DragonSam

I've only been playing for six months so take my answers with a grain of salt. And some things I just can't answer because I don't know enough. But... * I don't know about the broad bolts and fire cape. * Moss Giants then Fire Giants will work, with reasonable profit. Also Hill Giants for when you are bored, with slower XP and less useful drops (except limpwurt roots, they're okay). You can also Range Flesh Crawlers when you get bored - slower XP but reasonable money and/or plenty of herbs for Herblore, as you evidently already know. If you range them there's a safe spot at the south west corner of the room. For ranged training Yaks is probably the quickest XP, but no money. You can also try Ankou - pretty good drops and XP for ranged or melee. With Slayer at lower lvls you get patches of good and bad. Stick with it and better assignments come along, plus (obviously) you're always training more than one skill. * Controlled on whip for what purpose? * Yes, at 9 Farming use the best you can get. Pay for the gardeners to watch your crops; use super compost on the things they don't watch. Why? Because picking gives XP too, and at lvl 9-20 the XP from picking the best produce will amount to jumping three or four lvls. Without gardeners and supercompost you'll miss out on some of that XP when your crops die. Use hops and bushes too. Catherby and Port Sarim are good central farming locations, but try to use as many as possible. Try to work out a pattern where you can go to three or four locations in a row picking and planting all the way, then come back in an hour or two to do the same again. Don't forget that the Port Phasmatys allotment is very close to the Ectophial teleport at the Ectofuntus. Using those three you can pick three guam patches, six cabbage and three marigold in a round at the moment, plus hops (and bushes at lvl10), and then you can start planting oaks at lvl 15. Once you start on fruit trees at 27 it gets very much simpler. * I can't help with fight caves. * I mostly just smith the highest item I can, in bulk, a couple of times a week.

So ... what's been happening? :lol:

I just had my first encounter with Waterfiends (as a Slayer task) and used these. They do third best crush damage in the game (leaving out the hour-degrade and Stealing Creation items) and they're faster than mauls, warhammers or battleaxes. And they're under 100k. The only problem is its got a requirement of 70, thus it has to compete with whip, and the rest of the barrows equipment. Whip is faster, has a higher str bonus, and is 1 handed. Torag's hammers are about at par stat wise with d scim + rune def (d scim+ rune def has +1 attack, -1 str, plus some defense), but its slower. They also gave Torag a terrible set spec, which is useless in non pvp situations. Something else that's surprisingly underrated is whip at waterfiends. A lot of people confuse "weak against crush" with "practically immune to slash". Whip + def is actually pretty effective against waterfiends. Not as good as sara sword, godsword or zammy spear, but its a lot better then t hams, d mace, d spear and a lot of other things i've seen people use there. Well, I didn't presume "practically immune to slash" but I did presume "more susceptible to crush". I didn't try whip because I don't have a rune defender. The only other thing I tried was granite maul - hits hard enough, just seems take forever. When I get a rune defender I'll do a whip/rdefender comparison with the hammers. I wouldn't advocate using Torag's Hammers as a default weapon or say they're my weapon of choice - that's still the whip for me most of the time. But they're certainly effective against anything vulnerable to crush. As long as your defence (whether armour or prayer or whatever) is good enough not to need the shield slot I think they're a reasonable choice. And I do find them fun for low level stuff when collecting herbs etc. I know, small things amuse small minds, but thumping beasties with blunt instruments does indeed amuse me.

I just had my first encounter with Waterfiends (as a Slayer task) and used these. They do third best crush damage in the game (leaving out the hour-degrade and Stealing Creation items) and they're faster than mauls, warhammers or battleaxes. And they're under 100k.

[/hide] Thats the best way of defining god I have ever been able to come up with. When you consider things such as a god who only has the power of a 9v battery per hour or a god that isnt a perfect being so he limits his actions a lot of definitions such as "an all powerful supernatural being" break down. Does that definition leave you with some ghosts being gods, if ghosts exist and some prefer to be unobserved?

I always went with; "an intelligence of any sort which exists outside of observable/logical boundaries, the abilities/nature of said being not relevant to whether it would be considered god" Nice. If the question is whether or not such a thing exists, my answer is "Possibly."

"Is God real?" Define what you're asking is real and we can answer the question. There's no point asking "Are cats real?" then refusing to define what you'll accept as being a cat. You have to define it in order to answer the question. So: what's the definition of 'God'?

You're welcome. I expect you'll be fine with your stats, especially with significantly higher prayer than mine. The bestiary advice was spot on for me - good magic defence, pray protect from missiles, use a good crush weapon. I think I bought Torag's Hammers for under 100,000, so you don't have to pay a lot for sufficient weapon strength and speed. There's no doubt it would be a lot easier with a bunyip, but it's evidently possible without - just comparatively slow.

Yep, I used Torag's Hammers. Hugely cheaper than mainstream setup, and lotsa fun. Faster than granite maul, better damage than Verac's flail, and just an enjoyably satisfying sound as two hammers pound down and smite your opponent. As for degrading - I was there for almost four hours and they're still at 100. I don't know any other monsters that are so susceptible to crush damage, so I'm not sure where else I'd use them seriously. But I must admit to finding them fun against weak opponents - Flesh Crawlers while collecting herbs, for instance. The granite maul is basically a big rock on a big stick, but Torag's is like two big rocks on two big sticks. What's not to love?

... which took almost another three and a half hours. About 25 Waterfiends per trip, and about half an hour each time too. The loot stayed about the same - 100,000 per hour, with lots of crimson charms and some blues, quite a few blood runes too. So 199 Waterfiends took me almost four hours when at combat lvl 102, using erm some non-standard gear.

I've read people referring to 'bursting lobsters' but I confess to ignorance. Where are they? How or why do you burst them? What lvl are they? What do they drop?

TBH I have no idea how long it took. I respawned in Falador and went to the bank to get stuff together.... Wanna know a little trick? The games necklace teleport to barbarian training grounds is just barely north of the whirlpool. Yes, I just realised I could have done that. I haven't wanted to use the games necklace to get to the Waterfiends area because I need to take all the food I can get, but I could have used it to retrieve, as long as I wasn't expecting to stay long :)

It is longer, while using the cart all the options can be used quickly. And if you have a house tab you can go, recharge prayer and take your portal to ardougne. You also don't have to worry about using the staff to be able to teleport, and it only cost like 40 gp using the boat+cart. If using the fairy ring you have to go through that long dialogue to get into the village. I don't know about the rest of it, but you're right about the dialogue - it's a pain in the neck.

Should I have a lawyer present? Should I swear on the religious text of your choice? TBH I have no idea how long it took. I respawned in Falador and went to the bank to get stuff together. I wasn't expecting to return because I only have a 2 or 3 minute gravestone and didn't want to hurry to get back thus risking making more stupid mistakes and losing more equipment. I was chatting with my nephew about how dumb I'd been to get fried. I noticed the message that my gravestone had been attended to, but it could have been there for some minutes before I saw it. Once I'd seen it I got back as quickly as I could, given that by then I'd already gathered my second-rank gear, teleporting to Varrock then through the spirit trees. I jumped in the lake but my gravestone went before I could reach it. Would you like this as a sworn statement? Would you like an academic journal to investigate? Do you think we should alert the President? Astonishing what interests some people ...

Also, Fairy Ring CKR takes you a little north west of Shilo Village. After which you have to walk/run all the way around Shilo to get inside. Better to use the cart :P Yes, it's a fair way around. But if you were starting within a click or two of a fairy ring, then compare that to getting to Ardougne, running to the boat, getting from the boat to the cart - I doubt the fairy ring way would be longer.

Well, I got 70 Ranged (although my sig isn't showing it yet for some reason), bought a few bits and pieces, and went Waterfiend slaying. Here's my set up: Head: Black Mask Neck: Amulet of Fury Cape: Obsidian Body: Black dragonhide Legs: Karil's skirt Boots: Dragon boots Hand: Black dragonhide vambraces Ring: Seer's Weapon: Torag's Hammers Gotta tell ya, black top with murky green skirt, candy stripe green leggings and red boots (and Black Mask) is not a fashion statement. It was almost 50/50 between a Regen Bracelet and the vambraces, but caution won out - I was more worried about getting killed than killing, so I opted for the higher magic defence over the better crush damage. I also took four prayer pots, anti dragonfire potion and shield (now paranoid about that brutal green dragon), a super attack potion and an ordinary strength potion, alching runes, a Varrock teletab, a bull ant pouch, and the rest of my inventory was monkfish - 16, I think. So I had 95 crush attack, 120 magic defense, and prayed protect from missiles the whole time. That was a good enough combination to survive and knock them off, albeit pretty slowly. My Attack was 77, Strength 78, Defence 76, Prayer 63, Hit Points 79. It took a fair while to defeat each Waterfiend, not surprising with my stats and equipment, but I killed 21 in about half an hour before having to bug out - with my hit points on 33. I'd emptied all four prayer pots, and the super attack and strength. The hammers seemed to perform pretty well: max hit 24 as far as I noticed, commonly 21 or 18. Definitely faster than the granite maul. The Waterfiends got me for 11 max, as far as I noticed. Now I just have 178 more to go ... Something unexpected was that I also had a Skeleton Heavy and a Skeleton Warlord wandering around (both lvl 132), which aren't noted on the Tip.it map as being in the area I was in (the slim diagonal section south west when you come down the stairs). I accidentally clicked on the Heavy, he chased and started beating me up better than the Waterfiends, but I ran away for long enough that he gave up. As far as loot goes: one blue charm, 14 crimsons, 2 green, 3 gold, 360 mithril arrows, 3 mithril ore, 22 death runes, 111 water, 4 mud and 8 mist, 8 water orbs, 17 seaweed, a water talisman, a fishbowl, one shark and 6 raw lobsters, and 1400+ gp, I kept everything, whether trivial or useful or not, so I couldn't forget. It adds up to about 44,500 gp at current GE market prices. Given no high level drops in that collection, I'm pretty happy with the gp value, plus a blue and 14 crimsons is good news to anyone interested in boosting their summoning. If that's approximately representative of drops at Waterfiends I can see why they're popular. Hourly around 100,000 gp plus 20-30 crimsons and a couple of blues, plus melee experience. If you're killing faster you'll get plenty more than that. Yep, good stuff. So there you go. If anyone wants to know if they can handle Waterfiends, and how to do so, and what sort of loot they might get, I hope this provides some assistance.

Also, Fairy Ring CKR takes you a little north west of Shilo Village.

I like the look of your setup, although I don't know enough to be sure that the whip is appropriate; crush damage seems the more common preference. I haven't got the Slayer helmet yet - I've got the pieces but haven't put them together - so it'd just be the Black Mask for me. I'm down to about 1.3 mill gold, so even Berserker Ring is too expensive. I've now got Amulet of Fury, and will get 70 Ranged today, so can buy black d'hide or some Karil's. Why is the top 1.2 mill when the skirt is only 153k? Odd. The weapon situation ... I'm still interested in Torag's hammers or Verac's flail since they have big crush damage with faster attack than the granite maul. Torag's hammers 100k and Verac's flail 200k, so pretty cheap basically.

:lol: Did you forget that you can pray mage? how on earth can't you get back to that place within an hour?! Heck, I can get back there within one minute. Ever heard of games necklace (and of protection from magic)? Would you like a special medal, given your superior ability to travel around an imaginary world? Maybe it could be an imaginary medal, to go with your imaginary reason for posting. My mistake - the gravestone was repaired, not blessed.

An addiction is your brain telling your mind you need something, even though you don't. If you enjoy the game, or are excited while playing, or any other emotion, your body chemistry is being changed while playing. The reason neuroscientists accept that addiction can be focused on behaviours as well as substances is the consistent data showing the same brain excitation whatever the source. The person who is addicted to gaming has the same area of the brain overactive as the person addicted to heroin. As long as that brain activity is there, neuroscientists consider the person somewhere on the addiction scale. It is unwise to refer to anything as 'addictive' because it's such a subjective relationship. Lots of people couldn't get addicted to heroin or nicotine because the substance itself makes them so ill they can't take it. Likewise most people won't get addicted to Runescape or any other computer game because they just don't enjoy them (weirdos!) and there has to be some payoff for addiction to develop. But it doesn't matter what the stimulus is as long as the payoff is there - you could get addicted to picking your nose if you enjoyed it enough. As far as your brain's concerned the nature of the stimulus is irrelevant.

Thanks. I can't get some of these (eg I've only just started Recipe for Disaster so the gloves are a fair way off). But I'll be able to get half of these with 70 Ranged, which gives me a glimmer of confidence.

:lol: Did you forget that you can pray mage? Erm I'm not sure what that means, so can you tell me and then I can say whether I forgot or just didn't know :)

Thanks for the good advice, and especially for that generous offer. I'm a little embaraased to update, but in the interests of honesty... I decided to go and have a look. They couldn't be that bad, I handle plenty of lvl 110, 120, 130 beasties. I could just check them out, have a quick whack at one, and if things went bad, bug out with a teletab. So I got all prepared, accepting I didn't have the best equipment but thinking it would be enough for survival, and went and jumped in the lake. Went down the stairs, was reminded there is a brutal green dragon at the bottom, tried to run past, had forgotten to turn auto-retaliate off, had forgotten to bring my anti dragon shield, and got burnt to a crisp while running around in circles. Ahem. And even though someone was kind enough to bless my gravestone, I didn't get back in time to retrieve anything. Although, given that my gravestone was probably at the brutal green dragon's feet, I would probably have been wiped out a second time if I'd tried to retrieve. Sooooo... I've been on a big re-purchasing spree. Plus I bought an amulet of fury. Now I'm training up ranged to 70, but don't know if I'll have enough cash to get the other items I want. I notice that Verac's Flail does pretty good crush damage, and is faster than a granite maul. Is it considered worthwhile for Waterfiends?

In the guide they have a table of the knights, which of your melee stats they reduce, and what they're weak to. Most of what you need to know is there. In the right hand column you'll see that stab weapons are really only needed for two early opponents - I used a rune longsword for them. For the crush opponents I had a granite maul, and for the slash opponents I had an abyssal whip. I was wearing dragon platelegs, dragon boots, dragon med helm, rune body and using a rune kiteshield. I also had an amulet of glory and a combat bracelet. I had about 70 in each melee stat, so you're well ahead on that score. It took me three goes. First time I was just unprepared - I had regular strength and defence potions, not supers, and about 8 monkfish. Got killed by the second last guy. Next time I took about fifteen monkfish and a super potion for each melee stat, and got killed by the last guy. Third time I took three super sets and sharks - as many as I could carry, ie about twelve or fourteen - and knocked off the last guy with six or seven sharks to spare and heaps of potions. As another reply said, the secret is just to watch your stats carefully and correct the deficiencies the knights bring. The first guy was pretty easy, just a super attack and rune longsword on stab, and he was gone without doing me any damage. It got increasingly difficult from there, but I just kept an eye on which stat was being affected and drank a defence or strength or attack (super, that is) as soon as I saw a stat go under its normal level, plus watched my HP and ate sharks. I had in mind the pattern of which weapons I'd use (long, whip, long, maul, whip, whip, maul, whip) and as soon as I saw an opponent starting his dying animation I'd change to the next weapon. An easy way of dealing with the stat reduction would be to just take three or four super sets and drink one of each as soon as you see each opponent dying, then another half way through. You could probably correct the reductions that way, although obviously you'd also be wasting a lot of potions (money). Maybe actually write down what you need to do in what order, from that table. But honestly, it was only the last two I found difficult, and my stats were 70s. Take super potions and sharks, and appropriate weapons (I didn't have a poison weapon, BTW) and pay attention to your stats, and I reckon you'll be fine.

I'm not very familiar with the approach the guides take, but that would be fine to me. Alternatively, and perhaps even simpler, I'd be happy to leave it to the players own judgement with AA, sticking with the current wording and just adding "Ava's Accumulator works with ice arrows, so if you're using it you won't need to collect as many".