Numbers for (almost) automated Dorudugan fight

[yorname]

Basically I got bored at constantly dodging its fireballs for 30mins with my potato laptop, so I took a closer look to see if it's possible to automate the fight without exploits or Lover's Embrace and such.

The biggest problem is its pull effect from Magnetic Overdrive. It will knock the victims prone then send them to inifite interrupts from normal attacks. AFAIK there're only two items to get immunity to pull: Horns of the Aurochs and Upright Captain's Belt. BPM added this immunity to fighters' Hold the Line and Tekehu, so it's much more viable with the mod.

Assuming we're done with Magnetic Overdrive, let's move to tanking its attacks. Both its main and off hand has an ACC of 151, 18 PEN piece/crush with main hand and 15 PEN crush with off hand. It also has this Brutal Cleave ability, with 152 ACC and 13.75 PEN slash. Now theoretically you need 153 DEF to not get a crit, which is rather easy. But Brutal Cleave applied a stacked debuff to -15% max health, which is practically a middle finger from the designers. I don't know if it works on Graze, even if it doesn't, we need 203 DEF to make it graze every time. I don't think it's a reasonable number to sustain for a long time without exploits. So, we need summons. Many Lives is the best choice here, single chanter is enough in theory, 2 is better if we want to reposition less.

Dorudugan has two attacks to hit ranged characters now: Helfire Barrage and Helstorm. Both are fire attacks, has 152 ACC and 13.75 PEN. After going below 75%, it will use Charge Helstorm periodically. This adds +5PL to Helfire Barrage, so it reaches 162 ACC and 16.25 PEN at max. 3 stacks of the buff will trigger Helstorm immediately and clear itself, so there's no 3 stack situation, and Helstorm never get improved. With 163 REF and 19.25 buring AR, every hit will be 40ish, it's impossible to die to these abilities. REF is pretty easy to get from Weapon and Shield Style, buring AR is probably the easiest to get from gears. Chanter's Not Felled or Druid's Weather the Storm help greatly, and Tekehu's chanter version of Weather the Storm is easily the easiest to automate.

Lastly, because the fire attacks will clear skeletons from Many Lives, we still need to reposition once for a while. Grog pet can make it easier to escape if the colossal gets too close by accident. If we don't die in the first place the pet has no downside.

 

TLDR: we need immunity to pull, chanter with Many Lives, everyone with 163 REF and 19.25 buring AR to almost automate the fight.

[mjo2138]

I can relate. This fight is really a battle of attrition unlike any other in Deadfire. I would start to searching the forums for Dorudugan tips and advice, as there are quite a few great ideas others have communicated on the topic. I will add my suggestions viable for POTD upscaled (all) w/ Community Patch) . Item related spoilers follow. 

 

Offensive Approaches: Take a look at all your items and see which ones can increase your damage potential. 

1. The Cap of the Laughing Stock provides -10 Deflection to nearby enemies and allies, and Blackened Plate Armor provides -1 AR if you stand close enough. The club shattered vengance provides a stacking damage curse, which can speed up the fight . Also, Marux Amanth has the Worthy Sacrifice ability for when the boss is nearly dead. 

2. The Priest Spell Spark the Souls ... zaps Doru with shock dmg, which it is vulnerable to. What you can do is summon a huge army using chanter(s) - such as the Sword and Bow Army summon. You are not going to land this spell each time since Doru's Reflex is high , but it does add enough to speed up the fight. 

3. Essence Interrupter is a good weapon here; also, whoever uses it should stack on +vessel accuracy items (I dont think any +damage ones exsit) . This character should also have as many other +accuracy, crit, dmg, items.

4. The rest of the party can use crush damage from scepters. 

5. Lastly, and importantly, no character can tank Doru and live to tell about it! So, just use summons as  fodder. Having the summons up can also create a barrier for when Doru starts to use his pull abilities .

*the self-heal ability from Doru's fireballs is annoying; the only solution I can think of is using Effigy's Husk with the -75 healing ability , but this would require the character to be low health AND near doru, so you'd probably need to do Salvation of time cheese here . (As far as I understand, an essential phanton or Monk's summon does not inherit item abilities, but I need to test!) 

Defensive Approaches

1. One character will be your 'medic' and have the Bloodfire Cloak that absorbs fire damage AND immunity to push/pull effects (via one the items you mentioned) . This char should also have revive ability or scrolls 

2. Another character can have the push/pull immunity item. I would chose a character without an ability to nullify engagement, such as "Escape" from the rogue. 

3.  When the  Helfire Barrage ability activates, use +movement chants and find a place your party can be to avoid it. As you said, a character with sky high reflex should be fine, and your 'medic' is immunue to fire already, so they'll be fine. If people to do, have a means of reviving them.  When both Helstorm and Helfire Barrage are activated, this is where having your summons up and creating space between you and Doru saves you from being engaged with him, and knocked prone. 

 

[Kaylon]

On 12/29/2023 at 12:15 AM, mjo2138 said:

5. Lastly, and importantly, no character can tank Doru and live to tell about it! So, just use summons as  fodder. Having the summons up can also create a barrier for when Doru starts to use his pull abilities .

That's not true... A paladin multi classed with troubadour, blood mage or forbidden fist can tank Dorudugan without any external help. Interrupts can be avoided with Rekvu's helmet. And of course any character under BDD can tank anything.

Any troubadour MC equipped with Rekvu's Cloak, Upright Captain Belt and Arcane interrupter can solo Dorudugan just by himself using Brisk Recitation and Many Lives... Monk MC can do the same, with a little more micro, using the Dichotomus Soul instead. 

[yorname]

5 hours ago, Kaylon said:

That's not true... A paladin multi classed with troubadour, blood mage or forbidden fist can tank Dorudugan without any external help. Interrupts can be avoided with Rekvu's helmet. And of course any character under BDD can tank anything.

Any troubadour MC equipped with Rekvu's Cloak, Upright Captain Belt and Arcane interrupter can solo Dorudugan just by himself using Brisk Recitation and Many Lives... Monk MC can do the same, with a little more micro, using the Dichotomus Soul instead. 

But without summon or exploit? Templar needs Wall of Draining (maybe not strictly a exploit), how does FF tank it? Last time I tried I couldn't avoid Brutal Cleave with Blade Turning.

[Kaylon]

21 hours ago, yorname said:

But without summon or exploit? Templar needs Wall of Draining (maybe not strictly a exploit), how does FF tank it? Last time I tried I couldn't avoid Brutal Cleave with Blade Turning.

You don't need Wall of Draining, summons or any exploit at all. Having high enough defenses and regeneration is enough for all of them. The FF can use Clarity of Agony to clear the debuff from Brutal Cleave if really needed.

[mjo2138]

On 12/30/2023 at 6:08 AM, Kaylon said:

That's not true... A paladin multi classed with troubadour, blood mage or forbidden fist can tank Dorudugan without any external help. Interrupts can be avoided with Rekvu's helmet. And of course any character under BDD can tank anything.

Any troubadour MC equipped with Rekvu's Cloak, Upright Captain Belt and Arcane interrupter can solo Dorudugan just by himself using Brisk Recitation and Many Lives... Monk MC can do the same, with a little more micro, using the Dichotomus Soul instead. 

Are you able to outheal the dps for Doru? I recall the damage type is crush/pierce, and rather high PEN ( A Painted Plate armor set wit the +2 AR, and a paladin's +Armor could get quite high... along with the +armor pet, +armor food, and the ever great Blunting Belt). I will have to try that in my current run. Pallegina will be the dummy to test it. Yes, I liked your YT videos very much. 

And , yes , of course BDD is a great option if you wanna go the route of Ancestral memory, SoT, and least unstable coil. 

 

 

[Kaylon]

12 hours ago, mjo2138 said:

Are you able to outheal the dps for Doru? I recall the damage type is crush/pierce, and rather high PEN ( A Painted Plate armor set wit the +2 AR, and a paladin's +Armor could get quite high... along with the +armor pet, +armor food, and the ever great Blunting Belt). I will have to try that in my current run. Pallegina will be the dummy to test it. Yes, I liked your YT videos very much. 

And , yes , of course BDD is a great option if you wanna go the route of Ancestral memory, SoT, and least unstable coil. 

Only the main character can do it because you have to stack resting bonuses to be able to tank Dorudugan. I did a video a long time ago, unfortunately not very good quality, showing my herald tanking Dorudugan. A blood mage/paladin or a forbidden fist/paladin can emulate that too.

[yorname]

Probably I'm the last one to know it, Dorudugan isn't immune to knock up. During test with 35 INT and Arkemyrs wondrous torment the effect from Mule Kick lasts 3s. Not as long as petrification but weapon accuracy is also way easier to stack than spells. Unluckily it's not technically a interrupt so tactician doesn't get auto refund.

[Elric Galad]

11 hours ago, yorname said:

Probably I'm the last one to know it, Dorudugan isn't immune to knock up. During test with 35 INT and Arkemyrs wondrous torment the effect from Mule Kick lasts 3s. Not as long as petrification but weapon accuracy is also way easier to stack than spells. Unluckily it's not technically a interrupt so tactician doesn't get auto refund.

Skyward kick should work, regaining 3 wounds should be doable. (Hylea's Talon, Voidwheel, Nalzpaca, Enduring Dance...) 

[yorname]

1 hour ago, Elric Galad said:

Skyward kick should work, regaining 3 wounds should be doable. (Hylea's Talon, Voidwheel, Nalzpaca, Enduring Dance...) 

That's promising indeed. Worst case can just let someone else attack the monk. I'm considering maybe berserker/some monk to easily spam skyward kick or raised torment.

[Kaylon]

Dorudugan has huge fortitude and Skyward Kick targets fortitude... The easiest way to disable him is with Grave Calling. 

[yorname]

6 hours ago, Kaylon said:

Dorudugan has huge fortitude and Skyward Kick targets fortitude... The easiest way to disable him is with Grave Calling. 

After targeting its fortitude with spells... Using weapons doesn't look that bad anymore. Isn't consistent crit harder to achieve?

[thelee]

iirc mule kick is how some folks figured out how to beat dorudugan in turn-based mode. grave calling is relevant here anyway since it gives a massive acc bonus to vessels

[Constentin Lévine]

With the boots or the Sanguine greatsword, the duration can be increased with a confused priest + Salvation of Time. The duration is not affected by his high resolve in these cases.

3 hours ago, thelee said:

irc mule kick is how some folks figured out how to beat dorudugan in turn-based mode.

By the way, Last Word in turn based mode increase the cost of abilities to 1 for the turn, so on Dorudugan it is nothing since he have an ulimited cast potential..

[yorname]

Finished the run with ranger/monk doing skyward kick. Accuracy can reach 210+ so that's not a problem at all. The problem is Dorudugan will spend more than half of the time flying that Arkemyr's Wondrous Torment misses a lot, then the knock up effect can be too short that it still does one thing or two. Wasn't 100% autopilot but still a solid strategy that you can dial up the speed to max.

[yorname]

I also noticed something about enemies queued up ability: if Dorudugan begins "casting" and the monk knocks it up, then a priest casts writ of war on it when it's targetable, it still uses that ability right after it stands up.