Dragon slaying 2.02

[Wasted_46]

Just killed all the dragons with my hardcore 2.02 party. It was pretty easy.
Eventually I wasnt gonna do it because, you know, hardcore, but as I was steamrolling every other piece of content out there, I thought I might give it a try. Also, this was my very first try ever at both the adra and the alpine dragons. I read some about the fights so I knew the tactics but I never actually tried them.
I did the sky and the alpine dragon on hard and the adra dragon on normal.

I was gonna give strategy tips for all of them, but all 3 are basically the same so I'm just gonna give some general advice.

The party is
Edér - Pallegrina - Custom barb - Durance - PC cipher - Aloth.
I think the level required for the two harder ones is 11 minimum. 13 helps but not tremendously. LVL13 has nothing that is of vital importance, but 11 gives a couple spells that I think are a must.
I did all 3 of them lvl 11-13.

The most important thing I can say is that if you're gonna kill dragons in your playthrough, you have to prepare for it from minute 1. That means picking the appropriate skills and spells, stashing the appropriate scrolls and enchanting the appropriate items. You can retrain your characters but you cannot get infinite amounts of spells and scrolls. Likewise, you cannot get back your enchant ingredients if you wasted them.

With all that said, lets go into the sepcifics:

- The most important thing ever is to stack accuracy on your characters. Enchant everything to the highest possible level. (this will mostly mean extraordinary). The sky dragon is easy to take down and then you can enchant 2 weapons to superb. There are also a couple naturally superb weapons out there. Do the bounty quests!
Pick Beast slayer talents and enchancements; the dragons are classified as such.

- Take everything that converts grazes into hits and hits into crits. Use weapons that do something useful on crits.

- A paladin is your best friend for those fights. Pick the aura that gives + accuracy and max it for the hit to crit conersion. Pick Sworn Enemy. Have the resurrection at the ready, its very good.

- Stack up on War Paint!! This is a very potent potion for fighters and casters alike. Makes landing crits and sticking effects so much easier. Dont be afraid to use this on your casters!
I found only a limited supply of this in the game, about 10 bottles. If you ever plan on taking on the dragons, dont use Warpaint anywhere else.

- Craft potions of Eldritcht Aim and Merciless Gaze! Again, helps a ton to stick effects on the dragons.

- Save up on scrolls of Maelstrom and hoard/craft Paralysis! Especially Paralysis is super important. Fortunately, it is not too hard to caft (req. Lore8) and ingredients are abundant towards the endgame. You need about 5-10 Paralysis for each dragon.



Edér: I played him as a tank 95% of the game, but since I knew I was gonna give the dragons a try, I picked up some offensive talents from lvl 10 and onwards. (you cannot tank the dragons anyways.) I outfitted him with a fully enhanced heavy armor and the Blade of Endless Paths. Enchant it towards beast slaying. Learned the +6 acc with Estoc as well as the +10% dmg Estoc talents. Tanking the dragons is not really an option so I either tanked the small minions with hammer/shield or hit the dragon with Estoc (endless paths has the +10 acc special on it). Before the battles I ate a dragon stew and used a flask of Warpaint. Also, Edér is the one who summons the Adra Beetle. (Adra Beetle is pretty good since it has a huge shock that targets reflex).

Pallegrina: Hands down the most important character. Fully enhanced heavy armor, maxed St Waiden's Redemeer, learned the +6 Greatsword talent, the Sworn enemy, upgraded Zealous Focus, Reviving Exhotration. All of the above are really important. I ate a dragon stew pre battle and drank a Warpaint and a Merciless Gaze. I also stacked a bunch of + accuracy items on her. In the end I had an accuracy of 98 on her, which is comparable to the dragon's defenses. She hits pretty hard AND resurrects your party? Yessir! Upped Zelaous Focus MVP.

Custom Barb: Dual wielding damage dealing beast. I used a fully enchanced Starcaller and a fully enchanced Resolution, both infused with Durgan Steel. (you can go with Purgatory instead of Starcaller and have the "+6 acc rapiers" talent apply to both weapons. This saves a skillpoint.). There is a pretty good unique light armor to be found in WM I enchanced it to be freeze- proofed and used it. I stacked + attack speed and + accuracy items on her. She had about 85 acc on both hands which is a bit low initially but after a couple status effects she could reliably land crits on the dragon. Drink a Warpaint and pop Frenzy at the start of the battle. Use the barb to eliminate the mobs around the dragon, she is really good at it with the AoE.
One very important thing: Terrifying Presence! This is basically a perma- sicken on the dragon once the barb stands in one place. I already mentioned that it is very hard to stick afflictions on the dragons, one that is permanent definitely helps. (technically it can miss, but if you stand in one place, it gets reapplied continuously until it sticks.)

Durance: He is the mechanics guy of the team. Mechanics makes his trap spells more accurate. You wont be using those though; your best bet is to set a Gaze of Adragan trap and hope the dragon walks over it. You dont want to set AoE damage traps because you cannot risk them going off and harming your team. You can get GoA traps at the Skaen dungeon. Otherwise, use him to keep your party alive. Later when the dragon is perma stunned, you can cast Pillar of Flame or any damaging spell that targets reflex. I use an unique aquarebus (Pliango per Cásítas, really nice, -def on enemy and +acc on you) on him, with all the relevant talents (it has a +10 acc special).

PC cipher: Have 10 lore on her. She won't be able to reliably gain focus so after the initial burst she will be the one to cast from scrolls. Also, the best cipher spells attack Will, but there's no reliable way to lower a dragon's will. I always start the dragon fights with Amplified Wave, makes mopping up the small mobs much easier. Once you stuck a couple afflicitons on the dragon, its reflex will be pretty low so Maelstorm will do a lot. Other important scrolls are Paralyze (craft this in huge quantities!) and Revive.Other than that, I use a maxed Scion Mica (it applies -5 def on enemy, which is like +5 acc on all your guys) and the Penetrating Shot talent. Drink a Warpaint and a Merciless Gaze to make sure those paralyzes last!

Aloth: He is the one to control the dragon, very important! I found out that at the beginning of the battle, when the dragon is completely unaffected by afflictions, a Gaze of Adragan spell (not trap!) has the best chance to hit him out of all CC options. So I usually start with one of those. After it hits, I use Aloth to mop the small mobs up, while my cipher tries her best to Paralyze it. Then blast away on the dragon with reflex- targeting spells. Freezing Pillar is nice to kill smaller enemies AND damage the dragon. Arkemyr's Capricious Hex is an insane AoE mind- affecting spell. It sticks a million afflictions on a million targets. Very nice to use in this fight, it will make your job much easier. Other very nice spell is Expose Vulnerabilities. Have at least 8 lore on Aloth so he can use Paralyze scrolls as well. 10 is not needed since he has other great spells to rely on instead of Maelstorm.
You can go crazy with Fireball on the Alpine and Sky dragons, but the Adra dragon is sadly immune.
Drink an Eldritcht Aim or Warpaint if you have the time, but frankly Aloth is quite busy the whole fight.


Party variance: I think you can get away with a 2h fighter/rouge/monk instead of the barb and maybe another wizard or druid instead of the cipher. The priest and the paladin is a must.

Sky dragon is immune to Shock, Alpine is immunte to freeze and crush, Adra is immune to burn and corrosive.

One last thing: Every once in a while all dragons cast spells that one- shot your dudes. This is why it is important to have multiple sources of resurrection. When I choose targets for resurrection, I always prioritize other resurrectors first, then paralyzers and fighters last.

Thats it. At first glance, these fights look much harder than they are. Just remember the really important things (accuracy is vital; Warpaint; Paralyze; GoA spell; Grazes to hits, hits to crits; have multiple rezzes) and you should be okay.


ADDENDUM:
I completed the Cragholdt quest. Same principles apply to the final fight, except it feels much harder. The boss is easier to land afflictions on (even Amplified Wave hits sometimes, which never happened to me with a dragon) but there are some really strong minions around. The best way is to chokepoint fight at the door. Amplified wave, Sworn enemy, Paralyze, Adragan, summons and a buttload of Warpaint does the job.

[Wasted_46]

where to get all the nice stuff for this:

- Blade of Endless Paths: find the pieces throughout Od Nua. last one is on LVL 12. Dunstan can forge it.
- White Crest Armor*: WM, somewhere in Russetwood I think... kinda forgot
- Starcaller: Market at Twin Elms
- Resolution: LVL4 Od Nua
- Purgatory: Archdruid has it in Blod Sands, Twin Elms
- Wayfayer's Hide: hidden at the bottom level of the ogre cave in WM
- St. Ydwen's Redeemer: On a bandit, north region of Durgan's Battery area
- He Carries Many Scars*: Get from Raedric the second time
(alternative: Agrwes Adra, kill the dude on Od Nua LVL8)
- Pliambo per Casítas: Pirate at Anshlog Compass, second bunch of bounty missions
- Scion Mica's Roar: Market at Twin Elms.
- Enchant to Extraordinary: Buy the components from high level component vendors. Get Vithrack Brains in Od Nua.
- Enchant to Superb: Sky Dragon eyes, 2 on the dragon + 1 on Concelhaut
- Durgan Steel: Gather Durgan ingots throughout Durgan's Battery. Restart the White Forge.
- War Paint: Potion vendor at Twin Elms has a couple. The cult in Blood Sands has a bunch. There are 3 on Burial Isle.
- Scrol of Paralysis: semi- rare at scroll vendors. Ingredients are common at ingredient vendors.
- Scroll of Maelstorm: Rare at vendors. Find as loot at higher level dungeons and foes.
- Gaze of Adragan trap: There 's a bunch in the Skaen temple.

* The heavy armors are interchangeable. Just get an exceptional Full Plate (pretty common during bonuty quests) and enchant it with burn or freeze proof and +con or +mig or +dex traits.
Second life on unique armors is really good on a rezzer (priest or the caster with rezz scrolls)

[Buyung Kilat]

Hmmm, my party is set up all wrong to do your strategy so I'm going to have to really commit and do some retraining at that. I think I may need to jot all this down.

This is unbelievably meticulous planning. How much time did it actually take you to come up with this strategy? In any case, thanks for the assist. :)

[Singrave]

Good writing.

[Wasted_46]

Originally posted by buyung_kilat:

Hmmm, my party is set up all wrong to do your strategy so I'm going to have to really commit and do some retraining at that. I think I may need to jot all this down.

This is unbelievably meticulous planning. How much time did it actually take you to come up with this strategy? In any case, thanks for the assist. :)

not much, I read about the Adra dragon (and later the Alpine dragon) a lot, and I was always like "I'm the biggest BG2 fan ever, it's a shame I'm too scared to try my luck at the PoE dragons." So I just kinda planned on what I would need as I went along with the playthrough.
I definitely didnt plan on trying it on a hardcore run, but everything else was just sooo easy I figured I'd try.

[Zilkin]

Very useful post. You are clearly an expert!

[Wasted_46]

Originally posted by Zilkin:

Very useful post. You are clearly an expert!

thank you :)


BTW on another note:
I completed the Cragholdt quest. Same principles apply to the final fight, except it is much harder. You kinda have to chokepoint fight at the door. Amplified wave, Sworn enemy, Paralyze, Adragan, summons and a buttload of Warpaint does the job.

[Kyutaru]

How to deal with Adra Dragon's minions on Stupidly Hard OP mode:

Option 1 is:
- Confuse Adra dragon with Aloth
- Watch as Adra dragon breathes death and one shots all her own minions

Option 2 is more badass though:
- Recruit a druid
- Cast the lightning storm

Both options make your party ask "What minions?" while you murder the paralyzed dragon.

[rubyismycat]

killed my first dragon at lv 9 its hardlly a big deal

[Wasted_46]

Originally posted by rubyismycat:

killed my first dragon at lv 9 its hardlly a big deal

and which one was it?
im guessing the sky dragon?

EDIT im actually sure it was th sky dragon since you dont have any achievements related to the alpine dragon or the adra dragon.
Well killing the sky dragon at lvl9 is pretty nice indeed. But to be honest that one is fairly easy. The dragon itself is lvl10 and it is totally doable on lvl9. Grats though!

[Buyung Kilat]

Yeah, it took me an incredible 5 minutes to figure out how to kill the sky dragon. Even some of the bounties are tougher than her.