Defenders of the Blackblade [DotB]

"For Ascalon and Oink!"

The guild was founded on May 4th 2005 as a group of people who knew each other from outside the game, picking up people along the way. As for the Blackblade, no one actually knows anything about it, for his defenders protect it fiercely.

The small island in Fishermen’s Haven in Tyria has been the home of DotB for a long time and a great number were recruited while just chatting there. When Factions was introduced, it was only logical that the alliance that was joined was made up with people who also occupied the island in question. This is how they integrated the first ONL alliance. After many guilds joined and left, it was disbanded and then recreated to be know today as the second ONL alliance, composed of ONL, AnSy, DotB, Void, HMRC and BoS.

Built around friendship

The guild has a home in the Wizard Isle guild hall, as it reminds them of the Pre-Searing Ascalon and their first impressions of the game. There are currently around 60 members belonging to the DotB, who built on an ethos of teamwork and helping one another. Recently, they had the idea of starting their own wiki, which now counts over 200 articles and can be found at this address.

Every Thursday, the guild organizes an event which ranges from playing Elite Missions to finishing Masters on missions. During Canthan New Year, many of their players set out to gather the ingredients for the feast in groups. Thanks to that, they were able to supply several districts with the needed ingredients and scored them many Oink miniatures in the process. They also had Rock-Paper-Scissors tournaments and quizzes, as well as a scavenger hunt and they hosted a Christmas party in their Guild Hall for the guild members and all their friends.

The guild even has its own comic that you can read on these boards, along with the guild story.

PvE discussion

We asked DotB to share some thoughts about how they play in PvE and, after something about Gonzo (see below) wearing mismatched pieces of armour, here is what they came up with:

Read up on what you’re facing and adapt to what is needed. Also if it’s not working, keep trying to adapt your build to the situation if you have failed a mission and are back in the outpost.

Never give up, we’ve messed up so many times where we carried on regardless, it’s always good for a laugh and you feel even better to recover from such situations and overcome the obstacle ahead.

We let the tank go ahead and lure with a bow to grab aggro, once he has it the rest moves in and the monk keeps the tank standing.

Remember to have fun! Even if someone (not mentioning who) uses 'Aggro the world!' and makes the entire team run around like headless chicken's, at the end of the day, it is just a game we all play for fun.

Use common sense; know your skills and enemies. Know how to counter what comes on your path. Learn through experience and don’t be afraid to ask.

Member Profiles

Meet the people behind the avatars:

Calliara Blackheart

Location: England
Gaming Background: I've been an avid gamer for as long as I can remember. Although I'll play pretty much anything, RPG's have always been my favourite genre and before Guild Wars I've dabbled with games like Diablo II, World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XI. In Guild Wars, I prefer playing Warrior, Monk or Elementalist.
Favourite Character: My Warrior, Calliara Blackheart, she was the character I created on the launch day of Prophecies and has remained my favourite character since.
Position in the Guild: Guild Leader/Founder

Griphyne Of Nor

Location: England, Canterbury
Gaming Background: Started with the Atari and worked my way up. The most notable RPG I played is probably Diablo2, but not really in a multiplayer sense. Then again, I prefer RTS games over this kind of nonsensical role play. I think it's because it makes world domination possible. I guess if you're the monk, don't let your personal feelings about someone who's offensive about your play get in the way of your healing. You got a set task to do, that's to keep the party alive and kicking. We don't want you giving monks a bad name. That's MY job.
Favourite Character: Griphyne of Nor is my monk and has been my first and primary character since the beginning. I do have other characters, but monking is where my expertise lies. Plain and simple. Griphyne's pretty much the defining character in our guild comic because of this. I figure I went the monk route because it's not an easy way out and you either learn to do it well or people die. That, and no-one ever takes the monk seriously, which is a good thing in my case.
Position in the Guild: Officer

Darth Necrimus

Location: Denmark
Gaming Background: In the dawn of time (when there was no spam, no graphics and chat was done using the arcane method of IRC), I played my fair share of MUD. This was where my first interest for fantasy role-playing games began. Later I moved into graphical but more strategy based games, and then had quite many years without playing any games at all. Choosing Guild Wars was a lengthy selection process, but I ended up choosing it since it had many similarities to playing MUD; it had a strategy concept of cooperation and its concept of having instances of areas was what won me over, and there was no unnecessary grinding of XP or gold, which I earlier had so harshly experienced being boring in some MUD and other strategy games.
Favourite Character: Necrimus was my first character, born as a Necromancer/Elementalist in the Prophecies campaign, he has taken the most beating of all of my characters, but then again he also has a pool of skill points he will most likely never deplete. I never grow tired of playing necromancer, since there is always a place for this class in a team. The only problem is that there are so many nice skills to choose from that Necrimus never carries a resurrection of any kind and he really wishes he could have 10 skills loaded at the same time. Next to playing Necromancer, my favourites are Elementalist and Ritualist.
Position in the Guild: Officer

Katalia Silverblade

Location: United Kingdom
Gaming Background: Guild Wars was my first real gaming experience, this has opened the door for other games.
Favourite Character: Katalia Silverblade is my baby! She's my warrior and has been through all 3 campaigns. My other favourite character is my monk, Jade Lockhart, also known as Wiggles.
Position in the Guild: Officer

Doli Capax

Location: Denmark
Gaming Background: Favourite Character: My very first character was as a Ranger, because it was a profession I recognised from other RPG’s. However; as I got to understand Guild Wars and its various professions I opted for the Necromancer as my primary character both as Minion Master and Spiteful Spirit Spiker. This opened a whole new world of killing, Although at times it’s frustrating when your guild team is charging ahead and you’re standing behind summoning golems etc. It’s a challenge and really satisfying when your army of minions catches up and slaughters the enemy or your Spiteful Spirit hits just right and the mob kills itself.
Position in the Guild: Officer

Wise Witch

Location: Russia
Gaming Background: I have been playing everything more or less worthy since the ancient times of Diablo I, choosing mostly RPG’s and strategy games. GW is my first serious online experience and I don’t regret a single second spent on it!
Favourite Character: Most of the characters I have, especially those I bought a new armour for recently. To be a bit more serious, one of my favourites is my Elementalist, Wise Witch. She was the first one to finish Prophecies and probably was the one I have been picking more often when playing since then, especially when I was feeling lazy. My main strategy (as with any other profession) is to spend as little energy as possible with the most effect I can get. And, yes, therefore I am the one who is constantly moaning about lack of energy. Also I should admit that I am always tanking a bit too much but who cares if we are having fun?
Position in the Guild: Officer

Gonzo Salvato

Location: The Netherlands
Gaming Background: Started with NES, Faxanadu introduced me to the world of RPG's, been hooked every since, played most Final Fantasy games and Baldur's Gate brought my gaming to the PC. My brother told me to get Guild Wars, so after 6 months I finally did, been hooked ever since.
Favourite Character: My warrior is my primary character. It was my first character to finish Prophecies and the first one to get a set of 15k armour, piece by piece. I often think back of the days I wandered old Ascalon with my Moa bird. Nowadays I go about as a W/Me, taking advantage of the Mesmer stances to help while tanking. Though when we're fooling around I just try to aggro as many red dots I can see.
Position in the Guild: Officer

Aimee Shotz

Location: Australia
Gaming Background: Haven't got much of a gaming background, Guild Wars is my first. Would sit and watch my sister play, and then started sharing the account which turned out to be too confusing for fellow guildies. Now we both have our own accounts and I curse her for ever getting me started on the game. Hooked I tell ya!
Favourite Character: Would be my Ranger, I loved Robin Hood as a kid. Also enjoy playing my Ele, there's nothing like setting everything on fire and am just getting back into my warrior who I’d given up on ages ago, hoping one day Gonzo will help me cap the elite 'Aggro the World'.
Position in the Guild: My role in the guild is to be the poor Aussie girl who is left to play on her own when everyone goes to bed. My other role is to play that badly so that everyone else looks really really good. Aka 'Aimee no friends' but very proud member of Defenders of the Blackblade

Kratos Moonsilver

Location: England
Gaming Background: : I play PvE. Haven't played PvP for a long time. I like RPGs, but usually the ones I've played weren't multiplayer so Guild Wars is a nice change. It’s probably my first real online game.
Favourite Character: My first character, decided to stick with the ranger class because it was a playing style that I was used to playing in other games. Usually I'm set as an interrupter but I do like experimenting with traps and giving my Melandru Stalker some exercise.

Kimhari Ronso

Location: Sweden
Gaming Background: Favourite Character: My Elementalist is my primary character. He was the first character I created and the first I went through Prophecies with. In the beginning I was an E/Mo with a horrible fire/healing build and I had no runes. But later on it developed and nowadays I'm usually E/Me and nuking is what I most often do. I bought a 15k Hydromancer set during my first year and I kept using that armour set the most till I got my FoW set not long ago.