Guild Wars 2

Is it even possible to find a PUG willing to take an experienced player? (Explorable mode)

Made my own LFG once, took more than 20 minutes and it was composed of other 1st timers, I do not want that since it’s bound to fail horribly.

/rant done

Any tips for Arah? I just want a light chestpiece.
1. Which path is the easiest / quickest?
2. Is it really challenging?
3. How much time takes an average run, and how much would it be a quick run? (per path)
4. Why do people “sell” Arah rewards… is it really that hard?
5. Do berserker builds survive in there?

Would appreciate extra advice. I’m packing undead slaying potions so far.

Paths 1-3 basically come down to can you spend enough time, and can you kill lupicus. If the answer to both of those is yes then you should be fine. With that being said, read up on lupicus before hand as he has a lot of tricks and there are strategies you can use against him as he has much more variety in attacks compared to every other boss in the game. Also don’t watch the 17 second lupy kill on youtube and think “I can do that”.
I am surprised how many people can sell arah paths for such high prices, it really isn’t that hard. And yes berserker builds thrive in there, basically all hardcore dungeon runners use zerker gear and some of them can even solo some of the paths with it.

All 4 paths share the same boss, namely Giganticus Lupicus.
The easiest paths in my opinion are path 2 and 3 (path 1 is easy as well but includes a really long skip that can block a lot of pugs, and if you wipe after that skip (at lupicus for example) you will have to do it again since there’s no waypoint between the skip and Lupicus.

About average time per path, hm I don’t know since I didn’t pug arah since a long time, but a clean fast run is like under 20min for path 1/2/3.

For advice, I’d suggest you to first take a look at http://gw2dungeons.net/
It can give you a good theorical knowledge of each path. And if you want videos, you should take a look at Strife’s channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/strife025/videos

Some video may be outdated but you’ll have to basic tactics for each boss.

are you on NA or EU? I could image taking you with us :-)

I’m NA lol .

that’s unfortunate, I guess you have to find someone other then :-)

1. Which path is the easiest / quickest?
I find 1/2/3 fairly equivalent in length, but 3 has less punishing skips. I’d probably start there.

2. Is it really challenging?
The learning curve is steep, yes. You will most likely find it very frustrating in the beginning. However none of it is difficult to execute once you know what you need to do.

3. How much time takes an average run, and how much would it be a quick run? (per path)
P3 is the safest bet for a group with inexperienced players. Unless your looking to get completely carried through, don’t expect a quick run in the same vein as other dungeons. I’d plan for 45mins – 1 hour.

4. Why do people “sell” Arah rewards… is it really that hard?
Relative to other dungeons, yes. Relative to high level fractals, no. I don’t understand the mentality of people who buy dungeon paths, so I couldn’t really tell you why they do it.

5. Do berserker builds survive in there?
Berserker will survive anywhere in pve, so yes bring berserker gear.

Whoa 45 mins, that’s a lot lol.

I have 1500 hours in this game and 1100 as an elementalist so I don’t think it’d be too kittence I learn the mechanics.

It should not take 45 min. That’s impossible unless 2 people are afk or either bearbows . 25 is the absolute max for p2-3 . If you wipe in p1 it’s just alooot of time wasted trying to skip the trash . Try to join a zerker party if you don’t wanna waste your time . Also you have 1,5 k hours on ele and havent rerolled yet? lol

a t s e.9614:

It should not take 45 min. That’s impossible unless 2 people are afk or either bearbows . 25 is the absolute max for p2-3 . If you wipe in p1 it’s just alooot of time wasted trying to skip the trash . Try to join a zerker party if you don’t wanna waste your time . Also you have 1,5 k hours on ele and havent rerolled yet? lol

Why would I reroll? I love my class.

The only other classes worth playing for me are thief and engi, and still nowhere as fun or versatile.

There are plenty of people out there that don’t mind running Arah with newbies to the dungeon as long as you let them know in advance. Also, what’s wrong with an all-newbie party, considering all the guides out there on how to complete each path? All it takes is for you to assume some leadership instead of relying on other people and read up, watch a video or two.

Razor.6392:

it was composed of other 1st timers, I do not want that since it’s bound to fail horribly.

If everyone had that mentality, no one would ever have done any dungeon, because there were no “experienced players” to guide the first party. If you read the wiki articles and watch a few videos, you’ll know more about each encounter than any player did during the first couple of weeks.

Just avoid “quick runs” if it’s your first time, because other players will be skipping most trash, and if you don’t know what to expect you’ll probably get snared / killed / lost (the overhead map is almost useless).

I tend to skip most trash, but I’ve done a few runs where I killed almost every single mob in there, and it wasn’t as slow as you might think (then again, that depends on your party, of course). Few groups took more than 15 seconds to clear.

So, if you find a party saying “killing trash” or “full clear”, join that one. Or just create one where you include that in the description. After you’ve done a couple of full clears you’ll have a much better idea of where to go and how to skip things.

p3 seems to be accepted as easiest and shortest by most.

Razor.6392:

4. Why do people “sell” Arah rewards… is it really that hard?
5. Do berserker builds survive in there?

People are too lazy to do the dungeon, so they prefer to pay to get their tokens. They get a part of their payment back from the daily reward chest.

I did a lot of Arah runs, especially path 3 since I farmed a full set of armor and also the Gift of Zhaitan. From my experience (that was about 6-10 moths ago, haven’t done it often recently), it takes about 30-50mins, depending the experience the player have. Lupicus alon took about 10 minutes. But we always did it the old ranged way back then.

1. 2, 3
2. if you are new, yes. Arah is a step ahead of most other dungeons. Try not to go in blind, watch guides beforehand.
3. in a decent pug probably 30 mins for p2/3 is acceptable. Fast guild runs are often around ~15 mins and the records are even faster.
4. people are lazy to learn how to do it/don’t have much time (??)
5. yes, though some defensive gear might be best for first timers at lupicus