The two biggest fights you have in Dragon Age: Origins, prior to the finale, are dragons, one a shapeshifter (Flemeth) and the High Dragon. Not surprisingly (clue is in the game title), the Arch Demon in Dragon Age turns out to be a dragon too. So, how do you defeat a dragon in Dragon Age? Easy.
I first wrote about how to defeat Flemeth back on GamerZines, before we’d added this tips site, and taking on the Arch Demon is really just a refinement of this. Really, you need to approach the fight with the mentality of an MMO gamer, which is that you need to ensure your party is comprised of specialists. It’s tempting when playing an RPG to make your own character a bit of an all-rounder, especially when it comes to spell casting if you chose to become a mage. Unfortunately, you can get punished in Dragon Age for this, although you’ll still be OK as long as you haven’t done the same with the NPCs you control.
Shale can be made an excellent tank in Dragon Age: Origins.
The first thing you need is a tank – I levelled Shale as my tank, but you have several choices. All your tank needs is really heavy armour and as many stats in Constitution as you can. Again, you really have to avoid trying to give them a bit of this and a bit of that. They need to have as many hit points as possible and some strength so that they do some melee damage. Their only aim in this fight is to get hit, so that you don’t.
Next, you need a healer. I took Wynne the healer route. As your tank is going to take damage, your healer needs to be able to do Heal, Mass Heal and Res, plus all the other less useful healing. Magic alone is unlikely to be enough, so have some healing potions to hand as well.
Your third NPC needs to be ranged, and equipped with arrows or bolts with bonuses. Again, ensure you’ve levelled dexterity to maximise ranged damage.
Ideally, your character will be capable of doing some ranged damage and if a magic caster, some heals as well. You don’t want any other character in melee with the Arch Demon other than your tank.
When you set off for the fight, you have to choose your final party. It’s tempting to think you need to take Alistair, but I didn’t bother. I took the best team that matched the above and I didn’t miss out on any story as far as I can tell, because you get the epilogue with all the characters in to finish off the story.
As you set off, you get the choice of taking down the Arch Demon’s lieutenants before the main fight – do so. You don’t want them involved. It’s perfectly possible to get through all these pre-cursor stages without calling in any of your backup armies that are now available. They are then there for you in the final fight with the Arch Demon, though you can only have one active at once.
When you get to the roof top and have to fight the dragon/demon, make good use of the combat pause to keep tight control on your characters. Get the tank into melee, set your range on the demon and keep healing. That’s really all there is to it. The demon flies around, so you need to keep moving your tank, but with the right set up, it’s possible to get through with no characters down. I used one army in this fight, which is when the demon calls in a load of small Darkspawn. They are a pain, and as a swarm could easily kill you, so let the NPC army handle them.
Trying to bring the dragon down with melee damage is incredibly hard, because of all the area effect damage it does, and healing multiple characters is very difficult. By keeping the damage coming from range, you only need to keep the tank alive. These tactics allowed me to bring the Arch Demon down first time and with us all alive.
Got a better method? Let us know below.
Tags: Dragon Age: Origins
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Comments
mhm i never had any trouble at all with the archdemon because i had wynn with full spirit healer which can use the revival spell which revives people (lol) and group heal in which she heals the whole group and without having to get in range with any other party member so u can keep her at a safe distance and then i used a archer (Leliana) and i frequently used arrow of slaying to get his health down faster and then there was shale he kept the archdemon busy while i went to the ballista and kept firing on the archdemon with it i got no health loss at all u could say he ballista has archdemon seeking baliista arrow things xD (lol) everytime u use the thing were the ballista stands on it turns to the archdemon whereever he might be unless hes on the other side of the roof but theres a ballista too and just keep firing on him with the ballista he’ll get kinda stunne if u shoot on him bcause he like does a roar and well he raors an doesnt attack while he roars and u just keep firing on him with ballista and not that when for example with the elves u help the elves and the keeper of that clan still lives after the brecilian forest that zathrian the keeper will help you in the fight when u call the elves to help you also u should call in the elves because they are the strongest ranged army in the game (when u side with the werewolves swiftrunner will help u) sooo in short have a healer call in the elves and use the ballista and blam! your done the archdemon is a peace of cake
yum… i like cake xD