Dragon Age: Inquisition
69 Achievements
1,570
106-134h
Trial of the Hermit
Slay 10 great bears promoted by Grizzly End.
15
0.22%
How to unlock the Trial of the Hermit achievement in Dragon Age: Inquisition - Definitive Guide
The Boss Bears are level 15 and hate fire, so a mage might be handy to speed it up, they have ~71,000hp and can be slow to go down.
Emerald Graves seems to be the best spot for me. Double check and make sure the trial for Grizzly End is on, I found occasionally they turned off for me, then when you know it's on, travel to Briathos' Steps camp, and go west around the edge of the mercenary camp, then follow the hills around to your left to Harrow- there should be a steep hill going towards the south just before the edge of the map. I found 9/10x there's a great bear waiting for you. They're hard to miss- in the tactical camera they're called Boss Bears, not Elite Bears, FYI. If you get lost, check out the map with rifts on it-
http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Emerald_Graves
[On the left side of the map, about halfway down there's an exit from the map, the rift just to the right of it is where I'm talking about.]
Then pretty much comb the hills straight north towards Gracevine camp, continue past that to the big river, there's usually one or two around here, and across the river to the north where another rift was there's sometimes a bear, sometimes a giant.
When you've done a run from south to north, I found you have to leave the area and come back to repopulate the bears, so quickest I found without reloading the map, is to pick the farthest camp away from them on the map, which is the southern one you start at, give it a few seconds until you know it's loaded up the sounds and textures, then quick travel back to Briathos.
Shouldn't take more than half an hour to an hour if you get lucky spawns.
First of all, you need to turn the trial on prior to fighting a bear in Emerald Graves. This is done by going into the options and going into trials. Turn on Grizzly End.
This Trial will make the Elite Bears into Boss Bears with 71K Health. They are difficult to kill on Nightmare, so it is best to do this on a save and changing it to casual AFTER you have completed nightmare.
Easiest Method
Go to Camp Direstone. Run up the hill towards the river. 20% of the time a bear will spawn there at on the river. Sometimes it spawns a little further down the river on your right. If you don't see a bear, FAST TRAVEL back to the Direstone camp.
Keep doing this until you finish. Not every time will a bear spawn, i didn't have a bear spawn for 7 in a row, but I did have 2 bears in a row as well.
NOTES
This MUST be done in a single save. If you reload the save after killing the bear, you will be required to start the counter again. I killed one, came back later and killed 2 more and ended with 2 in total. Later I killed 5 more and my counter was only at 5. That is when I realized this, and I had to kill 10 more in a row to get the achievement to pop where the counter continued after the first 5.
I did this after the game was over. Bears at that time were rare. I ran around like other solutions said and there was nothing. Maybe you will have better luck running around, but why bother. Just keep fast travelling and running back to that one place. AND DO NOT RELOAD your save.
I'm not sure if this makes a difference, but I'd previously been trying this with a higher level character (23), and hardly ever saw a bear. When I tried with a lower level character (18), there were bears aplenty.
Once “Grizzly End” has been activated, it will "promote" bears by giving them more health. This achievement only counts for Great Bears affected by the trial and must be done in one playthrough.
Using any end-game save file, load up your playthrough, activate the trial, and head over the Briathos’ Steps base camp in the Emerald Graves. Now head north towards the river than runs across the region horizontally. Comb the river from west and east and you should be able to spot 1 or 2 Great Bears in and around the surrounding banks of the waters. Engage them in combat and kill them if you come across any. If you don’t see any on your run, return to a base camp, fast travel to the camp furthest south of the region and then re-fast travel back to Briathos’ Steps; this “resets” the enemies in the region. Continue to comb the river from west to east and you should eventually have this done within thirty minutes to an hour.