Guild Wars 2

Honestly, if you aren’t aware that an instance creator can’t swap characters then you don’t really deserve the privilege (not the right) of leveling your alts this way. Your little test runs screwed a total of 8 people out of their dungeon rewards.

Not sure if anyone said this, but recipes don’t drop instead of bags. Every recipe I’ve gotten (6 cof1 recipes and 1 hotw1 recipe) has dropped with either a bag of wondrous goods or a trinket that replaces it. I can find the screens if necessary.

This is probably the funniest thing a mod has ever done on these forums.

People complained about the fractal weapon drop rates being too low, so their response is to lower it to the point where skins hardly drop at all.

Sometimes people just want smooth runs. Making every run that you do “noobs welcome” would get very tiring very quickly.

You’re not playing how you want, you’re playing how the game wants. Dps spec’s aren’t meta because we say so, they are meta because that’s the way the game was designed.

30 25 0 0 15 – V X XI V X VI with greatsword and axe/mace is a pretty standard build. Full berserker armor/trinkets/weapons, maybe a few assassin’s pieces if you want.

Sanderinoa.8065:

Just so things don’t get taken the wrong way, I would like to clarify my last post a bit.

I am in no means against using lupi’s attack pattern to generate or avoid attacks ,such as pushing to the wall in P3. Showing this in the guide is naturally useful for those trying to get past. What I meant, was that I would have enjoyed seeing another phase 3 demonstration where this isn’t used. This could be fun for those looking at your guide and either don’t want to use it, or are unable to.

and no, I will not be making a non reflect solo, the whole comparison still sounds ridiculous to me, and that opinion is not open for change.

You put a lot of work in this guide, and its very well excecuted. I’m sure many warriors will learn from this. That alone deserves a “well done”.

I didn’t mean it as an insult, it’s just taking advantage of the options you have to maximize efficiency and speed. Usually making things more difficult and slower would be laughed at, but in this case I do agree that you have a point. Lupicus is a fun encounter and you should always learn it each way so that you’re prepared no matter what situation you’re put in.

Sanderinoa.8065:

Good job, that reminds me that I should renew my own lupi solo guide soon. I do, however, not really enjoy the phase 3 wall use for the guide, I would say i only justify this use for specific record runs, and think that an initial solo would need to be for challenge, which it undermines. Though I am aware that many just want to do this to sell paths ,instead of challenge themselves.

I would say reflects trivialize the fight even more. I believe that if your primary profession wasn’t one that used reflects, you would quickly concede and fight on the wall just to save time. That said, I seldom put him on the wall when I am just solo’ing without trying to achieve a fast time.

Nice guide btw, but the phase 2 aoe is actually called frenzied blast. The single target bolts are called Lupine Blast. You should make a note about the single target bolts since even though they are easy to avoid by staying in melee range, they do exist and can occasionally be a pain. Also, you listed kick twice and the grub infection doesn’t actually attach locusts to you, I think it’s just a sign of infection. Either way using the term “locust” can be confusing since there are actually enemies during the fight called locusts. The grub will spawn on you regardless of if he howls next as well. Using rush to get back in after an aoe life steal is actually not ideal since it will bug if you aren’t already inside his character model. To be safe you can use Furious Speed (II) in the arms trait line for perma swiftness, that way you can always get back to him quick enough after aoe life steals. Dropping Rending Strikes (V) isn’t detrimental to your dps. It’s also good to save rush if you have him on the wall since it’s high dps. Lastly, the transition grub will infect whoever is closest to lupicus about 3 seconds after he goes invuln, it would be nice to make a note of that.

GG man very nice solo. Good to see people taking it by the balls rather than complaining endlessly like I am

Literally the opposite of casual. Is there a word for that? That’s what this is. Anyways nice kill gg.

Bragdras.9572:

Lupicus, while being a good fight, is a poor representation of a good 5-man dungeon boss, because he can be solo’d (with effort, I’ll give you this), in this sense it’s a bit flawed, on another hand, this is possible due to the dodge mechanic, which means the boss works great for GW2 standards (telegraphed animations are fair but punishing).

I’d love to have more fights like this, but I’d prefer for Anet to fix the current broken AI on most bosses we currently have who don’t use their AoEs properly (looking at you, spider queen, Kholer and every other bosses who use their AoEs exclusively as gap closers.. Dumb).

Nearly every boss can be solo’ed. That is a good thing. A boss that can’t be solo’ed usually means that a dps team is simply bursting him down before he can rip your team apart which is horrible design. I can’t really think of any middle ground right now but feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.

Just for the record, lupicus actually has a really low health pool compared to most bosses. I think.

Obtena.7952:

This isn’t new … people had to farm badges in WvW for legendary before achievement rewards came out. NEXT!

Legendaries were purely aesthetic. Ascended weapons are the highest tier of stats available.

laharl.8435:

Isabella.5796:

The exact same thing just happened to 3 of us trying to sell Arah path 4. One of us got a whisper from a certain person who is known for destroying instances, but unfortunately I cannot name and shame. They “warned” us that we cannot sell p4 at 15g, I noticed another group was selling at 18g at the time. A few minutes later, someone joined our party, and merged us with another party selling path 2. So our instance was destroyed by some random person, and we could do absolutely nothing about it. We got another whisper saying “I warned you last week that you can only sell at the agreed upon 18gold for path 4 only”. Not only were we not even selling last week, but what the actual kitten is that? So now there’s one person who decides what price we can sell for? And if you don’t comply with the “agreed upon” rate they destroy your instance. Honestly so angry that Anet can allow such a stupid bug to persist for so long. I don’t even think they are doing anything about it. It’s just safer to stick to the LFG website because you are completely vulnerable due to ANYONE being able to destroy the instance YOU created. Please tell me how genius this merge option is.

It’s the seller mafia.

LOL

Omg Casey.5973:

I, personally can solo path 2 of arah. I do it for fun and to hone my skill level. So when I complete the path I could just finish the last boss and be on with my life, or I could provide a public service by selling the spots to the “less fortunate” who may not be able to complete the dungeon, even with a group. Is that so wrong of me?

Yes, you are a goon.

With so many single player games and so many single player options in this very game it is truly fascinating that people choose to play with a 5 man restricted team and still preach “play how you want”.

Not sure if someone has already said this, but usually people don’t buy dungeon paths because they are incapable of completing the dungeon themselves, but because they would rather spend their time elsewhere and just spend the gold for the completion (either for dungeon master of for the daily tokens for gear). Often times a regular WvW player will like the look of a certain dungeon armor and since they don’t enjoy the PvE side of this game they would prefer to just pay a few gold each day for their daily tokens. If there are people that want to buy it and people that went to sell it, who are we to say they should or shouldn’t be allowed to do so? To begin banning for this would be alot like starting a “War on Drugs” which would only make things worse.

As for exploiting, that will always happen and while I am not a big fan of certain ones like Lupicus skips, it is anet’s job to make sure that people can’t/don’t want to exploit, not ours.

Cormac.3871:

haviz.1340:

Cormac.3871:

One zerker is going to have a bad time in a party that’s relatively low dps.

One bad zerker.

Are you saying that all those zerkers who complain about lower dps builds because they reduce the chance of success are bad players?

He is saying that a good player in full dps gear won’t have an issue in a party with low dps because he knows how to rotate his own evades/blocks/blinds/damage mitigation to keep himself alive while still dealing significantly more dps than the rest of the team. There are only a few bosses that are tough to stay alive at for a good player in berserker gear. The big one that I can think of is slave driver in cof path 1 and he dies fairly quickly regardless and defensive gear won’t help that much there, he usually just tends to go straight for those in berserker gear.

haviz.1340:

Syn Sity.5826:

What exactly do you do when you find yourself in a group with four people who actually know how to dodge/mitigate damage and don’t need your support?

I would practise for incoming (at least datamined) Tag Team instability!

And they said clerics support guardians weren’t useful for anything…

Heithinn.6508:

swiftpaw.6397:

Now, as for the walls of text above. If you know that as a guard you can provide excellent support even as dps spec, then why don’t you? You say that many zerker guards don’t do that. I agree, they don’t. Because they are poor players, much like many cleric’s guards. But because you acknowledge that you can indeed support your team in full zerker just as well, and in fact better than clerics because you supply dps on top, then I suggest you try it.

Woah now. I never said a dps spec could provide “excellent support”. I agreed that they too posses virtues and other skills that can provide support to a group. This support is less frequent and not used as a primary function but rather as just a “bonus to my awesome damage” from the dps guardian. I can pop my virtues much more frequently and I am able to share some of my passive effects with the group. I can stand in the middle of the battle field and revive people so they can get back in the fight. I can cleanse the stacks of conditions that are killing you. This is my primary focus. I have built myself around helping you and the other 3 people in the group so you can focus on why you built your toon the way you did – to tear things apart. When do you use your heals and support skills? When it suits you right? I use mine constantly, my bar is full of them and they are all on cooldown. So please.. shut up and DPS.

What exactly do you do when you find yourself in a group with four people who actually know how to dodge/mitigate damage and don’t need your support?

Heithinn.6508:

swiftpaw.6397:

Not sure if serious.

No.. I am serious

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-7;4RFV10H3kFF90;9;44-4TT;729B58620-120;0QitaQitaOJGB1-c170;1Y5Z5XaXaYaW57B-2F0JV9ecX9e;9;9;9;9;9;4V1N5c

Great in WvW too.

As someone stated the staff is a support weapon. I’ve been plying this way since BWE. It’s extremely effective support. I don’t care how much damage I do – that’s not my role. Honestly the fact that I do any damage at all is just a bonus. Let the other 4 people damage while I keep them cleansed, rez them, buff them and use whatever I can to make the fight easier be it a projectile reflect or stability.

All my symbols heal and they are all huge so when I drop Symbol of Swiftness I’m giving you swiftness to get out of the way of attacks, healing you with 5 pulses and giving you a Light combo field for cleansing or retaliation – so you do more damage and receive less. Meanwhile Orb of light heals whoever it passes by and I can detonate it for more healing. Empower gives Might and a heal at the end. And if you creatively use Line of Warding you can not only stop following enemies during runs but assist kiters or protect the range camp from attacks. I heal you when I dodge, you all have my Virtue of Resolve passive heal – which is stronger and stacks with Regen as it’s a separate buff. My Mega support Elite lasts 10 seconds longer, which is a lot when you can spam Heal Area. And I have 3 group cleanses not including cleases that happen with Light Field.

Why Toughness and Boon duration? Well.. I need to be alive to heal and rez you don’t I? I already have plenty to cleanse, so Vitality is moot. With Boon Duration I get longer regen and protection. And yes I am lacking on damage, so the longer I can keep my might or fury or whatever boons are flying around the better off I am. Granted, it may take me a year to kill something, but I’ll still be standing.

As I stated, I was a healer for 6 years, this is the role I am comfortable in, it’s a role I enjoy.

So when you see a Guardian with a Staff… assume this is why.

There are so many things I want to say to you…

ozma.3498:

I want to clarify a few things since a lot of people may still hold the opinion that the kill is somehow not very impressive because they used ranged weapons.

First of all, meleeing Imbued Shaman himself (even at 80) is fairly easy with a small amount of practice, like most slow-hitting bosses. You have, what, two extra attacks to deal with? One of them is a slow cast AoE that you can literally walk out of, and the other is the spinning attack that also gives plenty of time to react.

If we were talking about a boss with fast melee hits, for example Legendary Archdiviner, I would definitely agree that ranging the boss trivializes the fight versus meleeing it. But on Shaman? Nah. It doesn’t even come close to trivializing it. Shaman’s attacks (including melee) are by far the easiest part of the fight.

To say that it’s not much of an accomplishment because they’re using a ranged weapon and thus negating two slow, incredibly easy to dodge attacks is like saying your guild’s Lupicus solo videos don’t show any skill because by meleeing you’re negating several of his main attacks that only hit ranged players.

Let’s face it – the only dangerous part of Imbued Shaman is the add phase, and meleeing the elementals while chaining reflects has zero risk vs. ranging them, since you are fully protected from their attacks anyway. On the [rT] duo 48 kill video, you basically chain Feedback, Phantasmal Warden and Temporal Curtain and then run out and kite the adds until the reflects come off cooldown.

I’m not criticizing this approach, but rather pointing out that there is nothing about this that shows superiority in skill of playing melee vs. ranged. With the protection of reflection abilities, you could essentially put some random terrible player into a Feedback bubble at level 80 and they’d be able to melee with their eyes closed and come out alive.

The real skill in the 80 duo is coordinating and positioning everything for the amount of time it takes to kill the adds (since they have so much health) while removing the boss’s bubble (full groups sometimes even struggle with this), dealing with the lava that appears beneath you and takes most of your health in one tick, and still dodging Agony/surviving the fourteen level 84 adds (who hit for 75% of your health) when you occasionally have to leave the reflect zones because of lava.

When all is said and done, this is a great duo kill and big respect to you for pulling it off.

Lol, what an kitten thing to say. Both kills are very impressive and you are directly insulting wethospu and sandy’s kill for no reason, while simultaneously giving all these examples as to why the 80 kill was more difficult just to fuel a fire that had already been put out.

I’m pretty sure this guy is impossible to convince. Even if you tested the difference between the two, he would come up with some excuse as to why the situation wasn’t optimal for his build. After he said he loves to use hammer in fractals I fear we may just be getting trolled.

xbutcherx.3861:

5 target and still doing more damage than 3. THAT IS MY POINT. but whatever.. keep playing you axe/mace

If you’d like we can do a dungeon/find a mob and see who kills it faster?

Bart Weird.9671:

The tremendous mistake of meleeing this boss came up to my mind while watching the video. The mesmer is basically killing his own game mechanics. He permanently triggers the bosses AoE killing all his own phantasmans and is left behind with his poor mainhand autoattack.

This actually came to mind for me. Melee’ing as any other class may be more effective but as a mesmer you are forcing attacks from him that will make him constantly kill your phantasms and everyone knows how much damage mesmers do without phantasms.

Melee’ing seems to be a waste on this boss. Good job this is quite an impressive feat.

To whoever was complaining about them ranging, we’re not watching to see them duo the shaman we’re watching to see them duo the level 84 lava elementals that have a billion health each.

Phaeton.9582:

guanlongwucaii.3162:

offhand axe is not viable, period

some people use it in solo settings for the fury from #4 (they drop fgj for another signet) but other than that offhand axe is the worst offhand weapon that warriors have.

also, if you’re talking about pure axe vs pure GS the DPS from pure axe is much better.

I can beat top players fairly consistently with an off hand axe, but it’s real strength is in its versatile (evasive!) cleave.

This conversation is about PvE (dungeons) only.

Carnagh.1687:

Norjena.5172:

No1 tells u do not enjoy the playstile u like.

Actually in this thread there are people suggesting exactly that… for some using an axe offhand is ground for auto-kick as a know-nothing.

GW2 is a simple simple game… when you’ve done naked corpse run to the bottom of a dungeon in vanilla EQ… GW2 is an incredibly easy game… If you like using the axe in the offhand, really just use it. No groups in PvE are failing because the Warrior is using an axe offhand. Really, stop the angst-ridden, obsessive nonsense.

If you’re getting bent out of shape over what Warriors are using in their off-hand, you’ve lost perspective and are making a mountain out of a tiny wee molehill… find something more important to worry about.

All weapon-sets for the Warrior are viable in PvE.

Whatever you class, please play with the build, the gear, and the weapon-set that you think feels fun and looks cool. Don’t let other people suck the fun out of your game. It doesn’t matter when you’re running around as a pointy eared plant-man whether or not you’re being sub-optimal…. Do you have a smile on your face?

I find it hard to believe you had done anything difficult in any other game considering you acknowledge that axe/axe isn’t optimal and still use it because it’s “fun”. And by the way, significance is relative. Saying that something isn’t significant to you doesn’t make it insignificant to everyone else.

As others have mentioned, no one is saying don’t run what you want. But don’t claim that it’s good just because you enjoy it. You’ve missed the point of the thread entirely but I’m sure that is something that happens to you regularly.

I’m pretty certain we decided that strength boosters were kind of cheating since you can’t obtain them through anything but RNG and they are a flat 5% damage increase which is huge. But we decided the same about embers so kitten it all I suppose…

According to someone I ran arah path 1 with, buffing your party with 12 might every 20 seconds is better than actually dealing damage yourself. He said he likes to play efficiently and called me annoying.

Black Box.9312:

Blackmoon.6837:

Black Box.9312:

It’s both, actually. Both dungeon rewards and the dungeon designs themselves need to be reworked in order to make the content as valuable as the reward for getting through it.

You totally missed my point, however, the irony is you’re proving it with a statement like that.

So I rest my case.

Uhm… What? Are you sure we’re on the same page here?

He isn’t talking about rewards, it isn’t about rewards. Content can be as difficult as you make it. Setting difficult goals for easy content is the only way to challenge yourself and have fun as a competitive gamer in this game.

Phadde.7362:

I personally hate this attitude. (quote)

Sure, a level 80 character have a statistical benefit. If you want to make dungeon runs as fast as possible with only elitist or people with a similar philosophy, Make Your Own Group

The dungeon is designed for people of level 35+, and there will be a lot of people that’s new to the game, or even to the entire genre. They have every right to be there and enjoy the content. The runs will be longer and less fluid. You might have to stop and explain now and then and you might have to do an encounter a few times before overcoming it.

If this isn’t something for you, then do not play in Pick-Up-Groups.

Vik Flagge.8324:

The fact that you can’t see why its a problem that low lvl characters make dungeon runs difficult is the problem. Simply put, regardless of player skill level, a sub-80 character does not have the UTILITY SKILLS and TRAIT SKILLS/POINTS to contribute.

Sorry that you have dealt with some hostile folks, but some may find it frustrating that people can’t or refuse to grasp the simple concepts of the game mechanics I described in paragraph one.

Perhaps a better use of your time (instead of wasting other people’s time with fail runs or complaining about it on the forums) would be to level your character.

Another alternative would be to get 4 friends or guild mates who are level 80 to hold your hand through the dungeon.

I would be happy to assist you on this if you find 3 other level 80’s willing.

No one has the right to be in your group because no one in any video game should be forced to play with people they do not want to. Neither party benefits in that situation.

Colesy you necro’ed the kitten out of this thread lol

Me and Dub decided it was best to remake this thread so it can be regularly updated since he is almost always banned. As before, I will check and update the thread multiple times daily if anyone posts times that beat the previous ones. I would rather not get into the rules on what actually constitutes a record, just use your best judgement and any issues people have can be discussed on this thread. If i make any mistakes, please point them out to me and they will be fixed asap.

13.6s 5 man Lupicus kill by [rT]
Mesmer perspective: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_p8bh-_wzXk
Ele perspective: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hiz_myhLavM
Ele perspective: http://youtu.be/2jv3_7SzSgo

Solo Elementalist Syn Sity – 4:07 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vyKIIKsSNs

Solo Warrior Goku – 4:32 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwabSDFDUpY

Solo Mesmer Sanderinoa – 4:56 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuTzORPCn6U

Solo Guardian Dub – 5:18 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFMNAX6iFNc

Solo Thief Luke – 6:30 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnuu0Sd42Lc

Solo Necromancer Luke – 7:50 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLn6d_D8HtQ

Solo Engineer Emanuel – 10:20 – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fzr6fXAH0DY

Solo Ranger Luke – 10:22 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9WQTsXWwgw

Good luck to those of you pushing for times, you will need it.

That list is so far from from reality it’s insane.

Marc update your thread already!!!

I agree, as do most of us here about the lupi skip. Skipping lupi is one of the strangest things people do in this game. But there are some other skips that only save time and annoying bosses so I suppose I am impartial. To each his own.

ThiBash.5634:

Syn Sity.5826:

First of all, this is far from “game-breaking” or “progress blocking”. It is annoying at best and may cause you to have to take a few extra minutes. Also if you want anet to respond, stop posting in the dungeon forums. Horribly counter-productive.

Funny. I guess I’m imagining that an entire party gets defeated by a single blowout and no resurrect at checkpoint screen comes up.

If that happens at all, it’s highly infrequent since I’ve never heard of that issue before. Also you could just character select and I’m sure it would fix it. Sometimes dungeons just bug, it’s not just harpy. I agree that it needs to be fixed but don’t act like it’s stopping you from playing the game because of how awful it is.

I suppose realistically you could expect to kill him in two chaos storms. So if you portaled up, jumped down and quickly used the portal back up again, you could wait for him to finish phasing and jump right back down on him and hopefully finish him off. That would be around 15 seconds I think.

Upham.6137:

Raven.3248:

I carried a party through arah p2 last night. 2 players were new to arah, 1 were new to the path and another with little exp. I had to basically solo phase 3 of GL. At least it was good practice for my solo

From my experience of being new to Arah and having someone wanting to solo him while the rest of us were on the floor, I can assure you I never thought “kitten this guy is so nice”. It was more like “this guy seriously needs to get a twitch channel”.

It is without doubt humiliating to be laying on the floor while someone solos a boss, but once you’re dead you kinda give up the right to complain about it. While you may look at it as a waste of your time, a few more whipes could be an even larger waste of his time.

Dromar.1027:

Phadde.7362:

Dromar.1027:

If they make fractal weapons easier to get after a year of grinding fractals I will simply walk into mordor.

Well, would you rather have it stay the way it is? It would be a huge improvement, right? If you already have a Fractal Weapon, the fact that you’ve fought for it more than most is still true.

It would have been a huge improvement 11 months ago but knowing what I know now about the direction of the game I would keep it the same. The problem in the game is skins are not rewarded for challenging feats but a combination of cash or gold. RNG fills the gaps but people are kitten ed because it was done so wrong by making everything drop everywhere and including it in black lion chests where a large majority of decent skins go now.

Fractals is the closest thing we have that shows players did something challenging that doesn’t include a solo 15 second lupi kill.

Nothing would quite compare to a 15 second lupicus solo.

First of all, this is far from “game-breaking” or “progress blocking”. It is annoying at best and may cause you to have to take a few extra minutes. Also if you want anet to respond, stop posting in the dungeon forums. Horribly counter-productive.

Yeah I suppose that they are all just considered as one boss type or something. Who knows how anet thinks. Also, I recently just have 120 second limit between posts, how long is that going to last me?

I think only bosses that have agony have AR

Bright.9160:

Syn Sity.5826:

What really happens – Anet lazily adds sections of aetherblade retreat/molten weapon facility and forgets about us immediately after.

Or, alternatively, they tie in some terrible Living Story into it, make the new Fractals time gated bullcrap and/or way too long, fix none of the bugs we’ve been complaining about for a year, fix the few ‘glitches’ that actually made Fractals bearable, tie in some pitiful reward that spawns out of laziness and is not representative in any way, shape or form, force some new ascended grind in it, screw over Fractal weapons in some way by giving them to the masses, and once the damage is done, leave it to rot for another year.

You forgot the biggest one, add more dredge.

deWord.3182:

Syn Sity.5826:

1. Stand close enough to him so that you’re almost touching his red ring but not quite pushing him.

yeh i know that, the domes are only a problem when he does his “big aoe” (whne lupi lifts up in the air) and i need to leap to him that part is allways kida dodgy for me. i eather eviterate or gs rush to him, but sometimse he domes me anyway :P, and i dont understand why.

Use the trait Furious Speed (II) in the Arms line. It gives you perma swiftness and what you give up for it isn’t much. Having swiftness always up makes it so that you can always get back to lupi before he domes you after aoe lifesteals.

1. Stand close enough to him so that you’re almost touching his red ring but not quite pushing him.

2. Luke would probably be better suited to answer this than me.

What really happens – Anet lazily adds sections of aetherblade retreat/molten weapon facility and forgets about us immediately after.

I no longer fumble on whirlwind which is nice since it became the largest offender. I try not to use cyclone/binding/whirling when I feel I may need to dodge soon and the fumbles aren’t that bad anymore. Although I am definitely sacrificing dps on certain occasions just to avoid potential fumbles. Also Alex, that’s one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard man, sorry.