How To Defeat The Drake In Etrian Odyssey Remastered?

After defeating Etreant at the bottom of the Fifth Stratum, you might imagine you’ve conquered the worst Etrian Odyssey can throw at you. The credits rolled—surely thisdungeon isn’t endless, right?

Oh no, you are sorely mistaken. The Labyrinth still contains three terrifying dragons to vanquish before challenging the final super-boss on the 30th floor.

The Drake is the most brutal of this titanic trio. If you recruit the right adventurers, buy the right items, and use the right strategy, you’ll be able to bring it down. Who’s the dragonslayer now, Dohvakiin?

Quest Requirements

For the Drake to spawn, you’ll first need to accept the quest The Azure Colossus from Valerie down at the Golden Deer Pub. She’ll offer once you’ve finished Proof of Heroism, and have also reached the Sixth Stratum.

Proof of Heroism, however, is plenty easy to clear. All you’re asked to do is find an adventurer’s Frozen Arm on the ground near where you fought Cotrangl.

Head to floor 15 and search the ground two spaces north of Cotrangl. If the Azure Rainforest’s boss has respawned, you may as well give it a rematch since you’re here.

Once you’ve found the quest giver’s frozen arm, return to the Golden Deer Pub. Valerie rewards you with 30,000 ental and—more importantly—lets you take The Azure Colossus.

Preparing For The Fight

Don’t run off just yet—if you don’t have the right team, the Drake will shatter you. To beat this dragon, make sure you have a Protector and a Troubadour in your party.

Also? You’ll probably want your party to be Level 60 or higher.

The Protector

The main reason to bring a Protector is to avoid dying horribly to Frigid Breath. This attack targets the entire party, dealing massive ice damage. Like, 2,000+ damage—you can’t just tough this one out.

Surviving Absolute Zero consistently requires learning Ice Wall to level 5 or greater. This Protector skill completely nullifies the first Ice attack each turn, and is the only way to consistently avoid a TPK.

If you don’t have enough skill points, head to the Explorer’s Guild and Rest your Protector. Sure, it’ll cost 5 levels, but that’s still much quicker than leveling up a new adventurer.

While redistributing your Protector’s skill points, at minimum purchase TP Up 5. In all likelihood, you’re going to need the Tech Points. Another handy skill is Provoke so that the Drake’s other attacks don’t target squishier members of the party.

The Troubadour

Just like the Protector, you’re bringing along a Troubadour all for the sake of one skill: Erasure. This song allows your Troubadour to strip pesky buffs off of your enemies.

Considering the Drake likes to regenerate while negating damage, Erasure is a must-include. The fight is probably impossible without it—I stopped counting after 30 wipes.

Fortunately, several more songs in the Troubadour’s repertoire will also make this fight easier. While Bravery is an all-around good skill for buffing your party’s combat damage, against the Drake you’ll also want to pick up Blaze.

Blaze adds the Fire element to all basic attacks by one party member. Buff up a Landsknecht or a Ronin and the Drake will start to melt.

Useful Items

Even with a skillful, high-level party this fight can turn south quickly. Make sure you stock up.

If you have the spare cash, equipping a Sapphire to adventurers in your front row will help them endure the Drake’s attacks. However, you’ll need to collect a whopping 30 Azure Ores from monsters down in the Sixth Stratum before Shilleka can sell you one.

Slaying The Drake

Got your party and inventory ready? Good, because even with preparation the Drake is tough enough to challenge dungeon-crawling veterans.

No, seriously. Remember to quicksave before the fight.

To reach the Drake’s section of the Labyrinth, search the northwest corner of floor 16 for a secret passage. This passage only appears if you’ve accepted The Azure Colossus quest.

Navigate your way through the secret passage to ascend back up from Sandy Barrens into the Azure Rainforest. Along the way you’ll fight Sickwoods on floor 16, and three Teraliches on floor 15. If you have any trouble with them, retreat—you need to level up more before fighting the Drake.

Once you’ve reached the northwest corner of floor 15, you’ll see the boss’s ominous black orb floating straight ahead.

The Drake begins every fight with Ice Breath, dealing massive Ice damage to the entire party. Use Ice Wall, or you’ll regret it.

It repeats this trick every four turns. So the first Ice Breath is on turn 1, then the next is on turn 5, then turn 9, turn 13, and so on. Always use Ice Wall on these turns.

During the turns in between, the Drake either clobbers you with its other attacks or puts up its buffs.

When the Drake uses its buffs, it almost always does so one after the other (unless interrupted by an Ice Breath turn). Both buffs are rough if left up.

• Glacial Regen: Heals 1,000 to 2,000 hit points at the end of each turn.
• Iceblock: Reduces all Physical and Fire damage to single digits. Lightning still works, but the Drake resists that element.

If these buffs stay up, the fight will likely turn into a death spiral as the party begins to run out of TP and items. Remove them using Erasure the first chance you get.

The Drake’s other attacks aren’t shabby, too. Icelance deals massive physical damage to a single target, while Absolute Zero hits the whole party for Ice damage (and a 50% chance to inflict Instant Death).

Fortunately, Ice Wall also blocks Absolute Zero. If you’re confident in your damage-dealing, go ahead and spam Ice Wall to reduce the risk of really, really bad RNG.

To whittle down the Drake’s HP, either use Blaze Oil or cast Blaze on your melee damage dealers. The Alchemist’s Flame formula will do the trick, too.

With two damage dealers, a Protector, a Troubadour, and a Medic—always bring a Medic!—you’ll grind down the Drake and earn yourself a victory!

The Drake’s drops are the real prize here, since they unlock new gear. Valerie will also reward you with 100,000 en for completing the quest.