Dodging, downed state, and revival
Dodging is a basic survival tool, but endurance is limited. At zero health you enter downed state and can still fight. Once fully defeated, ordinary revival skills cannot bring you back. In PvE, use a waypoint or wait for an ally to revive you directly with F.
🔄 Dodging: the basics
A dodge provides about 0.75 seconds of evasion. Time it for the moment an attack would hit to avoid many attacks, including area attacks, traps, and projectiles. It does not stop damage from conditions already on you or attacks that cannot be evaded.
When you cannot dodge: Immobile prevents dodging. You also cannot dodge while feared or immediately after being knocked back.
✨ Vigor Boon
Increases endurance regeneration by 50%, from 5 to 7.5 per second. This is a common source of faster regeneration. A support maintaining it helps the party; combine it with other traits or consumables to reach the cap of 10 per second.
⚔️ Superior Sigil of Energy
Swapping to the weapon with this sigil during combat restores 50% of your maximum endurance: 50 with the default maximum of 100, enough for one dodge. It has a 9-second cooldown. The PvP Sigil of Energy restores 25%.
📖 Traits
Professions have traits that restore endurance on triggers such as hits, kills, or skill use. Thief’s Daredevil is a notable example.
🍖 Food and consumables
Some food increases endurance regeneration, providing another option for demanding content.
Weakness: this condition reduces endurance regeneration by 50%. Your next dodge takes longer to become available, so watch your endurance and remove Weakness with a condition cleanse.
⚔️ Evading without a dodge
Skills whose tooltips list “evade” provide an evasion window. These skills do not consume endurance, so you can use them separately from your dodge. Each profession has its own options.
🗡️ Evasion built into skills
Some skills let you evade while performing another action. Warrior’s Whirlwind Attack attacks while evading; Thief’s Withdraw heals while evading. Utilities such as Ranger’s Lightning Reflexes also provide evasion.
🌀 Specializations that change your dodge
Some specializations replace the normal dodge animation. Mesmer’s Mirage evades in place, while Revenant’s Vindicator leaps into an attack. These still use the same amount of endurance.
🛡️ Daredevil (Thief)
Your maximum endurance increases to 150, allowing three consecutive dodges. Depending on your traits, dodges can also damage enemies or apply conditions on landing.
🛡️ Evasion, invulnerability, and blocks
Several effects can prevent damage. What each one stops (and what gets through) differs.
| Effect | Stops | Does not stop | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| Evade | Evadable attacks, including many area attacks, projectiles, and traps | Damage from existing conditions, unavoidable attacks, and environmental damage | Dodging and evasion skills |
| Invulnerability | Damage, new conditions, and control effects; destroys projectiles it touches | Fractal Agony, falling damage, and environmental traps | Distortion, Obsidian Flesh, Renewed Focus |
| Block | Damage and conditions from blocked attacks; destroys blocked projectiles | Unblockable attacks and damage from existing conditions | Aegis Boon, Shield Stance, Arcane Shield |
| Projectile Destruction | Destroys projectiles that enter the protected area | Non-projectile attacks and unblockable projectiles | Some blocking skills and protective barriers |
| Projectile Reflection | Returns projectiles toward their source | Non-projectile attacks and unblockable projectiles | Feedback (Mesmer), Wall of Reflection (Guardian) |
| Strike damage immunity | Strike damage | Condition damage and control effects still apply | Endure Pain (Warrior) |
Defiant Stance turns incoming strike and condition damage into healing. Agony and falling damage are exceptions. Use it when a burst of enemy damage is about to arrive.
📖 Traits that enhance dodging
Many traits add effects to a dodge, letting this defensive action also provide damage or support.
🗡️ Damage and conditions
Some traits deal damage or apply conditions such as Weakness or Bleeding when you dodge or land. Examples include Warrior’s Reckless Dodge and Thief’s Uncatchable, which drops caltrops.
✨ Boons
Some traits grant boons such as Swiftness or Protection to you or allies when you dodge. Examples include Thief’s Expeditious Dodger and Ranger’s Companion’s Defense.
🧹 Condition removal
Ranger’s Evasive Purity removes one condition when you dodge; Thief’s Pain Response removes one damaging condition. Separately, Sigil of Cleansing removes three conditions when you swap to that weapon in combat, or one in PvP.
🌀 Other triggered effects
Elementalist’s Evasive Arcana casts a skill matching your attunement when you dodge in combat, with a separate 10-second cooldown per attunement. Mesmer’s Deceptive Evasion creates a clone when you dodge in combat. On Virtuoso, it stocks a blade instead.
The profession pages also cover dodge-related traits. For now, check whether your build has any traits triggered by dodging.
💀 Downed state
From level 5 onward, reaching zero health puts you into downed state instead of immediately defeating you. You can use a limited skill set and recover with help from allies or by rallying. At levels 1–4, zero health means immediate defeat.
Downed health drains automatically at 2.5% per second. Enemy damage reduces it further.
🎮 Downed skills 1–3
Each profession has three unique downed skills. Damage, control effects, and movement can buy time or help allies revive you. See the profession pages for individual skills.
🩹 Skill 4: Bandage
Every profession has this downed skill. It restores downed health while channeled; reaching full downed health revives you. If an ally revives you at the same time, their healing adds to yours so you can get up sooner. Taking direct damage interrupts Bandage.
⚡ Rally
In PvE, PvP, and WvW, the death of an enemy you helped defeat can rally you from downed state with 25% health. In WvW, one defeated player can rally one opponent; eligible NPCs include event participants such as guards and dolyaks.
Using rally: you can still attack while downed. If a nearby enemy has little health left, attack it to contribute to the kill. You do not need the final hit: with enough kill credit, you can rally immediately.
Downed penalty: each time you go down, you gain one penalty point lasting 60 seconds. Each point reduces downed health by 25%. At four points, you are defeated immediately instead of entering downed state.
💚 Revival
🤝 An ally revives you
Stand beside a downed ally and press F to begin reviving them. Completing the revive restores them with 50% of their maximum health. Multiple players reviving together make it faster.
⚡ Revival skills
Guardian’s Signet of Mercy and Elementalist’s Glyph of Renewal can revive downed allies. Both have a base cast time of 2 seconds, so finish casting before the ally is fully defeated.
You can still be attacked while reviving someone. Stability helps prevent control effects from interrupting you, while Stealth makes you harder to target directly. Area attacks can still hit you while stealthed, so check the ground and nearby enemies.
Reaching zero downed health leaves you defeated. In PvE, an ally can still revive you during combat, but it is much slower and can be impractical in a fight.
🪦 Your options after defeat
PvE / open world: returning to a nearby waypoint is usually the practical choice. Allies can revive you, but doing so during combat is very slow.
WvW: return to a waypoint or wait for an ally to leave combat and revive you.
sPvP: you respawn automatically.
🧪 Reviving yourself with a consumable
Ordinary ally revival skills cannot restore a fully defeated player. A Revive Orb revives you where you fell after 10 seconds. It cannot be used in raids, PvP, or WvW.
In WvW and sPvP, press F beside a downed enemy to begin a roughly 3.5-second finisher. If it completes, the enemy is defeated regardless of remaining downed health, preventing a rally or downed revive. The enemy can still be revived before your finisher lands.
Downed enemies are still affected by control effects and conditions: enemies can use movement or stealth from their downed skills to avoid a finisher. Immobile prevents movement. Immobilize an enemy attempting to move, or interrupt a disruptive skill so you can finish them.
While finishing an enemy
Moving cancels the finisher. Taking damage by itself does not.
Nearby enemies can interrupt your finisher with control effects. Stability, Aegis, projectile defense, and stealth can reduce that risk. You may still take damage, so check whether you can survive long enough to finish.
Skills with finishing effects
Warrior’s Battle Standard has a base 2-second cast time and finishes downed enemies when the banner lands. Engineer’s Function Gyro summons a gyro to perform the finisher for you; enemies can interrupt the gyro.
You can also defeat an enemy with damage
You do not have to use F to finish an enemy. Dealing enough damage to deplete their downed health defeats them. This is useful when a crowded fight makes channeling a finisher difficult.