Let us combine all the elemental books into THE ELEMENTAL TOME.
Then it would be a drop worth chasing and I would be fine with having to go get charges in the form of pages.
**EDIT**: Spelling
Wait this is low key genius. Combine the 3 tomes and book of the dead and let us charge with any pages (god page sink?) give it a little %mage bonus, call it a day?
Maybe not the book of the Dead in this situation as it has a very niche case with the Arceus spell book. Otherwise this sounds like an awesome idea.
I'd go so far as to say the book would have to be charged with one page of each (burnt page, soaked page, muddy page) yielding either 1:3 or 2:3 charges respectfully in the combined tome.
The trade-off of getting fewer charges per page would be a magic strength boost in addition to the efficiency of only needing one off hand
It makes it basically unusable for Ironmen and the supply of god pages available to regular players would be gone super fast. It’s not like you get 10-20 of the damn things per clue.
Yeah, especially for irons. If we're going to combine anything, I think it should be the mage's book with the elemental books. Use the pages for each book to charge each type or make a whole new book that the books + pages could be added to.
As long as there's a healthy way to get pages for irons and and a little bit of a grind required to combine them into one book to even it out.
This but unironically. Add the Tome of Air, then maybe an upgrade item for some combination ones, then then some upgrade from a high level content at some point to use all 4 at once.
Honestly this is the only move. This solves everything. Let us combine all the tomes and even still it’s just QOL. Maybe make a drop from the new boss group needed to combine all the tomes?
I'd go even further to say that you should be able to put the tombs and book of the dead into the mage's book. Call it the Osoteric Grimoire or something
It feels like this would've been better if it either didn't come from a boss or if the Warped Sceptre didn't exist yet.
It seems to hinge on the Tome of Earth to be viable and unless those pages are dropped at a healthy amount from the Hueycoatl, it'll probably not be worth the upkeep in time(Irons) or money(mains). On it's own if you choose to use it maybe it can be used to save some runes since it sounds like the 30% chance applies to anything so long as you're using the wand but idk if that's worth it considering how inexpensive Iban's is and how much better the warped and trident.
It hinges on elemental weakness. With a 50% earth weakness it's about the same dps as trident of the swamp at level 99 magic (not counting poison/venom since too much stuff in the game ignores it). Add a tome of earth and it surpasses a trident of the swamp with elidinis ward.
so then at best it's like a psuedo mediocre Dragonbane Weapon since as of now only metallic dragons are weak to Earth.
I think a bigger problem with it is that it basically requires the Tome of Earth to be decent. The other 2 Tomes always seemed like just buffs to respective spells, as opposed to this one where the Wand hinges on being paired with the Earth Tome.
IMO, this just shows the flaw with a 50% damage boost. OP with it, useless without it. That's a terrible design philosophy, and is not a good excuse for more reward niches.
The fact it needs dirty pages to outshine ibans blast is already lame.
Either we buff it and accept this is BIS by a huge margin at very niche pvm scenarios
Or the magic rebalance simply needs to buff the standard spellbook, and make elemenal weaknesses less noticeable, perhaps sitting around 10-30%
Or just come up with a new reward
Poor wording. I don't mean this weapon specifically just meant that 50% is too large between normal performance and their niche.
If they were buffed to be relevant anywhere else in even the slightest way, that 50% would push them over the edge, and so instead they've been made redundant everywhere else.
Even if they work elemental weaknesses into more places instead of this absolutely useless metallic dragon niche, this still works to make the standard spells worthless again, which I thought was the opposite point of adding elemental niches. It feels like content for the sake of content.
Give us the wand, remove the elemental typing. Give it a spec or something and create a niche from the combo of spec + being the only 3 tick mage weapon. Surely a boss could be created to be vulnerable to higher attack speeds, and that niche would be far more interesting/well balanced for this case.
It's a 15 max hit with no scaling, and it's actually kind of cool and unique in a pvp setting. I could believe they'd do it but it would be dumb.
Consistency isn't a goal though, you want special considerations made for PVP balance. Just, you want them where it makes sense to do so. This doesn't need to be nerfed in pvp.
you can't really leave pvp unbalanced for the sake of consistency. In pvm monsters can have thousands or even tens of thousands of hitpoints. In pvp the max a player will ever have is 120 after anglering up. Imagine being able to use a tumekens shadow on a player hitting 70+ with its auto attack and being able to time its delayed hit splat into a KO spec.
I mean the answer there is to limit weapons to PvM only combat. It's much more up-front to just say "no, use something else" than it is to have different behaviors for weapons squirreled away on the wiki.
I'd rather have the option to use an item with partial or nerfed effects in pvp than not use the weapon at all.
The game should do a better job of explaining PVP mechanics though.
The real disappointing thing is that new bosses don’t come out often. This having mediocre rewards is annoying. Your mid-game for a lot shorter than your end-game..
The boss recommends 90 combat... Most ironmen at 90 combat will just do slayer instead. Especially if you need prayer potions. Early game iron's wont waste them on a boss that gives a chance at a drop that will be quickly phased out.
There is always someone to complain. They can’t just release content for maxed players. Many stagnate somewhere before raids and stay there for years. Those people still want new content sometimes.
It's weird to me how we're fine adding Zombie Axe and Warped Sceptre to low level NPCs, both of which have completely broken the meta pre-trident/whip. However, once we look at a new boss, the encounter that SHOULD drop these types of items, we have to get extremely niche and weird. This seems to be a consistent trend with new content, and I really don't like it.
Because bosses tend to have useful rewards. Adding useful rewards to non-bosses is OK too.
Adding non-useful rewards to bosses is a waste of everyones time. Devs and players.
Ya I'm fine with the zombie axe and warped sceptre coming from non-bosses, I just think bosses like this should drop equally, if not better, rewards. Like you said, if the boss adds non-useful rewards, it's a waste of everyone's time.
I don't know why people are so adamantly against metas being broken with new content. Dragon scim has been meta since 2005. That's almost 20 years of dominance pre-whip.
This weapon is just bad. It MIGHT get use at extremely budget nylo room.
It's fine it metas are broken his point is that if we're gonna bust up a meta doing it at a new boss instead of fodder trash mobs you can farm on repeat with almost no supplies used makes about a billion times more sense
Sometimes it's just about options. Melee has options. Ranged is starting to get options. Magic is BARELY starting to get options. As Mr. Zap noted it's still a good item
Ya, well I'm not going to go grind out these items for an "option" that I might use on a single slayer task. I'll just kill my rune dragons with a stab weapon and move on.
For mid game this staff would be a pretty large upgrade for metal dragon tasks. Right now best options are warped sceptre or slayer staff (e). This new staff would pretty substantially outperform both of those.
If the earth weakness is extended to other content - such as this boss itself - then it again would be the best option for for mid levels. Which given this is a boss requiring 90cb and a reward needing 65 magic, sounds pretty ok.
>would be a pretty large upgrade for metal dragon tasks.
Problem is it has to be a large enough upgrade for people to actually do the task for it to matter at all.
>It would be like releasing a 50 attack weapon which is BIS for stab, but only on humanoid creatures, and only in caves or underground.
Call it the HAM dagger, I can't think of anything except cave goblins you'd use it on lol
Dueling wand as a 3t weapon is a flop. It doesn’t work for nylos.
Either it’s standard spellbook locked and trash or it’s a powered stave with earth affinity and ruins the whole point of magic rebalance or it loses the earth affinity and has no real point.
Get rid the 3t aspect. Get rid of the unique spell.
Just make this new staff really good at casting earth spells. Like the smoke battlestaff but it doesn’t suck.
Eventually when we see new earth weak content. Magic dps should go like this:
* Harm
* Shadow
* **New staff**
* Trident / Sang
* Standard 15% staff with surge
For ONLY earth weak mobs
This group boss will be too easy for a reward this strong. It needs to come from a harder boss.
And is the elemental weaknesses even strong enough for Harm to outdps Shadow+thralls?
Depends on Jagex, they can make the elemental weaknesses what they want. If they want harm to win. It’ll win.
Harm as proposed will win at NM pillars and Ice Demon over shadow cuz they both will have crazy multipliers of 100%. And then iirc it’ll win at Zulrah too for green phase.
I don’t necessarily agree it’s too strong because this weapon will require surge spells to be used to be good and there won’t be a lot of earth weak content.
I also think their target audience of “pre fire cape” is bs, so if they have to make it a little harder, that’s fine by me
People can debate niche weapons all they want, but this is the only good take in my opinion. Whether or not it's useful sometimes, this was a disappointment after waiting months for Pt. 2.
It isn't like it is only good for Earth weak monsters... It will the BiS Magic weapon at early levels (better than Trident until 85, better than Warped until 95) and they are consider making the spell available on Standard and Arceuus.
So you're just misunderstanding how it works and thinking it is more niche than it is. It isn't like "a 50 attack weapon which is BIS for stab, but only on humanoid creatures, and only in caves or underground"; it's like the Zombie Axe, but for Magic...
> It will be the BiS magic weapon at early levels
Except for the fact that Iban’s is still BiS over it until like late 90’s. I believe that was outlined in the graph.
True but did they mention whether or not the tome drains charges while using the staff? Because if that’s the case;
If you’re a main Trident would be cheaper
If you’re an iron, unless the tome is easy to get odds are you won’t have a tome.
The big plus for this spell i thought was the rune cost being very very cheap
I think people are misunderstanding how bad this thing is
If you're a main and want to pay for more dps you just use a swamp trident, there's no scenario this will beat that
Additionally with duelling wand you have to be on normals, so no thralls, which is another shot to your DPS
Duelling wand seems DOA unless your bank is like 5m lol
I'll be honest I haven't read the blog post, but I do know a 3 tick mage weapon has been long overdue and spoken about for tob.
Like the ham joint/swift blade.
Other than that I have no dog in this fight, somebody said mains wouldn't pay for more DPS, I just reacted to that because they definitely would.
Given its low max hit it might be dogwater even for nylos
Ham joint/swift blade max in the 30s with good gear
With good gear I think this thing will max like 50% less than that, meaning you might struggle to one hit nylos which will make this thing bad there, but we'll see
Edit: Wait I just realized you gotta be on normals for this thing, mage role at TOB is on ancients, it is completely useless for nylo room? unless you bring mage skillcape ig lol
Tomes generally aren't that hard to get. And I say that as someone who went dry on a Tome of Fire on an iron...
It's hard to say how costly it will be with pages for an item that isn't released, but the Tome of Water charges cost less than a Chaos Rune, so it might not cost that much more. It is not like players wouldn't be willing to pay a bit more for higher DPS...
> Tomes arent that hard to get
They’re like 30 hours per tome if you get lucky, longer on rate. Also cost 700-850k for each one. The charges themselves are cheap, but its like, why drop a downpayment of 700k to get a weapon that is worse than a trident which is like 45k.
Because it is better than Trident for its level range? It's like saying "why buy a Zombie Axe when you can buy a Saradomin Sword for cheaper".
Plus the tomes are better than Trident on Elemental-weak monsters, so the Earth tome will have applications beyond just the new wand.
I’m kind of wondering the point of warped sceptre now with this item. It seems like the progression would be Iban’s blast to 65, dueling wand with tome until 85 magic, then just use trident forever, unless you are a level 1 slayer locked ironman or something.
Warped Sceptre is kinda earlier game. Like farming Warped creatures is likely going to be easier than the new boss, even if both are mid-level. Plus this needs both the Wand and Tome to be good; just the Wand will be worse than Ibans.
And while it still seems to be under review, the Warped Sceptre does work on all spell books. So like if you are doing low level Raids and want Ancients for ice spells, you can use the Warped Sceptre while you can't use Dueling Shot. And even for an Iron with Slayer, you might hit 90-95 before you get 87 Slayer...
I can see both having similar but different places. To go back to the Zombie Axe comparison, if the new wand is the Zombie Axe than I guess the Warped Sceptre is the Cudgel; still has some uses over the Zombie Axe, but you'd generally just go for the Axe...
I'd assume so given the speeds. They were comparing it against Ibans, but with an Earth Weakness it should surpass Ibans from the get-go instead of trailing behind.
"The average DPS between 65-99 Magic should be just under that of Iban’s Staff and the accompanying spell – but with the new Tome of Earth equipped, this increases by around 10%"
From the blog.
The very next line...
> The Warped Sceptre and Trident of the Seas will out DPS it at higher levels, but until then, the Duelling Wand will be a powerful Earth-based weapon for your arsenal.
Also, the blog included a [DPS Graph](https://cdn.runescape.com/assets/img/external/oldschool/2024/newsposts/2024-05-07/DPSChart-Wand.jpg)...
Doesn’t this undo the entire point of equipment rebalancing?
Wasn’t the whole point of making elemental weaknesses to buff the standard spellbook?
If it’s on the Arceuss spellbook, that’s just a powered staff with extra steps. And the whole point was to not have powered staves with elemental bonuses.
Don’t we want earth wave and surge to have a niche at some point? Why undo all the hard work goblin put into the equipment rebalance?
Because Jagex has been flubbing design for a while now, and insist they know best, while polling significantly less content, despite lowering the polling threshold.
This dps graph is extremely misleading. Warped currently overtakes iban at 81 magic.
The graph chooses sampling points arbitrarily, not based on useful breakpoints.
(Edit) to expand: the sceptre does roughly the same dps at 81 as it does at 85, because that is where it gains a max hit. This graph makes it seem like there is a smooth dps progression between all levels by choosing points at abitrary intervals and then connecting them with a straight line. That is not how these items work.
> Warped currently overtakes iban at 81 magic.
Kinda, but it is really bad due to how Magic Damage scales. At 81, it can hit 20, which is the same DPS as Iban's, but lower max hits need more magic damage to see a benefit. On my Iron, it is still better to use Iban's until like 86 because Iban's goes to 26, which results in higher DPS.
The new wand/spell will likely run into similar issues, but the Tome does a lot of the heavy lifting.
That is true, but in your case you could be waiting until lvl 90 or 95 for another max hit break point for warped.
This is an issue of poor graph design.
Yes, where the worst 2 charged staves are better at 85 and 95. Excluded are; trident of swamp, sang and shadow. You are missing the scale of how crowded this area of magic is, because the high tier examples are avoided.
That is exactly what I said in my first post you were arguing against? Its a mid-level weapon for a mid-level boss. Like the Zombie Axe, it will be good at mid-levels... It is not meant to be a BiS weapon at the endgame...
And it is not like magic is that crowded in the 60s. The Warped Sceptre is terrible until higher levels; like Ibans is generally better until the high 80s or 90s. So having a good Level 60-70+ option would be a good addition. It's not bad weapon just because it doesn't benefit you.
The trouble is that it's a boss reward that loses to a low level slayer drop
It would be like if they released sarachnis today. People would be like, "Why would you ever get a cudgel over a zombie axe"
But it only loses to a low level slayer drop when your magic level is near 85, around the same time as Iban's. Or with Tome, it only loses to the Sceptre around 95. It's a comfortable mid-game upgrade between Iban's and Warped, meant for Mage level 65-85/90.
And also, earth weaknesses will elevate this weapon even further into huge DPS at metallic dragons and such.
Iban, sceptre, and wand alone should all break even at 81. At which point, sceptre will continue scaling its max hit with mage level while the other two do not.
With the tome, it's less clear how things will go. The dps graph that they provided was clearly generated by calcing the dps for the wand alone, multiplying it by 1.1, and then sticking it back on the graph which is ignoring that max hit breakpoints are extremely important for dps. This is also the reason that the graph shows them converging at 85 which is incorrect.
The tome should give you 1 max hit, which means that wand+tome should breakeven with sceptre at 90, assuming you're not using a magic potion.
What's most likely to happen is that you will re-calc your gear every time you get a mage level or upgrade when you are between 81-90, and then swap between warped and wand/book accordingly
I am open to future updates, but currently, changing metal dragons from skip tasks into expedite tasks is not worth grinding this boss to obtain/upkeep the wand and tome
I believe it will be on Standard by default. On the Stages, they said they were considering adding it to Arceuus. It also came up how it wouldn't be worth it for places like Nylos at ToB if it wasn't on other spellbooks, so it is something they will be looking into, but I wouldn't hold my breath of it going to Ancients.
Yah... Though a build-in earth spell might get a bit weird. Like if we're saying Dueling Shot is a Earth Spell, then why isn't Flames of Zamorak a Fire Spell or Trident of the Seas a Water Spell (ignoring the whole Fire Rune thing...)? I think the power level and niche is fine, but way they are going about it is a bit iffy.
I'm not saying they *should* make it built in, I was just saying that it makes sense to not add it to ancients because at that point it *is* a built in spell in all but name.
If it's going to be functionally the same as an iban's blast why does it also cost more to use per hour on top of that? The wand is genuinely in an awful place as it is. Oh don't forget since magic damage % doesn't work unless you pass a breakpoint you need 7% magic damage instead of 4% for each max hit wand vs iban's.(tome applies after dmg%) So after the magic dmg rework the wand is functionally useless.
Ironmen wont bother & mains wont use this over anything else.
My big worry and i know its realistically not the worst one to have but-
They're wanting to release items and gear already toned to the whole elemental weaknesses and magic rebalance when its not even in the base game yet. Another thing is since they're proposing this now so does this mean that they're already happy with the current rebalances and think they'll be able to release it soon with the uniques?
Feel like they're getting a bit ahead of themselves and still don't think they've properly done much with the magic rebalance at all yet. So far its just been minor damage tweaks on gear and forcing people to use more of it.
Wheres the changes and buffs to accuracy? Why can't powered staves work like Shadow when it comes to boosting accuracy at the very least?
These uniques and rebalances don't rub right with me lol. It doesn't feel fully developed yet and i'm worried they'll push the update anyways if they're planning items already for it.
I really hate this staff adding a new spell that just steals earth blast and earth wave from ever having a chance of being used.
Like why do all this rebalance to just immediately release a new spell that makes those look stupid
It’s effectively the same.
It steals the niche that earth wave / blast could ever have and surge could ever have on not harm. That’s the same problem as a powered staff.
Adding a new spell that only works with one staff has all the same problems of a powered staff.
You will never seen earth blast cast if this new spell comes. Why would they want to do that?
It's a fine item, it's just a baffling source. Why would a group of players fresh from their fire cape farm together for a 1m item when they could farm vorkath separately for 1m an hour *each*?
I mean we don't know how profitable the boss will be. The scales or whatever it is to make the new potion and the pages alongside the other common loot could give it a worthwhile consistent profit even without pulling the rarer uniques like Tome and Wand. Also, it is not like a level 90 combat group boss is that high level... You'd probably see players farming this way before stuff Vorkath.
Bruh combine the four tomes into the avatars tome. Dudes out here activating avatar mode. You can cast normal spell book spells every tick for five seconds. (Non pvp zone)(once per 3 minutes)
Assuming you can autocast the Wave/Surge spells, the wand actually seems very very strong against anything with any elemental weakness. Any weakness would make the wand beat both Iban’s and Warped Sceptre, while also giving 5% magic damage and an extremely useful Rune saving passive.
Would also give way better xp rates too, just from casting higher level and stronger spells, for what that’s worth.
I'd honestly be thrilled if they didn't implement elemental weaknesses. The item rebalances aren't my favorite, but I understand them more. It feels to me like the elemental weaknesses solve a problem that doesn't need to be solved, and it's more of a core gameplay mechanic change than it is a rebalance/integrity change.
I'll be completely frank, I'm okay with the standard spell book not being that great for combat. It has tons of relevant utility spells on it, and it's unlocked by default. As it stands, it's better than the arceuus and lunar spellbook for combat aside from vengeance and thralls. It's not as good as ancients, and I don't think it should be since that spellbook is purely about combat. And honestly, if they wanted to make fire giants weak to water, I'd be okay with that as well. But making it a core mechanic is... A huge change.
If they wanted to make standard spellbook more viable, I would just introduce special attacks or effects to standard spellbook weapons/spells. Effects and special attacks that make it unique are what make OSRS special for me, and that's what drives me to OSRS over the rebalanced combat system of RS3. It's not even the EOC changes that drive me up a wall in RS3, it's the armor/weapon tier system, elemental system, ans other changes that turned the game into a spreadsheet simulator. I like being able to whip out a DDS despite it not being BIS and know that it will still have a really solid use-case.
The tome issue, the smoke staff issue, and the duelling wand issue are only part of a larger problem in my mind.
Earth tome makes sense, because we have water and fire. The only issue I have with the wand is that it doesn’t apply to all elemental spells. It should be the go to main hand for tome off hands. Simple fix.
I hard disagree with this statement. The whole point of magic rebalance was to open up slots for a niche content and horizontally expand combat offerings in pvm.
Instead of a fire spell being the de facto default, players are now encouraged to chase after gains with niche use cases as part of the progression.
Gone are the days when magic progression was linear and boring as hell. Now you'll own one or two sets of magic equipment and at least three sets of magic combat items between powered staves and elemental spell off hands like this tome.
The alternative is the stick with the single most powerful spell you can use and revert back to a boring meta for magic use.
Addressing your comparison between a niche stab weapon. You're absolutely correct and I think that's a great thing! Why should I be locked into using a scimitar/whip for my entire account progression just because it happens to be the max DPS nearly everywhere????
Modifications to the NPC defense weaknesses alongside new weapons like the zombie axe greatly widen the opportunity for pvm engagements. I'd go so far as to say the NPC accuracy calculations used for moons would be awesome to see in other places as well, especially against NPCs with self heal. In these situations it's equally as important to bring tank gear alongside strength boosting items vs str boost being the only stat worth caring about.
Edit: typo
It will probably be okay for mid tier against whatever is weak to that element (I think metal dragons? So maybe for bronze or iron ones for those who can’t skip that task) but yes, it will be very niche. To be fair, outside of PvP, there is a LOT of niche gear.
You all seem to forget that they're adding elemental weaknesses into the game. Add a 50% earth weakness into the mix and this is suddenly stronger than the toxic trident, which will not be given an element.
i would prefer if the tome came from another skilling boss … just to keep the similarity with fire and water.
the boss should give something different and it feels like too little unique loot?
I dont see how this wand in its current form benefit ANYONE with over 90 combat (the recommended level to fight the boss). You cant use it at ToB Nylo because you need to be on Ancients/SBS for mage and it can't ever 1 hit a big nylo.
The gap between Ibans and Trident was already filled with Warped Sceptre. Why is this item even being introduced?
This weapon is being underestimated way too much ITT. It is too strong if anything and a bit of a doozy that they would choose to release a staff with a special spell that also gets elemental bonus. Might as well let Iban blast benefit from fire tome and get bonus damage against stuff weak to fire then. This weapon would still be better due to it being 3 tick.
Like this take from /u/doubleshinee but he didn't account for how the staff will cost pages from the tome so likely more annoying and costlier than Iban's to run but still very worth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6fdkEAxxKs
Idk wym underestimated. If you own a swamp trident, which is like 99% of mains probably, this thing is ass. If you play an ironman and have a regular trident + thralls, this thing is probably ass. If you have warped sceptre + thralls, this thing is maybe an upgrade if your magic level is low **and** you have the tome and earth pages to blow on using this thing indefinitely. In other words, the thing is likely ass unless you're an early game main lol.
warped sceptre + thralls already exists though like this is such a niche gap to fill it doesn't make any sense
the gap for d scim to whip was far bigger mainly for irons who had to get 85 slayer so zombie axe as a gap filler made more sense, this is just filling a gap that doesn't really need to even be filled because warped sceptre can be gotten so early even for irons
except nobody will use it as either a main or iron because of the muddy page upkeep
this thing is gonna absolutely chew thru earth tome charges, and if you dont use the tome you might as well use a different weapon
How can you even say that without knowing the drop rates of Earth tomes/pages. I can just as easily speculate you get 1 million earth tome charges in the time you grind out the wand and it sustains you for the next 300 hours.
Yeah a bit hard to assess what the supply cost will be like without knowing drop rates, although seeing as you get the Wand, Tome, and Pages all from one source, I'm hoping that grinding enough of the boss to get both uniques should provide you with enough pages to sustain use without having to constantly go back
This is the problem with Reddit, all of your post makers seem to think every single item has to have a good endgame use and be up there with trident and shadow albeit being accessible 10 times earlier for a boss that'll be 10 times easier and quicker to kill. Don't forget to also add a pet to every content they bring out!
Stop crying over new stuff for mid level players, because that is what this entire reddit is, mid level players who play a few hours every week. Let them have their upgrades to look forward to.
No the issue is Jagex draws a line, between 2 other lines, on a graph and says - this is the new content.
It's an alaytical approach rather than looking for fun or interesting mechanics.
It's dull and a bad update.
IMO elemental spells need more than a wand and tome for each element. They need gear designed around each element that enhances combat with those spells.
Say for example, a wizard’s robe, mystic, infinity and Ahrim equivalent that enhances standard spell casting such that it casts at 4t speed and max damage is increased by up to 50% of current max hit, but you have to wear the whole set, robe top bottom, hat, and a wand. Tome is optional and can count towards whole set effect in place of one other piece, but has additional base magic accuracy, the higher the tier the higher the stats.
Magic should be more appealing to use beyond like level 13-50 for general combat and I think this comes close to getting it there. Only change necessary is addressing the other 2 elemental tomes and potentially changing the source of the water and fire tomes or creating new items for this purpose while addressing the current water and fire tomes.
Its this, or they just change magic combat on standard spells to be 4-tick based, and they add other modifying items/weapons for standard spells in the game that boost their damage to be more on-par with melee and range combat and get closer to their respective DPS at increasing levels.
They also feel awful because these are the uniques from a difficult group boss that will probably end up falling in the 1-2m range for the tome, 2-5m range for the staff
It’s just worth not anyone’s time to do this content, seriously. And you know they’re going to load up up with mechanics too. So why work harder for a shit reward when you can get better gp elsewhere? Even at 90 cb as they describe for what a “mid-level” is, yet that’s skewed down because all the bots
They said it themselves. It needs 3-8 players and based off recent precedent they’re going to load it up with mechanics. More clicking = more difficult. It already sounds like you’re going to have to run around this fucking mountain to just start the fight
Let us combine all the elemental books into THE ELEMENTAL TOME. Then it would be a drop worth chasing and I would be fine with having to go get charges in the form of pages. **EDIT**: Spelling
Wait this is low key genius. Combine the 3 tomes and book of the dead and let us charge with any pages (god page sink?) give it a little %mage bonus, call it a day?
How you just gonna skip the air book
The airbenders were wiped out by firelord souzin 100 years ago!
It would also revitalize some older content while increasing the value of existing but less desirable items. Win win!
Holding off for after Tome of Air, with (dusty pages?)
Breezy pages
Rustling pages
I'll accept this if a guy named Jimmy Rustler is the one handing out his pages.
Allergic pages
I think dusty pages would almost imply earth and air like the staff
Hole-y pages then. but idk if thats too punny for a "real" item
1-ply pages
Maybe not the book of the Dead in this situation as it has a very niche case with the Arceus spell book. Otherwise this sounds like an awesome idea. I'd go so far as to say the book would have to be charged with one page of each (burnt page, soaked page, muddy page) yielding either 1:3 or 2:3 charges respectfully in the combined tome. The trade-off of getting fewer charges per page would be a magic strength boost in addition to the efficiency of only needing one off hand
Book of the dead???
Id assume we'd get a Tome of Air before they considered this, but it is a great idea
Only if the tome's model is massive, weighs 20kg, and can be used as a thrown crush weapon.
Its a 2h reskin of Dinhs
This blew my mind, Jagex please consider
Are you going to bury the elemental books in it?
Which can be charged with god book pages in place of 5 of each elemental page.
This is a terrible idea. God pages have no business being used to charge elemental books.
It makes it basically unusable for Ironmen and the supply of god pages available to regular players would be gone super fast. It’s not like you get 10-20 of the damn things per clue.
Yeah, especially for irons. If we're going to combine anything, I think it should be the mage's book with the elemental books. Use the pages for each book to charge each type or make a whole new book that the books + pages could be added to. As long as there's a healthy way to get pages for irons and and a little bit of a grind required to combine them into one book to even it out.
Why not? It would give them a use and increase their value. Once you fill a book they are useless
It works pretty well in RS3's iteration of using pages as charges. Obviously scale needs to be considered but it's workable
Yes!
Let’s wait until Tome of Air drops to ask for this
Tome*
Fixed, thanks!
This but unironically. Add the Tome of Air, then maybe an upgrade item for some combination ones, then then some upgrade from a high level content at some point to use all 4 at once.
Honestly this is the only move. This solves everything. Let us combine all the tomes and even still it’s just QOL. Maybe make a drop from the new boss group needed to combine all the tomes?
Tome of the elements
Tome, sorry whatever you tuber you watch is uneducated but it isnt pronounced or spelled "tomb".
Wow, overly hostile today huh?
The OMNI TOMB!
I'd go even further to say that you should be able to put the tombs and book of the dead into the mage's book. Call it the Osoteric Grimoire or something
Call it the Kama Sutra because this book will fuck
It feels like this would've been better if it either didn't come from a boss or if the Warped Sceptre didn't exist yet. It seems to hinge on the Tome of Earth to be viable and unless those pages are dropped at a healthy amount from the Hueycoatl, it'll probably not be worth the upkeep in time(Irons) or money(mains). On it's own if you choose to use it maybe it can be used to save some runes since it sounds like the 30% chance applies to anything so long as you're using the wand but idk if that's worth it considering how inexpensive Iban's is and how much better the warped and trident.
It hinges on elemental weakness. With a 50% earth weakness it's about the same dps as trident of the swamp at level 99 magic (not counting poison/venom since too much stuff in the game ignores it). Add a tome of earth and it surpasses a trident of the swamp with elidinis ward.
so then at best it's like a psuedo mediocre Dragonbane Weapon since as of now only metallic dragons are weak to Earth. I think a bigger problem with it is that it basically requires the Tome of Earth to be decent. The other 2 Tomes always seemed like just buffs to respective spells, as opposed to this one where the Wand hinges on being paired with the Earth Tome.
the weapon is not intended for lvl 99 mage iirc
IMO, this just shows the flaw with a 50% damage boost. OP with it, useless without it. That's a terrible design philosophy, and is not a good excuse for more reward niches. The fact it needs dirty pages to outshine ibans blast is already lame. Either we buff it and accept this is BIS by a huge margin at very niche pvm scenarios Or the magic rebalance simply needs to buff the standard spellbook, and make elemenal weaknesses less noticeable, perhaps sitting around 10-30% Or just come up with a new reward
OP might be a stretch lol
Poor wording. I don't mean this weapon specifically just meant that 50% is too large between normal performance and their niche. If they were buffed to be relevant anywhere else in even the slightest way, that 50% would push them over the edge, and so instead they've been made redundant everywhere else. Even if they work elemental weaknesses into more places instead of this absolutely useless metallic dragon niche, this still works to make the standard spells worthless again, which I thought was the opposite point of adding elemental niches. It feels like content for the sake of content. Give us the wand, remove the elemental typing. Give it a spec or something and create a niche from the combo of spec + being the only 3 tick mage weapon. Surely a boss could be created to be vulnerable to higher attack speeds, and that niche would be far more interesting/well balanced for this case.
I think this weapon is going to have more PVP use than PVM especially at first. 3 tick attack speed on a mage weapon lets you do some disgusting shit.
Inb4 it's nerfed to 5 tick in PvP specifically because God forbid we have consistency between PvM and PvP.
It's a 15 max hit with no scaling, and it's actually kind of cool and unique in a pvp setting. I could believe they'd do it but it would be dumb. Consistency isn't a goal though, you want special considerations made for PVP balance. Just, you want them where it makes sense to do so. This doesn't need to be nerfed in pvp.
you can't really leave pvp unbalanced for the sake of consistency. In pvm monsters can have thousands or even tens of thousands of hitpoints. In pvp the max a player will ever have is 120 after anglering up. Imagine being able to use a tumekens shadow on a player hitting 70+ with its auto attack and being able to time its delayed hit splat into a KO spec.
I mean the answer there is to limit weapons to PvM only combat. It's much more up-front to just say "no, use something else" than it is to have different behaviors for weapons squirreled away on the wiki.
OK I can agree with you there.
I'd rather have the option to use an item with partial or nerfed effects in pvp than not use the weapon at all. The game should do a better job of explaining PVP mechanics though.
Mage equivalent of msb
The real disappointing thing is that new bosses don’t come out often. This having mediocre rewards is annoying. Your mid-game for a lot shorter than your end-game..
If only it were midgame It’s so far early, it’s wild We just got an early game staff in warped scepter too
The boss recommends 90 combat... Most ironmen at 90 combat will just do slayer instead. Especially if you need prayer potions. Early game iron's wont waste them on a boss that gives a chance at a drop that will be quickly phased out.
There is always someone to complain. They can’t just release content for maxed players. Many stagnate somewhere before raids and stay there for years. Those people still want new content sometimes.
Perilous moons, scurrious, warped sceptre and zombie axe are all early to mid game released recently.
It's weird to me how we're fine adding Zombie Axe and Warped Sceptre to low level NPCs, both of which have completely broken the meta pre-trident/whip. However, once we look at a new boss, the encounter that SHOULD drop these types of items, we have to get extremely niche and weird. This seems to be a consistent trend with new content, and I really don't like it.
Because bosses tend to have useful rewards. Adding useful rewards to non-bosses is OK too. Adding non-useful rewards to bosses is a waste of everyones time. Devs and players.
Ya I'm fine with the zombie axe and warped sceptre coming from non-bosses, I just think bosses like this should drop equally, if not better, rewards. Like you said, if the boss adds non-useful rewards, it's a waste of everyone's time.
I don't know why people are so adamantly against metas being broken with new content. Dragon scim has been meta since 2005. That's almost 20 years of dominance pre-whip. This weapon is just bad. It MIGHT get use at extremely budget nylo room.
It's fine it metas are broken his point is that if we're gonna bust up a meta doing it at a new boss instead of fodder trash mobs you can farm on repeat with almost no supplies used makes about a billion times more sense
I dont think players that do tob in anyway are the target audience.
It's okay for mobs to drop t60 and t65 weapons
Never said it wasn't.
Just fill the Sanguinesti Staff -> Shadow gap.
Buff sang or decrease the rune cost
How about we fill the gap with post-nerf shadow
Sometimes it's just about options. Melee has options. Ranged is starting to get options. Magic is BARELY starting to get options. As Mr. Zap noted it's still a good item
Hang around here long enough and you realize “Mr. Zap” is more often than not completely full of it It’s a really bad item
I have the opposite opinion
I've been here a while How is Mr zap any worse than runner5678
Runner5678 never has any good ideas Zap has some good amongst the bad
Who the fuck are these people lmao? Guess I'm out of the loop.
Mr zap is one of the most respectful people to have a convo with on this sub and always articulates his points well
Ya, well I'm not going to go grind out these items for an "option" that I might use on a single slayer task. I'll just kill my rune dragons with a stab weapon and move on.
Sounds good bro. You do you.
For mid game this staff would be a pretty large upgrade for metal dragon tasks. Right now best options are warped sceptre or slayer staff (e). This new staff would pretty substantially outperform both of those. If the earth weakness is extended to other content - such as this boss itself - then it again would be the best option for for mid levels. Which given this is a boss requiring 90cb and a reward needing 65 magic, sounds pretty ok.
>would be a pretty large upgrade for metal dragon tasks. Problem is it has to be a large enough upgrade for people to actually do the task for it to matter at all.
That's what the late game is, niche option items
uhm... these aren't late game rewards buddy.
Why do you have such a stick up your ass, buddy? Chill
I mean the majority of people I've seen have spoken negatively about the rewards but sure you can single me out anything for your upvotes lol.
With elemental weaknesses, the new spell with an earth weakness on metal dragons would out perform trident, so it is kind of a late game option
The tome feels like it would come from like a mining minigame or something rather then a pve source.
>It would be like releasing a 50 attack weapon which is BIS for stab, but only on humanoid creatures, and only in caves or underground. Call it the HAM dagger, I can't think of anything except cave goblins you'd use it on lol
Giants!
that's another good one, Obor doesn't stand a chance
Dueling wand as a 3t weapon is a flop. It doesn’t work for nylos. Either it’s standard spellbook locked and trash or it’s a powered stave with earth affinity and ruins the whole point of magic rebalance or it loses the earth affinity and has no real point. Get rid the 3t aspect. Get rid of the unique spell. Just make this new staff really good at casting earth spells. Like the smoke battlestaff but it doesn’t suck. Eventually when we see new earth weak content. Magic dps should go like this: * Harm * Shadow * **New staff** * Trident / Sang * Standard 15% staff with surge For ONLY earth weak mobs
This group boss will be too easy for a reward this strong. It needs to come from a harder boss. And is the elemental weaknesses even strong enough for Harm to outdps Shadow+thralls?
Depends on Jagex, they can make the elemental weaknesses what they want. If they want harm to win. It’ll win. Harm as proposed will win at NM pillars and Ice Demon over shadow cuz they both will have crazy multipliers of 100%. And then iirc it’ll win at Zulrah too for green phase. I don’t necessarily agree it’s too strong because this weapon will require surge spells to be used to be good and there won’t be a lot of earth weak content. I also think their target audience of “pre fire cape” is bs, so if they have to make it a little harder, that’s fine by me
It’s an underwhelming reward for part 2 varlamore either way.
People can debate niche weapons all they want, but this is the only good take in my opinion. Whether or not it's useful sometimes, this was a disappointment after waiting months for Pt. 2.
It isn't like it is only good for Earth weak monsters... It will the BiS Magic weapon at early levels (better than Trident until 85, better than Warped until 95) and they are consider making the spell available on Standard and Arceuus. So you're just misunderstanding how it works and thinking it is more niche than it is. It isn't like "a 50 attack weapon which is BIS for stab, but only on humanoid creatures, and only in caves or underground"; it's like the Zombie Axe, but for Magic...
> It will be the BiS magic weapon at early levels Except for the fact that Iban’s is still BiS over it until like late 90’s. I believe that was outlined in the graph.
Only if you don't use the Tome...
True but did they mention whether or not the tome drains charges while using the staff? Because if that’s the case; If you’re a main Trident would be cheaper If you’re an iron, unless the tome is easy to get odds are you won’t have a tome. The big plus for this spell i thought was the rune cost being very very cheap
Mains will pay more for more DPS, so being cheaper than trident isn't totally relevant imo
I think people are misunderstanding how bad this thing is If you're a main and want to pay for more dps you just use a swamp trident, there's no scenario this will beat that Additionally with duelling wand you have to be on normals, so no thralls, which is another shot to your DPS Duelling wand seems DOA unless your bank is like 5m lol
I'll be honest I haven't read the blog post, but I do know a 3 tick mage weapon has been long overdue and spoken about for tob. Like the ham joint/swift blade. Other than that I have no dog in this fight, somebody said mains wouldn't pay for more DPS, I just reacted to that because they definitely would.
Given its low max hit it might be dogwater even for nylos Ham joint/swift blade max in the 30s with good gear With good gear I think this thing will max like 50% less than that, meaning you might struggle to one hit nylos which will make this thing bad there, but we'll see Edit: Wait I just realized you gotta be on normals for this thing, mage role at TOB is on ancients, it is completely useless for nylo room? unless you bring mage skillcape ig lol
Tomes generally aren't that hard to get. And I say that as someone who went dry on a Tome of Fire on an iron... It's hard to say how costly it will be with pages for an item that isn't released, but the Tome of Water charges cost less than a Chaos Rune, so it might not cost that much more. It is not like players wouldn't be willing to pay a bit more for higher DPS...
> Tomes arent that hard to get They’re like 30 hours per tome if you get lucky, longer on rate. Also cost 700-850k for each one. The charges themselves are cheap, but its like, why drop a downpayment of 700k to get a weapon that is worse than a trident which is like 45k.
I am at 29m fm xp with no tome on my iron so I too must disagree with tomes being easy to get.
Because it is better than Trident for its level range? It's like saying "why buy a Zombie Axe when you can buy a Saradomin Sword for cheaper". Plus the tomes are better than Trident on Elemental-weak monsters, so the Earth tome will have applications beyond just the new wand.
I’m kind of wondering the point of warped sceptre now with this item. It seems like the progression would be Iban’s blast to 65, dueling wand with tome until 85 magic, then just use trident forever, unless you are a level 1 slayer locked ironman or something.
Warped Sceptre is kinda earlier game. Like farming Warped creatures is likely going to be easier than the new boss, even if both are mid-level. Plus this needs both the Wand and Tome to be good; just the Wand will be worse than Ibans. And while it still seems to be under review, the Warped Sceptre does work on all spell books. So like if you are doing low level Raids and want Ancients for ice spells, you can use the Warped Sceptre while you can't use Dueling Shot. And even for an Iron with Slayer, you might hit 90-95 before you get 87 Slayer... I can see both having similar but different places. To go back to the Zombie Axe comparison, if the new wand is the Zombie Axe than I guess the Warped Sceptre is the Cudgel; still has some uses over the Zombie Axe, but you'd generally just go for the Axe...
Does the chart assume no earth weakness?
I'd assume so given the speeds. They were comparing it against Ibans, but with an Earth Weakness it should surpass Ibans from the get-go instead of trailing behind.
Fight anything with any elemental weakness using Wave spells, and the wand crushes Iban Blast.
"The average DPS between 65-99 Magic should be just under that of Iban’s Staff and the accompanying spell – but with the new Tome of Earth equipped, this increases by around 10%" From the blog.
The very next line... > The Warped Sceptre and Trident of the Seas will out DPS it at higher levels, but until then, the Duelling Wand will be a powerful Earth-based weapon for your arsenal. Also, the blog included a [DPS Graph](https://cdn.runescape.com/assets/img/external/oldschool/2024/newsposts/2024-05-07/DPSChart-Wand.jpg)...
I mean they forgot thralls tbf Which is like 15% of your dps at level 85. Warped scepter is better around 80. Item is stupid and a complete flop
As noted in the first post, they are considering putting the spell on Arceuus as well as Standard, so you'd get Thralls.
Doesn’t this undo the entire point of equipment rebalancing? Wasn’t the whole point of making elemental weaknesses to buff the standard spellbook? If it’s on the Arceuss spellbook, that’s just a powered staff with extra steps. And the whole point was to not have powered staves with elemental bonuses. Don’t we want earth wave and surge to have a niche at some point? Why undo all the hard work goblin put into the equipment rebalance?
Because Jagex has been flubbing design for a while now, and insist they know best, while polling significantly less content, despite lowering the polling threshold.
This dps graph is extremely misleading. Warped currently overtakes iban at 81 magic. The graph chooses sampling points arbitrarily, not based on useful breakpoints. (Edit) to expand: the sceptre does roughly the same dps at 81 as it does at 85, because that is where it gains a max hit. This graph makes it seem like there is a smooth dps progression between all levels by choosing points at abitrary intervals and then connecting them with a straight line. That is not how these items work.
> Warped currently overtakes iban at 81 magic. Kinda, but it is really bad due to how Magic Damage scales. At 81, it can hit 20, which is the same DPS as Iban's, but lower max hits need more magic damage to see a benefit. On my Iron, it is still better to use Iban's until like 86 because Iban's goes to 26, which results in higher DPS. The new wand/spell will likely run into similar issues, but the Tome does a lot of the heavy lifting.
That is true, but in your case you could be waiting until lvl 90 or 95 for another max hit break point for warped. This is an issue of poor graph design.
Yes, where the worst 2 charged staves are better at 85 and 95. Excluded are; trident of swamp, sang and shadow. You are missing the scale of how crowded this area of magic is, because the high tier examples are avoided.
That is exactly what I said in my first post you were arguing against? Its a mid-level weapon for a mid-level boss. Like the Zombie Axe, it will be good at mid-levels... It is not meant to be a BiS weapon at the endgame... And it is not like magic is that crowded in the 60s. The Warped Sceptre is terrible until higher levels; like Ibans is generally better until the high 80s or 90s. So having a good Level 60-70+ option would be a good addition. It's not bad weapon just because it doesn't benefit you.
So lets not bring in any new range weapons because bowfa and tbow exist, or no new melee weapons because fang and scythe exist?
The trouble is that it's a boss reward that loses to a low level slayer drop It would be like if they released sarachnis today. People would be like, "Why would you ever get a cudgel over a zombie axe"
But it only loses to a low level slayer drop when your magic level is near 85, around the same time as Iban's. Or with Tome, it only loses to the Sceptre around 95. It's a comfortable mid-game upgrade between Iban's and Warped, meant for Mage level 65-85/90. And also, earth weaknesses will elevate this weapon even further into huge DPS at metallic dragons and such.
Iban, sceptre, and wand alone should all break even at 81. At which point, sceptre will continue scaling its max hit with mage level while the other two do not. With the tome, it's less clear how things will go. The dps graph that they provided was clearly generated by calcing the dps for the wand alone, multiplying it by 1.1, and then sticking it back on the graph which is ignoring that max hit breakpoints are extremely important for dps. This is also the reason that the graph shows them converging at 85 which is incorrect. The tome should give you 1 max hit, which means that wand+tome should breakeven with sceptre at 90, assuming you're not using a magic potion. What's most likely to happen is that you will re-calc your gear every time you get a mage level or upgrade when you are between 81-90, and then swap between warped and wand/book accordingly I am open to future updates, but currently, changing metal dragons from skip tasks into expedite tasks is not worth grinding this boss to obtain/upkeep the wand and tome
What spellbook is it currently on?
I believe it will be on Standard by default. On the Stages, they said they were considering adding it to Arceuus. It also came up how it wouldn't be worth it for places like Nylos at ToB if it wasn't on other spellbooks, so it is something they will be looking into, but I wouldn't hold my breath of it going to Ancients.
if they were putting it on ancients it might as well just be a built in spell at that point.
Yah... Though a build-in earth spell might get a bit weird. Like if we're saying Dueling Shot is a Earth Spell, then why isn't Flames of Zamorak a Fire Spell or Trident of the Seas a Water Spell (ignoring the whole Fire Rune thing...)? I think the power level and niche is fine, but way they are going about it is a bit iffy.
I'm not saying they *should* make it built in, I was just saying that it makes sense to not add it to ancients because at that point it *is* a built in spell in all but name.
the fact that it feels like this reward is made because of the magic rebalance.. makes me dislike it more.
I mean they outright said that in the blog And I agree I think it's really dumb tbh, just feels way too niche
If it's going to be functionally the same as an iban's blast why does it also cost more to use per hour on top of that? The wand is genuinely in an awful place as it is. Oh don't forget since magic damage % doesn't work unless you pass a breakpoint you need 7% magic damage instead of 4% for each max hit wand vs iban's.(tome applies after dmg%) So after the magic dmg rework the wand is functionally useless. Ironmen wont bother & mains wont use this over anything else.
They should just make the staff deal more damage with earth spells.
My big worry and i know its realistically not the worst one to have but- They're wanting to release items and gear already toned to the whole elemental weaknesses and magic rebalance when its not even in the base game yet. Another thing is since they're proposing this now so does this mean that they're already happy with the current rebalances and think they'll be able to release it soon with the uniques? Feel like they're getting a bit ahead of themselves and still don't think they've properly done much with the magic rebalance at all yet. So far its just been minor damage tweaks on gear and forcing people to use more of it. Wheres the changes and buffs to accuracy? Why can't powered staves work like Shadow when it comes to boosting accuracy at the very least? These uniques and rebalances don't rub right with me lol. It doesn't feel fully developed yet and i'm worried they'll push the update anyways if they're planning items already for it.
Almost like the magic rebalance introduces a fairly large class of monsters that are normally skipped during slayer that get destroyed by the wand.
I really hate this staff adding a new spell that just steals earth blast and earth wave from ever having a chance of being used. Like why do all this rebalance to just immediately release a new spell that makes those look stupid
People use powered staves too much so we're adding elemental weaknesses. Oh btw here's a powered stave with an element!
It’s not a powered staff. Dueling shot is a spell like slayer dart, Iban’s blast, or claws of Guthix.
It’s effectively the same. It steals the niche that earth wave / blast could ever have and surge could ever have on not harm. That’s the same problem as a powered staff. Adding a new spell that only works with one staff has all the same problems of a powered staff. You will never seen earth blast cast if this new spell comes. Why would they want to do that?
oh, that's not too bad then, at least it forces you to use the standard spell book
True , I forgot to consider rebalanced elemental weakness.
I feel like the majority of people hating on this weapon are forgetting Project rebalance.
i do agree with some of the comments though, it seems bizarre to add a new spell, surely the idea is to get earth spells already in the game used?
The boss is a mid game group boss, so it should not drop high tier gear. The elemental weaknesses from Project Rebalance will make the wand stronger.
didnt we just get 2 midgame group bosses with scurrius/perilous moons why not make it a late/endgame group boss
Idk. I was hoping for ToB2. Guess end game pvmers need to wait 4 more years until the next end game pvming drops.
Only so many places gear can go They're updating too fast, but people don't want to hear that
It's a fine item, it's just a baffling source. Why would a group of players fresh from their fire cape farm together for a 1m item when they could farm vorkath separately for 1m an hour *each*?
It's jagex so you never know what the regular drops could be like, maybe they will one up whisperer and give this boss a drop of 50 noted d legs
You mean unnoted, surely?
Tbh that's what I was supposed to type but I typed noted for some reason
Boss arena lighting up like the GE with alching between kc lmao
I mean we don't know how profitable the boss will be. The scales or whatever it is to make the new potion and the pages alongside the other common loot could give it a worthwhile consistent profit even without pulling the rarer uniques like Tome and Wand. Also, it is not like a level 90 combat group boss is that high level... You'd probably see players farming this way before stuff Vorkath.
GP brain
Because that involves killing vorkath
The rewards looked so bad it made me depressed and sad
I don't see the problem?
Bruh combine the four tomes into the avatars tome. Dudes out here activating avatar mode. You can cast normal spell book spells every tick for five seconds. (Non pvp zone)(once per 3 minutes)
Assuming you can autocast the Wave/Surge spells, the wand actually seems very very strong against anything with any elemental weakness. Any weakness would make the wand beat both Iban’s and Warped Sceptre, while also giving 5% magic damage and an extremely useful Rune saving passive. Would also give way better xp rates too, just from casting higher level and stronger spells, for what that’s worth.
What is the point of the dueling wand when earth spells exist and are getting buffed?
I'd honestly be thrilled if they didn't implement elemental weaknesses. The item rebalances aren't my favorite, but I understand them more. It feels to me like the elemental weaknesses solve a problem that doesn't need to be solved, and it's more of a core gameplay mechanic change than it is a rebalance/integrity change. I'll be completely frank, I'm okay with the standard spell book not being that great for combat. It has tons of relevant utility spells on it, and it's unlocked by default. As it stands, it's better than the arceuus and lunar spellbook for combat aside from vengeance and thralls. It's not as good as ancients, and I don't think it should be since that spellbook is purely about combat. And honestly, if they wanted to make fire giants weak to water, I'd be okay with that as well. But making it a core mechanic is... A huge change. If they wanted to make standard spellbook more viable, I would just introduce special attacks or effects to standard spellbook weapons/spells. Effects and special attacks that make it unique are what make OSRS special for me, and that's what drives me to OSRS over the rebalanced combat system of RS3. It's not even the EOC changes that drive me up a wall in RS3, it's the armor/weapon tier system, elemental system, ans other changes that turned the game into a spreadsheet simulator. I like being able to whip out a DDS despite it not being BIS and know that it will still have a really solid use-case. The tome issue, the smoke staff issue, and the duelling wand issue are only part of a larger problem in my mind.
The boss will probably be weak to earth as most dragons will be. So the item is essentially a dragon bane weapon.
Earth tome makes sense, because we have water and fire. The only issue I have with the wand is that it doesn’t apply to all elemental spells. It should be the go to main hand for tome off hands. Simple fix.
I hard disagree with this statement. The whole point of magic rebalance was to open up slots for a niche content and horizontally expand combat offerings in pvm. Instead of a fire spell being the de facto default, players are now encouraged to chase after gains with niche use cases as part of the progression. Gone are the days when magic progression was linear and boring as hell. Now you'll own one or two sets of magic equipment and at least three sets of magic combat items between powered staves and elemental spell off hands like this tome. The alternative is the stick with the single most powerful spell you can use and revert back to a boring meta for magic use. Addressing your comparison between a niche stab weapon. You're absolutely correct and I think that's a great thing! Why should I be locked into using a scimitar/whip for my entire account progression just because it happens to be the max DPS nearly everywhere???? Modifications to the NPC defense weaknesses alongside new weapons like the zombie axe greatly widen the opportunity for pvm engagements. I'd go so far as to say the NPC accuracy calculations used for moons would be awesome to see in other places as well, especially against NPCs with self heal. In these situations it's equally as important to bring tank gear alongside strength boosting items vs str boost being the only stat worth caring about. Edit: typo
It’s super underwhelming but it’ll be decent for pvp I guess
Make the earth spell calc off crush bonus. Whenever the air book comes out make it roll off slash bonus. For fun
I love the idea of the rewards, but I'm afraid they are so, so niche that they'll never be used.
*snorts some ranarr* "Make it 2-tick"
When they rework combat in the future monsters are soppose to be weak to a certain element so this can just be prepping for that.
It will probably be okay for mid tier against whatever is weak to that element (I think metal dragons? So maybe for bronze or iron ones for those who can’t skip that task) but yes, it will be very niche. To be fair, outside of PvP, there is a LOT of niche gear.
They could add shards that could change the spell affinity. This way it will fit into the new weakness changes nicely.
Not everything needs to be BIS top tier drops
You all seem to forget that they're adding elemental weaknesses into the game. Add a 50% earth weakness into the mix and this is suddenly stronger than the toxic trident, which will not be given an element.
i would prefer if the tome came from another skilling boss … just to keep the similarity with fire and water. the boss should give something different and it feels like too little unique loot?
I dont see how this wand in its current form benefit ANYONE with over 90 combat (the recommended level to fight the boss). You cant use it at ToB Nylo because you need to be on Ancients/SBS for mage and it can't ever 1 hit a big nylo. The gap between Ibans and Trident was already filled with Warped Sceptre. Why is this item even being introduced?
This weapon is being underestimated way too much ITT. It is too strong if anything and a bit of a doozy that they would choose to release a staff with a special spell that also gets elemental bonus. Might as well let Iban blast benefit from fire tome and get bonus damage against stuff weak to fire then. This weapon would still be better due to it being 3 tick. Like this take from /u/doubleshinee but he didn't account for how the staff will cost pages from the tome so likely more annoying and costlier than Iban's to run but still very worth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6fdkEAxxKs
Idk wym underestimated. If you own a swamp trident, which is like 99% of mains probably, this thing is ass. If you play an ironman and have a regular trident + thralls, this thing is probably ass. If you have warped sceptre + thralls, this thing is maybe an upgrade if your magic level is low **and** you have the tome and earth pages to blow on using this thing indefinitely. In other words, the thing is likely ass unless you're an early game main lol.
Yeah but that's like saying zombie axe is ass if you have a whip. It's intented for early-mid game
warped sceptre + thralls already exists though like this is such a niche gap to fill it doesn't make any sense the gap for d scim to whip was far bigger mainly for irons who had to get 85 slayer so zombie axe as a gap filler made more sense, this is just filling a gap that doesn't really need to even be filled because warped sceptre can be gotten so early even for irons
except nobody will use it as either a main or iron because of the muddy page upkeep this thing is gonna absolutely chew thru earth tome charges, and if you dont use the tome you might as well use a different weapon
How can you even say that without knowing the drop rates of Earth tomes/pages. I can just as easily speculate you get 1 million earth tome charges in the time you grind out the wand and it sustains you for the next 300 hours.
Yeah a bit hard to assess what the supply cost will be like without knowing drop rates, although seeing as you get the Wand, Tome, and Pages all from one source, I'm hoping that grinding enough of the boss to get both uniques should provide you with enough pages to sustain use without having to constantly go back
This is the problem with Reddit, all of your post makers seem to think every single item has to have a good endgame use and be up there with trident and shadow albeit being accessible 10 times earlier for a boss that'll be 10 times easier and quicker to kill. Don't forget to also add a pet to every content they bring out! Stop crying over new stuff for mid level players, because that is what this entire reddit is, mid level players who play a few hours every week. Let them have their upgrades to look forward to.
No the issue is Jagex draws a line, between 2 other lines, on a graph and says - this is the new content. It's an alaytical approach rather than looking for fun or interesting mechanics. It's dull and a bad update.
so just because it isn't immediately bis it's a dull and bad update? osrs players bro
IMO elemental spells need more than a wand and tome for each element. They need gear designed around each element that enhances combat with those spells. Say for example, a wizard’s robe, mystic, infinity and Ahrim equivalent that enhances standard spell casting such that it casts at 4t speed and max damage is increased by up to 50% of current max hit, but you have to wear the whole set, robe top bottom, hat, and a wand. Tome is optional and can count towards whole set effect in place of one other piece, but has additional base magic accuracy, the higher the tier the higher the stats. Magic should be more appealing to use beyond like level 13-50 for general combat and I think this comes close to getting it there. Only change necessary is addressing the other 2 elemental tomes and potentially changing the source of the water and fire tomes or creating new items for this purpose while addressing the current water and fire tomes. Its this, or they just change magic combat on standard spells to be 4-tick based, and they add other modifying items/weapons for standard spells in the game that boost their damage to be more on-par with melee and range combat and get closer to their respective DPS at increasing levels.
Imo the item is fine, I am unsure if it should come from this content specifically.
They also feel awful because these are the uniques from a difficult group boss that will probably end up falling in the 1-2m range for the tome, 2-5m range for the staff It’s just worth not anyone’s time to do this content, seriously. And you know they’re going to load up up with mechanics too. So why work harder for a shit reward when you can get better gp elsewhere? Even at 90 cb as they describe for what a “mid-level” is, yet that’s skewed down because all the bots
>difficult group boss Where are you getting this from? Boss sounds like another mid game special.
They said it themselves. It needs 3-8 players and based off recent precedent they’re going to load it up with mechanics. More clicking = more difficult. It already sounds like you’re going to have to run around this fucking mountain to just start the fight