Guild Wars 2

Yeah that’s it. Done them all but not it in a while. What are your thoughts to for bringing new people into Arah?

If you have everyone on voice comms and they are running competent gear(Zerker/Knights/Cavaliers), Path 1. The Ooze boss goes easy on the rock spot near the turrets, Shoggroth is easy with reflects + burning, and Korga is skipped as usual. We had alot of first timers run with us and it took around 25-30 mins.

It’s a split between path two and three. Two has a brutal skip at the end and three has the brutal skip after the first boss. On the other hand, Alphard is basically a pug destroyer.

If you know what you’re doing and can log to a reflect class, path two easily. Otherwise, path three.

Path four is a nightmare and path one has the giant skip after ooze which is basically a pug destroyer in itself.

Path 3 is the easiest in groups by a clear mile I’d say. Path 1 is easiest if solo. Other people only get in the way for crystallines and running past trash (luring oozes everywhere and elite drakes etc).

If you have a mesmer, the run from crystallines to shogg is not so bad because you can portal. That’s really the hardest part of p1.

I would say Path 3, but I hate the Hunter/Crusher fight with a passion. They attack you in a way only matched by Orrian Drakes… By hitting your FPS.

I think p4 has the easiest bosses and trash skips, it’s quite long compared to the others though. Also Simin can be a harsh dps check for casual players.

Personally, I find path one the easiest, but I run it on a thief. Just stealth through the giant skip after the Ancient Ooze.

Well we wouldn’t be doing it solo, we’d be doing it ‘legit’ meaning everyone is terrible.

So in that context.

path 3 is the least annoying path if you’re pugging. if you pug p2 pugs will stack too near alphard and get the whole party killed (if they melee, though I think some pugs range), and they will take years to do the spider/end skips.

Not pugs. Guildies. But newer ones.

P1 is the easiest. Ooze is always coral, champs can be soloed, tar is very forgiving with people being able to rally on little tars(whatever they are called) and the last boss is pretty afk. The skip to it might get tricky but only one has to make it. Only issue is wiping on lupi which may happen forcing everybody to redo the whole skip.
P2 has alphard and the arguably “hard” skips after belka and after alphard. Alphard is actually doable with full group of incompetent players because (s)he focuses on one target so others can revive themselves with #4. A mesmer that just spams reflects makes it trivial. Guardian has to put wall inside the boss to make it work.
P3 skip(after hunter+crusher) is actually harder because it’s pretty difficult to not get in combat or soft-cced with chills/dazes. But if you have a thief( even shadow refuge is enough) it’s not an issue.
P4 is too long and if your group has bad dps you’ll fall asleep at melandru and simin.

robertul.3679:

P1 is the easiest. Ooze is always coral, champs can be soloed, tar is very forgiving with people being able to rally on little tars(whatever they are called) and the last boss is pretty afk. The skip to it might get tricky but only one has to make it. Only issue is wiping on lupi which may happen forcing everybody to redo the whole skip.
P2 has alphard and the arguably “hard” skips after belka and after alphard. Alphard is actually doable with full group of incompetent players because (s)he focuses on one target so others can revive themselves with #4. A mesmer that just spams reflects makes it trivial. Guardian has to put wall inside the boss to make it work.
P3 skip(after hunter+crusher) is actually harder because it’s pretty difficult to not get in combat or soft-cced with chills/dazes. But if you have a thief( even shadow refuge is enough) it’s not an issue.
P4 is too long and if your group has bad dps you’ll fall asleep at melandru and simin.

I don’t know about you but it seems to be beyond mere AI abuse to use the coral tree for ooze, so I avoid doing so because I don’t like to be reliant on exploits for doing things. It’s one of those things that’s borderline… not really sure. I don’t frown upon anyone that uses it, but it definitely seems like it must be unintended. Safespotting a boss? Yeah, no. So, with that in mind… it’s pretty chaotic for a group to fight this boss out in the open. Probably no easier than it is to solo it.

For crystalline entities, you said it yourself… can be solod. I think you were more than likely implying that you may as well just let someone solo it as other people only get in the way. It’s true… whether intended or unintended, this encounter is designed to be solod.

For tar, it can’t be solod so nothing to mention.

For the last encounter… it makes almost no difference with respect to time solo or with a group. If anything, it’s SLOWER in a group if he targets someone with lower precision/chance to crit and lower crit dmg %, as the reflects won’t hit as much.

Because of what I mentioned above… I’m pretty firm on my statement that Path 1 is the easiest path for soloing specifically rather than for groups. Path 3 is tougher to solo than Path 1 is by far (omit shoggroth obviously), but it’s trivialized in a group. Wouldn’t you agree with me that generally speaking, path 3 doesn’t exactly have much of a steep learning curve in a group? Aside from trash skips and the light orbs, there’s almost nothing that you can’t easily skate by without knowing what’s going on other than DPS DPS DPS.

I’d have to say P3 would be your best bet.

guanlongwucaii.3162:

path 3 is the least annoying path if you’re pugging. if you pug p2 pugs will stack too near alphard and get the whole party killed (if they melee, though I think some pugs range), and they will take years to do the spider/end skips.

Seems pugs mostly range Alphard. The boat skip seems to be pretty standard again as well.

@Purple Miku
Yes. Ooze coral is sketchy but it’s the norm even and especially in speed runs. You can always afk range it if you feel it’s cheating to safespot. Champs are better to solo because people who kite them outside the light areas means you’ll probably die or lose the buff stacks.
P3 in bad dps groups is a bit brutal. The 4 silvers at the gate hit like a truck so if you don’t kill them fast enough you’re looking at a lot of wipes. On the same idea, hunter will immobilize you a lot more than you can remove it so if you drag the fight for too long and can survive the poison sooner or later you’ll get hit by the instakill from crusher. You can get one guy to keep hunter busy and push him around I guess.The skip afterwards is terrible. The mage can be safespotted which is also sketchy so without perma reflects wipes can and will occur. Orbs are almost impossible to fail with 5 people. The ritual can take forever if people just rush in and yolo the wraiths which happens quite a lot for some reason.
So p3 doesn’t have a steep learning curve but it can take very long and it’s a dps check while p1 is not.

@robertul

Don’t take this the wrong way; not trying to be a pain I just enjoy discussing this :P

First, with the ooze… I have been consistently pulling it in the area right before the turrets and fighting it out in the open, GS + axe/sword. It’s ~4 mins each solo this way for me. I was told to range it by a few watching my stream before, but christ that’d be inefficient. Either way I kind of wish they’d give ooze an extra attack to force people off of the coral (and any other elevated objects). Stacking/LOSing is a legitimate strategy whether people like it or not, but safespotting bosses? Bleh.

Second, I know what you’re referring to when you say “4 silvers”… the four elite risen guards preceding crusher/hunter area… but why are they called silvers? I’ve seen that before on the forums and have wondered. But, about those… you know if they’re hunters, elementalists or devastators they can be pulled all the way to the start where all the NPC’s are. The only ones that won’t follow you that far are sentinels, berserkers, and defilers. To be honest the most dangerous of all of them is always the sentinel because it’s reasonably easy to evade/flee from all the others…. but not if you get trapped in his domes and chain-stunned.

Hunter actually will not immobilize you more than you’re able to remove it unless you don’t dodge his bouncing shot. Note: bouncing shot. NPC will guarantee a wipe if you engage the fight with her alive. Aside from that, it’s so SO trivial even in a group of idiots. Crusher frequently changes targets and is the only one of the pair that can actually damage.

The skip afterwards terrible? I run around the corner immediately during my solos and with sword/warhorn equipped, don’t even end up using my utils. Even if you get chilled by an elementalist that’s easily rectifiable and it’s pretty much all about dodgeroll spamming. I can see the skip sucking only if you’re running behind others and there happens to be multiple illusionists. Other than that as long as there aren’t any vile oozes around… there’s no way in hell it’s worse than P1’s run :P

Orbs impossible to fail with 5 people?! AHEM I’ve had to use my watchwork portal devices before in pug groups. The average person is way beyond inept for the light orbs in P3. All you need is one person to stand ~2/3 of the way and wait for you to pass it to them, yet the vast majority of the time even people that claim to know what to do aren’t capable of doing it without fail after fail after fail. Perhaps I’m just a bad luck magnet or something.

The ritual doesn’t usually take a very long time even with the worst of pugs, I find. The people who are truly awful will end up dying inside one of the rings and once they’re gone you’re good to go. :P

As for DPS check… meh. I’m not really sure if I agree with it being much of a DPS check unless you try to get people to stack for Wraithlord. In that case, yes. Aside from that, hardly much.

I find oozes annoying in general. I guess it’s fun to do with good movement but a slow class like mesmer/necro might have some issues. Ranger sword root? Also if someone from the group doesn’t get away fast enough and it starts to move a lot of bad things can happen like aggroing other mobs, corpses and even the attacks themselves hit pretty kitten hard.
Silvers because they deserve a silver medal given their huge hp and hard hits which are insanely scaled(illusionist chaos storm for example). Also they have a silver circle around their pretty faces.
I don’t find crusher/hunter trivial. Maybe I’m a bad player. The poison hits hard those who don’t have afk regen signet even if you stay inside like 1-2s, the immobilize doesn’t get always removed especially if it’s covered with other condis(mostly cripple,vuln,poison) and not everybody has a nice evade skill that works while immobilized with a small cooldown. In good dps groups it’s an afk fight mostly(stay behind crusher) but after you burned all your duration blocks, condi removals, evades etc. you may be in a bad place.
I understand you play warrior so a lot of things are easier. Even if you’re like the worst warrior in the world you can use sword/shield and greatsword rush+whirlwind and bull’s charge. If you still somehow manage to get hit hard enough to get a major drop in your 18k hp you can use endure pain and defiant stance to get around 6s(?) of invulnerability(almost) and restore hp to full. But then maybe you still have issues. No problem, use elite skill rampage to double toughness and triple vitality while also having another rush-like skill.
Speaking of orbs I was wrong. Had 4 people who couldn’t run them.
I still stand by my position regarding the ritual. They screw it up so badly by aggroing the mobs and it’s annoying to say the least trying to get them back following you.

Purple Miku.7032:

Second, I know what you’re referring to when you say “4 silvers”… the four elite risen guards preceding crusher/hunter area… but why are they called silvers?

They’re called “silver” mobs because they have a silver ring around their icon when you target them (normal mobs have no ring, veterans have bronze ring, champs have gold ring, legendaries have purple ring). Until relatively recently the silver enemies did not have the word “Elite” in their name.

laharl.8435:

guanlongwucaii.3162:

path 3 is the least annoying path if you’re pugging. if you pug p2 pugs will stack too near alphard and get the whole party killed (if they melee, though I think some pugs range), and they will take years to do the spider/end skips.

Seems pugs mostly range Alphard. The boat skip seems to be pretty standard again as well.

boat skip is harder than doing the actual run itself imo

funny thing happened a few days back. I joined a pug at the end boss and they were clearing all the mobs on the skip just because they couldn’t make the run. they had a thief and 3 of them were from the same guild (1 was a miserable pug mesmer who wasn’t very happy)

P1 is fine, but if you are doing it with less experienced players, I would go with P3. Only for this reason: If you wipe at Lupi (and if you are not experienced, this is a possibility), P1 has a terribly long run back to him. P3’s run back to Lupi is easy (no enemies)…and the rest of the dungeon is easy as well.