So, who...or what...is the King Black Dragon? The King Black Dragon (I will now use KBD from now on) was once the most feared monster in Runescape. Now days with all this new fangled equipment, player ingenuity, and the economy, his majesty has fallen from a king to a wash-up. While it used to take groups of 4+ of level 100's, it now can be done alone at levels like 95+(depending on stats, range tanks could probablly do it at 80ish combat). Now the secrets of slaying this once mighty beast will be revlealed...
II. Inventory And Gear
You didn't think you were going to have a boxing tournament with him did you? We need gear...armour, weapons, food, potions, you name it. I will try to go as in depth as possible, without boring you too much.
Inventory:
*Despite the pictures not having it, please note you should have AT LEAST ONE ANTI-POISON POTION*
Alright, first off, I will talk to the soloers. Soloers need a little bit of everything to face KBD, while you will pretty much be able to beat him with ease, your inventory will not last you long. I'd say anyone above level 100 could kill him 1-4 times per inventory, depending on the hits he lands, prayer used, equipment, ect.
Soloer:
Teleportation: Now while you can (and most likley will) wear an amulet of glory, it is wise to have a 1 click, 1 slot teleport in case of emergencies.
Potions: You should have at least 1 Super Attack(4), and 1 Super Strength(4) potion in your inventory. Range potions if your a ranger. You need a minimum of 2 Prayer(4) or Super Restore(4) potions, keeping up your prayer is vital. Saradomin Brews are optional, mostly beacuse they can get expensive. What they do is raise your defence and hp, in exchange dcrease all your other combat stats. You should couple this with about 1 dose of Super Restore potion per 1-2 drinks of Brew. Note that Super Restore potions replenish prayer too(yay multi-tasking). At least one Anti-Dragonfire potion is recommended.
Food: Your food should be the best you can get. Sharks are paramount, but if your a high enough level or are just cheap, then monk fish could suppliment some of your inventory.
Now, onto the different inventory setups.
Higher Level:
Classic:
Summoner:
Higher levels are usually going to do the most damage, and get the most drops. You can stimp on sharks, but they are strongly recomended. If you have a group of only higher levels then you can even leave out a prayer potion or two and maybe even food for loot space.
Lower Level:
Lower levels shuold try to get the best food they can, but since you probably don't have as much money, you can always go for more food and prayer potions and less stat raising potions. You will probably make 2-5 trips for every 1 trip a high level player makes.
Equipment
Higher Level:
Alright, as one of these, you have the most flexability. You can choose to be either a meleer (classic) or since jagex has added the cross bow updates, a ranger. Your ranger gear should pretty much be as a normal cross bow ranger. Maximize your mage defense and ragne attack bonus. With anti-dragonfire potions and anti-fire shield you should absorb most of the damage.
Lower Level:
Remember that the lesser gear you have the more food you have to spend, but the less chance you loose something worth while when you die.
Here is a break down of what you should look for:
Helmet: Something with high pray bonus, strength/range bonus, or both. Amulet: Glory is pretty much the standard, it gives a little to everything as well as telport. Body: Something with either pray bonus or high mage defense, usually wear something that is the opposite of legs and helmet (i.e. wear high mage defense body if you have high pray helmet and legs). Legs: Same as body, try to balance it out. Boots: Pretty much rune or dragon, unless they release decent boots with pray bonus stick with the 2 former. Gloves: If you've started or finished Recipie For Disaster, then use the highest gloves you can use from the quest. If not, then use something like cooking gauntlets, if you haven't even done that, chances are you should look for a different monster to kill. Ring: Ring of life or wealth, if you don't bring one I doubt it will effect you much. If you have money to waste than archer/berserker repsectfully. Weapon: Any slash weapon (i.e. whip, dragon scimitar, draon long sword), stay away from blunt and 2h weapons. If your range then use a rune cross bow. Shield: Anti-Fire shield or Dragon-Fire. Period. Bolts: Best you can use that fit the economical-damage ratio. Try expermenting with enchanted bolts and see which one works best! Cape: This should be anything with decent stats, I like legends cape. You could use fire cape, a god cape, obby cape, ect.
Remember, this is a guide, not a law book. Expierment with different gear!
III. To The Lair
A good place to meet is edgeville. This is one of the best spots to meet since the grand exchange is very close, you have acess to a range, it's almost a straight shot to KBD, and it's an easy town to get to in a hurry. It is wise that if you are bringing a summoning creature to summon it before you leave, you can then maximize your time with your fimiliar.
Now...how do you get to the bloody beast?
Method 1
Getting to the KBD isn't really that hard, here's the classic path:
1. Meet your group (if you have one) at edgeville, this is the best spot to meet, gear up, and it's right next to the Grand Exchange.
2. This is only if your not healed up, or have full prayer.
3. If you ever forget anything, this is the point. Your group will be all hyped up, and then you'll look at your inventory for what ever reason, and you'll notice "I forgot food guys!" or "Doh! I forgot to bring a weapon!". This is the point where the group is either mad at you or pittying you, of couse, forgetting improtant items is optional.
4. Drink your anti-poison potion here, and get ready for a fight. From here on you need to keep your guard up until the KBD is slayed.
Method 2
*Lower levels beware*
This is where someone telports you to ice plateau, probably a part of your team.
1. You start out around this spot, just travel to the gate. Note there are ice giants and warriors until you reach the gate, so mind yourself!
2. Open the gate and procede to the lair's gate.
4. Drink your anti-poison potion here, and get ready for a fight. From here on you need to keep your guard up until the KBD is slayed.
Open the gate, and go down the ladder, if your 95+ the lesser demons shouldn't really matter.
Now you're down the ladder, you probably thinking "wher the hell is KBD and wtf is with all the spiders!?", well first timers usually panic a little if they don't know this is comming. Just pull the lever on the wall to be teleported to KBD's lair.
IV. The Slaying
Alright, you are now down into his layer...now what? Well normally if your soloing or the first one in there, he attacks you within a matter of seconds. The KBD has 4 different mage attacks, which can pretty much reach you anywhere in his lair. They are:
The fire attack, this does the most damage, if you don't wear an anti-dragon shield he can 2 hit anyone. Theres not much strategy to defend yourself except make sure you have 30+ life.
This is his ice attack, this does some okay damage (most I've really seen is 12ish), and freezes you for about 5 seconds. When frozen next to the KBD just keep attacking like normal, if he freezes you from afar he usually sends his other spells at you, so make sure to keep up on health.
Now, this is the poison attack, his poison can hit 7's, so make sure you always have an anti-poison potion. Super anti-poisons help a great deal more since they conserve food.
Finally this is his status decreasing attack, it will randomly decrease a combat stat. Now while most of the time it won't matter much if your re-potting regularly, this might affect lower levels a good amount.
The KBD also has 2 melee attacks, he swips you with his claw, and head butts you. As far as I can tell they do around the same amount of damage, most of the time maxing at around 20ish. Just remember to keep your health above 30, or you can die in a heartbeat.
Now onto the slaying part, I will do soloers first, then groups.
Soloing:
Alright, now start out by locating the KBD, and then run up and atttack him. Make sure your mage prayer and any other prayer you need on is on. If you ranging then you shouldn't really need mage prayer since anti-dragonfire potions and your anti-fire shield should take nearly all of the damage. Pretty much just make sure to monitor your health, stats, and prayer, and you should be fine. In general soloing range and soloing melee are pretty much the same.
Groups:
Now, most people should attack as if they were soloing, but there is a strategy.
Make sure to stay in a circle around him, this makes him have to turn to attack, which will over time result in less attacks. Rangers can pretty much stand anywhere. In between KBD spawns, you should make sure you heal up, replinish your prayer, and make sure you have enough potions and food for the next round. Try to stay in your circle. Rangers can stay back a little, but still try to keep a rough circle. This makes it so his Majesty has to turn to attack, putting more delay between them.
Remember the the King likes to change were he respawns, so don't keep your circle glued to one spot, or else your going to move the whole circle mid-attack. This usually end in disaster for our circle. If your lucky, you will get someone on your group who is either very lucky at guessing, or knows the patterns of the spawns. If you should have someone like this on your group who is accurate, then listen to them!
Escape Artist:
So your low on health and no food. What to do? Well theres a couple things you can do to save your life. Now if you trust the people in your group, then dying may not be as bad, but if your soloing or don't trust them, then you should do some of these:
-Run into KBD. Dash into the center of him when you get the chance, now since the graphic update this is a little harder to do, but still do-able. When you do this soloing, it can buy you a few seconds, when in a group, he'll pretty much ignore you.
-Use your teleport, if you didn't bring a 1 click teleport, then you can use a glory amulet while using the method listed above. If your soloing then your kinda out of luck.
-Run out. If you have more than 40 health, or have a little food with you, then make a run for it! A chance of living is better than nothing. Remember, since the wilderness update, there are no players to attack you, so wandering through the wilderness with 5 hp isn't as much of a problem. Please remember that there are also wilderness reverants that are capable of hitting over 20, teleblocking, and freezing. These roam the wilderness randomly, so you could travel all the way to the bank without even seeing one.
V. Summoning
Summoning! The long awaited skill since rs classic is now here! I will tell you, it is very usefull for the King and almost any big boss in runescape, this is because of some little friends lovingly (if not a little mean) dubbed Beasts of Burden.
What is a BoB? Well, basically they are any animal capable of carrying items (runescape definition, it's not history class okay?). As you might already have though, this is very usefull as it's your own traveling mini-bank, ready to use any time you need (provided your not getting your tail singed by His majesty).
To take items in and out, simply right click your fimiliar and use the "Store" option. Then you can use it as you would a bank! If your fimiliar runs out of time while it is still carrying food, it will just drop it on the ground in the same place is disappears.
This is useful to store food at first, and then as you gradually need it you can take the food out to store your loot in it.
Below is a list of all the Beasts of Burden, the level they need to be summoned, and how many items they can carry. For more info on summoning, please visit our extensive Summoning Guide.
Now, as an added bonus these also help attack like a regular fimiliar too! Since we're on the subject, Beasts of Burden's should really be the only summon worth brining, but if you really want a regular one won't do any harm, but it won't do much good either.
In the King of Dragon's lair, there is a conveniently placed summon recharge point, so don't fret if your summoning points dwindles to near zero. This recharge stone is located in the far north-west corner of the lair. This is best accessed in between slayings, as your group wont appreciate you running off in the middle of a fight!
VI. Drops
Alright, I gotta admit, KBD's drops are definetly not as profitable or rare as they used to be.Here is a list of his drops and a *rough* estimate of their prices, remember the economy is ever shifting and prices are subject to change over time.
Now, the visage is by far the most expensive thing, but one of the rarest, this drop will probably cover over 20 KBD trips if your in a group. The KBD Head is untradable, and is used in the Construction skill. Many items like the Dragon Med, or the Dragon Spear used to be powerful and rare items, but are sadly now associated with "noobs".
VII. Conclusion
Well now, what do you think? Can you conquer the mighty King Black Dragon? As you can see, he is not the most profitable boss, but he is certainly one of the most fun. He is the lowest "Big boss" of runescape, and can be easily soloed or grouped. Though his loot may not be what is used to be, it can still be a fun, and sometimes bonding, experience. Just remember it's only a game, and if you don't come out rich or end up dying, don't get worried about it. I've hope you've enjoyed reading my guide, I enjoy making them.
Happy Slaying!
Credits:
Muskets - For information on ranging the KBD. shin-akuma and kreotis - Ice Plateau teleportation. Pkerdr.Broli - For checking my grammar and spelling. Beyblade - For checking my grammar and spelling. toe76 - For checking my grammar and spelling. Nick - For suggesting about adding summoing on there, until I tried it I would have never though it'd be so helpful!
Kreotis, Blink Amy, and Metroidroxs2 - For coming with me to get the last few pictures for the guide
