MotherBrainII

Accurate, 2) you can't use it in PvP honour fights. Should that be 1? I don't see why "honour PKers" would prohibit Turmoil...

No offense, but I find it doubtful that void mage is useful at that one particular spot; more specifically, better then just plain old mystic/infinity/ahrims. Void mage is ok to mage so, so I've heard, but you'd be better off just using standard mage robes I do believe. It's good there because that's the only spot that i'm aware of where range defense is important, but you don't need that much of it. Void magic robes are the only robes in the game that provide ranged defense.

Magic void does have one niche use -- it's good for maging aviansies, which gets decent magic XP and turns a small profit. It's still not worth getting except for completionist purposes, though, since it provides no damage boost and the accuracy it gives is not enough to offset that lost by using void instead of other high-end gear.

Thanks for the info, Izen. Again, we seem to have conflicting information regarding the effect in PVP. Have any of you actually used the surgebox? If possible, I'd appreciate a video of it (or the magical blastbox, since I assume that works the same way) in action.

I'm fairly sure they can't.

You're sure about that? In other words, in PVP, each hit has a chance of activating the 25% boost (as opposed to the first four hits never having the boost applied)? If so, do you know roughly what the frequency is?

How does the Celestial Surgebox work in PVP? More specifically: 1) Are charges conserved on death, allowing one to carry fire surge risk-free if using a fire staff? 2) Can the runes stored in the box be taken out, or are the charges there for good once put in (until used)? 3) Does the critical hit ability work the same way in PVP as in PVM, and if not, how does it work? I've read conflicting information on this, so please only answer if you've actually used the surgebox or seen it in use.

I'm mainly concerned about 3rd age mage, for those who responded about 3rd age. Sorry, I should have been clearer.

Any thoughts on the prices for 3a once free trade comes out?

The difference is that Prayer is actually a combat skill, so raising it should give you an advantage in combat. Allowing extremes essentially makes Herblore into a combat skill, but that's not the biggest problem. By allowing them, you effectively make 96 herblore mandatory to compete in any level of PVP. For many skills, raising herblore has a bigger effect on your ability in that skill than raising that skill itself, and that's absurd. I don't mind integrating combat and non-combat, but it goes too far when very high non-combat skills become effectively necessary for combat (no, 53 thieving does not qualify, and you're deluded if you think that's even close to a good comparison to 96 herbore). If the game is going that way, we might as well make combat level calculated based on a coefficient of skill level total.

You don't get reimbursement for un-imbuing. Just keep one, sell the other. Right now I have Onyx(i) and Zerker(i). I appreciate having the option. I'm fairly sure that it was made so that you DO get credits back for unimbuing shortly after MA came out.

It'd be interesting if the Ancient Warriors were behind there, even as minions to the boss. Their affiliation has never been revealed, has it? It's unlikely, but would provide an interesting means of making PVP gear available after the Wilderness changes, and would make for a very tough boss fight if Zuriel was there casting Miasmics to their full effect.

I think you mean spectral? Arcane is for mage offense + defense anyway. Neither mage book, or tome of frost have soak either. Weather farseer is better than spectral is up for debate though. No I'm talking about the arcane spirit shield. The arcane spirit shield gives +3 more magic attack, +18 more crush defence, +12 more range defence and +3 prayer bonus than the farseer kiteshield so most people thought the arcane spirit shield was better. But now that the arcane spirit shield gives no damage soak, do you think it will be better than the farseer kiteshield, which gives +14% melee absorbtion. In essence, neither shield has changed -- it's just that around them that has. Unless the presence of magic soaking for opponents makes a difference, nothing will have changed, so the arcane will still be better.

Do arcanes have any street at the moment, or are they selling for GE price?

Makes sense. Of course, this still leaves me with the conundrum of choosing a main weapon. At the moment I'm leaning towards the chaotic staff.

He said that he doesn't care about cost, so that ability is useless; it's basically down to is 5% more mage damage worth giving up the SoL spec. And, if you really want to be pedantic, +1 magic attack and defense and around +4 in each melee defense stat. :P Zuriel's staff isn't really an option since there's no real way to keep it other than constantly replacing it. I don't mind paying for recharge costs, but actually getting the staff from the GE is a pain in the butt and there's no way to check how close the staff is to degrading (i.e. it disappearing in the middle of a fight could be a problem).

Do we know that all armour soaking will be limited to hits over 200? If so, soaking in F2P is pretty much entirely pointless. Ranged can't be soaked at all, magic can be soaked for an absolute maximum of one point (if memory serves), and melee will only be soaked up by around 3 or 4 points unless the absorption percentage is high on rune, which seems unlikely. I'm curious as to whether the staff of light's special takes precedence over the soaking or vice versa.

The argument is that you shouldn't be meleed much with ice barrage ;-). That's true. :P I have in the past found the SOL special useful in the event that I'm facing multiple people that can't all be barraged at once, or where my freezes happen to miss. There is the point that range is a bigger threat anyway, although a surprising number of people in minigames and the duel arena "stupid-melee".

So is the argument against the SOL special basically that other specs exist that are more useful, not that the special itself carries less value than the 5% damage boost and slight magic attack/overall defence boosts granted by the chaotic staff? I don't think I have the melee stats to pull off use of a DDS efficiently.

Any thoughts on what this update is likely to do to the Arcane's price, if anything?

There are now spirit shields, which can be read up on on the KB, and shields from Dungeoneering, which are probably not worth reading on. For melee, there are a lot of new weapons, unsurprisingly. Godswords, chaotic weapons, Korasi's sword and dragon claws come to mind. Magic has gotten huge boosts, with necklaces and staffs that can give up to a combined total of +35% damage, magic potions that can give a further 21% boost and a staff with a 15% damage boost that can halve melee damage for one minute with its special attack. Nothing much has changed with ranged since Armadyl armour. The Dark Bow now uses 65% of the special attack bar. Prayer has a whole new book and a couple of prayers from Dungeoneering. Herblore is now insanely useful and obscenely expensive.

I don't have access to the EEE, nor am I likely to for a very long time. In that case, should I get the chaotic staff and not bother with the special bar at all? I'm surprised by how few people consider melee damage having for one minute to be useful. Is there a reason for this?

I know I'm making two topics in very quick succession, but the questions are entirely unrelated. If this is a problem, feel free to join them. My current (partly hypothetical) setup for safe PVP (dueling, clan wars, Castle Wars, etc) is as follows: Full slayer helm Ahrim's top and bottom Arcane stream necklace Staff of light Arcane spirit shield Guthix cape Barrows Gloves Infinity boots Seers ring I use magic exclusively. My question is this: what would be more effective combat wise with this setup of a chaotic staff and a staff of light? I'm not concerned about cost of recharge or extra rune cost, so the tradeoff is purely between the stat boosts of the chaotic staff against the SOL's special attack, considering that I'm not using the special bar for anything else.

Will *any* teams accept me with my stats for the larges?

See topic title. I have 80 in all melee stats, 99 magic, 87 ranged, 81 prayer and 67 summoning. I assume I'll need to do solo medium floors.