Guild Wars 2

Hi.
I’m playing guardian, and i’ve been trying to get into a group for any boss.
I’ve read tactics for all w1 bosses, i got enough gear for VG for sure.

I’ve tried to look into LFG, but nobody wants a guardian/dh, and everyone wants someone with experience(“some li”).
I’ve tried several (3) training guilds, but after a couple of wipes people started to leave and the group pretty much died. The times after this people didn’t show up, and the group never got assembled.
Typical scenario for these training groups.

I’ve raided hardcore in WoW, and as far as i can see bosses are way more simple in gw2, yet it’s so much harder to even start raiding in this game.

Can you guys give me some tips on this, or maybe someone here runs a guild (or knows someone who does) that welcomes people who want to start raiding?
As much as i don’t like the LFG tendencies in WoW, at least there a newbee can kill a couple of bosses even if he has no exp.
Here, it’s just impossible.

Yep I have the same feeling too, can’t get into raiding because noone wants a daredevil. I’m leveling a ranger right now so that I can take condi ranger/ dedicated healer druid into raiding. At least then pugs can’t say no to a healer unless they’re absolute kitten lol

1. Raids weren’t intended to be played successfully with pugs but it’s possible to do so.

2. Pugs are likely to use best compositions after theorycrafting (benchmarks) so it’s obvious these groups are not catering to your wishes.
On the other hand most of the static groups run different classes and have a big amount of diversity during their runs. For example, in my static group we are using a guard on almost every encounter. We also play with necromancers here and there (VG for the fun, W2, W4).

3. Raids are not for newbies. There are dungeons and T1 fractals you can choose. With time you will work your way up to T4 and you should be able to raid.

So, I would recommend to look for a static group otherwise you have to gear up some of the actual meta classes if you want to be able to pug a lot.

CasualWanderer.5824:

Here, it’s just impossible.

Most of the active raiders have been in your place at one point. So it is certainly possible.

There are two ways to do it.

1. Sign up for a training guild/run. They teach you the basics and help you with your first kills. They often won’t take you much further, because of the constant influx of new players.

2. Join a guild that does regular guild raids. These will usually accept any willing guild member, provided they have a spot open and you follow their instructions. Keep in mind some guild statics will use slightly different strategies for the bosses.

Raiding with pugs is kinda strange in GW2 really. If people were really worried about benchmarks (using proper DPS meters and such) they would end up nearly always taking DH’s and Daredevils, because the average player has a much easier time with their rotation than with elementalist, and this decision alone would probably stop people from pretending “this is not supposed to be done on pugs so pugs can’t do it easily”. Well, if they can’t you can be sure it’s not the content at fault here (unlike raids in other game, notably Wildstar and WoW).

It’s also strange that things are so much simpler than back in WoW yet people treat it like you had to study in order to master the content. Finding guilds is hard because their schedule is very tight and they “don’t carry people around” so even if you’re on a guild you still have to join the training runs, they’re not taking you to the actual thing (whatever that means since it’s always the same boss). I feel like the weekly rather than daily rewards are in the wrong here, as whoever has done their experienced kills during reset has nearly to no incentive to repeat bosses. There are good souls here and there commanding runs later in the week but the burden of teaching content should not be on the players; if Anet wants that stuff to be played and wants players to enjoy being challenged, they ought to give incentive for that, but I do realize turning Raids into a farm might end up killing them instead, it’s not a simple matter of increasing rewards.

So, to summarize, you’re probaly doing the best thing you can to find more groups: just play the healer (EDIT: it was not OP who said he was leveling a healer but, well you should). Other than that, you won’t find any path without some level of struggling, which is exactly what the veterans will remind you of all the time, even though Anet themselves recognize accessibility is not on an ideal level with raids.

Dont know if you are EU or US, but if you are EU then give me a mail ingame. My guild do casual runs a few times a week. With people of varied exp/skill and with varied succes. Normally we kill 2-10 bosses in the open runs.

I read wrongly.. thought the title said how to get laid

Make your own training groups. Nothing makes you learn more than leading. Additionally, it isn’t uncommon for experienced players to join.

Once you feel confident, make your own regular groups.

After training runs, if you feel confident enough to join the exp groups, go ahead and do so.

If things turn out to be bad for you, just say sorry and find another training group to get more exp.

The start is always the hardest. Once you get a few boss kills, things will be much easier.

Also, VG is not the easiest boss for pugs. You can always try trio and escort to get a few LIs. After those, I consider Gorseval and mursaat overseer easier encounters than VG.

I have raided a bit when they were introduced but quit for long time due to pvping 99% of the time (hello pvp seasons). When i decided to raid again, most ppl had like 150+ LI so finding a spot in a pug group was really hard for me (50+LI for VG/escort wth?). So here few simple but crucial steps if you want to get into raids:

- roll a class (obviously with right gear/food/build, see qT page or metabattle) that is must have in raids (mes, druid). I understand you love your guard but this is raiding in gw2 atm – nobody (at least 99%) wants you unless you run meta.

- join a raiding guild. Avoid pugs like fire – sometimes it is worse than pvp. If you don’t have the 274923749723497 LI, you simply won’t get into any groups but training ones that will simply drain you off food and won’t get a kill. There are few raiding guilds that take new players and teach them as well. If they see you are doing well, they will bring you to more fights too.

elitism in a nutshell.
and in gw2 a lot of pugs play worse than pugs in wow.
also the community is small so it’s harder to find groups in general.
there’s still class discrimination although the classes like dh dd and necro can be really useful and strong but the mainstream that got carried by pros think they’re pro and discriminate people based on crap.

Draco.9480:

elitism in a nutshell.
and in gw2 a lot of pugs play worse than pugs in wow.

Haven’t played WoW in ages, but somehow I can’t imagine pugs in some game can be worse than there. Though GW2 pugs definitely are bad on average.

Anyway, for the OP, what others already have said: Search for and find a proper guild, then you should be able to get into raids without too many issues. No matter the class, guardian is fine as well.

You have to remember, OP, that everyone was a newbie at some point. I got my first kills in random pub runs or with my very casual guild just beating our faces against it for a long while. The challenge, really, is that it all relies on you and how much you’re willing to try. There are countless guilds / static groups in the Looking For forum that you can post on to get into those groups. Just on the first page I see at least five groups looking for people, some asking for newbies!

For context, my guild’s requirements for raids are:

• Have a good attitude / be patient
• Study up beforehand and listen / react to my feedback after every run
• Constantly improve in whatever way your class can (dps / buff uptime / etc)
• Be understanding that you might not raid every night since different people want to come, learn, try new things, or whatever
• Appreciate that higher priority for raids is given to people who participate in the guild (repping / chatting / guild missions)

That, as an example, is something that a guild could offer you. There are different types for all sorts of players based on what you’re looking for, so your mileage may vary. I seriously recommend browsing the aforementioned forum and finding something that suits you rather than playing pug roulette. That said, you can get kills with pugs, it’s just going to require patience and understanding that you might not kill everything during your playtime in a given week.

Getting into raids in GW2 is actually really easy. The caveat is that you need to be proactive and be willing to invest a decent amount of time (at least in the initial learning phase).

Step 1:
Gear and learn the basics rotations and CCs of one or more meta raid classes (more is better). Practice on golem until you can do a semblance of the basic rotation and CC.

Step 2:
Learn the bosses. Read some basic guides or watch some videos, and then join everything. Join as many raid guilds as you can, and in between scheduled runs join all the pug runs you can find. Doesn’t matter if groups suck or you killed the boss already, you are only there to practice. Practice until you know all the mechanics, timings, and can get through the fight with zero mistakes confidently.

Step 3:
Previously most runs you join will be training runs or filled with pretty bad players. Now it is time to move onto more experienced groups and get kills without (hopefully) banging your head against the wall. Start joining experienced runs and pug groups. Ignore the KP/LI requirements on LFG. If they insist on it when you join, just tell them to kick you if you make a single mistake. Majority of groups will be ok with that, if they are not, just leave and find another. Of course the caveat is that you can’t make mistakes in the run, and if you are, you should go back to Step #2.

womwom.5209:

Getting into raids in GW2 is actually really easy. The caveat is that you need to be proactive and be willing to invest a decent amount of time (at least in the initial learning phase).

Step 1:
Step 2:
Step 3:

Sorry, but that’s hardly “easy” when I compare it to other games that had much, much more challenging raid content.

womwom.5209:

Getting into raids in GW2 is actually really easy. The caveat is that it’s actually really hard and I probably should have just said that instead of offering hollow words of encouragement.

FTFY.

(lol)

CptAurellian.9537:

womwom.5209:

Getting into raids in GW2 is actually really easy. The caveat is that you need to be proactive and be willing to invest a decent amount of time (at least in the initial learning phase).

Step 1:
Step 2:
Step 3:

Sorry, but that’s hardly “easy” when I compare it to other games that had much, much more challenging raid content.

Okay, step 1: Join a raiding guild
Skip to step 4: Profit.

Made it easier.

It’s not easy to get into raids in this game and there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s the “last resort” of people in order to find challenging content here and it shouldn’t be a go to thing for just about anyone (e.g people who don’t care about their stats shouldn’t look for raids before they start caring about it).

It does a disservice to newbies claiming it was easy to get into it when Raids first came out, though. By that time there was a lot of buzz and guilds were new and actively looking for players rather than the other way around (no admission proccess for the most part and no need to look on forums/post on LFG, etc.). It also meant that everyone was learning together as opposed to now that there are vets and not only do vets expect to have to teach newbies, newbies also expect to be taught rather than learning by themselves. There is also the matter that most people with legendary armor/300+ LI are rightfully insensitive/fed up with the content in the sense that they don’t treat it with the same novelty a new player will. This all contributes to that feeling so familiar to new players of “you need experience in order to acquire experience”, because while everyone could potentially collaborate and make their own groups in order to learn just like the veterans did, individually it is a much better option to sneak in and be carried/learn content with the more experienced players, leeching oneself out of the initial struggle that would change the “being a newbie” mindset.

Last but not least, we do not have a population that is large enough to support large scale raiding with teams of 10 people (Anet themselves have at least hinted at discussing this as an issue). Playing pugs will quickly get you to know most other players who are active raiders within only a few weeks. This is specially true for US players, where the LFM chat has a lot of “downtime” with only guilds selling runs, with EU being a little better in this regard. Even then, the raid scene is not only elitist (not necessarily a problem) it is also awfully small in relation to total in game population (a major problem as number of raids increase spreading out population, and new players have even less potential of seeing any particular raid).

Get a meta build set up on your toon. Read up on the mechanics, then join a group. Raids in GW2 are so flippin easy it’s crazy. If you dodge, and follow mechanics – the rest is cake. Cheers

Why is it that raiders always assume people who don’t raid are newbies, man I’ve played this game since launch and got daimond for 3 seasons of pvp, and never raided. People who raid are so full of themselves.

Nusku.3941:

Why is it that raiders always assume people who don’t raid are newbies, man I’ve played this game since launch and got daimond for 3 seasons of pvp, and never raided. People who raid are so full of themselves.

It doesn’t have to be that way. Most of the raids I have joined have been super laid back and casual, basically the game in a nutshell. New/Old – as long as you can follow mechanics most people outside of the forums really don’t care.

zectra.6978:

Nusku.3941:

Why is it that raiders always assume people who don’t raid are newbies, man I’ve played this game since launch and got daimond for 3 seasons of pvp, and never raided. People who raid are so full of themselves.

It doesn’t have to be that way. Most of the raids I have joined have been super laid back and casual, basically the game in a nutshell. New/Old – as long as you can follow mechanics most people outside of the forums really don’t care.

Really? Because all I’ve seen from the raiding scene is people rejecting others over their builds or playstyle, and calling everyone else who doesn’t follow them by example a total newbie, it’s unjustified, it’s cruel, and has promoted a deep pestulance in the gw2 community.

A class gets nerfed so then the raiding guild throws that person down the hatch for playing the class the way he/she wanted to play it. Oh not running meta build? Must be completely new to the scene. Oh you’re X class? We don’t need you anymore because this class does something much better. Don’t have ascended armor? Must be super new and can’t probably play correctly, should go do t4 fractals and come back when he/she gets new armor. Savagery at best, and I can see it all over the forums and on map chat.

You just mentioned you’ve never raided… But you are speaking on behalf of the raiding community here. As to the class imbalance with raids, I agree it’s silly we don’t have more build diversity, but most people (myself included) only have so much time to dedicate, so we play with the best builds we can to get through it. What you are mentioning though, I have never seen in game. That is not saying it doesn’t exist – I especially know that mapchat is basically cancer, if anything – I urge any random pve player to go play sPvP for one hour, tell me how many PM’s and mails you get from salty toxic players.

If a new player is interested in raids, join a guild, ask what type of gear/class they need & play it! That easy, I have every class ready for raid/wvw/pvp whatever – be versatile and hard to replace, and have fun!

Nusku.3941:

zectra.6978:

Nusku.3941:

Why is it that raiders always assume people who don’t raid are newbies, man I’ve played this game since launch and got daimond for 3 seasons of pvp, and never raided. People who raid are so full of themselves.

It doesn’t have to be that way. Most of the raids I have joined have been super laid back and casual, basically the game in a nutshell. New/Old – as long as you can follow mechanics most people outside of the forums really don’t care.

Really? Because all I’ve seen from the raiding scene is people rejecting others over their builds or playstyle, and calling everyone else who doesn’t follow them by example a total newbie, it’s unjustified, it’s cruel, and has promoted a deep pestulance in the gw2 community.

A class gets nerfed so then the raiding guild throws that person down the hatch for playing the class the way he/she wanted to play it. Oh not running meta build? Must be completely new to the scene. Oh you’re X class? We don’t need you anymore because this class does something much better. Don’t have ascended armor? Must be super new and can’t probably play correctly, should go do t4 fractals and come back when he/she gets new armor. Savagery at best, and I can see it all over the forums and on map chat.

As a player who does raids a lot for a long time i can assure you this is not the case. It goes like this:

1)group/pug asks for a cps
2)random/guildie joins with pps
3) group said they asked for a cps cause pps is plain bad atm
4) random/guildie calls them toxic cause the entire group didnt cater to 1 person’s selfish preferences
5)random/guildie calls out the guild for being toxic elitists, leaves the group then goes to the forums to complain about not being treated as a snowflake in a 10man group

Summary : “I play what i want even if that means im just getting carried.” “screw the commander, im better”, “power necro is competitive” “im not dellusional” “the meta is a lie”

We almost had the exact situation this evening. 4.5k dps power ps with statement “Power PS is the highest dps class in the game.” Sad thing he wasn’t joking at all! We didn’t kick but carried him to get the kill. Afterwards he got some helpful hints and advice for the future because with that nescience and the low dps it is no doubt he will be kicked out of pug groups for a good reason.

The guides are there, the builds are there, training runs exist, guilds/groups are looking for new members but if you join random groups with his mentality…I don’t know, man…

Nusku.3941:

Why is it that raiders always assume people who don’t raid are newbies, man I’ve played this game since launch and got daimond for 3 seasons of pvp, and never raided. People who raid are so full of themselves.

PvPers who think they’re good at the game and go to raids, shining their diamonds and legends, used to be my favorite thing to watch for giggles back in my training run days. It’s kittening hillarious, let me tell ya.

zoomborg.9462:

As a player who does raids a lot for a long time i can assure you this is not the case. It goes like this:

1)group/pug asks for a cps
2)random/guildie joins with pps
3) group said they asked for a cps cause pps is plain bad atm
4) random/guildie calls them toxic cause the entire group didnt cater to 1 person’s selfish preferences
5)random/guildie calls out the guild for being toxic elitists, leaves the group then goes to the forums to complain about not being treated as a snowflake in a 10man group

Summary : “I play what i want even if that means im just getting carried.” “screw the commander, im better”, “power necro is competitive” “im not dellusional” “the meta is a lie”

This is pretty spot-on. I’ve never seen someone do anything I would describe as “unjustified”, “cruel”, or “promoting a deep pestilence” by any random raider in a case where it wasn’t the person being attacked’s fault. If you don’t read the LFG and don’t want to work with the commander / group, then you deserve whatever hate you get for wasting that group’s time. Even in the case where DPS classes get kicked for abysmal DPS, it’s either quiet or a “your DPS is bad” followed by the kick. Things almost never get out of hand or get too offensive because it causes everyone who isn’t bad to leave the squad as well. No one wants to be around that.

I am currently a bit too casual to get into raids. Ideally I would love to just PUG and get kills within the first 3 tries. Obviously this doesn’t happen so I can’t be bothered with raids. SAD

EcoRI.9273:

I am currently a bit too casual to get into raids. Ideally I would love to just PUG and get kills within the first 3 tries. Obviously this doesn’t happen so I can’t be bothered with raids. SAD

Same situation for me a while back when I was looking to raid. PUGs being generally frustrating not due to losses for me but the reactions to them (I was happy to smash my head for the hour or two I set aside as long as I was having fun trying instead of dealing with whining). My answer was to get on as many friends lists as possible to get invites as an alternate, it worked fine by me and I was getting most lockouts weekly without too much trouble. Then I went full WvW and lost my spot on those lists.

Grimheart.2853:

Nusku.3941:

Why is it that raiders always assume people who don’t raid are newbies, man I’ve played this game since launch and got daimond for 3 seasons of pvp, and never raided. People who raid are so full of themselves.

PvPers who think they’re good at the game and go to raids, shining their diamonds and legends, used to be my favorite thing to watch for giggles back in my training run days. It’s kittening hillarious, let me tell ya.

But us PvPers are good at the game, you think only non-PvPers have full sets of legendary armor right now? No my friend, PvE or PvP it makes no difference, it’s all the same you put enough time into it you reap the rewards.

If you’re just starting or trying to get into raids, pugging is probably a bad idea. Generally most pugs have already done the raid several times and are running meta builds.

Half the fun of raiding is doing it with a group of friends or guild mates. My guild just recently got into raiding. It’s been a journey but it’s incredibly rewarding to see how far we’ve progressed. You really feel like you’ve earned that boss kill when you finally get it and then later get it consistently.

We occasionally have to pug a few spots and we always keep a list of helpful players for future runs. Check the recruitment forums because most guilds are always looking for more.