Rolled to 50 Dungeoneering today, all solo. I have a Gorgonite spear and platebody bound, plus 125 Gorgonite arrows.
A few reflections on the skill:
The pathfinding algorithm can be VERY bad, especially in rooms with movable obstacles (barrel room, statue room). The over-99 skill requirement doors are stupid. I think the enemy combat levels are wrong. A level 50 warrior shouldn't be able to nearly kill me - especially when I am in full Gorgonite. Maybe they're "elite" units like in WoW? Soloing isn't bad, but losing everything at logout sucks, especially at higher levels.
I've always, in every game I've played, tried to be "strong" for my level. I don't know why, but it's true. Somehow, in Runescape, this morphed into combat hitting a brick wall roughly 4 years ago. I started off wanting to get a 99 before level 90, and got the 99 (and several more), but 90 combat never happened.
Well, I decided a while back to get to roughly 2030 total and then push past 90 combat. I came to this conclusion for a few reasons.
First, and most importantly, I'm getting tired of the game again. I only have a few non-combat skills left to get 99s in, and they're pretty boring sometimes.
Second, I want to experience some new content. There's a lot out there that I haven't done because I'm low combat.
Finally, if you think about it, my account is nothing "special" anymore. It used to be that a low level with several 99s was pretty cool, but now they're everywhere. Since the GE makes merchanting so easy, seeing a level 3 with 99 crafting and herblore isn't all that uncommon anymore. Heck, several of them have higher slayer than I do!'
It's the end of an era. At this point, I have been 8X combat for 4 years, even though about half of that was not playing.
I rolled it with 92 mage, stringing amulets with Astrals that I made.
At the end, I was 89 combat at 2032 total. That's: 22.83 levels per combat 84.67 average level 1498 skills levels 93.625 average skills level 94.4 average skills level without Slayer 534 combats levels 66.75 average combat skill level
Final skiller high scores:
From here, I plan on moving my combats up to roughly where my skills are. I think I still want to keep most my skills above combats (except RC). I think I'll take a page from my dear friend Ard's book and go for balance.
99 Mage is on its way!
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2033: String Amulets
2034: Quests only, I think!
2035: Stringing Amulets
And...
92 Combat's a "while" off. 2 mage levels, which will take 3 days probably.
Well, with life being pretty busy, my play time has been cut back to a minimum. That's not a bad thing at all! I log on after 7PM EST, buy my seaweed, get my sand and essence, kill Bork - you know, daily stuff. I might play a little longer afterward, which is how I got my 85 Hunter last night.
I tell ya, those Pawya and Grenwall are horribly annoying to hunt. I go hunt them once I get around 100 papaya banked - and it's so frustrating when 20 papaya nets you 8 Pawya, which gets you roughly 3 Grenwall. That's with me smoking the traps, too! I know the Grenwall spikes are very valuable on the street, but I'm using them myself because I range, and I don't have junk to sell them with.
I think next time, I'll go bathe in the mud spring to help catch those critters.
I also really need to get to Runecrafting. I've got the essence for 85 RC banked, but kinda dread the (roughly) fifteen hours of making Astrals. And to think I have to make it to 87 by Astrals if I want 99 mage by stringing. I hope to have 85 by roughly... 20 Nov? Two weeks + change? That sounds reasonable.
After that, I need to spend some time in Fast SC to get my hammers for 90 Construction and Smithing. I need roughly 60 games - that's another twelve hours of just SC. Granted, the levels themselves will come quickly after that, but still.
I want to do some combat. I do have several combat levels as part of my goal for 2030 @ 89 combat. That's going to involve some slayer - currently I have Banshees. I'll go cannon/range the Mighty Banshees, which should get me 86 range. After that I'll switch tasks to the Edge or Canafis master, so I can melee them. Oh, except for the 10th task, which will be Sumona. I'm hoping for 70 Attack, 81 Slayer, and 79 HP from that.
Awesome quest! What with this and Zaros on his way back in, I think we may be seeing some epic quest on the way!
[hide=Spoilers] The heroes vs Lucien was unspeakably awesome.
I bought elite black armor as opposed to getting the drops. Sped that part up considerably.
I killed the Balance Elemental with less than 20 crossbow shots of dragonstone (e) bolts. Only once did the special fire. I think I ate three times? Considering the stats that are different between 102 combat and where I was at 89 (namely, summoning levels), I could have done it at 89.
I failed massively at prayer swap. I misread his attacks. I think I basically fought without prayer the entire time.
And to think I was worried.
[/hide]
I used all of the XP on summoning, which took me from 66 to 72 (and 102 combat)!
Had a nice quiet night at home - got home, helped the wife make some very nice split pea soup, cleaned up, and then played RS for a little while.
I decided to start on the mountain of Astrals I have to craft. I did four "sets" of runs. I define a set as the time it takes for a freshly repaired Giant pouch to degrade again. I think that's roughly ten trips to the altar, which I count as 500 essence. I then make an Abyss run to repair them.
Up until today, I would make a load of laws while at the Abyss. However, now I'm doing Deaths to avoid the annoyance of ditching my armor and mud staff.
After ~2k essence, I figured I'd take out my Slayer task. I had somewhere between 150 and 200 Banshees from Summona, so I hopped in the well in the desert and tucked myself into the safe spot. It's amazing how fast a cannon tears through those Mighty Banshees. Drops were nice, too - 700ish pure essence, loop half, clue, 6 ranarr, and 40 odd charms (mainly green). If I hadn't cannoned, it would have been profitable. Heck, it might have been anyways.
Clue sucked, of course, though it was only 2 emotes and 1 Sara Wizard.
Oh, and this:
I have the gold ore for 90. I was going to do Adamant Plates, but gold ore is so much more AFKable.
86 Mining - Concentrated gold ore from Living Rock.
86 Smithing - The gold I mined from Living Rock.
86 Agility - Advanced Gnome.
80 Slayer - Mainly penguin points.
Once I rolled 80 Slayer, I went and used a load of pies at Abyssals. When I walked in, I got a lot of "get outta here noob", but as soon as I started hitting 20s on the demons, I got some respect. Haha. Not a bad 15 kills - got a clue and key half.