Build and fighting tips for fighting the Adra Dragon at the end of the Endless Path

[Vasvary5050]

Any tips for the Adra Dragon at the end of the endless path. I'm thinking I may need to respec my party a bit for this as I had a quick go and wiped (made the classic mistake of not turning the dragon and the party got almost insta-gibbed). I'm currently running:

• Monk Tank (Zahua)
• Paladin MC (kind wayfarer) - Off Tank, heals and utility
• Durance 
• Kana 
• 2 Ciphers (Grieving Mother and custom companion)

I've currently level 14, having finished the WM part 1 and 2 quests, though I haven't yet done Cragholdt's Bluff. I've still got a lot of the final act stuff to do and some bounties. Presumably level 14 is okay for the Adra dragon as its not even DLC content, but it seems a tough fight. I could probably get at least another level under the belt before returning to the dragon if necessary. Even with turning the dragon properly, there are a lot of mobs to deal with in addition to the dragon. Maybe I should do Cragholdt's Bluff then return to the dragon.

I am on PoTD.

Any tips?

[Jaryn]

Give your tank:
Ilfan Byrngar's Solace shield (+50 Defenses while Stunned; +50 Defenses while Prone) or Ring of Thorns (+50 Defenses while Stunned; +50 Defenses while Prone)
Boots of Stability (+30 Defenses against Prone attacks)
Belt of the Stelgaer (-33% Prone duration)
Potion of Llengrath's Displaced Image

Priest needs to cast Prayer Against Fear, Prayer Against Imprisonment (Adragans), Prayer Against Treachery (Adragans).
Paladin has Sworn Enemy. It increases accuracy by 15. So put Sworn Enemy on Adra dragon and cast Scroll of Paralysis. If you have Lore 8 on your paladin.
Ciphers have two great buffs for your tank, Pain Block and Going Between. Also Mental Binding and Tactical Meld are handy.

Scrolls of Valor, Defense, Protection, Revival are great.

The Adra dragon is very slow. You can easily outrun the dragon and deal with all the other enemies. Especially Adragans need to go asap.

Adra dragon's Wing Slam and Dragon Breath have very large aoe cone.

Your whole party needs accuracy buffs.

 

Edited June 15 by Jaryn

[Boeroer]

First of all: this is a good example for my take that Ciphers aren't as good as many players think they are.  However, they can be good here if they can generate enough focus from ads and then use Borrowed Instincts + Tactical Meld and then disable the dragon with cheap Whisper of Treason or Puppet Master. But they need party members who distract and disable the dragon first - until the Ciphers have gone through their lengthy process of harvesting enough focus etc. 

In order to deal with the Adra Dragon reliably (who can potentially wipe whole parties with one lucky swipe AND has a lot of pesky Adragans) you need a few things:

- summons: just to distract and buy some precious time (figurines)

- immunity to terrify (Durance, Prayer)

- immunity to paralyze

- immunity to mind control is nice to have, too - but not as crucial since you won't usually die while mind controlled.

- great accuracy on at least one party member. Use Devotions + Blessing/Zealous Focus + Inspiring Radiance. On top of that it's extremely helpful to have a Paladin with Coordinated Attacks + a marking weapon. Bonus points if you give the disabler (like Zahua) a coordinating single handed weapon (+4 acc when attacking the same enemy as an ally). The best option might be Cladhaliath with Coordinating because it is accurate (+5 acc), too and can be wielded one-handed for additional +12 accuracy. Paladin can then give +20 acc to Zahua with Coordinated Attacks + Marking while Zahua adds +21 from accurate, one handed and coordinating. Combined with Devotions etc. and exceptional quality this should almost guarantee hits with a disable from Zahua (stun + prone).

- like I said above; good, immediate(!) disable (which the dragons isn't immune to) on that same party member. Can be prone +20 resistance!) or stun, can be charm/dominate etc. I like Knockdown + bonus Knockdown + Girdle of the Driving Wave on Eder and Force of Anguish an Zahua for example. But it can be many things. It's important that you can trigger some of them at will (and not after having to harvest a lot fo focus first for example).

- not mandatory, but extremely(!) helpful: Confusion (Wizard). The dragon isn't even immune to it and you can mess up the whole bunch of enemies and make them fight each other. Instead of the Dragon wiping your party out it might wipe out its ads instead. You don't have a Wizard, so tough luck.  A scroll of Confusion on a high accuracy, high INT party member would be awesome, too.

Pop summons, let Durance pray and buff, cast the confusion if you can, start to disable the dragon. And then simply keep the dragon down as much as possible while you deal with the ads (lots of AoE preferably,here the Ciphers could do good) and at some point you might have enough focus to buff the ciphers acc up enough for then to also keep down the dragon.

The most important parts are to get rid of terrify and buff up your accuracy enough in order to apply disables. You don't want the dragon to get up long enough to do a breath attack or tail swipe. Usually you can also trick her into attacking in melee if you place 1 single summon directly in front of her, in a direction where nobody else stands behind the summon.

Edited June 15 by Boeroer

[Vasvary5050]

Managed to kill all the mobs and get Adra Dragon down to badly injured before it ate me

[Vasvary5050]

I think rather than re-try with this squad, I'm going to plough on a bit with the main adventure, get another level under my belt, and then come back to deal with the dragon, perhaps with a few different team members. Its a tough fight. I managed to kill the adds quicker and easier than I expected, but my tank went down, and then I was on the back foot. I managed to rez them but not before losing my off-tank, and then it was a very messy battle. I was struggling to heal my tank as whenever anyone tried to get closer to the dragon they ended up getting hit by one attack or another.

The ciphers were useful for the mobs but they struggled against the dragon (basically doing tickle damage with their ranged weapons and they ran out of focus quick). 

Any chance of some suggestions for a good party composition for just this fight. I've got access to all the companions and can hire some temporary ringers if necessary. I think Durance is the only essential character for the prayers and buffs (that side of things went mostly fine). I think the monk tank was fine though I'm wondering if a fighter tank might be more durable for this encounter? Any suggestions for an optimal crew for just this one fight?

[Boeroer]

The fight is usually a lot easier when you have a Priest, a Druid and a Wizard (fully rested). You don't need a real tank - if you can reliably disable tough foes. 3 relatively sturdy frontliners are enough. And I think a Monk is better compared to a Fighter in general, the only thing the Fighter is better at is gaining high accuracy quickly (Disciplined Barrage) and use it with several Knockdowns - which is very helpful to occupy the dragon very early in the encounter. Monk needs more time because of wounds. He can stun right away - but with less accuracy and a lot shorter duration. But his Force of Anguish can make up for that because its prone duration is very long compared to Knockdown. If you give the Monk Veteran's Recovery there shouldn't be such a big difference between him and a Fighter in terms of sturdyness.   

Relentless Storm, Chillfog, Confusion and Ninagauth's Shadowflame make short work of all mobs in a very short time. And Chillfog blinds/Relentless Storm stuns the Adra Dragon, too.
Also Wizard and Druid both have petrifying spells, which - when applied to the dragon - makes the damage dealing part so much easier: besides the monstrous defense debuff they suffer, petrified enemies take double the damage.
Druid's Charm Beast and Hold Beast Druid are excellent in this case, too. 

A Chanter with Dragon Thrashed is useful to just erase the mobs without having to do much. You can run him into the enemy crowd and when he's about to go down you can withdraw him with Durance: he then becomes untouchable but will still burn and slash everything around him. His accuracy will go down a bit, but oddly enough a single one handed weapon does increase the accuracy of offensive chants such as Dragon Thrashed by +12, so he should still be able to hit mobs reliably enough. 

My last fight against the Adra Dragon was with this party comp. (outfit, most used stuff):

• front line:
  • Eder (Tidefall, Sanguine Plate, 4 Knockdowns, Charge)
  • Kana Rua (Edge of Reason, Argwe's Adra, The Dragon Thrashed)
  • Hiravias (Hearth Harvest+except. hatchet, Wayfarer's Hide, Relentless Storm, Overwhelming Wave, )
• back line:
  • Durance (except. Arquebus, Angio's Gambeson, prayers + acc buffs)
  • MC Chanter (One-Eyed Molina's Spike Flinger, Sure Handed Ila + Aefyllath Ues Mith Fyr)
  • Aloth (Gyrd Háewanes Sténes, Rundl's Finery, Confusion, Chillfog, Ninagauth's Shadowflame)

It was very easy and the fight was over quickly. I cannot stress enough how important it is to be able to buy a bit of time at the start of the encounter (if you don't have party members who can just facetank the dragon).

I'm currently running another party: with MC Barb Firebrand, Eder dw war hammers, Devil of Caroc dw sabres, Zahua fists, Durance arquebus & Aloth rod.
It's way(!) harder to beat tough encouters on PotD - especially the ones that are a bit overleveled compared to me. I like to go to certain places too early just to pick up a few items I want to habe early.
My current setup lacks the additional oomph that a per-rest caster such as a Druid can unleash at will. A Rogue or Monk cannot make up for that at all (although I do enjoy playing them, esp. the Monk).

What's also very helpful against dragons in general is Munacra Arret, Spirit Spiral and Ring of Changing Heart on a high accuracy character. All but one dragon can be charmed or dominated. And it's easy to hit with a charm spell that has +15 accuracy bonus and is on a character who's already giot good accuracy.   

 

[Vasvary5050]

Thinking of replacing one of the ciphers with a druid. Any suggestions for a top-tier list of offensive spells for a druid. I've never really leant into using an offensive druid caster (used druid for melee and for healing more than offensive spells). I know it sucks when enemy druids cover me in insects and magots but I'm wondering how good those spells are when used by us rather than against us? I thought I'd test it with some bounty missions that I haven't yet done, and they seem to be doing something, but the damage in the records page doesn't seem to be very high (the druid seems to be quite far behind the cipher, and also behind my monk tank). Maybe because its DoT damage (maybe this isn't logged properly). Anyway, my general question is, what are the best spells to use for an offensive druid caster?

[Boeroer]

DoT damage doesn't show in the records.

Plague of Insects etc. are super annoying when they hit you - but that's mostly because they bypass your DR and eat away your health pool while you cannot do much about it. 

They are not as effective against the enemy thouh imo because they take quite some time to make a difference - unless you have additional means of disabling large groups for a longer time and can afford the slow (but sure) death by raw DoT.

The number one spell surely is Relentless Storm. It has good AoE size, hits foes only and combines a pulsing stun with shock damage.

Overbearing Wave is excellent, too. Its stun lasts quite a long time and the damage is good, too. It causes friendly fire though - so you have to be careful.

Talon's Reach and Nature's Mark are good because they are fast casts.

Returning Storm is only working on a single foe, but it is still nice to have periodic stun + shock dmg proc. Especially while using Spiritshift it will add to your melee dmg against a single enemy.

Venombloom and Wicked Briars are great in combination with a Wizard's Combusting Wounds.

 

 

 

Edited Sunday at 09:05 PM by Boeroer

[Vasvary5050]

Thanks Boeroer. The druid is now #2 on my damage table, and that with some of their damage not showing because its DoTs, and it certainly feels like the enemies are melting much quicker than when I had 2 cipher. Just did the Magran's Faithful bounty and the enemy just melted. I'm liking this drood so far. Relentless Storm is great.

... Okay, I think I've now I've hit new road block with the Brynlod bounty.

Edited Sunday at 09:59 PM by Vasvary5050

[Boeroer]

The Brynlod bounty is very tough. Lots of his fellows have very high defenses, especially Reflex. They are all of level 22 iirc. In addition to high Reflex, the Rogues in that bounty also have Adept Evasion. So using spells that target Reflex against them doesn't do much.

Maybe here it's best to use Plague of Insects and other stuff that targets fortitude. But you must cast it when your accuracy peaks (when Devotions + Inspiring Radiance is still up). Maybe even buff Hiravias with Champion's Boon for extra PER and so on.

 

Edited Monday at 04:16 AM by Boeroer

[Chaospread]

I'm a bit late, but among druid spell, i can say somenthing.

Nature's Vigor and Moonwell are great healing tools.

Sunbeam is a blind first level spell, little AoE but very long range.

Infestation of Maggots underated spell, cast it on group when they are <50% health and you see they melt  

Returning Storm: only one foe left? This is better than Relentless Storm  

Avenging Storm good in melee with some buffs.

Nature's Bounty can be useful in a group.

By the way, if you wanna see a Druid and how to defeat the Adra Dragon, here it is: 

https://youtu.be/gYmlRWAAIaI

Edit: Brynlod is nastier than Sefyra  

Edited Tuesday at 07:06 AM by Chaospread

[Jaryn]

Is the Brynlod bounty the one with Illusionists in the backline casting Caedebald's Blackbow? I do this bounty on max level.

Position your party between the ruined tower and the river. That way when you start the fight the whole enemy group comes nicely together and everybody, including the illusionists, is easily within range. Afterwards unleash your aoe and your crowd control, delete the illusionists and the rest should be fine.