Gate of Madness Help

I have tried Gate of madness, and even with a group of all human players, we often get wiped before we get to shiro and the lich. The 2 times that we have gotten to shiro, we just haven't been able to beat him. The lich is easy, but shiro is just too powerful.

I know how to skip the Shiro-ken and the route to go to get to the temple, but if anyone just has any general advice, please let me know. I am so sick of this mission and want to beat Nightfall.

Thanks in advance- Illithen

At first this mission was pretty difficult...now its beyond simple. Even did it on HM with 1 real person rest heroes.

To do HM...we had...
3 monks - 2 heal (standard WoH build) 1 prot (non-bond, used shield of regen)
1 SS w/br
1 SV/MM
1 Defensive Para
1 SF Ele
1 Koss running defensive stances

Pulling is key...making sure to kill the groups quickly enough in the area of the 5 ports...they do respawn..so kill and get the wraiths quick. Since your on NM...you can pull them a ways further then HM...just get a long bow

Its trial and error, first time we did it we died...after that it became so easy. You will laugh

As for shiro...make sure Koss has WB to knock stances off of shiro...with out them, ss/sv combo will just pummle him. Blinding skills for when he goes into impossible odds isnt a bad idea either. Thats when he does the most damage to himself...and to you.

Anyways, hope this helps a little.
-Tiki

I think this one of the hardest missions in all of the campaigns. I see a lot of people in Guild and Alliance struggling with it. You see the same people trying over and over in the mission town. I have done this mission many times to take strugglers through and its never easy. Its very unforgiving of bad setups, bad tactics, and mistakes.

1) PUG and/or Hero setups is one of the keys of beating this mission. You have to read up on this mission and its beastery, on wiki, and setup some basic counters in your builds.
2) The other key is planning your tactics before you do the mission. There are a couple of paths to the temple that works and others just do not. Notice and work around the patrols so that you do not get mobbed by more than one group.
3) Do not RUSH this mission. You rush a mob you die. Take your time, pace it well with the patrols, pick your fights on your own terms. Every time we wiped on this mission was when one idiot rushed a mob.
4) Teamwork. Without it forget it. Stay as a group, work as a group, call targets and kill them with group power.
5) Make sure to bodyblock the melee fighters (Blades/Executioners) away from your casters. They like to run past into your back line and decimate your casters. Watch for this. Have your casters take down the most dangerous of the mob's casters (Heralds/Shadows/Seers/Warlocks) first while tanking/blocking their melee.
6) Everyone should take some resurrect skill. You get quite a number of boosts to recharge signets.
7) Do not be scared to retreat and run away (as a group) when getting mobbed. Rez and regroup and try again.

Team Setup:
1) Take a Warrior with Stances like Riposte/Deadly Riposte to tank the Melee Fighters and Shiro. If you take a Hero Warrior give him a interrupt skill as well.
2) Take 2 Monks. One concentrates on keeping the tank alive, while the other minds the caster group. Taking Aegis will help quite a bit on both monks.
3) Take a Necro with BiP or Well of Power. You casters work hard and will run low on energy. Keeping the monks alive and full energy helps a lot.
4) Take 2 Elementalists. Again Heroes work well when they have a good setups. Take Searing Flames and some time based interrupts. E/Me type setups is the best.
5) Take a Ranger for pulling/luring. A Human ranger with good trapping skills is probably best.
6) Take a Mesmer to interrupt enemy casters and Shiro if you can find one. The Hero will probably work best since he has no lag issues, and timing is critical for Shiro. Otherwise another Necro with SS, or Grenths Balance.
7) Lastly fill team up with a heavy damage dealer W/x or D/x or E/x.

Team skills that you need:
1) Protective Spirit / Spirit Bond (or the elites of those) - for when one person gets mass targeted, and to curb Shiro's damage output on a team member.
2) Aegis or Ward against Melee.
3) Spiteful Spirit combined with Mark of Pain.
4) Searing Flames.

Lastly:
1) Wait for all portals to spawn and patrols to settle. Then close them anti-clockwise starting with the closest on the right. Lure and kill the demon patrol 1st else they run into your backline when you lure the Portal Wraiths.
2) Kill Lich first. Lure him to the doorway, block Shiro with your tank, while killing the Lich. Then run off and regroup.
3) Ignore Shiro and do the bonus. Open all 5 shrines.
4) Take Shiro in the middle of the temple. Never group up - stay aggro circle from each other and keep moving to keep Shiro running.

Hope it helps ... & GL.

About Impossible odds: "This skill has a hidden feature—all conditions inflicted on Shiro will be spread to those he hits, and one hex is removed upon activation."
He does enough damage as it is, so you don't want to start burning so SF should be disabled at this part.

Also make sure you KITE. If Shiro is running to you, unless you've got block stances or you can prot yourself or you're a tank, run away.

As for the Lich if you can pull him near the doorway, you can hide behind the walls. His projectile attack will be obstructed. I've soloed him with a Mind Blast ele (after the PuG I joined got wiped) by hiding behind the wall.

5 melee + 1 orders necro (OoV) + 1 prot + 1 healer = capowned. Completed the mission @ first try with 5 ppl and 3 heroes with this setup, easy. Did bonus as well.

I think this mission has been hosed by Anet now;

You can't ignore Shiro now he attacks as soon as you enter the rift gate his agro field is massive so there is no way to get to the shrines to get bonus or blessings and to kill Shiro you need those blessings otherwise he slices and dices the whole group easy!

I used this team build:

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10081126

and grabed all the shrines.

The result:

Quote: Originally Posted by HDuarte

well, what works for one may not work for another, so YMMV, and i applogize to everyone who's read similar things before, this strategy seems to be everywhere, and for good reason imo. I did it with h/h, same strat would work for people:
I did a lot of reading up on this before finally getting it done. The points I found most important to pay attention to for Shiro, the Lich, and the shrines were:

Flag the h/h so their aggro bubble covers right inside of the door way and then you inch up on the rightmost side of the doorway until you aggro the Lich. He will aggro without dragging Shiro (this is, of course, after they turn red). I just pounded him inside the door until he went down.

Regroup and then start running to cap the shrines without ever attacking Shiro, let him follow along. I put my hero's on avoid while running to shrines just for extra insurance they won't attack Shiro.

Going counter clockwise from the door, let's name the shrines 1-6. Run to shrine 1, Melandru's and cap it. Then flag your h/h and yourself to the eastern most back corner. Putting on avoid (and NOT targeting anything) helps here because Shiro will break off if not attacked. This also works in the other back corner. Next run and cap Shrine 2, Balthazar's. Once capped it's up to you if you want to return to shrine 1 for recoup time. Cap Shrine 6, Lyssa's next. Again, the back eastern most corner is a safe zone from Shiro. Cap Shrines 5 (Grenth) and 3 (Dwaynas) in that order, going to safety inbetween if necessary, and then run back out the door, loosing Shrio's aggro again.

Flag out your h/h (except your tank if that's not you), in a semi circle at the outside of the door (idea is for them to spread out so Shiro doesn't Riposting Shadows to a group) and then aggro Shiro to the door and fight him there.

My build for this as a Ranger/Necro (Necrosis spammer) was Koss with Shield Stance, Wild Blow and Insidious Parasite, Norgu as interupter with Empathy, and Morghan with Spiteful Spirit. Henchies I took were both monks, Eve, and Sologan. This left only one melee within Shiro's Impossible Odds/Battle Scars, and using Insidious Parasite, Koss would negate much of the Impossible Odds hits. And since the only condition applied regularly was bleeding, there wasn't much to counter with that aspect of the Odds.

I kept the Shiro specific skills turned off and manually activated them, this included activating Wild Blow every time Battle Scars came up, to the point of activating them every time they were available for use, once Impossible Odds started popping.

Shiro killed himself quite quickly and Koss was the only one ever getting hit. Shiro didn't once use Reposting Shadows. Why? Could be his aggro range, I don’t really know.

I ignored both Shiro and Lich, ran around, got all the shrines, next killed the Lich and then went after Shiro, took a while but I got him!

Did masters for this by killing shiro first at the door, rest of the mission was just a clean up job. Curses Necro (reckless, price of failure etc goodies) and i was ending stances with Wild Throw. Easiest Masters i've had. Though shiro did get lucky, when doesn't he? - killed someone again once.

Lich hits for 333 every attack >.<

I can't get this one either. It's annoying it's not even funny. I want to finish Nightfall so bad. I want hand of the forgotten to be mine, forever.

If doing masters, kill lich first, then ignore shiro and get shrines, then kill shiro.

The key to killing shiro is to have a spoil victor necro, with -100hp each hit he goes down easy. As for the lich he is just a pushover, just have a warrior tank him and beat the shit out of him.

Kill Lich first, completely avoiding Shiro (his damage is pitiful when he has high life). After that go capping shrines

A necromancer > Shiro