Guild Wars 2

Palindrome.8904:

The points were allocated based on what traits and skills you had equipped when the patch happened.

That’s what they claimed, truth/reality is different. My elementalist prior to patch had all trait points in fire line, yet after the patch it’s the earth line that was maxed out!?

The skills it unlocked were actually the same ones I was using before, so that was done correctly. However the trait line completely changed from what I had to something completely different… so now, if I want to use the same line/traits/trait-abilities I had before… I need to level & do hero challenges.

Note – the system itself is an improvement over the previous one. I just wish that rather than auto-allocating the hero points, they had let players decide where to allocate them. Or have a way to refund points (even if just a once off refund from the auto-allocation).

I for one am glad that the WvW requirement is going away. I do not have world completion on any character due to the WvW req – I do not like PvP in any game I play (and yes, I have tried both PvP and WvW in GW2). And I’ve had a string of bad luck where my server keeps getting the same color’s all the time.

I also have issue’s with hand-to-eye co-ordination & reflex’s, which makes things like dodging & such somewhat troublesome… so fighting other players can be quite difficult for me. I have tried joining zerg’s when I have tried, but still was not fun, enjoyable or went well. Also getting PM’ed abuse cause I suck didn’t help matters either.

I would hope that they make the World Completion an either/or situation – where you can get the World Complete & prize by either getting world complete in WvW zones or in PvE.

This way someone who just want’s to WvW but also wants a Legendary weapon can still do so without having to map the whole PvE world (the only exception would be needing to get the waypoints near the dungeon’s, so as to do the dungeons for tokens to buy the relevant gift), while also enabling PvE’ers who don’t want to face PvP the ability to do the same and ignore WvW entirely.

I personally don’t bother with the dailies anymore. I used to do the dailies & monthlies constantly in the old system, but that was due to the fact I got them just by doing what I wanted when I played. The new dailies are spread out all over the place and would involve map & character swapping and spending time doing stuff I just don’t want to do – and since a lot of the time I have limited time to actually play, I’d rather just be doing the stuff I want… rather than hopping around trying to finish dailies for some extra karma, xp & minor loot (ie crafting stuff).

And to those who might tell me to “Just go PvP/WvW” – nope, no thanx. Don’t like PvP and have no interest in it. I’ve tried PvP & WvW in GW2, didn’t like them and won’t spend my limited time doing stuff I don’t enjoy… just for some AP, & other minor nonsense.

Indeed they do still drop – I got 2 parts to the map just yesterday. So if your still working on the map then keep trying, and hopefully the RNG gods will be with you and you’ll get scrap 4 quickly

Sadly as of the 9/9/14 patch it is no longer possible to acquire either the Studded Shoulders or the Studded Helm skins. So if you do not have either of these unlocked, you will have to wait till ANet makes them acquirable in-game again.

jackaljag – My issue’s with dodging actually do have to do with fine motor control and reaction speed, well apart from the latency issue’s. I am generally ok, but I can’t rely on dodging to save me… too often I’ll attempt to dodge but still take the damage because either latency issue’s or hitting the dodge key too slowly. I had to re-bind the B key (default brings up the WvW stats page thing) because half the time I’d be hitting that key rather than V (or hitting both V & B ).

This is why Ranger, Guard & Warrior have been great to play.. as I either have something else tanking the hits for me (most of the time) or I can generally facetank. I run mace/shield on my guard… and the regen & shielding that provides is great for me. Side-strafing where I run in circles lets me avoid some attacks as well on both Warrior & Guard… so my issue’s with dodging isn’t such a big deal with them. Unfortunately I have had some major issue’s dealing with LS bosses… in fact just about every boss has caused me issues but have managed through perserverance (and luck! lol) to complete them.

I’m not fussed about having the most optimul meta build or such – as I said, not interested in WvW or PvP, and little interest in trying to do the big major world events. I just am looking for something that I can use to explore maps, do my personal story, do the living story and still be able to be a decent part of any zerging events in SilverWaste’s & such. I don’t mind doing the SW events when there are other people around, as it means less mobs going for me so less need for me to worry aboput misstiming dodge’s and such. However I do want to be able to contribute and not be a useless wet rag… lolz

BarnabeJonez – How does the Invigorating Precision thing work? Is this for a specific weapon set or any set is possible?

I know Engineer has a talent in one of it’s lines where you get hp regen whenever you have a kit equiped rather than standard weapon. Is the thief IP similiar? Like you get X hp back when you deal damage?

BrotherGrimm – I know how to dodge, my problem is timing dodges. Between latency and my own inability at times to properly hit the dodge key in time… I can’t rely on dodging to save me. I can never be sure of how well my ability to dodge will be at any one time, so can’t use builds that rely on dodging purely. I can facetank and circle-strafe fine on the characters I mainly play (ranger, Guard & Warrior)… and am looking for another medium armor class where I can do the same. I’ve completed my PS and all the LS playing this way… no interest in PvP or WvW… and not fussed if I can’t do dungeons or fractal’s because of non-meta builds and/or dodging issue’s. I will agree about the constant down state… in regards to the LS bosses, they were darned annoying.

Hi,

Just wondering what people thought would be the easier class to play between an Engineer or a Thief… for PvE, mapping, doing PS & LS, playing solo… for someone who has issue’s with dodging?

I do have and play a Ranger, Warrior & Guardian already… so no need to suggest them I’m looking to play another medium armor class… but due to limited character slots, I have to choose between either Thief or Engineer (ie only have 1 free slot, and can’t afford another slot atm).

I have no interest in WvW or s/tPvP… so meta builds etc for them are irrelevant to me.

I mentioned an issue with dodging – and that’s my biggest problem with GW2 – due to a combination of bad latency to the servers and medical reason’s… my ability to dodge attacks is very bad. I miss a lot of dodge’s when I try to dodge (ie I still get hit), so tend to just facetank or try and strafe around in circles when I can (or use my pet as a tank on my Ranger).

So I’m looking at Engineer & Thief… and read quite a few threads and such on them, but most seem focused on WvW or PvP stufgf… not your everyday casual PvE playing – ie mapping, doing DE, doing the PS, doing LS and SW events. Not sure which would be easier/better – from what I’ve read it’s likely Engineer rather than Thief… but thought I’d post and check/ask.

Thank you in advance for any help/advice/thoughts.

So with ele most of the time you can stay in 1 attunement and not have too much of a problem? Would I be correct in assuming then that the whole attunement swapping emphasis is revolving around PvP, WvW and Fractal’s?

I remember trying necro minion master, and at that time they didn’t respond very fast when I attacked. I ended up being attacked most of the time. Has that changed?

Staff Ele is slower paced? I’m not sure I follow – Is this because it’s not as close range and thus not having to dodge as much as say a D/D ele would ?

Solandri.9640:

Snowmoon.1758:

i’ve got a ranger too and yea it seems all rangers need to wear ultra conservative.
No skimpy looks, not even a tiny bit of skin.
They might as well change the class name to “Nun” instead.

Oh, I wouldn’t say that.

What armor pieces are those?

and in regards to armor diversity – looking through the wardrobe, Medium armor does have a lot of trenchcoat style armor to me.

I’m wanting to play a light armor class, but not sure which would likely be the easiest to play. I do have a Guardian, Warrior & Ranger already… so I’m not a total stranger to the game, but I’d also state I’m not all that experienced (or good lol) at the game either.

I don’t PvP / WvW, so how good a class does in them is not an issue. And this is a problem for me – I’ve tried reading the specific forums for Ele / Mesmer / Necro but the forums are filled with PvP/WvW commentary, which doesn’t help me.

I have played each class up to around lvl 20 (ages ago, prior to the leveling changes) but this was quite some time ago… and stopped playing them to focus more on guardian.

I generally only do open world exploring, hearts & DE’s. I want to play a light armor class, but unsure what would be a good class for someone who is not super skilled, or has great reaction’s or ping/latency – my ping/latency to GW2 server’s is not great, and I have bad eye-to-hand coordination and bad reflexes.

From what I’ve read elementalist’s rely heavily on dodging and constantly swapping attunements, Mesmer’s are terrible till later levels due to needing traits/skills to be decent, and most of Necro forum seems to be a big whinge.

So if anyone could give me some advice on which out of the 3 light armor classes would likely be easiest for a bad ping/reaction player in open world PvE… that would be appreciated.

Edit – and please no “don’t bother due to NPE” stuff. There’s enough of this discussion in general forums.

Posting on behalf of someone else, they state it has been over 3 days since ticket lodged.

Ticket: 827281
Lodged for: Forgotten Password

I really hope they do not do this. And based on the reason’s why they made the skill system it is today, they will not be doing this.

Do you know the stated reason why ANet moved away from the skill system they had in Guild Wars 1 to what they used in Guild Wars 2?

Quite Simple – in the process of working on each expansion for GW1 (Factions & Nightfall) they were finding it impossible to fairly, easily and decently balance each and every class with the addition of 20-30+ new skills. Each expansion added not only 2 new classes (apart from GW:EotN), but a plethora of new skills for the existing classes – and they had to attempt to balance both the new classes and new skills so they had some semblance of balance between each expansion.

And you know what? – They stunk at it. GW1 after Factions was an ungodly mess of unbalanced skills and classes, which just got worse after Nightfall got released. And lets not talk about PvE skills from Eye of the North (the final non-standalone expansion, the other 2 were stand-alone expansions) in which they threw any semblance of balance out the window.

So no, lets not toss balance out the window and add a stupid high number of new skills that make a lot of current skills pointless, weak, etc. Last thing we need is even MORE stupid imbalance in the game… we have enough of this problem as it stands. I’d much rather they spend the time fixing the skills we already have, as well as improving the AI on existing mobs so fights are more interesting rather than the boring all-dps meta we have now (where only a select selection of skills actually gets used anyways)

Finally – please tell me any MMO which has an expansion which adds 20-30+ skills per class/profession? Because apart from GW1 Factions, Nightfall & EotN I can’t think of any.

- WoW? Nope, it adds like 5 skills per class max per expansion
- SW:TOR? Nope, it added 3 skills per class in it’s 1 expansion.
- Eve Online? Nope.
- STO? Nope
- Rift? Nope

Hi,

Wasn’t sure if this should go in Warrior forums or here, as it is a question relating to warrior’s… but not really asking after builds or such.

What I am wondering about is why do I keep reading from ppl about how easy Warrior’s are in PvE, how OP they are, best survivability, etc – when in my limited experience I have not found that at all.

And yes, I know I am discussing low level gameplay – but it’s all I have to work with/on right now. Also, I take a fair amount of time to level… so just getting to 80 to get all traits, etc to compare… is not really that feasible. So at the level I’m talking about… skills are limited & no traits available.

What got me really question this is the experiences I recently had in leveling 2 human characters and how vastly different they were. One was a guardian and the other was a warrior – I leveled both up to lvl 20 by doing Queensdale low level hearts & DE’s, mapping all the cities and working on other race’s starting area’s.

At this point I went back to finish Queensdale off, and this is probably the biggest point where I noticed how different things were. On my guardian I had little troubles doing the final hearts on the map, while on my warrior I was struggling to stay alive doing the exact same fights – this is doing the heart around where the Shadow Behemoth (sp?) event happens, so is a lvl 15 heart.

- My guardian was wearing lvl 10 white +power armor (ie npc shop bought)
- My warrior was wearing lvl 20 white +power/precision armor (npc shop bought)
- Both were using npc shop bought lvl 20 weapons
- I was using Mace/Shield on my guardian (yes, it’s the self-healing setup)
- I tried sword/shield, axe/shield/ axe/mace & 2-handed hammer on my warrior
- I did have regen shouts on guardian, but never used them
- Warrior was mainly signets… I did use FGJ (the perma-might shout)
- I tried both healing sig & the starting heal on my warrior.

It just seems to baffle me somewhat, as I keep reading how great Warrior’s are in PvE, and how survivable, etc… yet I can’t say I have experience that. My guardian with worse gear & lower health dealt much better with both normal & vet mobs than the Warrior did.

Yes, I understand that the guardian has 2 sources of constant healing – mace heals and virtue-of-healing compared to Warrior’s 1 source of healing (skill #6)… but the difference has been so vastly different – guardian mowing through fights with me hardly having to worry about death, compared to the warrior which was constantly getting knocked to low health or dying.

Does the increased passive healing the guardian get with mace make that huge of a difference? As it seems the F2 healing virtue is not that much, but then again.. Healing Signet on warrior doesn’t seem to heal for all that much either (either passively or when actively used.. in fact it wasn’t even getting me back to half health when used when I was nearly dead).

I’ve continued on with my warrior & guardian in mapping out the starter zones… and my experience has been consistent – my warrior struggles in fights, constantly looses lots of health, I have to dodge roll everything and run around in circles either waiting for passive healing or healing skill to get off cd vs my guardian who face-tanks everything with no trouble. Guardian only has issue’s vs groups really…

To be honest, it’s been fairly frustrating and annoying to play my warrior. Both heavy armor classes with melee options… yet the one ppl seem to say is so good and easy, is the one I am struggling the most with.

Maybe this means Warrior is just not for me? Would be a shame, as I actually really like warrior longbow vs guardian scepter… but longbow is really only good vs ranged enemies or when in a group and others can keep the melee enemies occupied. Well, at least imo… seems a bit silly to use bow when enemies right in your face.

Has there been any indication as to how the new wardrobe changes will be dealing with the skins you can get in the HoM? Or the Achievement gear skins?

Because as it stands now, anyone who has linked a GW1 & GW2 account and has unlocked anything, can just travel there and get the skins for armor, weapons, focus, etc at any time they want and freely apply to what they want for the look.

Same goes with the unlocked achievement skins anyone at anytime can just go to their achievement panel, grab a skin and then apply it to their gear.

- Any indication if this will be changed with these new changes?
- Will we now need to use transformation charges to apply these skins once this change is done? (and thus likely/possibly cost gold/gems in the end, unlike right now)
- Or will it remain as it is, that HoM & Achievement rewards stay as an “apply Once” item that you can get and use at anytime?

I’ve tried reading a few threads, esp those with ANet staff answering.. but haven’t seen any answer on this. Most ppl are commenting about the dye & town clothing changes… but I’m left wondering what will happen to the HoM & achievement skin rewards.

Posting on behalf of someone else (as they can not access/post on these forums).

Request #22905
Issue: I forgot my GW2 password & I lost Access to the GW2 forums!
Statement from person: “My ticket is 3+ days old, my request number is #22905, can you look into why this is taking so long?”

Hi,

I just killed the Skeletal Lich in the Mad King’s Maze for the first time but did not get the achievement for killing it. I did get “gold” reward status for the event to kill it, and did get the chest rewards – yet no achievement.

Server: Sea of Sorrows
Map: Mad King’s Dungeon
Time killed: Approx 8:30 am (10:30 pm UTC)
Date: 18th October 2013 (17th October UTC)
In Group: No, I was not in a group.
Overflow: No, I was not in an overflow server.

I was at the fight for the majority of the time – when I got there the Lich was at around 90% health, we were stacking on the Lich and attacking. I did enough damage to attain Gold status for the event to kill it.

I did the fight on my level 80 Asura Guardian, fighting with mace & shield – main abilities used were mace #1 & #2, as well as using my F1 skill and elite (#7 attack golem) whenever it came off cooldown.

I have successfully gotten the achievement’s for killing both the High Count Viscount of Candy Corn and the Labyrinthine Horror

Does 2 sources of might stack? I ask because Signet of Strength gives 30% chance of applying might, and because I’m also using EM I get might from that whenever I crit as well – would I get more might stacks if SoS procced at a crit, or only get the highest stack of might while loosing the benefit from the other?

Also regarding Omnomberry pies – I don’t use consumables. I don’t have a character with cooking, nor can I afford to buy food to keep it always active. If I was going into a dungeon or such I obviously would consider them … but not for general world PvE.

What about Sigil of Air? It’s cheap.. lolz. 30% chance of added lightening damage.

Decided to compare 2 zerker builds with the above builds… (using the same mace/shield build from above, just switched gear around):

All Zerker w/Beryl gems:
– Power: 2,107
– Effective power: 4,899
– Health: 14,765
– Armor: 2,388
– Effective health: 19.204
– Crit Chance: 64.13%
– Crit Damage: 93%

All Zerker w/Ruby gems:
– Power: 2,107
– Effective power: 5,201
– Health: 13,025
– Armor: 2,388
– Effective health: 16,941
– Crit Chance: 72.42%
– Crit Damage: 93%

Makes me cringe seeing the low health. Using this would require good dodging right? And good use of aegis for when you can’t dodge? Due to bad eye-to-hand co-ordination, I generally don’t dodge very well… and not sure if the default aegis every 40 seconds would block enough hits, esp vs groups. Thought I’d look at it to be fair… and just see how different it was to what I’m looking at doing.

Thank you for the helpful replies so far

Really glad you pointed out the change in traits – I feel silly now that I’ve been using traits that don’t benefit me much. I’ve switched them to what foofad suggested – seeing as I do use a signet for healing (and use it quite a bit when fighting groups or tougher mobs), so the trait changes will benefit me a lot more than what I had.

In regard to switching out the Rubies – this only applies to weapons and shield right? So Blood Sigil on weapon and Force sigil on shield? (the exotic Blood is still slightly expansive (for me! lolz), but your right.. not as expensive as Fire (~1g50s vs ~5g50s))

I know there is an debate/argument weather sword or mace is higher dps, but I’ve not really been following that and right now not too bothered either way with it. I understand for those trying to get the best dps in dungeons, l80 events, etc will be aiming at fine tuning dps and such – and thats fine for them, but right now this is not what I’m interested in.

Most RHS dps builds likely go all beserker type gear right? And likely different traits as well – ones utilizing virtues?

I can see the thinking behind all this, as the faster you kill mobs the less damage they do, and thus the less vit & toughness you need. Also when looking at dungeon boss mobs, they can kill you in 1-2 hits no matter how much vit and/or toughness you have, so pointless trying to go defensive at all (and GW2 aggro has a love affair with ppl with high toughness… as I’ve found out numerious times in group events).

But yeah, as you can gather I’m not trying to be up there with the full dps builds – I know some might think I’m silly, and maybe I am, but I admit I have a thing about hating seeing low health and/or effective health. And also, because I tend to not group that much and have found myself solo’ing eventsa, vet’s, etc and found myself struggling to survive because of fighting groups of mobs… I guess that puts me off going zerker’s & such. I know the ability to cleave is vital for these group situations, and maybe going all zerker would be the best option to kill groups faster than they can kill me… but I can’t get over the hurdle that is my hangups, play-style & what I’ve done in previous games.

In regard to armor (this is with changes traits & sigils):

Soldier – only achievable with karma, so will take a long time to get. Also, deals less damage as you said.
– Power: 2,107
– Effective power: 4,244
– Health: 16,545
– Armor: 2,740
– Effective health: 24,691
– Crit Chance: 56.5%
– Crit Damage: 67%

Valkyrie – is fairly affordable on the TC, so easier to obtain for me. Similar health, though less EH while giving higher damage.
– Power: 2,107
– Effective power: 4,589
– Health: 16,545
– Armor: 2,388
– Effective health: 21,519
– Crit Chance: 55.66%
– Crit Damage: 93%

Knights – push’s toughness up, but loose vit. switch from ruby to Beryl lowers crit % but provides vit.
– Power: 1,964
– Effective power: 4202
– Health: 14,765
– Armor: 2,883
– Effective health: 23,185
– Crit Chance: 65.31%
– Crit Damage: 67%

So in regard to my build, it seems it comes down to what you said – do I want to deal less damage but cope a bit better vs direct damage, or sacrifice a bit of that health and deal more damage. The other thing for me is – do I want to be able to get the pieces fairly quickly, or be stuck farming DE’s for karma for the items. (as it stands, I think I have karma for 1 piece… yay me! lol).

Looking at all this, I’m thinking Valkyrie is probably the best – while it has the lowest EHP, it has a decently high hp figure to sooth my silly phobia… and has the highest damage of all 3.

Regarding dungeons – I said ‘no dungeons’ because at the moment I’m not that interested/keen on them as I’m still working through the world, story, etc. Also, because just about every “PvE” build I see suggested revolves around dungeons – and while I understand that will be the focus of most ppl’s games (those doing PvE, not those interested in WvW, PvP, etc), it’s not my focus right now… so trying/hoping not to get advice/builds/etc stacked in favor of grouping and vs boss fights only. Maybe later when I have more time (busy rl right now) I’ll look into them. I am glad to know what I’m thinking of doing shouldn’t be a problem.

Just recently got my guardian to level 80, and I’m trying to decide what kind of gear and build to go – right now I’m focusing on trying to get a high crit mace or sword build that has some survivability (ie no glass cannon). Some things to note:

- This is not for PvP or WvW or dungeons
- Not using ascended gear in my calc’s, as I have none and don’t see myself getting any in the near future
- I’m not rich, so can’t just go switching gear without a thought.
- I don’t use food or other consumables
- not for grouping
- My back item in all builds is set to “Shaman” as I’m using the free backitem from the LS Southsun event.
So here is the current build I use & gear (also note, this isn’t exactly 100% my stats.. as I’m wearing rare quality goods, not exotic.. but there’s no way to show that in the calc):

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/guardian/?3.1|9.1c.a7.e.1c.a7|0.0.0.0.0.0|1c.a7.1c.a7.1c.a7.1c.a7.1c.a7.1c.a7|1g.67.1g.67.1g.67.1g.67.1g.67.1d.67|0.u16b.k67.k28.0|0.0|v.16.18.1a.4|e

Right now as you can see I don’t have +10 in Zeal for the +damage when target is on fire. I personally don’t remember to use my virtues often enough for me to feel like it’s warranted for just the few seconds enemies are on fire every 5 attacks – and yes, I do know I have passives & trait which boosts what I can do for the times I do remember to use my virtue of justice. This gives me high crit rate with decent crit damage (in-game doesn’t seem to show the crit boost I should be getting from RHS). I also get freq stacks of might & vigor, but my only self healing is via healing skill, healing passive & when I remember to dodgeroll.

Switching to sword: http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/guardian/?3.1|c.1c.a7.e.1c.a7|0.0.0.0.0.0|1c.a7.1c.a7.1c.a7.1c.a7.1c.a7.1c.a7|1g.67.1g.67.1g.67.1g.67.1g.67.1d.67|0.u1ab.k69.k28.0|0.0|v.16.18.1a.4|e

Thing is, I’m looking to upgrade my armor to exotic level as I can afford it, and “soldier” armor might not be the best option as it’s non craftable and only gotten via karma, dungeons or PvP – which means it’s not really ideal for me as I don’t want to farm dungeons, not interested in WvW and it will take me way too long to get the karma needed. So starting to look at other options – such as Knights or Valkryie.

So, here’s some thoughts, going back to mace/shield.

- I’m not interested in all berserkers as I want survivability (and I don’t consider glass cannon to be that – and have enough issue at times with nearly dying.. yes, I’m that bad :P)
- I guess I like to have a decent health pool… lol
- All these builds are using the +90 toughness with shield trait and not the +5% damage when using mace trait. These can be swapped.

Knights: http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/guardian/?3.1|9.1n.a1.e.1n.a1|0.0.0.0.0.0|1n.a1.1n.a1.1n.a1.1n.a1.1n.a1.1n.a1|1g.61.1g.61.1g.61.1g.61.1g.61.1d.61|0.u16b.k69.k28.0|0.0|v.16.18.1a.4|e

Valkryie: http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/guardian/?3.1|9.1p.a7.e.1p.a7|0.0.0.0.0.0|1p.a7.1p.a7.1p.a7.1p.a7.1p.a7.1p.a7|1g.67.1g.67.1g.67.1g.67.1g.67.1d.67|0.u16b.k69.k28.0|0.0|v.16.18.1a.4|e

Mix #1: http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/guardian/?3.1|9.1n.a7.e.1n.a7|0.0.0.0.0.0|1p.a1.1p.a1.1p.a1.1p.a1.1p.a1.1p.a1|1g.67.1g.67.1g.67.1g.67.1g.67.1d.67|0.u16b.k69.k28.0|0.0|v.16.18.1a.4|e

Mix #2: http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/guardian/?3.1|9.1p.a1.e.1p.a1|0.0.0.0.0.0|1n.a1.1n.a1.1n.a1.1n.a1.1n.a1.1n.a1|1g.61.1g.61.1g.61.1g.61.1g.61.1d.61|0.u16b.k69.k28.0|0.0|v.16.18.1a.4|e

Mix #3: http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/guardian/?3.1|9.1p.9c.e.1p.9c|0.0.0.0.0.0|1n.9c.1n.9c.1n.9c.1n.9c.1n.9c.1n.9c|1g.61.1g.61.1g.61.1g.61.1g.61.1d.61|0.u16b.k69.k28.0|0.0|v.16.18.1a.4|e

Mix #4: http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/guardian/?3.1|9.1n.9c.e.1n.9c|0.0.0.0.0.0|1p.9c.1p.9c.1p.9c.1p.9c.1p.9c.1p.9c|1g.67.1g.67.1g.67.1g.67.1g.67.1d.67|0.u16b.k69.k28.0|0.0|v.16.18.1a.4|e

My main goals:

- have high crit rate @ 50-55+% while also having high crit damage %.
- Have decent highish health pool @ 17-18+K
- Have good/decent/ok Effective Health (EHP) @ 21-22+K
- Have good/decent/ok Effective power @ 4-4.2+K

- Yes I know mace is the lowest damage weapon for guardians. I’m not stuck on it, so am willing to swap… just not interested in a GS or Hammer build right now. Which is why I’m looking at either the mace or sword.

This should give me decent survivability in general PvE (again, not bothered with dungeons or Fractals) while still being able to deal out a good bit of damage (although I know not as much as other glass cannon type builds or other classes)… and not trying to focus on an aspect that I know I am very, very weak on (ie activating virtues… lolz).

But I would still love some suggestions or help in regards to this. Cause as I’ve said, I’m not rich.. so it’s something I want to work towards and then keep for awhile.

VirtualBS – never had any problems with my video cards in other games. I’ve seen them run up as high as 87-88^C in Metro2033 in summer without any artifacing or problems. I unfortunately have high ambient temp’s, so without spending a fortune on water-cooling or on air-conditioning… I can’t do much about the temp’s. I will look into doing a custom fan profile though, as it might help.

deltaconnected – ahh, well I just searched and found out my sound drivers aren’t the latest. So might just update them. And if that doesn’t do anything, I’ll try removing them completely.

Also a bit of an update:

- was able to run the game yesterday with CFX disabled and experienced no crash at all.
- clean uninstalled 12.8 & 12.8 cap 3 and then installed 12.9 beta drivers and 12.9 cap 1 application profiles. Was able to play the game with CFX enabled without crashing.

Will keep monitoring – but it looks like my particular crash/lockup might have been caused by a combination of GW2, 12.8 drivers and CFX being enabled. Hopefully now that I’m using 12.9 beta drivers, the problem will be resolved.

deltaconnected – I ran that, and my machine is showing up performing slightly better than most others with similar hardware to mine. I’m no expert on how accurate or reliable the “basic” test’s are, or what the scores mean – but for my hardware, the majority scored between 3,600-4200, with the next biggest getting 4200-4800. I was in the second lot with ~4,500.

What I meant in regards to the sound part – when the computer locks up, any sound that is playing at the time keeps on playing. So if there is music playing, the music keeps playing. I think the sound is looping however and not just continuing as normal.

ZaxanRazor – Yes, my video card does have HDMI out. Although I frequently dual-screen, which I can’t do with HDMI. And yes, my sound chipset is Realtek Audio.

What your suggesting isn’t something I’d thought about. Guess it’s something to possibly try.

VirtualBS – Thank you for linking that thread. I’d searched around, but didn’t see that thread. It seems I’m not the only person experiencing weird lockup’s like I am. In regards to your post there:

Ran the app crash log viewer, no crash files located/found. Only error/logs showing related to AMD/ATI drivers not closing correctly when shutting down my computer, nothing when I’ve experienced the lockups caused by GW2.

BSOD – I’ve never seen a BSOD with GW2. When the machine locks up, it either stays showing the same screen that it was showing when it frooze up, or goes to a black screen. I’ve left it sitting for 5-10 minutes, but no BSOD and no recovery back to game or desktop. There’s no dump files or anything, no bsod/crash codes either. So can’t check/compare anything with the bsod checker you linked to.

One update – I disabled CFX today before playing GW2, and played and the game did not crash or lock my computer up. This is not conclusive proof of anything, but it’s possibly a sign that the lockup issue with GW2 is related somehow to crossfire. I’m going to keep crossfire disabled for now (well, at least while playing GW2) and see if I get anymore lockups – will have to wait at least a day to properly check again. I’ll update again at that time.

PS. Haven’t run the burn test yet. I’ll run that tonight when I have the time to run it and let it go for awhile.

I would like to add / confirm – this is not an overheating issue. I had the day off today and used HWMonitor to keep an eye on the temp’s for my CPU & GPU’s.

CPU – never went higher than 55^c, even after hours of GW2 running
GPU – never went higher than 85^c.

Both these temp’s are below the threshold point, so it can’t be a overheating issue. I have considered a few different possibilities, but I’m not sure if I’m on the right track with any of them. Here they are (in no particular order):

a) PSU failure – power supply failure could be causing the issue. If it’s spiking or dropping power under demand it might explain the issue. The biggest problem I have with this theory is why does it only ever happen with GW2, and only the 1st time I run it in a day?

b) RAM failure – Can ram failure completely lock/freeze a computer up? And again, why with only GW2? Maybe there is some weird co-incidence that GW2 is trying to use ram that never gets used by anything else, and that ram is faulty and thus only showing up when I run GW2… but that seems unlikely, and again, why only the first time?

c) GPU failure – another possibility. If my video cards are failing, it could explain why the system is hanging/locking-up. But.. same questions as with a & b..

d) Driver issue’s – I’m suspecting this is could be the issue, but not sure. Reason I’m thinking is when the system locks up, it sort-of acts/seems like it does when the video drivers stop responding (it has only happened to me rarely over the years, but it has happened). Thing is, unless my memory is off, the drivers always recovered previously and I could continue to use my computer (although I rebooted anyways). So it could be bad drivers, could be a conflict between the drivers and GW2..

Does anyone else have any other thoughts / suggestions as to what might be causing this issue? Or what I could try to find out what could be causing this issue? Or a possible solution? I’m puzzled/baffled by this problem… and wish I knew what could be causing the issue.

Hi,

I have a particularly weird issue, that happens constantly, but only once a day. What will happen is I’ll log into GW2, select a character and start playing, then within 5-10 minutes my computer will completely lock up – cursor won’t move, sound still plays and screen sometimes goes black (but not always). At this point I am forced to hard reboot my computer (by pressing the reboot button on my case) as ctrl-alt-del or alt-f4 does nothing.

What is bizarre about this is this only ever happens the first time I play the game. Once this has happened, I can play the game from then on without any problems (once the computer has restarted). Also, if I alt-tab out of the game on my first time playing, this generally lets me play without experiencing this complete hard-lockup of my computer (not always, but at least 70-80% of the time if I alt-tab out then go back, I don’t get a hard lockup).

This only ever happens with Guild Wars 2 – I can play other games fine without any problem. I’ve tried playing some of my other games before GW2 just to see – including Skyrim, Fallout: New Vegas, Portal 2, Dues Ex: Human Revolutions, Metro 2033, The Witcher 2, & Mass Effect 3 – but they can play without locking my computer up, it’s only GW2 which does this.

I don’t believe it’s a problem with either CPU or GPU overheating, as I have monitored my temps when the game has been running, as well as other games, and CPU max’s at 57-58^C and GPU’s at 80-85^C. Both these temp’s are under the max ‘safe’ temp’s for them, so shouldn’t be a problem (I have a decent/good case with good cooling, but high ambient temps).

Here’s my specs:

CPU: AMD Phenom II x4 965 @ 3.7 MHz
Ram: 8gb DDR3-1333 7-7-7-21
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-890FXA-UD5
Video Card(s): 2x HD5870 1gb (CFX)
PSU: Corsair HX850W
OS: Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit
Video Driver: 12.8
Application Profiles: 12.8 cap 3

My ATI/AMD settings are all set to defaults. I also have not disabled CFX – and yes, I know it’s likely giving me negative scaling right now (ie I’d likely get better performance disabling CFX). I haven’t changed any settings in the AMD Vision Engine Control Centre. I’ve also checked the settings as stated in the AMD Black Screen sticky. My windows is up-to-date as well.

I’m not sure what’s causing this problem – as I said, it only happens with GW2, and only the very first time I play the game. The 1st time it’ll lock my computer up, but from then on I can play it without a problem – or if I remember, alt-tab out and back into the game and generally avoid this issue.

Please find attached 4 files:

ArenaNet.log
NetworkDiag.txt – I just ran GW2 with the -diag command. This was done prior to running GW2 today.
DxDiag32bit.txt – DxDiag 32-bit version
DxDiag64bit.txt – DxDiag 64-bit version (I don’t know what, if any, difference in the information gathered via either version)

I hope these files might help find out what is causing this issue, and find some resolution – it is getting fairly annoying to have to hard reboot my computer if I don’t remember to alt-tab out (or if alt-tabbing doesn’t work).