My Runescape Diary

Twas a sad day yesterday, I died!

I hear of people dyeing all the time, luckily with the Trade cap I no longer hear "phree stuff pl0x I died" but until yesterday I had never tried this death thing that so many complain about, I have never tried the "I lagged and died" quote so often touted by the now extinct Pkers from edgy, using lag as a way to justify death instead of admitting you are better than me and I died because of it.

The story unfolds when a friend contacts me and tells me that he knows how to kill the Saradomin boss at Godwars solo, that to me sounds far too good to be true, having had the easy Zammy solo ability removed I was well happy and went along to have a look, I got my Godwars Gear on and went to have a look, I entered the Saradomin Encampment and went down the 2 ropes to get to the boss room, sure enough my friend was there a little green dot in the corner of the room and sure enough there was a level 596 babe with wings (Commander Zilyana) stood looking at him, she was taking damage but didn't even attempt to hit back.

I stood there watching as she was slowly reduced to nothing and all that was left was a unicorn, I don't know why but I was constantly thinking my little pony when I was looking at it. she reappeared and my friend attacked and killed her again and then again and then again, I watched his technique and he just kept killing 1 after another only taking damage from 1 monster, He reports that he can kill 18 to 20 boss's on each entry into the room, I witnessed 5 so I have no doubt about that whatsoever.

Well that was me hooked it was late so I went to Cammy and put on my Karils armour with an archer helm Sara Stole, Zammy book, ava's accumulator and some other non expensive items, I took a rune crossbow and 200 diamond tipped enchanted bolts, went to the encampment and got my kill count on Spiritual Mages, in the process of getting kill count I got some dragon boots, after getting 40 I went to bed.

The following morning I got up and switched on my computer and started Runescape, I was at the boss room with kill count and carping myself just a bit, I watched and waited for the monster in the room to get in a good position then I ran like a man possessed to get in the exact position that my friend was in, poop something was wrong it didn't work as planned and I had a very angry group of monsters all giving severe grief, hp went down in seconds and I managed to eat, I was in the wrong position and I had no Idea how to correct it, I kept eating but I could see how pointless it was and I hit my tele tab, Then I hit it again, I was surprised to then find I took more damage and my fight for life was over.

I woke up in Fally none the worse for wear but minus some items, my worst loss was my Sara stole, my Karils skirt, my newly acquired dragon boots and about 200 diamond bolts, for inconvenience the loss of my accumulator and Zammy book ment a few unwanted journeys, my loss was about a million worth but everything easily replaceable with GEbay.

I had learnt a valuable lesson don't take anything worth having on your first visit to god wars dungeon boss rooms, I replaced my stuff and decided to try again, this time I wore black dragon hide armour and used sapphire bolts.

I went along and tried again, I went straight to the correct spot and started to kill Commander Zilyana, she did not attack back but I had an annoying pony biting me, I managed to get her down to about 5% health and needed to tele, I only took a few sharks and brews, when I restocked I went back someone had finished her off, I saw the drop so it was my kill it looked like 3 ranaar seeds, so not a big loss.

I got my kill count again and moved to a different world I went in got the Pony in the correct spot and started to kill Commander Zilyana, I killed her 3 times on that run, my best drop was 100 silver ore, I did get 2 addy plate bodies but left them there, didn't want to move from the safe spot.

I did 2 more runs killing her several times just getting carp drops and decided to call it a day.

I decided to tell a friend about this technique and he asked me to show him, I was more than happy, Im still bitten by the God Wars bug so we got ready and set off, we both got our kill count and I went in to show him where to stand, I got the pony just right and starting to kill Commander Zilyana, all of a sudden my friend ran in and stood next to me, before I could say stand on top of me Commander Zilyana and my little pony had moved over and started attacking him, I ran away to lure them over so I could reposition them safely, my friend started running around the room, I thought he was looking for the gents, this sent the monsters all over the place and I had no chance of getting them repositioned quick enough, he must have somehow escaped because all monsters descended on me and I was dead in seconds, luckily my worst loss was my diamond tipped bolts.

I later found out that my friend forgot to take a teletab, what a noob! but hey don't tell him that I forgot mine too.

The moral of the story is always take a teletab to dangerous fights, be prepared to lose stuff when experiencing new monsters, and locate the gents before you enter the room.

My friend felt a bit guilty about totally that run up, my opinion is to expect things to go wrong on your first run, I died on my first attempt, there is more pressure when your part of a team and its nice to get things right the first time, but were only human and mistakes will happen.

I will add a guide on how to solo Commander Zilyana when I get a bit more confident and can take some screenies, it will probably be for registered members only, It doesn't cost anything to register but after my report about soloing K'ril it was discovered to be a bug and fixed, although this is not a bug but using the characters characteristics to your benefit you Im sure Jagex will change it eventually.

There seems to be a lot of controversy whether summoning should be allowed in Pest Control or not, unfortunately there has been inconsistencies in Jagexs' game plan that are fuelling the debate, here are my opinions, not necessarily the answer but a look at the various espects to be taken into consideration.

The first thing to say is Summoning is a combat skill! that is a fact it adds to the combat level so it is without question a combat skill,

Should it be a combat skill? well lets look at the facts, if you are a 138 and you go to duel arena with nothing equipped and nothing in your inventory, full summoning points and prayer points will you have an advantage over a 126 without summoning? the answer is no you are exactly equal and just rely on the laws of Jagex random on the outcome, you are totally reliant on the pouches to help you fight with summoning.

So does that means it is not combat skill? again look at the facts, a mage goes to duel arena and has an empty inventory if he is a non summoning 126 and the other player is a non summoning 126 who is going to win the melee fighter or the mage, unless the mage resorts to melee he is going to lose because he has no runes to fight using magic, so magic isn't a combat skill it is totally reliant on runes to fight mage.

The difference between mage and summoning is magic you use to kill monsters and summoning you use it to help you fight monsters, therefore magic is used for combat a definite combat skill summoning is an aid to fighting so in effect a weapon not totally dissimilar to chinchompa's.

That's sorted Summoning is no longer a combat skill but an aid, hmm not so straight forward, prayer is a combat skill how does this fit in? prayer is a good boost when you are fighting, piety can have some immediate and severe effects on monsters but you cant kill someone with prayer it is an aid, so prayer is now no longer a combat skill.

OK another way to look at it, summoning can be used to do other things besides helping you fight it can chop logs, fetch herbs, fish and mine for you so that is not combat, it is a non combat skill, but with magic it can enchant jewellery, turn items into gold, transport you and heal you using lunar so that is no longer a combat skill.

So we have determined mage prayer and summoning are all combat skills and also not combat skills for the same and different reasons, so why is mage and prayer trainable at Pest Control and summoning not, why is Summoning trainable at Tears of Guthix and Mage, Range, Attack, Strength,and Defence not?

Should Summoning be a combat skill and effect your combat level? should it be allowed at PC and not Tears?

I do not have any answers only questions, there is little consistency between Summoning and the previous combat skills, perhaps it is too complicated to put into just one category.

My opinion is as summoning is defined as adding to your combat level it should be raised with points from pest control however reduced as prayer is, I also think that familiars should not be allowed into Pest Control and the boat combat level requirement not take into consideration summoning gained levels.

I personally think summoning should not be classed as combat and not add to combat levels and my previous paragraph would be changed so that Summoning is trained with Tears and not PC.

I really welcome all views on this post, my brain went into melt down writing it and I would love to know my brain strain was appreciated.

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Sorry I haven't written for a while, currently working on a new business venture and its taking a lot of my time, my notebook computer has also developed a fault that I can no longer connect to the Internet so my Runescape Gameplay has been severely restricted.

Anyway back to business, SUMMONING, regarding usefulness as a skill im not sure that I will be using it much I see it more as a skill for gaining level not so much to use the abilities of the familiars.

Summoning is easy to train, it is quick to train and if trained efficiently can be cheap or make money, the quick bit may only be because all my current levels are above 70 and the ones I enjoy training are over 90 this takes days to train for each level, with summoning everyone starts at level 4 and the gold charms supplied can get you levels in a few hours, I am currently 57 summoning but I haven't been training summoning at all, I have continued to train slayer and summoning is a free by product.

The best way in my eyes to train summoning is to not actively train it, as I said I train slayer and the charms I get are a by product, I never pick up coins training slayer, this will cost a lot of money in the long run, the problem with summoning charms is you need to check every pile for charms and you need to pick them up, this will slow down slayer training, so if you are seriously training slayer don't pick up charms or cash drops this will cost you a substantial amount of cash.

I am 96 slayer, I am looking forward to getting 99 slayer but not sure if I really want to get there, I love slayer and to be at a stage where I no longer need to train or get any level benefit is a scary thought.

Summoning is slower for the lower level (Combat) players, high level charms being less common in the lower level monsters reducing the opportunity to increase levels, the drawback is more than compensated by the fact that lower level players stand to benefit from being able to train more than one skill at the same time, they can train combat, slayer, summoning and also have the opportunity to get valuable drops.

I have 99 in all combat stats so I can not gain combat XP but as an extra motivation to train slayer summoning is a valuable skill for me, summoning increases your combat level im currently 133 but I fail to see why summoning should affect this, You can now look at players and wonder if they are a high level player or if some of their combat is made up of summoning.

Familiars
At 57 summoning I am not using any familiars regularly, mainly because they are not really worth it yet, I can take a steel minator and use it to help fighting, drawbacks are it takes a while to start to fight, most monsters are dead by the time that happens, he hits rarely and normally a 0, I need to keep topping up its timer or it goes away and it takes a lot of summoning power to refresh, the benefits are not worth wasting a spot for summoning pots that are over priced anyway due to the herb being so rare.

Beast of burden familiars may have a use but the drawbacks make them pretty unusable, they can only carry tradable items and you need to keep your familiar alive to carry for you so if you run out of summoning level the stuff gets dropped, with the great idea to make familiars unable to enter the banks in Fally and Varrock if you tele there you need to dismiss the familiar before you go anywhere.

In my opinion there are too many familiars I make the pouches to get xp the pouches sit in my bank or I sell them, I do not want to read the knowledge base or summon a familiar just to see what it does, there are more to come but I will have exceeded the level for some of them so chance is I will never try them.

I am enjoying training summoning because it is a fun skill to train, I cant see me using it to any great extent due to the fact that you need to recharge summoning and the summoning sites are in remote places, the effects look good but it is just too much trouble to keep them around when you are concentrating on other things.

Pets
The few days after summoning came out everyone had a pet, im not sure but I could have sworn it said welcome to Petscape when I logged on, I had a greyhound and grew it and had a gecko and grew it now comfortably in my bank until I alch them for more room, im sure it will be like the cats everyone has one then it sits in the bank for the rest of its life.

Conclusion a pretty update but too much trouble to be useful, however this may change as my level increases.

Things that I would find more useful to make summoning more usable.
a/ have a summoning recharge point in my house or as another option at church alters or at least as common as alters.

b/ auto renew timers or a bigger notification to see that they have reached 30 seconds.

c/ more monsters dropping the summoning pot herbs.

Runescape has eventually launched its new skill summoning.

My first opinion of summoning it is it looks nice, I think it should have been called pets because I cant see me using it to any great extent, it seems to be more trouble than its worth, I reserve judgment until I have tried it a bit more but the idea of recharging summoning as well as prayer sounds like a pain, Jagex can I have a summoning post in my house please?

This is the quest completion scroll after completing Wolf Whistle, I can now practice summoning.

I had a play yesterday and got 20 levels and 128 combat, I have seen many 128's and no 129's I guess there will be some but I haven't seen any, getting level 20 summoning is quick and easy using the 275 charms that you are given on the quest, doing the quest takes you up to level 4 summoning, killing the wolves on white wolf mountain is the closest place to get wolf bones, I killed werewolves at Canafis because the other wolves were having a hard time from the lower level players, while in Canafis I bought the raw chickens from the shop next to the bank. as soon as I could make deadfowl pouches, I made them until I could make the ones with the snails, bought some snails from Burg de Rott shop and continued until level 20.

Guam and iron ore are used for some of the higher level pouches so watch the price, I anticipate it going very high for a short time before returning to normal as the novelty wears off

Aberrant specters drop charms, this is where I experienced my first bug, the smellies were no longer dropping herbs, I was getting charms one in four kills and just no other drops, it was annoying but soon settled down later and I got my herbs back.

Infernal Mages my next slayer task gave me 48 gold, 5 crimson and 2 green charms, every other drop was a charm so its going to be easy for people who enjoy slayer such as myself.

It is going to be a very dear skill to train, shards cost 50gp and for the really high pouches its going to need over 200 shards per pouch.

The one thing I liked about it is, I can gain several levels in a day instead of several days for a level, it wont stay that way for long but nice to see none the less.

Haven't been to the RS forums to see the weekly quitter posts but im sure there are some, I can just imagine "Its not f2p so im quitting members to protest" "lets walk around Fally shouting because my dog won't grow".

Its expensive, its not very quick to train, it has no visible means of making cash (apart from merchanting), I have been informed that the charms are not tradable so you need to work for this skill not just buy the supplies on GEbay, thats got to be good.

I will try it a bit more and report back here my findings.