Mithril dragon/Strategies

Mithril dragons are among the most difficult solo fights in RuneScape, and can quickly kill an unprepared player. Stat boosters and good food are necessary for anyone wishing to obtain more than a handful of kills. Players who have not invested any money into Summoning will find themselves at a huge disadvantage. Healing familiars will help players extend their trips. Most players choose not to use Saradomin brews, as there is little chance that the drops received on the trip will pay for the cost.

Ranged
One approach to Mithril dragons is Ranging using enchanted ruby and diamond bolts. The ruby bolts special effect will remove a sizeable portion of their lifepoints (up to 508, if it's full hp) and diamond will decrease their Ranged defence. Ruby should only be used while the target is above half health, below half and the special effect will start to take away smaller portions that could be hit without the enchanted effect. Karils or Armadyl armour is a much better choice over Black dragonhide because of the increased magic defence. The Protect from Missiles prayer or Deflect Missiles curse is recommended when using Ranged, especially for players with lower defence who are not using a Dragonfire shield. The Sap Mage curse also works well, reducing the dragon's defence and magic, though you may have to compensate for the extra prayer with more potions and/or focusing more on prayer gear.

Alternatively a player using curse prayers can bring high range defence armour and use reflect magic and leech range, efficiently making you stronger and the dragon weaker.

Recommended stats


 * 90
 * 70
 * 80
 * 60

Suggested inventory


 * 3-5 Prayer potions
 * 1-2 Ranging potion
 * 1-2 Defence potion
 * 1-2 Antifire potion
 * 15-24 Sharks

Optional inventory


 * Games necklace
 * Familiar pouch
 * Familiar scrolls

Recommended equipment


 * Full slayer helmet with Mithril Dragons as task &gt; Armadyl helmet &gt; Archer Helm &gt; God coif or Mitre &gt; Seers' headband 3


 * Armadyl chestplate &gt; Karil's leathertop &gt; Black d'hide body
 * Armadyl plateskirt &gt; Karil's leatherskirt &gt; Black d'hide chaps
 * Barrows gloves &gt; Black d'hide vamb
 * Ranger boots &gt; Snakeskin boots &gt; Silly jester boots
 * Amulet of fury &gt; Amulet of Ranging &gt; Amulet of glory
 * Ava's accumulator
 * Rune crossbow or Chaotic crosbow
 * Dragonfire shield &gt; Anti-dragon shield
 * Archer's ring (i) &gt; Onyx Ring (i) &gt; Archers ring &gt; Explorer's ring or Ring of wealth
 * Ruby bolts (e) and Diamond bolts (e) &gt; Broad-tipped bolts

Tanking equipment


 * Verac's helmet &gt; Torag's helmet - Guthan's helmet
 * Armadyl chestplate &gt; Karil's leathertop &gt; Black d'hide body
 * Verac's plateskirt &gt; Torag's platelegs - Dharok's platelegs
 * Barrows gloves &gt; Black d'hide vamb
 * Ranger boots &gt; Snakeskin boots
 * Amulet of fury &gt; Amulet of glory
 * Ava's accumulator or Fire cape or Skill cape (t)
 * Rune crossbow
 * Dragonfire shield
 * Archers ring &gt; Explorer's ring or Ring of life or Ring of wealth
 * Ruby bolts (e) and Diamond bolts (e) &gt; Broad-tipped bolts

Note: Mithril dragons are immune to poison and highly resistant to mithril based weaponry, so broad-tipped bolts or higher would be a better choice.

Melee
Being assigned Mithril dragons from Kuradal gives you a slight advantage over other players because you can use your slayer helmet for the bonus. Bring the recommended equipment, overloads or extreme potions, prayer potions, and a holy wrench to increase your prayer bonus. A unicorn with a bunyip is recommended for fast healing as you will need it.

Upon arriving at the Mithril dragons, protect melee, drink your antifire, and boost up your stats using piety/superhuman strength/turmoil. You must protect melee as it can hit 280 life points. Use your darklight with the special attack for the chance of reducing the dragon's melee stats by 5% or alternatively, bring along a saradomin godsword for healing purposes.

Common weapons used are Zamorakian Spear with a super antifire, or Dragonfire Shield along with a whip. The best for high levelled players would probably be the DFS and whip combination although ZS attacks can be just as effective. Finally, another method would be to use a verac's set as the crush bonus and set attack can allow you to hit right through armour.

Recommended stats


 * 90
 * 90
 * 90
 * 90
 * 79
 * 70

Recommended equipment

]]
 * Full slayer helmet with Mithril Dragons as task &gt; Slayer helmet &gt; Black mask &gt; Helm of Neitiznot
 * Karil's leathertop &gt; Armadyl chestplate &gt; Black d'hide body
 * Karil's leatherskirt &gt; Armadyl plateskirt &gt; Black d'hide chaps
 * Dragon Slayer Gloves &gt; RFD gloves
 * Dragon boots
 * Soul Wars Cape > Fire Cape > Ardougne Cloak 3 > Cape of accomplishment
 * Amulet of fury &gt; Amulet of glory
 * Leaf-bladed sword or Chaotic Longsword (On Controlled Stab) &gt; Dragon longsword > Abyssal whip
 * Dragonfire shield &gt; [[Anti-dragon shield|Anti-dragon shield &gt; Super antifire
 * Onyx ring (i)> Berserker ring &gt; Explorer's ring 3 or Ring of life, if using whip Warrior ring

Magic
The spell Claws of Guthix has shown to be very effective against Mithril dragons, with its ability to remove a sizable portion of their defence. In order to further increase the usefulness of this spell, using the Charge spell can significantly decrease the time and food needed to kill one, the spell Flames of Zamorak can also be effective as reducing Magic level also reduce their attack and defensive effectiveness, also note that this spell is cheaper than Claws of Guthix. This comes at the cost of the player's own defence as magic armour has significantly less defensive value than Ranged or Melee. Hence, praying ranged protection and wearing a high defensive shield, such as Dragonfire shield, is recommended. Also, because of the negative effect of saradomin brew being less interruptive to magic than ranging and melee, it may also be used as food source to significantly lengthen the trip.

The curse prayers Sap Mage or Leech Mage and Leech Defence will be immensely helpful when using magic since the benefit goes both ways.

Recommended stats


 * 80
 * 70
 * 80
 * 60

Recommended equipment


 * Full slayer helmet with Mithril Dragons as task &gt; Third age mage hat &gt; Ahrim's hood
 * Amulet of fury &gt; Third age amulet &gt; Amulet of glory
 * Ahrim's top &gt; Third age robe top
 * Ahrim's robe &gt; Third age robe bottom
 * Barrows gloves
 * Infinity boots &gt; Wizard boots
 * Dragonfire shield &gt; Anti-dragon shield
 * God cape
 * Seer's ring (i) &gt; Onyx ring (i) &gt; Seers ring &gt; any Mobilising Armies ring
 * God staves &gt; Elemental staff

Familiars
Familiars will significantly extend the number of kills per trip, the most popular being the Bunyip and Fruit bat for their ability to heal a player's lifepoints. The elemental titans are a step up from the Bunyip and Fruit bat, negating the need to bring down a Defence booster with its active scroll ability boosting the Summoner's defence and LP. Finally, the Unicorn Stallion can help the player get up to 30 kills per trip, assuming the player receives some shark drops.

Familiars cannot be taken through the whirlpool, however a Beast of Burden can still be used to carry extra supplies using a technique which was formerly adapted until a recent update to fighting K'ril Tsutsaroth in the God Wars Dungeon. This technique entails dismissing your familiar on the dock, going through the whirlpool, dropping an amount of supplies equal to what your familiar was carrying, then using a Games Necklace to teleport to the Barbarian Outpost, retrieving the supplies dropped by your familiar, going through the whirlpool, then summoning the same Beast of Burden and retrieving the supplies you dropped on the other side of the whirlpool.

By taking 5 Bittercap mushrooms and a spade to a spot of Enchanted Soil near the Waterfiends in the western part of the Ancient Cavern, you can create a Fairy Ring to Zanaris (after A Fairy Tale Part 2). You can bring a familiar through the Fairy Ring, which allows Beasts of Burden full of food to be brought to the Mithril Dragons.

Another method of bringing a Beast of Burden in to the Ancient Caverns with a full supply of food is using the recently added Ferocious Ring which is obtained randomly when fighting creatures in Kuradal's Dungeon. The Ferocious Ring allows for teleportation close to the Dragonforge which is located on the other side of the Ancient Cavern.