Miscalculation is the biggest cause of failure.
If you do fail, don't be disheartened. Make notes of the things that hit you the hardest, and skill up for that before attempting the vanquish again. What seemed daunting at first often turns out to be relatively easy if you skill up right. Remember that failure is not the end of the world, nor the end of your career as a vanquisher.
If you keep all of these things in mind, you'll see that vanquishing is a lot easier than it seemed at first. Sticking to the things I outlined in this guide will make it possible to vanquish every area in Guild Wars without ever needing to resort to consumables, PvE skills, or some form of done to death cookie-cutter build.
Vanquishing is best done in good company. Take some friends along and have fun.
Good luck!
