stormveritas

The argument of the law of large numbers is accurate here, it is also true that statistics force their way through the door when you play long enough. That said, the average player has neither the time nor the resources to gain kills in many venues (particularly boss fights) to approach statistically significant numbers to qualify these assertions. Bear in mind that most players don't play as much as those that visit the boards and post regularly. Most don't get several hundred boss kills. For those that DON'T kill by the truckload, the fortunes of their drops certainly does reside in the realm of pure luck.

Nice storyline development, well written, and fairly difficult. 0/10. I hate waterfiends with a bloodthirsty passion and any quest that forces me to work through them gets a 0. Die waterfiends die; I hate you more than anything on God's green earth.

You're much better served to buy the bolts from lapalok / duradel on a daily basis. The price is much lower, and by doing less of the boltmaking at a time, you insulate yourself from price volatility. If the profitability of the job falls off, you're not vested in tens of thousands, so you won't lose much.

If you're slaying seriously, you absolutely NEED to do Smoking Kills. You're wasting your time without it. The easiest way to seek the answer is to search the tip it bestiary under the monsters you want to fight. There was a time when you could not fight Dust Devils without doing Desert Treasure; I don't know if that changes with the release of the Chaos Tunnels. In either event, there are so many quests and options which affect your ability to unlock monsters that you're best served to search by monster. Except Smoking Kills. If you haven't done that, you haven't earned your Slayer Card yet.

The D Pick still has largely "Luxury Item" status; whether its benefits are tangible or not are debatable. If you are poor and looking for a good investment, I'd advise you to steer clear. The item is still very volatile, and no one knows how well it works. If you have money, or just really want to try it, go ahead! It's your money, and you can sell it back even if it goes down without catastrophic loss.

If you've got the charms (crimson and blue!) saved up, the leveling of summoning (with Kyatts and Duel rings, if I recall) is absolutely second to none. You're looking at 400-500k exp / hour in your sleep. It's crazy! It's also expensive, but summoning has a way of paying you back for your "investment".

According to my experience, as well as several others, double astrals are still better than the 1.5 or so nats/ess you get doing those at the same level. Bear in mind that as your RC level gets higher, you are making MORE than 2 astrals / ess, which makes up for the gap. At about 20k exp / hour, astrals are clearly the best money, but at somewhere between 35-40k exp / hour, ZMI is CLEARLY much, much faster. If you've done the Ardy diaries, you also get better runes and bonus runes while using the ZMI altar. While the rising cost of essence hurts its profitability, I'd strongly recommend at least mixing in some ZMI, if not substituting astrals for ZMI altogether.

I have almost the exact same selection of blocked tasks, only I chose to block Goraks instead of Wyverns. Don't block anything you haven't tried a few times, and then block whatever you personally dislike. My decision to block waterfiends is often scolded because they are wonderful Crimson Charm droppers, but I -hate- them. At the end of the day, do what makes you happy!

Love the right click "kills left" option on slayer ring in inventory. Great for tasks!

Does this affect the gap from 44-91 runecrafting? If so, long term, it will really hurt the benefit of geting 91 rc.

Since 15 isn't a ton, it's worth noting that perhaps you want to invest that cash and turn it over into more money. I'd recommend using that money on a skill like buying fletching supplies. REsearching the right items, there are still lots of places where you can exploit the market to make money. For example, right now addy bolts are worth much more than addy bolts (unf) + feathers.

Looking at the stats advertised in your sig, I'd have to think you'd know your way around the bow by now for what -you- consider fun. Blues are slow, but I loved the clues they dropped, and all that money. Lots of the more "fun" and rangeable tasks have significant slayer requirements. - Cave Horrors - Dust Devils - Kurask - Turoth - Nechryael All very rangeable, and plus broad bolts are still perhaps the single most effective tool for ranging with reasonable cost. Great speed can be achieved through yaks, ogres, etc., but I find those horribly boring.

Well, for starters, you should be soloing Bork every day. :-) The mole is a good one, although I hate his drops. KBD you could do, too, but he's harder than people let on. Without unicorns or extreme pots, it's very difficult to get more than 5ish kills per trip. I've never been a fan of DK's. That place is just chaos. There is too great a chance you're going to get blindsided by one of the other guys. Unless you have an experienced guide to show you how, I'd steer clear.

What are your cash constraints? You can get loads of fast exp using red chinchompas on zombie monkees under Ape Atoll, or Nechryael in the Chaos Tunnels. If not, I recommend just going to Sumona and getting slayer tasks from her. You'll level slayer, which is a great cash maker, and in the process get tons of rangeable tasks that go quickly. If you refuse to slay, I always trained range on blue dragons in Taverly Dungeon (get 70 agility!). They're fast, weak to range, and drop loads of profitable items. With current prices of D Bones, you won't be able to help yourself from getting rich.

Important to consider which skills you're looking to develop. Duradel is the clear winner for melee training, Sumona outshines all masters for assigning tasks which can be readily ranged (and not just with that wasteful cannon!). Personally, I use Duradel/Lapalok the most, but often switch up and give Sumona a visit when I go on a bad run or want a change of pace.

Keep them very close until the higher levels. The difference between 97 and 98 attack is the same as the gap from 1-74 strength. Obviously, 74 strength levels are a helluva lot more effective than one extra attack level. I trained in controlled form, although it feels slow it is actually not bad at all. When I started using SGS instead of whip, I'd alternate attack style every 100k exp. I wouldn't hold off defense completely; I'd at least move that up into the 85 range while working other skills because extra defense helps you stay longer at those trips and use less food.

Which tend to cost a lot of money that is wasted if you're slaying anyway (and will have access to those charms). Unfortunately, a ton of the best charm droppers aren't available until you're a fairly experienced slayer. Abby Demons, Nechryaels, Dark Beasts, and Dust Devils are all outstanding charm droppers that require a relatively advanced slay level.

I do -not- block steel or irons. If you want mage exp, use your slayer points to buy slayer dart runes, and mage them with stealing creation hats. I get legitimately 200k exp / task. I also have gotten several dragon legs and skirts, as well as a visage. I block goraks, Black Demons, waterfiends, and warped terrorbirds. Goraks - These guys are -terrible-. High defense, awful drops, and they stat drain. Terrible! Black Demons - need to pray to kill them quickly, and they don't drop anything worthwhile. Over time, they're a money drain. Waterfiends - They're just a nuisance. They hit way harder than they should, and hit in multiple attack styels. They're hard to damage effectively. They have pretty good drops, but I hate them. Warped Terrorbirds - Very similar to waterfiends. The best I hear people say about them is they're not that bad. I disagree with those people. And greaters are absolutely awesome. You're high if you block greater demons.

With the new interface, you can set the left click option for the summon button. This makes storing or removing essence to your abyssal familiar MUCH easier. I definitely recommend getting the abyssal guy going. If you can get the agile gear, you're completly all set. I sprint the entire time I'm runecrafting with absolutely no need for super energies.

Only the big annoying Scarabrites drop good charms. The minions, which make for a faster task, drop only coins. T-Birds are okay money, but they are very annoying to fight and hit much harder than you'd think.

Nice job! Runite mining is better with a pack yak; I'm sure you know any item retrieval far from a bank is much better served. That said, pack yak is a lot -less- important now for runite mining at dark beasts, since you can access those MUCH more easily from a bank as teleport crystals have been updated. Other places, like wilderness, ice trolls, etc. are far from banks, and so pack yak is very helpful. Killing anything that drops somethign marginally good every kill is perfect. This includes GWD bosses (like Ourg Bones), Dragons, DKs (for their skins), etc. Another great one is giant tortoises (with the chimes) for their shells, which are very valuable. Unfortunately, most people with your levels don't collect seconds, but many of them (like whiteberries) are far easier to collect when you have access to the yak.

Smoking Kills is a great quest to use because it allows you to accumulate points for slaying AND access the smoke dungeon and make the slayer helm. I can't imagine any big time slayers haven't done it, but it's worth saying. Check into Doric's Quest also; I think you need it for Skeletal Wyverns. Also, if you haven't done Fairy Tale II you can't use Fairy rings, which is critical to reach altenative abyssal demons.

Thieving and hunter are both surprises; I'd expect to see a lot more of them. Just underscores how insanely combat-heavy Runescape is.

Soul Wars killed this argument. The answer used to be simply Slayer; now there is nothing so incredibly difficult to garner on your own.

Melee is most efficient when you factor in time constaints. Ranging will save food and a few teles (unless you can summon Bunyips, which let you knock out the full task in one go), but ranging takes twice as long. Use melee armor. Prayer is overkill here; these guys aren't that strong.