Soma2035

That's just grasping at straws to explain this change. They could already have done that with the HP skill. Sara brews already work like that. Rocktails heal beyond your HP. The new thing is that they can bring out items that boost your max HP without healing you, it is more flexible than before. I don't understand, how do you boost your max hp without healing yourself? I'm confused :-| Max hitpoints don't change. They're calculated directly from your XP and their formula. In other words, you can not change max HP at all. However, Life Points are NOT a skill. Base Max LP is simply Constitution times ten, it's very plausible to change Rocktails to, say, +100 Max Life Points and +230 Life Points. Similarly, you could have new potions that ONLY boost Max Life Points.

Jake doesn't play anymore, he quit not long after his silly rant about the Rock Patriarch. Something about not being able to play RS without making a website, and not being able to make a website and keep up with schoolwork. Anyways, the difference between armors that boost your max HP and Saradomin Brews / Rocktails is the way HP is treated as a skill. So far, everything with regards to HP behaves similarly to other skills - if you boost your HP above the maximum, it'll slowly degenerate at the same rate as other skills. Nothing boosts your max skill levels, which would render things like HP-Boosting armor very, very, bizarre. It can't be like Overloads, overloads are essentially drinking every potion again every 15 seconds, but if left to its own devices, it would perform like the HP cape - it boosts, then goes away, and you have to re-equip the item to get the bonus again. Which would just be extremely painful and ineffective. However, now that Life Points are no longer a skill, it can be treated entirely different. You can have the maximum increased, so armor can give +20 MAX Life instead of just current.

Okay guys, clarification. The game runs two checks when you attack. The first is your attack versus their defense. Look at Dungeons and Dragons dice-based system as an example - the person being attacked has an Armor Class - this is how hard it is to hit them. It starts at 10, for instance, and say their armor gives them +5, giving them 15. Conversely, you have +4 on your weapon / skills. Now you roll a 20-sided dice. Add the +4, and see if it's higher than the 15 - if it is, you hit, if it isn't, you miss. Runescape's system is similar to this, with attack bonus + attack level being your bonus, and defense bonus + defense level being your targets bonus. The numbers vary, of course, but the result is the same - it determines if it hit or miss. If your attack missed, it's represented by a 0. If it hits, it moves on to the next check. The second check is how much damage you deal. For a new player, he does 0 to 1 damage, but that's really calculated by, say, a number between 0.1 to 1.4. However, Jagex floors damage - if you dealt 0.9, it would be a 0. In this case, you could have a 9 out of 14 chance of hitting a 0, which frustrates some newer players. In the end, a 50% chance of hitting would result in an 18% chance of doing 1 damage. For a new player now, he has a 50% chance of doing damage, but his damage ranges from 1 to 14. This makes the difference between range/melee more apparent early on (as I recall, at the beginning of the game, both range and melee only do 1 damage so they seem the same pretty much). Attack still serves its purpose, you can just expect to see a few less 0s, even at high levels. Many high level players can tell you that with magic, sometimes it makes a "splashing" noise, while others, it actually causes a blue zero mark. This is the easiest way to tell the difference, with magic, a miss is not represented by a zero but by the splash.

Get a picture? :D By the way, it's great that Jagex adjusted their Fire Cape changes a bit more... Fire only multiplying damage by 1.5 without a Fire Cape is fair.

No they didn't, the Thanksgiving event just added a set amount to all your attacks, indicated by the Dragon Claws no longer following the damage patterns...

*Is much happier.* Corp could be really easy if they forgot Statius Hammer though. Special hits a 400... Corp has no more defense. :D

.... oh zetta sons of digits... Commander Zilyana hits me for a 270. Divine prevents 30%, preventing 81 damage. I take only 189 damage, and lose 41prayer points. Jagex had better not forget to scale Divine correctly...

By the way, monster "life points" are definitely higher than their hitpoints were previously. The guard depicted took 40 damage and is still very much alive. It would be kind of funny if they scale Slayer HP to life points now. It'll easily be one of the fastest skills in the game, with Dagannoths yielding rates up to 800K an hour. :D

No, 450 HP was the example. Shark now heals 200, Rocktail now heals 230... my guess is that they simply multiply it by 10. 99 HP should give you a max of 990 Life Points now. Also, judging from the picture, attack damage has been multiplied by 10 as well... I hope slayer XP didn't get multiplied by 10. XD

Soma has 3.5k crimsons and 400 blues. XP weekend comes, and he uses them. Now, Soma doesn't reach 96 summoning, but 99 summoning. The same amount of cash has left the game, but Soma no longer cares about summoning XP. He may make a few Steel Titans / Pack Yaks / Unicorn Stallions in the future, but since he has saved himself a few million experience points, he's not going to be camping charms and then buying shards next month, like he would have otherwise...

That's not really unfair at all. Dark Beasts required the completion of Mourning's End Part 2, which remains a fairly difficult puzzle for anyone not using a quest guide. Also, if you look at high level content for other skills: When Crafting got Onyx gems and jewelry, selling Fire runes was unfeasible, and monster drops were fairly low. In order to get the raw material for the new high level content, you pretty much had to earn 300K Tokkul from a PvP mini-game. Miners used to have nowhere at all to mine Rune except the wilderness, subjecting them to merciless PKers. Likewise, Smithers needed this ore to do anything really high level. The highest level Farming action is planting a Spirit Tree, and before Manage Thy Kingdom and the Giant Mole were capable of supplying Spirit Tree seeds, it came down to luck and a lot of time woodcutting. High level content has often required something "extra" in addition to the high level. Sometimes, it was more outright grinding in a different skill. Sometimes, it was forced PvP. Sometimes, it required a different set of skills, like puzzle-solving...

It is about the original topic... my original comment was that the removal of the actual requirement, and the compromise made to those who already had Fire Capes, wasn't exactly fair when it was possible that even people with a Fire Cape would consider not using it. By the way, I don't want to start a huge debate about theoretical math again, but I finally got an Ice Strykewyrm task last night. First of all, I ran exactly one prayer potion short, and prayer flashing isn't so effective on magical attacks (or my timing is just off), so my Red Cape would've saved me an entire trip, but that was a terrible miscalculation on my part so that doesn't say too much. Secondly, magic splashes surprisingly often on them. It was shocking since many 93+ Slayers, and the RS Wiki, stated that their defense was quite low and I shouldn't splash much, but I would still fail on average 2 casts per kill. Finally, as far as damage goes, I tracked for the first several kills - every time I hit, I would count up 4 damage, and see how many casts it would have saved to have been dealing 4 more damage a hit. It did save me a few kills, but it turns out damage isn't distributed very evenly at all. I think that the first thing I'd try after the update would be to see if the +4 is doubled. If not, I'll probably test out my Guthix Cape. While the +4 would save more than I thought (on average 1 cast every 3 kills or so, with about 11 casts per kill), I imagine with an average of 2 splashes per kill, boosting my magic attack bonus could save more. In either case, it reinforces my original point - the fact that it could be less hassle (Red / Blue Capes) or potentially better (Saradomin / Guthix / Zamorak Capes) to not use the Fire Cape indicates that if the Fire Cape only adds +4 damage it's not really a fair compromise. Mod Whatshisface did confirm that the Fire Cape will add +8 damage to magical fire attacks. Really? QC Code and page please. :) (Not doubting you, would just like to see for myself.)

It is about the original topic... my original comment was that the removal of the actual requirement, and the compromise made to those who already had Fire Capes, wasn't exactly fair when it was possible that even people with a Fire Cape would consider not using it. By the way, I don't want to start a huge debate about theoretical math again, but I finally got an Ice Strykewyrm task last night. First of all, I ran exactly one prayer potion short, and prayer flashing isn't so effective on magical attacks (or my timing is just off), so my Red Cape would've saved me an entire trip, but that was a terrible miscalculation on my part so that doesn't say too much. Secondly, magic splashes surprisingly often on them. It was shocking since many 93+ Slayers, and the RS Wiki, stated that their defense was quite low and I shouldn't splash much, but I would still fail on average 2 casts per kill. Finally, as far as damage goes, I tracked for the first several kills - every time I hit, I would count up 4 damage, and see how many casts it would have saved to have been dealing 4 more damage a hit. It did save me a few kills, but it turns out damage isn't distributed very evenly at all. I think that the first thing I'd try after the update would be to see if the +4 is doubled. If not, I'll probably test out my Guthix Cape. While the +4 would save more than I thought (on average 1 cast every 3 kills or so, with about 11 casts per kill), I imagine with an average of 2 splashes per kill, boosting my magic attack bonus could save more. In either case, it reinforces my original point - the fact that it could be less hassle (Red / Blue Capes) or potentially better (Saradomin / Guthix / Zamorak Capes) to not use the Fire Cape indicates that if the Fire Cape only adds +4 damage it's not really a fair compromise.

the point is that even if the the +4 boost boosted the kill rate from only 120 to 121 per hour it would still be worth it simply because prayer potions arent worth that much money Sure I could go tally up up ice wyrm kills once i got 93 slayer BUT IT'S NOT NECESSARY because i know that i only need to boost my kill rate by 1 kill per hour to make a difference are you saying that based on past experiences, ferocious rings dont even boost kill rates by even a single kill per hour? because that's all it takes But 1 kill per hour isn't significant at all to me. Buying, bringing, and drinking the prayer potion is a hassle that would outweigh an additional .8% killers per hour. So unless the difference is significant, which currently no data shows, it's not worth the hassle...

wait, of course high hitting weapons dont benefit as much as they should Did I not account for that? of course I did fire surge maxes ~ 90, so the bonus is ONLY 9.3% whereas the max hit of rune darts, a low hitting weapon with a max hit of ~ 16 would receive a bonus of 50% or a whip, which i max hit ~50 without a ferocious ring, which would benefit ~ 16% from a ferocious ring i'm pretty sure that's well accounted for. the point is that a +10 prayer bonus is inconsequential to to even a small bonus such as 9.3% the soul wars cape only saves you 16.6k gp/hour in prayer potions it doesn't really matter how small the benefit from the +4 bonus is. the cost savings from the soul wars cape is inherently miniscule. I think at this point you're just trolling. Either that, or ignoring my point entirely. Go to Ice Strykewyrms. Get the gear to inflict 86 per hit. Tally up the hits, and see how frequently you actually would have saved a cast or more. Multiply the number of casts you saved by 3 seconds, this is how much time you saved. Right now, my in-game experience says the opposite of you. Which means either your math is wrong (I don't think it is), you're overlooking something (possible), or some of your assumptions with regard to how the +4 is reflected in average damage are flawed (possible), or my in-game experience is inaccurate (again, possible). Until you actually test this, I don't know what it is. But I do know, until it's tested, I'm going with what I think is right.

lets assume that the player is in fact praying the entire time, including idle + prayer time a previous player asserted that he kills 120 ice wyrms in hour, this would of course, include idle time so 700 prayer points for 120 kills in 60 minutes with a soul wars cape okay so the math gets a little tricky here. Because a only a fraction of the time spent will actually be in combat, during which a fire cape is ineffective so including idle time, it takes this man 30 seconds to kill a wyrm lets go with your assumption that time picking up a drop + stomping a wyrm + running away from a wyrm takes 9 seconds, actually lets round that up to 10 seconds to be generous 120 * (1.093 * 20/30 + 10/30) = 127.4 kills per hour 860 prayer points for 127.4 kills in 60 minutes with a fire cape under your assumptions 810 prayer points for 120 kills in 56.5 minutes 110 prayer points to save 3.5 minutes 11458 gp in prayer potions to save 3.5 minutes breakoff income of 196,422 gp/hour STILL INSIGNIFICANT TO A LVL 93 SLAYER it's not precise, but it's accurate for monsters of sufficient large hitpoints rule of thumb, if it takes on average less than 3-4 hits to kill a monster, then my calculation is inaccurate but it takes 7 hits to kill an ice wyrm. The amount of HP a wyrm has before he dies is sufficiently random after 7 hits to use my overkill assumptions. about how damage is calculated, It's already been shown that damage shows a linear, flat, horizontal, whatever you want to call it distribution You are just as likely to hit a 1 as you are to hit a 50 I fail to see what else there is to discuss about how damage is calculated research has been done, whether you are aware of it or not. you're trash talking theoretical math when you're making your judgements based on "past experiences"? theoretical math can be wrong so can past experiences, further more i can argue past experiences are much more prone to being wrong than theoretical math. I'm not trash talking anything. I'm pointing out that your assumptions with regards to the damage formula are likely wrong, as actual in-game experiences seem to indicate that slow, high hitting weapons don't seem to benefit as often as they should, and that's likely due to the fact that we don't have the damage formula. All I'm saying is, what I see in-game proves your theoretical math wrong. Now, maybe my casual observation is inaccurate, that may very well be the case. But I'd trust that over math with no data behind it at all, so I, and other slayers who have come to the same conclusion, will follow what we have concluded instead of relying on theoretical math. Now if you or someone else gets real data that shows otherwise, that's statistically significant, then it would be worth looking into, but that's not the case (yet).

wait what are you defining as significant? the ferocious ring boosts kill rates by at least 5% in kuradal's dungeon. I mean i guess that's not significant for some people, but remember this is an MMORPG, people pay millions of gp for relatively small bonuses I could argue that an abyssal whip is only 10-15% faster than a dragon scimitar. I mean what kind of kill rate differences are we expecting? in theory the overkill losses are approximately equal to half of your average hit ice wyrms have a MASSIVE hitpoints pool (300 hp) lets say max hit is 86 without the +4 bonus and 90 with the +4 bonus overkill losses per kill without the +4 bonus: 21.5/300 = 7.167% overkill losses per kill with the +4 bonus: 23.5/300 = 7.783% we're talking about a difference of 0.62% in knock out damage losses much less than the ~9% kill rate increase fire capes will offer I'll admit i made a false assumption based on prayer still being on during idle time but the thing is, the value is still insignificant as things are now, the cutoff income remains at 120k gp/hour unless your spending 5 minutes idle in between kills with your prayer on idle time isnt going to make a difference most lvl 93 slayers will make much more than 120k gp/hour that's the income rate of picking flax afterall... Idle time while focused composes of a third of your kill time. Like I said, average hit approximates a kill at ~21 seconds. Time spent picking up a drop, stomping on a wyrm, running from wyrm to wyrm, takes ~9 seconds. Even while paying attention you're losing a third of your time to idle time, if we were to define idle as "not attacking" which is the context I put it in. That means, your damage improvement only affects 40 of your 60 minutes. Add another 3-4 seconds, which is not uncommon to spend between kills. Now it's taking about 40% of your time, leaving you with 36 or your 60 minutes being affected... And finally, I don't think you're really calculating overkill correctly... but that depends heavily on how damage is calculated, so at this point, I'm just going to leave this discussion with this: More likely than not, as someone who HAS a Fire Cape and 93 Slayer, if this change were to be made the way most people are predicting it, I will not be using my Fire Cape there based on my past experiences with Ferocious Ring + Slow and high-hitting weapons, until someone does extensive testing to show significant improvement.

ferocious ring boosts minimum hit AND maximum hit. not +4 to just maximum hit. the fire cape will work like the ferocious ring so this is how i worked. 86 maximum = 43 average +4 = 47 47/43 = 9.3% average damage boost 10% was an estimate 200 kills per hour was a rough estimate, my proof showed that the fire cape is even more worthwhile the fewer kills per hour In that regard, 200 kills per hour is actually a highly conservative estimate i promise you that if i assumed 120 wyrms per hour, the argument for using fire cape would become even stronger, not weaker. You made a false assumption that kills per hour reflects how fast the wyrm dies. In fact, kills per hour reflects how much time a player spends looking away. As long as the player is using Fire Surge, a 10% wand, and a Wolpertinger / Extreme Magic Potion, we can assume the actual time spent killing the worm is about 20-25 seconds per Wyrm. How many kills you get per hour is dependent on idle time, which is constituted by the player's APM or lack of, and his attention on the game. I can tell you for a fact that when I kill Strykewyrms, I'm often idle for as long as 15 seconds between Wyrms... If 40 minutes of your hour is spent idle, then you're only saving on the remaining 20 minutes. So lower kills per hour = more idle time = less benefit from your kills. However, as idle time is often spent with prayer on (too much hassle to turn on and off after every kill), the costs remain the same. In other words, while your words may hold true if you're ALWAYS focused, for the majority of slayers, you're overstating the benefit significantly.

math is the language of business, and efficiency is a subset of business you know the language, or you dont Sorry, I simply don't understand how Runescape is a business, unless you work at Jagex that is. You're right in that theoretical mathematics are very rarely accurate. In fact, there's enough we don't know that more likely than not, both Morionic's numbers and mine are probably wrong. However, I also pointed out the comparison to the Ferocious Ring. The Ferocious Ring is not a significant improvement over existing Rings, or even no ring at all, while slaying in Kuradel's Dungeon with an Armadyl Godsword. I watched my friend slay throughout the week without a Whip (trying to get 85 to replace the one he lost, seeing as he was already 84.) AGS and Fire Surge have the same attack speeds. Fire Surge hits higher than AGS while Slaying, and the reason the bonus isn't impressive is that a lot of it is wasted on the kill hit. Sure, you may rack up another 20 damage throughout the kill, but when your already overkilling the monster by 50 HP, the last 20 just doesn't help you very much. After the update, we will be able to test and find out for sure. But if it is the way a lot of people believe it will be (low cost, only purchased to unlock the tasks, +4 not doubled), then I will probably use the Red Cape...

I think you're overlooking quite a bit of information there. Salarin the Twisted is perhaps the best example of this - every cast of Fire Strike does 12 damage. He has 70 HP. Let's just say it was possible to increase this to 13 damage. This is an 8% increase in damage. How many casts will it take to kill Salarin with Fire Strikes? 6. How many casts will it take to kill Salarin with a 13 damage spell? 6. This isn't exactly the same situation since damage against Salarin with Strike spells are at a set number, but you can do something similar with average damage. Fire Surge is expected to inflict 43 damage on average. At 300 Hitpoints, that's nearly 7 casts per kill, meaning your 7th cast is expected to kill the Wyrm if you don't miss. Now, add 4 points of damage onto each of the first 6 hits. This adds up to 24, barely half of the expected average hit. This won't usually save you a cast. In other words, maybe once every few kills, you'll save one cast, but not many. Meanwhile, you have to remember that kill speed is only one of the factors affecting the kills / hour rate. Firstly, remember that after every kill, you need to retrieve the loot, run to the nearest Strykewyrm, stomp, and wait for the animation to end. When each kill only takes 7 casts on average, the 5 or so seconds spent between kills composes a significant amount of the time you spend at Strykewyrms. Finally, we have a living example of the Fire Cape effect at Kuradel's Dungeon in the Ferocious Ring. Like I said, I've done quite a bit of slayer since the Strykewyrms have been released, and I've noticed that weapons that are slow and hard hitting don't really benefit much from the Ferocious Ring. The weapon that indisputably benefits the most is the Dragon Claws, with the special attack inflicting an additional 16 damage, at ~2 seconds per attack. Weapons like the Abyssal Whip improve significantly, but when I slayed side-by-side with a friend using an Armadyl Godsword, the gap between us was noticeably larger than it is normally (Whip normally outperforms Armadyl Godsword during Slayer, but in this case, the improvement was even more visible). Armadyl Godsword attacks roughly 20 times per minute, the same speed as general combat spell-casting. Of course, if the +4 damage is doubled, that changes the story entirely, as +8 damage is much more significant, especially with the Strykewyrms having high hitpoints. Which is my complaint, Jagex isn't very clear about this coming update at all. They've held back on it, probably waiting for more feedback, but how can we give accurate feedback without knowing the specifics? Namely, how many slayer points will it cost? I've gone from 88 to 93 Slayer since Strykewyrms were released and earned over 2.5K points... and this is despite other things going on in my life (granted, I've been told by many that the way I slay results in much faster points and XP). Is this an ability to kill Strykewyrms without a Fire Cape, or an ability to get Strykewyrm tasks and anyone can kill them without the Fire Cape? Is the +4 damage doubled? Etc. Would it have killed them to tell us how many points they were thinking it would cost? Or whether those with Fire Capes need to pay to kill the Ice Strykewyrms capeless? I dunno how this turned into about capes and damage, but you people have seriously too much time on your hands to be going through all this. I'm an RS gamer, by definition I have too much time on my hands anyways back to the numbers. looting and stomping so yes it takes time to loot and stomp lets say i can kill 200 wyrms in 1 hour with a soul wars cape ignoring time spent looting, and it would take me an additional 10 minutes to loot lets say i can kill 200 wyrms in 55 mins with a fire cape ignoring time spent looting, and it would take me an additional 10 minuets to loot 200 wyrms (an equal number of wyrms) these are independent variables even if i factor them in, I still save 5 minutes at the cost of 10k gp in prayer potions no effect on calculations, factor was ignored on purpose im not sure what you're getting at about the comment with +24 damage per kill, and that not being significant because that's not even a single hit even if it's not a single hit, it's a +10% bonus. 10% is significant, you cant look at things qualitatively and say that they're only single hits or not you also mentioned the +4 damage having different effects on different types of weapons But we're talking about fire surge exclusively. What would weapon types factor into our analysis if we're only looking at magic? All spells cast as the same rate, and there are no dragon claws of magic. so once again, all variables you mentioned were ignored deliberately. one not so trivial variable I ignored is that Knock-out hit loss If the wyrm only has 10 hp left, and I hit a 30, 20 damage is lost the higher the average hit, the more "knock out loss" can be expected per kill. so in that sense +4 damage would contribute to the kill rate less than 10% but assuming it's a +10% boost in kill rate, i would only need to earn 120k gp/hour to justify it 120k gp/hour is a very small number, all major variables have been accounted for of course my 200 kills per hour value could have been incorrect in the first place (I am not 93 slayer, I just listen to what people tell me) assuming that is correct, the results seem pretty clear. if the kill rate is actually less than 200 kills per hour, then a +10% boost in kill rate is more substantial, and the fire cape becomes EVEN MORE justifiable by linear extrapolation, if the kill rate is actually 400 kills per hour, then i would need to earn ~ 240k gp/hour to justify a fire cape STILL A VERY SMALL INCOME from the looks of it you would need a kill rate on the order of ~ 1k ice wyrms per hour to justify using a soul wars cape over a firecape are we done now? I still don't get it. How are you getting a +10% boost in kill rate? 4 damage / 86 maximum is less than 5%. And as you conceded, this is further reduced by the lost damage from the knockout hits. You're getting less than a 5% improvement in kill rate. Also, 200 is way off as far as kills per hour goes. A quick in-game measurement indicates that in addition to kill time, I spend about 8-9 seconds per Wyrm. At 21 seconds per kill on average, that's about 120 Wyrms per hour... which is reasonable from what I've heard from other 93 Slayers. Most of them go a little slower as they're not entirely paying attention. One hour is 3,600 seconds. 70% of this is 2,520 seconds. If you reduce this by 3%, you save 75.6 seconds throughout the hour. Disregarding the potential of you not paying attention, you're saving less than 2 minutes...

I think you're overlooking quite a bit of information there. Salarin the Twisted is perhaps the best example of this - every cast of Fire Strike does 12 damage. He has 70 HP. Let's just say it was possible to increase this to 13 damage. This is an 8% increase in damage. How many casts will it take to kill Salarin with Fire Strikes? 6. How many casts will it take to kill Salarin with a 13 damage spell? 6. This isn't exactly the same situation since damage against Salarin with Strike spells are at a set number, but you can do something similar with average damage. Fire Surge is expected to inflict 43 damage on average. At 300 Hitpoints, that's nearly 7 casts per kill, meaning your 7th cast is expected to kill the Wyrm if you don't miss. Now, add 4 points of damage onto each of the first 6 hits. This adds up to 24, barely half of the expected average hit. This won't usually save you a cast. In other words, maybe once every few kills, you'll save one cast, but not many. Meanwhile, you have to remember that kill speed is only one of the factors affecting the kills / hour rate. Firstly, remember that after every kill, you need to retrieve the loot, run to the nearest Strykewyrm, stomp, and wait for the animation to end. When each kill only takes 7 casts on average, the 5 or so seconds spent between kills composes a significant amount of the time you spend at Strykewyrms. Finally, we have a living example of the Fire Cape effect at Kuradel's Dungeon in the Ferocious Ring. Like I said, I've done quite a bit of slayer since the Strykewyrms have been released, and I've noticed that weapons that are slow and hard hitting don't really benefit much from the Ferocious Ring. The weapon that indisputably benefits the most is the Dragon Claws, with the special attack inflicting an additional 16 damage, at ~2 seconds per attack. Weapons like the Abyssal Whip improve significantly, but when I slayed side-by-side with a friend using an Armadyl Godsword, the gap between us was noticeably larger than it is normally (Whip normally outperforms Armadyl Godsword during Slayer, but in this case, the improvement was even more visible). Armadyl Godsword attacks roughly 20 times per minute, the same speed as general combat spell-casting. Of course, if the +4 damage is doubled, that changes the story entirely, as +8 damage is much more significant, especially with the Strykewyrms having high hitpoints. Which is my complaint, Jagex isn't very clear about this coming update at all. They've held back on it, probably waiting for more feedback, but how can we give accurate feedback without knowing the specifics? Namely, how many slayer points will it cost? I've gone from 88 to 93 Slayer since Strykewyrms were released and earned over 2.5K points... and this is despite other things going on in my life (granted, I've been told by many that the way I slay results in much faster points and XP). Is this an ability to kill Strykewyrms without a Fire Cape, or an ability to get Strykewyrm tasks and anyone can kill them without the Fire Cape? Is the +4 damage doubled? Etc. Would it have killed them to tell us how many points they were thinking it would cost? Or whether those with Fire Capes need to pay to kill the Ice Strykewyrms capeless?

You have it all wrong. The compromise will not make the player spend slayer points to buy a task from the master slayer. It will buy the ability to get ice Strykewyrms as a random task - adding it to the list of possible task (much like completing a quest sometimes adds a slayer monster to your list). This is part of why I hate this, Jagex's proposed compromise is very ambiguous and leaves a lot of room for interpretation... Also, I reached 93 Slayer last night, and during my rush towards it, I completed 4 Jad tasks (with the proper set up, despite my poor reflexes and lousy connection I'm currently 5-0 against Jad with five Fire Capes). However, if the +4 damage isn't doubled by Fire magic, I don't think I'll use the Fire Cape there. Fire Cape is +1 Magic, +2 Prayer Ardougne Cloak is +6 Magic, +6 Prayer Guthix / Zamorak / Saradomin Capes are +10 Magic Red / Blue Capes are +12 Prayer The best way of killing them so far is to pray and use magic. When your max hit with Fire Surge is already 86, adding another 4 points doesn't at all justify sacrificing up to +10 prayer and/or up to +10 magic attack.

Most players don't enjoy every feature of the game. Just because certain players tamper with the system and create a hornet's nest of thorns wherever we go doesn't mean Jagex should turn away from this simple, undeniable fact. In some cases, items should be given only to players who have directly earned them (items like Castle Wars rewards, or Skill Capes are indications of some sort of achievement and thus lose their meaning if traded). However, allowing the standard, high-end equipment to be purchased allows players to attain the same levels of play in the larger fields, without being forced to play a specific way. In other words, you can earn money in countless ways (killing monsters, gathering resources, processing items in time-consuming processes, select mini-games, fighting other players on PvP worlds, etc). Combat is a significant portion of this game, and for as integral a part of the game as that, the bulk of your ability should be attainable through wealth. Slight advantages that can not be bought, like Extreme Potions, are fine, but already seem to push the limit. Already, you see discrimination against players without high herblore in monster hunting. Forcing players to get 85 Slayer to use an Abyssal Whip, for example, would be disastrous. Do we really want an 80 Smithing requirement on Godswords? 93 Slayer for the Staff of Light? 99 Smithing for Rune Platebodies? Allowing items to be traded allows players to play the game the way they prefer to...

That's not really a problem. Jagex already said they'll try to keep the colors from being too gaudy (with the exception of Infinity Robes, which is meant to be bright and flamboyant).

Not really. 1) The game gives you a short grace period when the wave begins, which includes if you log in. This means for the first couple seconds, the monsters will be there, but not attack. 2) Ket-Zek really doesn't hit that high. If your HP is decent, you can easily survive one hit, probably two. With good equipment, probably three. 3) There's no time limit, so if you wish, you can trap the remaining monsters on the wave and restore your hitpoints with the Enhanced Excalibur. Dream, Regen Bracelet, and resting can all be effective too, with patience, so as long as you survive the wave, the damage isn't necessarily a problem. Keeping all this in mind, and the quick-prayers and hot keys, it's not hard at all to get through waves with Ket-Zek. I don't recommend logging out after Wave 61 though, for obvious reasons...