Gate of Madness (mission)

Objectives

 * Travel to the Temple of the Six Gods
 * Close the torment rifts by slaying the portal wraiths. .. of 5 rifts remain open.
 * Activate the shrines to the Five Gods to aid you in battle.
 * Destroy the Undead Lich and Shiro Tagachi.
 * *Bonus* Rally the god avatars.
 * You have rallied .. of 5 god avatars.

Rewards
In this mission, the rewards are based on how many shrines to the five gods you have captured at the end of the mission

Walkthrough
You must first get to the area where the shrines are. Follow the ravine on this map until you can go no further and there will be a bridge to your left hand side. Traverse this. Make your way back along this side in the same direction you came. You will come to a hill with two shut gates. Approaching the top most of these gates Shiro, antagonist from Factions, speaks and a few waves of Shiro'ken enemies spawn from both doors. Once these are dispatched you can move through the gate.

Note: If you move through the gate at this point and leave the Shiro'ken that come from behind, you can get to the Lich by only killing the ones in front of you.



Once through the gate the Lich, antagonist from Prophecies, speaks and five chaos rifts open and a number of enemies spawn. Don't be too quick about moving into this area until the rifts have formed. Each rift, like in Prophecies, is defended by three Portal Wraiths which must be defeated for the rift to close. Enemies, such as Margonites, appear from these portals and will continue to do so while the portal is open and you continue to kill them rather than the wraiths. Close all of the portals.

As you close the last portal a door opens allowing you to approach the area where the five god's shrines are. Unfortunately this area is defended by both Shiro and The Lich. Take out the Lich, ignoring Shiro for the meantime. Even if you aren't particularly interested in the bonus it is worthwhile traveling to each of the shrines to get each god's blessings. Each shine is guarded by Margonites of the class commonly associated with that god; Mesmers at Lyssa and Monks at Dwayna for instance. Shiro will follow you around while you do this and do some damage but is not particularly dangerous until you actually start attacking him. Consider the tips below for your assault on Shiro to complete the mission.

Bonus
The bonus for this mission is to capture the shrines to each of the five gods(all but Abaddon). As you rally each of the gods, they will reward you with blessings that will help you fight the bosses. The blessings are similar to the ones given by shrines in explorable areas. However, as long as you have all 5 shrines noted as captured in your quest log, you will get the Master's reward regardless. As with other Nightfall missions you must finish the mission to receive the bonus.

Allies

 * 20 Kormir

Monsters

 * Margonites
 * 24 Margonite Cleric
 * 24 Margonite Reaper
 * 24 Margonite Seer
 * 24 Margonite Ascendant
 * 24 Margonite Sorcerer
 * 24 Margonite Bowmaster
 * 24 Margonite Warlock
 * 24 Margonite Executioner
 * 28 Margonite High Priest
 * 28 Margonite Patriarch


 * Shiro'ken
 * 28 Shiro'ken Monk
 * 28 Shiro'ken Ritualist
 * 28 Shiro'ken Elementalist
 * 28 Shiro'ken Ranger
 * 28 Shiro'ken Warrior
 * 28 Shiro'ken Mesmer
 * 28 Shiro'ken Necromancer


 * Titans
 * 28 Titan Abomination
 * 28 Pain Titan
 * 28 Madness Titan
 * 28 Armageddon Lord
 * 24 Risen Ashen Hulk
 * 24 Hand of the Titans
 * 24 Fist of the Titans


 * 30 Lich Lord
 * 31 Shiro Tagachi

Bosses

 * 28 Champion Puran - Magehunter's Smash
 * 28 Curator Kali - Invoke Lightning

Follow-up

 * You are transported to Abaddon's Gate (Location) to confront Abaddon himself.

Tips for Defeating the Lich
The Lich is relatively easy to kill. He is weak to holy damage and to fire damage (50 AL vs fire). He will not withstand focused fire from the team. Take care as he can hit hard and has some area of effect damage.


 * The Lich deals AoE damage through Life Vortex, but it is currently unclear how large the radius of this skill is.
 * A Dervish planning on dealing scythe holy damage to the Lich should consider using Avatar of Balthazar over Heart of Holy Flame, as the Lich can remove enchantments with Hunger of the Lich.

Tips for Defeating Shiro
After getting so far through the missions it is important to be able to take out Shiro and stay alive while you do it. His skills are the same as the final mission in Factions, minus Meditation of the Reaper and Echoing Banishment.

* No Knockdown skills will work on Shiro!
 * Elemental and physical damage are not enough -- hexes and conditions are the key to killing Shiro quickly, as well as stance ending skills to remove Battle Scars to stop him from healing.
 * Use stance ending skills, such as Wild Blow and Wild Throw immediately, to remove Battle Scars. This skill is extremely dangerous in conjunction with Impossible Odds, in addition to healing Shiro at your expense.
 * Anti-melee hexes, such as Empathy, Insidious Parasite, Spiteful Spirit, and especially Spoil Victor, are very useful and will do tremendous damage to Shiro when he uses Impossible Odds, but keep in mind that Impossible Odds will remove a hex, so a cover hex is a must.
 * Conditions, such as blindness, are good but Impossible Odds allows him to spread these back onto your team. Use these with caution.
 * Stay clear and spread out when Shiro is low on health, because this is when he uses Impossible Odds. This does a lot of area-of-effect damage in a very short time, and can easily wipe out the party. Skills like "Watch Yourself!", Aria of Restoration, and Aegis are useful here.
 * Ward Against Melee and Ward Against Foes (this will slow down Shiro while capturing the shrines).
 * Impossible Odds can be interrupted but it is difficult to do so. Heroes and henchmen have a better chance than a human.
 * Skills which disable target foe's skills, such as Blackout, do not work on Shiro. Shiro's skills will recharge after 1 second which might imply that his skills recharge about 400% faster than normal.
 * For those looking to beat this mission with henchmen and heroes, consider bringing 1 monk hero specalized in Healing Prayers, 2 monk henchmen, a necromancer hero with Spiteful Spirit, an elementalist hero specalized in Fire Magic, the dervish henchman, someone equipped with wild strike/blow, and an 8th person with some damage or support skills. Or consider 2 necromancers: one Spoil Victor blood necromancer, and the other with Spiteful Spirit curses necromancer.
 * Try focusing Shiro on an evading/blocking tank : negating most attacks limits damage but more importantly negates the effects of Battle Scars. An assassin using Way of the Assassin and Critical Defenses may be incredibly efficient for this. Combine this with Price of Failure and Spirit of Failure and Shiro might only strike the occasional blow.
 * Consider waging the combat at the temple door. This is about the limit up to where Shiro will follow you. Run outside the temple before actually engaging Shiro and prepare yourself for the coming battle. You may find usefull to disable some useless skills on your heroes at that time to ensure they only use the critical ones. You should pre-position you team around the door (uses flags for heroes), spaced on a quarter-circle to minimize Impossible Odds effects. Place a tank at the door itself to provide a target within reach for Shiro and who will more or less anchor him. If you feel things are going badly, you can also easily run away. This strategy should also work with only henchmen and heroes.
 * By far, the best way to defeat Shiro is to bring a MM necro and a curses necro with SS and Insidious Parasite. The curses necro should keep SS and Insidious Parasite up as much as possible (adding empathy makes it even more likely.) As long as the MM has several minions up and the Curses necro can keep at least 2 of the 3 hexes on Shiro by the time he pulls off Impossible Odds (Since it will remove one of the hexes.) If timed correctly he can do upward to 1500 damage to himself. The minions are there to cause IO to trigger several more times. [The math is this with 15 foes (8 Players & 7 Minions) within range of IO with Indisious Parasite at -45 (16 Curses) per hit: -45 * (15 * 2) = -1350] That kind of damage will most certainly kill him at 1/3 health.