Hero Panel, Inventory, and Menus: Guild Wars 2 Beginner Guide

Hero panel H

This is the main panel for your character. Use the icons on the left to switch sections. Start by learning Equipment, Build, and Training.

① Equipment

Equipment

Equip armor, weapons, trinkets, and gathering tools. Equipment Templates let you save and switch between equipment sets.

Equipment slots: head, shoulders, chest, hands, legs, feet, two weapon sets, rings, accessories, amulet, back item, relic, and aquatic equipment

Equipment and feature tabs: Manage fishing bait and lures, novelties, jade bot equipment, miniatures, finishers, and mail carriers. For glider, mount, skiff, and homestead doorway appearances, use Fashion → Travel.

② Fashion

Fashion

Customize your appearance. The February 2026 update brought the former Wardrobe tab into this section. Fashion Templates let you save and switch cosmetic sets.

Wardrobe: Change equipment skins, dyes, and outfits. Skin changes use Transmutation Charges.

Tools: Change the appearance of gathering tools (sickle, axe, and pick), fishing rods, and jade bots.

③ Build

Build

Choose your skills and traits. You can change them freely while out of combat. Build Templates let you save multiple builds and switch between them.

Weapon Skills: Skills 1–5, determined by your weapon

Slot Skills: Choose healing (6), utility (7–9), and elite (0) skills

Specializations: Choose three specialization lines and the traits in each

Build Storage: Store builds for use across your account

④ Training

Training

Spend hero points to unlock skills and traits. Earn points by leveling and completing hero challenges.

Core Skills: Unlock healing, utility, and elite skills (98 hero points in total)

Core Specializations: Unlock the five core specialization lines (60 points each)

Elite Specializations: Unlock an expansion’s elite specialization (250 points, after core training)

⑤ Story Journal

Story Journal

Browse your story chapters in one scrollable list, without separate sub-tabs.

The order is Personal Story → Living World S1 → Living World S2 → HoT → LW S3 → PoF → LW S4 → The Icebrood Saga → EoD → SotO → Janthir Wilds → Visions of Eternity.

Use “Switch to this story” on an unfinished chapter to make it your active story.

⑥ Crafting

Crafting

View your crafting disciplines, levels, and learned recipes. You can have two active disciplines by default, or up to four with Additional Crafting Licenses. Handiworker does not count toward this limit.

Ten disciplines: Armorsmith, Artificer, Chef, Huntsman, Jeweler, Leatherworker, Scribe, Tailor, Weaponsmith, and Handiworker

Craft at a crafting station in the world; you cannot craft directly from this tab.

⑦ Achievements

Achievements

Manage your achievement progress here. Rewards are awarded at 500-point milestones.

Achievement Rewards: Your first reward is at 100 AP, then every 500 AP. Gems are included at 5,000-AP milestones.

Titles: View unlocked titles and choose which one to display

Former Login Rewards: The old login reward track was removed. Claim current login and daily rewards in the Wizard’s Vault (Shift+H).

Account Bonus: Permanent bonuses from achievement point rewards. For example, 500 AP gives +1% magic find, and 1,000 AP gives +1% gold find.

⑧ Masteries

Masteries

After level 80, spend mastery points to improve account-wide abilities such as mounts and gliding. Train one track at a time.

Regional sections: Central Tyria / HoT / PoF / The Icebrood Saga / EoD / SotO / Janthir Wilds / Visions of Eternity

Mastery points from each regional section can only be spent on that section’s tracks.

💡

You start with three Build Templates and two Equipment Templates. Save skills and traits in Build, and your gear sets in Equipment. For example, save separate damage and support setups so you can switch without changing every slot manually. Extra build and equipment slots are separate purchases.

Inventory I

Your inventory holds your items. Free accounts start with three bag slots; paid accounts start with five. The first slot contains a 20-slot Starter Backpack. Equip bags in the remaining slots to add more item space.

🖱️

The inventory has four main areas. Top: used/total slot count, search, and three buttons on the right. Left column: bag icons and a padlock. Center: item slots. Bottom: wallet button and currency display.

⚙ Options : top right

The top right has separate buttons for Deposit All Materials (move materials to storage), Compact (fill empty inventory spaces), and ⚙ Options . Open Options for display settings such as Show Bags (separate bags). Sell Junk is in a merchant’s shop window.

Bag slots : left column

Bag icons are arranged vertically. Equip a bag to add its item slots. Your Starter Backpack has 20 slots; larger bags can hold up to 32.

🔒 Padlock : bottom of the left column

This is a locked bag slot. Click it to buy another slot with gems. Purchased slots apply only to that character.

💰 Wallet : bottom

Click the coin icon at the bottom to see all your currencies. Gold, gems, karma, laurels, badges, and map currencies are stored here without taking inventory slots. Your coins are shown in the bottom bar; additional currencies shown there depend on the current map.

Special bag types

Some bags automatically sort particular item types or protect items from bulk actions. Choose bags to suit the way you organize your inventory.

Bag type	What it does
Invisible Bag	Items inside are excluded from Sell Junk, Salvage All, and Deposit Materials. Use it for important items you do not want to sell or salvage by accident.
Equipment Bag	Looted weapons and armor fill this bag first. Useful for keeping equipment together.
Craftsman's Bag	Crafting materials fill this bag first, keeping them together until you deposit them.
Oiled Pack variants	Gray-name Junk items fill this bag first, keeping them together until you use Sell Junk.

Inventory display options

Show Bags

Turn this on to separate bags with headers. Click a header to collapse or expand that bag. Turn it off to display all slots together.

Search

Search part of an item’s name, description, or type. For example, “sword” filters sword items. Numbers can also match stack sizes or level requirements.

Split a stack

Hold Alt and drag a stacked item to choose how many to separate. This works in both your inventory and bank.

Item border colors: quality

An item’s border color indicates its quality.

Junk (gray) Basic (white) Fine (blue) Masterwork (green) Rare (yellow) Exotic (orange) Ascended (pink) Legendary (purple)

Main menu icons

The horizontal menu at the top left opens the main panels. Click an icon or use its shortcut. Hover over an icon to see its name and shortcut.

Icon / panel	Shortcut	What it does
World Map	M	Open the full map to find waypoints, points of interest, hearts, and other map objectives.
Contacts & LFG	Y	Friends, Looking For Group, followers, and blocked players in one panel.
Mail	⊠ icon	Your in-game mailbox receives player-sent items and coins, as well as game mail. Collect Trading Post proceeds from its Delivery Box.
Guild	G	View your guilds, guild logs, and guild storage. You can belong to up to six guilds.
Trading Post	O	Buy and sell items with other players through the Trading Post. You can open it from anywhere.
Achievement	H → Achievements	Check achievement progress and rewards, including daily achievement tracking.
Black Lion Store	Gem icon	Spend gems in the Gem Store on skins and convenience items.
PvP Panel	Unassigned by default	View PvP rankings, seasons, and rating. Set up your PvP build before entering.
WvW Panel	B	View the WvW map, match tiers, and scores, and enter WvW.
Wizard's Vault	Shift+H	Daily, weekly, and seasonal objectives and rewards. Complete and claim login, daily, weekly, and special objectives to earn Astral Acclaim, then exchange it for items.

Hero panel, inventory, and menus