Please Whitelist This Site? I know everyone hates ads. But please understand that I am providing premium content for free that takes hundreds of hours of time to research and write. If I can't make at least a little bit of money to support my family via this site, I'll have to stop working on it. One alternative is to become a RuneScoop member. It's cheap, you get access to all of the site with no ads, and you help keep the lights on around here. If you want to use this site for free, I'd be grateful if you could add RuneScoop to the whitelist for Adblock. To do so, just open the Adblock menu and select "Disable on Runescoop.com". Or go to the Tools menu and select "Adblock Plus Preferences...". Then click "Add Filter..." at the bottom, and add this string: "@@http://*runescoop.com/*". Then just click OK. Thanks for your understanding! Sincerely... Qeltar, aka Charles, your hard-working host and RuneScape guide-writer extraordinaire. :)

RuneScoop.com  >  RuneScoop Monster Secrets       >  RuneScoop Monster Secrets - Waterfiend Guide

Waterfiend Guide - Challenges and Strategy Waterfiend Guide - Basic Single Combat Melee Technique

We’ve now covered all of the essential background information on waterfiends: what they are, how to fight them, and what the rewards are. So, it’s time to get down to the nitty-gritty, starting with how to find them and the best specific places to fight. I’ll now describe the waterfiends’ primary and secondary lairs, tell you how to get there quickly (and safely) and give you some tips on where to position yourself during combat.

This topic is divided into two main sections: one covering the waterfiends’ standard location in the Ancient Cavern, and the other describing how to find them in the Chaos Tunnels.

As you likely know by now, the primary location of waterfiends is in the Ancient Cavern. Befitting their watery nature, the cavern is located under the lake in the Barbarian Outpost region, south of the Barbarian Assault minigame building. The primary access to the cave is by jumping into a whirlpool in the lake, which is due east of the gnomes’ Grand Tree, and north of Baxtorian Falls.

Note that the recent addition of a fairy ring within the Ancient Cavern has made much of the conventional access information for it rather irrelevant—the fairy ring is easily the best way of getting to the cave, and is the one I recommend. But I have retained much of the older information for general reference, and because there are a couple of circumstances where it is still relevant (like getting back to a gravestone if you don’t have a spare dramen or lunar staff.)

If you plan to enter the cave the traditional way, you must first get to the area. There are two good ways to do this:

1. Games Necklace: Using a games necklace, teleport to Barbarian Outpost. Then just run south about 4 or 5 clicks to the pier at the lake. This is shown as the red path in Figure 33.
   
   
2. Grand Tree Shortcut: Bank at the Grand Tree. When ready, run down the ladder and out the front doors of the tree, then northeast to the rock climb Agility shortcut (level 37 required.) Scramble down, then run east to the pier (the blue path in Figure 33).
   

   Figure 33: Getting to the Ancient Cavern

   This map shows the two best conventional ways of getting to the cavern. The red path starts from the games necklace teleport location and heads nearly due south to the end of the pier in Otto’s lake. The blue route begins at the Grand Tree bank; you go over to the stairs, down, out the door, across to the agility shortcut and then east to the pier. In both cases, you click on the whirlpool and the game will automatically run you down the pier and jump into it to access the cavern.

   
   

The first method is simpler and easier; you can bank anywhere, just teleport and run south. It is also slightly faster. The second method, though a bit more complicated and taking a bit longer to traverse, gives a notable advantage: an extra inventory space. This is more important when fighting tougher foes in the cavern (i.e., mithril dragons) but is still helpful for waterfiends as well.

You get into the cavern by jumping into the whirlpool that is at the end of the pier at the northern edge of Otto’s lake. In order to jump in you must be standing somewhere on the pier. Click the whirlpool and your character will walk back to the start of the pier, then take a running leap into the pool (Figure 19). Everything will go dark and then the cavern will appear.

There’s a trick to getting into the cavern a bit more quickly that you may wish to use. Don’t click on the minimap to run to the end of the pier and then click the whirlpool; this wastes time as the character walks back to the start of the pier to run. Rotate your view so you are looking south, then click near the start of the pier; once there, click the whirlpool and you’ll run in immediately.

Note that you cannot jump into the whirlpool if you have a familiar summoned (or a pet out, presumably; I’ve never tried). Again, if you want to enter the cavern with a familiar, use the fairy ring.

Once you appear in the cavern, you’ll be in a little “landing area” that Jagex was nice enough to provide. This gives you a place to prepare before you face the monsters that lie within. This is the ideal place to take any potions you want active before you engage in combat.

The stairs to the east of the landing lead into the main part of the cavern, and you’ll probably be attacked by a brutal green dragon as soon as you enter. These are chromatic dragons, so you do not need an antifire potion for running through them for a short period of time; just put on Protection from Magic or Deflect Magic, and the most they can hit you with firebreath is 100 LP.

There are two areas where waterfiends are found (these are described further and contrasted in a section that follows.) The first area is right near the stairs; just go west a bit and you’re there; move far enough west that any dragon attacking you loses interest. To get to the second area, you must run south through the cavern, passing several brutal green dragons, until you see a passage to the west. Run west until you are past all of the dragons and you’ll see the second waterfiend area.

Late in 2009, Jagex put a new, convenient fairy ring right within the Ancient Cavern itself. It is handy not only because it makes getting to the monsters in the cavern much easier, but also because it means that for the first time you can take familiars into the cavern.

The fairy ring is located in the far southwest corner of the main floor of the cavern, conveniently right in the second waterfiend area (see Figure 34). It begins as a patch of “enchanted land”—you need five Bittercap mushrooms (called just “mushrooms” in game) and a spade to convert this land to a fairy ring. After that, it can be used like any other fairy ring in the game; its code is “BJQ”.

To access the fairy ring network, you need a lunar staff or dramen staff. The fastest way to get to the fairy rings is to use a ring of slaying to teleport to the Rellekka Slayer Cave; then you can use the fairy ring just to the west of there to get to the main one in Zanaris.

Many players don’t realize that if you use a fairy ring to teleport into a dangerous area, you have immunity from attack as long as you don’t move. This means that after dialing in “BJQ” you can stand on the fairy ring and “pot up” without being attacked by the waterfiends. Be sure to take advantage of this by potting up and ensuring that your weapon is on the right style before moving off that square.

Waterfiends are found in only one of the many rooms in the Chaos Tunnels, and it isn’t the easiest one to get to. You will in fact have to pass through seven different rooms to get to the waterfiends.

Start out by preparing for combat in Edgeville (see the multicombat method guide for details). Run northwest out of town and cross into the Wilderness, continuing until you see the crack that marks the entrance to the Chaos Tunnels. Then follow this sequence (illustrated in Figure 35) through the various rooms, taking note of the relevant warnings and recommendations (especially if you are new to the dungeon):

1. Gargoyles: You start out in the gargoyles room, which is circular in shape. These melee but they are spread out and don’t hit hard, so you can just ignore them. Run west and take the portal in the northwest corner of the room; be sure not to take the one in the southwest corner.
   
   
2. Mummies: These do hit hard and there are plenty of them! I recommend putting on Deflect Melee immediately. Run due west past them and take the portal in the northwest corner.
   
   
3. Monks of Zamorak: The monks are not aggressive, so just run northeast to the next portal, being sure not to click on one by mistake.
   
   
4. Dust Devils: Again, these are not aggressive, but be sure not to click on one by mistake! They require a facemask or Slayer helmet to fight, and you probably won’t be wearing one, so you’ll take damage and get your stats drained. I recommend right-clicking the next portal (just to the north of where you enter) to be sure a devil doesn’t wander under your mouse just as you are left-clicking.
   
   
5. Black Demons: These hit hard but there are only a few of them, and usually other players are fighting them anyway. Run west and take the portal there.
   
   
6. Bronze Dragons / Earth Warriors: This room is shaped like the number “9”, with two bronze dragons in an alcove to the south and earth warriors in the northern part. Usually the dragons will completely ignore you, and the warriors aren’t aggressive to anyone high enough level to fight waterfiends in a multicombat area. Rarely, though, you might get attacked by a bronze dragon; some players take an antifire dose to protect against this possibility, but it is so infrequent that I don’t bother.
   
   There are two portals in the northern part of this room, right next to each other. Be sure to take the eastern portal; the western one dumps you in a room full of aggressive dagannoths.
   
   
7. Turoths: These are unaggressive, so just run east and you’re done. The next portal takes you to the waterfiends, so this is where you should prepare for combat.
   

   Figure 35: Route through the Chaos Tunnels to the Waterfiend Room

   On this annotated map of the Chaos Tunnels, I have added a series of green arrows showing the path you should take from one portal to the next in order to reach the waterfiend lair.

   Original image courtesy of the RuneScape Wiki.

   
   

The Chaos Tunnels portals always have a chance of sending you to a random room instead of the one you expect, so you must always pay attention—if you have bad luck you could end up in a dangerous place. If this happens (or you just find yourself somewhere far from the waterfiends) and you’ve brought an emergency teleport, use it and start over at Edgeville.

There are two waterfiend locations in the Ancient Cavern. The first is located right next to the main entrance stairs that you use if coming into the cavern via the whirlpool. The second is in the “back”, western portion of the cave.

Until the addition of the fairy ring, most players preferred the first spot, simply because it was faster to get to, and you didn’t have to run a gauntlet of dragons to get to it. However, for that reason, it was often crowded, and there are fewer waterfiends there to begin with. This spot is also quite small, and the chance of being “drawn out” by a brutal green dragon was ever-present. There’s also a skeleton warlord you have to avoid in that spot. Finally, there’s a skeleton on the ground there, and clicking it accidentally often spawns another aggressive skeleton.

It is for all of these reasons that I have always preferred the second location, even when it took longer to get to. The area is much larger, and there are more waterfiends there; it is much easier to stand well away from the brutal green dragons; and there are no other monsters in the vicinity. With the new fairy rings, using the second area is pretty much a no-brainer anyway, because that’s where you arrive in the cavern.

If fighting in the Ancient Cavern, where exactly you stand doesn’t matter very much as long as you are well away from the dragons. Since the fiends can attack from a distance they have a tendency to “draw” you in various directions, and if you let them pull you too far east a dragon could then attack. Avoid this by moving more west or north if you are attacked from well to the east.

In the Chaos Tunnels, the waterfiend room is elongated west-to-east with an “island” in the middle that effectively splits it into two sections. It is best to fight here either west of that “island”, or east of it. And it is especially important here not to move around too much, because this method relies on minimizing the amount of time that the monsters are aggressive.

Waterfiend Guide - Challenges and Strategy Waterfiend Guide - Basic Single Combat Melee Technique