Killing Zephyrine

[Davies]

Well, I finally managed it. Required a certain amount of gaming the system, but I'll still share the strategy I used to finally beat this critter.

 

1. The first phase of the plan requires you to conserve, conserve, conserve your consumables for this fight. Don't use them for other battles, you're going to need every bit of them for this one.

 

2. I was at level 30 on all characters, using a right-column Blademaster as my main character (for Call of Frenzy), along with a Drake-Summoning Jenelle and a Cloud-of-Corruption casting Nathalie; I gave the latter the scarab that lets her cast a second Acid Cone. Other characters, other builds, might have made this easier or harder. I have no intention of ever doing this again, so I'm not going to bother to find out.

 

3. Give your Shards of the Phoenix and Speed Burst scrolls to the character with the highest Dex. Give recuperation crystals to the next fastest one.

 

4. Go into battle frenzy before talking to the dragon and announcing that you're going to kill her for justice and profit. This is critical, even if you'll lose a round of the effect or so during the conversation.

 

5. POUND her. Launch your biggest attacks immediately, do not anything back. I was INCREDIBLY lucky in that I managed to get my Stunning Blow to actually Stun Zephyrine, buying me a few rounds in which she wasn't able to activate those damned sentinels of hers. Even though I repeated that Stunning Blow every round that followed, she wasn't ever stunned again, so you can't count on that. Jennell's Vulnerability Curse was also critical, enhancing the damage that everyone was doing.

 

6. At the start of every round, have your character with the Shards of the Phoenix use them as their first action, so that you can continue to use your most damaging attacks. Don't get excited and forget this! It doesn't matter if you have two attacks if both of them are low damage moves! Pay attention to your Battle Frenzy counter, too, and don't neglect to use those Speed Burst scrolls.

 

7. When Zephyrine dies, RUN. There is absolutely nothing to be gained by fighting those sentinels! They will still heal themselves every other round, even if they aren't healing Zephyrine, and have dangerous attacks. Get at least one of your characters out of the zone, and come back. The sentinels will have resumed their vigil and not fight you, allowing you to rob Zephyrine's treasury. The real treasure, of course, is the tooth that you get immediately after she dies, which you can use to end the quest and possibly save thousands of Wyldrym lives. (I felt no satisfaction killing Zephyrine, but finally ending that quest, and seeing the results? Yeah, that feels really good.)

[Earth]

only good dragon is dead dragon.

 

- by some emperor

[Jerakeen]

Congrats, that's a tough fight.

[Davies]

Congrats, that's a tough fight.

 

You ain't whistling the Wyldrym version of Dixie. I actually found the fight against Vardegras easier, though a good portion of that was having a Tinkermage with both a Healing Pylon and a Flamethrower functioning. And his left-over guards were a cakewalk by comparison.

[Kelandon]

I actually found the fight against Vardegras easier

Yes, Vardegras is substantially easier. Gryfyn is probably the hardest fight in Avadon 2. Zephyrine is probably the hardest fight in Avadon 1.

[Earth]

Var's arena is quite big and we can keep its helpers occupied elsewhere while against Zeph arena is bit limited and we can't keep helpers occupied that easily.