The basic physical processes associated with collisionless magnetic reconnection are investigated using the implicit PIC code AVANTI. The code is based on a 2.5-D fully electromagnetic direct implicit algorithm which has proven stable for arbitrary time step. This stability makes it possible to separate out the respective roles of the highly magnetized electrons and the un-magnetized ions for large ion-electron mass ratios. It is found that the inclusion of a guide magnetic field (magnetic shear) severely slows the initial stages of reconnection and damps out the electrostatic ringing if local values of the guide field are above a threshold determined by questions of electron mobility. 9 refs., 6 figs.