Please Whitelist This Site? I know everyone hates ads. But please understand that I am providing premium content for free that takes hundreds of hours of time to research and write. If I can't make at least a little bit of money to support my family via this site, I'll have to stop working on it. One alternative is to become a RuneScoop member. It's cheap, you get access to all of the site with no ads, and you help keep the lights on around here. If you want to use this site for free, I'd be grateful if you could add RuneScoop to the whitelist for Adblock. To do so, just open the Adblock menu and select "Disable on Runescoop.com". Or go to the Tools menu and select "Adblock Plus Preferences...". Then click "Add Filter..." at the bottom, and add this string: "@@http://*runescoop.com/*". Then just click OK. Thanks for your understanding! Sincerely... Qeltar, aka Charles, your hard-working host and RuneScape guide-writer extraordinaire. :)

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

Using Prayer Wisely Killing the Boss

In some cases, a player or team may barge into the boss room and start fighting as soon as the boss room is encountered. I do that myself when I “rush” solo floors on level 1 complexity. Usually, though, at least some amount of preparation beforehand is a good idea. Running into combat prematurely can result in players dying, which results in XP penalties. It may also mean using up food before the boss can be killed, resulting in delays while more is obtained.

For every boss, you should ensure that you have basic preparations in place before going into the room. This generally just means making sure you are in a “battle ready” condition; you should restore prayer points using an altar, if possible, and gather as much good-quality food as possible. How much preparation is needed beyond that depends on a number of factors. These include the type of boss, the size of the team, the difficulty setting for the floor, and the personalities of the players. I’ll explore some of these issues below.

Nothing pisses me off more than teams where players are in a huge rush to get into the boss room, and hassle those players who want to ensure they are properly prepared. It’s understandable on a small “rush” floor with five players, where the goal is just to get the floor done as quickly as possible. But geez, if we’re doing a large 5:5 floor and it’s taken almost an hour to get to the boss anyway, take a few extra moments and ensure that the boss is done right!

I’ve been in teams where the players were in such a big hurry that they decided to “save time” by not taking enough food into the fight, or coming up with the right strategies. They wasted far more time than they saved. Many also got huge (15% or more) XP penalties for dying when it wasn’t necessary, which also increases the risk of other players dying.

If you really feel the boss needs some preparation that the rest of the team is foolishly ignoring, stand your ground. Don’t be too overly cautious, but trust your instincts. Nearly every time I’ve gone to fight a boss when I felt like I was being rushed and it was a bad idea, I’ve regretted it.

Healing is the most important basic preparation for fighting any but the easiest bosses. You should make sure you have lots of food, carrying more for the harder bosses and less for the easier ones.

Most players do not take enough food in to tough fights. The results harm not just them but the rest of the team, which ends up fighting a man down because of a death or the need to leave before the fight is over. Don’t underestimate how much food can be required for those level 400+ bosses in 5:5 dungeons. I’ve had cases where I went in with 40 salve eels and it wasn’t enough. And if you run out of food, the fight is over—one way or the other. I’ve been in “cascade failure” fights where one guy dies, so the boss does more damage on those who remain; another dies, it gets harder for the three who are left; and so on, until the entire team is wiped out.

If you do need more food, the fastest way to get it is with fish, of course. (Making topped potatoes is tedious and slow, and not recommended.) If you have any fishing spots near the starting room, get raw fish from them and cook them, being sure to use high-tier branches to cook high-tier fish. Another option is to simply buy raw fish. I usually have a lot of cash at the end of a dungeon—because I collect gold piles and alch unneeded items specifically in case gold is needed for the boss—and will use this to buy and cook extra food for the team.

For most bosses, you can get some measure of “insurance” against messing up by bringing with gatestone runes and dropping a stone outside the boss room. Then you can teleport out safely if you get into trouble or run out of supplies.

This doesn’t work with the luminescent icefiend, or bosses where gatestones are used within the room as part of the strategy to defeat the boss.

Not only do some bosses require more food than others, some really demand special equipment or supplies. Again here, many players are in a big rush and try to fight these bosses using their standard “run in and whack it on the head” approach, but Jagex specifically designed bosses so that this rarely works well. With many bosses, you save more time by preparing properly than rushing in.

Take Rammernaut for example. This guy is a melee boss and best maged, except at very low levels—most players can attack safely from a distance and do massive damage on him. One floor I did, the leader made sure the whole team had runes for fire surge or fire wave, taking a few minutes to have players make runes and distribute them to those who didn’t have. That boss fight lasted about a minute and nobody got even close to being killed—it was incredible. On another floor, I suggested maging but the geniuses all decided they’d be heroes and run into the boss room and try to melee the boss. The fight ended up taking longer than it took the other team even including the runecrafting time! We damaged him very slowly, and some people died and had to run back to the boss room.

I give specific recommendations for each boss in the boss database. Here’s a brief summary of what I consider to be the most important boss-specific preps:

• Astea Frostweb: Make sure you can range in addition to meleeing, because of her freezing ability and rotating prayers.
  
  
• Skeletal Horde: Ranging or maging strongly advised.
  
  
• Hobgoblin Geomancer: You need to be able to range here as well, in addition to meleeing.
  
  
• Bulwark Beast: Take the time to make a good quality pickaxe.
  
  
• Unholy Cursebearer: Stat restore potions strongly recommended.
  
  
• Rammernaut: Maging runes recommended.
  
  
• Stomp: Gatestone runes a very good idea.
  
  
• Har’Lakk the Riftsplitter: Cure potions are extremely useful; otherwise, bring at least one antipoison. Stat restore potions can be handy as well.
  
  
• Lexicus Runewright: Be sure you can range him.
  
  
• Night-gazer Khighorahk: The safe way to fight him is by ranging, so bring a bow unless you like a challenge.
  
  
• Shadow-forger Ihlakhizan: Stat restore potions are good insurance against getting caught in his burst attack. A gatestone is also advised.
  
  
• Bal’lak the Pummeller: Gatestone runes are required for the best strategy used on this guy.

For bosses that require more than just a “run in and poke it to death” approach, the team should agree in advance what strategies will be used. A good example is Bal’lak the Pummeller; the team should decide if they plan to use the “teleport out and let his defence bar drop back down” trick. And if so, how will they decide when to teleport? This is important, as you don’t want to have one or two guys left alone in there against him.

Some players and teams like to spend a couple of extra minutes on what I consider “optional” preparations. For example, they may want to make extra armor pieces for greater protection, or mix up potions to boost combat stats. These usually aren’t necessary, but they can be helpful, and aren’t a bad idea unless the team is in a huge rush. Just be reasonable about it—if all of your teammates are standing next to the boss door ready to go, this isn’t the time to start trying to grow herbs. If the boss is easy, just kill it; you don’t get extra points for having a lot of stuff left over at the end.

Using Prayer Wisely Killing the Boss