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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

Skeletal Horde (Floors 12-17 and 30-35) Bulwark Beast (Floors 12-17 and 30-35)

Think that all hobgoblins live just to bash you over the head with a blunt instrument? Allow me to introduce the hobgoblin geomancer, who definitely knows how to balance brawn with brains. Found as a boss in either of the “Abandoned” zones (levels 12-17 or 30-35), this hobgoblin will show his smarts as a worker of both runes and strategy. Unfortunately for him, we smart Dungeoneers know how to deal with obnoxious mages... don’t we? :)

The hobgoblin geomancer looks like a hobgoblin wearing brown magic robes and wielding a nasty looking staff. As befitting the prefix “geo”, he uses damaging earth spells, and has several special attacks designed to help him survive as a solo mage against a team of players. These include the very familiar “snare the player and teleport away” move that is often used by mages.

The geomancer also has a couple of tricks up his sleeve to keep you from using prayer to too much effect. If you use protection prayers on him, he will rapidly drain your prayer points, making these mostly pointless. He can also disable the use of prayer entirely.

Despite all of these special abilities, the hobgoblin geomancer is still just a solo mage, and is subject to the usual weaknesses associated with mages. He can be meleed or ranged fairly easily, and while he has the ability to teleport, he doesn’t always use it terribly wisely. (I guess even a magic-using hobgoblin is still a hobgoblin!) As a result, this is one of the easier bosses in the game for a properly-prepared player.

• Name: Hobgoblin geomancer.
  
  
• Examine Text: “An ugly, smelly creature with a makeshift staff.”
  
  
• Daemonheim Theme (Zone): Abandoned 1 / 2.
  
  
• Dungeon Floors: Levels 12 to 17 and 30 to 35.
  
  
• Primary Attack Styles: Magic.
  
  
• Secondary Attack Styles: Melee.
  
  
• Special Attacks: Prayer drain, weakening spells.
  
  
• Special Defences: Snaring; teleportation; prayer disabling.
  
  
• Special Immunities: None.
  
  
• Weak Against: Melee/Stab, Ranged.
  
  
• Neutral: Melee/Crush.
  
  
• Strong Against: Melee/Slash, Magic.
  
  
• Recommended Attack Method: Melee/Stab and Ranged with intermittent use of Piety or Turmoil.
  
  
• Recommended Defence Method: Ranged armor.
  
  
• Drop Category: Ranged boots.

Table 95 lists all of the instances of the hobgoblin geomancer 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 hobgoblin geomancer behaves like most typical mage bosses, though as mentioned before, he’s not quite as clever as some bosses (like Lexicus Runewright, for example). His primary attack is magical, but he will also melee when you are in close proximity.

The geomancer seems to follow a particular pattern of action most of the time. If you are meleeing him, he’ll periodically freeze (snare) you, and then teleport out of melee range and pepper you with magic spells. If you are ranging, then he will snare you and actually teleport into melee range and use a combination of magic and melee. To be most effective you need to change your attack style based on his behavior.

Using protection prayers against this boss is pointless: he’ll just drain your prayer points away if you try, and very quickly at that. He can also temporarily disable your use of other prayers for 15 seconds at a time.

The geomancer has most of the typical defensive characteristics of mages. Overall, his defence is low, but he has a lot of life points. He is strong to magic attacks and weak to ranged attacks. He appears to take the most damage from melee stab attacks, less from crush and much less from slash.

He has two primary defensive moves: snaring and teleporting either into or out of melee range as mentioned above, and disabling prayer. The latter effect comes into play even if you don’t use protection prayers. Both of these can be worked around pretty easily.

Perhaps the biggest weakness of the geomancer is that he’s just one mage in a big empty room. He doesn’t summon help and doesn’t have anywhere to hide, so it’s not very hard to kill him despite his mage gimmicks.

Interestingly, this is one of the few bosses that I believe is not immune to poison, giving a further advantage to a poisoned spear and/or poisoned arrows.

Most player bind a melee weapon and melee armor, and this is one place where they are not ideal. You cannot use Protection from Magic or Deflect Magic against this boss’s primary attack, and he’ll hit heavy damage on you if you barge in with metal armor everywhere. It is worth taking the time to make yourself at least decent ranging armor for this boss, which will also help improve your ranging accuracy.

The hobgoblin geomancer should be fought using a combination of melee (stab or crush) and ranged. I recommend starting out by ranging, because in my experience, if you enter the room with a melee weapon, he’ll snare you before you get into melee range. Go in with your bow and start firing; this will cause the geomancer to eventually snare you in place and teleport into melee range. When he does so, switch to your melee weapon, which will damage him faster. Continue until he decides to teleport away, and then switch back to ranging.

When meleeing, enable Piety or Turmoil whenever possible. He’ll turn it off periodically, but he won’t drain your points, so just turn it back on whenever you can to speed up the kill. A combat familiar can be useful in speeding things up as well; both melee and ranged familiars are effective. You usually won’t take enough damage to need a beast of burden.

An alternative to this method is to simply “brute force” the boss using only melee, which some players may prefer, especially if they don’t have ranging gear and don’t want to start crafting armor, bows and so forth. It is only recommended for high level players facing a relatively low level geomancer spawn, and even then, you may save more time by getting a bow and arrow than you save fighting without one. I recommend dropping a gatestone in the starting room if you try this.

Just go into the boss room with your standard melee setup and plenty of food. Try to close to melee immediately, use Piety or Turmoil, and try to do as much damage as possible. When the geomancer teleports away, turn off prayer and tank the damage until you can move again, then run up to the boss and repeat.

I haven’t fought this guy in a team, but my guess is that it would be the same as fighting solo, only probably easier. I don’t believe he has any area effect attacks, so I suggest having players alternate ranging and meleeing as in the solo case.

The hobgoblin geomancer drops tier 1 through tier 11 ranging boots. As with many of these lesser items, I don’t know anyone who would spend a bind slot on a set of even the best ranging boots, so these nearly always go to waste.

The geomancer may drop part of the Chronicles of Bilrach as well, notes that appear on the ground near the dungeon ladder.

Skeletal Horde (Floors 12-17 and 30-35) Bulwark Beast (Floors 12-17 and 30-35)