Guild Wars 2

Amaranthe.3578:

ita not wanted in raids,still solid and strong everywhere else

Workable in other areas? Sure. Solid and strong? Not really.

You can use a Revenant in non-raiding content sure. But that’s not because it’s a good class worth taking. That’s just because the content is easy enough that having a handicap of having a Revenant on your team isn’t really a big issue.

Nike’s right, most barriers to raiding are self-imposed.

Whenever I see someone on these forums or reddit or whatever say why they don’t raid, it’s never about “I can’t”, it’s about “I don’t want to”.

“I don’t want to make friends and join a static group, I don’t want to join a guild, and pugs won’t take me without experience.”

They don’t want to join a guild or join/form a static raid group with friends. So they limit themselves to random pug groups and when those groups either fail miserably or won’t accept them, they give up.

“I don’t want to run the meta, I want to use my own build”

You get 6 character slots and then I think 1 more when you buy HoT. Would it REALLY kill you to make one character that uses a meta build? You could make a chrono or druid with a meta build and all but a few raiding guilds would love to have you, since chronos and druids are usually in short supply. You can then use the other 5/6 slots to make all the full Carrion eles and full Minstrel necros you want. Hell you don’t even need a separate character. You can easily get one set of berserker gear with scholar runes for your full Carrion ele and swap gear/traits when doing raids then swap back when you’re done. Getting a set of gear is very easy and swapping traits takes 20 seconds. Running a meta build doesn’t require you to sign a blood pact that from that point forwards you will only run meta builds no matter what you’re doing.

Problem is people are used to clearing content by putting no effort into their build or their gameplay, joining a random group from the LFG tool, going into the instance and eventually clearing it by bashing their faces into their keyboard until they manage a win. So as soon as they run into content that can’t be done like that, they just give up and start coming up with reasons why can’t do it. But at the end of the day every barrier to raiding is merely a self-imposed barrier.

You should absolutely use zerk (unless you’re going with a condi build, then you should go Vipers).

The problem with using other gear, especially gear that focuses more on durability, is that it can teach you bad habits, or fail to teach you good habits. When you use Berserker gear, you learn thing like damage mitigation through things like blind, distort, aegis, etc. You learn how to position better and you learn to dodge crucial attacks and just work better in a group. Using tank stats causes you to miss out on those lessons.

Oldirtbeard.9834:

NikeEU.7690:

Astralporing.1957:

NikeEU.7690:

So we just have a different perspective on where to draw the line for “sorry you aren’t skilled enough.” I think the current raids are easy enough already, you don’t.

Pretty much this. Though i also think you may be simply unaware how high the current bar is (as you see it only in relation to yourself and your friends).

To be fair, I see “casual non raiders” who set records in adventures or jumping puzzles who have incredible micro skills that I definitely don’t have.

The difference between hardcore raiders isn’t mechanical skill or class knowledge it’s simply a willingness an ability to commit time and effort. Additionally there is a social component unless you are 100% pugging and a lot of people in video games are so socially maladjusted tgat they can’t handle being on TeamSpeak with other people.

If “my friends” have any particular skill tgat others don’t it’s willingness to fail repeatedly and willingness to make friends outside their comfort zone. Neither of those really have much to do with the actual playing of video games. Which is why, incidentally, I usually say that most barriers to raiding are self imposed.

Some people like me work odd shifts. I work Overnights in the US and my schedule changes from week to week, at least WoW can accommodate this with tiered raiding since I will never be able to be part of a static group.

Imagine how hard it must be for people that have personal obligations to spouses or kids?

There’s people who play all over the world. When I first started playing GW2 I played almost exclusively WvW. I was in a guild with a very large number of members playing from Australia because I worked night shifts.

When you go down in raids then usually it’s because of bad positioning, failing a mechanic, or not dodging crucial attacks. In those situations the extra durability from Marauder’s armor isn’t going to make much of a difference. If you’re doing say, no updraft Gorseval and you fail to position properly during his break bar phase and don’t get heals, you’re gonna go down whether you’re wearing Berserkers or Marauders. If you fail to dodge Shake against Slothasor, you’re going to go down regardless of your armor. There’s only a couple fights that I can think of where having a bit more health would be useful, really just Matthias.

Before HoT fire/air/water was the standard ele build before tempest replaced water. It was mainly used so that you would switch to water when you used Ice Bow to increase the damage on Ice Bow 3 and 4.

Vez.7418:

I feel like I’m on the same boat. I’ve just started playing a couple of months ago (played a bit a few years back but there was no raid content back then).

Pretty much did all the content progression I could, got all masteries, explored all open world content/achievements, full ascendant gear, spec as per meta and over the last two weeks been trying to find a way into raiding (checking LFG, forums, any eventual recruitment shouts) but it seems I’ve hit a wall.

I have 0 LI and I have no clue how to get any since I can’t find any groups/guilds that do not request someone that raided already (in GW2) to some extent.

I know I’m coming late to the party, but are new players locked out completely from raiding content?

I saw a couple of posts about groups that accept new players like myself, if you know any, would you be so kind as to provide some more information I can look into (EU servers)?

Glael.7643:

Well what I think is more of a community problem is that if you want to raid but you got a low amount of Li you can’t get into a group nor guild. I really want to raid properly but I only got 5 Li and it doesn’t really matter from which boss I got them since people won’t let you even join for vg without having 100 + Li. (even if you got your low amount from said boss or the boss you want to do).
Is it just me or is this just ridicoulus? For me it is like saying : you can’t join on ascalon dungeon without having around 1k dungeon marks.
How can I get raid experience if I can’t join a group or a guild because I lack on Li?
Ofc the more Li you got the more experienced you are but tbh it gives new-ish raiders 0 chances to get into it :/
Also I think it would make it easier if the Li would show from which boss you got them.
Yes I might be complaining but for me it also kinda destroys the community :/

There’s at least 5 EU guilds that are recruiting that don’t specify prior raid experience as a requirement on the first 2 pages alone.

Depends on what your goals are and what you want to do in-game. If you want to do more higher level fractals and possibly raids, I would start working on getting a full set of ascended gear once you know what stats you want.

Vinceman.4572:

BeLZedaR.4790:

T4s in current iteration are too easy for me personally

Stop running in a static group and pug them. The challenge is much bigger than to rush through it with friends. In some of these runs you have to carry others very hard.
Second option is to play raids. Fractals are in the right spot now and the real challenge are raids with challenge mode.
I don’t think we need more harder stuff in fractals besides 3-4- challenge modes like in level 100.

But then the isue is still there of fractals themselves not offering any real difficulty. Sure in a pug you have difficulty but that’s because you’re running with a full Carrion ele not because the content itself is difficult.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Because cats are superior creatures. You had to ask!?

~ Posted by Franklin, Gaile’s pet

I demand a refund.

Would be a lot of developer resources for something only one class can take advantage of.

There’s plenty of guilds that recruit people for raids without LI requirements.

zealex.9410:

Im ok with not having gear check but what about boon uptime as well as what if theres that 1 bad tempest or whatever that has really bad dps and drags the group if doesnt want to improve am i or anyone allowed to kick him from the group?

You can kick anyone for anything at anytime.

NikeEU.7690:

People should realize the mechanics of the fight are intrinsically linked to dps. How many green circles are vg does a speed clear guild have to deal with? 5 or 6. How many does a mediocre pug have to deal with? 8 or 9? 10?? How many orbs does a speed clear guild have to clear at gorseval? 1 or 2? How many does a mediocre pug have yo clear? 5 or 6?

How long do the healers in a speed clear guild have to go into turbo heal mode when sabetha and karde are alive together? 20 seconds? How long does a mediocre pug have yo deal with that pressure? 45 seconds?

How many shoots does a speed clear guild have to eat to kill slothadaur? 3. How many does a mediocre pug have to eat? 5 or 6?

I could go on. But you get the point hopefully. Good dps makes the mechanics easier. Raiding 101.

I don’t disagree with what you’re saying. But you’re saying good DPS makes mechanics easier, and while you’re correct, the reverse is also true, that being proficient with the mechanics makes good DPS easier.

It’s one thing to get the ideal rotation down perfectly against a training golem, it’s another to have an optimal dps rotation when you’re also focusing on moving to correct areas, throwing bombs, clearing orbs/bloodstone shards, dodging things like gorseval ground pound or sloth shake, etc. Unfamiliarity with these mechanics is what cause people to mess up their dps rotations, stop moving for seaweed salad buff, get stuck in the wrong attunement on ele, not maintain quickness/grace of the land, etc. Knowing perfect rotations against golems is one thing, but if you’re unfamiliar with mechanics that’s when you have issues like “oh kitten I’m stuck in air attunement on ele with no conjure weapons up”.

Oldirtbeard.9834:

Sectry.1236:

Oldirtbeard.9834:

Sectry.1236:

Oldirtbeard.9834:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Shikaru’s advice is apt: look for groups that meet your needs. Or start your own. Be willing to adapt; be flexible early before asking for permission to do your own thing.

---

The issue has never been what builds can succeed at raids. Anyone who plays this game enough knows that mechanics and coordination are more important than builds. For pick-up-groups with unknown experience/expertise or any others struggling to succeed, it’s important to eliminate as many potential obstacles as possible.

Among the biggest impediments to success are:

• Unwillingness to adapt to circumstances — people are looking for flexibility.
• Unwillingness to follow the leader’s plan. Raids need everyone pulling together.
• Difficulty in communicating. There’s a lot of read-aim-fire (or even fire-aim-fire-ready-aim-fire), which means lots of instructions/suggestions; people have to trust that everyone understands.

Insisting that you want to bring a non-meta build before the raid has begun suggests an unwillingness to adapt and/or follow the commander’s lead.

Anyone can be a communication bottleneck, whether squad leaders, members, or potential recruits. The OP is probably well off being insta-kicked — that probably indicates a commander who’s unwilling to listen or work with the OP anyhow. By the same token, folks who justify their build with a phrase like “that’s just the way it is” aren’t going to be welcomed by a lot of groups; not many are willing to deal with someone who stopped listening before the conversation started.

tl;dr it’s your right to insist on bringing your choice of build; it’s also the commander’s choice to not welcome someone who does so. If you want to insist on insisting, then be very selective in the groups you join. Or better yet: start your own; you know that there are plenty of like-minded people who want to run their own build.

To be fair if the builds are on METAbattle then they are Meta.

No no no, that’s not true. There’s only one meta build for raids for Necro and it’s this one
http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Reaper_-_Viper_Horror

Why does everybody swear by it then, if it’s such a bad site then where is the GW2 equivalent to WoW’s Icy Veins?

No one said it was a bad site, but not every build that’s listed is meta. A lot of the builds are experimental, in testing, or in progress. The meta builds are marked as such. They usually say “Our curator decided this build is in the current metagame regardless of rating.” but I assume that since Necro has fallen out of the meta due to the jagged horror nerf, they took off that line from the Viper Horror build. It used to have it before that patch.

So in other words a whole entire class is excluded from raiding, that doesn’t sound toxic or anything.

For what it’s worth, right now there really aren’t many cases where you’re better off with a comp that isn’t 2 chronos, 2 druids, 2 ps warriors, and 4 eles. It’s a team composition that’s easy to execute with, covers all the bases, and eles have the highest DPS. Only exception would be if condi damage is needed, except the druids can go condi druid for things like vale guardian and the warriors can as well, so really outside of those 4 classes the other 5 don’t really fit into the current raid meta well. I hate it, I got a revenant and a thief decked out in full ascended that are collecting dust because I never have a reason to bring them over my ele, but that’s just how it is.

https://www.reddit.com/r/guildrecruitment/
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/community/lookingfor

Two main guild recruitment areas. Look for a guild that does raids and is willing to bring classes/builds that aren’t in meta.

We would need an expansion that included a massive overhaul of underwater combat before that could ever work.

Dunno about other modes but in PvE Shiro became useless when Chronos started being able to have 100% quickness uptime.

There really isn’t much tanking in fractals.

Oh Snapalope.1378:

No class rebalance…. I’m really tired of the current tempest fiesta already. Give us the previous balance patch where you can take anything in the game and it’s just as good as everything else. Also I know the necro bug, where they are actually good, is fixed. Is it too much to ask to bug necros again?

You mean the patch that never existed?

Rev is in a pretty bad spot at the moment. That said you can clear pretty much any content with a Revenant. The only issue will be if you want to start raiding, since Rev is pretty bad in raids at the moment.

If you’re looking to start a new character for PvE, you’re better off not picking Revenant right now. Multiple heavy nerfs have really hurt the viability of the class in high end PvE. You’re much better off roling an Ele, Druid, or Mesmer.

MikaDeMika.4369:

NikeEU.7690:

In gw2 raiding there are no dedicated buff bots who sit at the back and spam buffs and can get carried through content on the low skill support role. Even the “support classes” like warrior and mesmer are expected to contribute.

You seem to have a rather poor opinion of a “support role”, which makes me wonder what compelled you to answer my post. I’d see applying Fury, Might and Quickness as contribution, and I would consider the timely readiness for a groupwide Retaliation, Stability or Stunbreak as more than “low skill”.

Thing is though, there are builds that can do all of those things, while providing others. Chronos can provide perma-quickness while also tanking. Warriors and Druids can provide healing and other buffs while also doing some DPS. So if you have a build that can provide both support AND damage, why would you ever take one that only does half of that?

You can use invulnerability to block the tower shots so things like mesmer disruption, ele focus earth 5, etc. can stop it. Not sure if aegis works but I’d be surprised if it didn’t. Not sure about projectile disruption/reflection.

wtf are you doing that makes it take you months to get one ascended weapon?

Silver is fairly easy but gold is very hard.

Make sure you check your minimap for the blue icon, helps out a lot.

Jalis is standard for when you have quickness (99% of the time in raids)

EremiteAngel.9765:

MadRabbit.3179:

IndigoSundown.5419:

If valuable loot were to drop more frequently for you, it would in all likelihood have to drop more frequently in general. Such drops would then stop being quite so valuable.

We should remove loot all together, because it’ll eventually lose value.

0.o.

It’s a pretty lame criticism, because other more loot RPGs manage to achieve a higher balance between making the character feel rewarded from loot drops with the inevitability of characters grinding out the system.

But, that balance doesn’t even come close to existing in GW2. They have had the right item at some points with the introduction of standalone armor and weapons.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_named_weapons

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_standalone_armor

But the items on this list are mostly acquired via…

1. Gem Store (biggest culprit of them all)
2. Previous Living World Seasons (N/A)
3. Festival Events (N/A)
4. Material Intense Crafting Recipes
5. Mystic Forge Recipes (Either Material Intensive or Mystic Coin Intensive)

The remainder that do actually drop are isolated to specific areas and with a very, very very low drop chance. They aren’t part of the universal loot tables.

Just because the game has horizontal progression doesn’t mean that it can’t have rewarding loot. Unique named items and armor with an unique skin can be perceived as valuable for applying an unique look to your character. The cosmetic aspect of the game has always been cited as GW2’s reward system.

However, the aspect that they base their rewards on is also the aspect that they make money on, which is why the ratio of cosmetic skins being produced for the gem store exceeds what is produced in the game.

And loot is in a current state where it’s a bunch of garbage that piles up in your bags to salvage for crafting materials. Crafting materials, mind you, that now lack a lot of value, since they are no longer supporting legendary weapons.

The sad thing is they don’t have to make a ton of new skins if they wanted to overhaul the loot system. They already have a ton of available options in the lists in the two links I have provided that players just don’t get, because of how they have to be acquired.

If you took all the current named weapons and all the old unique armor items from the old Living Season rewards, repurposed them to drop universally, made them account bound so the skins cant be acquired off the trading post and altered their drop rates so it was probable for a player with average magic find to get one once every 3-4 days, you would add an element of looting of “Ahh, that’s cool” that wouldn’t be exhausted quickly just due to the volume of items that already exist.

So many cool weapon skins on that list that either have incredibly low drop rates and are targeted to very specific chests or bags or cost something like 50 mystic coins and 250 of a T6 material to make (which they aren’t that cool to spend that amount on).

Wasted potential.

^
THIS
SO MUCH THIS!
This poster above nailed it.
Loot has to be rewarding! I don’t feel rewarded grinding a few thousand hours for items that I break and sell the mats worth a few bronze or silver coins.
I feel rewarded when I find drops worth 100s or 1000s of gold!

This is where GW2 really disappointed me.
The rewarding loots drop so rarely!

You just… don’t get it do you?

In order for something to be worth 100s or 1000s of gold it has to be an extremely rare drop. Otherwise it wouldn’t be worth that price.

It’s simple supply and demand, if the items dropped on a semi-regular basis then they wouldn’t have nearly the value that they do now.

This economics 101.

You do realize that if items like that dropped frequently enough for you to get it, it wouldn’t be worth the 100s to 1000s of gold right?

mrauls.6519:

Ayrilana.1396:

mrauls.6519:

Am I supposed to do this on another character? I feel like I just wasted an hour -_-

Yes. I was just about to warn you until I saw you ask this.

What’s a profession (besides Guardian) that has an easy time with this fight?

I don’t have any other geared professions, but I do have an 80 necro (that I use for crafting), and tons of tomes of knowledge.

All of my guardian’s armor is ascended or legendary (I have a berserker and marauder set).

Also, can I immediately do Heart & Mind, or do I have to do the complete HoT story with this alt to get the rewards?

I’m surprised you already have legendary armor, you must be a hardcore raider.

Who cares about stat swap. 99.9% of players will put it on Berserker’s/Vipers and leave it there. Even if it’s something like a Warrior that wants to be able to play Burn warrior or PS warrior, you’d still have to replace the runes and you still would have to change runes each time. It’d be cheaper and easier to just get an ascended set for each stat type you want.

You lost the match, so you lose pips.

13-4 in this season so far, as a solo player.

Yasi.9065:

When I got fed up with hot meta events, I went and did 2 speed clear dungeon runs with friends. We were fast. And after each of those two runs, I salvaged everything, tallied up everything… and got to 1.2g per hour.

Now that doesnt sound too bad, and you can waste your time ingame even more than on dungeons. But… you can also spend your time at least 5 times more productive in this game.

Just doing centaur events in harathi / kessex / gendarran gives you more rewards.

Sorry mate, face it… dungeons are out, open world is the way to go atm.

Well when it takes you an hour to clear a path, what do you expect?

Probably a ranger if you already have one.

Yes, the progress of the raid is completely determined by the person who opens it.

Later in the week if you haven’t raided you can actually make a bit of gold by selling uncleared spirit vale instances.

BloodyNine.7504:

Chris McSwag.4683:

That being said, I don’t pug raids.

A lot of people that refuse to adapt to what is needed. Or maybe just not that interested and we end up teaching someone different every week. There are many reasons and it never is the same one from week to week.

Honestly I’d kick anyone that refused to adapt to the meta. Sounds harsh but it’s not fair to 9 people to be dragged down by 1 person.

0 – because I don’t pug.

Doing something with a pug will never be as quick and easy as doing it with people you know.

You get broken spoons when you’ve already gotten the collection item.

Ele has never really been weak in the meta.

They should be given out as rewards for completing raid achievements, similar to the ascended trinkets given out for completing the season 2 and HoT achievements.

I usually just make my LFG when I do my fractals and put in the description “56 67 77 – no tree @ mossman”.

I haven’t usually had any issues killing mossman. I’ve only had one time where we wiped at the boss on 77 and some people in the party started whining and wanted to fight him on the tree. I ignored them and we killed the boss the second time. I remember saying “if you can’t kill mossman at 77, how the hell are you going to kill a raid boss?”

Sounds like a pretty big sacrifice to DPS.

Keep in mind that one druid should be more than enough healing for 99% of the encounter. And when it’s not enough it’s because your group failed some mechanic that resulted in them taking a ton of damage (missed a circle at VG, didn’t break Gorseval fast enough), and in that case the only thing that would help are big healing bursts. I’m not too familiar with dragonhunter so I don’t know if that healing would be big burst healing or small amounts of constant healing.

If a Druid healing isn’t doing it I would maybe try a build that allows for some healing without a big hit to DPS, something like having a couple of tempests using Wash Away the Pain. If you were to have for example a druid and 2 tempests (with standard DPS builds), then your druid should be able to cover 99% of the healing, and the tempests can run rebound and wash to cover those emergency moments where you need even more healing. If they use the fresh air D/W build they can also use the water shouts and overload for even more healing if the situation is truly fubar, but that will most likely rarely be needed.

And now I will have to decide between buying a Ghostly infusion and saving the shards for the next wing.

Maybe VG. I doubt you could meet the DPS requirements on Gorseval with a party in whites.

Octaslash.9437:

NikeEU.7690:

Octaslash.9437:

Ayrilana.1396:

Octaslash.9437:

Wasabi Kitty.8247:

TexZero.7910:

Dirdyy.1648:

That s how economics work since 5000 years.

The Empire State Building : 1930 -> 41 M. $, 2016 u would need 636 M. $ to build it today.

And the legendarys are the only real high Goldsink for ANET since the start of the game.

1 gold in game = 1g in game

If you haven’t noticed the problem with what your stating…you basing the dollar value which has long been weighted against the worth of gold to something that has no defined weight or value.

Hence your analogy is bunk.

The dollar hasn’t been based on the gold standard for almost a century.

Not gold, it’s oil now.

No it’s not.

Yeah, tell me more about the Petrodollar

Oil is tied to the dollar, not the other way around. If the dollar strengthens, oil drops. However, if oil drops it doesn’t strengthen a weak dollar except in the most tangential way.

If countries start buying and selling oil with other currencies, the Dollar will grow weak, demand for dollars will drop, that’s why the USA made a deal with Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries, if I want to buy oil from Saudi Arabia, I have to convert my Euro’s to Dollars and buy the oil, Saudi Arabia would then have to invest those Dollars in American firms.

Please take a basic macroeconomics course before you start saying stuff like that.

TexZero.7910:

Dirdyy.1648:

That s how economics work since 5000 years.

The Empire State Building : 1930 -> 41 M. $, 2016 u would need 636 M. $ to build it today.

And the legendarys are the only real high Goldsink for ANET since the start of the game.

1 gold in game = 1g in game

If you haven’t noticed the problem with what your stating…you basing the dollar value which has long been weighted against the worth of gold to something that has no defined weight or value.

Hence your analogy is bunk.

The dollar hasn’t been based on the gold standard for almost a century.

Legendaries are expensives, always have been, always will be.

bai long.2085:

Hi,

I play a Druid in full Nomad’s gear. Why? Because that’s what I enjoy. I do crap for damage but I never die and that’s how I like playing every MMO I’ve ever played. No one wants~ a Nomad’s druid in the raid. It seems like a simple solution, right? Just change to a different gear set. That’s the problem. When I go to McDonald’s and order a cheeseburger they don’t refuse me service because I’m wearing a black t-shirt. They don’t only serve people in red t-shirts. The point is even if they did discriminate against my t-shirt color it’s totally within my right to tell them I don’t like wearing the color red. I just hate red. They still aren’t going to serve me though. And that’s wrong. That’s~ what Guild Wars 2 has going for me with the raid.

This might actually be the stupidest analogy I’ve ever seen.

Be as prepared as possible. Know what the “meta” build for your class is, and have the appropriate traits, armor, trinkets, and weapon, along with sigils and runes. Try to have at least full ascended weapons and trinkets, if not full ascended. Carry the necessary food/utilities.

Know your class and the encounters. Watch videos and read guides. All the bosses follow a set pattern, know that pattern. Know how to do things like always dodge gorseval’s pound or dodge the eggs. KNOW YOUR DPS ROTATIONS, this is huge, even if you have the right build and gear, if you don’t know the proper rotations you won’t be effective.

Try to be as versatile as possible. The more characters you have that are raid ready the easier it will be for you to get into a group. If you can only play a PS warrior and a group already has 2, they’re not going to take you. But if you can also play a Revenant, a Daredevil, and a Druid in addition to that PS warrior, you shouldn’t have much trouble getting into a raid group.

After that just network. Find a guild that does raids and join up. Try pugs and if you manage to kill the boss with a group, add each other to your friends list.