Guild Wars 2

Hello! I’m Yuko Shionji, a guardian on the Desolation server, here to share my experience with Arah. I’ve run it countless times by now, have the full set, and now farm it for fun, as I really do enjoy running it. Figured I’d help the community out with some helpful tips and tricks.

Before I even begin, I want to fill everyone in on the one item that allows quick, clean runs : The Ash Legion Spy Kit. Worship it, for it is your god. You buy them for 28 Karma a piece at the Sharptail Encampment in SW Plains of Ashford. Using one lets you stealth for 10 seconds, if you stand still. You can even channel skills/revives while in stealth, or use them while you’re already channeling one of those. Try to make sure everyone in your party brings these, they allow you to reset any enemies, or revive anyone in the middle of a group of enemies.

Let’s start at the beginning.

1. Getting into Arah

This requires its own section, which is kind of sad. Oftentimes, the gates to Arah are closed and will never open because the event chain is bugged. There is only one way to get in then – you need to have a Mesmer inside the gate (I have one permanently logged out inside the gate, to always let my party in). They can place a portal inside, waypoint outside, and place the other portal there. If the Waypoint is bugged and permanently contested, there is NO way to get into Arah, sorry.

2. Giganticus Lupicus

He’s in every path, so you’ll need to get used to him. Here’s an overview of his attacks.

• Phase 1: 100%-75% HP
  In phase 1, all you need to do is stack up on one player, away from Lupicus, and range him down. He’ll spawn grubs on players (and pets, followers, and NPC’s) which must be killed ASAP. If the grub reaches him, he gets a buff stack that makes him much harder – I’d say around 5 is the max stacks allowed. Try to avoid summoning/using any melee followers, he’ll eat the grubs instantly if they spawn in melee range.

• Phase 2: 75%-50% HP
  The hardest phase. He has various attacks, which I’ve unoriginally nicknamed.
  Shadowstep: He shadowsteps to your position. Easy to see, easy to dodge. MAKE SURE you dodge this, it knocks down the target, leaving them very vulnerable. He locks onto one person with this, and doesn’t stop targeting that person until dead. If you’re the target, try to keep him against the wall, makes it a lot easier for the others.
  Barrage: A LOT of targeted AoE’s. I don’t recommend dodging these, but rather just running away out of range. They often hit outside the target circle, so don’t rely on those. Get used to this attack, it’s hard to avoid at first, but it gets better.
  Noscope shot: He just shoots a bolt aimed at one person, for a lot of damage. Easy to dodge if you see it coming, and it sometimes randomly misses. This is the most deadly attack in this phase, actually, because he does it VERY often.

• Phase 3: 50%-0% HP
  He’s mostly single-target here. He has a lot of different attacks, I’ll only outline the troublesome ones.
  Death cage: He summons a sphere on someone that knocks them back if they try to leave. Does a LOT of damage over time. It IS possible to dodge this, but incredibly hard, I can’t do this either. Instead, use stability or a blink to get out, or, if you’re tanky, try to outlast it. ALL Guardians should run Stand Your Ground! solely for this attack. He also likes to target mesmer clones with this, making them very useful here.
  Life Drain: His lock-on attack, he’ll always target the same person with this until they die. It hits 4 times and heals him if it hits. I HIGHLY recommend dodging this, it does a lot of damage. Impossible to dodge all 4 hits though, to my knowledge – dodge at least 2.

And that’s it. Keep up the dps, don’t try to melee, and you’ll be fine.

Now, I’ll start with the easiest path, and work down to the hardest.

3. Path 3

Always farm this path if you just want Shards of Zhaitan, it’s by far the easiest and shortest.

General trash adds:

Illusionist > Mage > Hunter (KILL HIS EAGLES. They deal a TON of damage) > Elementalist > Anything else

Not much to say about them. Avoid Illusionists’ AoE, and use missile reflection against hunters and elementalists to reflect upwards of 12K damage per hit.

• Boss 1: Wraithlord Crusher and Wraithlord Hunter
  First of all, lure them up to the area where you entered, the top of the hill. This way, you won’t aggro the patrols running around the area. Kill the Crusher first, stay behind him at all times because every attack he does instantly kills you. I highly recommend melee to easily get around him, his range is MUCH bigger than expected. The Hunter is easy.

• Path to boss 2:
  Everything can be skipped. Just before you run into his room, you’ll run into some spiders, including a Champion. You can reset them by using Spy Kits or any other stealth ability, they’re very annoying to deal with if you choose to fight them.

• Boss 2: Wraithlord Mage Crusher
  Easy boss with terrible AI. If you stand on the platform just below his own platform, he can’t hit you. He does hit sort of hard if you don’t safespot him, but even then, this shouldn’t cause you any trouble.

• Path to boss 3:
  After the short swim, kill gorillas, then it’s time for everyone’s favourite Orb running segment. Honestly, this is harder than Lupicus if your PuG isn’t too good. Mesmers are very useful as they can use portals to skip most of the run. Don’t forget you can use your heal+utility skills while holding an orb, and don’t wait too long to throw the orb. Not much to say about this, just takes practice. After that, hold left in the room full of Risen to avoid 99% of them.

• Boss 3: Lupicus.

• Path to boss 4:
  Just run past everything. It’s not very hard, and you unlock a Waypoint past most of it if you reach the end. Avoid aggroing the giants.

• Boss 4: Wraithlord
  First, you have to do a capture-and-hold style thing. The best way to do this is to have a tanky player run around in the center area, in circles, tagging every wraith in the area. The other players just hold the points and don’t attack ANYTHING, this way it’s easy to pull the wraiths off.
  The boss itself is a joke. The Corruption debuff increases the damage he deals to you, but it shouldn’t matter too much. If you have to, the circles of light that appear on the ground cleanse the debuff.

4. Path 2

General trash adds:

Deadeye > Inquest > Berserker > Defiler > Anything else

Deadeyes deal more damage the further away you are (I’ve seen 800K hits before), so melee them. They die fast. Inquest stunlock one target. Berserkers and Defilers should not be melee’d, they deal a lot of damage. Overall, this path is very melee-unfriendly except for deadeyes.

• Boss 1: Operative Belka
  As the fight goes on, more and more of the floor will be covered in fire. Try to avoid it as best as you can. Other than that, she has one big attack, a giant orb she launches in an overhead arc. It does have a targeting circle, but it’s hard to see among everything else. It’s better to watch above you to see if it’s coming, and dodge it. It kills you instantly if it hits, and can hit you before it reaches the ground.

• Path to boss 2
  There are two ways to clear the Golem run. The first is to ignore the golem entirely and run through as a group, one person is likely to reach the end if you do this. Recommended if your PuG has bad cooperation. The other, legit way of doing it is to take turns charging the Golem rider, make sure to decide this order beforehand. It helps if the rider knows the path already. Use swiftness as often as possible to avoid the abominations. Note that the Waypoint you unlock requires you to dodge away when you use it, or you’ll die.
  After that, kill one group of Risen, then run through the sewage tunnel on the right side of the area, then straight until you drop off a cliff, to skip the rest.

• Boss 2: Berserker Abomination
  Standard dodge and kite stuff, kill the adds. One person should use the gun to stop his berserking.

• Boss 3: Lupicus.

• Path to boss 4:
  For the swim, follow the torches. Hard to explain, but it’s not hard to do.
  For the run, do NOT clump together or the mines will hit people behind you. Split up a bit, and run through as fast as possible.

• Boss 4: Alphard, Serpent of the Waves
  There’s not supposed to be a way back in here if you die because she summons a wall. There is. Just in front of the wall, there’s a pole going very high up. You can run up it, and use swiftness to jump over the wall to get back in if you die.
  The boss herself isn’t too hard. She’s mostly single-target damage, and pulls you in for an explosion AoE sometimes. Just dodge away as soon as you get pulled and you’re fine, there’s plenty of time. She has one other attack, where she teleports to the center then spins around shooting giant orbs everywhere that bounce if they hit a target. I recommend getting far away and dodging anything coming for you. The barrels do NOT seem to protect you from this even though they should. She also summons clones which you should kill asap.

• Path to boss 5:
  Kill a few groups of Risen and Inquest until you come to a big room. Hold left against the wall to avoid everything until you reach the boss.

• Boss 5: Operative Brie
  One person has to use the console to get the Out of Phase buff, then go into the dome to fight the boss. If you have a Mesmer, use Time warp on this person. When his buff ends, the next person needs to get the buff and go in. When the boss is at 50% (happens very fast), everyone has to go in. Not a hard boss at all.

5. Path 4

Yes, path 4 is easier to farm than path 1.

General trash adds:

Nothing of note. See the other paths for recommendations. The entire path is basically bosses. This path is EXTREMELY melee-unfriendly for most encounters.

• Boss 1: Balthazar
  You need to kill some adds and light some torches with the stuff they drop first. The boss is easy, just stay at range and avoid his attacks, nothing worth mentioning.

• Boss 2: Melandru
  Annoying, but there are various almost-safespots. At the edge of the central circle are various stone spires, just stack up as five, hugging the spire, to be safe from most of the attacks. If not safespotting, avoid the circling orbs, they kill you very quickly. Don’t bother killing the trees, they respawn too quickly.

• Boss 3: Lyssa
  Very easy boss, and the only one I’d truly recommend melee’ing. She summons clones that stack a massive amount of confusion when they die. As soon as the clones die, STOP attacking entirely or you’ll kill yourself. She also turns people into cute Moas. =3

• Boss 4: Lupicus.

• Boss 5: Grenth
  Before you start fighting the Wraith, there are two hidden groups of Risen on the left and right sides of the room. Find and kill them.
  Probably the single most boring boss in the game, beating the Evolved Destroyer and anything in HotW for that title. He has 2 phases:
  In phase 1, there’s a single wraith teleporting around the 5 green spots on the ground. Have one person at each spot, and damage the wraith when it appears. DO NOT move away from your assigned spot or he WILL reset, very quickly. When he teleports, he leaves two adds, kill them asap. This can take a while if he keeps resetting.
  In phase 2, you’re just running around killing wraiths at the 5 green spots. Complete joke, nothing interesting about it. Takes forever.

• Boss 6: Dwayna
  Not nearly as hard as people claim she is. There are two ways to beat her effectively:
  Method 1: Just push her against a wall and keep nuking her position even if she stealths. A mesmer’s Time warp helps a lot. Keep her poisoned to lower her regeneration. This strategy doesn’t work if your party’s dps is too low.
  Method 2: NOTE: This strategy requires you to fight her once, get her to her stealth phase, then leave the fight and come back.
  Push her against the wall across from where she spawns, away from the sparks (it’s the top of the upside down U on the map, basically). Have one melee lure her to that spot so she aggro’s on that person, then just nuke her down. One ranged player should stay out of the fight most of the time, and run 4 sparks to the pillar before she stealths. As soon as she stealths, this person runs the last spark to instantly destealth her. The other four players should be nuking her position like method 1, even through stealth.
  After this single-spark-destealth, just run Sparks normally on the next few stealths, preferably with two people. As long as you get her past the 50% HP barrier on the single-spark-destealth, you’ll be fine.
  This method is a LOT more reliable than the other one, but requires one melee and one ranged player to know what they’re doing.
  For both strategies, make sure to bring some Tears of Dwayna to wherever you’re going to fight her, to break the stun. Around 25 should do for most groups. Keep an eye on your party window for the debuff to know who’s about to get stunned.

• Path to boss 7:
  Skip everything. It’s not hard at all, and it takes a LONG time to kill them all. You need to drop down a little hole, into the water at some point – as soon as you drop down, turn right and hold right against the wall to find the exit.

• Boss 7: Bloodstone Shard
  Basically all 6 previous bosses combined into one easy superboss. I highly recommend melee’ing, while one person runs tears to anyone who gets stunned.

6. Path 1

NOTE: This path is currently bugged, the final door doesn’t open. Do NOT run this path until this is fixed. And even then, do NOT run this path. It takes far too long and is a complete pain, you should only run this if you really want the Dungeon Master title. The bosses aren’t even hard, they just take a long time, and the adds are the most annoying ones in the whole dungeon.

General trash adds:

No priority necessary. When an ooze dies, it splits into two lesser ooze, kill these or the ooze will come back. Drakes are just annoying, kill them fast.

• Boss 1: Ancient Ooze
  Easy boss. Stay at range, he spams knockback in melee range. When he hits 50%, he splits into a ton of little ooze. Don’t bother with them, just grab the key he dropped, bring it to the Jotun in the previous room, and let the ooze reset so you can run past them.

• Boss 2: Champion Crystals
  Stand in the light to receive a buff (debuff?) that increases the damage you do (one stack is REQUIRED to do any damage at all) and increases the damage you take. Try not to pull all of them at once, and get out of the light if you’re taking too much damage. Not hard.

• Boss 3: Substantial Tar Elemental
  Four people need to stand on the geysers in the room to disable them. Once all four are in place, the boss appears. You’ll need to do this again at various times throughout the fight. Keep running around, and kill the adds he spawns until he dies. Not much to say about this.

• Boss 4: Lupicus.
  NOTE: There is NO waypoint anywhere near Lupicus on this path. If you die, you’re pretty much out of the fight entirely. This is one reason why you shouldn’t farm this path, especially with a PuG.

• Boss 5: Korga
  You can skip this boss. He’s not very hard though, you can either range him down, or get him stuck behind one of the rocks in the room by trying to lure him through a small crack. I actually recommend killing him for the waypoint you get.

• Path to boss 6:
  You’ll run into a bunch of spiders including a Champion. I THINK you have to kill these. This is one reason why the waypoint from Korga is useful, the champion deals a lot of damage very quickly if you mess up your dodge.

• Boss 6: Legendary Jotun Stargazer
  Right after the spiders you’ll find a reflecting crystal. Pick it up, wait for it to respawn, and let someone else pick that one up until everyone has one. If you unlocked Korga’s waypoint, you can teleport around Arah to find crystals in other places instead.
  The boss itself is easy. Stay inside the ring of fire he summons (instantly kills you) and play some tennis with him by reflecting the orbs he throws. If you get hit in rapid succession, your crystal shatters – simply stand behind someone who still has their crystal to be safe. He goes down very fast, the flame ring shouldn’t reach you in time.
  If the door doesn’t bug, proceed and collect your reward.

And there you go! If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to put them below, or contact me ingame.

Do you have any recommendations as to which professions to bring?

I’ve tried Arah roughly 10 times of which 3 were succesful. This includes some really long sessions against Lupicus like the 5 hour one we did today (and that’s just Lupicus) which all ended up into failures.

Phase1 is easy but it’s usually in phase2 where people die. For some reason my elementalist often seems to get the lock in phase2 which I’ve nothing against since I’ve tooled my entire utility skillset for surviving that phase. However I still run out of dodges and utilities (mist form, arcane shield, armor of earth) in a prolonged fight.

If Lupicus actually manages to TP to me and I miss a dodge then it’s nearly instant down (I’ve around 15k hp). However this is a moot point since most of the time I’m either alone or there’s one or two other people still stuggling around when Lupi finally kicks me down for good. Shortly after it’s everyone down.

Now I’m curious which profession combinations are the best choices for Lupi? Are there any professions that could increase survivability for whole party? I mean the “projectile storm” and especially the aimed high damage projectile seem to be banes of most teams. Not as much him teleporting around. I’d rather level up a profession that would increase chances for everyone if it guaranteed more succesful runs!

Well for path 1, no you don’t have to kill the spiders, we always just run from lupicus straight to the end boss. If the door bugs, as it does pretty much 100% of the time for me, a thief or mesmer or ele or something can get in the door. Stand to the left of the entrance on top of the little curved rock, aim a teleport at your feet (shortbow 5 for thief/shadow step, blink, lightning flash, w/e) Then you’ll be in the rock, mess around a little, rtl around or updraft, roll for iniative, or just run at the walls, do whatever, until you have a bit of room to move around, then go to the wall where the next room is and teleport again at the wall. Run forward, trigger cutscene, bam! There might be an easier way, I just figured that one out myself so, ye. If you manage to get to the end and are having trouble, pm me ingame and I can explain more or come do it for you if necessary.

Northlander.4619:

Do you have any recommendations as to which professions to bring?

I’ve tried Arah roughly 10 times of which 3 were succesful. This includes some really long sessions against Lupicus like the 5 hour one we did today (and that’s just Lupicus) which all ended up into failures.

Phase1 is easy but it’s usually in phase2 where people die. For some reason my elementalist often seems to get the lock in phase2 which I’ve nothing against since I’ve tooled my entire utility skillset for surviving that phase. However I still run out of dodges and utilities (mist form, arcane shield, armor of earth) in a prolonged fight.

If Lupicus actually manages to TP to me and I miss a dodge then it’s nearly instant down (I’ve around 15k hp). However this is a moot point since most of the time I’m either alone or there’s one or two other people still stuggling around when Lupi finally kicks me down for good. Shortly after it’s everyone down.

Now I’m curious which profession combinations are the best choices for Lupi? Are there any professions that could increase survivability for whole party? I mean the “projectile storm” and especially the aimed high damage projectile seem to be banes of most teams. Not as much him teleporting around. I’d rather level up a profession that would increase chances for everyone if it guaranteed more succesful runs!

Any class can do Lupicus, but I think Guardians, especially Shouting Guardians, increase the survivability of the whole group. I personally can tank Lupicus indefinitely, so we never wipe on him anymore. It does take practice though.
As for running out of dodges, I recommend getting used to his massive AoE, and trying not to dodge that. Just run instead of dodge, it works just as well, this way you can save your endurance for more important things, like the targeted bolt.

@Chalice, that’s very interesting, thanks for the information.

some tips for the werewolf:

for phase 2 on lupicus, if he runs up to you in melee range, you better dodge. if he lifts his one leg up, he’s setting up for a death cage, so dodge twice to the side. if he doesn’t, he does an aoe barrage instead, you need to dodge (twice for a softer class, once for a beefier one). and the key to these fights is the bring anything that grants vigor/endurance regen (ie signet of stamina for warriors).

Good guide mate, appreciate the work you put into this will help newbies out.

Gee, i really hope none i party with has read your guide because it will give me cancer and i may die.

The moment i read legion ash spy whatwhat kit and “skip mobs” i declared this thread as a bad one.

heres my arah guide
step1) get a guardian with a clue
step2) get 4 elementalists with full berserkers set with a clue
step3) walk forward and smash everything in your way. Stuff will die so fast that it will be hilarious, nothing and no one will ever get close to you and for ranged attacks you can dodge and use your magnetic aura (obviously staff elementalist since everything else elementalist is plain bad at this point).

last time we had 2 elementalists like this and a guardian, the mobs died so fast that the 2 randoms in party couldn’t even see how many mobs we’re taking at same time

I hereforth declare incisorr a complete kitten.

incisorr wins the award of worst guide ever.

Definetly have to bookmark this one for when I get around to trying Arah. Thanks for putting this together!

Omgawd I hope you are on Sea of Sorrows, I’d love to run Arah with you!

you dont need to kill anything past lupicus on the jotun path btw. It’s actually the second shortest path after forgotten. The ooze poison things can be reflected. The crystallines are cake. The skaggoth is weird, but not hard. Lupicus is lupicus, and then you can actually solo the final boss.

The bug only occurs when the NPC dies on the final boss, so the trick is to have her dead before you enter the room.

In order of ease
1. forgotten
2. Jotun
3. Mursaat
4. Seer

in order of speed (with a good team
1. Forgotten
2. Jotun
3. Mursaat
4. Seer

If jotun wasnt bugged out people would probably be able to clear it much faster than mursaat. The main reason people used to stay away from it was that there is no waypoint close to lupicus, so if you die you stay dead. But for teams who dont wipe on lupi the jotun path is often very fast and very easy.

Zenyatoo.4059:

you dont need to kill anything past lupicus on the jotun path btw. It’s actually the second shortest path after forgotten. The ooze poison things can be reflected. The crystallines are cake. The skaggoth is weird, but not hard. Lupicus is lupicus, and then you can actually solo the final boss.

The bug only occurs when the NPC dies on the final boss, so the trick is to have her dead before you enter the room.

In order of ease
1. forgotten
2. Jotun
3. Mursaat
4. Seer

in order of speed (with a good team
1. Forgotten
2. Jotun
3. Mursaat
4. Seer

If jotun wasnt bugged out people would probably be able to clear it much faster than mursaat. The main reason people used to stay away from it was that there is no waypoint close to lupicus, so if you die you stay dead. But for teams who dont wipe on lupi the jotun path is often very fast and very easy.

The thing is, this is supposed to be a PuG-friendly guide, and Lupicus on the Jotun path is anything but PuG-friendly. Yes, it’s a relatively easy path with a decent group, but that’s not what this guide is targeted at. Unless you’re 100% confident you yourself will never die on Lupicus, don’t farm path 1 with 4 people you don’t know.

and @kKagari, I’m on Desolation, which is an EU server. I know you can run dungeons cross-server, but I’m not sure if EU and NA servers can do that as well. Feel free to try to add me ingame if you want to try though.

Path 1 is actually very fast for good teams and the stigma that it’s hard is just from inexperience. also path 1 is glitched only if NPC dies at end as long as she doesn’t die you finish fine.

p.s i blame you when they nerf spy kits

What build do you suggest for a guardian there.
I’ve done all other dungeons and Arah is like my holy grail ^^ . I never really tried it because I already find other dungeons rather difficult with random people just because everybody does what he knows best and there is no outlined strategy unless I bark 5 minutes on how to proceed. But I want to try it. I’m running bunkered Greatsword/Staff build and the way I see it, according to your guide, I should use the staff to range DPS him, but that DPS is low, so I’m thinking of just stacking might to by group. Or is there a better option

p.s. I was refering to giganticus path ^^

Anubis is in every path so that wont matter. However Path 4 Lupicus is more annoying because of kittening RANDALL.

@Ravenmoon PM me with how you prefer your play I can give you some tips.

Wow, great info! I never knew about the spy kit :O

Incisorr, the most valuable Dungeons section post of the year award goes to you. Your guide will truly be an epic inspiration to anyone who would attempt Arah.

A true hero you are. I can see it clearly in my head; the charge of the Rohirrim in LotR, except the orcs are all replaced by disgusting, spy kit wielding support-traited elementalists and guardians without a clue. I can hear your voice echo across the battlefield…

Death!
Deeeeaaaath!

… as 4800 berserker geared elementalists and 1200 guardians with a clue charge the filthy horde below. After the battle, you, Incisorr, is awarded the Nobel price in Medicine for ridding Tyria of this horrible cancer that threatened to consume us all.

@Ravenmoon (does anyone know why I can only quote AFTER I make a post?), I myself use an Altruistic Healing shout build, which is entirely tank/support-oriented, with very little in terms of offense. The only thing you should actually be aiming for though, as a Guardian, is being able to survive 2 consecutive targeted bolts. If you can do that, you’ll do fine as a Lupicus tank.
I HIGHLY recommend getting a Scepter specifically for Arah, along with an offhand (I like Shields for the utility) if you need one. It doesn’t need to be anything special, just a half-decent Scepter so you’re not completely useless in the many ranged fights. I’m using a Prec/Vit/H.Power Scepter from TA with a Superior Sigil of Undead Slaying. Works fine.

Lupicus phase 2 targeted bolt: zig-zag.