Does Raiding Belong in Guild Wars 2? .

Guild Wars 2 has released the first wing of its first raid titled Spirit Vale. This is the first time Guild Wars 2 has seen anything even resembling the classic raids that players are used to in games like World of Warcraft, EverQuest, or basically any other MMORPG that exists today. Although raids are considered a very standard game mechanic throughout the genre, the Guild Wars 2 population has been rather split on whether or not they should be included in the game. So we’re asking does raiding belong in Guild Wars 2?

As far as MMORPGs go, Guild Wars 2 is rather casual in the fact that players can progress by any means they choose. If you want high-level gear, you can obtain it through dungeons, fractals, PvP, or simply crafting it yourself. There isn’t a requirement to do all of the above, and technically there’s not really a requirement to do any of it at all. The appeal of Guild Wars 2 for many was that the developers weren’t pushing players in any specific direction. However, with the addition of raids, there is going to be a level of exclusion when it comes to Legendary Armor, which as of right now will only be obtainable by unlocking the mastery associated with Spirit Vale.

Spirit Vale Overview

So what exactly is Spirit Vale? According to lead developer Colin Johanson, Spirit Vale is the “challenging group content” that we’ve all been waiting for. Up until now, Guild Wars 2 has had a fundamental lack of really difficult PvE content. The dungeons in the game are pretty much a joke and can be completed with any ragtag group, which is fine for people who just want to explore and see more of the world. Then there is the endless Fractal grind that is more about stacking agony resistance than actually providing a challenging PvE experience. So now we get Raids, which focus on having highly coordinated groups of players that are tasked to fill specific roles for some of the hardest boss fights in the game.

Normally, raids are basically giant dungeons that can take a few hours to clear. There are hundreds of trash mobs, a few mini-bosses, and usually around 5 main bosses. Sometimes they’re broken down into different wings, but others simply have linear progression. Spirit Vale makes use of the different wing mentality, but it takes a rather unique approach. Instead of having hordes of mindless mobs to clear before getting to the boss, it only has three colored guardians before reaching the Vale Guardian. Each of these mobs plays a key role in teaching players how the upcoming boss fight is going to play out. The Green Guardian can teleport players around the room, the Red Guardian can only be killed with condition damage, and the Blue Guardian requires players to stand in green circles that it spawns.

Understanding how each guardian works is essential to defeating the Vale Guardian because he makes use of each of their abilities. The Vale Guardian fight is broken down into five different phases. During the first phase, the Vale Guardian will summon Seekers balls that move around the room and do AoE damage. Players need to knock these away from the group and the Vale Guardian, so that players can safely stand on the green circle he spawns to avoid raid-wide damage.

When the Vale Guardian reaches 66% health he splits into the three different colored guardians. These can be killed individually or all of the same time, but it’s recommended to take out the blue and red guardians first. Once these are killed, the guardians will merge to create the Vale Guardian and begin the third phase. The third phase is similar to the first, except now the Vale Guardian fires blue orbs and a portion of the arena lights up to deal constant area damage. After burning down the Vale Guardian to 33% health, he splits again to repeat the second phase. During the final stage, The Vale Guardian will spawn an additional Seeker and even more of the arena will become hazardous. Players who managed to defeat the Vale Guardian will have access to a new Mastery tier and gain a varying amount of loot.

 

Raiding Experiences

This weekend was the first chance that I had to experience Spirit Vale firsthand. Initially, I was surprised at the lack of trash mobs and also relieved as that’s generally the least enjoyable part of any raid experience. This is especially true for Guild Wars 2, as non-boss mobs in dungeons generally don’t drop loot. Unfortunately, I missed my guild raid by a few hours, but I was able to jump into a public group within a few minutes. We had a designated tank, a couple of healers and a decent variety of DPS oriented classes.

However, after our first few attempts on the Vale Guardian it became painfully clear that a very specific group was required to take him down. It wasn’t enough just having a good tank, two or three solid healers, and dependable DPS. First off, the Seekers are a huge problem and a group without a significant amount of knockback, or roots, simply won’t be able to deal with them. If at least 5 players aren’t on the green circles before they disappear then it’s basically a wipe, but when there are one or two seekers hovering nearby it creates a difficult choice.

We managed to get the first phase down after a couple attempts. It’s really not that difficult onces everyone knows their role and saves their cooldowns for appropriate times, but after the Vale Guardian split it became painfully obvious that we didn’t have the right group. We simply didn’t have enough condition damage to take down the Red Guardian before the raid wiped. After a few more attempts, we decided to disband as we weren’t making much progress.

It seems that by removing a gear grind, ArenaNet has artificially created specific class and race requirements for raiding. Apparently condition damage engineers are heavily suggested for taking down Red Guardians, while the Sylvari and Asura have racial abilities that make dealing with certain raid mechanics much easier. That being said, it’s not impossible for any class to complete the raid, but some simply have it easier than others. I personally don’t think this is a step in the right direction, as there should only be a requirement to have a certain amount of DPS, healers and a tank but not exclude specific ones either.

If I had to choose between grinding for better gear and being forced to play a specific class, I would choose the former. Moreover, this can create a lot of problems with gear. A player who just finished their ascended berserker set might have to play a condition damage build, which will require them to create an entirely new set of gear for a single encounter. Limiting raids to only certain classes in a game that’s known for giving players choices could lead to some really toxic gameplay.

 

Exclusion or Prestige?

One of the biggest debates when it comes to raiding is the idea that legendary armor will be exclusive to those who raid. Currently, there’s been no information to suggest that players who don’t raid will be able to obtain legendary armor. When players kill the Vale Guardian, a new Mastery chain unlocks, which will then allow players to craft legendary armor precursors. ArenaNet has not stated if these precursors can be obtained through other means or if players will be able to sell the materials to those who don’t have the mastery unlocked. As of right now, it’s safe to assume that legendary armor will be exclusive to players who raid.

This has gravely upset a lot of players who have no intention of raiding because it’s not a game mode that they enjoy playing. Their argument is that nothing in Guild Wars 2 should exclude players who don’t necessarily want to play a certain way. Raid content is very challenging and it does require group coordination, which is something that many players don’t want to deal with. Due to the casual nature of Guild Wars 2, it’s not difficult to understand why much of the original player population wouldn’t want to raid, especially when dungeons or fractals were never forced on players.

However, there is also the argument that legendary items have always been exclusive. There’s currently no way for people who only play PvP or WvW to obtain legendary items. Furthermore, many players also hate mindlessly grinding, which is something that world completion requires. Forcing players who only want to PvP to complete thousands of PvE quests in the world isn’t exactly fair either. The requirement for legendary weapons have always been pretty ridiculous and require a mix of PvE, PvP, Crafting and general grinding. Not to mention praying to obtain the 1,000+ gold precursor weapon. If that’s not exclusive then I don’t know what is.

I don’t find adding Raiding into the equation anymore offensive than what legendary weapons already require. There will be ways for players who don’t want to raid to obtain legendary armor, just like there are ways for people who don’t want to endlessly grind to obtain legendary weapons. It’s likely that high-end guilds will eventually have raid services, where players can purchase a raid spot to easily unlock the mastery. Until then, legendary armor will act as a cosmetic prestige for those who were brave enough to successfully challenge the hardest content in Guild Wars 2.

To answer the question of whether or not raiding belongs in Guild Wars 2, I would have to say that as long as people are interested in the content then it fits. Raiding has been a longstanding tradition in the MMORPG genre, and it seems to have found a welcome place in Guild Wars 2. It fills a missing void in the game’s competitive PvE content, and it adds in new gameplay that might bring more players to the game. While raiding might make some players unhappy, it seems to appeal to just as many and when a game developer tries to appease everyone it usually ends badly.