Dragon Age: Inquisition

Dragon Age: Inquisition

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Trial of the Hermit

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

For anyone who struggles to find these guys, this was where I found it worked best for me.
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.
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10 Sep 2015 10:35

26 Comments
This can also be done post-game smile
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By Kennyannydenny on 15 Sep 2015 11:59
The bears are only showing up as great bears, no achievement...
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By PrimeBigTime on 16 Sep 2015 11:45
Make sure you turn the trial on before an area loads to make sure the Bears appear. They aren't always the boss bears, it just promotes some like the achievement for 20 upgraded enemies trial.
It's under the pause menu - options - trials
Hope that helps
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By Brother Rhogar on 16 Sep 2015 12:11
Thanks for your quick response. Just got it this second at about 12 bears. The comment about boss bears confused me. Good guide, thumbs up.
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By PrimeBigTime on 16 Sep 2015 13:10
No stress, happy I could help
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By Brother Rhogar on 16 Sep 2015 13:18
I didn't have any problems with this particular one, but I did have some issues with the other trials; had to fight the fereldan frostback twice because the trial turned itself off, and someone I heard got to skyhold at level 5 and the achievement didn't pop and they definitely had the trial on. The descriptions do warn the trials can do strange things to the game and to save often, so I think Bioware is already on top of buggy progress. Just keep at it I guess. Try loading an older save and killing some or continue on another character. Should all stack across characters and saves!
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By Brother Rhogar on 27 Sep 2015 14:30
Yeah I'm going to try getting another character up to that point and see if I can get it to count. Thanks for the reply.
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By BloodGodAlucard on 27 Sep 2015 15:49
I found mine fastest by just walking up and down the river. Everytime I found one I travelled back to direstone camp and started again. Found them all within an hour! :D
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By Mattricus on 25 Oct 2015 13:04
- Killed over 15 great bears not seen anything else? Trial is on whats going on.....
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By MrSkiBear on 13 Nov 2015 17:11
this achievement is pathetic! It's hard enough to find a bear, and then to have it elevated which doesn't always happen.
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By Kanchanaburi on 16 Nov 2015 00:41
Just killed one and no progress on the achievement. Took forever to kill it as well. Will leave it until I finish up the game.
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By FullMoonBeaver on 29 Dec 2015 00:16
Had no problem with this achievement. Never saw any boss bears but it popped on the 10th lvl 15 great bear.
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By phenom57 on 03 Jan 2016 06:20
I'd consider myself lucky to get the spawn to trigger 25% of the time... Still better than the on by the North river though
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By GRAM71789 on 01 Feb 2016 02:45
I think the point about boss bears should be changed/removed. There are no boss bears in regular view, but I think they show up in tactical view. It's really confusing. They are great bars for anyone wondering.
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By PrimeBigTime on 01 Feb 2016 03:48
Thanks PrimeBigTime, I have actually already clarified this point in my post in the second paragraph;
"They're hard to miss- in the tactical camera they're called Boss Bears, not Elite Bears, FYI." If that can be clearer, I'm happy to change it if it helps.
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By Brother Rhogar on 01 Feb 2016 04:35
Oops, sorry, just noticed. Thanks!
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By PrimeBigTime on 01 Feb 2016 11:41
I've followed this guide as well as others, and I can't seem to get any bears to spawn in the Emerald Graves, never mind a boss bear. And I'm sure the Trial is turned on. The only place I've been able to find bears on a consistent basis is in the Hinderlands, but they are never boss bears. What should I do?
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By KHADY93 on 11 Aug 2016 14:43
Also as a side note, i can confirm that the bear in the quest "A Bear to Cross" counts toward this achievement. The bear spawns with 4 cubs who, sadly, do not count. In the tactical screen, the cubs say elite but the main large bear says boss. My counter went up after defeating it.
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By OfficiallyKirt on 24 Aug 2016 02:37
You don't have to use the tactical camera to see that it's a boss bear. If you see the skull image under its health bar, that means it's a boss.
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By Dragonborn Gear on 18 Aug 2017 01:36
THANK YOU!!!!! I was up to 4 years after days of searching for them. Using your method, I got the last 6 within 15 minutes.
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By BrvLilToastr#903 on 12 Jan 2019 10:32
Glad this is still helping 3 years later!
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By Brother Rhogar on 26 Jan 2019 04:14
Boss Bears, Elite Bears, lol. This achievement is for killing 10 Great Bears. You know it is a Great Bear because it is about 3 times the size of a regular bear. I found them by the river near Direstone camp 60% of the time.

If your kills don’t count, set it to Nightmare and don’t have any other Trials on. Every single Great Bear I killed counted.
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By HolyHalfDead on 18 Oct 2022 10:41
31 August 2023. Worked like a charm. I had slightly less success than Brother Rhogar. It took me 13 attempts to spawn 10 bears using his suggested location.
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By Vulker707 on 31 Aug 2023 18:08
Great guide, finally got it after starting a new playthrough as the old progress had stopped.
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By PaddyW106 on 14 Mar 2024 11:05
This achievement is glitched for me. The progress tracker is stuck at 80%. I've killed dozens of these over the course of farming for several days. I checked on the tactical view and confirmed each kill was promoted to boss status.

I even deactivated the trial and saw one was Elite. Just to be sure. I then re activated the trial and it was immediately promoted to boss. I killed it and still didn't gain any progress.

This is really frustrating. I hope they fix it in a patch or the game eventually recalculates the data and retro pops it. Has anyone else experienced problems with this achievement? The others all seem to work perfectly.
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By BloodGodAlucard on 25 Sep 2015 12:11
I just travelled directly to Gracevine for my achievement, head north to the river and the area called "Rush of Sighs". Wandering up and down a short stretch of the river and in about the big rock structures quickly yielded 9 of the 10 bears, I travelled back to the southern most camp in the Graves inbetween kills to get him to respawn. I had to wait a little while for the 10th, with wolf packs and a red lyrium behemoth appearing by the river instead. I think only one hostile group appears here per visit, so if you encounter any hostile other than a bear cut your losses and travel away to repeat the above steps.
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By The Reverend JC on 06 Feb 2016 15:44
View all 26 comments Show less comments
Farming Method

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.
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18 Nov 2015 01:01

8 Comments
The fast travelling back to Direstone camp worked for me, and thanks for clarifying about the single save file. Using this method, although I sometimes didn't see a bear, I got plenty in a row, sometimes even two at the same time (close to each other by the river).

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.
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By SeaWoodStage on 23 Nov 2015 11:47
Nice solution +1 toast
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By Apocalypse Kane on 08 Mar 2016 01:43
Fantastic solution. Thanks!
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By Eurydace on 15 Jul 2016 02:41
In response to TH3FLYINGK0R3AN, I didn't see a bear due south from Argon's Lodge, but I did see a bear when I went towards the Astrarium southwest.
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By Dragonborn Gear on 18 Aug 2017 01:43
Nothing near grapevine camp for me ever. The others were there though
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By Julz D 01 on 14 Dec 2017 02:16
I would like to add while doing this at lvl 27 finding these bears is not easy but, i have had the most luck returning to Gracevine. I have seen them on the way north and on the river as well as right when you get to go north through the small path along the river. Just keep reloading Gracevine and heading north and take the first open access on the opposite side of the river. Also starting from Gracevine you can reload while already on your mount which makes it faster. This takes a ton of times back and forth. GL
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By AmagiciaNamdGob on 07 May 2018 04:02
I love it when a solution still works after 5 years. Thank you, worked perfectly.
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By The SCHWARTZ 00 on 25 Feb 2020 17:09
I am doing this after beating the game, Jaws of Haakon, and The Descent. My character is level 27 currently. I played through on Nightmare during the game and casual for the dlc.

I would travel to Direstone Camp, Argon's Lodge, and Gracevine Camp. Look for a bear rinse repeat. I found Argon's Lodge to be the most consistent as I only had a bear not spawn once there. I also had two bears spawn twice at Gracevine. At most I had two fast travels not produce a bear.

The bears spawning at Direstone will be due north. When you reach the river it can spawn to the east and/or west side of the river. Argon's Lodge will be due south. Gracevine can either be right above the camp. If not there head north to the river and then go due east and there may be another bear.
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By Cursed#7068 on 19 Mar 2016 13:43
View all 8 comments Show less comments

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. 

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