Monkey Madness

Well, it finally happened. I finally got tired of being just another guy with a dragon long and decided to get Monkey Madness over with. The guide at tip.it is very straight-forward, but I've got just a couple of comments to add.

You cannot bring enough anti-poison with you to Ape Atoll. Everything is poisonous there, including little level 1 spiders that respawn immediately after you kill them.

Everything on Ape Atoll hits hard. Think that little scorpion is nothing to worry about? Wait until it starts hitting 12s and 15s on you. Bring prayer potions and use protect from melee gratuitously.

Beware of the archer monkeys! While wandering aroung with my protect from melee on, I suddenly came under attack by numerous archer monkeys. These guys can take you down fast and I almost didn't manage to get my protect from range prayer up in time. This is easily the closest I came to death during the quest.

The jungle demon was a piece of cake. I took my crystal bow, wore range gear, and prayed protect from magic. As soon as I entered the "battlezone", I ran to the square spot in the center and got the demon stuck on it. After that, I just stood there and ranged him to death. If I wanted to, I could have walked to the kitchen for a quick drink during the battle.

On a Roll: God Cape and Staff

I was feeling pretty cool after completing Desert Treasure, I even switched to a free play world to walk around in my elite members gear so that I could be admired. Embarrassing isn't it? I work the late shift today, so I figured I might as well knock off another long-time goal while the servers are all but empty - Getting a god cape and staff.

To get a god cape and staff, one must venture to level 50 wildy, challenge the wizard, Kolodion, to a duel, and then defeat said wizard. After receiving the cape and staff, the corresponding god spell must be cast in the mage arena at least 100 times before it can be used outside the arena.

I teleported to Ardougne, and grabbed rune plate, legs, and my dds. I levered, cut the web, and then headed west to the mage bank. Not a soul in sight. Once at the mage bank, I grabbed my best prayer gear, staff and runes, some prayer pots, a vial of anti-poison (in case a pker with dds were to show up), some sharks, and then I spoke with Kolodion. Kolodion told me that I had to fight him, etc, and when I accepted his challenge, he teleported me to the mage arena.

I chose to fight Kolodion using fire bolt while wearing chaos gauntlets and I kept my protect from magic prayer on from the second form on. My fight with Kolodion was a simple matter and after I was done, I was teleported back to the bank.

Back at the bank, I spoke with Kolodion and was told to enter the nearby pool. I did so and ended up in a cave (which I'm sure is designated as wildy). I spoked with the cave guardian, walked up to the Saradomin statue, prayed at it, and received my cape. I wore my cape and then spoke with the guardian again. The guardian gave me my staff and then I exited the cave via the pool.

Now for 100 or more casts of my god spell in the arena. While still wearing my prayer gear, I grabbed enough runes for 150 casts of my god spell, prayer pots, an anti poison, some sharks, and a knife. I had to walk from the mage bank to the arena, cutting webs as I travelled, and then pull the lever at the entrance to the arena to enter.

Once in the arena, I moved to the southern part so that anybody walking past the front of the arena would not be able to see me. The arena itself is in the wilderness and one can be attacked there. I fought mages in the arena until my runes were completely exhausted. While I was fighting the mages, my spells splashed with some frequency and I began to wonder if I might need more runes (does one have to cast 100 successful spells or just 100 casts?).

When my runes were gone, I exited the arena the same way that I entered, went to the mage bank, and spoke with Kolodion again. Kolodion informed me that I had cast enough Sara strikes and that I could now cast the spell anywhere in the game.

Mission complete.

At some point, I plan to return to the arena and obtain the Zamorak cape and staff, when I do so, I'll let you know how it turns out.

Ghostly Robes and Switching Spells

After completing Desert Treasure, I had to run out and get my ghostly robes as soon as possible. Ever since I saw someone walking around in them when I was a f2p player, I've wanted them.

I followed the ghostly robes guide at tip.it, and like all of their other guides, it was flawless and very easy to follow.

Holding lengthy conversations with the ghosts in the wilderness that were surrounded by aggressive monsters was a little annoying. I had to work at things a little bit to get myself positioned so that I could race through the conversations before I was attacked by a monster, it's a good thing that I didn't have to actually pay attention to what they were saying!

Other than that, getting ghostly robes is a very simple matter.

My magic level is only 75 and I'm not interested in pking at this point in my Runescape career. That said, I wanted to switch back to modern magic for now. I took a carpet to the Bedabin camp, walked southeast to the pyramid, went around bank and entered through the newly exposed back door, and prayed at the altar within. No problem at all.

I posted about these two topics because they are both things that I always figured would be a lot more complicated than they actually are. Don't sweat either of these tasks.

Desert Treasure

I recently completed Desert Treasure (a long time goal of mine) and made a couple of posts about it to tip.it. Here they are:

Gilded Cross:

Lots of people seem to have trouble picking the lock on the chest that holds the gilded cross. I grabbed some waterskins, some anti-poison, some food, and as many picks as I could carry. I walked up to the chest and opened it on my 4th or 5th try. So much for collecting 100 picks, I think I was lucky here. My thieving is 56.

Desseous:

After consulting some of the guides floating around, I started off with range prayer on and started hitting him with spells. I was wearing monk robes, an initiate helm, and a sara prayer book and his melee attacks were completely crushing me, 20 some damage a pop. I quickly switched to melee prayer and ate sharks to heal from his bat attack and was able to finish him off.

If I were to fight Desseous again, I think I would wear my best ranging gear, pray melee, and let him have it with my crystal bow. I'm guessing that the range gear would help soften his range attack and the prayer pots would take care of the melee. The only question is - How effective would the crystal bow be on him?

Damis:

Wearing the same gear that I wore for Desseous (prayer gear), I ran past the skeletons, prayed melee, and started casting spells. My prayer was draining fast when I was fighting the second form, but it wasn't anything that I couldn't keep up with; I just had to watch it closely.

I see posts from a lot of people complaining about how difficult it is to deal with Damis while all of the skeletons in the area pile on. If you are praying melee, then the skeletons are a non-factor, just don't let it run out!

Kamil:

Using only my laptop touchpad for mouse control, Kamil was the hardest boss for me. Having to deal with the trolls on my way to him used up some of my supplies and I teleported out of combat with Kamil because I got confused about my current hit points (better to be safe than sorry). I restocked, ran by the trolls and wolves, and then had another crack at him. Between drinking super restores, watching my prayer, and continuously having to manually cast spells (autocast fails when your stats drop too low), this guy had me sweating it a little. After he went down, there was still a trek to make, hit points dribbling away, I got lost for a bit (path is very hard to see), I fell all the time, tried to smash the ice, finally realized my stats were still drained from the fight, etc. Maybe I would have fallen less if I hadn't let my stats stay drained?

Although it was unplanned, restocking after dealing with the trolls worked out well for me.

Fareed:

Fareed is a sissy compared to the rest of the bosses. I just melee prayed him and took my sweet time water spelling him to death. I didn't even have my staff equiped because I forgot to wield it after the carpet ride. I wielded it, set the attack spell, and casually attacked him, no big deal. He did hit me through prayer with some other attack for a 9 and maybe one more time.

Pyramid:

I did the pyramid wearing boots of lightness and a glory with energy pots, prayer pots, anti poison pots, and some sharks in my inventory. I ran through the thing with melee prayer on, gulping my energy pots without incident. I didn't fall and only got smacked once by some monster (for a 23! ouch!) when I had let my prayer drain. I think I must have gotten lucky here.
Wrap-up:

Just for reference, I'm barely combat 80 with rounded stats. I have 75 magic and 76 range (didn't use though). I used various spells ranging from the chaos rune spells (I forget their names, the strike spells?) wearing chaos guantlets to the offensive spells that use death runes.

While fighting bosses, I didn't move at all, I fought them "caveman style". I prayed melee every time and I was glad to have my sharks. I wore a ring of life for everybody but Damis and I also kept my ectophial in my inventory at all times.

The bosses are weak to the following types of spells:

Damis: Earth
Desseous: Air
Kamil: Fire
Fareed: Water

Brewing : The Forgotten Skill

Raise your hand if you've ever tried brewing in Runescape. Hmm.. I don't see too many hands. Since I've gotten into Construction, I decided that I wanted a Chef's Delight barrel instead of the standard issue dragon bitter barrel. Looking through the forums, I saw that people were selling chef's delight for.. How much? 60, 70, 80, 100k+?!?! Wow, that's a lot of dough for a few beers, how hard could it be to brew some of my own? The answer is, it's not really hard, it just tales a little time and the brewery locations aren't terribly convenient. Here's what I do:

The best way that I know of to get to the Keldegrim brewery is to teleport to the Burthorpe Games Room and then take the mine cart. That said, this is what you should have in your inventory:

Burthorpe Games Necklace
Ectophial (you can hit the port p brewery next)
1000 coins (you'll need to pay for the mine cart ticket, some yeast, and you'll probably want to buy some beers for the glasses)
2 buckets of water
2 barley malts (Grow barley in a hops patch and then use it on a range)
4 chocolate powder (You can buy chocolate powder/bars in the gnome stronghold or from the Culimancer's chest if you've done enough of the Recipe for Disaster quest)

After you take the mine cart to Keldegrim, the brewery will be just north (it's in the bar, upstairs, and is marked with a barrel icon).

There's a pot sitting on a table in the brewey, grab it.
Talk to the man and buy some yeast.
Use a bucket of water on the vat.
Use a barley malt on the vat.
Use a chocolate powder on the vat.
Use your pot of yeast on the vat.

That's it, now all you have to do is wait. You can tell when your chef's delight is done by looking at the vat, it will say something like, "This vat contains chef's delight". When the delight is done, click on the "pipe" to fill the barrel.

If you try to empty the vat before the delight is ready, it will ask you if you are sure. Click "No" or your batch will be lost.

You will need 8 empty beer glasses when it is time to collect your delight, these can be purchased for 2 coins each from the bartender downstairs (buy beers and then drink them). Buy some extra glasses while you are at it if you plan on collecting delight in Port P as you cannot get glasses there.

Ecto to port P and head to the bank.

Grab your ghostspeak amulet, 5 ecto tokens, 2 buckets of water, 2 barley malts, and 4 chocolate dust. Make sure you still have the pot you grabbed in Keldegrim.

The brewery is downstairs in the bar. Once you are there, trade your 5 ecto tokens for some yeast. Use the same process that you used in Keldegrim to start the brewing process.

The shop in Port P is a good place to buy buckets, buy a bunch if you need them.

Sometimes you will end up with "mature" chef's delight. This gives a better cooking bonus but cannot be used to make a chef's delight barrel.

I easily sell chef's delight for 80k per set of 8.

Short Farming Circuit

A quick trip to all allotment patches using no runes.

Items needed: Glory amulet, ectophial, and dramen staff.

• Bank: Grab 4 allotment, 1 flower, 1 herb
• Ecto to Port P
• Run west and then tend crops
• Glory to Draynor
• Bank: Deposit harvest, grab 4 allotment, 1 flower, 1 herb
• Run nw and then tend crops
• Glory to Draynor
• Bank: Deposit harvest, grab 4 allotment, 1 flower, 1 herb
• Use wizard tower fairy ring south of Draynor, dial BLR (Legends Guild)
• Tend crops
• Use Legends Guild fairy ring.
• Bank: Grab 4 allotment, 1 flower, 1 herb
• Fairy ring to DJR (Sinclair Mansion)
• Tend crops

09/18/06 Update: Ok, ok, I can be really cheap, but I finally realized that using just one law rune saves me a whole heck of a lot of time. Since I've been making some serious cash farming ranaar, I use the following route:

Items needed: Glory amulet, ectophial, air staff, 1 law, and dramen staff.

• Bank: Grab 4 limpwurt and 4 herb seeds
  
• Ecto to Port P
• Run west and then tend crops
• Glory to Draynor
• Bank: Deposit harvest
  
• Run nw and then tend crops
• Glory to Draynor
• Bank: Deposit harvest
  
• Use wizard tower fairy ring south of Draynor, dial BLR (Legends Guild)
• Tend crops
• Teleport to Camelot
• Bank in Catherby if necessary
• Run to the Catherby plot and tend crops

This route is much quicker than my old route. Not only do I save time by using the camelot teleport, I save time by skipping the allotment patches.

Santa Tracker

Less than a week ago, Santas were selling for about 20 mil, today I see they are going for 23 mil. Wow. It will be interesting to see if they fall sometime soon, I'm betting that they will.

08/24/06 Update : When I look today, I see people trying to sell santas for 23 mil, but I don't see any takers at that price. People are claiming that prices will be falling as kids return to school, I'm interested to see if this pans out.

Moving forward, I'll be tracking santa prices in this post.

06/15/06 : 11.1 mil (prices dipped due to addition of construction skill)
08/15/06 : 20.0 mil
08/24/06 : 22.5 mil
08/28/06 : 25.6 mil (santas skyrocket on news of cursed_you ban)
08/30/06 : 26 mil (it'll be interesting to see if we see a slight dip as the cursed_you news gets old)
08/31/06 : 25 mil (suprise, suprise)
09/05/06 : 25.75 mil
09/07/06 : 25.5 mil
09/12/06 : 25.4 mil
09/15/06 : 25.4 mil
09/20/06 : 25.25 mil
09/22/06 : 25.5 mil
09/26/06 : 30 mil! (what happened?!?)
10/02/06 : 27.5 mil
10/12/06 : 25.8 mil (I'm guessing they will start going back up shortly)
10/23/06 : 26.3 mil (I guess I was wrong.. :))
11/13/06 : 22 mil (I thought rares would take a hit when the lvl 99 capes came out. It didn't happen immediately, but I'd guess this is the delayed reaction to the release)

After a long layoff, I've decided to start updating this section again. Over the past several months, I've seen santas peak at 25 mil. When the new shop update came into play, santas took a bit of a hit resulting in current prices of:

10/11/07 : 22.8 mil

For a long time, it has been said that rares are the only item certain to rise in price over time, but I'm not so sure that is true. It seems to me that Jagex is making a concerted effort to curb this by constantly introducing things into the game that drain money from players' pockets.

11/05/07 : 23.3 mil

Santas are at about 20 mil

I bought my santa on about 6/15 for around 11.1 million. Today, while browsing the RS forums, I see that santas are selling quickly for 19.8 million. 8.7 million is a 78% return on my investment over a period of only 2 months. Not bad at all.. :)

I've seen santa hats hit this level once before about a month ago and then they dipped back down for a little while so the increase in price seems to be sure but not so steady.

Maybe some day, I will sell my santa and use the funds to merchant my way to a purple party hat..

My (very long) Farming Circuit

I decided to come up with a farming route that takes me to all tree patches and all allotment patches using the fewest law runes. The route shown below requires at most one law rune.

The maps located here were very helpful when plotting my course.

Start off in Catherby. The only ways that I know of to get to Catherby is walk, tele to Camelot and then walk, or use the DJR fairy ring.

Tip: If you are approaching the maximum amount of super compost that you can store with the leprechaun, the patch in Catherby is closer to a bank than any other patch. With an empty inventory, run to the leprechaun, withdraw 28 super compost, bank, and repeat.

Wear glory amulet, dueling ring, and boots of lightness.
Withdraw a woodcutting axe.
Wield magic secateurs.
Withdraw 6 allotment seeds (strawberry, watermelon, etc), 1 flower (limp, nasturtium), and 1 herb seed.

Tip: If you will be farming strawberries or any other item that is stored in a sack or a basket, be sure to bring money for said items with you.

• Walk to the Catherby allotment, pick crops, and plant seeds.
• Bank your crops and grab a crossbow, grappling hook, 1 fruit tree, 2 trees, and noted payment for the farmers.

Tip: If your brew, grab some cash, 2 buckets of water, 2 barley, and whatever other ingredients you need. You can take the mine cart to the Keldagrim brewery when you're in Taverly.

• Walk to the Catherby fruit tree patch, check tree health, pick fruit, chop tree, plant a new tree, and then pay the farmer.
• Use the grappling hook to get to Taverly.
• Check tree health, chop tree, plant a new tree, and then pay the farmer.
• Run to Falador.
• Check tree health, chop tree, plant a new tree, and then pay the farmer.
• Bank (crossbow no longer needed), grab 4 allotment seeds, 1 flower, 1 herb, and then run to the allotment to the south.
• Harvest and then plant the allotment and then run or glory to Draynor.
• Bank grab 4 allotment seeds, 1 flower, 1 herb, the ectophial, a tree, and farmer's payment.
• Run to the tree patch west of Lumbridge.
• Check tree health, chop tree, plant a new tree, and then pay the farmer.
• Ecto to Port P.
• Deal with the allotment.

Tip: If you need buckets (you'll find that you can never have too many buckets for all of that super compost), this is a good place to buy some. While wearing a ghost speak amulet, buy a bunch from the store here.

• Duel ring to castle wars.
• Bank everything in your inventory and grab a woodcutting axe and a dramen staff.
• Run to the fairy ring sw of castle wars. There is a teak tree in this area, cut teak until your inventory is full and then use the fairy ring.
• Use the bank in "fairy land", deposit teak, keep axe and dramen staff, grab 4 hops seeds, 1 mushroom spore, and 105 coins.
• Use the CKS fairy ring.
• Pick mushrooms, plant mushrooms, pay farmer.
• Use the DKR fairy ring.
• Canoe to the Champion's guild.
• Pick hops, plant hops, pay farmer.
• Canoe to Edgeville and use the fairy ring there.
• Use the bank in "fairy land", grab 2 fruit trees, 1 tree, 1 bush seed, 1 cactus seed, and farmer's payments.
• Use the CIQ fairy ring. Run nw to the patch west of the gnome maze.
• Check tree health, pick fruit, chop tree, plant a new tree, and then pay the farmer.
• Run north and then east to the bush patch next to the monastary.
• Check bush health, pick bush, plant a new bush, and then pay the farmer.
• Run to the Khazzard spirit tree and then tele to Varrock.
• Check tree health, chop tree, plant a new tree, and then pay the farmer.
• Spirit tree to the gnome stronghold.
• Take the gnome glider to Al Kharid.
• Check cactus health, pick cactus, plant a new cactus, and then pay the farmer.
• Take the gnome glider back to the gnome stronghold. Bank if needed.
• Run to the tree patch just west of the gnome agility course.
• Check tree health, pick fruit, chop tree, plant a new tree, and then pay the farmer.
• Spirit tree to Khazzard, run to Ardougne, bank, grab 1 fruit tree and farmer's payment, and then take the boat to Brimhaven.
• Check tree health, pick fruit, chop tree, plant a new tree, and then pay the farmer.
• Grab some pineapples and/or bananas if needed and then boat back to Ardougne.
• Bank, grab 4 allotment seeds, 1 flower, 1 herb, and then walk to the Ardougne allotment.