Breaching the Stygian Veil

Breaching the Stygian Veil
Section	Domain of Anguish Quests
Campaign	Nightfall
Given by	Adept of Whispers in Stygian Veil (Domain of Anguish)
Followed by	Brood Wars
Type	Secondary quest  (Difficulty: Master)
Map(s)
(Click to enlarge)

Defeat the frontal defenses of the Stygian Veil.

Quest information

Objectives

• Defeat the approaching demon hordes.
• Destroy the Demon Underlords to release the magical bindings placed on the entrance to the spawning tunnels. 0...2 of 2 Demon Underlords remain.
• See Adept of Whispers for your reward.

Reward

• 10,000 Experience
• 500 Gold
• 500 Lightbringer Promotion Points

Walkthrough

During the first part of this quest, eighteen groups of six Stygians attack, organized into three sets of six groups. The first three groups attack once the quest is taken, and converge near the Adept of Whispers. Whenever a group is defeated, the next group in the set will attack. For group composition, see below; the most common foes will be Stygian Hungers, which make tanking ineffective due to using skills that bypass spell prevention, armor, and damage reduction.

Effective strategies include trapping, spiking, "Can't Touch This!", and Panic to avoid damage or increasing the tank's maximum health with skills such as Signet of Stamina. Traditional tanking is effective against other monsters in the area. Alternatively, each group can be individually pulled, and it is easiest to take on one set of group at a time as each set of groups, if encountered before they converge at the Adept of Whispers, are far from the other two and do not spawn the other sets.

For inexperienced teams it's worth noting that a Blinding Flash air elemantalist equipped with Extend Conditions can completely negate physical damages, and can easily keep crowds both crippled and blind when using "You Move Like A Dwarf!" simultaneously with Blinding Flash (since it has no cast time). This can help inexperienced groups to get through this area until they become more confident and switch to more offensive builds. In conjunction with Extend Conditions, a source of Deep Wound could be considered. An intermediate step for groups could then be to force crowds to stick with the tank by using Shared Burden since the AI prefers to target the nearest target when subject to movement impeding skills.

After all the waves have been defeated, your party must defeat the two Stygian Underlords; the first is located at the far end of the southwestern hill while the second is located at the far end of the northern hill. The southwestern hill is fairly straightforward, merely requiring careful pulling to prevent being overwhelmed. The northern hill has numerous popups that can easily overpower the party if they do not trigger them slowly. Most monsters on the hills can be individually pulled. The Underlords themselves are similar in power to the regular Stygians.

Wave composition

Wave	Northeast	Southeast	Southwest
1	5xHunger	5xHunger	5xHunger
2	5xBrute	5xHorror	5xHunger
3	5xGolem	5xFiend	5xBrute
4	5xHunger	5xGolem	5xFiend
5	5xHunger	5xHunger	5xHunger
6	1xBrute 1xHorror 1xFiend 2xHunger 1xGolem	1xBrute 1xHorror 1xFiend 2xHunger 1xGolem	1xBrute 1xHorror 1xFiend 2xHunger 1xGolem

NPCs

Foes

Demons (Stygians)

• 28 (30) Stygian Brute
• 28 (30) Stygian Horror
• 28 (30) Stygian Fiend
• 26 (30) Stygian Underlord
• 28 (30) Stygian Hunger
• 28 (30) Stygian Golem
• 26 (30) Stygian Underlord

Demons (Torment creatures)

• 28 (30) Water Tormentor
• 24 (26) Torment Claw

Dialogue

Initial dialogue

Adept of Whispers

"If we are to defeat the Dreadspawn Maw, we must fight our way through her children. Some will be fully-formed demons, but many of her spawn will only be half-formed and not yet have their full strength. One thing you can be certain of...the Maw's demonic forces will be near boundless. Will you help me fight past the demonic hordes?"

 Accept: "Sure. How hard can a near infinite number of demons be?"

 Decline: "I...uh...just remembered.... I have a thing at that place."

 Ask: "We must destroy the demonic forces guarding the Stygian Veil."

Reward dialogue

Adept of Whispers

"Now that we have weakened the Dreadspawn Maw's demonic forces, we must proceed into the spawning tunnels and destroy the Stygian Lords. Speak to me again when your ready."