The Necromancer

This profession guide is accurate as of BWE2.

A necromancer is a practitioner of the dark arts who summons the dead, wields the power of lost souls, and literally sucks the lifeblood of the enemy. A necromancer feeds on life force, which he can use to bring allies back from the brink or cheat death itself.

-Official Guild Wars 2 Website

Overall Theme

The necromancer is a bit harder to pin down with one theme than other classes. But, in the end, it all boils down to corruption. The necromancer can raise undead minions out of the ground, and it can steal life from its enemies. However, the necromancer specializes in converting boons and conditions on allies and enemies to be able to change the tide of the battle and maintain the upper hand. As part of their attacks, they generate Life Force, their unique resource. It’s used to activate and fuel Death Shroud, a powerful form with powerful skills. While in death shroud, necromancers take damage to their accumulated Life Force rather than their own health. Many of the necromancers abilities create marks, AoE’s that require a trigger for their affect much like extra-large traps.

Weapons

Staff – The staff is completely AoE. The auto-attack, Necrotic Graps, is a line AoE attack. The rest of the abilities are all marks like Chilblains.

Axe (MH) – The axe is a fairly nondescript mid-range weapon. Worth noting, however, is the Life Force generation possible with Ghastly Claws.

Dagger (MH) – The main-hand dagger is the only melee weapon necromancers have. Along with its immobilize, it also has Life Siphon to siphon life from your foes.

Scepter – The scepter is the long-range weapon for condition-based fighting. Its auto-attack causes bleeding and poison and it also has an AoE cripple. Additionally, Feast of Corruption relies on conditions for generating life force.

Dagger (OH) – The off-hand dagger is a perfect weapon that is well suited to surviving foes. Beyond just blindness and weakness, you can also give your opponents your conditions with Deathly Swarm.

Focus – The focus is a good offensive weapon that focuses on debilitating your opponent. Spinal Shivers is an extremely powerful skill that removes boons as well as chills your enemy.

Warhorn – The warhorn is useful in both offensive and defensive situations. While it can be used to keep foes in range, Locust Swarm is also handy for escaping from melee enemies.

Underwater

Spear – The spear is an AoE-based melee weapon underwater that applies that AoE and conditions for skills like Wicked Spiral. You can also keep foes in range well with skills like Deadly Catch.

Trident – The trident is a more long-range, single-target focused weapon that works more heavily with conditions. Crimson Tide, the auto-attack, applies a five-second bleed with each attack. Sinking Tomb is also incredibly useful, as sink skills aren’t the most common in GW2.

Slot Skills

Many of the necromancer’s slot skills take the same condition-and-boon based approach of the rest of the profession, with the addition of minions. When it comes to healing skills, all of them are viable options. Well of Blood is the obvious go-to for party situations, while Consume Conditions offers the highest healing potential over any amount of time.

Corruption – All four of the corruptions are reminiscent of the sacrifice skills from the original profession in GW. You inflict a condition on yourself in order to inflict a much more powerful effect on your opponent.

Minion – The minion skills all summon a minion (or two for Summon Bone Minions) out of the ground without requiring any corpse. Once summoned, each skill has a toggle with various different effects. Other than the bone minions, the toggle skill leaves the minion alive.

Signet – As with all signets, each skill has a passive effect that can be put on recharge for its activated effect. The signets focus on conditions, stealing health, and life force.

Spectral – The spectral skills are are really a group of miscellaneous effects that don’t actually have a common factor.

Well – The wells are all self-centered AoE’s that pulse a condition-based effect every two seconds.

Elite – The necromancer has two different form elite skills. Plague turns you into a condition-causing cloud, while Lich Form turns you into a lich with strong skills matching the rest of the necromancer’s skills. Summon Flesh Golem summons the strongest minion of all that cripples with each attack.

Traits

The necromancer’s five traits are mostly named after the necromancer’s attributes from the original Guild Wars. The last line is linked to the attribute, Hunger, which increases the size of the Life Force pool.

Spite (Pow/Exp) – The minor traits heal on kill, buff healing, and give might when hit at low health. The major traits buff signets, increase minion damage, remove conditions with ills, add ways of gaining might, increase axe damage, buff marks, add retaliation to Death Shroud, and auto-cast Spinal Shivers on enemies you put below 25 percent health. The final traits are Axe Training and Chill of Death.

Curses (Pre/Mal) – The minor traits cause bleeding on crits, give add fury to Death Shroud, and add damage for conditionso n foes. The major traits buff criticals, lengthen bleeds, buff many conditions, reduce corruption recharges, lengthen spectral durations, add damage to fear, give ground-targeting to wells, and reduce warhorn recharges. The final traits are Lingering Curse and Withering Precision.

Death Magic (Tou/Con) – The minor traits add a chance to summon a minion on kill, buff toughness with minions, and buff power. The major trats buff minions, buff marks, add protection to wells, auto-cast Spinal Shivers when entering Death Shroud, make marks unbockable, reduce staff skill recharges, give armor while channeling, and increase damage to low-health foes. The final traits are Death Nova and Necromatic Corruption.

Blood Magic (Vit/Com) – The minor traits add regeneration when brought to 90 percent, siphon health on every hit, and buff power with high health. The major traits add siphoning to many skills, buff siphoning, reduce dagger recharges, add healing to Death Shroud, increase movement speed with daggers, buff minions, buff wells, drop a Well of Blood when reviving, and drop a Mark of Blood on dodge. The final traits are Fetid Consumption and Vampiric Rituals.

Soul Reaping (Pro/Hun) – The minor traits increase Life Force gain, auto-cast Spectral Armor at half-health, and buff power with Life Force. The major traits fear enemies when downed, add Reaper’s Mark when reviving, reduce spectral recharges, buff Death Shroud, lengthen fear, add Life Force to marks, and auto-cast Locust Swarm when brought to 25 percent. The final traits are Foot in the Grave and Near to Death.

Difficulty

Necromancers are fairly average in terms of difficulty. They’re easy to pick up and play, but take a little more to actually find something that works well. They’re a fairly middle-ground class in terms of difficulty.

The Mesmer

This profession guide is accurate as of BWE2.

Mesmers are magical duelists who rely on deception and confusion to keep their opponents in check. Indecision is their greatest ally. Using powerful illusions to distract, they make sure they never go toe to toe with an enemy; they use their powers and tactics to set up an unfair fight.

-Official Guild Wars 2 Website

Overall Theme

Chaos. That one word perfectly sums up the mesmer profession in GW2. Many skills involve random boons or random conditions. Confusion is also a highly-prevalent condition in other mesmer abilities. Then there are the clones, designed for causing confusion to enemies (the actual thing, not the condition). Their unique class mechanic lets them create up to three illusions and shatter them for varying effects. There are two types of illusions: Clones look almost identical to the caster and simply auto-attack their target (causing essentially no damage), while phantasms are easily identifiable and have a specific ability they use.

Weapons

Greatsword – The greatsword is a very straightforward, ranged weapon. Yes, the greatsword is ranged. It’s all about doing damage while keeping enemies away from you with this weapon. Mirror Blade throws a bouncing sword out that creates clones, and Phantasmal Berserker creates a greatsword-wielding phantasm to cripple enemies.

Staff – The mesmer’s staff is much more suited to condition-based combat and actual deception. Phase Retreat teleports you in some direction generally away from your enemy and leaves behind a clone. The staff also has Chaos Storm, which can become very powerful with a ranger or other fast-attacking ranged class nearby.

Scepter – The scepter is more of a confusion-oriented weapon, more concerned with making your enemies kill themselves trying to attack you than actually confusion the enemy. The auto-attack chain from Ether Bolt confuses enemies and creates a clone on the third attack. Illusionary Counter can also create a clone when it blocks an attack.

Sword (MH) – The main-hand sword gives mesmers their only melee option. It focuses on safely fighting the opponent up close, opening their defenses and removing boons. Illusionary Leap sends a clone to your target with which you can then swap places.

Focus – The focus focuses gives a solid movement advantage over enemies. Additionally, Illusionary Warden creates a phantasm to protect an area from projectiles.

Pistol (OH) – The pistol gives you a powerful bouncing defensive shot, while Illusionary Duelist summons a phantasm to barrage enemies with its duel pistols. I have no idea why your illusions can use two pistols but you can’t.

Sword (OH) – The off-hand sword gives more ways of creating cillusions. Illusionary Repost creates a clone if you’re attacked, or you can daze enemies if you aren’t attacked. Illusionary Swordsman creates a blade-wielding phantasm to attack your foes.

Torch – The torch gives you a nice stealth combined with blinding and burning for enemies. Illusionary Mage also summons a phantasm to confuse enemies and give retaliation to allies.

Underwater

Spear – The spear is weapon that gives a lot of extra evasion and movement effects underwater. Feigned Surge moves you toward the enemy and teleports you back, leaving a clone behind. Illusionary Mariner creates a phantasm that attacks enemies while dodging.

Trident – The trident causes confusion to enemies and gives a decent amount of defense through blinding and sinking foes. Spinning Revenge gives nearby allies retaliation while creating a clone. Illusionary Whaler creates a phantasm that shoots enemies with a harpoon gun. Again, I’m not sure why your illusions can use weapons that you can’t, but we’ll go with it.

Slot Skills

Mesmer’s slot skills are just as sporadic in effect as the rest of the mesmer skills, creating a truly unpredictable profession. Of their healing skills, Mantra of Recovery provides the most amount of healing over any period of time, but it requires you to cast it ahead of when you need it with a long cast time. Ether Feast heals you and gives you extra health for each illusion you have active. Mirror reflects incoming projectiles and heals you, making it the best in a tight pinch to make up for its long recharge.

Clone – There are two clone skills. Mirror Images simply creates two clones, while Decoy stealths you and creates a clone. 

Glamour – Glamour skills have various AoE effects with various purposes. The most well-known of these skills are Portal Entre and Portal Exeunt, which create a two-way portal that you and your allies can use with a HUGE range.

Manipulation – Manipulations are several miscellaneous skills without any real common point. From Mimic’s ability to absorb and reflect projectiles to Blink’s teleportation, there’s really nothing that ties these together aside from the name.

Mantra – Mantras are all very powerful skills that can be used any time, even while casting another spell, without interrupting the current action. To make up for this, mantras must be pre-cast before use and have a long cast time.

Phantasm – The two phantasm are Phantasmal Defender, which takes damage for you, and Phantasmal Disenchanter, which removes boons and conditions.

Signet – As with all signets, each skill has a passive effect that can be put on recharge for its activated component. There’s nothing overly special about the mesmer’s signets, though Signet of Illusions plays handily with the mesmer’s class mechanics.

Elite – The mesmer has three very powerful elites. Mass Invisibility has an extremely short recharge for an elite and stealths you and your allies. Time Warp creates an AoE that gives you and allies quickness, doubling your skill recharges and casting speeds. Moa Morph is a fun skill that turns your target into a moa, complete with moa skills. 

Traits

The mesmer’s five trait lines draw their names from GW mesmer attributes and themes of the mesmer class. The final trait line has the mesmer-only attribute, Guile, which reduces the recharge on shattering illusions.

Domination (Pow/Exp) – The minor traits give extra ways to cause vulnerability and increase damage to inactive foes. The major traits cause clones to cripple when damaged, buff shatters, add confusion to glamour AoEs, increase signet recharge speed, buff power while wielding a greatsword, cause torch skills to rmove conditions, add stun to dazes, and allow (non-healing) mantras to be used twice per channel. The final skills are Confounding Suggestions and Harmonious Mantras.

Dueling (Pre/Pro) – The minor traits add vigor to criticals, create clones when you dodge, and cause illusions to confuse when killed. The major traits cloak and clone you when below 25 percent health, increase the range of manipulations, buffs mantras, phantasms fury, cause illusions to bleed enemies on criticals, and give you fury when you interrupt foes. The final traits are Blurred Inscriptions and Protected Mantras.

Chaos (Tou/Con) – The minor traits give regeneration at 75 percent health, add protection to regeneration, and buff condition damage. The major traits give you chaos armor when you rally, cause random conditions when clones are killed, buff reviving, give retaliation when downed, add extra effects to interrupting, increase toughness with staff and trident, increase cloaking (stealth) duration, reduce incoming damage for each illusion you have, reduce manipulation recharges, and remove conditions when you use signets. The final traits are Cleansing Inscriptions and Prismatic Understanding.

Inspiration (Vit/Com) – The minor traits buff phantasms. The major traits increase movement speed for each active illusion, buff glamour skills, reflect projectiles while reviving, remove conditions when healing, increase phantasm health, reflect projectiles with focus skills, add extra healing, give vigor to allies when shattering illusions, and buff condition damage with scepters. The final traits are Restorative Illusions and Restorative Mantras.

Illusions (Mal/Gui) – The minor traits buff shattering and reduce recharges on skills that create illusions. The major traits increase your damage for each active illusion, buff shattering illusions, add confusion to blindness and increase confusion duration, add reflection to distortion (evading attacks), cause glamour skills to blind, and add retaliation to Cry of Frustration. The final traits are Illusionary Persona and Imbued Diversion.

Difficulty

The mesmer isn’t hard to do okay with in PvE, but takes a bit of learning to do well. In PvP, the mesmer is easily the hardest class to learn and master. Not only do PvP mesmers have to learn how to use their skills and learn a build that works for them, but they also have to learn how to visually deceive other players by blending in with their clones. If you’re a PvE player, mesmers aren’t bad for a first profession, but I’d really pick another profession to start out PvP.

The Engineer

This profession guide is accurate as of BWE2.

Masters of mechanical mayhem, engineers tinker with explosives, gadgets, elixirs, and all manner of deployable devices. They can take control of an area by placing turrets, support their allies with alchemic weaponry, or lay waste to foes with a wide array of mines, bombs, and grenades.

-Official Guild Wars 2 Website

Overall Theme

If the eight professions are comic book superheroes, then the engineer is Batman. Engineers get all of the cool gadgets and useful tools to get the job done. From their turrets to their kits (skills that give you a new weapon with five new skills), engineers are all about looking cool while you stomp people. Their major class mechanic, the tool belt, gives them an extra skill based on each non-elite slot skill. Essentially, engineers have four pairs of slot skills plus their elite.

Weapons

Rifle – The rifle offers a lot of skills for keeping enemies away from you. Jump Shot is a targeted leap in any direction and is also handy for jump puzzles. If an enemy does somehow get close to you, Blunderbuss can make them pay at point-blank range.

Pistol (MH) – The main-hand pistol has an emphasis single-target AoE. Even its auto-attack, Explosive Shot, has a built-in AoE.

Pistol (OH) – The off-hand pistol gives engineers a little extra close-range offense, but also offers Glue Shot, one of the most powerful immobilizing skills in the game.

Shield – The engineer’s shield gives some useful defense against both melee and ranged. Static Shield can not only stun attackers, but daze far-away foes!

Underwater

Harpoon Gun – Engineers sadly have only the harpoon gun for underwater combat, but it offers a good mixture between offensive and defense while giving a good amount of AoE.

Slot Skills

Engineers have a lot of turrets, kits, and elixirs for skills, but they also have some handy gadgets. Med Kit lets you start dropping bandages for allies to pick up at will, while its tool belt companion is a straight heal for yourself. Healing Turret drops a turret that does exactly that: it heals you and then provides healing to your companions. Its companion skill will remove all conditions from nearby allies. Finally, Elixir H heals you and gives you a random buff, and its companion skill gives you an AoE with a random defensive buff as well.

Gadgets – Gadgets are little utility skills that have have largely have some form of movement control involved in most of them.

Turret – Turrets are all little devices that you plop on the ground. They sit there and attack targets in range with various effects .Every turret has some sort of overcharge ability on the toolbelt that gives a related, more powerful version of the main effect. Additionally, every turret has a toggle detonate skill that puts the turret on cooldown after the explosion. Turrets may also be picked up for a (slightly) shortened recharge.

Weapon Kit – Weapon kits give you a new weapon that takes over your main bar. Flamethrower gives a lot of burning and movement effects. Elixir Gun has a lot of AoE and condition-based combat as well as some healing and regeneration. Tool Kit gives you a lot of defensive skills as well as the ability to repair your turrets.

Device Kit – Device kits, like weapon kits, give you a new weapon bar. All three device kits are heavily based on explosions and AoE effects. Bomb Kit sets down bombs that explode after a couple seconds. Grenade Kit gives you thrown explosives that detonate on impact. Mine Kit gives you five throwable mines that detonate via remote or proximity.

Elixir – Elixirs are self-buff skills with mostly random effects. Each elixir comes with a tool belt skill that tosses the elixir creating an AoE of a similar random effect.

Elite – The engineer’s elite skills are a fun bunch that also fit the theme of the engineer’s inventiveness. Supply Crate creates a random bunch of bandages, turrets, mines, etc. at the spot which last for 60 seconds. Elixir X gives you a random form elite from the elementalist, necromancer, and warrior professions. Mortar creates a stationary mortar, lasting 120 seconds, which can rain powerful AoE blasts from a considerable distance.

Traits

The five trait lines for the engineer are named after things the engineer uses. The final line has the engineer-only attribute, Ingenuity, which reduces the recharge of tool-belt skills.

Explosives (Pow/Exp) – The minor traits create explosives conditionally and add vulnerability to explosions. The major traits add effects to explosions, cause turrets to explode on death, increase size and range on explosives, reduce bomb and grenade recharges, increase explosion damage, and cripple enemies hit below 25 percent health. The final traits are Elixir Infused Bombs and Explosive Powder. 

Firearms (Pre/Mal) – The minor traits add bleeding to criticals, damage to bleeding enemies, and crit chance against low-health enemies. The major traits increase gun recharges rates and range, add boons or conditions to criticals, add cripple to immobilize effects, increase damage to immobilized enemies, make pistol shots pierce, increase rifle damage, increase harpoon gun damage, and add defensive buffs to the flamethrower. The final traits are Coated Bullets and Juggernaut.

Inventions (Tou/Com) – The minor traits give aid when under 25 percent health and buff power. The major traits buff turrets, give protection when rallying, turn you invisible when immobile, remove boon with mine explosions, add supplies to the Supply Crate, reduce damage taken, and increase movement speed in combat. The final traits are Electromagnetic Mines and Rifle Turret Barrels.

Alchemy (Vit/Con) – The minor traits give boons at 75 percent health, turn some conditions to boons, and increase damage for each boon. The major traits add a chance to poison attackers, buff condition damage, buff elixirs, give buffs to being under 25 percent health, add regeneration to kits, add vigor to swiftness, and buff the elixir gun and flamethrower. The final traits are Automated Response and H.G.H..

Tools (Pro/Ing) – The minor traits buff tool belt skills and increase damage with full endurance. The major traits increase endurance regeneration, buff kits, drop flamethrowers or elixir guns when downed, reduce gadget recharges, add vulnerability to blocks, and give turrets automatic reparing. The final traits are Armor Mods and Autotool Installation.

Difficulty

Engineers aren’t overly complicated, but they require finding a combination of skills that work well together and demand learning the tool belt skills in addition to the regular slot skills. For some players, the engineer will be very easy, while others will find it challenging to come up with an enjoyable style that works.

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.

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.

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.