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RuneScoop.com  >  The RuneScoop Beastopedia - RuneScape Monster Data, Combat Guide and Drop Logs       >  The RuneScoop Beastopedia - Understanding the Beastopedia            >  The RuneScoop Beastopedia - General Information

Adapting Beastopedia Numbers Based on Skill Levels The RuneScoop Beastopedia - Understanding the Monster Pages

In the overview, I mentioned that each monster in the Beastopedia was subjected to a combat test, so I could show you what it is actually like to fight it. I usually spent at least an hour battling each monster, recording how many I was able to kill, what I spent in supplies and what drops I received, and recorded these in each monster’s drop logs. This is the essential “real world” information that sets the Beastopedia apart from many other RuneScape monster guides.

I realized that while some of my readers just want to see the results of these tests, others want to know more about the methods used to conduct them. How did I decide what to wear? If there was more than one location, what was the basis for choosing from among them? What time of day did I fight? What combat style did I use and why? What about combat familiars?

For those who want to go “behind the scenes”, I’ll answer those questions and more in the subsections below.

Primary Focus: Efficiency

My fundamental goal with the Beastopedia combat tests was to try to kill the monsters as efficiently as possible, since that’s what I assume most players are after. Sure, I realize some folks like to just take a leisurely approach to combat, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But nobody needs a guide to inefficient combat, right? J And besides, trying to be as efficient as possible is the only way to ensure a fair comparison of kill speed among monsters.

World Selection

Generally speaking, the most efficient worlds for combat are ones that are full, because respawn times are shorter on worlds with many people. For this reason, I did most of my tests on World 2, which is pretty much always at or near capacity.

Exceptions to this rule were the perpetually busy monsters, such as blue dragons, ankous, aviansies and so forth. Since other players also know about the respawn speed factor, popular monsters are always crowded on busy worlds. In these cases I aimed instead for “moderately full” worlds: 1,000 to 1,500 players. I did this even when I knew I’d be able to find a more full world available, since I didn’t want to assume that you would be able to.

Combat Timing

I aimed to perform most of my combat during “moderately busy” times, such as weekday evenings. While I personally often like to do combat during very quiet periods, I realize most players don’t, and this would have affected the tests.

Combat Locations

For monsters that have multiple locations, I generally prefer those that are quickest and easiest to get to, especially if I know the monster has many non-stackable drops and would require a great deal of banking. However, I sometimes use an alternate location if the more accessible one tends to be overcrowded. For example, I’d never try to fight the ogres near Castle Wars, as the place is always swamped.

I generally assume that a high level player has access to pretty much all areas of the map, including those that require quests to access; I do point out when there are special requirements to get to a spot. Similarly, I assume that a high level player will have a reasonable set of transportation supplies and equipment, such as games necklaces, Elven teleport crystals and so forth.

Finally, note that I avoid Wilderness locations whenever possible, since I hate dealing with revenants.

Test Duration

The standard time for my tests is one hour. I chose this because it’s a round figure, and about how long I normally fight a monster before I start to get bored. It’s also about the average duration of a typical high level Slayer assignment.

In two situations, I used shorter combat tests of 30 minutes or 15 minutes. First, if the monster was very low level and it was easy to kill a bunch of them quickly, I often decided there was no need to do a full hour. Second, if the monster didn’t have random drops (such as cows, goats, etc.), it was easy enough to figure out how many of a resource I could get in less time. When shorter tests were done I prorated the kill count, supplies used and drops to approximate an hour.

There are also certain monsters where there are “natural” trip durations of specific lengths. For example, when you fight red dragons, you are generally there to get drops, and so the length of the trip is not a preset number but rather based on how long it takes to fill your inventory. These were similarly prorated.

Travel time is not included in the combat tests—only the amount of time actually engaged in combat.

Finally, I always adjust the length of my tests to account for any inefficiencies that occur during combat. For example, if I get kidnapped by a random event or have to pause to record large numbers of drops, I add on extra time to compensate for this, since the objective is to give you a good idea of what to expect in typical conditions.

Kill Counting

For most monsters I manually counted kills, often using a handheld sports counter. Other monsters were easier, because I was able to have the game count for me. For example, I did some tests while on Slayer assignments, and was able to check kill totals that way. For a few monsters—generally low level ones where keeping track of each kill would be difficult—I estimated the kill count by dividing how much XP I got in combat by the amount of XP the monster gives per kill.

Combat Method

I used melee for most of my tests, because it is generally the most efficient combat method: it is faster and cheaper than ranging or maging. The exception to this was monsters that require ranging (aviansies) or maging (Salarin the Twisted), or those where ranging is faster (black dragons, at least if you can’t use super antifires) or maging is faster (giant rock crabs).

For some monsters I was able to do multiple tests with different methods and record the results in separate drop logs. I hope to expand this over time.

Summoning Familiars

To eliminate another potential complicating factor, all combat tests were done without the use of combat familiars. I did use beasts of burden in certain situations, and have tried to indicate when this is the case.

Multiple Monster Combat and Shared Drop Logs

Most of the combat tests were done of single monster types, but I fought several types of monsters at once where it made sense. For example, if you get assigned crawling hands for Slayer, there are level 7, 8, 11 and 12 hands all mixed together on the first floor of the Slayer tower, and nearly everyone just fights all four types together, killing whichever is closest. In these cases, a single drop log was prepared that appears in each of the relevant monster pages.

Special Handling for Shades and Vyres

Shades and vyres drop remains that can be pyred to get XP and items. For these monsters I recorded two sets of drop logs: one showing how many could be killed if you were just killing them and saving the remains for later procesing, and one indicating what I got from pyring. This was extra work, but I figured you might be interested in the “real drops” (what you get as rewards) instead of just the remains.

Equipment Selection

I aimed for combat armor and weapons that represented that which is typically used by RuneScape players. I deliberately avoided fancy or extremely expensive items for my primary tests—no godswords, dragonfire shields, third age armor and so forth. The reason is simply that I recognize that many players cannot afford such items. For some monsters I did use fancy equipment in certain combat tests, but only for drop logs that appear in addition to the main one using standard equipment.

In general, I use Barrows gear where it is needed, but stick with more mundane items (dragon and granite) where possible, to avoid repair costs. The outfit I used for the greatest number of monsters is the one I call “standard melee”, and consists of the following items:

• Helm of neitiznot
  
  
• Soul Wars cape
  
  
• Amulet of fury
  
  
• Abyssal whip
  
  
• Granite platebody
  
  
• Rune defender
  
  
• Dragon platelegs
  
  
• “Barrows gloves” (the highest reward from Recipe for Disaster)
  
  
• Beserker ring

These aren’t all very cheap items, but none of them is particularly pricey, and they are fairly common for higher level players. Some are fairly expensive but used so often that they are worth having, particularly the amulet of fury. Note that while the dragon chainbody is no longer nearly as expensive as it used to be, it’s still fairly exotic and I don’t happen to own it. (I don’t want to buy one, I want to get it myself as a drop! J)

I used to use my beloved trimmed Hitpoints skillcape in the cape/cloak slot, but replaced it with a red Soul Wars cape after I completed the quest Nomad’s Requiem. I realize not everyone can get that cape, but most higher-level players should be able to. I consider it a better all-around combat cape than a skillcape.

You may still see me wearing the skillcape in some of my monster images; getting good combat pictures is sometimes difficult, and I was not about to redo all of those pictures! Any logs where I used the old gear will also continue to show it.

Supplies

In keeping with the overall efficiency theme of my tests, I chose supplies to increase kill speed while keeping overall costs low.

I’m a firm believer in using enhancing potions, and so used super attack, super strength and super defence potions for most of my tests—the cost of these is not very high, and they increase kill speed and drop rate significantly. My standard method is to use two 4-dose potions per hour, thus taking another dose every 7 to 8 minutes. The only exception to this is very low level monsters, where I use fewer potions or none at all.

In some later tests I also use extreme potions. These are untradeable and require very high Herblore levels, so I only use them when I already have a log showing how to kill the monster without them.

I use food for healing where possible, relying on prayer and prayer potions only when necessary. My favorite healing foods until late 2009 were salmon (for easier monsters) and pineapple pizzas (for tougher critters), because both foods provided a lot of life points for their cost. The elimination of unlimited shops caused the price of pineapple pizzas to skyrocket, so I now use a variety of different foods for healing, often relying on input from the healing efficiency guide to tell me what is most cost-effective. Monkfish are among my favorites now, as they heal 160 LP in one bite and aren’t very pricey. Saradomin brews have also become much more affordable of late, and I use them where appropriate.

When using prayer, I substitute Zamorak brews for super attacks. The Zammy brews are cheap, give better Attack bonuses than super attacks, and even restore 10% of your prayer points!

Drop Handling

I always pick up stackable drops when they appear in reasonable quantities, as well as valuable unstackable drops. Banking time is generally not included in kill counts. For monsters where a player would normally plan on banking frequently to store drops, I mention this in my preparation advice, suggesting how long of a trip is recommended and what supplies should be taken with. I do sometimes leave behind less valuable drops when my inventory is full near the end of a test/trip.

Food and Potion Drops

In general, I do not eat food or drink potions that are received as a drop while doing combat testing, unless the monster provides them in large and reliable quantities. If the drops are only occasional, this would introduce too much random luck in determining how much is needed for supplies to fight a particular monster.

Alching

Alching drops is a good way to get gold and bonus Magic XP, so I try to do this for low-level items like mithril, adamant and rune armor and weapons. I generally avoid alching very low level items where the money returned wouldn’t be higher than the value of a nature rune. You can certainly do this for essentially “free” Magic XP, but I didn’t want to slow down combat too much based on something that was often very random.

Adapting Beastopedia Numbers Based on Skill Levels The RuneScoop Beastopedia - Understanding the Monster Pages