How does Anet come up with some of these missions?

seriously lol...gate of pain is like impossible...been stuck at this mission for a week >< 20dmg done to you per skill you use, wtf?

Use Hero's as I believe they are unaffected by this.

even when i do, i still cant get past like the 2nd-3rd group of tormented dudes >.>...any suggestions will help lol....just noticed i put this is the wrong section too :P

Not anymore, that was fixed.

As for area effect? Light of Deliverance.

Rather than saying "LOL, that is easy" why don't you guys give some help? All of us were newbies to the game at some point.

I've found that all the missions are fairly easy with heroes and hench (often far more easy than joining a PuG) if you figure out a good strategy. For Gate of Pain, there are two main types of enemies you have to worry about, the Terrorweb/Tortureweb Dryders, who are fire elementalists, and the Tormented.

The Dryders are particularly nasty if you are using hench/heroes because they tend to follow you and bunch together, so their AoE fire attacks can be devastating. The Terrorwebs (the non-boss version) usually come in groups of 2 or 3, and the main thing you have to worry about is Meteor Shower. It is a good idea to bring interrupts (equipping power drain and leech signet on heroes is a good idea, since heroes interrupt better than any human can and it serves as energy management too). I find it easiest if you bring an interrupt/knockdown yourself, and if you call an attack on one of the terrorwebs, your heroes should interrupt/kill it with no problem. You should interrupt/knockdown on the other terrorweb if it tries to cast meteor shower (you should be able to survive the other spells). If a Meteor Shower is successfuly cast, make sure you move your heroes/hench away by setting a flag. If you Broadhead Arrow unlocking, bringing a hero ranger with Broadhead and manually assigning a target using the crosshair icon on the hero bar makes the Dryders very easy.

The Torturewebs are alot more difficult because they are bosses, so they have 2x cast speed, 2x recharge rate, and 2x damage of normal spells. You can get wiped instantly if you are not careful. If you have Broadhead Arrow, the Torturewebs become trivial to beat (Broadhead also makes the Terrorwebs much easier too), but if not you may want to manually send one of your heavier armor heroes in first, to get the focus of the Tortureweb (ideally a ranger since they have highest elemental resistance, but a warrior can work too). If you turn off all your interrupts, you can attack a Tortureweb when he is casting Soul Torture, which takes something like 30 seconds, so you would have plenty of time (however, my hench always seem to interrupt it). Blackout is also particularly effective against the Dryders (it also interrupts meteor shower), because you should be able to kill them within a few seconds, you just have to prevent their first wave of hard hitting spells.

The thing that makes the Tormented Demons difficult is that they use "Call to the Torment" when they almost die (usually around 20-40% hp remaining). For 5 seconds, the Torment creature will take double damage, but if it is not killed, a duplicate of the creature is spawned at full HP. Therefore, it is important not to severely damage all the Torment enemies at the same time, because most likely they will use Call to the Torment and you won't be able to kill all of them in time and they will respawn. It is important to focus fire on one Torment at a time and kill it. Also, if you have hard hitting spells (Lightbringer's Gaze is always a good option), save it until they cast "Call to the Torment" and hit them for double damage to finish the creature quickly. The Torments are also dangerous mainly because they are level 28 (meaning they are just stronger than you are) and the AI is pretty smart (they tend to go after your casters rather than your tank). In general, the Word of Madness(a smite monk), Herald of Nightmares (mesmer), Shadow of Fear (necro) do low damage and are easy to kill. The Rain of Terror (elementalist) has low armor but does high damage, so it is probably the best to target them first (note that the torment monks are smite monks, so they don't heal much, so the usual "monk first" strategy isn't the best). The Blade of Corruption (warrior), Arm of Insanity (ranger), and Scythe of Chaos (dervish) do a lot of damage and are difficult to kill due to their high armor, self healing, and high level. However, the good thing is that they all do physical damage. I found it best to not bring any tanks or melee heroes/hench, since the Tormented seem smart enough to target the casters anyways. The melee hero/hench usually just end up aggroing other groups. Having a necro hero using anti physical curses (Shadow of Fear, Enfeeble, Enfeebling Blood, Faintheartedness, Meekness) makes these enemies do insignificant damage (In fact, I have beaten the game with only heroes and hench, and I have never used one melee hero or hench, the curse necro "tanks" much better, since stacking weakness and 50% attack speed hex will cause enemy damage to go down to about 1/6 of what it would be). It also helps avoid over-aggroing because all your heroes/hench can be ranged. I think that the Tormented were somewhat designed to counter the old "holy trinity" builds (tank, healer, nuker) because they quickly wipe a group if anything goes wrong, whereas a debuff strategy involving many hexes that weaken the Torments will allow you to comfortably hold two groups of Torments and pick them off one at a time (It's slower, but gives room for error). I hope this helps.

It seems skill isn't needed to get to the realm of torment, one who has gotten through Varesh should be able to get through the Tortureweb Dryders and Emissary of Dhuum quite easily

I suppose you need a good mesmer on that misson. mostly to deal with elemetalists.They tend to do a lot of damge.And hero/henchman AI dont have formation option yet so they just packed in group so they are easily Nuked.Better Interupt than heal.

Power Block + 3-4 other interrupts to Norgu helps a lot against those dryders if you're doing this with heroes/henchies - just have to keep Norgu targeted to that mob you want keep shutdown.

If you think that mission is bad, try the quest "battle of turais procession". That is the most frustrating and stupidly moronic quest ever, and you only get 4,000 useless experience for it.

I'm finally getting around to putting a character through The Realm of Torment (PuG'd through that mission the day before, no real problems luckily).

I got to enjoy "Kormir's Crusade" last night, and even with the help of GuildWiki's route, it still took me multiple attempts to finish it. I really am not looking forward to going through it again on another character.

Each time I restarted the quest, I'd try to have learned a bit about what I was facing, and adjust my hero/henchy group (Include lots of interupts as others have said), avoid the stupid overlapping patrols, and learn the priority targets and kill them quickly to avoid the "Call to the Torment".

gate of pain is a royal pain in the ***, i hate that mission, need 2 or 3 or more times to get through the two groups of torments.

when you begin the mission, go hugging the left wall, its the easies/shortest way of the beggining, once you reach the area where you face the terrorwebs and reached the river of souls, go to the right and keep an eye for the bridge to cross over those souls.

some tips to deal with the torments: keep high damaging spells for when they use the skill torment call or some such, take the down one by one, this is the order i usually try to take them down:
rain of terrors> scythe of chaos>the ranger torments>words of madness>everything else.

word of madness dont have much healing, so if you have enough firepower you should overcome their healing, if you dont have high damage skills/spells (obsidian flame, spiritual pain, eviscerate,etc) remember the skill lightbringer gaze.

against the terrorwebs, if you place dunkoro as prot monk, and make him cast prot spirit on you, leroy on your own, leaving the henchis behind you a few steps, and make the terrorwebs waste their MS on you... just keep an eye on the protective spirit icon so it doesnt end before you order your henchies to folow you and help you kill em.

and last, for the torturewebs, they can be hard to kill if you are not careful, if you have factions, have margrid or acolite jin with broad arrow head, at max markmanship it should last long enough to re use it, usually with one use i can kill the tortureweb.

if you dont have factions, having a mesmer with several interrupts should give you enough time to kill it, if not act as a decoy with prot spirit, get the aggro of the monster, walk to the oposite direction from wich you came, then then remove the standing flag of them so they naturally run to you and as soon as they get close to the tortureweb they engage it.

other than that i have no more ideas. hope it helps

once you get past these 2 groups

all the missions were a joke....but fun and easy ^^

Gate of pain is incredibly easy, I've beaten it my first try on two different characters, just bring interrupts and some good damage dealing hero builds and its no problem

Noblepaladin. Thanks for the advice. Not up to the mission yet, but by the sound of it people complain that it's hard.

I also agree that almost all of Nightfalls missions are hench/heroe-able. I've gotten up too The Desolation with only Heroes and Henchys, with the exception of a few quests.

Great points and advice.

I wonder what kind of players find missions like this easy. Are they experienced PvP players? Experienced UW/FOW players? Because the majority in this game plays very straightforeward: They don't even bother watching spells being cast by the enemy, they use their most favorite build and trust to be supported enough by the party, no matter if its human or heroes/henchies. For THEM missions like this are almost impossible!

There are some good advices here. Problem is that for the above group of players its not logical at all to switch targets rapidly to interrupt spells being cast. I think we just have to accept that unlike in singleplayer games in GW the endlevel content can't be done by many players. Compare it to chess. Many players will never be able to win a game against a computer on average difficulty or higher. Question is: Is this ok for a game like GW??

Gate of Pain is easy imho. Just bring a Ranger Interuptor Hero and sent her ahead before the rest of your party, meanwhile learning how to manage patrols and aggro management.

Keep to the left.

If you are still having trouble with the Gate of Pain, I can try and help with my mesmer. I had a rough time at first, but made a build that can make the dryders a lot less challenging.
As for the torments, it might help to focus on killing them in a particular order. I really like killing the Shadow of Fears first, then the Word of Madnesses. The Scythes are going to be a big pain, but it's important to bring some type of snare move as you generally do not want to focus on them until near the end of the battle as they have good survival potential and can take more time to kill than the other types of monsters.
I wish you luck! If you pay close attention and look at all the skills available and henchman available you will find a way to beat this, and maybe even find a better way to beat it on successive tries.

A Ranger with Broad Head Arrow helps a lot against those Torturewebs.

Yes that is also very true. I found that Ranger with Broad Head Arrow, Rit with Warmonger's Weapon cast on IAS warrior or a combination of several mesmer skills can gimp those suckas!
Take whatever professions in your PUG and look over what skills they have to see what will be available to the group.

To the OP, just keep experimenting and you will find many ways from many professions to ease through that mission. It's kinda fun to find out all the tricks each profession has to help get through.

i agree with those who say, 'figure it out yourself'. i do just that, so therefore i can be a l33t as i want to be, i do it myself. not whine on a forum about how impossible it is with the way your obviously doing it(wrong).

when i got stuck at shiro the first time, i read the skill that he uses to obliterate everyone around him 1/4 away from death. if anyone with half a brain reads it, you can tell that fast low hit dmg will make the fight ez'er to maintain, as well as obvious "best skills" such as spoil victor. necro warriorhate hexes all around do you well. just dont be a noob and bring meteor shower x4 for him. for one he can't be knocked down, and ele dmg is a joke for him.

i couldnt help myself, i gave out hints/tips. o well for my l33tness....

just gotta say this...but lol, you got stuck at shiro? imho that was the easyest mission in factions, no offense...even with a hench monk, and a team that sorta sucked, he died with none of us dieing, and masters anyways...and iv done it a bunch of times, and never had any problem.

Back to the original topic, broad head arrow works wonders, and try to have a backup ranger, just in case.

That is biggest douche bag thing I've ever heard. Sorry that some of us struggle and look for help on forums. Yes, there is some degree of figuring it out for yourself but sometimes you need help, and that's why you sometimes ditch the henchmen and go with real people. Seriously, add something good before you throw something in so pointless and so self-absorbant.

When my group did that mission, we struggled our first couple times. It's hard enough to find a PuG in Nightfall, IMO. What I looked for in a group was a mesmer and ranger with interrupts. I think a mesmer is almost imperative for this mission. Be sure to have almost everyone bring Lightbringer Gaze, that helps severely. Just take it slow, our first couple times we aggroed far too much. PM me ingame if you need help- Carry Me Away.

I never thouhgt of broad head arrow but it would work great. combine it with norgu and every interupt you have unlocked, he will interupt virtually every spell because he has such a quick reaction time.

terrorwebs are not new, if you've played through the end areas of prophecies you'd have probably faced a couple of these. mobs in gate of pain aren't close packed together like some explorable areas, so it's easy to pick off a patrol. enemies here are terrorwebs (ele) and torment creatures (mixed). you've faced torment creatures already in nightfall, such as getting to gate of pain. so it shouldn't be a surprise as to what they're capable of. compared to other torment missions, this one is one of the easier ones.

Honestly, Gate of Pain is the easiest Torment Mission, and dare I say, even easier than fighting Varesh just before. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's "an easy mission", just that it's easier than a few others in Nightfall, so not the hardest.

That said, as far as strategies to the beginning area, just stay to the left. If you do that, you don't even need to pick off patrols and manage aggro, etc. They are spaced far enough apart (on the left side) that you can just run in and start killing. Once you make it past that beginning area, it's actually easier from there on.

Remember, stay to the left... the right side is too iffy with crossing patrols.

I think the one person who was talking about fighting Shiro the first time was talking about a different mission than someone else thought.
I too thought Shiro was tough. We eventually did beat him with empathy, spoil victor and the like. Let him kill himself I say. For me at least that was the hardest mission. Varesh was hard too, but Shiro...he must have taken some steroids or something sometime.
Oh wait! It might have been because you don't get all the celestial skills this time around.

I used hero's and henchmen, take along three monks is all i can tell you unless i know who you brought along..it was challenging for me..as i got stuck in the caves.

The trick is to wait until two groups split up, then go for one seperatly, when the other group comes back either run for it or take them down to.

I think..i must admit my memmory isnt all that great.

I think you are right. There are some dual groups that look to hang around together and split off if everyone in the party waits a bit.

Torturewebs are the biggest joke in the game. Send in a monk and a warrior hero, make the monk keep PS on both and ZB when someone drops below half - requires a bit of micro but it makes you effectively invulnerable to these gimps.

They have no self heal so a warrior with a half decent bar drops them in no time.

BHA owns the terrorwebs/torturewebs so badly. I put BHA on my Acolyte Jin, and she alone kept the dryder's in check. The patrols are the same as in the explorable areas of Torment, so they shouldn't present any new problems, unless you were rushed through the game and didn't do anything on your own.

I wonder the same thing as well how do they come up with even the format is not the same as chapter 1.I very much preferred it that way when the sword and shield came down knowing you go the bonus anyway I really don't like the fact you have to do the missions in an orderly way eg Mission A- Mission B- Mission C with some quests thrown in there.I would much prefer to skip some missions.
I am trying to cap somes elite in Cantha and it is not all that alive over there so it means useing the old hench system which we don't get along together.I would like to see some other alternative way to capping these elites either place close to KC or let those who want to skip the missions do so.I can see why a PvP er would be griping about this if we were under the old system of with no Balth. Faction or PuPs anyway unlock the gates.I don't really care about beating the game with these chars. I just want the elites and I prefer capping mine in PvE.
I did't like much the first mission in elona Condor Crossroads reminded me of when my group all got lost in The Wild as it was so dark that took an hour to do.

Urgh... i did that quest. Its beyond insane. First the wave of 10-15 Margonites in 2 groups... they overpower you and you die... then you res... kill them... then another wave... then another wave... then another wave... (3 waves later) a boss wave! The end.

Would be the ultimate quest if you could get a Margonite Bounty...

All this needs is Broad Head Arrow to do the mission. The Bonus on the other hand... i swear the Terrorwebs are getting more and more powerful.

A friend of mine and I did the mission very easily with 6 heroes (would've gotten masters but the game didn't recognize an Emissary we killed >_>).

I was the Warrior tank, and guess what I brought? W/Me with Power Return. When you get to Terrorweb Dryders, just cycle through and interrupt any meteor showers you see. 5 Energy and 5s recharge makes Power Return very usable on a Warrior, even.

As for the Torturewebs, flag the heroes back a decent distance, have a monk Prot Spirit the tank, and then let the tank go wild in absorbing damage.

Now to actually KILL anything, we brought an MM, and two SF's. For support we brought a Motivation Paragon. The two SF's were enough to kill most of the enemies, and the minions finished off the others while tanking the whole way.

Now, there's one part where there are a bunch of enemies in a building-type thing. Have someone pull the group of dryders (and whatever else is in that group) to the tank (tank could do this himself, too) while the heroes are flagged back a decent distance. Keep interrupting Meteor Showers with Power Return and you won't have a problem dealing with them. The SF's should be Meteor Showering too, for damage.

Also, it helps to have two hard resses, I brought Rebirth on my Monk hero and Signet of Return on the Paragon.

Lemme see what I can remember from the build...

D/Mo - Avatar of Dwayna, Faithful Intervention, bunch of scythe attacks, Sunspear Rebirth Sig, something like that

E/Me x2 - Fire Attune, SF, Glowing, Liquid, Glyph Lesser, Mark of Rodgort, Meteor Shower, Res Sig

P/W - "Go For The Eyes!", Song of Restoration, Aria of Restoration, Aria of Zeal, Ballad of Restoration, Mending Refrain, Signet of Synergy, Signet of Return

W/Me - Whirling Axe, Penetrating Blow, Critical Chop, Power Return, Lightbringer's Gaze, "Watch Yourself!", Healing Signet, Sunspear Rebirth Signet

N/P - Animate Bone Fiend, Animate Shambling Horror, Animate Flesh Golem, Blood of the Master, Verata's Sacrifice, Res Sig, Blood Ritual, some other skill I don't remember.

Mo/Me - Healing Touch, Dwayna's Kiss, Word of Healing, Heal Other, Healing Seed, Protective Spirit, Remove Hex, Rebirth

Mo/Me - I completely forget, but Shield of Absorption was in there along with Dismiss Condition. Probably Zealous Benediction with other protection skills.

This worked perfectly for us, we flawlessed the mission. No voice chat either :P

So let's recap:

1) Pull. Make sure the heroes are flagged away so that the tank takes the first, and often most powerful, attacks. Separate mobs when necessary.

2) Bring interrupts. Power Return, even on the tank, works wonders. It's the only one you need if you have enough skill to catch incoming meteor showers and get them as they're casting. It likely won't be enough to get EVERY meteor shower though.

3) Balance out your build. MMs are fantastic here, as they can act as tanks and damage dealers in packs. SF's are gods of damage, especially with Meteor Shower. Standard Healing monks work just fine, just make sure to keep Protective Spirit on whoever tanks the torturewebs, so you need some protection. Bring some form of support, ex. Blood Ritual and Paragon Motivation. Dervishes, with their AoE scythe attacks, can work wonders against clustered groups. With Faithful Intervention, they can also easily tank the Torturewebs.

4) Keep a level head and know what's going on. I have been playing with my partner for several months, so we know how the other behaves in missions, and we know how to stay calm under pressure. Just be sure to be aware of your other party member(s) and to not panic.

Do that, and the mission is easy.