Gamordan Stormrider

The Gamordan Stormrider is one of twelve high dragons encountered in Dragon Age: Inquisition. She can be found in the Crow Fens in the far North-East of the Exalted Plains. The Gain Access to Ghilan'nain's Grove war table operation must be completed in order to gain access to the Crow Fens.

Background[]

The Gamordan Stormrider is a popular subject in Orlesian art; numerous depictions show standoffs between Chevaliers versus the lightning-spitting beast. Gamordan Stormriders prefer swamp type regions to claim as their territory, thus rarely crossing ways with human civilizations.^[1]

Quests[]

Dragon Hunter

Locations[]

Exalted Plains

Stats[]

Level 15 Boss

150807 HP (Nightmare difficulty)

46 Armor

Greater Electricity Resistance

Spirit Vulnerability

Immunity: All Disabling Effects

Immunity: Slowed

Perceptive

Strategy[]

The greatest challenge of this fight is to avoid standing in any bodies of water. The encounter takes place in a marsh and the dragon can electrify the standing pools of water, causing damage to any party members while they're not on dry land. The water increases the range of the dragon's lightning breath attacks and increases the duration of each attack. There are also several poisonous pits in the area (the bubbling waters) which your party can get knocked into.

The Gamordan Stormrider breathes electricity instead of fire, dealing electricity damage. She is resistant to electricity damage, but vulnerable to spirit. Bringing electrical resistance potions is a must on higher difficulties, particularly for your tank. Regeneration potions can also help. Equip your mage or mages with a fire or ice staff. Dragon-slaying and spirit runes can also help somewhat, but they are not required.

The best place to engage the dragon is to approach her from the southeast, where there is much more land for your party to stand on. Your party members should always try to stand on land whenever possible.

The Gamordan Stormrider will stay on the ground for most of the fight. She will make small jumps to cover distance at times. She will take off at least twice during the battle and fly around the area, launching balls of electricity at your party. Shortly after, she will return at high speed and land violently on the ground, knocking any nearby party members off their feet and dealing damage. Spreading your party out when she takes off is a good idea. Abilities like Evade, Fade Step and Combat Roll are useful at keeping your party out of harm's way.

All dragons will often attack any party member close to her with melee attacks. She will signify a melee attack by raising the leg closest to the party member she's targeting; avoid it with Fade Step/Evade/Combat Roll. Getting close to her tail will often make her raise her tail up and to the side in preparation to swipe the whole area behind her. A tail swipe is harder to avoid than an attack with her legs since it will cover a larger area, so the best thing to do is to stay away from her tail.

Every time the dragon lifts her wings high up over her body, she's about to use her "Vortex" ability, an ability all or nearly all dragons in the game have. She will flap her wings 4 times, and every time, she will suck your party closer to her and do high damage to them. The ability has an extremely long range so it's doubtful you can outrun it. There are 3 ways to deal with this ability:

With high enough defence you can just weather it, since you will see this ability no more than a couple of times. Nuke the dragon down, popping potions, although you will burn through them quickly.
You can hide behind obstacles. This can be difficult because of poor AI pathfinding, AI unwillingness to stand where ordered even when "holding position", dragon constantly moving and destroying obstacles.
Lastly, and the best way, is to get into melee range (inside the vortex circle). Inside it you will not take damage from the vortex. As soon as you see the dragon's wings rise high, use your Evade (rogues) and Fade Step (mages) to help get them inside the circle as fast as possible. Having your ranged party members stand not too far from the dragon at all times will help prepare for the vortex. Your melee companions will already be inside the circle. When the dragon stops flapping her wings, get your ranged party members out again quickly, so they don't get hit by the dragon's melee attacks. The Gamordan Stormrider's lightning attacks will also electrify the water, but as long as you are using electrical resistance potions the damage from the water is preferable to the vortex damage. Hopefully, she will not use her vortex ability when standing in the middle of electrified water.

The Gamordan Stormrider will also use her lightning ball ability if a party member that is not in melee range is generating threat. She will shoot a ball of lightning in a straight line which will explode on the ground and leave it electrified for a while. Any party member that walks over this will take damage. Avoid this ability with Fade Step/Evade/Combat Roll.

Focusing your party's damage on the dragon's legs can make the dragon fall to the ground helplessly for a short while when you have damaged all four legs enough. A dragon which has a damaged leg will be bleeding severely from the affected leg. She will also show a "pain" animation and jump away if you have damaged a leg enough. Focus your damage on one leg at a time; after you see that leg start to bleed, change to another leg. When the dragon is lying on the ground, it is a very good time to use many of the party's ground-targeted focus abilities (e.g. the Inquisitor's Mark of the Rift or Solas' Firestorm) since you know the dragon will not move for a short while. Typically it will take a very long time to damage the dragon's legs enough for her to fall, often taking almost the whole battle.

It is also possible to stand in the mountains near the dragon and attack her using a mage or archer without taking damage.