Do I really have to use 3rd party programs to find a group or guild for raids?

[Zepiuz.6713]

I really want to learn and start trying raids, I am on NA and I don't have a fixed schedule available for raiding 😞, and the only thing I've ever seen on LFG no matter what time of the day or night is Experienced groups in the "Raids (Experienced)" section of LFG. Nothing is in "Raids (Training)".

If I ask anybody about how to join a group, they always point me to using other platforms to find a group, so I joined Raid Academy on discord but sadly I am not always available on the times that someone is calling out for raids (I have a bad schedule for games irl). I joined a Raid Academy training group once for wing 3, but since then I've never ran raids ever again. I have been looking for a group literally for a couple of months now just to be able to start crafting coalescence. Still no luck.

Do I really have to spend majority of my time waiting for a group on a discord server or some other platform just to even be able to try them? I am at my wits end in finding a group for this content and I really genuinely want to learn this. Do I really have to suffer this much just to try it out? 

[Parasite.5389]

make a group on LFG, advertise as a "Blind prog, first time" in the training section, and see if anyone want to help.
Or, ask around and try to join a social guild that will be intereested in helping you find a static

[Cyninja.2954]

No, you can also join a guild which does trainings. This might involve you having to ask around in map chat occasionally or pay attention to guild advertisements.

Either approach works well enough. Raid academy and other raid training discords have the benefit of quantity and member count. Guilds have the benefit of being able to discuss time slots with others.

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Do I really have to spend majority of my time waiting for a group on a discord server or some other platform just to even be able to try them? I am at my wits end in finding a group for this content and I really genuinely want to learn this. Do I really have to suffer this much just to try it out? 

Yes, or at least you will have to adapt to a certain extent to OTHER peoples time tables.

The alternative is to make your own groups, which will be a struggle. This would obviously be easier the more social contacts you have up front.

[Chyro.1462]

Try asking around in lion's arch aerodome since it's the raid hub.

Ask if they know any guilds or perhaps discord groups that regularly do raid trainings. Or you can make your own lfg ad in the raid section  "Looking for training group or guild" and see if anyone comes to recruit you. May take some patience, but it's an option.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

There's always the spartan method.  If you have a tag, make the group and practice the raids yourself.  You'd be surprised how many people are willing to blindly run into these raids themselves.  

[Captain Bofa.5981]

Judging from the time you posted this at - yes. NA Raid lfg is normally extremely dead around that time as that is right around wvw reset - basically the only people running are statics and guild groups at that time, not much in terms of lfg. NA raid lfg is also just fairly dead because so many people run in guild groups and the like.

[Vayne.8563]

I don't understand why people have such an issue with discord. It not only gives you the ability to form the groups better than in game, but talking is almost always better for learning how to raid than typing, because you can get instructions in the fly, live. Typing takes too long. Most decent raid teams will end up using discord anyway.  No you don't have to. But it's still a better option.

[Danikat.8537]

It sounds like you have a similar schedule (or lack of schedule) to me - limited time to play, not always at the same time every day, and definitely not always at peak time for your region. If that's the case you're going to need to plan ahead.

You might need to rearrange your real-life schedule to make time to raid, which may sound like a silly thing to do for (part of) a video game, but it's a normal thing to do for any other hobby and this is one of your hobbies. If you want to see a movie with friends you wouldn't just text them when you have a couple of hours free and hope they're able to drop what they're doing to get to the cinema in time and that a movie you all want to see will be starting when you arrive. You'd check when films you like are showing and contact your friends in advance to find a time you can all get there, and make sure you keep that time free by planning other stuff you need or want to do for other times.

So do the same for raids. Find out when Raid Academy, or any other group you want to raid with, is running raids, ask them when there will be space for you and work out which of those slots you can make time for, then make sure you're free when it's happening.

When I was raiding in GW2 I'd find out what days my guild was doing training raids, pick one when it was my husbands night to make dinner (or we'd swap nights to make it work) and I'd let him know the cut-off time (the actual end time depended on how well we did), and I'd make sure anything I needed to do was done before or after raiding. It did also mean 'missing out' on other stuff in GW2 because I wouldn't have time for it, but that's ok because I had other days I could do that.

[Nash.2681]

10 hours ago, Vayne.8563 said:

I don't understand why people have such an issue with discord. It not only gives you the ability to form the groups better than in game, but talking is almost always better for learning how to raid than typing, because you can get instructions in the fly, live. Typing takes too long. Most decent raid teams will end up using discord anyway.  No you don't have to. But it's still a better option.

You're right about the use of voice comm making things much easier and everything. But I can understand OP's concerns to a certain extend. Me and you are probably the type of people that have little to none inhibitions when it comes to connecting to complete strangers. But I know for sure that many people do and it gets even worse if this includes the usage of a foreign language (this shouldn't be an issue for the OP since he's playing on NA, but on EU it happens quite often). So reaching out to complete strangers over and over again can be quite daunting. 

However, the main issue for OP seems to be the schedule which makes it siginificantly harder to find a somewhat static group (which again makes things much easier). And that's nothing 3rd party programs can fix, so I second what @Danikat.8537 wrote. If you want to raid, look at it like every other hobby and adapt your schedule. At some point you'll be experienced enough to confidently join random squads on lfg and pull your weight, but until then, the given advice is your best bet. 

[Vayne.8563]

3 hours ago, Nash.2681 said:

You're right about the use of voice comm making things much easier and everything. But I can understand OP's concerns to a certain extend. Me and you are probably the type of people that have little to none inhibitions when it comes to connecting to complete strangers. But I know for sure that many people do and it gets even worse if this includes the usage of a foreign language (this shouldn't be an issue for the OP since he's playing on NA, but on EU it happens quite often). So reaching out to complete strangers over and over again can be quite daunting. 

However, the main issue for OP seems to be the schedule which makes it siginificantly harder to find a somewhat static group (which again makes things much easier). And that's nothing 3rd party programs can fix, so I second what @Danikat.8537 wrote. If you want to raid, look at it like every other hobby and adapt your schedule. At some point you'll be experienced enough to confidently join random squads on lfg and pull your weight, but until then, the given advice is your best bet. 

Those are fair points. But a lot of the discords have people running off hour who use it as an LFG tool as well.

[vanflyheight.6832]

Here's some raid groups that ya could try joining that run trainings, Emi, Taja, Sneb, even some in hardstuck or just skein gang in general. There's also kiyoshi who also runs raid trainings. Most of the raid trainers are also twitch streamers.