Question about fractals and raids

[Mirror.3521]

First few things what will help: i played everything to LVS4 included, without LVS1. Icebrood and End of Dragons waiting, i didn't played both of them yet. And i started first chapter LVS1.

Today i decided play fractals, i joined one and already saw it's from LVS1 chapter 1 Molten Alliance. I was little surprised because it would be spoiler for me, i barely LVS1 started. I was lucky this time ..
My question is: those all fractals are story instances from LVS1? From LVS2, 3, 4, PoF, Icebrood, End of Dragons too?

Raids same? .. i will see spoilers there from story i didn't play yet? Or maybe raids have own totally different story?
Really will apprieciate the answers.

[Cynder.2509]

Fractals generally aren't 
Living Story Season 1 content there was integrated as part of for the people who missed the original lss1 live story back then. 
Raids don't spoiler anything at all but they tie into the lore a bit and some things are very nice and interesting if you've played gw1. 
Strikes however are usually very spoiler heavy and to access them you's have to at least defeated the boss in story mode once anyways as far as I know. 

Also if you plan on raiding, fractals and strikes got get a full ascended set up and look up the top builds on snowcrows or you'll have a bad time in lfg and end up getting kicked quite often. Speaking of years of raiding experience since they were a thing. 

[Mirror.3521]

I play 7 years and still don't know what people means: build and gear. I just have everything 80 lvl and what else i need? I don't get it.

Edit. Wow i just found this https://metabattle.com/wiki/Guide:How_to_Gear_a_Character
Now i know everything .. thanks.

[costepj.5120]

You have to bear in mind, LS1 came out in 2013 originally and predates much of the story you have done in the meantime. I don't think you'll encounter too many additional spoilers in Fractals compared to those later story episodes. And while there is a story connection to the fractals, I imagine most people ignore that and focus on the mechanics of each instance.

Ascended gear is required for higher tiers of fractals so you can utilise infusions giving Agony Resistance, else there are attacks and agony checks in those fractals which will deal you very high levels of damage. Exotic gear is fine for most other content, including Raids. It's more important to have a coherent build and know how to play it than maxing the last few per cent of stats offered by Ascended gear.

[Mirror.3521]

I have exotic gear for years. With raids i think i will have no problems. On Swtor i done almost all of them not once, then i know how it looks like. Ascended i will get in the meantime while doing raids or from vendors, thanks.

[Danikat.8537]

The only Fractals taken from the story are Aetherblade & Captain Mai Trin Boss, Molten Furnace & Molten Boss and the Nightmare Fractal. They're all sections from the Season 1 story, but they're short and out of context so I don't think they give that much away. You get an early intro to 3 of the enemy factions, but I don't think it will tell you much of the plot. The story versions of the dungeons are much longer.

There's also some which tie into the story but show events that occured before the story started, like Thaumanova (ties into events in & around Metrica Province) and Twilight Oasis (ties into PoF). The Solid Ocean Fractal has a boss which can be found in the last EoD map, but the Fractal actually came long before the open-world boss. Those aren't spoilers but they're probably more relevant after you've gotten to the associated parts of the story.

Raids have a stand-alone story. There might be references to the story and events in the same area of the world but it won't directly tell you what happens in the main story.

Some strikes tie into the story, but the ones which are direct copies of story bosses don't unlock until you've beaten them in the story so you won't accidentally do the strike version first.

[Mirror.3521]

This is VERY specific answer, literally everything what i wanted to know. Thank you. I doubted i will get smth like that.

Edited August 20, 2023 by Mirror.3521

[Cynder.2509]

20 hours ago, Mirror.3521 said:

I play 7 years and still don't know what people means: build and gear. I just have everything 80 lvl and what else i need? I don't get it.

Edit. Wow i just found this https://metabattle.com/wiki/Guide:How_to_Gear_a_Character
Now i know everything .. thanks.

Metabattle is trash: Go here instead for raids and strikes if you don't want to be kicked https://snowcrows.com/
Also make sure to always link your killproof account if you're in lfg
For fractals this is the best: https://discretize.eu/

[Cynder.2509]

15 hours ago, Mirror.3521 said:

I have exotic gear for years. With raids i think i will have no problems. On Swtor i done almost all of them not once, then i know how it looks like. Ascended i will get in the meantime while doing raids or from vendors, thanks.

Well your DPS will suffer greatly with exotics and you can't do the expected benchmark that all groups require. In guilds it doesn't matter but in lfg people are fast with kicking you if you don't do at least 95% of the benchmark. 

[Shuzuru.3651]

1 hour ago, Cynder.2509 said:

Well your DPS will suffer greatly with exotics and you can't do the expected benchmark that all groups require. In guilds it doesn't matter but in lfg people are fast with kicking you if you don't do at least 95% of the benchmark. 

Simply false, most people don't care as long as the dps is fine (= not below dps-support and support)

And most people can't reach the dps benchmark on most situations, and i'm not sure even the guy doing it could reach it unless it's something like MO, which is pretty much a training golem when the dps is good. 

[Cyninja.2954]

On 8/21/2023 at 6:15 AM, Cynder.2509 said:

Well your DPS will suffer greatly with exotics and you can't do the expected benchmark that all groups require. In guilds it doesn't matter but in lfg people are fast with kicking you if you don't do at least 95% of the benchmark. 

Please keep this nonsense out of the new player forum, there might actually be new players that might take you seriously. Ascended to this day is NOT required for raiding and neither is 95% benchmark. It's not even required to be top dps in many PUG mid tier groups.

Given the groups new players should join will be trainings with more inexperienced players, it is far more important to have the correct gear, aka stats, versus having ascended over exotic.

@topic creator

1. Don't assume you will be fine because of past raiding experience in other games, unless you are refering to understanding how to prepare. Instanced content here is a lot faster paced

2. I'd recommend using as mentioned snowcrows or what I prefer to recommend to new players: https://hardstuck.gg/gw2/builds/ Hardstuck builds are a tad more casual friendly (using more boon duration here and there for example)

3. Instanced content plays very different to story or open world content here. There are enough guides out which explain this so I am not going to repeat. Watch 1-2 youtube videos if need be

4. For raiding I'd highly suggest joining a guild which takes on new players for raids. There are enough around. Otherwise join a training discord. What you want to go with initially are training groups.

Edited August 22, 2023 by Cyninja.2954

[Danikat.8537]

I can confirm I've done Fractals, strikes and raids in a mix of exotic and ascended and not only haven't been kicked, the groups were able to clear stuff as well. On several occasions I've had a better experience in a 'casual' or training group than in a serious 'progression' one because people are willing to take it a bit slower, revive each other and pay attention to the mechanics more instead of trying to go all-out on DPS or trying to mimic the 'rotation' they saw demonstrated against a passive target in an empty room where you've got nothing to do but fire off skills. (I've also never been asked for kill proof for the groups I've joined.)

I did have full ascended when I started doing tier 2 and above Fractals, but you only need ascended equipment there for the agony resistance and I added that gradually as I went up the levels.

My understanding is SnowCrows is one guild (or a group of guilds?) working out and sharing ideal builds for raids - trying to find the best possible combinations, but not necessarily ones which are easy to get or use, especially for a newer player. Hardstuck is more focused on practical choices - they'll compromise on top stats to make it easier to use. Metabattle lets anyone submit builds and then they're voted on by the community so it's much more varied and can be driven by popular opinion as much as in-game stats and results. As a result they have many more options but you need to use your own judgement, especially with the unrated ones.

That guide on how to gear a new level 80 character is good though, especially because it covers lots of different options. One of the nice things about this game is that at level 80 you can go anywhere and do anything you want so there's a lot of choices for how to get gear and it's better to pick one you're going to do anyway or think would be fun than go by what someone else thinks is the most efficient.

[Mirror.3521]

On Lion's Arch ppl said the same. Exotic is enough. And many times on fractals (last days), bounty runs or meta a lot of ppl fell down when i brave stand and still fight. Skill > gear.

Not mention i have skill right now what allow me pick up anybody after 2 seconds when player fight for survive.