Guild Wars 2

Path 3 is the easiest but it is hard to find a group. If you pug it you run the risk of getting stuck at Lupicus because the group wipes repeatedly. Still its an awesome dungeon and worth trying for the fun factor. Oh and one last comment…. I know you mentioned you didn’t want to watch video’s for Arah but in this case your better off watching the Lupicus fight. Otherwise you’ll be totally lost.

Look up the Arah running threads and all your worries will disappear.

The story is anti-climatic and if I recall it was also pretty unrewarding as well. The good thing is it didn’t take very long to do and was fun to see zhaitan. Be persistent on gw2lfg and you’ll eventually find a group.

Khyber.2693:

….nobody in my guild wants to run Arah, HoTW, SE, or CoE.

Love Arah, didn’t care much for Hotw, SE had its appeal and really liked CoE. I’ve only been in a few guilds and none of them ran anything but CoF p1 with regularity :P

Tried Arah a couple times with different guilds and it was worse than groups I used to get using gw2lfg.com

My advice would be don’t rely on guilds to get you into the dungeons you want to run. Use lfg and get your own groups. You’ll be glad you did. I see people in guild working on there DM title or they just want to run a particular dungeon. If its anything other than CoF guild chat is ghostly silence GL with your dungeons

Dreage.6312:

Why is he so freaking buggy?

Lup is the best. I need to find a tshirt that says that.

Much of Arah isn’t too bad so guessing you got stuck on Lupicus. Ranging him is the easiest way to start out. Lup can be melee’d but its a bit harder.

Mesmer could trait for reflections or using a greatsword. I used a staff for survivability when I first started doing Lup. Staff #2 is OP for phase 2 or 3 on Lup. Its not a bad idea for mesmer to save TW in case someone dies and you want to try for a fast res. Temporal Curtain is nice for the reflection if traited but also for moving mobs in a bad spot.

Group makeup isn’t so critical in Arah. Its mostly just learning the content and being able to do Lup since he’s on each path. As far as stats its not so critical either. People who know the content well can run zerker gear while others tend to run a mix of toughness and damage.

randomfightfan.4091:

Arah is the funnest and hardest dungeon in the game. It should have some lodestone drop… or a random precursor after every 100 completions

Lupicus should throw lodestones at people in phase 3 and if you successfully down him you get to keep them.

timecookie.8570:

Thieves are incredibly useful for Arah.

^^ this. But have to admit that good thieves are hard to come by in any pve.

Dreage.6312:

Debating if i should just quit running arah. There are only 2 actual runnable paths. Part 1 is hard as hell and then part 4 is for straight up gods. Part 2 is easy enough with normal people, and part 3 is just easy. Thieves are impossible to take into arah since they die almost immediately. Why is arah so freaking annoying? The armor looks infinitely superior to the CoF crap, but i did a cof run just for the heck of it and we were able to run part 1 in about 10-20 minutes compared to the standard 1 to FOUR freaking hours of arah. Screw arah’s armor.

I’ve always felt path 1 is easier than path 2 because the trash running is easier in p1. Path 4 seems more for the DM title devoted. People might run it more than once but its too time consuming so its run for the title or people who just like arah a lot.

Arah’s armor is sort of a status symbol. Some people think Arah is a pushover and easy while others find the armor all but unobtainable. Experienced groups can knock out a path 3 in 30 minutes and maybe paths 1 and 2 in around 45 min each. But if you PUG it with unexperienced it can be very painful like you described.

Personally I think Arah rocks…. every bit of it.

laokoko.7403:

And I actually ran cof 1000+ times.

this would make me never play the game again….. dont care if thats what I had to do for a legendary… I’d end up hating the game by the time I got it.

adobo.1749:

This upcoming weekend, I really hope this elitism gets exposed and people get turned off by it. Maybe then people will realize how awful it is. It really is sad.

Uhmm… why would it be exposed this weekend if it hasnt been in 9 months?

Btw, they redid AC so its much harder. Even unexperienced lvl 80 groups struggle in there now. CM is no walk in the park. Path 2 I hated when I ran it just recently as a lvl 80 geared out toon. I dunno what other dungeons you wanted to do as a lowbie but choices dont seem that great right now.

Before the AC got reworked I would take a non-80 in group and just ignore it. Yes it did make the run slower and usually they died a lot. But it wasn’t that bad. For anything else I never wanted a lvl 80 in group. Its not elitism or wanted a 5 minute run. Its just the groups weren’t very good with non-80’s in them. I have my DM title and have run tons of dungeons. Have always tried to be unbiased and open minded. But if I had to run Sorrows Embrace I wouldn’t want to do it with any non-80’s. Sorry…

Condition damage isn’t very good in PvE in general. Just the way Anet set it up.

Skychef is right and he has run a ton of Arah. When Lup does that attack he sort of flings the poison jars so they tend to land all over the place and not specifically in the center of the circles. At range its easily avoided. Up close you need to use other means to avoid taking damage.

Destai.9603:

You’ve not done the Simin fight. That’s closer to impossible. Much, much closer.

Post nerf I think Simin is pretty boring yet buggy. If he wasn’t buggy Simin wouldn’t be a challenge at all.

Lup is very good event. Impossible for first timers maybe but pretty fun once you learn the event. After getting good at Lup nothing else in the game seems like much of a challenge.

I’ve been running similar to this with the GS due to the nature of the servers we’ve been playing against. The wvw zergs are massive. Yet the GS can be devastating. At first I didn’t consider this at all until someone on another server was using it on us. Really opened my eyes.

I think you have to be more persistent. There are groups for story if you keep looking. They are far fewer now but they are still being done.

I’d have to agree that some story modes are harder than explore and that shouldn’t ever be. Also given that story modes are longer than most paths in dungeons why not give token rewards at the end. Its not like its profitable to farm story modes.

Either kicked so they could invite guildies OR even worse they kicked you to sell off your spot for gold.

Granted lfg’s for CoF1 are off the hook but people still post for CoE. I haven ’t ran it much but what I saw I liked.

Gaiawolf.8261:

But charr are infinitely cooler.

I originally made a very fierce looking male charr mesmer but then noticed how white female charr’s floppy tails seem to make enemies so angry like its taunting them as if you were wacking them across the face with that floppy white tail. I bought one of those changeover kits and made the switch with no regrets. Its just so much kitten.

Nihilus.3015:

I agree, larger versions of regular mobs is lazy work.

^^ this.

I’m hoping for more complicated bosses like Lupicus. Bosses that challenge groups of 5 players to work together rather than bosses that have a lot of hp. Phased coordination fights are were its at.

You kind of answered your own question…. variety. Path 3 is easy and short. Path 4 is the long path of what is supposed to be the hardest dungeon (not counting high lvl fractals). Much like other dungeons have an easy path and a hard path mixed in. As mentioned people do path 4 mostly for dungeon master or they just like arah. Arah has 3 other paths if your farming tokens.

If your getting “griefed” every other dungeon it sounds like maybe you have a problem grouping with others. I’ve been grouping in a lot of dungeons for quite awhile now and never been kicked from a group. And the only people I’ve seen kicked from groups were ones that just didn’t group well with others.

Sericenthe.5310:

Kumakichi.2583:

MHCerberus.1385:

My main question is: why skip fights/content to get gear faster that will only help you to skip more later? All sides of the argument are welcome!

Trash mobs in GW2 have too much hp and too little reward. They drop next to nothing. Chests are the reward in a GW2 dungeon…. that and completing the daily bonus.

Trash in GW2 isn’t like in other mmo’s. It leashes and will de-aggro at a certain point. Even the dungeon designers have said that trash is an optional thing and the decision to skip is up to the group.

Skipping trash isn’t hard but it generally does take some experience to avoid getting killed. You have to be able to dodge (which a lot of players haven’t learned well… yet) and you have to use the right utilities. Sometimes you need to change weapons.

And lastly, if you kill all the trash in a run it can add 20-30 minutes to say a Twilight Arbor path. Then again if your group cant skip trash and continually wipe its going to take at least that long as well.

Imho trash in GW2 dungeons should be skipped IF you want to complete dungeons efficiently and cleanly. And by efficiently I mean….. fun, minimal extra time wasted on non-profitable things…. best gold for the time you spend in a dungeon. But this subject itself is a bit arguementative according to skill level.

And this is why I think every dungeon I’ve been in in Guild Wars 2 is crap compared to the dungeons I ran in WOW. WOW had much better dungeon design (I only played it the first year so I don’t know what happened after that) than GW2. I don’t play GW2 for dungeons and I never will. Thank God there is enough other stuff to do or this game would have been quit as fast as I quit Diablo III.

I can understand what you mean but they way I look at it GW2 dungeons are just a different slant on a very old theme. I think a lot of players would have blasted Anet if there dungeons worked the same way as WoW’s only not quite as detailed or large or plentiful. Given that WoW is like 7-8 yrs old now thats a lot of years to create content. Not defending GW2 just giving my 2 cents on how I view there dungeons.

And boy did I feel ripped off by D3. On another nice note just think how much money you aren’t spending on a monthly fee!

Lyndis.2584:

Out of all the classes, would you say ranger be the one you’d kick after the patch?

Then again, rangers were being kicked before patches, so I guess that’s a little redundant.

Never saw a Ranger kicked from a group before. I’ve never seen anybody kicked from a group due to there profession.

I’d take a good Ranger over a poorly played Necro.

Also its not so much that Rangers are that bad. Its more that Warriors are just way too good compared to everything else.

MHCerberus.1385:

My main question is: why skip fights/content to get gear faster that will only help you to skip more later? All sides of the argument are welcome!

Trash mobs in GW2 have too much hp and too little reward. They drop next to nothing. Chests are the reward in a GW2 dungeon…. that and completing the daily bonus.

Trash in GW2 isn’t like in other mmo’s. It leashes and will de-aggro at a certain point. Even the dungeon designers have said that trash is an optional thing and the decision to skip is up to the group.

Skipping trash isn’t hard but it generally does take some experience to avoid getting killed. You have to be able to dodge (which a lot of players haven’t learned well… yet) and you have to use the right utilities. Sometimes you need to change weapons.

And lastly, if you kill all the trash in a run it can add 20-30 minutes to say a Twilight Arbor path. Then again if your group cant skip trash and continually wipe its going to take at least that long as well.

Imho trash in GW2 dungeons should be skipped IF you want to complete dungeons efficiently and cleanly. And by efficiently I mean….. fun, minimal extra time wasted on non-profitable things…. best gold for the time you spend in a dungeon. But this subject itself is a bit arguementative according to skill level.

akamon.2769:

4 day weekend coming up for Easter. finally will be able to be online a lot more and hope to play with some of you! if you see this and see me on, do message me!

i’ll check out the website as well ; ))

I hear what your saying. Works been a royal pain lately. A weekend break is very welcome at this point.

Had a chance to group with 5 people I’ve never done Arah with last nite and had a great time. The website is very good but I think it will take time for people to get used to it.

Lupi is a ray of sunshine in dark dungeons. Once you learn the event and do it a couple times you can appreciate just how good and fun it is.

Melee is funner <15char>

DeathPanel.8362:

You should’ve seen it before they nerfed them and reduced the number of spawns.

It was much harder and fun pre-nerf! I farmed up 2 full sets of TA armor (one for stats and one for skins) all pug’d. Thats a lot of TA. But whenever there was a sub 80 in the group you really felt it.

p.s tried many times to help newcomers learn about TA but overall I was surprised how many didn’t care what I was typing OR just didn’t have the time to bother.

Whoever created Lup is my hero. Now can I have my plush Lupi backpack skin?

TL;DR

GW2 dungeon grouping is a different and refreshing slant. Some people are just naturally great in a group with others while some players just dont get it. In other mmo’s players could gear up to an extremely high level then go into a dungeon and faceroll content flexing there kitten muscles. In GW2 its more linear so you have to rely on your group to work together for the most part.

I dont miss the trinity roles from other mmo’s where I had to roll a tank or healer to get quick groups and if I was dps I had to wait around for awhile. Variety is a good thing.

Lifelost.5627:

To summarize, it’s not fun to spend upwards of one and a half hours working through fracts only to hit the swamp and have the party call it.

Mesmer portal makes this unfairly easy. Only problem is people dont understand that all they need to do is make it to the mesmer. I play a mesmer so its puzzling how people dont get it. Swamp can be painlessly easy and quick OR can break up groups after a lot of painful attempts. I guess thats why you see a lot of “LFM fotm 10, pls be experienced” posts on GW2LFG.com.

TheMaskedParadigm.3629:

After the patch, it’s taken a few phases of her resetting at 50% but we have been successful in defeating her each time.

This doesn’t sound like fun. I mean dps’ing Simin to 50% repeatedly hoping that the boss wont bug. Does it have anything to do with where you place Simin? Reading the other posts it doesn’t sound like it.

Rhukong.9547:

I would love to join and be a part of this if it is still active.

It’s very active and doing well. There are a great many players in the guild now and my advice would be pro-active about grouping. Its hard to gauge just how many groups are running thru Arah but if your not being asked then start asking others. Don’t wait for the groups to ask you.

choigreywolf.7496:

I have been wondering this for awhile now, I have asked my guild those that are vets But do not wish to go through the dungeon again.

Understandable. Arah is unforgiving and if your group isn’t very good it takes 2x-4x times longer than normal to even run the easiest path.

I notice a lot of necro’s favor that dry bones armor. Personally I think the CoF is a great looking light armor set on a charr. But nowadays everybody has CoF sets.

I have a white female charr. can almost never see her face unless I have TA gear on. Have to admit that I saw a few white female charrs running around in WvW with big white floppy tails just taunting people and it looked cool….. so there ya go.

I like the fearsome beast aspect of it. Some people like the pretty and human side. Others like the stumpy and small side. Some like the big and brawny side. I’m always getting odd comments about my charr mesmer.

running on all fours is cool. although sometimes I think the charr run more like bulls rather than kittens. i mean charr’s are kittens aren’t they?

The CoF light armor helm looks good on a charr.

“the grind” is a matter of perspective but mmo’s tend to tap into the OCD of a lot of players. They dump rediculous hours into an mmo to get all the best gear and coolest stuff. Then they are so burned out from grinding they usually hate the game and quit playing. I’ve watched this happen to several friends. Some have quit playing mmo’s altogether.

… all depends on the group.

What gear you select can vary with what build you play. But that can change as you continue to play. For instance I play a mesmer. I have a bezerker set (CoF), a condition build set (TA) and 2 toughness sets (Arah) with some PVT pieces sprinkled in. Figure out what build you want to start off with and then look at the dungeon vendors. Chances are you will want more than one set as you change your mind on traits. Sometimes you’ll want to get dungeon armor just for the skins. Thats what I did with one of my TA sets.

While I wouldn’t mind getting a legendary I’m not into the “race to be first” thing. And as a casual player who plays for enjoyment but actually has a real life the cost of pre-cursors might as well be 1 million gold. I’m not one of those lucky players who gets amazing drops in mmo’s so I’m not considering luck being an option either. I’ve accepted that I probably won’t have a legendary before I stop playing GW2. Not sure when that will be but it would take some pretty awesome looking armor skins released in new content pretty soon. Still its been pretty awesome not to pay a monthly fee like other mmo’s.

PyrophoricX.7540:

Title pretty much says it, first dungeon ..

As a warrior tank, I was useless

One other thought. A warrior can be played tankish style but GW2 isn’t your traditional mmo. Even tanks in GW2 have to back off once in awhile.

But warriors are very welcome in any group due to there dps. And melee dps is better than ranged dps in GW2. Just something to think about.

Tien.3865:

Title is misleading, hehe. I thought only experienced players could join, but looking through some of the posts here I see a lot of first-timers like me!

It is. Sorry about that. I wish there was a way to edit the title but no such luck.

To OP I wouldn’t let it get you down. I ran story mode after doing a lot of explore mode. I thought story would be easy but I was surprised just how difficult it was.

To be honest first time I ran AC I was frustrated too. But that frustration was from not understanding the dungeon and taking a lot of damage. The thing about dungeons in GW2 is after you do them a couple times the dungeons start to become predictable. In fact after you farm one of them for awhile they almost become too easy.

Chalk your first couple runs up to experience and keep going. Dungeons are very fun.

Buying exotics with karma isn’t a bad idea. I think I put all rares on my mesmer when I first hit 80 and just ran a lot of CoF. Which type of gear depends on what your traits are and what your trying to do. You might actually have better luck asking this question on the mesmer forums… that is if your up in the air as to what spec you want to play.

Arguements seem to lead back towards “GW2 dungeons aren’t like WoW so they aren’t as fun” kind of message. But if they were like WoW then the arguement would be “whats so great about GW2 dungeons? WoW already has done this only they have much more content”. Or at least that seems to be the message I got out of reading the posts.

GW2 is different. Some people embrace that and others dont. In GW2 you run dungeons for tokens and the extremely low chance of getting an exotic along the way. In a lot of the cases they made trash skippable, your choice. Bosses can be rather unforgiving in cases where you are underexperienced or mess up. But as with all PvE content the bosses are predictable. After you’ve experienced you almost never die on that boss again.

Things I dont miss are:

-groups having to wait around 45 minutes to find a tank and healer to meet the holy trinity design
-finally finding a holy trinity group only to find that your tank can’t tank and/or your healer can’t heal so your group falls apart half way thru a dungeon. Then your stuck looking for replacements.
-having to clear trash like in other mmo’s but those dungeons taking 90-120 min to clear.
-having to run a dungeon 15 times waiting for your piece of armor to finally drop and having someone who ran it once outroll you on it.

I’ve played nearly every mmo and had some degree of fun in all of them. There are upsides and downsides to them all. I never played GW1 but in GW2 its more of a think outside of the box kind of mmo. Only there is no monthly fee!

bring cake…….<15char>