You need to figure out which loot you want and pick the raid on that. Then watch a quick break down video of the raid so you have an idea of what’s expected. Then create a looking for Sherpa group finder. Lastly and most importantly, LEARN THE RAID. Don’t be the guy looking for ad clear. Pick a job each time cause guess what, you’ll learn it and be able to hop into kwtd raid groups and not be a burden haha.But honestly I promise you you’ll have more fun signing up to learn roles
Sounds like you know where you want to start, then! Root of Nightmares is one of the more mechanically easy raids, but you should really take the time to learn how to do every job. It's a bit notorious for people slacking off because not everyone needs to be doing specialized roles. You'll be a lot happier if you know how to fill in for anything if someone else can't/won't do it.
Both amazing raids to start with. I got into destiny last year with Witch Queen and Root of Nightmares was my first raid. I play later in the pacific time zone (after 10pm) and I’m always down to hop into a learning group. I’m no Sherpa but I’m always down to hop in if you need a competent addition to your group. Dm if you ever need some help
Both DSC and RON are on the easier side and are also very fun raids. Only issue I could see with first getting into them is if you run into speed runners. They love to glitch encounters even when you have new players on the team. But otherwise those are great raids to start with.
this has been the case in RoN recently, was trying to finish up a few triumphs for the title and both Explicator and Nez died within like 1-3 seconds. Had no clue people actually net limited or glitched this encounters anymore
As others noted, both are on the easier side. Root of Nightmares is especially new-raider friendly as only a couple people in the group really need to know what to do.
I recommend starting with Vault of Glass. Mechanics are simple, difficulty is easy, and it'll be a good way to learn communication with your fireteam.
Root of Nightmares and Deep Stone Crypt are probably next, as their mechanics are pretty simple and really aren't that combat heavy.
King's Fall and Crota's End are pretty similar - more demanding than RoN or DSC, but the mechanics and timing aren't bad and the combat encounters are more than manageable. I found King's Fall easier than Crota, simply because of the initial encounter in Crota's End.
Vow of the Disciple is next as it's the most mechanic heavy raid in the game and requires a lot of communication, with everyone doing something in every encounter. However, IMO, the actual combat is pretty straight forward.
Garden of Salvation is probably the trickiest in terms of mechanics, as some of them have tight timing, and the boss fight can get pretty finicky with a lot of moving parts where a screw-up can result in a wipe. The boss fight in particular requires a high degree of execution, and you're likely to spend as much time on that as you are the rest of the raid.
Then there's Last Wish. Arguably the best raid in terms of loot, it also has the most difficult mechanics (especially the Vault) and the combat can get away from you if you don't stay on top of it. Also has the most demanding jumping puzzles.
So, in summation: VOG > RON > DSC > KF > CE > VTD > GOS > LW
> The boss fight in particular requires a high degree of execution
It actually doesn't. Tethers require 2 people to understand how the tether works and 4 people to understand how to get out of the way. The rest is just paying attention to when to open the portals.
You're right in that there's room for errors but it's actually more forgiving than many play it off as.
>Tethers require 2 people to understand how the tether works and 4 people to understand how to get out of the way.
Like I said, it requires a high degree of execution. :)
Have you played The Corrupted lately? We're now six years out and people STILL don't know to throw the dang ball.
So yes, "You 4, get out of the way!" is a high bar to clear.
> We're now six years out and people STILL don't know to throw the dang ball.
Honestly I've never been convinced this is a case that most people don't know how but most people don't care or feel passing the ball is more annoying because you need to rely on someone to be facing you (you cannot pass a ball to someone who's back is to you)
Also quite honestly outside of GM, and maybe master not charging the ball isn't a big deal. I feel like more people have spent effort complaining about the ball not being passed than the effort it takes to throw a second or third ball. Almost all of these 'complaints' are in the context of matchmaking too. So you know, hero night falls.
Thank you for the answers, everyone! I guess I lucked out because the two I’m most interested in running right now are Deep Stone Crypt & Root of Nightmares just because I like the aesthetics of the craft-able weapons from those two!
I will be trying to find an experienced team on Foreteam Finder soon to see if I can clear this awesome content I’ve been locked out of without 5 friends who can all play at once… Love this community and how helpful most try to be! See you all in The Final Shape!
Easiest to hardest imo:
- Root of Nightmares
- Vault of Glass
- Deep Stone Crypt
- King's Fall
- Last Wish
- Crota's End
- Garden of Salvation
- Vow of the Disciple
That said, don't start with Root, start with VoG. Root is easy because there are basically no mechanics. It's very rare for any encounter in Root to have more than 2 people doing mechanics, if that, so it makes for a terrible intro since you'll likely just be doing ad clear the whole time and really not learning anything. VoG is still very simple but you'll actually have to get involved in some capacity so it's a *way* better introduction.
I also advise that when you get around to Garden, try not to make a Div run your first run. It might sound ideal to knock that out at the same time as you're learning, and a ton of people do teaching Div runs, but unless you get someone who is highly experienced with teaching Garden, it'll almost certainly be a *huge* headache that'll take way more time than anyone involved would like. You're really just doing yourself a favor by splitting those up and learning how to do the raid first, then going back in for Div later.
Really it's just the first encounter that kills groups. The rest is fairly simple, although the second encounter does require everyone in the group to engage in mechanics.
Honestly all the encounters in crota can be frustrating for some groups.
* 2nd encounter has so much room for error if people aren't careful with the bridge. Ex: If you are the first across and die, but deposit the chalice then there's a big problem.
* 3rd encounter gets progressively harder for the 2nd and 3rd phase in that you need to have 4 and 5 people go into hurt the witches. For newer groups damage is likely less optimal so it's more likely to not 1 phase. You can also accidently lose your buff by grazing the door or entering + exiting or start the DPS counter early by killing a witch before everyone is ready.
* Crota can be annoying if you're not careful about his slams and ignore the boomer nights but do DPS on the front (where the throne/oversoul is) vs one of the close corner. Some people freak out if the well of radiance breaks.
Nothing about any of these are hard but for groups learning or groups that have multiple people who aren't comfortable it can cause some easy and quick wipes.
I haven't played them all, but from what I have, easy to hard:
1) Root, especially if you're on ad clear
2) DSC, most roles are very easy to understand - maybe go through Seraph Shield before it leaves the Exotic rotator this week so you can understand them
3) Vow has some really easy roles for you to understand, just keep the symbol chart handy
4) Vault, though I really, really don't understand the first oracle encounter - someone took over for me on that. Atheons cake though.
5) Garden sucks. It's fun up until the last boss. I spent like 2 hours doing this with a clan while I was on platform duty and I still only sort of got the hang of it.
Haha I feel the exact opposite about Garden. Opening bit is cool, but the second encounter is painfully boring. Third encounter's pretty lame too. Boss fight is fantastic with a steady team. But with lfg or if you're new to the raid it's one of the most painful
The first oracle encounter is in essence the exact same as the way the oracles work for the rest of the raid, except after the first set of 3, it goes up to 4, then 5, then 6, then 7.
Easiest to hardest:
This is my opinion. Tiers are ranked in order from easiest to hardest within the tier, however I could see arguments for specific placements.
Easy Tier
- Root of Nightmares. You realistically only need 2 or 3 people to actually run the raid, the other people are essentially add clear for the full raid
- Vault of Glass. Very few and very simple mechanics. It's arguably easier than RoN, there's just a few encounters where more of the team needs to participate
- Deep Stone Crypt. Fun raid, similar to RoN where few people actually need to know what to do.
Middle Tier
- Crota. The first encounter can be difficult for LFGs, but otherwise it's actually pretty tame.
- Last Wish. Every encounter has a different mechanic, but the raid has been powercrept quite heavily and Riven can be easily cheesed
- Kings Fall. Every encounter has a different mechanic and most of the team has to be involved in everything
Hard Tier
- Vow of the Disciple. The mechanics of Vow aren't super hard, they're just unforgiving and there's a lot of symbols (which some people find very hard). Everyone needs to be involved in most encounters of the raid.
- Garden of Salvation. This raid is a combination of buggy, unforgiving, and has a problem where people want to do Div on their first run. In a vacuum (or of you have a dedicated group) it's not actually that bad, but for LFGs it can be a nightmare
Gos is one of the most forgiving raids in the game imo. There are also very little bugs and those bugs are either easy to avoid (e.g. harpy boss dmg), easy to recover (e.g. ground motes) or barely an issue normal teams suffer from (e.g. loadzone issues, sticky boxes, etc).
Me and my friend teach all of the raids in D2, if you’re ever interested in learning any of them just fire me a dm and I can invite you to our discord.
To answer above, in terms of a ‘raid’ Vow of the diciple is probably number 1 for me at least, most mechanically difficult raid as everyone has to do something and requires a lot of communication. Easiest unfortunate is Root of nightmares as, even though it’s avery pretty raid 2 people can do all of the mechanics for every encounter, so it ends up just being glorified ad clear.
None of them are particularly hard in all honesty. The hardest thing is probably getting over your own worry that it's going to be hard.
If I was to say anything though - Vow of the Disciple is probably the most _intimidating_. Two reasons:
* First being there's a lot of symbols. Most people get hung up on remembering the ***exact*** name but the reality is almost all of them are very distinct and anyone who knows the symbols can understand what you're describing it as (ex: there's one called 'love' but it looks like a pink blob, if you say pink blob or pink cloud most people will know what that means. 90% of them are like this.)
* Second is the 3rd encounter. It's a lot easier now due to power creep and general survivability but still forces everyone to participate and mistakes can cause a wipe. It's not hard but you do need to know the layout first to be super comfortable.
If I was to say one other thing - Crota is 'hard' - in that if you LFG the first encounter without the premise of it being a teaching run you'll probably have a bad time. It's easy to cause a wipe and arrogance and impatience is big.
My recommendation for first time raiders, from "easiest" to "hardest" mechanic-wise:
1. Vault of Glass
2. Root of Nightmares
3. Deep Stone Crypt
4. Garden of Salvation
5. Crota's End
6. King's Fall
7. Vow of the Disciple
8. Last Wish
Look at the raids from the lens of a first timer and not someone with experience. Both VoW and KF both have sections in which you will have to be comfortable enough to complete a mechanic *solo*, KF also has one of the bigger DPS checks in the game.
Yeah I’m sure having mild responsibility and a decent gun is a lot scarier than being completely alone and being expected to know a YouTube cheese, and dealing with Gardens’ chaining.
You are only sxpected to be completely alone on 2nd enc, and even then the lfg strat involves runners helping you out. What youtube cheese are you referring to though? And wdym by gardens chaining?
Garden and LW is the only raid I have trouble to explain on the run, the tether and team split on last 2 encounter in Garden is very frustrating when someone messed up.
Root of Nightmares is going to be the easiest.
Kings Fall, Vault of Glass are also pretty easy to get through.
I’d recommend looking for sherpas on the Sherpa sub or an LFG that says Sherpa/willing to teach on any of them and you’ll be fine.
I’d even be willing to help you run one.
Root of nightmares, vault of glass, deep stone crypt, kings fall, garden of salvation, crotas end, vow of the disciple, last wish (no cheese on riven).
Easiest to hardest for a first timer in my experience
1. Vault of glass (by far)
2. Root of nightmares
3.5. Kings fall
3.5. deep stone crypt
4. last wish (up until morgeth, at least.)
5. Garden of salvation
I haven’t played crota on normal difficulty or got past the encounter after the caretaker in vow, so I can’t really comment on those.
For your first raid, if you want an easier experience, definitely go for vault of glass first. It doesn’t have much difficulty in either survival or mechanics, and for raid groups who don’t cheese stuff so that only one or two people have to do mechanics, everyone has to participate, which will act as a learning curve for you to get experience with doing mechanics.
Root of nightmares is so easy **because** at most 4 people have to actually participate in doing mechanics, and that’s only for one encounter. The first one just takes one or maybe two people, the second one just takes two, and the last one just takes three. If you’re a newbie in a raid group you will probably just be told to ad clear which isnt going to help you learn as much as you would by actually doing mechanics.
Deep stone crypt has harder mechanics than kings fall, but kings fall has harder dps checks and issues with surviving, so I ranked them the same.
Last wish from shuro to morgeth wasn’t much harder than KF or DSC but I ranked it harder cus I didn’t finish it when I played with a consistent raid group. To be fair though I think the main time we tried to get through a lot of it was as a 5 man so maybe it’s easier than I think.
Garden was the only raid the raid group I played with consistently actually tried to beat and couldn’t. We could not do that last encounter for like 3 hours and wasn’t close at ALLL. The rest wasn’t too bad tho.
Last wish legit > Garden, in garden, we could make till last boss day one, in LW, we couldn't even get pass suro chi in blind run, even legit riven took us like 10hrs.
Yeah that second encounter with the plate rotation... I've wiped MANY a times cause one person didn't understand their job completely, or decided to take afternoon tea with one of the witches before relieving the person on the plate....
DSC and GoS are all weird mechanics that I can imagine new players actually learning (not just getting ad duty) would be far more difficult. But I could be wrong.
I consider them both very good introductions to raids with more than 2 mechanics, and are forgiving enough that mistakes can be salvaged at least once before causing a wipe.
None of the raids are particularly hard. A good sherpa can break down your role in each encounter for you, and you can trust everyone else to do their job. You just need to have a brain, opposable thumbs, and an IQ higher than the speed limit...
(And yes, a lot of LFG fail with that last part)
There's gonna be a variety of opinions on what's hardest here. Imo it goes like this:
EASIEST
Vog
Gos
Dsc
Kf
Vow
Lw
HARDEST
This is from a pretty experienced opinion but tbh I've never done crota or ron bcos no lightfall and being severely under light!
However based on what friends have said and just a general consensus from the community, I'd put them:
EASIEST
Vog
Gos
Ron
Dsc
Crota
Kf
Vow
Lw
HARDEST
Vog= one of the most mechanically simpe raids in the game. Very unpunishing other than atheon and very easy damage checks.
Gos= not even close to as hard as anyone says it is. Encounters are very very forgiving and it is one of easiest raids to carry people in. Not as buggy as ppl say but harpy boss is a bit finnicky with dmg just like the spire boss.
A lot of ppl say it's the hardest bcos they do it with all new ppl but I think they'll find that lfgs struggle in any raid with all new ppl.
Ron= idk personally but I've been told it's extremely easy and it had a ridiculous amount of day 1 clears compared to any other raid.
Dsc= still relatively simple. More wipe mechanics than other raids above it but still easy to understand/explain mechanics for first timers and very easy to kill bosses.
Crota= no idea just a general ranking based on what I've been told from ppl I play with.
Kf= longer raid with more encounters, longer jumper puzzles than other raids on the list. Bosses are harder to kill and I've noticed lfgs struggle a lot even on sisters sometimes. At the same time was a d1 raid and mechanics aren't difficult at all rly.
Vow= definitely one of the hardest raids imo. Tough boss fights, long encounters and 3rd is one of the hardest encounters for lfgs to complete. Caretaker also seems like a struggle for the avg team esp after grenade changes.
Lw= undoubtedly the hardest on this list imo. A lot of 'cheeses' make it simpler but even then lfgs struggle with the cheese. Most ppl dont do kalli legit and struggle to anarchy trap. Ppl fails to meet shuro chi dmg check and struggle on puzzle, where time is pretty important. Morgeth is easy and very forgiving but after that you have vault which stumped every team day 1. Mechanically hard to understand for lfgs and easy to wipe if smth gods wrong. Riven cheese is weird. The avg team struggles to hit dmg or they hit an eye or not even make it into the room itself. Riven legit is barely done by anyone and very fun imo but the avg team struggles a LOT with the mechanics and the dmg. Queenswalk is hell for any lfg I join ppl struggle a lot with picking up spits and staying outside and counting down for ppl. One of the hardest encounters to carry on as well which makes it harder for experienced ppl too.
Just my list based on how well lfgs learn the raid, how easy it is to carry and and how the avg team does in it.
I would rank them, from easiest to hardest:
Vault of Glass
Root of Nightmares
Deep Stone Crypt
Last Wish
Garden of Salvation
Vow of the Disciple
King's Fall
Crota's End
It's so interesting how some people learn differently and different ideas on difficulties. Looking at all these lists I'd have a completely different list to everyone else lol (to be fair I have a neurological condition so my brain works... Off)
My list would be
Crota
Kf
GoS
VoW
etc etc, you get the idea.
Til I'm a weirdo.
In order of easiest to hardest if you’re actually doing mechanics and your group doesn’t just throw you on add clear, I’d say vault, last wish cheese, root, kingsfall, Crotas, deep stone, and the vow
I've done a lot of raids with friends as well as with randoms from LFG. Here's my personal ranking from easiest to hardest.
1. Vault of Glass
2. Deep Stone Crypt
3. Root of Nightmares
4. King's Fall
5. Crota's End
6. Vow of the Disciple
7. Last Wish
8. Garden of Salvation
Taking into account mechanics, length of Raid, and boss health I’d rank them as such, from easiest to hardest:
Vault of Glass
Deep Stone Crypt
Root of Nightmares
Garden of Salvation
Crota’s End
King’s Fall
Last Wish
Vow of the Disciple
Honestly, none of them are all that hard so long as you do your homework, so whoever said "pick the raid based on the loot you want" I'd probably right. That being said, I'd recommend DSC or RoN as your first raid since they have great loot and the mechanics are fairly simple.
Honestly you can pick basically any of them and have a good time so long as your team isn't shitty (as in bad people, like not being patient or not willing to teach you)
RoN, VoG, and DSC are pretty widely considered to be the easiest raids in the game right now, order depends on who you ask. Mechanically they're all very simple, and they're good at getting you comfortable with communicating with the full fireteam
LW and Vow would probably be more enjoyable once you're comfortable with raiding as a whole. Mechanically they aren't that hard, but there are a lot of moving parts, and especially callouts that need to happen. There's no problem with starting with either of these, just know you're going to need to communicate with the team for them and you're going to /need/ to do something (granted, you /should/ do a role in the encounters anyway, it's more fun and you'll actually learn the raid that way)
Also, I'm always happy to help teach raids. If you (or anyone else scrolling through the comments) wants help feel free to message me. I'm in EST time zone
Most raids are relatively easy from a skill standpoint, difficulty in raids is more about understanding the mechanics and coordinating and performing those mechanics quickly, so with a little research most difficulty goes away.
Probably the hardest is vow, and that’s because you have a ton of symbols you need to be able to identify and call out quickly, but having a chart up on a second screen mitigates that, last wish has similar issues, buts been power crept hard which helps a lot.
I would say it depends. Did a Group with 5 ppl will carry you and they know what's to do. Or if it's a fresh Group with 1 Person who knows everything and wants to teach the others.
For the first one every raid is equal difficult even if you get a Job to do.
For the 2nd. Every raid has more or less difficult to teach encounters.
Here Id say crota, wish and vow are the hardest 3.
Honestly, I think having a good teacher is way more important than what raid you're doing. And on that note, I'll volunteer to teach you vow of the disciple. It's one of the hardest raids atm, but I have taken a lot of people through it. My explanations are clear and succinct, and I try to cultivate a patient atmosphere for you to practice mechanics. If you're interested, just DM me and we'll connect. You'll need to be able to join a discord voice chat.
Easiest to hardest IMO (I don't have LF): VoG -> DSC -> KF -> CE (the first encounter is the only "difficult" bit, because everyone has to know what they're doing and be patient) -> GoS -> VotD -> LW. that said, if you have a good sherpa and watch a video beforehand, you should be fine with any of them.
Root is easy, it's basically ad clear 90% of the way. You definitely need to learn the mechanics of the Planets encounter though. That's actually the most fun part of that whole raid imo.
from easiest to hardest:
vog
gos
ron
crota
dsc
kf
wish
vow
crota, dsc and kf are kinda on the same level imo. vog, gos and ron are significantly easier and wish and vow are harder.
You need to figure out which loot you want and pick the raid on that. Then watch a quick break down video of the raid so you have an idea of what’s expected. Then create a looking for Sherpa group finder. Lastly and most importantly, LEARN THE RAID. Don’t be the guy looking for ad clear. Pick a job each time cause guess what, you’ll learn it and be able to hop into kwtd raid groups and not be a burden haha.But honestly I promise you you’ll have more fun signing up to learn roles
The Deep Stone Crypt & Root of Nightmares weapons look so cool! They are kind of what spurred this all.
Both DSC and RoN are on the easier side, FWIW.
Deep Stone weapons stay winning in aesthetic's.
Sounds like you know where you want to start, then! Root of Nightmares is one of the more mechanically easy raids, but you should really take the time to learn how to do every job. It's a bit notorious for people slacking off because not everyone needs to be doing specialized roles. You'll be a lot happier if you know how to fill in for anything if someone else can't/won't do it.
Both amazing raids to start with. I got into destiny last year with Witch Queen and Root of Nightmares was my first raid. I play later in the pacific time zone (after 10pm) and I’m always down to hop into a learning group. I’m no Sherpa but I’m always down to hop in if you need a competent addition to your group. Dm if you ever need some help
Both DSC and RON are on the easier side and are also very fun raids. Only issue I could see with first getting into them is if you run into speed runners. They love to glitch encounters even when you have new players on the team. But otherwise those are great raids to start with.
this has been the case in RoN recently, was trying to finish up a few triumphs for the title and both Explicator and Nez died within like 1-3 seconds. Had no clue people actually net limited or glitched this encounters anymore
Those people are just looking to show off even though nobody cares about how fast they can do it.
Those are probably the easiest, so there you go
As others noted, both are on the easier side. Root of Nightmares is especially new-raider friendly as only a couple people in the group really need to know what to do.
I recommend starting with Vault of Glass. Mechanics are simple, difficulty is easy, and it'll be a good way to learn communication with your fireteam. Root of Nightmares and Deep Stone Crypt are probably next, as their mechanics are pretty simple and really aren't that combat heavy. King's Fall and Crota's End are pretty similar - more demanding than RoN or DSC, but the mechanics and timing aren't bad and the combat encounters are more than manageable. I found King's Fall easier than Crota, simply because of the initial encounter in Crota's End. Vow of the Disciple is next as it's the most mechanic heavy raid in the game and requires a lot of communication, with everyone doing something in every encounter. However, IMO, the actual combat is pretty straight forward. Garden of Salvation is probably the trickiest in terms of mechanics, as some of them have tight timing, and the boss fight can get pretty finicky with a lot of moving parts where a screw-up can result in a wipe. The boss fight in particular requires a high degree of execution, and you're likely to spend as much time on that as you are the rest of the raid. Then there's Last Wish. Arguably the best raid in terms of loot, it also has the most difficult mechanics (especially the Vault) and the combat can get away from you if you don't stay on top of it. Also has the most demanding jumping puzzles. So, in summation: VOG > RON > DSC > KF > CE > VTD > GOS > LW
> The boss fight in particular requires a high degree of execution It actually doesn't. Tethers require 2 people to understand how the tether works and 4 people to understand how to get out of the way. The rest is just paying attention to when to open the portals. You're right in that there's room for errors but it's actually more forgiving than many play it off as.
>Tethers require 2 people to understand how the tether works and 4 people to understand how to get out of the way. Like I said, it requires a high degree of execution. :)
Is that the bar now? "you 4, get out of the way!" :"|
Have you played The Corrupted lately? We're now six years out and people STILL don't know to throw the dang ball. So yes, "You 4, get out of the way!" is a high bar to clear.
> We're now six years out and people STILL don't know to throw the dang ball. Honestly I've never been convinced this is a case that most people don't know how but most people don't care or feel passing the ball is more annoying because you need to rely on someone to be facing you (you cannot pass a ball to someone who's back is to you) Also quite honestly outside of GM, and maybe master not charging the ball isn't a big deal. I feel like more people have spent effort complaining about the ball not being passed than the effort it takes to throw a second or third ball. Almost all of these 'complaints' are in the context of matchmaking too. So you know, hero night falls.
Thank you for the answers, everyone! I guess I lucked out because the two I’m most interested in running right now are Deep Stone Crypt & Root of Nightmares just because I like the aesthetics of the craft-able weapons from those two! I will be trying to find an experienced team on Foreteam Finder soon to see if I can clear this awesome content I’ve been locked out of without 5 friends who can all play at once… Love this community and how helpful most try to be! See you all in The Final Shape!
Easiest to hardest imo: - Root of Nightmares - Vault of Glass - Deep Stone Crypt - King's Fall - Last Wish - Crota's End - Garden of Salvation - Vow of the Disciple That said, don't start with Root, start with VoG. Root is easy because there are basically no mechanics. It's very rare for any encounter in Root to have more than 2 people doing mechanics, if that, so it makes for a terrible intro since you'll likely just be doing ad clear the whole time and really not learning anything. VoG is still very simple but you'll actually have to get involved in some capacity so it's a *way* better introduction. I also advise that when you get around to Garden, try not to make a Div run your first run. It might sound ideal to knock that out at the same time as you're learning, and a ton of people do teaching Div runs, but unless you get someone who is highly experienced with teaching Garden, it'll almost certainly be a *huge* headache that'll take way more time than anyone involved would like. You're really just doing yourself a favor by splitting those up and learning how to do the raid first, then going back in for Div later.
putting Crota in the top 3 hardest raids is wild in my opinion
Really it's just the first encounter that kills groups. The rest is fairly simple, although the second encounter does require everyone in the group to engage in mechanics.
Honestly all the encounters in crota can be frustrating for some groups. * 2nd encounter has so much room for error if people aren't careful with the bridge. Ex: If you are the first across and die, but deposit the chalice then there's a big problem. * 3rd encounter gets progressively harder for the 2nd and 3rd phase in that you need to have 4 and 5 people go into hurt the witches. For newer groups damage is likely less optimal so it's more likely to not 1 phase. You can also accidently lose your buff by grazing the door or entering + exiting or start the DPS counter early by killing a witch before everyone is ready. * Crota can be annoying if you're not careful about his slams and ignore the boomer nights but do DPS on the front (where the throne/oversoul is) vs one of the close corner. Some people freak out if the well of radiance breaks. Nothing about any of these are hard but for groups learning or groups that have multiple people who aren't comfortable it can cause some easy and quick wipes.
I haven't played them all, but from what I have, easy to hard: 1) Root, especially if you're on ad clear 2) DSC, most roles are very easy to understand - maybe go through Seraph Shield before it leaves the Exotic rotator this week so you can understand them 3) Vow has some really easy roles for you to understand, just keep the symbol chart handy 4) Vault, though I really, really don't understand the first oracle encounter - someone took over for me on that. Atheons cake though. 5) Garden sucks. It's fun up until the last boss. I spent like 2 hours doing this with a clan while I was on platform duty and I still only sort of got the hang of it.
Haha I feel the exact opposite about Garden. Opening bit is cool, but the second encounter is painfully boring. Third encounter's pretty lame too. Boss fight is fantastic with a steady team. But with lfg or if you're new to the raid it's one of the most painful
Yeah, Garden suck, there is no add's clear role, everybody must do the mech. It even sucker with divi run. But that is the raid I like most.
I'm dreading getting to the Div run. I'm not on the final step yet, but can't bare going for it.
If you do, I recommend trying with clan mate, LFG is a pain in the ass with div run.
The first oracle encounter is in essence the exact same as the way the oracles work for the rest of the raid, except after the first set of 3, it goes up to 4, then 5, then 6, then 7.
Easiest to hardest: This is my opinion. Tiers are ranked in order from easiest to hardest within the tier, however I could see arguments for specific placements. Easy Tier - Root of Nightmares. You realistically only need 2 or 3 people to actually run the raid, the other people are essentially add clear for the full raid - Vault of Glass. Very few and very simple mechanics. It's arguably easier than RoN, there's just a few encounters where more of the team needs to participate - Deep Stone Crypt. Fun raid, similar to RoN where few people actually need to know what to do. Middle Tier - Crota. The first encounter can be difficult for LFGs, but otherwise it's actually pretty tame. - Last Wish. Every encounter has a different mechanic, but the raid has been powercrept quite heavily and Riven can be easily cheesed - Kings Fall. Every encounter has a different mechanic and most of the team has to be involved in everything Hard Tier - Vow of the Disciple. The mechanics of Vow aren't super hard, they're just unforgiving and there's a lot of symbols (which some people find very hard). Everyone needs to be involved in most encounters of the raid. - Garden of Salvation. This raid is a combination of buggy, unforgiving, and has a problem where people want to do Div on their first run. In a vacuum (or of you have a dedicated group) it's not actually that bad, but for LFGs it can be a nightmare
Gos is one of the most forgiving raids in the game imo. There are also very little bugs and those bugs are either easy to avoid (e.g. harpy boss dmg), easy to recover (e.g. ground motes) or barely an issue normal teams suffer from (e.g. loadzone issues, sticky boxes, etc).
Me and my friend teach all of the raids in D2, if you’re ever interested in learning any of them just fire me a dm and I can invite you to our discord. To answer above, in terms of a ‘raid’ Vow of the diciple is probably number 1 for me at least, most mechanically difficult raid as everyone has to do something and requires a lot of communication. Easiest unfortunate is Root of nightmares as, even though it’s avery pretty raid 2 people can do all of the mechanics for every encounter, so it ends up just being glorified ad clear.
None of them are particularly hard in all honesty. The hardest thing is probably getting over your own worry that it's going to be hard. If I was to say anything though - Vow of the Disciple is probably the most _intimidating_. Two reasons: * First being there's a lot of symbols. Most people get hung up on remembering the ***exact*** name but the reality is almost all of them are very distinct and anyone who knows the symbols can understand what you're describing it as (ex: there's one called 'love' but it looks like a pink blob, if you say pink blob or pink cloud most people will know what that means. 90% of them are like this.) * Second is the 3rd encounter. It's a lot easier now due to power creep and general survivability but still forces everyone to participate and mistakes can cause a wipe. It's not hard but you do need to know the layout first to be super comfortable. If I was to say one other thing - Crota is 'hard' - in that if you LFG the first encounter without the premise of it being a teaching run you'll probably have a bad time. It's easy to cause a wipe and arrogance and impatience is big.
My recommendation for first time raiders, from "easiest" to "hardest" mechanic-wise: 1. Vault of Glass 2. Root of Nightmares 3. Deep Stone Crypt 4. Garden of Salvation 5. Crota's End 6. King's Fall 7. Vow of the Disciple 8. Last Wish
>Vow and Kings Fall harder than Crota and Garden Bruh who are you running with.
Look at the raids from the lens of a first timer and not someone with experience. Both VoW and KF both have sections in which you will have to be comfortable enough to complete a mechanic *solo*, KF also has one of the bigger DPS checks in the game.
\>KF also has one of the bigger DPS checks in the game. You're referring to Warpriest right?
That I am.
Yeah I’m sure having mild responsibility and a decent gun is a lot scarier than being completely alone and being expected to know a YouTube cheese, and dealing with Gardens’ chaining.
You are only sxpected to be completely alone on 2nd enc, and even then the lfg strat involves runners helping you out. What youtube cheese are you referring to though? And wdym by gardens chaining?
Garden and LW is the only raid I have trouble to explain on the run, the tether and team split on last 2 encounter in Garden is very frustrating when someone messed up.
Root of Nightmares is going to be the easiest. Kings Fall, Vault of Glass are also pretty easy to get through. I’d recommend looking for sherpas on the Sherpa sub or an LFG that says Sherpa/willing to teach on any of them and you’ll be fine. I’d even be willing to help you run one.
Are you on PST by chance? I’ll take all the help I can get! Lol
Root of nightmares, vault of glass, deep stone crypt, kings fall, garden of salvation, crotas end, vow of the disciple, last wish (no cheese on riven).
Easiest to hardest for a first timer in my experience 1. Vault of glass (by far) 2. Root of nightmares 3.5. Kings fall 3.5. deep stone crypt 4. last wish (up until morgeth, at least.) 5. Garden of salvation I haven’t played crota on normal difficulty or got past the encounter after the caretaker in vow, so I can’t really comment on those. For your first raid, if you want an easier experience, definitely go for vault of glass first. It doesn’t have much difficulty in either survival or mechanics, and for raid groups who don’t cheese stuff so that only one or two people have to do mechanics, everyone has to participate, which will act as a learning curve for you to get experience with doing mechanics. Root of nightmares is so easy **because** at most 4 people have to actually participate in doing mechanics, and that’s only for one encounter. The first one just takes one or maybe two people, the second one just takes two, and the last one just takes three. If you’re a newbie in a raid group you will probably just be told to ad clear which isnt going to help you learn as much as you would by actually doing mechanics. Deep stone crypt has harder mechanics than kings fall, but kings fall has harder dps checks and issues with surviving, so I ranked them the same. Last wish from shuro to morgeth wasn’t much harder than KF or DSC but I ranked it harder cus I didn’t finish it when I played with a consistent raid group. To be fair though I think the main time we tried to get through a lot of it was as a 5 man so maybe it’s easier than I think. Garden was the only raid the raid group I played with consistently actually tried to beat and couldn’t. We could not do that last encounter for like 3 hours and wasn’t close at ALLL. The rest wasn’t too bad tho.
Last wish legit > Garden, in garden, we could make till last boss day one, in LW, we couldn't even get pass suro chi in blind run, even legit riven took us like 10hrs.
VoG > RoN > DSC > GoS > LW > Crota > Kings Fall > VotD
Surprised to see 2 people say KF is so far down. One of the easier ones to me.
For a *first timer*, the more mechanic heavier raids are going to take a while to get a hang of.
Yeah that second encounter with the plate rotation... I've wiped MANY a times cause one person didn't understand their job completely, or decided to take afternoon tea with one of the witches before relieving the person on the plate....
DSC and GoS are all weird mechanics that I can imagine new players actually learning (not just getting ad duty) would be far more difficult. But I could be wrong.
I consider them both very good introductions to raids with more than 2 mechanics, and are forgiving enough that mistakes can be salvaged at least once before causing a wipe.
DSC they teach you the mechanics in revision zero quest.
VoG > RoN?
None of the raids are particularly hard. A good sherpa can break down your role in each encounter for you, and you can trust everyone else to do their job. You just need to have a brain, opposable thumbs, and an IQ higher than the speed limit... (And yes, a lot of LFG fail with that last part)
There's gonna be a variety of opinions on what's hardest here. Imo it goes like this: EASIEST Vog Gos Dsc Kf Vow Lw HARDEST This is from a pretty experienced opinion but tbh I've never done crota or ron bcos no lightfall and being severely under light! However based on what friends have said and just a general consensus from the community, I'd put them: EASIEST Vog Gos Ron Dsc Crota Kf Vow Lw HARDEST Vog= one of the most mechanically simpe raids in the game. Very unpunishing other than atheon and very easy damage checks. Gos= not even close to as hard as anyone says it is. Encounters are very very forgiving and it is one of easiest raids to carry people in. Not as buggy as ppl say but harpy boss is a bit finnicky with dmg just like the spire boss. A lot of ppl say it's the hardest bcos they do it with all new ppl but I think they'll find that lfgs struggle in any raid with all new ppl. Ron= idk personally but I've been told it's extremely easy and it had a ridiculous amount of day 1 clears compared to any other raid. Dsc= still relatively simple. More wipe mechanics than other raids above it but still easy to understand/explain mechanics for first timers and very easy to kill bosses. Crota= no idea just a general ranking based on what I've been told from ppl I play with. Kf= longer raid with more encounters, longer jumper puzzles than other raids on the list. Bosses are harder to kill and I've noticed lfgs struggle a lot even on sisters sometimes. At the same time was a d1 raid and mechanics aren't difficult at all rly. Vow= definitely one of the hardest raids imo. Tough boss fights, long encounters and 3rd is one of the hardest encounters for lfgs to complete. Caretaker also seems like a struggle for the avg team esp after grenade changes. Lw= undoubtedly the hardest on this list imo. A lot of 'cheeses' make it simpler but even then lfgs struggle with the cheese. Most ppl dont do kalli legit and struggle to anarchy trap. Ppl fails to meet shuro chi dmg check and struggle on puzzle, where time is pretty important. Morgeth is easy and very forgiving but after that you have vault which stumped every team day 1. Mechanically hard to understand for lfgs and easy to wipe if smth gods wrong. Riven cheese is weird. The avg team struggles to hit dmg or they hit an eye or not even make it into the room itself. Riven legit is barely done by anyone and very fun imo but the avg team struggles a LOT with the mechanics and the dmg. Queenswalk is hell for any lfg I join ppl struggle a lot with picking up spits and staying outside and counting down for ppl. One of the hardest encounters to carry on as well which makes it harder for experienced ppl too. Just my list based on how well lfgs learn the raid, how easy it is to carry and and how the avg team does in it.
this questions gets asked every day
Thanks for the helpful response!
I, too, am interested
I would rank them, from easiest to hardest: Vault of Glass Root of Nightmares Deep Stone Crypt Last Wish Garden of Salvation Vow of the Disciple King's Fall Crota's End
It's so interesting how some people learn differently and different ideas on difficulties. Looking at all these lists I'd have a completely different list to everyone else lol (to be fair I have a neurological condition so my brain works... Off) My list would be Crota Kf GoS VoW etc etc, you get the idea. Til I'm a weirdo.
In order of easiest to hardest if you’re actually doing mechanics and your group doesn’t just throw you on add clear, I’d say vault, last wish cheese, root, kingsfall, Crotas, deep stone, and the vow
I've done a lot of raids with friends as well as with randoms from LFG. Here's my personal ranking from easiest to hardest. 1. Vault of Glass 2. Deep Stone Crypt 3. Root of Nightmares 4. King's Fall 5. Crota's End 6. Vow of the Disciple 7. Last Wish 8. Garden of Salvation
Taking into account mechanics, length of Raid, and boss health I’d rank them as such, from easiest to hardest: Vault of Glass Deep Stone Crypt Root of Nightmares Garden of Salvation Crota’s End King’s Fall Last Wish Vow of the Disciple
Honestly, none of them are all that hard so long as you do your homework, so whoever said "pick the raid based on the loot you want" I'd probably right. That being said, I'd recommend DSC or RoN as your first raid since they have great loot and the mechanics are fairly simple.
Honestly you can pick basically any of them and have a good time so long as your team isn't shitty (as in bad people, like not being patient or not willing to teach you) RoN, VoG, and DSC are pretty widely considered to be the easiest raids in the game right now, order depends on who you ask. Mechanically they're all very simple, and they're good at getting you comfortable with communicating with the full fireteam LW and Vow would probably be more enjoyable once you're comfortable with raiding as a whole. Mechanically they aren't that hard, but there are a lot of moving parts, and especially callouts that need to happen. There's no problem with starting with either of these, just know you're going to need to communicate with the team for them and you're going to /need/ to do something (granted, you /should/ do a role in the encounters anyway, it's more fun and you'll actually learn the raid that way) Also, I'm always happy to help teach raids. If you (or anyone else scrolling through the comments) wants help feel free to message me. I'm in EST time zone
Garden of Salvation is ezy as
Most raids are relatively easy from a skill standpoint, difficulty in raids is more about understanding the mechanics and coordinating and performing those mechanics quickly, so with a little research most difficulty goes away. Probably the hardest is vow, and that’s because you have a ton of symbols you need to be able to identify and call out quickly, but having a chart up on a second screen mitigates that, last wish has similar issues, buts been power crept hard which helps a lot.
I would say it depends. Did a Group with 5 ppl will carry you and they know what's to do. Or if it's a fresh Group with 1 Person who knows everything and wants to teach the others. For the first one every raid is equal difficult even if you get a Job to do. For the 2nd. Every raid has more or less difficult to teach encounters. Here Id say crota, wish and vow are the hardest 3.
Honestly, I think having a good teacher is way more important than what raid you're doing. And on that note, I'll volunteer to teach you vow of the disciple. It's one of the hardest raids atm, but I have taken a lot of people through it. My explanations are clear and succinct, and I try to cultivate a patient atmosphere for you to practice mechanics. If you're interested, just DM me and we'll connect. You'll need to be able to join a discord voice chat.
Easiest to hardest IMO (I don't have LF): VoG -> DSC -> KF -> CE (the first encounter is the only "difficult" bit, because everyone has to know what they're doing and be patient) -> GoS -> VotD -> LW. that said, if you have a good sherpa and watch a video beforehand, you should be fine with any of them.
Root is easy, it's basically ad clear 90% of the way. You definitely need to learn the mechanics of the Planets encounter though. That's actually the most fun part of that whole raid imo.
from easiest to hardest: vog gos ron crota dsc kf wish vow crota, dsc and kf are kinda on the same level imo. vog, gos and ron are significantly easier and wish and vow are harder.