Gate of Madness with H/H

I just need some tips on which H/H to bring and how to skill them up and basic tactics. I can make it no problem to the portals but then we wipe. Over-aggro every time. Is there a trick to not doing that? Somewhere I should pin HH or something? I'm so not into micro managing so if that is necessary I will hang it up right now.

I'm an ele. I've made it through Proph and NF this far with only HH and I want to finish that way. I'm getting bored with the story and want to finish it out and move on to Factions. (I know wrong order but whatever).

Thanks for all help. Folks here have helped this old lady get this far.

When I did it on my Warrior and Rit, I used 3 Discord Heroes (the build straight from pvx). Then I took the healer, prot, mesmer (i think illusion), and blood necro or ranger. It was very easy using spirits because there is one spirit which provides blocking for you (again, I'm not in game and forget the name of it) which is very useful against Shiro.

At the portals section, make sure to take it slow. I typically go counter-clockwise, watching for the patrolling groups in the center. I normally take out some of the center patrols and go to the first portal. Then I kill a few more center guys and continue on. Make sure you flag heroes back and pull some of the larger enemies away from groups. And I found it better to close the portals before focusing on the margonites because more come out of the portals as you kill them.

If you're going for bonus, make sure you kill Lich first and then Shiro after you do the bonus. Pull Lich up the ramp and kill him, then go and complete bonus while Shiro follows and attacks you.

As far as runes go, health and energy worked well for me and my heroes. I used death mamgic runes to make discord more powerful.

Hope this helps

Better way for bonus: before aggroing Shiro/Lich, just stay back in the portal area. Flag your 7 h/h to each of the shrines. You will only have triggered one or two shrine spawns while closing the portals and they are very easy to handle for the h/h. Cap all the shrines (except abaddon of course) with flagging. After they're all capped flag back, then proceed to pull Shiro and the Lich and kill them (Shiro pulls farther so he's easier to kill first).

Note: while aggroing Shiro/Lich you will probably trigger spawns at further shrines, which will recap those shrines. Don't worry, the bonus will still trigger.

I have done this with different h/h teams so it really doesnt matter how you go about it as long as you watch the agro and know where things patrol/pop-up....and then yeah, for the final area---flag the heroes/henchies to the shrines (using the good ole U) and they can cap them--the 2 closest to you they can fight to kill them if you want without triggering shiro and the lich (the 7 of them should be able to take on the 4/5 morganites).

Depends which door you go in. But in general the idea is to move around the perimeter, pulling and killing some groups and sneaking past others, then ganking the wraiths before the dead ones respawn or the snuck-past ones patrol back. Then rest and move on to the next portal.

Doggone it I don't have Discord. (Haven't done Factions). Is there something that works as well without me having to go do half of Factions to get it?

you dont have to use discord (I have never used it and have masters on that mission with 10 characters)....you just need to watch aggro and pull carefully to get it done......knowing the mission also helps a bit (for the record I usually have a healing hero, a mm, and a fire ele and then take the healer henchie, paragon and dervish--and the final spot determined by my characters profession). So read thru the wiki on it and you might have to do it a time or two to learn the patrols et. al. but you should be able to do it with out discord or any other pvx builds.

and make sure you have your lightbringer title up for the morganite parts.

I usually prefer pulling and killing Shiro first, then get in and activate shrines.

The Lich is much slower than Shiro, and he is a ranged attacker: he doesn't follow you into the back of the room (behind the shrines) and tries to attack from a distance, with the result that he will be obstructed by the monument while you safely activate the shrine.

EDIT - Oh, BTW, I usually carry a Mesmer hero with Empathy and Wastrel's Worry for Shiro.

If you are already sick and tired of this mission (as I was), don't do the bonus. I've had it two times that flagging the H/H to the shrines triggered a bug where I couldn't finish the mission. On one of these occasions I even killed both the Lich and Shiro only to realize that the quest doesn't finish and I had to do it again. If you want to be safe, just do the mission. You can do the bonus anytime later.

And yes, carefully pulling mobs is the key to the portal area.

As general tip....watch out for shiro's skills when he gets low on health, he can be deadly.Pain inverter is a good choice if can use it (and bring some form of stance removal makes everything a little easier).

Will no one actually give any advice for dealing with the portals?

At portals, you need to be aware that there are three cathegories of enemy groups here: fixed patrols, patrols spawned by a portal and the portal wraith groups. If you kill a portal patrol, the portal will soon spawn another patrol.

Therefore, you need to first select a portal, clear out any interfering fixed patrols and then attack the portal wraiths either when the portal patrol is away or in the short time window between you killing them and the time they respawn.

In other words, you need to take your time.

My recommendation: start at the right side, and keep to the side, since the patrols go toward the center.

First portal on the right: First, use a bow to lure the enemy patrol of torment creatures to you and kill them (I think there's two patrols of two). Then, wait for the moment and charge the Portal wraiths. Forget about all else, just focus on killing all three.

Second portal on the right: This area is populated by margonites, which should be the easiest enemy in the area. From the location of the first portal, you'll see two patrols, one going left and right from the portal, another coming to and from your direction. Lure one patrol to yourself and kill it, then attack the wraiths when the other patrol is away.

Now, it's time to clear out the area a bit. First, the Armageddon lord, who can luckily be drawn to you and engaged with no interfering patrols. Next, take care of the torment demon patrols. Keep well to the right, since the center is where all the patrols cross paths.

After that, take the next portal counterclockwise. Again, lure the torment patrol to you, and be extra careful to avoid center patrols (watch that aggro bubble, so you don't anger patrols with the edge). Standard Portal wraith group clearance after that.

After this, the next portal, the one furthest down the valley, should be little trouble, what with only being defended by margonites.

Before taking on the last portal, be very careful while cleaing away the titans. Wait for them at the extreme point of their patrol, since their death spawns hurt enough even alone, never mind with an extra patrol.

The last advice for dealing with the last enemy portal: remember that the torment claw is stationary. You can easily afford to engage it alone or to engage it from far away.



As for party composition: I advise going in with no melee attackers at all. Shiro will eat them alive, and they make for troublesome aggro management. Consider maybe a set of searing flames elementalists, Mhenlo, Kihm, Herta and Cynn?

I finished this with a rubbish H/H build actually.

Few tips:

Do not agro more than 3 big titans at once. If you do, try to concentrate on one at a time. 4 Madness Titans usually cause a pretty big problem for me. When you're at the portals, grab a bow and slowly pull everything away and kill them all.

Once you've cleared all the portals, walk just close enough to view the entire dome on the minimap, but not any further. Flag all your H/H to the centre of the dome, then to the first flag. Flag them back to the centre, then to the second flag, and so on. I don't really see many people talking about flagging to the centre, but when I did it I needed to otherwise my H/H will get stuck.

Luring to deal with the portals are not so productive imo. The enemies spawn to fast when you have dealt with the group. What I always do is spike the portal wraiths and make sure no reinforcements come.

To the topic starter, what kind of heroes do you use now? And how is your lightbringer title, I do hope you are using it

My ele does this mission with an earth E/Rt build using Unsteady Ground and Earthbind. Magnetic Surge is a very nice skill for dealing with madness titans and other dervishes, since it punishes enchantments. With the Earthbind spirit up, even Shiro can be knocked down.

Heroes include a hammer warrior, healer (monk, rit, or N/Rt), and whatever else floats your boat (dom mesmer, spirit spammer, RoJ monk, etc.). Henchies are Khim, Herta, Odurra, and either Devona or Sogolon. No micro-management required and I've used the same setup in HM.

Follow Iuris's advice on the portals. Taking your time is important.

Pull away groups near the portals and deal with them. Then attack the Wraiths. You should be able to deal with the Wraiths and any spawns from the rift at the same time. If the wraiths are killing you, spread your heroes out and maybe take a little more prot.
Proceed slowly. I find it best to move West first and deal with the two most Northern shrines (go down the hill to your right) and continue round to deal with the remaining three.

When you get to Shiro and the Lich, it is probably best to kill the Lich first. Shiro doesn't hit as hard as the Lich (whilst you're not attacking him anyway) and is tougher to kill. Aggroing both together is fine, but you can make it so you only have to fight one. Just cap all the shrines with Shiro chasing you and then kill him.
Use a stance removal to end Battle Scars and if you really want, bring a Nec with Spoil Victor.


Rit heroes are good (get Xandra). MMs are good.
Since you don't have Razah you can't run Spiritway. You can try taking a Paragon or even some melee hero to get use out of Wild Throw or Wild Blow.
Also remember to bring Prot Spirit - it's pretty nice here. Aegis is good to. The MM can take both.


Flagging heroes and henchmen apart is quite probably the second most influential thing you can do when H/Hing after build tailoring (which only goes so far). It takes seconds to do and has huge payoffs.
If you aren't willing to improve and learn a very simple technique that will drastically improve your game then I don't see why anyone should be willing to help you.

I've easily done this mission over 100+ times in the last year as a mission runner as most ppl find this one of the hardest missions to beat in-game. I'm an ele (though I used to run on an ele before this) with usually an AP build loaded (assassin's promise + ebon sin + YMLAD + Finish Him and a few class specific skills). My team setup is spiritway with an AotL necro, SoS/healing rit and a ST spirit spammer rit.

My advice for the portals:

Make sure you end up with a couple of minions from the shiro'ken that you're supposed to kill before you reach the portal area. These minions will usually make a big difference when aggroeing the wraiths as they will be targetted first by their spells (which are quite deadly). Stay a bit out of range of the first portal, set up your long length spirits (pain, SoS and bloodsong), wait for the big titans to move away and lure the wraiths towards you. Blam, portal 1 down.

Move towards the south-eastern portal. Pull the 2 patrolling titans, kill them off, focussing on one at a time and immediately pull the portal wraiths after that since you should have all of your spirits set up. Make sure to micro spirit bond on them since this will guarantee you a fast kill. After this the last three portals should be quite easy.

Usually I now go for the northwestern portal, pull the margonite patrols first and immediately pull the wraiths after that and make sure they get within spirit range. Your minion master should generate enough minions so your party should not take that much damage.

Move towards the middle portal on the west side, take out the big titan first (make sure it doesn't get into the middle of your party) and kill the wraits. Then move towards the last portal, wipe out the remaining patrols and clear the wraits. Portal area clear!

As to the final fight, I recommend flagging the heroes just inside the portal area, hug the right wall and slowly tap your forward button. You should be able to pull the lich only, get him within spirit range and voila, easy kill.

I usually capture the shrines clockwise starting at the ranger shrine and ending at the mesmer shrine. Shiro will be kept busy by minions most of the time and if you're fast enough you can loose aggro after the 3rd shrine (priests). Make sure to disable all the spirits on your ST ritualist since they can actually kill him before you capture all the shrines (happened to me a few times now :<). Once you've captured all the shrines go towards the middle (if you lost aggro), spread your heroes out and pull him inside your minion army, spirits should finish him off within seconds (and if you have PI on you all the better, save it for the last 30'ish %).

Hope this helps, if not you can pm me in-game on 'Magic Ling' for more advice

Iuris: Thnks for the in-depth on the portals. This will be helpful.

aspi: I used Dunkorro, Koss and Ogden for my last attempt. Can't remember what henchies. My LB is 3 and yeah it's equipped.

Xenomortis: Kiss my wrinkled old butt. I never said I didn't know how to flag. I said I didn't want to MICROmanage. Look it up. I bought this game and I can play it anyway I see fit. If your time is too valuable to respond to me then don't.

All others: It seems the consensus is to take my time at the portals and pull carefully. I've never used a bow w/my ele but I will try that for pulling this time.
There seem to be several ways of going about the portals. I will try again using some of the tips here. I always print out the responses and read them over before (and during) the mission. Thank you so much for your input. These boards make the game more fun. I would be one lost granny without them!

Flagging is for the most part, the extent of the micromanaging required. Very little requires anything more - in some of the harder areas I might precast a couple of Rit spirits or micro a Prot Spirit onto myself; nothing more. Calling it in because you don't want to practice that either will draw the same response.

Of course the rest of my post must be null and void because I made a harsh comment.


To really comment you need to post the builds, not the name of heroes. Were the two monks running defensive builds (if so that's a waste of a hero) or were they offensive smiters (in which case you can do better) or some combination?
Normally I advise against melee heroes but Koss can bring Wild Blow and that alone removes the major threat from Shiro (but it would require microing it whenever he uses Battle Scars).

Personally, I prefer not having any melee characters (unless human controlled) because it will make it very easy to over agro. As said, wild blow is useful for shiro but I find the best way (although glitchy) is to just hang outside the temple and have you run in and out of his agro range. This will mean he will keep running to the Lich and back again, rarely attacking. I was Rt so had spirits set up there and just let them do most of the damage.

As for the portals I can only echo what has been said above. You really need to watch the patrols, and know precisely which patrol is from which portal. To do this it can be beneficial to lure a patrol and kill it. Then wait for a bit and see if it respawns, and if so from what portal.

Also, for pretty much all of the portals you can attack the portal when it is only the wraiths there. Hopefully you will have enough damage to get the wraiths down before a patrol comes. Remember to call the wraiths for your hench. If hero combinations above haven't been working out, here is what I use:

Monk/Mesmer: Typical UA build with leech sig for e-management
Mesmer/Rit: Typical Panic mes with some rit healing skills
Necro/Mo: Jagged Bones MM with PS and Aegis.

All of these builds will be on PvX, so just look there and you can see variants too.

You know xenomortis, she mentioned originally "somewhere I should pin h/h or something?" (in other words flag) so yes she has no problem with flagging she does have problems with micromanaging the skill bars. Seriously I am the same way and if you think that I should learn to micro or i shouldn't bother with getting help, that's just ignorant. Ive beaten large portions of the game without ever microing. Although I do agree it doesn't mean your whole post is void just because of the one comment.

As far as the question, I'm with the general consensus on aggro control. Also I have never used discord either so it's not necessary. If you are looking for good builds sabway is also an option though it is very generic.

There's a difference in moving your H/H ball back a bit and spreading them all out.
I didn't home in on that particularly, but on this line in the OP:
"I'm so not into micro managing so if that is necessary I will hang it up right now."

That just demonstrates an unwillingness to improve and I consider separating your heroes out as micromanagement.

Ok but I am also not interested in micro managing. It doesn't mean I don't want to be better it just means when I get on to play I'm interested in relaxing and not having to focus on every tiny detail and control multiple skill bars. I still want to do and get many things in the game but that doesn't mean I NEED to learn to micro. And if something does require microing well sorry I'm not that dedicated to this game. Keyword: game

It's not necessary to micromanage heroes to the extend that you control their skill usage. Usually, you only need to control their positions with the flag - the 3 flags for your heroes and the 4th flag for the henchmen. By spreading them out a bit before combat, you avoid that they all are hit by AoE damage.

I do only minimal skill micromanaging with my heroes. Usually, I disable all resurrection skills at my heroes and activate them on demand. It depends on the situation, if I resurrect someone during combat or after combat. All other skills are free to use by the heroes. Only on rare occasions I do micro other skills. If I need a certain skill in a certain situation RIGHT NOW, but the hero is doing something else - then I click it.

But don't bother with this. On your first journeys through the game, you are absorbed with the action around you and usually don't have the awareness of what your heroes should do at the moment.

Take note that Iuris's mini-walkthrough assumes you pushed forward after the shiroken ambush. If you circled back, then you enter the room by the margonite portal instead.

And let's try to avoid calls for butt-kissing, OK? You may not like what Xeno has to say, but you should probably listen to him because he's usually right.

Thanks for the advice but I really don't need his. It's just a game and if it's not longer fun then I will quit playing. I do not need to subject myself to pompous rude behavior. I have received many tips here and other places from other more congenial players. I am ignoring Xeno.

It is indeed the hardest mission in all of GW (not counting EotN) but it should still be easily doable h/h in normal mode.

You are not the first person posting here about that specific mission, I recall a while ago someone else did and I ended up helping him do the mission.

I don't really play GW at this point but feel free to PM me if you want help doing the mission.

the discussion page on the Wiki has better info about H/H this mission than the walk through does. Read that.

Oh, and don't mess about using hero monks unless you have a very specific need and skill for a situation. the NF Hench monks will do just fine, allowing you to use a better set of heros. I have never seen the need to use 2 hero monks solo, at most I will use one heavy prot/hex removal hero. And I am Eternal Guardian/vanquisher/ of Elona.. done all H/H and mostly with hench monks.

I don't micro.. but I do keep Xandra's bar up to set spirit "ambushes" to pull things onto.. and flag my group behind them as I pull.

I do firmly believe that mucking about and trying to pull the Lich is not necessary, Shiro comes running and can be taken down fast with a decent SoS/displacement/shadowsong rit hero and punishment hexes (mes or Necro). You can have Shiro done by the time the Lich strolls up to your group.

Also, if having trouble a conset is cheap, use it. Same with morale boosters, take off any DP on your group with combs or canes prior to engaging the tougher parts. It is what they are there for, a Hench or Hero with 60dp is nearly ineffective. Same with summon stones, if you have em, use em at the crucial spots.

You can also make good use of a Resto/hybrid rit hero.

Personally I always found that the titans at the start was the hardest part of it, the rest is just careful pulling.

Eternal Grove in HM beats Gate of Madness in HM (whilst H/Hing) by a long way.
Not sure for NM.

Gate of Madness is the toughest fight, for me, but Eternal Grove is, like a lot of factions missions, tougher mechanically to get masters. I have no probs beating Eternal Grove.. but masters in HM with h/h is a crapshoot.

Whew, I'm glad that's over. It took about 5 tries with varying h/h (and once I messed up and went the wrong way and got wiped by Curator Kali!) but finally managed it. If anyone's interested I took heroes: healer, mm and smite monk. Hench: healer, motivation, holy, domination.

Not as bad as I thought. I didn't even have to do all the fancy stuff with separating heroes and such. Simply took one portal and pinned near there and pulled groups to them. I forget my bow so I had to pull using my staff, but I'm used to that. It just takes patience and good timing. Once I got past the portals I was scared to death of Shiro after reading about his Battle Scars and Impossible Odds, but he wasn't that bad. I messed up and aggroed them both and pulled them through the door. But the lich went down fast and then Shiro just took a couple minutes of pounding on him.

Maybe I'll come back for the bonus after Factions & EoTN if I get bored (and good) enough.

Thanks everyone for your help!

BTW, for me this mish is actually easier if you get the bonus (Shiro is always the problem for me). I usually just kill the Lich first and ignore Shiro and then just run around and cap the shrines. Shiro is pretty harmless unless you get his health down (so if I have spirits I will temporarily disable them).

I actually did this easily.

I was a Paragon. I was not an imba, so my build was generally useless. Something I made up.

I brought a monk, a warrior, and a Necro. My buddy was a derv with a random build, he brought the same thing.

My monk was WoH/Prot. His monk was just basic things. My warrior was just some thrown-together axe build with Wild Blow, his was the same. The necro is what wins it though. Put Spiteful Spirit or Spoil Victor on the Necro, along with Insidious Parasite. The whole thing is a breeze until you get to Shiro/Lich, where it gets tricky.

If you try and pull, you can actually pull the Lich away from Shiro slowly but effectively. You might even get lucky and catch him in an infinite tug-o-war, where he runs towards you, goes too far, runs back, runs toward you again, etc. etc. This makes the Lich really easy, even though he kinda already is.

After him, flag your warriors up close, the monks as far back as you can but within range of the warriors, and the Necros wherever. You can stand wherever too. Stop your warrior hero from using any attack but wild blow, and stop your necros from using anything but IP/SS. Aggro Shiro, sit back and watch him kill himself.

Wow, they weren't kidding that Madness was the last hard mish of NF! I finished off Abaddon on the 2nd go and got master's. I think overall the hardest was Ruins of Morah. It took me forever to find the sweet spot in that one.

Well, on to Factions. (I know wrong order but hey I'm a rebel!)

glad it worked out for you (actually I found Dzagonur Bastion and Jennur Hoard to be hard to do with only h/h so I usually skip them )...and yeah abbadon is a push over after this mission.
Only mission in factions I had problems with doing h/h was eternal grove, did it but didnt get masters....usually force my hubby to do it with me.

Really?

I did it really easily.

I ran myself (Para), WoH monk, MM, and an ele. Brought along another healer henchie, warrior and ele.

I flagged my heroes on one side, the henchies on the other. I freelanced back and forth between both places and helped out as necessary. Was actually one of the easiest missions in the game.

Oh yeah, I guess I could go back and do the ones I didn't do. I chose Margrid so I didn't do Dzagonur bastion and I chose the other one over Jennur's horde. I did try Jennur's a couple times but it seemed pretty hard. Maybe I'll go get those. Will it add to the value of my book if I fill in those?

It will, the more spots filled, the better the reward

Shiro should be killed first. The lich hits hard but attacks slow and moves slow. This allows you plenty of time to flag and move to the next portal, cap it, then move behind the statue blocking the lich's ranged attacks. Drop spirits before moving to the next shrine and he'll chill at them until they die if you keep running. I'll never kill the lich first again.

Here's what I do with H/H, hard or normal mode, with or without razah:

heal and prot monk heroes. Empathy/panic mesmer. SS/insidious/price of failure necro. Spirit rit. Fall Back! on me. Two more non-melee heroes...they'll attack the lich on occasion while capping but they don't do enough damage to kill him in the short periods you'll be fighting him.

Spirits: SoS, bloodsong, pain, and shelter. disable shelter. After killing shiro, micro the shelter with the lich in aggro of the already-present spirits. Run past the lich flagging your H/H and use fall back!. the spirits will die before killing the lich, and you'll be well out of the lich's range, allowing you to cap at least three shrines before he gets back to the center. If you aggro him again, no big deal...after you kill the margos at the shrines, flag everything behind the statue, put your attack heroes on avoid combat, cap the shrine. drop spirits behind the statue, run past again. The lich should stay there for the rest of the bonus capping period. When all 5 are capped, go kill him.

Wow, that sounds really involved. But as I mentioned I haven't done Factions yet so i don't have SoS. But I will keep this in mind if after Factions I decide to come back and do the bonus. Thanks!