Gate of Madness (mission)


 * Just some quick notes for those having trouble on Lich + Shiro.

Drop the Lich first, he's weak to holy, and fire(maybe) damage. A Dervish with Avatar of Balthazar or Heart of Holy Flame can drop him easily. Focus fire on the Lich, and make sure he goes down as quick as possible. He has some PB AoE skills that can hurt.

When tackling Shiro, any anti-melee skill can help a lot, Empathy, Insidious Parasite, Price of Failure. If you only have one necro, use Spoil Victor, as it will cause a large amount of damage to Shiro very very quickly. If a second necro is available, Spiteful Spirit is always good. Blindness and Weakness are always good for damage mitigation, but becareful as Shiro can spread these conditions back to you. The skills Shiro has available to him are Battle Scars, which should be ended with Wild Blow, or wild anything (strike, throw), Riposting Shadows a shadowstepping skill, and the much dreaded Impossible Odds. Impossible Odds can deal a massive amount of AE damage in a very very short time, so make sure that no one is too bunched up. Use markers to spread heroes out, and use spells/skills like Aegis, Guardian and Displacement to protect you and your party. Shiro will not have Meditation of the Reaper, or Echoing Banishment, so there his main form of healing will be Battle Scars, which should be ended by a wild strike as soon as possible. If he somehow catches a high damage spell while Battle Scars is on, he will be doing a large amount of life stealing.

With Spoil Victor, Shiro will deal a large amount of damage to himself, leaving the party to knock down the last small bit of his health bar. Shiro can still be killed without Spoil Victor, but it might involve some kiting, especially if you are doing the quest with a large number of heroes/henchmen. Therefore, bringing some degen is recommened.

A Curses Necro with Spinal Shivers and a Cold weapon wielding melee (Pre-release bonus pack scythe for Dervish) can further interrupt Shiro, preventing him from getting off his dreaded Impossible Odds properly, if at all.

A Blackout Mesmer has also been said to work, disabling Shiro's skills. This is, however, unconfirmed.


 * Another quick note for killing Shiro

The following is my personal experience.

You have to understand that the bundary of aggro circle of Shiro is the gate before the stairs to the central basement(where 2 bosses are). Make use of this point we can kill him.

Steps to kill Shiro

1) Kill Lich inside.

2) Flag your henchman & hero outside the gate, if possible, please flag your tank just outside the gate and flag your caster/range attack heros away from the gate.

3) You stand at the gate or go inside and Shiro will come out to attack you, shoot him with a bow or do something else to pull him outside the gate.

4) When shiro is near the gate, call target to attack him.

5) Fight Shiro outside the gate. Only the tank is allowed to stay close the Shiro. Others teammate can only make range/magic attack on Shiro.

6) You will notice that Shiro only is interested in killing your tank but no others.

7) When Shiro's HP is low he will use Impossible Odds and your tank may die. After killing your tank, Shiro will go back to the basement through the gate.

8) Resurrent your tank and repeat the above steps until Shiro is killed.

The above steps can at least prevent you from game over but you may not have enough damage to kill Shiro.

Bonus
Whether or not you want to do the bonus, the Lich should go down first. This saves another mob chasing you around in addition to Shiro while you are trying to rally the gods. The Bonus involves capturing each shrine of the Five Gods. You'll have to take out the Margonites which are hanging out at each of them to speed it up and to keep them from recapturing the shrines. Be careful, the shrines will eventually become uncaptured EVEN if there are no Margonites left. One thing to be careful of though, is to make sure you are not bunched up at the stairs at each of the shrines. Bunching up means you're one Impossible Odds away from a wipe.

The bonus will help you to kill Shiro, as you get a buff for each one captured.

The Margonites at each shrine are themed to the profession of that god, e.g., you face two Monks at the shrine of Dwayna, four Mesmers at the shrine of Lyssa, etc.