«Ackadia's Guide to Guild Wars… Hero Titles »

Fame and fortune in Guild Wars Factions

So far there are about 30 titles you can attain, though getting all of them will impossible due to the conditions necessary for some and the mind boggling time needed for such a daunting task. Needless to say further campaigns will extend this list. The April 2007 updates took this evern further to 37 and the Eye of the North expansion will take it as high as 50.

New players of Nightfall and Factions probably won't think as much about the title under a characters name, though Prophecies players without Factions (at the time) may have been intrigued as to what it is all about. There again, Factions players may wonder what else they can add to their Hero page… Well, via my own hero lists, web searches and paying attention to conversations in Chat, I've put together this list of what is currently available. I have listed them in roughly the order you are likely to come across them, depending on your level of experience and how you play.
If I've missed any, let me know, please.

Guild Wars Titles: applied to character

Mission titles

Cartography titles

Vanquisher 'hard mode' titles

These titles will keep track of which explorable areas have been vanquished while playing in Hard mode. The reward for doing so is gold equal to three times the number of creatures defeated, and experience equal to five times the number of creatures defeated.

According to the Guildwars site, some explorable areas have regions that are blocked off to players until the associated mission has been completed. They recommended that players complete the mission before trying to vanquish the explorable area of the same name.

Note: in Hard Mode, if all party members of a group are dead and at 60% Death Penalty, they will be returned to the outpost instead of being resurrected. If you are thinking of trying for these titles I recommend you look at the GameWiki page on Vanquishing for further insight into this arduous title.

Maxed titles
Getting one of these pretty much says you are not a 'noob', getting the second says you really need to find a new interest, this level of obsession with a game is unhealthy! By way of example, to reach 'People Know me' you will typically have gained Protector and Cartographer of all the current campaigns and spent thousands more hours on some of the other titles below…

April 2007:
Given the sheer number of new and split titles and the relative ease (comparatively) of maxing this, I suggest extending this to at least encompass 25+ titles, thus returning it to an elite standing!

Suggested:
4. There can be only one! : Complete, to the highest rank, twenty or more titles
  (the reference obviously being from the Highlander movie)
5. The One : Complete, to the highest rank, twenty five or more titles
(refering to the Jet Li film of the same name).

Skill Hunter Titles (updated)
Awarded for the number of Elite Skills your character has captured from (killed) Bosses using the 'Signet of Capture'

You need to budget a good 290,000g to Max this title, and possibly put another 150k to one side for all the new Elite skills promised in the Eye of the North expansion. One of the best rewards for this maxed title is that all your Heroes get access to these elite skills too!

April 2007: The Skill Hunter title track has been divided into individual title tracks for each campaign.

Elona Sunspear titles
Awarded for the quests and for helping priests and scouts eradicate menaces such as insects, plants and Hekets For a while is wasn't possible to max this title, nor even get to Spearmarshall, though the introduction of 'hard mode' fixed that annoying issue.

Lightbringer titles
Also awarded for quests and tasks, but for defeating undead and demonic foes.

GuildWars on Lightbringers:
The new Lightbringer title can be earned by hunting demons in Elona. For each rank of Lightbringer, you gain increased damage and damage reduction against demons. You can also earn the PvE-only skills Lightbringer’s Gaze and Lightbringer’s Focus, which can be used to fight demons. These skills also increase in effectiveness as you gain more ranks in this title.

When you display your Lightbringer title, for each Rank of Lightbringer, you deal 5% more damage to and have +1 damage reduction against Abaddon's demon servants (including Margonites), making it the only actually useful title!
Note that this title also transfers to your hero's and, presumably, henchmen.

Repeatedly clearing areas like the 'Domain of Secrets' I believe you can max this title in about 70 hours. Intriguingly, according to the GuildWars page on title tracks there are (now) 9 levels for this and 4 available skills. One can assume these will other two will appear in the next campaign…

Wisdom title track
Awarded for identifying Rare (gold) items

Note:
Each rank in this title improves the chance of an item not being destroyed when salvaging an upgrade component by 3% (on top of the default 50%). This stacks with the Treasure Hunter title below.

Treasure Hunter
Awarded for opening high-end chests.
These are chests locked using expensive keys like Luxon, Kurzick, Forbidden, Miner's (Sorrows Furnace), Obsidian (FoW) and Phantom (UW & Tombs) and invariably costing at least 600g from merchants.
To max this title you are looking at spending a minimum of 6 million on keys, perhaps double that it you are concentrating on higher end chests. Naturally the cost may be partly or wholly offset by finding rare gold items in the chests.

Note: Each rank in this title improves the chance of an item not being destroyed when salvaging an upgrade component by 3% (on top of the default 50%). This stacks with the Wisdom title above. Maxing both means you have a 92% probability of successfully extract runes, pommels etc from weapons and armour.

Additionally, each rank in this title improves the chance of a Lockpick not breaking by 3%. This does stacks with the bonus from the Lucky title. Including the basic 1 in 10 chance, maxing both Lucky and Treasure hunter raises the probability of you retaining a Lockpick to 1 in 3 (33%).

(Submitted) Observation, suggestion for NCSoft - high-end keys for treasure hunters. Given the number of times high-end chests result in purple items I think the volume discount will be an incentive to treasure hunters. Naturally the prices and discounts will deflect the initial value of the key. Perhaps no need, perhaps an option for locksmith NPC's…

[revised 14th June 2006 for Skeleton keys]
A far more sensible idea is to amend it to be picklocks for chests up to the value of 600g, and Skeleton keys than can open ANY chest. I've used 50g and 25g incremental drops in the example, though price hikes - like the Superior Identification Kits - are equally an option for the convenience factor - uses up less slots.
(Can't be doing with having so many keys chewing up slots!)

Personally though, I'd be just as happy with a 'key ring holder' that could hold 10 different keys, rather like a belt pouch or bag.

Rather smug about this!
Assumedly as a result of my suggestion, lockpicks where introduced for use in 'hard mode' in the April 2007 updates! Go me!!!

Drinking Titles
Awarded for spending title drunk. A rather dubious title, I feel. Really don't like the screen effects of game mechanism for this one! To max this title you are talking 7 realtime days of staring at a distorted screen, oh aye, and a cost of about 4 million gold, barring savings from festival gifts and buying cheap alcohol in Chat.

Sweet Tooth title
Gained by consuming various sugary foods and drinks
This new title was introduced with the Cantha New Year (2007).
To max this title you are talking a cost of about 2 million gold (5,000 x 400g, buying Red Bean Cake), though you can save a lot with from festival gifts and buying sweet goodies cheap in Chat.
Unlike the Drinking title, it is actually possible to farm for this title, saving the 2,000k (and getting you profits from other drops) as Yajide in Yohlon Haven will give a Mandragor Root Cake in exchange for 3 Mandragor Roots. I'm not going to do the maths, but you can take it as read that trying to farm 30,000 Mandragor roots would take a LONG time!

Experience Titles
Experience titles are granted for the number experience points your character can accumulate - without dying.
I'm up for this challenge when I have all the other titles…
Or maybe not as you can only gain this from creation of your character. i.e. You need to get from level 1 to level 20 without dying (in battle) once, then you need to survive for another 50 or so levels. Existing characters need not apply.
Type /deaths in the Chat window and you'll see what I mean. If the count is 1 or higher then you can't get this title, ever. (If? Ha!)
I understand the logic, but it's a bit off all the same. My feeling is that NCSoft could allow existing players to try for it using, for instance, a count on experience since last death. Thus you could make it to with 500 xp of 'Legendary Survivor' then have to start over, though you'd still have the 'Indomitable Survivor title.

Legendary Defender of Ascalon
I doubt there's more than a handful of GuildWars 3million+ players with this title. Basically, all you have to do is reach level 20 in pre-searing Ascalon (Prophecies campaign). I did get a character to level 16 there once, but that's because I was farming for dyes rather than any other reason. Given you don't get any experience from kills by the time you reach level 16 because the highest mobs are a few level 10 bosses…

Guild Wars Titles: applied to accounts

Festival Titles: Lucky / Unlucky
Lucky: For winning in the games during the (2006) Factions Dragon Festival and other festivals, such as the Boardwalk games (Shing Jea, February 2007)
Depending which games you enter, GameWikis calculated 900,000g for tickets and a total playing time of 440 hours - 18 continuous days. Given we are only on the second weekend of such events and it appears to be a bi-annual event, you are talking literally years to maximise this title as you are constrained by the events short and irregular appearances. However if, as it seems, the maximum is level 6 and two and a half million tickets you are looking at a staggering 45 continuous days stood in a circle, doing nothing. That and about 2,500 platinum!
Note:
With the update of 26th April, 2007, Lockpicks have been updated to grant Lucky and Unlucky title points. Players will now receive 250 points towards their Lucky title if they successfully retain a lockpick after use, and 25 points towards their Unlucky title whenever one breaks.
Each rank in the Lucky titles adds 2% to the chance of you retaining a lockpick after you open a chest with it. Unfortunately you'd need to unlock up to 100,000 chests to max the Lucky title this way!

Festival Titles: Unlucky
Unlucky: For losing in the games during the Festival events.
See also the tied in Lucky title, above.

Festival Titles: Gamer Title (PvP)
This title is applied to your account, not any character in particular and is awarded for winning the PvP Dwayna Vs Grenth snowball battles during the (2005/6) Winterfest.
Random forces will unite within an arena to fight for either Grenth or Dwayna. The first team to gather five presents for its patron deity will win the day. Each win gets you 10 points towards the title, plus 3 Candy Cane Shards, which can be trade for Candy Cane weapons, shields and focus items. Note that these are more for show and do not have maximum stats.
Tips:
Prepare a spell before entering the arena and remember, it's all about the present. If a team player captures one, protect them, back them up; running around trying to finish off another player is dumb. Similarly, if chasing an opposing team player, know when to stop. It is more use backing off and looking for the next present than needlessly dying. On that note, if you are against a team that think killing matters, use it against them, use yourself as cannon fodder. There's no death penalty so if you tie up two players while colleague scores a present or two, /goteam !
They salvage into 1 glittering dust, if you were curious.

Being in the first 4 places in the 'Rollerbeetle Racing' in the Cantha New Year Celebrations (2007) also gives points towards the title, 7, 5, 3, 2 respectively, according to GWWiki.

Hero titles (PvP)
These titles are gained by winning battles in Heroes Ascent.

Commander titles (Nightfall PvP)
Your account will earn ranks in this by earning Victory Points, gained from winning ranked battles in Hero Battles. The maximum cap of unspent Balthazar’s faction increases by 5,000 faction points for each rank of the Commander title earned.

Gladiator titles (PvP)
These titles are granted to an account with a number of streaks of consecutive wins in the Random and Team Arenas. You gain one point every time you get a consecutive win of ten or more.

Champion titles (GvG)
These titles are granted to an account that has won a number of high-rated GvG battles. Note: At present, 'high-rated' is defined as both guilds involved having a rating of 1200.

Faction (Luxon)
Awarded for transferring Luxon faction points.

Faction (Kurzick)
Awarded for transferring Kurzick faction points.