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Mithril Dragon Guide - Location, Access and Positioning Mithril Dragon Guide - Advanced Melee Technique (Veracs)

The best way to fight mithril dragons is using the full Veracs set, but if you don’t have the Herblore level to make super antifires, a two-handed weapon is not an option. (Well, it is, but it’s extremely dangerous, and so not recommended!) Meleeing without Veracs is much slower than meleeing with it, but the ranging and maging methods alternatives aren’t much better, so it is something worth considering.

This method makes use of the leaf-bladed sword, an item more known for its use in the Slayer skill to kill turoths and kurasks, but which has a high stab attack bonus that makes it suitable for use on mithril dragons. I assume that someone who doesn’t have level 85 Herblore also probably doesn’t have 95 Prayer, and so my tests for this method have been done based on the assumption that you’ll use the Piety prayer, rather than Turmoil.

Here’s a summary of the key information about this technique:

• Technique: Basic Melee using Leaf-Bladed Sword
  
  
• Risk Level: Low to Moderate. You’ll be using an anti-dragon shield and Protection from Melee, so this is one of the safer methods as long as you pay attention.
  
  
• Kills Per Trip: This depends on your beast of burden’s capacity (assuming you are planning to keep all of the dragon’s good drops, which you should). Using a pack yak, I aim for 8 to 9 kills per trip.
  
  
• Time Per Kill / Kills Per Hour: This method takes approximately 2.75 minutes per kill, assuming combat stats of around level 90. Including overhead (banking and so forth), assume around 20 kills per hour.
  
  
• Cost Per Kill: Approximately 9k.

The primary goal of the equipment in this setup is to maximize mage defence and stab attack bonus; the secondary goal is to improve prayer duration. Table 177 and Figure 22 show my recommendations.

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.

My recommended inventory items for straight meleeing can be found in Table 178 and Figure 22. 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.

Do the following to get yourself ready for the first trip or between trips:

1. Check that you have your quick prayers set to Protection from Melee and Piety.
   
   
2. Put the game chat setting to “Filter”.
   
   
3. Use cheap food (trout, salmon, cakes, etc.) to heal up completely.
   
   
4. Put on or check all your equipment to make sure it is correct. If it’s been a while since you repaired your Barrows gear, be sure it is above 25%.
   
   
5. If you don’t have a familiar summoned, summon one. (Recharge your Summoning points near Castle Wars if necessary.) If you have a familiar out, check that its timer is long enough to last for the next trip.
   
   
6. Take out any inventory items you need for the trip (food, potions, etc.) Store about half the food in your beast of burden—I usually put 10 salmon and the strawberry baskets in there, and keep the remaining salmon and the monkfish in my inventory.

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 weapon and make sure it is on one of the “stab” settings (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:

• Firebreath: You will receive a red text warning 30 seconds before your antifire potion wears off, and then another warning when it actually expires. Since you are using an anti-dragon or dragonfire shield here, you don’t need to worry too much about the potion wearing off; you’ll only take a small amount of damage if you get hit with the potion not in effect. Still, though, you should take another dose when the second message shows up.
  
  
• Combat Level: Space out the taking of your super attack, strength and defence potions so your combat levels stay evenly high during combat. I usually find it works well to take another dose of each roughly whenever I take another antifire dose, but you can experiment with this.
  
  
• Prayer Level: Watch your Prayer level carefully; since you are protecting from melee with low melee defence, if it runs out you are in trouble. Take a sip of prayer potion when needed; this can usually be done between kills. If using prayer mixes, try to take it when you are down more than 60 LP, to take advantage of the healing aspect of the mix.
  
  
• Life Points Level: Keep your health above 75% if at all possible; there is no advantage here to letting it drop. Use the salmon first, and on subsequent dragons use the strawberry baskets when you have time between kills. Save the monkfish for when you need fast healing.

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 get hit hard if the dragon starts meleeing you. 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.

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.

Here are a few additional notes and tips for success using this method:

• When you are new to the technique, log into a less full world to give you more time to deal with drops. Once you have some experience, use a full world for faster respawns.
  
  
• Use the safe spot when needed, to deal with drops, healing, and so forth.
  
  
• If your health is full and you need more inventory space for drops, temporarily drop some food near where you will stand during the next fight. Then pick it up as needed when you get hit.
  
  
• If you’re very lucky you may find you use very little food and need the space for drops. If so, just eat the food anyway or drop it on the ground—you brought cheap food for a reason!
  
  
• If you aren’t in a safe spot and think you might not be done dealing with drops before the dragon respawns, put Protection from Melee on so you don’t get hit with a cheap shot before you are ready.
  
  
• Remember that if you get bolts or arrows as drops, you can store them in your quiver.

Mithril Dragon Guide - Location, Access and Positioning Mithril Dragon Guide - Advanced Melee Technique (Veracs)