Well, I've put countless hours into Divinity 2 Developer's Cut and I'm so close to the ending now, and also close to giving up on it, because while so far I put up with the flaws of the last parts and expansion in general (mainly too much repetitive fighting and at the same time no challenge whatsoever in it, due to a nearly invinvible PC), the last mission with the zeppelin escort seems especially tedious and at the same time - all of a sudden - pretty challenging and therefor frustrating.

Is there any way to succeed besides trying again and again? Any advice on how to make it easier? Or should I just skip it and watch the ending on youtube? Why can't I access my dragon skills tab? And is it true that the expansion never allows me to freely turn into a dragon? Because I didn't distribute all my dragon skill points in Ego Draconis and you can only assign them in dragon form - so are they lost now? Does it even matter what skills I had in Ego Draconis or does the expansion set you up with a 'new' dragon, balanced specifically for the mission? Zandalor says something about my dragon being powered up, but the only difference I noticed is that my mana seems to be running out a lot faster now. I also think my dragon skill hotkeys from Ego Draconis were changed, but maybe it's just me ...

You should be able to. You should also be able to access your equipment, and equip/change what the dragon is using. Pause the game as soon as the escort starts and and try again (dragon skills will at least be reset if you unlearned skills at some point during FoV). Also check if you have any dragon skill books you didn't use earlier.

You can also check/change your skill hotkeys. A new skill is added right away, your FireSphere skill gets a boost and the zeppelin gets another spell you can direct a little while into the escort (though I just left it on automatic).


As for tips to make things easier:

Use the new spell whenever the cooldown allows, against the closest and densest group of towers or nests.

Whenever you clear a section of opponents and there is a break before the next, check the zeppelin's health; it it is low and you are not close to the end point, you may want to reload, otherwise save and continue.

Stabbey posted a video of the escort mission on nightmare, with tips. I completely forgot about using Dragon Dash when I went through that section, and assumed the zeppelin bombardment was automatic, rather than something you could direct (usually I stayed far enough ahead leaving it on automatic was better anyway).

From the Larian forum topic Who's playing DKS on nightmare difficulty ?:

For the zeppelin escort, my first attempt used a less than optimal strategy. The zeppelin made it to the point the captain decided to change the plan, but then it was destroyed.
I reloaded my save at the start of the escort, and attempted to be more systematic clearing the nests and towers. When available I tried to use the Wrath of the Patriarch on the densest cluster that was relatively close, and then flew around taking out individual structures and smaller groups, and also summoned a wyvern whenever I had a moment and thought of it (which wasn't often), figuring an extra target might help the zeppelin. I started off doing much better, but when Zandalor told me to redouble my efforts I noticed the zeppelin's health had dropped a fair bit. Looking back, I discovered it was mostly passed a platform that I had missed clearing 4 or 5 ballistas from. Rather than try getting to the end I reloaded a save from a few minutes previous, and made sure I didn't miss anything the next time. Somewhere after the mid point but before the final section I went up to level 47. The zeppelin's health started getting a little low towards the end, but they made it to where they needed to be.


The Developer Mode cheats to enable god mode and remove spell cooldown would make things considerably easier.

Thanks, especially for the suggestion to use the developer console! With its help I managed to cheat my way through this section without problems (for the final fight I toggled the cheats off, as the difficulty dropped by itself again). I also appreciate your other advice, it's just that I didn't really feel like trying anymore. I like a fair challenge if I find it enjoyable, but if it becomes more of a chore than fun and it's only for entertainment, I prefer to just skip it

I realize that it's hard to balance such epic games and that you can't always please everyone, and maybe this section just wasn't to my taste. On the other hand, it's not hard to point out why:

- The game puts you under stress without giving you a good explanation of what's going on and what you need to do. It does give you some basic instructions, but you are ill-advised to follow them. When you're doing it right (that is flying ahead), the game is admonishing you for it ("What are you doing? We need your protection!"), when you listen to it, you'll probably fail. The voiceovers present the zeppelin as frail and don't let on that you can ignore the flying opponents as long as you concentrate on the towers. There are also a few minor things; for example the game gives you indications about which direction the zeppelin is in and which direction it's heading, so you don't get lost, but it's not telling you about it. Admittedly, I guess more observant and less hectic players would be able to figure that out by themselves quickly, but it took me some time to notice it. Now, I'm not one to advocate hand-holding, I also like to figure out things by myself, but in my own time, and in this section you don't have any to spare. Since the instructions the game gives you are not very clear and reliable, without a guide or walkthrough, the average player might need several attempts until they've understood how this challenge works and they've figured out the right tactics to beat it. And for such an approach, IMO this section is too long and tedious. For me it's no fun to play for several minutes only to realize it was all in vain and I have to start over. It would be okay if there were actual checkpoints that you can revert to, but to me the fact that depending on how well the zeppelin is doing, it's better to start over than to try and make it to the ending regardless, is a sign that something is amiss in the design of the challenge, if it's meant to be fun.

- The game changes the rules. You can't access your dragon skills from the Skills tab in the inventory anymore, it's greyed out. It still allows to access them from the pause menu (thanks for that advice, Raze_Larian!), but during the rest of the game, I never had to use the pause menu, so I didn't know. And I think you can't distribute any unspent points from the pause menu, but then again, it seems you dont need them anyway. The game gives you the impression that you're your old dragon self again, when in reality it has removed your dragon armor from Ego Draconis, modified your skills for you, reset your customized hotkeys and added some new yet unfamiliar skills to fit the challenge at hand, and it only informs you about half of these things and doesn't give you much time to let it sink in. I feel this is a quite bad idea, changing the rules in a situation of urgency and stress, when many players probably won't think about checking if everything is still as it used to be and will just expect everything to work like it did before.

Ya, I didn't have that problem, at all. My first attempt did not last close to several minutes; my second was much better, though, and I refined my approach after that. It would have been nice if you started off in a zeppelin hanger, or something, with a little room to move and prepare. I think part of the problem people had with the escort was just getting used to the dragon form again.

this. so its time for the last great battle and first thing I notice is that all my hotkeys are changed, you know the ones you have trained with the whole game, my skills are locked out and all my armor unequipped. needless to say i died in a few seconds, reloaded a few times till i got my keys sorted out, realized the only armor that does anything in this false buffed battle are the ones that give more mana or health. back to battling and find out that all my trained strategies that worked the entire game as dragon are out the window due to increased mana costs and the arbitrary forced strategy of this battle.

so disappointed with this stupid last flight of the dragon gauntlet. whats the purpose of training skills and learning tactics and gaining armors when the devs change most of the rules at the end.


i was already tired of this game. its become a chore due to boring repetitive dungeons all using the same few assets and even the same floor plan and using just recolorized monsters. seems like the devs just gave up on design early on after some cranking good intro levels.

Yes the pc version is broken for this last railshooting: so, not only suddenly we have to use our dragon, but moreover it removes our key configuration. So we are doble lost.
That's why I never play again the game, for I know how it's bad in the end.
I already told it on dev forum, but they didn't seem to really care, telling the game is good on Sony(?) console.

We can't: At least one assigment that I used was greyed. I was already used to dragon combat. But the game removed my keys.
The greyed assigments should have been forbidden since the start of the game, to prevent from learning us false configuration. So, there is a difference. Or you want to say that the input is broken too in Xbox version?

That very bad ending is a heart braker, the game would have been so good without this.

You were lucky with your pc game, as there are personal configurations of keys that work good. But not all.
"I was lucky, so there is no bug"

So, it has been patched after I had told it. I'm then curious about patch logs, but I don't remember it was written on.
How to verify easily? I think a save before this ending would be usefull.

Yay, a thread necro. It was only MOSTLY dead.

Gonna go the youtube route, too. Arbitrary change is arbitrary and I dislike escort missions in general since the object / person you're escorting - in most games I've played - is always such a complete dumbass. In this case, I'm the badass dragon expected to clear the way, so why can't I tell the airship to just hang back while I do my business? Would seem to make a lot more sense to me, but no, the airship can not stop, can not deviate course. Just plows right along regardless of the whooping it's taking. Yes, adds drama and tension. I get it. Still hate those missions.

Third attempt and multiple saves... it ain't working for me, and I'm not going to futz with the console just to get through it.

So, was there for you the problem of the game changing for this mission your personnal keys? Was the game actually patched? (or you were lucky the key compelled setting of this mission is the same than yours)
Without this problem, this game would may be in my prefered 10.