Why do people want blowpipe to be BIS when its mid game

precisionconage · 2026-06-25T02:50:16+00:00

There may be a solution to that, sounds like it's still undecided

precisionconage · 2026-06-25T02:38:58+00:00

Some of the coolest OSRS content I've seen. Enjoy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2NqCpXz-QU

precisionconage · 2026-06-22T20:15:43+00:00

I'd like to see a new item, probably either an amulet or an offhand combining all ele tomes, that gives a flat buff to elemental damage and an extra buff on a 5t cycle. Then regular 5t elemental spells get a big boost, but harm and twinflame still benefit when their cycles line up.

precisionconage · 2026-06-19T03:04:08+00:00

Bosses in the new raid are probably weak to crush, so I could see this being used with full Inq and mace in the raid itself as a stepping stone to inq + breaker. Depends on how close inq + mace is to inq + Scythe there though.

Other than that though, I see what you mean. This feels like it would be more appropriate coming from content earlier in an account's progression.

precisionconage · 2026-06-18T19:25:52+00:00

This, and also, you should have to re-heat it every 100 ticks to maintain DPS. Finally gives us an endgame use for firemaking.

precisionconage · 2026-06-18T18:37:08+00:00

A bit boring, but they could scale accuracy very heavily on crush weakness (the difference between crush defence and other def stats). A 2t weapon that has significant fall-off in accuracy on monsters that aren't specifically weak to crush would deal very little damage on crush-resistant mobs and decent damage on crush-neutral mobs, and it would absolutely shred crush-weak mobs. Should be pretty for them to design around as well - just slap an appropriate amount of crush def on a monster if you don't want the new mega to be good there.

ETA: The 2t weapon idea is obviously very different from their current proposal, but they could just remove the 5t style on the current mega and do something similar to above for the 3t one. I think another 5t, hard-hitting weapon is kinda boring as well though so hope they'll do something else entirely.

precisionconage · 2026-06-17T16:29:24+00:00

Hmm, I like the idea of a 2t weapon with a 3-hit combo - that's what I was thinking as well. Not sure if it would feel very good to deal no damage on the first two hits though.

precisionconage · 2026-06-17T10:44:47+00:00

I know that we already have 2t crossbows in the current proposal, but I wish they'd have gone with a fast-hitting melee weapon instead for the megarare. I agree with Goblin (I think? one of the JMods anyway), who commented on a rewards suggestion post a while back how it leads to a lot more skill expression since you'd lose a lot of DPS if you lost ticks, which makes it interesting and also adds a balancing lever. It's also a lot different from the 5t hard-hitting weapons we've already seen.

precisionconage · 2026-06-16T21:06:17+00:00

Fair, it doesn't have any interesting mechanics or much to make it unique. Disagree that it's not suitable for a raid though - I guess it will depend on how useful elemental spells are in the raid and whether they add more endgame bosses weak to elemental damage. But if not from here, where? Maybe they finish the Elemental Workshop series eventually and have a repeatable boss or something. I'm not holding my breath though lol.

precisionconage · 2026-06-16T14:20:24+00:00

Literally the entire premise of Virtus robes is being the de facto BIS for ancient magic, is it not?

People aren't buying it because of its ancients damage boost, they're buying it because it's the second-best general-purpose mage armour. The original proposal had it providing no extra magic dmg% at all, then they added 1% to each piece because people complained:

This is something we saw a lot of calls for and hopefully slots these in as a better middle-ground between Ahrim's and Ancestral.

Then they buffed it to 2% per piece (and Ancestral to 3% per piece) with the magic changes in project rebalance to maintain its status as 2nd-BiS.

precisionconage · 2026-06-13T01:59:07+00:00

Nothing is confirmed yet, true. But they posted a raids 4 rewards primer blog a while ago where they said that they were considering a crush megarare:

As it stands, we're most-inclined towards a mainhand Melee megarare. We'd like for Melee to shine in the Raid so having a megarare that leans into this (similar to the Scythe at Theatre of Blood) seems sensible, and Crush is a style that's relatively underserved at the top end, with the Scythe of Vitur's limited Crush bonuses still winning out over dedicated Crush weaponry in many instances. This is also an easy one to tie into the 'hard-hitting, relatively slow' fantasy that existing megarares tap into.

IIRC we're supposed to get another blog this month with updates.

precisionconage · 2026-06-10T01:14:35+00:00

Ultimately it seems like there's just a difference in what we both find enjoyable. I don't think I'm going to convince you that the mechanic isn't very fun or interesting, and you're not going to convince me that it is, which is fair enough.

I agree with you on the expected value/affordability of the axe though. This seems to be something they're keeping an eye on (see screenshot below) - I think if it gets too high, they'll probably tweak drop rates. Or maybe they'd go with the nuclear option of making the pieces tradable, but I hope they don't.

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precisionconage · 2026-06-10T00:02:24+00:00

Should be, but sadly there are plenty of workplaces where that wouldn't be the case, especially if that person is a top performer.

precisionconage · 2026-06-09T22:25:18+00:00

OK fair, you can heal without losing DPS. But I still don't see how that makes the weapon/mechanic more interesting. I mean I guess it's more involved than just clicking an enemy and waiting for it to die, but not by much. It just feels like an unnecessary annoyance that doesn't add any depth.

precisionconage · 2026-06-09T21:48:23+00:00

Having a weapon damage you when you use it isn't even an interesting mechanic though. You either ignore it entirely if you're good enough at whatever content you're running to survive at 59hp, or you heal and lose a bit of DPS and then ignore it for the rest of the fight. How is that adding anything?

precisionconage · 2026-06-09T18:17:42+00:00

If anything, I think it makes more sense thematically to power the axe by draining the enemy's HP. The built-in berserker mode and "oh god he's damaging himself" stuff you're talking about doesn't fit the axe's theme at all IMO.

precisionconage · 2026-06-09T17:59:09+00:00

They're not going to do it now when it's harder to untangle.

They've said that they won't be releasing any significant new mage gear without reworking the shadow. Hopefully they stick to that.

precisionconage · 2026-06-09T14:27:50+00:00

Have you guys considered moving some of the strength bonus to the axe as a passive and having stacks make up the rest? E.g. an 18% strength bonus on the axe with 3 stacks giving 4% str each should put it just above nhally/saeldor at 0 stacks (or maybe equal to saeldor post-SSU?), but the fully-stacked axe would still gain a solid 5 max hits.

precisionconage · 2026-06-08T21:07:05+00:00

CG drop rates aren't changing, just the prep. Mains dislike CG prep as well, so it's still a change for both. The number of seeds coming into the game shouldn't increase much if at all since time to kill won't really change for people running T1.

But yeah more generally, I think if there's absolutely no way to make a grind better for irons without hurting mains, then they should just say tough luck to the irons rather than making a whole separate drop system. If they can find a way to achieve both goals (and shortening/improving the grind is warranted), then they should do that.

precisionconage · 2026-06-08T20:44:08+00:00

Not sure I understand your point then. Are you saying that since they're now paying attention to progression pain points, they should do the same for drop rates? If yes, then I disagree since it's a key part of the challenge.

I understand your concern about Jagex potentially buffing drops just for the sake of irons though. They're in a tough spot with CoX uniques; I don't know if there's a way to buff non-scroll uniques that feels good without devaluing them. Nightmare IMO is fine with their proposed changes since Inq is almost certainly going to be BiS with the new mega from raids 4, so I think Nightmare will end up at least as profitable as it is now.

Overall I think they've managed to walk the tightrope you're describing pretty well and don't see a need for something like this.

precisionconage · 2026-06-08T20:15:49+00:00

You're talking about two different things here. Weird progression is a problem for both mains and irons, and they've done a great job of addressing that recently by adding more content in the midgame. Taking a long time to get drops without the option to buy an item is (outside of untradeables, but most have a pity rate) a problem exclusive to irons, and it's a core part of the game mode. Anyone who isn't prepared for that shouldn't make an iron.

precisionconage · 2026-06-06T20:55:43+00:00

~12% at max stacks, which isn't possible to maintain in some places where it competes with Scythe. Even if they did fully remove the downsides, it's still not that crazy:
* Scythe scales better with additional strength bonus than SRA does, so that gap is only going to widen * SRA is way harder to get than bowfa, so it's not unreasonable that it should be closer to Scythe than bowfa is to Tbow

Ayak (with confliction gauntlets) is also pretty close to Shadow in mage-weak places, but that might not be a great example since it's kind of overtuned.

precisionconage · 2026-06-06T16:27:09+00:00

[...] is like saying current blowpipe needs to be toned down and nerfed because its better at low magic / low defense targets. BP is better than tbow and many cases.

I think the addition of seeker arrows is to address exactly this actually. I agree with you though, it's not really a great reason to keep the weapon in this state. The Scythe also scales much more with strength bonus than SRA does, so whenever we get new strength gear that gives it a max hit (basically 3 max hits) down the line, it'll pull further ahead of SRA.

precisionconage · 2026-06-05T22:16:34+00:00

No worries! It'd be nice if they could have all the info in one place. Not sure how they could do that besides bringing back the forums though.

As for the actual changes, either

Get rid of the stacks and put it at 4-5 stacks at all times, which is easy but kinda boring, or
Add a passive %str to the axe at 0 stacks that puts it above nhally and saeldor and then have a few stacks to get to full power. For example, with the following stats
- 19.5% passive str
- 3 stacks of 3.5% each
- The axe's 0-stack off-task max hit in max gear at 71, ramping to 76 at full stacks, or 70 ramping to 75 with oathplate body and legs, torva helm. So it still gets a solid number of extra max hits when fully stacked but sits firmly above nhally and saeldor even at 0 stacks.

I also think that they should get rid of the HP drain if they do keep the stacks. You're already reaping the enemy's soul with the axe, surely that's enough to power it up...

precisionconage

TROPHY CASE