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RuneScoop.com  >  The RuneScoop Ultimate Skill Guide for RuneScape       >  The RuneScoop Ultimate Skill Guide - Dungeoneering            >  The RuneScoop Ultimate Skill Guide - Dungeoneering - Bosses

Shadow-forger Ihlakhizan (Floors 30-35) The RuneScoop Ultimate Skill Guide - Dungeoneering - Challenge (Puzzle) Rooms

The final boss in Daemonheim, Bal’lak the Pummeller can only be encountered on levels 33, 34 or 35 of the dungeons. One of the demon bosses, he uses a variety of attack styles, and has a special ability that causes his defence level to increase dramatically, making him hard to damage. He’s not particularly dangerous, though, and a simple trick negates both his special attack and special defence, causing Bal’lak to be much more of a pushover than you’d expect.

Bal’lak the Pummeller is the third in a series of Daemonheim bosses that are modeled after K’ril Tsustaroth from the God Wars Dungeon; the other two are To’Kash the Bloodchiller and Har’Lakk the Riftsplitter. With his very dark olive green coloration and large hammers wielded in each hand, Bal’lak brings to mind Torag the Corrupted of Barrows fame.

Given that he’s the ultimate boss in the current incarnation of Daemonheim, and that he has an impressive title like “Pummeller”, Bal’lak turns out to be a surprisingly mediocre opponent. He attacks with melee and magic, but neither style is especially strong; in particular, you can expect to get much more of a melee pummelling from Rammernaut than this guy (in a large group he can be more dangerous, but only on the player he is currently meleeing).

His special attacks and defenses are also not exactly impresive, especially compared to some other bosses. His most notable special ability is that his defence increases as combat goes on; this is represented by a highly visible orange bar in a window at the top of the screen, labeled “Demon’s Defence”. While Bal’lak is normally not hard to damage, he gets very difficult to hit when this bar gets well above 50%.

Bal’lak periodically makes a noise and then causes small greenish bubbles to appear on the ground. These will damage players that stand on them, but can also be used to lower Bal’lak’s defence if you lure him on top of them. This is hard to do, and lowering his defence can be rather difficult and time-consuming if you attempt to use the pools as intended. However, it is possible to circumvent this special defence, as we’ll see.

• Name: Bal’lak the Pummeller.
  
  
• Examine Text: “A soldier of a demon army.”
  
  
• Daemonheim Theme (Zone): Abandoned 2.
  
  
• Dungeon Floors: Levels 33 to 35.
  
  
• Primary Attack Styles: Melee.
  
  
• Secondary Attack Styles: Magic.
  
  
• Special Attacks: Noxious bubble pools; ability to disable prayers.
  
  
• Special Defences: Gradually increasing defence.
  
  
• Special Immunities: Poison.
  
  
• Weak Against: Melee/Any.
  
  
• Neutral: Ranged (Magic not yet tested).
  
  
• Strong Against: None.
  
  
• Recommended Attack Method: Melee/Any with Piety or Turmoil.
  
  
• Recommended Defence Method: Melee or ranged armor (I haven’t tested this thoroughly yet).
  
  
• Drop Category: Warhammers.

Table 106 lists all of the variants of Bal’lak that I have encountered personally, or that have been documented by sources I consider reliable, showing the combat level, life points total and maximum damage of each.

The hammers wielded by Bal’lak suggest his primary attack as being melee, but he also mixes in magic and ranged attacks on a regular basis. Despite his size and the size of those hammers, his melee attacks are not really all that damaging. The only exception to this is when fighting him in a large group; he’ll only target one person at a time, but that person can take a fairly hefty beating.

Bal’lak’s magic attack looks like a yellowish blob falling on your head. It does not hit very hard, but it hits all players at once, and the damage from it can add up over time, especially on a high-level boss.

Bal’lak will occasionally make a grunting sound and cause green bubbles to appear on the ground in random locations, usually near players. Standing on these pools will cause players to take damage until they move off of them, though again, it’s not a lot. He can also temporarily disable the use of protection prayers/curses, like several other bosses. For this reason it is best to plan not to use them.

That’s it, surprisingly enough. The two bosses that precede Bal’lak are considerably more dangerous; in fact, even Har’Lakk the Riftsplitter poses more of an offensive threat.

Bal’lak defence level starts out rather low and then rises over time; the current status of his defence is shown as a bar at the top of the screen. While I haven’t seen this boss enough to test a wide variety of attack styles, he appears to be quite weak to all melee styles at least when his bar is low, while he takes less damage from ranging. He has a lot of hit points, like most demons.

As you fight Bal’lak, the defence bar will increase, and he’ll get more and more difficult to hit. Once the bar is more than 50% full, zeroes will start to get pretty frequent, and when it is over 75% full, he becomes nearly unhittable.

As mentioned earlier, the idea with this boss is to lure him over the green bubbles to lower his defence. Unfortunately, this just doesn’t work very well, at least when soloing: while he does try to close to melee range when you move away from him, he moves slowly, the bubbles don’t drop the bar very much, and they disappear quickly when he stands on them. In a team, with a tougher Bal’lak, it seems to work better.

Fortunately (or unfortunately, if you like a challenge), there’s an easy way around this entire defence mechanism. You can simply create and drop a gatestone outside the boss room; when Bal’lak’s defence gets too high, teleport out of the room and wait a minute or so. When you enter the boss room again, his bar will have lowered substantially, giving you time to get a few licks in before it rises again.

First, a quick disclaimer: I’ve only fought Bal’lak a few times. I may change my mind about some of these ideas when I get more experience with him.

As I said above, the use of gatestones is key to making this boss tolerable when soloing. Be sure you have enough runes to cast the spell at least 5 times, and an empty inventory slot for the conjured stone. You also need some food for healing, but not a huge amount.

Make a gatestone and drop it outside the boss door. Go in, wield your standard melee weapon, and then turn on the best melee enhancing prayer you can, generally Piety or Turmoil. Use this instead of a protection prayer; you can take the damage he deals out pretty easily. The enhancement prayer is important to ensure that you deal as much damage as possible before his defence level gets too high, and also to help break through it when it does get up there. If you use a protection prayer, he’ll constantly turn it off anyway.

Watch for the little pools of green bubbles and stay out of them. You can try to lure him into them, but as I said earlier, it only knocks his defence down a tick or two. So don’t waste too much time trying to do this; instead, focusing on hitting him.

Once you find yourself having trouble damaging Bal’lak, hit your Gatestone Teleport and be sure to turn off your prayers. Immediately create a new gatestone and drop it, so you don’t forget! You should now wait roughly a minute for his defence bar to come back down; don’t just go right back in the room. You can use this time to heal, or even gather more food to replace whatever you’ve used.

After being sure you remembered to drop a new gatestone, go back into the boss room and Bal’lak’s defence bar should be much lower. Put Piety or Turmoil back on and attack him again. Repeat the pattern until he’s dead.

I have only tested a magic familiar on this boss so far; its performance was mediocre.

Bal’lak is a boss that really is best fought with a different strategy in a team environment. It is possible to use the same “gatestone trick” here as when soloing, but it is more complicated. All players have to get the runes, for starters, which can impose delays before the fight begins. Then, there has to be some way to get everyone to all teleport at roughly the same time, or those left behind will be in a bind.

Fortunately, the one time I fought Bal’lak in a group, the teleporting wasn’t necessary. I’m not sure why, but the green bubbles knock his defence down much more effectively when Bal’lak is very high level than when he is the level usually encountered when soloing. It is quite possible to keep his defence bar well below 50% just by luring him around. And even if your team isn’t very good about luring him, with multiple players attacking he goes down pretty quickly.

Bal’laks magic attacks will hit everyone at once. Protection from Magic or Deflect Magic are useful here, but he’ll disable them frequently, so be prepared for this. Only one person at a time will be targeted for the attention of his hammers, and that person (which can change) will want to try to protect against melee, and heal frequently regardless. The person being meleed also is responsible for luring the boss over the green pools.

Bal’lak the Pummeller drops metal warhammers, as befits his own choice of weapons. Unfortunately, the lack of binding slots means these items are never retained.

Like all monsters, this demon may leave behind part of the “mysterious chronicle” journal (Chronicles of Bilrach)—at least, it should (I haven’t gotten any myself, but I’ve only fought him a few times). Look for the pages on the platform near where you exit the level.

Shadow-forger Ihlakhizan (Floors 30-35) The RuneScoop Ultimate Skill Guide - Dungeoneering - Challenge (Puzzle) Rooms