Analysis, Discussion and Tips for Success

General Discussion

One of the more interesting -- and useful -- of the new untradeable potions is the new super antifire pot. A regular antifire only provides complete protection against dragonfire when combined with an anti-dragon or dragonfire shield or Protection from Magic / Deflect Magic prayer (and the prayer only works on chromatic dragons). In contrast, the super antifire confers complete protection from dragonfire all by itself, so no shield is needed.

Like the other new high-level potions, super antifires are untradeable. They are also much slower to make than some of the other potions, because their secondary ingredient is also untradeable. You must travel to the far north of the Kharidian desert and pluck feathers from the desert phoenix there, and then mix them into regular antifire potions. Because of the need for this extra step, you can only make about 400 of these potions per hour, compared to over 1,500 recover special or extreme attack potions.

What you get for your trouble, though, is an incredibly useful elixir. By eliminating the need for a shield, you can now fight dragons using godswords and the Dharoks and Veracs Barrows sets. These can easily increase kill counts by 20% or more over conventional methods, especially on the toughest dragons. For this reason, I value super antifires at 5,000 gp over the cost of a regular antifire -- and I'm being conservative. As an additional bonus, you get 26 Thieving XP for each feather you grab.

Location and Access

First of all, you need the feathers. There's only one desert phoenix and it is way at the far northern tip of the Khardian desert, well northeast of Shantay Pass. After many experiments, I determined that the fastest way to get to this elusive bird is, oddly enough, just to teleport to Sumona in Pollnivneach and run. After you arrive, you'll go north out of town, following the river until you get to the bridge. Cross it, then bear northeast, running for a full minute until you pass a small mining area. Look around and you should find the phoenix. After you grab 28 feathers, bank them and repeat. When you're ready to make the potions, you can do so at any bank.

Required and Recommended Equipment

An enchanted water tiara (from Dealing with Scabaras) is recommended, to avoid taking desert heat damage. A regen bracelet will help restore LP lost by failed thieving attempts. Finally, use amulets of glory for banking, so you can keep the ring of slaying equipped to allow you to get 28 feathers per trip.

Required and Recommended Supplies

No supplies are required, aside from the antifire potions and feathers.

Familiar Suggestions

Because of the long trip, a beast of burden would be great -- except, as usual, the item in question is untradeable so a familiar won't hold them. I end up just using a magpie to forage gems and rings, like I do for other Herblore activities.

Technique and Tips

Follow the process described above to get to the phoenix and grab its feathers; this is a thieving activity, so you can miss and be hit for 10 damage and stunned for 5 seconds. The total time to get and bank 28 feathers is a rather hefty 3 minutes.

Once you have all the feathers you need, just take out 14 feathers and 14 antifire potions (in that order).

Click one feather and one potion. When prompted, right-click the main message area and choose "Make All". Wait for the potions to be made, bank and repeat. This process is quite fast, so most of your time will be spent getting the feathers.