Guild Wars 2

Warrior vs Ranger

The wp zerg rushing wasn’t good mechanic. I’m glad they made that change.

All there is as far as endgame goes is dungeons. They have been lacking for so long and there are so many necessary things that are supposedly in the works. It would have been nice to get these fixes like the fixes to dungeon loot, lfg tool, new fractals, and the fractal cap being raised due to the addition of more ascended gear before they started adding new content.

They made Guild Wars 1 such a solid game before they added an expansion. They are doing the opposite and just pumping out new stuff that is one time only and lackluster to try to hold peoples’ attention. It’s really sad since the potential for the game at release and the manifesto were amazing. It was also pretty impressive that they came on here and responded to people and gave some info to look forward to. The silence and lack of updates for dungeons isn’t really a good sign.

So many people I’ve played with have quit or seem to be in the process of doing so. I’m pretty much getting to that point after doing fractal 48 almost every day now sometimes twice for 2 months and I still don’t have the 1h sword or axe that I’ve wasted so much time of my life on it’s just getting sad now. If I did cof instead I’d probably have a legendary and a decent amount of change left over.

Path 3 is the fastest and easiest for a typical group. Path 2 would be the next best choice if your in a hurry to get tokens. Path 1 can be long and painful and path 4 is long.

You can get 2 of the same stats but you can’t get the same one. So if you want zerker rings you can’t equip 2 ring of red deaths. You need to get 1 ring of red death and 1 crystalline band. I don’t know what you mean by cap but I’m guessing the answer is no.

Fractal 48 rewards vs Canach reward = sad face

If your doing mainly pve berserker would be a great choice. They will always be useful. For armor I would definitely change your clerics and get knight. With AH, shouts, heal, staff 4 with AH, virtues, and renewed focus healing power is a waste of a stat.

Also, if your going for tanky do 0/0/30 (VI, XI, and your choice)/30 (II if you have 2+ shouts, VII if you have a hammer, IX if you have a gs, XI if you don’t use soldier runes, VIII if you have a free trait open)/10(VI) with a hammer or gs + staff or scepter/focus if you need to range. Hammer is far superior than a mace if you want to be tanky and support your group. If your going for dps go 0/30(VI, X, XI)/0/30(II, VIII, XI)/10 Virtues(VI) with sword/focus + gs or scepter/focus if you need to range.

Just rewatched and noticed something. Almost, but still very nice.

You should make a petition to buff the loot instead. This boss is great but the loot is crap even at 48.

Chopps.5047:

obal.3218:

Rangers are the worst class for most dungeons and definitely the worst for fractals. Your group should be grouping up mobs and cleaving them. Rangers have single target dps which adds little value in that scenario which consists of half or more of a dungeon. Their utility value is out shined by other classes as well. They are a burden at high level fractals and lead to longer runs and more wipes because of these 2 things.

Thieves are middle ground as far as classes go but if your group has no problem skipping or doing the content then mesmers and guardians have better utilities and warriors have better dps so it’s better to bring them instead. I don’t mind having a good thief in the group though.

The problem also is the players’ mentality. Rangers are a very laid back class to go wander around with. When it comes to dungeons it seems like most don’t know the content, don’t know their class, don’t know how to dodge, don’t know how to manage pets, and don’t want to have any responsibilities like picking up the hammer. I’ve seen so many thieves just run in and die over and over again or just range the whole time and very few that really know how to play their class. That is another reason why people avoid/hate these classes.

That’s odd, my drakes, greatsword, and axes cleave on every attack. But last time we played together we were beating Simin on our first try (back during Simin hard mode) and I was full on single target DPS so maybe you don’t remember that ranger cleaves. I regularly reflect 50k on lupicus phase 2 aoe as well akitten every target for 5000 with path of scars using clerics armor. But, yeah, surprised you didn’t know rangers cleave like that.

It’s rare that I see a ranger with anything but a bow. Out of all the rangers I’ve partied with in dungeons I’ve seen maybe 2 use something else. You are in the one percent. Which brings up the topic point.

Rangers are the worst class for most dungeons and definitely the worst for fractals. Your group should be grouping up mobs and cleaving them. Rangers have single target dps which adds little value in that scenario which consists of half or more of a dungeon. Their utility value is out shined by other classes as well. They are a burden at high level fractals and lead to longer runs and more wipes because of these 2 things.

Thieves are middle ground as far as classes go but if your group has no problem skipping or doing the content then mesmers and guardians have better utilities and warriors have better dps so it’s better to bring them instead. I don’t mind having a good thief in the group though.

The problem also is the players’ mentality. Rangers are a very laid back class to go wander around with. When it comes to dungeons it seems like most don’t know the content, don’t know their class, don’t know how to dodge, don’t know how to manage pets, and don’t want to have any responsibilities like picking up the hammer. I’ve seen so many thieves just run in and die over and over again or just range the whole time and very few that really know how to play their class. That is another reason why people avoid/hate these classes.

Yenn.9185:

A little off topic, but is there any benefit to running that high level FOTM (45+ or even 40+)? I do 30s daily and I can’t really push myself to go higher.

You have a much better chance of getting a skin at 48 than 30s. Anything below 48 is a waste of time. I’ve leveled 2 characters to 48 and I’m yet to get a skin below 46 and I’ve gotten 15 or so from 48s.

Many of us would like some info on fractals and if anything is in the works. There have been so many threads on it but no response.

Since we got another leader and a couple more vets to help, we will be taking more members now. I have invited all that posted after my initial freeze post.

We still need a few more vets to help out. If you think you can lead groups and want to help out please say so on your post or if you are an existing member let me know if you want to help out.

Warrior build for pretty much everything is full zerker 20/25/0/10/15 with gs and axe/mace. You are there to do a lot of damage. You don’t need any AR until around 20. Have a bow or rifle as you secondary if you plan to range something most of the time like the dredge bosses or your team is dropping like flies. I have a few pieces of knights armor in my bag to swap to in case I pug and they drop like flies.

Please be aware that we are no longer taking in new members. We are in need of more staff members first. We will invite those that have posted since I first said that though if we get more staff.

We need at least 1 more leader to help out. We could use a couple more vets to help out also. Here would be the responsibilities.

Resposibilities would be
- Take the people new to arah in for a run to show them the ropes
- Check this post and invite people and stick them in the rank you see fit
- Set up events on our site to do whatever (can set up regular p3 runs, do paths to help people get dm title, etc)
- Be polite and patient like our members

We have gotten a few more vets. Thanks to those who volunteered.

That was some impressive skill usage and dodging. I never knew he didn’t put bubbles up if you don’t move so that’s good to know. You beat my guardian scepter solo by a full half hour!

Here is a decent video for the guardian and your group to watch
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKdOMkq43OY

- Keep him near the middle so he has awhile to get to villagers
- Save all reflects/projectile destruction skills for when the elementals spawn
- Stay together so when the guardian puts the bubble up you are all in it (would put it a short distance away from shaman not on it since you have rangers to bow it)
- Have the rangers take down the shaman’s bubble while the rest deal with the elementals
- Have the guardian gs 5 elementals in the bubble and melee them along with the warrior
- Elementalist should be using a focus for swirling winds to use when the elementals are up
- Get away from the guardian bubble if he puts aoe on it, it is destroyed, or the shaman broke out and is near it. Fall back and have he guardian put up wall and range and kite elementals after that.
- If you have at least 2 up with only a couple or no elementals left you should still be fine. Have the person he is on pull it away from the dead people to keep it busy while the other people revive the rest
- Ele – Mist form, Warrior – Endure Pain (think this works or can use at elementals), Guardian – Renewed focus. Use these to negate the agony after you get hit if needed
- Win

All that is needed is a weapon skin token earned from higher levels like relics for rings and add existing skins to an existing trader. I’d imagine that is a fairly simple thing to do and it would make so many people happy and interested in the content again.

I just go for the bags anymore. I’m glad they have those there so running it isn’t a total waste anymore. I’m not sure what I’ll do in the game anymore once I get all the bags for my 8 slots from running 48s. I probably still won’t have the sword by then though but I guess I’ll always have my 3 torches to look at.

TheMaskedParadigm.3629:

Your RNG in phase 3 was the best I’ve ever seen, and if you had sigil stacks, you may have been able to get something closer to what we got. I don’t think you’l be able to get below 45 with your current setup, though, and that would probably be pushing it a bit.

Yeah we got real lucky at 3. We didn’t get lucky at 2 though since he did the aoe right away. I agree though about our setup. I think all we can get is 43-45 with stack even. We have been debating on me swapping for warrior or mesmer.

Well played. You got some lucky RNG there like we did on our record that you beat (we were hoping for about what lupi did for you ). We got tired of having bad RNG so we are no longer doing sigil stacking (90% of the time we got to 3 he jumped in the air within 1-5s). Our new record is 49s without sigil stacking if your bored and want to try and beat ours without it. We would have probably tied or beaten yours if we had the 25 stacks like you did.

I’ve noticed trying to set the record that it is mostly RNG. Having a good phase 1 of around 12s, having a good phase 2 and having him do his AoE late in the phase, and having him do his AoE then targeting clones with life steal/bubbles or autoattacking at 3 is the key to the fastest possible time.

Shadowmoon.7986:

Looks like warriors need another buff, they can’t even kill lupi in under a minute….

Hopefully we can get our group together tomorrow and correct that. We got exactly 1 minute today with a down and me running around for 10s since I thought we were resetting. The RNG gods were not in our favor today, but we have adjusted our builds/gear/food and made a lot of improvement in gameplay. We kept getting him to phase 3 in 30s but he jumped up in the air right after about 90% of the time. We have ditched our sigil stacking as well.

Zenyatoo.4059:

One big thing would be based on lupicus himself, but in phase 3 you can reflect the barrage thing he does, chunking a good bit of his hp. If he had used that attack rather than the bubble or the life drain you probably would have shaved off another 5+ seconds.
kitten impressive though.

I was waiting and waiting for this so I can put up my wall and watch the numbers fly but he got lazy

Wethospu.6437:

OMM! > Frenzy, unless Lupicus has unusual resist for Vulnerability.

10% more damage for ~6 s every 30 s. That’s 2% more damage (group-wide). With just 3 Warriors that already beats Frenzy.
Frenzy 3 extra seconds every 60 seconds -> 5% more damage (single-target).

I wasn’t sure what would be better. We will have to try that next time.

Chopps.5047:

I wasn’t trying anything. I was just extrapolating based on what I saw. To me, I didn’t even think they had to dodge roll once but I watched on a tiny cell phone screen. Still, do you think 65 or 70 s is a bad estimate for thief, warrior, warrior, guardian, mesmer? And I’m still wondering how much might they stacked? I couldn’t see it was too small.

I’d say on average the guardian and mesmer had 12 and the warriors had 20.

Dub.1273:

You’d have been kicken in phase 1 anyway without aegis, the dodge was too late. Also very few 100b’s, using it more you could increase your damage output by over 30%. Also the team should try to not dodge grubs when he aims on someone else. kitten good job @ obal, i see about nothing that could be done better.

They are fairly new at meleeing lupi and we haven’t been playing together for very long so I could see things like this that we will eventually work out. This was our first try at a speed kill and we managed to break the record so it is pretty impressive I would think. What you said was right but most people are normal and get a little tense in situations like this. It takes a whole different kind of crazy like you or me to keep a cool head and do everything perfectly. Hopefully we will practice some more and they will get more comfortable with it.

I could have used retreat at phase 3 to give a slight increase in the warriors dps is what I could have done better but I was too focused on watching for a bubble to hit us or use wall for the aoe which unfortunately never came at phase 3 while feedback was on cooldown.

I believe this is the new record. This was our first real try with 2 practice runs prior so we are going to get better gear and try for under a minute. I must say they are an amazing group of players.

Guardian Point of View (Me) = http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdHsdpxgI2A
Warrior Nikaido’s Point of View = http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmtWtIuS1wI

You can be a noob like me and have an invulnerable to fall back on if you get hit with agony. Renewed focus, mesmer sword #2, mist form, etc. I do this for fractal 48 if I fail to dodge since it negates the agony ticks.

I wouldn’t really consider 26 or 30 high levels either. Do 40+ and you see what high levels are. AR doesn’t matter there since you will be downed if you get hit regardless unless you use an invulnerable skill immediately after like I suggested. I laugh at posts that require 40 and 45 ar on gw2lfg. I started out with 30 there and don’t notice much of a difference with 45. It’s all about dodging. If you can’t do it you shouldn’t go above 39.

I don’t post ar requirements when I go. I do hope they have high ar though since I tend to scratch my head and wonder how some pugs got to be in 20-40s and not know how to do fractals, dodge the attacks, and refuse to pick up the hammer after doing the dungeon 20+ timesAt least the ar will be there to save them below 40 but they will possibly make a 40 run take over an hour longer as they spend half or more of the time down/dead at ever boss since it won’t save them there.. If it’s people on my friends list I really don’t care since I know they can dodge and handle not having ar to save them.

I’m going to put a temporary freeze on recruitment.

We are in need of more leaders and vets. If you are someone that would like to help out either new or already in the guild post here or contact me in game.

Resposibilities would be
- Take the people new to arah in for a run to show them the ropes
- Check this post and invite people and stick them in the rank you see fit
- Set up events on our site to do whatever (can set up regular p3 runs, do paths to help people get dm title, etc)
- Be polite and patient like our members

Once we get another leader and a couple of vets I’ll waive the recruitment freeze. The guild has grown quite large and many have moved on from Arah. Hopefully, this will help since this guild has been a great experience and helpful to many. We have such wonderful players in the guild both talented and polite so I’d like so time to help get things going again more before we get new members.

You gain a level if you complete a run that is your level or higher.

You just go behind the tank to the door there. Pull the boss and the first wave will probably come. Kill the fist wave and then the boss. Do not go near the tank.

So then the boss will be dead and you can go kill the second wave that is waiting in front of the tank. Then groups will spawn and you can put up projectile blocks/reflects up in front of them and steamroll them as they spawn over and over again. Two guardians for this part alternating wall and shield should make this easy.

I have no problems using this tactic at 48. It is the quickest way. I have done it plenty of times where I was the only guardian and we had 1 mesmer and we did fine. It is quite taxing on me though as the single guardian. I’d suggest having 1 guardian use a hammer with tanky gear.

You could get a soldiers set of armor and knights trinkets to start out. It is much harder to play at with the hp you have. As you get better you can take off the training wheels and go with a mix of knight/zerker.

If you run a hammer swap Honor IX for VII. The main use of the hammer is auto attacking and never breaking the chain up to do the other attacks under normal circumstances. You really need that trait since it will keep protection up on you nearly 100% of the time if you keep auto attacking and dodge from time to time.

Use focus instead of shield. You can use focus 5 and swap to hammer when starting to attack mobs. Ranging with focus is better than shield too since it can get you out of a jam.

If you are attacking stuff that you will melee for the majority of the fight use hammer/staff and just swap out staff for scepter/focus if you are going to range stuff for the majority of the fight. You have AH so use your heal and shouts. If you are still getting low with heal on cooldown use virtues → renewed focus → virtues. If for some reason heal is still on cooldown and everything is used up then dodge out and swap to staff and use skill 4. As soon as you can swap use hammer again and repeat this cycle since your skills will be mostly replenished.

Guardian is by far the best. At 40s its great to have 2 and they are in demand. Even at 20-30s its nice to have 2. Mesmers are nice too as long as there is just 1 in the group. Warrior or Theif would be the next best choice of your characters you have. Theifs make the dredge go by fast and painlessly as well as provide another form of reflect. Warriors are pretty obvious what they bring but they don’t do quite as well as in other dungeons facerolling stuff in melee range the whole time. Elementalist after those choices since they have decent support and the focus skill that destroys projectiles.

I’ve never seen a necro 30+. I’d imagine it would be hard to get a group as one in the 40s. I don’t see many engineers or rangers either later on. There are a lot of projectiles and they hurt badly later on and those 3 provide no support for that and don’t have the dps of a warrior. So those 3 classes bring little or nothing to help the group in fractals. Rangers had their use but it was nerfed.

I have 30 spare shards in my bank and I’ve used maybe 10 on top of that. I do 48 and seem to get one every other run. I manged to get 4 shards in 1 run. This seems like the only loot that scales so if you need to grind to get to the next tier just go for the higher levels of the tier. Dredge is lame but great for these drops.

Also, for the people running the mf gear and not getting these drops and needing them…. I am glad you didn’t get rewarded for contributing less. There isn’t much lamer in the game than a person running around in a dungeon with a set of mf gear. I do not run mf and managed to get around 50 shards if I add in mists and globs with my shards.

Enemies that are summoned by other enemies drop vials regardless of the level. So things such as the things the maw spawns, the dredge that pop up from the dredge suit, and the barracudas that spawn from the kraits are things that will give you vials instead of globs/shards.

The loot doesn’t seem to scale which is poor design and needed to be fixed months ago or at least should have been commented on by now. This is 1 out of countless posts that has been left with no response sadly. I really hope a fix is on the way since the 40s is one of the only real challenging and fun pieces of content in the game right now.

Servatus.9214:

• Fractal skins – I’ve gotten 1 skin out of hundreds of runs. Maybe that’s just kitten luck but the story is the same for many friends.

You said you just did a 42 for the challenge. It sounds like you do 38 and below only. Repeating anything except for 48 is a waste of your time. I rarely ever saw anyone get a skin in 20-30s. Some may disagree but they have been very lucky 20-30s but the chance of getting a skin greatly improves in the 40s. I’ve run 48 nearly every day for a month and at least 1-2 people usually get a skin each run. Sure we get screwed over with 0 rings/skins sometimes but we get compensated with 3-5 skins on other runs. Again though 0 rings/skins for the group at 48 needs a fix months ago.

So in short just level and stick with 48. You will become a better player and have more fractal spears, harpoons, spearguns, torches, warhorns, condition rings, and healing power rings to take up plenty of bank space. You will not receive better loot till you get to the daily chest popping up on your screen except for an increase in relics.

Could take the lame and easy route to path 3. This is not the fastest way but it is the safest way for pugging. If you have a guardian I would suggest using it.

Mobs in first room – pull them back and fight them at the npcs at the parameter

Mobs at door – have one lead them back behind the spikey thing on the wall around the corner to group them up and kill them fast

Crusher – have all stand on the platform in the back corner and aggro them killing crusher first and hope that he doesn’t run up

After crusher – wait for the patrol of 3 to run up and then run to next boss. a theif stealthing before running would be great and you won’t have to wait for the patrol to run by. hug the left wall when the path splits. run up the left wall past the spider spawn that is next to boss to ditch them. After that whoever is left just stand at the bottom right of the platform facing the boss and range since he won’t attack

orbs – make a spread line and pass it along

room – hope no one aggroes and run along the left wall to the corner and put up a wall of reflection so turrets kill each other or shoot them from the corner

lupi – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJ25Ts2LAuk

after lupi – run down the one way path yourself to get the wp and have others wait till they can wp

before boss – have light/medium get in seperate circles towards the back of them and not attack. have heavies round up the ones that aren’t the boss to the middle

boss – avoid breath and stand in white circles to get rid of corruption. hopefully people can dodge that and you won’t have a bunch of wraths added to the fight

You are a guardian and you should be able to make this fight a lot easier since you are well equiped to revive and kite him around. Starting out you should put on your soldier set with scepter focus and shield. Put on Valor IX and Honor V. Bring stand your ground, retreat, wall of reflection, renewed focus. Use sheild 5 when he hugs himself at phase 2 which starts his aoe and you wont get hit. Use focus 5 if sheild 5 is down and dodge when it lands. You can use renewed if both are down. I use wall but I still dodge at aoe and mostly use it for damage or to revive while he auto attacks. If you have the most toughness he will probably stay on you at phase 3 which is good and you can kite him away from whoever is downed or dead for easy reviving. Use stand your ground for the bubbles. If that is down use renewed and walk out. If both are down use focus 5 and aegis skills. I run 2 sigils of energy and can solo him or res the team when all are down just fine with them on and can’t imagine going back to 0 of them. Use heal on crit food and potions of undead slaying.

You have a very good team composition for this fight. I made a video guide for all professions which should help your team and give setups and such at the end for all. I did it as a guardian so you can see how I play it regardless of what the situation is.

I got enough baubles to get every skin from the trader. I got no skins from the chest. I don’t care to do the math…

They reset when the daily achievements do. They got rid of the 2 hour wait to run the same path on a different character to get the full reward awhile ago so you can just do the same path back to back with a different character and get the full reward.

Enemies usually go after the person with the highest toughness. It’s not unlikely that they would target your guardian. I’m guessing you run a lot of toughness gear on your necro and warrior as well. It’s good to be somewhere in the middle if you don’t want to be targeted since most things go after the player with the highest toughness and a few seem go after the lowest.

elemental slaying

The higher up you go the more likely you will get skins. Usually 1-2 people get a skin at 48. It doesn’t seem like skins drop too often in 30s and it’s pretty rare in the 20s. People just do 40s for skins and if you have a good group it doesn’t take much/any longer than 20-30s so doing any lower than 48 in that case would be a waste of time. It is also fun to do 48 with a good group since it is the only challenging content in the game other than lupi. So basically skins and challenge.

You would think the loot would be better too but dungeons are pretty much in a broken state that need some well deserved love and support. Anet has been pretty quiet on this section of the forum so we can only hope there are good things to come and soon.

Nice work. That is quite an accomplishment.

I never look at the red circle. They are misleading as Dub said. I just watch for the animation and watch for them dropping on me. You could go in melee range too but that is riskier. You would need to dodge twice as soon as you see him hugging himself and then you wouldn’t have a dodge left if he swipes right after and that may instant down you unless you have a sigil of energy to swap to right after your double dodge. You also have to be fast or you will be downed since the bolts hit right away at melee range. You can watch how I do it at 3:40 on my video though I couldn’t swap to my energy sigil set and you can see what happened http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJ25Ts2LAuk If you get downed in melee range that also makes it harder to revive you and could get others killed that would try to revive you so keep that in mind if you try. Either way that must suck for a lot of the other content but it shouldn’t be much of a problem for lupi given you can see his sparks and he has his animations that give you some time to react and get away safetly.

The red circles don’t mean much since the sparks hit outside of them anyway. If you can see the green sparks you should be fine. Just stay ranged at a decent distance away, use F1, and watch for them to fall down and dodge when they are about to hit the ground near you. The animation that starts his aoe is the one where it looks like he is hugging himself and you have more time to react the further away you are.

Thankfully, no he has not.

He isn’t bad at all if you understand the fight and bring the right things. Watch a video like this one and you will see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJ25Ts2LAuk

Nikaido.3457:

I find the endurance food to be the best if you don’t have a source of vigor which I don’t think ele has a reliable source.

They actually do, but that requires putting points in Arcana and it’s the same source as mesmers : Vigor on crit. Mes, guardian and ele are the three classes that have the best access to vigor I think, while other classes might rely on different abilities (engi trait for endu regen, war signet of stamina/or using burst skill to regenerate it etc).

Thanks. I didn’t know about the trait I’ll have to add it to the video later for my ele setup suggestions. If you have the trait on then get yourself some mixed berry pies or if you don’t want to be cheap like me get some omnomberry pies or ghosts.

novalee marie.2458:

Nikaido.3457:

Orrian Truffle and Meat stew is unwarranted if you have the Critical Infusion trait, granting vigor on crit. But I’m a zerker so I crit all the time, your mileage may vary. Vigor is 100% endu regen, so this food is rendered useless if you have it.

I use the stew on my ele. If there is one that works better, would love to know of it. i am always looking for tips to make it go easier

I find the endurance food to be the best if you don’t have a source of vigor which I don’t think ele has a reliable source. For Mesmer or others that do the steal hp on crit food (I use mix berry pies since they are cheap, second best, and good enough) seems to be the best since you can gain some hp while your heal is down and probably be able to survive 1 more hit from the hp you gained back. With your exp I would just go in melee range if he is on you at phase 3 with your mesmer so you don’t have to bother dodging the bolts, use mantra of concentration if you get hit by a bubble, blink out of the big red circle, use sword 2 and 1 dodge after for life steal, and stay on the opposite side of lupi in regards of the person he is following for the bubbles so you won’t have to deal with that and the small aoe circle very often. I’ll take you along on a full melee group sometime if you would like. I’ve just been distracted by that super box as you seem to have been as well.

randomfightfan.4091:

geez what a noob. Next time put up a video of you soloing it… oh wait. :P

lol

BartBacardi.5371:

thisisu.7504:

Nice video. That Mesmer was amazing.

Uhm I guess you meant the Guardian?

He was making a joke since he was the mesmer in the clips at the end where I talked about feedback at phase 3. I do agree with him though

BartBacardi.5371:

You explain aswell how you can easily avoid most of his attacks for each class. However your playstyle when your entire team is downed to get 1 guy up is near impossible for a lot of classes. The same goes for the Lupicus fight aswell. You face tank him like he’s a kitten. Having a skilled guardian in the group really helps making the fight easier.

From my experience when pugging Arah the guardian most of the time can’t tank him and nor is there another class that is able to tank him for that long. So he’s kited around. That adds a lot of chaos to the fight as he propably will switch aggro from time to time aswell. And that’s the part were it all goes wrong for most groups. But you do not show this kiting technique in your movie. As your just to skilled yourself :P. A lot of parties are just unable to keep him in place like you do.

All this is true. I fraps so many fights and felt like this fight was the perfect one since I had full aggro and showed how to control the fight leading him away from dead people so the rest could res. I didn’t mention kiting around since I suggested that all should go ranged so they would kite anyway and talked about the good and bad parts of range vs melee instead. I had to add in some clips to supplement the rest but wanted to keep it under 15min since any longer would deter people from bothering to watch it.

For the reviving piece I wanted to show how bringing and using the right traits/skills makes it easier and safer to revive people. I know that very few people and no new people could do what I did there but just wanted to stress the importance of skills and uses. It is definitely more of a challenge with other classes to do what I did there but it is possible in melee range with some energy sigils on though I would just suggest restarting unless the person in that case knows they would most likely succeed.

BartBacardi.5371:

As for the comments you make in the end of the movie for the different classes. I main mesmer so I will only answer to that.
Scepter is just beh cause it relies mostly on confusion. It sucks in PVE do not use it. Use a sword instead. Especially your sword 2 can save your life when used right.

Focus: For a skilled mesmer this is definitly the way to go. But reflecting warden isn’t anything I would recommend to a starting mesmer on Lupicus. As said most of the time when I’m doing Arah he’s kited around and as the warden is stationary he just doing nothing. Besides the casting time for warden is pretty long. Atleast longer then the animation for Lupicus his AOE attack. Also the warden is a melee phantasm meaning he dies pretty quick. You really need a very good understanding of the fight in order to cast wardens effectivly.

I would recommend using a pistol in the offhand if you really want to use sword / scepter in your mainhand. The Phantasm are ranged and do a nice chunk of damage. And they tend to stay alive a lot longer cause of their range.

But in the end I would recommend using GS / Staff. The staff adds a lot of survivability which will be very helpfull for the newcomers. Besides it is a ranged weapon aswell as all the phantasm and illusion you spawn with it. It will buff your team with the bounces out of the autoattack and gives a lot of chaos armor “even more survivability”. And you can use Staff 2 “Phase retreat” aswell to escape from the bubbles he makes in phase 3. So to all the new mesmers at Lupicus start using a staff :p

That’s the criticism I have. But in the end one of the best Lupicus teaching movie I have seen so far. Thank you!

I mostly use guardian and I started to only melee by the time I started using other classes every once and awhile so my suggestions are good but as you demonstrated are not perfect. I picked scepter/focus since range is best starting out and scepter is ranged and gives another block if you need it. I guess sword/pistol would be better since sword 2 is great to block the aoe and you can use the pistol attacks which would be stronger than auto attacking with scepter while you wait to swap. Staff is nice as well. I’ll try and edit the video to incorporate all of your suggestions later. Thanks for all the feedback

Add 8bit Lupi as a boss.

I noticed how many and how often there is a topic on how difficult this boss and people struggling with it. Here is a video guide with full commentary for those that are new or struggling with it.

I know there are other videos out there but all the ones I saw showed someone else being the target, the person spends a lot of time on the ground, or it focuses on one profession. I covered pretty much everything there is to know about the fight and gave info for all the professions. I’m open to constructive criticism as I can just add some more text on the video where it is lacking as I have done a bit so far.

Video Includes:
Audio commentary (and a few lines of text on vid for things I forgot to say)
Full aggro so you can see all attacks and how to counter
How to use reflection skills properly
How to revive and control the fight
General things to bring (consumables,sigils,etc)
Build help for all professions (gear,skills,traits)
I spend no time on the ground so you get to see more of the fight

The video – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJ25Ts2LAuk

Hope it helps!

All I ever wanted was a mini Lupi. I’d love it if they updated the dungeon traders to exchange the dungeon blues we get for a miniature.