Diablo 4: Ruins of Qara Yisu Stronghold Guide

Strongholds are one of the more challenging pieces of content you can encounter as you explore Diablo 4, but you’ll want to complete as many of them as you can since they unlock side dungeons. The Ruins of Qara Yisu is one such Stronghold, and if you’re playing a Sorcerer, you’ll want to complete it sooner than later, thanks to the buff the beating the dungeon provides. In this guide, we’ll cover everything you need to do to complete the Diablo 4 Qara Yisu Stronghold.

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Diablo 4 Ruins of Qara Yisu Stronghold Walkthrough

Your objectives in the Ruins of Qara Yisu are:

• Destroy three Infernal Spires scattered around the Stronghold.
• Defeat the boss, a large demon shaman named Utuluku, the Voice Below, at the center of the area.

You’ll want to be at least level 35 to have a proper challenge when taking on the Stronghold, as it’s located in the Act III area, the Dry Steppes. If you’ve reached that point, all enemies in the ruins will be two levels higher than you are. If you’re below 35, the enemies are locked to that power floor.

The three Infernal Spires are all within close proximity of one another, with one on the path leading from the northern entrance, another close to the health fountain near the central boss arena, and the third in the area leading from the southern entrance. Don’t expect them to be unguarded, however.

As you attempt to destroy the Spire, three progressively harder waves of enemies will spawn. It starts with trash mobs and small exploding enemies. Next, there will be more mobs and a lower-difficulty Elite enemy with random modifiers. The final wave includes an Elite Pit Beast, and if you’re at all undergeared, expect them to kill you in two or three swings of their cleaver like they did me.

Use every damage mitigation skill you have and try to burn down everything quickly. Once everything’s dead, the Infernal Spire is essentially defenseless, though it can create an AoE that staggers you and pushes you back a bit if you get too close.

Destroying all three Spires unlocked the boss, and he’s a doozy.

How to Defeat Utulku, The Voice Below in Diablo 4

The Diablo 4 Utulku boss fight has three phases, and all of them are pretty similar, though the fight gets a bit more complex with each phase. He has five health ticks on his bar, and the phase transitions happen at two and three sections depleted.

Utulku will continually summon mobs throughout the fight, though thankfully, none of them are Elite spawns. They come in waves of five-to-seven enemies, and he summons them fairly often, so you’ll need to do some clearing to not be overwhelmed.

As for the boss himself, beyond summoning, Utulku only has two attacks:

• Triple energy burst: Utulku sends out three small red energy blasts that move slowly and don’t deal much damage but can be dangerous if you’re low on health or take all three up close.
• Summon lighting: Here, Utulku calls down red lighting on your location, leaving a temporary pool of energy on the ground that deals damage over time if you stand in it. This attack changes as the fight phases progress. In phase one, there is only one lightning bolt, phase two has three, and phase three has five. Five lightning pools is enough to fill about a third to half of the arena, so you’ll need to move carefully to avoid them.

Utulku has a good-sized health pool, but no more than other non-story bosses you’ve fought to this point. Playing as a Frost Sorcerer I was able to burn a single health chunk in only a few attacks, and I imagine a better-geared Rogue or Barbarian could do it even faster, despite the recent nerfs. Stay on the move and keep the arena clear of additional enemies and Utulku should go down without much resistance.

After you clear the boss and light the activate the Wanderer Shrine, you’ll have officially beat the Ruins of Qara Yisu Stronghold and unlocked both the Palid Delve Rogue-centric Side Dungeon and the Pallid Delve Sorcerer Dungeon. I recommend doing them both regardless of which character you’re on, if only for the experience and loot.

That’s all you need to know about how to clear Diablo 4‘s Ruins of Qara Yisu. If you’re looking for more content from us on Diablo 4, we’ve covered plenty of other topics, including our guide to the Onyx Watchtower Stronghold, what Legion events are, and more in our D4 guides hub.