Had some experience earlier – got to Lupicus twice, on path 2 and path 1, only to have people wipe three times, see Lupicus reset because of either our fault or a bug, and then have someone ragequit.
Never beaten Lupi, never seen most stuff.
Started with path 2.
The first inquest boss was easy – she doesn’t drop the lightning balls on melee range, at least not so often; as long as you dodge away from the balls, you’ll be fine. If you keep dying at the first inquestie, you probably won’t make it through.
The golem corridor is really fun and works great if you know what you’re doing – don’t waste charges and get additional ones inside, keep swiftness up and stuff. Cool design – nice non-boss mechanic in a dungeon, enjoyable to execute.
The big ape next is pretty boring – again, facetank boss with way too much hp and nearly no threat to properly geared party.
Lupicus. Oh, Lupicus… he’s become an easy encounter by now. Once you know what you’re doing, how to properly dodge him, what skills to bring etc it becomes real fun. I didn’t want to believe people saying they enjoy that fight, i couldn’t see how it can be amusing – duh, how it can be done even. But now i do – it’s still a bit too long, Lupi’s hp could still be lowered (bad teams would wipe anyway, good teams wouldn’t waste that much time), but the design of the fight is top-notch.
The minefield is unfair – it’s much too easy to die on a mine popped by a party member, not you. Still, as in SE1, just rush through the mines and be done with it.
The next boss is really easy, another facetank and spank encounter, although i enjoyed the design.
I LOVED the underwater part – how it was done. Props for the torches and stuff.
The trash on the way to the final fight caused us the most troubles. Some well-placed mobs, annoying patrols, way too easy to fall down. But it’s how Arah 2 is – Deadeyes and the Inquest dudes are the most dangerous and will kill you more often than the bosses once you’ve learned the basics.
The final fight was fun, but then it was kinda short. While Lupi and most other bosses should have their hp lowered, this dudette should take a bit longer, imho, and the phasing out mechanic could have been used better.
Still – not a tough route, long though. Took us about 2:45, no one earlier has done Arah 2, only one person in the party has done Arah 1/3, others either done nothing at all or got to Lupi once or twice. No voice comms, no 5-guardian party.
Then we tackled path 3. The team composition has changed a bit – the veteran has left along with one guy, we got two semi-rookies who never beaten Lupicus.
It’s surely the farmable path – shortest and easiest.
The trash fights are nothing unusual, the bosses are mostly just facetank and beat the crap out of them.
Had a really painless run, too – no deaths at Lupicus, only some occassional downs. The Wraithlord’s champions are a joke; the Wraithlord fight is again boring tank and spank kind, but i liked the point capture element when we were supposed to protect the chicken.
Oh, yeah – the chicken! My need to buy a mini undead chicken got fueled substantially.
Then we decided to face path 1, starting already at midnight – took us 3h.
I hate those green oozes. Especially the champion ones.
The collective boss encounter was entertaining, very easy and enjoyable, boosting morale kind of thing.
The tar elemental is fun, especially that killing mesmer illusions counts as kills, fuels daily achievements and stuff. Friendly fire brings a lot of fun itself. If only the water geysers were a BIT better visible… Also – what’s with the blue water thingie in the middle?
Again, no problems at Lupi – had two deaths, but nothing threatening. Must have been the late hour.
The ape boss was ridiculous, though. We ended up having one of us aggro all the trash apes and run circles with them in the corridor, while the rest of us dpsed the boss down. From time to time some apes reset and came down on us. How is that fight supposed to work? How are you supposed to use the staff, considering it has 10s recharge on its only skill?
Having read about the bugs, we were cautious – after killing all the spiders, we checked who has the NPC’s leash and we had that person stay in the spider chamber, with the NPC, while the rest of us went to have some pong with the Stargazer. The shrinking fire ring almost got some of us, but i managed to notice it shrinking soon enough. Other than that, really fun fight – obviously a themed design rather than a challenge, such fight is a reward in itself, a moment to breathe and get all the stress off after a long and demanding dungeon. Thumbs up!
Got only Arah 4 left before my Dungeon Master, and having done all three other routes with real ease i can’t wait to have enough time to give it a shot o/