Gates of Madness Mission (Spoiler)

Just let the tank go in and peg your henchies back out of his aggro circle and you should be fine.

What does IO actually do? I never really noticed it's effect when I was doing the mission. :\

Causes his attacks to double strike 100% of the time (I think), spread all conditions on him to struck foes, and hit ALL foes near him. Very nasty with inexperienced groups that gather around him- he can wipe the entire party quickly if you're not careful and he's not blinded.

If your tank's the only one next to him, however, it doesn't really do all that much.

Shiro doesn't move when he does his IO sequence. I tanked him as a wammo with zero stances and simply moved away when I couldn't take anymore IO hits. I would just heal myself quickly and reengage when I was ready. In retrospect, I would've brought some actual stances and shouts lol.

A friend and I duoed this with our pool of heroes over the weekend and got a master rank. All we needed was someone with a stance cancel (me with Wild Blow), a necro with SV (Olias) and a good back line full of support, healers and ranged attackers. We also brought an extra necro for MM duty and Koss as another meat shield.

Shiro really isn't that hard, but WB and SV aren't invincible. You still need to be on the ball with coordination and positioning.

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Ok just beat it. I was setup as a Earth Dervish tank and was able to take lots of punishment. However, he NEVER stuck on me. I was constantly chasing him, and repositioning my hero/henchy party, trying to get them away from him.

Once i got him to 1/4 life, i still couldn't get him to hold still, so i simply staggered my party at safe distances. Positioned henchies at one spot and each hero at a different spot so if Shiro went after one, i'd have the retreat, and Shiro every so often would refocus on me. Took forever, but eventually killed him.

I still have no clue how EVERYone but me seems to have been able to get him to stick on one tank (Me). Oh well, i beat it. No thanks to this thread. LoL, but yall can't be blamed for some freak behavior i experienced..

TY anyway yall!
cheers!

after doing this mission over 35 times... i've come to the realization of how easy this mission really is.... eventually people will get to that point too... until then... money..money...money..[in a squeeky voice] MONEY!!!!

well, its not exactly a cake walk, but i managed to defeat this mission.

Shiro loves to over extend, moreso than than the lich, first time (when i finally succeded completing this mission) i went in first, hero monk behind me, i was trying to get a hold of shiro and the lich, but i positioned the monk wrong and he was unable to heal me.

then the two of them run to the henchies and wreack havoc among them, i managed to get one of them to res me and pull back and away from them.

it was:
me (w/mo (oh noes ) )
tahlkora (prot)
mhenlo
khim
Herta

zhed and olias were dead, after pounding a bit on shiro i went in and rebirthed zhed and pulled back, shiro was coming at us and then heading back to the center, so i kept pulling him, to the outside, at what it seemed to be his "allowed range" to be away from the center, whenever he dark riposted to the middle of the henchie group he would go to the center, eventually he tried to go to the middle, but was close to the wall, so i bodyblocked him... and he didnt move... didnt attack.

slowly and steadily me and the other henchies started to hit him like if there was no tomorrow, and all what shiro did was spam the battle scars without actually doing anything, then he used impossible odds and i thought i was done for... 10 seconds later he used again... and again... and he never attacked me, and eventually we killed him.

the lich was little trouble other than for the dp the first fight inflicted on us, so i didnt wanted to risk trying to split and cap the shrines so i just killed him.

hope Anet doesnt fix that "allowed ranged" so i can pull it again with my other chars

nice...I don't think I could do this with just Heros/Henchman....for one not all my heros are at 20, and 2, i just dont think i could handle messing around with what they're doing, while at the same time tanking. But yay i got my primevel armor today and its sweet. (hehe my avatar shows it) but man its spiky.

IMO, this mission was designed by Anet to show ppl the limitation of using heroes/henchies only. It can be done with heroes/henchies but it's extremely unpredictable.

I have taken four of my characters through Nightfall in the following order - dervish, warrior, paragon and ranger. I heroed/henched Madness with my dervish, warrior and paragon. When NF was first released, the AI was such that it always targets the character with the highest AL, so if you fight Shiro, he will always gravitate towards your tank unless reposting shadows causes him to teleport to someone else. But he goes back to attacking the tank. If the tank dies and is ressed, it's back to attacking the tank.

Sometime later, they changed the AI and Shiro nows attacks squishes as well. So this made Shiro a lot harder than initially.

The biggest problem is the skill Impossible Odds(IO). All squishes, especially monks, should stay out range when he does IO and warriors should come with stances to reduce damage from IO. Shiro should go down eventually as long as IO damage is minimised. Damage dealers should continue hitting him and warriors should use Wild Blow to stop him from healing.

With a hench/hero group, it's hard to control the henchies/heroes effectively to prevent a wipe when he uses IO since he runs around and attacks squishes whereas he used to only focus on warriors.

Edit: Corrected some misinfo on riposting shadows.

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So, when are you runners available and how much do you charge. I can not micromanage, so hero-hench use is out and I've beent rying on this mission for three days with no luck. I'm playing a Fire/Water ele using Elemental attunement and glyph of lesser energy as energy management, with a monk secodnary just for rebirth.

I don't know what all the fuss is about. When we did it (a pug) we took out the Lich and then went after the margonites. Shiro spent his entire time attacking the other monk, but he doesn't seem to actually have anything in the way of damage output until you attack him back, so that was hunky dorey. I was expecting full groups of margonites, but nothing so challenging it turns out. The margonites fall, Shiro kills our dervish twice with impossible odds, the end. No super special team build required. I thought Jennur's Horde, Dzagonur Bastion and Gate of Pain were all harder.

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Spoil Victor does help, but I see that impossible odds ends it. You need to just immediately put up spoil victor back as fast as you can
Btw. I've done this mission twice now and this is what's happened so far

My paragon-
I somehow managed to aggro shiro alone. Spoil Victor wiped him, and Lich was a pushover afterwards.

My Necromancer-
Spoil Victor, messed up as his impossible odds, but then shiro teleports into the corner where my Koss is locked on to him and has his covered. Shiro doesn't teleport out again, and continues to attack my Koss until he has so little hp that spoil victor doesn't work. We kill with minor spells and attacks.

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I know I cannot handle the micromanagement of heroes/henchies, I play my own character well enough though, but the aggravating part for me is not the mission itself but finding a decent group.

My paragon got through it as soon as I was in a competent group, when people work together things can go swimmingly, however if you get stuck with the average PuG, you have people who don't listen to the plan. Exmaple: "Don't Attack shiro, let the puller get the Lich seperate then kill Lich" translates into "Hey, let's all jump Shiro, while the Lich is here too"

Been trying on my dervish for a couple days now, just want my armor and to move along lol. Tried the all dervish group but having problems with some of the same stuff mentioned above.

yea i had a similar problem before I beat it. There was just never a nice group. And I mean NEVER. Once I got a really well-ballenced group with a rit and stuff and wow we barely took any damage....but then again we didnt really DEAL any damage....

We restarted once we died at the portals(too much aggro) and failed again. I quit cause I had to leave.

The next day I found a nice
"7/8 Masters Group LF WB Tank"

so I was like...."Hey, That's me! "

and I got in that group and everything went smoothly. Especially Shiro....for some reason he was really easy with that group...

I didint have a necro hero and didnt want to do that mission with real players.
As a warrior I did something I would never expect to do : use stances + swords.

Here's the skill bar I had ->

Sever / Gash / Final Thrust / Hamstring / Gladiator's Defense / Riposte / Cap sig & Rebirth

Thing is save up glads defense when he gets to 25%, keep spamming riposte when he uses impossible odds ( believe me, with impossible odds on you you will recharge riposte more than often ), use hamstring on shiro and keep the rest of your party away from him.

But that was my second try, after that I noticed that battle scars was a stance with 11 sec recharge. Wild blow would have taken care of the life stealing easily.

Shortly to say. Try and get him stuck. When i did it with a german group first time we had one warrior and a dervish using avatar of balthazar and another dervish using avatar of dwayna. the balthazar dervish and the warrior some way got him stuck against a wall.
Shortly, he couldnt move or attack, he just stod there, so then it was up to me to nuke his head off. To bad we werent going for masters only the usual and now when i try to get masters afterwards its pretty hard, cant get a group that is good enough.
Also i want to do it with my friend that is also a ele, not many ppl want 2 =(

It is hard to get him stuck, but try to bodyblock him against a wall. Use protspells to make the tanks/dervishes take less dmg if he still can attack and make sure the healer puts most of his efforts to these ones. If they die he get free and then he smacks the whole party down.
This happened me yesterday, went all good but we got only 2 hero monks so at like 5-10% of his health left, the warrior died and we where out.

I teamed up with this alsome paragon by chance who knew the mission inside and out. We used Heroes and Henchies. He guided me and thoughout the mission and showed me a few tricks. He wanted someone with Wild Blow and I had spammed "Conviction Dervish tank (70+10+24) armor with Wild Blow" LFG for a while.

Everything up until Shiro was going great. I thought Shiro would probably be a bit tough with that skill but our expertise would overcome.

Boy was I in for a surpise. I could get Immpossible Odds down a lot of the time but the few seconds it was up still hurt the Heroes. The monks ran out of energy, My self heals were recharging, and Shiro was putting IO up faster then I hit it with WB. I died then everyone else followed.

The paragon got very mad again and I suggested bringing Eve for Blood ritual next time and he decided to contact me later.

Theres no doubt in my mind that one skill needs a good nerf. When your losing a mission because of one skill which you ARE bringing counters for then somethings is out of place.

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yes...everyone seems to think that WB stops IO, but they soon find out that...it doesn't!

its just about finding a good group...and how good you are at Guild Wars. I was just like all you people a couple of days ago who wanted the mission nerfed, but that was because at that time I had a bad build. Now, the tanks are essential in this mission...and once I developed myself a good tank build and found a decent group it went fine. And I also found out that bonus really helps...and its not even hard at all...theres only like 2-4 margonite at each shrine..all of the same profession according to the shrine...the reason ANet hasn't nerfed this is because it really doesn't need to be. Now that I think about it, its good to have these mission every once and a while, that its hard and really tests your abilities...(and feels hella good when you beat it )

Just keep trying guys and you will get it!

No more ranting. If you need help with the mission, post what you have tried, and what went wrong. If you feel you have something to offer, post what you did, and how well it worked. Bragging, Ranting, talking about how anet has some conspiracy or scrub calling will be deleted.

Simple my friend, a mate and I hero'd/henched it today. We took two healer henches, two fire eles, one ranger (Myself), one dervish (him), an SV/Mes hero (SV and empathy are the only important skills, set the rest to degen or interrupt or something), and I can't remember the last spot but it was someone who attacked from range... Anyways...

Get to Shiro and the Lich, pull the Lich and take him out easily. Now get the henchmen out of the agro bubble, and let the meleer (In this case my dervish friend) take all the hits from shiro. The monks will be protting him, your job is to control the SV and inflict damage from afar. When Shiro hits impossible odds make sure your melee has enough skills to stay alive, because that is the only person Shiro will go for. Control your nec hero and make sure he is spamming SV and empathy (Disable the rest of his skills if need be). Between the monks healing the meleer and the self heal, the meleer will stay alive. SV and empathy will allow him to self sac, and between the damage you and the henchies are inflicting Shiro will go down fairly quick.

Oh, also, make sure your henchies are attacking but are OUT of the agro bubble. If they are out, then all your monks need to do is focus on the one that shiro is attacking. Rangers, bring longbows. Long ranged weapons are ideal. Don't use any short ranged attacks.

If Shiro manages to shadow step to someone other than the meleer then he will have access to all of your main damage dealers and your monks, and well... once he hits IO let's just say it's a pretty quick wipe.

If that should happen, pull out, rez, re-aggro him, and then begin again.

Just beat this mission bad again. Easily peasily. I mean we took in the closing the portal part aggroing 3 groups and the portal wraiths.

Anyways our set up was. I'm only listing some skills, not all of them.

W/Mo Me- Glad's Defense, Shield Stance (protection against Odds)
Mo (prot) Tahlkora - Divert Hexes, Guardian, Shield of Absorption, Prot Spirit.
Mo (heal) Dunkoro- WoH, Jamei's Gaze, Orison, Touch
N/Rt (spirit spammer/spoil victor) Olias- Spoil Victor, Shadowsong, Pain, Bloodsong, Shelter, Displacement

E/Mo my girl- Searing Flames, MS, Rodgorts
N/Mo Master of Whispers- MM build, with new MM.
Mo- Tahlkora- WoH build, same as Dunkoro
R/Mo- Acolyte Jin- Broadhead, Apply Poison.

We only had one death, when Dunkoro got attacked by everything at portals when we over aggroed (knew we were gonna). We activated first God Shrine and killed Lich, then activated the rest, Shiro didn't hit us to bad, with Aegis and what not. He attacked the Spirits and Minions too when we moved on to the next shrine so that saved us some time. Got all the blessings and started to kill him. Olias put up most of his spirits, SVed him then we beat him down to Impossible Odds. I threw up Glads Defense and he didn't get to many hits in, conditions were on me left and right but with blessings, breeze and mend I was fine. He didn't attack anyone else except me and the 2 minions by me so it was easy.

owke i studied the problem and have done the mission myself leading my team.

what you need:

- a interrupt + pin down + dammage (burning arrow, screaming shot...secondary class dammage skills..) RANGER.

- A strong, defencive WORRIER/monk

- A second melee (Dervisch or Worrier) with a secondary class that enebels him to attack from a range. (W/e , W/r , W/me...)

- A mesher (illusion & domination) / necro (MM for getting to shiro without trouble + some curses)

- an elementalist. (with one knock down / slow down skill)

- Paragon.
(p/m)
- 2 (hero) monks.

anyway, atleast ONe non-monk carackter should have monk as secondary class to ressurect.

Now, once you get there:

ONE charackter (mesher or ranger) keeps shiro bussy. ALL the rest goes on the lich.

once he's dead, run for the middle, make sure you're not stuck on the ramp.

from now on, the ranger should keep shiro bussy, cripping him, running away... crippling him again...ect. cat & mouse game. (lock a monk on him or something or give him support by the worrier)
while the rest does the shirens.

once this is done: go for the middle, and set up like this.

--------------------------Ele------------------------------

---------------------------------------------necro/mesh


Monk---------------Shiro Worrier-------------------------Monk


----------------------------------------------Dervisch/worrier

------------paragon

------------------------------ranger-----------------------------



Now, The worrier & the dervisch start hitting shiro from start, just as dammage dealers, tell he reaches the impossible ods level of health.
Then they start running in circles, having shiro on them in turn. If one has shiro on him, the other one attack him from range (doesnt mather what dammage, even a starter bow will help )

k, now VERY important: The ranger has a very specific & important job: slowing shiro bitch down: he should follow this patern:

Pin down
dammage shot
dammage shot
pin down
dammage shot
dammage shot
pin down
...
...
btw: do NOT poison / bleed him. burning him doesnt hurt since it's over soon. IO will tranfer the poison to the melee peeps & then ur focked.

-The ele should always keep dammaging him no mather what happen & slow him down if possible.
- The necro/mehser keeps him cursed all time, cause hex's work best on him.
- The paragon watches the whole scene, ressurects + dammage him when he can.
- monk...heal.

Now whole set up is based on SLOWING him down while the surrounding people hit him. it's important you KEEP dammaging him no mather what happens. people will die, thing will break up, just dont give up & try to restore the formation + KEEP DAMMAGING HIM all the time.

when i did it i (ranger) was with only 4 standing people left, but i kept on shooting him, the worrier kept on dieing, but that doesnt mather, aslong as he does not attack the ranger / ele / paragon you will survive.

now this tactic SHOULD & WILL work if all do his task.


thx i hope the problem is sloved once & for all now.

A simple tactic, spread out, and you don't have to worry about IO. SS,SV,blah blah blah, they help, but using tactics over brawl can kill anything.

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What are you guys going on about he's not the end of the world. Use a Rt hero, a Glads/Shield warrior, a SV necro and whatever else and you will be fine. Make sure your prot monk has guardian and aegis. Very super easy. Cause I'm not the ultimate e-leet superstar, so you should be having no problems.

I just did the mission, only me (mesmer/monk) + 3 heroes (ele/me, mo/me, ranger/me) and 4 hench (2 monks, devona, the dervish).

me: surger/burner/diversion/empathy etc.
ele hero: SF spammer
ranger hero: interrupter
monk hero: peace and harmony boonprot

all of them with power drain and leech signet.

Going through the level was piece of cake. Luring and killing lich was piece of cake. Luring and killing Shiro was slightly more difficult, but in the end no deaths on our side ^^

No need to cap the altars btw, I think that with heroes it's more of a trouble than an advantage.

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