Wilderness Boss Rework – Poll Blog – OSRS

Back in August, we shared with you our design for the Wilderness Boss Rework.

In the design blog, we detailed our plans to bring Vet’ion, Callisto and Venenatis more in line with the standards we now set for Old School content, almost a decade since the game’s release.

A brief reminder

In short, we plan to re-home these bosses in a proper multi-way combat environment and breathe some new life into the multi-PvP community, an area that’s been lacking attention for some time.

Back in 2014 the intention for these bosses were to be encounters you’d tackle with friends, but their punishing design meant players instead found ingenious ways to solo them in safespots in order to obtain some of their juicy loot for themselves.

As part of this rework, we’d like to move these bosses into their own respective lairs, connected by the Escape Caves. We’re giving each boss a whole new set of attacks and a unique environment so that you and your thrill-seeking friends can take them on like never before!

Boasting a fair-for-all ‘MVP-style’ loot system (similar to Nex), everyone engaging in combat with the various bosses will be eligible for loot. The hardest-hitting among you can expect to see GP per hour in line with iconic bosses like Vorkath or the Alchemical Hydra.

The fights themselves are pretty simple, leaving you plenty of room to focus on the real threat at hand: other players. You’ll have to decide whether to fight for your territory or chance a daring escape to keep your loot safe.

While we know there are a whole host of players who have been craving more multi-combat activities in the Wilderness, we’re also aware that it’s not for everyone. For that reason, we’ve also decided to include safer, single-way combat alternatives to the reworked bosses as part of our design. These would be mid-level encounters set around or below Level 30 Wilderness, and essentially function as ‘toned down’ versions of their multi-way counterpart. Players might find themselves fighting Callisto’s Second Cousin, Vet’ion’s Thrall or Venenatis’ Aunt Vera. It’s worth noting that these alternatives will be significantly easier to take down than the bosses that currently exist and should be a good bit more accessible to players who haven’t got a Craw’s bow lying around!

These single-way alternatives would retain a similar (or shorter!) ‘time to complete’ for pre-existing Collection Log slots like their pet or respective Wilderness Ring, but offer less GP per hour and a reduced chance at some of the new uniques on offer when compared to the multi-way combat bosses. Similarly, these alternatives should count for any associated Diary tasks or Combat Achievements.

This is only a brief summary of the full design, make sure you read the full blog if you haven’t already! It’s full of a whole bunch of detail, some awful jokes and some fantastic art!

Before talking next steps, we’d like to address the concerns raised around protection services.

While a lot of players seemed to enjoy parts of the proposal, some expressed worries about the return of groups selling ‘protection’, similar to the Revenant Caves during their initial multi-combat days. This consisted of players locking down a world and offering protection against player killers for in-game gold.

This is a concern we’d anticipated and we’ve tried to build our design around reducing the potential of these services thriving. These design choices include:

• The area and spread of the caves
• An MVP-style loot system where everybody (Irons included) is able to take part and be rewarded
• Measures to prevent hopping around inside the Escape Caves
• Entry fees to discourage raggers
• Single-way combat alternatives offering the same uniques (albeit at lower rates)

With all of the above in mind, we believe that the incentive to provide these services, as well as the ease of performing them, should be heavily reduced.

Should issues arise we won’t hesitate to discuss further tweaks to the content, while punishing any rulebreakers. We want the content to be a healthy and much-anticipated hotspot for teams, small groups of friends or even brave solo adventurers looking to throw caution to the wind, and we’ll make any changes necessary to ensure players are engaging with the rework in good faith.

PollingWith all of that said, let’s get into the main topic of this blog… Polling!

It’s no secret that PvP tends to be a more controversial topic than most in Old School RuneScape these days. Updates to PvP or the Wilderness are often deemed to favour one group or another. With this rework, we want to improve these bosses for all groups, not just one. We’d also like to address long-standing frustrations such as the Dragon Pickaxe being a Wilderness-exclusive item, which has over time escalated tensions between those who love PvP and those who don’t.

We feel the current iterations of Vet’ion, Venenatis and Callisto fall pretty far south of the standards and balance that players and the team alike have come to expect from Old School-exclusive content.

For this reason, the rework itself will not be polled.

This extends to all parts of the rework: the multi-combat bosses, the single-combat alternatives, the provision of alternative sources for the Dragon Pickaxe, all of it.

We want players to feel like they’re making a choice between high-risk and high-reward, or reduced-risk and fewer rewards. We want groups, clans, small teams, or a handful of your pals loaded up on pizza to be able to get stuck in without solo players and Iron players feeling left in the dust.

While we believe this to be a necessary change and a much-needed modernisation, we understand that some of you are likely not overjoyed with this decision. We want to reassure you all that following the content’s release, we will do our utmost to work with you, the community, and make any tweaks necessary ensure this is a rework that you will be able to enjoy.

As part of this rework, we’d like to offer a selection of new unique rewards. These rewards impact players all over the Wilderness and beyond. With a host of upgraded Revenant weapons aimed to make anti-PKing a little more comfortable for Wilderness PvMers and the Voidwaker, an homage to Korasi’s Sword aimed to bring some nostalgia and diversity to PvP spec weapons (without being outright stronger than anything currently offered), we hope there’s a little somebody for everybody.

The poll questions for the rewards in this blog will not be restricted in any way. This doesn’t mean we won’t continue with restricted polling in the future, but we want this rework to offer something for everybody, and everybody deserves a say in shaping the new rewards offered.

The rewards as-proposed have been accessible in beta worlds for just over a week and will remain usable until this poll closes. So make sure to jump in and give us feedback – we’re prepared to chop, change, tweak and rework as required until you’re happy with what’s on offer!

RewardsWhile players have had some time to get their hands on these in the Beta worlds, we figured we’d give you all a quick refresher and make sure everybody’s up to speed!

Thammaron’s Sceptre

This one’s not strictly a reward, but a rework we proposed to give the least-used Revenant weapon some love.

Looking at the above, you’ll likely notice two things.

First of all, the reworked Thammaron’s Sceptre will be able to autocast non-powered spells. In practice, this means players will be able to autocast Standard spellbook offerings like Fire Surge, as well as Ancient Magicks like Ice Barrage.

When used against NPCs, the Revenant weapon bonus against Wilderness NPCs will still apply. Meaning Wilderness Slayer enjoyers can expect to see some massive barrages if they’re willing to take a little extra risk. We feel as though this is a neat way to give a little boost to Wilderness Slayer alongside the Wilderness Boss Rework, since it could stand to be a little more rewarding for the risk associated.

It’s worth noting that non-powered spells cast while holding Thammaron’s Sceptre will cost Ether on top of their associated Rune cost.

And if that wasn’t enough, the reworked Thammaron’s Sceptre can also function as a powered staff at the cost of one Ether per cast.

This powered staff attack has an attack speed of 4 and a max hit equal to your Magic Level divided by 3, minus 8. This means that at 99 Magic, your ‘base’ max hit will be 25, increasing by 50% against Wilderness NPCs and further benefitting from any gear that increases Magic Damage%. If you’re willing to risk some pricey gear, your ice cubes will be more potent than in 21 Jump Street.

Unlike other powered staves, this new and improved offering would be able to hit players. Since Craw’s Bow and Viggora’s Chainmace function pretty nicely for getting a little extra damage off while escaping, we didn’t want to short-change Magic users.

Now let’s move on to some of the new offerings!

Accursed Sceptre

We’ve been asking around and our sources tell us that Vet’ion has a pretty good head on his shoulders. Why not take it for yourself and pop it on your sceptre instead?

The Skull of Vet’ion will be a rare, tradeable drop from Vet’ion – what a shocker! A player with 85 Crafting can combine the skull with Thammaron’s Sceptre to obtain the Accursed Sceptre. If you don’t have 85 Crafting, Andros Mai in the Ferox Enclave will combine them for 500,000 GP.

The Accursed Sceptre is a tradeable upgrade to the reworked Thammaron’s Sceptre, requiring 70 Magic to wield with an attack speed of 4 and a max hit equal to your magic level divided by 3, minus 6. This means that at 99 Magic, your ‘base’ max hit will be 27 without accounting for the other bonuses outlined in the section about Thammaron’s Sceptre.

This accursed upgrade also gains a special attack: Condemn. Condemn costs 50% Special Attack energy and performs an attack with 50% increased max hit and 50% increased accuracy. On a successful hit, the target’s Defence and Magic are reduced by up to 15%.

Defence and Magic reduction from Condemn cannot be lowered beyond 85% of their initial value. For example, when used against a target with 80 Defence and 80 Magic, Condemn cannot reduce these stats any lower than 68.

A well-timed Condemn could be the difference between getting frozen or catching your opponent off-guard and forcing them to drink a stat-restoring potion. It also looks pretty scary to boot!

A player wielding the uncharged (left) and charged (right) Accursed Sceptre. We’re not sure how well attaching the skull of your enemies to a Zamorakian weapon aligns with the Void Knights’ Guthixian values, but the fashionscape speaks for itself! 

A WIP example of the Accursed Sceptre special attack ‘Condemn’ 

Here’s a graph showing how both the new Thammaron’s Sceptre and Accursed Sceptre compare with other staves. 

Webweaver Bow

Word on the street is that Venenatis has a pretty mean bite. Why not grab some of her fangs and make that bite work for you!

The Fangs of Venenatis will be a rare, tradeable drop from Venenatis – again, huge surprise. A player with 85 Fletching can combine them with Craw’s Bow to make a Webweaver Bow. Alternatively, Phabelle Bile in the Ferox Enclave can combine them for 500,000 GP.

The Webweaver Bow is a tradeable upgrade for Craw’s Bow. Requiring 70 Ranged to wield, it has higher Ranged & Ranged Strength bonuses than Craw’s Bow and gains a special attack: Swarm.

Swarm costs 50% Special Attack energy and unleashes four attacks in rapid succession with increased accuracy. Each of these attacks is capped at 40% damage, theoretically maxing out at 160% damage if every attack max hits. On top of this, successful attacks will inflict inflict poison on hit, starting out at 4 poison damage.

Here’s a plain adventurer showing off the silky-smooth uncharged (left) and charged (right) variants of the Webweaver Bow. 

And here’s a graph showing how the Webweaver Bow stacks up against other Ranged weaponry. 

Ursine Chainmace

So we’re removing heads, ripping out fangs, why stop there?

The Claws of Callisto will be a rare, tradeable drop from… the Deranged Archaeologist! Just kidding, it’s Callisto. A player with 85 Smithing can combine them with Viggora’s Chainmace to make an Ursine Chainmace. Alternatively, Derse Venator in the Ferox Enclave can combine them for 500,000 GP.

The Ursine Chainmace is a tradeable upgrade for Viggora’s Chainmace. Requiring 70 Attack to wield, it has higher Crush and Melee Strength bonuses than Viggora’s Chainmace, and gains a special attack: Bear Down.

In the design blog, we noted that we wanted to make changes to Bear Down so that it would function better in aiding players with a daring escape or two.

The Run Energy drain has been removed, in favour of an Agility drain. The base ‘bleed’ damage-over-time has also been increased. This is because the first proposal’s bleed damage was doubled against targets with 0% Run Energy, but with Run Energy no longer factoring in to the attack, we thought it’d be best to bump up the base damage just a little to compensate for this change.

Bear Down costs 50% Special Attack energy and hits with 100% improved accuracy. If Bear Down hits, it deals 20 damage over 6 seconds (10 ticks), prevents running for 3.6 seconds (6 ticks) and reduces the target’s Agility level by 20.

Unfortunately we haven’t been able to get this version of Bear Down into the Beta Worlds yet, but we’re planning to get it added ahead of polling going live in-game so that you can experiment and drop us any feedback you might have! We hope that it might now enable a well-timed escape over an Agility obstacle, or just buy you a little time to put some distance between yourself and your opponent.

Here’s a fierce adventurer showing off the uncharged (left) and charged (you guessed it: right) variants of the Ursine Chainmace. 

A WIP example of the Ursine Chainmace special attack ‘Bear Down’ 

Here’s a graph showing how the Ursine Chainmace stacks up against other Melee offerings. 

The Voidwaker

Some kind of a PvP weapon, with Void associations? It rings a bell, but nothing familiar is staring back at us right now…

Each of the three bosses will drop a piece of the separated Voidwaker; the blade, hilt and crystal. As components, these items are tradeable. An NPC beneath the Old Nite will offer to reassemble the Voidwaker for 500,000 coins. The completed Voidwaker is also tradeable, and behaves like any other item on death.

The Voidwaker requires 75 Attack, 75 Strength and 60 Magic to equip.

The Voidwaker remains largely unchanged since the design blog, but its Melee Strength bonus has been increased from +75 to +80.

This change was to cement it as a best-in-slot non-degradeable Strength training option for 75 Attack builds with limited Defence. Which admittedly sounds pretty niche, but it’s a nice little bonus on top of being a pretty consistent ‘Spec weapon’!

On top of the Voidwaker’s use as a training weapon, it also boasts a Special Attack: Disrupt.

Disrupt costs 60% Special Attack energy and deals guaranteed Magic damage between 50-150% of your Melee max hit.

The Voidwaker is a love letter to Korasi’s Sword, a RuneScape item added alongside the quest ‘The Void Stares Back’. Korasi’s Sword had a pretty infamous reputation, being easily re-obtainable for a relatively low GP cost, and hitting obscenely hard when paired with the Ring of Vigour (whose special effect reduced Special Attack costs) in a time where players knew a lot less about techniques like combo-eating.

Owing to its solid DPS and easy-to-use Special Attack, we think the Voidwaker has value for nostalgic PvPers and the wider playerbase alike!

The proposed models for the Voidwaker with the top being option ‘A’ and the bottom being option ‘B’. 

Here’s a graph showing how the Voidwaker’s DPS stacks up against other tier-75 weapons. Note: you might have noticed this is the same graph as in the previous blog. It turns out we actually calculated it based on the Voidwaker having +80 Melee Strength bonus back then… oops! 

We’ve seen some players ask for the Special Attack energy cost to be reduced from 60% to 50%. Their reasoning being that the Voidwaker has lower max hits than other choices like the Volatile Nightmare Staff, Armadyl Godsword, Dragon Claws or even the Dragon Dagger in most setups, despite draining more Special Attack Energy and being significantly harder to obtain than its inspiration.

The Dragon Pickaxe

The Dragon Pickaxe was added to the game alongside a host of other Wilderness Rejuvenation updates all the way back in 2014.

Since then, the only means of obtaining this Skilling upgrade has been securing one as a drop from various bosses spread throughout the Wilderness. With ever-changing player attitudes, seeing a Skilling upgrade like this locked behind dangerous content has proved to be a point of fierce debate in recent years.

We want the Wilderness to be a place all about high-risk and high-reward, for players wanting to opt-in to riskier scenarios and feeling properly compensated for their choice. For many, venturing out into risky territory to obtain this upgrade doesn’t feel like a choice.

As such, and as mentioned earlier in the blog, we’ll be providing alternate means of obtaining the Dragon Pickaxe unpolled. In the Design Blog, we identified these alternate sources as:

• A 1/400 drop from the Kalphite Queen
• Potentially a skilling-focused source

Alongside this, we’d increase the drop rate from 1/1,500 to 1/1,000 from the King Black Dragon.

In the survey attached to the previous design blog, players were overwhelmingly in favour of adding a means of obtaining this pickaxe by Skilling, but opinion was divided as to exactly where.

We initially proposed the Volcanic Mine, owing to its status as group content with a little bit of risk attached, it felt like a good fit.

However, we’d instead like to put this decision in your hands. While we’d still like to have the Wilderness bosses and Kalphite Queen prove to be ‘faster’ options, we’re open to a handful of Skilling sources for you to choose from:

That about covers all of the proposed rewards at this time. Like we stated before, we’re willing to make as many changes, tweaks & adjustments as necessary, so make sure to leave plenty of feedback!

While we feel an alternative source for the Dragon Pickaxe is long overdue, we want to make sure the other offerings from the Wilderness Boss Rework maintain interest and profitability for players seeking a thrill, especially in line with a likely decrease in price for the Dragon Pickaxe.

As a result, we’ll be looking to keep the Beta worlds active long enough to let us implement suggestions and feedback surrounding the rewards before the poll goes live in-game, so there’s no excuse for not getting stuck in!

Discuss this update on our official forums, on the 2007Scape subreddit, the Steam forums, or the community-led OSRS Discord in the #gameupdate channel. For more info on the above content, check out the official Old School Wiki.

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