Combat Guide

From Melvor Idle
This page was last updated for (v1.0.3).

Introduction

This guide is written for characters playing the Standard game mode. If playing

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Hardcore

or Adventure modes, preparation for certain events is different, especially for the

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Fire God Dungeon

. The guide starts with an overview on how combat works, the stats, and what items affect them. After that, it describes in detail the leveling before the first challenging dungeon of the game, the

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Volcanic Cave

. It goes over the god dungeons and concludes with the guidance for endgame content.

There are several non-combat skills that improve various parts of the combat experience:

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    Agility
    - Many of the obstacles provide combat bonuses.
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    Herblore
    - Diamond Luck Potions are among the highest DPS boosts in the game.
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    Thieving
    - There are a multitude of useful item drops from several NPCs, including Chapeau Noir, Knight's Defender, and others.
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    Astrology
    - "Hidden levels" provide accuracy bonuses, as well as other easy to acquire boosts.
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    Summoning
    - Tablets provide boosts to combat effectiveness and do damage. The
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    Dragon
    burn effect is great against hard-to-hit enemies.

Other skills helpful for smooth progression include:

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    Fletching
    for
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    Ranged
    arrows.
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    Smithing
    for
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    Melee
    armor and weapons.
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    Crafting
    for jewelry and
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    Ranged
    armor.
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    Level 99
    for the Firemaking Skillcape
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    Fishing
    /
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    Farming
    /
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    Cooking
    for healing.

Melvor Idle in general is not competitive, so it is recommended to set a goal and work towards it. Things like Fury of the Elemental Zodiacs are highly satisfying to finish. Clearing God Dungeons also greatly assists the core game skills, so

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Master of Nature

may be a goal.

Gear Stats

All gear has certain stats that link it to one of the three combat styles:

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Melee

,

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Ranged

, or

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Magic

. Gear that is more difficult to obtain is usually better. Closer to endgame, the choices become more situational. For stat breakdowns and math, use the Combat Simulator or read the

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Combat

page.

Shared Stats

Attack Speed

Attack Speed, or AS, is determined mainly by the attack speed on weapons. It is given as seconds per attack, so lower is better. Some things that affect attack speed are:

Damage Reduction

Damage Reduction, or DR, is an extremely powerful stat. Damage Reduction,

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Hitpoints

, and

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Auto Eat

tier are all taken into account when considering how much damage the player can take. Damage Reduction can be found on:

  • - All gold-trimmed armor pieces
  • - All Ancient tier gear, trimmed to max
  • - All god dungeon gear
  • Silver Diamond Ring - Can be obtained through
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    Crafting
    ,
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    Combat
    , or
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    Thieving
  • Damage Reduction Potions
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    Leonardo
    -
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    Defence
    Pet
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    Erran
    -
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    Earth God Dungeon
    Pet
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    Agility
    Obstacles
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    Safeguard
    /
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    Stone Skin
    -
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    Prayer
  • Absorbing Shield - Gain DR at the cost of Evasion

For the end game, there are some

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Prayers

and items that drop from

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Impending Darkness

that affect enemies' DR:

Auto Eat

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Auto Eat

is an upgrade that automatically eats equipped food after a certain health threshold. Upgrading this as quickly as possible is critical. Auto Eat Tier, along with

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Hitpoints

and Damage Reduction controls the vast majority of accessible content. Dungeons can be done earlier with

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Auto Eat - Tier III

. With

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Auto Eat

, the type of food does not matter as long as one does not run out of it. The difference between Potatoes or Whale (Perfect) is negligible. The main difference is the time spent

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Cooking

or

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Farming

instead of fighting monsters.

Auto Eat Threshold

Auto Eat Threshold reduces the effective HP necessary to trigger Auto Eat, lowering the necessary HP/DR required. Currently, only one item affects the Auto Eat threshold:

Auto Eat Efficiency

Auto Eat Efficiency increases the amount of HP healed per piece of food eaten. This can be found on:

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    Cooking
    item mastery
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    Astrology
    constellation modifiers
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    Agility
    Obstacles
  • Famished Potions

Slayer Area Effect Negation

Slayer Area Effect Negation reduces the effect of Slayer Area debuffs when fighting in one of these areas. These can range from annoying (

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Forest of Goo

,

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Arid Plains

) to downright progress blocking (

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Dark Waters

,

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Unhallowed Wasteland

). This stat can be found on:

Armor/Evasion Rating

These are included on all pieces of armor, and are heavily connected to the Combat Triangle. The higher the number, the better. It helps to kill enemies faster only if they can stun, slow, or sleep, as the player will evade their disabling attacks more often.

Class-related Stats

Melee Stats

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Melee

gear focuses on 4 stats:

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    Strength
    bonus: One of the factors that determines max hit
  • Stab/Slash/Block bonus: Determines the accuracy (chance to hit) of that particular attack style. Every weapon favors one of the styles, and using the correct one will boost your effective DPS.

Magic Stats

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Magic

armor and weapons focus on 2 stats:

  • Magic Damage Bonus: Determines your max hit
  • Magic Attack bonus: Determines your accuracy

Additionally,

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Magic

also benefits from Rune Preservation Chance and Rune Cost Reduction. These can be found on:

Ranged Stats

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Ranged

armor and weapons focus on 2 stats:

  • Ranged strength bonus: Determines your max hit
  • Ranged attack bonus: Determines your accuracy

Additionally,

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Ranged

gear also benefits from Ammo Preservation. This can be found on:

Special Attacks and Loot Passives

Beyond stats, many pieces of equipment have Special Attacks or passive effects.

Special Attacks have a percentage chance of triggering when in combat and will replace your standard attack. A list of equipment and spells with special attacks can be viewed on the Special Attacks page.

Loot Passive effects are bonuses that are always in play. These will increase your GP/hr as well as provide more loot to speed up many of the long grinds in the game. Item doubling is the most critical. These can be found on:

GP increases can be found on:

External Tooling

Two popular external tools are the Combat Simulator and Can I Idle.

Combat Simulator is a browser extension maintained by TinyCoyote that allows you to estimate many attributes of combat, such as death rate, XP/hr, drops/hr, DPS, and so on. With Combat Simulator, it is trivial to check if your setup is going to work or not. It uses the same webworker as the game itself, so it's quite accurate.

Can I Idle is a site built and maintained by Silber. You enter some of the stats found on the combat page and see which enemies you can or can't idle. It's a very useful tool throughout the game.

Slayer

If you play actively, you can start with

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Slayer

early. If you want to progress in it, unlocking

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Auto Slayer

should be your first goal. You will also level your combat skills along the way. If you idle, it is okay to leave

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Slayer

until you need the bonuses from its gear or drops from its monsters.

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Slayer

picks up closer to the time of

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Volcanic Cave

, and you will be able to catch up quickly with all the gear that you have at that point.

It takes 15 Normal Slayer tasks to buy the Basic Slayer gear. The Slayer Gear Upgrade Kit (Strong) / Slayer Gear Upgrade Kit (Elite) / Slayer Gear Upgrade Kit (Master) take 25 Hard Tasks / 30 Elite Tasks / 40 Master Tasks respectively.

Slayer Areas sometimes require items that must be purchased using slayer coins from the Shop. One note, the monsters locked in slayer areas will not be rolled in slayer tasks until the item is purchased from the shop. You can leverage this to control the task rolls.

Early Game (Pre-Volcanic Cave)

Before

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Volcanic Cave

, the game is primarily about leveling up your core combat stats, getting a feel for the combat systems, and acquiring items for non-combat skills.

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Volcanic Cave

is the first real challenge the game presents to you, and preparing for it will likely take a couple of weeks of grinding for standard accounts. This may be faster nowadays, but it took me about a month from setting my mind to the grind and completing it.

All three combat styles are connected. It is impossible to use only one style throughout the game if you wish to complete all content. Most people start with melee because it is the easiest style in terms of gear.

It is highly recommend to level all styles to not be in the position where you finished

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Volcanic Cave

and then have to level your

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Ranged

from level 1 for 2 weeks.

Leveling Guidelines

The leveling guidelines below assume that your character is using an appropriate Auto Eat level and won't run out of food. Auto Eat tiers are listed out when buying the next tier would allow you to clear a dungeon you otherwise couldn't.

The assumed gear is at absolute bare minimum: full armor of the selected tier, base scimitar and shield, no cape, amulet, rings, prayers, potions, astrology stars, or agility obstacles. With all unaccounted bonuses, you often can go higher than what is given in the guide.

All assumed skill levels are equal to the ones required by the set of gear.

Each combat style has a subsection that lists out all of the best XP/hr monsters and idleable dungeons at this gear breakpoint.

The monster levels are listed where possible. It should roughly guide you on what item to work towards next.

For choosing a proper mob to farm, it is recommended to follow a priority rule:

  1. Mob that drops what you want,
  2. Slayer Tasks,
  3. Highest Combat XP/hr.

Hitting Frozen Archers for 2 weeks is a really boring way to play the game.

And finally, using Combat Simulator and Can I Idle should be your guide over anything printed here. This guide accepts no responsibility for your untimely demise.

Gear Goals

An early goal for most players is the Amulet of Looting, found in the

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Spider Forest

, which will make combat a fully automated activity. Beyond that, it's mainly a matter of learning how combat works and leveling up your skills. Please note that the following items are not mandatory, but they help in progression:

Melee

Leveling

For melee, your goal is to wear and wield the highest level gear available to you. I have replicated the tables here, abbreviated for the point where you're going to need to start clearing the higher-level dungeons.


Level Requirement
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Attack
Material
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Defence
Material
Best XP Monster Newly Idleable Dungeons
1 Bronze Bronze Cow -
Iron Iron Cow -
(Using Iron) Slayer (Basic) Cow -
5 Steel Steel Skeleton -
10 Black Black Frozen Archer (Skip Black Armor, it's hard to gear for)
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Chicken Coop
(Requires
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Auto Eat - Tier II
)
20 Mithril Mithril Frozen Archer -
30 Adamant Adamant Frozen Archer
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Undead Graveyard
(Using Adamant) Slayer (Strong) Frozen Archer -
40 Ice Ice Frozen Archer
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Spider Forest
/
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Frozen Cove
/
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Bandit Base
Rune Rune Frozen Archer
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Miolite Caves
(Requires
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Auto Eat - Tier III
)
(Using Rune) Miolite Frozen Archer -
50 Desert Sabre (Using Rune) Bandit
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Deep Sea Ship
/
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Hall of Wizards
Miolite Sceptre (Using
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Surge II
&
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Anguish II
)
(Using Rune) Bandit -
60 Dragon Dragon Bandit -
Slayer (Elite) Vampire -

Gear Goals

Before Volcanic, you can grind the

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Castle of Kings

area to find most of your upgrades to supplant any gear not gained from

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smithing

. You can also get some very good melee weapons in pre-Volcanic Cave areas. Drops to look for:

Ranged

Same as Melee, you should be doing the highest XP/hr monster with the highest possible gear. Due to the slower attack speed and the relative difficulty of

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Fletching

large amounts of bolts, you shouldn't use crossbows until you have the Dragon Crossbow or better. For bolts, anything worse than Emerald Bolts is sellable. Save the Diamonds for Diamond Luck IV Potions.

Leveling

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Ranged
Level
Bows Arrows Armor Best XP Monster Idleable Dungeons
1 Normal Shortbow / Normal Longbow Bronze Arrows Leather Cow -
Iron Arrows Slayer Cowl (Basic)/ Slayer Leather Body (Basic) Cow -
Ice Arrows (Using Leather) Cow -
5 Oak Shortbow / Oak Longbow Steel Arrows (Using Leather) Ranged Golbin -
10 (Using Oak Shortbow) (Using Steel Arrows) Hard Leather Tentacle
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Chicken Coop
(Requires
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Auto Eat - Tier II
)
20 Willow Shortbow / Willow Longbow Mithril Arrows (Using Hard Leather) Frozen Archer -
30 Maple Shortbow / Maple Longbow Adamant Arrows Slayer Cowl (Strong) / Slayer Leather Body (Strong) Wizard / Bandit
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Undead Graveyard
40 Yew Shortbow / Yew Longbow Rune Arrows Green D-hide / Ranger Hat/ Ranger Boots Bandit
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Spider Forest
Ice Shortbow Ice Master Wizard
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Bandit Base
/
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Hall of Wizards
/
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Frozen Cove
/
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Deep Sea Ship
/
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Miolite Caves
(Requires
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Auto Eat - Tier III
)
50 Magic Shortbow / Magic Longbow (Using Rune) Blue D-hide + Ranger gear Master Wizard -
Desert Shortbow / Elerine Longbow (Using Rune) (Using Blue D-hide) Master Wizard -
60 Redwood Shortbow / Redwood Longbow Dragon Arrows Red D-hide Master Wizard -
Poisoned Shortbow (Using Dragon) Slayer Cowl (Elite) / Slayer Leather Body (Elite) Master Wizard -

Gear Goals

Magic

Your progression commonly is:

  1. Leveling up through
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    Alt. Magic
    until you can use
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    Fire Surge
    . Depending on how much you want to minmax, you can start using the battle magic earlier.
  2. Getting the Ancient set and the Book of Eli.
  3. Unlocking Ancient Magicks by clearing the
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    Volcanic Cave
    100 times.
  4. Getting the Cloudburst Staff - the strongest Magic-DPS weapon in the game.

Leveling

- See Magic/Training

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Magic
Level
Weapon Spell Best XP Monster Idleable Dungeons
1 Base Staves
Magic Wand (Basic)
30 Battlestaves
Magic Wand (Powerful)
40 Mystic Staves
60 Magic Wand (Elite)

Gear Goals

Volcanic Cave

Your first target after reaching

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Level 99

is the

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Volcanic Cave

.

To prevent issues with duplicating content, all information about it was put into a dedicated page.

- See Volcanic Cave/Guide

Infernal Stronghold

Congratulations on beating the

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Volcanic Cave

!

You now have the Fire Cape that provides 2% DR and slightly improves your defences.

Next, you need to clear the

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Infernal Stronghold

once to get the Infernal Cape - the best combat cape at this stage of the game.

Use the build for manual eating from the linked guide to clear the dungeon.

- See Infernal Stronghold/Guide

Mid Game (God Dungeons)

While somewhat intimidating, all four god dungeons are handled in the same way - the next one is beaten with the gear from the previous one.

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    Air
    by Ancient gear from
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    Volcanic
    ,
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    Water
    by Aeris gear from
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    Air
    ,
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    Earth
    by Glacia gear from
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    Water
    ,
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    Fire
    by preferably Aeris gear or by Glacia, but that requires much more DR.

Some additional useful drops for the midgame are the following, found in Elite-tier slayer areas:

None of the above are needed, but definitely worth obtaining here. You should also be nearing max combat as you progress through the dungeons.

To unlock the ancient spells, you will need to run each of the God Dungeons 100 times. Each dungeon also provides extremely useful drops, some of which are Best-in-Slot (BiS).

Additionally, completing the God Dungeons unlocks the skill upgrades:

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Perpetual Haste

,

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Expanded Knowledge

,

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Master of Nature

, and

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Art of Control

. These reduce the related skill intervals by 15%, which makes them excellent for anyone going for mastery. It might take around a month to complete all God Dungeons in preparation for

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Into the Mist

.

Air God Dungeon

Item Slot DR%
(G) Ancient Helmet Head 7%
(G) Ancient Platebody Body 7%
(G) Ancient Platelegs Leggings 7%
(G) Dragon Boots Boots 6%
(U) Ancient D-hide Vambraces Hands 6%
Infernal Cape Cape 4%
Elite Amulet of Defence Neck 2%
Sandstorm Ring Ring 0%
Dragonfire Shield Off-hand 8%
Total 46%

The order of actions to get this build is the following:

  1. For the vambraces, check the Dragons Den/Guide.
  2. DPS-wise, get at least Sunset Rapier. Check the Deep Sea Ship/Guide for that.
  3. Get the Sandstorm Ring. It's an immense DPS boost for Melee builds.
  4. For the amulet, check the FEZ/Guide. Ideally, compare your options with the Combat Simulator because Bounty Hunter has large DPS. Your food expenditure might be not worth it.
  5. Clear
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    Volcanic Cave
    100 times.
  6. Now might be the time to farm Pegasi for the Ancient Claw. You need 20k accuracy on
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    Slicing Winds
    . For instance, by getting the set, , , , and
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    Level 91
    . The Ancient Claw/Guide explains why farming it now may be the best option.
  7. Get the Dragonfire Shield - its DR and HP buff will be useful throughout the whole game. To get dem bonez, give a Green Dragon some
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    Icicle Volleys
    treatment because it has the best DPS at the moment. Or you can use
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    Slicing Winds
    if you don't want to bother with water runes.
  8. Collect a full Ancient set from the
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    Volcanic Cave
    .
  9. Ideally, manually farm
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    Infernal Stronghold
    for 10 Infernal Cores to get an Infernal Claw. There's a guide about it: Infernal Stronghold/Guide.
  10. Whack the hell out of the
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    Air God Dungeon
    .


For the gear options and notable drops, see Air God Dungeon/Guide.

Water God Dungeon

Link to guide: Water God Dungeon/Guide

Item Slot DR%
Aeris God Helmet Head 8%
Aeris God Platebody Body 8%
Aeris God Platelegs Leggings 8%
Aeris God Boots Boots 8%
Aeris God Gloves Hands 8%
Subtotal 40%
Infernal Cape Cape 4%
Fury of the Elemental Zodiacs Neck 3%
Silver Diamond Ring Ring 1%
Dragonfire Shield Off-hand 8%
Total 56%

At this point, you should have a full set of Aeris God Gear. For your weapon, you should be using

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Ancient Crossbow

, or Slayer's Crossbow/ Dragon Crossbow if you don't have one. Dragonfire Shield as well makes this a breeze so you can use Aorpheat's Signet Ring in the ring slot.

Emerald Bolts are probably your best bet. Jadestone Bolts work too if you have those.

This dungeon is a breeze if you have the above gear. Notable drops:

After completing this dungeon, you should absolutely complete the Infernal Claw grind if you have not already. This weapon is necessary for

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Into the Mist

, and is one of the highest DPS weapons in the game, whilst also allowing you to wield Dragonfire Shield. Full Glacia +

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Gust

should kill Griffin / Pegasus quite easily if you hit the accuracy breakpoint.

Minimal Clearing Combat Sim
Not Done
Pre-ITM Farming
Not Done
Post-ITM Farming
Not Done

Earth God Dungeon

Link to guide: Earth God Dungeon/Guide

Item Slot DR%
Glacia God Helmet Head 8%
Glacia God Platebody Body 8%
Glacia God Platelegs Leggings 8%
Glacia God Boots Boots 8%
Glacia God Gloves Hands 8%
Subtotal 40%
Skull Cape Cape 3%
Fury of the Elemental Zodiacs Neck 3%
Aorpheat's Signet Ring Ring 0%
Dragonfire Shield Off-hand 8%
Total 54%

Same ordeal as the

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Water God Dungeon

. Equip the previous set of armor, then get to work. By now, you should likely have Skull Cape, one of the BiS capes for magic. Air Imbued Wand is highly recommended so you can use

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Gust

for cheap along with the Dragonfire Shield.

Again, this dungeon is easy. Notable Drops:

Minimal Clearing Combat Sim
Not Done
Pre-ITM Farming
Not Done
Post-ITM Farming
Not Done


Fire God Dungeon

Link to Guide: Fire God Dungeon/Guide

Item Slot DR%
Aeris God Helmet Head 8%
Aeris God Platebody Body 8%
Aeris God Platelegs Leggings 8%
Aeris God Boots Boots 8%
Aeris God Gloves Hands 8%
Subtotal 40%
Infernal Cape Cape 4%
Fury of the Elemental Zodiacs Neck 3%
Aorpheat's Signet Ring Ring 0%
Dragonfire Shield Off-hand 8%
Total 55%

This dungeon is a bit harder than the previous, as it mixes both melee and magic enemies. For that reason, use the Aeris god set. Gear setup is similar to the

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Water God Dungeon

, but focuses primarily on DR breakpoints. Consider using the

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Stone Skin

prayer or Damage Reduction Potion IV's. Getting enough DR without using prayer or potions will severely hamper your clear times, as you won't be equipping the proper DPS gear.

Highly recommend using combat sim to ensure you aren't killed by Ragnar or Ignis. This dungeon probably has the most variety in setups out of any of the dungeons, just ensure that you aren't in danger of dying.

Notable drops:

Minimal Clearing Combat Sim
Not Done
Pre-ITM Farming
Not Done
Post-ITM Farming
Not Done

Preparing for Into the Mist

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Into the Mist

is one of the most difficult challenges in the game. The Insane difficulty is accurate. It cannot be idled. To start, you first fight 20 Afflicted versions of randomly chosen monsters between combat level 165 and 677. Any monster, save those from

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Unhallowed Wasteland

or

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Dark Waters

, including bosses, can be chosen.

Affliction is a special status effect applied by monsters that reduces your max HP. This means that the encounters are a race against the clock, forcing you to kill the enemy before your affliction stacks get too high. Due to this, it is recommended that you focus on DPS above all else when choosing your three gear sets.

This dungeon cannot be completed without the Dungeon Equipment Swapping upgrade purchased from the shop.

It is recommended that you have acquired *all* previously available BiS gear for each combat style before attempting ITM.

Recommended Gear from Best to Worst:

At this point you can probably begin to make your way towards one of the longest grinds in the game, Fury of the Elemental Zodiacs. FEZ, as it is often called, is made from the upgrading process by combining:

This item is by no means necessary, but it is very useful as a "catch all" type of amulet. No matter what situation you're in, FEZ is probably a good choice. See the following link for best practices while farming for the amulet.

Link to Guide: Fury of the Elemental Zodiacs/Guide

Into the Mist

Note that it may be beneficial to complete the Master tier

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Slayer

tasks required to unlock Slayer Gear Upgrade Kit (Master) before completing Into the Mist for the first time. This is because of

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Dark Waters

monsters being added to the pool of available enemies. It will no longer be trivial to use

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Auto Slayer

for Master tier Tasks, as the new enemies are fairly strong, and are more lethal to the average player than the Greater Dragons available in the

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Perilous Peaks

version of Master Tasks. If you do not feel comfortable learning how to do manual slayer, feel free to Auto-slay Perilous Peaks. See below for a more in depth explanation.

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Into the Mist

consists of 3 set order phases, with pauses in between each phase. Refer to Into the Mist/Guide for a comprehensive guide on completing this dungeon.

Notable Rewards:

  • Access to the
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    Dark Waters
    slayer area, where the T90 weapons can be obtained
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    Pablo
    - Drops after 5 completions

Passive Slot

Main Article: Combat Passive Slot

Congratulations on completing

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Into the Mist

! Your reward is one of the best upgrades in the game, the passive slot. This allows you to slot any item with a "Passive: ____" effect into said slot. What this allows you to do is splash extra effects from items with otherwise mediocre stats into your build.

While the original article is more than exhaustive, some of the best choices are highlighted here:

  • Chapeau Noir - More item doubling is always good
  • Ring of Wealth - More item doubling is always good
  • Master Slayer Armor - Lets you splash more Flat Slayer Area Reduction, along with a pittance of item doubling
  • Elder Crown - Slightly more dps from attack interval reduction, a big pile of free lifesteal helps you preserve your food stocks
  • Fighter Amulet - Melee only, good dps, less attacks taken from enemies
  • Deadeye Amulet - Ranged only, fantastic dps

When to complete Master Slayer Tasks: Before or after ITM

Slayer Gear Upgrade Kit (Master) and therefore Master Slayer Armor are unlocked by completing 40 Master tier

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Slayer

tasks. Master Tier slayer consists of 3 Slayer areas based on the following unlock conditions:

Completing 40 Master tasks can take anywhere from 20-80+ hours (with a probable average of about 40hours), depending on your setup, luck with task length, or efficiency/luck in rerolling for short tasks on the fastest to kill monster. These tasks can be completed either before or after

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Into the Mist

, and which method you do is up to you. Due to the difficulty of enemies in

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Dark Waters

, using

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Auto Slayer

to complete Master tasks is no longer feasible following the completion of

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Into the Mist

. Therefore, it is 'simpler' to complete all 40 tasks while having only

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Perilous Peaks

unlocked, as the only necessity is to meet the DR checkpoints of each monster. You will also need a fairly healthy supply of food, as these Greater Dragons all have the Greater Dragonbreath ability, which deals a large amount of unavoidable damage. The

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Dark Waters

drop valuable materials to make powerful weapons, generally consume equal or less food than greater dragons, and an average of about 40 hours each to complete with optimal setups. Therefore, even though they cannot be done on Auto-slayer, completing your Master tasks while working on your t90 weapons will most likely consume less food, and generally take less overall time on on task by killing two birds with one stone. The major downside here is that you will want to check back in every 2-3 hours to swap your equipment and manually change to the next task. This is not mandatory, but it is recommended as you will be earning Slayer XP and Slayer Coins all the while, and you will be able to purchase Prayer Points and Food at a profit.

Consider the addition of the Passive Slot - By equipping powerful passive effects in this slot, you can greatly increase your DPS, item drop rate, or greatly reduce your food consumption. This is most noticable on Greater Dragons; with the Elder Crown equipped, food use against these enemies drops dramatically. Fighter Amulet works similarly for enemies primarily fought with Melee; Rokken and Hunting Greater Dragon.

T90 Farming

Following completion of

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Into the Mist

, you now have access to

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Dark Waters

, the penultimate slayer area. These 3 mobs drop fragments for the T90 weapons, the highest level, and often most powerful, weapons in the game that are extremely helpful in completing the following slayer area, as well as the Impending Darkness Event. These are long grinds, and require quite a bit of preparation. Each weapon requires 100 fragments, and the fragments have a 2% drop rate. That's 5,000 kills on average.

We recommend acquiring them while fighting each monster as a slayer task, this will require you to turn OFF auto-slayer, and will encourage semi-frequent check-ins. Doing these on task will increase your damage dealt to them from various buffs, namely Slayer Skillcape. This will make the order you obtain the final weapons in effectively random, but if you want to do them in a specific order, we recommend the following:

Additionally, you should also acquire the pet

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Otto

whilst doing this grind, if you do not, continue farming whichever mob you kill the fastest on or off task until you get it.

Item fragments are very rare drops, and you should attempt to sneak in as much item doubling into your gear as possible. Using Combat Sim to measure your Drops/hr with no deaths is highly recommended. It can make the difference in literal days of grinding.

Order

The order you obtain these items in is not particularly important.

While it may seem that using these weapons to farm the other weapons would be beneficial, this is not the case due to the relatively weak power level of Tidal Edge and Ocean Song compared to other available weapons. The only suggestion here is to obtain

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Shockwave

and use it to obtain Ocean Song

The common orders are:

-

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Shockwave

then Ocean Song then Tidal Edge - Tidal Edge then

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Shockwave

then Ocean Song

Between those two, the required time is roughly equal.

Many people combine the grinding of these weapons with the grind for the master slayer gear. An added benefit is the increased damage given by the Slayer Skillcape and buffs from

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Astrology

while fighting slayer tasks. Another benefit is the ability to buy prayer points, Light Runes, and Food at a profit with the use of Generous Resupply.

Requirements

There are very few hard requirements beyond the ability to survive and the entry requirement of

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 Slayer Level 90

, but there are several skills and items that will make this grind significantly easier, and we would be remiss to not mention them

Suggestion Benefit
Slayer Skillcape 25% Flat Slayer Area Effect Negation
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Level 99
Less need for DR
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Level 99
Pillar of Combat
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Level 90
Dragon Synergies
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Level 95
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Battleheart
Slayer Helmet (Elite) 15% Flat Slayer Area Effect Negation
Slayer Cowl (Elite) 15% Flat Slayer Area Effect Negation
Infernal Claw Outpaces Rokken's stun
Cloudburst Staff Highest damage weapon in the game
Slayer's Crossbow Highest damage non-T90 ranged weapon for slayer

Below are some gear suggestions. Depending on

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Prayer

,

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Potions

, and

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Agility

buffs, your optimal gear can change.

Tidal Edge

To be able to idle Umbora with

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Magic

, you'll need 47 DR assuming you have 1000 HP. Umbora can be killed with Normal Magic if you have a Cloudburst Staff or an Ocean Song, or with Ancient Magicks at a much slower rate. Note that Cloudburst is the fastest method, even if you have to squeeze in extra DR from Guardian Ring or

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Prayer

. With Cloudburst Staff, use

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Water Surge

or

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Water Wave

(reduced rune cost),

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Anguish III

, and

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Fury II

. With Ocean Song, use

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Fire Surge

,

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Anguish III

, and

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Surge II

. With an Air Imbued Wand or a Fire Imbued Wand, use

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Gust

or

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Incinerate

.

Use of Combination Runes is highly recommended for all methods.

Slot Most effective → Least effective
Head Glacia God Helmet Slayer Wizard Hat (Master)
Body Glacia God Platebody Slayer Wizard Robes (Master)
Leggings Glacia God Platelegs
Boots Glacia God Boots
Hands Glacia God Gloves
Cape Maximum Skillcape Slayer Skillcape
Neck Fury of the Elemental Zodiacs Elite Amulet of Magic Warlock Amulet
Passive Chapeau Noir Ring of Wealth Aorpheat's Signet Ring
Ring Ring of Wealth Warlock Ring Guardian Ring
Weapon Cloudburst Staff Air Imbued Wand Magic Wand (Elite)
Offhand Scaled Shield Earth Layered Shield

Slayer Wizard Hat (Master) and Slayer Wizard Robes (Master) do not increase the amount of fragments per hour over Glacia, and even if available, should not be used if your goal is to collect fragments.

Ocean Song

To be able to idle Ku-tul with

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Ranged

, you'll need 48 DR assuming you have 1,000 HP. You'll be killing Ku-tul with either a

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Shockwave

, Slayer's Crossbow or an

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Ancient Crossbow

. Use of Jadestone Bolts is recommended, Emerald Bolts are not recommended as jadestone bolts should be plentiful enough at this point in progression.

Slot Better to Worse
Head Slayer Cowl (Master) Slayer Cowl (Elite)
Body Slayer Leather Body (Master) Aeris God Platebody
Leggings Aeris God Platelegs (U) Ancient D-hide Chaps
Boots Aeris God Boots Sand Treaders
Hands Aeris God Gloves (U) Ancient D-hide Vambraces
Cape Maximum Skillcape Slayer Skillcape
Passive Chapeau Noir Ring of Wealth
Neck Deadeye Amulet Fury of the Elemental Zodiacs Elite Amulet of Ranged
Ring Ring of Wealth Aorpheat's Signet Ring Guardian Ring
Weapon Slayer's Crossbow
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Ancient Crossbow
Offhand Scaled Shield Dragonfire Shield Earth Layered Shield
Ammo Jadestone Bolts Emerald Bolts Ruby Bolts

40% slayer area reduction increases your DPS against Ku-tul, and therefore, unless it will lead to your untimely demise, at least a Slayer Cowl (Elite) should be used.

Slayer Cowl (Master) and Slayer Leather Body (Master) positively impact the amount of fragments you receive, and if available, should be used.

Shockwave

While the other two weapons are pretty straightforward in terms of gear, the

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Shockwave

is not.

Rokken is by far the most dangerous and is both willing, and able to kill you if you are not extremely careful in your setup. This monster is able to buff itself to an attack speed of 2.2s, and is able to stun you, which massively increases its damage against you. Your goal here is either to be able to survive the increased stun damage, or to never actually take the stun damage by having an equivalent or faster attack speed than the monster.

You need to use Melee for this grind, and as said before, it is highly recommended that you use an Infernal Claw to complete this. Tidal Edge is too slow to reliably survive Rokken's stun without significant extra work, requiring you to put on more DR that will massively affect your kill time. Assuming you were able to use the exact same setup with no

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Astrology

buffs, Infernal Claw is only 1-2% slower than Tidal Edge. Adding buffs from

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Astrology

, adding the additional DR or attack interval reduction required for Tidal Edge, and using summoning combat familiars invert this difference and make Tidal Edge up to 20% slower with no tangible benefit.

Slot Better to Worse
Head Slayer Helmet (Master) Slayer Helmet (Elite)
Body Slayer Platebody (Master) Ragnar God Platebody Terran God Platebody
Leggings Ragnar God Platelegs Terran God Platelegs
Boots Ragnar God Boots Terran God Boots
Hands Ragnar God Gloves Terran God Gloves
Cape Maximum Skillcape Slayer Skillcape
Passive Fighter Amulet Chapeau Noir
Neck Fury of the Elemental Zodiacs Fighter Amulet
Ring Ring of Wealth Aorpheat's Signet Ring Ring of Blade Echoes Guardian Ring
Weapon Infernal Claw
Offhand Dragonfire Shield Earth Layered Shield

The Fighter/ FEZ is the best passive/neck setup, even beating out the item doubling from Chapeau Noir. Note that wearing FEZ is required to wear Master Slayer armor.

One major note is that the Ring of Blade Echoes is marginally faster for fragments/h than all other rings, however, due to its interaction of significantly increasing your use of consumables like Prayer Points and Potions, it is lower on the rankings.

Slayer Helmet (Master) and Slayer Platebody (Master) positively impact the amount of fragments you receive, and if available, should be used.

For this set-up to work safely without risk of death, the player's attack interval while in combat with this enemy must be less than or equal to 2.2 seconds, as this means the player is quick enough to avoid taking extra damage when Rokken attacks with the Shockwave special attack. To achieve this, we use a weapon that has a base 2.2s interval, and gather 40% total slayer area negation through Slayer Skillcape and Slayer Helmet (Elite).

Check your setup with the Combat Simulator before engaging Rokken.

At 1,000 HP, which can be achieved with

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Level 97

and +30 HP from Dragonfire Shield, this method requires 48% Damage Reduction.

Unhallowed Wasteland

After completing the T90 weapon grinds, you are ready to face the final content in Melvor.

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Unhallowed Wasteland

is the final

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Slayer

area. To access, you will need to purchase a

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Map to the Unhallowed Wasteland

. This area requires maximizing a different stat than DR. All of the monsters here will heal a % of their current HP every 2 attacks, which will massively hinder your DPS regardless of setup. To mitigate this, you will need cumulative 100% Flat Slayer Area Effect Negation. The following is an example of the gear required for a melee setup.:

Item Slot Slayer Area
Effect Negation %
Slayer Helmet (Master) Head 20%
Slayer Platebody (Master) Body 20%
Slayer Cowl (Master) Passive 20%
Max Skillcape/ Slayer Skillcape Cape 25%
Hunter's Ring Ring 10%
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Agility
Pillar of Combat
Agility 5%
Total 100%

For the other combat styles, you'll be wearing the equivalent Master Slayer armor. Note that you cannot ever wear two of the same item, so whichever item you choose to put in passive slot must be one of the armor pieces not currently equipped in your chest/head slots.

It should be noted that while UW is listed first,

completing the
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Impending Darkness Event

will strictly make this grind faster! You can complete ID without any of the UW gear sets, and the shields greatly speed up these grinds.

While you are here, you will be working to acquire all of the set bonus gear, dropped from each of the UW monsters:

Below are some gear suggestions. As the final combat area available, this expects you have access to all of the buffs available to you. However, depending on your

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Astrology

bonuses, your optimal gear may change.

Legaran Wurm

Slot Better to Worse
Head Slayer Helmet (Master)
Body Slayer Platebody (Master)
Leggings Ragnar God Platelegs Terran God Platelegs
Boots Ragnar God Boots Terran God Boots
Hands Ragnar God Gloves Terran God Gloves
Cape Maximum Skillcape Slayer Skillcape
Passive Slayer Cowl (Master)
Neck Fighter Amulet Fury of the Elemental Zodiacs
Ring Hunter's Ring
Weapon Tidal Edge Infernal Claw
Offhand Shield of Melee Power Dragonfire Shield

Using the Dragonfire Shield instead of the Shield of Melee Power does not impact any of your gearing choices, but will be slower.

Legaran Wurms are the main enemy where your

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Astrology

bonuses change what equipment you wear. With absolutely no combat bonuses from astrology, Tidal Edge and Fighter Amulet are your best bet. With enough stardust spent, FEZ overtakes Fighter for kills per hour, however, Fighter Amulet will always consume less food for only a minor hit to DPS. With even more stardust spent, Infernal Claw once again takes the cake, the lemons, and all the loot.

For consumables, Melee has few stipulations, just equip whatever kills the enemy the fastest

Cursed Lich

Slot Better to Worse
Head Slayer Cowl (Master)
Body Slayer Leather Body (Master)
Leggings Aeris God Platelegs
Boots Aeris God Boots
Hands Aeris God Gloves
Cape Maximum Skillcape Slayer Skillcape
Passive Slayer Wizard Hat (Master)
Neck Deadeye Amulet Fury of the Elemental Zodiacs
Ring Hunter's Ring
Weapon
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Shockwave
Offhand Shield of Ranged Power Scaled Shield

Using the Scaled Shield instead of the Shield of Ranged Power does not impact any of your gearing choices, but will be slower.

For consumables, Ranged does have one major stipulation. Cursed Liches are immune to Burn.

  • Diamond Luck Potions
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    Battleheart
    and
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    Rigour
    or
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    Protect from Magic
    (-8% KPH, -60% food usage)
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    Centaur
    and from better to worse:
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    Dragon
    ,
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    Witch
    , or
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    Cyclops
    .

Spiked Red Claw

Slot Better to Worse
Head Slayer Wizard Hat (Master)
Body Slayer Wizard Robes (Master)
Leggings Glacia God Platelegs
Boots Glacia God Boots
Hands Glacia God Gloves
Cape Maximum Skillcape Slayer Skillcape
Passive Slayer Helmet (Master)
Neck Fury of the Elemental Zodiacs
Ring Hunter's Ring
Weapon Cloudburst Staff Ocean Song
Offhand Shield of Magic Power Earth Layered Shield

The Cloudburst Staff is approximately 10% faster at killing Spiked Red Claws, however, it requires the use of Damage Reduction Potion IV

The Ocean Song build with Shield of Magic Power equipped, and both

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Leonardo

and

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Erran

), requires 1% more DR. The

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Safeguard

prayer gives you this 1% DR at the lowest cost to DPS.

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Stone Skin

is a more expensive alternative if you don't have one of the DR pets Using the Earth Layered Shield instead of the Shield of Magic Power allows you to use

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Augury

safely, however it is still slower than the Shield of Power.

  • Ocean Song:
  • Diamond Luck Potions
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    Battleheart
    and
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    Safeguard
    or
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    Stone Skin
  • Error creating thumbnail: File missing
    Witch
    and
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    Dragon
    tablets or
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    Witch
    and
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    Cyclops
    tablets
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    Fire Surge
    ,
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    Decay
    , and
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    Surge II

Greater Skeletal Dragon

Slot Better to Worse
Head Slayer Wizard Hat (Master)
Body Slayer Wizard Robes (Master)
Leggings Glacia God Platelegs
Boots Glacia God Boots
Hands Glacia God Gloves
Cape Maximum Skillcape Slayer Skillcape
Passive Slayer Helmet (Master)
Neck Fury of the Elemental Zodiacs
Ring Hunter's Ring
Weapon Ocean Song
Offhand Shield of Magic Power Earth Layered Shield

Using the Earth Layered Shield instead of the Shield of Magic Power does not impact any of your gearing choices, but will be slower.

Greater Dragons are the most dangerous enemy currently in the game as Affliction buildup can result in an unfortunate death. This can be mitigated best, like most untimely deaths, by killing the enemy before they kill you.

The most important element to beating Greater Skeletal Dragons is
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Protect from Melee

as it massively reduces your chance of death, while increasing your DPS due to you spending less time stunned.

Impending Darkness

- See Impending Darkness Event/Guide

Tips

Because Bane uses the modifiers from the slayer area you fight him in, you should always fight him in the

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Perilous Peaks

. Your prayer will be

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Protect from Magic

or whichever style he is, plus your other style prayer, rendering the area effect moot.

When fighting Bane, always eat through the Suffocate special attack. The stuns will cripple you. Fragile Mind can be extremely dangerous if you have high Affliction stacks, so be on the lookout for that as well.

Bane will force you to use the same attack style as he is. If you are hitting for 0, make sure you're not using the combat triangle default.

Running from Bane will not make you leave the event, just forces you to refight that slayer area. Bane's style will also be rerolled, if you want to avoid melee.

For passives, avoid giving + Max HP, or any sort of regen. These will extend the fights, which makes them deadlier and more expensive in food and gear. + Max Hit is fine, as special damage is unaffected. Obviously, avoid Affliction if possible. These do stack.

The final fight with Bane is a special version, Bane, Instrument of Fear

Gear

You will need to be able to switch your combat styles on the fly in

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Dark Waters

and

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Unhallowed Wasteland

. These areas WILL kill you if you are using the wrong combat style versus them. There is no pausing between monsters, so we highly recommend maxing out your Slayer Area Reduction on all 3 equipment sets.

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Dragon

tablets are nigh required for Bane, as the burn status effect will chisel away his HP even when you are stunned. Pair with

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Yak

tablets. For melee, Ring of Blade Echoes increases the number of hits you do, which pairs well with

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Dragon

tablets. For magic,

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Incinerate

also provides more hits for burns. Towards the end, switch to Ocean Song and

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Fire Surge

to finish him off with specials.

Loot

Each Bane kill drops the following loot, in this set order. All of these are BiS:

Acknowledgements

Main writers: TheAlpacalypse#8105 and Verisimilitude#0001.

A special thank you to the following people:

  • Verisimilitude#0001 for assisting with the majority of the early guide groundwork
  • Steelsauce#0251, Redmrj#2539, Tessa#0001 for guide feedback
  • TinyCoyote#1769, Coolrox95#9670, and Visua#9999 for their work on Combat Sim and other scripting work
  • Nomeru#4261 for contributing most of the Impending Darkness section
  • Drboomtown#0982 for creating the original Can I Idle and Silber#6947 for updating it and answering a ton of noob questions
  • Tim|Orii#4191 for creating the Gear Progression guide
  • Malcs and Prat for making this game

Reach out to the author on Discord at TheAlpacalypse#8105