Guild Wars 2

So after long break from anything besides pvp i decided to do some raiding. This would be my first raiding experience cause I didn’t play any other mmo. I geared up my tempest from ascended loot from fractals, checked builds and spend some gold on sigils, insignias and runes. I watched few walkthroughs. Next step was lfg tool. And what I see?

,,VG show eternal title"
,,60 LI+"
,,Asc exp"

and the best one: ,, VG training – need exp players".

When I was looking on discussions here of psycho WoW Eliterist, turbo optimistic ,,raids are casual friendly’’ people, to easy people, too hard people and more like that and I decided to forget about raids. And load of people will do. Maybe 10% knows about this forums and ,,how it’s easy to get in raids" posts. For 90% will see these LFG’s. And this is reality of majority of community.

If you didnt get in at the start then for most its to late,that boat has sailed.
people already experienced dont want inexperienced slowing them down.
There are some that see this as a big problem and offer teaching.but they are few and far between.I relay dont see raids lasting.

eldrin.6471:

If you didnt get in at the start then for most its to late,that boat has sailed.
people already experienced dont want inexperienced slowing them down.
There are some that see this as a big problem and offer teaching.but they are few and far between.I relay dont see raids lasting.

I feared something like that…

I see a large number of pub training runs when I pub, and I also train up anyone in my guild who’s interested in raids when we go together. You just need to find a group willing to take you and be willing to spend some time looking. Seriously, search the guild recruitment forum on this board and you’ll find tons of hits.

Raids arent supposed to be easy to get into. Like ANY contentthere willbe more exp people and newer people. Just find a raid teaching guild. Go to the players helping players forum. You will find one. Took me about ten minutes to find a teaching guild.

I only got into raid last week. It is definitely not too late. I will admit at this point your best bet will be to join a casual or learning friendly guild (like I did) that is willing to take the time to teach and learn. I found my new guild on the forums.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/community/lookingfor

As of this posting there are a couple threads about raiding-noob friendly guilds recruiting, even including mine. Check it out.

It’s definitely not too late to learn; you just need to find the right people.

eldrin.6471:

If you didnt get in at the start then for most its to late,that boat has sailed.
people already experienced dont want inexperienced slowing them down.
There are some that see this as a big problem and offer teaching.but they are few and far between.I relay dont see raids lasting.

This or they will run out of ideas, the encounters are all pretty similar and people run the same builds, it would have been much better, safer and fun to make challenging dungeons instead of raids, less effort and it would please everyone, because at least no ascended stuff or other dumb requirements.

I really miss the days where people experienced dungeons for the first time and tried to understand mechanics by trying tons of different team compositions, then the cancer of “meta” came out, but it was still a friendly place for most people unlike fractals (the gear grind that is) or raids (the mentality from players).

As much as I wanna raid, I can’t now because of how big (and stupid) the requirements have grown, why should I need a tonic that gives nothing just to experience wing 2 and wing 3? Why is a legendary material is used as a currency? Also, I feel like my time is wasted most of the time, especially when trying to join a group, which eventually makes me play another game, in which I can have fun whenever I want…

Rising Dusk.2408:

I see a large number of pub training runs when I pub, and I also train up anyone in my guild who’s interested in raids when we go together. You just need to find a group willing to take you and be willing to spend some time looking. Seriously, search the guild recruitment forum on this board and you’ll find tons of hits.

I assume you want to cheer me up and thanks for that but I didn’t write here to rant or talk about my raiding problem. I wrote about quite a lot of people problem with raids.

Mr Godlike.6098:

I assume you want to cheer me up and thanks for that but I didn’t write here to rant or talk about my raiding problem. I wrote about quite a lot of people problem with raids.

It is a problem that is easily overcome by perseverance and a little resourcefulness. It’s also not a problem anyone at ANet can help you with, so it’s truly in your hands.

To be honest, it IS easy to get into raid. Just form your own group and enter the raid.
“Clearing” the raid is the hard part, especially the “quickly clearing” variant

Rising Dusk.2408:

Mr Godlike.6098:

I assume you want to cheer me up and thanks for that but I didn’t write here to rant or talk about my raiding problem. I wrote about quite a lot of people problem with raids.

It is a problem that is easily overcome by perseverance and a little resourcefulness. It’s also not a problem anyone at ANet can help you with, so it’s truly in your hands.

If it is something people see as an issue, it is something worth bringing to the attention of the developers. it may not make a difference, but more information is always better than less.

A lot of the posts on the LFG are there because no one is joining them, ones that are desired are filled so kitten quickly.

Also, people are wanting experienced people, because, LO AND BEHOLD it took top guilds almost a full week of constant raiding JUST to get a clear. It took many weeks to have guilds for decent groups.

We’re now over 6 months since raids came out and people WANT experienced, because quite honestly, it’s cost even the best guilds, days and days on end of constant raiding to get quick clears, to get decent builds, decent team compositions.

For someone to expect to get into an experienced group without any experience and expect to get carried, is quite honestly, an insult to the many hours we have put in.

There ARE training raids on LFG, they DO get filled up quickly, you WILL get experience in these if you put in the effort. There are CONSTANTLY posts with people offering training from guilds that specifically do training, there are guilds of 500 members who joined with no experience.

If you want training, if you want to get some experience YOU HAVE to actually put in the effort to find these groups, to form groups yourself. If you don’t, then you won’t get anywhere.

there is a LFG section dedicated to advertising yourself

just post something along the lines of “new to raiding, looking for training run, any boss”

i guarantee you someone will group you up eventually if you do it at a populated time. then you wipe a lot and start learning.

The problem with this community is everyone is either terrified of starting their own groups or simply expect someone else to do all the organising. I have been doing a lot of raiding recently. Joined a pug group for the brand new wing and nearly got the keep boss down.

But, I generally start my own groups. At this stage I am pretty experienced and prefer experienced people but when I started, I advertised as new or training and the groups fill up super quick. Really some things you can’t just sit around and wait for people to organise for you. If you want to raid that badly, put a simple advert up in lfg and make a squad.

Also, having people with eternal or whatever is by no means a path to victory. They could have bought the title for one. One other thing that bothers me is the impatience. I’ve had people bail out of groups after 2 shots at a boss. Raiding requires patience and time. If you’re not prepared to devote either, then don’t expect to achieve raiding goals.

It’s now easy to get into raid!

Wing 3 First Boss is the entry boss.

Figure out the mechanics, plan a strategy and any group can kill it.

Think I’ll start posting screenshots from the LFG tool in these threads because (par example) yesterday I saw at least 5-6 LFG’s – training run/new players/learning raids and the like.

@OP – you’re nit picking at one LFG you saw because no one in their right mind would require you to have eternal for VG UNLESS they want a clean fast kill in which case it’s their right.

As per another thread.

1. Click “Y” or whatever keybind you have for LFG
2. Go to Raids LFM
3. Post a LFG saying – want to learn raids or something alike – you’ll be surprised.

Why is making your own LFG rocket science these days?

If I want a casual run I join a “everyone welcome group” if I want a fast kill/dungeon I join a “experienced/tonic/metazerkviperblabla” group. If there is no group which fits my requirements I make my own LFG. gg wp

Mr Godlike.6098:

and the best one: ,, VG training – need exp players".

Training runs don’t work as well when the entire party is noobs. You need to have some experienced players to help them.

get a hold of randomguy.1283 he has a guild for training people and static raid groups good place to start.

There are raids guilds around who organize teaching runs or pug who organize practice runs.

Just avoid high requirements guild/pug If you don’t enough experience.

Focus on one or two roles at beginning and learn what you need to do against every boss.

This is one of the reasons every other successful raiding game out there offers multiple tiered raiding experiences. It allows people to gain experience and see mechanics in a less stressful environment before moving on to the harder versions (if they so desire). It really needs to happen in GW2 as well.

Given the number of people bringing this up and their positive history of actually listening to players in the past, I have to think this is something they are strongly considering for future raids (or at least I hope it is).

Rising Dusk.2408:

I see a large number of pub training runs when I pub, and I also train up anyone in my guild who’s interested in raids when we go together. You just need to find a group willing to take you and be willing to spend some time looking. Seriously, search the guild recruitment forum on this board and you’ll find tons of hits.

Raid guilds ‘Represent or get away’.

Result: you either join a Raid only guild, or a large guild, with a few members that do raids, but often can’t come together because issues of synergie of being online, or you don’t join raid guild. All have downsides.

Raid only guild: you almost can’t do pve, dungeons, fractals , pvp , wvw with them.

Big build, but that’s not as interested in raids then ‘raid only guild’: You can do more stuff with this guild. But often you just fall out of boat (12/10 raid members), or people are not online at the required time, or you want to pvp, but the guild is to pve focussed for that, etc. One guild cannot ‘sustain’ all modes. Even the 480/500 ones, bar a few exceptions maybe.

No raid guild: All the issue’s described in op = correct.

Non represent raid guild: Tried, done it, failed. You need a ‘leader’ figure, setting some rules in raid only guild, and our guy left gw2. When that happened the raid guild (non represent) just died slowly. Dicussions, people not showing up etc. And ‘non represent raid guild’ is an absolute over the top rarity, i’ve been searching non stop for them and only found this one that got ‘killed’.

And to all these big forum guru’s, (often being leader of guild or being well known in their guild): you are lucky to be in a good guild. Now i could be a traitor and leave my very fine friendly, big (2x 480/500) guild, but i won’t. Finding drama empty guilds is hard, I’m not taking a chance. Ofc this guild requires represent most of time (they would allow represent during raid, but definitely not perma represent other guild). And rightfully so.

Conclusion: OP is correct, and people like Rising dusk do not realize the luxury throne they are sitting on, currently for raids. No offence meant, just a wake up call.

I got 11900 hours, 30710 ap (no bragging, just showing how close i should be to raid viable), 4 chars fully Ascended raid viable, 11 ‘Legendary insight’, all achievement except eternal in raid 1, yet people keep discarding me as trash.

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

Rising Dusk.2408:

I see a large number of pub training runs when I pub, and I also train up anyone in my guild who’s interested in raids when we go together. You just need to find a group willing to take you and be willing to spend some time looking. Seriously, search the guild recruitment forum on this board and you’ll find tons of hits.

Raid guilds ‘Represent or get away’.

Result: you either join a Raid only guild, or a large guild, with a few members that do raids, but often can’t come together because issues of synergie of being online, or you don’t join raid guild. All have downsides.

Raid only guild: you almost can’t do pve, dungeons, fractals , pvp , wvw with them.

Big build, but that’s not as interested in raids then ‘raid only guild’: You can do more stuff with this guild. But often you just fall out of boat (12/10 raid members), or people are not online at the required time, or you want to pvp, but the guild is to pve focussed for that, etc. One guild cannot ‘sustain’ all modes. Even the 480/500 ones, bar a few exceptions maybe.

No raid guild: All the issue’s described in op = correct.

Non represent raid guild: Tried, done it, failed. You need a ‘leader’ figure, setting some rules in raid only guild, and our guy left gw2. When that happened the raid guild (non represent) just died slowly. Dicussions, people not showing up etc. And ‘non represent raid guild’ is an absolute over the top rarity, i’ve been searching non stop for them and only found this one that got ‘killed’.

And to all these big forum guru’s, (often being leader of guild or being well known in their guild): you are lucky to be in a good guild. Now i could be a traitor and leave my very fine friendly, big (2x 480/500) guild, but i won’t. Finding drama empty guilds is hard, I’m not taking a chance. Ofc this guild requires represent most of time (they would allow represent during raid, but definitely not perma represent other guild). And rightfully so.

Conclusion: OP is correct, and people like Rising dusk do not realize the luxury throne they are sitting on, currently for raids. No offence meant, just a wake up call.

I got 11900 hours, 30710 ap (no bragging, just showing how close i should be to raid viable), 4 chars fully Ascended raid viable, 11 ‘Legendary insight’, all achievement except eternal in raid 1, yet people keep discarding me as trash.

There’s nothing stopping an experienced player like you from forming your own group.

Like others have said — there are so many options to get into raids. And now is the best time, with wing 3 just out.

And I’m not sure why players don’t understand that there’s no incentive for a pug group to bring a new player. I lead pug groups all the time. I spent several hours learning each fight. I have no desire to repeat that process.

That said, there’s still pug groups in training runs. And guilds to join. Guilds have an incentive to train people because they’ll be repeat players. And if the raid guilds want you to rep? Well, they’re putting forth the effort, after all. Least you could do is return the favor.

And if your 1000 person guild can’t raid, well, that’s a pretty bad guild. I’m sure some people in a big guild raid. Get them together and hop in.

Absurdo.8309

And if your 1000 person guild can’t raid, well, that’s a pretty bad guild. I’m sure some people in a big guild raid. Get them together and hop in.

Maybe the reason he is in that guild has nothing to do with raiding. It has to do with finding a group of people he enjoys playing with and wants to experience the game with.

With my guild, the barrier for entry is “low drama” and a willingness to have fun in large groups.

Excluding people because they are not good raiders – or leaving a guild for the same reason – is anti-social, pure and simple, and goes against everything I started playing GW2 for.

This also illustrates the need for different tiers of difficulty perfectly. Personally, I like the challenge of the raid. I like min/maxing and taking on the challenge. But, I would also love to experience that content at a lesser difficulty with my friends who are less interested in those things. Every other successful raiding MMO out there offers that experience. It is sad that the most social MMO on the market chooses not to. It is time to fix this disparity.

And, once again, I really disagree with the “doesn’t raid well = bad guild mentality.” That is the kind of elitism we never want to see in this game (and rarely did before raids in their current form came along).

Blaeys.3102:

Absurdo.8309

And if your 1000 person guild can’t raid, well, that’s a pretty bad guild. I’m sure some people in a big guild raid. Get them together and hop in.

Maybe the reason he is in that guild has nothing to do with raiding. It has to do with finding a group of people he enjoys playing with and wants to experience the game with.

With my guild, the barrier for entry is “low drama” and a willingness to have fun in large groups.

Excluding people because they are not good raiders – or leaving a guild for the same reason – is anti-social, pure and simple, and goes against everything I started playing GW2 for.

This also illustrates the need for different tiers of difficulty perfectly. Personally, I like the challenge of the raid. I like min/maxing and taking on the challenge. But, I would also love to experience that content at a lesser difficulty with my friends who are less interested in those things. Every other successful raiding MMO out there offers that experience. It is sad that the most social MMO on the market chooses not to. It is time to fix this disparity.

And, once again, I really disagree with the “doesn’t raid well = bad guild mentality.” That is the kind of elitism we never want to see in this game (and rarely did before raids in their current form came along).

I have a feeling we’re having a proxy argument here.

If you can’t find people to raid with in a 1000 man guild, then the guild is either extremely specialized or a pretty bad guild.

It has nothing to do with the difficulty of the encounter. Feel free to have guild drama free runs. Feel free to run with bad players. There’s nothing stopping you.

Difficulty is something different. Some players like content with the possibility for failure. Others don’t. There’s content for both. I’m still not sure why the exact same content must be at all difficulty levels. There’s Guild missions, world bosses, dungeons, and fractals for players who don’t want hard.

This thread is about accessibility. You have guilds. You have pug runs. You can grab 9 other players and just hop in. Nothing is stopping you.

Absurdo.8309:

Blaeys.3102:

Absurdo.8309

And if your 1000 person guild can’t raid, well, that’s a pretty bad guild. I’m sure some people in a big guild raid. Get them together and hop in.

Maybe the reason he is in that guild has nothing to do with raiding. It has to do with finding a group of people he enjoys playing with and wants to experience the game with.

With my guild, the barrier for entry is “low drama” and a willingness to have fun in large groups.

Excluding people because they are not good raiders – or leaving a guild for the same reason – is anti-social, pure and simple, and goes against everything I started playing GW2 for.

This also illustrates the need for different tiers of difficulty perfectly. Personally, I like the challenge of the raid. I like min/maxing and taking on the challenge. But, I would also love to experience that content at a lesser difficulty with my friends who are less interested in those things. Every other successful raiding MMO out there offers that experience. It is sad that the most social MMO on the market chooses not to. It is time to fix this disparity.

And, once again, I really disagree with the “doesn’t raid well = bad guild mentality.” That is the kind of elitism we never want to see in this game (and rarely did before raids in their current form came along).

If you can’t find people to raid with in a 1000 man guild, then the guild is either extremely specialized or a pretty bad guild.

Or it is a guild built around community and low drama instead of raiding.

I understand the need for some to push the “raids are for us only” mentality, but this is taking it a little too far, imo. Leave the insults out of it.

Every successful raiding game realizes the importance of varied raiding experiences to provide the greatest level of entertainment to the community as a whole.

Here is a dose of reality for people – GW2 chose to do what they did for one reason and one reason only, imo -

Marketing.

The game had the reputation of being a casual focused game. They wanted to bring in new players and decided to target raiders. They chose not to include a more varied experience because they wanted to be able to tout the “hardcore” label without people bringing up the easier modes. They wanted to be able to brag about player “tears” because they thought (misguided, imo) that is what would bring raiders from other games to GW2.

The problem is, this approach took them away from their roots. It transformed the end game away from the inclusive nature we saw at launch and for the first three years. Even worse, it is splintering the community (and even splintering some very good guilds).

The worst part is it isn’t necessary. Every other raiding game out there realizes this (or came to realize it after time). They all (at least the successful one) offer some kind of tiered difficulty or mechanic to appeal to the community as a whole.

The ability to market “hardcore” isn’t worth the schism in the community. It isn’t worth the transformation of GW2 end game away from the community and inclusionary focus that made the game great/different when it first came out.

And, for the love of everything, do not call some of the best, most social guilds in the game “bad” simply because they don’t offer raiding. That is just insulting and plain wrong (but the fact that someone would make that statement at all does clearly illustrate the divisive nature of raids as they currently exist in GW2).

Blaeys.3102:

Absurdo.8309:

Blaeys.3102:

Absurdo.8309

And if your 1000 person guild can’t raid, well, that’s a pretty bad guild. I’m sure some people in a big guild raid. Get them together and hop in.

Maybe the reason he is in that guild has nothing to do with raiding. It has to do with finding a group of people he enjoys playing with and wants to experience the game with.

With my guild, the barrier for entry is “low drama” and a willingness to have fun in large groups.

Excluding people because they are not good raiders – or leaving a guild for the same reason – is anti-social, pure and simple, and goes against everything I started playing GW2 for.

This also illustrates the need for different tiers of difficulty perfectly. Personally, I like the challenge of the raid. I like min/maxing and taking on the challenge. But, I would also love to experience that content at a lesser difficulty with my friends who are less interested in those things. Every other successful raiding MMO out there offers that experience. It is sad that the most social MMO on the market chooses not to. It is time to fix this disparity.

And, once again, I really disagree with the “doesn’t raid well = bad guild mentality.” That is the kind of elitism we never want to see in this game (and rarely did before raids in their current form came along).

If you can’t find people to raid with in a 1000 man guild, then the guild is either extremely specialized or a pretty bad guild.

Or it is a guild built around community and low drama instead of raiding.

I understand the need for some to push the “raids are for us only” mentality, but this is taking it a little too far, imo. Leave the insults out of it.

Every successful raiding game realizes the importance of varied raiding experiences to provide the greatest level of entertainment to the community as a whole.

Here is a dose of reality for people – GW2 chose to do what they did for one reason and one reason only, imo -

Marketing.

The game had the reputation of being a casual focused game. They wanted to bring in new players and decided to target raiders. They chose not to include a more varied experience because they wanted to be able to tout the “hardcore” label without people bringing up the easier modes. They wanted to be able to brag about player “tears” because they thought (misguided, imo) that is what would bring raiders from other games to GW2.

The problem is, this approach took them away from their roots. It transformed the end game away from the inclusive nature we saw at launch and for the first three years. Even worse, it is splintering the community (and even splintering some very good guilds).

The worst part is it isn’t necessary. Every other raiding game out there realizes this (or came to realize it after time). They all (at least the successful one) offer some kind of tiered difficulty or mechanic to appeal to the community as a whole.

The ability to market “hardcore” isn’t worth the schism in the community. It isn’t worth the transformation of GW2 end game away from the community and inclusionary focus that made the game great/different when it first came out.

And, for the love of everything, do not call some of the best, most social guilds in the game “bad” simply because they don’t offer raiding. That is just insulting and plain wrong.

I don’t mean to insult any guilds here. But, in my opinion, if you can’t find 9 other people to raid with in a large (non-specialized) guild, then it’s bad. Surely some players in a large guild raid? A large guild should be able to connect or organize those players.

Being a “community” and “drama free” doesn’t stop you from raiding. (Which is what this post is about).

I think people overstate this “schism.” Play what you like playing. No judgment there. But, as plenty of posters indicated above, there’s plenty of ways to get started.

The reason i’m in the 960/1000 person guild is two-fold.

It’s nice and friendly. (don’t laugh with this, I had my share of drama in over 15 guilds that failed because drama). I once even shortly quit gw2 because of all the drama. I set a new rule on my comeback: I play the game to enjoy it, any drama i can avoid I will. I mean sometimes, a word can happen and a little fight, nothing bad if quickly worked out. But unnecessary guild drama, killing the fun, nope, no thanks. I avoid it. The guilds that often had the most drama were: Wvw/pvp guild with a very elite nature.

The guild has a wide (but not perfect) variety of playstyles. Worldbosses, HoT maps, Guild missions (don’t laugh some guilds to small to do this good enough), perfect guild hall (lvl 64), do pvp sometimes, fractals often and dungeons. And… The teamspeak is nice, like really nice, rarely shouting, rarely kittened of people, rarely to much dirty talk (this can get annoying after a while). I can go on, but these are the reasons im in this guild. They very sometimes organize a raid, but i’m often that 11th’s guy. It’s also the ‘old core’ of the guild (veterans) and i’m newer member of guild. I’m not gonna ‘fight’ for my spot in the raid, i ask, and if i get a no, it’s no. (Drama prevention remember). also in a wvw and pvp guild (no represent required, yeahaaa!!). Works perfect (example for how raid guild should work!!!)

I got one slot guild left, and I keep it empty until it’s filled with a raid guild that has my requirements: friendly, non represent. No other requirements. And i tried one so far (found via LFG, as all these ppl could not get into another raid).

Raid experiences from extremely good, to very bad:

Very friendly guild (that i am not in) invites me (i’m in their friendlist). I join their teamspeak. Happened a few times (diff guids/ppl). This situation: The cream of raid experiences. If i could sign for this permanently, i’d even pay gems for it. People are friendly, happy, cooperate well, admit mistakes, are motivated, team speak they invite you (normally closed for outsiders) etc. This often were the fastest boss kills also (and even if not, still enjoyable experience). These are represent only guilds, so don’t come with the suggestion to join them.

Second best experience: The slowly dying raid guild (non represent) that I was in had a victorious evening: we killed VG first time (laugh with it what you want, but new people, new coordination, takes practise to get it right). WE struggled a bit on Gorseval. Another friend offered to join between his other raid appointments, and explained litteraly everything to us. He then left for his raid, and we succeeded gorseval same evening, totally unexpected.

We tried Sabetha and failed. The leader left at this point, so some issue’s were there already, but they didn’t really bite yet, the guild issue’s. The same guy showed us what to do where. We almost succeeded.

Now the average experiences: you join pugs. Coordination is not so nice. Sometimes lucky VG kill, often not so much. But no drama (still ok i guess this way of raiding).

Same situation but people point fingers a lot at each other, drama is in the making, people get kicked, group slowly dies. This is very common experience (hence a raid guild is almost requirement, not so much for FINDING people, but for finding good ‘raid coordinating’ people (wich lfg lacks). This situation why I rarely open lfg anymore.

People in lfg require 25 LI. You negotiate. Another guy (not raid leader) lets you in. He then notices you got in. He asks your gear (mine is perfect), my food (perfect again, expensive ‘toxic focussing crystal’), asks my LI: he kicks me and accepts a guy with 20 LI in exotic gear.

Now to even worse experience: Don’t bother noob with 11 LI you are not welcome. Me ‘but but if i was noob, where Did i get these’? Answer ‘screw you noob’.

LFG ‘you don’t have right gear’, Me: ‘if you really want i can make it’, them ‘ok we invite you next week when you made the gear’. I make the gear, wait a week, pm them, their answer: ‘did you really think we would invite you? Hahahaha go away noob’. PS this was at a time most ppl did not have Ascended raid gear yet and I had 3 sets specified for raids ready…

I’d only sign up for top 4 situations. Anything else: Nope. And I want that situation without having to leave my guild (you read up why). I don’t think that’s to much to ask (wvw and pvp guild succeed in this way). But alas, i’m here sitting in forums rather then succeeding raids.

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

The reason i’m in the 960/1000 person guild is two-fold.

It’s nice and friendly. (don’t laugh with this, I had my share of drama in over 15 guilds that failed because drama). I once even shortly quit gw2 because of all the drama. I set a new rule on my comeback: I play the game to enjoy it, any drama i can avoid I will. I mean sometimes, a word can happen and a little fight, nothing bad if quickly worked out. But unnecessary guild drama, killing the fun, nope, no thanks. I avoid it. The guilds that often had the most drama were: Wvw/pvp guild with a very elite nature.

The guild has a wide (but not perfect) variety of playstyles. Worldbosses, HoT maps, Guild missions (don’t laugh some guilds to small to do this good enough), perfect guild hall (lvl 64), do pvp sometimes, fractals often and dungeons. And… The teamspeak is nice, like really nice, rarely shouting, rarely kittened of people, rarely to much dirty talk (this can get annoying after a while). I can go on, but these are the reasons im in this guild. They very sometimes organize a raid, but i’m often that 11th’s guy. It’s also the ‘old core’ of the guild (veterans) and i’m newer member of guild. I’m not gonna ‘fight’ for my spot in the raid, i ask, and if i get a no, it’s no. (Drama prevention remember). also in a wvw and pvp guild (no represent required, yeahaaa!!). Works perfect (example for how raid guild should work!!!)

I got one slot guild left, and I keep it empty until it’s filled with a raid guild that has my requirements: friendly, non represent. No other requirements. And i tried one so far (found via LFG, as all these ppl could not get into another raid).

Raid experiences from extremely good, to very bad:

Very friendly guild (that i am not in) invites me (i’m in their friendlist). I join their teamspeak. Happened a few times (diff guids/ppl). This situation: The cream of raid experiences. If i could sign for this permanently, i’d even pay gems for it. People are friendly, happy, cooperate well, admit mistakes, are motivated, team speak they invite you (normally closed for outsiders) etc. This often were the fastest boss kills also (and even if not, still enjoyable experience). These are represent only guilds, so don’t come with the suggestion to join them.

Second best experience: The slowly dying raid guild (non represent) that I was in had a victorious evening: we killed VG first time (laugh with it what you want, but new people, new coordination, takes practise to get it right). WE struggled a bit on Gorseval. Another friend offered to join between his other raid appointments, and explained litteraly everything to us. He then left for his raid, and we succeeded gorseval same evening, totally unexpected.

We tried Sabetha and failed. The leader left at this point, so some issue’s were there already, but they didn’t really bite yet, the guild issue’s. The same guy showed us what to do where. We almost succeeded.

Now the average experiences: you join pugs. Coordination is not so nice. Sometimes lucky VG kill, often not so much. But no drama (still ok i guess this way of raiding).

Same situation but people point fingers a lot at each other, drama is in the making, people get kicked, group slowly dies. This is very common experience (hence a raid guild is almost requirement, not so much for FINDING people, but for finding good ‘raid coordinating’ people (wich lfg lacks). This situation why I rarely open lfg anymore.

People in lfg require 25 LI. You negotiate. Another guy (not raid leader) lets you in. He then notices you got in. He asks your gear (mine is perfect), my food (perfect again, expensive ‘toxic focussing crystal’), asks my LI: he kicks me and accepts a guy with 20 LI in exotic gear.

Now to even worse experience: Don’t bother noob with 11 LI you are not welcome. Me ‘but but if i was noob, where Did i get these’? Answer ‘screw you noob’.

LFG ‘you don’t have right gear’, Me: ‘if you really want i can make it’, them ‘ok we invite you next week when you made the gear’. I make the gear, wait a week, pm them, their answer: ‘did you really think we would invite you? Hahahaha go away noob’. PS this was at a time most ppl did not have Ascended raid gear yet and I had 3 sets specified for raids ready…

I’d only sign up for top 4 situations. Anything else: Nope. And I want that situation without having to leave my guild (you read up why). I don’t think that’s to much to ask (wvw and pvp guild succeed in this way). But alas, i’m here sitting in forums rather then succeeding raids.

You clearly know nothing about how most of these “Raiding only” Guilds work, yet you keep categorizing everyone.

Good Luck.

I’ve spoken with enough people to know about them. One of my friend is now in his 7th raid only guild, he’s a good insider.

Ppl with 10-32 members doing mostly that: raids. They might do very sometimes a fractal, but not enough for continous daily runs. Anything with more members and more global in what they do, = Not specified as me as ‘raid only guild’. Perhaps person above is in a ‘big guild that also does raids’.

I’ve failed several times at guardian but its always been with mostly untested and different players (can’t find a consistent group…sigh). I sort of miss the old WoW raiding days when a guild would get 40 people willing to spend several hours a night doing a massive raid. Those days are gone.

Now the experience and hardcore are impatient and if they are in your party and they see a lack of dps they just leave without helping others or the newbies just give up after a single try. Sheesh it’s now hard to get 10, let alone the same, people to be consistent.

The third raid wing looks promising but to be honest I fear the fact that the boss mechanics are much the same (zerg dps against stack mechanics or nothing). Why after 20 years MMO developers haven’t put AI into their bosses where they change tactics based upon the player composition or how the fight is progressing instead to static phases, I’d like to know?

It’s actually really easy to get in raid hear me on this. People that didn’t start raiding since week 1 of release don’t know this.

I pugged my butt off after Spirit Vale was released and got to Gorseval on the second day. At that stage nobody knew how to play a lot of roles or even put together a team that is min-maxed and can excel in damage and support. People like us carried on and put in a lot of money (to get new gear) and effort make new builds and try out different team comps. You people getting in raids later have absolutely no idea how much work we had to put in to get even VG down in the first week of release.

Now all the guides of builds and bosses are out. Guess who wrote them? It’s people that raided since day one and didn’t give up at the difficulty. They’ve done all the hard work for you by finding the best builds and best team comps to run. The hardest part of raiding is actually done for you. All you have to do is try yourself. There are plenty of guilds that are willing to take in new raiders and all you have to do is try to learn and improve. I personally co-led a raid training guild and we got 8 raid virgins their wing 1 and 2 kills in 4 weeks; all we required was full ascended and running correct builds and judging by the thread most people can do that easily.

Also remember if you run into problems with your team or guild and can’t get past a boss or something. Just take a breather and think what is being done wrong so that people can improve. Remember to think any problem that you face now in raids, we got it infinitely worse back at release. Don’t give up and just keep going.

I mean look at this crap build and team comp we ran in week 1 of raid release. We got it on day 1 though after about 6 hours straight of trying and failing?
http://i.imgur.com/RqaujS2.jpg
And this is day 2 of raid release, getting Gors down with downed skills after spending about 5 hours of trying; people alive in the picture are from the rally due to killing gors with downed 1 skill spam and it was really funny actually. Can you imagine playing engi for 5 hours straight? My hands were dead.
http://i.imgur.com/yHRL7mH.jpg

But ya my point still stands what newer people trying to raid now have it easy come compared to what we had to endure back at release. We did not give up at all and instead kept on going forward. Most of the hard work is done already and if you are someone new to raids, never give up and always try your best.

OP, I raid with LFG and with people from a Guild regularly. Even in a guild you get all sorts of players and if you’re not able to choose who you raid with, your experience can be very frustrating. Even when joining exp, Eternal, many LI, Tonic groups, the chance of actually clearing a boss within a reasonable time frame before people start to quit is quite low… I often need to try several groups before I get a kill, and that means hours, even with apparently experienced players… if you want fast kills in LFG you need to join a talented closed group that by chance is missing a member, and abide by the policy 1 mistake = kick. That’s the hard truth.

The VG exp thing – if people don’t have a clue about the fight and you want to train to get better at it, you will never get to see the later stages of the fight. And then people leave after 10-15 minutes, so you are constantly stopping and waiting for someone else to join and explain things all over again. There is a reason why people post LFG like those and you should try raiding yourself for a few weeks before starting to pass judgement on LFG criteria.

I think the best thing you can do is join a dedicated raid training guild.

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

The reason i’m in the 960/1000 person guild is two-fold.

It’s nice and friendly. (don’t laugh with this, I had my share of drama in over 15 guilds that failed because drama). I once even shortly quit gw2 because of all the drama. I set a new rule on my comeback: I play the game to enjoy it, any drama i can avoid I will. I mean sometimes, a word can happen and a little fight, nothing bad if quickly worked out. But unnecessary guild drama, killing the fun, nope, no thanks. I avoid it. The guilds that often had the most drama were: Wvw/pvp guild with a very elite nature.

The guild has a wide (but not perfect) variety of playstyles. Worldbosses, HoT maps, Guild missions (don’t laugh some guilds to small to do this good enough), perfect guild hall (lvl 64), do pvp sometimes, fractals often and dungeons. And… The teamspeak is nice, like really nice, rarely shouting, rarely kittened of people, rarely to much dirty talk (this can get annoying after a while). I can go on, but these are the reasons im in this guild. They very sometimes organize a raid, but i’m often that 11th’s guy. It’s also the ‘old core’ of the guild (veterans) and i’m newer member of guild. I’m not gonna ‘fight’ for my spot in the raid, i ask, and if i get a no, it’s no. (Drama prevention remember). also in a wvw and pvp guild (no represent required, yeahaaa!!). Works perfect (example for how raid guild should work!!!)

I got one slot guild left, and I keep it empty until it’s filled with a raid guild that has my requirements: friendly, non represent. No other requirements. And i tried one so far (found via LFG, as all these ppl could not get into another raid).

Raid experiences from extremely good, to very bad:

Very friendly guild (that i am not in) invites me (i’m in their friendlist). I join their teamspeak. Happened a few times (diff guids/ppl). This situation: The cream of raid experiences. If i could sign for this permanently, i’d even pay gems for it. People are friendly, happy, cooperate well, admit mistakes, are motivated, team speak they invite you (normally closed for outsiders) etc. This often were the fastest boss kills also (and even if not, still enjoyable experience). These are represent only guilds, so don’t come with the suggestion to join them.

Second best experience: The slowly dying raid guild (non represent) that I was in had a victorious evening: we killed VG first time (laugh with it what you want, but new people, new coordination, takes practise to get it right). WE struggled a bit on Gorseval. Another friend offered to join between his other raid appointments, and explained litteraly everything to us. He then left for his raid, and we succeeded gorseval same evening, totally unexpected.

We tried Sabetha and failed. The leader left at this point, so some issue’s were there already, but they didn’t really bite yet, the guild issue’s. The same guy showed us what to do where. We almost succeeded.

Now the average experiences: you join pugs. Coordination is not so nice. Sometimes lucky VG kill, often not so much. But no drama (still ok i guess this way of raiding).

Same situation but people point fingers a lot at each other, drama is in the making, people get kicked, group slowly dies. This is very common experience (hence a raid guild is almost requirement, not so much for FINDING people, but for finding good ‘raid coordinating’ people (wich lfg lacks). This situation why I rarely open lfg anymore.

People in lfg require 25 LI. You negotiate. Another guy (not raid leader) lets you in. He then notices you got in. He asks your gear (mine is perfect), my food (perfect again, expensive ‘toxic focussing crystal’), asks my LI: he kicks me and accepts a guy with 20 LI in exotic gear.

Now to even worse experience: Don’t bother noob with 11 LI you are not welcome. Me ‘but but if i was noob, where Did i get these’? Answer ‘screw you noob’.

LFG ‘you don’t have right gear’, Me: ‘if you really want i can make it’, them ‘ok we invite you next week when you made the gear’. I make the gear, wait a week, pm them, their answer: ‘did you really think we would invite you? Hahahaha go away noob’. PS this was at a time most ppl did not have Ascended raid gear yet and I had 3 sets specified for raids ready…

I’d only sign up for top 4 situations. Anything else: Nope. And I want that situation without having to leave my guild (you read up why). I don’t think that’s to much to ask (wvw and pvp guild succeed in this way). But alas, i’m here sitting in forums rather then succeeding raids.

You need to find an external raid group. No guild, just a group of people who get together at set times to raid. I found one, and it’s the best thing to happen to me for raiding. You avoid a lot of issues that come with raiding with friends or a guild:

1. We are a set 10. All 10 have a spot in the raid every week, unless they are late or absent. There’s no taking turns/rotating people in and out.
2. Someone is in charge, and it isn’t me. If a member needs to be replaced, it is handled by the leader. No drama.
3. Things aren’t taken personally, which happens when you suggest your friend/guildmate try something to improve. (I recall a time that a guildie dropped raid squad because we asked if they had a particular weapon to try).
4. You don’t have to bring X guildie/friend along to carry them through a kill. This is really what set me off in one guild (the reason I looked for an external group), and is disrespectful (IMO) to the people who worked on success for weeks. You aren’t forced to sit through hours of failure with someone who isn’t contributing, but no one will ask them to leave because we’re all friends shooting the poo, and X really needs their kill so they can be a cool kid with 169 mastery points. Sorry, little rant there.
5. I feel like I’m playing with 9 other people who take the raid seriously. My group is not hardcore-leet-super-awesome-pve-heroes, but expects proper gear, builds, willingness to adapt to each fight, and to improve consistently.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/4pe4jy/can_we_get_a_directory_of_guilds_that_teach_raids/

there,
Getting into raiding is even easier.

I sincerely doubt 90% of the people that actually wanna get into raids only look at the LFG and never once take a peak at reddit or the GW2 forums. If that is already too much effort raiding prob isn’t for them in the first place.

well i tought pvpers were the most cooky people…now after seeing me kicked from group JUST because not having 50+ LI changed my idea… rlly not accepting me without even letting me try and show if i m good or not? And since when LI is a more proof skill than legendary rank in pvp?? Do you really think that once a legendary rank player know the mechanics of a boss can’t be better than a 100+ LI player???
Raids for me are easy… killing an IA is the easiest part of every game… unfortunately i m not able to do it since i’m forced to play with low skill cap players, because don’t have enough LI.

Shala.8352:

well i tought pvpers were the most cooky people…now after seeing me kicked from group JUST because not having 50+ LI changed my idea… rlly not accepting me without even letting me try and show if i m good or not? And since when LI is a more proof skill than legendary rank in pvp?? Do you really think that once a legendary rank player know the mechanics of a boss can’t be better than a 100+ LI player???
Raids for me are easy… killing an IA is the easiest part of every game… unfortunately i m not able to do it since i’m forced to play with low skill cap players, because don’t have enough LI.

Forced to play with low skill cap, when you’re complaint is….LI isnt an indication of skill.

Ironic much.

Also as a test tonight, i went in and pugged raids. Not once did i have any trouble joining nor did they ask for LI’s. Didn’t require any voice coms, not that it would have mattered anyway as i didn’t speak the native tongue being used and they were successful while using an extremely off meta comp that featured an ele tank and a chrono using gs/ sc/f.

So if raids are really that hard to get into….im not seeing it.

Shala.8352:

well i tought pvpers were the most cooky people…now after seeing me kicked from group JUST because not having 50+ LI changed my idea… rlly not accepting me without even letting me try and show if i m good or not? And since when LI is a more proof skill than legendary rank in pvp?? Do you really think that once a legendary rank player know the mechanics of a boss can’t be better than a 100+ LI player???
Raids for me are easy… killing an IA is the easiest part of every game… unfortunately i m not able to do it since i’m forced to play with low skill cap players, because don’t have enough LI.

You know what’s even more sad than your story?
That you think that Legendary rank in PvP actually means anything about your skill.

I am a bit disappointed in the attitudes seen in this thread with ‘i do not have the time to take on one or two more new people’. In the long run, this is only hurting yourself and your guilds. In other games with raiding, some of the experienced raid folks tend to get bored (raid content updates are usually few and far between) and tend to take breaks and/or quit altogether. That leaves a gaping hole on raid teams where guilds are then forced to take inexperienced people or stop raiding. And forcing anyone to do anything puts things on edge..

It is not unreasonable to expect new folks to read about strats on the web, or watch videos/etc before joining. Heck, I read up on strats and spent days soloing the 1-20 scale fractals just to make sure i new the nuiances of each fight before joining teams.
But this elitist attitude of ‘no time to bring new folks on’ stuff is very discouraging for the health of the game.

like i was saying on another post ..i was waiting around for a group for 2+ hours..couldn’t find or get in a raid group..they want exp..special builds..with special armors..and all these other requirements..i wish it was like pvp..hit a button and then it puts you in a group.

Problem is there will be people who want training but can’t get it because I have joined raid guilds before and all they did was ignore me and my partner, do raids without us and boast about their raiding achievements. Or just that no one is willing to take them in because they only want exp in their guild and have no time to teach……

I have not gotten past VG yet, tried about 6 times in total since their release, and already I am capable of doing the whole thing and know the mechanics and have taken the thing down to 5% consistently with pugs. The only thing that stops us is that timer on the 3rd phase of VG is it when if you don’t kill it in that time it does a huge attack and all because we are not dealing peek dps or someone didn’t eat the right food so they do less damage.

And there is also party makeup, alot say they randomly join a pug and do well but doesn’t mean every pug you randomly join is going to be that good or have the right party compilation that can get you the win.

But regardless raiding has split the fanbase and if Anet bring out more raids over pve then they will have one side outraged and if they do the reverse they will outrage the other side. If they try doing both they will probably come up short and anger both unless they can manage to produce lengthy pve content like Vanilla gw 2 and bring out raids that are challenging but don’t force you into playing a specific way to win as the game is supposed to be about play how you want.

So there are so many people complaining that there are too few groups for raid newbies? Soultion? Create a group yourself, from what I can see there are many people who would join a group like this.

Apparently the biggest factor excluding new players from doing raids (it’s the same for dungeons and fractals too btw.) is the unwillingness/inability to click on “Create your own LFG entry”

virus.4370:

like i was saying on another post ..i was waiting around for a group for 2+ hours..couldn’t find or get in a raid group..they want exp..special builds..with special armors..and all these other requirements..i wish it was like pvp..hit a button and then it puts you in a group.

I’ve seen you post the same exact comments in like 5 threads, I’m sorry that your full Nomad’s Healer Thief build (or whatever you are playing, since I don’t know what is “special build & armor”) is not accepted in groups but that’s just not how raids work.
You cant play whatever you want, there is a variety of builds and comps, but in the end, there are some roles that must be filled.
I’ve seen so many people with the attitude that they shouldn’t change their build for raids and the group should still accept them, but if the whole group, all 10 people would be with that same attitude, do you think you could still kill the boss?
If you all ran 10 full signet, Bearbow, Nomad’s rangers would it still be possible?
Basically as I see it: you refuse to adjust and others should adjust for you.

Drakz.7051:

Problem is there will be people who want training but can’t get it because I have joined raid guilds before and all they did was ignore me and my partner, do raids without us and boast about their raiding achievements. Or just that no one is willing to take them in because they only want exp in their guild and have no time to teach……

I have not gotten past VG yet, tried about 6 times in total since their release, and already I am capable of doing the whole thing and know the mechanics and have taken the thing down to 5% consistently with pugs. The only thing that stops us is that timer on the 3rd phase of VG is it when if you don’t kill it in that time it does a huge attack and all because we are not dealing peek dps or someone didn’t eat the right food so they do less damage.

And there is also party makeup, alot say they randomly join a pug and do well but doesn’t mean every pug you randomly join is going to be that good or have the right party compilation that can get you the win.

But regardless raiding has split the fanbase and if Anet bring out more raids over pve then they will have one side outraged and if they do the reverse they will outrage the other side. If they try doing both they will probably come up short and anger both unless they can manage to produce lengthy pve content like Vanilla gw 2 and bring out raids that are challenging but don’t force you into playing a specific way to win as the game is supposed to be about play how you want.

You’ve joined the wrong guild buddy, there are plenty of guilds / groups out there willing to help “newbies”, you can even find a few on the forums.
The timer on VG is very very forgiving, if you hit Enrage, you were probably failing a lot of mechanics during the fight. Also VG doesn’t do any “huge attack” when he hits Enrage, everything stays exactly the same but does more damage, it is very possible to kill him with a few (even 30+) seconds into Enrage.
If they made raids doable by “playing however you want” then raids would look just like all the other face-roll PvE content in the open world, you can’t play “however you want” in actual challenging content, you have to adjust!

Raguel.9402:

Apparently the biggest factor excluding new players from doing raids (it’s the same for dungeons and fractals too btw.) is the unwillingness/inability to click on “Create your own LFG entry”

You don’t even have to do that, there are plenty of training groups and groups with no requirements on LFG every day, I think the biggest problem is laziness\unwillingness to put effort.

virus.4370:

..i wish it was like pvp..hit a button and then it puts you in a group.

So you think it’s fair to force yourself into a pvp group with whatever fancy build you’re running just because they don’t have the “kick” option?

It’s lazy to copy paste a "meta’ build and go into pvp but at least a new player can somewhat make it work and maybe contribute a bit.

It’s selfish to jump in into a pvp group with “oh im gonna test this today” or whatever mentality and make your team essentially 4v5 the whole match.

Seems you’re the latter.

Coconut.7082:

You don’t even have to do that, there are plenty of training groups and groups with no requirements on LFG every day, I think the biggest problem is laziness\unwillingness to put effort.

Well apparently finding these LFGs is like hunting three legged, two horned unicorn.

Join a guild.

/15 char

Raguel.9402:

Raguel.9402:

virus.4370:

..i wish it was like pvp..hit a button and then it puts you in a group.

So you think it’s fair to force yourself into a pvp group with whatever fancy build you’re running just because they don’t have the “kick” option?

It’s lazy to copy paste a "meta’ build and go into pvp but at least a new player can somewhat make it work and maybe contribute a bit.

It’s selfish to jump in into a pvp group with “oh im gonna test this today” or whatever mentality and make your team essentially 4v5 the whole match.

Seems you’re the latter.

Coconut.7082:

You don’t even have to do that, there are plenty of training groups and groups with no requirements on LFG every day, I think the biggest problem is laziness\unwillingness to put effort.

Well apparently finding these LFGs is like hunting three legged, two horned unicorn.

Not really.