Guild Wars 1

[BoroMonokli]

the jungle had a very high mobs concentration, and worst of all it had roaming packs of mesmers with instant reflexes you were not suppoesd to have tools to deal with. wipe once, you might as well start over. i liked the desert (somehow i often like desert areas, don't know why), for a long while it's been the best place to look for chests. before keys were introduced. good times.

Conjure Phantasm, Cry of Frustration (the aforementioned interrupt), and shatter enchantment (guaranteed damage on most elementalists, and hard countered Alesia's best healing spell). If you relied on Alesia, you basically had to revive her every fight, assuming you didn't wipe.

Another contender pair were the Maguuma Spiders with Apply Poison. They could outpressure Alesia's healing with ease, and there were always more than you expected.

 

[dacencora]

Charr are just furry orks. Mursaat are cool levitating alien demigods.

Mursaat are cool as fuck. The Saul’s Story mission pack is dope too, especially because you get to have revenge on the Charr. The jade aesthetic and the levitation are so cool. They were also extremely fun to fight against and a considerable threat in combat before getting your armor infused. While Thunderhead keep went on too long, it was still a really fun mission.

To be perfectly honest, I loved the campaign before Maguuma.

Prophecies really loses the plot after Kryta. Back when I started out, I expected to make a triumphant return to Ascalon to take out the Charr after recruiting the Mantle, instead we basically just forgot all about our countrymen and fucked off into the jungle. Nightfall has the best story of the three and quite a satisfying conclusion.

The mission where you light the signal fires á la LOTR was extremely memorable and probably my favorite mission in the game so far. The other one I like almost as much is the dock escape mission in Nightfall.

I liked the desert as well, particularly all the graphical shenanigans with the ruins. I remember there was one area where you could see a yuge statue of a warrior in the distance, but if you got closer there was only a pedestal with legs, Ozymandias style.

Crystal Desert has some of the best looking areas in the campaign, and the whole “ghosts in the sand” thing is very cool too. I think I was overall too frustrated with Maguuma that it tainted Crystal Desert a little bit. The Hydras were actually a pretty good challenge, but after Maguuma it felt like too much bullshit. Taking a break for a couple of days helped too.

 

[KörangarTheMighty]

The mission where you light the signal fires á la LOTR was extremely memorable and probably my favorite mission in the game so far. The other one I like almost as much is the dock escape mission in Nightfall.

Yeah, Borlis Pass was a good one. My other favorites are Nolani Academy, good finale for Ascalon ending in a whimper rather than a bang, Divinity Coast because the Eye of Janthir watches you pee, Augury Rock for fighting Shadow Link and the Dragon's Lair because it's cool to fight a mission within a single grain of sand, though really, it's the middle of summer, will someone please take down all the fucking Christmas lights in there!

Consulate Docks was one of the best in Nightfall. Exploring the Moon Fortress from a different angle in Pogahn Passage is cool too, unfortunately I rarely do it because the necromancer hero you unlock for attacking the dam instead if far more useful than another ranger hero. Most of Nightfall's mission are good though, the only ones I remember being extremely weak are Venta Cemetery and Gate of Desolation.

 

[Average Manatee]

Hmm, good gw missions...

First one in prophecies that comes to mind is the Maguuma one where you have to capture 3 points while the white mantle try to capture them back, and there's a giant white mantle base with like 30 of them that is a ton of fun to destroy (optional, obviously, but due to the mechanics of how healers will aggro at long range to heal their own characters it can sometimes be hard not to end up in a fight with them). All the desert missions including Dragon's Lair are good, not too long/tedious, good optional objectives that can be tough to complete rather than just making you take longer, overall reasonably challenging difficulty. Thunderhead keep used to be really tough but got nerfed hard, now has a very boring ending with a lot of waiting. Ring of Fire missions are all pretty neat, love the area design too.

Factions missions I kind of just all like. Like the desert prophecies missions they are all pretty well balanced, quick without much waiting around, and the bonus objective of "just go fast" is fun to me (when you are taking multiple characters through the campaign just going fast is your whole plan anyway). Vizunah, Raisu and Tahnnakai being my favorites. Raisu was my testing ground for whenever I was playing around with team builds.

Nightfall kind of straddles the line between Factions and Prophecies with missions that tend to be difficulty but also tend to be a bit too long for their own good. Dzagonur Bastion was good, and most of the later missions are good too (except the wurm one which is just a waste of time). I don't really recall many of the missions because I never completed Nightfall with that many characters, the campaign just takes too much time.

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Spending 3 hours trying to beat The Drought in Nightfall wasn't fun.

 

[KörangarTheMighty]

Spending 3 hours trying to beat The Drought in Nightfall wasn't fun.

All you had to do was flag one semi-useless hero so that it would blow its load, then mop up, even without turning the pumps off.

 

[BoroMonokli]

PvE skills did a lot to make it bearable. With a shield set you already have 5+8 extra armor, +10 from the right insignia, you add +24 from your preferred buff (hero pops Stand Your Ground, you pop Armor of Mist, etc.), then +24 from I am Unstoppable. Thats 71 armor, equal to 65% elemental damage reduction. Further reduce the remaining damage by 39-42% at 8-10 inspiriation magic with the correct mantra.

Use winter to negate the bonus damage.

 

[Average Manatee]

Just have someone in the party with an ability that inflicts Daze. EZ.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Just have someone in the party with an ability that inflicts Daze. EZ.

It's not as ez because daze is typically short and the Drought has halved condition times. Also doesn't it cast shit like x4 as fast? I seem to remember it using stoning near-instantly for 400 damage.

 

[Black]

Just mesmer it with Guilt, Shame, Mistrust, Migraine, Arcane Conundrum and other such perfectly fun balanced crap.
Also Broad Head Arrow ranger.

 

[Average Manatee]

Yeah Broad Head Arrow is king.

Just have someone in the party with an ability that inflicts Daze. EZ.

It's not as ez because daze is typically short and the Drought has halved condition times. Also doesn't it cast shit like x4 as fast? I seem to remember it using stoning near-instantly for 400 damage.

I think it's 2x speed? You're gonna have a whole party of shit hitting it so the chance of it getting a spell off is practically zero.

Honestly though I've never really had problems with that mission. I recall usually going in with no spell counters and 2 MM heroes and the complete lack of corpses barely even mattering.

 

[BoroMonokli]

Nowadays you can just throw a soul twisting rit at it too. (preplace the spirits, manually bait the sandstorm as the player, and unflag the heroes)

 

[dacencora]

Also Broad Head Arrow ranger.

Pretty fun. Also Marksman's Wager + Needling Shot.

When people say not to look at PvXWiki, it's good advice. There are 0 fun bow builds that I could find there. The most fun I had was making my own builds for my ranger. I had a poison build but obviously it wasn't very effective in the Kyrta missions so I also made a fire bow build. All fun, but I still like Marksman's Wager + Needling Shot the most.

 

[Average Manatee]

As long as you have a channeling ritualist hero with maxed splinter weapon basically any physical character is top tier. And it's not like ritualists heroes are unpopular in PvE. I generally went Barrage + Save Yourselves + Ebon Battle Standard of Honor when I didn't need to interrupt with broad head arrow. Can bring a curse necro with Mark of Pain if you want a seriously degenerate amount of AoE damage since each splinter weapon proc can trigger it.

Though with the new elite skills they added I'd be tempted to run Together As One since that's some insanely good party support there. 7 basically party wide regen practically saves you a healer slot. Instead you spike with triple shot/dual shot/faster activation skills.

 

[Darth Roxor]

we didnt have all these popamole luxuries 30 years ago when i played this

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

There are 0 fun bow builds that I could find there.

in temple defense (i know the name is wrong, you know what i mean) i played a mostly mono ranger/mesmer with the spirit to make arrow fly faster, burning arrow as elite, mostly interrupts, i called that build "no" because that was my answer to anything the target might had been attempting, even the turtle itself which was resistant to interrupts. it was even more "no" against internet builds, because those 99% of the time have a very precise sequence of instructions, so you could easily tailor your best interrupt against what. shortbow hit almost instantly, longbow outranged any caster. add a cripple and no one was safe, especially those ranger/necro "i'm going to inappropriately touch you" everyone was playing.

 

[Black]

we didnt have all these popamole luxuries 30 years ago when i played this

What was life like when all you had to put on your skillbar was Healing Signet, Frenzy, Power Attack and Mending, grandpa?

 

[Average Manatee]

What was life like when all you had to put on your skillbar was Healing Signet, Frenzy, Power Attack and Mending, grandpa?

Funny story. I got a 110 win streak in Ascalon random arena over the first wintersday with my W/Mo (actually leveled up to 11 in the process, which put me past the level cap for the arena). I was matched in a party with a guy who was a really good necro. Said he was using this skill called "SS". Eventually he had to take a break and left while we were in the 70s or so. Then I see him again on the other team for the 111th match. Utterly destroyed me. Now, this was back before we had such features as the ability to see what skills were killing you, or a wiki to look shit up on. Inspired, I decided to make an SS Necro myself. A Shadow Strike Necro. Did not hold up to expectations.

Now, that said, I was smart enough not to use frenzy or mending. I had figured out that Vigorous spirit and Live Vicariously, especially along with flurry, give way, way more healing.

 

[BoroMonokli]

Funny, you get remove hex in yaks bend the earliest. Sure, it can be covered by the necro any anyone with half a brain will cover it, but such was the way of playing back then

Also, death magic elites sucked so badly, that minion masters used SS as their elite.

 

[what am i doing]

What was life like when all you had to put on your skillbar was Healing Signet, Frenzy, Power Attack and Mending, grandpa?

Funny story. I got a 110 win streak in Ascalon random arena over the first wintersday with my W/Mo (actually leveled up to 11 in the process, which put me past the level cap for the arena). I was matched in a party with a guy who was a really good necro. Said he was using this skill called "SS". Eventually he had to take a break and left while we were in the 70s or so. Then I see him again on the other team for the 111th match. Utterly destroyed me. Now, this was back before we had such features as the ability to see what skills were killing you, or a wiki to look shit up on. Inspired, I decided to make an SS Necro myself. A Shadow Strike Necro. Did not hold up to expectations.

Now, that said, I was smart enough not to use frenzy or mending. I had figured out that Vigorous spirit and Live Vicariously, especially along with flurry, give way, way more healing.

I remember seeing spirit Ritualists being somewhat powerful in AB back in the day, and they looked cool, so I rolled a PvE ritualist with the goal to level him up and use as my main. Well, day two of that character, ArenaNet pushes an update... and I log back on to discover that spirits now cause exhaustion and the Ritualist has been essentially reduced to a mediocre jack of all trades.

Decided to main it anyways for the next few years after that before finally moving on to Monk. They did eventually buff spirits back up, of course.

If nothing else playing Ritualist did force you to be creative with your builds. I think my favourite thing was using Wailing Weapon with an IAS to mostly shut down an enemy team's healer for a brief window of time in which my teammate would concentrate fire and kill them.

 

[Alphard]

I don't tecall any particular difficult mission in early game but Altea's Ashes in Prophe
The quest that still gives me nightmares is gates of madness ( i think that's the name) 1 hour long mission killing super strong hordes of matrioska titans and then fucking Shiro with a godmode cheat kit PLUS the lich. i know you can cheese shiro to fight him alone, but still coulndt manage to beat him and it was the only quest in trilogy where i asked for carry. Ofc almost all of the post game content in NF i couldnt do, too freakig hard

 

[hello friend]

I want to get back into this game at some point but every time I log into the post-searing wasteland I feel all the enthusiasm drain out of me. It's so grey and dull. How big is this black burned wilderness, and how do I get out fast?

 

[Popiel]

how do I get out fast?

Launch Factions.

 

[Average Manatee]

I want to get back into this game at some point but every time I log into the post-searing wasteland I feel all the enthusiasm drain out of me. It's so grey and dull. How big is this black burned wilderness, and how do I get out fast?

If you go straight along the main quest line it's 3 missions. Alternatively just look up the world map and fight your way to the snowing mountains to the west till you find a mission and pick up the main quest there.

 

[hello friend]

Thanks, I'll give it a go sometime. Geez what were they thinking?