Ancient Mage camping - a good set up?

[Triquos]

Hyt! Ever since Torva came out I've been wanting the Torva Platebody, but just can't make money fast enough. So, I've just attempted to camp the Ancient Mages in the Ancient Prison for a slight chance of some ceremonial robes. I heard you need +300 melee defence to stop the fighters, and +300 ranged defence to stop the rangers, but I would love to obtain the answers for these questions, if possible please:

 

1. I heard if you have 150 magic defence, the blood reavers become non aggressive, is this true?

 

2. I still get poisoned despite praying mage against the Ancient Mages. Is it possible to have the antipoison totem whilst still having the defence requirements to keep ALL monsters in the Ancient Prison non aggressive? Or will I have to just use super antipoison pots?

 

3. Does ring of wealth help with ceremonial robe drops?

 

4. Is there a setup which allows you to not be attacked by all monsters (including blood reavers)? Please bare in mind I only have a budget of 70M, so I can't buy an elysian shield etc. etc.

 

Thanks in advance everyone! ^_^

[Saradomin_Mage]

1. This is true.

 

3. Nope, since the robe pieces aren't under the rare drop table.

 

4. Katori's set-up can stop you from being attacked by all monsters except the mages - the thresholds to note are 200 melee, 200 range, and 150 magic defence, to keep off the warriors, rangers and reavers.

 

Reproduced without permission - sorry

 

For question 2, you can try mixing around that setup with Tip.It's Equipment builder, keeping the thresholds in mind.

 

EDIT: I went to play with the builder, so here are the results.

Edited January 13, 2011 by Saradomin_Mage

[Tact]

Hey there. I saw you at ancient mages; you asked me how to make the reavers unaggressive. :)

 

I've been back to kill these mages fairly consistently since the release. My tally is currently over 1200 kills, so you can be fairly sure my data is accurate.

 

1. This is untrue. You only need 80-85+ mage defense for them to become unaggressive. This allows you more leeway while building a setup that also maximizes attack and strength.

 

2. Neither option is ideal. What I do is bring a couple uni pouches and one super restore to start with. They don't poison you that often, so right clicking the Cure ability works very well. Also, they drop 3 additional super rests often, so you will never run out of summoning points.

 

I recommend praying against the mages at all times while in combat.

 

3. No.

 

4. Absolutely! You don't need anywhere near 70m to make such a setup. Currently, I use:

 

Verac helm

Fury

Karil top

Bandos tassets

Dragon boots

SW cape

Whip

Barrows gloves

Dragon defender

Berserker ring

 

Which gives me the following bonuses:

 

+128 slash attack

 

+249 stab def

+239 slash def

+250 crush def

+87 magic def

+239 range def

 

+118 strength

+21 prayer

 

You can easily substitute the bandos tassets with something like a verac skirt to make a very affordable setup. You could probably even replace the Karil top with black d'hide. Note that my defense bonuses are high enough that even when I have claws equipped, they don't fall enough to make any monster but mages aggressive.

 

Hope this helped. If you would like, feel free to PM me in game if you have more questions. I'm up for duo LS as well, since this place is now usually empty and boring.

 

RSN: Holiday Tact

[Saradomin_Mage]

Tact, I'd like to ask if the Boss door can actually be accessed from the opposite side, ie you can get 40 kc, bank, then go back out to kill more mages. Or does it jam like the other doors?

Also, would the equipment bonus of 80-85 magic might need to be higher if you're not 99 defence and magic? (99 def and 95 magic here)

Thanks also for the new information - it'll definitely help me alot more than trying to get a staggering 150 magic defence. Kudos to you, I saw your picture of the robe set.

[Tact]

It's one way only. This hinders standard camping a bit, up to the point where I do not recommend trying to stay here for hours and hours on end. Instead, I like taking ~2 hour trips with my inventory that allow me to cycle between the 3 spawns with speed and predictability, aiming to kill each mage as fast as possible. This allows me to pick a world with a rather high population in order to compensation somewhat for their extremely slow spawns.

 

It's possible that your magic defense may need to be a little higher. The easiest way to find out whether or not this is true is to experiment with different setups. It's not difficult to get to, and 50k for a key charge isn't that high.

 

I forgot to mention that I bring a sara arrow in my ammo slot. It's the only god item you need on your way to the frozen door.

 

You're welcome. I expect the value and street price of ceremonial items to remain high for quite some time, unlike most people who expect it to be the next kingly. If you're interested why, I can list the reasons here. ;) Therefore, this makes these mages a good way to get rid of junk (when selling cere), or as a rising to use in trading for more "useful" things. I also like how they look.

[Triquos]

Thanks for all the amazing help everyone :-D and thank goodness I don't need to buy a spectral shield o_O that thing costs a fortune!

 

Hmmmm, I'd be very interested in the reasons for the ceremonial items street price and value of them in the future - if possible, of course ^_^ and ty for the offer!

 

I will have to go to sleep now, it's getting late but, one more question. For an average Joe like myself, how many ceremonial robe items would it probably take to convince someone to trade their torva platebody for them? I.E. 50 robe tops + 30 robe legs + 20 gloves etc.

 

If camping them forever is what it'll take for me to afford a Torva platebody, I'll be there for a while :-D

 

Again, thanks a ton for the help everyone ^_^

[Quyneax]

I'd like to add that defence levels and defensive prayers seem to affect agressiveness, as evidenced by people turning turmoil off and getting piled.

[Tact]

Reasons why I think ceremonial still has room to rise:

 

1. There's only 3 spawns per world, and the spawns are all much slower than normal monsters.

 

2. The number of players who have access to them is small compared to the majority of RS players.

 

3. There is no level requirement to wear them. This is important as ceremonial robes are accessible to demand from pures and skillers who will want to incorporate them into outfits.

 

4. The number of people killing mages has dropped drastically as many people have given up on slaying Nex. I rarely see more than a couple people on even the busiest worlds now. Almost all of these people are getting KC, and not exclusively killing mages.

 

5. It looks a lot better than kingly.

 

6. The drop rate for ceremonial robes is lower than people think. Out of ~1400 kills, I've only gotten 8 pieces. That's a drop rate of 1 in 175 kills. You also have a small but not insignificant cost of 50k per trip + the pots and supplies you'll need to kill them efficiently.

 

As for trading... you'd need a massive amount of ceremonial to trade for a torva plate. In this instance, it would function the same as trading any type rising for a single item.

[Tact]

I'd like to add that defence levels and defensive prayers seem to affect agressiveness, as evidenced by people turning turmoil off and getting piled.

Just a note: With my setup, you don't get piled regardless of whether pray is on and off.

 

Also, here' the inventory I use:

 

 

Pots are:

3 extreme attack

3 extreme strength

1 super restore

12 prayer pots

1 restore special

 

I pray mage and use turmoil.

[Triquos]

Thanks for the duo Tact :-D that was fun.

 

I've killed 330 mages now, still not ONE ceremonial piece :-( it's a conspiracy!! I guess I'll try again later on tonight :-/

[SpikeStr1ke]

Myself and SirHemen are at Mages now and with me at 96 mage def and him at 88 he's being attacked by revers however im not anyone know why?

[Tact]

Interesting. What's his setup?

[Excels]

I know I'm out of place (an 850 total f2per in this thread? lolwut) but to reiterate what I heard someone say in hyt chat, it seems that the total resistance to each combat style is what's in effect. So that would include not only prayer, but magic levles.

[Triquos]

457 kills, still no ceremonial -_- either it's a conspiracy or i'm the most misfortunate player in RS

 

Edit: I give up, after 457 kills that's just insane. Either it's a conspiracy or i'm extremely unlucky to the point where it is impossible to obtain something good because that is just my life - bad luck, bad luck and more bad luck <.<

 

Thanks everyone for your help and I wish you all luck on obtaining pieces.

 

Edit 2: I'm back killing ancient mages :-D I got bored of abby demons and have finally obtained my first cere drop

[GlowinRedM]

Yeah, 96 mage def at 80 mage and the reavers were on me

[Tact]

Well after hearing about the reavers, I have a theory that their aggressiveness does not solely depend on mage def. Perhaps this is because it's magic attack is not completely negated by prayer. For those of you still be attacked, what are your other defensive bonuses?

[Triquos]

Woot finally got first ceremonial drop (top robe piece) on the 502nd kill.

 

 

2nd top :-)

 

 

I hope the pieces rise to 5M each. If that is the case in the future, I'll only need about 50 pieces for Torva Platebody. 48 to go!

 

Total kills so far: 712

 

Cere drops on #: 502, 656

[Tact]

Congrats. :)

[TheLad1]

Nice

 

I'm similar mage kc to you now & only have 1 pair of gloves to show for it :(

 

I wear the following gear, which gives me full protection from everything but the mages.

 

Helm of neitz

Fury

Arma Chestplate

Bandos Skirt

Dragon boots

Ancient vambs

DFS

Berserker ring

Nomads cape

Sara Arrow

CLS or Whip.

 

The 3 mage rotation works well on worlds of 1200+ populations

 

Anyway, back to killing :)

[TheLad1]

Have you also seen Jagex's sense of humour with the coin drops = 1337 coins dropped :)