Guild Wars 2

Just spent 6 or 7 hours (lost track of time, cannot remember anymore…) on Arah path 4. Last 3 hours or so on Dwayna, for our group it was utterly and completely impossible to ever bring her below 50%. Maybe once or twice we managed 45%, not sure.

Tried the 4+1 sparks, didn’t work, whenever she regens to full health all sparks disappear. Tried everything suggested here (apart from specific classes/builds obviously, since those weren’t available). Essentially you need extreme amounts of dps AND doing the sparks consistently in under 7-8 seconds or she will outheal whatever damage you’re doing. I don’t think it’s currently doable except by bringing a party specifically specced for it.

Hi. Thanks to this thread i was afraid that my PUG group would fail on Dwayna. But when we tried it, we killed her in the first attempt. Ít was very easy and i dont see what the hard part is. We had one player pull the 3 sparks in the bottom and 2 players pulling the other 2 sparks. I think the key is in the spark pulling. We where 2x Berserker warriors 1x Mesmer 1x Necromancer and 1x Elementalist.

KimRasmussen.4128:

We where 2x Berserker warriors 1x Mesmer 1x Necromancer and 1x Elementalist.

Yep, that is pretty much the perfect group for this boss… necro could be switched out but overall you had the perfect setup. No wonder it was so easy for you.

I guess you right. I just read somewhere that you need to be 1x Mesmer and 4x Berserker warriors to do it. But i admidt i did change from guardian to warrior right before the boss

But i still think alot of the sucess was the spark running and tear throwing

KimRasmussen.4128:

I guess you right. I just read somewhere that you need to be 1x Mesmer and 4x Berserker warriors to do it. But i admidt i did change from guardian to warrior right before the boss

It can be run with 1x mesmer and 3x Berserker geared professions like warriors/thieves since they excel in melee burst dmg with Haste/Frenzy/Time Warp.

KimRasmussen.4128:

But i still think alot of the sucess was the spark running and tear throwing

You won’t convience people that running sparks is reliable way to get it done. They got into’s their heads that you have to do 4-1 tactic and then dps as fast as possible to kill her in one sweep. And for that you need specific party composition. Yes, you need pretty good dps to kill her (so 5 bunkers will probably have some issues) but you don’t have to try the route that most pugs do and fail.

You won’t convience people that running sparks is reliable way to get it done.

If sparks fixated on party members and didn’t kitten around, it’d be much, MUCH easier to do it “properly” instead of the 4-1 spark trick.

Does it even work now? Wasn’t it “fixed”?

Iehova.9518:

You won’t convience people that running sparks is reliable way to get it done.

If sparks fixated on party members and didn’t kitten around, it’d be much, MUCH easier to do it “properly” instead of the 4-1 spark trick.

Does it even work now? Wasn’t it “fixed”?

It wasn’t and people that don’t run sparks should just go on the side to not aggro them incidentally.

haviz.1340:

KimRasmussen.4128:

But i still think alot of the sucess was the spark running and tear throwing

You won’t convience people that running sparks is reliable way to get it done. They got into’s their heads that you have to do 4-1 tactic and then dps as fast as possible to kill her in one sweep. And for that you need specific party composition. Yes, you need pretty good dps to kill her (so 5 bunkers will probably have some issues) but you don’t have to try the route that most pugs do and fail.

Sorry but it’s not a matter of having 5 bunkers. My group yesterday was pretty decent (for 3 out of 5 of us it was the first time in Arah 4, for me personally the first time ever in Arah at all, despite that we managed to kill Giganticus Lupicus, that alone tells you the group wasn’t bad); my guardian was the only “tanky” build and it’s not even a full tank build (I use Cof GS with sigil of accuracy and berserker accessories, at least those I managed to get so far, right now I’m sitting at 30% crit chance) and despite that, we never even stood a chance.
Doing the spark quickly and correctly is certainly fundamental but if you don’t have EXTREME amounts of dps it’s not going to help you, especially with the sparks’ penchant for sitting half a millimeter away from their circle and not slotting in; sooner or later you’re bound to have a cycle in which you lose 3-5 more seconds as one of them doesn’t slot it and at that point you either have the dps to overcome the regen or you’re back to square one.

For me personally, Giganticus Lupicus was annoying in phase 2 but at least you could see how to kill him and in the end we managed to do so; this fight we were nowhere near beating it for 3 hours straight with no progress possible at all, despite reading this thread, the tactic on the wiki and on reddit, and checking the youtube videos.
In hindsight the only possibility was changing party composition and this situation shouldn’t ever arise unless you go in with 5 bunker guardians or something equally ridiculous. As far as I’m concerned, it’s clearly overtuned.

I posted this in another thread but hopefully others can try this method and possibly beat this encounter.
I know this is probably going to be a bad picture, but this is how i did it.
So my composition was 2 people with plenty of speed buffs and 3 dps/players to aoe the boss fight.

Here’s how we started(before aggro-ing the boss). We got a lot of dwayna tears and put them to the left side of the alter where we would fight the boss. Just along the wall somewhere away from the sparks(anywhere can do we just liked that left wall, it had enough space).

We started the fight and pulled her to where our dwayna tears were located and kept her there for the rest of the fight. Every health interval the boss will go invisible and summon the sparks.

Note this isn’t really a dps race fight it’s just a very difficult mechanic fight, you can do damage while she is invisible and possibly poison and slow the healing, but it all comes down to the runners.

We have two runners: 1st runner and 2nd runner. The first runner grabs the 2 top sparks and runs at certain angles (as drawn in the poorly made picture). While at the same time the 2nd runner is grabbing the other 3 sparks and lining them up at those angles. If it works out correctly the sparks should fit into the spots without any difficulty.

Please note the sparks have a bit of an aggro problem with someone who is stoned and may be attracted to them. Hence the stockpile of dyawna tears. If your spark runners are fast enough the boss will go down pretty smoothly.

There can be a few problems with the spark pathing, but it is up to the runners to get the sparks in the right place. I find it best to keep it to two runners to keep it clear of other people aggro-ing sparks and the rotation thrown off. Hopefully it helps.
Note again the map is drawn as you look at it(with an overview) map picture and locations will vary.

Shuguard.7125:

Note this isn’t really a dps race fight it’s just a very difficult mechanic fight, you can do damage while she is invisible and possibly poison and slow the healing, but it all comes down to the runners.

You can’t anymore, she goes invulnerable now whenever she’s stealthing. In fact all the “invulnerable” notices popping up are your clue that she’s about to disappear.

Anyway we tried this one too, almost exactly how you describe it (a million tears stacked up on the left wall, 2 designated runners) but it led us nowhere. Most of the time I would be stunned (as the one on which she fixated her aggro I was nearly perma stunned, and btw this part of the fight is absurdly annoying, whoever the hell thought that stunning players continuously and at extremely brief intervals is good design should be fired, plenty of times I would get unstunned by someone else only to get stunned again a fraction of a second later) and at least one of the sparks would aggro me. It’s easy on paper but in practice all you need is a missed unstun ONCE and she’s back to 90%.

MagnusLL.8473:

Shuguard.7125:

Note this isn’t really a dps race fight it’s just a very difficult mechanic fight, you can do damage while she is invisible and possibly poison and slow the healing, but it all comes down to the runners.

You can’t anymore, she goes invulnerable now whenever she’s stealthing. In fact all the “invulnerable” notices popping up are your clue that she’s about to disappear.

Anyway we tried this one too, almost exactly how you describe it (a million tears stacked up on the left wall, 2 designated runners) but it led us nowhere. Most of the time I would be stunned (as the one on which she fixated her aggro I was nearly perma stunned, and btw this part of the fight is absurdly annoying, whoever the hell thought that stunning players continuously and at extremely brief intervals is good design should be fired, plenty of times I would get unstunned by someone else only to get stunned again a fraction of a second later) and at least one of the sparks would aggro me. It’s easy on paper but in practice all you need is a missed unstun ONCE and she’s back to 90%.

Oh believe me, She stunned me real good… I personally had to go through that encounter for maybe 14 hrs in two attempts (5 for the first one then a new build cut us short :/ ) with her always aggro’d to me.
But i know the pain, it takes a lot of special coordination and luck to get through it. But i would say whoever she aggro’s to cannot be a runner, so a back-up runner might be needed. Personally it is easier if you have someone as a designated cleanser(tear thrower) on voice communication to un-stun you. I love the difficulty, but it’s a little more broken than difficult.

One guy should be on tears duty. If he has Simple Party UI turned off he can see whenever anyone gets petrify and throw tear at the correct moment.

Shuguard.7125:

But i would say whoever she aggro’s to cannot be a runner, so a back-up runner might be needed. Personally it is easier if you have someone as a designated cleanser(tear thrower) on voice communication to un-stun you. I love the difficulty, but it’s a little more broken than difficult.

Oh trust me we tried that too. You can try lots and lots of things in 3 hours… we had 2 dedicated ranged dpsers as runners, while the other 3 were on her at all times, me tanking her, another dedicated unstunner and a third in melee range. Still no cigar. Oh well…

Tried today. Failed. Was a horrible waste of time…

Just drop down her stealthed health regen rate if you dont have the time/manpower to fix the sparks. The sparks need a larger area to be locked into as 9 times out of 10 the group had pulled them close enough in a quick enough time, it was just that they wouldn’t go in. Losing precious seconds to her insane regen means a lot of heart ache for a group that is only failing due to pathing issues.

If everything went smoothly, yes, this fight would be good. But sparks agro and pathing issues make them always agro on the one guy that’s always petrified, on the petrified NPC that’s lingering outside the door, once they dropped agro when we were at the altar already, it just decided to wobble back. Sometimes they stood on the trap not getting captured, had to kite outside the trap then back on. Sometimes the trap didn’t render. Most of the time they pathed around the traps.

There’s absolutely no margin of error on this fight, and often times, the error is not with the group, it’s with the glitchy mechanics. We should not breeze through arah then get stuck for hours trying to beat broken mechanics.

Again, do-able if everything goes smoothly with the sparks. It never does.
At the moment, this path is not worth doing, because you would spend a lot of time getting to this point, only to lose to broken mechanics. Can’t explain how game-quitting frustrating that is.

Robert, since you got the complaints… please: Change the mechanics. Don’t just nerf her healing, because sometimes the sparks are just THAT broken. Change the mechanics.

I beat this annoying dungeon path 2 days ago. Took hours, but I blame that more on a lack of coordination & some rage quitters we had to replace.

Our group consisted of: Mesmer (me), 1 ranger, 2 warriors, 1 guard

We started by setting up the 4-1 wisp trick & placing a ton of tears by the wall to the left of the wisp-locking statue. We also made small mini-piles of tears by where me & the ranger would stand to range dps the boss (so we could help with petrifying every now and then.)

The ranger positioned herself above the statue (near the back wall of the cave) while I positioned myself far below the statue (near the bottom left wall by where one of the 3 wisps spawn).

Guardian aggro’d the boss— constant petrification ensued. Him and the 2 warriors pulled simin to the stockpile of tears so that they could help anti-petrify each other, which took a lot of the pressure off me and the ranger. Prior to that, me and the ranger were dpsing, primarily throwing tears, AND running the sparks. This previous setup was way too much for me & the ranger to handle, but when the warriors & guardian threw tears atop themselves while meleeing her, the pressure was greatly lifted.

We got simin near to 50%, I was already standing by where a spark spawned. It pops, the second I see it twitch (to recognize it aggro’ing me) I start running to the center platform. I do this before I even see it attack me— the second the spark twitches I’m running. I make sure to run completely past the statue, so that it will definitely lock in place. ( I found that as long as your pulling the spark in a straight line, it will lock into either one spot by the statue or the next one it flies over. It must be a straight line though, if you run around in a circle it will seem to never lock into place.)

1 Spark enters the spot, simin re-appears (barely healed to 60ish%), the melees are already swinging at her, since they’ve been waiting at the wall she disappeared at. I run in for melee & time warp & activate signet of inspiration to copy all the buffs we have and grant everyone 25 stacks of might (except for the ranger, who is still in her position). After about 10 – 15 seconds I switch back to greatsword and stay ranged, waiting by the spark #1 spot.

We get simin down to 15%, then she stealths. I wait for the first sparks “twitch”, run before it even attacks me, get the furthest entrance spark to “twitch”, turn left, get the last spark on the right wall to “twitch.” the second the last spark “twitches” I blink past the statue (the sparks keep aggro on you despite the distance) and watch which sparks lock into place, then run straight ahead past the last one which always fails to lock into place, so it locks in the spot it originally flew over. (The ranger has easily pulled her two sparks in the back wall as I’m doing this. The melees are hiding by the wall and staying out of the way)

We dps, dwayna was at 40ish% from healing, my time warp is on cooldown, so we only get her to around 20 – 25% before she stealths. I repeat my run. The ranger repeats hers. The melees wait.

She is at about 45% health from the recent heal, we dps again, my time warp still is on CD but I’ve been activating signet of inspiration repeatedly to keep spreading might & help damage simin. We get her to 25-30% health, she stealths.

I run, ranger runs, melees wait. Time warp is still on CD. She reappears at around 45-49% hp.

This time we all move in as all our elites are off CD. Ranger uses rampage as one, I choose not to time warp (because it comes off cd more than halfway through the phase), the warriors & guardian use their strongest offensive elites. We get her to 10%, she stealths.

We repeat the usual spark run 3 more times, and , she is at 35-40% health. We go for broke, repeat the process of activating all elites (whoever could at the time) and I finally get a nice initial time warp off & move in, and at the very last second, where it looked like she should have already stealthed, we got the final blow that finished her.

Took a lot of focus, persistence, and not giving up because we didnt get the 50% – 0 burst. We just made progress, little by little, and eventually beat her. It’s do-able, and if we had all been using our most damaging abilities in the optimal cycles, we probably could have gotten her much earlier.

Well tried today again for 3 hours. Different group, this time apart from me everyone else had already killed her previously. Composition was guardian (me), warrior, 2 mesmers, necro. I respecced to max sustained dps, would have even used berserker armor except I don’t have it.

The only significant difference was that today the 4+1 trick worked. Using it, during our best try we brought her to approx. 20-25%. In the end I offered to be replaced for someone with higher dps, an elementalist came, they made a few tries, brought her to 20% then gave up.

Sorry but this fight is broken, there is no way in hell it is supposed to work like this. Is it completely and utterly impossible? No, with me having a berserker set available and two more lucky spark runs on our best try we’d have done it. But the chance of pulling it off even with optimized party composition is abysmal, essentially you need to have an absurd amount of dumb luck with the sparks behaving correctly for at least 5-6 times in a row and that’s using the 4+1 trick.

This has to be fixed.

If you have the DPS you can get her in 2 rotations after the 4-1 easily.

People have to change up their builds a little bit if it is not working, why is that such a big deal?

We had a terrible experience with this path yesterday.

Everything went fine for the majority of the dungeon, I don’t think we had a party-wide wipe at any point.

We get to Dwayna boss and then it turns into a kittenfest.

Boss fight starts, 100%
Boss is taken down to 50%, stealths
Okay spark run, 75%
Boss is taken down to 50%, stealths
Nearly perfect spark run, 60%
Boss is taken down to 50%, stealths
Nearly perfect spark run, 60%
Boss is taken down to 50%, stealths
Nearly perfect spark run, 60%
Boss is taken down to 50%, stealths

We tried stockpiling an ungodly amount of tears, pulling her into a corner away from sparks, and using two fast members to round up sparks during stealth to avoid pathing/aggro issues. This created even faster spark runs but the result was still the same: It didn’t matter if we got her out of stealth quickly, because she would always active at 50%.

From reading this thread, and posts on reddit, it appears the way to bypass this is to the 4-1 spark method and then burn her to the point she won’t regen past 50%.

If we were armed with this knowledge, could we have done it?

Certainly.

Should exploiting boss mechanics be necessary for beating a boss?

No.

I’m all for a challenge, but this wasn’t a challenge. It was just tedious and silly.

BUTTERBLUME.3217:

If you have the DPS you can get her in 2 rotations after the 4-1 easily.

People have to change up their builds a little bit if it is not working, why is that such a big deal?

Because to have the DPS “changing up your build a little bit” is not going to work, you need 5 people all in full glass cannon spec with full glass cannon gear, preferably of the right classes too. And even then you still need lucky spark runs.

Not to mention that the 4+1 is likely a bug and not intended, and shouldn’t be required to kill the boss.

I’d just like to clarify that, contrary to the seemingly popular opinion of a lot of people, getting the sparks to lock into place is not “random” or “luck-based.” I’m sure there IS something wrong with how they lock, but you can guarantee whether or not they lock into place by how you run to the statue.

If you pull the top 2, you have to run / teleport past the statue to one of the holes on the BOTTOM side of the statue. You must also be several feet PAST the hole, not right on it, and you have to expect the sparks to always skip the closest “lock spot” to them.

Though they always skip the “closest spot” to their side, if you maintain a straight line past a second spot on the other side of the statue, the spark will ALWAYS lock into place in that next spot. If you have 2 sparks that both skip the first spot, only ONE will lock into place. Remember, you have to expect this. When that happens, don’t freak out, just start running right past the spark (in a straight line) past an open spot on the other side of the statue.

This will work— if you react quickly and get used to how the locking system functions (I.E, run a few ’test runs" after first getting her to 50%, without rushing to kill her right away.), the runners will probably quickly understand the concept of “running in a straight line past the statue” vs “running in a circle, raging as the spark avoids locking into place.”

It also means that if there is only one spot open, right next to the last spark, that you will have to purposely waste a few seconds to pull the spark to the other side of the statue (a few feet), then back in a straight line past the spot. Do not run in and out of the circle without pulling the spark across to the other side of the statue first, because it simply won’t lock into place.

Again, I’m not defending how it works— it’s probably intended to lock into place in a simpler way. But for now, just run some tests first (patience needed here), make sure you FULLY UNDERSTAND the “straight line past the other side of statue” concept, and it will be 1000x less frustrating… at least when it comes to the sparks.

Something is only frustrating when you don’t understand how it works.

I opened up a thread exclusively for sharing tips on this boss fight: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Tips-for-Simin-High-Priestess-of-Dwayna

The basic scheme is rather simple, but you need experience to be able to control the sparks well.

And I know that the 4-1 is probably a bug, but removing it would only result in a few more rotations.
Changing up the traits is the biggest part about DPS. You can buy GREEN berserker gear, get some ORBS in it and your DPS will go up considerably, not much less than full exotic. Will cost you maybe 1g, but well, dungeons are supposed to be the ‘elite’ PVE thing in this game, could at least expect that much?

BUTTERBLUME.3217:

but well, dungeons are supposed to be the ‘elite’ PVE thing in this game, could at least expect that much?

no, dungeons are not “elite” thing – they’re for everyone. you’re mistaking it with fractals. it is fractals that were designed to be both – “noob friendly” at low levels AND “pro-elitist” at high levels without changing the actual content.
that was, in fact, the only thing they got right with fractal design.

Twill.6217:

BUTTERBLUME.3217:

but well, dungeons are supposed to be the ‘elite’ PVE thing in this game, could at least expect that much?

no, dungeons are not “elite” thing – they’re for everyone. you’re mistaking it with fractals. it is fractals that were designed to be both – “noob friendly” at low levels AND “pro-elitist” at high levels without changing the actual content.
that was, in fact, the only thing they got right with fractal design.

Sorry, Butterblume is right. Read what devs said (even Colin).

didn’t read too much of this thread. . .

just wanted to point out as a new fresh 80 who has finally decided on a build/gear to move forward with. . . turns out there are two places to run for weapons i want. . se and arah. . .. I am running se for armor and the only place other than that i can get the weapons i would like are from arah. I am finding it to be rather difficult to run arah as most experienced players don’t want to run it b/c it isn’t worth their time. I am just curious if there is anything in motion yet to adjust the dungeon or the loot received from finishing it?

Knight gear is craftable. Just buy one on TP.

choppzilla.5306:

didn’t read too much of this thread. . .

just wanted to point out as a new fresh 80 who has finally decided on a build/gear to move forward with. . . turns out there are two places to run for weapons i want. . se and arah. . .. I am running se for armor and the only place other than that i can get the weapons i would like are from arah. I am finding it to be rather difficult to run arah as most experienced players don’t want to run it b/c it isn’t worth their time. I am just curious if there is anything in motion yet to adjust the dungeon or the loot received from finishing it?

I think you posted in wrong topic. It’s not about arah per say but about one of its path that no one runs for tokens anyway because it’s too long in comparison to others (7 bosses while p2 has 5 and p3 only 4)

Well after another 4 hours of tries finally managed to kill her, but I still think it’s ridiculous. Arah 4 is already the less efficient dungeon path of all even without Simin, add in this fight whose difficulty is so much out of whack with the whole rest of the game and the path should give something like 10.000 tokens to be worth it.

As far as I’m concerned my first impression remains valid, this fight is grotesquely overtuned and should be nerfed into the ground. That, or you should fix the sparks, but something tells me a nerf will be a far quicker fix.

Yeah – this fight has far too many annoying elements for it to be worth it.

We finally did it with my group after about 5 people left and we managed to get me (an Ele), a ranger, 2 warriors and a mes in.

I agree with others that some part of it is getting to know the spark mechanics, but they are far too unreliable that it stops being player based skill, and on how well the AI will react to you. That, and they are glitchy. One refused to enter its seal despite us getting it to run over it multiple times.

Also, this fight pretty much goes against the philosophy of “don’t get forced into roles”…because you need a good amount of DPS to even get it done as she heals far too quick for any team that doesn’t have it to keep her below the 50% threshold in the first place.

I don’t just think her healing needs to slow down, I think some parts of this entire fight need to be reworked so it’s less frustrating for people. I shouldn’t feel after doing a path that I never want to do it again, but that is how I feel. I got it done, and now I will not step back into path 4 until she is toned down. She is ridiculously annoying (I wouldn’t say difficult) compared to the rest of the dungeon. At least I know with Lupi that my team and I could have dodged at better times, or dealt with the grubs better, but with this fight, it’s just frustrating.

Please look into re-working her.

My experience:

Yesterday we entered path 4 at 3 PM and we stood there till Midnight (only 1 hour afk to eat something for dinner), then we left without defeating Simin.

I premise we knew how difficult was this path. We read plenty of guides, we read forums and we watched a lot of videos of the battle with the Priest of Dwayna.
Our guild team needs only this path to get Dungeon Master title, we mastered all the other dungeon paths and, let me tell you, I laugh if I think of Sorrow’s Embrace path 1 compared to this crap.

In the beginning we lost 1 or 2 hours at Lupicus
1) This kitten NPC keeps fighting him in melee and he lets the final grub to spawn at his feet so he can eat it easily (and you wish so much this useless NPC could DIE)
2) At the end of phase 2 Lupicus kept bugging resetting to full HP even if we were fighting him in the aggro range! Please FIX it.
We never had such a terrible experience with Lupicus. First time in path 3 we beated him at the third attempt, in path 2 at the first try and in path 1 at the second…
Anyway, bugs apart, I love the fight with Lupicus, I think it is a smart designed boss.

Then Dwayna…
We were 2 Rangers, 2 Eles and 1 Mesmer/Thief/Ele (we had to swap the fifth guild member cause not everyone can stand 8 hours in a dungeon) all with high DPS…
First of all you HATE to be a Ranger: this kitten pet keeps aggroing sparks and goes wherever he wants. Do you try to swap him or recall with F3? No you can’t because you are gonna be petrified, downed, your swap-pet is recharging, you recall but he don’t move, he dies but he aggroes anyway!!! There is nothing more frustrating than this, trust me. Let us ranger hide our pet if we want to, please!
We felt so useless… You can’t be the two people who aggroes the sparks because with a pet it’s an impossible task. You just stand with your back attached to a wall hoping your pet wont move. The only position available was the south wall, while the two Eles run to aggro the sparks.
We did 4-1, our best was to get Simin at 50% and then 20% or so…
Then there was always a spark who won’t aggro, an Ele who got petrified at the moment he had to run, someone who got downed because after 8 hours we weren’t able to focus on the areas of the ground… :P
This is a matter of luck, not certainly a matter of skillness.
Yes, let your QA team go there with 5 full berseker warriors and then tell us you don’t think this path need a fix.
What have you done in the past patches? You fixed area skills which were damaging Simin when she was stealthed? That’s really the kind of fixes the game needed and we were waiting for.

2 days ago I saw someone on a website party-finder selling spots for the final boss of path 4 for 20 golds. I thought it was foolish to pay like this for a dungeon.
Now I think in 8 hours I could have earned more then 20 golds, even doing something fun.

Dungeon Master was my endgame goal. Now I don’t want it anymore. I won’t waste my time in this crap anymore until you fix it. Maybe next year.

Iridiana.9078:

My experience:

Yesterday we entered path 4 at 3 PM and we stood there till Midnight (only 1 hour afk to eat something for dinner), then we left without defeating Simin.

I premise we knew how difficult was this path. We read plenty of guides, we read forums and we watched a lot of videos of the battle with the Priest of Dwayna.
Our guild team needs only this path to get Dungeon Master title, we mastered all the other dungeon paths and, let me tell you, I laugh if I think of Sorrow’s Embrace path 1 compared to this crap.

In the beginning we lost 1 or 2 hours at Lupicus
1) This kitten NPC keeps fighting him in melee and he lets the final grub to spawn at his feet so he can eat it easily (and you wish so much this useless NPC could DIE)
2) At the end of phase 2 Lupicus kept bugging resetting to full HP even if we were fighting him in the aggro range! Please FIX it.
We never had such a terrible experience with Lupicus. First time in path 3 we beated him at the third attempt, in path 2 at the first try and in path 1 at the second…
Anyway, bugs apart, I love the fight with Lupicus, I think it is a smart designed boss.

Then Dwayna…
We were 2 Rangers, 2 Eles and 1 Mesmer/Thief/Ele (we had to swap the fifth guild member cause not everyone can stand 8 hours in a dungeon) all with high DPS…
First of all you HATE to be a Ranger: this kitten pet keeps aggroing sparks and goes wherever he wants. Do you try to swap him or recall with F3? No you can’t because you are gonna be petrified, downed, your swap-pet is recharging, you recall but he don’t move, he dies but he aggroes anyway!!! There is nothing more frustrating than this, trust me. Let us ranger hide our pet if we want to, please!
We felt so useless… You can’t be the two people who aggroes the sparks because with a pet it’s an impossible task. You just stand with your back attached to a wall hoping your pet wont move. The only position available was the south wall, while the two Eles run to aggro the sparks.
We did 4-1, our best was to get Simin at 50% and then 20% or so…
Then there was always a spark who won’t aggro, an Ele who got petrified at the moment he had to run, someone who got downed because after 8 hours we weren’t able to focus on the areas of the ground… :P
This is a matter of luck, not certainly a matter of skillness.
Yes, let your QA team go there with 5 full berseker warriors and then tell us you don’t think this path need a fix.
What have you done in the past patches? You fixed area skills which were damaging Simin when she was stealthed? That’s really the kind of fixes the game needed and we were waiting for.

2 days ago I saw someone on a website party-finder selling spots for the final boss of path 4 for 20 golds. I thought it was foolish to pay like this for a dungeon.
Now I think in 8 hours I could have earned more then 20 golds, even doing something fun.

Dungeon Master was my endgame goal. Now I don’t want it anymore. I won’t waste my time in this crap anymore until you fix it. Maybe next year.

Running sparks perfectly and finding the best spot to fight her is really important. It is possible and doesn’t involve luck. Each class has to do its role. I’ll end it by saying that ranger should not run sparks if the sparks take aggro.

MadRage.1584:

Running sparks perfectly and finding the best spot to fight her is really important. It is possible and doesn’t involve luck. Each class has to do its role. I’ll end it by saying that ranger should not run sparks if the sparks take aggro.

We were not running sparks with Rangers, we wanted just to DPS her. But you can’t move with a Ranger in the central zone around the statue cause the pet keeps moving and he ruins the run for the two peoples who are aggroing sparks north/south.
You can pull Dwayna south, or north, away from the central statue and the sparks spawn zone, but then you force the 2 spark-runners to run before she get unstealthed to be in the correct position at the right moment, so you loose DPS, which you won’t loose fighting in the middle.
I only saw one video with a Ranger fighting Simin and obviously he was keeping the pet peaceful and stood far away immobile, doing ranged damage.

Anyway nothing will convince me to re-try this crap apart a fix. I have no desire to waste time anymore only for a title that now seems stupid to me. If I have 20 golds to waste one day maybe I’ll give them to some path-4 runner who sells spots, because I believe you can do this path: 2-3 full berserker warriors (or even 5) , NO rangers, maybe Mesmer with time warp… if you are in the lucky classes enjoy.

Iridiana.9078:

MadRage.1584:

Running sparks perfectly and finding the best spot to fight her is really important. It is possible and doesn’t involve luck. Each class has to do its role. I’ll end it by saying that ranger should not run sparks if the sparks take aggro.

We were not running sparks with Rangers, we wanted just to DPS her. But you can’t move with a Ranger in the central zone around the statue cause the pet keeps moving and he ruins the run for the two peoples who are aggroing sparks north/south.
You can pull Dwayna south, or north, away from the central statue and the sparks spawn zone, but then you force the 2 spark-runners to run before she get unstealthed to be in the correct position at the right moment, so you loose DPS, which you won’t loose fighting in the middle.
I only saw one video with a Ranger fighting Simin and obviously he was keeping the pet peaceful and stood far away immobile, doing ranged damage.

Anyway nothing will convince me to re-try this crap apart a fix. I have no desire to waste time anymore only for a title that now seems stupid to me. If I have 20 golds to waste one day maybe I’ll give them to some path-4 runner who sells spots, because I believe you can do this path: 2-3 full berserker warriors (or even 5) , NO rangers, maybe Mesmer with time warp… if you are in the lucky classes enjoy.

Just wanted to say that in my [successful] path 4 run, last week, a ranger was in our group and she had no problem running the 2 sparks at the back wall of the cave.

I think your issues are mostly DPS (on paper it sounds nearly impossible for your group to do the damage needed in the small amounts of time allotted) as well as not completely understanding how to lock the sparks in place (the straight line method I outlined above). 2 rangers 2 eles & a mesmer sound like they’d be too slow to accomplish the appropriate DPS, not to mention the group sounds like it lacks any sort of main tank to hold simin in place & take all the single target petrifies for the group.

You pretty much need either guardians/warriors/mesmers, maybe a necro or 2 (they can tank as well as use their lich form elites for good damage ((especially under time warp— damage is insane when those 2 elites are combined, lich form & time warp)).

A single or maybe two rangers / eles / engineers is workable (you’ll almost NEED time warp for that, though), but the group as -primarily- eles & rangers feels like one that would be near impossible to do the amount of damage necessary, as fast as you have to.

It certainly is possible, but I figure that with the amount of precision (with skill usage, tears, and sparks), all berserker gear, power traits, and the optimal cycling of skills that would be required— not many people would be organized / fast enough to deal whats needed.

I will instantly admit I’m wrong if anyone has a recent video of all rangers / eles / engineers pulling this off.

I challenge the devs to record themselves pulling it off with your group.

When I completed this path, it was with guildies and subpar DPS. We had 1 glass warr (me), 1 mesmer (glass), 1 ranger (tanky gear), 1 support ele, 1 hammer guardian. I agree 100% this would have been so much easier with heavy dps. Sparks are unreliable/sometimes buggy and overall a source of much frustration, even if you do the runs correctly and run them right past the traps.

Explaining the 4-1 method a bit:

• DPS simin to 45%
• Run 4 sparks in so all 5 shields will go up
• Wait till she regens and unstealths
• DPS her down to 45% again
• Quickly run one spark in, make the shields explode and unstealth her
• Mad DPS (if you have high DPS party, like a bunch of zerker warrs, you can finish her off on this go with timewarp)
• On lower DPS you need a near perfect sparkrun now, if you mess up, it’s better to start again and not waste time/frustrate yourself
• Pop timewarp, final mad DPS and hope for the best

Things to keep in mind:
- Pick your spot where you fight her and stock up on tears
- It’s a good idea to fight her a bit away from the shrine, so her/other than runners won’t aggro the sparks
- Swap out your armorpieces that spawn pets (rock dogs, golems, etc)
- Have rangers stove pets, they can randomly mess up spark aggro
- Glass > tanky, she doesn’t do much damage, so more pew-pew is preferred
- Have the two lowest DPS party members go on petrify aggro (guardian is perfect for it) and the other on tear duty
- Your rate of success with this path will be much better if you have a mesmer for timewarp spike damage, someone to stack vulna and more than one zerker warr/thief in party

This is a high level DPS check boss. You can’t damage her anymore when she is invis, so ignore any tips that suggest using poison and so on. Atleast on the other hand, she’s the only hard boss in this path and you can faceroll the final one after you’re done with her.

Good luck to everyone with her, it’s a long, but fun path overall.

We already knew all the suggestions, and how to run sparks in line, 4-1, that you can’t damage Simin while she’s stealthed anymore, etc. etc…
If the matter is party composition I would like to say this boss seems even more stupid to me. Why if we have accomplished every dungeon’s path with whatever team we wanted now we have to search other players with other classes? Isn’t this against their philosophy?
So it doesn’t matter your skillness. It counts that you have warriors (and mesmer/thief) level 80 full exotic/ascended berseker.
I’m not going to spend hours playing a warrior/mesmer till level 80 and golds to equipe him only to kill such a boss.
So if this is a class/equipe discriminating path I’ll let enjoy it for the lucky people who can.

Any updates to this by chance? I would be curious if any changes would be coming in the January patch.

I just tried / failed this tonight with a static group that have finished the other 3 paths easily. For some reason or another, we came really close to finishing her off the first time, but struggled every other attempt. She seemed to reset to full health at around the 60% – 70% mark when she was stealthed instead of a slow regen while we were gathering sparks.

We followed the suggestions, but we just did not have any success on it. Just seems too random of a success rate with the DPS check.

I remember the CoF Path 1 Effigy was nerfed (if I remember right) for the same reason of a high regen rate except the Effigy wasn’t stealthed and you didn’t have to kite any sparks. It was a DPS check for sure

Consisted of 2 warriors, 1 guardian, 1 necro, and 1 mesmer

Read someone’s strat for this and they went to 50, stealth, run sparks, heal to 80, dps to 40, stealth, run sparks, heal to 70, dps to 30 etc etc.. and that’d be great! Except while running sparks she’s healing nice and steadily/slowly and then all the sudden her health instantly jumps from 70 to 100%. We started w/ 3 dps and 2 not so dps and got her pretty low, then having read on here we switched to all dps toons and ended up doing worse. 4 of us in the group need only this path for dungeon master so we’re not talking noobs here, static group, voice chat, etc. I’m all for challenging, but having her health instantly pop 30% is a bug.

Kethraveris.6053:

Read someone’s strat for this and they went to 50, stealth, run sparks, heal to 80, dps to 40, stealth, run sparks, heal to 70, dps to 30 etc etc.. and that’d be great! Except while running sparks she’s healing nice and steadily/slowly and then all the sudden her health instantly jumps from 70 to 100%. We started w/ 3 dps and 2 not so dps and got her pretty low, then having read on here we switched to all dps toons and ended up doing worse. 4 of us in the group need only this path for dungeon master so we’re not talking noobs here, static group, voice chat, etc. I’m all for challenging, but having her health instantly pop 30% is a bug.

How long does it take for your group to run all 5 sparks?

If only I can bring my GW1 character and cast Empathy, Backfire and Division. All these bosses would go down so fast.

Count me in to the group of players, who think there’s something wrong with Simin. If the QA team says it’s ok, I just don’t buy it. We are quite good with dungeons, Lupi is peace of cake for us, Subject Alphas is a joke. Tried to do Simin several hours. The sparks just do not get into slots, there is always 1 left, that is hovering around its slot, but do not want to get in. Tried the 4-1 exploit as well, but were unable to burst DPS with 2 DPS warriors and mesmer with time warp. So, no, thank you very much, will wait for some fix here… Not going to do it another several hours just in hope the spark will finally by luck park properly in required short time.

Shakki.3219:

The base attack doesn’t really help you alot… My Necro got 3488 base Attack and about 3800 with nourishments and the damage is not comparable at all to my thief who got 3300 atk

Are you using Dagger/* for this fight? If not you should be. I’m running a full power build on my necro with 85% crit damage and I would say his damage is more than adequate. Power dagger with wells can pump out quite a bit of damage.

While I appreciate and thank you for working on fixing this encounter, the fixes you describe don’t encourage me enough to risk another 12 hour run.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Hey folks, here’s an update on the situation that you will soon see in an upcoming content patch:

I made it so that the sparks will better follow players. They will try to get closer to the player before using their skill, and their skill recharges faster, so they will spend less time standing around after using a skill. I also made them prefer player targets so that they won’t just attack a minion/pet/npc if a player is nearby.

While her healing is a factor, I felt the main problem was the spark behavior. The changes I described above make them better follow the player, which is in line with the mechanic of the fight.
I’ll be keeping an eye on it though.

Simply great changes, non nerfing her healing rate while improving sparks’ behaviour.

What “skill” are you refering to that the sparks use?

I didn’t realise they were using a skill. Is it a skill that lets them into the circle?

thanks rob, i think i’ll try it in the next days

PowerCat.5738:

What “skill” are you refering to that the sparks use?

I didn’t realise they were using a skill. Is it a skill that lets them into the circle?

Skill = simple ranged attack.