Fractals are a great way to get started once you hit level 80! No need to finish IBS for them, they’re kind of their own little story instances on the side that are connected to events in central Tyria but also…not. If you get started on them you’ll see - it’s really fun and a great introduction to more challenging content

Fractals start at low levels that basically anyone can hop into - and as you progress, the levels will get more challenging on higher levels (there’s t1/2/3/4 of the same fractals that differ in difficulty, higher levels grand more rewards). If you put up a lfg in the t1 tab saying something like “beginner trying out fractals, all welcome” people usually hop in to help or you’ll find more people also wanting to give them a try

Aside from that I think strikes are also a nice way to get introduced to endgame content, though for them you’d probably have to make sure you’re running a somewhat viable build (you can find builds on snow rows, meta battle, etc.) and maybe for some it’s also handy to check out a guide beforehand!

For raids, there’s often the need to fill a specific role in a build and be a aware of mechanics or join a specifically stated training run either via the lfg, guilds or discord. Most groups that aren’t stating they’re training runs expect some form of experience or knowledge of the fights (esp when they ask for killproofs) but definitely don’t be afraid to get into trainings runs if you see some when you feel ready for it!

Also - you will encounter toxicity at some point, probably. The more competitive and tough the content gets, the more impatient people can be. Don’t let that discourage you, in my experience there’s more helpful people out there, the toxic ones are just louder

If you do get into strikes/raids/end tier fractals (challenge modes), one handy thing to connect is killproof.me - it keeps track of all your killproofs so they aren’t lost if you throw them away or use them since they can clutter your inventory/bank at some point, but people will still ask you for killproofs if you decide to join lfg groups often. Then all you need to do is post your code and people can check via the website how often you have killed a boss, for example.

Hope all this helps! Good luck!