Iban's Blast

Finished Underground Pass a short while ago. A very interesting quest, very long and not terribly hard. In total I completed the whole thing only eating about 4 pieces of food. The "bosses" (greater demons) are nothing to worry about, and I almost think they're weaker than regular greater demons.

Rewards:

The rewards from this quest are nothing to go crazy about, 3k agility and 5k attack xp. Overall I'd say the rewards for this quest (due to it's extreme length and relative difficulty) are below average. Oh well. It is yet another example of those pivotal quests.
The other reward, which is going to be the main focus of this article, is Iban's Staff. It looks a little funky, a bit like Sauron's mace. Equipping it makes you appear to be running around with some large exotic flower. Thrilling.

Of course, Iban's staff would be nothing without a spell to go with it. Guess what it's called? Iban's blast.

The spell:

Iban's blast is a crazy powerful spell. It's not rare to hit in the low twenties (my max is 25 with decent mage bonus armor). For a lvl 50 spell, it hits way above it's level. Even fire blast can't match it.
It seems a little slow when casting. First you do this weird "firework" thing. Then you shoot a flaming skull out of the staff. It might seem a little slow, but the flaming skull travels much faster than any of the normal magic missile spells.
Iban's blast uses about the same runes as fire blast. Five fire, one death rune. Getting lots of fires is easy, just head to the flesh crawlers in the stronghold. Getting lots of death runes is hard, and unless you have an enormous amount of money on hand, it gets a little crazy. Of course you need to be wielding the staff to actually cast the spell.

The Staff:

Iban's staff has decent attack bonuses, though nothing to go crazy about. I would not use this as an actual melee weapon, but it's nice to know about. Please note: If you drop iban's staff it'll break. If you loose the staff you need to kill iban disciples until you get a broken staff. Then you need to get it repaired for a decent sum of money.
My biggest complaint about the staff is the lack of an autocast function for the spell. That's like buying a house without any doors or windows. Training with this staff is a double edged sword. Want to get bored real quick? Go ahead and use iban's blast. It's not like high alching is any less boring. Still it's annoying in a fight.
My other complaint about the staff is that it degrades. That's right, anything that isn't a godsword, and can fight worth it's cost, is degradable. Iban's blast will run out of charges after 120 casts. Annoying!

How to use the staff:

If your magic lvl is above 70, the simplest answer is: don't. It's a pain to use, and you can only use it effectively in very specific locations. Do note that it is EXTREMELY effective in these situations.
In order to train with it, you need to stay strictly within the boundries of the Underground pass. Running through the pass to the well (in front of the doors) every couple of minutes is NOT good for training. Therefor, you can only use this staff on two NPC's, the Paladins, and the Iban Disciples.
For training, i recommend the paladins, as they have horrible mage defense and more hitpoints. They drop horribly, so don't bother bringing a ring of wealth. The one drop you would want from them (lvl 2 clue scroll) isn't actually effected by a RoW.
If you want to make a little moolah (albeit, a LITTLE amount of moolah), head over to the disciples. They always drop robes that in total amount to 3k for two pieces. Sound great? Ehh, not really. There is no bank that is even remotely close by.


Overall the Iban's staff is a powerful weapon with an insanely powerful spell that has it's limitations. While it isn't nearly as good as many other magic spells/items, it can be useful for training at lower levels. I recommend getting it! You'll need to do the underground pass quest anyways.

Prelude to Hard Questing

Not quite finished with the intermediate quests, so those hard quests will have to wait just a tad longer. However I do have some notes on them....

First off: I just want to say that Fairytale quests part 1 and the beginning of part 2 are absolutely vital to improving your runescape experience. No joke. Fairytale part 1 has nothing really great about it, but part 2 unlocks the fairy rings pretty early on in the quest. Fairy rings make every other quest in the game a whole ton easier.

Fremminik Isles: A very interesting quest with very good rewards. Do this quest ASAP as it unlocks the Neitiznot helm, a nice little piece of equipment. Final boss is rather easy (DON'T turn on protect from melee), the mini-bosses leading up to it are hard. Have fun! This is an enjoyable quest.

Horror from the Deep: The quest guides make a big deal about the final boss for this quest, but frankly it isn't that much of an issue. Use the right protection prayer (protect from melee), keep on your toes, and you'll be fine. Great rewards. Don't bother being a stickler and going for the cheaper saradomin book and guthix book. Zamorak book is definitely the best, and worth the amount of money you put into it.

One Small favor: LOOONNNNGGG quest. This quest will try your patience. Still it's not too bad. It has one boss fight, which is really easy. The end reward is rather nice (I <3 xp lamps), and the keyring, while limited in usage, does save a good deal of inventory space.

Temple of Ikov: Easy quest. Almost should be labeled as an intermediate quest. If you take the armadayl side (which i recommend) it gets even easier. Interesting reward.... Blue boots FTW!

Underground pass: I haven't actually done this quest, though i'm going to try. It looks annoying.

Intermediate questing

Because I've completed all of the "easy" quests in runescape (except for the final half of the rag-and-bone man quest, which really isn't easy at all), I've moved on to the intermediate quests.

Not too much to whine about here. Elemental workshop 2 was highly annoying. If you want to make a mind shield, it is imperative that you do not have the "new" book with you. Use the old slashed book. I decided just to buy the shield after messing up.

Another hint: If your bar comes around still orange, send it back into the water tank. Make sure you get the right order of the valves.

The Dig Site was another annoying one, as it's very long and very boring. Helpful hint: If you can't find the other "winch" (the first one to go down without the weird guy at the bottom), look in the smallest, northern pit at the top of the digsite. Can't say i felt much love for this quest, though it is one of those pivotal quests that all the other ones require.

The Feud was a very fun quest with a great reward. Knocking people out with a blackjack is really quite something else. I love those desert quests! They're so interesting.

Garden of Tranquility was the worst, overall. This quest takes a minimum of an hour, if you're incredibly fast. Basically you have to tend to gardens all over runescape....not fun. I recommend growing marigolds and rosemary as protection for your crops, then doing watering rounds every so often. The ending was kind of disappointing, the rewards weren't great, but hey, it's another one of those pivotal quests. Side note: The scene with the falador guards was kind of depressing.

Kennith's concerns: This quest made me feel like Snake from the Metal Gear Solid series. Ninja mode ftw! At the end I really wanted to strangle that little brat. Seriously! It was like the exorcist except over a choo-choo train. BTW, these slug quests really creep me out.

Wanted!: Interesting quest, kind of fun. I like Savant. Savant makes me totally feel like Snake. More quests with Savant! The ending part actually had a really awesome cut scene, which is rare in intermediate quests.

Despite a few fun quests, intermediate quests are fairly boring. They're usually pretty long, with lots of puzzles and very few fights. The rewards range from very bad to very good, so it's a little unpredictable. I sometimes wish there weren't so many of them....