HCCO/Guide: Difference between revisions

This is a bad thing for us, since we have no real way to farm a lot of runes yet. However, we can get started by farming some catalyst runes from the {{MonsterIcon|Vampire}} and the {{MonsterIcon|Master Wizard}}. The {{MonsterIcon|Vampire|nolink=true}} is probably best for now, since it is a {{Skill|Ranged|nolink=true}} monster, meaning we can strike it with our powerful {{Skill|Attack|Melee}}. Even considering the drop chance and drop rates are lower than from the {{MonsterIcon|Master Wizard|nolink=true}}, this will be faster overall as it will crucially save more food. Killing {{MonsterIcon|Wizard}} until one piece of either {{ItemIcon|Green Wizard Hat|Green Robes|nolink=true}} or {{ItemIcon|Blue Wizard Hat|Blue Robes|nolink=true}} (at {{Skill|Magic|10}}) for each slot is recommended.

Catalyst Runes are the runes you use to power up your spells, while Elemental runes select which element you’re using. You can remove the cost for Elemental runes with staves, which we will abuse to completely nullify the {{ItemIcon|Air Rune}} cost, and thus primarily use air spells. Remember, since prayer points are a lot easier to farm on a CO than runes, you will generally want to run the two highest offensive prayers at all times when training magic. However, it is only worthwhile if the prayers give magic damage boost ({{PrayerIcon|Mystic Mastery}}, {{PrayerIcon|Augury}} and {{PrayerIcon|Battleheart}}) or if you are very low level and your accuracy is low (below 90-95%).

The {{ItemIcon|Staff of Air}} reduces the cost by 1, allowing you to cast all spells up to {{Icon|Fire Strike|type=spell}} for no {{ItemIcon|Air Rune}} cost. {{ItemIcon|Air Rune}} are by far the most valuable elemental rune on a CO, so you should use the other elements to level your magic early on as these runes have little use outside of very late game situations by which point you will have a huge stockpile. You should aim to use most of your mind runes on {{Icon|Fire Strike|type=spell}} and {{Icon|Earth Strike|type=spell}} until you are {{Skill|Magic|30}}. At this point you can equip an {{ItemIcon|Air Battlestaff}} to save {{ItemIcon|Air Rune|qty=5}}/cast, so obtain one from {{MonsterIcon|Master Wizard}} and use that until {{Skill|Magic|50}}. You also have enough magic defence from levelling {{Skill|Magic}} that you can consider clearing {{ZoneIcon|Hall of Wizards}} for some {{Skill|Ranged}} exp and better robes. The {{ItemIcon|Red Wizard Robes}} can be worn at {{Skill|Magic|30}} (levelling from 1 to 30 cuts food usage against magic enemies roughly in half) and the dungeon will be important in the a following section anyway. You can alternatively wait until {{Skill|Magic|50}} for even higher magic defence. Lastly, now that you have some magic defence, gathering 200 {{ItemIcon|Amulet of Magic}} is on the table. You will obtain a lot of catalyst runes in the process which can be put towards levelling, so  it is worth making a dent in this decently long grind now. {{MonsterIcon|Master Wizard}} are the best overall source of catalyst runes, as they have the lowest HP while dropping one of three catalyst runes 85% of the time.

You can now make use of every spell up until {{Icon|Fire Bolt|type=spell}} with the exception of {{Icon|Wind Bolt|type=spell}} as this will still have an elemental cost. Prioritise all other elemental spells until you consume your elemental runes, and then finish training on the highest level air spell that has no elemental rune cost. Make sure to use the highest level Surge aurora that you can that has no elemental cost. This will be {{Icon|Surge I|type=aurora}} from {{Skill|Magic|30}}-{{Skill|Magic|40}} and {{Icon|Surge II|type=aurora}} afterwards. The light runes will be supplied from {{UpgradeIcon|Standard Resupply}} and will be in considerable abundance, so these should not be conserved.

After {{Skill|Magic|50}}, you will now use a {{ItemIcon|Mystic Air Staff}} conserve all elemental runes and primarily use {{Icon|Wind Blast|type=spell}} to level up. The relative damage increase between spells is lower as flat damage has diminishing returns, so there isn't much dps sacrificed by sticking to this one spell. However, the only way to obtain this staff is from {{ZoneIcon|Hall of Wizards}} at a relatively low drop rate (~1/191.67). On the plus side, you will get some nice runes along the way and a good pet hopefully. You will also want to obtain a full set of {{ItemIcon|Red Wizard Hat|Red Robes|nolink=true}}. It is debatable whether staying here all the way until full {{ItemIcon|Ancient Wizard Hat|Ancient Robes|nolink=true}} is worthwhile. The robes have a very low drop rate and will likely take awhile to complete, but you will obtain some useful runes and almost certainly obtain the pet. It is also important to maximise rune efficiency by maximising magic damage bonus, as rune gathering is a slow process. If you are completionistic in nature then it may be a good idea, although strictly speaking it would be faster to focus on simply obtaining more {{ItemIcon|Death Rune}} from {{MonsterIcon|Master Wizard}} and {{MonsterIcon|Necromancer}} than worrying about min-maxing the rune efficiency.

 

Once you have your gear, the best monster to kill is {{MonsterIcon|Raging Horned Elite}} as they are melee and drop valuable food, as well as giving a decent income and ammo. They have 5% DR, so using {{PrayerIcon|Battleheart}} if you have the {{Skill|Prayer}} level is recommended, along with {{PrayerIcon|Augury}}. Kill either {{MonsterIcon|Master Wizard}} or {{MonsterIcon|Necromancer}} for {{ItemIcon|Chaos Rune}} and/or {{ItemIcon|Death Rune}} whenever you need more runes. You will be here until {{Skill|Magic|86}}. It is both more rune-efficient and time-efficient to gather runes and use them separately, rather than try to kill {{MonsterIcon|Necromancer}} with magic directly to slightly replenish the consumed runes. Making use of the triangle bonus is starting to become very important.

 

{{ItemIcon|Mind Rune|Mind Runes}} are very useful lategame as {{Icon|Water Strike|type=spell}} is the most rune-efficient spell to use for {{ItemIcon|Cloudburst Staff}} and {{ItemIcon|Ocean Song}}, so you will want to keep them. You will also want to keep {{ItemIcon|Fire Rune}} for {{Icon|Incinerate|type=spell}} for {{ZoneIcon|Impending Darkness Event}}. {{ItemIcon|Water Rune}} and {{ItemIcon|Earth Rune}} are not terribly important.