Arah Jotun Path - Giganticus Lupicus and his dreaded waypoint run
PuG’ed this a few days ago.
Lupicus was really nice to you guys in phase 2. When 3 people were downed I was sure you were all dead. But then he just kind of sat there and watched you all get up. Also is there any reason you guys dont stack up for phase 1? Obviously it works fine, im just curious if there’s a specific reason.
Still definitely doable though. In our run someone did die and run back, leaving 4 of us to fight lupicus in phase 2, but we only had 2 people go down the entire fight after that. TBH the worst part of lupicus is the single green missile he shoots out, which can be reflected if you’ve got a skill that does that.
Going in the bot formation is just etter for phase 1 since it makes the grubs all spawn in one predictable place and the locusts all concentrated in once nice killing zone instead of accumulating. Being abit more spread out gives you more time when he transitions into phase 2 if the party is slow though as long as you can focus down the grubs/fast enough.
The green missile is like an ‘auto-attack’ he shoots from his palm, it’s really dodgable once you get to know the animation, it’s tracking is also very inaccurate so you can alternatively zig-zag move and not waste a dodge. You can also reflect/deflect these bolts since they count as projectiles.
His AoE bolts are also reflect/deflectable but only with certain skills like Swirling Winds and Shield of Absorption can reliably block it due to the bolt’s AoE nature and they arrive from a high angle, though Smokescreens/Wall of Reflections and traited Temporal Curtain will work if you put it slightly in front of you instead of putting it on top of yourself. Not sure about Ranger with Whirling Defense though since I’ve always recommended they take horn offhand for swiftness instead (an the massive birds!).
It just takes awhile to get used to those timings as they the bolts seem to intentionally fly in that convoluted twists to mess with you rather than being predictably straight.
His rapid AoE palm thrusts in phase 3 is also projectile-based and it makes you feel like a hero when you stop it. The dome he subsequently follows up with after this palm thrust is like static field: you can just stand still and take no damage; trying to escape it after being entombed with dodge/block is futile though popping an invulnerability will let you pass through it completely it while teleports like lightning flash/blink will make you eat the stun once.
Going melee and whacking him in the back is viable for phase 3 but only if he’s not focusing you, AFTER he uses the aoe life steal and that you are prepared for when he turns around and targets you instead :P
Quasi-elitist dungeoneer and missing Gw1 GvGs greatly.
“GW2’s PvE is almost as bad as the PvP.”
“GW2’s PvE is almost as bad as the PvP.”
Even though I was in this group. I just want to add that this is one of hardest Lupicus we came across. The reason being is the waypoint is literally a few minutes of run time to the boss itself, therefore, there was no room for any of us to get killed. The boss itself is not that bad, he is just slow to kill. I surely hope ANet will get it’s act together and place reasonable waypoints. It gets really annoying when someone dies and has to spend a few minutes of running back.
PuG’ed this a few days ago.
Lupicus was really nice to you guys in phase 2. When 3 people were downed I was sure you were all dead. But then he just kind of sat there and watched you all get up. Also is there any reason you guys dont stack up for phase 1? Obviously it works fine, im just curious if there’s a specific reason.
Still definitely doable though. In our run someone did die and run back, leaving 4 of us to fight lupicus in phase 2, but we only had 2 people go down the entire fight after that. TBH the worst part of lupicus is the single green missile he shoots out, which can be reflected if you’ve got a skill that does that.
It’s not always about the boss being nice, as much as about everybody paying attention. As you will notice, the warrior (for the most part) stays toward the wall, as he is the one being constantly Shadow Walked to in Phase 2. In the case where three of us went down, the other thief saves me with Smoke Screen, which eats the projectiles. We are able to get the mesmer and guardian up because after Lupicus uses his AoE, he proceeds to Shadow Walk, as he usually does. The warrior is smart enough to be away from us and pull Lupicus away so that we aren’t in significant danger if he were to AoE again.
I personally don’t like the stacking method because locusts hit me for 4.5k. Tanking them isn’t ideal. Besides this, the player that is about to have grub spawn on him/her has a haze around their head. In the video, you’ll see me put a target on players before the grub spawns so that everyone is aware of where the grub will come up.
I agree the auto-attack is a pain to deal with. I cannot survive one myself if he gets to eat any grubs, since I am in full Beserker stats. The only real pain is getting the fight down well enough to not have one constantly dead. The way point run back is too long to leave room for error, but this adds to the challenge of the fight and unlike MasterJake’s opinion, I enjoy the extra challenge and wish that more fights were like this.
There’s supposed to be a waypoint after the Shoggaroth, according to my teammates all three times we’ve done this route. They could see it flicker in and out of existence when they moved around the area, but it never spawned.
Why do people even let grubs spawn?