Cauthrien (strategy)

Ser Cauthrien is one of the hardest enemies in the game. She scales up to level 19 so it is not recommended to begin the quest to Rescue the Queen until your party is at least level 19. If you are having trouble dealing with her, this page may offer some insight and tips on how to defeat her. If you are really unable to defeat Ser Cauthrien during Rescue the Queen, it may be a better idea to surrender and engage Ser Cauthrien again just before the Landsmeet.

Ser Cauthrien Capabilities
which has a chance to knockback an opponent with each hit.
 * Ser Cauthrien is a two-handed warrior armed with:
 * Ser Cauthrien is a slow attacker. During the attack animation, there is more than enough time for the targeted party member to make 1 or even 2 actions. Ser Cauthrien does not hit often but deals tremendous damage when she does.

Backup Troops
Ser Cauthrien is supported by 10 static archers, 2 melee warriors and 1 static mage. These support troops possess the following abilities combined:

Depending upon difficulty level. Ser Cauthrien has tons or support.The best way to take her out is go back to where you came from only Ser Cauthrien and two other guards will follow you.Deal with them, then the mage and then the archers are pretty easy to take care off.

NPC Recommendations

 * It is recommended that The Warden's party have a mage with healing skills.
 * It is recommended that the Warden's party have an archer.

Equipment Recommendations

 * It is recommended to have a lot of health poultices and not be shy about using them. Using up to 50 potions is not uncommon.


 * It is recommened that mages have plenty of lyrium potions:

Positioning Advice
The majority of Ser Cauthrien's support troops are static and will not move from their positions. To take advantage of this, it is recommended to retreat the party to either Anora's room, the library or the corridor. Priority should be given to evacuating the healers whereas pets could be used to continually close the door. Casting Lifeward and Heroic Aura prior to initiating the dialogue can help to ensure survival. <!--*Immediately after the conversation with Cauthrien, it is recommended to select all party members to run back into the library adjacent to Anora's room to avoid taking damage from archers. Cauthrien and a few guards will pursue while the rest of her archers will remain at the estate entrance.


 * Keep the party's healer out of the range of the archers to avoid them being injured.


 * An alternative strategy is to use a combination of sleep and taunt abilities to separate Cauthrien from her troops.


 * Note that these tactics may prove unnecessary since simply running back down the hallway and entering one of the rooms as soon as the fight starts may be sufficient to isolate Cauthrien, and doing so prevents The Warden's party from being exposed to unnecessary damage from archers and her mage.


 * Cast sleep on Cauthrien and the guards and direct the party to the library. Once in the library, wait for Cauthrien, who should now be in sole pursuit.


 * When they do die run out of the main hall and into the room where Anora was being held captive. Ser Cauthrien should follow you into the room. If you are a powerful enough mage or archer her attaks will only hit once in a while. When she dies, exit the room into the hall. Stand by the doorway leading to the entrance. You should be able to see one or two guards from the doorway. Because of their positions, you can stay in the doorway and only fight one or two of them at a timec.Stay in the doorway to avoid the rest of the guards attacks while you finish off the visible ones. When they are dead move slighty to the left so you can see the next ones. The first guards will be healed by the mage but if you are a high enough level they should die after a few attacks even with the healing.


 * It is also possible to fight Ser Cauthrien alone(plus 0-2 guards) and then defeat the big group. To do so, as soon as the battle begins, run back to the large room beyond Anora's old cell(Vaughan may be there if you freed him) and, optionally, use a character or a ranger pet to close the door to the main entrance repeatedly as soon as the guards open it. Ser Cauthrien should follow. Fight her alone,


 * Get any characters that have the Revive spell out first. Place them in hold so they don't re-enter the main room. Once you get as many people out as you can (some may die), deal with any that follow. You should be able to get at least 2-3 characters out without dying, if not all, and be facing 3-5 enemies at most. If you manage to get 3-4 characters out this will be an easy battle.


 * Pull back to Anora's room. Get out of line of sight of the hallway.


 * For a single rogue party it is best not to take any chance here by attacking both in the same room but separately they are quite easy to dispatch. Lure Ser Cauthrian in the corridor and kill her with the 2-3 guards who will rush after you at the same time ( you should not take any damage


 * Life Ward & Heroic Aura cast in that order prior to battle. Also very helpful is, as you're rounding the corner, just out of sight of the enemies, cast Group Heal. This will help you to get more characters out alive.

The best position is behind the doorpost, from where you can cast AoE spells upon enemies while staing out of sight. -->

Spellcaster

 * If you are targeting Ser Cauthrien directly, here is a list of recommended spells to reduce her combat effectiveness:

debuffs every enemy in the room, making them easier targets for AoE spells.


 * If you are targeting the enemy mage to prevent him from firing offensive spells or healing, below is a list of recommended spells to disable and/or take him out:


 * If you are targeting the support troops, below is a list of recommended area-of-effect spells. Prioritising Sleep, Blood Wound, Grease and/or Cone of Cold may be helpful in preventing the archers using Scattershot.

<!--*Use a mage to cast Misdirection Hex and Death Hex on Cauthrien and quickly kill her before dealing with her other guards.
 * If a mage is backing Cauthrien up, use Crushing Prison against the mage to temporarily incapacitate him while dealing with Cauthrien or dispatch a party member to kill the mage immediately.
 * Petrify and Paralyze can be also be used to slow Cauthrien down and if she is focused on the party's mage, use the mage to cast Force Field on himself/herself while other party members attack Cauthrien from the rear.
 * After killing Cauthrien, use a mage to cast sleep/waking nightmare/mass paralyze on archers and slowly kill each one by one.
 * if hex spells are available, debuff her and allow warriors to finish off her and her sidekicks quickly; Death Hex and Misdirection result in a significantly quicker demise.
 * An alternative method would be to freeze her with Cone of Cold from one of the party's mages and use melee fighters in the team to hit her until she goes down whilst using a support mage heal as necessary.
 * misdirection hex is extremely helpful here.


 * Requires a high level, high powered mage with 80+ spellpower, Spell Might, Blizzard, and Tempest. Turn on Hold Position, run your mage to the room behind as soon as possible, and then move one or more of your tanks/fighters to back up the mage. Stand about 3 body lengths away from the door, protect the mage, and have them cast Blizzard and Tempest, both centered at the main door in the entry room, the one over the other. This will summon a Storm of the Century, and if you positioned yourself right, you will take negligible damage, while Cauthrien and her brought lackeys should still be taking serious damage. Move your party if you're too close to the Storm and are taking damage. The problem is, enemies aren't willing to stay inside. You'll need Cone of Cold to stop melee guards, prison (all other spells she resists often; if you don't have prison, use vulnerability hex at least) for Ser Cauthrien and Blizzard/Earthquake for ranged fighters.


 * If not, use Cursed Prison on the strongest opponent that is not Ser Cauthrien (she will not be affected by it), use Force Field on her if possible or the next strongest opponent. Keep your mage healing only while the 2nd character deals with the enemies. Be patient, keep Life Ward active. Use your mage to cast earthquake and then revive any fallen companions. Have them all regroup/remove injuries/rebuff in the side room. From there you can cast Blizzard & Tempest from a position that the archers can't see you but you can engage them. If the enemy mage is still alive use Cursed Prison or Forcefield on him to prevent him healing the others. After 1-2 Blizzard/Tempest combos, re-enter and clean up the few stragglers.

An example strategy is to use one mage to cast sleep/mass paralize on archers, kill Cauthrien's mage as soon as possible and use another mage to focus on Cauthrien:-->
 * Misdirection hex and debuff Cauthrien.
 * The rest of the archers can be killed off one by one (either using blizzard, tempest).
 * Freeze or imprison her right in the hall, retreat to the doorway and have your mages throw in all AoE they know. Use instant AoE controlling spell like Sleep or Earthquake to make archers stay where they are or sacrifice one of your characters by sending him in (he/she must be far enough from mages or their casting may be interrupted by scattershots). Double Blizzard and/or Earthquake will keep Ser Cauthrien inside the voidzone for a considerable period of time (don't forget to help her with Stonefists and Cones of cold), so she either dies within or leaves it with almost no hitpoints and can be nuked down before doing any damage.

Trap Layer
If you know in advance where the enemy will be, it is possible to lay traps underneath the enemy combatants before talking to Anora.

Fifty traps may be sufficient to kill Ser Cauthrien. 30-40 traps will be able to wear Ser Cauthrien down significantly if you place all traps in the hallway all the way to the far end and into the other room. If she hits most of them, she will be at <25% health, which will result in the rogue having so much threat that it's virtually impossible to peel her off. This can be used to your advantage if you, for example, cast Force Field on your rogue.

Melee

 * The sword and shield warrior should use Shield Wall immediately and be equipped with decent armour.
 * Use Force Field on the warrior with highest threat.

Ranged

 * A viable method is to use Leliana or any fighter with a ranged weapon to kill the archers at the entrance from a distance.
 * Kiting is possible with a mage with Crushing Prison and Stonefist. Start by casting Crushing Prison on Cauthrien. This will provide a lot of threat, enough to have the boss stuck on your mage the entire battle. It is very important to keep your mage on the move and to not stop until you reach the end of your selected kiting route. At this point throw Stonefist on the boss (and hope that she does not resist) and kite back the way you came from. During this time the rest of the party can safely shoot her with ranged weaponry. Anything that will slow Cauthrien down is a plus.
 * Kiting is possible with a character using the taunt ability to keep Ser Cauthrien in pursuit and away from the rest of the party, who should be using ranged attacks against her. Continue to run around the library using taunt, repeating until she is killed by the ranged attacks. Although time consuming and micro intensive, kiting strategies will allow even an underpowered party to emerge victorious without consuming an exorbitant amount of healing potions.

Stealth
This is a simple but effective strategy. As soon as the combat begins, set your party to Hold. Quickly get each ally in turn out of the room back to where you picked up Anora. Only Ser Cuathrien and two of her guards will follow you. This is few enough that they are not too hard to kill. Then if you wait in the back room briefly, combat mode will suspend and you can loot them, gaining the Summer Sword.

At this point you can hold most of the party there, and heal. Using stealth mode, send your rogue in to dispatch the mage. Leave quickly and regain your health. Then go back to stealth mode, and repeat with the remaining guards one at a time. If you can get them to follow you out or near the door before killing them, you will be able to come back and loot them in the next round.

You can repeat this until you have defeated them all. Alternatively, if you want to do the Captured! quest, leave a couple alive, and send your party in one at a time to be defeated by the holdouts.

Quick Nuking
With an efficient party it's possible to win the battle without running away from the room (even on Hard/Nightmare). A powerful mage with several instant-cast AoE spells and a dexterity based tank with high defense allow for a quick and relatively easy victory. As soon as the battle starts enter the Blood Magic mode and cast Blood Wound (a correct placement of the spell allows you to trap all but one enemy), then follow it up with a Fireball to one of the corners and, optionally, Mana Clash to one shot the mage. Now most of the archers should be dead or low on health but still paralyzed, and thus no longer a problem. Stinging Swarm is useful for finishing the archers as it will jump from one to another. Note that it's possible to substitute Blood Wound with Sleep/Waking Nightmare, as they're also instant-cast, but you'll need some extra damage dealing spells. Paralysis Explosion also works great here, but be careful not to trap your party. As long as your tank is good enough to hold off Ser Cauthrien while your mage kills everyone else, the victory should be yours. Debuffing Ser Cauthrien with Misdirection Hex is also an option, if you can afford it. Obviously, a second mage makes things even more easy.

An alternate and likely easier strategy than the above is to immediately retreat to the corridor just outside the room Anora was being held in immediately when the battle starts. You should only be pursued by Cauthrien and maybe 2 or 3 of the guards. Once you dispatch them, the rest of the guards in the entry room will just be standing there doing nothing. With a perfectly placed Blood Wound, you can hit every single one of them at once, dropping them to near death. A second Blood Wound will kill them all. If you have other AOE spells, use them after casting Blood Wound, since everyone will be paralyzed and thus will be unable to avoid the attack.

A win can similarly be achieved without a mage nuking so long as you have AoE stun/knockdown attacks (such as scattershot) at least two people in your party with at least one rank in Poison-Making, and least two or three flasks of three different types of grenades. The basic premise remains the same. The tank grabs aggro from Ser Cauthrien while the AoE stun/knockdowns target as much of the room as possible. While the archers recover and try to aim scattershot, quickly hit them with a volley of as many grenades as it takes to kill them. This should take about four on nightmare. Since each group of archers is tightly clustered, one grenade can hit a good number of them. Also, since the the use of one type of grenade doesn't subject other types to cooldown, it's possible to quickly kill a group of archers with a volley of different grenades before they fire their first scattershot. Doing this correctly on nightmare can kill both wings of archers in seconds leaving only the two in the middle left. If you have a third person with Poison-Making and enough grenades, it's possible (though more difficult) to get rid of the melee guards and the mage in the center in a similar manner. Mixing and matching the two techniques as needed is also an option.

General Advice

 * The Warden's party is heavily outnumbered, so do whatever possible to even the odds.
 * Prioritize targets. After tackling the key opponents, at that point, her guards should be easier to defeat.
 * Your other party members will most likely die fast. You can try and keep them alive as long as possible by using the health potions, but they will most likely die early on.
 * Immediately before the cutscene, it is possible to have a mage cast e.g. Blizzard prior to entering the room to get a headstart. It should be targeted as not to freeze your party after the dialogue completes. Targeting the middle group (at the door) and furthest group (left of the door) generated the best results leaving the closest group on the right untouched. Just before Blizzard is cast, begin entering the room. The goal is for it to be cast right before you enter dialogue. This should knock everyone to the ground as the dialogue begins. Quickly select option 2 and exit the room.
 * It is also a good idea to seal off the door with a Glyph of Repulsion. Ser Cauthrien will be able to pass through the glyph, all others will be trapped inside the room. Combining this with the strategy above allows you to fight with Ser Cauthrien alone while the soldiers are damaged by the area effect spells. A Storm of the Century will easily clear the entire room.
 * If you just run back away from the exits, only Ser Cauthrien and the two melee guards will follow you. The mage and archers will stay by the exit.
 * It is especially important to get out of the archers' line of sight as soon as possible. The hardest part of the battle is getting damaged and stunned by 10 Scattershots in a row. Since Scattershot auto-hits there are few ways to resist the stun and while you're stunned Cauthrien will whack you for around 150 damage per hit which is not pleasant.
 * If you do not wish to exit the room, then the key to victory is to prevent the archers from using Scattershot. Use any crowd control spell like blood wound, waking nightmare, paralytic explosion (cast glyph of repulsion on the ground before the fight) and even grease, but the key is to use them immediately.
 * Ser Cauthrien can easily be killed with Soldier's Bane poison on your weapon. She will not have the stamina to activate her abilities. I used one Concentrated Soldier's Bane and she went down very easily on Hard setting @ level 18 (With two mages and just her vs the party)

The Second Encounter
Should The Warden surrender to Cauthrien, another opportunity to fight her will arise when arriving at the Landsmeet where she will accost the party in order to prevent interference in the proceedings. At this point, she will only have a few guards with her, but both Cauthrien and her guards will need to be tackled at the same time since any fight will take place in a small room. Fighting her in the Arl of Denerim's estate may still prove to be an easier battle, provided Cauthrien can be isolated from her men.