Issues, Hotfixes & Upcoming Changes (January 6th)
(Jan 5th: 14:45 BST) – The issue with Nex’s immunity has been fixed and she can now be killed as normal and she no longer skips any phases.
(Jan 5th: 15:05 BST) – A hotfix has deployed that means all items awarded to a player from Nex (aside from her bones) will drop at the players’ feet.
(Jan 5th: 17:00 BST) – When wearing either a Gas mask, Facemask or Slayer helm, the duration of the cough effect as part of her smoke mechanic will be reduced slightly.
When fighting Nex en masse, the number of supplies dropped for each player can become quite excessive. The issue with loot not appearing is due to game memory limitations, whereby if too many items are on a single tile, the game will start to delete the items.
We utilise the Grand Exchange prices to prioritise items, ensuring if this does occur, lower value items are deleted before higher value items.
In order to further reduce the number of items disappearing, we’ll be introducing the following changes:
Supply drop quantity have been decreased in higher scaled Nex encounters. Please note, players will still have the same chance of uniques.
The maximum number of players able to take on Nex at any one time has been reduced from 80 to 60.Although the encounter works similar to other types of PvM, it’s unfortunate that this happened.
We’ve added a warning on the door to the Ancient Prison that warns players if they have items remaining in the chest that need to be collected.
The reduction in how many players can take on Nex at once from 80 to 60 should help to create a small increase in challenge.
In addition to this, we’re also introducing the following changes:
Nex’s attacks will now hit more players.
Nex will no longer preserve the order of special attacks between phases.
Previously, Nex would not use the Soul Split ability in her final phase until after a 1-attack delay. Due to the damage output of large groups, she typically perished before it could activate. We’ve made a change that removes the delay, so Soul Split now activates immediately during her final phase.The special attack energy restoration of Death Charge is only granted to the player who dealt the most damage to Nex.
Players will now be returned to the entry room upon logging back in after a disconnect, crash or by logging out during the Nex encounter or within the Ancient Prison.
This doesn’t prevent you from dying during a disconnection, but it ensures that when you log back in you’re in a safe space.
We’ve reduced the base value of Blood Essence and increased the value of all Torva pieces, the Nihil Horn (as well as the completed Zaryte crossbow) and Zaryte vambraces accordingly.
Unfortunately we cannot hotfix this. Instead, we’re planning to fix this in next week’s game update. We apologise that this was missed!
We’d like to gather more feedback before we proceed with any change to instances. There are a lot of things to consider, especially when it comes to the rate at which unique drops enter the game as a result of having more Nex encounters happening in each world.
Currently, completion of the Hard and above Combat Achievements grant you access to privately rented instances for God Wars Dungeon boss rooms. These cost a number of coins and follower kill count in order to open, but they’re only available for the individual who opened them.
We could change it so that when opening a privately rented instance for Nex, it would be possible for friends to join your instance once it is open.
We’re happy to introduce this as a feedback change, but we’d like to hear what you think about this approach before we proceed.
Long ago, in the Second Age of Gielinor, the land was ruled by a tyrannical ancient god. At the height of his power, one of his closest allies overthrew him and the most loyal followers were imprisoned by powerful magics – including Nex, his faithful general.
Years later, at the height of the God Wars, a mysterious individual fooled a group of Saradominists into freeing Nex and her allies. This unprecedented threat forced the armies of Saradomin, Zamorak, Armadyl and Bandos to unite and drive their foes back into the Ancient Prison – but in the process, the magical protections sealing Nex and her bodyguards inside were damaged.
This leaves Nex’s prison somewhat… vulnerable. And while officially speaking, the followers of her old master have been purged from Gielinor, certain nefarious types would be happy to see Nex freed once more.
It’s January 5th, the first Old School update of 2022 – and now’s your chance to enter the Ancient Prison and take on this iconic boss yourself!
The Ancient Prison
So, hypothetically speaking, how might one enter this ‘Ancient Prison’? The sharp-eyed among you will have noticed that we released a short miniquest, ‘The Frozen Door’, on December 16th.
Without spoiling anything, completing this will secure entry into the Prison, where you’ll meet with Ashuelot Reis, a follower of Guthix who has dedicated herself to the unenviable task of keeping Nex contained. She’ll give your group a brief overview of the Prison complex before asking you all to join her outside Nex’s chamber.
The Prison is filled with foes from Nex’s army: Spiritual Warriors, Mages and Rangers, and the delightful-sounding Blood Reavers.
The format here should be familiar to anyone who’s conquered the rest of the God Wars Dungeon – defeating Nex’s minions adds to your Ancient Essence count, and when it reaches 40, you’ll be able to enter the boss room. However, not all beasties are made equal, and some will give you more Essence than others!
If you’re feeling magnanimous, you can bypass all that senseless killing with an Ecumenical Key, which will let you march right into Nex’s chamber. You can also lower the Essence requirement by completing Combat Achievement tiers.
Your Essence count is shown on the Kill Count interface, but it will be hidden until you’ve unlocked the Frozen Door. Once you’ve reached (or bypassed) the required amount of Essence, you may pass through to the inner chamber.
We don’t want to reveal too much about the battle itself – but let’s just say it’s going to test you!
The Rewards
Torva Armour
This melee set consists of a Full Helm, a Platebody, and a pair of rather stylish Platelegs. It offers better offensive and defensive capabilities than the Bandos set, but doesn’t have the defensive chops and tasty Prayer bonus offered by Justiciar.
You’ll notice that on drop, the pieces of the Torva set are broken and unequippable. That’s what happens when you leave your armour sitting around in a frozen prison for centuries! You’ll need to repair it using components salvaged from the Bandos set. A furnace in the Frozen Prison will let you break down your Bandos gear and get tradeable Bandosian Components in return. Combine those with the broken Torva pieces, and bam! There’s your new melee set.
There are no skilling requirements for breaking down the Bandos pieces, but you’ll need level 90 Smithing or greater to use them to repair the Torva set.
Here’s how many components you’ll get per piece:
- Bandos Chestplate: 3 Components
- Bandos Tassets: 2 Components
Note that the Bandos Boots cannot be broken down into components. We made this decision to preserve the potential Bandos Chestplate/Tassets item sink. Besides, have you ever tried attaching a pair of boots to a chestplate? You’d look ridiculous!
Anyway, here’s how many Bandosian Components you’ll need to repair the Torva pieces:
- Torva Helm: 1 Component
- Torva Chestplate: 2 Components
- Torva Platelegs: 2 Components
Bandosian Components and both broken and repaired Torva pieces are all tradeable.
You’ll need at least 80 Defence to wear the Torva set.
Zaryte Vambraces
Zaryte Crossbow
Ancient Godsword
Ancient Ceremonial Robes
This set consists of a Mask, Top, Legs, Gloves and Boots. It has the same stats as Monk Robes and will be added to the Collection Log.
If you’re familiar with the Nex of old, please note that wearing items from this set will not allow you to bypass the Ancient Essence requirement to unlock the boss room.
Additional Information
- You’ll need a minimum Kill Count of 50 to show up on the Nex HiScores.
- Monster Examine is not currently powerful enough to examine Nex’s stats.
- Hardcore Group Iron players cannot face Nex alongside players from outside their group, and will be kicked out of the boss room if other people are in the arena at the start of the fight. This works exactly as it does for The Nightmare.
- Regular Group Iron players can take on the challenge with others, but will be given plenty of warnings as doing so loses their Group Prestige. Again, this works exactly as it does for The Nightmare.
- Ecumenical Key Shards are untradeable. 50 shards can be converted into one key. If you’re capped out on Ecumenical Keys, you won’t be able to forge a new one.
- Blood Essence is stackable, tradeable and can be activated – which makes it untradeable. A player can only have one active Blood Essence at a time. If you create a Blood Rune with an activated Blood Essence in your Backpack, you’ll get the chance to craft additional Blood Runes. One Essence has 1,000 additional Blood Runes/charges and the chance to trigger the effect is 50% per Rune.
- Nex has the chance to drop a pet! Take good care of it!
- Nex can be fought solo in a private instance. Instances are unlocked by completing the Hard Combat Achievements tier, after which you can purchase an instance for 150,000 GP per entry. Higher Combat Achievement tiers lower this cost.
In Other News
- Thanks to many brave adventurers, the Falador Christmas Festival was a great success, and the squire kept his job! He’ll be a bit more careful about washing his reds and whites from now on. As there is no longer a world-ending predicament to solve, the Christmas Event has been removed.
- The Slayer Gem and related items can now tell you your current task streak even when you don’t have a task.
- Added a PvP section around the Duel Arena as a safe zone.
- Teleporting to a Player Owned House in Rimmington will no longer play the wrong music when Classic Music Mode is enabled.
- Nex messengers are no longer able to appear in underwater areas.
- Fixed a bug where some Combat Achievements for Group Ironmen were calculated incorrectly owing to the fact that some tasks are disabled for smaller groups.
PvP Rota
The PvP rota has moved to Period A:
- 539 – (US) – PvP World
- 548 – (Germany) – High-Risk PvP World
- 577 – (US) – Free-to-Play PvP World
- 559 – (UK) – LMS Competitive
World 390 (AUS) for LMS Competitive has been activated with this rota.
Discuss this update on our official forums, on the 2007Scape subreddit, the Steam forums, or the community-led OSRS Discord in the#gameupdatechannel. For reference on the above content, check out the official Old School Wiki.
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