Guild Wars 2

The mechanics in this fight are great, but the damage is stupidly high for almost every attack. Not every attack a boss does should be a one-shot kill, and right now his auto-attack, AoE attacks, and shadowstep can all kill most characters. And with the time it takes to res, even if someone helps you, that phase simply becomes a near-impossible uphill battle once someone is defeated — it’s nearly impossible to bring them back up, out of AoE, away from the boss, without getting hit by SOMETHING that kills them right away again.

Oh, and this might be a bug, but he seems to reset on occasion without reason… that’s pretty stupid too.

No, it doesnt need a nerf. Its a 10,000 years old boss that was destroyed by the coming of the Elder Dragons.

Here is a guide I wrote, for those that need help.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Guide-to-Kill-Giganticus-Lupicus-in-the-Arah-Dungeon/first#post247217

Use damage reduction traits, use consumables, use dodges. Its not that hard if you follow simple dungeon steps that most forget, haven’t tried or dont care about.

The reset might be a bug, but if you try to pull the boss out of the arena, or anywhere near the main entrance. Itll reset, as your not aloud to pull it out. Also, if your whole team goes invis, then itll reset the boss.

I completely disagree. You’re not supposed to be getting hit with any of those. From what I’ve seen the fight is very controlled and balanced, with a few notable exceptions.

Now I did see one problem (besides the resetting and healing to full of course), and that’s that his aoe hits people that are standing in areas that are indicated as safe. Those areas need to either be properly indicated as deadly, or they need to actually be safe. Being killed by an aoe that you’re not standing within 10 yards of is not cool.

Other than that, phase one is very controllable and steady, his shadowstep is ridiculously easy to dodge, and you should never be getting meleed. The whole fight is not a dps race at all. Its going to take a long time to down (15 minutes or better probably).

The only problem I have and I hate it that while I can dodge all of his aoe, shadow step, etc, he has this one annoying auto attack where the animation is a green line zipping in the air in an almost impossible to tell direction and hits you. That would be fine however but there is no warning as to where it will hit so you kind of have to guess where it will land. Also it animation is exactly the same as one of the aoes so it gets pretty confusing. That’s really the only thing that’s killing me.

Exotics dropping are just a myth. I even got a white from this boss, go figure. (no MF).

Nice guide, congrats.

The passage from phase 1 to phase 2 seems what wipe the most parties. As you wrote, his invulnerability is the signal, but needs 1 player attacking him ranged, fast, like a ranger with bow for example. A staff coule be slow to detect it.

So i was playing this boss, how to kill him seemed understandable and fair, what was absolutely a waste of a few hours was how he would just instantly regain full health after a while. No matter how many people were in the room attacking him, got him to under 50% hp, then suddenly he would just regain all his health INSTANTLY, not REGEN, instant heal to full health. No way to kill him after hours of playing the map, no reward, no tokens, nothing…. Ive been playing the Guild Wars Series for over 6 years, and nothing was angered me more than this, it makes me want to put the game down, but i don’t really don’t want to, it has so much potential. But it seems the devs don’t even test their updates. If they did, they would see that things like that is whats driving their customers/audience to other MMOs like WoW.

Chilsung.3710:

I completely disagree. You’re not supposed to be getting hit with any of those. From what I’ve seen the fight is very controlled and balanced, with a few notable exceptions.

Sure, I agree: you’re not supposed to be getting hit by any of those attacks. But there’s a difference between being PUNISHED for failing to dodge something (it’s entirely possible to dodge out of one circle into another because of how clustered/overlapping the AoE sometimes is) and being KILLED for it. And again, I bring up the point that it’s nearly impossible to recover once someone is down because it’s nearly impossible to res them before another hit of AoE damage kills them — and you, if you’re standing near them to res.

Try using combat rezzes. Toss Elixir R, battle standard, illusion of life, glyph of [revival], the ranger’s revival spirit, etc.

Giganticus Lupicus caused massive problems for my grp too. We were all on vent, had full exotic gear, still couldn’t get him down and yes we did read online guides. He’s just impossible and it’s really making me rethink which legendary I want to go for now.

Sidenote, I’m sick of the same people on multiple arah threads trying to drown people out. Let everyone have their say.

Instead of complaining because you died 4x, why not sort out your tactics some more. Try things. 90% of my Lupicus runs, it’s the kite that screws up and downs. I don’t blame them or me if it happens, because this boss is hard. So we always have combat resses, we always pull through.

Just read my guide, get wiped 3-4 times. And youll get through

moodycactus.5260:

Oh wow, the usual suspects both replied within ten mins. Totally didn’t expect that.

If you mean Inci & DKP, they aren’t drowning people out. They’re giving advice and guides.

Kana.6793:

moodycactus.5260:

Oh wow, the usual suspects both replied within ten mins. Totally didn’t expect that.

If you mean Inci & DKP, they aren’t drowning people out. They’re giving advice and guides.

People quit too easily, and then their pride hurts because they’ve just been trying the best they could at that time and it wasn’t enough. While you can be amazing and do the best you can, if your tactics or party can’t get anything done, you won’t either.

What I’m trying to do is get people to take a different approach once in a while.. Even offering to play with them, but then suddenly everything gets very quiet except for the few people who actually didn’t complain in the first place.

He’s really not so bad. Go in ranged-heavy, with a warrior dedicated exclusively to support (no damage). Battle standard, warhorn, banner of precision and tactics. That warrior’s job is to stay alive, keep speed up on as many people as possible, apply the fury buff when possible, convert conditions when appropriate and most important pick people up that are downed.

Do not try to kite the first part. Stack on top of each other, and kill all of the adds as your ranged handles the boss. 2 need to kill the adds— grubs and gnats. Don’t allow the NPC to live and don’t have any pets on the boss or you’ll get stacks on the boss.

If, by chance, you do get a stack on the boss just walk out and reset him.

If they would remove the Gift of Zhaitan requirement from the legendary staff, I could happily ignore Arah. However, because it’s there and I want the staff, I have to deal with poor game design. I am defining poor game design as something that requires too much time, too high of a learning curve and doesn’t provide enough of a reward. Designing game content that maybe 20% of your players will ever see is foolish in my opinion.

I disagree, albeit maybe things as they stand could use a few minor tweaks, I appreciate things seem epic and extremely challenging or nigh impossible. I think as it is, in game content is very easy to obtain compared to gw1 and other mmo’s before. I remember in GW1 spending 2 hours doing a dungeon drop, and getting zero rewards from the end boss…and doing it 10 more times, and finally getting one drop, and it wasn’t for my class. So, after 20 hours, I still had absolutely nothing to show for it. And because of the rarity, I couldnt ‘buy’ as no one was selling the weapons I was trying to obtain. There is at the very least, a gaurantee upon completion, and drops along the way. Designing content for even 5% of the players, makes it legendary.

This coming from someone who ALSO wants a staff, and am NOT looking forward to having to do this dungeon 50 times to obtain the gear and gift. But, with all the other requirements, it means, unlike all the other exotics, that I won’t be able to obtain this for some time…unlike everything else it seems. That I’m already level 80, with full exotic armour and jewelery and only half way through my story, and 55% world completion, is actually a bummer to me.

Schwa.1620:

He’s really not so bad. Go in ranged-heavy, with a warrior dedicated exclusively to support (no damage). Battle standard, warhorn, banner of precision and tactics. That warrior’s job is to stay alive, keep speed up on as many people as possible, apply the fury buff when possible, convert conditions when appropriate and most important pick people up that are downed.

Do not try to kite the first part. Stack on top of each other, and kill all of the adds as your ranged handles the boss. 2 need to kill the adds— grubs and gnats. Don’t allow the NPC to live and don’t have any pets on the boss or you’ll get stacks on the boss.

If, by chance, you do get a stack on the boss just walk out and reset him.

Guardians are better equipped to res people in this fight though, but I still prefer running alot of combat resses here, as you have to potentially res in aoe.

Auturgist.8256:

The mechanics in this fight are great, but the damage is stupidly high for almost every attack. Not every attack a boss does should be a one-shot kill, and right now his auto-attack, AoE attacks, and shadowstep can all kill most characters. And with the time it takes to res, even if someone helps you, that phase simply becomes a near-impossible uphill battle once someone is defeated — it’s nearly impossible to bring them back up, out of AoE, away from the boss, without getting hit by SOMETHING that kills them right away again.

Oh, and this might be a bug, but he seems to reset on occasion without reason… that’s pretty stupid too.

No he doesnt, hes perfectly fine, maybe hes one of the hardest bosses out there but hes doable when you know how your class works.

Just today we killed him twice with 2 different groups. Once it was on first try and second time it was with one wipe. Route 2 and 3 cleared with almost no problems.

This boss atleast keep away bad players and groups from finishing Arah untill they learn what to do right.

You all have to realize, Arah explorable is supposed to be the hardest dungeon in Guild wars 2 and it should not be easy to finish. So only the good players have Arah gear

I think the problem isn’t the boss. the problem is that if your group is not good enough to face him you get no reward for the dungeon. The chests don’t really matter. I think we can all agree that only tokens matter. Having such a tough boss is cool and I love the challenge, but if someone quits due to frustration you can not get the tokens.

Trik.1039:

If they would remove the Gift of Zhaitan requirement from the legendary staff, I could happily ignore Arah. However, because it’s there and I want the staff, I have to deal with poor game design. I am defining poor game design as something that requires too much time, too high of a learning curve and doesn’t provide enough of a reward. Designing game content that maybe 20% of your players will ever see is foolish in my opinion.

You’re trying to craft a legendary and you’re complaining about something that requires too much time.

Too much of a learning curve? Get over it, literally.These dungeons aren’t supposed to be easy.

How are only 20% of the players seeing the content? GW2 = skill based game, you don’t need gear, a ton of time, money, gold or anything other than your own skill to complete the content in GW2.

Kelthos Doombringer.9032:

Trik.1039:

If they would remove the Gift of Zhaitan requirement from the legendary staff, I could happily ignore Arah. However, because it’s there and I want the staff, I have to deal with poor game design. I am defining poor game design as something that requires too much time, too high of a learning curve and doesn’t provide enough of a reward. Designing game content that maybe 20% of your players will ever see is foolish in my opinion.

You’re trying to craft a legendary and you’re complaining about something that requires too much time.

Too much of a learning curve? Get over it, literally.These dungeons aren’t supposed to be easy.

How are only 20% of the players seeing the content? GW2 = skill based game, you don’t need gear, a ton of time, money, gold or anything other than your own skill to complete the content in GW2.

No, I’m complaining that the time investment went up at least ten fold for that single component. They already have anti farm code in place to drag out all of the other components, which take a massive amount of time and effort as is. I’m not complaining about time involved, I know it’s going to take a whole lot of time, especially gambling on the the Mystic Clovers. However, anyone who did a few days of shard farming doesn’t have to deal with this “new” grind. That’s kind of BS.

Also, while GW2 is a skill based game, you need a group of 4 other people that are also skilled. You need them to be on at the same time as you and you need them to stay through the entire dungeon. The current dungeon reward system is broken. It’s bad game design and you’re welcome to defend it all you want but it doesn’t change that it’s simply bad game design. You want people to play your game? Reward them for doing so. Although, I will admit it seems they don’t really want people to play. Anti farm code for drops, anti farm code for events, anti farm code for dungeon. This is the garbage that will eventually drive me away from the game. There are plenty of games that I can play that the don’t punish me for being good or efficient.

If the fact that 20% of GW2 players are seeing the end game content is true, it is a testament to how much they have opened it up to all levels of gaming.

Trik.1039:

There are plenty of games that I can play that the don’t punish me for being good or efficient.

that sentence confuses me. if you and your group were ‘good or efficient’ lupicus wouldn’t be a problem.

i’ve done lupicus many times, he’s fine and doesn’t need a nerf. let there be an actual prestigious armor set out there. If only we could take away the gear people got from shard farming…

(inc flames)

I would prefer if this boss had a waypoint outside the door, and the door was closed during the fight. This would accomplish:

1). Take out graveyard zerging from certain paths.
2). GW1 style fight where you had to go at it until you wiped, and couldn’t trickle people back in.
3). Remove the 5-minute journeys of empty passageways when people have to waypoint back.

I think this would make the encounter a lot more fun without really changing the difficulty.

I hope they don’t nerf him. He’s one of the best dungeon bosses I’ve fought. He’s supposed to not be a pushover.

Veracor.9175:

I would prefer if this boss had a waypoint outside the door, and the door was closed during the fight. This would accomplish:

1). Take out graveyard zerging from certain paths.
2). GW1 style fight where you had to go at it until you wiped, and couldn’t trickle people back in.
3). Remove the 5-minute journeys of empty passageways when people have to waypoint back.

I think this would make the encounter a lot more fun without really changing the difficulty.

I’m a little surprised this isn’t already a thing with every dungeon boss. Removing the downtime after failure is one of the single best things you can do to cut down on frustration, without actually making the fight any easier.

We managed to take him down a couple of times with the same group, all on mumble, and we actually found a good strategy against him. You need 1 elem, 1 necro, 1 guardian, 1 ranger + 1 random (an another ranger for max dps).
Elem : nice range + glyph of renewal
Necro: can tank him, pets are very important because the boss will attack them instead of you and he can fastly back you up if you are downed.
ranger: max range max dps keep him alive at all cost
guardian: nuff said

Phase 1 and 3 are ok but what makes him really, really hard is this random green bolt in phase 2. I think that attack should be remove or somewhat change, because no matter how good you are and know the strategy, sometimes you don’t have enough dodge and take twice in the row came of nowhere. Except that, the boss is fine.

This fight is one of the few that actually requires communication in the group. All boss fights should be at least like this one or even harder.

Its “END GAME” for crying out loud. If you expect to kill boss in two days in end game, you are just spoiled.

I remember wiping on end game bosses for weeks in other mmos before we finally managed to pull out strategy that killed the boss.

Quit whining.

All you need is a good tank that can kite, I use my tank/boon support guardian and kite him around and when he puts the bubble on me, renewned focus/shelter/focus skill 5

1. This is an old topic.

2. This is why we can’t have nice things. This is why we can’t have more challenging and unique bosses.

Lupicus is an easy boss. It’s 100% pattern recognition. When he does A you do B. When he does X you do Y. Simple stuff.

Path 1: stack together and kill grubs.

Phase 2: You see those giant circles? Stay out of them and away from the incoming projectiles. When he dashes to you, dodge.

Phase 3: Stay out of the incredibly easy to see incoming damage areas.

Bring projectiles blocking, if you’re an ele and you aren’t using a focus for this fight then you’re bad at dungeons.

Did it today, with a PuG, with a mesmer that wasn’t wearing any armor because he didn’t want to “waste” his cash. With only one guardian, me (we had 2 mesmer, one ele, one thief), who had never done this encounter as a guardian.
We did it on the first try.

If you don’t have the best gear, then you should take your time to kill it instead of trying to take it down in less than 10 minutes.

Sry , need a moment , was laughing to much.
He should be buffed not nerfed , i pug arah every day im online , i had no problems with it & btw that fight you can go naked if you want …. get in your head that playes skill>gear

Wasabi Kitty.8247:

Bring projectiles blocking, if you’re an ele and you aren’t using a focus for this fight then you’re bad at dungeons.

I used a focus for the first 2 lupicus encounters then for the next 28 I used a staff since my team got better at dodging so I could do more damage and Burning Retreat/Magnetic Aura/Windborne Speed around instead of Swirling Wind babysitting.

Ah ye lupy was soloed way to much times , so calling for a nerf … Just akcept it you re bad at the game , improve & that is it , its so simple. exotics , ts , guilds runs .. muahahaha

zencow.3651:

Wasabi Kitty.8247:

Bring projectiles blocking, if you’re an ele and you aren’t using a focus for this fight then you’re bad at dungeons.

I used a focus for the first 2 lupicus encounters then for the next 28 I used a staff since my team got better at dodging so I could do more damage and Burning Retreat/Magnetic Aura/Windborne Speed around instead of Swirling Wind babysitting.

Usually most people just kite him so your staff is pretty bad idea because it’s harder to land any aoe unless you’re okay with autoattacks. The best option would be if whole team stacked at him so you can hit him with hard hitting aoe on staff or scepter. If your team is too bad for that you can always grab d/d and chase him around.

Okay, so I did an Arah explorable path 3. When we got to Lupicus, I thought:“Ok, so this must be the hard boss everyone talks about”. My party leader, who is experienced, told us the strategy, and it was so easy. I have full Berserker gear, but I didn’t die even once.

I remember having problems with Lucipus too earlier. I did Arah for the first time after 2-4 weeks since launch and it seemed to be impossible. Maybe we excepted it to be easy but really it is the most difficult and the last dungeon in the whole game (atleast it used to be before Fractals). We had no Exotic gear even though that’s not the key for success there because you just need skills…

Now I have been running Arah daily and have no problems with it. I have always been a full glass cannon Warrior and haven’t had problems in dungeons really. Not in Arah or 30+ Fractals. Just need to know how the boss mechanics work.

And as a summary, it is one of the most challenging bosses in the game that is not even supposed to be easy. Go do AC or other lower level dungeons to gain some general experience. You can’t go straight to Arah at the moment you hit 80. I agree with people here not to nerf it, it would just be stupid. People seem to complain about everything that requires even a little bit skill or effort to complete…

I was one of those people who thought Lupicus was impossible to kill. My first time going there was frustating, it took 4 hours and I quit, knowing that I quit the team quit, I went out and found another team and beat it in 2 hours. Then after that I knew what skills to use and know how lupicus attacks were. Now I kill lupicus on the first try everytime I go to arah dungeon, and yes with pugs. My favorite boss lay off.

God, no. He’s the most interesting boss in the game.

My guild started trying out Arah recently, (only Path 3 so far, but we’re going to try the others). Our very first run through took us about 3 hours. Wiped several times, and had a blast doing it. Lupicus took us three tries. First time we let him get too many grubs, soon learned not to do that. Second time we got him almost to stage 3, but then he caught us together and we went down. Third time went extremely smooth, he only got one grub, and wasn’t really able to one shot any of us.

When we went back a couple of days later for another go, he went down first time and the dungeon took about 40-50 minutes.

As much as I hate to say it (but I will anyways) when people complain about Lupicus, it’s always a l2p issue. Please look at what you’re doing wrong, before complaining about the boss.

So what you’re saying is you want the “primary” boss of the level 80 dungeon, the hardest dungeon in the game, the most difficult “endgame” content and one of the few things that is actually a challenge in this game to be nerfed so you can get to your silly tokens faster.

Yes, I’m sure Zhaitan completely understands. Let me just check if he can get his thousand year old temple guard to tone it down a bit so that any group of any individuals who may or may not be inexperienced at the game can finish every dungeon path ever without facing resistance.

I like Lupicus being a harder boss. Now if I can stop being a noob and get out of all those red circles!

I disagree. This boss isn’t hard once you kill him. If full premade exotic party can’t kill him, there’s something wrong with you people, unless you aren’t 5 rangers..
Lupi is the hardest boss in game + probably the part of the endgame so why should be easy to kill? I din’t kill him in like 30 tries, but I wasn’t complaining on forums I tried it again. Now I have full arah set and I wouldn’t nerf Lupicus. Many people before you killed him so there’s no chance that he will be nerfed.

Lupi is an easy boss. There are good method and mechanics in it and all boss fights should be matched to that level.

Lupi is the most fun boss in the game for me. No nerf please

Seren.6850:

Lupi is the most fun boss in the game for me. No nerf please

A bit curious, what’s fun in phase 1?

haviz.1340:

Seren.6850:

Lupi is the most fun boss in the game for me. No nerf please

A bit curious, what’s fun in phase 1?

We have a drinking game in our guild. If you get ‘grubbed’ you drink a shot of vodka.

Derk.3189:

haviz.1340:

A bit curious, what’s fun in phase 1?

We have a drinking game in our guild. If you get ‘grubbed’ you drink a shot of vodka.

That’s a really nice way of playing that phase but how do you know who got ‘grubbed’ when you all are stacked in one spot?

haviz.1340:

Derk.3189:

haviz.1340:

A bit curious, what’s fun in phase 1?

We have a drinking game in our guild. If you get ‘grubbed’ you drink a shot of vodka.

That’s a really nice way of playing that phase but how do you know who got ‘grubbed’ when you all are stacked in one spot?

When he hit u with grub he KD you, so… probably like that Its awesome fight and not need any nerf