Dungeon Token Blockade

When the game came out I decided I wouldn't bother with Legendary Weapons because I'd never have the resources to make one. I just don't play enough. Fast forward 6 years and I see I have more than enough gold and resources to make one. The only thing that stands in my way... dungeon tokens. I want to make a 1st Generation Legendary because never-ending fetch-quest collections are tedious. I almost never ran dungeons back in the day and of course now nobody runs them. I play Necro the most and I enjoy the Staff because it allows me to easily tag in events and add a bit of CC when needed. So I decided I wanted to make The Bifrost. But I need 500 Arah tokens and I'm short exactly 500 Arah tokens.

I'm trying to figure out what is the easiest path to obtaining Arah tokens. I don't PvP so that's out. I'm so bad that just joining PvP would be considered griefing all by itself. I don't care for WvW much but I'd be willing to follow a zerg. The problem is... I never see the Arah track pop up in rotation (yes I have the Story complete). So WvW is out until further notice. That leaves the dungeon itself. I play at fairly random times and I never see any groups for Arah. I could post a group... but there's a reason there's no groups listed. Is there a path that is relatively easy to solo for a mediocre Necro player? I suppose that or 8 paths of any dungeons that are easily soloable for a mediocre Necro player (I think doing any 8 gives anything you want)?

Two suggestions, that can be combined:1) Doing any 8 unique dungeon paths gives a choice of 150 tokens.2) WvW. Each completion of a reward track gives 160 tokens. Following a zerg or roaming Borderlands capturing ruins, sentries and supply camps. Zerging builds participation fast, the roaming is a good way to keep it up while relaxing a bit. It's also really fun to do if you play a bit off prime time! The Arah track should be permanently unlocked, but it might not be if you haven't done Victory or Death since they made it soloable. If so, just bring one character throug VoD and it'll unlock.

Edit: along with 2), learn the easy WvW dailies! They offer potions of reward track progress, and 80 such potions is one full reward track!Also, you'll need to WvW some however you get the Dungeon Tokens, as the Gift of Battle comes from a reward track.

In WvW the track is active now. It's under "T" for "The Ruined City of Arah."

I never even thought of the Arah story change being the reason for my Arah WvW track being locked. I beat it with 2 characters 6 years ago and of course neither is able to repeat it now. No other character has done the personal story. This just sounds like a bug then. I guess WvW is out as a token option as dragging a character through the entire personal story again sounds horrible. (I already have the Gift of Battle so I'm good on that)

So I guess it's down to:

1. Is there one Arah path that is easily soloable for a mediocre Necro?
2. Are there 8 paths from any dungeon that are easily soloable for a mediocre Necro? (I assume a few story modes will be on this list)

of course now nobody runs them.People run them all the time. Back in the day, there was no competition for instanced content and little competition for gold farming. Now, of course, despite dungeons being more profitable (if farmed) than before, they aren't top gold-per-hour, so people don't spam-run them.

If you set up your own group, you will get people via LFM. I'm not sure about wait times for Arah, so I prefer @Tanner Blackfeather.6509's idea of doing 8 unique dungeon paths instead. If you're half decent at mechanics, you can find 8 paths that can be three-personned easily enough; if you're really good, two will do. And I think you can probably find a couple of folks that also want to earn dungeon tokens, so you can do a bunch of paths together (and then LFG to fill ...or not, as you like).

Another thing you can try is to get ready for when Arah is one of the dailies, when it's pretty easy to get people.

WvW is pretty much always the worse option whenever there are multiple choices.

No exception here either. It might be faster if you are sitting on piles of boosters but otherwise you would need some terrible groups and long wait times for WvW to be the better option. If you can find a friend to help you can speed through the story modes for AC/CM/TA pretty quickly then you can do SEp1, AC p1,2, TA forward and up. That should be faster than the 4-8 hours to finish a reward track.

On the issue of unlocking the reward track it will also unlock if you do any of the explorable paths.

@"Blood Red Arachnid.2493" said:In WvW the track is active now. It's under "T" for "The Ruined City of Arah."

Look under "M" for "Monarch". Not there? What about "T" for "The Monarch!"

@Khisanth.2948 said:WvW is pretty much always the worse option whenever there are multiple choices.

No exception here either. It might be faster if you are sitting on piles of boosters but otherwise you would need some terrible groups and long wait times for WvW to be the better option. If you can find a friend to help you can speed through the story modes for AC/CM/TA pretty quickly then you can do SEp1, AC p1,2, TA forward and up. That should be faster than the 4-8 hours to finish a reward track.

On the issue of unlocking the reward track it will also unlock if you do any of the explorable paths.

The WvW dungeon tracks aren't too bad for finishing out the collections. If you make sure you start with 2-handed weapons and the expensive armor pieces, you can get a lot of the pricey pieces out of the way with one or two runs through the reward track.

@"Boysenberry.1869" said:I never even thought of the Arah story change being the reason for my Arah WvW track being locked. I beat it with 2 characters 6 years ago and of course neither is able to repeat it now. No other character has done the personal story. This just sounds like a bug then. I guess WvW is out as a token option as dragging a character through the entire personal story again sounds horrible. (I already have the Gift of Battle so I'm good on that)

So I guess it's down to:

1. Is there one Arah path that is easily soloable for a mediocre Necro?
2. Are there 8 paths from any dungeon that are easily soloable for a mediocre Necro? (I assume a few story modes will be on this list)

That sounds kind of dumb given the situation....... You're going to be doing at least 5 runs in total (assuming daily bonus), with each run usually taking 30-60 minutes; 90% of that time is trying to carefully skip past things, or getting stuck on the Lupi fight. Or you could just do the Story mission, takes about 30 min; possibly faster with friends... and then do WvW tracks that take around 6 hours on average to get the final chest (which you'll have to repeat at least 4 times).

Soloing is also a whole other animal, since if you could solo it, this wouldn't even be a conversation. So hands down Explorable paths are by far the fastest, and arguably easiest path to your goal... but is only hampered by the setup effort. And if you're guild is even half way helpful, that effort is going to be fairly minimal. One problem though is people are deathly afraid of Arah due to how dangerous the fights are. Even the normal "Stack and Whack" strategy has trouble due to how strong and varied the Risen skills are in that dungeon...... and then theres Giganticus Lupicus. If a party is going to wipe on a run, 90% it goings to be at the Lupi fight. The fights not actually that hard if the group knows the mechanics, and has enough DPS to power through it..... its just most people don't do that fight often enough to get good at it. I've seen "raid teams" that can do wing clears on a weekly basis still botch a Lupi fight, because they don't practice on it. And its kind of sad that it basically boils down to the fight being too hard, because its rare to have all 5 people well practiced in the fight; but never bother practicing it because its too hard.... because they never practice it. Still, with 2 people who know how to cheese the harder phases, the group could just keep taking swings at it until they succeed. Even at 2 hours per path, its still less time then 6 hours doing WvW track for slightly more tokens.

If you really want to go the WvW route for the passive approach, then I don't see why spending 40 minutes doing the story path (which is impossible to fail if you're willing to dead rush the hard parts) to unlock it, is "too much time" compared to the 36-48 hours spent having to do the tracks for the reward chests. Thats some really backwards priorities when it comes to a "show stopper"....... Especially since you don't even need to do the whole personal story to do the Story path. And even then, anyone in the party can open it for you if you can't access it yourself. Not to mention the Dungeoneering method requires 8 DIFFERENT paths per achievement run, and only 4 paths between COE and COF are farmed regularly. You still have to do 4 more paths on otherwise harder to organize dungeons.... or you could just organize 4 runs on Arah and get it done up front.

Frankly theres no option thats going to be easy the way you want to it be..... because even the people who can Solo dungeons are insanely good at it. So are the people who 2 or 3 man it. Some aren't even possible with less then 5 people due to mechanics.

Or just go with Option "I'm Rich, you know", sell all your mats, and buy the Bifrost off the TP for 2500g.

@"starlinvf.1358" said:That sounds kind of dumb given the situation....... You're going to be doing at least 5 runs in total (assuming daily bonus), with each run usually taking 30-60 minutes; 90% of that time is trying to carefully skip past things, or getting stuck on the Lupi fight. Or you could just do the Story mission, takes about 30 min; possibly faster with friends... and then do WvW tracks that take around 6 hours on average to get the final chest (which you'll have to repeat at least 4 times).

I explained why Arah Story would "take too long". I completed it back before the reward tracks existed which means the reward track is still locked for me. I would have to take another character through the entire personal story to be able to play Arah story again since the story there is not repeatable. That's why I ruled out WvW. The entire Personal Story grind + the WvW Grind is a bit too much.

I probably could liquidate my materials and have more than enough gold to buy The Bifrost outright but I decided that since I have everything but the dungeon tokens that I would bite the bullet and grind out those tokens one way or another.

I feel like I've settled on the 8 dungeon paths for 150 tokens route. So 32 dungeons total. So the Story modes actually do pop up occasionally in the LFG window so I can repeat most of those with each rotation. It's the Explorable routes that are virtually non-existent. I did run some Twilight Arbor back in the day so I might try my hand at Forward and Up on those and maybe get lucky finding 1 or 2 others in the LFG window. We'll see.

I don't have a guild so no help on that front. Also my acquaintances generally can't (ultra casual) run dungeons or would respond with "LOL" when asked to join a dungeon. So it'll just be me and whatever randoms I can kidnap. Thanks for the advice everyone. :)

@Boysenberry.1869 said:I feel like I've settled on the 8 dungeon paths for 150 tokens route. So 32 dungeons total. So the Story modes actually do pop up occasionally in the LFG window so I can repeat most of those with each rotation. It's the Explorable routes that are virtually non-existent. I did run some Twilight Arbor back in the day so I might try my hand at Forward and Up on those and maybe get lucky finding 1 or 2 others in the LFG window. We'll see.

Sorry but this is just not accurate. The fact that you do not see open groups in LFG all the time is no indicator that no one is playing the explorable paths.

Open your own LFG group and people will join unless you are playing during an absolutely horrible off hour time slot. Especially the popular and fast dungeon paths fill up within a couple of minutes latest.

Daily for Caudecus Manor today! You could probably get a couple paths (incl story) done today!

BTW, watch the dailies for simple WvW dailies like Big Spender and Monument Master. Doing them rewards you with a PvP reward potion. Store up the potions, and you'll have instant reward track completion when you need it. IIRC, a WvW Potion is worth 250 reward track points, so 80 potions should complete all 20k of a reward track. And you're going to need gift of battle before you're done with that legendary, so you might as well start on those potions now.

@Cyninja.2954 said:Sorry but this is just not accurate. The fact that you do not see open groups in LFG all the time is no indicator that no one is playing the explorable paths.

Open your own LFG group and people will join unless you are playing during an absolutely horrible off hour time slot. Especially the popular and fast dungeon paths fill up within a couple of minutes latest.

We'll just have to disagree on this point as it doesn't match my in-game experiences.

@Tanner Blackfeather.6509 said:Daily for Caudecus Manor today! You could probably get a couple paths (incl story) done today!

I did take care of the Caudecus Manor daily (story was all I had time for)!

@"Kaltyn of Torbins Deep.2946" said:And you're going to need gift of battle before you're done with that legendary, so you might as well start on those potions now.

Fortunately I already have my Gift of Battle. I just need the dungeon tokens and I'm set.

While not really "farmable", there is https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Tyrian_Exchange_Voucher available from the Black Lion Chest and you get 3 keys if you play through the entire personal story so that could be an added benefit to getting the WvW track unlocked.

Just open a room and do something else. At some point it will fill.You can also directly ask for help on Lions Arch. I know that people like me, it were online, would love to help.

Let me make this recommendation which will save you frustration.

Do world completion to get black lion keys. Its an uncommon but surprisingly high chance to get a tyria map voucher or what ever it is called. One of those will give you 300 dungeon currency in the map you choose. It won't be hard to get two.

@Boysenberry.1869 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:Sorry but this is just not accurate. The fact that you do not see open groups in LFG all the time is no indicator that no one is playing the explorable paths.

Open your own LFG group and people will join unless you are playing during an absolutely horrible off hour time slot. Especially the popular and fast dungeon paths fill up within a couple of minutes latest.

Are you saying that you start LFGs for dungeons and no one joins? Any time I've been in a group (outside of when the dungeon is a daily), any slots we open to LFG fill quickly.

@Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497 said:Do world completion to get black lion keys. Its an uncommon but surprisingly high chance to get a tyria mal voucher or what ever it is called. One of those will give you 300 dungeon currency in the map you choose. It won't be hard to get two.

That's an interesting idea. I never thought of that. Map completion will be pretty fast with mounts. I'll have to give this a try.

@Boysenberry.1869 said:I almost never ran dungeons back in the day and of course now nobody runs them.

This statement is untrue and renders the rest of your post completely invalid.

@mindcircus.1506 said:This statement is untrue and renders the rest of your post completely invalid.

Thank you for countering my opinion with hard data to demonstrate that I'm incorrect... oh wait.

Obviously I'm not being literal when I say nobody but in fact mean that dungeons are run very infrequently and as someone with limited time can't be spending it waiting for groups. Thanks again to those that actual provided useful contributions to this thread and avoided the need to try to force their beliefs on others.

@Boysenberry.1869 said:

@mindcircus.1506 said:This statement is untrue and renders the rest of your post completely invalid.

And you feel that false hyperbole is somehow useful?

The purpose of this thread is in no way to make anyone accept my opinion. It is merely to present a situation and ask for advice. As far as I see it, unless another new idea like Leo's comes about, this thread has fulfilled its purpose and is now done.

I know people like to think that their own opinions are holier than thou and that anyone who disagrees is off their rocker, but your opinion is still just that, an opinion. Unless you offer actual data that demonstrates that it is more valid than mine, I see no reason to continue down this road as choosing the opinion of a random internet person over my own would make no sense. So until another new idea comes about or someone presents actual data, I will retire from this thread. Feel free to post another reply that doesn't assist me. You seem like someone who likes having the last word. All yours.

@Boysenberry.1869 said:The purpose of this thread is in no way to make anyone accept my opinion. It is merely to present a situation and ask for advice. As far as I see it, unless another new idea like Leo's comes about, this thread has fulfilled its purpose and is now done.

I know people like to think that their own opinions are holier than thou and that anyone who disagrees is off their rocker, but your opinion is still just that, an opinion. Unless you offer actual data that demonstrates that it is more valid than mine, I see no reason to continue down this road as choosing the opinion of a random internet person over my own would make no sense. So until another new idea comes about or someone presents actual data, I will retire from this thread. Feel free to post another reply that doesn't assist me. You seem like someone who likes having the last word. All yours.

Has nothing to do with holier than though.

Many of us run dungeons semi regularly still and your statement and claim that no one runs them just seemed like hyperbole.

I'm general for almost any path it never took more than 5 minutes to fill up on missing group slots, often faster. That is over the course of multiple 8 dungeon path runs on different days.

Obviously this is both subjective opinion and experience. The idea is to encourage you to give pve parties a try just in case your own experience is more founded in repeating forum assumptions instead of actually trying pve paths. Which especially on this topic, as well as how rewarding dungeons are, is a lot more drama than truth.

But in the end you yourself have to decide how you want to approach this issue.

It sounds like pvp and wvw are not good options. Solo'ing Arah is difficult for most people and time consuming. Which would seem to leave two options: Run Arah with a party but making a full party can take quite a while and running Arah is long so you will still find that process very time consuming. Which leaves one last option - my advice from one casual player to another is to run easy, fast dungeons each day to get the Dungeon Frequenter reward which includes 150 tokens of your choice. You will have to do it 4 times but at the worse, it might take a couple weeks of very casual work without taking much time. Just run fast, easy dungeons each day like CoF p1/p2; SE p1/p3; CM p1/p3; AC p1/p3.

It does not take long to find people for these paths, and most of them can be done fairly easily with less than 5 people so no need to wait around for a full party. As soon as you get 1 or 2, just start while you are waiting for others to join. You need 8 paths for the Dungeon Frequenter but you dont have to do them all in the same day. Just whenever. Because these paths are short and easy, I doubt it would take any longer than trying to find people and run Arah for the tokens. I would be happy to run any of those dungeons with anyone. They are so easy now with the power creep that it makes NO sense wasting time for level 80 experienced players...just go with anyone willing to join, it saves time.