User:Ruine Eternelle/Game analysis

This page is currently under construction!

Why play Guild Wars 2 ?

This is probably the most important question to ask, and there is no clear answer. What is the goal of this game ? All depends on what attracts the player, i.e. what attracts you. Is it Curiosity for the game ? Appetite for challenge ? Attraction to online community ? Thrill of completion ? The feeling of power that games bring ? A mix of all this ? Some jumping puzzles also offer interesting enigmas, though there are games more suited for that. All in all, be it personal story, discovery of lore, exploration, PvP competition, PvE cooperation, or collection (of miniatures, skins, etc.), the activities you will do actually depend on your own answer to this question, even if you haven't expressed it yet.

How to win in Guild Wars ?

Now most of the time, you'll encounter foes (or opposing players in PvP), which you must kill in order to get what you want. Killing foes is an unavoidable feature (unless you plan to only trade or chill around talking with people, in which case you don't really need a guide).

If we consider only PvE and dungeons, you will encounter different types of hostile creatures whose sole purpose is to kill you. Against them, you only have but two choices : escape them or block them so that they let you pass unhindered (faster and easier when exploring or doing jumping puzzles), or kill them - before they kill you. In this section I will focus on the second part, which is the most difficult one : "Kill before getting killed". The formula has two parts : "kill" and "not getting killed"="survive". Those two parts are not independent, but have a common feature which is "control", part of the first or second part depending on the situation.

General condition of winning : Kill before getting killed

Kill

Direct Damage

Damage done = (Critical hit factor)*(Weapon strength) * Power * (skill-specific coefficient) / (target's Armor)

The critical hit factor is meant to reflect 4% of hits (by default), which deal at least 150% of the normal damage. Precision governs the frequency of critical hits while Ferocity increase even further their damage. As a result :

Average damage done = (1+(4+DPrecision/21)*(250+Ferocity/15)/10000)*(Weapon strength) * Power * (skill-specific coefficient) / (target's Armor)

With DPrecision being the additional Precision of the character, i.e. substracting the 1000 base precision at level 80. To increase one's damage, we can play on those parameters : Weapon strength and skills (both depends on the weapon), Power, Ferocity, Precision and target's Armor.

Weapon Strength

Listed on the weapon's tooltip. The higher the quality (and level) of the weapon, the higher its Weapon Strength.

Weapon strength is determined with a random (uniform distribution) number in a range min - max of the weapon stats and depends on the weapon associated with the skill. Utility and Elite skills are not affected by weapon strength. The weapon strength is fixed for the duration of the skill, in particular pulsing aoes and channeled skills.

For a details of weapon strengths, see below (section User:Ruine_Eternelle/Game_analysis#Application in the game: Professions (and races)). Weapon strength is approximatively 1000, with as low as 900 and as high as 1150 on average.

For the same level requirement, strength improves with the grade of weapon rarity.

Rarity	Strength (level 80 sword stats used for comparison)	Increase (above prior rarity)	Attributes (Berserker)	Increase (above prior rarity)
BBasic	551 – 609	n/a	72 Power, 52 Precision, 52 Ferocity	n/a
CFine	690 – 762	25%	91 Power, 65 Precision, 65 Ferocity	40%
DMasterwork	745 – 823	8%	98 Power, 70 Precision, 70 Ferocity	7.7%
ERare	802 – 886	7.65%	106 Power, 75 Precision, 75 Ferocity	7.5%
FExotic	905 – 1000	12.85%	120 Power, 85 Precision, 85 Ferocity	13.3%
GAscended	950 – 1050	5% *	125 Power, 90 Precision, 90 Ferocity	5.2% *
HLegendary	950 – 1050	0% *	125 Power, 90 Precision, 90 Ferocity	0% *

(*) Before infusion.

Power

At level 80, all professions have a base 1000 power. In almost all cases, raising power is the most efficient way to increase direct damage. Might increases power (at level 80, 30/stack, up to 25 stacks which is 750).

• Skills that increase power :
  •   Bane Signet
  •   Banner of Strength
  •   Signet of Might
  •   Assassin's Signet
  •   Conjure Flame Axe (while wielding Conjured Flame)
  •   Signet of Spite
  •   Conjure Fiery Greatsword (while wielding Fiery Greatsword) ~elite
• Traits that increase power :
• Empower Allies (+150 power to nearby allies)
• Armored Attack (10% of toughness is given as a bonus to power)
• Deadly Strength (7% of toughness is given as a bonus to power, doubles while in shroud)
• Empowering Flame (+150 power while attuned to fire)

Ferocity

Ferocity increases damage from critical hits. At level 80, every 15 points of ferocity adds 1% to the character's critical damage.

Utility skills that increases Ferocity are :

•   Banner of Discipline
•   Conjure Lightning Hammer (while wielding Lightning Hammer)

Traits that increase Ferocity are :

•  Retributive Armor - Gain toughness for a period of time when blocking an attack. Gain ferocity based on your toughness. (7% of toughness is given as a bonus to ferocity)
•  Axe Mastery - Gain ferocity. Gain additional ferocity when wielding an axe. Axe skills gain reduced recharge and grant adrenaline when critically striking.
•  Honed Axes - You and your pet gain ferocity. Axe skills gain reduced recharge, and you gain additional ferocity while wielding an axe.
•  Arcane Lightning - Arcane skills grant increased ferocity and have additional effects.
•  Fencer's Finesse - Gain a stacking ferocity effect when you or one of your illusions strikes with a one-handed sword or a spear. Reduces recharge on sword and spear skills.
•  Practiced Tolerance - Gain ferocity based on your precision.
•  No Quarter - Landing a critical hit while under the effects of fury increases the duration of fury. Gain increased ferocity while under the effects of fury.

Precision

Precision increases the chance to land critical hits. At level 80, the formula relating Precision to Critical Chance is : Critical Chance = (Precision - 916) / 21

In other words, Critical Chance increases by 1% for every 21 Precision. Since the minimum value of Precision at level 80 is 1000, this means the minimum Critical Chance at level 80 is 4.0%. It also follows that 3016 precision is enough to reach the cap of 100% crit chance. This does not take into account flat critical chance effects such as fury and Sigil of Accuracy.

Utility skills that increase precision are :

•   Banner of Discipline
•   Signet of Fury
•   Signet of Agility
•   Conjure Lightning Hammer (while wielding Lightning Hammer)
•   Signet of Fire

Traits that increase precision are :

• Signet Mastery (Stacking 1 minute +100 precision buff on signet use)
• Spotter (+150 to nearby allies)
• Aeromancer's Training (+190 while attuned to air)

Target's Armor

Vulnerability increases direct damage on a target ( 1% for each stack, up to a maximum of 25 times ~ 25%).

Conditions

Conditions deal fixed (armor-ignoring) damage over time. The damage is proportional to the number of times the condition has been applied (the damage stacks), is increased by a stat called Condition Damage, and lasts depending on the Condition Duration stat. Conditions are often inflicted on hit, meaning there is also pure damage involved.

Condition Damage

Condition Damage is a secondary attribute that improves the damage dealt by conditions your character inflicts. Condition damage will update per tick according to the source character's stats. The boon might increases condition damage.

Skills that increase condition damage :

•   Signet of Wrath
•   Banner of Strength
•   Conjure Flame Axe (while wielding Conjured Flame)
•   Signet of Domination
•   Conjure Fiery Greatsword (while wielding Fiery Greatsword)

Traits that increase condition damage :

•  Kindled Zeal — Gain condition damage based on your power.
•  Deep Strikes — Gain condition damage when you have fury. You have increased chance to critically strike against bleeding foes.
•  Pinpoint Distribution — While you are in combat, grant might to yourself and nearby allies each interval.
•  Ambidexterity — Gain condition damage. Gain additional condition damage while wielding a torch, dagger, or mace. Torch and dagger skills recharge faster.
•  Power Overwhelming — While at or above the might threshold, gain increased power. Power bonuses are doubled while attuned to fire.
•  Strength of Stone — Gain condition damage based on your toughness. Inflict bleeding when you immobilize a foe. Bleeding can only occur on the same target once per interval.
•  Chaotic Transference — When you grant chaos aura to yourself, grant it to nearby allies. When you apply chaos aura to an ally, grant them boons.
•  Target the Weak — Increases critical-hit chance for each condition on the foe. Gain condition damage based on your precision.
•  Lingering Curse — Your condition damage is increased. Conditions inflicted by scepter skills have longer durations, and Feast of Corruption becomes Devouring Darkness.

Condition duration

Condition Duration is a secondary attribute that improves the duration of all conditions inflicted by the character, including self-inflicted conditions. Every 15 points of Expertise seems to add 1% to condition duration.

Skills that increase condition duration are :

•   Conjure Frost Bow - (while wielding Ice Bow)
•   Signet of Midnight - Signet Passive: Improves expertise. Signet Active: Blind nearby foes and stealth yourself.

Traits that increase condition duration are (To see the traits which relate to a specific condition, refer to the page on that condition. The following is a list of traits related to non-specific conditions) :

•  Lingering Curse - Your condition damage is increased. Conditions inflicted by scepter skills have longer durations, and Feast of Corruption becomes Devouring Darkness.
•  Trapper's Expertise - Increase the duration of boons and conditions applied by traps. Offensive traps inflict cripple.
•  Chaotic Persistence - Gain concentration and expertise while affected by regeneration.
•  Chemical Rounds - Gain condition damage. Your pistol skills gain increased condition duration.

Available conditions

Conditions and their damage per second at level 80:

Condition	Damage
Bleeding	22 + 0,06 * Condition Damage
Poison	33.5 + 0.06 * Condition Damage
Burning	131,5 + 0,155 * Condition Damage
Confusion	10 + 0.035 * Condition Damage (also deals 49,5+0.0625 * Condition Damage per skill the target uses)
Fear	296+0,27 * Condition Damage (+148+0,13*Condition Damage if target is suffering from another condition)
Torment	15.9+ 0.045 * Condition Damage (x2 if target is moving)
Chilled	194 + 0,16 * Condition Damage (+ 96 + 0,08 * Condition Damage if target's health is below 50%)

Bleeding is very frequent.

Poison is frequent. It reduces healing's effectiveness by 33%.

Burning is frequent.

Torment is rare. Synergy with Fear and movement-control to cause the foe to move.

Fear only deals damage under the effect of Terror, a trait belonging to the necromancer. Is not always reliable, because a lot of foes (all champion and legendary foes) carry defiant. Doesn't stack

Chill only deals damage when using Deathly Chill, a trait belonging to the necromancer. Doesn't stack.

A cure skill will remove all stacks of any damage-dealing condition + some foes are immune to certain conditions, making builds relying on one specific condition sometimes inefficient.

Survive

Reducing incoming damage

Armor

Totals	Ascended
	Light	Medium	Heavy
	967	1118	1271

Defense (also called defense rating) is a value listed on armor and shields. Defense adds together with Toughness to give the Armor attribute, which reduces incoming direct damage.

Other effects which reduce damage

• Protection decreases the damage received by 33%.
• Glancing blows, as caused by either level difference or weakness, only do 50% of regular damage.
• blind causes miss.
• blocking, dodgeing or evading.
• Being out of range of the attack (some attacks have greater reach than their skill tooltip indicates, e.g. projectiles with high arc).
• Being obstructed by terrain, structures or objects.
• Being invulnerable.

Healing incoming damage

Healing

Every character has a healing skill, which is (according to the Healing page) "the most important source of healing". The Healing Power attribute directly increases linearly the effectiveness of most outgoing and self-healing. The regeneration boon, while not counting as "healing" in terms of other effects (e.g. Sigil of Benevolence), replenishes health over time. Each point of Healing Power adds 0.125 healing for Regeneration and 0.06 healing for Rejuvenation. The  Poison and  Agony conditions causes healing to be respectively 33% and ~50% less effective (the poison note can go to the Kill section), as well as the  Mistlock Instability: Social Awkwardness.

Total healing done = (mechanic-specific base healing) + (Healing Power) * (mechanic-specific coefficient)

It seems like the most appropriate professions for party-wide healing are guardian (with Virtue of Resolve primarly, but also honor and to a lesser extent valor and zeal), Water Magic elementalist, Med Kit engineer. Ranger has some skills and Spirit of Nature, the Druid specialization probably will be more focused around healing. Professions with a good self-healing seems to be necromancers (due to lifesteal) and thieves.

Refer to the Healing page for more

Life stealing skills

Again, refer to the appropriate page. Life stealing is mainly a necromancer mechanism, and rather an undevelopped one since less than 10 skills and traits are concerned

Curing conditions

See Condition#Related skills for a complete list of condition removal skills. Each profession has access to traits and skills to remove conditions.

Position control

Those effects do not deal damage on their own nor do they heal or cure, but allow one to either attack a fleeing foe or escape a threat. Not all are effective against all opponents, since some foes carry Defiant. Most can be used during jumping puzzles or panorama reaching. Please note that hit and run strategies are useless : foes recover all their health extremely quickly (+100pips of health regeneration or so) if their attacker leaves the area.

Teleport (and Shadow step)

Mesmers and Assassins have an edge over other classes due to their ability to instantly cover distances without getting hindered. Mesmers also have the ability to create portals (if working with a team or to shorten fails).

Speed Boosts and Snares

Speed boost can allow to catch a fleeing opponent (such as those affected by fear) or escape foes. As said above, Warhorns always have a speed boost skill, which make them one of the most interesting weapons for that purpose.

Snares such as Slow, Immobile, Crippled, Chill, Stun can likewise be used for offense or defense.

Knock downs, daze and gravity

Knockback, Launch can be used to hinder a foe on a rampage (useful for defense mainly, but also if your weapon deals more damage at high range), while Pull and Taunt can prevent a foe from moving away and/or closening the distance between a foe and you (useful for offense). Float and Sink depends on your position and are underwater anyway.

Daze and Knockdown can prevent a foe from using any skill, be it for defense or offense.

Application in the game: Professions (and races)

Racial skills seems not to be used.

No skill is common to two professions. Professions each have their own way of being played and their own weapon skills sets. This includes the profession mechanic (actually additional skills that can be used with the 10 skills already available), the specializations (one of which is kind of a primary specialization since it boosts profession mechanic skills) roughly like the primary attribute and primary skills in Guild Wars). An elite specialization is also available for those having HoT, powering up the game mechanism and allowing to use a new weapon if one invests in it.

About defensive/offensive strategies in Guild Wars 2 : most skills are meant for offense. A few skills provide healing, and even fewer provide AoE healing, while few skills provide damage reduction, all the while being not enough to outheal most damage. This means that most of the time one must focus on damage and use blind/block/dodge/evade/stun/daze to negate damage.

General

Maximum armor and health

Armor at level 80	Ascended armor
Heavy : Guardian, Warrior, Revenant	1271
Medium : Thief,Engineer, Ranger,	1118
Light : Elementalist, Necromancer, Mesmer,	967

Health at level 80	Level 80 + Vitality
Warrior, Necromancer,	19,212
Engineer, Ranger, Mesmer, Revenant	15,922
Guardian, Thief, Elementalist	11,645

Usable weapons

Weapon		Weapon Strength (Armor if shield)	Range2 Bonuses	Guardian	Revenant	Warrior	Engineer	Ranger	Thief	Elementalist	Mesmer	Necromancer
One-handed	Axe	1000 -+100	900 (130)	00	01	11	00	11	00	00	00	10
	Dagger	1000 -+30	very variable	00	00	00	00	01	11	11	00	11
	Mace	1000 -+60	130	10	10	11	00	00	00	00	00	00
	Pistol	1000 -+80	900 (1200)	00	00	00	11	00	11	00	01	00
	Sword	1000 -+50	130 (1200 offhand)	10	11	11	00	10	10	00	11	00
Main hand only	Scepter	1000 -+60	900	1	0	0	0	0	0	1	1	1
Off-hand only	Focus	900 -+27	None	1	0	0	0	0	0	1	1	1
	Shield	900 -+54	+64 AR	1	1	1	1	0	0	0	1	0
	Torch	900 -+72	Burning	1	0	1	0	1	0	0	1	0
	Warhorn	900 -+45	IMS	0	0	1	0	1	0	1	0	1
Two-handed	Greatsword	1100 -+55	130 (1200)	1	0	1	0	1	0	0	1	1
	Hammer	1100 -+66	130 (1200)	1	1	1	1	0	0	0	0	0
	Longbow	1050 -+84	1200 (1500)	1	0	1	0	1	0	0	0	0
	Rifle	1150 -+115	1200	0	0	1	1	0	0	0	0	0
	Short bow	1000 -+50	900	0	0	0	0	1	1	0	0	0
	Staff	1100 -+66	1200 (130) (130)	1	1	0	0	1	1	1	1	1
Aquatic	Harpoon gun	1000 -+50	IDC	0	0	1	1	1	1	0	0	0
	Spear	1000 -+50	IDC	1	1	1	0	1	1	0	1	1
	Trident	1000 -+50	IDC	1	0	0	0	0	0	1	1	1
Available sets		None	None	2	2	2	1	2	2	1	2	2
Number of usable weapons		None	None	11	7	11	4	10	6	5	9	8
Number of weapon skills 1		None	None	40	25	49	17(47)	39	37[40]	80(105)	34	30(35)
Possible combinations		None	None	14	7	21	4	13	9	6	12	12

• 11 The profession can use this one-handed weapon in either hand or both hands simultaneously.
• 10 The profession can only use this one-handed weapon in the main hand.
• 01 The profession can only use this one-handed weapon in the off hand.
• 1 The profession can use this main hand only, off-hand only, two-handed, or aquatic weapon.
• 0 and 00 The profession cannot use this weapon.
• 1 An elite specialization must be equipped to use this weapon.
• ¹ Chains and sequence skills are counted as one skill. The number in () includes Conjure, Death Shroud, Device kit and Weapon kit skills respectively. The number in [] includes dual wield skills with no off-hand equipped.
• ² Range depends on the skill.

Skill				Description
Conjure Earth Shield		0.75¾	60	Conjure. Manifest a magnetic shield in your hands and at the target location. Wielders of the weapon gain increased toughness and vitality.
Conjure Flame Axe		0.25¼	60	Conjure. Manifest a lava axe in your hands and at the target location. Wielders of the weapon gain increased power and condition damage.
Conjure Frost Bow		0.25¼	60	Conjure. Manifest a frost bow in your hands and at the target location. Wielders of this weapon gain increased condition duration and healing power.
Conjure Lightning Hammer		0.75¾	60	Conjure. Manifest a lightning hammer in your hands and at the target location. Wielders of this weapon gain increased precision and ferocity.
Conjure Fiery Greatsword		1	180	Conjure. Manifest a fiery greatsword in your hands and at the target location. When it lands, it damages and burns foes. Wielders of this weapon gain increased power and condition damage and cast Lesser Fiery Eruption at regular intervals on random enemies.

There are a total of ~120 weapon skill sets : 98 weapon skill sets + 9 specialization weapon skill set (+1 with reaper's shroud)+ 5 conjured weapon skills sets (elementalist mainly, but can be picked up by another ally) + 7 weapon/device kits (engineer only). Transforms are not viable due to their recharge.

Mesmer

Mesmers are the pride of arenanet, their own and special profession. Mesmers have always been blessed with extremely interesting features.

Mechanic

The mesmer mechanic skills allow them to destroy its illusions (clones or phantasms, created by skills) to damage, confuse (condition damage), daze or get Distortion (i.e. Invulnerability), or in the case of Chronomancers, to revert back health, endurance and cooldown to that of a previous state.

Traits

• Domination improves daze, interrupts, vulnerability, shatter, signets and illusions. Greatsword
• Dueling improves critical hits, illusions (especically phantasms), interrupt, dodge, mantras, shatter. Pistol and sword.
• Chaos improves conditions and boons, especially regeneration and stealth, manipulation, shatter, interrupt (,illusions). Staff
• Inspiration improves healing, illusion, shatter, distortion, block, evade, mantra, phantasm, revive. Focus
• Illusions improves shatter ALOT, illusions (especially phantasms), confusion, blind, block and evade. Torch, Scepter
• Chronomancer improves shatter ALOT, slow, alacrity, critical hits, wells and interrupts

Chronomancer sounds very powerful, especially with heavy damage-dealing profession that can benefit from alacrity.

Weapons skill sets

• (main hand) Sword (vulnerability, boon ripping, clone, cripple, immobilize), Scepter (clone, block, torment, blind, confusion)
  • (offhand) Focus (swiftness, cripple, pull, phantasm), Torch (burn, blind, fury, phantasm), Pistol (phantasm, stun(>daze>blind>confusion)), Sword (block, clone, daze, phantasm), Shield (requires chronomancer, block, phantasm, slow, alacrity, stun, quickness)
• (two-hand) Greatsword (high range, might, clone, phantasm, cripple, push) , Staff (random boons and conditions, teleport away, clone, phantasm)

Conclusion

Illusion is unavoidable for the Mesmer mechanic. Chronomancer also further boosts shatters and allows access to alacrity.

• Conditions(+boons) : Staff+Chaos revolve around applying a lot of random boons then conditions. Duration of boons and conditions is increased by Chaotic Persistence, which scale with the number of boons on oneself. Cry of Frustration (confusion) is to be preferred though diversion (daze) can be used for the effects of Dazzling and Confounding Suggestions (with Domination investment). Illusionary Inspiration (in Inspiration) can also be used to transfer all the boons you accumulated to your allies whenever you summon a phantasm.
• Vulnerability : Domination+Sword main-hand revolve around applying vulnerability to increase damage and benefit from Domination Fragility minor trait. Daze and interrupts also causes vulnerability, meaning using second sword, Diversion is interesting.
• Confusion (and blind+evade+block) : Illusions(+Dueling) already has everything, and scepter+torch is also good to bring confusion. Ineptitude links blocks and evade to blind, and blind to confusion in turn. Then Dueling can be used to cause blind through the trait Blinding Dissipation. Since both are conditions, this may synergize with condition stacking above.
• Phantasms spam : Illusions+Dueling+Domination(+Chronomancer) Phantasmal Haste increase their attack speed, Phantasmal Fury and Sharper Images (dueling) give them fury and bleeding on critical hit, Empowered Illusions (domination) increase their damage, while Illusionist's Celerity (illusion) reduces the recharge of the skills (stacks with weapon-realted skill recharge). Chronophantasma (chronomancer) may be used to shatter the phantasm at any time, but one must relinquish to Empowered Illusions and this reduces their damage output due to daze.
• Clone spam : Dueling+Illusions+Chronomancer. Illusionist's Celerity and Master of Misdirection allow for reduction of recharge foe clone creation skills and shatter skills. Non-combo between Master of Fragmentation and Malicious Sorcery (scepter can create lot of clones). Deceptive Evasion, Desperate Decoy cause further clones to spawn.

Elementalist

Mechanic

Elementalists can switch between attunements using the attunement skills. Switching between attunements is very important as an elementalist since there is no weapon swap.

Traits

• Fire improves fire attunement, burning, fire aura (which cause burning), conjured weapons.
• Air improves air attunement, critical hit, glyph, knockdown, stun and other disables. Minor speed boosts.
• Water improves water attunement ALOT^2, cantrips, regeneration, vulnerability. Lot of healing and cures.
• Earth improves bleeding, earth attunement, signets and general durability.

All elements (except fire, which only improves fire aura) improves auras.

• Arcane improves attunements ALOT^2, boons (quite a lot too), critical hits, arcane skills, revive speed.
• Tempest improves overload, vigor, water attunement, aura, protection, shouts, boons if wielding a warhorn.

Tempest is a weak specialization, only empowering water. Getting healed and cured by an elementalist is a bad idea to begin with because they have little armor and health...

Weapons skill sets

• (main hand) Dagger (Fire, Earth, Water, Air), Scepter (Fire, Earth, Water, Air),
  • (offhand) Focus (Fire, Earth, Water, Air), Warhorn (requires tempest, Fire, Earth, Water, Air)
• (two-hand) Staff (Fire, Earth, Water, Air)

Guardian

Mechanic

Guardians relies on their virtues for a passive burning, healing or block. Virtues skills can be actively used to relinquish the passive effect for a while and get a powerful one-time effect, making them the equal of signets.

Traits

• Radiance is best used against foes suffering from burning and recharges vertue of justice on kill.
• Zeal improves Symbols and also has synergies with burning (especially), aegis, Spirit weapons. Greatsword and scepter
• Valor provides might on block and can recharge Virtue of Courage (albeit under certain conditions), meditation. Focus and shield
• Honor improves dodging and works well with Virtue of Resolve to restore endurance to trigger more dodge. Major Grandmaster traits can boost either shouts or symbols. Mace and staff
• Virtues improves virtues ALOT, boons, consecration. Hammer
• Dragonhunter improves knock back, cripple, virtues, traps. Longbow primarly, but to a lesser extent staff/scepter too since their range is >600.

Dragonhunter seems like an extremely powerful specialization, making the guardian (good profession with a very high resilience already !), able to knockback melee opponents and deal heavy damage from high range to everything else.

Weapons skill sets

• (main hand) Mace, Sword, Scepter
  • & (offhand) Focus, Torch, Shield
• (two-hand) Greatsword, Staff, Hammer, Longbow (requires Dragonhunter)

Necromancer

Mechanic

Necromancers gain life force from using skills and from deaths, life force which allow them to enter the Death Shroud (or Reaper's Shroud) mode, during which they are stronger and more resilient.

Traits

• Spite improves shroud ALOT, downed, chill, signet, boon removal, vulnerability if wielding an axe. Axe, Focus
• Blood Magic improves bleeding, minions, shroud, wells, health, revive. Dagger, Warhorn
• Death Magic improves shroud ALOT, minions, toughness, poison, conditions, kill.
• Curses improves bleeding, critical hits, shroud, conditions, blind, corruption, fear. Scepter
• Soul Reaping improves shroud ALOT, damage, marks, fear, downed, spectral skills.
• Reaper improves chill ALOT OMG DEGEN, shroud, fear, shouts, vulnerability, boons, kill. Greatsword

Reaper sounds like good damage and crowd control through the newly boosted chill.

Weapons skill sets

• (main hand) Axe, Dagger, Scepter
  • (offhand) Focus, Dagger, Warhorn
• (two-hand) Greatsword (requires Reaper), Staff

Thief

Mechanic

Thieves can use environmental weapons depending on the foe they are facing by using their steal skill. They must manage their initiative to be able to use their skills.

Traits

• Deadly Arts improves stealing, poison, conditions, downed, healing, trap, reveal, damage. Dagger
• Critical Strikes improves critical hits (Oh RLY ?), flanking, signets, stealth, fury, precision. Pistol
• Shadow Arts improves stealth ALOT, revive, venom, downed, deception, steal.
• Acrobatics improves dodge, evade, vigor, healing, initiative, stealth. Sword
• Trickery improves steal, initiative, flanking, dodge, interrupts, tricks, weapon swap,
• Daredevil improves steal, evade, dodge, interrupt, critical hits, physical hits, range<360. Staff

Daredevil...is melee. However staff has high weapon strength and the class allow for more dodge : the profession will be very powerful as spiker.

Weapons skill sets

• (main hand) Pistol (bleeding, vulnerability, shadowstep if dagger), Dagger (endurance, poison, flanking, leap, blind&shadowstep if pistol, evade&bleeding if dagger) , Sword (cripple, blind, daze, flanking, evade&boon stealing if dagger, stun if pistol)
  • (offhand) Pistol (daze, blind), Dagger (cripple, stealth, vulnerability)
• (two-hand) Staff (requires Daredevil, knockdown, weakness, evade, blind, leap), Shortbow (immobilize, bleeding, )

Conclusion

Stolen items are random and environmental weapons are bad, making stealing a bad profession mechanic overall.

• Stealth abuse :
• Dodge abuse : Daredevil+Acrobatics(+Trickery)

Warrior

Weapons skill sets

• (main hand)
  • (offhand)
• (two-hand)

Ranger

Weapons skill sets

• (main hand)
  • (offhand)
• (two-hand)

Revenant

Weapons skill sets

• (main hand)
  • (offhand)
• (two-hand)

Engineer

Weapons skill sets

• (main hand)
  • (offhand)
• (two-hand)