The Giganticus Lupicus is a boss common to every route in Arah's explorable mode, located at the midpoint of each route. The fight takes place in a large circular area. Giganticus Lupicus has 3 phases and requires coordination and a good team setup with high toughness, vitality and defensive traits. During transition, Giganticus Lupicus will briefly turn invulnerable to signal the imminent start of each new phase and it is important that all team members react accordingly to avoid a bad start. Ranged weapons are preferable during most of the fight but melee weapons can help during phase 1. Using vitality or endurance food and exotic gear will increase your chance of success. Remember to slot gear, traits and utilities according to which phase the group is having difficulty with. If the group has difficulty consistently downing grubs in Phase 1, stun breaks and stability will help players get back on their feet to add damage to it.
Phase 1
In phase 1, Giganticus Lupicus spawns two different kinds of adds. A Locust Swarm which he spawns regularly and a less common Risen Grub. Locust Swarms are fairly fragile elite enemies that cause bleeding and do high melee damage, especially if allowed to accumulate in numbers. However, the main mechanic of this phase is based around the Risen Grub.
Once every few seconds Giganticus Lupicus will randomly target one player with a green plague aura, telegraphing the attack with an elaborate flourish by raising his hand over his head. At this point, the attack can be dodged. The appropriate time to do so is cued by Giganticus Lupicus' hand reaching the peak of his flourish. If not dodged, after a few seconds the player will be knocked down and a Risen Grub will appear on the position of the targeted player. If left untouched for a few seconds the Risen Grub will quickly move to Giganticus Lupicus where it will grow and be devoured. If the grub spawns close to Lupicus (from a player attempting to melee Lupicus), it may be devoured instantly. This will give Giganticus Lupicus stacks of armor and power for each Risen Grub eaten, making the deadliest phase of the battle that much harder. Individually, players can learn to recognize the distinctive plague aura and call out their status if the team is on voice chat. Resist the urge to leave the stack for any reason if so targeted. If anything, place yourself in melee range just in front of other players.
It is absolutely vital that this doesn't happen. Once a Risen Grub spawns, it must be killed within a few seconds. The grub is a normal mob and does not have much health, but it can be hard for the targeted player to do so without expending a stability or stun break to come out of knockdown. This requirement must be balanced with dealing damage to Giganticus Lupicus himself - the more slowly he is killed, the more times the grub mechanic must be dealt with. Most groups stack closely at a position within 1200 missile range of Lupicus. This results in a constant stream of damage to the main boss while making all the grubs spawn more or less on top of the party where it can be quickly dealt with. One simple and unambiguous way to do this is to have all party members call target and attack grubs as soon as they appear before retargeting Lupicus. Many classes can continue to hit Lupicus with white attacks while using ground targeted AoE and utilities to damage grubs and swarms without the hassle of retargeting. Another is to devote one or two members of the party to clearing both locust swarms full time with melee weapons and spiking down grubs as they appear. Warriors with the Fast Hands minor trait could easily do both.
It is also important that the party to kill locust swarms as necessary, not letting more than one or two accumulate. Locust swarms do enough damage that they can easily down a player and the resulting need to rez may snowball into disaster. Regardless, Risen Grubs should always have priority.
As noted, the grub spawning attack can be dodged - the appropriate time is when his hand reaches the peak of his flourish. If the entire party can do this reliably, this opens up the option of meleeing Lupicus during this phase, greatly increasing damage output. Under these conditions, summoned locust swarms are likely to be downed naturally before they can cause much damage. Of course, an error in evading the maggot spawn would result in the grub being eaten immediately. At melee range, Lupicus will add a highly damaging kick to his skill rotation that will need to be avoided as well.
Phase 2
Once the boss goes down to about 75% health he will go into phase 2 - the most difficult phase for most parties. Staying at maximum range is a commonly suggested tactic within Arah groups, for both phase two and three, however it can be argued that these phases are actually most easily completed in melee. Skills and traits that help with endurance regeneration or grant vigor, or endurance-restoring food, such as Bowls of Orrian Truffle and Meat Stew will help significantly for more fragile party members. Abilities with invulnerability frames such as blocks or dodge attacks, Aegis granting abilities and anti-projectile abilities will be invaluable here.
Before Giganticus Lupicus goes into phase 2 he will turn invulnerable for a few seconds, after which he will throw an unavoidable grub at one player randomly, then immediately go into one of his attack patterns, making it difficult to kill said grub while players scatter in an attempt to avoid the attacks. There are two ways to deal with this in order to avoid allowing Lupicus to eat the grub. If there is a ranger or mesmer in the party, he should send in the pet and/or clones in to attack Lupicus PRIOR to his becoming invulnerable; Lupicus appears to throw the grub at closer targets more often. Once Lupicus goes invulnerable, shatter the clones or swap the pet, eliminating Lupicus' target altogether and preventing the grub from spawning at all. If the group does not have a mesmer or ranger or this strategy does not work due to random chance, the group should remain stacked and either activate stability through skills like "Stand Your Ground!" or Hallowed Ground, or be prepared to bring stun breaks. Once the grub spawns, the group should focus on killing it and any remaining locust swarms. If Lupicus does his single projectile or projectile spray attacks, a guardian or mesmer should activate Shield of Absorption or Feedback to negate it, allowing the party more time to kill the grub.
After dealing with the grub, be prepared to dodge around a lot while fighting Lupicus. There are three mechanics during phase 2:
- A shadow walk attack that knocks down on hit and targets a single player.
- A basic single-target projectile blast targeted at nearby players.
- A large AoE barrage.
- A single large swipe with his right arm.
The shadow walk attack is one Giganticus Lupicus casts every few seconds. It lets Giganticus Lupicus quickly move to a certain player and perform a knockdown on hit. During the shadow walk Giganticus Lupicus turns mostly transparent and fires a plague projectile, teleporting to the plague once it reaches its destination. The basic defense against this attack is, of course, to dodge away. However, it is almost impossible to rely solely on dodging since his shadow attacks and projectiles will quickly wear down players without the vitality or toughness to survive getting hit by these attacks.
The second mechanic, the projectile blast is a single target attack that will regularly target any nearby players. It is telegraphed but very quick. However, it can be avoided without a dodge by switching directions.
The third mechanic of phase 2 is a multiple AoE projectile barrage that Giganticus Lupicus casts between shadow walks. This is by far the deadlier of his three attacks and the one that results in most parties wiping. The attack poses a threat over an extreme amount of space - well beyond that implied by its red circles - as well as time with projectiles (and red circles) appearing in at least two waves. It is also highly damaging with each shot dealing 8k or more damage. The success of the party hinges on its understanding of the attack and how to mitigate it. This attack is telegraphed by Giganticus Lupicus gathering green death energy and releasing a swarm of projectiles from a point above his head. The projectiles have significant flight time and will land in the red circles roughly in the order they appear and with damage generally radiating outwards from him over time. The more grubs are allowed through during phase 1, the longer and deadlier phase 2 will be.
To begin with, while the attack does produce red AoE warning circles, they cannot currently be relied upon. It is possible that, as projectiles, they hit players not inside the landing zone while weaving. It is possible that not all of the red circles that should be rendered are actually rendered. Regardless, even if standing outside of red circles when the shots land, you will regularly be struck anyway. In other words, passive defense by positioning outside of the AoE circles is ineffective as a defense. Rather than deciding where to dodge, the key is knowing when to dodge and avoid damage through the use of the dodge's invulnerability frames. Avoid the attack by being invulnerable when it hits rather than trying to avoid it by not being where it hits; at this point it is very difficult to judge the latter. Nevertheless, being outside of the red circles may get you out of trouble and is certainly better than standing defenselessly within one. For full effectiveness, do not panic and wait for the second wave of circles to appear. Unless you are very close to Lupicus, the projectiles will take some time in flight.
If Lupicus' target can survive, many players can spend the fight without direct contact with Lupicus and suffer only from his projectile attacks, making the damage they do the effective measure of health. It is rare for Lupicus to down players in a single hit unless projectiles overlap or too many grubs were let slip, on the other hand only the toughest characters could expect to survive more than four hits. For a more forgiving if lengthier fight, slotting enough toughness and vitality to survive two or three blasts is adviseable. As projectiles, the attack can be mitigated with any abilities that block or destroy projectiles - most notably the Guardian's Reflection Field. Any ability or weapon that grants invulnerability moves such as blocks, Mesmer's sword, Mist Form. Necromancer's death shroud will also effectively tank the attack with a pile of hitpoints but life force will need to be restored between uses. Teleportation skills can be used to get out of the danger zone (remember to get well away). Rallying and resurrection during this phase is very risky but nevertheless should be done - by a single player without direct shadow walk aggro from Lupicus. If party members are going down consistently, consider slotting ranged resurrection skills. If you are going down consistently, perhaps due to being Lupicus' designated hate target, there are foods to increase downed life that can greatly expand the window of opportunity for teammates to get to you. Finally, any abilities or consumables that increase endurance recovery are also useful.
Contrary to the general inclination to keep your distance, however, the best and easiest strategy for dealing with Lupicus in Phase 2 is simply to engage him in melee. Lupicus will not do his knockdown teleport if all potential targets are close to him, and his single projectile has a minimum range and will miss on anyone close to him. This means your party only needs to worry about dodging the melee swipe and the projectile spray, the latter of which can easily be negated by guardians or mesmers with projectile-blocking skills. Feedback will deal massive damage to Lupicus, while Shield of the Avenger will effectively give the party a long window where the only attack they need to worry about is the melee swipe. A group with moderate levels of DPS, a guardian, and a mesmer can easily DPS Lupicus through his second phase well before all projectile blocks are expended.
Phase 3
Once the boss goes down to about 50% health he will go into phase 3.
During phase 3 Giganticus Lupicus will start to attack players more directly and gains a lot of smaller spells listed below. Fortunately, this phase is much less difficult than the previous, though it can still be very dangerous if players draw too close.
- An AoE poison projectile from phase 2. As before, this is easily avoided simply by sticking close.
- A small poison AoE field that he places in front of him -- Lupicus will create a 'bubble' that traps its targets, knocks them down repeatedly and heavily damages them; with Stability and/or a stun break, this will basically be a guaranteed kill on most players caught in it. Note that this attack CANNOT be dodged or blocked. It is also worth noting that Lupicus ONLY does this attack on moving targets.
- A small missile barrage that he casts in front of him.
- A conal life-drain attack with a "sucking" animation. Hits multiple times over a long duration, making it difficult to dodge, but it can be avoided by dodging twice with a small delay in between. The easiest way to avoid this move is to stay close to Lupicus and roll through him when he starts it.
- A huge point blank AoE life steal spell, healing him 2000-3000 per second per player.
Again, the easiest way to deal with Lupicus in this phase is, contrary to common sense, to melee him. Of his attacks, the most difficult to avoid are the projectile and the conal lifesteal, both of which are easily avoided at melee range simply by rolling through him (or in the case of the projectile, simply by not moving). Similarly, if the party remains stationary, Lupicus will never do his bubble attack, meaning that the only attacks you really need to worry about is the projectile barrage and the AOE lifesteal. The former can be reflected or rolled through, while the latter can be avoided by turning and running during the long startup and rolling to get out of the area of effect once the red circle appears.
Lupicus tends to lock on to one player specifically during this phase; who he targets is mostly random, but he will remain focused on one target for a fairly long time once locked on, which you can use to your advantage. If party members are downed, the player being targeted by Lupicus can pull him away, allowing others time to revived downed teammates. It is recommended that said player either turns and runs (as opposed to backing away), which will make it easier to avoid being caught by Lupicus' AOEs, or in the case of more confident and experienced players, to solo him using the method described above.