The Warrior

This profession guide is accurate as of BWE2.

The warrior is a master of weapons who relies on speed, strength, toughness, and heavy armor to survive in battle. A warrior can shrug off blow after blow to stay in the fight, all the while building up adrenaline to fuel his offense.

-Official Guild Wars 2 Website

Overall Theme

The warrior is the epitome of martial prowess. Forget those awkwardly over-sized magic staves and tiny, little daggers; bring out the hammers, swords, and all other properly-sized weapons. Warriors are the ultimate physical fighters. Their class mechanic is their burst skill: each weapon has a skill that can be utilized to varying degrees based on the adrenaline they’ve built up by fighting. Add to this their heavy armor and sizable health pool, and you have yourself one tough cookie.

Weapons

Greatsword – The greatsword is a highly-offensive weapon that features two gap closers. Whirlwind Attack is the less reliable of the two given its lack of stopping at a target, but it does function as a way to escape if in over your head. The burst skill, Arcing Slice, is good for being able to maintain constant might.

Hammer – The hammer is a great weapon for when you’re already on top of your opponent. It’s hard to get away from a warrior with a hammer unless they push you back with Staggering Blow. Beyond the cripple and knock down, the burst skill, Earthshaker, has not only a leap but a stun as well.

Longbow – The longbow is the more AoE-focused option for ranged that the warrior has. Its powerful burst skill, Combustive Shot, causes a lot of damage over a large area, while even smaller attacks (e.g., Arcing Arrow) have potent explosions.

Rifle – The rifle is a single-target, ranged option for warriors. It’s full of debilitating, condition-heavy attacks to let you weaken an opponent and finish them with Kill Shout. If they get too closer for comfort, Rifle Butt can smack them away from you.

Axe (MH) – The axe gives you a solid single-target auto-attack as well as an AoE attack. You also get a handy, ranged cripple from Throw Axe. The burst skill, Eviscerate, is a strong attack on a leap.

Mace (MH) – The mace has solid defensive skills, capable of inflicting weakness and daze to opponents. Counter Blow also gives a block skill. Skull Crack, the burst skill, also gives a close-range stun.

Sword (MH) – The sword gives a good array of attacks to keep foes in your foes in range with its burst skill, Flurry, immobilizing foes. If your foe does manage to get away, Savage Leap can get you back in the game.

Axe (OH) – Off-hand axes give the potential for a short-lived fury buff as well as a powerful ranged attack with Whirling Axe.

Mace (OH) – Off-hand maces have a strong offensive ability to cause vulnerability as well as Tremor to knockdown enemies.

Shield – As expected, shields have defensive skills. In addition to blocking, shields can stun with Shield Bash.

Sword (OH) – Off-hand sword gives bleeding on both skills with Riposte also blocking attacks.

Warhorn – The warhorn is also defensive, though less so than the shield. Charge is useful for moving around the battlefield, giving swiftness and removing movement-impairing conditions.

Underwater

Harpoon Gun – As the name implies, the harpoon gun is the ranged weapon for underwater combat, with multiple attacks like Knot Shot that keep enemies at a range. The burst skill, Forceful Shot, is a hard-hitting, single attack.

Spear – The spear is a melee, AoE-oriented weapon for underwater combat. The burst skill, Whirling Strike, is a powerful AoE-attack. Many other attacks are also aimed at close-range AoE, such as Tsunami Slash.

Slot Skills

Most of the warrior’s slot skills are about buffing the player or allies, with only one group of utility skills focusing on the enemy. Healing Signet gives the least amount of healing over an extended period of time, though it heals for the most at any one time. Mending heals the most over any period of time and also removes conditions. Healing Surge heals and gives an adrenaline boost, making it the best heal, offensively speaking.

Physical – Physical skills are movement-control skills with (mostly) medium or short recharges.

Signet – As with all signets, each skill has a passive ability that can be put on recharge for an activated component. Two of them are strictly offensive, while the other two are strictly defensive.

Shout – Shouts give instantaneous, AoE boon-based buffs to allies (though “Shake It Off!” just removes boons). “Fear Me!” is the only shout that affects enemies.

Banner – Banners are placeable, AoE attribute buffs for you and nearby allies. Once placed, they can be picked up and carried with you. 

Stance – Stances are limited, short-term, personal buffs that tend to have relatively powerful effects.

Elite – The warrior’s elite skills are varied and powerful. Signet of Rage gives long-lasting boons to dramatically increase offensive ability. Rampage turns you into an extremely powerful, physical form. Battle Standard revive nearby allies and give short-term, buffs to the warrior and its allies.

Traits

The warrior’s five trait lines are all named after aspects of combat. The final trait gives Brawn, the warrior-only attribute that increases burst skill damage.

Strength (Pow/Exp) – The minor traits promote frequent, offensive use of dodging. The major traits increase damage damage with adrenaline, offer a vitality buff, add damage to banners, give extra might, remove conditions on heal skills, add confusion to interrupts, buff physical skills, boost critical damage with main-hand axes, and increase damage for greatswords, spears, and off-hand maces, swords, and axes. The final traits are Axe Mastery and Vicious Might.

Arms (Pre/Mal) – The minor traits add bleeding to criticals, crit chance to burst skills, and damage to bleeding foes. The major traits increase critical chances, buff critical hits, increase bleed duration, give fury on immobilization, give frenzy when hitting foes under 25 percent health, and make rifle and harpoon gun shots pierce. The final traits are Last Chance and Sniper.

Defense (Tou/Com) – The minor traits increase armor at full health, add health regeneration to adrenaline, and boost power. The major traits give adrenaline when hit, projectile reflection with blocking, automatic Balanced Stance and Endure Pain, more health when rallying, higher toughness, longer stances, hammer buffs, and buffs to mace criticals. The final traits are Merciless Hammer and Sundering Mace.

Tactics (Vit/Con) – The minor traits give buffs to reviving. The major traits damage increases to yourself and nearby allies, buffs to longbows, buffs to banners, buffs to shouts, immobilization on cripples, and shorter recharges on the warhorn. The final traits are Inspiring Battle Standard and Vigorous Shouts. 

Discipline (Pro/Bra) – The minor traits give buffs to weapon swapping. The major traits give bonuses with adrenaline, buffs to burst skills, faster signet recharges, a bonus to Vengeance, immobilization breaking to movement skills, and add vigor to stance. The final traits are Adrenal Reserves and Quick Bursts.

Difficulty

Warriors are a very easy-to-understand class without any complicated class mechanics. They’re fairly easy to get into in PvE. But, their limited selection of gap-closing slot skills make the class a little more difficult for newer players in PvP.

I thought I’d share with everyone a few of the builds I’ve been using in SPvP, so here are my top and bottom three builds. I’ll start with the top three, and then cover the bottom three and how I think I can improve them (if possible).

Quad-Dagger Thief

So this build was an improvement on the one I’d used during BWE1. Essentially, I whittle enemies down and use Heartseeker to kill off anyone near me with low health. Utility skills are there to work as gap closers, as well as Steal. I rely on dodging and stealth for defense rather than putting a lot of traits or stats into it. The traits are a little weird, not having 30 in any line, but it does help balance the build out a bit and everything works together fairly well.

I use two identical weapon sets, because of the usefulness of the sigils and the fact that I have essentially everything I need in the one weapon set and slot skills (plenty of gap closers, finishers, stealth, etc.). My runes were basically picked to improve the critical aspect of my damage, which lets my hits become even bigger, especially after weapon swap.

[Luna-Atra Link]

Weapon Sets: Dagger/Dagger, Dagger/Dagger

Slot Skills: Signet of Malice, Infiltrator’s Signet, Scorpion Wire, Signet of Shadows, Dagger Storm

Trait Allocation: 20-20-20-10

Major Traits: Sundering Strikes, Dagger Training, Executioner Combo Crit Chance, Infusion of Shadow, Patience, Fleet of Foot

Sigils: Doom/Intelligence, Doom/Intelligence

Runes: Golemancer x5, Rage x1

Amulet: Berserker’s Amulet w/ Berserker’s Jewel

Warding Guardian

This is another improvement on one of my BWE1 builds. Basically, I build the most defensive guardian I can, focusing purely on keeping the enemy out of objectives. Then, I play it offensively, and use those same skills to run up to objectives and force the enemy out, allowing me to capture them. I don’t really focus on, or almost ever use, the virtues simply because I find their activated effects to be incredibly underwhelming for disabling the passive effects.

I spend roughly equal time using each weapon set, switching between them as I need certain skills or have everything on recharge. The sigils work to create even more defensiveness, and the runes I pick are the most defensive runes we have available.

[Luna-Atra Link]

Weapon Sets: Mace/Shield, Hammer

Slot Skills: Signet of Resolve, Purging Flames, Sanctuary, Wall of Reflection, Tome of Courage

Trait Allocation: 0-0-20-20-30

Major Traits: Strength in Numbers, Honorable Shield, Resolute Healer, Two-Handed Mastery, Consecrated Ground, Master of Consecrations, Extended Consecrations

Sigils: Energy/Hydromancy, Energy

Runes: Dolyak x6

Amulet: Soldier’s Amulet w/ Soldier’s Jewel

Minion Master Necromancer

One of my fellow writers at GW2 WvW devised a MM build for necromancers, and I basically used that with the minor adjustment of using double daggers for the main weapon set and then picking gear. Essentially, you use your minions as an enormous meat shield and source of more health while laying marks down, efficiently tanking with death shroud, and overwhelming the enemy with targets. Even without making large use of the minion’s toggle skills, the build is highly effective.

I ran with the double daggers over the originally proposed dagger/warhorn because I personally preferred the shorter recharge skills with the blind/condition transfer and weaken/bleed. The sigils I chose to keep me alive a bit better, while the runes give me an even larger health pool with increased damage as well as letting me get back and forth between sets quicker.

[Luna-Atra Link]

Weapon Sets: Dagger/Dagger, Staff

Slot Skills: Summon Blood Fiend, Summon Bone Minions, Summon Bone Fiend, Summon Flesh Wurm, Summon Flesh Golem

Trait Allocation: 20-0-30-20-0

Major Traits: Reaper’s Might, Training of the Master, Minion Master, Flesh of the Master, Death Nova, Bloodthirst, Vampiric Master

Sigils: Leeching/Energy, Energy

Runes: Warrior x6

Amulet: Soldier’s Amulet w/ Soldier’s Jewel

Signet Elementalist

This was not my worst build, but definitely in the bottom three. As far as I’m concerned, double-dagger is the only way to go for an ele in SPvP, but the slot skills and traits need redoing. Instead of the signets, I plan on switching to a bigger focus on cantrips. Also, since the weapon skills have so many defensive uses, I’ll end up using more offensive traits as well to get the damage out better. Essentially, the build was too defensively, and the signets just weren’t as effective as I’d hoped.

[Luna-Atra Link for Old Build]

Weapon Sets: Dagger/Dagger

Slot Skills: Glyph of Elemental Harmony, Signet of Air, Signet of Earth, Signet of Water, Tornado

Trait Allocation: 0-20-30-0-20

Major Traits: Tempest Strength, Aeromancer’s Alacrity, Signet Master, Geomancer’s Alacrity, Written in Stone, Elemental Attunement, Arcane Energy

Sigils: Agony/Chilling

Runes: Melandru x6

Amulet: Knight’s Amulet w/ Knight’s Jewel

[Luna-Atra Link for Planned Revision]

Weapon Sets: Dagger/Dagger

Slot Skills: Glyph of Elemental Harmony, Cleansing Fire, Armor of Earth, Mist Form, Tornado

Trait Allocation: 30-0-0-20-20

Major Traits: Spell Slinger, Internal Fire, Pyromancer’s Puissance, Soothing Disruption, Cantrip Mastery, Elemental Attunement, Windborne Dagger

Sigils: Force, Smoldering

Runes: Strength x6

Amulet: Carrion Amulet w/ Carrion Jewel

Double Bow Ranger

So this build I honestly expected to fail, because I was rushing when I build it and not really putting much thought into it. I don’t really have plans to fix it, but in order to fix it, I would simply need to find a better defensive weapon set to replace the shortbow. The longbow was adequately powerful, but the shortbow left a lot to be desired for ways to simply get away from people or survive close combat. I was really hoping for blasting people to death from ranged with the longbow and using the shortbow to keep them at bay if they got close enough. Only the first part of that happened.

[Luna-Atra Link]

Weapon Sets: Longbow, Shortbow

Slot Skills: Heal As One, Muddy Terrain, Signet of Stone, Signet of the Hunt, Rampage As One

Trait Allocation: 30-20-20

Major Traits: Signet Mastery, Eagle Eye, Signet of the Beastmaster, Sharpened Edges, Quickdraw, Vigorous Renewal, Wilderness Knowledge

Sigils: Force/Hobbling

Runes: Warrior x6

Amulet: Soldier’s Amulet w/ Soldier’s Jewel

Critical Axe Warrior

This one was by far the worst build I used all beta. I gave up after two matches with it, because it simply sucked. If you want a build to see how many times you can die in a single match, use this. Much like the ranger build above, I was rushing when I made this. I saw a couple things I thought would hopefully work together (signets, critical, axes, sounds good, right?) and threw it together quickly trying to get a little warrior footage in on Sunday night. It was just an enormous flop, really. I don’t even want to try to fix it. Not enough damage output to be a purely offensive build without any defense.

[Luna-Atra Link]

Weapon Sets: Axe/Axe, Sword/Warhorn

Slot Skills: Healing Signet, Signet of Fury, Signet of Might, Dolyak Signet, Signet of Rage

Trait Allocation: 30-20-0-0-20

Major Traits: Restorative Strength, Weapon Specialization, Axe Mastery, Deep Strike, Furious, Heightened Focus, Sharpened Axes

Sigils: Accuracy/Accuracy, Hobbling/Energy

Runes: Eagle x6

Amulet: Berserker’s Amulet w/ Berserker Jewel

It’s kind of a late and exhaustive night, but I’ll get at least three of the profession guides done tomorrow and possibly another video as well. For now, here’s a video of my minion master SPvP build in action, similar to one created by a fellow writer at GW2 WvW.

The Guardian

This profession guide is accurate as of BWE2.

The guardian is a devoted fighter who calls upon powerful virtues to smite enemies and protect allies. As dangerous with a staff as he is with a mighty two-handed hammer, a true guardian is a master tactician who knows when to sacrifice his own defenses to empower his allies to achieve victory.

-Official Guild Wars 2 Website

Overall Theme

The guardian, as the name suggests, is a highly defensive class. Even though they wear heavy armor, guardians have very little health compared to other professions. They make up for this with a myriad of powerful defensive abilities. A lot of their abilities simultaneously have both offensive and defensive uses, many of which involve burning opponents. They have a unique mechanic that takes the form of virtues: passive bonuses (occasional burning attacks, aegis every 40 seconds, healing) that can be sacrificed for a short time to give a similar bonus to nearby allies. The guardian also produces many symbols on the ground: AoE abilities that hurt enemies and help allies.

Weapons

Greatsword – The guardian’s greatsword is the definition of offense for guardian. Not only does it offer burning, might, and retaliation at close range (like Symbol of Wrath) it even has two powerful gap closers (like Binding Blade).

Hammer – Where the greatsword gives offensive power, the guardian gives defensive power, though it can be used as both. While it has no gap closers, it has great ability to keep opponents in melee range — or out (such as Ring of Warding and Zealot’s Embrace).

Staff – The staff is a mid-ranged option for the guardian that is largely defensive and full of utility in place of straight offense or defense like the other two-handed weapons (e.g., Line of Warding or Martyr). Because of this, the staff is a better secondary weapon than primary weapon in a build.

Mace (MH) – The mace is a highly defensive one-handed weapon that provides options for healing, protection, blocking, and even condition removal by itself using a combo between Symbol of Faith and Protector’s Strike.

Scepter – The scepter is the long-range option for the guardian, though its auto-attack is slow. It’s also offensively oriented with abilities like Chains of Light.

Sword (MH) – The sword, much like its two-handed counterpart, is an offensive weapon complete with a very useful gap closer in the form of Flashing Blade. 

Focus – The focus is a strong off-hand with both skills being a part of the offensive-defensive duality of the class (for example, Ray of Judgement).

Shield – As expected, the shield is a fully-defensive off-hand weapon with a considerable amount of power in its skills like Shield of Absorption.

Torch – The torch is a particularly fun off-hand weapon with interesting fire-based abilities. It’s mostly offensive in nature, including the ability to set yourself on fire and throw your Zealot’s Flame at enemies!

Underwater

Spear – The spear forms the guardian’s offensive abilities underwater, fighting at a medium and short range with abilities like Zealot’s Flurry. As with any close-range weapon, it has at least some ability (Brilliance) to keep yourself alive at such a short range.

Trident – The trident is the opposite of the spear: a long-ranged defensive weapon with terrific ability to remove conditions from allies with Purify and keep foes away from you by sinking them with Weight of Justice.

Slot Skills

The guardian’s slot skills also do a good job of keeping with the mostly defensive skills and many duality skills. The healing skills unfortunately have long cooldowns, with the shortest being the Signet of Resolve, which offers the most amount of healing over a long period of time. Healing Breeze is good when in working in close-together groups, and Shelter leaves the most to be desired, though the block makes it powerful if used well.

Consecration – All of the consecration skills are AoE abilities of a defensive nature. The most powerful non-elite defensive slot skills the guardian has are consecration skills. While initially targeted at your location (excepting Wall of Reflection), traits can make them ground-targeted.

Meditation – Meditations are all slot skills with an associated cast time that can be removed via traits. Two of them teleport you to either an enemy or ally, while the other two remove conditions. Meditations are fairly balanced between offense and defense.

Shout – All of the shouts are defensive, instant, multi-target buff skills. While not overly powerful, they do have relatively medium-length cooldowns (excepting “Retreat!”)

Signet – As with all signets, each skill as a passive ability that is put on recharge when its activated component is used. It is here that the guardian’s instant-revive ability, Signet of Mercy, lies. Signets are all either offensive or defensive without duality functions, with two of each.

Spirit Weapon – The spirit weapon skills summon a spirit weapon (hence the name) that follows the guardian around for a time and contributes to fights in its specialized role. Each of the weapons also has an ability that can be activated at the cost of destroying the weapon.

Elite – The Renewed Focus elite has an incredibly long recharge for a tiny duration, making it generally the least impactful elite the guardian has. The other two, Tome of Courage and Tome of Wrath, hold the guardian stationary while granting access to immensely powerful defensive and offensive spells, respectively.

Traits

The guardian’s five trait lines are named after personality virtues. The fifth, Virtues, contains Willpower - the guardian’s unique attribute that reduces virtue recharge.

Zeal (Pow/Exp) – The minor traits all involve symbols and their augmentation. The major traits give bonuses to spirit weapons, greatswords, scepter damage, and burning. The final traits in the line are Wrathful Spirits and Zealous Blade.

Radiance (Pre/Mal) – The minor traits boost Virtue of Justice (the burning virtue) and damage to conditioned foes. The major traits augment blindness, burning, signets, sword damage, spear damage, and torch skilll recharges. The final traits in the line are Perfect Inscriptions and Right Handed Strength.

Valor (Tou/Pro) – The minor traits give automatic Aegis at low health, recharge Virtue of Courage (aegis virtue), and give might on blocking. The major traits have buffs to meditation skills, shield skill recharges, toughness increases, mace damage, periodic condition removal, and more healing. The final traits are Altruistic Healing and Monk’s Focus.

Honor (Vit/Com) – The minor traits give vigor on criticals, healing on dodges, and increased damage at low health. The major traits give significant bonuses to honor and symbols, bonuses to reviving, bonuses to shout recharges, and two-handed recharges. The final traits are Battle Presence and Pure of Voice.

Virtues (Con/Wil) – The minor traits augment add boons to your virtues and give bonus damage for boons. The major traits augment your virtues, lengthen retaliations, buff consecrations, and extend elite skill durations. The final traits are Extended Consecrations and Judgemental.

Difficulty

The guardian is a fairly simple class with significantly less to keep track of than many other classes. The general underpowered nature of the virtues’ activated components (in their natural form) give less to focus on, making the guardian a good class for beginners. While being in melee is more hazardous than ranged, the guardian’s superb defenses make it an especially good place for beginning melee players, in both PvE and PvP.

Welcome, everyone, to another week of The Structure! I’m sure you all know by now, but ArenaNet announced to us yesterday that Guild Wars 2 will launch on August 28! That means head-start access for pre-purchasers beings August 25. Also, the final BWE will be July 20-22. Now with that out of the way, I figured I would go with another “for new players” topic this week and give everyone the lay of the land — literally! This week I’m going to cover the important points of the two SPvP maps we have thusfar: Battle of Kyhlo and Forest of Niflhel!

Primary Objectives

All SPvP maps at launch will have the same primary objective: “conquest” or capture point. Every map has three objectives. To claim them, simply stand inside and the meter will fill up. To take one from an enemy, stand in the enemy’s objective with more of your team than the enemy team. The meter will empty and then refill. Roughly every two seconds (slightly less), each team gets a point for each objective they hold. In addition, teams earn ten points whenever they kill an enemy player.

Battle of Kyhlo

The first map we got to see in GW2 is an “urban”-themed map named Battle of Kyhlo. The names of the three primary objectives are the mansion (blue objective), windmill (red objective), and clocktower (neutral objective). The windmill and mansion have an access path facing the clocktower and one facing the nearest team base as well as an exit onto a roof path. The clocktower has window entrances along the north and south sides which are accessible via ramps that wrap around the outside of the building. It also can be accessed by two staircases via an archway that runs east-west underneath the building.

In addition to the capture points, there are also trebuchets on the map (one for each team) that act as a secondary objective. Trebuchets can be used used to destroy buildings, kill or knockback enemy players, and even destroy the other trebuchet! If a trebuchet is destroyed, a repair kit will spawn in its team’s base which can be taken to the trebuchet to repair it.

The map itself is full of many buildings and pathways, including paths along the rooftops (pictured in yellow in the map above). There are many small archways (anywhere a path goes under a building) that act as choke points. The clocktower’s archway and the ends of both staircases form choke points to the objective. Both accesses to the mansion and windmill are each natural choke points. Many of the choke points can be avoided by taking alternate routes (e.g., using the roof-top paths for travel or the ramps to enter the clocktower).

There are three major notes I’d like to make for this map. While using the trebuchet, you cannot see the path in front of you or anyone on it until they’re up right beside you. When firing the trebuchet, you have to hold the button to fire further than simply flopping in front of you. There is an excellent hiding point outside both the windmill and mansion objectives to the right of the path facing the clocktower as you’re approaching them.

Forest of Niflhel

Forest of Niflhel was the second map we were shown (and the only other map we’ve seen thusfar) in GW2. The three primary objectives are named the henge (blue objective), the mine (red objective), and the keep (neutral objective). The henge and mine have two access points, one pointing directly inwards, adn the other pointing up at an angle toward the keep. The keep itself can be accessed from ramps on both the eastern and western ends, as well as ramps approaching from the northeast and northwest.

Beyond the primary objectives, there are two NPC bosses, referred to as “forest creatures”, that spawn at the beginning of the game. Whichever player scores the killing blow on a forest creature earns 40 points for his or her team. Once killed, the forest creatures will respawn three minutes after their death.

Unlike the Battle for Kyhlo map, the layout of Forest of Niflhel is very simple. There are no paths along high roof tops and tiny archway choke points. Instead, there are many wide paths that converge on narrower choke points at certain places. There is a major choke point at each entrance to the mine and windmill, and the keep itself is one big choke point. There is also a choke point near each end of the path between the mine and henge. There are also choke points on the paths leading from the mine and henge to the “loop” around the keep.

This map has four little tidbits that I would like to illuminate. The rear-access ramps to the keep are one-way paths: they end in platforms that you cannot climb back onto. Killing forest creatures quickly is very important, as letting the enemy have 40 points a few seconds before you can cost you the match. Additionally, as it is the killing blow that earns the points, one player with a single hard-hitting ability can easily attempt to steal the kill if they can find a decent hiding spot. The henge and mine each have a hiding spot behind the objectives (behind the pillars and behind the mine structure).

Remaining Maps

There are two more maps that we have been promised at launch. One of these maps is a mostly underwater map and the other is supposed to be nostalgic for Guild Wars players of the past. Mini-maps of these two were posted on Reddit a while back that essentially showed a ship-theme for the underwater map with an underwater objective and another map that looked very similar to the Warrior Isle GvG map from GW.

We finally have it, folks! GW2 will launch August 28. For pre-purchasers, remember your head start access begins on the 25! HOLY COW I’M SO EXCITED!!! Also, the next (and final!) BWE is scheduled for July 20 through July 22.

I started this blog with my current profession guides four months ago. Needless to say, they’re out of date. We hadn’t even seen the trait system at that time, so it’s time to write a whole new set, starting with the elementalist.

The Elementalist

This profession guide is accurate as of BWE2.

The elementalist channels natural forces of destruction, making fire, air, earth, and water do her bidding. What the elementalist lacks in physical toughness, she makes up for in her ability to inflict massive damage in a single attack, dropping foes from a distance before they can become a threat. Yet, despite her incredible offensive potential, versatility is what makes the elementalist truly formidable.

-Official Guild Wars 2 Website

Overall Theme

The elementalist is all about flexibility, adjustment, and dancing. They have a lot of weapon skills with long recharges, but make up four it with having four weapon sets at all times with a limited recharge on swapping. Their unique class mechanic is their ability to change between four elemental attunements in place of weapon swap. Each time an elementalist switches attunement, their previous attunement is placed on cooldown without a restriction on the remaining two attunements. Fire attunement typically deals with high-damage and burning, while water attunement specializes in healing, vulnerability, and chilling. Air attunement is about speed, evasion, and stunning, but earth attunement is about defense, bleeding, and crippling.

Weapons

Staff - The staff is full of powerful AoE abilities and combo fields. While the staff can be used for high damage output, it can at the same time be used to very easily keep foes at a distance. Key abilities that show the nature of the staff are Meteor Shower, Geyser, Frozen Ground, Static Field, Eruption, and Magnetic Aura.

Scepter - The scepter gives the elementalist several offensively-oriented skills with every attunement, though with less of an emphasis on AoE. Important skills with the scepter are Phoenix, Shatterstone, and Rock Barrier.

Dagger (MH) - Wielding a dagger in your main hand puts you at close range with the enemies while giving you adequate protection and gap-closers. Prime examples with the MH dagger are Burning Speed, Frozen Burst, Shocking Aura, and Magnetic Grasp.

Dagger (OH) - The off-hand dagger compliments the main-hand dagger with powerful close-range defenses and yet another gap closer. Make good use of Frost Aura, Cleansing Wave, Ride the Lightning, and Earthquake.

Focus - Lastly, the focus provides you with a set of very strong skills, including some of the strongest defensive skills in the profession’s repertoire. The focus is well-defined by Freezing Gust, Gale, and Obsidian Flesh.

Underwater

Along with a small list of above-water weapons, the elementalist has only one choice for underwater combat: the trident. All four attunements with the trident have a powerful slew of defensive abilities in addition to their regular themes, such as Lava Chains, Tidal Wave, Lightning Cage, and Rock Anchor.

Slot Skills

The elementalist’s slot skills continue to match the rest of the profession. Many of the skills are based on the different elements, and many change their functionality based on the elementalist’s current attunement. Of the three healing skills, only Glyph of Elemental Harmony isn’t drastically underpowered for its cooldown. It heals you and also gives you a different buff based on your current attunement.

Arcane - The arcane skills are based on pure magical energy and give guaranteed critical damage (with the exception of Arcane Shield). The two direct damage skills are also combo finishers, giving the opportunity for an elementalist to create combos on its own.

Conjure - The conjure skills work similarly to the kits of an engineer, but are more limited. They create an elemental weapon with a set number of charges in the elementalist’s hands in addition to a weapon on the ground. Each weapon has a combination of skills similar to other elementalist weapon skills and skills like those of other professions using that type of weapon.

Cantrip - Cantrips are mostly-defensive skills each bound to an element. Aside from those two factors, there is nothing else uniting the skills around a given theme.

Glyph - All four glyphs have a core functionality that changes based on the elementalist’s attunement. These skills offer even further flexibility and adaptability to situations depending on the effectiveness of their use.

Signet - Like all other signets, each has a passive ability that stays in effect while not recharging and an ability that can be activated. Each element has its own signet, and each signet (except Signet of Fire) has a generally defensive passive ability with a generally defensive activated ability, though obviously the real offense/defense balance is in the practical use.

Elite - The elementalist has an array of varied elite skills that also fit into the elemental spectrum. Like the Necromancer and Warrior, the elementalist has a form skill known as Tornado that gives powerful AoE damage with stability. The elites also provide another conjured weapon in the form of the powerful, but limited Fiery Greatsword. Lastly, the Glyph of Elementals is a beef-ed up version of its utility version, giving full flexibility across the entire board.

Traits

The elementalist has one trait line for each element along with a final trait line that reduces the cooldown on the elementalist’s attunements via Intelligence.

Fire Magic (Pow/Exp) - The minor traits focus on damage, especially involving burning. This line offers many talents involving burning, improvement while attuned to fire, might, and an increase in charges to conjure weapons. The final talents are Persisting Flames and Pyromancer’s Puissance.

Air Magic (Pre/Pro) - The minor traits give faster movement in air attunement, damage when attuning, and vulnerability on critical. Air Magic has some buffs for glyphs, damage increases, buffs to the attunement itself, a buff to healing, and a buff for auras. The final talents are Grounded and Zephyr’s Boon.

Earth Magic (Tou/Mal) - The minor traits give damage reduction, damage and cripple on attuning, and extra damage with full endurance. In this line, you can find many buffs to signets, a stun-break for conjure skills, buffs to bleeding, and buffs to the attunement itself. The final talents are Rock’s Fortitude and Written in Stone.

Water Magic (Vit/Hea) - The minor traits give healing with the attunement and a damage boost based on boons. Other traits give condition removal, vulnerability buffs, some cantrip buffs, buffs to the attunement, and regeneration. The final talents are Powerful Aura and Stop Drop and Roll.

Arcana (Con/Int) - The minor traits buff attunements in general and criticals. The major traits offer buffs to arcane skills, critical hits, increased AoE for staff, increased movement with a dagger, faster endurance regeneration with a scepter, and attunement-based buffs. The final traits are Elemental Surge and Evasive Arcana.

Difficulty

The elementalist is an easy class to jump into and start learning, with a very low barrier-of-entry for PvE. The abundance of defensive skills when swapping attunements gives a lot o breathing room for newer players. Learning to use all four attunements is critical to success in dungeons, tough situations, and even beginning PvP. Though the devs have announced a plan to implement something to make it less bearable, playing an elementalist requires unlocking twelve full weapon-bars worth of skills (48 skills), and four bars (16 skills) for underwater, more than any other profession.

This isn’t major, but I thought I’d link you guys this from the Reddit. Someone went into the gw2.dat file and datamined a map of the entire planet of Tyria. Not just the continent, but the whole planet. Look at all that room for expansion (get it?).

Alright, the video is back up! Here’s everything you need to know about boons and conditions!

Here’s some interesting stuff from RP Gamer’s interview with ANet on BWE2, feedback thereof, and a few things we can expect in the future.