Guild Wars 2

Hi guys,
a lot of people in our guild still need arah p2 for dungeon master. We originally planned a run in a couple of days to take newbies through it but since I read a couple of topics on the changes I’m looking for some advice on how to do it now.

First off, let me tell you we’re not bothered with taking a little bit longer than it used to take. We’re a fairly casual guild when it comes to dungeons (a lot are more interested in PvP) so we usually range lupi, you know, the pug way… I tell you this so you know the lack of skill you’re dealing with here. Also, we want to actually play the dungeon so I don’t need info on exploits.

Now for the questions, for Alphard the easiest way to kill him seems to be pulling him behind those barrels and constant reflection upkeep. Am I right about this? If so, is there anything special I need to watch out for? The vid I saw of 2 mesmers they didn’t even seem to dodge.

Second question, I read the divine piazza WP doesn’t spawn anymore till way later. How much later is this? I assume you need to kill the berserking abomination or w/e he’s called? If so, how horribly long would it take to not skip the golem part?

TY for taking the time to read/reply.

You are correct about Alphard. Don’t crush her in the corner; give her some breathing room. Reflects may be a bit buggy when they intersect with objects. Mesmer’s phantasmal warden, for instance, might not block her projectiles if the spherical reflect is partly in the wall. Temporal curtain should be dropped on top of her; guardian’s Wall of Reflection might be the same.

You can hide behind the barrels when she moves back to the center and fires her lightning balls.

That said, I think she was quietly fixed in yesterday’s mini-patch. (I hope . . . I really do.) I happened to get a group together since one guildie wanted to see the “new” Alphard. Her red AoE reticle showed up a second before the bomb attack during this run and we had enough time to dodge. Prior to yesterday’s mini patch, the red reticle showed up after, or instantly detonated 2-3 times.

The Divine Piazza WP shows up after you beat the abomination.

It doesn’t take long to skip the golem part as long as everyone can run the spider room. Jump up some boulders on the left near the final turn in order to hop through a tunnel and bypass the electrocution station, whatever it’s called.

Edit, edit, edit. Anyway, I’d be interested to hear what you find on your run, if you can update here.

Thank you for your reply! That clears a lot of stuff up.

Tierce.5370:

It doesn’t take long to skip the golem part as long as everyone can run the spider room. Jump up some boulders on the left near the final turn in order to hop through a tunnel and bypass the electrocution station, whatever it’s called.

We got 3 new people and I’m not sure which class they’ll be running, so this might still be a problem but we’ll improvise. Maybe with a mesmer portal or a thief for perma stealth. Maybe we’ll even do the golem, I think none of us ever bothered to try even. :P

Anyway, I’ll post an update with how painful it was. lol

As for the golem part, smokescreen + blast + shadow refuge can just take your whole party through without much trouble (considering you said you’re more PvP focused, I’m guessing you know the smoke field + blast quite well). The WP there doesn’t spawn until after abomination dies, which makes its existence completely pointless.

The pug way for p2 now seems to be to pull her back and range her (near the “bridge” thing on the left) and LoS when she spins back at the center. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-TooTDEMXo also gives a good explanation of what to do. It’s important to note that anyone getting hit by the pull will generate the bomb, but I think you may already know that.

As for whether they hotfixed Alphard, I did do a solo p2 run yesterday and during it I ran out of endurance and had to use endure pain when Alphard pulled. It seemed like the bomb still triggered instantly like it currently does, and it hit me 4 times in total (checked the combat log after).

Wardens work pretty well for the pull, so does feedback and curtain might work too. Guardian’s wall doesn’t. I keep hearing people that staying inside the wall or right behind it works but in my short tests it was not the case. Shield does work but we all know it sometimes kitten s around and stops for brief periods of time.
As a safe bet, stay at max meele range and watch the animation for the pull(a little crouch and spin), dodge it twice backwards. If anyone fails the dodge, you should still be pretty far away and escape unharmed. Keep in mind that the actual blast radius is about 10-20% larger than the red circle.
The fight is actually very forgiving on mistakes and even if everybody gets downed, as long as you’re safe from the spinballs the whole party can revive from downed state.
I don’t recommend ranging because it’s actually harder. If one person gets hit by the ball it bounces and results in a party-wide downed state which the 2nd ball will take care of in 90% of the cases.

I have found that if alphard is INSIDE the wall and your not stacked on her (like max melee range) the wall always works to block the bomb attack.

Phoenix.2518:

The pug way for p2 now seems to be to pull her back and range her (near the “bridge” thing on the left) and LoS when she spins back at the center.

That’s what we used to do a long time ago but it was kind of an exploit. She wouldn’t get any clones up or even try to pull at all. Has this been fixed or is it still just strafing (basically afk fight)?

As for the rest. Ty all for being so helpful. I guess we’ll see for ourselves whether wall does or doesn’t work etc etc. It will be fun experimenting since we’re on TS anyway.

Tierce.5370:

Edit, edit, edit. Anyway, I’d be interested to hear what you find on your run, if you can update here.

We did the run today and overall it was not too bad. The run at the golem is really easy. We just did it seperately while hugging the left wall and once we found the opening to skip the turret we all got through unharmed. TBH I don’t get why ppl rage about this. We all did it with more squishy classes like ele and mesmer and had no problems.

As for Alphard, we tried stacking at first but our mesmer wasn’t too experienced with keeping reflects up 100% of the time and maybe we did something wrong but wall wasn’t working at all, so we ended up pulling her to the left and strafing. That way it’s really easy to see the pull and dodge it. The pull itself also doesn’t rly do much damage but the barrels explode immediately in your face, so instant down.

Overall the run took about an hour. Not all too bad considering 3 had never been in Arah before. I really don’t get all the commotion. We’re pretty much noobs and did it fairly painless lol.

cranos.5913:

TBH I don’t get why ppl rage about this.

There are lots of answers to this. But, uh, yeah.

cranos.5913:

As for Alphard, we tried stacking at first but our mesmer wasn’t too experienced with keeping reflects up 100% of the time and maybe we did something wrong but wall wasn’t working at all, so we ended up pulling her to the left and strafing. That way it’s really easy to see the pull and dodge it.

Cool, I never actually did that before, always kited her around boxes. Now we just make our mes Reflect All The Things that the guardians can’t. Anyway, glad to hear your run went well!