One of the more unique design elements of Guild Wars 2 is the way skills are set up in the game. There have been countless blogs and articles describing the skill system and how it relates your Hotbar layout, but it also one of the biggest misconceptions about the game. So let’s clear it up now. People who’ve played games like Everquest 2, World of Warcraft, RIFT and Star Wars: The Old Republic are used to looking at multiple hotbars full of skills and abilities that do a large variety of things. In Guild Wars 2 this is greatly reduced and you don’t have to be a master pianist to manipulate your character.

If you want to know all about keybinds, weapon swapping and individual profession skills keep reading!

With last weekend’s major media coverage of Guild Wars 2 there are many people just now starting to pay attention. There are a lot of questions out there of how the game works, how it’s played and what makes it different. Luckily for you, we here at Guild Wars Junkies are paying attention and are here to help you figure everything out. The one question we want to tackle is how abilities and class mechanics are available to you at any given point. In games like WOW, TOR and Rift, players are used to having multiple hotbars with a myriad of abilities readily available to you. How does it work in Guild Wars 2? All the videos you’ve seen showed you a single hotbar at the bottom of the screen and not much else. Are you concerned that there aren’t many options and things might get stale?

Mechanics

Weapons
A mesmer can use a variety of magical, ranged, and melee weapons, including:

Main Hand: Sword, Scepter
Off Hand: Focus, Pistol, Sword, Torch
Two-Handed: Staff, Greatsword
Confused Condition
The mesmer introduces a new condition to our set called confusion. An enemy with confusion on them takes damage each time they activate a skill. This condition stacks in intensity, so the more confusion an enemy has, the greater the damage.

Shattering
The mesmer has special abilities that can shatter illusions. Shattering will destroy all illusions and create a secondary effect. There are four different shatter skills:

Mind Wrack—Destroys your illusions and does damage to opponents near them.
Cry of Frustration—Destroys your illusions and gives the confused condition to nearby foes.
Diversion—Destroys your illusions and stuns nearby foes.
Reflection—Destroys your illusions and places a barrier around the mesmer, which reflects enemy projectiles.