Guild Wars 2

Tuesday would make sense since that’s patch day. Thanks. Hopefully A-net puts up an actual date at some point, too.

Title is self explanatory. It says on the main page “nearly two weeks”. Does anyone know what the actual date is?

I’ve been trying to solidify my guardian’s build. Started off with support, and then went full zerker. I don’t really like all of either, and would really like to mix the two, which I sort of half did on my own, and it may fully well be a bad build. Full zerk is boring, and full support has hardly any dps, which I don’t like. A successful “bit of both” would be awesome, but I’m not ever remotely sure what to do about it. I found this thread: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Frac40-High-DPS-Support-build/first, but it’s older and the links don’t work, but it did look promising.

If you have any ideas, I’m glad to hear them. The one skill I am really attached to is Signet of Courage. I’m not sure if it has a place in a damage/support build, but it’s saved me and party members so many times. (It’s not as good as the Tome used to be, but ah well…nerfs happen I guess….) I like GS, but I’m not overly attached to a secondary set. So, other than those two details, I’ll readily consider any options. (I can be convinced against those two details as well, but it would take more convincing.)

Right now I have knight’s exo armor, and trooper runes, all zerk weapons and trinkets, sigils of force and night, and specialization lines are Valor, Honor, and Virtues. And I’m honestly not sure if that’s a terrible build or not. I sort of meshed a build in metabattle with one I saw elsewhere on the interwebs.

Any input is appreciated. Thanks all.

Thanks, all. I discovered Signet of Courage after I asked the question. Lol. It’s okay, though I miss some of the other skills. It’s better than not having it at all I guess?

Thanks for the tip of Feel My Wrath. It’s still not as useful as the tome, but whatever. Games change, nerf happens. *shrugs

I saw Tomes are now eliminated as skills in the update. Does anyone know what would be their equivalent/replacements? Those were my big elite skills that I loved.

Yeah, the 200mm fan is for the side. I figured I’d get it just in case he wanted it. As per the OS, I’m going to let him pick it out and install it, since he’s good at that aspect. He might pick 8, and since 10 is coming out in a few months, neither choice will matter a ton for terribly long (provided 10 is any decent).

Thanks so much, guys! You’ve been extremely helpful! I’m going to start ordering parts in a day or so.

It depends on your play style. I haven’t played all of them to level 80, but Mesmer, and Engineer are sort of complex to play. My top favorites are Warrior, Guardian, and Elementalist. Warrior is cool because it’s all about damage. Guardian is cool because you have support options. Elementalist is just awesome because it’s an Elementalist. I mean, come on, who doesn’t like to throw fire?

I changed my mind again, thanks to Fermi. Lol.

So this is the final build. I’m checking to make sure all the parts work together, and will fit together and in the case. (The Thermaltake is a huge case, so I can’t see anything not fitting in it, but better to be as sure as possible.)

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/kVgYBm

I’m still debating between the Antec 900 and the Thermaltake, though. I like the Thermaltake for styling, and the Antec for the smaller size and the large side panel.

Fermi.2409:

What more do you really need to research? You yourself put together a pretty solid build, and people are always willing to critique them. Researching the construction process can be done by just watching a couple video guides, and then if you have one open while you’re building you’ll be more then fine.

People are more then willing to double check your builds to make sure that sort of stuff doesn’t happen.

You have a point there….

Not breaking stuff is pretty easy/manageable, too; nothing really needs to be forced, and if you’re forcing stuff it’s likely going into the wrong place.

You have a point there, too.

Not an issue at all, honestly. My house is the same way (my cats shed a ton), but if you have a clean table it’s fine.

As long as I vacuum first and make sure the dogs and cats are locked away in the other room. XD

I’m sorry if it seems like I’m really trying to push the whole build the computer thing (even though it is the best way to go), but it just seems like a lot of your fears are somewhat unfounded. And, you can always get most of it built and save some money/buy better parts by doing the easiest stuff (GPU/wireless card) yourself.

Haha. Well you are convincing. And yes, I’m sure some of them are unfounded. I read an article about building a computer this morning and it scared me off the idea. Lol.

Teon.5168:

I would go with the R9 vid card.

Thanks.

Fermi.2409:

I’m curious, why is it either/or? Also, you can always buy a prebuilt computer without a GPU, then pick up a GPU separately yourself to save a good bit of money ($50+), which takes all of 1-2 minutes. And by superclocked i5, do you mean a K model/overclockable one?

Either/or because of price. By overclocked (don’t know why I said overclocked…I think I was thinking of the EVGA 960 superclocked GPU), I mean the K version. The 4690k. And they’ll overclock it to 10%. Or 15% if I pay a few extra dollars.

Fermi.2409:

That being said, it should take ~3-4 hours to build the computer, maybe 5 if you’re going to install the basics (Skype, Teamspeak, drivers, some sort of media player, etc) for your husband.

It’s what leads up to it… :/. Research, research, and more of it. And if I get a wrong part, or something doesn’t fit? Or if I receive a defective one? Or if I break something. There’s cat and dog hair everywhere, regardless of how much I vacuum. That’s what I get for having a husky (especially) during shedding season.

I need to have it ready by the end of June. >__<

I think I’m not going to build it myself. Reason being I don’t have tons of time to fiddle around with it. I’d like to do it, but unless I know I can do it in a few weeks with zero issues, I’m just going to order a computer.

Now the question is then, R9 280/285 with a regular i5, or a Nvidia 960 with a superclocked i5?

Fermi.2409:

An overclocked CPU is definitely a good idea since the game is so CPU bottlenecked; Intel CPUs see linear gains from overclocking, so getting to 4.2-4.4 GHz on a 4690k will give you ~25-30% better performance then you would get by leaving them stock.

An overclocked GPU can help, but it’s usually not the thing holding you back so it’s not quite as necessary.

Yikes, you’re full of good information! Thanks!

Fermi.2409:

Both of those are way higher end then is needed with a non-overclocking CPU. ~$60 will buy a decent ATX/mATX motherboard for a non-K CPU.

Is there any reason to go with an overclocked CPU (or GPU for that matter) for GW2?

Teon.5168:

If you’re too worried about putting it together yourself, you could always order the parts and then check with a reputable local computer shop to see how much they would charge you to put it together.

Good suggestion.

My main hesitation aside from being afraid I’ll break things while putting them together is not having the 3 year warranty…but it’s only for labor aside from the one year warranty on parts. I cryptically discussed building a computer with him this evening. I was surprised to hear him say it generally seems too risky. O__o He’s fairly good at troubleshooting, and I’m not wickedly awful, myself….

Fermi.2409:

Remember that you can get a much cheaper mobo and you don’t need the CPU cooler if you drop down, so you can save quite a bit more TV.

Yeah, I’ll swap out the mobo. I’ll might pick an MSI of a Gigabyte. Maybe a lower priced Asus.

Fermi.2409:

ForgottenGold.2306:

This ends up making it cheaper, maybe by $100, $150-$175 after shipping. Though I would prefer the NZXT Guardian 921 RB ATX if it will work with the components.

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/GNKzxr

I also have to make sure that all these components will work in the case (especially if I get the NZXT Guardian) and with the motherboard. Unless pcpartpicker is that good that I don’t have to double check. I’m going to keep playing around with it for a few days.

That case should be fine. It’s an ATX case for an ATX motherboard, so there shouldn’t be any problems. In any case, that build works great as well. I think it’s worth noting that that build has a better CPU+mobo then the prebuilt one, so the price gap won’t be quite as big as it could’ve been, but it’s a great build overall.

Yeah, I added the K version of the 4690. I might remove it as I think its only worth the extra price if I’m going to overclock it.

Teon.5168:

Keep in mind that you might need to remove some of the drive cages on that case to fit that video card.(I looked at the dimensions on the case and on the card) Certainly not a big issue, unless you start mounting more than a couple hard drives. The mid cases are fine, but sometimes you need to be aware of the video card length/size with them.

Okay, yeah, I’ll make sure it will positively work before I order it.

…If I build it myself. I’m still juggling the idea. Part of me says it’s too risky. The most I’ve put electronic parts together (the part of this I’m most scared of) was a new keyboard for a laptop, and removing and replacing keys on Mac keyboards. I’m not sure that and research is enough. We’ll see.

Apolo.5942:

The game is poorly written, it does not matter what you put under the wood, if you crank it up, high player count scenes will kill your FPS. It not a matter of the hardware its a matter of the software.

Oh, to a degree, yeah. I almost wish it were a matter of just software – then the Mac we are currently using would do 40fps instead of 14…or 1 in WvW! XD But yeah, I get your meaning. He isn’t in love with WvW, so lower performance there isn’t earth shattering. If the computer maxes in dungeons, I think he’d be ecstatic. After that, a drop in fps seems guaranteed, like you said, regardless of hardware.

Apolo.5942:

Short answer NO.

Long answer, the game engine is poorly implemented and it wastes resources tremendously. There is a problem with the player cap for rendering, the same scene will plummet your FPS if you set the your player cap to high REGARDLESS OF WHETHER IT IS RENDING 1 OR 100 PLAYERS. I am sure there are many more problems with it, but this is one that with no technical background you can easily test yourself.

Further problems come from the fact that newer cards are designed for multiple core processing and optimized for it, directx12 is taking this even further. Sadly there is no hint that GW2 will be optimized for it, which leads me to believe it wont.

Sorry, I lost you somewhere in that. What are we talking about specifically?

This ends up making it cheaper, maybe by $100, $150-$175 after shipping. Though I would prefer the NZXT Guardian 921 RB ATX if it will work with the components.

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/GNKzxr

I also have to make sure that all these components will work in the case (especially if I get the NZXT Guardian) and with the motherboard. Unless pcpartpicker is that good that I don’t have to double check. I’m going to keep playing around with it for a few days.

Teon.5168:

That’s because AMD bought out ATI, and ATI has been a very good vid card maker for years. The R9 280 and 285 are wonderful video cards, and great bang for the buck.

And AMD cpus aren’t bad, it is just that their single core performance isn’t as good as intel. Older AMD cpus still do very good with the game….I have an older AMD 940 BE oc’ed to 3400 with an ATI 7850 vid card, and it runs the game quite nicely for my needs.

If GW2 used the multi cores of the newer AMD cpus, then that cpu would work just fine for the game.

That’s good to know. Thanks Teon!

Fermi.2409:

An R9 285 is better for the same price, though. Even an R9 280 would be better.

I’m definitely setting my sights on one of those.

I guess AMD doesn’t fall down on the job for GPUs like they do with CPUs?

bob.5680:

What resolution display will you be using? That can certainly affect the video performance. The more pixels that need to be updated the more work the graphics adapter has to do.

1920×1080. The screen it will be on is a 49" TV (that’s what my Qosmio is currently hooked up to). Not sure if that affects anything.

Fermi.2409:

Also, TC, if you build yourself you’ll have more then enough room in your budget for an SSD.

That alone almost makes building it myself worth it.

Is there a site that you can make mock up builds? Obviously compatibility is the heart and soul of building yourself. The research will work, but a mock up site might be faster and/or less worrisome. Also, how do warranties come into play? Does, say, a Nvidia GPU come with it’s own warranty, or if you build yourself are you just out of any type of warranties, period?

lioka qiao.8734:

The plan you had with the i5 would work out for you then but I’d still go with the i7. That would let you play other games that take advantage of the hyperthreading for longer than the i5 would.

If the game is using multi threading and optimized for intel you’ll see a 100% boost in performance with the i7 compared to the i5. I know this because for my work I have a program that uses heavy multi threading and had to test the performance for different intel CPUs for it. It’s a biometric scanner that scans irises. An i7 and an i5 at the same clock speed were tested and the i7 matched in half the time.

You might not notice the difference between the i5 and i7 in Guildwars as it’s fairly single-threaded. Other games may get the boost.

I’m not expecting to replace my gaming PC’s CPU for at least another 3 years.

The only reason I may stick with the i5 is because GW2 is the only game we both really like, thus the only game we play. But if I have a few extra dollars and/or decide we might play a different game in the future that uses multiple threads, I’ll definitely spring for the i7.

Fermi.2409:

Clockspeed is completely irrelevant unless you’re comparing CPUs with the same architecture; if you have two of the same type of CPU, like an i5-3570k, and one is at 3 GHz while the other is at 4, the 4 GHz one will have ~33% higher performance then the one at 3 GHz. However, if you have two entirely different CPUs, like an i5-3570k and an FX-8350, you can’t just compare their clockspeed, since they’re completely different architectures; even if the 8350 is at 5 GHz and the 3570k is at 3, the 3570k will have higher single-core performance.

When it comes to GW2 and similar games, single core performance is an important metric, as well as number of cores. However, the number of cores will only matter if you don’t have enough. An i7 only has slightly better single core performance then an i5, but it has hyperthreading (basically, 2 threads per core; it’s acting a bit like an 8 core, although the 4 “real” cores will be a bit better then the “virtual ones”. Essentially, it’s going to be much better when you can take advantage of all 8 threads). So, because the performance increase isn’t from higher performance per core per clock, and an i5 has plenty of cores/ability to handle GW2, going to an i7 isn’t worth the price increase.

Whoa, that’s a lot of great info! Definitely going to remember that.

lioka qiao.8734:

Intel i7 3770k, NVIDIA GTX 760, 8gb ram (corsair i think), 2x Sold state drives: one for the OS and one for games, and a 3tb normal hard drive.

The SSDs are amazing for both the OS and the games. The OS one could have been bigger though.

Ah, thanks for posting your specs. That’s helpful. I’d love to put a Solid State Drive or two in there. Considering money, I don’t think I can. If I can do it, I will though.

Harper.4173:

From what I understood a while back when the performance and FPS threads were cool and hip was that for GW2 what matters most is your CPU and not GPU.

I run it on an i7 and it works pretty kitten well.
Not sure if this is actually the case but if it is you might look at something like an i7 or better.

From what I know, the number of cores is not the issue, so it must be the GHz that makes a difference? I’m also under the impression that the jump from i5 to i7 is not very significant. Maybe that impression is wrong.

Belzebu.3912:

Both setups have DD3-1600 RAMs so he’ll be fine about memory.

*She’ll. Haha.
….Or he if you are referring to my husband. Now I’ve confused myself. XD

Belzebu.3912:

I also suggest the i5 setup (the 1st one), it will run GW2 smoothly on high~ultra , obviously really high populated encounters will lower the FPS, but there is not setup in the world that would stop that

That’s a relief to hear. Good to know.

Fermi.2409:

I’d recommend going with something like: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/JHzJXL with a copy of Windows from reddit.com/r/microsoftsoftwareswap, but the one you picked out should do fine. You don’t need an aftermarket CPU cooler if you’re not overclocking, but if you really want one just get a Hyper 212 Evo instead of some fancy water cooling unit.

Newegg has some excellent video guides as well. Look up “Newegg how to build a PC” on youtube and it should turn up; iirc part 2 involves actually putting stuff together.

The prospect is a little terrifying, but I will investigate it for sure. Thank you.

Does anyone have an suggestion as to a better GPU? If I’m going to build it myself, I might be able to get a better one. Is the Radeon R9 280x better than an overclocked Nvidia 960?

Fermi.2409:

The first one should do fine. I’d strongly recommend against ibuypower and cyberpowerpc, though, and I’d suggest that you actually build the computer yourself. You’re paying quite a bit to have the competer put together for you. You could either build the same thing for a lot less or get a much better computer for the same amount of money.

I’ve never built a computer, though I think I’d be capable of it with some reading. If I did that, would it be reasonable to use that build, but order and put together the parts myself?

Fermi.2409:

That second one is a massively overpriced piece of junk,though.

Thanks. I was thinking that might be the case.

I’m trying to get a build together for my husband’s birthday present, and I’m trying to decide what build to get. I’d like the computer to run near maximum. My computer runs it at medium-high, and it’s a three year old Qosmio X857. (RAM: 12gb, CPU: I7-3610QM 2.30GHz, Video Card: Nvidia GeForce GTX 670M.)

The builds I’m looking at are:
Extra Case Fans: Maximum 120MM Color Case Cooling Fans
CPU: Intel® Core™ i5-4690 3.50 GHz 6MB Intel Smart Cache LGA1150
CPU / Processor Cooling Fan: Asetek 550LC 120mm Liquid Cooling CPU Cooler – Extreme Cooling Performance (Dual Standard 120MM Fans (Push-Pull))
Motherboard: MSI B85M-E45 mATX w/ Military Class 4, GbLAN, 1 Gen3 PCIe x16, 1
RAM / System Memory: 8GB (4GBx2) DDR3/1600MHz Dual Channel Memory (Corsair or Major Brand)
Video Card: EVGA Superclocked NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 2GB GDDR5 PCIe 3.0 x16 (Maxwell) (Single Card)
Power Supply: 600 Watts – EVGA 600B 80 PLUS BRONZE Power Supply
Hard Drive: 2TB (2TBx1) SATA-III 6.0Gb/s 64MB Cache 7200RPM HDD (Single Drive)
Internal Wireless Network Card: GIGABYTE GC-WB867D-I 802.11AC Wi-Fi up to 867 Mbps + Bluetooth 4.0 Combo w/ Dual Antenna PCI-E Adapter
(2TB hard drive was a free upgrade, so it’s not costing me anything. This computer build is from cyberpowerpc.com. It would cost me $981.)

Extra Case Fans: 3x [Blue] 120mm LED Case Fan
CPU: AMD A10-6800K APU (4x 4.10GHZ/4MB L2 Cache)
CPU / Processor Cooling Fan: Asetek 550LC Liquid CPU Cooling System (Copper plate for best cooling performance) (ARC Dual Silent High Performance Fan Upgrade (Push-Pull Airflow)
Motherboard: ASRock FM2A75 Pro4 — 2x PCIe x16, 6x USB 3.0, 2x USB 2.0
RAM / System Memory: 8 GB [4 GB x2] DDR3-1600 Memory Module (Corsair or Major Brand)
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 – 2GB – EVGA SuperSC ACX 2.0+Single Card
Power Supply: 600 Watt – Standard
Hard Drive: 1 TB HARD DRIVE — 32M Cache, 7200 RPM, 6.0Gb/s
Internal Wireless Network Card: 802.11AC Wireless Dual Band Module
(This computer is from ibuypower.com. I would cost me $1046.)

Does anyone have any recommendations? From what I’ve been reading, for GW2 an i7 processor would be unnecessary as an i5 would be more than enough for the way GW2 runs the game, and anything over 8gb RAM is also unnecessary. My main concern is the GPU and the cooling. My Qosmio runs very hot, and it significantly decreases the performance. I’d like to get him a computer equivalent of mine, or better.

Thanks.

It is not the mouse itself. I tried it outside of OSX GW2 and had zero issues.

I just got a Razer Naga and it double clicks on a single click. I’ve troubleshooted it with one other computer (Windows 7) in GW2 and OSX Yosemite outside of the game, but it only does it in the OSX version of GW2. It doesn’t happen every time, but about every 5th click. It’s certainly disrupting a lot of things I would normally do in the game, especially in the settings and in the Trading Post.

I’m also reporting this in-game as a bug, but was wondering if anyone else had any thoughts on it, or had and fixed this problem. If it’s simply a bug, it’d be nice to see GW2 techs and/or Razer fix the issue.

Update: Razer said that this issue will be addressed in upcoming bug corrections.