How many casts should I bring to Fight Caves?

[Mon]

I haven't played since '06 and I'm gonna try out the Fight Caves tonight but I only ever used range back in the day. I will most likely be using ice burst with void. My magic level is 88. Also looking for inventory set ups, thanks.

[Leon S]

That depends. Are you using a staff, a wand, or wand + offhand orb/book?

[Mon]

Probably just a water staff, not entirely sure how the new combat system works yet.

[Ginger_Warrior]

I'm guessing you mean in the live game, not the '07 relaunch. You can't just mage everything, really:

• Mage weak (to water spells): the bats, the spliters, the meleers (Tz-Kih, Tz-Kek, Yt-MejKot)
  
• Ranged weak (to arrows): the magers (Ket-Zek)
  
• Melee weak (to slash): the rangers (Tok-Xil)
  
• No overall weakness: TzTok-Jad.
  

If you're on task, I'd wear FSH and mage armour, with tops and legs only for ranged and melee when required (every other armour piece has no effect on accuracy). For weapons, I'd take CS > ABS > SoL = PPS for mage, Crystal bow for ranged, CMaul > BGS for melee. I'd also therefore do Jad on mage.

 

Safespot is no longer at "Italy rock" due to a graphic update. Load up the new Fight Arena map; the bottom left corner, next to the rock wall that juts out at a right angle just north to the corner... it covers four of the five possible Jad spawns. The spawn not covered is right next to you, just south of that wall (in the centre of the twirl pattern on the floor in-game--can't see that on the map) so be careful at the start of the final wave.

 

Inventory-wise: Ammo, ranged+melee weapon, second bow/check first is fully charged if using crystal, mage pots/ovls, food for healing, a shield for rejuv (if you really feel it's needed post-Rejuv nerf), prayer flasks, one pot of prayer renewal at least for the final wave (not necessary, but not having to sip as often is one less hassle to worry about).

 

EDIT: Damage in EoC is capped by, amongst other things, the tier of the weapon being used. A water staff is very low tier, therefore your damage will be very low. Staff of Light and Polypore Staff are relatively cheap options if you have neither a Chaotic Staff or an Armadyl Battlestaff.

[Mon]

Thanks for the info. I'll bring a crystal bow then and something else for the Xil's. Is Guthan's worth the inventory space or would it be better to just bring more pots?

 

Also going to be using an ancient staff.

[Ginger_Warrior]

Your bog-standard abyssal whip will do the job nicely versus Xil's, they're not exactly tough as nails.

 

Unless the ancient staff is enchanted by the recent Desert Tasks set, I really wouldn't bother with it. Hell, a Sara/Guth/Zammy staff would be better, and that's really saying something, because they're not "good" either. Given you'll probably want to use a staff in future slayer tasks (EoC re-balancing of the combat triangle means you can't just melee everything to pieces--you will have to mage some tasks now), it honestly doesn't harm to invest in a Staff of Light or a Polypore Staff sooner rather than later.

[Dreezer]

i did the fight caves recently on slayer task with about 700 - 800 casts of ice blitz, i just maged everything and didn't bother about weaknesses.

i also only used prayer on tzok-jad, the rest isn't really necessary imo.

[Quyneax]

If your combat stats are fairly even, it will be faster to use the correct style on each monster.

 

2h weapons are stronger than 1h except for magic.

Guthans is a good armour set for melee, it's tier 70 and heals you as well. If you can get one, bgs is stronger, cmaul stronger still.

Ranged wise, crystal bow is good, royal crossbow is better.

Magic wise, staff of light works, enhanced ancient staff works, cstaff and abs are better.

[Mon]

I'll probably just buy the staff of light since I don't have the reqs to enhance the ancient staff. I didn't realize how much of a difference staves/ wands make now.

 

Thanks guys.

 

I'm sure there's better pots/ food to bring but I'm just going to go with what I have already. This inv should be overkill right? I tried out the caves yesterday before I understood the EoC and even then it seemed pretty easy.

[jayc3399]

I'll probably just buy the staff of light since I don't have the reqs to enhance the ancient staff. I didn't realize how much of a difference staves/ wands make now.

 

Thanks guys.

 

I'm sure there's better pots/ food to bring but I'm just going to go with what I have already. This inv should be overkill right? I tried out the caves yesterday before I understood the EoC and even then it seemed pretty easy.

 

I think you want blood runes not death runes, and make the mage pots flasks so you know you wont run out and you can use ice barrage the whole way.

[Mon]

I'm gonna be ice bursting/ rushing just to save a bit of cash since I already have the deaths and I'll do that with the mage pots.

[Quyneax]

Ice spells have the following base max hits and rune costs:

556 - 3 water 1 death - 114 gp

672 - 4 water 2 death - 214 gp

786 - 5 water 1 blood - 200 gp

786 - 5 water 2 blood - 365 gp

768 - 5 water 5 air - 75 gp

 

(rush-burst-blitz-barrage-surge)

 

So basically, use Blitz or Surge, or barrage autoattacks when you can hit more than one target (which you can with the Tz-Keks and their spawn).

 

I'd get a higher-tier set of boots, like dragon. Spined boots work too (level 50 ranged boots). Snakeskin is really weak.

 

Finally, replace the stole with an amulet of glory. Stole has +4 prayer, glory has +3 and 3.9% all-round crit which is much better.

 

Bring a void ranged helmet to help your bow, I think you'll be ranging the Ket-Zeks which are the strongest monsters in the caves (except Jad) - worth killing them faster.

[muggiwhplar]

Quy are you sure barrage's base max is the same as blitz? When was the last time you tested this?

[Mon]

I already beat it. First try just from this thread and a video to see his animations. Thanks guys.

 

Forgot the runes in the pic but I only used about 1.2k casts.

 

I didn't realize it until near the end but you can heal with Guthan's on pretty much everyone aside from Jad which I didn't really expect. It seems too easy now, how hard is the Fight Kiln compared to the caves? Maybe that will be more fun.

[constrictor]

I did caves a few months ago pre-eoc with just Polypore Staff and Grifolic and got to Jad 5 times in a row and died at him each time. The entire process (wave 1 -> jad) uses less than 1/2 of the staff's casts. So if you want to save even more money use that and I am sure with eoc abilities it will speed up the process/make jad much easier. It decomplicates things in my opinion.

 

But good luck with whatever you choose!

 

EDIT: Just read above, [bleep], Gratz, bro! this info's for anyone else who needs it then. haha.

[Quyneax]

Quy are you sure barrage's base max is the same as blitz? When was the last time you tested this?

Spells are capped at level 80, that is, all surges have the same max hit as Air Surge (768) and all level 80+ blitzes and barrages the same as Blood Blitz (786). Polypore strike is apparently treated as level 80 Ancient spell for this purpose. All other spells scale normally with level, including Smoke Blitz and Shadow Blitz which are level 74 and 76 respectively.

 

The cap is reasonable as it balances out magic against ranged and melee, which derive strength from equipment - currently capped at 90 for melee and 80 for ranged, but for dungeoneering it's a major problem because there is level 99 equipment all around.

[muggiwhplar]

Quy are you sure barrage's base max is the same as blitz? When was the last time you tested this?

Spells are capped at level 80, that is, all surges have the same max hit as Air Surge (768) and all level 80+ blitzes and barrages the same as Blood Blitz (786). Polypore strike is apparently treated as level 80 Ancient spell for this purpose. All other spells scale normally with level, including Smoke Blitz and Shadow Blitz which are level 74 and 76 respectively.

 

The cap is reasonable as it balances out magic against ranged and melee, which derive strength from equipment - currently capped at 90 for melee and 80 for ranged, but for dungeoneering it's a major problem because there is level 99 equipment all around.

 

I ask because last time I checked (I think it was back in December), ice barrage did significantly less damage than ice blitz since barrage was multi-target. Is this no longer the case, then?

[constrictor]

Quy are you sure barrage's base max is the same as blitz? When was the last time you tested this?

Spells are capped at level 80, that is, all surges have the same max hit as Air Surge (768) and all level 80+ blitzes and barrages the same as Blood Blitz (786). Polypore strike is apparently treated as level 80 Ancient spell for this purpose. All other spells scale normally with level, including Smoke Blitz and Shadow Blitz which are level 74 and 76 respectively.

 

The cap is reasonable as it balances out magic against ranged and melee, which derive strength from equipment - currently capped at 90 for melee and 80 for ranged, but for dungeoneering it's a major problem because there is level 99 equipment all around.

 

I ask because last time I checked (I think it was back in December), ice barrage did significantly less damage than ice blitz since barrage was multi-target. Is this no longer the case, then?

 

I'd say it's not so much a question of hits, but accuracy. From what I remember Blitz is much more accurate, and hits higher more consistently than barrage.

That may be in correct though, just what I remember.

[Quyneax]

The accuracy issue is an old myth and afaik has never been confirmed.

 

@Muggi: yes barrages got changed (twice) so they ended up being equal to blitzes again.

[Hedgehog]

The accuracy issue is an old myth and afaik has never been confirmed.

 

@Muggi: yes barrages got changed (twice) so they ended up being equal to blitzes again.

XPW did a study on it a loooooooooooooong time ago. I would recommend looking it up.

[Quyneax]

Yes, hence I said myth :P. Iirc the study did not confirm the myth (disproved it) ;).