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TruthScape Special Reports - The Godsword - RuneScape’s Best Weapon Ever? The Godsword - The Four Hilts and Godsword Types, and Their Special Attacks

In the mythos of RuneScape, the god wars were fought among the major deities of the realm and their followers, over 2,000 years ago during RuneScape’s Third Age. The legend is that the Wilderness is the scar that resulted from these wars. Thought to be long past, it was recently discovered that the followers of four gods—Armadyl, Bandos, Saradomin and Zamorak—have returned to life and continue to battle in a dungeon far below the icy wastes north of Trollheim: the god wars dungeon. This is the setting for the return to RuneScape of the godsword, a mighty weapon that was the focus of the final battle of the god wars themselves.

In the next few subsections I’ll introduce the weapon, describe it for you, and show you its vital statistics. This will help you become more familiar with the godsword so we can then get into more details in the topics that follow later on in this report.

The godsword is a huge (human-sized) two-handed sword with an ornate spiked blade. Like all two-handed swords, it is a relatively slow weapon that is designed to compensate for its lack of speed by dealing tremendous amounts of damage. The godsword is actually faster than most other two-handed swords, and it features the highest attack and strength bonuses ever seen on a weapon in RuneScape, by far: +132 for each; see Figure 1 for a picture of the sword and its stats.

Like other two-handed swords, wielding the godsword will cause your cape to billow and flutter in the breeze, a very cool effect. Many players have not seen this before, since few people use two-handed swords; in fact, I thought the animation was unique to the godsword until I was told otherwise! J

The godsword consists of two main pieces: the godsword blade, which is the “business end” of the sword, and the godsword hilt, which is part of the handle that goes on the end. The blade is created by smithing together three shards that are rare drops from high level monsters; the hilts are separate, even rarer drops. We’ll discuss this further in the topic on obtaining shards and hilts.

(As an aside, based on my knowledge of sword design, Jagex has chosen slightly confusing terminology here. The “hilt” normally refers to the entire handle of the sword, including the grip, guard and pommel. The graphics of the godsword show that the “hilt” seems to consist of the grip and pommel, but the guard is part of the blade. That’s just a side issue, of course.)

There are in fact four different godsword hilts, not one; each hilt is named after one of the four deities involved in the god wars: Armadyl, Bandos, Saradomin and Zamorak. Once a hilt is attached, the weapon becomes a particular type of godsword and is named accordingly: Armadyl godsword, Bandos godsword, Saradomin godsword or Zamorak godsword (see Figure 2). Note that the godsword blade cannot be wielded without a hilt; there is no such thing as a “plain godsword” with no god name on it. Until there is a hilt attached, it is not a godsword, just a blade.

Forging a godsword blade from three shards is a permanent step, but attaching a hilt is not. You can remove the hilt from the godsword blade by right-clicking any godsword when it is in your inventory and selecting the “Dismantle” option. You will then have a separate hilt and blade, and you can attach a different hilt to the blade if you wish.

All godsword shards, blades and hilts are tradable.

Here are the key statistics on the godsword, including pretty much everything you’ll want to know about the sword in general terms (you may also wish to refer back to Figure 1). Note again that there are four different variations on the sword; here I describe only the details common to all four types. See the next topic for a description of the four hilts and their special attacks.

Here are the stats:

• Weapon Type: Two-handed sword.
  
  
• Attack Bonuses: Slash: +132; Crush: +80.
  
  
• Defence Bonuses: none.
  
  
• Other Bonuses: Strength: +132; Prayer: +8.
  
  
• Wielding Requirements: Level 75 Attack.
  
  
• Combat Modes: Chop, Slash, Smash and Block. See Table 1 for details, as well as Figure 3.
  

  Table 1: Godsword Combat Modes

  Combat Mode Name	Combat Mode	Damage Type	Skill Trained
  Chop	Accurate	Stab*	Attack
  Slash	Aggressive	Slash	Strength
  Smash	Aggressive	Crush	Strength
  Block	Defensive	Slash	Defence

  
  

* There is speculation that this is a mistake of some sort, because the godsword has no stab bonuses. I recommend avoiding this mode for the time being.

• Attack Speed: 4 out of 10 using Jagex’s “speed bar” rating system. By way of comparison, ordinary two-handed swords are rated 3 out of 10, battleaxes and warhammers are 4 out of 10, longswords are 5 out of 10, and the abyssal whip is 6 out of 10.
  
  
• Special Attack: Depends on hilt attached.
  
  
• Weight: 10 kg.
  
  
• Object Options: Wield, Dismantle, Use, Drop and Examine.
  

  Figure 3: Godsword Combat Modes

  The four combat modes of the godsword (they are the same for all four types.) Note that “Chop” is shown as doing stab damage, which may be a mistake since the sword has no stab attack bonus.

  
  

TruthScape Special Reports - The Godsword - RuneScape’s Best Weapon Ever? The Godsword - The Four Hilts and Godsword Types, and Their Special Attacks