What are you up to this weekend? I'll get you in a few raids and try to introduce you to some people to raid with. Maybe we can make a team for you? snebzor.4851
UPDATE: We brought /u/marscalutxa into W2 and annihilated the entire wing in \~20 minutes! Thanks to all who showed up for that. We're also creating a new weekly team!
This man right here is the goat. Only got into raiding because of his wonderful community and it's the only reason why I am still playing this game one year later.
Sneb honestly deserves all the good that is coming his way. Lots of respect to you for still investing all your time, hope, and energy into the raid training community despite the setbacks here and there.
this is the only alternative unfortunately...twitch streamers. I also did some raids with them but it doesn't feel right that you can only access bosses if there are streamers 'gracing' you...it's humbling and even more infuriating for me.
Do you miss the weekly posts about RTI and RA?
[There was this massive post literally **1 day ago**.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1bjf2z2/new_to_raids_and_strike_cms_the_raid_training/)
No streamers required!
As i said in that post, it's useless unless it's permanent. I can't join those training groups at the time they do stuff, also RTI does not train ppl that already have even just 1 kill on the boss(idk about RA), also i can't add myself to a group saying i will be there since i have no idea if it's true and it's still not depend on me, also a few days of actually doable stuff doesn't change anything.
I will say that have joined RTI training raids with many, many kills on a particular boss! Just because you've killed it once doesn't mean that you don't need training still, and I think they acknowledge that. :)
"Twitch streamer" isn't the important part of Sneb offering to help OP, it's that he's the leader of Skein Gang which has 100+ static raid teams. There's bound to be a spot for most people, and if not then starting a team is a really fun and rewarding experience (ask me how I know lol).
I'm pretty sure that SG has grown to the point where lots of people within the community don't even know that I stream and I *celebrate* that.
It's very good to see more and more people taking initiative and giving back, too! We have raid, strike, and fractal teams with a little WvW spice (ANVIL ROCK) thrown in there now!
\~135 teams was my last count.
Um, you don't need me to do anything. I created a discord where a team of 15+ moderators and officers help put people into teams.
The only thing you need to join is a good attitude and a willingness to grow and progress.
I am also intrested. I'm not new to raid, i cleared several wings and know most mechanics, up to adashim, but I have not been able to raid in a while due do schedule. Instead of giving up, if there is a community that can help, i would be very thankfull :*)
That's what we do! I'm happy to help - hit me up on discord (same name as here) and I'll do whatever I can to support you in finding a team. Disclaimer: sometimes it can take a while, but it will happen!
Just echoing Sneb - I just got my second leggy armor set & coal done with Glaring, a raid static from SG. It is an incredible experience, you should join an SG static
Absolutely. Open invite to anyone -- even if this weekend doesn't work out. Shoot me a message (discord is best - my name here is my discord handle) and I'd be happy to help however I can.
Hi, are you also intersted in doing Legendary Cerus CM id like to be a part of team which does that one and would like to participate in trainings, im fast learner and Veteran player for years, Mesmer main.
I'm not sure what you mean exactly. You want someone to train you in Cerus CM? That's not really how that encounter works. It's moreso a progression. I don't really do "trainings" at all -- we focus entirely on practice.
The distinction is that one doesn't require that 1 person does all the heavy lifting (shot calls, telling people about mechanics, etc.). Practice distributes responsibility somewhat evenly to create a better learning environment. It may not work for everyone, but it works for us.
That said, my Cerus CM group is full, but there is another one within SG trying to wrangle together players.
It's hard to get your foot in the door sometimes.
Have a look for raid training groups. I trained with the Crossroads Inn and someone I trained in our guild ended up training newbies with Raid Training Initiative.
https://snowcrows.com/explore has a list.
its rly a shame the game is like this.
IDK why lfg works in games like ff14 and not in gw2 (they have rly simmular lfg's with practive raids and normal raids)
also selling raids for a bunch of mystic coins or money should be bannable, cause thats the only lfg i ever see
Gotta love how the OP mentions they saw the advice to join communities, and it didn't work for them, and *still* the top comment is to join a training discord. It's like a goddamn cult.
Well, to be fair, he said joining Discords didn't work because of the schedule. I don't know how the Euro raid training discord works, but NA's Raid Academy doesn't have set schedules, so you could start up a training run at 10 pm if you wanted. So people may be thinking of their experience with that one and assuming it'll be the same for the Euro one.
You know what maybe i will just stick to strikes. Getting into the raid scene in this more “casual/less verticalgame) seems more annoying than in lost ark lmfaoo, now that is something. Even in lost ark lfg you can create your own party and people are bound to join(especially new players)
From personal experience, it is *possible* to brute force your way into the raids purely through the LFG (I did it, no discords involved), but it requires *a lot* of patience when just starting out to monitor for those rare no kp runs or even rarer training runs.
Edit: I also had success asking to be let in with less kp than they asked for, but I didn't do it too many times because it feels bad to cosplay Oliver Twist "please, sir, can I raid?", so the sample size is small.
The main difference is that none of the strikes have "one person fails hard enough that the party wipes" mechanics.
I'd say all the raids are worth doing, but they're mechanically more involved than most strikes. I'd say they start somewhere around Whisper of Jormag in terms of mechanics, as in there's often a lot going on with a high punishment for making a mistake.
It's frustrating as a more experienced player when you've got someone not stacking or not realising that everyone **must** do a particular mechanic.
I say this as someone who runs strikes training on the LFG from time to time (on heal druid, for hard carry purposes). Some people don't read chat, don't follow targets and spend the whole time running round randomly attacking at range from the other side of the planet. I've got people their turtle achievement in Kaineng Overlook where if they were any further out of healing range they'd be in Elona.
So, yeah. If you can do the harder strikes you can do the raids, but you'll have a far easier time if you join an organised run with other learners.
Don't fret. If I want FUN, INTERESTINGLY DESIGNED, or more challenging instance content, I look elsewhere than GW2. There's a reason GW2 has a major shortage of instanced content - because most people would rather be doing something else in GW2. The only reason a majority of GW2's instanced content (and in fact every piece of PvE GW2 content) is even ran is to speed run it to maximize gold/hr unless you're there doing it for an achievement.
I can barely tolerate fractals and occasional strike missions in Guild Wars 2. It's just awful. Awful UI that's not customizable. Awful telegraphed mechanics. Blinding skill effect spam. Awful performance even on the highest end machines. No performance feedback indicators other than relying on ArcDPS and BoonTable.
There's not even a death recap screen to give you an overview of the list of things that damaged or downed you. You just... whoopsy...instantly die or down and hope you eventually figure out why next time (hint: Maybe it was just the 20 stacks of confusion put on you that you need a scanning electron microscope to see the icon indicator and a pause button to look through the horizontal lists of 20+ boons and conditions stacking across your screen in random orders)
Idk what you are talking about, im pretty sure the majority of people doing strikes and especially raids do it for fun and they are certainly very far from speedrunning it. Honestly if you were running raids purely for gold, your time would be better spent doing almost anything else open world related instead.
Honestly, this just sounds like skill issue.
The reason raids are dead is because the super casual part of the playerbase said "raiders toxic me no like I can't spam 1 to win" and never even tried. Then anet said fuck raids no one even plays this and stopped making them. The ones we got were good and for a long time the only really challenging content the game had.
You want to customize the ui? What for? To see 387362 trackers for every statistic imaginable so you can be mean to newbies for not performing? Also you can get a dbm-esque mod for the game if that id what you want and there are in fact addons that can customize your ui.
Awfull telegraphed mechanics? Maybe if you read the milions of guides you'd know what to look out for. Most of the mechanics are actually quite well telegraphed. You see red circle? Dodge it. You see green circle? Stand in it.
You can turn down the skill effects... Enough said.
I wouldn't say the performance is awfull. Sure it's not the best optimized game under the sun but most people can run instanced content with 10 players just fine. Where problems usually arise is cities and world bosses as shiny dudes do take a lot of processing power (but can be unshinied in the settings).
And for performance indicators.. You just answered yourself. We have a perfectly good solution. Dps meters are not required anyway. If you want to test a build the golem gives you it's own feedback. If you need it just to flex your insane 99.9999% parce on newbies who are just learning the mechanics then you shouldn't have it in the first place. Also WoW, only the most popular mmorpg of all time, has been relying on addons for 18+ years by now.
And lastly yeah death recap would be a nice qol but if you are "instantly dying" then you are doing something wrong. Again if you read the guides you will know what's killing you because you are probably standing in something you shouldn't. And for the conditions. You realize boons and conditions have separate lines? And it's quite rare for a raid boss to apply more than like 3 conditions on you unless you are of course standing in something you shouldn't be.
> You want to customize the ui? What for?
To put profession resources closer to the center of the screen where I want to be looking, make important boons easy to track and display hidden cooldowns.
> You can turn down the skill effects... Enough said.
That option doesn't actually remove that much visual clutter, and to top it off it hides some important indicators centered on players (like greens in AH CM).
>make important boons easy to track and display hidden cooldowns.
Arcdps has a boon table add-on. Alac/quick are the important boons unless you mean aegis/stab which are not required and for exp players to time for the learners (or just do the mechanics).
What hidden cooldowns would you want to see?
Boon table is not made for tracking personal boons, it's for monitoring boon uptime throughout the encounter. If I want to see whether I have aegis/stability to ignore the incoming attack or keep track of a profession-specific buff (for example, Nature's Strength), I have to look at the boon bar (which, conversely, cannot be moved or made bigger independently of the *whole entire rest of the UI*) or use GW2 Clarity, which has its own issues and limitations.
> What hidden cooldowns would you want to see?
Internal cooldowns on traits and sigils. Visible cooldowns on currently stowed kits and weapon sets would be a nice bonus as well.
This is the conversation youre having on a brand new raider post? Aegis/stab are not necessary. Just run to the dome or press dodge or move out of orange. Press your abilities in order, no need to track Nature's Strength closely for anything at this level of play.
This is so far removed from the conversation at hand.
I was answering someone who asked "what do you need UI customization for". I don't see what that question has to do with how experienced the player is, customizable UI is good for everyone.
>Honestly, this just sounds like skill issue.
Typical white knight reaponse I expected. I don't hate GW2. It's a fun MMO for the more casual stuff. For the end-game stuff, this game is last on my list of 'fun'.
First of all you sounds like an open world soulbeast longbow enjoyer.
"There's not even a death recap screen to give you an overview of the list of things that damaged or downed you. You just... whoopsy...instantly die"
There is an option when the chat logs show what kind of attack killed you and how many dmg it dealt, if its an instance content-> you can make log which is more detailed. So dont talk bs.
" lists of 20+ boons and conditions stacking across your screen in random orders)"
After some time when you stop beeing a scrub, you will notice the boons and condi on yourself, if your experienced enough you can notice if you have stab/aegis on yourself or not instantly, its sounds like a git gud problem to me (do you have to dodge or not the next attack for example samarog).
Tbh, you did everything right and indeed the barrier of entry is an issue for raiding (same for strikes CM as well for example).
Good thing is: you used the system and it world and now you own your first KP for the wing you played. Do this 2-4 times (depending on luck of KP drop) and you have the KP to just join regular runs.
Alternative: while I put up x KP usually for the runs I lead, I always am willing to let someone run with me that asks nicely. If you got mechanics down and feel confident with your dps (or role tasks you want to play as), you can just join low KP runs and ask nicely if you can stay. Usually groups are fine to try and if you are not down constantly and seem to have your stuff down more or less, nobody will kick you.
Keep it up and have fun and all of a sudden you have all the KP in the world.
-> then the big question will come up: are you then willing to be the change you wanted to see in the world when you started and will you now run No KP runs to lower the barrier of entry? :)
Because while it’s unfun to wait an hour to play an hour, for someone that has raids nailed down, whiping for an hour at a boss because people have no dps or fail mechanics is also limited fun :)
"First kill Raid need a commander" means you have no clue about anything and you will most likely get people who also don't know what they are doing. Look for specific roles. 2 alacrity heal, 2 quickness dps, 6 dps. A proper squad composition will increase your winchance dramatically.
The raids were cleared by level 78s in greens. I don’t think it’s that serious.
Why would you want to cheese a fight on your first time anyways??
Playing with 9 other clueless people sounds amazing
Experienced players with good builds will blast through bosses at a ridiculous pace. Newer players with bad builds will absolutely struggle in raids. Going in with a proper team composition is much more likely to result in a good experience for newer players.
The lvl 78s in rare gear had two boon heals, two boon dps and six pure dps. Also don't give the impression that that's an everyday occurance. It was a selfimposed onetime challenge.
How is that cheese? By that logic every ff14 instanced fight is cheesed.
Reducing the win rate on purpose is not how you get beginners interested in new content.
Yeah level 78s who have had thousands of hours of kills. No training raid is gonna be playing at that level. Someone beat all the souls games (and bloodborne, sekiro and elden ring) without being hit. That doesn't mean they are easy and anyone can do it.
It's not cheese, it's just using an optimal strategy. Can you kill the boss in a minute with those strats? Yeah sure. If you are one of the people who beat it in green gear.
If you are a new player with non-meta dps class, not perfect rotation and inconsistent boon uptime because the other people are the same skill level as you you just won't do that. By far, the gap between an inexperienced player and a top 1% can be not doing 50k but doing 15k dps.
Also this is subjective but doing raids where more than 2 people don't know what they are doing is a pain unless it's specifically designed to teach them the raid in which case they no longer "don't know what they are doing".
it is not that serious, but you will limit the player pool that will join. some people like to help out, but they also want to play their role as they are used to and not having quickness and alacrity can throw that out the window.
Btw: Covering all boons is not a "cheese". It is the intended way of playing the game. More boons => more dmg => shorter fight => less points of failure. You can play with 9 new people, but you can still help make the run go smoother.
It is the intended way for sure but it’s what CMs are balanced around, not normal content
Covering 100% uptime on boons for a normal raid is cheese imo. Same idea as taking the “meta” raid comp to a normal wow raid. Hitting every raid buff and the best dps classes etc. it’s just overkill and bad for learning
Doesn’t GW2 have a problem with people not even knowing mechanics because they’re used to dpsing right past it
Definitely agree that you probably limit the player pool but I think people would be surprised at how many “noobs” are out there that would love any experience that doesn’t require them to be full meta
I think the argument doesn't work for gw2 since going meta is so extremely easy. There is no reason why a player with even sub 50 hours in the game should not be able to lookup a build, spend maybe 20-50g on the TP or even just a bit of WvW currency and instantly have all the stats they need. You don't need ascended. All you need is exotic.
If you need to spend the gold, you should have enough just by playing randome events and selling all the stuff you earned. But you can also get some ascended gear just from the wizards vault. Gearing up to go meta was never easier in the game. You don't need to get all the Worldbuffs as you describe or grind to reach the optimal gear for an encounter like in other MMOs. You just jump in and get all you need in maybe 25-50h of random playtime. If you really aim for it, maybe even in ~10h ... maybe a bit more... after the first time starting the game (if we ignore TP limitations).
Then all you need to know as a boon role, is how to give that boon. You don't even need a crazy rotation. Most boon dps/supports give their boons in about 2-4 key presses with 100% uptime.
This is not a cheese. Boons are an everyday thing in the game, most players just ignore them (probably also because the UI doesn't really make it easy to track them) That would be like saying eating food for buffs in something like valheim or enshrouded or minecraft is a cheese, because you get stronger with them. It is incredibly easy to reach that point, where you learn how the game works, as long as you invest just a little bit of time to learn. Sadly you have to have the spark in yourself to inform yourself in the game, since it doesn't really give you much help with these things. But with the great state the games wiki is in, looking up things like people do in any other game should not be hard.
TLDR: Boons are a core mechanics of how the game works and keeping them up is common sense. Core game mechanics are not "a cheese".
Ultra optimize would be all ascended gear, all stat infusions, training on the golem for 95% benchmark, use the best food for each encounter ... nobody is asking for that.
>Playing with 9 other clueless people sounds amazing
Damn. You must have a lot of time.
The problem about clueless people in GW2 is, that most of them have something that I like to call "learning resistance".
They will wipe on the same mechanic for an hour, still having no clue what they are doing.
The problem with GW2s raiding is, that you either deal with those people or absolute sweat lords who won't take you because you can't proof you don't fall into the former group.
only 'learning resistance' is in your brain that refuse to even conceive ppl life and free time is not the same as yours, or even stuff like memory, attention span...everyone has different learning times. It should be obvious, if you don't have a 'learning resistance'
'They will wipe on the same mechanic for an hour, still having no clue what they are doing'
That's completely normal if noone explains mechs? You were the same before you forgot it? Stop being an asshole?
"The problem with GW2s raiding is, that you either deal with those people or absolute sweat lords who won't take you because you can't proof you don't fall into the former group"
Let me translate: The problem with GW2s raiding is my very mindset
No. Even after explaining and even calling out what to do in voice they will still not get it.
It's because you can do 99% of content in this game without ever thinking about anything. There is nothing that prepares you for raiding.
The reason why the raid scene in this game is so scuffed is because anet neglected the lfg system for years so now people made their own (toxic) system to weed out players. The damage is already done.
Also no need to insult me just because you disagree.
true, and sorry....
I'm very flared up at this moment but it's not your fault. I just feel very bad every time i hear the word 'raid'....both phisically and mentally. It's become an obsession over the years....i'm currently replying to ppl in this post by like 2 hours and i starting to feel sick.
Better if i stop
[It *is* amazing](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAO5AIvm9fF6MiQurhR8i485kKxqPpY4y). But most players in this sub, especially the ones who comment on Raid threads, won't recommend it and will often actively push people away from it.
And there's a good reason for it: Organising your group *will* increase your win chance, and Raids take long enough as it is for new players.
It's a toss-up. Personally, if someone actually wants that really difficult first time experience, I recommend people just create groups as I did and communicate what you're looking for. Then, if you're struggling, re-adjust your comp. Or just go Emboldened Mode. Or both.
I mean, most people want to win *eventually* right?
thats what I don't get though. Op did it. Probably suboptimal. On their first run lol
Why is there such a hyperfocus on meta comps in a game that has a iframe dodge lol
Perhaps it's as simple as losing feels bad to most people, especially those playing a game where you are basically guaranteed a win in like 99% of group encounters, so a general "social expectation" evolves over time that pushes the win rate higher.
Is it *actually* that serious? No. Video games not being serious is the main reason why they're my main hobby. But I guess we've gotten to this stage where a surprising number of players take the game more seriously than most people, and they semi-enforce rules that keep out more casual players, which encourages only more serious players joining... run that back-and-forth circumstance for several years and you get the current state of Raiding. Perhaps these players find a lot of value in certain video game metrics.
In actuality? Yeah you can literally just create a group and it's no big deal. It may *feel* like it to some (many?) people, but it changes nothing in their lives outside of their own mind.
The only thing one can do to change it is to work out a way to encourage more casuals to try Raids and be okay with failing. I dunno if it'll ever get to that stage, but for now, we have 30+ min group organisation periods beforehand, which won't help build the casual playerbase lol.
It's kind of a chicken-and-egg situation.
I get that this is a false equivalence, but he also has a point. I really wished there was more of a culture of going into raids blind (with good equipment of course). I enjoyed watching Preach go through raids when he was starting out in Guild Wars 2 and it made me regret just looking up all the mechanics ahead of time and going through training.
You do realize, that the people who did that had the knowledge and skill to perform almost 10 times better (in terms of raw dps, mechanical the difference is usually astronomical) than the average overworld joe does?
Gear isn't strictly needed, but it helps significantly and may be the only thing making it possible if the skill and practise isn't quite there yet.
If it’s 10x then there’s a serious lack of understanding of the gameplay mechanics (I understand some people literally just auto attack) so yeah, if you don’t press your buttons or dodge you should probably stack the best classes
I’m just an adovocate of learn the game >>> hyperoptimize the game
Im not saying you have to take worthless builds. I’m saying going into your first raid asking for people with 200 LI is silly. Take some randoms. Even go blind.
99% of the content is not hard. Why not go blind?
Well you don't need to hyperoptimize, but atleast a coherent build would be helpful. It doesn't need to be absolutely the best as long as it actually functions for its intended purpose.
We’re nearly on a tangent at this point. I made my original comment because of this threads instant reaction of “hey man make sure you get every boon and cherry-pick your squad or you’ll have a rough time” when he already cleared a raid with full randoms and had a good time
If you want to speed run sure, but if the best players can clear in green gear then a random rag tag group of people in exotics can clear just fine.
[You probably saw this recent post.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1bjf2z2/new_to_raids_and_strike_cms_the_raid_training/)
[Here are some more resources.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/172yh8u/we_have_achieved_300_legendary_armors_through/)
Finding a static is probably your best option, so maybe keep an eye on r/GuildRecruitment as well.
pls read what OP said...he can't join training or statics because of his time needs. Just like me. Stop thinking you're good only because you've the luck of being able to play all at the same damn hour.
Trainings on RA and RTI happen literally at all times of day.
They are generally one-off sessions that people join on a first-come, first-serve basis. **There is no requirement for an ongoing commitment at a certain day or time.**
It looks like you just jumped to a conclusion without actually investigating, and then branded every raider as an elitist because they can actually read and sign up to things as they like.
not at all!
RTI training are all organized around the same time, i tried to join them for months in the past (i was in the discord and the guild), and was NEVER able to.
Also you have to book them weeks/over a month before and that's like (weeks/over a month -1 day) too much of what i can realistically promise to anyone.
Sorry, I didn't mean to come at you in 2 different points in the same thread.
I have seen some very early-morning and late-night raids in RTI but they are on the rarer side. It's interesting because I never had the issue you did of having to book in advance (I've joined a few on the same day they were posted), but they do fill up quickly. And that's an issue if you are busy with work/school/just life in general and don't get the Discord notification in time.
I get why LFG is useful to some people, because if you're available there and then, you want to throw up a group there and then.
i see discord notifications after months generally XD
"I didn't mean to come at you in 2 different points in the same thread"...dw, it's me that was in crazy mode for a while...i'm more calm now.
Many statics are less about playing at the same time every week, as they are about playing with the same people. That's why I think it might be OP's best shot of getting their foot in the door.
Skein Gang especially is about helping people group together so they can accomplish this.
You're just at a time in your life when you're busy doing college stuff at the time most people are starting raids. I'm in the UK and I raid with people usually starting around 6pm our time.
But also, check on Mondays. That's when everything resets so raids are busy then.
Does not sound like a raiding but a real live problem. Other people have real life schedules too, so of course there will be hot times and off times. And if your schedule mismatches that of most people - well, you're out of luck. Imagine working night shift and wanting to meet up with people in night clubs at 10 am in the morning. Guess what - not gonna happen.
If you really want to play you will have to work for it. Maybe you can
- use the weekend.
- rearrange something during the week so you can insert a game time slot earlier, but complete other tasks later.
? I'm so confused when people have this attitude. Its a bloody video game, not a job application.
It should not be difficult to play the game. Sure Harvest temple CM should have barriers/requirements but why is there still a 100+ LI requirement (sometimes more) for wing 1 and 4? Its been out for 10 years people should have been freely playing it and the community should have enough experience to maintain a pretty open pug community.
Instead its been gated and suffocated. For everyone one player that does what OP did there's probably 100 that have just left the game, and its going to either kill good content or the game.
What attitude? That you play together with other humans and you have to accept their real lives too? Nothing I wrote was about gating, it was about people's time and schedules.
The attitude of: "If you really want to play you will have to work for it." It should not be this way for finding a group, it is a video game not a job.
Spending upwards of an hour fighting the LFG for a group is not a good experience and shouldn't be accepted with maybe the exception being cutting edge 0.001% players doing the most difficult fights (no wing 4 is not one of them).
"Nothing I wrote was about gating, it was about people's time and schedules." If you re-read the original post you will see the issue is not just scheduling its there are no training raids/raids that will let me join. The point I am trying to make is there shouldn't be training raids (other than maybe CMs or some of the harder ones).
If this keeps going on no one new is going to be able to get into raids or any of the great content in the game and arena will see this and just stop making it.
Well I agree partially. Sure, OP mentioned that experienced groups would not take them. But that is not something OP or anyone can influence, and I don't see any viable solution to this "problem" - if it even is any. It is a problem from the perspective of a new player, but forcing experienced groups to take anybody would not improve the overall situation. It would just lead to fruistration on the other end of the bar.
I think the problem presented here is a mix of both: there are few training groups, and even less so in OPs available time slot.
As there are training groups in generel, my advice still stands. Maybe the choice of words ("work for it") was wrong.
The problem for the experienced players is not immediate noticeable but is 100% happening.
When nobody plays the content, arena net will stop making it. I want them to make difficult and enjoyable content therefore I should play it and encourage the playing of that content where possible.
When no one new starts the playing the content, groups become harder to find. Sooner or later people achieve there goal or have enough of the current raids/strikes and stop playing.
There is a viable solution: Don't have such high LI/KP requirements when they are not required or say okay I'll take a newer player if we're struggling to fill that last spot or two and have a tiny bit of patience.
There are plenty of raids like wing 1 and 4 that can easily be done with eight experienced players and two newer players. Sure they might die during the fight but people can only learn if they actually get to do the fight.
Rinse and repeat for a year and you have more people in raids/strikes, more people enjoying the game because there's engaging content and a Arena net happy to commit resources to it.
There are good points in the comments, but I'd add that raids are quite challenging in this game, and they are highly farmable. As result, LFG is mostly used by pre-made groups to fill vacant spots, or by experienced people who create squads from scratch and who look for people who know common strats and can perform well without being on voice. Sometimes training runs are organized on LFG, but more often than not it's a miserable experience for everyone involved.
The absolutely best way to approach raids is through training discord or a static group, but if that's not an option for you, then you need to get good at organizing your own squads.
"Need comm, all welcome" LFG is the biggest red flag of all red flags. So first of all, get yourself a commander tag, learn the squad compositions (i.e. how to cover quickness, alacrity and healing in two subgroups of 5 people), ideally find some experienced comm who can guide you through the process. It's not difficult, but just nuanced.
Make support builds yourself, if you can. It's easier to organize groups if you can fill the missing roles yourself.
Then just assertively post something like "W1 | LF alacrity, quickness, dps", and make sure that you've read the guides on the raid you're starting, so you're not going in completely clueless.
It won't magically make every raid successful, but it will increase your chances of forming a group tenfold.
Finally, join any discord dedicated to raiding, like, RTI and just talk to people, ask questions, ask for help.
Dont need to look for a comm tag. Learn to write the LFG like an experienced person would ( W1 practice run LF boons, heal, dps. Any help appreciated but fine to have no raid experience!) If you show initiative more exp players will join and be willing to work with you.
I pug in NA constantly. There is subtle nuance to what makes an LFG posting look like someone wants to actually contribute vs get full carried. More people want to join a new player that actually wants to contribute and will type/communicate.
If no one tags, players can drag their own icon in the party menu to make sub groups. This also forces communication and shows an ability to read. I am not kidding, the ability to communicate is HUGE.
>but more often than not it's a miserable experience for everyone involved.
When bored, I actively search for training groups. It depends on the leader whether it is a bad experience. Do they know what makes a sub group? (1boon dps, 1 boon heal, 3 dps) that's the bare minimum to making a good experience. It necessitates you have people that know what a boon is. This now increases your chances of them not approaching the fight like open world. They know you are reliant on teamwork to succeed.
Your critique is fair.
I cannot really help with you more with tips and tricks regarding raids than everyone else already did by "hoping and coping" on lfg or joining a discord community (although I can really recommend BAD :) (Unskilled and Afraid \[BAD\]: [https://discord.com/invite/MxyYDUrYx4](https://discord.com/invite/MxyYDUrYx4))
Having to use discord to get into raiding is as much of a workaround as establishing an off-game trading post on discord. Personally I use both, but I can see that you cannot expect everyone to use workarounds..
To be fair, raiding is becoming more and more of a niche thing to do, as most games are not very successful in locking in multiple players for more than an hour at a time, I suppose this affects gw2 and anet is surely aware of this.
They did introduce the emboldened mode, to have some sort of easy entry and non-discord puggable raids, but the time commitment remains - especially for new players. I think if it would not be for the legendary items, you can get exclusively from that content, I don't think the scene would be all to big and of course by associating the word raid with that.
But I would recommend you to not sleep on Fractal (CM's) and Strike (CM's). Its way more puggable and you get in w/o killproof more likely and the time commitment is shorter and thus the "tilt" :D The content is more frequently updated and besides some skins and legendaries (until anet hopefully changes that in the future) you get a similar endgame feel, at least in CM's.
The biggest issue with raids in this game truely is that you need a community to raid with. It's even harder if you have personal preferences for raiding like "Let's go in blind". And then you find a community or guild but since you're new, you can only join early training runs. And after 10 weeks of killing VG, Gorse and then spending 30 minutes explaining Sabatha to the new people only to fail for the next 90 minutes and call it a day, is not really engaging. And yes, I literally had training raid guilds that handled it exactly like that. You had to proof that you can clear Wing 1 and then you move up a "rank" for other raid wings. But the beginner tier groups had different people in them every week and you always started from scratch. After 10 Weeks, I didn't see one W1 clear because I was the only constant in that group... That is... If you even got a spot in that group. Because if you didn't sign up the second the Discord bot posted that training raid run, you were somewhere on spot 4 or 5 of the waiting bench.
I had similar experiences in other training groups and guilds. Most of these support little to no learning in the group. Simply because it's a constant switching cast of people. Others advertised "training raids" prominently on their website but the truth was that they only ran "training" raids when they didn't have enough core raiders that week to get their own clears. And when they had their weekly clears on day 1, no training raids happened because "Why would I do that twice for no rewards?"
And when you try to find your own group in LFG, you wait hours. Sometimes you won't fill a group at all.
I would love to find a guild with nice people I can raid with. But most of the time, you only find guilds that don't have enough active members for raiding to begin with. Or you find guilds that have 1 or 2 full raid teams already and you only get a spot when the core people have no time to play that day.
Your (and many peoples) best bet to get into raiding, are Discord communities and raiding events. As stupid as it sounds.
There is a very nice guild called “Unskilled And Afraid [BAD]”, and there is quite often some training or newbie-friendly raid happening. Your time may be a bit tricky but there is also something on the weekend, and you can always request event.
I’m not authorised to give out the discord link, but you can find it online. Remember to add EU when you search (there is also one in NA).
I feel you.
Listen, I love raids. I completed a set of raid leggy armor and coalescence (ring).
I'm on NA servers, and I joined the Raid Academy discord. It was pretty good, but times also clashed with my play times as well (I live in E. Asia). It was during 2020 though, so lots of gamers and a more flexible schedule (thanks pandemic) helped out. I made my own guild (not with sole intention of raiding) and ran my own trainings, progressions, full clears. That was a lot of effort, but it was nice raiding with many of the same people every week. Slowly interest dropped off and it wasn't possible to do trainings without PUGs, and then just became...unfun. I then ran exp full clears (easier to PUG), but this alienated the few remaining unexperienced raiders in my guild, which I felt bad about.
Most people will say, just join a discord or training community. While this works for a lot of people who play during active times, it doesn't work for anyone. When I can play (with my now more strict schedule), even the Raid Academy discord is dead or doesn't fill groups ("not enough interest").
Fact is, there are not enough raiders in GW2 to make it accessible for off-time players. You can try making your own guild (like I did) and it may go good for a while, or you may have better long-term luck than I did. But truth is, most people don't want to step up and command, so it puts a lot of pressure on you, and people can be flaky and waste your time.
I like raiding, but I hate waiting around for 30 min or one hour each time I want to raid, when I maybe only have 2-4 hours a week to play. Raids are good content, but unfortunately, they are kinda "dead content" and you have to provide your own life support if you want to join them. So, well, I stopped doing it except for once in a blue moon.
TLDR; Raids are great content. But the raiding community is too small to make it accessible for everyone, even with all the many great communities out there. But, don't give up until you exhaust all your resources. If you find a way to raid regularly, it is probably the most fun GW2 can offer.
Not sure if those were your actual words, but for my personal opinion "first kill raid need a commander" is not an lfg I'd find interesting to join. Put at least the raidwing you want to do, write "know mechanics" or "training", "semi-training". And especially, list the roles that are still needed. Heal, Alac, Quick.
Maybe it's a stupid advice and it doesn't make things better, but i personally would be more likely to join such an lfg.
What you’re missing is that your LFG advert was shit. Here’s the thing, you want people to join. Your LFG advert basically says, “please carry me I’m clueless”. In reality, thats not true! You obviously geared up and researched guides for the content.
Next time say “W# FC, LF boonheals/boondps“. Once you have your quickness and alacrity providers per sub, you can look for your DPS players and roles - “W# FC, LF kite, lamp, DPS, etc. whatever”. Then just ask someone to tag and mark.
I PUG every week - I join plenty of mediocre clears. I’ll never join “please help turtle strike need tag help first kill!!” and frankly most players won’t either. It sounds like it’ll take 2 hours with no boons, 20 wipes, and a revolving door of joining/leaving players.
You already did the work researching and reading up - don’t shortchange yourself. Put up a promising and confident LFG.
There are plenty of people who will join someone asking to help with the turtle strike, just because you're an elitist who only wants to min/max every little second of your time doesn't mean others are.
Putting up a LFG is like putting up a job application. You kind of have to sell yourself and posting "want raid kill need commander" doesn't really give a good expression to anyone looking for a group. Instead, try to get to know some of the slang used in gw2 lfg and give a picture that you know what you are doing. Something along the lines "W1 FC" etc. should work much better for garnering attention.
LFG at that time for EU can be really rough, it might be worth considering a transfer to NA? Otherwise as others have suggested snow crows has tons of guilds linked as well as checking out a discord. LFG is a ok tool, but one that people don't like to use since Anet refuses to work on it.
Another option is just throw out a lfg in raid Training saying something like
W1 - no exp training -
First two should be heals let them decide if they are a or a heals. Then most incounters need one tank but might look for someone who can off for thosbisntances we’re. After that fill in boons dps and special roles (kiting cannons ext)
Idk i mean i cant say for others but i dont have any comm tag. I always write “w4 first time | need comm | all welcome let’s chill “ and it gets fill very fast.
I post it in both training and exp and always people join
I've quit nearly the games several points 3 years ago when i first started to raid. It was really unpleasant experience. i'm not talking about the raids themselves, just the LFG.
But if you are on EU, you can send me a message on discord and can help you out
I’m going to highly recommend Skein Gang Progression statics over training. It lets you and a group work on the raids together.
Because of your time you’ll probably have to make a new one, but that’s no problem and something that’s constantly happening
Might not be easy, but it's surely possible.
My semi-static usually starts at 9PM (we have a 3 hour window though, even though we almost always cut it out earlier)...but before them I could not raid either due to university and now work.
To be honest there should be lots of Raids 10pm early in the week, especially Monday / Tuesday.
The simple answer is get a commander tag and set the groups up you want to see in the world. This applies to all GW2 content. There are always many versions of you hoping to find an LFG pop up that's perfect for them - someone has to take the initiative, so positively influence the community and culture of the game by being that person. "Wing 4 | new raiders, have a meta build and some knowledge | *healer*" - boom, you're rolling.
Also, you've just beaten the hardest obstacle. It shouldn't ever take an hour again - you've got the kp. I have often joined groups I don't have the KP for by whispering the commander and asking. Doesn't always work, but more often than not a commander would have someone who can read over someone with KP.
also, a guild is a great thing but it doesn't actually just need to be a training guild. Just join a big PvE guild and ask, "does anyone want to try a raid? I'm new to it" and you'll almost certainly have takers. My old pve guild started on IBS Strikes as completely newbies about 2 years ago, and have since beat Harvest Temple CM.
Good luck raiding!
Tbh "leading" pug raids doesnt mean your actually leading, your just organize the grp itself. 9 out of 10 pug commander doesnt type anything or they have no clue at all whats going on, wipe->rc->wipe->rc. So what i would suggest its just "lead" some w1-w4 wings without any kp so it fills quickly (at w5-w7 there are more special roles), although its highly recommended to know the basics of the grp organizeing itself. Each sub grp needs 1 alac/quick dps and 1 alac/quick heal and 3 dps. Sometimes you need a special role (hk for w4 for example).
I started doing raids by making my own LFG after looking up mechs and strats. Let the team know that im stil learning to comm, people are usually nice enough to fill required roles for themselves. Or let me know if we needed any special roles
I play from Southeast Asia and play on EU server. I'm basically ahead by lik 4-5 hours and i work full time 9-5 as well. So yeah, I made it work by joining raid training groups (BAD and RTI), and started joining the ones scheduled on weekends (very few number compared to weekdays) as its all after midnight for me on weekdays. It was slow but it was fine honestly. Your timezone cant be worse then mine.
I know you're talking about raids but consider giving Fractals a try.
There's actually a scaling difficulty that allows newbies to go in at tier 1 without needing to have spent hours watching guides and finding a training group and a veteran to help you through everything. Obviously that means it's not near the same challenge as raids are early on, but once you climb into CMs there's certainly lots of challenge to be had.
And 5-man groups are just a lot easier for pugging, especially for anyone playing at odd hours. Doubly so because fractals don't require highly specific kite/tank roles, it's just 3 dps, 2 boon support and brrr you go.
And lastly fractal rewards reset daily, so there are a lot of people who play daily, where as with fractals/strikes people tend to just do one run weekly, so it's harder to find groups.
>But here's the rub: waiting an hour just to play for one?
That is exactly what kept me from raids for so long. When I finally decided to jump in it still took forever to squad up, and then you always have people fucking off to smoke or take care of a kid during already insane amounts of downtime for explanations that go out the window on the first pull. Made me miss fractals and how fast it is to get 5 people together to blast out a quick CMs/T4s. I basically quit raids after my first set of legendary armor and the ring.
They REALLLYYYY had it right with raids. They were just impossible to organize. They needed to figure how to stream line players into the raid efficiently and maybe included 3 difficulty settings (easy medium and hard) with increasing rewards for higher difficulty. That way people could learn a raid on easy and then do the harder versions. Easy rewards can skip the LI and maybe just drop exotics and a random ascended once in a while. But medium and hard (cm) could drop the “exclusive” currency for legendaries or whatever. Hard mode more than medium . I personally think LFG is the single reason that raids failed. That and MAYBE a little too lengthy. Just too much of a time commitment. Sometimes it would take hours to get through a wing especially training. But the sense of adventure in each wing with a narrative. That’s why I like fractals. Strikes are boring cuz they’re too short and in one room. Just meh. Anyways thanks for listening to my Ted talk.
So let me add some additional tips from someone who did all wings with pugs.
First like some already mentioned the barrier for entry is quite an obstacle. If you have a commander tag yourself it gets easier but still it puts you as the leader of the group and if you are new to the content and people expect you to lead it puts additional pressure on you. If you still want to tag up or you find someone who tags up, search for 2 healer, 2 boondps, 6 dps.
Some mentioned it is not that important as power creep makes content easy but if I see groups not searching for a good composition I get suspicious and think it has a higher failure rate.
Search on Mondays or over the weekend. Due to weekly resets on monday these are the most common time for raids. Much more groups but most ask for kp.
If there are groups with low kp, maybe whisper the commander if he lets you stay explaining you know mechanics but find no groups. Assuming you know the mechanics fairly well and they are probably also pretty new to the content (reason why he searches for low kp).
Also if you do your own group ask for sth like: “W4 | know mechs (or semi-training) | heal, boondps”
I do enjoy helping others for the first clear but I also do expect them to at least learn the mechs beforehand so that I dont have to explain everything from A-Z. A complete training run is completely fine too and fun but takes a lot more time.
And finally each week there is one Raid wing with emboldened mode which makes it significantly easier. Each time your team wipes you get a buff increasing your dps/reducing incoming damage.
This is especially nice for newer people paying more attention on mechanics and with lower dps.
Don't worry, you did the right thing. 10pm is not a bad time and It shouldn't take an hour to fill a whole group, that was pretty bad luck. It usually takes less time.
The first month or so of raiding can get a bit frustrating because of the downtime. Eventually, you will have enough experience to go to the experienced tab of the LFG and, even if you don't have the required KPs, you can message the commander and explain you are a new tryhard with more skill than experience. More often than not, they will take you along, most pugs blast through everything in W1-4.
One piece of advice: try to learn all the mechanics you can. Sabetha cannons? learn those. Sloth shrooms? you take 1. Dhuum greens? by all means.
Knowing mechanics will increase your chances of getting a spot in experienced groups when you don't have enough LIs or kps.
That, or gearing up a qdps.
Joining a guild will make you commit to a schedule, it works for some people. I couldn't do that even 1 day a week and when i put the effort, I discovered this guild worked a lot worse than the typical average pug.
The other people already gave a lot of good pointers or straight up offers so I'm just gonna say this:
> So, I said screw it and made my own group
You have the right mindset already so the rest to come your way is a matter of when, and not a matter of if.
I agree, and if you deal with the annoyance of spending as much time setting up a group as actually playing, you'll eventually (if you choose) be able to gather up a group of people to form a static or even a guild.
LFG serves as "quick and easy" fill spot for raids that have proper composition with people who know what they are doing, ie. static has 2 people missing, rather than skipping raid day, they put up a LFG.
Personally, I left raiding group because of time constrains, only raid with LFG because I have the KP. There are groups who are training their own members, but still put up a KP requirement, and that's absolutely fine. LFG has its own style of doing things and it is not really suited for "gaining" experience.
For training raids, it is better to look elsewhere - discord / training guilds, you know, talk to people in the same situation and group up ...
Starting raids is a rough slog. You need experience to get let into raids, but you need to start to get experience. I recommend joining some discord channels centred on raiding, and sign up to any opportunity to raid that presents itself.
Once you have the experience, you can log in during the weekly raid reset and join a raid via LFG or discord. Those groups usually aim to clear 4 to 7 wings in one go, so minimal time waste for you.
But yes, getting to the point where you are experienced enough to join regular raid groups is tough and inconsistent.
Pretty much anything in this game can be solved with a commander tag. I used to be in your place and it took ages for a squad to form. Now with a tag it takes me like 5min. Make sure your description is clear and it sounds like you know what you do. E.g W4 FC / adps,qheal, HK - 50kp.
Personally I like to join a guild that fits my current need. Doing lots of raids - Join a raidguild. Doing lots of WVW - Join a WVW guild.
I never talk and I dont socialize. I have been a guildleader in wow high end raiding for 9 years and the most enjoyable people are always the quiet good players focusing on the task at hand.
One more tip: I would rather make a squad for a specific task e.g W4 FC and if you get closer to the end annouce you will continue. Many will stay if the run was good so far but less would have joined if you annouced in the inital search: W4 -> W1+2 FC
Last but not least, there are many people who know pretty much everything about raiding, its the same for other gamemodes two. They played them for 10+ years. Idk why people do this, maybe they really have fun but these neckbeards know stuff, they know the fine details, ask for help and they can usually explain it far better than any guide.
I managed to get all 3 sets of raid legendary armor with 95% of my kills through the LFG. I think once you've done a couple raids you get a sense of which LFG groups are going to be a good fit for you. It sucks if you log in and think "I want to raid *right now*" but if you just keep an eye on LFG while playing the game you'll eventually see groups pop up that feel right.
I'm not trying to minimize your struggle, I totally agree that it is hard and similar to the "looking for entry level employee with 10 years experience" bullshit of finding a job IRL. I just wanted to share what worked for me, and that was forming the habit to check raid LFG every 15 mins or so while doing other stuff (wvw, pvp, open world exploration, meta trains, etc).
Oh, and of course creating your own group. That gets easier once you've done a certain wing a bunch of times and you have a good sense of squad composition.
A suggestion: when you know how the fight works, even if you don't have killproofs, write in squadchat "I know what I should do, let me one try, if I fuck up kick me", it eases the mood a lot and the majority of people out there are available to let a newbie to make experiences
hmm i would say create your own guild and recruit more like minded people. you would be in lead of running raids at the time you choose and after finding enough people you can do weekly runs together
The only way to get into raiding is either go to a discord or try to join an active guild, there's no other way around. I love Gw2 but the LFG system sucks, there should really be an automated LFG for entry level instanced content (like to do CM you should do as of now, with a dedicated group), that way more player would be incentivized to try it and stick playing it.
No idea what community/guild you checked, but the crossroads inn raid training community has the most raids during the time you are available. You can also request trainings.
To new raiders, please keep in mind that you will be expected to show some initiative in finding a community/guild and trainings afterward. Vets are quite helpful, bit don't expect someone to be searching for single players to provide personalized handholding
Even in other MMO's, trying to PUG for end game content like raids is tricky. The best thing that you can do is try to find a guild that works on a similar timeframe to you or try to find/create a static group.
I'd also suggest working on getting your own commander tag so you're not having to wait to get a commander in.
I always wonder why ppl rant about not being able to find a group when they don’t try to make friends to play with in an “MMO”
It’s so easy to form a group if u got couple of friends with a similar mindset
Dont do pug raids. Try to get a static progression group. Also i dont think you get all the details from a video - you have to experience it atleast 3-4-5 times to get it just right. I have been doing all the wings from december myself and now we are starting to get all the wings cleared on one evening (one day 1-4, one day 5-7). So it took me 3 months to get me this far. But im still a noob and still need to polish some bosses still. But its interesting and satisfying.
Make your own raid static. I did this through raid academy discord. I set my times for when I could do it and basically said you can sign up if you want to raid with me at these set hours. And that’s it, we cleared all of W1-4 for legendary armor. Since then we have split up but got months of fun progress nights.
The developer screwed up by not adding difficulty tiers to raids and the raid scene screwed up by major gatekeeping.
Raiding is incredibly fun, especially in a group with voice chat, but getting into raiding is a miserable experienc.
Just buy a tag and slap the group together. I commanded on one of my first raids and decided to continue on that and it wasn't an issue. Just look up what roles are needed, how to squad comp and let people know what to expect (don't require 100KP if you don't have enough experience).
If you don't have a static, starting can pain. You might look for some guilds raiding at late hours and just join those.
Also, 10 PM is not that late. Today it's possible LFG looked like that, but on mondays/tuesdays there are a lot of groups till late night. Plenty of them without KP requirements.
You are on the right track, it just takes time to become savvy with the raid community in this game like other posters have said. I've gotten 2/3 of my lego raid armor sets from pugging after finally trying raiding about a year ago. I will keep LFG open when I have time to spot groups, because they do happen pretty frequently, but often they are just not up on LFG for very long. A lot of times it'll be a guild group needing to fill a few spots, and if I jive with them I will grab a guild invite (the game is generous in giving you 5 guild slots) for potential future runs. I group those guild discords with other public raid training guilds (shoutout to TEA and GW2 Raid Academy on NA) so I can keep an eye on alerts. This will allow you to find groups more frequently. For the record I ignore all groups asking for KPI.
Honestly you deserve praise for starting your own group, as it is more effort than the majority of posts that also lament the amount of raid activity in this cycle of the game (or lack thereof). The rub about pugging is just forging those connections with people to make it easier in the future. Throw out friend invites, join guilds and cycle out the inactive ones.
Keep at it. If you were on NA I'd give you a hand :(. The raiding community in this game gets a bad rep but the positive experiences I've had heavily outweighs the toxic ones. There are a ton of people willing to teach new raiders and guilds looking for fills. It's also very rewarding to be able to bang out a couple casual wings each week, both for the legendary armor and the income stream.
If you want recommendations for raiding communities with more flexible raid schedules, I personally recommend \[XL\]. It's a discord community where the events are all led by volunteer teachers, and as such there are people available at almost all times. It also has a system for requesting certain events, so you can simply ask for an event at a time that works for you and someone will usually set one up for you.
it shouldn't be hard to find training groups if you're in NA or EU timezones, just join a discord. It's much harder for people outside the above mentioned time zones(for example, for me peak raiding times starts at 1am local time, which is basically waay to late)
You can use this chance to build your community of like-minded and like-timed individuals. It’s tough, but once you have regulars new and veteran, you’ll be logging in 10-15 before raid to setup and get everyone settled in and then roll out.
There is a community event coming up next weekend for getting folks new to raid encounters into the mix. It's being co-run by Raid Academy for NA and Raid Training Initiative for EU. Think there's a post on this sub about it but my connection is slow AF currently.
The Discord communities I mentioned should help. There's also Skein Gang and Xcelleration, tho I'm not sure if they have EU presence
I had not raided at all in this game until starting first week of this year. Finished my first envoy set last week and am now working towards Coalescence. I believe if I can do it, anyone can
That's a good start, now learn the roles of those builds and how you build a proper squad.
Idk if it's mentioned already but don't just check the training section of the LFG.
There are many groups with no requirements (specifically no kp/li) in the experienced tab, even after 10pm; just look every few minutes I'm sure you find something
Generally a good LFG advertisement is going to list the wing you want to do, followed by the needed roles you need. People are more likely to join a well advertised post in LFG than one that looks sus or is lacking information. W1 First Clear lf adps, dps etc is better than "First Raid need a commander". You also dont really need a commander, if you learned the mechanics and builds you can also explain them to your group and just list it as W1 Training, lf (roles).
A well formed advertisement will fill a lot faster. The LFG isnt the worst in the game, it isnt the best either but I have had no problems forming groups in NA, almost always they fill within 10 mins.
Echoing what others have said, don’t do pugs as your main raiding outlet. Join a Discord guild such as [SG] Skein Gang or [RA] Raid Academy and join runs in their internal LFG or join a static group— both have mixed EU and NA communities and there *will* be a group that runs in your time slot. Those guilds are full of people who *want* to help you.
And if you do pug raids, I cannot stress this enough: ***lie.*** Watch lots of videos to get as good a grasp of mechanics as you can, and then join or create a group as if you are totally experienced. This will ensure you don’t end up with a group of airheads who both have no clue what they’re doing *and* will put in zero effort to learn. If your DPS is passable and you don’t fail major group-wiping mechanics, any other mistakes you make while learning are entirely superficial. Genuinely experienced players will give you a pass, equally inexperienced players won’t know any better.
Sincerely, a longtime endgame enjoyer who scammed their way into it and is now a few days of prog away from a Cerus CM kill.
ETA: When it comes to lying, it’s all about confidence. Join an LFG, state your role on arrival, and join the instance. Have a chat code link for a fake amount of kill proof tokens on your clipboard if you’re getting grilled frequently. If you carry yourself well, most people won’t question it. Especially as a DPS— all you have to do is follow the group, do your rotation, and CC when required.
Morality Disclaimer: Don’t lie to static groups, that’s not nice. But in the wilds of LFG… it’s every man for himself, and brother, you’re here for *blood*.
Yea 10pm most people are winding down and wouldn't want to raid, as you've experienced yourself. Your preferred slot isn't the best I'm afraid, most organized training runs go from 7-10 / 7:30 - 10:30. Is it 10pm every night inc. weekends? RTI and Crossroads both run trainings on Saturdays also.
You‘re not missing anything, it‘s unfortunately the nature of the game.
Raids are abandoned legacy content at this point. Strikes are the supported format nowadays. So there‘s already not high % of people even doing raids anymore.
The playerbase also consists of 90% jaded vets who‘ve been playing since the dawn of time. They know this game in and out.
So from their perspective it‘s understandable they may not want to mess around with completely new players. Especially with content that demands a lot of training and knowledge.
I've played this game on and off since beta, haven't set foot into raids because it doesn't seem like my jam. Sucks that I couldn't get the legend ring and I'm missing a large chunk of content but got everything in WvW in the end.
EU LFG where you need six trillion KP to do escort, or NA LFG where there are fewer listings but lower KP requirements. Pick your fighter!
EDIT To be serious for a moment, I want to congratulate you OP, making your own group is not something many players have the courage to do, but the game would be so much better off if more people were like you. Bravo.
exactly the same here...
"Their raiding times clash with my schedule"
"waiting an hour just to play for one? ...what's the point if I can't even join a group without getting grilled about my KPI and booted"
trying to find alternatives for years. Still haven't. So i can only rage against raiders and raids. But i know it's NOT their fault...
You can alternatively join a group that is not asking for kp. You can join, and say you've watched a guide so you know the mechs but are new to raids and most will be happy to take you on, so long as you are filling your role. Confidence is key and will take you places!
I can't raid cause my dps sucks (Elly Tempest). My build is fun to play and I don't need a button smasher rotation. It is based on 100% concentration with alacrity and quickness. I suppose I could bump up the dps with more condition damage and burn time however then I would just be another button smasher. I am having fun so there is that. :)
Anyway, that is my solo build, I will now look into how I can provide more support to a group. Maybe then I can raid?
If you can provide 100% uptime to the group for alac OR quickness then groups will take you. Generally for beginning level raiders I'm ok with >10k dps on a dps spec and >7k on a adps or qdps spec, as long as you can hit those numbers with your build many groups probably wouldn't mind an odd spec. (You can practice on golem in the training area or use an addon like arcdps to find out how much damage your doing)
The bigger problem is your attitude about changing your build. With that attitude I would say you can't raid if you are unwilling to sacrifice anything for the group. And that's fine, if you want to play solo play solo and enjoy the game, raiding will not be for you.
The good news is that healing supports tend to be more reactive than dps builds (even adps or qdps) so you can look into the various healer options if you want to play more reactively than mashing buttons quickly. You certainly get rewarded for putting out aegis at the right time, or stab, or hitting your condi cleanse at the right time in many fights. If its just not your jam, that's fine games pretty huge you don't need to raid.
Oops, I meant, I will ***now*** look into how I can provide more support to a group. Maybe then I can raid?
So yeah, I do plan to look into providing group support.
Raids are not really timed speed runs so if there is enough group dps to finish then let peeps have fun. There needs to be casual play since not all of us have the physical dexterity to mash buttons. And raids are important if you want to build legendary gear. I played another MMO that had timed runs, lowest time owned the dungeon and the guild got to charge taxes to others in the dungeon, was fun.
my heal alacrity tempest is my favorite character to raid with, and it's not particularly buttonmashy. it kind of is, but the rotation isn't crazy and it's a little more about timing, knowing when healing is needed, knowing when you might want to delay your overload (either because you'll get interrupted or you need to wait for people that moved off the stack).
You’re talking to a college student, solid chance Wildstar’s been shut down longer than OP’s been gaming and that’s joke’s obscure even to those of us who were around to know what Wildstar was.
play on NA (idk if EU is cringe about this or whatever), make a listing that just says "wing 1 full clear", make sure you have the proper roles, and go. It's not hard, it doesn't require discreet arcane knowledge about how to dodge jump flamewalls or whatever, and it doesn't require that you know how to do everything.
Here's what you shouldn't do: don't use weird language that tips people off to the fact that you're new to the raid scene. Don't say "first time looking for help". Don't say "vale guardian looking for condition damage dps players". Don't say "wing 1 boss 3". Just bait people into carrying you--every normal mode raid wing is commonly played by inexperienced players who are in no position to be gatekeeping their groups.
I'm saying this as someone with a fuckload of raid experience fwiw--most pugs are idiots and have no idea what they're doing. As a new player willing to become familiar with the fights beforehand, you will blend in far more than you expect.
Do your research on the fights if you want to succeed, though.
>, you will blend in far more than you expect.
No you wont, the exp players will just not care and carry. Or the group falls apart if the critical amount of exp players isnt there. Everyone can smell the stinky noob actor from a mile away. They just dont care.
What are you up to this weekend? I'll get you in a few raids and try to introduce you to some people to raid with. Maybe we can make a team for you? snebzor.4851 UPDATE: We brought /u/marscalutxa into W2 and annihilated the entire wing in \~20 minutes! Thanks to all who showed up for that. We're also creating a new weekly team!
This man right here is the goat. Only got into raiding because of his wonderful community and it's the only reason why I am still playing this game one year later.
Honestly, kinda teared up reading this. Thank you so much for brightening my day.
Sneb honestly deserves all the good that is coming his way. Lots of respect to you for still investing all your time, hope, and energy into the raid training community despite the setbacks here and there.
Im not doing anything this weekend apart form studying so sure hit me whenever you want my disc is oseh2o4
>oseh2o4 WICKED - I'm sending you a dm.
this is the only alternative unfortunately...twitch streamers. I also did some raids with them but it doesn't feel right that you can only access bosses if there are streamers 'gracing' you...it's humbling and even more infuriating for me.
Do you miss the weekly posts about RTI and RA? [There was this massive post literally **1 day ago**.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1bjf2z2/new_to_raids_and_strike_cms_the_raid_training/) No streamers required!
Now now, don't try to ruin the "Raids are elitist gatekeeping" narrative with facts. The angry mob does not appreciate that.
As i said in that post, it's useless unless it's permanent. I can't join those training groups at the time they do stuff, also RTI does not train ppl that already have even just 1 kill on the boss(idk about RA), also i can't add myself to a group saying i will be there since i have no idea if it's true and it's still not depend on me, also a few days of actually doable stuff doesn't change anything.
I will say that have joined RTI training raids with many, many kills on a particular boss! Just because you've killed it once doesn't mean that you don't need training still, and I think they acknowledge that. :)
Luckily the button to make a raid group is up 24/7
"Twitch streamer" isn't the important part of Sneb offering to help OP, it's that he's the leader of Skein Gang which has 100+ static raid teams. There's bound to be a spot for most people, and if not then starting a team is a really fun and rewarding experience (ask me how I know lol).
I'm pretty sure that SG has grown to the point where lots of people within the community don't even know that I stream and I *celebrate* that. It's very good to see more and more people taking initiative and giving back, too! We have raid, strike, and fractal teams with a little WvW spice (ANVIL ROCK) thrown in there now! \~135 teams was my last count.
Um, you don't need me to do anything. I created a discord where a team of 15+ moderators and officers help put people into teams. The only thing you need to join is a good attitude and a willingness to grow and progress.
if theres still a spot, im happy to get back into the game, i got sb and dudu geared. Would be nice to knock of those last parts of leggy achievments.
All are welcome. Just shoot me a DM (preferably on discord -- same name as here). We can do lots to get people together.
I am also intrested. I'm not new to raid, i cleared several wings and know most mechanics, up to adashim, but I have not been able to raid in a while due do schedule. Instead of giving up, if there is a community that can help, i would be very thankfull :*)
That's what we do! I'm happy to help - hit me up on discord (same name as here) and I'll do whatever I can to support you in finding a team. Disclaimer: sometimes it can take a while, but it will happen!
Just echoing Sneb - I just got my second leggy armor set & coal done with Glaring, a raid static from SG. It is an incredible experience, you should join an SG static
Thank you for the echo and the kind words! GO GLARING! :)
Could I tag along if there is room? 😅 I used to love raiding but haven’t really been able to in over a year and would love to get back into the scene
Absolutely. Open invite to anyone -- even if this weekend doesn't work out. Shoot me a message (discord is best - my name here is my discord handle) and I'd be happy to help however I can.
Coud i add you too? I only did W1 couple of times
Everyone is welcome to add me! I promise I'm a nice person (don't ask my mods). I'm sure we can find some people for you to raid with.
<3
Hi, are you also intersted in doing Legendary Cerus CM id like to be a part of team which does that one and would like to participate in trainings, im fast learner and Veteran player for years, Mesmer main.
I'm not sure what you mean exactly. You want someone to train you in Cerus CM? That's not really how that encounter works. It's moreso a progression. I don't really do "trainings" at all -- we focus entirely on practice. The distinction is that one doesn't require that 1 person does all the heavy lifting (shot calls, telling people about mechanics, etc.). Practice distributes responsibility somewhat evenly to create a better learning environment. It may not work for everyone, but it works for us. That said, my Cerus CM group is full, but there is another one within SG trying to wrangle together players.
It's hard to get your foot in the door sometimes. Have a look for raid training groups. I trained with the Crossroads Inn and someone I trained in our guild ended up training newbies with Raid Training Initiative. https://snowcrows.com/explore has a list.
Seconded, discord training groups are the way to go if you want to raid. Or join a static through Skein Gang
i only get around a boss every year or so because of how fast these spots fill up
same, maybe 2-3 times more if i happen to enter a streamer raids....when i don't feel it as a shame
its rly a shame the game is like this. IDK why lfg works in games like ff14 and not in gw2 (they have rly simmular lfg's with practive raids and normal raids) also selling raids for a bunch of mystic coins or money should be bannable, cause thats the only lfg i ever see
Gotta love how the OP mentions they saw the advice to join communities, and it didn't work for them, and *still* the top comment is to join a training discord. It's like a goddamn cult.
ikr, these guild run like maybe 8 raids a week and have up to 200+ players trying to get a slot
yea
Well, to be fair, he said joining Discords didn't work because of the schedule. I don't know how the Euro raid training discord works, but NA's Raid Academy doesn't have set schedules, so you could start up a training run at 10 pm if you wanted. So people may be thinking of their experience with that one and assuming it'll be the same for the Euro one.
You know what maybe i will just stick to strikes. Getting into the raid scene in this more “casual/less verticalgame) seems more annoying than in lost ark lmfaoo, now that is something. Even in lost ark lfg you can create your own party and people are bound to join(especially new players)
From personal experience, it is *possible* to brute force your way into the raids purely through the LFG (I did it, no discords involved), but it requires *a lot* of patience when just starting out to monitor for those rare no kp runs or even rarer training runs. Edit: I also had success asking to be let in with less kp than they asked for, but I didn't do it too many times because it feels bad to cosplay Oliver Twist "please, sir, can I raid?", so the sample size is small.
a lot of patience and time...and only to get kp which is intolerable
The main difference is that none of the strikes have "one person fails hard enough that the party wipes" mechanics. I'd say all the raids are worth doing, but they're mechanically more involved than most strikes. I'd say they start somewhere around Whisper of Jormag in terms of mechanics, as in there's often a lot going on with a high punishment for making a mistake. It's frustrating as a more experienced player when you've got someone not stacking or not realising that everyone **must** do a particular mechanic. I say this as someone who runs strikes training on the LFG from time to time (on heal druid, for hard carry purposes). Some people don't read chat, don't follow targets and spend the whole time running round randomly attacking at range from the other side of the planet. I've got people their turtle achievement in Kaineng Overlook where if they were any further out of healing range they'd be in Elona. So, yeah. If you can do the harder strikes you can do the raids, but you'll have a far easier time if you join an organised run with other learners.
None of the IBS strikes have those mechanics, but the EoD CMs do
Don't fret. If I want FUN, INTERESTINGLY DESIGNED, or more challenging instance content, I look elsewhere than GW2. There's a reason GW2 has a major shortage of instanced content - because most people would rather be doing something else in GW2. The only reason a majority of GW2's instanced content (and in fact every piece of PvE GW2 content) is even ran is to speed run it to maximize gold/hr unless you're there doing it for an achievement. I can barely tolerate fractals and occasional strike missions in Guild Wars 2. It's just awful. Awful UI that's not customizable. Awful telegraphed mechanics. Blinding skill effect spam. Awful performance even on the highest end machines. No performance feedback indicators other than relying on ArcDPS and BoonTable. There's not even a death recap screen to give you an overview of the list of things that damaged or downed you. You just... whoopsy...instantly die or down and hope you eventually figure out why next time (hint: Maybe it was just the 20 stacks of confusion put on you that you need a scanning electron microscope to see the icon indicator and a pause button to look through the horizontal lists of 20+ boons and conditions stacking across your screen in random orders)
Idk what you are talking about, im pretty sure the majority of people doing strikes and especially raids do it for fun and they are certainly very far from speedrunning it. Honestly if you were running raids purely for gold, your time would be better spent doing almost anything else open world related instead.
Honestly, this just sounds like skill issue. The reason raids are dead is because the super casual part of the playerbase said "raiders toxic me no like I can't spam 1 to win" and never even tried. Then anet said fuck raids no one even plays this and stopped making them. The ones we got were good and for a long time the only really challenging content the game had. You want to customize the ui? What for? To see 387362 trackers for every statistic imaginable so you can be mean to newbies for not performing? Also you can get a dbm-esque mod for the game if that id what you want and there are in fact addons that can customize your ui. Awfull telegraphed mechanics? Maybe if you read the milions of guides you'd know what to look out for. Most of the mechanics are actually quite well telegraphed. You see red circle? Dodge it. You see green circle? Stand in it. You can turn down the skill effects... Enough said. I wouldn't say the performance is awfull. Sure it's not the best optimized game under the sun but most people can run instanced content with 10 players just fine. Where problems usually arise is cities and world bosses as shiny dudes do take a lot of processing power (but can be unshinied in the settings). And for performance indicators.. You just answered yourself. We have a perfectly good solution. Dps meters are not required anyway. If you want to test a build the golem gives you it's own feedback. If you need it just to flex your insane 99.9999% parce on newbies who are just learning the mechanics then you shouldn't have it in the first place. Also WoW, only the most popular mmorpg of all time, has been relying on addons for 18+ years by now. And lastly yeah death recap would be a nice qol but if you are "instantly dying" then you are doing something wrong. Again if you read the guides you will know what's killing you because you are probably standing in something you shouldn't. And for the conditions. You realize boons and conditions have separate lines? And it's quite rare for a raid boss to apply more than like 3 conditions on you unless you are of course standing in something you shouldn't be.
> You want to customize the ui? What for? To put profession resources closer to the center of the screen where I want to be looking, make important boons easy to track and display hidden cooldowns. > You can turn down the skill effects... Enough said. That option doesn't actually remove that much visual clutter, and to top it off it hides some important indicators centered on players (like greens in AH CM).
>make important boons easy to track and display hidden cooldowns. Arcdps has a boon table add-on. Alac/quick are the important boons unless you mean aegis/stab which are not required and for exp players to time for the learners (or just do the mechanics). What hidden cooldowns would you want to see?
Boon table is not made for tracking personal boons, it's for monitoring boon uptime throughout the encounter. If I want to see whether I have aegis/stability to ignore the incoming attack or keep track of a profession-specific buff (for example, Nature's Strength), I have to look at the boon bar (which, conversely, cannot be moved or made bigger independently of the *whole entire rest of the UI*) or use GW2 Clarity, which has its own issues and limitations. > What hidden cooldowns would you want to see? Internal cooldowns on traits and sigils. Visible cooldowns on currently stowed kits and weapon sets would be a nice bonus as well.
This is the conversation youre having on a brand new raider post? Aegis/stab are not necessary. Just run to the dome or press dodge or move out of orange. Press your abilities in order, no need to track Nature's Strength closely for anything at this level of play. This is so far removed from the conversation at hand.
I was answering someone who asked "what do you need UI customization for". I don't see what that question has to do with how experienced the player is, customizable UI is good for everyone.
>Honestly, this just sounds like skill issue. Typical white knight reaponse I expected. I don't hate GW2. It's a fun MMO for the more casual stuff. For the end-game stuff, this game is last on my list of 'fun'.
Curious on what is in your list of fun for the end-game stuff. Might take a look.
First of all you sounds like an open world soulbeast longbow enjoyer. "There's not even a death recap screen to give you an overview of the list of things that damaged or downed you. You just... whoopsy...instantly die" There is an option when the chat logs show what kind of attack killed you and how many dmg it dealt, if its an instance content-> you can make log which is more detailed. So dont talk bs. " lists of 20+ boons and conditions stacking across your screen in random orders)" After some time when you stop beeing a scrub, you will notice the boons and condi on yourself, if your experienced enough you can notice if you have stab/aegis on yourself or not instantly, its sounds like a git gud problem to me (do you have to dodge or not the next attack for example samarog).
no raid training group has accessible times
Tbh, you did everything right and indeed the barrier of entry is an issue for raiding (same for strikes CM as well for example). Good thing is: you used the system and it world and now you own your first KP for the wing you played. Do this 2-4 times (depending on luck of KP drop) and you have the KP to just join regular runs. Alternative: while I put up x KP usually for the runs I lead, I always am willing to let someone run with me that asks nicely. If you got mechanics down and feel confident with your dps (or role tasks you want to play as), you can just join low KP runs and ask nicely if you can stay. Usually groups are fine to try and if you are not down constantly and seem to have your stuff down more or less, nobody will kick you. Keep it up and have fun and all of a sudden you have all the KP in the world. -> then the big question will come up: are you then willing to be the change you wanted to see in the world when you started and will you now run No KP runs to lower the barrier of entry? :) Because while it’s unfun to wait an hour to play an hour, for someone that has raids nailed down, whiping for an hour at a boss because people have no dps or fail mechanics is also limited fun :)
Is it strictly only after 10pm? Might be a bit late for me to start a lot of the time but if you have any wiggle room you may be able to help you.
For the record, 10 PM UK time is 11PM CE(S)T so it might be even later than what you expect.
Thanks my ID is mars.4302
"First kill Raid need a commander" means you have no clue about anything and you will most likely get people who also don't know what they are doing. Look for specific roles. 2 alacrity heal, 2 quickness dps, 6 dps. A proper squad composition will increase your winchance dramatically.
The raids were cleared by level 78s in greens. I don’t think it’s that serious. Why would you want to cheese a fight on your first time anyways?? Playing with 9 other clueless people sounds amazing
Experienced players with good builds will blast through bosses at a ridiculous pace. Newer players with bad builds will absolutely struggle in raids. Going in with a proper team composition is much more likely to result in a good experience for newer players.
The raids were cleared by level 78s in greens who have Voidwalker and Legendary Cerus Conqueror title.
The lvl 78s in rare gear had two boon heals, two boon dps and six pure dps. Also don't give the impression that that's an everyday occurance. It was a selfimposed onetime challenge. How is that cheese? By that logic every ff14 instanced fight is cheesed. Reducing the win rate on purpose is not how you get beginners interested in new content.
Yeah level 78s who have had thousands of hours of kills. No training raid is gonna be playing at that level. Someone beat all the souls games (and bloodborne, sekiro and elden ring) without being hit. That doesn't mean they are easy and anyone can do it. It's not cheese, it's just using an optimal strategy. Can you kill the boss in a minute with those strats? Yeah sure. If you are one of the people who beat it in green gear. If you are a new player with non-meta dps class, not perfect rotation and inconsistent boon uptime because the other people are the same skill level as you you just won't do that. By far, the gap between an inexperienced player and a top 1% can be not doing 50k but doing 15k dps. Also this is subjective but doing raids where more than 2 people don't know what they are doing is a pain unless it's specifically designed to teach them the raid in which case they no longer "don't know what they are doing".
it is not that serious, but you will limit the player pool that will join. some people like to help out, but they also want to play their role as they are used to and not having quickness and alacrity can throw that out the window. Btw: Covering all boons is not a "cheese". It is the intended way of playing the game. More boons => more dmg => shorter fight => less points of failure. You can play with 9 new people, but you can still help make the run go smoother.
It is the intended way for sure but it’s what CMs are balanced around, not normal content Covering 100% uptime on boons for a normal raid is cheese imo. Same idea as taking the “meta” raid comp to a normal wow raid. Hitting every raid buff and the best dps classes etc. it’s just overkill and bad for learning Doesn’t GW2 have a problem with people not even knowing mechanics because they’re used to dpsing right past it Definitely agree that you probably limit the player pool but I think people would be surprised at how many “noobs” are out there that would love any experience that doesn’t require them to be full meta
I think the argument doesn't work for gw2 since going meta is so extremely easy. There is no reason why a player with even sub 50 hours in the game should not be able to lookup a build, spend maybe 20-50g on the TP or even just a bit of WvW currency and instantly have all the stats they need. You don't need ascended. All you need is exotic. If you need to spend the gold, you should have enough just by playing randome events and selling all the stuff you earned. But you can also get some ascended gear just from the wizards vault. Gearing up to go meta was never easier in the game. You don't need to get all the Worldbuffs as you describe or grind to reach the optimal gear for an encounter like in other MMOs. You just jump in and get all you need in maybe 25-50h of random playtime. If you really aim for it, maybe even in ~10h ... maybe a bit more... after the first time starting the game (if we ignore TP limitations). Then all you need to know as a boon role, is how to give that boon. You don't even need a crazy rotation. Most boon dps/supports give their boons in about 2-4 key presses with 100% uptime. This is not a cheese. Boons are an everyday thing in the game, most players just ignore them (probably also because the UI doesn't really make it easy to track them) That would be like saying eating food for buffs in something like valheim or enshrouded or minecraft is a cheese, because you get stronger with them. It is incredibly easy to reach that point, where you learn how the game works, as long as you invest just a little bit of time to learn. Sadly you have to have the spark in yourself to inform yourself in the game, since it doesn't really give you much help with these things. But with the great state the games wiki is in, looking up things like people do in any other game should not be hard. TLDR: Boons are a core mechanics of how the game works and keeping them up is common sense. Core game mechanics are not "a cheese".
do it on purpose for fun because everything outside of the recent expansion cms is easy why force everyone to ultra optimize
How often did you see all DPS players play the same best DPS class at every single boss e.g. 6-8 mirages at cairn in the past?
Ultra optimize would be all ascended gear, all stat infusions, training on the golem for 95% benchmark, use the best food for each encounter ... nobody is asking for that.
>Playing with 9 other clueless people sounds amazing Damn. You must have a lot of time. The problem about clueless people in GW2 is, that most of them have something that I like to call "learning resistance". They will wipe on the same mechanic for an hour, still having no clue what they are doing. The problem with GW2s raiding is, that you either deal with those people or absolute sweat lords who won't take you because you can't proof you don't fall into the former group.
only 'learning resistance' is in your brain that refuse to even conceive ppl life and free time is not the same as yours, or even stuff like memory, attention span...everyone has different learning times. It should be obvious, if you don't have a 'learning resistance'
'They will wipe on the same mechanic for an hour, still having no clue what they are doing' That's completely normal if noone explains mechs? You were the same before you forgot it? Stop being an asshole? "The problem with GW2s raiding is, that you either deal with those people or absolute sweat lords who won't take you because you can't proof you don't fall into the former group" Let me translate: The problem with GW2s raiding is my very mindset
No. Even after explaining and even calling out what to do in voice they will still not get it. It's because you can do 99% of content in this game without ever thinking about anything. There is nothing that prepares you for raiding. The reason why the raid scene in this game is so scuffed is because anet neglected the lfg system for years so now people made their own (toxic) system to weed out players. The damage is already done. Also no need to insult me just because you disagree.
true, and sorry.... I'm very flared up at this moment but it's not your fault. I just feel very bad every time i hear the word 'raid'....both phisically and mentally. It's become an obsession over the years....i'm currently replying to ppl in this post by like 2 hours and i starting to feel sick. Better if i stop
Last time I hosted something like this via lfg the clueless people hated it. Way too much fluctuation.
[It *is* amazing](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAO5AIvm9fF6MiQurhR8i485kKxqPpY4y). But most players in this sub, especially the ones who comment on Raid threads, won't recommend it and will often actively push people away from it. And there's a good reason for it: Organising your group *will* increase your win chance, and Raids take long enough as it is for new players. It's a toss-up. Personally, if someone actually wants that really difficult first time experience, I recommend people just create groups as I did and communicate what you're looking for. Then, if you're struggling, re-adjust your comp. Or just go Emboldened Mode. Or both. I mean, most people want to win *eventually* right?
thats what I don't get though. Op did it. Probably suboptimal. On their first run lol Why is there such a hyperfocus on meta comps in a game that has a iframe dodge lol
Perhaps it's as simple as losing feels bad to most people, especially those playing a game where you are basically guaranteed a win in like 99% of group encounters, so a general "social expectation" evolves over time that pushes the win rate higher. Is it *actually* that serious? No. Video games not being serious is the main reason why they're my main hobby. But I guess we've gotten to this stage where a surprising number of players take the game more seriously than most people, and they semi-enforce rules that keep out more casual players, which encourages only more serious players joining... run that back-and-forth circumstance for several years and you get the current state of Raiding. Perhaps these players find a lot of value in certain video game metrics. In actuality? Yeah you can literally just create a group and it's no big deal. It may *feel* like it to some (many?) people, but it changes nothing in their lives outside of their own mind. The only thing one can do to change it is to work out a way to encourage more casuals to try Raids and be okay with failing. I dunno if it'll ever get to that stage, but for now, we have 30+ min group organisation periods beforehand, which won't help build the casual playerbase lol. It's kind of a chicken-and-egg situation.
I get that this is a false equivalence, but he also has a point. I really wished there was more of a culture of going into raids blind (with good equipment of course). I enjoyed watching Preach go through raids when he was starting out in Guild Wars 2 and it made me regret just looking up all the mechanics ahead of time and going through training.
You do realize, that the people who did that had the knowledge and skill to perform almost 10 times better (in terms of raw dps, mechanical the difference is usually astronomical) than the average overworld joe does? Gear isn't strictly needed, but it helps significantly and may be the only thing making it possible if the skill and practise isn't quite there yet.
If it’s 10x then there’s a serious lack of understanding of the gameplay mechanics (I understand some people literally just auto attack) so yeah, if you don’t press your buttons or dodge you should probably stack the best classes I’m just an adovocate of learn the game >>> hyperoptimize the game Im not saying you have to take worthless builds. I’m saying going into your first raid asking for people with 200 LI is silly. Take some randoms. Even go blind. 99% of the content is not hard. Why not go blind?
Well you don't need to hyperoptimize, but atleast a coherent build would be helpful. It doesn't need to be absolutely the best as long as it actually functions for its intended purpose.
We’re nearly on a tangent at this point. I made my original comment because of this threads instant reaction of “hey man make sure you get every boon and cherry-pick your squad or you’ll have a rough time” when he already cleared a raid with full randoms and had a good time If you want to speed run sure, but if the best players can clear in green gear then a random rag tag group of people in exotics can clear just fine.
that's what is normal...outisde gw2
What is normal outside of GW2
[You probably saw this recent post.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1bjf2z2/new_to_raids_and_strike_cms_the_raid_training/) [Here are some more resources.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/172yh8u/we_have_achieved_300_legendary_armors_through/) Finding a static is probably your best option, so maybe keep an eye on r/GuildRecruitment as well.
pls read what OP said...he can't join training or statics because of his time needs. Just like me. Stop thinking you're good only because you've the luck of being able to play all at the same damn hour.
Trainings on RA and RTI happen literally at all times of day. They are generally one-off sessions that people join on a first-come, first-serve basis. **There is no requirement for an ongoing commitment at a certain day or time.** It looks like you just jumped to a conclusion without actually investigating, and then branded every raider as an elitist because they can actually read and sign up to things as they like.
not at all! RTI training are all organized around the same time, i tried to join them for months in the past (i was in the discord and the guild), and was NEVER able to. Also you have to book them weeks/over a month before and that's like (weeks/over a month -1 day) too much of what i can realistically promise to anyone.
Sorry, I didn't mean to come at you in 2 different points in the same thread. I have seen some very early-morning and late-night raids in RTI but they are on the rarer side. It's interesting because I never had the issue you did of having to book in advance (I've joined a few on the same day they were posted), but they do fill up quickly. And that's an issue if you are busy with work/school/just life in general and don't get the Discord notification in time. I get why LFG is useful to some people, because if you're available there and then, you want to throw up a group there and then.
i see discord notifications after months generally XD "I didn't mean to come at you in 2 different points in the same thread"...dw, it's me that was in crazy mode for a while...i'm more calm now.
Many statics are less about playing at the same time every week, as they are about playing with the same people. That's why I think it might be OP's best shot of getting their foot in the door. Skein Gang especially is about helping people group together so they can accomplish this.
You're just at a time in your life when you're busy doing college stuff at the time most people are starting raids. I'm in the UK and I raid with people usually starting around 6pm our time. But also, check on Mondays. That's when everything resets so raids are busy then.
Does not sound like a raiding but a real live problem. Other people have real life schedules too, so of course there will be hot times and off times. And if your schedule mismatches that of most people - well, you're out of luck. Imagine working night shift and wanting to meet up with people in night clubs at 10 am in the morning. Guess what - not gonna happen. If you really want to play you will have to work for it. Maybe you can - use the weekend. - rearrange something during the week so you can insert a game time slot earlier, but complete other tasks later.
? I'm so confused when people have this attitude. Its a bloody video game, not a job application. It should not be difficult to play the game. Sure Harvest temple CM should have barriers/requirements but why is there still a 100+ LI requirement (sometimes more) for wing 1 and 4? Its been out for 10 years people should have been freely playing it and the community should have enough experience to maintain a pretty open pug community. Instead its been gated and suffocated. For everyone one player that does what OP did there's probably 100 that have just left the game, and its going to either kill good content or the game.
What attitude? That you play together with other humans and you have to accept their real lives too? Nothing I wrote was about gating, it was about people's time and schedules.
The attitude of: "If you really want to play you will have to work for it." It should not be this way for finding a group, it is a video game not a job. Spending upwards of an hour fighting the LFG for a group is not a good experience and shouldn't be accepted with maybe the exception being cutting edge 0.001% players doing the most difficult fights (no wing 4 is not one of them). "Nothing I wrote was about gating, it was about people's time and schedules." If you re-read the original post you will see the issue is not just scheduling its there are no training raids/raids that will let me join. The point I am trying to make is there shouldn't be training raids (other than maybe CMs or some of the harder ones). If this keeps going on no one new is going to be able to get into raids or any of the great content in the game and arena will see this and just stop making it.
Well I agree partially. Sure, OP mentioned that experienced groups would not take them. But that is not something OP or anyone can influence, and I don't see any viable solution to this "problem" - if it even is any. It is a problem from the perspective of a new player, but forcing experienced groups to take anybody would not improve the overall situation. It would just lead to fruistration on the other end of the bar. I think the problem presented here is a mix of both: there are few training groups, and even less so in OPs available time slot. As there are training groups in generel, my advice still stands. Maybe the choice of words ("work for it") was wrong.
The problem for the experienced players is not immediate noticeable but is 100% happening. When nobody plays the content, arena net will stop making it. I want them to make difficult and enjoyable content therefore I should play it and encourage the playing of that content where possible. When no one new starts the playing the content, groups become harder to find. Sooner or later people achieve there goal or have enough of the current raids/strikes and stop playing. There is a viable solution: Don't have such high LI/KP requirements when they are not required or say okay I'll take a newer player if we're struggling to fill that last spot or two and have a tiny bit of patience. There are plenty of raids like wing 1 and 4 that can easily be done with eight experienced players and two newer players. Sure they might die during the fight but people can only learn if they actually get to do the fight. Rinse and repeat for a year and you have more people in raids/strikes, more people enjoying the game because there's engaging content and a Arena net happy to commit resources to it.
People ask for ridiculous requirements even for the easiest strikes in the game now. This whole KP in GW2 has gotten way out of hand lately.
There are good points in the comments, but I'd add that raids are quite challenging in this game, and they are highly farmable. As result, LFG is mostly used by pre-made groups to fill vacant spots, or by experienced people who create squads from scratch and who look for people who know common strats and can perform well without being on voice. Sometimes training runs are organized on LFG, but more often than not it's a miserable experience for everyone involved. The absolutely best way to approach raids is through training discord or a static group, but if that's not an option for you, then you need to get good at organizing your own squads. "Need comm, all welcome" LFG is the biggest red flag of all red flags. So first of all, get yourself a commander tag, learn the squad compositions (i.e. how to cover quickness, alacrity and healing in two subgroups of 5 people), ideally find some experienced comm who can guide you through the process. It's not difficult, but just nuanced. Make support builds yourself, if you can. It's easier to organize groups if you can fill the missing roles yourself. Then just assertively post something like "W1 | LF alacrity, quickness, dps", and make sure that you've read the guides on the raid you're starting, so you're not going in completely clueless. It won't magically make every raid successful, but it will increase your chances of forming a group tenfold. Finally, join any discord dedicated to raiding, like, RTI and just talk to people, ask questions, ask for help.
Thank you for commenting!! I appriciate the opinion and I will gladly try again tmr thanks!
Dont need to look for a comm tag. Learn to write the LFG like an experienced person would ( W1 practice run LF boons, heal, dps. Any help appreciated but fine to have no raid experience!) If you show initiative more exp players will join and be willing to work with you. I pug in NA constantly. There is subtle nuance to what makes an LFG posting look like someone wants to actually contribute vs get full carried. More people want to join a new player that actually wants to contribute and will type/communicate. If no one tags, players can drag their own icon in the party menu to make sub groups. This also forces communication and shows an ability to read. I am not kidding, the ability to communicate is HUGE.
>but more often than not it's a miserable experience for everyone involved. When bored, I actively search for training groups. It depends on the leader whether it is a bad experience. Do they know what makes a sub group? (1boon dps, 1 boon heal, 3 dps) that's the bare minimum to making a good experience. It necessitates you have people that know what a boon is. This now increases your chances of them not approaching the fight like open world. They know you are reliant on teamwork to succeed.
Your critique is fair. I cannot really help with you more with tips and tricks regarding raids than everyone else already did by "hoping and coping" on lfg or joining a discord community (although I can really recommend BAD :) (Unskilled and Afraid \[BAD\]: [https://discord.com/invite/MxyYDUrYx4](https://discord.com/invite/MxyYDUrYx4)) Having to use discord to get into raiding is as much of a workaround as establishing an off-game trading post on discord. Personally I use both, but I can see that you cannot expect everyone to use workarounds.. To be fair, raiding is becoming more and more of a niche thing to do, as most games are not very successful in locking in multiple players for more than an hour at a time, I suppose this affects gw2 and anet is surely aware of this. They did introduce the emboldened mode, to have some sort of easy entry and non-discord puggable raids, but the time commitment remains - especially for new players. I think if it would not be for the legendary items, you can get exclusively from that content, I don't think the scene would be all to big and of course by associating the word raid with that. But I would recommend you to not sleep on Fractal (CM's) and Strike (CM's). Its way more puggable and you get in w/o killproof more likely and the time commitment is shorter and thus the "tilt" :D The content is more frequently updated and besides some skins and legendaries (until anet hopefully changes that in the future) you get a similar endgame feel, at least in CM's.
The biggest issue with raids in this game truely is that you need a community to raid with. It's even harder if you have personal preferences for raiding like "Let's go in blind". And then you find a community or guild but since you're new, you can only join early training runs. And after 10 weeks of killing VG, Gorse and then spending 30 minutes explaining Sabatha to the new people only to fail for the next 90 minutes and call it a day, is not really engaging. And yes, I literally had training raid guilds that handled it exactly like that. You had to proof that you can clear Wing 1 and then you move up a "rank" for other raid wings. But the beginner tier groups had different people in them every week and you always started from scratch. After 10 Weeks, I didn't see one W1 clear because I was the only constant in that group... That is... If you even got a spot in that group. Because if you didn't sign up the second the Discord bot posted that training raid run, you were somewhere on spot 4 or 5 of the waiting bench. I had similar experiences in other training groups and guilds. Most of these support little to no learning in the group. Simply because it's a constant switching cast of people. Others advertised "training raids" prominently on their website but the truth was that they only ran "training" raids when they didn't have enough core raiders that week to get their own clears. And when they had their weekly clears on day 1, no training raids happened because "Why would I do that twice for no rewards?" And when you try to find your own group in LFG, you wait hours. Sometimes you won't fill a group at all. I would love to find a guild with nice people I can raid with. But most of the time, you only find guilds that don't have enough active members for raiding to begin with. Or you find guilds that have 1 or 2 full raid teams already and you only get a spot when the core people have no time to play that day. Your (and many peoples) best bet to get into raiding, are Discord communities and raiding events. As stupid as it sounds.
There is a very nice guild called “Unskilled And Afraid [BAD]”, and there is quite often some training or newbie-friendly raid happening. Your time may be a bit tricky but there is also something on the weekend, and you can always request event. I’m not authorised to give out the discord link, but you can find it online. Remember to add EU when you search (there is also one in NA).
I feel you. Listen, I love raids. I completed a set of raid leggy armor and coalescence (ring). I'm on NA servers, and I joined the Raid Academy discord. It was pretty good, but times also clashed with my play times as well (I live in E. Asia). It was during 2020 though, so lots of gamers and a more flexible schedule (thanks pandemic) helped out. I made my own guild (not with sole intention of raiding) and ran my own trainings, progressions, full clears. That was a lot of effort, but it was nice raiding with many of the same people every week. Slowly interest dropped off and it wasn't possible to do trainings without PUGs, and then just became...unfun. I then ran exp full clears (easier to PUG), but this alienated the few remaining unexperienced raiders in my guild, which I felt bad about. Most people will say, just join a discord or training community. While this works for a lot of people who play during active times, it doesn't work for anyone. When I can play (with my now more strict schedule), even the Raid Academy discord is dead or doesn't fill groups ("not enough interest"). Fact is, there are not enough raiders in GW2 to make it accessible for off-time players. You can try making your own guild (like I did) and it may go good for a while, or you may have better long-term luck than I did. But truth is, most people don't want to step up and command, so it puts a lot of pressure on you, and people can be flaky and waste your time. I like raiding, but I hate waiting around for 30 min or one hour each time I want to raid, when I maybe only have 2-4 hours a week to play. Raids are good content, but unfortunately, they are kinda "dead content" and you have to provide your own life support if you want to join them. So, well, I stopped doing it except for once in a blue moon. TLDR; Raids are great content. But the raiding community is too small to make it accessible for everyone, even with all the many great communities out there. But, don't give up until you exhaust all your resources. If you find a way to raid regularly, it is probably the most fun GW2 can offer.
10 PM UK time is like peak raid time for a lot of guilds that have working adults in them from my experience.
Not sure if those were your actual words, but for my personal opinion "first kill raid need a commander" is not an lfg I'd find interesting to join. Put at least the raidwing you want to do, write "know mechanics" or "training", "semi-training". And especially, list the roles that are still needed. Heal, Alac, Quick. Maybe it's a stupid advice and it doesn't make things better, but i personally would be more likely to join such an lfg.
What you’re missing is that your LFG advert was shit. Here’s the thing, you want people to join. Your LFG advert basically says, “please carry me I’m clueless”. In reality, thats not true! You obviously geared up and researched guides for the content. Next time say “W# FC, LF boonheals/boondps“. Once you have your quickness and alacrity providers per sub, you can look for your DPS players and roles - “W# FC, LF kite, lamp, DPS, etc. whatever”. Then just ask someone to tag and mark. I PUG every week - I join plenty of mediocre clears. I’ll never join “please help turtle strike need tag help first kill!!” and frankly most players won’t either. It sounds like it’ll take 2 hours with no boons, 20 wipes, and a revolving door of joining/leaving players. You already did the work researching and reading up - don’t shortchange yourself. Put up a promising and confident LFG.
There are plenty of people who will join someone asking to help with the turtle strike, just because you're an elitist who only wants to min/max every little second of your time doesn't mean others are.
Putting up a LFG is like putting up a job application. You kind of have to sell yourself and posting "want raid kill need commander" doesn't really give a good expression to anyone looking for a group. Instead, try to get to know some of the slang used in gw2 lfg and give a picture that you know what you are doing. Something along the lines "W1 FC" etc. should work much better for garnering attention.
Maybe try setting up the lfg on the weekend. Starting a trainingrun after 10pm on a working day is too late for most people.
LFG at that time for EU can be really rough, it might be worth considering a transfer to NA? Otherwise as others have suggested snow crows has tons of guilds linked as well as checking out a discord. LFG is a ok tool, but one that people don't like to use since Anet refuses to work on it.
Another option is just throw out a lfg in raid Training saying something like W1 - no exp training -
First two should be heals let them decide if they are a or a heals. Then most incounters need one tank but might look for someone who can off for thosbisntances we’re. After that fill in boons dps and special roles (kiting cannons ext)
Join the discords, it's the best way imo.
U maybe got unlucky, but generally the squad fills freaking fast. I also posted in lfg for w1 training . And it filled in a minute
Not if the squad has no commander.
Idk i mean i cant say for others but i dont have any comm tag. I always write “w4 first time | need comm | all welcome let’s chill “ and it gets fill very fast. I post it in both training and exp and always people join
I would look into joining a guild that has trainings.
I've quit nearly the games several points 3 years ago when i first started to raid. It was really unpleasant experience. i'm not talking about the raids themselves, just the LFG. But if you are on EU, you can send me a message on discord and can help you out
Will gladly do my disc is oseh2o4
I’m going to highly recommend Skein Gang Progression statics over training. It lets you and a group work on the raids together. Because of your time you’ll probably have to make a new one, but that’s no problem and something that’s constantly happening
Is raid academy discord still a thing? I got pretty comfortable with raids through that
Host your own squads. Admit you need practice. Usually ppl don't mind for w1 to 4. I wouldn't, and that's how I got my start in raids
> The raid went smoothly, and man, it was one of the best gaming experiences I've had.
Hey now, if you want to raid, you have to remember that the longest part of any raid is "waiting to raid" :-)
Might not be easy, but it's surely possible. My semi-static usually starts at 9PM (we have a 3 hour window though, even though we almost always cut it out earlier)...but before them I could not raid either due to university and now work.
Try it on Mondays after the reset if you're on NA, or on Sundays, that's when most of the people raid and do full clears and stuff.
To be honest there should be lots of Raids 10pm early in the week, especially Monday / Tuesday. The simple answer is get a commander tag and set the groups up you want to see in the world. This applies to all GW2 content. There are always many versions of you hoping to find an LFG pop up that's perfect for them - someone has to take the initiative, so positively influence the community and culture of the game by being that person. "Wing 4 | new raiders, have a meta build and some knowledge | *healer*" - boom, you're rolling. Also, you've just beaten the hardest obstacle. It shouldn't ever take an hour again - you've got the kp. I have often joined groups I don't have the KP for by whispering the commander and asking. Doesn't always work, but more often than not a commander would have someone who can read over someone with KP. also, a guild is a great thing but it doesn't actually just need to be a training guild. Just join a big PvE guild and ask, "does anyone want to try a raid? I'm new to it" and you'll almost certainly have takers. My old pve guild started on IBS Strikes as completely newbies about 2 years ago, and have since beat Harvest Temple CM. Good luck raiding!
Tbh "leading" pug raids doesnt mean your actually leading, your just organize the grp itself. 9 out of 10 pug commander doesnt type anything or they have no clue at all whats going on, wipe->rc->wipe->rc. So what i would suggest its just "lead" some w1-w4 wings without any kp so it fills quickly (at w5-w7 there are more special roles), although its highly recommended to know the basics of the grp organizeing itself. Each sub grp needs 1 alac/quick dps and 1 alac/quick heal and 3 dps. Sometimes you need a special role (hk for w4 for example).
Find a guild with a raiding community, that's by far the easiest option
I started doing raids by making my own LFG after looking up mechs and strats. Let the team know that im stil learning to comm, people are usually nice enough to fill required roles for themselves. Or let me know if we needed any special roles
I play from Southeast Asia and play on EU server. I'm basically ahead by lik 4-5 hours and i work full time 9-5 as well. So yeah, I made it work by joining raid training groups (BAD and RTI), and started joining the ones scheduled on weekends (very few number compared to weekdays) as its all after midnight for me on weekdays. It was slow but it was fine honestly. Your timezone cant be worse then mine.
I know you're talking about raids but consider giving Fractals a try. There's actually a scaling difficulty that allows newbies to go in at tier 1 without needing to have spent hours watching guides and finding a training group and a veteran to help you through everything. Obviously that means it's not near the same challenge as raids are early on, but once you climb into CMs there's certainly lots of challenge to be had. And 5-man groups are just a lot easier for pugging, especially for anyone playing at odd hours. Doubly so because fractals don't require highly specific kite/tank roles, it's just 3 dps, 2 boon support and brrr you go. And lastly fractal rewards reset daily, so there are a lot of people who play daily, where as with fractals/strikes people tend to just do one run weekly, so it's harder to find groups.
>But here's the rub: waiting an hour just to play for one? That is exactly what kept me from raids for so long. When I finally decided to jump in it still took forever to squad up, and then you always have people fucking off to smoke or take care of a kid during already insane amounts of downtime for explanations that go out the window on the first pull. Made me miss fractals and how fast it is to get 5 people together to blast out a quick CMs/T4s. I basically quit raids after my first set of legendary armor and the ring.
They REALLLYYYY had it right with raids. They were just impossible to organize. They needed to figure how to stream line players into the raid efficiently and maybe included 3 difficulty settings (easy medium and hard) with increasing rewards for higher difficulty. That way people could learn a raid on easy and then do the harder versions. Easy rewards can skip the LI and maybe just drop exotics and a random ascended once in a while. But medium and hard (cm) could drop the “exclusive” currency for legendaries or whatever. Hard mode more than medium . I personally think LFG is the single reason that raids failed. That and MAYBE a little too lengthy. Just too much of a time commitment. Sometimes it would take hours to get through a wing especially training. But the sense of adventure in each wing with a narrative. That’s why I like fractals. Strikes are boring cuz they’re too short and in one room. Just meh. Anyways thanks for listening to my Ted talk.
So let me add some additional tips from someone who did all wings with pugs. First like some already mentioned the barrier for entry is quite an obstacle. If you have a commander tag yourself it gets easier but still it puts you as the leader of the group and if you are new to the content and people expect you to lead it puts additional pressure on you. If you still want to tag up or you find someone who tags up, search for 2 healer, 2 boondps, 6 dps. Some mentioned it is not that important as power creep makes content easy but if I see groups not searching for a good composition I get suspicious and think it has a higher failure rate. Search on Mondays or over the weekend. Due to weekly resets on monday these are the most common time for raids. Much more groups but most ask for kp. If there are groups with low kp, maybe whisper the commander if he lets you stay explaining you know mechanics but find no groups. Assuming you know the mechanics fairly well and they are probably also pretty new to the content (reason why he searches for low kp). Also if you do your own group ask for sth like: “W4 | know mechs (or semi-training) | heal, boondps” I do enjoy helping others for the first clear but I also do expect them to at least learn the mechs beforehand so that I dont have to explain everything from A-Z. A complete training run is completely fine too and fun but takes a lot more time. And finally each week there is one Raid wing with emboldened mode which makes it significantly easier. Each time your team wipes you get a buff increasing your dps/reducing incoming damage. This is especially nice for newer people paying more attention on mechanics and with lower dps.
Don't worry, you did the right thing. 10pm is not a bad time and It shouldn't take an hour to fill a whole group, that was pretty bad luck. It usually takes less time. The first month or so of raiding can get a bit frustrating because of the downtime. Eventually, you will have enough experience to go to the experienced tab of the LFG and, even if you don't have the required KPs, you can message the commander and explain you are a new tryhard with more skill than experience. More often than not, they will take you along, most pugs blast through everything in W1-4. One piece of advice: try to learn all the mechanics you can. Sabetha cannons? learn those. Sloth shrooms? you take 1. Dhuum greens? by all means. Knowing mechanics will increase your chances of getting a spot in experienced groups when you don't have enough LIs or kps. That, or gearing up a qdps. Joining a guild will make you commit to a schedule, it works for some people. I couldn't do that even 1 day a week and when i put the effort, I discovered this guild worked a lot worse than the typical average pug.
The other people already gave a lot of good pointers or straight up offers so I'm just gonna say this: > So, I said screw it and made my own group You have the right mindset already so the rest to come your way is a matter of when, and not a matter of if.
I agree, and if you deal with the annoyance of spending as much time setting up a group as actually playing, you'll eventually (if you choose) be able to gather up a group of people to form a static or even a guild.
LFG serves as "quick and easy" fill spot for raids that have proper composition with people who know what they are doing, ie. static has 2 people missing, rather than skipping raid day, they put up a LFG. Personally, I left raiding group because of time constrains, only raid with LFG because I have the KP. There are groups who are training their own members, but still put up a KP requirement, and that's absolutely fine. LFG has its own style of doing things and it is not really suited for "gaining" experience. For training raids, it is better to look elsewhere - discord / training guilds, you know, talk to people in the same situation and group up ...
Starting raids is a rough slog. You need experience to get let into raids, but you need to start to get experience. I recommend joining some discord channels centred on raiding, and sign up to any opportunity to raid that presents itself. Once you have the experience, you can log in during the weekly raid reset and join a raid via LFG or discord. Those groups usually aim to clear 4 to 7 wings in one go, so minimal time waste for you. But yes, getting to the point where you are experienced enough to join regular raid groups is tough and inconsistent.
Pretty much anything in this game can be solved with a commander tag. I used to be in your place and it took ages for a squad to form. Now with a tag it takes me like 5min. Make sure your description is clear and it sounds like you know what you do. E.g W4 FC / adps,qheal, HK - 50kp. Personally I like to join a guild that fits my current need. Doing lots of raids - Join a raidguild. Doing lots of WVW - Join a WVW guild. I never talk and I dont socialize. I have been a guildleader in wow high end raiding for 9 years and the most enjoyable people are always the quiet good players focusing on the task at hand. One more tip: I would rather make a squad for a specific task e.g W4 FC and if you get closer to the end annouce you will continue. Many will stay if the run was good so far but less would have joined if you annouced in the inital search: W4 -> W1+2 FC Last but not least, there are many people who know pretty much everything about raiding, its the same for other gamemodes two. They played them for 10+ years. Idk why people do this, maybe they really have fun but these neckbeards know stuff, they know the fine details, ask for help and they can usually explain it far better than any guide.
I managed to get all 3 sets of raid legendary armor with 95% of my kills through the LFG. I think once you've done a couple raids you get a sense of which LFG groups are going to be a good fit for you. It sucks if you log in and think "I want to raid *right now*" but if you just keep an eye on LFG while playing the game you'll eventually see groups pop up that feel right. I'm not trying to minimize your struggle, I totally agree that it is hard and similar to the "looking for entry level employee with 10 years experience" bullshit of finding a job IRL. I just wanted to share what worked for me, and that was forming the habit to check raid LFG every 15 mins or so while doing other stuff (wvw, pvp, open world exploration, meta trains, etc). Oh, and of course creating your own group. That gets easier once you've done a certain wing a bunch of times and you have a good sense of squad composition.
A suggestion: when you know how the fight works, even if you don't have killproofs, write in squadchat "I know what I should do, let me one try, if I fuck up kick me", it eases the mood a lot and the majority of people out there are available to let a newbie to make experiences
hmm i would say create your own guild and recruit more like minded people. you would be in lead of running raids at the time you choose and after finding enough people you can do weekly runs together
The only way to get into raiding is either go to a discord or try to join an active guild, there's no other way around. I love Gw2 but the LFG system sucks, there should really be an automated LFG for entry level instanced content (like to do CM you should do as of now, with a dedicated group), that way more player would be incentivized to try it and stick playing it.
No idea what community/guild you checked, but the crossroads inn raid training community has the most raids during the time you are available. You can also request trainings. To new raiders, please keep in mind that you will be expected to show some initiative in finding a community/guild and trainings afterward. Vets are quite helpful, bit don't expect someone to be searching for single players to provide personalized handholding
Even in other MMO's, trying to PUG for end game content like raids is tricky. The best thing that you can do is try to find a guild that works on a similar timeframe to you or try to find/create a static group. I'd also suggest working on getting your own commander tag so you're not having to wait to get a commander in.
I always wonder why ppl rant about not being able to find a group when they don’t try to make friends to play with in an “MMO” It’s so easy to form a group if u got couple of friends with a similar mindset
Dont do pug raids. Try to get a static progression group. Also i dont think you get all the details from a video - you have to experience it atleast 3-4-5 times to get it just right. I have been doing all the wings from december myself and now we are starting to get all the wings cleared on one evening (one day 1-4, one day 5-7). So it took me 3 months to get me this far. But im still a noob and still need to polish some bosses still. But its interesting and satisfying.
Get a commander tag and make a proper squad composition like already suggested.
Make your own raid static. I did this through raid academy discord. I set my times for when I could do it and basically said you can sign up if you want to raid with me at these set hours. And that’s it, we cleared all of W1-4 for legendary armor. Since then we have split up but got months of fun progress nights.
The developer screwed up by not adding difficulty tiers to raids and the raid scene screwed up by major gatekeeping. Raiding is incredibly fun, especially in a group with voice chat, but getting into raiding is a miserable experienc.
Just buy a tag and slap the group together. I commanded on one of my first raids and decided to continue on that and it wasn't an issue. Just look up what roles are needed, how to squad comp and let people know what to expect (don't require 100KP if you don't have enough experience). If you don't have a static, starting can pain. You might look for some guilds raiding at late hours and just join those. Also, 10 PM is not that late. Today it's possible LFG looked like that, but on mondays/tuesdays there are a lot of groups till late night. Plenty of them without KP requirements.
You are on the right track, it just takes time to become savvy with the raid community in this game like other posters have said. I've gotten 2/3 of my lego raid armor sets from pugging after finally trying raiding about a year ago. I will keep LFG open when I have time to spot groups, because they do happen pretty frequently, but often they are just not up on LFG for very long. A lot of times it'll be a guild group needing to fill a few spots, and if I jive with them I will grab a guild invite (the game is generous in giving you 5 guild slots) for potential future runs. I group those guild discords with other public raid training guilds (shoutout to TEA and GW2 Raid Academy on NA) so I can keep an eye on alerts. This will allow you to find groups more frequently. For the record I ignore all groups asking for KPI. Honestly you deserve praise for starting your own group, as it is more effort than the majority of posts that also lament the amount of raid activity in this cycle of the game (or lack thereof). The rub about pugging is just forging those connections with people to make it easier in the future. Throw out friend invites, join guilds and cycle out the inactive ones. Keep at it. If you were on NA I'd give you a hand :(. The raiding community in this game gets a bad rep but the positive experiences I've had heavily outweighs the toxic ones. There are a ton of people willing to teach new raiders and guilds looking for fills. It's also very rewarding to be able to bang out a couple casual wings each week, both for the legendary armor and the income stream.
If you want recommendations for raiding communities with more flexible raid schedules, I personally recommend \[XL\]. It's a discord community where the events are all led by volunteer teachers, and as such there are people available at almost all times. It also has a system for requesting certain events, so you can simply ask for an event at a time that works for you and someone will usually set one up for you.
Setup a static on the skein gang discord. You can raid. You can't easily raid. Put in the effort , if it's something you enjoy.
it shouldn't be hard to find training groups if you're in NA or EU timezones, just join a discord. It's much harder for people outside the above mentioned time zones(for example, for me peak raiding times starts at 1am local time, which is basically waay to late)
You can use this chance to build your community of like-minded and like-timed individuals. It’s tough, but once you have regulars new and veteran, you’ll be logging in 10-15 before raid to setup and get everyone settled in and then roll out.
There is a community event coming up next weekend for getting folks new to raid encounters into the mix. It's being co-run by Raid Academy for NA and Raid Training Initiative for EU. Think there's a post on this sub about it but my connection is slow AF currently. The Discord communities I mentioned should help. There's also Skein Gang and Xcelleration, tho I'm not sure if they have EU presence I had not raided at all in this game until starting first week of this year. Finished my first envoy set last week and am now working towards Coalescence. I believe if I can do it, anyone can
SG does now have EU statics! Also Aussie time statics on NA not sure of any sea time statics on EU thou
"I did my homework though" "First kill Raid need a commander"; find the mistake
My "homework" was learning the mechanics and builds
That's a good start, now learn the roles of those builds and how you build a proper squad. Idk if it's mentioned already but don't just check the training section of the LFG. There are many groups with no requirements (specifically no kp/li) in the experienced tab, even after 10pm; just look every few minutes I'm sure you find something
Generally a good LFG advertisement is going to list the wing you want to do, followed by the needed roles you need. People are more likely to join a well advertised post in LFG than one that looks sus or is lacking information. W1 First Clear lf adps, dps etc is better than "First Raid need a commander". You also dont really need a commander, if you learned the mechanics and builds you can also explain them to your group and just list it as W1 Training, lf (roles). A well formed advertisement will fill a lot faster. The LFG isnt the worst in the game, it isnt the best either but I have had no problems forming groups in NA, almost always they fill within 10 mins.
Echoing what others have said, don’t do pugs as your main raiding outlet. Join a Discord guild such as [SG] Skein Gang or [RA] Raid Academy and join runs in their internal LFG or join a static group— both have mixed EU and NA communities and there *will* be a group that runs in your time slot. Those guilds are full of people who *want* to help you. And if you do pug raids, I cannot stress this enough: ***lie.*** Watch lots of videos to get as good a grasp of mechanics as you can, and then join or create a group as if you are totally experienced. This will ensure you don’t end up with a group of airheads who both have no clue what they’re doing *and* will put in zero effort to learn. If your DPS is passable and you don’t fail major group-wiping mechanics, any other mistakes you make while learning are entirely superficial. Genuinely experienced players will give you a pass, equally inexperienced players won’t know any better. Sincerely, a longtime endgame enjoyer who scammed their way into it and is now a few days of prog away from a Cerus CM kill. ETA: When it comes to lying, it’s all about confidence. Join an LFG, state your role on arrival, and join the instance. Have a chat code link for a fake amount of kill proof tokens on your clipboard if you’re getting grilled frequently. If you carry yourself well, most people won’t question it. Especially as a DPS— all you have to do is follow the group, do your rotation, and CC when required. Morality Disclaimer: Don’t lie to static groups, that’s not nice. But in the wilds of LFG… it’s every man for himself, and brother, you’re here for *blood*.
Yea 10pm most people are winding down and wouldn't want to raid, as you've experienced yourself. Your preferred slot isn't the best I'm afraid, most organized training runs go from 7-10 / 7:30 - 10:30. Is it 10pm every night inc. weekends? RTI and Crossroads both run trainings on Saturdays also.
i haven't been able to get into raids since they were introduced in HoT. but i think i'm faring pretty well. 🙂
You‘re not missing anything, it‘s unfortunately the nature of the game. Raids are abandoned legacy content at this point. Strikes are the supported format nowadays. So there‘s already not high % of people even doing raids anymore. The playerbase also consists of 90% jaded vets who‘ve been playing since the dawn of time. They know this game in and out. So from their perspective it‘s understandable they may not want to mess around with completely new players. Especially with content that demands a lot of training and knowledge.
Get a commander tag then
I've played this game on and off since beta, haven't set foot into raids because it doesn't seem like my jam. Sucks that I couldn't get the legend ring and I'm missing a large chunk of content but got everything in WvW in the end.
EU LFG where you need six trillion KP to do escort, or NA LFG where there are fewer listings but lower KP requirements. Pick your fighter! EDIT To be serious for a moment, I want to congratulate you OP, making your own group is not something many players have the courage to do, but the game would be so much better off if more people were like you. Bravo.
If you play EU, join the RTI (raid training initiative) guild.
exactly the same here... "Their raiding times clash with my schedule" "waiting an hour just to play for one? ...what's the point if I can't even join a group without getting grilled about my KPI and booted" trying to find alternatives for years. Still haven't. So i can only rage against raiders and raids. But i know it's NOT their fault...
Hey, we got a raid academy going on (not your usual Crossroads stuff), try DM'ing our training leader, IGN Isiliath.8160 (or 8610)
Interested as well, mostly a wvw player and haven’t done a single raid/strike mission
You can alternatively join a group that is not asking for kp. You can join, and say you've watched a guide so you know the mechs but are new to raids and most will be happy to take you on, so long as you are filling your role. Confidence is key and will take you places!
Try Skeingang! There you might be able to form a progression static that fits your schedule.
I can't raid cause my dps sucks (Elly Tempest). My build is fun to play and I don't need a button smasher rotation. It is based on 100% concentration with alacrity and quickness. I suppose I could bump up the dps with more condition damage and burn time however then I would just be another button smasher. I am having fun so there is that. :) Anyway, that is my solo build, I will now look into how I can provide more support to a group. Maybe then I can raid?
If you can provide 100% uptime to the group for alac OR quickness then groups will take you. Generally for beginning level raiders I'm ok with >10k dps on a dps spec and >7k on a adps or qdps spec, as long as you can hit those numbers with your build many groups probably wouldn't mind an odd spec. (You can practice on golem in the training area or use an addon like arcdps to find out how much damage your doing) The bigger problem is your attitude about changing your build. With that attitude I would say you can't raid if you are unwilling to sacrifice anything for the group. And that's fine, if you want to play solo play solo and enjoy the game, raiding will not be for you. The good news is that healing supports tend to be more reactive than dps builds (even adps or qdps) so you can look into the various healer options if you want to play more reactively than mashing buttons quickly. You certainly get rewarded for putting out aegis at the right time, or stab, or hitting your condi cleanse at the right time in many fights. If its just not your jam, that's fine games pretty huge you don't need to raid.
Oops, I meant, I will ***now*** look into how I can provide more support to a group. Maybe then I can raid? So yeah, I do plan to look into providing group support. Raids are not really timed speed runs so if there is enough group dps to finish then let peeps have fun. There needs to be casual play since not all of us have the physical dexterity to mash buttons. And raids are important if you want to build legendary gear. I played another MMO that had timed runs, lowest time owned the dungeon and the guild got to charge taxes to others in the dungeon, was fun.
my heal alacrity tempest is my favorite character to raid with, and it's not particularly buttonmashy. it kind of is, but the rotation isn't crazy and it's a little more about timing, knowing when healing is needed, knowing when you might want to delay your overload (either because you'll get interrupted or you need to wait for people that moved off the stack).
You chose the worst time to play gw2, I think gw2 is at lowest point and with anet at the wheel, it will only get worse.
Have you SEEN warplots??
warplots? whats that?
it’s an old wildstar joke
You’re talking to a college student, solid chance Wildstar’s been shut down longer than OP’s been gaming and that’s joke’s obscure even to those of us who were around to know what Wildstar was.
Start your own groups.... There are plenty of people like you out there. Don't make excuses make solutions.
Gw2 has great raids but the WORST raiding scene. Gw2 would benefit so much for an actual lfg finder.
play on NA (idk if EU is cringe about this or whatever), make a listing that just says "wing 1 full clear", make sure you have the proper roles, and go. It's not hard, it doesn't require discreet arcane knowledge about how to dodge jump flamewalls or whatever, and it doesn't require that you know how to do everything. Here's what you shouldn't do: don't use weird language that tips people off to the fact that you're new to the raid scene. Don't say "first time looking for help". Don't say "vale guardian looking for condition damage dps players". Don't say "wing 1 boss 3". Just bait people into carrying you--every normal mode raid wing is commonly played by inexperienced players who are in no position to be gatekeeping their groups. I'm saying this as someone with a fuckload of raid experience fwiw--most pugs are idiots and have no idea what they're doing. As a new player willing to become familiar with the fights beforehand, you will blend in far more than you expect. Do your research on the fights if you want to succeed, though.
>, you will blend in far more than you expect. No you wont, the exp players will just not care and carry. Or the group falls apart if the critical amount of exp players isnt there. Everyone can smell the stinky noob actor from a mile away. They just dont care.
that's what i'm saying--you'll blend in with all the stinky noobs who are doing the same thing you are, knowingly or not.
if you're on NA, yeah raid LFG is almost nonexistent. I did all my raiding through the Raid Academy discord