Fe Azein (Ironman) Progression
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Huge progress
by Azein Mon May 22, 2023 3:52 pm
5/22/2023 - Massive progress PART (1/2)
I unintentionally stacked my account with a ludicrous amount of progress compared to my last post. I'll try and break it down as best I can. This will be split up into multiple posts
Recap:
Where we last left off was with the completion of the prerequisite quests to Song of The Elves, with the final quest being the accounts second major milestone, following Barrows gloves. We had just finished the last "huge" prereq being Herblore, with the remaining ones being mining, smithing, construction, and thieving. If you recall in my earlier posts, I had banked 70 construction through oak logs, and both mining and thieving are fairly straight forward skills to train. The other major grind I had was 70 prayer. More on this later. The other slew of goals I had were to attempt early Tombs of Amascut runs, the hard Morytania diary.
The Rune Crossbow & 70 Range
To begin, once I hit the strict requirement I had of 70 herblore, I chose to relax the farming grind as it was essentially all I was doing day in and day out. I set my sights on some account gear upgrades for future content, namely questing and PVM. A rune crossbow, as many know, is a staple item in a gear setup for almost every piece of content in the game, especially things such as raids and the Fire Cape grind. However, with a range level of 62, that content would be exceedingly difficult. And so, my intention early on was to passively level range through slayer and other content and craft a rune crossbow. Being a hardcore, I was unable to rely on wilderness content for the limbs.
Now, being at 55 fletching, I would have to grind to level 64 so I can use a +5 boost from an orange stew to 69 to both craft the handle from yew, and attach runite limbs to it to make the crossbow, and then a crossbow string. First, I had to figure out how to get the limbs. Runite limbs are often obtained by ironmen through wilderness content, and the second best safe alternative was for me to do steel dragons. Having 70 herblore allowed me to use antifire potions, making this task feasible, and coincidentally the first task I got after deciding to do this was a Steel Dragons task. I managed to obtain the limbs on the second to last task!
With runite limbs, I would now need to grind to level 64 fletching. I did so using broad arrows at a slayer master, which proved to be quite expensive. With a +5 boost from the many orange spices I had banked after Monkey Madness, I managed to get it fairly quickly and make the rune crossbow. Now, I am going to hit you with some stupid Runescape luck my account has had, and this is a little bit of a spoiler.
Not only did I upgrade my account with a rune crossbow, but I also obtained: A Robin Hood hat, Saradomin chaps, Armadyl dhide top, Zamorak Dhide boots, and Saradomin dhide helm. Yes, that is a full slew of god dhide AND a robin hood hat within 35 hard clues (at 44 currently).
Massive Skilling Progress
So I figured you know, since I had a magic shortbow and LMS is a pretty convienent way of getting the imbue and rune arrows, I'd send it there for a few runs. And then a few more things happened...
Quite a lot, right? let's run through those one by one.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________Cooking: Cooking was gradually trained through Karambwan fishing that I started doing for an easy food source.
Mining: Mining I chose to do through that mixture of MLM and sand mining - ultimately I decided to finish it at MLM for the golden nuggets.
Ranged: Ranged I ultimately did at Blue Dragons for their bones, with my newfound msb(i). It was quick to come, as I was already 62 range, and was much faster with this setup than wasting Ibans blast on them. I had done some slayer for it as well!
Slayer: Slayer was something I really wanted to level up so I could push the medium combat diaries to make my barrow runs a lot less resource intensive. I ultimately achieved it doing a kalphite task. I would have to get 72 to do the medium diary with a +5 boost.
Thieving: I was getting a bit burnt on combat tasks, so I decided to train another SOTE skill as much as I could. I did blackjacking from 59-65, and on the advice of several other irons, Pyramid Plunder from 65-70. It took 4-5 hours, and I think I'll save PP for later as I will need the sceptre.
Smithing: Smithing is one of those skills that is a pain to train and resource intensive. Ultimately what I did was exhaust around 1k or so steel and iron and a few hundred mithril bars to grind to 65 smithing for a Kourend hard diary task, and it was rather quick! With this, I completed the Kourend Hard Diary and completely exhausted my supply of bars with 100xp in the 70 grind remaining. So, as to be expected, I made 2 golden bowls (lol) and got the level.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Prayer & Loss & Gain
Ah, prayer. My least favorite skill. So over the entire duration of the account I had essentially been banking ensouled heads and any draconic or big bones I was coming across. I ultimately needed 2000 bones in order to use the Ectofuntus to not risk my hc status, or 1100 or so at the wilderness altar. I decided, you see, that my status could be damned and tried to send it with my main in the wilderness, and a pker absolutely sauced me in two hits. Yup. That ended my hardcore status. Thankfully I don't care! So with the wonderful event run by Alchs and Aff, and a LOT of deaths, lost bones, and world hops, I managed to finish of 70 prayer over 5-6 hours of trying.
By finishing 70 prayer, I was able to do the Morytania hard diary, unlocking rapid teleportation to Shades of Mort'ton as well as double runes, which is how this account will be affording its onyx gems for furies and other items, as well as the required chaos runes and death runes for most spells being cast later in the account.
To celebrate this, and to train my magic up for the barrows portal and bursting and whatnot, I did a LOT of barrows runs. If I do recall, I was at around 15 or so KC, and up to this posts progress (which is across various dates between March and April, I reached up to 90-100 kc. My log, currently (5/22/2023), as I do barrows quite frequently, is this, though it is fun to note I have been VERY dry since kc 100 so most items have been obtained around a kc of 80 or so:
The last thing I think I will note on before ending this post and moving into the next (massive update) is that I have been cycling my kingdom every week or so, having done Throne of Miscellenia and Royal Trouble, and obtained 75 magic for magic logs for birdhouse runs, and obtained a slayer helm!
This is part 1 of 2 posts. Please see the next post for a second part.
Azein
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Re: Fe Azein (Ironman) Progression
by Azein Mon May 22, 2023 6:15 pm
This is part 2 of a 2 part update. Please see the post above it for the full update.
5/22/2023 - Mission accomplished PART (2/2)
Intro:
So - guess what? We're very, very close to finishing the goals we set out after we got Barrows gloves. That is Song of the Elves; a massive account milestone that required coming up on a year of part-time effort. Now, I can't just get the required stats and send the quest right away, the account does require some items, and some building before it can actually tackle some quests. Before we dive into some of the primary goals, let's cover some passive things I accomplished in the push for this.
Skilling and content:
As I played on the account I mixed up the content a lot, and I actually did a pretty huge quest, particularly A Kingdom Divided. Interestingly, I had leveled up my range and mage quite significantly from where I left off on my last post. Through slayer and PvM, I managed to get into the high 70s with magic, and achieve 75 range. With that in mind, I decided I'd also do two other main quests to level up runecrafting for diaries and get a bulk drop of crafting experiences to save on resources: Beneath Cursed Sands and The Fremmenik Exiles. If you recall, BCS was a goal of mine not only to unlock TOA but also the Water circlet for long-term stays at sand-mining for the crafting grind I was planning on doing. The Fremmenik Exiles was to give me 50k crafting and a lot of runecrafting experience, and unlocks the Basilisk jaw as a BIS pvm item, which I will reserve for a future grind.
Being rather insane, I figured why not try some ToA! So I launched some entry level 0 invocation raids and struggled immensly. Thankfully, a few members of the CC, namely Ripa, Skeezy, Film Geek, a new member named Thano and some others carried me for a few, though it usually ended with a LOT of deaths but helped me get the combat achievement points to actually finish not only the medium combat diary but a expert raid!
You may notice fossilized dung is what I received, and for every raid save for one that is all I essentially have received. The sticking point for me currently is that though I have learned a majority of the mechanics, my dps is not high enough to compensate for any errors I am making as I learn. And so, I decided the account needed a few upgrades.
Skilling - Upgrades:
- Skilling Upgrades:
- So up until this point, my main setup has been a Verac's skirt, fighter torso, dragon scimitar and defender, nezzy helm, dueling ring, and a power amulet and an ardougne cloak. For TOA and most pvm, I have just been relying on clue sharks and karambwans, which isn't efficient, especially for when players do raids or the on a diet invocation. So I figured - Saradomin brews would be not only excellent for ToA but also for ANY higher level content I do, especially for the SOTE boss fight. Now, I have still been doing regular herb runs, banking as many herbs as possible through slayer, and dumping diary rewards into the skill (namely the Varrock, Karamja, Kandarin, and Fremmenik which I have since completed), and so I had gained a few levels after my 70 herblore grind. Kingdom and my current stockpile of post-70 herbs made for several hundred thousand more herblore experience past 70, which took me to 76 herblore. However, a +5 boost for potion making is a rather brutal thing to ask for, and so I pushed it to 77 (and then later to 78) so I could do a consistent +4 boost with the herblore pies, and unlocked Saradomin brews. It also took me all the way to 90 farming!
The next piece of my outfit that could seriously use an upgrade is my power amulet. Most ironmen, from my exposure, rely on a hunter grind to supply them with dragonstone amulets or glories, though seeing as I was already rather set on doing a concerted crafting grind, I figure I'd knock it out. After accumulating about 1.5m, I acquired al of my buckets of sands, and using the lunar spellbook and planting myself at Lunar Isle for quick access to more astral runes, I made around 12k or so bullseye lantern lens, used 800 or so blue dragon hides, and made a few hundred pieces of jewelry for teleportation, which took me to 75 crafting. I would then need a +5 boost, and with a wily cat, quickly obtained it and made the accounts first set of glories, combat bracelets, and skilling necklaces. The level was actually finished off via Fremmy exiles.
So, we've upgraded the power amulet and now have access to a really good pvm healing item. What's left is the dueling ring and the ardougne cape: now, the only ring worth getting is a berserker ring, but I'm going to save that for a later grind. So, the cape - what better upgrade than another massive piece of content to get out of the way: the Fire cape
Content - Upgrades: The Fire Cape
- Fire Cape:
- Oh yes, Jad. I've only ever done the fight caves once successfully back in 2017 on my main, with a blowpipe, and 80 something range as I am terrified of new content. However, with 75+ range, a RCB, an msb(i), ranging potions, and BIS range gear besides masori (blessed d'hide) I was fairly confident it'd be a walk in the park.The Fight Caves:I began my first attempt with an inventory mixed with purple sweets, 5 karambwans, prayer potions (15 ppots), 2 range potions, a msb(i) and 500 or so rune arrows, and an RCB with broad bolts and 100 diamond (e) for jad (obtained from soul wars). The fight caves didn't prove to be overly difficult; I relied on a plugin that predicted spawn waves, and only really used it when a ranger or a meleer would spawn on my side of the italy rock. This would force me to adjust positions and tank damage, and I ran pretty low on food. There were several waves where once I had a meleer or blob trapped, I would passively heal 10+ hp. I also ran out of rune arrows close to wave 60, and relied on broad bolts and my rcb to (slowly) carry me through the waves.I recalled a trick when I began the run early on to predict the Jad spawn, and so when I reached Jad I'd have a few seconds to collect myself with him being trapped, and this allowed me to better control my prayer and the healer position. Everything went absolutely swimmingly, and I managed to successfully tag, lure, and trap the healers behind italy rock and kill them. However, when I ran around the side of the Italy rock to re-engage Jad, I successfully prayed against his first hit, but must've lagged or had a delay or something, because I saw him slam and I pressed my prayer, but the overhead did not change, so I re-clicked it and it turned off my overhead entirely, and Jad 1 hit me at 2am. I wasn't overly defeated, just rather bummed that I was so close. It turns out I had swapped to an Australian world for LMS so I could get some rune arrows, and that's probably what caused the latency.Round 2
For my second attempt, I made some changes. First and foremost, I was running low on purple sweets, and so I substituted two karambwans for baskets of strawberries, which heal in total 30hp for one full basket with using 1 inventory space vs. karambwans 18. I also substituted my prayer potions for super restores, and brought even more this time, and left my broad bolts in my bank. I grinded 900 total rune arrows at LMS, which would be plenty. I also leveled up my range once or twice, which might have helped. In any case, the second time was a bit rougher during the caves than the first, and I had to take a 24 hour break mid fight caves right before jad. I had 4 doses of restore left for Jad, 1 dose of ranging potion, and I think I was completely out of food. Which was terrifying, as I had to passively heal plenty of times (mostly due to me having horrible dps on rangers). Anyways, Jad went very smoothly - I thought I missed a prayer once but I didn't get hit, and I lured, killed, and re-engaged Jad, finishing him off, and obtaining my firecape.
SOTE Preparations
So - what's left for Song of the Elves?
Construction, alone, remains. At the time of my last posting, I was 50 construction. After some debating, the most clear path forward was to use teak planks at mahogany homes. I decided to invest a good chunk of my cash stack and create around 1.5k teak planks, and got right to work. It wasn't too difficult, just a bit mind numbing, but over time the levels fly by. The plank sack really helped not having to go and bank every five seconds, I just wish there was a bar sack too because it is annoying to end up at a house and be missing 1 steel bar lol.
The Quest:
Song of the Elves is a remarkably straight-forward quest, with an extremely annoying light puzzle in the middle of it, followed by a few decent challenges and a LONG boss fight at the end for an account without a trident. I decided to quickly level up to 80 magic so I would have access to a blood spell that was the strongest for a single enemy. This would be a big increase over Ibans and would have to do for Seren. My melee stats, at this time, are now close to base 80s, and I used melee dominantly for everything else in the quest. With an ample supply of stamina potions, I was able to complete the temple puzzle without much trouble, and the other two fights were quite easy. My main had extreme trouble with the elves attacking the barricade, and my ironman had it easy as I just tagged them with darts and tanked them.
In retrospect, the Seren fight makes me extremely glad I chose to grind out Saradomin brews early. Not having them would have been a NIGHTMARE. While a simple fight, it was quite brutal. Seren cycles through four special attacks every several normal attacks, and the fight constantly has chip damage to eat away at your healthbar. The specials, save for one, are fairly easy to deal with, but incredibly frustrating. One in particular spawns an increasing amount of healing pillars that can rapidly undo any of the damage you do to Seren, and this was a huge problem for me as my blood spell wasn't super accurate. So while I did 100-150 damage against Seren, she'd heal 50-60 points back. The fourth special attack is the worst, as it pulls you in and smacks you down to nearly 0 HP. This forces me to suck down a bunch of brews and usually 2-3 doses of a restore, so I was essentially throttled by the amount of restores I had ultimately, as if I used too many brews and didn't have enough restores, I wouldn't be able to cast my offensive spell. So essentially, I had to prioritize dps every chance I could get, and could only take her 1000+ health bar down 100-200 every cycle, and I had exactly 7 restores and like 15-16 brews.
Literally, right before her last healing special, when I was on my last dose of a super restore, with 46 HP left, I managed to kill Seren, and with it complete Song of the Elves.
Priffdinas
The true unlock that comes from completing this quest, being the one with the highest requirements in the game, is access to to the Elven city. This gives me the highest (I think) xp/hr agility course, Zalcano, some really nice quality of life shops and access points (runes, sawmill, banks, clothes, anvil, etc.). Naturally, I swapped my house from Hosidius here first thing. The biggest thing for an account, especially an ironman, is evidently the Corrupted Gauntlet, nicknamed by my fellow irons as the "red prison". I intend to go after that grind another time, but I decided it would be kind of fun to try and send, blindly, the Gauntlet for the first time just to send off this chapter of the account. It took me 3 total KC, but I managed to do it!
What comes next?:
Song of the Elves is a massive chunk of content I bit off way early on in the account as an overarching goal. The preparation for carried me down even more long tangents than getting Barrows gloves did, and now I essentially have access to every piece of content in the game. Having the stats I do enables me to tackle the next logical account goal I can think of, the...
...Quest Cape
There were several other things that happened that might be of interest to collection loggers, click below:
- Clues and Collection log:
- During my clue grinds, I received an elite clue that required a dragon med helm. This is one of the other main motivations for doing ToA, but I realized doing the drop rate of 20 or so ToAs would take -hours- to do. The other reliable method is doing Barrows and getting 100% favor, or killing brutal dragons. As I was doing barrows and will be for a long time, I opted for the latter. I ended up getting a Guthan's chainskirt one chest, my last one for the night, and I said why not and did a b2b and got it after around 40 chests of trying. The clue sucked! However, I did get a few REALLY nice items. These items notoriously throttle Irons from doing master clues. I still think it's rather insane to have gotten these items and a full set of blessed dragonhide in under 50 hard completions.
Azein- Posts : 136
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Response to Azein
by Natalia Mon May 22, 2023 8:14 pm
Hello,
Holy cow Azein what an amazing read. You've worked so hard on this account and done a very wonderful job of displaying it here both in narrative and picture form. Rightly proud of you for completing Songs of the Elves; that's no small feat for anyone, especially an IM, although I don't see when the helm changed color.. you're gonna love doing Zalcano and the 60k xp/hr at Prifddinas Agility Course is no joke.
Really looking forward to where you go from here. Greatest luck to you for completing the Quest Cape, I know you can do it!
Respectfully,
NoMoreBeer4U
Holy cow Azein what an amazing read. You've worked so hard on this account and done a very wonderful job of displaying it here both in narrative and picture form. Rightly proud of you for completing Songs of the Elves; that's no small feat for anyone, especially an IM, although I don't see when the helm changed color.. you're gonna love doing Zalcano and the 60k xp/hr at Prifddinas Agility Course is no joke.
Really looking forward to where you go from here. Greatest luck to you for completing the Quest Cape, I know you can do it!
Respectfully,
NoMoreBeer4U
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Re: Fe Azein (Ironman) Progression
by Azein Sat May 27, 2023 11:00 am
Thank you Beer! I lost the helm right before I started a significant prayer grind. Haven't really thought about it since!
5/27/2023
Update:
Just a small progress update to break up the post type! Since completing Song of the Elves, I have been focusing on doing slayer grinds, reaching 77 slayer and a 300 task streak. Slayer points I am finding are something a bit scarce; I tend to skip a lot of the less-optimal tasks such as Suqahs, kalphites, etc. that I would otherwise do on a main. I'm not quite sure what I'll spend them on rewards-wise moving forward outside of optimizing my block list and of course unlocking boss tasks moving forward.
As I am inching my way closer to a whip, how I'll accomplish that is called into question. After some research, getting wild pies not only is hard without the rather high 85 cooking level (boostable from 80). I have read it can take anywhere from 300 to 500 pies to actually get the whip if you are not spooned - that being said, I think I'll just continue gradually grinding slayer as much as I can in my AFK time, and use my dragon scimitar to train strength exclusively during this task, as it is the best weapon for strength until future weapons. One thing I want to avoid with this account is engaging with content and cheesing it; I started bossing at nearly max melee on my main and while it's enjoyable I do like the idea of struggling a bit.
Bossing:
Going back to when I was getting gear upgrades, I had mentioned a berserker ring was next up on the list after a glory and a firecape. However, the Dagganoth Kings are not something I had ever done on my main or previous ironman, so it was entirely new and intimidating content. I was sitting on a daggonoth task, and with the help of Rakfaan I was able to start doing Rex! Now, to expound upon the stupid luck of this account (misplaced this time), this happened:
Yeah, so to summarize those photos, in my second ever trip to Dag Kings, by KC 76 (so all within 30-40 kills of eachother), I got FOUR warrior rings. Four. They, like the b-ring, are 1/128. Also, you might notice two rock-shell items, one I received during that same inventory and one in the next trip. Those are also 1/128. So I ultimately got 6 1/128 items in 100 kills. What are the odds lol!
Questing & Clues:
One thing I have significantly invested in since the last post is questing, namely, doing all of the menial quests to the master quests I had remaining. If I recall, I was around 20 quests to the quest cape. Since then, I have done: A Porcine of Interest, A Tail of Two Cats, Devious Minds, Grim Tales, Made Friends with My Arm, My Arm's Big Adventure, Rag and Bone Man II, Scorpion Catcher, The Corsair Curse, The Garden of Death, and Troll Romance. Here are some of the banners:
The last thing is a little bit of luck, not necessarily an important item but interesting nonetheless. For my 48th hard clue casket, I received this, completing a full set of mis-matched God d'Hide.
Azein- Posts : 136
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Re: Fe Azein (Ironman) Progression
by Zemirek Tue Jun 27, 2023 11:44 am
Hahah that Rex (un)luck seems to be the same as mine! 
Nice progress and also thread! I like the form, keep it up
Nice progress and also thread! I like the form, keep it up
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Join date : 2019-10-14
A Preview
by Azein Mon Oct 16, 2023 1:40 am
Update Preview:
So! I have been inactive on this post for the last five months; largely because of this:
This, including deaths, is around 180 hours of CG. I have a rather extensive backlog of updates on all of the previous grinds, some came to their conclusions, and some continue on. I have decided to camp CG until I get my ENH and level up my farming as I go, and so I will conclude this mini-update with a list of the stupid luck (or un luck I've had)
105- 6 armor seeds, 0 weapon seeds.
150- 6 armor seeds, 6 weapon seeds.
210- 9 armor seeds, 6 weapon seeds.
275- 13 armor seeds, 12 weapon seeds.
350- 15 armor seeds, 13 weapon seeds.
450- 19 armor seeds, 15 weapon seeds.
I will likely break future updates into CG and non-CG updates. Most of the updates occurred prior to the CG grind beginning (mid August), and the interim months between the last post have been spent on other skills, and leveling my combat skills up quite a bit. There have been some solid drops, and with the Bowfa, I can catapult the account into raiding and bossing finally. Until then!
Azein- Posts : 136
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Re: Fe Azein (Ironman) Progression
by rootb Sun Oct 22, 2023 2:43 pm
Wow, that's quite the update. Did you make your crystal armor yet? Best of luck, hope an enhanced comes your way soon! At least you'll have plenty of shards to corrupt it straight away!
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Re: Fe Azein (Ironman) Progression
by Azein Tue Dec 12, 2023 11:21 pm
Thanks Root - yes, on acquiring 6 seeds and the requisite shards I made the armor pieces right away. I have some more updates on that below!
Major Progress Update:
Clanmates, we have, as of this post, a lot of progress to cover since my last large one. First, I must note that this post is going to be rather incomplete, as I had upgraded my computer early November and as a consequence, my Runelite drafts for my progress since that post was wiped, as was a lot of pictures. Thankfully, I saved some of it!
This post is liable to be massive. I'll split it up into three individual sections, the details within being collapsible for readability. I would encourage it if you enjoy seeing my thought process as I moved from content to content. Content regarding the Corrupted Gauntlet and major account progress will be left open to read (more recent).
Creating an Amulet of Fury & Completing a Barrows set:
- The Fury:
- Where I last left off regarding gear upgrades was a long-standing crafting grind dedicated towards the Amulet of Glory. This was accomplished through purely grinding seaweed – a brutal process that was not enjoyable whatsoever. Naturally, therefore, I decided shortly thereafter to make it my goal to achieve 85 crafting so as to craft an Amulet of Fury, as well as unlock several Zenyte items.
This process was less grueling than expected; consistent seaweed runs when tailored with the usual account progress (and dedicated periods of AFK time towards glass making via lunar magic) did lead to the necessary materials to level up. It took quite some time to reach 85 crafting, and I sadly do not have the screenshot of the level. Rest assured, once I had 85 crafting, I began the process of doing Barrows so as to acquire chaos runes for the purchasing of an Onyx.
It was during this time period that I ended up Completing the Dharok’s armor set. After this, I managed to cut the onyx, obtained a stew boost in 3 tries, and craft the Amulet of Fury.
The (Temporary) Quest Cape:
- Questing:
- When I last left questing, I believe I had completed the last battery of non-grandmaster quests that remained, leaving solely: Dragon Slayer 2 and A Night At The Theatre. At some point between the last large post and the fury grind, I had completed Sins of the Father, as I had access to the Vyrewatch sentinels per my notes.
Sins of the Father & A Night At The Theatre
From memory, Sins of the Father did not offer my account any significant difficulty. I relied on Brews and Super restores for the fight, and the mechanics and DPS were not difficult for the account. This unlocked Drakan’s medallion, and easy access to Mort Myre fungi and a bank, as well as the Theatre of Blood.
Several clanmates, led by Nix, championed the easy version of Theatre of Blood, which went without much complication. The content was not overly complicated, but I was told it is incredibly brutal at its normal difficulty level.
The Final Quest: Dragon Slayer 2
This left one last quest: Dragon Slayer 2. DS2 is host to a slew of bosses that are rather difficult, as well as what was (to me) the most difficult boss encounters in the game. That is, my main, who had gear that far outclassed my lowly ironman, died like 20 times to the Dragon gauntlet you have to fight through before reaching Galvek. Surprisingly, I only died once during this fight on my ironman, to an unlucky hit by a leadup Dragon when I had low supplies. Galvek I managed to kill on my first try, though he did hit me for 79 with a fireball! I used on advice of clanmates Ruby ( e) bolts for his first three phases, and diamond ( e) on his last phase. At 78 range, this was a fairly easy fight!
The Vanishing Cape:Now, at the time this was done (I’d have to estimate ~July of 2023), I had done every quest in the game. I did this very close to the release of Desert Treasure 2 intentionally, for fear of its touted difficulty, and did the task requiring it for the Lumby elites. Now, as sad as it is, a day or two after I acquired it, I lost the quest cape. I have yet, as of this posts authoring, have done DT2.
The Berserker Ring:
- Berserker Ring & Dragon Axe:
- As seen in my previous posts, I was on the quest for the berserker ring as a fundamental upgrade for the account across its entire lifetime. My luck was “luckily unlucky” in the sense that I received a grand total of I believe 11 1/128 items, with many duplicates, across the ~330 or so Rex KC that I did during this grind. On KC 335, I did finally obtain the Berserker Ring.
I also, during this grind, received two dragon axes at various kill counts.
The Tombs of Amascut:
I decided, with a host of new items (Blessed D-hide, RCB, higher range and magic levels), and with willing teammates, to try out TOA. There was however an ulterior motive as well; I wished to obtain a Dragon med helm for an elite clue requirement, and I figured it’d be a little more tolerable than doing Barrows (which I had been doing incessantly since I had access to it). I also had the pipe dream of a Fang, so I could do a whip skip, but this proved unfeasible. This was all done after the fury grind, as I had 85 crafting.
I am fairly sure it was KC 4, but I bore witness to my first purple; sadly not mine, and the photograph didn't catch the item appearing, but it was a Masori Mask.
Also, I received an incredibly useful item, the Thread of Elidnis, which I am pretty sure I received on KC 11. Ironically, I also received (my second) D med helm.
The Zenyte Conundrum:
Now, having upgraded my offensive stats across the board over the months leading up to this, with the fury, barrows gloves, and berserker ring, I figured continuing the overarching goal of a slayer grind towards the whip (seeing as the fang was a pipe dream with my gear) would be wise.
Very shortly after this, I received a demonic gorillas task that was an utter misery to attempt, though, around 20 kc in, I received this…
Very shortly after this, I received a demonic gorillas task that was an utter misery to attempt, though, around 20 kc in, I received this…
If you had asked me if there was a piece of content prior to doing 20 kc of Demonic Gorillas that would have driven me to wanting to return to the crafting grind, you'd find me blanking. Now, though, it was clear. Because, after I received this Zenyte shard, I skipped my task and dilly dallied on other ones all the way up to 79 Slayer until I once again received an even larger task of 200. So I figured, why not go on a skilling journey to craft the Ring of Suffering - the most accessible Zenyte jewelry, barring the Anguish, which would require further hours of glass make. However, at this time I believe I only had 83 Magic, and was scratching my head for a way to a.) afford the runes required to level it, and b.) devise a method to train it besides egregiously boring methods. And so, to summarize, I was in a pickle. I will elaborate.
The Five Month Detour:
To enchant a Zenyte Ring, you require 92 magic, which is boostable from 87 with a +5, but actually from even lower levels with a +6-7 using Ancient Brews or Forgotten Brews. Around this time, I had recently reached 80 or so herblore - forgotten brews, requiring 91, were out of the question. Ancient brews however are a decently common drop from Zarosian spiritual mages, but those require 83 slayer to kill (I was ~77-79 at this time period). So no matter which way I go, it would either be 4 expensive magic levels, 5 very slow herblore levels, or 4 extremely slow slayer levels. Concurrently, I was training construction, which, alongside other account requirements (think Kingdom, other buyables, etc.) had drained by bank account dry from the ~700k steady cash stack I was able to hold to, if I recall the exact number at this time, around 63k.
What I did moving forward was use the healthy stack of chaos runes I had been building, grinded a lot of barrows out, and purchased the secondary onyx, and then crafted the Zenyte ring using the boost.
So, the first part is done. Now, I had been doing largely the same things on the account: that is, herblore, farming, slayer, and questing for months on end. I wouldn't say I was "burnt out" but I certainly lacked the desire to double down on any of these efforts, and I really wanted to craft that Zenyte. So I asked myself - what, given my accounts current progression, piece of content offers a.) lucrative drops b.) easy magic experience c.) furthers my accounts progression, and d.) rhymes with hell?
What I did moving forward was use the healthy stack of chaos runes I had been building, grinded a lot of barrows out, and purchased the secondary onyx, and then crafted the Zenyte ring using the boost.
So, the first part is done. Now, I had been doing largely the same things on the account: that is, herblore, farming, slayer, and questing for months on end. I wouldn't say I was "burnt out" but I certainly lacked the desire to double down on any of these efforts, and I really wanted to craft that Zenyte. So I asked myself - what, given my accounts current progression, piece of content offers a.) lucrative drops b.) easy magic experience c.) furthers my accounts progression, and d.) rhymes with hell?
THE CORRUPTED GAUNTLET
Now, as many of us know, this content is a crucible for an ironman. I entered into it without expectations of it being easy, and I certainly found it difficult and frustrating, but for different reasons. First, the greatest inhibitor to completion was by far preparation; not having a sufficient amount of fish, or T2 armor/T3 weapons can sink a run even if you're consistently getting Hunleff down to low HPs, but I am getting ahead of myself.
As was seen in a previous post, I had already achieved 1 KC regular gauntlet - I did in fact try CG, but found it more frustrating than enjoyable when I had other content at hand to do. Now however, I really had nothing holding me back from throwing myself into the red prison. Furthermore, I could train farming, and use Kingdom concurrently without it being a "distraction" - this would help with higher herb levels. What I found was that I would be experiencing the same type of unlucky luck as I had with Rex, but magnified by 10.
The First KC:
I would say I greatly struggled with Hunleff, but in truth it wasn't the worst thing in the world. Yes, the floor and tornadoes were overwhelming, and really did a number on me when I first got the red fox to Phase 3 (P3). However, I pushed him down to 60/1000 healthpoints by my 13th or so attempt, and only died to tornadoes. What I found, was that the chip damage from his attacks greatly sapped my food availability, combined with mistimed hits during tornado phases (and with the floors) which led to my close demise. It was not until 65 KC that I managed to kill him for the first time.
Each day that followed I'd practice consistently, getting more and more KC, until by around KC 5 I was rewarded for my efforts:
And from there, I just kept on trucking along. Here's where it got kind of nuts:
Raiding The Armory:
105- 6 armor seeds, 0 weapon seeds.
150- 6 armor seeds, 6 weapon seeds.
210- 9 armor seeds, 6 weapon seeds.
275- 13 armor seeds, 12 weapon seeds.
350- 15 armor seeds, 13 weapon seeds.
450- 19 armor seeds, 15 weapon seeds.
Yes, by 105 KC, I had completed my Crystal Armor requirements; actually, I had 5/6 of the seeds by 50 kc. What was rather ludicrous was that by 450 KC, almost a 100 hours into the grind, I had a rate of 1/13 kc for a unique 1/50 drop. That's ludicrous luck in my eyes. Sadly, this luck would not persist, as it took another near 300 KC for me to further these numbers by much. In fact, 300 KC was also the perfect number to mention, as by KC 727, I got this very special item on a random, 1 am, dead tired, delirious and bored CG run:
That's right. In this time, which lasted from I would say late July to early December (5 months), putting in around a total grind time of 200ish hours if you include fails, doing a few KC each night after the first 300, I managed to get the ENH. One benefit to going dry at CG is the ludicrous amount of loot you obtain from it. By the way - when I hit 88 magic, I did make that Ring of Suffering! Here's where my log stands:
And here is around 2/3rds of the profits from doing CG (minus Bowfa); some loot was alched and used to fund fletching, construction, and further zenyte processing:
And so ironically, my 60k cash stack turned into a 60m cash stack by the end of it all.
Post-CG activities and the fun along the way:
So, clearly obtaining the Bow of Faerdhinen presents probably the single largest gear upgrade the account can receive in its life time. It dramatically increases dps anywhere that range can be used, and unlocks several bosses that were inaccessible before (such as efficiency at TOA, unlocks chill Zulrah, makes many slayer tasks way easier). But, the bowfa was not the only positive to come from this. After all, I really just intended to use CG as a training ground for magic, which it certainly accomplished. In fact, it came with its own set of bonuses: namely, an egregious amount of gems that unlocked my next Zenyte tier, efficient use of miscellenia and farm runs resulting in 85 herblore, 90+ magic, and 90+ hitpoints, as well as 78-86 range, 82ish-89 strength, several woodcutting levels, several fishing levels, several cooking levels, and concurrently to all of this, the accounts first 99 - Farming!
Demonic Revenge:
So since receiving the Bowfa, which was around eight days ago, I think my best course of action is to resume what I was doing before. Naturally, I went and did some slayer; that's right, the 200 demonic gorillas had come back to bite me, but this time I was more geared. And it actually was a lot more tolerable! One switch, a defender and a weapon and a cape, rather than an entire armor switch, less accurate and slower weapon, made all the difference, and I blew through them all. Funnily enough, my first kill with them using the Bowfa gave me a 1 kc Zenyte shard. Later in the task, I managed to get 80 slayer & a light ballista frame too - safe to say, I am pretty sure that's the RNG gods saying "alright you're on your own now".
Zenyte #2, and Present:
So, having gotten a second Zenyte, I was hilariously low on chaos runes for this as I haven't really been back to Barrows. So using my cash stack I just bought all the runes, and in a very quick fashion used a mushroom pie to craft the amulet, and a magic potion to boost and create the Necklace of Anguish. Now all I really need is Ranger boots to complete the range gear for a long time.
So that's actually all caught up! Currently, I've been training construction, slowly grinding towards 82 to max out my house. At the same time, I've been doing pyramid plunder, which is actually the content I was doing right up and leading into CG alongside construction training - so really more of the same. I actually achieved this level back then, but it's where I'm at currently:
Based on a plugin, I'm apparently in an extremely rare minority of players who have just not gotten a sceptre - all in all, I'd say I'm around 15-20 hours into doing it. I might pull a CG, and not do my nechrayel task until I can get this for an ancient altar in my POH. I hopefully will not take five months to do this.
Future plans:
So really if you look at it from a birds-eye perspective, my account goals have largely been to a.) get the quest cape b.) do SOTE and get the Bowfa and c.) get barrows gloves. I've achieved all of these goals, and that leaves the account in a little bit of a directionless space. I had lost a lot of the plans with the PC upgrade, but so far, here is what I have thought up. To summarize, new bosses, new item upgrades, slayer grinds to get said items, bosses for new BIS gear, and lots of skilling for achievement diaries:
- Herblore Secondaries:
- Based upon existing stocks:-770 potato cacti
1491 Wines of Zamorak
383 Red Spiders egg
609 White berries
703 Fungi
- Item Upgrades:
Archer Ring
Pharaohs Sceptre
Trident of the Seas
Warped sceptre (intermediate upgrade for Ibans)
Blowpipe
Abyssal Whip (requiring 85 Slayer or 81+ w/boost)
Osmutens fang (and Raids 3 gear in general)
- New Bosses:
Zulrah (using Bowfa)
GWD (particularly Bandos, anything soloable using Bowfa)
Chambers of Xeric (as a learner - not sure what to do here except prayer scrolls)
- Achievement Diaries:
Desert Hard
-Kill KQ once
Falador Hard
-Get full Prospector
Fremmenik Hard
-77 Runecrafting
-Boostable Slayer 83
-Boostable Agility 80
Kandarin Elite
-Boostable Smithing 90
-Boostable Fishing 76
-Boostable Cooking 80
-Boostable Firemaking 85
-Level 5 BA roles
Lumbridge Elite
-Boostable Smithing 83
-Boostable RC 76
-Doable @ 57 w/GOTR
-Will have to get level or raiments
Morytania Elite
-Boostable Fishing 91
-Boostable Firemaking 80
Varrock Elite
-Boostable Herblore 90
-Boostable Smithing 89
-Boostable Cooking 95
-Boostable RC 78
Western Hard
-300 Chompy kills
-Kill Zulrah
Western Elite
-1k Chompy kills
-Complete Void set
-Boostable Slayer 93
-Boostable Fletching 85
-Boostable Agility 85
-Wilderness Elite
-Boostable Mining 85
-Boostable Smithing 90
-Boostable Fishing 85
-Boostable Cooking 90
-Boostable Mage 96
Azein- Posts : 136
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Join date : 2016-08-19
Re: Fe Azein (Ironman) Progression
by Azein Fri May 03, 2024 8:39 pm
5/3/2024
The last five and a half months have not been host to much extreme progress on the account. I have no re-entered TOA for fang, but instead (due to some burnout) shifted into more AFK activities and things that would help the long term progression of the account. Given that now I have what ultimately will be the best bossing gear for a while, I have to go and engage in that. Anyways, here's what the account has done since the last update!
The Warped Scepter
During my CG grind, the quest The Path of Glouphrie was released, and with it an interesting intermediate magic weapon between the annoying Staff of Iban and the rather hard to get Trident of the Seas (with 87 slayer). I figured, given that slayer is a monotonously slow skill and has many annoying tasks that I, as a Iron, feel obligated to do (such as Shamans, Demonics, Basilisk Knights, etc.) then it might be a decent idea to go after it. Lucky for me, I got the drop around 6 KC!
Ultimately however I did not find much use for it. I could take it to Barrows, but I have little use for any gear from there and prefer to just use my BOWFA and afk it. I have heard though that it has a role in TOA - given the DT2 staff I have to re-evaluate this, so if anyone knows of any content niches for it let me know!
Trying My Luck
After receiving the warped scepter, I figured it might be a decent idea to re-commit to a fun little grind I've had ongoing since before CG: Pyramid Plunder. This is a notoriously annoying piece of content, because you'll do it for hours and hours on end with no scepter, with the plugin reporting a 99% of having received it by now, only to find out the method you're using is actually statistically the worst way to try and grind it, and it'll eat through your food supplies! This was also a point in the account right after CG where you don't want to do a single thing on the game, but fortune favored me, as on my birthday, on the second run of the night, I got the Pharaoh's sceptre!
I don't think I need to articulate to any fellow irons on here how useful this item is; not only did this grind set me up for most thieving levels I'd need for diaries (86, as of 5/2024), but the scepter itself has two uses. One is for a master clue step, which naturally is low on my priorities - I'm not sure if I'd ever turn this account into a collection logger. The second is for the ancient altar in the POH; the only other way of changing your spell book to ancients without having to take the very long run to the pyramid. Now, it can simply be done in a house, and this expedites slayer tasks where ancient magics, or for bossing, are used exponentially. The choice was obvious: I had to hunt down some other items for the Lunar and Arceuss signet, but in short order I had a working altar in my POH! A huge tool.
Reviving Old Plans
Prior to starting the CG grind, I of course was working on advancing my construction levels so as to maximize my POH. I had run out of cash doing this, which incentivized me to go to the red prison, and such a path paid in droves. By the end of it, I had around 60m, and with plenty of planks from Kingdom and a few hours at Mahogany Homes I had 83 construction. Interestingly, I currently have 96-97 banked with my 12-15k mahoganies, and 10k or so teaks, and so I am close to another 99 being banked (the other being crafting). Of course, the urgency of this is almost negligible, as the only real reason to get 99 construction is for the cape utility, which is hard to justify sinking massive amounts of cash, which I do not think I want to do, into it.
Slayer and The Snek
Of course, having 83 construction enabled be to build several useful POH items. Among them are most notably the portal nexus, the advanced lectern for tablet making, high end item storages (incredibly useful, for a ever filled bank such as mine), but also the ornate jewelry box - which truly did remove entirely the necessity for me to have jewelry in my bank. However, the most important upgrade, I feel, comes in the form of the pool. The pool, in the past, was a useful way of restoring my run energy, as well as my special attack energy, during say slayer tasks. Higher end versions of the pool were slightly redundant; one for example only restores prayer (and stats), but this is not very useful when you've had an altar for months. The highest upgrade, however, is one that not only cures you of maladies, but also heals you entirely. It is absolutely a huge boon to the accounts efficiency; I do not have to endure 30 second long adventures to clan wars, or some other mechanism (like wasting food, or dying) to see my health restored. It really makes Kourend tasks a breeze.
Now there was one hiccup in this plan, though. See, to upgrade the pool to its highest level I required Anti-venoms. Anti-venoms were, as of my last post, acquirable through boosting with a herblore pie, which is easy enough, but they required Zulrah scales. Now, Zulrah was an absolute nightmare of a boss for me on my main. It took like fifteen attempts to get 1 kill, and it was just bad. I decided one day to go after it on my Iron with the bowfa only method, and it was pretty horrible. I died a lot, but I was getting it either to near death right at the end, and eventually I was able to get 1-2 kills. I was using very high end food for my account (sharks) and I was running out of food on every kill, which makes it very resource intensive. In any case, I acquired a lot of scales, and also, luckily, a useful account upgrade for later on:
I'm not quite sure what my intentions with Zulrah are going to be: naturally, I want the blowpipe, as it still has niche uses in TOA. However, I have since shelved Zulrah as it's a pain to do and isn't overly necessary right now, at least. In any case, I was able to make my pool! Anyways, I did title this section mentioning slayer as well. That's because the real reason I went after Zulrah was because I received a Shamans task, and I decided to procrastinate! Doing this however yielded me, finally, 80 slayer, and with it a Nechrayel task and the first upgrade for the boots slots in a very long time: Rune boots.
I'm not quite sure what my intentions with Zulrah are going to be: naturally, I want the blowpipe, as it still has niche uses in TOA. However, I have since shelved Zulrah as it's a pain to do and isn't overly necessary right now, at least. In any case, I was able to make my pool! Anyways, I did title this section mentioning slayer as well. That's because the real reason I went after Zulrah was because I received a Shamans task, and I decided to procrastinate! Doing this however yielded me, finally, 80 slayer, and with it a Nechrayel task and the first upgrade for the boots slots in a very long time: Rune boots.
Kalphite Queen Rejected My Proposal and Today
Anyways, between finishing CG in December, doing the construction grind, casual slayer, and learning Zulrah, as well as brief stints of inactivity, I haven't done much else. I did end up gearing for some brutally difficult tries to kill the KQ for the Desert Hard diary, which I did, but I can certainly say I don't want to return there anytime soon. Throughout all of this I have been doing very consistent herb runs, and have acquired quite a bit of experience. It seemed earlier in the account that it took months and months and months to get just to 70 herb, let alone say 76 for Saradomin Brews with a boost. Now however, with some patience and persistence, I reached 90 herb!
With this I can regularly make SCPs. Of course, there are a handful of high level potions I can also make, but I imagine this is the last milestone herblore wise that opens up access to content, or at least with efficiency. The account is in a fair place to try things such as GWD, TOA, and perhaps COX (I hear I can do it, just not familiar at all). Besides this, there is still the slow slayer grind. I am also working on my chompy kills for the Western diary, but it is a slow and mind numbing task. I did try and boost to get the whip with around 56 doses of wild pie (providing 3 levels worth of time each, around 500 kills if I recall) but I was unlucky. The only other thing worthwhile mentioning is that I got a Zombie Champion Scroll when I was trying (no luck) for the Zombie axe. I also got 80 Hunter through birdhouses (solely birdhouses since a very early level). This is fun, as I am growing very close, in fact, to base 80 stats. The significant holdouts there would be Rune crafting, Prayer (I have near 80 banked), and Runecrafting again because I hate that skill.
Little questing has been done, only the new Varrock defender quest besides PoG. Anyways, next up is hopefully slayer until I can get a whip, and maybe some TOA! Updates are likely to detail skill milestones, any fancy planning I do on the way, and the learning process and drops for raids and bossing. I have no period set for posting, hence the six or so months between this one, and the one before that. A consequence of this stage of the account!
- Achievement Diaries:
Desert Hard
-DONE!
Falador Hard
-Get full Prospector
Note: Waiting now on the update reducing it to 1 piece of prospector
Fremmenik Hard
-77 Runecrafting
-Boostable Slayer 83
-Boostable Agility 80
Kandarin Elite
-Boostable Smithing 90
-Boostable Fishing 76
-DONE!
-Boostable Cooking 80
-DONE!
-Boostable Firemaking 85
-Level 5 BA roles
Lumbridge Elite
-Boostable Smithing 83
-Boostable RC 76
-Doable @ 57 w/GOTR
-Will have to get level or raiments
Morytania Elite
-Boostable Fishing 91
-Boostable Firemaking 80
Varrock Elite
-Boostable Herblore 90
-Boostable Smithing 89
-Boostable Cooking 95
-Boostable RC 78
Western Hard
-300 Chompy kills
-Kill Zulrah
-DONE!
Western Elite
-1k Chompy kills
-Complete Void set
-Boostable Slayer 93
-Boostable Fletching 85
-DONE!
-Boostable Agility 85
-Wilderness Elite
-Boostable Mining 85
-Boostable Smithing 90
-Boostable Fishing 85
-Boostable Cooking 90
-Boostable Mage 96
Azein- Posts : 136
Reputation : 10
Join date : 2016-08-19
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