How to beat Green Dragon? (spoilers)

[ApathicAlpaca]

So I activated the 4 statues ASAP to not suffer lightning damage. The Green Dragon wipes the floor with my party (caster druid, medium armor wizard, paladin, cleric, all with +2 shields).

It is of course immune to any CC, deals hilarious damage super-frequently and of course its minions are annoying. It's the hardest fight by far and seems to come down to pure attrition. No way to deal enough damage before your very limited healing options run out. I think the most I managed was bring it down to 50% HP.

How did you manage this fight?! Any tips?

[Gracey Face]

What difficulty are you on? Difficulty might make a difference in viable strats.

As for me, on authentic, I beat it the same way I beat every single boss in this game, bumrushed it with a fighter and a paladin, chucked fireballs at it with my wizard, and pressed end turn with my cleric.

[ApathicAlpaca]

Authentic. I have followed some advice and killed the 4 ghosts first (before triggering dragon fight) but it still instagibs with its breath attack and is virtually impossible to CC (3 legendary resists and it save throws almost every time in any case).

What I did not try so far is prepare some summon spells to keep it distracted. Elementals, animals, whatever.
Hell, I even successfully banished the mage but it still turned up as dragon. Fancy that :D
This fight is completely bonkers and way off balance compared to the rest.

[Acadiantri]

It has three legendary saves. So when it blows a saving throw, it can change the result three times. CC is not going to work until you burn through those. Summoning a fire or air elemental is the easy way to keep it busy. Otherwise, spread your party out. Don't get 2 or 3 PCs caught in the breath weapon. Also, the breath weapon is poison; rings of poison resistance; periapt of proof vs poison; poison resistance spells reduce or eliminate damage from the breath weapon. Cleric should cast spirit guardians and stand on one side of the dragon. Pally should cast bless, and smite from the other. Use your potions of speed/giant strength. Arrows/bolts with blindness/paralysis/entangle can help blow through the legendary saves.

[Acadiantri]

Also, on authentic, you shouldn't be healing in battle unless a PC goes down (as a general rule). Trying to keep your pally topped off with hp is ordinarily a waste of the cleric's action.

[ApathicAlpaca]

Yeah well, seems I'm gonna have to 'cheat' and go back and prepare the proper spells. Iwas lacking summons and poison resistance. I don't really like doing that but with your standard array of spells for general encounters this fight just cannot be won. You gotta know beforehand what the enemy does, then prepare.
They could easily have dropped a book or other lore somewhere that explains what green dragons like to do. Hmph. Gonna try it with summons, poison resistance.
Also very good tip about the arrows. It's a shame poisons don't work, at least their CC component should work imo, even if the damage doesnt :|

[Acadiantri]

Unfortunately, the DC on the CC bolts/arrows is only 10. So dragon will rarely blow its save. That strategy works best with a hasted ranger or dex fighter shooting 3 arrows/bolts a round. Eventually, the numbers catch up with the dragon.

[ApathicAlpaca]

OK, I did it with an air elemental and poison resistance all around. Still lost 3 ppl during the fight (thank God for rezzing) but it was possible after all.
I was able to make it use up its legendary resistance but had no chance to make use of it.
I think this encounter was specifically intended to be easier with a burst damage group. Paladin going all out, rogue, maybe ranger, possibly some necrotic damage burster (like druid).

Wew!

[Gracey Face]

Originally posted by ApathicAlpaca:

I think this encounter was specifically intended to be easier with a burst damage group.

It's not this encounter specifically, it's the general DnD ruleset. In DnD CC is the most powerful thing in the game, debuffs the second and damage the third (well technically damage is THE most powerful thing, but it has diminishing returns without CC and debuffs). But in 5e because of legendary resists suddenly when fighting bosses CC and debuffs are garbage, which means that the best party is a high damage output party.

So it's not that encounters are designed for burst damage per se, it's just that damage output just always works.

(Though it should be pointed out that if you have high enough DCs that you can guarantee to burn through legendaries almost immediately, CC and debuffs become good again, but without something screwey you won't have DCs like that).

[BlueBangkok]

The problem of your party is low damage output which is what makes this fight particularly difficult for you.

The dragon's weakest saves are dex and wis, so try to target those. Or try to prepare spells that don't have a save. What specialization is that wizard? It might be doable to wear him down by just spamming upgraded magic missiles. Provided that you can keep that wizard alive.

What subclasses do you have with the rest of the party?

[HandyVac]

Glad you got through the encounter. In future, don't forget that you can open the options menu and change the difficulty at any time.

IMHO, changing the difficulty on the fly is closer the the tabletop experience than repeatedly headbutting against a tricky battle. A good DM will always fudge numbers to move the story along.

[Gracey Face]

Originally posted by HandyVac:

IMHO, changing the difficulty on the fly is closer the the tabletop experience than repeatedly headbutting against a tricky battle. A good DM will always fudge numbers to move the story along.

Nah, a bad DM fudges numbers so the game can continue, since it kind of removes the whole point of roleplaying in the first place. A good DM will tailor his encounters to the party to begin with (maybe doing a little on the fly editing if someone absentees to try to keep the encounter "fair").