Quick-Guide: Dark Glyphworks and Fighting Bel

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Sat May 16, 2020 6:12 pm  

The expansion to Descent into Avernus had a number of bugs on launch day, making this very confusing. Here is a mini-guide.

Getting Started
Start the new quest line by speaking to Alric in Vallenhas castle.
Investigate an area and kill devils until they drop a strange item, bring it back.
The item is similar to the Chain of Scales, which you can restore over time.
Talk to Makos.
Do 2 Ape HEs or similar to gain dark glyphwork energy.
Talk to Makos and a new person in the keep, Alyssa Misdani of the Order of Riftwardens.
You join the order and are given an item that collects energy. When it reaches 100%, you gain a rank in the organization. Ranks are needed to restore the restorable item you found.
Go to the glyphworks fireplace thing in the corner, interact with it, come back to Alyssa.

Note: You will have a one-time quest to get rewards for fighting Bel.

Now, you enter the cycle of the campaign!

Checking the Map

First, open the Map when in Vallenhas. Top-right you see a meter. It has 3 stages:
  1. Dark: Nothing is going on, can't do anything. A timer (sometimes buggy) should count down to the next Insurgencies event.
  2. Red: Insurgencies Active. The dark glyphworks in the corner inside the keep now works and you can interact with it. See portals, below.
  3. Red and glowing: Rage of Bel. Bel is angry and shows up. You can no longer do glyphworks/Insurgencies, but you can go to the area where Siege takes place and fight Bel. See Fighting Bel, below.

During the Insurgencies event window, you can interact with the glyphworks and end up on one of the chain islands you can see on your map. There, you fight waves of devils. Fighting them increases the charge on your "Confanonier's Adamantine Amulet," an item the Order gave you to charge up. When it is full, you get a new rank in the Order and they give you better rewards.

Charging your item has been fixed to trigger off of striking foes, not just killing them. Because of this, it is now easier to charge up your daily 20% and it can be done in one insurgency if you strike enough targets.

Fighting devils at an Insurgency will slowly complete the Insurgency. The Insurgency ends sometimes with a boss showing up, which should then be defeated. When the boss is defeated, or if no boss shows up, then a rift appears in the center of the map. Interact with it to close the rift. This ends that Insurgency. You can usually hop to other Insurgencies via the red portals until enough have been done that Bel comes and this stage ends.

It used to be hard to charge up your Amulet to 20%. Because of that, we didn't want to end insurgency phases and close the rifts or kill bosses too quickly. However, Cryptic fixed the way the amulets charge. You should now be able to reach your daily 20% Dark Glyphworks charge pretty easily in one insurgency, maybe two. Because the rift bosses drop the Battle Worn Metal Rod, and because closing a rift grants rewards and gets us another chance at a boss, we now want to finish insurgencies quickly.

The boss appears only before the rift is closed. If a rift shows up, it is safe to close it, and you should actually close it so everyone can move to another rift and have more chances at bosses and getting a Battle Worn Metal Rod.

Fighting Bel
When enough Insurgencies were defeated/closed, the map changes to the glowing Rage of Bel.

Now you can go to the place on the map where Siege takes place. It does not have to be taking place for you to do these steps. The map may show a "Bel's Emissary" and that's where you go, just West of where the Siege icon is.

You will find Bel's emissary there and whether you are in a party or not you can travel to fight Bel.

This can be hard to figure out the first few times, but here is how you fight Bel:

Phase 1: Fight
Simple. Fight Bel. Everyone unleashes on Bel until he loses an amount of health.

Phase 2: Catapults and Fire
Bel becomes immune and surrounds himself in energy. Two other things happen.

First, wherever anyone is standing will become a circle of fire. The circles last a fairly long time, and keep showing up. If everyone just moves around, the area is quickly filled in fire and everyone dies! Note that the circles overlap and the damage stacks. If you stand in a spot where several circles are active, you take a lot of damage very quickly.

Second, one player will have a blue circle over their head. That person is the catapult person, but does not have any ammo yet! They must go to the catapult ammo station (there are several) that glows blue. Only the glowing one is useful. Get ammo, and now you move slowly. You must move to the catapult and load it and fire it. You simply press the "F" key to interact with it when you get close to it (you don't have to go to the back of it) and it will both load and fire, ending this phase.

Meanwhile, the rest of the party should try to move together. This creates one circle instead of four circles of fire at a time. Even if you aren't perfect, the number of circles will be manageable if the catapult person is quick about it.

Note: The players who are not ammo/ball carriers can still tell which catapult is the blue catapult. It won't go blue, but it will also not say "CATAPULT" above it. All the other catapults will say that above them. So, if you see a catapult that doesn't have the title, you should stay away from it, as the ammo carrier needs to go to that one. Make sure you keep a path open from them to that catapult!

Phase 3: Fight, Bel Immune, Destroys a Catapult, Fight
This is like Phase 1, but at one point Bel starts talking about one less thing you get to use, and is immune. Hold your fire until he destroys a catapult.

The good news is that this makes it easier to know which catapult to use (since fewer choices to look at) and you have a larger area in which to wander creating fire pools.

You get a short time to fight Bel again after this.

You repeat phases 2 and 3, fighting Bel and doing the catapult trick. If everyone should die, you must then redo the event. You can wipe and restart.

Final Fight Phase:

When Bel gets low on health, you have to fight him while creating pools of fire. Bel moves around, so you will eventually get to fight in new spots.

If you are a melee DPS, try to equip some ranged powers. Also, keep moving and Bel will eventually move/teleport to a new spot. Ranged DPS has a clear advantage here, and this is another design issue.

When you finish the fight by besting Bel, you then go to the keep and get rewards, which vary by your Order rank. You can only empower 20% per day in the Insurgencies, so 5 days are required to get a new rank.

Once you do the event, you must wait for the next Insurgencies cycle to do it again.

Note: When you fight Bel the first time, return to Alysa and you get a nice set of rewards. I'm not clear what you get when you fight Bel in later times. I believe it is for Infernal Secrets. You also get some Rough AD, Refinement Points, and Seals of the Fallen.

The number of Infernal Secrets is apparently based on party size. You get 5 if you solo, 6 if you have 2 people in the party, 7 in a group of 3, 8 in a group of 4, and a full group of 5 earns 9 Infernal Secrets.

There is a cap on how many Infernal Secrets you get per day (50 per day? More with the daily quest?), and you have a cap of 150 you can store at a time.

Advancing the Forger's Box
The Dormant Forger's Box is given to you after the first quest that starts this expansion. It begins as green, and like the Chain of Scales in Chult, is a potion-try item that boosts stats and can be restored/advanced to mythic level. At mythic (Awakened Forger's Box) it always provides 2,800 Power, plus one of several stats. It is slightly stronger than the mythic Chain of Scales, so if you have that it isn't absolutely necessary. Because it always gives Power, most players will prefer the Forger's Box.

To advance/Restore the item, you need various drops. Players are still finding them.

  1. Dormant Forger's Box (+400 Power) = 30 Chaotic Writings, plus 1 Reinforced Metal Rod (drops from Avernus HEs, can be a low drop rate. It drops on the ground, so check the area carefully.)
  2. Glowing Forger's Box (Power + 800, Crit + 500) = 40 Chaotic Writings + Broken Metal Rod (drops from skill node. Any skill node can drop the rod. If you can open many nodes (20 or so) in 20 minutes, this may trigger no more refinement stones dropping, improving your drop chances for the rod. Recommendation is running the weekly Arcane Reservoir in Sharandar or finding zones with lots of skill nodes and few other people.You do not need to have a higher Order rank for this to drop).
  3. Burning Forger's Box (Power + 1200, one of Crit / Accuracy +750) = 50 Chaotic Writings + Balanced Metal Rod, which is in the store from NPC Alyssa Misdani in Vallenhas - must finish Marshal quest to buy.)
  4. Infused Forger's Box (Power +1600, one of Crit/Accuracy/CA +1k) = 60 Chaotic Writings + Battle Worn Metal Rod, confirmed to drop from Insurgency bosses, extremely low drop rate)
  5. Vibrating Forger's Box (Power +2k, one of Crit/Acc/CA +1250 or CritSev +2%) = ? Chaotic Writings + Infused Metal Rod (drops from Bel).
  6. Empowered Forger's Box (ower +2,400, one of Crit/Acc/CA +1500 or CritSev/AP +4%)= ? Chaotic Writings + Dented Metal Rod (found in Ornate Box of Vallenhas Treasures, requires completing Order of the Rift Wardens: Seneschal quest.")
  7. Awakened Forger's Box (Power +2800, one of Crit/Acc/CA +1750 or CritSev/AP/Rechrg +6%)= Final version!

Order of the Rift Wardens
You must complete a number of quests to climb the ranks of the organization. Each time, you charge up your "Confanonier's Adamantine Amulet" (an item in your keys tab) by fighting creatures in the Dark Glyphworks islands/rifts.

This has been fixed after launch, so even striking a creature should charge it up. You can charge a maximum of 20% per day. When you reach 100%, you can turn in the quest and take the next one.

Note: The quests also change your store. Initially you have a Small Box of Vallenhas Treasures and The Mini Daemon.

Quest 1: Under-Marshal. You gain the rank of Under-Marshal with an Under-Marshal's Adamantine Amulet and a Big Box of Vallenhas Treasures. The store is upgraded to now have the Big Box instead of the small box. The Mini Kulvastra is available in the store.
Quest 2: Marshal. You gain the rank of Marshal, with a Marshal's Adamantine Amulet and a Silvery Box of Vallenhas Treasures. The Mini Mangler is available in the store. The Balanced Metal Rod is available in the store.
Quest 3: Turcopolier. You gain the rank of Turcopolier, with a Turcopolier's Adamantine Amulet and a Golden Box of Vallenhas Treasures. The Mini Moshek is available in the store.
Quest 4: Seneschal. You gain the rank of Seneschal. The Mini Kugarn is available in the store.

Did I miss anything?
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Garla Shieldbreaker: Half-Orc Great Weapon Fighter
Zendra Soulseeker: Moon Elf Warlock
Jalazea Shieldborn: Tiefling Paladin
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