Zaishen Challenge

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This is a mission entry. For information on the outpost, see Zaishen Challenge (outpost).

This article is about the Zaishen Challenge missions. For the Zaishen Challenge quests, see Zaishen Challenge Quest.

Zaishen Challenge
Campaign	Core
Region	The Battle Isles
Type	Cooperative
Party size	4
Duration	Short

[edit] Mission information

[edit] Requirements

Before clicking on the button to start the mission, the arena and foe will have to be selected. Options include:

• Arenas
  • Random Arena
  • Heroes' Crypt
  • D'Alessio Arena
  • Fort Koga
  • Amnoon Arena
  • Shiverpeak Arena

• Foes
  • Random
  • "I Will Avenge You" Warriors
  • Obsidian Spike Elementalists
  • Degeneration Team
  • Smiting Monks
  • Illusionary Weaponry Team
  • "Victory Is Mine" Trappers

[edit] Objectives

• Annihilation

[edit] Reward

There is a 2,000 Balthazar faction cap per day in this mission. Any faction earned in Zaishen Elite counts towards the cap. Also, any faction earned in this mission counts towards the 6,000 Balthazar faction cap in Zaishen Elite.

[edit] Walkthrough

This article needs to be cleaned up, see Guild Wars Wiki:Formatting for details.

[edit] Tricks to defeat the teams

You can easily solo the challenge with three heroes using the following team combination and specific set of opponents.

[edit] Solo Trapper Method

Opposing Teams: IWAY Warriors, Smiting Monks, ViM Trappers

Yourself: Ranger using traps. Wilderness 16, Expertise 15.

Your heroes: None needed

Arena: Anywhere.

Strategy: As soon as the map loads spam as many of the following traps while using Trapper's Speed stance: Spike Trap, Flame Trap, Dust Trap, Barbed Trap, Piercing Trap, and Tripwire; as they recharge use the spirits Winnowing and/or Frozen Soil, and recast your traps as they recharge. Do not move (stand on your traps), let them get to melee range, and they will die quickly.

Note: This can also be used to defeat the IW mesmers and OS Elementalist, however its often much more difficult as occasionally the mesmers will have 1 stand behind to use Imagined Burden, and the elementalist will only step on the traps if you cast it at the door, and then run to the back of the start, do not use any spirits on the elementalist.

[edit] Opposing Team: Trappers.

Yourself: Ranger or Elementalist, using traps.

Your heroes: Trap rangers, elementalists/rangers using traps work too. Frozen Soil is recommended, as well as some energy / spirits like brambles.

Arena: Heroes' Crypt.

Strategy: as soon as the doors open, move to the bridge, and cast traps (and force your heroes to cast traps), especially different traps for best effect. Cast as many as you can before the opposing team gets to you. Then move a bit backwards and repeat (especially on choke points). The trick is to move back slowly such that you're never exposed to their traps, and let them get the brunt of your own traps. If they retreat, stay there casting traps and wait for them to come back. I did this with a Dervish/Rit, 1 ranger, 2 elementalist/rangers, and it worked exceptionally well on 2nd try. This trick may also prove effective against other AI-controlled teams, as they all tend to rush you.

[edit] Opposing Team: Trappers or IWAY or IW (solo method)

Yourself: Ranger using traps. Wilderness 16, Expertise 13, Beast 11 (all sup runes).

Your heroes: None needed, but some backup can be helpful.

Arena: Anywhere.

Strategy: As soon as the map loads, cast Winnowing. When it finishes, follow with Serpent's quickness, and spam the following traps: Spike trap, Flame Trap, Dust Trap, Barbed Trap, Piercing Trap, and Viper's Nest. Recast them as they recharge. Do not move, let them get to melee range, and their deaths will be quick. Heroesshould be flagged at the end of the area, so that they do not interfere until the opponents have triggered the traps.

[edit] Opposing Team: IWAY.

Yourself: Any tank. D or W. The goal is to block the bridge, clumping the team in front of you, and allow your heroes to do their job. Alternatively, caster classes may be able to block the way using spirits, with ritualist as primary or secondary profession.

Your heroes: 1 ranger with frozen soil, the rest with AoE / damage spells. Monks / rez not necessary if the tank can survive long enough.

Arena: Heroes' Crypt.

Strategy: as soon as the doors open, flag the team right behind you on the bridge, and force your ranger to cast frozen soil at that location. The IWAY team will go down quickly under the fire of 3 offensive builds (+1 tank / damage melee), and will not be able to rez itself due to the frozen soil.

[edit] Opposing Team: Illusionary Weaponry Team.

Yourself: Elementalist/Ranger

Your Heroes: none

Arena: Shiverpeak Arena

Strategy: AOE earth magic, Shockwave, and aftershock, with frozen soil,+ sliver armor, run into center of map, Do not "Use armor of earth, or kinetic amour" (sic), as Illusionary Weaponry ignores armor, and attunments, then frozen soil, wait until they get close, activate Sliver amour, queue aftershock, and Shockwave,then crystal wave and its duplicate. wand the rest dead, until skills recharge, then repeat.

Alternative strategy: Take three Elementalist heroes with fire aoe skills (such as Savannah Heat) and meteor, flag them together within the starting area and watch as they destroy the entire team. As mesmer NPCs, they don't appear to have the same intelligence as the warrior team, for example, and are frankly terrible at moving out of the aoe. One or two of them will escape to use their res signets, but meteor and more aoe makes short work of them. This tactic will work on every arena.

Alternative strategy:As a warrior, take heal elementalist and warrior henchman, then fight the Illusionary Weaponry Team, You win always without doing anything.

[edit] Opposing Team: Trappers.

Yourself: Anything, with the elite skill Melandru's Resilience

Your heroes: Again, anything, with the same skill, but preferably high energy spell casters.

Arena: Anything

Strategy: simply keep Melandru's resilience up the entire time (possible with 9 in wilderness survival) and activate as many traps as you can. The degen should be wiped out by your stance, and with quite possibly double the average energy regen, expensive skills should be far easier to spam. Possibly take frozen soil to speed things up.

[edit] Opposing Team: Anything

Yourself: Elementalist

Your heroes: elementalist

Arena: Anything

Strategy: you need 3 skills: Echo, Arcane Echo and Meteor Shower. You can take fire attunement to reduce the cost. When you see the Zaishen coming start your echo-chain (make sure echo is cast before they are with you but don't let it run out while casting meteor shower). They will die very quickly and are unable to use their resurrection skills because of the continuous knockdown.

[edit] Notes

• The Balthazar faction cap for this mission is reset everyday at 1:00 (UTC).

Anomaly.

After winning a match, "Consecutive Wins: 1" will display in the middle of the screen. Since you are immediately returned to the outpost after a win or loss, and the counter is reset, you cannot gain a consecutive win streak larger than 1.

Anomaly.

Although the October 29th, 2009, update stated the removal of heroes was from Heroes' Ascent and Guild versus Guild, you now are not able to enter the Zaishen Challenge while a hero is in your party. According to Andrew Patrick, "Removing them was an unintended side-effect of removing them from other PvP formats." (source)

• Tip: It is easier to spike one of the NPCs three times, stacking DP and forcing the others to use their res signets. If you kill one NPC four times without killing another NPC, they are unable to use their res signet, allowing you to only kill the NPCs seven times rather than eight.