Survivor title guide

Overview
The Survivor title is one of only two titles whose progress may be forever halted, thus making the title unobtainable for that character (the other being Defender of Ascalon). To obtain the title, one must earn a number of experience while having the /deaths command return 0. In order for a death to count, damage or degeneration must take the character to 0 Health. Thus, forced deaths do not count against the title.

This guide will serve to inform players about the methods used to obtain the Survivor title as well as common errors to avoid, particularly dangerous strategies and locations, and other general tips for obtaining this title.

The amount of experience needed for the Survivor title may seem daunting to some players at first, but there are many ways to either a) improve your survival rate while playing through the game normally, or b) speed up the rate of experience gain. Either of these two methods increases your chances of obtaining the title.

Common strategies
There are several basic strategies used to obtain this title. Some are more favored than others and, of course, all players will have different outlooks on the perceived validity of each of these methods. The methods are as follows:


 * 1) Farming.  Either farming specific mobs of monsters, or farming various quests.  This method is one of the faster ways of earning the title, though it presents its own dangers.  Farming monsters usually means soloing large groups of high-level monsters.  This means that one or two small mistakes can often result in a death, thus ending the progress of the title.  Farming repeatable quests, while systematic and repetetive just like killing mobs of monsters, can still result in mistakes being made.  Finally, some people farm non-repeatable quests by killing the monsters that the quest forces to spawn in an area.  Examples will be given below.
 * 2) Skill Capping.  At level 20, using a Signet of Capture to capture an elite skill will yield 5,000 experience.  This means that, assuming one begins at 140,600 experience, you would need to capture around 240 elite skills.  This is complicated by the fact that a level 20 character would not have enough skill points to do this, so you would have to find an alternate means of experience gain somewhere in between.  Many survivors use this method, because it also brings them closer to the titles for skill capture.
 * 3) Playing Through The Game.  While certainly slower than any of the above methods when just done by itself (and, usually, players will capture some elite skills on the way), this method is surprisingly effective.  It is also the most dangerous.  There are a number of places throughout each of the campaign which are undeniably more dangerous than others.  Playing through the game will yield hundreds of thousands of experience and plenty of loot and gold for the player in question, but it will require you to tackle many tough areas and risky situations.

Practice makes perfect
Nothing will make your Survivor title easier to obtain than knowing what to expect. Going into an area blind will often result in mistakes being made which can easily lead to death. There is no need to run away from everything and avoid combat when you know what you're up against, how to handle it, and what to do should things begin to go wrong. GuildWiki has articles detailing almost every quest and mission in the game. It is recommended that you read this, at least, if you have not played through the missions on another character before. They will give you advice on any particular challenges in the mission or quest as well as tips and strategies that can make success come a bit easier.

Playstyle choices
How you play the game greatly affects your chances of survival. If you have a problem staying out of the action (without the proper defenses), or you simply love meleeing with Afflicted creatures with low AL and no self-healing or defense abilities, maybe the survivor title just ins't for you. You don't need to be willing to sit on the sidelines, or take a purely supportive role, but you should think ahead and at least bring means to defend yourself and keep yourself alive if you want to melee opponents.

Your party
Who you travel with may mean the difference between life or death, for you and the rest of your party. Your party must have the proper make up in order to survive any given mission or quest. This is another good reason to know what you're up against. If you're fighting a bunch of rangers who are using Broad Head Arrow and other interrupts, or a bunch of mesmers with Backfire and other caster punishing abilities, you wouldn't load your party full of damage dealing spellcasters. Your party is not set in stone, and you should remember to consider the situations you will be in while constructing your party.

Many people also feel that PUGs are not safe for the title. And many PUGs will not want a survivor in their party because they are afraid they will quit if the going gets tough. Both of these are stereotypes about survivors and PUGs. They do, however, carry some weight. If you really want a safer way to go for this title, stick to henchmen, heroes, and players you trust (either guildmates, or friends, or people you have played with before). An upside to henchmen and heroes is that they have near-instantaneous reflexes and excel at rapid healing, interrupting, and switching targets as needed.

Stay ahead of the game
The designers planned for players to be at certain levels at certain points in the game. Always try to stay ahead of these planned levels. The tougher you are to kill, the lower you generally are on the enemies' priority list. If you are playing as a monk who is two levels below the henchmen and is wearing AL 5 armor, for example, you will almost undoubtedly be the first target as soon as you are inside the aggro circle. However, if you are a few levels about the henchmen and wearing the best armor available to you (either through upgrading at every chance you get, or from getting run to a place with max armor) you are less likely to be targeted.

Be prepared
Always be prepared for the worst to happen. Have a way for your character to stay alive for long enough to get out of sticky situations. Things can go wrong, no matter how well you plan, and if you want to keep your title you need to be prepared to survive the worst. There is an emergency preparation section below which details methods for surviving dangerous situations.

Learn to call targets
Something not all players know about is that attacking enemies is not the only way to get your henchmen/heroes to charge into battle. An alternate, and safer, method is to get near the enemies, until the white bubble around your character on the radar is near their red dots, and press "C" for the closest enemy or "Tab" to cycle through enemies. When you have found the enemy you would like to engage first, you press Ctrl + Shift + Spacebar and you will call out your target. Your henchmen/heroes will charge into battle leaving you outside of the aggro range, free to head in when you are ready.

Now, with the introduction of flags, it is even easier to control your party. You can use flags to send one, two, or three of your heroes (or your whole party) into battle before you. See the heroes article for more detail on using flags.

Lag
Lag is the result of either a slow connection between your computer and the Guild Wars server, or a slow processing speed in your computer. This can result in things happening in the game seconds, sometimes many seconds, before you see it on your screen or your computer being disconnected from Guild Wars. There is really nothing you can do about lag. There are ways to reduce it (such as having a fast interenet connection, making sure your computer is free of spyware, etc.) but there is no way to eliminate it. By default, there is a circle near the bottom right-hand side of the screen while playing Guild Wars. This will report your "ping" and your frame rate. If the circle is ever orange, it means you have a moderate amount of lag. If it is red it means you have a very high level of lag. You should not play under these conditions if at all possible. Log on to another character until your connection has become more stable.

AFK
Never, except in the event of an emergency, walk away from your computer while you are in an explorable area with your survivor. In most explorable areas there are mobs that patrol at least a small area, and they may enter your aggro range while you are away, killing your party and you.

Emergency preparation
An incredibly important tactic for survivors is to always expect the worst. You cannot survive the worst case scenario when it happens unless you have thought out how to survive it ahead of time. Each profession has its own means of self-healing (some better than others) and self-preservation, and you should take full advantage of these whenever possible. If possible, bring skills that heal conditionally whenever you need them to, or skills that reliably boost health, armor, or health regeneration. It is up to each player to find the skills they find most reliable for survival, but a short list for each profession is included.


 * Warrior - Tactics based skills like "Shields Up!" and "Watch Yourself!" will give you defensive boosts much like the stance Shield Stance will. Healing Signet will boost your health, but it will lower your AL while you activate it, making it risky.  Strength based skills like Defy Pain and Endure Pain give a nice health boost which will help you survive in an emergency, though they are only really effective on warrior primaries.
 * Ranger - The ranger boasts defensive stances like Whirling Defense and Escape as well as the powerful Troll Unguent and Healing Spring.
 * Monk - The monk is full of self-healing, but also has access to Protection Prayers which often prevent, and even sometimes reverse, damage dealt. Protective Spirit is invaluable against many enemies, especially bosses  The skill Life Sheath is invaluable in keeping yourself alive while Mark of Protection can keep you out of harm's way and heal you for a full ten seconds.  A very good emergency skill for monk primaries is Divine Intervention.  Spell Breaker is also useful to break spellcasters attention on you.
 * Necromancer - Always be careful about Necromancer skills that require a sacrifice to use them. You may accidentally sacrifice yourself to death.  Ravenous Gaze is a good emergency life steal - though life stealing requires a good target to use it on.  Grenth's Balance can steal a ton of health, though to be really effective you need to be at low health, or your target must have a great deal of health.  A good resort for Minion Masters is Taste of Death which allows you to steal health from your own minions.  For non-minion masters who still have points in Death Magic, Soul Feast or Consume Corpse are both good options.
 * Mesmer - The skill Illusion of Weakness can be useful for Mesmers, though it often doesn't have a chance to activate. Consider combining it with Divine Intervention to get the healing effect, though, even if Monk is not your primary profession.
 * Elementalist - Elementalists do not have a huge number of self-preservations skills to begin with, and have even fewer that serve well in an emergency. They can, however, take advantage of other profession's abilities more readily due to their large energy pool.  The skill Obsidian Flesh may be nice in an emergency due to its increase in armor and its spell immunity (though it slows you down).  Glyph of Restoration may be one of the most useful Elementalist emergency self-preservation skills.
 * Assassin - Critical Defenses is a good, easily maintainable defensive boost which pairs nicely with Way of Perfection. Any Assassin ability which shadow steps either to an ally, or at least away from a foe can be useful in an emergency.  Shroud of Distress, Shadow Refuge, and Feigned Neutrality are all useful for Assassins as well.
 * Ritualist - The Ritualist is better at preventing emergency situations than it is at dealing with them. Generous was Tsungrai is useful if you cast it ahead of time, though in the heat of the moment, the 10% sacrifice is dangerous.  Spirit Light is useful if there are spirits around you.
 * Paragon - "Incoming!" can be a great last second protective measure (though you should never be that close to death if you really want to survive). Ballad of Restoration and Song of Restoration are both useful heals, and affect your whole party.  Using Finale of Restoration and Mending Refrain on yourself is a good idea because, unlike enchantments, echos cannot be removed directly.  Cautery Signet combined with Remedy Signet will remove not only all of your conditions, but the rest of your party's as well, in a little over three seconds, and you will only suffer burning for a little over one second - this is useful because you can trade poison, disease, burning, bleeding, deep wound, and crippled, for just over one second of burning.
 * Dervish - The Dervish probably has the most self-preservation skills in the game. Vital Boon, Faithful Intervention, and Watchful Intervention are all great ways to keep yourself safe in emergencies.  Mystic Regeneration is also a nice healing spell, especially with at least the three above skills maintained.

Another aspect of emergency preparation you should keep in mind is that you always need an escape plan. You should not leave yourself in situations where you could be potentially drawing attention from multiple groups of enemies, especially when they would pin you in an area where it would be tough to escape. If things really go poorly for your party, consider bringing a speed buff along to get away, and simultaneously flagging at least one hero/henchmen to stay behind and draw the attention of the enemies.

Some players consider warping out of battles they are losing to be a good idea. Others consider logging out to work too. Other think that closing Guild Wars entirely works. The truth is, it is much safer to play it safe and not get into these sorts of situations to begin with. Survivor is much easier to attain with planning and care, than to risk it on one of these methods.


 * If all else fails, hit the F12 key immediately followed by Enter to quickly log out. This method seems a bit faster than Alt-F4. Another good strategy is rebinding the logout key to a more accessible button for faster logouts. If you are with only henchmen and/or heroes it can be very handy to use /resign in a one-key macro.
 * Please note that if you Alt-F4 out of the game your character can still be seen as "logged in" by the servers for up to 30 seconds and it is possible to die after the game has already been closed. Therefore, it may be safer to map to a nearby outpost or city, or to your Guild Hall, even if that requires more effort on your behalf. The F12-Enter key combination also seems to keep you logged in, but not nearly as long as the Alt-F4 key combination.
 * The Guild Hall escape method can be more effective than the F12-Enter combination and is probably the safest and fastest escape method.
 * You won't logout and don't have to worry about your connection with the server.
 * Unlike map-travel, you don't have to open the map window to escape (as this can sometimes be to slow).
 * Also, you can have the Guild menu ("g") open at any time and just hit the "Guild Hall" button within seconds (followed by a quick "Enter" to confirm that you wish to leave - only if you have other players in your party).


 * Due to a new feature introduced, if the computer or the game experiences a crash or the internet connection is disrupted, your character will remain on the server for up to 10 minutes as if you were AFK, and you could possibly die within those 10 minutes if the connection is not re-established.

Tips on experience gain
It is wise to try to speed up your experience gain in any safe manner while going for this title. The quicker you get it, the less can go wrong. Here are some methods players have found useful for speeding up experience gain.

General

 * Scrolls: These will give you extra experience without adding danger to your battles for a small cost in gold.
 * Elite skill captures: At level 20, each elite captured will give 5,000 XP. This makes it beneficial to work towards the Skill Hunter titles while going for the survivor titles.
 * Hard Mode: It decreases your chances of living but yields 50% more experience and allows progress towards the Guardian and Vanquisher titles. So if you're confident in your party, then feel free to try it.
 * Blessings: Shrines of the Five Gods are all over the place in Factions and Nightfall. Blessings can greatly increase your combat efficiency and survivability, making farming with smaller party sizes or even solo a more viable venture and paying for themselves at the same time. Take advantage of them whenever you can.

Farming

 * Solo Farming: After completing all missions and quests, you can create a solo build and find an area you can consistently clear to safely gain experience. Solo farming may get boring after a while, but you will rack up much gold in the process.
 * Check PvXWiki for solo farming builds which often tell you the location to farm as well.
 * A very useful and fast place to farm for Survivor is the Battle of Turai's Procession which can yield up to 30,000 experience per run with a Scroll of Rampager's Insight and only takes about 8 minutes per run. Use a standard Rt/R or R/Rt Splinter Weapon/Barrage build.  Example Video on YouTube

Notable missions and quests

 * Augury Rock (Mission): Aim to complete this mission's bonus, as it is unique with a 50,000 xp reward. Note: You will not receive the 50,000 xp reward if you have already completed the Nahpui Quarter (Mission) in Cantha or the Hunted! quest in Elona.  Make sure you read the Guide to defeating doppelganger for help and tips.
 * Raze the Roost: This quest has a high 10,000 xp reward at the cost of two platinum.
 * Befriending the Luxons and Befriending the Kurzicks both reward 10,000 xp, and the work may be done with other characters on your account.
 * The Fissure of Woe is actually a good place to rack up experience. Even though it's considered one of the more elite areas in the game, an experienced player, especially in a well-balanced group, has a very high rate of survival there. If you don't trust PUGs, get a guild group started, and possibly plan out consistent FoW runs with your guild or a friend. (2 humans + 6 heroes) Clearing the whole realm can grant upwards of 120,000 exp.

Repeatable quests

 * Repeatable Quests: Most repeatable quests have an experience reward of 2,000.
 * Securing Echovald Forest can be done repeatedly with a Faction Farming group or guild - safest if you are the "door man".
 * The Jade Arena is one quest you can do without other human players and usually takes less than 4 or 5 minutes to complete.
 * Summit Slaves nets around 22,500 experience an hour. When choosing which subquests to take from Krak Flamewhip, do not take Fire in the Hole, as it is more deadly than beneficial. Also, make sure you do not take the subquest Wrenches in the Gears before slaying all of the dredge in Sorrow's Belly (where Tharn Stonerift stands).

Grenth's Balance
Most enemies tend to target party members with low health/armor, so you'll most likely want your health as high as possible. Be warned, however, because foes with Grenth's Balance will target the party member with the most health, often resulting in your losing two or three hundred health at once.

Starting Campaign
The campaign you create your character in affects the speed of your progression towards the title.
 * In Prophecies, you must complete many more quests and missions to get to quests rewarding large amounts of experience.
 * In Factions, you start out 2 missions away from the Canthan mainland, where there are many quests with high experience rewards available. Also, if you complete most or all of the quests on Shing Jea island, you can leave the island at level 17 or higher.
 * In Nightfall, there are also various quests rewarding handsome amounts of experience. You also acquire several heroes in Elona, which are far superior to the henchmen available in outposts.
 * Starting in Elona is also beneficial because the quests unlocking travel to Tyria and Cantha do not require any fighting.