Guild Wars 2 Combat Mechanics Guide

We mostly get to experience the Combat Mechanics of MMO Games being quite similar. But, here in Guild Wars 2, things are pretty different when it comes to combat, having much unique, as well as somewhat diverse mechanics, involved. 

Before you can take up the task of mastering the Combat Mechanics in Guild Wars 2, you will have to first start learning what each of the mechanics truly means here. So, for that reason, we have an amazing Guild Wars 2 Combat Mechanics Guide.

We will be dividing deep into the Combat System of Guild Wars 2, discussing each fundamental mechanic just for you to get a better hang of it. Without wasting any more time introducing things around, let’s hop straight into the Guide itself.

Guild Wars 2 Downed State

In Guild Wars 2, there is a strange mechanism that when your health is down after taking a lot of damage, you will go into a state called the Downed State. Here in this state, you can’t move around, and neither can you perform actions. 

There are specific Downed State skills that are the only ones that you can perform. Just from these two things, you might have guessed it right that this State is a type of Last Chance for Guild Wars 2. If you can survive in it, you will get back up to fight otherwise you will respawn after dying.

Resurrection and Rally

One more thing to note here is that in the Guild Wars 2 Downed State your allies or other NPCs can revive you and on the other hand the enemies can deny that. 

Another way to get back to life is by killing a player yielding XP. You can’t do these things when you die from falling off a high altitude as there is no Downed State then.

To Rally, an ally can press the F Key which is the default. It takes some time and the ally should be close to the Downed player. On the other hand, certain skills can revive the players without having to pass through all of this.

Another thing to note is that when an ally revives you, it is taken as healing and its speed is affected by the effects of healing reduction. One such effect is none other than Poison and it is the same for the player skills used for Resurrecting others.

Profession-Based Downed State

Mostly in Guild Wars 2, you will find all the Professions having their own Downed State Bar, but they rely on the same base. So, here in Guild Wars 2 Combat Mechanics Guide, we will give you a hint on what it's all about.

• Skill 4 - it is a somewhat Self Resurrection Skill that only breaks when inflicted with some kind of damage.

• Skill 3 - it is Unique, unlike the other Skills that you get to experience with Professions. Just like the Skill 3 of an Engineer, which is an AoE CC, and in contrast to that Ranger has Self Resurrection not breaking even on the damage.

• Skill 2 - it is a defending type skill that protects you from getting finished

• Skill 1 - it is a damaging type of skill that allows you to damage others and even kill them, resulting in your getting back up

Stomping

There are various ways to kill someone when that player is in the Downed State. One unique Guild Wars 2 Combat Mechanic for Downed State is that you can kill the Downed Enemy without having to actually deal damage to them. 

Yes, that Combat Mechanic in Guild Wars 2 is known as Stomping. For that, you will have to get close to that Downed Enemy and then press the F key which is by default. After the channel or load is finished, you can kill them without damaging them. 

It completely depends on you and most players use it in the PvP Guild Wars 2 Game Mode. Mostly about the situation, whether you go for Cleaving or you go for Stomping.

Defeated State

Finally, we have another state in the Downed State called the Defeated State. It is called the Final Stage which appears when you are not revived in the time of a Downed State and results in an unsuccessful Down. 

You might even refer to it as a Defeated State where you simply die. There are various circumstances and depending on the location where you died, whether allies can still revive you or not. 

When you go out in the open world and play there for a bit, it is quite forgiving and lets you be Resurrected in Combat after the Downed State finishes. In contrast to that, the PvP or even the End-game doesn’t spare you on this. 

Your last resort is to simply wait for the spawn timer or use a waypoint in the Defeated State for the ungiving Guild Wars 2 Game Modes.

Dodging in Guild Wars 2

In this Guild Wars 2 Combat Mechanics Guide, we have to mention that Dodging is no doubt the most important Combat Mechanic. You can’t survive the world of Guild Wars 2 without using Dodge and you can’t expect to get good in this game without mastering it.

So, what’s in this Guild Wars 2 Combat Mechanic? Dodging is the skill of rolling away from enemy attacks before they get to damage you. Besides other skills to avoid the attacks like blocking and teleporting, Dodging is the most common one. 

Even if you picked up a Tank Character and you jumped straight into the battlefield without Dodging, you can’t stay alive. If you put a Healer to continuously heal you, even that healer can’t keep you alive for long.

You are forced to learn the Dodging Mechanic in Guild Wars 2 to quickly neglect the attacks of enemies without actually having to take that damage. 

In Guild Wars 2, you get two Bars for Dodge, which is also the default. In simpler wording, you can only Dodge two times while each bar has around 50 endurance and regenerates slowly after depleting.

Certain effects can enhance your dodge like the Vigor Buff enhancing your regen of Endurance. On the other hand, there are also certain effects that can debuff your dodge and that involve weak conditions for the most part. 

When to Dodge?

Coming to the point when you actually have to Dodge, it depends on you. As we mentioned in our Guild Wars 2 Combat Mechanics Guide, you have to use it before the enemy attacks you to get away safely. But it further depends on what you are up against.

The dangerous attacks in Guild Wars 2 come with a slower animation, meaning you can actually read when the enemy will attack you and with which speed that attack is coming.

Blocking in Guild Wars 2

Dodging and Evasion are both an up-level version of Blocking in Guild Wars 2. It is quite weak in that regard and enemies can counter it but still does its job. As the name suggests, Blocking will block the attack of enemies, but to some extent.

Nearly all the Blocking abilities you will find in Guild Wars 2 are channeled abilities. It means that you can’t do anything else when it is channeling. But just like anything else, there is an exception here, which is Aegis as it will block the attacks while you can also do combat.

Unblockable Attacks

Just like we mentioned here in our Guild Wars 2 Combat Mechanics Guide, you can block but to some extent. There are some attacks that are unblockable which are the natural counter to the skills that allow you to block. 

It goes for the reflection of projectiles as you can’t block attacks that are unblockable and can’t be absorbed by the effects of anti-projectile.

Barrier in Guild Wars 2

In other Combat related MMOGames, you have Shields, but in Guild Wars 2, we have Barriers. They defend you against incoming damage. Unlike other games, here the Barrier will deplete or decay after some time (seconds) if there is no upcoming damage that affects them. Barriers in Guild Wars 2 are quite related to vitality in some way because its max health can’t go beyond 50 percent of your maximum health. 

The bigger you have the health (base), the more you can stack the barriers. You can check out Barrier from the sand effect that is on top of your Health Bar. There is a number in Yellow that also shows the amount in numbers as well.

Invulnerability

Invulnerability is bigger than Dodge, Block, Barrier, and even Evasion. It is the ultimate defense in Guild Wars 2. When you are Invulnerable, you won’t take damage, and neither will you be affected by the negative effects. It basically makes you immune to everything bad. 

Well, you might be confused after hearing that there is only one thing that surpasses Invulnerability in Guild Wars 2. Yes, we are talking about Fall Damage, which you actually take and die from even if you are Invulnerable. 

Everything in Guild Wars 2 demands Gold and better Items, even when you are dealing with defensive skills. To make it easier, you can simply Buy Cheap Guild Wars 2 Gold and Guild Wars 2 Items from trusted GW2Sale.com.

Weapon Swap in Guild Wars 2

Weapon Swap is another Guild Wars 2 Combat Mechanic that allows you to switch between two weapons when in combat. Well, it mostly depends on your Profession because some elementalists and engineers only get one, except them, all the other Professions get two.

When you Swap the weapon, there is a cooldown of around 10 seconds before you can switch again. It plays a big part in Combat as two other Professions can’t do so. So, Guild Wars 2 developers balanced it through the cooldown mechanic. 

The two Professions we talked about here have kits and attunements that come up with a similar type of cooldown mechanic when they swap them. In simple words, it sounds something like an on-swap sigil.

Combo System in Guild Wars 2

The description of tooltips and what the skill actually can don’t combine well in Guild Wars 2. Here in this Guild Wars 2 Combat Mechanics Guide, we are going to discuss the Combo System which is what gives the Combat in Guild Wars 2 a spark. 

With the Combo, you can go beyond in contrast to what basically you can do here. It can not only help you out but also plays a major role in team composition because you can also create some amazing Combos with your teammates. 

Same as before, the Profession you choose and the team has, makes a lot of difference here because every Profession doesn’t get the same combo. 

One of the Professions that aren’t good with Combos is none other than Necromancer and on the other side, Engineers are one of the best when it comes to Combos. Furthermore, there is more to Combo System in Guild Wars 2 like two systems called Combo Finishers and Combo Fields. We got you covered on them as well.

Combo Finisher

Both the Combo Finisher and Combo Fields depend on each other, as Field defined the limit of Combo Finisher. There are various types of Combo Finishers; on a water field when you put the blast finisher, it will become an AoE healing attack for all your teammates. In the same case when you use the leap finisher it only works as a self-heal.

Both the leap and the blast finishers are the most popular choices when it comes to Combo Finishers in Guild Wars 2. They are both impactful and have a specific consistency, making them great for new players. 

Combo Field

Fields are basically useless without the Combo Finisher, just like we mentioned before in your Guild Wars 2 Combat Mechanic Guide. Fields define the nature of the interaction. The example of Combo Finisher works here as well because different finishers on the same field can have different effects. 

When you are on an ice field and use a finisher, they are mostly going to chill targets or they might also go for the frost aura. Besides this, on the smoke field, there are mostly blind or stealth-related combos.

Breakbars in Guild Wars 2

Some might even call the Break bars the Defiance bars and for the most part, they are related to the existence of CC for the Boss Fights. You won’t see Break bars in PvP because it is somewhat exclusive to the PvE Combat Mechanic. 

The reason is that there are mostly some enemies you can’t interrupt or CC. But, one thing you might notice is that below the health bar, you will find a blue bar which is the Break bar when you target them.

The break bar also depends mainly on the enemy or group of enemies you are facing because they get locked and unlocked. When the Break bar is locked, you can’t interact and there are also some cases when the Break bar is the only thing a boss will have and it might get unlocked doing a specific phase.

In that phase, your job is to do as much CC as you can. For comparison, a Chill Effect won’t do as much damage as a 4-second CC does to the bar. 

If you have successfully depleted the whole Break bar in Guild Wars 2, the result depends on the encounter. Some enemies might get knocked out while some might change their phase making them vulnerable. 

Stealth Mechanic in Guild Wars 2

The only thing that isn’t compared to other MMO games in contrast is Stealth Mechanic. Honestly, Guild Wars 2 doesn’t focus on this part of the game. It is not a mode that you can turn on or off and neither is related to equipment. 

Stealth Combat Mechanic in Guild Wars 2 depends on your Combos and Skills that offer you Stealth for some seconds (around 2 to 3 seconds to be precise). The good thing here is that it does stack up, making it go to around 12 good seconds. 

In simple words, using a single Stealth will give you 2 to 3 seconds, but when you use two Stealth together of 3 seconds, the result will be 3 seconds of Stealth. You can go a max of around 12 seconds.

When you are in Stealth Mode you don’t take damage, nor that damage interrupts it but when a Stealthed player does damage to someone else, it breaks the Stealth. 

One thing to note here is that the condition damage doesn’t break it, which is quite unique. If you find someone who is Stealthed, you can use reveal to take them out of that mode. 

Revealed

It is a Stealth related mechanic in Guild Wars 2 that stops the Stealthed player to re-enter that mode for a total of around 3 seconds. It works for World vs World and PvP mode, being increased to around 4 seconds for the Player vs Player mode. 

There are some Stealth Skills that work as Revealed do, taking the other out of the Stealth Zone like Sic’em from Ranger. A Stealth person will also get out of the Mode if they do self-inflicted damage.

Guild Wars 2 Crowd Control

Every Combat Mechanic is incomplete without having a Crowd Control and that is why we are discussing Crowd Control in your Guild Wars 2 Combat Mechanics Guide. For the most part, the CC abilities are meant for controlling the battle flow because they can do the role of disabling foes. But they are divided into two types;

Hard Crowd Control (CC)

Hard loss of control! The targets that get knocked down won’t be able to use their skills and neither can move around. When fear is used they will flee and so on.

Soft Crowd Control (CC)

Soft loss of control! This will affect the freedom of the target and limit it. It works in a small specific area like when you immobilize the target, they can’t move around but they will be able to use the skills and crippled ones can even do some distance around. This is the main difference between Hard CC and Soft CC.

Hard CC stops the targets from moving around and using skills while Soft CC only limits the freedom in a certain area, giving crippled slower movement choices and enemies can use their skills.

Buffs and Debuffs in Guild Wars 2

The Buff and Debuff Skills are usually highlighted in Guild Wars 2. They are also referred to as Boon and Condition, which is a much more popular term used in Guild Wars 2. All the good effects on the teammate and yourself are termed as a Boon while the negative or bad effect is called a Condition.

Boons

Boons are the positive Buffs and they don’t usually stack together. The only one that comes to our mind is Might which enhances the damage on each stack. While one thing to note is that all the Boons in Guild Wars 2 have a duration stack, which is a good thing.

Conditions

Conditions are the negative effects or Debuffs in Guild Wars 2. DoT is also in the same category and they are further divided into two types called Debilitating and Damaging Conditions.

• Debilitating Condition - these are the negatives that don’t have anything to do with damage, but rather movement, speed, miss, and so on. They stack in duration as well and some examples are Blind (missing attack) and Cripple (slowing movement speed). 

• Damaging Condition - just as the name suggests they deal with the damage over time or DoT and they do stack together based on the intensity. The most common one is burning and when you put three of them, the enemy takes 3x the single burning damage.

Countering Boons and Buffs

• Cleansing - It is a process that helps you remove conditions. There are a few conditions that you can remove using Cleansing and mostly related to the full stacked once.

• Condition Conversion - Just as the name suggests, this process will convert the condition to a similar functioning boon. It does all get rid of the condition that you are in.

• Boon Conversion - It converts the enemy boons to conditions. Simple as that!

• Boon Removal - This process will remove the boon of the opponent, but affects a certain amount of them. 

Final Verdict

Well, that is all to our Guild Wars 2 Combat Mechanics Guide. We tried to cover everything here so that you can easily understand them. If you are a beginner this article is straight-up made for you, but it also deals with the mechanics that most regular players of Guild Wars 2 might find useful. 

Just make sure that you don’t mess with the Fall Damage in Guild Wars 2 because it is the only Combat Mechanic here that will hurt you even after all the Boons, Buffs, Shields, Barriers, and even Invulnerability.