Skill

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Skills are the basic gameplay unit in Guild Wars. There are many skills in the game, and each campaign contains its own set of hundreds. In staging areas, a player can choose to equip skills, to a maximum of 8 skills (and only one elite skill) at a time. Skill icons represents skills in the User interface.

Contents

[edit] Properties

All skills have the first two properties, and most have the latter three:

Skill type
The skill's category. Some effects are only triggered by specific skill types. Skills of the same type share mechanics.
Linked Profession, Campaign, and Attribute
Skills are linked with a campaign, attribute, and profession. Only accounts with the respective campaign may use a skill from it, and only characters of the respective profession can use it. A skill's effectiveness scales with the number of points the player puts into its linked attribute. Exceptions: most PvE-only skills are linked to a title track instead of an attribute, and some skills have no attribute. Most PvE-only skills (detailed below) are not linked with a profession. Some skills are included in two campaigns.
Activation time
How long the skill takes, in seconds, to activate. Shouts, Stances, and a few other types lack activation times. Some skills affect other skills' activation time, and some weapons and offhands can halve activation time.
Recharge time (also called Cooldown)
The time it takes for a skill to become ready to use again once activated (even if interrupted, although when a skill fails, it does not need to recharge). Some skills, notably Adrenal skills, have no recharge time. Some skills affect other skills' recharge time, and some upgrade components and staves can halve recharge times of spells.
Energy cost
The amount of energy required to activate the skill. The energy is spent when the skill starts activation. Energy costs are 5, 10, 15 or 25 (a few skills cost 1, but have a sacrifice cost as well). Signets and Adrenal skills have no energy cost, as do many festival skills, celestial skills, and monster skills.


Many skills have one or more additional properties:

Adrenaline cost
An alternate cost used by some Warrior and Paragon skills instead of energy. Each adrenal skill has an independent adrenaline pool, filled one stroke at a time by attacking. When an adrenal skill is used, its pool is emptied and all other skills' pools decrease by one stroke.
Upkeep
Each enchantment with upkeep costs 1 pip of energy regeneration to maintain. It's possible to get negative regeneration this way. If a player can't support the cost anymore, the most recent enchantments get canceled until they can.
Sacrifice
A cost in health, measured as a percentage of maximum health. Players can kill themselves by sacrifice.
Exhaustion
When the skill is activated, the player is exhausted, which temporarily reduces their maximum energy by 10. Each activation adds a level of exhaustion, and can add up to having a negative energy amount.
Elite status
Some skills are elite, and considered more powerful or valuable. A player can only equip one elite skill at a time (except when having used a Signet of Capture, and before changing zone; when a player zones, all elite skills except the rightmost one are removed).
PvE or PvP distinguished
Some skills cannot be used in PvP; you can only equip three of these PvE skills at a time. Other skills have split versions for PvE and PvP, and update automatically when in each respective zone.

[edit] Learning and unlocking skills

Before the first character on an account, no skills are initially available. As a PvE character progresses through the game, they learn skills as listed below. When a skill is learned, it is known to that character, and at the same time unlocked on that account. All unlocked skills can be used by all PvP characters and Heros on the same account. PvE-only skills can be learned, but never unlocked.

When a skill is first unlocked (except through the PvP Unlock Packs), a small dialog box appears indicating the event.


A skill can be learned by

Additionally, a character can use a skill tome or elite skill tome to learn any skill or elite skill unlocked on the account. Skill trainers each have a unique set of skills for sale, but also list all an account's unlocked skills.


Skills can be unlocked without being learned by
  • Purchasing a skill or an elite skill from a Priest of Balthazar.
  • Gaining a hero, each of which has a set of default skills, or switching a hero's secondary profession, which unlocks the profession's default set.
  • Purchasing PvP unlock packs through the online store [1].
  • Temporarily receiving skills while a PvE character has a quest that leads to choosing a second profession.


Thus, skills can be one of four ways, from least available to most;
  1. Locked and unknown to any character.
  2. Locked for the account, but known to the current character, as with PvE-only skills.
  3. Unlocked but unknown to the current character.
  4. Unlocked and known to the current character.

[edit] Skill classification

[edit] By type

[edit] By cost

[edit] By profession and attribute

[edit] By range

[edit] Other

[edit] Skill quantity

Profession Core Prophecies Factions Nightfall Eye of the North Total1
non-elite elite non-elite elite non-elite elite non-elite elite non-elite elite non-elite elite all
Warrior Warrior 35 5 24 11 20 (2)110 15 (1) 10 10 0 104 (3) 36 140 (3)
Ranger Ranger 35 5 25 10 20 (2)110 15 (1) 10 10 0 105 (3) 35 140 (3)
Monk Monk 35 5 26 10 20 (2)110 15 (1) 10 10 0 106 (3) 35 141 (3)
Necromancer Necromancer 35 5 27 10 20 (2)110 15 (1) 10 10 0 107 (3) 35 142 (3)
Mesmer Mesmer 35 5 23 9 20 (2)110 15 (1) 10 10 0 103 (3) 34 137 (3)
Elementalist Elementalist 35 5 29 10 20 (2)110 15 (1) 10 10 0 109 (3) 35 144 (3)
Assassin Assassin - - - - 60 (2)115 15 (1) 10 10 0 85 (3) 25 110 (3)
Ritualist Ritualist - - - - 60 (2)115 15 (1) 10 10 0 85 (3) 25 110 (3)
Paragon Paragon - - - - 0 (2)1 0 60 (1) 15 10 0 70 (3) 15 85 (3)
Dervish Dervish - - - - 0 (2)1 0 60 (1) 15 10 0 70 (3) 15 85 (3)
Any Common 1 (1) 0 0 0 0 0 0 (3)0 (0)0 (47) 0(3) 1 (51)0 (3) 1 (54)
Total - PvE Only 1 0 0 0 201 0 13 0 47 3 80 3 84
Total - PvP 211 30 154 60 240 90 240 110 100 0 945 290 1235
Sum Total 212 30 154 60 260 90 253 110 147 3 1026 294 1319
  1. ↑ The 20 Factions PvE-only skills are made up of 10 pairs of duplicate skills: one linked to the Friend of the Kurzicks title track and one linked to the Friend of the Luxons title track. Only one allegiance's skills can be equipped at a time, but all 20 can still be learned by a single character.
  • Numbers in brackets indicate PvE-only skills. These are tallied for convenience.
  • Resurrection Signet is the only common (non-profession) skill available for PvP characters.
  • This list does not include special skills or title effects.

To check how many skills a character has, open the Skills and Attributes panel; choose "sort by profession" and switch through each profession, writing down the numbers for each profession plus the common skills (11 numbers if all professions are unlocked), and add them up. If the sum is 1319, the character has learned all available skills. Careful - multiple Signets of Capture are counted multiple times.

[edit] Notes

  • Skill names tend to follow certain patterns, and it is thus often possible to discern something of the skill from the name alone. See Skill nomenclature for details.

[edit] Lists of skills

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