Guild Wars 2

Some of the versions (like asus) of the gtx 750ti have a 6pin connector, while others (msi) are powered only through the pcie connection.

If you buy one that requires a 6pin connector and your psu doesnt have 4pin molex connectors available for the included adapter, you will not be able to power the card.

make sure you buy the correct version. My suggestion would be the msi version as it doesnt have any extra power connectors required. (I’m a msi fan becasue twin frozr is awesome!)

Also i just remembered the 7750 has low profile versions. If you are using a slim form pc, then you will have to wait until a low profile version of the 750ti is released (which im sure they will eventually.)

The low profile 7750’s can even run on a oem 250w slim form and have the same power usage. If you can run a 7750 on that psu then you can run a 750ti, the total power draw is similar. max system power draw is like 180w at load with the card pulling ~6 (60w) amps from the 12v rail.

To consider bottlenecks, get gpuz/evga precision/msi afterburner and see if your gpu usage is hitting 99% while you play the game. If it’s not maxing out, then upgrading your card will do nothing.

If your 7750 is indeed being maxed then the 750ti will be a huge upgrade. While your cpu will be underpowered, if you turn down the cpu intensive settings (character model limit, reflections, shadows) you will a big fps boost while solo with the new card. In large groups you fps might increase by a few, but thats cpu dependent. The oc’ed 750ti’s perform similar to 660’s which should get 50-60@1080p with everything high (other than the previously mentioned settings). But your mileage may vary.

However, at current prices for the 750ti you could possibly invest in a $20 psu like the cx 430 and use a r7 265 for a similar cost which should give you better performance.

Espionage.3685:

Did Eyefinity get popular all of a sudden? I barely heard mention of it in the past, and now recently I’ve seen about 4-5 different threads about it.

Makes me want to hook my setup back up.

Nah its just that the new drivers + game patches + os updates have been a lot more frequent recently and has messed up a few settings.

Normally you don’t really notice this on a standard setup, but eyefinity/surround settings have always been more sensitive to changes, The settings pretty much have to be PERFECT or else you start getting problems.

Edit i realized it is also post holidays in a lot of asia so some of that holiday cash is going towards new graphics hardware and multi monitor setups i guess?

OMG NOT THIS AGAIN. EVERY TIME A TREAD LIKE THIS IS MADE A BABY QUAGGAN GETS EATEN BY THE KRAIT. THINK OF THE BABY QUAGGANS! WHY WON’T ANYONE THINK ABOUT THE BABY QUAGGANS.

COO…..#BRINGQUAGGANSBACKTOWVW

When you remove the aoe cap it just benefits the zerg more. I know you all think that a 5 man ground of zerker eles can dominate but consider this: a 40man zerg with 15 warriors would be able to heal 30k hp instantly just by the use of 1 shout, most hammer warriors run 2/3 shouts so you are looking at doing 60-90k hp regen just from the wars. Even assuming you poisoned them all, thats still 40k healing in 2 instant cast shouts, and this doesn’t even include the guards or eles.

They would have 100% protection uptime and almost unlimited condi cleanse so to down that 40 man zerg you would have to hit them with almost 45k direct damage in less than 1 second and make sure you down them all, because if you dont, they will instantly heal back to full hp.

The removal of the aoe cap would make spike damage the meta. It would encourage the instant kill classes that every mmo has discouraged because theres no real flow to combat or time to make any decisions to react. To remove the aoe cap, you would have to seriously redesign every class’s game mechanics from scratch, which we all know a net will not do.

they made player/npc culling a graphics setting under character model limit. Set this to low/lowest to achieve the same performance at launch.

try deleting the local.dat, do clean install of drivers, or of the game as a last resort

if all else fails, try using flawless widescreen as people seem to have success with that.

the -uispanallmonitors function should fix the ui issues, though i think scaling was fixed awhile ago

other things you could try: deleteing the local settings file, rolling back/clean installing drivers, doing a clean install of the game (as a last resort)

Do the problems still occur with in Fullscreen Windowed mode?

sry, i use nVidia surround and it seems support for it is slightly better than eyefinity.

You could always go for flawless widescreen as it supports gw2.

shadows consume a lot of cpu power, turning off the dynamics shadows (Low or Off settings) boost performance significantly

People say AMD is bad not because of it’s performance, but performance to price. With intel’s new aggressive pricing its hard to recommend an amd processor at this time.

As sirsquishy said, his 8350 ($189 atm)has slightly less performance than an i3 but at current prices is $75 more expensive (haswell i3-4130 3.4 ghz at $115 ). To reach intels price levels, you have to go with a low end (or older gen) 6000 or a mid range 4000 from amd, and the performance gap of those chips to the new i3’s is even greater than that of the 8350.

Even with the tweaks mentioned above, AMD just can’t hit the price/performance at the moment which in laymans terms makes them “bad”.

Seems like a software issue from the log. unable to load textures.

try doing a repair (https://help.guildwars2.com/entries/28148006-Repairing-the-Game-Client) on your gw2?

also set anti aliasing to application controlled in the nvidia control center. Maybe try a clean installation of the nvidia beta driver?

OMG YES FIX THIS ANET!

tom hardware already did a comparison for gw2 when the game first launched isolating both clock speeds and core counts.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/guild-wars-2-performance-benchmark,3268-7.html

This was 2 gens ago, but the relative hardware disparity hasn’t really changed.

RebeccaJo.5403:

Would you ever load a torrented version of windows onto a computer? Given that it was already tested and showing no signs of corruption and such?
(I feel childish asking this question, but I am general curious)

No. Microsoft makes the windows disc files available online through their own official secure servers. They don’t work without the license key so Microsoft provides this service for repairs,builders, it people, or for people who have just lost their discs.

for example windows 7 home preimum 64 bit w/service pack 1: http://msft.digitalrivercontent.net/win/X17-58997.iso

Theres no need to take the risk of torrenting a copy from the internet when MS already has you covered.

as a side note: the best way to get discounts on ms software is if you have family/friends/children in college. Most schools provide their students with heavily discounted ms office and windows packages.

RebeccaJo.5403:

Also, I would rather run Windows 7. What is the difference between the regular and the OEM?

The difference between oem is non is that the oem version is forever locked onto the machine it was first installed.

a retail version can be moved inbetween machines. so say you built another computer a few years later (or you upgraded your motherboard, which to windows = new computer), if you have a retail version you can use that same license to install on your new computer. if you have a oem version your key is forever locked to your pc.

I personally suggest getting a retail version in case you need to move the license. or even boot camp/dual boot it on your macbook. only problem is that the only windows 7 version that has a transferable key still available for sale is the pro which costs $300.

Tbh for me 7 and 8 are pretty similar, just make double and triple sure you buy the 64bit version

RebeccaJo.5403:

Would a solid state drive be something I could add into the computer to upgrade it as I see necessary or needed

yes its pretty easy to do and there are many video tutorials on how to do it

just for example since i was already browsing lifehacker for wall paper ideas.

http://lifehacker.com/5932009/the-complete-guide-to-solid+state-drives

http://lifehacker.com/5837543/how-to-migrate-to-a-solid+state-drive-without-reinstalling-windows

Iv changed 4 things from your build

1) CX500 power supply to give you the connectors you need for the 270×. (which the antec 450 currently lacks)

2)moved your memory from 1333mhz to 1600mhz (this is the recommend memory speed) and it was cheaper!

3) upgraded your hard drive from 500gb to 1TB (the cost for those drives were very similar)

4)since you are moving from a macbook i assume you would need a windows os.

Options:
5) a cpu cooler would be nice(coolermaster hyper 212 evo), but its not really needed for non oced systems. its $30 extra

6) a nice solid state drive ill run you about $120. This will reduce your boot and load screen times by alot, but it is expensive, up to you in the end.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-4570 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor ($179.99 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z87-D3HP ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($126.98 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport XT 8GB (2 × 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($67.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($59.66 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: VisionTek Radeon R9 270X 2GB Video Card ($207.27 @ TigerDirect)
Case: Antec One ATX Mid Tower Case ($54.99 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: Corsair Builder 500W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($29.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer ($16.98 @ OutletPC)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 ($107.61 @ NCIX US)
Total: $851.46
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-02-08 02:51 EST-0500)

All the brands on pcpartpicker are for the most part great.

Iv had cards from all the brands that make the 270 atm except xfx and powercolor, but some love them so its up to you. Personally i would take the gigabyte since its the cheapest and the only one sub 200. Once you start edging close to $230 (like the sapphire) for a 270 i would then start looking at a 760 instead.

My favorite brand is MSI because their twinfrozr coolers are imo the best.

the 260x is much slower than the 270, and the price shows it. but for gw2 at 1080p the 260x can manage if you are on a budget and don’t want to spring for a 200 dollar card.

As for visiontek as a brand, they make good cards, but you cant say they really stand out from the rest of the companies they are competing with.

Yes they are about the same and will work almost identically. The chip is the most important part.

A primer on how video cards are made:

Amd makes the r9 270 chip, and hands it over to third party manufacturers (like visiontek,asus,gigabyte,msi,etc..) who make the rest of the card. What they do is design a circuit board around the chip (amd usually provides a reference example, but companies are free to modify it) and design a heatsink and fan system to keep the whole thing cool. And sell it in retail chains. The same processs goes for nvidia as well

Each company has their own take on the board and coolers, and sets the clock speeds of the graphics chip accordingly. Most of the time, they will perform very similarly (read: identical). and the only major difference inbetween the brands is how loud the fans get and how hot the chip gets, but the in game performance will be very similar.

Than being said, build and design quality are not identical. Heat slowly degrades silicon chips so the cooler a card runs (better heatsink and fan design) the better. Also the quality of the components used in between brands is not identical so this is why most people tend to stick to the well known brands. A final point is that in case your card is defective, well touted brands usually have better support and service to get you a replacement.

RebeccaJo.5403:

@Avelos Is there any game that requires one over the other (Mantle v. Physx)

Only game that uses mantle atm is Battlefield 4. Subsequent games one the DICE’s Frostbite engine should have that support too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frostbite_

As for physX:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_games_with_hardware-accelerated_PhysX_support

Clarification. Games that support Mantle don’t REQUIRE an amd card. They will run just fine on nvidia. Same goes for physX, games that have physX support will work fine on amd cards.

the 4570 is compatible with any board that has the lga socket1150. So all boards that have model numbers with Q/H/B/Z follow by 81, 85 or 87. So yes they would be compatible.

The Z series boards are very nice and built well but the H boards (from good brands) aren’t exactly pieces of junk either. In the end its all about what features you want on your board (like high quality onboard audio, integrated wifi connections, etc.) The Z boards usually come with just about everything and you can’t go wrong with buying one, but then again you are paying a premium for those features.

use http://pcpartpicker.com/parts/partlist/ plug in your parts and check for incompatibilities, which the site will do for you and flag.

As for the PSU, I only suggest a 500w+ psu becasue alot of the sub 500 watt units lack the proper pcie power connectors for some cards. That antec 450 only has 1 pcie 6 pin where as some cards need a 6+2=8 pin(asus 760), 2 × 6 pin(270x,ref 760’s), 6 and 8 pin (msi 760), etc. Molex to pcie adapters are ok, but its just easier to have the proper connections in the first place.

The 270 is a great card, if you can find it under 200 i would definitely recommend it.

@avelos Im not in either camp, when the r9 series launched they were priced amazingly, but the subsequent price hikes for almost the entire range and the price drops on nvidia’s cards have made the radeons harder to recommend on price/performance. unless you are playing primarly bf4 =p

http://www.cclonline.com/product/137963/NoMfgCode/All-CCL-Desktops/CCL-Elite-Raven-III-Gaming-PC/CCL-EL-RAV3/

that build seems ok i guess?

i would add a hyper 212 evo cpu cooler, change the ram to the g skill ripjaws cas9, switch to the western digital 7200 caviar 1tb hard drive from the seagate, and up the power supply to a 500w one from a good brand (ie corsair, antec). The 7870 is a great card but powercolor is a eh brand for me and their upgrade pricing on cards seems a bit dodgy. Also pick a case you like?

Tbh building a computer these days is pretty simple, most of it is just some simple screws to mount stuff and then plug and play everything else, and then install some drivers.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883258065

maybe?
specs seem ok but you never really know what they put into those prebuilt boxes.
You could also look at cyberpower or digital storm?

Though my suggestion would be to buy your components and take it to your local computer store/fry’s/microcenter/tigerdirect/etc and pay to get them to assemble and install windows and everything else for you. That way you know for sure you can get solid components in your rig without the hassle of building it yourself?

If you don’t plan to overclock your cpu, i would avoid k series intel chips and z series motherboards as they are used mainly for overclocking. You would be paying a premium for features you won’t be using.

My suggestion would be a Intel Core i5-4570 with the second build instead of the 4430. It’s a faster chip AND cheaper for some reason. Also a third party cpu cooler like the cooler master hyper 212 would be nice too (not necessary but recommended), along with a solid state drive for faster boot times/load time if you can fit it in your budget.

The 270X is a great card, but its suffering price hikes which make it almost as expensive as the nvidia gtx 760 but with less performance. So i would recommend the 760 for now unless the 270’s get a price drop. Or you could go for a lower end card in the 150-200 range which will also do fine

My last suggestion would be to get at a 500w power supply (Corsair CX500 would do nicely)instead of the 450.

With the builds you posted you will get 60+fps at 1080p for the most part with everything maxed (even super sample), except in la/bosstrains/wvw zergs. GW2 is very cpu heavy and changing that “character model limit” option will help relieve some of that load in heavily populated areas.

In other games you’ll get ~60 fps with high to ultra settings at 1080p.

imo mantle is amd finally waving the white flag on hardware performance vs intel and a desperate attempt at software optimization in order to close the gap.

This is bad for hardware improvement since intel hasn’t had real competition since the phenom II’s and it shows in the small marginal performance increases we’ve had since sandy bridge.

my point is that if amd is attemping to close the gap with software, what happens when the intel/microsoft/nvidia start doing that too? (which i hope they do) The performance gap goes back to what it is now, and amd is still lagging behind in the hardware department and intel still has no real incentive to greatly improve their processors. And we the consumer are still left with this marginal iteration rather than real innovation.

well amd just released mantle api with bf4 to relieve the cpu bottlenecks, so that might not be such a valid comparison. Unless mantle makes it into most games, i honestly can’t recommend any amd cpu/apu above 100usd over intels i series. even an good i3 might do better than that fx8350 in gw2 and most other games

streaming will not be a problem for 700 series nvidia cards as shadowplay is out(i think?) its a minimal if any performance drop for streaming.

I think amd has a version but im not sure.

Going from amd to anything intel will be a huge boost. I hear oced i3 are great. That 780 or 780ti will only be necessary if you plan on doing a eyefinity/surround setup, otherwise a 760 or 770 will do fine even with everything maxed out (except character model limit), even 270/x (7870 LE rebrand) will do good at native sampling.

next time you buy a card, unless you plan to sli i would suggest a non reference style coolers with multi fans that blow into the case (ie acx windforce twinfrozr). You pay a slight premium. but imo its worth it for the lower temps as long as your case has good airflow.

i still think its a problem with gpu boost (which auto ocs…alot ie 200+ mhz in some cases ) maybe on the card bios or voltage regulator but eh shrug in the end its still a rma.

yeah a 760 will be needed if you want super sample on (which i like on resolutions lower than 2560×1400/1600). my friends build is similar with a 4440 instead and his gpu hovers around 95% psu usage in open world with all options maxed (best textures override, hi res characters, ultra/high everything except character model limit, set to medium) 1080p.

If sampling set to native a 150-200 usd gpu will do well. and a high clock i3 will also do just fine. I posted that build at the max end of op’s budget with a setup that should run most games out now and prolly out in the next 2 years at 1080/1200p with at least 30 fps(more like 60) at high to ultra settings..

also i jsut realized that having a prebuilt dell means you cannot use the windows os (since thats an oem copy) that was on the machine, i have edited my previous build to reflect that fact.

your files are saved on your old hard drive, and yes you should be able to plug your old drive into your new compuer and retrive the files as long as you do it right.

i just googled the specs on that dell, it looks like it uses ddr2 ram so you are better off replacing it. also the hard drives of that era were small (sub 500 gb) and slow (5400rpm) so getting a new drive is a good idea. the optical drive should work since it was released 2008 and should have the proper modern ports

well your 9800 gt is very very outdated so replacing that would be a good idea.
and getting a i5 is heavily recommended, but and i3 should do ok.

can you use the dvd drive from your old computer? what about the ram sticks (as long as they are 1600 ddr3) from that too?

for a 1080p resolution gaming this non overclocking build should be good for just about any game at high to ultra settings. exclude the psu since you have it and you should be right at the 750 mark. switch to the i3 if you need to keep costs lower by about 50.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-4570 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor ($179.99 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: Asus B85M-G Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($69.99 @ NCIX US)
Memory: A-Data XPG V1.0 8GB (2 × 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($69.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Hitachi Deskstar 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($52.00 @ Amazon)
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 760 2GB Video Card ($239.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Corsair Graphite Series 230T Black ATX Mid Tower Case ($39.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Corsair Builder 500W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($39.99 @ Newegg)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 ($107.41 @ NCIX US)
Total: $799.35
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-02-06 18:56 EST-0500)

budget! or else we cant really help you

at this point i would just open a ticket and ask for a rma, fairly painless process with evga. most evga cards should have 3 if not 5 year warranty coverage so you should be good there.

removing the cooler and fan doesn’t void the warranty as long as you don’t damage anything. the only condition is that the product must be sent back in “out of box” condition. Anything you do to the card in between that doesnt damage it is ok (like removing the cooler for a waterblock) but for rma you must reinstall the cooler when you send it back.

if you bought the advanced rma plan you won’t even have downtime.

http://www.evga.com/support/warranty/

when your power limit is set to 50% the power usage is still 77%. The max power usage on that msi chart is says its 115% which will overheat your card especially if it’s a reference version with the blower style fan.

i still think its a problem with the gpu boost tech, which could be fixed with a clean driver install, but if not rma to evga.

also dont be so sure its not a psu problem either. psus do degrade and not all 700w units are of the same quality and reliablilty.

Ultra LSP650? you should get a psu from a reputable brand with at least a 80 bronze cert. 38A on the 12v rail is more like a 500w unit. your psu is NOT the place you want to cheap out on.

Also if you are getting a k series chip and z mobo to overclock, you should DEFINITELY get a good cpu cooler which i dont see. Coolermaster Hyper 212 is a pretty popular choice.

supply master to 4 points
max build master
max defense against guards
max guard killer
max siege bunker

at this point you should be experienced enough that commanders can trust you with siege so go with which ever one you like most.

supposedly there’s is new reinforcement master and assault master coming out so you might wanna save for those.

As other people have said, the current price increases and availablity problems of the 270 have made the 760 a better choice for now at least until the 270’s come back down to the sub 200 range

fermi posted a nice oc build so ill give you a non oc build that uses the extra money for a solid state hard drive

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-3350P 3.1GHz Quad-Core Processor ($176.98 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: Asus P8H77-M LE Micro ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($54.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Ares Series 8GB (2 × 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory ($80.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Crucial M500 240GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($122.99 @ NCIX US)
Storage: Hitachi Deskstar 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($52.00 @ Amazon)
Video Card: Zotac GeForce GTX 760 2GB Video Card ($232.99 @ Staples)
Power Supply: Corsair Builder 500W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($29.99 @ Newegg)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 ($107.41 @ NCIX US)
Total: $858.34
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-02-06 14:54 EST-0500)

or you could forgo the ssd and go with a overclocking capable set up with a k series i5 and a z mobo, (or spend that extra money on a 770. but that would help mainly in other games, not gw2.)

It could be your psu’s self protection shut down. which could be caused by the gpu boost tech nvidia has. either the temp target was set too high or is being ignored for the power target? or perhaps you are using a fps target and the card is trying to meet that despite the cpu bottleneck? because crashes that arent accompanied by anything else sounds like your card while trying to overclock itself is overloading your psu and its shutting its self down.

Nvidia cards should revert to safemode when it hits a thermal limit so even if your card is super overheating it should never just stop working.

first i would uninstall and remove all the overclock software you have (including saved settings), then reinstall the driver newest beta driver to see if it got corrupted randomly.

Also post your system specs (especially psu) and cpu/gpuz pics?

a 7870 or 770 will not be enough, even a r9 290 is barely enough for 60 fps at 5670×1080 resolution at max settings (not including cpu intensive options like character model limit). in open world pve (not boss trains/la). You might have to drop of of your graphics settings to medium. Although in wvw zergs due to the cpu bottleneck the 290 would be enough. In other games you will have anywhere from 25-45 fps.

For that kind of resolution you should go for a second 290 in the future if you already bought the card, just make sure you have a board capable of sli.

I just got a hold of 3 nec 30 inch 2560 × 1600 after my office upgraded to dell ultrasharps =). My 680 slis had pretty good performance at 5760×1200 surround (w/vsync), but is struggling mightily at 7680×1600 (having to cut down on settings to get 30+ in open world)

Unfortunately my asus p8z77 board has 2×16 channels, so i guess i’m out of luck for a tri sli? If I can ever offload these 680’s, do you think i should go for the 780/ti’s or 290/x’s? I’v read that the amd drivers have some issues and that the cards run hot, but the price to performance on those 290’s look soooo good.

does anyone here actually run 3/4 way sli/cf? i read the scaling and latency is not worth it after the 2nd card.

i thought acer used fsp psu’s with like 30 amps on the 12v rails, that should be enough to run even that setup with a 7750.

The HD 7750 is the fastest gfx card that doesnt require a 6pin pcie connector. The only reason to ever buy a 7750 for gaming (from a price to performance standpoint) is because you have a OEM PSU thats sub 300w and doesnt have a pcie 6pin connector. Or you have a Low Profile Case. In either case the 7750 is the top card you can buy at the moment (supposedly theres a low profile 7850 unicorn somewhere). The 7790 that other people have mentioned is much better from a price to performance stand point.

As for mobo/cpu, my recommendation for a budget chip is the 3350P (75% of the cost of a K series i5 for me) if you can still find one. and you can use the cheaper chipset mobos since the z’s are only really useful for K series chips.

Rangers can do specific things, but cant do them all at once, which is what the gwen combo provides.

The trap build is nice cc, but then you cant eat damage as well like a necro can. or provide boons like ele, or group heal/ condi removal/ banner rez like war/guard. which can all cc AND do other stuff.

The spirit support can pump out boons as well as a ele, but then you lack control from static field (which is not aoe capped!) also they die fast, makes it kind of unreliable

The pet and spirit STEAL BOONS which is terrible. And pets AIs have problems with fast moving melee trains.

Heal/sustain rangers do decent healing, but cant provide stability/cc like guards

Damage build/tanky ranger does good damage but doesn’t have enough aoe damage, has no aoe stun on 10s cd, and no constant GROUP condi removal while doing damage like a warrior.

Rangers currently cant do two things at once which makes them relegated to the “Tier 2” professions along with thieves and engies.

Mesmers are special since, chaos armor, null field, veil, portal, time warp, glamour bomb has no substitute but is very specific. and after they drop everything they twiddle their thumbs and wait to spike?

My friend has a prebuilt box that im upgrading so he can play this/other games. I gave him a cx500 psu I wasnt using and we are now debating between the r9 270(x)and the gtx 760 video card.

Iv never used either card, or their previous iterations. so i was hoping you guys could shed some light on probable performance in pve/wvw zergs. And also which one you would pick. Current prices for the two cards are pretty comparable at 230-250 USD due the significant increase in the 270’s price over the holidays.

Max budget for the card is 275 so 770/280x is a no go =( but any other suggestions are welcome!

Prebuilt specs:
i5 4440 processor
OEM MOBO
8g 1600 (2×4)ram
1tb hd +240 SSD

http://dulfy.net/2013/12/12/gw2-ascended-armor-stats/

for ascended armor stat comparisons. for the most part you are looking at a 50-60 increase in defense rating (works out to a 2% increase on total armor rating for a heavy with 3k armor) and total increased stats of +36 (or 42 for celestial). Which is like 1-2% per stat type. The difference is less than 1 stack of bloodlust and much less than than the differences in stats that can occur from the wvw bonus stats from ppt.

i hope/expect a week long doly parade happens after the end of season 1

Jade Quarry, Blackgate, Sanctum of Rall, and Sea of Sorrows all have decent oceanic populations. JQ most likely the biggest. SoR is putting out lower numbers these days, but that might be due to morale more than anything. Tarnished Coast has also shown some strength in the ocx timeslot recently as well.