The smorgasbord of new Guild Wars 2 information continues today with the second part of ArenaNet's combat articles. Read on as I summarize the important details of the article.

Weapons:

Weapons in Guild Wars 2 play an especially large role, as the weapon a player has equipped will determine the first five skills on their skill bar. The skills will vary depending on a player's profession as well though. Also an interesting note, say a warrior is dual wielding two swords, his first three skills will come from his main-hand weapons and his next two will come from his off-hand.

Here's a list of the current types of weapons found in Guild Wars 2:

  • One-Handed: Axe, dagger, mace, pistol, scepter, and sword.
  • Two-Handed: Greatsword, hammer, longbow, rifle, shortbow, and staff.
  • Offhand only: Focus, shield, torch, and warhorn.

Keep in mind that only certain weapons can be used by certain professions, and that some professions will have have access to more weapons than others.

Environmental Weapons

Part of Guild Wars 2's mission to create a world that's much more interactive than a typical MMO, ArenaNet is including environmental weapons. Boulders, planks of wood, siege weapons, and a variety of other creative objects will certainly be available for any player to pick up and apply to their cause. Picking up an item will replace a player's first five skill slots with new ones, until the item is used or is set back down.

Another intriguing point about these environmental weapons is that different professions will be able to use them in different way. A warrior can lift a boulder and hurl it, while an Elementalist might launch it into the air, only to land on an enemy as burning molten stone.

Professions

Guild Wars 2 will feature eight different classes! It's finally confirmed! The first will be the Elementalist, and hopefully more information on the other professions will be released soon.

The eight classes are separated by what types of armor they can wear: scholars wear light armor; adventurers wear medium armor; soldiers wear heavy armor. There are currently three scholars, three adventurers, and only two soldier professions. While they may share armor types, don't worry, each profession is being designed to be very distinct.

Secondary classes will not be making the journey from Guild Wars to Guild Wars 2. While they were implemented in early builds of Guild Wars 2, the developers removed it to improve the role of race in character customization. This lends itself to Guild Wars 2's  goal of improving the visual clarity in game; they now only have to worry about race/profession visual attributes rather than race/profession/sub-profession.

Cross Profession Combos

I touched in this in yesterday's article, about how an arrow flying through a wall of fire would create a flaming arrow. ArenaNet wants to make it clear that these kind of combinations will be common. Bullets flying through a static field, a warrior's cyclone attack might throw fire in all directions, or a variety of other situational attacks that we won't even be able to think about until we know more of the professions.

Races

The races of Guild Wars 2 have been announced for a while now, but each player's race selection will play an important key in combat. Yesterday we touched on how a player's second set of five skills could be chosen from their race skills. ArenaNet gives some examples like a Sylvari selecting Grasping Root, or an Asura selecting Arcane Blast for extra damage.  They also mention that there will be elite racial skills, for example a Norn's ability to transform into a half-wolf half-human beast that tears through its enemies. Or maybe a human summoning the Hounds of Balthazaar, two massive fiery dogs. How that is a human's innate racial ability is beyond me though.

And that wraps up the combat update for Guild Wars 2. Make sure and check out the articles themselves for more details straight from the horses mouth. There's also mention that the next articles we can look forward to will be from Lead Content Designer Colin Johanson, who will talk about Guild Wars 2's dynamic event system and, "why it will make playing Guild Wars 2 a very different experience from a more traditional quest-based MMO."

I can't wait to hear more! Any Ranters interested in Guild Wars 2 out there?

Guild Wars 2 is slated for a PC release in 2011.

One-Handed: Axe, dagger, mace, pistol, scepter, and sword. Two-Handed: Greatsword, hammer, longbow, rifle, shortbow, and staff. Offhand only: Focus, shield, torch, and warhorn.