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.

Arborstone
Difficulty: *****

There is meaningful time pressure for master's reward, so stalemating against healers, losing Danika, or generally getting lost can cost you master's reward.

Between splinter weapon, energy surge, and shatter hex, the wardens have quite a bit of multi-target damage, so it helps to spread out a bit.

It helps to pull some mobs up the big ramp outside the cathedral to separate them. For the first pull inside the cathedral, when you approach, two groups of wardens will run to the bottom of the stairs. With a height advantage from the stairs, it is manageable to take on both groups at once, but sometimes it is possible to pull them apart.

The first boss is accompanied by two wardens of earth that can wipe your group in a hurry with churning earth if you don't spread out. Flag heroes and henchmen apart for the battle, and pull the boss group some. Pulling and running away tends to leave Danika and Mhenlo in front of your group, which can be useful, as they're the most capable tanks you have.

Take the center route after getting the urn, and make sure Danika is with you when you head out, as she takes her time shortly after the cut scene. The center route has arguable the easiest mobs and certainly the fewest.

The fast way to do the ending sequence is to flag your party to the west and aggro the stone judge. The boss will chase further than other mobs, making it possible to kill the boss first. When the boss dies, rush over to the door and draw fire away from Danika. Usually Danika will open the door after 10 seconds, completing the mission, even if your party is in the process of wiping. If you don't draw fire away from Danika, she may just stand there and heal and not open the doors until you clear all the mobs or wipe.

If you have a lot of time left at the end, it can be safer to do the ending sequence by killing some other stone guardians before the boss, so that you don't get overwhelmed. Killing the boss makes two additional stone crushers spawn.

Boreas Seabed
Difficulty: *****

For builds, you want a water elementalist with ward against harm, a curse necro with enfeebling blood, and a mesmer with several interrupts. Depending on your class, you may be unable to bring all of these and still have the necessary three healers, in which case the water elementalist is the one to drop.

In the first battle, the necro must use enfeebling blood to keep both Seaguard Eli and Daeman perpetually weakened. If the necro is a healer, you'll have to manually have him cast enfeebling blood on targets, alternating between the two. Other weakness spells such as enfeeble can work, but won't also weaken other mobs in the area. All of the Luxons except for the necromancer can heal themselves, so you want to kill the necromancer repeatedly to waste the two bosses' resurrection signets. Once the necromancer is dead, you can go after other targets.

In the second battle, lock the necromancer onto Aurora, and the mesmer onto Seaguard Gita. If Aurora is weakened and has spiteful spirit on him, he'll do about as much damage to himself than to your party when he uses barrage. Barrage can be devastating if Aurora is not weakened, however, and Gita has draw conditions. With rebirth as Gita's rez, Aurora is essentially the only rezzer in this group. Killing the bosses first may thus make sense.

In the third battle, lock the mesmer onto Argo. A player may not have the reflexes to get some of Argo's spells, but you absolutely must interrupt Argo's Cry, which takes nearly 2 seconds to cast, even in hard mode. The rest of the party can kill other mobs first to waste the rez signets of the bosses. The elementalist should keep ward against harm up at all times, and all party members that are not melee should stand in it to dampen Argo's damage. Whoever the Luxons see first will be immediately blasted by elementalists and possibly killed in under 1 second if he doesn't have protective spirit or something analogous.

Sunjiang District
Difficulty: ***

Beware of henchmen and heroes shooting at the ground due to awkward terrain. In several places, it helps to pull afflicted quite a distance before killing them.

A ritualist with gaze of fury can kill a spirit of portals in 2 seconds. You can save a lot of time and effort against the east and west portals by simply killing the spirit with gaze of fury and running away. The cut scene will play when all four spirits of portals are dead and your group is out of combat.

After the cut scene, if you pull the warrior or assassin boss, both of the bosses near it will also come. If the monk boss spawns in the back, as it does half the time, all four bosses come, which can be a problem. Instead, pull the necromancer or elementalist boss and the mesmer or ranger boss will stay put, guaranteeing that you don't have to fight all four bosses at once.

The Eternal Grove
Difficulty: ****** (six stars)

This mission is extremely difficult to do with only henchmen and heroes, without using the usual crutches for unskilled players such as ursan blessing or consumables. With two or more players and heroes filling the rest of the party, it is far more manageable. As such, I'll assume that the party has players and heroes, and not henchmen.

The party should include a minion master with skills such as animate bone minions, animate shambling horror, animate flesh golem, or jagged bones designed to create multiple minions per corpse available. Use a minion bomber build with death nova, and do not try to keep the minions alive while fighting afflicted.

The party should also include a ritualist with recuperation and life. The ritualist can be flagged in the middle of the grove when fighting afflicted and heal all party members and all allies on both sides at once.

Assume that virtually all resurrecting will be done in combat. Rebirth is useless, and skills that revive a character with little health may not be terribly useful.

The mobs that come do so at set times, and do not wait until the previous mobs are dead. Afflicted tend to group up a lot, and as such, skills that damage several mobs at once are highly useful. This mission is quite unusual as hard mode missions go in that bringing a sufficient damage output matters quite a bit.

You're going to have to fight many afflicted at once, so area hexes, conditions, wards, or wells that dampen mob damage are highly useful. Any tank will take hits at an incredible rate, so potent single target protective skills such as shield of regeneration, shielding hands, or shield of absorption can help immensely to keep tanks alive.

NPC allies are much stronger in hard mode, which means that mobs will mostly attack your party members rather than NPCs. Unless you leave a gate undefended, it's unlikely that you'll lose any tree singers without your party wiping. The hard part is not getting master's reward, but merely completing the mission.

The luxon attack part of the mission is mostly about group coordination and not letting any luxons have a free path to the tree singers. Split your party into a group of 4-5 and a group of 3-4, with both reasonably balanced, and the larger group the one with the better damage output. If both are of four characters, declare the one with more damage to be "larger". Initially both groups go west to kill a siege turtle and about 7-10 Luxons accompanying it.

Once the Luxons to the west are dead, the smaller group should head to the north gate, stand in the gate, and kill anything that comes to them. The larger group should head south, stand outside of the south gate, and kill two groups of warriors, one group of rangers, and the first siege turtle that comes, along with its accompanying rangers.

After this, the two groups switch sides, with the smaller group standing in the south gate. The larger group goes to the north to kill the siege turtle and its escort, as well as various other Luxons that come. One pair will come from the west and go through the north gate, and the north group needs to be back far enough to intercept this group. Another siege turtle will come to the south, but the group at the south gate should ignore it. Once the next siege turtle comes from the north, the north group should go meet it and kill it, and then run to the west to kill another siege turtle group and its escort. Killing this west siege turtle group and its escort triggers the cut scene, and makes most Luxons become allies. Any Luxons that switch sides will quickly be killed by afflicted, whether friendly to you or not.

After the cut scene, put the minion master behind the north gate, and move two juggernauts to stand in the north gate. If the minion master has blood of the master, disable it when the first afflicted come. Flag the ritualist in the center of the grove, and the rest of the party near the south gate. Move one juggernaut to the south gate as well. Spread out the party members near the south gate, so that they don't all get blasted by afflicted soul explosions at once. Juggernauts and tanks can go outside the gates slightly to tank, but everyone else should stay inside the gates. Characters with line of sight ignoring spells may wish to stand behind a gate post to shield damage.

One party member with significant area of effect damage should join the minion master at the north gate when afflicted come long enough to kill five or so mobs (the first set is all melee and will bunch up), then return to the south gate. The first wave doesn't have very many mobs, but the second wave comes shortly thereafter with many afflicted. The second wave also includes a boss, the afflicted makaa. The boss must be kept perpetually weakened or blinded to limit its damage output, and should be killed as quickly as practical, though party members with heavy area damage may focus primary on the larger groups of non-boss afflicted.

So long as your party can keep a tank alive at a gate (whether a juggernaut or a party member), most of the afflicted will stay there and bunch up. If you lose a gate, afflicted come pouring through, scatter, and create general chaos. If enough afflicted are already dead, you can still win in spite of general chaos, but it is harder.

When the second wave of afflicted is dead (7 groups remaining), one party member with heavy area damage should join the minion master at the north gate, while the rest of the party stays at the same gate as before. Juggernauts will likely have been killed, so move the juggernauts to the appropriate gates as before. The third wave of afflicted is similar to the second, but without a boss, and with afflicted distributed more evenly to the gates.

If you can survive the third wave of afflicted (3 groups remaining) and have a bit of time to regroup before the fourth, you're nearly guaranteed to win. Reposition juggernauts at the gates as before. The final two waves of afflicted send only 2-3 mobs to the south gate and the rest to the north gate. As such, send two party members to the south gate and the rest to the north gate, except for the ritualist still in the middle. The ritualist can provide adequate healing for the south gate, so all other healers in the party should be at the north gate. Once the characters at the south gate clear the two mobs that come, they can help out at the north gate. Party members at the north gate may need to go out the gate to chase afflicted, but those at the south gate should not do so for fear of outrunning their healing.

The fifth wave is similar to the fourth, with fewer afflicted, but two bosses that come to the north gate. The same tactics apply as in the fourth wave, though the fifth wave can take quite a while, due to healers, including a ritualist boss. Once the fifth wave mobs have arrived, no further mobs are coming, so you can take as much time as you need. The party will usually have to chase outside the gates to kill the ritualist boss. The ritualist healer in the center should also come to the north gate once the mobs that come to the south gate are cleared.

Gyala Hatchery
Difficulty: ****

The back way is the easy way. Kurzick monks are quite powerful healers, while Kurzick elementalists do heavy area damage with unsteady ground. These are your top priority targets while clearing the back route. Kurzick warriors and rangers aren't that dangerous individually, but seven of them focusing fire on the same target can be a big problem.

The key here is a curse necro with enfeebling blood, shadow of fear, and whatever else might harass groups of warriors and rangers to keep your party alive. An earth elementalist can provide some good countermeasures to groups of warriors and rangers, too. An interrupter can help with monks and elementalists, and Daeman does well at this.

Note that juggernauts are never linked to other Kurzicks. Any potentially difficult group that includes juggernauts can be made easier by pulling the juggernauts first. Shoot something and run, and juggernauts will chase longer than other mobs. You may have to shoot and run several times to get the juggernauts far enough away from other Kurzicks that they come alone, but they will do so eventually.

Follow the same pulling order as on the wiki page, except that after clearing the group at point 4, circle around the barrier clockwise to get back to point 5, as it is easier to pull from this side.

For the first big battle with the siege turtles, the juggernauts spawn significantly before the other Kurzicks. Run to Petras, get a smoke canister, and drop it in front of the approaching juggernauts, and let them take one round of siege turtle fire. This won't kill the juggernauts, but it will take a majority of their lifeline off. After one round of siege fire, move the smoke canister to the middle of the young turtles. While one player handles the smoke canister, the rest of the party ought to attack the juggernauts as soon as they spawn to the south of the caravan. The juggernauts can flip siege turtles, robbing the group of their essential fire support, so killing the juggernauts is your top priority.

When the juggernauts reach the caravan, flag your party on the smoke canister at the center of the young turtles. Because NPC allies are much stronger in hard mode, the warriors that come flooding in will mostly target your party and leave the young turtles alone. Your main priority is thus merely staying alive, and your damage output doesn't matter. While four Kurzick monks come to heal the warriors, one round of siege turtle fire will kill most warriors attacking you even over the monks' healing. Don't go chase the monks, but just stay in the center in whatever wards you have for defense. Once all of the warriors are dead, then you can go kill the monks.

Unwaking Waters
Difficulty: ****

The key is to interrupt Kuunavang, so she can't get corrupted dragon scales off. A couple of heroes loaded up with interrupts, as well as Daeman or Erys Vasburg (depending on your side) can handle this nicely. It also helps to keep Kuunavang weakened with a skill such as enfeeble.

As in easy mode, the key is not to fight Kuunavang and afflicted at the same time. If fighting Kuunavang and you see some afflicted off in the distance, run away and wait for the afflicted to come. Don't wait for the afflicted to catch you, and have to run away under fire from them as well as Kuunavang. Kill the afflicted without Kuunavang's interference before proceeding.

If you get a henchmen party from the other side, they will try to stay behind your party, leaving you to take the brunt of the damage. As you outnumber afflicted parties at least 2:1, the afflicted will die reasonably quickly, but may be able to spike and kill a couple of your party members first. The henchmen party will be much more durable, so it helps to let them eat a lot of the damage. When an afflicted group gets near, run away slightly. Your own party will follow you significantly before the henchmen party will, leaving the henchmen party in front to take the first hits from the mobs.

Kuunavang's main means of killing your party members is to hit someone with dark chain lightning, immediately followed by a normal attack. If Kuunavang is weakened, the normal attack won't be enough to kill in two hits, and Kuunavang's damage output will be quite low other than Dark Chain Lightning, which by itself, isn't hard to survive. Corrupted dragon scales can also be a problem, so run out of the way or kill them quickly if Kuunavang gets a cast of them off; lock any interrupting heroes onto Kuunavang while killing the dragon scales, so she can't get more casts of them away.

Raisu Palace
Difficulty: ****

Danika and Cynn are definitely the allies to choose. Mobs hit a lot harder in hard mode, but don't take much more damage to kill, as they only gain two levels. Your four allies (everything beyond Cynn's cut scene is quite easy) are far more durable in hard mode, however, making the mission scarcely harder than easy mode. About the same tactics as in easy mode still work nicely, though you should probably expect to take a couple deaths here and there when fighting elementalists. Death penalty gets worked off fast, so death penalty isn't likely to be a problem unless you take enough to run out of rez signets. The first room is the hardest, and is conveniently right at the start; the remainder of the mission isn't hard enough to merit a four star rating, even if you have considerable death penalty.

Imperial Sanctum
Difficulty: ****

With heroes, this is not meaningfully different from easy mode. This is probably easier with henchmen/heroes than with other players, as if you're the only player, Shiro will only banish henchmen. The only reason it is rated as hard as it is is that if something goes wrong and you're not quick enough to trigger wild blow after Shiro uses battle scars with impossible odds up, a wipe is probable.