Imperial City Prison Dungeon Guide

Welcome to the Veteran Imperial City Prison (vICP) Dungeon guide for the Elder Scrolls Online!

This guide will mainly focus on doing this dungeon on Veteran difficulty, you will also learn how to beat the last boss on Hard Mode.

If you are on normal difficulty, most of it will be the same only a lot more forgiving.

If you are stuck on a certain boss, just click the one you are looking for in the table of content to get instant answers to how to beat it.

Imperial City Prison is a hard dungeon that requires coordination and patience. If you are stuck, read through the guide and make sure you understand the mechanics, then keep trying 🙂 Don’t worry, I will get you through this dungeon!

Imperial City Prison was introduced with the Imperial City DLC along with White Gold Tower.

Table Of Contents

• Dungeon Overview
• Dangerous Trash Monsters
• First Boss: Overfiend
• Second Boss: Ibomez the Flesh Sculptor
• Third Boss: Gravelight Sentry
• Fourth Boss: Flesh Abomination
• Lord Warden Guards and Locked Gates
• Final Boss: Lord Warden Dusk
• Final Boss: Hard Mode

Dungeon Overview

Dangerous Trash Monsters

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First Boss: Overfiend

The first boss encounter is the Overfiend, but don’t be fooled, a lot of groups never make it past this boss. This can be a very tough fight unless you know what to do.

• Adds are the most common reason for wiping on this boss. Understanding how to deal with them will make all the difference here.
• Damaging the boss too fast will result in an overwhelming amount of adds, take it slow!
• The tank will be thoroughly hammered in this fight, the healer should make sure the tank has shards to pop (if you are a templar).

Tank

• The Tank will take quite a beating on this boss, make sure to block and fill up on stamina potions.
• Never lose aggro on the Overfiend, if you do, he will run around and perform his cone attack which will wipe the group immediately.

Positioning

The Tank should stand in front of the big bright portal facing the room. You need to hold the boss so that he faces the portal, ie away from the group.

The rest of the group should be standing on the tank’s right hand side or in front of the tank (behind the boss). Do not start running around the room when the adds come, you want to stay in your corner to best stack up the adds for more control.

Do NOT stand in front of the boss unless you are the tank.

Mechanics

Adds

• Throughout the fight adds will spawn from the edges of the room. Dealing with adds is priority number one!
• The adds spawn based on the boss’ health, make sure to take it slow on the boss. When adds spawn, deal with them first and halt all damage on the boss!
• The tank should try and pull in some adds, but there will most likely be too many adds for the tank to deal with.
• Damage dealers should expect to get some aggro from the adds, do not start running around trying to avoid the adds, pull them in towards the healer and stick together so that you can kill them with AOE. Running around won’t help you.
• Healer will need to keep the damage dealers alive when they get aggro from adds, they should stick close to you and gather up the adds. Stay close to the tank so that she/he can taunt some of them.

Harvester

• When the boss reaches 50% health a Harvester will spawn from the bright gate. The tank needs to taunt the harvester immediately and keep it faced towards the gate.
• The harvester will channel a spell that will summon three deadly orbs that shoot out in the direction the harvester is facing. This attack can be interrupted, so try your best at suppressing it.
• Damage dealers should focus all their attention on the harvester as soon as it spawns, kill it as quickly as possible.

Flurry (Cone AOE)

The Overfiend will sporadically perform a flurry attack at its target. This is why it’s important the tank is facing him away from the group. Any member of the group hit by the flurry except the tank will die. Tank -> You need to block this attack, it hurts!

Ground Slam (AOE)

The Overfiend will also jump up in the air and slam the ground hurting anyone within the damage radius. The tank can block this, but melee damage dealers should be ready to move out of this.

Purple Circles (AOE)

The boss will also cast two AOE circles that will damage and stun any player that gets caught within it. It’s not a huge deal if you get hit by this but try your best to avoid it.

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On your way to the next boss you will encounter some Flesh Atronachs and Vigilant Watchers. Read more about these at the top of this article.

There will be some levers that you need to pull in order to progress through certain areas.

Second Boss: Ibomez the Flesh Sculptor

There are two ways to beat this boss, one requires a fairly high DPS (Damage Per Second). If you think your group has decent DPS, I suggest trying the second approach first to see if you can do it as it will be far easier. If not, we’ll have to do it the normal way 🙂

Mechanics

Inmates running to the center

• The boss will stand by the edge of the water at the center of the room calling Inmates into the room.
• They will be running from the sides into the water.
• If enough inmates reach the water, a Flesh Atronach will spawn.
• You cannot kill the inmates with your regular attacks!
• To prevent inmates from reaching the pool, you need to use the Flesh Grenades scattered around the room.

Use your synergy button to throw a venom sac. You will need to aim at the ground where you want to throw the venom.

The sac will explode once it hits the ground and take out any surrounding inmates, so make sure to aim at a clump.

Everyone should help out with this including the tank, the boss will be standing by the water unable to harm anyone. Make sure to spread out and assign an area of the room to each player so that you don’t clump up in a corner.

The tank should however taunt and hold any Flesh Atronachs that spawn.

Flesh Atronachs

Any Flesh Atronachs that spawn will need to be taunted by the tank.

The damage dealers should focus all their attention to these Flesh Atronachs, they need to go down as quickly as possible!

If a Flesh Atronach stays alive for more than 60 second it will enrage and wipe the group.

Pin Down Attack

When the boss is not calling for inmates. He will randomly target a player, pin her/him to the ground and start channeling.

This needs to be interrupted by another player asap! You have a few seconds to interrupt him.

If you fail to interrupt in time, the person pinned will be killed.

Alternative approach (easier but requires higher DPS)

As mentioned, if your group has decent DPS, I suggest you try this method first.

Instead of worrying about killing inmates with the venom sacs, the tank should hold the boss near the water where he stands before engaging the fight.

The group will focus all their damage on the boss until he starts summoning inmates.

As the boss is summoning inmates, just light/heavy attack the boss to build up Ultimate and restore resources.

There will be Flesh Atronachs spawning, the tank should pick up as many of these as possible.

The entire group should be stacking on the tank so that all Flesh Atronachs clump up.

Drop all your AOEs including destruction staff Ultimate if you have it and burn the Flesh Atronachs down as quickly as possible.

As the boss stops summoning inmates, resume with damaging him while building up ultimate for the next wave of Flesh Atronachs.

Now you just need to repeat this process until the boss is down. If you have enough DPS this is by far the easiest way to take this boss down.

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Getting to the next boss is quite a trek, you will encounter Flesh Atronachs and Vigilant Watchers. Just take it slow and fight one group at a time and you should be fine.

Third Boss: Gravelight Sentry

• Make sure everyone enters this room together. As soon as the fight is engaged the gate leading into the room will shut, any player left behind will be stuck behind the gate.
• This is by far the easiest fight in Imperial City Prison. The mechanics are simple.
• The Gravelight Sentry is a bigger version of the Vigilant Watchers and will perform similar attacks, only more powerful.

Mechanics

Toxic Water

This fight takes place on a small island surrounded by poisoned water. Stay out of the water as it will bring you down very fast! The tank can stay in for a while but not for too long.

Necromancers

• Necromancers will be surrounding the island evenly spaced from each other and will summon skeletons.
• The summoning ritual can be interrupted so do your best to interrupt them to reduce skeleton invasions.
• The necromancers should be killed first. Once they are down, you can focus on the boss.

Knockback

The boss will perform a knockback attack which is very difficult to avoid as the area is very large. Chances are you will end up in the poisoned water. Make sure to read the Positioning section below to avoid ending up in the water.

Laser Beams

The boss will perform a cone AOE attack in the form of lasers coming from its eyes. Just like the Vigilant Watchers.

The boss should be faced away from the group to avoid anyone getting hit by this. The tank can block this attack without any issues.

Positioning

Good positioning is the key to winning this fight.

The tank should walk the boss in a circle around the island (no need to actually move, the boss will push you back with its knockback attack).

The tank will be pushed back along the edge of the island and most likely end up in the water a few times. You shouldn’t be too far from the edge and will be able to take the poison damage for a while until you make it back to land.

The rest of the group should stay on the boss’ side, not completely behind. This way you will be pushed towards the center of the island from the knockback instead of into the water.

While you are still killing the necromancers – just make sure to deal with the ones behind the boss as the tank moves around the island. Move with the tank and keep picking off the ones behind the boss, at this stage, you should almost be on the other side of the island from the tank and boss. This way you will avoid the knockback all together. Don’t forget to interrupt any channeling necromancer.

Fourth Boss: Flesh Abomination

• The boss has powerful AOE attacks, make sure to face him away from the group.
• Hoarvors lay down lethal poisons on the ground, make sure to kill Hoarvors as they spawn.

Positioning

The tank should be standing by the edge opposite to where you enter the room. Make sure the boss is facing away from the group throughout the fight. His swipes are bad for non-tanks.

Mechanics

Necrotic Hoarvors

• Throughout the fight, Hoarvors will spawn. They will run around and lay down dangerous pools of poison on the ground.
• These poison pools deal a lot of damage, make sure to take out any Hoarvors that spawn.

Ground Slam – Hoarvor Explosion

• The boss will run to the center of the room and slam the ground.
• Any Hoarvors alive at this moment will explode and deal massive AOE damage around themselves.
• Any player caught in a Hoarvor explosion will die instantly.
• This is another reason to keep killing off Hoarvors as they spawn. The more Hoarvors that are alive, the more likely you will be to wipe.

Knockback and Adds

The boss will put his hands down into the ground.

This will create a ring around each player, after a few seconds, you will take poison damage, get knocked back and stunned. Block to reduce damage and avoid the knockback.

Right after this, a red circle will appear around a random player. If you are the one with the circle, do not leave the circle! If you stay in the middle, you are safe, if you touch the edge of the circle, you will die (unless you are the tank).

This circle will also start spawning adds.

All these adds are melee so make sure to stack up and drop a bunch of AOEs in order to take care of them quickly.

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Lord Warden’s Guards and locked gates

Leading up to the boss you will be facing several rooms with guards in them. There will be spikes coming up from the ground, so stay clear of those.

If you get aggro, don’t start running around, bring them to the tank instead.

The enemies you will face are the following:

Templar: First kill priority, they heal the other guards (interruptable).

Necromancer: Second kill priority, will summon a Bone Colossus, these need to be dealt with immediately as they shield the other guards.

Berserker and Knight: Kill these last, they are more or less cannon fodder and won’t cause too much trouble. The Berserker will perform a heavy attack, make sure to block this.

After each fight, you will face a locked gate. The first gate will have one lever off to the side, pull this to open the gate.

The remaining rooms will have two levers, one on each side. These need to be pulled at the same time (roughly) to open the gates.

Final Boss: Lord Warden Dusk

• This boss can be a nightmare with PUGs (pick up groups) if they don’t know the mechanics. It’s actually quite an easy boss, but if you don’t play the mechanics right, it will be impossible. So pay attention and make sure you understand all of the mechanics.
• There will be a lot of income AOE damage in this fight, you also have the portals to watch out for (portals discussed further below). So make sure to be light on your feet here, you have to keep moving and watch out for incoming damage!

Mechanics

Ground Portals

The ground portals are usually the main cause of confusion so let’s start with those.

Throughout the fight, Lord Warden Dusk will summon portals on the ground, there will be a maximum of two portals at any given moment.

Make sure to not step into these portals, yet. We will go over when to use these in the next section.

If you do step in, you will be teleported to the top of the ceiling in the center of the room and fall down to the ground.

Super Massive Ground Blast (Time to use portals!)

Lord Warden Dusk will fly up and hover quite high in the air by the entrance or exit of the room as seen in the picture above.

He will then blast the ground with an AOE killing anyone who is on the ground.

This is where the portals come in.

The portal will teleport you high up in the air and allow you to stay clear from the ground blast.

WARNING: The portals have a limit of 2 people per portal. You need to make sure to group up in pairs and run for the portals.

If a portal is used before he performs his Super Massive Blast attack, you only have 3 uses left. This means that someone is going to die when the next blast happens.

Once in the air, make sure to hammer your synergy button! You will get the option to activate a synergy that will reduce the damage from the fall keeping you from dying (warning: If your health is low when you enter the portal, the fall will still take you out).

Shade duplicates

The boss will turn into a crystal split himself into 4 mirror images, placed in each corner of the room. All these need to go down, pay attention though.

The shade phase will happen when the boss reaches the following percentages:

65% – 35%

Some of them will be in a “shade state“, they will be grey and transparent. Have a look at the image below.

When they are in shade form they will not take damage. Make sure to attack the ones that are in a solid state, as seen below in the image.

The duplicates will go in and out of shade mode so prepare to switch target in case your current focus turns into shade form.

The tank should try and range taunt all of them if possible. They deal a lot of damage and will likely kill any other member of the party.

Minigun

The Lord Warden Dusk will target a random player with a “minigun” ability, you can tell by the light coming from his hands as seen in the picture below.

The tank needs to step in between the player being targeted and block. This will protect your party member from the damage.

If you are the target, make sure to block, and try to stay as still as possible so that the tank can easily step in between you and the boss. If you start running around, you will die and it won’t be the tank’s fault 🙂

Dark Orbs

The boss will place dark orbs that stay put, hovering above the ground.

If you get too close they will start damaging you, so stay clear of these.

Final Boss: Hard Mode

Hard mode is not much different apart from one thing.

The meteors that target random players and fall from the sky will now be raining throughout the entire fight.

On non-hard mode, you only get the meteors during the 4-split phase.

It really doesn’t make much of a difference. If you can beat this boss on Veteran, you can do Hard Mode as well. You will barely notice any difference.

I didn’t even mention the meteors in the non hard mode part of the guide because they really don’t matter. They are like any other AOE, you just avoid it 🙂

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Thank you for reading this guide 🙂 I hope you found it useful and that it got you out of a pinch.

I try to create thorough guides to help not only experienced players but also newer players who want to attempt some of the harder content in the game.

My goal is that everyone should be able to experience the Elder Scrolls Online’s best and entertaining content (which is usually pretty hard).

If there were any parts of this guide that you found confusing, unclear or if you just have a better method, please let me know 🙂 I would love to improve as much as possible!

Thanks again. <3