0
Waterfiends
By: Overvoltage
Contents
- 1.0 [Introduction and Prerequisites]
- 2.0 [Level Requirement (Disclaimer)]
- 3.0 [Gear]
- 3.1 - Melee - Under 68 summoning
- 3.2 - Melee - Using a Bunyip
- 3.3 - Melee - Using a Unicorn
- 3.4 - Melee - High level training
- 3.5 - Melee - Void armor w/ Bunyip
- 3.6 - Melee - Void armor w/ Unicorn
- 3.7 - Range - High level training
- 3.1 - Melee - Under 68 summoning
- 4.0 [Strategy]
- 5.0 [Drops]
- 6.0 [FAQ and History]
Waterfiends, not to be confused with their lesser cousins, the Icefiend, live in a variety of locations across the RunEscape world, including a room in the chaos tunnels, the Ghorrock Fortress parallel to upper wilderness, and the summoner/slayer's main focus, the Ancient Caverns. There are many methods to fighting them in all of their locations, all with advantages and disadvantages, but the most worthwhile would be those in the Ancient Cavern.
These ones rank in at level 115 with 1290 HP [formerly 129], only capable of using range or magic to attack, and the entire area is in a single combat zone. They happen to be extremely vulnerable to crush-style attacks, and an excellent source of crimson charms, with a drop rate of around 76%. It is this aspect that we aim to exploit.
There are a couple ways to reach them, but the all require the same first step - you must meet with Otto Godblessed at his grotto south-west of Barbarian Assault and start his Barbarian training. To get there, you can either use a games necklace teleport to Barbarian Assault and run South, run West from the Seer's Village past the coal trucks, or run North-West from the Fishing guild or Ardougne. You only need to start the firemaking section to enter the Ancient Cavern.
A rather crude map, for those lacking geography.
Spoiler
You'll need a bow [no crystal, ogre, or dark] and some logs [random for each player] to complete the first part of the firemaking challenge [there are regular, Oak, Willow, and Yew trees around his grotto], before he'll grant you entry to the cavern; after that, you'll be able to jump into the whirlpool East of Otto's Grotto. Unfortunately, you can't jump into the whirlpool with a follower out, so you'll need to dismiss or pickup any followers you may have before entering.
Be warned, the Ancient Cavern holds more than just Waterfiends, it is also the home of Brutal Green Dragons [attacks with melee, magic, and dragonfire], various Barbarian spirits [melee only], Mithril dragons [but only if you go upstairs], and a slayer master, Kuradal. Unfortunately for us, there are a bunch of Brutal Green Dragons as soon as we step down into the cavern, so if it's your first time down, bring an anti-dragon shield or potion, or use Protect from Magic and find your way quickly through the cavern. Upon reaching the main floor of the cavern, you have two options [two pockets of waterfiends to choose from] - you can head immediately west and reach a little peninsula where waterfiends have spawned, or you can run around the entire cavern (taking the long way) to the very south-west corner [my personal favorite spot], where you'll see sort of a fairy ring there ('enchanted land,' as it appears), and a few dozen waterfiends. If you plan to frequently come to waterfiends, or want to start using Kuradal as your slayer master and you've completed at least part 2 of the Fairy Queen series, use the south-west spot, and on one of your trips, bring 5 bittercap mushrooms [grown west of Canfis with 53 farming], a spade, and a dramen or lunar staff, and use a mushroom on the enchanted land, it will now become a fully functioning fairy ring [code BJQ], allowing for quicker access to the cavern, no more putting up with Brutal Green Dragons, quicker banking, and allowing pre-summoned familiars to enter with you [including packed beasts of burdens].
A different method, for avid slayers who already use Kuradal as their Slayer Master and have been lucky enough to obtain a ferocious ring, is to use a charge to teleport to Kuradal, climb down the stairs and run North.
2.0 [Level Requirement (Disclaimer)]
While reading, you'll have to keep in mind I'm on the maxed combat side [99 attack, strength, defence, hitpoints, range, magic, prayer], so I tend to favor high combat in the first place, but for Waterfiends to be somewhat effective as a charm-gathering method, you'll need some basic stats. Obviously the higher they are, the better off you'll be, and if yours are drastically lower than my outline, you'll need to make your own accommodations in your setup [ie: 43 prayer instead of 80, bring more prayer pots]
My melee gear assumes at least the following:
Attack: 85
Strength: 85
Defence: 80
Hitpoints: 90
Range: 70+ [Armor based requirement]
Prayer: 80+
Magic: 55+ [High level Alchemy]
3.0 [Gear]
Keep in mind all gear is replaceable, and obviously wear a black mask, slayer helm, or full slayer helm if you're on a slayer task.
This is broken up into a lot of sub-categories:
3.1 - Melee - Under 68 summoning
Spoiler
3.2 - Melee - Using a Bunyip
Spoiler
3.3 - Melee - Using a Unicorn
Spoiler
3.4 - Melee - High level training
Spoiler
3.5 - Melee - Void armor w/ Bunyip
Spoiler
3.6 - Melee - Void armor w/ Unicorn
Spoiler
3.7 - Range - High level training
Spoiler
4.0 [Strategy]
4.1 - Basics
There are some things that, after spending a lot of time at Waterfiends, you start to realize about the game mechanics.
The first I noted was how perfect the Bunyip was, so I'll have a little devotion to it:
Not only do they look cute, but they're incredibly useful as well, in more ways than just the obvious
Requirements:
68+ summoning
40+ cooking (80+ HIGHLY recommended, if you don't have 80+ it's worth a lot less)
Easily bought in the GE, doesn't cost an arm and a leg to make, they're readily available for use to a wide market
To start off, every 15 seconds they heal 20 Constitution. Great. They last for 44 minutes [so 3520 HP restored automatically] and cost 7 points to summon, so for those of us 75+ summoning, we can use two without needing a potion, and their scroll ability "swallow whole" lets you eat raw food as if it were cooked (assuming you have the cooking level to cook it). Well, that works out pretty well, Waterfiends drop plenty of raw food semi-frequently. But there's more: While using a Bunyip, often times you get a huge drop of food, and you can't use all of it, so it ends up rotting on the ground - that would be because you've forgotten the less used ability - turning raw fish into water runes. They stack, you should have some in your inventory already, so what have you to lose? Just use the piece of food on your bunyip and it will turn it into a random number of water runes. Bunyips can also be used for Prayer conservation -- often you'll have food on you, your bunyips 80 hp per min healing will be keeping you at full hitpoints.
In situations like this, just stop praying for a while.
Not only does it give you a chance to make room for other drops (or other food drops), but you save prayer potions (useful more when your bunyip runs out, or when you're caught in a jam). It almost feels like Bunyips were made for tanking/training at waterfiends.
There's a minigame called Familiarization, in which you collect shard things for a bit, and then as a reward, all your charm drops are tripled for 40 minutes, and Waterfiends are a great place to spend that 40 minutes, although you can try and find a guide to that somewhere on here, or just talk to pickupstix about it in-game :).
For slayer tasks, bring two sets of pots [ie: two super attack, two super strength] if you wish to be potted throughout the entire task. Also, a full slayer helm grants additional range and magic defense compared to the regular slayer helmet. For range, bring, like 5 or 6.
The next two work in perfect harmony together, but work excellently apart as well, and they would be the Saradomin Godsword, and the level 92 curse, Soul Split. Both can be used to regain lost constitution, but while Soul Split drains prayer, the SGS restores it. A popular method to heal with Soul Split is known as "flashing" (Activating the curse before your attack and deactivating it once damage has been calculated), which isn't very difficult once you get to know the speed of your weapon(s). When used as a pair, the SGS special will heal at minimum 70% of the damage caused, which can be a hefty number once you include potions, slayer helms or void knight effects
And lastly, the cavern gets updated once in a while, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. Well, the update that brought in the fairy ring and Kuradel also changed the way Brutal Green Dragons behaved when attacking a selected target. Namely, their range of fire increased significantly, and for that, it's important to watch how close one gets to them.
The safe line appears to now be parallel to the pillar at the corner of the lake, but there's still some fuzzy room
4.2 - Melee - Under 68 summoning
Pray range, try not to die, there are escape 'logs' on the sides of the river if you feel you might die and forgot to bring a teleport [remember, charged glories and Lumberage diary rings have teleports on them]. If you decided to bring Guthans and are having a particularly difficult time healing [or staying healed] while fighting Waterfiends, go pick a fight with one of the barbarian spirits [examine a pile of bones if there are none up and about] - they only attack with melee, so you can pray melee and get some free healing time on them.
4.3 - Melee - Using a Bunyip
Pray range. The Bunyip is there to help you out, make raw food drops eatable, and generally be awesome, but chances are you'll still spend a lot of time with protect from missiles on until you have your groove going [or get some lucky shark drops]. and you'll have to use more than one bunyip to achieve your goals
4.4 - Melee - Using a Unicorn
Sometimes this works well, and sometimes it doesn't, it's really luck-based. Pray range when its appropriate, use scrolls when you need to heal, and hope you don't go through your special move bar too quickly. Unfortunately, raw drops are completely useless to you now, but occasionally I can find someone with a bunyip willing to trade a cooked shark drop for 2-4 raw ones :)
4.5 - Melee - High level training
I pretty much covered this in the "gear" section, try not to die, which is remarkably difficult if you're half paying attention at this point
4.6 - Melee - Void armor w/ Bunyip
You'll be taking slightly more damage, but also dealing slightly more damage ... it should balance out, right? Chances are you'll have your prayer on a bit longer than the guy in karils, but who knows, maybe you'll get more kills per hour too. Read above section pertaining to Bunyips.
4.7 - Melee - Void armor w/ Unicorn
Read above section pertaining to void & Bunyips, then read Unicorn section. There's not a lot I can really add here.
4.8 - Range - High level training
The first ten minutes are going to be terrible ... well, more terrible than the rest of your trip at least, because you have to fight them 1-on-1 until they become tolerant. After that, though, it's pretty smooth [albiet slow] sailing, take advantage of safe spots created by the rock formations
Range has one advantage over Melee, and although I don't personally believe the tradeoff to be worthwhile, some people have disagreed. This advantage is "safe spots," due to the Waterfiend's range of attack being only 4 squares long.
Most people know about the range safe spot West of the stairs; however, this is sometimes crowded, inconvenient for people using the fairy ring, and if you make a mistake in your lure, there is no way to correct it. For those reasons, I'll be showcasing the little known North West safespots:
Spoiler
Red spaces, and the spaces I'm standing on are safe, numbers 2 and 4 only have one safe spot, but this shouldn't be a problem so long as you have tolerance.
5.0 [Drops]
Ah, the reason we're all here. Why are waterfiends hunted outside of slayer tasks?
Waterfiends have a very high charm drop rate, most of them being crimson.
Waterfiends drop mithril arrows and water runes in large quantity frequently.
Waterfiends drop water orbs and water staffs, Water battlestaffs and Effigies
None ~ 6%
Blue ~ 2 %
Green ~ 6 %
Gold ~ 10 %
Crimson ~ 76 %
Other drops of interest:
Mithril ore (1-6) noted
Sapphire bolts (15)
Herb drops (2)
Vial of water
Various alchable mithril and adamant items
Water staffs
Water Battle staffs
Rune Med helm
Mithril arrows (90)
Water orb (5-9) noted
Coins
Charms
Shark (cooked)
Raw lobster (4-10)
Seaweed (14-29) (noted)
Ranarr seeds (1)
Snapdragon seeds (1)
Watermelon seeds (1-4)
Snape grass (20) (noted)
Uncut sapphire (2) (noted)
Raw shark (4-6)
Blood rune (4-11)
Clue scroll (level 3)
Mithril bar (2)
Gems
Death runes (10-19)
Dragon square left half
Effigies
6.0 [FAQ and History]
6.1 [ Frequently Asked Questions ]
Q: Do they have Tolerance?
A: - Yes
Q: What is Tolerance?
A: - When a monster stops being auto-aggressive towards you after 9-12 mins
Q: How long are your trips usually?
A: - Depends on how many bunyips I bring
Q: How many crimson charms per trip do you leave with?
A: - usually in the area of 350, but I've done over a thousand in one trip before :D
Q: Can you range/mage them?
A: - Yes, but I've yet to see a method that can keep up with melee's speed and drop rate
Q: Why not use a godsword to kill them?
A: - They're slow, and don't hit as often as a crush weapon, they're mainly slash based, and if you hit a zero with a godsword, you've lost your advantage of power, whereas if you hit a zero with a sara sword, it's not that big of a deal. The same applies to when a waterfiend is low on hitpoints
6.2 [ History ]
Well, when Summoning came out, there wasn't really a lot known about what was best to kill for charms, and Waterfends, although existing prior to summoning, had been absolutely worthless prior to their charm ratio being so high. People who tried to fight them before had found it slow and difficult when compared to different monsters [mostly due to the whole crush thing], and were severely disappointed with the rewards for how much effort went in, but one day [post summoning release] I was chatting with Yogosun, and he convinced me to come down in guthans and a load of shark and join him. I realized there was a better, quicker, easier way to stay down there much longer, and it kind of just evolved into this [actually ended up writing my guide the same day as my first trip down there]. From time to time I'd have to update the guide with new things that had come out, and then I got bored and quit for a year and a half. I would check in occasionally, and people would tell me to add a bunch of new stuff [ardy capes, enhanced excalliber, and so forth], but I had no idea what any of that stuff was. Eventually, I got back to playing and became familiar with the updates, made a massive guide update [8/18/10] to include all the stuff while I was out, and then just for a laugh, I added a range section, which people had been pestering me about since the first spot was found oh so long ago. Been 'scapeing ever since, and kinda got most of my goals done, so I decided to do those void quests yesterday, got me some commendation points and an elite void torso. I've had the range helm and set since the set effects came out, but was never going to buy the melee helm, as I was already max melee, but now I'm max everything, and was half way there due to quest, so I figured why not and tried out conquest. It was a drag, but I got my helm, and so I popped it on and took it for a spin - very unimpressed, but whatever, I decided to include it anyways, but then, I decided I didn't really like the way the guide looked, so I re-wrote it from scratch [12/31/10], only using some of my original pictures, and making it less laggy to load [hopefully] :)
It's all kind of surprising nobody else has tried to make a Waterfiends guide, and plenty of people have approached me in game, recognizing my name, so thanks to all of you who read, and a special thanks to all of you who remembered, even after a few years and a few breaks :)
Quote
Guide Copyright Notice:
All Guides are Copyright © Zybez RuneScape Community Guides forum and the original author, 2001-2010+; All Rights Reserved.
All Guides submitted to Zybez RuneScape Community become property of the Zybez Guides forum. Use on any other website without the author's permission is PROHIBITED!
Edited by overvoltage, 20 January 2012 - 09:05 PM.
fixed pictures
Also for people who don't want to pay for saradomin swords they could try veracs flail, they are what I used on them and they did fairly well.
