Welcome to the Icereach Coven Guide for veteran mode. The Icereach Dungeon is located in the Greymoor zone, the dungeon is part of the Harrowstorm DLC. In the Icereach Dungeon you will encounter a total of five bosses and a few trashpacks.
Story: The cruel and mysterious Icereach Coven prepare an ancient, unholy ritual from their island home, hidden within the Sea of Ghosts. Skyrim needs heroes to travel to this frigid rock and investigate a deadly storm of supernatural power that emanates from it.
Table of Contents:
Rewards & Loot
Sets in Icereach
There is a total of 3 different sets plus a Monster Set that drops in the Icereach Coven Dungeon.
- Light: Hiti's Hearth
- Medium: Titanborn Strength
- Heavy: Bani's Torment
- Monster Set: Mother Ciannait
Rewards from Icereach
- Outfit Style: Lyris’ Icereach Battle Axe
- Icereach Conqueror Achievement – Defeat Kjarg the Tuskscraper, Sister Skelga, Vearogh the Shambler, the Stormborn Revenant, and the Icereach Coven in Veteran Icereach.
- Title: Witch Hunter
- Cold-Blooded Killer – In Veteran Icereach, defeat the Icereach Coven after burning their sacred wicker totem.
- Title: Storm Foe
- No Rest for the Wicked Achievement – Defeat all encounters in addition to Kjarg the Tuskscraper, Sister Skelga, Vearogh the Shambler, the Stormborn Revenant, and the Icereach Coven after burning the witches’ wicker totem in Veteran Icereach within 30 minutes without suffering a group member death.
The Harrowstorm DLC comes with two dungeons: Unhallowed Grave and Icereach Coven.
- Emote: Wickerman Mishap
- Harrowstorm Explorer Achievement – Enter either Icereach or Unhallowed Grave for the first time.
- Dye: Frozen Blood
- Harrowstorm Delver Achievement – Complete both Icereach and Unhallowed Grave in Veteran.
Icereach Maps
Boss Fights
First Boss Kjarg the Tuskscraper
Boss Health: [HP: 11’278’112 Mio]
Kjarg the Tuskscraper is the first boss in the Icereach Dungeon, he has a lot of health so it might take a while to kill him. However, he is not very mobile which makes it easier to damage him. As long as he is not enraged he is not really dangerous at all. The tank has to make sure to face him away from the group and you should be fine.
A big Ice tornado will follow one of the players around, that player has to make sure to kite that tornado, it is pretty slow so it should not be hard to move away from it, just make sure to not run infront of the boss.
He will smash his hammer into the ground and ice cones will come out and deal damage if you stand in them. As long as the group stands behind him you aren’t going to take any damage. This is especially important when he is enraged and does this attack.
Ice Atronachs will spawn at the edge of the arena after some time and you have to make sure to kill them, if the Ice Atronachs are alive for too long they will go into a stationary mode and start shooting ice bolts at the group that deal a lot of damage.
Enrage
During the enrage phase (red glow) I recommend that the tank is kiting him around. If he is enraged he will be much slower than normal, therefore if you kite him around you are going to take zero damage. If you stand and facetank him, you will take A LOT of damage! Keep in mind he will still use his hammer to smash into the ground so you have to be careful of the AoEs.
Second Boss Sister Skelga
Boss Health: [HP: 4’811’999 Mio]
Sister Skelga is the second boss in the Icereach Dungeon. The most important mechanic is the fire AoE that you get below one of the group members. Make sure to not get close to the player that has the fire AoE, it will kill you in seconds. You can stand close to the boss to actually deal damage with the fire AoE and the tank should be able to soak up the damage.
There is once again ice cones that the boss will use, they are easy to avoid as long as you stand behind the boss. In case you are unsure, activate a shield or a heal to make sure you don’t get killed.
Sister Skelga will also teleport around quite a lot so you have to make sure to keep moving with her. If you have the fire AoE on you, make sure to NOT run into your group members, otherwise they will die!
From time to time Sister Skelga will use two dark beams to drain the tank, do not try to cleanse that effect, otherwise you will get extra damage.
Stranglers
The biggest problem apart from the ice AoEs are the stranglers that will appear. They have a frozen shield around them making them invulnerable to damage. The player with the fire AoE below him has to get close to the strangler to “unfreeze” the monster, once unfrozen you can kill the strangler. Make sure to kill the stranglers, they shoot ice bolts that deal quite a bit of damage and more will spawn if you are too slow killing the boss, that way you don’t get overrun.
Third Boss Vearogh the Shambler
Boss Health: [HP: 6’014’998 Mio]
Vearogh the Shambler is the third boss in the Icereach Dungeon, he is a Flesh Atronach that is controlled by the witches. From time to time you will also see Wraiths spawn that you have to kill.
Once again, the group should stand behind the boss, that way the tank can just soak up most of the damage done. There will be Skelets that connect to a player with a blue beam, make sure to kill them because they drain you.
Like always, there is fire AoEs from the boss that are going through the whole arena and they also bounce off the walls, you have to make sure to avoid them, they are fairly slow so it shouldn’t really be a problem.
Wraith
After a while Wraiths will spawn on the blue summoning fields, make sure to focus them so they die as fast as possible, they deal decent damage and also summon Skeletons.
Fourth Boss Stormborn Revenant
Boss Health: [HP: 6’014’998 Mio]
Stormborn Revenant is the fourth boss in the Icereach Dungeon. He has a mixture of ice and shock abilities that he will damage you with. Movement is key in this fight, as there will be a lot of enemy AoE damage (ice and shock AoE fields) that will pop up below you, so make sure to keep moving around to avoid the damage.
The boss has a powerful heavy attack thatt he will charge, the tank should dodge roll it if possible, blocking is also enough if you are at full health.
Storm Atronachs
Storm Atronachs will spawn on the edges, they have very low health so if you focus them they will die very fast. If you don’t kill them they will empower the boss after a while.
Ice Storm AoE Phase
The boss will stand in the middle and hold up his mighty sword and a ice storm will appear. People should stay close so the healer can focus healing on one spot, because there is a lot of overall damage that you will get hit with by the storm. If you are too spread out, you can also just use a self heal or a shield to survive.
Final Boss Mother Ciannait
Boss Health: [HP: 5’879’660 Mio]
The non hardmode is not that difficult in the Icereach Dungeon, non of the major difficult mechanics will appear. You have to stay mobile because there is a lot of AoE damage that will follow you like in the previous boss fights.
Mechanics that are always there during the fight:
- Ice AoE that will follow one player (Activated by Sister Gohlla)
- Fire AoE that will be below one player and deal a lot of damage to other group members (Applied by Sister Hiti)
- Shock AoE that will explode on the ground (Activated by Sister Maefyn)
You will only be able to attack one of the Witches at a time, that specific Witch without the shield around her will be enraged, so the tank has to make sure to keep her taunted, otherwise the enemy attacks will pretty much oneshot all non tanks.
Final Boss Hardmode – Mother Ciannait HM
Boss Health: [HP: 8x 1’353’375 Mio]
The hardmode of Mother Ciannait is quite hard and mayhem rules across the arena. There is so much happening, it is hard to keep track on everything. You have already seen most of the mechanics from previous bosses though, so it shouldn’t take you long to memorize them. But because there are so many mechanics going on at the same time, it is very easy to die within less than a second.
- You can only always attack ONE of the witches, the one that doesn’t have a bubble around her.
- There are mechanics that happen throughout the whole fight and there are mechanics that are only active when you are fighting a certain witch.
- The Witch that doesn’t have a shield will be enraged and her light attacks will oneshot anyone that isn’t the tank, so the tank has to make sure to keep the enraged Witch on taunt all the time
- Each Witch has a different mechanic that you have to take care of:
Sister Gohlla
Your fight always starts off with Sister Gohlla, she will spawn a Giant, that will enrage after a short while. Here once again the tank should kite the Giant as he deals a crazy amount of damage similar to the first boss of the dungeon. So kite while he is enraged and stay stationary while he is not enraged so you can push more damage onto him.
Kill the Giant before you take out Sister Gohlla!
Sister Hiti
Sister Hiti is the second Mini Boss that you are fighting, she will spawn Stranglers. The Stranglers deal a lot of damage so you have to make sure to kill them. The player that has the fire AoE below him, has to go to the Strangler with the ice shield to remove it before you can damage him.
Sister Bani
Sister Bani is the third Mini Boss that you are fighting, she will spawn Wraiths as long as her shield is down. Make sure to kill the Wraiths because they deal decent damage and keep spawning Skeletons and Zombies that are going to attack and drain you.
Sister Maefyn
Sister Maefyn is the fourth Mini Boss that you are fighting, she will spawn the Icereach Warrior that you need to kill before you kill her. She also spawns Archers that deal decent damage, the tank should pull them in so they die from AoE damage.
Mechanics that are always there during the fight:
- Ice AoE that will follow one player (Activated by Sister Gohlla)
- Fire AoE that will be below one player and deal a lot of damage to other group members (Applied by Sister Hiti)
- Shock AoE that will explode on the ground (Activated by Sister Maefyn)
So yes, there is so much things that can hit you at the same time, always make sure to stay mobile and move around to not get rekt by all of the mechanics at once.
Mini Boss fight order
You are going to fight the same Mini Bosses twice, the rotation looks like this:
- Sister Gohlla
- Sister Hiti
- Sister Bani
- Sister Maefyn
- INTERRUPT PHASE
- Sister Bani
- INTERRUPT PHASE
- Sister Gohlla
- INTERRUPT PHASE
- Sister Hiti
- INTERRUPT PHASE
- Sister Maefyn
There are interrupt phases, all you have to do there is bash each boss once so she stops channeling, if you fail to do that within time you are going to wipe.
Mother Ciannait
Once you made it through the rotation, Mother Ciannait will spawn in the middle and start casting a black Orb that grows over time. This phase is similar to the Aetherian Archive last Boss Fight. It is basically a burn phase. Players have to stay close to get healing. From time to time there will be a pulse that is going to hit everyone, it will do increased damage after every phase and can’t be shielded. Other mechanics are still happening so shields can still be helpful in this phase.
If you fail to kill her within reasonable time the pulse damage Mother Ciannait uses will kill you. So it is basically a burn phase!
Full Veteran & Hardmode Run
Timestamps for bosses:
- 01:16 First Boss – Kjarg the Tuskscraper
- 05:10 Second Boss – Sister Skelga
- 07:56 Third Boss – Vearogh the Shambler
- 10:55 Fourth Boss – Stormborn Revenant
- 13:20 Final Boss & Hardmode – Mother Ciannait
The build I was using in this run is the Magicka Dragonknight Build.
Solo Icereach
This run was done in normal mode on my Solo Magicka Necromancer Build.
