Guides/Endgame
Strikes and raids: where ten-player content begins
A strike is one boss for ten people, half an hour from forming up to loot. A raid is a wing of bosses on a weekly reset. How they differ and which one to walk into first.
Group content in Guild Wars 2 looks like a closed club: everyone talks about KP, wings and challenge modes, and there is apparently no door. There is a door, and it is not where newcomers look for it.
Short answer
Start with strikes. They exist for this: one boss, ten people, no arranging an evening in advance.
Raids come once strikes have stopped surprising you.
Strikes
Ten players, level 80. The format is plain: one instance, one boss. Turn up, kill it, leave.
Entrances vary by expansion:
- Eye of the North for the Icebrood Saga missions, needs Path of Fire
- Arborstone for End of Dragons
- The Wizard’s Tower for Secrets of the Obscure
One of them needs no expansion at all, Secret Lair of the Snowmen, but it only runs during Wintersday.
Difficulty modes: normal, then Challenge Mode with extra mechanics. There is also Legendary Mode, so far only in Temple of Febe, where the boss carries more health and further mechanics on top.
Rewards. End of Dragons normal mode pays a daily Grand Strike Chest, 8 to 18 Blue Prophet Shards, coffers of exotic gear, 2 to 4 gold and 5,000 karma.
One truth worth stating up front: some strikes are harder than raids. “Strike means easy” is a simplification. Getting in is easy; what happens next depends on the boss.
Raids
Ten players, organised into wings, each holding several bosses and events. Wings can be done in any order.
Rewards reset weekly, Monday at 07:30. So a given boss is worth killing once a week; after that only ordinary loot drops.
Access. Heart of Thorns and Path of Fire wings open on owning the expansion. End of Dragons, Secrets of the Obscure and Visions of Eternity want their story missions finished first. Old Lion’s Court is open to everyone regardless of expansions.
Individual encounters ask for masteries, usually glider-related: Glider Basics, Updraft Use, Ley Line Gliding.
Four modes: Quickplay (reduced difficulty, automatic matchmaking and stat boosts), Normal, Challenge Mode and Legendary Mode.
Quickplay is the best news for a newcomer. It works without owning an expansion and assembles the group for you. If you wanted to see a raid but never fancied asking to be let in, that is your door.
What it is all for
Legendary armour. Wings and encounters pay Legendary Insights, the currency PvE legendary armour cannot be built without. Raids are the primary source, and that is the long-term reason people keep going (what legendaries are for).
Mechanics. This is the hardest PvE in the game. Once the open world has gone quiet and fractals are familiar, there is nowhere else to go.
What to bring
A complete gear set. Exotic carries you through strikes and normal-mode raids. Ascended adds a few percent and matters to people chasing the last of it (details).
An understanding of your class. Not a build copied from a guide, but knowing what you are doing. A mistake here is visible to all ten people.
A willingness to die repeatedly. That is the normal shape of learning, and decent groups do not mind.
What not to do
Do not make a raid your first group content. Do strikes, get used to ten people in voice chat and to bosses that have phases.
Do not chase Challenge Mode. It is for people who clear normal without thinking.
Do not hide that it is your first time. Beginner groups exist and that is precisely who joins them. A silent newcomer pretending to know the fight is far more irritating than one who says so.