Guild Wars 2

This question is :
- for the people who actually tried the raid (or even finished it)
- for those who know about rotation, dps optimization, synergy between professions, etc.
- for those who have been playing other MMO and who had to deal with real gear check encounters, with a significant difference between gears availabled.

This question is not :
- For the elitist theory crafters who did the maths but never had a proof they were true
- For the people who have been playing the game casualy over the years and who forgot about how easy it was to get ascended gear at this time without having to spend 1k gold on it.

If the encounters are mastered (meaning gear doesn’t compensate mistakes) is ascended gear required ?

Partially. I saw kill with 60-90 second left on the timer so there is room for less dps. Most team have 1 tank and 1 support which have less dps anyways. We are FAR FAR from having a good rotation in there so over time we’ll get better and up our dps this way. So no, we don’t need everybody to be 100% ascended. There is room for some less efficient build/gear.

But at the same time. It’s hard. Getting to know the mechanic, paying attention to everything. Those additional stats will make the difference in a lot of situation. And to be honest, raid are a huge investment in time. So far, most people spend 3-10 hours on the first boss to learn and practice it before they were able to kill it. And I heard of people spending 20+ hours in there. Seriously, anyone ready to give that commitment should have the commitment to get his ascended gear. Not by requirement, but by respect to the other members of the group. To show that you are doing your very best.

That said. I ask for ascended trinkets and weapons, but don’t give a crap about armor for my requirements. So it’s not really hard to reach since weapons and trinkets ain’t that expensive to make.

Highly Recommended, but you get ascended stuff easily by doing raids now, the rewards are the best in the entire game by far, just by doing legendary armor tier 1 collection, you get a full set of ascended armor.

For the first boss, the answer is unequivocally:
Ascended gear is not required.

A group of 10 players in full exotics could definitely complete this encounter as long as everyone played well and the party composition was good.

The second boss; however, is a HARD dps check.
I would venture to say that it is 100% impossible with a full exotic group at this time.
Does that mean it requires every single player to be full ascended? Probably not.
Full Weapons and trinkets? Quite Possibly.