Guild Wars 2

So I’ve never actually completed Arah(last attempt failed at Lupicus), but I really want to learn the best methods, and more importantly, I want to learn how to solo Arah p2.
The skipping parts seem annoying, but nothing I can’t do.
The first boss seems pretty easy for the most part with careful positioning.
Lupicus however, I couldn’t even beat with 4 other people.
My problem when fighting Lupicus(after many failed attempts in a group, I told them to let me try soloing for fun) was that his kicks in phase 1 were pretty much instant and they would one-shot me in full zerker gear. I actually managed to get him down to phase 2 by myself, but failed in my rotations and died. Other than that, his near-instant attacks in phase 3 also one-shotted me and the death bubble was pretty difficult to escape without a full endurance bar.

My question to the Elementalist community: What gear should I use to solo Arah p2/Lupicus? What can I do against those near-instant attacks? What tells should I watch out for? While we’re at it, can you guys explain the other bosses as well?

I kinda just wanna do this for fun, not really for selling. Maybe I’d invite guild members or friends before the final boss, but overall this is just a personal accomplishment. Any tips?

Malchior.5732:

So I’ve never actually completed Arah(last attempt failed at Lupicus), but I really want to learn the best methods, and more importantly, I want to learn how to solo Arah p2.
The skipping parts seem annoying, but nothing I can’t do.
The first boss seems pretty easy for the most part with careful positioning.
Lupicus however, I couldn’t even beat with 4 other people.
My problem when fighting Lupicus(after many failed attempts in a group, I told them to let me try soloing for fun) was that his kicks in phase 1 were pretty much instant and they would one-shot me in full zerker gear. I actually managed to get him down to phase 2 by myself, but failed in my rotations and died. Other than that, his near-instant attacks in phase 3 also one-shotted me and the death bubble was pretty difficult to escape without a full endurance bar.

My question to the Elementalist community: What gear should I use to solo Arah p2/Lupicus? What can I do against those near-instant attacks? What tells should I watch out for? While we’re at it, can you guys explain the other bosses as well?

I kinda just wanna do this for fun, not really for selling. Maybe I’d invite guild members or friends before the final boss, but overall this is just a personal accomplishment. Any tips?

I’d say watch videos of other elementalists (or any class, for that matter) soloing lupi to get used to the tells. His kick in P1 has a subtle tell, and reviewing footage of his attacks can help with that as well as his other attacks.

That kick is so annoying. It actually took me a while when I first started to really see the tell for it. It’s not an easy tell. Look up footage.

Basically though, generally, Lupi will do a kick after spawning a grub. He generally alternates between kicking and spawning a grub.

I find that he tends to kick after spawning locusts instead. Honestly ele solo is one of the harder classes to do, due to your terrible survivability.

If you have a bit of lag it’s very difficult to dodge kick with reflexes. I normally anticipate kicks, though I’m not sure if eles have enough endurance to burn with every other attack.

Some other things – phase 2 is one of the easiest (most simple) phases if you have blocks/projectile defence. Swipes are relatively easy to dodge (though the animation and the hit itself becomes desynced if you have lag) and for the AOE just dodge + block or put up projectile defence beforehand. Ele has arcane shield, obsidian flesh and swirling winds to protect you – note that small radius reflects like magnetic wave won’t reliably save you.

In phase 3, staying in melee range of lupicus will prevent the bubble attack. If you actually get hit, use invuln/stability and walk out, or double dodge and block. It sounds as if you’re fairly inexperienced with the fight, since most of the phase 3 attacks are very telegraphed (except the barrage, which you can avoid by pushing lupicus into the wall) You should try and watch some annotated guides first.

Also, you should probably be using 30/30/0/0/10 dagger/focus fresh air (see stickied build guide in this forum) when learning. You can put the 10 in arcana into earth if you don’t need the vigour.

I already have a FGS and a D/F solo of him on youtube, S/F + LH and staff are going to follow.

Builds used were:

FGS: 30/30/10/0/0, Undead + Force – 1:53
D/F: 30/30/0/0/10, Vigor, Undead + Energy – 5:41
S/F + LH: 30/20/10/0/10, Vigor, Undead + Energy – 7:01
Staff: 30/20/0/0/20, Vigor, Blasting Staff, Undead – 5:06

My youtube channel also contains Luicus solo’s of most other professions. As I didn’t bother with renaming them properly, they might not have appropiate names.

I want to see the staff video, when I tried it out in full party I got destroyed by aggro + lack of gap closers (running 30/10/10/10/10 blasting staff no vigour, forgot the utils).

I’m guessing you put 20 arcana to get perma vigour and make use of staff 4 (into wall?) as another dodge? Do you ever swap attunements?

I did one attunement swap pre combat (eruption → fire), aside of that I was just using burning retreat as escape out of his aoe leech. Blasting staff is actually absolutely unnecessary, I just took it to deal easier with locusts. Gap closing is not required at all, walking back to him in p3 is enough.

If you’re still having trouble here are few tips for soloing lupi.

You can push him into the wall if you want, however I think you should try to kill lupi in the open your first time.If you solo him in the open you’ll have a much better understanding of his mechanics and how to counter them. That plus killing lupi when he is pushed in the wall is basically a joke.

For specs use 30/30/0/0/10 ,0/30/0/20/20 or 0/0/30/20/20.For your first kill I recommended using 0/0/30/20/20.The 30 earth spec is good because it allows you to survive several mistakes in p3.However the dps is horrific so avoid using it once you have a good understanding of p3.The 30 air/20 water/20 arcane spec is probably the best choice for your first kill because you can still do ok damage while being able to survive a few mistakes. Don’t bother with 30/30/0/0/10 unless you can do p3 without getting hit by anything.

For traits grab lighting flash,mist form,Armor of earth. You can drop armor of earth for signet of fire if you feel like domes are not a problem.If you push him into the wall don’t bother with cantrips and grab arcane blast/arcane shield

Use all zerker gear with scholar runes. Use sigil of undead slaying and sigil of energy. If you’re really struggling with p3 put on few pieces pvt gear until you get it down then swap back to zerker

P1
Lupi kicks after he attempts to spawn a grub on a player or after he spawns locus swarms. Occasionally he may not kick but assume he will.You can max range lupi with lighting whip and still not be hit by kick but it makes the phase take longer if you do that.

Try to burning speed after he does a kick.

P2

You can kill the grub to make p3 easier,however it makes the transition much harder.

You can do this by moving out of melee range and using obsidian flesh/armor of earth so the grub will not stun you. If he aoes right way you can use magnetic wave(with obsidian flesh or mist form up) and the reflects should kill the grub for you.If he does not aoe put up swirling winds and dps it down.Keep in mind he may try to teleport to you so dodge if he does.

Try to rotate swirling winds/obsidian flesh/mist form to survive the aoe in p2.Be sure to start off with swirling winds.

Lupi does two swipes before he does the mass aoe.

If you cast swirling winds while lupi is casting the mass aoe be sure to dodge once(while staying in the swirling winds), because the first hit may or may not be blocked depending on your latency

P3

Like others have said if you stay perfectly still lupi won’t dome you.So don’t move don’t even blink.

He likes to rapid fire after landing from levitate, or doing a life suck so use swirling winds after those attacks to save dodges.

Use lighting flash to get out of dome first. However if you’re at low health or have really bad latency like me consider just using obsidian flesh, armor of earth or mist form first.

Try to swap to air attunement for swiftness/run speed when you run out for levitate

Don’t dodge right away when he levitates there is a bit of a delay before he starts to damage you.It takes a bit of experimenting to figure exactly when you should start dodging

During life suck dodge left then right, or back then forward. The idea is to end up in the same place you started before the first dodge.

When you swap to proc sigil of energy try to get back into air before your sigil comes off cooldown. Also consider might stacking while your sigil is on cooldown.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=dgyk71VRoUE

Malchior.5732:

So I’ve never actually completed Arah(last attempt failed at Lupicus), but I really want to learn the best methods, and more importantly, I want to learn how to solo Arah p2.
The skipping parts seem annoying, but nothing I can’t do.
The first boss seems pretty easy for the most part with careful positioning.
Lupicus however, I couldn’t even beat with 4 other people.
My problem when fighting Lupicus(after many failed attempts in a group, I told them to let me try soloing for fun) was that his kicks in phase 1 were pretty much instant and they would one-shot me in full zerker gear. I actually managed to get him down to phase 2 by myself, but failed in my rotations and died. Other than that, his near-instant attacks in phase 3 also one-shotted me and the death bubble was pretty difficult to escape without a full endurance bar.

My question to the Elementalist community: What gear should I use to solo Arah p2/Lupicus? What can I do against those near-instant attacks? What tells should I watch out for? While we’re at it, can you guys explain the other bosses as well?

I kinda just wanna do this for fun, not really for selling. Maybe I’d invite guild members or friends before the final boss, but overall this is just a personal accomplishment. Any tips?

Other people have mentioned the kicks “tells” but they are wrong. He moves his left arm closer to his torso just before the kick. It’s hard to see but you will get the hang of it.

If you are NA I’ll join you on a run and let you watch while I take down lupi so you can see the animations better. I am NOT an Ele though.