Downed
“You are downed. Fight to survive.
— In-game description
A character enters downed mode when their health drops below zero. Weakened, but not yet defeated, a downed character may continue fighting with a special set of downed skills—and might rally to regain their life.
Overview[edit]
Mechanics[edit]
Guild Wars 2 has three separate life states: alive, downed, and defeated. When a character is downed, they fall to the ground and are unable to move, but gain triple their base health and a chance to fight to survive.
The character's weapons and skills are replaced with downed skills for their profession. Downed characters cannot dodge, nor can they move or evade attacks unless their downed skills enable them to do so. Health while downed steadily drains at a rate of 2.5% per second, and being damaged by enemies decreases it as usual.
When a character loses all of their health while downed, they become defeated and lose all their available actions. A defeated character may wait to be revived or teleport to the waypoint of their choice.
Being downed is accompanied by visual and audio effects like screen fading, blood-tinted vision, and bass-dampened sound.
Drowning[edit]
Drowning is the state of being downed while underwater, with some differences:
- A drowning character can move, but they cannot dodge.
- Drowning characters have their profession's drowning skills.
- The downed text prompt changes from "Fight To Survive!" to "Swim to the Surface!".
Downed skills[edit]
Each profession has three specific downed skills and a recovery skill common to all professions called Bandage. The first skill is a damaging skill inflicting either direct damage or conditions. The second skill is a utility skill based on profession, with examples like the warrior's Hammer Toss or elementalist's Vapor Form, it is often either a control skill, or a movement skill. The third skill becomes available after a cooldown period and offers a more powerful utility—for instance, a warrior can use Vengeance to fight normally for a short time, while an elementalist can use Grasping Earth to immobilize and damage a foe.
The fourth skill, Bandage, allows the player to channel a healing effect. Using another skill or suffering direct damage will interrupt the heal and place the ability on a short cooldown.
- Downed skills from masteries
In PvE mode, training the Spectral Aid mastery gives access to a fifth downed skill: Channeled Agony. Spectral Aid is not available in raids, World versus World, or PvP.
Rallying and reviving[edit]
“You now enter a downed state when your health reaches zero. Press 1 to fight for your life, or press 4 to mend yourself. Afterward, your health is lower for a while, so be careful.
— Rally Unlocked
Downed players may exit the downed state, returning to life, either by rallying, reviving themselves, or being revived by others.
- Rallying
- Primary article: Rally
Defeating an enemy or another player rallies the character, instantly reviving them from downed state (Killing an ambient creature will not rally a player). Leveling up by any means also rallies the player. As opposed to revival, rallying grants a player only 25% of their maximum health.
- Reviving yourself, or being revived
- Primary article: Revival
Healing to full health, such as from the Bandage skill or dedicated revival skills like Function Gyro, will also revive the character.
Other players can rapidly heal a downed character with the revive action. To revive a downed character, move next to them and press the interact key (default: F). Players can be interrupted, stopping the revival process (unless they were protected by 
Stability). Note that players can revive both downed and fully defeated characters.
Revived characters are brought back to life with 50% of their maximum health.
Downed penalty[edit]
- Primary article: Downed penalty
Successive downed states weaken a character further. Each time entering downed state inflicts one point of downed penalty, reducing downed health by 25% per point. Downed penalty lasts for one minute and stacks by intensity. Holding four points of downed penalty (100% health loss) will instantly defeat a player.
Finishing enemy players[edit]
- Primary article: Finisher
In World vs World and Structured PvP, downed enemy players can be finished to quickly defeat them, preventing them from rallying or being easily revived. When near a downed enemy, the game displays the message, "Finish them! [F]". Pressing the interact key (default: F) begins the finishing action, which takes about 3.5 seconds to complete. Moving or being interrupted will stop this action, but taking damage will not. Finishers also have a small area of effect around the character using one, so if the downed player moves but is still nearby the finisher, they can still be finished.
The channel time of "Finish them!" does not change while under the effects of 
Quickness or 
Slow. Downed players who are invisible will also avoid being finished, unless they come out of invisibility as the finisher lands, since the caster won't automatically stop channeling their finisher.
The following skills also finish players:
Related traits[edit]
Traits that improve downed
Strength of the Fallen (Valor) — Lose conditions every interval. Health degenerates more slowly while downed.
Serpent's Touch (Deadly Arts) — Stealing inflicts poison. While in the downed state, your attacks apply poison.
Death's Embrace (Spite) — Deal increased strike damage while downed. Inflict vulnerability when you strike a foe below the health threshold. Cannot apply vulnerability to the same target more than once per interval.-
Death Nova (Death Magic) — When you or one of your minions is downed, create a Poison Nova. Summon a jagged horror when you kill a foe. -
Last Rites (Blood Magic) — As long as you are not downed, allies near you do not bleed out if they are downed. Gain healing power based on your current health.
Related consumables[edit]
| Level | Duration | Item | Effect |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 10m | Rabbit Offering | +20% Downed Health |
| 0 | 10m | Slice of Watermelon | +20% Downed Health |
| 5 | 30m | Bowl of Salsa | +20% Downed Health |
| 15 | 30m | Bowl of Bean Salad | +30% Downed Health |
| 40 | 30m | Bowl of Avocado Salsa | +50% Downed Health +6% Damage while Downed |
| 45 | 30m | Bowl of Chickpea Salad | +60% Downed Health +10% Damage While Downed |
| 69 | 10m | Variloo's Swift Algae Snack | +80% Downed Health +14% Damage While Downed |
| 70 | 30m | Can of Mango Salsa | +80% Downed Health +14% Damage While Downed |
| 70 | 30m | Bowl of Mango Salsa | +80% Downed Health +14% Damage While Downed |
| 80 | 30m | Bowl of Fire Salsa | +100% Downed Health +20% Damage While Downed |
Gallery[edit]
A downed asura.
The UI shown when downed, including red screen border and downed skill bar.
Downed ally icon.
Downed enemy icon.
Notes[edit]
- The downed system does not unlock until level 5. Lower level characters that lose all health are defeated instantly. The second slot unlocks at level 7, and the third slot at level 9.
- In PvE, nearby downed players will show as a downed icon on your Mini Map; this icon will always show for downed team mates in PvP even if they are not nearby.
- In PvP, downed enemy players show as a downed enemy icon on your mini map, even if your team does not have vision of them, and even if they're in Stealth.
- In WvW it is not possible to start reviving defeated players if the player attempting to revive is in combat. In Structured PvP defeated players cannot be revived at all; they respawn automatically, after a short delay in Conquest games or at the end of a round in Team Deathmatch games.
Poison and 
Agony are especially dangerous to downed characters, as the healing reduction applies to all methods of revival, such as Bandage and revival by other players.- When downed, the character will rarely shout out one of the following lines, depending on race and gender.
| Race | Gender | |
|---|---|---|
| Male | Female | |
 Asura
|
Impossible! You defeated me?! | How embarrassing. I'm still smarter than you. |
 Charr
|
It's all going dark. Should've trained more. Must...keep....going. |
Am I dying? Seeing... black.... |
 Human
|
Grenth reject me! | |
 Norn
|
||
 Sylvari
|
How could I have fallen? Why did I fail? Me? Defeated? I'll do better next time. |
I do not accept defeat! |
Trivia[edit]
- The "Finish them!" prompt on a downed enemy is a reference to the Mortal Kombat video game series, where the announcer says a similar line as a player delivers the "Fatality".
- Prior to the September 2014 Feature Pack, all characters regardless of level had access to the downed state.
