Tower of Despair

The Tower of Despair dominates the Devil Battlefield, acting both as a command centre for Devil operations throughout Shavarath, and a potent symbol of Devil power and authority. {{Quest
 * name=Tower of Despair
 * level=20
 * duration=very long
 * xp={{xpcolors|normal=11,700|hard=12,100|elite=12,500}}
 * loc=The Tower of Despair
 * npc=Uloth
 * zone=Amrath
 * patron=The Yugoloth
 * favor=8
 * mappic=M_tower_of_despair.png
 * maplegend=yes
 * overview=The Devil traitor is convinced that First General Horoth is vulnerable and now is the time to strike. He has ordered a secret tunnel to be left open for you at the base of the Tower of Despair. Gather a raid, break in through the caves, and meet this Devil turncoat. He will open the way for you so that you may kill Horoth and redress the balance of power upon the Plane.

Flagging
Must have The Devil You Know quest flag to get in. Shavarath lava and circling blades for Jailor/Judge fight How to become immune to the Banishment: Craft the Boots of Anchoring (see the article for details, you will want them for your melee in the Tower of Despair Raid, and perhaps for all classes as a backup, and/or get the Mantle.) For healers/casters I strongly recommend the Mantle of the Worldshaper as it will serve the same function as the boots in any decent group, but also is more powerful in that it will prevent you from being stunned during the banishment. Also this item is much easier to acquire than the boots as it's a 100% guaranteed end reward from a low level chain that takes only 30-90 minutes to run (Ruins of Threnal). Note it only handles 5 banishes and mistakes like getting too close to the bosses may waste charges, so having the boots as a backup as well isn't a bad idea, though personally I'd make them all on my melee's first. Mantles don't work as well for melee, as Horoth's Meteor Swarm and Suulomade's Chain Lightning tends to drain it fast.
 * obj=
 * Watch the unfolding drama
 * Defeat the Jailor
 * Defeat the Judge
 * Pull the lever to free Arraetrikos
 * Speak with Arraetrikos
 * Breach the tower gate
 * Ascend the tower
 * Defeat the Shadowmaster
 * Defeat First General Horoth
 * (Optional) Defeat Suulomades: (40% of base XP)
 * expect=
 * Traps (fixed, undisarmable)
 * Points of no return
 * Overlapping floors
 * Spawning/respawning monsters
 * traps=
 * misc=

Walkthrough: Overall this is a pretty straightforward hack and slash raid. Just requires some melee DPS and lots of healing to get through. Really only requirement party wise is melee DPS and some strong healing - though even scroll healing can get you through the entire raid.

Prelude: Run up and hit the lever to start it up. Doing so will close a gate behind your party and open one to continue... So at this point be sure your entire raid group is in and ready to go. You can buff during the intro cut scene to save time.
 * Recommended buffs:
 * Death Ward, Mass (Judge Enervates)
 * Anything to increase saves (Prayer, Stalwart Pact, etc) (lots of Fireballs and Lightning Bolts)
 * Resists: Fire (lava), Sonic (orthons) Lightning (Judge), Acid (Tiefling arrows). Not much cold damage.

Phase 1 - The Judge and The Jailor: Basic notes on them: The objective is to kill both, but it's best to take 1 at a time. The Jailer is easier so generally kill him first as there's less risk of anyone being lost in the fight, while the Judge is either kited around or shield blocked. Recommend fighting in the northwest corner out of the lava - as it does some decent damage, and the buffets aren't as often so re-grouping after a buffet isn't too hard. Healers should stay down as well, otherwise a boss may teleport over to them and if they're up top - it takes too long for the melee to reach them to help.
 * Jailor - Orthon
 * DR10/Good (Fairly minor so using your best DPS weapons is usually fine). But on hard/elite scales much higher so be sure to bypass it.
 * No True Seeing ability, so use Displacement on the tank
 * Judge - Horned Devil:
 * DR15/Good + Silver (Be sure to bring appropriate weaponry for him)
 * Has True Seeing like all horned devils, Dispalcement won't help. Inflicts a healing curse on critical hits... Using a warforged tank is a good idea. Else remove curse, or break enchant to remove multiple curses at once.

The main tank should keep his back to the wall so he gets buffeted into the south wall (where there are no spikes)... This lets him get back down and re-establish aggro faster, other on the back may get shot off far buts there's no priority for them to get back like the tank.

Assign at least 3 people to kill the fire elementals - these do not respawn and can deal some heavy damage to your party so eliminate them ASAP. The hellhounds do respawn (re-summoned by the Judge), but slowly, so assign 1 or 2 people to take care of them (can be flesh'd to stone or just killed).

Once the Jailer goes down, apply the same strategy to the Judge. Keep him facing the wall so only the tank gets the curse/damage.

Phase 2 - The Shadowmaster and his Fiends: This can often be the hardest part of the raid and it requires some strategy to beat. How it works: The Shadowmaster sits at his throne - and should be fought there. He himself isn't very hard, but has a fair amount of hit points making it a long fight. About 6 seconds after he activates, his shadowfiends come out to slaughter the party - and if they get close, you will be slaughtered. They deal 180-300 cold damage, it's an aura effect that will hit everyone around soon as they get close - they need not attack you, soon as they are close you will get hit.

Basic Notes on the Shadowmaster: DR15/Good + Silver, higher on hard/elite. Standard pitfiend abilities: Poisons/Disease attacks. Casts Meteor Swarm and Horrid Wilting. Has a permanent Ice shield effect. Buff appropriately (Fire, Ice resistance all around). Overall not a particularly tough boss, but still enough of a challenge to require most of your group up there and un-headed by the fiends.

So the objective is to keep them off the main DPS group fighting the shadowmaster. This can be done by a single person - but it's safer to have a backup in case he goes down. This party member should A): Self heal decently, B):Run fast - haste is enough to pull it off - they run at the exact same speed as a hasted character, but Barbarian/Monk speed and Sprint Boots can be helpful to keep them outpaced, and have a reliable ranged attack to get aggro fast (The Shadowfiends have about 41AC, so +40 attack ranged attack works well - my 20 dex Barbarian had this with bard buffs at lvl20) Also Firewall is very effective for picking up the aggro, as it's guaranteed no save damage. Firewall has the added benefit of automatically picking up aggro as opposed to arrows. Only one firewall kept going at the base of the stairs leading to the throne will effectively aggro every shadowfiend onto the kiter.

At first 2 shadowfiends come out of the 2 doors nearest to the shadowmaster. A caster can place firewalls near the steps leading to the throne to prevent any from reach the party, or anyone with ranged can stay back and throw/shoot at them as they come. Kite these 2 around the pillars for a while, and eventually they will disappear - but it's not safe yet. Soon after, the 6 blue barriers in the room will lower, giving the shadowfiends more ways to get into the room. 2 more will appear together, then 1 more every nearly 10 seconds, which will come out of a random doorway, though generally the one closest to the party. There doesn't seem to be a limit on them, at once time I successfully kited 14 of them at once. Note: Mages often make the mistake of laying down fire walls everywhere, slowing themselves down, and potentially dying, this is unnecessary, keeping a firewall going at the base of the stairs, will, as mentioned above, keep them chasing you, the kiter.

Pick them all up and keep them off the party long enough to take down the boss to ensure victory.

Phase 3 - General Horoth and his righthand Suulomades This is a pretty simple straight up tank and spank fight. With a couple tricks thrown in to mix it up. Really depends heavily on your tank and healers. A high hit point tank will be the most reliable here, as a lower-hp AC tank will still take significant damage due to the no-resist damage over time effects he applies to you, and the 500+ point Disintegrates he likes to cast. A tank with over 600 HP has a chance to survive them even if he rolls a 1, while a lower HP, AC oriented tank does not. Luckily they are quite rare and not a high DC, so for a good tank only a roll of 1 will cause the heavy damage. But really either will high AC or high HP tanks will work well, the most important thing is that they hold the aggro well. The cleric capstone - Divine Intervention can help allot here, as even if your tank gets disintegrated, he will live and Horoth will not gain a big heal. Aggro will still be lost unfortunately (it allows you to get incapped), so having a backup tank is a good idea. Basic notes on the 2 bosses:

Horoth: Attacks with melee and spells. Does standard pitfiend things (poison and disease) on attacks. Casts Meteor Swarm and Greater Shout often. Sometimes Power Word: Stun and Sunburst. Have a tank with appropriate defenses and buffs (resist fire, lightning, sonic and good saves buffs like Magic Circle Against Evil, Prayer and/or Recitation) In additional to his heavy melee and spell damage, he can apply up to 3 100% irresistible damage over time debuffs. They can't be removed in anyways so you just need to heal through the damage. One of only does a small amount of damage, but if you get hit by at all 3 you'll need rather heavy healing.. So no matter how good your tanks saves/DR/HP/AC/etc is, he will need some amount of healing.

Suulomades: Does quite a bit less melee damage than Horoth but is still a serious threat for a few reasons: Casts fairly powerful Chain Lightning, hitting everyone nearby. On critical hits (can be quite often) he inflicts a healing curse, this prevents any type of positive energy healing, but not repair/reconstruct. As such a warforged tank and an arcane with Reconstruct spell to keep him going works quite well.

Defenses of both bosses:
 * High saves. Evasion on elite. DR15/Good + Silver on normal, DR scales up to as much as 20-80 on hard/elite. Bring appropriate weapons.

The tricks: Horoth can banish you back to Ebberon. (Note: if you get banished, you may still come back in for completion credit and end-reward, but can't get the chests) It has a will save of about 30 on normal. You don't want this to happen to your melee's, so make sure that at least most of them have the boots of anchoring before you start the raid. Casters/Healers and anyone who will be staying far enough back can rely on the Mantle of the Worldshaper, as it's a superior item for the first 5 banishs (absorbs both the stun and banish, 1 charge per)

The boots make you immune to haste, lowering your DPS. However you can fix this: Horoth's Banishment is easy to identify and he seems to have at least a 1 minute cooldown on casting it.. So you are safe to take your boots off immediately after a banish attempt to get a haste.

How to identify it: It looks like horrid wilting but a bit more purple, and is called Blasphemy. It will always be cast only on the person with aggro, but it is a massive AOE - that covers nearly the full length of the room (but not quite). The stun portion has a smaller AOE, about the maximum standard healing length.. So healers will generally be stunned, but anyone doing ranged DPS from a long distance is safe from it, but anyone melee'ing or healing generally is not.

You may see this text over your head or in your combat log. And in addition to the banish, it's also a AOE stun (no save on the stun portion) - so if you suddenly see someone stunned - you know it just happened, and they either saved against the banish or had boots on. You can still get stunned with boots on,as it is a separate save roll.

If anyone dies, Horoth heals immensely, about 20-25% per death... Do not die.

Orthons: 3 portals will spawn, about 20 seconds apart.. Each will have 2 orthons that come out of them, and they will respawn every 30 seconds after dieing. They aren't too much of a threat, but will interfere with your efforts if not taken care of. They have the crucible of Shavarath, so you can't vorpal or instakill them, however they are not red named... So casters may take them out fast with a quick Energy Drain + Flesh to Stone. However these orthons serve the tower at all cost, and will suicide after 1-2 minuets of being stoned, then respawn. So flesh to stone is still effective for stopping them for a bit, but not 100% reliable. Ideally assign at least 2 people to take care of them, 2 casters works well, or 1 caster + 1 melee.

Portals: The portals can be killed, but will respawn rather fast and not slow down the orthon spawn. So there is little purpose to do so unless your going for the optional chest.

Suulomades: Once Horoth reach's about 60%, Suulomades will jump down to aid him. He is quite a tough boss and takes a large effort to kill him - he has about as many hit points as Horoth - however he is optional and thus sometimes not worth killing if your group does not quite have the power to do so. So having 1 good tank kite him around or shield block while the rest of the group focuses on Horoth works. He will teleport away once horoth dies.

Bonus Chest: It is possible to get 2nd chest depending on if you kill suulomades or not in the last part. Killing him on normal will guaranteed a bonus chest. This chest may drop +4 tomes as of the latest update, so it's well worth it.

As of Update 7, a bug that caused Suulomades chest not appearing on hard/elite difficulty has been fixed.

Strategy on killing Suulomades: Suulomades inflicts a curse that prevents healing every time he scores a critical hit, and that's often as his threat seems fairly high (and there's no way to prevent it other then shield blocking) so having a warforged tank with a arcane reconstructing him can make this much easier. I recommend pulling him off to the right between the thrones, there's an area you can stick him where he will not turn, thus all the DPS can switch off Horoth and get on him. Take him down asap then head back to Horoth. 

Video Walkthrough:

Spyderwolf's Youtube Video Quest Walkthrough Part 1

Spyderwolf's Youtube Video Quest Walkthrough Part 2

Spyderwolf's Youtube Video Quest Walkthrough Part 3

Spyderwolf's Youtube Video Quest Walkthrough Part 4


 * chest=Up to 5
 * 2 after Jailor/Judge
 * 1 after Shadowmaster
 * can drop various named belts/necklaces found in flagging quests
 * 1 after Horoth
 * can drop various named rings (and bound +4 stat tomes) as "raid loot"
 * Shavarath Trophy of War (Bound to Account, 1/1d2/1d3 for normal/hard/elite), can be traded within chest UI.
 * 1 if you kill Suloomades
 * can drop +4 Bound to Character Tomes
 * unique=yes

}}
 * npcreward=
 * Standard, level 18 weapons may appear in the list
 * Special 20th completion reward: list of 10 items - may include + 4 tomes
 * unique=yes
 * monsters=
 * Orthon, Bezekira, Barbazu, Tiefling
 * Jailor, Judge, Fire Elementals and Hellhounds
 * Shadowmaster and Shadowfiends
 * Horoth, Sullomades, Orthons and Portals