Raids = Ascended gear?

Im so confused.

Ive been told that Raids require ascended gear = me crafting my ass off to make a full ascended set. Got as far as all weapons and 2/6 armor peices.

Ive been told that Raids require exotic gear and ascended is by choice = me stopping the crafting out of frustration that I cannot get a straight answer on this topic.

It seems like a preference? Cant you be effective in a raid party with exotic gear and ascended trinkets?

~discuss~

I've been told both as well. However I've been told I need full ascended by people who are putting together 'serious' raid parties - aiming to clear wings on the 1st attempt and do it quickly. Whereas I've been told it's optional by people putting together 'training' groups to go in and do the best they can whilst having some fun together.

I suspect it's the same with the people you've been talking to.

I do know it's not as strict as Fractals, where above a certain level you need ascended equipment or you will die quickly because of Agony. There's nothing to stop you going in wearing whatever you want (I think you don't even need a level 80 character - you can enter at any level, you're just highly likely to die) but the slightly higher stats do make it easier.

given every thing I read on these elitism and proism types of players from raids and so forth . I get they want you to have a DPS meter and ascended gear with ascended trinkets any thing less or even half way to them will not cut it or is not good enough for them even . I even seen some posts with exotic gear and ascended trinkets and they got kicked out of the group for not being good enough or high DPS or what ever their reason .

but also I know you can make your own group and see how it works for you I guess if you wish to do raids and not have full ascended set. that could be one way to at least get to raid maybe I guess . personally I see no rewards at all to doing raids what so ever even

other than if you want the mastery point from doing the raid at best I. still can not see it worth all this pain and trouble to even do raids even with all that trouble and no real rewards from doing it all .

@Danikat.8537 said:I've been told both as well. However I've been told I need full ascended by people who are putting together 'serious' raid parties - aiming to clear wings on the 1st attempt and do it quickly. Whereas I've been told it's optional by people putting together 'training' groups to go in and do the best they can whilst having some fun together.

I suspect it's the same with the people you've been talking to.

I do know it's not as strict as Fractals, where above a certain level you need ascended equipment or you will die quickly because of Agony. There's nothing to stop you going in wearing whatever you want (I think you don't even need a level 80 character) but the slightly higher stats do make it easier.

That makes sense :3 I would like to try a raid sometime and thought if I buffed myself up that I would be able to survive longer. (Ive heard all about the mobs)

Ive been able to enter Spirit Vale after it was cleared and it looks amazing :) Problem to is that I have no active guild that I participate in that does raids and it drives me crazy that I have unfinished content in the game. I dont do fractals , havent for years so I dont have the currency to buy the infusions .... but like ... theres no agony in raids?

Do you need ascended gear to do raids? No. If a group is familiar enough with the encounters and their classes, they could probably do it in all white gear.Does ascended gear make it a lot easier to find a group? Yes.There's a lot of people looking for spots in raids, and comparatively fewer people willing to organize them. So there's not much incentive for a raid leader to accept someone with exotics when they could fairly easily get someone with full ascended.

Ascended weapons are important for DPS, they have a very significant contribution to what you can do. Ascended trinkets are also pretty impactful, but they're extremely easy to obtain (farm the new LS maps for them).

Ascended armor is wonderful to have and almost completely inconsequential. The stat difference between full exotic armor and full ascended armor is absolutely miniscule and has no significant impact.

Edit: As danikat mentioned, ascended armor is relevant for fractals because it contains infusion slots that you need simply in order to survive. This is not the case for raids, agony resistance is not a mechanic there.

Exotic armor is fine for raids. Exotic weapons are fine too, though if you can splurge, a 5% DPS increase is a lot. Ascended trinkets are a few days work on LW3 maps.

Depends highly on what raid group you join. I'm going to assume you'll be joining practice runs and beginner level groups.

In general exotic gear is fine (ascended weapons are not a must but useful, same goes for trinkets). Both of those are relatively cheap to get (Caladbolg quest line, elite specialisation collections, Living World Season 3 maps).

Your performance will be affected way more by how well you know fights, how well you've prepared (is your gear meta and optimised, do you have the correct runes/sigils, have you praticed your rotation, do you have the correct buff food on you, etc.).

What ascended gear does provide is if 2 people are comparable in their performance, the one with more ascended gear will outperform the person with more exotic gear. I've never seen this to be an issue though, usually the lack of knowledge or experience will dictate a lot more how people perform than the difference in gear.

T4 fractals are the only place in this game where ascended armor is required, and that is due to agony resistance and not stats.

Most training guilds require a ascended trinket set (and back) and ascneded weapons. This is the minimum for learning as the DPS loss on starting parties will cause problems runing out of time in raids and this problem will worsen when you have exotic weapons whcih will do 10-15% less dmg...... The lack of armor is your own problem. In raids there should be healers.Raids have been done by very experienced players in masterwork, or with less then the maximum amount of players. But these people have done raids way more often, are experienced and have a good understanding of the neccesities.Even though DPS meters cannot view gear, The lack of damage can be very apperant.... If you have someone experienced enough and who can interpret your actions.

So simply said for PvE @ l80 you need:

Open world:

• World exploration, world bosses: Vanilla: Rares and/or Exotics.
• World exploration, Meta HoT: Exotics
• World exploration, Meta PoF: -unknown- , but likely exotics.
• Story LW S2&3 Exotics will do fine
• Story HoT & PoF Exotics will do fine

Instanced content

• Dungeons Exotics (below lvl 60 rares will suffice as well)
• Fractals(below l20) Exotics,
• Fractals (above l20 (T2,3) you'll need more and more ascneded gear to place infusions in. to be able to progress

Endgame instanced content

• Fractals T4 you'll need full ascended, due to need for AR)
• Fractals CM (l99 and 100) you'll need full ascended, due to need for AR)
• Raids (training) you'll need ascended weapons, trinkets and back
• Raids (PUG) you'll need full ascended, due to dps meters
• Raids (Premade/guild) you might get away with some exotics. Ascended Weapons stay pretty important

Trying to learn an encounter will be easier and you can get yor first few LI from a training guild if you like, opening up the PUG groups somewhat...
Not being honest about gear and experience in endgame content will show, either due to failing mechanincs, or through DPS checking tools.People who start playing have different strategies then those who have 250, 500 or 750+ LI (killed raid bosses)

So the overall damage bonus swapping from exotic armor to ascended armor is literally fuzzed by the damage variance on actual weapons. Given 2 identically performing players, it would require a very long and highly controlled dps trial to notice a difference between exotic armor and ascended armor. That's how little it matters.

This is just for armor though, the other pieces matter more.

The raids in GW2 aren't really "advanced". They can be done in masterwork gear if you know how to play and know the encounter. Raiders generally want full ascended gear because it speeds up the encounter. Boss kills take about 5 mins. The worse your gear, or fight knowledge/class knowledge, the longer it takes, and people just want to be done with their fights for the week as fast as possible.

@Pyroatheist.9031 said:So the overall damage bonus swapping from exotic armor to ascended armor is literally fuzzed by the damage variance on actual weapons. Given 2 identically performing players, it would require a very long and highly controlled dps trial to notice a difference between exotic armor and ascended armor. That's how little it matters.

This is just for armor though, the other pieces matter more.

I think the numbers were something like 2% dmg from armor and 12-13% from weapons. But people get ascneded armor for 2 reasons:

1. Infusion slots for added stats and AR, and thus progresion in fractals (I think you can get to t3 without the need for armor.)
2. 5% higher armorstat value form armor (toughness+ armor make your damage reducing stat) having Armor stat here will mean some lessened dmg from physical attacks. (this is largely trivialized on builds with toughness though,)

ok ... I have full ascended weapons and trinkets but not full armor. I didnt think that the armor would make much difference for the reason there is no agony in raids.

Thanks guys for clearing this up. This is the most consistent response Ive gotten on this topic to date! :)