A list of noob questions

I've posted a few questions on this forum already and have received some great responses, but I still have a few more before I make the leap to GW.

1. Is spell casting interrupted by melee/spell attacks? And vice versa, are melee/ranged attacks interrupted as well?

2. Do higher level quests require both tanks and healers? And if so...

3. I understand that monks heal, but do any other classes heal? From what I've read it looks like Necros and Elementalists have some self heals, but is there anotehr healer type? I've looked over the skill lists twice and haven't noticed one. Or is this where cross-class skills come into play?

4. How and when are you able to use skills from multiple classes? Are you required to place a certain number of skill points into a profession before you move onto a secondary profession?

1. Spell casting can be interrupted by melee/spell/ranged attacks

2. Higher level quests are usually completed with tanks, healers and nukers but it's not compulsory

3. Monks are the best healers. If you want to heal play a monk. Most other classes have self heals and some have a few, weak (compared to monks) party heals.

4. You can use skills from your second class as soon as you choose it. There is no need to even put attribute points into your primary profession.

1) any action can be interrupted

2) No quest or mission requires anything at all (with the exception of storyline quests requiring a certain hero otherwise the scenes wouldn't make any sense). It is entirely up to you.

3) Monks are the primary healers, but I have a few nice Paragon and Ritualist healing builds that are much better than most of the monks around these days.

4) You can only use skills from your primary and secondary profession, never more than 2 at a time. Skill points are useless for the most part, you'll almost never run out. You will have the chance to get your secondary profession shortly after you start the game, and you will then be able to choose skills from both professions. Once you progress later in the game, you will have the option to change your secondary profession at will.

Spell casting can be interrupted by both melee and other casters.
Warriors and Rangers both "Core Professions" offer a wide variety of interrupts from a melee perspective.
Mesmers are the number 1 interrupter caster and is also a "Core Profession".
Many other classes can interrupt as well Elementalist have knockdowns such as Meteor and Meteor Shower as well as an AOE interruption Maelstrom and some others.
Assassins (Factions Campaign Only) offer another form of interruption not only that but they can kill quickly as well.
Pretty much every class offers some type of interruption skill/spell.

Well, yes and no... you can run a "balanced" team/group anywheres you choose, but there are builds for certain areas that you can also use so that you don't need tanks and monks.

YES! other classes can heal as well, Paragons (Nightfall Campaign) have some nice heals. As well as Ritualists (Factions Campaign). But the difference is a monk is a primary healing so their heals will over power the healing from a paragon or ritualist simply to keep balance to the game.


you can use skills from your secondary profession as soon as you get a secondary profession. you can always run with a full primary profession skill bar, or you can add however many skills from your secondary as you wish to run in your skill bar, but remember if you're secondary is a monk, you'll never be able to out heal a primary monk. most people run secondary profession monk for a ressurrection spell aside from ressurrection signet simply because you only get your ressurrection signet back when your party recieves a morale boost.

one thing about guild wars is that they are constantly buffing/changing skills strengths and stuff like that so the game constantly changes making you adapt and trying out new skill sets to find out what works best for you.

1. Most skills can be interrupted in one way or another, ranger have bow attacks that interrupt, mesmers have spell and signet ( a kind of skill ) that interrupt, warriors have some melee attacks that can interrupt they can also knockdown , elementalist can also knock down the list can go on.

Basically there are a limited amount of skills that can interrupt, rangers and mesmers are the best at this most classes can cause knockdown( but again also limited amount of skills), knockdown is a guaranteed way to interrupt

2.Like holababe said , most of the time people want to basic 2 eles 2 monk 2 warriors and 2 whatever for high end missions, but there are not needed ( monks however are almost always needed) you could easily swap the warrior for 2 hammer rangers, or earth elementalist etc.

3.The best healers in the game are monks, no discussion about that,however most classes have some way to help the party with its defense or healing,Warriors for example have a skill "Watch Yourself" that adds armor to all party members , rangers have spirits that can raise the hp of everyone, elementalist have wards spells that help allies evade, gain armor or make foes slower. etc etc.

4.You choose a second class pretty early on in the game,this you can change in later stages of the game at will, you will have a secondary, but you are not required to use it or any of its skills, you can also use secondary class skills without putting points in them, some good examples of these are skills that are in" no attribute " , or you can just use the attributed skills, even with 0 points in them, but of course the more you put into that attribute , the more effective it is.

It is not unimportant to note the circumstances necessary for interruption. Just to be clear. If I’m casting a spell and you hit me, you will not interrupt me, unless one of the following conditions are met:

a. The attack skill/spell (one of the 8 on your bar) you use specifically states that it “interrupts target foe’s action/spell.”

b. The skill/spell I am using is classified as “easily interruptible.” There are a couple monk spells, ranger attacks and others, and all ranger traps etc, which fall in this category. All things being equal, if you hit a person attempting to activate an easily interruptible skill, you will interrupt them.*

c. I am dazed. (“Dazed” is a condition which causes all my spells to take twice as long to cast and be easily interrupted. It’s awful!)


*Remember that there are defensive stances and enchantments which may prevent many hits/interrupts. The balance in GW is a great thing.

Thanks for the info. My only concern with the interrupts was coming from WoW there seems to be an inherent flaw in spell casting where every single melee attack interrupts the caster, which is just obnoxious. It sounds like the devs for Guild Wars have a better handle on interrupts by having specific spells/abilities trigger interruptions. Or having inate weaknesses for certain abilities allowing them to be interrupted more easily. That seems more balanced imo.

One thing I did notice a couple people mention was that primary monks are better then secondary monks. Now, I'm under the impression that you have access to the same core abilities for both professions. But does a secondary profession also offer the elite skills for that class? Or are elite skills only availble to the primary profession?

Elite skills are open to the primary and the secondary profession.

What the primary (as I understand it means from Astro Pubes) are basically a monk primary or secondary who has devoted his/her character to healing, e.g. puttion a lot of attribute points in Healing Prayers, and optionally, Divine Favor.

Elite skills are open to the primary and the secondary profession.

What the primary (as I understand it means from Astro Pubes) are basically a monk primary or secondary who has devoted his/her character to healing, e.g. putting a lot of attribute points in Healing Prayers, and optionally, Divine Favor.

Im not exactly sure what your asking. any action can be interrupted with the right skill.


Technically they dont "require" them, but most of PvE is made up of balanced teams. a balanced team consists of: 1-3 front line aggroing characters, 1-3 healers/protectors,and the rest either support(such as a battery necro or spirit spammer) or damaging mid-to-back-line characters.

Every class has a self heal and should be using it. Monks heal the extra that your self heal cant cover. Ritualists and Paragons can also heal, but they are usually focused more on a support role than straight healing.

Pretty early in the game you do a quest and an NPC lets you chose your secondary profession. You have access to skills from your primary and secondary profession. You dont need to invest any points in your secondary profession, you dont even 'need' to invest any in your primary. A little later into the game you can change your secondary profession.


hope that helps

Skill are tied to attributes, which are basically stats. Each profession has its own set of attributes, and you can buy attributes from your secondary unless it's what's called it's "primary attribute." This attribute can only be raised if it's your primary class. A monks primary attribute, called divine favor, not only has skills tied to it, but also adds a healing bonus to every monk spell you cast on someone. Also, you can equip things to your armor called runes, that will raise an attribute, but you can only use runes for your primary class attributes, so primary skills will usually be a bit stronger than secondary.

That said, some skills are pretty much meant to be used as secondary. For instance, warriors are easily countered by conditions, like blindness and weakness, so it's common for warriors to go monk secondary for mending touch. Likewise, warriors have lots of defensive stances, but warriors don't need them (talking pvp here) because of their high armor, but it's common for monks to go warrior secondary for these stances.

Secondary elites can be used, but, like all skills, if they're tied to a classes primary attribute, they will be weak (with a few notable exceptions).

elite skills can be used no matter if its your primary or secondary class...

as far as a monk primary vs secondary....

say you have a warrior/monk and a monk/warrior

the warrior primary won't heal as good as the monk primary because of 2 things..warriros energy regen is about half that of a monks and a warrior does not have the primary attribute of a monk..divine favor..which aids in healing.

vice versa

the monk/warrior won't do as much damage in a mele environment becuase they are missing the primary warrior attribute...strenght...which has inherent armor penetration build into it.. (of couse strength sucks imo)

also you can only wear runes from your primary class...

say you are a monk with no runes the highest you can get your healing attribute to is 12...now if u add a +1 head piece and a superior healing rune +3 you can get it 16

a great place for you to check out would be

www.guildwiki.org

good luck

Note that despite that has been said here, Shouts and Stances cannot be interrupted at all, no matter what.

And in the upper levels of the game, the only use warriors are is for your Necro Sorry, couldn't resist

^i lol'ed

Not stances.

[wiki]Wild Blow[/wiki] anyone? Specific instance I know, but needs to be pointed out.

You can add Wild Throw into that too...

That removes it, not interrupts it. Doesn't matter in the long run, but still, I like pointing out obvious details

I thought stances could be interrupted. I remember A huge discussion about this and someone figured out that stances actually have a casting time a little less than 1/4 of a second. but maybe i made that up....

Stances activate instantly

I'm sorry, I forgot to include knockdowns in the interrupts discussion. If you are kd'd you will be interrupted. :/

OFF-TOPIC but related to the stance "casting" time thing:

I never played during that time o so long ago, but was not the original way to cap elites, to activate signet WHILE boss is activating the skill you want? So, like virtually impossible to get Escape etc? I dunno, sorry for the randomness.