Should I start with strikes or raids?

Strikes. One boss, ten players, no scheduling. They were built as the entrance to group content, and a few of them hit harder than raids do.

Can I raid without an expansion?

Yes, through Quickplay. It lowers the difficulty, adds stat bonuses and finds the group for you, and it works even on a base account.

How often do raid rewards reset?

Weekly, on Monday at 07:30. Killing the same boss again in the same week pays only ordinary loot.

What gear do I need for strikes and raids?

A full exotic set is enough for strikes and normal raids. Ascended adds a few percent and matters mainly to people optimising.

Strikes and raids: where ten-player content begins

Group content in Guild Wars 2 looks like a closed club: everyone throws around 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.

The eight wings

Raids are ten-player instances, and there are eight of them, released across a decade:

Spirit Vale (Heart of Thorns)
Salvation Pass (Heart of Thorns)
Stronghold of the Faithful (Heart of Thorns)
Bastion of the Penitent (Heart of Thorns)
Hall of Chains (Path of Fire)
Mythwright Gambit (Path of Fire)
The Key of Ahdashim (Path of Fire)
Mount Balrior (Janthir Wilds)

Each holds several boss encounters plus event encounters between them. The special rewards reset weekly, Monday at 07:30, so a wing pays its full value once per week per account and there is no way to grind it harder.

The currency to care about is Legendary Insights, which exist to build legendary armour and Coalescence. That is the actual reason most people start.

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 happens when you finally join one

Raids have a reputation in this game, and the reputation is doing more damage than the content.

The story everyone repeats is about a wall of requirements: kill proof, meta build, voice chat, someone who will remove you for one mistake. Those groups exist. They advertise themselves clearly, and you can leave them alone.

Underneath that layer is a second one nobody talks about. Training runs happen every week, run by people who have cleared these bosses two hundred times and now spend their evening explaining a green circle to five strangers. They do it for no reward. Wing 1 pays them nothing they need.

Your first Vale Guardian will take an hour and you will die to the same mechanic four times. Somebody will type “no worries, happens to everyone, watch for the blue arrow” and mean it. Then it works, ten people who have never met move correctly at the same moment, and the thing goes down.

That feeling is what the whole mode is selling, and no amount of reading about it transfers. Go once. The worst case is a wasted evening, and the actual barrier was never the difficulty.

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.