Introduction to Steel Fortress
The Steel Fortress is a dungeon located within the Cairos Dungeon, introduced during the major update known as The Shift in Summoners War: Sky Arena. Unlike other Cairos dungeons that focus on rune drops, the Summoners War Steel Fortress specializes in rewarding players with Attribute Artifacts—powerful items that enhance monster performance by providing bonus stats and specialized effects.
These artifacts play a crucial role in the progression of your account, particularly in late-game content such as PvP, Siege Battles, and high-end PvE stages. By equipping artifacts, players can significantly boost base stats like HP, ATK, or DEF, while also gaining access to unique bonuses like additional damage against certain elements, increased Crit Damage, or reduced damage from specific sources.
As a result, farming the Steel Fortress is a vital step toward optimizing your monsters and making your overall gameplay more efficient. While the B10 floor of the dungeon is generally considered accessible with a well-built team and the right strategy, it can still pose a challenge for those with underdeveloped units or insufficient skill-ups. For advanced players seeking even greater rewards, the Abyss Hard version of the Steel Fortress offers a much higher level of difficulty and requires finely tuned teams with strong synergy, high-quality runes, and effective artifact setups to conquer consistently.
Understanding the Steel Fortress B10 Boss: The Ancient Tormentor
The main challenge in Steel Fortress B10 lies in overcoming the boss, known as The Ancient Tormentor, a powerful enemy whose mechanics are deeply tied to beneficial effects. The boss gains considerable advantages from buffs, making it essential for players to bring teams that can counter or manage these effects. Its passive skill, Steel Will, activates every turn, granting the boss increased Attack Power and Critical Rate for 1 turn. When attacked, the boss also gains a shield equal to 10% of its max HP and increases its Defense for 1 turn.
Most importantly, it reduces incoming damage by 20% per beneficial effect currently active on it, making it significantly harder to defeat when allowed to stack buffs. The second passive, Thunderbolt, punishes players for letting the fight drag on. After each enemy completes their fifth turn, the boss counters by striking a random target up to four times, scaling with its Attack Power. These hits cannot glance, and each beneficial effect on the boss increases the chance to stun the target by 25%. If the hit is a critical, the stun lasts for 2 turns.
The Ancient Tormentor also uses two active skills: Steel Fist, which attacks all enemies and applies a two-turn Attack Speed debuff, and Thunder Blow, a triple-hit single-target skill that reduces the target’s attack bar by 30% per hit. If the target’s attack bar is emptied, they are stunned for 2 turns. Adding to the threat, an acceleration device in the dungeon passively increases the boss’s attack bar by 20%, with an additional 20% increase for each beneficial effect granted on it. To succeed, teams must focus on preventing beneficial effects, ideally using monsters with skill-based buff block to stop buffs from applying in the first place.
Additionally, bringing monsters that can strip existing buffs helps remove the boss’s shield and defense buff, keeping its damage reduction low. Attack bar reduction is also key to managing the boss’s turn cycle and limiting the activation of Thunderbolt. A strong damage dealer is essential for pushing through once the boss’s buffs are controlled. Notably, teams that rely heavily on buffing themselves may inadvertently empower the boss, making the encounter significantly harder. Overall, success against the Ancient Tormentor depends on maintaining control over its buffs and turn count while dealing consistent damage.
Key Strategies for Steel Fortress B10
Defeating the Ancient Tormentor in Steel Fortress B10 requires a focused and methodical approach that neutralizes its heavy reliance on beneficial effects. The most essential strategy is to prioritize blocking beneficial effects (buff block). The boss gains powerful advantages through buffs such as attack bar boosts, damage reduction, and increased stun chance from its passive. Preventing these buffs from being applied is crucial. Maintaining a high uptime on buff block significantly reduces the boss’s threat level, and using at least two monsters with reliable beneficial effect block skills ensures this consistency throughout the battle.
Alongside buff block, beneficial effect removal (strip) plays a key role. The boss regularly applies a shield and defense buff when attacked, which can drastically reduce incoming damage. Monsters with stripping skills help eliminate these advantages, keeping the boss vulnerable and improving overall run times. Combining buff block and strip ensures that the boss stays exposed and susceptible to damage at all times.
Attack bar (ATB) reduction is another strategic layer. Reducing the boss’s ATB helps limit its turn frequency, delaying high-impact skills and minimizing the activation of its Thunderbolt passive, which triggers after every five enemy turns. This also offsets the acceleration device that periodically boosts the boss’s ATB during the fight.
Once control is established through debuffs and turn manipulation, the focus shifts to damage. Strong single-target damage dealers (nukers) are essential for bringing down the boss efficiently. Certain monsters can scale their damage based on the number of debuffs on the target, making them especially potent in a team built around buff block, strip, and defense break.
Landing these critical debuffs consistently requires high accuracy. To avoid resistance and ensure smooth runs, it’s important for key debuffers to have sufficient accuracy—aiming for around 50% as a baseline, with 85–90% being optimal for reliability in high-end teams.
Speed tuning your team further increases consistency. Buff blockers should act before the boss to prevent it from gaining buffs, followed by strippers to clean up any lingering effects. Attack bar reducers should act next to disrupt the boss’s turn cycle, and damage dealers should follow to capitalize on the debuffed state.
Finally, understanding the wave structure leading to the boss can help conserve cooldowns and avoid unexpected damage. The first and third waves contain high-damage crystals that are best dealt with using area-of-effect skills or focused burst damage. The second wave features a mini-boss supported by devices that boost the enemy’s speed and lower your defense. Targeting the mini-boss first here ensures a smoother transition to the final fight.
By layering debuff control, turn denial, and optimized damage, and by fine-tuning your team’s speed and accuracy, you can establish a consistent and efficient strategy for farming Steel Fortress B10.
Recommended Monsters for Steel Fortress B10
Building an effective team for Steel Fortress B10 requires covering several key roles: beneficial effect block, beneficial effect removal, attack bar control, and damage dealing. Monsters that consistently apply debuffs, manipulate turn order, and deal high single-target damage are crucial for a fast and stable clear. Here’s a breakdown of strong monster options categorized by their primary role in the dungeon.
Beneficial Effect Blockers (Buff Block) are the backbone of any Steel Fortress B10 team. These units prevent the boss from gaining critical buffs like shield, defense up, and attack bar boosts, which drastically reduce the difficulty of the encounter. Ling Ling stands out due to her ability to block buffs with both her second and third skills.
Zinc (2A) is another strong option, applying buff block with every skill while also bringing utility with attack break
Chiwo and Pungbaek provide both strip and buff block, with Pungbaek delivering strong AoE for wave clearing.
Chiwo offering speed leadership.
Eirgar (Dark Vampire Lord) is a premier choice thanks to his reliable buff block and high base speed; he performs well when built to move early in the turn order.
Gina (2A) adds value with her AI-friendly buff block, activating perfectly when the boss has buffs. Fire Lizard is a budget-friendly option, though his buff block requires timing as it only applies once the boss has multiple buffs.
Beneficial Effect Removers (Strippers) clear the shield and defense buffs that the boss applies when attacked, which helps maintain consistent damage output.
Loren is one of the most widely used monsters in this dungeon due to her multi-functional kit—stripping, defense breaking, and attack bar reduction in one.
Bernadotte (Ken) can strip on multiple skills and brings additional damage through branding. Suri, with her skill 2, removes all buffs from the boss,
Attack Bar Reducers limit how often the boss gets a turn, making the run safer. Loren continues to be valuable in this role, as she reduces attack bar with every hit of her second skill.
Verdehile supports this by increasing the team’s attack bar with every critical hit, accelerating buff block uptime and damage output.
When speed-tuned correctly, this pairing helps keep the boss under control throughout the fight.Damage Dealers (Nukers) are essential for bringing the boss down efficiently once it’s stripped and debuffed.
Raoq (2A) offers high single-target burst, synergy with ally attacks, and built-in defense break.
Kro (2A) delivers massive damage scaling with the number of debuffs on the boss, often taking huge chunks out of its HP with his third skill.
Crow complements debuff-heavy teams, dealing more damage the more debuffs are present. Brandia scales well in this dungeon and can serve as a powerful finisher.
Healers and Support Units enhance the team’s survivability and consistency, especially during early progression or with lower rune quality. Fran provides healing, immunity, and attack bar boost, often built on Violent/Energy with high HP and DEF. Riley offers continuous healing and team buffs, supporting teams that require more sustain.
A solid core team for Steel Fortress B10 typically includes a reliable buff blocker, a stripper, Loren for utility and control, and one or two damage dealers. Units like Fran or Riley can be added for healing as needed. By balancing these roles and ensuring proper speed tuning and accuracy, players can create a reliable, auto-friendly team that consistently clears Steel Fortress B10 and secures valuable Attribute Artifacts.
Progression and Farming Tips
Steel Fortress B10 is typically approached after players have completed Necropolis B10 and can reliably farm Rift Raid Level 5. At this stage of progression, players usually have a solid foundation of runes and are familiar with end-game PvE content. The primary reason to farm Steel Fortress is to obtain Artifacts, which significantly enhance monster performance through stat boosts and additional effects, improving overall account strength in both PvE and PvP.
It’s generally recommended to tackle Steel Fortress B10 before attempting Punisher’s Crypt B10, as the mechanics and rune requirements for SF10 are slightly more forgiving. Early progression can include farming lower levels of Steel Fortress to collect gray-tier artifacts, which still provide immediate stat enhancements and can help ease the climb to B10.
When building your Steel Fortress B10 team, focus on creating a safe and consistent composition before optimizing for speed. The most crucial component is having at least two reliable beneficial effect blockers, as the boss’s strength heavily relies on gaining buffs such as shield, increased defense, and attack bar boosts. Buff blockers like Ling Ling, Zinc (2A), Eirgar, and Gina (2A) are effective choices and should be prioritized in your team.
Alongside buff block, include units that can strip beneficial effects to counter the boss’s shield and defense buffs. Monsters like Loren and Bernadotte (Ken) serve this role well. Combining buff block and strip ensures the boss remains vulnerable and prevents it from mitigating your team’s damage output.
Debuff consistency is essential, so ensure your key debuffers have sufficient accuracy. While a minimum of 50% accuracy is workable, aiming for around 90% greatly improves reliability and reduces the risk of failed runs due to resistance.
Speed tuning your team enhances control over the boss. Your buff blockers should move before the boss to prevent it from gaining its initial buffs, while strippers should act shortly after to clean up any buffs that may have slipped through. Proper turn order helps maintain pressure and ensures that damage dealers can capitalize on debuffed targets.
While some teams may fail occasionally due to AI inconsistency or missed debuffs, these losses are normal during early optimization. Focus on building a team that can consistently clear the boss, even if it’s on the slower side. As your rune quality improves, you can adjust your builds for faster clear times.
Utilize your monsters’ leader skills strategically, especially those that boost speed, HP, defense, or attack. For example, Chiwo offers a speed lead, and Eirgar provides a strong attack lead specifically for dungeons, which can support both survivability and faster clears.
Understanding the boss mechanics is key. The Ancient Tormentor gains increased attack and crit rate at the start of its turn, applies a shield when attacked, and reduces incoming damage per beneficial effect it has. The left tower applies defense break to your team, while the right tower increases the boss’s attack bar for every buff it gains. These mechanics reinforce the importance of blocking and removing buffs consistently throughout the fight.
As you begin acquiring Attribute Artifacts, examine their main stats and sub-properties. Equip damage dealers with artifacts that increase damage dealt to specific elements or boost crit damage, while support units benefit from additional accuracy or damage reduction properties. Choosing artifacts that complement each monster’s role helps reinforce your team’s effectiveness in the dungeon.
Continue to upgrade your rune quality across your team. Better runes lead to higher survivability, faster debuff application, and greater damage output, which all contribute to smoother and faster runs. Also, invest in skill-ups for critical units like Ling Ling or Zinc, as lowering skill cooldowns and increasing buff block activation chances improves run reliability.
By consistently refining your team composition, runes, and artifacts, and by focusing on controlling the boss’s beneficial effects, you can efficiently farm Steel Fortress B10 and unlock a steady flow of valuable Attribute Artifacts to power up your entire roster.
Conclusion
In conclusion, farming Steel Fortress B10 in Summoners War is a vital step in progressing your account, primarily for acquiring Artifacts, which significantly enhance the performance of your monsters in both PvE and PvP content. This dungeon presents a unique challenge centered around the boss’s dependence on beneficial effects, which can drastically increase its durability and threat level if left unchecked.
The core strategy for consistently farming Steel Fortress B10 is to control the boss’s beneficial effects. This is achieved by using monsters that can block buffs before they are applied and remove any that manage to slip through. Including at least two reliable beneficial effect blockers in your team is strongly recommended to maintain constant pressure on the boss and ensure stability. Pairing these with strippers helps to deal with the shield and defense buff the boss gains upon being attacked.
To maximize the effectiveness of these roles, it’s important to prioritize accuracy on all debuffers, aiming for a level that minimizes resistance and ensures consistent application of crucial debuffs like buff block, defense break, and attack bar reduction. Additionally, speed tuning your team so that buff blockers act before the boss’s turn allows you to prevent it from gaining key buffs from the start, with strippers following up to clean up any remaining effects.
When starting out, focus on building a safe and stable team composition. Slower runs are acceptable in the beginning if they result in higher consistency. As your rune quality improves, you can begin refining your team for faster and more efficient clears, replacing support units with more damage-oriented ones or optimizing turn order and stats. Many effective units for this dungeon are accessible through Second Awakening or are lower-star monsters that perform well when properly built.
Success in Steel Fortress B10 comes with persistence and gradual improvement. Occasional failures can still happen due to missed debuffs or AI behavior, but understanding the dungeon’s mechanics, focusing on the roles of buff blockers, strippers, and debuffers, and steadily enhancing your team’s gear and synergy will allow you to consistently farm valuable Attribute Artifacts and further strengthen your account across all game modes.
