Kalphite Soldier - Access and Combat Recommendations

Access Directions

The easiest way to get to the Kalphite lair is to use the fairy rings, code "B I Q". Run north and then west to find the hole that leads down to the lair. Use a rope on it, then click it to enter.

Walk counter-clockwise through the first part of the tunnels. There are a couple of soldiers in the tunnel itself, but continue to the south and you'll see a room off to the west that has several more of them, along with three potato cactus spawns.

Note that this area is sometimes busy, so you may have to world hop or fight during a quieter period. In many cases being on a relatively empty world by yourself can be an advantage, because it means you won't have as many of the soldiers attacking you while they are aggressive.

Equipment

I used to use Guthans with a whip and defender, switching to Guthan's warspear as needed to heal. However, with the advent of healing familiars, this is no longer necessary. I now recommend just wearing high defence Barrows armor -- my usual setup is Verac's helm, Guthan's platebody and Verac's skirt.

If you are a mid-level player you may find that these hit too hard to deal with them without prayer. In that case, wear your best prayer-enhancing gear, and use Protection from Melee / Deflect Melee.

Supplies

A lunar or dramen staff for the fairy rings is needed to get near the lair, and a rope required to access it. If you have spare dramen staves just drop one to make more inventory space for drops.

High level players do not need very high quality food; some of my older logs show me using pineapple pizzas, but that was when they were cheap. You can get by using monkfish or even cheaper food in many cases, assuming you use a healing familiar. Mid-level players will want to use prayer, and thus need prayer potions.

These monsters poison when they do damage; count on around 10 doses of super antipoison per hour of combat.

Bring around 10 or 15 nature runes for alching; they drop lots of fires, but only one nature at a time, so the latter is not reliable.

Familiar

I recommend the use of two familiars here, say if you are going to fight kalphites for a Slayer assignment. During combat, I recommend a bunyip for its cheap, automatic healing, which lets you use much less food than would otherwise be required. Once you are nearly done fighting, I suggest dismissing the bunyip and summoning a beast of burden; you can then fill the beast with potato cactus as you finish your combat and use up the last of your food. Bring the cactus back to either use for making magic potions, or sell for cash.

I don't recommend using a combat familiar for these; it provides little benefit.

Combat Notes

Taken one at a time, these monsters aren't too tough -- but when they gang up on you they can do a lot of damage. At the start of a trip, when they are aggressive, stand in a corner of the room, so only one or at most two can attack. Of course, if you're praying, it doesn't really matter.

Note that these monsters' poison requires a successful hit, but it will affect you even if you have Protection from Melee (or Deflect Melee) on continuously.

Cannoning is quite effective here, allowing you to quickly kill a lot of these monsters (along with a single kalphite worker in the same room). However, cannonballs are very expensive these days, and the monsters do not have particularly good drops (see below).

Drop Notes

Kalphite workers are a decent source of fire and chaos runes, will drop lots of coins, the occasional gem, and a couple of herbs per hour. That's pretty much it for regular drops, which is one reason why cannoning here is very expensive. On the other hand, Jagex made them pretty decent charm droppers for their level, and in particular, they provide a better percentage of blue charms than most other critters.