Golbin Raid/Guide

This page was last updated for (v0.22.1).

Created by RobDragon#7319.

RobDragon's Golbin Raid Guide (Partially Updated For 1.0)

TL;DR

• Spam restart for bolts and a strong weapon.
• Get damage reduction and lifesteal.
• Don't run out of food and runes or ammunition.
• Get Ocean Song or
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  Shockwave after wave 20.
• Manually eat to survive red bosses every 10th wave.

General Information

Setting Goals

• Rewards from Golbin Raid have no impact on Completion Log %.
• Limited purchase upgrades will cost 1,145,000 raid coins. This requires finishing wave 280 once, which can be possible in one run.
• Infinite raid coins through skipping to a point where you earn more coins than you spend is possible. This requires 50% Reduce Wave Skip Cost, 6,138,000 raid coins, and skipping past wave 495.

Broad Tactics

• By far the most important aspect of succeeding in Golbin Raid is getting one of the few top-tier weapon special attacks that have either guaranteed hits or scaling damage.
• The special attacks of the one handed t90 (tier/level 90 weapons from normal Melvor) weapons Ocean Song,
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  Shockwave, and Tidal Edge fit this description, along with limited other weapons such as Stormsnap.
• Damage reduction is crucial to avoiding deaths from worst case scenario luck. Players should aim to be unkillable through auto eat to normal golbins and unkillable from maximum health to boss golbins.
• The way the game scales player and golbin stats, avoiding all death is typically possible through being close to the maximum damage reduction available.
• Maintaining sufficient resources such as food, runes, and ammunition is also necessary. Resource use can be significantly reduced through lifesteal and special attack reliance.
• Lifesteal is incredibly effective at keeping players above the auto eat threshold with a top-tier special attack. Not guaranteed survival though. With the same lifesteal %, flat damage special attacks will heal a smaller percentage of overall health at higher waves.
• Bosses are the red golbins at the end of every 10th wave. Like normal golbins, they may have a special effect that modifies their stats, potentially buffing their maximum hit. In the later waves, a boss with a style that the player is weak to and a +maximum hit modifier could kill you in one hit.
• For difficult bosses, use your maximum damage spell, Surge II, and spam eat (be careful holding enter over clicking as you may automatically swap weapons after killing the boss). Possibly delay eating if still above the maximum hit threshold to maximise damage.
• Prayer is best used on difficult bosses. Around wave 240 the bosses become tough. Turn on Stone Skin (damage reduction prayer) before the boss. Have the dodge prayer on for the style you are weak to (Protect from Ranged for magic users), but be ready to swap before the first boss attack if it is a different style.
• Ensure you have ample resources before a difficult boss wave, as a dangerous boss can drain lots of food and runes. This is especially the case with some Guardian Amulet setups as some bosses can attack faster than you.
• As raids can be very long (much longer than the offline timer) it is assumed that most of the non-boss golbins will be idled. The more players are willing to monitor their health, the more efficiency can be gained through reward choices.
• If you do not manage to find a top-tier weapon for long enough that you can not maintain a decent amount of weapon rolls, it may be worth restarting the raid.

Gear Availability

• Wave 1-9: Gear that normally requires level 70 and under.
• Wave 10-19: Gear that normally requires level 84 and under.
• Wave 20+: All levels of gear available ( Wasteful Ring, Cape of Completion, Max Skillcape and Farming Skillcape not available).

Combat Triangle

• Survivability generally focuses on minimising worst case scenarios, therefore the main danger of death comes from strong golbins who counter the player's attack style.
• As maintaining near maximum damage reduction becomes essential to survive, the differences in the combat triangle multipliers significantly impacts weapon choices.
• Worst case damage reduction multipliers:
  • Melee: 0.75x vs Magic (0.5x in Hardcore/Adventure Mode)
  • Ranged: 0.95x vs Melee (0.75x in Hardcore/Adventure Mode)
  • Magic: 0.85x vs Ranged (0.75x in Hardcore/Adventure Mode)
• While ranged has the most favourable worst cast damage reduction multiplier, magic weapons have access to Weakening III which reduces enemy maximum hit by 15% (golbins do not have special attacks).
• Assuming the player's first attack is always before each golbin's first attack, and attacks are not delayed by eating enough for a golbin to attack between Weakening III applications, magic will almost always take less damage than ranged.
• At maximum damage reduction from gear of 65%, range (65% x 0.95 = 61%) would take 390 damage from a 1000 damage attack. Magic (65% x 0.85 = 55%) would first reduce a 1000 damage maximum hit to 850 and take 382 from the hit.
• Only with maximum damage reduction from gear and extra damage reduction from effects such as Stone Skin prayer does ranged take less maximum damage to magic, however in typical scenarios magic will take less damage, and magic's lead increases the lower damage reduction the player has.

Shop Upgrades (in rough order of importance)

• Reduce Wave Skip Cost is capped at 50. This is the most important upgrade to buy if you want to go infinite.
• Unlock Combat Passive Slot has the most potential benefit for combat, however it usually results in nothing due to the amount of useless items in the roll pool. Unique purchase.
• Unlocking Prayer is a unique purchase.
• Increase Prayer Level is capped at 99. Prayer can be used to kill late game boss golbins more reliably.
• Increase Prayer Points gained per Wave Completion is significantly more efficient to buy than Increase Starting Prayer Points. Non-unique purchases.
• Rune Pouch and Ammo Gatherer have % scaling and will remain useful to the late game. Could be useful for Prayer Scrolls and Wizard's Scrolls. Non-unique purchases.
• Food Bonus is a solid boost to early game food, but has little scaling. Non-unique purchase.
• Preston the Platypus helps get BiS armour faster after finding a top-tier weapon. Unique purchase.
• Jerry the Giraffe can reduce the restart spam due to removing reliance on luck in the first two waves. Unique purchase.
• Yellow Party Hat has no use in Golbin Raid. Non-unique purchase but you only need one.

Warnings

• Ensure you have the required runes to cast the selected standard/ancient magic spell before choosing a magic weapon, and the required ammunition type before choosing a ranged weapon, otherwise your weapon will be set to default ( Bronze Scimitar or Adamant Scimitar).
• Ensure you have spirit runes before choosing Ring of Spirit Power with magic, otherwise your weapon will be set to default. ALT items may get the same special attack and cause the same issue.
• Hardcore and Adventure mode combat triangle and health changes are present in Golbin Raid. This will impact strategy, mainly making melee significantly worse than it already is and making ranged lose its damage reduction benefit over magic.

Notes

• (ALT) items have a completely random special attack. You cannot see what the special attack will be, and the special attack does not change unless you pick a different weapon.
• Sandstorm Ring can no longer turn into an ALT item in Golbin Raid. The combat style crafting rings still can.
• Manually eating will reset your attack, and your following attack will not be a special attack.
• You can no longer eat during the channel of a channeled special attack without cancelling the attack.
• Prayer now works in Golbin Raid. As prayers can set specific dodge chances to 85%, this reduces the effectiveness of stacking evasion to the combat style weakness.
• You can not pause or save a raid.

Specific Wave Strategies

Waves 1/2

• The primary goal when starting a run is to get a weapon that is strong until wave 20 in one roll. Any weapon of dragon tier or above will suffice.
• While melee has the worst combat triangle, this is much less relevant early game, so the lack of reliance on resources makes it attractive.
• If the player wants the option to use crossbows post wave 20, it is recommended to use wave 1 to roll for any bolts, and settle for a potentially worse weapon on wave 2. The Adamant Scimitar from the shop works well to save a roll.

Waves 3-19

• The rolls from these waves should be used to gain adequate damage reduction, evasion, and resources to maximise weapon rolls after wave 20 until a top-tier weapon is found.
• Maintaining enough food to reach the next wave is top priority, however choosing food should be done at the latest possible safe time. For the initial Shrimp, this is usually one to two waves after beginning to eat.
• Food value can be approximately judged by multiplying quantity by healing amount, however high healing food has the potential to be wasted by overhealing in the early game, and low healing food can make it harder to manually eat for bosses.
• Manually eating right after the player attacks will restore health without the 20% healing reduction from Auto Eat - Tier II for minimal damage loss. This is most easily utilised in the early preparation stage.
• Getting a few pieces of damage reduction gear is important to prevent worst case scenario deaths for many waves to come.
• High evasion gear that does not significantly reduce damage output will reduce resource usage, resulting in more weapon rolls later, and can reduce the chance to be killed by any rare dangerous golbins.
• Some BiS (best in slot) gear can be found before wave 20, see below for BiS lists. BiS gear and some high tier damage focused items will be worth sacrificing small amounts of damage reduction for.
• Rolling for passive very often results in an item that does essentially nothing. Skipping passive at wave 10 for one more roll can lead to better preparation and a faster top-tier weapon, however BiS passive items are often never obtained due to low frequency of rolls available.

Wave 20+

• Find a top-tier special attack as quickly as possible, which typically means finding a top-tier weapon. Possibly skip passive rolls for now.
• ALT weapons make it possible to get special attacks on weapons they are not normally on, which allows special attacks to be used on weapons of different combat styles and speeds. However, this becomes riskier the longer the raid as the detriment of getting a weak weapon increases with wave count.
• The ideal ALT weapon would be the fastest available speed to maximise special attack frequency, one handed to utilise offhand gear, and magic for the combat triangle style and access to curses and auroras.
• If a scaling rather than flat damage special is obtained on a magic weapon, rune usage may increase as spell damage may become a much bigger factor in overall damage.

Special Attacks

Top-tier special attacks include (roughly in order):

• • Ocean Song: 35% chance, guaranteed hit, high damage, enemy attack slow, enemy evasion reduction. Best special attack for (very approximately) ~250-300 waves.
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    Shockwave: 15% chance, guaranteed hit, high scaling damage, 1 turn stun, enemy evasion reduction. Will overtake Ocean Song on damage at (very approximately) ~250-300 waves.
  • Stormsnap: 15% chance, guaranteed hit, high scaling damage. Will overtake Ocean Song on damage at (very approximately) ~250-300 waves.
  • Tidal Edge (Tidal Wave): 25% chance, guaranteed hit, high damage, enemy attack slow, enemy evasion reduction. Slightly worse version of Ocean Song.

Decent special attacks include (roughly in order):

• • Cloudburst Staff (Magic Ray): 100% chance, not guaranteed hit, high scaling damage, enemy attack slow, channeled (can eat during). Very useful if found early to rush to a top-tier special attack.
  • Ragnar Godsword (Infernum): 15% chance, guaranteed hit, scaling damage. Possibly a good stepping stone special attack.
  • Terran Godsword (Crushing Blow): 15% chance, guaranteed hit, scaling damage. Possibly a good stepping stone special attack.

~Wave 50+

• After choosing a top-tier magic weapon, quickly roll runes to unlock light>havoc>body>ancient to take advantage of more runes when needing to roll +all.
• For standard magic, use fire spells to do more damage and balance rune usage. Start with Fire Strike, and transition to Fire Surge when you can sustain the rune rolls without sacrificing searching for BiS armour.
• Optionally, unlock blood, death, or chaos runes if you feel your rune usage is balanced somewhere between strike and surge spells.
• Incinerate has guaranteed hits and scaling current health damage, which gives magic without a scaling special attack the potential to transition to scaling damage. * * This point would likely be much later than
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  Shockwave overtakes Ocean Song on damage though.
• Also, remember that special attacks will not activate and curses can not be used with Ancient Magicks. Depending on your progression, rune balance, and amount of active vs idle play, use Weakening III and alternate between Fervor II and Surge II.

• After choosing a top-tier ranged weapon, try to upgrade bolt tier when rolling for ammo, but it is not as high priority as beginning to gather BiS armour.

• At this point rolling for passive is always recommended. Due to the insanely low chance to get a top-tier passive, it may be best to settle on whichever you get first.

Passive Slot

Top-tier passive slot effects include (roughly in order):

• • Elder Crown: 10% global lifesteal, -0.05s attack interval. Realistically the overall best. Only source of very valuable lifesteal if playing ranged. Don't have to sacrifice a damage reduction helmet.
  • Warlock Amulet: 10% magic lifesteal. Close second if playing magic and not swapping.
  • Guardian Amulet: 5% damage reduction, +10% attack interval, both doubled under 50% hitpoints. Only way to reach maximum damage reduction, allowing a FeZ ( Fury of the Elemental Zodiacs) in the amulet slot. Safe option if you already have lifesteal, but will cause long raids to take even longer.

Decent passive slot effects include (roughly in order):

• • Deadeye Amulet: 25% chance for 150% ranged damage. Big ranged damage, however probably more suited to the amulet slot for ranged.
  • Sand Treaders: -0.05s attack interval. Good synergy with strong special attacks.
  • Silver Sapphire Necklace. Small amount of valuable lifesteal.
  • Recoil Shield: 25% damage reflect. Small damage increase.
  • Dragonfire Shield: 30 maximum hitpoints. Minor survivability increase.
  • Priest Hat: -1 prayer point cost. Better than nothing, although prayer points do not scale well enough for proper use outside of bosses.

~Wave 60+

• Now most rolls will be for armour.

BiS Magic Armour

• With lifesteal, which Magic will usually have at least 10% of, the stat priority should be (approximately) damage reduction>accuracy>damage>evasion to combat style weakness>overall evasion.
• This results in full Glacia God Armor coming out on top, primarily due to the kill speed increase. Terran God Armour and Aeris God Armor pieces have significantly higher ranged/overall defence, at the cost of varying damage losses.
• Burning Madness Gloves, Spiked Shell Gloves, Poison Virulence Gloves, and Relentless Fury Gloves are direct upgrades over the god armour items they upgrade, however the order stays the same.
  • Helmet: Glacia God Helmet > Terran God Helmet > Aeris God Helmet > (G) Ancient Helmet > Ragnar God Helmet.
  • Chest: Glacia God Platebody > Terran God Platebody > Aeris God Platebody > (G) Ancient Platebody > Ragnar God Platebody.
  • Legs: Glacia God Platelegs > Aeris God Platelegs > Terran God Platelegs > (G) Ancient Platelegs > Ragnar God Platelegs.
  • Gloves: Glacia God Gloves > Terran God Gloves > Aeris God Gloves > Ragnar God Gloves.
  • Boots: Glacia God Boots > Terran God Boots > Aeris God Boots > Ragnar God Boots.

BiS Ranged Armour

• The damage of the best ranged weapon, Shockwave, scales with maximum hit. Therefore all of its damage and lifesteal scales with ranged strength, and the normal damage with ranged accuracy. However, ranged has no lifesteal without Elder Crown.
• This results in full Aeris God Armor coming out on top with Elder Crown passive, although without lifesteal stacking melee/overall defence by instead using Terran God Helmet, Platebody, Platelegs, and Boots could be viable. Elder Crown helmet with Aeris God Armour may work with high damage reduction.
• Poison Virulence Gloves, Burning Madness Gloves, Spiked Shell Gloves, and Relentless Fury Gloves are direct upgrades over the god armour items they upgrade, however the order stays the same.
  • Helmet: Aeris God Helmet > Elder Crown > Terran God Helmet > Glacia God Helmet > (G) Ancient Helmet > Ragnar God Helmet.
  • Chest: Aeris God Platebody > Terran God Platebody > Glacia God Platebody > Ragnar God Platebody > (G) Ancient Platebody.
  • Legs: Aeris God Platelegs > Terran God Platelegs > Glacia God Platelegs > (G) Ancient Platelegs > Ragnar God Platelegs.
  • Gloves: Aeris God Gloves > Glacia God Gloves > Terran God Gloves > Ragnar God Gloves.
  • Boots: Aeris God Boots > Terran God Boots > Glacia God Boots > Ragnar God Boots.

BiS Offhands

• Non-god armour gear slots will have very similar BiS items for each combat style.
• The Offhand slot contains shields which provide so much damage reduction with a one handed weapon that it is difficult to find value in offensive items.
  • Magic Offhand: ELS ( Earth Layered Shield) > Shield of Magic Power > Shield of Ranged Power > Shield of Melee Power > Dragonfire Shield > Scaled Shield > (G) Ancient Shield > Recoil Shield. Book of Eli is viable for certain lifesteal/boss skipping strategies seen below.
  • Ranged Offhand: ELS ( Earth Layered Shield) > Shield of Ranged Power > Shield of Magic Power > Shield of Melee Power > Dragonfire Shield > Scaled Shield > (G) Ancient Shield> (U) Ancient D-hide Shield.

BiS Rings

• Damage rings may be BiS for certain lifesteal/boss skipping strategies seen below.
  • Magic Ring: Guardian Ring > Silver Diamond Ring > Warlock Ring
  • Ranged Ring: Guardian Ring > Silver Diamond Ring > Deadeye Ring

BiS Amulets

• Lots of choice for amulets. BiS really depends on playstyle, current gear, and goals. Guardian Amulet will give the best chance at surviving late game bosses, but whether slowly pushing deep is worth it is debatable. Deadeye Amulet scales Shockwave damage, its main strength.
• Getting an initial 10% lifesteal is extremely efficient. Mage has lifesteal through auroras, and can utilise Guardian Amulet more easily. For ranged it has to be done through passive/helmet, therefore it limits other choices.
  • Magic Amulet: Warlock Amulet (lifesteal/boss skipping) > Guardian Amulet > Fury of the Elemental Zodiacs > Elite Amulet of Magic > Elite Amulet of Defence > Silver Sapphire Necklace > Elite Amulet of Ranged > Christmas Wreath > Amulet of Fury.
  • Ranged Amulet: Deadeye Amulet (with lifesteal) > Guardian Amulet > Fury of the Elemental Zodiacs > Elite Amulet of Defence > Elite Amulet of Magic > Silver Sapphire Necklace > Elite Amulet of Ranged > Christmas Wreath > Amulet of Fury.

BiS Capes

• Skull Cape gives 20% rune preservation.
  • Magic Cape: Infernal Cape > Skull Cape > Fire Cape > Knight's Cape > Obsidian Cape > Defence Skillcape > Magic Skillcape. Depending on damage reduction and strategy, Skull Cape could be more efficient.
  • Ranged Cape: Infernal Cape > Skull Cape > Fire Cape > Knight's Cape > Cape of Prat > Obsidian Cape > Defence Skillcape > Ranged Skillcape > Cape of Ranged Preservation. Depending on damage reduction and strategy, Skull Cape could be avoided.

BiS Ammunition

• Ammunition depends on combat style and weapon type.
  • Ranged Bolts: Jadestone Bolts > Diamond Bolts > Emerald Bolts > Ruby Bolts > Sapphire Bolts > Topaz Bolts.
  • Ranged Arrows: Ancient Arrows > Dragon Arrows > Rune Arrows > Ice Arrows > Adamant Arrows > Mithril Arrows > Steel Arrows > Iron Arrows > Bronze Arrows.
  • Mage Ammunition: Prayer Scroll = Wizard's Scroll. Highly dependent on shop upgrades whether these would be worth rolling for over runes, or at all.

Meta

• The meta playstyle is for completing everything completable in Golbin Raid. This includes unlocking all the unique shop purchases and going infinite for unlimited raid coins through skipping.
• Magic with
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  Shockwave special attack likely has the ability to go the furthest without skipping, through scaling damage and increased efficiency. However, this is probably not the most efficient way to go infinite.
• A singular, ultra deep ranged run is likely to die to bad luck eventually without boss skip preparation. Multiple fast magic raids probably have the most coin value per time spent.
• High damage, high lifesteal builds that sacrifice small amounts of damage reduction, and definitely Guardian Amulet, for efficiency are meta if the player has a small stockpile of raid coins to skip boss waves late game (around wave 240).
• Focus on the guide's recommendations, learn the game, unlock some initial upgrades, and keep a few coins.
• If you can reach around wave 280 the first time you see an Ocean Song, you can buy out the unique purchases and will likely have some coins left over from other runs.
• Use your upgrades, coin stockpile, and experience to push three runs to around wave 360, possibly skipping to 495 on your last run, and you will then have enough to skip all the way from wave 0 back to wave 495 and then beyond.

Resources

• Magic/Ranged BiS List Screenshot
  • See Image
    

    Golbin Raid BiS
• Wave Skip Spreadsheet
  • Google Drive link
  • Discord link

Old Guides

First Discord Guide: https://discord.com/channels/625838709203271680/744752345233227776/818393165777207296

Second Discord Guide: https://discord.com/channels/625838709203271680/744752345233227776/906227966386794556

Melvor Idle version v1.3.1 (Released: 30th October 2024)
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