Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - Help/Tips/Tricks [BUG] Eternal Aetera -1 kills entire party

Update: at two levels above Eternal Aeteras' level (level 16), my party is still getting 1-hit kill with her hail storm attack. It is as if I'm in a fight with a level 18 boss with level 14 minions.

Am I missing something? My whole party is getting 1-hit killed. I haven't had any problems with the fights in this cave. Even if a split them all up, the wolves kill off characters in two turns of battle unless two wolves attack in one turn...


As for her attacks, I don't have a char that can survive more than two rounds.

I'm playing in classic mode.

do you have dome of protection? you can also just precast skills like armour of frost if you're having a lot of trouble. she hurts a lot, but does not have much physical armor and can be chain knocked down after a turn or so

No, what do I have to do for dome of protection? Is it a skill?

I think this battle is bugged, as in entirely over powered. Just killed the monster causing disease in the area north of the mining town. That battle wasn't bad.. had to teleport my group up on top of the mountain to fight it. That boss was two levels above my characters, the Eternal was only one. Not even that boss could 1-hit my party.

dome of protection is the default source skill for custom characters (non-origin characters). it creates a circle that regenerates physical and magic armour to characters (non-enemies) within it every time, so it's very useful for battles against bosses that have a few insta-destroy armour spells. also, are you at the same level as aetera? it's possible you're just underleveled and can come back to it after leveling once or twice; at this point of the game, one or two levels can make a big difference. make sure your gear is up to level scale as well, being unprepared may be what's causing your team to die so fast

it's a very difficult fight but it is doable

Mages are generally more powerful than giant chickens. Don't trust level-differences.

Is everyone decked out in level appropriate gear? Are you using your characters to their full potential? Yes? Then come back in a level or two. There is nothing forcing you to take that fight if you are getting your shit handed to you.

Are you level 10 or something? Try to get at least lvl 13-14!

I was level 13 at the time. I'm now level 14 (killed a level 15 boss w/o major issue while level 13). Eventually I'll get back there. It doesn't help to have that shreaker blocking the teleport area. I don't know where my purging wand was, guess I accidentally sold it to some merchant.

I'm now two levels above Eternal Aetera and still getting my party 1-hit killed. My gear is as current as money can buy. My characters are level 16, going to have to abandon this until I can't find anything else to do in this chapter.

Is it even necessary to kill this boss off? I'm considering abandoning the content and not going back.

I just leveled up after a tough battle on that blood island killing off black ring members around the tree.

Odd, I had no issue with this fight at all. I think I was level 15 at the time and won on my first try.

What is your party like composition wise? Is this on Tactician? Do you have any high-health party members?

Have you tried spreading your party out? I remember moving my other party members to the above position.

Do you have the necromancy spell to prevent death? Could try casting it on the person in conversation.

The fight was easier a couple of weaks back, don´t know if they changed anything or if I just was lucky back then. I did the fight two days ago and had some problems as well (tactitian difficulty).

Her first turn is kind of random.

Some general notes:

The hailstorm usually hits two of her hounds. Problem is, if most projectiles out of the 20 created by the spell are hitting your own party, you are basically screwed. If enough projectiles are hitting the hounds (and thus stuninng them) you usually have a shot. If they aren´t getting stunned however, then they might gang up on one of your characters and kill him. The hounds have 6 AP, meaning they can attack three times in a row if they don´t need to move.

The Aertan doesn´t alyways cast hailstorm on her first turn, sometimes she uses alot of resistance potions. In this case the hounds just eat one (or two) members of your party, as none of them will get stunned by the Aertans hailstorm.

Here is what I did to succeed:

Only one character was down to open the sarcophagus, I did split the rest of my party around the position where the Aeartan is supposed to spawn.

The character which did the opening had a shield equiped, so she is able to survive the hailstorm, stoneskin and armor of frost pre-casted to survive the hounds if they decide to attack her.

Then gang up on the Aertan. Most of the hounds will use their jump to get up to you since the AI tends to ignore your tank below due to high armor value, meaning they can´t attack you three times on their first turn.

Chain CC the Aertan with physical DDs while trying to hit the hounds with AoE (like whirlwind) in order to make them susceptible to physical CC as well. If you have a scoundrel, get battlestomp for him. Respec some points into warfare if you can´t learn it. Battlestomp can backstab and does wonders in this fight so you won´t loose any damage with your scoundrel. You can give it to a staff-user as well, it will do magical damage, but the knockdown is still resisted by physical.

The hounds have low MA, so if your magic user is able to, let him deal with the hounds. Try to ignore her summons, those will despawn after you kill the Aertan.

Thats basically it. Repostion yourself if necessary or hounds with teleport. Use Stoneskin regulary. Give everyone a few scrolls if you have to.

I hope this helps you getting through the fight.

My party is 3 mages and a warrior (meant to have a ranger, but forgot to set Fane as one).

The problems amount huge when the damn hounds die, I get muted for 3 turns. So my mages end up useless and something is bugging with Ethernal Aetera, she keeps regenerating 50% of her physical and magical armor per turn. Basically I'm fighting a boss that cannot be taken down with excessively powerful attacks.

I even went as far as teleporting the sarcophagus opener to the top. I found out here you can teleport party members that are in conversation with an NPC some where.

I'm fighting this in classic mode, I haven't had issues near this bad until getting to this one battle.

are you knocking her down? i think even in classic mode she has perseverance (regenerates armor upon recovering from cc like knockdown and frozen)

she's definitely harder to take down with magic, so that may be your problem. still, she shouldn't be that hard, so i'm not sure what to say

I tried taking her down with the summoned wolf from ifan and the warrior. If I don't knock her down, she kills off the entire party. So back to my question, since this battle isn't possible to be won... could I just move on and avoid killing her? So far it is keeping me from wanting to play this game any more.

no, the only way this fight is necessary is if you have fane, since it's for his quest. otherwise, you can take the schematic for the swornbreaker from one of the chests next to the sarcophagus. you don't have to interact with the sarcophagus at all if you can't win the fight

You might want to explore Ryker´s basement afterwards if you skip this fight. Otherwise, apart from Fane´s quest, the Aertan isn´t needed.

If you have foreknowledge of this fight you should be able to exploit positioning to either wipe out the boss or mitigate the impact of the wolves for the first round while remaining out of her range/vision with most of the party.
Remember you can pre-buff individuals in conversations, so don't be afraid to Haste/Armor/Fortify/Regen/Armor Recovery and especially Edge (any support or healer should have enough Necro for Living on the Edge by this point) them.

I went into this fight blind on Tactician and managed to come out of it with a single death-- in the worst case scenario you can flee up into the hall behind her, and use the terrain to teleport foes to nonthreatening locations alongside summons to minimize threats to the party. This is one of the few fights in the game that prioritizes tactical decision making/foreknowledge over raw numbers and offensive synergy; especially with her deadly alpha-strike.

GreatGuardsman,

I've actually done what you suggested a while back with no luck. And I do have Fane in my group.

It looks like I'm just fucked here.... thanks Larian

Send 2 party members back to the ship, respec into a well built lonewolf build and then finish it with ease.