o_knames

I'd like to know who's still giving donations.

My method was similar to others', but here's what worked for me: Equipment: Helm of Neitznot; Black dragonhide body & chaps; Ranger boots; Barrows gloves; Skill cape (t); Amulet of Glory; Rune Crossbow; Ruby Bolts (e) Inventory: Abyssal whip; 11 Super Restores (4); 16 Saradomin Brews (4) War Tortoise: full Saradomin Brews (4) I set my one-click Summoning option to 'Take BoB'. I potted with Super Ranging & Defence potions before I left. Right before I spoke with Nomad, I turned on Leech Attack, Ranged, Magic, and Defence curses (all my leeches at level 81). Once the battle started, I didn't move at all and had no problems with the bombs. I just made sure I had 75+ for the first special attack. When he froze me, I brewed up to 100+, and because of the risk of the enchanted ruby bolt special, I didn't attack but took the opportunity to drop empty vials and move Brews over from the war tortoise. Other than that, I just kept shooting away and maintaining with the brews and restores. I'd say it took 5 cycles of his attacks before I got him to berserk. After Nomad went berserk, I switched over to my whip and added the Deflect Melee curse (not sure if it worked, but prayer drain was not a problem even with all the leeches). At the end, I was left with 2 full Super Restores and about 8 full Saradomin Brews. It only took me about 100 ruby bolts, which were definitely worth it for me because I got the 75 damage special at least 6 times. Even though I have maxed melee, most of the battle rested on my 87 ranged. I would certainly be doable with the normal prayer book and a lower prayer level. I didn't get fancy with running around, and I think the extra damage I took was offset by the more shots I got in, plus I was able to concentrate on keeping my HP up. I understand everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion, but I come down on the side of saying this was definitely a grandmaster quest. Whatever the various factors you use, I think most people would agree that it certainly separates a higher echelon player more than any other quest.

I'm in the room where you have to blow up the barrels. I've got piety on and runes for fire wave, but I can't seem to cast the spell on the barrels. Am I missing something? (I should also mention that I did the stepping stones and am now on the other side.) Thanks.

I wholeheartedly agree. And while we're at it, science coddles people in real life by making living easier.

You also need a knife for after you use the canoe.

Terrorbirds are at the top of my list. No good drops and a pain to fight. I also perm skipped iron and steel dragons and skeletal wyverns because the slayer exp is too slow. I'll usually manually skip black dragon tasks for the same reason. I'll usually do mith dragons because they only take a few minutes.

I don't see why there couldn't be another Zanik/Cave Goblin quest. Unless maybe I missed something definitative at the end of Chosen Commander.

I'm looking forward to (hoping for) a minor flood of backlogged quests after they finish 150.

I think Juna says something negative about them if you mention a particular quest prior to entering Tears of Guthix.

You all can argue the merits of one skill over another (although to each his/her own, in my opinion). I would just like to point out that the original poster used the hiscores as a proxy to compare fletching vs. strength. Only one of those skills is p2p, which makes the comparison completely worthless.

I'm not about to count up all the quests in my diary, but since Learning the Ropes awarded a quest point, it should probably count as a quest.

I think I agree nearly 100% with the original poster, although from Jagex's perspective, I guess the most important factor is how well the random catches autoers. I would expect (at least hope) the remaining randoms to fairly compensate for their respective levels of annoying.

As was said above, one of the things that really sets Runescape apart from other games is the frequent content additions. In my opinion, it was a bad business move for Jagex to make the game more like others in that respect, because other games are undeniably better with other aspects. Personally, though, I preferred weekly updates because they broke up the monotony of whatever else was going on. Even a lame mini-game will hold my attention for a day before I go back to other stuff. I guess I would propose a slight compromise solution. I really enjoyed the small fixes they list at the bottom of the updates. If they kept doing them on just a weekly basis, even unannounced, it would be a nice way to promote community discussion and give players something to check out.

I just got 164 this week. That's the highest I think I've had. I've done a bunch in the 150s.

According to KB and the Tip.it Fishing guide, Sea Turtles are 38 Fishing xp, and Manta Rays are 46 xp. The Trawler mini-game guide lists them as 105 and 115 xp, respectively.

The Tip.it guide (and the KB too, if I remember correctly) list the xp per Sanfew Serum as 160. Whenever I made them, I always calculated 192. I was making a small batch, so I thought I'd confirm. Sure enough, it's 192. But wait, there's more. I was making batches out of 4 dose Super Restores to save on Nail Beast Nails and Snake Weeds. I had a couple of Super Restores left over, so I made a 2 dose and a 3 dose. Sure enough, the exp was lower. This makes sense because you could just make a bunch of 1 doses for much cheaper exp. I didn't take the time to do the calculations, but I'm pretty sure the 3 dose was 160 and 2 dose 128. That would seem to make the 1 dose 106. It might be worth some intrepid research.

I'm having trouble with the black spawns during the quest. I got two and died, so I obviously did something right. I just can't figure out what that was. Edit: I can trap them. I just can't get them to spawn.

I'm having troubles getting the black spawns to come out. I've trapped two and died. Now I can't coax them out. Is there a special technique that I can't figure out?

Minor Point - The new guide (which is very helpful) mentions that the Barker is in Seers' Village. I talked to a Barker just north of the southern Ardougne bank. I think something about the Barkers being all around was mentioned in the update. I don't have a pic, so just something to keep an eye out for.

My purely speculative thoughts on the potential requirements: I'd like to see the requirements to complete this new quest equal the cumulative requirements for all the other quests. That way, only players currently eligible for the quest cape could remain eligible. I really liked the progressive eligiblility from RFD, and I'd like to see that revisited.

Prayer Guide: Currently, Monkey Bones are listed only as 18 xp. I guess a separate 20 xp line could be added and then a description added to both (non-bearded for 18,bearded for 20). Item DB: Under uses for Monkey bones -guard-, it already talks about the 18 xp. I might add in the description of the two types. Beastiary: It might be useful to explain the difference between those that block (bearded) and those that don't. I guess it's not necessary to get into the prayer xp difference. Prayer Calc/Planner: Monkey bones -guard- are untradeable, so I'm not sure how many people would use the calc/planner. I am saving all bones as I train 99 melees, so it would be slightly useful to me.

Won't the amount of Summoning exp. change depending on Summoning level? Won't that make it impossible to make a scientific comparison? I think a better tool would be to figure out charm drops per Slayer exp (or even just per monster). People could just drop that info into the Summoning planner and have an accurate result.

I knew about the bearded/no beard, but I hadn't looked to see which blocked and which didn't. In any case, I don't think you have to rename anything, just say that bones from the bearded monkeys are worth 20, non-bearded are worth 18.

It doesn't bother me, but I do think it's kind of ironic that those people will do that AND put other things in their SIGNATURE.

According to the Prayer guide, Monkey Guard bones are worth 18 Prayer exp. That is only half true. There are two flavors of Monkey Guards: the ones you can walk through and the ones that block. The bones of the ones you can walk through are worth 18 exp. The bones of the ones that block are worth 20 exp. This is a small difference, but I'm long-term training melee there and banking all the bones, so with my altar I'm earning 8 exp. more just for going after the blockers, which are otherwise indistinguishable. This would affect the Prayer guide, the bestiary for the Monkey Guards, the item database for the Monkey bones -guard-, and potentially even the Prayer calculator, which would be of great assistance to me personally.