Having trouble on PotD with the Young Drake fight

[Armanz]

Well the title pretty much says everything. I'm aware of the fact that PotD is supposed to be tough but I sponged out every bit of exp I could get and the only thing I could do is the Goricci street battle which is nigh impossible right now. I turned off level scaling for the fight and added a wizard adventurer to my party so now I'm Barbarian/Fighter, Fighter/Rogue, Cleric & Wizard. Do I really need to hire a second adventurer or is there some key thing I'm not seeing? I had all my guys eat +2 CON stuff during resting and chose the aoe blind for my wizard on lvl 2.

 

What I tried so far is to sneak up on the group from below. I stand on the footprint of Eothas in the mud, throw distracting crackles and then engage. In the ideal fight Edér gets off a backstab and then the fight starts. I've tried to either focus down the Drake first with emporewed barbaric blow/knock down, empowered blinding strike, emporewed pillar of faith and empowered aoe blind. during the fight i always manage to very barely keep everybody alive with chugging lots of healing potions, using xotis lvl 1 aoe heals and gauns share but everytime i get the drake to almost dead the rest of the enemies kills me.

More succesful was my approach to kill everything else first. My closest fight so far has been everything except for 1 wyrm & panther dead and the young drake to bloodied but fan of flames just wrecks my hopes. I've also used stun bombs to rather good effect but I just can't seem to win, even in the fights where I hit all my abilities.

 

Pls help me, don't make me hire a second adventurer. I already feel deep shame because I turned off level scaling for this fight.

[Esajin]

That fight is really hard.

 

There's a barrel of gunpowder that you can shoot on the south side, with an arquebus or a pistol, it should deal approximately 50-60 damage to half of the pack. It's recommended to do the fight with a party of three (eder and xoti). If all else fails, you can include a cipher mercenary just for this fight, get whispers of treasons, it helps a ton.

 

Also, cinder bombs are awesome, you can get 3 from the vendor above the Kraken Inn, or buy 1 spice, 1 onyx, and go steal the blackpowder from the bedroom of the injured guy in Port Maje, that way you can craft three more cinder bombs. You're going to need them

 

And finally, if all else fails, that fight is optional, you can stealth straight into the Arena. Once you complete the arena, they will have despawned. Good luck with that too

[Bluewall]

Definitely a challenging fight considering the resources you have available.  

 

My comp was:

PC: Priest of Magran/Evoker

Eder: Fighter/Rogue

Xoti: Priest

 

I set a trap on the ramp, pull the mobs, and use Eder/Xoti to block off the ramp.  Then just use all of your AoE to blast down the pack.  Use all of  your bombs and spells, then empower yourself and use all your spells again.  Touch of Rot is strong here.  

[Armanz]

I guess I was too stupid to lure them into the barrel properly, i never hit more than 1 or 2 of them. I didn't even think to sneak past them, that's what ill probably do now. Return to a save where i didnt recruit the mercenary and sneak past them xD

[murraydd]

I just played through it with a Marauder (Berserker/Streetfighter).  I used Eder, Xoti (both multiclassed) and a pair of hirelings (Troubadour, Crusader).  It wasn't easy, but I got through it on my first attempt without using any weird kiting shenanigans.  My biggest piece of advice other than "use hirelings," is to use Explosives.  Stun Grenades were my MVPs.  I also had everyone rest and eat Rice for 10% DR, and ate Whiteleaf with Eder and my PC.  The game is rarely going to be more difficult than it is right now, so now is the time to use everything at your disposal to win!

[Skoot]

I managed this on a solo playthrough recently without using the gunpowder barrel.  I did it as a Paladin/Chanter with basically every single one of Berath's Blessings, but most of the advice should still apply.  Think I was level 6 when I managed it.

 

There's a small area on the eastern side of the map, just above the Foreman's Quarters where I pulled the pack towards.  Pulling them up there has a couple benefits.  First, it splits the pack, you'll still get a load of mobs, but the wurms didn't seem to follow.  Or at least it should, it's kind of finnicky and I haven't quite mastered the art of splitting packs.  Mostly I just stealth up, intentionally get spotted on the edge of their detection radius and bolt for the nearest chokepoint.  Second, when positioned correctly your tank only needs to engage two things at once.  Probably two panthers or a boar (I can't quite recall).

 

The downside is splitting a pack of mobs usually means you're stuck in combat.  That can be pretty rough, since your fighters' Constant Recovery will run out and you're left doing half the fight with fewer resources. 

 

Once you've managed a good pull and aren't overwhelmed by mobs seconds into the fight, I think your goal should be to take out the drake without letting it hit you too much.  So have Eder just smack some cats around while you and Xoti ping the drake on the stairs.

 

If you need another character, I'd recommend a Chanter with Come, Come Soft Winds of Death and White Worms Writhed in the Bellies of the Dead.  That'll provide you some passive healing and a pretty decent AoE (which requires a corpse, but you should be able to make a couple) that deals a fair chunk of damage to the drake.

 

Now, as far as Gorecci Street is concerned...Haven't managed that one.  I did find a work around by accident.  If you leave Port Maje, then re-enter and go directly to Gorecci Street, you'll enter on the south side of the map with plenty of room to move past the looters.  I just took the opportunity to talk to whatshisname for the quest and ran off to do other things (also learning that if you convince him without killing the looters, they die).  I didn't really think of it at the time, but since you have more room to maneuver on that side of the map, you might be able to split the looters up and actually take them down.  At the least, you'd have a better shot from there than when you're surrounded by all seven of them.

[merkmerk73]

The starting island is absurdly hard and overtuned compared to literally everything after.

 

People would arguing with me before on this but the drake + panthers and the boars are too much right now

 

So is grocery street

 

(Buff the rest of the game to be this dumb or admit that the starting island is silly right now. I'm past the starting island and fights are simply challenging and fun instead of ridiculous like grocery street and boar/drake ruins fights)

Edited June 8, 2018 by merkmerk73

[merkmerk73]

Oh also level scaling is busted for this area - if you're level 4 the boars will be 3 skulls which is basically impossible since they don't come solo

[Haplok]

I managed to do this in 1.1 PotD with Berserker/Streetfighter, Eder and Xoti. Took many tries and I needed to pull the enemies to the second, upper set of stairs. Only 2 mobs can engage you there and I slowly whittled them down while healing the party, using empower to recover resources and gulping healing pots. A lot of attrition fire from the Wurms too. When Boar and Drake came into engagement range, I instantly focused on them and spammed Crippling Strike as fast as I could.

[Zap Gun For Hire]

So what I'm hearing from this thread and others is this fight is gonna be awesome on Triple Crown Solo. 

Edited June 8, 2018 by Zap Gun For Hire

[jazzthing]

You need to split-pull (same as in PoE1 in the beginning). It may take some trys but then the fights are a lot easier.

[Haplok]

I didn't manage to split this stack. Maybe I didn't run away far enough.

[Cherudek]

Playing a cipher and spamming Whisper of Treason made that fight manageable for me. That spell is a bit OP.

[Owlbear]

Playing a cipher and spamming Whisper of Treason made that fight manageable for me. That spell is a bit OP.

 

I agree, they should change the current charm abilities of the ciphers. Whisper of Treason should just confuse instead of charm so Puppet master would be the first ability with the charm effect. Ring leader could stay the same.

 

This idea would fit in nicely with the current "just nerf the ciphers" trend :D

[mant2si]

Chipher / Ghost Heart | Solo PotD | L5

https://youtu.be/2_wVsBaN_h8

 

[mammasaura]

I did in 3 using traps, bombs and the gunpowder barrel.

 

Gone in stealth to the bottom near the gunpowder barrel.

Eder puts a bear trap near/behind the barrel. Putting a trap alerts them and so all move near there.

Meanwhile Xoti fires a bullet to activate the gunpowder and my character (mage slayer/trickster) throws a cinder grenade.

 

Maybe 2 are killed, the rest is bloodied or worse beside the dragon and the boar.

The cinder grenade further lowers the health and kills the weaker.

The bottleneck between the tent and the wagon permits to engage 2 monsters at time or 1 dragon

Once killed the big boar and the dragon I just kited because I was low on healing and was surrounded; panthers don't have engagement.

Edited June 8, 2018 by mammasaura

[Armanz]

Well, smart usage of the gunpowder barrel trivialized the entire fight (with scaling off though, but at this point im too tired of the fight to try it with scaling on).

Thanks for all the responses.

Edited June 8, 2018 by Armanz

[rtokar]

Ha. I launched the game after the patch and had just cleared the area of the panthers and such. Had the conv with Aloth and got him in the party.

 

when I launched the game I was plopped right in the middle of the mob, in an area I thought I just cleared. 

 

fun surprise. I kept the drake charmed most of the fight, that seemed to do the trick for me.

[1TTFFSSE]

 

Playing a cipher and spamming Whisper of Treason made that fight manageable for me. That spell is a bit OP.

 

I agree, they should change the current charm abilities of the ciphers. Whisper of Treason should just confuse instead of charm so Puppet master would be the first ability with the charm effect. Ring leader could stay the same.

 

This idea would fit in nicely with the current "just nerf the ciphers" trend :D

 

It's true get rid of the last useful thing ciphers can do. 

[Ryz009]

The starting island is absurdly hard and overtuned compared to literally everything after.

 

People would arguing with me before on this but the drake + panthers and the boars are too much right now

 

So is grocery street

 

(Buff the rest of the game to be this dumb or admit that the starting island is silly right now. I'm past the starting island and fights are simply challenging and fun instead of ridiculous like grocery street and boar/drake ruins fights)

 

Agreed. Once you get past the absurdly difficult fights things go back to being decent. The boar drake fight is obscene (like why are they both above the PC's level and boss like enemies? When you only have 3 people who thought that was a good idea?)

[dudex]

its not a very hard fight if u got 2 out 3 people that can soak some damage.

 

if u got 2 glass cannon + eder it will be pretty tough.  did it on my first try with my 17 con berserker/streetfighter without consumeble and traps. just split the damage and try to get xoti aoe heals to hit both characters that are taking damage.

[Shadenuat]

Just fight it from the north, enemy pathfinding is too bad and panthers will just derp around. Maybe dragon even burns them with you. If you're druid you should have picked Woodskin already, then fire damage won't bother you. If you have wizard, Chillfog for days. If you have Chanter, you want to summon at all times anything near drake itself - it will re-aggro on summon and won't ever bother you. Party like physical main+story companions will probably be brutally hard though, you'll probably have to kite, use grenades and drugs.

[Zap Gun For Hire]

Well, smart usage of the gunpowder barrel

"It's as true today as when I started adventuring:  'When in doubt, set something on fire.'"

- Belkar Bitterleaf

[Lokithecat]

Berath's Blessing for lvl 4.  Also with G Street (spelling?) you can sneak past everyone, get to the guy at the end, speak to him, give him 40 copper, win.  Get 1000 copper for doing the quest.

 

Totally counterintuitive, but you don't get xp for killing stuff.

[Archaven]

there's a chokepoint below the barrel. did it with 3 party members. use whiteleaf, svef, cinder bombs. that chokepoint limit 2 mobs at a time which make the fights easier.

 

at first i thought of exploding the barrels. this is surprising to me. using a pistol it cannot explode the barrels? also, be sure to use xoti empower sickle.