Guild Wars 2

http://youtu.be/bVWP6I2tPSM

I’ve been seeing a lot of complaining on the forums about how hard AC is now, and I’ve even been in parties who wipe multiple times to SQ. And while hardly worth as much prestige a Lupi solo or a whole dungeon, let’s take a quick look at some of the things we can do to make our lives easier against this (relatively) easy boss:

1) If you can swap it out to something more useful, do it! I swap out weapons all the time here along with utilities, though that second one I forgot to do on the actual boss pull and I wiped. Even still, there were other optimizations I could have made to make my life easier and maybe not wipe in the first place.

2) Slow and steady may not win the race, but at least it doesn’t end up splattered on the walls. I’ve lost count of how many times SQ got spawned and parties wipe to the additional spiders (either in haste or ignorance, that’s up in the air), and we lose even more time. Take it slow and only pull what you feel comfortable pulling. As you get more experienced, you can make bigger pulls.

3) Take what you need. No more and no less. If a skill can’t/won’t help you in a fight, don’t take it and swap it out for something more helpful. My first SQ pull I went in with WoR and SoA and I was rewarded with a Walk of Shame. So, I swapped out more relevant skills and weapons, learned from my mistakes, and beat her with little trouble.

4) Mistakes are there to be made and learned from. Tying in with the last point, don’t get too discouraged if a wipe occurs. The best thing you can do is figure out why you wiped, swap out appropriate countermeasures, and try again. The real defeat comes from throwing your hands up and saying “I quit!”

Now, onto more encounter specific pointers:
1) Projectile reflection/absorption is your friend against the spiderlings. If you see a Wall of Reflection or Feedback or Smokescreen get thrown down, position yourself so that you have the skill between you and as many spiderlings as possible. Pull out a range weapon if you have to, don’t take hits that you don’t need to take.

2) Know what spawns the boss. I think this is mostly ignorance, but I’ll list it here for those who don’t know: The Spider Queen Spawns when all the LOW LEVEL Spiderlings are dead. Scattered throughout the room are some level 1-3 spiderlings. Leave these alive if possible until the party is ready, then kill them to spawn the final wave of adds and the boss.

3) Know the boss’ attacks. Perhaps there are still some people out there who think SQ is her old faceroll self, but that’s not necessarily true today. First, her poison cloud does heavy damage to those who stand in it, so get out of it while you can. Not to mention, the animation for this attack shows SQ tossing out some projectiles, but this is purely graphical and cannot be reflected or absorbed. Her auto attack now inflicts weakness and 6 stacks of bleed if it hits. The good news is, the bleed stacks will be removed before the weakness if condition removal is used. Finally, she has a new attack where she channels a cone of webs in front of her. These webs will immobilize you and inflict moderate damage. A well timed double dodge seems to be able to avoid this attack; otherwise, use condition removal to get rid of the immobilize before she puts a poison puddle on you.

Hope this helps with newer people trying to get through AC and getting stuck on the Spider Queen!