How to fight Alpine dragon?

[merkmerk73]

I'm level 14.

 

I had entered WM1 upscaled at level 10 and did everything but the Alpine Dragon.

 

When I went back at level 14 after doing everything in the main quest up to Thaos, it gave me the prompt to upscale again. Does this mean the Alpine Dragon got upscaled twice?

 

Because when I went to fight him with all the big buffs and good potions (+3 resolve food on Eder, +3 resolve sleeping bonus) he wiped the floor with me. At one point he crit Eder for 180.

 

Any tips for this fight?

 

I seem to unintentionally trigger his lame (in my opinion) spectre spawn which gives me a lot of trouble because I can't seem to get his trash down quickly enough

 

Party is  Barb (PC) with 2h focus, Devil/Eder/Aloth/Durance/Grieving Mother

 

Devil is golden axe build using a buckler and nightshroud, eder tank, aloth debuffer, durance priest stuff, grieving mother ranged damage. 

[MaxQuest]

The reason he crit Eder for 180 is due to Sneak Attack and Deathblow. His 'regular' attack is not that hard: 74-101 Crush/Pierce.

 

Alpine's biggest weakness is his will defense. So you can relatively easy charm him with GM. So the plan is, to send solo Eder, while party stays far in the back, with GM trying to land Whispers of Treason, after being buffed by the priest. After that let the dragon help you with clearing the adds. And when only the dragon himself is left, charm him again (for the -25 to defenses) and let Aloth land his Gaze of Adragan. Dragon will fall in no time.

 

P.S. Just be attentive and don't accidentally buff the dragon yourself, while he is charmed.

 

When I went back at level 14 after doing everything in the main quest up to Thaos, it gave me the prompt to upscale again. Does this mean the Alpine Dragon got upscaled twice?

Unfortunately Alpine Dragon doesn't get upscaled at all. On both PotD and upscaled Potd, his defenses are 123/134/134/118.

Other dragons that are not upscaled are Turisulfus, Gafonercos and Adra Dragon. The latter because there is no upscale option for Od Nua content.

The only up-scaling high dragon is the Sky Dragon. His defenses increasing from 113/130/118/108 to 124/147/135/125.

Edited April 7, 2016 by MaxQuest

[adikKt]

I fought (and defeated) him today (PoTD, 14 lvl, upscaled). Since he is immune to paralyze, I managed to kite him with Zahua (high defenses). Just keep him occupied with a running char, that is buffed and has handfull of potions and have the rest of the party clear the adds with everything you got. Keep in mind that you want your party on the side of the dragon, so you cant get hit by the breath/tail attacks. After you clear out the adds, the rest will be easy.

[fiddlesticks]

The only up-scaling high dragon is the Sky Dragon. His defenses increasing from 113/130/118/108 to 124/147/135/125.

 

Does her Accuracy increase as well?

[merkmerk73]

Whispers of Treason or Puppet Strings?

[MaxQuest]

Does her Accuracy increase as well?

It does; 116 => 133.

 

Whispers of Treason or Puppet Strings?

WoT is better than Puppet Master in this situation. Costing only 10 focus, it can be easily re-casted again, on miss. And those -25 to defenses are actually quite handy, as you can land subsequent cc's easier. Edited April 7, 2016 by MaxQuest

[fiddlesticks]

That's a considerable increase, thanks.

[Boeroer]

Another nice trick (if you're having a priest) is to use Withdraw on a character who blocks the path for the dragon. He can't reach your party then or has to take a detour. You can even do that with two characters. By the way: things like Sacred Immolation and Chanters' chants will continue to work while affected by Withdraw. But you have to feed him cannon fodder like summons or charmed adds. I guess blights who are immune to some ot his damge types could be nice. If you don't, he will use his breath over and over again to hit you and that has a really long range. You should also consider to use all the Whisper of Treason items on him. If you put them on a rogue, monk, ranger or fighter, their ACC will be better than an originally cast Whiper of Treason from your cipher - and it will cost no precious focus. 

[Elric Galad]

Nothing in this game can resist the combination of high accuracy and the right CC spell. So my advice :

 

1) Cast Eldricht aim with Wizard.

2) Cast prayer against fear, inspiring radiance and Devotion of the faithful with Durance.

3) Cast Gaze of the Adragan with Wizard. He is not immuned to petrify.

4) Kill the Dragon.

Repeat if necessary.

 

Throw a couple of Crowd Control spell on the adds, and finish them.

[Boeroer]

Also - when you are with a cipher: hit some adds to build up focus, cast Tactical Meld on someone who's also attacking the dragon and has a marking weapon (preferably a paladin who also has Coordinated Attacks). This will give your cipher +40 ACC against the dragon. YOu can also cast Inspiring Radiance on top of that for a whopping +50 of course. Your spells wil then hit the dragon without problems. With boots of speed you can run towards him, cast Disintegration (and hope he doesn't die from it) and retreat. If your Pally is a Darcozzi Paladini with Inspiring Liberation you can get +60 ACC by the way. If you took the Mob Justice talent from the Dozens you will have +64 ACC. With a coordinating weapon you will have +68 ACC with that. You could also (if you have enough focus) cast Borrowed Instincts on the dragon. This would give you another +20 ACC. All in all you can have +84 (+88 with weapon) ACC for a short time. I don't know if Devotions stacks with this. Would be uberawesome.

Edited April 8, 2016 by Boeroer

[Elric Galad]

Devotion stacks with everything except borrowed instinct and reckless assault.

[Boeroer]

Well then I would skip Borrowed Instinct for sure if I had a priest.

[paulyy_y]

On 4/7/2016 at 11:55 PM, Elric Galad said:

Nothing in this game can resist the combination of high accuracy and the right CC spell. So my advice :

 

1) Cast Eldricht aim with Wizard.

2) Cast prayer against fear, inspiring radiance and Devotion of the faithful with Durance.

3) Cast Gaze of the Adragan with Wizard. He is not immuned to petrify.

4) Kill the Dragon.

Repeat if necessary.

 

Throw a couple of Crowd Control spell on the adds, and finish them.

Someone should really do a stand-up routine on D&D gamers who give snarky "easy" instructions for strategies but neglect countless other variables involved.

For those reading this - it's not as simple as this if you're rolling with a vanilla party and haven't sperged your brains out min-maxing your entire game. It's a tough fight even at max-level and all I can suggest is making sure you protect your weak characters with clever positioning and a tank otherwise they will get obliterated by the dragon and/or specters that spawn. Protect the characters enough so that either GM or Aloth can pop out the CC spell and lock the dragon down.

[Boeroer]

He neither said it was easy nor were his instructions snarky. The only snarky thing in this thread is your reply.
It's understandable that one can become frustrated - but don't take it out on Elric who's always been a very helpful member of this forum.   

The only thing that didn't make sense was this:
 

On 4/8/2016 at 8:55 AM, Elric Galad said:

4) Kill the Dragon.

Repeat if necessary

  I mean he's not going to get resurrected so usually it's enough to kill him once...

[Desmodeus]

10 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

  I mean he's not going to get resurrected so usually it's enough to kill him once...

Well... I once had game crash on me during kraken fight... Maybe its for similar situation xD