Raid
“Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns™, introduces the ultimate challenge: our first raid, which is made up of three distinct raid wings. Raids are 10-player, instanced, elite dungeon content that's a challenge unlike anything we've previously released in Guild Wars 2. These raids are meant to put you and your teammates to the test and challenge you to grow your skills as Guild Wars 2 players. Raids are our answer to what skilled PvE players have to look forward to at endgame—the ultimate test to overcome and defeat.
“Raids offer the ultimate challenge for you and nine of your friends.
— Level 80 rewards.
Raids, or raid wings, are 10-player squad-based PvE instances for level 80 characters. Unlike strike missions, raids are a sequence of boss and non-boss encounters with weekly rewards. Any encounter completed for the week can only be repeated after weekly reset or by joining an uncleared instance.
Each encounter typically involves multiple phases with several unique mechanics to test squad coordination, damage output, positioning, and player builds. Encounters may also include an enrage timer where the encounter fails or incoming damage greatly increases when time expires.
Certain masteries are required to participate in, complete, or simplify some encounters (see table notes). As with strike missions, downed allies can be revived or rally, but defeated allies cannot be revived during the encounters. Unlike fractals, Revive Orbs are disabled, along with other similar consumables such as boosters.
Special rewards for finishing each encounter are limited to once per week, with a weekly reset at Monday 07:30. Progress within a raid wing is saved for players even after leaving the instance, and it's reset weekly along with the rewards. Restarting the raid instance later will recall the progress made by the instance opener, allowing you to continue with the same raid wing across multiple sessions in a week. There are no waypoints inside raids, but instead they use a checkpoint system which players can use to revive themselves and which most of the times resets skill recharges when everyone is defeated. The /resign command or one of its alternatives can be used to restart an encounter faster.
The first raid, Forsaken Thicket, was split into three different wings, with the first one released on November 17, 2015. While corresponding wings tell a progressing story in a specific order, each wing can be entered and completed independently and in any order. After the third wing was released, future raids are now singular rather than multiple wings. It also introduced the first challenge mode boss encounter, a harder version with more punishing mechanics. The Mount Balrior raid wing from Janthir Wilds introduced a new pinnacle difficulty setting with the legendary challenge mode.
Accessing raids[edit]
Raiding is intended to require certain amount of time and dedication to learn and overcome each boss's unique mechanics, but in return it offers a large variety of rewards. Strike missions are a great introduction to 10-player encounters and common mechanics, bridging the gap between open world and raid difficulty with some strike missions surpassing raid difficulty.
Many solo players begin their raiding journeys by joining raid-training guilds or groups, or by joining dedicated training groups listed in the LFG tool (under Raids (Training)) in order to learn the basics of each encounter and accrue kill proof.
- Expansions required
Heart of Thorns raids are accessible by entering their respective portals in the open world or Lion's Arch Aerodrome.
- The Heart of Thorns expansion is required.
- Automatically unlocked upon owning the expansion.
Path of Fire raids are accessible by entering their respective portals in the open world or Lion's Arch Aerodrome.
- The Path of Fire expansion is required.
- Automatically unlocked upon owning the expansion.
The Janthir Wilds raid is accessible by entering the respective portal in the open world or Lion's Arch Aerodrome.
- The Janthir Wilds expansion is required.
- Automatically unlocked upon owning the expansion.
Difficulty tiers[edit]
All squad-based raids (except for Mount Balrior) are unique encounters not found in story episodes.
- Story version: initially fought as a part of a story intended for solo play, only found for the Mount Balrior raid wing.
- Emboldened mode: 10-player squad, opt-out
Emboldened effect active in a new raid wing each week that increases player durability and power per failed attempt. - Normal mode: 10-player squad.
- Challenge mode: 10-player squad, additional mechanics, only found in Stronghold of the Faithful and later raid wings.
- Legendary challenge mode: 10-player squad, additional mechanics, additional boss health, currently only found in the Mount Balrior raid wing.
List of raids[edit]
(CM) = Optional Challenge mode available
(LCM) = Optional Legendary Challenge mode available
- Legendary challenge mode encounter will be added in the second post-launch Janthir Wilds release[1]
Emboldened mode[edit]
- Primary article: Emboldened
The Emboldened effect becomes active in a new raid wing each week, effectively reducing the difficulty of each encounter by negating the heavy reliance on damage and healing. This gives players the chance to familiarise themselves with each boss's mechanics. This effect is automatically applied but can be deactivated by interacting with the Emboldened Mote near the entrance of each wing. Rewards are unaffected by Emboldened mode.
Upon entering a raid wing, players gain their first stack of Emboldened, which grants additional health, damage output, and improved healing to aid in their battle against each encounter. Each failed boss encounter attempt adds a stack of Emboldened (max 5), providing up to 100% additional health, 50% increased damage, and 50% increased healing output. This resets to 1 stack upon successfully completing the boss encounter.
Emboldened mode schedule[edit]
| Raid | Next up |
|---|---|
| Spirit Vale | April 14, 2025 08:30 UTC+00:00 |
| Salvation Pass | April 21, 2025 08:30 UTC+00:00 |
| Stronghold of the Faithful | April 28, 2025 08:30 UTC+00:00 |
| Bastion of the Penitent | May 5, 2025 08:30 UTC+00:00 |
| Hall of Chains |  Active
|
| Mythwright Gambit | March 24, 2025 08:30 UTC+00:00 |
| The Key of Ahdashim | March 31, 2025 08:30 UTC+00:00 |
| Mount Balrior | April 7, 2025 08:30 UTC+00:00 |
The effect rotates among the raids every week on Monday 08:30, effectively changing one hour after raid rewards reset.
Click here to purge the server cache, this forces the server to update the contents.
Rewards[edit]
Normal mode[edit]
Most of these rewards are once per week (per boss/encounter):
- 2
per boss. (doubled with 
Call of the Mists active). - 200,025
per boss. (doubled with Call of the Mists active). 
Compendium of Knowledge to progress mastery tracks.- 10,000
per boss. This is affected by karma boosters. 
Magnetite Shards (Wings 1-7) or 
Gaeting Crystals (Wing 8). These can be used to purchase rewards from Scholar Glenna or the Basic Magnetite Exchange Operative.
No Reward - If the currency cap (300) has been reached that week, killing a boss will award this instead of a currency bonus.
Legendary Insights for crafting PvE legendary armor and Coalescence.- One random Exotic weapon or armor piece
- Unique rewards to each boss chest:
- Ascended equipment - including Raid weapons with unique skins.
- Miniatures.
- Decoration tokens (commonly used as kill proof).
Challenge mode[edit]
In addition to normal mode rewards, once per boss per week:
- 2
- Magnetite Shard (10)
Provisioner Token (2)- 133,350
- One random Exotic weapon or armor piece
Call of the Mists[edit]
- Primary article: Call of the Mists (raid effect)
Call of the Mists is an effect that doubles the amount of gold and experience gained from raid boss kills, rotating every week between each raid wing in order of release date.
| Raid | Next up |
|---|---|
| Spirit Vale | April 7, 2025 08:30 UTC+00:00 |
| Salvation Pass | April 14, 2025 08:30 UTC+00:00 |
| Stronghold of the Faithful | April 21, 2025 08:30 UTC+00:00 |
| Bastion of the Penitent | April 28, 2025 08:30 UTC+00:00 |
| Hall of Chains | May 5, 2025 08:30 UTC+00:00 |
| Mythwright Gambit |  Active
|
| The Key of Ahdashim | March 24, 2025 08:30 UTC+00:00 |
| Mount Balrior | March 31, 2025 08:30 UTC+00:00 |
The effect rotates among the raids every week on Monday 08:30, effectively changing one hour after raid rewards reset.
Click here to purge the server cache, this forces the server to update the contents.
Related achievements[edit]
Community: Carry the Creator — Complete a raid boss with an ArenaNet employee. (0
)
Weekly Raids: Top-Tiered Terror Toppler — Complete five unique challenge mode raid encounters. (0
) (Historical)
Notes[edit]
- Race specific damage bonuses on slaying sigils, e.g. the 7% bonus on Superior Sigil of Demon Slaying, do not apply to raid bosses. Slaying potions, e.g. Powerful Potion of Demon Slaying, get removed upon entering the raid and cannot be applied once inside.
- Many raid bosses have different lore and mechanical races, e.g. Vale Guardian is mechanically considered a plant.
- At this time players cannot use transformation tonics or potions whilst in raids.
- It is possible to enter the raid with a player who has already cleared the wing to do certain achievements that do not involve combat, such as Loot Finder, Piecing It Together or My Hero!.
- A squad can concede defeat faster by using the /resign, /surrender, /concede, /forfeit, /gg, /qq, or /ff commands.
- In the LFG tool, players often advertise in shorthand what other players they seek. Common codes include:
- "xx li": Players with at least that many Legendary Insights, to indicate raiding experience. Players can "show" the number of Legendary Insights they have to others in chat by ctrl or shift-clicking on them in the inventory, but this can be faked by manually inputting the appropriate chat link format codes. Some commanders require spamming them in the chat with ctrl-click or splitting the stack with alt-click to mitigate the chances they are faked. Players posting this requirement will usually also accept Perfected Envoy armor or the precursor sets, since the collections required to get them include items that drop from almost all of the raid bosses.
- "kp": Players with "kill proof"--one of the items that can only be looted by someone who has defeated a boss, to prove they've beaten it at least once before. This can include the decoration token received from that boss, or any of the gear items (such as these) that can drop from that boss's chest (or unlocked as purchases from Scholar Glenna only after defeating it).
- "w1", "w2", etc... : While technically only 3 raids are wings of Forsaken Thicket, raids are commonly shortened to w# with # being the number of the raid in release order, as shown in the list above.
- "fc": LFG group intends to do "full clear" meaning clearing every boss starting from first boss/event in that particular wing.
Trivia[edit]
- The Challenge mode rewards were changed with the July 19, 2022 game update. Previously, the Top-Tiered Terror Toppler achievement was awarded for a certain number of CM kills per week.
- The same update also removed Gaeting Crystals and Legendary Divinations and standardized the raid currency to Magnetite Shards and Legendary Insights for all raids.
External links[edit]
- Raids in Guild Wars 2
- Designing Challenging Content
- Raid Rewards in Guild Wars 2
- Community-ran Raid Training Guilds
References[edit]
