How time consuming are raids?

Hello!

I mostly play fractals and open world content, gearing my character and just doing whatever, but i'd like to try raiding.The problem is, i have no idea how raiding works and if i even have time for that. I can do fractal dailies in an hour or so and move on, but i'm quite sure raids don't work like that.I'm currently studying at college, and during the week i have a lot of work to do, so i don't have a lot of time to play, but when i do, i'm struggling to focus on what to do. If it's gathering mats, meta maps, fractals, dailies. I can't fit all of it into my play time and i don't know what to focus on. Maybe focusing on raids would be a good thing if i can jam it into my free time. That depends on how time consuming raids are so...

Can someone explain raids to me please? Not in depth as in what i have to do when in them, but generally, how long do they take, if i have to commit to a certain time to do them and just some general info about them.

I play a Mirage, currently just experimenting with builds, but i can easily switch to a meta build if i have to. I can pretty much also switch to a Chronomancer with a gear tune up, i hear they're quite sought after in raids. Will that help me have an easier time raiding?

Help a total newb out!

EDIT: I also need some kind of a long term goal to keep me going in the game, maybe working towards a legendary would help that. I understand it takes a really long time, but still... Long term and all that.

Depends on the group you're with. Some take 2+ hours to clear all 4 wings, some take 2+ hours to kill 1 boss. As for whether or not chrono will help you get in, that depends; how well can you keep alacrity and quickness up, and how well do you feel you can distort the group? Pugs are generally not where you want to start to get into raids. Look for a training guild to make it easier on yourself.

Well i'd certainly need someone to show me how raids work and what my role is, but what do you mean 2+ hours. 2+ hours each day?

Raids are on a weekly reset, any boss killed will be saved until reset, Monday 3:30 am est. You have until then to kill as many bosses as you please. There are 2 things specific to raids: Magnetite shards and legendary insight. Magnetite shard, is capped at 150 per week. You can kill the same boss over and over to get this cap. Magnetites are used to but asc weapons, armors, and accessories, as well as raid specific skins. Legendary insight, or Li, is limited to once per boss per week and is needed for legendary armor and is asked by some people for show of experience when pugging. (they can also ask for kill proof which basically means either minis, weapon skins specific to the boss, or more likely, guild decoration drops from the boss.)

So my best bet would be to join a raiding guild that's willing to teach me? Since i can't show any of that as proof when i'm a beginner.But since raids are on a weekly reset, that's cool, means i can probably stretch the schedule over a week to then clear raids.Depends on other people's schedule though but i'd have to coordinate that with others that i join.

Depends on the group and how good you are.

Good group will finish everything within 3-4hrs.

Starter with starter group most likely to struggle a lot more, to maybe 5x more hours. Depending on individual learning capability, it can varies a lot.

As an added bonus, when you kill your first raid boss you'll unlock and finish the the raid mastery. So there's that.

Sucks the life out of me.................... ;)

But...what server you on? We currently rebuilding our static as many left for silly real life stuffs (I know right?!) so if you NA give me a holler!!

Generally people will experience that the first kills take alot longer then later on. This is both due to not having kill proffs (and therefore more joining less exp groups) and more importently you will be lacking the experiense yourself in the beginning and therefore make more mistakes = less kills. Therefore, start slowly and raid for the fun, and be happy when you get a kill, and not sad if you spend an hour without anything to show for it (besides having gotten better).

Later on, you will be able to join a group and get a kill in 10-20 min. Or do a full run in 2-4 hours (full run = 13 bosses).

Weither you deside to join a guild to learn or do it purely with lfg is up to you and both can be done. Just be warned, some pugs are very friendly and very skilled. And others hate everyone and play awful. Thats just how it is and the 2 things rarely correlate.

Edit: If you are EU whisper me ingame, we do training runs every wed. at 19h server time. In case I dont respond, I missed your whisper, then just whisper me again ^^

Starting with the tanking role = setting yourself up to fail.I really recommend starting with healer or dps that way you can see the fights first while you let someone else with a tad bit more experience tank.

chrono not always = tank, 2 chronos in the squad and many of the fights dont have a tank. That said, chrono is generally not the easyest to play (not the hardest either imo) and being DPS is often a good way to learn the fight. If you pick healer, then pls go full magi druid, and focus 100% on healing, nothing is worse then having a "noob" as healer who is auto attacking only :D

currently doing only once a week pug raid during reset - 2 hours + 15 mins full clear, I currently have around 800li.before this, I spent lots more hours depending on pug group. good group 2 hours (3 wings before w4 came) up to 4 to 6 hours attempt if bad group for full clear (broken down to clearing with different groups)in the early days.. moreeeeee hours.. when I was new... we spent hours and hours on wiping without killing any bosses.

@Sigfodr.9576 said:

Later on, you will be able to join a group and get a kill in 10-20 min. Or do a full run in 2-4 hours (full run = 13 bosses).

LOL, I just cant get my head around this! WOW raids took 2-3 hours and it was like 4 Bosses maybe......crazy. But the trash in Blizzard raids really sucked at times whereas here it almost at zero, just Boss to Boss to Boss, so yea, maybe that's the key. :astonished:

@Talindra.4958 said:in the early days.. moreeeeee hours.. when I was new... we spent hours and hours on wiping without killing any bosses.

Ah the joy of raiding...lol!!!! ;)

Starting out, it's very time consuming.For average people learning and killing here and there, I'd say 20 hours a week.

Thank you all for your advice and replies. I'll see if i can find someone in game to show me the ropes. If not, oh well. I really can't play 6 hours daily just to raid, that's too hardcore for me.

I know you said it takes about 3 hours to clear wverythi g with an expreienced group but i can't expect that in the beginning.

It's too bad anet made this game into a hardcore grid, but there's other fun stuff i can do anyway so if i don't raid, it's not a big deal. I'll try though, see what happens.

Thanks!

@Veprovina.4876 said:Thank you all for your advice and replies. I'll see if i can find someone in game to show me the ropes. If not, oh well. I really can't play 6 hours daily just to raid, that's too hardcore for me.

I know you said it takes about 3 hours to clear wverythi g with an expreienced group but i can't expect that in the beginning.

It's too bad anet made this game into a hardcore grid, but there's other fun stuff i can do anyway so if i don't raid, it's not a big deal. I'll try though, see what happens.

Thanks!

Check out the raid training discord if you have no where else to start,https://discord.gg/CqeejJ3

Or you can also try the raider's inn though they a fair bit smaller for some reason,https://discordapp.com/invite/raQE5fZ

As far as I know casual guild raids take from about 2 to 3 hours a day with maybe 1-3 raiding sessions a week 2 sessions being the most common option. Pugging takes anywhere from 15 minutes (single boss) to multiple hours (more bosses/clown fiesta).

If you don't get a group to carry you through the first time you're most likely gonna spend time failing at bosses. This process varies from person to person and guild to guild but don't expect a lot of rewards in the beginning, just enjoy the experience of developing your skill and discovering/learning the boss mechanics. When you're a seasoned veteran getting a full clear in 2,5 hours is doable and you won't have to touch raids again in a week.

From a personal experience I haven't cared much about the rewards in a long time as I have excess ascended chests and weapons lying around doing nothing and every meta role geared up in ascended. Nowadays it's just a time slot for me when I enjoy the static group coming together and killing some big baddies.

I play and kill same boss over and over.If no raid, there is not much stuff interest me to keep me in game over 15 mins, lol.And I carry all kinda new players depending on mood.At this point, failing is more fun that speed clearing to me. Hence, if anyone needs carry, shout at me in game.

My static runs full clears at the beginning of the week, but then we also offer training raid runs for an hour and a half on one day of a week. We will teach a boss, and work on it for the allotted time, and either beat it, or leave it for another day. Sometimes we go back to it again the next week, or we do an easy boss so they can get the satisfaction of a kill, and then go back to the boss we were working on before. It's a slow, but steady system that we've been doing. If you are on the NA server, mail me in game and maybe we can help you get into the raiding scene.

I'd also say they are time consuming in another way:

The fact that each boss is capped at one "proper" kill per week. There's like, what, 12-13 "bosses" in raids that can - once per week - drop a Legendary Insight each.

You need 25 LI per Legendary Armour piece.

This alone means that to get anything out of raids proper, you must invest many maaaany weeks of raiding. Not to mention all the stuff you have to do for the first and second Collection for Legendary Armour that is also time-gated (the pre-Gorseval chests come to mind).

@Oglaf.1074 said:I'd also say they are time consuming in another way:

The fact that each boss is capped at one "proper" kill per week. There's like, what, 12-13 "bosses" in raids that can - once per week - drop a Legendary Insight each.

You need 25 LI per Legendary Armour piece.

This alone means that to get anything out of raids proper, you must invest many maaaany weeks of raiding. Not to mention all the stuff you have to do for the first and second Collection for Legendary Armour that is also time-gated (the pre-Gorseval chests come to mind).

Meh, just don't obsess over LIs. You'll get these eventually, what's the rush? Enjoy the process. Raiding can be a lot of fun.

I personally found getting the faction provisioner tokens more exasperating than the li. Li you get by doing the thing you want, the tokens you have to go out of your way to craft items specific to each npc and pray that the ones in auric and the one in td are open for business, other wise you'll be sticking around to do meta events you don't want to.

@SkyShroud.2865 said:Depends on the group and how good you are.

Good group will finish everything within 3-4hrs.

Starter with starter group most likely to struggle a lot more, to maybe 5x more hours. Depending on individual learning capability, it can varies a lot.

Good groups clear everything in 2hours on average.