Are these viable builds in PvE and PvP?

Monk/Mesmer <--I know from reading around that this is viable in both.

Elementalist/Ranger <--I gather this is considered non-viable by many, but it seems to me that you could focus on air magic and wilderness survival, wielding wands and staves rather than bows, using traps and rituals from the survival attribute. What would be wrong with this for a backline damage-dealer with some support abilities? (I forget what led me to think to focus on air magic with this one.)

Assassin/Warrior <-- I gather this is considered quite viable.

Ritualist/Necromancer <-- My idea here is to focus on minions from both professions. Would this work?

Dervish/Paragon <-- Seems odd since Dervish is supposed to be in the middle of things and Paragon is supposed to be support--but seems like one could focus on anything from Dervish plus Command from paragons, (special focus on shouts) and have a nice frontline combat/support type toon.

Iunno, what do you guys think? (Very new to the game, btw, as I'm sure you can tell.)

Your information is too generic. A build consists of eight skills not the professions, simply stating the professions is quite meaningless because there are countless possibilities as to which skills you equip. For example, Assassins with a Warrior secondary are common but you could have a terrible bar.

I think the problem though is that you do not have a single focus on what you want your character to do. It is unadvisable to try and make your builds try to do too many things because you end up having to split attribute investment leading you to not do anything particularly well. Again, really this can only be detailed by giving the skills that you are/want to carry and your attribute split.

Another thing is that PvE and PvP are very different. With the introduction of heroes you can bring anything through PvE and you will still win, except on the more challenging content. However, in PvP your build is extremely important as you must fit a role in order to achieve success and be efficient in it. While you have not provided any builds I will say that while minions and traps may be effective in PvE they are worthless in PvP as are nature rituals.

A common trend I see in builds that new players use is that they focus far too much on their secondary profession, remember that your primary profession is primary for a reason although there are exceptions to this (mainly in PvE).

As a player that is new to Guild Wars I suggest you experiment but also take criticism in a somewhat positive manner and are inquisitive on how your build compares to other more accepted ones.

As far as E/Ra, there are three problems. One is that traps take forever to set and are easily interrupted, and foes will rarely trigger them if your front line is doing its job. Two is that nature rituals are as likely to help the foe as they are to help your team, or to hinder your team as well as hindering the foe. Few of them have any real utility, and then only in special circumstances. Three is that staff/wand damage is very low even in normal mode and they have a low rate of fire.

So, your back line damage dealer is not going to be doing very much damage using spellcasting weapons and traps. Spells are the elementalist's best means of dealing both damage and support, so giving up a slot that could be used for a decent spell in favor of a trap or nature ritual is a bad idea. Standing around wanding foes is also a last resort for an ele, and is something that you should only be doing when you can't cast. Sometimes not even then, because there are times when it is better to stand there doing nothing than to wand something and trigger a knockdown or interrupt that activates on attack.

By re-reading the post, you will see that in the more difficult cases, I talked about specific skill types, not just professions.

As well, it is easy to understand "Is P1/P2 viable?" as "are there viable builds using P1 as primary and P2 as secondary." I have read, for example, that many believe there is no viable Elementalist/Ranger build. One reason for my post was to find out if this is a universal sentiment, and if so, why. One way into the latter question is to look at the particular attribute and skill-type focus which I intimated in my OP and say why it wouldn't work well in the game.

Probably something best learned from experience, but can you expand on this? Why are rituals, minions and traps worthless in PvP?

Sounds like good advice--I've considered the idea that it might simply be a good idea to take some "random" secondary and then completely ignore it.

Exactly the purpose of my OP. I do expect those responding to forum posts to read them somewhat carefully and, when necessary, charitably.

Makes sense.

I've only just now realized that nature rituals affect everyone on the battlefield equally. That seems odd!

Makes sense.

How about using bows and preparations instead of traps and rituals?

Think of gw this way - you have your primary profession which sets you aside from other professions - eg necros and soul reaping , eles with energy storage.
But branching into 2nd profession isnt always as strong , anyone can use fire skills but only an ele can have the power of the attack or due to energy storage keep up the attacks.
Exceptions can be r/rts using spirit spammers - rangers get skill cost cheaper , necros get energy faster etc.
Each profession has its own role - melee frontliner , midliners and backliners , some professions like paragon play a weird role and become more party support than attack.
Usually thats the problem with paragons - the role given to them by anet means they cant always play a different role .
Pve and Pvp are entirely different aspects of play and not every build will work in both - 55 monks work in pve but pvp .. your asking for death and a lot of abuse.
Id hazard a guess but players who do both pve and pvp on same chrs tend to have diff setups and armor setups to compensate.Most tend to have both a pve and pvp chr

Thanks Spiritz.

To clarify, I didn't mean to ask whether the five profession combos could each be used for both PvE and PvP, but rather, meant to ask which of them could be used for PvP, which for PvE, and which (if any) for both.

The quick answer to your list is no. None of them work.

Now how about you post specific builds with attributes or build codes so you can get real answers. One can say two professions work together, but you can change secondaries later in the game at will and your secondary doesn't mean your build is "viable."

http://www.gwpvx.com/Special:PvXDecode

Isn't monk/mesmer one of the standard combinations in PvP?

Geez guys.

Think of this OP as as asking, "I'm about to commit to the following combinations for 5 of my characters. Stop me if I'm making a mistake!"

Nature Rituals are worthless because they take 5 seconds to cast and go down instantly although they have their uses in gimmicks. Minions are terrible because they barely contribute to your team. Traps are bad because humans can just avoid them or use monks to heal.

Skill types are still too generic because I can say that and still put together some awful bar; remember many bars have some degree of synergy in them.

If you are making an Elementalist primary and take a bow why not just make a ranger? Elementalists are made for dealing damage through their elements (although you shouldn't invest in more than two).

As I have stated you can take anything into PvE and it will work. With PvP your build (i.e. you eight skills) is especially important and a simple yes or no cannot be given regarding viability by simply looking at professions.

Only in HA and you are way too inexperienced to attempt that.

I think some of the responses you're getting are coming from the perspective of knowing you are not stuck with any one secondary profession. You choose your primary when you make your toon... and that toon will always be that primary. You choose a secondary early in the storyline... but with Factions & Nightfall, you're able to change your secondary shortly into the game... and most do. We tend to change our secondaries at will, almost constantly, to be more effective in certain areas or against certain foes or to provide certain backup skills to the rest of our teams, etc.

It's meant to provide a significant degree of flexibility.

As such, I don't think most experienced players think in terms of "what combination is best." They're thinking, "what primary is going to work nicely with all available secondaries... and their respective build potential... for what I want to accomplish?"

Okay, I see what you're saying.

I think I'll just have fun with PvE and play around with skills, and also investigate specific skill builds online in preparation for doing PvP later on.

Is it okay, etiquette-wise, for me to enter random arena battles as a weakling noob with not many skills unlocked? Is there matchmaking at all?

You haven't posted any real builds but I'll try to give you some advice anyway.

Mo/Me works if you plan on using the skills from Inspiration Magic in order to manage your energy or to protect yourself. Mo/E is also good if you're interested in using Glyph of Lesser Energy, Glyph of Concentration (defense against interrupts and daze), or Glyph of Swiftness (shorter spell recharge).

E/R is bad, don't use it. Consider E/Me, E/Mo, E/Rt, or even E/A instead.

A/W is ok if you want to use Distracting Blow, Wild Blow, "Save Yourselves!", Whirlwind Attack, or just Axe Mastery skills instead of Dagger skills.

Rt/N is ok if you want to use Death Magic because your minions will have a higher health from Spawning Power (but they will also be of a lower level) and there are various Spawning Power skills that have synergy with various Animate Undead skills. Rt/N is also ok if you want to use various Curses skills that can disable your enemies. But Ritualists have a wide variety of skills on their own and they don't really need to use their secondary profession. Rt/Mo is another safe combination.

D/P -> no point to it, don't use it. D/W would offer the same things that I mentioned in the A/W combination. D/R has Antidote Signet and Apply Poison. D/Mo, D/Me, D/E, and D/Rt all have various defensive and offensive skills. Even D/N can work if you want to spam Order of Pain and Dark Fury. All of those combinations are more useful than D/R.

Of course, these are all just starting points. PvX Wiki is also a good place to look if you need some inspiration. And, lastly, I suggest you try to make a build that focuses on an idea, a specific role that you can play in a party, not on a profession combination.

Edit: By the way, since you're new to the game, I HIGHLY recommend you try doing some PvE to learn the mechanics of the game. Once you feel confident with that, try Fort Aspenwood, Jade Quarry, or Alliance Battles, which are the easiest types of PvP in the game.

Thanks for the thorough comments. (As thorough as they could be given the vague nature of my OP).

As I said, I think I'll focus on PvE right now (just as you advise) and I think I'll use the combos I mentioned in the OP in PvE simply because they cover all 10 professions and it will give me experience with all their different skillsets. It'll just be for funsies.

Then I'll look at PvP later, though if it's okay etiquette-wise I may dip my toes in to some non-commitment-heavy easy PvP sooner rather than later.

BTW When does PvE get challenging? I'm near to level 9 a little after the Searing and I've not been in danger of dying yet...

BTW thanks for the link to the PvX wiki. Very nice site!

In fact, this IS a good idea, unless experimenting to learn something about the skills used by other professions that you need to be able to deal with.

The best use of a secondary profession is to provide one or two skills that give you a key capability that compliments a particular build of your main profession. For example, an earth ele with a build based on knockdowns (Unsteady Ground) might want to go E/Rt to take the Earthbind spirit (which increases knockdown duration) as part of the build. For another example, my smiting monk likes to go Mo/Ra to use Serpent's Quickness, which makes all of the smiting skills recharge faster. Combined with a 40/40 wand/focus set, the faster recharge adds tremendously to his damage output.

But many of my ele builds are pure ele from end to end, because everything the build needs to do can be done best with ele skills. Likewise, my ranger, para, and rit almost never use their secondary professions.

There are also farming or other specialized builds that rely very heavily on a secondary profession, but these are usually not workable for general PvE and certainly not in PvP.

To do this, you would first have to invest points in Marksmanship to meet the requirement of the bow or you won't get max damage. Then you will need a big investment in Wilderness Survival for the preparations. Finally, you will need a large investment in Energy Storage to make up for having to pay the full energy cost for each skill, using the large energy pool of an ele in place of the ranger's Expertise attribute. Keep in mind that you cannot use ranger runes on your armor, so you will be limited to a max of 12 in any ranger attribute.

If you want to use any ele skills with this, such as Blinding Flash or Conjure Lightning, you will have to stretch yourself dangerously thin by speccing into a fourth attribute.

When you get done, what you will have is a second-class ranger that does less damage than a real ranger would while wearing lighter armor than a ranger does. This is not what I'd call a recipe for success.

Fort Aspenwood and Jade Quarry sometimes have players that leave during (or even at the beginning!) of a match, and others that simply click "Enter Battle" and then just go afk (and subsequently get called "leecher"). As long as you don't do any of those things, anything you do is "good etiquette". But if you want to be extra nice, read the articles on Fort Aspenwood and Jade Quarry before joining them. But don't stress about it, I see lots of newbie players in both of those areas.

In my opinion, RA is pretty unforgiving and you won't get much out of it unless you know what you're doing.

In Tyria, PvE gets a lot more challenging when your party size is 8 (which is the default size for most GW content). For Cantha and Elona, it basically gets harder and harder as you get to the end of the campaign. Although, in both cases, the very last missions will actually be pretty short and somewhat easy because, after you complete it, you will get the chance to craft some exclusive armor and exclusive green weapons.

Once you complete a campaign you will also unlock the ability to either play in Normal Mode (which is what you are doing right now) or in Hard Mode.

If that's not enough for you, you can try The Underworld, The Fissure of Woe, Sorrow's Furnace, Tomb of the Primeval Kings, The War in Kryta, The Deep, Urgoz's Warren, The Ebony Citadel of Mallyx. And all of those can be done in either Normal Mode or Hard Mode as well.

Here's my advice. When creating a build viable for PvP or PvE, you need to think, "What do I want to accomplish with this build?" and "Is there a better attribute line that can accomplish this task than the one I am using?"

What you want to do is maximize efficiency at the specific task. For instance, suppose you want to make a build that makes a bunch of additional AI players that can soak up damage as well as put out pressure. You could use Asuran summons and Ebon vanguard support, Ritualist Spirits, or Necromancer minions to accomplish this. Here we will select minions because in the area we are fighting in (lets say) there are a lot of corpses. Now, what is the best way to get minions that will soak up damage? Well there are many avenues you could take but a very efficient one is to take the elite skill Aura of the Lich, Shambling Horrors, Bone Fiends, and Blood of the Master to heal them. You could take Sig of Lost Souls for energy management and Masochism and Dark Bond for some additional beefiness to the minions and yourself. Obviously, the best profession for this task is a primary necromancer. So now you have a build that can efficiently accomplish the goal you set for yourself. If you aren't a necromancer, you probably should seek to accomplish a different goal and leave the minion mastering to a hero or human teammate for the party you are in. There are many different things that need to be done such as interruption, damage, tanking, debuffing enemies, defending allies, and healing to name a few. Figure out what your primary profession is best at, and utilize its strengths the best way possible.

This is how build creation should work, where you start out with a specific goal, and then brainstorm for the best ways to accomplish that goal. Specialization has proven to be super important in the workplace and Guild Wars is no different.

PvX has moved here.

Oh, it's a good thing you told me that. I just used the link that Google gave me since I haven't used PvX in a long time. I'll edit my previous post.

If you can make a build that works in both PvP and PvE, then there will be a build that works in both. If you don't feel confidet in your own abilities, keep making threads like this and go to pvx wiki.

So basically it sounds like you're trying to settle on combinations for 5 characters that will cover all 10 classes. That might not get you the hardcore-really-optimized combinations for each one; but that's not really a huge deal, especially not for a new player.

One very important thing you need to know up front though: after a certain point in the game you can change your secondary profession basically at will (and without any loss of skills gained or such). So which secondaries you start out with are not terribly important. You'll get some free skills from various quest rewards for your starting secondaries, but beyond that it won't matter too much. And going between all the various areas of the game, particularly changing between PvE and PvP, you'll sometimes end up switching secondaries back and forth if you want to have the more effective builds for each particular place.

Another important thing for PvP: if you keep once character slot free from having a PvE character, then you can use it to roll a PvP-only character of any class combination that you want. That will have access to all the skills that you've acquired on your PvE characters. And since it's PvP-only, there's no "cost" to it. You could delete and re-roll it over and over with different combinations without losing anything. And this means you could do things like only ever use Monk as a secondary on PvE characters but still be able to roll of primary Monk on that PvP-only character.

With all that in mind, what you should first concentrate on is: what kind of primary classes do you really want to play across the entire game? Each class has particular specialities that often don't work as well when run as a secondary class (other than a few niche builds here and there). If you really want to experience what each class has to offer, you pretty much would need to make a primary of each one.

Once you pick which primaries you most want to play, then you can try to shuffle around the secondaries so they best complement what each primary is doing. Sometimes the secondaries don't really provide much. It could be quite plausible to go through a lot of PvE content barely making use of secondary class skills on a particular character.

OP, your question is akin to asking "is a cat good at hunting zebras?" Well, yes if it's a lion, and no if it's a housecat.

GW operates at the level of builds and the level of team builds. That's the only level where a question like this is going to have much meaning or generate very useful answers.

If someone asks you "Is a cat a viable opponent for a zebra?" then "Only if it's a lion (or tiger or other big cat)" is a very useful answer.

Keep in mind that if you plan on joining pick up groups in PvE to complete missions, depending on what primary class you are, the group is going to expect you to play a certain role. For example, monks are usually expected to heal, warriors to control aggro, etc. So as you progress in the game, try to do the one thing well that will not surprise your teammates. As far as secondaries go, as someone else posted, this should usually be one or two skills from your secondary that fill a need your primary might not do well (a self heal for example). You should also pick those secondary skills in line with what opponents you are likely to face. For example, if there re many fire using foes, a mesmer secondary with mantra of flame and a handful of points in inspiration magic will take pressure off your healers.

The same goes for PvP to a certain extent. There are much narrower choices than in PvE - a lot of other players will rage at you if you're not using a "meta" build (unless you're very good and making it work). Like what was posted above, get through as much of PvE as possible before taking a serious go at PvP, if only because you probably won't have unlocked many of the skills you'll need. Have fun!

I would say that if you want to test a build for PvP it should be through Fort Aspenwood or Jade Quarry simply because they are simply forgiving for using a bad build and it's not particularly fun when you get a somewhat balanced team only for one player to bring down the entire team like in RA.

1. Or a jaguar, or a mountain lion, or a leopard, or a puma, or a cheetah, or maybe a lynx, bobcat, or cat sidhe, plus a number of other cat species that I don't even know the names of.

The same's true of GW. No one has the patience, inclination, or knowledge to exhaustively list all non-sucky variants on A/W or whatever.

2. Don't try to defend a stupid question by attacking a metaphor that explains why the question is stupid. It just makes you look like an ass. Even if the metaphor doesn't hold, all that means is that it wasn't a well fitted metaphor; the question remains stupid.

You got your answer: You need to rephrase your question in terms of builds so that it tells us enough to answer it. Now stop being a smartass and go do it.

There's a few problems with using FA and JQ for training grounds. For one, they are both hopelessly biased in favor of the kurzicks. For a second, they have very unusual goals for PvP -- mostly killing NPCs -- that don't matter in "real" PvP until you get all the way up to GvG. For a third thing, they are so chaotic that you rarely have any meaningful feedback on what kind of a contribution you're making. If you don't die the entire match in FA, is it because you're awesome, or because the other team has decided not to waste their time killing the idiot flare spamming their Defy Pain guy?

As painful as it's going to be, both for OP and his unfortunate teammates, RA is the place to learn PvP.

If you use your head, think about what makes skills go together, read the wiki about the foes you will meet when you enter a mission or a quest, make good teams with henchies or heroes and get decent armor/weapons... never.

The AI is limited and set it its ways. It cannot surprise you, it just plays its preset game. If you know what that game is, end of story.

There is Hard Mode, which you unlock when you finish a campaign with any character, for the entire account. HM means slightly smarter AI (very slightly), higher levels, tougher armor, more damage. That's it, doesn't change much.

PvE is "challenging" only if you intentionally handicap yourself by rushing in unprepared. And even then it's even odds you will still get by. After playing once through each campaign the challenge is pretty much gone (so treasure that first time, don't "cheat" by getting too many heroes and too many advantages).

People then do other stuff to make up a challenge: trying to play through on another profession; discovering 100% of the map; doing "vanquishing" (clearing a zone of foes completely, in hard mode); try to do everything solo (no henchies or monks); "running" (doing zones or missions as fast as possible, usually for the benefit of a paying, passive party member); trying to see how high in a campaign they can get (eg. getting ascended or getting elite armor) while keeping the character as low level as possible; doing "weird" profession combinations; etc.

And that is only the stuff that involves skill, not grind. If you don't mind grind, there's lots of titles that require farming items, money, consumables, XP, faction or reputation points, gimmick titles like LDoA, there's Nicholas rewards, festival-specific awards. There's also focusing on trading, buying low, selling high, start with a capital and amass a fortune etc.

No one asked them to. Read the rest of the thread; we're way past this.

The one who looks like an ass is the one who's not read the entire short thread before making comments that have already been moved past.

Moreover, I did not attack your metaphor; I accepted it, and explained, in terms of the metaphor, what the value of the question was and what the value of certain answers to it might be.

This point has been made and acknowledged already, in a much more friendly and constructive way than what you're doing.

Monks can solo the campaign with no henchmen?

That might explain why I've felt like there's no challenge--I'm a monk. I just keep my healing rate up, throw in a heal and a smite here and there, and watch tv while my monk waves his magic wand a thousand times and eventually I win.

Yes, but not all your opponents in GW will be zebras.

Monks solo (I'm assuming 55 monks) by protting themselves and then using something like Shield of Judgement so that the AI kills itself. You feel the game is easy because it is easy. There are no challenges that stretch the mind and most of the time you are either higher than the AI or you outnumber the AI and the fact that AI are mindless. Also, in my opinion smite with heals sucks.

No they can not. Only if they do certain things (which you aren't doing) can they solo certain areas (not the entire game). It's just a farming build (killing certain monsters alone again and again to get money). Other professions can do the same thing in certain areas with certain skills.

GW doesn't really "begin" until you reach level 20. Everything before that is basically just a tutorial. Unlike other MMO games, GW basically focuses on max level content almost entirely. There is little grind at the start, it is mostly just the story. Trust me, you will hit a brick wall once you reach the desert area (when monsters start getting to be level 20 and higher and you can no longer just beat them by being a higher level then them).

And again, you can change your secondary later in the game as many times as you want. So what you pick as a secondary doesn't really matter in the long term.

Play around with the game. You will figure out on your own what does and doesn't work.

Look in the Campfire section subforums. Each profession has a stickied basics thread and most of the cover the ups and downs of the secondary professions.

They can, but it's a gimmick for people who want a challenge, or for farming certain areas, not a normal way of playing.

I said it's easy if you do the research and after you've had some practice. For the time being, it looks like you're getting by just doing a little healing here and there and you find the time to throw in some smites too. I know how it is, I got to LA on a monk myself and I thought it was a fun little trip. Then it got worse.

You will get into situations when you team's bars will glow in all the colors of the rainbow and start draining like mad, you will have to balance heals with condition and hex removal, foresee where the next damage will come and fire off protection spells just before that, plus kite in case the enemy melee locks on you. Not to even mention extra gimmicks like slapping extra damage against undead on a melee team member.

If Ascalon and the Shiverpeaks don't show you a thing or two, Kryta and Maguuma definitely will. And if you manage to get around that, by the time you reach Crystal Desert you'll either be a decent monk or you'll hit a brick wall, like it was already mentioned. At which point some people cave in and get heroes and max armor... and some become good monks.

So... I wouldn't worry about lack of challenge just yet. You're what, 10% into Prophecies? Where exactly have you reached, anyway?

A related question:

Given two characters, both of which focus their attribute points on their primary's unique attribute in addition to Air Magic and Marksmanship, and both of which use exactly the same skill set (some combination of marksmanship and air magic skills), and where the only difference between them is that one is an E/R and the other an R/E, am I right in thinking that in terms of gameplay the main significant difference between the two characters will be that the E/R has worse armor? (As well, the E/R will have a larger energy pool while the R/E will have cheaper marksmanship powers, but I'm not sure if that's a significant difference or if it balances out).

The differences:

- 60 vs 70 base armor, ranger has an additional 30 armor vs elemental damage (100 base armor vs elemental damage)
- Different insignia and rune usage (can only use primary profession insignia and runes)
- 4 vs 3 base energy regeneration
- 30 vs 25 base energy (ele has additional from energy storage)
- energy storage vs expertise

(non-gameplay related difference is of course appearance of character and armor)

To expand upon the responce you just recieved you are looking at a big difference in damage.

Ranger will be able to put up to 16(most go with 14/15 to avoid the penalty of sup runes) in marksmanship.
Elementalist can only put 12 in marksmanship.

While 2 or 3 extra points in an attribute doesn't sound like much it does add up in the long run. Not only will you do more damage with Marksmanship skills your base damage with the bow will also increase slightly. The only way to offset this with your current choices would be to run a Conjure(fire/ice/lightning) build where you have 14/15 in Fire/Air/Water in order to max out your dmg potential with an Ele/Ranger.

About attribute points:

I read that you get a total of 170 by level 20 (not counting attribute point quests). How does that work? You get five per level, don't you? Shouldn't the total be 100?

(ETA: Never mind--I misread what I was looking at, and now I see that you get 10 points per level later on and 15 further down.)

And:

Is it standardly thought that it's better to have a build that puts 12 points in two attributes than one that puts 10 points in three attributes? Or is this situational?

Distribution of attribute points is very situational, however it is generally best to keep your focus as narrow as possible. There are many good builds that use three attributes. Very few that use four. None I can think of that use five.

Points are not usually distributed evenly, though. One has to consider the break points for the skills used in the build and adjust points for best effect. Most ele or ranger builds will try to keep the primary attribute at 12, and distribute the remaining points among others, though there are exceptions. On the other hand, a smiting monk using only direct damage skills can run with zero points in Divine Favor, allowing him to max both smiting prayers and an attribute from a secondary profession. A warrior build focused on Tactics may have very few points in Strength, reserving the rest for weapon mastery.

There are skills that require little or no investment in their attribute line to be useful. Glyph of Lesser Energy is a classic example that monks often use for energy management. Maelstrom provides useful interrupts even with no points in Water Magic, while Glyph of Swiftness is often used with just enough Air Magic points to affect two spells.

Some professions regularly run three-attribute builds because of the nature of the profession. For example, a paragon usually needs points in Leadership (primary attribute), Spear Mastery for his weapon, and either Command or Motivation to provide buffs and meet his shield requirement. Mesmers usually run Inspiration Magic about eight for energy management, along with the build's main focus on Fast Casting and either Domination or Illusion.

Generally you want to stick to as few attributes as you can unless there's something really worthwhile in another attribute line or having attributes at 13 and 14 isn't helpful. I can't give specific advice without context.

Regarding attribute point spread, it's ideal to keep them focused on two attributes. But it's not that uncommon to spread into three. Usually, spreading into four or five is an alert signal and usually it means you're trying to do too much at once with a single character or hero.

The most common spreads are 12+12+3 (common example: Ele, for ES=12, fire or air damage=12, water snare=3); 11+10+10 (common example: Monk, for Divine Favor, Protection and Healing, not necessarily in this order); 11+11+8 (often used by all professions, except perhaps E and W).

These spreads can be tweaked with runes for +1 or +2 buffs; but I advice postponing this at least until you've passed the port town (Lion's Arch, Kaineng Center or Consulate Docks). And even then you will rethink your strategy as time passes, you get skills, you understand professions better etc. Expect a certain amount of money wasted on applying the "wrong" runes/insignia in "wrong" positions. But on the other hand runes make possible spreads such as 11+11+11 etc.

Regarding E/R vs R/E, the differences are more than you've mentioned. Usually the primary attribute and the primary skills are designed to synergise in a manner that's hard to replicate without the primary attribute.

Taking this example, the energy pool granted by ES to eles is useful, but it's only half the story. The other half is ES skills which help reduce the cost of spells. Ranger doesn't have spells and the ES skills usually don't apply to ranger skills, so... The same goes for the other combination; Expertise applies to select skills and ele spells are not among them. Furthermore, the ranger energy management skills are tied to either the bow or the pet, which as a primary ele you're not likely to use.

Then there's the fact that weapons and offhand items are quite different for each of them, and, more importantly, the mods are aimed at casters and physicals, respectively, so they don't exactly go well with the primary.

There are exceptions that make it possible to do a gimmicky build that works. For example, physicals often use Conjure spells with an elemental-damage-modded weapon. Quick off-the-top of my head example: primary ranger with 12 into Fire Magic, 12+ into Marksmanship, Fiery Bow String, Conjure Flame, apply a preparation that adds more damage or faster fire rate or arrow speed (Read The Wind + flatbow spring to mind), plus some points in rank 3 Earth Magic for something like Armor of Earth or Kinetic Armor. Result: a tough little "machine-gun" with great range.

I haven't given much thought to E/R using particular R skills, maybe others can help.

12-10-8 is very common as well.

But then again, no attribute spread is impossible, it just depends on which skills you are using and their useful attribute breakpoints.