Bal Sunnar is one of the two new dungeons added to the Elder Scrolls Online in the Scribes of Fate DLC in March 2023.
This guide will teach you how to complete this dungeon, including the boss and trash mechanics, strategies for defeating the different enemies that you'll find in the Bal Sunnar dungeon, and how to find the secret features hidden within.
Completing Bal Sunnar can yield several different rewards, including armor sets and collectible items. This section of the guide will provide an overview of what you can get by beating this dungeon.
Below are the armour sets that can be found in the Bal Sunnar dungeon in ESO.
Defeating the last boss of Bal Sunnar will drop the helmet piece of the Roksa the Warped set, in either Light, Medium or Heavy Armour. This monster set buffs your sustain by giving you extra stacks of attribute regeneration depending on how long you have been in combat.
To complete the set, you'll need to purchase the Shoulder piece from the Undaunted Enclave.
In addition to the monster set, you can also drop the following sets from bosses and treasure chests inside Bal Sunnar:
Here we will list the Collectible (cosmetic) Rewards available from the Bal Sunnar dungeon in ESO, along with an explanation of what you need to do in order to obtain them.
Below is a list of the notable trash enemies found in Bal Sunnar, along with dangerous attacks and/or mechanics that they possess, and how to deal with them.
Argonian Behemoths are large reptile enemies who should always be taunted by the tank, as they can hit quite hard. They have a lot of health compared to most other trash enemies in the dungeon. They will periodically stomp on the ground dealing AOE damage - you can see this AOE on the ground expanding from their feet a few seconds beforehand, so you should back away to avoid this.
There are a few different types of Telvanni mobs in the dungeon, they normally hang around in small groups and are sometimes accompanied by one or two larger enemies. Some of these are melee focused while others are mages who will cast AOE and cleave spells at players. The tank should try to taunt as many as possible and keep them stacked up so that the DPS players can easily deal with them.
These are large enemies who will charge into melee and should be taunted by the tank. They can spawn green orbs that damage group members. The orbs should be interrupted or destroyed.
These are small undead enemies who can be found in packs in the latter parts of the dungeon. The tank should aim to keep them under control so the DPS players can easily deal with them.
If you turn left after clearing the first few trash packs in the dungeon (before crossing the bridge that leads to the first boss), you will find a room with a puzzle in the middle and cages around the edges of the room. If you solve the puzzle you will earn a buff for the whole team, to help you in the remaining part of the dungeon.
The puzzle consists of a large totem in the middle of the room and three smaller ones on the edge of the room, along with four levers. The levers will rotate different blocks on the large central totem. For the purposes of the explanation, let's number the blocks on the large totem 1, 2, 3 and 4 (from bottom to top). The goal is to match up the symbols on the large totem with the symbols on the smaller ones.
Blocks 1 and 2 should match the leftmost totem, blocks 2 and 3 should match the central totem, and blocks 3 and 4 should match the rightmost totem. The solution is randomized in every dungeon instance.
When you solve the puzzle, the cages will be unlocked allowing the prisoners to escape. You and your group members will get a buff called Strength of the Ancestors, which gives 300 weapon and spell damage for the remainder of the dungeon.
Kovan Giryon is the first boss in Bal Sunnar. The boss has 4.4 million health on Veteran difficulty.
The boss doesn't have too many mechanics, but there are a few things that you need to keep an eye on.
Kovan Giryon will periodically teleport around the room. When he does this, he will go to the edge of the room and create a large rectangular AOE field in front of him, that will cross the entire width of the room. He'll then port to another location and do it again, before the fight resumes normally. You should make sure to avoid these AOEs.
At 65%, 45% and 20% health remaining, the boss will go to the middle of the room and enter a shadow phase, where he cannot be damaged. Some adds will spawn during this phase, which the tank should taunt and stack.
The boss will periodically explode a poison AOE around him. This is just a normal boss-centered AOE that is very common with ESO bosses - you get a couple of seconds warning to get out of the area before the explosion happens.
On Hardmode, Kovan Giryon will have 8.2 million health. The execute phase is a bit harder in Hardmode, as there will be shadow versions of Kovan around the edges of the room casting the same AOEs that we talked about in the Teleport Mechanic section above.
There's also one extra mechanic that you have to deal with in Hardmode.
The boss will periodically cast poison on all group members. This is a small AOE that follows you around and can't be purged. Because it's an AOE, if you stand on someone else during the poison phase you will both take double damage.
The DoT from the poison hits quite hard, so the group should ideally "soft stack", which means standing fairly close to one another without being so close that you overlap the poison AOEs on top of each other. This allows everyone to be healed effectively.
Instead of going straight to the second boss fight with Roksa the Warped, turn left and go into the small cave to the side. At the end of this cave there is a door that leads to a small arena. This arena contains a secret boss fight, which you can complete to earn another buff.
After defeating Urvel Drath, you and your team will get a buff called Ancestral Vitality, which increases your Magicka and Stamina Recovery by 30%.
Urvel Drath has 4.1 million health. Since this is a secret boss there is no hardmode available for this fight.
Urvel Drath is accompanied by a captive Argonian Behemoth called Beexilko. This add will start the fight at low health but will gradually regenerate until he is strong enough to break free. He will then attack Urvel Drath and stun him for a few seconds, helping you out. Urven then hits Beexilko with a lightning spell which will put him back to his original stunned state.
Urvel Drath will periodically spawn lava pillars which spread outwards and stay in place for a few seconds. These normally aren't too much of a threat, just move away from them quickly and don't linger too close to them.
Seeking Flame is the only mechanic on this boss that might cause you a bit of trouble if you're new to the dungeon or have a lapse in concentration. During the fight you should watch out for a red rune floating above your head - if you see it then that means you're being targeted by Seeking Flame, and a fire AOE will be following you.
These AOEs move fairly slowly, so you can kite them around while continuing to damage the boss, but try to avoid crossing paths with someone else who is also kiting. The AOEs explode as soon as they touch a player, hitting pretty hard. They're unlikely to one-shot you but will take most of the health of a DD or healer if the damage is unmitigated.
A funny tactic we found if you don't want to kite for the entire fight: you can instead kite the AOEs into the tank - if he's blocking and has good resistances, then the AOEs don't damage him much at all, but make sure the tank knows that you're going to do this or else they might get annoyed.
Roksa the Warped is a Nix-Ox boss that is also imbued with some special abilities. This boss has 5.2 million health on Veteran.
Roksa the Warped has a couple of dangerous mechanics that you need to be familiar with to succeed in this boss fight.
Every so often, Roksa will spawn darklight orbs at the edge of the room, which will tether to a player. The orbs need to be destroyed within a few seconds, or else the tethered player is killed. You can destroy the orbs by attacking them, but it's more efficient to interrupt them with a skill like Crushing Shock. As soon as their tether is interrupted, the orbs will self-destruct, saving you the trouble of damaging them.
At 70% and 40% health remaining, the boss will plunge the room into darkness. There will be two light areas which players should stand in. Staying in the darkness for too long will cause you to die. During this phase there will also be some adds that you need to kill.
At the beginning of this phase, one of the light areas is centred on the boss, while another one is cast by a friendly NPC. The boss throws persisting AOEs on the ground near players after a couple of seconds, which can block you from standing on one of the safe areas, so it's best to go in the light zone next to the boss at first, wait for it to throw the hostile AOEs, then quickly run to the other light zone (the boss will move away shortly after it throws the bombs, taking its light with it).
After the Darkness phase ends, the boss will shoot the tank with a beam that lasts for about 10 seconds. There's no way to interrupt this, the tank needs to mitigate the damage as best as they can while the healer focuses healing on them. After this finishes, the boss will return to the main fight area and you can resume as normal.
On hardmode, Roksa has 12.9 million health.
Apart from that, the fight is mostly quite similar, but enemy attacks will do more damage and the increased health obviously means that the fight will take longer.
One thing that's important for the tank and healer to be aware of is that the tank will be hit by three beams at a time instead of just one in hardmode, considerably increasing the damage that they take.
The final secret in Bal Sunnar can be found after leaving the room where you fought Roksa the Warped, by heading south and going across the bridge.
This time the secret will be another puzzle.
There are four laser beams around the edges of the room, and a totem pole in the middle of the room. There are also two different types of rock that block the lasers - the smaller rocks can reflect the laser, while the larger ones cannot.
The goal is to make all four lasers hit the central totem pole. You'll need to reposition the small rocks in order to make this happen. The solution is randomized in every instance, so you'll have to do a bit of trial and error each time you do the dungeon, if you want to unlock this secret.
When you successfully complete the puzzle, you and your team will get a buff called Ancestral Resolve, giving you 3000 extra health and 10% damage resistance.
Matriarch Lladi Telvanni is the final boss in Bal Sunnar. In Veteran mode she has 6.8 million health.
On Veteran difficulty this fight isn't too difficult, however Hardmode adds a couple of extra things which can complicate it a little. First we'll go through the mechanics that are present in Veteran mode.
Matriarch Lladi Telvanni has the following mechanics that you need to watch out for:
She will often target the tank with a very wide and very long vomit attack cone. This will follow the tank around so they should face away from the group and stay as still as possible when this is happening. Ideally the tank should stay fairly close to the edge of the arena with their back to the wall, giving the rest of the group as much space as possible to move around.
At 70% and 35%, the boss will fill the room with a huge poison AOE that deals damage to everyone. You'll need to heal through this for a few seconds, after which a synergy will appear that gets rid of the poison and stops time, stunning the adds for a few seconds. The adds take more damage when this is active, so you may find it useful to save your ultimates and drop them on the adds after using the synergy.
These are green blobs that look the same as the Voriplasm adds found in some other dungeons and locales in ESO. The tank should taunt these, and ideally they should die in cleave damage from the DDs. However if your AOE damage is quite low then you might want to focus them down to make sure that they aren't too much of a resource drain for the tank.
Boss health: 10.1 million health.
On hardmode, the adds that spawn during the Poison Storm phase will be invulnerable to damage unless they are currently stunned by the time stop synergy, rather than just getting damage resistance. This makes it more important to kill the adds quickly, saving ultimates if necessary.
There's also one more mechanic that is activated in Hardmode:
On Hardmode, the boss will sometimes spawn a Skeever. The Skeever will be locked on to attack a specific player, indicated by a red rune floating above that player. If the Skeever reaches the player, they will be hit with a nasty debuff.
If you're targeted by the Skeever, you can try to kite away from it to buy more time for the DPS players to kill it. The tank can also help you out by utilizing Crowd Control abilities like Unrelenting Grip and Choking Talons (taunts won't work).
We hope you liked this guide for the Bal Sunnar dungeon in ESO Scribes of Fate. The Elder Scrolls Online is a Massively multiplayer online game (MMO) developed by Zenimax Online Studios.
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
Bal Sunnar Conqueror |
Defeat Kovan Giryon, Roksa the Warped, and Matriarch Lladi Telvanni in Veteran Bal Sunnar. |
Fate's Secrets |
Complete optional content in Bal Sunnar and Scrivener's Hall. |
Scribes of Fate Delver |
Complete both Bal Sunnar and Scrivener's Hall on Veteran. |
Telvanni Tormentor |
Defeat Matriarch Lladi Telvanni after raising the challenge banner in Veteran Bal Sunnar. |
