Hey everyone!

 

I last played Runescape at the beginning of 2012. For real life reasons, I had to quit the game unfortunately.

 

Since then i've found myself a little bored and now that i'm on break, have felt the need to scratch the itch to finish off some of my goals. Tie up a few loose ends, as it were.

 

I have no idea where to start in regards to getting back into the game. No idea at all. I've checked out the wiki on some articles, and it seems the game has had a drastic overhaul. I never payed much attention to this Evolution of Combat stuff...

 

However, i'm quite eager to see this new direction the game is going in. But to get back into it and finish off some of my goals, i'm going to need a little bit of help. And that's where I'm hoping you guys can come in!

 

I've been out of the loop for nearly 2 years, as you can see, so i'll try and bring my questions back to some specifics. I know nothing of the updates since January 2012, and I have 99 combat skills as well as most 80+ non-combat skills and 113 dungeoneering. I'm currently making a new account to play through the tutorial to try and come to grips with the changes. Here goes!:

 

1) Combat. I have 92 slayer and would like to finish my goal of 99. To that end, I'd like to know some more about the new combat system. I hear that it's hotkey based now and totally different to before. If this is the case, is there a guide to these hotkeys or new actions? Do we know what the most effective ones are? Have the combat stats for things changed? What is the "best" combination of equipment now?

 

I realize this is probably going to be a big answer, so any help or direction in regards to this would be much appreciated.

 

2) Bossing. I used to enjoy doing bossing for fun. I used to help my friends anti-crash and soloed a lot. In combination with the above, is there any optimal strategies for bossing?

 

3) Dungeoneering. I would also like to look into finishing my goal of 120 dungeoneering if time allows. I used to have a Blood Necklace, Primal 2 Hander (for solo pathing, I used to run 5:5s with friends that were lower combat) and a Primal Platebody, with a Celestial Surgebox Ammo Bind. How has dungeoneering changed? 

 

4) Making Money. This is probably another lengthy answer, but I used to make a great deal of my money from Frost Dragons and Farming Runs. Are these still viable? If not, what are some general ways people make money nowdays? I gave away a great deal of stuff and have around 50 million left over in cash.

 

5) Temporary boosts. Is Rigour still the best for Ranging? Is it still best to overload/cannon/turmoil all slayer tasks where possible, and extremes/turmoil when you can't afford to cannon + overload?

 

Thank you all for your help in advance. I apologize that some of the questions I have asked are kind of vague, but 2 years of work tends to throw you out of the loop....

 

 

 

1) Combat. I have 92 slayer and would like to finish my goal of 99. To that end, I'd like to know some more about the new combat system. I hear that it's hotkey based now and totally different to before. If this is the case, is there a guide to these hotkeys or new actions? Do we know what the most effective ones are? Have the combat stats for things changed? What is the "best" combination of equipment now?

 

The best combination of equipment is Tetctonic/Sirenic/New Melee armor > Nex Armors > Other GWD Sets > Ports Superior > Barrows 

Combat like attack actually affect accuracy on weapons. 

For your hotkeys its pretty straight forward, you want to use basic abilities to build adrenaline and use thresholds as soon as possible. Visit the combat academy in game for most of what you need to know. For the most part Ultimates aren't worth using at all. For slayer you would be fine using t8 (chaotic) gear but once you get t9 you won't really have to worry about weaknesses bar ganodermic creatures and ascension creature tasks.

The only items that affect accuracy are your body, legs, and shield slots so if you are taking two or more types of damage feel free to chance helms, gloves, boots to balance out your defenses some.

 

For most slayer tasks its possible to barrage them for the best exp/hr once you have t7 dual wield magic although for higher defenses t8 is required and t9 (costing 3 bil ish atm) is lolezmode.

 

I realize this is probably going to be a big answer, so any help or direction in regards to this would be much appreciated.

 

2) Bossing. I used to enjoy doing bossing for fun. I used to help my friends anti-crash and soloed a lot. In combination with the above, is there any optimal strategies for bossing?

 

Depends on the boss, for standard GWD bosses its basically soul split and turmoil while overloaded using t9 weapons and either nex gear or superior ports gear. If you have a specific boss it would be easier to answer :)

 

3) Dungeoneering. I would also like to look into finishing my goal of 120 dungeoneering if time allows. I used to have a Blood Necklace, Primal 2 Hander (for solo pathing, I used to run 5:5s with friends that were lower combat) and a Primal Platebody, with a Celestial Surgebox Ammo Bind. How has dungeoneering changed? 

 

DG tasks are out and are worth doing. Finishing the elite set will give you access to another personal gatestone that requires no runes, plus a stack of laws and cosmics for free at the start of every floor and a potion bind. Surgebox sucks for an ammo bind, I would go with sag arrows and bow. BN is worth keeping, Primal 2h is tied with maul as best for melee (arguable because shades are crush weak and they are the most annoying imo). You have an extra bind slot so you could max defenses by getting primal plate/legs, bn and your 2h or you could do primal 2h and platebody, along with sag short/body and use two types of attacks. Probably not worth doing the later for normal mode but for hardmode you definitely want 2 styles to use.

 

4) Making Money. This is probably another lengthy answer, but I used to make a great deal of my money from Frost Dragons and Farming Runs. Are these still viable? If not, what are some general ways people make money nowdays? I gave away a great deal of stuff and have around 50 million left over in cash.

 

Farming runs are still fine although torstols are no longer the best atm unless you want exp as well. Frost Dragons are 3-4 m/hr but QBD is at least that and once you get her mechanics down can be closer to 5-6 so I would look into that. I would work on DG and do herb runs / divine locations / MTK and other easy and steady money makers until you can afford a drygore mainhand and then go QBDing.

 

5) Temporary boosts. Is Rigour still the best for Ranging? Is it still best to overload/cannon/turmoil all slayer tasks where possible, and extremes/turmoil when you can't afford to cannon + overload?

 

Cannoning does not tag monsters (you won't get exp/drops unless you hit it yourself) so its lost some of its luster. Turmoil now has range and mage equivalents so use those instead of rigour.  

 

Thank you all for your help in advance. I apologize that some of the questions I have asked are kind of vague, but 2 years of work tends to throw you out of the loop....

As it happens, you do get the drops if you kill an untagged monster, that's how I got my goblin champion scroll (cannon in Lumbridge). If anyone tags it, that overrides all the damage you did, and you won't get the loot.

Hi Th e Doctor! Thanks for your response.

 

 

The best combination of equipment is Tetctonic/Sirenic/New Melee armor > Nex Armors > Other GWD Sets > Ports Superior > Barrows 

Combat like attack actually affect accuracy on weapons. 

For your hotkeys its pretty straight forward, you want to use basic abilities to build adrenaline and use thresholds as soon as possible. Visit the combat academy in game for most of what you need to know. For the most part Ultimates aren't worth using at all. For slayer you would be fine using t8 (chaotic) gear but once you get t9 you won't really have to worry about weaknesses bar ganodermic creatures and ascension creature tasks.

The only items that affect accuracy are your body, legs, and shield slots so if you are taking two or more types of damage feel free to chance helms, gloves, boots to balance out your defenses some.

 

For most slayer tasks its possible to barrage them for the best exp/hr once you have t7 dual wield magic although for higher defenses t8 is required and t9 (costing 3 bil ish atm) is lolezmode.

 

Okay, so combat is using basic abilities to use threshold abilities and repeat, and it doesn't particularly matter what abilities you use? I understand for when you feel lazy there is an ability called Momentum. How does this work? In fact, how does calculating the new combat hits work? Say, does doing an auto attack without momentum do 20% of your damage, 80% of your damage with momentum, and the advertised % for an ability? How do you calculate this %?

 

Ah, so weaknesses are actually important (up to a point) now? That's pretty cool. Normal Weapons don't affect accuracy (as opposed to off-hand)?

 

How important is Accuracy now as opposed to some kind of strength bonus/max hit modifier, if such a thing exists now? And extremes/overloads/turmoil worth using if meleeing? I don't think I have the funds to start barraging every task when I got back into it @.@

 

 

 

Depends on the boss, for standard GWD bosses its basically soul split and turmoil while overloaded using t9 weapons and either nex gear or superior ports gear. If you have a specific boss it would be easier to answer

 

Back in the day I used to do Bandos, Armadyl and Zamorak mostly, as it was fun and not too difficult. Soul split is actually the way to go now? Wow, we must have gotten some crazy defensive boosts. I'd be looking for some setups and recommended strategies for those if that's okay =)

 

 

 

DG tasks are out and are worth doing. Finishing the elite set will give you access to another personal gatestone that requires no runes, plus a stack of laws and cosmics for free at the start of every floor and a potion bind. Surgebox sucks for an ammo bind, I would go with sag arrows and bow. BN is worth keeping, Primal 2h is tied with maul as best for melee (arguable because shades are crush weak and they are the most annoying imo). You have an extra bind slot so you could max defenses by getting primal plate/legs, bn and your 2h or you could do primal 2h and platebody, along with sag short/body and use two types of attacks. Probably not worth doing the later for normal mode but for hardmode you definitely want 2 styles to use.

 

Wow! Dungeoneering tasks. That's awesome.

 

Did things change that much in Dungeoneering? I remember Surgebox being touted as the best ammo bind if you wern't trying to do speed floors (5 suiciders)..

 

I also remember Mysterious Shades being weak to slash. Did they change dungeoneering weaknesses as well, or is my memory failing me? @.@

 

What's this Hardmode you're speaking of?

 

 

 

Farming runs are still fine although torstols are no longer the best atm unless you want exp as well. Frost Dragons are 3-4 m/hr but QBD is at least that and once you get her mechanics down can be closer to 5-6 so I would look into that. I would work on DG and do herb runs / divine locations / MTK and other easy and steady money makers until you can afford a drygore mainhand and then go QBDing.

 

Thank you!

As it happens, you do get the drops if you kill an untagged monster, that's how I got my goblin champion scroll (cannon in Lumbridge). If anyone tags it, that overrides all the damage you did, and you won't get the loot.

 

Hmm good to know, thanks Q

 

 

Hi Th e Doctor! Thanks for your response.

 

 

The best combination of equipment is Tetctonic/Sirenic/New Melee armor > Nex Armors > Other GWD Sets > Ports Superior > Barrows 

Combat like attack actually affect accuracy on weapons. 

For your hotkeys its pretty straight forward, you want to use basic abilities to build adrenaline and use thresholds as soon as possible. Visit the combat academy in game for most of what you need to know. For the most part Ultimates aren't worth using at all. For slayer you would be fine using t8 (chaotic) gear but once you get t9 you won't really have to worry about weaknesses bar ganodermic creatures and ascension creature tasks.

The only items that affect accuracy are your body, legs, and shield slots so if you are taking two or more types of damage feel free to chance helms, gloves, boots to balance out your defenses some.

 

For most slayer tasks its possible to barrage them for the best exp/hr once you have t7 dual wield magic although for higher defenses t8 is required and t9 (costing 3 bil ish atm) is lolezmode.

 

Okay, so combat is using basic abilities to use threshold abilities and repeat, and it doesn't particularly matter what abilities you use? I understand for when you feel lazy there is an ability called Momentum. How does this work? In fact, how does calculating the new combat hits work? Say, does doing an auto attack without momentum do 20% of your damage, 80% of your damage with momentum, and the advertised % for an ability? How do you calculate this %?

 

You have your basics and the goal is basically to always be using an ability, which simplistically means you use your 3s cooldown basic in between all of your other basics.  Momentum isn't all that great for anything but barraging and chinning. I'm not an expert by any means in how damage is calculated so I'll leave that to more educated people, but you will always almost always be doing more damage with abilities.

 

Ah, so weaknesses are actually important (up to a point) now? That's pretty cool. Normal Weapons don't affect accuracy (as opposed to off-hand)?

 

Weaknesses kinda matter. Basically you can ignore subcategories once you get t7 weapons (i.e. you can use a crossbow on something that's weak to arrows) and be fine. Once you get to t8 you can ignore most weaknesses with the exception of ganodermic creatures, ascension mobs and a couple other high level monsters (Automatons come to mind). Once you hit t9 weakness does not matter in any major fashion except for gano and ascension. For accuracy offhands only matter on auto attacks or in other words when using abilities it only takes the accuracy of your mainhand weapon into account, hence its much more important to upgrade that as soon as you can.

 

How important is Accuracy now as opposed to some kind of strength bonus/max hit modifier, if such a thing exists now? And extremes/overloads/turmoil worth using if meleeing? I don't think I have the funds to start barraging every task when I got back into it @.@

 

Most of accuracy is tied to weapon tier with a small portion coming from your attack/magic/range level respectively for the style you're using. Weapon damage is mostly the same, the difference between 1 and 99 strength very minimal in terms of extra damage. It is worth using turmoil and at least extremes for everything. 

 

 

 

Depends on the boss, for standard GWD bosses its basically soul split and turmoil while overloaded using t9 weapons and either nex gear or superior ports gear. If you have a specific boss it would be easier to answer

 

Back in the day I used to do Bandos, Armadyl and Zamorak mostly, as it was fun and not too difficult. Soul split is actually the way to go now? Wow, we must have gotten some crazy defensive boosts. I'd be looking for some setups and recommended strategies for those if that's okay =)

 

I really am not an expert in bossing. I haven't been since the accuracy tweaks so my info would be outdated. For instance last time I went to arma I could afk with soul split and penance with t8 weapon and t7 power armor. Now apparently kree hits like a truck and you need at least t8 to survive if not t8.5. I would start a new topic asking for specific boss help and the better pvmers would be able to answer. Or you could always pm one of the tmht members for advice.

 

 

 

DG tasks are out and are worth doing. Finishing the elite set will give you access to another personal gatestone that requires no runes, plus a stack of laws and cosmics for free at the start of every floor and a potion bind. Surgebox sucks for an ammo bind, I would go with sag arrows and bow. BN is worth keeping, Primal 2h is tied with maul as best for melee (arguable because shades are crush weak and they are the most annoying imo). You have an extra bind slot so you could max defenses by getting primal plate/legs, bn and your 2h or you could do primal 2h and platebody, along with sag short/body and use two types of attacks. Probably not worth doing the later for normal mode but for hardmode you definitely want 2 styles to use.

 

Wow! Dungeoneering tasks. That's awesome.

 

Did things change that much in Dungeoneering? I remember Surgebox being touted as the best ammo bind if you wern't trying to do speed floors (5 suiciders)..

 

Yes things changed that much.

 

I also remember Mysterious Shades being weak to slash. Did they change dungeoneering weaknesses as well, or is my memory failing me? @.@

 

They changed shades weaknesses with eoc. 

 

What's this Hardmode you're speaking of?

 

Reward for completing all the dg tasks. Makes most mobs their max level, every door is a GD, bosses are their max level and drop primal/prom 80/20% of the time respectively. There's also a lot more pot doors. Generally not worth doing outside of hunting for boss drops and ofc doing all 60 floors hardmode is a trim req I believe for completionists.

 

 

 

Farming runs are still fine although torstols are no longer the best atm unless you want exp as well. Frost Dragons are 3-4 m/hr but QBD is at least that and once you get her mechanics down can be closer to 5-6 so I would look into that. I would work on DG and do herb runs / divine locations / MTK and other easy and steady money makers until you can afford a drygore mainhand and then go QBDing.

 

Thank you!

for the most part SS got better because protection prayers got worse (they are now only 50% protection).

GWD is still do able in t70 power armor, but it's easier with t80 power or t85 defensive. I'd use at least t80 weapons (chaotics). I don't think any GWD bosses are very good gp/hr atm though.

Hi Th e Doctor! Thanks again for your response. I've been a little bit busy so i've been unable to play or respond, my apologies!

 

 

 

You have your basics and the goal is basically to always be using an ability, which simplistically means you use your 3s cooldown basic in between all of your other basics.  Momentum isn't all that great for anything but barraging and chinning. I'm not an expert by any means in how damage is calculated so I'll leave that to more educated people, but you will always almost always be doing more damage with abilities.

 

So all weapons are now 3 seconds at the fastest? I thought 6 speed weapons used to be 2.4 seconds. Not that that's a bad thing, it gives me more time to react. I take it it doesn't matter what abilities you use so long as you're always using an ability?

 

 

 

Weaknesses kinda matter. Basically you can ignore subcategories once you get t7 weapons (i.e. you can use a crossbow on something that's weak to arrows) and be fine. Once you get to t8 you can ignore most weaknesses with the exception of ganodermic creatures, ascension mobs and a couple other high level monsters (Automatons come to mind). Once you hit t9 weakness does not matter in any major fashion except for gano and ascension. For accuracy offhands only matter on auto attacks or in other words when using abilities it only takes the accuracy of your mainhand weapon into account, hence its much more important to upgrade that as soon as you can.

 

Ahh, I see, I see! So it's kind of like how it was if you were mid-level before the Evolution of Combat - You could still take most things with a chaotic, but certain hard mobs it was better to use different styles for. When you say t9 weapons, I assume you mean level 90 gear? Not level 80 gear like in Dungeoneering? It's a little bit confusing and the first time i've heard this terminology outside of dungeoneering. So it's important to get an accurate primary and a fast secondary then?

 

 

 

 

Most of accuracy is tied to weapon tier with a small portion coming from your attack/magic/range level respectively for the style you're using. Weapon damage is mostly the same, the difference between 1 and 99 strength very minimal in terms of extra damage. It is worth using turmoil and at least extremes for everything. 

 

Wow, that's...@.@ I didn't know that the difference between 1 and 99 strength is now minimal in terms of damage. That's kind of disheartening. Still, that's okay. How is it worth it to use turmoil and extremes now if they used to affect your strength/attack/defence levels, etc? Did they change it to be % damage?

 

 

 

 

I really am not an expert in bossing. I haven't been since the accuracy tweaks so my info would be outdated. For instance last time I went to arma I could afk with soul split and penance with t8 weapon and t7 power armor. Now apparently kree hits like a truck and you need at least t8 to survive if not t8.5. I would start a new topic asking for specific boss help and the better pvmers would be able to answer. Or you could always pm one of the tmht members for advice.

 

 

Wow, okay. It sounds like there's been a bunch of changes... I've looked through a few setups, such as this one, and I see that people now reccomend food instead of saradomin brews. What happened there? In fact, what happened with the HP system in general? Did they overhaul the numbers by a certain amount, or did they randomly change everything? I'm very confused in regards to that...

 

 

 

 

Reward for completing all the dg tasks. Makes most mobs their max level, every door is a GD, bosses are their max level and drop primal/prom 80/20% of the time respectively. There's also a lot more pot doors. Generally not worth doing outside of hunting for boss drops and ofc doing all 60 floors hardmode is a trim req I believe for completionists.

 

This sounds like Nightmare mode, not so much Hardmode! Every door is a GD? @.@ I think i'll stay away from that unless you get 10 times the exp or something. Still, it's interesting. I'll have to check out some guides on dungeoneering and start learning the basics again. I see from this guide here that the surgebox and hexhunter bow is currently useless. What's wrong with the hex? That's part of the reason why I wanted to get 99 slayer, so I could finally kill some trollgazers for myself and find this bow =) 

 

for the most part SS got better because protection prayers got worse (they are now only 50% protection).

GWD is still do able in t70 power armor, but it's easier with t80 power or t85 defensive. I'd use at least t80 weapons (chaotics). I don't think any GWD bosses are very good gp/hr atm though.

 

Oh, okay! How would you go about doing Kree though? Range armor isn't exactly tanky, and I remember Kree being able to hit up to 710 (old hp) or 71 (old old hp) with range, so doing it with soul split sounds kind of scary. 

 

Thank you all for your help! The main thing confusing me at the moment is the equipment and how you calculate your damage, and defensive bonuses and how you calculate them (Along with temporary boosts and such). Say, before, you could calculate your strength bonus and use your (boosted) strength level to calculate your damage, and you could see the tradeoff of some things (Such as a DFS with +7 strength bonus and no accuracy bonuses vs a Defender with +6 strength bonus and multiple attack bonuses). How would you go about this now? I assume there is some kind of resource for this, but I have no idea where to start looking.

 

Basically, i'd like to get back in tip-top shape as soon as possible! =)

Every kind of armour is just as tanky as the others, as long as they are the same level. The only difference is what style they defend the best against and what style they are weak to.

Every kind of armour is just as tanky as the others, as long as they are the same level. The only difference is what style they defend the best against and what style they are weak to.

 

Thank you!

 

I purchased members and logged in, playing around for a little bit. There's so much to remember...

 

I'm looking through the history of updates in the wiki and I think i'm slowly coming to terms with some of the things, like how the new equipment screen works and stuff like that. I take it the best way to generally do things is with two weapons?

 

Another quick question I had in addition to all my others (I'm very sorry...) was if anyone knew of a list of dailies. I remember doing things like Kingdom, penguins, etc... But I've forgotten what respawns and stuff like that. Is there a wiki page that lists these or something?

There's actually a new function that will tell you all dailies, in game! Open the Hero menu (default hotkey is f1) and check the final tab.

 

As for weapons, the ranking is (damage-wise):

DW > 2H > Shield

 

The difference is smaller for ranged than for magic and melee. The highest level weapons are all dual wield anyway, so even if 2h abilities were better, you'd have no weapons to use them with.

Hi Quyneax!

 

 

 

There's actually a new function that will tell you all dailies, in game! Open the Hero menu (default hotkey is f1) and check the final tab.

 

Thank you! That's very helpful and good to know.

 

 

 

As for weapons, the ranking is (damage-wise):
DW > 2H > Shield

 

Again, thank you!

 

Now that i've played for a little bit, i've got a few more specific questions...

 

1) Drygores. I've heard people say that maces are the best ones to buy and I also heard earlier in the topic that using one will quickly pay off the investment? As I said, I have around 50m so I do need to make a little more money. Does it really matter which drygore you buy?

 

2) The Runespan. I heard about this from a friend a while back, that it was great "afkable" exp. I've seen on google that it's also been nerfed? Does anyone know anything about this "afkable" exp or this nerf? It'd be great for me to be able to finish up runecrafting without more of the slow exp and constant clicking (Sorry to anyone with 99 runecrafting!) 

 

3) "General gear". Does it really matter which set of "general gear" you have? Like how people generally used to have bandos, ahrims and Armadyl. Would that still be okay if you can't afford Nex gear? Could someone give me an example of some setups?

 

4) Player owned ports. I also heard about this from a friend, but he didn't say much about it except for to "do it". I tried looking it up on the wiki but got lost. Does anyone know what this is, and does it give money or something?

 

5) Magic. I've always liked magic but last I was playing it wasn't very effective on most monsters. Has magic been adequately buffed? Is it viable on Boss Monsters now? I also heard some people say that the best way to use magic in EoC is with Momentum. Is this true?

 

Thank you all so much for your help!

The main-hand mace has a big prayer bonus, other than that all of the weapons are equal.

 

Runespan is now something like 100k xp/h at 99 rc (less but still very good at lower levels, of course). It was nerfed from 120k xp/h or something, but it's still a lot faster than old rcing.

 

Easy baseline equipment is all superior ports sets (Tetsu, Seasingers, Death Lotus, level 85 armour sets) and at least royal crossbow, chaotic staff and chaotic claws. Also a fury, one set of t85 boots + gloves, then sets of power armour (Bandos, Armadyl, Subjugation) and a 6th-age circuit for ring.

 

Ports gives you tradable armour which is worth a good bit, and better untradable armour which is good to use when you need defence.

 

Magic is good for everything if your weapon is at least level 80 (chaotic staff recommended). Don't use Momentum, that's outdated. If it's a special monster, like Dagannoth Prime and Supreme, particular KK stages or Super Karil, then you'll probably want to avoid magic, but those are rare occasions.

Wow! Thanks for the quick response. I didn't expect it so I went and did some other stuff. Sorry!

 

 

 

The main-hand mace has a big prayer bonus, other than that all of the weapons are equal.

 

Thank you. I'll look at investing in either a mace or a rapier then. My reasoning for the rapier being that unless a lot of monster weaknesses were changed, a lot of standard monsters would be weak to the rapier with the 3 second attack speed, meaning that I could use the 3 second cooldown ability constantly (and therefore always have an ability to use), or the mace because of the prayer bonus (meaning I can last longer during trips) and the attack speed. Are both of these reasonings sound?

 

 

 

Runespan is now something like 100k xp/h at 99 rc (less but still very good at lower levels, of course). It was nerfed from 120k xp/h or something, but it's still a lot faster than old rcing.

 

Thank you! It's glad to know that it's viable. That's great news.

 

 

 

Easy baseline equipment is all superior ports sets (Tetsu, Seasingers, Death Lotus, level 85 armour sets) and at least royal crossbow, chaotic staff and chaotic claws. Also a fury, one set of t85 boots + gloves, then sets of power armour (Bandos, Armadyl, Subjugation) and a 6th-age circuit for ring.

 

I have a few questions in regards to this:

 

1) I have seen on the wiki that there is three classes of armour (Tank, power, and hybrid). However, I can't see the difference between tank and power except for very small accuracy (and damage) boosts. Do these add up and scale up with potions/prayers like the old strength boost (making them worth using), or do they only add a little bit to your max damage (meaning for bossing it'd be better to wear the tank armour?)

 

2) I heard from a friend that the royal crossbow is not very good. This was before the Evolution of Combat, however. Is it worth using now as opposed to dual chaotic crossbows, or a crossbow and a shield?

 

3) I take it that the chaotic claws are recommended because of their very fast speed and critical bonus? (Instead of dual rapiers or dual longswords) Would using dual rapiers be a significant loss?

 

3.5) Why do all the chaotic weapons have the same accuracy no matter what speed they attack at? Isn't that biased in favour of fast weapons?

 

 

 

Ports gives you tradable armour which is worth a good bit, and better untradable armour which is good to use when you need defence.

 

I see, thank you! I'll look into it.

 

 

 

Magic is good for everything if your weapon is at least level 80 (chaotic staff recommended). Don't use Momentum, that's outdated. If it's a special monster, like Dagannoth Prime and Supreme, particular KK stages or Super Karil, then you'll probably want to avoid magic, but those are rare occasions.

 

Okay, thank you! The general gist i'm getting is that once you get to about tier 80 gear, you can ignore the combat triangle and plough through anything you want with whatever you want (excepting certain bosses, which makes sense)? Is there any tips you could give about using magic, as it seems to have less useful basic abilities (Although that could just be me).

 

EDIT: I have a few additional questions. Are dreadnips still worth taking to bosses? Is it really worth using any of the more riskier capes, such as a fire cape or kiln cape, compared to something like a skillcape which is ever so slightly worse? Is using a legends cape or a spirit cape worth it instead? Is the best shield still the divine, and is it still worth using at bosses? Why is momentum so vilified? From what i've read, it gives a 20% boost to your auto attacks and makes you automatically use abilities when you can. Isn't that pretty decent for doing things like slayer and stuff? I mean, you can't use threshold or ultimate abilities, but threshold abilities can't improve your dps that much and i've been told ultimate abilities are pretty much rubbish. Am I completely off-track and missing the point here or something? :s

Attack speed no longer matters. Ability damage is calculated from the level of the weapon, nothing else factors into it. Longsword, mace and rapier only differ in their attack type - stab, slash, crush. Accuracy is the same for all weapons of the same tier.

 

Using autoattacks, weapons have three different speeds: 6 tick (3.6 second, average), 5 tick (3 second, fast) and 4 tick (2.4 second, fastest). Abilities are always 3-tick (1.8 second), dual-wielding adds additional hits from the off-hand to autoattacks. Rapier and longsword are both 5-tick, maces are 4-tick.

 

Defence is nearly useless, so power armour is recommended. Hybrid armour is useless. Tank armour is good for the hardest bosses: solo Corp, solo Nex, Kalphite King tank, Vorago, Barrows v2. However, there are level 90 power armours which are universally better than the level 85 tank armours for those bosses.

 

Royal crossbow is a level 80 weapon, making it nearly equal to dual-wield chaotic crossbows. It's also very cheap, about 1-2m? Before EoC, it was a very good weapon, but only under very specific circumstances (Nex, QBD).

 

Critical bonus only, nothing else matters. Claws are also cheaper - only 200k tokens plus a pair of claws, instead of 300k tokens. It doesn't really matter whether you use claws, rapiers or just a maul though.

 

Yes, after t80 you can ignore the triangle except for hard bosses and pvp.

 

Magic abilities should be:

Wrack

Concentrated Blast (dual wield)

Sonic Wave (2h)

Impact (stun immune target)

Chain (multiple targets)

Combust (not in Dungeoneering)

Dragon Breath (one square range)

Asphyxiate (threshold)

Wild Magic (threshold)

Sunshine (ultimate)

 

Dreadnips are alright, but only on very high health targets (solo corp).

 

I'd use an Ardougne Cloak (4) as low-budget cape, 1.9% crit, 16 armour and +4 prayer, free. Other than that, it's worth using the best equipment at all times, gravestone timers got doubled, you can now have 10+ minute graves cheaply.

 

Arcane, Divine and Elysian all have the damage reducing effect that used to be unique to Divine. They are class-specific shields now, for magic, melee and ranged respectively. They are only used when bomb tanking Vorago, because the bombs ignore defence bonus. Elsewhere, it is best to use no shield at all.

 

Momentum boosts autoattacks, but the difference between an autoattack and a 100% damage ability is far too big for Momentum to make up for it. It'd take a while to explain it all, but for now assume that Momentum halves your killrate.

for the most part SS got better because protection prayers got worse (they are now only 50% protection).

 

GWD is still do able in t70 power armor, but it's easier with t80 power or t85 defensive. I'd use at least t80 weapons (chaotics). I don't think any GWD bosses are very good gp/hr atm though.

 

Armadyl solo should still be good money. Not including hilts in the long run each kill should average ~650-700 k if all armor is dropped at a 1/300 chance. Add in the other drops and you're looking at around 850 k per kill. I'm not sure what the current kph is at arma but if you even manage 10 an hour you should be making very good cash if you're willing to stick it out.

 

I also just woke up so if my math is completely off I apologize.

This may be handy for equipment questions - though it's just my opinion of stuff, so definitely feel free to ask others as well!

 

Dungeoneering: You probably want to unbind your surgebox; they're pretty much useless now. Almost all of the magic weapons in dg give unlimited elemental runes (and most offensive spells only require elemental runes, now). Bind some arrows instead, for the times when you want to range. Also, you can bind more items now - your actual active loadout is the same, but you can bind extra items beyond that and change your loadout at the smuggler in the start room. Solo dg is much more viable than it used to be, too, though it's still not as good xp/hour as a good group.

 

Dailies: The tab Q mentioned is an excellent (and very recent) addition, but there's some stuff it doesn't list (collecting freebies from NPCs, buying battlestaves, Jack of Trades aura, etc.). Just be aware that it's not an exhaustive list.

 

EoC: Definitely stop by the Combat Academy in Lumbridge (north of the palace, north of Explorer Jack's house and the general store, east of the fishing store, has a bank chest) if you haven't - it's a great introduction to the basics of abilities and type-based combat, and it gives xp books for going through it. But yeah, in practice you'll want to use basic abilities to rack up adrenaline and then spend that on threshold abilities, and largely ignore ultimates and Momentum. Definitely consider doing The World Wakes for access to some of the actually useful ultimate abilities, and that plus its related quests for one of the best rings in the game. (That quest also contains major lore and story updates regarding the future of Runescape, so if you're curious about all this Sixth Age nonsense, that's another reason to do it!)

 

Ports: Do them. They offer some miscellaneous bonuses in the form of scrimshaws, as well as t85 tank armors, and they'll be getting some new rewards (including t85 weapons) added at some point in the future. It takes a while (a couple weeks, if you're diligent) to actually get access to any of the rewards, so going ahead and starting now is a good idea, even if you're not sure you'll actually use the rewards for anything other than extra income. It's easy to get lost in information as to how PoP works; the best way to approach it, honestly, is to just go and get started. The tutorial is decent, it's all fairly intuitive, and it's pretty difficult to "do it wrong" in the beginning. Generally your upgrades should be in this order: rudder > new ship > (ship upgrades > better crew before the 4th region, crew > ship upgrades after that) > port upgrades. As far as crew goes, aim for five of each morale/combat/seafaring crew, a merchant and a Solidarity crewman for each ship, and the remaining slots are for you to play with.

Apologies for the late response! Thank you all so much for your help.

 

 

 

Attack speed no longer matters. Ability damage is calculated from the level of the weapon, nothing else factors into it. Longsword, mace and rapier only differ in their attack type - stab, slash, crush. Accuracy is the same for all weapons of the same tier.

Using autoattacks, weapons have three different speeds: 6 tick (3.6 second, average), 5 tick (3 second, fast) and 4 tick (2.4 second, fastest). Abilities are always 3-tick (1.8 second), dual-wielding adds additional hits from the off-hand to autoattacks. Rapier and longsword are both 5-tick, maces are 4-tick.

 

I see, thank you! So off-hand weapons are not important? I do recall earlier in the topic it was mentioned that abilities only take into account the accuracy of your main weapon, does it also only take the strength of this weapon into account?

 

 

 

Defence is nearly useless, so power armour is recommended. Hybrid armour is useless. Tank armour is good for the hardest bosses: solo Corp, solo Nex, Kalphite King tank, Vorago, Barrows v2. However, there are level 90 power armours which are universally better than the level 85 tank armours for those bosses.

Royal crossbow is a level 80 weapon, making it nearly equal to dual-wield chaotic crossbows. It's also very cheap, about 1-2m? Before EoC, it was a very good weapon, but only under very specific circumstances (Nex, QBD).

 

I need to make a little bit more money before I can even approach some of those bosses by the sound of it, haha. How much of a difference does power armor actually make to your damage, relative to the cost and loss of bonus to defence? As an example, I used to tank bandos with offensive gear simply because the small bit of damage that you gained would make a noticeable difference to your damage but you wouldn't lose out on HP because of the faster kills (And your major passive defensive buffs). I know there's numbers somewhere, but I haven't actually been paying too much attention to my damage and the numbers because i'm still trying to take all these new updates in...

 

I did go to bandos the other day in pretty rags gear (Barrows and Chaotic Maul) and got about 12 kills not knowing how anything worked trying to spam abilities and using soul split. I would have probably been able to edge out some more, however I didn't know Graardor's new max hit and the safe zone to stay in (so I didn't want to risk living off my unicorn + spirit cape in case he bashed out 6500 or something crazy) and I had some things to do. If the higher tiers of gear make a big difference (and so does power armor) compared to this then I can see how much it's probably worth getting.

 

(Just in case you're wondering, I gave away my old bandos set for slaying to a friend before leaving previously.)

 

 

 

 

Critical bonus only, nothing else matters. Claws are also cheaper - only 200k tokens plus a pair of claws, instead of 300k tokens. It doesn't really matter whether you use claws, rapiers or just a maul though.

Yes, after t80 you can ignore the triangle except for hard bosses and pvp.

 

 

Thank you.

 

 

 

Magic abilities should be:
Wrack
Concentrated Blast (dual wield)
Sonic Wave (2h)
Impact (stun immune target)
Chain (multiple targets)
Combust (not in Dungeoneering)
Dragon Breath (one square range)
Asphyxiate (threshold)
Wild Magic (threshold)
Sunshine (ultimate)

 

If possible, could you please give me an example ability lineup for melee and ranged? I know this is a lot of work, but it's much appreciated.

 

If not, i'll continue to play around and see how I can get things to work. I particularly like whirlwind.

 

 

 

Dreadnips are alright, but only on very high health targets (solo corp).

I'd use an Ardougne Cloak (4) as low-budget cape, 1.9% crit, 16 armour and +4 prayer, free. Other than that, it's worth using the best equipment at all times, gravestone timers got doubled, you can now have 10+ minute graves cheaply.

 

I see, that's awesome! I saw that the Soul Wars cape now has a +5 prayer bonus, so it looks like it's going to be the Ardy Cape (4) then. Thank you!

 

 

 

Arcane, Divine and Elysian all have the damage reducing effect that used to be unique to Divine. They are class-specific shields now, for magic, melee and ranged respectively. They are only used when bomb tanking Vorago, because the bombs ignore defence bonus. Elsewhere, it is best to use no shield at all.

 

It's best to use no shield at all? Is this because of the higher damage you can now do while dual-weilding? I do remember that depending on how I felt I used to go soloing bandos with CKS and CLS/Rapier and I still took a fair bit of damage, and during the previously-mentioned trip despite trying to pile enemies up so I could whirlwind them all I didn't heal enough with soul split + uni to feel safe during the kill (Bones to Peaches tablets + Regenerate was okay for healing after the kill). Is this just my rags gear and inexperience with the new combat system? (I may or may not just want to save up for a divine just to feel like a bit of a retrospective cool guy, heh). I do remember that for soloing shields used to be highly reccomended, so...

 

 

 

Momentum boosts autoattacks, but the difference between an autoattack and a 100% damage ability is far too big for Momentum to make up for it. It'd take a while to explain it all, but for now assume that Momentum halves your killrate.

 

Ahh, I see, so there is a rather large difference between an auto-attack and a 100% damage ability. That makes some sense, then. Momentum's automatic use of basic abilities doesn't make up for this either? (Or does it use them slower?) By halving your killrate, is that in comparison to what you used to kill before the EoC update or compared to fighting normally during the EoC?

 

 

 

Armadyl solo should still be good money. Not including hilts in the long run each kill should average ~650-700 k if all armor is dropped at a 1/300 chance. Add in the other drops and you're looking at around 850 k per kill. I'm not sure what the current kph is at arma but if you even manage 10 an hour you should be making very good cash if you're willing to stick it out.

 

I also just woke up so if my math is completely off I apologize.

 

Ignoring the hilt, the average value of the "good" Armadyl drops according to the wiki is 5.8m. If the drop rate is 1/300, then this means that it's probably closer to 20k/kill. Unless my math is also off >.<

 

But this does raise another few question for me: According to some research I did on the wiki, defensive values for combat styles are 100/62.5/31.25% for strong/same/weak respectively. This, combined with protection prayers now only blocking 50% of damage, makes me wonder the best way to do frost dragons (and by extension, whether it's still worth cannoning them)?

 

In addition, i've heard the Queen Black Dragon mentioned a few times during this thread. Does anyone have an up to date guide for it? I've seen that Jagex have made a few changes to the UI and abilities during this year and some of the guides i've looked for are somewhat outdated. What drops should I be looking for?

 

 

This may be handy for equipment questions - though it's just my opinion of stuff, so definitely feel free to ask others as well!

 

Dungeoneering: You probably want to unbind your surgebox; they're pretty much useless now. Almost all of the magic weapons in dg give unlimited elemental runes (and most offensive spells only require elemental runes, now). Bind some arrows instead, for the times when you want to range. Also, you can bind more items now - your actual active loadout is the same, but you can bind extra items beyond that and change your loadout at the smuggler in the start room. Solo dg is much more viable than it used to be, too, though it's still not as good xp/hour as a good group.

 

Thank you. I'll look at binding a bow and arrow sometime. Is it really a requirement to get a hex if you are ranging, and what would be the best bow? (Long or short?) I'm glad to hear that Solo Dung is better exp, sometimes I couldn't find a team or just didn't want to run with randoms. 

 

 

 

EoC: Definitely stop by the Combat Academy in Lumbridge (north of the palace, north of Explorer Jack's house and the general store, east of the fishing store, has a bank chest) if you haven't - it's a great introduction to the basics of abilities and type-based combat, and it gives xp books for going through it. But yeah, in practice you'll want to use basic abilities to rack up adrenaline and then spend that on threshold abilities, and largely ignore ultimates and Momentum. Definitely consider doing The World Wakes for access to some of the actually useful ultimate abilities, and that plus its related quests for one of the best rings in the game. (That quest also contains major lore and story updates regarding the future of Runescape, so if you're curious about all this Sixth Age nonsense, that's another reason to do it!)

 

Okay, so it is all about the threshold abilities. Thank you! I am curious about this Sixth Age stuff (And about Divination, but i'll look into that myself sometime soon!), and i've always enjoyed the lore, so i'll head on over to doing The World Wakes when I get some spare time up my sleeve.

 

 

 

Ports: Do them. They offer some miscellaneous bonuses in the form of scrimshaws, as well as t85 tank armors, and they'll be getting some new rewards (including t85 weapons) added at some point in the future. It takes a while (a couple weeks, if you're diligent) to actually get access to any of the rewards, so going ahead and starting now is a good idea, even if you're not sure you'll actually use the rewards for anything other than extra income. It's easy to get lost in information as to how PoP works; the best way to approach it, honestly, is to just go and get started. The tutorial is decent, it's all fairly intuitive, and it's pretty difficult to "do it wrong" in the beginning. Generally your upgrades should be in this order: rudder > new ship > (ship upgrades > better crew before the 4th region, crew > ship upgrades after that) > port upgrades. As far as crew goes, aim for five of each morale/combat/seafaring crew, a merchant and a Solidarity crewman for each ship, and the remaining slots are for you to play with.

 

All right, thank you very much. Something that i'm worried about (and for whatever reason, reading the wiki has not enlightened me on it) is that I don't have some of the stats mentioned here:

 

 

Namely Theiving, Smithing, Crafting, Runecrafting, Fletching, and Cooking (I'm one level off, ha!). Will this affect my experience with the ports to a large degree?

 

Thank you all so much for all the help you've provided me. I realize my questions must be kind of frustrating and I really appreciate the help that you're giving me to understand all these new (for me!) updates.

I started POP with 90 fletching only, the earlier you start the better although if you're pursueing armours it's useful to have the level req's for the specialist. You can still just start though!

I think I may have mis-worded my post. I could very well be wrong but my understanding is that you have a 1/300 chance at a piece of armadyl armor on every kill. Not 1/300 chance of ANY armor, but 1/300 for plate, 1/300 for legs, 1/300 for helmet for a cumulative 6/300 or 1/50 shot at getting an armor drop on any given kill. When I was killing armadyl before this certainly seemed to be the case. If I am wrong I would appreciate someone letting me know as I would prefer not to spread misinformation. 

 

If i am indeed right you should be able to make over 3 mil/hr there easily.

1/128 for any non-hilt drop, for all gwd bosses.

You are correct that ability accuracy is only affected by your main-hand weapon. Off-hand weapons make up a third of the damage you do, so:

2h weapon - 1.5x damage

1h weapon - 1x damage

oh weapon - 0.5 damage

dual wield - 1.5x damage

 

On the equipment interface, a full set of power armour increases damage by 10% of that of a fastest-speed main-hand weapon, with some rounding. So Torva (t80 melee power armour) increases damage by 74 (10% of 768, a t80 fastest melee weapon damage, rounded down). I don't know the actual bonus, but I would bet on 5-10%. It's generally worth using.

 

Melee abilities:

Slice, Dismember, Sever, Backhand (if target is stun immune), Smash+Cleave (2h)/Havoc (dw), Assault, Slaughter, Destroy (dw), Berserk. Whirlwind is good if you're targeting 2+ enemies.

 

Ranged abilities:

Piercing Shot, Dazing Shot (2h)/Needle Strike (dw), Binding Shot (if target is stun immune), Fragmentation Shot (try to make the target move as you use it), Ricochet (multiple targets), Rapid Fire, Bombard, Snap Shot (if you have adrenaline left, not sure if it's worth it), Death's Swiftness.

 

Yes, it's best not to use a shield. Once you upgrade from Barrows to Ports armour, you will notice that shields are useless.

 

Compared to regular fighting in EoC, using abilities.

 

Sagittarian shortbow is the best bow in dungeoneering, with Hexhunter at about 5/6th of the damage of ssb (longbow is 4/6th damage).

 

You can do Ports very well with just one of the adventurers unlocked, it's very worth it.

I started POP with 90 fletching only, the earlier you start the better although if you're pursueing armours it's useful to have the level req's for the specialist. You can still just start though!

 

I think I may have mis-worded my post. I could very well be wrong but my understanding is that you have a 1/300 chance at a piece of armadyl armor on every kill. Not 1/300 chance of ANY armor, but 1/300 for plate, 1/300 for legs, 1/300 for helmet for a cumulative 6/300 or 1/50 shot at getting an armor drop on any given kill. When I was killing armadyl before this certainly seemed to be the case. If I am wrong I would appreciate someone letting me know as I would prefer not to spread misinformation. 

 

If i am indeed right you should be able to make over 3 mil/hr there easily.

 

 

Thanks to the both of you!

 

I think i'll hold off on Armadyl until I get some better gear, though...

 

 

You are correct that ability accuracy is only affected by your main-hand weapon. Off-hand weapons make up a third of the damage you do, so:

2h weapon - 1.5x damage

1h weapon - 1x damage

oh weapon - 0.5 damage

dual wield - 1.5x damage

 

On the equipment interface, a full set of power armour increases damage by 10% of that of a fastest-speed main-hand weapon, with some rounding. So Torva (t80 melee power armour) increases damage by 74 (10% of 768, a t80 fastest melee weapon damage, rounded down). I don't know the actual bonus, but I would bet on 5-10%. It's generally worth using.

 

Melee abilities:

Slice, Dismember, Sever, Backhand (if target is stun immune), Smash+Cleave (2h)/Havoc (dw), Assault, Slaughter, Destroy (dw), Berserk. Whirlwind is good if you're targeting 2+ enemies.

 

Ranged abilities:

Piercing Shot, Dazing Shot (2h)/Needle Strike (dw), Binding Shot (if target is stun immune), Fragmentation Shot (try to make the target move as you use it), Ricochet (multiple targets), Rapid Fire, Bombard, Snap Shot (if you have adrenaline left, not sure if it's worth it), Death's Swiftness.

 

Yes, it's best not to use a shield. Once you upgrade from Barrows to Ports armour, you will notice that shields are useless.

 

Compared to regular fighting in EoC, using abilities.

 

Sagittarian shortbow is the best bow in dungeoneering, with Hexhunter at about 5/6th of the damage of ssb (longbow is 4/6th damage).

 

You can do Ports very well with just one of the adventurers unlocked, it's very worth it.

 

 

 

Thank you very much! =) I'll get started straight away on ports for that armour then.

 

I appreciate everyone's help! Thank you all so much for getting me up to speed. I've still got to look into Divination, and an up to date Frost Dragon/QBD guide, but that's all (And if anyone could point me in the right direction, it'd be much appreciated =])

 

EDIT: I started Ports and went through the tutorial learning roughly...nothing. The wiki is kind of confusing too. I couldn't find any guides in the general guides section of the forums, can anyone point me in roughly the right direction? The main thing i'm worried about is losing all my stuff and my crew members dying, i'm sure i'll learn something by trial and error...

 

EDIT2: Does anyone know why the toll gates near Lumby were removed, and the Black Knight's Fortress was moved into the wildy area?