Strongholds are Anthem’s ideas of the dungeons in many popular RPGs including World of Warcraft and Destiny. Thanks to the difficulty level of the enemies here including the formidable boss enemy at the end, you will be rewarded handsomely.
This comes in the form of both loot drops from the foes and valuable items from the Treasure Chests. Below, we will be discussing The Heart of Rage Stronghold in Anthem and how you can breeze through it.
Anthem the Heart of the Rage
The Heart of the Rage stronghold serves as a more advanced version, yet terribly similar variation, of the final campaign mission “Return to the Heart of Rage”.
Although the stronghold plays exactly like the mission, the only real difference is how you can choose the Grand Master difficulty for the former. Here, enemies are much more powerful as they deal additional damage.
Defeating the Titan
Towards the beginning of the fight in Freemark, you will need to defeat some elite Dominion forces. The real trouble here is turrets, so take them out as quickly as possible.
Soon after, you will come face to face with the Ancient Ash Titan. This Titan has a few tricks up his sleeve. Firstly, his Fire Ring attack is a huge blast that can be avoided by jumping.
Next, the Titan will occasionally send out his homing missiles that can only be guarded against by taking cover. You should also be wary of the summon fireballs which are indicated by the brightness of your screen being pumped up suddenly.
If you observe so, quickly dodge or dash away at the right moment. Lastly, eliminate the Ash elemental foes it summons by utilizing Ice attacks or just via normal weapons.
To whittle down the health of the Titan, target its weak points that will be around his arms and right at the center of his open chest. You can also land melee hits on the foe regardless of the weak point to deal some decent damage.
Fighting the Dominion Forces
Moving on you will encounter more turrets, Dominion enemies and shielded Valkyries. For turrets, it is best to use Fire and Acid-based attacks for quickly dealing with these machines.
When the Valkyries are concerned, first bring down their shield and use Ice and Electric attacks to quickly eliminate them, unless you would want them to regenerate their health prolonging the fight.
At this point, your flight ability will be temporarily disabled due to a Dominion Grounder. Move towards the objective and charge it up so to deactivate the Grounder. Fend off the enemies here and you will be granted the flying ability again.
Collecting the Echoes for the Relic
Moving forth, as directed by the objective, your goal would be to feed 10 Echoes to the Shaper Relic to continue your journey to reach the boss enemy.
Using your radar detector, you and your teammates can spread out to look for and gather these Echoes.
Avoiding the swarm of enemies that emerge, dealing with them and overcoming the environmental hurdles like ice/storm orbs that cause lightning damage, you will have successfully collect all the 10 Echoes to silence the Relic.
Right after you have made this accomplishment, two Dominion Furies will spawn having some devastating attacks to their move-list.
These including the one hit lightning attack indicated when the foe raises its hands up in the air. There will also be homing attacks so be sure to take cover.
Deal with them like you would other Furies. Now proceed to collect the loot and make your way forward for one final fight, that with the boss enemy, The Monitor.
Monitor Boss
The sequence and procedure for this fight play out exactly like that in the original mission of the story campaign. Having the same weak points, attacks, and phases, the Monitor is still a threat.
What makes him more menacing in this Stronghold variation, however, is that he’s much more durable thanks to the difficulty level you chose for this task. The fight takes place in three different areas marking three different phases of the battle.
The first stage is a wide-open area where you can keep a distance from the Monitor to dodge his melee attacks. Whenever you are not dodging, always focus fire on the weak or critical points of the boss enemy.
These will be regions that glow bright yellow and will shift depending on what move the Monitor is performing.
In this phase, he will send out red meteors that you can shoot either so they detonate prematurely, or keep far away from them so to avoid the explosion when it is triggered.
Moving onto the next stage of the brawl, you will encounter waves of the Mordant Elemental enemies summoned by the Monitor.
These creatures will spew heaps of acid as you fly above. Do not get to close or melee them, since that way you stand a chance of contracting acid debuffs and damage.
Always shoot your way through them and avoid their acid balls by dodging sideways. Again, concentrate fire on the vulnerable points of the Monitor so the fight progresses onto a final location and thus a final phase.
Another wide area entertains the fight between your team and the Monitor. This time around, it is better to keep to the skies most of the time.
This is because every time the boss enemy teleports, he sends out a ring of electrical wave energy that deal incredible damage. You can also jump if your reflexes are good, or to not risk anything, just stay in the air with your Javelin whenever you can.
You will also need to avoid his homing electric balls by dodging at the right time or taking cover behind an obstacle.
Be wary of his melee attacks here as well, and have every individual in your team focus fire on those glowing weak points on the Monitor. When you have brought his health down to 15%, the battle will have commenced and victory will be yours.
