Should I start Raiding?

[Majirah.5089]

So, I have recently started getting more into the pve aspect of this game. I also have been starting on making legendaries. I really like the legendary armor skins from raids and wanted to see if I am a good candidate to start working toward that.

I’ve played for about 1.5 years. Mostly spvp, but have recently been doing fractals. I have all of the classes and all the elite specs unlocked. I am somewhat familiar with all of them and very familiar with several at least in a pvp context.

I have a set of ascended gear for light, medium, and heavy. All of these sets are berserker stats. I also have a ascended set of marauder trinkets and an ascended set of grieving trinkets. Needless to say I’ve mainly played power builds. And ascended/legendary versions of most weapons (ascended ones are also berserker stats). Can power do fine or does it have to be condi?

The reason I ask is because I don’t want to switch to condi if I don’t have to. Mainly because I don’t want to ruin the precursor nature of my heavy and medium set that I got from pvp. If you stat swap it makes it so you can’t upgrade to legendary (unless they have changed that). I can stat swap the light armor though as that was crafted normally. I can also stat swap any of the weapons.

Also, the most important question is how long do raids take? I don’t mind learning raids over the course of many months, but if I have to be able to devote 3-5 hours in one sitting I won’t be able to as I can usually only play 1-2 hours in a sitting. So, if that’s the case I will just stick to fractals and not get the legendary armor. Are some raids shorter like closer to 1-1.5 hours? If not I accept that raiding probably isn’t for me.

Thanks for any insight.

[ButcherofMalakir.4067]

Hello. Power do fine in raids. On some bosses it is better, on some it is more then enough to kill any boss. It also demends on class. Some power classes will have more dificult time either killing the boss or just beeing accepted in the group. (like power revenant)I am newer to raiding too. I am raiding with training guild (crossroads inn) and during our 2-3 hour raiding sessions we kill 1-5 bosses. It depends on group (how many players havent clear the boss at all) and how in depth does the commander explain things. Also commanders try with us some more advanced strategies (like no greens VG) and after few wipes we stwitch to easier strategies.For experianced group if you do not wipe and doesnt have to explain anything i think it has to be much faster (one boss kill takes less then 10 minutes and there are 5 wings with 3-4 bosses.

[Henry.5713]

It is never too late to start playing any game or any content inside said game. Try it and decide for yourself if it is something you enjoy. Acquiring the armor should be an added bonus rather than the sole reason why you want to traid. (Unless you are the type to force yourself to play something you dislike just to gain some items.)

Owning one ascended berserker set per armor type is a good start as far as gearing DPS classes is concerned. Power works better than ever now and there are a few "easier" options to pick from depending on how familar you are with proper DPS rotations.Being restricted to two hours per sitting is limiting but still something you can work with. Many groups do indeed raid for about 3-4 hours. More experienced statics should be able to full clear everything in 2-2.5 hours. You will not have the luxuary to join such a group from the start for obvious reasons, however. Joining a training raid group works or looking for beginner / training pug runs which focus on a single encounter at a time. Check out the guild recruitments here and on reddit. Create your own topic if you can not find anything suitable.

[Xantaria.8726]

Power is fine for the most bosses, though there are boses where you should consider playing condi (since you can switch light armor, maybe consider making condi mirage so you have 1 power and 1 condi).My advice would be to start with a Power Dragonhunter and a Condi Mirage, with those you have a very easy to learn rotation and decent dps+cc.To the question if you should and how long it takes: Most bosses only take ~10mins (it cant even take longer since there is a timer on each boss, once that runs out you will most likely wipe on this boss) to kill once everyone knows how to do them, but in beginnergroups one boss can take up to 1-2 hours when not leaded by an experienced commander (not cause the encounter takes so long itself, but rather cause your groups keeps wiping on this boss and you have to restart the fight).. My advise here would be to either search a trainingsguild or a beginner static.

[Deadvillager.1956]

Check the snowcrows homepage for builds of different meta professions. There are quite a few power specs that work against pretty much any raid encounter. There are actually way less encounters where power is worse than condi than vice versa. As for time investment, 1-2 hours are enough to learn encounters. Once you are more experienced, it will also be enough to clear one or two wings a day but you still have a way ahead of you until you reach that point ;) Getting started is a good idea though, raids are, in my opinion, one of the most polished and enjoyable contents in this game and nobody should miss out on it.

[CptAurellian.9537]

@Majirah.5089 said:Also, the most important question is how long do raids take? I don’t mind learning raids over the course of many months, but if I have to be able to devote 3-5 hours in one sitting I won’t be able to as I can usually only play 1-2 hours in a sitting. So, if that’s the case I will just stick to fractals and not get the legendary armor. Are some raids shorter like closer to 1-1.5 hours? If not I accept that raiding probably isn’t for me.As others have already said, raid wings consist of 3-4 bosses which take 5-10 minutes each, plus maybe a few events in between. If you look for the right guild/group, raiding should be easily possible with your time constraints. Just take your time to really find the right group of people - that's more important than many people think.

[Oglaf.1074]

Keep in mind that the very hardest part of Raiding is getting started. There is a very annoying Catch 22 going on with LI/Killproofs.

Look to get into a dedicated training guild or group of another kind to ease into it.

[Feanor.2358]

@Majirah.5089 said:I have a set of ascended gear for light, medium, and heavy. All of these sets are berserker stats. I also have a ascended set of marauder trinkets and an ascended set of grieving trinkets. Needless to say I’ve mainly played power builds. And ascended/legendary versions of most weapons (ascended ones are also berserker stats). Can power do fine or does it have to be condi?

Both are viable, with either outperforming the other significantly on certain encounters. Weaver, Holosmith and Dragonhunter are the most popular and effective power builds at the moment, so if you don't specifically want to go condi, you don't need to. Mirage is a good condition build, so if you want to have some diversity you may consider swapping your light armor for it (and not ruining your precursor pieces).

@Majirah.5089 said:Also, the most important question is how long do raids take? I don’t mind learning raids over the course of many months, but if I have to be able to devote 3-5 hours in one sitting I won’t be able to as I can usually only play 1-2 hours in a sitting. So, if that’s the case I will just stick to fractals and not get the legendary armor. Are some raids shorter like closer to 1-1.5 hours? If not I accept that raiding probably isn’t for me.

It depends if you'll be pugging or you're looking to join a training guild. I'd recommend the latter. If you can schedule your time, you can take the maximum out of it and 1.5-2 hours is a good duration for a raiding session. Otherwise you risk spending too much time waiting to find a group or for the group to fill.

[ZeftheWicked.3076]

If you got full precursors from PvP why not use those to make legendaries here and now? You can then go raid in full legendaries not having to worry about stat swapping, least armor wise.

[Astralporing.1957]

@Majirah.5089 said:Also, the most important question is how long do raids take? I don’t mind learning raids over the course of many months, but if I have to be able to devote 3-5 hours in one sitting I won’t be able to as I can usually only play 1-2 hours in a sitting. So, if that’s the case I will just stick to fractals and not get the legendary armor. Are some raids shorter like closer to 1-1.5 hours? If not I accept that raiding probably isn’t for me.There are two different answers for that.

Actual raids are relatively short - ~10 minutes per attempt per boss (although most players prefer to do more than one boss per single sitting). That doesn't include time wasted on wipes, of course, so it's only after you/your group have learned them well enough to be mostly sure of succeeding (getting to that point may take anything from few weeks to half a year, depending on individual players' inherent skills, learning capability and adaptability). Up to that point, you should reserve at least an hour or two for each training session (and here i do mean a training session for a single boss).Additionally, in pugs you should never expect to be up to that level (while some pug groups can be a really smooth sailing, others can still get you wiping many times even on easier bosses).

That part, of couse, can be skipped if you'll find a static group willing to carry you till you learn the encounters well enough to pull your own weight.

In short, 1-2 hours is doable, but far from optimal. Especially if you'd want to do anything else (like dailies) in that time.

[Majirah.5089]

@ZeftheWicked.3076 said:If you got full precursors from PvP why not use those to make legendaries here and now? You can then go raid in full legendaries not having to worry about stat swapping, least armor wise.

I like the skins of the raid legendary and wanted to get into more of the pve end game anyway if I was able. So it would be something fun for me to work for and getting into a new mode is always fun. I would probably eventually turn the other two sets into legendary, but I am limited on funds and that is a goal for next year. I’d rather work towards the ones I want.

Sounds like power can do good enough though from these comments. Plus I can do condi mirage it seems since I don’t care about stat swapping light armor or weapons.

[Majirah.5089]

Thanks for all the answers. Looks like I should try power holo, power dragonhunter, and condi mirage. I don’t think I will do power weaver as I have heard it’s not very beginner (pve wise) friendly.

I will start looking for a training guild that is willing to do shorter runs with me since I’m unable to devote enough time for a full run. With training guilds is it pretty common to find ones that only do partial runs (1 boss or 2 bosses) or just one wing etc?

I’ll start looking at the guild recruitment.

[ZeftheWicked.3076]

If you got pvp precursors of one armor type (heavy for example) and are aiming for raid ones of another type, then no problem. Just wanna say that spvp legendary progression means nothing for raid legendary gear progression. Different precursors, different mats for gifts save the standard 100 of tier 6 crafting materials + 250 tier 5 ones + 50 of both tiers 4 and 3, and what not.

So you're starting from scratch if you chose the raid route, just wanna be sure you're aware of that.

[Majirah.5089]

@Henry.5713 said:It is never too late to start playing any game or any content inside said game. Try it and decide for yourself if it is something you enjoy. Acquiring the armor should be an added bonus rather than the sole reason why you want to traid. (Unless you are the type to force yourself to play something you dislike just to gain some items.)

I hopefully won’t dislike it. I was really interested in getting into more pve anyway. I played swtor before this and thought the pve was mind numbing boring so I only did pvp for 5 years. Even open world in this game is more fun than the instanced pve in swtor. So I have really don’t pve in games since City of Heroes. I am hoping I can get into pve in this game. I’m getting kinda bored of the pvp.

The fact that I like the skins is just an added bonus to work towards. Gives me a little more motivation to start something new.

[Majirah.5089]

@ZeftheWicked.3076 said:If you got pvp precursors of one armor type (heavy for example) and are aiming for raid ones of another type, then no problem. Just wanna say that spvp legendary progression means nothing for raid legendary gear progression. Different precursors, different mats for gifts save the standard 100 of tier 6 crafting materials + 250 tier 5 ones + 50 of both tiers 4 and 3, and what not.

So you're starting from scratch if you chose the raid route, just wanna be sure you're aware of that.

Yep thanks for clarifying. I knew I’d be starting from scratch. I just may eventually want more than one set of legendary armor. That’s why I wanted to maintain the precursor status of the pvp armors. But since that is a further away goal I wanted to devote my time and resources on the style I wanted more. Plus I am enjoying pve more lately.

[yLoon.5289]

Go make a druid, use it as Healer, with Exotic healing gear will do. xD

[Henry.5713]

@Majirah.5089 said:

@Henry.5713 said:It is never too late to start playing any game or any content inside said game. Try it and decide for yourself if it is something you enjoy. Acquiring the armor should be an added bonus rather than the sole reason why you want to traid. (Unless you are the type to force yourself to play something you dislike just to gain some items.)

I hopefully won’t dislike it. I was really interested in getting into more pve anyway. I played swtor before this and thought the pve was mind numbing boring so I only did pvp for 5 years. Even open world in this game is more fun than the instanced pve in swtor. So I have really don’t pve in games since City of Heroes. I am hoping I can get into pve in this game. I’m getting kinda bored of the pvp.

The fact that I like the skins is just an added bonus to work towards. Gives me a little more motivation to start something new.

Got quite a few of friends I know from PvP and WvW who started raiding recently. Many actually prefer PvE now as they got so tired of the other modes. Pretty sure you are going to have a blast once you meet the right people to raid with. You seem to have the right mindset for it. The combat system allows the developers to add a few unique features you wouldn't see in other games. I even get the feeling that they were finally able to include more challenging features they have had in mind for years but just couldn't do before raids as the Open World content is too focused on being casual. Probably one of the reasons why they are not planning to have an easy mode anytime soon.

People tend it complain a lot on these forums. They love to complain about the addition of raids and especially the raiding community as a whole. I suggest to just try and see for yourself. Many of these negative opinions seem to be based on nothing more a single experience or even something they only heard second hand. There are some negative sides the this type of content of course. Every mode of this game has downsides. You probably know all about that coming from PvP.

[Raizel.8175]

@Henry.5713 said:

@Majirah.5089 said:

@Henry.5713 said:It is never too late to start playing any game or any content inside said game. Try it and decide for yourself if it is something you enjoy. Acquiring the armor should be an added bonus rather than the sole reason why you want to traid. (Unless you are the type to force yourself to play something you dislike just to gain some items.)

I hopefully won’t dislike it. I was really interested in getting into more pve anyway. I played swtor before this and thought the pve was mind numbing boring so I only did pvp for 5 years. Even open world in this game is more fun than the instanced pve in swtor. So I have really don’t pve in games since City of Heroes. I am hoping I can get into pve in this game. I’m getting kinda bored of the pvp.

The fact that I like the skins is just an added bonus to work towards. Gives me a little more motivation to start something new.

Got quite a few of friends I know from PvP and WvW who started raiding recently. Many actually prefer PvE now as they got so tired of the other modes. Pretty sure you are going to have a blast once you meet the right people to raid with. You seem to have the right mindset for it. The combat system allows the developers to add a few unique features you wouldn't see in other games. I even get the feeling that they were finally able to include more challenging features they have had in mind for years but just couldn't do before raids as the Open World content is too focused on being casual. Probably one of the reasons why they are not planning to have an easy mode anytime soon.

People tend it complain a lot on these forums. They love to complain about the addition of raids and especially the raiding community as a whole. I suggest to just try and see for yourself. Many of these negative opinions seem to be based on nothing more a single experience or even something they only heard second hand. There are some negative sides the this type of content of course. Every mode of this game has downsides. You probably know all about that coming from PvP.

I'd like to object. Both raiding and the combat-system are fun, but I've yet to see truly unique features I haven't seen in other games before. In fact, GW2 "borrowed" a lot of features from other games, which isn't bad per se, but leads to contradicting concepts. That is also why we currently have some half-assed hybrid-system of half-assed action-based-, trinity-based-, and tab-targetting-combat. It's also one of the reasons why GW2 struggles hard when it comes to balancing.

Most of the people I know actually don't complain about raids per se, but rather their accessibility (and of course legendary armor being raid-locked), which actually is a problem and one of GW2s biggest issues. Raids in fact are just another form of instanced PvE-content like dungeons and fractals. Their "special feature" is that they feature extremely watered down trinity-based combat which in turn makes them actually not as hard as people tend to claim. Raids in GW2 are actually quite casual; they don't even require vocal communication. This is why it's really funny to see such high entry-barriers like high LI/KPs or class-requirements in this game, which is one of the main-reasons why people tend to complain about raids and the raiding-community. In fact, raids don't really fit into the game all that well on a conceptual level. The base-game is far too easy and you literally have zero conflict with other people which would lead to socialization and the obligation to get better at playing your own class like in other MMORPGs. You also don't have any trace of the holy trinity which would prepare people for the kind of gameplay raids feature. These are only but two arguments why raids don't really fit well into the game. The actual content should be harder than getting into the content. In GW2 it's the total opposite. It often feels like it's a million times harder to get into raids than actually doing them.

[CptAurellian.9537]

The entry barriers to PUG groups we see are a direct consequence of many other design choices in this game. You correctly describe that open world is so piss-easy that there's no need to have any idea about how to play your class. Couple that with the inability to deduce people's experience from inspecting their character (even if such a feature was present, it would be rather meaningless, as the link between gear and content isn't strong in this game) and I can't fault people for setting LI or whatever requirements if they want to get people who halfway know what they're doing. It's a crutch, but this game offers preciously little alternatives. Besides, the best way to get into raids has always been one where LI and KP do not matter.

Overall, you present a nice description of this game's situation with regard to raids, but your deductions are way off. Being hard does not mean raids do not fit into this game. MMOs live from keeping their player base for a long time. It's more than questionable whether you can keep people interested in a MMO if all content is faceroll-easy. Raids are there to occupy a niche, just like every other game mode apart from open world.Besides, it's not as if there was no stepping stone between faceroll open world and raids - fractals say hi.

[Raizel.8175]

@"CptAurellian.9537" said:Overall, you present a nice description of this game's situation with regard to raids, but your deductions are way off. Being hard does not mean raids do not fit into this game. MMOs live from keeping their player base for a long time. It's more than questionable whether you can keep people interested in a MMO if all content is faceroll-easy. Raids are there to occupy a niche, just like every other game mode apart from open world.Besides, it's not as if there was no stepping stone between faceroll open world and raids - fractals say hi.

Raids are not hard; at least not their "normal" mode. The reason why - in my opinion - they don't fit well (I haven't said that they wouldn't fit in at all) is because they're a strong contrast to your usual trinity-less self-sufficient gameplay in general and also because GW2 is not very sociable, thus you probably won't be able to fill your squad with people you know. There are other reasons like missing difficulty-diversity in OW-content (having some easy content is ok; but there really should be more diversity and especially some harder stuff in which people actually have to play together) and bad reward-structures (e.g.: Why should friends raid with you if they already have a static and thus have no use raiding with you since rewards are weekly?).

Raids themselves shouldn't be a niche. They're exactly what's your everyday-content is in most PvE-based MMORPGs. They also award one of GW2s most important rewards: legendary armor. Niche-content which is focused on more core-gamers should be challenge modes. I'd also disagree that fractals are a stepping stone between OW and raids. In fact, I'd even say that some fractals are more challenging than most raid-encounters, especially due to some nasty instability-combinations. At the very least bosses like Arkk feature more mechanics than your average raid-encounter. You can also do fractals without trinity-gameplay which make them different from raids. So yeah...

[ButcherofMalakir.4067]

Well i started raiding revently (20-30li) but i have to say only thing that is similar dificulty is 100cm. Rest of the fractals are much easier to clear (you have check points). I guess once i become more familiar with bosses it will be easier but still. Some encounters are easier (like escort and cairne) and some are harder. Also since raids have no entry requirements you might get worse players

[CptAurellian.9537]

@Raizel.8175 said:[...]

I know that GW2 raids aren't hard, at least not when compared to other MMO raids. Done enough of those to put them into the low/medium difficulty category. They're just hard compared to most of the rest of GW2. Concerning fractals, you may have forgotten that there's more than 100CM to them. While that one is above the difficulty of many raid bosses, and 99CM may be on par with quite some of them, the other fractals are fairly below raid difficulty, with a nice difficulty curve created by levels. Instabilities, even nasty combinations, do not fundamentally change that. So yes, they are stepping stones into raids. And while you can play them totally disregarding the GW2 kind of trinity, it makes them considerably easier and faster.

With regard to the niche thing, there's no strong point for making raids everyday-content like in other, raid-centric MMOs. Those rely on raids for binding players, since there's usually preciously little other content that stays relevant beyond the leveling phase after each addon. GW2 does not rely on raids for this purpose, but on its open world. Raids occupy the niche I've described and they're doing a good job. Tinker with that niche and you'll have a good chance of screwing up.

[Itz Jay.8941]

@Majirah.5089 said:

So, I have recently started getting more into the pve aspect of this game. I also have been starting on making legendaries. I really like the legendary armor skins from raids and wanted to see if I am a good candidate to start working toward that.

I’ve played for about 1.5 years. Mostly spvp, but have recently been doing fractals. I have all of the classes and all the elite specs unlocked. I am somewhat familiar with all of them and very familiar with several at least in a pvp context.

I have a set of ascended gear for light, medium, and heavy. All of these sets are berserker stats. I also have a ascended set of marauder trinkets and an ascended set of grieving trinkets. Needless to say I’ve mainly played power builds. And ascended/legendary versions of most weapons (ascended ones are also berserker stats). Can power do fine or does it have to be condi?

The reason I ask is because I don’t want to switch to condi if I don’t have to. Mainly because I don’t want to ruin the precursor nature of my heavy and medium set that I got from pvp. If you stat swap it makes it so you can’t upgrade to legendary (unless they have changed that). I can stat swap the light armor though as that was crafted normally. I can also stat swap any of the weapons.

Also, the most important question is how long do raids take? I don’t mind learning raids over the course of many months, but if I have to be able to devote 3-5 hours in one sitting I won’t be able to as I can usually only play 1-2 hours in a sitting. So, if that’s the case I will just stick to fractals and not get the legendary armor. Are some raids shorter like closer to 1-1.5 hours? If not I accept that raiding probably isn’t for me.

Thanks for any insight.

Do it. As you have berserker stats already and want to keep them I would roll dragonhunter>holosmith>weaver(being the hardest) that way you don't need to swap any stats. Use the raid builds from snowcrows.com. When you get your collection 1 armour set done, you can use it to build a full harrier druid, so you have a support option as well. Then you can work towards gearing a pure condi class or a BS warrior.

Sadly when it comes to starting out raiding you just have to grit your teeth and keep your eye on the LFG for training runs until you have enough KP (kill proof) then you can start looking for pug groups with a nice commander like me who only asks for KP and not tonnes of LI. There are some nice guilds around too which can get you some training runs. You can join the guild that I am in if you want, they are doing training runs every night.

[Zagerus.8675]

I agree you should raid. Since you have a limited time (and sounds like you want to raid on your own time) I would learn Mesmer inside and out and then gear up a Chrono so you can build pug groups. There is consistently a shortage of them since it seems like DPS professions are what people prefer to play over utility professions like Chrono. Chrono isn't the easiest ticket into raids but it will probably be your fastest if you're willing to invest the time and gold to get good at one.

[thrag.9740]

power holo is a good choice, good dps and good cc make it versatile.

Not all raids take the same amount of time. I recommend you begin with the easiest bosses and work your way up. In particular, build a group of contacts you like raiding with, you don't want to pug forever. Roughly, from easiest to hardest, with easiest at the top of this list, and hardest at the bottom, ranked based on the difficulty a dps holosmith would encounter, also trying to account for the difficulty of pugging the fight as a holo (i.e. finding a group):

escort (wing 3)triomursaat overseergorsevalsamarogcairnkeep construct (heavily favors weavers, but you might find an accepting group, weavers are not necessary, just overpowered on this fight)slothvale guardian (many strategies for this fight cause a variety of difficulty, people mistakenly think it is easy because they are experienced at it)escort wing 5 (easy fight, might be tough to pug it, holo is a solid pick for its cc and ability to dps while running away in bomb kit)statues wing 5 (pretty easy, a bit tougher to pug because it is new)xera (holo is a solid choice here, but struggles at clearing shards, making groups less likely to take it. If you need to, rifle 5 jump to shards, and go ham on them)sabetha (move this a few spaces easier on this list if you install gw2taco, which puts down markers for you)matthias (just a lot of mechanics, nothing wrong with holo here, just a tough fight for a beginner)deimos (tough to pug as a holo, because most pug groups use a range strat, which is not holosmith's speciality)soulless horor (tough to pug in general wihout kill proff, essential for holosmith to avoid the cc portion of their rotation)dhuum (tough to pug without kill proof, but as far as your roll in the fight, it would not be too complicated as a dps)