Guild Wars 2

I like playing a lot of builds that aren’t meta some which have fun but gimmicky combos. I have no problems doing dungeons or running these builds and doing well in pvp but I haven’t bothered with Fractals/Raids yet. Would trying to do fractals in these types of builds be hard to join in on even participating with.

It honestly doesnt matter what you run in fractals. At higher tiers it might make booses take longer but it shouldnt prevent you from completing it. Most people in fractals are off meta anyways.

no its not hard to force your gimmicks upon the groups you join in lfg, people dont particularly gear check fractals because the content isnt demanding enough aside from nightmare challenge. however, suck at your own risk, cuz about a quarter of people wont be afraid of kicking you for sucking, and a tenth might leave to find another/better group instead of kicking, and the rest will suffer with you cuz thats what you get for pugging fractals.

in raids you will be welcomed in to all welcome or training groups that are unlikely to get boss kills. but if you want a kill in an experienced group youll need to bring your best to the group and even then youre depending on the other 9 people not sucking too (or at least enough of them to cover mechanics and group survival while a couple get carried).

you dont really need to strictly follow the meta, but if you arent building to about 90-95% of the meta builds then your usefulness to the group falls off dramatically either in terms of not putting out personal dps or not putting out group buffs or not providing things like vuln, blinds, or ccs that make killing easier and quicker.