TruthScape.com - RuneScape 2007 Year in Review and Report Card

If there’s one thing that nearly every RuneScape player likes, it’s new items, and especially ones related to combat. There’s nothing like a fancy new sword or cool piece of armor to not only increase one’s battle prowess, but appearance as well.

This past year started off slow in terms of new items, with only a few moderately interesting noteworthy pieces of equipment being introduced in the winter and spring. The summer heated up nicely with several really nice new items coming into the game as a result of area updates, especially the God Wars Dungeon, which brought with it two whole new sets of high level armor and many interesting weapons.

This dagger is a reward from the Contact! quest, and has a special ability that will occasionally triple the damage you do when fighting kalphites. This sounds amazing, and some folks have in fact scored some rather impressive hits when using the Keris. Unfortunately the effect is random and rather rare, and the weapon’s base stats are so poor that most players have concluded that there’s no point in using it compared to more standard weapons.

Here we have another quest reward, this time from the quest The Great Brain Robbery. The Barrelchest anchor is interesting because it is one of the few truly potent weapons in the game that uses crush attacks. The anchor is two-handed and has a rather nice Strength bonus: +100.

On the downside, the weapon is somewhat slow, and there aren’t many monsters that really benefit from crush attacks. There are also two very good Barrows crushing weapons: Dharok’s greataxe and Verac’s flail. The greataxe has slightly better stats than the anchor while the flail’s stats are worse, but it has a +6 Prayer bonus and lets you take advantage of the Verac set effect that cuts through defence. If I’m going for crushing attacks, I’d rather use Veracs, personally.

This is another example of an item based on an interesting concept but one that has no particularly appealing use. It has a powerful special that doubles the changes of scoring a hit, but it only works underwater—what monsters are there in the game that are underwater and actually worth fighting? Exactly. Aside from that, it’s basically the same as a rune scimitar (okay, it has an extra +2 slash attack and strength, woot), but in P2P most players only use a rune scimitar for a few days until they can move on to better weapons. So again, who’s supposed to use this thing?

For years rangers have complained that they didn’t have a “knock-out” weapon; Jagex listened and gave them one: the dark bow. A rare drop from dark beasts—the highest level Slayer monster in the game—this bow requires level 60 Ranged and fires two arrows at once. It also has a very nice special that is guaranteed to do at least 10 points of damage with regular arrows, and at least 16 points with dragon arrows (see Figure 64). These new white-tipped arrows are obtained as rewards from the Impetuous Impulses minigame.

**Figure 64: Dark Bow Special Attack**
The double shot and guaranteed damage make the dark bow’s special attack one of the best in the game.

In general terms the dark bow is a nice weapon, especially for its special attack, which has the potential to do a lot of damage. Its main drawback is a firing rate that is very slow, however. This was obviously by design, to prevent the item from being overpowered, but many players are of the opinion that Jagex simply went too far, and I am one of them. Making matters worse is the fact that just a week after the dark bow came out, Jagex greatly improved crossbows, with the net result being that most players prefer them over the dark bow—even without considering the new bow’s far greater cost.

It’s good, but it could be better. The bow needs some improvement to take its rightful place as a leading piece of ranging kit.

Made by combining a regular anti-dragon shield with a rare draconic visage, the dragonfire shield is, simply put, one of the very best pieces of equipment in the game. It provides protection against dragon breath like the regular shield it is made from, but adds to that astounding defence that is built up by storing energy from dragon breath attacks, which can then be unleashed as an extra attack during combat.

In addition to the item itself being excellent, I think everything else about this item was done nearly perfectly as well. The draconic visage is a rare drop from tough dragons, which keeps the item valuable and also gives people another reason to fight monsters like metal dragons. You need a very high Smithing level to forge the shield yourself (90) but can otherwise pay to have it done. And while the breath attack from the shield is powerful, there’s a limit on how often you can use it, so it can’t be abused.

This very nice addition to the line of dragon armor and weapons is a main motivation for fighting the difficult mithril dragons released on the same day in July. The helmet itself has a very cool, distinctive appearance, and is much sought after because of its rarity. In fact, this is now arguably the only truly rare dragon item in the game. Some feel it is perhaps too rare, with its price continuing to hover in the range of 50 million gold pieces. On the other hand, that’s certainly nice when you finally get one (Figure 65)! J

**Figure 65: You Could Have Knocked Me Over with a Feather!**
After getting so many junk rewards when pyring chewed bones from mithril dragons, I was rather shocked when this happened!

The godsword is the most powerful weapon to ever be released in the game. It is assembled from three sword blade shards and one of four god-specific hilts, each of which enables a different special attack; pursuit of these pieces is one of the major reasons why high-level players fight the bosses in the God Wars Dungeon. The godsword offers incredible +132 slash and strength bonuses, faster attack speed than other two-handed swords, and a very useful +8 Prayer bonus when equipped. It even has a crush attack option with +80 crush bonus.

On the downside, the weapon is still somewhat slow compared to certain alternatives, and it is very expensive. The rarity of the item is by design, just as is the case for the dragon full helm and dragonfire shield released in the two months preceding it. Unfortunately, the game designers didn’t properly balance the rarity of the sword blade pieces (shards) and the rarity of the hilts. As a result, the sword blades are very cheap and the hilts quite expensive, which negates the value of one of the sword’s intended features: the ability to swap hilts on a single blade. Jagex could also have done a better job of making it clear that the blade cannot be used without a hilt.

Here are my specific grades for the four different godsword types. Please see my full review of the godsword for lots of details and pictures of it in action.

With a special that allows two hits per spec bar, each doing an extra 25% damage, the Armadyl godsword is the very best “knock-out” weapon in the game, ideal especially for PvP combat. Unfortunately, even despite the recent changes to eliminate staking from the game, it remains an extremely expensive item (over 100 million).

This godsword version’s special has the ability to greatly reduce the defence or other stats of an opponent. On a successful hit, this can make a big difference in a duel or battle with a tough monster; unfortunately, it takes 100% of the spec bar and in many cases there is really no noticeable effect.

Maligned by many players as “useless” in the first week that the godsword came out, I and a few others quickly recognized the potential of its special attack, which heals the wielder and restores Prayer points on a successful hit. Properly equipped and using enhancing potions and prayers, a high-level player can get back up to 60 hitpoints of health and 30 Prayer points every 5 minutes, making this easily the best monster combat weapon in the game. I bought one as soon as I could and have rarely put it down since. J

The special of the Zamorak godsword freezes the wielder’s opponent in place for up to 20 seconds, complete with an “ice cube” animation like the Ancient Magicks spell Ice Barrage. While this is very cool to watch, it has little practical use; if you’re going to melee someone what do you really gain by freezing him first? The Zammy godsword is very handy to stop flagholders in their tracks in Castle Wars, but aside from that has little value aside from its generic use as a godsword.

This interesting weapon is a rare drop from the Saradomin boss in the God Wars Dungeon. It is similar to an abyssal whip in terms of its bonuses and attack speed, but has advantages and disadvantages compared to the whip. On the plus side it has a decent special that does an extra 5-15 magic damage, a +2 Prayer bonus, and the ability to train strength. On the downside, it is two-handed, it’s very expensive, and the special drains the entire special bar.

Personally, I have never really understood why some people get so excited about this weapon; I think it is certainly nice, but highly overrated. It may be as good as a whip in terms of raw stats, but consider that with a whip you can use a rune defender, making the total stat bonuses far better than the Saradomin sword. Also, while this sword’s special is better than that of the whip (what isn’t?), an average of 10 bonus damage every 5 minutes is hardly anything to get excited over.

Pretty much the only real niche for this item is for strength training; if you were planning to use a dragon scimitar, this will give you a better strength bonus than a d scimmy and rune defender combination. But it’s not as good as any of the godswords for strength training, IMO, nor as good as using other options like Dharoks.

Oh, and Jagex really could have done a better job of naming this item so that it is not so often confused for the Saradomin godsword, which is completely different.

The Zamorakian spear is a two-handed spear that has the advantage of a faster speed; it attacks at the same rate as a scimitar. Like other spears, it’s two-handed and only capable of controlled or defensive training. The special attack is the same as that of the dragon spear.

If that sounds pretty boring, then you’re right; of all the high-profile items introduced this year, the Zamorakian spear easily wins the award for being the most poorly designed. I honestly don’t know what Jagex was thinking here; spears have never been very popular items, and this one really has nothing particularly appealing about it. Recycling the special from another weapon is a real disappointment, too, and smacks of laziness given the hundreds of other possible specials that could have been implemented.

Consider that this spear can only be obtained as a rare drop from a single level 650 monster and yet sells for 400k (compared to 20 million or so for the Saradomin sword), and you’ll understand why I give it a failing grade.

This melee armor set has become very popular, because it combines good melee defence and excellent ranged defence with decent strength bonuses and a bit of a prayer bonus as well. My only complaint is that the strength plus for the boots seems to have been forgotten, making them less attractive than the much more easily obtained dragon boots.

Not much to say here, other than “this is the best ranging armor in the game”. It provides a higher Ranged attack and better defence against all forms of attack than any color dragonhide, Karil’s set or even third age ranging armor. It even provides a small Prayer bonus! Armadyl armor is a bit pricy, but it’s a nice place for rangers who can afford it to spend some of their hard-earned gold.

Of all of the possible elemental rune combinations that Jagex could have chosen to make a new magic staff, fire and water is probably one of the least desirable. Aside from Lunar mages who bake hundreds of pies, I see little use for this item, especially with fire runes as plentiful and cheap as they are.

The newest in the long series of metal armored boots that have been Slayer monster rewards for some time, dragon boots finally came out with the God Wars Dungeon, courtesy of spiritual mages (Slayer level 83). They provide double the strength bonus of rune boots and much better melee defence as well.

So why the “B” grade? My main complaint about this item is that it is just way, way too common—I don’t think every dragon item has to be fabulously rare and expensive, but it took only days until the game was positively swimming with dragon boots. This has made the benefit of fighting spiritual mages rather low, and at the same time caused the value of rune and lower metal boots to plummet. A little more rarity would have been nice here.