General Method Description

Like all colored dragons, black dragons are popular monsters for making money, since they give two valuable guaranteed drops on each kill: black dragonhide and dragon bones. In addition, they are the only color-coded dragon that has a chance to drop the much coveted draconic visage (as does the King Black Dragon). The visage is an extremely rare drop, which I estimate at about 1 in 10,000 kills, but if you do get lucky it can be a big boost to your pocketbook!

Black dragons are traditionally ranged, because they hit very hard and have high melee defence. However, the fastest way to kill them is actually using Veracs. This used to be impractically expensive because of the need to use Protection from Magic constantly to prevent high hits from dragonfire, but the new super antifire potions have changed the equation entirely. It is now possible to get a good 25% more kills per hour using Veracs with the Piety prayer and food, and that's what I recommend at extremely high levels. This is dangerous and the benefits are much less at lower levels, so stick with ranging there.

The best place to fight black dragons is the Evil Chicken's Lair in Zanaris. To get there you must complete the Sir Amik Varze portion of the quest Recipe for Disaster. This spot is good because there are four dragons here (as opposed to two in Taverley Dungeon) and the bank is much closer. Crowds used to be a big problem there, but this has become less of an issue recently.

Note that since you are ranging from a safe spot, you can fight without an anti-dragon shield; an unholy book gives you a better Ranged bonus. I recommend bringing one with, though, so you can swap it in when you need to grab drops or if the need arises for other reasons.