dragonkin-laboratory¶
Dragonkin Laboratory (Courtesy of <@133391081109716992>)¶
The second elite dungeon released, the Dragonkin Laboratory is a relatively straightforward encounter. It is recommended to go in a group of 3 when starting out. Categorized as mid tier PvM, the encounter is useful for anyone wanting to learn how to deal with large mobs as well as bosses, combining aspects of single target and AoE damage.
It is encouraged to read up on the mechanics here:
<https://runescape.wiki/w/Dragonkin_Laboratory/Strategies>
The mechanics are relatively straightforward, and can be mostly ignored in trio.
For explanations of optimal strategies, it is worthwhile to read the solo guide, and simply have everyone in your group follow the strategies listed.
Auras :
Standard combat auras should be used, with Zerk auras taking precedence over accuracy auras.
Presets¶
Beginner/Group Magic
Food can be swapped out for summoning flasks or vice versa, as needed. Cinderbanes are used as many things in the encounter are poisonable. Generally solid food is fine, as you are typically only healing between encounters, so the adrenaline loss is acceptable. More charms can be brought if needed. A reaper necklace is used for boss encounters.
Advanced/Solo Magic
Seismic singularity Flanking 4
Rune Pouch 
Rune Pouch 
Rune Pouch 
(Runes for 
)
Section 1¶
Room 1 : Big brains entangle slimes here, kill 4 to proceed
Room 2 : Surge+bd to the staircase to avoid aggroing spiders and sun on the edge of the wall, kill 3 red dragons to proceed
Room 2.5 : Walk around the wall back into the sun you placed earlier and finish your sun rotation. If you have slimes following you (cause you’re not big brain) you need to surge past the red dragons and they will get blocked behind them. Slimes get blocked very easily which can be utilized multiple times throughout the section.
Room 3 : Surge to the back of the bridge and detonate + aoe spam, tsunami, etc. You only need to kill like 3 golems to proceed but you can catch them all in aoes very easily,
Room 4 : The optimal way to do this room depends on the positioning of the slimes and books right as the barrier goes down. If you are immediately aggroed by multiple slimes+books: entangle and clear them from the bridge. If you draw only slime aggro, look to surge+bd behind the celestial (slimes will get blocked). You must kill the celestial + several slimes to pass this room so if you draw no aggro at all you must manually tag some slimes to bring behind the celestial.
Room 5 : 90% of the time you will have extra enemies following you from the previous room so surge past the 3 celestials and sun at the back of the room (extra books, slimes, golems will be blocked). Sun there and clear the celestials (If you have dom mines, now would be a good time to start using them).
Room 6 : just dps, maybe sun
Section 2¶
Room 1 : Spider aggro is aids here, surge + bd immediately east here and depending on how many spiders come along you may need to clear them first. Clear the two lava strykes at the end to proceed
If lots of aggro is drawn, stand here to stack.
Room 2 : Sun in the middle of the black dragons and clear them
Room 3 : Surge to the end of the path while dpsing the dragons and sun when it comes up, you need to kill every black dragon here to proceed
Room 4 : You must kill 4/6 lava strykes to proceed, sun at the end of the path right next to the barrier to clear the last 2
Room 5 : Your sun from the previous room will still be ongoing to clear the 3 black dragons at the start, build to 100 at the last dragon at the end of the path for the boss
Section 3¶
Super straightforward just spam dom mines and sun/meta at those spots, you can skip the two onyx dragons at the start and the 2 hydrix dragons in the middle
Astellarn, the First Celestial¶
This fight heavily utilizes punishing area-of-effect mechanics but is still very straightforward and easy to master with some practice. Tag Astellarn to start the fight and begin DPSing. After 2-3 autoattacks a Pulsar will spawn with 20,000 hitpoints, dealing moderate periodic damage. Ideally, you would want to have saved either Wild Magic or Asphyxiate (Snapshot or Rapid Fire for ranged) to kill this as quickly as possible. Shortly after, a bar will appear above the player’s head and a wyrmhole will spawn at their current location when it fills. Place the wyrmhole along these lines to prevent it from being blocked out by the later rain mechanic.
When the wyrmhole spawns, it will deal continuous damage to anyone standing in it. Step away and continue dpsing until the Neutron Star spawns. This will follow the player around and must be lured into the wyrmhole. If the Neutron Star touches a player, it will explode, dealing 5000 damage and it is highly recommended to teleport out and restart the fight in this case. The wymhole will become stabilized and turn white if this mechanic is dealt with properly, allowing you to stand in it and deal increased damage to Astellarn for it’s duration. Use a damage boosting ultimate inside of it and do as much damage as possible. A good DPS rotation can get Astellarn down to 150k-90k hitpoints by the end of the first wyrmhole.
The celestial rain will begin once the boss reaches 200,000 hitpoints. This will spawn a continuous rain in a random quadrant that deals increasing damage as long as it is stood in. This will change quadrants occasionally and will only be a major issue if the wyrmhole was placed improperly.
From here on, these mechanics repeat with the rain lasting for the remainder of the encounter.
Verak Lith¶
This boss fight follows a very predictable attack rotation but deals consistent moderately high damage so it is recommended to learn the few mechanics properly to avoid any unnecessary deaths. It will always melee auto attack when the player is in melee distance and always mage otherwise. The auto attacks hit quite hard and specifically the mage ones are desynced visually so it is important to not mess up too many prayer flicks here.
Verak Lith’s Attack Rotation
4 Auto attacks
Spire
4 Auto attacks
Ricochet
4 Auto attacks
Spire
4 Auto Attacks
Nosedive/Hurricanes
Repeat
Mechanics
Spire
The message “Verak Lith slams his tail against the ground, the earth shakes beneath your feet!” will appear and after a short delay and spire with 15,000 hitpoints will spawn near the player. The boss will be immune to damage while the spire is alive so it is good to threshold to get it down immediately. The spawn will also be accompanied by a moderate melee hit that should be resonanced. In a typical kill, this will be the primary method alongside soul split flicking to restore hp.
Ricochet
Verak Lith will send out a projectile that lands at a spot around the player after a few seconds. The element of this projectile can be poison, ice, or shock, and corresponds with the three groups of eggs found around the arena. The correct way to deal with this mechanic is to pick up the projectile and interact with a DIFFERENT type of egg to disperse it before the bar fills up. Missing the projectile will deal 4000 damage and missing the dispersal can deal 9000+ damage so it is especially important not to miss the second half of this mechanic. Generally, if the projectile matches the element of the nearest group of eggs to the player, it should be ignored with debilitate or reflect (or nothing if the player is high hp). This will end the mechanic early.
Nosedive
A message will appear on the screen mentioning that a dragon is nosediving. An arrow will show up near the player to indicate the direction the dragon is approaching from and, after a short delay, a thin line of dragonbreath will be fired along the line the arrow is pointing. This can deal over 8000 magic damage and can be avoided by simply moving out of the way. However, the arrow will adjust it’s position based on the player’s movement for a short period so it is recommended to learn the timing on this mechanic and move as it goes off.
Hurricanes
Verak Lith will say “Let the flames melt the flesh from your bones” and engulf the area around the player in fire. This will deal no damage but after a short delay, hurricanes will spawn in the area that deal extremely high damage and last for roughly 20 seconds. This is a fairly large area attack and should be surged from to be a safe distance away. It isn’t very complicated however, simply don’t touch a hurricane.
The last two mechanics occur after each Spire > Ricochet > Spire cycle and rotate starting from Nosedive. A good dps rotation can end the fight shortly after the first hurricanes.
Black Stone Dragon
The Black Stone Dragon is the final boss encounter in the Dragonkin Laboratory and is the main source of the dungeon’s primary unique: Draconic Energies, which are used to make the mage t92 Elite Tectonic set. It also drops the Mutated Barge Codex, which sees frequent use in endgame melee encounters. This fight consists of fairly simple mechanics but can be very punishing if mistakes are made. It is also one of the few bosses to auto attack in all three combat styles, with melee hitting especially hard, so it is possible to die just from auto attacks if the player can’t outheal with soul split, is low on food, and/or can’t prayer flick the fight.
Attack Rotation
Phase 1
3 Auto Attacks
Gemstone Spikes
2 Auto Attacks
Dragonbreath
Repeat
Phase 2 (Black Hands)
Phase 3
1-5 Auto Attacks
Smoke Spiral
3 Auto Attacks
Mage AoE
2 Auto Attacks
Dragonbreath
Gemstone Spikes
3 Auto Attacks
Mage AoE
Repeat
a Mechanics b
Gemstone Spikes
This mechanic occurs a few auto attacks into the start of the fight and after each dragonbreath after phase 1. This is identical to the hydrix dragon special attack where a line of spikes are shot through the ground and erupt under the player. This deals 5000+ melee damage and drains all adrenaline upon impact. It will also apply a debuff that reduces all adrenaline gain by 50% for a short duration. Simply move out of the way when this comes out.
Dragonbreath
The skybox will turn dark blue and Black Stone Dragon will fire a 100% accuracy mage attack that deals moderate damage. This is essentially just a mage auto attack that hits slightly harder but signals that the spikes are coming out immediately after (phase 3).
Black Hands (phase 2)
After reaching 515k-500k hp, phase 2 will begin. This is signaled by Black Stone Dragon moving to the center of the arena and 4 black hands with 80,000 hp each spawning where the rocks are located. These hands will slam the ground regularly and send out a very heavy mage auto if they are in range of the player. Shortly after, a line of small hands will move towards the player that deal rapid 2000+ damage if stood on. These hands will NEVER reach the player if they are standing in one of the four spots pictured above. The phase will end when all 4 hands are dead, dominion mines are highly recommended here as you can potentially use 6 if you placed some during phase 1.
Smoke Spiral
A line of smoke will spiral https://youtu.be/lsris6thu8g> inwards towards Black Stone Dragon, dealing 4000+ damage per tick if stood on. The boss will remain stationary during this time so flanking is possible here. It is recommended to learn where you can stand safely to avoid having to cancel channeled abilities. Generally, a max range sunshine/death swiftness to the sides of the boss will provide decent freedom of movement and allow for flanking. Do not sunshine in the center of the arena as Steel Titans cannot be called into that area for some reason.
Mage AoE
Black Stone Dragon will call out “GET. OUT. OF. ME.” or “The shadow overwhelms!” and turn to fire a black projectile towards a random spot in the arena. This is very similar to Verak Lith’s hurricanes special and will explode into black tendrils that deal 4000+ damage in the area for a short period. In a solo encounter, this will miss most of the time and isn’t a big concern. The boss can also be flanked when it turns to send out the special.
Fly
Upon hitting 250,000 hp, Black Stone Dragon will become invulnerable and fly around the arena, landing at various spots and sending out smoke lines towards the player each time. Additional lines will also spawn out of existing ones on each land, so movement can get hectic if the boss lands at the same area multiple times. This smoke is functionally identical to the type in the spiral mechanic and should be avoided at all costs. This will occur 7 times before the boss becomes vulnerable again and continues the phase 3 rotation starting from smoke spiral. The lines will not spawn if the boss lands out of range but it is still highly recommended to follow and use an ability after each landing as the boss will take longer to fly again if the player stays far away.
An example of a no food no bank run by <@133391081109716992>