Can rexes beat alpha dragon?

[Thomas Devlin]

I know you generally want to use herbivores like theris, but if you stack enough mutations into a rex army do you think it would be possible to do it with rexes? It's really just a numbers game, so with enough points I imagine you could technically beat the dragon with anything, but for someone like me that would be bored to tears stacking dozens of mutations, would it be reasonable to beat it with say 10-20 health/melee mutations? I plan on mutating the hell out of them anyway, but I plan on doing over a long period of time and not all at once. For reference my rexes are starting with 11K health and 315 melee unimprinted

[esthergray]

Put just a few points into health and the rest into melee. The dragon takes a percentage of health so you don't want more health than the meat you have on them can heal quickly. You want lots of meat on them, or kibble (better). Take a Yuty if you can get one to buff their melee and reduce damage.

[Rotiart]

Generally not advisable to attempt the Dragon with Rexes, unless you're doing it on rag where you can more easily rush it down

[cailean_556]

It's not that Rexes can't beat Alpha Dragon, they can. It's just that using Rexes for the Dragon is basically the brute-force, high attrition solution. You'll either lose a good chunk of your force and/or whatever survives will need to heal significantly (which can be - arguably - more resource intensive than Veggie Cakes). Either way, it'll be a while before you're able to use them again.

Dragon does extra damage to carnivores (or was it specifically theropods?) and prioritises them as targets over herbivores. On top of that, it does damage based on the total health pool - so the bigger the health pool, the higher the damage its fire breath does. For Dragon, your Rexes will need to be specifically suited to fighting it - low HP that can be healed quickly, and very, very high DPS (essentially glass cannons that won't be overly useful against other bosses as they won't be able to tank the damage).

[Rotiart]

Originally posted by cailean_556:

Dragon does extra damage to carnivores (or was it specifically theropods?) and prioritises them as targets over herbivores.

Herbivores have a resistance to some fire damage, however this does not include the true 20% damage from the Dragon's firebreath. You want to use herbivores against the Dragon because veggie cakes are the only way you stand a chance if you can't rush it down before it breathes fire 4/5 times

[cailean_556]

Originally posted by Rotiart:

Originally posted by cailean_556:

Dragon does extra damage to carnivores (or was it specifically theropods?) and prioritises them as targets over herbivores.

Herbivores have a resistance to some fire damage, however this does not include the true 20% damage from the Dragon's firebreath. You want to use herbivores against the Dragon because veggie cakes are the only way you stand a chance if you can't rush it down before it breathes fire 4/5 times

Just checked the wiki, in case I was wrong and/or going insane. It says it there in black (technically dark grey) and white. Dragon does more damage to carnivores...

"Its breath attacks deal more damage to carnivores so normal tactics such as Rex Rushing - while possible - aren't advised as it's very risky."

My experiences using Rexes as tanks and meat shields for the Therizinos (and my Yuty) also seems to confirm this. Though it probably comes down to the Rexes I used having a health pool suited to Broodmother/Megapethicus (100K + - private server rates, not official server). Rexes with less health and more melee may balance it out - but they'll still take comparatively more damage (plus they can't heal with Veggie Cakes).

The dragon also prioritises carnivores over herbivores - which is why if you bring a Yuty and Therizinos whoever rides the Yuty spends as much time trying not to catch fireballs with their face as they do buffing the Therizinos.

Wiki also suggests Magmasaurs as the Dragon prioritises that over the Yuty. I've not tried that myself (I thought Magmas were too big for boss arenas) so I might give that a go. Maybe the OP could try it too - Magma and Rexes.

[Rotiart]

Originally posted by cailean_556:

Originally posted by Rotiart:

Herbivores have a resistance to some fire damage, however this does not include the true 20% damage from the Dragon's firebreath. You want to use herbivores against the Dragon because veggie cakes are the only way you stand a chance if you can't rush it down before it breathes fire 4/5 times

Just checked the wiki, in case I was wrong and/or going insane. It says it there in black (technically dark grey) and white. Dragon does more damage to carnivores...

"Its breath attacks deal more damage to carnivores so normal tactics such as Rex Rushing - while possible - aren't advised as it's very risky."

The wiki is wrong. Herbivores have fire resistance, so the stream damage from the Dragon's attack will do less damage to herbivores, but the damage from the enflamed debuff will be 20% no matter what. This is specific to the Dragon's enflamed debuff, the debuff you get from Wyverns is a lot more restricted.

[Rich]

It's definitely doable, but expect a lot of casualties.

[🦊 Hermit]

What Roti says is true, I remember someone posting a topic on these forums a few years ago where they tested the fire breath against various creatures, and while they were good, theris weren't nearly as OP as some believe them to be, because as stated the dragon's fire is a different type of debuff to others.

[DreadCthulhu]

A couple things to chime in with - the Dragon tends to target the creature with the highest drag weight, not carnivores specifcally. If you were to ride a therizino in and bring smaller carnivores, like deinonychus, the dragon will chase the Theri around. Magmasaurs are basically the highest drag weight creatures that can go to the dragon fight, and are immune to the fire breathe attack, which makes them well suited to tank the dragon while your other creatures do damage.

[Zem]

I've seen someone on youtube (Captain Fatdog, the trap designer) do it with a magmasaur, and his friends using Deinonychus. The dragon will target the magmasaur which can be healed by forcefeeding it Ambergris (300 hp/feed). With a good saddle and good health stat it's a viable strategy. It is possible to stay next to the dragon's feet and damage it there without it actually hitting you. Using a magmasaur with ambergris as a tank in general is a good idea though, regardless of what else you're using to damage.

I've done it with rexes, but it was messy and we lost a lot of them. Therizinos with veggie cakes and one person on a pig to heal and another on yuty buffing and running for their lives worked slightly better.

[Rotiart]

Originally posted by Zem:

I've seen someone on youtube (Captain Fatdog, the trap designer) do it with a magmasaur, and his friends using Deinonychus. The dragon will target the magmasaur which can be healed by forcefeeding it Ambergris (300 hp/feed). With a good saddle and good health stat it's a viable strategy. It is possible to stay next to the dragon's feet and damage it there without it actually hitting you. Using a magmasaur with ambergris as a tank in general is a good idea though, regardless of what else you're using to damage.

What happens when the adds come in?

[BOJEESY]

What about rexs with 124 armor , 60k health and 2.5 -3.3 k dam?
Sorry to wake this thread up
Edit: On official, alpha

[𝓝𝓪𝓬𝓱𝓸𝓫𝓸𝓲]

Originally posted by Thomas Devlin:

I know you generally want to use herbivores like theris, but if you stack enough mutations into a rex army do you think it would be possible to do it with rexes? It's really just a numbers game, so with enough points I imagine you could technically beat the dragon with anything, but for someone like me that would be bored to tears stacking dozens of mutations, would it be reasonable to beat it with say 10-20 health/melee mutations? I plan on mutating the hell out of them anyway, but I plan on doing over a long period of time and not all at once. For reference my rexes are starting with 11K health and 315 melee unimprinted

Aim for AT LEAST 25k HP and as much melee as possible once imprinted. Saddle is very important too since the Dragon hits like a truck...

I did a run with 25k HP and 880% melee and only lost the alpha fight once because i missed giving 6 rexes yuti buff while a few weren't able to attack him properly. 2nd attempt went great and i lost about 7 rexes, the other 12 were above half HP.

[Rotiart]

Originally posted by BOJEESY:

What about rexs with 124 armor , 60k health and 2.5 -3.3 k dam?
Sorry to wake this thread up
Edit: On official, alpha

Yeah that should be more than enough. Is that their stats when they hatch?

[Rich]

Originally posted by BOJEESY:

What about rexs with 124 armor , 60k health and 2.5 -3.3 k dam?
Sorry to wake this thread up
Edit: On official, alpha

Definitely doable, I did it with lower stats, lvld to around 90k exp