Guild Wars 2

Ulion.5476:

Weaver have extra condition damage/duration traits.

There is only one trait (Weaver’s Prowess) that is a direct buff to condition damage/duration, and it competes against Swift Revenge, a 7% damage trait, for the same slot. There is no trait at the Grandmaster level looks like a clear “condi option.” So at the very least, I have a hard time seeing it as a specialization that encourages pure condi.

I think it’s very possible Arenanet is trying to position the Weaver to be a hybrid of the two. The more I think about it, the more I think that could be awesome. But I’m not convinced they’ll be able to get the balance just right to make us want to actually play like that. If building for pure power or pure condi is even slightly superior, everyone will probably just ignore the other entirely.

mUnROIDs.4629:

Leggendalex.4659:

I think it will be a condi/hybrid weaver with sword(or dagger)/focus and with fire, arcane and weaver traits (hoping that it will be different from the actual mono fire condition tempest)

Aren’t you worried that if that is the case it could end up as a jack of all trades but a master of none?

I don’t think “jack of all trades but a master of none” means anything concrete here. DPS + DPS = DPS, it’s just a question of whether the tuning and balance are there to incentivize it over the pure alternatives. Being a hybrid may actually have advantages if certain scenarios favor one type of damage over another.

If you’re asking for gearing advice, mine is that you shouldn’t even think about spending any money on it yet. All anyone can offer is their own speculation, and for all we know a Weaver may want new runes, sigils, and gear sets that aren’t even in the game yet. We need to see what it’s actually like in game, after enough time for a meta to have settled in.

ZERONIX.5873:

The main change has been a friendly mmo turning sour seemingly overnight . I just feel gw2 is taking a very dark turn.

Because no one was ever elitist before raids, right? The game is clearly dying from this malignant and totally new phenomenon.

I wish I could be so innocent and unaffected by the world to have such faith in the random MMO player, but I know it’s the same group of players who populated the dungeon LFG who are now trying to pug raids. You were delusional if you thought we could go from rangers and necromancers being kicked on sight from CoF runs to friendly and tolerant raid pugs. These people were demanding you to ping your gear before the content was challenging, you really thought they’d start to lighten up when they’re faced with something this demanding?

It’s ultimately up to you who you play with. I play with my friends and my guild and I’m blissfully unaware of 99% of the toxicity out there.

Mortifer.2946:

Requiring 700 gold investment in armor to just start playing raid is just against everything arenanet based their game on.

Your pug groups may be requiring it, but Arenanet doesn’t. As said above, you should probably have ascended trinkets, ideally ascended weapons, exotic armor of the proper stats and with the proper runes and sigils, and good consumables. I think it’s more than fair that the most challenging PvE content we have requires that much. If that isn’t yet doable for you, that should be your focus, rather than trying to raid.

But if you’ve got that stuff, then this thread is really more of a rant about the pugs you’re inexplicably trying to complete this content with. Find a guild, make some friends, raid with people you already know. You’ll have a way better experience.
Edit: if you already have a guild that you don’t like, find another. You can join five guilds.

Pugging is horrible in easy content, I shudder to think of trying to pug a raid. >.>

AESOkami.1072:

TL;DR: HoT’s story content + very difficult content = bad.

My feeling is that, realistically, if you’re interested in the game’s story you’re probably also someone who reads about it and watches videos outside of the game. Arenanet have said it’s a side-plot at best, they aren’t going to lock away crucial story elements in the raids. Many players find the Arah explorable paths so difficult and inaccessible they are (or were, anyway) willing to pay to get credit for the last bosses. And yet there’s been little complaint about the fairly important lore so many have missed in those paths.

I’m pretty apathetic to the idea of an “easy” mode provided for those who just want to see the story. I don’t have a huge philosophical problem with it, provided the best rewards are kept in the normal/challenging mode, but for the reasons above I don’t really see much of a point either.

Consider that it’s still fairly early. This content will be around and theoretically relevant for a long time. It’s only going to get easier as the community figures out builds and strategies. Just because you haven’t killed the Vale Guardian so soon doesn’t mean you never will.

Oh My God.8423:

I have tried to love Druid but the latest Celestial Avatar is just… …nevermind… (I really did tried)

Anyway, I know Druid is rather good as a healer, particularly in the Celestial Avatar form. But it is more of a burst heal, from what I can tell so far. So in terms of healing-per-second, it might be just as good as some other classes using dedicated healing gears.

So, which other classes can fill in the role of a healer in raid?

Many thanks!

I suspect druid may beat the other options in total raw healing output, but other classes bring other benefits. For instance, a tempest ele may put out less healing in total, but they spam so much Protection and Frost Aura that they don’t have as much to heal to begin with. Their heals probably average out to be comparable, as they aren’t reliant on a form with a recharge time to use their best heals. DPS may be another point of comparison, given that healers are usually still trying to do as much damage as they can.

I’ve heard of druids, tempest eles, Ventari druids, and even a guardian fulfilling the healing role, though I haven’t had enough experience to tell you how successful they all are. Any of the above can probably work in the right conditions, depending on the player and party composition.

Nivik.2961:

Just looking at the stats on this set up; is this not the “tailor made” perfect set up for an auramancer support tank. Boon duration, tuffness, vitality, and healing power…and to boot the name on this ascended set is Maklain’s minstrel insignia….I feel like Karl is trying to help us out here ; )

By the phrase “support tank,” do you mean you’re simultaneously holding the boss’s attention while also being the designated healer? In that case, at least for Vale Guardian, Minstrel’s might work well if it allows the other nine players to go full DPS.

However, not every boss follows the same aggro mechanics. For example, Sabetha does not seem to pick out the raid’s tank and stick to them, she seems to stand in the middle of the platform while AOEs are spammed at the whole raid. For a boss like that, you’re probably going to want to do better DPS than what Minstrel’s can provide.

YaYa.5879:

Edit : Yes i play on a mac, But i still paid good money for a game which was “Mac Compatible”.
Now that i spent 45€ for the game, 45€ for the expension you can’t tell me : "oh thanks for your money but the mac version isn’t made for this game (because i had no probleme before HOT).

To be fair, Arenanet has claimed the Mac version is a beta openly and publicly. The fact that it’s been left in beta for years while taking money for it is certainly worthy of criticism, but it’s equally true you had access to that information before you decided to spend 90€ to play it.

VaLee.5102:

Full zerk. Not kidding. Get Arcane Shield and you’re good to go.

Agreed. Assassin’s armor/staff here, with Berserker trinkets.

You don’t survive for any length of time by soaking up hits by gearing for vitality and toughness, you survive by learning what to avoid and how to counter the attacks. There is no substitute for spending the time to learn what the enemies do.

Nova Stiker.8396:

For the DPS role raids you HAVE to run zerkers, vipers or sinisters. Anything else will hinder yourself and your entire team.

Key phrase there is “the DPS role,” implying there are other roles. I don’t think the intent was ever that Berserker/Sinister/Assassin/Viper gear was going to go away. Players in the DPS role are meant to be in suitable DPS gear.

That’s already a much healthier situation for the game than previous PvE content, where (in absolute terms), you’re generally either using the one best meta build or you’re wasting some quantifiable amount of time. The difference is that the enrage mechanic is not all that’s going on. Yes, the enrage mechanic pushes the raid to do as much damage as possible, but you can’t go full YOLO meta glass DPS across the entire raid or some other mechanic is going to kill you instead.

Nekomi.9562:

The content is fun, it’s challenging but it is WAY to demanding with this kind of timer limit, It takes about 2 minutes for the average runner to finish a phase give or take 3.

I think you misunderstand… that time limit wasn’t chosen because they thought everyone (or the “average runner”) could meet it, they chose it specifically because they thought you couldn’t. It’s supposed to put real pressure on you to rethink your builds and strategies. If you’d rather have your mechanics tailor-made to what an average player can already do, there’s a whole game out there like that.

Plus, wtf, it’s only been out for 24 hours. If an average, scarcely prepared raid group could go in and kill a boss immediately that would be pretty disappointing (and, btw, I’m not entirely sure that hasn’t happened). This is content that you’re supposed to die to over and over while slowly seeing more and more progress. If it takes a month for really casual players to finally see a kill, that probably means it’s in good shape.

Something to think about: even if Arenanet changes nothing, these bosses will never be easier than they are right at this moment. Once the build guides start appearing, once the community figures out meta raid comps, it’s only going to get easier. Be careful what nerfs you want to see so early, because there is a danger that this content is already too easy to have real longevity, even if it’s not obvious yet.

The point of having any legendary item is and always has been the skin. If you don’t care about that, why would you bother? The ability to switch stats is pretty meaningless when you consider how many times the cost of any other set of armor a legendary set will likely cost.

It’s pretty cool that you’ve found five different armor sets useful—but that’s not exactly typical for most of us. :P

I’m a little disappointed that Arenanet did not foresee this or make any effort to prevent the masteries from being completed in this way, because I think it would be better for the game for high-level players to have some reason to commit time to the old world zones. And it does devalue Mastery levels a bit… up to a point, at least.

Quitting over it, though? lol. Such drama.

When you say “meta” i assume you mean the dungeon/Fractal meta, and yeah, most players are still running Berserker/Assassin/Sinister in those areas. Not much has changed in that content, aside from new builds being available since everyone has an elite specialization by now. There’s certainly no new reason to add vitality/toughness/healing power to your build.

Open-world Heart of Thorns doesn’t really seem like it will have a clear stat meta, though. Glassy stat combos seem to work fine for me, but I’m a pretty good player and I’m still having to work quite hard to stay alive at times. Plus, speed-running doesn’t really apply, and the player cap is much higher, so I doubt anyone cares if you’re running Knight’s gear or whatever.

However, damage absorption has never really been a viable strategy in this game and I don’t expect that to change. There are still things out there that will still nearly one-shot you no matter what you’re wearing, so don’t expect you can ignore fight mechanics or dodging just because you’re in Nomad’s gear or whatever.

Knighthonor.4061:

ronpierce.2760:

Knighthonor.4061:

ronpierce.2760:

While traps might be underwhelming. I think people are undeeeestimatng the significance of the virtue changes. That extra leap could make for a pretty good addition to LB/GS, Hambow or even more standard set ups. Remember not all parts of specializations are required.

that aim based spear may have problems like Flame Thrower kit does. thats my concern.

Also is that leap ground target or not?

I believe it said it was ground targeted. And they seem to get the mist wall shield from revanant hammer on their courage virtue. I could see the new stuff being pretty useful, honestly. Just avoid traps if you don’t like them, just like any other build. People still get 3 trait lines… Meditation Dragonhunters with more mobility and blocks? I cant imagine that not being successful. Especially if the new trait that makes the courage leap also deal damage when you land, the burst potential could be real.

avoid traps?

Thats all the DH’s 6-0 skills seem to be….

Just as the Chronomancer isn’t expected to load up on five wells, the Dragonhunter is not expected to use a full bar of traps. You may use one or two, or maybe since they’re traps they’ll be so niche as to not make their way into many general-purpose builds. You’ve still got all of the baseline Guardian weapons, traits, and skills.

NaotsuguLH.8915:

I tried it, and honestly I’m not a fan of Axe/Sword. Is there a reason why Axe/sword is so good?

Axe auto-attacks do extremely high damage per second, axe 2 applies crucial Vulnerability, and sword 5 is a relatively low-cooldown block that is occasionally useful in a swap set.

Traps and spirits were more interesting, specialized, and unique to the ranger in Guild Wars 1. These changes are, at least on paper, the first steps to get back to that. I don’t want traps to be just another arbitrary name for area affect spells, and I don’t want spirits to be just another arbitrary name for group buffs.

That being said, if they want GW2 spirits to feel more like they did in GW1, we need major mechanical changes. Edge of Extinction, Winter, Frozen Soil, and Quickening Zephyr were far more interesting than “X% chance for Y on hit.” GW1’s nature rituals also affected enemies and allies at once, making their use a much more interesting decision. In a good way, they weren’t always helpful.

Never.8571:

If you don’t have V-Sync on, your GPU is going to be pushing out as many frames as it possibly can. That’s why it’ll be running at nearly full load.

CPU wise, this game is extremely CPU intensive. It’s going to push it.

Agreed that GPU loads tend to be very high, 99% or so is pretty normal, especially with Vsync off. Its nothing to be concerned about, especially in a game like Battlefield 3.

Its potentially normal to see CPU utilization at 100% in some workloads, but 100% in Guild Wars 2 is almost unheard of. I think even in CPU-crushing WvW zergs, I rarely go over 60% utilization. And that’s with my aging Core i5-750.

I’m glad to hear OP was able to single out a virus. That was going to be my next suggestion.

Does this only happen in Guild Wars 2? Is it consistent, and does it persist after a restart? Does it seem to occur only when you’re in certain areas or situations in the game?

When the problem is occurring, open up Task Manager (ctrl-alt-delete) and under Processes, check the CPU column for what process is eating up all of your CPU cycles. I’m just wondering if Guild Wars 2 itself is the culprit, or if its some other background program. A screenshot of that whole, expanded list might help.

Aidan Savage.2078:

Your CPU wont be full load because GW2 sits on a single core as it’s single thread. Since i7s are quad core, you wouldnt even see more than 25% load from gw2.

(might be wrong, but I rarely see more than 50% while running gw2 on my i3)

This is incorrect; Guild Wars 2 does provide a workload for more than one core.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/guild-wars-2-performance-benchmark,3268-7.html

I’m not an expert on the subject, but you can’t simply tell from the CPU utilization percentage what number of cores are in use. Just to get the simplest reason out of the way, not every core is being worked to 100% of its capacity: by your reckoning, one core (of four) at 100% is 25% overall; but then what if all four cores are at 25%? That would still be 25% overall.

Furthermore, Windows sees your i3 as a quad-core processor, and his i7 as eight cores due to hyperthreading.

If this CPU issue lies with the dated nature of the game’s engine, I would not be surprised to find that there is nothing they can do about it. I think the most depressing thing is that this is a PC-only title, and yet it suffers from a number of technical problems we usually only see from hasty console ports.

Regardless, it appears that ArenaNet is content with the current performance of the client, as evidenced by their deafening silence on the issue. In all likelihood we’ll just have to wait a few years for processors that are fast enough to brute-force zergs to 60 FPS in this game.

I agree that ~30 FPS in a modern PC game on high-end hardware is not something we should consider acceptable.

I’m much more concerned that they re-skinned armor models to begin with—especially for gem store armor—not specifically which model they chose to re-skin. We had just gotten the decent Phalanx/Trickster/Viper armor sets only one patch prior, the players certainly weren’t going to complain if we didn’t get another set so soon after. Take the extra weeks to put out something that actually matches the level of professionalism in the other art assets in this game.

I really would like to see an official Anet response on what exactly the rush was, and why the timeline was so tight they had to resort to reusing existing models in the first place.

While I really appreciate the focus on improving support skills, I’m pretty skeptical that this is the way to get us to use them. No matter how powerful those skills are, if they aren’t actually needed to complete encounters players will still shun them in favor of pure, direct damage builds.

I really don’t like that glass-cannon builds are so popular and effective, but the players are going to use what works best given the game mechanics. If Anet wants us to consider running heal-y support builds, they do need to be stronger but we also need content that encourages them.

Nuka Cola.8520:

anet dropped the ball on all pve content, all pvp content, all wvw related content and you’re surprised about them dropping da baaaall for our bday? I’m not.

Oh look, someone on the internet presenting their opinions as unchallenged facts. How droll.

I don’t have a problem with the content of the birthday gift per se, but I can’t for the life of me understand why they are giving out the same account-bound mini to every character on our account. Seems kinda pointless to have multiples.

Einlanzer.1627:

typographie.1742:

I’m sure this won’t be the most popular sentiment, but I say they should just adjust the base drop rates and remove magic find entirely. I don’t understand why we have it in the first place—what problem in gameplay is it meant to resolve? Would we really miss it if it had never existed?

Yes, I’d miss it. IMO it adds a little more flavor/depth to itemization. Also, it would be unfair to people who spent a lot of time getting end-game MF gear.

I’d rather depth and flavor were added to itemization in ways that actually affects how our characters perform, rather than just giving us imperceptibly better odds in the loot lottery.

For that matter, when is magic find really enough of a choice to affect how deep or interesting itemization is? If you’re farming, you wear magic find. If you aren’t, you don’t. If you’re ever faced with a serious decision on whether or not you should wear magic find, its probably the wrong place to use it.

I’m sure this won’t be the most popular sentiment, but I say they should just adjust the base drop rates and remove magic find entirely. I don’t understand why we have it in the first place—what problem in gameplay is it meant to resolve? Would we really miss it if it had never existed?

WakkaJabba.3910:

typographie.1742:

Daecollo.9578:

+300 Healing Power would benefit the Vitality Tree a lot more then it would the Toughness Tree, the Toughness Tree does not even have healing abilities.

That’s precisely the reason why it isn’t in the Tactics tree. It would make warrior support builds more modular and free-form than Anet apparently wanted them to be. The trait trees are supposed to have interdisciplinary synergy with each other, and we’re supposed to have to make hard choices to get everything we want.

then how come thieves and ele can have precion and critical dmg in a single tree? looking at ele, fire attune does direct dmg and burning, trait tree adds power and condition duration; earth attune gives protection and lots of bleeding, trait tree adds toughness and condition dmg; water attune gives healing, trait tree adds HP and healing power.

definition of warrior is Doing Dmg with a steady body(forgot the exact words), while the stance tree doesnt increase boon duration for longer stance??

The traits tree benefits from healing power and boon duration, and pretty much nothing else. If you wanted to be a shout healing warrior, if you could put 30 points into Tactics and get healing power AND boon duration, that would be it. You’d be left with 40 points to put into pure damage, since there’d be nothing else that seriously benefits shouts or healing.

A thief needing precision and condition damage still wants (or at least benefits) from other things… condition duration or critical damage, for instance. There’s other traits and attributes that continue to enhance their damage outside of Critical Strikes.

But healing power in Tactics would make the Tactics tree a self-contained unit benefiting from almost no other traits. A warrior spending only 30 points could be just as good at being a shout warrior as one spending all 70.

Daecollo.9578:

+300 Healing Power would benefit the Vitality Tree a lot more then it would the Toughness Tree, the Toughness Tree does not even have healing abilities.

That’s precisely the reason why it isn’t in the Tactics tree. It would make warrior support builds more modular and free-form than Anet apparently wanted them to be. The trait trees are supposed to have interdisciplinary synergy with each other, and we’re supposed to have to make hard choices to get everything we want.

Quad.1695:

Played with it a little with axe/axe and the dps was very nice, i might change main hand too Sword as i do like Savage Leap and keep Axe as off-hand as i do like Whirling Axe.

Sword main-hand is nice for your secondary set if you need to quickly use Savage Leap, but the rest of the weapon is kinda bad in a pure DPS build due to its reliance on condition damage. Even then, I don’t think its output comes close to what an axe can do. And like I said, Whirling Axe does poor DPS compared to Chop > Double Chop > Triple Chop. Its up to you, but I’m just saying there’s rarely a good reason to use it.

If you can get 90%+ crit with an axe, you will easily out-damage anything but a greatsword—and that’s pretty arguable.

SaadBaig.8560:

A graphics card is only as good as the CPU its on. Think about it, if you have a very powerful graphics card that can max out any game, but a CPU that can’t take in all the data from that graphics card, whats the use?

This is a huuuge oversimplification, CPU bottlenecking occurs circumstancially. Yes, GW2’s WvW is going to be unplayable with the OP’s processor no matter what he gets for video—but the rest of the game doesn’t really put such a massive workload on the processor. In ordinary PvE, most video cards should be beneficial.

I don’t think a GTX 660 would be a complete waste for this system if he’s got a 1080p monitor (does anyone really think he does?), but considering that he’s probably got a bargain basement power supply and a smaller monitor, I think an HD 7750 or 7770 is a more reasonable choice and already several orders of magnitude faster than what he’s got.

I would recommend against off-hand axe. Its nice for farming, but unless you need to hit enemies in a 360° area, your chain attack does better damage. You should be pretty close to filling your adrenaline during Eviscerate’s 10-second cooldown without Whirling Axe. Dual Strike is just redundant. I know you might not need warhorn, but you and your party get more out of it than offhand axe—Vigor and Weakness are good. Shield and mace are also better choices.

Those signets are mostly worthless—Signet of Fury is outclassed in pretty much every way by Banner of Discipline. Balanced Stance is a better version of Dolyak Signet, though stability is only needed situationally. On top of that, you don’t need Deep Strikes to maximize your crit chance.

I urge you to check out this thread from GW2 Guru (for which I take zero credit). The OP achieves nearly 99% crit while buffed while providing strong buffs for his party. If nothing else, its a great guide to the basics of the playstyle you’re attempting.

SolarNova.1052:

I was more advising on what to buy in addition to a new cpu/rig.
I wouldnt recommend getting a $150 GPU for his current rig ether ..becouse it wont utilize it all.
But i also dont think upgrading just 1 part of his current rig is worth it. he really needs a new rig. that one is to outdated.

Yeah, I agree.

I’m sorry! I didn’t mean that comment about $150 cards as a shot at you, I know you meant that as a general statement that he shouldn’t spend much and that’s absolutely correct.

SolarNova.1052:

Dont get ur hopes up with just upgrading the vid card.

His dual-core Phenom II is low-end and will really hurt in WvW, but its good enough for him to get his foot in the door in PvE with reasonable performance.

I don’t think I’d even pay $150 for a video card for this machine; since I doubt you’re using a 1080p monitor with such a system and its probably got whatever garbage power supply it shipped with, recommending anything more than a ~$100 Radeon HD 7750 would be irresponsible.

Most 7750 models require no more power than you get from the PCI-e slot and can easily handle sub-1080p resolutions at native render sampling as long as you’re gentle with the shadows and reflections.

Bullcat.5461:

Been reading up on all the technical issues on this forum, especially about how the newer and high-end PCs and laptops running DX11 are having issues with GW2 and DX9.

There’s a lot of people with all manner of hardware having problems, and many gamers have a video card at least new enough to be a DX11 card. Correlation is not causation; there is no systemic problem with DX11-capable cards running this game. The last DX9-only cards would barely even meet this game’s minimum specs.

You should be able to run it with everything maxed, probably even Supersampling (if you can’t, no laptop can), but just turn down the settings if it runs too slow. You shouldn’t have any “issues.” Be aware that WvW combat runs horribly for just about all configurations, so don’t panic if you dip into the 30’s or so when it gets hectic. That’s the game, not your system.

Congrats on the spectacularly expensive laptop. Relax and enjoy it :P

Alexander.4827:

Surprised we don’t have
“Charge!”
Swiftness 15s
Removes cripple

Take a closer look at the warhorn.

Negativity.5801:

Uther Deathhand.1570:

Or maybe an elite shout.
“I Am Unstoppable!”
Protection 10s
Stability 10s
Breaks stun

“Stand your Ground!”

Guardians got it—makes sense, as it was a Paragon shout in the first place. “Watch Yourself!” could make a nostalgic comeback for a shout like that.

Star, I could very easily adjust the contrast on that image for you if you’d like a true-black/true-white digital copy, though I won’t without your permission first. Let me know via PM.

Its a nice drawing aside from being a very grey scan. Well done.

asimo.6354:

So does this look better?

I disagree with pretty much all of the above, personally. Its true that the heals are relatively small, but all party-wide healing in this game is intentionally scarce and weak, only meant to supplement the players’ self-heal skills. If you expect it to be able to keep anyone topped off, of course you’ll be disappointed. The idea is to extend the effective health of the party, allowed them to take a couple more hits before they have to use their own heal.

Besides, some of our best non-situational utility skills are shouts anyway. I wouldn’t want to be without “Shake it Off!” traited or not, and just about all warriors seem to have FGJ! glued to their bars. If you really need to trade out “On my Mark!” for Balanced Stance or something for a particular area, you’ll be fine.

I’m not trying to sell a support build to you if that’s not what you want to do. But I think if what you want is a decent support build that still does good damage, 20/20/0/30/0 is where you want to be, and you weren’t in terrible shape to begin with.

I think you’re off to a good start.

I question the Blademaster trait though, it looks like your sword/mace set is more of a mobility/control set, so is it justified to invest 10 points in 5% more crit for it (I don’t think they include greatsword in that trait..)? For 20 points in strength you could pick up Berserker’s Power + Slashing Power. Yeah, that would cost you the awesome Signet Mastery, but I think 12% + 10% damage for your greatsword is better.

Dredly.3214:

My adrenalin drains outside of combat, which this used to prevent,

I suspect you’re not going to like this answer.. but Signet of Rage has never granted adrenaline while out of combat, at least as far back as the summer beta.

Genju.2150:

Soo I have the AMD FX 8120 overclocked to 3.8ghz and still havin pretty bad fps and also have my GPU overclocked also…I know that this game is heavy on CPU so is this 8 core even a good choice to play this game if not what is a better AMD cpu to use for this game, cuz I can’t spend anymore money to make a new computer just to use intel cpu.

Well, the Piledriver FX 8320/8350 are out and they’re incrementally faster than the 8120/8150, but not really worth a $200 investment for literally a few extra frames here and there. I’m afraid your only recourse is to push your overclock further or save up for a bigger upgrade. All processors choke somewhat when you’re in busy places, Intel included.

The fact that your processor has eight cores doesn’t mean a whole lot if the app you’re running on it isn’t running highly performance-sensitive threads in each core. GW2 makes good use of four cores, no matter how many you have available.

erodorn.6045:

I know my processor is hamstringing me somewhat, but looking on the forums, seems like other people are getting anywhere from 20fps to 60fps depending on the area in game with the same proc. Why are my FPS so low?!?

In what areas are you getting smooth performance? In what areas is it poorer?

In general PvE, just running around with a few people around, you should be doing fine. If you go into WvW or join a huge crowded event or something, your framerate is going to tank (with that processor, 20 FPS might be a bit generous). Even if you had a brand-new Core i5, you’d maybe see ~30 FPS in the busiest places. If the behavior you’re seeing is like that, that’s unfortunately expected.

This has been a known issue for some time, but mostly just to players in WvW. But during special events, big enough crowds are drawn that it happens to the rest of us as well.

I saw an official response to this a week or so ago (which of course I can’t find now), but it sounded like they weren’t sure they could fix it anytime soon. This really needs to be made a priority, it is a serious, serious issue to the game when I can’t even see the karka I’m supposed to be killing, or where my PvP opponents are.

This seems to happen a lot to people (me included) who have their Sound Quality set to “Highest Quality.” In many cases, it seems to stop if you lower the quality to at least the middle of the slider.

Just to expand on what the others said, there are several “specialized” bags and boxes that can be crafted by Tailors, Leatherworkers and Armorsmiths in addition to ordinary ones. The specialized ones, like Oiled packs, must be discovered at each level.

Check out the list on GW2 wiki.

Did you take a look at how much data is even on the disc? I bought the digital download back in April or so, so I can’t check. My GW2 install is 16.4 GB, so unless its on Blu-ray format or there’s 3-4 DVD’s I don’t see how they could contain the whole game.

I’d be surprised if they really put much of the game on them in the first place, because as Hostile pointed out, it would be an exercise in futility. It might not be much more than the game’s launcher.