Well we’re on quite a roll this week.
I have a fairly big addiction to RPGs – especially when they are good, like Dragon Age. Ramp up the difficulty and away you go. There is one particularly difficult (but optional) boss called the High Dragon. I assume most players will skip him because dragons are a difficult encounter in basically any RPG. But that’s pussy, and this game is expensive. Do it.
I think the hardest thing to realize in this battle is you need to position everyone in a good spot before summoning the High Dragon down to fight. Otherwise when he swoops down, everyone is out in front of him and prone to fire blast, or if you’re rather unlucky, get eaten right away.
I had to try this boss about a dozen times before I found a strategy that works. Cone of Cold and Blizzard don’t really work here. Cone of Cold will freeze the High Dragon for about 3 seconds, which is nothing, but every second counts for DPS.
So my party is Morrigan (duh), Alistair, Shale and myself, a full spec Assassin. First thing I did was position my assassin in the far back, behind where the dragon will initially land. I put Shale to the right, and Alistair to the left of where the High Dragon lands at the start of the battle. You need to back them up enough to where they won’t take initial AOE damage when the High Dragon slams into the ground. I put Morrigan on gong duty so she can summon and prep spells to cast prior to the battle.
If you have any Lesser (Greater is preferable) Warmth Balms, use them on the tanks. This is the key that turned the battle in my favor when I finally won. When the High Dragon lands, take the party off of Hold Position so they move in to attack. Have Morrigan throw any status Hex you have on the High Dragon, follow immediately with Cone of Cold, Winter’s Grasp and Lightning. If you feel you have time, cast Tempest for an AOE- it’s almost like having a 5th party member. Try to keep two party members to the side of the High Dragon while the main tank gets out in front. The dragons in this game have this asinine attack where they tail swoop anytime someone is remotely past their back leg. Kind of makes rogues useless in this sense, but you can still do good damage from the sides. I found that getting in front of the back leg works well.
This isn’t a quick battle but they aren’t designed to be. It’s more a test of skill and endurance. As long as you have enough health poultices and can Heal with Morrigan, you should be alright. Knowing when to use Heal vs Poultice is good too, like if someone is stunned or knocked down, Heal will get their health back up quicker than using a poultice.
After employing this starting tactic and making sure everyone stayed above at least 60% health- I won this battle and no one died.
Can’t say the loot was very good given the difficulty of the battle but eh, what can you do?
