Locust Ranger - Access and Combat Recommendations

Access Directions

Bank in Sophanem; the easiest way to get to these is to use a Pharaoh's sceptre to go to Jalsavrah (Sophanem). Without the sceptre, you need to take a magic carpet from Al-Kharid to Pollnivneach, run to the south of the city and take another carpet to Sophanem.

Take the southeast exit from the town, then go east past the crocodiles, veering south under the plateau. Head north towards the swamp there and pass through the reeds. Continue northeast passing reeds until you get to a small desert area surrounding a large scabarite statue. You'll find several scabarites, some mounted on locusts, in that area.

Equipment

This is a multicombat area with hard-hitting meleers and rangers. The rangers generally hit harder than the meleers, so one way to go is to wear Veracs (for melee defence and Prayer bonuses) and use Protection from Ranged. Very high level players can "brute force" their way using Guthans, taking desert damage periodically. This may be the best way to deal with these until they become unaggressive.

A cannon can be very effective in this area, so that's worth considering.

Some portion of this area counts as desert and so wearing an enchanted water tiara will avoid you taking heat damage. Otherwise you need waterskins, or else you can just heal the damage using Guthans or food.

Bringing with a Pharaoh's sceptre will allow you to get back to Sophanem to bank when needed.

One final tip is to bring a chisel. These monsters drop tons of gems, including two cut emeralds at a time; you can fletch these into bolt tips rather than letting them go to waste. Just bear in mind that you won't have much time to do this until the monsters go unaggressive. :)

Supplies

There's an advantage to longer trips here, because the monsters are far easier to deal with once they become unaggressive. I aim for 30-minute trips, which lets me stay long enough to spend some time without them all attacking me, but means I don't generally run out of food.

Super sets are a must, and some may prefer to use Saradomin brews and super restores instead of super defences, especially if using Prayer when the monsters are aggressive.

A few sets of alching runes are useful here.

As mentioned above, you'll need waterskins unless you use an enchanted water tiara or just want to "tank" the damage.

Familiar

There are two general choices here: a healing familiar, or a beast of burden to carry food and take home drops. A beast of burden can also serve double duty by helping with combat, and distracting at least one scabarite so it doesn't team you.

Combat Notes

This multicombat area has four different aggressive monsters: one each of the Locust Ranger and Scabaras Ranger (which use ranged attacks), and one each of the Locust Lancer and Scabaras Lancer (which use melee). These all have the same drops and are about equal in difficulty, so kill whatever you feel like or whichever one is closest. (Ignore the unmounted level 106 Scabaras Locusts, which are unaggressive, have no drops and don't count for Scabarite Slayer assignments.)

When the monsters are all aggressive, this place is very dangerous -- your goal is to survive and kill as many as possible for about 10 minutes until they stop swarming you; after that you can fight them individually, which is much easier.

When you arrive, take your boosting potions and if you brought a cannon, set it up so it will hit the scabarites but not the crocodiles to the west and southwest. Start fighting the monsters, keeping a close eye on your health -- especially if not using prayer.

One tip to keep in mind is that if you retreat to the north behind the huge scabarite statue, some of the monsters will get stuck and won't attack you. You can use this to your advantage during their aggressive phase, picking off only a couple of monsters while the others sit out of range, changing your protection prayer as needed.

Once the monsters stop being aggressive, you can just fight whichever one best matches your gear or preferred protection prayer. Just watch out for kidnap randoms; when you return they will all be aggressive again. :(

Also note that the Scabaras Lancer has a tendency to wander off to the west and northwest -- don't follow him or when you return to the statue area, you'll get swarmed all over again.

Drop Notes

Most players detest fighting these monsters because of the mix of combat styles and the distant location, but they do have pretty good -- and widely varied -- drop table. They provide decent amounts of blood and lava runes, two herbs at a time, and plenty of gems (again, often two at a time). They are also a good source of addy and rune arrows, and they drop alchables like adamant kiteshields and rune warhammers.