Guild Wars 2

I had never known what a raid was exactly till it was released for GW2 but I now know they are in WoW as well. I’m curious though how the difficulty matches between the 2 games as far as raids? I have yet to get beyond VG. The 1500 hp aoe drain every few seconds really adds up. So to me it’s not necessarily super difficult, it’s just staying alive is the hard part.

As someone who has played WoW, I can tell you that there’s not a whole lot of parallel between the raids. GW2 raids have one singular difficulty, designed around high end gear (exotics/ascended), proper builds (no wasted talents, food buffs, right weapons, etc.), and medium-high skill (knowledge of class, ability to adapt, and necessary reflexes). WoW instead has multiple raid modes. These range from the easiest LFR- you get thrown in a group with 20+ random people and only 2-3 of those need to know the mechanics to carry the raid, it’s basically a glorified target dummy. Then there’s the lower level of player-formed raid groups, wherein you have to pick the players you’re taking, those players have to know what they’re doing and be willing to learn the fights, and there are timers that require you to perform at a moderate level, but with a decent margin for error. This one is about on par with what GW2 raids are like. And then in WoW there’s the mythic level raids, which require 20 people, have new and more difficult mechanics, higher numbers, and a much tighter timer, and to even stand a chance in this level of raid you need to have gear from the medium-level raids. In GW2 this would be the equivalent of making a raid that requires all members to be high dps classes in full glass cannon ascended builds, and have such a small margin that just 1 person being downed can make or break the kill.

I’ve played whole wrath of the lich king and cataklysm, and normal raids were nowhere near gw2 raids, in terms of skill required. Wow had a more punishing dps check, but gw2 imho in terms of self placement and self management is much harder. Heroic raids in wow just added some new annoying mechanics and lowered the timer. Imho Sabetha requires more skill and organization than Lich King in heroic mode…

But basically i love gw2 raids much more than wow ones because the “wall” to surpass isn’t a gear check or a dps meter, but only the boss mechanic.

And just to be precise, once in wow you got the top gear, available content would be instantly trivialized (look at how EJ Elitist Jerks, managed to kill LK with 23 ppl instead of 25, without the 30% damage increase buff from the King…).

Last thing, i never deemed the mechanics in wow to be that strict… In gw2 if you dont have 4 ppl on the green thing is a 90% assured wipe. Wow didnt have that (unless you stand on the aoe and you die like a noob)…

And before someone talks about LK’s Defile, i answer, VG Green thing requires ppl to go on it in a short time, Defile needs that PPL ON IT move away. It’s easier noticing something black and ominous under your feet and move away, than identifiying a tiny green circle and getting there in time and with enough life so that you dont die while standing on it…

But just IMHO…

You can assign any number of people to go to the green area so there’s always a backup if someone fails.

On the other hand, only one person out of 25, with lag or just focused on his 25-skill-rotation, standing on LKs defile, meant certified fail. Not to mention defile is just one mechanic out of the many at play during LK hard mode (I remember the phase with the harpies getting out of whack very often)

Only one guild, in a game with 10 million players, managed to kill Lich King in heroic mode using a 5% buff (after that, the second guild that did it used a 10% buff, and many more came afterwards, but all better geared or using more buffs).

Meanwhile, Vale guardian was being killed by pugs the week after it came out.

Draw your own conclusions (and if it’s that random gw2 players are better than hardcore wow players, you are dead wrong).

And no, i am not requesting anet to increase the difficulty level. i think it’s perfect as is. Not so easy it can be AAed to death, not so hard only a dedicated guild of pro gamers can kill it.

Aenesthesia.1697:

On the other hand, only one person out of 25, with lag or just focused on his 25-skill-rotation, standing on LKs defile, meant certified fail.

You should play engi, last i heard the rotation is something like 639 skills

What you fail to see here is that LK was the LAST BOSS of the WHOLE expansion, while vale guardian is the FIRST boss of the FIRST wing of the FIRST raid. I’ve played wow too much, and while i usually learnt whole fights in matter of a couple of tries (learning how to not screw up while mantaining dps), i find gw2 raids more challenging. Sindragosa’s fight was pathetically easy and i still have to figure out why ppl failed so miserably…

The reason why Raid was cleared by pugs on the first week, only means that there is no gear wall to block ppl outside of it. I’ve always been the best player of my Wow guild but they didnt recognize me as such because my dps was lower than others (couldnt spend all that time and they wouldnt give me kittening gear, so it’s like a dog biting his tail).

Let’s see what comes with next raid then we’ll see which are harder… We have lots of tears to cry yet…

SlyDevil.3952:

Aenesthesia.1697:

On the other hand, only one person out of 25, with lag or just focused on his 25-skill-rotation, standing on LKs defile, meant certified fail.

You should play engi, last i heard the rotation is something like 639 skills

yeah, that’s one of the major flaws of this game: playing a complicated rotation means just sticking to the same pattern, as you cannot really see the cds on your skills.

In wow, you could use any number of skills you felt were useful and see the cd of ALL of them at the same time, allowing you to use a priority cast order.

Following any kind of a rotation automatically makes you a subpar player. You can’t predict how much quickness or alacrity you are going to get, especially when you need to split.

For a some reason pretty much every build guide focuses on rotations instead of skill priorities. I guess people still live in pre-raid era?

Don’t compare WoW endbosses with the first wing of GW2. I assume the final boss of GW2’s first (!) raid will be harder than the rest. As it stands now it seems on the right place difficulty wise. I can’t comment myself since I still haven’t set foot into the raid.

Raids are too easy. Harder solo champion deer than kill those bosses.

Wethospu.6437:

Following any kind of a rotation automatically makes you a subpar player. You can’t predict how much quickness or alacrity you are going to get, especially when you need to split.

For a some reason pretty much every build guide focuses on rotations instead of skill priorities. I guess people still live in pre-raid era?

the problem is you cannot access all your skills at once, and you don’t even get to see what is off cd. This forces you to follow a sort of blind pattern, a rotation, just so you gain access to the skill set that is off cooldown at each moment. >This is specially true with the engineer and his ability to change kits, and also with the elementalist (specially if running fresh air).

And that’s what separates good players from bad. If you aren’t able to track cooldowns in your head then you are forced to use weaker skills even when better ones are available.

Obviously that’s near impossible to do perfectly but trying is much better than just following some rotation blindly.

Tracking cooldowns in your head is the equivalent to counting cards.

You’re in too deep dude.

I’ve only raided in WoW (BC through Cata) and GW2 (unless you count Urgoz/Deep/FoW/UW stuff from GW1). Here’s my thoughts on GW2 vs WoW:

WoW had a much larger scale in difficulties – Even before the tab-target-to-glory LFR system came out, I think that there was often an easier learning curve to raiding in WoW as long as you took the time to get your gear, but not by much. You can see this if you compare the mechanics of VG to something like Attument in Karazhan or Anub’Rekhan in Naxx from WotLK.

At the same time, there’s the example of the Four Horsemen (original) fight that took 7 weeks before there was a world first. (https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/2wp5tc/which_raid_lasted_the_longest/)

It’s not entirely fair to make this comparison since GW2 has only had 3 raid bosses ever, whereas WoW has had more than I can count. Also, WoW seems to have taken a step back from making super hard raids. If you look at the link above, you can see this trend.

It’s possible that in the next wing we will see a boss that doesn’t go down at all until months after release, but I would be surprised if that happens, honestly.

However, GW2 has made a pretty decent showing for a game that has been 3 years without a single raid and probably didn’t even anticipate having this type of content when the mechanics were conceived.

DresdenAllblack.1249:

Tracking cooldowns in your head is the equivalent to counting cards.

You’re in too deep dude.

Welcome to the dungeon forum.

Well WoW and GW2 are different games in term of gameplay, so the overall judgement on raids is not that clear.
Having played both I can tell you that WoW is more strict in DPS checks and timers and deads BUT the success is highly dictated from your gear: once you have that in the right spot, the mechanics are not that difficult, because the gameplay is stale and you have to just pay attention to cooldowns in a UI that’s 50% automatized or guided by mods/plugin.

In GW2 yes is better to have ascended, but after the full exotic clear from my fellow partners has demonstrated, movement/player awarnes and perfect execution/counter to boss mechanic is the key for winning.
It’s way more engaging and mentally demanding, requires you to be actively thinking. In WoW it was way more slower and less “mechanically” difficult.

So, IMHO raids in GW2 > WoW, and we still need to see 2 other wing that, most probably, will be more strict in mechanics and gear.
I totally can’t wait.

Dahkeus.8243:

At the same time, there’s the example of the Four Horsemen (original) fight that took 7 weeks before there was a world first. (https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/2wp5tc/which_raid_lasted_the_longest/)

You also could tell people why it took 7 weeks to kill the horsemen
It was not the difficulty of the encounter itself but the need for 6-8 tanks with 3 pieces T3 armor, something that will never happen in GW2

The lichking was impossible to kill without the legendary axe and weapons from him with an higher itemlevel before the 5% buff (panic 30% health buff from blizzard, the rest of the encounters were a joke for top guilds and got killed within 10h after hard mode opened), he had also limited attempts to slow progress

I’d say roughly equal to current WoW’s"normal" raids, a lot easier than "heroic" and not even remotely close to "mythic".

Aenesthesia.1697:

Meanwhile, Vale guardian was being killed by pugs the week after it came out.

A week? lol

I killed Vale Guardian with a "pug" (mostly people from friendlist) on the stress test, and I’m pretty sure we weren’t the only ones, even one of our casual guild groups got to ~5% that same day.

Hmm…

As a former raider from vanilla to WotLK end in WoW, I can say for Spirit Vale, VG is in line with a moderately difficult normal boss, whereas the difficulty starts taking a hike there. Gorseval might be slightly under Hard-Mode, and Sabetha is more in line with a Hard-Mode if not everyone is at the top of their game.

What I wouldn’t mind seeing is a series of raids with a single difficulty, however different raids might be easier or more difficult that what we have so far. Different levels of prestige, and easier ‘raids’ along the lines of say Karazhan would do wonders to introducing very noobish would-be raiders to raiding.

That MIGHT mean those easier raids are scaled for Exotic, naturally with unique skins but I think that would be the best approach for GW2 raiding.

I will speak only from the perspective from hard raiding guilds. Raids in GW2 are easy. I was raiding in TBC, Wotlk, Cata, MoP and WoD. If someone say Sabetha is hard then I don’t know what to say. She is really easy. Tactic is nothing of WoW normal raids.Run around, avoid stuff, jump somewhere to kill smth and you don’t need damage to kill her because timer is way to long. Bosses hit like wet noodle. This is only my opinion. Staying in front of Boss as dps should be much more punishing.

The tactics might be simple, but WoW bosses typically have quite a bit more forgiveness if you mess up a mechanic.

None of the bosses in GW2 allow for too many mistakes, getting harder down the road. Until recently where people were finding out how to ‘out-mechanic’ VG’s lightning, that was something you HAD to do less you have everyone go critical or down. A Normal WoW boss that had a mechanic like that? Probably half-life the raid maybe, get healed up casually and move on. Heck you could outgear the encounters through tiering up your gear, but GW2 won’t have that.

I don’t expect raids to start hitting ‘Mythic’ Difficulty yet, but so far this raid wing isn’t anything to scoff at.

I don’t agree and agree with you. Most of WoW Bosses are simple but they are harder than Bosses in GW2. You see them simple and easy because most players of WoW are much more exp in doing raids. In GW2 no one know what it is even CLEAVE???!!! Bring one semi-hardcore guild to GW2 give them 2-3 days to lvl up characters for raid and then give them 2-3 h to kill all 3 bosses. I would even tell give them 1h to kill all bosses.

If player died and if he was dps and not doing smth important raid could still kill boss in WoW. I agree with you in that. I would like to see harder tactics in GW2 and more time to enrage.

Miellyn.6847:

Dahkeus.8243:

At the same time, there’s the example of the Four Horsemen (original) fight that took 7 weeks before there was a world first. (https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/2wp5tc/which_raid_lasted_the_longest/)

You also could tell people why it took 7 weeks to kill the horsemen
It was not the difficulty of the encounter itself but the need for 6-8 tanks with 3 pieces T3 armor, something that will never happen in GW2

The lichking was impossible to kill without the legendary axe and weapons from him with an higher itemlevel before the 5% buff (panic 30% health buff from blizzard, the rest of the encounters were a joke for top guilds and got killed within 10h after hard mode opened), he had also limited attempts to slow progress

I actually didn’t know that, but good point.

I think that’s the tough point that ANet has to contend with in difficulty. If they tune raids to be as tough as the toughest raids in WoW, people may still clear them faster since there’s not as much gear grind.

However…

With HoT, there has been a gear grind introduced for certain classes/builds.

The community didn’t really cry out since it wasn’t a new tier of gear, but it might as well have been. In particular, I’m talking about Viper’s Stats and Commander’s Stats for condi dps and chrono tanks.

Anyways, I guess that’s a bit of a tangent, but I agree that the gear component does make a really solid comparison tough.

Ikrekot.8357:

I don’t agree and agree with you. Most of WoW Bosses are simple but they are harder than Bosses in GW2. You see them simple and easy because most players of WoW are much more exp in doing raids. In GW2 no one know what it is even CLEAVE???!!! Bring one semi-hardcore guild to GW2 give them 2-3 days to lvl up characters for raid and then give them 2-3 h to kill all 3 bosses. I would even tell give them 1h to kill all bosses.

If player died and if he was dps and not doing smth important raid could still kill boss in WoW. I agree with you in that. I would like to see harder tactics in GW2 and more time to enrage.

We have literally had a guild known for raiding go do the ‘testing’ for the Raid content we see now (Death and Taxes, Pre-Cthun kill, etc). The whole debacle where they ‘cleared’ Spirit Vale in an hour was after painful weeks of testing strats and builds, WoW bosses are simple which makes them easy, things like having a single phase throughout the fight which is boring. Threatening mechanics being outgeared once you have it on farm.

Managing ‘cleaving’ is a simple mechanic, and not every boss needs it if they have a plethora of other capabilities that threaten the raid instead. VG certainly doesn’t need to do 20k damage to anyone other than his focused target, especially when it has enough stuff going on to keep the raid on their toes while attempting to DPS him. Gorseval has an alternative cleave in the form of a slam that hits around him, he certainly doesn’t need to do much more damage to players in front when knowing full well that failing to learn how to handle his slam attack will have you all die to this enrage…

GW2 raid bosses are nothing to snuff at right now, and I do expect bosses to go up and down in difficulty depending on where they are in the wing (at least that’s what I interpreted from Arenanet’s discussion for the first raid). Who knows? Maybe they do have some extremely difficult boss encounter requiring even more positioning than we have now. …Actually FF14 does this a lot (Ravana Extreme is Sabetha on steroids).

WoW raids have a variety of difficulty settings, bumping them up doesn’t just add hp/damage but also mechanics and even entire phases.

I haven’t played in a while but the tougher of the super hard mode bosses back when I was playing were definitely more difficult than gw2 raids. I would without a doubt say gw2 raids are harder than the mode below that though (which was normal mode when I quit but they’ve changed the name scheme now I think).

I don’t really think gw2 raids will ever be tuned to the razors edge that wow raids are because wows balance focus is largely on pve whereas gw2 balances focused on pvp, pve therefore will never have classes balanced well enough to create challenging content like that. You either tune around an average comp, and anyone who stacks the overpowered classes (like a bunch of condi warriors right now or something) will have a much easier time, or you tune around stacked comps and people are forced to use those comps to kill it. The latter seems to me an extremely unlikely path for arenanet to take.

Even though wow raids were harder at the top end I still like the gw2 raid so far.

edit: I should probably clarify that wow raids were tough with the gear you started them in. They became significantly easier over the course of the tier as your raid geared up.

Don’t want to hijack the thread at all so would appreciate responses to this as messages rather than in thread.

Coming from someone who has not played WoW raids and is somewhat interested in GW2 ones; How does the GW2 raid stack up against Wildstar raids if anyone has experienced both of these (just Genetic Archives and Datascape, dunno bout the most recent one at all). I’d really like to try out the gw2 raid but am missing 1 piece of ascended armor for my light set so have been hesitant to try it.

Currently I’d place VG firmly in the middle of WoW’s Heroic difficulty.

Goreseval is probably near the end of Heroic difficulty. I haven’t tried Sab yet but I think it’s probably close to Mythic level raiding.

I’m hoping for more bosses to be around the same level as Gore and Sab.

CD673141-975B-42E9-8500-F0FEFF861A7D:

How does the GW2 raid stack up against Wildstar raids if anyone has experienced both of these (just Genetic Archives and Datascape, dunno bout the most recent one at all). I’d really like to try out the gw2 raid but am missing 1 piece of ascended armor for my light set so have been hesitant to try it.

When I spoke to NoTrigger, he said staying at the top of W* raids could require you to spend hours each day of the week raiding, whereas gw2 is currently a couple hours a week.

1 piece of ascended armour is <0.5 damage difference? Going out and practicing dps rotations will give you more benefit than farming for the last piece.

Aenesthesia.1697:

SlyDevil.3952:

Aenesthesia.1697:

On the other hand, only one person out of 25, with lag or just focused on his 25-skill-rotation, standing on LKs defile, meant certified fail.

You should play engi, last i heard the rotation is something like 639 skills

yeah, that’s one of the major flaws of this game: playing a complicated rotation means just sticking to the same pattern, as you cannot really see the cds on your skills.

In wow, you could use any number of skills you felt were useful and see the cd of ALL of them at the same time, allowing you to use a priority cast order.

Errrr not sure if i’m reading it wrong but there are options in settings that let you see the CDs of your skills…

skyhawk.5149:

Aenesthesia.1697:

SlyDevil.3952:

Aenesthesia.1697:

On the other hand, only one person out of 25, with lag or just focused on his 25-skill-rotation, standing on LKs defile, meant certified fail.

You should play engi, last i heard the rotation is something like 639 skills

yeah, that’s one of the major flaws of this game: playing a complicated rotation means just sticking to the same pattern, as you cannot really see the cds on your skills.

In wow, you could use any number of skills you felt were useful and see the cd of ALL of them at the same time, allowing you to use a priority cast order.

Errrr not sure if i’m reading it wrong but there are options in settings that let you see the CDs of your skills…

Except engineer rotations are split between 4 kits and a weapon set, of which only 20% is visible at a time.

Pandabro.8743:

Currently I’d place VG firmly in the middle of WoW’s Heroic difficulty.

Goreseval is probably near the end of Heroic difficulty. I haven’t tried Sab yet but I think it’s probably close to Mythic level raiding.

I’m hoping for more bosses to be around the same level as Gore and Sab.

VG and Gors (something can kill you )are both like normal and Sabetha (nothing can kill you) is like LFR
LFR < Normal < Heroic < Mythic (Mythic is hardest)

Many things can kill you in Sab and it’s by far the hardest of the three, so not sure what you’re talking about. It also requires the most communication. My raid group consistently beats Vale and Gorseval between 1 and 3 tries…Sabetha…usually stuck on her for an hr or two due to members dieing one way or another.

Also you give LFR and Normal WoW raid difficulty far too much credit. The difference between WoW raids and GW raids are vastly difference in practice, anyways. WoW you grind for higher gear to make the raids easier and you lack the active combat that GW has.

I really don’t know how you could die on Sabetha. You give to much credits to GW2 raids.

I don’t talk about Normal when you overgear it. I talk about Normal when you enter it after release with gear from old raids. It is same hard as raids in GW2 easy tactics and need a bit dps to kill boss.

Poorly timed/placed firewall, being kicked off the edge by a mob, not seeing an aoe circle because of all the spammable aoes mid. Missing a canon rotation leading to a ton of aoe everywhere. And the final phase of Sab has aoe dropping everywhere. Compared to Gors and Vale she is much harder, and that’s by far the majority opinion.

And I really don’t. LFR and Normal difficulty I didn’t even need to know the mechanics to complete. Regardless how good you get at the GW raids, they were difficult until you learn all the mechanics. Wow is all about having the right team comp and the proper equipment…GW is about learning mechanics and being good enough to dodge said mechanic.

Good comp in WoW. Try to kill any boss without good comp in GW2 using only Thiefs expect druid/tempest healer.

For Sabetha you need 0 dps and you will kill her so you can take stun remove(avoiding being kicked by mobs), you have 2-3 second before firewall spawn and you know where it will spawn, if you are kicked then some ppl in your group don’t use cc. Avoiding kitten on ground is easy tactics and I suppose ppl without brain can’t avoid it. Killing Bosses in WoW take a lot more time than in GW2.

I killed her in second try and 1 guy died at 30%. It take me more to kill VG and Gors.

Using only thiefs is a inaccurate representation of what you would get in a typical raid party. Point is there are dozens of combinations you can use to complete the raid. Optimal composition exists, but you can still be far from optimal and get it done. Whatever can bring party-wide buffs and utility (that’s the issue with a thief) is generally accepted regardless of what raid boss you’re fighting.

If you killed Sab on second try then you got carried by the other 9 players. I have nothing else to say. You can’t even hope to beat Sabetha without first knowing all her mechanics. And assuming you only run tank like you claim you do then you were only a liability for them that fight. Your “2 tries” would have become 20+tries minimum if you were with a raid groups first attempt at Sabetha. I saw DnT failing on Sabetha multiple times (over an hr to kill) during one of the streams I watched of them. While they had turn 1 gors and vale kills.

And WoW bosses take a lot more time because they use gimmicky mechanics to make the fights take longer than they should to defeat. And also because of more people in the raid. More players means more chances for someone to fail at their job. Raids are dependent on everyone doing their best and the statistical probability of failure increases with each additional player. GW is fast paced and each boss can be completed in several minutes once you understand the fight well enough.

Ikrekot.8357:

VG and Gors (something can kill you )are both like normal and Sabetha (nothing can kill you) is like LFR
LFR < Normal < Heroic < Mythic (Mythic is hardest)

>.< yeah no… Stop trying to trivialize the content. It’s not that faceroll.

Normal raids in Wow can be pugged about 1-2 weeks after they drop, except for maybe the last boss which is usually a step up in difficulty. VG wasn’t being regularly pugged for a few weeks after launch. Which solidly puts it somewhere in Heroic difficulty.

Goreseval and Sab are still not regularly pugged. Often attempted and occasionally done successfully but it’s generally the exception. This is much like late Heroic and early Mythic tier. Even after people get gear it’s hard to get a pug group together to successfully clear late Heroic bosses.

Threat of dying isn’t the only thing that makes bosses difficult either. Down state makes that much less of a mechanic than in other games where if your health is 0 your done. Vale Guardian would be very very hard if down state wasn’t a thing.

Normal raids in Wow can be pugged about 1-2 weeks after they drop, except for maybe the last boss which is usually a step up in difficulty. VG wasn’t being regularly pugged for a few weeks after launch. Which solidly puts it somewhere in Heroic difficulty.

Goreseval and Sab are still not regularly pugged. Often attempted and occasionally done successfully but it’s generally the exception. This is much like late Heroic and early Mythic tier. Even after people get gear it’s hard to get a pug group together to successfully clear late Heroic bosses.

Vale guard is easier than most bosses in normal mode WoW raids. While Gorseval and Sabetha do require a higher skill level and group coordination to complete, I’d hardly say its as hard as heroic or mythic mode. The reason gw2 raids are not pugged regularly just goes to show how casual a majority of our community is.

All i’ve learned from this is that Ikrekrot is the bestest raider ever and most of us are dumdums without brains. Also that Wow is so much the very very hardest ever. And Gw2 is stupid easy except for us dumdums without brains. Also that the raidboss tier difficulty is inverted for him because he exists primarily in a raidgod dimension that bends time and math, that our human brains cannot fathom. Long live Ikrekrot, the bestest.

Ravana is really easy. Sure you need to remember the dance first but it’s by far more easier.
The mechanic-loaded monster was T9. A funny dance raid example is Thordan EX, though it’s not much harder than Ravana.
Then we have things like A4S without sac etc.

GW2 raids are incredibly lightweight mechanically. Not saying they’re easy, though.