User:Quizzical/Factions Hard

Minister Cho's Estate
Difficulty: ***

Nearly all mobs are melee, and even those that aren't are typically one caster paired with a couple melee. As such, anti-melee defensive skills such as blinding, weakness, or blocking skills are highly effective. Minions can also be pretty useful, as there are some spare corpses lying around, as well as many mobs that die reasonably quickly. Mobs hit hard enough that relying on only one character for healing is dangerous; going purely defensive can cost you master's reward, however.

Zen Daijun
Difficulty: *****

With Togo and Vhang, you effectively have a party of eight (or nine while Zunraa is alive), so it can help to treat it like a party of eight and bring three healers. You have plenty of time, so you can go with a heavily defensive party, wait for miasma to wear off or groups of mobs to move apart, and still get master's reward with several minutes to spare.

There are three logically separate parts to the mission. In the first, which comprises most of the mission, many groups of mobs will wander fairly long distances. It's easy if you only pull one group at a time, but if you aren't careful, while you're fighting one group, one or two additional groups can hit you.

The easiest route is, just after the crossroads, to get off of both paths and head west on the grass. Wade through Tei Lake, and then return to the north path. This saves some time, but more importantly, makes it easier to only pull one group at a time in that area.

The second part is the fight against Yijo and Farmer Xeng Jo. Yijo's spirit rift hits extremely hard, and can kill most henchmen and some heroes in one shot. A hero with interrupts can get it much of the time. If he gets spirit rift off, get out of the way. Xeng Jo hits hard, too, but not nearly as hard as Yijo, so killing Yijo is your top prority.

The final part is the group at the end that includes Afflicted Kana. Pull them way back so you can stand on the bridge to fight. If you run away, Togo and Vhang will safely follow. This lets you get a slight height advantage, but more importantly, prevents henchmen and heroes from standing there shooting the stairs, and thus doing no damage.

Vizunah Square
Difficulty: *****

If you have someone from the other starting point coming, you can coordinate start times to probably group together. Few enough people to hard mode that getting a randomly selected group from the other side is unlikely. Thus, if you aren't coordinating with another group from the other side, you'll probably get henchmen.

The party of henchmen from the other side is far more durable in hard mode. However, mobs also hit much harder, so if you try to split damage with them 50/50 and do nothing else to heal or protect them, they will wipe, and then you'll be in huge trouble. Wells, wards, spirits, and other skills that heal or protect all allies (as opposed to merely all party members or target ally) are quite useful. Even so, your group will have to take the bulk of the damage that mobs dish out.

If one or two henchmen of the henchmen party run off alone to fight a group, it can help if you heal them directly. A henchmen party will not get any rez signet recharges, ever, so every death of their party is a problem. Henchmen healers tend to get into the most trouble.

If you have only henchmen and heroes, that may require you to bring four healers in your party. If your entire party can bring sufficient defensive skills, you may be able to get by with only three healers. For remaining hero slots, a necromancer with some minions, well of power, and rotting flesh (which you must disable against the Am Fah) is quite useful. Another useful hero is a water elementalist with ward against harm, maelstrom, and blurred vision.

The hard battles come at the blue dot and the first two green dots. The battles in between are easy, and your main concern is not missing something that makes Mhenlo and Togo stay behind to fight one mob alone.

In each of the three major battles, two groups of mobs spawn at different points, and once most of those are dead, the next two groups of mobs spawn. This repeats a few times, and then finally a single group of mobs will spawn with a boss. Because you're going to have a few mobs from previous groups up when the next groups spawn, you want those few to be as weak of mobs as possible.

Your top priorities to kill are ritualists, elementalists, and monks, in about that order. Afflicted ritualists are extremely potent healers, and while they can also rez, they are somewhat less inclined to do so than in easy mode. Afflicted elementalists have by far the highest damage output of any afflicted. Monks aren't the most powerful healers, but can remove conditions with martyr, which can complicate your efforts at clearing other mobs. Monks can also slaughter minions very quickly with ray of judgment.

For the most part, you want to stay with the henchmen party and let mobs come to you. Chasing into the back line of mobs can distribute damage too lopsidedly, and cause major trouble for one party or the other. The exception is that once a group isn't too large, you may have to go in and focus fire on ritualists to kill them, as they prefer to stay back more than any other mobs you fight.

When a canthan peasant dies, it usually triggers the spawn of an afflicted. This new afflicted is not linked to anything, and will mostly try to run away. It's usually best to just let it hide in the corner and focus on other mobs, though you may need to hunt down ritualists to stop them from healing excessively with recuperation and life.

The second major battle is the easiest of the three, because the fewest mobs spawn in each group. The third major battle is the hardest, because several pairs of ritualists spawn. Killing the ritualists is a very high priority, as if the there are a couple ritualists left when the next wave of mobs spawns, and more ritualists join them in the next wave, you can end up with four ritualists healing and resurrecting each other, which can be a major problem.

Mhenlo and Togo are quite strong, and much stronger than any characters in your party. As such, it can sometimes help to let them tank some, though if you do this, you do have to watch their lifebars and heal them as appropriate.

There is usually adequate time for even a heavily defensive party to complete the mission with master's reward. One exception is if the other party wipes and you lose their damage, you'll take much longer to finish the mission, if you can even finish it at all. The other major exception is if you allow too many ritualists to stack up, so that you stalemate for a while, and take several minutes to clear one group.

Nahpui Quarter
Difficulty: ***

Note that mobs do not come in large linked groups. Rather, large clusters of mobs after two or three bosses are dead are several separate groups and can be pulled apart. It is vital that you pull mobs apart rather than charging into them. If you pull only a few mobs at a time, the mission is easy, but eight or nine at a time can and probably will wipe your group.

The forty minutes allowed for master's reward are vastly more time than the mission takes, even at a slow pace. The major time constraint is not forty minutes for master's reward, but rather, getting out of the way before essences respawn three minutes after they are killed.

Tahnnakai Temple
Difficulty: ****

This mission is mainly about careful pulling to dissect the various groups of afflicted. The mobs come in only very small linked groups, but it often is not at all obvious which are linked to which others. Because careful pulling is of such paramount importance, it can be useful to eschew melee entirely, though obviously this is not an option for some classes. At the very least, any melee characters will have to be careful not to chase mobs and aggro more.

Mobs cause both blindness and dazed, so it can be useful to have substantial condition removal available. Because both the afflicted elementalists and temple guardians use fire spells, it can be useful to have a water elementalist with ward against harm and maelstrom. Pulling may sometimes require going into range to get blasted by several elementalists at once, and spirit bond is better defense against this than protective spirit.

In the first room, you'll want to pull apart the wandering mass of afflicted somewhat. Try to get the ritualists in as small of a group as possible, as spiking them down can take some time. The next three rooms can be dealt with as above, as can the sixth room.

In the fifth room, keep most of your party at the top of the stairs while one member heads down. Get kind of close to something but not within aggro bubble range, then run back up the stairs. All of the warriors in the center of the room will then chase you up the stairs, together with possibly some of the monks. For the next pull, grab an elementalist and they will all come. Spirit bond to protect the puller, a ward against harm for the party to stand in, and maelstrom dropped in the middle of the elementalists make this quite manageable. After this, clearing the boss and monks is easy.

In the seventh room, as soon as you get close, all of the afflicted in the room will scramble around and then come to the base of the stairs. Trying to fight all of them at once can be a big problem. Instead, shoot one and run, and keep running until a few follow and the rest don't. Kill the ones that follow and repeat. Spirit bond helps with pulling here. Mhenlo and Togo will follow you away, though the puller may have to run past the rest of the party somewhat to get them to follow adequately. In some cases, you may need to run all the way into the previous room.

In the eighth room, once you go into the middle area, all of the rangers wandering the perimeter will do likewise. As such, it can be better to clear them first. Pull a few mobs at a time out of the center, making sure to pull them far enough that you can chase enough to kill them without aggroing more mobs even if they run away a bit. It can help if you don't get both ritualists on the same pull.