Volcanic Cave/Guide

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.

Summary

Get the Sunset Rapier,
Get the Sandstorm Ring,
Do 100
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Volcanic Cave clears as Melee,
Do the rest of
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Volcanic Cave clears with
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Slicing Winds. Don't forget to enable the Surge aurora.

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 - the average amount of clears it will take to get the full ancient set, is 640 clears. It takes 817 clears to get the full ancient set with 75% probability and 1377 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 the Volcanic Cave 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

.

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Winds

are used when the hit chance of everything else is not high. They don't miss if you have more than 20k accuracy;

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Ignite

is used to one-shot;

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Volley

is used for everything else.

Ancient Magicks are not affected by damage amplification in any way except the Combat Triangle. No curses, no debuffs, no gear buffs. Following normal progression, it is generally stronger than the basic magic at this stage. However, due to the non-scaling nature of Ancient Magicks, it is very easy to outgear them and render them obsolete, generally this happens when the player obtains the Cloudburst Staff, but many new items and buffs - most notably the Ring of Spirit Power now exist that make it possible for normal magics to be more powerful than Ancients.

Gear To Idle

The main heavy-hitter of the

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Volcanic Cave

uses the

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Melee

style. Therefore, clearing it with pre-Volcanic

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Ranged

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

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Auto Eat - Tier III

. All calculations are done for the

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Hardcore

/ Adventure.
If you play

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Standard and have lower HP or DR, use Can I Idle or Combat Simulator to check if you can survive with your build.

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 build that requires

820

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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 build because it hangs a hair breadth away from the max hit of Malcs. Check with Can I Idle or Combat Simulator to see if you can idle with your build. Also, the Sandstorm Ring is very important for your clear time.

Slot	Item	DR%
	(G) Dragon Helmet	6%
	(G) Dragon Platebody	6%
	(G) Dragon Platelegs	6%
	(G) Dragon Boots	6%
	Paladin Gloves	4%
	Knight's Cape	1%
	Elite Amulet of Defence	2%
	Sandstorm Ring	0%
	Sunset Rapier	0%
	(G) Dragon Shield	6%
Total		37%

Pre-Volcanic Magic

The other possible option is

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Magic

. Clearing the Volcano with Magic from the start is not recommended because its adjusted clear time is slower than the Rapier's. To idle the dungeon with the build below, you need

800

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Hitpoints

and

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Weakening III

active.

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

100-Volcanoes Magic

After clearing the

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Volcanic Cave

100 times, you will unlock Ancient Magicks. It's theoretically possible to farm the Volcanic Cave with the 20k-accuracy

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Slicing Winds

on the following build if you have

920

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HP

,

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Level 93

, and a

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Stone Skin

prayer active. To farm the dungeon with 34% DR and without the prayer or potions, you need

940

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HP

. Your biggest threat is Prat, the Protector of Secrets with the resulting damage of 375 and your minimum HP being 377. Check if you fulfil the accuracy quota with Combat Simulator. The 20k accuracy is important because after that number

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Slicing Winds

cannot miss, becoming a top-DPS spell against the dungeon at this point of progression.

Slot	Item	DR%
	Ancient Wizard Hat	5%
	Ancient Wizard Robes	5%
	Ancient Wizard Bottoms	5%
	Ancient Wizard Boots	5%
	(U) Ancient D-hide Vambraces	6%
	Skull Cape	3%
	Elite Amulet of Magic	2%
	Silver Diamond Ring	1%
	Magic Wand (Powerful)	0%
	Miolite Shield	2%
Total		34%

Combined with

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Stone Skin

or Damage Reduction Potion II or higher, this build achieves the 37%+ DR required to safely idle at

920

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HP

.

Weapon Choice

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

Details
The clears per hour are counted for a Hardcore character with level 70 in everything except Error creating thumbnail: File missing HP and Error creating thumbnail: File missing Magic that are adjusted for the magic setups. In the calculations, the time to prepare prayer points and curse runes is not accounted for because it's not as easy. In addition, the overall picture is obvious even without accounting for them. 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. All intermediate steps are covered in a spreadsheet. (link)

Build	Adjusted clears per hour
Pre-Volcanic	2.7
Dragon Sword	4.5
Ancient Sword	4.6
Dragon Claw	4.9
Sunset Rapier	5.2
Ancient Claw	5.4
Error creating thumbnail: File missing 100-Volcanoes	11.9

It should be noted that the Melee clear times become tremendously worse without the Sandstorm Ring. Only Rapier and Ancient Claw are better than pre-Volcanic in this case.

It is suggested to start using the 100-Volcanoes build as soon as you can because the Prat and Malcs significantly slow your clear time by high evasion. 20k Slicing Winds don't miss.

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

The Ancient vambraces drop from the

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Dragons Den

. You will very likely need them to idle the

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Air God Dungeon

, so might as well get them now.
The Red and Black vambraces can be either crafted with

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Crafting

or dropped from the

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Spider Forest

.

Or you might just farm some Paladins for their Gloves.

Cape

Item	Upside	Downside
Knight's Cape	1% DR	Error creating thumbnail: File missing Level 66 area 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
Sandstorm Ring	Insane clear speed buff for Melee
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

Conclusion

The suggested order of actions is as follows:

Get Sunset Rapier,
Get Sandstorm Ring,
Do 100
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Volcanic Cave clears as Melee,
Do the rest of
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Volcanic Cave clears with
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Slicing Winds. Don't forget to enable the Surge aurora.