Tower of Despair

The Tower of Despair dominates the Devil Battlefield, acting both as a command center for Devil operations throughout Shavarath, and a potent symbol of Devil power and authority. {{Quest
 * adpack=The Devils of Shavarath
 * name=Tower of Despair
 * level=20
 * duration=very long
 * normal = 11700
 * hard = 12100
 * elite = 12500
 * loc=The Tower of Despair
 * npc=Uloth
 * zone=Amrath
 * patron=The Yugoloth
 * favor=8
 * loadingpic=Questloading TowerOfDespair.jpg
 * mappic=M tower of despair.png
 * maplegend=yes
 * flagging = A New Invasion, Bastion of Power, Genesis Point, & Sins of Attrition. Boots of Anchoring, Item:The Banhammer, OR Spell Absorption for end fight. Suggest visiting the ToD entrance to upgrade your Amrath portal (so it will teleport you directly to the raid entrance).
 * 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
To get this quest flag and be eligible for this raid, you have to complete 4 Devil Battlefield quests.
 * A New Invasion
 * Bastion of Power
 * Genesis Point
 * Sins of Attrition

Characters who are entering this raid for the first time may need to run their characters across the Devil Battlefield to the Tower Cave, the raid entrance. Since you cannot enter the Battlefield while in a raid party, it will be necessary to leave your group for the journey to the Tower Cave. A resourceful party member may also be able to teleport you there. A works here for example.

Once in the Tower Cave, speak to the Yugoloth scout there. He will add a second option to the Amrath portal, allowing you to teleport directly to the Tower Cave for future runs. Shavarath lava and circling blades for Jailor/Judge fight Craft the Boots of Anchoring (see the article for details, you will want them in the Tower of Despair Raid), and/or get the Mantle. The Banhammer from the Anniversary events also has Anchoring.
 * obj=
 * Watch the unfolding drama
 * Defeat The Jailer
 * Defeat the The Judge
 * Pull the lever to free Arraetrikos
 * Speak with Arraetrikos
 * Breach the tower gate
 * Ascend the tower
 * Defeat Nythirios
 * Defeat First General Horoth
 * (Optional) Defeat Suulomades:
 * expect=
 * Traps (fixed, undisarmable)
 * Points of no return
 * Overlapping floors
 * Spawning/respawning monsters
 * traps=
 * misc= How to become immune to the Banishment:

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 players should have the boots as a backup. Mantles don't work as well for melee, as Horoth's Meteor Swarm and Suulomades' Chain Lightning tend to drain it fast. A Pale Lavender Ioun Stone works even better, since it has 50 charges to the Mantle's five.

Walkthrough (By Shade):

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

Prelude:

Run in and hit the lever in the alcove to start it up. Doing so will close a gate behind your party and open another to continue, so at this point be sure your entire raid group is in and ready to go. You can buff during the introductory 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 on 1 at a time. The Jailer is easier so generally kill him first so there's less risk of anyone being lost in the fight. Dying places you and your soulstone inside an inescapable jail, so it should be avoided. The Judge is either kited around or shield blocked while The Jailer is being taken down. The Jailer is usually fought in the northwest corner out of the lava since it does decent damage. This corner also provides a safe place for the tank to put its back agianst the wall. Healers should stay on the lower as well, since a boss may teleport over to them and it takes too long for the melee to reach them if they are on the top level.
 * The Jailer - 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.
 * Has True Seeing ability
 * The Judge - Horned Devil:
 * DR15/Good + Silver (Be sure to bring appropriate weaponry for him)
 * Has True Seeing ability.
 * Inflicts a healing curse on critical hits, so using a Warforged tank is a good idea. Otherwise, remove curse or break enchantment (at a reasonable DC) to remove multiple curses at once will work. Any fleshy tank should also have a large stack of potions of curse removal.

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 melees on the Jailer's back may get buffeted further, but that is not as much of a concern as the tank staying close.

Assign however many people necessary to quickly kill the fire elementals, since they do not respawn and can deal some heavy damage to your party. The hellhounds do respawn (re-summoned by the Judge), but do so slowly, so assign 1 or 2 people to take care of them. They can be flesh to stoned 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 - Nythirios 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. Nythirios 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. Their auras deal 180-300 cold damage per tic, which will hit anyone near them.

Basic Notes on the Shadowmaster:

DR15/Good + Silver, higher on hard/elite. Standard pit fiend abilities: Poison/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 on the throne and away from the fiends.

The objective is to keep the Shadowfiends off of 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 and 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 Striding 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). Firewall is also very effective for getting aggro, as it's guaranteed, no save damage. Firewall has the 8 benefit of automatically picking up aggro, as opposed to arrows. A single 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 reaching 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. These fiends 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 one time I successfully kited 14 of them at once. Note: Mages often make the mistake of laying down firewalls everywhere, slowing themselves down and potentially dying. This is unnecessary, since keeping a firewall going at the base of the stairs will, as mentioned above, keep them chasing the kiter. Another option is to tank the Shadowfiends. Their auras only do damage as you move in and out of them. Because of this, someone standing still tanking all the shadows will take less damage than a kiter. One healer can be devoted to to this tank, although a self-healing shadow tank is ideal. (See for more info on shadow tanking)

Note: Shadowfiends will heal Nythirios if they are close enough.

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 right hand Suulomades

This is a pretty simple straight up tank and spank fight with a couple tricks thrown in to mix it up. The fight 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 a lot here. Even if your tank gets disintegrated, he will live and Horoth will not heal. Unfortunately, aggro will still be lost (since 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. Inflicts standard Pit Fiend poison and disease on attacks. Casts Meteor Swarm and Greater Shout often, and Power Word: Stun and Sunburst less frequently. 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 stacks of a 100% irresistible damage over time debuff. The effect can't be removed in any way, so you just need to heal through the damage. Only one stack does a small amount of damage, but if you get hit by all 3 stacks you'll need rather heavy healing. So, no matter how good your tank's saves/DR/HP/AC/etc is, it will likely 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 (which can be quite often) he inflicts a healing curse which prevents any type of positive energy healing, but not repair/reconstruct. For this reason, a Warforged tank who is kept up with Reconstruct can be a viable alternative to a fleshy tank.

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 Eberron. (Note: if you get banished, you may still come back in for completion credit and end-reward, but can't get the chests.) Horoth's banishment has a will save of about 30 on normal. You don't want this to happen to your melees, so make sure that at least most of them have the Boots of Anchoring or The Banhammer 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 banishes (absorbs both the stun and banish, 1 charge per hit).

The Anchoring effect also 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/hammer off immediately after a banish attempt to get a haste. (Of course, you could have hasted when buffing before the fight...)

How to identify Banishment: 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 and melees will generally be stunned, but anyone doing ranged DPS from a long distance is safe from it. There is no save on the stun portion and the boots do not prevent it.

To counter stuns, a Light Monk who continuously performs the Grasp the Earth Dragon anti-stun ability can keep everyone active.

Player deaths heal Horoth, about 20-25% per death. Do not die.

Orthons:

Three 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 dying. They aren't too much of a threat, but will interfere with your efforts if not taken care of. Despite the fact that they are not red-named, they have the crucible of Shavarath and so cannot be vorpalled or instakilled. So, casters may take them out fast with a quick Energy Drain + Flesh to Stone. However, these orthons serve the tower at all costs, and will suicide after 1-2 minutes of being stoned, then respawn. As a result, Flesh to Stone is effective only as a temporary form of crowd control. Ideally assign at least 2 people to take care of them. Two casters works well, or one caster plus one melee.

A poor man's way to hold an orthon includes a Light Monk's Tomb of Jade, where the weak-willed orthon needs two consecutive Will saves to break free. However, with a 1 minute cooldown, this works only if the orthons are frozen for close to a minute, and if there are at least two Light Monks in your party.

Portals:

The portals can be killed but will respawn quickly and not slow down the orthon spawns, so there is little purpose to do so unless you're going for the optional chest.

Suulomades:

Once Horoth reaches about 60% health, 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 sometimes not worth killing if your group does not quite have the power to do so. In that case a good tank can kite him around or shield block while the rest of the group focuses on Horoth. He will teleport away once Horoth dies.

Bonus Chest:

It is possible to get a second chest depending on if you kill Suulomades or not in the last part. Killing him on normal will guarantee 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 for killing Suulomades: Suulomades inflicts a curse that prevents healing every time he scores a critical hit, which is often as his threat seems fairly high (and there's no way to prevent it other than 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. 

External links
 * 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


 * aggression      = 42
 * onslaught       = 57
 * conquest        = 62
 * chest=5
 * 2 for killing the Judge and the Jailor (Horned Devil and Orthon)
 * 1 for killing the Shadowmaster
 * 1 optional at the end for killing Suulomades (Horned Devil)
 * can drop +4 or +5 Bound to Character Tomes
 * 1 at the end for killing Horoth (Pit Fiend)
 * can drop various named rings (and bound +4 stat tomes) as "raid loot"
 * can drop (Bound to Account, 1/1d2/1d3 for normal/hard/elite), can be traded within chest.
 * can drop
 * unique=yes
 * npcreward=

Named Monsters: }}
 * Standard, Choose from 10. ML18 items often. ML20 items rarely.
 * Special 20th completion reward: list of 10? rings from the below list - may include + 4 tomes (BtC)
 * unique=yes
 * monsters= Monster Information
 * Elite Barbazu Tower Guards
 * Elite Orthon Tower Guards
 * Fiendish Troglodyte Bloodblades
 * Fiendish Troglodyte Killshots
 * Fiendish Troglodyte Thaumaturges
 * Greater Bezekira
 * Searing Fire Elementals
 * Tiefling Chosen Archers
 * Tiefling Chosen Mages
 * Tiefling Chosen Priests
 * Tiefling Chosen Warriors
 * Horoth - Purple-named pit fiend; part 3 raid boss
 * The Jailer - Purple-named orthon; part 1 raid boss
 * The Judge - Purple-named horned devil; part 1 raid boss
 * Nythirios - Purple-named pit fiend; part 2 raid boss
 * Planar Gateways - Red-named inanimate objects
 * Shadowfiends - Red-named devil shadows
 * Suulomades - Purple-named horned devil; part 3 optional raid boss
 * Tiefling Chosen Prince - Orange-named tiefling
 * Unholy Hellhound Escort - Orange-named hellhounds