Dragon Age Inquisition

UPDATE: The last DLC 'Trespasser' has the achievement



which requires you to kill the dragon described in this solution when your entire party is at level 16. So, if you intend to 100% this game, wait until then if you want to save yourself an extra playthrough!

The first and easiest dragon to kill is the Ferelden Frostback, who can be found in the Hinterlands, just north from Dusklight Camp. He's a level 13, so to beat him comfortably, it's advisable to wait until you're about the same level.

I personally defeated the beast when I was level 13, playing on hard. My party consisted of two warriors (Herald and Cassandra), Varric and Vivienne.

Fereldan Frostback is vulnerable to Cold, so equip your mage with an ice staff and teach him at least Winter's Grasp. You can give yourself an extra edge by enchanting your other party member's weapons with frost runes for some extra cold damage. Should you have fire resistance increasing gear, equip it. And upgrading the amount of potions you can carry, as well as their potency, will help a lot.

For the fight to begin, you must first run through the gulch crawling with Dragonlings, while FF bombards you with fire balls. Try to not get hit by jumping and using the environment for cover. If you have to use a potion, it might be better to return to camp for restocking, and start a new run.

During the fight, FF main attack will be his fire breath, but he won't be able to use it if your characters are close. His wing attack is nasty, as it will create a vortex that deal a ton of damage to all outside the vortex - another reason to stay close to mid-range. He also kicks those hacking at his legs, but that can't really be avoided and does comparably little damage.

You can attack each leg, but I advise to focus on either front leg, and then on the back leg of the same side, as this seems to shake his balance, making him more vulnerable. Frequently pause to make sure your heroes attack the proper leg, and see that your mage casts Barrier as much as possible. Once you damage him enough, FF will take off (twice) and start blasting you from above. Again, run and take cover until he returns, the continue.

The fight will enter it's second phase once he calls his minions for help. Dispatch them quickly with two characters while keeping him busy with the other two, then resume your full attacks. He'll fly off once more and try to hide on a ledge, where you have to pursuit him. Keep at it, and eventually, after what will seem like an eternity, he'll perish. Hooray for loot and a morbid throne!

The first high dragon that you should come across is in the Hinterlands and the dragon is the Fereldan Frostback, that despite what the name might suggest (probably named after the Frostback Mountains) spits fire and has cold vulnerability. It can be found in the northeast area of the Hinterlands map.

Because I was playing on Nightmare difficulty, I waited until I was level 12 to go after it/"her" (High Dragons are female, they say). I thought I was strong enough to give it a try, but now I see that if I had waited at least until level 14 it could've been a much easier fight considering how much stronger my chars got only 2 levels later. The truth is, playing on the hardest difficulty you will always have a hard time with the high dragons that you find because they are aggressive and have huge health bars. Pay attention for every once in a while the Frostback might flap its wings and pull even the ranged members of your party towards her while also dealing damage. "She" will also call a lot of dragonlings to aid her whenever she's being badly beaten up at some points of the fight.

STRATEGY SUGGESTION

My party was composed of 2 warriors (Cassandra, which is THE best imo, Blackwall, which wasn't as good as her at the time, but also generated good amounts of "guard"), my main char that was a ranged rogue and 1 mage (Vivienne).

Using tonics or wasting health potions is useless, in my opinion. Like I said, this is gonna be a hard fight on higher difficulties even if your party overlevel the dragon's level. So, unless you want an epic fight, if you can settle for just winning the fight, I suggest you move a mage to the back of the fighting area and repair the bridge (done by activating/interacting with it in the right spot) and then having any party member to jump down to the right of the bridge (if facing the sea) to hide behind the hexagonal rocks and then using the command wheel to instruct the party members to hold position, so this person won't try to leave that area to appear in another.

If you can successfully keep one party member down there and don't go too far away with the others (which will inevitably die at some point of the fight) so that that party member that is hidding doesn't get teleported to the others location, whenever the rest of your party dies you can revive them automatically by walking safely on the bridge towards the sea. The high dragon's health bar won't reset and you might have to do this many times, but it is the best way to assure that your whole party doesn't get wiped out at once, specially after doing a lot of damage on the dragon, which will take a good amount of time.

Eventually the dragon will fly away so you will have to deal with its dragonlings. That's easy to do even if your party is pretty beaten up. Warriors usually have abilities that activate guard which protect direct damage to health, so they might not die too easily after being ressurected. Using the rogue's best shot abilities (Long Shot, Full Draw) and cloaking whenever necessary will help you to deal with all of them.

The high dragon then might stay at the right upper area (considering your back's towards the sea) and that's when the fight gets tricky. If you go there, and you have to go, to finish the fight, whoever is in cover will be teleported to the other party members' location, so you have to play safe and always have at least one character ready to flee whenever all of the others die. Therefore I suggest having one ranged char by the right wall ready to jump down towards the bridge and the back to that cover spot.

It might not be glamorous, but this will get you to the end of the fight and beyond. Also, always pay attention to whenever the dragon might start flapping its wings so that you can scape with the one char that matters and ressurect the others. The health potions must be spared, after all you only got 8 at this point, and just this one char that is always fleeing should use them in case shit happens and he gets caught by damage while trying to run away.

EDIT: I have now slayed 6 high-dragons and the last 3 were easy compared to the first 3. In fact, the first one (Fereldan Frostback) might have been the hardest because of her calling the dragonlings to help a few times. This never happened in any of the other fights. My current advice is: don't worry about this achievement if you're planning to do a full playthrough. You won't need to cover nor flee to properly fight the dragons once your character is high level (I'm currently lvl 22), the game gets SO easy even on Nightmare difficulty, if you make the right choices. Playing the DLC "Descent" also helps a lot because of the improved gear you get. I still recommend using the same party (Cass and Blacwall as tanks, an archer rogue (you) and a healing mage (Vivienne).

If this solution helps you in any way let me know by giving it a thumbs up and leaving a comment.