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Mithril Dragon Guide - Introduction, Prerequisites and Recommendations Mithril Dragon Guide - Common, Uncommon, Rare and Special Drops

Now let’s talk a bit about the mithril dragons themselves, so you know a bit better what you are up against. I’ll start by giving you a general description of the dragons and providing you with a summary of their key statistics for reference. I will then discuss their attacks and talk about their defence and weaknesses.

Mithril dragons are the fourth in the “metal dragons” series: the first three are the bronze dragons, iron dragons and steel dragons that are found in Brimhaven Dungeon. As the name suggests, they are supposed to be made out of mithril—at least their skin, anyway—though they are a pale blue color instead of the deep blue of that metal (see Figure 333 for a picture of “the enemy”). The lair in which they are found is also the same blue color and there are even mithril mining rocks in it, though you’d have to be a bit crazy to mine there!

In some ways mithril dragons are like “steel dragons on steroids”, though they also have some distinct differences as well. For example, they have an extra attack that makes it impossible to fully prevent damage when fighting them.

Here is a summary of the most important mith dragon stats:

• Name: Mithril dragon.
  
  
• Level: 304.
  
  
• Hitpoints: 254.
  
  
• Number of spawns: 7.
  
  
• Respawn speed: Fast (about 20 seconds or so).
  
  
• Aggressive: Yes.
  
  
• Attacks: Melee (when in melee range), Ranged (when outside melee range), Mage (always), Firebreath (always).
  
  
• Maximum Attack Damage: Melee: 28 - Ranged: 18 - Mage: 18 - Firebreath: 50 without anti-dragon/dragonfire shield or antifire potions; 35 without anti-dragon/dragonfire shield but with antifire potion; 5 with anti-dragon/dragonfire shield but without antifire potion; 0 with both anti-dragon/dragonfire shield and antifire potion.
  
  
• Immunities: Poison. I have been told the Ancient Magicks smoke spells may work, though they are probably not worth bothering with anyway.
  
  
• Special or Unique Drops: Dragon full helmet, draconic visage, chewed bones, ancient page.

As implied above, mithril dragons are challenging because they have no fewer than four different attacks. It is not possible to make your character immune from all of them simultaneously, which means that to fight them you must make choices about which to protect against completely and which to deal with by healing.

The most dangerous attack is of course the firebreath, which can hit up to 50 in the worst case. It can hit from a distance, as with all metal dragons (though for some reason Jagex used the “short range” firebreath graphic from the leather dragons instead of the ones used by other metals.) Using an anti-dragon shield (or dragonfire shield) negates most of the firebreath attack; it is therefore mandatory unless using the risky Veracs technique.

Of the other attacks, the melee is the most potent, hitting up to 28 (see me being hit for 27 in Figure 334). High melee defence will mitigate the majority of the dragon’s melee attacks, but even with defence numbers of over +380 you will get hit. Also annoying is that the melee attack can follow a mage attack very quickly, so that both “splats” are on the screen at once, potentially doing over 40 damage in a couple of seconds.

If you stay outside of melee range the dragon will switch to a ranged attack that looks like a pale blue crossbow bolt. It can hit up to 18, and is arguably the weakest of the three attacks. It will not use the ranged attack unless it cannot reach you to melee.

Whether in melee range or not, the miths will intersperse a mage attack that looks like a blue ball of fire (Figure 335). This can be largely negated with high mage defence, but even with it over +130 you will get hit about 10-20% of the time for 0 to 18 damage.

Finally, mithril dragons are aggressive, but they go beyond that: they have a very annoying ability to “kill steal” players. By this I mean that you can be fighting one mith dragon, get it 75% dead, and then suddenly a different dragon will decide to attack you. This occurs most often if you pause to pot or eat—and you will have to do that, of course—but sometimes happens even if you don’t. This nuisance can be mitigated almost entirely by choosing the right dragon you fight and standing in the right place.

As level 304 monsters, mithril dragons don’t really have any glaring weaknesses, just certain areas where they are a bit weaker than others. They have very high defence overall, and it will normally take at least 2-3 minutes to kill one unless you get lucky with RuneScape’s notorious “dice rolls”.

I have tested various combat styles and found that the dragons seem to be slightly weaker to stab attacks than crush attacks, which are in turn a bit better than slash attacks. This has important implications for melee weapon selection, which I get into in more detail in the topic “Choosing a Melee Weapon” on the page on general strategy.

Regardless of attack style, ranging is a better method for these dragons than meleeing. Since you really need an antidragon shield, this means the weapon of choice is the rune crossbow. The best bolts are enchanted ruby (e) and diamond (e) bolts; while expensive, they hit the hardest and most consistently. In fact, in limited tests, they do even better than regular runite bolts (despite those costing even more still.)

Finally, these dragons are immune to poison; I have tested both “p++” poison using a DDP++ and enchanted emerald (e) bolts, and neither works. This slows down killing them considerably when compared to steel dragons, where the normal method is to poison them and then let the poison knock off 20 or so hp while you fight. I have heard a rumor that Ancients smoke spells may work, but these only poison for a maximum of 4, and maging mith dragons is not recommended.

Mithril Dragon Guide - Introduction, Prerequisites and Recommendations Mithril Dragon Guide - Common, Uncommon, Rare and Special Drops