Edit (Wednesday, February 7th – 11:23 GMT) – We’ve added a section that we missed regarding DT2 Boss Combat Achivements!
It’s time, ‘Scapers… the Poll 80 update is here!
Venenatis, Callisto and Vet’ion
The Wilderness bosses got a big upgrade last year, but there was still room for a few more changes to make them more profitable. A reminder that these changes are primarily intended to make these bosses feel more worthwhile to kill in groups. That being said there are some changes to loot which should help things feel a little more consistent and less like some ‘regular’ drops are so high-valued that you only bank when you score a big drop.
Our first change is to increase the minimum loot from 15% to 25% for the top 10 players in a given fight against the Wilderness bosses. In short, this means that if you and nine mates take on the bosses, you’ll get a whopping 250% loot between the lot of you! Alternatively, if you’re more risk-averse than the rest of your party and dealing less damage while in your group, you’ll still walk away with enough loot to make it worth your while.
We’ve also improved the drop rate for pets from 1/2,000 to 1/1,500. This chance is split proportionally between all participants, so a solo kill results in a higher chance to obtain a new friend!
Next, we’ve adjusted the weighting on certain drops, slightly decreasing the chance to get GP and Rune Pickaxes in favour of some more valuable drops. Incidentally, the number of Rune Pickaxes dropped has been increased from 3 to 5, and the quantity of Blighted Anglerfish dropped has been increased from 45 to 100.
As you may have guessed from the previous few paragraphs, our aim is to provide consistent profit – but we’re also trying to dilute supply drops to minimise impact on their value by that minimum loot buff up top. Accordingly, we’ve added new drops to all three bosses:
- Venenatis now has Wilderness Crab Teleports, Dragon Daggers, Battlestaves, Rune Platelegs, Rune Square Shields and Mystic Air Staves.
- Callisto now has Wilderness Crab Teleports, Mystic Robe Tops and Bottoms, Rune Kiteshields, Rune Platebodies, and Mystic Earth Staves.
- Vet’ion now has Wilderness Crab Teleports, Mystic Robe Tops and Bottoms, Rune Full Helms, and Mystic Water and Fire Staves.
Moving away from the big three, Spindel’s supply drops have also been made more consistent, which should enable players to enjoy longer trips to her lair… if they’re not too scared, of course.
Scorpia
From one arachnid to another, let’s talk about Scorpia! This boss is extremely easy to kill, but these fast and fun fights are offset by having to trudge all the way up to the northern tip of the Wilderness to fight her – and it’s in multi-combat, to boot! To counter this, we’ve given Scorpia’s loot table a much-needed update.
Rather than hitting you with another list, here’s a screenshot showing off what 10,000 Scorpia kills might look like following today’s update:
But doesn’t it seem like something’s missing? Something a little more…unique? We have just such a something in mind, and we’ll be sharing it with you very soon.
While you wait, why not head to the Scorpion Pit and flex those fighting muscles? Make sure to bring your Blighted Ice Sacks and, as always – don’t risk anything you’re not willing to lose!
Chaos Elemental
Just a little bit eastwards, we have everyone’s favourite… cloud? Tentacle monster? Bowl of undercooked spaghetti? Whatever the Chaos Elemental actually is, we love it, and we know you do too.
Along with Scorpia this iconic Wilderness boss has had a loot upgrade to make fighting it worth the risk. Rest assured that its weirder loot has remained unchanged – you’ll still get plenty of Weapon Poison (++) from this bad boy. If you’re after a comfy pet grind in the near future, then you’ll be walking away with a little extra pocket money!
Rogues’ Chest
The Rogues’ Castle is the perfect weekend getaway… if you don’t mind contending with the rogues, that is. Fight your way past them and you’ll gain access to the Rogues’ Chests, filled with ill-gotten loot.
Given the profitability of other Thieving methods and the risk inherent to breaking into a castle full of hardened criminals, we’ve decided to improve this loot table, too. These changes should help the Rogues’ Chests stand out as a more deterministic Thieving moneymaker than methods like Elves and Vyres where you’re waiting for a big drop to land!
The iconic Dragonstone drop is still waiting for you, but you can expect to make significantly more GP per hour than before… as long as you’re left to your own devices, obviously. If you’ve completed the Wilderness Hard Diary you can enjoy 25% extra loot on top – so we’d get those diaries done if we were you! Lastly, you now have a 1/99 chance to snag a Hard Clue Scroll if you haven’t got one already.
In addition, we’ve increased the Thieving XP from these chests from 100 to 701.7, which is a fancy way of saying you’ll get 701 XP 3/10ths of the time and 702 XP the rest of the time, for about 200,000 Thieving XP per hour. Maths is fun, isn’t it?
Other Poll 80 Changes
We’ve covered the major changes from Poll 80, but a handful of others are heading to the game today:
- Improved loot from the Muddy Chest, including a rare chance to obtain Blighted Supplies and Larran’s Key. If you’ve got a stack of Keys in the Bank, why not see if you can convert them into a Dagon’hai piece or two?
- The ‘Activate’ function on the Dragonfire Shield and the ‘Operate’ function on Dragonfire Ward, and Ancient Wyvern Shield now only give Defence XP in both PvM and PvP.
- Lava Dragons have received a hotly debated makeover in line with our modern graphical standards.
That’s almost the last of Poll 80! The last change, re-enabling the scrying pool, was unfortunately negatively affected by recent engine changes to instancing and is still being worked on as you’re reading this. Let us know what you think of these changes and share your feedback on the usual channels. Meanwhile, we’re hard at work putting together our next Poll – so keep an eye out!
Following feedback over the course of the past week, we’ve made a handful of adjustments to the Desert Treasure II Boss Combat Achievements:
- Perfect Leviathan now only requires you to complete 5 ‘Perfect Kills’ without leaving the instance, rather than 5 consecutive Perfect Kills.
- Whisperer and Duke’s Speed-chaser and Speed-runner times have been made 5 seconds more lenient.
- Leviathan’s lightning attack now launches 1 tick later if the player is above 25 HP, consistent with its behaviour prior to last week’s update.
All of the descriptions have been updated accordingly, so this information is all available in the in-game Combat Achievements menu!
Bounty Hunter
In line with Poll 80’s Wilderness theme, we have a couple of Bounty Hunter changes.
First up, we’re improving the chances of obtaining an Emblem from Bounty Crates, from 1/15 up to 1/10.
There’s still room for us to make further changes to this drop rate, but we’re taking things slowly to avoid over-correcting the issue.
As a reminder, boosting in Bounty Hunter is strictly forbidden. Anybody ruining the experience of players actually playing the minigame will have actions taken against their account.
On a lighter note, we’ve also improved the amount of XP on offer if you choose to spend your Bounty Hunter Points on XP Lamps. Rewards have been increased 2.5x across the board – and we’ve also made it clear that claiming XP in bulk this way provides a bonus. You should receive 1% additional XP per Lamp when buying between 10 and 99 of them, and 10% additional XP per Lamp for any number past 100.
Finally, Bounty Hunter weapons and armour can now be used on the Player Owned House Combat Dummy. Ouch!
Scurrius
If you’re thinking about heading to the Wilderness this week, there’s no better way to build your stats than wailing on our favourite Rat King. If these stats (courtesy of Product Analyst Mod Enigma) are anything to go by, you won’t be the only one!
Note that Scurrius’ spawning HP depends on how many players are in the room when the Rat King spawns in. You’ll need at least two players in the room before the fight starts to see a full strength 1,500 HP Scurrius!
Lastly, here are a couple of smaller tweaks for this week:
- The cooldown for the Dragonfire Ward and Ancient Wyvern shield’s special effect is now displayed on the buff bar on the C++ client.
- Scurrius now appears in the correct position in the Collection Log menu.
- Players are now rewarded XP more reliably when working together to fix the Piscarilius cranes.
That’s all for today. Good luck on the gains, and if you see us in the Wilderness this week – please go easy on us.
We’re such good mates that they’ve extended the pre-order period for these fiery bundles of fluff by seven days. You now have till 00:00 (Midnight) GMT on February 17th to get your orders in before the dragons fly back to their respective lairs.
Although these plushies do come with some cuddly loot in the form of bones, antifire potions, and clue scrolls, they don’t actually drop any valuables if slain – so maybe give them a cuddle instead.
Check out the Makeship Store to order!
- 539 – (US) – PvP World
- 318 – (UK) – Bounty Hunter 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.
World 569 (AUS) for Bounty Hunter has been de-activated with this rota.
The PvP Arena is using ‘Max/Med‘ loadouts in Ranked Duels and Tournaments this week.
Mods Abe, Abyss, Arcane, Archie, Argo, Ash, Ayiza, BigRig, Blossom, Boko, Bruno, Chilly, Crystal, Curse, Daizong, Dylan, Ed, Elena, Enigma, Errol, Gecko, Gengis, Gizmo, Goblin, Grub, Halo, Harold, Hend, Hooti, Hornet, Husky, Jalo, Jerv, Keyser, Kieren, Kirby, Kurotou, Lenny, Light, Liron, Mack, Manked, Markos, Maylea, Meat, Moogle, Morty, Necro, Nox, Nylu, Other, Pumpkin, Redfield, Regent, Rice, Roq, Ry, Sarnie, Saiyan, Shogun, Shroom, Sigma, Skane, Skylark, Smithy, Sova, Squid, Starry, Suharun, Surma, Sween, Tide, Titus, Torrance, Tsourorf, Tyran, Veda, Vegard, West & Wolfy
The Old School Team.