Should Gates Of Madness be toned down?

[ChaoticCoyote]

But my point here is that everything can be done with hero/henchman.
If people would just take that 5min to create a team that has a chance and don't just go in with the cookie-cutter-build they play everywhere.

Yes, everything can be beat with hero/hench... well, I haven;t beaten Aurora Glade yet with H/H, but I'll figure it out.

GW's root problem is that it tries to appeal to both hardcore (PvP and expert PvE) players like us, and also to casuals. Casual players -- those with a few hours a week to play -- have no hope of H/Hing the campaigns. And if they get frustrated, they quit, and if they quit, they aren't buying new chapters, and that means ANet loses business.

And due to the lack of a monthly fee, GW has a strong appeal to casuals.

Honestly, I think ANet needs to make some parts of Normal Mode slightly easier for the casuals, and make Hard Mode and end-game content challenging (as opposed to just boring "bigger, faster" monsters) for the hard cores. That may be what they're trying to do... but it still needs a bit a tuning, especially on missions that create "roadblocks" for casuals -- like Gates of Madness, Aurora Glade, and such.

[TheSonofDarwin]

It needs to be toned down, I have gotten 8 characters through there ok, but only after many many tries. I still need to take 3 characters through there (Assassin, Ranger and Monk), all 3 have been trying for a month or better, My ranger and assassin cant seem to find groups very often, and when they do, we get wiped, my monk never has a problem getting a group, but so far the groups have all sucked. I had one good group recently that had potential, but 1 lost connection and never came back and shortly after that, another one left because he felt 7 people were not enough. :(
You know its a bit too hard when people can charge 10K-15K to run it and actually get people to pay it. If it was not for the high running cost, I would have given up long ago and just had people run it for me.

For the bolded part - That also tells you how easy some people find it that they can run people through it no problem, even a few men down.

To be 100% honest, it's easier to do it with heroes/hench than real peeps...

[Confusion of Minds]

It needs to be toned down, I have gotten 8 characters through there ok, but only after many many tries. I still need to take 3 characters through there (Assassin, Ranger and Monk), all 3 have been trying for a month or better, My ranger and assassin cant seem to find groups very often, and when they do, we get wiped, my monk never has a problem getting a group, but so far the groups have all sucked. I had one good group recently that had potential, but 1 lost connection and never came back and shortly after that, another one left because he felt 7 people were not enough. :(
You know its a bit too hard when people can charge 10K-15K to run it and actually get people to pay it. If it was not for the high running cost, I would have given up long ago and just had people run it for me.

My advice to you is to hero hench it, believe me you would be amazed at how easy it is if you do, the only tricky part in the mission is closing the rifts parts, the advice given here will help you on what is the best builds to get through the mission and defeat Shiro.

PuG's can be unpredictable, I've never had to do the mission with them so I'm not sure how hard it is otherwise.

[cibi]

I miss when pugs were occasionally good.

All the same, Shiro isn't quite THAT bad, and I find that Wild Blow is handy on him here, just like it is in Factions.

Also, the litch is waaaaaaay to easy, so Shiro is the only real boss here. Honestly, have you ever been a fire ele and watched the damage you do to the litch? Guy must be made of paper... Or a dried corpse, I guess.

[Kendel]

Shadowsong, Blinding Surge, Blinding Flash, Spirit of Failure, Price of Failure, Reckless Haste, Empathy, and a good tank. Bye bye, Shiro. Beat it many times using that general build.

You call that general? Are you on something?

And how does that even work once he hits Impossible Odds... he just removes all hexes then spreads blind to everything.

[Bezimienny]

You call that general? Are you on something?

And how does that even work once he hits Impossible Odds... he just removes all hexes then spreads blind to everything.

IIRC he only removes ONE hex - so you just need to cover it.

[getalifeme]

I did it on first attempt (NM) with my Deverish in an average PUG. I am saying average because only 2 people had done it before and rest, including me were attempting it for first time. So i did exactly what party leader asked me to do. I got my tanking skills on, engaged Shrio, monk stayed at the safe distance and began to heal me. I kept Shiro busy while rest of the team took care of other things. No one in our team died even once.

[MisterB]

It needs to be toned down, I have gotten 8 characters through there ok, but only after many many tries. I still need to take 3 characters through there (Assassin, Ranger and Monk), all 3 have been trying for a month or better, My ranger and assassin cant seem to find groups very often, and when they do, we get wiped, my monk never has a problem getting a group, but so far the groups have all sucked. I had one good group recently that had potential, but 1 lost connection and never came back and shortly after that, another one left because he felt 7 people were not enough. :(
You know its a bit too hard when people can charge 10K-15K to run it and actually get people to pay it. If it was not for the high running cost, I would have given up long ago and just had people run it for me.

A few of our guildies had Rangers that needed this done, so we ran a modified Barrage/Pet and utterly slaughtered this. Easiest time I ever ran this mission. Half our team was heroes, including the monks. You could try that on your Ranger; you only need one other person with heroes to pull that off. Just wait in a semicircle outside the door while someone pulls Shiro out, and ambush him.

edit: You will of course need level 20 pets on your heroes; we had an army of Black Moas.

[Ora]

Yes, everything can be beat with hero/hench... well, I haven;t beaten Aurora Glade yet with H/H, but I'll figure it out.

.

I have mastered it on hm with h/h...and yet again, the answer is: rtfw (read the f***wiki) there is a neat little hint in there working similar to the Dunes bonus

[Kinlin]

I got through this mission and I suck at Guild Wars.

I vote no.