How to solo water dragon with Vela?

[Shai Hulud]

I'm trying to solo Scyorielaphas the water dragon as practice for an ultimate run with a SC Fury. Weirdly he is one of the hardest bosses for this build, at least with the equipment I currently have. 

I do have Effort, I just hit L20, but I do not have any weyc items or Least Unstable Coil, Scordeo's Edge and haven't procced Opening Barrage on Scordeo's Trophy so am fighting him with full recovery. Had no problem doing this versus the fire dragon. This guy's defenses are even worse (particularly vs lightning and I have lightning attacks) and as a Fury I tend to just kill things really rapidly more than focus on defenses so it seems like it should be easy, but it is hard to kill the water dragon fast enough. My best strategy has been just stacking pulse spells like great maelstrom, insect plagues, venombloom etc. with Avenging Storm, while keeping Vela in a beetle shell or withdrawn, but I still die probably half the time. I have three problems in this fight

1. There is nowhere safe to put Vela as far as I can tell (she follows me through the tunnel even if I stick her on the other side), and she doesn't even stay inside the bubbles, so all I can do is expert timing with beetle shells and withdraw scrolls, without pausing, which isn't easy especially since some of his attacks can break the beetle shells, I can be grabbed for several seconds, and also Vela has a tendency to glitch on this map after certain attacks and when I press TAB I can't even tell where she is. Sometimes it's after she's proned, sometimes grabbed. She seems to get grabbed even in a beetle shell it just negates 200 points of damage. 
2. About halfway through, the little safety bubbles break and I'm suddenly attacked by every tentacle and wave on screen. I've generally just been powering through this because I don't have any healing spells and potions are slow. But sometimes I die here or Vela does, particularly when I can't find her.
3. When Scyorielaphas is bloodied or near death (can't tell if it's time-based or health-based) he does these four lightning bolts in all directions which not only does 200+ damage it also gives a gaping wound which reduces my meagre health pool (start with little over 300) to a sliver. This is the most common spot where I die. I don't have a good response to this other than to try to reduce that last sliver of health so he goes back into dialogue mode. That and making sure Vela is withdrawn when this part comes, assuming I can find her.

So that's it. There has to be a better strategy for this fight. With other builds I've had no problem because they could make themselves invulnerable or just zerg him insanely fast. If I had all the gear it would be easy because he'd be constantly interrupted by Energized, but I'd have to do bad pathing to go get the gear and come back, would prefer not to do that unless it's unavoidable. 

 

[abot]

In my experience only thing that works is some sort of prone (I usually try to buff the pike ancient weapon summon for this), or the non-resistable paralyze from the chilfog, probably not even petrify works as he is immune

[Shai Hulud]

7 hours ago, abot said:

In my experience only thing that works is some sort of prone (I usually try to buff the pike ancient weapon summon for this), or the non-resistable paralyze from the chilfog, probably not even petrify works as he is immune

I watched your fight before posting this and it looked like you almost lost Vela at least once (at the beginning from the wave, and later she got grabbed anyway). Yeah petrify does nothing because he's immune to dexterity afflictions. I didn't think about chill fog even though I could see you were proccing that from killing your summons. Not sure how I would proc that with a Fury. I guess I could summon skeletons with the Charm of Bones necklace, though sometimes that summons steelspine warriors and things that aren't that easy to kill, so probably not worth it? I guess I could try "Calling the World's Maw" which prones. Maybe I just need to do it before his death attack when he detonates the wards and then cast it again while a maelstrom finishes him. 

Or maybe I'll just circle back when I have all the gear and can keep him perma interrupted with energized avenging storm bolts. Thought there must be a more basic way given he is meant to be fought at like level 13. I suppose if you have a full party you just kill the tentacle things and can stay safe in the protected bubbles. 

Also I am annoyed that beetle shell is a 3 second cast when Withdraw is a .5s cast. In the first game Beetle Shell was a "fast" cast. A 200 point damage shield + paralyze is far less useful than withdrawing someone so you'd think it would at least be a quick cast, but it's a level 3 spell with long cast and 4s recovery. It is still sort of useful, except when enemies can do like 350+ damage which is enough to break the shell and kill her. That last attack the water dragon does when he detonates the four bubbles can kill her in a shell so I try to withdraw her, but IDK why she is so hard to find on this map.

EDIT: @abot why do you keep casting tactical meld? It's just one guy so what is the benefit of the +engagement? Or are you doing it for Aware? I can summon oozes, one of which (bog ooze) can be pretty useful as he has a wave attack that can prone, but there are four ooze types and you get three so you don't always get the bog ooze.

EDIT 2: I figured it out thanks to your suggestion about proning him, the key with a fury is use call to the primordials, attack him with a bog ooze's foul wave repeatedly, and use calling the world's maw + great maelstrom when dragon gets bloodied. Before then use avenging storm, venombloom, insect swarm, relentless storm (mostly for the tentacles), and infestation of maggots to drain his health and proc avenging storm bolts with effort. 

Edited May 14, 2023 by Shai Hulud

[Boeroer]

Grave Bound (the freezing effect of Grave Calling) isn't only applied with Chilling Grave (the Chillfog) but also with normal weapon crits.

But iirc Scyorielaphas is immune to freeze attacks? Or does it work anyway?

[Shai Hulud]

3 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Grave Bound (the freezing effect of Grave Calling) isn't only applied with Chilling Grave (the Chillfog) but also with normal weapon crits.

But iirc Scyorielaphas is immune to freeze attacks? Or does it work anyway?

He is immune to dexterity afflictions so he should be...

Now I'm having trouble defeating Nemnok. Should have grabbed late game gear first... anyway I get swarmed before he's even hurt. Should come back with Scordeo's Edge at least.

EDIT: Got him. Key with this gear seems to be to start in a corner, use oozes to protect one side, try to group everyone coming from one direction and cast great maelstrom and venombloom to wipe out followers, then bog ooze can debuff nemnok who is vulnerable to stuns and petrification. That bog ooze is like miles better than any other druid summon, it's crazy. It has a huge AOE insect plague but the main draw is its foul wave ability, which it can spam indefinitely, it's a line attack with length 14 and penetration 16, accuracy 103, does crush/corrode, disorients, sickens, and prones. So good that if I don't get a bog ooze I just recast the spell ASAP. The only good thing about the other oozes is the greater black ooze splits when klilled, and the smaller oozes have no duration, so you can create an army of little oozes if you want. 

So at this point I'm doing concelhaut, cave grub, water dragon, nemnok, and fire dragon without the epic gear. Maybe belranga because she's in the vicinity. After ashen maw I head to SSS to grab the least unstable coil, after SSS go grab weyc items, and from there it is pretty easy.

Edited May 14, 2023 by Shai Hulud