[SPOILER] Master Below down in 3 seconds - no cheese

[Daviusrohlik]

I took that bitch down with 2 figthers, rogue, priest, druid and wizard party setting. First I used rogue with second chance item to pull him near the stairs which make me only fight with her. Then I used my fighters as tanks and cast every buff, debuff and aoe dots I could but still only my Aloth stayed alive till end.

[chouia]

The description of the mage's petrify spell describes damage x4. And it's a lot! I had a really bad start with the blue dragon, I discovered I had this spell, then I won this fight very easily.

 

For Adra Dragon, I tried in hard with game's companions level 9-10. I died a lot. Then I win with no cheesy tactics, after a relatively long fight, with minions, not using traps, several resurrections, not using too much potions... I don't know how I did it... maybe luck?

(Maybe bug too... I discovered later that Hiravias got really high INT, i don't know why. I don't know if it was already like this during the fight, and I remember I used storm spell to strike. I had to remove him from the party, I found no other way to solve that.)

 

 

Anyway, this dragon is really strong. It should be terrifying to fight with him in Iron mode! :D

Edited April 15, 2015 by chouia

[dam]

The description of the mage's petrify spell describes damage x4. And it's a lot! I had a really bad start with the blue dragon, I discovered I had this spell, then I won this fight very easily.

 

For Adra Dragon, I tried in hard with game's companions level 9-10. I died a lot. Then I win with no cheesy tactics, after a relatively long fight, with minions, not using traps, several resurrections, not using too much potions... I don't know how I did it... maybe luck?

(Maybe bug too... I discovered later that Hiravias got really high INT, i don't know why. I don't know if it was already like this during the fight, and I remember I used storm spell to strike. I had to remove him from the party, I found no other way to solve that.)

 

 

Anyway, this dragon is really strong. It should be terrifying to fight with him in Iron mode! :D

 

There is a bug with items with the Unconquerable property (talisman of the unconquerable for example) which used to allow stacking INT.

Some people have reportedly ended up with 70+

 

 

 

As for the description on the mage's version of the Petrify spell, that's the heart of the problem here.

If the description appears only in the mage spell, and neither in the trap's description or the Cyclopedia, one can only assume only the mage's spell applies the 4x damage debuff.

 

But then, I've never read the mage spell, I'll get to that when I play with a party featuring a mage

Edited April 16, 2015 by dam

[Tigranes]

I don't care whether the OP 'cheesed' or not. Why bring the inquisition upon him? 

 

More to the general point, it's pretty ridiculous that petrify increases damage taken. I think if there's one thing everyone can agree on, it is that Adragan is a stupidly overpowered and stupidly designed 'win game' button. 

 

Of course, one might argue that D&D 6th level spells were even more powerful, as disintegrate and flesh to stone were Save v. Death. But in IE games you had very little chance of disintegrating or petrifying a dragon. 

 

You could Finger of Death a dragon like Firkraag, but that required you to go in with a proper setup to breach and lower resistance, and keep your party alive for several turns at least. In POE, the only question is whether your Adragan kills it in the first turn or you need to cast it a couple more times, if you have a wizard.

 

Unsure if the trap Adragan has the bonus damage, though, does someone know for sure?

[Exoduss]

 

 

The dragon triggers the trap, gets petrified

GG WP 

 

dem tactics tho..

 

 

i really actually read whole post up untill that line hoping for something , expecting , ready to give my congrats to OP and then.......

 

Petrify and No Cheese cant be in one topic not on these forums about this game , also to say it seems that you atleast tried not to cheese this but for future no cheese attempts : Petrify is Like biggest piece of cheese you ever ate 

Edited April 16, 2015 by Exoduss

[dam]

 

 

 

The dragon triggers the trap, gets petrified

GG WP 

 

dem tactics tho..

 

 

i really actually read whole post up untill that line hoping for something , expecting , ready to give my congrats to OP and then.......

 

Petrify and No Cheese cant be in one topic not on these forums about this game , also to say it seems that you atleast tried not to cheese this but for future no cheese attempts : Petrify is Like biggest piece of cheese you ever ate 

 

 

 

Sadly I have no way of editing the topic's title to remove the "no cheese" tagline, and I only recently was made aware that Petrify also applies a 400% damage taken debuff.

 

Too bad, I was real proud of that 93 damage graze.

[dam]

Of course, one might argue that D&D 6th level spells were even more powerful, as disintegrate and flesh to stone were Save v. Death. But in IE games you had very little chance of disintegrating or petrifying a dragon. 

 

As a matter of fact, I had the luck of landing the one Disintegrate on the Shadow Dragon in a multiplayer game, where we were vastly underleveled to go with that kind of holy crusade ^^

No MR lowering combos, no pierce magic, just the one Disintegrate and boom.

 

We actually had to reload the Autosave, that was a wasted fight for later on

 

 

In POE, the only question is whether your Adragan kills it in the first turn or you need to cast it a couple more times, if you have a wizard.

 

Seeing how I had 4.3 seconds of Petrify time and was able to burst the A.D in that tiny little window, including party positioning time, I'd say at least for Hard mode the one trap (and thus the one spell) is sufficient.

 

Now in PotD that may be harder, what with the increased stats and all.

 

 

Unsure if the trap Adragan has the bonus damage, though, does someone know for sure?

 

Well with that 93 damage graze I'm tempted to say it probably does -.-

[Katarack21]

 

No cheese? LOL

 

A simple matter of perspective, what's cheesiest :

- 4 seconds worth of free time on a boss, including party movement time.

or

- people cleaning up the whole room of adds, before engaging the A.D herself ?

 

 

Every single video, every single screenshot I've seen, people get there with maxed level 12 parties, enchants, potions and scrolls, cheese-clean the room, then get to aggro'ing the A.D, and resort to cheap Walls and Raw damage D.O.Ts to do the job.

 

I'm kinda proud of my sub-level 12 hard mode encounter with the adds still alive.

 

Using traps is apparently cheese. Killing adds before battle is apparently cheese. Using choke points is cheese.

 

Apparently any kind of intelligent preparation of the battlefield prior to engaging the enemy is cheese.

[Jimmysdabestcop]

The Dragon is a lot harder if you aren't well equipped or aren't high level.

 

Party all on level 11. No problem at all. Just straight melee and maybe 5 damage spells from Durance. Only buff was the fear one for cancelling out the dragons. The Ciphers raw damage spells. And just had the druid cast that beatle shell thing on Durance when his spells rain out.

 

Now not equipped correctly and levels 8-10 in Act 2, I didn't beat that dragon once. Except the time I cheese him with 25 paralyze scrolls and malestrom scrolls. I reloaded cause I couldn't stand to beat him like that. Other than that think I could get him down to 2 pips and had him at 1 pip once or twice. That was it. Big time fail.

 

But level 11 in Act 3 it was extremely lack luster. My 3 main melee characters all of their defenses were at least 90 and most were over 100.

 

Absolute respect goes out to the OP who took the Dragon down in 3-4 seconds. Cheese or no cheese I think its badass.

[Karkarov]

So if I told you I gazed the dragon and did the dragon slaying skill you can learn to boot I can claim no cheese RIGHT?????  Seriously though this dragon is a cheesasaurus rex to begin with.  I have tried fighting it legit without doing that kind of stuff plenty and it just doesn't pan out.  I actually got her down to just like 50 hp before wiping on a "real" fight but even then I was doing that max level cipher spell Disintegrate that basically does 100+ damage to you and bypasses DR... twice.  It is pretty cheesy on it's own.

 

Besides the Adra Dragon tells you it's weakness.... it is a big fat tub of lard covered in heavy rocks.  It practically screams petrify me.

[Eisenheinrich]

Playing on normal, first time met the Adra Dragon. TPK in 3 seconds -no cheese. What am I doing wrong?

[Concordance]

 

 

No cheese? LOL

 

A simple matter of perspective, what's cheesiest :

- 4 seconds worth of free time on a boss, including party movement time.

or

- people cleaning up the whole room of adds, before engaging the A.D herself ?

 

 

Every single video, every single screenshot I've seen, people get there with maxed level 12 parties, enchants, potions and scrolls, cheese-clean the room, then get to aggro'ing the A.D, and resort to cheap Walls and Raw damage D.O.Ts to do the job.

 

I'm kinda proud of my sub-level 12 hard mode encounter with the adds still alive.

 

Using traps is apparently cheese. Killing adds before battle is apparently cheese. Using choke points is cheese.

 

Apparently any kind of intelligent preparation of the battlefield prior to engaging the enemy is cheese.

 

 

Apparently using scrolls, food and potions is also cheese. 

 

Is using per-rest abilities cheese? You can rest right before facing the dragon and unload all of your abilities in a row, after all!

 

Is using the Wizard or Druid cheese? Since you can rest just before the battle, you can chaincast all of your spells in a row! That doesn't sound balanced at all!

 

Is using ciphers cheese? You can paralyze the adds and deal raw damage to them and the dragon! How is that not cheese ?!

 

If you didn't kill the Adra dragon in a straight up fight using only unenchanted weapons and per-encounter ablities (no spells though, that's cheese), you didn't actually win the fight. You cheesed your way through it and should be ashamed. Consider uninstalling PioE and playing Diablo 3 instead, you dirty cheeser.

 

/s

 

[Exyll]

So anything short of 

/backspace

/Autoattack AD

is cheese.

hold on, let me write this down.

Edited April 17, 2015 by Exyll

[dam]

Playing on normal, first time met the Adra Dragon. TPK in 3 seconds -no cheese. What am I doing wrong?

 

I'm gonna work off the assumption that you mean total party kill with TPK.

 

 

First off, you'll have noticed the A.D has a very long range Breath attack so, obviously, you want your tank to turn her away from the team.

 

Second, it helps if your tank has a self revive, either from Second Chance or the warrior ability.

If your tank's gone down once he'll probably go down again, but then that's more time you're buying.

 

Third, you'll want a prayer against fear, Frightened is extremely potent and your whole team losing 20 accuracy vs a high defense monster can never be a good thing.

 

Fourth, you'll need to buff up, which is what your tank is buying time for anyway.

While scrolls work, a priest is highly recommended.

Their Crown spell which gives +8 INT is invaluable, not only will it make your priest's spells last longer, it'll also prolong the lifetime of your debuffs and the area of your spells

 

Fifth, you'll need to overcome the 28 DR, and that's where you have to pick :

- high damage ranged weapons with DR ignore (arquebuses, pistols)

- high damage melee weapons (2-handed rogue, 2-handed barbarian), both Tall Grass and the Blade of the Endless Paths work wonders here

- raw damage (rogue deep wounds, druid spells, cipher, possibly even mage ?) to ignore the DR entirely

- debuffs (priest spells, wizard, cipher, barbarian sickening aura) , I won't count monk enervating blows here 'cause you're not very likely to land a crit + the effect + it lasting a noticeable amount of time

 

Sixth, it helps if you can distract the AD, or even the adds :

- chanter summons (by the way level 3 invocations, 2 ogres are better than 1 drake)

- figurines (scarabs, ghosts...)

- druid summons (blights)

 

Seventh, speaking of adds, get rid of them :

- the skirmishers and champions will wreck your backline

- the adragans will petrify your main tank (bye bro) and possibly your DPS frontline (barb, rogue, monk)

 

 

Understand your foe, her stats are as follows :

 

 

477 endurance

93 accuracy

58-88 slash/pierce damage

 

30 might

24 con

20 dex

22 per

26 int

18 res

 

118 deflect

121 fort

97 reflex

101 will

 

28 DR

21 slash DR

35 burn DR

21 freeze DR

42 shock DR

 

 

 

Basically unless you manage to debuff her (weaken, hobble, blind, sicken...) you're not going to land many blows and spells.

While she has high Shock DR, Returning Storm still works pretty nicely because you may get a few Stuns off.

 

 

Other than that, there is not much strategy to this fight.

It's basically a DPS race where you need to kill it before it kills you.

[Jimmysdabestcop]

I say as long as your aren't kiting the dragon or getting him stuck on something causing him to not attack you then nothing is really "cheese".

 

Anything you can do spells, summons, traps, food, scrolls, potions is fair game.

 

If any of that stuff works on him then his resistances weren't high enough so shame on him.

 

Has anyone tried a rogue with the pike Tall Grass? If the rogue lands a blind or cripple strike the rogue will start sneak attacking and most likely auto crit. Would it cause the dragon to go prone? Or does the dragon have prone buffs?

 

If it does make dragon go prone a Rogue might be able to solo the dragon.

[Anthile]

I'm pretty sure you can prone everything and everyone in this game. Nothing like knocking down some drake out of the sky with a dagger. It most definitely works on Cail the Silent.

I wonder if by utilizing weapons that have the Marking and Disorienting properties, using a ranger who has the stunning shots talent and a rogue with the Tall Grass pike, you could just stunlock the dragon even easier.

[Stun]

Yeah, nothing is immune to anything in this game. Nor is there any way for anything to *make* itself immune to anything via buffs.

 

The problem with trying to stun-lock the Adra Dragon, though, is that it has monstrously high saves. You can occasionally get lucky and knock it prone with Tall Grass or Stunning Shot or a Fighter's Knockdown or whatever, but you won't consistently succeed in doing so, and the chances of actually hitting or critting with such procs is even lower. In my last attempt against the Adra Dragon, I was running a Barbarian with Tall Grass. I managed to Prone her, I think, twice, but not in a row, and both were Grazes...which is kinda meh. Really, when a prone lasts all of 2 seconds you have to wonder: "what was the point?"

Edited April 19, 2015 by Stun

[Althernai]

You can knock the saves down with the no-save ability the dragon slayer gives you. Combine that with Eldritch Aim and you have a decent shot. My Wizard nailed her with a Gaze of the Adragan for the full duration (something like 29 seconds) on the second try (first one missed completely). I'm pretty impressed by the original poster since even Petrified she is relatively hard to take down. I did it eventually, but it took me something like 10 seconds rather than 3 seconds. You need to be countering her Fear aura though -- with the -20 penalty, you'll never hit her.

[dam]

Has anyone tried a rogue with the pike Tall Grass? If the rogue lands a blind or cripple strike the rogue will start sneak attacking and most likely auto crit. Would it cause the dragon to go prone? Or does the dragon have prone buffs?

 

If it does make dragon go prone a Rogue might be able to solo the dragon.

 

There is no relation whatsoever with triggering a Sneak Attack, and your chance to crit.

You get more crit chance as your enemy's Deflection goes down, no other condition applies (except for hit->crit buffs of course).

 

Regarding a rogue solo'ing the dragon, I don't think so on anything other than Easy (and even then).

Your rogue has 20% crit chance from Vicious Fighting, 10% from Tall Grass, and that is all.

The Orlan racial doesn't come into play since you're soloing the A.D.

 

30% hit->crit isn't going to cut it.

Crits may inflict Prone, at which point they have to actually bypass the enemy's resistance.

 

You're not going to land enough lucky crits + prone combos to solo her, even with something like 24 DEX.

[dam]

You can knock the saves down with the no-save ability the dragon slayer gives you. Combine that with Eldritch Aim and you have a decent shot. My Wizard nailed her with a Gaze of the Adragan for the full duration (something like 29 seconds) on the second try (first one missed completely). I'm pretty impressed by the original poster since even Petrified she is relatively hard to take down. I did it eventually, but it took me something like 10 seconds rather than 3 seconds. You need to be countering her Fear aura though -- with the -20 penalty, you'll never hit her.

 

Why, thank you

[Jimmysdabestcop]

How about when you get that +20 Crit Chance from the thief faction in defiance bay. It be more like 60% crit chance if you had summon that should trigger racial. And if not its 50% chance to crit. Attack it from stealth x2 damage as well if you have backstab.

 

No but prone on crit the next attack will be sneak attack. And with 50-60% chance of crit it will probably be crit as well. I had a range rogue on normal and not even really focusing on crit hits ended up with 80% crits by act 3.

 

Its not really for me but I'm sure someone on here could solo the dragon as a melee rogue.

[knownastherat]

I don't care whether the OP 'cheesed' or not. Why bring the inquisition upon him? 

 

More to the general point, it's pretty ridiculous that petrify increases damage taken. I think if there's one thing everyone can agree on, it is that Adragan is a stupidly overpowered and stupidly designed 'win game' button. 

 

Of course, one might argue that D&D 6th level spells were even more powerful, as disintegrate and flesh to stone were Save v. Death. But in IE games you had very little chance of disintegrating or petrifying a dragon. 

 

You could Finger of Death a dragon like Firkraag, but that required you to go in with a proper setup to breach and lower resistance, and keep your party alive for several turns at least. In POE, the only question is whether your Adragan kills it in the first turn or you need to cast it a couple more times, if you have a wizard.

 

Unsure if the trap Adragan has the bonus damage, though, does someone know for sure?

 

Firkraag or any BG2 dragon when stripped of magic resistance, lower resistance in contingency/sequencer,  with lowered saving throws from Grater Malison was vulnerable to spells of any level. Level 2 Chromatic Orb on such dragon was instant kill. Or Feeble Mind or Polymorph to squirrel whatever. Not talking about Time Stop (no defense .. lol) , Imprisonment (no saving throw) and whatever. Those who say stuff like this was not part of the legacy this game advertised to follow do not know what they are talking about.

 

What was not, at least I do not remember it like that, part of the game were constant judgmental voices calling what they do not like exploits, cheese, cheap etc. That is new in the 21st century. This and those ****ing achievements.  Whiners, scrubs, simpletons, and achievers. That I do not remember. Killing dragon on solo sorcerer in 5 sec I do. BG had Invisibility for **** sake. IN VI SI BI LI TY

[dam]

How about when you get that +20 Crit Chance from the thief faction in defiance bay. It be more like 60% crit chance if you had summon that should trigger racial. And if not its 50% chance to crit. Attack it from stealth x2 damage as well if you have backstab.

 

No but prone on crit the next attack will be sneak attack. And with 50-60% chance of crit it will probably be crit as well. I had a range rogue on normal and not even really focusing on crit hits ended up with 80% crits by act 3.

 

Its not really for me but I'm sure someone on here could solo the dragon as a melee rogue.

 

You never get +20 crit chance from "the thief faction in defiance bay".

You get a 0.3 crit damage multiplier which is to say crits now hit for 180% damage (and duration ?) instead of 150%.

 

 

Yes, when you crit and prone the A.D, your next attack will be a SA (if it actually connects, by the way).

The problem is that given the bitch's resistances, your prone effect will probably only graze, affording you just the one attack (if any).

Not to mention the adds wailing away on you during that time, and disrupting your attacks.

 

 

Edit: damned auto-correct , who the fck implements auto-correct in a browser ? I'm typing this or that for a reason !

Edited April 21, 2015 by dam

[dam]

 

I don't care whether the OP 'cheesed' or not. Why bring the inquisition upon him? 

 

More to the general point, it's pretty ridiculous that petrify increases damage taken. I think if there's one thing everyone can agree on, it is that Adragan is a stupidly overpowered and stupidly designed 'win game' button. 

 

Of course, one might argue that D&D 6th level spells were even more powerful, as disintegrate and flesh to stone were Save v. Death. But in IE games you had very little chance of disintegrating or petrifying a dragon. 

 

You could Finger of Death a dragon like Firkraag, but that required you to go in with a proper setup to breach and lower resistance, and keep your party alive for several turns at least. In POE, the only question is whether your Adragan kills it in the first turn or you need to cast it a couple more times, if you have a wizard.

 

Unsure if the trap Adragan has the bonus damage, though, does someone know for sure?

 

Firkraag or any BG2 dragon when stripped of magic resistance, lower resistance in contingency/sequencer,  with lowered saving throws from Grater Malison was vulnerable to spells of any level. Level 2 Chromatic Orb on such dragon was instant kill. Or Feeble Mind or Polymorph to squirrel whatever. Not talking about Time Stop (no defense .. lol) , Imprisonment (no saving throw) and whatever. Those who say stuff like this was not part of the legacy this game advertised to follow do not know what they are talking about.

 

What was not, at least I do not remember it like that, part of the game were constant judgmental voices calling what they do not like exploits, cheese, cheap etc. That is new in the 21st century. This and those ****ing achievements.  Whiners, scrubs, simpletons, and achievers. That I do not remember. Killing dragon on solo sorcerer in 5 sec I do. BG had Invisibility for **** sake. IN VI SI BI LI TY

 

 

You're working under the assumption one has access to incredibly powerful spells here.

Chain Contingency is level 9.

Time Stop is level 9.

Imprisonment is level 9.

On a regular play through without XP uncappers, you can only cast them from scrolls, which one should be hoarding at this point to scribe them when they hit Throne of Bhaal.

 

You're also forgetting Chromatic Orb's PLUS SIX to the target's saving throw, even with Greater Malison the target actually receives a bonus to make the save.

 

Last but not least, you're under the delusion that the one Lower Resistance from your low level Contingency is going to do the job , it won't.

Lower Resistance is level 5 and takes away 10 + level% magic resist , that's 19% by the time you can cast it.

After the 2 castings from your contingency + mage, that's still 27% magic resist left, on top of 3/5/4/4/6 saving throws.

 

I'm not saying it cannot be done, I'm saying the odds are against you, and if you're going to be Save Scumming until your Chromatic Orb hits, you may as well edit the spell to remove the saving throw entirely, make it bypass magic resistance, and give yourself 99 casts / rest.

 

Your "you can use level 9 spells !" talk is misplaced here.

It's like saying "you can 1-shot goblins with Abi Dalzim's !!".

 

 

 

I quite agree with your second paragraph, this is a solo game, one's savegame, one's rules.

You do have to keep in mind that was 15 years ago though, not that many people had internet access back then.

That, and these newer generations have something odd about them.

Something about having to prove themselves... finished the tutorial ? ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED !!

 

 

With any luck, they'll reincarnate into Stags, and

 

 

get slaughtered like Persoc

 

 

[Carados]

One thing i have never understood is why some players insist of fighting a dragon "fairly". Is the dragon going to fight fairly? Hell no. Same thing witth baldur's gate dragons. If you don't "cheese", you stand no chance against them. And then there is eternal debate about how can cheese be definied...

 

Anyhow back to topic... So I'm playing on hard first time and I think the dungeon was fairly challenging at times. My level 11-12 party had few tough battles and I was quite surpised to find a freaking dragon underneath there. I had played this whole mega dungeon with one go so..so no resting outside. Thankfully there was always 1 camping supply available somewhere, so i was able to rest before facing the beast.

 

First time it simply killed my party in 30 seconds.

 

After reloading I decided to send Eder first. He stood against dragon's opening attacks fairly well and drank a potion or two. While the dragon was busy I used all my summons and sent them against dragon's hirelings.

 

Next durance and aloth used one of those spells which lowered the beasts resistances and then my cipher used mind plague which caused A TOTAL CHAOS among enemy ranks. Even the andra dragon itself went borderline insane for a short moment. Then Kana used few of those most powefull storm scrolls on hirelings while rest of my part attacked dragon without mercy. I belive Aloth used a petrify spell which made the beast utterly helpless.

 

Then it was only a matter of time. I think one of the ogres Kana had summoned actually did the final killing blow. Hehe I think its kind of ironic how the dragon used to controll ogres on level 4 and now it met it's end like that: a sturdy hit from the ogre's massive club

 

After that we just cleaned the room from remaining enemies and looted the place.  I really enjoyed the maga dungeon! Great adventure and a really fun boss battle.

 

Intresting to see whether I can beat the dungeon on path of the damned next time in similar way.

Edited May 14, 2015 by Carados