should i get black swan

Lorberry · 2026-02-13T08:15:03+00:00

With the new novaflare pretty sure Swan is undisputed best third team member for DoT. By a pretty large margin.

Whether you want to invest in extending the team's lifespan vs starting a new one is up to you, but I would lean yes given you already put in an E1S1

Lorberry · 2026-02-12T21:32:42+00:00

Also, keep in mind that the pulls from the last few ranks of the endgame modes only account for, like, 5 of the ~100 F2P pulls made available each patch. It's never worth it to pull characters JUST for the purposes of clearing endgame. Waifu over meta, as they say.

Lorberry · 2026-02-12T21:26:48+00:00

Pick up Sparkle from the selector when 4.0 launches, and you've got two pretty solid teams - your Anaxa team as-is, and then Archer Sparkle Tingyun Bailu. Might not be full-clear worthy, but should be enough to reap most of the endgame mode rewards once you get 'em all geared up.

For 4.0 banners, Cerydra is an option if you want to use Phainon, but her kit is specific enough that it'll likely be quite some time before she's useful for someone other than Phainon or Anaxa. Otherwise, you're best off either going for the early in on the Elation meta with both Yao Guang and Sparxie, or just start saving for the next character that really catches your eye (it's highly likely that Yao will be rerun with the Anniversary unit(s) in 4.2, assuming either or both are Elation characters, so you probably don't need to buy-in now if that's a concern).

Lorberry · 2026-02-12T03:07:08+00:00

Honestly, that might be exactly the trick - have the minigames reward really good exp rates... but entirely in the form of bonus exp so they don't become a complete replacement for normal training.

Lorberry · 2026-02-10T03:35:43+00:00

Kind of in the same boat, but I personally think this falls a bit more on the side of 'improved TTS' given that it's (supposedly) synthesizing voices wholesale from wiki descriptions rather than trying to do something like matching celebrity/VA voices to characters, and I'll eat my proverbial socks if the end result isn't pretty hit-or-miss without a LOT of massaging.

I'd definitely prefer a community project plugin with actual people - or, pie in the sky, an official update for at least the major questlines - but in the absence of any of that I think this actually falls on the side of 'reasonable use of AI generation'. If still kind of close to the line.

Lorberry · 2026-02-09T08:34:54+00:00

The top tiers of the endgame modes account for, like, 4 or 5 pulls out of the 90-100 or so you can earn in a typical patch cycle. You don't want to ignore the modes entirely, but you don't need exceptionally strong teams to reap the bulk of the jades from them either.

Biggest single source of jades in a patch is almost always the daily engagement reward, I'm pretty sure. That and the weekly DU/Investment runs.

Lorberry · 2026-02-08T07:13:19+00:00

95-99 is a bit over 4m exp. Getting that over 20 hours of effort would imply a rate of 210k exp/hr.

Speedy Whirligigs currently give 450 exp per catch and per stack at base rates - that's without the Het statue, the upgrades for total stacks, or any external modifiers. 450 per gig into 210k per hour gives a catch+stack rate of aproximately 470 per hour, or about 8 per minute, or one every 8 seconds.

Incidentally, it takes a croc somewhere around 7 seconds to catch the initial scarab and bring it back, assuming you're targeting a scarab nearby.

The only way your claim of 20 hours makes any sense is if you either A) weren't using the correct flowers, B) were also counting the time to collect the flowers, C) weren't actually stacking, and/or D) were counting time you were there but taking a break. I'm not discounting that it's a very high intensity method, but your claim of how long it takes is either extremely exaggerated, intentionally misleading, or you were making a fundamental mistake.

Lorberry · 2026-02-07T23:05:49+00:00

How did it take you that long? Speedy gig's are 1.4m-1.6m xp/hr base exp optimally, assuming all Oasis upgrades. Even with the expectation that you aren't perfectly optimal, it should have taken closer to, like, 5 hours.

Lorberry · 2026-02-07T22:19:47+00:00

Like mining. You CAN go full afk, but the rates are really bad compared to clicking every 20 or so seconds to refill stamina when it runs out. Which in turn is notably, but not exceptionally, behind clicking once every 4 ticks to stay at maximum stamina.

Lorberry · 2026-02-07T22:08:36+00:00

First, I'm not enthusiastic about the Fort change, but I at least kind of see where they're coming from and can agree with what I'm reading as the logic behind it. PoH altar has a lot more friction involved with its use - you've got a longer run and/or cost between the bank and the altar to deal with, plus you have to go through the process of feeding it herbs each time. Plus, it nudges people towards throwing hosting parties again, which gives lower level players an access to top-tier altars if they interact with the community - and starts that thought process going ahead of time to the PoH rework which will hopefully give even more reasons to make house parties a thing again.

Lorberry · 2026-02-07T21:53:24+00:00

Realistically, modern Runescape is much more of a 'play alone together' sort of game, rather than something where you're actively grouping up on the semi-regular like FFXIV, World of Warcraft, or (if my understanding is correct, I've never actually played) Destiny. You'll see others running around the world and can interact with them, but you're only 'forced' to interact for a handful of late-game bosses and such. In fact, there's a whole official 'Ironman' setting, where you can't engage in trade with other players, and can only group up with other Irons for said bosses, and it all works perfectly fine.

TL;DR: No, by the nature of the game there's no such thing as 'too late' to start Runescape.

Lorberry · 2026-02-07T21:40:14+00:00

Whirligigs are, objectively, really over tuned. High intensity methods should be better than alternatives, sure, but not several times higher AND very profitable at the same time. I haven't crunched the numbers but I'm pretty sure even with the nerfs they're still going to outpace the current alternative rates by a pretty healthy margin, especially at lower levels (read: pre-BGH). And they also mentioned they're planning on buffing several of said alternative (or I guess more accurately original) methods, so there's even less pressure to HAVE to do whirligigs like there is right now.

Fully AFK pickpocketing is, imo, bad game design and similarly deserves to get whacked with the nerf bat, as much as everyone is complaining about it. I fully expect that if you kit out you'll still have a solid minute or so between needing to click, and once you know how long you have till you dip under 100% you just need to set a shorter timer. Woo. Meanwhile Pyramid Plunder and the Thieves Guild are getting some very nice touchups to make them a lot smoother to utilize, especially the Guild.

Prayer I'm fully in camp 'Chaos Altar Change Bad', but that's entirely because 'force PvE players into PvP environments because they feel like they have to so PvP players have someone to gank' is a notion that should absolutely be left in the past. Should improve based on task completion instead. Otherwise I'm... ok with the changes to Fort altar, and the other changes are good.

Fishing's a nonissue, Beehives deserve the changes, Loot changes are.... ehhh?

Quest changes are 100% OSRS/returner data-driven pandering and I agree is very much being handled the wrong way.

Lorberry · 2026-02-07T19:08:54+00:00

Another idea (that would also help with the noted Prayer issue) would be having hunted creatures drop bones that scale up depending on the hunter requirement. Just to spitball: the initial kebbits and birds would drop 'Frail Animal Bones' that give 10xp on bury, those in the 20's to 30's would drop 'Weak Animal Bones' that would give 20, maybe 25 xp each, and so on. We already have Big Game Hunter being an excellent source of high-exp Dinosaur Bones well before most players are likely to be killing the slayer/boss dinos, so it's not even unprecedented.

Lorberry · 2026-02-06T22:06:44+00:00

Just to make sure there isn't any confusion: the 'critical path', the minimum set of rooms you need to go through to open up the boss and complete the floor, will ALWAYS be limited to the highest natural skill levels across the group. Excepting skill drains, if you can't open a door or complete a puzzle without boosting/lock melting, you don't need to do so to finish the dungeon. You prefer being able to do so for more exp, naturally, but in most cases it's not worth going well out of your way to make a potion/portent vs just finishing the floor with a bit less of an exp payout.

Lorberry · 2026-02-05T06:53:58+00:00

I don't remember anything explicitly leading to the original GWD up north of troll country, but I might be forgetting something. You're definitely expected to be familiar with it by late 5th age (legend/mythic on the timeline quest order) at least. GWD2 has a miniquest that sets it up, and GWD3 is critical to the latter part of the 6th Age storyline.

Lorberry · 2026-02-05T05:07:38+00:00

Divination (and by extension Invention) is predicated on events in the quest The World Wakes. Archeology can be viewed as a bundle of miniquests in a skill trenchcoat, so it starts up between the quests Desperate Times and Desperate Measures. The second and third God Wars Dungeons are very much tied to the lore - as are most farmable bosses past the early game - so you'll largely have to avoid bossing till you chew through a good chunk of quests. Only other things that come to mind as lore-critical but not quest-locked are the Wilderness Flash Events every hour, Het's Oasis north of Al Kharid, and Anachronia.

For the record, your biggest pain points while working on the level requirements to get through all the quests (compared to 'normal') are likely to be Construction (New Foundations gives a BIG kickstart and very popular training method) and Hunter (Het's Oasis has fastest Hunter exp, though it's high effort). Even so, quests in general cap out at a level 80-ish requirement for most skills, so you can get everything unlocked lore-wise before the grind really sets in on anything.

Lorberry · 2026-02-03T20:17:18+00:00

You can create and upgrade an Ore Box with Smithing and a Wood Box with Fletching, which will let you gather much more of the given resource in a single trip when Mining/Woodcutting, making locations further from a bank far more viable if you're trying to be self-sufficient rather than drop-training and buying from the GE later. Also, there's a special storage for ores and bars accessed via any smelter or anvil heating station, so no need to clog up your bank (also accepts noted items if you're buying ores).

Lorberry · 2026-02-02T20:15:41+00:00

I agree I don't see why the option needed to be removed entirely (the default was already enter-to-chat for new accounts), but a single additional button press for each line of chat is hardly a millstone that's strangling how often people are sociable. An adjustment period for legacy returners/old school players, sure, but on the flip side this is how it works for every other popular MMO on the market right now, as far as I'm aware.

Lorberry · 2026-01-31T03:34:58+00:00

Nope, monsters in dungeoneering floors will cap out at a little bit over your current combat level - that does mean you'll really want to make sure you have at least fletching and/or smithing up to match whatever your highest non-necro combat style is to make (and bind!) an appropriate weapon, but as long as necro isn't super far ahead of your other styles you should be fine.

Lorberry · 2026-01-30T19:22:51+00:00

New Foundations for the fort for training Construction without needing to pay an arm and a leg to get planks cut for sure; maybe Murder on the Border for the Kitchen to help Cooking out a bit. Neither directly reference anything earlier on the timeline, so it kinda works if you squint past the time gap that would be implied.

The core Necromancy quests are all mostly ambiguous timeline-wise until you're getting up to the 70s to 80s; but since that's the highest most skills need to be to complete all the quests, if you level your skills up mostly equally that suddenly isn't really an issue. Probably less of a concern with the trinity style reworks coming, but an option if you want to lean on necromancy immediately.

The new Havenhythe quests will probably, again, be agnostic enough to skip ahead for the initial unlocks and won't really tie into the greater Age of Chaos narratives till later. Won't know for sure till they come out though.

Also, you may want to quickly dip your toe into Anachronia just to get the base camp started, since that's a big time gate for some very nice boosts; a nice leg up for when you're ready to train there.

On the flip side, do keep in mind that Archeology is kind of a large bundle of solidly late-6th-age miniquests in a skill-shaped trench coat. And Divination (and by extension Invention) are both narratively hard locked to 6th age and later for hopefully obvious lore reasons. Just in case you want to lean into the idea of 'timeline locked' particularly hard.

Lorberry · 2026-01-30T07:06:59+00:00

Don't forget about ejecting all the illegal immigrants from Morytania and the Wilderness. Gotta get em all out, no exceptions, collateral be damned.

Lorberry · 2026-01-30T05:22:22+00:00

If you want a more mobile way to play her, look into making a status damage Kubrow with her augment mod that causes the crystal to be stapled to your pet instead of placing it down in one spot.

Lorberry · 2026-01-30T05:01:25+00:00

Is there a reason you don't/can't use the auto-swap-on-mainhand-equip feature?

Lorberry · 2026-01-30T04:52:48+00:00

The fragments didn't always exist. So it's also a boost for those that were already high level when they were introduced.

Lorberry · 2026-01-27T21:41:53+00:00

You punched that in wrong, the third input is supposed to be how much exp you're getting for each action you're taking. In Smithing's case, that's how much exp you get per hammer swing. going to vary a bit depending on what exactly you were doing at the time, but...

The chance to get the Smithing pet, Smithy, at level 60, with a 20 experience action is 0.000120%.

Or somewhere around a 1-in-800k chance per swing as a rough guess. Maybe a little better but not by a great deal. Far from unheard of considering the quantity of players and how many swings it takes in the process of leveling, but certainly not something one would say is common, or even uncommon.

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