How to kill an Ancient Dragon?
- Thread starter Dimson
- Start date
nightingaleassassin
Member
Use dragonrend if you have it, then attack from a distance. If you don't have dragonrend make sure to go somewhere, preferably a fort or a cave or somewhere else where there is cover so you can hide when he breathes fire/frost at you. Or, go somewhere where there are other NPC's so the dragon doesn't focus all his attention on you, this way you can attack when it's attacking the NPC's. Hope this helps 
, and if all else fails i guess lower the difficulty :/
, and if all else fails i guess lower the difficulty :/
Dimson
Member
Sorry for posting in the wrong section.
Did someone meantion my name?.... oh LOL posting in the wrong section I used to do alot of that now I am better. no worries... nightingale has it right with this:
"Use dragonrend if you have it, then attack from a distance. If you don't have dragonrend make sure to go somewhere, preferably a fort or a cave or somewhere else where there is cover so you can hide when he breathes fire/frost at you. Or, go somewhere where there are other NPC's so the dragon doesn't focus all his attention on you, this way you can attack when it's attacking the NPC's. Hope this helps , and if all else fails i guess lower the difficulty :/ "
, and if all else fails i guess lower the difficulty :/ "
Do you have any potions or gear that increase fire/frost resistance? That might give you some breathing room. What are you trying to hit it with at this time?
Dimson
Member
I have legendary Ebony mace and full legendary dragon plate armor. Not enchanted though because I don't think my enchanting his high enough to warrent enchanting my gear.
Do you have any ranged capabilities at all? I'm not sure if paralysis poisons even work on dragons but that could be an option too. I'm almost purely ranged so I'm just making guesses based on what I know is available.
Well, any damage from far enough way is a good thing if you're getting one-shot up close. I'm sure someone suggested it but don't forget you can lower the difficulty for this one combat if you need to. I'd still look into a couple potions or something to give you some resistance to the breath weapons. I know we have a whole lot of folks on here who are more melee inclined than myself so hopefully they will chime in. I'm not sure what exactly the melee folks do to get the dragons to land (besides dragonrend).
Boyd
Article Writah
Here's a tip.
First, get One Handed up and use perks to raise your items. Have the right Smithing weapon and the Arcane Enchantment to be able to make Enchanted weapons stronger.
Next make Dragonbane to legendary with the One Handed perks to make the weapon stronger.
Equip another sword, prefferbly one of your best swords, and get ready to fight.
Use Dragonrend to bring him down, and go to his wing and attack. He will start to move to where you are, just move to him and attack his wing. This will prevent you from getting biten, which does huge amounts of damage.
Now if you have health potions, use them! You will need health pots to beat them at a low level.
Result? Well you get the 3 dragon bones and scales, but you have a chance of loot even better. Not that much better though.
Gives good exp, and you will probably gain a One Handed level or two.
Good luck my Padewan.
First, get One Handed up and use perks to raise your items. Have the right Smithing weapon and the Arcane Enchantment to be able to make Enchanted weapons stronger.
Next make Dragonbane to legendary with the One Handed perks to make the weapon stronger.
Equip another sword, prefferbly one of your best swords, and get ready to fight.
Use Dragonrend to bring him down, and go to his wing and attack. He will start to move to where you are, just move to him and attack his wing. This will prevent you from getting biten, which does huge amounts of damage.
Now if you have health potions, use them! You will need health pots to beat them at a low level.
Result? Well you get the 3 dragon bones and scales, but you have a chance of loot even better. Not that much better though.
Gives good exp, and you will probably gain a One Handed level or two.
Good luck my Padewan.
Dagmar
Defender of the Bunnies of Skyrim
First of all, don't feel bad. You are level 30. That Ancient Dragon is level 50. Dragons are among the few random creature encounters that do not level with you, and an Ancient Dragon has over 3,000 health, does 300 melee bite damage and their dragon breath does 100 damage per second. They simply are what they are and my solution with Ancient Dragons when I didn't have the proper gear at lower levels was simply to runaway.
In all seriousness, if you are trying to reload the same game over and over to see if you can beat it, and you don't have the proper gear you should give up because it's not going to happen. I wasted over an hour trying to do it that way before I finally ran away.
For the future, if you want to prepare for the possibility of encountering an Ancient Dragon with a big level disparity between the two of you, keep the following in mind:
GEAR
You need to get a set of gear that will give you 85% frost resistance and a set of gear that will give you 85% fire resistance. This is achievable with just a ring and a necklace if they enchantments are strong enough, but you can also combine weaker enchantments and use the shield and boot slots as well.
You should also keep a set of Fortify One-Handed skill apparel. The apparel slots that will hold them overlap with the those that will hold Resist Fire/Frost damage enchantments (boots, rings and necklaces) but you can hotswap the Resist Fire/Frost ones with the Fortify One-Handed ones when the Dragon lands. If you can lower a Dragon's health enough, it wont take flight again.
Use frost enchanted weapons against fire breathing Dragons and fire enchanted weapons against frost breathing Dragons. They are 25% more vulnerable to the opposite kind of damage that they inflict.
Another good choice for an enchantment for your weapon is Paralysis. Once that Ancient Dragon lands you do not really want it ever to take flight again where it can continue to abuse you with ranged attacks. A weapon with a Paralysis enchantment will ensure this doesn't happen and make the melee exchange fairly one sided. Unfortunately Paralysis enchanted weapons are not that common so this may not be an option.
Don't be afraid to use up all your Restore Health and Restore Stamina potions. At your current level Ancient Dragon encounters aren't going to be frequent and are going to be very tough.
FIGHTING STRATEGY
Fight smarter not harder. Use shield bash to interrupt their melee attack on you and follow up with your melee attack. More importantly, large non-biped mobs are particularly vulnerable to a melee fighting style that uses constant circular motion towards their side and back simultaneously while attacking. They cannot attack you if you are towards their side and away from their head and if you can get to their rear you can initiate power attacks without worrying about taking damage from a counterattack from them.
In all seriousness, if you are trying to reload the same game over and over to see if you can beat it, and you don't have the proper gear you should give up because it's not going to happen. I wasted over an hour trying to do it that way before I finally ran away.
For the future, if you want to prepare for the possibility of encountering an Ancient Dragon with a big level disparity between the two of you, keep the following in mind:
GEAR
You need to get a set of gear that will give you 85% frost resistance and a set of gear that will give you 85% fire resistance. This is achievable with just a ring and a necklace if they enchantments are strong enough, but you can also combine weaker enchantments and use the shield and boot slots as well.
You should also keep a set of Fortify One-Handed skill apparel. The apparel slots that will hold them overlap with the those that will hold Resist Fire/Frost damage enchantments (boots, rings and necklaces) but you can hotswap the Resist Fire/Frost ones with the Fortify One-Handed ones when the Dragon lands. If you can lower a Dragon's health enough, it wont take flight again.
Use frost enchanted weapons against fire breathing Dragons and fire enchanted weapons against frost breathing Dragons. They are 25% more vulnerable to the opposite kind of damage that they inflict.
Another good choice for an enchantment for your weapon is Paralysis. Once that Ancient Dragon lands you do not really want it ever to take flight again where it can continue to abuse you with ranged attacks. A weapon with a Paralysis enchantment will ensure this doesn't happen and make the melee exchange fairly one sided. Unfortunately Paralysis enchanted weapons are not that common so this may not be an option.
Don't be afraid to use up all your Restore Health and Restore Stamina potions. At your current level Ancient Dragon encounters aren't going to be frequent and are going to be very tough.
FIGHTING STRATEGY
Fight smarter not harder. Use shield bash to interrupt their melee attack on you and follow up with your melee attack. More importantly, large non-biped mobs are particularly vulnerable to a melee fighting style that uses constant circular motion towards their side and back simultaneously while attacking. They cannot attack you if you are towards their side and away from their head and if you can get to their rear you can initiate power attacks without worrying about taking damage from a counterattack from them.
Happygolucky267
Member
If I were you, don't go near caves or any cover, pull it right into the open so that it's more likely to land. If it is in mid air trying to flame/frost you, use the shout Become Ethereal. This means it won't hurt you until its finished it's breath. When it lands alternate between standing in front of its wing tips and it's head. You can dodge a couple of snaps this way. If it tries to flame/frost you on the ground, run around it. Oh and don't forget that if you have food, use it.
