You’d think the final mission in Guild Wars Nightfall, Abbadon’s Gate, would be the toughest of the campaign. It’s actually deceptively easy.
One indicator of that is the number of runners and the ridiculous amounts of gold they charge for their services. If there are runners, it means there’s an idiot-proof template for beating the mission. If the runners are charging exorbitant sums, it means some players find the mission so difficult they’re desperate enough to pay.
Hence, deceptively easy.
It’s not that hard even in Hard Mode. It took me two tries to beat it today because I was too slow in moving my AI allies away from respawning foes on my first attempt but I didn’t sweat it much. The Ultimate Bad Guy of the campaign went down quickly enough to gain me the Master’s reward on my second try.
A Monk with Martyr will make things easy and judicious use of flags will prevent AI allies from aggroing too many foes simultaneously.
Of Gods and impossible odds
Nightfall’s penultimate mission, Gate of Madness, is actually much tougher than the final mission. It’s more to my liking as well as it features more satisfying action and surprise after surprise.
There are a variety of ways and tactics for earning Master’s for Gate of Madness but it all comes down to basic things: target a group, assess threat levels, pull if necessary, focus fire, regen and move on.
It’s not necessary to hit every group in the mission and some are best avoided. The mission features two dangerous bosses at the end and ideally, you’d want your party in top form rather than crippled by Death Penalties when you go up against the duo.
(That said, don’t give up even if you get a death or two early in the mission. It’s a long mission with plenty of battles so you can quickly work off Death Penalties.)
Most guides will advise dispatching the lesser of the two final bosses first but I prefer taking on the tougher one, a battle-scarred killer, as he’s much easier to pull.
Killing him is not as easy as getting his attention, however. Oh, you can hurt him easily enough but once badly hurt, he activates one of the most devastating skills in the game. It can turn near-defeat to victory in seconds. It’s hard to imagine, I know. Eight against one badly hurt foe and that foe still emerges victorious. What are the odds, eh? Impossible, you think. But it will happen again and again if you’re not prepared for it.
If you do manage to beat him, consider the Master’s reward as good as yours. You’ll have to battle some Margonites before finishing off the second boss but that shouldn’t be difficult.
It took me many, many tries to beat this mission but when I finally worked out the best tactics and skillbars, the final run went so smoothly I had to confirm that I was actually in Hard Mode.
Ah, I love it when a plan comes together.
