Why are only wings 1 and 4 often done in raids?

If I see wings looking to be done, its usually wings 1 and 4. Rarely you see wing 5 or 6, and even more rarely, wings 2 and 3. It's also hard to find training for wings outside of wings 1 and 4. Whats the reason for this?

They are far easier.

Many groups kill only the easy bosses. For instance wing 4, b1-3, without even attempting Deimos. Or wing 3 - escort only. Easy LI farm.

W3 is the only wing my static avoids. Unless we get a Xera opener.Escort is meh.KC is meh.Twisted Castle is meh.

On a more serious note:W2 and W3 are very different because everyone has to deal with mechanics there. You cannot force 3-4 people to carry everything and have the rest mindlessly DPS down the bosses. For example at Sloth, aggro is randomly chosen and so is the poisonous skull.

Besides VG and Deimos all other bosses are fairly easy since they dont have any significant mechanics. Considering that VG is first boss for everyone it also becomes fairly easy to clear. Other wings introduce a lot more mechanics and most of them are also random so you cant just carry with druid/chrono who do majority of mechanics on other bosses. Even KC fails quite often in pugs since people are bad at cleaving adds/pushing orbs/doing dps, despite it being one of the mechanically easiest bosses in raids.

Not sure why they dont do w6 though. It's kinda same difficulty as w4.

@steki.1478 said:Not sure why they dont do w6 though. It's kinda same difficulty as w4.

I hazard a guess that most may be chasing legendary armor and W6 only drops the new insights which don’t contribute towards that.

After doing full clears for several months frankly I purposely avoid w3, do w2 only if the group is very sharp at the moment, and only do Dhuum for w5. W6 I do whenever there are groups, they are easier to find @monday when everyone is still getting their full clears. It's annoying to do w3 even if the group is good because the mechanics are just annoying like that, not even difficult or anything. W5 is a clown fiesta starting right at Desmina so I skip all of that and go straight to Dhuum because there might be some cool drops there I am yet to acquire. W1, 2, 4, 6 are the fun ones IMO even if they are easier, with 2 being slightly frustrating depending on your group. I raid to relax and have fun now that I know the encounters and do not care about frustrating myself (I have all the merchants unlocked so if I want a particular skin I just buy it for shards anyway). I have a static but it's falling apart and we can't really complete W6 due to people not even being there and/or derping at Largos (I even got the CM by myself pugging first week).

I'd say most groups nowadays are progression groups, meaning they want to have very rough edges in w1-4 before considering moving into w5/6 (I know 6 is easier, but people still cling to this milestone thing like WoW). They also might want the legendary armor which only requires wings 1 to 4 (with 1and 4 being the easiest ones to farm). w2 and w3 as mentioned by others have too much individual responsibility and you can't really have slackers. Combine that with the "bad taste" of having to kick people from a static and you'll have a lot of groups, even the organized ones, skipping the hassle of w2 and specially w3 until they have a team with everyone on the same page (the most difficult thing to get in raids to be honest).

With all of this said, the Raiders in Training discord always has someone willing to lead semi-exp and training groups in all wings so you could try there.

New groups start with w1 because it's the wing most players have experience with, it's of average difficulty among the earlier wings, and is the first one (the psychological importance of VG being "the first raid boss" cannot be overlooked). They also do w4, because out of all the wings, it is the easiest.

as for last two wings, w5 is the hardest, so it is done only by groups that are already comfortable with w1-4. W6 is new, so not everyone even tried it yet.

@steki.1478 said:Not sure why they dont do w6 though. It's kinda same difficulty as w4.While it is generally considered to be rather easy by raider community, it is a bit deceptive, as it can be really unpleasant for below average groups, lacking either in dps (assassin duo) or group coordination (qadim). First bosses of W4 are way easier for starting groups.

@Ayrilana.1396 said:I hazard a guess that most may be chasing legendary armor and W6 only drops the new insights which don’t contribute towards that.That, of course, can also be a factor.

@steki.1478 said:Not sure why they dont do w6 though. It's kinda same difficulty as w4.

It is just still new and the legendary item for divinations is not out yet. I would expect that in 6 months time it will enter the w4 category. When wing 4 came out it took some time for the majority to get use to it as well. Cairn especially could easily become a clownfest. But with time and power creep (mirages) it became a breeze.

As for the OPs question. Wing 2 is a pug killer cause of the mechanics. Wing 3 most ppl find boring (except Xera) and now that there are 6 wings it is very often skipped.

@Grogba.6204 said:W2 and W3 are very different because everyone has to deal with mechanics there. You cannot force 3-4 people to carry everything and have the rest mindlessly DPS down the bosses. For example at Sloth, aggro is randomly chosen and so is the poisonous skull.

While I get what you're saying with the mechanics, I do think that Matthias is one of the easiest final bosses to carry on... There's no other boss--except maybe Qadim--that you can have over half of your raid dead at 40% and still have plenty of time/dps to beat the enrage (also, he has no soft-enrage mechanics.) The only real nail in the coffin for a bad group is when somebody who doesn't know the difference between the two mechanics drops poison on top of a well or I guess if all your reflects die.

wing 1 boss 2 (the third LI of the encounter) has a chance to drop ghostly infusion, worth 100 or so gold. I've been weekly raiding for a couple years, I have gotten 3 dropped, my static's members will ping them, so I think I have enough sample size to say they are not so rare that you never get one. Maybe 1/50 chance.

Wing 4 is just really easy, at least the first 3 bosses are.

@narcx.3570 said:While I get what you're saying with the mechanics, I do think that Matthias is one of the easiest final bosses to carry on... There's no other boss--except maybe Qadim--that you can have over half of your raid dead at 40% and still have plenty of time/dps to beat the enrage (also, he has no soft-enrage mechanics.) The only real nail in the coffin for a bad group is when somebody who doesn't know the difference between the two mechanics drops poison on top of a well or I guess if all your reflects die.

Or the Chronos/Healers getting sacrificed and the group's cc is lacking.Or people blowing each other up with bombs.Or people taking a ride in a fiery tornado.Or people trying to hug the spirits.Or people lingering away from Matthias for too long, leading to him moving into unfavourable positions.Or people repeatedly facetanking the Hadouken.

@Grogba.6204 said:Or the Chronos/Healers getting sacrificed and the group's cc is lacking.Or people blowing each other up with bombs.Or people taking a ride in a fiery tornado.Or people trying to hug the spirits.Or people lingering away from Matthias for too long, leading to him moving into unfavourable positions.Or people repeatedly facetanking the Hadouken.

Thats not really a nail in the coffin though.As long as 3 or 4 experienced players (Preferably DPS, Chrono and a Healer) survive until 40% they can easily 3 man the rest of the encounter if needed.The only thing that might kill them is the sacrifice. However, if you know that the group is probably going to suck, you can play around that.

Chrono can do 800 Break Bar damage every Break Bar + 1000 from Moa for the first two. Take Paralyzation if you want more.The experienced DPS player should probably be a Mirage with Feedback. So you get another Moa. If needed use shatter, Pistol 5 and Signet of Domination for 800 Every Bar + Moa once. You basically break the first 3 bars with 2 classes alone. Even if one of them gets sacrificed, you still have other people probably doing some CC.

Matthias is a really easy boss to carry.

There is still a lot more going on than any comparable W1 or W4 encounter if Sloth alone is not already making sure "pugs" avoid w2 for something less difficult. Which this thread is about in the first place.