Dragon Age: Inquisition – How to Easily Beat Northern Hunter in Crestwood

Since Dragon Age: Inquisition launched a few months ago, many of the completionists have found the proper way to take on the Northern Hunter. This guide will cover an easier way to take on this dragon earlier in the playthrough.

For this method, party composition basically doesn’t matter, as your Warrior will be soloing the fight. I happened across this strategy while fighting the dragon for the first time.

What you need:

• A Weapon and Shield Warrior – (Cassandra, Blackwall, or your Inquisitor if you role it that way.)
• War Cry (Vanguard Tree) – This is one of the two primary defensive skills that you’ll use. Keep in mind that Cassandra gets Challenge by default, which isn’t as effective.
• Shield Wall (Weapon and Shield Tree) – The other necessary defensive skill. This will be your main defense in the fight.
• Payback Strike (Weapon and Shield Tree) – The primary offensive skill. With proper timing, you can do massive damage with this skill.
• Lunge and Slash (Weapon and Shield Tree) This is really just to close the gap when the dragon moves away. It allows you to better afford the lightning breathe attack.

Here is my first attempt at the fight. The video starts around halfway through, when I realized it was actually possible to solo the fight. Cassandra is level 13, which is the same level as this dragon, and only moderately geared. My party all died at around 3/4 health, so I solo’d a quarter of the fight before starting the recording.

The Strategy:

For the fight, you’ll control your Weapon and Shield Warrior. The other three characters aren’t important, and can even be gearless for all it matters. If you’d like, you can turn off their ability to use potions, so you have a safety net if you make a mistake. Of course, the longer they stay alive, the faster the fight will be. However, if you’re looking to do this earlier in the game, you should expect your party members to die when the dragon is around 3/4 health.

This fight is about managing Guard stacks on your Warrior. Open with War Cry, followed up with standing in an attack with Shield Wall, which should max your Guard. After that, let your Guard absorb some of the damage, and then use Payback Strike.

Make sure you don’t let your Guard drop too low, otherwise taking the wrong attack could drop your health really low as well. Be sure you’re constantly getting basic attacks in as well to build up your Stamina again, because Shield Wall depletes it fast.

Other than that, the purple ring around you does nothing once the other characters are dead. It’s designed to damage other characters that walk into it, but not the character it’s on.

The only move you want to actively avoid altogether and not block/absorb is the lightning breath. This attack does massive damage, even after blocking most of it with Shield Wall. You run out of Stamina around halfway through the attack using Shield Wall, so just use your Lunge and Slash to dodge it completely or dash through.