Gates Of Madness (HM)

Im having a little trouble with GoM in Hard Mode. I generally do fairly well until the portals which i have never got past in HM. Any suggestions? Im a BHA epidemic ranger.

BHA ranger here.

I did it a couple weeks ago using:
- Melonni D/W tank with Avatar of Balthazar and Wild Blow (holy damage against Lich, wild blow for Shiro) + typical dervish enchants and attacks
- Necro curse hero with SS, Price of Failure, Enfeebling Blood, SoLS
- Ele air/water hero with double attunement, Chilling Winds, Blurred Vision

The rest of hero skillbars ca be filled with everything you like, those listed are the only essential against Shiro.
If you put a blinding skill on the ele, remember to disable it when fighting Shiro, otherwise Melonni will get blind and won't be able to use wild blow.

For henchies I took 2 monks, Sogolon and don't remember what else.
For me, I took BHA and vanguard assassin and normal ranger attacks.

Frankly portals were not big threats, maybe just eruptions can be bothering for blind. BHA+assassin is a real fast kill.
I was r8 LB this was probably helpful.

The real threat in HM is Shiro which hits much harder than in NM and can kill a monk in 3-4 hits. The solution is manually use enfeeble on him when you're running between sanctuary for the bonus.
When bonus is done, run outside, flag heroes, flag Melonni at the gate disabling all her attacks except wild blow, let the necro and ele cast their spells, watch Shiro die.

For me, I go against what everybody says... I always kill shiro first. Because generally I can always pull shiro without aggroing lich. Whenever I tried to kill lich I was always able to be attacked by shiro.

Basically take one enemy down, maybe have a monk with protective spirit or something. Getting the blessings always help too.

Do it with real people who also want it done. Save yourself the frustration of running this in HM with heroes/hench. This has to be one of the hardest HM missions in Elona.

Funny, I found this to be only marginally harder than NM. Moddok Crevice is the hardest simply because of the runners

If it's the portals you start having trouble with, I have to ask: what's your Lightbringer rank? With a decent rank and careful pulling, the portals are probably the easiest area of that mission.

portal are actually the hardest if done wrong its party wipe. to do GOM ill advise u to kill lich first then cap shrine then go for shiro. Shiro is a weakling if hes left alone.
with heroes i use spirit spammer ss necro and a monk along with 2x monk hench and my self is a wild blow warr.

You don't need 3 monks. Bring a MM instead, a minion bomber preferably

Quote:

for safty, ill prefer 2 monk and a n/rt healer. being having done a few HM GOM runs i dont find MM all that useful. i have no problem takin down enemies with 2 monk 1 n/rt ,spirit spammer, ss necro and XX( who ever im running)

did this mission in HM no problem , we had 2 monks 1 prot 1 heal and tank pulls + take agro , monks use protspirit on warrior and then just kill them

and when try to ca pthe shrines spam prot spirit on everyone until all points are capped then kill shiro

Since shiro runs faster before he can actually be a little more than a itch on your back, not that it's a big deal but when i was doing this Shiro decided to be a jerk. He successfully bodyblocked the monks (alot infact).. dude stop doing that. Running skills can prevent him doing that or a snare, safer to have both while you're running around the shines that is. If he's not doing that for you, you're lucky .

Using a Longbow (long range) no matter what your class is something that i'd recommend. So you can pull safely. That's a safe way to clear the portal area and even later on other areas.

i take him down ez and can free up 2 spots for running people

1hour:
just ssnecro with 10 dm with shamblings
fire nuker with spoil victor
woh hybrid
me-warrior
earth hench
and mhenlo

as for u , if ur playing ranger, maybe should try r/p with spear with wild throw or cripshot works pretty nice here

I'm assuming advice is being given so that people can eventually get Master's reward.

Is the trick to lure the Lich away from Shiro, kill him, and then go capping? Both times that I've managed to at least reach the two of them, I went left to the shrine to Melandru, and Shiro ganked everyone there.

As a bit of a hero AI side question, would heroes manage to use Enfeeble or Enfeebling Blood better, and would I have to set MoW on Attack and lock him on Shiro to get him to cast it properly?

A random team of guildies, backed by all the consumables, non ursanway had it down in 25 minutes. No deaths. Health went below 50% about 4-5 times?

Point is, most builds will cut it. Just bring an SS for shiro.

Doesn't really help to point out your success when you don't really describe how you got from point A to point B.

So I'll post what I've been using and we'll see what's different.

For heroes, I've used MoW set up as Sab's SS, but modified with Price of Failure, and I'll probably switch to plain Enfeeble. I've used Livia as an MM bomber, and I had Olias up as Resto. Henches were the two monks, Herta, and Devona. Got to Shiro, failed.

Switched Olias for Vekk with a Blinding Surge build, swapped Herta for Sologon. Failed to get there the first time, got there the second time, failed.

Plus, your performance was with the assistance of human players, and all I've got is H/H.

Two Shot Shiro isn't making this a good time.

Almost forgot to mention, I'm a BHA ranger as well.

Careful pulling is another thing then. At the portals, send one guy in, make sure he's preprotected, and it's all good. Then quickly pull the portal wraiths back and kill them. Always pull the titans away. With the lich same thing, pre protect one guy to run in, then wipe out the lich with your eles (my blindbot with lightning orb did great damage). If you really have trouble bring consumables to ease things up, but if you don't have solid builds and tactics they won't help much.

lol i cheated on this one, ran a guild team of high rank lb high rank norn ursans and the standard nec build for shiro. took under 20mins on HM, no deaths haha.

This mission is really easy if you follow Merc's advice: kill shiro first.
You can set your whole party outside the entrance, and flag a hero monk (i used a restore necro) back a bit further so he can still heal but not get in shiro's aggro range. then draw shiro out. SV/SS/PI him to death, then capture all the shrines and gank the lich. When shiro uses impossible odds, flag your party away, than jump him again when its over.

Its pretty much a fail safe. If you wipe, your monk or n/rt will be able to rez without shiro beating on him, as shiro should go back into the shrine area. I used rebirth so i could keep him back a bit further to make sure.

I've killed the lich first as well, but its much more of an 'all or nothing deal. If you lose a henchie/hero, you have both shiro and the lich beating on you.
I prefer the safe and easy tactic after battling through the portal mess to get to them.

Many thanks to MercenaryKnight for that tip, i hadnt thought of that before, and it worked perfectly, with no deaths, no consumables, and more importantly, no wasted time redoing the mission

This was made much easier when I took Pain Inverter ^^. I was on as my necro, so was running an "anti-Shiro" SS template contrived during Factions... still works beautifully! <with the addition of PI, of course>

It hasn't seemed to matter which I kill first, in all honesty - just whoever comes when I pull - but Shiro is marginally more annoying when you're capping the shrines so I do try to take him down first.

Also, as someone mentioned, rit heroes help quite a bit here - resto or rit lord, either is good. Since the spirits range is broad, you can generally flag them far enough away to keep spirits up as party support without them getting targeted.