New to Guild Wars? Considering playing it? Start here!

Secrom · April 2007

Hi, I've noticed an increase in posts concerning topics already tackled multiple times in the past.

Trying to compile everything in one thread so it's easily accessible.

Note: I've tried to leave aside all subjective questions (e.g. "Is it a good game?").

Also, make sure you browse through other users' contribution further down!

Before we start one thing you should keep in mind, above anything else...

Guild Wars isn't WoW without monthly fees

Please make sure you repeat that for yourself a few times, and that you understand the implications. Otherwise you might end up very confused and/or upset.

Contents:

What kind of game is Guild Wars?

Do I need all the expansions to play Guild Wars?

Which campaign is best to start with?

Can I travel to campaign Y/play with friends who have campaign Y with a character from campaign X?

Where do I find information about (insert name of item/boss/whatever here)?

Will GW run on my comp?

Is there a trial version?

Is PvP balanced? Is the game casual friendly? Is there high-end content?

Any other things that might appeal to casual players?

What does the game offer for more hardcore players?

What's the best profession/profession combination/skill template for X?

Where's the auction house? Hey I can't jump! Can I buy a mount?

What kind of game is Guild Wars?

That is somehow hinted by the name; in a nutshell, the primary focus is skirmish PvP between groups of players.

Now, the PvE portion is indeed extensive, to the point that some players never PvP at all and are fine with that, however whevener you feel that something "isn't like what I saw in *insert game here*", keep the above statement in mind.

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Do I need all the expansions to play Guild Wars?

First of all, Guild Wars consists of three campaigns and one expansion. Campaigns (Guild Wars - also known as Prophecies - Guild Wars: Factions, and Guild Wars: Nightfall) are stand alone games. You can start with any of those, get the others later on, and bind them to your original account (This is done by following the instructions on the log in screen: "Create Account or Add Access Key"). The advantages of having all campaigns on one account are: 2 extra character slots per campaign, increased in-game storage space, more ground to cover, more skills to choose from (and I stress the notion of choice, more on that later), access to new professions (in the case of Factions and Nightfall) as well as campaign specific features.

Say you have Prophecies and then add Nightfall to your account. The characters you made in e.g. Prophecies get a quest to travel to e.g. Nightfall, where they pick up the storyline a few missions after "natives" start (getting to level 20 in Factions and Nightfall goes faster than in Prophecies). If you create a Nightfall specific char, it will be the other way around, they'll start with specific quests, and later get a quest to travel to Prophecies, where they pick up the storyline in Lion's Arch.

Storage is shared across your whole account. Since a few updates ago, the more campaigns you own on one account, the bigger storage you get.

All three campaigns also share the following:

PvP arenas (not the Factions specific ones, I mean Random Arenas, Team Arenas, GvG and such)
Guild Halls
Fissure of Woe and the Underworld
Some skills (referred to as Core skills)
The 6 original professions (Core professions)

Note that if you only want to access the PvP aspect of a given chapter you can also buy PvP packs, online, from ArenaNet's store. Doing so will give you access to all skills right off the bat.

The first "real" expansion is Guild Wars: Eye of the North, a.k.a GW:EN (possible pun at a (in)famous Prophecies character) released end of August 2007. Eye of the North is a different beast. It requires any of the 3 campaigns in order to play it. All content is for existing lvl 20 characters.

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Which campaign is best to start with?

It's entirely a matter of taste, though the overall consensus is either Prophecies or Nightfall due to the slower paced PvE (in terms of progression of difficulty).

Here is an overview of each campaign's features:

- Prophecies:

"Standard" fantasy setting (West European)
6 professions, referred to as "Core" professions and available in all 3 chapters. These are: Elementalist, Mesmer, Monk, Necromancer, Ranger and Warrior
Long PvE campaign (in relation to other chapters)
Missions have a main objective and a bonus (unrelated) objective
Slowest levelling pace, you spend roughly 1/4th of the PvE storyline at max level
Skills can be obtained from quests throughout most of the PvE campaign
Possibility to rush through PvE maps freely
Access to henchmen only (NPC teammates, which you can add to your party in case you can't or don't want to have live players in your group)

- Factions:

Based on Asian lore
Adds 2 exclusive professions: Assassin and Ritualist
Shortest PvE campaign (again in relation to other chapters), focuses on PvP between 2 factions (hence the title)
Fastest levelling pace, you can reach level cap before accessing the 3rd mission (out of 13)
No bonus on missions, though better reward the faster you complete them; also introduces Challenge missions, where you have to obtain the highest score you can completing a given objective within a fixed time-frame (those are unrelated to the PvE storyline)
A handful of skills are given from quests on the starter area, rest must be bought; quests and missions give higher rewards than in Prophecies to compensate*
New explorable areas are accessible only once you complete given missions
Access to henchmen only

- Nightfall:

African theme
Adds 2 exclusive professions: Dervish and Paragon
Long PvE campaign, on par with if not longer than Prophecies'
Levelling pace somewhere in between Prophecies and Factions
Missions with bonuses; however, unlike Prophecies, you can't do the mission first and come back for the bonus later. It's more about completing the mission with extra challenge.
A handful of skills are given from quests on the starter area, rest must be bought; quests and missions give higher rewards than in Prophecies to compensate*. Note that even though Assassin and Ritualist are Factions-only professions, Nightfall offers new skills for those 2 classes
New explorable areas are accessible only once you complete given missions
Another notable feature is the addition of Heroes, which are henchmen you can customize (skills, equipment) and level up

* A few skills for core professions are obtainable through quests in Prophecies for Factions and Nightfall characters once you unlock travel to the first campaign

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Can I travel to campaign Y/play with friends who have campaign Y with a character from campaign X?

Yes, though there are some conditions to meet.

For the record, there are no hard server boundaries in Guild Wars. Players are automatically sent to districts which correspond to their area (e.g. Europe, America, etc.) and in the case of Europe, this goes further to language districts (European English, European German and so on). Your home district can be changed in the account options and is thus based on the information you provide. There is nothing that prevents you from going to other districts (besides ping). Also, there is an International District where you can meet any player from any part of the world.

Any character from any campaign can travel to any other chapter provided you 1. own that chapter 2. have bound it to your account.

When trying to play some PvE with a friend, you two need to own at least one campaign in common. In PvP it doesn't matter, all arenas (aside from Factions-only skirmishes) take place on the same map, shared by all campaigns.

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Where do I find information about (insert name of item/boss/whatever here)?

Your best bet is the Wikis:

Fan made: here

Official: here

Note that the official wiki is now accessible once in game. Type /help in any chat channel.

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Will GW run on my comp?

GW has never been really hungry in terms of computer horsepower.

Taken from the official FAQ about Prophecies:

Minimum System Specs:

Windows XP/2000/ME/98
Intel Pentium III 800 Mhz or equivalent
256 MB RAM
CD-ROM Drive
2 GB Available HDD Space (Note: you will need more if you have several campaigns)
ATI Radeon 8500 or GeForce 3 or 4 MX Series Video Card with 32MB of VRAM
16-bit Sound Card
Internet connection
Keyboard and mouse

Recommended System Specs:

Windows XP/2000/ME/98
Intel Pentium III 1GHz or equivalent
512 MB RAM
CD-ROM Drive
2 GB Available HDD Space
ATI Radeon 9000 or GeForce 4 Ti Series Video Card with 64MB of VRAM
16-bit Sound Card
Internet connection
Keyboard and mouse

Of course, the more the better. Here is a link to a benchmark done a while ago by GameSpot.

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Is there a trial version?

A trial DVD is available. Apparently, trial keys shipped with Game of the Year editions too.

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Is PvP balanced? Is the game casual friendly? Is there high-end content?

I thought these questions overlapped each other in some respect, so I decided to put them together and add some specific points below (even if the first one might be close to subjective and depends on the skill updates/new additions).

PvP is pretty much the core of the game (even if it still offers a healthy amount of PvE). The developers focus on PvP aspects when implementing or rebalancing (yes I know, some would grind their teeth and yell "It's called Nerf!" ) skills/professions. Hence you shouldn't expect any "I win" button in game.

Also, among a pool of hundreds of skills (across all classes, the game currently boasts over 1000 skills), you can only have 8 equipped at any time. Each of these skills also has at least one more or less obvious counter. Think of it as an elaborate Paper-Rock-Scissors, or as others mentioned on this forum, a deck of Magic: The Gathering. Basically, you need to find synergies between your own skills and your team members' own setup. Still this is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to PvP strategy.

Another thing is: Guild Wars isn't gear-centric. The most expensive armour, which requires to complete a lengthy chain of quests in a tough area, gather a fair bunch of rare materials, and comes with a hefty price tag, doesn't offer more protection than the basic max level gear, available from crafters in major towns or from collectors throughout the game.

Same goes for weapons, the rarest type won't deal more damage than more widely available items with perfect statistics and modifiers. Most "Green" weapons (which are fairly rare drops from specific bosses and have pre-determined statistics) have counterparts, i.e. you can obtain the almost exact same weapon by combining salvaged parts together.

Even modifiers for weapons and armour are either conditional or come with a tradeoff.

So why bother with rare stuff? Status. What differenciates higher grade items from common ones is their appearance and scarcity.

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Any other things that might appeal to casual players?

Listing stuff that might already have been written before, though for the sake of quick access:

Content outside towns is instanced, meaning you don't have to wait for a specific mob to respawn in order to finish a quest for example
Map travel: once you've been to a town/outpost you can go back there in a matter of seconds using your map
Henchmen and Heroes: can't find people to do this or that quest? No time to wait to find someone? Recruit NPCs to flesh out your group instead
Random arenas and in the case of Factions, Fort Aspenwood and Jade Quarry: quick PvP skirmishes in random teams
Again, low level cap and no equipment that makes or breaks your characters
Possibility to create PvP-only characters with max level and armour, skills and upgrades can be unlocked by trading Balthazar Faction points, which you earn during any PvP match
And of course, no monthly fee: no stress about not getting your subscription worth playing sparsely

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What does the game offer for more hardcore players?

Again, listing some stuff that may or may not feel deja-vu:

A good start is unlocking all Elite skills
Ascended armour (costs ten times more than common armour, piece, material excluded)
Titles: oh brother, this is almost endless... Those are tags you can display under your character's name to advertise your achievements. Here are a few examples. PvE titles include Explorer for uncovering maps, Protector for beating each campaign with the highest mission rewards, Wisdom Seeker for identifying golden items, Treasure Hunter for opening high-end chests; PvP titles like Gladiator for consecutive streaks of flawless victories in random or team arenas; slightly more RPG (if I might say so) titles like Drunkard or Sweet Tooth, for spending time drunk (no sh!t) or eating candies, respectively...
Hard mode: recently introduced, it allows you to replay the game against beefed up opponents. This also unlocks new titles (Guardian for missions, Vanquisher for explorable areas)
Elite Missions: Sorrows Furnace and Tomb of Primeval Kings in Prophecies, The Deep and Urgoz's Warren in Factions, Domain of Anguish in Nightfall. Count on a few hours required to complete those
Fissure of Woe and Underworld: high-end zones, long quests, shared by all 3 campaign (i.e. you only need to own one chapter to have access to those)

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What's the best profession/profession combination/skill template for X?

A little background for new players not versed in the profession system of Guild Wars. When you start your character, you get to choose its primary profession. This will directly impact on your appearance, the armour you can equip, the runes you can upgrade your armour with, and your primary attribute.

Side note: All professions have 3 or 4 attributes (which determine the potency of the skills linked to them, and that you can boost everytime you level or after completing 2 special quests), plus a primary attribute which is only accessible to the profession you chose at creation as mentioned above. Note that primary attributes always have an inherent effect (meaning you still gain benefit from it even if you don't use skills linked to it) while other attributes don't always do. For example, say you choose Warrior first. You will gain access to Axe Mastery, Hammer Mastery, Sword Mastery, Tactics, plus Strength (a Warrior's primary, grants a certain % of armour penetration for each point). If you take Monk first instead, you will gain Healing Prayers, Protection Prayers, Smiting Prayers, plus Divine Favor (a Monk's Primary, which gives a healing bonus on all skills and spells cast). Now if you took Warrior first and choose Monk as secondary, you will be able to pump Axe Mastery, Hammer Mastery, Sword Mastery, Tactics, Strength, Healing Prayers, Protection Prayers, and Smiting Prayers. NOT Divine Favor. Even if you learn Divine Favor skills and spells you will NEVER be able to improve their power. And of course, no one else heals better than a Monk.

A side-effect of this is, since Guild Wars offers 10 unique professions across all three campaigns, that gives us a whooping 90 different possibilities of profession combinations.

Hope that made some sense.

Now back to the question.

There is no such thing. Period. In a given context your choices will definitely help you overcome your enemies, though you can't expect to find any "be all, end all" (see skill/counter-skill above).

Each profession/combination/template has its use, its pros and its cons. Up to you to find out what role you fit in. Also, if you feel your choice of secondary profession isn't quite what you want with your character, fear not. You have the possibility to change it later on in the PvE campaign.

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Where's the auction house? Hey I can't jump! Can I buy a mount?

This isn't and will never be implemented in Guild Wars. Maybe Guild Wars 2. So stop asking. Jumping and mounts are unnecessary in Guild Wars anyway. As for the auction house, you can always use the Party Search instead. Press P or click the Search button in your group window. Select Trade in the drop-down menu, type a short description, press Enter. There you go.

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If you feel something might need to be added/clarified, please feel free.

Edit:

- Added section about cross-campaign gameplay and professions/templates.

- Added some more about casual/hardcore gameplay

- Added bookmark navigation between sections

- Added some stuff about campaigns

- Updated the second section to reflect the release of GW:EN

- Added a part about the general concept of GW

PrebThor · April 2007

STICKY PLEASE!

Guild Wars: Nightfall requires original hardware setup x 2 (most likely a "just in case" issue):

CPU: 1 Ghz (min.) ~ 2 Ghz (rec.)

RAM: 512 RAM (min.) ~ 1GB RAM (rec.)

VIDEO: 64 MB of VRAM (min.) ~ 128+ MB of VRAM (rec.)

Guild Wars: Nightfall Collector's Edition* offers trial keys:

Epic Trial Key ~ Try both previous campaigns (Propecies + Factions)

Nightfall Buddy Key ~ Invite a friend to play Nightfall

*A lot of players bought this CE version of Nightfall, so there should be a huge amount of trial keys available.

8hammer8 · April 2007

Another Frequently Asked Question:

1) How is the Guild Wars community?

(note: this information is obviously not based upon verifiable/measurable items, it is one person's view who has played since GW: Prophecies came out)

The GW community is pretty much a cross-section of real life with the sometime unfortunate inclusion of the anonimity of the internet. Just like it real life you will find great people, friendly aquaintences, jerks, scammers, random do-gooders, young 1337s, old dogs, boys/men and girls/women. Everyone in a region are interconnected within a single server and you can even connect with people in other regions through the use of the international districts. You will run across hundreds and thousands of people in your time each day if you even hope through only a couple districts in hub areas. The key to the game is surrounding yourself with people you enjoy being around, and this is done by finding a quality guild.

Just by the name of the game you can see the developers were/are looking for people to find a guild and a comfort zone for their own little community. Finding a guild you enjoy can have a direct correlation on the amount of enjoyment you draw from this game. It can be a long, dark and lonely road for those trying to go through it by themselves (although it is entirely possible to do so for those that choose to). On the flip side joining a guild you enjoy gives you the chance to interact and make friends with people on a consistent basis. Because many people join guilds and interact with only those people, an alliance aspect was created with the release of GW: Factions.

An alliance is a group of upto 10 guilds. With the alliance chat feature, you can communicate with anyone in you alliance and visit any of their guild halls. This has the potential to allow you to play with 1000 people (10 guilds of 100 members) consistently. This means more opportunities to find a person doing a similar quest or just looking to help whenever you ask. Within GW: Factions you join alliances loyal to one of the two warring factions in-game (Kurzicks or Luxxons) and you battle for control of towns which the top alliances can actually own.

There is continous action across all three games and updates are given across all three. You can travel back and forth between all the regions, so that keeps players going back to Prophecies as much as Factions. Of course players do move on, but you can start a new character in GW: Prophecies and still run across many many others. With the recent addition of Hard Mode, that is bringing a lot of people that went to mainly GW: Nightfall back to complete missions and get different rewards in the previous 2 chapters.

Most people have to and should decide for themselves about the GW community. It is often accused of being immature and adolesent but that is just the way most online games are nowadays. You have your mixture of good people and people you would never interact with in real life. Again it is all based on who you choose to surround yourself with. With the ability to put people on your friends list or ignore list, you can choose to see the in-game community however you like.

Have fun see you in game.

Secrom · April 2007

Nice additions, thanks guys, keep it up!

VGJustice · April 2007

Nice topic, I approve whole heartedly.

brownspank · April 2007

Move to sticky seconded.

Sunseed · April 2007

Very good info but unless it's a sticky, people will still ask the same questions.

PrebThor · April 2007

Adding a temporary "(sticky please!)" in the topic's title should get the moderator's attention.

Secrom · April 2007

Originally posted by Thorsnes

Adding a temporary "(sticky please!)" in the topic's title should get the moderator's attention.

Done

Edit: and removed. Yay!

8hammer8 · April 2007

2) What Character Should I Be?

This question will forever be asked for two reasons: 1) The state of today’s standard MMO’s 2) Human nature.

In many of today’s games, not that they are bad or better, there seems to be a consistent focus on the class of a character and the elite gear available to it. There can be some unbalanced skills for one character giving it a slight edge either in PvP or PvE. When most character’s/skills are balanced across a game and then you have some that are not, it tends to give that character an edge. That edge or ability to exploit is where human nature kicks in. Since everyone wants to be the “best” or 1337, many player will flock to this character or specific build. This character now becomes what many players would refer to as the best build…since it is the best build, it pretty much decides what class of character you need to be for you.

In order to take full advantage of the “best build” in those games you need to have the best gear (weapons, armor, etc.). If you have two characters with the same stats but there is a difference with the gear, the one with the best gear will win 9 times out of 10. Skill of the player has little to do with the outcome. This is where Guild Wars is different than most if not all games out on the market.

Guild Wars strives to be and prides itself on focusing on the skill of a player, irrespective of the amount of time they put into the game and how much elite gear they have. (*note* time put in does serve players better more often than not however because they understand how their character works and how best to utilise it) Every player has the same opportunity to get maxed out gear. You can have one player spend 1 million+ on getting a certain set of gear and it would have the same exact stats as a person who spent 10,000 on theirs. The defensive stats are the same within each class, it is up to the player then to decide how to mod it to their build. Same thing with the weapons, each player can find/make a weapon that is maxed out either by working with traders or savaging various other weapons and using those components. Again this helps keep there from being a best character in the game because of gear.

So if it is not gear that decides what the best character is, that leaves it up to the player to decide what their favorite playing style is. This is why it is hilarious when people ask what character I should be, because what they like to do and what another player likes to do can be completely different. In GW you basically have three positions on the field: Front Line (spots often taken by Warriors/ Assassins/ Dervishes) // Mid-Field (Rangers/Necros/Ritualists/Paragon) // Back Line (Elementalist // Mesmers / Monks). This is determined basically by survivability in an attack, the squishier (lack of standard armor protection) you are the farther from the fighting you want to be while still being able to play your character effectively.

A player with an aggressive style will more than likely enjoy playing a Front Line character more because they get to run in and cause the action. Some people like the support roll of a Mid-Field character, while others prefer to be out of the way and do their work from afar. Once you know your play style you can choose to make a character with the skills you think will make him or her most effective.

3) What is the best build?

You have an absolutely ridiculous amount of skills to choose from going into a battle. The key though is figuring out which 8 are going to help you be the most effective. Each character class has 150+ skills each and you can mix two classes together giving you over 300 skills to choose to go into battle. You basically have 2365 skill bars to choose from with just two classes per character. You have tens of thousands of choices you can make in taking skills in this game. Everyone has heard the Magic: The Gathering references, so that does not need to be discussed in length. The key to the game is finding what combinations of 8 skills will let you have the most fun while being the most effective.

You have to remember no matter what character you choose there is always one out there that can beat you. You will find however that there are builds that are particularly effective in certain regions. These builds are often “farming” builds used to attack certain creatures. You will often see “cookie cutter” PvP builds, referring to single builds or team builds that are continuously copied for their effectiveness and continue to be effect until an active counter is found. You will find that FotMs (Flavor of the Months) come and go, but balanced builds and groups rule the game.

Remember make builds that you will enjoy playing as opposed to what you think will be the best. You will be a more effective player and make your team/group happier.

Upload · May 2007

Thank you. From now on, we can refer people to your post.

asasenpai · May 2007

Cool, Guild Wars Factions should play fine on my pc:

Device:              Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.80GHz (2 CPUs)

Speed:              2792 MHz

RAM:                1024 MB

That's should be for my pc specs other than that it shoul be fine.

Lonesamurai1 · June 2007

please add a link to the official Guild Wars Wiki aswell @ http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Main_Page

a font of useful information, updated by the communtiy and regulated by Arenanet themselves... including high Res images of weapons and armour skins, aswell as complete walk throughs of missions and side quests

Secrom · June 2007

Ermm it's been there for a while o.O

Lonesamurai1 · June 2007

Originally posted by Secrom

Ermm it's been there for a while o.O

Umm, ok... just read through it again and didn't see it... oh well, theres a link there anyway and i posted it whilst i was helping others on here yesterday anyway...

8hammer8 · June 2007

Originally posted by Lonesamurai1

Originally posted by Secrom

Ermm it's been there for a while o.O

Umm, ok... just read through it again and didn't see it... oh well, theres a link there anyway and i posted it whilst i was helping others on here yesterday anyway... It is after the contents list about 8 blocks of text down, but I guess you can never have too much information. Hopefully this is serving it's purpose and helping people.

Lonesamurai1 · June 2007

Originally posted by 8hammer8

Originally posted by Lonesamurai1

Originally posted by Secrom

Ermm it's been there for a while o.O

Umm, ok... just read through it again and didn't see it... oh well, theres a link there anyway and i posted it whilst i was helping others on here yesterday anyway... It is after the contents list about 8 blocks of text down, but I guess you can never have too much information. Hopefully this is serving it's purpose and helping people.

I must admit, i was looking for the link itself and i was skimming through the information and only grabbing snippets

snograt · June 2007

Heh, you can never have too much wiki!

Lonesamurai1 · June 2007

Originally posted by snograt

Heh, you can never have too much wiki!

Apparently you can

kegboyii · June 2007

So, which GW wiki do you guys use? The old one, the new one, or perhaps both?!

Lonesamurai1 · June 2007

personally i prefer the new one as it has all the high res specially done pics by the same person (can't remember her name), however, sometimes i do find myself having to jump back to the old one for Elite skill locations or a mission map that isn't on the official wiki yet... but not often now

snograt · June 2007

That will be Emily Diehl - ANet's design liaison.

The only reason I use the old wiki nowadays is because I'm behind restrictive filters at work so by using the URL secretgw.gamewikis.org I can use it from anywhere.

Now the official wiki is integrated in-game (try, for example, entering /wiki Thunderhead Keep in the chat window) - there's no reason NOT to use it

kegboyii · June 2007

I agree, i like the official wiki the most. But i do like going to look up builds on the old one.

hisero13 · July 2007

Excellent info Secrom. I just found this site and look forward to talking to everybody.

dertomok · July 2007

Very good information guys , it will realy help too players ^^ . And about wiki , i use official wiki right now , I had used the old one , but when I checked this i decided that , this site is the best for me ^^ .

dertomok · July 2007

Ohh and about wiki more . I use old wiki for elite capturing and mission map too , but very rare . I capture skills that i need for build ( expect primary proffesion , i capture all primary profesion skills ^^ ) and there isn't a lot of Elite skills i need , so i go very rare to the old wiki .

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