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RuneScoop.com  >  The RuneScoop Ultimate Skill Guide for RuneScape       >  The RuneScoop Ultimate Skill Guide - Dungeoneering            >  The RuneScoop Ultimate Skill Guide - Dungeoneering - Bosses

Unholy Cursebearer (Floors 12-17 and 30-35) Stomp (Floors 18-29)

Rammernaut is a big guy carrying an even bigger mace, and he knows how to use it. This boss is somewhat unique in that he only has a single attack style: melee. But don’t let that fool you: he’s one tough hombre, and capable of unleashing prodigious amounts of damage on the unwary.

The name “Rammernaut” is probably a portmanteau of “ram” and “juggernaut”, and those words describe this boss pretty well. Described in a journal as the “captain of the Rammernaut guard”, he’s a no-nonsense kind of guy: no magic spells or fancy defences here, just lots of good old fashioned bashing, with a couple of twists thrown in to keep things interesting, of course. :)

Rammernaut’s room is reminiscent of a gladitorial forum; it has an inner inset area where he starts out and where most of combat takes place. The boss is quite obviously human, but also very obviously not the size of an ordinary man. He wears heavy armor and wields a truly monstrous mace that is almost as big as he is.

This boss only attacks with melee, and will try to close to melee range to unleash both his normal and special attacks. That special will do high damage and stun the player, leaving him or her unable to move. Rammernaut will then follow up with a second special attack that lowers the player’s defence level, making the rest of the fight that much more difficult.

Rammernaut has little in the way of special defences, but he is immune to being snared or bound, as that would make him too easy. This boss rewards those with good reaction times and tactics, as this enables his special to sometimes be evaded; he is also easier to deal with in a team. He has a lot of hitpoints and beating him requires a good deal of food, concentration, or both.

• Name: Rammernaut.
  
  
• Examine Text: “He's big, and he's not pleased to see you.”
  
  
• Daemonheim Theme (Zone): Furnished.
  
  
• Dungeon Floors: Levels 18 to 29.
  
  
• Primary Attack Styles: Melee.
  
  
• Secondary Attack Styles: None.
  
  
• Special Attacks: Charge attack (damage and stun); spin attack (damage and defence reduction).
  
  
• Special Defences: Appears to be immune to immobilization spells.
  
  
• Special Immunities: Poison.
  
  
• Weak Against: Magic, Melee/Stab.
  
  
• Neutral: Ranged (not yet tested), Melee/Crush (not yet tested), Melee/Slash (not yet tested).
  
  
• Strong Against: None.
  
  
• Recommended Attack Method: Magic or Melee/Stab.
  
  
• Recommended Defence Method: Melee armor.
  
  
• Drop Category: Mauls.

Table 98 lists all of the versions of Rammernaut that I have fought, or that have been documented by sources I consider reliable. It shows the combat level, life points total and maximum damage of each, the circumstances under which it was fought, and the item it dropped.

As mentioned, Rammernaut is exclusively a melee boss; he has no ranged or magic attack. His normal M. O. is to lumber towards a player and swing his mace, doing heavy damage and rarely missing. Nothing complicated there.

His special attack begins by him calling out “CHARGE!” He then does exactly that: he charges the player, knocking him or her back, causing damage and stunning for several seconds. And while this boss may be depicted as a slow, hulking beast of a man, he moves pretty darned fast when he’s trying to ram you—don’t think you’re safe by standing at a distance.

If the charge attack succeeds and you are stunned, he then walks up to you and does a spin move with his oversized mace. This causes additional damage and also lowers your Defence level. That of course makes you more likely to be hit by future attacks.

Rammernaut appears to be a follower of the old axiom that “the best defence is a good offence”. He does not have much in the way of special defences, and in fact even his regular defence is not very high. Despite being a melee boss with heavy armor, he doesn’t appear to be strong against stab attacks. I haven’t tried the other melee styles but I’ll bet he is weak to them as well.

This boss is also weak to magic attacks, which damage him quite heavily. However, he is immune to immobilizing spells like Bind or Entangle; the reason why this was done is pretty obvious. Stormbringer familiars have a scroll that includes a bind/snare effect, and I had read that these would in fact work. However, several tries with a tier 9 stormbringer were very ineffective.

Rammernaut is one of the more difficult bosses for solo players. You need to prepare carefully before commencing combat, and bring plenty of food. I also recommend dropping a gatestone outside the boss room, in case things go south on you.

I think the best overall approach for solo players is to mage Rammernaut while attempting to stay out of melee distance. This is not easy to do, of course, but I think it is the best tactic to attempt. The alternative is to just go toe to toe with him in melee range, but you’ll take a lot of damage that way.

I recommend beefing up your melee defence as much as possible, even if you are planning to mage. I once tried to mage him in magic robes while trying to stay away from his melee attacks—it was not a pretty sight. Because of his low magic defence, you can usually “tank mage” him pretty successfully (sort of like how it is done at The Barrows).

When Rammernaut calls out “CHARGE”, his special attack is coming. You can run, but you can’t hide: even if you move far from him, he’ll still try to get you. The only way to avoid being hit by his special is to try to play the matador with him as the bull: get near a wall, wait for him to get reasonably close, and then immediately duck out of the way. This takes some practice, and you’ll get hit and stunned pretty often at first. But if you’re successful, he’ll miss you, hit the wall, and actually damage and stun himself! This is incredibly useful: you save the damage he’d have dealt, negate his second “mace spin” attack, and even get a couple of free attacks to boot.

Rammernaut appears to sometimes get into a weird state where he keeps moving along the walls of the room, beginning his special attack, and then launching himself directly at the wall. He does this over and over, not even trying to get to the player. This may be a bug (it sure seems like it). If not, maybe the guy has brain damage or something. :)

I have not had much practice with combat familiars on this guy yet. Because of all the damage he puts out, a beast of burden might be a more prudent choice anyway.

As I suspected would be the case, this boss is much easier in a team environment—at least if the team is properly prepared. Even though his combat level increases, and he remains a dangerous foe, he’s still just one guy, and having multiple players means only one can be targeted at a time. So while he can hit very high, he’s really outnumbered and not that hard.

The general idea for this guy in a team, is to take a page from how some other bosses in the rest of RS are fought in teams. See whom he targets, and have that person constantly run in circles (squares?) to stay away from him, while he wastes time trying to get into melee range with his intended target. Meanwhile, everyone else peppers him with magic, ranged or even “sneaky” melee attacks. When he switches targets, that player starts running around and the old target joins the attack crew.

In the one 5:5 large I did with a team where we got this boss, everyone loaded up on runes and fire surged him to death in under two minutes. Surprisingly easy.

Rammernaut drops mauls (fittingly enough, since he wields a huge mace, which is a similar weapon). He is the only source of the primal maul, a beastly weapon that features a +185 crush bonus and +166 strength. Some players prefer this item over the more commonly used promethium spear.

Rammernaut may leave behind part of the “mysterious chronicle” journal (Chronicles of Bilrach), as well as a special journal called “Equipment requisition orders”, which amusingly describes Rammernaut’s efforts to get increasingly larger weapons from his supply clerk.

Unholy Cursebearer (Floors 12-17 and 30-35) Stomp (Floors 18-29)