Cannon till 99 Range - Advise?

[spudrow]

Before you flame me for "wasting money on Cannoning till 99 Range", I've pretty much already made up my mind on this. For one, I'm getting bored with what current skills I have and I'm wanting to do something much more interesting with them. You see, I'm currently 99 Magic with 10 Hitpoints. I figured the "ultimate" for me at this point would to be max Range using Cannon. Everyone has their own personal goals for their accounts, this one is mine. What I need help in is the strategy needed for this accomplishment.

 

I currently have 30 Range, which took little time to do. I've been told that calculating Range experience using Cannon is a difficult and unpredictable thing to do. Is there some sort of average base to start from? I currently have 150K Cannonballs in my possession and I'll soon have more after I finish getting 99 Thieving (currently 91, working at Master Farmers so I'm projecting about another 35-40M profit, pending seed prices). I have absolutely NO clue how far 150K Cannonballs will set me in experience nor how many I'll need to achieve my goal. Is there anyone that could shred some light for me on this?

 

Secondly, and less importantly, training areas. I'm sick of Rock Crabs. Absolutely sick of it. Any suggestions for other areas to train? Preferably areas with reasonable charm drops (incase I should ever decide to train Summoning) but that's not a priority. I tried out the Orges in the King's Training Grounds but they don't hit often enough, it almost seems like a waste.

 

Lastly, gear. Do any of the ranging gear (i.e. Dragonhide armor, Ranger equipment, etc) help boost the potential hits by Cannon? Anything at all?

 

Thanks in advance, for putting up with my concerns.

[Sir_Squab]

I know I've heard people swear that a higher range bonus makes you more accurate with the cannon. I'm afraid that's the only question I can answer.

[Hedgehog]

You could try the trolls north of Neitiznot. Last I checked (probably a year ago, but whatever) it was profitable. They drop granite shields and gems. Wear a wooden shield, the same one you got from the quest and pray melee, I believe.

 

Alternatively, just train slayer and cannon every possible task. I'm sure you'd get a lot more out of training if you did it with slayer.

 

Also, I wouldn't even suggest cannoning, and especially not to 99. You're only level 30, which is paltry xp, and obviously you have no idea what 99 range would be like. This isn't to say you can't do it, just that you shouldn't be too sure if you can. Maybe just get it up to 70 or 80, which is just as good a goal, imo. Use the time you save from not getting a 99 to make money, train other skills, etc.

[All_Is_Great]

You can try caged ogres, but that might require a quest which might ruin your 10 hp, I can't remember.

[spudrow]

Squab - Same here, but wasn't actually sure if there has been evidence/Jagex comments to confirm it.

 

Hedge - I do believe those trolls require a quest I cannot do (10hp). And I was training it until I blocked my ability to Slay. After finishing an assignment, I was given Crawling Hands. Realizing that I cannot enter Slayer Tower with Cannon, I picked a new task only to get Banshees. Not sure what the chances are of that happening but they did. And I cannot Slay the Banshees in the desert without ruining my stats. I know 99 Range will be quite the task but I'm more than willing to attempt it. It took me about 250K alches to reach 99 Magic and I'm pretty confident that if I could swallow my pride enough for it, I could atleast attempt Range.

 

Great - Yes, those are the ones in the King's Training Grounds (Ardy Quest, which I completed). If they were in multiple directions, it would be one of the best ways to cannon-train, but since they are caged off only in one location, it seems wasteful.

[Hedgehog]

Ya I totally missed the 10 hp thing, otherwise I would've fact checked my post for it. I'd recommend that you just use Burthorpe for slayer, since Canifis assigns a lot of slayer tower monsters. The xp won't be great, since you'll probably 1 or 2 hit a lot of monsters, but I'd say that you should at least give it a try. If you can dunge and if you have at least 43 prayer, you can cannon hellhounds in the secret lair in the Taverly dungeon. Failing that, kalphites aren't too bad, firegiants are good if you can get into Waterfall without wrecking your stats, after that, I'm not sure what else to suggest.

[spudrow]

Last time I checked, you cannot cancel/get new Slayer tasks twice in a row, right? For the last few months, I've been stuck since Banshee was my 2nd task and I cannot complete it due to the restrictions of cannon-use in the Slayer Tower. Has there been an update that'll help me get a new task or is there a way around this?

[aspeeder]

You could try black demons in the Taverly Dungeon when you get higher range if you're really looking for charms, just be sure to pray melee if one can attack you or you'll die pretty quick.

[Hedgehog]

Did you try?

[Sinkhan]

Are you also 1 def?

[All_Is_Great]

Great - Yes, those are the ones in the King's Training Grounds (Ardy Quest, which I completed). If they were in multiple directions, it would be one of the best ways to cannon-train, but since they are caged off only in one location, it seems wasteful.

 

I remember when caged ogres were the place every pure trained at. If you set up your cannon right, you can get 5 or 6 hits in per rotation.

[spudrow]

aspeeder - Thanks, I'll research it.

 

Hedge - Yes, it won't let me get a new task until I've completed Banshees; unless there some unknown way for me to cancel twice in a row or somehow get it complete.

 

Sink - Yes

 

Great - It's been a long time since i've been there, I might just re-visit the area and think up a strategy for the process. I've also heard such things but when I tried it, I wasn't pleased with the results. I'll research it further.

[Sinkhan]

Hm, I was maybe going to suggest abby specs in the Desert Slayer dungeon, but you need a rather high CB for Smoking Kills you'd also need the slayer helmet.

[Quyneax]

Ranged gear does not affect the cannon, unless you happen to be ranging. E.g. full arma/ranging ammy/ranger's boots won't help the cannon if you are using a bronze dagger. I know it works because my cannon stopped hitting as soon as my handcannon blew up <_<.

 

So, the best gear would be the best dragonhide you can wear (or snakeskin) with a sighted bow, but a godsword or chaotic maul would also be good. You don't actually have to hit with your weapon, but you must have the most accurate attack style selected (not crush on a gs, for example).

 

You need to do Smoking Kills for the most epic cannon spot (cave crawlers) but if you somehow managed you'd have access to around 1 effigy per 70 minutes, plus charms (mostly green however). I think, that one of the waterbirth monsters offered good blue charms, but I don't have details. Finally, black demons are pretty good as well, dropping mostly crimson charms. Fire giants drop gold charms a lot.

[Dragondan_Ro]

For experience, we can safely assume it does somewhere between 50-150 damage on average, depending on monster.

 

If it does 50+ damage on average, then 1 cannonball = 10 exp. If it does 100+ on average, 20 exp per cannonball on average. If it does 150 damage 30 exp per cannonball.

 

13m experience would then take anywhere from 1.3m cannonballs to 433k cannonballs. (Though, 50 damage per exp is a little low, and I really doubt you'd be that unlucky)

 

I can't give you accurate results since I haven't really tested the cannon, but in my opinion, you'd probably use about 500-700k cannonballs. 204m cash spent, if the monster gives absolutely no cash drops. Since you won't be fighting the monsters, I highly suggest fletching broad bolts, it can help on the goal to 99 and/or at least give you some money back if the monsters drop nothing of value.

 

I'm fairly certain you can get 30k+ ranged experience per hour doing this method. But it all depends on the monster.

 

Good luck finding a monster though!

[aspeeder]

The whole range-bonus-affecting-cannon thing isn't entirely true, basically the cannon's accuracy is dependent on how high the bonus for whatever attack style you're using is. Ie if you have full range armor but a bronze dagger you won't hit anything but if you have full blk d'hide and a cmaul then you'll be hitting almost everything.

 

Source: http://runescape.wikia.com/wiki/Dwarf_multicannon#Damage

[Sinkhan]

As a bit of an aside, do visible boosts like ranging potions, invisible boosts like ranged prayers, and equipment boosts like FSH/void affect the cannon?

[spudrow]

Sink - Aye, it's basically out-of-the-question at this point in time.

 

Quyneax - Thanks for the gear & location suggestions, I'll definitely chalk those up for research.

 

Dragon - Thanks! Very much, indeed. I think your calculations are spot on, depending on the hits. I, too, think 50 is relatively low and that 150-ish would be the appropriate range to look at (since it hits up-to 300, apparently).

 

aspeeder - Thank you very much for that link, it helps with deciding on the appropriate gear and calculations for cannoning.

 

So, what's left is to figure out other monsters to research on. If anything else, that hasn't been mentioned, comes to mind, I'd be most grateful!

 

EDIT: Sink - I would think so, since gear apparently does effect the outcome. I'll do some tests at some caged monsters and see if I see significant changes.

[essiw]

I suppose this is a stupid question and I have missed something, but can't you kill those banshees with magic?

[spudrow]

Because my Constitution is 10. I got 99 Magic by (mostly) doing High Alchemy, which granted me no Hit Point levels. Attacking, however, with Magic will give me those unwanted levels.

[Quyneax]

The Waterbirth monsters I referred to are wallasakis. They are around 45k summ xp and 80k range xp per hour, but that is when you also attack yourself. If you wanted to be a 99 summ pure with 10 hp, they are the way to go for now.

[spudrow]

The Waterbirth monsters I referred to are wallasakis. They are around 45k summ xp and 80k range xp per hour, but that is when you also attack yourself. If you wanted to be a 99 summ pure with 10 hp, they are the way to go for now.

 

I'm not quite up-to-date with questing, but can I reach Waterbirth without doing any major stat-ruining quests?

[Revenga]

I don't know if anyone has said this but you technically could complete your slayer task at the castle using rings of recoil. It would take forever.. but it's doable.

[Quyneax]

The Waterbirth monsters I referred to are wallasakis. They are around 45k summ xp and 80k range xp per hour, but that is when you also attack yourself. If you wanted to be a 99 summ pure with 10 hp, they are the way to go for now.

 

I'm not quite up-to-date with questing, but can I reach Waterbirth without doing any major stat-ruining quests?

You can, you just have to pay the boatman.

[spudrow]

Revenga - Already attempted. Due to Recoils being disabled for Slayer Tasks, you have to do 1 physical damage. Even with my 1 damage, I won't be able to do it without leveling my HP, since I'm so close to 11. It's pretty much out-of-the-question at this point.

 

Quyneax - Didn't realize I could use the boatman without completing any of the Frem-related quests. I'll scope that out, thanks!