Guild Wars 2 Interface and Controls guide

Guild Wars 2 is a massive game–even for an MMO–and it can be tricky getting your bearings in its brave new world. But BradyGames is here to help, with a strategy guide that’s hundreds of pages long and spells out everything you need to know about the game. We’ve got some sample pages to check out, as well as an introduction to the Ranger profession. Check it out below, then hit up the second page for some insanely high-res images of the guide’s undoubtedly pretty pages.

Rangers have the most versatile and controllable pets in the game. This is very powerful but requires finesse to use a pet to its fullest.

The pet interface is just above your skillbar. The paw-print icon opens the Companion window. The next three icons are your basic controls (detailed in the accompanying table), followed by a portrait of your pet, and then the final button. The red bar beneath all these is your pet’s health bar.

Pet special abilities are unique for each type of pet. Learn these abilities so you know which animals are best for a given situation. Attacking your target and toggling between stances is very intuitive. Aggressive stance commands your pet to attack as soon as you take damage or attack a target. Passive stance keeps your pet from attacking or using any abilities unless commanded by you specifically.

Switching pets allows you to swap between two pets during combat. You can change pets outside of combat without trouble, but think of the in-combat switch as being analogous to the weapon swap. This function is very powerful because you can swap a downed pet for a pet with full health. Swapping pets outside of combat has a negligible cooldown, but swapping inside combat starts a 30-second cooldown before you can swap again.

Swords keep you mobile while slashing away at your opponent. Their damage is fairly high, and nothing is going to get away from you without a great deal of effort. The mobility granted by the sword makes it easy to dodge opponents’ more powerful attacks without easing up on your damage.