Vizunah Sqaure.....

So, I got to say, I was really enjoying Factions until now. I know that the entire campaign is pretty much garbage, but I had a Rit that got to Echovald and figured I'd bring my warrior over from Prophecies to get some cool Kurzick armor. But no. Maybe I'm trippin. Maybe I'm just really unlucky. Heres the break down.

Attempt 1: Get to the second fight and Togo gets killed. Teamate is some random guy with all henchmen like me.

Attempt 2: No teamate, and Togo gets stuck on a chest and I can not continue. I actually had to back track onto the local side so I could find out what the hell happened.

Attempt 3: Teamate leaves after the first fight and I fail to complete with just me and henchmen.

Attempt 4: Mehnlo gets focus fired and killed LITERALLY 9 or 10 seconds into the second fight. He was standing in the middle of my group of henchmen. The MIDDLE OF MY GROUP OF HENCHMEN. Do Afflicted automatically target NPCs that HAVE to stay alive!?

Attempt 5: Made it to the last fight. In their infinite wisdom, Anet decided to give Afflicted Ritualists giant selection sizes. So when I'm trying to get around 2 Rits in a narrow pathway to the 2 Monks sitting behind them, I get blocked and end up having to try to muscle through them. Meanwhile, Togo decides hes going to forget about everyone else and try to solo the garbage behind and dies.

Attempt 6: I'm getting pretty sick and tired of this mission now and decide im going to try to find a real group for it. Problem is this town is friggin empty. The other districts? Empty. Eventually I find someone else whos looking for a group and slowly we form one. We end up taking a couple of Heros (sweet jesus are they a requirement for missions now?) with us and things are looking good. Our teamates are 2 guys with henchmen. We even have a player healer (Mo/Me) and a minion master hero along with assorted other classes (D/A, N/R and maybe another A/?, not sure) and a henchmen healer. I'm thinking there is no way we can die now.

Just before the last fight, Togo gets stuck on NOTHING. NOTHING! NOTHING!? There is absolutely NOTHING there and he wont move. Not a chest, not a corpse, NOTHING. We decide to resign and try again. It takes us about 5 or 6 minutes to explain to one of the noobs in the group that Togo is stuck and we need to start over. Meanwhile the other team has left. The noob isn't responding, so we are fixin to just leave when, KAZAM!!!! Togo is moving!!!! FOR ABSOLUTELY NO REASON!! He goes from stuck for no reason for over 5 minutes, to moving like it never happened.

So cool! Now we can finish it! Finally I can put this horrible, terrible god forsaken mission behind me. We have no teamates, but the MM should be able to provide plenty of cover. She does, and its looking good until Menhlo gets instagibbed. No one saw him dieing, he didn't even have time to heal himself. I don't even know WTF it was that killed him. He was kicking one minute and dead the next.



So whats the deal? Do I suck? Am I unlucky? Is this mission just totally screwed? Is it a requiremen to have Heros now? Are warriors not allowed to complete this mission?

I've tried party builds, I've tried my DPS build and I even tried a pseudo-healer just to try and keep Menhlo and Togo alive while I fight. I don't know if I can do this mission anymore. I know I could probably find a run or whatever, but that isn't my style. I've completed this mission before with another character, so I know it can be done. Am I really just that insanely unlucky or is this an extremely poorly designed mission?

EDIT: So the idea I'm getting from other people and other threads is that Heros are practically a must now. No one else feels that this is a huge steaming pile of garbage and a total douchebag move by Anet to sell more copies of Nightfall? I am seriously disappointed with Factions. They should allow everyone who wasted the money on a copy to send it back in and get Nightfall for free. Compared to Prophecies, Factions is a horrible, HORRIBLE game.

I think you are both insanely unlucky and this is a poorly designed mission. I did this on two characters with one of them making it on the first attempt, the other the third. The most frustrating thing I found was that I tried to coodiante to have a gulidy start in local quarter and me in the foreign quarter but we did not end up in the mission together. There needs to be a better way to coordiante these 2-party missions. And yeah, everytime i've been in this place it has been totally deserted.

I think its a part of being unlucky. I will try to pm you ingame to see if you need help.

You are not unlucky. This is the way this mission is. Pure garbage. This is why people get mad when ANet anounces with trumpets how they just fixed some stupid minor bug, but wont fix very important bugs like NPCs getting stuck. I already got to the habit of going to wiki for every single quest so I wont have to redo it because of some bug.

There are several annoying missions in Factions. Naphui Quarter was simply the bane of my existance for a long, long, LONG time (atleast a dozen tries over the course of a month), until I got a friend and some alliance members to come help me finish it.

I've never had a problem with NPC's getting stuck however, and I guess thats just being unlucky.

Good luck though, and remember if you're struggling, ask on Guru or join an allliance that will willingly help you.

I think it is you. I have done the mission for 7 of my characters, plus countless other times with guildies and friends, and the only time I ever had to do it more than the first time was with my first ever character. It is a piece of cake. Even when the whole other team is ONLY henchmen, I have had no problem. It all comes down to how you plan your build and your team's build. Know the monsters in the mission, and plan your skill sets accordingly. Take out monks first, then ritualists, and the rest fall like snow from the sky.

EDIT: I think heros are pretty much a requirement now, btw. That would be the reason I have no problems with the mission, I am assuming.

This mission is doable without anyone else--you with a decent hero/hench assortment (henches only if you must), the other team all henches. The big deal is getting to that first big fight fast enough, but you can't run ahead so fast that mehnlo dies before you get there. Once you break into that open area where the first main fight occurs, its already started and togo is already taking damage. Run straight to him and flag your whole party to him also. If you keep him alive then, you shouldn't have any trouble keeping him and mehnlo alive for the rest of the mission. The getting stuck thing happens--try running in the opposite direction from the direction you were going when togo/mehnlo got stuck to get them to break free, but if they won't you might as well start over. But I've done the mish countless times and never had them get stuck.

Heroes are not required by any means... you can hench anything in Proph + Factions without them. For this mission in particular, MM's are definitely big - bring at least one, preferably two. I also like to enter until I get a hench-only team on the other side... they'll follow you, and I trust AI more than a random puggy (in general, players are bad, it's a fact).

Also noticed that you mentioned trying to get around the afflicted rits to get to the afflicted monks - bad plan. The rits are the ones with multiple healing spells, supportive spirits, and a rez. The monks are mostly smite, pathetically built. Minions will absorb most of the damage from the swarms of afflicted, which you can easily blow away with AoE (feeding your MMs - even with 2 here, there is no shortage of bodies).

Just keep an eye on the NPC's, there are a few spots where single afflicteds spawn behind you, which they will engage. I've never seen/heard of them running in front of you, so the aggro business is all your responsibility. It's not worth rigging healing into your build for them, they shouldn't cause problems... maybe they hugged a few afflicted explosions, but there isn't anything that will insta-kill them. If you feel there is, just bring Prot Spirit for them as needed.

Well about half those attempts are real bad luck, the other half seem like it is just a combination of hench weaknesses + you not knowing the mission well enough. It is definitely possible to finish the campaigns without heros, I henched ALL of factions, missions and quests, on my ranger when getting survivor. But with henchies more then anything you have to know the mission inside and out and know hench limitations. As a warrior its probably a bit harder with henchies, but I'm sure its doable.

BTW even though I personally think factions is far better then nightfall, heroes really are worth it and will make the game a lot more fun and less frustrating. Just 1 good hero MM is worth more then 3 henchies.

If you need help pm me in game and ill come on over.

The mission is garbage and simultaneously relies on if the local (Factions characters) team sucks or not.

They usual do, they usually suck just as much as Factions itself.

I'd reccomend going into an international dist or something like a polish district, hope you get paired with all NPCs on the Local team (FYI if nobody joins on one side then NPCs will cover).

Rit spirits really help by the way. I could never beat this mission without a rit providing Union + Shelter. It was fine when I did the mission on my rit, but for my Tyrian ranger, I had to go to GW:EN, play the Norn Tournament, unlock Xandra, and come allllllll the way back to Cantha just to pass that last battle (the book shop one, not the end thing with the Shiro'ken).

Well Toffin being the nice guy that he is, contacted me ingame and helped me out. He had a MM hero and I could truly see the difference. I've completed this mission before, the whole campaign for that matter, with henchmen. So I know it is POSSIBLE, but it just seems like henchmen are BARELY enough to get you through. I mean I'd flag them to the appropriate spots and try my damndest to buff them when I was able, but they just never really cut it. Either they die or they get me killed. My experiences playing through Factions with henchmen lead me to believe that its just one big zergfest. Try to complete the objective before your DP racks up so high that you get one shot.

It makes me really want to buy Nightfall, but thats not a fix for a poorly designed campaign. Well, I guess it is.... but it isn't, ya know? I guess I just miss Prophecies, where henchmen were worth slightly more than they are now. Anyways, I can put that one behind me until the next character I want to pimp out has to come through there. Knowing the mission definitely helps. After playing a few times, I realized there were "good" places to put your henchmen rally points at. I never had this problem with my Rit since I was in a real group.

Alls well that ends well, I guess. Thanks for all the suggestions and a BIG thanks to Toffin for helping me out!

The monk henchmen in factions are really, really bad. So much so that the rits usually heal far better if they don't decide to waste 5 seconds casting a spirit mid battle. Even though its possible with henchies I highly recommend you get nightfall (or EotN, though EotN is a much worse deal). Even with perfect knowledge of how to do it with henchies your group is basically balanced on the edge of a knife, ready to fall over at any time. Whereas with heroes and good builds its a leisurely walk in the park, much less stressful. The missions were real fun back when factions was released and there were actually some good pugs to play with, but now the pugs you get are usually all pretty noobish.

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take aegis and a mm and its easy

Vizunah has been known to be one of the MOST glitched missions in the game. If you look on Vizunah's wiki page, there is a long list of glitches. However, It is possible to have this done. Sabway complete ownz this mish. If you don't have heroes available, the main build i suggest is the N/ Jagged Conditions necro. The MM should put death nova on each minion and spend little time healing. When u head into battle, the afflicted will prolly try to kill off the minions first. When the die, lots of afflicted will die due to the chain death novas.

Togo getting stuck is just bad luck but with a MM, things drop very fast in this mish. If you haven't noticed, most afflicted are not lvl 20 in this mish.

i finished this mission yesterday, in HM, it was fun, not so hard with two mm heroes and one ritu healer hero
yea and true, mission district is so empty, i think cantha is not so popular like eotn or nf

You want unlucky i had my 2nd team of all henchmen killed in the 2nd big fight so I decided to quit from there.

Trying to get masters in normal, so far I got 25:07, 25:37 (would have been less if the person from local quarter would not stand still in spots), and 25:45. This mission makes my eyes bleed. To waste 25 minutes to find that you miss masters by seconds.

>>I did get happy once, saw several people from the local quarter talking to each other, thought this should be good. Then they let togo die before I had killed the second group of amfah on the way to them

this mission is awesome,i totally love it.but ive brought upwards of 10 chars through it +helping out guildies and alliance members,my main problems with it are the glitches/bugs that make togo/mhenlo just stand there looking stupid when the clock is ticking

i dont get why anet have spent time fixing other clipping/texture problems with armor peices when the first mission on the mainland of a campaign is full of bugs which seemingly like to self destruct,not only the level of competence of player from either foreign or local but also the time taken to redo the mission when npc pathing problems occur,that are well known and documented

That mission is hell for master's. You usually get it only by a minute or so. Personally I think the problem is that you have NO CONTROL OVER THE TIME TAKEN TO COMPLETE THE MISSION.

You can kill Afflicted as fast as you want, but Togo and Mhenlo will take their sweet time going between fight areas and blabbering to each other. The Afflicted, too, they spawn when the previous wave has been killed but they sometimes delay in moving to engage your party. Then you have to run over there and kill them so you can proceed with the NEXT wave.

I got Master's on my rit 24:41 if I recall.

If anyone else needs this one and I'm on give me a pm and I can help ya. I can go to either local or foreign. Lowest time I got on this mission is about 24 mins, however hardmode is a lot faster.

I started playing faction yesterday, (played all other campaign)
Me and a friend made two ritualists, on this mission! We both are offensive spirit spamming, but we are pretty synced with our spirits, when it comes to having high cast time and high mana cost vs low. So we pretty much spamming spirits and thru the painful bond on everyone we see. (more or less)

Anyway, on this mission we did it as fast as you could, they didnt open the door we was most of the time just standing and waiting. Noone died a single time!

This was with Henchmen and both of us have 1 Hybrid Ogden.

Finish time .. 25:05 ..... ......OMGOMGOMOMGOGM 5 sec from masters, seriously we start to question is it even possible to get masters? It must be, but how. the last fight only took couple of seconds..

godammit!

I lucked up today and got a good player with h/h in the local quarter. So when we meet up, we stormed the mission in 22 minutes.

See I dont get how that i possible..

I will have to do it again just for the sport, more AOE maybe,

do they open the doors faster if you kill them faster?,...that sounded stupid, ofcoure they do..

5 Seconds! 5 SECONDS OH CUUURSE YOU!

I've completed this mission several times, and all of the times I've gotten the master's times, I've done it with a full group of henchmen (more recently, henchmen and heroes). Best time I've done is 19 mins some odd seconds. Having a mm helps but it isn't necessary. Just run the mission, pay attention to trouble spots, and be prepared the next time.

This mission has little to do with being "prepared" as you say. It has a lot to do with togo and mhenlo walking aimlessly chit chatting around. I have wiped the enemies out almost as fast as they have spawned and failed the mission by seconds due to the two of them not coming forward. I have in been in the forigien quarter starting area waiting on the gate to open for almost a minute after the minute countdown timer stopped. When I did get masters, the two didn't stand around jabbering.

wow,lol took a while for that :P i can run the mish for you if you still havent finished we can try masters ,heros are not a requirement but alot more helpful
i used to do mission/quests whit people but you waste too much time doing that i finished ghiala hatchery whit h/h ,even nf missions/quest finished all of the torment quest/missions whit gwg builds

be aware also: taking an mm can actually impede the mission, ive had masters runs go totally wrong due to mhenlo spamming word of healing on the minions and not triggering the cutscene for at least 1 min

working [skill]Taste Of Death[/skill] into your mm's build should solve any problems if you get unlucky

Even worse is when Mhenlo or Togo decides that it is time to only heal your minos and not move on, happens quite often as well, still able to get masters pretty easy, but very annoying when you have the npc stopped not moving only healing minos. Typically I prefer the other team is all henchies just so I dont end up with n00bsausage. At least you know the henchies will probably die about 1/2 of them somewhere, you can easily withstand it, they res and you move on, 1/2 the time with a human on the other end, you end up with healing hands wammoriffic fun

First time I did a mission in Factions beyond Cho's Estate was yesterday, from the Foreign quarter.

First try, got whiped due to a bad healer build of a hero.

Second try, got a local MM who rocked, and had a better PUG. Togo got stuck after the first joint fight, cost us 2 minutes. We finished in 26:12.

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Is this mission necessary to continue the Factions campaign? The only thing I want is to get out of that city as fast as possible. Anyway, just tried it 2 times with my hero/hench EotN party, including PvE only skills. I came unprepared, but expected my hero/hench party to perform at least as well as in EotN, since this is just a 'common' starter mission.

Fist attempt:
Was walking around on the starting roofs, no clue what to do when it was suddenly 'poof' mission over.
Second attempt: The other team was just AI I think, no conversation. Made it to the 2nd big fight and Mhenlo and Togo got sepparated so I could not protect them both. When I was healing Mhenlo suddenly Togo ran into a bunch of enemies and died instantly.

Its not as bad a start as the opp, but the fact that Togo and Mhenlo are not allowed to die and be ressurrected makes it very uncertain with so little human teams around. I think its a *must* to let each team protect 1 of those guys.

btw. My hench/hero team had not much problems in surviving the first big battle

You guys who can't pass the 1st/2nd big battle haven't seen anything yet.

Whenever I screw up it's on the 3rd battle (the bookstore). Togo runs to and fro, inconveniently to where the Afflicted spawn, and also, inconveniently, opposite to where the henchies like to cluster up. You pretty much have to follow Togo and have your party surrounding him at all times. Same with Mhenlo, but for me Togo dies more often.

2 ritualists players (1 spirit spamming, 1 splinter/volley SS)
SABWAY (Necro setup)
1 Fire Ele
2 Monks

The second team never came, and we did it in 14min..it felt like a joke, was the easiest thing ever, the last fight was over before my friend had his spirits up.

Conclusion: Get some nice AE damage, a MM and you dance thru this mission.

PS. Mhenlo and togo behaved in the talk..

Yes, but I play a hench/merc team so I can protect only 1 chr. at the time.

Edit: I completed it. The other team was a human team, running ahead. My hero/hench team kept slightly behind, near the 2 NPC's and protected them. It was a smooth mission without problems.

IF you just have factions and not EoTN or NF i can understand that this mission is hard but if not it's fairly simple. bring at lest 2 MM's and bring some dwanya or balth or mel dervishs and 2 monks and your set u can fill in the rest of the team w/ w/e u want. The only difficulty i can say is in this is relying on the other team to make it through.