Guild Wars 2

It’s been over 7 weeks since the release of the Spirit Vale raid and I wanted to review the raid from an experienced raiders perspective.

Arenanet’s stated intentions for raids:
Refer to their blog post about Raiding <a href=“https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/raids-in-guild-wars-2/”>“The ultimate challenge”</a>!
1. Raids will bring “challenges that will require your raiding team to bring a high level of skill, strategy, and coordination in order to succeed.”
2. “You’ll be dependent on keeping yourself alive and helping support your team while playing your profession. Everyone will be expected to pitch in and execute at a high level to ensure success.”
3. “Raids in Guild Wars 2 are not about waiting to have fun. You don’t need to wait for your healer to get online.”
4. “For each encounter, our goal is that you’ll need to face it many times to learn how to defeat it, continuing to develop your strategies, refining your communication and honing your tactics through practice, in order to execute to a high degree with the hope of eventually conquering it and moving on to the next encounter in the wing.”
5. The raids must be fun. (implied)

Does the Spirit Vale actually meet their stated goals?
Yes, on 4 out of 5 listed goals.

Each part of the raid does require a high degree of practice, tactics, communication, and execution. You must be able to keep yourself alive as no one can do that for you. You must do all you can to support your team (buffs, heals, etc) and you must be able to execute. The bosses and pre-events are enjoyable and refreshing fun to be had that you cannot just sleep through.

No, only one item #3. Many raids can be delayed 20 minutes to an hour due to one role (or class) not being filled. It is actually getting a bit worse as time goes on too. 99% of groups will not proceed without someone filling the healer role. The burnzerker meta is becoming so huge that many teams will ONLY take on Gorseval if they have 3+ burnzerkers. Some wait an hour just to have their burnzerkers.

My Overall Raid Grade: 9.5/10

The Raids are exceptionally well done and are absolutely the hard instanced content we have been waiting years for. I absolutely love them and really look forward to more hard raids in the future. Dungeons, fractals, and open world content are easy enough that people can be carried though them (Marionette is the exception). With that in mind, I have some thoughts for future raid wings that I hope the Dev’s keep in mind.

What made the fights fun?
My guild and I really enjoyed the difficult mechanics of each boss fight. Getting to the next Vale Guardian phase was a HUGE achievement for the guild. We posted each phase success on the guild website and MOTD until we finally killed it. The mechanics were tough, but understandable, fair, and unforgiving. We really had to become more skilled, focused, and team oriented to succeed.

What made Raids not fun
When we consistently got to phase 5 and the boss was enraging. We got the mechanics down but with the hard enrage timer we just kept failing and failing and getting nowhere. We hit a gear/food check. This is when we lost about 1/2 of our raiding force. We had to change up what classes we were bringing and what gear we had to get. We no longer had enough people to raid without getting pugs. So we made do with pugs who later became regular friend raiders. We made do and continued on to earn “The Eternal” but this point is where some rifts began to grow in many guilds.

Anet has wanted to get away from the berserker “meta” for sometime but unfortunately made that meta mandatory for raiding. Many people love hardcore content but do not want to be “meta.”

What is holding back raiding?
Honestly the only thing holding back raiding is the clock. If a team is skilled enough to survive a 3 minute phase 5 VG or can keep both themselves and the platforms alive during the Sabetha fight are they not hardcore and skilled players?

Gear is not skill.
Anet made the decision NOT to raise the level cap or make a gear tier above ascended. There is no gear treadmill to be able to play with your friends… except that there is an artificial one. If you are not a glass cannon, you are not welcome. Wearing Cleric armor to heal? Kick! need Zealots/Magi!!!

There will always be teams that will require the berserker meta. Let that be based on player preference instead of by the game mechanics.

I enjoy and play the berserker meta, but unfortunately I have to politely tell many of my friends and guildies to politely go away because their rabid gear is a liability to the team. Your WvW PTV gear will only get us killed.

What makes raids great?
You gave us a tough as hell 10 man dungeon with fun mechanics, awesome rewards(when earned), and a nice lil side story to go with it.

What hurts raids?
They are dividing players based on gear. We are not allowed to play how we want to play.

Final thoughts
For future raid wings, don’t require the berserker meta just to be ABLE to play. Let skill be the determining factor, not gear.

For me, raids are a low budget and quickly thrown in mode just to say that gw2 has raids.

Boss designs are only used as a “keep em busy” measure while they design more, make legendary armors and figure out how to fix up professions to make roles a real thing.

The raid is boring. Lost a lot of popularity in the first couple weeks. Lots of waiting around and player dropping even in the first couple weeks. The raid is being sold to players as exclusive content because the “keep em busy” design necessity like I said above. The raid will be more inculsive when they put more in and when they add difficulty sliders. The team is behind and finally just starting to maybe catch up on build savers (thanks, we’ve only asked for 3 years now)… Rewards are terrible, and it’s so low budget, that we don’t even have a legendary preview…

All of GW2 instanced content is a lesson in what NOT to do.

I give a 3 out of 10. And the 3 is being generous with all things considered.

Edit- additionally, unlike a game I use to play called city of heroes, there is zero emotional attachment to any instanced (dungeon, fractal,raid, LS) content… I’m use to having tie ins to iconic heroes and villains and tasks… GW2 has none of that inspiration really. The dragons really are not a big inspirational deal either, they are just mostly there. The dragons (and “monsters” and champions and raid bosses) are basically equivalent to any fantasy game’s generic dragon or boss 101. Mordy is ok compared, but it’s just hanging out there too… Closest we have had to an iconic bad person is Scarlet, but yeah, no biggie either. GW2 lacks any sort of deep or compelling emotional inspiration. LS is just there to have some story, and the main thing that sticks out are the relationship/love aspects of side characters and trahearne…

GW2 is a gem store and economy and bltc centric game at its heart, it’s easy to see. The rest seems like random and convoluted and directionless expiremental fluff to see what sticks… Pretty dry and emotionless and uninspiring if you really look at it. I’m sure if someone was a diehard and story driven GW player, they may find some interesting historical tie in moments here and there, but that has everything to do with memories of GW.

For the record, I don’t blame the “worker bee” devs for this overall shallow and “patch quilt” and seemingly directionless game, but that’s what we are given to play. To be fair, though, GW2 does have some good elements, but the big flaws and holes are there. And profession are basically, well, no life and love to them either. They are just another low budget design overall, and maintenance is regulated to traits mostly…

Overall, GW2 could learn a lot from city of heroes… Things like “iconic” good and bad guys/npcs/monsters/bosses, and heroic feeling and performing “professions” (that have far superior roles and hybrid roles) while playing solo and in teams, and combat, and abilities/powers, and movement skills and instanced content… done much more right…

The only thing I’m sad about is that the hype before Heart of Thorns launched was that he Berserker meta would not be a thing. Yet there are strict DPS checks (Ghost walls after Vale Guardian) that require it.

Other than that, I’ve enjoyed myself!

Warcry.1596:

The only thing I’m sad about is that the hype before Heart of Thorns launched was that he Berserker meta would not be a thing. Yet there are strict DPS checks (Ghost walls after Vale Guardian) that require it.

Other than that, I’ve enjoyed myself!

This is the biggest issue foe me too. The devs claimed a diverse range of challenges. So far it is not existent. I hope the 2nd wing will provide a greater variety of checks: DPS, HPS and CC in all possible combinations and weightings.

Belenwyn.8674:

Warcry.1596:

The only thing I’m sad about is that the hype before Heart of Thorns launched was that he Berserker meta would not be a thing. Yet there are strict DPS checks (Ghost walls after Vale Guardian) that require it.

Other than that, I’ve enjoyed myself!

This is the biggest issue foe me too. The devs claimed a diverse range of challenges. So far it is not existent. I hope the 2nd wing will provide a greater variety of checks: DPS, HPS and CC in all possible combinations and weightings.

You do know you can CC and DPS regardless of gear…?

Belenwyn.8674:

Warcry.1596:

The only thing I’m sad about is that the hype before Heart of Thorns launched was that he Berserker meta would not be a thing. Yet there are strict DPS checks (Ghost walls after Vale Guardian) that require it.

Other than that, I’ve enjoyed myself!

This is the biggest issue foe me too. The devs claimed a diverse range of challenges. So far it is not existent. I hope the 2nd wing will provide a greater variety of checks: DPS, HPS and CC in all possible combinations and weightings.

You do know you can CC and DPS regardless of gear…?

TheFamster.7806:

Belenwyn.8674:

Warcry.1596:

The only thing I’m sad about is that the hype before Heart of Thorns launched was that he Berserker meta would not be a thing. Yet there are strict DPS checks (Ghost walls after Vale Guardian) that require it.

Other than that, I’ve enjoyed myself!

This is the biggest issue foe me too. The devs claimed a diverse range of challenges. So far it is not existent. I hope the 2nd wing will provide a greater variety of checks: DPS, HPS and CC in all possible combinations and weightings.

You do know you can CC and DPS regardless of gear…?

You must know then that the durations and amounts of CC/DPS you get are DEPENDENT on your gear?

You dont need burnzerkers for gorsv.
We got the kill earlier in the week with only 1 burnzerker, and the broken chrono time-split.

So there is plenty of room for other professions/dps classes.

TheFamster.7806:

Belenwyn.8674:

Warcry.1596:

The only thing I’m sad about is that the hype before Heart of Thorns launched was that he Berserker meta would not be a thing. Yet there are strict DPS checks (Ghost walls after Vale Guardian) that require it.

Other than that, I’ve enjoyed myself!

This is the biggest issue foe me too. The devs claimed a diverse range of challenges. So far it is not existent. I hope the 2nd wing will provide a greater variety of checks: DPS, HPS and CC in all possible combinations and weightings.

You do know you can CC and DPS regardless of gear…?

There will be enough DPS with 7 Soldiers geared people?

Warcry.1596:

TheFamster.7806:

Belenwyn.8674:

Warcry.1596:

The only thing I’m sad about is that the hype before Heart of Thorns launched was that he Berserker meta would not be a thing. Yet there are strict DPS checks (Ghost walls after Vale Guardian) that require it.

Other than that, I’ve enjoyed myself!

This is the biggest issue foe me too. The devs claimed a diverse range of challenges. So far it is not existent. I hope the 2nd wing will provide a greater variety of checks: DPS, HPS and CC in all possible combinations and weightings.

You do know you can CC and DPS regardless of gear…?

There will be enough DPS with 7 Soldiers geared people?

You can also ask, whether there will be enough HPS with 7 berserker geared people for a certain encounter.

Belenwyn.8674:

Warcry.1596:

TheFamster.7806:

Belenwyn.8674:

Warcry.1596:

The only thing I’m sad about is that the hype before Heart of Thorns launched was that he Berserker meta would not be a thing. Yet there are strict DPS checks (Ghost walls after Vale Guardian) that require it.

Other than that, I’ve enjoyed myself!

This is the biggest issue foe me too. The devs claimed a diverse range of challenges. So far it is not existent. I hope the 2nd wing will provide a greater variety of checks: DPS, HPS and CC in all possible combinations and weightings.

You do know you can CC and DPS regardless of gear…?

There will be enough DPS with 7 Soldiers geared people?

You can also ask, whether there will be enough HPS with 7 berserker geared people for a certain encounter.

I’m talking about Spirit Vale currently. 7 Berserker people can beat it, 7 Soldiers cannot :p

Warcry.1596:

Belenwyn.8674:

Warcry.1596:

TheFamster.7806:

Belenwyn.8674:

Warcry.1596:

The only thing I’m sad about is that the hype before Heart of Thorns launched was that he Berserker meta would not be a thing. Yet there are strict DPS checks (Ghost walls after Vale Guardian) that require it.

Other than that, I’ve enjoyed myself!

This is the biggest issue foe me too. The devs claimed a diverse range of challenges. So far it is not existent. I hope the 2nd wing will provide a greater variety of checks: DPS, HPS and CC in all possible combinations and weightings.

You do know you can CC and DPS regardless of gear…?

There will be enough DPS with 7 Soldiers geared people?

You can also ask, whether there will be enough HPS with 7 berserker geared people for a certain encounter.

I’m talking about Spirit Vale currently. 7 Berserker people can beat it, 7 Soldiers cannot :p

In the case of Spirit vale you are right. In case of the 2nd wing you are maybe not.

We will have to see. I think an ideal challenge would be high mechanical skill, like Vale Guardian but more mechanical challenge, without a time limit. Make the challenge itself be the mechanics.

Make the challenge itself be the kitten boss <.<

Warcry.1596:

We will have to see. I think an ideal challenge would be high mechanical skill, like Vale Guardian but more mechanical challenge, without a time limit. Make the challenge itself be the mechanics.

Do things quickly and efficiently is mechanical challenge, why do you want 7 Soldier geared people to be able to do the content? Can you imagine how easy that would make the content for Zerker geared people?

As has been discussed many times – enrage timers are good and let the devs balance the encounter, they even put caps on the fight to stop you going mad from boredom (I’m not sure if you’ve tried high level dredge fractal but that boss takes AAAAGES and is not fun because it was not balanced around a set encounter time).

Having limits on the encounter keeps the creative team focused and allows the balance team to keep tabs on things better.

On topic I really enjoyed the raid and looking forward to more (good mix of technical fights and DPS fights, hope to see even more new mechanics) Fingers crossed its the White Mantle pulling the strings

Warcry.1596:

We will have to see. I think an ideal challenge would be high mechanical skill, like Vale Guardian but more mechanical challenge, without a time limit. Make the challenge itself be the mechanics.

the mechanics won’t be challenging anymore of you can just wear tanky gear to survive through them forever. The reason the timers work is because it is the mechanics of a boss that slows you down from killing the boss. So if you miss a timer it is because of the mechanics.

OP – what’s the problem with certain gear being a “liability” in different forms of content?

WvW gear is bad in raids – and I have a feeling Raid gear is bad in WvW.
Different types of gear are different tools – bringing the right tool for the right job is essential in any form of human activity – so I don’t see why it wouldn’t be the case with Raids.

What hurts raids?
They are dividing players based on gear. We are not allowed to play how we want to play.

This division is not gear-based – it’s choice and playstyle based – you only perceive it as gear-based because “gear” is the final element used to distinguish between individuals.

In fact the division is based on people being dedicated or interested enough to bring what’s best and what’s needed – people who don’t do that or can’t do that are naturally left out.

Gear in this situation is more than “the best thing” it is also an indicator of how serious that person takes the content.

A case of – if you cared enough you’d have the right gear for it. Which is true enough for most content types.
I don’t really care about WvW so I don’t have WvW gear – but I don’t expect a professional WvW guild to take me along with my Raid gear – so why is the reverse happening?

As a final note – skill is strained and people are tested because of the berserker meta – or glass meta to be more correct.

The more glass you are the less room for error you have. It puts pressure on people to perform when they have to do it against a set timer – and have to maintain a certain amount of DPS.

Without the timer and constant need for glass gear and high dps I’d say Raids are just a bit more above dungeons in difficulty.

I am ot the OP, but let me give a try why Equipment should not be a liability. We had this already before, but I just want to not let this simply pass by:
A Raid in its current form is a reflex and skill test first, then a lesson in memory as a second trait. It is not a human, it can´t act independently and call for reinforcements or nail you with a surprise female dog slap. It is a lesson in patience and resolve over an extended period of time, plain and simple. Of course it shares this trait with every other activity that does not involve other living beings an your brain can handle all at once. The exception is that it is artificially pimped and you can´t just go without letting other people down in the middle of it.
If you would make it this way that the raid bosses lost HP over time if you did action X and were immune to physical damage, you would just change the priority so that memory would come first and damage from players was neglected.

To take an example from RL, this would replace choreographed sparring with chess. For the first, you need special helmets and gloves, for the second just your brain. But it stays a glorified memory game.

I believe that almost everyone could raid in a specific role if he realyl yearns for it and is not disabled or his reflexes don´t cut it anymore. For me personally it is the question if I am willing to change my equpiment, wipe repeatedly for the sake of optimizing and listen to hours over hours of strategizing. My answer to any of these three conditions is no, so I don´t raid.

The whole argument of it´s challenging because we are glass cannons simply blows and is of no consequence to Joe Gamer who just wants to get over with it instead of beating the clock of the last attempt. If Anet manages to find enough Hardcore Hanses to keep raids relevant, good for them I guess. I also did not understand, don´t understand and probably will never understand how it can affect a glass cannon player if a nomad cleric can make the raid or not. Challenge yourself if you want, but don´t force challenge on those that don´t want to be challenged. I simply don´t understand this kind of reasoning.

Torolan.5816:

I also did not understand, don´t understand and probably will never understand how it can affect a glass cannon player if a nomad cleric can make the raid or not. Challenge yourself if you want, but don´t force challenge on those that don´t want to be challenged. I simply don´t understand this kind of reasoning.

I also don’t understand, how it can effect people that don’t want to be challenged if only people that want to be challenged that are able to clear the raid. There are other contents for those people, don’t force non-challenging stuff on people that wants to be challenged.

Torolan.5816:

Challenge yourself if you want, but don´t force challenge on those that don´t want to be challenged. I simply don´t understand this kind of reasoning.

Except that raids are all about challenge and are for the hardcore players. Anet even said that they don’t intend them to be puggable in the first place.
If you don’t want to be challenged, then there is plenty of other content left for you to do.

So if Anet opens raids tomorrow for the public in an announcement, you would stand corrected?

If you want to gather 9 other glass cannons and beat the clock, more power to you. It is just that I don´t understand how it affects you if 10 nomad guiards can also do it? I heard the common reasoning of reward vs effort or exclusivity should show already in other threads, but simply did not find them convincing.

Torolan.5816:

So if Anet opens raids tomorrow for the public in an announcement, you would stand corrected?

If you want to gather 9 other glass cannons and beat the clock, more power to you. It is just that I don´t understand how it affects you if 10 nomad guiards can also do it? I heard the common reasoning of reward vs effort or exclusivity should show already in other threads, but simply did not find them convincing.

Yes it affects me, because if 10 nomads guards can do it then it’s no longer challenging for me and gets boring.

So if a team of 10 middle aged woman plays football on the same place as you do with the mission to score 1000 goals as fast as possible, your kick kitten team of Messi, C. Ronaldo, Bale, Neuer, Müller, Neymar, Lahm, de Bruyne, Klose and yourself would suddenly not be challenged by a beat the clock challenge that shows how vastly superior you are to the middle aged women?

Ok.

Torolan.5816:

So if a team of 10 middle aged woman plays football on the same place as you do with the mission to score 1000 goals as fast as possible, your kick kitten team of Messi, C. Ronaldo, Bale, Neuer, Müller, Neymar, Lahm, de Bruyne, Klose and yourself would suddenly not be challenged by a beat the clock challenge that shows how vastly superior you are to the middle aged women?

Ok.

Except that in raids the goal shouldn’t be to beat it “as fast as possible”, but the goal should be to beat it in general. Without a timelimit in your example the middleaged women could achieve the same success like the profi football players. Once there would be a timelimit, it shows who really can play football.
Aside from that, valeguardian gets beaten by good players with several minutes left on the timer. If you really struggle because of the timer, than there is something really wrong not only with your gear, but also with your execution.

I am not struggling with anything personally, I quit raids long ago. I was lured in this thread by what the OP called Final Thought in his opening post which is the only thing to lure me back into raiding.

If you don´t see a difference between how a middle aged woman on one side and Messi kicks a ball on the other side and you don´t see who the superior football player between the two if they go for the same goal without a timelimit, we can´t have a conversation together I guess.

I was quite baffled about the decision of Anet to make raids from the get go to be honest. Your description is perfectly validating my opinion that a raid should be beaten in general, not in the best fashion.
For me that reads like :
beat it once – forget about it – wait for the next raid
I think it is not by chance that Anet put legendary armor behind it. In any other scenario it is just not sustainable enough.

Torolan.5816:

I am not struggling with anything personally, I quit raids long ago. I was lured in this thread by what the OP called Final Thought in his opening post which is the only thing to lure me back into raiding.

If you don´t see a difference between how a middle aged woman on one side and Messi kicks a ball on the other side and you don´t see who the superior football player between the two if they go for the same goal without a timelimit, we can´t have a conversation together I guess.

I was quite baffled about the decision of Anet to make raids from the get go to be honest. Your description is perfectly validating my opinion that a raid should be beaten in general, not in the best fashion.
For me that reads like :
beat it once – forget about it – wait for the next raid
I think it is not by chance that Anet put legendary armor behind it. In any other scenario it is just not sustainable enough.

The thing is you have shown you totally don’t care about “raiding” as a concept or as a place for challenge you JUST want access to Legendary Armour but you lack the skill to clear the raid and so are asking for nerfs under the guise of “inclusivity.”

Not sure if I lack the skill, i did not try long and hard enough in Anet´s raids to say yes or no to that. We know for sure that I lack the resolve.
And to tell you another truth, I honestly don´t care for legendary armor anymore, Anet won in making me meh about GW2 right now. Curiousity drove me into this thread, I am probably more addicted to threads like this as I like to admit.^^

I think this video speaks for it self on why dps checks are needed, be it in the form of a timer or something such as running out of updrafts for gorseval or platform breaking with Sabetha. I personally prefer those more “immersive” dps checks, but if nothing else a timer does suffice.

This also happens but for some reason people think this is skillful…. The real time was probably like an hour or more but the video speaks for itself.

Torolan.5816:

Not sure if I lack the skill, i did not try long and hard enough in Anet´s raids to say yes or no to that. We know for sure that I lack the resolve.
And to tell you another truth, I honestly don´t care for legendary armor anymore, Anet won in making me meh about GW2 right now. Curiousity drove me into this thread, I am probably more addicted to threads like this as I like to admit.^^

If you don’t want to raid in the first place, why do you care how accessible it is?

Altair.8402:

Torolan.5816:

Not sure if I lack the skill, i did not try long and hard enough in Anet´s raids to say yes or no to that. We know for sure that I lack the resolve.
And to tell you another truth, I honestly don´t care for legendary armor anymore, Anet won in making me meh about GW2 right now. Curiousity drove me into this thread, I am probably more addicted to threads like this as I like to admit.^^

If you don’t want to raid in the first place, why do you care how accessible it is?

I honestly don´t know if I think about it. Maybe because I was quite active here and in the game while raids were new or we did not know if they would be a thing in GW2. I guess I am still a little bit agitated when I read things that I deem as unreasonable with raids. But you are right, I should not care anymore.

Torolan.5816:

I am ot the OP, but let me give a try why Equipment should not be a liability. We had this already before, but I just want to not let this simply pass by:
A Raid in its current form is a reflex and skill test first, then a lesson in memory as a second trait. It is not a human, it can´t act independently and call for reinforcements or nail you with a surprise female dog slap. It is a lesson in patience and resolve over an extended period of time, plain and simple. Of course it shares this trait with every other activity that does not involve other living beings an your brain can handle all at once. The exception is that it is artificially pimped and you can´t just go without letting other people down in the middle of it.
If you would make it this way that the raid bosses lost HP over time if you did action X and were immune to physical damage, you would just change the priority so that memory would come first and damage from players was neglected.

To take an example from RL, this would replace choreographed sparring with chess. For the first, you need special helmets and gloves, for the second just your brain. But it stays a glorified memory game.

You basically want gear to not matter in the game – but that’s wrong. Why?

Because having a dps check means you have to go in glass gear – which means you have to survive in more difficult situations and have a smaller margin for mistakes.
It also means all “thinking” you have to do has to be done under the pressure of also executing your rotations, minding your position ( so you don’t take a lot of damage and die) and generally not being asleep.

Yes – they could opt to do an “interact-only” raid but that would be incredibly easy.

To exemplify – compare a game of chess with no time limit with a game of chess where you get a 20 second window to think things through before each move.
The one with the time limit will always be more difficult because it doesn’t give you all the time in the world to do your thing.

I believe that almost everyone could raid in a specific role if he realyl yearns for it and is not disabled or his reflexes don´t cut it anymore. For me personally it is the question if I am willing to change my equpiment, wipe repeatedly for the sake of optimizing and listen to hours over hours of strategizing. My answer to any of these three conditions is no, so I don´t raid.

This is a video game – reflexes matter. If someone doesn’t have reflexes he should perhaps play a game that doesn’t require them or maybe not play at all. It really is as simple as that.

The game doesn’t need to change for most players just because some players can’t get better ( because of physical limits) or refuse to (because of time constraints or stubbornness).

The whole argument of it´s challenging because we are glass cannons simply blows and is of no consequence to Joe Gamer who just wants to get over with it instead of beating the clock of the last attempt. If Anet manages to find enough Hardcore Hanses to keep raids relevant, good for them I guess. I also did not understand, don´t understand and probably will never understand how it can affect a glass cannon player if a nomad cleric can make the raid or not. Challenge yourself if you want, but don´t force challenge on those that don´t want to be challenged. I simply don´t understand this kind of reasoning.

The raid was never meant for Joe Gamer – he isn’t supposed to get to raid unless he improves.
People fail to understand that The raid was not designed with the average player in mind – and whether or not the average player at his average skill level can clear the raid or not is not of any concern from a developer standpoint since the raid was not designed for them.

If you don’t want to be challenged – don’t raid.
If you do – raid and get better. It’s really that simple. Nobody is forcing you to play raids.

I don’t like WvW – I don’t play WvW – that simple.
If WvW had super awesome legendary rewards associated with it I would have to consider what matters more to me – not liking WvW or getting those rewards.
Can’t have it both ways.

Torolan.5816:

So if Anet opens raids tomorrow for the public in an announcement, you would stand corrected?

If you want to gather 9 other glass cannons and beat the clock, more power to you. It is just that I don´t understand how it affects you if 10 nomad guiards can also do it? I heard the common reasoning of reward vs effort or exclusivity should show already in other threads, but simply did not find them convincing.

Raids are supposed to be hard- and for the hardcore.
It invalidates their purpose and their status if you can clear them with 10 nomads.

Think about it this way – why did people complain about the fact that Legendary Weapons generation 1 could be made by simply buying it off the TP with loads of cash?
It invalidates its rarity, uniqueness and value.

If everyone is special nobody is. If everyone can clear the raid then the raid doesn’t really matter now does it?

The raid was intended as a hardcore piece of content aimed at hardcore players.

Just because you don’t find a certain argument convincing doesn’t mean it isn’t – that’s your personal problem.
Risk versus reward and effort vs reward are always relevant. If you choose to consider that they’re not that’s a choice – but don’t expect people to explain it to you past the points you’re not willing to consider.

I can just very well claim that I don’t see any reason why people who aren’t happy with raids would even bother to post about them or be upset or do anything aside from simply not doing them and moving on.

Torolan.5816:

So if a team of 10 middle aged woman plays football on the same place as you do with the mission to score 1000 goals as fast as possible, your kick kitten team of Messi, C. Ronaldo, Bale, Neuer, Müller, Neymar, Lahm, de Bruyne, Klose and yourself would suddenly not be challenged by a beat the clock challenge that shows how vastly superior you are to the middle aged women?

Ok.

Raid goals aren’t a speed clear – they weren’t designed so “everyone finishes some just finish faster” -that was dungeons.

Raids were designed as – everyone can try but only some finish.

Torolan.5816:

I am not struggling with anything personally, I quit raids long ago. I was lured in this thread by what the OP called Final Thought in his opening post which is the only thing to lure me back into raiding.

If you don´t see a difference between how a middle aged woman on one side and Messi kicks a ball on the other side and you don´t see who the superior football player between the two if they go for the same goal without a timelimit, we can´t have a conversation together I guess.

I was quite baffled about the decision of Anet to make raids from the get go to be honest. Your description is perfectly validating my opinion that a raid should be beaten in general, not in the best fashion.
For me that reads like :
beat it once – forget about it – wait for the next raid
I think it is not by chance that Anet put legendary armor behind it. In any other scenario it is just not sustainable enough.

Yes a raid should be beaten in general – but only by those who employ decent enough methods to do it.
Even between raid teams that beat the raid there’s a large difference.
It’s just that the bar is set so high you seem to think only the “best team or best strat” can beat it – which is wrong.
Suboptimal groups can still beat the raid – just that the suboptimal groups that can beat the raid are light-years ahead of your average player and his team.

I have a problem with all this support for making fights as mechanical as possible. VG and Sabetha both have a lot of mechanics to deal with. And as a result it feels less like you are fighting the boss and more like you are fighting the mechanics/arena. I dont find that fun.

On the other hand Gorseval is much more about the boss itself. Its a lot more fun. But as a result its easier once you get the dps check and basic mechanics sorted. The thing is that style can be really good if its expanded on. The eggs on gorseval are an attention and skill check. its a simple yet punishing mechanic. But it doesnt take focus away from the boss like VG lightning and Sabetha cannons do. Add more mechanics like that and you can create really challenging fights without taking focus away from the bosses.

I want to see more fights like Gorseval that have reactionary mechanics. A few arena mechanics is fine. But i think they should be more side focused and more about making it easier for yourself if you deal with them more effectively. Like Gorse orbs and add clearing. Neither of those are absolutely essential to deal with perfectly. But there are reasons to ignore or focus on those mechanics given the situation. The updraft stuff is fine as well simply because its not a constant mechanic. Its a few times per fight which makes it less tedious.

I really enjoy split sections on each boss. It’s good mechanism for “specialists” of current need. VG need condi dmg, gorse some stopers. This make i think feel that you are very important for your squad. Meaby they can make on other wing some split section with much evade skill req for thieves.

spoj.9672:

I have a problem with all this support for making fights as mechanical as possible. VG and Sabetha both have a lot of mechanics to deal with. And as a result it feels less like you are fighting the boss and more like you are fighting the mechanics/arena. I dont find that fun.

On the other hand Gorseval is much more about the boss itself. Its a lot more fun. But as a result its easier once you get the dps check and basic mechanics sorted. The thing is that style can be really good if its expanded on. The eggs on gorseval are an attention and skill check. its a simple yet punishing mechanic. But it doesnt take focus away from the boss like VG lightning and Sabetha cannons do. Add more mechanics like that and you can create really challenging fights without taking focus away from the bosses.

I want to see more fights like Gorseval that have reactionary mechanics. A few arena mechanics is fine. But i think they should be more side focused and more about making it easier for yourself if you deal with them more effectively. Like Gorse orbs and add clearing. Neither of those are absolutely essential to deal with perfectly. But there are reasons to ignore or focus on those mechanics given the situation. The updraft stuff is fine as well simply because its not a constant mechanic. Its a few times per fight which makes it less tedious.

I agree on this. However, Gorseval would be much harder, if the order of it’s attacks was rng. Currently you can predict in advance every single of his attacks. “Egs in 3…2…1… get out” and so on.

This is spawning a huge discussion here and on reddit. https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/40826v/raids_7_weeks_later_xpost/

I don’t know. I have always think that i am one of worst gw2 players. I would say that 70% of gw2 players are much better than me and even i don’t think that these raids are hard. I am like wtf that dude talking about when he using words like hardcore, dps rotation and so on. People talk stuff like “these dps rotations take lots of skill” and still players who have leveled their burnzerker or engineer 2 hours ago come raids and killing bosses without any problems. I really think that i could teach chimp complete these raids.

spoj.9672:

I have a problem with all this support for making fights as mechanical as possible. VG and Sabetha both have a lot of mechanics to deal with. And as a result it feels less like you are fighting the boss and more like you are fighting the mechanics/arena. I dont find that fun.

On the other hand Gorseval is much more about the boss itself. Its a lot more fun. But as a result its easier once you get the dps check and basic mechanics sorted. The thing is that style can be really good if its expanded on. The eggs on gorseval are an attention and skill check. its a simple yet punishing mechanic. But it doesnt take focus away from the boss like VG lightning and Sabetha cannons do. Add more mechanics like that and you can create really challenging fights without taking focus away from the bosses.

I want to see more fights like Gorseval that have reactionary mechanics. A few arena mechanics is fine. But i think they should be more side focused and more about making it easier for yourself if you deal with them more effectively. Like Gorse orbs and add clearing. Neither of those are absolutely essential to deal with perfectly. But there are reasons to ignore or focus on those mechanics given the situation. The updraft stuff is fine as well simply because its not a constant mechanic. Its a few times per fight which makes it less tedious.

He was my favorite boss too, although I couldn’t exactly say why until I read this. I agree with you. I think that I like him more because its reactionary and not arena mechanics. Not that i dislike the other two, I just like him better.

spoj.9672:

I have a problem with all this support for making fights as mechanical as possible. VG and Sabetha both have a lot of mechanics to deal with. And as a result it feels less like you are fighting the boss and more like you are fighting the mechanics/arena. I dont find that fun.

On the other hand Gorseval is much more about the boss itself. Its a lot more fun. But as a result its easier once you get the dps check and basic mechanics sorted. The thing is that style can be really good if its expanded on. The eggs on gorseval are an attention and skill check. its a simple yet punishing mechanic. But it doesnt take focus away from the boss like VG lightning and Sabetha cannons do. Add more mechanics like that and you can create really challenging fights without taking focus away from the bosses.

I want to see more fights like Gorseval that have reactionary mechanics. A few arena mechanics is fine. But i think they should be more side focused and more about making it easier for yourself if you deal with them more effectively. Like Gorse orbs and add clearing. Neither of those are absolutely essential to deal with perfectly. But there are reasons to ignore or focus on those mechanics given the situation. The updraft stuff is fine as well simply because its not a constant mechanic. Its a few times per fight which makes it less tedious.

On the other side, my entire guild hates Gorseval because it’s boring.
We are 40 raiders, some of us Eternals, that share this thought; and it’s because on Gorseval you only need to worry on DPS. That’s it, just focus on DPS, stand in there and swing a sword. Even if you kitten up your rotation it’s ok, nobody will notice because they’re concentrated on their rotations. Doesn’t sound very funny or challenging to me :\

We love the other 2 fights because they don’t lack on mechanics that can keep us busy/focused and punish us for bad playing.

Personally I think that the players that only wants to DPS are just lazy, no offense intended.

LegACy.1296:

I also don’t understand, how it can effect people that don’t want to be challenged if only people that want to be challenged that are able to clear the raid.

Hint – there’s stuff hidden behind that content. Not being able to get that stuff definitely has an effect on those that cannot clear the raid.

Astralporing.1957:

LegACy.1296:

I also don’t understand, how it can effect people that don’t want to be challenged if only people that want to be challenged that are able to clear the raid.

Hint – there’s stuff hidden behind that content. Not being able to get that stuff definitely has an effect on those that cannot clear the raid.

Oh, so the problem is reward?

There has always been stuff behind “difficult” content in Guild Wars 2. There are stuffs that can only be achieved if you cleared the Halloween jumping puzzle, there are stuffs that can only be earned if you killed Liadri, etc etc. Making the JP or Liadri easier doesn’t affect those people who has the ability to clear those challenges, would you propose nerfing them as well? While we’re at it, why not make everything “Press F to be rewarded”…

Gosh, how times have changed… Hard to imagine a time would come to pass where players are given a fraction of a raid, with bosses designed as “slow gates” only to stall players as much as possible and promises of ultimate legendary treasures are made… while the remaining 90% of “stuff” still needs to be coded in… Worst of all, professions and profession roles still need to be overhauled and developed and created… BUT to be fair, we have a raid room/path and gimmicky boss mechanics at very least right?

Devs… “Come do raids… So good… Lookie you can haz legendary armorz!!!”…

Devs… “We will kill zerker and make roles!!!”… Ok team, cheaply assign toughness as the default aggo generator… Throw in clunky to use and poorly thought out team healing powers and mechanics into the game (y’all should look at city of heroes on how “profession” design and power design and combat design mechanics should be done. Yeah, instanced/trial/raid content too)…

Read and do some research…

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Instanced-content-done-right/first#post5890479

http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Main_Page

Professions and individual “roles” and team “roles” and hybrid “roles” and powers and combat elements and combat mechanics done more right…

http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Archetypes

Most players in the first 2 weeks… “Umm this raid room is it? Umm ok”… “Umm so about those legendaries? Hmm not even a preview”… “I gave up my spot on the map in DS for this?”… “Well, this raid room is umm awful and boring and unrewarding and a lot of waiting and players dropping like flies out of teams”… “Umm dulfy… memorize each 15 second gimmicky boss mechanic on each boss?”… "Umm guise, I’m like out of laurels for trinkets, rings and stuff… because they are handed out to us like children, and what? I need to spend 800 gold crafting a new set of armor and weapons for each boss to fill some quasi “role” and attempt to squeeze that undefined by design “role” out of these neglected and underdeveloped professions?… Umm no thanks…"… “I spent hours building my character and invested a ton of gold.. and you’re telling me that jumping to a green circle, that randomly pops up 1200 units away while movement is suppressed, is the measure and make or break of success?… and it’s gliding and updrafts or fail?”…

Devs… “Hehe look at tears in bucket”…

Most players… “Lots of feedback”…

Devs… "Oh yeah, not ready or not on table, but more to come someday “soon” and mayyyyybe build saver"…

Player… “Raid 9.5”…

Honestly y’all, times have changed. It is sad to see that over the years we have been getting these graphically “pretty” games without substance… and not getting more fully coded and more comprehensive and more finished “features” from the very first uploaded patch by developers…

I’ll take any number of old and “ugly” games, that are filled with substance, over this “pretty” and hollow and puzzle pieced game design…

Sad to see how things have devolved in games, and how low expectations are now the norm… and accepted and even praised. I don’t fault some players, though, this “new gen” game thing is all they know because it is all they are given.

GW2 showed promise because of GW, but for all the cool new bells and whistles here, the trade off is an expiremental and “patch quilt” mess of a game. GW2 is very hollow and convoluted next to the old games that were built as a labor of love and love of gaming, where graphics were low but standards were high.

Sad.

I find it pretty amusing that one (1) ArenaNet developer (Irenio), who isn’t even on the raids team (He did Skills & Balance, and specifically designed the Druid) made the off-hand comment on a Live Stream (it’s not even an OFFICIAL STATEMENT) the “Berserker meta being over” and yet some people are clinging to it, and waving it around like a banner.

Let’s reflect and see how committed he was to “breaking the Berserker meta…” (Or “Damage” meta) Let’s look at Grace of the Land, shall we?

Old Grace of the Land: While you are a celestial avatar, your allies gain reduced incoming condition damage. (Source)

A few weeks later…

Grace of the Land: This trait has been re-worked. Instead of its former behavior, allies affected by your celestial avatar abilities gain 3% damage and condition damage increase for 8 seconds. This buff stacks 5 times. (Source)

Hmm…

There are 3 things why I never even considered trying the GW2 raid:

- the requirement to exclude badly skilled/equipped players to enable the team to succeed. With badly skilled I don’t mean players with the wrong traits/weapons equipped. Equipment can be bought. Instead, I mean players from which I know they are not able to withstand a difficult fight. This would exclude some guild members. It’s not possible to carry them. With other words, to not be forced to exclude them I will not even begin to try the raid.

- the timer. I don’t want to try and fail and try and fail for hours. I play the game to win, not to fail the whole evening except probably once (if were lucky).

- the mechanical fight. According to videos, the fight is so totally scripted, it doesn’t feel any natural. You are clicking and tapping keys according to the rhythm of a script someone else wrote, not fighting a deadly enemy. I don’t feel a challenge, I feel it’s just stupid – like I were drilled in the army to learn marching lock-step, and if you fail to march lock-step, you are immediately shot dead.

Silmar Alech.4305:

There are 3 things why I never even considered trying the GW2 raid:

- the requirement to exclude badly skilled/equipped players to enable the team to succeed. With badly skilled I don’t mean players with the wrong traits/weapons equipped. Equipment can be bought. Instead, I mean players from which I know they are not able to withstand a difficult fight. This would exclude some guild members. It’s not possible to carry them. With other words, to not be forced to exclude them I will not even begin to try the raid.

- the timer. I don’t want to try and fail and try and fail for hours. I play the game to win, not to fail the whole evening except probably once (if were lucky).

- the mechanical fight. According to videos, the fight is so totally scripted, it doesn’t feel any natural. You are clicking and tapping keys according to the rhythm of a script someone else wrote, not fighting a deadly enemy. I don’t feel a challenge, I feel it’s just stupid – like I were drilled in the army to learn marching lock-step, and if you fail to march lock-step, you are immediately shot dead.

Yes.

Also, everything raid is clearly a “on a budget” design, and professions and “roles” are a mess. This raid and profession recipe was a distaster from the get go, and this raid and profession plate is an awful tasting meal as a result…

Devs should get on those profession overhauls fast, and start revamping the raid now, or things will just end up like spvp and dungeons and fractals and wvw too…

Step 1- inclusive raid designs and difficulty sliders and legendary stuff.

Step 2- get the act in gear and overhaul professions big time (for the sake of the entire game). Like v2.0++ big time, no more games and neglect with the absolute most important aspect for players/customers. Our characters we play are #1 priority, so devs need to stop treating this area as a #10 and another “table” priority….

Silmar Alech.4305:

There are 3 things why I never even considered trying the GW2 raid:

- the requirement to exclude badly skilled/equipped players to enable the team to succeed. With badly skilled I don’t mean players with the wrong traits/weapons equipped. Equipment can be bought. Instead, I mean players from which I know they are not able to withstand a difficult fight. This would exclude some guild members. It’s not possible to carry them. With other words, to not be forced to exclude them I will not even begin to try the raid.

- the timer. I don’t want to try and fail and try and fail for hours. I play the game to win, not to fail the whole evening except probably once (if were lucky).

- the mechanical fight. According to videos, the fight is so totally scripted, it doesn’t feel any natural. You are clicking and tapping keys according to the rhythm of a script someone else wrote, not fighting a deadly enemy. I don’t feel a challenge, I feel it’s just stupid – like I were drilled in the army to learn marching lock-step, and if you fail to march lock-step, you are immediately shot dead.

I can 110% agree with you on the first point.

I disagree with you on the second point primarily because raids imply some difficulty (generalized across all games) and a requirement of investment in time. So, repeated attempts and multiple failures is part of the package deal with Raids.

On the third point I mostly agree. The VG fight is completely scripted. As long as you have decent outgoing damage and follow along with the tempo you will have a pretty easy fight. Gorsy has a small amount of RNG, but the grand majority once again falls along the lines of scripted. Though, this fight has a much higher DPS check. The Sabetha fight is the only one I feel was done right. There are a few items that you can completely anticipate, but there are an even larger set of mechanics that actually feel organic to the fight. Personally, the Sabetha fight is the only thing I look forward to with each week’s reset. It’s very fun fighting a boss that behaves naturally and requires you to be on your toes for the whole fight.

P.S. As far as how wildly popular the raids are? Thursday night we couldn’t get more than 7 people to join up for a raid. Friday night we baaaaaaarely got the 10 people we needed before giving up hope. Apparently, everyone else was too busy doing more fun stuff….like Wintersday

The raids turned out to be much better than I expected. With Gorseval being my favorite so far.

+Finally some content that requires everyone to pull their weight (well mostly)
+The use of mechanics like gliding, pulling of the bosses, splitting up
+Decent level of overall difficulty which requires some dedication and practice to complete the raid easily
+The need to use conditions, toughness gear, some healing, boon rip
+A timer that isn’t too harsh but won’t let people play in fully defensive gear not making the raid a joke (still leaving you some room for toughness and healing, though)
+A decent level of balance amongst all classes (even if some are at an advantage)

-Low rewards not based on the effort they take
-Too short once you get to the point where you clear everything on the first try
-Hiding the already low rewards behind a weekly system
-The lack of a LFG strictly for raids
-The absence of possible difficulty levels (higher timer for example)
-More achievements based around the boss fights instead of the ones on the way

It is a good start. They included a lot of stuff that makes GW2 unique. I seem to be one of the few players who actually like the timer and the need to go mostly offensive, as well.

Never understood why people complain about the lack of freedom to play what they like. You can still play as a tank or healer for the most part. It is simply harder to get any spot other than as a straight DPS if you want to raid.
Games always seem to have had way more variety when you look back in a nostalgic mood. Even though, they quite often come down to 5% tanks, 5% healers, 90% damage dealers just like this one.