Guild Wars: Third Impression

So, it's taken me a while to get this up but I played again Christmas Eve. Things were going fine. Reached lv8, got my next Sunspear rank to open up the next mission. Acquired a new Hero along the way. Meloni (I call her...”Meloni”, actually.) who's a Dervish and, thus, fits in perfectly with my little group. I set Koss to Wa/Mo so he'd have Resurrection. And Dunk to Mo/W so he could pop off a weak Watch Yourself! to extend the duration of my Mending Refrains, if need be. Same thing with Meloni though I gave her a few more choice Warrior skills – and by choice I mean, I have like five skills for Warrior so, here, we're going to fill out your bar with things that don't completely suck. Haven't done any tweaking to my build because I'm out of skills to buy that look interesting. I suppose I could load up on things for Meloni to use but I haven't yet. Also, I discovered how to open the Hero's skill bars. Not quite ready to start telling them what to use and when yet but they let me keep track of their health and what's affecting them at any given moment – really helps me to keep my shouts up.

Then, tried the mission. I was breezing through it (Carefully avoiding the Sunspear Ghosts for the bonus, figuring out they were nicking the stone tablets and having to stash one out of the way until I grabbed the other, but not very difficult beyond that) until I got to the end and the boss, the Apocrypha, kicked my butt up and down the hallway. He's lv13 and my party's only lv8 so that was bad news right there but nothing too difficult. He is, however, a construct which means no bleeding and, I believe, no burning which pretty much threw my whole game plan out the window. Also, he had this one skill in Dervish mode that just hammered Carson and Meloni. Wiped them out more than a few times. And when they got combat rezzed up then they'd just go down in seconds. I managed to chip his health steadily downwards but he'd switch to Mesmer while my offense was pushing up daisies and Ether Feast his way back up. Just a stalemate as he couldn't finish off my party and our mounting DP meant we'd never stay up long enough to finish him off. I logged out of the game once it became apparent we would be fighting all night until one of us slipped up. Incredibly frustrating, in other words.

Now, I think with a few more levels I could take him. Right now I'd need some kind of interrupts and probably some hexing. The only problem is there's nothing like that in the Paragon's skill list – all my good stuff gets nerfed against this guy. And the skill selection for my Heroes is so limited that I can't do much with them. So, it's either grind out some levels or rebuild myself into a more damaging character that focuses on the spear (Right now I deal pitiful damage but my Mending Refrain and Sig of Synergy kept us in that fight, really). So, I'd have to go Spearmanship/Motivation/Leadership or something and probably including another heal wouldn't be a bad idea. Spend a hero point or two and grab distracting blow for Carson and Meloni, maybe an interrupt for Dunk (I figure as an AI, he'd be mad good at getting it off. Switch him to Mo/Mes, give him Power Drain or something and watch him screw over casters and kept his energy up while still healing the party at the same time.) but since those skills would actually be useful, I don't think they'll be available.

If this was my main account, this wouldn't be a problem as I'd have all these skills already. And, as I understand it, what I've unlocked my Heroes have too. So, Dunk could be an active prot MoMes with Mantra of Recall and a few interrupts. Koss could be a stance tank with Distracting Blow and Disrupting Chop. And Meloni, well, I'm not sure what I'd want Meloni to be. Probably a D/A with a hex or two and a shadow step – she seems to get targeted the most and die the easiest so just something to help her survive. These Heroes are cool but, sometimes, I think it's going to be a pain because I'll have to figure out their builds and equipment and everything. With henchmen it's just pick up and go. I'd rather there was some middle ground so that, for example, you had a Mesmer henchmen you could tell them “use Interrupts” and they'd shift their attributes and skill slots accordingly. Give each one a package of a few related skills so that people like me who have no clue what's a good skill (anymore) or how to put a build together can have some help.

Anyhow, I'm probably close to the 10 hour limit by now so I'm not really all that enthusiastic at the prospect of leveling or trying to run that mission again. With those characters, anyway, because someone left a little something underneath my tree.

Mostly, I've just been playing in the Snowball Arena – which is a blast – so I haven't made much progress yet. One of these days I'll have to go back to my trial account and figure out a way to give away my stuff – I have a few candy cane shards and some black dye that I wouldn't want to see disappear into the ether. I should also mention that with the new Guild Wars box came still more trial keys if anyone's interested.