Adra Dragon [Spoiler Warning]

[MaxQuest]

Personally I found amusing the fact that a monk goes to the prostitutes...

Well... you gotta get em, STBs

 

I have noticed a weird bug now, I summoned a delegman during the battle and now on random maps that delegman's corpse is hanging around.

Same here. Was under impression that this happens if her duration runs out when she's paralyzed or maybe alliance flipped.

[lazhu]

Just slew her on PotD. Well, that's just ridiculous in comparison with the original game. Even w/o starting WM2, it's way too easy on level 12. You run up to her all-party-in-line, cast hold beasts, relentless storm, get her stunned !!!!! and carve into mincemeat. Matter of 10 seconds max. Protection from fear, devotions and cleansing flame - that's the only casts by priest before she dies. Should try solo. Druid, it seems, is quite capable. 

[Von]

Thanks guys.

 

I better equipped my team. Got durance into the unique arquebus, I took the chanter Kana (removed my self-made rogue).... killed Adra Dragon after 3 tries.

 

I had Eder distract the dragon, my team killed all the minions around.... than spammed all the summons possible, boosted some stats and just spammed attack magic, ranged, chanter summons, some heals.

 

Took her down in 2 minutes.... lvl 13 my team.

 

Now, I can finally start White March

 

My difficulty is normal

Edited July 27, 2016 by Von

[NaoChian]

I found this fight much tougher than anything else in the game, even on normal, and it forced me to think really hard in order to devise a strategy that ended up working. But only just. I didn't have access to Gaze of the Adragan, which appears to have made things much easier for some people. 

 

My party was at level 10: wizard PC, Eder, Kana, Sagani, Aloth, and Durance.

 

I equipped Eder with the heaviest protection I could manage (among other things, the Larder Door and corrode-proofed armor), because his function in this fight is primarily to attract and weather the dragon's breath attack. Eder also had lots of potions of major endurance, because he needs to stay alive: You simply cannot have the dragon turn around and inflict its breath attack on your weaker characters. Eder's secondary weapon was the pistol St Garam's Spark, so that he could switch to it in order to inflict some heavy damage to the dragon if it did turn away from him. I positioned him right up against it, at about 10 o'clock.

 

At 4 o'clock, outside of the range of the tail lash attack, but just close enough so that the dragon is in the range of arquebuses and arbalests, I placed the primary damage-dealing characters: Kana and Durance with exceptional arquebuses, Sagani with Aedrin's Wrecker, and my wizard PC. Kana's chant was set to the one that speeds up weapon reloads. 

 

Halfway between this group of ranged attackers and the Xaurip party in the bottom-right of the area, I placed Aloth and Itumaak. These two are more than enough to keep the entire Xaurip party occupied, which is critical, because you don't want the priests to heal the dragon (it doesn't heal on its own). Aloth was equipped with the wurm figurine, and he could summon them to aid in keeping them at bay. 

 

All this positioning is managed by striking a deal with the dragon to free it. Eder starts the fight with a shot from his pistol, then switches immediately to his sword and shield. The dragon promptly turns on its fear aura, which drastically lowers the accuracy of your ranged attackers, so Durance's first action should be to cast the first-level protection against fear spell (he has to periodically refresh this spell throughout the fight). Only after the fear aura is dispelled can the ranged attacks commence.

 

Summons are key. As soon as Kana accumulates 5 chants, deploy whatever 3rd level summons spell you chose for him. I had ogres, which I positioned at 2 o'clock. These ogres, together with Eder, have the dragon flanked, which improves your odds. The ogres also draw the dragon's breath attack if it disengages from Eder, and again, keeping your ranged attackers safe from this attack is key. With luck, when it decimates the ogres, Kana will be back up at 5 chants and you'll be able to resummon them. 

 

The adragan on the top right of the map generally head towards Eder and perish with the first breath attack, so aren't really a problem. I used my wizard PC to cast debuffs on the dragon: blackened sight, expose vulnerabilities, and chill fog are particularly effective.

 

It took a while (much longer than 20 seconds), but it worked!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Caeyrii]

I! I did the ledge auto-attack thing. Shame on me.

[ArnoldRimmer]

The strategy that I have is now not to go and get scale breaker... but whilst the dragon is still not an enemy, sneak behind it to the adragons and kill them. Stay as far west as possible and send a fast guy with a ranged weapon to draw out the Xaurips guarding the treasure.

 

Whilst this is happening I spread out my team in a cresent near the west side... as the Xaurips have been attacked the dragon appears at this point and I cast 3 or 4 summons to attack him whilst my team hit form range... let the summons take the breath weapon and possibly a few of the dragons side too (best to use the crappiest summons first as they will all die anyway when the dragon breathes on them). Of course I use a couple of people to attack the Xaurips (take out the priests as quick as possible) and hit the dragon with paralysis spells and maelstom spells. Create new summons as the first wave fall and send my fighters/barbarians/paladins etc to help them whilst the wizards, druids and priest hit him with ranged spells. I find it useful to cast protections on the summons too like freedom of movement. I think hold beasts or monsters or whatever works on him too (druid spell). Resist fear scroll is also useful but there is also a WM ability for fighters I think that makes them immune to fear.

 

This tatcic works for me, I have done it twice like that. Of course you miss out on scale breaker but I get killed if I leave and then come back. There are videos of it on YT but the only way people seem to do it is buy eating 20 meals and stuff... which is stupid. To be frank, if it takes that to kill it, it is overpowered.

 

The other dragons are easy compared to it... but their is an alpine dragon that is even harder as you can't take out his helpers first. I still haven't beaten that yet.

 

Good luck!

Edited August 8, 2016 by ArnoldRimmer

[Sfzrx]

http://imgur.com/a/KiLoO

 

How to solo this as a wizard.

 

 

Adra dragon's weakest stat is will, so just buff your accuracy and use paralyze scrolls.

Edited August 8, 2016 by Sfzrx

[Aidames]

Just in case people can't win the fight or want much, much greater XP rewards:

 

You can help the dragon instead of fighting her. The quest you get is way, way, way easier than fighting and earns you over double the XP. Afterwards, you can still go back and loot the treasure room. Did it at Level 9 without problems.

 

http://imgur.com/f4CKz3v

[Kaylon]

Just in case people can't win the fight or want much, much greater XP rewards:

 

You can help the dragon instead of fighting her. The quest you get is way, way, way easier than fighting and earns you over double the XP. Afterwards, you can still go back and loot the treasure room. Did it at Level 9 without problems.

 

http://imgur.com/f4CKz3v

Yes, but you don't get her scales...

[Raven Darkholme]

 

Just in case people can't win the fight or want much, much greater XP rewards:

 

You can help the dragon instead of fighting her. The quest you get is way, way, way easier than fighting and earns you over double the XP. Afterwards, you can still go back and loot the treasure room. Did it at Level 9 without problems.

 

http://imgur.com/f4CKz3v

Yes, but you don't get her scales...

 

Which are twice as awesome if you duplicate a weapon you used them on.

[AeonsLegend]

You can accept to help her and then betray her. This is better anyway because it gives you more experience than actually helping her (you get to complete the quest plus experience from the kill). AND you get the Scale-Breaker talent which makes dragon fights much easier. With some food, potions and the right positioning and spells you can win the fight without losing anyone, even on lower levels (if you like a challenge).

[JerekKruger]

Yes, but you don't get her scales...

 

 

 

 

Also you'll forever be haunted by the knowledge that you took the easy way out.

 

OR: if you're a role-playing type like myself, you might be haunted by the fact that you essentially stole someone's body for the Adra dragon to escape with, and that by all accounts the Adra dragon was a fairly unpleasant individual to release upon the world (assuming you are role-playing a relatively good character).

[Aidames]

 

 

Yes, but you don't get her scales...

 

 

 

Also you'll forever be haunted by the knowledge that you took the easy way out.

 

OR: if you're a role-playing type like myself, you might be haunted by the fact that you essentially stole someone's body for the Adra dragon to escape with, and that by all accounts the Adra dragon was a fairly unpleasant individual to release upon the world (assuming you are role-playing a relatively good character).

I disagree, both as a role-player and as a "user". The Endless Paths of Od Nua are designed with character levels 5-9 in mind. Except for the Adra Dragon, everything goes down smoothly. This, plus the fact that the dragon's quest gives you significantly more XP than just killing her makes me fairly certain that this 'easy way out' was the "recommended" way to finish the Paths. The adra scales are cool, but you get countless Superb quality equipment throughout the game, so its really nothing groundbreaking - no offense.

 

As for the role-player part: The adra dragon doesn't seem evil. She tells the player outright why she doesn't want them to leave. She also tells the player about her life and how she holds everything she saw dear to her. She also doesn't seem to have any evil intentions once she is in a mortal, human body. And I'm saying this as a very Benevolent player. It's also cool as hell to have a dragon be indebted to you.

[Boeroer]

Which are twice as awesome if you duplicate a weapon you used them on.

I'm really interested how you manage to enchant a weapon with adra dragon scales.

[Raven Darkholme]

Oh, wait.

Guess I mixed it up. :D

[BrotherFerg]

I jjust picked up the quest scale breaker so I'm hoping that turns the tide of the battle coming at this point it's a disaster. I have a maxed out party and Gaze of the -"adragon isn't working. One breath and even my tanks are all red. I really want the adragon scales.

[JerekKruger]

I jjust picked up the quest scale breaker so I'm hoping that turns the tide of the battle coming at this point it's a disaster. I have a maxed out party and Gaze of the -"adragon isn't working. One breath and even my tanks are all red. I really want the adragon scales.

 

I believe (though I might be wrong) that the Adra Dragon is immune to petrify. If this is the case it would explain why Gaze isn't working.

 

The first thing to note is you need to do something to counteract the Terrified aura the Dragon emits. That's a -20 Accuracy to everyone affected, and the Dragon has high Defences (especially if you're on vanilla PoE which, I believe, you are), so you'll struggle to hit it with anything. Priests have a spell to fix this.

 

Secondly, the only person ever getting hit by the breath attack should be your main tank. The rest of your party should be spread out and not in its AoE (in fact I don't think she uses the breath attack against single targets at all).

 

Thirdly, you want to try to deal with the non-dragon adds first. It may have been fixed, but it used to be the case that if you hugged the wall going south you could avoid aggroing the Dragon, then when you engage the adds the Dragon would aggro, but she didn't actually come join the fight (she was in the fog of war so perhaps the AI didn't know where you were). This allowed you to kill all the adds, then rebuff your party before attacking the Dragon herself.

 

Finally, it's a hard fight, particularly if you don't have the White March expansions, so it might take a few tries. My first time killing her I had got her down to injured with all my party apart from Sagani KO'd. I discovered that the Adra walks slowly, so I was able to kite her with Sagani, taking the occasional shot which would invariably graze or miss. A good 15+ minutes of this later she finally died, not the most heroic win 

 

Good luck.

[BrotherFerg]

 

I jjust picked up the quest scale breaker so I'm hoping that turns the tide of the battle coming at this point it's a disaster. I have a maxed out party and Gaze of the -"adragon isn't working. One breath and even my tanks are all red. I really want the adragon scales.

 

I believe (though I might be wrong) that the Adra Dragon is immune to petrify. If this is the case it would explain why Gaze isn't working.

 

The first thing to note is you need to do something to counteract the Terrified aura the Dragon emits. That's a -20 Accuracy to everyone affected, and the Dragon has high Defences (especially if you're on vanilla PoE which, I believe, you are), so you'll struggle to hit it with anything. Priests have a spell to fix this.

 

Secondly, the only person ever getting hit by the breath attack should be your main tank. The rest of your party should be spread out and not in its AoE (in fact I don't think she uses the breath attack against single targets at all).

 

Thirdly, you want to try to deal with the non-dragon adds first. It may have been fixed, but it used to be the case that if you hugged the wall going south you could avoid aggroing the Dragon, then when you engage the adds the Dragon would aggro, but she didn't actually come join the fight (she was in the fog of war so perhaps the AI didn't know where you were). This allowed you to kill all the adds, then rebuff your party before attacking the Dragon herself.

 

Finally, it's a hard fight, particularly if you don't have the White March expansions, so it might take a few tries. My first time killing her I had got her down to injured with all my party apart from Sagani KO'd. I discovered that the Adra walks slowly, so I was able to kite her with Sagani, taking the occasional shot which would invariably graze or miss. A good 15+ minutes of this later she finally died, not the most heroic win 

 

Good luck.

 

Thanks for the tips, yeah I tired to take out the mobs to the right but she comes out of the fog and joins in. Im gonna try and eat a lot of food, I've seen some videos where you can stun her or knock her down so I'm gonna try that and have Durance cast some warding spells. Maybe I'll try and keep her distracted by having character kite her while I spam aoes. Still got  my fingers crossed that this scale spell brings down her defense and attack damage.

[Dr <3]

The scale spell is weak overall, don't expect any wonders... You will do much better combining devotions for faithful + immunitys to fear from your priest. Adra dragon has a lot of immunities, but as far i remember not to paralyze, so the paralyze scroll is yor friend. Also hobble is a useful debuff, with -2 to move speed she will be rooted in place, and still have -20 reflexs

[Boeroer]

Prone also works on every dragon (they only have resistances). If you have a priest and/or a paladin who raise ACC a lot and a fighter with Knockdown or a monk with Force of Anguish most dragons can be kept down all the time.

 

Also note that all dragons except one (one of the bog dragons is immune) can be charmed. This is (in my experience) the most easiest way to take them out. Give any character with high ACC Munacra Arret and then push his ACC even higher with priest and/or paladin. Even a paladin itself can be pretty good with it if he has Swon Enemy and uses it on the dragon. Most of the time the dragon gets crit-charmed. Besides his flipped alliance, charmed also is a hefty debuff.

[mathmatics]

After reading through this thread because I found the fight hard, I am so sad to notice how many people did not enjoy it. Yes its hard. Its a fooking dragon! It reminds me of baldurs gate when I thought my party was tough then ran into my first drago pn. I really hope Obsidian does not leave out encounters like this in poe 2 due to some who do not enjoy challange.

[Boeroer]

Since those fights are completely optional, why would OBS want to leave them out? And why would people complain about them being too difficult? I also don't get it.

And by the way they are easy enough (even solo PotD) if you know what you have to do.

[JerekKruger]

And why would people complain about them being too difficult?

 

There seems to be a growing belief amongst gamers they should be able to do everything easily, and they complain of forums when things are too hard. You see this particularly when achievements are hard to get. I have my theories about where this comes from, but that would be going massively off topic.

[Boeroer]

Those poor spoiled kids.

[Livegood118]

I think OBS probably have to be conscious that not everyone that buys/purchases the game is going to play it as much as we all do.

 

People really do struggle with these games. Hell, I remember on my first playthrough on normal it must've taken me 10-15 times to beat the Adra Dragon, and I've played all of the infinity engine games back to front and sideways and backwards. I mean, they had to introduce the story time mode which is a step down from easy.

 

It's fair enough that all of the hardest fights in the game are pretty much optional and I think you get the best of both worlds from that approach.  And you've got to be really conscious of making your game too hard because people will **** all over something if they think it's being unfair, even if it isn't and they're just bad at it. The fact Pillars' mechanics aren't exactly too transparent doesn't help the issue.

Edited December 13, 2016 by Livegood118