Looking at getting into Raids and Fractals and would appreciate advice.

Hi Raid/Fractal community ,

I was looking at getting into raids and fractals. I have never done a raid and I used to do fractals but haven't in at least 2 years (last time was before HoT). I was wondering if there was a build I could use for both fractals and raids (or maybe one build with slight changes depending on which on I was doing). I am assuming that I would also need to get a full set of ascended gear for the character I was using. Also would be nice if the build was slightly beginner friendly to someone who has never used skill rotations. In open world PvE I mostly just used skills in reaction to what was happening around me (are there builds that don't rely on a super specific skill rotation to be effective?).

I would like to make a character that people would want to have in their party. I was looking at making a druid, but maybe that would not be the best character for a first raid/fractal character? The characters I am the most interested in possibly doing are druid, beserker, or elementalist. I do also like Revenant (I play alot of Renegade in open world PvE), but probably would be better at one of the other three classes. Also for druid, it seems like there are builds for boon, condi and healing. I am not sure what type people like having in their parties.

Thanks in advance for the help!

I did look at https://qtfy.eu/ and https://metabattle.com/wiki/MetaBattle_Wiki for a little bit. Are these builds fairly standard and are there other sites like these to see build that are considered meta?

Druid is a good choice. Harrier / magi druid is easily one of the most beginner friendly classes. There is a very low skill cap too so it makes it easy to learn mechanics and encounter specifics, and if you want to get better later you can just transition later to condi druid when you feel comfortable with timing your heals.

I'll second druid ! Like zlater said it's a pretty beginner friendly role, as well as being a very crucial role to group success.

https://snowcrows.com/builds/ also a nice site for build + boss examples, but it is not very different to those you have posted.Druid is a solid choice, but the equipment to get is sadly not so simply "starting from scratch".

Would also recommend a Dragonhunter/Firebrand, berserker gear is far easier to get than everything else and a good dps class for fractals and decent for raids. (not saying it is ideal for raids but you can at least "side equip" for a firebrand)

Warrior (Bannerslave) is also mandtory for every meta grp, so you could go with that, but viper gear is a bit harder to get and there are not a lot of free spots for "us".

@sigur.9453 said:

Druid is a solid choice, but the equipment to get is sadly not so simply "starting from scratch".Idk what you're talking about, druid is literally the easiest class to gear. You can just straight up buy magi armor with monk runes already installed in them from the dungeon vendor lol.

If you mean harrier, that's not really what I mean, gearing harrier is useless until you run a solo druid comp, even in fractals it's better to just stack might the old way. If you can get harrier though then I think it's fine, but I would almost never recommend harriers in a dual druid comp.

Ten characters

@Zlater.6789 said:@sigur.9453 said:

Druid is a solid choice, but the equipment to get is sadly not so simply "starting from scratch".Idk what you're talking about, druid is literally the easiest class to gear. You can just straight up buy magi armor with monk runes already installed in them from the dungeon vendor lol.

i was of course talking about harrier. As OP asked about "meta". Last time i did fractals duid had to ping his harrier gear to make sure.

Depends on what we are talking about here as far as your definitions of gearing and play difficulty are concerned.

It is indeed easy to gear a druid or at least to get the first set of gear that others might find acceptable. An exotic magi set will do.A different story if you intend to min-max your druid fully. You'd need an ascended set of healing gear and condition gear at least. There are also uses for Berserker, Viper, Harrier, Magi and Minstrel depending on the situation and on how deep we wish to discuss this. Which would put it as one of the hardest classes to gear.Playing druid can be tricky against a few select bosses at first but is possible to pick up playing druid and do be useful right away which does make it a beginner friendly class. The gear such as Magi is also rather forgiving when you fail to avoid hits compared to less defensive builds. There is quite a lot you can do apart from placing spirits and using all of your healing off cooldown, though. Not sure about the supposed low skill cap compared to other classes. Wouldn't have said so myself but then I do not find any build or role particularly hard to play.

@Henry.5713 said:There is quite a lot you can do apart from placing spirits and using all of your healing off cooldown, though. Not sure about the supposed low skill cap compared to other classes. Wouldn't have said so myself but then I do not find any build or role particularly hard to play.

Well I mean the the minimum a druid is required to do, most druids that people celebrate as being good, are really not good at anything other than druid, IMO it's the easiest thing to play is a druid.

Maybe it's just me because I am so used to struggling for #1 dps or doing literally everything on chrono, when I get asked to play magi druid I just cry inside because it's so incredibly boring. Its just heal a little, auto a little, and push some orbs, kite some flak and afk. Its fine for a druid to do 0 damage, so what is the challenge if you aren't learning anything?

You can't say a druid has many more mechanics even, because even dps have their own specific mechanics. But that's why it's such a great class to learn on. You don't have to compete for dps like everyone else, you don't have to do the crazy things that are expected of experienced chronos, like aside from your rotation (not even perfectly) the only thing you have to do is learn and do the mechanics.

@sigur.9453 said:i was of course talking about harrier. As OP asked about "meta". Last time i did fractals duid had to ping his harrier gear to make sure.

That is kinda funny because in fractals full harriers is not even meta. Most druids run either a hybrid dps build with concentration or just full vipers in t4's and cm's because there isn't enough damage to the group to warrant having a dedicated healer. If you pug a lot I really do not see anything wrong with full magi's even though it is overkill to run that in both raid and fractals.

As for Berserker, Revenant, and Elementalist. These are all really strong in raid and Fractals.I do not play much Warrior or Ele but Revenant is in a really good spot right now in raids and fractals with good build diversity.

All the four specs mentioned are solid choices, but I'd probably recommend either druid or warrior. Healing druid isn't overly challenging, but you do have quite some responsibility as a healer. If you screw up, it will hurt the party. Also note that the game's interface does not really help healers - other games are much, much better at telling you who needs heals. Warrior is a bit more challenging to play, though the rotation is not rocket science, but has less responsibility overall. Additionally, warr is one of the few classes who bring great CC in their dps spec - that's something the PoF specs suck at.

Renegade is something I haven't played a lot, although it felt as if the correct rotation/priority setting would be quite a bit more difficult than on a warrior. And ele is something I'd actively discourage beginners from. They are great if played by the right people, but the rotations are so complex that the average ele will fare worse than on most other classes. At least that's my experience.

I'd mostly only add, if you are serious about raiding and playing fractals and enjoying most of the process:

• join a training guild

The process of becoming experienced and accepted into raids (fractals is less difficult) is a lot harder when trying to do everything with pick up groups. Not only will you be facing the problem of multiple inexperienced players which will make fights a lot harder than needed, you'll also have less possibility to get advice. It's not that it's not possible, it will just be way more tedious. It's also the one thing most people here complain about when talking about toxicity because most would rather run head first into a wall than actually join a guild and socialize with others. Or they are used to LFR mechanics from other games thinking that this will work here as well. It does not.

If you start the journey with a group of people in voice chat who are guild members, all of this will be a lot easier and more fun. That way you can also pick a class which your guild mates are lacking in their comp or which they recommend you chose.

Otherwise druid is after chrono probably the most solid choice you can pick. Condi warrior is also strong, especially with their strong cc and banners. Elementalist I'd honestly stay away from as an inexperienced player. The rotations are hard, you will get judged based on your performance directly via damage meter and you will suffer heavily if your support classes are sub par because you will lack the required support to survive a glass canon.

Thanks for all the advice. I'll probably start gearing a healing druid. Looks like I should grab Harrier or some combination of Harrier/Magi. How does getting Magi exo weapons/armor with Harrier ascended accesories/rings/amulet sound for starting gear? Then I would replace the exo weapons with ascended weapons (not sure if magi or harrier).