the secondary of their choice. There are, of course, exceptions to this rule, but still, the guidelines usually hold true. Listed below are the ten professions available, as well as my opinion of how they synergize together.
Key: W = Warrior, R = Ranger, Me = Mesmer, E = Elementalist
Mo = Monk, N = Necromancer, D = Dervish, P = Paragon,
Rt = Ritualist, A = Assassin
W/R:
Personally, I did it for two reasons: Troll Unguet and Apply Poison; the former for a pre-battle regen to help lessen the pressure on Monks, if only for a little while. I use Apply Poison in conjunction with something like Hundred Blades or Triple Chop to make the poison spread to all the foes around me, just to apply pressure to the enemy monks. Soon I'll dabble in Beast Mastery, but the small E pool is gonna be hard to overcome... I'll also never go with Marksmanship, if only because: a. Skills are E-intensive (for a Warrior, anyway), and b. The Warrior armor is too strong to be used on the backlines, unless your guarding a monk, in which case you better have an extra melee weapon and some atk skills. Another bonus is "I will Avenge you!" which is often used with a pet to increase atk power and spd. A killer choice.
My rating: 9/10. Apply poison is just too good to pass up.
W/Me:
I haven't yet tried this, though the low energy pool could really make this one suck. You might use conjure phantasm to help you lay the dmg on your opponent, but other than that, I honestly don't want to try it. A (in my opinion) bad choice.
My rating: 4/10. The high energy hexes just don't sit well with the base Warrior energy pool. An ok choice if you don't go overboard on the hexes.
W/E:
This is one of my other favorites. Besides being the required secondary for the infamous Shock Axe build, I used some fire spells that could be utilized well by a Warrior, especially in PvE. I used Inferno as one of my two Elementalist (abbreviated as Ele) skills, due to the natural E-intensiveness of Ele Magic. Inferno, at a Rank of 10 in Fire Magic, did 100 fire dmg to all adjacent (abbreviated as adj) foes. My other skill I used during this time period was Fire Storm, which is a Area of Effect (abbreviated as AoE) spell. At a Rank of 10 in Fire Magic, it did 25 dmg per second to all enemies in the area. So long as you aren't going nuts in terms of number of Ele skills, this could really be a sweet build. An all-around good choice.
My Rating: 6/10. With a few Fire skills, your dmg per second can really shoot through the roof. And you save the nuker a little bit of E, too.
W/Mo:
The much hated Paladin setup, used mainly by noobs and runners. I personally hated the build; whenever you started to get low on health, you would cast a healing spell, and then you'd lose it soon after. That's just my opinion, and I guess that it wouldn't hurt to have better timing, but I would much rather let a monk take care of it for me. Thank You, Monks!
My Rating: 4/10. Unless you realize that Mending sucks and should NEVER be used for anything (except maybe casters...eh, still no!) and try to cast it on yourself, you are stupid. If you DO realize it, then maybe you could pull it off. A sub-par choice.
W/N:
I haven't even touched this one, though I think that it pretty much follows the same description of the mesmer secondary. Blood magic could make a very decent choice, though, considering you could really release the burden on the few monks that are actually by humans. A good example would be blood renewal. You could also utilize Plague touch in battle...
My Rating: 6/10. A few Blood Magic skills and you might have a workable build, assuming you wield a melee weapon. Not too bad, actually.
W/D:
Hmm...Haven't tried this one yet, though I do have some speculation. You could pull this off if all you used from the dervish side was Scythe Mastery (and a powerful scythe, of course), and then Strength and Tactics from the Warrior. The Adrenal-based skills would charge quickly, considering you get adrenaline everytime you hit with a weapon, and since Scythes are the "hit all adjacent foes in front of you" weapon, you can quickly gain adrenaline for Tactics based skills, such as "Watch Yourself!" Combine this with "For Great Justice!" and Berserker's Stance, and you can spam "Watch Yourself!" over and over again. This could be brilliant. Plus, if you really want, you can put Avatar of Balthazar on your skill bar :). Just keep half of your skills adrenal, and you can really make this work.....of course, many Scythe Mastery skills need to have Enchants......hmmmmmm........
My Rating: This could very easily work, so long as you have good E-management or just simply good judgement on skill timing. I say 7/10; it loses one point because you can't pump up Avatar of Balthazar. =(
W/P:
Once again, haven't quite tried it, but I have played both. My opinion: They could really synergize well with each other. Paragons use shouts or chants (and various other types of musical singing..) which can often provide decent bonuses. This could be used to really pump up you fellow Warriors and the occassional Assassin or Dervish. Of course, all shouts can benefit them, but you know what I mean.
My Rating: 6/10, only because you can't soup up Angelic Bond. You have the HP and the durability, so that can really stink. of course, you can use it to help absorb some of the dmg and abuse the opposing team hits your monk with. A very good choice overall.
W/Rt:
This was my original combination, and it can really kick butt if you can keep weapon spells on you for long enough durations, or if you spam the odd spirit to make your job even easier. The other nice thing is that is has a dedicated ressurecting skill, which usually belong only to monks: Flesh of My Flesh. Look that up on Guild Wiki. It can really save your butt. Main weakness: Short time frame to _actually_ utilize the weapon enchantments. Oh well.
My rating: 5/10. You get a hard rez, and you can spirit spam. If only the weapon enchantments could be fully utilized!
W/A:
A mixed bag here. you can dual wield (daggers only, sadly), shadow step, and use three hit combos that can seriously kill. However, this requires ample investment in Crit. Strikes (the Assassin Primary attribute), as well as Dagger Mastery, and Deadly Arts. I am not a genius of the Assassin, so I can't help you here. See the Factions Assassin Guide for help. Pretty much, by dual wielding, you atk faster w/ less atk power, and if those combos are interupted, your entire chain is done for. Keep your blades sharp, but keep your wit sharper.
My Rating: 6/10. The shadow stepping is worth at least one point, even if that is the only thing you utilize from this setup. Like I said, I can't really help you here, albeit just a little.
=============================================================================== 3a.9- Playing a Warrior
You, as a Warrior, have a job on the battle field. If there are two tanks (a warrior is a tank, along w/ the flash in-flash out sin, a sword-wielding paragon, and a Potent Dervish, preferably w/ the Avatar of Balthazar skill), you will be on the front lines, dishing out dmg to enemies and soaking up whatever they throw your way. You get to be upfront, telling the warriors who to atk and who to leave alone. Of course, always listen to your monk; they pretty much control if the team loses or wins. Always, always, always, always listen to your Monk. Get that through your head and your team will run smoother. Got it? Good.
Depeneding upon your secondary, your _methods_ may be different. For example, a W/A might shadow step to enemy monks and unleash massive dmg (although shadow steps _can_ be bodyblocked), or you might teleport through the use of a Necromancer skill, such as Consume Corpse. Of course, the latter method also requires that someone by the Monk dies, so it could be a while....
Another strategy (and perhaps my personal favorite) is the use of Apply Poison if you have a Ranger secondary. This can apply pressure over time, which can kill a team if their monks aren't used to having every team member be inflicted with -5 health degen per second. Conjure Phantasm during the times you want to inflict serious degen. So can an Ele, if they are masters of Meteor Shower and/or
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