Quest Information
- Initiated by: Deckard Cain
- Pre-requisite: A Shattered Crown
- Required to progress? Yes
- Reward(s): Gold/ Experience/ Achievement
- Lore items: Skeleton King (lore)
- Related Achievements: The Last of the Horadrim, Destroyer of Destiny, The Mad King's End, Short Reign and Instant Karma
- Leads to: Sword of the Stranger.
- Level Range: <quest level="true">reign-of-the-black-king</quest>
Reign of the Black King Walkthrough
Use the Waypoint in town to head down to the Cathedral Garden and straight into Leoric's Passage. Once there go through the Ornate Door to the level 2 of the Cathedral. You'll meet Tomb Guardians, Skeletons and Unburied in this level. Nothing you haven't come across before.
On level 3 you'll immediately run into a pack of Dark Cultists performing a ritual on some poor mug who seems powerless to resist. The cultists will raise Necromantic Minions but both are easy to get rid of. Talk to the now freed Warrior. He'll ask you to help him find his gear, which is pretty close by hidden in a chest.
Once you find the chest and he dresses he reveals himself at Kormac the Templar. He will follow you now to find Jondar. Have a look around the local area as the Waypoint will be close by, very often it's down a little cul-de-sac on your left as you pass by the blue crater. Once you have found Jondar the Templar will offer his services to you.
If you accept him he'll have one skill slot available which you can now set and also probably upgrade his weapon and shield with something better that has bound to drop by now.
The stairs down to level 4 are very close by. Head down. You'll encounter Skeletons, Skeletal Archers, Skeletal Shieldbearers, Harvesters, Carrion Bats and Unburied.
Somewhere on level 4 you will find the entrance down to The Royal Crypts. Incidentally, you will see lots of jars of ashes down here (also in the Defiled Crypt) and there is an achievement for destroying theses. Destroy 1,000 for the Jars of Destruction achievement. You'll find this achievement in your Challenges > Act 1 category but the tally does not update live, it'll update once you've logged out of the game.
If you can tear yourself away from smashing jars, make your way to Leoric's glowing sword and activate it to play the ghostly scene of Lachdanan slaying King Leoric. Make your way to the room with the four pillars where Leoric will appear, affronted that you have dared to bring the warmth of life into his tomb he sets hordes of Skeletons onto you. These are generated by the pillar so destroy them as quickly as possible.
Behind four gates that surround the immediate area are Skeletal Archers so watch for them as they'll constantly pick at you while you're dealing with the skeletons masses. If you are finding it tough going with the mobs it's sometimes better to retreat through one of these gates as it'll narrow the attack route of the enemy and you can still place traps etc into the main area while picking the others off as they file through the gateway.
Another achievement here and it's quite a tough one. Destroyer of Destiny asks you to destroy the four pillars simultaneously. This will probably be an achievement you won't manage first time round but rather later when you have more skills at your disposal.
Further into the crypts you'll come across an ornate door. Be aware that once you step through it you will need to kill the Skeleton King before you can get out.
Head through it into the Crypt of the Skeleton King. After the very short cutscene some Returned will appear but they present no problem. Head through to the King's thrown and click him to place the crown on his head. He'll awake, adjust himself and then engage. He has a number of attacks:
- Melee Attack - As with all bosses, Leoric has a basic melee attack where he swipes almost blindly at the hero with his massive mace.
- Teleport Smash - Leoric will, as with all of his abilities, broadcast this one outright. He'll cock his head up, grinning, while a ghostly apparition of himself moves through the air towards the player. Afterwards, Leoric will teleport into melee range, swinging his mace for high damage.
- Summon Skeletons - Leoric will float away from the player, put his gauntlet on the ground, and then rise up. After, true to form, he will summon Returned and Shield Bearers in melee range of the player. This attack can be interrupted with stuns and freezing, but there's diminishing returns on both debuffs. The skeletons are the only source of non-potion health regeneration during this fight, as they drop health globes. In Inferno and Hell difficulty, skeletal archers will be summoned along with shield bearers.
- Spinning Strike - Leoric will laugh and then spin in three consecutive circles, doing a moderate amount of damage to the player.
You'll get one or two rare items the first time you kill him with a new character on each difficulty, the second time onwards you'll get some blue magical items. Check out the table below for details of multiple Achievements you can earn for killing him in style.
After the Skeleton King is dead head down into the Desolate Chamber where you will come across The Stranger laying at the bottom of the crater. Following him to the Waypoint back to Tristram to hand in the quest to Deckard Cain and pick up the next one Sword of the Stranger.
Objectives in Brief
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* Checkpoint reached around this stage in the quest. This means you can quit out and Resume your game at a later date and begin at this point - in effect it's a Save Game point.
Achievements
The Reign of the Black King quest forms part of the following Achievement
| Name | Points | Description | Banner |
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Check out the Skeleton King page for a full list of Achievements that in some way or other rely on the Skeleton King specifically to achieve.
Media
| Quests & Events of Diablo III [e] Act I Act II Act III & Act IV Act V |
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