Guild Wars 2

GPU – GeForce GTX 980M
CPU – i7 4810MQ 2.80ghz
16 GB RAM
Running from SSD, 840 EVO 256GB
Win 8.1, latest

I’ve had no issues running the game 30+FPS even in zergs, wvw, SW prior to this patch with essentially every graphical bell and whistle running, including AA, shadows, and high effects.

Following the patch, acquiring new character models, loading the character in preview window, and loading character models during login are now all significantly impaired compared to previous performance. Camera slowdown is significant, stuttering/delaying,

I considered it lag at first, but even in pvp with fewer character models I could cue a skill and have it function properly, but display would still stutter if a new character was on screen.

After a character is on my screen FPS drops but remains steadier.

Any ideas where to go from here to troubleshoot?

1. RANGER
2. Necromancer.
3. Elementalist.

Ranger’s need significant love to pet AI and the general Pet class feature. Improved AI for pets including a better natural handling of enemy groups (in close cases like stacking or closed environments) would do wonders to see the Ranger’s reliance upon their companion mean more than simply having to micro-manage a pet to simply keep it alive. For instance, you must continuously recall a pet (F3) to prevent it from launching right back into attacking the same target you just called it back from. This is a real problem for many fights in the game and is counter-intuitive. Perhaps increasing or adding a timer to resetting that portion of their behavior would help with the command. Bonus points: Customizable pet skins (gem store?) or persistent names for pets would do so much to make pets less of a disposable minion on an HP cooldown and more of a true “partner” to the player. There are too many “Juvenile’s” out there!

I think it’s fair to say that Ranger is on almost 3/4 of this list within spots 1 and 2, but I’d like to make a specific call-to-arms for the Necromancer as well.

Necromancers need a natural or cheap (traits) cleave to simply be competitive in many PvE and enclosed spaces. WvW and PvP have strong skills within groups and solo that allow for the focus native to the class, but they are considerably less competitive outside of that environment and an entire tree (blood magic) is almost entirely unrecommended by builders due to the limited melee and close-quarters options as well as abysmal healing power scaling. This could really use a second look, in my opinion!