Attribute

Attributes
Every profession has 4 or 5 attributes, one of them being the primary attribute of the profession. The primary attribute of a profession is only available if the respective profession is also the character's primary profession. For example: an Elementalist/Mesmer has Energy Storage and all other Elementalist and Mesmer Attributes except Fast Casting, while a Mesmer/Elementalist has Fast Casting and all other Mesmer and Elementalist Attributes except Energy Storage.

Rank
Ranks are the cornerstone of your character's development. Their values indicate, among others, how powerful a character's Attribute Skills of the respective attribute are.

To increase the rank of an attribute you use Attribute Points (AP). The maximum possible number of AP you can have is 200. For details about how to collect AP read: Attribute Point

The maximum base rank an attribute can be raised to using AP is 12, but the final rank can be modified by various methods:
 * The most common of those methods is using a Rune of the corresponding type, which give a character an attribute bonus of up to +3. Note that positive Rune effects of the same type do not stack, so having a Rune of Minor Fire Magic and a Rune of Superior Fire Magic equipped at the same time still gives +3 instead of the expected +4, because only the highest positive effect counts.
 * The second-most common method is wearing various Headgears, which can give a +1 bonus to one attribute.
 * The third method is using a weapon and/or a Focus Item that has the ability to give a +1 bonus to an Attribute when the player uses a skill. This ability is always chance-dependant and has a variable chance of success (10-20%). Because wands and shields don't have the +1 ability, no profession has a chance of a total +2 Attribute bonus with this method.
 * The fourth and last method to increase an attribute's rank is only available to Necromancers and Elementalists. Necromancers have the spell Awaken the Blood, which gives them +2 Blood Magic and +2 Curses for a certain time span. Elementalists have the Glyph of Elemental Power, which boosts all elemental attributes (Air Magic, Earth Magic, Fire Magic, Water Magic) by +2 for the next spell.

All this means that the maximum rank a character can achieve in a single attribute is 12 + 3 + 1 + 1 + 2 = 19

Many players prefer to specialise in 2 or 3 attributes to make most effective use of AP, since only 200 AP can be gained by the time you reach the level limit of 20. For example, a monk dedicated to healing might decide to have 12 rank in both Healing Prayers and Divine Favor, making as much use as possible out of the healing abilities that a monk posesses. This would cost 194 AP in total, but allow basic healing spells to be considerably more effective; with Healing Prayers and Divine Favor both at 12 Orison of Healing will heal for 98 Health (60 from Healing Prayer and the rest from Divine Favor, which adds 3.2 health for every rank) compared to a mere 20 Health with both attributes set to 0 rank.

However, because of the quickly diminishing returns of higher ranks, it is a viable strategy to diversify into 4 or more attributes if a Build requires doing so.

Primary Attribute/Profession Bonus

 * Divine Favor heals an ally for 3.2 health per rank (rounded down) whenever the Monk casts a spell on an ally (including himself).
 * Expertise lowers the Energy costs of many skills by 4% per rank.
 * Fast Casting reduces the casting time of all spells, though with diminishing returns.
 * Energy Storage adds +3 to the Elementalist's maximum energy for each rank.
 * Soul Reaping gives the Necromancer 1 energy for each rank whenever any creature dies nearby.
 * Strength adds 1% Armor penetration per rank whenever the Warrior uses a Warrior Skill on a foe.

Skill Bonus
Most skills are linked to an attribute. Almost all of those Linked Skills' effects have values that vary linearly (before rounding) with respect to their Linked Attribute's rank (the skill description shows those values as green numbers). This means that those values increase by a constant number with each linked attribute's rank. For example, for every rank of Fire Magic, Flare's damage increases by 2.

However, as shown in the table below, raising an attribute becomes relatively more expensive (in terms of Attribute Points) with each successive rank. For example, if these costs were constant as the effect increase is, then the total cost of a rank of 6 would be twice the total cost of rank 3; the cost factor, however, is 3.5 instead of 2. Likewise, the cost factor from rank 4 to rank 12 is not 3 but 9.7. If one calculates all of these factors for an rank and its corresponding (for example) double rank (i.e. 1 and 2, 2 and 4, 3 and 6, etc.), one can clearly see that even this disproportionate increase in costs itself steadily increases.

The total attribute point cost rises slightly faster than the triangular number sequence:

0,1,3,6,10,15,21,28,36,45,55,66,78

a(n) = C(n+1,2) = n(n+1)/2 = 0+1+2+...+n.

The table below shows how much faster per step (and absolute) compared to the Triangular numbers.

Damage Bonus
The Damage of Swords, Axes, Hammers, Bows, Pets and Minions is modified by the weapons linked Attribute.

(The damage of Staves, Wands and magical Projectiles is modified in the same way by a player's level*3/5)

The following table illustrates how exactly the rank affects the damage bonus of these "physical weapons". Damage % is relative to that at 12 rank, which may not reflect actual damage range of the weapon due to a number of factors.

This is makes a signoid graph that changes its "direction" around 12 (with 100%). It basically means, don't raise your weapon Attribute above 12 if you are doing mainly regular attacks, because regular attacks get almost no boost beyond 12.

Note that for ranks 1~11, this table is only accurate if rank < (level / 2) + 2. For example, at level 19, (level/2)+2 = 11.5, so the table will not accurately reflect damage done at 12 rank. Specifically, (level/2)+2 is the exact point where the graph changes its "direction". Thus a level 30 mob with 15 swordsmanship will deal more damage than a level 20 player with 15 swordsmanship even if they use the exact same sword and hit targets wearing the exact same armor.

Attribute Point Re-assignment
At any outpost or town, a player can decrease the attirbute points allocated to one attribute and increase another attribute. This can be done any number of times. the only limitation is that it cannot be done while adventuring in an explorable area.

Simply press on the down arrow next to the rank to decrease it. This will refund the attribute points allocated to that last rank back to the available attribute points. You can then use those to increase another attribute.

You can only spend attribute points you haven't assigned yet while in an explorable area - you cannot alter points already spent.

The old system of Refund Points is now defunct.

Attribute spending
The most reasonable ways to spend Attribute points on Attributes are (probably):


 * A1-A4 (and rest) are ranks of any attribute (without runes).
 * Average is the average rank of all skills of an "average skill bar" you might use with that. This directly compares how "strong" the Green Number effects of such an attribute spending would be of your skill bar.
 * for example: [15 11 11] is more flexible, but only ~80% as strong as [16 13] - someone that just cares for maximum damage should use [16 13], tactical players are open for [14 11 9 9].
 * In general every extra attribute for more flexibility in your build means a loss of 20% in "green number power". But the flexibility gives you the choice to hit the foes weak spot more often. That nullifies the 20% less power.

also see attribute point spending