Hello,
I never got much around to the new raid content yet, but I would like to participate, I do have all the classes to 80 so the question remains, with what class what set up and gear should I bother to try and get into a raid?
I understand full ascended gear is a minimum? Is this correct or is it just a made up measure for people to buzz off whoever they do not like?
If so, which class should I devote to raiding, since I do not have time to grind all of them to purple.
Thank you.
No you don’t need full ascended gear, you can perfectly clear anything without trouble in full exotics.
However i would advise you to at least have ascended trinkets, maybe weapons also.
There is a chance that experienced groups will deman full ascended gear, but you don’t want to join those groups when you just started.
On the choice of classes: Play what you really want, but make sure you have the right builds ready, so no soldier/nomads stuff on DPS roles and so on.
Eles are used very much in groups (2-3, sometimes even 4), every group want at least 1 Druid i guess.
Every class can have a role in raids, some are used more often than others.
Most groups don’t want more than 1 DH (from my experiences)
Iliaz
Team Aggression [TA]
Immortal Kingdom [KING]
Personal opinion, but I think PS warrior is a good starting class. Most groups take 1-2 of them. They are also durable and the rotation is pretty easy.
Most groups will take a character that has ascended trinkets and weapons.
Ideally, you should aim to have multiple classes to raid with to increase your chances of filing a role that the group needs.
If by purple you mean legendary gear, that is far from necessary to get into raiding.
Vipers condi necro.
Hands down.
Idk how none of above said that.
-exotic condi gear is sooo close you dont need ascended
-its ezpz 100% reliable ranged DPS (and very decent)
-it carries whole wing 2
-extra survivability that allows few mistakes
Its not a “must have” like healer/tank/boonsharer/mightgenerator – its role is a tankier easier DPS ele – but its sooo ezpz it is the ultimate pug carry.
Here are my thoughts on the usefulness of each profession in raids. You didn’t say if you have all the elite specializations so I put if those are required as well. That’s not to say you need it, just that pug groups might not like if you don’t have it since that is part of the meta.
Elementalist – Tempest required. Highest dps in the game, so many groups run multiple. However due to the low health pool and armor it can be hard for people new to raids.
Mesmer – Chrono required. Most pug groups run exactly 1, and it’s usually the tank. It’s very important to know the fights as tank, so I don’t recommend this as your first raid class.
Necromancer – Reaper required? Pug groups usually accept up to 2 reapers. I don’t know this very well, but it is very useful on VG and Gors at least. A bit easier to play because of the large health pool. Good option, but you will sometimes be put on more difficult roles (VG – green circles; Gors – spirits).
Engineer – Scrapper not required. I usually only see this on VG. I wouldn’t recommend since you’ll want something else on other bosses and it can be hard to do the skill rotation while paying attention to mechanics.
Ranger – Druid required. Most groups run exactly 1. You would be healer, so you would be playing one of the most important roles. I don’t recommend this for starting out because of that.
Thief – Daredevil required. Not super useful. It has good damage, but doesn’t provide much utility. I don’t recommend.
Warrior – Berserker required. Most groups run 1, sometimes 2. You usually don’t have to do particularly difficult tasks, so this can be good for someone new to raids, but this slot is frequently already filled in groups.
Guardian – Dragonhunter required. Similar to daredevil in that it isn’t necessary in a raid.
Revenant – Herald required. Many groups run with 1 or 2 (I more frequently see 2 revs than 2 warriors). You don’t need to do particularly difficult tasks and provide a lot of utility with very easy rotations. I recommend this.
I personally would recommend rev>necro>warrior>ele for a beginner because difficulty of play and ease of finding groups. Once you gear out your first character and play a bit, I highly recommend gearing another that does very different roles. Flexibility in what you play really helps getting into pug groups.
Vipers condi necro.
Hands down.
Idk how none of above said that.
-exotic condi gear is sooo close you dont need ascended
-its ezpz 100% reliable ranged DPS (and very decent)
-it carries whole wing 2
-extra survivability that allows few mistakes
Its not a “must have” like healer/tank/boonsharer/mightgenerator – its role is a tankier easier DPS ele – but its sooo ezpz it is the ultimate pug carry.
Recommed it to every baddie you know.
I love necros. That said, I’m not sure it’s the best for a first time raider.
At least for ascended, Viper gear is harder to get that berserker, especially with regard to trinkets. Although I would generally agree that exotic would not be so far out of reach.
Some of the “advanced” tactics (although not too advanced), like epidemic bouncing, might be too difficult for a first time raider. Even if they don’t bounce, a mis-timed epidemic ends a sloth run.
Condition transferring may be too much to handle for a first timer.
You do bring up some valid points though. Necros can generally stay at range. (Although, this is not really helpful for any encounter but matt). And the dps rotation is pretty simple.
I will preface this by saying the best thing you can have for raids is multiple classes. That said…
Best classes to start with:
Warrior – Easy to play at a competent level. 1-2 in every group. Low personal DPS so even if you play poorly you won’t ruin your team.
Revenant – Easy to play at a competent level. 1 in most groups. Low personal DPS so even if you play poorly you won’t ruin your team.
Guardian – A little harder than Warrior and rev since you have more responsibilities with things like F1 pulls and reflect, but rotation is extremely easy and you could do most fights with only a hammer. Many groups bring 1 to most fights, and using 2 isn’t awful in a couple fights.
Note that all three of these and elementalist can share the same trinkets. Rev and guardian (and sometimes warrior) can share the same ascended armor. I know multiple players that started raiding on a single ascended heavy armor set.
Also good but not quite as good:
Necromancer – Super easy rotation, easy to stay alive, few additional responsibilities. Complete crap in some fights (vg, gors) but god tier in others (sab, all of salvation pass, sotf fight 1). Would be in the above category but the standard gearset is vipers/sinister (including trinkets), which you can’t have if you haven’t raided before (though I guess you could fork out a kittenload of gold for exotic vipers trinkets and replace them later, but that seems wasteful).
Elementalist – In high demand. Relied upon for high DPS but very squishy, so poor ele play can hurt the squad’s DPS significantly. Requires you to learn two completely separate DPS rotations (and the staff rotation is harder than most people think) Often has extra responsibilities in fights (gors orbs, sab cannons, etc). Still decent to pick up first because they are in such high demand, and hey no one knows if you suck at the DPS rotation =P (but really you need to practice it because ele is brought for high DPS and if you aren’t bringing that then you are failing your squad).
Wouldn’t recommend but maybe if you like the class:
Engineer – difficult rotation, often has extra responsibilities. Rarely used outside of vale guardian and sotf fight 1 (whatever it is called, and obviously there is limited experience for this since it just came out, but engi blinds and aoe seem pretty solid here). Meta build is all vipers and sinister which can be a pain to get. People get angry when you try to play power scrapper because it’s fun but deep down you know it isn’t very good.
Druid – Not horribly hard to play, but it is difficult to play it really well, and if you are struggling to learn druid as you learn the mechanics then you will progress very slowly as your team dies because you didn’t manage your heals/astral/weapon swap properly. Also requires many different gearsets which are not shareable. You will also have to tank some fights. 1-2 in all groups.
Worst:
Chronomancer – This is the hardest class to play in raids. Playing well requires you to know the fights and predict where your team will go. You also need to have fast hands to save your idiot team with distortion. All of your damage mitigation is evades/invulns and your heal is part of your quickness rotation, so if you don’t know the fight you will die easily. Gear is extremely expensive compared to other classes and cannot be shared with anyone. Oh, and you have to tank sometimes. However, good chronomancers are rare and in high demand.
Thief – Fairly easy to play, but has no utility and less DPS than ele so no one wants a thief. Sorry, thief.
It is not best for gorse as you realistically cant no updraft with it, but thats not what pugs do anyway. Its very handy, solo chills spirits and does epidemics here and there and again, less chance of dying for a bit of dps loss.
But for VG its amazing pug carrier.
You run to a circle every 15s and autoatack.
Done.
With staff ele a pug will die and in later phases staff ele is the useless one. And thats where poeple wipe. with staff ele you get record time 1st phase then wipe in 3rd phase 10x times.
With condi necro youre 15s slower but you help with breakbar and oneshot the valeguard.
Without dissrespect, treat pugs like onehanded clickers and give them less than what you consider minimal work to do.
The game sold 5million, you know only a tenth maybe visited a forum or guide in their lifetime?
Yea, necro is awesome for VG. It keeps up high ranged condi dps, making it ideal for green circle duty and red guard on split. It’s also tanky as hell, making it a very reliable class for this fight.
The only flaw with necros is that they don’t have a push/pull to deal with seekers, but you don’t need everyone in your green group to be able to do this and they can at least survive a seeker on a green circle if needed by sitting in shroud.
Necro is bad against VG because it’s worse than engineer against VG in pretty much every way. It deals less damage (VG has low armor and engi has much more of its DPS in power damage), and it has no knockbacks or really anywhere near the seeker control the engineer has. And it’s great that you can pop shroud and survive a seeker on green lightning, but that isn’t keeping your elementalist alive if the druid doesn’t have glyph of tides. Engineer can also blast water to heal and blast fire for might during the split, and if you take scrapper you get function gyro which as it turns out is quite the noob carrier in that fight.
And there is another major flaw with necro in that fight which is that condi damage is awful against Vale Guardian. Since he has lower armor than normal, power damage is far superior to condi damage. The only reason to bring a condi class in that fight is for the red guardian.
So yeah necro isn’t unusable against VG, it’s just completely outclassed by engineer. Even if you already had 2 condi engineers, what incentive is there to bring a necromancer over a third engineer? I’m not saying it impossible, I’ve played necro on VG plenty of times, and I’ve killed it with comps that had 2 necros and 0 engineers. But that doesn’t change the fact that necromancer is bad at dealing with the mechanics of the fight, and I think an inexperienced group would have trouble beating VG with such a comp.
The Condi Reaper build in Metabattle is the meta for Fractals and Raids, and the funny thing is that you lose only 0,8% damage with an exotic viper armor than an ascended one, you only need ascended Viper weapons, at least 2 ascended Viper trinkets (the rest being sinister), rune of thorns (the most painful to get, but there’s a variant with berserker runes, you need more viper trinkets though) and the consumables, that’s it.
Necro is bad against VG because it’s worse than engineer against VG in pretty much every way. It deals less damage (VG has low armor and engi has much more of its DPS in power damage), and it has no knockbacks or really anywhere near the seeker control the engineer has. And it’s great that you can pop shroud and survive a seeker on green lightning, but that isn’t keeping your elementalist alive if the druid doesn’t have glyph of tides. Engineer can also blast water to heal and blast fire for might during the split, and if you take scrapper you get function gyro which as it turns out is quite the noob carrier in that fight.
And there is another major flaw with necro in that fight which is that condi damage is awful against Vale Guardian. Since he has lower armor than normal, power damage is far superior to condi damage. The only reason to bring a condi class in that fight is for the red guardian.
So yeah necro isn’t unusable against VG, it’s just completely outclassed by engineer. Even if you already had 2 condi engineers, what incentive is there to bring a necromancer over a third engineer? I’m not saying it impossible, I’ve played necro on VG plenty of times, and I’ve killed it with comps that had 2 necros and 0 engineers. But that doesn’t change the fact that necromancer is bad at dealing with the mechanics of the fight, and I think an inexperienced group would have trouble beating VG with such a comp.
I have to agree to the others. Necromancers are a pleasure for pugs and also organized groups during the VG fight.
The damage is totally fine. In a usual pug you will still have the first split time above 7 minutes and even after both split phases on red you come out with over 3 min. rest for the last phase which is making it very easy. Also most of the engis aren’t professional or very good players knowing and being able to execute the best dps rotation. So, in pugs, you won’t notice any time advantage at all.
The big plus for playing a necro is that it’s perfectly easy to play which leads to an easier focus on green circles.
You can also epi-bounce on seekers. It’s working very well.
If you are going for records, sure, engis would be better but to have a safe weekly kill I would rather pick a necro over an engi because it’s almost impossible to fail hard with a necro.
WERE TALKING ABOUT PUGS.
FILTHY.
CLUELESS.
CLICKING.
beginner SPANISH or FRENCH.
pugs
Basically if dps is not a problem, then why bother? youll wipe if you fail mechanics. The price is you will kill boss at 5-6th triangle safely instead of glass canon it at 4th.
Tell him to spam epidemic or suffer when he sees a seeker and voila!
Engie will fail his dps rotation on a moving chaotic target.
Youre picking between a random LFG beginner necro and random LFG beginner engie.
the easiest rotation ever. other than guardian’s
easy to get into groups
huge range affords a lot of freedom of positioning, making it really easy to avoid getting hit
if you mess up and go down, you can mist form over to a safe place for people to revive you
