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....

You've been Clue Scroll'd!

Hello all faithful viewers!

I was at the Ankous a while ago, testing my guthans on some prime lvl 75 monsters. The drops were going good (I brought too many lobsters, to my annoyance), and I was having a good time. I was bouncing some questions off of a friendly lvl 120 with a spirit sheild. My inventor almost full, I decided to call it quits.

As i was about to go, I stopped. I might as well kill one more, right? my hp was almost full. I turn around and kill this Ankou at the very back of the room. Once he's dead, he drops something that looks like noted essence. I go to pick it up. It's a lvl 3 clue scroll.

Lvl 3 clue scrolls are the rarest drop from ankous. They are unaffected by rings of wealth, which makes them extremely difficult to get. Lvl 3 scrolls are the most difficult scrolls, and a player is sure to be attacked by a lvl 70 or 108 monster while doing them. The scrolls also require you to go into the wilderness.

Why do it? Why risk your stuff just to complete a scroll? The rewards are amazing. up to 170mil just from one scroll.

I was well aware of this when i started the trail. First clue pointed me to a box in the lumber yard. The scroll i got there had some gibberish about minutes and degrees. I looked it up on runewiki and found the location. It was in the wilderness, just north of the pond at the end of the river lum.

Uh oh. That was lvl 36 wilderness. No emergency teleports to get me out of a jam. My only hope would be to run like an idiot strait south until I hit lvl 20 wildy or so. Another problem: I had to kill a lvl 70 or so zammy mage, who could hit up to 20. Not fun!

The guide talked about using some type of canoe to get there. I don't have lvl 57 wcing (only lvl 55), so I decided to use the games necklace and teleport to clan wars. I left with the following items:

Full red dhide (no coif)
Obsidian sheild
Archer helm
Explorers ring 3
dragon boots
Dragon dagger p++
Glory amulet
Ectophial
Teleport runes
spade
food, monks/lobs
prayer pot
and of course, the clue scroll

What I forgot to bring/leave behind:
The archer helm shoudl have been left behind
Obsidian sheild is too valuable for wildy
Glory is helpful, but uneccecary
That many teleport runes is just ridiculous
Dragon boots are WAY to valuable for wildy
I should have brought a sextant, chart, and watch


So at clan wars, I nervously head north west towards the area. I stop to check my map. I'm headed in the right direction. Just as i'm about to pass the ruins, some gray shape comes flying towards me. Holy crap! I start running as soon as I realize the danger i'm in. The shape hits me, splashing off my red dhide. I frantically click on the ectophial. I have to go to lvl 20 wilderness to teleport. That means 10 more levels!
More attacks come flying out of the dark. I can't even see the revenant, but I know it can see me. The magic attacks keep splashing. Luckily I make it to lvl 20 wilderness, and teleport before it can do anything horrendous to me.

My second trip, I am more cautious. I run along the side of the volcano to reach the location. That tactic seemed to work, as I didn't get jumped by any more revenants. I reach the little lake, and start digging.

Four minutes later, and three moss giants dead, I'm still digging. I can't find the !@#! spot. I look at the guide. No help there. I try to adjust myself to the characters location in the image. no luck again. I dig on just about every single patch of green possible. I'll find it someday, right? I just have to keep digging and hope no rev comes.

As soon as those thoughts leave me head, yellow lettering appears on the bottom right corner of my screen. They read "system update in-2:00". Man the numbers are counting down quickly.

Now i'm really out of luck, still fumbling around with the shovel as the server logs me off. i have to go on the netherlands server to log back in.

I start digging again. As i'm digging, I notice a grey flicker on the bottom of my screen. I start running. The ice attack catches up to me, dealing 8 damage and freezing me. Frantic I click constantly, trying to move my characters frozen limbs. I run as soon as another attack hits me for 10 damage.

Running south, I rest behind a volcano vent. Am i safe? I don't want to repeat this trip again. Might as well risk it-

A magical attack splashes on my armour. I see a revenant ork in the distance, throwing magical attacks like a, well, demon. I run south, past lvl 20. Releif washes over me. I click on the ectophial.

"you have been teleblocked" reads my message box. I groan, and run around in circles for a while, teleporting when I get the chance.


Lesson learned. Next time i'm taking a freind with me, at not risking 800,000 of items.
But hopefully I will be better equipped next time. Once i complete the scroll....who knows what could happen then? My runescape expereince could peremenately change.

Game Items: Guthan's set

I don't talk about my stuff or my stats that much, so this is a bit of a new one for me. If anyone is actually following this blog, they no doubt have a very poor opinion of my skills.

I must have pulled that photo off the internet, right? Nah. That is me, fo' real.

So yeah, big deal, i bought guthan's set. One of my friends on runescape told me to buy it. I ask why. He said that the price is going to go up

So I shelled out 3.5mil just to get my hands on this set of armour. I am still a little wary about using it, because it degrades, and is expensive to fix. I should get lvl 55 construction so i can repair it cheaper (albeit still expensive), but construction is a serious pain to level.

Appearance:

Well, it definetly looked better in the box. I'm not really impressed with the "cool" aspect of this armour. First of all, it looks really retarded if you wear it with dragon boots. I've learned my lesson, dragon boots only look good with dragon armour. Oh well, i'm not really concerned with that. The helmet is kind of neat looking but it looks too much like someone stuck two horns on an upside-down flowerpot. In the talking animation it looks just weird. the body isn't that impressive either. It makes me look like I have a serious paunch. The kilt thing is kind of neat, but i wish it was a little more "war" like. Why is it made out of fur?
I know some players on runescape have trouble coping with wearing a skirt, but they should just deal with it.
The spear is very...hmm...bland. I was hoping for something a little more vicious looking. The teardrop blade is a nice detail, but not really all that cool looking.

Don't judge a book by its cover


That saying is so true. Even though this set is not a book, you should still approach it with the same reasoning. First of all, it's stats are just plain incredible. almost to the magic 300! wow!
The spear has excellent stats, but in combat it's not much better than an abyssal whip. In fact it's worse than an abyssal whip. Why? I have no idea.
Oh you might want to note that this set degrades over time. As it degrades it looses a little bit of of stats.
The special attack, know as "the infestation" is random, but is always active in the sense that it can happen at any time during combat. You have to wear the whole set for this to work. Every third hit or so, the armour will heal you the amount of damage dealt on that hit. Probably the best special ever.

Is it worth the cost? That same friend who talked me into buying it had an interesting viewpoint on it. He kills the mole alot, and said that the cost of using the set was less than the cost of food. Very interesting!

In combat the special was very useful. It allowed me to bring less (note that I didn't say "no") food to fights. The problem is that it works based on the amount of damage you deal. It could heal you on a 3 damage hit, and not on a 20 damage one. The special, being unpredictable, needs some backup in the form of food, but only when your fighting heavy hitters.

I'll be having fun with this set! And hopefully i'll be able to find enough money to repare it....

-TMP

Skills-Thoughts on Summoning

The First Update

A few months ago (actually a WHILE ago), Jagex released a new (and really cool looking) skill called summoning. It was advertised as allowing player to summon a battling friend who would help them in skills, carry items, or just dish out some major damage. Cool, right? Right?

Meh. Not really. The first set of summoned creatures SUCKED (mostly) and it was SO hard to even make a pouch that nobody really cared (mostly). You spent a ton of money just to summon a mosquito that dealt 3 damage and died in one hit. Lots of complaints on the forums. Also the price of training this early version of this skill was astronomical (still is, but a little better).

The Second Update

So under a lot of pressure, Jagex released "summoning 2". Basically they made summoning cost less (still pricy), and the creatures were upgraded. New ones were added, until almost every 3 or 4 levels (sometimes 2) you were able to summon a new and completely different creature. Lots of complaints about this update too, but I think Jagex did a fairly good job. Before, summoning was so pointless. Now it actually can be useful. But I think Jagex could've done more.

The Third....fourth.....update?

Honestly, I haven't been follow the updates like I should. I know that the skill has been updated, but I really can't tell you how. The price of shards is still at 25coins per shard. Come on. They're just a bunch of little white dragon scale things! They shouldn't be that expensive.
STILL the most expensive skill in the game. My level (currently) is 33. I'll admit that leveling the skill is easy. It's just getting enough money to that's the hard part.

The Basics

Like herblore, you have to complete a quest called "wolf's whistle" to be able to summon. Basically you go around fetching stuff, summon a wolf, and scare a giant demented bunny in the attic. Loads of fun.

Ignoring the fact that the wolf looks like the mutated child of a cow and a horse, it's not a bad quest. It's kind of fun, and definitely interests you in summoning. It would have been more interesting if the animals had actually fought, but meh. It doesn't need to be epic.

I was lazy and skipped 16+ levels by using rewards from the Acheivement diaries. So, besides the wolf I had summoned in the quest, I was at lvl 20 and had never actually summoned a creature.

Summoning...Pouches? What a weird name.

Anyhow, I decided to summon a desert wrym and use it in the Stronghold of Player Safety. I got a few buckets of sand, a pouch and at least 100 shards. So I tele'd to falador, and headed to the summoning rock underneath Pickupstixs (don't ask) house. I clicked on the glowing rock and scrolled through the familiar's section. Nothing.

WHAATTT? I needed a !@#@! charm. I go back to falador and grab my only green charm and make my pouch. Whopee. Not much xp for all that money, might i add.

I try Combat!

After that ordeal, I teled to barbarian village (by way of skull scepter), and headed to the SPS. I start fighting one of the cockroach soldiers (lvl 84!). My little snakey takes a little bit of time to start attacking. Finally it starts and...three soldiers later it's dead and has dealt a grand total of 3 damage! w00t! talk about effective. Yeah, it's only lvl 30. But SERIOUSLY! I've kind of stopped making pouches after this experience.

I try Combat! Take two...

Second time around, I summoned a giant rat. Took it to the stronghold. Little ratty seemed a little reluctant to attack the cockroaches, but at least it dealt more than 3 damage. I was feeling pretty good. Until i realized that at about 1/3 health my rat wouldn't attack any more. WHAAATTT?! It just stood their taking hits, and squeaking. I thought rats ate cockroaches. So my rat dies.

PvP combat!

Yes, I couldn't resist the temptation. I tried three summoned creatures at Castle Wars. The first was some kind of tz-tox-something or another. Remember that I mentioned that a few familiars have secondary ingredients which are charms? Yup, this is one of them. Worked out pretty well! I did barely any regular damage, but it's special was moderately effective. Got killed by some annoying dude with a bgs.
My second familiar was a granite crab, who was absolutely worthless except for providing me a def boost with his special. Thanks little dude! I just wish you wouldn't die all the time.
Third familiar was somekind of bat thing. This was probably the best of them all, as it's special healed me 1/4 or so of the damage I inflicted on my opponenets. It got KO'd by a ranger though.

Training

Frankly, there are way too many things that you have to get for summoning. I'll run through a list of EVERYTHING you need.

Pouches:
Only cost 1gp each! Great price!...Until you realize that each summoning familiar only uses 1 pouch. Jagex, I beg you to change the price of the pouches with the price of the shards.

Spirit Shards:
Only costs 25 (?) gp each! Great price again!...Until you realize that you have to use up to 200 shards for 1 !@#! pouch.

Charms: Ok, now were just getting into the realm of "uselessness". You already have your "container". You already have the "base" ingredient of the pouch. There is no reason why you would need a "charm". They are dropped by monsters (rock crabs!), which is fine, but I'd rather that spirit shards were dropped by monsters. Also you can only use certain types of charms with certain pouches...so yeah. And you can't trade charms. *slaps head*

Secondary ingredient:
Oh ho ho...You saw this coming didn't you? Yup. Jagex has decided to be nice and friendly and make it just that much more difficult to make pouches! Yay! Each summoning creature has a different secondary ingredient, which most of the time are unique and rather rare items like "proboscis" or "bucket of sand". They're kind of a cool concept on their own. Charms or Secondary ingredients, Jagex. Not both at once. (to rub salt into your wounds, one summoning creature has a CHARM as its secondary ingredient. A CHARM.)

What familiars to train on:
I'm not really going to go in depth on this part. There is always a trade off. I personally like beavers, giant rats, and rock crabs for lower lvls. I've heard rumors that you can get from lvl 17-lvl 99 in one trip. Want to know how? Sure you do!
Stock up on mosquito proboscus. ALOT OF THEM. Stock up on everything. Proboscus stack, so that makes summoning a breeze. Yes, you can get to lvl 99 doing this.
Downside; This is the absolute fastest way to train ANY skill. But Jagex knows that. Thats why training this way is so !@#! expensive. The total cost of the items is over 700mil! Even skychi doesn't have that much money (sorry skychi). But if your looking to train the "easy" way, go ahead and spend 700 hours nature running.

The Benefits

Ok, ignore the fact that you spent all that time and money getting 4 different ingredients. Now I'm gonna drop a train on you.

Until you get above lvl 50, the summoning creatures are mostly useless (a few exceptions). You can sell the pouches ("for almost all your money back!" jagex exclaims joyfully), but no one wants to buy 30 rock crab pouches.

Now remember, there was a huge update to make summoning creatures more useful (mostly combat cretaures). You can imagine what it was like before the update.

I'll sum this up by saying that it is mostly worth it at the high levels, so don't NOT train this skill.

Types of Summoning creatures

Combat: The main class of summoned creatures. Only gets good above lvl 50. At level 99 you can unlock the incredible steel titan (four 21's at once! OMG!), but until you get there it ain't so hot (with a few outstanding exceptions).

Skill Helpers: A few good creatures in here. Alot actually. These guys will boost your skills, or even do tasks for you. For instance, one creature will even fish for you O_o. Most likely the most useful group of creatures all the way to lvl 99.

Beasts of Burden: Extra inventory space! Holy @#$%@! Sound great, eh? Nah. Jagex had to protect them good ole' noobs by not alowing these creatures to carry any items that are deemed too valuable. I'm not going to hit Jagex over the head with this one too much, but it would increase summonings value 1000 fold if Jagex removed this major killer. Again, as useful as it can be all the way up to lvl 99. But not more useful.

Pets: Fun, cute, but so annoying. Hey, at lvl 99 you can spend 20 hours searching for a dragons egg! And once it hatches after 2 weeks of waiting, you can feed it 400k of raw chicken every day for as long as you still keep it! And it does absolutely nothing!

To Improve summoning....

Mwahaha! You thought I was going to rub some more summoning nonsesne in Jagex's face? In short, no. They already get enough nonsense about it.
I will give them this. It is an extremely useful skill that has a huge variety of uses. It looks awesome, it's fun to use, training is a breeze (i'll ignore the money aspect), and the specs really make the lower lvl creatures worth it.

Thanks for reading,
TMP

Thoughts on the RS community-Why it sucks

Hi,

As we all know, RuneScape is a MMORPG. All MMORPG's have a community, and different MMO's attract different people. Thus lively communities are formed, as players interface with each other.

Runescape has recieved a bit of criticism about its weak community. I really can see why. A disturbingly large amount of players are rude, selfish, scamming morons. I'd say at least 4 in 10 people you meet on RS are like this.

Of course, you could say that this is the same for every other MMO. You're always going to meet people online that are rude, etc. Plus anonimity makes people braver, and therfor more likely to insult without thought.

Still, you look at the community on WoW. I haven't actually played this game, but from what i've heard, there isn't as much of a problem with this. You'll meet a few players, but not to the extent of Runescape.

Why could this be? For one, RuneScapes "average" player is 11-14 year old boys. This is due to the fact that RuneScape is very accesible (you don't have to download anything). And then you can get into the whole "angsty" teenager thing.

I really wish runescapers were more considerate. It gets annoying having to deal with these crabby kids who have nothing better to do then spam and insult you.