Requiring assistance once more!

[bjanko]

Hi guys! I had this thread typed out before, but lost all my progress to a crash. So i'll just try and be quick.

 

Apologies in advance for asking so many questions, now and previously.

 

A fair few of these questions are related to bossing, which i've been trying to get into. Some aspects i've been doing well in, and some...well, you'll find out soon.

 

1) Tanking Nex

 

I've been trying to learn to tank Nex, as i've not done it much. I've been wearing full mage gear with a shield and mainhand range/mage for when she changes phases. Smoke and Shadow go fine, but I get punished badly on blood, ice and zaros - I've gone through a full yak and inventory on one kill once. On those phases I just spam defensive abilities and use the debuff spells, and also do other things such as escape from contain this, blood sacrifice, etc. I've looked up a few guides but they pretty much just say stand there and tank on those phases, and that doesn't do too well (in ganodermic, anyway). Has anyone got some advice apart from that, or a good guide they could point me to?

 

2) Nex DPSing

 

I've been mainly dpsing at nex with power armor and drygores, and haven't been doing too badly; Blood phase is really easy with berserk and a zerk gets through a fair bit of zaros phase in a duo/trio. However, i've been asked to tank instead of dpsing by a lot of people in virtus/tectonic with cstaff/v book. I can't understand the rationale behind this; Can someone explain why?

 

On that note...

 

3) Tier 90 armours

 

Are these worth buying for efficient bossing? And to clarify what I mean by that - Would using a set of, say, malevolent or sirenic at a boss earn me more gp then it would cost to buy it on top of normal profit per hour over the armour's lifetime? I've heard a lot of people say "Wow, it makes me hit so much higher" and "This is so much better then xyz", but those are just statements. I would rather save up for a set of nex gear as opposed to one of these degradable gears unless they do make the money back and then some; because I could sell it for buyable skills later.

 

4) QBD

 

I've been trying to do the QBD. A lot of people have reccomended it to me for profit; I've watched many guides and tried many kills on the beta (Without success). However, I can't seem to get past the third/fourth phase - I tend to get comboed out by a combination of the worms/souls and QBD's attacks, especially if I use berserk. I do walk back and forth through the fire-walls, only getting the one 750 hit, avoid the time stop, run from the super fire breath, and such things - The only thing I have trouble with is the souls on the fourth phase, as they don't spawn in an "x" pattern like i've seen on guides - they seem to spawn around the room. Apart from that, I can't understand how this is such a farmable boss for people. Can someone attempt to shed some light on the subject? I wear drygores, and full bandos apart from a superior tetsu helm.

 

5) Ports

 

Having recently arrived at the pincers, I'm a little stuck with what to do in ports at the moment. Currently i'm upgrading my ship and crew, but i've heard many things such as 

 

-Stay in the pincers if you want trade goods/need scrolls, the new areas are not worth doing

-It's not worth using Oxhead and Horseface after nerf over Judges of Dice (I have 4 oxheads and 3 judges at the moment)

-It's not worth using merchants on high adversity voyages

 

Can anyone shed some light on these?

 

In addition, I recently installed 2 telescopes in my port in an attempt to gain more scroll voyages (I only have tetsu helm/body and half of the rocktail soup scroll at the moment). How do these work? Do they give a 7% chance to adventurers offering a scroll voyage? Do they give a 7% chance to getting a regular scroll voyage? (I've not seen such a thing before). If regular scroll voyages exist, are they only in the pincers and beyond?

 

And a few minor efficiency things:

 

-What is the best way to use Magic Notepaper?

 

-Is doing Big Chinchompa and then using the private grenwell hunting area more efficient then doing herblore habitat?

 

-I've heard that slayer exp rates are now 100-200k exp/hr, is this with constant use of berserk when it's off cooldown? If so, what % of that exp would you get roughly without using berserk, and with using momentum? (I don't plan on using momentum, but just for comparison's sake)

 

-What dungeoneering floor times should I be aiming for if I was to dung with randoms? I've only done a handful of floors with friends since i've been back and some of those were pretty unremarkable (Dungeoneering aura 4 helps so much when people don't gate.)

 

-Effigies now only drop to a maximum amount of 5, and according to the wiki have had a reduced drop rate from before my break. I've recently finished all of my effigy skills except for 97 construction (I had the supplies prior to the bexp poll announcement, but I figured that i'll be able to get it done then and sell the planks for some profit) and as such have 2 gorged effigies sitting in my bank - Does the drop rate decrease in proportion to the amount of effigies you currently have, even if you have less then 5? (For example, if you have no effigies, the chance is 1/100, if you have 1, it's 1/200, if you have 2, it's 1/300, etc...)

 

Thank you all so much for your help in advance =]

 

 

[chenw]

4) Bandos is a teeny bit too weak for QBD. I would recommend wearing either full Tetsu or full Torva. Also if you are melee'ing the souls on fourth phase will never spawn in an x pattern because you are already blocking off 1 side of the said X (since you have to be right up close to QBD, and QBD blocks off the squares where souls would have spawned), making soul spawns on QBD quite erratic, hence the X pattern you have seen in vids generally only spawn for Ranged and Magic users rather than melee. With Full tetsu, I also recommend just tanking the firewalls, i don't think it's really worth dancing the firewalls just to avoid 1 rock tail's worth of damage. Flurry also kills souls very nicely, and be extra careful with the super charged breath.

 

5)

 

1. It's ALWAYS worth doing the higher regions.

2. It is still worth it for Trio voyages and for some doubles, but after loop they are not really worth it.

3. Merchants are ALWAYS worth it (the only case where merchant is arguable is if the merchant is Ardougne storekeeper, ie the worst merchant, every other merchant is worth it, no questions asked).

 

Telescopes offer increased chances of a scroll voyage appearing as a special voyage. Scroll voyages do NOT exist as normal voyages (this is true up to and including loop). If you have any scrolls you are after, don't miss the scroll voyages. The voyage will just simply get longer in higher regions (the % success would be roughly the same for similar zone positions, EG start of loop would give roughly the same % as start of pincers, etc), so there is little reason to not go for scrolls if you need them.

 

6) I believe the effigy drop rate decreases depending on the amount of effigies you have, which decreases further as more effigies you currently have. No idea on the actual odds though.

[Th e Doctor]

What Tim said, bandos is going to ensure than you get hit like a truck at QBD. It's doable but it isn't fun. Go with full tetsu and bandos for the gloves/boots. Sara whisper, 6th age or equivilant for ring, and kiln cape. 

 

I'm assuming you're maxed or have near maxed stats but you should be overloaded, with prayer renewals/super antifires running the whole time. With penance aura on you shouldn't need any extra prayer beyond just the renewals. Soul split/Turmoil on the entire kill. Don't shut it off when running to the crystals to "save prayer" because it loses the ramp up of turmoil and slows down the kill. 

 

You should have adrenaline potions in your inventory. Try to finish phase 3 at 100% adrenaline and hit berserk as soon as you are back into attack range, sip adrenaline pot, basics until assault/destroy (should only be 2 basics iirc). Unless she goes carapace this should bring to damn near finished. 

 

If you really want fastest kill times use adrenaline stalling abilities between kills instead of using the adrenaline -> hp ability. 

 

As you save up cash I would switch to using full torva over tetsu, as the slight defense boost isn't that noticable (ensures more prayer from penance) and the offense helps a lot (which means more healing from soul split). 

 

 

 

I'm unsure on t9 armor values being worth it over nex gear. I also know nothing about nexing. 

 

 

 

For ports you can still use your oxheads, they won't be better than any new JoD you get until they hit level 10 which will take longer than probably is worth. 

 

Magic notepaper is best used at frost dragons atm. 

 

Big chinchompa is worth doing if you hate HH with a passion, grenwalls in general aren't ever worth doing unless they are your best money maker.

 

Floor times solo should be sub 3:30 for c6 smalls, sub 9:30 for c6 meds. For 6:6 larges and randoms its a potluck. I've had teams that ran an average of 15-20 minutes and some that couldn't do it in under 40. With a good team that knows what they're doing you can get down to the 10 min range.

 

I assume by exp rates you mean combat training? If that's the case you can get over 300 k exp/hr with every combat style now if you know where to train. Momentum is never worth using, expect at least 40% less experience/hr in my experience with it. Without using berserk it's not that huge of a dps loss unless you really care about min/maxing. Might as well do it though as its easy and hitting high is fun.

 

Not sure on the actual odds of getting effigies as it still depends on what monster you're fighting. It's best to just use them outright though regardless.

[Quyneax]

1) How fast do these phases go?

 

2) Magic has the best DPS out of all styles (but only dual wield), though it only works every other kill. Other than that, people prefer to DPS for easy mode.

 

3) Only for Vorago, I think, and Barrows 2/solo Nex. Maybe duo KK as well. Places where you need more defence than Nex armour provides.

 

4) Get more armour :P.

 

5) It's worth getting an oxhead or two for important triples (trio voyages for one), but otherwise they aren't very good at all. Merchants are always worth using. The new areas are worth going for. I think telescopes work by shifting chance - e.g. if you had a 50/50 chance to get a scroll or xp mission, you now have a 43/57 chance or something.

 

Extras:

- Notepaper is presumably good at frost dragons, airut, dagannoth kings, Graardor and other heavy bone-droppers.

- No. Grenwalls are not worth it, though the big chin is pretty nice xp.

- No, Berserk is not worth it for most slayer monsters, and xp rates are higher with magic anyhow. Only use Berserk when your main dps abilities (Destroy, Slaughter + move, Assault) are off cooldown. Momentum is probably about half xp. Remember to use a cannon.

- Probably around 20 minutes but it heavily depends on what kind of randoms you pick up. Having one good dger you can work with and a couple of gd slaves can probably give you 15 minute floors, but then again randoms might be into fishing and give you 30-40 min beast mode floors.

- Yes. Using up those effigies will increase your drop rate.

[Levells]

I'm just going to address the first 3 :p

 

 

1) Tanking Nex

 

I'm just going to break this down into each stage and then mercilessly torture you---I mean, take you nexing for both roles :p (I'm back now ;) )

 

You should (almost) always be standing in melee distance to cut down on her mage attacks destroying your dpsers.

 

Smoke: This one is nice and easy. Lure Nex up towards the entrance by attacking and then moving towards the south pillar, so she follows you. Do not go around the pillar or that will drag her too far from your attackers. Use anticipation frequently as it will prevent her from dragging/knocking your prayer off. If you do get dragged, freedom and resonance can give a nice heal.

 

Shadow: This one is the one you stand away from her. Too close for too long will cause you to bleed typless damage. Watch out for the shadows and just move 1 space away. When she calls, run through the center and wrap around the south pillar to draw her further away from the dpsers so they don't get the shadow. You can drop prayer and resonance here easily for a good 1900+ most of the time.

 

Blood: Depending on group size and people's experience, I take an offhand for this phase, if only to speed it up. I normally get through it with only the initial siphon. Make sure you're still in melee distance so she doesn't blood barrage everyone. If you're standing right, Nex will be attacking you and your attackers can attack her back and soul split as well. Her blood sacrifice attack (assuming not all melee distance) targets the furthest person away, which favors mages who can stand outside of her attack range and not even move from the sacrifice. Once the minion is dead, the last phrase Nex calls determines how Ice starts.  Siphon = ice prison, sacrifice = contain.

 

Ice: You always want to start on a prison, since it's much easier. Use Anticipation as she transitions to ice. You should have full adrenaline and use Barricade. Use Escape/Surge if you can when she contains for the extra adrenaline. Freedom and Immortality the second prison. By now, your team should be killing the minion. Make sure you keep Nex away as she can easily ko the team if she contains near them. Most teams will break the 3rd if they see it, but you should try to always prepare for it anyway. You should be able to use Anticipation/Barricade here again.  If Blood is giving you trouble with your lp or you can't seem to generate the adrenaline during ice, you could try using Immortality just before ice starts and then Barricade the second. Don't forget Ring of Vigour and Adrenaline potions as well.

 

Zaros: I'm going to assume this is now as painful for a mage tank (half the time) as it is/was for a melee tank. This is going to hurt like hell, but you should make full use of all your def abilities, especially Debilitate. You should also get the hang of dropping your prayer (or using soul split) when you use resonance. I would not advise switching between mage/range here as it will hurt you more from the ability cooldown. What you should do is just click under you (sometimes right click is best since her click radius can be insane) and just use purely defensive abilities until she stops praying. Lastly, don't forget to move when she wrath-bombs :p (Ps2 once had ~100 lp left when he hit the wrong button and didn't Surge away)

 

2) Nex DPSing

 

People don't like tanking :p were you getting the drop or were the magers getting it? I seem to get the drop 95% of the time against tectonic/vwandbook people ;) (using drygores + ccbs). And if anything, I would say melee/range would be the way to go these days with that last update to her.

 

On that note...

 

3) Tier 90 armours

 

For Barrows2/Vorago/ and solo/duo Nex, yes. Trio nex+? probably not. If you're not that great at pvm and still take loads of damage (like Wolfy/Ps2 used to), then yes you should look into it more. I personally don't bother with it because I don't need it right now. They do offer the approximate defense/hp of ports but with best in class damage, so they have their uses.

[Bxpprod]

Bandos is fine for qbd, once you get used to it. The concept for avoiding soul damage on W4 is similar to the others, just that you have to move further. Ensure that you move such that there is a soul (or two) between you. It is harder to anticipate due to not having a set spawn spot, but practice makes perfect. However, if you find yourself continuing to struggle, use tetsu while you are practice. The statements above that Bandos is too weak etc are hogwash. 

[Quasar]

90 armour is probably not worth it for bosses other than ROTS.  Vorago you can get away with ports (if bomb or base) or void (with a ports switch to get in)

 

edit:  tectonic is pretty cheap tho, so if you have seis buy it because otherwise you're just bad

[Wkw]

1. I also find that blood is fairly hard, but once you get a feel for it, you can often enter ice with full health.

 

What I do, on blood (I melee, but works for mage) is:

- Do preparation BEFORE blood, so that you have your resonance up

- While she siphons, do a res right after (and drop your prayer) and hope you get healed big

- Debilitate

- A combo; assault or asphyxiate

- She should sacrifice; if so, be ready to escape. If she doesn't target you, preparation

- More basics, if you're getting hard and under 5k health, do reflect

- Cruor should be dead by now. If not, keep using defence (debilitate, reflect, res)

- When ice starts, ANTICIPATION! You'll get prisoned, but you'll be able to do abilities, gain adr, and use cade/immort

- If you're above half health, I do barricade. I always go into prisons with anticipation up, so I wait a second or two after the prison to use barricade, so it lasts until I can get prayer up

- After prison, SPAM getting your prayer up and SPAM res. Afterwards, spam basic. Don't use anticipation until the next prison

- When she contains, run away, do preparation, more spam.

- About 2 attacks after contain, anticipation again.

- The moment you can use immortality, use it. Do not wait. If it does not kill you, do not try to get killed by it, unless you're under 1k health. Immort has a 25% damage reduction and lasts 30 seconds. Very useful

 

For zaros, rotate debilitate and reflect. Anticipate when you can. Reflect and flash prayer when you can. When you're full health, use rejuvinate. Only use barricade on zaros if you are really panicking

 

2. dual weild magic is nearly equal to T90 melee/range. If someone with chaotic staff wants to dps, don't let them. Staff isn't good.

 

3. I would say, no. Unless you have nex armor already, don't bother, because at that point you don;t have enough cash to spend on degrade-to-dust.

[Th e Doctor]

Bandos is fine for qbd, once you get used to it. The concept for avoiding soul damage on W4 is similar to the others, just that you have to move further. Ensure that you move such that there is a soul (or two) between you. It is harder to anticipate due to not having a set spawn spot, but practice makes perfect. However, if you find yourself continuing to struggle, use tetsu while you are practice. The statements above that Bandos is too weak etc are hogwash. 

 

Didn't say it was too weak, said it was too weak to be comfortable. You take significantly more damage in bandos, notably from the grotworms. If you really want to save the extra 3-4 seconds per kill for a significant increase in risk of dying (which really only hurts your gp/hr as getting back to your grave is possible in under a minute) that's all fine and dandy but I wouldn't recommend someone who is already struggling at QBD to use t7 armor when t85 is available and much safer.

[bjanko]

Hi everyone! Wow, thank you for all the feedback! I didn't expect so many replies to such a long thread. I'll try to adress everyone's points individually:

 

 

 

 

4) Bandos is a teeny bit too weak for QBD. I would recommend wearing either full Tetsu or full Torva. Also if you are melee'ing the souls on fourth phase will never spawn in an x pattern because you are already blocking off 1 side of the said X (since you have to be right up close to QBD, and QBD blocks off the squares where souls would have spawned), making soul spawns on QBD quite erratic, hence the X pattern you have seen in vids generally only spawn for Ranged and Magic users rather than melee. With Full tetsu, I also recommend just tanking the firewalls, i don't think it's really worth dancing the firewalls just to avoid 1 rock tail's worth of damage. Flurry also kills souls very nicely, and be extra careful with the super charged breath.

 

I'm still saving up money, so I might just stay away from QBD for now then. With full tetsu or torva, how much food should I be eating per kill? Soul split doesn't seem to heal me much there, even with drygores. Thank you for explaining the soul patterns though =]

 

 

 

 

1. It's ALWAYS worth doing the higher regions.

2. It is still worth it for Trio voyages and for some doubles, but after loop they are not really worth it.

3. Merchants are ALWAYS worth it (the only case where merchant is arguable is if the merchant is Ardougne storekeeper, ie the worst merchant, every other merchant is worth it, no questions asked).

 

Telescopes offer increased chances of a scroll voyage appearing as a special voyage. Scroll voyages do NOT exist as normal voyages (this is true up to and including loop). If you have any scrolls you are after, don't miss the scroll voyages. The voyage will just simply get longer in higher regions (the % success would be roughly the same for similar zone positions, EG start of loop would give roughly the same % as start of pincers, etc), so there is little reason to not go for scrolls if you need them.

 

6) I believe the effigy drop rate decreases depending on the amount of effigies you have, which decreases further as more effigies you currently have. No idea on the actual odds though.

 

Thank you, that was all the information i needed in regards to ports =] Time to farm scrolls when I can then, thank you very much!

 

 

What Tim said, bandos is going to ensure than you get hit like a truck at QBD. It's doable but it isn't fun. Go with full tetsu and bandos for the gloves/boots. Sara whisper, 6th age or equivilant for ring, and kiln cape. 

 

I've been using Vigour for my ring. Thanks though, i'll just work on saving up for better gear then =]

 

 

 

 

I'm assuming you're maxed or have near maxed stats but you should be overloaded, with prayer renewals/super antifires running the whole time. With penance aura on you shouldn't need any extra prayer beyond just the renewals. Soul split/Turmoil on the entire kill. Don't shut it off when running to the crystals to "save prayer" because it loses the ramp up of turmoil and slows down the kill. 

 

You should have adrenaline potions in your inventory. Try to finish phase 3 at 100% adrenaline and hit berserk as soon as you are back into attack range, sip adrenaline pot, basics until assault/destroy (should only be 2 basics iirc). Unless she goes carapace this should bring to damn near finished. 

 

If you really want fastest kill times use adrenaline stalling abilities between kills instead of using the adrenaline -> hp ability. 

 

As you save up cash I would switch to using full torva over tetsu, as the slight defense boost isn't that noticable (ensures more prayer from penance) and the offense helps a lot (which means more healing from soul split). 

 

Thank you for the tips. I don't turn prayer off since it seems to drain really slowly anyway; I've yet to actually get a kill so i'll work on stalling between kills when I can actually kill ;)

 

I've tried to use berserk on the beta but the auto-queueing of abilities seems to interfere with my thresholds somewhat; I'm just trying to work on getting a kill, then i'll work on speeding it up.

 

 

 

Magic notepaper is best used at frost dragons atm. 

 

Awesome, guess i'll go do some frosts then, thank you =]

 

 

 

Big chinchompa is worth doing if you hate HH with a passion, grenwalls in general aren't ever worth doing unless they are your best money maker.

 

Okay, thanks! I actually really enjoy HH and only started farming big chinchompa because I heard doing grenwells with the reward tickets was more efficient. Guess it's back to jadinkos for me ^_^

 

 

 

Floor times solo should be sub 3:30 for c6 smalls, sub 9:30 for c6 meds. For 6:6 larges and randoms its a potluck. I've had teams that ran an average of 15-20 minutes and some that couldn't do it in under 40. With a good team that knows what they're doing you can get down to the 10 min range.

 

Okay, thank you for that. Very useful information; if it gets to 40 minutes i'll probably ragequit though. =D

 

 

 

I assume by exp rates you mean combat training? If that's the case you can get over 300 k exp/hr with every combat style now if you know where to train. Momentum is never worth using, expect at least 40% less experience/hr in my experience with it. Without using berserk it's not that huge of a dps loss unless you really care about min/maxing. Might as well do it though as its easy and hitting high is fun.

 

By exp rates, I meant exp rates for actual slayer exp/hour.

 

 

 

Not sure on the actual odds of getting effigies as it still depends on what monster you're fighting. It's best to just use them outright though regardless.

 

I plan on doing so! I'm saving my construction supplies for the bonus exp weekend so I won't be opening those ones just yet; But I will as soon as I can.

 

 

1) How fast do these phases go?
 

 

Smoke/shadow take about 45 seconds each. Blood takes ~2-3 siphons if i'm tanking. Ice takes 2-3 prisons, and zaros phase probably lasts like 2-3 minutes at a guess (Some time into a re-overload).

 

 

 

2) Magic has the best DPS out of all styles (but only dual wield), though it only works every other kill. Other than that, people prefer to DPS for easy mode.

 

So t80 mage will outdamage t90 melee? O_O

 

And yeah, I can understand why. Tanking is hard. =p

 

 

 

3) Only for Vorago, I think, and Barrows 2/solo Nex. Maybe duo KK as well. Places where you need more defence than Nex armour provides.

 

Thank you. =]

 

 

 

4) Get more armour  :P.

 

Okay. =p I'll ask this again here in case anyone missed it: How much food should I be using per kill? (Is it worth investing in a vamp scrimshaw?)

 

 

 

5) It's worth getting an oxhead or two for important triples (trio voyages for one), but otherwise they aren't very good at all. Merchants are always worth using. The new areas are worth going for. I think telescopes work by shifting chance - e.g. if you had a 50/50 chance to get a scroll or xp mission, you now have a 43/57 chance or something.

 

Thank you. I'll dismiss a few of my oxheads and get more single stat crew then.

 

 

 

Extras:
- Notepaper is presumably good at frost dragons, airut, dagannoth kings, Graardor and other heavy bone-droppers.
- No. Grenwalls are not worth it, though the big chin is pretty nice xp.
- No, Berserk is not worth it for most slayer monsters, and xp rates are higher with magic anyhow. Only use Berserk when your main dps abilities (Destroy, Slaughter + move, Assault) are off cooldown. Momentum is probably about half xp. Remember to use a cannon.
- Probably around 20 minutes but it heavily depends on what kind of randoms you pick up. Having one good dger you can work with and a couple of gd slaves can probably give you 15 minute floors, but then again randoms might be into fishing and give you 30-40 min beast mode floors.
- Yes. Using up those effigies will increase your drop rate.

 

On those notes:

 

i) Cannons are still worth using? I've been told not to use them for slayer/frost dragons anymore. 

ii) Something I forgot to ask: I have chaotic bows/staff and drygores at the moment. Is it still better to sell drygores for wand/book and use those for most tasks as opposed to drygores? Should I melee most/all tasks with drygores if the alternative is a tier lower?

 

 

I'm just going to address the first 3  :P

 

 

1) Tanking Nex

 

I'm just going to break this down into each stage and then mercilessly torture you---I mean, take you nexing for both roles  :P (I'm back now  ;) )

 

You should (almost) always be standing in melee distance to cut down on her mage attacks destroying your dpsers.

 

Smoke: This one is nice and easy. Lure Nex up towards the entrance by attacking and then moving towards the south pillar, so she follows you. Do not go around the pillar or that will drag her too far from your attackers. Use anticipation frequently as it will prevent her from dragging/knocking your prayer off. If you do get dragged, freedom and resonance can give a nice heal.

 

Shadow: This one is the one you stand away from her. Too close for too long will cause you to bleed typless damage. Watch out for the shadows and just move 1 space away. When she calls, run through the center and wrap around the south pillar to draw her further away from the dpsers so they don't get the shadow. You can drop prayer and resonance here easily for a good 1900+ most of the time.

 

Blood: Depending on group size and people's experience, I take an offhand for this phase, if only to speed it up. I normally get through it with only the initial siphon. Make sure you're still in melee distance so she doesn't blood barrage everyone. If you're standing right, Nex will be attacking you and your attackers can attack her back and soul split as well. Her blood sacrifice attack (assuming not all melee distance) targets the furthest person away, which favors mages who can stand outside of her attack range and not even move from the sacrifice. Once the minion is dead, the last phrase Nex calls determines how Ice starts.  Siphon = ice prison, sacrifice = contain.

 

Ice: You always want to start on a prison, since it's much easier. Use Anticipation as she transitions to ice. You should have full adrenaline and use Barricade. Use Escape/Surge if you can when she contains for the extra adrenaline. Freedom and Immortality the second prison. By now, your team should be killing the minion. Make sure you keep Nex away as she can easily ko the team if she contains near them. Most teams will break the 3rd if they see it, but you should try to always prepare for it anyway. You should be able to use Anticipation/Barricade here again.  If Blood is giving you trouble with your lp or you can't seem to generate the adrenaline during ice, you could try using Immortality just before ice starts and then Barricade the second. Don't forget Ring of Vigour and Adrenaline potions as well.

 

Zaros: I'm going to assume this is now as painful for a mage tank (half the time) as it is/was for a melee tank. This is going to hurt like hell, but you should make full use of all your def abilities, especially Debilitate. You should also get the hang of dropping your prayer (or using soul split) when you use resonance. I would not advise switching between mage/range here as it will hurt you more from the ability cooldown. What you should do is just click under you (sometimes right click is best since her click radius can be insane) and just use purely defensive abilities until she stops praying. Lastly, don't forget to move when she wrath-bombs  :P (Ps2 once had ~100 lp left when he hit the wrong button and didn't Surge away)

 

Awesome, sounds like I just need a bit of practice and more dehib hits then. How much food should I be aiming to go through per kill (for starters, I know that mlg 360 noscopers can go through 0 food/kill and solo vorago with grifolic orb)

 

 

2) Nex DPSing

 

People don't like tanking  :P were you getting the drop or were the magers getting it? I seem to get the drop 95% of the time against tectonic/vwandbook people  ;) (using drygores + ccbs). And if anything, I would say melee/range would be the way to go these days with that last update to her.

 

I don't have any accurate statistics or anything, only subjective observations (which is dangerous) because i've not done that many nex kills lately (Let's do more!), but it seems like I get more drops, hit harder and more often - hence why I asked if t80 wand/book was preferred over t90 melee.

 

For Barrows2/Vorago/ and solo/duo Nex, yes. Trio nex+? probably not. If you're not that great at pvm and still take loads of damage (like Wolfy/Ps2 used to), then yes you should look into it more. I personally don't bother with it because I don't need it right now. They do offer the approximate defense/hp of ports but with best in class damage, so they have their uses.

 

 So you're saying that it would earn the cost back and then some on top of regular gp/hr earned for those bosses?

 

 

Bandos is fine for qbd, once you get used to it. The concept for avoiding soul damage on W4 is similar to the others, just that you have to move further. Ensure that you move such that there is a soul (or two) between you. It is harder to anticipate due to not having a set spawn spot, but practice makes perfect. However, if you find yourself continuing to struggle, use tetsu while you are practice. The statements above that Bandos is too weak etc are hogwash. 

 

 

Okay. It seems like I do get hit really hard in it though - how much food per kill should I go through in a bandos set?

 

 

90 armour is probably not worth it for bosses other than ROTS.  Vorago you can get away with ports (if bomb or base) or void (with a ports switch to get in)

 

edit:  tectonic is pretty cheap tho, so if you have seis buy it because otherwise you're just bad

 

I assure you that I don't have seismics. =p

 

 

1. I also find that blood is fairly hard, but once you get a feel for it, you can often enter ice with full health.

 

What I do, on blood (I melee, but works for mage) is:

- Do preparation BEFORE blood, so that you have your resonance up

- While she siphons, do a res right after (and drop your prayer) and hope you get healed big

- Debilitate

- A combo; assault or asphyxiate

- She should sacrifice; if so, be ready to escape. If she doesn't target you, preparation

- More basics, if you're getting hard and under 5k health, do reflect

- Cruor should be dead by now. If not, keep using defence (debilitate, reflect, res)

- When ice starts, ANTICIPATION! You'll get prisoned, but you'll be able to do abilities, gain adr, and use cade/immort

- If you're above half health, I do barricade. I always go into prisons with anticipation up, so I wait a second or two after the prison to use barricade, so it lasts until I can get prayer up

- After prison, SPAM getting your prayer up and SPAM res. Afterwards, spam basic. Don't use anticipation until the next prison

- When she contains, run away, do preparation, more spam.

- About 2 attacks after contain, anticipation again.

- The moment you can use immortality, use it. Do not wait. If it does not kill you, do not try to get killed by it, unless you're under 1k health. Immort has a 25% damage reduction and lasts 30 seconds. Very useful

 

For zaros, rotate debilitate and reflect. Anticipate when you can. Reflect and flash prayer when you can. When you're full health, use rejuvinate. Only use barricade on zaros if you are really panicking

 

2. dual weild magic is nearly equal to T90 melee/range. If someone with chaotic staff wants to dps, don't let them. Staff isn't good.

 

3. I would say, no. Unless you have nex armor already, don't bother, because at that point you don;t have enough cash to spend on degrade-to-dust.

 

 

 

I'll be saving this for some further referencing next time I tank nex, if that's okay? It's very helpful and detailed, thank you very much!

 

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Once again, thank you all so much for your help! It seems most of my issues stem from just needing a little bit of practice - I've heard so many people say that QBD, etc are so easy that I thought I should be able to just pick it up and get straight into it.

[Bxpprod]

 

Bandos is fine for qbd, once you get used to it. The concept for avoiding soul damage on W4 is similar to the others, just that you have to move further. Ensure that you move such that there is a soul (or two) between you. It is harder to anticipate due to not having a set spawn spot, but practice makes perfect. However, if you find yourself continuing to struggle, use tetsu while you are practice. The statements above that Bandos is too weak etc are hogwash. 

 

Didn't say it was too weak, said it was too weak to be comfortable. You take significantly more damage in bandos, notably from the grotworms. If you really want to save the extra 3-4 seconds per kill for a significant increase in risk of dying (which really only hurts your gp/hr as getting back to your grave is possible in under a minute) that's all fine and dandy but I wouldn't recommend someone who is already struggling at QBD to use t7 armor when t85 is available and much safer.

 

You'll note you weren't the only person who made reference to Bandos being too weak. And ideally, you should only be seeing 3-4 Grotspawns/kill anyway. Dismember/slaughter at low health and begin running to the totem when you are confident it is actually going to activate. Without any mistakes you will even see kills w/o any spawns