« Ackadia's Guide to Guild Wars… Heroes »

Hints, tips and expelling the myths!

This is the first in a series I will write over time, looking at farming with specific groups, builds, items and areas. This introduction is just a few pointers to dispel some myths and falsehoods I'm sick of hearing repeated day in, day out when people are looking for farming parties. It concentrates on party numbers, mixes and a few home truths about using heroes and henchmen.


Everyone KNOWS you can't get green drops with heros and henchmen. It's a fact - I know this because my mates friend told him and he got it from his second cousin who read it…

Utter twaddle!

Before you read on, follow the links and take a look at these two screen grabs, and yes, there are real, not doctored in Photoshop or anything else!

Orozar Quest, completed with just four henchmen
Notice the lack of death penalties, with only the Master of Whispers having lost his morale boost towards the end. Notice particularly the lack of other players, with no tank and no bonder… And yes, for those that know the area, I do sometimes turn back and farm the dredge warrens with equal success.

Farming 'The Final Assault' with just four henchmen
Again, a lack of death penalties, but the important thing to notice is that I got two green drops to myself toether - I seem to recall I actually got four green in total on that occasion. And no, it is not a one-off - I consistantly average under 30 minutes for this farming run.


What is obviously true is that it affects noticed green drops, which is a different thing altogether. I assume the items are assigned to the numbered position in the group on release*. For instance, Rago's Staff drops and goes to [5]. If the last person in the five man team is a monk henchman, no-one sees it drops, if instead it goes to [1] then any real players will see the leader get it.
*(Naturally this implies everyone was in the battle area and doing their bit. Guild Wars has rules to cover proximity and other variables.)

Also, presumably compounding this myth - besides a few elite missions - no bosses are guaranteed to drop a unique green item. I assume this is the way it goes with Guild Wars: when you enter a zone all the creatures are loaded up from a table and assigned a random treasure from another table. For a boss this could be a green weapon, a scroll (common with bosses), gold, a gold item or a lesser items. For bosses it seems there are often two items assigned. If you are unlucky, you might get a handful of gold and a white weapon, if you are phenominally lucky, you could get two green items, but it is all random.

And none of this depends on whether you have 8 players, or yourself and 7 heroes/henchmen. Look at it this way, if YOU want a certain item, besides being nice to see a rare drop, do you truthfully care if someone in your pickup party got it or nothing was seen because a henchman got it? No a chance - YOU want it, it's human nature.

Here's another thought, relating to treasure loads - you will either be 'lucky' or you won't! Potentially, in an area like Sorrows Furnace, you can get over a dozen greens in a single area. Or you can get nothing! I've seen six greens drop with a party of 8, and I've seen no greens drop with a party of just 4, covering the same area! Bear that in mind that too.

But everyone says only 'this group' with only 'this many' and only 'these builds'…
Riiiight! So, they keep designing new campaigns with new skills and new classes because they want no-one to use them? Nuts!

What does make a statistically proven difference is the number in the team. YOU are each twice as likely to get something if there are only 4 in a group instead of 8. And, naturally, YOU are 8 times more likely if there is just yourself, hmmm! Again, this is all relative; unless Anet categorically state that treasure loads are relative to the number in a group you can safely assume that rare drop are not and never will be calculated based on the number of players - human or otherwise - in the party.

It really just comes down to this: for experienced players, and for most areas, the optimum group for speed and treasure is one buffer (Warrior, Elementalist tank, Minions, whatever), two healers, two damage dealers. Any less than this, the chances of getting wiped out increases greatly, any more, well the treasure is split more ways. That is the be all and end all!

New and inexperienced players can just build on this - two or three healers, maybe a tank or two, the rest damage dealers.

Solo builds dedicated to spam farming one specific boss aside, bearing the above facts in mind, here's another thought for newer players. A team of 8 clearing a zone twice is actually more likely to land a green or gold drop than a team of 5 clearing it once and may even do it faster overall because in any give battle they can have more healing and more firepower…

Just as an aside, the other thing that can come into play is overfarming. ArenaNet do monitor what goes on and it's a moments work to change a drop rate from 33% to 3% or to 'nerf' a build. Obviously it's not that that simplistic, but they do like to keep a balance.

Talking of balance, what is a balanced team, what is optimum, is there a even perfect team?

Is there heck!

Here's a perfect example, seeing as I like this zone: Sorrows Furnace.
Apparently years of farming the Orozar quest and 'The Final Assault' has ingrained into the veterans that you NEED a tank, MM, SS, bonder and healer. Nothing else works, nothing else will do. Waste of time trying!

Yet:
I almost never take a warrior, most are suicidally gung-ho, I find!
I almost never take a bonder - no point as half the hostiles (here especially) remove enchantments!

How it can be perfect when the default builds are fundamentally flawed is completely beyond me! True, it does work a lot of the time, obviously, but the Ford idea of any colour as long as it's black doesn't really appeal. Beside, most are PUGs - pick up groups. These rarely go well!

So, my 'perfect' team for farming this zone, or most other zones?
Me (Elementalist, usually), hero Olias as my Minion Master and a healer Hero with the emphasis on remove hex and cure condition. After that, I don't care. I can, and have cleared out several zones with just these two. Sorrows Furnace with just these two is not something I want to do again in a hurry - it takes AGES…


Sometimes I solo or duo, relying on hit and run nuking, or Sliver Armor, frequently I will just take these two, otherwise I tend to take a second healer henchman like Lina and one other. Usually it is the Master of Whispers with Spiteful Spirit, but it is just as likely to be a ranger hero for interrupts, or another hero to just see how various builds work. If the hero dies a lot, well, back to the drawing board. Else tweak it a bit more - there is no 'perfect'!

Ultimately, your chance of success - or failure - is down to you: how patient you are, how experienced you are, whether you know the area or mission, how well you (and your Heroes) are equipped, what skills you have. All of this takes time, an obsessive amount of time, truth be known. Also, any new area is exactly like learning to ride a bike. The first time you fall off and get a bloody knee, by the time you've tried a dozen more times it starts to become second nature to you.


As an aside, for speed, usually chest runs or trying to find the last few percent of the maps *mutter*, I'll take the maximum number but it just seems cruel, the poor creatures are massacred!