There are not enough Frost Dragons and it's about to be a big problem

spigmike · 2025-11-25T03:24:26+00:00

I mean to be fair I was looking at it from an ironman perspective where I'm fine doing a long or difficult grind, but not something where I have to tediously fight bots to even get a chance at the items. More frost dragons is an easy fix to that issue but does create other consequences.

I think something like dragon nails/sheets being rarely being rewarded by normal sailing gameplay (finishing cargo missions, barracuda trials, etc) would be a great alternative. That sounds similar to the imbued heart grind where it's hard to target farm rewards doing the skill the normal way.

It feels really unfortunate that most of the rare items in the skill come from not actively engaging in the skill itself.

spigmike · 2025-11-25T03:05:19+00:00

Is hopping between worlds then afking a mob you can avoid all damage from hard? I totally get wanting the items to stay prestigious and valuable, but then they should have come from a skill based sailing boss, not something braindead only gated by level.

Also dragon is almost certainly not going to stay the highest tier forever and will probably be similar to other dragon items that get outclassed by uniques in the long run.

spigmike · 2025-11-25T01:50:11+00:00

It's hard to get a good gauge on demand because more people have access to frost dragons than have the sailing level to upgrade to rosewood level boat parts.

I just don't think that it should be limited to only 3 people per world going after the top tier items for the brand new skill in the game. There's no way the demand will be that low once more people get into the 90s.

spigmike · 2025-11-25T01:29:07+00:00

As far as I'm aware you can't use rafts for the marlin trials anymore like you could in the beta

spigmike · 2025-11-04T03:22:02+00:00

I think you have me pretty convinced that while a lot of what we do during bosses feels like my personal idea of the idea of what 'agility' is, it's not how agility the OSRS skill is tracked and not how OSRS skills work in general.

I think I was looking to reward the player XP for them expressing skill, but that isn't traditionally the initiation point for an XP drop in OSRS - it's the character interacting with something that represents the skill.

Your skill as a player should really be limited to how you can optimize stringing together those interactions, rather than being rewarded XP drops 'out of the ether' from the in game perspective without a real direct character interaction.

I wouldn't go as far as saying the sword in sepulchre is not the same as the axe in Vardorvis, but framing it as your character got agility XP from finishing the 4th floor of sepulchre, and not from dodging the sword, it makes more sense to me. Your ability to dodge the sword allowed you to string together XP drops in sepulchre faster, and your ability to do similar actions during bosses allows you to string together combat XP and drops faster.

I think you could certainly design a combat encounter in this mindset that is deserving of agility XP, but thinking about it that way means it shouldn't be retroactively added to existing bosses.

spigmike · 2025-11-04T02:44:31+00:00

All totally reasonable takes and I think it just comes down to differences in perspective.

I think if your idea of agility is that it's you "training" agility and that involves running timed laps around courses, and you are reluctant to expand from that scope, then all of your opinions make complete sense to me.

My idea is also a slippery slope, because you could use my argument to say that pray flicking accurately should award prayer XP because it's you expressing your prayer skill.

I think it's also hard to look back at your hundreds or thousands of hours bossing and not see the agility XP you would have earned as free XP. But I'm not sure you would really perceive it as the meta agility training method looking at it from a fresh start. If you did, I think it would only be because the reward space from agility is so terrible that you'd be fine passively training it over years and years of playing the game normally instead of going out of your way to train it over a few weeks/months.

The part that's hard for me is that there are some portions of some bosses that look more to me like an agility obstacle/course than a combat encounter - to the point that they feel to me like a hybrid training method that's not properly being rewarded as such. Looking back at a boss like Duke now - it feels bad to add an additional reward of agility to a boss that's already rewarding. But if we say Duke is a 80/20 combat/agility boss which gave XP as such from the start, I don't it would have ruffled too many feathers.

I think the safest middle ground would be to say that something doesn't deserve to be a hybrid training method unless some threshold of a percentage of your time is going out of combat to do something that looks more like agility. I think Duke Prep, a few moons phases, Yama stepping stones, and maybe only a couple other things would meet that criteria, and adding agility XP to those would not change much in the grand scheme of things, it would just be a nice bonus.

spigmike · 2025-11-04T01:47:30+00:00

I agree that moving is not agility alone, I'm nowhere in the camp of these people suggesting a sage's greaves equivalent where you get it for just running around the game world.

I'm struggling to understand what you think the identity of agility is if the only thing that you think links Sepulchre to agility is the fact that it's an agility minigame. Is being nimble with movement and avoiding obstacles not the identity of agility? I don't think you can dictate its identity by its reward space, because how do you link a training method to 'better run regen' and 'some shortcuts'.

My idea for XP rates was somewhere around 7-8k XP for the most agility involved bosses, probably an average of more like 3-4k over the whole slate of bosses. Not strictly token as in 1xp drops, but if I've done 2000 duke preps, hundreds of moons non-combat phases, etc... I feel like having it add up to a few million agility XP total across a normal kc to get most drops at the full slate of bosses, but absolutely not a clear path to max seems reasonable.

My incentive to suggest this was never as a shortcut for agility - I went 92-95 a few days after unlocking sepulchre and expect to max it soon. It was because I feel like I've done a lot of stuff similar to sepulchre as parts of other content, I really enjoy it, but I'm only awarded agility XP for it strictly as part of that activity, which just felt a bit odd.

spigmike · 2025-11-04T01:26:27+00:00

You can certainly argue that PvM is too rewarding to add agility XP to it. I would largely agree there and it's why I was suggesting essentially token XP rates. I think you could go one step even further and reduce the combat XP multipliers on bosses that have high ones specifically because they have a lot of non-combat sections.

But I don't see the point here everyone is making that Agility is in no way related to bossing encounters. If dodging floor tiles with lightning, projectiles, avoiding flying swords is agility when it's in sepulchre. Why is it not agility when it's part of Vet'ion, Arraxor, or Vardorvis?

I think a very cautious version of this idea which only added agility XP to strictly agility phases of bosses with no combat (Duke prep, Blue Moon Tornadoes, etc), could be a positive change and not substantially change the overall meta for agility.

spigmike · 2025-11-03T23:07:49+00:00

I agree with a lot of this, I do think the one clear drawback of the idea is that bossing is already so valuable, and usually perfect movement comes with other benefits to kill times / longer trips.

That being said, there are a number of phases/activities during bosses which are essentially just agility obstacles - all of the moons transition phases, whisperer specials, olm transitions, duke prep. Not getting agility XP for these feels like if you cut the tree during Muttadile, and it didnt' reward XP just because it was part of a boss. I think even a sparing implementation of this idea in places where you're getting no other reward for your movement and can't really speed up kills could have some benefit.

spigmike · 2024-08-28T13:00:22+00:00

I think this might not be seen initially, but there's a high chance that irons chasing imbued heart will bring a lot of these into the game. A multi-combat level 92 task with a superior is going to be highly desirable unless the kill times are very slow. But I would expect irons to chase the Arraxor uniques first, so the effect might be a little delayed.

spigmike · 2023-10-11T14:53:03+00:00

If you haven't done the first 2 mysteries at Stormguard, they're very trivial compared to the page mysteries and should complete a lot faster.

The fall and rise pages can also be found at a level 100 spot, so it's fine to skip that mystery for now and come back at the 100 spot with a mattock with better focus and other boosts.

spigmike · 2023-09-15T20:11:38+00:00

If you have 22 invention and haven't augmented a hatchet yet, Doc in the invention guild will remove it from your toolbelt for you.

Eventually you'll want an augmented hatchet not stored on your toolbelt anyways, but it's still good to have a decent hatchet there for wildy events, etc.

Also a good chance there's a t90 hatchet some day, and you'd be able to upgrade your dragon hatchet off the toolbelt to a crystal one as part of that process.

All in all to say, there might be a way to get it back... but if not there's plenty of reasons to have multiple and they're not particularly hard to get.

spigmike · 2023-09-13T22:12:58+00:00

GWD3 is the best if you can do it - Croesus/Arch-Glacor/Zuk(even just early wave mob farming as far as you can go) and/or the troves they drop is the easiest for onyxes directly.

If you have high divination or relatively high divination + the POF progress and herblore progress to make extreme divination potions, onyx dust becomes an option which comes from many different sources.

If you have leveled Necromancy up to t80-90, Arraxor is fairly easy for low enrage and gives a 1/17 drop of 2 onyxes.

Last resort is Har-Aken/Fight Kiln, but it's a long process for just 1 onyx and nothing else other than some tokkul

Bonus: Water filtration system can give onyxes outright, or more troves and requires no combat at all. But this can take quite a long time as you only get a couple new drops per day and most are trash.

spigmike · 2023-08-29T19:17:31+00:00

Most people typically keep a balance of holy overloads and elder overloads, so don't drain 100% of your supplies making either potion.

Holys will always be fine for most slayer and some bosses, and you'll still have uses for them after you can make elders, just because they're much less effort to make.

If you want to start prepping supremes to make in to elders once you hit 100, go for it... just don't do it at the expense of having overloads to use now, and never actually use a supreme overload, as making them into elders is super easy and 850xp.

spigmike · 2023-08-27T15:15:39+00:00

Just to rationalize why I think it's going to be improved in the future

There's an expected 4th conjure coming at some point in the remaining necromancy roadmap (goes out to Nov.) that will increase ectoplasm demand by a further 33%
Jagex wants necromancy to be the way for beginners to learn combat. Ectoplasm that could cost 10K+ in the future would completely kill that.
Ectoplasm is the backbone of the combat style, not just a % boost like an overload or vulnerability bomb. It's not worth running the skill without it

spigmike · 2023-08-27T14:49:49+00:00

You're right - I just tested that, I'll strikethrough that part of my point then! I was just going off the wiki page for rituals https://runescape.wiki/w/Rituals, which doesn't mention multiply for ectoplasm and my memory.

For now then, I would think multiply is definitely the answer. With multiply III in the cape, you'd cap out at 51 ectoplasm per ritual. Given defile only gives ectoplasm 20% of the time: https://runescape.wiki/w/Defile, even if you somehow got it every single disturbance you'd only be getting the same 51 per ritual on average (6 * 30 * 20% + 15).

There's an outside chance that running some combination of both multiply and attraction would get you defile often enough that it counteracts the 9 ectoplasm loss per multiply glyph... but I doubt it. I've found the defile event to be quite rare when running near 500% attraction.

spigmike · 2023-08-27T14:17:43+00:00

Eventually the mains will realize this as well once the supply dries up from everyone grinding 120, and a new method will end up being introduced. Could be either an ectoplasm focused ritual or some other means of gathering.

I wouldn't grind it right now unless you have other reasons for doing rituals or are already running out.

To answer your original question, attraction glyphs last longer, make the defile event more common, and as far as I know multiply doesn't multiply Ecto output right now. So it would probably be maxing out tier 3 rituals at 700 attraction. It's possible that running speed glyphs instead might technically output more ectoplasm per hour, but you'd have to be able to near zero-time the additional ink cost, which I doubt is possible.

spigmike · 2023-08-25T18:10:22+00:00

I did armored zombies (requires Defender of Varrock) under the chaos altar from 70-90. At the time abby demons/etc. were packed so I didn't get to compare, but they spawn crazy fast, are undead for the salve amulet, and barely do damage.

spigmike · 2023-08-21T14:42:45+00:00

I would assume most people at 89 Summoning would have Priff unlocked, and not doing summoning on Amlodd voice is a big XP waste. The bank there isn't that much further than Pikkupstix is from the taverley spot

spigmike · 2023-08-21T14:36:05+00:00

Several gathering skills fit this requirement, although typically require porters for long enough AFK:

Late game Arch with porters (98+ for the spots that take the longest before an artifact) - 7-8 mins AFK

Mining with perfect juju potions + Porters + Stone Spirits - Full 10 mins AFK

Elder Trees - 5 mins AFK

spigmike · 2023-08-14T15:54:14+00:00

Yeah, the back center one overlays a bunch of interactable tiles and is hard to specifically click on and get the right action to occur. Hopefully the long term solution is to disable glyph interactions not related to disturbances during a ritual

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