Mine Massacre

Mine Massacre is a secondary quest in Dragon Age II.

Acquisition
You can acquire this quest during Act III, either by visiting the Bone Pit or speaking to Hubert in Hightown.6

Walkthrough
http://www.youtube.com/user/HavokImpulse?feature=mhum#p/a/u/0/7jWCIOtgdS0

When first arriving at the Bone Pit during Act III you will notice many burnt corpses. Head South, South-West on your map and you will encounter a High Dragon. Kill it and talk to the owner of the mines to complete the quest.

This fight is extremely hard, even on the lower difficulties, and it is recommended that you bring numerous health, stamina, and mana potions. Also, it does not matter where you actually kill the High Dragon, it's corpse will appear in the south-west corner of the area.

Possible Strategy:

Prerequisites:

1. Bring one tank (if Hawke is a warrior, he or she counts). 2. One or two mages (Anders and Merrill). Make sure they have Cold and/or Spirit spells, and Anders should heal if Hawke is not a Spirit Healer. The high dragon has a very high resistance against elemental attacks. 3. Another ranged attacker OR another tank. The reason for this is simple: the High Dragon will not be your only opponent during this quest. She will continue to spam you with dragonlings and lesser dragons which will easily overwhelm your mages. 4. Bring reviving potions AND make sure Anders knows the "Regroup" spell that allows you to revive fallen party members. 5. Bring LOTS of Elfroot, Health, Stamina, and Mana potions. 20+ is a good stock of each if you can collect enough from the various merchants and loot. 6. Fire Resistance is highly recommended. By the point you challenge High Dragon you should have some good gears that has fire resistance, and most importantly, Fire Warding runes. Get all of the rune slots on you and your party armor filled with those runes, that should boost fire resistance to a high percentage. Also, using Arcane Shield when it has been fully upgraded and Elemental Aegis on your tank will help greatly. Your group should not worry about avoiding fire balls from High Dragon too much with enough fire resistance. That will make the fight much easier, as you just tank, heal and dps, and crowd control the minions.

Tactics:

1. Make sure all your characters know how to heal themselves and add to their stamina and mana levels. 2. Set your mages to Ranged. 3. If you are using Aveline, and if she has Bodyguard, have her protect your best mage in the perch phases. 4. Set your tank(s) to aggressive and dish out anti-cluster attacks when the High Dragon starts to spam you with minions. 5. If you are a rogue Hawke, use him to protect your mages or sneak around for some critical hits. 6. If you are a rogue Hawke, it is also recommended to switch to a bow when attacking the high dragon itself as this will allow you to avoid its physical melee attacks, which are much more devastating than its ranged attack. Alternatively, the High Dragon tends to use less interrupting kicks as the one in Origins did, so with proper threat management, a melee rogue works well, though it is recommended to set your party to "Hold Position" incase your rogue gets hurt and needs to get out of harm's way. 7. Also, note that while the dragon is not on its perch, you can manually dodge its default fireball attack. As the attack does not home in on its target, you can simply move your character out of the attack's AOE before it hits. This should not be too difficult, as the attack has quite a long animation and the projectile itself moves fairly slowly, and she usually only casts it when she flies to another location of the battlefield and all party members are far away. Considering your tank should already be running toward the dragon as Fireball is being cast, you'll almost never be hit by it. High defense is also very effective against this attack, as it has quite a long cooldown duration as well. 8. Like the Origins High Dragons, moving your tank around her causes her to spend a lot of time moving, which greatly cuts down damage taken, more so now since attacks are based on hitboxes.

Enter the Dragon:

1. The High Dragon will behave very much like the one in Origins. It will breath fire, attack for heavy physical damage, and fly-then-land. If you happen to be underneath it, you will lose A LOT of health. 2. Pin the dragon with your tank(s) while you spread out your range attackers 3. When the High Dragon flies off to her perch (you cannot reach it for melee attacks), bring your party together and use your tank(s) as bait while your mages reposition themselves. 4. During this time, use ranged attacks to pick off the dragonlings and lesser dragons while avoiding the High Dragon's fireballs she's shooting from afar. You can attack the High Dragon using ranged attacks, but clear out the minions first or she won't come back down. 5. She will fly up to her perch three times, when her health reaches certain thresholds (at approximately 75%, 50% and 25% health). The first perch phase only has many dragonlings spawn. The second phases spawns more dragonlings and a dragon. The third perch phase spawns even more dragonlings and two dragons (one after the other is killed, although if you have killed all the dragonlings you can have two dragons at the same time). 6. You earn the Dragon Slayer achievement. The dragon will also drop several items, including both the chest piece for The Champion's Armor Set and the very powerful Jackal's Longbow.

Exploits
(Does work on PS3, confirmed by NightAngelNC):

During the High Dragon melee phases, it is sometimes possible to revive, heal, and replenish your entire team. If you find yourself down to one surviving character, run over to the raised grass area near to where you entered. Stay in the corner nearest to the perch and the cliffside, and the High Dragon will eventually fly to where you are (after launching a couple of fireballs). If done right, the High Dragon will land, but with just enough distance not to cause you any damage. At this point you should run off the slightly raised grassy area and to the furthest opposite corner of the map. If you can get there without the High Dragon taking flight again, the game can assume you are out of battle range and bring everyone back to life (with injuries) as if the battle had ended. You can then use Injury Kits if you wish and head back to attack the High Dragon again as normal.

It is also possible to do this exploit even if the High Dragon isn't perched throwing homing fireballs at you. As long as the High Dragon is within a considerable distance away from you, it doesn't matter what phase it is; your whole party should revive and heal and even go out of combat if far enough from any monster, High Dragon or not, although if there are dragonlings it *should* be impossible to do the exploit since they will follow you. Bear in mind that any ally corpse too near the High Dragon will not revive. (Confirmed on PC by Anonymous)

I have also found that quite often when a character falls and then gets revived, it ends up being considered out of combat i.e. their health and mana/stamina regenerate at a stupid rate, making them unkillable.

Rewards

 * Champion Chestpiece, as appropriate for your class.


 * High Dragon's Fire Gland (Taking this will start the quest Herbalist's Tasks. Go to to Solivitus at the Gallows, and he will craft it into Urzara's Tooth, completing the quest.)


 * Enchanted Resin - Fenris's armor upgrade


 * Dragon's Blood - Final crafting ingredient for runes. It is required for the Rune of Valiance and Rune of Devastation. This material is also needed to help complete the Supplier achievement.


 * Jackal's Longbow - Powerful bow which deals fire damage and has fire damage-increasing bonuses.