Dragon Age: The Veilguard – How to Open the Gate of Pale Reflections

One of the earliest quests you’ll get in Dragon Age: The Veilguard is “Heart of Corruption,” but it’s one of the last ones you’ll complete. Finishing this quest demands that you fight a total of four powerful, high-level bosses, the last of which is level 50.

The Gate of Pale Reflections opens the way to the third of the four bosses, at least in terms of enemy level. You can fight the three lesser bosses in any order, and both the second and third gate champions are in the same area. If you want to open either of these Dragon Age: The Veilguard gates, you’ll need to visit the Hossberg Wetlands.

How to Beat Amarell the Unwoven

The champion of the Gate of Pale Reflections is in the Solitude’s Edge region of Hossberg. Its cyst is in the southwest, behind Gaspin Manor. You’ll need to start the story quest “Something Wrong” to get access to this corner of the map, but you don’t need to complete it.

Amarell’s moves share a lot in common with other gate champions, but it has a few attacks that are uniquely its own. It’s a level 35 monster, and it’s vulnerable to fire but resistant to necrotic damage. It has the following attacks and traits:

• A blight barrier. Use charged attacks to destroy it quickly.
• A short-range melee combo
• A line attack that hits straight ahead
• A charge attack
• An erupting attack that targets Rook’s location six to eight times
• A blinding ability that removes every ally and enemy from the fight, aside from Rook and Amarell
• A leaping attack that hits an area around where it lands
• A stone throw that often spawns two ghouls where each stone lands
• A passive nova that deals damage to everyone around it every ten seconds or so
• Several attacks also cause Necrosis, which deals a serious amount of necrotic damage to you for several seconds.
• Amarell has no Stagger bar

Considering Amarell’s weakness, Taash and Davrin are good choices to bring along. However, you should also make a point of bringing someone who can heal Rook, since this fight can go on for a while and there aren’t many healing jars in the swamp.

Your best defense against Amarell is the giant rock in the middle of the swamp. It’s big enough to block its melee, charge, and line attacks, and it usually doesn’t climb on top of it unless you stand on the rock yourself. Between that and the constant explosions, it’s a good idea to stay at range during this fight. After you beat Amarell, take a moment to check the rock where its cyst was. You’ll find a Timelost Hoards chest with a unique item inside.

How to Beat Fall of the Protector

The Gate of Pale Reflections is in the Heights of Athim area of the Crossroads. It’s at the end of the zipline that leads down around the side of the main structure. Like with the other Heart of Corruption bosses, the Caretaker will appear before you enter the boss chamber to warn you about the fight ahead. Unlike the other two bosses, there’s nothing to pick up and no one to fight before you reach the boss’s chamber.

The fight against Fall of the Protector actually starts with a fight against the Undead Horde. Several Superior Frenzied Dead will appear, along with a few Superior Undead Warriors. Defeat 14 of them, and the rest will collapse. Instead, Fall of the Protector will teleport onto the battlefield and face you directly.

Fall of the Protector is a level 42 boss that’s vulnerable to cold and resistant to fire. While the first two Corruption bosses are spear-and-shield warriors, Fall is a mage-type enemy who attacks from range. On the one hand, this means that all your attacks will land since he can’t block them with his shield. On the other hand, Fall is more powerful and doesn’t care where you are on the battlefield. Here’s his starting move set:

• A teleportation that damages a small area around the location where he teleports
• An ice missile attack that fires two projectiles straight at you, then a fan of seven projectiles
• A meteor swarm that hits six randomly placed small areas and one big area centered on its target

Once you take down his barrier and around two-fifths of his health, Fall of the Protector will teleport to the Fade tear and start drawing power from it. He also regains a full barrier bar. If you don’t break through that barrier by the time he finishes charging, he’ll explode and damage Rook no matter where you are in the arena. If you do break his barrier, you’ll get several seconds you can use to pound him unopposed.

Unfortunately, this second phase also makes the boss fight harder. First, Fall summons in three Superior Armored Undead. These defenders carry large shields that can block non-charged attacks, and they can harass you from a distance using their necrotic projectile attacks. They’re vulnerable to necrotic, and resistant to cold. Second, Fall gets two new attacks:

• A beam attack he can always aim at his target, which means you have to keep running until the attack ends. The windup for this attack can be hard to spot.
• A blinding ability that cuts the combatants down to Rook and Fall. The only way to end this ability seems to be to deal enough damage to Fall.

The best strategy for this phase is to use area abilities and your allies to deal with the Armored Undead, so you can keep your attention on Fall of the Protector. It’s especially important to keep up your attacks on him since he tends to regenerate his barrier if you leave him alone for too long. Another option is to focus on one Armored Undead at a time, but Fall’s beam and projectile attacks are hard to ignore.

Fortunately, Fall has no third phase and no reinforcements once you take down the Armored Undead. After you defeat him, be sure to read the note below where the Fade tear was, then head to the west end of the arena to pick up a Memento and a Timelost Hoard chest. There’s a lever by the gate here that will open a shortcut back to the rest of the Heights of Athim.

Defeating Fall of the Protector gets you 5 Etheric Remnants, 350 XP, +100 Mourn Watch Strength, and another essence needed to complete the “Heart of Corruption” quest.