Jifaru

Nice beef. Run and hide your TS3s.

It's been 2 months since I Dev and I opened this topic, and I've gotten 99 in the meantime. I've seen DG been used more and more in SE and LTH wars, and I'm interested in seeing some of the feedback from other sources. As always, I'm happy to respond to any thoughts and criticisms. I would like to see DG become even prevalent, and diagnose issues of what is preventing this from being carried on. This doesn't pertain to PvP, by the way, but what about all the CWA'ers out there?

After looking at GD's memberlist a few days ago, I was convinced that this was a war that we were going to win, rain or shine. It might have rained a little today, but as multi-style Turrets run-ins are familiar ground for me, I came into this war confident that we could pull through. GD outleveled and outpulled us with 20, but one person dc'ed after the timer ran down to give us the first "kill" of the match. GD attacked us on sight, and we got a load screen and were unable to get a first pile. It took a bit of time to re-orient our pile and chase down their pile (which had been tanked far north). While we claimed a lead in the beginning even with this setback, we gave up the lead when several members got KO'ed, which GD managed to hold for the most of the round. Despite many of our members getting KO'ed, we looked for opportunities to transition and managed to keep their lead to a meager 2, even though at one point the number differential was as large as 13-22. With 3 minutes left in the match, we began turning things around. After being dragged across the entire map by me and Bravehero, we still had a contiguous pile gathered around center line while their pile trickled in from the south. With 1 minute left and 1 kill behind, we all buffered while our tank brought their pile through ours. In a feverish 30 seconds, we KO'ed 4 people in a row and bailed south for the remaining seconds on the clock, securing one of the most difficult but also most rewarding victories thus far. Outgunned, but never out classed, ladies and gentlemen.

Nice job Downfall.

Sounds like a lot of fun! :D

Looks intense.

VS ~ ~ ~ Team Extermination ML Lethality ML Time and Location: 4:30 PM EST World 106 Conditions of War: Arena: Turrets Type: Full Out CWRI (50 Kills) Ranged Allowed: Yes Offensive Magic Allowed: Yes Corrupt Allowed: Yes Dungeoneering Allowed: Yes Sniper Cap: 2 Starting Ops: 12 LTH - 10 X Ending Score: 50 LTH - 27 X Comments: We were approached for a four-hour-prep by Team Extermination. Though not a peak time for us, many of our members were itching for a fight. And so I accepted all the rules proposed - a full out CWRI to 50 kills, basically everything goes. As this was the first corrupt war Lethality has been in since I became leader, I was glad when a few members willingly stepped up to the plate and hit the GE. Considering that we had no idea how much X would be pulling or how much corrupt they would field, we went into this war with a serious mentality and came to win it. The war began 12-10, with one of X's members joining and leaving right as time began, giving us the first "kill." The momentum would only begin at this point, as we quickly racked up several KO's on the onset of the war. X piled our fall-in leader ipwnuwitrang, who would repeatedly tank them off throughout the fight. I personally went to snipe X's pile with a gravite 2h and a gravite shortbow, and capitalized on their deficient anti-sniping by setting up many quick kills. However, X fought tenaciously and regrouped quickly, and at some point exceeded our number. They had several excellent tanks who managed to tank out of food and slow down our progress, but we always kept an arm's distance away from their kill count. The war ended with LTH ko'ing their last two piles, ending the war in a little over an hour. Grade Sheet: Binding: 7/10 -Binds were frequently neglected when people were busy blasting. Anti'ing: 10/10 -Our casters had their way today. With our quick kills, little came near us without being piled and quickly dropped. Sniping: 8/10 -X's casters got absolutely manhandled by the gravite weapons we fielded. However, there was a short amount of time in which we had 3 snipers out due to miscommunication. Tanking: 9/10 -Our superiority in tanking was a huge factor in this war's outcome. While X gave up many KO's, we managed to last a bit longer. Calling: 8/10 -We lost a lot of time due to position confusion and conflicting calls (my fault). War Pictures: War Hero: Crying Faith, for tanking probably more than a dozen times. Despite that, she always came back quickly with a full inventory of pizzas and her corrupt armor.

Nice pull, dominating win. Good job Poison.

lul, funny how one can fall back to a relativist viewpoint of honor but not of morality. I agree with most of what you're saying. To expect people not to crash seems a bit asinine especially at this point. Even if "crash wars" were not to occur, there will always be individuals ready to take advantage of the blind spots that pop up when large clans clash against each other. I find this idea of "honour" to be especially antiquated; not advocating that we should disrespect two wars' clans by crashing them willy nilly, but moreso because there are more dishonorable things that go on than simply crashing someone's fight. On the issue of respect, just because we're on the internet and want to prove the superiority of our clan, does not automatically mean that everybody else is garbage. If Honour meant nothing more than respecting the other clan enough to not DDoS or hack, that would be a huge improvement. if we could get it to the point that everyone can walk away from a war, regardless of the consequences, saying, "wow, that was a fun, clean fight," then something has to have been done properly. That, probably, is where Honor does exist. It is a pity that such discipline is easily stamped out by ruthlessness and self-love. Anyway, it is irrelevant whether I have gained or lost any degree of respect for either clan. You won't see me or my clan in PvP save for rare occasions. Clan rivalries are healthy. Clan hatred can be entertaining. Take it too far, and it might also be criminal.

Hi everyone, I first contributed to the Tai Bwo Wannai cleanup page years ago (eaglecomix), but I was a slightly antisocial kid back then. Err, and lost my old login details. Funny what hitting the drinking age does to you. I've been with Tip.It ever since the near-beginning, and it's helped me through a ton. And now I want to return that favor. ~Jifaru

I love Dungeoneering. Each instance is different, and it's vaguely reminiscent of Nethack and other Roguelikes. The nostalgia is always great. The meta experience is further enhanced by training with your friends. DG packs a healthy serving of English humor, and that tends to go over well with my friends and I. It's a fast skill if you have fun while training it. If you just want a chaotic rapier or longsword, it might drag on for a while. :D

Well once again, experience is not "handed out" because a vast amount of time is required to collect effigies, to the point where it's really even worth it to camp for them. Furthermore, I love effigies because they're an additional reward when I'm on a slayer task. Even if the slayer monster doesn't drop anything worthwhile, the chance of an effigy really makes it exciting and keeps the anticipation alive. On the point of anticipation, it is the high-end content that kept me training - from Dragon Slayer, to Heroes, to Recipe for Disaster, to While Guthix Sleeps, and finally to my Quest Cape. I think the effigies really remind a lot of lower level players that there is light at the end of the tunnel - that one day soon to come, they will also be able to experience the full range of higher-end content. I don't think I really need to reiterate the positives of this update. If you really feel that effigies prevent you from enjoying the game you want to, please allow me to make a suggestion: Don't use them. Nobody's forcing you to.

Congratulations TR You'll get 'em next time DF x)

I've never been into PvP much, and I'm maintaining a tradition of largely staying in CWA. And there's a good reason for that as well. But as of late, it's becoming harder to ignore. I feel that honor takes on a whole different meaning these days, ok'ing behavior that is not only disrespectful, but potentially dangerous as well. The meta might be going slightly too far.

Wha.. EA? Jesting :) Gratz LGZ

Oh please. Players who can take full advantage of the effigies HAVE invested in skills. They ARE skillers, because they've already gotten AT LEAST 91+ in the needed skills. Do you honestly think that people who got to 91+ in a skill are going to rely on effigies "because they can't be bothered" to train the skill normally? News flash: they already have invested in those skills. Investigating an effigy at level 97 gives 30k xp... at level 97, it also takes over a million xp to get to the next level. 30k xp is nothing more than a bonus in that scope, but not a viable training method! The final lamp gives similar xp tied to your level, so it's nothing more than a bonus either. Effigies are definitely an update for skillers. They're great for all-round players: skillers who do combat, or fighters who skill. It's the people who haven't got the levels and who rely on assist that lose out on most of the xp. I can't see how anyone could argue effigies are unbalanced. And yes, Jagex is providing players with alternative methods to train skills (penguins, circus, effigies,...). Nobody's ever going to like all the skills, but seeing how important they are to dungeoneering, it doesn't seem so unintelligent from Jagex's part to provide alternative, yet slower/limited ways to gain xp. I'm sorry, but the logic of the article is flawed/exaggerated. Effigies are rare drops and you'll never get 135k xp from them in one single skill. And even if you could, you would already need 10.6 million xp in that skill. Honestly, beautifully written. I think Jagex is adopting a very important paradigm in the recent update trends of making xp gains slightly less tedious. May I note some points about experience multipliers - Barbarian Assault takes quite a long time to fill up a penance horn, even with an experienced team. Stealing Creations offers no experience while playing, and even if you are using a noncombat world, the average game time is about 10 minutes per game. But realistically, slackers and pkers often try to take advantage of the situation to slow down the game. Most activities come with a HIGH opportunity cost, but this usually balances out with the time commitment to directly training that skill through older means. If I spend 12 hours filling up my penance horn and collecting sacred clay tools, then using it all to reap a great amount of experience for mining, would we really consider that XP rate to be imbalanced? We've already invested the time - just elsewhere, so that the training process is less tedious. The same argument for opportunity cost applies for buyable skills. If you see yourself as making 3m+ an hour, then perhaps it is even less worthwhile to use alternative methods of training (using experience boosters) than to just buy that skill with raw cash and make the money back. There are multiple considerations in the balance of a skill, be it cost or accessibility. But don't forget, ladies and gentlemen, TIME is just as much of a resource on Runescape as, say, rune essence, magic logs, or rocktail. On the same token, do effigies REALLY have as much of an impact as many people claim? Looking at the stats of many naysayers, I find it almost strange that they argue so vehemently against the effigies when in reality, the effigies are designed to be forgiving to those who don't have the skills to fully investigate. "I don't deserve to get skilling experience for killing monsters"...? If you're maxed out on all skills and complaining that Jagex made it too easy for people to earn experience, that'd actually be an understandable line of reasoning. But if you can't even investigate a single effigy, Jagex is HANDING you experience so that you can access more parts of the game. Please, is that really so bad? This leads to my final (but also first) point - the paradigm behind these updates. When more of the game is accessible to more people, the game naturally becomes better and more attractive for MORE players. There will always be high leveled players who have leapt ahead of the crowd to attain their levels. Old-school players who had no choice but to chop yews and magic logs to 99 WC were rewarded handsomely for their time - moreso than players who powerleveled with SC hatchets and ivy. Players who leveled up Herblore before extremes and overloads came out were rewarded by missing out on the ridiculous jump in herb prices - and with the ability to be the first players to experience the domination of the new potions. With every update that Jagex introduces to help lower leveled players attain their goals, there's something there too for higher leveled players as well. A year ago, I would never have imagined being able to attain the levels I have today or purchase an AGS, let alone get the cash to buy ten or fifteen of them. Without even discussing whether Jagex can or should raise the level cap to 120 for all skills, Jagex is (consciously or otherwise) creating a large high-leveled playerbase that will be ready for an endgame release. Content that requires teamwork, skill, and coordination. Dungeoneering offers a brief glimpse into the raid-like potential for such content. That would turn RS into much more than a sandbox game. But at the end of the day, that's what RS has been all these years, hasn't it? No end, no goal. Just you, paving your own path to greatness or fun, whatever it is. Why should THAT change? ~Jifaru

I felt really bad making them drop so many, I got a ton of respect for you guys. Thanks for the war again.

VS Rules of War: Rules: Type of War: Matched Opts/fun war Date: July 24th Time: 1pm Eastern Arena: Classic Midbounds Range Allowed: No Offensive Magic: No Corrupt Armor Allowed: No Binds Allowed:Yes Rings Allowed:Yes Sniper Cap:3 Dungeoneering Items: No Starting Pics: War Pictures: Ending Picture Comments: Our pull wasn't great at all since 1 PM is a bit too early for many people, but KCR was gracious enough to drop to our measly pull. We anticipated a slightly higher pull, and having a 3 sniper cap was often frustrating. However, the factor that made this war for us was how they allocated their snipers. We anti'd heavily throughout the war, while our snipers brought down their binders. They focused more on camping our snipers, and that gave us the ability to take down our piles. Shout outs to all our tenacious binders, especially Green and Kassie, and to Crystal, who took all my kills.

Awesome post, DFMike, you really hit the heart of the issue. Yes, but this isn't about single individuals. This is about the strength of clans as a whole, and the integrity of the CW community to accept the potential of DG, instead of shunning it because they don't want to put in the time to train it. That's really what it's about. Few people who have trained DG extensively will complain about gravite weapons or the DG experience. I am not at all swayed by the argument that "people don't want DG now," because that is a reflection of an existing problem, not an answer to the question. If we bend to the opinions of those who just "don't feel like training DG," we are committing a terrible sin against the progress of CW.

Thanks for bringing something new to the table. But I will have to disagree with you on some points, because the story isn't as simple as you might want to make it look. All costs considered, we must weigh a few key factors in determining accessibility. As I pointed out in the actual post itself, one of the most important criteria we can use is that of the cost (opportunity cost or otherwise) and the derived benefit. First of all, Dungeoneering experience scales very well through Level 69, when you can reach maximum XP/hr. While it may take a few days getting from 1-64, once you hit max prestige, it can take as short as just four hours to get 40k tokens. While it might seem logical to say that because DG has a large initial training cost (in time), the same can be said for ANY combat skill, be it defense, constitution, or magic. And may I point out - the experience rates for training these skills are severely limited, especially in F2P. Now let's examine the effects of putting in the same amount of time in a different activity. Now let's go back to the old days when we DIDN'T have max melee. Let me assure you that it took MORE than the better part of five days to get the stats I have right now. And arguably, the effects of getting from 96 to 99 strength, or 96 to 99 defense, are more drastic than the marginal stats earned from using a gravite weapon. I must once again remind everyone that accessibility is hardly a meaningful way of looking at DG, unless you assume that gravite is nothing more than just another minigame reward. As for what is "standard," even the items you provided are variable depending on clan. For example, many clans do not use rune gauntlets because they prefer using leather gloves for binding. There are some fairly established and well-respected players who do not bind in a rune berserker, instead choosing to wear an anti-dragonfire shield. And here's the kicker, I believe you spoke best when you said But it is unfortunate that many people perceive that they don't have easy access to DG weapons, when that isn't the case. It costs nothing to get from 1-64. After the surface dungeon update, there is a tangible benefit to be had from leveling up DG. Dungeoneering is the ONLY noncombat skill available to F2P that is indirectly linked to combat, similar to Slayer for P2P. Leveling up DG is not the same as buying a minigame item - it is an extension of your combat stats by just that extra +5 stab attack, or that extra +4 strength. If you have dropped the time to get max melee, or anything close to that, how in the world am I supposed to believe that you have "better stuff to do" than to spend a tiny sliver of that time to get a gravite weapon? It's simply inconceivable! Now let's talk about accessibility some more. How many people legitimately "have access" to a 99 combat skill? For those who have limited playing time, I must point out that the difference between 92 and 99 is a twofold increase in experience. To get those last seven levels, you must double the amount of training that you have ever done. Granted, you will hit better and level up faster, but the time is still monumental. Now let's talk about Runecrafting Staves. First, RC staves DO increase your ability to shrug off binds significantly. When many people are binding with minimal accuracy (<30, perhaps even less if using RFH/zerker/gauntlets), an increase in +6 magic defense over a regular staff's +10 is a HUGE increase that repeatedly influences the chance of getting bound. Now we're not talking about magically turning some noob into a godly tank - we're talking about average (if not above average) tankers who know what to do - having that +16 magic defense will ALWAYS throw the RNG gods in your favor, and by a very large amount too. Now let's look at the +50 stab attack of gravite rapier compared to the +45 slash of the rune scimitar. Going back to the previous point of RC staves, a +16 v +10 bonus is a 60% increase in effectiveness. Coupled with the very low magic attack cap of F2P, you will see a great increase in effectiveness in resisting binds and blasts using a RC staff. Comparatively, let's examine the marginal benefits of gaining about +9 points of attack overall when factoring in the effectiveness of full rune + rune zerker against stab/slash attacks. This is but a 20% increase in attack effectiveness, and this is before we compare that number to the whopping defense of full rune, which is well over +200. I don't claim to know exactly how each of these numbers interact with each other, but if we assume that all attack and armor bonuses are percentage modifiers to your base stats, you want to be in a situation in which RNG is swung in your favor. RC staves do this FAR more than Gravite, and a clan with all RC staves WILL outperform an equally skilled, equally leveled clan using regular staves, assuming RNG screws are not in the picture. But I think I digress. How long does it take F2P to get 50 RC AND 10k tokens? There NEVER has been the "balance" you speak of in warring. Gravite isn't a reflection of anything but your clan's dedication to train harder in order to push for a slight competitive edge. Just like attack. Strength. Defense. Constitution. Ranged. Magic.

Bandits ftw :) tbh i dont mind dg in wars but it all comes down to the fact that if your not maxed melee will you then go for a dg item which would do less for you in the long run than getting max melee? because if i was max melee already ide be doing dg to get loads of tokens and dg items but im not, and i find that ide rather have max melee because what use is a wepon that has a bonus over a rune scim/ maple short when you wont hit often enough or to your full potential when you get it. likewise you wont be able to tank fully to ur potential without 99 def so why would you spend time getting a wepon when it meens theres more chance of you getting k0ed in wars. i like dg but tbh if you say it gives your clan an advantage what does constant training do for your clan? personally i think levels are more important than dg. i like dg but unless ur able to tank to your full potential then its not gonna help you much. With the addition of class rings especially, you might find that the experience you get from combat in Daemonheim actually isn't too bad. It's not powerleveling by any means, but you have access to better weapons than you would normally, f2p or p2p, and you're almost always in combat. I've gained a few million experience from fighting things in Daemonheim. But that isn't the main point: You are 100% percent correct in recognizing that you have the freedom to choose whatever skill you work on in order to aid your warring abilities. If it takes the same time to you from 95-99 defense as it does to get from 1-64 dungeoneering, then by all means, go for the defense! How you choose to allocate your time and skills does not make a great big difference overall - as long as everyone is training to become better, then we win as a community. @ jeffryp: I agree completely! DG is a great way to get more people from the clan involved. Throw in some dungeoneering events every week, and then you can train whatever skill you normally want to AND work towards gravite.

Gravite is not cost-prohibitive though. The issue isn't one of adding new styles, as that changes the interface of the war. As part of a simple melee regimen, there should be as much discussion regarding whether Dungeoneering should be allowed, as there is to whether Rune should be allowed when people can wear Adamant. Short of none. Our hope here is that people who are unwilling to urge their clan to train DG, or unwilling to help the clan by acquiring DG weapons, understands exactly why they are doing so; or even better, we can convince them to start raising the bar. There is no limit to how low we can set the standards, using your argument. But I'm sure you don't feel that way. While we do try to respect the preferences of each individual clan, there should in fact be a higher base line. If we don't feel comfortable doing anything but Iron Wars, I do not feel that we are entitled to participate in TWR, let alone competitive in competitive F2P warring. DG should be a default. If we're going to punish dedicated warrers for having 64+ dungeoneering, we might as well punish everyone for having the guts to hit max melee, or something close to it. One final note... prayer. For those pure F2P players without access to G Altar... we have to recognize that there are some limitations to certain groups of players, and there will be some disadvantages. But as a community, are we striving to raise the level of competitive warring, or do we seek to adopt a "no warrer left behind" policy? I leave this rhetorical question here for everyone to consider.

There's not much point trying to bring ethos into the picture here. I may not be established in the community, but it doesn't mean that I don't do my fair share of spading. The point I'm trying to drive home is, while DG weapons are better than rune, each DG weapon has situational advantages and disadvantages that ultimately rely more on the skill of the user rather than sheer power of the item. I will reiterate, once again, that the rapier has a disadvantage against rangers (compared with the rune scim), and that it only confers approximately 10 life points to max hit. This isn't just theorycrafting, this is a simple understanding of the fact that the gravite 2h has stats that draw near to that of the whip, except with a much slower attack speed. And the fact that it is unable to be used effectively in Slash only bolsters the point we are making further. It is not overpowered, because it is often unwieldy to use. This means that people who cannot use the g2h properly will be antisniped heavily, sniped heavily, or just otherwise punished for it.

I hope we can start a good discussion here so that all the sides can fully bring out their opinions. Jagex has given us an opportunity to expand the scope of f2p warring. In short, it would be foolish to turn it down for the wrong reasons.