Unfortunately for ArenaNet, their raids are always going to be compared against World of Warcraft and WildStar. I also think that that’s slightly unfair because the mechanics of these games are drastically different. A lack of allied targetting, a five party limit to boons and effects, coupled with no traditional archetypes means ArenaNet have a lot of work to do to make encounters behave as players traditionally expect.

On Monday and taking advantage of the extended Beta weekend, my guild and I decided to try our hand at the first raid boss. Having tried on Friday when the servers opened, but facing challenges with the new squad UI, we reconvened early. Unsurprisingly and it being a Monday morning, many of my guild were at work so we struggled to find a full group of 10. Resorting to advertising in map chat, we quickly filled our group and dived straight in. I’m going to stress here that I made a conscious effort not to read any tactics on the raid and for all intents and purposes went in blind. Some of my guild had seen the world first takedown of the Vale Guardian but chose to remain quiet as to not spoil it for the others.

With no real flexibility to the professions available to us, certainly when it came to the random players we partied with, our attempt at the “trash” as well as the boss, was based solely on trying to form balanced squads. We were fortunate that our first group consisted of power and condition based players and to our surprise, put us in a good position going forwards.

Unlike a conventional raid where you snake through the opening areas fighting a series of pack-trash, you’re thrown straight into the first boss and the enemies tied to it. In a similar fashion to how ArenaNet treat other encounters, players are loosely taught the mechanics of the boss they’ll eventually reach through three separate fights. Before you reach the Vale Guardian, there are three blocking your path: green, red and blue. Each of them attacks roughly the same and each can be pulled independently, but they all - with the exception of green - have defensive measures. The red guardian can only be affected by conditions and the blue requires boon stripping before it can be damaged. Although simple, it ensures that you have to at least have a party relying on something other than raw power.

Fortunately for us we’d already got a fairly mixed bag of builds and cut through the colored guardians incredibly quickly. We wiped once as a result of showing too much interest in the orbs (or failing to avoid them, should I say) and were quickly at the Vale Guardian. Deciding that it was more than likely the Vale Guardian would split, especially factoring in the location where it stood had three color coded pillars, combined with the fact we’d just fought three guardians, it seemed sensible. Should they appear, our Mallyx equipped revenant was tasked to deal with the blue guardian, our crack team of condition engineers the red and I’d handle the green alongside a scrapper. We were of the view that if and when the trio of guardians appeared, the rest of the party could quickly burn down the blue and red, they’d then be able to make their way to us.

Diving into the fight (what had we got to lose?) we wiped within seconds. We didn’t know about the “circles” the Vale Guardian random places and as a result, caused a huge explosion when we failed to stand in them. After several more wipes we realised that it required four players to disable their effect. It took around an hour to get the Vale Guardian to 66% partly because of the randomness of circles and the fact we sometimes missed them but also because large swathes of our group would regularly be teleported. As part of the Vale Guardians attack pattern, when he’s not laying down circles that detonate, he places crystals that teleport players who touch them. Part of the difficulty of the encounter wasn’t necessarily that he hit hard but that these crystals were very hard to predict. They were small, Guild Wars 2’s graphical effects very large and as such, it was incredibly difficult to see them on the ground. Although players are free to run back to the Vale Guardian without suffering harm, it’s the damage loss to the boss - when you’re up against a timer - that puts you under serious pressure. Losing two or three high damage professions can seriously put you behind schedule.

When we did eventually reach the end of the first phase, as predicted the Vale Guardian split into three. At this stage we wiped at least five more times because we couldn’t keep the green guardian in its place and as he plodded off towards the red guardian, everything fell apart. Evidently myself as the lone druid and the scrapper weren’t dealing enough damage to keep his attention and with a few tweaks to my traits and bringing over a warrior, all three Guardians quickly died.

The third stage was where we got stuck and in part due to having to constantly recruit random players from outside the raid instance. Unfortunately this resulted in lengthy periods of us having to explain what to do to those who had just joined. It also meant that because they were inexperienced at the final phase, we wiped even more often. Our best results, unquestionably, were when we were a fixed group of 10 without rotating new players in. Once we began to, it became an encounter that was significantly more difficult than it needed to be.

As for the mechanics during this stage, there were three mechanics: standing in the circles, reacting to the teleport but also avoiding certain sections of the floor that split into a corresponding color. Standing in a colored section of the floor for too long would eventually kill you and all the while you still need to pull the Vale Guardian into a safe section of the floor. It’s certainly tricky and the best we could manage was getting the boss to 33% health. Up to that point, I lost count at the number of times we wiped.

I suppose at this point you’re wondering whether raids in Guild Wars 2 are good and how hard they really are? Well, they’re undoubtedly fun and I have to say the most I’ve had in the game for years. Unlike a Fractal or dungeon that’s incredibly easy, this is the first time I’ve ever thought that the game presented a genuine sense of difficulty. It was incredibly enjoyable to learn the encounter, discuss tactics and work with friends to try to overcome the boss. Although we failed to kill the Vale Guardian (not entirely unexpected considering the number of random players and the constant rotation) the sense of progress we had over the day was immense. Whether or not I can say the raid is difficult is another matter because at its heart, the Vale Guardian does very little damage. The problem (or difficulty) with the encounter, like most raids, is in players learning the mechanics of the fight. Fortunately, ArenaNet have designed the boss so that the slightest error is costly and for that I’m very grateful. Is it as hard as WildStar’s Genetic Archives? No, I don’t see that it is. However, it’s also very different due to the nature of how Guild Wars 2 plays and the small group size: the inability to target heal individual players, or boon share to more than five poses its own set of challenges that players will have to work around. It’s simply too early to tell whether these restrictions, as a result of the hangover from smaller party sizes, will work out.

Despite that small concern, I've not reached any final decision on the quality of raids as a whole. I think they bring something fresh and exciting to Guild Wars 2 that gives the player base a true 'end game'. It doesn’t matter whether it takes two days or six months for the hardcore guilds to conquer them, it’s everyone below that standard that will likely find true longevity: that’s a very good thing. I know my own guild will be hard at work trying to kill the Vale Guardian when Heart of Thorns launches and I can’t wait for the moment when we do. The satisfaction of beating a raid boss is unlike any other.

Fortunately for all of us, there’s not long to go. Great job, ArenaNet. I'm looking forward to more.