Hexcrest and Focus Sight: returning to osrs?

[kind minnow]

Historically, there were three damage boosting components to a full slayer helm - black mask, hex crest, and focus sight. Each of these gave the 15% strength and accuracy while on slayer task, and came from unique slayer monsters. This made the slayer helmet isolated to the skill and obtained through it. In older runescape, the quest 'Smoking Kills' (2008) introduces and unlocks the ability to create the full helmet.

Old school never added these monsters or items from 2010, until now. Instead, Nightmare zone became the poor replacement for getting a full slayer helm, since Soul Wars (the only place you could imbue) didn't exist yet. Ever since, imbuing your slayer helmet has been attached to a minigame unrelated to slayer. But now that might be able to change, or these iconic items could be something new - let me know which one you would rather have:

A: Hexcrest and focus sight once again become core items along with the black mask, to creating the full slayer helmet. Each of them individually would contribute 15% damage and accuracy of their style (hex crest for magic, black mask for melee, focus sight for ranged). Slightly breaking away from convention, it would make sense for osrs to make the hexcrest drop from aquanites, and the focus sight to drop from strykewyrms (matching their primary attack styles), and lowering their slayer levels to match the black mask.

B: Instead of reclaiming their original function as black mask equivalents, these two headpieces find use in their respective styles with unique utility that doesn't require special attack. These would not be meant to replace current metas, but to supplement gameplay, and reward with satisfying numbers.
Focus sight: Only on the first attack, heavy ammo gains 15% minimum hit and 15% increased max hit. This can retrigger after not attacking for 20 ticks
Hexcrest: Spellbook spells cast at melee distance grant 10% accuracy, and curses gain 50% effectiveness (stacks with tome of water)

Which do you like?

[rare cipher]

I stand by that imbues should be removed from the game and supplemented with other methods to upgrade. I like A since its basically that. lava strykewyrms are around the same slayer level as cave horrors but maybe a different monster then aquanites since they already have a reward and a much higher slayer level

[kind minnow]

Yeah, I guess they do drop the ranged hopper, but that feels a bit odd, coming from a mage enemy. Both the hexcrest and focus sight came from different variants of strykewyrms, but what do you think the hexcrest should drop from?

[rare cipher]

Some other new monster. I dont think it would fit with any existing monsters besides maybe aberrant spectres. I never really played RS3 so i dont know any that you could rip from there

[zealous blaze]

I would just get rid of imbues and not replace them with anything

I already hate the fact that “strykewyrms” are coming to this game at all. At the simplest it’s a horrible name and it’s dumb to copy RS3 for no real reason other than to copy it. Keep these items far away from this game.

Also they look really ugly and out of place

[kind minnow]

I mean, all of the recent updates except varlemore have been straight from classic RuneScape. Araxxites, Nex, muspah, warped creatures, even prif and nightmare and the recent mahjarrat quests are direct ports from classic RuneScape. Osrs got dt2 rings 2 years after rs3 added them, rigour and augury were dungeoneering prayers before they came to old school, and even our anglers are retextured rockfish from rs3. I'm not claiming one is better, but many things you associate with old school are actually directly from rs3. So it feels a bit disingenuous to say we don't want stuff from rs3 when many of our recent updates have

[ember garnet]

This is a thumbs down.

A. Wouldn’t want this to replace the system we currently have + they have made no mention of adding this?
B. This just seems random

[zealous blaze]

Pretty much all the ports in recent history have been mediocre to completely awful, or just a completely new thing lazily named the same as RS2/3, so you're not really helping your case.

Regardless, your suggestion A is just, "make getting a slayer helm more convoluted and worse" and B is just "add dead-on-release content" for the magic one and an obnoxious first-hit switch for very niche situations for ranged.

[woeful juniper]

Support for changing how imbues
Fuck nmz

[dense panther]

I would love for imbued to be removed and honestly making slayer helm harder to get would be good. Rn black mask is upgraded like right away so you never use it on its own, so making slayer helm a later upgrade would be cool

[ember garnet]

I'm not against nmz being removed as it's not good. People do pvp arena nowadays

[woeful juniper]

Remove imbues from there and soul wars too

[idle crater]

I'd prefer it this way as it makes more sense to get an upgrade for Slayer Helm from a slayer creature drop, and IMO would feel better progression-wise. sadly I don't think a lot of people would agree with the change because it slows progression down rather than speeding it up

[kind minnow]

Yeah, Slayer helmet should come from Slayer, not some minigame

[dense panther]

Next year's summer sweep up should totally remove all the imbue scrolls and add a new more interesting way to imbue all items and or just make them imbued from the start

I don't think the 20 minutes of duel arena is a huge turn off for most players but it's definitely super unnecessary, and could make lots of items much smoother especially for new players

[woeful juniper]

Wdym? Cheesing the duel arena by joining fights and immediately leaving is fun and engaging gameplay and should be the way to do it!

[glacial wave]

I do like this a lot more but nerfing peoples existing gear seems rough if they removed imbue for slayer helm then only newer players had to do this Id be fine with it

ive gone out and said that nmz is prob worst update osrs has ever gotten in game and imbue system in general is so garbage but i still dont want player who used system to be nerfed

[mossy apex]

I really enjoy playing Emir’s Arena just for fun so anything that stops people from quitting 0.6 seconds in would improve the experience.

[glacial wave]

its cool in theory but alot of ppl just spam starting/losing matches to get points

its prob faster for most ppl to insta quit a match then to try to win-either way idk how I feel about pvp like that outside of even maingame worlds to get imbues

[pure wave]

While I don't really like the imbue system we currently have, forcing every upgrade to come from its own skill would make the game feel flat. Also if this were changed, I'd prefer something that isn't just a carbon copy of rs3

[meager ibex]

It actually came from rs2

Get over this "ew rs3" attitude

[zealous blaze]

I did actually talk about RS2 if you look above. The game went in a bad direction a LONG time before RS3 was a thing. Summoning and Dungeoneering alone were pretty egregious, the quest/lore direction was pretty horrible, and a lot more.

It's not about hating things just because they were RS2/3, it's about not wanting bad content that we've already seen in the past come into the game. I do personally think that copying things from RS2/3 is also very lazy and doesn't fit with OSRS on a personal standpoint, but we have had good things be inspired by (but not copied directly into OSRS) RS2/3 things. This is not one of them; this proposal is just trying to "fix" the archaic system of imbues by copying more things from RS2/3 when the solution should just be to remove imbues entirely.

[pastel sparrow]

Just let slayer points be used to imbue, while keeping other methods
I don't really see the other methods as an issue for the game. Plenty of gear is imbued from other locations, all the dag rings, the salve amulet, magic shortbow, ring of wealth, etc

Requiring varied content to get the best use out of gear is fine

[kind minnow]

Hex crest and focus sight came out years before era of combat, and in the same update as staff of light. osrs has the same staff of light, but again, tied to an arbitrary minigame reward because the actual content was never released. If these items (hex crest, focus sight) are to be used to complete the bonuses from the slayer mask, they not only remove the annoying random minigame grind for a piece of slayer equipment, but tie together the skill by making it clear where the bonuses come from.

Wouldn't it be weird if I could imbue bandos and give it ranged and mage strength too?

[woeful juniper]

This thread is really just pointing out how stupid nmz is to me

[kind minnow]

Nightmare zone was modeled after Dominion Tower in the Kharidian desert. And that's equally as hated and even more unused. Imbues in RS3 come from zeal, which was added to old school in 2021

[zealous blaze]

Having to interact outside the skill is healthy, not a negative. Like I said though, imbues are archaic and should just be removed entirely.

Personally I think the slayer helm actually as a whole is a bad thing that never should’ve been released tbh because simply by existing it forces you into killing things on-task instead of off-task because of how powerful it is (i.e. you would never kill TD/gorillas off-task because you get those tasks passively and it’s trolling your kph to kill off-task)

Also, really wish I could give this post a thumbs-down, seems like OP has people with dissenting opinions blocked so they can’t react.

[glacial wave]

honestly ye even if ppl got free imbued helm/rings and that was just flat upgrade i think that would be very fair

i never thought about just giving ppl base bring with 8str bonus but that seems totaly fair

[pastel sparrow]

Common issue with some frequent suggestions-posters
It's a good way to make your suggestions seem more positive!

[zealous blaze]

Yeah to be clear when I say remove imbues I mean essentially make the imbued the default, as you said

[kind minnow]

Nope, I've told them before they're blocked for being toxic and negative towards others. They like to complain on my posts all the time

Anyway, in the case of imbues, it's a mechanic to allow players to further gain bonuses from equipment. In the case of the slayer helm, the imbue was to fill in the missing components

[zealous blaze]

How is disagreeing with a suggestion toxic? Can you point to anything that I've said that's toxic?

[ember garnet]

People will comment if something is deemed good/bad in their eyes. It’s not toxic at all.

Interactions outside of this could’ve been and I’ll stand by them.
@zealous blaze logic is considered toxic unfortunately

[kind minnow]

according to my notes, he has marks against him from all the way back in 2022, but that's irrelevant to the suggestion, so we won't discuss it here.

This post is addressing the "temporary" solution of imbuing the slayer helmet through nightmare zone (NMZ being a replacement for soul wars modeled after dominion tower) to replace the missing hexcrest and focus sight damage boosts when added to the completed slayer helmet (black mask, focus sight, hexcrest) to complete the hybrid helmet. Now that old school is finally getting these monsters, it stands to reason that their original drops are also added and filled in for their original purpose

alternatively, if they don't want to change the slayer helmet to it's classic 2010 mechanics, these items could be reintroduced as heavy ammo/spellbook spell equipment, with effects that compete with masori in very specific conditions

ie focus sight is an alternative for crossbow/ballista that gives more potential for damage without any defenses, while hexcrest enhances the strength of curses/support spells while not adding mage strength

[zealous blaze]

That's interesting considering I literally didn't send a message in this Discord until 2024.

[small compass]

I'd love to see hexcrest make an appearance again, strykewyrms were a really neat slayer monster. Fuck aquanites though, I hated how they always disabled your prayers. They are getting a ranged hopper though, but the numbers on that feel way too low to be useful

I don't see anyone using that at say, nex. Or even vorkath. Maybe muspah because of the sapphire bolt proc? Bolts are kinda just... not as powerful (the aquanite hopper, that is) I can definitely see focus sight being strong whereever bolts are used

[glacial wave]

what if they just add some other drop instead for strykeworms? is part of the concern that strykewyrms feel like they dont drop anything special?

[kind minnow]

no, they're re-adding some of the classic slayer monsters, so now the question is whether they'll rework the slayer helm to how it was before, instead of the frustrating minigame imbues. Because no one likes NMZ, and it was only added there because the monsters didn't exist at that time

aquanites came out 2009 and strykewyrms in 2010

[glacial wave]

we kinda had a similar situation with tds release with ppl wanting to see dclaws come from tds and go as far as changing existing progression to do it-I think osrs has taken a diffrent direction trying to conform it to that just seems like a tough sell partially imo

[zealous blaze]

They're not really "re-adding" if they were never in this game in the first place. RS2/3 are different games than OSRS

Would be far better to make newer content instead of lazy copies and baiting nostalgia for votes

[kind minnow]

Neither is Nex. Neither are tormented demons. Neither are the empowered dt2 rings. Neither is Secrets of the North, neither is half of the content coming out now that isn't zeah related.

Tormented demons found a compromise where they did add claws, that compete quite closely to dragon claws

[glacial wave]

imo they kinda have to readd some stuff games exist in same world/lore like i think rs3 get the new vampire city already and we also are gona get that from new quest maybe

[small compass]

burning claws and dragon claws are so close that most guides flipflop between them, usually down to spec costs

but to say that "old school and rs2 are different games" is kinda a moot point

because the biggest difference between the two is that old school is missing 60% of the quests

To get to prif in rs3 alone is more quests using the optimal quest guide than osrs has altogether. literally just getting the requirements takes more than old school has as a whole

[kind minnow]

yeah rs3 has like, double the quests of old school. And we've gotten what, 5 mahjarrat quests from rs3 in the last year alone?

[glacial wave]

my point about tds was that instead of forcing changing progression they could just add some other item all together like bclaws. maybe for strykeworms they can have something that helps slayer or i think this would also be a good place to drop a mid lvl magic dmg amulet

[kind minnow]

we have... 12/16 of the mahjarrat storyline, where old school deviates only because we have weiss and phantom muspah, instead of the muspah slayer creatures

[glacial wave]

arraxor has completely diffrent drops compared to rs3 and thats fine idt we need 1-1 majority of the time mechanics/stats arent 1-1 from rs3/pre eoc to osrs

[zealous blaze]

Yes and that's why I voted no on literally everything you just listed other than the DT2 which was original lmao

They all were mediocre at best and most of the things you listed are very bad

Especially Nex and TDs. WGS is probably the single worst quest in recent history of OSRS, and TDs are just worse gorillas

[zealous blaze]

It's not "missing" the quests it's intentionally not adding a lot of them. The narrative/lore direction of RS went in bad directions long before EoC.

[kind minnow]

Except the enhanced rings (bellator, venator, ultor, and magus) were added in rs3 2 years prior to DT2 in old school, following the Dragonkin storyline, and DT2 bosses are effectively the missing Sennisten quest old school didn't get

[zealous blaze]

So by adding better rings, from a completely different source, OSRS is copying RS3? The logic doesn't really follow.

[kind minnow]

I mean, if you want to vote no to any new content, fine by me. If you want to cling to the purity of the game, you should be upset at Varlemore if anything. But I'm not a contrarian, and I'd like to see the game improve. One step along that goal is to remove the arbitrary NMZ requirement to imbue the Slayer Helmet

[glacial wave]

idk id say some of the ported content is better its just opnion partially anything is better then moons imo arraxor is best slayer boss imo prob my hottest take is nex is decent

[zealous blaze]

I don't vote no to every new content. Just lazy copied nostalgia bait content that doesn't make sense to just add in the first place. I did recommend removing the arbitrary NMZ requirement to imbue the slayer helmet.

[small compass]

Dragonkin questline was sick as fuck, man. Kerapak is my guy. Will osrs get more dragon quests? Felt like that was heavily, and I mean HEAVILY hinted at, at the end of WGS

[zealous blaze]

I don't recommend adding new steps to a system that should be removed in the first place, nor intentionally adding dead content with your latter part of your suggestion.

[small compass]

dude, queen black dragon would slap though. It's like olm, but about 4x more lethal

I'm down to return slayer helm to the original, no one likes NMZ

[zealous blaze]

I'm not really focused on "purity" of the game but new changes should be logical and balanced. I did vote no to a lot of Varlamore content because it doesn't meet those criteria. Moons is WAY too powerful compared to where it comes from. Hueycoatl was completely worthless on release, as noted by how heavily it had to be buffed.

[small compass]

just because old school didn't get hexcrest on release doesn't mean it isn't an iconic piece of the helmet. All three pieces of the slayer helm came out within 3 years of each other

[zealous blaze]

"It was that way in RS2/3" is probably the single worst argument for adding/changing a piece of content

[glacial wave]

like 10years to late to do that imo

[small compass]

uhh, black mask in 2006, slayer helm in 2008, focus sight in 2009, hex crest in 2010

[zealous blaze]

And?

[glacial wave]

i think u really cross the line when you start changing progression and nerfing player power to cater to a new update that hasint even been released yet

[zealous blaze]

What new value would be added to making more steps to a slayer helmet? That's the only question that matters.

[small compass]

what's the problem then? adding new slayer monsters? They're already adding aquanites and griffons, and it's hinted that lava strykewyrms are coming too

[zealous blaze]

?

What do you think this discussion is about?

[glacial wave]

do we even know what sailing lvl u need to kill strykeworms/slayer lvl?

[kind minnow]

griphons are 51 slayer, and 45 sailing. It stands to reason they'll keep sailing-locked slayer creatures at a rough 1:1.
Wiki says aquanites are 73 sailing, 78 slayer.
Historically, aquanites were just past Turoths in the frem slayer cave, but since they're a sailing release I doubt they'll show up there

[glacial wave]

ye so on irons now u cant get full dmg boost untill much later

[zealous blaze]

^

[glacial wave]

like thats a nerf and ud have to grind hexcrest to get back same power u had

[kind minnow]

black mask is 58, strykewyrms are going to be 62. The only one different is the one I'm on the fence about

[glacial wave]

ud need 60 sailing entire new skill ud have to train as well

[kind minnow]

originally I wanted hexcrest to come from aquanites, but that isn't seeming to be the case, as they already have a drop. But having both items come from strykewyrms (as they originally did) feels strange

[zealous blaze]

And aquanites are 78 slayer lmao

[kind minnow]

Mos'le harmless will very likely have a sailing requirement anyway, meaning black mask would be locked behind it as well

[zealous blaze]

They said they're not adding sailing level reqs for existing quests a long time ago

[kind minnow]

again, the aquanite is the one I'm already on the fence on

[glacial wave]

ye i doubt the intention is to force sailing into existing content

afaik aquanites dropped amulet of ranging but jagex went for something diffrent (range related) because we had anguish? I dont see why strykeworms have to be repurposed to drop same old stuff

[kind minnow]

if anything, anguish upgrade coming from aquanites would make much more sense than the offhand. The Torture upgrade comes from araxxites after all

My logic was that strykewyrms use ranged, and aquanites use mage, and while the cave horrors use melee and drop the melee mask, each would offer their respective style bonus for slayer, since they're all slayer creatures

[glacial wave]

right but its tied to original progression of torture/crafting/ its a bis new item-what ur suggesting is not adding new items but just adding extra steps to those items without any reward for doing so

[small compass]

I didn't think about that, but yeah, you get the range amulet from them

[kind minnow]

you can make the slayer helmet without these two additional items, they just don't gain the bonuses from them until the components are added - versus afking NMZ for hours to magically add bonuses. It's like Salve (ei) without Tarn's book

[pastel sparrow]

I really don't think this is a "it's a question if they'll do it" as that frames it as a possibility they've pondered
They've never mentioned this as even crossing their minds because honestly I don't think most people genuinely care that much about "fixing" imbues, a system that isn't really broken.

[small compass]

oh, no one likes NMZ for imbues. we've since even gotten two alternatives. One from old runescape (soul wars) and emir's arena

[pastel sparrow]

I don't think removing how slayer imbues currently work to shoe-horn in nostalgia bait and locking mage/range progression behind sailing is really a good call

Imbuing as a process is fine
You get an item, and to upgrade it, you go do other content for a bit. That's not broken or bad, it's just part of the game. Many things ask you to do something else than the content you want to do to get the upgrades you do want.

[kind minnow]

and that's fair and valid as an opinion. As an iron, black mask is locked behind:
Pirate's Treasure
Rum Deal
Zogre Flesh Eaters
Big Chompy Bird Hunting
Jungle Potion
Druidic Ritual
Priest in Peril

[glacial wave]

ye u having to put extra effort to regain same power ur introducing new reqs as well-it also doesint seem like u really even care if the old progression is mantained generally (you seemed to not have any issues just straight up removing anguish from demonics and instead giving it to aquanites or just adding hexcrest to aquanites)

[pastel sparrow]

Didn't they explicitly state they wouldn't lock currently unlocked content behind any sort of sailing gate?

[kind minnow]

no, I am against sequence breaking anguish upgrades. I fully support reusing zenytes for the next tier of amulet

[pastel sparrow]

It's only new stuff
You aren't gonna have new unique accounts where you have quests complete without sailing requirements, as they aren't going to make old stuff require sailing. They said at most they might add sailing xp rewards to some sailing-themed quests I believe.

[small compass]

I haven't heard that, when did they state it? I assumed you'd get/need sailing levels for the like, 5 quests that use boats at all. the uh, lunar quest, cabin fever, dragon slayer, but I'm not sure about that because it's a f2p quest. But dragon slayer is needed for dragon keel I think

[sweet condor]

Sorry new to the conversation but, What if hex crest and focus sight could be added to your slayer helmet to make the slayer helmet be a passive buff, so that way you no longer have to wear it? that way people could fasionscape into whatever they want for slayer and still slayer as well as they normally do?

[glacial wave]

ye i agree but i think diffrence is id want to be rewarded for those extra steps same goes for helm imo or keep it same and add something new imo

[kind minnow]

not sure about that, slayer helm is a blocker for equipment sets, that without taking up a head slot would enable some silly combinations

[sweet condor]

like what void?

[zealous blaze]

Void, barrows, moons, even just something like faceguard/torva would be OP

[kind minnow]

that's actually why void mage gained the mage strength, because the mage gloves gave more strength than the whole void mage

[pastel sparrow]

Void, Torva, Moons gear, anything with any sort of set effect in general, etc

A passive 15% unlock on task is very very very strong

[sweet condor]

Ya but how bad would that actually be mathematically?

[glacial wave]

well what I was saying was to buff slayer helm with the new drops but idt this is a great idea because of how good helm is-i just prefer the approach with aquanites we already have anguish so repurpose it into something else

[sweet condor]

and wait since when does torva have a set effect?

[pastel sparrow]

Torva has extremely high strength bonus in helmet slot

[kind minnow]

let's just take vorkath as an example. You're able to stack salve, dragon hunter, and void bonuses to solo a level 732 monster with 750 hp

[zealous blaze]

Would rather eliminate slayer helm than make it even more OP

[sweet condor]

Vorkath aint a good example though... Salve ammy is coded to override slayer helm they dont stack

[zealous blaze]

It doesn't it's just very powerful

[pastel sparrow]

On task you don't use salve anymore
I'll post a calc in a minute as to why it's a terrible idea

[zealous blaze]

Ye slayer helm+ranc is better

[kind minnow]

yes but I'm using an example. Salve is 20%, slayer is 15%. If you're able to combine that many passives, the numbers get out of hand

[sweet condor]

kk sounds good, because if my educated guess is correct atleast with torva it should only result in a +1 or +2 damage depending on the weapon

[zealous blaze]

With %boosts that's not really the case. When I did gorillas, climbing boots alone were 3 maxhits on my arclight+slayer helm

[glacial wave]

it seems like the direction jagex is going is against the idea of this though imo- which idk says something about their design approach with sailing

[zealous blaze]

When I did hydra, 2 ranged str was 3 maxhits on tbow. It's not that straightforward.

[dense panther]

salve worse than slayer helm
since your ammy slot gives more bonuses than helm

[kind minnow]

8 strength is minimum 2 max hits. Lance is 20% extra strength and accuracy. If you add the 15% from slayer helm (passive) these bonuses stack up to absurd amounts

point is, slayer helm is a blocker for other sets, and salve as well. Most tasks it's better to use, but max gear is quickly approaching that breakpoint

[sweet condor]

Ya I guess my idea is if people have max gear then they earned the right to be that op and feel it

[kind minnow]

the only balancing factor for slayer helm is that it's only applicable on task, which is a limited feature unless you spend earned points to get another task

[sweet condor]

well ya but why wouldn't slayer helmet being passive only apply to creatures your currently slaying?

[kind minnow]

we do not need slayer helm giving bonuses outside of task

[small compass]

Slayer helm should NOT work outside of slayer task

[sweet condor]

Ya I was never arguing for that

[kind minnow]

ok, the working was a bit strange then

[sweet condor]

Ya no my original meaning was to essentially just allow people to wear other helmets when there doing slayer, that's it

[kind minnow]

Mmm, I don't think that will be received well

besides, slayer helm is peak fashionscape - why take that away?

[small compass]

sourhogs were a mistake

[sweet condor]

Because while it is peak, sometimes people get bored of wearing the same outfit? Ya know it's nice to switch things up once in a while

[sweet condor]

the only mistake was we didn't get a sourhog boss

[kind minnow]

agreed. And yes, sourhogs were a mistake. Talk about unused addons, the reinforced goggles are incredibly irrelevant

but if Strykewyrms are added, and drop the focus sight, they're an alternative to the black mask for slayer task, using range instead of melee

[ember garnet]

This just seems like a more convoluted way of maintaining or getting the current slayer helm.

In regards to an anguish upgrade, I'd rather it come from a higher level slayer boss (in the 90s like Araxxor)

[pastel sparrow]

This is a HUGE boost using something like Void, where it's suddenly gaining over 10% dps increase while costing nothing
Saving 7 seconds is a LOT in this game for a passive from 2 lower-leveled mobs, slayer helm absolutely doesn't need buffing
(In regards to the "passive slayer helm perk" sub-suggestion)

[sweet condor]

Ya no the math definitly checks out that void goes insanely hard but at the same time they will be squishy af,
that is a lot for 2 lower-leveled mobs but I wouldn't mind seeing it as a super end game type thing. Imo if people are like crazy end game close to maxed let them save 7 seconds from a kill

though I was right rancor plus torva plus slayer helms only a +2 max hit

[woeful juniper]

What about 2 brand new slayer helmets with drops from new creatures. One for mage and one for range.
Fuck it, we ball

[kind minnow]

So a quick overview to recap the suggestion:

Slayer helm used to have 3 damage components, and now jagex is adding in the monsters that drop them. Should they be re-introduced to replace the bad imbue system? Aquanites already have a drop, being the ranged offhand (where previously they dropped the equivalent of the anguish upgrade). It would feel odd for strykewyrms to drop both the hexcrest and focus sight, but they are similar slayer level and requirements to the black mask.

Concern has been expressed that changing the imbue system to a slayer creature locked behind sailing would be an issue, especially if jagex doesn't make any existing quests require/give sailing levels. These items were released within the same timeframe of each other, but should old school's black mask stay as it is, or return as it was 15 years ago, especially if they're intent on adding the classic creatures back to the game

[trim harbor]

The imbue is indeed nonsensical and i think it needs to be removed unless a way of imbuing the black mask can be added directly to slayer (imbue for slayer points is lazy and not what i want), as for having these as a replacement;

one thing i really like about the focus sight and hexcrest in rs3 is the same reason why the unimbued black mask is worn in osrs, they're standalone items that serve as midgame equips you can use to gain the stats of the slayer helm, but for one style only

though in my opinion they're placed way too late for this to truly be the case, given jungle and desert wyrms require 73 and 77 respectively, even cave horrors at 58 are on the higher end of what i think gives the black mask enough time to shine before being incorporated into the slayer helm, i would personally not want to see these items being given any later than 50 slayer

[kind minnow]

I mean, these are the stats and quests required for black mask. It's fair to say the game expects you to be base 50s when you receive your black mask. 62 slayer and a handful of quests isn't far off from the 58 for cave horrors

You'd still need the slayer points to unlock the slayer helm combination anyway

[trim harbor]

my point was the sooner they're given the longer they see individual usage
i don't know what a typical slayer point total is for somebody at 58 slayer but my gut feeling is that they aren't far off of unlocking the helm, at which point the black mask becomes just a component

[kind minnow]

that's a good point, but with all three styles of damage boosting helmets, you have more options to start slayer. Lemme look how long it would take

assuming you start at vannaka at 40 slayer, you need to do 25 tasks to get the 400 points to unlock the slayer helmet. That's not factoring in skips, blocks, and other unlocks, which are pretty crucial to beginning slayer

[pastel sparrow]

"more options"?
You can imbue the black mask as well for the benefits to range and mage
The slayer helm itself is a very minor accuracy increase for ranged + gives the ability to use the bonuses on dust devils and a couple other lesser fought tasks.

For everyone that isn't an iron, the black mask and all associated imbues that give damage are granted at 20 strength and 10 defense. Pushing that back to the level required to make a slayer helm is a ridiculous nerf

[zealous blaze]

Also not to mention that this seeks to “solve” imbues (which I’ve supported eliminating entirely and making imbued stats the base stats) by replacing 20 minutes of PvP Arena with getting 15 more slayer levels and the perk to combine the slayer helm

[kind minnow]

15 levels? No, strykewyrms are only 4 levels above cave horrors, all three helmets are meant to be level 60 gear. The base helmet only uses the black mask, with the other additions fitting into it.

We all agree that the imbue system is bad, and I'm saying it's poor design no matter how easy it becomes. Slayer unlocks should come from Slayer

The goal of this is to add options to Slayer, while filling out more reward space to make doing the skill not as atrocious. Currently you need to not only get the 400 points for the helmet, but do an extra step if you want to use it for mage or range. Adding the ranged and mage equivalents of the black mask circumvents those, while still contributing to the final product

[timber remnant]

Would be nice to get a defensive buff while on task, not just offensive buffs

[kind minnow]

Old school is very stingy with damage reduction, and besides that, most prayer cases are 100% immunity (see my rant about oldschool's lack of mechanic definition and inconsistencies)

While not quite the topic of this post, I think I did make a suggestion a while ago about Slayer gauntlets that allowed you to charge them with slaughter and expeditious bracelets, those could have potential as a defensive/utility Slayer item

[pastel sparrow]

Except currently the range and mage equivalents of the black mask are the black mask + 20 minutes of pvp arena, so this argument falls kinda flat.

[kind minnow]

Wait, I forgot you can just upgrade the melee mask to be ranged and mage too. That makes even less sense

I guess at least it matches the inverted behavior of the salve amulet - tarn's diary increases the bonuses while nmz adds two style bonuses. They both conflict with every other imbue of doubling the bonuses

[manic drum]

They will probably add more strykewyrm variants in the future (jungle, desert, frost, etc) which opens up more possibilities for unique drops. I feel like the imbue system does need a rework for the slayer helmet and it should ideally come from one source only.

[kind minnow]

Hmm. I don't know how to feel about different variants of strykewyrms, I'd rather them add glacors instead of different flavors of wyrm. It's already a subset of a subset. In fact, glacors are probably more likely, since they've been adding more of the missing mahjarrat quests

[manic drum]

I would love to see glacors too! Maybe even a glacor slayer boss.

[zealous blaze]

You’re right it’s actually 20 levels, unless I missed something, for aquanites (78 slayer) like you suggested it comes from for that component.

[zealous blaze]

Please no. Stop copying bad content. We also already have way too many low level slayer monsters

[zealous blaze]

It’s not inverted behavior of the salve at all - imbuing the salve amulet works exactly the same as the black mask, giving damage to both ranged and magic. As Pyroseph mentioned, imbues are currently less than a half hour and there’s not really a need to disproportionately extend the steps to go through to have a slayer helm

[small compass]

thought he said strykewyrms, which are 62. And what do you mean, we do want 15 year old slayer monsters. Araxxytes were sick, and the custodian stalkers are really interesting. As long as they fix the annoying method of aggroing them (they sat underneath the surface and you had to engage them) I'm down for strykewyrms. I can guarantee you that aquanites are going to be fun, because they would disable your prayers

[kind minnow]

yeah, like I said before, I was already on the fence about aquanites, glacors would be a better slayer monster for the hexcrest anyway. But these are the two monsters they're adding, along with gryphons, for some reason

[small compass]

as much as I like Grimnash (he's my boy) I'm meh about them for a slayer monster

[kind minnow]

gryphons honestly feel like sourhogs. Now that's content that no one asked for

[woeful juniper]

Cheesing pvp arena for imbues is cringe and lame

[kind minnow]

It's kinda just the only way to do it now. But just because it's easier doesn't mean it doesn't still stink as a mechanic

15 years ago, the melee helmet gave melee damage. You could turn it into the mask, but if you wanted mage damage, you combine it with the mage helmet