High Dragun

**High Dragun** is a boss found in the Forge.

## Behavior

**Phase 1**

* Breathes a stream of fiery bullets towards the player, either sweeping the room or aiming at the player.
* Pulls out two pistols and fires spreads of bullets in front, or rings to the front and sides.
* Pulls out two Uzis and fires two streams of bullets which start by the edges of the room and move towards the middle.
* Fires a rocket, which sends out a large ring of bullets upon colliding with the wall.
* Fires several spreads of bouncing bullets.
* Fires five homing skulls.
* Summons fire bullets which travel down from either side of the arena and cross through the middle.
* Throws large knives into either wall. The knives can be killed, and will continuously shoot a spread of bullets until they are killed.

**Phase 2**

* Once he is at low health, he becomes invulnerable and completely fills the room with moving bullets. The player must dodge between circular safe zones.
* Between each wave of bullets, his heart becomes exposed for a short time, during which he can be damaged.

## Advanced Dragun

As of the Advanced Gungeons & Draguns Update, the player can access a third, more difficult phase of the Dragun.

### Access

In the Resourceful Rat's Lair, the loot room after fighting the rat is connected to a secret room. In the secret room, there are two locked doors which must be opened with special Rat keys. Rat keys drop only during the third Punch Out phase of the rat fight. You can earn up to six keys each time you face the rat. Behind the doors is a small serpent. It's possible to drop items through the second door so just one key is needed to free the serpent.

Once hatched, the player needs to feed it four items or guns by dropping them in front of the baby serpent to awaken it.

* Junk and Glass Guon Stones are good for this purpose.
* The serpent will not eat the Busted Television, Sponge or Trusty Lockpicks.
* If the Resourceful Rat has died, his corpse can be fed to the serpent.
* If you drop the 4th item and take it back right after, the serpent might awake with the item still in your inventory, soft-locking the game when reloading.
* The serpent can also be hatched by dropping the Weird Egg into fire, which can be bought in shops or found in chests.

Once the serpent has been awakened, it will follow the player and block enemy bullets. If you reach the Dragun, the serpent will abandon you and join with the Dragun to form the Advanced Dragun. Beat it to unlock the Advanced Slayer achievement. It is possible to spawn multiple serpents. The Dragun fight will progress the same as with a single serpent. Any extra serpents will disappear for the duration of the Dragun fight, but will reappear afterwards and continue their normal behavior.

### Behavior

The first phase proceeds as normal, except the serpent will fly around near the Dragun and occasionally fire a burst of bullets at the player. After entering the second phase, once the first wave of bullets ends, the Dragun will grab the serpent, absorb it, and then begin the third phase, with a new look as his body becomes covered in gold and his forehead glows green. In this phase, he has many new, more difficult attacks:

* Breathes a dense stream of fiery bullets towards the player, either sweeping the room or aiming at the player. The fiery bullets stick to the back of the arena.
* Pulls out two pistols and fires tight bursts of bullets towards the player.
* Pulls out two grenade launchers and fires a barrage of grenades across the arena.
* Pulls out two Uzis and fires two streams of bullets which form a stationary arc sweeping the arena. The stationary bullets then send out three waves of erratic bullets in all directions.
* Roars, sending down three fireballs. This creates three zones that prevent the player from shooting.
* Projects a large eye on the ground that follows the player and dims the room. While the player is in the eye, the Dragun sends out triangular bullets.
* Fires five skulls which stop mid-travel and fire bullets at the player.
* Fires a rocket, which sends out a large ring of bullets upon colliding with the wall, along with many bullets that travel in a wave pattern across the room.
* Throws large knives into both walls, which fire spreads of 3 fast-moving kunai at the player.
* Fills the room with moving bullets, similar to the Phase 2 attack. The player must dodge between circular safe zones, which some now also have bullets in their centers.
	+ Often the safe zones lead to dead ends, with ones containing a bullet in the middle showing the correct path.

## Tips

* For the first phase, it is recommended to stay near the back of the arena, where most of the Dragun's attacks can be more easily dodged, aside from the Uzi attack.
* The thrown knives should be taken out as quickly as possible as their attacks tend to overlap with the Dragun's attacks, leading to difficult situations.
* Explosive weapons can be used in the second phase to get rid of some of the bullets for easier dodging.
* The thrown knives can be blanked and completely removed before they land.

### Item-Specific

* Blasphemy can be used to thin the bullet breath so it is easier to roll through.
* Blasphemy can also be used to enlarge the safe zones in the second phase.
* With the right timing, the rocket can be destroyed with Blasphemy and the bullets will only fire in a semicircle.
* The rocket can also be reflected with the last shot from the Finished Gun, presumably also being able to be reflected by Casey with the right timing.
* If the player has Black Hole Gun, it can effectively negate all of the Dragun's attacks, as well as preventing knives from spawning. This is most effective combined with beam weapons, as they are not affected by the black hole.
* Having Clone and dying on the last frame when you kill him soft-locks the game and you cannot continue the run.
* Having Daruma here is useful, as dodging in the second phase allows the player to blank most of the rest of the attack away.
* Positioning yourself behind Space Friend and Sprun in the second phase can allow it to block bullets and safely stay stationary for the entire phase.
* Running out of ammo with the Directional Pad and standing behind the chest spawned allows you to safely stand still and block all of the bullets.
* The Dragun's heart can still be damaged by the Baby Good Shelleton's laser even before it's exposed.

## Unlocks

* Dragunfire and  Gun Soul when killed for the first time.
* Old Knight's Flask when killed five times.
* Ancient Hero's Bandana and  Cobalt Hammer when killed ten times.
* Blasphemy (for other characters) when killed as The Bullet.
* Battery Bullets (for other characters) when killed as The Robot.
* The Fat Line when killed as The Paradox.
* Bait Launcher when killed with Beastmode active.
* Gunther when killed with the Sorceress's blessing active.
* Chaos Bullets when killed with Challenge Mode active.
* Crisis Stone when killed with Turbo Mode active.
* Sunlight Javelin if killed with a companion.
* Turtle Problem if killed while having Super Space Turtle.
* Grey Mauser when killed five times as part of Frifle and the Grey Mauser's hunting quests. It's the very last hunting quest, and kills are only counted after all other quests have previously been completed and it is then active.
* Holey Grail, when killing the Advanced Dragun.
* Though not direct unlocks, killing the Dragun allows the Sorceress, Tonic, and Bowler to appear trapped in Cells in the Gungeon after its defeat.

## Notes

* After defeating the Dragun, its body will disintegrate into a skeleton. Its skull will drop onto the platform where the character stands, and the spine will form a bridge to the Aimless void which houses the Gun That Can Kill The Past.
* Shooting the skull until it breaks will drop the Obsidian Shell Casing, used to craft the Bullet That Can Kill The Past.
* Once the player enters the Aimless Void, it's impossible to go back, so the player has to be careful to get Bullet That Can Kill The Past before they enter, if they need it.
* If the player has Wax Wings, Jetpack, Ring of Ethereal Form, or another item that allows the player to fly and attempts to fly behind the Dragun, he will send down a wall of bullets that forces the player back towards the bottom half of the arena. This will happen regardless of whether the Dragun is actively doing an attack or not.
* If the player has Challenge Mode active, the Dragun will always have Dragun Rage and High Stress active, which makes the Dragun much more difficult.
* If the player has accumulated Curse, the knives thrown by the Dragun can be Jammed.
* The hallway to the Dragun makes the vision zoom away from the player. If the player stops only a few steps from the animation, they can teleport into another room, keeping the vision zoomed out for an advantage.
* The rocket he fires can be hit back with Casey, though it won't actually do any damage.
* With Bloodied Scarf, the player can retreat off screen by dodge rolling downward at the corridor leading to the arena, which grants immunity to some attacks.
* After defeating the Advanced Dragun, the base of the statue in the Breach turns into the Advanced Dragun's head.
* Any Items that are left in the Dragun's boss room will not be stolen.
* Killing Advanced Dragun will not make him drop his skull (His head explodes) making the player unable to get the Obsidian Shell Casing.
* When Advanced Dragun does his massive bullet hell pattern covering the entire screen in bullets, any form of blank effect (blank, armor shattering, Dark Marker, etc.) will clear the first half of his attack.
* Since the Dragun and the Advanced Dragun are technically different bosses, the Advanced Dragun can be Jammed while the Dragun is not, and vice-versa.
	+ This also means that killing the Advanced Dragun does not count towards Frifle and the Grey Mauser's final hunt.
	+ Despite that, killing Advanced Dragun *does* count in regards to Dragun kill unlocks.
* Bringing two different Serpents into the fight (through combined usage of Rat Keys and the Weird Egg) will result in one Serpent disappearing for the boss fight, and not reappearing for the rest of the floor. However, the second Serpent *will* return upon the player reaching Bullet Hell.
* The Lord of The Jammed is still able to hit you while changing into the Advanced Dragun.

## Trivia

* The High Dragun's Ammonomicon image is a reference to Smaug from *The Hobbit.*
	+ The High Dragun hides in a mountain of shell casing (or the game's currency), similar to Smaug hiding in a mountain of treasure.
* The High Dragun can be seen resting atop the Gungeon on the title screen.
	+ However, in-game, he is in the Forge, the lowest level of the Gungeon.
* When summoning the Dragun via a console or mods, killing it will softlock the game.

## Bugs

* Approaching the High Dragun's room to the point where the camera zooms out and warping away will result in the camera continuing to stay zoomed out.

## Video

 Battle with commentary

 Battle without commentary

## See also

* Bosses
* Enemies