Guild Wars Classes

[Diesel]

This guide was posted as a followup to this one, where I tell you to choose a class.

When looking for a class that you want, just look for the bold red words.

Paragons

Paragons are the guardian angels of Elona, the champions of humanity against evil forces. The shining white and gold armor is symbolic of their role as the exemplary and steadfast guardians of all mankind.

Paragons rally allies with chants and shouts which both protect them and increase their combat effectiveness. They have a large base of energy, but only 2 pips of energy regeneration. Many of their skills require adrenaline to use.

Paragons are ranged fighters, throwing one-handed spears at their enemies. A variety of shields are available with paragon attribute requirements (Motivation and Command).

Attributes


Leadership (Primary)

The Paragon’s primary attribute, Leadership, you gain 1 Energy for each ally affected by one of your Shouts or Chants (maximum 1 Energy for every 2 ranks).

Command

Many Paragon skills, especially those that protect your allies or increase your tactical position on the battlefield, become more effective with higher Command.

Motivation

Many Paragon skills, especially those related to Energy management or that inspire your allies, become more effective with higher Motivation.

Spear Mastery

Spear Mastery increases the damage you do with spears and your chance to inflict a critical hit when using a spear. Many skills, especially spear attack skills, become more effective with higher Spear Mastery.

Dervish

The Dervish is a holy warrior who wields a scythe with a martial prowess that enables him or her to lash out at multiple enemies. Dervishes wade into battle with powerful enchantments and prayers that grant them haste, protection, healing, and elemental fury. Their faith and service to all the gods of Elona gifts them with the unique ability to become a living embodiment of a god’s will. The Dervish class is exclusive to the Guild Wars Nightfall campaign.

Bearing a pious heart, dervishes wear hooded robes and bracers as a symbol of humility. The base armor rating of dervish armor is the same as for rangers and assassins.

Attributes


Mysticism (Primary)

Mysticism, the Dervish’s primary attribute, gives you 1 Health for each rank of Mysticism and 1 Energy for every 3 ranks of Mysticism whenever an Enchantment on you ends.

Earth Prayers

Many Dervish Spells, especially those dealing with defense or Earth damage, become more effective with higher Earth Prayers.

Scythe Mastery

Scythe Mastery increases the damage you do with scythes and your chance to inflict a critical hit when using a scythe. Many skills, especially scythe attack skills, become more effective with higher Scythe Mastery.

Wind Prayers

Many Dervish Spells, especially those dealing with movement or cold damage, become more effective with higher Wind Prayers.

Common usage


Combat

Dervishes wield scythes, a weapon with a high damage output. With the ability and skills to inflict damage upon multiple adjacent foes, movement and positioning, as well as careful maintenance of enchantments, become very important for maximum effectiveness.

While dervishes can easily decimate high-leveled groups single-handedly and sport excellent prowess in battle as well as the ability to embody the gods of Tyria, they are not all-powerful or invincible. Many of their skills affect only those that are adjacent to them.

Running

The Dervish can be combined with the Assassin as a secondary profession to create an elite-runner that can escape from and survive extremely dangerous situations. The best Dervish runners primarily ferry other players through the Southern Shiverpeaks.

Tanking

While only having an initial max armor rating of 70, a dervish’s use of multiple enchantments to sustain increased health regeneration and armor makes it an excellent profession for tanking. Because of its larger energy reserve over the Warrior the dervish Obsidian Tank is becoming especially popular for high level farming in areas like the Underworld and the Fissure of Woe.

Ritualist

Where a ranger lives as one with the spirit world, a ritualist can and will be its master. Ritualists shield their eyes to better commune with spirits that grant great power and protection.

Ritualists channel other-worldly energies from the Mists and commune with spirits through mystic Binding Rituals, bending them to aid their allies or punish their foes. The energy channeled from the Mists powers ritualist skills, enhancing the deadliness of an ally’s weapon and wreaking havoc on an enemy’s health. The ritualist can also use the remains of the dead to defend the living, not by reanimating corpses as a necromancer would, but through the ritual use of urns and ashes.

Attributes


Spawning Power(Primary)

For each rank of Spawning Power, summoned or animated creatures gain 4% more Health. Spawning Power also makes many Ritualist skills related to spirit creatures more effective.

Channeling Magic

No inherent effect. Many Ritualist skills, especially those related to lightning damage and energy, become more effective with higher Channeling Magic.

Communing

No inherent effect. Many Ritualist skills, especially those related to summoning spirits, become more effective with higher Communing.

Restoration Magic

No inherent effect. Many Ritualist skills, especially those related to healing, life stealing and defense, become more effective with higher Restoration Magic.

Common usage


Restoration

Restoration magic is the healing branch of Ritualist skills. They can be as powerful, or more, than its Monk counterparts, but they’re rarely as simple to use, since its effectiveness often changes depending on conditional factors such as the presence of Spirits nearby, whether you’re holding an item or not and if the spell target is affected by a weapon spell. Nevertheless, a good Restoration ritualist can keep a party alive with remarkable competence.

Channeling

Channeling skills are the most damage-oriented tools available to a Ritualist. Rivaling in raw firepower some of the biggest guns Elementalists have to show, Channeling spells such as Spirit Rift can obliterate enemies quite quickly. However, as most skills of this class, they are not straightforward and often have a catch to use, such as the 3-second delay in Spirit Rift or dealing increased damage if certain conditions are met. The ability to summon damage-dealing spirits and to support the party through weapon spells such as Splinter Weapon further increases the usefulness of Channeling skills.

Spirit wrangler/herder

A Ritualist manager of offensive spirits that uses channeling skills like Painful Bond to increase damage to foes done by spirits , Spirit Boon Strike to damage foes while healing the spirits, and Signet of Spirits or Offering of Spirit to gain energy when spirits are within earshot when Boon of Creation is not enough as energy management. Spirits like Bloodsong, Pain, Anguish, Dissonance, and Shadowsong are seen often. Wanderlust is usually a favorite elite spirit to use along with Earthbind to cause knock downs and Dissonance to interrupt foes while they aren’t knocked down.

Spirit spammer

A ritualist which focuses on summoning spirits as often as possible with skills like Ritual Lord, Weapon of Quickening, and sometimes with the ranger stance Serpent’s Quickness to reduce recharge times of binding rituals and an energy management skill, Boon of Creation. They can either be offensive or defensive spirit spammers.

The offensive variety is like the spirit wrangler but spams attack spirits and uses skills such as Rupture Soul to damage foes before summoning the destroyed spirit, Explosive Growth to damage foes, and Doom to damage foes along with spirits.

The defensive variety uses protective spirits such as Shelter and Union in that order and healing spirits like Life, Recovery, Recuperation. Spirit to Flesh and Spirit’s Gift are used to provide additional healing. Skills such as Signet of Binding and Signet of Creation provide prolong life to a spirit for a limited time to keep spirits alive enough to summon replacements.

Note:Before the Soul Reaping nerf, they were used as a battery to provide energy to necromancers.

Minion bomber

Minion Bombers are a quite unique breed of Ritualists. Relying heavily on Necromancer skills such as Death Nova and Animate Bone Minions, the goal of a Minion Bomber is to create a quick army of disposable creatures and explode them on his enemies. Ritualist/Necromancer characters are well suited for this task, thanks to skills like Explosive Growth and Signet of Creation. While a Necromancer can use more or less the same tactics, Ritualists do it with far greater style.

Secondary professions


Warrior

Defensive stances from the Tactics line combined with defensive Item Spells can offer protection against foes. Shouts such as “Shields Up!” or “Watch Yourself!” can provide defensive benefits to most of your party. The elite skill Spirit’s Strength can be used for a large damage boost combined with a melee weapon and warrior Attack Skills to function like a warrior.

Ranger

The Ritualist’s Spawning Power can be used to reinforce nature spirits with additional health.

Serpent’s Quickness or Quickening Zephyr can reduce the lengthy recharge times on Spirits in place of Ritual Lord to use another elite. Ranger traps can be used to protect vital spirits or allies.

Weapon spells like Splinter Weapon and certain Bow Attacks like Dual Shot or Barrage can provide spiking potential.

Many running skills like Storm’s Embrace, Natural Stride, and Storm Chaser can be used.

Monk

Monk skills can provide additional condition removal and give the ritualist hex removal. Skills such as Martyr or Draw Conditions can be used with Resilient Was Xiko and Resilient Weapon to put conditions on a single person best able to handle them.

Attuned Was Songkai can be used to spam Heal Party or high costing Protection Prayers spells.

Smiting Prayers skills like Zealot’s Fire can be used with spammable weapon spells like Vengeful Weapon to help the ally and punish melee foes who are harassing spell casters or melee characters who are taking damage.

Necromancer

Spawning Power can provide more health to minions at the cost of lower level minions. Spawning Power skills can make great use of minion creation skills to add damage and energy management when summoning minions in a large group and the use of skills like Death Nova to damage foes when minions fall in battle(also with the help of Dark Bond to redirects damage dealt to you to one of your minions) which is common in Minion Bomber builds.

Attuned Was Songkai and Awaken the Blood(+2 to Blood & Curses) could be used to spam Life stealing spells in Blood Magic line or spam curses.

Mesmer

Ritualists can make use of mantras to gain armor against elemental attacks and gain whenever hit by elemental attacks. Mantra of Resolve is used to protect against interrupts which is useful when summoning spirit. Arcane Echo is used to increase the damage potential of channeling magic builds and enable ritualists to farm with Vengeful Was Khanhei effectively.

They can also make use of stances like Physical or Elemental Resistance and an addition of hex removal. Also, mesmer interrupts make a nice addition to the three ritualist interrupts.

The Mesmer skill Signet of Midnight can be to blind the user and the foe while taking advantage of Resilient Weapon and Resilient Was Xiko.

Elementalist

Air Magic skills can be used to inflict damage with armor penetration or conditions like weakness from Enervating Charge or Glimmering Mark which can be combined with the Channeling Magic lightning spells for an effective blinding ritualist. Many glyphs can be used to reduce recharge time and energy cost on spells in the ritualist’s lineup or to help spread item and weapon spells. Note that binding rituals are unaffected.

Several knock down skills from the Earth Magic line can benefit greatly from Earthbind spirit.

Ward spells can help protect the party in addtion to a defensive spirit like Union to stay alive longer. Ward Against Foes can be used to slow down melee foes that are aiming to destroy the spirit. Note that wards do not affect spirits.

Assassin

Assassin skills from the Shadow Arts line is used primarily for mobility purposes to evade and escape from attacks with Dark Escape, Death’s Retreat, and Return allows to shadowstep to a safer location or for defensive purposes with skills like Feigned Neutrality and Shroud of Distress. Note that shadowstepping will cause a bundle item like an urn and ashes to drop which can be used as an advantage depending on the bundle being held.

Spirit Walk allows efficient travel between spirits to use skills that require the ritualist to “touch” their spirits to work or to just escape to spirit that may not be near the foe. Swap allows the ritualist to switch places with a spirit like Destruction, Shadowsong, or a minion while escaping from the foe.

Spirit spammers can make use of Assassin’s Promise to increase mobility by recharging slow recharging spirits with energy return provided that the hexed foe is killed in time.

Spirit’s Strength can be combined with daggers and dagger attack skills for a large damage boost to function more like an assassin than a ritualist.

Paragon

Vocal was Sogolon can be used to make all shouts and chants last longer. There are many good candidates within the Motivation line that will give healing and energy to the party. Signet of Synergy could be used as a substitute Ghostmirror Light as Ritualists usually do not utilize enchantments.

The command skill “Stand Your Ground!” can be used to provide armor for nonmoving allies, mainly spell casters. “Help Me!” could be used to make other allies’ Spells targeting you cast 50% faster last longer just in case you’re being targeted.

The leadership skill Hexbreaker Aria can be used as an unlinked conditional hex removal.

Dervish

Ritualists can make use of skills from the Wind Prayers attribute like Featherfoot Grace to move and remove conditions quicker. Earth Prayers such as Veil of Thorns can be used to cripple the attacking foe and escape.

Spirit’s Strength can be combined with a Scythe and Scythe attack skills for a large damage boost to function more like a melee fighter than a ritualist.

Assassin

The Assassin walks the shadows, a deadly viper ready to strike at the heart when an enemy least expects it. Wearing only lightweight armor, they have mastered the ability to move as shadows, avoiding damage by not being there when an enemy’s strike lands.

Assassins are masters of their chosen weapon, the dagger, and are experts at inflicting Critical Strikes that cause massive damage. Assassins are trained to efficiently link attacks together in a chain to give added combat bonuses. Their other magical skills include hexes that lower a target’s defenses and protect the assassin from harm.

Attributes


Critical Strikes (Primary)

For each point spent on this primary attribute, the Assassin gains an additional 1% chance to score a critical hit. Assassins also gain Energy whenever they score a critical hit in this way.

Dagger Mastery

Boost the Dagger Mastery attribute to boost the damage the Assassin inflicts with daggers and the chance to land a critical hit with a dagger. Many skills, especially dagger attack skills, become more effective with increased Dagger Mastery. This attribute also improves your chance of performing a Double Attack and striking with both daggers at once.

Deadly Arts

Increase the Deadly Arts attribute to improve the duration and effectiveness of Hexes and other skills that make a single enemy vulnerable to the Assassin’s strikes.

Shadow Arts

Put points into the Shadow Arts attribute to improve skills that boost the Assassin’s defenses and allow instantaneous shadow movement. Shadow Arts also contains some healing skills.

Elementalist

Elementalists command the four elemental forces: earth, air, fire and water. With magic derived from the very foundations of nature itself, Elementalists can inflict more damage in a single strike than any other profession. There are as many types of Elementalists as there are elements and ways to combine them. Some Elementalists choose to study two or more elements to maintain broad discipline, though many prefer to focus on one unique element.

Earth Magic triggers quakes and volcanoes, envelops foes in solid rock and can add to the strength and stamina of allies. Earth Magic is especially powerful against fighters with many skills that cause blindness and knockdown or weaken attacking foes.

Air Magic is driven by the power of storms and lightning, granting allies greater speed or targeting specific foes with a focused, high-damage attack.

Fire Magic is often considered the most purely destructive form, inflicting searing pain and damage on multiple enemies.

Water Magic summons ice and mist to slow enemies down and blur their vision, inflicts freezing cold damage and even protects allies from other forms of magical attack.

The primary elementalist attribute, Energy Storage, gives elementalists the highest maximum energy pool in the game. This is useful as a buffer for exhaustive and high energy skills, but should not be seen as energy management.

Attributes


Energy Storage (Primary)

The Elementalist’s primary attribute, Energy Storage, increases maximum Energy and boosts skills that help regenerate Energy.

Air Magic

Air Magic increases the duration and effectiveness of the Elementalist’s Air skills, which pierce armor, cause Blindness, and knock enemies flat.

Earth Magic

Build up Earth Magic to increase the duration and effectiveness of the Elementalist’s earth skills, which can protect both hero and ally or inflict damage on opponents that ignores their armor.

Fire Magic

Improve Fire Magic to increase the duration and effectiveness of the Elementalist’s fire skills, which inflict fire damage and can affect large areas.

Water Magic

Allocate points to Water Magic to increase the duration and effect of the Elementalist’s water skills, which slow enemy movement and turns the blood of foes to ice. This line of skills includes many snares, these skills are helpful in pvp battles were you need to slow down a enemy.

Common usage


Echoing

Due to the slow recharge of some very powerful nuking skills, some elementalist choose to use the Mesmer skills Arcane Echo and the elite Echo which allows an E/Me to repeat his/her strongest spells upon a target. Using both the echo skills, area of effect spells like Meteor Shower and Rodgort’s Invocation can be cast up to three times in seconds. Using this tactic, the Elementalist can potentially triple their damage per second (DPS). The elite elementalist skill Glyph of Renewal also allows the caster to instantly regain the skill they just cast. Either of these methods delivers high damage output in a very short amount of time, but may also drain the elementalist’s energy in a very short amount of time if proper energy management tactics are not taken.

Nuking

In PvE gameplay, the Elementalist can usually be found filling a heavy damage role called a “nuker”. The role of a nuker is to inflict large amounts of damage over a given area in a short period of time weakening or killing whole groups of enemies. This is typically done using Fire Magic, which lends this role its nickname, but other elements are being used with the introduction of some new skills like the elite skill Sandstorm. An efficient nuker will usually remain behind a set of tanks while they casting spells from a distance. In PvE, a nuker may effectively take out an entire group at once just by understanding the effects of their skills on the enemy AI.

Spiking

Spiking is the art of focusing a lot of damage on a single target during (very) short period. For example, an Elementalist who uses Air Magic to deal a large amount of damage to a single target concentrates its power inflicting more damage on a specific target with 25% armor penetration against that target. Another example of spiking is the Earth Magic skill Obsidian Flame, which is sometimes used by teams during GvG casting it all at the same time at one target to take it out in just 2 seconds.

Necromancer

Necromancers wield the power of death itself - a power no enemy can stand against forever. The dark arts of the necromancer usually take a toll on the caster by forcing a sacrifice of health, but the harm that befalls a necromancer’s foes in return makes this a small, if painful, price to pay.

Necromancers can revive corpses as deadly foot soldiers using Death Magic, Blood Magic steals health from foes and Curses wreak havoc among the Necromancer’s opponents by sapping enemy enchantments and muting their healing ability. Necromancers keep their energy bars full with Soul Reaping, the primary necromancer attribute, which feeds upon the deaths of others.

Attributes


Soul Reaping (Primary)

Soul Reaping, the Necromancer’s primary attribute, improves your ability to gain energy whenever a creature near you dies. For each point you have in Soul Reaping you will gain 1 energy when a creature near you dies (halved for Spirits). You can only gain energy this way once every 5 seconds.

Blood Magic

Blood Magic adds to the duration and effectiveness of skills that steal Health from enemies and give it to you.

Curses

Add points to Curses and boost the duration and effectiveness of Curse skills, reducing your enemies’ effectiveness in battle.

Death Magic

Increase Death Magic to augment the duration and effect of skills that deal cold and shadow damage, as well as those that summon undead minions for you to command.

Common usage


Energy support

Energy support necromancers, often called “batteries” or “BiPs”, use the elite skill Blood is Power to supply their allies with energy. For casters such as the Elementalist and the Monk this is extremely beneficial as it allows them to continue using their skills without running out of energy. Batteries are very popular for supporting Bonding Monks and Nuker Elementalists in areas like the Fissure of Woe.

Minion Masters

Often referred to as MMs, minion masters use Death Magic to animate a small army of undead creatures from the corpses of fallen victims and allies. MMs are extremely popular in all areas of gameplay taking some of the pressure off the team when being swarmed with large or numerous groups of enemies.

Cursing

Another common necromancer build uses curses (hex spells) to drain an enemy’s health or inflict damage whenever any enemy attempts to attack or use spells. One such build uses the elite hex spell Spiteful Spirit more commonly referred to as an SS for short. This build excels at wreaking havoc on enemy groups and is commonly used throughout the game.

Mesmer

The Mesmer is not content with living in reality - they prefer to create their own realities. Mesmers are the mental masters of illusion, control, and domination, subverting an enemy’s Energy for their own purposes and supporting the entire party in battle with powerful, mind-bending magic. The primary Mesmer attribute Fast Casting works just like it sounds - you can sling your spells at a much higher rate than any other profession.

The Mesmer is powerful as a damage-dealing spellcaster, a support player, or both. They should usually avoid the front lines, but can turn the tide of most any fight in seconds.

Attributes


Fast Casting (Primary)

This primary attribute lets the Mesmer cast spells faster than any other profession.

Domination Magic

This attribute boosts the duration and effect of your Domination spells, which allow you to control your enemies’ actions.

Illusion Magic

Increase your Illusion attribute to extend the duration and effect of Illusion spells that injure, deceive, slow, and otherwise hinder your foes.

Inspiration Magic

Put points into Inspiration to pump up the duration and effect of your Inspiration spells, which steal Energy from enemies.

Common usage


Interrupts

Many mesmer skills interrupt a target foe’s actions. These skills can also steal energy, cause damage or disable skills. Combined with points in the mesmer’s primary attribute, Fast Casting, these already quick activating skills are even faster to cast.

Shut down

Domination skills put mesmers in command of a foe’s health and energy. They can force their foes to choose whether they should cast a spell or attack, when the consequence is loss of health or having their skills disabled (from skills such as Backfire, Empathy or Diversion).

Energy denial

Mesmers can call on Inspiration Magic skills (like Energy Drain) to steal energy directly from their enemies. By taking the energy of their foes they can reduce the foe’s effectiveness, as well as providing extra energy for themselves for casting more offensive spells at their foes. Skills such as Energy Burn can also be used to directly destroy the enemy’s energy.

Health degeneration

Illusion Magic skills can inflict damage, slow an enemy, and drain away the power of those that oppose them. Spells such as Conjure Phantasm or Conjure Nightmare can cause incredibly high health degeneration.

[B]Monk[/b]

Monks can speak directly to the gods to open a conduit for divine magic that can heal and protect allies in battle or unleash holy power upon the monk’s enemies. The monk’s connection to the gods is illustrated in the primary monk attribute, Divine Favor, which grants extra healing whenever they use a spell on an ally (while also making divine favor skills line more effective).

Monk are the definitive “support” profession and are so often in demand they will probably never have to wait long for a group invitation.

Attributes


Divine Favor (Primary)

Every point spent in this primary Monk attribute grants a small healing bonus (additional 3.2 healing per point spent in this attribute) to all Monk spells that target allies. Divine Favor also pumps up the duration and potency of spells that call forth divine powers to aid the Monk’s allies.

Healing Prayers

Healing Prayers increases the duration and effectiveness of spells that allow the Monks to heal themselves and their allies.

Protection Prayers

Protection Prayers adds to the duration and power of Protection spells that keep you and your allies safe.

Smiting Prayers

Smiting Prayers boosts the duration and damage caused by skills that harm your foes - especially the undead.

Common usage


Healing

Healing is arguably the most popular of the monk’s roles. Healing monks build up the Healing Prayers attribute to revive allies and mend their wounds. Spike healers focus primarily on Healing Prayers and Divine Favor to heal large amounts in one spell.

Smiting

Smiting monks put points into Smiting Prayers, which inflict damage on foes and work especially well against undead enemies. Smiting prayers have a long history in farming, as energy management and damage dealing for “invincible” monks.

Protection

Protection monks pump up the Protection Prayers attribute and use magic that prevents allies and themselves from taking damage. One such role is a bonding monk, using Life Barrier and Life Bond on party members to absorb damage. Another well known skill combination is to use Divine Boon and Protection Prayers spells for cheap fast heals that also protect your allies.

Secondary professions

A monk’s secondary profession is best used to help support that monk. The mesmer secondary is a very common choice because of their Inspiration Magic spells that help with energy management. Many other primary professions choose monk as their secondary for the ability to resurrect their party members as many times as needed.

Ranger

The Ranger is more in touch with living nature than any other profession. Where the Elementalist harnesses and tames the power of the elements, the Ranger lives as one with life in all its abundance, and utilizes unique survival skills that come from this connection. Rangers can perform nature rituals that manipulate the environment to hinder enemies, or draw on the power of the wilderness to heal and assist allies in battle. Rangers can also tame the beasts of the wild and command them to fight at their side.

The Ranger is the master of the targeted distance attack using bows to damage their foes from afar. The Ranger’s primary attribute Expertise demonstrates the benefits of communing with nature. Attack skills and preparations (like Apply Poison) will use less energy with more points in Expertise.

Rangers have many stances that allow them to run faster and block attacks against them. In the way a warrior would reduce the damage from an attack, the Ranger chooses not to get hit.

Attributes


Expertise (Primary)

Expertise lets you manage your Energy efficiently by shrinking the cost of attack skills and Preparations. Expertise does not only affect Ranger skills, but any profession’s.

Beast Mastery

Beast Mastery improves skills that make your animal companion more effective in battle.

Marksmanship

The Marksmanship attribute adds damage to basic bow attacks and is the base attribute for most bow skills.

Wilderness Survival

Wilderness Survival improves a Ranger’s defensive Stances, Preparations, Traps, and Nature Rituals that affect the entire battlefield.

Common usage


Pulling

In a party the ranger will often be called upon to pull foes toward the group with a long-ranged arrow. This it to separate enemy groups, ensuring that there is a safe distance between the party and any other foes and minimizing the chance that the group will have to fight more enemies than they can safely handle.

If you are required to pull while your pet is with you attack your target and as soon as the first arrow has been loosed and is in flight, move backwards to cancel the attack. This way, your arrow will still hit your target and draw a small group to your location, while your pet will remain motionless until you attack or are attacked. Alternatively, you could just as easily command your pet to Heel. The preceding strategy of pulling is for those who would rather not be bothered with pet controls, and was developed before pet controls were released.

Barraging

A barrage Ranger uses the elite skill Barrage to fire arrows at multiple enemies at once. Barrage rangers are very useful in situations where a party is fighting clustered groups of enemies.

Degen

A very useful application of the Ranger is the use of bow attacks and preparations that inflict some sort of condition in addition to damage. Preparations like Apply Poison and Incendiary Arrows or bow attacks like Burning Arrow will cause a health drain or health “degeneration” on a target over a period of time when hit with an arrow.

Interrupting

With a variety of interrupt causing skills available to them, Rangers are very adept at denying enemy casters the opportunity to use their skills against your party. This role can really benefit a party when fighting high-level bosses that use especially devastating spells with longer initialization times like Glint, Kuunavang, and the Kraken. This role usually involves the use of a recurve bow to maximise the chances of a successful interrupt.

Running

Rangers have several speed buffs (such as Dodge, Zojun’s Haste, and Escape) that will increase his or her running speed temporarily, and grants the Ranger the ability to block a large portion of incoming attacks. They make decent “runners” (people who bypass monsters instead of fighting them to reach new areas) when combined with a secondary profession like a Monk or a Dervish. The Ranger has no innate defense against knockdowns, specific conditions, and hexes, which all limit his or her abilities as a runner.

Trapping

The Ranger has the unique ability to lay hidden traps that activate without warning when an enemy passes over them. This tactic is heavily used in the Underworld to release a variety of conditions upon an enemy, draining its life extremely quickly. This tactic is also very effective for creating kill zones at choke points.

Secondary professions

Rangers may have a wide variety of secondary professions due to the use of their Expertise attribute.

Common secondary professions for Ranger primaries include: Monk, for use with Mending Touch; Necromancer, for use with the Touch Ranger; and Warrior, for use of Tactics stances like Balanced Stance as well as energy-dependant melee attacks like Cyclone Axe and Irresistible Blow.

Warrior

The Warrior is a profession dedicated to up-close and personal combat. It is the quintessential hack-and-slash fantasy hero: they are tough, strong, and adept at wielding melee weapons on the battlefield. Many warrior skills are fuelled by adrenaline, a special power pool generated as a warrior fights and takes hits. Adrenal skills allow a warrior (a profession with inherently low energy regeneration) to have many attack skills to use even when their energy runs out.

Attributes

Strength (Primary)

Strength, available only to warrior primaries, adds 1% armor penetration per attribute level to attack skills. Strength is also the basis of some utility skills and non-weapon attribute specific attacks, as well as being a Shield requirement attribute.

Axe Mastery

Axe Mastery increases basic axe damage and damage dealt by axe skills

Hammer Mastery

Hammer Mastery increases basic hammer damage and damage dealt by hammer skills.

Swordsmanship

Swordsmanship increases basic sword damage as well as damage dealt by sword skills.

Tactics

Tactics increases the effectiveness of shouts and stances that give the warrior and allies an advantage in battle, as well as being a Shield requirement attribute.

Common usage

Combat

The Warrior in Guild Wars is able to excel not just defensively, but offensively as well. Their attacks can cause many conditions such as bleeding or deep wound. Masters of the axe, sword, and hammer, Warriors generally favor focusing on skills from a single mastery.

The axe deals very high base damage (maximum unmodified 6-2 and has a high attack rate (every 1.33 seconds), combining with many powerful skills to deal damage, such as Eviscerate. However, they have a very unstable damage structure, and the amount of damage dealt can range wildly from 4 to 40.

Swords also attack quickly (every 1.33 seconds) but do not deal as much damage as the other weapons (maximum unmodified 15-22). Sword skills cause many conditions, and deal a lot of damage conditionally (such as Final Thrust). They have a more stable damage structure than axes, and most hits will deal around the same amount of damage.

Hammers are the slowest of the weapons (every 1.75 seconds), but each hit deals massive amounts of bone-crushing damage. Hammers offer many attacks that can knock down an enemy (Backbreaker is one such example).

More aggressive Warriors take advantage of increased armor penetration through Strength, the warrior’s primary attribute. As suggested by the raw damage increase of Strength, Warriors can produce an impressive, steady damage output. While Warriors typically focus on one target at a time, their damage is formidable. Many warriors forgo the use of defensive skills entirely, finding it better to kill their enemies quickly: “The best defense is a good offense”. In PvP a Warrior will usually avoid going defensive, choosing instead to deal as much damage as possible to enemy players.

Defense

Warriors often function as what many MMO gamers call a “tank”, a word that describes a defensive, damage-absorbing juggernaut. With their heavy armor and damage absorbing runes and shields, Warriors fulfill this role by soaking up abuse that other characters in the group could not handle. This gives other professions in the party, such as Rangers or Elementalists, the distance needed to make use of ranged abilities.

Some warrior skills are predominantly defensive, such as those found under the Tactics attribute. Tactics skills often help both protect and lead you and your allies.

Running

Warriors have stances and shouts that increase their run speed. They make very good “runners” and when combined with a Monk or a Ranger as a secondary profession they can escape from and survive extremely dangerous situations.

Secondary professions

The Warrior profession combines well with any secondary, as long as you keep in mind their smaller inherent energy pool. Much skill synergy can be found between Warrior skills and certain enchantments; one such example involves using Live Vicariously with Cyclone Axe, where the Warrior will gain health every time they hit a target.

Credits.

If you are looking for other things, just look on this page, I have made plenty of guides about Guild Wars here . As always, post any questions comments right here, and I will answer them asap.
~Diesel

[dog_keeper]

Thanks for the information Diesel