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

Primary
During the mission, you will be affected by Depths of Madness, which weakens all direct healing spells to heal 15% less. With mobs that hit relatively hard, you may wish to bring more healing than you normally would bring in a party. Other party composition considerations are discussed in the sections on Shiro Tagachi and the bonus.

At the start, follow the left edge of the ravine on the map. You'll encounter two groups of Margonites with High priests in each group. You have to kill the first group, but you can just follow the second group. Stay left and as you get to the bridge, you'll have to fight three pop-up Torment creatures. If you flag your party to be fighting on the bridge, you can avoid the Margonite group which you followed. Kill the first pair of Titan Abominations and continue over the bridge and take a right. There you will encounter another pair of Titans.

At the east end of the bridge, a couple groups of Torment creatures patrol. It can be useful to pull one back onto the bridge, so that you don't get hit by the other while fighting the first. After you kill them head south toward the Torment Claws. Clear the group of Margonites that patrols to the north of the claws. When you approach the claws, three Scythes of Chaos will pop up. You can pull them away to clear them, then come back for the Torment claws. You can clear the group of Torment creatures that patrols the south side of that area, or just wait until they move away to attack the claws.

On top of the hill is a gate with Shiro Tagachi (the main antagonist from Factions) behind it. He leaves and the gate opens. Three Shiro'ken will pop-up in front of you; kill the Shiro'ken Elementalist first if it spawns. When these are dispatched, another three arise. This time, target the Shiro'ken Ritualist first. Another group of Shiro'ken will form behind you. So long as you move forward when given the chance, you can ignore these, as they won't move past the gate.

The Portals
Once through the gate, the Lich Lord (the main antagonist from Prophecies) speaks, five chaos rifts open, and a number of enemies spawn. Wait for all the rifts to form. Each rift, like in Prophecies, is defended by three Portal Wraiths that must be defeated for the rift to close. Each rift is associated with a pair of Margonites or a pair of Torment creatures. If that pair is killed, it will respawn at the rift, though the game will reroll which particular types of Margonites or Torment creatures spawn. If only one mob of the pair is killed, two will still respawn. The mobs will not respawn if neither of the ones associated with a portal are killed, so you can take your time and watch patrol patterns. When the three Portal Wraiths at a rift are all killed, the rift will close, your party will receive a morale boost, and mobs will no longer respawn at that rift.

There are also several other mobs that are not associated with any rift. These include several Titans, Margonites, and a Torment Claw. If these mobs are killed, nothing will respawn to replace them. As such, it is useful to clear them to get them out of the way, before fighting other mobs nearby. In some cases, there will be multiple pairs of Margonites patrolling near a rift. Rather than trying to guess which are associated with the rift and which are not, you can just kill them all, after which, only one pair will respawn.

The southeast portal can be difficult to clear from the east side, but is much easier to clear from the west side. As such, the recommended route for clearing the portals is to follow the north wall of the valley into the northwest corner, then head south, and finally head east to clear the southeast portal from the west. Note that this is not the route shown on the map. Take your time, and clear each portal as you reach it.

The basic method for clearing a portal is to clear away other mobs first, so that the only mobs that could attack you while you fight at the portal are the Portal Wraiths and the pair of mobs associated with that portal. Wait a bit to let the pair of mobs move away from the portal, then go attack the wraiths. You'll be hit by the other pair of mobs during the battle, but kill the wraiths first, to prevent the other mobs from respawning.

Portal #1: Note that the torment creatures from a different portal will come near this one. Watch patrol patterns and try to keep away from them by staying near the north wall. Clear the Portal Wraiths when you have a chance, and then move west.

Portal #2: Start by moving your party to just east of aggro range of the Margonite patrols you see. If you stay too far east, you may be hit by another patrol of Torment creatures from behind. There will be four Margonites. Kill them all without aggroing the wraiths, and only two Margonites will respawn. After that, kill the Portal Wraiths, and then the respawned Margonites.

Portal #3: The next portal is to the south. An Armageddon Lord patrols near this portal. Wait for it to come to your side of the portal, and then pull it far away from the portal. It will chase you pretty far, but is easy to kill if by itself. As with the ones in Hell's Precipice, it will break down into a Risen Ashen Hulk when it dies, which splits into a Hand of the Titans and a Fist of the Titans when it dies. Once the titan is clear, wait for the Torment creatures to get out of the way, and then attack the portal.

Portal #4: Continue south to find the next portal, with two pairs of Margonites wandering near it. As with the second portal, kill both and only one will respawn. After that, you can attack the Portal Wraiths, and then clear the respawned Margonites. If your party has death penalty problems, this is the easiest place to repeatedly kill respawns before clearing the portal.

Portal #5: The patrol linked to this portal wanders far north if it, out of range of the portal, so you need not aggro it while closing the rift. The rest of the mobs in the area will not respawn if killed, so they should be cleared before attacking the wraiths. This includes a stationary Blade of Corruption, the leftover pair of Margonites that came from the first portal you closed, and two Titan Abominations that are not linked to each other. Either kill the Torment Claw at the portal first and then the Portal Wraiths, or stay out of range of the Torment Claw while fighting the wraiths.

Undead Lich
Continue west from the portals area to reach the Lich and Shiro. The Lich is relatively easy to kill. Flag your party back by the doorway and come close enough to trigger their dialogues. Stay along the north (right) wall and inch forward until the Lich yells something at you. At that point, hold your ground until the Lich gets closer, and then back up to rejoin your party. The distance at which you'll aggro him is roughly 2.5 times the aggro circle.

Killing the Lich doesn't take any special tactics provided that you fight him by himself. He may try to run away at some point, in which case, it is vital that your party not follow him. So long as you're within his aggro range (which extends beyond how far you had to come to aggro him the first time), he'll come right back. You may wish to set any melee heroes or pets to passive for this part.

Shiro Tagachi
To kill Shiro, start by coming close enough to aggro him, and then running away. After that, if you're far enough west, he'll come, and if not, he'll retreat. Experiment a bit to see where the line is. Flag your party a little less than an aggro bubble radius outside of the region to which he'll chase, and use flags to spread your party out a bit.

When Shiro uses Impossible Odds, it will spread any conditions on him to whomever he hits. As such, do not use conditions on him. Make note of any skills you are carrying that cause conditions, and avoid using them. Disable any skills that heroes carry that cause conditions. Be sure to get rid of spirits or minions that cause conditions, too. If using henchmen, do not bring Gehraz, as you cannot prevent him from putting conditions on mobs.

When Shiro uses Battle Scars, his attacks will gain lifestealing equal to the highest damage he takes in the stance. It is highly useful if the highest damage he takes is actually pretty low. Avoid using (and in the case of heroes, disable) any skills that cause very high damage at once. Killing Shiro with a thousand weak blows rather than far fewer strong ones will greatly decrease both his damage output and his self-healing (via lifestealing).

The basic plan is to have a warrior in the party (whether human or hero) stand about an aggro bubble to the east of the rest of the party, so that he alone will be within aggro range of Shiro. Shiro will then come attack the warrior. If Shiro leaves the warrior to go attack someone else, the warrior should chase Shiro, which will pull him out of Shiro's aggro area. Shiro will then see that no one is in his aggro area and run away. This will keep the rest of the party pretty safe, provided that everyone stays back properly.

The warrior should have Wild Blow, and use it to end Battle Scars when Shiro uses it. Provided that Battle Scars is promptly ended, Shiro's other skills are not much of a threat. If the warrior is a hero, the hero will not be smart enough to distinguish between Battle Scars and Shiro's other stance, Riposting Shadows. As such, the hero may waste Wild Blow on the wrong stance, and not have it available to end Battle Scars. This can be avoided by disabling the skill and triggering it manually.

It can also be useful for the warrior to have a blocking stance, to limit Shiro's damage. Frenzied Defense is perhaps ideal, though unsuitable for the rest of the mission; other blocking stances can also work well. A human warrior should know not to use it elsewhere, and it should be disabled on a hero warrior until the battle against Shiro. Note that the double damage does not affect lifestealing, which is Shiro's most dangerous damage. The warrior should not use any energy-using skills apart from blocking stances and Wild Blow, to preserve energy for Wild Blow.

A human assassin with Wild Strike can substitute for the warrior if so desired. The player should use a lead attack, then wait for for Battle Scars, to end it with Wild Strike. The player must save adequate energy to always be able to use Wild Strike immediately, rather than constantly proceeding through attack chains. The player should also bring blocking or +armor skills to help defend against Shiro.

Bringing a hero assassin with Wild Strike is not recommended. It would take too much micromanagement of skills, and a hero warrior works better. While paragons can end stances with Wild Throw, this takes too long to recharge to be a viable replacement for Wild Blow or Wild Strike, regardless of whether the paragon is a player or a hero.

Note that if anything goes wrong in the battle against Shiro, it is easy to run away, recover, and come back, as Shiro will not chase once you leave his aggro area. Defeating Shiro ends the mission, assuming the Lich is also dead.

Bonus
The bonus is to capture the shrines of the five gods. The optimal time to do this is after killing the Lich, and before Shiro.

Each shrine is guarded by two to four Margonites. The two sides can capture shrines back and forth by the same mechanics as the bombards of Dzagonur Bastion. The basic idea is to run into a shrine, flag your party far enough into it to start capturing it, kill the Margonites, wait until you have fully captured the shrine, and then go on to the next one. Repeat until you have captured all five shrines. 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 still get master's reward.

The complication is that Shiro will attack you throughout your trek through the shrines. It helps to lock a player or hero onto Shiro with some skills to incapacitate him, while the rest of the party ignores Shiro. Disable any skills that the hero has that can cause unnecessary damage. A necromancer with Enfeeble probably works best, though there are some other alternatives to cause weakness, blindness, reduced attack speed, or miss chance. Note that hexes and conditions will have a greatly reduced duration, which may limit your options. Call targets as needed to make sure that the rest of the party attacks Margonites rather than Shiro. Avoid using area skills that do heavy damage (especially Lightbringer's Gaze) unless Shiro is far away, to avoid giving his Battle Scars stance considerable lifestealing.

An alternate method to do the bonus, and make the end of the mission easier overall, is to kill Shiro first. This can be a little tricky as far as the initial pull, which involves edging on the left side of the passage until he's triggered. Chances are good that you'll actually pull both Shiro and the Lich, but Shiro's aggro seems to be larger than the Lich's. If you stop briefly, fire a bow at Shiro, and then keep moving to just beyond the arch doorway, you should end up facing Shiro alone (if not, keep running, and then come back just as Shiro stops chasing you, and hit him with another arrow to make him commit). So long as you don't build up a massive DP while killing Shiro (to the point where even the Lich's attacks can take you down in one or two hits) the tactics listed above for dealing with him should work just fine.

The real benefit to this method is since the Lich won't follow you as obsessively as Shiro, as long as flagged heroes/henchmen and any human players go to the very back of each shrine, you should end up breaking the Lich's aggro, sending him back to the center and leaving you plenty of time to deal with the Margonites defending each shrine at your leisure. Minions can make breaking the Lich's aggro difficult, so you are well served to disable any minion skills on you heroes. When done capping the shrines, head to the middle and slay the Lich. As mentioned above, he isn't as dangerous as Shiro, so with all the blessings accrued by this point he should go out like a lamb.

Hard mode
At the pair of Torment Claws, you may wish to go around, clear a group of Torment creatures, and approach from the west, to ensure that they don't hit you while fighting the claws or the Scythes of Chaos that pop up there. The tactics above otherwise still work just fine in hard mode.

Allies

 * 20 Kormir

Monsters

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


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


 * Shiro'ken
 * 28 (30) Shiro'ken Warrior
 * 28 (30) Shiro'ken Ranger
 * 28 (30) Shiro'ken Monk
 * 28 (30) Shiro'ken Mesmer
 * 28 (30) Shiro'ken Necromancer
 * 28 (30) Shiro'ken Elementalist
 * 28 (30) Shiro'ken Assassin
 * 28 (30) Shiro'ken Ritualist


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

Boss-like foes

 * 30 (32) Undead Lich
 * 31 (33) Shiro Tagachi

Bosses - elite skill captures

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

Inside the mission
Kormir: The Temple of the Six Gods lies just beyond this chasm.

Kormir: ''We must reach the temple and try to commune with the gods. This may be the key to defeating Abaddon.''

Kormir: ''Tread carefully. A powerful evil surrounds and pervades this place.''

Shiro Tagachi: ''You are fools to come here. What can mere mortals do against the power of a god?''

Shiro Tagachi: ''No matter. Your journey ends here. My Shiro'ken shall welcome you to this holy place and entomb you within its walls.''

Undead Lich: ''You may well be impressed with yourselves to have made it this far. But, do not expect me to be as friendly as that Canthan bodyguard.''

Undead Lich: ''Your presence is an affront to this temple's Margonite worshipers. You shall be greeted with open claws and shown no remorse in their house.''

Undead Lich: In the unlikely event that you survive their wrath, I shall be waiting...

Undead Lich: ''Did the Margonites wear you out? No? Good. We hoped you might have some strength left for us.''

Shiro Tagachi: ''You cannot stop Nightfall! Abaddon shall rule the world as the one and only, true god.''

Ending cutscene
Kormir: ''Gods, we beseech you. Hear our Prayers.''

We have fought armies, crossed wastelands and conquered demons.''

We must destroy Abaddon before he destroys the world. But we cannot battle him alone.''

Lyssa's Muse: ''You are not alone. The gods are always watching.''

Kormir: ''Watching? We need your help. We are only mortals, and we challenge a god.''

Lyssa's Muse: ''There was a time when the gods walked the earth. Every thought and achievement was a gift of the gods.''

Lyssa's Muse: ''But now you must realize that our gifts are within you. Dwayna lives in your compassion, Balthazar in your strength.''

Lyssa's Muse: Melandru dwells in your harmony, Grenth in your justice.

Lyssa's Muse: And in your inspiration, Lyssa is there.

Lyssa's Muse: ''The divinity is within you. And so, we give you our blessing. That should suffice for the task ahead.''

Lyssa's Muse: And to you, Kormir, a most special gift.

Lyssa's Muse: ''This is your world, now. This is your decision. You must make a choice that only a mortal could make.''

Kormir: ''Our decision? they leave us some words of encouragement and expect us to fight a god?''

A choice that only a mortal could make.''

Kormir: ''Yes. Yes, there is a choice. We can end this. We don't have to be driven by gods and their avatars. Let us go.''

Follow-up

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