Dzagonur Bastion (mission)

Objectives
Master of Whispers must be in your party to enter this mission.

If your character chose to follow Margrid the Sly (after the primary quest Mysterious Message) and has not yet gained Master of Whispers, you can still enter this mission (after completing the primary quest Greed and Regret) by partying with another player who can bring him. It is not necessary to complete the Dasha Vestibule mission, but it must be available.

Defeat the Margonite Generals before their forces take the citadel. Preserve the perimeter bombards to aid you in the battle. Defend the gates to prevent enemy forces from reaching the Citadel.
 * Speak to Prince Ahmtur the Mighty.
 * # of 3 gates still stand.
 * # of 3 bombards still function.
 * # of 4 generals still remain.
 *  *BONUS*  Keep the bastion's defenses intact.
 * # of 6 defenses left intact.

Primary
This mission can be very confusing and doesn’t seem to have a clear explanation anywhere of what is going on and what you’re supposed to do. When you start the mission, you’ll be next to Prince Ahmtur the Mighty. Talk to him and he'll open a portal to start the mission in earnest.

Down below, there are three bombards, three gates, and three Disciples of Secrets, each accompanied by three Vabbian Guards. You can talk to a Disciple and tell him which bombard to defend, and he’ll take his three accompanying guards with him to stand next to the bombard you choose. There is an additional group of three Vabbian Guards in front of the center bombard, which you cannot move elsewhere.

Shortly after the mission starts, mobs will start coming. The mobs generally consist of groups of three Kournans and one Margonite. Each group will run to a bombard and try to destroy it. Bombards can be captured by standing near them, with each character of a side granting one pip of bombard ownership movement. Characters of opposite sides can cancel each other out. The net change in bombard ownership rate cannot exceed four pips.

The bombards start out entirely allied with you. Kournans will try to make them neutral, and then try to capture them. If they fully capture a bombard, it will be destroyed and you cannot recapture it. You can recapture a bombard at any time if it has not been fully captured by the Kournans. Bombards supply substantial fire support at nearby enemies until they are destroyed, but they can’t really defend themselves against capture without allies there to help.

If Kournans destroy a bombard, they will head on to the corresponding gate, which is captured in the same manner as bombards. If they capture this, it opens a path into the bastion. The mobs will move into the bastion and try to capture it as well. Capturing this is much slower than capturing gates or bombards, but if they capture it, you fail the mission. Likewise, if Ahmtur dies, you fail the mission.

The initial phase of the mission is easy: several groups of four mobs will come down and attack a bombard. They’re slow enough that they’re easy to fight off. Each group will target a fixed bombard/gate entry. If one gate is completely breached and the group is set to target a different one, it will still take the time to attack the relevant bombard or gate rather than rushing into the bastion.

After the several initial groups of mobs are dead, four Margonite bosses will spawn at four fixed locations, out of range of the bombards. Each boss is accompanied by three Margonites, and more importantly, a rift. The rift will periodically spawn groups of three Kournans, which come down to attack the corresponding bombard. Kill all four bosses to complete the mission.

Kournans from the rifts on either edge will attack the bombard on the nearest edge, while Kournans from both of the middle rifts will attack the center bombard. A rift is closed when its corresponding boss is killed, at which point additional mobs no longer spawn from it. While the center bombard is attacked by Kournans from two rifts rather than one, Kournans spawn more slowly from the center rifts than the edge ones to compensate.

A boss cannot be pulled while the corresponding bombard its groups head toward is still intact. Once the bombard is destroyed, the boss will come down to the bombard, but stay away from the gate. Once the gate is destroyed, the boss will head into the bastion to help capture it.

If you only want to beat the mission and don’t care about master’s reward, then assign a Whispers group to each bombard. Help them out in the initial waves of mobs, but once the bosses spawn, abandon them to hold out as long as they can before dying, while you go kill bosses. Kill the Elementalist boss to the far east first, then work your way westward. If a boss isn’t there when you arrive, his corresponding bombard is down, so you’ll have to go there or into the bastion to chase him down and kill him. The last boss will almost certainly be gone by the time you get there.

Bonus
One approach to doing the bonus is to have your party consist of a ritualist Hero, Master of Whispers, and a party of six that is reasonably well balanced when excluding the first two heroes. Set the ritualist as a Restoration ritualist with Recuperation, Life, a couple of healing spells, and whatever else you like. Set up Master of Whispers with some melee minions, Blood of the Master, and Well of Blood. Ranged minions are bad, as they will trigger Whirling Defense when used by a Kournan Bowman, which may kill your NPC allies. The rest of the party can be anything that you feel comfortable fighting Kournans and Margonites with as a group of six, without help from Master of Whispers or the ritualist.

Assign all three Whispers groups to defend the east bombard, and flag Master of Whispers and the Ritualist over there as well. Put them a little to the east of the bombard, with Master of Whispers slightly in front of the Ritualist, and both heroes in the convex hull of where the Whispers groups stand. You want any mobs that come to get attacked by both Master of Whispers and the NPC allies. The positioning here is a little finicky, and most easily done by clicking flags on radar. If Master of Whispers dies, you flagged him too far ahead of the NPC allies. If the NPCs die, you flagged Master of Whispers too far behind them.

The minions drawing fire and the Ritualist healing both them and the guards is enough to hold the east bombard for much longer than it normally takes to complete the mission. You can then ignore the east bombard and have your group of six run around without worrying about it during the rest of the mission.

In the initial waves, kill the mobs that head toward the center or west bombards. The last group will run toward the guards in the center. Kill the rest of the group, but leave the two Kournan Bowmen for the guards. Run to the far west where the warrior boss, General Doriah, spawns so that you can start attacking as soon as he appears. The guards can handle two Bowmen on their own, and this lets you position yourself to attack the boss as soon as he spawns.

When General Doriah spawns, your group of six should focus fire to kill him as quickly as possible. He’ll heal himself with Healing Signet when he gets low on life, so it helps to have Ignorance or a skill interrupt to stop this, or to disable it with Distracting Shot. As soon as the boss dies, retreat to the west bombard, perhaps even past the bombard to make sure that henchmen follow. After he dies the rift closest to him will close.

Margonites that were with the boss may or may not follow you; if they don’t, you can ignore them for the rest of the mission as they've basically taken themselves out of the fight. Kill whatever mobs do follow you with help from the bombards, and you may need to run back and forth between the center and west bombards to hold on to both. Be sure to target the Kournan Priests, as they can greatly slow down your efforts at killing the mobs. Once you clear any mobs that follow you, the west bombard will be secure.

Once the situation is under control and the center and west bombards are fully recaptured and clear of Kournans, go attack the monk boss, General Nimtak, which is a little east of the warrior boss you already killed. As before, focus fire on the boss until it is dead, and then retreat to the bombards. Again, kill any mobs that follow and fully recapture the center bombard as necessary. Again the rift closest to him will close after General Nimtak is killed.

Once the bombards are secure with two bosses dead, finishing off the mission is actually pretty easy. Go kill the Paragon boss, General Kumtash, which is to the east of the Monk boss, focusing fire on the boss as before. Once the boss is dead, retreat to the center bombard. Once you finish off any mobs that follow, the center bombard will be secure as well. Go kill the Elementalist boss, General Tirraj, to the far east at your leisure to complete the mission. He's the last boss, so the mission will end as soon as he is dead, even if other mobs are still alive.

If you have ritualist skills but no ritualist hero, a hero with a ritualist secondary can work (such as Elementalist/Ritualist). If you don't have ritualist skills, a monk hero can at least keep himself and Master of Whispers alive, but this reduces the healing that the Whispers groups will get. If mobs are capturing the center bombard before you can get back after fighting one of the first two bosses, you can slow them down by sending one or two Whispers groups to the center bombard rather than the east bombard. Any of these adjustments will decrease the amount of time that the east bombard will be secure, however, which may force you to hurry when killing the first three bosses.

If your group of six is getting killed by mobs while attacking bosses, you can run up to a boss, focus fire on and kill a Margonite, and then run back to save the bombards. Margonites do not respawn (only Kournans), so you can clear as many as needed to be able to safely kill a boss. Do not do this with the first boss, however, as it is vital that you kill General Doriah quickly in order to secure the west bombard. Provided that you haven't weakened the east bombard defenses with any of the alternatives in the preceding paragraph, the east bombard will be secure for as long as you need.

Hard mode
The above strategy does not work in hard mode. Instead, hard mode requires a much more chaotic strategy, which can work in normal mode, though not as easily as the method posted above.

Bring a curse necro with Insidious Parasite, Spiteful Spirit, and Barbs, a domination mesmer with Empathy and Ignorance, and a Broad Head Arrow ranger. Other potentially useful necro skills include Reckless Haste and Weaken Armor. Since you must bring Master of Whispers, he could be the curse necro. If you can fill one of these builds yourself or have multiple players, other useful builds include an air/earth elementalist with Lightning Orb and Ward Against Foes, a tactics warrior with "Charge!" and Wild Blow, or a command paragon with "Fall Back!" and Wild Throw. Disable ignorance and ward against foes if it is a hero carrying them, and cast them manually at the appropriate times.

If doing the mission with only henchmen and heroes, bring Mhenlo, Kihm, Sogolon, and Devona as your henchmen. If using multiple players, bring three healers (including healing paragons), and as many characters with useful builds as you can. Ritualists tend not to be terribly useful as healers here, as the party constantly has to run away from any spirits that the ritualist could have set up.

Send all three Whispers groups to the center bombard to defend. They can hold it for long enough for you to complete the mission without having to help them. They won't be of much help before the generals spawn, but that's the easier part of the mission anyway. It is vital that your entire group quickly shuttle from one location to the next, in order to quickly kill mobs and keep the bombards secure. In particular, stand near enough to the bombards while fighting to often recapture them while fighting, so that as soon as the mobs are dead, you can run on to the next location.

At the start, go out into the central area to help the front three Vabbi Guards kill the first group that comes. When that group dies, run to the east bombard to kill the group that comes. After that, go to the west bombard to kill the group that comes, and is likely to be attacking the bombard before you arrive. Next, go back out into the center. The Vabbi Guards will already be fighting one group, and a second group will cross the center headed for the west bombard. Make sure you kill the latter group; it is often easiest to kill both groups, in order not to have to keep track of which mobs are in which group. After this, go to the east bombard to kill the group that comes. The final pre-generals group will cross the center area to attack the center bombard. Do not aggro this group, but instead circle westward to the north of the bombards, and then south to near where the warrior general spawns. Stand about an aggro bubble away from where the warrior general will spawn. The Whispers groups will kill the last pre-generals group of mobs, and this will trigger the generals to spawn.

Focus fire on General Doriah, and kill him as quickly as you possibly can. Use empathy, insidious parasite, and spiteful spirit on him. If heroes are using these skills, you will need to disable the skills before the generals spawn and cast them manually, to prevent heroes from using them on the wrong targets. Remember to enable them again after Doriah is dead. These skills will ensure that Doriah takes quite a lot of damage with every attack. Since he attacks fast, he dies fast.

Once Doriah gets down to half health, he will try to use Healing Signet. This both heals him and temporarily stops him from attacking, and hence from taking as much damage as you'd like. Using ignorance on him before he gets to half life will prevent this.

While you may wish to use weakness skills to blunt Doriah's damage, blinding him should be avoided, as it will cost you the damage from insidious parasite, unless you replace it by Price of Failure. Attack or action interrupts (except those that deal considerable damage), knockdowns, and attack speed slowing hexes should also be avoided, as slowing Doriah's attack will slow the damage from the hexes on him.

As soon as General Doriah is dead, your entire party must run away. Using charge or fall back will help here. Using ward against foes is particularly useful, to prevent mobs from being able to follow you very well. It is vital that the entire party run away as soon as Doriah dies. If part of the party runs and part does not, the part that dawdles is likely to quickly die, and be a major pain to resurrect later without having to abandon and potentially lose bombards. If the entire party takes its time before running away, you may lose the east bombard. While technically, you are allowed to lose one bombard and still get master's reward, losing the fire support that a bombard supplies makes it much more difficult to complete the mission.

When running away after killing the warrior boss, do not cross through the central area of the mission. Periodic groups of Kournans will cross through there, and if you aggro them, they'll attack you rather than the Whispers groups that are supposed to handle them. This could easily get your party overwhelmed. Instead, go north and then east, behind the bombards, to get to the east bombard that way.

There will already be a group of three Kournans at the east bombard by the time you arrive, and another will be on the way soon. Stand near the bombard to start recapturing it while fighting the Kournans. If you start to get overwhelmed, you can run back to the center and drag the Kournans with you, to get help from the Whispers groups in killing the Kournans.

If you're fast enough in killing General Doriah, you can kill him before any Kournans spawn at his rift. In this case, the west bombard will be secure. The three Margonites that accompanied Doriah may chase you when you run away. If so, you'll get a message about them attacking the west bombard, but they'll either get killed by the Whispers groups or turn back before they capture it.

If you're a little slow in killing Doriah, a group of three Kournans will attack the west bombard. In this case, you'll have to go fight at the east bombard and mostly recapture it as before, but then will have to run back to the west bombard to kill those three Kournans. Once they are dead, the west bombard will be secure for good, and then you can return to the east bombard to kill any additional Kournans and recapture it again.

Kournans spawn from the rift guarded by the elementalist boss to attack the east bombard fairly quickly. Kournan Bowmen are often content to stay back and fire from long distances, which can make them a pain to kill. You may have to frequently make your entire party back up in order to get them to come near enough to get help from the bombard. It may take a couple minutes to get things under control at the east bombard. If you lost any party members, send someone off to go resurrect them to rejoin the party at the east bombard. If you start to get overwhelmed, you can move your party to the center bombard to drag the Kournans with you and get help from the Whispers groups and perhaps the center bombard itself.

When the situation at the east bombard is stable, check on the spawn location of General Tirraj, as compared to the three Margonites that escort him. If the general is significantly behind the other Margonites, you can run up to the margonites and pull them a bit, to kill the two melee ones without the boss aggroing on you. The Margonites won't come all the way to the east bombard itself, but can be pulled within range of its attacks.

Once the situation is stable and either a couple Margonites are dead or General Tirraj is in front of the other Margonites, it's time to look for an opening to spike Tirraj. Kournans spawn fast enough that you'll be under attack from them while fighting the elementalist boss, but at least try to get to Tirraj to start attacking before the Kournans arrive. Have your ranger use broad head arrow to daze Tirraj. You may need to disable the skill and cast it manually to prevent a hero from wasting it on the wrong target. Tirraj is not inclined to move around, so broad head arrow can be fired from full flatbow range without significant risk of missing him.

Tirraj should mostly stand there getting interrupted, but other Margonites and Kournans will attack you. Focus fire on Tirraj to kill him as fast as you possibly can. Using barbs and weaken armor if you brought them can help here. As soon as he dies, your entire party should run away, just as you did after killing Doriah. Use charge, fall back, or ward against foes to help with your escape again. This time, you'll be under attack from both Margonites and Kournans while trying to escape, so you may take some deaths, especially if unable to pull any Margonites separately from General Tirraj. As long as several party members get away, you should be fine.

Run west, back to the east bombard. Go to the north of it, behind the bombard. If enough of your party gets away to easily handle whatever mobs follow you, stay there and fight whatever comes. If not, don't stop at the east bombard, but keep running all the way to the center bombard, behind the Whispers groups. Any Margonites will probably turn back and leave, while the Whispers groups can help you kill Kournans. Be sure not to aggro any Kournans coming across the center, as you don't want to get overwhelmed.

Once any Kournans that spawned at the far east rift and attacked the east bombard are dead, the east bombard will also be secure. If you can get this far without losing any bombards, finishing the mission with master's reward is a mere formality.

Go west behind the bombards, and then south along the west side, as if headed to the warrior boss spawn area. Go between there and the Monk boss, to the side, so that you'll be out of the way of any Kournans that spawn and attack the center bombard. Wait until such a group of Kournans spawns, and then wait for it to leave to go attack the center bombard. After this, it will be a long while before another group of Kournans spawn, so you can spike General Nimtak without interference from Kournans. Daze him with broad head arrow and he will die pretty quickly. You can either run away from the Margonites there, or kill them after killing the boss.

Finally, repeat this at the paragon boss, attacking after a group of Kournans leaves. When General Kumtash dies, the mission is complete. You may wish to stop to loot before attacking the paragon boss group; stopping to loot earlier in the mission could delay you enough to cause mission failure.

NPCs

 * 20 Prince Ahmtur the Mighty
 * 20 Lieutenant Murunda
 * 20 Vabbian Guard
 * 20 Disciple of Secrets

Monsters

 * Kournan military
 * 16, 20 Kournan Guard
 * 16, 20 Kournan Bowman
 * 16, 20 Kournan Priest
 * 16, 20 Kournan Oppressor
 * Margonites
 * 24 Margonite Executioner
 * 24 Margonite Bowmaster
 * 24 Margonite Cleric
 * 24 Margonite Warlock
 * 24 Margonite Reaper

Bosses - elite skill captures

 * 28 General Doriah - Magehunter's Smash
 * 28 General Nimtak - Spell Breaker
 * 28 General Tirraj - Invoke Lightning
 * 28 General Kumtash - Anthem of Guidance

Inside the mission
Lieutenant Murunda: ''Glad you could join us! Our finest guards await your orders. Tell the Disciples of Secrets where to station their troops before the enemy is upon us.''

Lieutenant Murunda: ''Here comes the first wave. Prepare yourselves! Don't let them reach the Citadel! Show these beasts the true strength of Vabbi!''

Prince Ahmtur the Mighty: ''Push these wretched Kournans back! Destroy the Margonite generals! None shall pass into Vabbi!''

Lieutenant Murunda: ''The battle is far from over. The generals can bring down hordes of reinforcements upon us, channeled through those rifts!''

Lieutenant Murunda: ''Quickly! Strike down the generals. The rifts will collapse without their aid.''

Ending cutscene
Prince Ahmtur the Mighty: ''We have them on the run! It will be months before they can muster a credible threat.''



Prince Ahmtur the Mighty: ''If Varesh has been conspiring with demons, she is my enemy. She will pay.''

Norgu: ''See what I mean? Straight up kind of guy. No secrets at all.''

Master of Whispers: Jurah.



Master of Whispers: ''Jurah. He asked my real name. It is Jurah. I feel I can trust you with it.''

Nice name.''

Norgu: ''See? Was that so hard?''

Master of Whispers: What the-?

Norgu: What is that?

Master of Whispers: ''It is a demonic manifestation. A part of Abaddon's realm pushing into the living world.''

Norgu: What does that mean?

Nightfall has come to Elona.''

Follow-Up

 * Upon completion of the mission players will find themselves in: The Kodash Bazaar.
 * To continue the storyline, take on the following Primary Quest: Pledge of the Merchant Princes, from Zerai the Learner in Kodash Bazaar.