Diablo 4 Ruins of Qara-Yiso Stronghold: How To Beat, Location & Rewards

Looking for the exact location of the Ruins of Qara-Yiso Stronghold in Diablo 4's Dry Steppes region, or want to know how to conquer it for some fantastic rewards? Then we've got you covered. Each main region in Diablo 4's expansive world of Sanctuary features three Strongholds for players to clear, and this one was quite the ordeal.

In this guide, we explain how you can get to the Ruins of Qara-Yiso Stronghold, what Diablo 4 players need to know about clearing it, and the reward you get for your troubles, so let's get started.

Update on 14 June 2023: We've updated this Qara-Yiso Diablo 4 Stronghold guide with launch details!

Qara-Yiso Location in Diablo 4's Dry Steppes

The image above shows you the exact location of the Ruins of Qara-Yiso Stronghold in Diablo 4's Dry Steppes region. 

It is a creepy location, with some inhabitants encased in salt as if they wanted to escape their fate. You will need to venture into the Ruins of Qara-Yiso from the left-hand side.

How To Conquer Qara-Yiso Stronghold

As we ran into Qara-Yiso, enemies encased in salt came to life, and we had to destroy them with relative ease. Exploring further, we came across Cursed Yisuni, as a creepy voice from below taunted us.

About three minutes into exploring, we came across our first Infernal Spire. You'll need to take care of three of these to progress in the Qara-Yiso Stronghold. These Infernal Spires have a lot of HP and Cursed Yisuni enemies spawn in droves. They are marked as skulls on your minimap and are so close to each other that you won't have to search for their locations.

We recommend using your resource-generating basic skill and single-target damage skills to hit the Infernal Spires while standing as close to them as possible. Once enemy waves spawn, drop your AOE to both clear the enemies and damage the Infernal Spires until they are all down, dropping shiny loot.

Once all Infernal Spires were down, we were guided to "the voice below," which was the Stronghold's boss, Utulku.

How To Beat Utulku in Diablo 4 Qara-Yiso Stronghold

Utulku is a powerful boss in Diablo 4 and the final enemy you need to defeat in Qara-Yiso Stronghold to conquer it. The boss has four health globe instances on its health bar, signifying a lot of HP.

If you brought some friends along, beating Utulku isn't that difficult. However, if you are solo, we recommend popping an Elixir with Lightning Resist. Utulku summons rather weak helpers, but its main ability, dropping pools of red lightning on the ground, should be avoided at all costs.

The trick here is to stay close to Utulku (yes, even if you are ranged) since its melee damage isn't all that high and can still be avoided. The boss can be staggered relatively easily, so use CC effects to fill the stagger bar, and once initiated, throw any skills that add vulnerable to the boss and burst down a large chunk of HP.

Rinse and repeat this process, staying clear of the red circles of lightning, and the Qara-Yiso Stronghold boss in Diablo 4 should fall.

Diablo 4 Qara-Yiso Stronghold Rewards

Just like every other Stronghold in Diablo 4, the main reward players are after is the 100 Renown for the region it is located in. For Qara-Yiso, you get 100 Renown with Dry Steppes, a large helping for the roughly 20 minutes it took us to complete on Veteran difficulty. You also get a Waypoint to unlock, so that's effectively 120 Renown.

Drops from Strongholds and their respective bosses are random. We got several rares but no legendary drops in this one, alongside a boatload of experience and gold. It is important to note that Strongholds drop items with power around two levels more than your character, as all enemies within are, for example, in our case, level 53 since we were level 51.

If you missed it, check out Diablo 4's awesome live-action launch trailer below.

That's everything you need to know about clearing the Ruins of Qara-Yiso Stronghold in Diablo 4's Dry Steppes zone, from its precise location to how you can beat the "voice below" boss, destroy those Infernal Spires, and the rewards you will get in the process.

For more Diablo 4, be sure to check out our dedicated section or some of our Guides & Tutorials just below:

Our section keeps growing, so check for new guides daily! Don't forget to pick up one of the Diablo 4 Editions and join the fight to save Sanctuary soon.