Warning: Calvar’ion resides in level 21 Wilderness where you may be attacked at any time during the fight. Do not bring any items that you are not willing to lose. Items like the Dragon defender and Fire cape are permanently lost if not protected beyond level 20 Wilderness.
Calvar’ion is a level 264 skeleton boss. It is the weaker variant of Vet’ion, sharing similar mechanics and drops, but with reduced stats and in a singles-plus area. The medium wilderness diary is required to fight Calvar’ion. If the hard wilderness diary is not completed, there is a 1.8 second teleport delay if attempting to leave the arena.
How to get there
Calvar’ion resides in the Skeletal Tomb, the entrance of which is located north-east of Ferox Enclave in the Graveyard of Shadows. There is a small tombstone where the player may drop into his chambers, requiring a fee of 50,000 coins to enter which can be taken from the bank. This fee decreases by 10,000 for every kill for the player who deals the most damage. The fee is not required again on subsequent trips unless the fee is lost to another player.
To get there quickly, you can:
- Teleport to Graveyard of Shadows with the Carrallanger Teleport or using a teleport tablet.
- Teleport to the Ferox Enclave with the minigame teleport or a ring of dueling.
- Teleport to Corporeal Beast’s Lair with a games necklace (Beware this exits into multi-wilderness).
Suggested skills
70+- 70+
- 70+
- 75+
- 70+ (for Piety)
Attacks and abilities
Calvar’ion has several attacks and abilities identical to Vet’ion:
- Magic attack: Five bolts of lightning strike various tiles across the arena, much like the Grotesque Guardians’ lightning attack. Each lightning bolt deals damage in a 3×3 area, but any tile that is about to be struck glows, giving players the chance to dodge the attack. When soloing, one bolt will always target the player’s tile or an adjacent tile, while four more will target random tiles around the arena. One bolt will appear for every player in the chamber, capped at seven.
- Hellhounds: Upon reaching half health, Calvar’ion will summon two skeletal hellhounds to attack players. They attack with melee, so activate Protect from Melee when they spawn or keep it active during the fight. They will provide him with complete damage immunity while present. He will do the same again in his enraged form.
- Shield Bash: Calvar’ion will raise his shield to bash an area in front or around and underneath him; shadows will appear forewarning the AoE of the attack. If the player doesn’t move out of range, they’ll take up to 26 damage and be unable to attack for the next 4.8 seconds. This attack is only used when in melee distance.
- Enraged Form: Upon losing all health in his first form, Calv’arion will summon orange lightning bolts (which share his standard lightning bolts’ 3×3 area damage) in a circle around him and restore his health to full. In his second form, the hellhound mechanic is repeated, but he will die after losing all of his health in this form.
Strategies
Calvar’ion has the highest defensive capabilities of the three wilderness demi-bosses. However, his negative crush defence of -10 makes him fairly easy to hit.
All of Calvar’ion’s attacks are AoE, meaning that if the player avoids them, they can essentially take no damage from his attacks. Calvar’ion will yell quotes whenever he attacks as a fairly easy and simple way to dodge the attacks. The shield bash is the only major concern due to its larger AoE, but is still otherwise easy to dodge since it is only used in melee distance.
When Calvar’ion reaches 50% of his health, he will summon skeletal hellhounds to assist him in battle. The hellhounds will channel immunity to Calvar’ion until they are killed. While they deal powerful melee hits, they are not durable, with both the normal and greater versions only having 30 health. Calvar’ion will yell a quote about their demise as an indicator that the immunity has been lifted.
When Calvar’ion reaches 0 health in his standard form, he will charge up lightning around him as he yells that the player defeated him a second time. The player can simply stand underneath him to avoid the reach of the lightning as normal. Calvar’ion will restore his health to full and increase his max hit and attack speed and any drained Defence levels will be restored.
Calvar’ion will move towards a player between attacks, so the player can manipulate him into walking towards the exit to his arena and keeping him there for the majority of the time. This is useful for players not relying on a “scout” outside the entrance to his tomb, as it ensures a fast escape, as getting teleblocked and frozen in the middle of the room will likely result in certain death from both the player killer’s and Calvar’ion’s attacks. It is still recommended to leave a secondary account if possible outside, as players cannot hop inside the tomb; and leaving one outside can sometimes cause other players to ignore whoever is inside.
Equipment
Always keep risk to a minimum in the Wilderness! – Whenever gearing, check your Items Kept on Death and enable “Wilderness beyond level 20” to make sure important items will not be lost.
The most effective equipment listed below involves a great deal of Trouver parchments and raw risk, but MOST players will prefer a low-risk setup without parchment loss. Thanks to the powerful Salve (e) effect, as long as you bring a strong weapon and 2-3 other high-bonus items, your DPS will be very good with little risk. For a low-risk setup, a Neitiznot, myth cape, and d’hide/proselyte are perfect, risking less than one average boss kill’s-worth. From there, Barrows gloves then Dragon boots make great upgrades to the Rune gloves and Climbing boots budget setup.
That being said however, due to the incredible passive effect of the Ursine/Viggora’s chainmace stacking multiplicatively with the Salve’s bonus, every extra bit of strength and accuracy bonus from equipment will noticeably increase DPS, provided you are willing to risk more. For example, bringing even just one parched item, the Fighter torso (l) for +4 strength, can grant up to 3 additional max hits. These highly multiplied bonuses, coupled with the fact that it is possible to log out mid-fight here, make Calvar’ion the most feasible and rewarding of all the wilderness bosses to bring additional risk to. To be totally clear, the expensive armour slots are only worth bringing IF players are confident in their ability to escape PKers or teleport out in time.
Lastly, when figuring out your setup, keep in mind that some of these equipment recommendations, such as the Avernic defender and Infernal cape, are meant to maximize 4-item protection. These can easily be downgraded if they would be risked, or if the player is not using PK Skull Prevention. Due to the hazard of being smited and having the Protect Item prayer disabled in combat, untradeable items locked with Trouver parchments are particularly effective as the 4th item kept on death, in order. Again, whenever in doubt, “Items kept on death” will show exactly how items are kept, degraded, or lost.
Note: Due to the Salve bonus not stacking, fighting on a skeleton (or hellhound!) Slayer task with a Slayer helmet will not provide as high of an offensive bonus as the Salve amulet (e) will, and is not free to reclaim like the amulet.
| Slot | Recommended equipment for Melee – Item (most effective → least effective) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
 Helm of neitiznot /  Zombie helmet |
 Berserker helm |
 Dwarven helmet |
N/A | N/A |
 |
 Salve amulet (e) |
 Salve amulet |
 Amulet of strength |
 Amulet of glory |
 Amulet of power |
 |
 Infernal cape[1] /  Fire cape[1] |
 Mythical cape |
 Mixed hide cape |
 Cape of Accomplishment |
 Ardougne cloak 4 |
 |
 Fighter torso[1] |
 Mixed hide top[2] |
 Black d’hide body |
 Proselyte hauberk |
 Monk’s robe top |
 |
 Black d’hide chaps |
 Proselyte cuisse /  Proselyte tasset |
 Monk’s robe |
N/A | N/A |
 |
 Ursine chainmace /  Viggora’s chainmace |
 Inquisitor’s mace |
 Abyssal bludgeon /  Zamorakian hasta (crush) /  Zombie axe (crush) |
 Sarachnis cudgel /  Elder maul /  Dual macuahuitl |
 Leaf-bladed battleaxe (crush) /  Dragon mace |
 |
 Avernic defender[1] |
 Dragon defender[1] |
 Dragonfire shield |
 Rune defender /  Toktz-ket-xil |
 Book of war /  Falador shield 4 |
 |
 Rada’s blessing 4 |
 Rada’s blessing 3/2 /  God blessing |
N/A | N/A | N/A |
 |
 Barrows gloves |
 Rune gloves |
 Combat bracelet |
 Red spiky vambraces |
N/A |
 |
 Dragon boots |
 Rune boots |
 Mixed hide boots |
 Climbing boots |
 Fremennik sea boots 4 |
 |
 Ultor ring |
 Berserker ring (i) |
 Ring of shadows |
 Ring of wealth (i)[3] |
 Explorer’s ring 4 |
 |
Ursine chainmace[4] |
Abyssal bludgeon[4] |
Elder maul[4] |
Dragon mace[4] |
N/A |
