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


 * This mission requires good teamwork. A party that doesn't work together and communicate will not stand a chance.

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 shrine 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. While you control a certain god's shrine, you will receive all the generic blessings from that god, as well as the ones that increase your primary profession's attributes. If you lose control of a shrine, you will lose those blessings; however, as long as you have all 5 shrines noted as captured in your quest log, you will get the Master's reward regardless.

Allies

 * 20 Kormir

Monsters

 * Torment Demons
 * 28 Blade of Corruption
 * 28 Arm of Insanity
 * 28 Word of Madness
 * 28 Herald of Nightmares
 * 28 Shadow of Fear
 * 28 Rain of Terror
 * 28 Spear of Torment
 * 28 Scythe of Chaos


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


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


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


 * 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, water 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

 * A Necromancer carrying Spoil Victor or Spiteful Spirit, Insidious Parasite, Cry of Frustration, Complicate, Price of Failure and Web of Disruption, and Energy Management spells can be used to ensure victory. Not only would he deal tremendous damage by spamming Spoil Victor or Spiteful Spirit and Insidious Parasite, it will nearly nullify the benefits Shiro gets from Battle Scars, and use Shiro's extremely dangerous Impossible Odds skill against him. Awaken the Blood Also makes a good opener to boost curses by +2 for a little extra punch.
 * A simple build with a Mesmer carrying Psychic Distraction will completely shut down Shiro's damage dealing capabilities through eliminating Impossible Odds.
 * Kill Lich first always, if engaging both at once, and when down to the center spread out your monks. Make sure you use the hit and run strategy to avoid major damage, but not too often as his health regenerates at an abnormal speed.
 * Shiros skills are the same as in the final mission in Factions, minus Meditation of the Reaper and Echoing Banishment.
 * 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.  Hexes such as Spiteful Spirit, Insidious Parasite and similar can be effective in negating any benefit Shiro gets from Battle Scars, so it may be better to focus on ending Impossible Odds over Battle Scars.
 * If using the anti-melee hexes mentioned above, such as Empathy, Insidious Parasite, Spiteful Spirit, etc., remember that Impossible Odds will remove a hex, so a cover hex is a must if you hex Shiro before he uses Impossible Odds.
 * 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. Protective Spirit and skills like Shield of Regeneration and Shield of Absorption that boost health regen, lower damage or raise armor will also help.
 * Impossible Odds can be interrupted but it is difficult to do so. Heroes and henchmen have a better chance than a human. There had being succesfully tested a heroes and henchman only team on this map, following this instructions and using others - health hex skills.
 * 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.
 * Skills like Hidden Caltrops and "You're All Alone!" tend to confuse and devastatingly hinder Shiro's abilities.
 * If the monks focus solely on healing or protecting and stay back from the fight without attacking with wands or staves, they won't trigger a counter-attack when Shiro uses Riposting Shadows.
 * Even if Impossible Odds is interrupted or ended, Shiro atill attacks fairly quickly. Bringing Essence Bond or Balthazar's Spirit will help with energy management and give extra adrenaline if a warrior with a monk secondary maintains them on himself.  Combined with the shout For Great Justice it becomes much easier to spam skills like Wild Blow against Shiro.

Doesn't work on Shiro:


 * 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.
 * Conditions, such as blindness, are good but Impossible Odds allows him to spread these back onto your team. Use these with caution.
 * Shiro cannot be knocked down, nor is he affected by Lightbringer's Gaze.
 * Ward Against Melee and Ward Against Foes affect him but do not stop him. This is only usefull if planing to capture the shirines for the bonus.