Skeleton Brute - Access and Combat Recommendations

Access Directions

This monster spawns in only one spot -- the far southwest corner of the main floor of the Ancient Cavern, right next to the stairs that lead up to Kuradal. There it can be fought in combination with one each of the Angry Barbarian Spirit and Enraged Barbarian Spirit. All three monsters are aggressive, so fighting only one is nearly impossible (at least for a while) and they all have the same drops anyway. In addition to the single spawn, these may also be generated by rummaging through the skeleton piles in the Ancient Cavern. You can also get one of the other three level 132 skeleton variants: Skeleton Heavy, Skeleton Thug or Skeleton Warlord. That's obviously not practical, as it takes two minutes for the bone piles to respawn.

The best way to get to the Ancient Cavern is to use the new fairy ring. To unlock this ring, enter the cavern the traditional way, bringing with a spade and 5 (bittercap) mushrooms. You'll find a section of "enchanted land" in the far southwest corner of the cave, which you can click on to convert to a fairy ring. Thereafter, access it like any other, using code "B J Q". The combat area is just south of the ring, which permits easy access to the bank in Zanaris.

Equipment

Wear prayer gear, period -- these monsters hit very hard and it's not worth trying to deal with the damage in any other way.

Until you get used to the Ancient Cavern, I recommend bringing with an anti-dragon shield to deal with the dragons. You can swap it out when in combat. Alternately, you can use an antifire potion, super antifire potion or Protection from Magic prayer.

Supplies

Assuming you are using prayer, bring several 4-dose prayer potions per hour, depending on your Prayer level. Also bring extreme sets or super sets, or Zamorak brews, to speed combat.

I recommend some food to deal with the occasional mistake or hit from the nearby brutal green dragons.

If you don't plan to carry home unnoted drops like yew logs, bring a knife or tinderbox to get some use from them.

Finally, a one-click teleport is a good idea.

Familiar

Your best choice here is a beast of burden to carry drops.

Combat Notes

As long as you use prayer and watch your stat levels, there's nothing particularly challenging about the skeleton brutes or barbarian spirits. The real danger here is the brutal green dragons. They have a melee attack, firebreath of course, and a distance mage attack that can hit for 180.

For the first 10 minutes or so, be sure to stay well into the far corner and away from the dragons. This may mean fewer kills of the Enraged Barbarian Spirit, as it drifts off into "dragonland" a fair bit. Fortunately, since there are no randoms in the Ancient Cavern, once the monsters lose aggressiveness you don't have to worry about being kidnapped by a random and having them become aggressive once more.

Drop Notes

These monsters don't have particularly exciting drops, but if you are trying to get ancient pages to complete your logbook, they are a reasonable way to go, and they do drop the occasional addy bar, rune scimitar or other useful item.