Guild Wars 2

florence.1674:

The problem comes with a game that tries to be all-inclusive(hearts, monster steal killing, group events) and suddenly does an about face to become exclusive.

Most people don’t have the time, will or resources to re-kit themselves like the hardcore grinders. Just look at Arah throughout the lifespan of GW2. The popularity of Arah would have given everyone a distinct clue to how popular the raids will be.

Arah is probably the most popular dungeon besides CoF because it’s, well, CoF.

Xillllix.3485:

Everyone I know already gave up on it.

No skin can be worth spending 2 hours to find a good party and mashing your face against a wall 20 times for an hour or 2 until people start quitting.

Anet really lost focus and just tried imitating other mmos. Truth is it’s a huge disappointment, it’s just been made hard to hide the tiny amount of endgame instanced content HoT came with.

???

If you are ones to quickly give up, raids are not for you. This game lacked hard endgame content, this is a step in the right direction. Running into a wall is part of what makes raids great, because you have to improve yourself and improve as a squad to overcome whatever they put in front of you.
I agree though that HoT should’ve gotten a new dungeon (lol) and a few new fractals on release. They even had some stuff to pick from when looking at LS1-content.

Thaddeus.4891:

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

What I’m talking about are groups inside guilds which completely shut themselves in, so to say, don’t let anyone else in and rather not raid at all than filling up the missing slots with other guild members. I’m saying this because I heard of cases where this actually happens (not saying this is the exact same in OP’s guild, but it is a possibility)

True but at the same time for now we only take other people because we don’t any choice. If we could take the same group of 10 players every night we would do so. But one have kids, the other have plan one night, the other just don’t show up, etc, etc. So we end up taking other people to fill out place. And even in that situation, I bet that a lot of people in my guild would say thing like ‘’oh it’s bad, they have a close core group of players and everybody else can’t raid’’. We don’t ask in the guild chat every time since we still often have out 10 man group and I’ll ask specific people that already know the fight first of course.

So I don’t see anything wrong with a exclusive group of 10-15 players that can always fill out the raid by themselves with people that know the fight and with whom they like to play. It’s sad for people outside of their group, but nothing is denying them the right to form another squad.

Just look at this the other way around. Would it be fair for a guy that worked hard on a boss with a group of guildmate and the next day they just telling him oh btw we want to include everybody so we gonna take someone else today? If he’s late or wasn’t suppose to be there I understand, but otherwise?

Yeah no you’re right, I can understand that. Of course it would also be unfair for people who progress through raids to suddenly be excluded because of someone else said “+” faster.
You’re letting other people in however when you have to fill spots, there’s cases where groups don’t even do that as I said.
Can’t say we’re not trying to keep core groups for now since it helps a lot with learning, but others in the guild shouldn’t be excluded by default and I don’t think it’s too difficult to set up a group for one day a week for people who usually can’t join, but still get to see the raid this way. Especially considering people who killed the bosses still get shards for helping out. That’s just me, though.

Thaddeus.4891:

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

No you’re not brothers, but why should a guild with more than 10 people split up into small groups which don’t let anyone else in? That’s not the point of a guild. Also, yeah it’s surely a great guild if it excludes people from joining at first and then exclude them because they didn’t practice the content they weren’t allowed to play in the first place. For me, that would a reason to abandon ship/guild/whatever.

Maybe because the raid is 10 players only? I mean, I think you are quick to judge tbh because you would probably call my guild bad for doing about the same thing.

We don’t want to exclude people but at the end of the day it’s a 10 players raid and we only need 10 players. When we need more people I ask in the guild and the person that answer first and have the kind of build we need have the place. And when I’m talking about kind of build we need, we gonna take about anything, but we are not gonna take a second tank or second healer.

Why would it be my responsibility as guild leader to make sure everybody have their group. Yes a couple of players in each guild will be left behind, but we can’t be everywhere doing raid every day to satisfy everybody. I’m gonna do my very best, but I need to master the content before I start to help as much guildmate as I can.

No why, your way of doing it is fine. You’re giving everyone an equal chance – whoever says they’re in first gets a spot. It makes no sense to take five healers into your group and people should be able to take on multiple roles to increase their chance to get taken into raids, and if it’s just two roles they can play. If someone plays a build which squads only need one (at best) of and they don’t have anything else to offer then they’re out of luck and should try to be able to do another role.
What I’m talking about are groups inside guilds which completely shut themselves in, so to say, don’t let anyone else in and rather not raid at all than filling up the missing slots with other guild members. I’m saying this because I heard of cases where this actually happens (not saying this is the exact same in OP’s guild, but it is a possibility)

posthumecaver.6473:

This sort of discussion mades me really sad….

I waited 3 years and when I actually heard there will be role for healers and tanks in the raids I lost some tears of joy, that I can use my Guardian for the role it is designed for.

Can Guardian be DPS, sure but it was never the best DPS, it was not designed to be one.

It was designed for support, healing and tanking, now look where are we now. In a discussion of tanking/healing for raids, nobody even mentions the name of a guardian and forget about DPS at all, we need Revenants, we need Tempest, we need Chronomancers, we need Druids, we need PS Warriors….

Still nobody needs Guardians, men….

Guardian was never created for traditional healing or tanking. If it gives you any comfort though, we had a Dragonhunter with us yesterday and that went reasonably well.

Ktk.5107:

We don’t know all that from his post, we just know the main group was full before he could get in, and there is not enough people to fill 2nd group.

Yes; I’m just saying if what I described is the case, he would be better off doing what I recommended, imo of course.

Ktk.5107:

You’re guildmates, not brothers, if someone is the only one far behind, you replace him, you don’t invest hours of your personal play time to get him to be at the same level as anyone else.

But it doesn’t even seem to be the situation of OP, in his case it look like he’s in a bigger than 10 guild and didn’t manage to secure a spot in the raid. If you’re more than 10, someone will be out of it, you can’t help it, the guild got nothing to do with it.

No you’re not brothers, but why should a guild with more than 10 people split up into small groups which don’t let anyone else in? That’s not the point of a guild. Also, yeah it’s surely a great guild if it excludes people from joining at first and then exclude them because they didn’t practice the content they weren’t allowed to play in the first place. For me, that would a reason to abandon ship/guild/whatever.

Mortifer.2946:

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

What does that have to do with elitism…?

He basically said raids are not hard enough because PUG people can get it too… So he kitten ed even harder content so the ones who beat it can feel special, can feel….elite

He wants a challenge, which is completely fine. He also said that said harder encounters should be in a seperate difficulty without touching the “original” difficulty we have right now, instead of just ramping it up.
The raids in their current state are completely doable by everyone who is willing to improve and invest time into it. It’s great that we finally have content you can’t just roll through.

Ktk.5107:

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

That guild sounds like its bad, or at least the people are for excluding others from raiding.
Find yourself some friends, a new guild or something and enjoy those raids.
Alternative, start up the second group, gather as many as you can and then try to fill up with your/other squad-member’s friends; maybe even people from here or reddit (can’t believe I’m saying this). The options are there, use them.

Maybe he is really, really bad ?

Well I wasn’t talking about player skill here; even if he is, as guild they should strive to improve together. If he is willing to do so, they should at least give him a chance and let him actually practice raid content. If he never gets to play it, he can’t get better at it.

That guild sounds like its bad, or at least the people are for excluding others from raiding.
Find yourself some friends, a new guild or something and enjoy those raids.
Alternative, start up the second group, gather as many as you can and then try to fill up with your/other squad-member’s friends; maybe even people from here or reddit (can’t believe I’m saying this). The options are there, use them.

What does that have to do with elitism…?

harold.3526:

AWACS.6537:

yet we have a bandit with a flamethrower

This is the boss of the first wing of the first raid, the real boss will be on the third wing.

Doesn’t change the fact that all dragons were pushovers. lol
It’s not gonna change though as they’re mostly related to the story which is supposed to be completeable by anyone.

Well there’s the issue of you taking SR over BM, which leaves you and your squad without vampiric aura and reduced well cd. Vuln should also be capped, then there’s no Decimate Defenses, you focus too much on shroud since most of the hardest hitting skills are outside of it, your party should give you enough might + scholar runes are better for Necro.

spoj.9672:

You need 2 to spike. The whole point of it is to have 2 so you can duplicate stacks. With just one you only have a mediocre condi class with good condi cleave on trash (Not important enough to warrant taking especially when power tank reaper can do the same job with grasping darkness and wells).

If that response was directed at me, I meant additionally to the Reapers.

Should end up having nice numbers with a few condi warriors mixed in, though those spikes might not last too long.

Healers aren’t required; however, if your squad is more comfortable with having one and achieves better clear rates due to this (or whatever reason really), go with Druid imo. Reason is they’re offering various DPS increases only they can bring, namely Spirits (they are bugged right now though and prefer to apply their effects to other summons), Spotter, Grace of the Land and probably other things I’m forgetting about.

Iris Ng.9845:

Incoming price hike of Maguuma Burl D;

Don’t think they’re going to rise a lot in price.

Iris Ng.9845:

Chrono tank is a thing now? Props to Fay (or Pyro) to herald that notion.

Yeah Chrono tank works due to all the blocks/evades they have access to. It’s pretty good from what I’ve seen, but we didn’t try it out yet.

Berserker Build?

Spite top top mid
Blood Magic mid bot top
Reaper mid bot mid

If you’re looking for the most dps. Weapons are D/F and GS. Heal is usually Blood Fiend, though other heals are viable too, swap around if necessary. Utilities are usually Signet of Spite/Well of Corruption and Suffering, if you have to swap Signet is generally the first thing I drop. Elite would be Flesh Golem in longer fights imo (due to some bonus dps, being able to take some hits and charge), Lich in shorter boss fights/when minions would cause issues because it’s pretty high dps.

As usual, play around with the traits and skills and you’ll get a feel when to use what.

Animism.6849:

Daddicus.6128:

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

Daddicus.6128:

I tried to get into Arah solo, but I don’t see how. Is there a trick to it? (I want to see what one of the other posters meant by “exactly like Arah”.)

Thanks!

Arah explorable solo is possible besides path 1 (and maybe path 4 for some classes?). Of course it’s much more difficult and requires a lot of knowledge on your end, but it’s certainly doable. Path 2 is the one most people solo.

Thanks for the info!

Actually, I was confused by someone’s earlier post. S/he was talking about the storyline mission being made solo, not the dungeon itself. S/he was proposing to create a “soloable for casual players” of the 8 dungeons. I just mixed them up.

It’s path 3 that most people solo. Path 2 would require exploits at the end. Path 1 requires multiple players for one event. Path 4 is impossible to solo without class changes/exploits -> dwayna. (i,e you need someone to wait in the instance to swap class)

Why… why would you need exploits for p2? Please elaborate because this is not true.

It’s a side story probably and if you want to read up on it without doing raids, you will probably soon find it on the wiki/other pages.

4 people keep pulling and keep trash blinded/nuke them, one person runs towards the other side, preferably someone who can blind with the hammer equipped. If that’s not possible, two people run over there while three stay.
Should be doable without much difficulties.

Daddicus.6128:

I tried to get into Arah solo, but I don’t see how. Is there a trick to it? (I want to see what one of the other posters meant by “exactly like Arah”.)

Thanks!

Arah explorable solo is possible besides path 1 (and maybe path 4 for some classes?). Of course it’s much more difficult and requires a lot of knowledge on your end, but it’s certainly doable. Path 2 is the one most people solo.

CIndeR.3479:

ironfrodo.7625:

Why are you requesting soloable Dungeons while nearly all of emm are soloable

They are soloable by very elite highly-geared individuals. Yes they CAN be solo’ed and I applaud them for that. But those of us who will never get to that skill/gear level will never be able to do it.
I want to preface this by emphasizing that I am not asking them to make dungeons easier. I am asking for a solo mode in exactly the same way they did for Arah personal story. Thos people who can solo group dungeons will still be able to be just as proud because nothing on that side will have changed. All we are asking for here is a Solo mode in addition to whats already there.

Getting exotic gear with basic sigils/runes isn’t exactly costly and something you should have by now anyway.
Skill/knowledge of the encounter is something you learn by trying. If you go in there with an attitude of “I’m never going to do it anyway” then no, you certainly won’t make it. Pick a path that is soloable and play around a bit. Yes, you are likely to get wrecked by some bosses, but the only thing you’d be losing is time, while at the same time you gain more knowledge of your class and improve yourself, which doesn’t only help in that dungeon path, but everywhere in the game. Everyone can solo dungeons/fractals if they have the patience and are willing to do so. If you’re not, well that’s a shame.
I don’t think there’s ever going to be a solo mode anyway. ANet dropped dungeons into their grave and buried them, they’re not going to dig them up for anything, maybe bugfixes if something major breaks, but lol.

Reaper isn’t bad either.
The issue is that you’re forced to stack certain classes for the things they can bring due to 5-player limit on buffs. At the same time, expanding that limit to 10 players for raids would heavily shift balance and means you could technically have all important special buffs up.

DavyMcB.1603:

I can’t find a party for 51+ fractal because my char has lv50 so I am forever forbidden from using 51+ tier LFG.

Why is this silly restriction here in the first place?

…so that you actually progress through scales instead of skipping them? You could just, idk, clear scale 50 and suddenly you have access to 51-75 lfg.

You can go in with your normal DPS build, maybe with minor changes and some toughness food while in Berserker gear.
If you want to just go completely faceroll on it, you can use a BM/DM/Reaper build and basically never die, ever.

“The mechanics are easy”
“we can’t clear it in 8min”

If you can’t clear it in the very generous timeframe of 8min, then the mechanics clearly aren’t easy enough for you.

Warlord.9074:

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

Warlord.9074:

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

Walhalla.5473:

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

Warlord.9074:

The only pug groups that are going to complete it are ones that consist of players who are willing to use voice coms, gear checks, and comp checks. Pug must know how to dodge and play their class. Still it will be hard because it only takes one person to make a mistake and wipe the whole party. Some mistakes are recoverable but the encounter with the Vale guardian at least is riddled with RNG, and you can wipe just because of RNG.

What RNG is there in the encounter? Besides the teleport location being random if you happen to get hit.

The only amount of RNG is the Position you are getting ported and the Position of the Lightning Strike, but this is something you can control by standing in one Corner of the Area. So while there is RNG in this Fight, it is so small you don’t recognize it as RNG.

Exactly, which is why I’m wondering why he thinks there’s a lot of RNG in the encounter when most of it is a completely controlled environment, either by players or the game.

sometimes the boss will spawn teleports on the green portal. The green portal will always go to the zone the boss is in. However the boss sometimes has bad pathing regardless if only one person has the aggro where its not aggrooing anyone else it just doesn’t move in a strait line. Also all of the seekers are RNG sometimes he will spawn all the red orbs in bad places that can wipe players. The red orbs become more of an issue in phase 5.

The teleport AoEs spawn on the entities closest to him, this includes pets. That is hardly RNG.
Aggro being messy isn’t RNG, that’s just an issue which should be looked into.
Seeker-spawns aren’t exactly RNG, afaik they always spawn close towards the pillars – in the last phase, the fourth seeker always spawns in the center where you originally aggro the Vale Guardian. Despite this, if you get a bad seeker spawn you just have to counteract with CC.

Not entirely true since it spawns multiple teleports and a few go random locations. The green circle while the zone is not random its location in the zone is random. These things can collide onto a single point. I have seen it many times now.

I have yet to see teleports spawn randomly in places/on players further away. Not saying you’re necessarily wrong, just that what I’ve seen doesn’t overlap with what you experienced. Of course, we had it happen that we had teleports on top of the green AoE too, but that was usually because we didn’t have enough players close to the boss.

spoj.9672:

I used full dps traits this time. With toughness food again yeah. So top/top/mid, mid/bot/top and mid/bot/mid. Double wells and signet of spite.

The pressure is higher but you can dodge most of his attacks and the enrage timer is a lot more strict. So dps made sense given i didnt actually need rise or any extra sustain over blood and the occasional dagger 2 while pulling to the edge.

Also Grasping darkness is amazingly good on the spirits when pulling him to the wall.

I see, I’ll keep that in mind when we finally proceed through the raid. Thanks.

spoj.9672:

Gorseval down with me on reaper dps tank. :P

Power again.

I assume you used top top mid, mid bot top and top bot top (or mid)? For Spite/BM/Reaper respectively. Along with Toughness food, of course.

Oh and of course grats on the kill!

Warlord.9074:

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

Walhalla.5473:

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

Warlord.9074:

The only pug groups that are going to complete it are ones that consist of players who are willing to use voice coms, gear checks, and comp checks. Pug must know how to dodge and play their class. Still it will be hard because it only takes one person to make a mistake and wipe the whole party. Some mistakes are recoverable but the encounter with the Vale guardian at least is riddled with RNG, and you can wipe just because of RNG.

What RNG is there in the encounter? Besides the teleport location being random if you happen to get hit.

The only amount of RNG is the Position you are getting ported and the Position of the Lightning Strike, but this is something you can control by standing in one Corner of the Area. So while there is RNG in this Fight, it is so small you don’t recognize it as RNG.

Exactly, which is why I’m wondering why he thinks there’s a lot of RNG in the encounter when most of it is a completely controlled environment, either by players or the game.

sometimes the boss will spawn teleports on the green portal. The green portal will always go to the zone the boss is in. However the boss sometimes has bad pathing regardless if only one person has the aggro where its not aggrooing anyone else it just doesn’t move in a strait line. Also all of the seekers are RNG sometimes he will spawn all the red orbs in bad places that can wipe players. The red orbs become more of an issue in phase 5.

The teleport AoEs spawn on the entities closest to him, this includes pets. That is hardly RNG.
Aggro being messy isn’t RNG, that’s just an issue which should be looked into.
Seeker-spawns aren’t exactly RNG, afaik they always spawn close towards the pillars – in the last phase, the fourth seeker always spawns in the center where you originally aggro the Vale Guardian. Despite this, if you get a bad seeker spawn you just have to counteract with CC.

Walhalla.5473:

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

Warlord.9074:

The only pug groups that are going to complete it are ones that consist of players who are willing to use voice coms, gear checks, and comp checks. Pug must know how to dodge and play their class. Still it will be hard because it only takes one person to make a mistake and wipe the whole party. Some mistakes are recoverable but the encounter with the Vale guardian at least is riddled with RNG, and you can wipe just because of RNG.

What RNG is there in the encounter? Besides the teleport location being random if you happen to get hit.

The only amount of RNG is the Position you are getting ported and the Position of the Lightning Strike, but this is something you can control by standing in one Corner of the Area. So while there is RNG in this Fight, it is so small you don’t recognize it as RNG.

Exactly, which is why I’m wondering why he thinks there’s a lot of RNG in the encounter when most of it is a completely controlled environment, either by players or the game.

spoj.9672:

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

It’s only based on toughness.
However, the Vale Guardian seems to prioritize people who are reviving others even more.

Nope. Thats simply because of the warriors ressing. Which they shouldnt be unless absolutely necessary.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Determined_Revival

Hmm could’ve sworn non-warriors in my group rezzed and we had the same problem. Then again, I was quite tired on that day.

Lopez.7369:

Do people think death magic is worth giving up spite as a tank? It seems like the survivability isn’t really necessary, but the DPS definitely is.

Nah it’s not really worth it tbh.

Warlord.9074:

The only pug groups that are going to complete it are ones that consist of players who are willing to use voice coms, gear checks, and comp checks. Pug must know how to dodge and play their class. Still it will be hard because it only takes one person to make a mistake and wipe the whole party. Some mistakes are recoverable but the encounter with the Vale guardian at least is riddled with RNG, and you can wipe just because of RNG.

What RNG is there in the encounter? Besides the teleport location being random if you happen to get hit.

Zenith.7301:

Well, in 20 hours of practice Snow Crow beat Wing 1, so I don’t get how somehow that isn’t taken as a damaging statement to the reputation of raids considering that to clear a raid in any other MMO it has taken weeks to months. And those are figures not factoring gearing up, as the top guilds always clear the raids undergeared.

It’s no different from what DnT claimed in terms of speed. And quite frankly who cares how long it took to clear the first wing if they found it fun.

I still think penalizing and shaming an entire guild full of members for the lack of tact of a single guy and his tweets was beyond overkill.

Top guilds always clear the raids undergeared…? Mind explaining? This might apply to other games, but in GW2, where the highest tier of gear has been ascended for years and will always be, that doesn’t exactly apply. Also, this is one out of three wings, not the full raid.

Cletus Van Damme.2795:

I already explained why they will abandon the raids, lack of players.

And I explained to you that ANet never expected to have raids run by a lot of players, but instead by a small, dedicated hardcore playerbase. You’re assuming that ANet wants tons of players in raids, which is not true.

As for Xillllix: Yes we paid the same and we all have access to the same content. That parts of this new content are more difficult doesn’t matter, instead of demanding it to be made easier you could just take the time and slowly improve over the matter of days/weeks with your guild, depending on how much time you guys have and are willing to spend on raids. That you have to figure mechanics out yourself is GREAT and it’s much better than a text popping up telling you do exactly this or that will happen. Games back then didn’t have that either and it was so much figuring it out. If that’s not for you, I’m genuinely sorry.

Neko.9021:

For raids:

Tempest is a worse healer and doesn’t give damage modifiers. There is no debate here. Druid is a better healer if looking for someone for the heal role.

The nerf to AF today is irrelevant for raids. There’s so much ambient damage that the Druid should have 0 problems building up AF.

Honestly, as an Ele main, it kinda annoys me to see people trying to promote a Tempest healer, when Druid is so much better as a healer. Ele is a fine class and has its role to fill, but that role is NOT main healer.

Agreed with this, I see no reason why to use a tempest healer over a druid healer.

Cletus Van Damme.2795:

Anything that has a low player population is either killed off or abandoned, ANET are very metrics focused developer which is a smart way to do things.

ANet hired raid devs with the intention to create a raid that is brutally difficult for most players and will stay a decent challenge even months in. They achieved exactly this. Why again do you think they’re going to abandon raids if it’s working as intended for them?

Why are people so certain that there won’t be any more raids if they don’t get easy in any way? I don’t understand it, I really don’t.

Sigmoid.7082:

spoj.9672:

Except its not. With a perfect rotation the difference between blood and SR is about 1%. But thats assuming perfect lifeforce management and almost 100% RS auto between other skills. Which is impossible.

A GS dagger rotation on the otherhand is very realistic and achieves about the same max potential dps. So more real dps.

Still unsure. Show me your numbers so I can check how you have done things. I don’t see how the low siphons and extra bit of CDR beat the 5% damage boost.

Spoj has a very nice spreadsheet here, might be helpful for you already.

Raids have a dedicated, newly hired developer team and Anet + the newly hired team were aware of this from the beginning and wanted it to be like this. Why would you think they’re going to can raids if it’s playing out like they anticipated?
Also, it’s not even a week since raids are out, give it some godkitten time to get strats or even kills down, why do people want everything handed to them on a silver platter?

Or you find a guild which runs raids with you but accepts that you’re only there for raids – There are also lfg-guilds for people who want to raid but their own guild/friends aren’t up for it/you’re lacking people etc.

If you really want to run raids, you can find a way without giving up your friends/guild. There is also enough guilds with focus on one gametype which are friendly and don’t mind you repping other guilds for wvw/pvp activities, this might be more to your liking instead of going into one large guild which covers all.

Sigmoid.7082:

spoj.9672:

Pure dps
spite top-top-mid
blood mid-bottom-top
reaper mid-bottom-mid

For pure DPS his isn’t entirely true.

What would you change? If you’re looking for raw dps, that would probably the best choice. CDR on Wells is strong and Vampiric Presence boosts party DPS slightly. SR doesn’t exactly offer much for damage boosts. RS-AA is lower DPS even with Reaper’s Onslaught, though I just like the trait.

For PvE?

Spite top-mid-mid
Blood Magic mid-bottom-top
Reaper mid-bottom-bottom

Joshua.1920:

PhaNTaSiZe.4215:

That’s the thing, not all guilds are 50+ ppl strong… I play with a group of 4-5 ppl that play regularly, so am I just boned then? IMO thats kittening bullkitten.

Exactly. I’ve never experienced this kind of treatment from anything in the game. All content has been designed for 5 or less people. So my group is 4 friends and me. That is our guild. Suddenly I am expected to have 10 close friends out of nowhere and amazing communication with them all.

…out of nowhere? It has been known for a long time raids will require 10 people.

rotten.9753:

nearlight.3064:

Yeah from what I’ve read people are looking at tank ideas that can have good sustain needed for tanking while taking the minimum amount of non zerk gear (so a few cav trinkets or toughness food to get aggro) which is why people are suggesting reaper and dragonhunter for that. Reaper especially because in shroud makes survivng and soaking up damage so easy while you still are in mostly zerk so you can still deal a lot of damage.

I meant that for the second boss you will not take a tank like ever. There’s no clear aggro mechanic and even if there was such, the enrage timer is so short you cannot allow yourself to reduce your damage potential.

What a great thing we can retrait and swap gear between encounters if necessary.
I agree though, for the first encounter you should take a class that doesn’t give up much if you’re going for a tank.

The reason this is so confusing is because Anet had no plans on creating a raidfinder. People are simply using the LFG for it because there is no other way.

I strongly recommend to play this kind of content with a guild or friends though.

Why are you in multiple guilds that aren’t “finder-guilds”/bank guilds/guilds with focus on different types of content in the first place?

Anyway, of course you try to keep a consistent group for raids because you have to learn this and if you constantly swap out people, there’s going to be huge discrepancies in terms of knowledge. Also, I’d assume most guilds have enough members to get two raid squads going, or at least can fill up with friends of members.