User:Sylv/GW Story

The Beginning
Had never heard of the game, period. I received it as a birthday present from my older brother and was somewhat quite surprised about the gift. However, as soon as I installed the game I played for numerous hours straight. As a RPG player, I like games where you can work on your character/account in a Diablo II style :P. Since my birthday is on june 22nd (2005) and I'm still a student, I had all the time in the world to start getting into the game. Don't get me wrong, I also had a part-time job but that was still basically a dream-life: 20 hours of work/week (a job that keeps your body in shape) and the rest of the time it'd be GW or friends.

The birth of a New Genre
I first made a Ranger because of that love of nature I have and for some other reasons. I called that character Alexei Dragor: Alexei comes from the fact that I love this russian-like name and Dragor comes from a fantasy name generator ^^. I basically played through the game, met some friends, joined and left some guilds and so on. Of course, I was pretty much a new player and had not much knowledge of the game but a gw-friend of mine once told me that he had problems playing as a ranger. He said it was a hard class to play and so on. This is where my thirst for knowledge began. After hearing such a comment, I secretly decided to write him down a guide with a ranger build for every single elite skill from the ranger line (Prophecies Only). From Greater Conflagration to Ferocious Strike, I had to study the skills from every core classes to come up with some brilliant ideas of some easy-to-play builds out there. The hardest elite skill to make a build with was ...... Since the overall GW-community wasn't enlighten yet to all the endless possibilities and unused skills, I guess I was one of the first person to find a powerful use to this elite skill. Though not mentionned in the previous paragraphs, my brother and I shared the same account for a month or so before he decided to buy an account for himself.

He, having a warrior as his main character, once explained me how adrenaline skills work since I was mystified by his gameplay on his Warrior. This souvenir rang a bell when I read Ferocious Strike's description:...gains x energy and adrenaline. That Ferocious Strike build had to be R/W! I then knew where I was headed: went over on a fansite to find a list of warrior skills. With my simple-minded view, I thought pets could be more effective if the target would be knocked down because those are really slow to react (and still are). I scrolled down to Hammer Mastery and went on to check the list of non-elite skills that causes knockdown. first jumped to my mind. Straight after that, was quite appealing. I rechecked the list and was impressed by 's description mentionning that on hit of a knock-downed foe, it reduces its maximum health by 20%. Without a doubt this skill was added into the build. Finally, was added because of the fact that it's one of the rare IAS from the ranger line. And so was born the Bunny Thumper which I didn't name myself: I personally called it a Hammer Ranger.

After the obvious nerf of the Thumpers and the birth of Nightfall, the build switched to something like this:

Up to you to believe a human invented it or not but this was made ages ago. People don't get credits for making builds anyway. I was extremely proud of myself as testing this build showed its domination over the old RA trend. The downside of this is that I could never give the document to my friend because he left the game before that. Consequently, this build remained somewhat unknown to people until I decided to play some more RA and it got spreaded out afterwards.

The Third and Infamous Way
One day a friend of mine asked me to help him capture an elite skill in Mineral Springs and I happily went over to give him a hand. After capturing the dreaded, we randomly decided to explore that pathway to the northeast of the springs. Both of us didn't think anything special out of it until we eventually reached a cage filled with a tremendous amount of ice imps. We fought valiantly being 60 DPed until we basically slaughtered every single Ice Imp in the frosty cave. In admiration after the combat, we watched the beautiful statue of Lyssa throning the cave. I kneeled at its feet and a muse appeared from the Nil. Thinking we had found another area similar to The Underworld or The Fissure of Woe, we were a bit disappointed in discovering Dwayna's Blessing and a way to remove our DP that depleted all our gold ^^ until we reached 10% Morale Boost.

We went up the slope that seemed to lead to an Ice Beast but we were surprised beforehand by a random spawn of Azure Shadows. Those being crushed, we marched towards the beast and brought it to the ground. Surprisingly, the creature dropped a Spectral Essence that we knew no use of. Oddly, we both remembered such a creature in the Southern Shiverpeaks but couldn't remember exactly where. We went upfront to a wide area filled with numerous monsters we thoroughly defeated them to finally come to an end: The Seer. Then everything was clear: the beast was from the Iron Mines of Moladune and the spectral essence needs to be given to the Seer to infuse our armor pieces! We had found the third way to infuse an armor in Tyria and were damn proud of it :P.

Freeze!
During a cold winter's night, A great Warrior from the North...Just kidding. Two months after Alexei, a young Elementalist was also seeking exciting adventures. Being known for her cold-blooded behaviours as well as her tremendously powerful water magic, she left Ascalon in search of becoming a powerful mage. Her name is Sylvia Frostbreath. Though the path of a Water Elementalist is linked to hard work and weakness at the start, Sylvia eventually made it to the top by becoming a powerful Water mage. Though she tried and experimented the path of Dwayna (Air Elementalist) and Balthazar (Fire Elementalist), her symbiosis with Grenth is predominent over the other Gods.

One a day of typical adventures in the Southern Shiverpeaks, Sylvia found herself in front of a beautiful Castle Wall. She was impressed by how majestic the wall stood in front of her with a wide-opened entrance to a mysterious place. As she entered the fortress, she walked through a long corridor to reach a place of prayer. In front of her and the group of henchmen aside the elementalist, a statue of Grenth was in front of her eyes. She then kneeled to the God she worships and decided to make an offering to it. However, the band of weak unascended henchmen at her side were unable to enter the realm of Grenth. Very disappointed, she walked back to Camp Rankor where Sylvia decided to recruit powerful soldiers to enter Grenth's Realm. After numerous hours of recruiting, her and a crew were finally headed towards the Mists. However, that group of weak-minded soldiers who had no tactical knowledge, nor cooperation fell quickly due to their lack of experience.

Still having faith in her objective, the Water Elementalist gathered another crew of 7 people. From a Domination Mesmer to a Curse Necromancer along with brave Warriors and devoted monks, the group was ready and heading towards The Underworld. Though some members didn't fully have faith in Sylvia's intentions, they were surprised to find an entrance to this place of the Mists in such a distant area. And so did Sylvia make her offering to Grenth and went onward of her adventures. (The previous paragraphs describe entrance to The Underworld in Lornar's Pass. For more information, click here.)