Two questions. Do you have to have full ascended gear to start raiding?

[Shirlias.8104]

@"Kheldorn.5123" said:Game objectively doesn't require you to have ascended gear. The problem, as with everything in GW2, is its community.

Definitely This!

[Indecision.4513]

Ascended weapons and trinkets are enough. Players don’t gear check. They dps check their dpsers. You can easily outdps a full ascended player wearing greens as long as you know your class better than he does.

[maxwelgm.4315]

A lot of raid guilds do fractals too, and some might even ask that you have some fractal experience before delving into raids. Pugs of course absolutely demand it because apparently 10% of damage makes all the difference with people you don't know (protip, it doesn't, and the main problem with pugs is still people going into top DPS classes they can't rotate with and overall being used to being carried by the supports). Saying it's not required at all would be blindly looking at content requirements without considering context.

Taking context into consideration, you will most likely be somewhat experienced with mechanics and/or your class by the time you are going to try raiding. Some guilds welcome just about anyone but many of them will have gear and builds as requirement (in most cases, ascended trinkets will be a must for them, all the while saying it's not needed to complete the encounters). Being realistic, if you're serious about training and what not you might even have decided you were going to practice fractals until you could do CMs before starting seriously (i.e with a static, according to raiders themselves) in raids. Taking all this into consideration, you will more or less not have to think about ascended gear because you'll already have it by the time you are "ready" to start raiding. And if your first thought was "But raids are open for everyone soon as they start playing, you don't have to be ready in any strict sense!", well then why was this topic created to begin with :P So the long answer is yes, you should get full ascended just for the sake of it, a player willing to raid is willing to take more time than usual in playing the game, and it takes less time to get ascended equipments than it takes to raid.

[blambidy.3216]

@"maxwelgm.4315" said:A lot of raid guilds do fractals too, and some might even ask that you have some fractal experience before delving into raids. Pugs of course absolutely demand it because apparently 10% of damage makes all the difference with people you don't know (protip, it doesn't, and the main problem with pugs is still people going into top DPS classes they can't rotate with and overall being used to being carried by the supports). Saying it's not required at all would be blindly looking at content requirements without considering context.

Taking context into consideration, you will most likely be somewhat experienced with mechanics and/or your class by the time you are going to try raiding. Some guilds welcome just about anyone but many of them will have gear and builds as requirement (in most cases, ascended trinkets will be a must for them, all the while saying it's not needed to complete the encounters). Being realistic, if you're serious about training and what not you might even have decided you were going to practice fractals until you could do CMs before starting seriously (i.e with a static, according to raiders themselves) in raids. Taking all this into consideration, you will more or less not have to think about ascended gear because you'll already have it by the time you are "ready" to start raiding. And if your first thought was "But raids are open for everyone soon as they start playing, you don't have to be ready in any strict sense!", well then why was this topic created to begin with :P So the long answer is yes, you should get full ascended just for the sake of it, a player willing to raid is willing to take more time than usual in playing the game, and it takes less time to get ascended equipments than it takes to raid.

I do like that answer. Should I finish all fractals before raiding ? So I’m only in teir 2 though.However within all this time I only need three more armor pieces and I’m done with ascended. However I am struggling to get an ascended amulet. I thought Lake Doric is a good place. Any other places better then Lake Doric for an amulet?

[ReaverKane.7598]

You don't need full ascended to start fractals, but exotics are recommended.You can do pretty much all T1 Fractals with full exotics.Now as you start progressing on difficulty, you'll need progressively more Agony Resistence, which unless you splurge on +11 and higher infusions you'll need to get Ascended armor to get.If you do daily T1 and T1 recomended fractals, and then progress to T2 as you get enough AR, and so on you'll eventually get most of the stuff through fractals. But it will take a while. You can speed it up by using fractal relics, laurels, collections and/or Living story/ Path of Fire currencies to get ascended gear to get you going.IF you know what you're doing/ have proper friends, you can do T4 fractals without AR. But it can't be done in all fractals, and even still you might end up dying to stuff like Mossman and every small mistake might kill you. But it's doable. We did that a month or so ago with a friend (who now has full AR).

@blambidy.3216 said:

@"maxwelgm.4315" said:A lot of raid guilds do fractals too, and some might even ask that you have some fractal experience before delving into raids. Pugs of course absolutely demand it because apparently 10% of damage makes all the difference with people you don't know (protip, it doesn't, and the main problem with pugs is

still

people going into top DPS classes they can't rotate with and overall being used to being carried by the supports). Saying it's not required at all would be blindly looking at content requirements without considering context.

Taking context into consideration, you will most likely be somewhat experienced with mechanics and/or your class by the time you are going to try raiding. Some guilds welcome just about anyone but many of them will have gear and builds as requirement (in most cases, ascended

trinkets

will be a must for them, all the while saying it's not needed to complete the encounters). Being realistic, if you're serious about training and what not you might even have decided you were going to practice fractals until you could do CMs before starting seriously (i.e with a static, according to raiders themselves) in raids. Taking all this into consideration, you will more or less not have to think about ascended gear because you'll already have it by the time you are "ready" to start raiding. And if your first thought was "But raids are open for everyone soon as they start playing, you don't have to be ready in any strict sense!", well then why was this topic created to begin with :P So the long answer is yes, you should get full ascended just for the sake of it, a player willing to raid is willing to take more time than usual in playing the game, and it takes less time to get ascended equipments than it takes to raid.

I do like that answer. Should I finish all fractals before raiding ? So I’m only in teir 2 though.However within all this time I only need three more armor pieces and I’m done with ascended. However I am struggling to get an ascended amulet. I thought Lake Doric is a good place. Any other places better then Lake Doric for an amulet?

I'd suggest, yes! Not because you need them, but because T4 fractals are a good transition in terms of what's demanded of you for Raids. T4 are significantly more punishing than T1, but in most cases are still way easier than Raids.For the amulet you can also get one in bloodstone fen. Or buy one with relics in fractals (provided you earned enough so far).The wiki can be your friend for this, just search

ascended trinket

in the wiki and you'll have a list of all of them and where to get one/costs.

If you're looking for a small guild that will happily introduce you to fractals, and are in the EU, PM me in game, i'll get you sorted.