A Guild Wars Glossary

Guild Wars Glossary

I originally wrote the City of Heroes/Villains glossary because I thought I would be posting a lot more about it. I guess that sorta didn't happen. Now I will write this one for Guild Wars for the same reason. This is very long, so I split the appendices over into a second post.

Last Updated: 22 Feb 2011

Basics

GW, GW2, Prophecies, Factions, Nightfall, EotN: "Guild Wars" (GW) is the game as a whole. GW2 is the upcoming sequel. Prophecies (Proph) is the first campaign. Factions is the second. Nightfall (NF) the third. EotN ("Eye of the North"), also known as GW:EN, is the expansion.

Campaign, Expansion: The campaigns are stand-alone, but linked, games. Each character has a "home" campaign where they start out, but each other campaign can also be reached by that character. EotN is different; it's meant for upper-level players only and you cannot create a new character there.

Explorable Area, Explorables: An instanced area of the world map you can return to at will to farm, find and do quests, or simply travel through on your way elsewhere.

Outpost: Outposts (and their larger versions towns and cities) are the only non-instanced places in the game, in which you can interact with other players. All sizes contain merchants and item storage; some also contain various other NPCs, including traders and crafters. All missions begin in outposts.

Gameplay

The maximum level of any character is 20. Monsters go up to level 30. Your hit points increase as you level, but your energy pool is static, though it can be boosted by items.

When not actively fighting (or as the result of certain skills), damaged characters gain health regeneration. Energy used or lost regenerates constantly through energy regeneration, which varies based on profession and sometimes certain equipment or skills. During battle, characters can build up adrenaline through attacking or being attacked; some skills use this instead of energy.

Profession; Primary Profession; Secondary Profession: Your character's available skills and attributes (see below) are determined by both your (fixed) primary profession and a(n eventually) changeable secondary profession. The six core professions can start in any campaign; Factions and Nightfall each have two professions that can only start in those campaigns.

• Warriors are melee fighters with excellent physical resistance and good elemental spell resistance. They provide both offense and defense as well as inflicting physical conditions. They have low energy and slow energy return, but have a number of adrenaline skills as well as energy-cost skills.
• Rangers are ranged fighters with a wide variety of skills including trapping, commanding a pet, and condition-infliction. They have excellent elemental resistance and moderate physical resistance. They have moderate energy and moderate energy return, and get a discount on the energy cost of certain types of skills, including all attack skills.
• Elementalists are spellcasters who concentrate primarily on damage, including group damage, but with some support and utility skills. They, along with the next three professions, have the lowest physical and elemental resistance. They have high energy and fast energy return, and can increase their energy pool higher than other professions.
• Monks support their party or team through healing or protective spells, with some damage spells or damage-enhancing spells available. They have moderate energy and fast energy return.
• Mesmers specialize in interrupting enemies, punishing them for using skills, or inflicting various hexes (see below). They have moderate energy and fast energy return and can heal or steal energy points.
• Necromancers can raise undead minions, deal damage through vampire-like life-stealing skills, and/or hex foes, with some utility and support skills. They have moderate energy and fast energy return as well as bonus energy return when killing foes.
• Assassins are native to Factions, and use quick-striking daggers and high-damage skills in specific combinations to quickly kill single targets. They have moderate physical and elemental resistance. They have low energy and fast energy return.
• Ritualists are also native to Factions, and use a variety of methods to support the party or dole out damage with skills that are designed to synergize. They have low physical and elemental resistance. They have moderate energy and fast energy return.
• Dervishes are native to Nightfall; they are melee fighters with a great many self-buffing skills and a weapon that may strike multiple foes. They have moderately-high physical and elemental damage resistance as well as bonus hit points. They have moderate energy and fast energy return. Recently, they were majorly revamped and now join the Warrior and Paragon in having adrenal skills.
• Paragons, also native to Nightfall, are ranged attackers with moderately-high physical and elemental resistance, moderate energy, and low energy return, but can gain back energy through using a certain subset of (mainly support) skills. Like the Warrior, many of their skills are adrenal rather than energy-based.

All foes in the game also have a primary profession; some (mostly in EotN) have both a primary and a secondary, and occasionally a skill from a third profession.

Skills are learned via trainers, given as quest rewards, or sometimes "captured" from foes. Elite skills are captured from bosses; they are (usually) better in some ways. You may use skills from either profession, but are limited to eight skills total at a time. Only one of these may be elite, and no more than three may be "PvE-only" skills (which are related to various factions and forbidden in PvP). Skills can be changed when you are in an outpost.

Skills generally have a cost in energy or adrenaline (a few are powered in part by hit points), take time to activate, and take time to recharge before they can be used again.

Attributes raise your effectiveness at skills linked to that attribute. Most skills, regardless of when in the game they're acquired, are useful throughout the game due to this mechanic. Some skills are not linked to an attribute and always have the same effect; these are sometimes popular choices from one's secondary profession. You have a pool of points you can freely reassign to your attributes whenever you are in an outpost. The higher you raise the attribute, the more points it costs. The primary attribute of a profession may only be increased by characters who have that profession as their primary.

Build, Builds. A build is the combination of skills selected and points invested in attributes. Builds may be referred to by their function (e.g., support or Minion Master), the attribute or attributes most heavily invested in (e.g., Healing or Protection monks), or the elite skill built around. Choosing an effective build is a major part of succeeding in the game.

Hexes; Conditions; Enchantments The one thing these three have in common is they all have an effect for a certain length of time. Hexes and conditions are harmful to the target; enchantments are beneficial to the target. Some hexes and enchantments have an effect when they end, either instead of or in addition to while active.

Hexes vary; most cause or amplify damage in some fashion, though they may also do things such as make a skill take longer to activate or recharge. They can be removed, mainly by Monks and Mesmers, although the spells which remove them frequently take a long time to recharge and only a few remove more than one hex at a time. Putting a large number of hexes on a target generally kills them quite quickly.

Conditions include several health degeneration variants which can add their effects together: bleeding, burning, poison, and disease (which can spread to nearby creatures of the same species—whether friend or foe). Weakness reduces your attributes and your weapon damage. Blindness will cause your attacks to miss most of the time. Cracked Armor can reduce high levels of armor. Crippled makes you move slower. Deep Wound temporarily reduces maximum hit points and makes healing less effective on the target. Dazed makes spells take longer to cast and makes it very easy to interrupt spell casting. Conditions are frequently applied via attack skills, making it possible to sometimes prevent them by blocking or evading. Conditions are generally much easier to remove than hexes, especially by Monks and Ritualists, who can easily remove several at a time or in quick succession.

Although not strictly speaking conditions, the ability to interrupt skill activation or the ability to knock an opponent down (interrupting what they were doing and preventing them from doing anything else for a few seconds) are something like them, in that they frequently are applied via attacks and therefore can sometimes be avoided by blocking or evading.

Enchantments have myriad effects, such as temporarily improving armor or hit points, gaining the ability to block or evade attacks, reducing the cost of skills, or gaining health or energy regeneration. Enchantments can be removed by enemies, generally by Mesmers, Assassins, Necromancers, or Dervishes. There is also a set of unremovable weapon spells that have effects similar to enchantments that are used by Ritualists. These generally wear off more quickly, and a target can only be affected by one weapon spell at a time, while there is no limit to the number of enchantments on a single character.


Quest vs Mission: In the campaigns, there are two types of storyline events. Quests are either primary, meaning they advance the main storyline, or secondary for quests with side stories. Primary quests are generally required to move through the game. Missions are a special type of single-area quest with a main goal and a bonus goal, and represent a major storyline event. In Prophecies, the bonus goal is usually a side-quest-like but related goal. In Factions, the bonus goal is based solely on how long you take to complete the mission. In Nightfall, the bonus goal varies, sometimes involving time, sometimes involving secondary goals. EotN has a revamped gameplay regarding quests and missions, usually requiring chained goals, and eliminating the bonus goal.

Currency: The base currency is gold (g), with platinum (p) equaling 1000g. There is a limit to how much gold you can carry (100p), and how much you can store (1000p). Players get around this limit by investing in or trading with ectoplasm (a very rare material) or zaishen keys (zkeys). Zkeys themselves obtained through tournament reward points (PvP tournament play) or zaishen coins (PvE and PvP goals). Certain NPCs will also trade you items for collectible monster drops, quest reward trophies, or faction points, making them all a specialized form of currency.

Armor, Elite Armor: Armor selections in Guild Wars is based on your primary profession. In early stages of a campaign it will be less powerful, but max armor is available fairly quickly (except in Prophecies—unless you cross over to another campaign), and armor choice is purely cosmetics. Armor reduces most (but not all) types of damage to a certain degree. It is crafted by NPCs and costs gold and materials. Elite armor is 10-15 times as expensive as other max-level armor, and sometimes requires very rare materials. Elite sets tend to be nicer-looking and contain more dyeable portions; they also serve as a sort of prestige item.

Weapon, Shield, Focus, Off-hand: Weapons and off-hand items generally do not offer their full potential without an investment in a related attribute. Weapons don't do their full damage unless you've got a related attribute; shields only offer partial effectiveness unless you've got a related attribute; focuses only offer energy gain if you've got a related attribute. Shields and focuses are collectively referred to as off-hand items and can only be used with one-handed weapons. Two-handed weapons may offer better bonuses to help balance this.

Item Rarity; Inherent; Inscription; Prefix; Suffix: Items that are common and have no modifiers have their names in white; with minor modifiers, they're blue. Items with better modifiers or that are rarer in general have their names in purple; rare items or the best modifiers are in gold.

In Prophecies and Factions, weapons and off-hands may have an inherent modifier; in NF & EotN, that was replaced with an inscription slot, for which there are changeable modifiers. Modifiers generally are restricted to a type of weapon or off-hand (e.g., spellcasting weapons only or shields only), though a few can be applied to any type of item.

Prefixes and Suffixes are changeable modifier slots for both weapons and armor (off-hands usually only have a suffix). These are even more type-specific, e.g., bows use "bow strings" and "bow grips", staves use "staff heads" and "staff wrappings". Armor uses, respectively, "insignia" and "runes", many of which are primary profession-specific.

Weapon and off-hand modifiers usually alter energy, hit points, armor, or damage, sometimes under specific conditions. Armor modifiers generally improve armor rating in specific conditions, health, energy, or attributes.

Materials are needed to create all types of armor and certain other items. Typically they either are directly dropped from monsters, or indirectly in the form of items you salvage with a special kit. Salvaging is also the main way to obtain item modifiers; taking a modifier off an item may either "break" the item or leave it for further salvaging. Rare materials can also be gotten from salvage, although certain of them can also be crafted at a special NPC from common materials.

Titles in Guild Wars mark achievements that run the gamut from normal gameplay (e.g., finishing all the missions, including bonuses) to the purely optional (e.g., eating enough "points" of sweet things). Faction-related titles may also offer benefits when chosen (in NF and EotN) or increase the power of related PvE skills. There's even a title track counting the number of titles you get. Although many titles offer no real reward, most players (including me) like to accumulate them.

Death Penalty; Morale; Morale Boosts Death penalty (DP) is a penalty applied to your maximum health and energy whenever you die. It can be reduced through gaining experience, the use of certain items, or a morale boost, and is removed entirely when you return to an outpost. A morale boost is gained when you kill a boss or achieve certain mission goals; some items also provide this instead of removing death penalty. You can have positive Morale, which improves your maximum health and energy. Death Penalty is limited to -60%; Morale is limited to +10%. Yeah, we don't like that disparity, either.

Resurrection (rez) in Guild Wars can be done by any profession through the use of a Resurrection Signet or, in PvE, a Sunspear Rebirth Signet (linked to Sunspear rank). However, these can only be used once unless a morale boost is gained. Reusable rezzes are available to Monks, Ritualists, and Paragons, with varying degrees of health or energy return. If everyone in a party dies in an explorable area, they may be revived at a Resurrection Shrine; a party wipe during a mission, or in hard mode when all party members have a DP of 60, will result in failure and return the party to an outpost.

The World

Prophecies is the original campaign. The setting is vaguely-European in nature, with a main storyline involving the kingdom of Ascalon, what happens to it, and what happens to its countrymen, which you are one of. It's the hardest of the three campaigns with the slowest ramp-up to power and the hardest to make money in. The beginning of Prophecies is technically a flashback (you skip forward in time when you leave the newbie area) and does not represent the world as it is in the present... the transition scene is very dramatic.

Notable Places in Prophecies: Ascalon (human kingdom), Kryta (human kingdom), Maguuma Jungle (wild lands), The Shiverpeak Mountains (North and South; snowy mountains; home of the dwarves), Crystal Desert (big desert in south), Ring of Fire Islands (lava and evil in one convenient package).

Tyria can mean the continent that Prophecies takes place on, that area plus the EoTN area, or the name of the world. Context will usually tell you which is meant.

Factions is set on an Asian-inspired island and its storyline effectively takes place at roughly the same time as Prophecies. The main storyline involves a mysterious plague affecting the Canthan Empire, along with some side stories about two factions which war over the island resources. It has the distinction of having the hardest-to-navigate city I've ever experienced in an MMO, and has the weakest storyline of the campaigns; it concentrated a great deal on PvP.

Notable Places in Factions: Shing Jea Island and Monastery (separate small island, peaceful, hilly), Kaineng City (seat of the Empire; Imperial Palace; full of bureacrats), Echovald Forest (petrified forest; seat of the Kurzick faction), The Jade Sea (stone "sea"; home of the Luxon faction).

Kurzick, Luxon: The two warring factions of Cantha, technically under the rule of the Empire, but in reality acting somewhat autonomously. The Kurzicks are noted for their devotion to the gods, their nobility, and their scholarship. The Luxon are noted for their nomadic lifestyle, their clan system, and their strong fighting spirit.

Nightfall is set in the land of Elona, a continent south of Tyria, connected to it by a desert believed to once have been a sea. It takes place several years after the first two campaigns. Elona is an African-and-Middle-East inspired land. "Nightfall" is the event the players starting in this campaign face: the rise of a dark God whose presence corrupts the land and sends it into eternal night. It has my favorite of the three storylines, and also ties in the other two storylines to its own.

Notable Places in Nightfall: Istan (island home; tribal feel; home of the Sunspears), Kourna (main continent; military government; North African feel), Vabbi (main continent; Persian feel; home to merchant princes), The Desolation (corrupted lands; connects to the Crystal Desert; can kill unprotected travelers).

Sunspears: The Order of the Sunspears is part military, part national police, and are outside the provincial structure of the three main Elonan lands. Starting Nightfall characters are a member of this organization, and the story features the organization and what happens to it prominently.

Humans are the only playable race in GW and the major inhabitants of all the campaign (not expansion) areas, although there other sentient races. The human religion is based on The Five Gods: Balthazar, God of War and Fire; Dwayna, Goddess of Life and Air; Grenth, God of Death and Ice; Lyssa, (Siamese Twin) Goddess of Beauty and Illusion; and Melandru, Goddess of Earth and Nature. There actually are more gods than this: the evil god from Nightfall, deposed former gods and demi-gods, false gods, and a new god that arises during the campaigns. Not all races follow (or even believe in) this pantheon.

Eye of the North is set mainly in the area to the north of Ascalon and the Shiverpeaks, although certain of its areas actually are south of the Kryta/Maguuma Jungle stretch. The storyline involves a Really Really Big Bad (No Really We Mean It) which threatens the entire area as well as possibly the world as a whole, and also is the lead-in event for the time period that will elapse between GW and GW2. EotN is notable for introducing or fleshing out several non-human races which will be playable in GW2.

Gameplay in EotN not only uses a somewhat different quest/mission structure, but added optional dungeons as well as introducing hard mode to the game. Hard mode enemies are higher level, have more skills, move faster, attack faster, and otherwise are a big pain in the ass. EotN enemies typically are also somewhat stronger than most of the enemies you find in normal mode in the campaigns, although they also get bonuses in hard mode. You can re-complete all missions (and EotN quests) in hard mode for better rewards (and title progress). In addition, hard mode introduced vanquishing areas: clearing them entirely of enemies for reward.

Notable Places in EotN: The Far Shiverpeaks (Dwarf and Norn area; far northern part of the Shiverpeaks range), The Charr Homelands (includes parts of what used to be Ascalon; home to, duh, the Charr), The Tarnished Coast (includes coastal area near Kryta and the Maguuma Jungle; new home of the Asura), and The Depths of Tyria (a vast interconnected underground area, parts of it formerly home to the Asura; all dungeons are here).

The Charr are a felinoid race who have been at war with Ascalon for a very, very long time, and are the starting antagonists in Prophecies as well as being present in EotN. After the events of Prophecies when they are "betrayed" by their "gods" (it's complex) a certain segment of their population finds new "gods", which are, unfortunately, about as reliable and well-meaning as their old ones, what with being the major enemy of the expansion. They will be a playable race in GW2, at which point they will have entirely forsaken gods and developed a steampunk-like society.

The Norn are basically human in appearance except they are extremely tall and can shapechange. They are a loose group with a common set of beliefs and culture oriented on self-reliance and individual prowess in battle; the closest thing they have to leaders are highly-respected heroes, who usually oversee homesteads in which they gather to trade, compete, and socialize. They revere nature Spirits rather than following the human gods. They will be a playable race in GW2.

The Asura are a bunch of short, slightly gobliny-looking wiseasses who believe they are intellectually superior to everyone else, and who believe in the Eternal Alchemy, sort of a Singularity thing; they have a scientific approach to magic. Until recently, they were considered a myth, but in the time leading up to the events of EoTN they begin being forced above ground by a group of strange, mindless creatures known as Destroyers (for good reason). Their technology sort of plays a part in just why it is The Big Bad is becoming active in the first place. They will be a playable race in GW2.

The Dwarves are featured heavily in the Prophecies storyline. There are two main groups: the Deldrimor, who are allied with humans, and the Stone Summit, who are xenophobic. They're pretty typical fantasy dwarves: indeterminate gender, metalsmiths, short and stout. They worship The Great Dwarf, and their version of Heaven is The Great Forge. The enemy of EotN is known to them as The Great Destroyer. No one said they were creative. They will not be a playable race in GW2, for reasons which become clear in EotN.

The Sylvari are only briefly hinted at during EotN, and are a slim sylph-like race who will be playable in GW2.

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