Attribute

The attribute window as shown in the hero panel.

Attributes are characteristics which improve a character's effectiveness in combat. Each profession has access to 15 attributes, with 14 being common across all professions and one being profession-specific.

Primary attributes like Power and Toughness increase automatically when a level is gained, which increase derived attributes such as Attack and Armor. Secondary attributes improve various mechanics and effects used in combat, such as critical damage or condition duration. All primary and secondary attributes and some derived attributes can be increased by investing in traits, through wearing equipment and in PvE, through the use of consumables.

In addition to attributes, all characters have certain "hidden" statistics and values like movement speed or endurance regeneration rate. All professions have the same base attributes, except for Armor, which is determined by armor class, and Health which is profession-specific for balance reasons.

Primary attributes

All professions have four common primary attributes, two offensive and two defensive. Primary attributes grow with character level, starting with 24 in each at level 1. Each level up through level 9 grants 4 points to each attribute; levels 10–19 grant 6 points each; 20–29, 8 points; ... 70–79, 18 points; 80, 20 points. The total by level 80 is 916 in each attribute for all professions.

In addition, primary attributes can be increased by spending points in a relevant trait line or from equipment.

•  Power — every point increases attack by one point.
•  Precision — increases critical hit chance.
•  Toughness — every point increases armor by one point.
•  Vitality — every point increases maximum health by ten points.

Derived attributes

All professions have four derived attributes, which are calculated from the primary attributes and statistics from gear and profession.

•  Attack — sum of Power and average Weapon Strength, has no known game mechanical effect (empirically,  Damage seems to be based on the product of power and weapon strength and has no particular relationship to their sum).
•  Critical Chance — improved by Precision, increases base chance of critical hit (4% at Level 80).
•  Armor — sum of Toughness and Defense, reduces incoming direct damage.
•  Health — improved by Vitality, increases maximum health. Base health varies by profession.

Secondary attributes

There are five secondary attributes common to all professions. In contrast to the primary attributes, secondary attributes do not automatically increase as characters gain levels. They can be increased by spending points in the relevant trait line or with equipment bonuses.

•  Condition Damage — Improves the damage done by the conditions burning, poison, confusion, and bleeding.
•  Condition Duration — Improves the duration of all conditions inflicted by the character.
•  Boon Duration — Improves the duration of all boons applied by the character.
•  Healing Power — Improves all outgoing heals that your character does, including self heals.
•  Critical Damage — Improves the damage multiplier on critical strikes.

Equipment attributes

There are two equipment attributes common to all professions. Similar to secondary attributes, equipment attributes do not automatically improve as characters gain levels. They can be increased due to equipment bonuses but not with trait points.

•  Agony Resistance — Improves resistance against Agony.
•  Magic Find — Improves loot.

Profession attributes

There are eight profession specific attributes, which can be used only by characters of the corresponding profession. Similar to secondary attributes, profession attributes do not automatically improve as characters gain levels. They can only be increased by spending trait points in a corresponding trait line but not due to equipment bonuses.

•  Virtue Recharge Rate — Reduces the recharge on all virtues; linked to Virtues.
•  Burst Damage — Improves the damage of warrior burst attacks; linked to Discipline.
•  Tool Belt Recharge Rate — Reduces the recharge on all tool belt skills; linked to Tools.
•  Pet Attribute Bonus — Improves pet attributes; linked to Beastmastery.
•  Steal Recharge Rate — Reduces the recharge of the steal ability; linked to Trickery.
•  Attunement Recharge Rate — Reduces the recharge of the four elemental attunements; linked to Arcana.
•  Shredding Recharge Rate — Reduces the recharge on all shatter skills; linked to Illusions.
•  Life Force Pool — Increases the size of the necromancer’s life force pool; linked to Soul Reaping.

See also

• PAX East Preview: Izzy on Attributes and Iteration
• Play Your Way - Jon Peters on Traits and Attributes

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Attributes

Primary	Power (Attack)	Precision (Critical Chance)
	Toughness (Armor)	Vitality (Health)
Secondary	Condition Duration	Condition Damage	Critical Damage
	Boon Duration	Healing Power
Equipment	Agony Resistance	Magic Find
Profession-specific	Guardian	Warrior
	Engineer	Ranger	Thief
	Elementalist	Mesmer	Necromancer