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 should not count against the title. However, since the mechanics of forced deaths have been known to change with game updates, the best advice is simply to avoid any kind of "death."

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.

General advice
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.  GuildWiki has articles detailing almost every quest and mission in the game.  It is recommended that you read up on missions and quests before attempting them for the first time. It is also recommended to play the mission or quest through on another character before attempting it with your survivor character.

Playstyle choices
 * How you play the game greatly affects your chances of survival. If you often use Frenzy and Healing Signet together, then you probably won't live long enough to get Survivor (1).  You don't need to sit on the sidelines or take a purely supportive role, but you should think ahead and bring skills to keep yourself alive if you want to fight dangerously (see Self Heal).


 * Also keep in mind that if you do choose to have your character run somewhere that there are many runs in which the person being run can die. Ask the runner if there's a chance of your death or simply don't get a run.

Your party
 * Your party must be ready for anything and everything. This is another good reason to know what you're up against. 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 feel that PUGs are not safe for the title. Many groups will not want a survivor in their party because they are afraid they will quit if the going gets tough.  If you really want a safer way to go for this title, stick to henchmen, heroes, and people you trust.  An upside to henchmen and heroes is that they have near-instantaneous reflexes and excel at rapid healing, interrupting, and switching targets as needed.  Furthermore, if you engage in a PUG with someone you don't know, they may either be unskilled or reckless, leading to a potential party wipe.

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.  Craft better armor whenever possible, and keep your maximum health high. It is best to get maximum armor early in the game.

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.  Read the "Skill Selection" section below for skills to help you survive.

Calling targets
 * 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.
 * Also, 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 can result in things happening in the game a few seconds before you see it on your screen or your computer being disconnected from Guild Wars. There are ways to reduce it, 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. Play whenever the circle is green, and avoid playing when it is orange or red.

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 and possibly kill you and your party.

Automated running
 * Do not use the 'R' key for automated running. in case of lag or a disconnect, you might keep running ahead to a place the team will have a hard time defending you in. instead, run with the 'W' key, or use mouse walk.

A Relatively Easy Way to Earn Survivor
Having 2 quests open simultaniously make achieving this title easy: Welcome to Cantha and Chasing Zenmai (this means you can't start in Factions). Welcome to Cantha adds 5 allies to your party: Mhenlo, Cynn, Jamei, Chiyo and Emi. This is good because while being allies they DO NOT share party experience (more for the aspiring survivor). While the quest Chasing Zenmai is open, jade brotherhood members in the Bukdek Byway will not spawn in groups larger than 3 (it is possible for 2 of the groups to be in the same location) but between Jamei, Mhenlo and Chiyo you will most likely have enough healing. Since you have 5 allies there is no need for you to bring henchmen or heroes (unless you insist on having the process take longer) with some experience scrolls you'll have your first rank of survivor in no time.

Once you have reached level 20, if you have other characters who have completed one or more campaigns, it might be advantageous to use Hard Mode in otherwise low-level areas to grind out XP for the second- and third-tier titles. Although the monsters are level 20 and above, they still spawn (mostly) in tiny groups (1-2 in most cases) which almost any party can easily handle. A little experimentation will reveal what works best for you. Hard Mode comes with an automatic 50% bonus to earned experience, which can save you a lot of time.

Skill Selection
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 and self-preservation, and you should take full advantage of these skills whenever possible. It is up to each player to find the skills they find most reliable for survival, but here is a list of skills to consider for each profession.

See Self Heal.

Warriors

 * Strength: Defy Pain, Endure Pain, Lion's Comfort, Signet of Stamina
 * Tactics: "Shields Up!", "Watch Yourself!", Defensive Stance, Healing Signet, Shield Stance

Rangers

 * Expertise: Escape, Lightning Reflexes, Throw Dirt, Whirling Defense
 * Wilderness Survival: Dryder's Defenses, Melandru's Resilience, Natural Stride, traps, Troll Unguent

Monks

 * Divine Favor: Aura of Faith, Contemplation of Purity, Divine Intervention, Spell Breaker
 * Healing Prayers: Glimmer of Light, Healing Burst, Healing Hands, Healing Touch
 * Protection Prayers: Guardian, Mark of Protection, Mending Touch, Protective Spirit, Reversal of Fortune, Shield of Absorption, Shield of Deflection, Shield of Regeneration, Shielding Hands, Spirit Bond

Necromancers

 * Blood Magic: Blood Renewal, Dark Bond, Life Siphon, Strip Enchantment, Well of Blood, Well of Power
 * Curses: Insidious Parasite, Parasitic Bond
 * Death Magic: Consume Corpse, Soul Feast, Taste of Death, Animate Vampiric Horror

Mesmers

 * Illusion Magic: Distortion, Illusion of Weakness, Sympathetic Visage
 * Inspiration Magic: Elemental Resistance, Ether Feast, Mantra of Earth, Mantra of Flame, Mantra of Frost, Mantra of Lightning, Physical Resistance
 * Unlinked: Signet of Midnight

Elementalists

 * Air Magic: Blinding Flash, Blinding Surge
 * Earth Magic: Armor of Earth, Kinetic Armor, Magnetic Aura, Obsidian Flesh, Stoneflesh Aura, Ward Against Elements, Ward Against Foes, Ward Against Melee
 * Energy Storage: Aura of Restoration, Glyph of Restoration
 * Water Magic: Armor of Frost, Armor of Mist, Frigid Armor, Mist Form, Ward Against Harm

Assassins

 * Critical Strikes: Critical Defenses
 * Deadly Arts: Siphon Speed, Siphon Strength
 * Shadow Arts: Dark Escape, Death's Retreat, Feigned Neutrality, Heart of Shadow, Return, Shadow Refuge, Shroud of Distress
 * Unlinked: Signet of Malice

Ritualists

 * Channeling Magic: Caretaker's Charge, Grasping Was Kuurong
 * Communing: Displacement, Mighty Was Vorizun, Shelter, Union, Vital Weapon
 * Restoration Magic: Generous Was Tsungrai, Mend Body and Soul, Life, Preservation, Protective Was Kaolai, Recuperation, Resilient Weapon, Vengeful Was Khanhei, Vengeful Weapon, Weapon of Remedy, Weapon of Warding, Wielder's Boon
 * Spawning Power: Consume Soul, Feast of Souls, Spirit to Flesh

Paragons

 * Command: "Fall Back!", "Incoming!", "Never Surrender!", "Stand Your Ground!", Bladeturn Refrain
 * Leadership: Defensive Anthem, Leader's Comfort
 * Motivation: Ballad of Restoration, Chorus of Restoration, Finale of Restoration, Mending Refrain, Song of Restoration

Dervishes

 * Earth Prayers: Armor of Sanctity, Conviction, Mirage Cloak, Mystic Regeneration, Veil of Thorns, Vital Boon
 * Mysticism: Avatar of Balthazar, Avatar of Dwayna, Avatar of Melandru, Faithful Intervention, Watchful Intervention
 * Wind Prayers: Dwayna's Touch, Mystic Healing, Natural Healing

Escape Plans
Another aspect of preparation you should keep in mind is that you always need an escape plan. Here are a few methods of "escaping" dire situations:


 * Running: If things go bad for your party during a battle, begin running towards a safe area and flag at least one hero/henchman to stay behind and retain the attention of the enemies while you escape.
 * Guild Hall Escape: Quickly press 'G' and select "Guild Hall" to travel to your guild's guild hall.
 * This method can be more effective than the F12-Enter combination and is probably the safest and fastest escape method.
 * Unlike map-travel, you don't have to open the map window to escape (as this can sometimes be too 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).
 * Alt+F4: Pressing Alt and F4 together will close Guild Wars.
 * 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.
 * Logging Out: 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. For example, map it to the spacebar for a quick double-tap to log out. Another case where the log out can prevent disaster is in the pre-searing of Prophecies. In order to cross over to post searing, players must go through a trial PvP random arena. This arena can have anywhere from level 1's all the way to 20's so you never know what to expect. While waiting to enter battle just log out. Once you log back in you should be placed right into the mini mission that has to be completed to finish pre searing. At this point, simply hang back and let your party take damage while either striking from afar or just avoiding combat all together
 * Resign: If you are with only henchmen and/or heroes it can be very handy to use /resign, especially if you have it set to a one-key macro. There is a delay before /resign registers, so plan to do this before your health reaches a critical level. Also, keep in mind you are relying on specific behavior of a forced death that can change between game builds.
 * Map-Travel: Quickly press 'M' and select an outpost/town to map-travel to.
 * 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. Especially take advantage of special weekends in which this XP gain is increased.
 * 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. However, keep in mind that all monsters move faster in Hard Mode, so it may be harder to run away.
 * 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.
 * Bounties: In Nightfall, there are also priests at resurrection shrines who offer you a Bounty, increasing your experience gain when you kill certain monsters.
 * Quests and Missions: It is generally a bad idea to go for master difficulty quests (as these quests are meant to be hard) and attempt masters or bonus. Although the rewards are great, doing these quests would greatly reduce your chance of survival while going for the title.

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
 * Farming Jade Brotherhood Knights in Wajjun Bazaar with Hero bonders in Hard Mode is a very safe, fast and easy way to farm Legendary Survivor within 10 to 15 hours from character creation. View guide on GuildWarsGuru forum.
 * Another thing to consider is actually creating two characters of the same class for this title. With one character, test builds for farming - if it is consistently viable, then you can use your survival character with the same build. This allows for experimentation without risking your title.

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. Note: As Canthan character you are allowed to have completed the Hunted! quest, as long as you have not completed the Nahpui Quarter mission.
 * 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 harder 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 the subquests to take from Krak Flamewhip, Fire in the Hole may seem deadlier than it really is. However, an easy way to guarantee survival can be achieved using heroes and henchmen. Flag your heroes and henchmen near the aggro area of the djinn while you stay as far away from that point as possible. Your heroes and henchmen will defeat the djinn while you watch from afar. 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).
 * Kilroy Stonekin's Punch-Out Extravaganza! is almost perfect for the aspiring Legendary Survivor. Runs typically take 10-15 minutes initially, but once you work a good pattern its achievable in around 7 minutes. This nets about 8500 experience, including the 2500 completion (with the most basic exp scroll +50%, kills alone can gain you 8875 exp per run), allowing for 34,000 to 51,000 experience per hour (75,000 when quickly + scroll).  Most importantly, being knocked down does not currently count towards deaths.  WARNING: If you do not get your energy back to full before the timer reaches 0, you will fail the quest, which DOES count as a death. In order to get your energy back to full before the timer reaches zero, you can click with the mouse and press the '8' button at the same time, and double your speed of recovery. This run is almost perfect for the assassin build when using thunderfists brass knuckles achieving the higher damage thanks to dagger mastery, providing quicker runs, and again more exp per hour in relatvely safe conditions.

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.

Vizunah Square (Mission)
It has been reported that the death in the end-of-mission cutscene from Shiro's wrath counts as a death. It's advised to, once the cutscene begins, either log out (after the experience gain, of course) or skip the cutscene.

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.
 * You can also get the Heroes Zenmai and Olias (both level 15) from the other continents quite easily, by simply sending henchmen into battles and hanging back. Thus providing you already leveled heroes. This is possible to do even at low levels if you get a ferry to either of the other campaigns.
 * Starting in Elona is also beneficial because the quests unlocking travel to Tyria and Cantha do not require any fighting.