UNBOUND

Unbound is a side quest that requires the Warden to find some missing notes in order to uncover an ancient mystery.

Note: After defeating the boss, the Dirty Back Alley will disappear from the Denerim Map. The area will then be inaccessible permanently. It is highly recommended to complete the quests Back Alley Justice, Blood of Warning, and Notices of Death prior to initiating Unbound.

Walkthrough

Unbound is a side quest that requires the Warden to find some missing notes in order to uncover an ancient mystery.

Note: After defeating the boss, the Dirty Back Alley will disappear from the Denerim Map. The area will then be inaccessible permanently. It is highly recommended to complete the quests Back Alley Justice, Blood of Warning, and Notices of Death prior to initiating Unbound.

In order to obtain this quest you need to do three things (in no particular order):

Get the letter off the dead adventurer's corpse located down the first hallway on the left (Ruined Temple Map, L1) after entering the Ruined Temple (the ruin is accessible during or after The Urn of Sacred Ashes questline).

Afterwards head to the Lower Ruins in the Brecilian Forest and acquire the journal found in a bone pile of presumably another adventurer (Brecilian Forest Lower Ruins Map, L6). The journal is located just south of the large "fire trap" room of the Lower Ruins.

Go to Tapster's Tavern in the Commons of Orzammar (Orzammar Commons Map, L TT & L7) and talk to the nervous adventurer skulking in the northwest corner. After some dialogue, he will give the Warden a set of notes.

Once all three are completed, travel to the Dirty Back Alley (Denerim Alley Maps, L8) in southeastern Denerim.

Note: Save your game before entering the door. There is no auto-save once inside and it's a tough fight.

Interact with the door to a Quaint Hovel which is the home of Vilhm Madon and ask about Gaxkang to initiate dialogue and a difficult battle.

Gaxkang Strategy

General Information

Gaxkang is a level 20 elite boss who possesses the unique ability to switch between a warrior form (Revenant) and a spellcaster form (Arcane Horror), each possessing different abilities. He starts the fight as an Arcane Horror, then changes form at or below 80%, 60%, 40%, 30%, and finally 15% health.

He shares similarities with Revenants encountered in Brecilian Forest that is not immune to nature damage but resistant to fire.

Statistics

Abilities

Passive Traits

Revenant Abilities

  • Aura of Weakness

  • Double Strike

  • Pull

  • Shield Wall

  • Shield Defense

Arcane Horror Abilities

  • Affliction Hex

  • Cone of Cold

  • Curse of Mortality

  • Drain

  • Spirit Blast

  • Dispel Magic

  • Anti-Magic Burst

  • Drain Life

  • Horror

  • Inferno

  • Miasma

  • Mind Blast

  • Walking Bomb

  • Weakness

  • Winter's Grasp

  • Misdirection Hex

Strategy

Note: Save your game before entering the door. There is no auto-save once inside and it's a tough fight.

  • Generally speaking, his Arcane Horror form is much more dangerous than Revenant one. Fortunately, most of his spells can be countered by spell resistance: warriors can easily achieve 100% spell resistance via Knight Commander's Plate and The Spellward amulet, while rogues and mages can only do so with dual-wields and numbers of Dweomer runes.

  • Note that even if the character grants 100% spell resistance, two of his attacks - Spirit Blast and Drain - will ignore spell resistance, bypass Anti-Magic Ward and Glyph of Neutralization, and can cause heavy spirit damage. Spirit Blast is essentially his ranged basic attack (which cannot miss), so it comes out constantly (no cooldown) and fairly fast. It does spirit damage equal to his Spellpower divided by 3.5 (about 28 damage by default). He starts using Drain after having taken damage. Drain does 25 spirit damage to everyone within a 10-meter radius. For every character hit by Drain, Gaxkang regains 30 health (1.5 times his level). This is not considered a "spell", so it is not blocked by Anti-Magic Ward or Glyph of Neutralization. Oftentimes, he will use Drain repeatedly in quick succession until his health is back to full, only to resume the next time he takes damage. It is best to deal damage to him as quickly as possible to force him to change to Revenant form.

  • What makes this fight trickier than fights against other Revenants or Arcane Horrors is the fact that the space allowed for the fight is very limited. Strategies like "kiting" or "staying far away" or "running around a pillar" will not work. If the Revenant decides to go for your mage, they will not be able to get away as easily. He is constantly surrounded by Miasma (it is not "toggled off" when he changes to Revenant form), which covers nearly the entire area, in addition to the usual Aura of Weakness. Characters affected by both auras will have their movement speed slowed to a crawl. This means threat management will play a more significant role here. The same can be said about support spells, including healing spells, Glyph of Warding, and Heroic Defense.

  • Characters using non-staff weapons may find it difficult to inflict sufficient damage on him. It is due to the fact that he has fairly high defense, high armor (in Revenant form), and most of the time your characters will be affected by Aura of Weakness and Miasma at the same time. Spells/talents like Heroic Offense, Dueling and Perfect Striking will help against his high defense, while issue on armor penetration can be solved by Telekinetic Weapons.

  • One of the easiest method of taking down Gaxkang is by Mana Clash: any caster with high enough spellpower and Vulnerability Hex may even be able to one-shot him on nightmare. It is not always reliable, however. As both an Arcane Horror and an elite-boss rank enemy, Gaxkang has about 40 spell resistance on Nightmare, making the Mana Clash approach a risky bet. However, after the Mana Clash he is effectively neutered unable to do anything in his Arcane Horror form besides basic attacks.

  • Paralyze Runes might prove very handy if you have at least two fighters in the party. Even better if at least one of them is a dual-wielding fighter.

Result

Upon defeat, Gaxkang will drop the Keening Blade and several other items. There is a slight chance he will drop a Fade Wall shield and up to 5 gold on his corpse. In addition, the Warden can find about 10 gold and the Elementalist's Grasp in the chest situated in the back room.

After defeating Gaxkang, the Dirty Back Alley will disappear from the Denerim Map. The area will then be inaccessible permanently. It is highly recommended to complete the quests Back Alley Justice, Blood of Warning, and Notices of Death prior to initiating Unbound.

Note: The quest will not complete until the Warden loots Gaxkang. If the Warden kills Gaxkang and leaves the Dirty Back Alley without looting him, the area can only be reentered after completing the three aforementioned quests.