Guild Wars 2

Hey folks -

Last night, several guildies and I trekked into Arah Path 4. One of us had a strong working knowledge of the path, and though I wouldn’t call any of us “elite” players by any means, our group included all strong players (including our guild leader). We know each other well, frequently team up for dungeons, and we had voice chat set on Skype so we could coordinate. With the recent updates to Arah, we were certain we could finish up Path 4 and have fun.

We were wrong.

The Path leading up to Simin went well. We had little to no trouble. (Though groups of two or more Hunters and their Risen Eagles can go to kitten and kitten themselves). We trounced Giganticus Lupicus in one go. The other bosses seemed cake in comparison.

We knew the strategy for Simin: Pack a bunch of tears near where Simin would be fought; Get Simin down to 50% and in that spot away from the statue; have one person kite the northern sparks and one the southern; have a low DPS player ready with tears to salve petrification; thwack Simin with DPS when she reappears. Our group was composed of two rangers, an elementalist, an engineer and a guardian. Three of us were built toward conditions.

The first try did not end successfully. Simin went down to 50% very quickly and we took our places. Spark runs were difficult, since Randall and ranger pets kept attracting the Sparks’ attention. And the Sparks’ attack animations cost us precious time when they should have been moving toward the runes. Eventually, Randall was killed and the Spark runs went better. But we noticed we didn’t seem to be making any headway; Simin was teleporting away too quickly for us to whittle her down, and our conditions weren’t helping after she disappeared. We seemingly weren’t winning a war of attrition.

We let her regen to full, then tried the tactic of holding a spark to force Simin immediately back out of stealth. This does not work. We finally decided we weren’t doing enough DPS and reset the boss. We all made as many modifications as we could to our builds to add DPS.

What we didn’t realize at the time is Simin’s 50% reset bug was taking place. Our second attempt made that clear. At one point, immediately after appearing, she took three hits, went invulnerable and disappeared again – that is not hyperbole. It was beyond aggravating. Even on our most flawless Spark runs, her healing was undoing most, if not all of the damage we were able to do in the shortened time she would give us.

We tried desperately to get Simin to stay below 50%. But after more than an hour, late into the evening on a work night, we had to call it a day. Four hours wasted because of one (bugged) boss fight.

I know people have done this boss fight, and Arah is supposed to be difficult. People will undoubtedly come onto this thread to claim how easy Simin is with their group of four Hundred Blades warriors and a Mesmer. But for our group (an experienced one with working knowledge of this dungeon and path), this fight was frustratingly impossible.

In addition to the 50% reset bug (again, she once gave us literally 2 seconds to attack her before going invulnerable and invisible again and multiple times gave us less than the minute I understand she is supposed to), there were multiple problems that worked against us in this fight:

@ The Sparks would aggro onto the NPC or Ranger pets, which can’t be stowed during a fight;
@ The Sparks attack, which causes them to stop pathing;
@ Simin doesn’t carry conditions over when she goes invisible, making conditions like burning completely useless. Condition damage builds seem unviable for the fight.

Aside from the above, this boss battle was both irritating and unfun. No one in the party ever went down fighting Simin. The fight was just an annoying war of attrition, which neither side would win. Simin is an irritating bag of HP after an overly long dungeon. Whereas a fight like Giganticus Lupicus is challenging, Simin was at best obnoxious and at worst bugged.

Maybe we could have done something better, but I can’t think of what. With our builds and the challenges we faced, the fight seemed insurmountable even with changes in tactics and experienced players. That’s not fun.

Your thoughts and feedback are appreciated, as is constructive criticism.

azureai.9764:

Three of us were built toward conditions.

This would be a problem even in a normal dungeon. Simin no longer requires that much dps anymore, but 3 condition build characters is more than too much in a group since bleed caps at 25. The 50% bug is annoying and I have encountered it many times, but keep trying and eventually it will be fine if you push her pass 50% fast enough. From what you mentioned I would say it’s mostly a problem with your team composition.

Also, if this is your first time don’t be so quick to complain. This is considered to be the hardest path of the hardest dungeon, we used to spend hours on path 3 when it first came out. It all becomes trivial once you know how to do it.

azureai.9764:

two rangers, an elementalist, an engineer and a guardian

I would assume the 3 condition characters are the 2 rangers a engineer, and I hope the engineer is a grenadier instead of pistol. If it is a pistol engineer then depending on the ele/guard build you may have a very very low direct dps team.

The sparks tends to aggro by proximity, so you should stay well away from the spark kiters. You might had the pets on aggressive, so put it on passive and stay near the walls. As for the npc, you can always kill it, it’s not big deal, for me I hardly ever encountered such problem.

Your group composition is more than enough to do the fight. I’d say if your rangers are familiar with their different builds, go for a sword melee/haste/beast mastery based build, engineer should go with grenades with full explosives tree (vulnerability stacking is great), and the ele and guardian should also stay in the respective dps build. Also you should have a D/D elementalist and the guardian for spark kiting, instead of the rangers and engineer because they are much slower.

Considering that the condition based characters were the two rangers and the guardian, it had nothing to do with bleed cap. It was mostly burn/poison/bleed based fighting. We run this group a lot and rarely hit 25 stacks of bleed at all.

However it is kind of aggravating that a perfectly viable build for most other dungeons and bosses is rendered moot. Pretty much this boss is telling you that if you have CD, you’re useless when it comes to trying to do damage to her. The entire point of her fight is spike damage and unless you decide to fully trait for that, you aren’t really helping.

And that kind of sucks when a boss pretty much say “Nya nya” to an entire wing of builds. She’s effectively immune to conditions without having a buff that says she is.

This is the only fight I’ve seen where if you don’t have a certain group composition, you can’t beat it. No amount of speed or strategy can defeat her if you can’t pass her DPS gate, and if you have a defensive based team, you’re screwed. shrug

Jzl.8715:

The sparks tends to aggro by proximity, so you should stay well away from the spark kiters. You might had the pets on aggressive, so put it on passive and stay near the walls. As for the npc, you can always kill it, it’s not big deal, for me I hardly ever encountered such problem.

Thanks for your constructive advice. We were actually doing what you said regarding the sparks, and the Ranger pets were on passive. The sparks still occassionally went after them (including, annoyingly, when they got petrified). I feel like the Sparks shouldn’t be going after NPCs or pets at all, considering the mechanic is that WE have to guide them.

And, LOL, I can’t tell you how much I wished I could just stab the useless NPC.

Even after resetting the fight and resetting our skills to maximize our DPS (our Ele in particular did this), we couldn’t lay down enough damage to get past the bug. It was a big flip of the kitten from the dungeon to learn, after such a long slog, that we wouldn’t be able to do this fight.

how many might stacks you had on average? your group composition got plenty fire field/blast finishers. would be sad if it weren’t around 20 all the time.

was tear thrower part time attacking?

from your description, seems like spark running was terribad. why were pets in the way? rangers should have stayed somewhere out of sight.

short version:
its not 50% “bug”. its called “group too slow to enter phase 2”.

areas to improve:
spark kiting – runners with at least swiftness

tear throwing – you didn’t mention anything, so maybe it was ok, if noone ended up petrified.

damage checklist:
25 might stacks, yes/close/no?
permanent fury, yes/close/no?
25 vulnerability, yes/close/no?

offensive weapons, yes/no?

weapon/kit/attunement skill swapping yes/no?

P.S. boons are better then conditions in dungeons

Nerf simin regen rate.

Saulius.8430:

how many might stacks you had on average? your group composition got plenty fire field/blast finishers. would be sad if it weren’t around 20 all the time.

was tear thrower part time attacking?

from your description, seems like spark running was terribad. why were pets in the way? rangers should have stayed somewhere out of sight.

short version:
its not 50% “bug”. its called “group too slow to enter phase 2”.

areas to improve:
spark kiting – runners with at least swiftness

tear throwing – you didn’t mention anything, so maybe it was ok, if noone ended up petrified.

damage checklist:
25 might stacks, yes/close/no?
permanent fury, yes/close/no?
25 vulnerability, yes/close/no?

offensive weapons, yes/no?

weapon/kit/attunement skill swapping yes/no?

P.S. boons are better then conditions in dungeons

I’m curious how might stacks and blast finishers are supposed to help if they’re literally getting 3 attacks in. >_>

I mean—combo field, blast, blast, she’s invisible again. That’s the way I’m reading it, anyway. That would be her going invisible before it’s even possible to build might stacks with combo finishers, much less simultaneously getting 25 stacks of vulnerability.

OP is describing the legit 50% HP bug.

One of my groups ran into it a few days ago. Sucked.

And in case you’re wondering, I’ve killed Simin 3 times pre-patch and know how to do the fight with my eyes closed.

It’s ridiculous that ANet nerfed this fight (which did not need a nerf) and did absolutely nothing to address the 50% HP bug which was the actual problem.

To be entirely honest, I’m not entirely sure what the purpose of lowering her healing rate was when she was most recently altered. On the one hand it does allow the spark running to be somewhat more lenient, but it really doesn’t address the issue of a given group not being able to bring her health down sufficiently in the timeframe required. Changing her maximum HP and/or armor resistances may have made more sense here as she would still have healed if your spark running wasn’t good but less damage focused teams could have, in terms of percentages’ hit her harder in a similar time period. I also feel like I’d like to briefly point out that this is 5-person dungeon content, not raid content as some other posts in various threads seems to skew this.

I think part of the issue that comes up over and over with this fight though is actually less Simin herself and a number of other game-wise issues that still need to be dealt with. One of reasons I suspect problems like is occur is that right now condition damage, especially if carried by more than one member of the party, becomes detrimental in overall damage compared to Power/Precision/Etc builds which do not suffer issues like this.

In some boss battles if the boss is not overly dangerous having ‘support’ or defensive builds is less useful; but in this path bringing people with support or defensive set ups is an active detriment to the point that it may cost you a successful run. The thing is, I play the game to hang out with the friends I know and the guildmates I’ve met and that is who I generally run dungeons with. There is nothing to say I, or they couldn’t manage this fight in a different group set up but that isn’t really the point. We’ve successfully done virtually every other dungeon path there is in the game, even other Arah paths. It just seems to be rather unreasonable to expect that this group of us should get entirely different sets of gear and trait/skill builds or create new characters in higher dps classes for one, single encounter in one dungeon path.

Looking at it though, I still find one of my recurring issues with this fight is not that it happens to be difficult, or really even the issues I may personally have with the boss as she is.

My biggest issue is that this boss is that she is buried at the end of a dungeon that can already take upwards of 2-4 hours on non-speed runs just to get to her in the first place. If she and Balthazar switched places and nothing else changed I would have much less an issue with her because you would 10 minutes into the run if your group could handle her or not and theoretically complete a run or not. Having her be the gate at the end means a reasonably long run to get to this boss and then possibly walk away having spent those 2-4 hours, or more over multiple runs with little, if anything to show for it. Do you learn a bit each time and get a bit better the mechanics? I would assume so, but at end of the day if your group’s damage isn’t up to par, it is an unwinnable encounter that you are just running laps around.

haviz.1340:

Nerf simin regen rate.

That won’t work bro. What they need to do is make it so simin shoots fireballs out his kitten for max dmg so a guard can drop a wall and all 5 players can stand there hitting 1111111111111111 the whole time

Seriously tho, this kitten is easy, it was before and it is now. If you can’t beat it its not the games fault. Youtube yourself a better build and have at er, drop the clerics and add some berserker, or at least knights. Give up the conditions add some boons and please please please, spend the pennies on some food. Donno why but pugs hate food buffs.

EDIT:
Quick fact – did you know that there is a food buff that gives you 10% dmg vs undead?
– did you know that there is a food buff that gives you 10% crit dmg?
– did you know that there is a banner that gives 10% crit dmg?

:D

Iures.2894:

I’m curious how might stacks and blast finishers are supposed to help if they’re literally getting 3 attacks in.

I mean—combo field, blast, blast, she’s invisible again. That’s the way I’m reading it, anyway. That would be her going invisible before it’s even possible to build might stacks with combo finishers, much less simultaneously getting 25 stacks of vulnerability.

preparing might in advance obviously. if you think its impossible then you are not ready.

Nikaido.3457:

Like Eliyahu, I think OP could be describing a legit bug, because my pug group brought her down despite the complete lack of coordination whatsoever, with terrible spark running, terrible DPS, and a tear thrower that required constant babysitting through party chat, spamming our petrified status and even writing it down in caps because he just wasn’t reactive enough.

Indeed, there is a bug that makes her re-stealth immediately making the fight near impossible (once she stealth after a SINGLE hit). Instead of nerfing her healing rate, which is a joke now, they should’ve fixed that annoying bug… Exactly as you say, no uber dps needed, no running skills for the sparks (she regens so slowly now you can take your sweet time).

The only reason for a failed run is the bug…. I thought it was fixed with the latest patch but apparently it wasn’t.

Oh don’t remind me of my last Simin run.

Part of the problem was hitting the 50% bug.
Another part was trying to run the Sparks, but the stupid things aggroing the Ranger/Pet and at rare times my Illusions (quick Distortion quickly fixed that though). That was a pain, as they would almost get to their spots then suddenly make an about face and head towards the pet/ranger. (Said ranger also had trouble trying to lead the Sparks into the circles, as it would chase either her or her pet and bounce randomly).

Finally, we broke down, reset, and replanned around the bugs. One, we switched Spark runners. I swapped gear to Rabid Armor + Centaur Runes to do Spark running with Blink, as well as Tears. The Engy did the other Spark Run with Perma-Swiftness. The Guardian was almost always had aggro + Petrifiy, so he stayed near Simin rather then attempt to run. (Spark running wise, I could get the lower 2 and grab 2x Tears before the Engy could get his three in place).
Repositioned Simin after a bit of effort against/into the wall and the Ranger/Pet so we had no trouble with Spark Aggro and her.
Then things went well! Sure, some of the 2-4 Hit wonders still popped up for Simin, but we finally ripped her down even despite that brief respite.

One strange thing occurred though. Simin would bug in a different way I’ve never heard before. Temporarily going Invulnerable and attempting to disappear, but fail to do so. So we would have sparks up, Simin being wailed upon, and chaos as no one knew what to do. Couldn’t get to happen on purpose but it seemed to be related to a Pot of Hylek Poison being dropped at exactly the right/wrong time.

I hope they finally do something, because nobody ever makes parties for path 4 anymore.

During the last week, for the time I have scheduled for playing, I’ve only seen 4 entries in GW2LFG:

• One guy asking for ‘newbs’ which I found rather strange. He didn’t pick me when I told him I only had this path left for dungeon master.
• A normal pug that kicked my elementalist after a mesmer joined them and told them to bring warriors and guardians.
• And finally, two entries that were selling the instance with Simi’s fight done.

Eliyahu.1467:

[…]
It’s ridiculous that ANet nerfed this fight (which did not need a nerf) and did absolutely nothing to address the 50% HP bug which was the actual problem.

For a bug to be recognized, it’s not enough for people to report it, the guys of QA must replicate it, or devs find it in the code.

If they try to do it and they don’t get the bug, and don’t find any problems in the code they may be more inclined to believe it’s not happening.

And it doesn’t help when every time people reports it, lots of other uses quickly go to the thread to say “You are doing it wrong, there is no bug”.

But now that Simi recovers so slowly, there’s simply no way they can keep saying that. You could put on the keyboard five dummies made out of potatoes attached to each other with drinking straws, and they’ll be able to do this fight…

…as long as they don’t hit the bug.

Let’s hope they rework this fight ASAP.

Simin was nerfed hard and it’s A LOT easier now, work on your group composition/strategy.

Psybunny.8906:

Simin was nerfed hard and it’s A LOT easier now, work on your group composition/strategy.

Yeah… they are not saying it’s hard. They are saying it’s bugged.

Psybunny.8906:

Simin was nerfed hard and it’s A LOT easier now, work on your group composition/strategy.

Also, I have an issue with anyone who claims only certain compositions of groups should be able to take out a boss. The game advertises itself as designed so that any composition of players has their own way to do accomplish things in the game. This boss should not require four warriors and a mesmer.

And it probably wouldn’t have, if she wouldn’t occassionally disappear after allowing us to get only three hits in and the mechanics removing any chance that out condition builds would have any effect on her.

azureai.9764:

Psybunny.8906:

Simin was nerfed hard and it’s A LOT easier now, work on your group composition/strategy.

Also, I have an issue with anyone who claims only certain compositions of groups should be able to take out a boss. The game advertises itself as designed so that any composition of players has their own way to do accomplish things in the game. This boss should not require four warriors and a mesmer.

And it probably wouldn’t have, if she wouldn’t occassionally disappear after allowing us to get only three hits in and the mechanics removing any chance that out condition builds would have any effect on her.

The bug is annoying and is a valid complaint,

The fight doesn’t require a very specific composition. It doesn’t require 4 warriors and 1 mesmer. But that doesn’t mean it can be done with any composition any build and players of any skill level. You bring an idea composition, the fight is easier. You don’t, it demands more focus, less room for mistake, and overall you’ll have to work harder.

Saulius.8430:

Iures.2894:

I’m curious how might stacks and blast finishers are supposed to help if they’re literally getting 3 attacks in.

I mean—combo field, blast, blast, she’s invisible again. That’s the way I’m reading it, anyway. That would be her going invisible before it’s even possible to build might stacks with combo finishers, much less simultaneously getting 25 stacks of vulnerability.

preparing might in advance obviously. if you think its impossible then you are not ready.

Okay!

I’ve prepared my 25 stacks of might to hit right before she unstealths. Now, how do I stack and exploit 25 stacks of vulnerability within 3 hits?

“on my mark” x2
Pretty sure ranger has a trait that adds 5/10 stacks on first hit
Theres 3 skills

x per fection x.2096:

“on my mark” x2
Pretty sure ranger has a trait that adds 5/10 stacks on first hit
Theres 3 skills

That would be really impressive if the OP managed to do “On My Mark” twice despite having 0 Warriors in their party. >_>

Now, after I posted, I did research abilities, and rangers do have a fair amount of vulnerability they can stack. . .

. . .too bad Simin vanishes after three attacks, and some of those attacks are setup. >_>

Edit: Also—Opening Strike is the attack you’re talking about, I believe. As you say, it affects their first hit. Unless they drop combat or kill an enemy during her stealth, they aren’t getting that back before she unstealths.

I honestly didn’t read the conversation, i just simply answered a question.

x per fection x.2096:

I honestly didn’t read the conversation, i just simply answered a question.

It’s cool. I’m mostly waiting for Saulius to respond, because I want to see his logic. >_>

A few Fridays ago I spent an hour+ on Simian and assumed we just couldn’t hack it. When we were perfect with sparks she would heal for exactly the amount we did…

The next night we tried again and after another hour+ on Simian we realized the bug. The 50% heal regardless was frustrating and we called it a night again.

They mentioned in the last patch they fixed “her healing ability” but I did not see anything about the 50% bug. Thanks for the post now I know not to try again until it is fixed or I build a complete DPS Warr.

It’s a loong way to Simian to chance it any other way.

Hilko.1760:

A few Fridays ago I spent an hour+ on Simian and assumed we just couldn’t hack it. When we were perfect with sparks she would heal for exactly the amount we did…

The next night we tried again and after another hour+ on Simian we realized the bug. The 50% heal regardless was frustrating and we called it a night again.

They mentioned in the last patch they fixed “her healing ability” but I did not see anything about the 50% bug. Thanks for the post now I know not to try again until it is fixed or I build a complete DPS Warr.

It’s a loong way to Simian to chance it any other way.

What could dps war do if you had encountered that bug?

haviz.1340:

What could dps war do if you had encountered that bug?

The mass amount of DPS can get her under 50% and easily keep her there if the 4-1 orb trick still works. The way the mechanic should work(from what I understand) is she stealths at 50% then every minute after.

But if you get her to 40% health and she gets 11% back before you put the orbs in place she is going to restealth as soon as you do 1% damage to her.

Nope. That’s now how it works

It stories like these that just kitten me off. Anet don’t play their own kitten dungeons so they don’t understand how broken and awful they can be to play.

The main reason why nobody runs path 4 is the length, not Simin.

Plus it’s boring. Balthasar = way too easy. Melandru = afk-ranged fight. Lyssa = You won’t take any damage with a guardian (pure voice) in your team anyway. Grenth = Pressing 1 over and over again (with a melee weapon). At least the Bloodstone Shard and Simin are some fun as long as you don’t get hit by the 50% bug.

Dub.1273:

Plus it’s boring. Balthasar = way too easy. Melandru = afk-ranged fight. Lyssa = You won’t take any damage with a guardian (pure voice) in your team anyway. Grenth = Pressing 1 over and over again (with a melee weapon). At least the Bloodstone Shard and Simin are some fun as long as you don’t get hit by the 50% bug.

Bloodstone Shard is fun?? It’s the same afk fight as Melandru, just stand next to it and DPS.

Mhh. I have not done it since ~6 month or so. Always sold my spot after Simin.

Hilko.1760:

The mass amount of DPS can get her under 50% and easily keep her there if the 4-1 orb trick still works.

It didn’t work for my group. I believe they may have taken this trick out of the fight.

As it stands, I can only see a heavy DPS group having any chance in this fight. If conditions had stuck, Simin might have been doable by our group, as well. But in combination with encountering the 50% bug, we just couldn’t do it.

Also, to be fair, the 3-hit-disappear routine only happened to us twice. Most of the time, she just wasn’t giving us the full amount of time she was supposed to. The 3-hit-disappear just made it very obvious a bug was involved. Even stacked with 25 might (as the Guardian, I was keeping a consistent 10 on me), I doubt we could have whittled her down enough in the time we were being given.

That happens when you gather the sparks so fast that she recovers very little, so when you hit her a few times, she goes down to 50% very fast. If there wasn’t a bug, you’ll just have the remaining time to damage her, but with the bug, as you reach 50% again so fast, she simply hides again.

I’ve seen other reports of bug and strange behavior for this fight like “hides randomly” and “hides too fast”, and all seem to be side-effects of the 50% HP bug.
I’ve also seen reports of it happening at 25% HP.
So I’ve been thinking that it may be something not setting properly the stage of the fight, getting stuck at one point of it, usually the start of the battle when she hides at 50% HP for the first time, or other stages, like after she hides while under 50% HP and it changes to hide the next time she hits 25%.

This run is now easier than it was before.

I completed it with people from gw2lfg.com – our comp was
2x Thief
Elementalist
Mesmer
Guardian

We ran sparks in 6 rounds before she went down.

I keep reposting the same crap response to these stupid threads, because let’s face it – my group had ZERO warriors, and completed it with a Guardian in 1400 healing power who never attacked the boss, just worked tears (making sure no one was petrified more than 1second).

L
2
P

(not all content was designed to be accessed by all players)

George Steel.1804:

This run is now easier than it was before.

I completed it with people from gw2lfg.com – our comp was
2x Thief
Elementalist
Mesmer
Guardian

We ran sparks in 6 rounds before she went down.

I keep reposting the same crap response to these stupid threads, because let’s face it – my group had ZERO warriors, and completed it with a Guardian in 1400 healing power who never attacked the boss, just worked tears (making sure no one was petrified more than 1second).

L
2
P

(not all content was designed to be accessed by all players)

Of course, your post has no bearing whatsoever if there truly is a bug involved. No amount of learning to play will fix an unbeatable bug.