An Awkward Way to Beat GoM (Gates of Madness)

Well I tried with heros/henchies once, party wiped when shiro began to use impossible odds. Tried with a pug, didn't even reach the portals. Tried with a pug using two monk heroes, koss, and an SF hero, and beat it.

The team consisted of:

Incoming Paragon
Some other Paragon (not incoming)
Interrupt + Apply Poison Ranger
Interrupt Mesmer (me)
2 Monk Heros
1 SF Hero
Koss (W/P eviscerate + WY + stand your ground etc)

I was a Me/Mo and I brought along ressurect incase of mishaps that occurred and we needed a fast res w/o using res sigs. We got up to Shiro + Lich pretty fast without any deaths. We decided not to do the bonus as most of us just wanted to finish and not take any risks. We got to shiro, fought him until he used IO, and then everybody died except for me because I ran back b/c I told them not to clump together but they did anyways along with the heroes.

I was about to leave, but decided to give them another chance and began ressing everybody and I told them to spread out again and run if Shiro attacks them. So we proceeded like this and the heroes kept dying as well as some of the unlucky players myself included. But slowly we picked off shiros health with tons of degen (burning, poison, bleeding) and slowly used guerrilla tactics to take him down, hitting and ressing while he ran away. The heroes were eventually at 60dp while the players were smart enough to run away from shiro by now. So since I was just wanding him anyways (didnt bring any anti-warrior skills >.>) I just told the others to attack while I ressed the heroes as sacrificial lambs while we slowly picked off his health.

Albeit this scenario was very situational, it is still possible to do this mission with a few heroes + real players, and you do not necessarily need a spoil victor/ins parasite necro along with other "required" professions for this mission. As I don't own factions, I didn't have that skill available although I heard it was the most effective in terms of dealing with shiro, but some people like to think outside the box.

I don't know if this was anymore helpful/useful to anyone but it seemed like a good story to tell b/c I was bored. =p

Getting the Masters objective makes killing shiro more easy.

and shiros damage while killing the margos, is little, and a good monk, or hero, can heal it fine.

so, your group did it the hard way

(which, since most missions have masters being harder, figures, when its the otehr case here)

You see, I didn't know that and I'm guessing neither did my group. So doing it the hardway is just as good as the easy one if a) Your playing one of those professions that are not apart of the holy trinity (Mo-W-E) + N and b) You complete the mission.

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Well I decided to give this mission a try yesterday after reading a ridiculous amount of posts on how this mission is supposed to be played. But of course I didn't follow the "rules". I (Paragon) used only Heroes and henchies and beat the mission -first try. My team:

- Paragon (Aggr. Refrain, Focused Anger, Blazing Finale, Go for the Eyes, They're on Fire, Stand Your Ground,... spread Blazing Finale around and a number of enemies are constantly on fire, thanks to Go for the Eyes recharging so quickly because of Aggr. Refrain and Focused Anger.)
- Koss (a "normal" sword warrior build with Wild Blow)
- Zhed (Searing Flames-Glowing Gaze build. Helps with keeping enemies burning.)
- Master of Whispers (Spoil Victor as the only skill from the Blood Magic att. All other skills were from the Curses line: Parasitic Bond, Reckless Haste, Enfeeble, Faintheartedness and such)
- Odurra
- Sogolon
- Kihm
- Mhenlo

Anyway, when I got to the area with all the shrines I tried to follow the tips about getting all the favors from the gods before attacking Lich and Shiro. But I was annoyed with them running after us and attacking us every once in a while. So I just run away and decided to try something else. Well, when I fled Lich stayed in the middle of the shrine area but Shiro followed us a long way. So why not kill Shiro now when he's all alone? So I attacked him, trying to keep him burning all the time and use They're on Fire to diminish his damage output. Koss and Zhed died once when he used Impossible Odds but nothing worse happened. After Shiro was dead I used the Flag system to run Heroes and henchies straight to the shrines and Lich didn't really even follow us. It was easy to capture all five shrines and kill Lich after that...

SS + Empathy + Barbs + Poison + Bleeding + Burning = Shiro's death...

took me two tries to realize this "combo"

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Heres another awkward scenario.
Welps one my first play through we went on all the way to the end with not much deaths and the Lich fell first, then we went after Shiro.
As you suspect there was alot of corpses until everyone raged when Shiro was 1/4 health and most melee characters we're on -60DP. Surprise surprise.
Then we figured that Shiro can't go far beyond the Gate thing and once he has he runs back to his spawn area.
So basically me (who was wand spiking on my monk) a poison ranger and a fire ele killed him . . . slowly.
Just kiting when he comes and then when he is running away lure him back for a beating. =]

yeah what they said *points at people above*

get the bonus and he's easy

Perhaps the point is getting missed in "SV gg kthnbye" spam.

Protection and defense is what makes this mission easy.

Aegis, guardian, blind of any kind, ward against melee, SoA, prot spirit, and other similar skills.

When heroing this once, Zhed had lowest health and got constant agro from Shiro. But he put down ward, combined with aegis and guardian, and Shiro was there dancing his futile dance while the rest of the party killed him.

In the end, he's just a wammo with limited condition/hex removal. Just remember how boon prots laughed at warriors trying to kill them. Or an assassin that puts shadow prison on you, only to see you have SoA + guardian on by the time they start the spike.

The only threat comes from Shiros life-stealing, but that is completely negated by running away.

Protection is what you need, not SV/SS/and similar stuff. Those just simplify the killing.

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Just did Masters on this today with my ranger using heroes/henchies. Here was the set up.

Me - Ranger (16 marksmanship. Barrage build with screaming shot thrown in)
Whispers - Necro/Mes with Spoil Victor, Empathy, Insidious parasite etc.
Zhed - Searing Flames Ele
Koss - Dragon slash sword warrior with Wild Blow
Henches - Motivation, 2 Healers and Earth

Flagged henchies at the gate of the temple. Was planning to kill the lich but Shiro came up. Flagged henches and manually clicked on the bars of whispers and Koss appropriately. Shiro dead with not a single death in the party. Went in, started taking the shrines. On the 4th shrine, almost had a heart attack as the henches pretty much dropped the lich when I wasnt looking. Flagged them away with lich at 10% health. Capped last shrine and killed the lich. Masters done.

First time I did it I just ran some random henchies + heroes...ended up getting all the shrines before I killed either Shiro or the Lich, and unlike everyone else I killed the Lich first.

Being a ranger I just used my flatbow and slowly took him down without him knowing what was going on...Shiro, on the other hand, I got lucky on. I wasn't prepared to fight either of them, so I eventually got him stuck at the shrine of abaddon behind the fallen pillar thing and flatbow'd him to death xD

Wish people were giving tips when I did this, lol.

I got master with 6 in my party, and just a monk. We killed shiro first, and then I agroed the lich and hid behind the wall. Everyone else went in for the bonus, while I soloed him with empathy hehe.