Wilderness Boss Rework | Weekly Game Update (January 25th)

Calling all thrill-seekers, the Wilderness Boss Rework is finally here!

Steel your nerves and prepare yourself for battle against bosses and players alike, before venturing north to take on the reworked versions of Venenatis, Vet'ion and Callisto – or, if you’re feeling a bit risk-averse, their weaker brethren: Spindel, Calvarion and Artio.

Note: Worlds 488 & 493 will be held offline with today's update while we perform some maintenance on them.

Changelog: January 25th

Wilderness Boss Rework

If reading isn't your scene, the RuneScape Chronicles team (alongside Skill Specs, Torvesta, 9Rain and SoloMission) were kind enough to share their game plan and all the key details for today's update on our YouTube channel. You can check it out below, or by clicking here!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9H-KI0Ww418&embeds_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fconfluence.office.jagex.com%2F&source_ve_path=MjM4NTE&feature=emb_title
Skill Specs and Torvesta's life-long feud will need to be put on hold if they're going to succeed today...

If reading is your scene, then keep on scrolling!

Before we dive in, we want to stress that this content is risky. The Wilderness is the only area in Gielinor where other players can attack you freely. If you plan to take on the reworked multi-combat bosses, or their weaker single-plus equivalents – do not bring anything with you that you are not prepared to lose. You’ve been warned!

Remember, you can check exactly what you’re risking using the ‘View Items Kept on Death’ button on the Equipment Interface. You can even use the toggles to see what you’ll keep when factors like Protect Item, Wilderness Level, and Skulls are in place.

In addition, there’s also a PK Skull Prevention toggle under the Control Settings tab. You can also adjust your Player Attack options to suit your preferences!

Now that you’ve been sufficiently warned, let’s take a look at the highlight of this week’s update: the reworked Wilderness bosses, who can be found in their swanky new digs south of the Demonic Ruins.

Make sure to get a lay of the land before heading out!

The reworked bosses are all multi-combat encounters, so bring some friends along, and be prepared to encounter teams of other players looking to take you down.

If you're an Iron looking for some bossing action, don't worry! As long as you're contributing to boss kills, you'll be eligible for a share of the loot. Just make double-sure to check your risked items so you don’t lose anything you’re not prepared to grind for again!

To access the boss lairs and the adjoining Escape Caves (more on those later), you’ll have to pay a 50,000 GP fee. Don’t worry – it decreases by 10,000 GP for every boss kill you rack up. This is part of our plan to reduce disruptive behaviour around the bosses, so we’ll be keeping a close eye on what’s happening over the coming days to make sure this fee isn’t substantially affecting honest players.

Oh, and should you die a noble, PvM death – to one of the bosses, not an opportunistic PKer – you’ll find your gravestone outside the entrance of whichever boss lair you died in.

Callisto

First up, it’s the bear in the big red lair!

Bear-ware of traps throughout the fight...

Callisto’s Den is the northernmost of the new lairs, although the move has only made everyone’s favourite bear angrier. Callisto is no longer able to enjoy staring out over the Wilderness' eastern shore while you whack him with impunity, and he's more than willing to whack back.

While we won't give too much away, you'll want to keep your distance from his ferocious melee attacks (perhaps you could get him to chill out somehow?) and steer well clear of his bear traps. We’re not totally sure why a bear has so many bear traps lying around, but the last three people we sent to reach out for comment have yet to return…

Callisto has a handful of attacks to keep you on your toes even at a distance and will enrage in the later stages of the fight, so keep your wits about you and stay on the move!

Vet'ion

This scary skeleton now resides in Vet'ion's Rest, just south of Lava Dragon Isle. Unfortunately for you, he's doing anything but resting and is instead unleashing a barrage of attacks on any would-be skeleton slayer!

Eagle-eyed players will be used to Vet’ion looking like an oversized version of Ranalph Devere from Legends’ Quest, but with this week’s update he’s had a makeover – a bit like that goth girl from The Breakfast Club, if she was a giant magical skeleton.

This life-changing experience has also taught Vet’ion to use his shield – keep an eye out for when he raises it, lest you be hit with a nasty deflect!

Vet’ion’s skeletal hellhounds are as loyal as ever and will return during the new encounter. Unfortunately you will have to take them down (you monster!) while dodging Vet’ion’s powerful lightning attacks.

And of course, after running out of health Vet’ion will enter orange mode, where he’ll have lower defence but an increased max hit and faster attack speed. That’s the power of vitamin C!

Venenatis

The massive, eight-legged matriarch has gained some extra leg hair, a set of fierce fangs, and an egg sac full of adorable little ones… and she can’t wait for you to meet them.

You're going to need a comically large newspaper for this one...

You’ll find Venenatis and her brood hanging out in the Silk Chasm, a mere scuttle away from the Dark Crabs Teleport.

Once inside, you'll be fighting for your life on a gargantuan web, precariously spun over a near-endless void. To make things worse, you’re not alone. Venenatis will summon spiderlings throughout the fight, whose only goal is to chase you down and feast on your Prayer Points! Fortunately, they’re not especially resistant, and a quick whack with a sword – or anything else – will send them packing.

Venenatis values her personal space and will try to keep her distance while she bombards you with Magic and Ranged. Those of you looking to stay up close and personal should watch where you walk though, lest you find yourself caught in a particularly nasty web attack.

The Escape Caves

While each of the reworked bosses has their own lair, accessible from the surface, you won't be leaving the same way you came in. Instead, you'll have to make your way past the boss and exit through the aptly-named Escape Caves.

These caves are an interconnected web of tunnels, with four exits to the surface.

Here's a top-down look at the Escape Caves, featuring some less-than-friendly bears and poison spiders!

Upon leaving a boss lair (or logging out inside of one), you'll be placed at one of three random locations in the Escape Caves, at either the north, south-east or south-west edges of the cave. Anybody following close behind (within 10 seconds) will be able to trail you through the dark and wind up at the same location - so make sure to get on the move, and quickly!

There’s one problem, though – the caves are absolutely infested with bears, skeletons and poison spiders. Unlike your ordinary, run of the mill poison spiders, the unique conditions within these caves have imbued this particular sub-species with a Magic attack. Also, your Prayer points will constantly drain over time, so don't hang around and get a move on!

These NPCs aren't intended to rip through your hitpoints – they’re just there to stop people camping the caves and ruining your dash to safety!

Now, onto the part you’ve all been waiting for… the rewards!

Rewards

From left-to-right: the Webweaver Bow, the Accursed Sceptre, the Ursine Chainmace and the Voidwaker.

You should already know all about these rewards, since you voted on them last year, but let's make sure everybody's up to speed!

Thammaron's Sceptre

Okay, this isn’t new. In fact, the Sceptre has been in Old School RuneScape since 2018, but it's struggled to keep up with the other Revenant weapons. In the spirit of reworks, we've given this weapon a much-needed touch-up!

As of today, Thammaron's Sceptre will function as a powered staff, similar to the Trident of the Seas, the Sanguinesti Staff or Tumeken's Shadow.

The powered staff attack costs one Revenant Ether per cast, has an attack speed of 4 and a max hit equal to your Magic Level divided by 3, minus 8. This means that at 99 Magic, your 'base' max hit will be 25, increasing by 50% against Wilderness NPCs and further benefiting from any gear that increases Magic Damage %.

Unlike other powered staves, Thammaron's Sceptre is capable of auto-casting non-powered spells (including Flames of Zamorak). When cast against NPCs in the Wilderness, the 50% damage and accuracy increase means your spells will pack a serious punch - Wilderness Slayer just got a whole lot more satisfying!

Additionally, the powered staff attack will be able to hit other players. Since Craw's Bow and Viggora's Chainmace work pretty nicely for getting a little extra damage off while escaping, we didn't want to short-change Magic users.

Perhaps you're looking to give this sceptre a little more oomph? We've got just the thing!

Accursed Sceptre

This magic weapon is an upgrade to the new-and-improved Thammaron’s Sceptre. If you get hold of a Skull of Vet’ion from, well, Vet’ion, and you have 85 Crafting, you can use it to craft the Accursed Sceptre. If you don’t have 85 Crafting, Andros Mai in the Ferox Enclave will do the job for a cool 500,000 GP.

The Accursed Sceptre is a tradeable upgrade to the reworked Thammaron's Sceptre, with a Magic attack of 22 and a max hit equal to your magic level divided by 3, minus 6. This means that at 99 Magic you'll be hitting up to 27 Magic damage every four ticks/cycles.

This accursed upgrade also gains a special attack: Condemn. Condemn costs 50% Special Attack energy and performs an attack with 50% increased max hit and 50% increased accuracy. On a successful hit, the target's Defense and Magic are reduced by up to 15%.

Defense and Magic reduction from Condemn cannot be lowered beyond 85% of their initial value. For a target with 80 Defence and 80 Magic, Condemn cannot reduce these stats any lower than 68.

A well-timed Condemn could be the difference between getting frozen or forcing your opponent to chug a stat-restoring potion - and it may well have some neat PvM applications!

Webweaver Bow

For those of you who like to keep your distance in combat but can't tell your runes from your elbow - consider this Ranged upgrade!

The Fangs of Venenatis are a rare, tradeable drop from Venenatis – wow, who would have guessed? A player with 85 Fletching can combine them with Craw's Bow to make a Webweaver Bow. Alternatively, Phabelle Bile in the Ferox Enclave can combine them for 500,000 GP.

The Webweaver Bow is a tradeable upgrade for Craw's Bow. It requires 70 Ranged to wield, has 85 Ranged attack bonus and 65 Ranged strength (compared to Craw's Bow's 75 Ranged attack and 60 Ranged strength) and gains a special attack: Swarm.

Swarm costs 50% Special Attack energy and unleashes four attacks in rapid succession with increased accuracy. Each of these attacks is capped at 40% damage, theoretically maxing out at 160% damage if every attack max hits. On top of this, successful attacks have a chance to inflict poison on hit, starting out at 4 poison damage.

Ursine Chainmace

We’re removing heads, ripping out fangs – why stop there? Get your paws on the Claws of Callisto and you can combine them with Viggora’s Chainmace to craft the Ursine Chainmace – assuming you have 85 Smithing. If not, Derse Venator in the Ferox Enclave can combine them for – you guessed it – 500,000 GP.

The Ursine Chainmace is a tradeable upgrade for Viggora's Chainmace. Requiring 70 Attack to wield, it has higher Crush and Melee Strength bonuses than Viggora's Chainmace and gains a special attack: Bear Down.

Bear Down costs 50% Special Attack energy and hits with 100% improved accuracy. If Bear Down hits, it deals 20 damage over 6 seconds (10 ticks), prevents running for 3.6 seconds (6 ticks) and reduces the target's Agility level by 20. If you see somebody sporting this ursine upgrade, make sure to bring some stat restoring potions!

Hitting your opponent at just the right time might enable you to put some distance between the two of you if you're able to make use of any nearby Agility obstacles, so Bear Down sparingly!

That's all of the upgrades coming with today's game update, but we've still got room for one more reward...

The Voidwaker

The one you've all been waiting for. It's some kind of a PvP weapon, with Void associations? It rings a bell, but we just can’t place it…

Each of the three bosses will drop a piece of the separated Voidwaker; the blade, hilt and crystal. As components, these items are tradeable. An NPC beneath the Old Nite in the Ferox Enclave will offer to reassemble the Voidwaker for 500,000 GP. The completed Voidwaker is also tradeable and behaves like any other item on death.

The Voidwaker requires 75 Attack, 75 Strength and 60 Magic to equip.

At a glance, the Voidwaker should slot in as a strong non-degradeable Strength training option for 75 Attack builds with limited Defence. Which admittedly sounds pretty niche, but it's a nice little bonus on top of being a pretty consistent ‘Spec weapon'!

And what would a 'Spec weapon' be without a neat Special Attack?

Disrupt costs 50% Special Attack energy and deals guaranteed Magic damage between 50-150% of your Melee max hit.

While this void-y blade is predominantly aimed to shake things up a little in PvP, it definitely packs a punch in PvM encounters too. HiImSido put together this neat summary showing off how the Voidwaker (and the other weapons from today's update) compare to other Spec weapons in a handful of PvM scenarios.

Pets

While not strictly a new reward for today's update, we've made some changes to the Wilderness Boss pets that we think you should know about.

Since Callisto, Vet'ion and Venenatis have all been given graphical upgrades, the Callisto Cub, Venenatis Spiderling and Vet'ion Jr. have had their appearances upgraded to match.

Understandably, some of you preferred your pets just the way they were – which is why they now have a ‘Metamorphosis’ option which will let you choose between their old and new appearances.

Got your eye on some of the rewards above but don't fancy taking on a multi-combat menace? If you don't mind a slightly longer grind, we've got you covered!

New Single-plus Bosses

Today's update not only reworks the multi-combat bosses you've come to know and safespot, but also adds some solo-focused bosses that take after their multi-combat counterparts.

Artio, Calvarion and Spindel are the toned-down, soloable relatives of Callisto, Vet'ion and Venenatis, and have their very own lairs located in and around the Graveyard of Shadows below level 30 Wilderness.

Here are the new, soloable boss lair entrances! Watch out for zombies and ghosts...

Access to these lairs makes use of the same fee system outlined earlier in the blog, but there's no web of Escape Caves involved for these bosses.

Instead you'll enter a lair, pay the fee, fight a boss, and (assuming you don't meet an untimely end) either teleport out or exit the lair to arrive back on the surface where you entered. Logging out inside one of these lairs will place you gently back at the entrance when you log back in.

Artio resides in Hunter’s End, Calvarion stirs in the Skeletal Tomb, and Spindel lives in the aptly-named Web Chasm. Their mechanics are identical to their tougher counterparts, they just don't hit so hard, and fall over faster.

If you’re brave enough to take them down all by your lonesome, you’ll be rewarded with familiar loot, including rings, pets, and the elusive Dragon Pickaxe. There’s also a significantly lower chance of walking away with the uniques listed above.

The aim for Artio, Calvarion and Spindel is to have a 'time-to-complete' for the Wilderness Rings and Pet Log slots that's similar to Callisto, Vet'ion and Venenatis before today's update. We'll be keeping a close eye on kill times, drop rates and your feedback to make sure they're delivering on this!

Additionally, these single-plus bosses will count towards Achievement Diary tasks or Combat Achievements that currently exist - since many of you have grown accustomed to soloing the pre-rework bosses anyway, this feels like it makes sense.

That's a wrap on the Wilderness bosses for this week's update, but there’s still much more to the Wilderness rework. Let’s pay a visit to everyone’s favourite haunted caves…

Revenants

In a poll alongside the Phantom Muspah rewards, we asked you a handful of questions about Revenant weapons.

To sum up, you voted for us to increase the base drop rates of the Revenant weapons by 50% and for them to be dropped five times more often if you're killing them on a Slayer task. If you'd like to see those numbers visualised in a massive table, check out this blog from November 2022.

We hope that this goes some way to keeping the price of the attachments added in this week’s update as healthy as possible, and we’ll be closely monitoring the markets over the coming weeks.

Now, if you're not a fan of Wilderness content, this next bit is likely the moment you've been waiting for…

The Dragon Pickaxe

As of this week’s update, the Dragon Pickaxe will be available from the Kalphite Queen and the Volcanic Mine.

The Kalphite Queen now drops the Dragon Pickaxe at a rate of 1/400. While this infamous insect isn't for the faint of heart, this update might give you a little something to look forward to if you're yet to tick off the Desert Elite Diary. On the other hand, if you're named after a Herblore secondary and have a YouTube series documenting the progress of your extreme one-chunk-at-a-time Ironman, and happen to have the Kalphite Queen's respective chunk unlocked..

Meanwhile, back at the Volcanic Mine, Petrified Percy is over the moon because he’s been given a seemingly unending pile of Ore Packs to exchange for your Volcanic Mine points. There’s a chance for each one to contain a Broken Dragon Pickaxe. Just don’t ask how it got broken in the first place…

You remember Nurmof the Dwarf, right? Luckily for you, he still remembers how to repair broken Pickaxes, and he’s willing to fix up your Broken Dragon Pickaxe for a mere 2,500,000 GP. This hefty cost helps the Pickaxe retain some of its value while making it obtainable for those who don’t fancy PvM. Plus, the values of the ores in the Ore Packs should go some way towards the cost of repair!

Nurmof's ready to fix pickaxes once again, though this time it's at a hefty premium!

Lastly, the handsome three-headed King Black Dragon has had his Pickaxe drop rate adjusted from 1/1,500 to 1/1,000. Lovely!

On top of all this, we'd like to remind you that you'll still be able to obtain your fancy red Mining upgrade from the Wilderness bosses – in fact, that’s still the quickest way to obtain it. Variety is the spice of life, though, and we hope this update brings Pickaxe-hunters a few more attractive options.

Zaryte Crossbow and Sapphire Bolts

This isn't strictly related to the Wilderness Boss Rework, but the Rework means it's a good time for us to make an adjustment to a fairly divisive weapon.

To get everybody up to speed, enchanted Sapphire Bolts and enchanted Sapphire Dragon Bolts have a 5% chance to trigger the Clear Mind effect. Clear Mind reduces the target's Prayer Points by 5% of the attacker's Ranged level, rounded down. This Prayer drain effect was able to apply in full regardless of a target's Hitpoints, meaning it was possible for a group of players to consistently and completely drain a target's Prayer Points to 0 while securing kills.

In the past, this effect wasn't particularly potent due to its low proc rate. The Zaryte Crossbow changed things, since its Special Attack guarantees the Clear Mind effect will trigger on your next hit. Since the Zaryte Crossbow's addition, we've seen feedback from players that there feels like very little counterplay for those on the receiving end of this interaction. We agree that this is something we may have overlooked when allowing players to guarantee an enchanted bolt's effect, and would like to make an adjustment to Clear Mind in PvP scenarios.

Following today's update, if the target's remaining Hitpoints are less than 5% of the attacker's Ranged stat, the Prayer drain will be calculated using the target's remaining Hitpoints instead. Additionally, the Prayer drain will only activate if a bolt passes its accuracy check - the Zaryte Crossbow doubles the accuracy on the next shot, so this is unlikely to crop up.

This should provide players with a little more counterplay by keeping their Prayer Points higher than their Hitpoints, similar to the Ancient Mace.

We've also seen some players suggest that this Zaryte Crossbow Smiting technique was pretty effective at discouraging one-item raggers in some PvP scenarios, including wars between clans. While we're sticking to our guns and believe this is the right change to make from a game design perspective, we’re open to conversations about better ways to combat ragging and disruptive behaviour. We've seen a handful of interesting suggestions already and are sure we'll see even more, so watch this space!

That’s all for the Wilderness Boss Rework this week, but a little Mahjarrat has told us there are some other changes going on up north that you ought to know about…

Secrets of the North and Phantom Muspah Tweaks

Those of you who’ve uncovered the Secrets of the North have been sinking your teeth into Gielinor’s newest nightmare: the Phantom Muspah. If you haven't gotten around to finishing the quest yet, drop everything and get it done! It's chock-full of puzzles, dripping in mystery, and crucially, you'll need it completed if you want to get stuck in to Desert Treasure II - The Fallen Empire later this year.

If you missed it in last week’s newspost, we’ve adjusted the Muspah’s melee behaviour to allow players to perform the ‘stepback’ mechanic. This was initially removed during a bugfix, with the Muspah’s accuracy knocked down a peg to compensate. Ultimately, this means that if the Phantom Muspah is moving while attacking you’ll probably take 0 damage. If it isn’t – bad news, you’re probably getting hit.

We're glad to see many of you back at the boss and enjoying well-timed movement to lessen the damage you're taking. For those of you who still aren't too sure what this 'stepback' mechanic is, we'd recommend checking out this quick guide also by HiImSido, who will explain all…

While it's great to see some members of the community giving this nightmarish horror a nickname, we'd like to make some further tweaks to the 'money slug's’ loot table this week to get things into a slightly healthier spot. We've made the following changes:

• Torstol Seeds from 5 to 4
• Snapdragon from 31 herbs to 5 seeds
• Dragon Platelegs from 3 to 2
• Runite Ore from 23 to 18
• Ranarr Seed (rare) from 10 to 8
• Toadflax from 74 to 55

We’ve also rotated the Ancient Sceptre. No, seriously, we had a word with health and safety and that thing was playing hell with your character’s wrists. You should notice that it’s held in a more comfortable position following this week’s update.

We'll be making some tweaks to the Venator Bow next week to make it feel a little more reliable. Namely we're looking to increase the bounce speed of projectiles, allow arrows to bounce from dead NPCs, and make sure bounces are still able to deal damage even if the initial hit is a 0.

Other Changes

If you've made it this far, thanks for sticking with us!

Here's a list of this week's smaller changes to help you wind down:

• Some missing texture has been restored to the steps west of Paterdomus. Once you pointed it out, we couldn't un-see it...
• Corrected grammar in a menu at Pyramid Plunder.
• A warning against accidentally burying bones, previously used at the Chaos Temple in the Wilderness, has been extended to the bone grinder room above the Ectofunctus, too.
• Separate, more informative warnings have been added when entering the Wilderness on a High-Risk world via the ditch, Ferox Enclave, or canoes.

Crack the Clue 3

Towards the end of last year, we released the first few in-game clues for Crack the Clue 3, made by one of Old School's most legendary players: Woox.

The clues this time around are certainly delightlyfully devilish, but he'd like to help you see more progress. With that in mind, we have two messages to share with any would-be Clue Crackers.

That should give you enough to chew on this week. We'll be sharing Woox's helping hands weekly, so make sure to keep an eye out if you're trying to Crack the Clue.

If you'd like to learn more or get involved yourself, head on over to the Crack the Clue Discord server to see the community's progress so far and solve the next steps collaboratively!

PvP World Rota

The PvP rota has moved to Period A:

• 539 - (US) - PvP World
• 548 - (Germany) - High-Risk PvP World
• 577 - (US) - Free-to-Play PvP World
• 559 - (UK) - LMS Competitive

World 390 (AUS) for LMS Competitive has been activated with this rota.

The PvP Arena is using 'Pure' loadouts in Ranked Duels and Tournaments this week.

That's everything we've got for you this week! We're excited to see you tackle the reworked Wilderness bosses or perhaps snag that Dragon Pickaxe you've been putting off grinding for so long.

We'll be keeping a close eye on all of your feedback, so make sure to get in touch and let us know what you think!

You can also discuss this update on our official forums, on the 2007Scape subreddit, the Steam forums, or the community-led OSRS Discord in the #gameupdate channel. For more info on the above content, check out the official Old School Wiki.

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