How friendly is raiding for a newcomer?

Greetings.

First of all, I said newcomer because i've been playing this game for almost a month. Yeah i'm no pro, but i'm a long term MMORPG player, so i'm no stranger to raiding per se. Got burnt out by WoW recently and decided to try something new (and more casual). Was a core tank/healer on my guild, raiding every weekend, studying every new fight that comes along with a new raid, perfecting rotations, mechanics, group play and everything that comes along. But right now, I have a job and studies and can't afford two-three nights a week to raiding/gearing.

That being said, I'm at lvl 80 with the two elite specs fully unlocked and am now starting on crafting ascended gear hoping to get to the next level: fractals and raiding.So, I check the LFG/LFM window from time to time just to feel it. What i've seen so far is: you either join the meta wars 2 (chrono/druid/flavor of the month dps) or join a guild that will take you no matter what you play. Or... you can start your own group.

There are some problems right there:

1: I don't play the meta classes (I play Elem, so maybe weaver could fit the dps role).2: I am actually in a guild that does raid training runs. But for that I would have to commit to the runs, logging on time every week to play. It is not the case, since i'm looking for a more casual style now.3: I'm a newcomer. I know I should study mechanics before joining and all that, I did that stuff on wow for a long time. But I can't really make my own group as a newcomer thou. That is for when I'm more experienced with the content so I can actually lead a group. I'm tired of raid leaders in wow that just wanted to be carried, pugging only the top tier to speed them through the fights while dying to basic shit. I'm not that guy.

So... please shed some light for me. I know casual laid-back groups do exist, and maybe they fill within a couple seconds. But is it really that hard to find in this game? Or i'm stuck in that "need experience to get a job - need a job to get experience" loop?.

So... please shed some light for me. I know casual laid-back groups do exist, and maybe they fill within a couple seconds. But is it really that hard to find in this game? Or i'm stuck in that "need experience to get a job - need a job to get experience" loop?.

i feel you man, raiding is really hard content even for experienced players. It is hard to get into groups if you don't have experience or have a guild dedicated to raiding. But you can find groups of people who just want to give it a shot in LFG.

My suggestion is get full ascended gear and meta before you try raiding. But if you really want to try it out anyways just try LFG and be honest I bet there are more casual players that want to give it a shot and just go an a hard adventure and test your luck.

(P.S. Fractals is much easier to get into groups and also fun and rewarding)

It's the friendliest mmo community for a reason, right? RIGHT?

@Sombra.3246 said:(P.S. Fractals is much easier to get into groups and also fun and rewarding)

Yeah I will try that until I'm better geared to give it a go at raiding. :DD Thanks!

@"Kheldorn.5123" said:It's the friendliest mmo community for a reason, right? RIGHT?

WoW is a toxic fest and the shift was HUGE on this game, I'm really enjoying that friendly aspect so far from what I've seen. That gives me some hope :)

LFM/LFG are for experienced people--or sellers--wanting the optimal composition to get through this content the smoothest - and that's perfectly natural. If you're just starting, you have to accept you need to put in some work - unless you have a very nice guild/friends. First off with GW2 once you have the best gear for your build/prof you never have to worry again, and its' really easy to get full ascended with Living World 3 and just crafting the rest with gold--which you can earn 15-20g/hr comfortably doing many metas, best one atm is Great Hall+Palawan. So that's good news - unlike your other MMO where if you miss 1 tier of raiding your gear is nearly useless.

You need to find some discord address and try get in on a training run. Don't expect it be smooth though. A guildy of mine is doing one and they will probably take 3-4 sessions to kill their first boss. However, once you get a kill down, then another, you build up your experience and credentials making it easier to get into the next tier group. Weaver is really good, quite technical to get your rotation down while doing mechanics. You will want to definitely play something that is sort of viable/decent, or else naturally people will prefer someone who has a better set-up. You don't have to play the absolutely best META, just something that isn't too sub-par to improve your chances. GW2 raiding is a lot more sensitive to play error than more easier MMOs, so definitely watch some videos on any fight you may be trying to get into.

Fractals will be a good stepping stone to get accustomed with PVE, your build and the basics, also a good way to help with some gear. T4s have a decent chance to drop ascended crates and mats. Also if you want to practice your rotations for single target damage you can use the dummy golems.

Good luck!

Am going to say this about raids in GW2 its hard content and will find a lot of elitists. And as you know from other MMORPGS raids isn't casual neither can you get the experience (along with LI and KP) for nontraining groups. I would watch going into LFG cause if they ask you to ping LI or KPs you will be instakicked. Now LI are Legendary Insights that you get from killing bosses most groups want 50+ on LFG now KPs (kill proof) you would need to start holding on to those instead of giving it to your guild for decorations. The reason is they also get you in for raids. Don't get intimidated once you have those and see people pinging legendary armor. That should be a long term goal as a casual. It is better to do LFG then LFM cause some groups don't look in the LFM often to grab people. When it comes to your guild doing raid trainings you should ask if you can jump in from time to time to raid or like what was said above find a LFG raid training group.

Now about the Metas here is a big issue with it. Weaver is good but warning if you get in a group that isn't training and your dps is an issue they have a chance of kicking you. Weaver is high dps there are others but if you want one that you don't have to worry about that there is healer(druid or ele) and support chrono they do have their own rotations and are vital to keeping everyone alive and their dps good. But do watch experience groups for that. You can watch videos on rotations and when you have the time to practice you can do that. DPS is easy to fill the harder roles is healing and chrono so make sure you say what you can play so they don't expect you to be something you cant be.

I do hope my what some may call elitist words helped and hasn't deterred you from raiding. If you have questions that I didn't answer can ask will try to help where I can.

Mostly, if you've already YouTubed the fight... And came get past whatever checks the squad leader put out (gear checks, li, or kp) then it's usually a breeze.

This is the unspoken truth of elitism in raids: "have a thick skin, because it isn't personal."

Is the boss a dps check? Is the one guy who brought dps Weaver way down the dps list? Kick. You'll probably avoid that same kick from the same guy on a boss that's a mechanics check. Assuming you pass the mechanic.

Keep dropping the poison on the group in sloth, but your top dps? Doesn't matter. Kick. You are killing others fun.

The thing to realize is that the other 9 people are more important than you. Just like you do when you play a team sport. So, if you come to a raid saying you can do the job and can't, expect trouble... Because those guys don't like wasted time. But if you come to a raid saying you can to the job and can.... You're golden.

Example: brought my healer scourge to slothozar. Got endlessly made fun of by complete strangers for even having a heal scourge. But we won... And after we did, the folks who were talking shit got real quiet.

Example 2: brought my deadeye to Mathias. Was told if I do less than 10k I'm getting kicked. Proceeded to hold 19k in 2nd place. Dude said nothing else about my deadeye.

Claim to be a boss. Be the boss you claim to be. Instantly no elitism.

Welcome. I recently started raiding aswell. My adivice is to start woth fractals. With fractals you are slowly introduced to group play and because its only 5 man you will spot your fails easier and also there are fewer players to dps/cc/stack boons so if you dont do it then its easier to spot. With every tier content becomes harder so you can improve. You can get some ascended pieces from fractals (if you go power dps class then all trinkets are basicaly for free) but for higher tier you need full ascended. Once you get to lvl 100 you will for sure ready to raid. I have to say for me T4 fractals and 99 Chalange mode are easier then raids (but i guess its because i am more experienced in fractals but raid encounters are still new)I adivice you to look at snowcrows website where you can learn about meta and what gear is generaly desired in raids. Be careful because after last patch they updated some builds.Good luck

Elementalist is a great profession for raids but does require some serious work to be played well. Weaver has the potential to be highest DPS on many bosses but is also a glasscannon and ill suited for certain encounters like Matthias in my experience. Holosmith and Dragonhunter are safer and less demanding than Weaver in that regard.

Naturally it's draining for both sides if you cannot commit to a full run but even if you have to drop after an encounter or two you will still gather experience. It is possible to clear all five wings in under 4 hours, exceptional groups (no wipes, fast clears, no downtimes) might be able to do it in under 3 hours. (No idea, we usually reserve two evenings for raids with our multiple guilds spanning raid)

For starters you can go with W3 Escort and the first three bosses of W4, even with little experience leading yourself. Escort is not really the best example of a boss but for many beginners it's still a great way to get some LI. W4 is better suited to get a general gist of mechanics: Cairn and MO introduce you to the Special Action Key mechanic in raids (bind it to an easy to reach key!) and Samarog has mechanics (Aggro, CC, phasing, Adds, clearing, positioning). If you have raiding experience from other games you will recognize certain designs right away. W1 is also a good choice but more punishing than W4. It does set a bar for difficulty though which is nice. In the end, it comes down to getting a feel for every encounter.

About the LFG: While you can join groups this way, depending on your performance and or mood of the party (PUG Raid, Squad filling up because of low numbers) people tend to be more aggressive by the nature of supply and demand (potential players and classes they need) and personal bias/experience. While we (speaking about my group here) are not hesistant to carry a player (usually DPS) we are also not going to discuss a matter and if the joined player is underperforming we will kick him.

In the end, you can always create your own group and get experience this way. I know at least two players that started raiding this way, not fulfilling their own LFGs and getting carried the first few times until they got a hang of things. Players rarely question the Squadleader. :+1:

Thank you guys for your insights. I guess I'll stick to weaver dps for fractals and maybe try out a druid for raiding since I really like healing and staff healing on Elem is plain boring. Tempest is fun, but I don't think I'll be invited to many groups as one too, but that's fine.

Too bad I wasted my boost on a Mesmer that I don't intend to actually play. :'(

@"Tenmei.3812" said:I do hope my what some may call elitist words helped and hasn't deterred you from raiding. If you have questions that I didn't answer can ask will try to help where I can.

Not at all! I don't mind having to do a lot of work for it. My focus on "newcomer friendly" was to understand the raiding system here, because in WoW we have 4 difiiculty levels in raiding. The first two are very casual-friendly, even the third one can be to a lesser extent, with the last one not being pug-friendly at all since you can only join it with a full party (no LFG/M can be used) and it is actually damn hard without communication and hard training every week. So I needed to understand if GW2 had those kinds of options.

In terms of gearing for raids, it’s much easier than other MMOs. In terms of actual raid mechanics and fights though, it can still be pretty tough.

It’s nice in that you don’t have to worry about sinking in a ton of time for updating your gear for every new patch/content release, but you’ll still have to learn the fights themselves.

I do not think you will find ¨casual¨ raids runs. This is the most challenging PvE content and there only one basic difficulty for the encounters. So some scheduling and playing Meta builds (especially in the start that you are still learning) will be required by you in any setting. Group that help newcomers though do exist.

I would suggest the discord training communities:

https://snowcrows.com/newtoraids/

They have their own requirements and the official training you have to schedule but they are the best in teaching and helping new ppl. And following their requirements is a great way to have a guide into what you have to do to have a viable, working build. It easy to follow instead of trying to find what to do on your own. There is a academy like feeling into their requirements. And there are also a lot of ad-hoc PuG groups created all the time in these communities. So it is a much more pleasant LFG basically.

The community is quite friendly. You are usually treated nice enough if not very nicely most of the time. There are different difficulty scales. These depend on which encounter you are actually working on rather than any easy or hard modes.

Having said that, I have made good experiences with people coming from WoW. They do not tend to get all offended when you set even the lowest of standards.Meaning that many training group leaders end up being surprised at your understading of the need to have a certain level of gear and a working build for any given encounter since that is coming from a player new to the game or at least new to the raids. People who have not played other MMORPGs and even more so those who only ever played the most casual PvE in this game have a very different mindset.You yourself might even be surprised at the amount of people who expect to be carried through raids like they got used to anywhere else in this game.

Not being able to show up for any schedules is the bigger deal of course. This will mostly limit you to LFG training runs which quite often have a very different definition on what inexperience and training actually means. Still, my suggestion will always be to keep trying. Just going to take a while if you are going to stick to pugs.

@"Thievil.1289" said:Greetings.

First of all, I said newcomer because i've been playing this game for almost a month. Yeah i'm no pro, but i'm a long term MMORPG player, so i'm no stranger to raiding per se. Got burnt out by WoW recently and decided to try something new (and more casual). Was a core tank/healer on my guild, raiding every weekend, studying every new fight that comes along with a new raid, perfecting rotations, mechanics, group play and everything that comes along. But right now, I have a job and studies and can't afford two-three nights a week to raiding/gearing.

That being said, I'm at lvl 80 with the two elite specs fully unlocked and am now starting on crafting ascended gear hoping to get to the next level: fractals and raiding.So, I check the LFG/LFM window from time to time just to feel it. What i've seen so far is: you either join the meta wars 2 (chrono/druid/flavor of the month dps) or join a guild that will take you no matter what you play. Or... you can start your own group.

There are some problems right there:

1: I don't play the meta classes (I play Elem, so maybe weaver could fit the dps role).2: I am actually in a guild that does raid training runs. But for that I would have to commit to the runs, logging on time every week to play. It is not the case, since i'm looking for a more casual style now.3: I'm a newcomer. I know I should study mechanics before joining and all that, I did that stuff on wow for a long time. But I can't really make my own group as a newcomer thou. That is for when I'm more experienced with the content so I can actually lead a group. I'm tired of raid leaders in wow that just wanted to be carried, pugging only the top tier to speed them through the fights while dying to basic kitten. I'm not that guy.

So... please shed some light for me. I know casual laid-back groups do exist, and maybe they fill within a couple seconds. But is it really that hard to find in this game? Or i'm stuck in that "need experience to get a job - need a job to get experience" loop?.

Let me give you a quick comment from a raider's perspective on your three problems.

1. This wouldn't be a big issue if you were experienced. Being optimal isn't required for anything in raiding - last night a friend of mine found out she had no trinkets equipped on her Dragonhunter only after we successfully killed Dhuum. But there's the thing - she's experienced. For newcomers, I strongly recommend using the meta. It gives you more power, and therefore, more room for mistakes. And you WILL make mistakes.

2. That's the biggest issue really. You want to learn, but you don't want to commit. That's not good at all for a training group. Look it that way - if your training group raids regularly, with the same players, you can be sure the group performance will improve steadily. The players will learn and get used to the mechanics of the fight you're practising and you'll be able to move on to the next ones. If the players are constantly dropping in and out, you'll pretty much always will have players who aren't familiar enough with the encounter you're playing and your group will be struggling a lot more. This in turn makes some players lose the will to continue, drop out of the group entirely, pushing it even further back, in an endless spiral of struggle. That's why I strongly recommend being regular.

3. That's why training guilds exist. But. See 2.

What people don't understand is that people don't want to carry lazy people that dont want to contribute to the squad. You can use your own build ofc but putting something together that doesnt work will just hold your group back. And people dont want to carry those.You mentioned meta build. They are called meta because they work. Having 10 dps people wont get you the kill. Meta is optimal! Everything has a reason to be there.

My suggestion, join a training guild (i have one, eZ), learn the bosses and build your knowledge from there. You will learn why meta is best.P.S. 70% of people dont raid and complain about raids here. Just dont.

There are multiple training guilds and discords. A simple google search of "gw2 raid training" will give you useful links in the first few results.It requires a bit of effort, but its easier than ever to get into raids

@Thievil.1289 said:

@Sombra.3246 said:(P.S. Fractals is much easier to get into groups and also fun and rewarding)

@"Kheldorn.5123" said:It's the friendliest mmo community for a reason, right? RIGHT?

This game is just focused more on non raid-like content, although it has been shifting more focus onto raids. Non raid-like content just creates a less stressful playstyle and friendlier community. If you get into raids thou, except similar experience to wow raiding. It's not wrong or toxic, it's just how things go for that level of challenging content in any mmo. It's a "pull your own weight and contribute to the team like everyone else" attitude. Not saying that toxicity don't exist, some people are at their stress limit playing raid content and doesn't have room to tolerate other people's mistakes so they become toxic looking for ideal conditions to avoid as much additional stress as possible.

@"Turin.6921" said:I do not think you will find ¨casual¨ raids runs. This is the most challenging PvE content and there only one basic difficulty for the encounters. So some scheduling and playing Meta builds (especially in the start that you are still learning) will be required by you in any setting. Group that help newcomers though do exist.

I would suggest the discord training communities:

https://snowcrows.com/newtoraids/

They have their own requirements and the official training you have to schedule but they are the best in teaching and helping new ppl. And following their requirements is a great way to have a guide into what you have to do to have a viable, working build. It easy to follow instead of trying to find what to do on your own. There is a academy like feeling into their requirements. And there are also a lot of ad-hoc PuG groups created all the time in these communities. So it is a much more pleasant LFG basically.

I cannot say enough good things about the training discord avaliable through the link provided above.

I've never met a jerk on there, and virtually everyone is interested in helping people learn.

the encounters themselves are extremely newbie friendly, and you'll experience that yourself if you find the right peoplebut half of the community is extremely newbie unfriendly

Thanks again for your answers.

.> @"Deeyra.1476" said:

My suggestion, join a training guild (i have one, eZ), learn the bosses and build your knowledge from there. You will learn why meta is best.P.S. 70% of people dont raid and complain about raids here. Just dont.

Just to clarify something that may have sounded confusing: no, I'm not attacking the concept of "meta" and why it exists. There's a reason, yeah, it works, it reduces the possibilities of failling by a great margin because you're not playing with regular people with the same mindset, and no one (me included) wants to waste time. I get that. In WoW, if i'm going for a gold challenge mode, you can be pretty sure that I will look for the ones who can bring me the highest sucess rate possible because, well, it is damn hard and again, I don't like wasting my time. My question on the topic was if my only choice of raiding was following the meta, or what would be the odds of someone inviting me in spite of playing a "not so great" class/spec (speaking only of LFG now). And i'm also not the kind of guy who wants to get carried playing whatever build comes to my mind and the group has to accept it. Been raiding a long time to avoid that selfish single player view.

But as people have mentioned, I see that it is not a case of "play this/that or play another game", and I'm okay of playing the meta if I find it fun. So no worries there. :)

@Feanor.2358 said:

Let me give you a quick comment from a raider's perspective on your three problems.

1. This wouldn't be a big issue if you were experienced. Being optimal isn't required for anything in raiding - last night a friend of mine found out she had no trinkets equipped on her Dragonhunter only after we successfully killed Dhuum. But there's the thing - she's experienced. For newcomers, I strongly recommend using the meta. It gives you more power, and therefore, more room for mistakes. And you WILL make mistakes.

2. That's the biggest issue really. You want to learn, but you don't want to commit. That's not good at all for a training group. Look it that way - if your training group raids regularly, with the same players, you can be sure the group performance will improve steadily. The players will learn and get used to the mechanics of the fight you're practising and you'll be able to move on to the next ones. If the players are constantly dropping in and out, you'll pretty much always will have players who aren't familiar enough with the encounter you're playing and your group will be struggling a lot more. This in turn makes some players lose the will to continue, drop out of the group entirely, pushing it even further back, in an endless spiral of struggle. That's why I strongly recommend being regular.

I totally agree with you in that it is the player that makes the profession, not the other way around. I've met some great players that could get even the lowest dps class and still be better than a great number of meta players. I would like to add something: Sometimes the meta are some of the most complex classes of the game (I don't play chrono for instance, but it looks damn hard to me) and not everyone will adapt to them. So that would sometimes result in a bad player playing a great class, thus not having 70% of the expected outcome. Of course, that's not a general rule, but I agree with you for the most cases.

About the biggest issue... I will have to work with it, there's no arguing there. PUG life can be great sometimes, but nothing really replaces the feeling of a steady group that learns and overcomes things together. I've seen it in WoW, and that's the reason I joined a guild there, because I wanted to get out of the pug life for good. Ironic...I'll ask in my guild and try to show up at least for one night a week. Guess that won't hurt =)

@"Turin.6921" said:

I would suggest the discord training communities:

https://snowcrows.com/newtoraids/

Oh, and I'm joining it now. Thanks! :)

I second the suggestion for a training discord. They will often have run going at all different times of day, depending on the size of the community/timezones, they'll have training runs where they'll specifically go through mechanics, and generally will have a lot of people to ask questions about any profession you want to play.

From someone who also previously raided in WoW and has beem through the wringer learning here, speaking to your original points:

1. As an elementalist, 99% of groups are going to expect you to play a weaver as DPS. Tempest is a much easier style and might be ok for learning if you find weaver too complex at first, but the difference is massive. People in WoW go crazy if their class does 5% less dps that the theoretical maximum... in GW2, the difference between a niche, rarely used DPS and the top one can be more like 50% or more. If you don't like weaver and want to play DPS you may want to try other classes.

The majority of raids I've run take 2 Chronomancers, 2 Druids (sometimes 1 druid and another healer), 1 Warrior (for banners) and 5 assorted DPS. DPS is the most flexible slot by far.. not too many groups care about getting the perfect DPS setup as long as the buffs are covered. There are a few variations to this but the vast majority of the time this is what you'll see. If a fight requires a tank, it's one of the Chronos, simply because they lose very little for doing it and naturally have a lot of defensive abilities in their builds. The druids are the healers. Very rarely you'll see a Tempest healer, especially on fights where there aren't hard DPS checks.

Weaver is the theoretical highest DPS on most encounters, but few people can play it to that level (maybe one in ten from my experience). Other common DPS are Dragonhunters, Soulbeasts, and Mirages. If you're not sure what to try I'd recommend starting with these. Less frequently, you'll see DPS Warriors, Daredevils, or Scourges. For DPS, practice on the golem in the Aerodrome, if you add all buffs and enhancements to yourself, use consumables, add conditions to the golem, and start with at least 4 million hp, 20k dps is probably the bare minimum you want to be at, and depending on your profession, 30k is strong.

2. and 3. If not having a set schedule is important, the training discords can help you find runs, but as mentioned they will likely be with a different group every time so sometimes you will be slamming your head on things you've already beaten. That said, it will still be far better than LFG imo.

The actual fights vary a lot. The easy ones are very easy in comparison to a lot of WoW raids, but the hard ones have a lot of mechanics to juggle and also tend to be fault-intolerant. If you can, start with Wing 4 (Bastion of the Penitent) as the first three bosses there are good for learning.. you may want to skip the last fight until later on, though. Wing 1 is also very approachable.

@"Rhatha.2376" said:Weaver is the theoretical highest DPS on most encounters, but few people can play it to that level (maybe one in ten from my experience).One in ten? You must be incredibly lucky. With my fractal experience (my raid sample size is too small), I'd say that maybe one in a hundred weavers plays on that level. When a weaver joins my group, the only question I ask myself is "Ok, how useless will that guy be?".

@"reikken.4961" said:the encounters themselves are extremely newbie friendly, and you'll experience that yourself if you find the right peoplebut half of the community is extremely newbie unfriendly

Agree. To enjoy a group content/ event, it really depends on who your're doing it with. Different players have different ways and oppinions, it depends whether the player joining can mingle in. While might find some groups "negative"(they do get players that can fit in), just not one suitable for you doesn't make them bad. If one is constant PuG'ing, you will meet both groups. Often only the negative exp is worth mentioned.

@reikken.4961 said:the encounters themselves are extremely newbie friendly.

Nope,