To defeat all enemies in The Gate Must Stand, you must understand their four core demonic castes and prioritize targets accordingly. The entire horde is divided into The Swarm (fodder), The Corrupted (specialists), The Brutes (elites), and The Harbingers (bosses). Simply hacking at whatever is closest is a surefire way to see the Gate fall before the fifth wave. This guide breaks down every demonic unit, their abilities, and the most effective ways to dispatch them.
The Swarm: Overwhelming by Numbers
The Swarm is the backbone of the demonic legion, designed to test your area-of-effect capabilities and overwhelm static defenses through sheer mass. While individually weak, a poorly managed Swarm can bog you down, allowing more dangerous threats to reach the Gate. Your primary strategy against these enemies should always involve crowd control and multi-target attacks. Never waste high-cooldown, single-target abilities on them.
Hell-Imp
These are the most common enemies you'll face. Imps move quickly in large packs and attack with simple claw swipes. Their main purpose is to body-block your movement and soak up projectiles intended for more valuable targets. Cleaving melee attacks, chain lightning, and ground-based AoE skills are your best friends here. Don't let their numbers intimidate you; their health is negligible.
Shrieker
Slightly more dangerous than Imps, Shriekers are flying units that bypass ground-based traps and blockades. They attack with a weak sonic projectile but their real threat is their death-scream, which applies a minor defense debuff to all allies in a small radius. Prioritize them with ranged AoE or hit-scan weapons to clear the skies before they can stack their debuff.
Crawler
Crawlers are low-to-the-ground abominations that move erratically, making them difficult to hit with precise, single-shot weapons. Upon death, they explode, leaving a small pool of acidic bile on the ground for a few seconds that inflicts minor Blight damage. Their main threat is area denial. Try to kill them before they reach your defensive lines to avoid having to reposition in a panic.
The Corrupted: Specialists of Ruin
Where the Swarm uses numbers, the Corrupted use strategy. These specialist units are the demonic equivalent of mages, assassins, and support classes. They are designed to dismantle your defenses, drain your resources, and pick off crucial structures or players. Each Corrupted enemy should be considered a high-priority target. Learning to identify their audio and visual cues is critical for long-term survival.
The Gate Must Stand in-game screenshot
Soul-Leech
Perhaps the most insidious early-game threat, the Soul-Leech does not attack you or the Gate directly. Instead, it channels a beam onto your resource-generating structures or onto players, draining Soul Shards and Aetheric Dust at an alarming rate. They are fragile, but tend to spawn in protected locations behind Brutes. You must break off and kill them immediately. A single Leech left unchecked for 30 seconds can set your economy back an entire wave.
Bile-Spitter
This is the demonic artillery. Bile-Spitters stay at a distance and launch globs of corrosive acid that deal significant Blight damage over time to both the Gate and any players caught in the blast radius. Their projectiles have a high arc, allowing them to shoot over low walls and lesser demons. The best counter is a long-range weapon or a flanking maneuver. Stuns and interrupts are also highly effective at stopping their lengthy attack animation.
Warp-Stalker
These assassins are the terror of the backline. Warp-Stalkers are cloaked for most of their approach, becoming visible only for a moment before teleporting directly to the most isolated player or lowest-health defensive turret. They unleash a rapid flurry of attacks before attempting to cloak and escape. Place proximity mines or use abilities that reveal stealthed units to counter them. Never wander too far from the Gate or your teammates when you know Stalkers are in the current wave.
The Brutes: An Unstoppable Force
Brutes are the siege engines and elite warriors of the horde. They are slow, incredibly durable, and hit like a battering ram. Their primary objective is often the Gate itself, and they can absorb a tremendous amount of punishment before falling. Dealing with them requires focused fire, armor-piercing damage types, and clever use of crowd control to keep them from applying their devastating attacks to your fortifications.
Gate-Crusher
As the name implies, this creature's sole purpose is to demolish your Gate. It is a massive, heavily armored beast that ignores players unless directly impeded. It has two main attacks: a slow but devastating 'Gate Slam' with its club-like arms, and a 'Siege Ram' charge if it has a clear path. Its front armor is nearly impenetrable. You must flank it and target the glowing runes on its back. Abilities that apply armor shred or expose weak points are essential for taking one down efficiently.
The Gate Must Stand in-game screenshot
Abyssal Tyrant
Tyrants are the field commanders of the demonic army. While they also possess powerful melee attacks, their true danger lies in their support auras. A Tyrant will often project an aura that either increases the speed of all nearby demons or grants them a damage-resistant barrier. This makes them a force multiplier that can turn a manageable wave into an overwhelming disaster. The Tyrant itself must be the primary target. Use stuns, freezes, or knockbacks to isolate it from the horde it's buffing, then focus all available single-target damage on it.
The Harbingers: Heralds of the Apocalypse
Harbingers are unique, named bosses that appear at the climax of major waves, typically every 10th cycle. They are not simply stronger versions of other demons; they introduce entirely new mechanics that you must learn on the fly. Each Harbinger is a puzzle in itself, often requiring coordinated team play and specific environmental interactions to defeat. They represent the greatest threat to the Gate and your survival.
Case Study: Malakor the Soul-Render
Malakor is often the first Harbinger players encounter, appearing on Wave 20. This hooded, spectral figure floats across the battlefield, immune to all damage initially. Its fight is a DPS race against its signature ability, 'Soul Siphon', which drains health directly from the Gate to power its ultimate attack.
To defeat Malakor, you must first locate and destroy the three 'Phylacteries' that tether it to the mortal plane. These crystals spawn in random locations around the map at the start of the wave. Once all three are shattered, Malakor becomes vulnerable for a short period, during which the team must inflict as much damage as possible. It will use a devastating 'Shadow Barrage' attack—a storm of seeking projectiles—before becoming immune again and regenerating its Phylacteries. This cycle repeats until it is defeated.
The Gate Must Stand in-game screenshot
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
What is the most dangerous common enemy in The Gate Must Stand? Objectively, the Soul-Leech. While a Gate-Crusher deals more direct damage, an unchecked Soul-Leech can cripple your ability to build or upgrade defenses, leading to a slow and inevitable loss across multiple future waves. Prioritizing them above all other non-Harbinger threats is a key skill.
What's the best way to deal with Warp-Stalkers? The most reliable method is using area-denial abilities like electrified floors or persistent firewalls along your backline. These will damage and reveal the Stalker when it teleports in, giving you time to react. If you don't have those tools, stay close to an automated turret, as it will instantly target the Stalker when it uncloaks.
Do enemies have elemental weaknesses? Yes. While not a hard requirement, exploiting weaknesses significantly speeds up kills. Generally: Brutes and other armored enemies are weak to Arcane (armor-piercing) and Frost (slow/brittle) damage. Swarm enemies are highly susceptible to Fire (damage-over-time) and Lightning (chain-target) damage. Corrupted specialists often have lower health pools but no specific elemental weakness, making raw Physical damage effective.
Final Take
Surviving in The Gate Must Stand is less about your personal damage output and more about your ability to perform battlefield triage. Every wave presents a new puzzle of threats. The players who can instantly identify the highest-priority target—be it the resource-draining Leech, the buff-providing Tyrant, or the back-stabbing Stalker—and eliminate it efficiently are the ones who will see the dawn. Learn the enemy, protect the Gate.