How to Even Break into Raiding? Without Signing up for a Raiding Guild?

[Svifnymr]

I don't understand what you are comparing? World of warcraft raids to gw2? I know you have been gone awhile but get a grip. The majority of players don't have full ascended. You don't need full ascended to raid. If you don't believe that that's a personal problem.

His point was that even if you don't need full ascended, that doesn't mean pugs won't want it.

[Arlee]

You don't have to worry about more tiers of gear, those won't happen. Legendary armor will have the same stats as ascended and will probably make switching between builds easier.

[Deleted]

Indeed.

And overall, it just makes the game feel less welcoming to me. Raids and a (slightly) greater focus on Ascended gear and the accompanying feeling of being obligated to keep logging in, keep getting mats, keep killing Tequatl, keep getting all my characters geared or else. And then the thought that this might all lead into more tiers of gear and more treadmilling and more "falling behind" if someone takes a break, etc.

I know it's not a BIG deal, but it just changes how things feel to me.

there is no 'or else'. Raids are a completely optional part of the game, so nobody should feel 'forced' to get ascended gear because raids are a thing. And raids are perfectly doable without a full set of ascended, even though you will most likely have to take the extra step of making some friends / joining a guild since pugs will be scared of you. The pug elitism is nothing special btw, it is part of every online game and has been a part of guild wars 2 since forever as well. For the longest time LFG's for Dungeons required you to be fully zerk'd up, which is ridiculous considering what a faceroll dungeons are. But you gotta get those extra seconds!!

Also, I do not understand why raids give you the thought that more tiers of gear will be coming out. The thing is, ascended was a joke before raids (and some would argue that it still is). The 5% increase in stats was barely noticable in the content that we had especially since exotic gear was already more than enough when it came to power. Raids have actually given this tier of gear somewhat more of a purpose and might give more people an incentive to actually go for ascended gear. Nothing bad about that.

Before HoT launched, there were actually plans to increase the stat difference between ascended and exotic gear from 5% to 10% to make ascended more meaningful, but this was scrapped because of the outcry of the community. So the chance that there will be an entirely new tier of gear seems very unlikely. We will eventually get legendary armor as they have stated already (which has the same stats as ascended) and I would assume legendary accessories as well at some point and that would be it.

[Arlee]

They said the same thing when GW2 was first pitched/previewed/released.

Then we got Ascended.

So...eehhhhh. The general direction of the game just sounds a lot different now.

The longer story people seem to have missed or forget about is, Ascended gear was always supposed to be the top tier of gear but it wasn't ready to go with launch so they decided to back it out and set everything to exotic and then they released Ascended later. When they did they bumped the stats of legendaries up to match. It wasn't a broken promise, a lot of people apparently never got the memo on it.

[Deleted]

They said the same thing when GW2 was first pitched/previewed/released.

Then we got Ascended.

yes, and the backlash that caused has made them realise that that was a mistake. Ascended was announced in GW2's first year, only months after release. We haven't seen any new tiers of gear in the mean time.

IMO, the introduction of ascended gear was a good thing. Though it should've been part of the game from the start to avoid the shit that it unleashed. Exotic gear is way too easy to obtain. Drop 10 gold and you're decked. IMO, if you want gear that will last you forever due to no new tiers of gear, that last tier of gear should be a lot of work.

You already have to grind your ass off for weeks in subscription based mmo's when a new tier of gear is released. And that's never ending. I don't see why having to work for your gear in gw2 is a taboo.


as for the general direction of the game being different: if this is still part of the whole raid thing, raids were added because people wanted them. People wanted challenging endgame content, and that's what raids are. Raids are no slow introduction to a new tier of gear. (well, legendary. but that's been stated by now).

[Svifnymr]

The longer story people seem to have missed or forget about is, Ascended gear was always supposed to be the top tier of gear but it wasn't ready to go with launch so they decided to back it out and set everything to exotic and then they released Ascended later. When they did they bumped the stats of legendaries up to match. It wasn't a broken promise, a lot of people apparently never got the memo on it.

To be fair, they never said ahead of time "we do have one more rank of gear, but it isnt ready yet". They just claimed afterwards that they'd always planned it.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Well, since everybody I get into a pug with keeps saying I need to dumb down my toughness to become viable as DPS, I decided to screw it and increase my toughness and go for a tank Scrapper build.

Some math I did:

2395 base power no trait
2595 power with tough increase (before sigils and adapt)

2003 base tough

sigils
10 power x 25 stacks = 250 power (Superior Sigil of Bloodlust)
5 tough x 25 stacks = 125 tough (Superior Sigil of Momentum)

Adaptive armor = 60 tough per stack, 5 stacks max
5 x 60 = 300 tough

2003 base tough + 125 tough from sigils + 300 from adaptive armor = 2453 tough

power increased by 10% of tough
10% of 2453 tough = 245 power increase from tough

2395 base power + 245 power increase from tough + 250 bloodlust = 2890 combat power

TL;DR, I blew my gold reserves on swapping out my Runes of the Engineer for Runes of the Scrapper (which favors toughness as the prime stat instead of power, and condition damage has been supplanted by power), and maxed out my damage and toughness for my chosen build (Scrapper with no kit or condition damage). The result is 2890 power (while in combat, with 25 stacks of both bloodlust and momentum, which I will build up before porting into raid), and 2453 toughness (a raw 20% increase over my previous build). I have 25069 health, and the vitality stat appears green on the equipment screen. Should this make me eligible for raids from a statistical standpoint?

For my heal skill, I'm using Medic Gyro because as a Gyro, it can revive a downed player on self destruct and has a short CD of 20 seconds, as well as being an AoE heal (the closest alternative is healing turret, but because that remains stationary and does not have revive capability, I prefer Gyro over that). Bulwark Gyro is a given for tank build (half damage for 4 seconds, on twenty second CD). Purge Gyro to remove conditions and revive, and Blast Gyro for more DPS (and another, fourth revive). Elixir S for 3 seconds of invincibility, but it has a 60 second CD and I'm not using the elixir CD reduction trait, so no. Note that I get 150 power from reviving players via Gyro self destruct, which makes my total power 3040 for twelve seconds.

I receive 33% less damage for 6 seconds after using a heal skill, which should go nicely with my 20 CD medic gyro, and 33% less damage whenever I'm knocked down or stunned

For my choice of ultimate, I can either go Elite Mortar Kit for a ranged weapon (if there's any phases where melee range with the boss is impossible?), Supply Crate for heal turret and more damage, or Sneak Gyro for a fifth revive on a 40 second CD that also grants stability (immunity to disable, stun, knockdown, etc).

Screen shots of my trait tree and stats:

Spoiler: 

Thoughts?

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WHOOPS! I posted the wrong trait tree; that's my world content tree. One moment please while I upload.

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Fixed.

[Arlee]

To be fair, they never said ahead of time "we do have one more rank of gear, but it isnt ready yet". They just claimed afterwards that they'd always planned it.

True, but it wouldn't have really done them any good to say it sadly. I mean it's generally not in a game's interest to tell people what's not ready yet. But I have no creditable reason to believe they made it up after the fact.

[Deleted]

Well, since everybody I get into a pug with keeps saying I need to dumb down my toughness to become viable as DPS, I decided to screw it an increase and go for a tank Scrapper build.

Some math I did:



TL;DR, I blew my gold reserves on swapping out my Runes of the Engineer for Runes of the Scrapper (which favors toughness as the prime stat instead of power, and condition damage has been supplanted by power), and maxed out my damage and toughness for my chosen build (Scrapper with no kit or condition damage). The result is 2890 power (while in combat, with 25 stacks of both bloodlust and momentum, which I will build up before porting into raid), and 2453 toughness (a raw 20% increase over my previous build). I have 25069 health, and the vitality stat appears green on the equipment screen. Should this make me eligible for raids from a statistical standpoint?

For my heal skill, I'm using Medic Gyro because as a Gyro, it can revive a downed player on self destruct and has a short CD of 20 seconds, as well as being an AoE heal (the closest alternative is healing turret, but because that remains stationary and does not have revive capability, I prefer Gyro over that). Bulwark Gyro is a given for tank build (half damage for 4 seconds, on twenty second CD). Purge Gyro to remove conditions and revive, and Blast Gyro for more DPS (and another, fourth revive). Elixir S for 3 seconds of invincibility, but it has a 60 second CD and I'm not using the elixir CD reduction trait, so no. Note that I get 150 power from reviving players via Gyro self destruct, which makes my total power 3040 for twelve seconds.

I receive 33% less damage for 6 seconds after using a heal skill, which should go nicely with my 20 CD medic gyro, and 33% less damage whenever I'm knocked down or stunned

For my choice of ultimate, I can either go Elite Mortar Kit for a ranged weapon (if there's any phases where melee range with the boss is impossible?), Supply Crate for heal turret and more damage, or Sneak Gyro for a fifth revive on a 40 second CD that also grants stability (immunity to disable, stun, knockdown, etc).

Screen shots of my trait tree and stats:

Spoiler: 

Thoughts?

- - - Updated - - -

WHOOPS! I posted the wrong trait tree; that's my world content tree. One moment please while I upload.

- - - Updated - - -

Fixed.

oh boy, you have to be careful with toughness. The player with the highest toughness stats in the raid will get the aggro. So generally it should be reserved to the tanky builds.

Metabattle is a very good site to get your meta builds from since everyone in game follows it like the bible: http://metabattle.com/wiki/Raid

edit: I read now that you are going for a tank build, carry on

[zito]

oh boy, you have to be careful with toughness. The player with the highest toughness stats in the raid will get the aggro. So generally it should be reserved to the tanky builds.

Metabattle is a very good site to get your meta builds from since everyone in game follows it like the bible: http://metabattle.com/wiki/Raid

edit: I read now that you are going for a tank build, carry on

Um he said he was going to be the tank? Either way if you are max toughness or not - if you have full power + w/e the only way to increase your damage would be crit damage and if your goal is to be a glass cannon and get one shot to the point that healers can't heal you then go for it.

[Deleted]

Um he said he was going to be the tank? Either way if you are max toughness or not - if you have full power + w/e the only way to increase your damage would be crit damage and if your goal is to be a glass cannon and get one shot to the point that healers can't heal you then go for it.

yes, read my last line

[barackopala]

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/...sterwork_gear/
Now that's dedication.

[zito]

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/...sterwork_gear/
Now that's dedication.

what did I say?

what did I fucking say

nobody believed me that I was doing level 40 fractals in masterwork.... yet people do the raid in masterwork

shit should be an achievement

[LilSaihah]

@Valyrian

Engineers can be perfectly viable tanks in general, though I think most every class can be suitable. You have a good set of very powerful defensive skills especially with Hammer, though I would strongly recommend Toolkit over Elixir S; gear block seems stronger as it has a much shorter cooldown. I would also possibly prefer to take Bunker Down over Medical Dispersion Field though this depends on the fight, your comp, etc.

As a tank you run into the usual issue of raids only needing 1 tank, and otherwise needing to fill up on raw DPS/boonbitches and the 1/2 healers, but in a structured raidgroup if you can carve out your spot and you're a-okay.

Something I've been tossing up is the possibility of a Juggernaut tank. The Toughness from the trait can allow you to hold threat, Stability will ensure nothing can keep you from the boss, and the rolling Might from Juggernaut allows you to maintain much larger uptimes of Swiftness. You can take Backpack Regenerator as you'll be spending a lot of time in Flamethrower rather than Hammer and between your own boons and the boons your allies grant you you will get very high returns on Iron Blooded. You are less dependent on Might from your boonbitches and you give your PSEA warriors a bit more room to move regarding party comp.

You can easily run up to 100% crit and Flamethrower's native very high attack rates let you gain huge benefits from Heavy Armor Exploit, Hematic Focus and No Scope. Heavy Armor Exploit synergizes with Invigorating Speed allowing you to gain 100% vigor uptime, further improving Iron Blooded and your overall survivability.

This concludes this episode of "person who has never raided in GW2 talks about raid builds in GW2"

[Narokath]

The best way to break in to raiding is to find meta builds, investigate their usage and see how it applies to each fight. Metabattle is a decent resource but I find the best guides are by players in raiding guilds who post them publicly on their own forums.

The biggest factor is what you're playing. The most desired classes are Chronomancers and Druids, mostly because Chronomancers provide a niche to apply the most quickness to the raid and alacrity is amazing, and Druids because their glyphs/spirits are invaluable utility dps.

[barackopala]

Problem for chronomancer is how expensive gearing them is, commander stats are not cheap at all.

[barackopala]

Aaaand now guildies did a 5 man VG kill D:

[zito]

Aaaand now guildies did a 5 man VG kill D:

Anet: "Yo we are introducing raids tuned with ascended gear you better gear up now!"

Like.... everyone should know from Anet history that they over PR things that it's dumb.

Remember those hard explorable dungeons? Yea LOLOLOLOLOLOL everyone at Anet must suck at video games to ever think Ex. mode was even hard.

[barackopala]

Well thing is it required tons of coordination to begin with, and some heavy maths yo 8(

[Arewn]

@OP
Doing your daily now gives 2 gold. So that's 2 gold a day for very, very minimal effort. If you're having trouble gearing up, that should help considerably with your funds.

Regarding gear, you should have at least full exotics (orange quality). You can buy exotics from the trading post for a few gold each, or get exotics by running dungeons (which also gives money, check your dungeon dailies under achievements->general->dungeons->Dungeon frequenter) and trading in the tokens. You can also buy exotics with WvW Badges of Honor, which you get en-masse from achievement chests. There are several other ways to get exotics, but these are probably the most accessible for a new player in pve.

Getting ascended(pink quality) jewelry is easy enough though, so you should aim for your jewelry (back, 2x accessories, amulet, 2x rings) to be ascended instead of exotic.

You can buy an ascended amulet with Laurels (laurel vendor is in Lion's Arch), which you periodically get for free from login dailies.
You can get ascended rings from fractals. Look at your achievements, under the "Fractal of the Mists" tab. There is a "Daily fractal" section. Doing the tier 1 dailies (which are very easy, if you can't handle them you probably shouldn't be raiding) will give you pristine relics, which you can trade in for ascended rings. 10 pristine relics = 1 ring. Each daily gives 1 relic, and there are 3 tier 1 dailies per day (so 3 relics a day, more if you do the higher tiers). If you happen to get really into doings fractals, rings become common drops at the higher scales, but getting to that point would take a fair bit of time and effort.
The ascended back can also be acquired from fractals for 1350 fractal relics (not the pristine ones). Ascended backs are the hardest/most expensive of your jewelry slots to fill , so if you don't want to farm fractals for one, just buy an exotic or rare(yellow) one from the TP. you won't get spayed over 1 piece being subpar.
Finally you can buy your accessories for laurels, or guild commendations. Guild commendation can be acquired from doing guild missions each week, which are easy and don't require a huge amount of time (my guild finishes in an hour or so, once a week). Just LF for a guild that does guild missions.

There are many exotics runes and sigils out there that are very very cheap. 3 silver a pop cheap. Find something sensible and use those if you can't afford better. If you'd like advice on picking, feel free to ask me.

Regarding what gear/build to use, here's a resource: http://metabattle.com/wiki/MetaBattle_Wiki
metabattle is not the word of god. You can deviate from or ignore it. But it is a good starting point for new players.
Click your class, and then scroll down to the raid section to see the builds. Make sure you're actually looking at raid builds.

You should be building full damage in pretty much all cases. Healers take a bit of healing power. Tanks take a bit of toughness. That's it.
Think about other MMOs, the dps don't gem vitality in WoW. The dps don't build toughness in gw2, they build for damage.
Scrapper tank is great, just keep in mind that only 2/6 bosses (Vale Guardian and Gorseval) actually even need a tank.


When people talk about the game "not being about gear", they are primarily referring to the fact that a) there's no gear treadmill and b) its relatively easy to gear up (at least to exotics, which strictly speaking is all you "need"). That does not mean you can walk into a group wearing garbage and expect everyone to be happy about it. You will outright contribute far less as a result.

Barely playing a few hours a week, just logging in and doing dailies/guild missions, you can be fully geared in a month. We're talking minimal effort and time investment.
Put in a bit of effort, and you can do this in a week.

This should help a lot in not getting kicked from groups.

Edit: Also, you don't need any masteries for Vale Guardian, Gorseval, Slothasor, or Bandit Trio.
Rift Travel is a usefull out of combat master.
Explosive Launch helps with Sabatha IF you are on cannon duty.
Forsaken Thicket Waters is helps with Mathias.

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They said the same thing when GW2 was first pitched/previewed/released.

Then we got Ascended.

So...eehhhhh. The general direction of the game just sounds a lot different now.

We got ascended 2 months after release, and it was a response to the unforseen speed and ease at which people geared. And to this day, it still isn't strictly required for any content, raids included.
Its been over 3 years, and we've gotten repeated statements that they won't be adding more tier. Let it go.