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Ultimate Power Barrows Guide - General Description of How The Barrows Works Ultimate Power Barrows Guide - Understanding the Barrows Brothers and Other Enemies

If you do The Barrows, chances are you are doing it partly because you enjoy it, but also partly because you hope for a handsome payoff when you get to that chest. In this topic I will take a look at what potential rewards you can get from the minigame, and also analyze typical costs and average value from the chest so you can decide for yourself if it is worth trying.

I’ll also talk a bit about how to be a considerate Barrower, something that is more important than you may think.

As you go through the crypts and tunnels, you’ll notice a kill count tally in the lower right corner. This figure keeps track of the total combined number of brothers and other monsters killed in each run to the chest. The total kill count doesn’t affect your chances of getting a Barrows item—only the number of brothers killed does that. Overall kill count does, however, influence the amount and type of “mundane” rewards you get from each brother killed. One of the big questions with The Barrows is always what kill count to choose before opening the chest; I explore this in my analysis of key tradeoffs.

As mentioned in the previous topic, each brother killed will deposit a reward into the chest. These are the possible rewards, with typical quantities if a reasonable kill count is achieved; Figure 415 shows some typical results after several runs:

• Gold coins: 100 to 1000
  
  
• Mind runes: 275 to 325
  
  
• Chaos runes: 110 to 125
  
  
• Death runes: 70 to 80
  
  
• Blood runes: 38 to 43
  
  
• Bolt racks for Karil’s crossbow: 35 to 39
  
  
• Half key (loop or teeth)
  
  
• Dragon medium helm
  
  
• Barrows armor or weapon item
  

  Figure 415: Rewards After a Few Runs

  This snapshot of my inventory after doing a few runs gives you an idea of what you can get at The Barrows if you have some decent luck. I have one Barrows equipment item (Dharok’s platebody), and I’ve also gotten over 200 blood runes, over 200 chaos runes, about 5k in gold and 79 bolt racks. I also received quite a few death and mind runes; these stacked with the ones I had brought to cast Magic Dart, so it’s not clear how many exactly I received. The food and potions are left over from the runs.

  
  

There are 24 different Barrows armor and weapon items: six sets, one for each brother, each containing a weapon and head, body and leg armor items. When a complete set of one brother’s armor is worn, a random special effect is activated. The items currently range in value from around 100k to as much as 5 million. You can read more about them on this page at Tip.it. The probability of a brother depositing a Barrows item is around 1%, and many people believe the chances are higher if all six brothers are killed. This works out to around one Barrows item every 16 runs.

The d med is not worth that much any more, but was quite valuable when The Barrows was introduced and is actually the rarest reward; I’ve gotten only one after countless dozens of Barrows trips. Note also that it is possible to get more than one Barrows item in a single chest. It is extremely rare, of course, but happened to me once. (Edit: it happened to me two more times while editing this article, including the example in Figure 416! J) You can even get two of the same item at once.

Most people want to know roughly how much money they can make by doing The Barrows. I recognize that not everyone plays RuneScape for the money, but one fundamental way of assessing an activity is by the value of what is obtained less the cost of what it takes to get it. Even if you keep the runes and such yourself, it’s good to know the value of what you will typically receive, especially when trying to work out tradeoffs between cost and time.

The costs of doing a Barrows run depend on the method chosen—and also on luck to some extent—but will typically include expenses for the following: maging runes, food, prayer and super restore potions, other potions, and repair on Barrows equipment used. Based on my experiences, I estimate the typical complete cost of a Barrows run at about 25k if using a maging method on the melee brothers. (This lowers to around 23k if using a Saradomin godsword.)

Now, what is the value of the rewards? This is not so simple to figure out. I did not bother recording what I got out of every chest, as this would be incredibly time consuming, so instead I will have to estimate it.

There are six different mundane rewards, with average values of around 0.5k (gold coins), 4.5k (minds), 15k (chaoses), 20k (deaths), 18k (bloods) and 14k (bolt racks). Since we normally kill all six brothers, we should average one of these drops per run, suggesting a typical value of 72k. However… in my experience, it is more common to get the less valuable drops like coins and minds than the better drops like deaths and bloods. If I assume a 20% chance of gold and minds per brother and a 15% chance of each of the others, this makes the average around 66k.

So, what this means is that the average net profit per run at The Barrows is approximately 65k. Again, though, it’s only an average; your mileage may vary! JOf course, there’s a chance of getting a half key or Barrows item too, which we must add into the mix. Half keys are pretty rare and not worth much more than most of the mundane rewards so we can safely ignore them. The odds of a Barrows item is, as I mentioned earlier, approximately 1 in every 16 runs. To be conservative let’s use 1 in 20, and use 500k as the average value of a Barrows weapon or armor piece. This piece will replace one of the mundane rewards when it appears, so 95% of the time we will have a reward value of 66k and 5% of the time a typical value of 555k. Average these together and the magic number comes out to 90k.

The Barrows is a popular minigame, so unless you choose to play during a very quiet time, chances are good that there will be other players around. As with all activities involving multiple people—both within and outside RuneScape—a set of “unwritten rules” about considerate behavior has evolved over time. Learning and following these rules will mark you as an experienced Barrower, and reduce the likelihood of other players calling you names in frustration.

Here are some of the most important ways you can do The Barrows in a considerate fashion:

• Move Thy Brother: If you click a coffin and your brother spawns right on top of a player or someone else’s brother, move so that neither you nor your brother overlap anyone else. This is the most important etiquette rule, because when there is overlap, it can be difficult to tell which health bar is which, and you put others at risk of dying (Figure 417). The unwritten rule is that whoever is second into the crypt should move, not the person already fighting.
  
  Please follow this rule in the crypts; if you don’t, then you force those already fighting to move, and it really annoys them. Note that in the case of Ahrim and Karil, it may not be possible to get them to move, but at least make sure that you yourself are not standing on top of anyone or anything else.
  
  
• Don’t Be a Distraction: When someone is down in Dharok’s tomb with him swinging a big axe and prayer draining fast, they don’t want to have lengthy conversations. Ask people questions when they are up above, not in the crypts.
  
  
• Your Spade, Your Problem: Sometimes people forget to bring a spade, and then they run around asking other people to “lend” them a spade, or offer to buy one for a pittance. Don’t bother—everyone else needs their spades as much as you do, and they can’t do anything if they “lend” you theirs. Nobody carries extra spades around, and nobody else wants to go back to the bank because you are too lazy to go correct your own mistake.
  
  
• Offering to Buy Food: Unlike the spade, sometimes you can successfully ask to buy food off another player, since most bring more than they need. Just be reasonable about offering an appropriate payment for food provided in a place far from any bank—and whatever you do, don’t beg.
  
  
• Don’t Brag: If you just opened the chest and got a Guthans Warspear and a Veracs Helm, wonderful! But don’t brag about it to people who don’t ask what you got; for all you know, the poor guy next to you could be on a 50-run dry streak.
  

  Figure 417: Be a Considerate Barrower - Move!

  When two players and two brothers overlap each other, it gets very hard to tell who is who. If someone is already fighting where your brother spawns, just move so you can each tell what is going on. Most players know to do this, though unfortunately this guy did not, forcing me to move in the middle of my fight.

  
  

Most Barrowers are very nice folks who are often interested in chatting with others, especially those who look like they know what they are doing. They may ask questions or say things like “gl” (good luck) when you are in the chest room, or engage in casual conversation with you. Be nice in return; it makes the process of Barrowing more enjoyable for everyone.

I have no idea, and it seems nobody else does either. J

Ultimate Power Barrows Guide - General Description of How The Barrows Works Ultimate Power Barrows Guide - Understanding the Barrows Brothers and Other Enemies