Vizug The Noxious

Vizug the Noxious is the fifth Faction Unity Legendary Champion added to RAID with Update 8.60 - and in turn further confirming that the Faction Unity Champions are being added in Faction order. Vizug enters Teleria as a [Poison] and [HP Burn] specialist who can inflict large amounts of fixed damage upon RAID's various Bosses.

Often considered the overall weakest faction in RAID, Vizug the Noxious noticeably has a "standalone" skillset that is not completely reliant on having other Ogryn Tribes faction allies, although they do prove helpful if you have other prominent PvE Ogryn Tribes champions like Uugo, Graazur Irongut and defensive support champions like Korugar Death-Bell or Togron the Conjoined, although some of these listed Champions are Void Legendaries which you may or may not possess. Regardless, Epic options like Ghrush the Mangler and Urogrim may prove serviceable should you be simply working with what you have.

The A1 of Vizug the Noxious (VTN) does not place any [HP Burn] or [Poison] by itself, but may activate a "tick" of them on each enemy hit, booking up to a 50% chance (55% with Sniper mastery) but this is separate from "Deals damage from all [Poison] debuffs instantly" in how it will not consume those debuffs entirely for their full overall damage. Being an AoE A1, "Render Flesh" works well with the Warmaster mastery and Cruelty blessing to apply extra fixed damage while cutting the Defense stat of all hit.

A2 "Vengefire" supplies the very debuffs that "Render Flesh" wishes to activate, although these debuffs are applied on-hit and therefore VTN may struggle against Force Affinity enemies. Although Champions may specialize more in either [Poison] or [HP Burn] should one of these debuff types be more valuable than the other, VTN is a rare example of a Champion who inflicts both on the same attack.

A3 "Despoiler of Anhelt" is where you may begin looking at what Ogryn Tribes Champions you have around, since the skill itself is somewhat ordinary baseline - the [Increase ACC] is typically not needed for PvE content where you only ever have a static ACC requirement to meet. With all three Faction allies, VTN stands to full heal the entire team on a 3-turn cooldown due to the heal scaling off his max HP, which ideally will end up being somewhere just past six digits if you have some decent gear to grant him.

It's also the only skill in the game to increase the duration of all enemy debuffs by 2 turns, compared to some other effects which only increase the duration of a random debuff or two by that amount. This can quite easily keep a full plate of debuffs on all targets if there's no cleansing effects possible. Additionally, this is the only skill in the game to increase ally buff duration by 2 turns, making full buff uptime in specific compositions almost effortless.

Finally, the Passive "Bonegrinder Brand" - which unfortunately provides another conditional ACC boost on top of what you most likely already have as sufficient ACC stats - thankfully provides other effects with Faction allies. Only needing a single ally for +30% extra [Poison] or [HP Burn] damage, these debuffs don't need to be placed by VTN or any Ogryn Tribes ally to benefit, bringing [Poison] up to 6.5% max HP a tick and [HP Burn] up to 3.9% max HP - although many Bosses have this damage capped anyway. With 3 Faction allies, you no longer have to worry about these empowered DoT debuffs being cleansed, whether by the Iron Twins' frequent self-cleanses or otherwise.

Despite being a HP Champion, Vizug's damage multipliers are somewhat average and do not ignore any damage mitigation effects, meaning that CRIT and CDMG are generally unsuitable stats for VTN to focus on. It's generally best to prioritize enough Accuracy, as much Speed as you can and then just HP to increase the potential value of Despoiler of Anhelt's healing effect.

Overall, Vizug the Noxious is a solid Champion but one many felt lacking as a Faction Unity Champion, especially given his heavily limited availability during the month where he was released into the game. Perhaps one who would have been better as just a normal Legendary?