Volcanic Cave/Guide

This page was last updated for (v1.0).

The guide is written with the goal of idling the dungeon. If you want to do it manually, the requirements are much more relaxed, although the more DR you have, the easier it is to do anyway.

Why clear Volcanic Cave?

On each clear, you get the Fire Cape that gives 2% DR.

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Volcanic Cave

is the place where you gear up in preparation for the

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Air God Dungeon

. According to the simulation, it takes 820 clears to get the full ancient set with 75% probability and 1350 clears to get it with 95% probability.

It is also a place to farm 10 Amulets of Fury for FEZ. Check the FEZ/Guide to see if it's the best option for you.

After you clear it 100 times, you will unlock Ancient Magicks -

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Slicing Winds

,

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Icicle Volley

, and

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Ignite

- check with the Combat Simulator which of the three is the best for a situation. Ancient Magicks is not affected by damage amplification in any way except the Combat Triangle. No curses, no debuffs, no gear buffs. However, it is much stronger than the basic magic at this stage. For instance, when basic magic could clear

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Volcanic Cave

8 times per hour, Ancient Magicks could do it 22 times.

Gear to idle

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Volcanic Cave

contains only

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Melee

monsters. Therefore, clearing it with pre-Volcanic

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Ranged

setups is unfeasible due to the Combat Triangle penalties. It is assumed that you have

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Auto Eat - Tier III

.

Melee

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Volcanic Cave

is usually done with

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Melee

because the dragon armor set requires only

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Level 99

to produce. It then can be trimmed to provide 30% DR. Below is the melee loadout that requires

810

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Hitpoints

to idle the dungeon on any game mode. However, pay attention that even slightly less DR or HP will mean death for this loadout because it hangs 2 HP away from the max hit of Malcs.

Item	Slot	DR
(G) Dragon Helmet	Head	6%
(G) Dragon Platebody	Body	6%
(G) Dragon Platelegs	Leggings	6%
(G) Dragon Boots	Boots	6%
Paladin Gloves	Hands	4%
Knight's Cape	Cape	1%
Elite Amulet of Defence	Neck	2%
Silver Diamond Ring	Ring	1%
Any Error creating thumbnail: File missing Melee	Weapon	0%
(G) Dragon Shield	Off-hand	6%
Total		38%

Magic

The other possible option is

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Magic

. Please note that to idle the dungeon with the build below, you should have

800

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Hitpoints

and

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Weakening III

active.

Item	Slot	DR
Fire Expert Wizard Hat	Head	5%
Fire Expert Wizard Robes	Body	5%
Fire Expert Wizard Bottoms	Leggings	5%
Fire Expert Wizard Boots	Boots	5%
(U) Ancient D-hide Vambraces	Hands	6%
Skull Cape	Cape	3%
Elite Amulet of Defence	Neck	2%
Silver Diamond Ring	Ring	1%
Any Error creating thumbnail: File missing Magic	Weapon	0%
Miolite Shield	Off-hand	2%
Total		34%

Weapon choice

The information in the table below was produced by using the Combat Simulator and the respective builds above.

The clears per hour are counted for a Hardcore character with level 70 in everything except level 81

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HP

. The

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Weakening III

is active with Magic. No other buffs.

The adjusted clear time is calculated with the notation and assumptions from the Dragons Den/Guide, but Whales are used as food instead of Crabs. The Rune-related part of Magic is approximated as [math]\displaystyle{ T_m + T_r = N * (9.75 + 1.72) / 16 * 1.3 + N * (9.75 + 1.72) * 2 / 16 = 37.851 * N / 16 }[/math] where [math]\displaystyle{ N }[/math] is the number of Ancient runes spent.

Item	Clears per hour	Time to get (95% confidence)	Adjusted clear time (s)
Dragon Sword	6.39	instant
Ancient Sword	7.04	medium
Dragon Claw	7.07	medium
Sunset Rapier	8.505	medium	1892
Ancient Claw	9.23	long	1717
Magic Wand (Powerful)	9.28	fast	2042

As you see, the Wand's clear time is slower than even the Rapier's when requiring much more input in preparation. Therefore, the Magic build is not recommended.

Gear options

Gloves

Item	DR	Requirements
Paladin Gloves	4%	none
(U) Red D-hide Vambraces	4%	Error creating thumbnail: File missing Level 60
(U) Black D-hide Vambraces	5%	Error creating thumbnail: File missing Level 70
(U) Ancient D-hide Vambraces	6%	Error creating thumbnail: File missing Level 80

Even though you might want the best option for you, think if you really want to farm

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Dragons Den

for it, which can be both time- and food-expensive. The Red and Black Vambraces can be either crafted with

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Crafting

or dropped from

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Spider Forest

. Or you might just farm some Paladins.

Cape

Item	Upside	Downside
Knight's Cape	1% DR	Error creating thumbnail: File missing Level 88 unique drop
Skull Cape	3% DR	Screws up Error creating thumbnail: File missing Melee accuracy
Firemaking Skillcape	XP boost	Error creating thumbnail: File missing Level 99, no DR increase
Obsidian Cape	Spend less food	Rare drop, no DR increase
Fire Cape	2% DR	You need to clear Error creating thumbnail: File missing Volcanic Cave once

Boots

The choice of boots is small because we don't want to drop in DR too much.

Item	DR%	Requirements
(G) Dragon Boots	6%	Error creating thumbnail: File missing Level 60
(G) Rune Boots	5%	Error creating thumbnail: File missing Level 40

Ring

Item	Benefit
Silver Diamond Ring	1% DR
Aorpheat's Signet Ring	5% chance to double Elite Chest and 100% more money
Ring of Wealth	7% chance to double Elite Chest
Gold Sapphire Ring	30 reflect to clear the dungeon a bit faster