Combat and Stats

[Ezmode]

Attributes (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Attribut...tributes):

The following values are for level 80. At level 80 all characters also have a base 916 Vitality.
Professions Base health, level 80 Base health+vitality, level 80
Warrior, Necromancer 9,212 18,372
Engineer, Ranger, Mesmer 5,922 15,082
Guardian, Thief, Elementalist 1,645 10,805

Primary
Power increases attack.
Precision increases critical hit chance.
Toughness increases armor.
Vitality increases maximum health.

Offense
Prowess improves the damage multiplier on critical strikes.
Malice improves the damage done by conditions like burning, poison, confusion, and bleeding.
Expertise improves the duration of all conditions inflicted by the character.

Support
Concentration improves the duration of all boons applied by the character.
Compassion improves all outgoing heals that your character does, including self heals.

Profession-specific
Brawn (warrior) improves the damage of warrior burst skills.
Willpower (guardian) decreases the recharge on all virtues.
Cunning (thief) decreases the recharge of the Steal ability.
Empathy (ranger) improves pet attributes.
Ingenuity (engineer) reduces the recharge on all tool-belt skills.
Guile (mesmer) reduces the recharge on all Shatter skills.
Intelligence (elementalist) reduces the recharge of the four elemental attunements.
Hunger (necromancer) increases the size of the necromancer’s life-force pool.

Effects: In combat, Guild Wars 2 has 4 kinds of Effects that can be applied to Players, Boons (Buffs), Conditions (Debuffs), Control (CC), Other.

Boons (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/boon):
Aegis blocks the next attack. Exclusive to guardians.
Fury increases Critical Chance by 20%. Stacks in duration.
Might increases damage per attack. Stacks intensity.
Protection reduces damage by 33%. Stacks in duration.
Regeneration returns X health per second. Stacks in duration.
Swiftness increases movement speed by 33%. Stacks in duration.
Vigor increases endurance regeneration. Stacks in duration.
Retaliation does X damage to an opponent each time they hit you. Stacks in duration.

As seen above, Boons enhance your characters' abilities by improving damage, survivability, and movement speed. These are key in any situation, especially Might, which stacks in power instead of duration like the rest.

Conditions (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Condition):
Bleeding inflicts X damage per second. Stacks in intensity (maximum of 9 times).
Blind causes the target's next hit to miss instead.
Burning inflicts X damage per second. Stacks in duration.
Chilled reduces movement speed and skill recharge by 66%. Stacks in duration.
Confusion inflicts X damage each time a foe uses skill. Stacks in intensity.
Crippled reduces movement speed by 50%. Stacks in duration.
Fear causes the target to run directly away from the caster.
Immobilized roots and prevents dodge. Stacks in duration.
Poison inflicts X damage per second. Reduces outgoing heals by 33%. Stacks in duration.
Vulnerability reduces armor by X. Stacks in intensity.
Weakness causes 50% of attacks to be glances and endurance regeneration is reduced by 50%. Stack in duration.

Conditions will debuff your target, causing negative effects, helping you kill them faster and keep them from running away or even allow you to run away if done properly. The damage conditions which stack in intensity are a little special, they don't refresh when stacked:
Example: 10 seconds of bleeding are applied to a target. 1 second later, another 10 seconds of bleeding are applied to the target. For 9 seconds, the target will suffer twice the normal bleeding damage over time. After that, the first bleed effect will expire, and for 1 second the target will suffer normal bleeding from the second effect, which then expires.

In addition, duration stacking works similarly, example of duration stacking: 10 seconds of regeneration are applied to a target. 3 seconds later, another 5 seconds of regeneration are applied to a target. For 12 seconds, the target will experience the normal effects of a single regeneration buff.

Note:
Bosses encountered in the various demos are not capped in terms of maximum Condition stacks.

Control (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Control):
Controlling movement
Conditions and other effects can be used to control enemies' movement. It is useful to prevent foes from reaching you or from avoiding your attacks.
Cripple, Chilled, and Immobilize slow and prevent movement.
Sink and Float cause a creature to rise or fall in water.
Pull forces an enemy to your location.
Wards limit enemy movement beyond a line or circle.
AoE skills will deter enemies from attacking or force them to move.

Controlling damage
Supporting a team by using healing and defensive skills is not the only way to reduce the damage they take. By controlling a foe you can reduce the damage it inflicts, prevent it from hitting its target or interrupt its attacks.
Blind, Daze, and Weakness reduce the damage enemies can deal
Skills like Shield of Absorption or Whirling Defense can block or deflect attacks.
By controlling the enemies' lines of sight, some projectiles may become obstructed by the environment or strike foes other than their initial target. Equally so, you can take the hit of projectiles that were meant for an ally as a form of control. Note that some projectiles home in on their targets and might not be easy (or possible) to intercept.

Controlling both
Some effects control enemy movement and enemy damage at the same time.
Fear causes enemies to run from you and prevents skill usage.
Knockback and Launch force an enemy away from you and interrupt skills.
Knockdown and Stun prevent any movement or skill usage.

Other
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Combat

Auto-attack (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Auto_attack):
Auto-attacking occurs when a character is ordered to attack or use an attack skill on a foe; the character will continue to attack automatically and indefinitely until the target dies or a different command is given. This means a player can choose a target, command an attack, and do other things (such as chat, watch the health bar, etc) while his/her character continues the assault.
There are no default attacks in Guild Wars 2. A player must set a skill along the skill bar as the auto-attacking skill. To do this, one must right-click on a skill. However, this does not work for any attack skills associated to a bundle item.


Damage (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Damage):

Damage to a target is affected by your attributes, traits, position (height/backstab/flanking), boons and conditions as well as your targets'.

-Direct damage is mitigated by the opponent's armor, which may be improved by the Toughness attribute and reduced by Vulnerability.
--Weapon hits are a combination of the weapon's damage range, and the player's Attack (influenced by the attribute Power and the boon Might).
--Other harmful skills, such as AoE spells and traps, have a fixed base damage, and are increased by the player's Attack as well.
--Critical hits deal more damage and have a chance to occur, dependent on Precision and increased by the boon Fury.
--Critical hit damage multiplier is increased via Prowess.
--Glancing hits are are like the opposite of critical hits, and depend on position and the difference in levels. The condition Weakness also increases the chances of a glancing hit.
-Missed attacks (dodging, blocking, Aegis, Blind, Out of range) do no damage and do not apply any negative effects. Attack can also miss if its path is obstructed by terrain or another enemy, or if the target moves from the projectile's path.
-Invulnerable hits are due to the target being immune to damage.
-Reflected hits redirect the damage and effects back at the attacker.
-Some combos increase damage by changing the damage type or adding a harmful condition.
-Some conditions deal non-mitigated damage over time, enhanced by the attribute Malice and lengthened by Expertise. These can deal damage in the following ways:
--Through constant health degeneration: Bleeding, Burning, or Poison.
--Upon attacking: Confusion.
--Upon being attacked: Retaliation.
-Life stealing drains a fixed amount of health from the opponent and adds it back to the attacker's pool.
-Life sacrifice occurs voluntarily upon activation of certain specific skills, removing a percentage of the user's health.

Damage calculation is normalized to the current combat level, then to keep things overly simple, they presumably feature Attack and damage rating for the attacking source against Armor for the target's defense.

Damage from one rating level will be much higher against a squishy and/or lower level target than that against a Veteran, Champion, or Boss mob. Many traits will enhance one aspect of the above ways of dealing damage, on top of directly improving two attributes further affecting damage.

Hit
An attack will either hit or miss, and even possibly be reflected, but once it has effectively reached its target(s), damage is applied and calculated independently per target. Each damage source gets a separate calculation for each hit, as shown on the user interface by different damage numbers or hit indications.

Range
Each skill has a range associated with it; whether the character is in range of a target is indicated on the user interface. Melee attacks and other point blank skills require the target be close to the character or the placed area of effect to deal instantaneous damage. While ranged attacks must travel to a specific target or target location before applying damage.
Thus, if the number under a skill on the skill bar is red, the target is out of range for that skill. While a ground-targeted area of effect skill's targeting interface will turn red if the targeted area is out of range.

Combo
Cross combos create an additional source of damage to the current hit, which will have its own calculation process.
For example, an arrow (combo finisher : physical projectile) sent through a Static Field (combo field : lightning) or Poison Cloud (combo field : poison) will respectively add lightning damage or a stack of poison condition to that specific ranged attack.

Rating
Damage shown in skill descriptions and tooltips takes into account current traits, level-related skill tier, gear specifics, and various effects.

Weapon skill
The skill damage is modified by the current weapon in hand (not those equipped). In fact, that weapon's damage range (both min and max values) are compared to the norm for the wielder's level. The resulting weapon rating directly impacts the combined damage rating for each weapon skill.

Condition damage
Condition damage has a fixed damage rating for each type of condition and is universally independent of mitigation (both armor and level). A harmful condition will deal its stacked damage with each pulse (tick) until removed or elapsed.

Mitigation
Mitigation is a damage modifier (multiplier) applied to direct damage: Armor and Level are the two known types of damage mitigation.

Armor
A player's Attack rating is checked against the defender's Armor to determine which percentage of the damage will be mitigated. Certain attacks may have piercing property, thereby negating Armor.

Level difference
The effective level difference between attacker and defender will further modify the damage mitigation. Most noticeable effects are encountered in sidekicking and event scaling mechanisms.

Sidekicking
Higher-level characters will be sidekicked down up to two levels above the desired combat level.
Lower-level characters may be sidekicked up to the desired combat level.

Scaling
Dynamic events scale depending on active participation, and their encounters will get higher damage mitigation (by level generally and possibly more encounter mechanisms) with more players in the vicinity acting against them.

Multiplier
Damage multiplier is another main damage modifier, generally associated to the perceived quality of a hit. Normal hits have a x1 damage multiplier, but there is a chance for them to become either critical or glancing hits depending on the situation.

Protected targets
The Protection boon provides a 33% damage reduction (x2/3 multiplier) from any source.

Glancing hits
Based on unknown circumstances and Weakness, a normal hit may occur instead as a glancing one, which results in 50-75% reduced damage (a multiplier of x0.5 to x0.75).

Critical hits
Based on Critical Chance and other modifiers (boons), a normal hit may become a critical hit, resulting in a damage multiplier of minimum x1.5 (plus Prowess).

Positioning
Some flanking attacks get damage bonuses, mainly as a Thief or a shortbow-wielding Ranger. Physical projectiles gain more momentum damage from higher origins, though the current formula is yet unknown.

Damage type
-Physical damage (most weapon skills are physical damage).
-Elemental damage representing the four elements: fire, water, air, or earth (combo attacks may change physical damage into elemental damage).
-Magic damage: dark or light.

Condition damage
Some conditions stack in intensity, multiplying their pulse damage rating by their current stack size along the associated modifiers. Others stack in duration, which can be increased with Expertise, some traits and upgrade components. When a condition is reapplied, the best modifier takes precedence (independently in duration and intensity) since each stack is unique per target.

Pet damage
Animal companions, minions, illusions and other summons use their own skill(s) to do damage, thus are subject to the same rules and effects in regard to damage.

Endurance (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Endurance):
Endurance is a resource used for dodging. Endurance regenerates over time, and has a max capacity of 100.

Boons that affect Endurance
Vigor: Faster endurance regeneration (by 100%).

Conditions that affect Endurance
Weakness: Slower endurance regeneration.

Related traits
Vigorous Scepter: Endurance recharges faster while wielding a Scepter.
Enduring Damage: +10% damage when endurance is full.
Elixir Endurance: Throwing or Consuming Elixirs gives endurance to those effected.
Adrenaline Pump: Tool belt skills restore 10% of your endurance.
Enduring Damage: 10% extra damage when endurance is full.
Adrenal Implant: 10% faster endurance regeneration.
Battle Focus: 5% more damage when endurance is full.
Steady Focus: 10% damage bonus when endurance is full.
Natural Vigor: Additional endurance regeneration.

Skills related to vigor:

Traits that grant vigor:
Bond of Renewal
-You and your allies gain Regeneration and Vigor.

Weakness
Weakness is a condition that has a 50% chance for attacks to result in a glancing blow (about 50-75% reduced hit) and slows endurance regeneration.

Related skills
Skills that cause weakness:

Related traits
Traits that cause weakness

Traits that remove weakness

Traits that increase weakness

Traits that benefit from weakness

Traits which trigger when Dodging
Guardian
Selfless Daring - Dodging has a chance to heal allies
Warrior
Reckless Dodge - Damage foes at the end of a dodge roll
Engineer
Evasive Powder Keg - Create a bomb when you dodge
Ranger
Cover Me - Your pet gains Might when you dodge
Vigorous Evasion - Gain Vigor on evade
Thief
Expeditious Dodger - Gain Swiftness on evade
Uncatchable - You leave behind Caltrops when you dodge
Elementalist
Evasive Arcana - Create an attunement based spell on dodge
Stop Drop and Roll - Dodge rolling removes Burning
Mesmer
Deceptive Evasion - Create a clone at your current position when you dodge
Necromancer
Evasive Animation - Summon a Jagged Horror when you dodge roll