Salarin the Twisted - Access and Combat Recommendations

Access Directions

Salarin is found in only one place: deep in the Agility Dungeon. You need level 67 Agility to get to him, though you can use enhancers like agility potions or summer pies.

To get there the conventional way, teleport to the Watchtower, then go downstairs and east to the entrance. Slash the webs, go down the stairs and cross the ledge, continue past the chaos druid warriors, and go over the monkey bars to an area of chaos druids.

Go east and take the ladder you find and you’ll be in a small chamber. To the north is a portal; enter it and you'll be transported to the final chamber, containing Salarin, four chaos druids and an adventurer named Sigbert, who can tell you a bit about Salarin.

Note that there's a shortcut door from Yanille to the chaos druids that requires level 82 Thieving and a lockpick; if you have the level, this is faster than going the other way. Of these, Fire Strike is the best as it will normally kill him in 6 casts, where the others take 7 or 8. Ironically, Salarin himself attacks with his fists, not magic.

Equipment

You must fight with magic and will be facing melee attacks, so wear Ahrims armor if you can, otherwise something like splitbark. Bring a staff of air to save on runes.

You need a knife or slashing weapon to get through the webs at the main entrance if going that way. If you plan to switch between fighting Salarin and the chaos druids, bring your regular melee weapon.

Supplies

You will need runes to cast one of the four strike spells; fire strike is recommended. You should also bring some food for healing. Since you have to wait for a long time for Salarin to respawn, some players like to bring feathers and bolts to fletch, or noted items to alch.

Familiar

I recommend a macaw to improve herb drop quality, if you are fighting both Salarin and the chaos druids near him. Even if going after just Salarin, a macaw is a good choice as he does drop some herbs, and there's not really any other particularly relevant choice.

Combat Notes

Salarin is not hard to kill, but is slow to kill, because of the need to use special spells and his slow respawn time. Log into as full a world as possible before you begin.

Salarin's a strange beast. Because of his "twisted" nature, he is only affected by "mind spells", which means combat spells using mind runes: Wind Strike, Earth Strike, Water Strike, Fire Strike and Magic Dart. The Strike spells don't behave here as they normall do: they hit him for a higher, fixed amount of damage: 90, 100, 110 or 120 LP per hit for Wind, Earth, Water and Fire Strike respectively. Of these, Fire Strike is the best as it will normally kill him in 6 casts, where the others take 7 or 8. Magic Dart also hits him but only does normal (random) damage. Since it is so much more expensive to cast and on average does less damage than Fire Strike, there's not much point using it here.

Salarin is aggressive and normally spawns just east of the western grave marker in his room. If you stand one square south and one square west of this spot, it is often possible to safe-spot him and avoid damage. Ironically, Salarin himself attacks with his fists, not magic.

You can't kill Salarin very often per hour because of the time it takes to kill him and wait for a respawn. One option is to fight him and then kill chaos druids between spawns. However, this means either maging the chaos druids (slow) or swapping to a melee weapon, then swapping back to your magic staff and re-enabling autocast (slow and annoying.) Another idea is to bring with materials to let you do something else while waiting, such as alching or fletching materials.

Drop Notes

The main attraction in fighting Salarin is that he drops the sinister key, which can be used to open a chest elsewhere in the Agility Dungeon. Each key yields nine grimy herbs: 2 harralander, 3 ranarr, 1 irit, 1 avantoe, 1 kwuarm and 1 torstol. That's a nice haul -- especially now that torstol is in high demand for making overload potions -- but the sinister key is a fairly rare drop. You'll also get some herbs and other items from Salarin, though not much. Of course, if you also kill chaos druids while waiting for his respawn, you'll get a lot more.