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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 - Raid Mechanics

Resource Gathering and Inventory Management Preparing for the Boss

Prayer is one of the most powerful tools available to help make a Dungeoneering raid faster, safer and more efficient. But in Daemonheim, prayer is also a limited tool. Just as you need to watch how much food you eat because there’s only so much on the floor, and you really shouldn’t waste other resources either, the same goes for prayer, too: there are only so many prayer points available. (Well, you can get an effectively infinite supply of prayer points by dying over and over again, but I don’t think we want to go there!)

The fact that prayer is powerful but restricted means you have to make some tough choices about how to use it, especially with respect to how much to expend clearing the floor, and how much to save for the boss. Many players use up their prayer too quickly and are then left scrambling; others are too stingy with prayer and end up wasting food unnecessarily. As always, the right approach is somewhere in the middle, and the wise use of prayer also demands that you adjust your choices based on how things are going on that particular floor.

You start out each floor with prayer points fully topped up. You can only restore prayer points in three ways: using a prayer altar; using weak, regular or strong rejuvenation potions; or dying.

You should always keep an eye out for prayer altars, and if you find one, make a note of where it is on the map (perhaps using the same technique that a good keymaster uses for tracking locked doors). Another good trick, if the altar is far from your home base, is to drop a gatestone in the altar room. You may need to make another gatestone later for something else, but if not, you can get back to the altar quickly when needed. Prayer altars are obviously the best choice. You can only get one full restore (or partial restores adding up the same number of points) per small dungeon; for medium ones you get two, and for larges you get three. The problem with altars is that they are rare—they are the least common resources in Daemonheim. I have done large floors where there was not even one altar (in 60+ rooms). This isn’t common, but it does happen. And even if you do find an altar on a large floor, getting back to it to recharge isn’t always easy. Finding no prayer altar is very common on small floors.

Always recharge your prayer fully every time you are at an altar. There’s no reason not to, because you are limited to a certain number of points, not recharges.

Potions are a nice supplement to altars. They are also the only option for convenient prayer restoration in the boss room, and may be the only option period if the floor has no altars at all. The three herbs used to make the rejuvenation class of potions are aloe, featherfoil and buckthorn, in increasing order of power. Most players never pick up grimy herbs when they are dropped, so you won’t likely have any competition for them. Pick them up, and save them until the floor is cleared.

These herbs are never needed to boost stats for skill doors or challenge rooms, but you might need them for cure or stat restore potions, depending on the boss. If not, they are a good way to restore prayer (the secondary is a misshapen claw). Unfortunately, you don’t get a lot of prayer points back with these; the strong rejuvenation potion is equivalent to only about one regular prayer potion dose outside Daemonheim, and the regular and weak versions are even worse.

If you have a Prayer level of 95 or higher; use curses. Otherwise, use prayers. Curses are better, but only if you have the level to use Turmoil and Soul Split. Turning curses on with a lower prayer level means losing Piety and not really getting anything comparable to replace it, so I don’t recommend doing that.

Obviously, you want to save prayer points for the boss as much as possible. But being too stingy with prayer while exploring the dungeon can be a mistake.

Do not underestimate the danger that “regular” monsters can pose, especially when doing a floor with a large team. As I mentioned somewhere else in the guide, I have died more often in regular rooms by being careless than I have in boss rooms, because of strong attacks from a variety of monsters using different styles. Prayer is the way to make scary rooms more tolerable. If you’re wearing melee armor and the room has two meleers and two mages, then put on Protection from Magic (or Deflect Magic), and you’re in a much safer position. If you’re wearing ranged armor, protect against melee instead.

Some monsters are particularly deadly and pretty much demand the use of prayer. A few examples:

• Dragons (Magic): Always protect unless you are using an anti-dragon shield.
  
  
• Brutes (Melee): These are deadly at higher levels, capable of hitting as high as even level 400+ bosses!
  
  
• Forgotten Mages (Magic): They hit constantly on players in melee armor, and even sometimes on players in ranged armor.
  
  
• Forgotten Rangers (Ranged): Hit much harder than they should on metal armor.
  
  
• Forgotten Warriors (Melee): Warriors above about level 80 are very dangerous.
  
  
• Mysterious Shades (Magic/Ranged): Much despises, they use a magic attack and magic-based ranged. High levels can inflict over 1,000 LP of damage in just a few rounds. Protect against magic if using melee armor, against ranged otherwise.
  
  
• Hobgoblins (Melee): Believe it or not, these are quite dangerous at high levels.
  
  
• Monsters Over Level 150: Any monster over level 150 is capable of laying down some serious hurt.

If you are protecting, always try to fight the monster that you don’t have protection against first (though you may need to adjust that based on what the team leader has marked). Then go after the monster you are protecting against. The exception to this is dragons, of course, against whom you only have partial protection.

Turn off your prayer/curse as soon as it is no longer needed.

If you are doing a quick rush through the dungeon, especially using the “snake eyes” method, use Piety/Turmoil on every fight with a monster higher than about level 30. It makes things go faster, and you are almost certain to have prayer left over after the boss is killed anyway.

Remember that food and prayer are really two forms of the same thing; think of them as being like matter and energy. :) Using prayer saves food, while using food lets you save prayer points. You should adjust your strategy based on the circumstances around you.

Suppose you start a large floor and within 10 minutes, someone finds an altar just two rooms away from the starting room. For the rest of that level, prayer is an abundant resource—you have three full recharges at your disposal, so make use of them! Save food, especially if it is scarce, and also consider using prayer points on Piety/Turmoil.

On the other hand, you might find yourself in a large floor that drags on, and after 30 minutes, with the floor more than half-way explored, no altar is to be found. In this situation you need to be more miserly with your prayer points.

You should also try to save prayer points if you find yourself with an embarrassment of riches when it comes to food. Even though I might normally use Deflect Ranged on a high-level forgotten ranger, if there’s 20 salve eels on the ground that nobody needs, why bother wasting points? Tank the damage and heal up using food that would otherwise go to waste.

Proper use of prayer for the boss fight depends entirely on the boss, so you need to understand how that boss works. Most often, players will want to try to protect against at least one of the boss’s attacks. Sometimes this is effective, sometimes it only helps a little, sometimes it is useless, and sometimes it is actually detrimental (as is the case with a boss that drains prayer when it is used).

Don’t use protection prayers “just for the hell of it” if it isn’t doing much good. You’re far better off using Piety or Turmoil to speed up the kill.

Obviously if you knew which boss the level had when it started, you could use this information to help decide how much prayer to use for regular monsters and how much to save for the boss room. You don’t, though, but sometimes you discover the boss when a good part of the floor still needs to be done. Also, you can decide how much effort to expend restoring prayer based on how tough you think the boss fight will be, and how helpful prayer will be during the battle. Don’t waste time making potions for a boss fight that’s going to be easy even without it.

Resource Gathering and Inventory Management Preparing for the Boss