A Guild Wars Guide for the Diablo II Player

A Guild Wars Guide for the Diablo II Player

This guide is intended as a collection of information geared towards that Diablo II player who is thinking about taking the plunge and coming over to play Guild Wars.

Player vs. Environment (PvE) Gameplay

Guild Wars gameplay compared to Diablo2 in a few words:

• group play is more important and more required
• monsters are much tougher relative to players
• monsters have skills, armor, and equipment that works the same way as for players
• fights are longer due to stronger monsters (approx. 15-30 seconds of fight per monster)

Very few characters will be able to efficiently play solo against monsters in Guild Wars, unlike Diablo2. Most groups will need some kind of healer (e.g., a primary Monk), as well as a mix of other characters to win. Although parties can often do fine with less than max group size, rarely can groups of 1 or 2 win against the monsters. There is still the option to hire henchmen to fill your party's ranks but these computer-controlled allies come with their own deficiencies.

In addition, most monsters are in the same toughness range as the players fighting them. Although some character builds can do a lot of damage to a single monster in very short time, there are no instant kills. This means that battles will last longer in Guild Wars than in Diablo 2. As a rule of thumb, battles probably last around 15-30 seconds for each monster. People will therefore often want to fight less monsters at the same time as group size (most groups in Guild Wars will probably consists of around four players).

Monsters all have the same types of attacks as players do, except for some rare ones such as Giant Stomp. For example, if a monster is of a ranger type, it will use either a bow or some ranged attack as a regular attack in addition to its ranger skills; it will have extra armor against elemental damage and its armor against physical damage will be somewhere between warriors and casters. This applies to the monsters of the other five professions types as well.

Player vs. Player (PvP) Gameplay

The Player vs. Player experience in Guild Wars is vastly different than the PvP that took place in Diablo II. Most of Diablo II's PvP play was focused on "duels," which, over time, became increasingly frustrating for new players. The equipment, attribute, and skill point requirements to be competitive in PvP (not to mention class imbalances and cheating) were incredibly high.

Guild Wars differs greatly from the Diablo II experience in that the game really does rely on strategy, tactics, and skills more than the equipment your character is wearing. The flexible nature of skill use, attribute assignment, and even secondary profession (for PvE characters) ensures that characters never become "obsolete" because of changes in the metagame. And while equipment does play a role (a warrior with a Superior Vigor rune will have an advantage over a warrior without), the role is smaller, and nearly eliminates the "equipment gap" that made Diablo II PvP difficult for new players.

Because Guild Wars is a team game, there is no formal concept of duels, and PvP can only occur in specially-designated arenas. There is no risk, for example, of one of your party members "going hostile" in the middle of a mission. With the exception of the Random Arenas that are available, most PvP will also involve a bit of planning on a team build to maximize the effectiveness of the characters involved.

Players are encouraged to reserve one of their four character slots for a PvP character. Since you can delete and recreate this character at will, it allows you to experience various classes and builds, as well as take advantage of newly-unlocked items and skills.

Related forum threads

• GW for the Diablo2 Player (Jan 2006)