Adra dragon suggestions without cheese

[endruwiggin]

I'm looking for a consistent way of killing the Adra Dragon

 

I tried killing the adra dragon couple of times without 'cheese'-ing, the only thing I did for convenience is to line my characters in a certain way around the dragon and then attack.

Cheese includes:

1) paralyze scroll chain (thats how i beat it once but its too cheese!)

2) killing her companions first without aggro-ing her (i believe its not intended that way)

 

I did try to use maelstrom scrolls without paralyze but im just getting whipped (literally!) too fast with all those AOEs and the little reptalians that go for my backline to do ever more pressure...

 

I try to use resurrection scrolls a lot but at some point they just don't bring characters up again

 

The ONLY damaging spells that work are:

1) Priest level 5th pillar of holy flame

2) Wizard level 5th blast of frost

3) Scroll - maelstrom

4) Wizard 5th wall of force but not as strong as blast of frost (i die before duration end..)

 

Problem is they can't always do full damage due to resistances.

I can't reduce dragon resistances due to its ... well ... resistances !!! All the resistance-lowering spells from Aloth and Durance that I try miss. And whats the point waiting for iroll100 for the slight chance that they WILL hit ?

 

The most I was able to do spamming those damaging spells is to get her to Injured before I can't resurrectmy party anymore (not sure if bug or intended so resurrect wont be abused?).

 

Not to make this post too long, i'll just add i do drink some defense potion of Eder and everyone ate food ofc +2 might.

 

Summons don't do much except maybe holding xunatrip at bay.

 

Suggestions ?

 

 

 

For fun I posted an image of the Adra dragon dying due to cheese (paralyze fest and lucky resistance-reduction spells... look how much I crit!):

 

Edited April 8, 2015 by endruwiggin

[MadDemiurg]

Does petrify spell count as cheese?

[tnc]

First increase your casters' accuracy with stuff like eldricth aim or some priest spells then reduce his resistances with debuff spells such as the ones that lower fortitude(sickened&weakened) and then paralyze&finish him. No need to cheese.

[Climhazzard]

I know archer kiting works, though it can take forever if your accuracy is low.  Wood elf paladin archer would probably have the easiest time with this strategy, you'd have less trouble with the terrify aura and good accuracy from zealous focus/sworn enemy.

Edited April 8, 2015 by Climhazzard

[PIP-Clownboy]

Scroll of Revival has a MASSIVE aoe if you want a failsafe. I was able to beat the Adra first attempt on iron/POTD due to Kana hoarding two of them through most of the game. My Wizard went down before he could cast a single spell, then went down two more times and Durance was 10% health away from perma death so it was a nail biter.

Edited April 8, 2015 by PIP-Clownboy

[b0rsuk]

0. Send Eder first, no reason to have your entire party endure that corrosive breath opener.

 

I'm a bit surprised summoning is not on your list of cheese. Aside from the area attacks, which the lizard only seems to do at the beginning (1 breath and 1 wing beat), it seems to stick to melee attacks. It might throw a Dominate here and there.

 

Long story short, Chanter summons do a good job at keeping it occupied. Urdel and Gurdel work especially well. If you have a druid, Moonwell is great for both Eder and your monsters.

 

You don't seem to cast Prayer against Fear, why ?

 

Scroll of Youthful Spirits is nice at the start, all your party members get more from potions with +3 to Survival.

 

Sagani is an excellent target for Champion's Boon (from Durance). +10 Might, +10 Perception, +5 DR penetration ! Couple this with Potion of Deletrious Something (-10 endurance, 1.5x attack speed and Marked Prey and things get interesting.

 

In general, the lizard's worst saves are Reflex, and damage type - cold. Blizzard from a druid is particularly sweet - deals damage, and lowers attack speed. I happen to have two druids in my party.

[Eos]

Killed him on Hard, with a party of six (PC + Eder, Aloth, Durance, Sagani, Kana) at level 12, pretty much at the end of the game.

 

Setup

Tank - Eder, stacked damage reduction and avoidance (all four defensive stats at around 120), 5 Major Potions of Endurance, 2 Potions of +25 Deflection

Ranged Physical DD - PC (Rogue Wood Elf with all the offensive talents you can get, wielding the named arquebues from the Pirate bounty)

Ranged Physical DD - Sagani (wielding a named Hunting Bow)

Ranged Physical DD - Kana (chanting the fire damage phrase and the reduced reload timer phrase and wielding the named arbaleste Hold Wall)

Support Buffer/Disabler/Healer - Durance

Support Disabler - Aloth

 

Strategy

When the fight starts, Eder is positionied to the far north, the rest of the group to the south, so when the dragon spawns, Eder will be the only one who gets whacked by its attacks/breath/wing attack. Eder just suits up using all his defensive cooldowns and potions and then gets flailed at, staying alive by using potions and generally just not getting hit.

 

At the same time the three physical DDs stay on the dragon throughout the whole fight and throw everything at him to kill him as quickly as possible.

 

Aloth and Durance (and Kana's summons via invocation/figurines) manage the rest of the fight. They buff the group, they disable the adds, they support Eder, and if the time is there, they throw a spell or two at the dragon.

 

With that tactic the dragon went down first try without much trouble. As long as your ranged DPS is high enough, Aloth and Durance (and your summons) should be able to ward of the spawning adds, while Eder sustains himself with his 20s defensive cooldown (the one which gives +20 all defenses), his self-heal (the one which heals 50% of incoming damage over time) and some potions.

[PIP-Clownboy]

Does petrify spell count as cheese?

 

I mean 4x dmg. But Paralyze in general is way too good and last far too long. 

[endruwiggin]

Thanks for all the suggestion, i actually didn't take into consideration increasing my casters accuracy for spells, nor did i thought about even trying getting the dragon down by shooting arrows at it!

I will try that next time, hopefully it wont go as bad :D

 

Although, I can't pre-buff, neither can I pre-use potions before battle so its pretty luck based still for the first round if Eder will get whiped or not ...

[Eos]

Thanks for all the suggestion, i actually didn't take into consideration increasing my casters accuracy for spells, nor did i thought about even trying getting the dragon down by shooting arrows at it!

I will try that next time, hopefully it wont go as bad :D

 

Although, I can't pre-buff, neither can I pre-use potions before battle so its pretty luck based still for the first round if Eder will get whiped or not ...

 

You can get Eder to level 12, which gives him a talent that should automatically revive him once per day. Or you give him the armor from the Endless Path Dungeon which also has the Second Chance mod (I assume it does the same, though I never had Eder hit the ground with it equipped).

 

Alternatively you give him lots of DR/max endurance/consti food, activate his +20 defense skill/chugg a potion with +defense/endurance/etc. right at the start of the fight. It's doable to tank the initial attack. At least it was on hard, dunno about PotD

[b0rsuk]

There is at least one scroll which grants area Accuracy bonus. That should speed up your buffing.

[byrningman]

I literally just beat the dragon about an hour ago. My first few attempts were futile, so I went away and did other stuff then came back with my party all level 11-12. It was much much easier. But rather than the level bump, I was around level 10 in my previous attempts, I think the inclusion of the cipher (Grieving Woman? is that her name?) made the biggest difference. One of her advanced spells is a form of domination that spreads from enemy to enemy like a virus (up to five of them I think). I walked down to the little guy who worship dragons, towards the loot, figuring that was the best way to create a bottleneck. My plan was to confuse and mind control some of the little guys, get them to slow down the dragon and the other goons (sorry, I forgetting the names of all the creatures and NPCs!). But what I hadn't expected, and it worked first time, was that the Grieving Woman's virulent mind control would extend to the dragon itself. Then things got a lot easier - the dragon was fighting its own goons. Whenever it lost domination, I had the Grieving Women cast the spell again. So there was a constant, changing mixture of dragon and its various goons fighting amongst one another, and I just kept the magic users pelting the whole melee with AoE spells. I had to keep the paladin and my PC (a monk) largely out of the fray, in order to leave goons for the Grieving Mother to beat up so that she could cast the pestilential domination spell again. 

 

It still took a good while for that beast to go down, but I only one had a character (Aloth) lose consciousness and quickly revived him. This was on hard difficulty btw.

 

My party: me (a monk), the paladin (Pellegan?), Aloth, the priest (Durban?), Grieving Mother, the druid (Hize-something?). For once my monk laid out relatively little damage. She was up in the dragon's face keeping it busy a few times, so her dignity is intact.

[byrningman]

If I was to do it again, I might bring the chanter instead of the paladin, since his songs and ogres might have smoothed things along.

[Ethorion]

Took me a couple of attempts, but i did it, despite not knowing what would do damage to her or not.

 

I generally tried to keep all characters as far from her as possible to avoid that insane AoE one shot attack, only having my tank being at her holding the aggro.

 

I spent most of my time healing, buffing up and casting spells and maelstroms on her, maelstrom seems to be doing quite a bit of damage, so that's definitely viable. Never really used paralyze, only took control of her once with my cipher to kill off the minions and position my charcters. I barely killed her. My tank died while she had very little hp left, so it was a race against time.

[endruwiggin]

Thanks for all the suggestions, i finally did it!

 

Started with wall of force to get her hobbled, because i noticed its very reliable way of getting her reflex saving throw even lower!

 

My priest as suggested AOE the party with fear defense and accuracy boost, while others did an AOE scroll of accuracy and Sagani (ranger) drank some accuracy potions. She didn't do a lot damage though to be honest, but she attacks fast!

 

As suggested, I summoned some Adra Beetle and a Drake to keep my backline at safe distance.

 

Eder (fighter) became alcoholist from all the potions he drank.

In the end of the fight he actually died but he lived long enough :-P

 

When the adra dragon reflexes were a bit low I could use reflex-based spells more effectivly and that basically what did the "big numbers" damage; Blast of Frost (aloth) and Maelstrom (everyone with 10 lore) and later Pillar of Faith (crush damage vs reflex, priest).

I think I used like 3-4 Maelstrom scrolls, 2 wall of force and 1 blast of frost (aloth could do only 3 level 5 spells at this point).

I noticed Aloth Arcane Assault is also doing a decent damage! raw damage + dazed vs. reflex !!!

 

At some point I wanted to raise the dragon resistances even more, and I noticed wizard level 1 spells can daze and reduce will against reflex which was perfect, so I did that and spammed some more reflexes allowing my priest to do massive damage with Pillar of Faith.

 

The last spell I used was actually Noxious Burst (i needed to AOE), which hit the adra for 13 damage but killed it! So basically Aloth stole the kill from Sagani, I expect her to retaliate later on.

 

Also as I said, no paralyse has been used during the slaying of the dragon. Cheers and thanks everyone :-D

 

[dirigible]

The easiest way to take the dragon down is to literally take it down. Trip it.

 

Reflex is its worst defense. I had my ranger root it (which reduces reflex) then I had my mage slicken it (targeting reflex). A prone dragon does not attack and is MUCH easier to hit. Once it's prone it's pretty easy to hit with any reflex-targeting abilities you have, which means many AoEs.

 

Yes its hard to hit it with cc, but keep trying. Once you get the first one on, it becomes successively easier to hit with each additional cc. Don't let up.

 

Incidentally, I found it helpful to

• run away at the start of the fight, which buys some time for buffing since the dragon is slow
• spread out my units in a circle around the dragon, ensuring it can't hit more than 2 at a time
• kill the adds first. They not only buff the dragon, but they'll slowly whittle down your squishies. Just have Eder tank while you kill them.
• also, the dragon can one-shot his own allies if you make him face them and he decides to do his breath attack

Edited April 9, 2015 by dirigible

[b0rsuk]

I can now consistently beat the Adra Dragon on Normal with my party: PC (Druid), Eder, Durance, Kana, Sagani, Hiravius. And by "consistently" I mean: at least 3 times in a row. This is my first party, it's suboptimal, and far from minmaxed.

 

The best strategy goes as follows:

1. Eder wears heavy armor and large shield. (In my case his talents are not very defensive: Vigorous Defense, Armored Grace, Snake Reflexes, Adventurer, Interrupting Blows, Bloody Slaughter. He wears Shod in Faith, boots which grant Consecrated Ground when damaged. He wears an armor granting Second Chance (the heavy one from Endless Paths, or another heavy with the green Second Chance ring)

2. Eder goes along the bottom edge of the area. This way, not only he faces the dragon alone at first (so party is not damaged by Wing Beat and Breath), but he makes the dragon face away from the party. Subsequent breaths won't hit my party.

3. Once combat starts, use Vigorous Defense. Then, if his health is still above 75%, drink the potion granting +25 fortitude +20 reflex. If wounded below 75%, drink a potion of Major Endurance. 5 potions are enough for the entire battle and there will be some left.

 

The rest of the party doesn't try to help or buff Eder. It's not worth the danger and he can handle it. Even if he goes down, Second Chance will help and the dragon will be out of breath for quite a while. Either way he will buy a lot of time.

 

Everyone else wears medium or light armor. Meanwhile the rest of the party uses some buffs and approaches the dragon from the other side:

 

* Durance casts Prayer Against Fear to counter the -20 penalty of Terrified. Then casts Champion's Boon on Sagani (+10 Might, +10 Perception, 5 DR penetration). Then he stays far from danger, picking stray xaurips etc and casting any buffs you fancy.

* Kana uses Scroll of Valor, preceded by Scroll of Untamed Wild so that everyone's potions last longer.

* Sagani drinks Potion of Deletrious Something (1.5x attack speed) and shoots either the dragon or some minor monsters, if available. Save the fox for minions, keep away from dragon.

* Both druids cast Returning Storm. Then they position themselves just close enough to keep zapping the dragon, but wait a few seconds until dragon uses area attacks on Eder.

 

Once everyone joins the battle,

* Kana takes uses a stack of 5 scrolls of maelstrom on the dragon. Taking out some monsters first may be better, especially if they're summoners. This has a chance of benefiting from a debuff on the dragon. Kana's main objective is to keep casting Urdel and Gurdel next to dragon. Maelstrom in the remaining time.

* Druids cast the following spells on the dragon, in no particular order: Blizzard, Solar Ray, Nature's Mark (rarely works). If xaurips show up around the dragon, also try Hailstorm, Insect Swarm. Almost all listed spells attack Reflex, the weakest defense of the dragon, and preferably cold. Try to alternate spells, because many of these attacks also debuff. I tried casting the maw spell (piercing damage + prone) but couldn't hit reliably, so I mostly avoid it. When Returning Storm ends, recast it. It does a great job interrupting and damaging the dragon. It's not ideal on minions, so if there are several around you cast  Relentless Storm instead. Hailstorm is not so great without minions because it's instant, something that hampers the dragon for a while is good.

 

Sometimes accident happen and someone gets knocked out. But Kana carries a scroll of revival, and Durance can revive. My Kana also has the revive invocation. You also have the sacrificial fox. In dire circumstances it can try to knock the dragon out.

 

Why both large shield and heavy armor on Eder ? Isn't heavy armor a waste on breath and wing beat ? It is. But the dragon also hits in melee for 60, and shaving 20 from that is good. Also, watch out for falling pillars.

[Slapstick87]

I don't think casting petrify should count as "cheesing", as it's made especially for the big bad fights as far as I can see. I was lucky with Aloth landing a 15 sec Petrify at the very start. Then I confused/charmed the adds. Then things got messy, but I got it down

[b0rsuk]

I don't think casting petrify should count as "cheesing", as it's made especially for the big bad fights as far as I can see. I was lucky with Aloth landing a 15 sec Petrify at the very start. Then I confused/charmed the adds. Then things got messy, but I got it down

 

Luck runs away. Skill doesn't.

 

You've said it yourself: You were lucky to land Petrify at the very start. The dragon has incredible saving throws, so counting on few big spells is basically counting on reloading.

 

Try to beat the dragon a few times in a row, I can easily do 3 or more. If you can't pull it off, you just lucked your way through.

Edited April 10, 2015 by b0rsuk

[MadDemiurg]

You don't need luck to CC the dragon even on PotD. You just have to know which accuracy buffs you can stack

[gideonpepys]

I'm perhaps a little late to this party, but I just killed the Adra dragon on my first attempt, without even planning to fight it.  I had heard a lot about how hard it was to kill and didn't feel up to it yet.  My party is level 12 and consists of my protagonist (a barbarian), Eder, Pallegenia, Durance, Grieving Mother and Hiravias.

 

I intended to talk to the dragon to get its quest but I messed up and it went hostile.  I thought 'oh what the hell, I'll give it a whirl before reloading'.  The one precautionary measure I had taken was camping to get the beast accuracy bonus, but that was it.

 

The first thing I did was have Hiravias cast Hold Beast.  It worked!  But then I realised that no one could hurt the damn thing.  It seemed immune to almost everything.  So I kept it stunlocked with both Hiravias and Mother's Mental Binding while I tried to figure out what would work and keep its xaurip creeps at bay.  Once I realised only crush damage seemed to land I used spells like Twin Stones and Ectopsychic Echo, along with my barb's Dragon's Leap.

 

All of a sudden the Adra Dragon went from Barely Injured - which it had been for about 10 minutes - to Near Death.  Then BOOM!! It was out.

 

Sorry if someone has already covered this method, I didn't have time to read the whole thread.

[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