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 and more complicated to set up than the available melee builds.

Fire Robes have the exact same stats as Air Robes. The secondary effect of robes (+20 minimum hit for matching spells) outweighs the damage increase of higher level spells, therefore, use the highest level spell and robe combination available to you.

If available to you, use the Ring of Spirit Power instead of the Aorpheat's Signet Ring

To idle the dungeon with the build below, you need

780

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Hitpoints

and

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Weakening III

active.

Slot	Item	DR%
	Air Expert Wizard Hat	5%
	Air Expert Wizard Robes	5%
	Air Expert Wizard Bottoms	5%
	Air Expert Wizard Boots	5%
	(U) Ancient D-hide Vambraces	6%
	Skull Cape	3%
	Elite Amulet of Magic	2%
	Aorpheat's Signet Ring	0%
	Any Error creating thumbnail: File missing Magic	0%
	(G) Dragon Shield	6%
Total		37%

100-Volcanoes Magic

After clearing the

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Volcanic Cave

100 times, you will unlock Ancient Magicks. Your first goal with this build is to reach 20k accuracy for

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Slicing Winds

, which means the spell won't miss at all. Therefore, while the build only requires

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Level 72

at minimum, you will need at most level

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Level 93

or multiple Accuracy bonuses from various other skills to achieve 20k Accuracy Rating, including:

Magic Assistance Potions
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Astrology
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Prayer
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Agility

It's possible to farm the Volcanic Cave with the 20k-accuracy

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Slicing Winds

on the following build if you have

880

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HP

and a

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Stone Skin

prayer active. To farm the dungeon with 33% DR and without the prayer or potions, you need

910

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HP

. Your biggest threat is Prat, the Protector of Secrets with the monsters Max Hit being inches above your Auto-Eat threshhold Check if you can fulfil the accuracy quota with the gear available to you either with the Combat Simulator or by checking your out of combat stats. 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%
	Aorpheat's Signet Ring	0%
	Magic Wand (Powerful)	0%
	Miolite Shield	2%
Total		33%

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	Solid DPS increase for Melee, falls off in power if using enough buffs from other skills.
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.
Ring of Blade Echoes	Powerful melee dps increase, costs more prayer/potions per hit.	Ring of Spirit Power	Powerful magic dps increase, does not affect Ancient Magicks.

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.