Guild Wars Glossary (Appendices)

The main glossary was already large, and this is pretty word-filled as well, so I split the two up.

Last edited: 22 Feb 2011

Appendix A: Titles

Titles may be character-based or account-based; the latter are gained through actions of any character, and benefit (when applicable) any character. Many titles have multiple tiers and can be displayed on a character when you reach a certain rank, though the ultimate goal is, of course, the highest rank.

Character Titles

• Protector/Guardian: Completing each campaign's mission in both normal and hard mode offers six titles (two per campaign) plus a seventh title for completing all six.
• Vanquisher: Killing every monster in every explorable in each campaign in hard mode offers three titles, plus one more for completing all three.
• Cartographer: Exploring every inch of each campaign offers three titles, plus one more for completing all three.
• Doing the equivalent of the above three in EoTN gains Master of the North ranks.
• Skill Hunter: Gaining every elite skill in each campaign (some overlap exists) offers three titles plus one more for doing all three.
• Party Animal/Sweet Tooth/Drunkard: Received for playing with, eating, and drinking festival-related items.
• Survivor or Legendary Defender of Ascalon: Survivor requires you to not die even once for a very long time, and is hard to get. Legendary Defender of Ascalon can only be gotten by a character in the starting Prophecies zone that makes it to level 20, which is nearly impossible due to the level of mobs there. However, you can let the mobs repeatedly kill you to level them up, gaining more experience when you then kill them. For obvious reasons, these titles are mutually exclusive.
• Sunspear, Lightbringer, Asura, Deldrimor, Ebon Vanguard, and Norn titles are from Nightfall (the first two) and EoTN (the rest), and are gained by doing certain quests and missions as well as killing enemies in those areas after getting a bounty (freely available) to do so. You cannot max these titles in normal mode via bounties, and generally take hard mode bounties to finish them off.
• Maxed Titles counts how many titles you've maxed. You have some leeway here; you get the maximum rank at 30 titles ("God Walking Amongst Mere Mortals"), but there are actually a total of 38.

Account Titles

• Lucky and Unlucky are mainly gained through playing games of chance during festivals, or by using lockpicks. Lockpicks can be broken during use, gaining Unlucky points, or retained, gaining Lucky points. Each level of Lucky improves your chance of retaining a lockpick.
• Wisdom is gained by identifying gold rarity items. Each level of Wisdom improves your chance of salvage without breaking items.
• Treasure Hunter is gained by opening chests in late campaign areas, the expansion, or hard mode. Each level gained improves both salvage item retention and lockpick retention.
• Champion, Codex, Gladiator, and Hero are PvP titles for various endeavours that I will never, ever get. Likewise, Gamer is a title that no one has ever maxed, and it's a pain in the ass to get anyhow, what with needing to participate in competitive events during festivals to receive.
• Allegiance titles for the Kurzick and the Luxon are gotten much like the ones for the Sunspears, etc. up in character-based, except you have to bribe priests to get the bounty, can gain them in specific types of PvP, and invest approximately six million years of your life to max them (as "Savior of the Kurzicks" or "Savior of the Luxons"). While I am working on one, I doubt I'll ever get it maxed. Or close.

Appendix B: Professions, Skills, and Attributes

As mentioned above in the base definitions, a major part of gameplay in Guild Wars involves the choice of profession and secondary profession, choosing a pool of skills to use, and assigning attribute points. Here's some more details on how that works.

At level 1, you have no attribute points. You acquire them as you gain levels; by level 20 (max level) you will have gotten 170 points this way. An additional 30 points is available through two quests in each campaign. In Prophecies, these are quite late, which makes the game a little trickier. In Factions and NF, you will gain these by the time you reach max level. The total points you have when you max out is 200.

Each attribute level raised costs a bit more to the last, so whereas you pay 1 point for the first level, it's 15 points for level 5, and 97 for the normal maximum of level 12. Generally, people concentrate on 2-3 attributes to raise for this reason, although "leftover" points are sometimes invested in an attribute you've taken a utility skill from.

Armor and Attributes

Attributes can also be directly increased by the headgear of your armor (usually +1 bonus to an attribute of your choice) and by runes. Attribute runes give +1 to +3 bonus levels to an attribute; the higher numbers are offset with a penalty to hit points, trading effectiveness for survivability. You can exceed the normal cap of 12 in this fashion, up to 15 (or 16 with the headgear bonus). You may only use one rune per attribute, and you may only use runes for your primary profession's attributes.

Non-profession specific headgear is available in a few places. To get an attribute bonus from it, you must put an attribute rune on it, at which point it will give an additional +1 to that attribute.

An armor piece may actually be upgraded with both an insignia and a rune. Insignia give various bonuses, inluding additional hit points and energy or conditional additional armor. In addition to attribute point runes, non-profession-specific runes exist that give extra health or energy or reduce the time conditions affect you.

There are five pieces of armor per set, making it possible to improve all the attributes in any single profession. However, most people only improve one or two attributes in this fashion.

Attributes by Profession

Each profession's primary attribute may only be raised by characters of that primary profession. Secondary profession users can still use skills from that attribute, but will not benefit as much from them except in rare cases.

Warriors

A Warrior's main role is to be able to take and deal a lot of damage, mainly physical. They are good at inflicting physical conditions such as bleeding and crippled, and can sometimes knock down opponents.

Strength is the Warrior primary attribute. Grants armor penetration, increasing damage. Most skills are offensive, but there are a few self-defense or self-buff skills. Most Warriors, in both PvE and PvP, put moderate to high points in this attribute, and many of the skills are used widely. Shields can be linked to this attribute.
Tactics: Primarily defensive in nature, this attribute is actually probably used more widely by secondary Warriors than primary ones for self-protection. Shields can be linked to this attribute.
Sword Mastery, Axe Mastery, and Hammer Mastery: Each of the three weapon attributes improves damage and critical hit chance. Swords are the fastest of the weapons, axes are a bit slower but do more damage, and hammers do the most damage but are two-handed (meaning no shield). Some Warriors stick to only one weapon, some switch depending on circumstances, but it's rare for a Warrior to invest in more than one at a time.

Warriors tend to pick secondary professions that will add to their offensive capabilities, though some instead take extra defense or condition removal, especially something that will remove Blind.

Spell-casting professions who take Warrior as their secondary profession usually do so get the full effect of a shield and to take a defensive skill from Tactics. Other professions may sometimes take Tactics skills or use a Warrior weapon instead of their profession's usual weapon.

Ranger

Rangers have several possible roles in PvE. Frequently they take a mix of damage, degenerative condition spreading skills, and skills that interrupt foes' attempts to use skills, and this role is also the most common in guild-based PvP. They also may lay traps which do a moderate amount of damage and inflict conditions, and are the only profession in the game that uses a pet to help inflict damage or conditions.

Expertise is the primary attribute of Rangers, and reduces the energy cost of all Ranger skills as well as attack skills, touch-range skills, and spirit-summoning skills from other professions. Expertise skills include defense, energy-management, and a few offensive skills that were put there to keep non-Rangers from effectively using them.
Marksmanship improves bow damage and critical hit chance. Most offensive bow skills are in this attribute, and Rangers typically invest some points in it, although some Rangers use weapons from other professions instead.
Beast Mastery allows you to charm and control a pet. Skills are almost entirely attacks and defense for your pet, although there are a few exceptions. Beast Mastery is not terribly popular, although a recent boost to pet damage has helped this perception a bit.
Wilderness Survival contains a mix of damage-enhancing skills, defensive skills, and traps. It also is where most, but not all, of the summoned spirits available to Rangers are found. Both traps and spirits are rarely used in practice. Wilderness Survival nonetheless frequently gets some investment as it is where most of the poison-causing skills are put.

Secondary professions may be used to add party support or to boost damage. In both PvE and PvP, hex or condition removal skills are fairly common, and as Rangers are a high-survivability class, they often take a re-usable resurrection skill. Some Rangers use a weapon from a different profession, taking advantage of Expertise's energy-cost reduction.

Players who take Ranger as their secondary profession usually do so for the defensive skills, or sometimes for the ability to use poison. Traps and pets are also occasionally used by non-primary Rangers.

Monk

Monks typically concentrate on either healing or preventing damage. They do have skills that will inflict damage, but they are not as commonly used, as Monks are seen as party support characters overall. Some Monks take a mix of damage prevention and damage healing. They nearly always take both condition and hex removal of some sort.

Divine Favor is the Monk primary attribute. Any spell cast on a friendly target will heal the target a small amount based on this attribute. The skills are mainly healing skills, energy management skills, and skills the developers didn't want non-Monks using.
Healing contains, unsurprisingly, direct healing spells of various effectiveness under various conditions. It also contains several re-usable ressurection skills.
Protection contains mainly skills that are used to prevent or reduce damage, or even convert it into healing. Most of the condition-removal skills also are in this category.
Smiting contains mainly damage-dealing or damage-enhancing skills, including two of my favorites: condition and hex removal that damages nearby foes.

Secondary profession skills usually are taken only for self-defense or better energy management, and many builds use entirely Monk skills.

Players who take Monk as their secondary profession usually do so for condition removal, hex removal, or a reusable rez. Healing skills are sometimes taken, particularly by solo players. Certain Smiting skills may be taken when fighting undead, who are weak to the holy damage they deal.

Necromancer

Necromancers can deal direct, armor-ignoring damage, have a number of damaging hexes, and can raise an army of undead creatures from the corpses of both friend and foe.

Soul Reaping is the Necromancer primary attribute, and gives the Necromancer energy when creatures near them die (maximum of 3 times in 15 seconds). There are very few skills in this attribute, and they are a mix of energy-gain skills and skills the devs wanted to restrict to primary Necromancers.
Curses contains the majority of Necromancer hexes, with effects like reducing healing or punishing blocking, removing enchantments, doing damage when an enemy uses a skill, or doing damage over time.
Blood Magic contains often armor-ignoring damage-dealing skills, some of which steal health and give it to the caster. Many skills in this attribute require the Necromancer to sacrifice health.
Death Magic contains a mix of damage-dealing skills and skills related to the creation and maintenance of undead minions. Minion masters are very popular in PvE.

Necromancers may choose secondary professions to gain self-defense, support the party and their minions with healing, add hexes to their repertoire, or gain additional energy management for high-cost skills. However, like Monks, many Necromancers play only with their primary profession skills.

Those who pick Necromancer as a secondary often do so to take a life-stealing skill or a skill that weakens foes. Ritualists, who have skills that provide a benefit when they summon creatures, sometimes take minion-summoning skills.

Mesmer

Mesmers primarily are good at interrupting or otherwise preventing enemies from using skills, or making skill use turn against them. They also have a number of skills that cause health degeneration or energy loss.

Fast Casting is the primary attribute of Mesmers, and just like it says, it makes casting spells faster, as well as making signet skills activate faster. A recent update makes it apply to fewer non-Mesmer skills, and in PvE, it also now reduces the recharge of Mesmer spells. The few skills in this attribute are generally related to skill activation speed.
Domination contains many skills that disrupt or prevent skill activation or cause damage to foes activating skills.
Illusion contains health degeneration hexes, hexes that slow movement or skill use, and a few skills that have an effect and then reverse that effect (the "illusion" of an effect).
Inspiration contains energy management, skills which remove hexes and enchantments, and self-defense skills.

Some Mesmers take advantage of Fast Casting to use slow-casting spells from other professions, usually Necromancer or Elementalist. (The recent update still makes this viable, though with a more limited scope.) Combined with their inherent energy-management skills, they frequently can do a lot of damage in this way. It is also not uncommon for a Mesmer to take a reusable rez skill, as those typically have long cast times. Signets and hexes from other professions are also sometimes used (although the recent changes to Fast Casting may reduce the use of other professions' signets quite a bit).

Players who take Mesmer as their secondary usually do so for energy management or for interrupts, although certain hexes and hex removal skills are also used fairly regularly.

Elementalist

Elementalists can dish out a great deal of damage as well as cause certain conditions or condition-like effects and cast defensive spells.

Energy Storage is the Elementalist primary attribute, and, as its name implies, it raises the maximum energy of the Elementalist. The few skills in this attribute are related to health and energy gain.
Air Magic is generally single-target, armor-penetrating damage skills, although Air elementalists can also inflict Weakness and Blind conditions or knock down foes.
Earth Magic contains a lot of defensive or defensive-offense skills, but also contains both single- and multi-target damage skills. Earth elementalists can slow foes, inflict Weakness, or knock them down.
Fire Magic contains a lot of high-powered single- and multi-target damage skills, some of which can set foes on fire.
Water Magic contains a fair number of moderate-damage skills that slow the target or targets. Water Magic hexes benefit certain Air Magic skills.

Elementalists sometimes take high-energy-cost skills from other spell-casting professions as their energy pool is the largest in the game. They may use their secondary professions for personal defense as well, or eschew secondary profession skills entirely.

Melee or ranged attackers who pick Elementalist as a secondary often do so to improve elemental weapon damage. Melee attackers often take a particular knockdown-causing skill; spell-casters often take a particular skill that reduces the cost of their next spell. Defensive skills, including those that slow movement, are also popular choices for secondary Elementalists.

Assassin

Assassins specialize in quick bursts of lethal damage to a single target. As they are more fragile than Warriors, they also have self-defense skills and ones that help them move in and out of melee range.

Critical Strikes is the Assassin primary attribute. It increases the chance at gaining critical hits, and gives energy upon scoring a critical. Skills include energy and critical-hit related skills, plus several skills the devs wished to restrict to Assassins.
Dagger Mastery improves damage with daggers and the chance at a critical hit, as well as containing most of the dagger attacks.
Deadly Arts includes a number of skills that cause conditions or take advantage of them, as well as several hexes that aid damage dealing.
Shadow Arts includes self-defense skills as well as most of the shadow steps, which function much like teleporting.

Assassins, like other melee attackers, often favor secondaries that improve their attack damage or their self-defense. Some Assassins use other professions' weapons with their skills that improve critical hit chance. A hex-causing profession may also be chosen.

Secondary Assassins often take a shadow step to move in or away from combat. Self-heal or self-defense skills are the other usual choices.

Ritualist

Ritualists use a combination of summonable spirits, summoned items, weapon spells, and skills that synergize with those skills to provide some mix of healing, defense, damage enhancement, foe disruption, and direct damage. They are probably the most flexible profession in the game.

Spawning Power is the primary attribute for Ritualists. It improves the durability of creatures they create and the length of time a weapon spell is active. Skills include energy management or those that interact with creature creation or weapon spells.
Channeling is primarily offensive, and contains most of the direct damage spells Ritualist can use.
Communing contains a wide array of spirits with various effects both offensive and defensive.
Restoration contains various healing and defensive skills.

Ritualists who concentrate on healing may take Monk or Mesmer for hex removal, which they do not have in their own skills. Those who concentrate on offense may take Necromancer to summon minions, as Ritualists have several skills that have an effect whenever a creature is created. Beyond those two choices, there are a number of offense, defense, and support skills across all professions that can be worked into a Ritualist's build effectively.

Those that take Ritualist as a secondary profession usually do so for weapon spells, whether defensive or offensive. Elementalists may take advantage of their high energy pool to use higher-cost spirits.

Paragon

Paragons provide a mix of offense and support, with many skills that aid the entire party or even all allies.

Leadership is their primary skill, and returns energy used to the Paragon when they use shouts or chants affecting allies. Skills include several that cause burning (and one that protects from it) as well as increasing attack speed and adrenaline gain.
Command contains a number of defensive skills, plus a few which enhance offense. Shields can be linked to this attribute.
Motivation contains a number of healing and energy-gain skills. Shields can be linked to this attribute.
Spear Mastery improves spear damage and chance of critical hit, and contains most of the spear attack skills.

Paragons frequently find enough of their own skills useful that they do not use skills from another profession. The most popular secondary is probably Warrior, which gives access to additional shout skills. Support skills from Ritualist, Mesmer, and Monk are also fairly common.

Players usually choose Paragon as a secondary for access to defensive skills and possibly to get full effectiveness for a shield. Rangers, particularly those who take a pet, may sometimes use spears intead of bows, as spears both attack faster and are one-handed, allowing the use of a shield.

Dervish

Dervishes are melee attackers with many self-support and condition-causing skills. Although they have weaker armor than Warriors, they still can make formidable frontline attackers through the use of self-buffs, mainly enchantments. Scythes, their weapon of choice, may also hit up to three foes at once.

Mysticism is their primary trait, and (post-update) reduces the cost of Dervish enchantments and provides +1 armor for every level. The godly-avatar forms are found in this attribute, along with an array of self-buffs of various sorts.
Earth Prayers includes a number of additional defensive skills, plus a number of condition-inflicting enchantments.
Scythe Mastery boosts damage done with scythes and the chance to score a critical hit, and contains all the scythe attack skills.
Wind Prayers include skills having to do with speed or duration, as well as skills that provide or add cold damage.

Dervishes, like Paragons, often find themselves using only Dervish skills. However, they sometimes take non-weapon-specific attacks, skills that boost damage, or additional self-defense skills. A reusable rez skill is also fairly common, as Dervishes generally are highly survivable.

Those who take Dervish as their secondary profession generally do so for a self-defense or self-heal skill, although occasionally Rangers or Assassins may choose to take a scythe and scythe attacks.