Guild Wars 2

I (and my friends and guild members) would like to see raids added to GW2. Yes, raids. With WoW style boss mechanics and progression. (Real WoW raids, no LFR nonsense mind you.)

This would provide challenging end-game content for guilds, with the social aspect of a larger group size. At the moment I hear a lot of praise from my guild for the levelling system, the combat, the mobility, the graphics – but still a lot of them are buying MoP even though they dislike a lot of the aspects of WoW. Why? Because raids are a great way to spend several evenings a week having fun with the guild.

If you could take the WoW type boss mechanics and combine them with GW2 mobile combat I think it would be quite refreshing. Before people say it’s not possible, it is. I can see hints of it in some of the dungeons. For example there’s a fight in CoE where you have to get the boss to hit into an electric pylon and stun himself. This is the core mechanic of Icehowl from WoW’s ToC. Elsewhere in the same dungeon we had to free people from Imprisonment Crystals. This type of mechanic appears in numerous WoW boss fights. I’m sure Anet could modify some more and come up with a fresh take on the ideas.

I don’t think that stat gear should be included in my proposed raids. Vanity gear and titles would be perfectly fine. Increasingly complex boss mechanics would provide progress.

I think you would pick up a lot more regular players with the addition of raids and solve a lot of the “I have nothing to do!” threads.

Please note once again, I am not saying that the raids should drop stat increase gear. Maybe a chance for a rare crafting material (like ecto’s and obsidian shards in GW1), a chance at a piece of vanity armour with a look specific to the raid (or tokens are fine too). Maybe even a chance for a unique minipet.

You could also drop crafting recipes for items with their own unusual skins. These items could then be sold in the TP by raiders and people who don’t want to do dungeons/raids but do want to look fancy, could buy them.

Award titles for completing difficult raids.

Have some easy(ish) starter raids roughly equal to the hardest dungeons and have the complexity progressively work up to the equivalent of Black Temple in TBC.

I keep hearing “I hope they add more raid mechanics to these bosses” and “I wish we could get a larger group in here” when we do dungeons.

If there are no stat increases then I don’t see the down side. It’s another optional activity for those who want it.