User:Dak393/Raid Guide

Intro

Welcome to raiding. This is my personal raid info breakdown. Copied and entered here from my guild specific version. Let me know if anything needs to be updated or fixed. Also see my new player guide for more info and guides.

-Dak393

When to raid?

First off know that you shouldn't try to rush into raids, it's always better to get a feel for the game, your profession, and combat first. If you're just starting out focus on story and exploration. Otherwise here is what you will need to raid:

• A level 80 character.
• The Path of Fire Expansion. Heart of Thorns is now included for free if you own Path of Fire so get PoF on sale if you're missing it. HoT unlocks wings 1-4 and Path of Fire unlocks wings 5-7.
• In almost every case you will be expected to unlock an elite specialization by getting an additional 250 hero points (any that you got from a map count towards this number). The best places to get Hero points are the expansion maps, a single hero point there is worth 10 points instead of 1. Heart of Thorns has some hero points that are intended to be done with a group of 3-5, but Path of Fire and End of Dragons are more forgiving aimed at 1-2 players. If you're having trouble, look for a "Hero Point Train"/"HP Train" in LFG, ask your guild or map chat for help, or take a look at the guides for HoT/PoF/all including EoD.
• A proper build (see build section)
• Proper gear (exotics to start out, see gear section)

Picking a class

The main roles can be broken up into DPS (power/condition damage), Support (Boons/Buffs), and Healing with many builds covering 2 of these roles. Many bosses also have aggro based on the highest toughness so those fights have a "tank" that draws the boss’s aggro. A standard setup for a normal raid group is to split the squad of 10 into 2 groups of 5 (almost all boons/buffs are limited to 5 targets). Groups will usually consist of 4 boon builds to cover quickness, alacrity, and might (plus others) on the group (quickness, alacrity, and 25 might in each group of 5). Healers usually end up tanking, though this can be others including full DPS depending on the fight. Builds that have extra blocks, evades, or sustain can make this easier.

When starting out I do suggest gearing a power DPS but with the selectable gear options it's much easier to get armor of most types. If you're missing the living story (mainly Season 3 episode 3, A Crack in the Ice, Season 4 Episode 6, War Eternal, or Episode 1 / 2 of The Icebrood Saga) you'll have a harder time getting trinkets that are not berserker (or core stats) so that may factor into your choice as well.

Every elite specialization will also require an expansion so make sure you have the right one for the build you want.

Suggested builds (also see full list below and specific beginner build versions):

Update in progress for specifics, see general recommended builds as well for now.

• Warrior ( / / / *): power Berserker/power Bladesworn (or condition Berserker).

• Guardian ( / / ): Power DPS Dragonhunter is a great build with a lot of damage. For short fights or bosses with phases it's one of the best options. Also gets strong self healing with your heal skill (makes you basically unkillable for a few seconds) and your F2 for more mobility and healing. Power Willbender is another good option, it also has condi DPS and boon (power or condi alac) options which give it versatility with a single spec. Firebrand can be played as a condition DPS Firebrand or a condition quickness firebrand build. Overall the DPS builds are excellent starting options that are top DPS on many fights and not too complex to play, the quickness build still has really good DPS as well. Check the Guardian section for more details on other builds and setups including quickness firebrand and budget firebrand.

• Elementalist ( / / ): Power DPS Catalyst can get great DPS Power DPS weaver has a very fast paced rotation that needs you to keep track of attacks and damage buffs. Very high damage with a fluid looping rotation that can be fun to play once you have it down. Power Tempest is very similar to weaver with need of some fast switching of attunements and very specific rotation. Low base health (partially solved now with jade cores) and more involved rotations make it one of the more difficult (but potentially fun) options to start on.

• Engineer ( / / ): Power DPS Holo is a good choice for DPS. The rotation and build is easy to pick up but hard to master. There are some easier and harder build options which lets it be a good starting choice with lots of room to grow. I would suggest starting on and learning the sword build and replacing pistol with shield (ignore the pistol 4 in the rotation and you get shield for CC and blocks). Mechanist has a really strong heal + alacrity setup as well as a very strong and easy condi DPS option, the power alacrity build is also a decent option if you want alacrity/might + DPS (condi alac exists too but is not suggested due to difficulty in rotation and gear). Scrapper can be run as power quickness or heal quickness (though I'd suggest mech first for heal and they share most gear). The power quickness option has built in barrier and super speed which makes it a decent support option to learn on or even tank (same with heal). Tons of versatility and meta options here no matter which you go with first and lots of easy rotation options (and some really hard if you want that too!) make engineer a good choice.

• Mesmer ( / / ): Power DPS virtuoso is a powerful damage option and has a rotation that's actually fairly simple and uses a lot of skills off cooldown when they line up. It also has the option for a very strong condition DPS setup (check the budget version) and there are a lot of build variants that are not too hard to get going. REMagic also did a step by step video about building on the rotation that breaks down the rotation and shows off the damage and high natural sustain. Power DPS Chronomancer has a tricky rotation as it requires some knowledge of the class and fast inputs. I'd suggest virtuoso over chrono now in general but chrono has the option of Power Quickness Chronomancer to provide group quickness as well. Staff Condi Alacrity Mirage is also worth a mention here as the rotation is very simple and can run DPS or Alacrity with only swapping utility (and it's just a weapon change away from full axe condi DPS Mirage). It's still a bit harder to gear over power (or virtuoso) but can be well worth it. See the mesmer section for some more details and gearing options.

• Thief ( / ):Power Daredevil has a very simple rotation with great damage. The difficulty mainly comes from knowing when you can stand still to attack, keeping your endurance used, and timing your damage buffs. Daredevil also gains some very strong stolen skills on certain bosses. The Power DPS Rifle Deadeye build can be very strong but it's usage is mainly limited to a few specific roles and bosses where you can get away with not moving as much. Overall the rotations are simple and the single target damage is huge, but sometimes needs knowledge of the fight to not be stuck in bad spots when jumping around, using charge, kneeling, or flanking. Condition Daredevil can be considered as well due to being easy to play and having a lot of evade frames. Despite that you can sometimes find yourself being stuck in an animation where you need to dodge or just in a bad position. Like with other condition builds it is harder to gear vs power DPS.

• Necromancer ( / / ): Power DPS Reaper brings a lot of cleave damage and personal buffs, while having a pretty simple rotation (especially below 50% health). Main difficulty comes from timing skills and shroud (counting auto attacks). Beginner friendly and has some of the best cleave available but requires timing and not taking damage (lifeforce) to play well. Condition DPS Scourge is one of the easiest rotation options with some extra survivability. Still harder to gear than a power DPS but a good easy starting option that can hit high DPS.

• Ranger ( / ): Power DPS build provides good damage, CC, and group buffs (and possibly a spirit). Medium difficulty rotation that can be a little hard to master but is a nice loop once you get it down. Revolves around damage buffs and hard hitting skills. Some knowledge of the fight will help a lot as well since you have so much burst, some long animations you can interrupt, and a skill or two that lock you in place for a few seconds. Will take some practice to get good at but is not otherwise a difficult class and provides a ton of damage. Condition DPS Soulbeast is worth mentioning since it's a very easy build to play that can hit high DPS numbers while providing some group DPS or even covering a spirit (in place of your trap). Harder to gear but has a easy looping rotation and priority based skills. There is also a single shortbow condi setups that has a very easy rotation at the cost of potential damage, see the Ranger Section or Benchmarks page for more details and links. Finally, Heal Druid is also a decent starting choice though you'll only want a max of one per most fights so it's best to make after you already have a DPS option. Gear is harder to get again so see the gearing section next but the "rotation" is just about keeping up spirits and might on the group and topping people off when they get low on health. Overall easy to play, but may not always be needed and harder to gear.

• Revenant ( / ): Power DPS vindicator is your only power DPS option. Pretty simple rotation and good damage though it loses a bit on smaller hitboxes. Power Alacrity Renegade, is a support option that still does damage and gives out alacrity. Gear isn't terrible if you have access to S4E6 since you can get a full diviner set there or you can farm for Bladed armor. Heal Renegade also covers alacrity and has an even easier rotation though it's not quite as good or common as it once was. Also not all groups want a second healer, so you might not be playing it that much (more so with better groups). Gearing is again a little harder than power DPS as you'll need to get Harrier stats but check the gearing section for more info on how to do that.

You can view the benchmarks for all the builds here: Snowcrows Benchmarks

Note: The benchmark numbers are with perfect rotations, full ascended gear, stat infusions, food + utility, and permanent uptime of boons and conditions on a training golem. If you are trying out your rotations aim to hit 80-90% of what they get and make sure you apply the correct boons/conditions. Check out the "Golem Set Up" section at the very bottom of the benchmarks page or the Benchmarks section below for more details on what you should be using.

Builds

Below is a table of proper raid builds and general categories for them, it does not include every build, especially specialized roles, but it will give you a general idea of what options you have. Keep in mind that you should be running builds designed specifically for raids even if they are not the (highly) suggested ones below, that means no WvW, PvP, or Open World builds here as there will always be changes to be more optimal in raids. Fractal builds may work but be very careful as they optimize with extra fractal only stats in mind that you'll lack in raids (specifically boon duration, and not caring as much about toughness). There is no "one build" for all game modes and you'll just end up with a worse build in all.

The boons shown are just some of the main ones, some builds also have multiple variants. Suggested builds are in bold. Build links marked with B after, may be out of date so be sure to consult the guide link first. Strikethrough represents legacy builds, most links should still work though the pages won't be updated.

 Build links are currently out of date, updating benchmarks page with links and builds, will need to update this section later.

Profession	Builds
Main role:	Power Damage		Condition Damage		Healing
Sub role:		Buffs		Buffs	Buffs
Elementalist	Power CatalystB Power WeaverB Power TempestB	Power Quickness CatalystB	Condition TempestB* Condi Weaver B*		Heal TempestB
Mesmer	Power ChronoB	Power Quickness Chrono B1*B2*B3*	Condi MirageB* Condi ChronoB*	Condi Quickness ChronoB*
Necromancer	Power ReaperB*		Condi ScourgeB*		Heal ScourgeB*
Engineer	Power HoloB1*B2*	Quickness ScrapperB	Condi EngineerB* Condi HoloB*		Heal ScrapperB
Ranger	Power SoulbeastB1*B2*		Condi SoulbeastB*	Condi DruidB*	Heal DruidB
Thief	Power DaredevilB Power DeadeyeB* Rifle DeadeyeB1*/B2*/B3*	Boon ThiefB*2 Boon DaredevilB2	Condi Daredevil B		Heal ThiefB*2
Guardian	Power DragonhunterB* Power GuardianB*		Condi FirebrandB*	Condi Quick FirebrandB*3	Heal FirebrandB*
Revenant		Alacrity RenegadeB* Boon HeraldB*	Condi RenegadeB*		Heal RenegadeB*
Warrior	Power BerserkerB* Power SpellbreakerB*	Power Banner WarriorB Power Banner Berserker B1*B2*	Condi Berserker B*	Condi Banner BerserkerB*

*: build link is not yet updated.
Note 1: To "tank" most bosses you'll up your toughness with some gear swaps, see the mesmer section for more details.
Note 2: Boon DD only works on fights with () and is useless on others. See the Team Compositions below for more info.

Gearing up

Now that you have an idea of what class you want look up the appropriate raid build here (you may need to select a different build in the top right once you select your profession): https://snowcrows.com/raids/ and see what exact gear and weapons you need.

Note: Please ignore stat infusions entirely (they are 2-3% DPS and are very hard to get), don't worry about food (we'll go over that next), and don't get focused on getting all ascended gear (priority should be accessories then weapons, then MAYBE armor since it's also a super minor DPS increase (~1%)).

Please use this guide to get gear and if you do end up buying armor please get the cheaper named sets and not the crafted armor!

• My simplified gearing guide for power DPS
• Full gearing guide for everything else

Food and Utility

You will be expected to bring and use food on every boss fight when you are going for the kill. If you are doing training the trainer/commander will let you know once they want you to start using food, but you should always use it once you have a handle on the fight and want to make progress. There are two buffs that you'll want, a food buff that gives you stats (or sometimes special bonuses) and a utility item that converts stats. I'll break down what to get based on the type of build, but you do NOT need the top tier expensive food. You are only expected to bring close to it and I'll list some examples and alternatives below. The listed prices are from trading post value so you may be able to get them cheaper by crafting/buying different parts, please check GW2 Efficiency for detailed costs.

Below is the list of all the Meta PvE Food and utility options. All ascended food places a feast for 5 minutes that when used gives you a 1hr buff, all other food lasts 30 min unless otherwise stated.

Food

Power Food
Ascended
Effect	Food	Bonus Effect	Crafting
+100 Power +70 Ferocity	Cilantro Lime Sous-Vide Steak	Steal Life on Crit	…
	Peppercorn-Crusted Sous-Vide Steak	-10% Incoming Damage	…
+100 Power +70 Precision	Plate of Coq Au Vin with Salsa	Steal Life on Crit	…
	Plate of Peppercorn-Spiced Coq Au Vin	-10% Incoming Damage	…
Meta
Effect	Food	Crafting/Vendor	TP
+100 Power +70 Ferocity	Sweet and Spicy Butternut Squash	…	…
	Plate of Spicy Moa Wings	… + 2	…
+100 Power +70 Precision	Plate of Truffle Steak	…	…
	Steak with Winterberry Sauce	… + 5	…
+100 Precision +70 Ferocity	Curry Butternut Squash	…	…
Budget
Effect	Food	Crafting/Vendor	TP
+80 Power +60 Ferocity	Avocado Smoothie	… + 252 + 1	…
+80 Power +60 Precision	Plate of Steak and Asparagus	…	…
	Can of Steak and Asparagus	5	N/A

Condition Food
Ascended
Effect	Food	Bonus Effect	Crafting
+100 Expertise +70 Condi Damage	Salsa-Topped Veggie Flatbread	Steal Life on Crit	…
	Peppercorn and Veggie Flatbread	-10% Incoming Damage	…
+100 Condi Damage +70 Expertise	Cilantro and Cured Meat Flatbread	Steal Life on Crit	…
	Peppered Cured Meat Flatbread	-10% Incoming Damage	…
Meta
Effect	Food	Crafting/Vendor	TP
+100 Expertise +70 Condi Damage	Red-Lentil Saobosa	…	…
	Rare Veggie Pizza	…	…
	Koi Cake	5  (…)	…
+100 Condi Damage +70 Expertise	Beef Rendang	… + 273 + 1	…
+15% Torment Duration +70 Condition Damage	Meaty Asparagus Skewer	…	…
+15% Burn Duration +70 Condition Damage	Fishy Rice Bowl	…	…
+15% Poison Duration +70 Condition Damage	Bowl of Kimchi Tofu Stew	…	…
+15% Bleeding Duration +70 Condition Damage	Plate of Kimchi Pancakes	…	…
+100 Precision +70 Condition Damage	Fancy Potato and Leek Soup	…	…
Budget
Effect	Food	Crafting/Vendor	TP
+80 Expertise +60 Condi Damage	Super Veggie Pizza	…	…
	Boxed Super Veggie Pizza	5	N/A
+15% Burn Duration +70 Precision	Fire Meat Chili	…	…
+12% Burn Duration +60 Precision	Bowl of Spicy Meat Chili	…	…

Hybrid Food
Ascended
Effect	Food	Bonus Effect	Crafting
+45 to All Attributes	Spherified Cilantro Oyster Soup	Steal Life on Crit	…
	Spherified Peppercorn-Spiced Oyster Soup	-10% Incoming Damage	…
	Flight of Sushi	+150 Fishing Power	…
Meta
Effect	Food	Crafting/Vendor	TP
+45 All Attributes	Dragon's Revelry Starcake	…	…

Healing Food
Ascended
Effect	Food	Bonus Effect	Crafting
+100 Healing Power +70 Concentration	Bowl of Fruit Salad with Mint Garnish	+10% Outgoing Healing	…
+100 Concentration +70 Healing Power	Mint Creme Brulee	+10% Outgoing Healing	…
Meta
Effect	Food	Crafting/Vendor	TP
+100 Healing Power +10% Outgoing Healing	Delicious Rice Ball	N/A	…
Budget
Effect	Food	Crafting/Vendor	TP
+80 Healing Power +8% Outgoing Healing	Canned Rice Ball with "Lucky" Filling	N/A	N/A

Boon Food
Ascended
Effect	Food	Bonus Effect	Crafting
+100 Concentration +70 Power	Plate of Beef Carpaccio with Salsa Garnish	Steal Life on Crit	…
	Plate of Peppercorn-Spiced Beef Carpaccio	-10% Incoming Damage	…
+100 Concentration +70 Expertise	Salsa Eggs Benedict	Steal Life on Crit	…
	Peppercorn-Spiced Eggs Benedict	-10% Incoming Damage	…
Meta
Effect	Food	Crafting/Vendor	TP
+100 Concentration +70 Power	Soul Pastry* (45 min)	N/A	…
+100 Concentration +70 Expertise	Plate of Eggs Benedict	…	…
	Bowl of Green Chile Ice Cream	… + 25	…
	Bowl of Carne Khan Chili	… + 25	…
	Bowl of Firebreather Chili	… + 35	…
Budget
Effect	Food	Crafting/Vendor	TP
+100 Concentration 33% Might on Crit	Fried Golden Dumpling	N/A	…

Tank/Kite Food
Ascended
Effect	Food	Bonus Effect	Crafting
+100 Healing Power +70 Concentration	Bowl of Spiced Fruit Salad	-10% Incoming Damage	…
+100 Concentration +70 Healing Power	Spiced Pepper Creme Brulee	-10% Incoming Damage	…
+45 to All Attributes	Spherified Peppercorn-Spiced Oyster Soup	-10% Incoming Damage	…
Meta
Effect	Food	Crafting/Vendor	TP
-10% Incoming Damage +70 Concentration	Mussels Gnashblade	…	…
Budget
Effect	Food	Crafting/Vendor	TP
-10% Incoming Damage +70 Toughness	Lemongrass Mussel Pasta	…	…
-10% Incoming Damage +70 Healing Power	Oysters with Pesto Sauce	…	…
-10% Incoming Damage +70 Ferocity	Oysters with Zesty Sauce	…	…
-10% Incoming Damage +70 Precision	Oysters with Cocktail Sauce	…	…
-10% Incoming Damage	Fried Oysters	…	…

---

Utility

Power Utility
Basic
Effect	Utility	Crafting/Vendor	TP	Duration
Gain Power Equal to 3% of Your Precision Gain Power Equal to 6% of Your Ferocity	Potent Superior Sharpening Stone	…	…	60 min
	Superior Sharpening Stone	…	…	30 min
	Mist-Infused Sharpening Stone	N/A	…	30 min
	Tin of Fruitcake	…	…	30 min
Gain Power Equal to 3% of Your Precision Gain Ferocity Equal to 3% of Your Precision	Furious Sharpening Stone	…	…	30 min
Writs
Effect	Utility	Crafting/Vendor	TP	Duration
Gain 200 Power When Health above 90%	Writ of Masterful Strength	…	…	30 min
Gain 160 Power When Health above 90%	Writ of Learned Strength	…	…	30 min

Condition Utility
Basic
Effect	Utility	Crafting/Vendor	TP	Duration
Gain Condition Damage Equal to 3% of Your Precision Gain Condition Damage Equal to 8% of Your Expertise	Potent Master Tuning Crystal	…	…	60 min
	Master Tuning Crystal	…	…	30 min
	Tuning Icicle	…	…	30 min
Gain Condition Damage Equal to 3% of Your Power Gain Condition Damage Equal to 3% of Your Precision	Toxic Focusing Crystal	…	…	30 min
Writs
Effect	Utility	Crafting/Vendor	TP	Duration
Gain 200 Condition Damage When Health Is above 90%	Writ of Masterful Malice	…	…	30 min
Gain 160 Condition Damage When Health Is above 90%	Writ of Learned Malice	…	…	30 min
Gain 200 Precision When Health Is above 90%	Writ of Masterful Accuracy	…	…	30 min
Gain 160 Precision When Health Is above 90%	Writ of Learned Accuracy	…	…	30 min

Support Utility
Basic
Effect	Utility	Crafting/Vendor	TP	Duration
0.6% Outgoing Healing per 100 Healing Power 0.8% Outgoing Healing per 100 Concentration	Bountiful Maintenance Oil	…	…	30 min
	Mist-Infused Maintenance Oil	N/A	…	30 min
Gain Concentration Equal to 3% of Your Power Gain Concentration Equal to 3% of Your Precision	Potent Lucent Oil	…	…	30 min
Gain Concentration Equal to 6% of Your Condition Damage Gain Concentration Equal to 3% of Your Precision	Enhanced Lucent Oil	…	…	30 min
Gain Concentration Equal to 3% of Your Power Gain Concentration Equal to 6% of Your Condition Damage	Toxic Maintenance Oil	…	…	30 min
Gain Concentration Equal to 3% of Your Precision Gain Concentration Equal to 6% of Your Healing Power	Peppermint Oil	…	…	30 min
Gain Power Equal to 8% of Your Concentration Gain Concentration Equal to 3% of Your Precision	Holographic Super Cheese	… + 1	…	30 min

DPS and logs

The only approved DPS meter is ArcDPS. It is recommended that you install it so that you can see your progress and how well you are doing.

Installation

The site is pretty cut and dry but has a lot of useful info so you should take a minute to read over it. If you install it and are having issues make sure you read over "it's not working" and "how do i install, update, or uninstall it" again.

1. As the site says, don't be a dick. Don't call people out on DPS or use it to flame players. You should use it so see how well you are doing compared to benchmarks and others.
2. Click on the download link at the bottom of the page and click on d3d11.dll. You do not need the other downloads. If your browser gives you a warning on downloading a .dll file you'll need to accept and let it download.
3. Once downloaded you will need to move the file to your ...\Guild Wars 2 folder. This will be wherever you installed GW2, usually in "Program Files" or "Program Files (x86)". For steam players you'll be looking for ...\Steam\steamapps\common\Guild Wars 2 specifically.
4. Launch the game and you should see it running (reminder again that you'll need to rename or remove the file when the game is patched or risk it crashing). If you don't see ArcDPS you can try Alt + Shift + t to bring up the menu or Alt + Shift + h to hide/un-hide it.

Logs

Once you have ArcDPS installed you can enable the setting to save logs by opening the menu (Alt + Shift + t) and under "Logging" check the box to "save after boss encounter". Logs will be saved after fractal/strike/raid boss fights and the training golem. Logs are located in Users\USERNAME\Documents\Guild Wars 2\addons\arcdps\arcdps.cbtlogs by default and you can change or open this folder from the menu.

In order to view the logs you'll need to parse them, my suggestion is to upload them to DPS report, this gives you a shareable link and lots of details. You can use the offline Elite Insights Parser if you prefer. There is also GW2 Scratch, a log manager that lets you look through all the log files on your computer and upload whatever ones you want.

Additional Setup

In general you can just use the meter as is without any additional setup but you can see some additional add-ons and controls below. All you'll really need is for area stats to be open to see group DPS, if you don't care about seeing DPS you can hide all and still record logs.

Settings

• Area Stats is the main window you'll be looking at and shows party/squad DPS
  • Right clicking the window will let you change settings including "Display" which lets you set the formatting you want. Hover over the sections to see the options. Setting @5 will show single target DPS, @4 total target damage, @6 percent target damage, and @2 cleave DPS. Feel free to change these around to your liking but single target DPS is the most important one to display and I would suggest something like @5 (@4, @6) to show target DPS (total, %). Can also add any of these to the title bar section, I'd suggest having group DPS listed there.
• Self stats can be used to check healing but that metric isn't really useful in boss fights (good groups take less damage so you might be healing less than expected and the reverse with worse groups).
• Check recommended minimum version will alert you to any updates.
• Metrics lets you display
  • FPS - F, higher the better 60+ is great but it will drop with heavy load
  • Ping - P, lower the better above 300 starts to have problematic delay
  • Server lag - R, should be 25 much lower or high numbers show an issue with server ticks that may be from server load or dropped packets
  • Hovering over shows advanced info
• Logging - See above section

Shortcuts

• Alt + Shift + t - Settings menu
• Alt + Shift + c - Area Stats (main DPS window)
• Alt + Shift + b - Buff Table (Add-on replaces shortcut with itself)
• Alt + Shift + h - Hide/unhide all windows
• Alt + Shift + s - Target stats, shows details on yourself (if no target) or your selected target
• Alt + Shift + k - Lock target
• Alt + Shift + d - (With build template add-on) Shows builds
• Alt + Shift + l - (With mechanics log add-on) Shows the log
• Alt + Shift + o - Reload config
• No shortcut - Self stats (personal healing and damage), access from settings

Add-ons

• Pick what add-ons you want:
  • Boon table for a more readable boon chart.
  • Mechanics to see what mechanics players were hit by. Use this to correct your own mistakes, don't call others out.
  • Build storage to be able to save and sort as many builds as you want.
  • Healing stats to be able to log outgoing and incoming healing and save it for logs.
  • Kill proof shows the killproof.me info of other players if they have it added.
  • Unofficial Extras adds some additional details for other add-ons to use.
  • Food reminder reminds you when food buffs run out, tracks food and utilities used.
  • Squad role tracker helps you see what boons and roles you have in your squad and track what's missing.
  • Uploader allows you to upload logs from in game and set them up to work with discord.
  • Clears tracks boss kills for the week, can share clear info with others and see friends as well.
  • Scrolling Combat Text changes the way damage numbers show up on screen and has a lot of UI customization and features. Example video.
  • GW2 Radial* can be used to bind custom keys to a radial menu, useful for mounts and more.

• Once you know which ones you want, download the .dll file for each of them.
  • For Github links, you'll find this under the "Releases" section on the right or the download link on the page.
  • Again you only need the .dll file and don't need source code or other files.
  • If the main download is a .zip file you'll need to extract the .dll file after downloading.
• Move the downloaded file(s) to your ...\Guild Wars 2\bin64 folder.
• That's it, launch the game and check your working add-ons. They should show in ArcDPS without you needing to do anything else.

 *Radial requires additional setup, see the installation section for details

Reading Logs

Once you parse a log you'll want to be able to understand it so here are some quick tips on what to look at.

• General Stats
  • Damage Stats - Nice at a glance overview on DPS
  • Defensive Stats - Shows deaths and downs at a glance, useful if looking for runs where you didn't go down.
• Buffs - Note the "Phase duration" and "Phase active duration" options, the later removes dead players from counting against the uptimes and averages
  • Boons
    • Uptime - Shows average stacks and total duration, might be worth while to select specific boss phases (right above the party members) if the boss had phases. Gives a good idea if boons were good or bad and breaks it down per sub-squad. In a perfect world you'd be at 25 might and 100% duration on all expected boons.
    • Generation Self - Useful to see self given boons but usually not that important.
    • Generation Group - The boons each player gave to their sub group (typically 5 players)
    • Generation Squad - Boons given to the entire squad, good to look at with 10 target boons and to see your overall output. Note that numbers will look lower here since it's averaging them across 10 players when most boons are limited to 5, it also does not include self generated boons.
  • Offensive Buffs - Has banners, spirits, and other damage buffs.
  • Defensive Buffs - More spirits and utility buffs.
  • Personal Buffs - Profession and Spec specific buffs and effects. Some interesting details but nothing too important.
• Damage Modifiers
  • Gear Based Damage Modifiers - Shows the damage bonus you would get with each specific rune or food. For example if you ran scholar runes (5% damage while above 90% health) but only 87% of your hits were above 90% HP then the total damage you would get is 4.4%.
• Mechanics - Shows important boss specific mechanics and how many times players were hit by them. If no one got hit at all, the mechanic will not show up in the list.
• Graph - Shows DPS of all players for the full fight as well as boss HP and downs/deaths on a nice graph.
• Targets Summary
  • Damage Distribution - Shows all damage the boss did and which attacks they used.
  • Damage Taken - Incoming boss damage.
  • Buff Status - Shows conditions applied to the boss, very important for checking uptimes on things like vulnerability or making sure you applied conditions to the golem.
• Player Summary - You need to select a player in the party section above.
  • Damage Distribution - Personal DPS broken down by skill. Helps check number of casts vs number of hits as well.
  • Damage Taken - Overview of everything that damaged the player.
  • Simple Rotation - Skills used in order, includes weapons swaps, evades, canceled skills, time spent resurrecting, etc. Importantly it can not track instant cast skills (skill with no cast time) including things like shatters, mantras, and legends. Very useful if you're working on your golem bench and one of the most detailed sections you can look at.
  • Consumables - To check what food/utility a player was running and if it ran out.

There is also an amazing combat replay option at the top that lets you see all positions and replay the full fight from a top down perspective. Can also turn on details to see health and boons at any time. There are also options for targets (boss) and mechanics in the details menu. Left side lets you see DPS and you can select any player to outline them in a green box (players in their sub get a blue outline), it also lets you draw range circles around them to see how close they are to allies or enemies.

Settings

There are a couple settings that you should change for raids, these are just my suggestions but they really help.

• General Options:
  • Dynamic HUD > Temporarily Show UI for Notifications: On - Allows for the screen border to show up for mechanics.
  • Camera > sliders > Field of View: Far right - Allows you to see more, will help with awareness of what's going on around you.
  • Combat/Movement > Double-Tap to Evade: Off - Allows you to make minor movement changes without accidentally dodging, dodging with a single key will always be faster and suggested anyways (defaults to 'v').
  • Combat/Movement > Autotargeting: Off - Optional. Lets you aim skills without them locking on this means you can leap in the direction you're facing without the risk of auto targeting something and leaping in that direction.
  • Combat/Movement > Promote Skill Target - If you have autotargeting on you generally want this on as well so it locks the target you attack.
  • Combat/Movement > Melee Attack Assist: Off - Allows you to walk into the boss's model without being stopped in front of it with melee weapons. Can get around it by side stepping but it's much better to just turn this option off.
  • Combat/Movement > Lock Ground Target at Maximum Skill Range: On - Stops you from failing AoE skills that are out of range, making it faster to cast AoEs near max range. Downside is that it very slightly reduces where you can place.
  • Combat/Movement > Snap Ground Target to Current Target: Off - Having this on forces your ground targeting which you will not want for many skills and mechanics.
  • Combat/Movement > Allow Skill Retargeting: On - Lets you change targets even after your first target dies or you cast your skill, nice for many skills in general.
• Graphics Options:
  • Advanced Settings > Effect LOD: On - Limits particle effects (mainly from other players) so that you can better see what's going on.
  • Advanced Settings > Character Model Limit: Max - Many fights will have lots of entities and having this too low can mean you won't be able to see important mechanics or effects.
• Sound Options
  • Sliders > UI Volume: Right - Makes many of the raid sounds louder so you don't miss them. Very important for many mechanics as they have sound cues.
  • Sliders > Effects Volume: Right - Can help with hearing some character effects, optional.

Benchmarks

So you have a build and gear, it's time to practice your rotation. The best way to do this is to head into the Special Forces Training Area from the Lion's Arch Aerodrome just to the left of the bank or Lion's Arch left of the portal to the Aerodrome (Can also get there from Eye of the North and Arborstone after purchasing an unlock). Once inside make your way over to the console, we'll use this to set our boons and buffs for the fight. To simulate a raid environment we'll be adding all the boons and conditions used for Snowcrows benchmarks and listed in their guide.

Boons:

All in Offensive:

1.  Might
2.  Fury
   All in Utility:
3.  Alacrity
4.  Swiftness
5.  Quickness
6.  Regeneration
7.  Vigor
   Special Cases (In Defensive):
8.  Resolution - Power /
9.  Stability - Virtues /
10.  Protection - Virtues /

Next we'll head to the left and use the golem spawner. Select the hitbox size you want (some benchmarks are done on large to reduce RNG or help get hits) if you're not sure just pick "Average". Next for health pool we'll select Average enemy (4,000,000 health) as all benchmarks are done with 4 million HP. Then make sure you go back and select "Adjust golem settings" > "Add conditions", and check that your build doesn't benefit from specific conditions as shown below.
If it's not listed below then select "All of them".

• 10 condition builds:
  • Power: ///(Rifle)
  • Condition: /

1.  Bleeding
2.  Burning
3.  Confusion
4.  Poisoned
5.  Torment
6.  Chilled
7.  Crippled
8.  Slow
9.  Vulnerability (25x)
10.  Weakness

For builds running  Dueling take only:

1.  Vulnerability (25x)
2.  Crippled
3.  Slow

Make sure you're behind the target if you need to flank it then try to follow the listed rotation as best you can. It can help to watch the video rotation in slow-mo and review your log vs benchmark log after to see exactly how you did. Moxie is also a great tool for comparing your logs to benchmarks and seeing how close you were and where you're still messing up. Be sure to reach out for help if you're having issues but you should be aiming for 80-90% of benchmark DPS in general.

Tanking

AS mentioned at the start this will usually be a healer taking the role and it's not all bosses that even have set fixates or are based on toughens at all. You can see the list below for full details on that. I'll be focusing more so on the toughness based fixates in this section and how we'll go about getting highest toughness and when we may need to be careful about it. I'd suggest having builds without any toughness and then getting swaps (usually trinkets) to gain toughness when you need it. It's worth mentioning here too that toughness is not as impactful as most people seem to think and you can tank all bosses with very little (or no in several cases) toughness. You'll see more impact from say keeping up  Protection and avoiding hits (blocks/evades or in many cases just moving to the side).

Getting toughness

For healers the easiest option is swapping harrier's stats over to giver's as this keeps your same exact healing and boon duration and just swaps power for toughness. You can take minstrel as an option but be aware that it's lower boon duration and I generally would not suggest it. As for how much toughness we should get, that's mainly up to you and having more doesn't really matter most of the time. For DPS builds you generally doesn't want to be wasting a lot of stats so if you naturally get some toughness or can use something like a +5 toughness infusion that's best. Keep in mind though that you'll be in front of the boss so you want to avoid tanking on builds that have bonuses when flanking or behind (often ranger/thief). So it will depend on boss and your allies for what the minimums are and what we want exactly but in general we'll ranger from 1005 - 1400 as an upper bound. You can always go higher (specifically on healer) if you want but it really shouldn't be needed.

Below is a list of builds you'll want to watch out for and how much toughness they get normally. Though it's still always a good idea to ask the group to make sure.

A toughness main, 3 stat option like giver's or knight's will provide +157 toughness for an amulet alone which is a great choice, for going higher just swap in more trinkets as needed. Full trinkets (something you really shouldn't need to do) would be +692 toughness which is more than you would need. It's also worth noting that if a guide suggests givers in specific slots it really doesn't matter and you can take it in any other slots (different gear slots offer different stat totals but this only matters for the amount of toughness you want really.

Build	Toughness	Notes
Beastmastery Soulbeast	1150	This includes all power and hybrid as well as rarely condi soulbeasts. They gain the toughness from  Pack Alpha when merged.
Hand Kite Soulbeast	1380 1200	Being merged with a  Stout pet gives +200 toughness and they run   Signet of Stone for another +180 toughness. Can drop toughness down to 1200 by swapping signet to   Dolyak Stance or 1000 by changing pet to Juvenile Brown Bear as well
Quickness Catalyst	1100	From  Elemental Empowerment providing up to 10% increased stats
DPS Catalyst	1200	From  Elemental Empowerment +  Empowered Empowerment providing up to 20% increased stats
condi DPS Weaver	1250	From   Rock Barrier providing temporary +250 toughness
Any Handkiter	????	If you're tanking on Deimos just check to see what your hand kiter is running, depending on the build they may be running no extra or a lot.

Tanking Difficulty and info

The toughness tanking bosses are:

• Vale Guardian - Boss can honestly punch pretty hard and heal timing/pressure is higher for groups doing no greens. If you have access to invulnerability you can use that to ignore the green damage, be ready to heal the group after or avoid extra damage for a few seconds after (lit up time, seekers, teleports). Make sure you get used to avoiding the teleports especially, often you can just dodge backwards into the wall to evade them. I'd say medium difficulty in general.
• Gorseval the Multifarious - Pretty much just aim the boss away from the group, can be done by anyone. If you can you should be providing aegis or stability to avoid the knockdown and helping to pull in the extra enemies or cleave down the orbs later when you have a chance (usually during the spirit phase). If you're on druid especially you have an easy time immobilizing the spirits making that part a lot easier. Preferably you're also solo healing as well. Easy fight with some slight timing on slams to learn.
• Keep Construct - Mainly just need to pull to boss to the next statue and watch for the pink circle attack, can be done by anyone. Try to provide a block or stability for the jump and slam attack if you can. Would normally want solo heal as well for more DPS. Easy fight in general.
• Xera - Need to learn tanking positions and where to move, though fast groups don't really need to move much at all. If you mess up moving the boss you'll give her a ton of boons and lose all conditions so just need to be careful. Main thing to worry about is her frenzy attack to block or otherwise move away, can easily dodge back or just walk away and then back in after as the boss doesn't move during (just don't turn her to group). Medium difficulty with frenzy and initial positions being the harder parts but pretty easy once you have that down and groups are doing mechanics properly (or just out DPSing them).
• Deimos - Need to time blocks and evades for the big hits (Mind Crush needs a block always but tank specifically can go into the bubble in the middle every time). Best options for tank really want some form of aegis or group block to stay out and avoid mind crush. You'll also need to move the boss out of the oils that spawn at 60% and under. Medium difficulty with most of it being remembering to block mind crush and not spacing out and getting hit off the platform.
• Voice in the Void (Dhuum) - Actually super easy, boss does low damage to tank so you just stare at his crotch the whole fight, anyone can do it and would suggest a DPS personally. Need to learn tanking spots but it's honestly pretty easy. If you're doing a heal tank you should be the one doing green 3 though so this adds a bit more responsibility to the role. Easy (Medium if you're learning greens or still not used to the spots).
• Largos Twins - Depends a little on what side you're on but both bosses can hit pretty hard if you're not avoiding the attacks well. You don't actually need any toughness besides minimum but you may as well take more as a heal tank. Can be hard starting out with many mechanics going on and big hits of damage if you don't avoid it, but once you get the timing, medium.
• Cardinal Sabir (kind of) - No one really "tanks" this one as you just face the boss towards group so... easy? It does still help to have highest toughness and know exactly where the boss will be facing though so not the worst thing to take some extra toughness on healer.
• Cardinal Adina - Not that hard, you'll want to avoid the knockback or have access to stability/a block. I'd suggest detonating the mine behind you on your way out (just roll over the edge of it, not the middle) to pillars. Makes it so you don't need to deal with it exploding at all. Also it does help if you have some form of projectile destruction or reflection like heal herald (which is my suggestion for tank). Easy.

Special mechanic tanks:

• Cairn the Indomitable - Not really a tanking role as fixate is farthest away, it's good if you bait agony and aim boss away from group if you can. But many groups don't really care all that much and will just heal through and stack, especially for the start.
• Mursaat Overseer - Claim role, just need to take back tiles and move the boss when needed (as little as possible), overall easy role with a little bit of timing on when you claim (waiting till after pawns/soldiers move in). Easy.
• Samarog - First in fixate, then farthest away. You can get every single fixate if you evade back after your turn is done but that needs the group to stack pretty tight. I personally suggest solo heal here which means you don't want to be fixated as you'll be doing a lot of CC and healing for the fixated player instead. You can avoid a lot of the damage by moving or just dodging the slam so it shouldn't be an issue for anyone tanking. You'll often want to be bringing extra CC or kncokbacks both for the fight in general and for getting Rigom under samarog each phase but that's easy too, overall easy fight.
• Soulless Horror - Swapping fixate with special action, 2 tanks. Lots of damage all the time especially from the wurms at the start if they don't get killed quickly. Can have extra reflect atthe start like firebrand tome 3 skill 3 to help mitigate a lot of it. SH attacks very fast and you need to constantly be paying attention to positioning for walls. As you learn and get better though you can side step most of the attacks and avoid a lot of the damage and block the rest. Also you rely a bit on your other tank swapping the fixate back, if it's left on you too long your  Necrosis stacks will cause you to take a lot of damage from everything. One of the hardest fights to learn tank on due to the fast and constant damage, usually high toughness recommended while learning.
• Qadim - Closest is tank. Will need to learn the attack patterns but you can side step here (like in this older example) and avoid most of the damage. Learning the patterns for the mini-bosses, avoiding being teleported if too close, and CCing fast are the main issues here. Not avoiding the damage will quickly down you. You might need to CC the lava elementals after the mini bosses as well if you don't have easy options like focus pull or daredevil mag bombs. If your kiter is still learning the boss may get damage buff stacks and have high damage during the main phases as well so heal pressure can be high then (but low otherwise). Hard when learning the fight, medium to tank later.
• Qadim the Peerless - Closest active special action, won't swap unless you go out of range. Does a lot of rapid multi-hit damage and you need to place down damage AoEs in the right spots as well as still do the fire orbs at 80 and 60. Since the damage is so large you usually want extra toughness to survive and some condi cleanse if you're getting hit to remove the vulnerability. If you have ranged CC like druid it's also good to help CC the anomalies later in the fight. Hard fight, up there with SH for damage pressure. Gets a lot easier if you time your blocks/evades/invulns and remove the vuln but there is still a lot going on.

Training and Guides

Now that you have the basics down you'll want to learn the bosses. Snowcrows has a list of training discords (NA or EU) to pick from based on your region (servers are split between NA and EU, make sure you pick the one that you're on).

If you'd rather try to learn yourself there are many detailed guides out there to get you started, some examples being:

• The wiki here has very in depth written guides to every encounter, just select any raid wing that you want and then find the "Walkthrough" section.
• While they are no longer being updated and the builds/strategies can be outdated Dulfy's raid guides still have videos and in depth instructions on most wings.
• The Happy Raider's Kit by Tevatron.8217, detailed long general raid guide
• Raid Guide book by SUPER GOD.6857 has detailed guides with images on the boss fights
• Snowcrows has guides but they are not listed and most are not finished. For example the first wing, Spirit Vale. You can search for the rest on the web and they should come up but again, most are not done.
• Mukluk has a site with links and a youtube playlist of very short "get to the point" guides.
• MightyTeapot has video guides for a few bosses as well
• Metabattle has guides here
• And many more (let me know if you have some good suggestions!)

Ask for help

Finally feel free to ask me about any questions you may have on raids, gearing, or the guide itself.

• Dak.2749 in game
• dak393 on discord
• User:Dak393

or check out /r/Guildwars2/ (They have a weekly question section pinned to the top), their discord, or ask on the training discords listed above.

Resources

Team Compositions

In general your raid group is always trying to cover the major damage boons of  Might (25 stacks),  Fury,  Quickness, and  Alacrity while also covering  Regeneration and  Protection for defense. When making groups you'll want to separate your boon givers so that each group of 5 has all the boons they need.

s want to be stacked with other s to share  Resolution (non-condi s also help). Most of the time you won't need to worry a ton about  Fury uptime as many builds supply a lot of their own but if you can you'll want a build in each group that covers it. If you have multiple professions providing 5 target group buffs it might be a good idea to spread them out too.

Example buffs:

• - Stances (with  LotP), these now use the caster's stats so it's not as important but can split for faster use.
• - Venoms ( Basilisk Venom stacks up to 2 times).
• -  Ashes of the Just has a 1s cooldown so too many in the same group can mean lost stacks.
• - Legendary Renegade summons like the buff from  Razorclaw's Rage.
• Sources of condi cleanse or barrier.

Name	Example team compositions
Basic	Group 1: Group 2:	Quickness Quickness	Alacrity Alacrity	DPS DPS	DPS DPS	DPS DPS

(WIP updating) Table below shows what builds can give permanent duration and full stacks of these boons to their sub-squad (1), or notable partial coverage (1. Boon duration is minimum suggested and (theoretical minimum). Never go below the theoretical minimum as that's the lowest possible even under perfect (see impossible) conditions, you should always aim for the suggested amount unless you know what you're doing or don't need full uptime (short phases).

Team comp options
Builds	Might	Quickness	Alacrity	Fury	Healing	Minimum Boon Duration	Benchmark DPS	Notes
Power Catalyst	0	1	0	0	0
Condi Tempest	1	0	1	1	0		26.6k
Heal Tempest	1	0	1	1	1
Power Chrono	0	1*	1*	0	0		28k	* Has to pick between Quickness or Alacrity, not both.
Condi Chrono	0	1*	1*	0	0			* Has to pick between Quickness or Alacrity, not both.
Staff Mirage	1	0	1	1	0		29.5k
Staxe Mirage	1	0	1	1	0		36.2k	Uses staff + axe, used with a second player to cover alacrity
Condi Harbinger	0	1	0	1	0		31.8k
Power Scrapper	0	1	0	0	0		30.1k
Heal Scrapper	0	1	0	0	1
Power Mechanist	1	0	1	(80%)	0		25k
Condi Mechanist	1	0	1	(80%)	0
Heal Mechanist	1	0	1	1	1		6-8k*	* Estimated
Heal Druid	1	0	1	1	1	100% (35%*)		Duration for alacrity only
Power Untamed	0	0	1	0	0
Condi Untamed	0	0	1	0	0		35k
Boon Daredevil	1	1	0	1	0			Gives all boons besides alacrity through . Can only be used on fights where that stolen skill is available.
Condi Specter	0	0	1	1	0		27.6k
Heal Specter	0	0	1	1	1
Condi Firebrand	0	1	0	1	0		29.2k
Heal Firebrand	0	1	0	1	1
Power Willbender	0	0	1	1	0			Requires aegis uptime
Condi Willbender	0	0	1	1	0
Power Herald	0	1	0	0	0		29.2k
Condi Herald	0	1	0	0	0
Heal Herald	0	1	0	0	1
Power Renegade	0	0	1	0	0	85% (78%)
Condi Renegade	0	0	1	0	0
Heal Renegade	0	0	1	0	1	100% (78%)
Power Berserker	1*	1	0	1*	0
Condi Berserker	1*	1	0	1	0		32k	* With swaps
Power Bladesworn	1	1	0	1	0		31k

Required Mastery

BOLD = required, * = Specific role only

# Raid / Wing	Encounters	Mastery	Notes
Heart of Thorns
1 Forsaken Thicket: Spirit Vale	Vale Guardian	Blazing Speed Mushrooms	40% movement speed buff but is not important or needed
	Spirit Woods	Glider Basics Adrenal Mushrooms*	Want gliding for the start of the run and a gap Skill reset very useful to portal the group for rifts
	Gorseval the Multifarious	Updraft Use	Needed to get to the platform and to do the updraft mechanic. Can be portaled.
	Sabetha the Saboteur	Updraft Use* Explosive Launch*	Cannon role, optional updrafts show up during flame wall Cannon role, prevents being damaged by the launch
2 Forsaken Thicket: Salvation Pass	Slothasor	-	-
	Prison Camp	Explosive Launch* Nuhoch Stealth Detection*	Only if doing mortars Only if doing saboteurs, can wait till they appear but is much harder
	Matthias Gabrel	Forsaken Thicket Waters	Prevents a long 3s stun when cleansing in a fountain
3 Forsaken Thicket: Stronghold of the Faithful	Siege the Stronghold	Bouncing Mushrooms* Ley Line Gliding* Forsaken Thicket Waters* Forsaken Magic*	All 4 for tower role, mushroom needed for first tower only Ley gliding needed between towers and fast way up after first can skip the cave path making this not needed but you'll want it for cave magic needed to use the turrets
	Keep Construct	-	-
	Twisted Castle	Forsaken Magic	Lets you remove or stop the debuff stacks
	Xera	Ley Line Gliding Forsaken Magic	Ley gliding needed. Magic lets you remove more debuff stacks
4 Bastion of the Penitent	Cairn the Indomitable	Glider Basics	Needed to get to platform, portal not possible after first pull
	Mursaat Overseer	-	-
	Samarog	-	-
	Deimos	Glider Basics	Can be portaled
Path of Fire
5 Hall of Chains	Soulless Horror	Glider Basics / Mount	Can make it to the platform with a skilled jump, gliding, or a mount
	River of Souls	Mount*	If group is killing ahead, any mount suggested for the start
	Statues of Grenth	Advanced Gliding / Mount	Can be portaled, glide, or use a mount
	Voice in the Void	-	-
6 Mythwright Gambit	Conjured Amalgamate	Glider Basics / Mount	Can be portaled, glide, or use a mount
	Twin Largos: Nikare and Kenut	Shifting Sands	Needed for the pre-event (otherwise need many portals or to just wait till it is done)
	Qadim	-	-
7 The Key of Ahdashim	Cardinal Sabir	Updraft Use	Can use updrafts in the fight if you fall or need to get to side platforms
	Cardinal Adina	-	-
	Qadim the Peerless	-	-

Lingo

• Looking For Group (LFG)
  • CM - Challenge Mode, adds mechanics to the main fight and gives bonus rewards
  • FC - Full Clear, expecting to kill all the bosses in the raid/wing
  • exp - Experienced, expected to know the fights and mechanics without needing practice or training
  • semi-exp - Semi-Experienced - Usually used to denote that training isn't needed and that people are practicing, can check with commander
  • training - Training run, no experience on the boss expected but still should know your role and rotation
• Items
  • KP - Kill proof, usually in the form of decoration tokens you get from killing the boss, but also things like titles and minis can work
  • LI - Legendary Insights, rewarded for completing HoT raid encounters

• Roles
  • Alacren - Renegade focused alacrity
  • Back Warg - Specific role on escort of slowing and killing the wargs that spawn behind the group. Bring a DPS build with chill/cripple/immobilize
  • Bsw - Bladesworn
  • Cata - Catalyst
  • Chrono - Chronomancer
  • DD - Daredevil
  • DE - Deadeye
  • DH - Dragonhunter
  • DPS - "Damage per Second", used for builds focused on dealing damage and actual DPS numbers
  • Ele - Elementalist
  • FB - Firebrand
  • Greens - Usually refers to the 3 players tasked with getting in the green circles on Dhuum. Sometimes mentioned for the green circles on Vale Guardian.
    • G1/G2/G3 - The specific players on Dhuum greens doing them in that order.
  • Guard - Guardian
  • HAM - Heal + Alacrity Mechanist
  • Harb - Harbinger
  • HAT - Heal + Alacrity Tempest
  • HB - Healbrand, Firebrand that provides healing (and quickness)
  • HK - Hand kiter, see above, specific to Deimos
  • HS - Heal Scourge
  • Holo - Holosmith
  • Kite - Depends on the boss but indicates the player tasked with keeping a mechanic or aggro off the group. Examples include hand kiter on deimos, messenger kiter on dhuum, flak kiter on Sabetha, etc
  • Mech - Mechanist
  • Mes - Mesmer
  • Miralac - Mirage providing alacrity through staff
  • Necro - Necromancer
  • QB - Quickbrand, Firebrand that provides quickness
  • RR -  Righteous Rebel, used to indicate that a renegade would be changing to this trait and providing alacrity
  • Ren - Renegade
  • Rev - Revenant
  • SB/SlB - Soulbeast
  • SpB - Spellbreaker
  • Spec - Specter
  • Staxe - Mirage running both the staff and axe setups to cover partial alacrity
  • StM -  Seize the Moment, chronomancer trait used to provide quickness and indicates the want for a quickness chrono
  • Tank - Player holding boss fixation, usually highest toughness and often best done as the healer
  • Temp - Tempest
  • Tower - Specific role of capturing towers on escort
  • Unt - Untamed
  • Vind - Vindicator
  • Virt - Virtuoso
  • War - Warrior
  • WB - Willbender
  • a* - Alacrity, build is focused on giving alacrity  Alacrity
  • q* - Quickness, build is focused on giving quickness  Quickness, used as a small 'q' in front of other abbreviations like qFB
  • h* - Healing, build is focused on healing the group
  • c* - Condi, as in condition damage, used as a small 'c' in front of other abbreviations like cFB
  • p* - Power, as in power damage, used as a small 'p' in front of other abbreviations like pSB
• Chat
  • GG/FF/QQ - Called by the commander to use the /gg command in chat to kill yourself and reset.
• Raids
  • W1 - Wing 1, Spirit Vale
    • VG - Vale Guardian
    • Spirit Run - Spirit Woods / Traverse the Spirit Woods
    • Gorse - Gorseval
    • Sab - Sabetha
  • W2 - Wing 2, Salvation Pass
    • Sloth - Slothasor
    • Trio/Bandit Trio - Prison Camp / Protect the caged prisoners
    • Matt - Matthias Gabrel
  • W3 - Wing 3, Stronghold of the Faithful
    • Escort - Siege the Stronghold
    • KC - Keep Construct
    • TC - Twisted Castle
    • Xera
  • W4 - Wing 4, Bastion of the Penitent
    • Cairn - Cairn the Indomitable
    • MO - Mursaat Overseer
    • Sam - Samarog
    • Deimos
  • W5 - Wing 5, Hall of Chains
    • SH - Soulless Horror
    • River/RR/Rainbow Road - River of Souls / Traverse the River of Souls
    • Statues - Statues of Grenth
    • Dhuum
  • W6 - Wing 6, Mythwright Gambit
    • CA - Conjured Amalgamate
    • TL/Largos/Twins/ - Twin Largos / Defeat the twin largos
    • Q1/Qadim - Qadim
  • W7 - Wing 7, The Key of Ahdashim
    • Gate - Gates of Ahdashim / Get Glenna and the Key to Ahdashim's front gate
    • Adina - Cardinal Adina
    • Sabir - Cardinal Sabir
    • Q2/QtP - Qadim the Peerless
• Strikes
  • Core
    • OLC - Old Lion's Court
  • Icebrood Saga
    • Shiverpeaks - Shiverpeaks Pass
    • Voice/Claw/Bears - Voice of the Fallen and Claw of the Fallen
    • Fraenir - Fraenir of Jormag
    • BS - Boneskinner
    • Whisper/WoJ - Whisper of Jormag
    • FS - Forging Steel
    • CW - Cold War
    • "Easy 3"/ez3 - Shiverpeaks + Voice + Fraenir
    • "Fast 5"/"Easy 5"/ez5 - Shiverpeaks + Voice + Fraenir + Boneskinner + Whisper
    • "-" - A minus is sometimes used to exclude specific options so "-FS" would indicate that the group is not doing Forging Steel.
  • End of Dragons
    • AH - Aetherblade Hideout
    • XJJ/Ankka/Junkyard - Xunlai Jade Junkyard
    • KO - Kaineng Overlook
    • HT - Harvest Temple
  • Secrets of the Obscure
• CO - Cosmic Observatory
• ToF/Febe - Temple of Febe

Boss Difficulty

This is a very general overview on my opinion on boss difficulty if you're deciding what you want to try or start on. The tiers are all generally the same difficulty while the order indicates difficulty in a tier (lower down being harder). A lot of this depends on your team comp, the strategy you use, and your personal experience, your results may vary.

• Encounters:
  • Spirit Woods - Super easy, a little on the longer side though since it's basically 4 parts
  • Twisted Castle - Hardest part is just knowing the right path (and it helps to have people that know/can do the skip(s)
  • River of Souls - The common strats are to send a group ahead making the event pretty trivial, just need at least one player that can block the explosions on your ally (HB good for this).
  • Prison Camp (Trio) - 3 mini bosses and some adds to deal with, only the last bit has anything going on and so long as you live (and don't fail mortars) it's pretty straight forward.
  • Siege the Stronghold (Escort) - Not really hard but there is pressure on the player(s) doing the towers and if you do fail it's a long event to restart. Players can also be instantly killed if feared (or just walk into) the mines.
  • Statues of Grenth - 3 mini events with bosses, actual mechanics but nothing too hard, progress is saved per fight too so you can retry each if you fail. This is the closest you get to real boss fights out of the encounters.

• Bosses:
  • Tier 1
    • Mursaat Overseer - Basically a golem for DPS, good DPS means you kill it fast and don't have to deal with anything, slow DPS is still not a huge issue as there are easy ways to ignore the main mechanics.
    • Cairn the Indomitable - Can seem hectic at first but actually dies fast and proper usage of the special action key makes the fight really simple. Even mediocre DPS shouldn't have any issue killing and focus is just on doing the mechanics.
    • Gorseval the Multifarious - Minor DPS check for normal strat (no updraft) and some minor mechanics (don't be hit by orange circles in last phase and don't murder yourself with retal being the main ones)
    • Conjured Amalgamate - Minor DPS check for one strat but there are alternate options for low DPS. Difficulty is mainly just on people collecting orbs and making sure to kill the shields.
    • Keep Construct - Minor DPS check for not having to repeat a phase but newer groups will just get more rifts so it's not bad. Otherwise just need to cleave down the phantasms pretty quick and the fight isn't an issue, most of the pressure is on the person pushing the orb but that's pretty easy to do.
    • Cardinal Adina - Minor mechanic with placing pillars but not a lot of damage pressure on the fight in general, so long as people don't fall off or run into the beam it's just DPS with some breaks to move out. Main pressure is usually on heal ren (solo heal being common) to heal and provide projectile blocks.
  • Tier 2
    • Samarog - DPS mainly just needs to stick behind the boss and jump over waves. Later on the Inevitable Betrayal requires a little coordination from the two people picked but should be easy to do. CC is a big deal here and will be the main way the fight fails but if the group focuses on it every 10% it's not an issue. Minor mechanics at the two phases but easy to do with even one person that can push (a druid can handle this pretty easy alone and still solo heal).
    • Vale Guardian - Depends a lot on the strat you do, commonly even pug groups will side tank and ignore greens which makes the fight faster but important that you don't make mistakes. For DPS you need to make sure you avoid the teleports as a bad one usually means death.
    • Cardinal Sabir - Decent amount of damage pressure with the boss facing group and causing AoE damage but the fight doesn't really start till below 50%. Mechanics to do that, if failed, lead to downs and usually death in the 3rd phase. Has minimum CC requirements which, with the special action key, basically means minimum player counts. As long as people avoid downing to the wind wall and can stack up it's not bad, though the last 20% or so can get hectic if your group is slow.
    • Sabetha the Saboteur - Minor mechanics with bombs and flame wall, otherwise DPS is pretty easy. Pressure on player kiting and doing cannons but it's really just a check that you're paying attention. Can be a lot to keep track of when starting but is still rather simple to just stay on platform. Minor DPS check that gets harder if you're failing mechanics (bombs/cannons).
    • Matthias Gabrel - Some mechanics with placing damaging wells and cleansing corruption, DPS will also need to help CC for the first part. It's common now to have lots of stability and resistance with a thief so you ignore most of the damage and mechanics, really comes down to just surviving the straight forward mechanics and chipping away. Pressure on the player(s) tasked with reflecting as a missed reflect sets the group back a lot.
  • Tier 3
    • Slothasor - Random fixate, mechanics that need you to spread and leave stack, bad poison drops or killing the friendly slubling is basically a wipe. Lots of mechanics that the DPS needs to move for and avoid means there is a lot of pressure on everyone to not go down (especially far off the group). Need for decent CC pretty often or the fight stalls out and the boss can be left in a bad spot. After every CC there is also a fear, easy to deal with but a miss usually means death.
    • Xera - With good group DPS you cut down a lot on mechanics and difficulty but for pug groups and learning there is a lot of movement and mechanics. The gliding phase at 50% claims way more lives than it should too (no one should die to it). Below 50% the difficulty goes up a lot more the lower the DPS too but again, more DPS and faster mechanics makes the fight a lot easier.
    • Deimos - DPS needs to avoid attacks as the boss does constant AoE hits and importantly the oil mechanic needs to be avoided or it's usually a wipe. Better DPS means faster phases and slow DPS puts more pressure on your hand kiter and tank to not mess up. DPS needs to be collecting tears and dealing with the 3 saul phases pretty fast (slow saul means stacking damage on group doing it). Main pressure is on your tank and hand kiter but all DPS need to be constant attention to not fail, slow groups may also run into friendly saul taking too much damage and final 10% has a soft time limit since the stacking damage is still there (but since it's only 10% it should go fast).
    • Qadim the Peerless - Most pressure on the tank + kiters, some on the player(s) that need to CC the Distortions. Group DPS is pretty easy once you know where to go at 80% and 60% just need to watch out for lightning strikes and the arrow target if you get them. Main pressure is on kiters to not miss orbs and tank to not die, later on players should be more concerned about positioning and linking beams but pugs don't usually bother and still clear. Bad tanking, fire orb drops, or missed orbs can easily wipe a group.
  • Tier 4
    • Qadim - Positioning matters a lot, special roles for kiting, tanking, and lamp as well as knowing where to go for each phase. Lot of moving pieces (literally) and some CC and DPS checks for both the boss and mini bosses. Actual boss DPS phases are not too bad but lots of groups have difficulty getting to them consistently, especially in pug/training.
    • Voice in the Void (Dhuum) - Most of the pressure is on the players do greens, the kiter, and a little on the tank for positioning. Even then though DPS still needs to watch positioning as well as mechanics like death mark and shackles. 10% phase has a DPS check and basically minimum player requirement (though if you're down a lot of players the DPS check will be hard to pass). Any part during the fight the group can instant fail from a missed green, killed reaper, or likely fail from a bad bomb going off.
    • Soulless Horror - Lots of damage pressure on the group in general but especially the two tanks. All players need to be aware of the instant kill walls throughout the fight and RNG can put you in some bad situations. Boss has CC checks that fail the fight if not broken. Pressure on the tanks and player pushing, less so on the player doing epidemic (typical to have one). Bad pushes or walls make the fight significantly more difficult and DPS needs to always be aware of the AoE attacks and walls.
    • Twin Largos - Hard DPS checks on every phase as well as high damage mechanics that need to be avoided. DPS needs to pay attention to all the mechanics while also doing enough DPS to phase each platform in a limited time. CC needed later with extra CC phases if you have low DPS. Killing one side enrages the other so having both sides not fail is important not just to the timers but also the incoming damage.

Boon Sources

Tables show boon application from meta raid builds only and does not include all sources. Skills are grouped based on meta builds, sources that only show up on an elite spec will be shown there even if it is a base skill, shared skills and traits will be listed in the base spec. Does not include boons applied to self only.

Boons
	Might	Fury	Quickness	Alacrity	Protection	Regeneration
	(10s) 5x		(1s) 5x		(1.5s) 5x
	(copied) (16s) 10x	(copied) (5s)			(2s) (3s)	(5s) (8s) (8s)
	5 (6s)
			(1s) 1-4x (2s) (5s) (1s) 6x	(2s) (5s)	+ (2½s)
	8 (15s) (5s)	(3s)		(2.5s)
	5 (20s)
	10 (10s)	(3s) (10s)	(3s) (5s)
	2 (6s) 2 (8s) per condition					(6s)
	2 (15s)		(2.5s)		(3s) (2½s)	(3s) (10s) (10s) (4s)
	(10s) per second 3 (15s) 5x	(3s) 5x		(1s) (5s)	(5s)	(3s)
					(3s)	(3s) 6x
	6 (10s) 2 (12s) 3 (8s)	(6s) (5s)			(3s)	(5s) (6s) (5s)
	(4s)					(10s)
	10 (10s) 3 (10s)	(10s) (10s)	(4s)		(10s)	(10s)
				(4s)
	(5s) 5x	(10s) (1½s) 5x	(3s)
	4 (18s) 3x 5 (6s) 3 (5s)	(1½s) 5x+	(2½s) (2s) (2s)		(3s) (4s) (5s) (5s)	(5s) (1s) 5x (6s) (5s)
	(12s)	(3s)			(3s) (2s)	(4s)
	2 (8s) (12s)			(1½s) 4x (2s)	(4s)	(2s)
	6 (25s) 2x	(8s) 2x
	5 (8s) 3 (20s)	(8s)

Condition Sources

(WIP)

Tables show condition application from meta raid builds only and do not include all sources. Skills are grouped based on meta builds as well so sources that only show up on an elite spec will be shown there even if it is a base spec skill, shared skills and traits will be listed in the base spec.

Damage Conditions
	Vulnerability	Bleeding	Burning	Confusion	Poisoned	Torment
	(8s)
	(10s) x14 5 (15s) (10s) x14+ 2 (8s) x36	2 (10s) x5	(10s) (6s) (3s) x8
	9 (8s) 5 (5s) (6s) x8	(6s) x8 5 (5s) 2 (8s) 8 (4s) + (4s) (8s)	(3s) 33% 2 (4s) 4 (6s) (4s) (8s) (4s) (2s) x8 (8s) (3s) (1s) x5
	+ 2 (5s) 3 (3s) 4x
		(8s)	(9s) (9s)	3 (3s) 3 (6s) 3 (5s) 3 (6s) (3s) (8s) 3 (5s)		3 (4s) 3 (4s) (6s) (8s) (5s)
	2 (10s)
	2 (5s) x6 5 (8s)
		+ (4.5s) (4.5s) 3 (10s) (3s) 33%	(8s) (3s) (3s)		(6s)	(4s) 2 (6s) 2 (9s) (2s)
	(5s)
	+ 2 (10s) 8 (8s)	(2s) x12 (10s) x3	8 (1s) (3s) x10 1 (4s) x4		3 (8s)
		(1½ - 3s) (15s) 3x (8s) 5x			5 (5-7s)
	(5s) 16x 3 (6s)	5 (6s) 2 (8s)
	+ (4s) (10s) 12x 5 (8s) 5 (5s)	+ (4s) 6 (6s) (8s) 10x (3s) 33%			(4s) (4s) (6s)
	4 (8s)
	5 (5s) 2 (6s) 3 (6s)
	3 (6s) 3 (8s) 4x 2 (5s)
	(10s)
		+ 2 (1s) 5 (3s) 2 (2s)	2 (2s) (10s) 2 (2s) (3s) (2.5s) (2s) 4 (3s) 6 (4s)
	+ 3 (6s) 8 (5s) 5 (5s) 2 (3s) x20
	2 (3s) x20	3 (8s) (2s) x10+	3 (3s) 4 (3s) (1.5s) x10 (4s)		(12s) (10s)	(3s) (3s) 4 (7s) (5s) 7 (7s) (10s)
	3 (8s) 5 (5s)
	10 (8s)	+ (6s) (6s) 4 (10s) 6 (12s) (3s) 33%	3 (5s) 8 (2s) (6s) 3 (4s) 2 (6s) (2s)

CC Conditions
	Blinded	Chilled	Crippled	Fear	Immobile	Slow	Taunt	Weakness
	(3s)
	(6s) (10s) (2s) 1-6x (3s) 11x		(3s)		(2s) (2s) (4s)
		(3s)	(3s) (3s)
	(5s) (3rd hit) (5s)
	(5s) (5s)		(1s)		(2s)	+ (2s) (1s) 3x (2s) 6x (3s)
			3 (1s)
	(5s)
	(2s) 4x (3s) (5s)	(2s) (4s)		(1s)
	(3s) 3x		(7s)	(1s)	(3s)
	(3s) (3s) 3x (5s) 5x (5s) (5s) 3x	(5s)	(1s)		(1½s) (2s)
	(5s)	(1s)	(3s)					(1s)
			(4s)
	(5s)				(1½s) (9s)
	(4s) (4s)				(1s) (8s) (2s) (9s) (1s)	(1s) 3x
	(2s) 3x (5s) (1s) 7x				(2s) (2½s)
	(5s)
	(6s)				(1s)
	(3s) (3s)		(3s)		(2s)
			(1.5s) (4s) (1.5s)			(4s) (1½s)
			(3s)		(3s)	(1½s)	(1s)
	(4s)	(2s)			(1-3s)			(2s)
	(5s)
			(1s) x20			(2s) (1½s) 4x
			(4s)		(4s) (1s)			(5s)
	(5s) (5s)		(1s) (3s) (3s)		(3s)

Build Specific Extras

Sections for additional builds, video guides, specific role info, etc.

Elementalist Section	Mesmer Section	Necromancer Section
Engineer Section	Ranger Section	Thief Section
Guardian Section	Revenant Section	Warrior Section

Acknowledgments

This guide would not be possible without the help of many players including:

• Hanekoma.3125 (Salad)
• Kacodo.5691 (Solvi)
• Krawkyz
• BackIsBachus
• Life Infusion
• Levi
• Nessy