The Frost Gate - Guild Wars Solo Wiki

The Frost Gate

Completed comfortably this mission as a level 13 necro. Some notes:

Methods to counter physical damage are very useful here. The minotaur at the start, along with lots of Stone Summit, are using physical attacks. Consider bring skills that apply weakness, increase armor, or in some other way negate or lessen physical attacks. However, some of the Stone Summit are using Griffon's Sweep, which knocks down when blocked. So avoid blocking.
- Mesmer's Physical Resistance, Necromancers's Enfeebling Blood, and Elementalist's Armor of Earth are good examples.

Martial classes are going to have a harder time than casters. Warriors especially.
- Both ranged and melee weapon users will experience Stone Summit Mesmer's Empathy often.
- As for the melee specifically, you'll experience Ice Golem's Frozen Bursts and Stone Summit Necro's Vampiric Touch.

Enchantments can be difficult for many of these groups since both the Stone Summit Mesmer and Necros can remove them.

Dolyak Rider's only heal is Heal Other, which can't self target. Therefore, focus down the Dolyak Rider before any other enemy in a group.

All of the Ice Golems attack at longbow range. Theoretically, this means you can aggro them with a longbow and they'll never approach within casting range as long as you're on even elevation as them. However, I've found that Ice Golems don't cooperate as expected, and so I'd avoid relying on this strategy. Instead, I'd focus more on interrupting the hex, removing the hex, or in the case where there's multiple Ice Golems, tanking the Ice Spikes behind LOS so they can't also wand you.
- Be sure to use the Armor +10 vs Elemental shield picked up in Ascalon if tanking multiple Ice Spikes.

There are multiple groups with 1 Ice Golems and 3 Melee. The Ice Spikes from the Ice Golems is a very short-lasting hex and so you can let it be casted on you without much problem. I'd recommend doing damage to the golem within those 5 seconds at aggro range, then breaking off from the group and repeating the process until it's dead.
- Alternatively, if you don't want to get hit by the snare, you can interrupt the hex as it's casting with a Mesmer's Power Spike or a Ranger's Distracting Shot. You can let the hex finish and remove it with either a Mesmer's Shatter Hex or a Monk's Remove Hex.

There are groups of Ettins who are strong melee attackers. They spam Power Attack. Even with increasing physical armor on a caster by +40 using a Mesmer's Physical Resistance, they still put out a high DPS.

The Summit Axe Wielders have Disrupting Chop. This can make tanking them dangerous since they can disable your heal for extended periods of time.

In the area after the trebuchet firing, you can kill the Stone Summit Engineer to the right to stop the trebuchet behind you from firing, but don't clear the one to the left yet. First, clear the two groups ahead of you before killing the left Stone Summit Engineer. Otherwise, a new group with a monk will show up and you'll have to clear the two groups with another monk involved.

After using the Gear Level for the first time, a group of 3x Howlers and 1x Dolyak Rider will run all the way towards the lever. Be prepared for them.

After you enter the room with the three Lever Mechanisms, kill the two stationary groups first. Activate the furthest away Lever Mechanism first, which is furthest to the west. This will cause 2 groups to spawn: a group of 1x Dolyak Rider and 2x Stone Summit Summit Axe Wielder, as well as a separate group with 2x Stone Summit Crusher. Once they've been cleared, activate the southern Mechanism Lever. This will also cause two groups to spawn: 1x Stone Summit Boss, 1x Stone Summit Sage, and 1x Stone Summit Crusher, along with a separate group of 2x Stone Summit Crushers. These groups will head directly to the lever you already activated — the west-most Mechanism Lever. This means you don't have to kill them. Simply activate the final Mechanism Lever in the center of the room and retreat back to where you came from. The mission will end after waiting 60 seconds.

Firstly, attempting the bonus at this early of a level is asking to die in the mission. I'd recommend coming back for the bonus when you're level 20, with better gear (high armor level + runes + insiginias + proper weapons), and better skill (I.E., an elite and skills acquired later in the campaign). However, if you want to attempt it at this low level, read on:

Go into the mission with the express intent of completing the bonus. I wouldn't try to complete it at the same time you're completing the mission. For example, if you're Mesmer, you may want to invest heavily in domination so your Diversion lasts longer on the Dolyak Rider's skills.

When killing the Dolyak Riders in Normal Mode keep in mind their only heal is Heal Other. This means even though they are in groups of two if you disable one of their heals, swap targets to the other Dolyak Rider and it will be an easy kill.

Before clearing out the cave and talking to Rornak Stonesledge, clear the area to the bonus first.

This bonus is notoriously difficult. There are two groups of five enemies. Each group has two Healers (Dolyak Riders), two Axe Warriors, and one Hammer Warrior. Every Dolyak Rider we've come across up until this point has not had another Dolyak Rider in it's group. The method for handling this bonus is to "melee glitch" the three warriors, then handle the two Dolyak Riders behind LOS. However, they will use Shielding Hands, Remove Hex, and Heal Other on each other, which makes them very difficult to kill. And then do the same for the 2nd group.

Sometimes at the distance where you're at the edge of the leash, there is also a nook in the wall where you can easily get trapped. Be wary of this. Additionally, some of the melee might try to run past/around you to flank you and trap you against the wall with the other melee.

You can also optionally pull a group at a time and get the warriors (axe preferred due to them having DChop) to where they are out of range of the healers at the edge of their aggro range. With enough damage you can kill the warriors 1 at a time (or multiple with AOE) before the healers can run to them making fighting the healers significantly easier. It's very important to do this at leash range as the damage of these mobs is very high and should the monks run up you need to run back and reset them.

page revision: 32, last edited: 04 Aug 2025 17:33