Look, we've all been there. Busy delving into dungeons. Selling loot in what little free time you have. Hard at work crafting new spells or innovating on the perfect parry to the double thrust low. Who has time to date? Seriously. And dragons....psssh, forget about it. Unless you have...
The Unrepentant Guide to Speed Dating Dragons
(aka the Stronghold Dragonflight)
First, you are dating dragons. And as with most dragons, they tend to do the same dragon things all dragons do. So come prepared. Breath attacks, wing claps, tail swipes, bite attacks. Pretty much par for the course. However, dragon speed dating also brings a few unique wrinkles to the event.
Time Limit: Once the event starts, you have 60 seconds until the dragons land. Once they land, you have 10 minutes to date them. The only wrinkle is you're dealing with real dragon divas. If the other dragons get wind that you took one to bed already, they'll get angry and depart after 1 minute. So if you want to date them all, you need to get them in the sack within one minute of each other, or the others flee. The trick here is that final minute is sort of a "bonus minute". If you drop a dragon with 10 seconds left on the clock, you get the full bonus minute to complete the event. So you got that going for you, which is nice.
Group Limits: Look, this isn't a rodeo. If you show up to the date with more than 19 friends, she'll freak out and go damage immune. Everyone likes a party, but keep it to less than 20 people per dragon.
Dragon Empowers: Roughly every 10-15% of health, the dragons will spawn empowers. These dude are basically jealous ex-boyfriends looking to cloaca block any attempt to date their ex-dragon. They'll appear and a few seconds later rise up in the air, and start stacking empowerment on the dragon. When they die, the stacks fall off. When they're casting the empower, they'll be engulfed in a beam of light, so look for that when you see their health bars appear. You'll start off with one, then two then three towards the end of the fight. The lower her health goes, the faster these will spawn. Sort of important that these guys get bounced quickly, or they're ruin the party
Also, like any good date, don't show up empty handed. A bottle of wine and some protection goes a long way with these gals.
Greater Potion of Dragon Slaying: This is a must. It's free 10% more damage to dragons. Everyone in your group should be using these, no excuse not to. You can buy these from the Tyranny of Dragons store via the campaign window for Dragon Coins, get them from the Dragon Heralds, or buy them off the AH. Again, no excuse not to use these.
Greater Protection from Dragon Scrolls: Again, 10% LESS damage from dragons. See above. No excuse.
Glyph of Dragon Slaying: Fits in your Overload Slot. You probably got one for free from the Zen store thanks to a promotion. Otherwise, these come from Rank 5 (5%) and Rank 10 (10%) Marketplaces. These only have a 2 hour time limit, but the Lesser one is 5% more damage and the Greater is 10% more damage. More damage is good damage.
Some special stuff you MIGHT not know about?
If you have the Dragonborn Pack, there's something interesting in there that you might not know about. The Ring of the Dragonslayer has a unique ability to add damage to any at-will attack versus a dragon. The tooltip says only a few hundred points, but the damage is improved by your stats. This ring could add another 5-10% extra damage versus dragons, depending on your class. If you have it, use it!
The other unique item is the Claw of Bahamut, which is an armor reinforcement kit that adds 5% more damage versus dragons. I claimed one from the rewards vendor, so I think it was a promotional item. If you don't have it, look for it to appear in game then grab it. Again, 5% more damage versus dragons is a big help here.
Knowing where to go and when to be there is also very critical. Each dragon spawns at a different corner of the map, and minimizing the time you spend running, and maximizing the time you spend dating is crucial.
So who are these lovely dragons you'll get to know intimately over the course of about 10 minutes?
Ekdos the Cruel
Chrysos the Vain
The black dragon comes crashing down in the southwest. She really likes to party, and if you can't keep upwith her dance moves and swoon, she'll summon a super party hard awesome wraith to keep up the dance party. Besides being unable to shut up about their crossfit routines, these wraiths are also super annoying because they'll chase you and kill you with one hit. Not cool. Ekdos also has terrible oral hygiene, and her sweet dragon kisses will actual start to melt your armor and clothes, leaving you naked and defenseless over time.
The green dragon makes her home in the southeast corner of the map. While she has big cans, her hygiene is somewhat suspect. She has AOE breath attacks that leave lots of poison on the ground. The area is also filled with her pungent aroma, which causes players to constantly take poison damage over time during the entire battle. Her butt is also huge, but don't mention that. And if it comes up, you didn't hear it from me.
Oxuno the Treacherous
The blue dragon who nests in the northeast corner? One word: Diva. She's also extremely needy and clingy, and will latch on to one member of the party (hopefully the tank) and incessantly try to smother him with her love lightning. If he goes down, she gets extremely pissed and lightning explodes around her, most likely killing anyone nearby. Yeah, I didn't want to say it, but she's kind of a...you know were I'm going. If your main man doesn't have the bestest of wingman making sure he stays up, you're in for a rough rodeo.
The red dragon lands in the northwest corner of the map. She rains AOE fire down, and talks way too much about herself, leaving you little time to get a word in edgewise. Otherwise, she's boring but easy
Katatheo the Proud
So how many lovely ladies are you planning to bump tonight?
Candelight Dinner for One: Pretty easy to grab a party to wine and dine one dragon. Katatheo the Proud is our recommendation for a single dragon because she's straight-foward and easy, and she'll typically grab a cab home afterwards. Tank her and spank her. If you're new to speed dating, practice taking down the empowers fast and getting back on the dragon. If you want to gauge your ambitions, 5-6 people should be able to kill her in less than 6 minutes. If you can get 10-12 and down her in 3 to 4, you probably have the DPS to double dip on a dragon.
Making a Scale Sandwich with Two: Katatheo the Proud and Oxuno the Treacherous make a good tag team for more novice groups. Both are pretty basic tank and spanks. Divide up your groups into 5-6+ each, doing your best to balance out the DPS. Each group should have a tank and healer, but having extra group heals on green is important thanks to the AOE body odor from Oxuno. Also, thanks to the AOE spots that linger on the ground, stacking more ranged classes on Oxuno makes the fight easier, and leaving Katatheo melee heavy. Watch DPS on each dragon, and when one drops below 10% have that group kill the last round of empowers, then wait for the other dragon to get below 10%. Then DPS down the dragons together.
Double Dipping: If you have a high powered DPS group, you can try the alternate "Double Dip" strategy, which is also key to doing three or four dragons. On a double dip, you send everyone to one dragon, usually Katatheo the Proud. Take her down to about 15%. At 15%, the tank/healer combos starts running to Chrysos the Vain, and all the DPS except for two or three go with them. At 10% the three remaining DPS kill the empowers, and the last DPS stays near red. You can slowly chip away at her health, bringing her close to death. Depending on the DPS, you might need to leave 2 or 3 people. The split group then tries to DPS down blue as fast as they can. Red should be under 2% before you do the kill call. Hopefully the remaining DPS can do the last 1% of health while the blue group does the last 10%. The advantage to the Double Dip is you only need one healer/tank combo.
If you're trying to Double Dip on Ekdos/Oxuno, then I would recommend doing Ekdos first (leaving a ranged at Ekdos), then having the group plow into Oxuno. Unfortunately, having a single DPS survive Oxuno for a few minutes while the rest of the group has a dance party with Ekdos is tough.
Three's Company: You have two ways to do three dragons. You can treat one to a Candlelight Dinner, and Double Dip on the other two if you really like to live on the wild side. Take Oxuno out to dinner, and then Double Dip on Chrysos and Katatheo. Alternately, you can treat all three to Candelight Dinners if you're feeling more romantic...and have more people. Generally if you have more people, but lower DPS per person, Candlelight Dinners work well. If you have fewer people but higher DPS, going for a Double Dip works. Also, keep in mind that the advantage of the Double Dip is you only need one healer/tank combo, instead of a tank/healer for each dragon. Some people also feel like Chrysos' love lightning is harder to deal with than Ekdos crossfit wraith dance party, so you might prefer to do Oxuno/Katatheo/Ekdos if you're taking three out to dinner.
Four on the Floor: If you're trying for the grand slam of Dragon Dating, good luck! You know you're ready if you feel comfortable doing the Double Dip. Make sure your guild feels good about doing a Double Dip with Chryso/Katatheo and Ekdos/Oxuno. It's extremely hectic, but definitely doable, depending on your DPS. You're probably need 25-30 people of various gear levels to legitimately knock out all four. Double Dip on both dragon combos. The last minute or so before they die is going to be hectic, but have everyone stay cool and focus on their dragon. Your bonus minute is key here...if time is getting tight at the end, make sure at least one dragon dies to enter into the bonus minute, then hope your team can pour on some Dee Pee Ess to finish the job before the bonus minute expires. The biggest mistake on the double dip is waiting too long on the kill call, and not getting the first dragon to die and earning that bonus minute.