GW2 Echoes of the Past Story Achievements Guide
GW2 Echoes of the Past story achievements guide with walkthroughs for all the living story achievements released on Nov 4, 2014.
Caithe’s Reconnaissance Squad
You can apparently do both Recon Demolitionist and No Thanks to Canach in the same run by doing No Thanks to Canach first (don’t mine any corpses) but don’t board the chopper when it comes. Go back and mine the 10 corpses for the Recon Demolitionist achievement.
Recon Demolitionist – 5 pts
Super easy achievement, there are 10 corpses you need to interact to mine them and they are all marked on the map. I like to drag a group of wolves onto the mined corpses immediately after I mine them to both kill the wolves and delete the icon from the map so I know which corpses are left to place mines.
The achievement pops up as soon all 10 corpses are mined so you can relog right after to do it again for the other achievements.
No Thanks to Canach – 5 pts
Don’t touch any of the corpses this round and you should get the achievement easy. The achievement is granted at end of the instance when you need to hop on the chopper.
Not Under My Command – 5 pts
This achievement has been fixed and now works. You can complete it solo fairly easily. The goal of this achievement is to prevent the Vigil Guardsman and the Vigil Marksman that escort you from the start of the instance from dying (Canach is invul and cannot be killed). Do not get yourself killed either in this first portion of the instance since that seems to fail the achievement as well.
Use the Mordrem corpses and mine them to kill the Mordrem wolves quickly as they can kill these two guards. Don’t let the NPCs engage the wolves at all, just use mines to kill them all.
Once you reach Caithe’s squad, do not rush in to the fight immediately . Instead, follow the rocks to the right to the next Mordrem corpse and the NPCs will disappear (if they don’t plane the mine on the corpse).Once these two initial NPCs are gone, this achievement is pretty much done.
The NPCs with Caithe that get revived can die and they will not affect the outcome of the achievement. Once the choppers come, you will get the achievement at end of the cutscene.
Hidden Arcana
This is a really long instance but luckily there are motes next to each boss to retry the achievement without redoing the instance.
Strength Without Sacrifice – 10 pts
The goal of this achievement is to defeat the Facet of Strength without being stunned or grabbed. If you have stability you should use it as it will help a lot for the achievement. It seems to me to be easier if you melee him as he doesn’t pull you as frequently (when he pulls you, he reach out his arm and you need to dodge immediately). The stuns in melee are easy to avoid as long you don’t stand in his telegraphs.
Better Red Than Dead – 15 pts
This achievement isn’t hard at all but very time consuming if RNG is not with you. The Facet of Light spawn mini summoned facets that give a color buff when killed. You can only use the red buff for this achievement which means that when the summoned facet spawns and give blue or green buff you can’t do anything.
There is a little trick with the summoned facet to save time. If you don’t kill the facet, it will keep teleport around to different color beams to gain that immunity buff. If it teleports to the red color beam, it will give red color buff when killed. Thus, you can just keep the summon facet alive and see which color beam it ports to. If it ports to green or blue, keep it alive. If it ports to red, kill it for the red buff.
Once you have the red color buff, run into the red color beam to receive the damage immunity buff. This will allow you to run into the big AoE field around Facet of Light and damage him. Unfortunately for mesmers, your illusions are killed immediately on summon since they do not receive the immunity buff. This make this achievement very frustrating for mesmers.
Exposed Weakness – 10 pts
Easy achievement if you know the trick. The trick is to give all 8 vortex crystal the 1 HP buff but do not attack them until they all have the buffs. Once all 8 crystals have the buff, simply kill all of them as fast as possible. If you kill all 8 vortex crystals within 15s, you will kill the Facet of Darkness and get the achievement.
The 1 HP buff is only given out when Facet of Darkness does his massive AoE attack.
Exposed Weakness: Redux – 20 pts
This achievement requires you to not give boon to the vortex crystals. You can either do this by modifying your traits/weapon/sigils/runes skills to not give you any buff or just watch your buff bar and don’t stand next to a vortex crystal when you got buffs.
You can use transfer the 1 HP fragility buff to the vortex crystals to damage them and the boss as this is not considered a buff.
Remember that when you get a crystal vortex inside a color beam, you will need to get the color buff from the summoned facet and the 1 HP buff to remove it or you will get knocked back.
Note that it might be still possible to transfer boons to a vortex crystal and not fail the achievement. This was the case before the Nov 5 patch but might have been fixed.
Archived Disqus comments
VitalSuit
The fragile debuff is not a boon. Why does everyone keep thinking that?
Dulfy
Maybe because the vortex crystals absorbs BOONs and it absorb the fragile thingie? It is a bit confusing tbh.
Tien
That’s just part of the mechanics of the fight; it doesn’t mean it’s a boon. All boons show up as orange icons above your skill bar. Fragile is just an effect/debuff.
Seth
But the Vortex combat info actually states that it absorbs *buffs*, so by that logic, Fragile should be a buff if it gets absorbed. I did think I had to kill the boss without using the Vortices before I looked it up.
Lord
Facet of “xxx” were Glint’s boss in Dragon’s Lair Cooperative Mission in GW1\ You had to beat them all before seeing Glint.\ Or Zephyrites are linked to Glint (they use Glint’s magic to make their Boat flying.\ Does it means we will have to fight all them six before seing Glint’s Ghosts and learn about her secrets (or zephyrite’s secrets ?)\ Will it be a way to acces Crystal Desert ?\ Great 😀
Kyvia Deadleaf
You can do “No Thanks to Canach” and then do “Recon Demolitionist” in the same run, just don’t board the chopper!
Noobper
Why Strength Without Sacrifice Lost when Ranger’s pet was struck?
RKC
Isn’t the exposed weakness impossbile for Gaurdian due to their passive vutires mainly the one that grant you block?
RKC
*Guardian*
Dazzle
Tried it, it’s possble, but much more difficult. You basically have to wait out until aegis pops up each time, let the facet hit you (or mini summoned facet) to break aegis, and make sure you break the vortex in the next 40 seconds.
Ryuu Shun Hayashi
Or just activate F3 so that it’s not a problem for the next 100 seconds.
Skyerawket
I did it as a guardian, you just need to let the boss or his minion hit you or walk in one of those ‘static’ circles to remove your aegis. Just don’t run in those circles with the 1hp buff already on you.
Get hit -> pick up 1hp buff (+ kill minion) -> run to vortex and kill it -> repeat
Gilda Lilly
I did it with a guardian. I just had to make sure some aoe hit me to remove the Aegis before hitting the vortex
Rubie
I just did Exposed Weakness: Redux. It’s not bugged. For killing Malevolent Memory we still need to use fragile for being able to destroy the vortex crystal and damage boss. But when we taking fragile shield, we have to go into vortex crystal without any boon on your char, otherwise it will be failed.
Dulfy
I transferred multiple boons to the vortex crystals and the achievement checker never fell off and I got the achievement at the end. I did this intentionally to see if I could fail the achievement so idk.
Tien
You mean actual boons like might and retaliation, right? Fragile is not a boon because it reduces your hp to one, which is obviously a negative effect.
Dulfy
Yes, I gave the vortex crystal fury, vigor, and swiftness. I will upload a screenshot
See screenshot: redux
Tijgertje
Any movie of it? Doing it the proper way?
loa
I just did this achievement with my guardian, the vortex crystal got my aegis once, but still gained the achievement at the end. I think it only triggers a failed attempt “if” you kill the vortex crystal with the transferred boon. i just made sure to remove the transferred aegis before killing it. More testing required?
Elia
facebook link for dulfy page does not work D:
SRX33
It is possible to do “Not under my command”. after you kill the first mob there is one trigger which trigges the next quest, at the gap with the mine. A mesmer have to blink over the trigger and set a portal before.Open the Portal far away. Kill every unecesarry mob. When everything is done, one teamate have to go trough the trigger (Not the host). And then kill the spawning enemys. Idk if its necesarry but we use a shadow refuge to hide the nps and we use a portal to port back the guys who triggerd the quest. When you have to defend at the end you can jump on a ledge and you dont have to fight..
Eldaran
there’s a good video on youtube which present this way:
We succeed following this video
ubMey
If I get stunned or grabbed in the Facet of Strength while trying Strength Without Sacrifice, do I have to start Hidden Arcana again? or is it possible to die and try again from the last checkpoint?
thanks
Dulfy
Just use the challenge mote to restart the achievement
Jacob Hawksford
does it matter if you use it before or after facet of strength is dead?
Egenis
You need to kill the facet when you fail, then go to the challenge mote. If you try while the facet it still alive, it will not give you the option to restart the challenge.
Dulfy
Just use the challenge mote before the boss to restart the achievement
ubMey
thanks Ill try
ubMey
How does this work? I was stunned and now I click in challenge mote but nothing happens, it asks me if I want a challenge but the only option is leave
ubMey
nvm I realize how to it, you need to kill the facet after you fail, so you can respawn it in the mote, sry my mistake, thanks again
McPilch
When I interact with the challenger mote, nothing happens.. well, I get asked if I want a challenge, and only option I get is “Leave”. That’s after dying.. both by jumping off a cliff and by just taking damage from mob. So… looks like this is gonna be more frustrating than Not So Secret jumping puzzle in terms of time wasted restarting the entire thing! 🙂
Dulfy
If you fail the achievement, you need to kill the boss first before clicking on the mote to respawn him
Eaglebach
The fragile is NOT a boon! Boons has yellow squares in their symbol. It has blue frame so it doesn’t count.
For the “Exposed Weakness” achievement, it appears that even when you shatter all crystals, it’s NOT enough to gain the achievement. You need to shatter EXACTLY ONE crystal to make his HP down to \~85-90%, then wait for the destroyed crystal to respawn and shatter them all within 15s.
Dulfy
For Exposed Weakness, I shattered all 8 at once and it worked. See the video.
ubMey
I also shattered all 8 at once and it worked
Eaglebach
Any difference between solo and full group? When I was in a full group, shattering all crystal didn’t kill him from full health 🙁
NathanLang
I helped some guildies and only the instance owner got this achievement. The other 2 party members did not get it.
Haruka
1 hours ago, I got “Exposed Weakness: Redux” achievement by non-boon Necromancer. S/D & D/D, trait 4/0/6/0/2, sigil and runes dont have any boon. If you try complete boon less build, maybe you can get that achievement.
https://twitter.com/Haruka_Ob/status/530068996670775296
tonirawr
i didn’t get the “better red than dead” or “exposed weakness: redux” achievements even though i met the requirements… just ran that whole mission for nothing <_<
The Spirit Molecule
That challenge mote they implemented is baller as fk. Restarting the whole thing all over from the beginning would’ve been such a pain in the aaayuuuussshhh.
McPilch
How does it work? I’ve tried restarting from checkpoint, and I never get an option more than “Leave” after interacting with it.
Lion
I just did “Exposed Weakness: Redux” as well, as a full zerk 6 5 0 0 3 warrior. Just change the GS might on crit trait and you’re good to go.
baxler
Rly sux quests – red dot is best fail..
Krystal S. S.
Thanks for guide dulfy, love you lots n_n \~ also for the achievement *Better Red Than Dead* you can actually kill the small mobs that correspond to those other colors, just don’t use the color once they die, only use the red one. For the achievement *exposed weakness* i did the same thing i did the first time i killed it though this time it gave me the achievement.. so yes, it is bugged.
Dulfy
It is much slower if you kill the small mobs of other colors. instead, leave the alive and let them teleport to color beams until they teleport to the red one
Dulfy
Not under my commando achievement has been fixed and I have uploaded a video for it
Phillip Luu
Not under my command can also be done by letting the one who started the instance hold the npcs back because they only follow the one who started, and get a team to just manually clear everything, which also gets you No Thanks to Canach at the same time.
Nick J-s
I failed this achievement because the NPCs did not disappear when they were supposed to. that method may no longer be possible, in which case i’d recommend nuking the hell out of the vile thrashers because the vigil loobies will quite happily park their useless asses in the toxic goo.
Nick J-s
Those two thrashers make this achievement a joke, and i don’t mean that in a positive way. This is just about unsoloable.
Ryuu Shun Hayashi
It’s soloable, but unfortunately not equally easy for all builds.
It’s mandatory to have something capable of spamming interrupts – easiest is either sword/pistol thief or engineer. Then interruptlock one of the thrashers until it dies, and interruptlock the other one after that.
As long as they don’t make the whirls, the NPCs can’t die.
Alternatively, bait all the wolves into a mined husk corpse to blow them up with a ranged attack, then mine the husk directly under caithe’s group. If you can live long enough to plant it, the mine will blow and instakill both thrashers.
In both cases, once the thrashers die, their AoEs also disappear.
Nick J-s
The trick i used to get it eventually (as a proof of concept, having completed all achievements by that point) was to run up on top of the nearby rock and jump until out of pathing. The NPCs will teleport to you. At that point you can take the thrashers out at range, or just wait for Caithe and Canach to finish the job.
Felt a bit cheesy, but doing it this way would let any class get all three achievements at once.
1212
I did it every achievement on the first try as an ele solo, I think you’re just not doing something right.
Nick J-s
It’s possible to avoid having the NPCs follow you for the first stage of the mission altogether. Jump up on the rocks immediately to the right of where you spawn in, navigate around the tree, and follow the edge of the cliff around. at the northmost edge of the large rocky outcrop, east of the mordrem corpse you have to inspect, the cliff falls away in a V-shape – you have to use a jump skill to cross it, as the closest point is within trigger distance of the corpse.
after that, keep following the cliff until you get to the north face, then go west into the canyons and proceed to slaughter everything. all that’s left are the mordrem that caithe is fighting – to deal with them, i climbed up on the rocks between the mordrem corpses without engaging the enemy – the npcs will teleport to you out of combat – then used aoe skills to kill everything. objective accomplished.
Dulfy
I did it like twice and both times the NPC disappeared and there was no patch between now and when I did it. You may need to plane mines on that corpse for them to disappear.
Ragna
They now disappear before you reach the Thrashers (they did for me at least)
Sty
At least the achievement “Exposed weakness” can be done while doing the story for the first time with a character.
Ales
Yeah only this achi… You have to do this episode 4 times to get everything -.-
Ragna
You can do every achievement on your second try, if you don’t fail them.
Ragna
Almost none of the achievements worked for me during my 1st time, some only worked when I repeated them on the character that had done the story the 1st time.
ThFH
That is how it works first run you play for the story and every characters first run you will not be able to get achievements. Only in the replay you will be able to get the achievements for some you have to play the instance twice or thrice .
Ragna
That is fucking ridiculous… I could only do 1 achievement during my first run (Exposed Weakness), luckily the are easy to do and I manage do them on my 1st try after the story.
ThFH
I don’t really know why they designed it this way but this is how it works. I think it has something to do with having people replay the old stuf and promoting the story journal.
Man
Maybe a bug, but the game did give me “Exposed Weakness” achievement when I was playing it the 1st time.
Sammy Chan
can anyone help ..why i dont have the achievements checker since the start?\ is it bug or i miss something.
Henriette Roggeman
You can only get achievements when you replay it. In the first run it will be locked :T
laughingsnail
you need to finish the whole story first and then replay the story for you to get all the achievement.
Man
“replay the story” will give you the the yellow star again which will not trigger the achievements checker. just go to the place and restart the event with the purple star.
Ales
I don’t get any achivemnt on my first run… i hope i’ll get them when i redo this story… SO STUPID
Ragna
I had the same problem, you have to do it again after you finish the story the 1st time.
camhaji
The achievement mode only unlocks after completing the chapter. You will know avalible achievements in a ls mission by the little golden wreaths above skills 6,7,8 (where you’re buffs are located)
amani
when you gonna upload video of Exposed Weakness: Redux achivmenets ?
Gabriel de Matos
I’m a new player.. been playing for a month now. Can someone explain to me what this is and where I start the achievements? On Halloween we had a notifier on top right explaining where to start, but not on this one… Any help would be thankful. Thanks! 😀
sgseges
HI, read this : https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/livingworld/s2/How-to-play-Echoes-of-the-Past-Episode
Anonymous
i did it exactly as you described, don’t use any of the corpses (didn’t get achiev in the end) then go use all the corpses for other achiev, didn’t get that one either …
Henriette Roggeman
You need to play it once, then replay for the achievements. You won’t get any achivement in your first play
Cryokro
if you are having trouble with “Strength without Sacrifice” you can ask a friend to join you. The Rock throwing trick (even when it was “fixed” in the september patch”) still works so you can knock him down permanently and get the achievement easily. You just need to watch out for the orange circles but you can avoid them easily.
camhaji
Easiest way by far is to run a perma stealth thief or get a friend/guildy who plays one with decent timing you can permanently keep the facet blinded which nullifies his aoe and grab
Man
Easiest way is using a ranger. Facet of Strength will busy attack the pet while the ranger can attack it from 1800 range. No risk at all.
Rhiannon Frater
Dulfy,
Thanks so much for this guide! It’s very appreciated!
Here are a few suggestions based on my experience with a\ guildie. I play a Mesmer, he has a Necro. I got all the achievements and fairly\ easily.
Not Under My Command\ My guildie and I did this one first before doing the other\ two in this instance. We escorted Caithe’s peeps to the pickup location. The\ instance owner jumped onto a ledge to the right of the pickup area and ran\ along the ledge, dragging the NPC’s. The instance owner (me) then waited with\ the NPCs while the other guildie “survived” the assault. He even got knocked\ down onto a lower ledge and we both got the achievement once the copter came.
Strength Without Sacrifice\ A guildie and I did this one by taking turns and doing it\ twice. The first time I held aggro and beat on the Facet of Strength while he hit it from afar.\ He got the achievement, then we switched. He beat on it and held aggro, while I\ kited from afar. Worked perfectly.
Exposed Weakness: Redux\ My guildie and I never hit the Facet. We let Marjory do\ that. We just concentrated on getting the 1 HP fragility buff and transferring\ it to the vortex crystals and destroying them to inflict damage to the Facet.\ Even when the color beam activated, we just transferred fragility to the vortex crystal and destroyed
it. We had to keep moving constantly, but by not hitting the Facet and just\ killing the vortex crystals we killed the Facet and got the achievement really\ easy.
Voltaire
To shorten the “Better Red than Dead” achievement fight, let the small spawned mob stand around mid (don’t aggro). They’ll port to their initially assigned color, attain their shield, and wait at their respective color; if that color is red, kill them and proceed as normal. If they go to indigo or green, again avoid aggroing. They will eventually swap to another color; I never had them repeat a color, and for me (small sample), every time they started as purple, they would turn red next.
To avoid aggroing, I hid on the raised crystal section to the east.
Barring some hidden mechanic (i.e., probability changing over time), the RNG will never be with you. Red is certainly less likely to the be initial spawn color setting for the mini facets (a H.O. of P=1/3 with 99% C.I. rejected).
glen
Better Red Than Dead and Exposed Weakness was so long to finished solo D:
Man
Get a high melee damage character with Stability skill(The Facet of Light can interrupe you) or some pet summoning skill to increase your brust melee damge. So the only Pro doesn’t do good in this ach is mesmer.
PeterHuber
Let me share a trick i figured out recently on how to speed up “Better Red than Dead” as a mesmer. Eventhough your illusions are killed immediately by the AoE you can get your Mistfire Wolf (might work with golems too) buffed by the light. For this you simply bring the minion down to 1% and wait till it teleports to the red light. Then all you have to do is cast Mistfire Wolf once the immunity buff is about to vanish. MW will kill the minion and both you and the wolf will get the red buff. Hope it works for you as well.
Futuris Magicus
I solod strenght without sacrifice by running around a piece of debri (can’t be targeted to pull) while my minions killed it (in my defence, I dished out some hits aswell, it weren’t just my minions :p )
Exiledfaith
Cba to read all comments, but i wanted to share a trick on how to do the “Under my command” achievement, safe. After you throw the flare, go down the slope a bit, and fall to the rocks to the right and all the way down to the start area. Walk a bit and npc will come to you as well. Then wait doing nothing, till the chopper arrives. gg you done it!
Wampka
I solod Caithe’s Reconnaissance Squad and did all three achievements in the same run. You just need to do the achievement No Under My Command slowly and kill Mordrem wolves before they will attack NPC. The achievement Recon Demolitionist do as the last one, before you will board the chopper. This instance is very easy especially for a mesmer. Good luck!
Keorl
Glint’s Lair (Hidden Arcana) achievements with a ranger : done everything alone, pretty easy.
– Strength facet : full fight with longbow, spam 4 to stay away from boss and run around. Dodge when he extends his arm to use his pull skill.
– Color facet : disable pet while fighting small facets, kill 80% of their hp and wait until they teleport to red, enable pet, finish the small facet, run through red while casting rampage, switch to greatsword and nuke the boss. Repeat 2 times (probably 1 if you are zerk and/or use damage utilities).
– Shadow facet : equip shortbow, switch elite to entangle. Once all crystals have the buff, use Entangle, kill 3 remaining crystals with shortbow. Total time ? 3 seconds max. That’s a huge margin !
– Crystaline memory : remove my usual longbow and GS as they have a signet of strength. Just do the fight as usual using any weapon in your inventory that doesn’t have a boon-giving sigil (in my case : my shortbow – only used skill1+2 to avoid risking a rip on 3 and its swiftness). Even if you have to use some crappy looted weapon it should be easy : you only have to kill a few small facets with the help of you pet, since the boss takes fixed damage from crystals.
Man
Did “Recon Demolitionist” and then reset.\ Then finished “No Thanks to Canach” and “Not Under My Command” in the same run:\ Without the help of mines. My warrier or ranger just cannot kills ten+ Mordrem wolves and protect Vigil Guardsman and the Vigil Marksman at the same time.\ But a 7 Minions Necromancer can…….
And the “Hidden Arcana” is easy since you don’t need dps. The main damge to the boss is come from killing 1HP vortex crystals.\ Except “Better Red Than Dead” where melee high dps does save you time.
Ares Zax
An Elementalist specialising in heavy AOE damage with Blinds/Weakness/healing galore also has no problem not using the mines. 🙂 You may have to wait for a bit in between segments for cooldowns to reset though.
Amahady
I don’t suppose there is a full story walk through somewhere? A to Z, nothing to do with the achievements? I’d just really like to get through the story once. I find videos here and there, but they don’t explain anything. On guy one shots a vortex crystal (which I can’t seem to damage) and says, “Yeah-heah! That’s how you do that!” Uhm…’how’…do you do that, exactly? 😐
Ares Zax
There is a walkthrough on the wiki. It’s a bit rough right now, but it explains more or less what the mechanics are.
Ely
With ranger are the hidden arcana achivements fairly easy, just let your pet tank the bosses and freely run around without having aggro 🙂
Zennoby
Tried that, didn’t get the achievement.
Aen
“Don’t let the NPCs engage the wolves at all” good joke :p
Zennoby
Facet of strength is easy-peasy on ranger: Stay out of range, send a tank pet in, run a way back, so you can shoot across the chasm. Done. No dodging, no pull-in.\ Tried just letting pet do it alone, did not work.\ You have to hit the boss yourself.
Guest
I have one question is there a hidden achievement in last boss with veteran malevolent memory just before you engage him there is a challenge mote that can be activated ?
Castiel
that for reset if u fail achievement
npast
I mined all corpses on the map and got no achievement. Did it twice, second time made sure to draw wolves so that the corpses exploded and were no longer on the map.
What am I doing wrong? Any ideas?
Thank you!
I am a pvp guy, hate doing achievements 🙂
Sarat Roy
I’m going to try this out now. Ill post results.
Sarat Roy
I cant think what you have done wrong, follow dulfys guild word for word, and I got both acheives on the first run solo.
npast
Thank you. I will try it again.
npast
Tried again, same story. I mined all of them, but no acheivement.
Haruyoshi Matsumoto
I am having a similar issue. Mined all 10 bodies and not achievement. To make matters even more interesting the first two Vigil ncp’s that I encounter disappear half way through the mission which means I can’t get any other achievements. I have been trying this for 2 days now and the same thing keeps happening.
npast
Now that you mention the disappearing NPC’s, I just realized that I had the same issue. I wasn’t paying attention to them, focusing on mining the bloody corpses, but it happened to me too. I wonder if we report this bug on the official forums, will they ever fix it? I am playing on Mac, could that be the reason?
Haruyoshi Matsumoto
I met a kind soul that took me through this yesterday. If you have multiple characters you have to finish the achievements with the character that has actually finished the story. When went back for achievements with the character that had already completed the story (no achievements), I was able to get them. To add to that though, I did not start the story line, the other person did, so it may be still be a bug 🙁
npast
Yes, thanks a lot! That was it. Even though I was sure I finished that episode, I guess I didn’t fully complete the episode somehow in the past. I redid the episode and also did, for the first time, the two episodes before it (I am doing them all out of order). Now I was able to do this achievement.
Miss Lana
Thanks for this information! I had finished LS season 2 on my main character and was going through with another character trying to get achieves and was wondering why it wasn’t working.
D. Volker
For those who haven’t done this yet, I have a few tips specially for warriors for the Hidden Arcana achievements. It’s pretty faceroll, and time consuming of course. Did it in one run, took me couple tries at “Strength without Sacrifice” to figure out an easy and faceroll combo. If you are running a zerk build, which most of the PvErs do, equip Axe/shield on main hand. For skills, choose 2 stability skills, dolyak signet and balanced stance, 3rd skill, a CC skill of your choice, I chose bulls charge. For elite, choose rampage for 20s of stability and insane damage. Start the boss, use balanced stance, and 11211 eviscerate with your axe, when stab is about to be over, use dolyak signet, then 11211.. skill 4 to knock him down..eviscerate and immediately go into rampage mode when stab is about to be gone, as the rampage skill has a casting time. He’s dead and wala. If he has a bit of his health left, use balanced stance again, or if in cooldown, use the CC skill and eviscerate ! For “exposed weakness”, use axe/xxxx and any skill of your choice including Balanced Stance, do the same as Dulfy did, and when all the vortex have 1 HP buff, go into stab, and kill them, easy. Don’t dodge at all if you have reckless dodge trait as it might kill a vortex lol. For redux, use any skill as you want, better to keep Endure Pain since you could pick up those 1 HP buff thingy from an aoe field using it without getting downed. Use axe, as GS skill 1 gives you might for zerk traited players, which is a buff. Put the HP buff on vortex and move into a distance, so no chance of giving the vortex any buff, and use axe skill 3. Do not use stability as you go near a vortex, just dodge if you are in an aoe field or knocked down, pop endure pain if you have to. Remember to have “Warriors Sprint” trait as you have to move around a lot at this boss. Tips coming from a hardcore wvwer lol, as I am doing these only for the luminescent armor skins. T_T..
MechanizedDeath
I’m finally getting around to doing these. I’m a WvW player so I’m not the best at PvE mechanics, and on top of that I’m using a necromancer which is not well liked for PvE play. In short: If I can do them, you can!
The recon stuff was easy, even for me, and required no special technique on my part. In fact I almost got the NPCs through the Mordrem without mining the corpses, just because of minion meat shield. Unfortunately the last group ended up being two groups and they wiped both the minions and the NPCs, so I had to redo that part.
The aspects were a different matter. I have a tankier setup for WvW play that is glacially slow in PvE, so to speed things up I crafted a set of armor with the new sinister stats to help out, but it probably wasn’t needed.
Strength Without Sacrifice: This was a bit difficult because I am honestly not that good at watching for telegraphs and I kept getting pulled. However, near where the facet spawns, there are 3 “piles” of crystals. Two of them are on the edge but one isn’t and can be walked around. I basically hid behind it and spammed marks on the ground around it while kiting the facet around the crystal pile. I only had aggro part of the time as the facet was more interested in the minions. After that it was pretty easy. Felt cheap but it works.
Better Dead Than Red: This wasn’t too bad but it did take a while. Another comment suggests waiting for the summoned facet to teleport to red, and this definitely saved time. I was using conditions which kept damaging even after the attacking was over, but more direct damage would have probably been faster.
Exposed Weakness: Super easy, I dropped the minions and just ran around with a speed buff for a couple minutes.
Exposed Weakness Redux: I didn’t have a boon heavy build anyway, so this was a freebie.
Neox
Exposed Weakness: Redux is so stupid with guardian….
Soup
Caithe’s Reconnaissance Squad achievements were really easy to do all in one run. Just be agressive with the wolves so they attack you rather than the NPCs then drop them fast.
Morsus98
So if you’re a Guardian, remember to pop Virtue of Courage before doing the final achievement. Get hit by the enemy to remove your aegis, and then wait for any other boons you got from using to to time out. You’ll now have 72 seconds where you (shoudn’t) have to worry about boons!
Jerry
For Exposed Weakness if you can’t get achievement make sure to hit the boss at least once (I did it 4 times without, didn’t get the achieve…)
Floyd Hunter
Recon Demolitionist and No Thanks to Canach are doable in the same session. You do No Thanks first, clearing all mordrem before the cutscene(at least this is how I did it), then cutscene for the chopper, then no enemies spawn and you can place all the mines down since the achieve buff for Recon doesn’t go away. I was able to run back, with no issue, place all the mines and get both achieve’s in one go.
fantalius
You can do all three of the recon missions at the same time IF you have an aoe that can burn the wolves down fast. The mobs you’re supposed to keep alive don’t die, then at the end once the chopper comes just run back through planting mines – voila all 3 at once.
George Smith
if you doing no bombs run of caithes recon squad you can cheese most of the enemies by jumping on rocks just a bit off the ground. as long as you are able to range agro them you will be fine, they wont go invuln becuase of canach that tanky little sylvari
band of the fenrir
better red than dead – as a mesmer I used phantasmal berserker and killed the boss without waiting on red buffs.
George Smith
just did facet of strength on my thief, way i did it was traited for might on activation of signets, all utility skills being signets, daredevil for more damage on dodge plus the third dodge and d/p 3 as another dodge plus a blind\ dagger storm for elite for stab
a_lethe_ia
stability seems useless for the facet of strength.. You arent allowed to get hit by the fucking pull even if the pull would not pull because you have stability.. I killed that SoB now 4 times with my juggernaut-engineer which has perma stability. I never once got pulled or stunned- but the game seems to think I was because the fucking second one of the two attacks- pull or red aoe hit me, the achievement was void despite the attack having NO effect because of my stability..
idk whether its a bug or arenanet well known inability to be fucking precise and give information about what shit actually does.. because thats a thing they are great at- misleading or inadequate texts for traits, items and quests..
Maryy
I did Strength Without Sacrifice on my ranger. I let my pet fight while I was keeping a safe distance. You need to hit him yourself at least once or else it doesn’t count.
beppe
90% of these achivs are bugged
Schlutaa
I just did it first try
beppe
I don’t get the achiv boon so I can’t complete anything… this game is shit >_>
hilmo
I didn’t get the achievement for Exposed Weakness Redux either 🙁
Korgoth13
None of these achievements works properly for me… even the simple ones like activating/or not the mines… so dumb! Why are all these story instances so bugged when they have achievements linked with em? wtf anet!
beppe
same here
yorii
You probably haven’t cleared the instance once, you need to finish it in story mode first and then replay it for the achievements to work.
Josh
Ah yeah, thanks for the reminder. It’s weird that you can play any chapter with any character after completing it with another, but you can’t unlock achievements on those new chars without playing it twice.
def
So it looks like with reaper for better red then dead you can use your minions to slowly kill it through its invuln while waiting for red – use all minions if you can.
Allison
Exposed weaknesses: redux is not rewarding for me at the moment as a heads up. I did the achievement and the buff is still there at the end of the instance but it will not reward the achievement. This is the only achievement that has done this for me for this chapter.
Aidza M.
Exposed Weakness: Redux is not rewarding me either, Allison. Have reset it 3 times and the achievement buff still appears. Not using any traits that give buffs and just using skill one lighting attunement with dagger to do the boss but no dice.
Ginger Snap
I don’t know if anyone has said this but on the Strength without Sacrifice, but if you’re a ranger, you can just stand by the mote, send your pet in to aggro and attack it from there.
Toril Zyrilias
Strength Without Sacrifice. On Guardian or any other non ranger just kite him around the little crystal island near where he spawns. I just dropped traps and AoE’s then ran around the island. Might have to dodge once or twice but makes it real easy for a first time go.
Josh
No Thanks To Canach didn’t pop even though I didn’t touch any corpses after the first one you have to touch to get Canach to appear. Should I not touch that one?
asdasd
Every time I play the story again to get the achievement, I’ve to wait for the NPC to finish speaking, walk slowly to a certain point, more speaking, more walking, THEN AFTER WHAT SEEMS LIKE FOREVER, I CAN FINALLY DO SOMETHING! WHY CAN’T I SKIP THE FUCKING LONG DIALOGUE!!!
rantaine
That`s just really bad game design. At least, they learned the lesson after LS2.