How A Guild Works - A guide for newbies
*updated 7/27/2017*
Skyye Lakara here to help explain some things about how the guild works.
I wanted to create this thread also for a reference for everyone to be able to look back on. There is so much information to remember, none of us can memorize it all at once. I will break the information down slowly throughout this thread. I hope the information in here is helpful and please don't hesitate to ask questions!
For those of you whom I've recruited, you've probably heard all this before.
For everyone else, this will either be a refresher or things you're already familiar with.
How A Guild Works
Joining a Guild
Being in a guild is a great way to better experience and learn the game, make friends within the community, share information, help others, and find reliable help. Another benefit is that you can buy things in the guild shops that cannot be purchased anywhere else such as special armor, food, gems, etc...
To speak in guild chat type /guild
NPC's
As you enter the guild hall you will see NPC's who you can interact with. Some of them (such as the guards) are purely for RP, while the others are either shop keepers or quest givers.
The shop keepers items available are dependent on what level their shops are. I will get into that later when I talk about leveling up the guild.
The quest givers are great because they give you extra quests that most of the time go along side with your regular quest lines. You get to kill two birds with one stone if you accept these quests. They start off simple if you are low level and get harder as you advance your character. I highly recommend checking in with the guild NPCs every day before you go questing :)
*Note* One of the NPC's is semi broken, the Traveling Wizard. His siege quest goes into an endless repeat that never ends... don't bother picking this quest up (unless the Devs fix it). He offers one other quest however that is not broken, Dragon Flight. Don't summon the Dragons unless a full guild with alliance group is formed as they can only be summoned for free every 2 hours and are some of the hardest dragons in the game.
Guild Marks and the Coffer (The Mimic)
As you walk deeper into the guild hall you will notice there is an animated chest that opens and closes, that's a mimic, our guild Coffer. Normally mimics are evil magical creatures that just want to eat you! This one is tamed and only eats items you give it. Why feed the mimic? Feeding the mimic helps the guild level up! "Please feed the mimic" haha...
"What items can I feed to the mimic?"
The mimic loves to eat everything so be careful what you feed it! Items you should feed it are guild vouchers (Labor Vouchers, Astral Diamond Vouchers, Influence Vouchers, etc...). As a guild, we want all of you to be strong and also level up. Please don't donate items like campaign coins, your personal astral diamonds, your gold, your armor, or your rank 5 gems or higher as you need those and it's more important to us that you use those items for you to become stronger.
"Why donate to the Coffer?"
Donating to the coffer helps the guild grow but also helps you grow too! Every time you donate an item to the coffer you earn Guild Mark coins. In order to buy things in the guild hall you need to have this currency. Also donating to the coffer helps us gather what we need to level up the guild and it's shops and locations.
So... "please feed the mimic" :D
What kind of gear can I buy?
This all depends on the level of the guild and the level of the Marketplace. The higher the guild and marketplace, the better the gear, including Dragon Flight and good PVP armor. Another new addition to the guild update this past Spring 2017 is new temp buildings. Most guilds (including ours) will summon The Gem Cutter, Recruiter, and Mysterious Merchant. TheGem Cutter helps us earn gems for the coffer. The Recruiter gathers influence for the coffer. The Mysterious Merchant is super fun and sells 450 item level gear! Her catch is it's random every time we summon her. If you want to see her visit often, donate gems to the coffer as often as you can.
Influence and Encounters
Influence is one of the most common vouchers you can earn. You can earn up to 400 influence a day which will give you a 1 for 1 of Guild Mark coins ratio.
"How do I earn influence?"
You earn Influence by completing Heroic Encounters (HE's). While in the guild hall, hit "M" to open up your map. You will notice little markers all over the place. Some are locations for farming (the guild leaders will handle that), some have a demonic face within a circle (Demonic Encounters), and red the red circles represent HEs.
Heroic Encounters:
The red circles of different sizes represent Heroic Encounters, Tiers 1, 2, and 3 difficulty. By doing these Heroic Encounters in the guild Strong Hold (HE's in the SH) you will earn influence. By doing 5 of these you will earn your max 400. For beginners, we recommend doing Tier 1's with a higher level guild member. As you level, they will become easy enough to solo. All of them run on a timer and change every so many minutes. Be sure you choose ones that you have enough time to finish. If you wish to do HE's with help or just want the company, please give a shout out in guild chat or alliance chat. Tier 2's and Tier 3's give extra rewards but of course are much harder. Some of the T3's are harder than other T3's. Sometimes several groups are formed to take these on. You can hold up to 30,000 Guild Marks at a time so be sure to keep an eye on your amounts and spend it as needed.
Demonic Encounters:
These are represented with a multi color circle with a demonic face inside. The difficulty of these are dependent on the number of participants. Demonic Encounters give you different currencies and sometimes salvageable items. The main prize they offer is Demonic Ichor. You need this in order to gain Drowcraft Equipment and later on, your Twisted Ichor weapons. Most of the level 70 zones also host Demonic Encounters so it's optional to do them in the SH (Strong Hold). You can only earn 400 Demonic Ichor per week and hold a maximum of 1200 at a time so make sure and watch your amounts and spend as needed. You can spend it directly through your campaign menu under Underdark.
Leveling Up:
It's very easy to level up fast (power level) in the SH but be cautious... The higher your level, the harder it is to find your quests. Quests in this game are very important. IF you level faster than your quests and they disappear, go into your campaign menu and look through the ones you haven't finished. Then go to appropriate zones and search for NPC's that give quests. They will have their names in Gold while others will be in white. Gaining a few levels in the SH by doing HE's can help you make your quests a little easier however, just again, follow your quest lines.
"Am I allowed to power level or be power leveled?"
We don't try to control members here so if this is what you want to do, we won't stop you. We will only advise that you watch your campaign menu to keep your quests going and complete them. Some guild members will power level you while others will not. Don't take this personally as we all have different methods of helping and teaching. Another caution of power leveling is that you can be handicapped by being carried and don't always learn your characters skills and what they are capable of. It's important to struggle a little once and a while to learn your character. It will make you a much better teammate and guild member! :D
Guild Bank:
All members can give and take from the guild bank. Each rank has different permissions from different bank sections. We encourage donating and taking without greed. It's all about give and take. You might need a bunch of healing potions one day but have extra of something else the guild needs another day. We don't expect 100% back item for item what you took. Just that you try and help the guild by donating something that needs refilling or something you're not going to use and wish to give. We also try to keep the guild bank organized. Try to find like items and place them in the appropriate places. If something like a potion is a stack of 99, don't add more as 99 is plenty, just sell it or keep it. If you're unsure of something, put it in the Miscellaneous section and someone will move it if need be later.
Alliance:
Our guild is a Helm (top guild). What this means is that we have more people to group with, more friends to make, more advice and help found as well as given, and more help with leveling up the guild and helping other guilds level theirs. If our Voucher sections are full, we can now donate to another guild to help them out. If they are full, they donate to us to help us out :) If you are unable to give to another guild it's because our guild needs a particular item and we've temporarily turned off outgoing donations until we meet our goal. It's a good partnership which keeps our inventories free of vouchers and helps everyone grow together!
To speak in alliance type in /alliance or /all
Dragon Flight:
Dragon Flight is a high level PVE gear that can only be found in the guild. You need lots of Guild Mark coins and Dragon Fangs in order to purchase this set. Some people prefer the Drowcraft, others prefer Dragon Flight. I personally like the Dragon Flight but both can be upgraded to Elemental with Black Ice crafting (max your alchemy in order to use this craft to it's fullest). 3 of the DF pieces (Dragon Flight) cost 20 fangs, the chest piece costs 36 fangs.
*Update* Dragon Flight is no longer the top gear in the game but still good if you can't travel to Chult or there is no Mysterious Merchant present in the guild hall.
"How do I earn Dragon Fangs?"
You earn fangs by completing Dragon Flight runs (DF's). Dragon Flight runs need a minimum of 15 players (depending on item level). You have to kill a dragon to earn a fang. Also by doing a DF run you earn a box that also holds 2 fangs inside. You need a Strongbox Key to open them. They cost $1.25 in the Zen Market OR around 20-30k Astral Diamonds (AD) in the Auction House (AH). If the guild has keys to spare, a guild leader will give them out to participants in need after a run.
"How does a DF run work?"
Normally one person will call out in alliance chat DF in (insert guild hall here) and people will start saying "+DF". The host will start a queue group (K key to view queue group and invite). This makes it possible for the host to see what they have for players and organize and sort accordingly. They often tell people to form up parties with either their queue grouping or with their guildies. I often form a party with guild members and especially newbies to help teach and guide them during a DF run.
To speak in Queue type /queue or /q
That NPC I told you about earlier, the Traveling Wizard? He summons the dragons for you once every 2 hours OR you can use a bell (purchased in the Zen Market) which can be used at any time. One person will summon while everyone else gets into potion.
There are 4 dragons in a DF run,
Red (north west - where the 2 Giants spawn)
Blue (north east - where the drakes spawn)
Green (south east - where the bickering beholders spawn)
Black (south west - where the devils spawn).
There can be a max of 20 players on each dragon at a time or the dragons become immortal. If this happens the host may ask for lower levels to just watch (it's rare).
We have a limited time to kill the dragons and if 1 dragon is killed, 1 minute remains to kill the rest.
"How can you kill an epic deadly dragon in 1 minute?"
You can't... so the DF has to be organized carefully. The host will decide how many dragons the group can handle and send people where they are most needed. When the goal is 1 dragon, it's simple, everyone goes up and kills it together. If the goal is more than one it's tricky. You don't want to kill a dragon and move onto the next as it's impossible to kill them in 1 minute or less (with travel time). So you trim the dragons down OR 4 large groups attack all 4 dragons simultaneously. If a group is taking out 2 or 3, they trim the dragons down to about 5% and run to the next. The host will assign a finisher for each dragon. Once the group trims them down to 5% the finisher stays with the dragon and holds it, slowly trimming it to 1 or 0%. When all dragons are trimmed down, the host gives the kill order, then everyone kills all dragons at once.
Red Dragon: Fire dragon, the easiest dragon, bites, flies, flames, directional flames, aoe flames, and roars.
Blue Dragon: Lightning, nasty random ranged one shot kills, flies, bites, lightning aoes, directional lightning, and roars. DO NOT pick each other up as it angers him and he will wipe the entire field if you don't quick release if you fall.
Green Dragon: Poison, creates a nasty poison mist in the entire area (not for the weak), poison spits, directional poison, bites, poison aoe, flies, and roars.
Black Dragon: Death Dragon, Bites, flies, roars, ranged one shots, aoe of acid, acid spits, summons wraiths if you fall or die DO NOT pick each other up as more wraiths will spawn, quick release if you fall. The wraiths will chase everyone around after you're body is gone so be quick about releasing to make the wraiths go away faster. Run around a lot if you have too. Remove Soulforge Enchantments prior to fighting this dragon.
Marauders:
Marauders is an update from Spring 2017.
It can be summoned on the opposite hour of the Dragon Flight. A man will appear on the East bridge. One assigned player will talk to him to begin the raid. 3 wagons will appear and drop loot at the North gate, East gate, and South gate in the guild hall. Three portals will appear at each spot with hoards of monsters coming to take away the loot dropped by the wagons. Our goal is to kill them and not let any get away back to the portals with the loot. If you kill a mob with a bag over it's head, you'll them be able to retrieve the bag which then needs to be placed back onto the pile of crates. Prioritize monsters stealing loot always.
Catapults will appear on the 3 points. One person will be assigned at each location to take them out as quickly as possible. The goal is to not let the guild hall get damaged as it takes away loot. They will however drops lots of loot that is then placed back onto the pile of crates.
This is a pretty fun event. When it starts, there will be 5 rounds which each have 5 waves. The mobs get harder with each wave and harder still with each round. Most of the time we only go 1 round and hold East gate only as if we don't have enough people and we lose all three spots, we lose the entire event. If we stay together as a unit we will be more successful.
Once a week per character can earn 600 influence from completing this event. Other guild vouchers will drop randomly at the end also. The more Rounds, the better the loot however if we lose one round, we get nothing, not even the influence. It's important for the host to make the appropriate judgment call to continue or not. Vote to End or Continue at the end option will appear. If only 1 of the 3 spots remains, we cannot go on to round 2 + however it's still a win! :)
Sum it Up:
So, joining a guild is awesome! Friends, fun, help, helping, great gear, great xp, becoming stronger, better, faster, teaching, learning, challenges, HE's, DF, all sorts of goodness!
Any Questions?
*This post may be edited and updated when questions are asked and answered*
