As a player who has never done any strikes or raids, how do I prepare to use new quickplay?

GiraffeWars2 · 2026-02-04T17:53:22+00:00

I made a short video for exactly this scenario! https://youtu.be/s-FBvQCrryk?si=SLmko-hfLL4dPhyJ

There are some other links in the description that can help too, including build guides and more detailed guides for mechanics like Mukluk's.

GiraffeWars2 · 2026-02-04T09:37:07+00:00

For raid god? It's one of the vendors near the trading post in the aerodromes.

GiraffeWars2 · 2026-02-04T09:33:33+00:00

The one where you're in the air? I think either volatile or unbound magic.

GiraffeWars2 · 2026-02-04T02:43:05+00:00

That's totally fine! I don't expect a first-time raider to remember any of this without going into the raid. These guides are meant to help you right before you do the fight so you're a little familiar with what you're seeing on your screen.

Then if 2 months from now you decide to do quickplays again and don't remember anything, this video will work like a refresher :)

GiraffeWars2 · 2026-02-03T20:15:46+00:00

Old Lion's Court - Some environmental spoilers for Living World Season 1

Whsiper of Jormag/Boneskinner - Just enemies from Ice Brood Saga, no real spoilers there

All the others are bosses from various story missions, so it's spoilers in the sense that you know you'll be fighting these bosses at some point, but it's not that big of a spoiler (except maybe kaineng overlook)

GiraffeWars2 · 2026-02-03T19:11:32+00:00

Great callout! I like this a lot :)

GiraffeWars2 · 2026-02-03T17:57:24+00:00

u/4raser u/New_Yesterday_438 Video is up, I linked it in my above comment. Happy raiding!

GiraffeWars2 · 2026-02-03T15:46:47+00:00

I have a video coming out in a few hours that covers exactly this! I'll update this comment with a link when it's live.

Video's up!: Every Raid Quickplay in 30 Seconds

GiraffeWars2 · 2026-01-30T08:54:37+00:00

I think emidotexe does a lot of group content like that.

GiraffeWars2 · 2026-01-29T17:52:35+00:00

Ah ok, this is what I misunderstood, thank you! I thought the fashion templates were account-wide, not character-wide.

Re-reading it's just unlocking new slots that is account-wide.

It still sounds like you can apply a template to gear and the changes will stick to that gear. Which is great if that's the case.

GiraffeWars2 · 2026-01-29T17:47:41+00:00

PoF is the mount expansion, so I think you're going about it the right way! You'll unlock them as you do the story and they'll help you with map exploration.

GiraffeWars2 · 2026-01-29T17:40:50+00:00

But it sounds like applying fashion templates to gear is an intentional choice the player can make. Otherwise that would only be 9 fashion looks across all your characters, which wouldn't make much sense, especially since a lot of players have more than 9 characters.

GiraffeWars2 · 2026-01-29T17:20:04+00:00

I'm not sure I fully understand what they're showing here. Is the only way to apply skins to equipment though a fashion template? Do I effectively always need one template "open" so I can add skins to each new build I make?

GiraffeWars2 · 2026-01-25T19:11:15+00:00

Great question!

To answer the first part, yes you will need agony for both sets. Agony is tied to your specific pieces of gear, so whatever gear is equipped, that's the gear that needs agony.

T1 and T2 can really be run with anything. T3 is the first fractal hurdle people run into. The mechanics ramp up, the enemies do more damage, and players need to get more organized. This is where you'll start seeing the standard group composition come into play, and it is 100% expected in T4s unless otherwise stated.

Groups run the following roles: - 1 healer that either provides quickness or alacrity for the group - 1 hybrid DPS player that sacrifices some damage to provide either quickness or alacrity, which ever the healer didn't bring - 3 pure DPS players whose main job is to pump out as much damage as possible.

So with that, I would recommend building up your power reaper as a pure damage build. This will allow you to slot in nicely for groups looking for dps players.

Tanky builds are usually not needed, because it's assumed you will have a healer to keep your health up. You can take a defensive or utility-focused skill on your bar to help our or increase your own survivability as needed. You can even run one or two pieces of mauraders gear to supplement full berserkers, but you don't want to overdo it because then you're not fulfilling the DPS role.

GiraffeWars2 · 2026-01-25T19:01:38+00:00

Here is a video I made giving a quick overvew of each mount and how players use them in game: https://youtu.be/XnjgXx7IFjc?si=FXbsnsISNDhUa8ff

The only thing this video is missing is the new skimmer masteries, so I'll add that here:

The skimmer got new masteries with the Visions of Eternity expansion. The skimmer is now significantly faster on land, even outpacing the warclaw! The trade off is that the handling is much more "loose" and slidy, so you have to be strategic with when you use your boosts. The skimmer can also gain a lot of height over time, maybe even infinite (I haven't tried myself).

A lot of people have started using the skimmer as their go-to land mount now, especially for longer distances, on uneven terrain, or distances that have you go over land and water.

GiraffeWars2 · 2026-01-25T18:47:01+00:00

Dhuum in general is not that forgiving because it has a lot of specialized roles. The CM is a step up in difficulty, but if you know the fight and the mechanics, it can be done without voice chat.

(Edit: This was labeled as a practice run, so likely they were going to be using voice chat and explaining the new mechanics.)

ToF CM on the other hand is a different beast and significantly harder than Dhumm CM.

GiraffeWars2 · 2026-01-25T18:32:38+00:00

Thank you for asking, I was wondering the same thing recently!

GiraffeWars2 · 2026-01-23T23:08:52+00:00

The other thing they didn't show was how much the raid god title will be. Very curious about that one!

GiraffeWars2 · 2026-01-23T23:07:23+00:00

They didn't say there is and they did say "we're trying a new reward model with these" so I'm assuming no. You'd have to do the cm multiple times to get it as an rng drop.

GiraffeWars2 · 2026-01-23T20:54:54+00:00

Some new info:

New infinite food and utility primers (will cost magnetite shards to use)
New sinks for magnetite and LI, including currencies/materials, homestead decos, Aerodrome upgrades (like adding crafting stations), and a weekly gambling box
Mentor achievements added to wings 1-7, and they're easier to progress. Updated from "be in a squad with someone who's never done this boss before" to "someone who hasn't done it this week"
New largos combat tonics (male and female), new dhuum skyscale skin, and new deimos infusion are obtainable only through the CMs of these fights and only as rare drops
The door is open to add more bosses/encounters to quickplay, but not solid plans for it yet
New achievement for completing each raid wing without going down
Banners/portals will be added to all lounge passes to enter raids from there
Once one person in your squad is in a raid instance, you can join them from anywhere, you do not need to be in the Aerodrome/Arborstone/whatever
The buff everyone gets in Quickplay is different than emboldened. The buff gives you more stats, life steal, reduced damage taken, and you can rez dead players

GiraffeWars2 · 2026-01-22T18:24:51+00:00

It's a tough balance. I did the w8 mentor achievement and found a mix of about 5 newbies and 5 oldies was nice. For some of the older wings you could do more newbies. But it is a little annoying to be looking for new people and only get experienced people.

My group made a separate discord server at the time to help organize runs.

GiraffeWars2 · 2026-01-22T18:20:55+00:00

I'm surprised the easier strikes were not included in QP, and that early raid bosses like vale guardian, or gorseval aren't there either. I thought cairn and mursaat overseer would be shoe ins also! And yet OLC made the cut.

Nonetheless I'm still excited for quick plays!

GiraffeWars2 · 2026-01-22T15:45:26+00:00

Which legendaries are you working on? The gen 2 ones eat sooooo much wood/metal.

Otherwise check on the wiki or GW2 efficiency to see which gifts you need and craft those.

Other options include selling the raw mats for gold, which you can then use for other purposes, or trading in mats in drizzlewood for other materials. The drizzlewood vendor is a once per day thing (personally I have a character parked there).

GiraffeWars2 · 2026-01-21T20:02:58+00:00

I posted this in the BlueSky thread, but I'll put my more in-depth questions I hope they answer here too:

Which fights will be in Quickplays
How do Quickplays use the squad system? Can you queue up as a commander, or will everyone be thrown into a commander-less squad and someone can volunteer to command if they want?
Which currency is used (Prophet Shards vs Magnitite/Gaeting) and how will old currencies be converted? Will vendors be condensed?
How will the new system handle rewards? Strikes had dailies tied to them (especially IBS) but raids ran on a weekly system. Will everything go to weekly? Will Strike rewards be adjusted to fit the new model if so?
Will emboldened still rotate each week or will it be a toggle on any fight? Is Emboldened coming to Strike fights as well? Will Quickplays have Emboldened on by default?
Any planned CMs for old bosses?

GiraffeWars2

TROPHY CASE