[AotA] Black Plume Mountain dragon

I waltzed through this the first time I beat it, playing a firestorm / 3dc combo. I didn't even pay attention, just spammed firestorm and wall of fire, and it was over in a few turns.

Now that the loot fairy is at Black Plume Mountain, I went back and am completely stuck on the dragon. No 3-wizard configuration has even approached winning the battle. What are y'all using?

(*sniffle* I probably won't even bother with this loot fairy 'cause I'm so depressed by my whupping...)

 

I used 2 priests and one warrior. One priest with a lot of nimbus, the other one with mf and other types of frenzy. The warrior was using a lochaber and 2 big damage weapons. I had to wait the dragon to use his encumber card that purges all your traits, then put nimbus on the warrior and after that the frenzy. The dragon would aproach my warrior at some point, so I attacked it with low attacks to get rid of the blocks, and then the big ones. I don't know if it's the best combo, but it worked for me. Another good way would be to use penetrating weapons (Flashing Longspear is great), they aren't so powerful but at least there is one less thing to be careful with (those amazing armors the dragon has). And if you put mf and some other buff, they can do very decent damage.
One more thing, as I assume you are using all dwarves for this fight, it's very helpful to have Advanced Ferocity on all your characters. It's simply the best racial for this fight, imo. War Cry will help a lot to get rid of the dragon's blocks, and Dwarven Cry lets you draw 3 more cards. Plus, Blind Rage helps with the cycling, and it can be quite useful too, specially for your warrior/s.

 

I've just made it with a priest and two wizards. SPR is the key, plus Bless or Consecrate Ground. The dragon has a lot of armor, but it doesn't try to move you, so if you have enough healing, armor melting and discard, you will defeat him automatically. Have some lava terrain, it's great with SPRs. Kill the hammer first, that's easy.

Edited: use Arrogant Armor if you have it: the dragon spams a LOT of attachments. Mine helped me a lot.

 

After trying all kinds of stuff with three dwarf wizards (closest I got was 23 HP left on the dragon and one wizard left) I did it with 1+1+1. That's all I had at level 20. Two warriors and a priest or three ninja dwarf warriors would probably work too.

Dwarf wizard had 4x Akon's Amulet and two big damage staves. That's dragon armour taken care of. Dwarf priest had maximum Impenetrable Nimbus. Human warrior had Vibrant Pain (sorry!) and big damage weapons. As much movement as fit on everybody; Team Runs, Dash, Teams, Flanking Moves, what have you. I had Arrogant Armor on the priest and warrior to keep the frost off, although I think I didn't draw it in the winning match.

Kill the hammer first so it doesn't keep healing. Then strip dragon armour and hit big. Nimbus anyone needing it when you have the card.

 

Funny enough, I almost didn't move at all when I've won, and didn't have even a single Nimbus I've played Bless and hold my ground. It's just amazing how different may be a winning strategy for the different parties! I guess I had roughly the same number of armor-melting cards on two wizards as you, but I also had 10+ SPRs, so the dragon rarely attacked more than 2-3 times per turn.

 

Well i used 3 dc.. but with wow and pok and alot of freezing and boil armor, every time he came near i would blow hima way doing dmg via pok and lava..still took some trys

 

Grunching here, but used a triad deck. The wizard is there so that volcano can finish off map 2 in 5 minutes. For the dragon I loaded up on as many nimbus as possible and stacked the warrior with big damage. It's important to have some SPR and acid on the wizard to remove the dragon's armour.

 

Trying the adventure again, the 1+1+1 build didn't do so hot this time. I had to try it about 10 times to make it. Finally I swapped the Armor-discarding items for Short Perplexing Ray ones. I didn't draw almost any when I made it, though. The adventure seems to be too dependent on getting the good draws at the right time. If you run out of Impenetrable Nimbus or Short Perplexing Ray at the wrong time, you probably lost then and there. Pretty frustrating fare. Probably intentionally. We'll see whether anyone can come up with a build that wins this most of the time -- without using a ton of Legendaries.

The hammer definitely needs to be killed immediately.

 

Agree re the hammer. When the hammer dies early, I usually manage to win.

 

The hammer dying early is the easy part, isn't it? At least, I've always killed it turn 1, so I don't even know what it's supposed to be able to do! I beat the dragon on my second or third try with 2 warriors and a priest, loading up on unnerving strike and sundering strike (new cards!) to get rid of blocks and armor, respectively. Obludgeons didn't work for me due to the dragon's Toughness, and step attacks were crap thanks to the encumber. Martyr's Blessing and Nimbus were both very very helpful of course.

 

The hammer will use AoA and also annoyingly greater heal the dragon.

 

I am beginning to doubt my own sanity. It is clearly impossible to defeat the dragon with 3 wizards.

Basically, the dragon ALWAYS has multiple blocks, which both strip my own wizards of armor + spells, and enables it close before I can successfully WoW or Whirl it away. And then it mauls a wizard. Wash, rinse, repeat until you have three dead wizards. A warrior would at least have blocks + HP to soak hits.

 

Trust me, the warriors don't soak anything from the dragon much longer than the wizards. Either you have a priest with Impenetrable Nimbuses or you're hosed. If the dragon learned to not waste hits on a Nimbused character it would be invincible for all practical purposes.

 

Also, Neoncat, Tuknir told above of defeating it with wizards, so it's not impossible.

 

Nimbus gets blasted off by the ice breath.

I've lost around 50 3-wizard runs between today and yesterday. None of them dropped the dragon below 30 health.

 

Put it on only after the ice breath .

 

I've never even noticed the ice breath knocking off nimbus and that's how I've been clearing Plume. As above said!

 

OK I DID IT. 2 runestone / trembling wizards, plus a SPR / boiling armor wizard and a lot of luck (and 2 retries).

 

Hurray for Neoncat!

 

I use War/War/Wiz, the 2 Warriors have 3 Double-Edged Sword each and 2-3 Frenzy Aura. The Wizard is loaded up with Akon's Amulet and the two of the highly underrated Mighty Sparkping Staff. Movement isn't so important, but range 2 attacks should get you where you want to be. I have almost no problems with the dragon, and have defeated it in both Drawbacks Only and No Party Deaths mode. (The principle is the same in Drawbacks Only, I use the weapon that has Boiling Armor on it.