Fractals are conceptually better than Raids

Fractals are conceptually better than Raids

in Fractals, Dungeons & Raids

Posted by: Hesacon.8735

Hesacon.8735

Q:

I keep telling myself I’m going to raid, except most pug groups that run take too long to organize and break up after a few wipes. Organizing 10 players with very specific roles to fill? It’s like herding cats.

Fractals only require 5 players and any fractal can be completed with basically any group composition that knows the mechanics (with the possible exception of nightmare challenge mote, but that’s because of timed burn requirements that are unique to this fractal).

It is exponentially easier to find 5 people who know the mechanics than 10 people who can fill out specific roles. The agony resistance requirement separates the experienced players from those learning, making the whole process smoother. You don’t need arbitrary cutoffs of number of fractals cleared.

I’d like to do these legendary armor achievements to say I’ve done it, but there aren’t enough infusion slots in my gear to give me the resistance to the agony of spending an hour to organize a group that falls apart after the first wipe, only to repeat the process.

Fractals are conceptually better than Raids

in Fractals, Dungeons & Raids

Posted by: zealex.9410

zealex.9410

what part of this is your question?

Fractals are conceptually better than Raids

in Fractals, Dungeons & Raids

Posted by: Seera.5916

Seera.5916

what part of this is your question?

Probably just accidentally set the post as a question. It happens from time to time.

Fractals are conceptually better than Raids

in Fractals, Dungeons & Raids

Posted by: Fluffy.1932

Fluffy.1932

Raids are designed to be a step up from fractals for players looking for more of a challenge. There were quotes from devs saying that they probably wouldn’t be puggable because of the difficulty and coordination required. In other words, raids were designed to be completed by organized static groups.

Some people are part of a community in game that they do content with, and some people prefer to fly solo. Fractals are tuned so that solo players can lfg and complete them. Raids are tuned for the people that are part of organized groups that would trivialize other content. Just because they are designed for somewhat different demographics doesn’t make one better than the other.

If you really want to get into raiding, I recommend looking for a raiding guild. A guild is a (usually) safe place to learn raids because the members are invested in you improving. By teaching you and helping you, they get a valuable raider that can be part of one of their statics. Groups through lfg do not have the same incentive to help.

Fluffy Fuz
The Edge of Oblivion [EDGE]

Fractals are conceptually better than Raids

in Fractals, Dungeons & Raids

Posted by: Hesacon.8735

Hesacon.8735

what part of this is your question?

Probably just accidentally set the post as a question. It happens from time to time.

This. Tried three times to undo it to no avail.


The thing with raid bosses is that having fought many of them, they aren’t all that much more difficult than fractal bosses. 100 CM could easily have been a raid had it been scaled differently.

Having thought about this more, raids are no less pug-able than fractals, it boils down to two differences:

  • fractals scale and by T4 you can assume some level of skill and commitment, no such system exists in raids. LI is not a proper surrogate for a variety of reasons
  • in part because of the first reason, it’s hard to find 10 people eager and committed to doing it

If some sort of formal implied skill system like unlocking T4 fractals and agony resistance existed for raids, it would be less frustrating and more approachable for everyone.

Fractals are conceptually better than Raids

in Fractals, Dungeons & Raids

Posted by: otome.2673

otome.2673

Fractals were conceptually better than Raids

(pre HoT)

Ftfy

Fractals are conceptually better than Raids

in Fractals, Dungeons & Raids

Posted by: Rising Dusk.2408

Rising Dusk.2408

  • No Fractal boss except 100CM Siax automatically fails if 1 player messes up

This is an important distinguisher between the two modes. Fractal bosses, by design, are able to be carried by extremely strong single players. Meanwhile there are mechanics in almost every raid boss where if someone with a key job fails their task, the entire group wipes. In Fractals I can play a build that does respectable damage and will basically never die, and it no longer matters if other players are good. All they do is speed things up in the ideal case. This is in stark contrast to raids where players are critically necessary for a number of reasons.

Like Fluffy.1932 said, raids were really designed with high levels of coordination in-mind. That’s sort of the whole point.

[VZ] Valor Zeal – Stormbluff Isle – Looking for steady, casual-friendly NA raiders!

Fractals are conceptually better than Raids

in Fractals, Dungeons & Raids

Posted by: Rednik.3809

Rednik.3809

  • No Fractal boss except 100CM Siax automatically fails if 1 player messes up

This is an important distinguisher between the two modes. Fractal bosses, by design, are able to be carried by extremely strong single players. Meanwhile there are mechanics in almost every raid boss where if someone with a key job fails their task, the entire group wipes. In Fractals I can play a build that does respectable damage and will basically never die, and it no longer matters if other players are good. All they do is speed things up in the ideal case. This is in stark contrast to raids where players are critically necessary for a number of reasons.

Like Fluffy.1932 said, raids were really designed with high levels of coordination in-mind. That’s sort of the whole point.

Kek, this is golden. So, literally EVERY raid boss can be killed without much problems even with 1-2 guys instantly dying on start (hello low man kills and raid sells), but this somehow magically fails the boss ecounter? I guess, evil anet GM ports to you and taking away your loot? Or “key role” guy cannot be replaced?

Kiijna, Xast, Satis Ironwail, Sekhaina, Shira Forgesparkle, Sfeno, Nasibi, Tegeira, Rhonwe…
25 charracters

Fractals are conceptually better than Raids

in Fractals, Dungeons & Raids

Posted by: Xevv.9175

Xevv.9175

  • No Fractal boss except 100CM Siax automatically fails if 1 player messes up

This is an important distinguisher between the two modes. Fractal bosses, by design, are able to be carried by extremely strong single players. Meanwhile there are mechanics in almost every raid boss where if someone with a key job fails their task, the entire group wipes. In Fractals I can play a build that does respectable damage and will basically never die, and it no longer matters if other players are good. All they do is speed things up in the ideal case. This is in stark contrast to raids where players are critically necessary for a number of reasons.

Like Fluffy.1932 said, raids were really designed with high levels of coordination in-mind. That’s sort of the whole point.

Most bosses have been 4 manned. Hell the only reason they havent been beaten by less in the enrage timer. Could always add that to fractals. But people would probably whine that they cant use their trashy build/gear setup.

Fractals are conceptually better than Raids

in Fractals, Dungeons & Raids

Posted by: zealex.9410

zealex.9410

Fractals were conceptually better than Raids

(pre HoT)

Ftfy

pre hot ftfy was better than 100 cm? or 100 in general?

Fractals are conceptually better than Raids

in Fractals, Dungeons & Raids

Posted by: Rising Dusk.2408

Rising Dusk.2408

Kek, this is golden. So, literally EVERY raid boss can be killed without much problems even with 1-2 guys instantly dying on start (hello low man kills and raid sells), but this somehow magically fails the boss ecounter? I guess, evil anet GM ports to you and taking away your loot? Or “key role” guy cannot be replaced?

Obviously raids can be low-manned and you don’t have a clue what I’m saying. Let me clarify. It’s one thing to 9-man (or whatever) a boss if no one messes up, it’s another thing when your 10th drops a Sloth poison field on top of your group, or when your 10th walks into oil at Deimos, or when your claimer gets spiked at Mursaat, or when your 10th drops well of the profane on top of your group at Matthias, or when all of your condis die pre-split at VG, or <insert other case here where one or a few people screwing up wipes a group>. That’s the difference. Fractals doesn’t have that anywhere.

Most bosses have been 4 manned. Hell the only reason they havent been beaten by less in the enrage timer. Could always add that to fractals. But people would probably whine that they cant use their trashy build/gear setup.

See above.

[VZ] Valor Zeal – Stormbluff Isle – Looking for steady, casual-friendly NA raiders!

Fractals are conceptually better than Raids

in Fractals, Dungeons & Raids

Posted by: Rednik.3809

Rednik.3809

Obviously raids can be low-manned and you don’t have a clue what I’m saying. Let me clarify. It’s one thing to 9-man (or whatever) a boss if no one messes up, it’s another thing when your 10th drops a Sloth poison field on top of your group, or when your 10th walks into oil at Deimos, or when your claimer gets spiked at Mursaat, or when your 10th drops well of the profane on top of your group at Matthias, or when all of your condis die pre-split at VG, or <insert other case here where one or a few people screwing up wipes a group>.

Minimum half of your examples aren’t lethal at all. They making kill harder but still possible.

That’s the difference. Fractals doesn’t have that anywhere.

Good old hammer bearer in first versions of cliffside before implementing of hammer retrievers, reworked swamp (especially before nerfs) where guy kittened up at wisp was waaaaay more dangerous than sloth poison drop, chaos bonefire run (2 deaths = gg).

Kiijna, Xast, Satis Ironwail, Sekhaina, Shira Forgesparkle, Sfeno, Nasibi, Tegeira, Rhonwe…
25 charracters

Fractals are conceptually better than Raids

in Fractals, Dungeons & Raids

Posted by: Dragon Masher.5749

Dragon Masher.5749

I disagree, fractals are not fun imo. Raids are alot more enjoyable.

Fractals are conceptually better than Raids

in Fractals, Dungeons & Raids

Posted by: cranos.5913

cranos.5913

Minimum half of your examples aren’t lethal at all. They making kill harder but still possible.

If you look at these events in a vacuum maybe, but raids do have other mechanics going on at the same time. All those examples can be lethal.

Fractals are conceptually better than Raids

in Fractals, Dungeons & Raids

Posted by: maxwelgm.4315

maxwelgm.4315

In the end it all boils down to how much a single person can influence the whole fight. Matthias for example is arguably the hardest raid boss because the level of personal influence is [perhaps too much] high, in the sense that failing one of the many single player mechanics may result in failure of the team as a whole. It is actually very hard to recover from two people dropping well of the profane right on the middle of the arena, let alone if someone else simultaneously go down due to not reaching fountain (because druids were busy with well of the profane folks to begin with). Sloth, Sab, etc. all have examples of this too.

The only difference from Fractals then, is the scaling of such events: having 10 people perform at their top game and not fail mechanics is clearly less probable than having 5 people do so, and considering it takes only 2 or 3 out of 10 to fail in order for it to be a wipe, the odds are heavily stacked against players. Note though that none of this calls for any strict kind of “teamwork”. In fractals you have mechanics like dropping lava on the Underground Facility boss, that require a single player to do it while another draws aggro, and the rest simply DPS. The group is severely hindered if any one of these two players fail to play out the mechanics, but this is actually less likely to happen simply due to how content is tuned. The whole thing is scaled down so that 2 out of 5 failing is actually less important than 2 out of 10 failing during Matthias, but the individual performance factor is still there on both cases.

Looking at it like this, we can infer that, in reality, Fractals and Raids are conceptually very similar, with the only difference being a mere fine tuning of mechanics. This is also how it turned out that Raids can be pugged (and are, a lot), rather than being content exclusively for static teams. Individual performance is still the most important thing for raids, and it can even be carried to a certain point. When people think of Raids being the pinnacle of teamwork they might compare it inside their heads to what a sports team would be, with a lot of training resulting in high player synergy. However, both Raids and Fractals are more akin to playing in a band: you memorize the notes for your instrument, and practice synching with the other members; practicing with the same person will result in more harmony, but in principle you can sit down with just about anyone, at any time, and play the same songs as with your band, as long as they have also practiced that song before. That would make Fractals being a garage show with mainly pop songs and 5 band members, whereas Raids are a Jazz supergroup where everyone has to play a solo during the concert.

This is all good really, because it means Fractals can act as that “stepping stone” you mentioned that Raids do not have. Doing fractal 100 CM everyday will not teach you the specific boss mechanics for any of the wings, but it will raise the bar on your individual performance as a player, making you more aware of your actual contribution to DPS/healing/buffing/not screwing up things. And this general awareness of yourself is the single requirement to raid properly, both as a static team member and as a pug.

TL;DR: Fractals and Raids have the same core concept, it’s just that Raids are purposefully tuned to be harder. The 10-man requirement plays a key role in this increased difficulty, but only because mechanics are fine tuned to increase a single player’s contribution to success/failure.

Fractals are conceptually better than Raids

in Fractals, Dungeons & Raids

Posted by: Miellyn.6847

Miellyn.6847

  • No Fractal boss except 100CM Siax automatically fails if 1 player messes up

This is an important distinguisher between the two modes. Fractal bosses, by design, are able to be carried by extremely strong single players. Meanwhile there are mechanics in almost every raid boss where if someone with a key job fails their task, the entire group wipes. In Fractals I can play a build that does respectable damage and will basically never die, and it no longer matters if other players are good. All they do is speed things up in the ideal case. This is in stark contrast to raids where players are critically necessary for a number of reasons.

Like Fluffy.1932 said, raids were really designed with high levels of coordination in-mind. That’s sort of the whole point.

Most bosses have been 4 manned. Hell the only reason they havent been beaten by less in the enrage timer. Could always add that to fractals. But people would probably whine that they cant use their trashy build/gear setup.

Which boss other than VG and maybe 2. Boss in Bastion has been 4 manned?

Meena Wolfsgeist | Ranger
Ceana Mera | Mesmer
Indra Nebelklinge | Revenant

Fractals are conceptually better than Raids

in Fractals, Dungeons & Raids

Posted by: Rednik.3809

Rednik.3809

Which boss other than VG and maybe 2. Boss in Bastion has been 4 manned?

Boss in bastion has been soloed.

Kiijna, Xast, Satis Ironwail, Sekhaina, Shira Forgesparkle, Sfeno, Nasibi, Tegeira, Rhonwe…
25 charracters

Fractals are conceptually better than Raids

in Fractals, Dungeons & Raids

Posted by: Hesacon.8735

Hesacon.8735

I’m not sure everyone in this thread is understanding the point I’m trying to make.

I don’t have any issues with the raids themselves, they are quite fun.

My issue is that it’s exceedingly difficult to find 10 players who know how it works. I have more or less stopped looking for raids because they take way too long to organize.

You have to make sure every role is filled. Sometimes you’re checking builds. Sometimes someone who doesn’t understand it joins. First wipe 3 people leave and the process restarts.

It can take an hour to build a pug group.

T4 fractals? After reset there’s dozens of parties. Pick any of them and go. In the time it took to even start one pug raid you finished the daily fractals with pugs.

That’s my issue.

The reason why fractals are like this is that experienced players are structurally separated from learning ones. You know that 98% of the time that T4 group will be successful and you didn’t have to wait more than a few minutes to start.

Raids it’s a craps shoot exacerbated by needing twice as many as fractals. It takes far too long to organize.

Fractals are conceptually better than Raids

in Fractals, Dungeons & Raids

Posted by: cranos.5913

cranos.5913

I’m not sure everyone in this thread is understanding the point I’m trying to make.

I don’t have any issues with the raids themselves, they are quite fun.

My issue is that it’s exceedingly difficult to find 10 players who know how it works. I have more or less stopped looking for raids because they take way too long to organize.

You have to make sure every role is filled. Sometimes you’re checking builds. Sometimes someone who doesn’t understand it joins. First wipe 3 people leave and the process restarts.

It can take an hour to build a pug group.

T4 fractals? After reset there’s dozens of parties. Pick any of them and go. In the time it took to even start one pug raid you finished the daily fractals with pugs.

That’s my issue.

The reason why fractals are like this is that experienced players are structurally separated from learning ones. You know that 98% of the time that T4 group will be successful and you didn’t have to wait more than a few minutes to start.

Raids it’s a craps shoot exacerbated by needing twice as many as fractals. It takes far too long to organize.

We realise that’s the point you’re making. As pointed out several times in this thread raids weren’t conceptually made to primarily be done by pugs, but instead have organised guilds as priority targets.

Fractals are conceptually better than Raids

in Fractals, Dungeons & Raids

Posted by: Ryan.9387

Ryan.9387

If I join a run and see players doing 8k dps on ele, I’m probably going to leave. I can make a good estimate that the team will fail based on the performance of a couple attempts. At the point I know the run is a lost cause, I’m wasting my time staying in the group.

Other players see this too, and are often the better players in the group.

The underlying reason people leave groups is bad leaders. If the bad players are kicked, the good ones take note and stay. Often they will fill the empty slots with friends and you get easy kills.

Pander to the engie that does 29k dps, not the others.

Ranger | Elementalist

Fractals are conceptually better than Raids

in Fractals, Dungeons & Raids

Posted by: otome.2673

otome.2673

pre hot ftfy was better than 100 cm? or 100 in general?

Pre Hot fractals weren’t focused on bossfights. They were like dungeons where you could safe alot of time with good portals ect. Also pre HoT the fractal bosses killed you if you were ignoring the mechanics completely, what i cant say about fractals in current state with the tonics that reduce incoming damage. Also the randomness kept them interresting.

Fractals are conceptually better than Raids

in Fractals, Dungeons & Raids

Posted by: zealex.9410

zealex.9410

pre hot ftfy was better than 100 cm? or 100 in general?

Pre Hot fractals weren’t focused on bossfights. They were like dungeons where you could safe alot of time with good portals ect. Also pre HoT the fractal bosses killed you if you were ignoring the mechanics completely, what i cant say about fractals in current state with the tonics that reduce incoming damage. Also the randomness kept them interresting.

not sure you will live through bloom hunger subject 6 gladiator or any nightmare boss if you ignore the mechanics but yeah the randomness gave them some fun aspect but a prefer being your own fault you died rather than what it use to be

Fractals are conceptually better than Raids

in Fractals, Dungeons & Raids

Posted by: nagr.1593

nagr.1593

I’m not sure everyone in this thread is understanding the point I’m trying to make.

I don’t have any issues with the raids themselves, they are quite fun.

My issue is that it’s exceedingly difficult to find 10 players who know how it works. I have more or less stopped looking for raids because they take way too long to organize.

You have to make sure every role is filled. Sometimes you’re checking builds. Sometimes someone who doesn’t understand it joins. First wipe 3 people leave and the process restarts.

It can take an hour to build a pug group.

Echo this sentiment here. You see dozens of posts for full clears but theyre more concentrated around the raid reset day rather than redt of week. Its very unhealthy, and if youre on a diff timezone u can take up to 12 hours past the official reset time to even jump into a raiding pug. Not to mention ppl might have busy schedules whereby they are unable to or are adverse to raiding on the selfsame day of reset.

Yeah sometimes pugs take over an hour to form, ive complained abt this b4 but ive always been scoffed at or ridiculed. Most ppl seem to think thats impossible, but its really not..

Problem isnt though, with pugs eager to join raids. Problem is with them being exp and not dying to clearly telegraphed mechanics. Or needing to have some glaringly obvious mechanic explained to them, when that very fact should disqualify them from being exp (LI or not).

I dunno bout yall but heres some legit hashtags i been writing in chat after few fail pugs since yesterday:
#howtoplatform
#wheretodroppoison -> #expgroup
#howtodospecialaction

To add a bit of context, first was in reference to pugs failing simple cues on platform b4 get to xera. Fail to glide, fail to push orb, fail to listen or communicate to know where to stand when. Our tank was on ts but after a while of yelling and kicking useless scrubs he realised it was hopeless and just left. We wasted like abt an hour and couple wipes too sadly.

Second was sloth yroup today where our leader even didnt know where to drop poison so had spent 2min or more to explain to whole grp. This was on lfg for ‘exp only – sloth’ all caps to be catchy too, but o well. I type this hashtag then follow it with #expgroup cos it was funny tbh. As in, r these scrubs qualified to be in this grp even?

Last was for cairne normal even same day after i finish cairne cm with another pug that take 2 hrs or so. It was in response to ppl dying randomly before 60% even to stupid things, kill each other by agony not go to greens or not dodge swipe. was prty funny tbh

T4 fractals? After reset there’s dozens of parties. Pick any of them and go. In the time it took to even start one pug raid you finished the daily fractals with pugs.

That’s my issue.

The reason why fractals are like this is that experienced players are structurally separated from learning ones. You know that 98% of the time that T4 group will be successful and you didn’t have to wait more than a few minutes to start.

Raids it’s a craps shoot exacerbated by needing twice as many as fractals. It takes far too long to organize.

Arun Kar

(edited by nagr.1593)

Fractals are conceptually better than Raids

in Fractals, Dungeons & Raids

Posted by: kdaddy.5431

kdaddy.5431

Raids are designed to be a step up from fractals for players looking for more of a challenge. There were quotes from devs saying that they probably wouldn’t be puggable because of the difficulty and coordination required. In other words, raids were designed to be completed by organized static groups.

Some people are part of a community in game that they do content with, and some people prefer to fly solo. Fractals are tuned so that solo players can lfg and complete them. Raids are tuned for the people that are part of organized groups that would trivialize other content. Just because they are designed for somewhat different demographics doesn’t make one better than the other.

If you really want to get into raiding, I recommend looking for a raiding guild. A guild is a (usually) safe place to learn raids because the members are invested in you improving. By teaching you and helping you, they get a valuable raider that can be part of one of their statics. Groups through lfg do not have the same incentive to help.

Im sorry i disagree with this completely.

When Raids first came out i and 4-6 guild members jumped in to try and figure out the mechanics. We figured it out and realized we would not be able due to gear. Since VG needed condi group etc etc etc.

The meta team comps come out about 1-2 weeks later and accordingly we got the right gear and simply walked through the first Wing.

I was placed in plat (almost top 250, and 3 of the other i raided with got into plat as well as well as 1 placing in the top 250) and nothing about raids is challenging from a player perspective.

Raids is just group content which is why you get so many complaints. No matter how hard a fractal is, no matter what build you are running you can solo a fractal if you are good enough especially if you are with 4 other people who help take down a boss.

It does not matter how good a player is, in a raid that player will fail if 2-3 other players can not carry there own weight.

Then you have the 4-5 man clearing raids taking advantage of the new HOT broken spec lines.

I have asked multiple times in PvP for a reward track for raid reward like the guild hall decorations. I had a few Pve/raid players tell me if i wanted them i should raid. The next day i pugged into a raid group and cleared W1. Showing that i had unlocked it by completing it.

I disagree with you about the type of content, you saying its suppose to be harder. It does not challenge you mechanically. It does not challenge you as a player or even 2-3 players.

Raids only challenge you as a team with the team comp and gear check. If you know your rotations then you move accordingly. Those are raid

Fractals are conceptually better than Raids

in Fractals, Dungeons & Raids

Posted by: Zenith.7301

Zenith.7301

I’d rather fractals are not made central, because that leaves even less room for classes as you’re taking now 5 people instead of 10.

The 10 people also means mechanics can afford to be more complex and there can be more build variety since players comprise less of a fraction of the total raid damage.

The problem with raids is entirely community driven, not one with their actual design.

Raids are inaccessible because people make them inaccessible, not because they actually are in terms of difficulty or tight mechanical checks.

GW2 also doesn’t have an extensive raiding scene like WoW where it’s easy to find entry level raiding guilds and climb up through the categories of raiding simply because GW2 never cultivated a raiding culture or highly encouraged large swaths of its population to participate.

WoW eases its population into raiding. You have LFR, then normals, then heroic for your average raid group, and mythic. The progression of difficulty is reasonable.

In GW2, you drop people into dynamic events and easy fractals where their personal responsibility is hardly tested and they are not forced to look to improve themselves.

Then suddenly you introduce them to strange difficulty spikes like the Nightmare fractal, old school Arah, and even the Chaos fractal’s last boss and groups crumble because the skills they are meant to bring have never been truly practiced or expected of these players, so people just leave when they can’t get carried.

Open world PvE actively reinforces bad habits for challenging instanced content instead of working alongside it.

Most open world PvE is straight up high numbers aoe death zone spam with random elite mob aggro that chunks players for half their health. Rezzing players is often a trap with the amount of aoe.

What happens? Selfish play develops. Players resort to camping ranged weapons, which involve little effort, to keep themselves alive, and rarely bother to make efforts to rez. They brute force the encounetr with raw numbers. Since the player has little impact over breakbars, and they often fail to be broken, players then ignore breakbars as well. And that’s how the Nightmare and Chaos fractal become painful when people only think to tunnel damage onto mobs from range.

(edited by Zenith.7301)

Fractals are conceptually better than Raids

in Fractals, Dungeons & Raids

Posted by: zoomborg.9462

zoomborg.9462

About that cc i have to agree competely. Was doing cm100 an hour ago and cc was lacking…..i asked the tempest to switch staff for d/wh so we can get more flexible cc and they started complaining about staff being better and OP frost bow. Kitten stay there channeling frostbow 5 and hope u dont die…..

Im particularly kittened at the majority of tempests right now cause “its staff or nothing”. Most of them never even touched d/wh, d/sc yet they “main” ele…….

Fractals are conceptually better than Raids

in Fractals, Dungeons & Raids

Posted by: kdaddy.5431

kdaddy.5431

About that cc i have to agree competely. Was doing cm100 an hour ago and cc was lacking…..i asked the tempest to switch staff for d/wh so we can get more flexible cc and they started complaining about staff being better and OP frost bow. Kitten stay there channeling frostbow 5 and hope u dont die…..

Im particularly kittened at the majority of tempests right now cause “its staff or nothing”. Most of them never even touched d/wh, d/sc yet they “main” ele…….

Its because the meta says.

I know people want to blame the community and they have a right too.

But when so many raid groups lose because they have a DH running longbow traps instead of a boom spam rev or a dps ele there is a problem.

People who say the “main” a class are saying they main that class for raids. The majority of us who played in WvW, PvP and PvE usually have played most weapons. For instance i mained staff ele for years in all areas but i also played d/d some for the d/d meta in PvP and also some scepter/dagger for WvW. I also played everyone weapon on warrior.

I was in a raid pug group where we ran 2 power scrappers and we finished W1. After the patch that nerf some mesmer things, the raid community starting doing more mirror comps.

I mean lets just keep it simply, nothing about raids requires a huge amount of skill. It takes time to learn the rotations, it takes time to know what attacks do what to you and then it takes time to figure out what gear you want certain classes to use.

You asked a robot to change weapons when this robot only knows how do X skill at X time.

Which is why the raid community is so bad in this game, X players will say hey my guilds allows X players to play X class when its 1-2 players to defer from the main option of it.

I was in a raid guild shortly, they had a static group. They were starting to expand and brought in a bunch of new people. They split the mains 6/4, i was in the 4 man main and they started blaming everyone who wasnt playing meta builds. (even if they were dying to nothing)

We didnt kill gors and the other group finished all 3 raids wings in less then 3 hrs. The next day i found a pug group who killed all 3 bosses in W1 in less then 2 hr.

Players are not being challenged by actually learning a class, players now play like robots on classes. HOT specs destroyed the identity of this game and vast increase in spam turn players into mindless key board spammers who dont know classes so asking a robot to switch off of staff would of caused it to overload and explode.

EMERGENCY SHUT DOWN COMMENCING

Fractals are conceptually better than Raids

in Fractals, Dungeons & Raids

Posted by: Talindra.4958

Talindra.4958

Won’t compare fractal and raids bcos they are different content in the game. I like to see expansion and improvements coming from both.

Champion Magus & Phantom, Demon’s Demise, The Archdesigner.
Death is Energy [DIE] – Gandara EU
Australia

Fractals are conceptually better than Raids

in Fractals, Dungeons & Raids

Posted by: otome.2673

otome.2673

Players are not being challenged by actually learning a class, players now play like robots on classes. HOT specs destroyed the identity of this game and vast increase in spam turn players into mindless key board spammers who dont know classes so asking a robot to switch off of staff would of caused it to overload and explode.

While Dungeons/Fractals encouraged “Skillfull” gameplay for example swotching weapons for movement, might stacking pre casting or higher burst, Raids are just doing the rotation on huge HP sponges. But since the old content fracs/dungs got nerfed into the ground/ trivialized by HoT builds ect. there is no pve content that encourages you to become better.

Fractals are conceptually better than Raids

in Fractals, Dungeons & Raids

Posted by: SlippyCheeze.5483

SlippyCheeze.5483

Players are not being challenged by actually learning a class, players now play like robots on classes. HOT specs destroyed the identity of this game and vast increase in spam turn players into mindless key board spammers who dont know classes so asking a robot to switch off of staff would of caused it to overload and explode.

While Dungeons/Fractals encouraged “Skillfull” gameplay for example swotching weapons for movement, might stacking pre casting or higher burst, Raids are just doing the rotation on huge HP sponges. But since the old content fracs/dungs got nerfed into the ground/ trivialized by HoT builds ect. there is no pve content that encourages you to become better.

I think you are misvaluing your own skill here: you spent a long time getting good at MMOs in order to be able to think of raiding (and dungeons, etc) as “just doing the rotation on a huge HP sponge”.

For most players, this is definitely not true.

Fractals are conceptually better than Raids

in Fractals, Dungeons & Raids

Posted by: Blaeys.3102

Blaeys.3102

The model they use for fractals fit with the general themes of accessability and tiered reward for tiered content that we see in the greater game (that we came to love during the past 4 years).

The restrictive and inflexible model they chose for raids is based on what we saw in other MMOs 6 years ago – and really doesnt fit with the greater game.

That is the basic reason why fractals feel so much better and more polished in this game than raids.

Fractals are conceptually better than Raids

in Fractals, Dungeons & Raids

Posted by: kdaddy.5431

kdaddy.5431

Players are not being challenged by actually learning a class, players now play like robots on classes. HOT specs destroyed the identity of this game and vast increase in spam turn players into mindless key board spammers who dont know classes so asking a robot to switch off of staff would of caused it to overload and explode.

While Dungeons/Fractals encouraged “Skillfull” gameplay for example swotching weapons for movement, might stacking pre casting or higher burst, Raids are just doing the rotation on huge HP sponges. But since the old content fracs/dungs got nerfed into the ground/ trivialized by HoT builds ect. there is no pve content that encourages you to become better.

I think you are misvaluing your own skill here: you spent a long time getting good at MMOs in order to be able to think of raiding (and dungeons, etc) as “just doing the rotation on a huge HP sponge”.

For most players, this is definitely not true.

I have to agree for a few reasons. (obviously because we are on the same page)

A big reason i dislike HOT specs is the boons, so many boons and increased everything for no reason at all. In a old dungeon you use to group up for a quick second and then use fields and combos to get the boons.

Even without a rev a group of people can get to 25 stacks of might by just being near each other.

So a obvious boss to face in a raid would be a high DPS against zergs. I just completed the migrane challegne and fighting EIR was epic. She stacked 30-60 burn damage if you even rotated into one another. She had incredibly low HP but she was the epic boss.

Therefore the sponge comment is correct. I have alot of people who know “raid meta” but they dont even know there class. As someone who has PvP alot i know the traits auto given for almost all the trait lines on warrior and ele.

I have to admit ive started to forget since i havent been playing but GW2 use to be about team comp potential. Like the shout guardian with staff giving might to the power necro and power warrior so they can use elites for insane damage.

Now its Fire overload, sit in the field with a rev and have a mesmer drop a well. Anyone in the AOE field gets 25 stacks of might, fury, haste and there is no real planning or even worry about timing these attacks since alot of it is on 10 sec cd.

In dungeons if it was too hard for players i tell them to go into defense and use stances with for great justice so they wouldnt die and that was more important then might sharing. As a ele instead of going for more DPS with the air or fire trait line i might go arcane and use water dodge rolls to heal party members. Or use 1 utility skill for earth shield so if a player was close to dying they could pick up the shield and hide for a couple of secs.

In the new 10 man setting there is nothing i can do if players cant get on greens for VG, there is nothing i can do if the bunker mesmer cant survive against Xera and the meta says we all play DPS. Becuase then you get those groups of people who say if we dont have the DPS we will fail and then elite raiders will say we do it all the time.

Which is where we are at right now.

You can call it skilled game play but i kind of shut my brain off for raids and kind of said when we get to this stage of the fight i do this, or if some one dies i now do this. It has nothing to do with knowing a class or even changing my spec lines to better fit a team situation.

In most cases its simply best to either teach the bad player or simply kick them to find someone who has already learned the mechanics of the fight.