#Muspah improvement suggestions

286 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

hallow lodge
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The new boss was aimed at mid-level players with a difficulty of vorkath.

I am not trying to determine the difficulty of the boss, but rather pain points that I see.

  1. Chip damage. This is annoying everywhere chip damage exists, and the general feedback is it sucks. please consider removing chip damage. If I perform a mechanic correctly, I shouldnt be defenselessly punished.
  2. Phase. The phasing of the boss is rather clunky. You cannot skip the soul split phase. If you do high enough dps, you can have the moving spikes and the atomic bomb at the same time. Its annoying 3 hitting the boss into the next phase, and having 1 spike to hide behind while 3 spikes are already surrounding it.
  3. The spikes moving your player character. Due to the uneven corners of the arena, its common that if you are in a corner, the spikes can basically entrap you as you cannot path around the walls well and the spikes will push you back into your corner. Its also frustrating being unable to control your player character's movement.
  4. The soul split phase relying on bolt proc rng. Going for fast times is rather annoying when you're sitting there for 30-60 seconds hitting 0s awaiting bolt procs with no counterplay (realistically)
  5. Bow is rather mediocre since it was removed from BA. BA was the saving use case of the bow. Now its mediocre at best. Either buff a bit or make it BA viable as everyone was anticipating.
hallow lodge
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Chip damange is cancer for people who dont make mistakes, i guess. and the boss does fuck you for making a mistake, ive seena 68 when I dont pray mage, which is huge for a mid-level boss.

Also, mechanically speaking, this boss is relatively difficult. Much more difficult than vorkath

wraith night
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eh I disagree with most of those. Chip damage is fine, protection prayers are op enough as it is. The soul split phase has multiple options, not just bolt procs. You can: Smite, zcb spec, corruption, sara strike, and a few others. 2 zcb specs ends the phase immediately

hallow lodge
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also sara strike and ancient mace are not good since you want thralls + zcb ruby spec.

so no, there are no other options for max efficiency other than hope for bolt procs <--- which is boring

wraith night
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you don't need to mark for corruption, it just makes it tick faster. I'm pretty sure the main intended mechanic is to smite anyway

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bolt procs are just a lucky way to end it faster. zcb spec skips the phase entirely for max efficiency

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(zcb + sapphire bolt spec)

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also I'm pretty sure ancients will be meta

hallow lodge
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if you calc the time to kill smite flicking vs zcb afk with sapphires youll probably see zcb afk is same ttk.

Also no, barrage is less damage than a shadow hit, and thralls are free dps. Meta will be 100% thralls

north birch
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idm the chip damage that much there only did 1 kc though so far

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but in general i think chip dmg is a good mechanic

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the only jarring place is nex to most ppl

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chip dmg already exists in all 3 raids even inferno

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this boss was also intended mostly for midgame players i think the experince it offers is great

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maybe not fine tuned for people to be exicted to speed run it at end game but i think thats fine cuz its not what it was aiming to do anyway

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imagine how diffrent the experince of cm olm/olm verzik etc would be if all dmg was avoidable

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would be no pressure

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even with chip dmg ppl basicaly bring like no brews into raid also have things like blood fury now

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i mean in nearly every pvm situation minus nex 90% of the dmg can be avoided by just playing well

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its not like chip dmg makes up a large part of the dmg u take most of the time

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^noone really even complains about chip dmg from these places but it wouldint be fair to say chip dmg is terrible everywhere if u didint look at where its implemented well

tender forge
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The chip damage is fine, but it ramps up for no reason during the final phase. This means that people in midgame gear are having to pray switch, dodge, eat, and dps during the final part. Meanwhile bowfa+ goes brrr

north birch
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ye this creates dps checks and unfairly punishes lower lvl players but they still get the same benefits from playing well

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it incentivizes good gear creates higher lvl to entry which creates some gatekeeping which is good. shouldint expect to take on cox with a dscimmy practically

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^and guess what ppl still dont care about defense because despite chip dmg playing well avoids mechanics

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ppl use inquistor over torva when experinced all the time in cm/cox

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but it creates a need which is removed entirely if chip dmg is gone

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i 100% agree about venator bow being insanely useless i hope it gets buffed it really needs it

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i was never a fan of the concept tbh but now thats its in game it should atleast be good at what it does but seems to fall very flat

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ye thats also why i wasint a fan whole concept seemed to be fine tuned for inferno and not in a good way. arent many uses outside of inferno where i feel like even if this bow was buffed would be good for

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but im not against it now that bow is in game better it being actually good for something then feeling like it shouldint exist cuz its so pointless

sacred topaz
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Tbh mechanically it’s a cool and fun boss

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But drops again they failed just like toa

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The bow is dog shit

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The icon is prob a few max hits over ancient staff for most mid game irons who’d kill this boss

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But 1/50?

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So obvious an iron jmod designed it

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Just like toa fang drop rate

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Also kinda poor there isn’t an upgrade item for heart but 150k Essenes lol

limber jasper
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The main part I agree with is number 4, the soul split phase needs some fine tuning just to make it more consistent.
Potentially doubling the bolt proc rate in the instance would make it feel less rng heavy (and Potentially create a crossbow > bow environment)

Or have the corruption spell do more damage on the boss so its not a slow drain.

Only 11 kills myself but without an acb or zcb spec that phase does feel too slow and rng heavy

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Also if chip damage is gonna be a thing , then make it only occur if your defense stats are under a certain threshold , that way defense matters and its not just another coin flip

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For example if wearing 2 pieces of full justi means verzik doesn't do any chip damage when prayed correctly, that would be seen as a fair compromise for slower kills

sacred topaz
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It’s rng the ss phase

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Done 50 kills so far some kills I finish it in 2 hits

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Some kills I’m still in the phase after 10 hits lmao

north birch
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the subpar icon or sceptere was really just an ironman cater tool. mains can buy nm staff really wouldn't have minded something like this if nm staff was balanced properly.

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though i think they did say they were going to allow the new wand to be upgraded further down the line prob with dt2

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so maybe itll feel impressive then would be cool to see a new bis wand that requires you to get multiple untradeable drops to make powerful

quick junco
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the through prayer melee damage sucks specially since theres no "stay back" strat tot mitigate it that isnt freezing

north birch
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freezing and kiting is how you avoid it

quick junco
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which means theres no skill involved. rng the freeze and afk

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versus going with thralls and backstepping properly every attack cycle

quick junco
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Last changes I want for the boss as of currently is less defence on both phases and increased smite efficiency on smite phase

north birch
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i agree with this tbh maybe scale hp a bit but with midgame gear it does feel really lackluster which is the target auidence still doable but think it would be good

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hmm i didint even know u could drain defence

quick junco
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Also can it have a fixed starting style? be it range or mage idc just make it always the same for consistency.

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For the bow, it needs faster projectile speed, more attack range, bigger aoe scan range, a secondary double bounce (4 bounces total) and more damage so it's a sidegrade to chins

sacred topaz
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just like how fang was catered to ironmen

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the icon is like 1/50 and so busted for ironmen until kodai

north birch
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they couldve released like 1% magic dmg robes or something instead of the icon imo

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nm staff is just so cheap and strong that the need for something between master wand and nm staff seems pointless imo

sacred topaz
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yh thinking about this, should probably be no chip damage

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better to motivate noobs to learn the stepback with good results instead of just freeze afk

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ngl part of me wants them to remove the freeze and afk part

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literally the perfect boss to teach ppl mechanics

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this and gauntlet

viscid dove
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Maybe increase range on the bow feel like it does not hit enough and allow it to work off the 3x3 monsters , if not maybe uncap the damage on the other 2 hit rolls

junior gorge
quick junco
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Something else Id like to see is stalling but not nulling the phase transition hit.
we MUST hit the boss for it to change phases since it wont do it automatically but then the hit is put on the same folder as account security updates.
Sire had this exact same behavior changed a while ago. Why does Jagex keep adding things we've shown to dislike?

idle seal
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The boss is fine, done correctly it's reliable damage taken, and the special attacks are very well choreographed and easily avoidable. Praying right reduces 80% of the damage, and the smite phase is prayer flick skill test with multiple options

quick junco
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I really wanna see your kill times to think 20% unblockable damage is fine. Thats before we even account for melee hits because you can still splash on max mage

idle seal
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If ANYTHING, I have two gripes with the boss myself. One, the kills are far too quick for the amount of loot it gives. The thing seems to die at what feels like phase 2 of a 3 phase boss. For mage and ranged, both have just such heavy hitters that it does too quick. Second, I understand that they wanted to give it cc reduction, with ice barrage lasting only a few seconds. But this makes the other spells, like entangle, grasp etc just not perform. I mean, undead grasp, the best entangle spell on the arceuus spellbook, lasts only a few ticks.

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Thirdly, the bow is not going to be the next bowfa. It's not worth a 25m pricetag. And it's not supposed to be. It's a heavy ballista with aoe attack which does double damage and has cheaper running cost

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At the worst case scenario, it's a longbow that increases its ammo two tiers higher, ei mithril arrows to rune, addy to dragon. Best case scenario it deals double the damage of MSB while using cheaper ammo

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But it's not bowfa. It's not tbow. It's probably tied with blowpipe

limber jasper
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do you think its a good thing that the unique from a master quest boss is relegated to being the BIS bloodveld / ankou killer?

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might aswell rename it to Bow of KeK

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the best use anyone has found for it so far is getting 120k xp/hr in nmz

idle seal
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Was this really a master quest? Huh, the quest was good, but nowhere near that hard

limber jasper
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it wasnt long , but yeah it is

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boss fight difficulty fits the level as the others

idle seal
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As what, zulrah?

limber jasper
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i.e desert treasure bosses , Jorgungand from fremmy exiles , MM1 jungle demon....etc

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basically i think its reasonable for people to want the bow to actually offer something more ( even though it was clearly polled to be this useless)

idle seal
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Notice how none of those drop anything. Zulrah is the only repeatable boss, and she's not even really related to the quest

limber jasper
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desert treasure unlocks ancient magik

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jorgungand gave access to bassy knights which gave BIS for a while

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MM1 is old , but gave one of the best weapons at the time of release in d scim

idle seal
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Notice how I said "don't drop anything" and "not repeatable"

limber jasper
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this boss gives the staff which is nice. but the bow which seems to be the big rare is .... yeah

limber jasper
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the icon upgrade is reasonable as its common and actually fills a gap. 0 complaints on it

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but the bow that requires a master quest, then griniding 5 rare shards = MSBI but purple

limber jasper
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so if thats the standard we compare it to... then yeah it needs improvement

idle seal
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Ok, and? This quest is a prequel to Desert Treasure 2, and it's main notable upgrades are: an upgrade that gives a staff between ancient staff and a staff of the dead. The bow, while over inflated, is yes, a blowpipe level weapon. And an upgrade to an ultra rare, the imbued heart

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Notice the trend here

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Upgrade to mid level staff, alternative to mid level ranged weapon, upgrade to high level mage item, extremely high value common loot

limber jasper
idle seal
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Compare that to zulrah, or even vorkath: unavoidable chip damage, guaranteed minimum loot, high ticket item ~20m, quest requirement

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Difference is that vork and phantom have the untradable upgrade, those being assembler and scepter. Of course, vork being grandmaster, this means assembler is best in slot

sacred topaz
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high ticket item 4m

idle seal
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And you're right, on average the bow is not as good as blowpipe, but once the dust settles it'll compete but be a whole lot cheaper to use

limber jasper
sacred topaz
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should make it bounce properly imo

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sw tile

limber jasper
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the new T80 bow. is gonna be relegated to being a cheap item for training range

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basically without going round in circles. i think its fairly obvious why people have an issue with it

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its not a 0 sum game. the other two uniques being useful to some extent doesnt justify the bow being ass

sacred topaz
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this is the most friendly boss in terms of damage

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without it bein gtoo overkill of no dmg

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assuming u do everything properly

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i tbow the melee phase

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and still barely use food

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stg he always talks about unavoidable damage

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but i doubt he ever does a kill perfectly lmao

idle seal
sacred topaz
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shard is 4m

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not like u get the entire bow at once

idle seal
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X5 make bow

sacred topaz
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yh kill times more than zulrah

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  • u can do zulrah in budget much more easily
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yh

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bouncing issue

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will fix a lot of dps issues imo

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ill still try to get it on the iron tho

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nice to have a wep that is basically an aggression pot

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lmao

idle seal
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I do agree it should be buffed to be a 3 tile bounce

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?
3 is more than enough to set it apart from chins

limber jasper
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you actually bought it?

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fair enough

idle seal
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Nah, my prediction that once everyone with an imbued heart saturates it, the essence will crash, and the shards are tied to the essence price, the bow will be at most 5m

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Yeah, but engine limits and sw tile shenanigans

limber jasper
limber jasper
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and falling

idle seal
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The brews are actually bad, right? It only increases the magic boost?

limber jasper
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they're good. give a +10 magic boost per sip

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can be used for TOB/TOA prepot for people without imbued heart

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only 2k a sip

idle seal
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Yeah, but no increase in prayer restore. It's just a budget imbued heart

limber jasper
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it gives +10 prayer back too

limber jasper
idle seal
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10%, same as ancient brew

limber jasper
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and you can't top up if you brew

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this you can brew up , use restore and repot

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so it has its own role to play

idle seal
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Oh wait, it actually is an improvement over ancient brew, it gives 10% prayer instead of 5%

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Still not a prayer pot's 33%, but almost worth bringing when using mage

north birch
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i hope they just rework bow it seems really crap rn no amount of buffs can fix a bad concept

idle seal
# limber jasper

Actually, the concept it's pretty solid. Everyone is just expecting this, and that's the problem

limber jasper
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ah right right

idle seal
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Wait, the shards alch for how much?

limber jasper
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tbh , im just gonna see it as 1.9m cash as the 1/50 drop

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how much does the bow alch for

idle seal
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Nah, the boss is hard, but vork head don't alch for 1m

limber jasper
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450k....

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jagex why

idle seal
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I think that was supposed to be 190,000

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An extra 0 was added by accident, surely

quick junco
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Going back to muspah to get extra icons to just not have to swap sigils back nforth, can add a few more suggestions ot the ones already psoted here:

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start on ranged form
Out of everything that could annoy me in a boss fight, a random form start has quickly grown on the list.
Range start makes everything else consistent.

first spec is Always teleport bonanza
Same as before, manage your spikes early to get the cash in on the first spec, afterwards we can fully focus on the moving spikes since the safespot is irrelevant.
Note: the this is less necessary if the next suggestion is added

moving spikes automatically expire when another spec is used
To begin with, moving spikes last way too long, on max gear you’ll be phasing the boss effectively putting you in an awkward position on how the specs have negative synergy. By locking their position once Muspah starts teleporting around or teleports to the middle the duration stops mattering completely.

smite has increased potency on shield phase
The phase can only be damage with smite and when the ZCB spec misses because that can happen, it just takes so damn long to drop the shield. Increasing Smite efficiency to 50% or 66% will help speed up this phase doing the intended strategy

clear corruption and spikes when boss dies
We’ve all been there, the damage isn’t big but the emotional damage is. Instaclearing sources of damage and drain when the boss reaches 0 hp should be the norm for all bosses.

serene wing
serene wing
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clear corruption and spikes when boss dies

sure clear the spikes that's fair. but you got hit with corruption as a punishment for not countering a mechanic properly, i don't think corruption should be removed

quick junco
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.

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thats a point

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try not to miss it from now on

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because now I have to ask how much muspah have you actually done

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The fight goes a lot more differently depending on which form it starts and spec order

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a less skilled player can massacre the boss because they got lucky on random crap and got a massive tbow uptime for no reason

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consistency is a good thing and that's what I want.

serene wing
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still shouldn't be an issue

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suck less ig

quick junco
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Glad to see you don't even do the boss.

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When you're done being a low tier troll you get unblocked

mellow forum
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if you do range only and get the L from melee start that's on you

quick junco
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oh please

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youre not being serious saying maging and ranging during teleport is the same thing

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try me

mellow forum
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tf are you talking about?

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I was talking about the boss start

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tele attack is in the middle

quick junco
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that's all I needed to know

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next thing youll tell me it's not possible to not lose ticks because the boss is unattackable when it surfaces after the teleport

rigid shore
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Let's be respectful to each other folks.

quick junco
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Thank you

rigid shore
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Let's stay on topic

quick junco
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So yeah Mr Vlad in case you didnt know, the form the boss starts with matters a lot for the form it is during the first special

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And you can randomly be given a non choice between free tbow or free shadow hits

mellow forum
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mhm

serene wing
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waht the fuck am i reading bro

mellow forum
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switching is like 2 ticks anyway you're really not losing much

quick junco
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speak for yourself

mellow forum
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also special is always random

quick junco
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i pull my 7 ways in 1 tick

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yes it's also on my suggestion list

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fixed form start fixed first spec

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consistent boss fight with no random crap

mellow forum
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can't wrap my head around that

quick junco
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Spikes are the issue

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On max gear they last too damn long

mellow forum
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dodge them?

quick junco
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also o nthe suggestion list

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how to dodge spikes when you're locked to a single safe tile during teleports

mellow forum
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if you get spikes in shadow phase just dodge them

quick junco
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or when trying to smite skip

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cause again, max gear

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boss dies quick

mellow forum
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aka dodge the things

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instead of safespotting

quick junco
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yeah ok so I can see your opinion is comign from someone that doesnt have a high kc on the boss

mellow forum
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another assumption

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I have more kc than you kekw

rigid shore
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If you don't have anything meaningful to add to this thread then let's drop it

mellow forum
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challenging some arguments is not meaningful?

quick junco
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"just dont do the skip" is a non suggestion

rigid shore
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You're attacking him personally

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I'm telling you to quit

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You can agree to disagree respectfully

quick junco
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Let's look at it more objectivelly:
Smite skipping is seen adn the skill based approach to the smite phase.
Spikes lasting into the shockwave can force you into either eating 80 damage to get the skip or force you to be far from the boss to get the skip

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you're here saying "dont do the skill thingy" as the solution to spikes being badly designed

serene wing
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genuine question - how are the spikes ""badly designed""

quick junco
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specially sicne setting smite skip is free

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so you should always go for it

serene wing
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so if smite skipping is free, how is it the skill based approach to the smite phase

mellow forum
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there

quick junco
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So when you come here with a bogus anti-suggestion I have to ask if you're not just trolling

mellow forum
# mellow forum there

is plenty of space if you don't stay in the centre of the room before the smite start

quick junco
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then you don't know how to smite skip

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and I can be sure you lack experience with the boss

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and that I am wasting my time trying to improve a suggestion based on your no experience

mellow forum
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very compelling argument

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I think my near 200 kc is good experience

serene wing
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also im p sure sewer has a zuk helmet lol

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just bc you camp safespot during teleport spec for 1,000 kc doesn't make you an adept at killing muspah

mellow forum
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kinda what keeps it interesting tbh

serene wing
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removing randomness might make something consistent, but consistency is not inherently a good thing

rigid shore
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Your side of the discussion is equally as unhelpful here. You're both entitled to your opinions about it but if you can't agree to disagree respectfully then it's not really serving a purpose but arguing for the sake of argument.

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They're both opinions. Leave it at that

hallow lodge
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I agree with Murda on this one except always starting range. Although I'd like to see it always start range though

limber jasper
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Muspah can be annoying but I don't think removing the effects of mistakes is the way to go

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Having the damage of the final attack being nulled is enogh

limber jasper
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When grinding 500kc it doesn't make the boss bad , if anything it gives a reason to pay attention at the start

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The buffed corruption proposal still looks bad tbh

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It takes down maybe 25% of the smite bar over 20 seconds or something

hallow lodge
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But with PNM, the phase it begins on doesnt affect the speed. Muspah melee start is slower than range start, especially for irons without spec alts.

Spikes lasting through phases is cringe af and annoying, and only affect people in max really since we phase it in 3 hits.

limber jasper
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But everything else I agree with tbh. Having reasonable variables is good if there is a way to play around it

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It's like zulrah , the second phase is completely unpredictable and some are slower than others

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It just adds to the encounter

hallow lodge
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but zulrah is like 50s a kill vs 145 for muspah

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the variance based on start isnt as bad, the overall kill time isnt as slow, and the difference between starting phases is minimal at zulrah

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hard to compare zulrah and muspah imo

limber jasper
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It's comparing the idea that having inconsistent phases at a certain point is a bad thing

hallow lodge
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its not, as we see in pnm

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its when the differnce in starts have a non negligable impact on the kill

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switching isnt the problem, its that you do less dps with shadow over tbow on muspah so having melee start and having melee during teleports makes it a slower kill overall

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which is why it sucks

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that and that alone

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havent killed it since posting this, does it retain stats of range phase during teleports

mellow forum
hallow lodge
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thank fuck, so the phase it starts doesnt mean anything then idm

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the boss still sucks tho, just sucks a lot less

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still sucks, but not as bad

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if spikes didnt stop me from moving and smite phase was made reliable, itd be good

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wym

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getting lucky on sapphire specs or wasting 30 seconds smite flicking isnt a good mechanic

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unless you also mean cm muta and cm tekton defense is good mechanic, too

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then make smite phase reliable

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let me reliably 6 shot it

limber jasper
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Smite phase needs a big rebalance

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Such a cool idea just ruined by making it rng