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:

The experience levels for the three levels of the title are as follows:

! Title || Experience gained without dying:
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 * Survivor || 140,600
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 * Indomitable Survivor || 587,500
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 * Legendary Survivor (Max level) || 1,337,500
 * }

Note that you do not lose this title upon death. After your first death, the progress bar simply will no longer move. However, if you die before reaching the first level of this title, the track will disappear from your Hero Panel.

While these numbers may seem daunting to achieve, there are many ways to improve both your survivability and rate of gaining experience.

Practice makes perfect
Nothing will improve your ability to survive better than playing the game before attempting the title. Battle tactics and build strategies improve, thus enemy mobs die faster. You also begin to memorize skills enemies use and the best way to counter them. You also learn to recognize a losing battle and how to react before falling dead.

If you want to survive, know what you're up against. Learn how each mission operates before trying to take your Survivor through. Many explorables and missions have tricks and traps that can easily doom an unsuspecting character. With practice, you'll notice missions that you used to fail over and over are no longer as hard. Read the associated wiki pages to pick up tips and tricks others have found to make missions easier and try them with another character until you feel comfortable with them.

Leave an escape route. While it may be tempting to logout when it looks like death is near, your character may be sitting on the server for a few seconds helplessly being attacked and perhaps killed before the final cutoff message is processed. Also, most players do not appreciate their team mates quitting. Learn to leave plenty of running room, perhaps killing enemies you might otherwise be able to avoid just to make sure you have somewhere to run in a later battle. With practice, you'll learn to recognize when things are turning for the worse and when to pull back.

Note: Calling targets will make you the prime focus of the enemies initial attacks in most PvE situations. This can prove especially challenging for players who use henchmen rather than other players as party members, as you have to initialize combat. If you are the target caller, you will need to target foes, and pull back immediately after the first hit (leaving team mates to absorb the melee assault, and minimize the damage you take from casters and rangers). Preparation is not an option. Leave yourself a clear escape route, and be prepared to use it at any given moment. A safe way to call targets/aggro is to use any longbow so that your henches/heroes will move in while you are still more than one aggro bubble away from the mobs. Be mindful of teammates' positions, and hold your retreat once you are out of the main fight, to provide some support for your team mates, henchmen and/or minions. This approach may not be acceptable to many players in your group, so it is a good idea to confirm your intentions with your team before venturing into combat. Alternatively, It would be better to simply avoid being in a group that requires you to call targets.


 * Calling targets using Ctrl + Shift + Space [attack/interact(do it) button] will not make you initialize combat, as it does not automatically do an attack. If using henchmen, depending on your distance from the enemy, they will run in and attack the target.

The monster AI is very predictable, and you can use that to your advantage. In addition to target calling there are various other things that make you a more or less lucrative target in the eyes of the monsters. Having high armor and high HP usually makes you a less salient target, as does some form of health regeneration. However, having the highest HP in the team makes you the primary target of necromancers with Grenth's Balance, an extremely dangerous skill for survivors. Also, health regeneration from an enchantment is easily drained, or even worse, shattered. Hence skills like Mending Refrain are safer for the purpose. Concerning positioning at the battlefield, monsters prefer to use their AoE skills on larger concentrations of opponents. Therefore it's advisable to keep some distance to everybody else whenever AoE damage dealing monsters are around. This may be tricky when adventuring with heroes / henchmen which have a tendency to ball around the player.

Also, make sure the conditions outside the game are right. Playing while tired, intoxicated, when you're likely to be interrupted or distracted by Real Life events, or when your computer has recently started to spontaneously crash, is a proven way of significantly reducing the life expectancy of your survivor.

Choose your companions wisely
If you want to stay alive, you'll need dependable teammates to help you through. Even the best players will fall if not properly supported. You do not know the skill level of most of the players in the game, so if you join a random group, you may be placing your character's life in the hands of someone inexperienced. Thus, it is recommended to travel with a group of friends, guild mates, or alliance mates you trust. Let them know you are going for the Survivor title and thus want to avoid any risky maneuvers. If starting a fresh character, friends may also want to try for the title as well and thus you can put together a group of trusted individuals with the same goal.

For those comfortable with using them, Henchmen can also provide reliable and predictable support. The introduction of Heroes has meant that you can now customize your companions to your advantage. e.g. Olias can be configured as a Minion Master and can provide you with an entire army of minions. While the Henchmen AI is notorious for poor decision making at times, it does operate in a very predictable manner. They always follow the player, follow targets quite well and usually disengage from battle when the player runs away. However, to use them effectively requires a good amount of practice in itself, as you act as a commander in battle as well as a participant in it (see note on calling targets). Henchmen healers also have an advantage over human monks because they have instant reflexes and usually start casting the healing spell that could save your life before a human ally would. Some prefer to use the positioning flags for Heroes and Henchmen to allow them to keep a safe distance from danger. In such cases, party-wide spells such as necrotic orders or Heal Party may still be used to assist them.

Playing Styles
Depending on your profession, different playing styles and skills will decrease/increase your survivability.
 * Warriors - Frenzy is a definite negative. Tactics shouts such as "Watch Yourself!" and "Shields Up!" not only benefit yourself, but your party as well. Endure Pain and Defy Pain are especially helpful in increasing your chances of survival.
 * Rangers - Throw Dirt, traps, and defensive stances are all great to have for defense.
 * Necromancers - Using touch skills puts you at a greater risk than a minion master who has an army of undead meat shields. Specializing in anti-attacker spells such as Enfeeble and Faintheartedness also adds to your survivability.
 * Assassins - Melee assassins are at a much greater risk of death than an A/R Critical Barrager. If you prefer to stay in melee, consider using self-preservation skills such as Critical Defenses and Way of Perfection.

Learn different ways to combine your primary and secondary profession skills together to reduce the general risk of dying while still making yourself an asset to the team.

Stay ahead of the game
Do not be cheap or impatient with a survivor character. It is very well in the best interest of a character aiming for survivor title to take their time leveling up, and to have the highest possible armor. If your character is a few levels ahead of henchmen in the party, or other players, and with higher armor level then they will always be at the bottom of the target list for foes. The advantage of level and armor is gone by level 20, but until then, take advantage of it as much as possible.

Never go AFK
While this may seem an obvious point, it should still be mentioned. When in an explorable zone, NEVER go away from your keyboard, not even for a minute. While areas in-zone may appear to be clear of enemies, patrols can come by when you least expect it. Stepping AFK to grab a drink, go to the bathroom, answer the phone, etc. can EASILY bring doom to potential survivors. Stay at your keyboard at all times.

Tips on gaining experience

 * 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.


 * 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.


 * 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.


 * 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.


 * 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).


 * 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.


 * 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.

Warning about lag
The survivor titles have been jokingly referred to as a second Lucky title due to the belief by many that you are more likely to lose this title due to lag than you are by lack of skill when trying. Even though the game is instanced, a player can still (and many often do) experience lag in a solo instance with no other players in it. The belief that a solo instance operates solely on your own computer is incorrect.

Lag may cause you to think you have more health than the game server believes you have. So, it may seem to you that you are moving away with 1/4 health, the server may reckon you have been hit by attacks and a few seconds later, you find your character dead. If the game is laggy, account for this in your encounters and fights with monsters and make a bigger buffer of health than usual at which you would consider fleeing from an encounter.

In some instances, players have reported they had a great deal of health while mapping or logging out, only to have a death when they logged in or entered the new map. This is likely due to the disparity in true health and displayed health. As such, you should keep in mind that many types of farming are not guaranteed as 'safe'. Having high health regeneration and other kinds of protective effects, as well as having other party members - especially healers - around may increase the chance that your character survives the time it takes the server to process your logout request.

A computer freezing up while in the middle of a mob can also result in death; even if your health is stuck showing 100% on the screen of the computer that just crashed. For the best chance of success, try upgrading your hardware and getting a reliable computer before attempting this title.

A note on 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.

Emergency preparation

 * Equipping skills like Endure Pain, Illusion of Weakness, and Generous Was Tsungrai that can give you a huge health boost in an emergency are a great way to get that little extra that may be needed in some battles.
 * Wearing armor and weapons with +health modifiers often make the difference between surviving and not, especially against unavoidable elementalist and ritualist bosses in missions that can do more than half your health in damage in one shot.
 * Having monk as your secondary profession if you're not already a primary monk is also a good idea. Skills like Protective Spirit can be the difference between life and death. Remember you'll have to watch out for mesmer bosses who can shatter or remove the enchantment.
 * 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.