Guild Wars 2

I’ve been raiding for little over a month. I find myself struggle at tier 2 fractals. So, there you go. I am an avergae guy.

As of now, I’ve killed every boss except Xera. I got wiped more than 50 times at Vale Guardian until I got the first raid boss kill.

I do not believe raiding needs EASY MODE. It is designed to be hard, thereby more rewarding. My only issues were accessibility. I found it very difficult spotting training groups.

There are indeed a lot of players willing to learn. However, there are only a few commanders willing to teach at the sacrifice of their own time and resources. They don’t get anything in return. I hope Anet can find a way to encourage more train runs by rewarding those friendly commanders. They are truly worthy of the raiding community.

What do you guys think about implementing in-game squad voice chat? This can be a huge change to WvW, Raids, World Bosses, etc.

A commander alone would have hard time teaching. Best approach I’ve seen is to take new players in an existing, experienced group. Technically this is what guilds should be about. But how to encourage more people to do it is beyond me.

For the voice chat – there’s TeamSpeak and Discord and people already use them.

Ryudnard.2587:

I’ve been raiding for little over a month. I find myself struggle at tier 2 fractals. So, there you go. I am an avergae guy.

As of now, I’ve killed every boss except Xera. I got wiped more than 50 times at Vale Guardian until I got the first raid boss kill.

I do not believe raiding needs EASY MODE. It is designed to be hard, thereby more rewarding. My only issues were accessibility. I found it very difficult spotting training groups.

There are indeed a lot of players willing to learn. However, there are only a few commanders willing to teach at the sacrifice of their own time and resources. They don’t get anything in return. I hope Anet can find a way to encourage more train runs by rewarding those friendly commanders. They are truly worthy of the raiding community.

What do you guys think about implementing in-game squad voice chat? This can be a huge change to WvW, Raids, World Bosses, etc.

How much uninterrupted time do you need for each attempt? How did you finally got into a group?

my best advice would be find videos of someone hardcore with same class and copy their gameplay and then mold it to create your own (but not excessively different of course)

Ardid.7203:

Ryudnard.2587:

I’ve been raiding for little over a month. I find myself struggle at tier 2 fractals. So, there you go. I am an avergae guy.

As of now, I’ve killed every boss except Xera. I got wiped more than 50 times at Vale Guardian until I got the first raid boss kill.

I do not believe raiding needs EASY MODE. It is designed to be hard, thereby more rewarding. My only issues were accessibility. I found it very difficult spotting training groups.

There are indeed a lot of players willing to learn. However, there are only a few commanders willing to teach at the sacrifice of their own time and resources. They don’t get anything in return. I hope Anet can find a way to encourage more train runs by rewarding those friendly commanders. They are truly worthy of the raiding community.

What do you guys think about implementing in-game squad voice chat? This can be a huge change to WvW, Raids, World Bosses, etc.

How much uninterrupted time do you need for each attempt? How did you finally got into a group?

Many established groups will spend roughly 2 hours at a time completing the raids, so that’s a good baseline to aim for. If you’re able to spend 2 solid hours raiding, you’ll be baseline compatible with most groups. Less than that is doable too, but below 1 solid hour would be a tough sell for a lot of people.

I believe the current amount of experienced players are enough to help others, however (and it’s not their fault) the tight schedules of peak raiding times (after reset, tuesdays, mostly on European time, etc.) are a huge no-no to a lot of newbies. Anet could definitely intervene in the sense that there could be more incentive to taking new people to raid. But that’s harder to do without breaking the game (e.g adding shiny rewards for bringing first timers would not help much if people just bring them in to leech and get their freebies).

Also there are many players that attempt to learn the fight beforehand and are very well prepared even though they never did the encounter or never got the kill but tried a few times. These players do not benefit as much from a training run where the commander spends several minutes explaining concepts they may or may not already know and having everyone rehearse their roles/food/etc.

Sometimes I host “practice” runs for these people that are experienced but not quite there yet, so we can just join in and attempt a kill but without the usual pressure a experienced PuG would have. Basically training but without the introductions, and assuming you know what you’re doing but wants to do it without others expecting you to succeed 100%. It’s always a huge success training-wise but my playtime is less and less and I wish others would also try doing this.

Ryudnard.2587:

I’ve been raiding for little over a month. I find myself struggle at tier 2 fractals. So, there you go. I am an avergae guy.

As of now, I’ve killed every boss except Xera. I got wiped more than 50 times at Vale Guardian until I got the first raid boss kill.

Wait, wait, wait… you have killed all the raid bosses save Xera after one month, but still struggle with tier 2 fractals? uh, ok…

How does that even begin to make any sense? In any event, that is definitely not “your average guy” for sure.

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

you have killed all the raid bosses save Xera after one month, but still struggle with tier 2 fractals? uh, ok…

#hardcarrymodeon

generally raid will never have an easy mode, nor will the community ever be rewarded… if you think someone help u alot, and you are thankful, only way is to show it yourself…

raid has little replayability after the weekly clear… experienced player can clear it in the first 2 day of the week… there is little incentive to do even experienced run, much less training runs… the cap has to exist to avoid raid from becoming “farmville”. if reward was given by anet, it would be farmed… and that could become a bigger problem…

still i understand what u are saying. the best thing u can do is to show up at practise raid with your homework done; have good rotation and gear… and slowly learn the fight…

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

Ryudnard.2587:

I’ve been raiding for little over a month. I find myself struggle at tier 2 fractals. So, there you go. I am an avergae guy.

As of now, I’ve killed every boss except Xera. I got wiped more than 50 times at Vale Guardian until I got the first raid boss kill.

Wait, wait, wait… you have killed all the raid bosses save Xera after one month, but still struggle with tier 2 fractals? uh, ok…

How does that even begin to make any sense?

Someone got carried hard, it seems. Considering the gulf that exists between fractal t2 and raids, i see no other option.

But to answer OP, i don’t really see any good option to implement that. There’s too great possibility that it would be abused for rewards, completely disregarding the original reason behind it.

Feanor.2358:

A commander alone would have hard time teaching. Best approach I’ve seen is to take new players in an existing, experienced group. Technically this is what guilds should be about. But how to encourage more people to do it is beyond me.

For the voice chat – there’s TeamSpeak and Discord and people already use them.

“In-game” voice chat can create difference.

[/quote]How much uninterrupted time do you need for each attempt? How did you finally got into a group?[/quote]

I am not sure what you mean by the uninterrupted time. If you’re in a training group, you’d want to make as many attempts as possible regardless of getting wiped. That is the best way to learn. I don’t believe briefing the boss mechanics is needed. That’s wasting too much time unless it’s semi-expereinced group that may have a chance of killing the boss. When I am commanding the train run, I usually ask people to read dulfy’s guide and you’re ready to roll. You will learn yourself by making tons of mistakes and getting butt kicked. This is why I mentioned dying more than 50 times at VG until I got the first kill.

I’ve never got into any static group. I did pug runs only.

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

Ryudnard.2587:

I’ve been raiding for little over a month. I find myself struggle at tier 2 fractals. So, there you go. I am an avergae guy.

As of now, I’ve killed every boss except Xera. I got wiped more than 50 times at Vale Guardian until I got the first raid boss kill.

Wait, wait, wait… you have killed all the raid bosses save Xera after one month, but still struggle with tier 2 fractals? uh, ok…

How does that even begin to make any sense? In any event, that is definitely not “your average guy” for sure.

I am not familiar with fractal boss mechanics. That’s why I am struggling. I was basically new to raiding and fractals.

i prefer raid without voice.. all my raids these days are without voice.

Ryudnard.2587:

What do you guys think about implementing in-game squad voice chat? This can be a huge change to WvW, Raids, World Bosses, etc.

With Discord being free and so easy to use and share with people I would think it quite a waste to put time into an in game voice chat. Also, if there were an in game chat system there might be more pressure to use a voice chat, which is something many do not like to do. So basically there’s not really a need, it’d take a lot of work, and it’d probably cause a good amount of people some frustration. I’d rather they not bother.

Jerus.4350:

Ryudnard.2587:

What do you guys think about implementing in-game squad voice chat? This can be a huge change to WvW, Raids, World Bosses, etc.

With Discord being free and so easy to use and share with people I would think it quite a waste to put time into an in game voice chat. Also, if there were an in game chat system there might be more pressure to use a voice chat, which is something many do not like to do. So basically there’s not really a need, it’d take a lot of work, and it’d probably cause a good amount of people some frustration. I’d rather they not bother.

Well, okay, you do have a point. I suggest setting the default mode as voice chat muted. I feel like in-game squad voice can be very useful in GW2 from many aspects. Giving out discord/ts addresses and passwords and granting access do take some time. Take a look at DOTA2 for example. A static team will use discord. They want to be highly competitive. If you’re playing with total strangers a.k.a pugs, in-game voice chat will bolster communication. WvW and Raids and all the other events that involve squads formation will naturally become more competitive place.

As a relevant aside….

It blows my mind that so many pub groups struggle through bosses without voice chat when they intentionally waste DPS opportunities with full healer Druids and multiple Minstrels Chronomancers for ‘safer’ runs. The bar for success in a silent raid encounter is so much higher than a voiced run because it takes a level of awareness that very few pubs are really capable of. Sometimes you’ll get lucky and get ten of those extremely great players in a full pub, but you’re really stacking the deck against yourself by hoping for that.

Seriously, some players are really solid, but might not notice when certain mechanics are happening, and all they need to go from “good DPS but misses mechanics” to “correctly does everything” is someone on TS/Discord calling what is happening. This applies to so many fights, from calls of poison at Matthias to bomb calls at Sabetha to even where the tank wants the next shards cleared at Xera.

You’re making things harder on yourself by insisting on silent runs. Just create a temporary Discord channel and bark out mechanics and you’ll see much higher success rates across the board.

Rising Dusk.2408:

As a relevant aside….

It blows my mind that so many pub groups struggle through bosses without voice chat when they intentionally waste DPS opportunities with full healer Druids and multiple Minstrels Chronomancers for ‘safer’ runs. The bar for success in a silent raid encounter is so much higher than a voiced run because it takes a level of awareness that very few pubs are really capable of. Sometimes you’ll get lucky and get ten of those extremely great players in a full pub, but you’re really stacking the deck against yourself by hoping for that.

Seriously, some players are really solid, but might not notice when certain mechanics are happening, and all they need to go from “good DPS but misses mechanics” to “correctly does everything” is someone on TS/Discord calling what is happening. This applies to so many fights, from calls of poison at Matthias to bomb calls at Sabetha to even where the tank wants the next shards cleared at Xera.

You’re making things harder on yourself by insisting on silent runs. Just create a temporary Discord channel and bark out mechanics and you’ll see much higher success rates across the board.

This is why I vote for implementing in-game squad voice chat.

Ryudnard.2587:

I’ve been raiding for little over a month. I find myself struggle at tier 2 fractals. So, there you go. I am an avergae guy.
[…]

This makes me cry. I’m pugging through T4 fractals regulary without issues even when 3/5 of them are performing… not so well, yet getting a single raid kill seems out of reach for me.
Guess it’s due to the 10-ppl req. design lowering a single players influence to success close to zero :/

Nash.2681:

Ryudnard.2587:

I’ve been raiding for little over a month. I find myself struggle at tier 2 fractals. So, there you go. I am an avergae guy.
[…]

This makes me cry. I’m pugging through T4 fractals regulary without issues even when 3/5 of them are performing… not so well, yet getting a single raid kill seems out of reach for me.
Guess it’s due to the 10-ppl req. design lowering a single players influence to success close to zero :/

A raid rely a lot more on others than fractals. It is a large part of why I hate structured group content. It makes participating sooooo much more complicated.

My personal experience is that raids are actually easier than fractals. Fractals are less punishing, but also less organized and structured. Attacks, mechanics, and functions fly around randomly like you’re in a hurricane of madness. Raids are very punishing for small mistakes, but the times when you need to make the choices aren’t random. You know when the VG is going to split, you know when Gorsy is going to erode the world, you know that Sloth is gonna roar after his tantrum.
So anyone can learn to raid, whereas fractals are much more subservant to RNG and chaos. That said, the chaos of fractals will rarely instakill you, so you can weigh it off against one another.

Nash.2681:

Ryudnard.2587:

I’ve been raiding for little over a month. I find myself struggle at tier 2 fractals. So, there you go. I am an avergae guy.
[…]

This makes me cry. I’m pugging through T4 fractals regulary without issues even when 3/5 of them are performing… not so well, yet getting a single raid kill seems out of reach for me.
Guess it’s due to the 10-ppl req. design lowering a single players influence to success close to zero :/

Nash, no need to cry. I have very little experience in fractals. That’d prob be why I am still somewhat clumsy at high tier 2 fractals. I haven’t been doing much fractals because it’s not fun at all. A month ago, I was flat skin noob at raiding. I did not even know what LI stands for. Since then, however, I have been putting A LOT of efforts and hours training my butt. I will tell you, this was not easy. I am now finally starting to get some regular raid boss kills. For the record, people use meters in raids. They can tell very fast if you’re not performing well. If you dare to make one simple mistake, they usually won’t hesitate much to insta kick you out of the squad. I have been there multiple times.

I still have to train for Xera. It will be another 20-40 tries or even more until I finally get the kill. I cannot wait for the journey ahead of me. I simply enjoyed the process of me getting better at doing what I was doing.

Amaimon.7823:

My personal experience is that raids are actually easier than fractals. Fractals are less punishing, but also less organized and structured. Attacks, mechanics, and functions fly around randomly like you’re in a hurricane of madness. Raids are very punishing for small mistakes, but the times when you need to make the choices aren’t random. You know when the VG is going to split, you know when Gorsy is going to erode the world, you know that Sloth is gonna roar after his tantrum.
So anyone can learn to raid, whereas fractals are much more subservant to RNG and chaos. That said, the chaos of fractals will rarely instakill you, so you can weigh it off against one another.

From the way my guildies were talking, raids are definitely much harder than t4 fractals. I do not have opinions on that, since I don’t do any fractals. But I assume they are right.

Nash.2681:

Ryudnard.2587:

I’ve been raiding for little over a month. I find myself struggle at tier 2 fractals. So, there you go. I am an avergae guy.
[…]

This makes me cry. I’m pugging through T4 fractals regulary without issues even when 3/5 of them are performing… not so well, yet getting a single raid kill seems out of reach for me.
Guess it’s due to the 10-ppl req. design lowering a single players influence to success close to zero :/

Depends on the class/role you play. As a random DPS in the group…yeah, your influence on success is fairly low. But if you’re tanking as a chronomancer, almost every single fight has a number of ways that allow you to substantially impact the success of your group.

Nash.2681:

Guess it’s due to the 10-ppl req. design lowering a single players influence to success close to zero :/

It’s not the 10-man requirement. 5-man content done with raid approach would also be much harder than t4 fractals. It’s mostly because raids are extremely unforgiving of failure. There’s a ton of mechanics where failure of one player can cause things go from good to really, really bad in an instant. Now couple that with much smaller ability to recover from those (not only you can’t ress the dead, but also any recovery attempt is asking for someone to make another mistake, causing a chain reaction of doom)

On the other hand, individual influence is very high. It’s just that it’s usually seen by their impact on failure, instead of success.

Astralporing.1957:

Nash.2681:

Guess it’s due to the 10-ppl req. design lowering a single players influence to success close to zero :/

It’s not the 10-man requirement. 5-man content done with raid approach would also be much harder than t4 fractals. It’s mostly because raids are extremely unforgiving of failure. There’s a ton of mechanics where failure of one player can cause things go from good to really, really bad in an instant. Now couple that with much smaller ability to recover from those (not only you can’t ress the dead, but also any recovery attempt is asking for someone to make another mistake, causing a chain reaction of doom)

On the other hand, individual influence is very high. It’s just that it’s usually seen by their impact on failure, instead of success.

As far as I’m concerned, the fact it is 10 men is the major problem. Mainly because putting up a 10 men group with proper comp is always a significant waste of play time for me. I derive ZERO pleasure putting up groups and constantly changing comp. I want to play, and that part of raiding is not me playing.

Also, when you say individual influence is really high, even the way you explain it, I disagree. It is true that only one can make it harder for all, but that is precisely why you, as an individual, get little control over the desired outcome. All you can do is control your character as best as you can, and pray others will do their part. There is a reason why people will ask for ridiculous prerequisites like 300+ LI (still laughting that one, sry). Many players aren’t that tolerant of others mistakes is what you have to understand.

The fact it is 10 men, and very structured, also multiply the possibility of abrasive interractions among players and finger pointing. If some raids were done along fantastic people, it is also true that many were done along absolute kittens in need of ego boosting.

While raiding can be fun, and a great social experience, it is a riskier ride for a player that want to maximize his play time and have fun.

Ryudnard.2587:

From the way my guildies were talking, raids are definitely much harder than t4 fractals. I do not have opinions on that, since I don’t do any fractals. But I assume they are right.

Yes, raids are harder. However, I have yet to see a raid boss in GW2 that truly deserves the description “hard”. So far, I’ve experienced 9 of the boss encounters and even Matthias just seems to be roughly equivalent to a medium difficulty ele pair from Wildstar, for example.

Ryudnard.2587:

Amaimon.7823:

My personal experience is that raids are actually easier than fractals. Fractals are less punishing, but also less organized and structured. Attacks, mechanics, and functions fly around randomly like you’re in a hurricane of madness. Raids are very punishing for small mistakes, but the times when you need to make the choices aren’t random. You know when the VG is going to split, you know when Gorsy is going to erode the world, you know that Sloth is gonna roar after his tantrum.
So anyone can learn to raid, whereas fractals are much more subservant to RNG and chaos. That said, the chaos of fractals will rarely instakill you, so you can weigh it off against one another.

From the way my guildies were talking, raids are definitely much harder than t4 fractals. I do not have opinions on that, since I don’t do any fractals. But I assume they are right.

As I said, personal experience, since I function better in a structured environment like raids rather than a random environment like fractals. Other people will have other experiences. You’ll find me more often in the Aerodome than the Observatory

Raids are as hard as the weakest player in the team.

Different from fractals where you can take a long time to down bosses, and people can be revived, or mechanics can kind of be ignored by someone in the group without major consequences. If someone fails to do these in a raid setting it’s likely the group will wipe.

The main thing on raids is that some mechanics must be dealt with in some way (be it executing them or distorting/dps’ing through) and the people assigned to that, be it by being nominated by the group or the mechanically being randomly assigned to them by the game itself, must execute the mechanic to avoid severe damage of some fashion to the whole group.

If a single player fails most of the times what happens is that things can snowball out of control it the group isn’t experienced enough to know how to deal with those scenarios, but the fault ultimately lies with the player that failed the mechanics in the first place.

Amaimon.7823:

As I said, personal experience, since I function better in a structured environment like raids rather than a random environment like fractals. Other people will have other experiences. You’ll find me more often in the Aerodome than the Observatory

The moment I stopped pugging fractals they became so easy they aren’t even that fun to play anymore. Fractals can be controlled to an extent that most players who only pug apparently have no idea that can be reached.

Nash.2681:

Ryudnard.2587:

I’ve been raiding for little over a month. I find myself struggle at tier 2 fractals. So, there you go. I am an avergae guy.
[…]

This makes me cry. I’m pugging through T4 fractals regulary without issues even when 3/5 of them are performing… not so well, yet getting a single raid kill seems out of reach for me.
Guess it’s due to the 10-ppl req. design lowering a single players influence to success close to zero :/

i mean bro , it really depends on what content you’re looking at i mean the answer varies and in some case its on opposite end to what you’re griping about (meaning 1 player can make or break his team’s success, that’s how crucial coordination is).

Basically raid comp from what i learn for this months or so i been whacking the mole on this thing, basicaly boil down to this (in essence) :

Chrono(M) – job to tank, be good at tank, know class/encounter inside out (ports for all → escort?), stack boons ofc, above all don’t die if tank

Chrono(S) – stack boons (know class), yada ya noodle dps

Heals – do your job, kite if you need to, know mechanics of fight/your class, heal me heal everybody, do not try to outdps chronos :p

PS wars – give might and decide banners pre-fight n also feel free to brag when u outdps a dps class for fights that DONT include teh following: escort, Sab, Sloth.

Everyone else – dps wars between urselves, don’t be outdps by a PS in an equal-opportunity setting if you can manage it (shame shame)

—
tl;dr the only encounters, there r few though, where ‘member of pack’ mentality doesnt hold no water for such cases. Deimos, 1 guy with no clue can and will wipe a group. But other cases like say MO (overseer), i mean u can run up to spikes at start and impale urself on them, rest of ur team can ignore ur dead body and finish the fight no prob.. similar deal with next boss w4 to some extent, so on.. u get the picture. But it also depend on ur role in ur comp, as list above as well.

CptAurellian.9537:

Ryudnard.2587:

From the way my guildies were talking, raids are definitely much harder than t4 fractals. I do not have opinions on that, since I don’t do any fractals. But I assume they are right.

Yes, raids are harder. However, I have yet to see a raid boss in GW2 that truly deserves the description “hard”. So far, I’ve experienced 9 of the boss encounters and even Matthias just seems to be roughly equivalent to a medium difficulty ele pair from Wildstar, for example.

For me, who’s been pugging 100% of the time, Matthias was VERY HARD. Good healers will make things easy, but it’s not easy to find healing ele.

Slothar was another tricky boss that tormented me down.

Raiding is not hard at all. All you need is practice. The hard part is finding group. Maybe will be easier to create your own group, but you and your mates need to be very patient, people will leave. If you can find 10 patient players, you are golden.
GL

mazut.4296:

Raiding is not hard at all. All you need is practice. The hard part is finding group.

This is so true. Literally having a screen up on one side watching the LFG now as I type this. (Crappy timezone doesn’t help)