Guild Wars 2

Miellyn.6847:

the team has only 6 people.

I was always curious, why do people think only 6 people work on raids?

Miellyn.6847:

There is no incentive to run this mode ever again unless you overtune the rewards. 10% is nothing compared to the development that is needed, the team has only 6 people.
WoW needs the raid participation as raids are the main content. Why are you still trying to ignore that point?

And GW2 need raid participation because raids and fractals are only kind of repeatable PvE activity that is still getting any content updates. Actually, raids are getting most of it.

Scipio.3204:

Miellyn.6847:

the team has only 6 people.

I was always curious, why do people think only 6 people work on raids?

Because ArenaNet said it.

Rednik.3809:

And GW2 need raid participation because raids and fractals are only kind of repeatable PvE activity that is still getting any content updates. Actually, raids are getting most of it

Hmm I thought there were new open world maps with the last 4 living story episodes, but maybe I’m wrong.

Between Wing 3 of Forsaken Thicket and Raid 2 were 8 months.

Miellyn.6847:

Scipio.3204:

Miellyn.6847:

the team has only 6 people.

I was always curious, why do people think only 6 people work on raids?

Because ArenaNet said it.

Intresting. Mind finding me a source? All I’ve found is a raid team introductory thread, where around 10 raid team member introduces and we know there is at least one dev that didn’t make an introduction, meaning there is likely more

Miellyn.6847:

Hmm I thought there were new open world maps with the last 4 living story episodes, but maybe I’m wrong.

They are zergy, very unfriendly to anything less than 10 man group (have fun to solo anything besides hearts) and almost pointless when you are already farmed all rewards associated with map. Also overall quality is lower than base HoT or vanilla maps, even SW is made much better.

Between Wing 3 of Forsaken Thicket and Raid 2 were 8 months.

And between last dungeon and… oh, right. But at least we have 2 hastily made fractals, from reused old models and assets. Ugh.

Rednik.3809:

And between last dungeon and… oh, right. But at least we have 2 hastily made fractals, from reused old models and assets. Ugh.

Nobody asked for new dungeons tbh. And were have you been when people were gathering info about dungeon bugs and started to communicate several times with Anet resulting in a huge disappointment and then into a bigger wish to have new challenging content?
You were not present there, sir!
We fought hard to get the content we wanted in this game. So, take your army, fight for your own (content) but stop hitting raids when you don’t belong to the target group.

Rednik.3809:

Miellyn.6847:

Hmm I thought there were new open world maps with the last 4 living story episodes, but maybe I’m wrong.

They are zergy, very unfriendly to anything less than 10 man group (have fun to solo anything besides hearts) and almost pointless when you are already farmed all rewards associated with map. Also overall quality is lower than base HoT or vanilla maps, even SW is made much better.

We had this and people complained and it got changed, maybe try to change it back?

Miellyn.6847:

Miellyn.6847:

Between Wing 3 of Forsaken Thicket and Raid 2 were 8 months.

And between last dungeon and… oh, right. But at least we have 2 hastily made fractals, from reused old models and assets. Ugh.

Yeah the dungeon team was removed over 3 years ago, it is still beyond me how people can live that far in the past and still complain about it. But maybe thats the reason they can’t adapt in raids.

Nightmare fractal is definitely not hastly made.

Miellyn.6847:

We had this and people complained and it got changed, maybe try to change it back?

Right now we are talking about different subject.

Yeah the dungeon team was removed over 3 years ago, it is still beyond me how people can live that far in the past and still complain about it. But maybe thats the reason they can’t adapt in raids.

Nightmare fractal is definitely not hastly made.

That was considered as pretty bad choice by almost everyone.
And I don’t know how else you can call fractal made literally from reused part of the Scarlet tower from LS1 and reused mobs from there.

Also, that discussion went into the wrong direction. Lets return to raids and their bad design.

There is quite a bit of misinformation going around here so let’s try to provide some facts.

Miellyn.6847:

the team has only 6 people.

First, the size of the Raid Team:
Take a look here:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Raid-team-introductions/first
and here:
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Guild_Wars_2_Raids_Team

They are not 6, but they are not that many. Also note on the wiki page:

Known current or former Raids Team members

Rednik.3809:

But at least we have 2 hastily made fractals, from reused old models and assets. Ugh.

Second, the work of the Fractals team. You are giving them to little credit for the work they do. Since Chaos Fractal was released they’ve done a remarkable job.

First of all, you must understand that Fractals is old content and as always in programming fixing/tweaking old things is harder than making new things. Second, the content they released in Fractals isn’t so bad at all.

Chaos Fractal on July, 2016.
With the same update they massively updated Swampland Fractal and Snowblind Fractal, Swampland is like a completely new Fractal, while the changes in Snowblind were also great in making all boss fights more interesting. Other Fractals got various upgrades too, all of them leading to a far better experience. They also changed how infusions work (again)

On September, 2016 we got an update and rework of instabilities, big changes to toughness and health scaling of high level fractal mobs and other fixes and updates

On November, 2016, we got the other new Fractal (Nightmare) together with the challenge mote which is a different beast, essentially we got 2 new Fractals not one.

Fractals have more complex overall mechanics than Raids. Their reward system is more complicated, their scaling system makes them more complicated. Also, you should notice if you read the release pages of Fractals that very often we get balance fixes and tweaks in Fractals while they are far less in Raids. This generally means that Raids are better tested than Fractals, which is kind of normal because they get the help of guilds to help them test Raids, while to my knowledge they don’t do that with Fractals.

Adding a new Raid won’t affect the old Raids. Adding a new Fractal has a great effect on all other Fractals, adding a new instability or tweaking old ones, also has a potential effect on all other Fractals. You need to remember that Fractals require way more maintenance work than Raids.

I’m going to laugh at the re-used models and assets part. If you are so concerned about re-used assets then remember that other than story mode bosses and Subject Alpha, every single asset and model in the old Dungeons is re-used from other types of content. Heck they didn’t bother to create some new model for the Gravelings in AC and used the Skelk model although they are supposed to be something different. How lazy is that?

Rednik.3809:

Miellyn.6847:

We had this and people complained and it got changed, maybe try to change it back?

Right now we are talking about different subject.

No, that part was about repetable PvE content.

Miellyn.6847:

Miellyn.6847:

Yeah the dungeon team was removed over 3 years ago, it is still beyond me how people can live that far in the past and still complain about it. But maybe thats the reason they can’t adapt in raids.

Nightmare fractal is definitely not hastly made.

That was considered as pretty bad choice by almost everyone.
And I don’t know how else you can call fractal made literally from reused part of the Scarlet tower from LS1 and reused mobs from there.

Also, that discussion went into the wrong direction. Lets return to raids and their bad design.

The amount of people that voiced their concerns were actually lower than people that wanted challenging content.

You still have to prove the bad design and how a training mode, that doesn’t do much as proven in other games and doesn’t offer repeatable content in GW2 unless you overtune the rewards, would improve that. Raids are more accessible than raids in WoW, there are zero barriers to enter them unless you expect to one-shot everything without any experience.
A training mode would only accomplish something if you could train a certain phase with the same damage values and mechanics as normal mode, but you wouldn’t have to play through the entire encounter to reach it, eg Matthias 40% phase. An easier mode that let you still win doesn’t teach you what mistakes would lead to a wipe in normal mode.

Story mode dungeons are a good indicator for group story instances without enough rewards.

maddoctor.2738:

They are not 6, but they are not that many

As the wiki page says ‘Known current or former Raids Team members’, we don’t know the exact size, so lets assume 10-12 member, that would make it 8-10% of the live team.

Miellyn.6847:

Astralporing.1957:

Miellyn.6847:

Astralporing.1957:

Miellyn.6847:

Your beloved WoW proved that a training mode doesn’t work, even Blizzard said it.

Nah. One dev privately mentioned his dislike of the way it got implemented. Which he did, by the way, only after he stopped working at Blizzard.
Apparently, Blizzard disagreed, because LFR is still there.

They released a statistic, that only around 7%-10% actually advanced from LFR. Thats definitely not enough to justify a one time adventure for people that are not the target audience.

10%? That’s massive, regardless of what it’s 10% of. Remember, that it’s people that would most likely not raid otherwise.

And in WoW numbers, we’re likely speaking about more people that gw2’s active population.

There is no incentive to run this mode ever again unless you overtune the rewards.

Well, duh. Obviously the reward structure would need to get rewarded. I just didn’t want to start that discussion here, since it’s offtopic.

Miellyn.6847:

10% is nothing compared to the development that is needed, the team has only 6 people.

Debatable. That’s based on a mistaken interpretation of one dev quote.
Besides, 10% is still a good number.

Miellyn.6847:

Scipio.3204:

I was always curious, why do people think only 6 people work on raids?

Because ArenaNet said it.

Nah. They said that 6 people worked full time on one of the raid wings (salvation pass). What you forget is that there was more than one wing being worked on at that time, and that there were people that worked on raids part-time, as part of their general gw2 role (i.e. raid music was, as far as i know, not made by the raid team).

Miellyn.6847:

Between Wing 3 of Forsaken Thicket and Raid 2 were 8 months.

And how much was that between HoT and first LS release?

maddoctor.2738:

I’m going to laugh at the re-used models and assets part. If you are so concerned about re-used assets then remember that other than story mode bosses and Subject Alpha, every single asset and model in the old Dungeons is re-used from other types of content. Heck they didn’t bother to create some new model for the Gravelings in AC and used the Skelk model although they are supposed to be something different. How lazy is that?

Very. And don’t let me get started on Destroyers, that, instead of having their own models, got only reskins, that had nothing to do with their original design.

Unfortunately, reusing kitten is just way too common, and definitely not limited to one type of content (raids had its share of this too, by the way).

Astralporing.1957:

Miellyn.6847:

There is no incentive to run this mode ever again unless you overtune the rewards.

Well, duh. Obviously the reward structure would need to get rewarded. I just didn’t want to start that discussion here, since it’s offtopic.

Not it is relevant, it will otherwise become a one time adventure like story mode dungeons.

Miellyn.6847:

Miellyn.6847:

10% is nothing compared to the development that is needed, the team has only 6 people.

Debatable. That’s based on a mistaken interpretation of one dev quote.
Besides, 10% is still a good number.

If we assume 10-12 people for the raid team (8-10% of the live team) it is still fine for the whole picture.
No it is a terrible conversion rate. You want to open side content (your own words) for people outside of the target audience, slowing down content releases for that niche content. Either you promote raids to main content, where other people would come out and cry about another broken promise, and increase the development ressources for raids or you can live with the fact that a small team creates content for a small part of the community.

Miellyn.6847:

Miellyn.6847:

Between Wing 3 of Forsaken Thicket and Raid 2 were 8 months.

And how much was that between HoT and first LS release?

You got a complete revamp for the HoT rewards and the LS releases are now much faster than raids.

Miellyn.6847:

Astralporing.1957:

Miellyn.6847:

There is no incentive to run this mode ever again unless you overtune the rewards.

Well, duh. Obviously the reward structure would need to get rewarded. I just didn’t want to start that discussion here, since it’s offtopic.

Not it is relevant, it will otherwise become a one time adventure like story mode dungeons.

Okay, then you can assume that I assume that easy mode raids would have rewards good enough to justify repeating them. I don’t want just a “training lobby”. I want a content that can serve as training for those that would want it, but could also stand on its own.
Rewardless story mode is mostly useless, as dungeons have shown. On that, i fully agree.
All my posts are made with the implicit assumption that easy mode would be repeatable.

(mind you, that would likely require significantly improving the rewards of current raid mode – which even in my opinion aren’t that good at the moment)

Miellyn.6847:

Astralporing.1957:

Besides, 10% is still a good number.

No it is a terrible conversion rate.

That depends entirely on the conversion rates from other sources. Personally, i think that a conversion rate of 10% from easy mode, assuming that this mode would be popular, would create the best funnel of new people into raids. I sincerely doubt that the current conversion rates from non-raiding community come even close to that.

Miellyn.6847:

You want to open side content (your own words) for people outside of the target audience, slowing down content releases for that niche content.

I could live with, say, decrease of fractal development at the cost of creating easy mode (seeing as fractal team tries to go that direction anyway, which, in fractals, is, imo, a bad idea)
On the other hand, personally i wouldn’t be all that sad if it cut into raid development time. I doubt it would add that much once the ball got rolling once, and besides raids are being developed at a miraculously fast rate considering how small the current target group is.

Miellyn.6847:

You got a complete revamp for the HoT rewards and the LS releases are now much faster than raids.

They are going to stop after few more releases, and then we’ll likely end with another year-long drought.
The LS development is faster now, but in the long run raids aren’t slower at all.

Miellyn.6847:

Either you promote raids to main content, where other people would come out and cry about another broken promise, and increase the development ressources for raids or you can live with the fact that a small team creates content for a small part of the community.

At this moment, the development rate for this side content is definitely on par with the development of the mainstream one. What does that say to you?

Seriously, if the development rate followed the normal patterns of this game for side content, then we’d likely have seen a rate of several fractals for a single raid wing.

It may be a side content, but it’s definitely being treated as if that side content was one of the most important parts of the game. So, as i see it, either its importance gets degraded to match its limited target group numbers, or the content gets opened up. Significantly.

Astralporing.1957:

Seriously, if the development rate followed the normal patterns of this game for side content, then we’d likely have seen a rate of several fractals for a single raid wing.

The “Fractals team” started releasing work with Chaos Fractal on July, 2016. Since then they released 2 complete fractals (3 if you count CM Nightmare separately) and various content updates for Fractals. I made a rather extensive list of what we got from the Fractal team since they started working.

In the same time frame we got a Raid with a single wing, I’d say they are more than comparable.

Astralporing.1957:

Okay, then you can assume that I assume that easy mode raids would have rewards good enough to justify repeating them. I don’t want just a “training lobby”. I want a content that can serve as training for those that would want it, but could also stand on its own.
Rewardless story mode is mostly useless, as dungeons have shown. On that, i fully agree.
All my posts are made with the implicit assumption that easy mode would be repeatable.

(mind you, that would likely require significantly improving the rewards of current raid mode – which even in my opinion aren’t that good at the moment)

Raid rewards are actually fine and if you increase anything besides the pure gold rewards, the rewards will be worse in the long run. If you increase the shard cap you will reduce the value of ghostly infusions and Eye of Jantir, the only two items that are actually profitable, increase the droprate for ascended items and people will buy less ascended items/skins from the vendor, more shards for sellable items, decreasing them in value.
Raids reward you for continuous playing, they are not that rewarding if you only play them once or twice, the value is not instant like fractals. The reward structure is part of the long term motiviation and changing it can hurt the mode in the long run.

]That depends entirely on the conversion rates from other sources. Personally, i think that a conversion rate of 10% from easy mode, assuming that this mode would be popular, would create the best funnel of new people into raids. I sincerely doubt that the current conversion rates from non-raiding community come even close to that.

The conversion rate is definitely higher right now than an easy mode could ever reach. For absolute numbers we would need information from ArenaNet to draw conclussions.

I could live with, say, decrease of fractal development at the cost of creating easy mode (seeing as fractal team tries to go that direction anyway, which, in fractals, is, imo, a bad idea)
On the other hand, personally i wouldn’t be all that sad if it cut into raid development time. I doubt it would add that much once the ball got rolling once, and besides raids are being developed at a miraculously fast rate considering how small the current target group is.

One of the main reasons for the relative fast development compared to the ressources is the fact that the target group is small, they know exactly what that group wants and don’t need to compromise between sub-groups.

Why are difficulties in fractals are a bad idea? The target group is much bigger for fractals. The group size has a huge impact on that.

Miellyn.6847:

Miellyn.6847:

You got a complete revamp for the HoT rewards and the LS releases are now much faster than raids.

They are going to stop after few more releases, and then we’ll likely end with another year-long drought.
The LS development is faster now, but in the long run raids aren’t slower at all.

Wing 2 and 3 were developed by a half of the raid team each, Raid 2 was developed by the complete team and the Wing 2 half had most likely already started before Wing 3 release. So it took around a year for the current raid. Raids are not faster and if we don’t get a new raid/raid wing with episode 6 it is significant slower and even a year long content drought won’t make it equal. Especially because there will be development for a raid for the next expansion before it will be released.

At this moment, the development rate for this side content is definitely on par with the development of the mainstream one. What does that say to you?

Seriously, if the development rate followed the normal patterns of this game for side content, then we’d likely have seen a rate of several fractals for a single raid wing.

It may be a side content, but it’s definitely being treated as if that side content was one of the most important parts of the game. So, as i see it, either its importance gets degraded to match its limited target group numbers, or the content gets opened up. Significantly.

But it already has small ressources. Around 10% of the live team. Around 10% of the playerbase as regular raid players are enough to justify it. Less would be also fine. There is no team that already develops raids for the next expansion, but there is a team that produces the expansion which will feature content for the majority.

What would you also consider as side content?

Rednik.3809:

Yeah, raiding between WoW and GW2 is really so vastly different, because WoW is doing at least some stuff right, due to their experience and millions of players who gave them raiding statistics over years and years of the MMO raiding evolution.
But hey, lets ignore it, it’s not like gw2 raids have obvious design problems, gw2 community is split apart due to these problems, and gw2 raid devs are trying to pretend that now is 2007 instead of 2017, right?

WoW wasn’t the first to start the Raiding business, it’s definitely the most well-known though. Raiding in WoW has gone through different evolutionary phases, and given that the only avenue in PvE for an end-game was to Raid, WoW needed to go down paths not ventured before. It is because WoW made those mistakes that we have a clearer picture of what not to do going forward, in a traditional themepark MMO.

You are pretending that GW2 is locking the killing of Elder Dragons behind raids. You are pretending that major GW2 lore bombs are being held behind Raid Bosses. There is a degree of lore that can potentially enhance the world of Tyria for you behind a cleared instance and just a tiny bit more behind the encounters themselves. But absolutely none of the lore in raids has constituted interfering with how each player goes through the Main Story of GW2.

It is utterly selfish beyond a doubt to demand that something unrelated to the direct lore at hand be made available to you because you were not determined enough to try. There’s a consistent flow of success stories flowing in about how new raiders are getting together and trying the content, something you wish to stifle because you believe WoW had the better model. Something I am more and more disagreeing with every passing day a legacy WoW raid is trivialized by a solo over-leveled character.

GW2 is doing raids on a whole other level, a proper level in fact that makes sense for it being an alternative PvE end-game method. At this point I would dare say FF14 has gone above WoW in its own teams of a themepark MMO. Yet neither FF14 or WoW can compare to GW2 raiding, nor can GW2 compare to a themepark since that is not the intent.

Throw out all those numbers you have, they mean nothing compared to the potential GW2 has for raiding. This is a whole other field that is being traversed, for instance:

- Rewards for failure when progressing encounters (Shards)

- Incentives to repeat fights you have already done (Shards).

- Fine-Tuning the GW2 combat system and implementing challenging mechanics we’ve seen in previous raiding MMOs, Lich King’s puddles were an impressive and well-done thing to bring over yet giving a fresh feel thanks to the GW2 combat and movement.

- No Vertical Treadmill, removing the literal gear requirements that made some encounters impossible to do regardless of skill in WoW due to a gear check.

Are a few features from the top of my head, plus none of the raids are NECESSARY FOR GW2 MAIN STORY. Can’t emphasize that enough.

I feel the raid simply has to many mechanics that are taken directly from the old raid, the prior experience carries over to the new one essentially making the raid to easy. I do think overall the difficulty is pretty much the same.

Since the community is so much better at raids nowadays I feel like enrage timers are to forgiving and the insta died mechanics have such obvious tells that you cannot really fail them. These parameters could have been better if top guilds would have tested the raids.

Nonetheless I think the whole atmosphere in bastion of the penitent is awesome and overall I do enjoy the fights.

Sykper.6583:

You are pretending that GW2 is locking the killing of Elder Dragons behind raids. You are pretending that major GW2 lore bombs are being held behind Raid Bosses. There is a degree of lore that can potentially enhance the world of Tyria for you behind a cleared instance and just a tiny bit more behind the encounters themselves. But absolutely none of the lore in raids has constituted interfering with how each player goes through the Main Story of GW2.

It is utterly selfish beyond a doubt to demand that something unrelated to the direct lore at hand be made available to you because you were not determined enough to try. There’s a consistent flow of success stories flowing in about how new raiders are getting together and trying the content, something you wish to stifle because you believe WoW had the better model. Something I am more and more disagreeing with every passing day a legacy WoW raid is trivialized by a solo over-leveled character.

This exactly. If there was story directly related to the dragons (aka we interacted with Tiami), then I could understand the argument. The argument now is that “Raids have story I like from Gw1, but for <Insert reason here> I’m choosing not to do them” and too that I say “too bad, you aren’t entitled to this story more than anyone else, so play it or don’t”

Miellyn.6847:

The amount of people that voiced their concerns were actually lower than people that wanted challenging content.

Yes, and rapid revenue downfall even during raid releases for raid 1 was completely unrelated, because everyone asked for challenging content. Okay.

You still have to prove the bad design and how a training mode, that doesn’t do much as proven in other games and doesn’t offer repeatable content in GW2 unless you overtune the rewards, would improve that. Raids are more accessible than raids in WoW, there are zero barriers to enter them unless you expect to one-shot everything without any experience.

I don’t remember WoW raiders asking a new guy for 100+ boss kills or they will kick him. And I do remember how LFR saved raiding population numbers after Cataclysm failure. You can read and see numbers in link I gave before.

A training mode would only accomplish something if you could train a certain phase with the same damage values and mechanics as normal mode, but you wouldn’t have to play through the entire encounter to reach it, eg Matthias 40% phase. An easier mode that let you still win doesn’t teach you what mistakes would lead to a wipe in normal mode.

Story mode dungeons are a good indicator for group story instances without enough rewards.

A training mode awards you with experience of actual encounter. This working in WoW, and I still don’t see any reason why here it will work different. Story dungeon modes are unrelated, because they are different encounters, and overall, explore mode dungeon can be beaten even with clueless party so training for them is not required at all.

Rednik.3809:

and overall, explore mode dungeon can be beaten even with clueless party so training for them is not required at all.

This isn’t really relevant as the reason it can be beaten by a “clueless party” is because of the massive power creep over the years. This wasn’t true at launch.

Cairn was already solo’d and the Mursaat Overseer was killed with 4 people all in the first week of its release. If they had 9 or 6 more “clueless players” would that not count as a “clueless party” that could beat the encounter?

I like the idea of raids having a wide range of difficulty scale. In general, I think Anet achieves this. Before wing 4, extremely casual players could get at least 1 LI a week via escort maybe 2 with trio. Semi-casual raiders could easily get 6 LI a week, and fairly serious raiders could get all 9.

I would say that boss 1 of wing 4 qualifies as a boss that extremely casual players can kill, or at most is just a notch above that mark. It effectively has no enrage timer (10 players in tanky/safe builds can beat it, someone has already soloed it as a druid). Boss 2 also is incredibly easy, but does require a tiny amount of team work.

So pretty much, as far as raid accessibility goes, we are exactly where we were before wing 4. There are extremely easy bosses available for beginners, if they want to kill them.

ButterPeanut.9746:

If they had 9 or 6 more “clueless players” would that not count as a “clueless party” that could beat the encounter?

Well, on Cairn, 9 clueless players could have gotten the last one killed pretty fast.

Problem isn’t the ease of the raids, its the restriction of the classes that can go. Time after time being told no, you need to roll an Ele is getting old. Is that the only class that can do a raids? Sure feels like it.
I hear new wing is somewhat forgiving, so maybe some hope there,but no, team comp is Mesmer,war,druid and ele, that’s it. That’s all I ever see and all that is ever asked for in LFG.
Its sad when a raid is designed around just getting the kill, and not trying to complete with the class you like. Now yes, you have to have the right build,thats a no brainer. Even in WOW people got kicked if they tried to raid in pvp gear, and they did due to the stupid “gear score” junk that went on.
Every class should be 100% viable to do any raid, just don’t bring your WvW build on engi, make sure you bring what is needed….knockbacks, cc, whatever.
Why should it be that you have to play a class you really don’t enjoy in order to do a raid? And yes, tons of you will say make your own team, go with your guild, all that stuff, but it simply isn’t that way. I stopped playing Engi, class I love playing and went back to my DH so I could taste the new wing and some of the old. No chance….class not “wanted”. Its just silly, really it is.

ButterPeanut.9746:

This isn’t really relevant as the reason it can be beaten by a “clueless party” is because of the massive power creep over the years. This wasn’t true at launch.

Except I did that by myself. We were a newbie party from wvw-only guild and that was a very first dungeon experience for us. Knight warrior, healnecro (ye, that was a thing before healing well nerf), zerk tif, power guard with his mighty GS and cant remember who was the last one. That was quite the experience.

Rednik.3809:

ButterPeanut.9746:

This isn’t really relevant as the reason it can be beaten by a “clueless party” is because of the massive power creep over the years. This wasn’t true at launch.

Except I did that by myself. We were a newbie party from wvw-only guild and that was a very first dungeon experience for us. Knight warrior, healnecro (ye, that was a thing before healing well nerf), zerk tif, power guard with his mighty GS and cant remember who was the last one. That was quite the experience.

And you can do the same with raids. So dont know what you are complaining.
I just joined a pug for Cairn, as a full zealot DH, and we had 2 druid, engi and a necro. People with 0 LI.
We killed it wayyy past the enrage, like 20-25 mins.
A picture of the group set up:
http://imgur.com/a/hf4JO

I agree with making you’re own group. I raid with stupid comps and clear mist of the time. Get experienced with the content and you too can clear wing 4 with 3 revenants and 7 eles ????

Joxer.6024:

Problem isn’t the ease of the raids, its the restriction of the classes that can go. Time after time being told no, you need to roll an Ele is getting old. Is that the only class that can do a raids? Sure feels like it.
I hear new wing is somewhat forgiving, so maybe some hope there,but no, team comp is Mesmer,war,druid and ele, that’s it. That’s all I ever see and all that is ever asked for in LFG.
Its sad when a raid is designed around just getting the kill, and not trying to complete with the class you like. Now yes, you have to have the right build,thats a no brainer. Even in WOW people got kicked if they tried to raid in pvp gear, and they did due to the stupid “gear score” junk that went on.
Every class should be 100% viable to do any raid, just don’t bring your WvW build on engi, make sure you bring what is needed….knockbacks, cc, whatever.
Why should it be that you have to play a class you really don’t enjoy in order to do a raid? And yes, tons of you will say make your own team, go with your guild, all that stuff, but it simply isn’t that way. I stopped playing Engi, class I love playing and went back to my DH so I could taste the new wing and some of the old. No chance….class not “wanted”. Its just silly, really it is.

It’s not silly, if you joined a good raid guild, you can even do thief/DH composition with an engineer tank for Deimos. The reason why there’s a meta with the wanted professions is because you are PuGGing with random people and you should at least expect them to have the right gear and profession because you don’t know if they have the experience yet. You’re most likely not going to trust a stranger to have at least the right gear to fulfill a certain role (such as needing decent toughness for when kiting boss hits or flak, decent dps if you’re a dps role, decent boon duration if you’re a support buffing the squad, decent heals if your job is healing) and as such, you expect them to follow meta. At least that way, you know they are fulfilling that specific role.

As another posted a picture of a squad composed of non-metas and inexperienced people, it took them 20-25 minutes to kill Cairn, which for most people would be unbearable because it’s just too long. Meta’s the most optimal and efficient way to gear yourself without hindering or impairing your squad. If you really want to play Engineer, I suggest at least try to expose yourself to more experience with more raid bosses so that way you can optimize your Engineer when you’ve joined a raid guild and can focus on augmenting your traits + skills + gear here and there to better most suite your squad composition without hindering them.