User:Armond/Guide to optimization

This guy should be your bitch.

Overview

Welcome to Armond's guide to optimization. On this page, you will find profession-agnostic tips and tricks to making your builds, your character, and your party more effective at killing things without being killed. My goal is to not only rate each skill, upgrade, hero, and whatnot, but to teach you, dear reader, why they have earned this rating. Like all ratings, take these with a grain of salt; while I aim to provide a neutral and accurate assessment of things, your individual gaming experience (lag, campaigns/expansions owned, access to heroes, and common human party members) may cause your mileage to vary. (You should also check the history tab to see when this guide was last updated.) In general, this guide assumes that your character has access to every campaign, along with the Eye of the North expansion, has (nearly) every hero available, has unlocked hard mode in all areas, and has the capability to (with effort) acquire any skill, weapon, or armor he requires.

What you will not find on this page is in-depth discussion of any particular profession or area. Each mission, zone, creature, and quest has its own page on this wiki; there's a search bar on your left and in-game you can use F11 or /help to bring up a list of recent quests, missions, zones, and creatures. This wiki is one of the best game resources I've ever seen, so use it well. As for individual professions, each one shall have its own guide; a handbook, if you will.

Ratings

This guide will rate skills, tactics, items, and other such things with a quick color reference system.

1. Red is used for things that are poor at best; at worst, these choices are pathetic, terrible, or actively harmful. 0/10 to 4/10.
2. Orange is average. You can't really go wrong taking one of these choices, but there are better options out there. 5/10.
3. Yellow is for good stuff. This is the point where optimization starts, and can generally be considered the minimum requirement for a good hard mode or Beyond team. 6/10 to 7/10.
4. Light green is among the best. You should think very hard before not taking an option like this. "I don't like it" isn't a good reason not to take it, and that kind of attitude is what will make you fail hard mode. 8/10 to 9/10.
5. Green is reserved for things that will blow your mind with how good they are. 10/10, no less. If you can't bring this along, there'd better be a damned good reason for it.

So what is valuable?

Give the hard mode article a quick read to give you an idea what you're up against.

Here's the thing that article doesn't tell you: PvE is easy. Most enemies only have a few skills with poor synergy and attribute distribution; it wasn't until Eye of the North that ANet decided to give monsters decent bars. Everyone remembers the first time they ran into the Charr in Blood Washes Blood ("Oh man these guys have conjures and aegis and reses!"), but what they failed to do was provide the enemies with sufficient utility to be an actual threat. Beyond content is much harder because they are finally fixing that; it also features high level enemies (26+) with lots of attributes and reinforcements; this means that the other guys have high armor, which already scales quickly, and lots of health across lots of targets, in addition to all the damage, utility, and healing they can pump out.

While reading this guide, bear in mind the following: Guild Wars is a game about making the other guys more dead than you.

The trinity of power

In Guild Wars, as in most combat games, there are three roles to be fulfilled in combat: damage, support, and control. Every action, skill, character build, and team build contributes to one or, often, more of these roles. A skilled player analyzes his actions and skill choices to maximize his contribution to these roles.

Because of the way they interact with each other, the roles can be thought of as legs of a triangle.

Fulfilling a role is a relatively complex process that requires several things to go right for the character to be successful. Each role has details on what makes a character good at that role, but there is one attribute that is important for all roles:

• Survivability: A dead ally contributes nothing to the party - he can't damage enemies, support allies, or control the battlefield. Survivability requires a delicate balance - too much defense on an individual can easily be wasted, as it comes at the cost of increased offense and may be overkill for the healers, but not enough means the character can easily fold under concentrated assault.

Damage

This is the first leg of the triangle for two reasons: it is the one people are most familiar with, and understanding it is crucial to understanding the importance of the other roles. Damage is unique among the roles in that any character can deal damage as long as they have some sort of weapon equipped.

Guild Wars makes it easy to understand damage. You have a big red health bar with a number on it. If you get hit, that number goes down and the red bar depletes. If you get healed, that number goes up and the health bar refills. The object of the game is, generally, to keep your red bar at least partially filled and the other guys' red bars empty.

The most basic damage mechanic is the auto attack. Any character with a weapon can whittle away at enemy health by wanding, but this is generally low damage unless the character is wielding a martial weapon (especially melee weapons) for which he meets the requirement.

There are three other major mechanics that deal with damage: health degeneration (which very slowly removes the victim's health), deep wound (which immediately reduces the target's health and healing recieved), and hexes (which have a variety of effects, are hard to remove, and can trigger large amounts of damage against the AI).

When building a damage-based character, there are four important characteristics to pay attention to:

• Damage output: The most obvious gauge of a damage-focused character is whether he deals enough damage to quickly kill an enemy - or at least to kill before being killed.

• Inflicted effects: Many damage dealers can, in addition to dealing damage, inflict various conditions or other effects on their foes. This category also includes indirectly damaging effects, such as hexes that trigger on certain actions by your allies or the target.

• Sustainability: Some skills, especially those with a long recharge or high energy cost, frontload their effects but leave the user unable to participate in combat for some time. By contrast, other skills grant the user energy or adrenaline, improving his damage output.

• Targeting capacity: The strongest sword in the world is worthless if the wielder can't reach his target. This category includes mobility, range, and reliance on maintaining the same target.

Support

Support can be simply described as a hybrid of applying defense to and increasing the damage output of your team.

Support is a very important leg of the power triangle because mitigating or healing incoming damage is, in most situations, the best way to increase time to live.

Support characters have four areas to focus on:

• Debuff removal: The ability to quickly and efficiently remove both conditions and hexes can be critical to your team's survival.

• Defensive buffing: This category includes things that make your teammates harder to kill - damage reduction, reactive healing, and even speed boosts (which can also be used offensively).

• Offensive buffing: Some of the strongest skills in the game buff your allies to make them stronger damage dealers. Skills in this category might increase the damage of your allies' attacks, add an area of effect, inflict conditions or effects, or some combination of the three.

• Healing: Mostly the purview of the monk and the ritualist, this category includes any effect that recovers an ally's health. While not as useful as some defensive buffs - due to the large amount of damage that can fly around the battlefield - this is still an important part of any team.

Control

Control is, at its most basic, reducing the damage output and/or options available to the other team.

There are three aspects of control to be considered in any build:

• Caster punishment: It's often important to stop enemy casters from getting their spells off - these spells can do a lot of damage or healing, or otherwise make your job tougher.

• Denial: This category includes any effect that makes your opponents less able to do things - most commonly interrupts, knockdowns, and snares. These are important due to their versatility.

• Melee punishment: There are a number of spells that reduce the melee damage a target deals or deal damage to him for attacking. These are important ways of making sure your team doesn't die to enemy melee attackers.

Tactics and build considerations

In general, your party should prioritize defense, recovery from poor situations, and damage output. In general, they can be prioritized in that order. In some areas, the order may be reversed or otherwise modified; do your homework before (or even during) the vanquish/mission.

• Defense consists of shutdown, damage reduction, and healing.
  • Knockdowns are powerful; used well, Protection Prayers are also quite good; straight up healing, however, is often mediocre. However, no team can afford to pass up some healing, even if only on one or two characters.
  • Generally, once you have some redbar capabilities, it's best to turn your team's focus on preventing damage.
• Recovery consists of your ability to resurrect allies, prevent further deaths, and adapt to complications such as overagro.

Game mechanics

• Auto attack:
• Armor:
• Conditions:
• Enchantments:
• Increased attack speed:
• Increased movement speed:
• Hexes:
• Healing:
• Resurrection:
• Traps: These are generally not worth your time - literally; the time you spend laying a trap is time you could instead be spending on killing something. That said, there are a handful of situations where the enemy funnels into one area or begins friendly and later turns hostile; this is where traps shine.

Enemy patterns

When facing an optimized party, most enemies fall into one of two groups: those with notable survivability and those without.

• Most enemies, even in hard mode, fall into the latter category and will fold within seconds of the party's attention turning their way. Some of these instead have high amounts of health and will take a while to kill, but short any way to be a threat to the party, their survivability isn't really notable (walls exist, but who cares).
• The remainder will take time and strategy to kill; this category contains enemies such as Mark of Protection monks.

Engaging the enemy

Monsters are generally most dangerous at the start of the fight:

1. All of their skills are recharged and ready to use, and some monsters will maintain buffs before combat.
2. Your team has not yet had time to apply debuffs to make enemies less dangerous.
3. The AI is a little bit trigger-happy.

Depending on the terrain and the enemies you face, patrols may walk into a ball or may be pulled into a choke point, either of which are perfect for aoe debuffs. Against easy enemies or uncooperative patrols, you may instead choose to have one melee character run in and engage; this character needs to be sturdy, as the AI will unleash their most powerful spells on him (including, sometimes, 3-4 enchantment removal spells; be sure to cover important buffs).

Equipment

Equipment can be broken down into three important categories:

• Weapons: Every character requires some sort of weapon, even those not planning to attack. Weapon upgrades provide significant bonuses to attacking, defending, using skills, and casting spells.
• Insigniae: Armor can be improved by insigniae and runes. Insigniae typically increase your character's defenses. With a few exceptions, it is usually best to place the same insignia on all five armor pieces. (The Armor rating article explains how different pieces of armor and insigniae "stack".)
• Runes: Runes can give a boost to your maximum health, energy, or attributes, or reduce the duration of conditions on your character. Unlike insigniae, most runes don't stack.

Skills

This is a complete listing of all profession-agnostic skills by attribute.

Unlinked

Unlinked skills

Name Rating (10 max) Explanation Skill type Conditional rating Resurrection Signet 7 This is a very solid res and the baseline that every other res must compete against. One of the important things to note is that the target is resurrected at full health; many other resurrection spells leave the target with half health or less, making them vulnerable to the AI (which is programmed to target low HP foes). The reason that this isn't rated higher is the opportunity cost: taking any resurrection skill means not taking a skill to prevent needing to resurrect someone. Resurrection 7 Signet of Capture This is a very niche skill; you'll use it on (fairly easy) boss runs to get elites to enable you to use a proper build. It has no place at all in a proper build, though. Healing Signet Oh, wait.

Allegiance rank

There are no common skills in this attribute; however, it is worth noting that while there are many powerful skills linked to an allegiance rank, many of them work just fine at low allegiance rank, making raising this rank not a big priority. However, there are some exceptions, as noted in the handbooks.

Lightbringer rank

• Overall: This is arguably the best title in the game. It is certainly the most powerful title in the game; +40% damage and -8 damage goes above and beyond every other title's passive effects combined, and the skills associated are great. On the other hand, it's only usable in the Nightfall campaign (and mostly towards the endgame and postgame), and the enemies you use it on tend to be appropriately (which is to say ridiculously) powerful. This title also has the advantage of being fairly easily raised; there are popular and efficient farms both for solo players and speed clear parties.

Lightbringer skills

Name Rating (10 max) Explanation Skill type Conditional rating Lightbringer 10 You'll get to rank 3 or 4 just by beating Nightfall, which is a great start. At the (easily attainable) max rank, you'll be rocking +40% damage and -8 damage reduction against important Nightfall enemies. Title effect V Lightbringer's Gaze 8 This looks absolutely amazing at first, but that holy damage is armor-respecting, which is a big shame. Really reminds me a lot of Cry of Frustration, but somewhat more conditional and it takes up a PvE slot. Spell 8 Lightbringer Signet 7 While this is a great way to manage your energy and adrenaline (few builds will need any other energy management), the short range is a big drawback. It's better on melee characters and midliners with more than the usual amount of armor (e.g. paragons). Energy/adrenaline 9

Sunspear rank

• Overall: While the only common sunspear is rather uninspiring, this is still a very important title; nine of the ten other skills offered are quite strong (Intensity being the exception). It's also very easy to max; you'll be rank 6 or 7 by the time you finish Nightfall and max (or near it) by the time you finish vanquishing Elona. There's also a number of easy farms you can do.

Sunspear skills

Name Rating (10 max) Explanation Skill type Conditional rating Sunspear Rebirth Signet 4 It has exactly two differences compared to Resurrection Signet: it reses the target at your location (good for midline or backline, not always for frontline) and it reses them with more energy. Before the limit of three PvE-only skills per bar was introduced, this was a fair choice, but said limit means this simple res faces stiff competition from skills that prevent you from needing it. Resurrection 4

Asura rank

• Overall: The Asura have a fistful of great skills and a bunch that you can safely ignore. While most of these skills don't much care about your Asura rep, it's worth your time to invest in some for that extra second or two on the important ones.

Asuran skills

Name Rating (10 max) Explanation Skill type Conditional rating Edification 7 Free energy for vanquishing. Yeah, sure, why not? Title effect 7 Air of Superiority 5 I dunno about this one. Double experience gain is useless in most situations, the heal is pretty minor, and you shouldn't be relying on this skill to get conditions you care about off of you, which means this skill is useless 70% of the time. However, on some builds, gaining energy and/or recharging all your skills gets rated sky high, especially if you're in an area where you end up dropping lots of foes at once (or if the effects let you drop foes significantly faster than otherwise). Enchantment (long term, self only) 9 Asuran Scan 10 Arguably the best Asura skill, this one skill means you completely ignore both death penalty and any melee hate ever (see the notes). Not nearly as good in areas without significant blind/block. Hex spell (short term) 6 Mental Block 5 Much better for tanks making big pulls. In a group without a dedicated balling tank, however, it's a bit lackluster - it's the backline's job to keep people alive or re-alive, not the frontline's. The cast time makes it not useful for people not on the frontline, too. Enchantment (long term, self only, cast time) 8 Mindbender 6 It'd be much better if it were maintainable (without consumables that give its effect), or if spells were limited more by cast time and less by recharge, and it faces stiff competition from other PvE skills, but spell haste and IMS are always appreciated. You'll probably stop using it after a few more skill quests, though. Enchantment (short term, self only, cast time) 6 Pain Inverter 9 Ah, the infamous PI. Use it on the right foe and he'll one-shot himself. Especially good against some of the more troublesome dungeon end bosses, various wurms, and other enemies with strong aoe. Hex spell (short term) 10 Radiation Field 2 Degen is not a notable form of damage. The time you spent casting this could have been time spent doing something useful. Ward spell (short term) 2 Smooth Criminal 0 On the off chance you get a spell worth using, you'd better hope it isn't one that will mess with your energy management and that you have the right attributes for it. Spell 0 Summon Ice Imp 4 Ice Spikes isn't bad, but the lack of anything to support it hurts hard (and if you want an aoe snare on the team, bring it yourself - you'll cast it in better spots anyway). The worst part is that this guy will cast one spell every ten seconds and spend the rest of the time wanding. Summon 4 Summon Mursaat 5 Possibly the best of the Asura summons, but that really isn't saying much. Armor penetration on a fairly short recharge helps his case, but there isn't much else to him. You can do better for a skill slot, especially a PvE-only one. Summon 5 Summon Naga Shaman 3 The worst of the lot, unless your party has a bunch of weakness (such as Enfeebling Blood). Seriously, ANet, these guys need to be able to do things that aren't wanding. Summon 5 Summon Ruby Djinn 3 You could call him better, but he's pretty much useless against Destroyers, so I'm being spiteful. Summon 3 Technobabble 9 Almost unconditional daze is how you kill healers and dangerous casters. I'm of the opinion that every team should have some form of daze (or enough caster hate to pretend to be daze), and this is a good way to do it. The fact that it's AoE is just icing. Spell 9

Deldrimor rank

• Overall: There are some really good skills here, topped off by the incredible melee buff found in Great Dwarf Weapon. Melee characters will also find some fun toys, and the title bonus is pretty useful as well. Really, there's no reason not to raise this one at least a bit, and it's one of the easier of the EotN titles to raise due to being present in practically every dungeon.

Deldrimor skills

Name Rating (10 max) Explanation Skill type Conditional rating Stout-Hearted 9 Some of the tougher enemies in the game just got a lot easier. Combines beautifully with daggers. Title effect 10 "By Ural's Hammer!" 2 You don't need this. If more than one guy is dead, yeah, it'll help, but the res is temporary and the recharge is ridiculous. Resurrection 2 "Don't Trip!" 6 Not being knocked down can be read as not being made temporarily dead, but the short duration and long recharge makes it not as good as it might always be (monsters tend to either stagger or chain knockdowns due to time spent kiting or being knocked down themselves - it'd be better if it prevented 1-2 knockdowns for 10..15 seconds, or better yet, 4+ knockdowns across the whole party). Bring it with you when you're going to run into Giant Stomp or Tremor. Also consider it for The Dragon's Lair, because that gigantic knockdown is annoying. Defensive buff (short term) 9 Alkar's Alchemical Acid 1 Frankly pathetic normally. Against Destroyers, it's probably worth fitting in if you have room. (The tradeoff is, of course, because Destroyers are hard, you'll want to focus more on control skills.) 8 Black Powder Mine 2 Compares favorably to Barbed Trap, for what that's worth. Obviously better in situations that favor traps. Trap 8 Brawling Headbutt 9 If your build has good adrenaline management, this skill alone will keep an important target locked down. Dragon Slash warriors will find it worth their while to raise their Deldrimor rank just for this, because that armor-ignoring damage is very tasty. Melee knockdown/damage 9 Breath of the Great Dwarf 4 It's... well, it's a fast party heal for a decent amount, but it's expensive. If you're in an area with constant burning, it's better, but still not awe-inspiring, even for a not-PvE skill. Party heal 6 Drunken Master 10 If you're a melee character with a free PvE slot, it's probably going towards this. It takes two critical aspects of your build and combines them into one skill slot with a low opportunity cost and upkeep hassle. The only real downside is that it requires alcohol to really be worth using, but that's easy enough to get. You may want to turn off post-processing effects in your settings, too. IAS/IMS 10 Dwarven Stability 9 Very dependent on what stance you're using, but can be used to great effect. Immunity to knockdowns is really great, too, but there are other ways to do that. Enchantment (long term) 9 Ear Bite 3 Not an attack (so doesn't benefit from all your melee support), doesn't give you adrenaline, and inflicts a condition that everyone will ignore. Pass Touch damage 3 Great Dwarf Armor 6 Bonus armor is nice, but not so uncommon as to make this amazing. It's also a long term enchantment and thus vulnerable to enchantment punishment. In general, competes with half of the Protection Prayers line for its role, and is borked against Destroyers to boot. Enchantment (long term) 6 Great Dwarf Weapon 10 The only reason I can't say that this is the best weapon spell in the game is because Splinter Weapon exists and fills a different role. There's probably not a good reason not to have this if you have a melee human and one other human to cast it on him, though. Buff (melee damage, other ally) 10 Light of Deldrimor 5 Combat-wise, this isn't usually very good; PBAoE (generally) has the problems of either putting your squishy on the frontline or straining the resources (energy, time, and positioning) of a not-squishy character, though holy damage (which ignores armor) is always nice. Against undead, it's better. That said, bringing a copy (or perhaps two) along to dungeons is definitely profitable. PBAoE damage 7 Low Blow 2 I had hopes for this until I found out the damage isn't armor ignoring. Ok, ANet, nice joke, we all had a good laugh, now let's actually make this worthwhile, ok? Touch damage 2 Snow Storm 3 The ideal use of this is against a clump of snared Destroyers, but even then it's just flat not worth a PvE slot compared to the options Mesmers and even Necromancers have available to them. (Remember that cold damage respects armor, so even against Destroyers, it will only do 50-75% of the stated damage.) Spell AoE 3

Ebon Vanguard rank

• Overall: This title is important - it's the anti-Charr title, and Charr enemies are both common and powerful in Eye of the North. However, even against other enemies, this title has a few very powerful skills that you won't want to ignore.

Ebon Vanguard skills

Name Rating (10 max) Explanation Skill type Conditional rating Rebel Yell 8 Bonus armor is nice (even if it's not a lot), bonus energy on a kill is neat if not amazing, and bonus adrenaline can be awesome on the right build. Title effect 9 Deft Strike 1 Armor ignoring is... nice... but it's flat damage and an ignorable condition. Almost anything will be better (unless you're fighting level 40 titans, maybe?). Ranged attack 1 Ebon Battle Standard of Courage 5 Balling up, while sometimes inevitable, is generally not the best strategy. For the most part, Protection Prayers does this job fine without requiring balling and/or microing heroes. Ward spell (short term) 5 Ebon Battle Standard of Honor 6 This is an awesome spell until you realize it doesn't affect your biggest damage dealers (mesmers, necromancers, and ritualists). It also has a fairly long cast time; combat is generally half over by the time I get this off, and melee (a large part of your damage) will get kited out of it. That said, it combines really well with minions and NPCs. Ward spell (short term) 8 Ebon Battle Standard of Wisdom 5 It's a really nice effect, but like the other battle standards, it requires balling up. The other thing is, if you really need this effect, you can get it from consumables. Ward spell (short term) 5 Ebon Escape 6 A neat defensive skill, should you ever need it. Tends to ruin your positioning, though. Shadowstep 6 Ebon Vanguard Assassin Support 10 You'll hear this called an EVAS more than a few times, and being commonly abbreviated is a sign of a good skill. This guy does great damage, not least because his attack chain is unblockable. Combines well with Assassin's Promise to get a lot of these guys out on the field at once, and with "You Move Like a Dwarf!" for quarterknocking fun. Summon 10 Ebon Vanguard Sniper Support 7 This guy's kind of a gamble. When you get the proc, it's one of the best skills in the game. When you don't, it's not exactly a waste of time, but there's better things you could have done. Would be better with a somewhat lower recharge, and is obviously nicer against Charr. I admit to being biased against this skill because of the really low proc rate, so play around with it before you judge it too harshly. Spell 9 Signet of Infection 2 Degen still isn't a good way to make things dead, especially when that degen can be used against you. There's better things you can do with a PvE slot. Degen 2 Sneak Attack 4 Blind is nice, but no bonus damage or cast time really hurts this skill. Not generally recommended, but if you really need to blind something and your midline can't do it, there's worse ways to solve the problem. Attack 4 Tryptophan Signet 3 Ice Spikes without the spikes. Not being a condition or hex makes it neat against a few enemies, but when you're going to, say, the Underworld, you need to plan for Dhuum (against whom this is rather nice) and all the trash before him (against whom this is rather meh). Snare 3 Weakness Trap 2 Traps are bad in most situations, but even this one really isn't anything special unless you use it on a Charr. Trap 9 Winds 1 Aegis is much better than this. Nature Ritual 1

Norn rank

• Overall: Like the other titles, this one has some bad skills and some really amazing ones. Norn skills are notable for mostly being shouts, which means they're cast instantly (as opposed to being 0.25¼ cast) and have no aftercast. This is neat for anyone, but it's especially nice for melee, as it reduces the time they spend running up to a target. The best part is, like the Asuran skills, these skills are generally enemy-agnostic, so you'll want to raise this one.

Norn skills

Name Rating (10 max) Explanation Skill type Conditional rating Heart of the Norn 8 I'm much bigger on armor than health, but even so, free health for vanquishing and Jora missions isn't bad. Title effect III "Dodge This!" 2 You can think of this as turning your next autoattack into a weak attack skill. Don't fall into the trap of thinking you can use this to get around blocking, because if you're being blocked how do you get the adrenaline? Would be really nice if it affected more than one attack. I really want to like this because Trinity, but it's just not worth it. Self buff (short term) 2 "Finish Him!" 10 Oh man. Instant cast damage, deep wound, and cracked armor, on a very easy condition. If you're bad at estimating enemy health, either play around with this on Isle of the Nameless or use Texmod. Another skill that combines really well with Assassin's Promise (you'll probably land kills with this skill, anyway). If you have the energy and the skill slot, you should probably grab this. Damage 10 "I Am Unstoppable!" 10 This isn't maintainable, but that doesn't stop it from being one of the best skills in the game. +24 armor that doesn't count towards the armor cap is 34%(!) less damage from most sources. It also stops non-hex snares, making this even better for melee. Generally at its best on a melee character making a pull, as monsters will unload their spells and energy attacks on him while everyone else stays slightly out of range. Self buff (short term) 10 "I Am the Strongest!" 6 Bonus damage on your attacks. Not bad, but the recharge hurts a fair amount (and if it didn't, the energy cost probably would). Self buff (short term) 6 "You Are All Weaklings!" 5 At first glance, this is just a weaker version of Enfeebling Blood (longer recharge, smaller aoe, shorter duration). Weakness is still good, which keeps this from being rock bottom. However, as a shout, it's instant cast, which makes it an excellent way for some melee builds to make sure they have weakness on their targets for their combos. Debuff (short term) 9 "You Move Like a Dwarf!" 10 It's YMLAD. It's one of the only instant cast snare skills in the game, and the only instant cast interrupt (via knockdown). There are other instant cast knockdowns, but they require moving foes and thus can't interrupt critical spells. As icing, it does damage. It's pretty amazing, even at 10e. Combines well with Ebon Vanguard Assassin Support - provides the condition for the assassin's Iron Palm, and you can even use this mid-cast to quarterknock, with practice. Snare/interrupt 10 A Touch of Guile 1 A neat reference and a fair amount of damage, but if it's got aftercast in melee range I at least want some aoe, if not, you know, an actually useful hex effect. Hex spell (melee) 1 Club of a Thousand Bears 6 The knockdown is kind of conditional (bad) but takes effect regardless of whether you hit (good!). The bonus damage can be annoying to stack (bad) but has a really high cap (good). I admit to not being a fan; there's other attack skills out there that do this kind of thing, usually with less conditions. That said, it's not a bad choice in the end. Melee attack 6 Feel No Pain 5 Meh. It's a fair amount of +hp, but I'm not convinced of how much that means. Maintainable is good, health regen is icing, but there are a lot of better PvE skills you could spend this slot on. Self buff (long term) 5

Handbook collection

1. Indestructible Master of War: The Warrior Handbook
2. One Clean Motion, No Hesitation: The Ranger Handbook
3. Too Much of Heaven: The Monk Handbook
4. Dark Arts from Another Time and Age: The Necromancer Handbook
5. The End of a Thought: The Mesmer Handbook
6. Invoke Starfish: The Elementalist Handbook
7. It Looks Like They Were Cut by Some Type of Blade: The Assassin Handbook
8. Spirited Away: The Ritualist Handbook
9. Who the Hell Do You Think I Am?!: The Paragon Handbook
10. Not as Clumsy or Random as a Wand: The Dervish Handbook

Yes, every one of them is a reference.