The Big Bad Bow

[PowerWyrm]

Breath attenuation is nerfed in 4.1. It no longer does essentially zero damage at max range, so it's probably better to let it be.

No idea when this changed, but yes I learned that recently. Thinking dracoliches were now xp pinatas, I engaged one in ranged combat from a big distance without nether resistance, and was surprised when my hps went down from 545 to 109 in a single nether breath. And that was with a dracolich at 70% health.

[Sky]

i'm getting contrasting opinions here. Some say sure, it's easy, go for it, some agree that it would likely have killed me. (rAcid, no temp resist)

[Derakon]

i'm getting contrasting opinions here. Some say sure, it's easy, go for it, some agree that it would likely have killed me. (rAcid, no temp resist)

It depends on how many HP you had and what the local terrain was like. If you had enough to survive one breath, and the ability to escape if that one breath did come out, and enough room to be able to engage in a ranged fight, and a source of temporary haste, then fighting the dragon would have been a good idea. That's a lot of ifs, but they're all things that you should be keeping in mind all the time anyway.