I made around 10 attempts to pass the dragon battle that opens up in The White March 2, and I finally did it today. I looked for tactical advice and info on the net, but except for a video from this March, I couldn't find anything useful, so I'm sharing my experience here. Hopefully it emerges in google search and someone somewhere, finds PoE help on the Codex (of all places).
Difficulty - PotD. Party composition - PC (Paladin - Bleak Walker), Eder, Devil of Caroc, Durance, Aloth, Grieving Mother. Everybody is lvl 16 except for Grieving Mother who is lvl 15.
Battle Tips:
- End the conversation by hitting the spacebar. This way you will pause the game simultaneously.
- Expect to spend about 70% of the battle paused. PoE is a pause-with-realtime game, not a RTWP game.
- Make sure you have some Scrolls of Valor (+20 Accuracy), Scrolls of Defense (+20 to all Defenses), and 10-15 Scrolls of Paralysis. Spread the Scrolls of Paralysis between at least two different party members. I separated them between three.
- Send one character with high defenses and with Boots of Speed west while the rest of the party retreats to the south-east. Unpause the game. In my case that was my PC.
- A couple of seconds after you have done this, the game realizes that combat has started. At this time all your characters will stop in place, their move commands cancelled. Pause the game and reissue the same commands. That's some GOTY user interface material right there.
- The group of enemies will start chasing after your lone party member and this will give you time to cast buffs with the other party members. PoE is a game that has been balanced to perfection, and as a result of that, you can cast only smaller buffs before battle. For buffing during the battle, the god of balance has decided that cheesing is a more fair and immersive method. Some people would say that disabling your from buffing before battle is cheesing on part of the game designer himself, but anyway.
- By careful pausing and unpausing, run circles around the enemies with your single character. While the enemies are trying to catch up with him, cast the following buffs:
1. Scroll of Defense - best cast this with someone other than your Priest, because the priest should at this time be casting
2. Minor Avatar - go with that first, because it will increase, among other things, your intellect and by extension - the duration of the other buffs you cast
3. Crowns of the Faithful
4. Shields of the Faithful
5. Devotions of the Faithful
6. (Possibly) Holy Power
7. Prayer Against Imprisonment - or the corresponding Scroll of Prayer Against Imprisonment
8. Prayer Against Fear - if there is time. The only real danger of Fear/Terrified afflictions will be the dragons, and their arrival should be slowed down a bit by the party member who is distracting them.
- The point of circling around with one character is to give yourself time for buffing and to arrange it so that you are if possible, attacked by less than the full group of enemies, or at least not by everyone at the same time.
- Eventually, a single Xaurip Archer may reach your 5 party members, if you haven't finished buffing yet, keep casting buffs instead of running towards the Xaurip and the center of the map. If possible retreat farther south to lure the Xaurip in that direction. Keep casting buffs and respond to the Xaurip with ranged weapons.
- Usually, a Bog Cult Apprentice (or something like that, a different kith caster than Llengrath, in any case) will come upon the party from the north and will soon be joined by the two dragons. Around the same time, you should be approached by a Bog Lurker, Xaurip High Priest, and a couple of Xaurip Archers from the west.
- Cast Confusion on the Xaurips so they can kill each other, pin down the Bog Lurker with a party member who can withstand hits (in my case the Devil of Caroc was good enough), so he can't reach your casters.
- Cast Storm of Holy Fire upon the whole enemy group. The spell has a huge AoE and causes Burn Damage. The dragons have pretty high Burn DR, but it will hit the Lurker, the Xaurips and the kith caster.
- Use a paralyzing spell or scroll to try to stop the Xaurips and lurker in place. Ninagauth's Shadowflame was great for that purpose, because it does Freeze damage in addition to paralyzing them, and Xaurips are more vulnerable to Freeze damage. In my fight, once they were paralyzed, they were great target practice for Grieving Mother which could build up Focus and eventually cast Defensive Mindweb, which is a pretty effective buff to everyone's defenses.
- Use your tank to engage the dragons. In my case, only one dragon arrived at first, followed by the other one some 10 seconds of unpaused time later.
- The core of the strategy is to keep the dragons from using their breath abilities, and keep them Prone, Paralyzed, Petrified. The Paralyzed affliction hurts their Reflex defense bringing it down in the 40s, which allows you to cast some devastating damage-dealing spells with your wizard, which attack the Reflex defense. Both dragons have low Freeze DR, one of them has a low Pierce DR too (16-17). You can decrease their DR further and decrease their Deflection, with Expose Vulnerabilities.
- In this case, the spells I was casting with Aloth were:
1. Kalakoth's Freezing Rake - as many times as was possible. I managed to align the AoE in such a way that it was hitting the already paralyzed Xaurips and the (non-paralyzed) Lurker which were on my party's left side, and the Dragons, which were on my party's right side. By the third casting of this spell, the Xaurips and Lurker were pretty much dead and I finished them off with the Devil, who I then used to kill the Xaurip High Priest which was a bit farther to the west than the Lurker/Xaurips.
2. Chain Lightning - Only hits enemies, causes Shock damage, attacks Reflex. Perfect for your needs. Both dragons have less than great Shock DR. I preferred this over Ninagauth's Freezing Pillar, because it does more damage, however Freezing Pillar causes Freeze Damage, so it's up to you. Don't use all your 6 lvl spells for casting Chain Lightning/Freezing Pillar, try to cast Gaze of the Adragan at least once, to petrify one of the dragons (the other one is immune to Petrify)
3. Ninagauth's Killing Bolt - This one attacks fortitude, but causes huge raw damage. Spam it on one of the dragons to kill it off quickly.
- To maximize your chances, be sure to have Aloth's accuracy buffed with a Scroll of Valor (preferably).
- Between casting these spells, make sure you track the remaining duration of the Paralyze affliction you have on the dragons. Keep casting the paralyze scrolls on them, watching out not to hit your party members. If you do paralyze one of your own party, use Prayer Against Imprisonment (spell or scroll) if you haven't already cast that during the buffing period.
- If a dragon manages to avoid the paralyze affliction, you can quickly knock it down with your fighter. The dragons both have +20 defense vs. Prone attacks but your fighter should be buffed enough to overcome that. I was able to knock them down every time with Eder.
- As long as you keep them properly paralyzed with the scrolls, and don't allow them to cast the breath abilities, you should wear them down eventually.
- Don't forget to summon Concelhaut himself. He has a great spell that you can cast once - Concelhaut's Crushing Doom. The dragons have pretty high crush DR which makes it unadvisable to cast it on them, but it should be used on Llengrath or the other caster.
- In my case, Llengrath returned to her place while I was fighting the dragons. An issue with the encounter composition I guess. If she joins the battle in your attempts, do your best to kill her off first, again by casting paralyze and then hitting her with the Foe AoE wizard spells. Cast Concelhaut's Crushing Doom on her too.
That's all I can think of for now. Good luck.
Difficulty - PotD. Party composition - PC (Paladin - Bleak Walker), Eder, Devil of Caroc, Durance, Aloth, Grieving Mother. Everybody is lvl 16 except for Grieving Mother who is lvl 15.
Battle Tips:
- End the conversation by hitting the spacebar. This way you will pause the game simultaneously.
- Expect to spend about 70% of the battle paused. PoE is a pause-with-realtime game, not a RTWP game.
- Make sure you have some Scrolls of Valor (+20 Accuracy), Scrolls of Defense (+20 to all Defenses), and 10-15 Scrolls of Paralysis. Spread the Scrolls of Paralysis between at least two different party members. I separated them between three.
- Send one character with high defenses and with Boots of Speed west while the rest of the party retreats to the south-east. Unpause the game. In my case that was my PC.
- A couple of seconds after you have done this, the game realizes that combat has started. At this time all your characters will stop in place, their move commands cancelled. Pause the game and reissue the same commands. That's some GOTY user interface material right there.
- The group of enemies will start chasing after your lone party member and this will give you time to cast buffs with the other party members. PoE is a game that has been balanced to perfection, and as a result of that, you can cast only smaller buffs before battle. For buffing during the battle, the god of balance has decided that cheesing is a more fair and immersive method. Some people would say that disabling your from buffing before battle is cheesing on part of the game designer himself, but anyway.
- By careful pausing and unpausing, run circles around the enemies with your single character. While the enemies are trying to catch up with him, cast the following buffs:
1. Scroll of Defense - best cast this with someone other than your Priest, because the priest should at this time be casting
2. Minor Avatar - go with that first, because it will increase, among other things, your intellect and by extension - the duration of the other buffs you cast
3. Crowns of the Faithful
4. Shields of the Faithful
5. Devotions of the Faithful
6. (Possibly) Holy Power
7. Prayer Against Imprisonment - or the corresponding Scroll of Prayer Against Imprisonment
8. Prayer Against Fear - if there is time. The only real danger of Fear/Terrified afflictions will be the dragons, and their arrival should be slowed down a bit by the party member who is distracting them.
- The point of circling around with one character is to give yourself time for buffing and to arrange it so that you are if possible, attacked by less than the full group of enemies, or at least not by everyone at the same time.
- Eventually, a single Xaurip Archer may reach your 5 party members, if you haven't finished buffing yet, keep casting buffs instead of running towards the Xaurip and the center of the map. If possible retreat farther south to lure the Xaurip in that direction. Keep casting buffs and respond to the Xaurip with ranged weapons.
- Usually, a Bog Cult Apprentice (or something like that, a different kith caster than Llengrath, in any case) will come upon the party from the north and will soon be joined by the two dragons. Around the same time, you should be approached by a Bog Lurker, Xaurip High Priest, and a couple of Xaurip Archers from the west.
- Cast Confusion on the Xaurips so they can kill each other, pin down the Bog Lurker with a party member who can withstand hits (in my case the Devil of Caroc was good enough), so he can't reach your casters.
- Cast Storm of Holy Fire upon the whole enemy group. The spell has a huge AoE and causes Burn Damage. The dragons have pretty high Burn DR, but it will hit the Lurker, the Xaurips and the kith caster.
- Use a paralyzing spell or scroll to try to stop the Xaurips and lurker in place. Ninagauth's Shadowflame was great for that purpose, because it does Freeze damage in addition to paralyzing them, and Xaurips are more vulnerable to Freeze damage. In my fight, once they were paralyzed, they were great target practice for Grieving Mother which could build up Focus and eventually cast Defensive Mindweb, which is a pretty effective buff to everyone's defenses.
- Use your tank to engage the dragons. In my case, only one dragon arrived at first, followed by the other one some 10 seconds of unpaused time later.
- The core of the strategy is to keep the dragons from using their breath abilities, and keep them Prone, Paralyzed, Petrified. The Paralyzed affliction hurts their Reflex defense bringing it down in the 40s, which allows you to cast some devastating damage-dealing spells with your wizard, which attack the Reflex defense. Both dragons have low Freeze DR, one of them has a low Pierce DR too (16-17). You can decrease their DR further and decrease their Deflection, with Expose Vulnerabilities.
- In this case, the spells I was casting with Aloth were:
1. Kalakoth's Freezing Rake - as many times as was possible. I managed to align the AoE in such a way that it was hitting the already paralyzed Xaurips and the (non-paralyzed) Lurker which were on my party's left side, and the Dragons, which were on my party's right side. By the third casting of this spell, the Xaurips and Lurker were pretty much dead and I finished them off with the Devil, who I then used to kill the Xaurip High Priest which was a bit farther to the west than the Lurker/Xaurips.
2. Chain Lightning - Only hits enemies, causes Shock damage, attacks Reflex. Perfect for your needs. Both dragons have less than great Shock DR. I preferred this over Ninagauth's Freezing Pillar, because it does more damage, however Freezing Pillar causes Freeze Damage, so it's up to you. Don't use all your 6 lvl spells for casting Chain Lightning/Freezing Pillar, try to cast Gaze of the Adragan at least once, to petrify one of the dragons (the other one is immune to Petrify)
3. Ninagauth's Killing Bolt - This one attacks fortitude, but causes huge raw damage. Spam it on one of the dragons to kill it off quickly.
- To maximize your chances, be sure to have Aloth's accuracy buffed with a Scroll of Valor (preferably).
- Between casting these spells, make sure you track the remaining duration of the Paralyze affliction you have on the dragons. Keep casting the paralyze scrolls on them, watching out not to hit your party members. If you do paralyze one of your own party, use Prayer Against Imprisonment (spell or scroll) if you haven't already cast that during the buffing period.
- If a dragon manages to avoid the paralyze affliction, you can quickly knock it down with your fighter. The dragons both have +20 defense vs. Prone attacks but your fighter should be buffed enough to overcome that. I was able to knock them down every time with Eder.
- As long as you keep them properly paralyzed with the scrolls, and don't allow them to cast the breath abilities, you should wear them down eventually.
- Don't forget to summon Concelhaut himself. He has a great spell that you can cast once - Concelhaut's Crushing Doom. The dragons have pretty high crush DR which makes it unadvisable to cast it on them, but it should be used on Llengrath or the other caster.
- In my case, Llengrath returned to her place while I was fighting the dragons. An issue with the encounter composition I guess. If she joins the battle in your attempts, do your best to kill her off first, again by casting paralyze and then hitting her with the Foe AoE wizard spells. Cast Concelhaut's Crushing Doom on her too.
That's all I can think of for now. Good luck.
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