RuneScoop.com - Mithril Dragon Guide - Advanced Melee Technique (Veracs)

Attaining the Herblore level necessary to make super antifire potions frees you from the need to use an anti-dragon shield when fighting dragons. And this in turn allows you to use the Veracs set from The Barrows. With all four pieces of the set equipped, you are able to hit hard against monsters with very high defence, and Verac’s flail has a stab setting—combine these and you have a nearly ideal combination for mithril dragons.

This method makes use of full Veracs, along with the level 95 ancient curse called Turmoil, which greatly enhances your melee combat stats. Using this setup, you can kill mithril dragons surprisingly quickly, averaging under two minutes per kill including respawn time.

The Veracs set is the core of your equipment here. Veracs provides moderately high melee defence and good prayer bonuses, so with this technique you will use other items to also improve melee and prayer, while using Deflect Magic to negate the dragons’ magic attack. Table 179 and Figure 23 show my recommendations.

**Table 179: Equipment for the Mithril Dragon Advanced Melee Technique**
Equipment Slot	Recommended Item	Alternatives	Notes
Head	Verac’s helm	--	Part of the Veracs set; mandatory for this technique.
Cloak	Ardougne Cloak 3	Soul Wars cape; Fire cape; Skill cape; god cape; god cloak	The Ardougne Cloak 3 is a reward for completing the Ardougne Achivement Diary. It provides a +6 Prayer bonus and a +6 stab attack bonus, making it nearly ideal for this technique. A good alternative is the Soul Wars cape, which doubles prayer bonus to +12 but loses the stab bonus. The other items are inferior but you can use them if you don’t have the preferred gear.
Neck	Amulet of fury	Amulet of glory, God stole	The all-purpose winner for every method.
Quiver	--	--
Weapon	Verac’s flail	--	Part of the Veracs set; mandatory for this technique.
Body	Verac’s brassard	--	Part of the Veracs set; mandatory for this technique.
Shield	--	--
Legs	Verac’s plateskirt	--	Part of the Veracs set; mandatory for this technique.
Hands	“Barrows” gloves	Black dhide vambraces	These are the best hand items for meleeing.
Feet	Dragon boots	Infinity boots; mystic boots	Dragon boots provide a +4 Strength boost for faster kills; the alternatives instead focus on magic defence.
Ring	Berserker ring	Ring of wealth; ring of life	The berserker ring will slightly speed up kills and is the preferred ring here. A ring of wealth will help increase the chance of getting some of the “standard” rare drops (like a dragon spear) but has no impact on getting a dragon full helm or other mith-specific special drops. The ring of life provides insurance against lagging. Do not use a warrior ring here, as you are fighting on “stab” mode.

As mentioned in my strategy discussion, the quantities of supplies you need depends on not just your levels, but also on the familiar you are using. A higher level beast of burden lets you hold more drops, so you can take longer trips; in turn, you need more healing and potions. Note that since this method means you are exposed to melee attacks, you may need a bit more food than with other methods.

My recommended inventory items for straight meleeing can be found in Table 180 and Figure 23. These are based on the use of a pack yak, since I am able to summon one and so I based my testing on using its spacious 30 item capacity. If you are using a lower level familiar, scale back the amount of food and possibly the size of the potions to suit your needs.

**Table 180: Inventory Items for the Mithril Dragon Advanced Melee Technique**
Category	Recommended Item(s)	Alternatives	Notes
Exit cavern, emergency teleport	Home teleport tablets	Other teleport tablets, Ectophial, Elf crystal	I strongly recommend you bring house tablets. They make it easier to recharge your prayer after a run and get back to a bank, and also let you escape fast if you fall behind on food or lag. They stack so bring several to save time between trips.
Access to cavern	Ring of slaying and lunar staff or dramen staff	--	Use the ring to get to the Rellekka fairy ring, then the staff to access Zanaris and the fairy ring in the Ancient Cavern. I usually use a dramen staff here, because I don’t want to deal with the hassle of replacing the lunar staff if I die (it will not appear in your gravestone). For more information, see the discussion of mith dragon lair location and access.
Prayer Potion Enhancement	Holy Wrench	--	This reward from the Rum Deal quest provides 1 or 2 extra prayer points for each prayer potion dose.
Firebreath protection	Super antifire (4)	--	You will usually need 3 doses, but I strongly recommend a 4-dose potion just in case you need the extra dose—without it, you are vulnerable to big firebreath hits.
Combat Boost	Extreme attack (3), extreme strength (3) and extreme defence (3)	2-dose or 4-dose versions of these potions	Extreme sets will help you take less damage and get kills faster; I usually use a 3-dose set of potions. If you want to keep your stats higher for longer use a 4-dose; if you are staying for less time you can use 2-dose sets. If you can’t make extreme potions, use super potions instead.
Prayer restore	2 Prayer potion (4)	4 Prayer mix (2)	The high prayer bonus of the Veracs equipment means your prayer will not drain very quickly. Mixes are a good idea if you have them, but you might want to save them for more difficult fights.
Healing	15 Salmon, 5 monkfish and 5 strawberry baskets	(Many alternatives)	As with the other methods, the amount of food you need depends on your skill levels and equipment, and your comfort level with trying to save money using cheaper food. I like this mix of food as it provides options for moderate healing at low cost (salmon), higher quick healing (monkfish) and high LP but slow healing (strawberries).
Special Attack	Saradomin godsword	Bandos godsword; Enhanced Excalibur; others	Since the primary weapon has no special attack, bring with a secondary weapon with a special that will assist you in combat.
Special Attack Restoration	Recover special (4)	--	Optional: If you are using an SGS or other item with a useful special attack, you may want to bring with one or more recover special potions so you can use the special more frequently. Depending on the special, this can partially replace some of your prayer potions and/or food.

Use the ring of slaying to teleport to Rellekka. Equip your lunar or dramen staff and then click on the ring just to your west to go to Zanaris. Click the ring there, scroll down in the list and choose “BJQ”, then click to teleport to the Ancient Cavern. Re-equip your flail and make sure it is on “Spike” (stab) mode; the setting can change when you equip the staff. Take the first dose of each of your potions while standing in the ring, then put on Protection from Magic and run east towards the mith dragon stairs.

Go up the stairs, then immediately click the prayer interface button to enable your standard prayers. Choose a dragon to fight, following the order of preference I described earlier, and simply melee it until it is dead. While fighting, pay attention to the following:

After you finish a kill, turn off your prayer while the dragon is dying, then pick up drops. Open the beast of burden, store drops and take out more food if needed. Check your prayer, and eat/pot as necessary.

You will generally leave the lair either when you are low on supplies or your inventory is getting full. If the latter, remember that if you need extra space you can always drop your partially charged ring of slaying; they are cheap to make. You could also choose to bury some of the dragon bones or leave some low-valued drops behind.

The amount of food and potions you need depends a lot on your luck. Be sure not to “push it” if you are low on supplies—running out of prayer half-way through a dragon is annoying, and with this method you’ll start to get hit hard by both magic and melee attacks. Remember that you can usually get back and finish off a dragon you are unable to kill off, but there’s a possibility another player might take your spot.

Needless to say, if you ever run out of super antifire protection, get out immediately!

Use your home teleport tablet when done, recharge at the altar in your house, and then use a mounted amulet of glory or a portal to get to a bank. As an alternative, you can cast the level 0 Home Teleport spell (every 30 minutes) to save a tablet.

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