The F2P General Discussion Thread

[pakalolo_mon]

Ever since I decided to not care about getting def up my binds have been spear - longbow - arrows. Spears being longsword speed give them considerably more dps than any other weapon and the ability for all 3 attack styles makes them all-around the best melee weapon. Usually only range certain bosses, but still used much more than mage, and if I ever need mage monsters drop deaths a decent amount of the time + deaths are easily craftable. For a 3rd bind, I'd have to say plate is the best. I'd maybe consider a staff as a 3rd bind if they make it so you can have an arrow and a rune bind. Maybe. The str bonus from gaunts are small enough to not make enough of a difference for me. Though, I'm not 100 yet, so its more speculation than experience.

 

spear/shortbow/arrows (domestobot did it, but he is maxed out, i wouldnt do that with a lower def than 80 and a lower range than 90)

 

Seriously? I had 2h/longbow bound with <50 def (2h only because I didn't want def xp from spear). You should be able to survive without armor. It's not that hard to survive with protect prayers and 2 different teleports. Anyone with armor bound before 100 makes me laugh a little.

 

 

 

Yeah, most people use w61 just because of the faster xp. Personally, I hate giving xp to leecher lvl 3s who afk in the start room the entire floor. Sure, there are the rare few that actually help out, but majority leech. What I hate more than that, though, is dging with the idiots in w7. I've said this before and I mean it: I'd rather solo larges all day than do 5:5s in w7.

 

bit harsh if you ask me, i dont know you, nor have i seen you in w61, but the skillers i dungeoneer with are very active helpful and only afk in larges for bits of a second, its a fact that almost everyone has a plate bound, and it contributes a lot, im not trying to be arrogant in any way but i prefer my 90k xp/h average, than what you get when you solo, also i highly doubt you can solo larges, im not aware of the most recent updates, but not too long ago 1 person was restricted to medium/smalls, i dont understand that longbow either, but well

 

a lot of the dg community are friendly people, at least those i got to know, in our clan we have no leechers at all and blacklist every to make sure that we can avoid them

 

also the increasing of skill in gsing and keying is a thing that motivates me, doing 4 and a half hour runs are not boring or repetive at all, i consider it more fun to dungeoneer in teams

 

 

I haven't dg'd in a few months. Last time I did, saying majority of the "skillers" were leechers and afkers is an accurate statement. There was only a small amount that ever fished+cooked food and made armor for the cbers; and I recall many times where we got emote/switch rooms and one or more of the skillers took a good amount of time to get back to the keyboard and ggs. Annoyance.

 

Saying I'd rather solo larges than do w7 was a hyperbole.

 

Most of the time I use range is on certain bosses. Longbow's accuracy outweighs shortbow's speed for the bosses or high level merc rooms that I use it for.

 

I didn't need a plate to survive with 45-50 def. The extra offensive capabilities of having a t5 range weapon adds speed while the plate is an unnecessary safety-net. My stance remains the same. Plate before 100 = lolcow.

[Fire_Hawk154]

After waiting for hours to find some skillers I remembered why I hate the skill.

I still bind fractite spear + dromoleather body, seems to be the best combo to me. Why on earth would you bind a fractite platebody? Most bosses are easier to kill with ranged than with melee, and you don't need protection versus lvl 40's... :mellow:

[BioIce]

I still don't get it. How does a defensive bind (which has pretty negligible stats tbh) contribute to room clearing and bossing? They don't increase your room clearing speed in any way.

 

I must be missing something here, because I can key in w7 (harder monsters in general) no plate and not die unless it's a dragon or a rape room or something. To me, protection prayers are your defensive "binds", as they are there no matter what. (Unless you overuse them...)

 

They're probably the kind of folk who go into a room full of monsters and get piled, instead of forcing 1v1 confrontations. Heh.

[Youmu]

They're probably the kind of folk who go into a room full of monsters and get piled, instead of forcing 1v1 confrontations. Heh.

Hey I always get piled :o but I rarely get killed either, unless it's like a rape room with high level rangers AND mages. Meleers are easy to safespot, depending on layout of room.

 

Soloing 5:5 gd's really reminds me of that one large that took 2 hours of drudgery to complete... everyone else was a total noob, so I had to solo like half the gd's. A combat 89 soloing multiple 90+ monsters in one room? FAIL LOL.

[hfbrads]

I still don't get it. How does a defensive bind (which has pretty negligible stats tbh) contribute to room clearing and bossing? They don't increase your room clearing speed in any way.

 

I must be missing something here, because I can key in w7 (harder monsters in general) no plate and not die unless it's a dragon or a rape room or something. To me, protection prayers are your defensive "binds", as they are there no matter what. (Unless you overuse them...)

 

They do increase dg speed. They let you spend less time eating.

 

Fractite gauntlets + fractite spear has a +71 strength bonus compared to +67 for just the spear. That's less than 2% increase in dps. Consider how much time you spend fighting in a dg and that smalls are <5 mins and you would save under 3 seconds per small and 12 seconds per large, if you spent 100% of the time fighting which is clearly not the case.

 

Meanwhile, a plate saves you from having to eat on smalls and greatly reduces the amount of food in larges. Consider it takes 2 seconds to eat a piece of food. If that platebody prevents even 100 damage, it's more worthwhile than gauntlets.

 

 

After waiting for hours to find some skillers I remembered why I hate the skill.

I still bind fractite spear + dromoleather body, seems to be the best combo to me. Why on earth would you bind a fractite platebody? Most bosses are easier to kill with ranged than with melee, and you don't need protection versus lvl 40's... :mellow:

 

No, you're not going to die if you don't have the plate. But that's missing the point. It does save time as I explained above.

 

And your contention that ranged is better for most bosses is wrong. The spear outclasses frac arrows in DPS and the weakness of most bosses is actually stab.

 

 

 

They're probably the kind of folk who go into a room full of monsters and get piled, instead of forcing 1v1 confrontations. Heh.

 

Piled? It's much faster to just rush in and kill everything than to position yourself to kill monsters one by one.

 

 

I dunno, it seems you guys are w7 dgers. Most of the cbs on w61 have a plate and that seems to work for them. As I said earlier, the people with plates aren't incompetent either.

[BiJay]

I still don't get it. How does a defensive bind (which has pretty negligible stats tbh) contribute to room clearing and bossing? They don't increase your room clearing speed in any way.

 

I must be missing something here, because I can key in w7 (harder monsters in general) no plate and not die unless it's a dragon or a rape room or something. To me, protection prayers are your defensive "binds", as they are there no matter what. (Unless you overuse them...)

 

They do increase dg speed. They let you spend less time eating.

 

Fractite gauntlets + fractite spear has a +71 strength bonus compared to +67 for just the spear. That's less than 2% increase in dps. Consider how much time you spend fighting in a dg and that smalls are <5 mins and you would save under 3 seconds per small and 12 seconds per large, if you spent 100% of the time fighting which is clearly not the case.

 

Meanwhile, a plate saves you from having to eat on smalls and greatly reduces the amount of food in larges. Consider it takes 2 seconds to eat a piece of food. If that platebody prevents even 100 damage, it's more worthwhile than gauntlets.

You don't need any time eating because you do that while running. Speaking of running, you will have less run time when having the platebody.

[BioIce]

 

They do increase dg speed. They let you spend less time eating.

 

And your contention that ranged is better for most bosses is wrong. The spear outclasses frac arrows in DPS and the weakness of most bosses is actually stab.

 

Piled? It's much faster to just rush in and kill everything than to position yourself to kill monsters one by one.

 

I dunno, it seems you guys are w7 dgers. Most of the cbs on w61 have a plate and that seems to work for them. As I said earlier, the people with plates aren't incompetent either.

 

Pfft. Learn how to eat on the run and prayer flash.

 

Ranged is useful in F2P. Shadowforger takes a lot of damage from ranged attacks. It's plenty faster in the skeleton horde boss room compared to magic, not to mention that god damn eyeball boss Nightgazer in the furnished floors. Then there's Lexicus and Astraea. It's also useful against Stomp if you want to reduce his attack styles to magic and ranged. Then you have the plane-freezer and his slippery room. Harlakk, whom you can strafe by using the four corners, and the walk method with the ice fiend. (My thanks to the men in these forums for showing those methods.) Shortbowing the cursebearer is pretty effective. As for icy bones, letting someone tank while you're far off behind your tanker - you almost take no damage. Oh, and Ballak, mainly to stay out of his AOE banhammer attack. And never forget the geomancer, that accursed sucker who leeches off your prayer.

 

I stick with the claim that ranged is useful for most F2P bosses.

 

If you're in w61, then you certainly don't need to worry too much about standing in the middle of the room and attracting all the monsters. Although these sort of folk do take a considerable amount of damage anyway and end up eating, instead of fighting smart and making it 1v1. The obstacles in a room are there. Use them to your advantage.

 

Then again, I consider the reduced difficulty as easy mode. No, they aren't incompetent, but they've got a short-lived run stamina.

[Youmu]

Ranged is useful in F2P. Shadowforger takes a lot of damage from ranged attacks. It's plenty faster in the skeleton horde boss room compared to magic, not to mention that god damn eyeball boss Nightgazer in the furnished floors. Then there's Lexicus and Astraea. It's also useful against Stomp if you want to reduce his attack styles to magic and ranged. Then you have the plane-freezer and his slippery room. Harlakk, whom you can strafe by using the four corners, and the walk method with the ice fiend. (My thanks to the men in these forums for showing those methods.) Shortbowing the cursebearer is pretty effective. As for icy bones, letting someone tank while you're far off behind your tanker - you almost take no damage. Oh, and Ballak, mainly to stay out of his AOE banhammer attack. And never forget the geomancer, that accursed sucker who leeches off your prayer.

Stab on shadowforger > ranged. Though, camping afar and praying protect from range does help a bit.

For skele horder range certainly is better. Don't know about the effectiveness of melee though.

Nightgazer is faster melee tbh.

Agreed on both Lexicus and Astea. Though for the latter you still want to use melee as much as possible.

Agreed with Stomp especially rock clearing.

Planefreezer takes far more damage melee than range or magic, and a recent update allowed slipping to happen way less.

Harlakk is better maged or stabbed.

For icefiend don't even run, just tank the damage. You can just eat after it finishes anyway.

Any melee > ranged on cursebearer.

Never larged icy bones.

Ballak is better maged and melee is still better. Prot melee nullifies most damage for the tanker, until pray disable anyway.

Again just like Astea, you want to melee Geomancer as often as possible. Only range when necessary, but yea.

 

In summary: Melee for most. Ranged still has its uses though. Magic is only useful versus Rammernaut and, to some extent, the demons.

 

EDIT: Didn't realize this was a post for ranged vs magic, d'oh. Still would be helpful for those that want to know. Melee is still the dominant king for most things.

[BioIce]

Your ranged is pretty weak, Sonic. Undoubtedly the melee/magic combo would be better far more effective for you since you haven't yet experienced what 99 or 90+ ranged can do. And I eventually found it easier to dodge the Forger's green goo and keep ranging instead of using the spear and taking on heavy damage.

 

Speaking of Nightgazer, I used to lure that thing closer to the door by teleporting outside a second before it stuns. Heheheh. Great fun to kill off the melee combatants nearby.

 

While it's certainly true melee is more effective on the cursebearer, take into consideration melee stats. Those with unbalanced stats end up missing more often if they've a lower attack.

 

The point with icefiend is that you can kill it even at 100+ level with only a couple of dusk eels using the beeline walk method. You do not tank, you do not run. You walk. It's very useful if there's little food to be had. Hell, the whole point of range is to be able to hit from anywhere while keeping the enemy out of arm's reach.

 

I'd rather snipe the plane-freezer than risk being shoved around. I just aim, go off the computer for some tea, and tada! It's dead.

 

A large floor icy bones hits 200+ damage hard and often. Gods, I can't remember the number of times I've laughed when some overconfident fools deride him and say, "he's easy!"

[hfbrads]

Okay. Do whatever works for you. I'm going to stick with w61 and 90k xp/hr.

[BioIce]

I most certainly will.

[hfbrads]

Your logic isn't even internally inconsistent.

 

You laugh at people who bind plates because it's a waste. You laugh at people who don't flash prayer and don't kite.

 

Yet despite all your efficiency and advanced techniques, you earn half the exp they earn because you insist on w7 dging.

 

So why bother?

[BioIce]

Because it's fun.

 

I find it fun in the same vein I find games like Demon Souls fun. I didn't play it for levels or the experience. I played it for the people I met. As for the gameplay style I chose for dungeoneering, I chose cutthroat speed. I would key to within an inch of my health - and say to hell with it, and keep going and not die. Some even called me a demon, like when I would jump straight into room mazes upon opening the door and finishing with the bars still 3/4 full. Heh.

 

The experiences I relate to you in the previous posts are the experiences of when I was still hosting the Dragoons some months ago. I neglected p2p and instead played this in f2p since day one until the time I got bored of it and started preparing for the release of free trade. In that timespan I reached 100. But what does that matter? It's nothing to someone like me. That's not why I play.

 

The time I spent with the Dragoons entertained me greatly. Hell, I can't remember the number of times some of them started competing with each other for most number of deaths by suiciding the floor. (Cyborg, Angel, I'm looking at you!) Or teasing newcomers with rumors like the "don't kill dinos!" flake, or the false belief level 3s touching the monolith lowered the chance of spawning high level shades. Don't know if some of the rumors we made are still floating around though. Accepting one or two strangers into the current floor's team changed the pace instead of the bland, same-y rhythm I found to a floor in w61.

 

I doubt you'll understand where I'm coming from, but I enjoyed playing with my companions centered around surviving in w1/w7. Evidently you play for the levels. I play for the company I encounter.

[hfbrads]

No, that's exactly the point I was trying to make.

 

If you play for fun, why worry if others binds plates or don't flash prayer? Therein lies your hypocrisy.

[BioIce]

I'm hardly worried.

 

The argument at hand was about speed.

 

Platebody binds = decrease in run speed and pointless protection. Only time I can see it being used is for the boss. And if you're going to have armor, dump coins for your skillers whenever you home teleport or yell "ggs safe" when a cleared room coincidentally has food and ores.

 

Standing in the middle of a guardian room against level 40-50s using magic, ranged, and melee = amusingly stupid. You'll end up eating more dusk eels than not. I found it faster to isolate a monster or reduce the type of damage I took by getting them stuck around obstacles.

 

I speak from the standpoint of having done a 15-20min large on my own. (Glitched it, the difficulty was the same as a w1/7 dungeon.)

 

EDIT: Try not to confuse my view of efficient combat methods with what I call "fun" on a large scale. Both are apples and oranges to me.

[Youmu]

Platebody binds = decrease in run speed and pointless protection. Only time I can see it being used is for the boss. And if you're going to have armor, dump coins for your skillers whenever you home teleport or yell "ggs safe" when a cleared room coincidentally has food and ores.

What. As if using a platebody to protect yourself during keying is pointless enough, it has absolutely NO bearing on the boss since for most bosses, several attacks hit through armor and even prayer as if they weren't there.

 

Only time I would even recommend a platebody would be if said person has only 40-ish defense, and even then, I tell them to go plateless and try and survive with no plate. After all, when you reach a high combat level, you're going to have to do most things no-armoring, right?

 

I can vouch for the rest of the things Bio Ice said. We may be fun-oriented at times, but that doesn't stop us from being efficient when we want to. Without the Dragoons (as well as DGS), I probably wouldn't know as much about dung as I would now, and probably wouldn't even bother doing dung.

 

My fastest w7 key is 28 minutes with most rooms opened (around 12 with minimal rooms). Fail deaths. Really need to raise my combats <_<

[EggsYoke]

Well I have been reading this discussion (argument) about the best binds in F2P Dungeoneering. I would say that I have reasonable experience in Dungeoneering (90+ Dungeoneering on 3 accounts, 108 on best) in F2P, most of which was done in W61. I would just like to add my thoughts. I have personally thought about binds and all that quite a bit and I have come to this conclusion.

 

Bind 1: Spear - Unless you are a) A pure (don't want to train Defence) or b) much higher Ranged than melee stats, the spear is by far the best option. Lighter than other weapons, it has very good stats for all 3 attack styles, and with it's somewhat fast speed and its versitility, no weapon comes even close to it melee wise.

 

Ammo bind: Laws or Cosmics - It really is a toss up between these two. Assuming you bound a spear for your #1 bind, teleport runes are definately a must. By binding cosmics, it is much easier to start floors (specifically smalls) right away, by gating the home room and then running into the first room possible and if it is a guardian door, clear it and loot a bit of cash so you can buy a tool kit (tk) and a few essences for Laws. Law runes can also be helpful as you can generally craft cosmics 2x faster than laws. However, I personally bind cosmics. ;P

 

Bind 2: Platebody - I understand that many people will not agree with this, but I hope to persuade you that this is the better choice. A bind like gauntlets boost your strength bonus by +4, which is approximately 6% or so more damage. That is a very little extra boost. A platebody on the other hand, has decent stats (not sure where the people previously got there ideas about it having poor stats), and it will save you from having to heal probably 1500+ lifepoints on a large floor. I will agree that platebodies don't have much use on small floors where you generally don't need food, but you don't generally run out of energy on small floors either, so it really isn't a hinderance that way. In that case, it would appear that gauntlets would be the better choice for small floors and a platebody would be better for larges. But switching between the floors is quite clearly not a legitimate option. So you have to choose. Are gauntlets worth 1500 (this number may be off, but I don't think so) lifepoints that have to be healed on a floor, or is a platebody worth +6% damage. It's kind of like weighing up the mask (don't know the name) that gives attack bonuses in comparison to a rune full helm. Which would you choose? I guess i'll leave it up to you guys, but from my experience, a platebody is much more effective.

 

Bind 3: Spinebeam Shortbow - Assuming that you are 100 Dungeoneering, you will generally have higher Ranged. I would suggest getting a shortbow as you will often spawn fractite arrows in the start room for larges. I wouldn't bother looting arrows on smalls, as you don't really need them that much, but they may benefit your more than gauntlets would on a large. This bind is really a toss up, and based on what you previously chose as binds, it could also be another attack weapon like a maul (which adds a lot of weight by the way) or a rapier (spear is probably just as effective but rapier may help with mono's/low leveled npc's).

 

I have also seen a lot of discussion about some of the top F2P Dungeoneers and their binds. I will try to discuss their binds and their reasoning behind it.

 

Puremudkipz (level 89, 112 Dungeoneering)

Binds: Spinebeam shortbow, Fractite arrows (125), Fractite 2h, Fractite Maul

 

Pure is 99 Ranged, so he uses Ranged for the most part in his dungeons. He has 16 Defence so any armour that he can wear has virtually no effect so he decided to bind a Fractite Maul has his 3rd bind so that he has an effective crush attack (2h's crush isn't very good) against skeletons that you will commonly encounter on abandoned floors. The trade off his that a maul weighs a lot (around 9 kg I think). However, because he has no plate bound, his total weight isn't very high and therefore it doesn't come as too much of a hinderance for him.

 

 

Kadour Ziani (level 124, 116 Dungeoneering)

Binds: Fractite Spear, Fractite Platebody, Spinebeam Longbow, Cosmic Runes (125)

 

Kadour is arguably the fastest Dungeoneer in F2P. He is extremely efficient in dungeons and is quite knowledgable about how Dungeons work. Fractite spear and platebody are chosen for reasons listed above. He chose a spinebeam longbow so that on large floors, for bosses such as the night-gazer and the shadow forger, he could Ranged them. Generally, Kad won't loot arrows on small floors, expect when Lexicus is a possiblity as the boss. He also binds cosmic runes so that he can rush small floors immediately.

 

 

Isthatok (Level 126, 106 Dungeoneering)

Binds: Fractite Spear, Spinebeam Shortbow, Fractite Gauntlets, Fractite Arrows (125)

 

Isthatok is one of the most efficient Dungeoneers out there. His binds allow him to have versitility in dungeons that a player like Kadour doesn't generally have. However, Isthatok pays for it in the speed he can do smalls in, as he has to create runes in it. His lightweight (no plate) often helps him on larges, but it also can hinder him as he will often have to waste prayer to stay alive on npc's that don't generally require prayer and/or will have to loot food, although he is often efficient about that and doesn't lose anytime looting. The fact that he is 99 Defence and 98 Prayer helps him support the binds he has, but not many players could effectively do so without a platebody to help them stay alive.

 

 

Those are the 3 most diverse cases that I can think of for the top Dungeoneers in F2p. You can probably personally ask Isthatok about his binds, as he commonly posts on the tip.it forums. It really is up to you guys though for your binds. In the end, it's all about having fun and if your binds are causing you to be unhappy, why use those binds. ;P

[Youmu]

Well, I guess it's really up to what you value more - more options for offense, or added defense to eat less. It's really because of my chats with DGS, they say that even a primal platebody isn't good unless you key a lot, lot more than you DPS, so I assumed a fractite platebody is like having no platebody except with added weight.

 

I'm still sticking with my ideal binds of spear-2h-longbow-firestaff and blastbox though. Ideally I want to be diverse in combat so there's more options to choose from.

 

Can't wait for ammo bind #2 to come out! :pray:

[Miner_Guy]

Im 62 dungeoneering does that i mean i can go to w61 oor do i still have to go a bit further in w7? And i why do skillers give you more exp, because the npcs are lower cb lvl?

[hfbrads]

How about some numbers?

 

 

Fractite gauntlets:

 

+6 +9 +6 -1 +5

 

 

Fratite platebody

 

+100 +93 +54 -6 +101

 

 

Let's consider the case of the gauntlets. Let us generously round its defensive bonuses to +10. With 99 defence, the maximum defense roll is 128.

 

Now for the platebody. Let's round down the defense bonus against stab,slash and range to +90. With 44 defence, the maximum defense roll is 130.

 

Against crush, which the platebody protects only +54, with 60 defence you would have a defence roll of 130.

 

So this means that for foes who use ranged, stab or slash, the platebody acts as 99-44 = 45 defense levels.

 

For foes who use crush, it acts as 99-60= 29 defense levels.

 

 

 

Consider then that you have 99 defense. Your defense roll with a platebody would be 262 compared to 128 with the gauntlets. How much does this help?

 

Consider a hypothetical monster with 50 attack and 50 attack bonus whose max attack roll would then be 108.

 

His 108 versus your 128 would hit 42.2% of the time.

 

His 108 versus your 262 would hit 20.6% of the time.

 

So in this instance, it would more than halve the amount of damage you take from this monster.

 

Vis a vis the issue of weight. If you don't have the platebody, you have to kite around monsters as opposed to someone else who simply stands in the middle killing everything. That mitigates the weight of the platebody.

 

In any case, cbers don't run out of energy on smalls. On larges, it is sometimes an issue but three teleports and good communication can reduce the need.

 

As I said before, fractite gauntlets increase the DPS of your group by less than 2%. I would hardly call that a worthwhile bind.

[ilovecuttingyews]

And i why do skillers give you more exp, because the npcs are lower cb lvl?

Back when Dunge came out (the first day or two) members found out that because F2P bosses were lower combat levels, it was faster exp to train in F2P than P2P. Because of this, Jagex decided to cut the exp for any party with an average combat level of 90+ by half. So people use skillers to reduce the average combat level of the party. The fact that the npc's are lower leveled is just another plus.

The sad thing about this is that when P2Pers used F2P to train was when people were all under level 50 Dunge. At that point on the curve, the exp difference is so minimal that condemning F2Pers who are over 90 cb to sub-par exp rates forever was a bad idea.

[Miner_Guy]

do i need to go there if i have only 65 combat?

[ilovecuttingyews]

do i need to go there if i have only 65 combat?

If you Dunge with a party you can use any world but in general the people there are better than the normal W7 Dungers. As long as your party's average CB level is under 90, you'll get the "normal" exp.

[hfbrads]

I would suggest you dg on w7.

 

OrTradeMe iis correct in that w61 dgers are usually better but for that same reason you almost certainly won't get invited to parties on w61.

[Miner_Guy]

I would suggest you dg on w7.

 

OrTradeMe iis correct in that w61 dgers are usually better but for that same reason you almost certainly won't get invited to parties on w61.

What's the rough dg lvl to be accepted there?