Guild Wars 2

Hi guys.
I’m pretty new to raiding. I’ve read up on the mechanics of different bosses etc, but never actually taken the plunge and attempted one, mainly for fear of causing a team wipe.
I have a small guild whom I’ve know from GW1, comprising of friends, family and work colleagues. The issue of anyone of us causing a team wipe is not a problem as we will all laugh and say “ooops”.

I would like advice from this forum and some of the more seasoned players who run raids regularly.

1: How Flexible are raids with regards to deviating away from the metabuilds?
i.e. You can change one skill but more than that is a no no, or as long as you have a herald pumping out naturalistic resonnance everything else is grand!

2. How important is the profession composition of the party?
i.e. You need 2 Chrono, 2 Herald, 1 Druid, 3 Wariors 1 Tempest, plus 1 other, failure to do so will result in defeat, or take whatever you want but without 3 warriors will take for ever to complete.

3. Finally can you complete the raid with less than 10?
i.e. point number 2 we have the professions listed above but lack the 1 other we can still do it, or a well organised party of 3 can do it?

The last comment about a party of 3 is hyperbole to make a point. However, any adice that you raid verterans can offer on these 3 points would be greatly received, especially in the light of the new LWS3 release and legendary armour.

Cheers

1. Very.
2. Can be done in huge variety of setups.
3. Absolutely, even CM motes.
But deviating from meta will impact your kill time and success chance, depending on raid overall skill. Also pugs are adamant about strict meta setups.

Stu Grockalot.2937:

Hi guys.
I’m pretty new to raiding. I’ve read up on the mechanics of different bosses etc, but never actually taken the plunge and attempted one, mainly for fear of causing a team wipe.
I have a small guild whom I’ve know from GW1, comprising of friends, family and work colleagues. The issue of anyone of us causing a team wipe is not a problem as we will all laugh and say “ooops”.

I would like advice from this forum and some of the more seasoned players who run raids regularly.

1: How Flexible are raids with regards to deviating away from the metabuilds?
i.e. You can change one skill but more than that is a no no, or as long as you have a
herald pumping out naturalistic resonnance everything else is grand!

Raids are flexible enough, some flexibility in skills and builds is even necessary on most encounters, but going completely “off meta” is usually sub-optimal and won’t always be accepted in pugs.

2. How important is the profession composition of the party?
i.e. You need 2 Chrono, 2 Herald, 1 Druid, 3 Wariors 1 Tempest, plus 1 other, failure to do so will result in defeat, or take whatever you want but without 3 warriors will take for ever to complete.

They can be completed with nearly every class combination (most bosses were done with 10 of the same class, E.G 10 Reaper, or 10 DH), but as you said, they wil take longer to complete.

3. Finally can you complete the raid with less than 10?
i.e. point number 2 we have the professions listed above but lack the 1 other we can still do it, or a well organised party of 3 can do it?

All bosses were defeated with less than 10 people (All of them with 6, some with as low as 3-4, Cairn was even soloed) but it all comes down to the players.

The last comment about a party of 3 is hyperbole to make a point. However, any adice that you raid verterans can offer on these 3 points would be greatly received, especially in the light of the new LWS3 release and legendary armour.

Cheers

Highlighted in the quote,
tl:dr flexibility comes down to the players & not the encounters.

Would not suggest doing complete “off meta” stuff (e.g low mans, or squad compositions that don’t have defined roles/buffs covered) as new players though.

Good Luck

1. Actually there is a LOT of leeway outside of the Meta if you have the Boss Mechanics and your class mastered. There are many viable builds for all 9 professions that can comfortably complete the content when played well. Meta builds are just the best among them. Differences from the meta mostly fall within +/- 5%.
2. Same goes for the “Super-Comp”. There’s more than one viable comp, the Meta-Comp is just the one very best. Again assuming that your team knows their role, task and the mechanics, deviations from the meta are usually negligible.
3. Yes Raid encounters can very much be cleared with <10 players. in fact off the top of my head I can recall a 3-man Vale Guard kill and 2 Solo Cairn-Kills. This is also the reason why most groups tend to proceed when only one member is defeated, rather than resetting the encounter immediately. However: The more ppl you remove from the equation the less room for error you have and the longer the encounter will take.

Good Luck in your endeavors
Cheers

Deviating from the meta is fine if it makes logical sense. If you’re doing it because snowflakes gotta snowflake and it doesn’t have any upside in the fight you’re being selfish and hurting your team.

Worth explaining the meta wasn’t chosen by fiat it was chosen because it was us simply the most effective builds and synergies. Adhering to it isn’t because you bow to authority it’s because you are trying to maximize your value to your team. Agajn deviating from it is fine, so long as the deviation makes sense. For example, warrior meta uses shattering blow. At the samarog fight many warriors deviate by swapping out shattering blow for wild blow to help with the heavy cc requirment. This is a deviation that makes sense and trades away damage for utility. Logical deviation. If you want to run On My Mark instead, for example, that is a bad deviation and you’re stealing from your teammates.

Wow thank you so much for the quick replies and level of detail, it’s amazing.
I can personally play all professions apart from Engineer.
We have anohter member who can play all professions period.
We have more rangers than I’d like to admit.
Only one Chrono, two Heralds.
Not enough Warriors, and absolutley not enough elementalists.
My concern was that it would be impossible.
Extremely difficult I don’t mind, it’s part of the fun that helps you get better at the game.
Just impossible I can’t deal with.

1.) It depends, the ‘meta’ means different things to different people. For example many groups have magi druids for healing, although some more experienced groups bring offensively geared druids who provide some healing. Others bring a combination. Some non-meta choices are actually better at providing players a safety net. For example, bringing a necro with blood magic (and hence transfusion) can be a very helpful off-meta choice for certain fights. There are other choices, such as a healer ele instead of a druid, or a hammer guardian or rev as a dps slot for protection up keep. However, there are also off-meta choices that can really hurt your group. A ps warrior who brings the defense traitline instead of berserker is not a good off-meta choice. A ps warrior who swaps shattering blow for wild blow because the group doesn’t have enough cc is a good choice. Above all, use your personal judgement, recognize what caused your group to wipe on the most recent attempt, and try to make precise changes that address that issue.

2.) This goes hand in hand with running meta builds. In general I recommend you have the approximate structure of: 2 warrior, 2 druid, 2 chrono, 4 dps slots. Druids can be replaced with healer ele/rev for more healing, but at the cost of a lot of group dps buffs, but you CAN live without those if need be. Dps can be just about any class. Literally, the issue in gw2 for beginners is rarely which class is better, but rather which class can you play better? I recommend testing your rotations out and comparing to qt (http://qtfy.eu/).

3.) You can, if your good. Chances are decent that your first kill will involve several players getting killed throughout the fight, and maybe even a warrior using vengeance at the last moment to finish the boss. I don’t recommend low manning as a beginner.

You need to distinguish between training raids, static groups, and PUGs. The most important thing is learning the mechanics, not the build or the gear.

1: How Flexible are raids with regards to deviating away from the metabuilds?

• Training: harder for commanders if there’s deviation, but doable.
• Statics: no problem; just make sure there’s synergy
• PUGs: problematic — commanders want to find a group likely to success, so they hate the idea of deviations.

2. How important is the profession composition of the party?

• Training: the ‘meta’ for training is different for that of statics and again, make your life easier on your commander by sticking to the plan.
• Statics: no problem; just make sure there’s synergy
• PUGs: problematic — commanders want to find a group likely to success, so they hate the idea of deviations.

3. Finally can you complete the raid with less than 10?

• Training: silly to try, in my opinion.
• Statics: no problem; just make sure there’s synergy
• PUGs: problematic — commanders want to find a group likely to success, so they hate the idea of deviations. (you see the pattern?)

People run meta builds and meta composition because it is the easiest way to kill bosses

You can always deviate away from it but still get kills but if your choice is not optimal than it just gets harder.

As everyone else have already mentioned, meta is faster, but not needed. However…

What you do need is certain “things”, these will depend on the fight, but let me give an ex.

At VG you need:
– CC, several times doing the fight you will need to cc VG and the small VG’s
– Boon strip, Blue mini VG have a boon the make him invulnable unless you strip it from him. So you need some way of doing this.
– Condi dmg, Red mini VG can only be dmg. with condi dmg.
– Healing, your group will need some kind of healer.
– Seeker control, Seekers cant be killed but can be pushed away or immobilised. So you need someone to do this.

All of these things can be done by several professions and in several ways. But you need some kind of way to do them all. In the same way are there “things” you dont need. No need for personal/group condi cleance, since no conditions at VG. Same with Stability/stun breaks. No need for those at VG.

As you might see, for different fights. Different things are needed, or not needed. And being able to reconise what you need/dont need and then change the builds abit from fight to fight will do more then simply running “pure meta”.

If you have specific questions about a fight, what to bring, not to bring etc. then ask away

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

You need to distinguish between training raids, static groups, and PUGs. The most important thing is learning the mechanics, not the build or the gear.

1: How Flexible are raids with regards to deviating away from the metabuilds?

• Training: harder for commanders if there’s deviation, but doable.
• Statics: no problem; just make sure there’s synergy
• PUGs: problematic — commanders want to find a group likely to success, so they hate the idea of deviations.

2. How important is the profession composition of the party?

• Training: the ‘meta’ for training is different for that of statics and again, make your life easier on your commander by sticking to the plan.
• Statics: no problem; just make sure there’s synergy
• PUGs: problematic — commanders want to find a group likely to success, so they hate the idea of deviations.

3. Finally can you complete the raid with less than 10?

• Training: silly to try, in my opinion.
• Statics: no problem; just make sure there’s synergy
• PUGs: problematic — commanders want to find a group likely to success, so they hate the idea of deviations. (you see the pattern?)

im starting to notice a pattern here xD

Bringing 2 Heralds is even more of a meme than just 1 lol

mmmm.. the question should put back to your team .. how good are the team player manage as a team and at the end it comes down to overall performance .. well calculated and coordinated skills dps, buffs who does what to counter the mechanics. if your team is full of noobs. stick with meta. I mean by now we shouldn’t get upset with the word noobs I hope. hahahahahahaha………. I am one ok.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

You need to distinguish between training raids, static groups, and PUGs. The most important thing is learning the mechanics, not the build or the gear.

1: How Flexible are raids with regards to deviating away from the metabuilds?

• Training: harder for commanders if there’s deviation, but doable.
• Statics: no problem; just make sure there’s synergy
• PUGs: problematic — commanders want to find a group likely to success, so they hate the idea of deviations.

2. How important is the profession composition of the party?

• Training: the ‘meta’ for training is different for that of statics and again, make your life easier on your commander by sticking to the plan.
• Statics: no problem; just make sure there’s synergy
• PUGs: problematic — commanders want to find a group likely to success, so they hate the idea of deviations.

3. Finally can you complete the raid with less than 10?

• Training: silly to try, in my opinion.
• Statics: no problem; just make sure there’s synergy
• PUGs: problematic — commanders want to find a group likely to success, so they hate the idea of deviations. (you see the pattern?)

This! So much this, I love it.

Most fights are not heavy on the dps check, hence if people know how to avoid dying you usually have a lot of spare time to finish the encounter. It’s also a reason why 2 heal druids works on many encounters for less experienced groups where usually most static groups bring only 1.

For some fights even the enrage timer is not bad IF people know what to do, say for example half your dps decides to run head first into a ghost in the Matthias fight leaving you stranded with only 5 people going 2 minutes overtime…. ^^

Rednik.3809:

1. Very.
2. Can be done in huge variety of setups.
3. Absolutely, even CM motes.
But deviating from meta will impact your kill time and success chance, depending on raid overall skill. Also pugs are adamant about strict meta setups.

All this is true, but finding group which is willing to deviate from the “meta”, now that’s the hard part ;D