Imperial Sanctum (mission)

Objectives

 * Destroy Shiro Tagachi

Note: Mhenlo is not required to survive; he can be killed and have the mission continue to completion.

Primary
Make sure all your human party members speak to Kuunavang to pick up their celestial skills from her before proceeding. If any party member gets to the end of the bridge, it will trigger the cutscene, which will close off the way back to Kuunavang.

This mission consists solely of a final battle against Shiro Tagachi. There are no other mobs that you should kill except for the occasional bound spirit he creates. Shiro's skillbar consists exclusively of Monster Skills.


 * Echoing Banishment: Shiro will send off a party member into the Mists and he will be replaced by one of Shiro's bound spirits. Shiro prefers to banish henchmen rather than players or heroes.  However if Shiro does banish a player with heroes, the heroes may not attack until the player returns.  The spirit will always be of the same profession as the banished player, and will use a fixed skillset. It is best to destroy the bound spirit as soon as it spawns.  This will return the banished player immediately and provide a Morale Boost, which recharges all skills, including celestial skills. The player who was banished can run back to the fight through a round dark passage that ends with a glowing portal.  This is a shout, so it can be partially countered with Vocal Minority or Well of Silence, though it may be best to just allow Shiro to use it for the celestial skill recharge.


 * Meditation of the Reaper: Shiro absorbs up to 500 damage dealt to him. After this damage has been absorbed, the skill ends and he steals 20 health from each party member for every second the skill was active. if Meditation of the Reaper is active for over 20 seconds, he will likely kill the entire party. It is imperative that this skill be ended quickly.


 * Impossible Odds: For 10 seconds Shiro does massive amounts of damage to all foes in the area every time he hits. Note that this is also a skill like Meditation of the Reaper and cannot be removed. Shiro will use this skill when below about 1/3 health to deal huge amounts of damage, allowing him to quickly dispose of your entire party. This skill also removes a hex, and transfers all conditions to all adjacent foes that he hits (that is, to your party).  As such, it is best to avoid putting conditions on Shiro when he gets low on life, as that will effectively just put conditions on your own party.  You can take advantage of this skill to kill Shiro, as it will trigger suitable hexes many, many times in a short period of time. Note that the recharge is shorter than the duration, and Shiro sometimes uses it to remove a hex; it may be prudent to have cover hexes available.


 * Battle Scars: This stance will grant Shiro's attacks life stealing equal to the greatest damage he takes while in the stance. If you have the means to end stances, end this one immediately.  If not, then avoid damaging Shiro too much with any single damage packet, but instead, kill him with many small blows.


 * Riposting Shadows: This stance will cause Shiro to Shadow Step around, attempting quick return attacks when he is struck. The damage isn't really that dangerous, but it can be a nuisance to have Shiro warp around quickly.  This stance can be ended by blocking an attack.

As these are monster skills, they cannot be countered by Blackout or Diversion. Energy and adrenaline denial are also ineffective, as none of Shiro's skills cost adrenaline, and only Riposting Shadows has an energy cost. Shiro is also resistant to knockdowns shorter than three seconds. This means that he can only be knocked down by Warriors using Stonefist Insignia, or skills like Backbreaker and Earthbind. However, the knockdown duration will always be very short.

Shiro tends to use Riposting Shadows followed by Battle Scars when the first ends. He almost always uses Battle Scars immediately after coming out of Meditation of the Reaper (unless his health is low enough to qualify for Impossible Odds).

Heroes strategy
This mission is much easier if you have heroes available, as henchmen don't have the vital skills. Most important is a way to end stances, so that you can end battle scars. A player or hero warrior can do this with Wild Blow, but a hero isn't bright enough to distinguish between stances. The hero may end riposting shadows, and then not have the skill available to end battle scars. A hero may also waste energy on other skills, and not have the energy available to use wild blow when it is needed. To prevent this, disable all energy-using skills of the hero and trigger wild blow manually. A player assassin with Wild Strike can do this as well, though he will often have to use a lead attack and wait for battle scars, rather than going through whole attack chains. A paragon with Wild Throw can also be used, if using adrenaline enhancing skills such as Focused Anger and Soldier's Fury.

It also helps to bring a necromancer with Spoil Victor. This will do tremendous damage to Shiro when he attacks, especially when he starts using impossible odds at the end. Other hexes such as Spiteful Spirit, Insidious Parasite, and Empathy can be useful in the same way, though they do far less damage per attack.

With Mhenlo healing your party as well, it is sufficient to have only one healer in your party. If that healer is a player or hero, you can prevent Shiro from banishing a monk, which both preserves your healing and prevents the creation of an annoying Bound Monk. Any other characters in your party should be either players or henchmen.

Lock the warrior onto Shiro for the duration of the battle. If a hero, the corresponding player will have to watch Shiro and use wild blow at the appropriate times, even if fighting a bound spirit.

The rest of the party should ignore Shiro to kill a bound spirit as soon as it appears. This will recharge celestial skills, get back a party member, and end the danger that the mob poses. Otherwise, the party should attack Shiro. The exception comes when Shiro uses meditation of the reaper, at which time, the entire party should attack Shiro, and if necessary, temporarily ignore a bound spirit.

Henchmen strategy
Any class can beat Shiro with only henchmen, but for some classes, it takes quite a bit of luck. If you can end stances yourself, then bring a skill to do so, and use it on Shiro to end battle scars. If you can cast hexes that cause Shiro to damage himself with every attack, then do so for damage. If you are a warrior, then flag your party around Shiro and use Storm of Swords as often as it is available. If you are an elementalist, use Celestial Storm to damage Shiro as often as it is available. All of these will help, but none are absolutely necessary.

Otherwise, you'll have to rely on henchmen to kill Shiro. Bring Lukas, Devona, Kai Ying, Erys Vasburg, and only one henchman monk (or none, if you're a healer yourself). Flag your party around Shiro so that they'll all get the effect when Lukas or Devona uses storm of swords, and thus do heavy damage to Shiro. They are unfortunately hesitant to use the skill, but seem to prefer using it when there is also a bound spirit up, to potentially damage two mobs.

Your top priority is to end meditation of the reaper when Shiro uses it. Your next priority is to kill bound spirits when Shiro creates them. Other than these situations, just attack Shiro. This takes quite a bit of luck, as success depends heavily on which henchmen get banished to create bound spirits, whether Erys can keep Empathy on Shiro when he uses impossible odds, whether Shiro happens to have battle scars up when using impossible odds, and when your warrior and Elementalist henchmen use their celestial skills.

Note that this strategy of hoping you get lucky will usually fail for most classes. The mission is very short, so a failure only takes a couple minutes. It may take several tries to finally get lucky and win, but it will happen eventually. Don't try to recover from a semi-wipe unless Shiro has only a sliver of life left, as it's quicker to just restart than to prolong a wipe.

Master's reward
You have two and a half minutes for master's reward. This includes the time at the start getting celestial skills and running to the mission. Master's reward is pretty easy to get using the heroes described above, but takes some luck in getting henchmen to use celestial skills properly if you want to get it with only henchmen.

Hard mode
The heroes strategy listed above still works; the main difference of hard mode is that the bound spirits (now level 26) take longer to kill. This mission is probably easier with only henchmen and heroes, so that Shiro will only banish henchmen. With multiple players, Shiro may banish a player, which can prevent the player or his hero from ending battle scars as necessary.

NPCs

 * 10 Oracle of Time
 * 30 Kuunavang
 * 20 Brother Mhenlo

Monsters

 * 24 Spirit of The Mists
 * 31 Shiro Tagachi
 * 20 Bound Warrior
 * 20 Bound Ranger
 * 20 Bound Monk
 * 20 Bound Necromancer
 * 20 Bound Mesmer
 * 20 Bound Elementalist
 * 20 Bound Assassin
 * 20 Bound Ritualist

Follow-up

 * Upon completion of this mission, players will be taken to the Divine Path area to celebrate their victory as well as get access to special items and crafters. See the area article for details.