Secondary Class Guide Written by: Jaws of Doom With the support of: Valkyrie Einherjer Leadership =============================================================================== =============================================================================== Table of Contents: Preface [0PF0] Assassin [0A0] A/E [0AE0] A/Me [0AMe0] A/Mo [0AMo0] A/N [0AN0] A/R [0AR0] A/Rt [0ARt0] A/W [0AW0] Elementalist [0E0] E/A [0EA0] E/Me [0EMe0] E/Mo [0EMo0] E/N [0EN0] E/R [0ER0] E/Rt [0ERt0] E/W [0EW0] Mesmer [0Me0] Me/A [0MeA0] Me/E [0MeE0] Me/Mo [0MeMo0] Me/N [0MeN0] Me/R [0MeR0] Me/Rt [0MeRt0] Me/W [0MeW0] Monk [0Mo0] Mo/A [0MoA0] Mo/E [0MoE0] Mo/Me [0MoMe0] Mo/N [0MoN0] Mo/R [0MoR0] Mo/Rt [0MoRt0] Mo/W [0MoW0] Necromancer [0N0] N/A [0NA0] N/E [0NE0] N/Mo [0NMo0] N/Me [0NMe0] N/R [0NR0] N/Rt [0NRt0] N/W [0NW0] Ranger [0R0] R/A [0RA0] R/E [0RE0] R/Me [0RMe0] R/Mo [0RMo0] R/N [0RN0] R/Rt [0RRt0] R/W [0RW0] Ritualist [0Rt0] Rt/A [0RtA0] Rt/E [0RtE0] Rt/Me [0RtMe0] Rt/Mo [0RtMo0] Rt/N [0RtN0] Rt/R [0RtR0] Rt/W [0RtW0] Warrior [0W0] W/A [0WA0] W/E [0WE0] W/Me [0WMe0] W/Mo [0WMo0] W/N [0WN0] W/R [0WR0] W/Rt [0WRt0] Contact Info [0CI0] History [0HI0] Credits [0CR0] Legal Info [0LI0] =============================================================================== =============================================================================== Preface [0PF0] This guide is written to fulfill the ever looming question of what you should choose for your secondary for a new character. Whether you are new to the game, or a veteran that is creating a new character, this guide is here to look at different possibilities for secondaries, and what you can do for each choice. Each class will be set up as followed. First, there will be a general description of the class in general. This is looking at with no secondary, and will go over what kind of role you will be playing as in game with your class. Following that, there will be five sections, one for each secondary class. These will go in detail over different combinations and possibilities that you can create with the two classes. Please note that I'm not going to choose a class for you. You won't find any rankings or system that will tell you what you should play as. Instead, I just hope to give you ideas to suit your particular play style. Also, even though I may reference a number of builds throughout the guide, it will be up to you to fill out the build as you wish. Whether you look it up on another site, or build it yourself, that will be your responsibility, and will not be listed in the guide. Also, this will be looking at only the PvE or RPG aspect of the game, and not the PvP aspect. This is because PvP is so much more team orientated, that your secondary will be chosen on what the team needs, and not what you want to be. The classes are listed in alphabetical order to help in finding them, but you can also use the code I put behind each section and sub-section, and your browser search tool (usually Ctrl+F) to instantly head to the section of your choice. =============================================================================== =============================================================================== Assassin [0A0] Assassins are a kind of solo spiking character that can inflict a very large amount of damage on a single target. However, the most important thing that all assassins to remember is that they do not have the armor of a tank, and should not act like a tank. Always be ready to get out of damage, defend yourself or heal depending on the circumstances. Shadow steps will be your best friend, as well as your high damage chain combo which will be your best way to wipe out a target. A/E [0AE0] Assassins can take full advantage of the elementalist's point blank spells and conjure ability. With the right elemental weapons, assassins attack at a much faster speed than other melee classes allowing you to signifcantly increase your damage output, especially combined with high Dagger Mastery for more duel strikes. Assassins can also take advantage of the protective spells from Earth Magic to increase their survivability in melee. Wards can be used to protect yourself or slow enemies, and a number of earth spells will give you extra armor to help you in the thick of fighting. A/Me [0AMe0] A mesmer secondary's greatest strenght is by using Physical or Elemental Resistance to help give you more armor in battle. Simply pick what the other team has more of, and then go in and start whailing on the opposite type. So if you see a lot of elementalists, use Elemental Resistance, get in, and kill the warriors, or vice versa. Another strong possibility is to use the Mantas based on the type of elemental damage you're going to be going up against. Not only will this give you more armor, but it will also provide you with extra energy which an assassin can always use. A/Mo [0AMo0] The best combo here is the self healing ability of Vigorous Spirit. Much like the conjures of the elementalist line, Vigorous Spirit will continuously activate every attack, which is at an already high rate, and will only increase with a high Dagger Mastery with the duel attacks. Much like the warrior, an assassin can also use Smiting Prayers to increase your damage output, mainly through Judge's Insight which will give you additional armor penetration. You can also use a number of area of effect attacks to also help your damage output. A/N [0AN0] Assassins with their high energy recovery can take even more advantage of the touch skills than even a warrior can. Plague Touch is an easy conditional removal, and other touches allow you to do armor ignoring damage that is an easy and effective way to finish off an energy that triggers an evasion stance the second before they die. Necro secondaries can also take advantage of the wells to help their survivability in melee. By giving themself some extra health regeneration, or a little more degeneration to the enemy, you can help keep the battle in your favor, as well as exploit corpses that enemy necromancers may wish to use. A/R [0AR0] Bring a pet! As crazy as it sounds, a pet will not only help you do more damage, but you can also use it as your own personal tank, by having enemies focus on it instead of you. At the same time, you can take advantage of Bestial Fury in the Beast Mastery line to help increase your attack speed. A new, very intersting combo is by grabbing your favorite bow, and the elite skill Barrage. With this, you can use your Critical Strike ability to inflict more damage with your barrages then normal. At the same time, you will have awesome energy return, allowing you to use some enchantements from Critical Strikes to help improve your damage, or protect yourself. A/Rt [0ARt0] Become a bomber by carrying ashes into battle. While you will be a little slower getting in, you can immediently drop the ashes to do damage to your foes before even getting the daggers out. Cruel Was Daoshen is great for this. Another great way to increase damage is to use Weapons Spells on yourself. Whether you use Brtual Weapon to increase the damage you do per hit, Wailing Weapon to interupt physical attackers, or a weapon from Restoration Magic to help protect or heal you, they are all an easy, non-strippable way to help your cause. A/W [0AW0] If your tired of your weak daggers, trade them in for a better weapon. Whether you use a sword, axe, or hammer, you'll be able to inflict more damage, while still using critical strikes for additional energy. With swords and axes, a shield will help give you more armor as well. Another good possibility is to use the Warrior's Tactics to provide you with defensive stances, as well as more healing skills. Since an Assassin lacks a stance like those a Warrior has, using one from Tactics can greatly help you survive in battle. =============================================================================== Elementalist [0E0] Generally, the primary job of the elementalist is to do a lot of damage through their magical attacks. Two of the most popular types of elementalist use either air or fire magic. Air is generally used to inflict damage on a single enemy, while fire is used to inflict damage to multiple enemies. Water is known as a hexing magic that is used to inflict damage as well as slow enemies down. Finally, earth has a little bit off offensive magic coupled with defensive wards and enchantments to protect yourself and your team. As an elementalist, you should rarely find yourself in need of energy with the primary energy storage giving you more energy for each level in it. E/A [0EA0] With Factions, a number of point blank spells have been introduced that elementalists don't like using because of their week armor. An assassin secondary allows you to Shadow Step in, unleash a number of powerful area of effect spells, and then get out without taking massive damage on the run in or out. Another strong possiblity is to use the assassin's Deadly arts or Shadow Arts to complement your other spells. There are a number of snares at your disposal to keep an enemy in your area spells, protective or healing skills to better keep yourself alive, and a number of shadow steps to help you move around the battlefield efficiently. E/Me [0EMe0] This is very popular when you have one very powerful skill that you want to throw out multiple times. Two mesmer skills, Arcane Echo and Echo allow you to copy any spell in your inventory, allowing you to use it over and over again. Also, since the two Echo skills are Unalligned, you don't need to have any attribute points in any mesmer skills in order to make this effective. Another strong possiblity would be to use Inspiration Magic to provide energy management in very energy costly builds. While elementalist do have their own skills to keep their energy high, mesmer Inspriation Magic can be used to supply an extra boost in energy when needed. E/Mo [0EMo0] The best part of the monk secondary is your ability to self-heal, which monks lack an effective means of. However, you can take this even farther, and make yourself a full monk. Instead of having the greater healing ability from Divine Favor, you will have a lot more energy than primary monks have allowing you to heal much more often. Another good combination would be to mix a monk's Smiting Prayers in with your other magic to provide other means of damage. This is extremely effective in areas with a large number of undead enemies, which will take double damage from your smiting skills. E/N [0EN0] Mixing a necromancer secondary in with the elementalist can give you the same advantage as the monk's smiting prayers. Using Blood Magic or Curses, you can give yourself the ability to do shadow damage along with your normal elemental skills. This is very effective when facing enemies with a high armor level as your shadow skills give you the ability to ignore it completely. Another possibilty would be for energy management. Offering of Blood can be used to trade a bit of health for an instant energy burst, while Well of Power can be used on a corpse to provide you with a constant increase of energy regeneration. E/R [0ER0] The highlight of this combination would be the ability to mix physical and elemental ranged damaged. This would allow you to stay out of the way of melee damage, as well as focus on doing damage that your foe is weak against. Another great possibility would be to combine the ranger skills of Enerngizing Wind and Quickening Zephyr to help you with skill casting. The combination of these two skills will allow you to cast your skills for less energy, while at the same time, making them recharge E/Rt For secondary ritualists, Channeling Magic is a great way to mix your normal elemental damage with more lightning damage. Not only will it keep your damage output high, but these skills are generally a bit cheaper, and never cause exaustion, keeping your energy ready to go. Elementalists can also start dropping spirits across the battlefield with the help of their Energy Storage. With their great reserve of energy, they can easily produce spirits without quickly running out of energy that ritutalist run into. E/W [0EW0] With a warrior secondary your main benefit would be in protection and self-healing. The warrior Tactics line gives you a number of stances that you can use for protection against a large attack, as well as Healing Signet for a decent self-heal. Another possibilty would be to use Earth Magic skills to increase your armor, and then to run into melee range being more well protected than a warrior would be. You could then use one of the warrior's melee weapons combined with close range area of effect spells to do the majority of your damage. =============================================================================== Mesmer [0Me0] Overall, the mesmer is a very specialized class that relies on taking advantage of an enemy's weakness in ordder to inflict damage. They also have the ability to inflict massive amounts of health degeneration through their illusion magic. Mesmers also have the best energy management in the game with their inspiration magic giving them the ability to create or steal energy. Due to how specialized they are, it is not recommended that for new players do to high difficulty of putting together an effective build, however, experienced players can use the mesmers abilities to decimate another team with great efficiency. Me/A [0MeA0] A great advantage here is the Assassin's Deadly Arts to help to inflict more damage. Not only will it allow you to deal direct damage to an enemy, but you can also use it with your assorted Mesmer skills to provide support to your team by stripping enchantments or snaring foes that like to run. Assassin secondaries can also use the Shadow Stepping abilities to get around the battlefield with ease. This can help you either get away from attacks if you are finding yourself as the target, or to get in, Blackout, and get out for enemies that are charging powerful skills. Me/E [0MeE0] The greatest advantage is here that a mesmer can easily fast cast a number of cheap elementalist skills to do a lot of damage in a short time. Combined with energy management skills that mesmers already have, they will be able to consistantly spam a few cheap skills to do their damage. Other possibility is to use the elemental glyphs to increase the effectiveness of their mesmer abilities. This can include the ability to make skills cost less energy, make them instantly recharge, or instantly cast for longer spells. The best part about this is that it requires no attribute points in any elementalist attributes, freeing them up for other uses. Me/Mo [0MeMo0] The biggest advantage to gain here is the ability to fast cast resurrecting skills during battle. The biggest problem with reusable resurrecting skills is the large amount of time it takes to cast them, which may leave your team vulnerable if you are under attack. The ability to significantly reduce that time is a huge advantage allowing you to get people back in the fight faster, and without having to use the one time Resurrection Signet. The other possibilty with this is to provide yourself with a few powerful self- healing skills. While you won't have enough energy to be able to heal the entire team, you can use one or two good healing skills to keep yourself alive with your weak armor. Me/N [0MeN0] A great combination here would be to combine the health degeneration skills of a mesmer with that of the necromancer to make them even more effective. This will give you the ability to spread more degeneration to more enemies taking them down quicker than with just mesmer degeneration alone. Another possiblity along the same lines would be to use the wells that necromancers can create for the same degenerative purposes. This also has the advantage that with your fast casting ability, you will generally be able to get the corpse before enemy necromancers, allowing you to prevent them from using their own wells, or from raising minions. Me/R [0MeR0] Like the secondary necromancer, the ranger will also allow you to spread you degeneration skills even wider. However, a secondary ranger will allow you to cause degenerative conditions such as poison or bleeding, allowing you to have a greater variety instead of the all hex Me/N. Another strong possiblity would be to combine the disruptive abilities of the mesmer with the disruptive abilities of a ranger to prevent enemies from casting any spells. Using a combination of the two will allow you to stop any spell being cast by your target if your reaction is fast enough, which would in turn, prevent a lot of damage directed at your team. Me/Rt [0MeRt0] Much the like the monk secondary, the biggest advantage here is that you have the ability fast cast a resurrection spell. In this case, it will probably be Flesh of My Flesh, but this will allow your monks to focus on healing while you get an ally up without using your one time only resurrection signet. The ritualist secondary will also let you use Channeling Magic to help to do direct damage to your enemies. Unlike Elementalist skills, they are of much lower cost, and you'll never have to worry about exaustion allowing you to quickly spike a target that you've be degenerating for the kill. Me/W [0MeW0] Probably the most interesting combination, this allows you to use the mesmer elite skill Illusionary Weaponry, to inflict massive melee damage on your enemies. When combined with Flurry or other skills to increase your attack speed, it will allow you to inflict a huge amount of damage in a short time. Just remember that you need to be careful with your weak armor, and warrior defensive stances may be very helpful in keeping you alive. Another possibility would be to simply use a warrior's Tactics to help reduce damage. Since you have some of the weakest armor in the game, if you're attacked, it is very benefitial to have some kind of protection to help you, and your monk out due to the increased damage that your enemies will have. =============================================================================== Monk [0Mo0] I just want to start out by making it clear that if you are a primary monk, you will be expected to either protect or heal your team. Smiting monks are very rare, and almost never used in PvE fighting. If you do want to smite, all I ask is that you let your team know so that you don't find yourself in a lack of healing later on. However, this guide will be focusing on the healing and protection aspects that a monk excels at. Mo/A [0MoA0] Monks may often find themselves using the Shadow Step ability to help them get around the battlefield as much as Assassins themselves do. It is particularly effective when using touch based skills as you can jump to your ally instantly to get the healing spell off. From the Shadow Arts, the skill Dark Escape may also be handy if you're finding that the battle isn't going in your favor. The monk should be one of the first ones to call a retreat, and getting out is key since you may be one of the few to have a reusable resurrection skill Mo/E [0MoE0] One great combination is using earth magic to increase your base armor. Since monk armor is very weak like most caster armor, you will often find yourself the target of enemy attacks as they like to go for weaker armor first. Using Kinetic Armor is the best way to help yourself out as you will cast often enough to keep it renewed while receiving a nice benefit. Another possiblity would be to combine the monk's impressive protection ability with the wards that earth elementalists can make to add even more protection. This is particularly effective with ranger team members that can stay in the wards, and do damage to the enemies outside of it. Mo/Me [0MoMe0] Overall, this is the most common monk secondary due to the mesmers awesome energy management. With both elites and non-elites to help regain energy, it is by and far the best way to keep your energy high to allow you to continue to heal. This also works well for bonders who rely on maintained enchantments to protect the team. Two Inspiration Magic skills, Mantra of Inscriptions and Mantra of Signets will allow you to regain energy faster, which will in turn, allow you to maintain more enchantments, allowing you to protect your team better. Mo/N [0MoN0] Another popular combination due to energy management skills. Mainly, Offering of Blood will give you an instant energy burst, while Well of Power will give you extra energy regeneration allowing you to cast more often. Another good possibility here is condition management. A number of monk skills will draw conditions from your teamates to you. You can then use Necromancer skills such as Plague Signet or Plague Touch to send those gathered condtions to your enemy so that they have to deal with them instead of you. This is particularly effective against disease. Mo/R [0MoR0] Ranger secondaries can use a number of natural rituals to assist them in their healing. One example is a combination of Quickening Zephyr and Energizing Wind to allow them to heal more often due to a smaller recharge time, while at the same time, costing less energy in the first place. Symbiosis also works wonders for monks that use a lot of enchantments to assist in healing. A ranger secondary can also be used to help manage energy with the right abilities. Specifically, Marksman's Wager will allow you to recover energy each time your hit a target, allowing for a form of regaining energy when you have time away from healing. Mo/Rt [0MoRt0] In the healing department, there is no better synergy than this. With restoration magic and healing prayers, you have an easy and effective way to keep your team healthy. With a few spirits, you'll have team wide spells that will help keep them healthy. Protection speciallists can also work with Restoration Magic easily. A number on Restoration Spirits can provide large area effects that will help cut down on damage for everyone, allowing you to do more focused protection on allies getting hit hard. Mo/W [0MoW0] The warrior secondary will allow you to use a number of Tactics abilities to assist your team. One of the things you can do would be to use a variety of shouts to help improve the defense of your team to complement your Protection Prayers. Skills such as "Watch Yourself" and "Shields Up!" are both excelent ways to protect nearby team memebers under attack. The other possiblity would be to use warrior defensive stances to protect youself in battle, as you will be a prime target for your foes. For this Bonetti's Defense is by far the best by not only protecting you, but giving yourself energy to work with as well. However, any of a number of defensive stances may be a life saver in battle. =============================================================================== Necromancer [0N0] The necromancer is a very interesing and powerful class to play as. The ability to exploit corpses to cause even more damage has become an extremely effective weapon, especially with the ability to raise minions. However, necromancers also have many skills allowing them to inflict damage directly to there enemy, often with the added benefit of ignoring armor. N/A [0NA0] Necromancers can finally effiently use their touch skills with the Shadow Stepping ability. Now, they can step in, do damage with their touches, and step out when they start taking too much damage. Another good combo is to mix the hexes from Deadly Arts with your already hex heavy Necromancer skills. Whether you want to trigger Soul Barbs more, or do more damage from the Deadly Arts themselves, it is a great way to overload someone with hexes. N/E [0NE0] The secondary elementalist is one solid choice for a secondary minionmancer. The key to this lies in Glyph of Renewal, which allows you to recharge your minion healing skills instantly. This is also effective as you don't have to put any points into the elementalist attributes to make it effective. Another good combination is to use elementalist skills to increase the damage from your necromancer. Water Magic hexes work well some Necromancer Curses to inflict good damage, and your shadow damage dealing spells can also mix with elemental skills for more damage. N/Me [0NMe0] With the mesmer secondary, you can really focus on a hex heavy build to just degenerate your enemies. It is especially good with Recurring Insecurity which will have your enemies facing even more constant degeneration from your skill bar. The memser's ability to echo also makes them good at being a minionmancer. With the ability to copy the minion healing skills, it gives you much more flexability with how often you can heal your minions outside of battle. N/Mo [0NMo0] This is the most popular build for the minionmancer for a couple of reasons. First of all, Healing Breeze is a popular way to keep your health high due to the sacrifical nature of the minion heaing skills. More importantly, Heal Area allows you to heal yourself as well as your minions out of battle as they will form a circle around you. Without minions, you can use monk prayers in one of two main ways. The first would be to use Healing Prayers to help to keep yourself alive when using high health sacrificing abilities. The other possibilty would be to use Smiting Prayers to inflict damage while avoiding health sacrifices altogether. Idea from Chubbs [HoP] Necromancers can also assist in healing. With there Soul Reaping ability, they have awesome energy managment, not to mention Offering of Blood if nobody is dying. While they won't be the most effective, they will be able to spam heal very easily. N/R [0NR0] The best combination here is to use the combination to inflict a wide range of status effects on your foes. Using ranger skills, you can easily poison or bleed your enemies, which you can then combine with Virulance to force them to deal with a number of extra conditions, as well as add disease which will spread quickly. You can also use some of the ranger's sprits to increase the effectiveness of your minions. Winnowing can be used to increase the damage that each one does, while Fertile Season will increase there health, making it easier to keep them alive. Also, Serpent's Quickness can be used to make your minion healing skills recharge faster as long as you keep your own health high. N/Rt [0NRt0] The ritualist secondary will give you more damage, and energy management all in one. Just lay down a few spirits, and wait for them to die. You can use them to do damage while they're living, but when they die, they'll trigger your Soul Reaping giving you additional energy. You can also use Restoration Magic to support your minions. Just set up a spirit or two to give your minions a little bit more healing will help to take the pressure off of you to constantly sacrifice to keep them alive. N/W [0NW0] With a warrior secondary, you can play risky, and go for the melee range instead of the traditional long-range caster. This will allow you to take full advantage of a number of necromancer skills that need to be in "touch" range, as well as the wells that will form at the corpses of your recently killed enemies. More traditionally, the Tactics line will help protect and heal you during combat. Specifically, Healing Signet is free, and can be used to counteract health sacrifices. Other stances can protect you if you become a target. =============================================================================== Ranger [0R0] The ranger can fill a variety of different rolls, making them a kind of team specialist. They have the ability to inflict a great amount of physical damage from a distance with their bows, as well as charm animals for another source even though beastmasters are very rare, and generally considered ineffective. Their natural rituals also can change the very rules of the game as they have the ability to affect both allies and enemies alike. R/A [0RA0] For very elemental heavy missions, you can grab a pair of daggers and charge into battle. Rangers have the best armor against the elements, and their expertise can help you keep the cost of your attacks down since you won't have much in the way of energy management. With this, you can also make heavy use of Shadow Stepping for trapping. In this case, you could easily get in, and start using your traps to cause chaos in the ranks. When you start getting targetting, you jump out, wait until you're not getting attacked anymore, and head back in for more damage. R/E [0RE0] Possibly the best combination for the secondary elementalist would be to use the conjure abilities to increase the damage of your weapon. You can use this stacked with a preperation and an attack, to increase your damage done to a specific target, or use it with Barrage for higher damage as your enchantment will not be removed like preperations. Your other strong option here would be to use elemtalist attacks to supplement your bow attacks. You will need to watch your energy in this case, so energy management skills like Marksman's Wager is a must if you decide to choose this route. Glyphs may also be handy for this allowing you to decrease energy costs for the high damage elementalist skills you may wish to use. R/Me [0RMe0] The mesmer secondary is perfect for trappers that assist the team by laying a large number of traps for enemies to hit when they charge in. Using the mesmer skill Distoration will allow you to avoid getting hit so that you can literally lay traps right at the enemy's feet without getting interupted. The mesmer secondary also works great for a disruption rangers who focus on stopping powerful enemy spells. For this, the mesmer ability Arcane Conundrum can be combined with other ranger and mesmer abilities to give any ranger a much easier time at disrupting important enemy spells both to prevent them from damaging you, or from healing their own. R/Mo [0RMo0] As with the elementalist secondary, a monk's Smiting Prayers also make a good addition to standard bow attacks. In this case, Judge's Insight can be used to stack armor penetration onto your normal bow attacks, as well as Barrage which will not affect the enchantment. Rangers can also use this with the monk's Healing Prayers to create an extremely potent self-healing combination. For this, the enchantment Vigorous Spirit can be combined with Barrage to cause you to gain a massive amount of health with each attack. Each arrow that flies will trigger Vigorous Spirit which can easy keep you healed in the middle of battle. R/N [0RN0] The necromancer secondary allows you to take full advantage of the conditions that a ranger can spread with the necromancer providing additional spreading. As is the same for the N/R, using Virulance with the base conditions that a ranger can provide will allow you to massively spread conditions throughout a rank of enemies. Another combination would be to use a number of necromancer "Touch" skills as support for when melee combat comes to you. Since these touches are skills, they are affected by the ranger's Expertise, allowing you to use them for cheaper energy cost, while at the same time, doing damage to melee attackers. R/Rt [0RRt0] Combine Oath Shot with a bunch of spirits to create an easy to use spirit spammer. High expertise will cut down the costs of the spirits, and instead of waiting for them to recharge, hit an enemy with Oath Shot, to instantly recharge everything for use again. On the more usual side, using Weapon's Spells will also help you increase your damage in battle. This is even more effective with Duel Shot or Barrage as the extra is damage adds up as you hit more and more enemies with your shots. R/W [0RW0] Due to the physical nature of both classes, these two match quite nicely. First of all, rangers can take advantage of a number of warrior skills that increase physical damage, while still staying out of direct combat. Most noteable is Frenzy which will allow increased attack speed without having to worry about receiving extra damage from being in close range combat with a number of foes. Rangers also have enough base armor to be able to efficiently use melee weapons in combat. Combined with a high expertise to reduce the energy cost of any melee attacks they may want to use will allow them to be able to spam a number of energy related skills on enemies. Just be careful about health with your slightly weaker armor. =============================================================================== Ritualist [0Rt0] Ritualist are kind of like the Ranger in that they offer a lot of versatility and support to a team. Using Restoration Magic, they can easily support the healers or with Channeling Magic, they can support the casters with more damage. But by and far, the are most widely know for calling spirits that do the support. While expensive, these spirits can quickly be called forth to add extra damage dealing, or healing allies to the team for their duration. Rt/A [0RtA0] Bring out you urn's, and use Shadow Stepping to get around the battlefield. Drop damage dealing ones at your enemies followed by getting out, or use it to help support yourself as you spawn spirits at different places. Just remember that you can't carry your urn through a step, and you'll just drop it. The snares in Deadly Arts can also be effective to keep your enemies near your spirits. Just drag them close enough to where your spirits start attacking, and then keep them there while you and your spirits pound on your enemy. Rt/E [0RtE0] One half of this is just a pure damage dealing combo. Using Channeling Magic and other Elementalist spells, you can can deal a large amount of damage out in a very short time. You can also use this combo as a great support combo. Using Restoration Magic and Earth Magic, create a number of wards and spirits to help support your team. Since the wards will also help guard your spirits, it's also a great way to support your own support spirits since the wards, unlike the spirits, cannot be destroyed. Rt/Me [0RtMe0] Much like the E/Me, you can easily use Arcane Echo or Echo to belt out one of your powerful, but long recharging spells twice in a short time. If you use both of the Echo's you can get this up to three times since you can echo you're echoed spell. This also can work great as energy management for the high energy Ritualist. A number of elite and nonelite skills can help keep your energy high with Inspiration Magic, allowing you to use your normal spells more often. Rt/Mo [0RtMo0] Just like the Mo/Rt, this works great as a healer. Using spirits to help support their normal healing skills, Ritualists have a number of low cost healing skills to keep their allies alive. You can also combine the two for great damage dealing power using Smiting Prayers and Communing to deal out a large amount of damage on the enemy. Using your spirits in combination with armor ignoring holy damage to really put pressure on your foes. Rt/N [0RtN0] The Necromancer secondary allows you to focus on hexes which Ritualists lack. Using a combination of these, you can easily hex up an enemy, and then finish them off with a few direct spells. You can also help yourself with energy by using Offering of Blood to keep your energy up. This will allow you use your spells more since you don't have your own energy management, and you can easily heal yourself with a little Restoration Magic. Rt/R [0RtR0] The Ranger secondary allows you to use your bow to assist your in attacking from a range. A number of spirits combined with even simple bow attacks will help you do a large amount of damage to anyone daring enough to come within range of your attacks. You can also use the Ranger's Natural Ritualists to help support yourself and your team. With the right spirit combo, you can evil give yourself a boost while denying it to your allies, such as using Frozen Spirit with Restoration against enemies that like to ressurect in order to stop them, while providing a backup for you. Rt/W [0RtW0] One rather different combo for these two is using urns and weapons spells with the tanking stances of a warrior to get into melee combat. Using your urns and weapon spells to inflict damage, you can help protect yourself with a number of stances during the conflict. Another good combo is to use the warrior's shouts to help protect yourself, your teamates, and your spirits at all once. Not only will this help take pressure off your monks, but it will also preserve your spirits from enemy attacks. =============================================================================== Warrior [0W0] Warriors have one really main job, and that is to tank damage the best the can. The more enemies attack you, the less they are attacking your teamates, and since you have the best armor, you are much more suited to taking it. However,you are also one of two that are suited at doing melee damage, and you will have the ability to inflict large amounts of damage on the enemy with your sword, axe, or hammer. W/A [0WA0] First suggestion, use daggers! Daggers will increase your attack speed, and you can still use strength to increase armor penetration, allowing you to increase the amount of damage without it being as conditional as a critical hit. The most useful thing for Warriors though is the Shadow Step ability. Use this to instantly get in and grab aggro of all the enemies instead of having them run towards you, which may cause them to latch onto a caster and run right past you. W/E [0WE0] Like the ranger, the warrior can also take advantage of the elementalist's conjure abilities to increase their damage output. This works best with faster weapons such as swords and hammers, and work especially well with abilities that attack more than one person, such as Hundread Blades for swords or Cyclone Axe for axes. Warriors can also make great use of point blank spells that elementalists generally don't use to stay out of melee range. Water magic gives warriors Frozen Burst which is effective at keeping foes from running from your attacks. Air magic allows warriors to use either Shock or Whirlwind for instant knockdowns, which will allow hammer warriors to follow up with attacks that do more damage to knockdowned foes. Reversing that, warriors can also use Earth Shaker to knock down all nearby foes, and follow that with Aftershock to inflict large amounts of damage. W/Me [0WMe0] One effective option would be to use the Mantras of Inspiration Magic to protect yourself against the type of elemental damage that enemies areinflicting in the area. Not only will this offer you extra protection against elemental spells, but it will also give you a slight boost of energy allowing you to use your energy costing skills more often. The other strong possibilty here would be to use Illusion magic to slow down and disable your enemies. Casting Sympathetic Visage is a great way to deplete enemy energy and stopping adrenaline build up, while Imagined Burden and Ethereal Burden are great ways to slow down enemies fleeing from your attacks. W/Mo [0WMo0] The first and most used possibilty here is self healing. So, I will make myself clear by stating right off the bat that MENDING IS NOT AN EFFECTIVE MEANS OF SELF HEALING!!!!! It simply cannot keep up with the damage you will be taking and will be overwhelmed easily. If you want to keep yourself alive, skills like Healing Breeze or Healing Hands are much more effective at keeping your health high. Another possiblity for damage dealing would be to use Judge's Insight like the ranger possiblity above. Other possibilities would be to use Strength of Honor with adrenal builds, Holy Strike in combination with knockdowns, and Balthazar's Aura for inflicting damage to a number of enemies. All these combinations can significantly increase the damage you do in combat. W/N [0WN0] The necromancer secondary can take full advantage of the necromancer skills as they will be in close range combat the entire time. These can be used to either inflict more damage on your foes, or give yourself a little bit of self healing with the Vampiric Touch. These are best used with adreanal builds due to the high energy cost. Plague Touch is by far the most noteable with the ability to remove bothersome conditions like blind or weakness very quickly. Warriors can also take full advantage of the wells that necromancers can create as these will often be created near the front lines. Using a few wells, the warrior can provide healing to himself, as well as degeneration that your enemies will have to deal with. W/R [0WR0] Again mixing well due to the fact that they both use physical damage, warriors can use the ranger's preperations to increase the effectiveness of there base attacks. This can include spreading poison to a number of enemies, or just doing more damage with skills like Kindle Arrows. Warriors can also use the pet from the Beast Mastery line to increase both their tanking and damage dealing abilities in frontline combat. Most noteable in this combination is the ranger elite skill, Ferocious Strike, which will not only deal good damage, but give you both adrenaline and energy to allow you to do more damage with your own melee abilities. W/Rt Much like the A/Rt, this allows you to bring your own bomb to the party. Just carry a damage dealing urn into battle, and drop it on your foes to start with early damage to everyone nearby. On the same token, using Weapon Spells is also a great way to increase damage. Particularly, Brutal Weapon will increase the amount of damage you do, and since there is no way to remove a weapon spell, you never have to worry about it being taken off like an enchantment would. =============================================================================== =============================================================================== Contact Info [0CI0] Personal contact information for the guide: Please use this information if you wish to comment about the guide. All I ask is that you try to be helpful by giving me ways to make it better, or to add possibilities to one of the sections. Please don't simply bash or praise me because that while does make me feel bad or good, it really doesn't help me improve this. Also, please give me an in game name that I can use if I decide to put your idea into the guide. You can contact me: In Guild Wars: Jaws Of Doom Doom Of Jaws Jaws Of Doomier Doom Of Jawsier Jawsier Of Doomer Doomier Of Jawsier [PvP] AOL Instant Messanger: JawsOfDoom2005 Xfire: jawsofdoom Contact information for the guild: Valkyrie Einherjer is always open to new members of any experience level or play type. Whether you bought the game a few days ago, and you're looking for a group of people that are willing to help, or if you're a veteran of the game,and you're looking for a group that can fight along side of in Guild vs Guild or Heroes Ascent, we have what you are looking for. To join: 1. Go to http://z3.invisionfree.com/Valkyrie_Einherjer 2. Register with the forums 3. Head over to the General Discussion 4. Go into the Interested In VE? Look Here forum, and make a new post giving us the information we need so that we can invite you. The leader and officers often check the forums at least once a day, so be we should get the invite out to you within one day. Make sure that you've left any present guild so we can get you in. =============================================================================== =============================================================================== History [0HI0] Version 1.0 First release of the guide. All of the inital information has been added including two possibilities for each secondary. This release also includes all contact information, as well as the preface. Version 1.01 Permission, contact info, and guild info updated. Credits [0CR0] valkyrie Einherjer leadership for their support in writing and publishing this guide. Special thanks to Gore, Taran, Chubbs and Peace for being the four best people I know in the game. Legal Info [0LI0] Copyright 2006 By Jaws Of Doom This guide is currently only allowed to be used at six websites: www.gamefaqs.com www.supercheats.com www.hvguild.com www.guildhop.com www.teutonicwarriors.com http://z6.invisionfree.com/ShadowsOfBalthazar Use of this guide in whole or in part at any other website is not allowed without consent of the owner. If you do wish to use this on another website, please contact me via e-mail so that I may review the website before use. If I allow it to be used in other websites, the guide must be reproduced in full with no deleted or added sections that I did not create. This guide may be reproduced for personal or private usage without consent of the owner.