Baiting a Wyvern

Baiting a Wyvern
Start	Chateau Haine (Gate)
End	Hunting Grounds - East
Appearances	Dragon Age II - Mark of the Assassin

Baiting a Wyvern is a side quest in the Mark of the Assassin downloadable content for Dragon Age II.

Baiting a Wyvern

Upon arriving at Chateau Haine, you will take part in a wyvern hunt. To draw out the alpha wyvern, you will need to find five items that are just off the main path in both hunting grounds areas to use as bait. Once you collect them all, head to the clearing at the far north of the Eastern hunting grounds where you can place the bait.

Chasing the Game

In order to get the achievement/trophy you have to choose "Use everything we found at once" to get the alpha wyvern. Option "Bait one to us, but safely" will only get the normal one. Any other option will not work. Once the wyvern is dead, the achievement/trophy will unlock. Listed below are the locations of all five baiting items.

Hunting Grounds - West

• Dragonling Corpse - When you enter the Hunting Grounds, take the first set of stairs up to the right. At the top will be a group of dragonlings and two dragons. After you kill all of them, go to the highlighted dragonling corpse and interact with it to take it.
• Blood - After fighting the dragons, take the right path down the hill. If you pass by an altar on the right side, you're going the right way. The blood will be out in the middle of the path. Interact with it to collect some.
• Mating Call - Once you're back on the main path, you will encounter a hunting party in your path. Shortly after there will be a second hunting party. Just before them, there will be a path to the left that is shown on your map. Go up the path and you'll hear a wyvern mating call. Hawke will ask Tallis if that can be recreated.

Hunting Grounds - East

• Corpse - If the party takes the southern path that is not the one where the mabari leads them, they will come to a large clearing with ghast holes. The corpse will be on the right as they enter the clearing near a large rock and some trees, just before the encounter with the ghasts.
• Wyvern Dung - The eastern part of the hunting grounds has a lake that the party will walk along to reach the wyvern. In a small clearing, there will be a large steaming pile of wyvern dung just sitting there. Interact with it for the last bit of bait.

Note: The Wyvern dung does not seem to be the actual target at this point and hence is not picked up, a conversation is had about the Nug bones in the dung and then 'Learned Nug Call" is added to the quest checklist.

Baiting the Wyvern

Go to the northernmost area of Hunting Grounds - East to the bait location. Hawke has a chance to continue exploring or baiting the wyvern at that point. If all of the above baits are found, they have the choice of baiting an alpha wyvern or a regular one. Aside from some dialog changes and the chance at the achievement, there is no plot difference between the two types. Once the baiting is complete, the wyvern is summoned and combat ensues.

Aftermath

After the wyvern is defeated, Baron Arlange appears and throws a temper tantrum, claiming he paid for the right for the kill. All dialog options lead to combat. When he and his company of soldiers are defeated, Prosper shows up and gives Hawke the right of judgment over Arlange. Tallis will plead for mercy. If Arlange is freed, he will appear again later and attempt to kill Hawke again. When Hawke defeats him that time, he is dead.

Notes

• Though it may be desirable to maintain control over Hawke, it's vital that you have a tank in the party (in the form of Aveline, Fenris, or Warrior Hawke) that's constantly on the move. The rest of your party should rely on ranged attacks. Tallis is also capable of attacking at a range, but many of her abilities have her teleporting to an enemy's side. Make sure to disable any tactics that may cause your ranged fighters to close in on the Wyvern.
  • While your DPS characters whittle it down, have your Warrior running around the Wyvern to reduce its number of attacks and to prevent its charge attack from hitting your party. Make sure to use Taunt if a Rogue's Goad ability is failing to keep aggro on the tank. If you do a good job of side-stepping the Wyvern and pulling aggro, it'll eventually fall.
  • The Alpha Wyvern seems to target a companion at random, aside from the one it is attacking, to charge at. There seems to be no way to pull it back to the tank, aside from successfully stunning it, as the Wyvern will cross the entire battlefield until it is able to use its charge attack. Once avoided or hit, the Wyvern will turn its attention back to the party member with highest aggro. Aggro doesn't seem to matter, perhaps it is the second closest party member not currently targeted. This move can instantly kill weaker party members at higher levels, even if they're not attacking at all. Make sure to watch for it crawling toward your non-tank companions.
    • A decent way to counter this is to use slow attacks as soon as the Wyvern is no longer attacking your tank, as slow attacks have a more fair chance of affecting it than most stuns. This will allow you to easily get in range to coax the Wyvern into jumping away from your companion.
  • The Alpha Wyvern has a side-swipe attack where it will bite toward the front left or the front right. It will use this attack even if the character is slightly out of range and thus, the attack is likely to fail. If the character keeps a controlled trajectory, it is possible to coax the wyvern into using this attack indefinitely without being hit. However, the Wyvern will eventually use its charge attack and break out of the loop. Make sure to move all of your companions aside before getting its attention again, and repeating.
• With the subtitles turned on, the game calls the sounds Tallis makes an "Ungodly Cacophony"

Bugs

• ps3pcxbox360The Halla Corpse may not appear in the designated area, rendering it impossible to complete the quest and earn the achievement.