Guild Wars 2

1 – No, there is no way to “kitten” your character, all skills and traits can be changed, races doesn’t make any difference, the worst thing you can do is invest in a bad gear, but it is just a matter of buy new gear, nothing else.

2 – Yes, single weapon set builds is totally viable, many builds only change weapon for something like an occasional ranged weapon or a set with good mobility to run in the open world and during the fight only use 1 weapon set.

If you have a specific profession in mind then you might be best of to ask in that forum.

Some professions are better at one thing than others, so while my generic answer would be that you can’t ruin your character – you could potentially craft an armour set that might not be optimal – this sometimes depends on who you ask or if you are talking PvP, WvW or PvE.

Let us know.
Cheers

Edit: In terms of just trying things out (seeing your second response here) – go ahead and don’t be afraid

A cool feature in GW2 that not many use is that you can keep a weapon from a set and only change the main or off-hand weapon.
Example: You equip 1 sword in the main hand in the set 1, a sword in the off hand set 1 and a warhorn in the off hand set 2 and keep the main hand set 2 empty. When you change from set 1 to set 2 only the off hand will change, the main hand will keep the sword from set 1, that way you’ll have a sword 100% of the time and the versatility of the off hand weapons.

Rouven.7409:

You know, I wondered about this the other day and I was going to try it out but forgot – what happens to the cooldown(s) on the weapon that you don’t switch, guess it’s global per specific weapon?

Yes, the CD is global, but most main hand weapons have fast CDs and only the off hand have the longer CD, so change them is a good idea.
I use that tactic with my ranger and mesmer, my ranger use axe/axe+ wh and on mesmer sword/sword + focus
BTW, if you add an “on swap” sigil in the weapon that doesn’t change, it still proc on weapon swap, so there is no downside besides the CD, actually it is a good thing since you can use an expensive weapon and use an expensive sigil and have it up 100% of the time.

To expand a bit on what other people have said above you will never be locked into a build the way you are in some games, you can change your mind about any aspect later on. The only things you can’t change are the race and profession of your character. Your race doesn’t affect your build and if you want a different profession then you’re better off stating from scratch anyway so you can learn to play it while levelling up.

Weapon skills are unlocked by using that weapon and once unlocked stay that way forever. You do need to own the right weapon, but you can get all of them from lots of different places.

You will eventually get more than enough skill points to unlock every single healing, utility and elite skill and once they’re unlocked you can change between them any time you’re out of combat.

You can also unlock every single trait. You only get 14 trait points (enough to max out 2 lines and get the first major trait in a 3rd) so you can’t have all the trait lines active at once but you can switch the points to different lines any time you’re out of combat.

And obviously you can change your weapons, armor and other equipment at any time. Honestly this is the worst part about changing your build because it can be expensive, but it’s still much better than some games (mainly single player) where if you put points into the wrong thing early on you’re stuck with it, or have to delete the character and start over.

Incidentally you can also change cosmetic things like your characters name or appearance (including gender) but to do that you need items from the gem store.

About weapon-swapping:

If you really wanted to, then yes, you could stick with one weapon per class and never, ever switch out. But the way this game is designed, you need to be flexible with your build. No one build or weapon is ever going to be perfect for every situation, and the devs (especially now that traits can be freely changed whenever you want) intend for us players to switch things up to address the situation at hand.

In GW2, every class uses weapons differently, even when it’s the same weapon type. For example, warriors use axes for highly damaging rapid attacks in melee, whereas rangers throw their axes to cause conditions and AOE damage for groups of enemies. Every weapon for each class has very distinctive pros and cons, and it’s important for you to learn what those are. Not paying attention to your surroundings and failing to adapt will lead to a lot of frustration on your part (soloing PVE) or bringing the group down (dungeons/fractals). You can’t really carry a team in GW2, so if even one of the five players in a party isn’t pulling their weight, you’re almost never going to succeed.

My advice is to try out each weapon and unlock the weapon skills for each class you try. Get a feel for what that class’s strengths and weaknesses are, and what playstyles you like the best. Then, start using the weapon types you enjoy. After a while, switch to something you might not have liked quite as much but that seemed interesting (try experimenting with traits that change how weapons behave, once you start unlocking traits). Later on, switch weapons periodically to try EVERYTHING out to see how it works. For instance, on my warrior, I’ll just pull out whatever I have and have fun with it, just to get more insight into how things behave. I might try a mace and shield for a week, then switch to a hammer, then axe and offhand sword, then longbow…

Part of being good at this game isn’t just being good at one particular thing, it’s knowing your options, as well as ALL of the possible options out there for other classes. You’ll learn a great deal about the things you enjoy most by trying out things you might not like as much. I learned how to use a warrior greatsword better by experimenting with the Fiery Greatsword elementalist elite skill early on. I learned how to maximize the effectiveness of “spread” skills by observing the effects of the ranger’s mainhand axe 2 skill, and then applied that knowledge to other classes with similar attacks (hint: it’s like a shotgun effect, you use it up close so all the projectiles hit). I learned how to position combo fields from the engineer’s napalm skill with the flamethrower. Things you learn on one weapon from one class will benefit you greatly when you play others, and ultimately, mastering the game requires at least a passing familiarity with every single skill and trait in the game, whether you like them or not. Do you have to like the necromancer? No, but if you don’t know from firsthand experience what they’re capable of, how will you ever know what their options are if you’ve teamed up with one? How will you now how they synergize with other classes, including yours? Know the enemy, know thyself and thy teammates.

Finally, if nothing else persuades you here, you pretty much absolutely MUST, at the very least, have a ranged weapon you can swap to when needed. There are MANY situations in the game where melee is really tricky to get into, or altogether impossible because of terrain or enemy skills that push you away or punish you for getting too close. Having a ranged option is essential!