How to do boneskinner?

[Blocki.4931]

Mechanics and build rotations are the only barrier stopping people from raiding. Strike missions are generally a bit easier on the mechanics, so people can get used to doing them. In theory.

[Firebeard.1746]

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Firebeard.1746 said:

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Firebeard.1746 said:My issue is group content should prepare you for other group content. If strikes are supposed to prepare for raids, then they should supply gear that is appropriate for raiding and harder strikes, without that natural transition, they will fail in their purpose of preparing for raids. Most MMOS let group content naturally prepare you for other group content. It's weird to me I have to do fractals too in order to be successful (at least I would hope it isn't). Taking the time to put groups together & coordinate takes time). Thanks for the tips on the bladed armor set, was not aware of that set.

Strikes are supposed to prepare players for Raids in the sense that they require teamwork, team composition and player skill (to deal with mechanics). It's a good thing that we have Fractals and Dungeons as group content to prepare you for the other group content. If you want to gear up, Fractals is the best choice, but Dungeons, crafting and the living world are also valid options, why expect Strike Missions to reward you the gear? Strike Missions teach players some fundamentals of group content mechanics, you will gear up elsewhere though, that's what the rest of the game is about.

I've done no less than 25 fractals, have not received a single selectable stat anything. If that's the preparation loop on top of strikes that's just broken, the more recent strikes take plenty of time between getting a group and coordinating again when there's a failure. Other games have natural gear progression where doing X that prepares you for Y actually gives you the gear to do Y. I'm not the only one with this idea but geez there's a lot of contrarians in this forum.

You can swap the stats of gear using the mystic forge. If Strikes indeed prepare you for Raids, Fractals/dungeons prepare you for Strikes, so follow your own advice and do the natural progression. Strikes take too little time and effort, if they gave you the gear to Raid, then it would make the rest of the game pointless. When they finally add proper Strikes with enough challenge maybe they could add good gear rewards to them too.

By the way, I believe Strikes are not a good preparation for Raids as they are lacking mechanics (Boneskinner maybe excluded) to be proper content that bridges that gap, and the Grothmar Strike is easier than all dungeons or fractals in the game. Follow the normal progression, Strikes are preparing you for Raids, but you clearly missed the preparation for Strikes.

Didn't get any ascended gear either. IIRC, exotics can't have their stats swapped (nor can ascended trinkets cia mystic forge. There are special ones like the bloodstone fen ones). Fractals are starting to feel dead. When i try to do them, the groups are taking longer to fill, and from what i hear it gets really bad in the tier 2-3 range.

[Vinceman.4572]

Another misconception players have can be observed here: Fractals as immediate and only source of ascended gear. While it is true that you will drown in ascended chests over time when playing fractals over a longer period it's not that they'll drop from the beginning and pretty regularly. But what most of the people forget completely: You gain gold in fractals and the more you climb up in levels/tiers the more gold will be acquired. This on the other hand can and definitely should be invested into crafting the pieces (easy peasily). Stop saving your gold for the next shiny (legendary) and immediately use it to get your gear ready. These are the best times to do the crafting thing. If I compare your situation with the beginning of veterans it was a good grind to get the gold/mats together to craft your first ascended armor. The prices for those are cheap af since a long time now. It amazes me every time I read/see players not being very well informed when it comes to instanced content and the sources of getting gear. I mean, it's so easy nowadays but still everything is either (still) too hard or totally unknown. Weapons can even be obtained via collections - they weren't present pre-HoT and not in those numbers from today!Some people are doing this to the recent day: We had to change our gear several times in the mystic forge because builds got outdated and stats, runes + sigils had to be changed. Of course it was and still is a bit annoying but it'll pay off and every time it's a good feeling to have your toon ready to go on a adventure knowing you won't be a burden for the rest of the team but a help or even a solid back-up.

[Linken.6345]

@Firebeard.1746 said:

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Firebeard.1746 said:

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Firebeard.1746 said:My issue is group content should prepare you for other group content. If strikes are supposed to prepare for raids, then they should supply gear that is appropriate for raiding and harder strikes, without that natural transition, they will fail in their purpose of preparing for raids. Most MMOS let group content naturally prepare you for other group content. It's weird to me I have to do fractals too in order to be successful (at least I would hope it isn't). Taking the time to put groups together & coordinate takes time). Thanks for the tips on the bladed armor set, was not aware of that set.

Strikes are supposed to prepare players for Raids in the sense that they require teamwork, team composition and player skill (to deal with mechanics). It's a good thing that we have Fractals and Dungeons as group content to prepare you for the other group content. If you want to gear up, Fractals is the best choice, but Dungeons, crafting and the living world are also valid options, why expect Strike Missions to reward you the gear? Strike Missions teach players some fundamentals of group content mechanics, you will gear up elsewhere though, that's what the rest of the game is about.

I've done no less than 25 fractals, have not received a single selectable stat anything. If that's the preparation loop on top of strikes that's just broken, the more recent strikes take plenty of time between getting a group and coordinating again when there's a failure. Other games have natural gear progression where doing X that prepares you for Y actually gives you the gear to do Y. I'm not the only one with this idea but geez there's a lot of contrarians in this forum.

You can swap the stats of gear using the mystic forge. If Strikes indeed prepare you for Raids, Fractals/dungeons prepare you for Strikes, so follow your own advice and do the natural progression. Strikes take too little time and effort, if they gave you the gear to Raid, then it would make the rest of the game pointless. When they finally add proper Strikes with enough challenge maybe they could add good gear rewards to them too.

By the way, I believe Strikes are not a good preparation for Raids as they are lacking mechanics (Boneskinner maybe excluded) to be proper content that bridges that gap, and the Grothmar Strike is easier than all dungeons or fractals in the game. Follow the normal progression, Strikes are preparing you for Raids, but you clearly missed the preparation for Strikes.

Didn't get any ascended gear either. IIRC, exotics can't have their stats swapped (nor can ascended trinkets cia mystic forge. There are special ones like the bloodstone fen ones). Fractals are starting to feel dead. When i try to do them, the groups are taking longer to fill, and from what i hear it gets really bad in the tier 2-3 range.

Your doing level 1-25 fractals and expect loads of ascended drops?From what I remember you can get rings from those only.You can use the recommended fractal journal pages ( turned into book ofcourse) to buy ascended gear tho.

[Cyninja.2954]

@Firebeard.1746 said:

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Firebeard.1746 said:

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Firebeard.1746 said:My issue is group content should prepare you for other group content. If strikes are supposed to prepare for raids, then they should supply gear that is appropriate for raiding and harder strikes, without that natural transition, they will fail in their purpose of preparing for raids. Most MMOS let group content naturally prepare you for other group content. It's weird to me I have to do fractals too in order to be successful (at least I would hope it isn't). Taking the time to put groups together & coordinate takes time). Thanks for the tips on the bladed armor set, was not aware of that set.

Strikes are supposed to prepare players for Raids in the sense that they require teamwork, team composition and player skill (to deal with mechanics). It's a good thing that we have Fractals and Dungeons as group content to prepare you for the other group content. If you want to gear up, Fractals is the best choice, but Dungeons, crafting and the living world are also valid options, why expect Strike Missions to reward you the gear? Strike Missions teach players some fundamentals of group content mechanics, you will gear up elsewhere though, that's what the rest of the game is about.

I've done no less than 25 fractals, have not received a single selectable stat anything. If that's the preparation loop on top of strikes that's just broken, the more recent strikes take plenty of time between getting a group and coordinating again when there's a failure. Other games have natural gear progression where doing X that prepares you for Y actually gives you the gear to do Y. I'm not the only one with this idea but geez there's a lot of contrarians in this forum.

You can swap the stats of gear using the mystic forge. If Strikes indeed prepare you for Raids, Fractals/dungeons prepare you for Strikes, so follow your own advice and do the natural progression. Strikes take too little time and effort, if they gave you the gear to Raid, then it would make the rest of the game pointless. When they finally add proper Strikes with enough challenge maybe they could add good gear rewards to them too.

By the way, I believe Strikes are not a good preparation for Raids as they are lacking mechanics (Boneskinner maybe excluded) to be proper content that bridges that gap, and the Grothmar Strike is easier than all dungeons or fractals in the game. Follow the normal progression, Strikes are preparing you for Raids, but you clearly missed the preparation for Strikes.

Didn't get any ascended gear either. IIRC, exotics can't have their stats swapped (nor can ascended trinkets cia mystic forge. There are special ones like the bloodstone fen ones). Fractals are starting to feel dead. When i try to do them, the groups are taking longer to fill, and from what i hear it gets really bad in the tier 2-3 range.

There has been some drop research in the past by the then guild KING:https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3sk6au/kings_fractal_research_shows_that_a_champion/https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18IHVJao5j85KOp6lBTOgO8qs4VYD3Xty-jKPZo8o-Q4/pubhtml#

and while the sample size was rather small (627 total), it did clearly show that while chests of lower rank have a chance of dropping ascended armor/weapon chests, the chance for getting any lower than T3 becomes insignificantly small. Which would also make sense since T1+2 fractals are far to easy to reward consistent ascended gear. The rng nature can be somewhat circumvented by doing recommended fractals (T1-3) for fractal research pages, which can be used for cheaper access to ascended gear.

The chance at reward rank T4 is on average 10-12% for getting "a chest" per day. This is obviously subject to rng as well. I have gone weeks without a single ascended chest of any type, and I have seen days with 3 and weeks with more than 8 in those weeks.

T4 fractals obviously see the most of play since eventually fractal players end up there, or quit the content.

TL;DR:Ascended rewards in fractals are at the very top end. Players who have spent a couple of hours on fractals barely scratching the content will not see immediate return. The idea is that players gradually improve and rise through fractal ranks while they become better players. T1+2 are not worth mentioning easy, T3 is only slightly more difficult since the vast majority of players "stuck" there are trash and T4 is being run the most by the community because the majority of players end up there.

[Firebeard.1746]

@Linken.6345 said:

@Firebeard.1746 said:

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Firebeard.1746 said:

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Firebeard.1746 said:My issue is group content should prepare you for other group content. If strikes are supposed to prepare for raids, then they should supply gear that is appropriate for raiding and harder strikes, without that natural transition, they will fail in their purpose of preparing for raids. Most MMOS let group content naturally prepare you for other group content. It's weird to me I have to do fractals too in order to be successful (at least I would hope it isn't). Taking the time to put groups together & coordinate takes time). Thanks for the tips on the bladed armor set, was not aware of that set.

Strikes are supposed to prepare players for Raids in the sense that they require teamwork, team composition and player skill (to deal with mechanics). It's a good thing that we have Fractals and Dungeons as group content to prepare you for the other group content. If you want to gear up, Fractals is the best choice, but Dungeons, crafting and the living world are also valid options, why expect Strike Missions to reward you the gear? Strike Missions teach players some fundamentals of group content mechanics, you will gear up elsewhere though, that's what the rest of the game is about.

I've done no less than 25 fractals, have not received a single selectable stat anything. If that's the preparation loop on top of strikes that's just broken, the more recent strikes take plenty of time between getting a group and coordinating again when there's a failure. Other games have natural gear progression where doing X that prepares you for Y actually gives you the gear to do Y. I'm not the only one with this idea but geez there's a lot of contrarians in this forum.

You can swap the stats of gear using the mystic forge. If Strikes indeed prepare you for Raids, Fractals/dungeons prepare you for Strikes, so follow your own advice and do the natural progression. Strikes take too little time and effort, if they gave you the gear to Raid, then it would make the rest of the game pointless. When they finally add proper Strikes with enough challenge maybe they could add good gear rewards to them too.

By the way, I believe Strikes are not a good preparation for Raids as they are lacking mechanics (Boneskinner maybe excluded) to be proper content that bridges that gap, and the Grothmar Strike is easier than all dungeons or fractals in the game. Follow the normal progression, Strikes are preparing you for Raids, but you clearly missed the preparation for Strikes.

Didn't get any ascended gear either. IIRC, exotics can't have their stats swapped (nor can ascended trinkets cia mystic forge. There are special ones like the bloodstone fen ones). Fractals are starting to feel dead. When i try to do them, the groups are taking longer to fill, and from what i hear it gets really bad in the tier 2-3 range.

Your doing level 1-25 fractals and expect loads of ascended drops?From what I remember you can get rings from those only.You can use the recommended fractal journal pages ( turned into book ofcourse) to buy ascended gear tho.

No i'm pointing out they're not a viable gearing strategy for current raid design. If you're expecting people to have characters geared in t4 fractal gear before stepping into strikes that's overkill and an overdone gear preparation loop. The strikes themselves can be plenty time consuming just in terms of assembling a group (though harder ones like Fraenir and Boneskinner require strategy explanations as well as potential retries). If a piece of content, that's already time consuming is really supposed to be pre-raid then it should reward gear that prepares for raids and the harder portions of itself (such as boneskinner) . The response I was responding to advising doing fractals sounded flippant -> like just stepping into them would award appropriate gear. Had they led with "just do t4 fractals" I could explain that loop fallacy to begin with.

[Firebeard.1746]

@Cyninja.2954 said:

@Firebeard.1746 said:

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Firebeard.1746 said:

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Firebeard.1746 said:My issue is group content should prepare you for other group content. If strikes are supposed to prepare for raids, then they should supply gear that is appropriate for raiding and harder strikes, without that natural transition, they will fail in their purpose of preparing for raids. Most MMOS let group content naturally prepare you for other group content. It's weird to me I have to do fractals too in order to be successful (at least I would hope it isn't). Taking the time to put groups together & coordinate takes time). Thanks for the tips on the bladed armor set, was not aware of that set.

Strikes are supposed to prepare players for Raids in the sense that they require teamwork, team composition and player skill (to deal with mechanics). It's a good thing that we have Fractals and Dungeons as group content to prepare you for the other group content. If you want to gear up, Fractals is the best choice, but Dungeons, crafting and the living world are also valid options, why expect Strike Missions to reward you the gear? Strike Missions teach players some fundamentals of group content mechanics, you will gear up elsewhere though, that's what the rest of the game is about.

I've done no less than 25 fractals, have not received a single selectable stat anything. If that's the preparation loop on top of strikes that's just broken, the more recent strikes take plenty of time between getting a group and coordinating again when there's a failure. Other games have natural gear progression where doing X that prepares you for Y actually gives you the gear to do Y. I'm not the only one with this idea but geez there's a lot of contrarians in this forum.

You can swap the stats of gear using the mystic forge. If Strikes indeed prepare you for Raids, Fractals/dungeons prepare you for Strikes, so follow your own advice and do the natural progression. Strikes take too little time and effort, if they gave you the gear to Raid, then it would make the rest of the game pointless. When they finally add proper Strikes with enough challenge maybe they could add good gear rewards to them too.

By the way, I believe Strikes are not a good preparation for Raids as they are lacking mechanics (Boneskinner maybe excluded) to be proper content that bridges that gap, and the Grothmar Strike is easier than all dungeons or fractals in the game. Follow the normal progression, Strikes are preparing you for Raids, but you clearly missed the preparation for Strikes.

Didn't get any ascended gear either. IIRC, exotics can't have their stats swapped (nor can ascended trinkets cia mystic forge. There are special ones like the bloodstone fen ones). Fractals are starting to feel dead. When i try to do them, the groups are taking longer to fill, and from what i hear it gets really bad in the tier 2-3 range.

There has been some drop research in the past by the then guild KING:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3sk6au/kings_fractal_research_shows_that_a_champion/

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18IHVJao5j85KOp6lBTOgO8qs4VYD3Xty-jKPZo8o-Q4/pubhtml

#

and while the sample size was rather small (627 total), it did clearly show that while chests of lower rank have a chance of dropping ascended armor/weapon chests, the chance for getting any lower than T3 becomes insignificantly small. Which would also make sense since T1+2 fractals are far to easy to reward consistent ascended gear. The rng nature can be somewhat circumvented by doing recommended fractals (T1-3) for fractal research pages, which can be used for cheaper access to ascended gear.

The chance at reward rank T4 is on average 10-12% for getting "a chest" per day. This is obviously subject to rng as well. I have gone weeks without a single ascended chest of any type, and I have seen days with 3 and weeks with more than 8 in those weeks.

T4 fractals obviously see the most of play since eventually fractal players end up there, or quit the content.

TL;DR

:Ascended rewards in fractals are at the very top end. Players who have spent a couple of hours on fractals barely scratching the content will not see immediate return. The idea is that players gradually improve and rise through fractal ranks while they become better players. T1+2 are not worth mentioning easy, T3 is only slightly more difficult since the vast majority of players "stuck" there are trash and T4 is being run the most by the community because the majority of players end up there.

I understand as much, i'm just asserting the idea you'd expect players to push t4 fractals on top of regular strikes as preparation for some of those strikes is ridiculous. The response I was responding to advising doing fractals sounded flippant -> like just stepping into them would award appropriate gear. Had they led with "just do t4 fractals" I could explain that loop fallacy to begin with.

[Cameron.6450]

@Firebeard.1746 said:

@Linken.6345 said:

@Firebeard.1746 said:

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Firebeard.1746 said:

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Firebeard.1746 said:My issue is group content should prepare you for other group content. If strikes are supposed to prepare for raids, then they should supply gear that is appropriate for raiding and harder strikes, without that natural transition, they will fail in their purpose of preparing for raids. Most MMOS let group content naturally prepare you for other group content. It's weird to me I have to do fractals too in order to be successful (at least I would hope it isn't). Taking the time to put groups together & coordinate takes time). Thanks for the tips on the bladed armor set, was not aware of that set.

Strikes are supposed to prepare players for Raids in the sense that they require teamwork, team composition and player skill (to deal with mechanics). It's a good thing that we have Fractals and Dungeons as group content to prepare you for the other group content. If you want to gear up, Fractals is the best choice, but Dungeons, crafting and the living world are also valid options, why expect Strike Missions to reward you the gear? Strike Missions teach players some fundamentals of group content mechanics, you will gear up elsewhere though, that's what the rest of the game is about.

I've done no less than 25 fractals, have not received a single selectable stat anything. If that's the preparation loop on top of strikes that's just broken, the more recent strikes take plenty of time between getting a group and coordinating again when there's a failure. Other games have natural gear progression where doing X that prepares you for Y actually gives you the gear to do Y. I'm not the only one with this idea but geez there's a lot of contrarians in this forum.

You can swap the stats of gear using the mystic forge. If Strikes indeed prepare you for Raids, Fractals/dungeons prepare you for Strikes, so follow your own advice and do the natural progression. Strikes take too little time and effort, if they gave you the gear to Raid, then it would make the rest of the game pointless. When they finally add proper Strikes with enough challenge maybe they could add good gear rewards to them too.

By the way, I believe Strikes are not a good preparation for Raids as they are lacking mechanics (Boneskinner maybe excluded) to be proper content that bridges that gap, and the Grothmar Strike is easier than all dungeons or fractals in the game. Follow the normal progression, Strikes are preparing you for Raids, but you clearly missed the preparation for Strikes.

Didn't get any ascended gear either. IIRC, exotics can't have their stats swapped (nor can ascended trinkets cia mystic forge. There are special ones like the bloodstone fen ones). Fractals are starting to feel dead. When i try to do them, the groups are taking longer to fill, and from what i hear it gets really bad in the tier 2-3 range.

Your doing level 1-25 fractals and expect loads of ascended drops?From what I remember you can get rings from those only.You can use the recommended fractal journal pages ( turned into book ofcourse) to buy ascended gear tho.

If you're expecting people to have characters geared in t4 fractal gear before stepping into strikes that's overkill and an overdone gear preparation loop.

Thing is, no one is expecting that. As people have said from basically the very start of this thread, exotic is perfectly fine for doing strikes.

[maddoctor.2738]

@Firebeard.1746 said:No i'm pointing out they're not a viable gearing strategy for current raid design. If you're expecting people to have characters geared in t4 fractal gear before stepping into strikes that's overkill and an overdone gear preparation loop.

You don't need ascended to succeed in Strikes, you don't need to reach T4 fractals to play Strikes. Fractals, dungeons, crafting, open world, story instances will award you the gear needed to Raid, Strikes will teach you to deal with mechanics and group composition. Higher end Fractals, and especially CMs, can be more challenging than Raids. You expect a clear progression from one type of content to the next, that's a gear treadmill and you can go find it in many other games, in this one you can get max tier gear from a variety of sources and is irrelevant to success in Strikes (or even Raids)

[Firebeard.1746]

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Firebeard.1746 said:No i'm pointing out they're not a viable gearing strategy for current raid design. If you're expecting people to have characters geared in t4 fractal gear before stepping into strikes that's overkill and an overdone gear preparation loop.

You don't need ascended to succeed in Strikes, you don't need to reach T4 fractals to play Strikes. Fractals, dungeons, crafting, open world, story instances will award you the gear needed to Raid, Strikes will teach you to deal with mechanics and group composition. Higher end Fractals, and especially CMs, can be more challenging than Raids. You expect a clear progression from one type of content to the next, that's a gear treadmill and you can go find it in many other games, in this one you can get max tier gear from a variety of sources and is irrelevant to success in Strikes (or even Raids)

You back pedaled here. You talked about stat swapping gear from fractals, then we established later in the thread that that type of gear doesn't come from lower fractals, and now you're saying this. Okay it's non linear progression fine. But don't suggest something that is clearly a higher level fractal strategy and then act like that wasn't what you were suggesting. And this conversation has forked and lost context so many times it's not even meaningful.

[maddoctor.2738]

@Firebeard.1746 said:

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Firebeard.1746 said:No i'm pointing out they're not a viable gearing strategy for current raid design. If you're expecting people to have characters geared in t4 fractal gear before stepping into strikes that's overkill and an overdone gear preparation loop.

You don't need ascended to succeed in Strikes, you don't need to reach T4 fractals to play Strikes. Fractals, dungeons, crafting, open world, story instances will award you the gear needed to Raid, Strikes will teach you to deal with mechanics and group composition. Higher end Fractals, and especially CMs, can be more challenging than Raids. You expect a clear progression from one type of content to the next, that's a gear treadmill and you can go find it in many other games, in this one you can get max tier gear from a variety of sources and is irrelevant to success in Strikes (or even Raids)

You back pedaled here. You talked about stat swapping gear from fractals, then we established later in the thread that that type of gear doesn't come from lower fractals, and now you're saying this. Okay it's non linear progression fine. But don't suggest something that is clearly a higher level fractal strategy and then act like that wasn't what you were suggesting.

I said you can swap the stats of gear using the mystic forge, which is true for all types of ascended armor and weapons. I never said you get stat swappable gear from fractals.Specifically:

You can swap the stats of gear using the mystic forge.

Check these out for where you can get Ascended items as there are multiple sources (that would conflict with Strikes if they also awarded Ascended):https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ascended_weaponhttps://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ascended_armor

Then once you get them, follow the advice and convert their stats.

I never suggested to go do higher level fractals to get gear for Strikes, you confuse the two separate suggestions. One was about swapping stats using the Mystic Forge, and the other one about gearing up in Fractals and Dungeons, that doesn't mean you can get stat swappable gear from Fractals/Dungeons. You don't need Ascended for Strikes and you can get Exotic tier gear (which is all you need) from the following sources:https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Exotic_armorhttps://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Exotic_weapon

Plenty of options to gear up in the game, there is little reason to add more of those in Strikes.

[sokeenoppa.5384]

So whats the proplem here now? Is it that you need a specific role composition for instanced content or is that gearing is too hard?

[Vinceman.4572]

@sokeenoppa.5384 said:So whats the proplem here now? Is it that you need a specific role composition for instanced content or is that gearing is too hard?

I think we are back to handing out legendary armor & weapons via login. Everything else is too much nowadays. Let's show some mercy to the crowd.

[Firebeard.1746]

@Vinceman.4572 said:

@sokeenoppa.5384 said:So whats the proplem here now? Is it that you need a specific role composition for instanced content or is that gearing is too hard?

I think we are back to handing out legendary armor & weapons via login. Everything else is too much nowadays. Let's show some mercy to the crowd.

Well you suggested it. I sure as heck never asked for this lol. This just illustrates perfectly how little attention people are paying to the discussion and my comments as a whole.

[Firebeard.1746]

@sokeenoppa.5384 said:So whats the proplem here now? Is it that you need a specific role composition for instanced content or is that gearing is too hard?

The disjointedness. However depending on the implementation of the armor in the next episode this may be being remedied.

[Vinceman.4572]

@Firebeard.1746 said:

@Vinceman.4572 said:

@sokeenoppa.5384 said:So whats the proplem here now? Is it that you need a specific role composition for instanced content or is that gearing is too hard?

I think we are back to handing out legendary armor & weapons via login. Everything else is too much nowadays. Let's show some mercy to the crowd.

Well you suggested it. I sure as heck never asked for this lol. This just illustrates perfectly how little attention people are paying to the discussion and my comments as a whole.

Since the serious discussion was over anyways I was just making a joke. A funny reference to lots of conversation here in the past.

[Joraan Adenard.2061]

I believe the debate in this thread rises from two specific wrong assumptions from the OP which are as follow :

1. Raids are gated behind gear
2. Gear is specifically handed through content

First, raids are NOT gear-gated. While many pug groups will expect ascended gear, raids are perfectly doable with exotics as long as you do your job properly. Yes, the same exotics that you can get with any content as drops, that you can easily craft and sometimes buy for a few gold (for a whole set) on the TP. You could even complete raids with less than exotics as long as you master your role. That brings us to this fundamental aspect of raids : the challenge lies on group composition, knowledge of mechanics and personal responsibility.

Indeed, while strong knowledge of your role and the encounter can guarantee success (with an equally skilled group) whatever the rarity of the gear you have, great gear with poor knowledge of your role and of the encounter almosr guarantees failure.

In that sense, strikes aim to prepare you for raids through skill, not gear (the success of this objective is debatable).

Lastly, you have to know that high end gear in this game isnt meant to be acquired through loot ( though it can be, as pointed in previous posts) as vertical progression of content. It is meant to be crafted. As such, it is wrong to assume that strikes should drop ascended gear.

[Firebeard.1746]

@Joraan Adenard.2061 said:I believe the debate in this thread rises from two specific wrong assumptions from the OP which are as follow :

1. Raids are gated behind gear
2. Gear is specifically handed through content

First, raids are NOT gear-gated. While many pug groups will expect ascended gear, raids are perfectly doable with exotics as long as you do your job properly. Yes, the same exotics that you can get with any content as drops, that you can easily craft and sometimes buy for a few gold (for a whole set) on the TP. You could even complete raids with less than exotics as long as you master your role. That brings us to this fundamental aspect of raids : the challenge lies on group composition, knowledge of mechanics and personal responsibility.

Indeed, while strong knowledge of your role and the encounter can guarantee success (with an equally skilled group) whatever the rarity of the gear you have, great gear with poor knowledge of your role and of the encounter almosr guarantees failure.

In that sense, strikes aim to prepare you for raids through skill, not gear (the success of this objective is debatable).

Lastly, you have to know that high end gear in this game isnt meant to be acquired through loot ( though it can be, as pointed in previous posts) as vertical progression of content. It is meant to be crafted. As such, it is wrong to assume that strikes should drop ascended gear.

Why does everyone think i'm talking about ascended gear? I only mentioned them before because someone was talking about stat switching, i was pointing out that's ascended only. Basically people started saying that you need raid roles to do the hardest strike content, i was saying that's ridiculous if that's the case with the lack of gear progression. Once we're talking raid roles, that makes me think we need the holy combo of boons might, alacrity, quickness, + utility boons required by different situations, which translates into diviners/harriers depending on role. Anyway it's moot now. Cy has already shown how to get selectable stat armor which is super useful.

Some of my responses (specifically around ascended gear) were to illustrate how ridiculous some of the suggestions were. The purpose of this thread is done, cy has shown me how to get selectable stat exotics, another player's strategy taught me how to down Boneskinner and i'm grateful to the people that are helpful.

The nature of the game changes the more you learn about it and the more you advance your account/professions and i think a lot of people lose sight of that when going out of their way to be contrarian. This game is very broad and even studying the wiki i learn new stuff all the time.

[Belquerst.9783]

I killed him plenty of times after the update: Get 2-3 healers, alacrity and strong DPS.. and you are good to go. Don't even have to touch torches..

[Vinceman.4572]

@"Firebeard.1746" said:Basically people started saying that you need raid roles to do the hardest strike content, i was saying that's ridiculous if that's the case with the lack of gear progression. Once we're talking raid roles, that makes me think we need the holy combo of boons might, alacrity, quickness, + utility boons required by different situations, which translates into diviners/harriers depending on role.

Nobody said that exclusively. What was said was that one strategy in one specific encounter (here: Boneskinner) needs to have certain roles (here: healers). But you can also play different from that if the people would actually play the mechanics together and care about each other a.k.a. acting as a proper team.Since the past has shown that lots of GW2 players are acting more like single players in an MMO it is - with no doubt - hard to get random people together and expect to function as a whole.Players like you that want to be a part of a team and are willing to put effort into progressing have a hard life outside of guilds, communities or with several friends on their side because you are not fully experienced yet but also aware of how it could possibly work out. Let me tell you this: Lots of GW2 players aren't. They play the game differently and no strike mission ever will bring the more ambitious players together with inexperienced players that aren't willing to step up because they want to play "casually" (this is totally fine btw.). I insist on this point because I've played this game since almost the start and faced every situation we had over this time span till today - be it efficient dungeon running, playing fractals from the beginning till fractal god and raiding including cms.

The huge amount of stats leading to lots of different builds (most of them semi-useful to almost useless) + a clearly visible difference of skill (because humans are individuals with individual competences) generates a massive mismatch between players in this game. Imho this cannot be fixed or improved.Certain encounters in the past have shown that if you make them mechanic heavy but without dps pressure skilled players will easily beat those and on the opposite - simple mechanics and high dps pressure - is a breeze for them as well. On the other hand the casual crowd fails both types since they are either terrible at playing mechanics and/or lacking dps in massive amounts due to their bad gear. The result is that you need easy mechanics with low dps pressure for them (look at world bosses) to be successful. Those encounters are then problematic for the more hardcore people because those offer 0 challenge to them.

Therefore we need different playgrounds where everybody can have its honey pot (and I realize that this has to be in appropriate fractions due to the casual crowd being the bigger group). But leaving out substantial content for the hardcore player base will result in player efflux from this group - and this has happened heavily in the last months.Sounds depressing and some are stating the question of how people that are capable of playing substantially better can step up from low content to raiding. The answer is: dedication and putting effort into it. I've yet to meet someone who desperately wants to raid but couldn't get into raiding except for those working on night shift or have tight schedules due to family, work or something else. The opposite is actually true: I've seen so many beginners getting into raiding and lots of them have at least one legendary armor from raids or the leggy ring by now.It's all doable if you want to.

[Zoemaester.8072]

It's the last day of Boneskinner Week this month and I've come looking for solutions. I read through all the posts to date and appreciate the comments - even the ones that strayed from the main topic - it sounds like people needed to vent and it's apparent the strikes need more work if they are to meet the stated intention.

I've participated in Bjora Strike Missions every night, most of them successful, including the Boneskinner. What I'm seeing now is everything mentioned above, and in a negative way.

Yes, leaders can choose their 10 team members, but now some are becoming more particular, including telling people to leave if they don't like their choice of weapon. Other groups have commanders with no raid experience and cannot help team members with adequate strategies or advice on which character to bring to the mission.

People want to learn. They are willing to switch characters if it will help the team and learn how to better use their skills if they are told how and not scolded or put down. Simple commands like "/gg" are new to them, but they're learning.

The tips above on how to defeat the Boneskinner work. I've reiterated them to commanders many times, but a team of 10 inexperienced players rarely succeeds.

Instead of offering a place where people can learn from each other, Anet has created an environment where the division between the two groups becomes more evident and sometimes negative. To meet the goal of encouraging more players to try raids and work in groups, Anet needs to develop an environment more conducive to people helping each other and a safe place for inexperienced players to learn. I'm in the middle of the experience spectrum and want to see something positive come from all this so we can get back to having fun killing stuff.

[Ayrilana.1396]

A team of inexperienced players do succeed and quite often than you’re making it out to be. The only reason groups fail when doing the healing strat is because too many of them are incapable of paying attention and staying out of the red AOEs.

A fairly large percentage of the player base is under the mindset of stack on boss and spam their auto attack. It may seem like a meme, but it’s true. I’ve seen players time after time who stack on the boss while having low enough DPS that they have to have been auto attacking.

Anet hasn’t created any environment that you described. This has always existed between players that wanted to complete specific content quickly and those who don’t (or lack the skills to do so). We saw this many many years ago with dungeons. This environment was created by the players.

Strikes, even the boneskinner one, are conducive to learning. Unfortunately players are choosing not to learn which was why I was against training raids, or an easy mode for learning, in the first place.

If you truly want an environment for new players to learn the strikes as you feel such a thing is lacking, create your own group in the LFG specifying that the strike group is for learning. Don’t expect to join a group and for players to give up their time to teach you. The teaching thing is a bit unnecessary are the strikes up to this point haven’t been all that difficult to learn.

[Vinceman.4572]

@"Seraph.5831" said:It's the last day of Boneskinner Week this month and I've come looking for solutions. I read through all the posts to date and appreciate the comments - even the ones that strayed from the main topic - it sounds like people needed to vent and it's apparent the strikes need more work if they are to meet the stated intention.

I've participated in Bjora Strike Missions every night, most of them successful, including the Boneskinner. What I'm seeing now is everything mentioned above, and in a negative way.

Yes, leaders can choose their 10 team members, but now some are becoming more particular, including telling people to leave if they don't like their choice of weapon. Other groups have commanders with no raid experience and cannot help team members with adequate strategies or advice on which character to bring to the mission.

People want to learn. They are willing to switch characters if it will help the team and learn how to better use their skills if they are told how and not scolded or put down. Simple commands like "/gg" are new to them, but they're learning.

The tips above on how to defeat the Boneskinner work. I've reiterated them to commanders many times, but a team of 10 inexperienced players rarely succeeds.

Instead of offering a place where people can learn from each other, Anet has created an environment where the division between the two groups becomes more evident and sometimes negative. To meet the goal of encouraging more players to try raids and work in groups, Anet needs to develop an environment more conducive to people helping each other and a safe place for inexperienced players to learn. I'm in the middle of the experience spectrum and want to see something positive come from all this so we can get back to having fun killing stuff.

But tell me, what is the solution Arenanet can implement here? I would say: It is not possible. We are seeing different kind of people here and you won't bring them together because their play style differ so heavily from each other that mixing them is one of the worst ideas possible. The players that want to progress already do so by themselves: They ask in map chat about more useful builds, have guilds & communities in which they find answers and/or most likely know about web sites from Snowcrows, LN & Metabattle. It's not like you have players out there knowing explicitly nothing about the game. Those just do not want to play like this. They don't want to "struggle" with gearing their char properly. They don't want to learn mechanics of encounters. They want to get into a boss fight, beat it and feel they contributed to it even though their performance was terrible. Let them play like this a.k.a. give them easy modes or for my sake strikes. Let all strikes be hilariously easy but develop harder content for the niche as well. Since Arenanet tries to cover that they have no plan to develop more challenging raids they put things like Boneskinner in that again a majority of players is not able to beat but on the other hand is too boring for the more casual crowd. On top the rewards are skritt at best so they obviously are a failure from the start.Cater to your subsets of customers and you'll be fine. They don't do that so the complaints will stay.

[Lacko.6572]

just 2 man it like this, easy

[Ayrilana.1396]

@"DRfear.5234" said:just 2 man it like this, easy

That was before they updated the boneskinner. They tried it again after and couldn’t do it.