Kor Dragan Stronghold Location in Diablo 4

How to complete the Kor Dragan Stronghold in Diablo 4

Front door not included.

Kor drag-an dragoon

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Strongholds are a key part of the open world in Diablo 4. Completing them rewards a huge chunk of Renown and often unlocks additional content, but they’re not easy to overcome. The Kor Dragan Stronghol💝d is a prime example of this, even though it’s potentially one of the firs🎶t Strongholds you’ll see in the game.

To find it, look northeast of Menestad or to the north of Kyovashad. Remember that th🤡is is s💯pecifically in the Fractured Peaks region.

Players may find themselves stuck in Kor Dragan for a couple of reasons. Firstly, your character may need to gain more levels. Previously, Strongholds would scale up to always be a couple of levels ahead of you. With Vessel of Hatred, ene🀅my levels are gone, but sc✅aling exists in other ways.

Instead, you’re going to want to gain levels high enough so that your build becomes fairly decent against strong mobs and bosses. You can wait until you unlock your whole skill tree at 60 or just high enough so that your leveling build can hold its own.

The second obstacle may come from not fully understanding your objectives here. Fortunately, we can help you with that. Here’s how to finish the Kor Dragan Stronghol🍎d.

Kor Dragan Stronghold encounter in Diablo 4
Screenshot by Destructoid

Purge Kor Dragan of vampiric corruption

Once you enter Kor Dragan, explore the area a bit. It won’t be long until your objective updates to𒉰 “Purge Kor Dragan of vampiric corruption.” At first glance, you might think you just need to defeat enemies. In actuality, you have a more specific objective.

Clear the Vampiric Corruption in Diablo 4
Screenshot by Destructoid

On your minimap, you should see three marked locations surrounded by marked yellow areas. In these areas, you’ll find unsavory fleshy vessels called “Vampiric Corruption” and “Vampiric Incubator.” Gross! The Incubators will take no damage at first, but once you defeat three Vampiric Corruptions hidden a small distance away, their shields will drop. In other words, take out the Vampiric Corruptions, and then rush to the Incubators to put an end to them.

Each time an Incubator is killed/destroyed, you will face a Sanguine Knight. Once they are all purged, it’ll then unlock the boss gate to fully clear the Stronghold.

Barbarian fighting Vampiric Incubator in Diablo 4
Screenshot by Destructoid

Pay attention to the yellow circle that appears on your minimap. Within that area, you should find all three Vampiric Corruptions that can then expose the Incubator. If you are having a hard time finding them, follow the veins that come out from the Incubator. They’ll lead directly to each of the Corruptions.

There will be three Vampiric Incubators that spawn in this stronghold. As you progress with purging each one, make sure to destroy all the Corruptions within a circle. This is why it’s important to track down the veins coming from each.

Th💃ey will be🐟 guarded heavily by enemies, including elites.

What makes this task tricky is that there are elite Ghoul enemies with larger health bars. They seem to look like pushovers, but they are quite aggressive and tanky. They also have incredible speed, so it’s hard to shake them off and run away from them if you need a moment of respite.

Diablo 4 Kor Dragan
Screenshot by Destructoid

It’s best to take care of them first before they start killing you, resetting objectives.

Lastly, as you destroy each Corruption, a named enemy will come out from the boil. These are the aforementioned Sanguine Knights you’re looking for.

After completing these objectives, follow your updated objective to the north side of the map. But, the terrain or the layout of the place isn’t so simple.

One of the other challenges of this stronghold is to navigate through all the slides, ladders, and stairs. Pay close attention ༒to what connects to what.

This will only really be an issue for the objectives on 🌊the southwest side (the bottom left) and the east side (the righﷺt).

The Incubator in the southwest requires you to destroy the boil and go inside the shack just above. With that done, you’ll then have to make your way down and climb that ladder. Clear enemies throughout and fight left, past the part where you need to jump over the ledge. Once all the stuff there is purged, you can then slide back down.

Diablo 4 Kor Dragan mechanics explained
Screenshot by Destructoid

The environment can be a challenge here simply because of the enemy density in this Stronghold. If you don’t clear everything, including the elite Ghouls and other named enemies, you can end up dying. Even if this is one of the earlier places you encounter, don’t get caught with your pants down.

Now, with the area on the right. It’s a bit more straightforward, only really requiring you to approach this counter-clockwise. The Incubator is blocking the entrance to the hut, so fight your way through this method to eventually make it vulnerable.

Wh🌜at might throw people off the most is the Incubator closest to the boss room. The objective radius is much🍰 bigger.

While you encounter the thing in the main building or the Cathedral, you’ll see that the Corruptions will be well outside of the area. One will be to the left of the building, near the cliff you can climb down. The next one will be at the Grounds area in the structure with a set of stairs and a slide. The last one is straightforward.

Diablo 4 Kor Dragan Corruption boil
Screenshot by Destructoid

A trick to clear Kor Dragan if it’s too hard

Despite being one of the harder pieces of content in the early game of Diablo 4, you can skip Kor Dragan entirely until way later. It isn’t needed to unlock all of the Region Progress rewards for the extra Skill Points, potions, Paragon Points, and Obols if that’s what you’re worried about.

You can always just lower the world difficulty to Normal. The 75% bonus experience and Gold are negligible in the early game. There will still be some heat while taking the Stronghold on, but at least you’ll be able to get the Renown that way.

You can wait until you’re well into the endgame and have a really strong build to take it on, even at the Torment tiers.

Is Kor Dragan necessary to beat?

If you don’t want to miss out on Legion events in Diablo 4, then it is necessary to beat Kor Dragan. The Gathering Legions occasionally spawn here, so you’ll be locked out of events in the area until it is cleared.

Because Strongholds reset every season and per character, you will have to clear this out to participate. Luckily, once you get a han🤪g of all the weird traversal in the area, the second time and those after will be a lot smoother of an experience.

Nilcar Boss Battle in Diablo 4
Screenshot by Destructoid

How to defeat Nilcar, Forgotten Bishop

As the bos༒s of Kor Dragan, Nilcar expands on the mechanics you’ve endured so far. You’ll see three incubators in a triangle around the arena, with Nilcar pumping blood into them as you f🐟ight. Each of these will spawn a fairly powerful elite once they pop, but defeating them merely stuns them. Later in the fight, Nilcar can resurrect these enemies to keep harassing you.

Because of this, you’ll want to focus on striking Nilcar or all of his accomplices on the field.

Each time you bring Nilcar’s health down by around 30%, he’ll start to spawn these elites to fight alongside him. The reason why you’ll want to either focus on the elites or Nilcar is because everyone can sustain a good amount of damage before finally going down.

If you can kill Nilcar before he summons the third enemy from the incubator, this fight should be like fighting any other boss who spawns in ads. Otherwise, you’ll have to deal with the Sanguine Inquisitor. They are the strongest of the three elites and can be a pain in the neck in this fight. The Inquisitor is harder to ignore compared to the previous two.

Playing this stronghold solo can be tricky early on, so you should hire a mercenary or use a pe🥀t so you can focus mos꧋tly on the enemies, elites, and the boss.

Once Nilcar tastes defeat, claim your loot and 🍌rekindle the Wanderer’s Shrine. Congratulations on saving Kor Dragan!


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Timothy Monbleau
Guide Editor - Timothy started writing community blogs for Destructoid in 2012. He liked it so much he decided to write articles for the site professionally. His love for RPGs and the Ys series will endure forever.
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