We’re bringing the fighting talk this week – no really, this update is all about combat changes!
The Ninjas have gone combat crazy! They’ve whipped up a host of dramatic quality of life changes for this week’s update, and they’re all designed to smooth the rough edges of your combat experience.
Highlights include:
- Elite Dungeon drops have a unified drop rate per clear (this includes changes for duos ‘n’ trios chasing those Eldritch Crossbow drops!)
- Fighting Vorago fight will be pacier and raking on Raksha more consistent!
- Abilities have been updated, including Smoke Tendril (get ready for guaranteed critical hits!)
- Boss fights can now be measured in milliseconds. Time to snatch a new personal best by 0.06 seconds...
Sounds good? Check out the full list in Patch Notes.
Got Prime Gaming? You lucky sort. This month you get 7 days of Membership, plus a Currency Pack stuffed with 35 Treasure Hunter Keys and 200 RuneCoins!
Be sure to claim yours when it drops on March 15th!
Ninja Strike
Boss Encounters
Vorago
- Removed the delay at the end of each gap jump within the borehole, making the transition smoother.
- Added a timer bar to Vorago showing charge time for the entry attack.
- Reduced the charge time of Vorago's entry attack from 33 cycles (19.8 seconds) to 20 cycles (12 seconds).
- Vorago's entry attack now deals 70% of your max life points in Normal Mode, and 90% in Hard Mode, as opposed to a fixed amount shared between players.
- The encounter will start even if a player is killed by Vorago's entry attack.
- In solo encounters, players can now jump the gap in the first phase without needing Vorago to be facing away from them.
- In phase two the gravity fields required to progress have been reduced from 4 to 2.
- In phase two, the 'bring him down' activity is now twice as fast.
- Increased the bleed damage from 150 to 250 in Normal Mode, and from 250 to 400 in Hard Mode, to accommodate this change.
Raksha
- Raksha will no longer change targets unexpectedly, as it has been doing in rare cases.
- This will mostly stop Raksha from attacking the first player to attack it, instead targeting the player who began the encounter.
- Updated the rockfall damage area from 7x7 to 5x5, to better fit the size of the visuals.
- In phase four, various blocked tiles have been removed from the west pipes.
- Also in phase four, the shadow anima will now be absorbed more consistently when moving within close proximity.
- The shadow anima no longer has an 'absorb' option, to prevent accidental interactions.
Queen Black Dragon
- Reduced the length of the intro animation for players who have previously defeated the Queen Black Dragon.
Nex
- Reduced the length of the intro animation to allow the encounter to start faster.
TzKal-Zuk
- The portal at War's Retreat and the Max Guild can now be attuned to an alternate arrival point in front of TzKal-Zuk.
- The Fateful Portal at War's Retreat has been updated with similar functionality.
Elite Dungeons
The drop rate of unique items across the modes has been increased to give a unified drop rate per clear:
Temple of Aminishi
- Ancient Scales will now drop from Seiryu at 50% and 33% of the solo rates in duo and trio mode respectively. These rates are per player.
Dragonkin Laboratory
- Draconic Energy will now drop from the Black Stone Dragon at 50% and 33% of the solo rates in duo and trio mode respectively. These rates are per player.
- Greater Ability Codices from Astellarn, Verak Lith and Black Stone Dragon (per player).
- Solo - 100/10,000 becomes 120/10,000.
- Duo - 60/10,000 (unchanged).
- Trio - 40/10,000 (unchanged).
The Shadow Reef
- Eldritch Crossbow pieces from the Ambassador (per player).
- Solo - 180/10,000 (unchanged).
- Duo - 60/10,000 becomes 90/10,000.
- Trio - 38/10,000 becomes 60/10,000.
Abilities & Spells
Smoke Tendrils – “It's not a bug, it's a feature…”
If you’ve been using the Smoke Cloud or the Staff of Armadyl since their recent introduction, you may have happened upon a hidden bonus – they both work with the Smoke Tendrils ability to guarantee a critical strike! While this feature wasn't originally intended, it's lead to some interesting interactions that we rather like. So, we've made some changes to ensure critical strike functionality is part of the Smoke Tendrils ability itself, rather than a bug:
- Damage is now calculated in a more standardised way.
- It will no longer give adrenaline twice per hit when affected by the Tsunami ability.
- It will be affected by both the Precise and Equilibrium invention perks.
- It will give a critical strike on each hit reliably.
- The damage inflicted on the player is now calculated separately from the damage dealt.
- A critical strike that increases the damage into the top 95% can still occur through the Biting Invention perk and other bonuses.
- The Ruby Aurora spell now reliably applies the buff to other players.
- The Havoc, Snipe and Dragon Breath abilities can now be used to temporarily disable Akrisae the Doomed's prayers.
- The Impatient Invention perk will now work with Slice, Piercing Shot, Wrack, and Wrack & Ruin.
- The Surge, Escape and Bladed Dive abilities will no longer cause you to enter combat stance.
- Using these abilities while in combat stance will still maintain it.
- Using these abilities while adrenaline is draining will still cause you to enter combat stance.
Herblore Bombs
- Increased max throw range to 10 tiles.
- Updated the 'Throw' option to use on an active target.
- Improved the 'Use' functionality:
- When used from the Backpack you can now target ground coordinates.
- The bombs can now be thrown at an NPC more consistently, which notably fixes issues with large bosses that are surrounded by blocking (e.g. Astellarn and Raksha).
- When dragging a bomb to the bar you'll now be able to choose the interaction mode you wish to use.
- This will allow you to use key binds for both the 'Throw' and 'Use' options.
General
- Boss kill times have been updated to include milliseconds.
- Added a new option in the settings to toggle 'Precise adrenaline value' which shows decimal values for adrenaline if necessary.
- This can be found under Settings > Combat & Action Bar > Action Bar.
- Increased the size of various reward chests:
- Elite Dungeon chest from 32 to 48.
- Croesus chest from 30 to 48.
- Added a Buff Bar icon that displays the active ammunition in the player's Quiver.
- If the Quiver is empty, only an image of the Quiver itself will show.
- When saving and loading a preset with 'Exact matching' enabled, the contents of a Quiver will now be respected.
- The Ancient Elven Ritual Shard cooldown now resets when using the upgraded War's Altar within War's Retreat.
- Training dummies at War's Retreat now have a 10k damage cap, and a 12k damage cap for a critical hit.
- Introduced Dragon, Undead and Demon training dummies to the dispenser at War's Retreat.
- Removed the "???" text from the Liberation of Mazcab boss interface.
- The Insane Reaper achievement now displays requirements to show which collection logs the player has completed, so that they can better track their progress.
- NPC health bars now make use of comma separators when displaying health values over 1,000.
Other
- An early bird bonus was introduced with the new Abyssal Slayer Creatures, giving players a higher chance to receive Abyssal Creatures as a Slayer task. As its now been two weeks since release, the bonus has been removed.
- Boss, Slayer, and Treasure Trail collection log achievements are no longer marked as 'hidden' in the Achievements interface.
- Updated the requirements description for the Kandarin monastery teleport and Manor farm teleport spells.
- The fourth withdraw option in the Seed Bag now withdraws the correct amount of seeds, based on the amount specified in the Bank window.
- A popup will now appear whenever a new item for a collection Log is obtained.
- This can be toggled within Settings > Interfaces > Information Windows.
- Soul Rune production has been increased to give triple the amount of Runes per charge than previously. XP remains unaffected.
- The Trollheim Teleport spell has been updated to better discern it from the Taverley Teleport.
- A Tetracompass location in Tirannwn has been moved for better ease of access.
- The render distance of players and NPCs in the Wilderness has been increased to match the rest of the world.
- This restriction was originally introduced to match the Java client, which has since been deprecated.
- Legacy hitsplats can now be selected for all miscellaneous hitsplats (e.g. Poison, Heal, Split Soul, etc).
- The tab key can now be used as a custom key bind.
- As a result of this, the 'Reply message' feature can now be bound to an alternate non-printable key.
- Removed coral hiding behind a signpost in Ardougne
- Bladed Dive ability now resets its cooldown, after killing Living Rock Strikers and Living Rock Protectors
- Movement longer stalls while using the Loved Up rest animation
- Equipping a Slayer Helm or Mask after an NPC dies, but before the drop appears, will no longer double the drop without progressing the kill count on the item. For a drop to be double, the items must be worn for 10 seconds before a drop appears.
- Whetstone can now be used to repair Fleeting boots.
- Cosmetics are no longer forcefully changed when entering a sinkhole
- The Blast Fusion Hammer can no longer be equipped in the main hand.
- Players can no longer attempt to recolour the Biscuit pet.
- Bryll Thoksdottir's name is no longer censored whenever it's typed in the chat.
- Fixed an issue with Pikkupstix referring to an incorrect location during Familiarisation.
- Fixed an issue with Glacytes and Arch-Glacor Arms' HP resetting during an encounter.
- Fixed an issue where Reprisal couldn't be activated without a target and with the ability queue turned on.
- Fixed an issue with Magic Notepaper not noting the larger sandstone blocks (2/5/10kg).
- Fixed an issue where weapons on a player's back would bounce while wearing the Cottontail Knight chestplate.
- Defence Pylons can no longer attack player in the boss arena.
- The Xavier pet's green colouring is now consistent when overriding legendary pets, and when summoned by itself.
Community Showcase
Another showcase from our fantastic community of artists!
@Glacyte has dressed some Imps up as Implings! Very cool - and strangely adorable!
How cool is this! The Warriors of Ardougne in all their finery, by u/quardri.
@TomcatArts has created a beautiful rendition of the Dragon Rider's Lance. Gorgeous detail!
This made us hoot! @ThePreztle has been struggling with their pet walking services... and the law...
@Legend_Arts has captured the terrifying essence of an Abyssal Lord!
Pink Skirts Events
Each week the Pink Skirts put on a selection of fun activities that everyone can join. Here are the main events this week:
Corporeal Beast
- Hosted by: Patrick K & Clackworthy
- Date/Time: Monday 14th March, 19:00 Gametime
- World: 123
- Location: Corporeal Beast Lair
- FC: Patrick K
Skill 'n' Chill
- Hosted by: MadClikr & the Lil Tuzzies Clan
- Date/Time: Monday 14th March, 23:00 Gametime
- World: 85
- Location: Burthorpe Bank
- FC: Lil Tuzzies
Dagannoth Kings
- Hosted by: M e r c y & Dung Titan
- Date/Time: Saturday 19th March, 13:00 Gametime
- World: 35
- Location: Waterbirth Island Dungeon
- FC: Dung Titan
If these don't take your fancy, take a look at the full events schedule here. There’s sure to be something you’ll enjoy!
- The RuneScape Team