Compared to WoW, how Difficult is the Raid?

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Still haven't yet gotten into a raid, but I'd like to know - compared to WoW - how hard is the first wing?

[Deleted]

Like... negative difficulty not even kidding.
Learning the patterns is very easy the rest just rests in removing status effects.

[Fencers]

I haven't played WOW's raids in a very long time but I think the GW2 raid was easier than any of the endgame Rift raid and about on par with SWTOR's NM raids.

GW2 raids are just different due to the gameplay style of the game- more avoidance mechanics. Though the raid was basically the same type of stuff you do in dungeons/open world raids.

[Arlee]

As someone who actively raids in both WoW and GW2, I'd put the difficulty on par with harder normal fights and maybe easy to medium heroic fights. What is harder about the GW2 fights is there's more personal responsibility no matter what the role you are filling is.

[LilSaihah]

Looking at the mechanics and tuning (unfortunately I haven't had the opportunity to clear the raid), they look about on part with early heroic raid bosses.

Keep in mind that the bosses so far have only been the first wing. I expect they'll be adding more difficult bosses as the raid expands.

[Arewn]

Hard to say. They are differently difficult.
If you're talking cutting-edge top difficulty raiding in WoW, then WoW is the more difficult.
I would rate GW2 as somewhere above WoW's normals.
But like I said, though the style of encounter is similar, the gameplay makes the encounters difficult for different reasons between the two games.

I think most interestingly, is that repeat attempts on raids in GW2 remain difficult. Atleast more so then WoW's.

In WoW, its very much about "learning the dance". Strict timing elements are present, but it's ultimately not an action combat system, so they are somewhat lesser. As a result, once you've "got it down", you're not likely to screw it up in subsequent runs, because execution isn't particularly demanding.
This isn't as much the case in GW2, with its quasi-action combat system.
Additionally, you gear up in WoW. Every time you successfully complete an encounter, your raid group gets a little bit stronger due to gear drops. So not only are subsequent runs easier for the above reason, they are also just plain easier because of stats.
That doesn't happen in GW2's raids. There's no gear treadmill. You walk out of the raid just as statistically powerful as you walked in (unless you were undergeared to begin with).

[barackopala]

As one of The eternal title players (gotta boast my e-peen guis!) and a old hardcore WoW raider (mostly tbc-wotlk content) i can safely say that they don't necessarily compare at the same level, WoW has a lot more depth on most encounters whereas GW2 bosses tend to be a bit shallow but rewarding if you know what you're doing and at the same time more punishing in terms of individual playstyle, i'll explain:

-In WoW you could go through a death or two in certain bossfights (25 man it was possible for 1 or 2 guys to die and still make it through, 10 man you could get 1 dead maybe), gw2 timers punish you hard for that and even in certain bossfights it might screw up your setup (vale guardian portals and sabetha cannon phases come into mind).

-In WoW you could even just grind the bosses from before to boast your item level enough to somewhat force your team into getting enough dps, the squeezing of it was easy, yet the mechanics hard, in gw2 there is no "squeezing the lemon to get the juice" sort of deal, we farm Spirit Vale and we tend to wipe stupidly sometimes for hours and sometimes we speedrun through it (no wipes and fast clears), it cant really be forced as hard as WoW is.

-There is definately a rewarding system for people who like crunching the numbers and getting a bit more diversity on the stale builds out there, currently mesmers can go for different paths on tanking bosses, something that WoW is not that common to let us see (at least now with WoD you can pick your talents), for example you can do a gorseval kill skipping tons of mechanics that will make the kill way faster (2mesmer setup with distortion on consume earth from gorse) or using condi reaper for sabetha used to be extremely good, it definately brought some diversity for certain builds to show up that weren't that viable before (except for the zerkermeta!).

-You can feel an easier time with the downed state yet it is also a curse, staying on place to res a player is a nuance that can screw up big time when hitting cetain timings (for example a ranged dying on vg post last split phase, it's essentially a dead guy) so you end up having to make a choice of either bringing res skills (like banners or druid res) or just more dps or cc (headbutt for warrior), creates a nice balance of choices for situations you might need.

Ps: Vale guardian is not a hard fight either, it just requires good positioning and really good CC from the entire raid to acomplish it, gorse is mostly a dps race with certain CC timings and coordination on phases.
Sabetha is positional awareness hell, especially on the last add phase, you have to be mindful of cannons, of the time bombs, of the ceiling collapsing (not a huge deal, low dmg but stacks vuln), of heavy bombs, of firewall and the last add with his flame turrets that shoot fire if you dont manage to kill it in time.

Imo Sabetha is definately the best bossfight in the raid that can compete with a lot of raid bosses in WoW, made me remember how hectic Kel'Thuzad 25man used to be when doing progression :'(.

[Sosoulsu]

ANet can't design PvE.

[Arlee]

ANet can't design PvE.

Considering the amount of PvE in the game perhaps you want to restate your statement because as is, it's objectively false.

@barackopala - what you say tracks well with old raiding in WoW but not really the current status of it. I mean Mythic fights are undoubtedly harder than Spirit Vale because there's just generally more going on at one time. But then as mentioned above outgearing the raid in GW2 isn't really a thing.

[Deleted]

ANet can't design PvE.

Completely false.

GW2 PvE is refreshing and different. You are responsible for Healing, DPS and Tanking.
Your PvE build must have Survival, Utility and Damage.

It's a different game but is not bad.

[barackopala]

Considering the amount of PvE in the game perhaps you want to restate your statement because as is, it's objectively false.

@barackopala - what you say tracks well with old raiding in WoW but not really the current status of it. I mean Mythic fights are undoubtedly harder than Spirit Vale because there's just generally more going on at one time. But then as mentioned above outgearing the raid in GW2 isn't really a thing.

As i stated i am a wotlk-TBC player, did play a month or two on WoD when it released, sadly my guild had very... challenged players for pve, gotta see what the new raid wing will bring to us on the 8th, sadly i'll start studying for my final exam at laws school that will take most of my free time and will collide with raid days T_T!

Completely false.

GW2 PvE is refreshing and different. You are responsible for Healing, DPS and Tanking.
Your PvE build must have Survival, Utility and Damage.

It's a different game but is not bad.

Ehh not necessarily, most dps builds focus just on damage, you can have certain utilities, ideally CC, for defense you want to mostly focus on them just for dpsing more at certain moments, but individual skill is definately a bigger emphasis than what WoW use to have.

[LilSaihah]

Ehh not necessarily, most dps builds focus just on damage, you can have certain utilities, ideally CC, for defense you want to mostly focus on them just for dpsing more at certain moments, but individual skill is definately a bigger emphasis than what WoW use to have.

I think there are likely hypothetical raid comps which spread the healing responsibilities amongst raid members, possibly even tanking responsibilities with alt weapon sets using Toughness. I think it'd be really interesting to see.

[bbr]

Completely false.

GW2 PvE is refreshing and different. You are responsible for Healing, DPS and Tanking.
Your PvE build must have Survival, Utility and Damage.

It's a different game but is not bad.

And if you die, it's likely your own fault.
But your entire raid can rez you.

[Usagi Senshi]

They're about on par with FFXIV's LFR (i.e. Normal Mode) raids and I don't foresee them getting any harder than that, especially with the skeleton crew raid team they have.

I still think its a mistake they're not allowing these to be random queued because they're not that serious at all. They need to get out of their oldschool mindset as I feel that's why dungeons died as well, no easy access for stuff that's really not that hard. "Oh, no one likes these, so lets stop making them" :/

I was hoping with Colin finally gone, shit could change for the better, nope.

Bunch of morons really...

[Sosoulsu]

Boss mechanics in GW2 are absolutely awful.
Dungeon trash mechanics are painfully broken / buggy.
Dungeons are more about skipping mob packs and bugging the dungeons to skip health-sponge mobs than actually clearing the dungeon.
Bosses are health sponges with poorly-indicated tells for 1shot mechanics.

Example of poor skill tells (not a dungeon boss but dungeon bosses have similar issues):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UO4im5Outc0
The long charge-up move is simply damage. The same ability on a boss does about half your health in damage.
But the instant down-swing is a knockback that does more damage than the long charge-up swing.
This makes zero sense.

ANet cannot design PvE.

[barackopala]

None of your points are about raiding sosoulsu, the "boss" you linked is a world boss one, not a raid boss m8, that's like saying the new worldbosses in wow are trash thus raiding is trash 1/10 disregarding ALL Raid content.
The vid you showed is a perfect example of someone not seeing the patterns and not dodging at all, solo lupi is a good example.


None of the raid bosses have unavoidable one hit mechanics, sorry.

[Sosoulsu]

None of your points are about raiding sosoulsu, the "boss" you linked is a world boss one, not a raid boss m8, that's like saying the new worldbosses in wow are trash thus raiding is trash 1/10 disregarding ALL Raid content.
The vid you showed is a perfect example of someone not seeing the patterns and not dodging at all, solo lupi is a good example.


None of the raid bosses have unavoidable one hit mechanics, sorry.

No, the boss I linked is in a personal story.
But it is mirrored in exploration-mode HotW.

The mechanics I showcased are not unavoidable. Their attacks' animations and effects just don't match up properly, which was kind of the point I was making in that post. Same can be said for the GW2 bosses in Heart of Thorns that I've seen.

It is irrelevant that I didn't dodge, I was deliberately not dodging to show that it makes no sense what the animations and effects are. In what world does it make sense that a long windup attack does less damage than a quick windup attack that also blows you back?

The only people I've spoken with who defend GW2's boss design are people who can't even really quantify what is good about any of GW2's bosses aside from the 2-3 examples that are trotted out every time; while the rest of the bosses in the game are hot garbage HP-sponges with simplistic mechanics that repeat for the entirety of the time it takes to kill them.

[Nouk]

As a long time Mythic-Raider until HoT dropped, i would say "Heroic". The mechanics are relatively clear and easy to learn, but small mistakes add up and big ones wipe the raid entirely. Since most classes PvE DPS Rotations are piss-poor and easy compared to WoW, alot less strain is put on personal performance and you can concentrate on the encounter...i would guess thats why people say its LFR-niveau. Its far from that. Just most people running around in full Ascended and nearly no buttons to press during combat.

[tanksin the enhance shamy]

this expansion has some pve thats pretty decent, prior to this though their dungeons especially the one with the big bad white dragon were pretty damn horrible and boring experience, i only just came back to gw2 and killed the zone dragon at the brink and it was one of the more enjoyable battles i have had thusfar

[barackopala]

this expansion has some pve thats pretty decent, prior to this though their dungeons especially the one with the big bad white dragon were pretty damn horrible and boring experience, i only just came back to gw2 and killed the zone dragon at the brink and it was one of the more enjoyable battles i have had thusfar

Idk why people talk about world events or personal story bosses like if they were raid bosses, the question at hand is about Spirit Vale/ Salvation Pass.

Having cleared and now farmed like crazy the new raid (plus most achievements C:!) I can safely say this:
1) Slothasaur is by far the biggest challenge for pug groups, followed by sabetha. The level of personal ability is quite good but it requires some coordination that will probably make your life a living hell if you dont time out the condition cleanses, CC's, pulls and the slubling mechanic (paired with poison). Overall a really enjoyable fight that makes sure that you learn how to move as a group.


2) Bandit trio is bad, like really bad, some designs like the enviromental weapons were fun but even doing the achievement was bland as hell, wasn't hard at all, free loot. This fight should've either been scrapped or put on the beggining of the raid so pugs can get asc gear easily, not a good fight, Vale Guardian was harder.


3) Mathias isn't really that hard but my god does it have nice transitions on the fight, it's trully a fight that i love doing to no end, it's not really as intensive and bipolar as slothasaur (where a bad move means instawipe) but its pace in terms of phases feels really fluid and it entices you to learn each one of the phases before the final phase.
The first phase is really basic just teaching you the reflect mechanic and sacrifice that will play a bigger role on the next phases, same as poison and skull marks.
2nd phase adds the tornadoes to the mix, so it ends up being a bit more hectic due to how erratic the tornadoes are.
3rd phase is the clutch one, you have to learn how to position yourself whilst dealing with knockdowns and the storms, i'd consider the best phase of the fight, makes you think when and where to move, spatial awareness is king in this fight.
4th phase is all of the above on a transitional manner plus the ghosts, this one is the panic phase due to EVERYTHING going on in the area, hell for melee classes but it's just fun overall.

-One possible negative about matthias (but at the same time could be considered a possitive) is that you can pretty much neglect the enrage timer if you know what you're doing, one hadouken will kill you outright (same as a ghost or a bad timed poison) but if you have enough skill and awareness then it's just a wee bit more preasure since most of the damage can be neglected by the player, the sense of control in the fight is bigger and it brings a more rewarding feel for it.

Spirit Vale teached you how to use different compositions and how to dps correctly whilst dealing with certain minor elements to it.
Salvation Pass is all about spatial awareness, reflections and raid movement.

If I had to rate them i'd give SV 5/10 (enjoyed VG-Sab) and SP 7/10 (trio is just so disappointing but sloth and matthias are the high notes).