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[George_Chickens]

I've noticed that dragons are a hundred times more dangerous than they once were. I was tasked with murdering one, and the moment it discovered me its fire burned through my shield and melted me in a single turn.

How should one deal with these beasts in melee combat?

[Bumber]

Supposedly if you choose to block the dragonfire and do nothing else on that turn you'll be fine.

[peasant cretin]

-snip-

[peasant cretin]

EDIT 7/11: Fighting dragons is a quite interesting now. You'll need to first watch for the breath and then mainly work through the spread of the surrounding dragonfire, tick by tick, until it dissipates. The surrounding dragonfire will trigger your auto-block as you advance the combat cycle one tick at a time. You'll also rely on your passive auto-defense versus breathing, strikes and bites (if dragonfire is present). When you're not surrounded by expanding dragonfire, you can feel free to act. Keep in mind a dragon can breathe every 50 ticks.

2nd EDIT 7/11: One little supposition. Haven't had the chance to try this in the arena yet, but perhaps working the combat from a choke point like a corridor will reduce the number of tiles, minimizing dragonfire expansion. The less time you're surrounded, the more time you can act.

Definitely enjoying the buff to behavior for dragonfire. (The infatuation was short-lived)

[Legendary Marksdorf]

Be careful when fighting a dragon, the dragonfire surrounding you might raise the temperature of some of your equipment, causing the bodyparts that they're on to start melting. Same thing can be said for killing a dragon with a weapon iirc cause their blood is also very hot.

[peasant cretin]

After a little more testing, just to add on to what both Bumber and Legendary Marksdorf have said.

Re: Bumber's comment: Dodging is the one manual defensive move you can make, since you'll still be able to autoblock the dragonfire or the breath with your shield. The multi-attack combo (quick attack + dodge away) is the magic bullet here as it ignores the should only block requirement. You can pretty much dance around and weapon jab the dragon at will. The only time you'd need to wait the dragonfire out tick by tick is when the dragon is still approaching you. Othwerwise quick attack + dodge away.

Re: Legendary Marksdorf's comment: I ran all my tests with the arena's average strength dwarf using just a steel spear (because of the avg STR) and wagon wood shield. He wore no armor, save for a pig tail dress, so there's no risk temperature increase, save for the weapon.

Re: my choke point comment: bringing the fight into a corridor does reduce the expansion of dragonfire. Again use of the magic bullet multi-attack combo (quick attack + dodge away), especially since your first strike should be to the foot/leg/neck to drop the dragon and remove its big creature charging ability and to half its speed.

[Bumber]

Wouldn't a fight across z-levels be optimal?

[peasant cretin]

Wouldn't a fight across z-levels be optimal?

I  don't really think it would be optimal. If your character did use multiple z-lvl combat, the main benefit is you wouldn't have to interact with the dragon's charge, as charge works on the ground z-lvl. That's a pretty minor advantage. Everything else though, stays the same. You'll still use the multi-attack combo (quick attack + dodge away) to both  *completely ignore the dragonfire* and to perforate/pummel/hack to bits the poor dragon in question.[/i]  You'll rinse and repeat until its dead.

I guess the real question is: "Is dragonfire broken/incomplete if multi-attack combo (quick attack + dodge away) allows you to ignore the dragonfire and go about your business as usual?"

[Max™]

Dragonfire doesn't spread across z-levels because vanilla dragons can't fly... I am now uncomfortably aware of this, as well as my tongue, and your tongue also.

[pikachu17]

Dragonfire doesn't spread across z-levels because vanilla dragons can't fly... I am now uncomfortably aware of this, as well as my tongue, and your tongue also.

What do you mean? Play as a dragon in arena mode, and you'll see you can breathe a few Z-levels above you.

[Max™]

I've never had dragon breath spread across z-levels, just checked, sat there breathing fire across the grass, set it all on fire, the trees up above never got touched until I flew up and hit them directly, at which point it spreads on that z-level only.

[Rumrusher]

spider-webs can be aim upwards don't know about dragon fire though.

[Max™]

I tried, it lets me aim and fire it with the cursor up higher but it still stays on the same z-level.

[peasant cretin]

So here we're flying. The dragon breathed, the dragonfire has spread *along* z-level 1 (ground z-lvl). Monarch Butterfly Man can't move onto any z-level 2 tile above those z-level 1s that are on fire. Just click the thumbnails to expand.


I wait until the dragon breathes at z-level 2 and my Monarch Butterfly Man, who blocks the fire. Now here's the interesting thing. There's no fire anywhere on z-level 2.

Next tick, we fly to z3. No fire there either. Or z4 and so on.


Oddly, fire is restricted to z-level 1, so I was definitely wrong.

Being up one z-level lets you avoid the damage of dragonfire altogether. Bumber was indeed correct. It'd be optimal to fight one z-lvl up.

[Max™]

I mean, I'm not sure conal dragonfire is the best idea for squishy non-fireimmune_super folks, shield or not, but having them able to strafe would make adding flight a lot cooler.