The Heart of Corruption quest in Dragon Age Veilguard is one you’ll get early on when you first enter the Crossroads, with a door that requires three essences to open, but you won’t be able to get them all for a while. And not only that, but the challenge behind that door is most definitely a late-game challenge, capable of devastating Rook if they’re anything less than level 40 at the absolute bare minimum.
With that in mind, we’ve put together this walkthrough for what’s arguably the longest and most drawn-out quest in Dragon Age The Veilguard, with the Heart of Corruption comprising multiple high-level boss fights and a lot of wandering through the astral realm of the Fade. Still, if you’re ready to take the fight to the Blight directly, here’s our guide to The Veilguard side quest Heart of Corruption.
How to beat Heart of Corruption in Dragon Age Veilguard
To complete the Heart of Corruption side quest in Dragon Age Veilguard, you need to fulfil certain other quests and parameters. You cannot complete Heart of Corruption unless you also complete:
- The campaign and main story up until and after the Siege of Weisshaupt story quest (the one with the hands-on Dragon Age Veilguard First Warden choice)
- The Gate of Deep Sorrows side quest
- The Gate of Parched Hopes side quest
- The Gate of Pale Reflections side quest
You can get the Heart of Corruption quest before you encounter any of these elements, but you can’t complete it until they’re done. Behind each gate is a boss fight that’s part of the Heart of Corruption’s mandatory path, and the Gates only open when you slay certain bosses around the game and collect their “Champion’s Essence”. Not only that, but those Gate bosses themselves aren’t accessible until you progress the campaign until the point where the areas of Thedas you find them in are unlocked.
Once you’ve unlocked them in their respective questlines, you need to pass through each one and defeat a powerful boss behind each gate. The weakest of these bosses is level 32 and the most powerful is level 42, so players will need to be in the mid-game at the very least. Still, we’ll go through them all now.
Betrayal of Felassan
The weakest of the three bosses you need to kill to unlock the seals for Heart of Corruption is the Betrayal of Felassan, a level 32 boss beyond the Gate of Deep Sorrows. Here’s some advice to help you bring it down:
- The Betrayal is weak to Necrotic damage and resistant to Cold. Bring Lucanis and Emmrich with you for the best chance, and leave Neve behind.
- The Betrayal’s tower shield protects it from damage head-on. You need to get behind it to do damage.
- The attack patterns that the Betrayal uses are highly-telegraphed and highly damaging. It’s easier to parry, but very punishing if you fail.
- Undead will periodically spawn in throughout this fight. They have low health, but can do meaningful damage if they hit you – try to pick them off quickly.
- When the Betrayal surrounds itself in a red bubble, it’s going to create an explosion. You can get through the barrier quickly and cancel the blast by using charged arrow shots.
Kill the Betrayal and you’ll be able to claim the Revenant Essence off its body, one of three essences needed to unlock the door and Heart of Corruption. There’s also a chest nearby with a unique item inside – it appears these items will change depending on your class, but every boss in this quest has one after it, so make sure you don’t leave them behind!
Slaughter of the Pillars
The Slaughter of the Pillars is another shield-and-spear wielder with the same attack patterns as the Betrayal of Felassan, so all the muscle memory you learned in that last fight will help you here too. However, the Slaughter, found behind the Gate of Parched hopes, is level 37, and there’s a few distinct nuances to keep in mind when you fight this tougher boss.
- The Slaughter shares the same weaknesses/resistances as the Betrayal: weak to Necrotic, resistant to Cold.
- The smaller arena plays to the advantages of the melee-focused boss – it’s hard to back away, especially if you’re drawn into an encounter on the throne/staircase area.
- However, the smaller arena does mean you can bring down a lot of his zombie summons with the same skills you strike him with. Bottleneck enemies when the opportunity arises.
- If the Slaughter summons a wall of red blight, keep a safe distance. Rook’s abilities have a tendency to throw them across the battlefield, so you risk launching yourself into the danger zone by accident.
Once the Slaughter of the Pillars is killed, grab the corrupted essence off its body, and get ready for the next fight being against a very different sort of foe.
Fall of the Protector
The final encounter – at least until the final boss – is the Fall of the Protector, a level 42 boss behind the Gate of Pale Reflections. This one is not a shield and spear user, a wholly different kind of boss, and certainly the most powerful of the three revenants so far. Here’s some help on beating it:
- The Fall is weak to Cold Damage and resistant to Fire. Bring Neve with you for the best effect, but not Taash or Davrin.
- Before the fight starts, you’ll have to clear out an Undead Horde to get the Fall’s attention. Summoned undead are a big thing in this fight, constantly spawning in. Have some AOE and battlefield-clearing abilities ready.
- The Fall focuses more on spells, projectiles, AOE attacks and teleportation. It will try to clear distance and hit you with magic attacks.
- Having your bow and ranged attacks maxed out in power will help you maintain offensive power even when the Fall is creating distance.
Defeat the Fall of the Protector and you’ll be able to get the final corrupted Revenant Essence, as well as another chest with a unique item!
How to open the Beacon Island Door in Heart of Corruption
Once you have all three essences, head back to the door. You can insert them individually as you collect them or all in one go (it really doesn’t matter), but either way, the Blight should recede and allow you to progress down the corridor beyond.
Be warned: not only is the final challenge going to be spoilt further down, but before you go further on, you should make sure you’re at least level 40 and ideally much higher, and have allies and powers that focus on Fire damage.
How to beat the Blighted Dragon boss fight
The final challenge of the Heart of Corruption side quest is a Blighted Dragon, also called a Revenant Dragon, a level 50 boss encounter that mirrors the dragon fight that Rook had in the wake of the Dragon Age Veilguard Minrathous or Treviso choice earlier in the campaign. Here’s our best advice on how to beat it:
- Bring fire attacks. As mentioned, the Blighted Dragon is weak to fire, and resistant to cold. Davrin and Taash are great allies here.
- Target the glowing legs. When certain limbs glow purple, hit them for massive stagger damage.
- Dodge, don’t parry the melee attacks. The dragon has very few parryable or blockable melee moves, and the little kicks it does at enemies around its fight have very little warning. Be ready to dodge at a moment’s notice – it’s all the warning you’ll have.
- But do parry its breath weapons. The necrotic skulls it exhales can be bounced back at it, and you’ll get decent warning. If you’re playing a build that gets a bonus from parrying, this is where you can trigger it.
- The tail is safer than the head. If you’ve got to be close, get behind the dragon. It has less attack options and will often waste time turning around to reach you.
- Save your most powerful attacks for the heart. When staggered, the dragon collapses to the ground, its heart glowing as a weak point. This is the best time to trigger your high-damage abilities, targeting that spot for massive damage.
Beat the dragon and the Heart of Corruption quest will finally be over, with a pool of rewards and currency, as well as one more unique item found in a chest at a little dead-end path at the opposite end of the arena.
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