When it comes to lengthy quests in Dragon Age: The Veilguard, none are longer than The Heart of Corruption, a quest that will span the majority of the first two Acts of the adventure. While you can unlock the quest as soon as you reach The Crossroads, you’ll have to travel all across Northern Thedas and defeat the highest level enemy in the game! Keep reading to learn how to open the door and defeat the boss that waits inside.

Table of Contents¶

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The Heart of Corruption Quest Location¶

As mentioned above, you can actually unlock this quest very early in the adventure, as soon as you reach The Crossroads for the very first time. You’ll find yourself on Beacon Island and if you check in the corner of this very island, you’ll find a locked door with three holes in it. If you take a look at your map, you’ll find three objectives in this area, but the fact of the matter is, you won’t be able to progress this for a very long time.

The goal of the quest is to travel throughout Northern Thedas and defeat Champions that will drop their Essence. With this, you can take them to various gates in The Crossroads to unlock new areas, three of which will lead to battles against extremely tough Revenants that range from Level 32 - 42. Just like the Champions, they too will drop an Essence and you need all three of these to open the gate ahead where you can challenge a final, Level 50, Revenant to complete the quest.

Clear the Blight from the Island - Gate Champions¶

The first objective is to head around discovering the locked Gates in The Crossroads, and then taking out its respective Champion. For the sake of the Heart of Corruption quest, you’re looking for three specific Gates and Champions to lead you to the Revenants you need to defeat. The table below will tell you where the Gate is, when the Champion is available, and what Level it is.

Defeat the Revenants¶

Once you have the respective Essences, take them to their gates and defeat their respective Revenants. It makes sense to defeat them in order of weakest to strongest, starting with Betrayal of Felassan who is Level 32.

Betrayal of Felassan Boss Strategy¶

Found when you head through the Gate of Deep Sorrows in the Converged City, this Level 32 Revenant Captain has a large shield with which it will use for both defense and offense. It’s weak to Necrotic but Resistant to Cold, so your choice of Companions should be quite obvious here (Emmrich and Lucanis) and you’ll want to have a way of Shredding both Armor and Barriers (the Besiege Rune is great for this).

You don’t have the largest of arenas for this battle, but you’ll still want to make use of dodge to get out of the way of most of its attacks. More importantly, that shield will block any damage from the front, so look to dodge behind it (while locked-on) to get some hits in. The Betrayal of Felassan is in fact much like the Warrior Class, it will use several shield swipes in its melee combos, can use the Warrior’s Kick Ability, and several unblockable Shield charges. The final attack is a good one to keep an eye for as it will leave him wide open should you dodge to the side of it.

Once you lower its Health to 80%, the Betrayal of Felassan will head below the Fade tear and begin to draw power. This will give it a full Barrier and you’ll need to quickly drain it before it does a room-wide attack that deals massive damage. Ignore everything else at this point, pop Besiege if you have it equipped and go to town on getting that Barrier down. If you’re successful, you’ll stun it for a brief period, giving you time to get a powerful assault on it.

The battle will remain this way throughout, with the Betrayal of Felassan retreating again at 40% to repeat the attack. You’ll also have to deal with Undead spawning in throughout, with Mages joining the party after the second time it gains a barrier. With that said, if you’re around the same Level as the Betrayal of Felassan, this isn’t an overly difficult fight once you learn to dodge (or Parry) its simple attack patterns. Once it’s defeated, grab the Essence and open the Unique Chest as your reward.

Slaughter of the Pillars Boss Strategy¶

The next Revenant you should look to take out is the Slaughter of the Pillars, a Level 37 boss found behind the Gate of Parched Hopes in Elvhenan’s Haven. At first glance, beyond its Level, the Slaughter of Pillars may seem like a very similar battle to the Betrayal of Felassan, and it is, for the most part, so if you’ve recently defeated that Revenant, you’ll know what to expect from its attacks. Once again, bring Lucanis and Emmrich with you to exploit its weakness to Necrotic damage.

The one big difference, however, is the battle arena itself, you’ll have very little room to maneuver in and once the boss starts summoning adds in the form of Undead Warriors and Mages, you’re going to really feel that. The Slaughter of the Pillars also has one other key difference too, it has the ability to strike in a line that will leave a wall of Blight behind, coming into contact with that will damage you and it will persist over a period of time, making a small battle arena even smaller.

Once again, the Slaughter of the Pillars will retreat and gain a Barrier while it prepares for a deadly attack. Pop Besiege and unleash everything you have on it to prevent it from using it, than resume your assault. Once it’s defeated, grab the next Essence and open the nearby Unique Chest as your reward.

Fall of the Protector Boss Strategy¶

The final Revenant, the Fall of the Protector will be the most challenging of the three and plays out differently to the other two you have already defeated. This is a Level 42 boss found behind the Gate of Pale of Reflections in the Heights of Athim area. You won’t actually be challenged by the Revenant to begin with, instead, you’ll need to defeat the Undead Horde by killing the constant spawning Undead until the gauge is depleted.

Once you’ve swept the Undead aside, the Fall of the Protector will challenge you directly and you’ll find that this one is weak to Cold but resistant to Fire, that means you’re going to want Neve in the party and remove Davrin and Taash if they’re in the group. The Fall of the Protector will also have a Barrier by default, rather than Armor, so you may wish to pop Besiege at the start of the battle to try and shred that as quickly as possible.

Many of this Revenant’s attacks are magical-based, and it will shoot orbs of Ice at you constantly throughout the battle. It will also annoyingly teleport around the room at will, so be prepared to chase it around a fair bit. You’ll also be up against constant Undead spawning in throughout the battle, if you have a knockback, you can easily knock them off into the pit below to save yourself some trouble.

As always, the Revenant will retreat to the Fade Tear around the 60% Health remaining mark to power up for a damaging room-wide attack, focus your attention on it and break the Barrier to avoid it. This is also when the Fall of the Protector becomes it deadliest, as it will darken the screen, disabling your companions and make it tougher to dodge its magical based attacks, especially its Ice Beam that it likes to use at this point. Once it’s defeated, grab the final Essence and open the nearby Unique Chest as your reward.

Defeat the Revenant Dragon¶

Now that you have all three of the Revenant’s Essences, you can open the door back on Beacon Island, although you’ll need to have at least finished the Siege of Weisshaupt main quest first. This is also a good time to say that you should take the time to complete the Regrets of the Dread Wolf side quest as not only does it provide fantastic lore on the entire Dragon Age series, but you’ll get an important choice to make. Should you convince Mythal rather than battle her, you’ll gain her as an ally in the next battle, making it slightly easier.

The Revenant Dragon is a Level 50 High Dragon battle, so make sure you plan accordingly, being around Level 45 on Underdog difficulty is enough to make this doable. The Revenant Dragon is weak to Fire but resistant to Cold, so try to avoid bringing Neve along and look to Companions like Davrin and Taash. You’ll have a massive arena to fight this battle in, like most Dragon battles, and the first thing you’ll want to do is go around the arena bursting all of the Blight Boils.

By now, you should have already faced some High Dragons, such as the one from the Pinnacle of its Kind quest, and as such, know what to expect. At times, part of the Dragon’s body will glow, be it the legs or the head, this means a strike to those areas will deal Critical damage so make that a priority whenever you see it. You’ll also know that sticking in close to the Dragon’s legs and rolling when it goes to kick you is the best way to combat these challenging battles.

The Revenant Dragon will shoot blasts of Ice whenever you’re at a distance, wait until they get close and dodge to the side to avoid them. It will also use a sweeping Ice Beam, as it prepares it, dash toward the Dragon and go around the back of it to not only avoid the attack, but create an opening for an assault. The Revenant Dragon also has access to the Ground Slam attack that all Dragons have, look for it to rise into the sky and then run back as far as possible, it hits a large area underneath it.

At around 70% and 40%, the Revenant Dragon will cloud the arena in darkness, similar to the Fall of the Protector, and you’re going to be on your own for a bit until it subsides. Focus on defense here and keep your distance, only going in for an attack if an opportunity presents itself. At this point, it will switch to using Fire-based versions of its previous attacks, so it can be hard to fully cover yourself in resistances for this battle.

This may seem like a lengthy battle, but you’ll want to pay special attention to the Stagger gauge, as once you fill it, the Revenant Dragon will be toppled, giving you direct access to its heart. This is your time to go all out on it, depending on your build, you can deal some seriously massive damage. As a Rolling Thunder Warrior Slayer, our Charged Attacks were hitting for 9,999 damage!

Once the Dragon is finally defeated, the Caretaker will talk to you and the quest will come to an end. You’ll obtain massive gains in both Mourn Watch and Lords of Fortune Strength, some valuable Resources such as Dragonfire Catalysts. You’ll also be able to head through a new door to what may well be the final Unique Chest for the Crossroads containing The Last Resort Ring!