Freds guide to killing le drake and using its items

[Trololiver112]

So you loaded in to a round as a shaft miner huh? Maybe killing normal faunas and tendrils isn't enough to satisfy your thirst for blood. Well if you're planing on trying to kill one of the big guys here is a guide on how to kill the Ash drake.

Now remember, i consider the drakes to one of the easiest megafauna but it is still far from easy. It takes some getting used to if you want to be able to do this without dying, or at the very least wasting all your healing and somehow retreating safely. So the most important tip i can give you is to keep trying. Either on a test server on the live server if you have enough rounds to waste.

Step 1 - of killing the drake should always be preparation. You don't want to fight a dragon unprepared god damn it. While most of the stuff from this guide will be stuff you can get either from lavaland or the mining vendors, keep in mind that asking medbay for some burn patches help a lot if they are willing to give some away to their brave miners. So what you are going to need is legion cores, these drop from legions killed. Just collect as many as you wish, but i recommend about 10 for your first attempt . Are the cores decaying? Well worry not, even decayed cores can be stabilized with the stabilizing serum that you buy from the mining vendors. This is a must as decayed cores can't be used if you don't do this, and trust me you will need the cores. The cores are important not only for the healing, healing 25 brute and burn. But mostly because they let you run at full speed even when damaged. This is super important so that the drake never manage to melee attack you and kill you real quick, also makes it easier to dodge. Whilst overheating is not as much of a problem as some people think it does kill you over time, so keep in mind that the cores should reset temperature. Using cores to maintain speed and burn patches for burn damage is a great combo if you get said patches.

As for finding legions i recommend letting your fellow miners know that you need legion cores and telling them to spare a single legion tendril for you, as this is infinite core farming as long as you don't kill the tendril. Keep in mind that some miners will just ignore this and kill all the tendrils just for their own earning. That is just something you are going to have to live with even though i personally think it is a dick move.

Another thing you will need is a KA with mods. I personally use one range one damage and one cooldown, though this is personal preference. I will however recommend at least one range and one cooldown, the last one could be either another cooldown or something else, depending on your playstyle. This can also be bought from the mining vendor though i recommend asking rnd for them instead, as they can make it with pretty basic rnd.

Step 2 - You have the stuff, but where do i find it? And where do i fight it? Well, check your gps that you obviously have and did not forget and check for a fiery signal. This means Drake. Keep in mind that unlucky lavaland rng might mean there are none, in this case you could ahelp asking for admins to spawn one, but most likely you have to wait until the next round.

Once you have the signal you should go near it and start making a big open area. I recommend getting an advanced plasmacutter for this, as it will take forever without it. Also keep in mind the bigger the arena he easier the fight is. It can be done with a small one, Though that makes dodging harder and you have to make diagonal movements a lot more, which can be tricky as if you do that the drake will be faster than you. You should have time to make the arena anyways, see next step.

Step 3 - Now this might just be the one that has killed me the most times, and probably a lot of others aswell. So you have the stuff, and you have the area and you are ready to start the fight. You start it and suddenly the text in the chat indicates that a storm is about to start. Now this is not good at all, because you will now have to waste all your healing on surviving the storm. you can ignore this step if you have either the champions suit or the inquisitor one. Just build an arena until the next storm comes, then hide in a pod. When the storm is over you should start as soon as possible just to be sure.

So all the steps have been followed, now you're ready to fight: 

Fighting the Drake is not as hard as one might think, it is mostly getting in to the rhythm. Now what i mean by this is that the attacks can easily be dodged, but you need to know them. This is what i suggest using a test server for, once you learn it you can't unlearn it so might aswell.

Attack 1 - Now as soon as you start the fight it will always use either the firebreath attack or the swoop attack. This here is for the fire breath. Shoot him once then be ready to dodge one step up or down(or to the side, depending if you are running away from it from one side to another or up and down. Now this part here is what some people don't know. You should imagine the tip of the firebreath as a projectile dealing burn damage and leaving fire behind it. What i mean by this is that as long as you don't get hit by the fire part straight away, you are free to walk trough it after, as long as it is not the tip. This will set you on fire but that is not a problem, the low KPA will make sure overheating kills you very very slow. Don't panic and for the love of god don't bother putting the fire out. The fireballs falling from the sky does about the same amount of damage as the tip of the breath but is easier to dodge. try shooting him twice before making some distance and preparing to dodge his next attack. Do also keep in mind that if you are walking diagonal his breath will also go diagonal and therefore be harder to dodge.

Attack 2 - This is the swoop one, and probably the second most panic educing one. It is one of the easiest to avoid once you get it down though, you have to play on the rules that if you run in a straight line, the fire it shoots when landing will also go in a straight line. Once it goes for a swoop start running in a straight line in any direction with space. Then wait for the exact moment it lands then sidestep one step. It's important you wait for it to land before you sidestep so that the firebreath is shoots goes in a straight line. If you start sidestepping before it lands it will shoot diagonally and it will be harder to doge. This one is most rinse repeat at this point.

Attack 3 - Now this is the the first of two attacks you will start seeing the drake get low on hp. It's has similarity to the to the first attack but a lot harder. It will now instead shoot fire in all direction and they will almost always go a little diagonal and very hard to dodge if you are close to it. Thing to keep in mind with this attack though is that it will always only do this one 3 times before starting a new attack. Though keep in mind i am pretty sure it can start the same attack again after then making it 6 times and so on. For this one i recommend trying to stay away from it preferably diagonally for all three attacks then moving back to attack it again after. This can quickly become the most dangerous attack if you're not ready for it.

Attack 4 - Arguably the easiest attack for people who know it, but by far the most scary one when you are new. The drake puts you in a cage with unbreakable walls and will mark one spot green. Quickly move to the spot before every other tile turns in to lava. This will happen 3 times before the drake will land in the middle like a swoop. DO NOT STAND UNDER THE DRAKE WHEN IT LANDS. THIS IS A SURE WAY TO DIE ALMOST INSTANTLY. You can't damage the drake while in the cage so your only bet here is to get on the green tiles before the lava and pray for good ping. Make sure you use a legion core before this so that no matter if you take damage you will be running at full speed. The green tile will always be close enough for you to reach it IF you are running at full speed. If not then the lava will kill you in mere seconds. Also, if you are teaming up with someone, try and make sure you are not in the cage at once by keeping distance. If you are there will be two green tiles, but the limited time will have you pushing each other in no time. Better do the cage alone.

Keep dodging, as the damaging it is the easy part - Killing the drake itself is not hard, you could do some basic maths to find out how long it takes. The base KA does 40 damage in low KPA, and with one damage that is 50. It has 2500 health and 2500/50 is 50 shots to kill. So just keep shooting and it will die eventually. Remember to use healing and good luck.

The treasures for killing le drakon - The drake has 4 different drops in the chest. BUT REMEMBER TO BUTCHER THE DRAKE AND USE THE STUFF THERE TO MAKE TWO SETS OF DRAKE ARMOR. The armor is fire and storm proof. Though not EVA, so it's not a hardsuit. Plus it is a stylish way to flex your kill back on the station. For the chest drops however you have these alternatives:

- Spectral blade. Arguably the coolest in my opinion. The sword itself does no damage at all. But for each ghost following you it deals an additional 4 damage up 20, aka 80 damage. The ghosts are also visible while orbiting the player wielding the blade. Activate the sword to call for ghosts to follow, though they might get uninterested and go watch something else if you are not doing anything interesting. Does not fit in a normal bag and i recommend bag of holding.

- Lava staff. This one is meh for me, It's a magic wand able to place one tile of lava on almost any flooring. This one can't really be used much on station without creating a serious workplace hazard and is underwhelming on lavaland. Though keep in mind it is an excellent melee weapon, dealing 25 burn damage.

- Spellbook of sacred flame and fireball staff.  This one is pretty bad in my opinion. The sacred flame spell allows you to set yourself on fire while making everyone around you extra flammable. This is only useful as an antag and even then it is meh at most. The fireball staff is another item that sounds great on paper, but once you realize it only has 4 charges before being completely empty you might understand why i would say that this is the worst drop.

- Bottle of dragons blood.  This one has another 3 different outcomes(TG wiki says 4, but i have never seen the 4th and it does not really work on para i don't think since we have ash walkers and unathi already.). This item can be the most fun if you're lucky with it but can also be pretty meh.

- The worst one that still has some uses though is the permanent immunity to lava. This is cool, but not as cool as the other stuff here. Granted it is a great combo with the lava staff if you kill more drakes in one round.

- Lesser ash drake form. this one is probably the most fun the first time you use it but parts of it never gets old. You can turn in to the dragon and do all its attack at will? almost a little too good to be true. But it has a few downsides. first one being that accidentally spitting fire on station is very easy, all you need to do is click on a tile more than one tile away from you. Another one is to accidentally swoop attack someone with alt click. This can be very fatal and self antagging for sure if done on purpose. KEEP IN MIND THE LESSER DRAKE ONLY HAS 300 HEALTH AND IF YOU DIE WHILE IN DRAKE FORM YOU WILL BE PERMAKILLED. So keep that in mind before using it in any real combat situation, great for gibbing your targets as an antag though.

- Skeletal form. Turns you in to a literal skeleton. This has quite a few racial bonuses. like: You no longer need to breathe, You are EVA and fire proof, Immune to medical injections(pesky syringe guns), and MILK heals you. Yes, you heard that right. First think you need to do if you get this is to get a bluespace beaker full of milk from the bartender. Some things to keep in mind is that you now have old crit, so if you're down in crit, do not expect to get up by yourself. You lose limbs pretty easy, but they can be reattached without surgery. Plus the most important thing of them all. You say funny spooky stuff when drinking milk.

 

Last words, keep trying and you will get it in the end. If you liked this guide, it took my a long while to make please let me know. Maybe i can consider one for the colossus aswell. Possibly even bubblegum, but that on requires a level of cheese, because bubblegum on paradise is TOO FUCKING FAST AND YOU NEED TO BE EVEN FASTER.

 

Edited April 30, 2020 by Trololiver112

[TheMaveran]

If you suck at dodging or are a mob that is too slow to (golem), you can facetank the fire with enough meds, just always stay out of melee range. Do colossus pretty please.

[Kugamo]

This is a very useful guide, beating all the lavaland monsters is a challenge I hope to conquer one day. Thanks for writing this.