There is not gate. You can go in and do if in Mastercrafted gear if you want to. You probably won’t win it without at least Exotic, but it is not actually gated. Something being gated would suggest that you NEEDED the gear in order to even access the content.
Alright, just heard about the update Anet made to the post.
This is competitive content. If you want to be a part of it, put in the time to get the gear. Do not ask ANet to push it towards casual. While the armor takes a while, ascended is not even that hard to get.
Besides, my understanding is they updated the post to say that it’s only recommended for raids, not required. It is only 5%, after all.
It is if you don’t care to run Fractals, which is why I’m assuming it’s so easy to get as many people keep saying.
And its not about catering to “Casuals” it about accessibility getting more people to the content faster. Instead of only aiming at the people at the top. I said I didn’t want it to easier for the exotic people than it is for the ascended people. Just easier to get into the door for other people. I mean, I’m a pretty experience raider in WoW and would like to try it because there is actually now a reason to have other roles in a group than just the Zerkers gear the community says you need in dungeons or fractals.
The main carrot is the skins and legendary armor drops (aka the stuff needed for legendary armor progression).
Take that away on a lower difficulty mode, and people will rage and abandon the easier content.
I do agree though, it would be nice to have some sort of solo story availability to see the story from raids unravel. Then again, there always is youtube to watch this stuff on once it got cleared.
That’s the thing though having the ability to change the stats of any piece of exotic on the fly is still pretty powerful, and it doesn’t need to look as cool legendary gear it just has to be functional.
Also I’m not saying to make the content easier just scale to be just as difficult as the Ascended Mode without needing ascended gear.
I find it so strange that so many GW2 veterans are so against making things more accessible for everyone while not changing the actual difficulty across the board. Not talking about you in particular Cyninja, just in general.
I mean, really seems rather elitist to say that, Well because you don’t play enough to freaking bad. Super easy solution, Tier raiding so there is an Ascended mode and an Exotic mode. I mean it’s almost literally a numbers tweak since all exotic gear is the same, just like ascended gear. They don’t have to change the raid mechanics, they can still make ball busting hard, just make it available to more people. They can also change the loot level to be a tier lower in gear and the loot appearance so the ascended people can still feel “Special”. Let the appearance of legendary gear be the carrot on the stick to get the ascended gear for raiding.
When the Raiding content they are giving us is something far more interesting and mechanically complex, than the now “Berserker Meta” Dungeons/Fractals, and benefits from the NEED to have a mixed raid group IE. Tank, Support, and Condi dmg. Lowering the barrier of entry for those who are coming from other games (WoW) and just want to raid with friends and nothing else is not a bad thing, give them options. Instead of having them spend ten years running around the world farming for ascended pieces and legendaries, That should be Optional.
