Guild Wars 2

Hey all. I have a suggestion for the raid team. I really like how in PvP everyone gets outfitted with gear. Everyone is in the same tier of stats. The stats can can differ, but there aren’t people in gear that is “top tier”. It’s all on equal footing. If raids are about skill, then why not do the same thing for raids? That way nobody has to worry about somebody trolling in green or blue gear. Nobody has to feel bad about wanting to do the raid but not being able to because they don’t have ascended armor and weapons yet. If you do it this way the barrier for entry is skill not gear score.

Remove the barrier for entry as it pertains to gear.

• If Gear doesn’t equal skill then make the playing field level by using the PvP gear system for raids with its own “Raid Gear System”.

• This will make balancing the raid a heck of a lot easier too.

• This will make it easier for guilds to do raids with whoever is level 80.

• There are a lot of PvPers that are really good players that never wanted to play PvE but could be interested in high-skill level raids. This way they don’t have to PvE to do raids.

I feel like this is a great opportunity to keep the population high for raiding.

This is great. I just started GW2 and I have problems getting into dungeons because people keep flaming me for my armor set that I bought in Orr for violet points. This is great Idea because:

- its easier
- I dont see why I should be forced do make stupd ascended gear. I want to use skill.
- I can finally test out all the stat combinations
- its not as hard
- Everyone can do raids instead of just elitists.
- its less difficult

But this would destroy “gear checks” and I don’t think many would be happy about it.

Iason Evan.3806:

This way they don’t have to PvE to do raids.

You do realize this makes not sense, right?

Seisus.6591:

You do realize this makes not sense, right?

Why not? What if I dont like the game but still want to play the game?

Miroe.2054:

Seisus.6591:

You do realize this makes not sense, right?

Why not? What if I dont like the game but still want to play the game?

In all other MMOs raids are PvE content. To not have it being PvE is odd, it’s like saying fractals are now pvp only, which is weird if you think on it. Or saying that dungeons are no longer PvE… you can get rewards for those through pvp, but you can can’t get rewards for fractals through pvp (which I rather like).

Seisus.6591:

Iason Evan.3806:

This way they don’t have to PvE to do raids.

You do realize this makes not sense, right?

They still have to get to level 80. If raids are a pure check of skill, NOT gear, it makes perfect sense. PvP is the same thing. You go into PvP and can start owning people at level 1.

I WANT legendary gear. It gives me something to look forward to; something to PROGRESS towards. If I wanted a casual game that I pick up and play for an hour, I’d stick to Candy Crush Saga. But this is an MMO, and without something to look forward to, something to work towards, I stop playing. Because there’s no point. There are only so many achievements and events to do before I get bored completely. I’m not asking for this game to turn into a DPS recount meter, or 450 gear score only PST ordeal, but I’d only look forward to raids if they offered me loot – better gear, legendary gear (because I’d get really excited to open up the chest at the end of an encounter and find something unique to that encounter and not more things I’m just going to sell on the trading post.) I want gear that will help control, support and survive encounters that will hopefully be better than the crappy pull it in the corner and DPS it down as fast as you can mechanics. Otherwise, it’s just a glorified dungeon, and if that’s what you enjoy, I guess you can just keep sticking to those.

Iason Evan.3806:

They still have to get to level 80. If raids are a pure check of skill, NOT gear, it makes perfect sense. PvP is the same thing. You go into PvP and can start owning people at level 1.

Exactly. And this way I can also just use scrolls and tomes to lvl my ele up and then have someone clearing a path to the raid entrance if I die in the PvE zones.

And just to be clear, I’m not looking for a free ride into Raids. I’ve put in my time. I’ve done all the content. I’m looking for ArenaNet’s actions about Raids to equal what their words are about Raids. The proof in the pudding and all that. If masteries aren’t attunements, if there isn’t a “Gear Gate” to Raiding, then my system or something similar would work. It also gets rid of excuses of why you can’t finish a raid. It’s not about gear score. It’s not about masteries. It’s about 100% pure skill.

I don’t need this. I am decked out in all ascended. I do however want everyone to be able to do these without having to spend a bunch of time gearing up to get into raids. That shouldn’t be the point of raids in GW2. The point should be that Raids are a test of a player’s skill.

Miroe.2054:

Seisus.6591:

You do realize this makes not sense, right?

Why not? What if I dont like the game but still want to play the game?

I’m talking from a logic standpoint. You have to do pve content to do raids since raids are pve content. I’m not saying this holds up in practice, I just think your wording is funny.

Also, why would you want to play the game if you don’t like it?

I have to say I strongly disagree with you OP and frankly I don’t really understand why people (in that case you) keep wanting to make the game easier…..I do understand your points which look valid but in case you haven’t notice Anet never specified that getting ascended gear is required to clear the content raids offer
You must also understand that there is no gear treadmill in this game, it is all about cosmetics and crafting you gear up to ascended is just an objective that people set themselves (I personally have never bothered to finish the collection of ascended armors and so far I have never felt underpowered, having only one set of ascended for my mesmer)
I don’t understand your logic….Like you said it is all about skill and since it is so easy to get exotic armor with not much difference in stats between ascended and exotic, I really don’t understand why you make such a bid deal about it.
Even if you are right, there is absolutely no way that Anet looks at your post, thinks “Oh this player is right” and revert all the effort they put in for the last xxx amount of time they have been working for the design of these raids. NO WAY
ANet may have design HoT to be a horizontal progression, the fact is, the core game doesn’t revolve around that concept. There is a sense of levelling curve from lvl 1 to 80, which is even quite easy to get with tomes, and this sense of progression must be kept, no matter what.

flog.3485:

I have to say I strongly disagree with you OP and frankly I don’t really understand why people (in that case you) keep wanting to make the game easier…..I do understand your points which look valid but in case you haven’t notice Anet never specified that getting ascended gear is required to clear the content raids offer
You must also understand that there is no gear treadmill in this game, it is all about cosmetics and crafting you gear up to ascended is just an objective that people set themselves (I personally have never bothered to finish the collection of ascended armors and so far I have never felt underpowered, having only one set of ascended for my mesmer)
I don’t understand your logic….Like you said it is all about skill and since it is so easy to get exotic armor with not much difference in stats between ascended and exotic, I really don’t understand why you make such a bid deal about it.
Even if you are right, there is absolutely no way that Anet looks at your post, thinks “Oh this player is right” and revert all the effort they put in for the last xxx amount of time they have been working for the design of these raids. NO WAY
ANet may have design HoT to be a horizontal progression, the fact is, the core game doesn’t revolve around that concept. There is a sense of levelling curve from lvl 1 to 80, which is even quite easy to get with tomes, and this sense of progression must be kept, no matter what.

I appreciate your feedback. That isn’t the point of my post though. The point is that there will be groups in whatever map the raid is in using the map lfg tool for raids and they will require people have the best gear. This gets rid of that. Heck, I’d say they should get rid of being able to see someone’s AP in your party window as well.

idk why this game has stats. it’s so hard for me to understand :/ what does power do? is cleric gear good for my thief? i wish they would remove all stats and have all skills do flat amounts of damage so that i can finally play with my sewing club.

Testudo.4620:

idk why this game has stats. it’s so hard for me to understand :/ what does power do? is cleric gear good for my thief? i wish they would remove all stats and have all skills do flat amounts of damage so that i can finally play with my sewing club.

This is actually not a bad idea. For each class there is a best gear anyways. Why even allow the people to equip anything else? Theres berserker and maybe some condi stat combo for nekro and thats it.

frayon.3984:

Miroe.2054:

Seisus.6591:

You do realize this makes not sense, right?

Why not? What if I dont like the game but still want to play the game?

In all other MMOs raids are PvE content. To not have it being PvE is odd, it’s like saying fractals are now pvp only, which is weird if you think on it. Or saying that dungeons are no longer PvE… you can get rewards for those through pvp, but you can can’t get rewards for fractals through pvp (which I rather like).

It’s an interesting point though. Accoording to Colin, the game’s combat and skill system is used to its fullest only in PVP. In that context, it would make sense that raids could then be accessed by pvpers who don’t pve.

I like overall gist of what the OP is saying – I don’t necs think this is the right option for the game, however removing this silly gear check business and focusing on the skill is something I am in favour of.

GW1 had an option to ping your “skill build”. WHilst this is easily open to the same playground bickering and silly kicking of ppl, it could be used to help advise people and coordinate what to bring if it existed. Perhaps a somewhat idealistic rather than realistic solution though

Raid is design for endgame content. You should done most of the endgmae stuff and well prepare your class before get into raid.
“lot of PvPers” you said is lot of ppl who want to play all content but dont want to put effort into it.
Real PvPer only play PvP, Raid is PvE and fighting stupid AI.
Every PvPer should have 80 exotic gear and you dont really need ascended gear for raid, the difference is less than 5%.

The only reason any of us should look towards any aspect of this game is fun. Any thing else is dressing. They make the raid fun and I’ll do it time and again.

Miroe.2054:

This is great. I just started GW2 and I have problems getting into dungeons because people keep flaming me for my armor set that I bought in Orr for violet points. This is great Idea because:

- its easier
- I dont see why I should be forced do make stupd ascended gear. I want to use skill.
- I can finally test out all the stat combinations
- its not as hard
- Everyone can do raids instead of just elitists.
- its less difficult

You don’t need ascended gear. Your exotics are fine.

I want to walk through a borderlands or Eternal Battlegrounds portal and be instantly decked out in full-stat armor for the duration of my time within WvW and not just be upleveled to 80, because it shouldn’t be a gear-check, it should be about skill. Just like PvP. I mean, the UI is even in the game!

Also, when I want to do dungeons, I think it should be about skill. As I’m standing at the entrance to Caudecus’ Manor in Queensdale as a level 30, I want to be assured that I’ll be level 80 and fully geared while I’m inside. Just like PvP, everyone should be on equal footing.

Also, I want to be able to do Fractal-level 50 with full AR at level 1. Because skill.

exotic gear is already really cheap. I think that is all you need for raiding.

Besides berserker gear which is 6 gold. the other set is like 1 gold. You can get a full set in 1 hours of farming.

Cavalier.9064:

I want to walk through a borderlands or Eternal Battlegrounds portal and be instantly decked out in full-stat armor for the duration of my time within WvW and not just be upleveled to 80, because it shouldn’t be a gear-check, it should be about skill. Just like PvP. I mean, the UI is even in the game!

Also, when I want to do dungeons, I think it should be about skill. As I’m standing at the entrance to Caudecus’ Manor in Queensdale as a level 30, I want to be assured that I’ll be level 80 and fully geared while I’m inside. Just like PvP, everyone should be on equal footing.

Also, I want to be able to do Fractal-level 50 with full AR at level 1. Because skill.

See the pics I posted of one of my posts. I am decked out in all ascended gear. I’ve gotten to rank 80 in PvP. I have multiple Champion titles in PvP. I have completed every single fractal achievement. You can do dungeons successfully and even easily in blue gear. ArenaNet themselves said raids are about skill. They say that PvP is about skill and that’s why everyone gets the same level gear. Raids should do the same thing. I am employing logic here, not just spewing nonsense.

Do you think raid is going to be so challenging that those minor difference between exotic and ascended gear actually matters?

If not just use exotic gear. Which everyone should be able to afford. If you can’t even afford exotic gear, you probably don’t deserve to raid, consider you probably need some mastery level to raid anyway.

Miroe.2054:

This is actually not a bad idea. For each class there is a best gear anyways. Why even allow the people to equip anything else? Theres berserker and maybe some condi stat combo for nekro and thats it.

Seriously, the thing raiders say they want is challenging, skill-based combat. But raids have traditionally always involved gear-checking through unavoidable damage, Enrage timers, etc., etc, even when they don’t have hard attunement stats.

Truly skill-based content would either eliminate stats altogether or standardise them when you enter. Heck, GW2 even already does the latter when it downscales players as they move between zones or enter dungeons. The dynamic level adjustment system compresses the difference between exotic and ascended/legendary, even erasing the distinction entirely below a certain level, as I recall.

So why not compress the difference in gear tiers when you enter a Raid, so that full exo and full legendary have the same amount of stats? Raiders still get the prestige of a full Legendary set when roflstomping open world content, as well as the convenience of easily changing their stat prefix, but then Raids would truly be skill-based, rather than gear-based.

Raids are PvE content and require PvE gear and skills to complete. It’s supposed to be difficult content, but PvE content nonetheless. Streamlining gear in this fashion would make it feel less like my character worked for her gear and skill level through exploration of Tyria and the Jungle and more like I entered into a PvP match against AI opponents. I oppose this.

This would invalidate the effort of the players who actually worked hard to obtain items they’ve wanted!
I think this is a bad idea.

Give Messi a football and he will do the great.
So by your logic giving me a football means I will do as well as Messi!

Its exactly same with the gear. Someone who was just given stuff will be far less skilled than people who worked to obtain their stuff.

You have to keep in mind by having Set Stats like in sPvP, you destroy builds that are of Mix and Match stats. If you need a little extra toughness, you can splice in the minimal ammount you need with out dedicating one of your three stats (like sPvP) to it.

flog.3485:

You must also understand that there is no gear treadmill in this game, it is all about cosmetics and crafting you gear up to ascended is just an objective that people set themselves (I personally have never bothered to finish the collection of ascended armors and so far I have never felt underpowered, having only one set of ascended for my mesmer)

Rather, there wasn’t one. I suspect soon that we’ll see something that, while not a treadmill, might be still seen as a grind.

Let’s say that the first raid is doable just fine in Berzerker gear. Lots of people have it, no need to grind for more. But the second raid suddenly requires you to take a lot of hits that you can’t avoid, and survive them. Do you have Soldier gear? No? Go earn a set, then come back. Oh, look, it’s raid three. Conditions rule here. Time to go out and get a set of Sinister. And in raid four, we see an area where you need buffs on you constantly. You have Boon Duration gear, right? No? Well, guess what you get to do!

This is also why I don’t think they ever adapt the PvP gear system for raids. Yes, it makes sense in a way, and I personally would be more willing to consider giving them a second look if they did that, but they won’t. Getting you to go out and do things to get additional sets of gear not only adds time, gold, and effort invested into a raid, but it also makes you want more storage for all this gear. Bank Tabs and Bag Slots, available now in the Gem Store!

(No, no tin foil hat here, really. It’s just common sense. These raids will take a lot of dev time to make and adjust, they want the people that do them so invested in them that they won’t just leave the game once they’ve done them. Getting them to invest time and effort (and maybe RL money?) into them is one way of doing that.)

First, they have mentioned that they may want you to switch armor sets in raids. This may be why legendary armor is coming out. It may eventually become more useful to swap armor stats in the middle of a raid. However, if you can just swap armor stats anyway like in pvp than legendary armor looses all of its usefulness.

Second: This is kind of a different topic. I do not think ascended armor should be needed for raids. However, I do think a piece needed to craft legendary armor should only come from 50+ fractals. Why? Because if people try to get legendary armor before ascended than the whole economy for ascended armor will collapse and no one will have it. By having high fractals required, it insures people are still making ascended for agony resistance before legendary.

Xstein.2187:

Second: This is kind of a different topic. I do not think ascended armor should be needed for raids. However, I do think a piece needed to craft legendary armor should only come from 50+ fractals. Why? Because if people try to get legendary armor before ascended than the whole economy for ascended armor will collapse and no one will have it. By having high fractals required, it insures people are still making ascended for agony resistance before legendary.

Is it actually bad if people skip ascended armor? They can already do that with weapons, if they want, but I’ve yet to hear of that being a problem.

Palador.2170:

flog.3485:

You must also understand that there is no gear treadmill in this game, it is all about cosmetics and crafting you gear up to ascended is just an objective that people set themselves (I personally have never bothered to finish the collection of ascended armors and so far I have never felt underpowered, having only one set of ascended for my mesmer)

Rather, there wasn’t one. I suspect soon that we’ll see something that, while not a treadmill, might be still seen as a grind.

Let’s say that the first raid is doable just fine in Berzerker gear. Lots of people have it, no need to grind for more. But the second raid suddenly requires you to take a lot of hits that you can’t avoid, and survive them. Do you have Soldier gear? No? Go earn a set, then come back. Oh, look, it’s raid three. Conditions rule here. Time to go out and get a set of Sinister. And in raid four, we see an area where you need buffs on you constantly. You have Boon Duration gear, right? No? Well, guess what you get to do!

This is also why I don’t think they ever adapt the PvP gear system for raids. Yes, it makes sense in a way, and I personally would be more willing to consider giving them a second look if they did that, but they won’t. Getting you to go out and do things to get additional sets of gear not only adds time, gold, and effort invested into a raid, but it also makes you want more storage for all this gear. Bank Tabs and Bag Slots, available now in the Gem Store!

(No, no tin foil hat here, really. It’s just common sense. These raids will take a lot of dev time to make and adjust, they want the people that do them so invested in them that they won’t just leave the game once they’ve done them. Getting them to invest time and effort (and maybe RL money?) into them is one way of doing that.)

You hit the nail on the head. It’s on players as well. People say they want challenging content but that’s only part of it. They want content they can do that others can’t. I want the challenge. I want a level playing field as well. The way to handle hard content isn’t to scale it up each time you add a new raid therefore making players go out and get better gear each time(gear treadmill). It’s to give everybody uniform-statted gear or a pool of a few different types from which they can pick from.

I would imagine the player that isn’t actually looking for a challenge in raiding by having an equal playing field is also the player that goes back to new-ish player zones in games with open world PvP on their max level character and spews all sorts of vile garbage as they kill people that don’t stand a chance simply because of level.

I am tired of the garbage. We should all be raiding because we want a challenge, we want to hang with people in game, we want legendary armor, and GW2 is fun. It’s not like the Raid-issued armor sets would cover up the armor skin you are wearing.

Iason Evan.3806:

Palador.2170:

flog.3485:

You must also understand that there is no gear treadmill in this game, it is all about cosmetics and crafting you gear up to ascended is just an objective that people set themselves (I personally have never bothered to finish the collection of ascended armors and so far I have never felt underpowered, having only one set of ascended for my mesmer)

Rather, there wasn’t one. I suspect soon that we’ll see something that, while not a treadmill, might be still seen as a grind.

Let’s say that the first raid is doable just fine in Berzerker gear. Lots of people have it, no need to grind for more. But the second raid suddenly requires you to take a lot of hits that you can’t avoid, and survive them. Do you have Soldier gear? No? Go earn a set, then come back. Oh, look, it’s raid three. Conditions rule here. Time to go out and get a set of Sinister. And in raid four, we see an area where you need buffs on you constantly. You have Boon Duration gear, right? No? Well, guess what you get to do!

This is also why I don’t think they ever adapt the PvP gear system for raids. Yes, it makes sense in a way, and I personally would be more willing to consider giving them a second look if they did that, but they won’t. Getting you to go out and do things to get additional sets of gear not only adds time, gold, and effort invested into a raid, but it also makes you want more storage for all this gear. Bank Tabs and Bag Slots, available now in the Gem Store!

(No, no tin foil hat here, really. It’s just common sense. These raids will take a lot of dev time to make and adjust, they want the people that do them so invested in them that they won’t just leave the game once they’ve done them. Getting them to invest time and effort (and maybe RL money?) into them is one way of doing that.)

You hit the nail on the head. It’s on players as well. People say they want challenging content but that’s only part of it. They want content they can do that others can’t. I want the challenge. I want a level playing field as well. The way to handle hard content isn’t to scale it up each time you add a new raid therefore making players go out and get better gear each time(gear treadmill). It’s to give everybody uniform-statted gear or a pool of a few different types from which they can pick from.

I would imagine the player that isn’t actually looking for a challenge in raiding by having an equal playing field is also the player that goes back to new-ish player zones in games with open world PvP on their max level character and spews all sorts of vile garbage as they kill people that don’t stand a chance simply because of level.

I am tired of the garbage. We should all be raiding because we want a challenge, we want to hang with people in game, we want legendary armor, and GW2 is fun. It’s not like the Raid-issued armor sets would cover up the armor skin you are wearing.

why would you want legendary armor if it’s useless because the game is a level playing field anyway?

Yeah no…. please keep your communist crap in commy land

@Palador

I believe the reason people currently still make ascended weapons today instead of going straight to legendaries, or making all legendaries, is because of the huge price difference. If the prices were closer together, I do think it would effect the economy for ascended weapons and therefore you should have to make ascended weapons before legendaries.

Lets look at an example. This is not a perfect example as ascended weapons cannot be sold on the trading post. Therefore, I just added up the highest material costs (For example, I added the cost of Zojja’s Berserker Insignia instead of the cost of the materials to make the insignia). However, this should at least be enough to give you an idea.

The cost of zojja’s blade is roughly 80 gold
The cost of bolt is roughly 3,649 gold
This is a 4461.25% increase in price.

A full set of zojja’s light ascended armor costs roughly 723.85 gold
If we applied the same percent increase in price currently between ascended and legendary swords than light legendary armor would cost about 33,016.61 gold.

If light legionary armor would cost this much to make than I don’t think it would be a problem if you didn’t have to make ascended armor before legendary. However, if the price is lower (or the time needed to make that amount of money), then I do in fact still think you need to make ascended armor before legendary so that it does not greatly effect the economy of ascended armor and the materials associated with them.

Wow, I really was just trolling. GW2 not having a treadmill doesnt mean it doesnt have a certail gear level to reach. What is the meaning of climbing gear tiers if they do not matter in the end game?

You’ll probably be fine with just and ascended weapon + full exotics.

You’re only at a 5% disadvantage. That’s not even nearly the level of progress you’d make on a wing-to-wing basis in a standard raid progress system. In other words, in something like, WoW for instance, if you are the unluckiest raid member and make minimal progress due to RNG, you are at a considerably larger disadvantage than pretty much any level 80 gear discrepancy in GW2.

Numerical disadvantage sounds like it’s going to be more likely tied to masteries than gear.

Mark my words. PUGs will require all ascended. ArenaNet can say all they want that the content isn’t gated but this community will do the gating. Not only will they do the gating but the terrible PUG attitude for raids will be of larger magnitude because legendary gear is involved. How could ArenaNet fix it so that “community gating” doesn’t happen? Put in a Raiding gear mechanic where skill is what is required.

And honestly, a Raid Gear mechanic will give ArenaNet way more control over the difficulty of the content. Tune it too much and you have to be in ascended. Tune it to easy and people that want challenging content will complain.

It’s called “Challenging group content”. It’s not called “Earn your Legendary armor that has identical stats to the ascended armor you are already wearing.”

Yeah, PUGs are going to gate it regardless.

Xstein.2187:

A full set of zojja’s light ascended armor costs roughly 723.85 gold
If we applied the same percent increase in price currently between ascended and legendary swords than light legendary armor would cost about 33,016.61 gold.

If light legionary armor would cost this much to make than I don’t think it would be a problem if you didn’t have to make ascended armor before legendary. However, if the price is lower (or the time needed to make that amount of money), then I do in fact still think you need to make ascended armor before legendary so that it does not greatly effect the economy of ascended armor and the materials associated with them.

I think that the price of Legendary weapons will drop once HoT hits, but I think we all expect that. Still, I think both the weapons AND the armor will be so much more expensive than Ascended that Ascended gear will remain a common stepping-stone for most players.

I’ve noticed that while they’ve said that you can gain the legendary armor through the raids, they’ve NOT said that you’ll get it directly. Or that you won’t have to go outside of the raids as well. I think we’re looking at a long, hard road to make this stuff. And if they put one armor precursor (per armor weight) at the end of each raid, we’re still looking at at least six raids just to get the precursors. That’s going to be a long wait.

So, yeah. I think Ascended gear will stay in a good place, and people will continue to make it.

Ticky.5831:

Yeah, PUGs are going to gate it regardless.

Oh yeah. Human nature, I’m afraid. We’re our own worst enemies at times.

If GW2 was a game where gearing up took a long time or a lot of effort, I would agree with you.
But it’s not.
It’s very easy to get full exotics, and ascended is a fairly marginal upgrade beyond that. Plus, it’s also easy to get ascended jewelry, which account for nearly half your gear slots.

Arewn.2368:

It’s very easy to get full exotics,

You know, I keep seeing people say that, but… is it?

We have new players coming in due to F2P, and perhaps more due to raids. Is there a guide to easily getting the exotic gear they need? If not, should someone (I call “not it”!) make one?

It won’t matter how easy it is to do, if they don’t know that. This is a problem we might want to deal with now, before it bites us.

Ticky.5831:

Yeah, PUGs are going to gate it regardless.

Take away the ability to see AP and Multiple locked stat raid armor and weapon sets that everyone has access to and you eliminate that to a large degree.

Iason Evan.3806:

Ticky.5831:

Yeah, PUGs are going to gate it regardless.

Take away the ability to see AP and Multiple locked stat raid armor and weapon sets that everyone has access to and you eliminate that to a large degree.

omg will having better gear just make them a naturally better player too? i love science

The whole point is that gear and skill are completely unrelated.

This is a great idea.

Most classes play different builds different ways in pvp than in pve.
Let’s take an average PvPer for example. Let’s say their main is a guardian and they have enough tomes to level a char to 80. So they make a thief and use tomes to get to 80. They are really good at PvE thief at that point right?

I’m sure these vaunted raids will be the challenging, high-level PvE content where you are going to fail without actually knowing what you are doing. (Probably not but let’s hope so.) Gear requirement is not there to lock you out of content, it is there to make sure you’ve spent at least some time in that game mode.

PS: With the rate of ascended chest drops, any PvPer just might have enough to equip themselves in high level gear anyhow.

Palador.2170:

You know, I keep seeing people say that, but… is it?

We have new players coming in due to F2P, and perhaps more due to raids. Is there a guide to easily getting the exotic gear they need? If not, should someone (I call “not it”!) make one?

It won’t matter how easy it is to do, if they don’t know that. This is a problem we might want to deal with now, before it bites us.

Crafting and the trading post are both accessible and relatively cheap ways to get them. A full set of armor+weapon(not jewelry) will run you about 30 gold, an amount you’ll probably amass on the way to 80 alone, especially if you sell some of the mats you gained along the way.
WvW tokens, which you get from achievement point rewards (unless they’ve changed it), will net you a few pieces of gear at least.
Karma can buy you a full set in Orr, which you can likely afford by the time you’re 80, or will take a small amount of time to gain running event trains (which still happen to this day). The stats on them may not be ideal but they are exotic and it’s a good start.
And then there’s running dungeons, which give you both tokens for gear as well as gold to buy gear with. A full set of level 80 masterwork (green) gear (weapons, armor, and jewelry) will only cost you a gold or so on the TP, and will suffice to get you started for running some dungeons. Just partner up with some of the other new players, who will be looking to do the same thing, or find a guild like Anet has been encouraging people to do.

I don’t intend for this to be seen as a guide, I’m just providing backup for my assertion that it is pretty quick and easy to get full exotics. You’ll have amassed most of the resources to do the above just by leveling to 80, and many activities will allow you to get gear pretty quickly.
I agree that up to date comprehensive guides are a good idea. That said, you can find a few guides just by googling, and gearing in GW2 is fairly straight forward compared to some games.

Palador.2170:

Arewn.2368:

It’s very easy to get full exotics,

You know, I keep seeing people say that, but… is it?

We have new players coming in due to F2P, and perhaps more due to raids. Is there a guide to easily getting the exotic gear they need? If not, should someone (I call “not it”!) make one?

It won’t matter how easy it is to do, if they don’t know that. This is a problem we might want to deal with now, before it bites us.

If someone’s doesn’t even know how to get exotics or can’t afford exotics, do you honestly think they’ll have the game knowledge and skill to successfully complete raids even if you gave them full legendary equipment?

I’m bumping this because it’s totally relevant to what is going on right now. ArenaNet, You dropped the ball.

This is not the necromancer specialization we deserve.