The Oldschool RuneScape Rebuild Project

Last updated on 2021-10-11

I have been playing Oldschool RuneScape since 2017 - give or take four years of my active gaming life. I have skimped out playing many newer titles in favor of this game. I have been a RuneScape player since the early days of 2005, but only recently started my Oldschool journey back in 2017.

Since that time, I have spent hundreds of hours killing bosses, grinding up skills, doing achievements I didn't even think I would ever be able to do, acquiring pets, and acquiring the max level in one of my favorite skills, Slayer, which has taken me quite possibly close to over 1500 hours of killing monsters.

I had a bank value of 850 million gold. It's not a lot, but for someone like me, it was crazy seeing how much wealth I amassed over my time. Much of the gold was spent on bonds to keep my membership active, but it was a fun experience having high-level gear and money to do pretty much whatever activity I so pleased.

Then... I lost it all.

Through unforseen circumstances, I lost it in a scam indirectly. I lent money to a friend, who fell for a phishing scam, and it cost me all the money I had lent him. We had purchased a Twisted Bow to try it out and we played with it a fair bit, but unfortunately he was phished for his full password and authenticator, giving away full access to his entire account. The phishers took the Twisted Bow, and I lost a ton of wealth in the process.

So, I took a few month break from the game. My bank went from 850mil, to a measily 50mil. I had a lot of untradeables and things generally not worth selling. 50mil isn't even enough to get me up to speed on any boss, so realistically I would be chugging along at a much slower pace in every category of the game. That was enough to make me stop. Four years of grinding and acquiring wealth went right down the drain.

But I came back. I felt a spark of motivation to do things again. I could still do some stuff, it wasn't the entire end of the world. There were still enough ambitious goals I could start focusing on, so I rejoined up and started small.

This post is dedicated to sharing my new-found achievements in RuneScape. I am a max Slayer level player so I have access to all levels of monsters in the game. Monster killing is unfortunately the best way to earn money, so I will only be doing this, along with maybe some minor skilling in the process.

Updates are slowly coming, check the date at the top to see when it was last updated.

Achievements Before This

I want to share my achievements before I go into a rebuild screenshot bananza. I have achieved a few things, so to start I want to share my stats, my boss kills, and some collection log snippets.

• Stats - my skill levels in the game of RuneScape. There are 23 skills, ranging from Levels 1 to 99. The skill total is the sum of all these levels. The Max skill total is 2277.
• A Level 99 skill is 13 million experience points, meaning to become a max character you must earn a minimum of 299 million xp across 23 skills.
• Boss kills - the in-game tracker to see how many times you've killed a boss.
• Collection log - the in-game reporting metric for boss loot. A boss is "completed" once you have obtained each rare item at least once.
• Bosses and skilling activities have a chance of rewarding players with pets. Pets are miniature creatures that follow you around the game. They are some of the rarest items to collect in the game, most bosses have a base drop chance of 1 in 3000.

Oversized Mole

First I'll share my favorite pet in the game: the Baby Mole. Pets in this game has a 1 in 3000 chance of being dropped from a boss, and this pet comes from the Giant Mole. The Giant Mole is a basic entry-level boss that people farm often, because he is very easy to beat. This was my first foray into bossing, and with almost no money to my name, I wanted that mole.

Vorkath, the Undead Dragon

Vorkath is one of my most farmed bosses. I have killed him well over the drop rate for his pet, the Vorki. I combined this with Slayer for the most part, every time you get a Zombie or Blue Dragon task, I take it to him to make a quick buck. Each Vorkath kill is roughly 750xp in Slayer, so I have made well over 2mil Slayer xp from Vorkath alone. To top it off, I obtained all of his uniques at least once!

Hespori, Grow Your Own Boss

Hespori is a farming boss you can do once every 1-2 days depending on if you planted his seeds (acquired through the Farming skill). Every time you kill him you get about 12,000 Farming xp, which means I've done him so much I gained about a million xp from Hespori alone.

Kraken, The Sea Scourge

Kraken is a Level 87 Slayer boss. He is worth 255 Slayer xp per kill. His pet is a drop rate of 1 in 3000.

Um... Yeah I'm not happy. I don't have the pet still.

Alchemical Hydra, Count to Three Simulator

Alchemical Hydra is a boss I have love-hate feelings for currently. He isn't fun to fight, and sometimes he doesn't even appear profitable. You can only kill him while on a Slayer task, which can only be assigned by one Slayer Master, who only has roughly a 5% chance of assignment. So this boss is suffering to get to.

So anyways, this boss straight up isn't actually fun in my opinion. I have done him with crap weapons, and I've fought him with the best weapons possible, and I still hate him. He takes forever to kill. Getting 190 Hydras assigned to me can take me a week to do mentally. I can do maybe 40 a day before I get tired of it.

Zulrah, Swamp Snake

Zulrah is a boss I thought I would have a lot of terrible luck with, and I do on average. He doesn't make money on some days, but other days he sure prints out the cash.

Zulrah's uniques are very rare. Some can only be dropped on a rate of 1 in 13,000. His baby pet the Pet Snakeling is dropped at a rate of 1 in 4000, much higher than other bosses. However, I have some funny luck with Zulrah.

Skotizo, Scourge of the Basement

Skotizo is not a great boss that's interesting to talk about, but I will mention him as he was part of my long-term Road to 99 Slayer.

The mechanics behind Skotizo in combat aren't very fascinating; he has four totems which can enhance his defences and even regenerate his HP if not dealt with. He summons his children to fight off would-be assassins. That's it. He doesn't really do much.

The important mechanic to associate with him is that the only way to get to Skotizo is by getting Dark Totems from the [Catacombs of Kourend][catacombs] by fighting monsters within. The rates vary per monster, so anyone who's anyone will be down there trying to earn Dark Totem pieces to get into Skotizo for a chance at his pet, which is a 1 in 65 drop rate.

The downside to this is that it means my entire grind to 99 Slayer has only netted me 33 Dark Totems altogether. I didn't spend 100% of my Slayer tasks in the catacombs because the bosses I was interested don't live down there, but to get to Skotizo may be a lot more difficult than it sounds. I'll be doing a ton of Slayer (or ton of AFKing) to get this pet.

Non-Boss Stuff

One of the most sought-after weapons, the Dragon Warhammer, is only dropped from one enemy type in the game, namely Lizardman Shaman. It drops at an alarmingly high rate of 1 in 5000, meaning you could kill 5,000 lizardmen shamans, and still not even be close to getting it. This is the most dreadful grind in the game in my opinion, these guys aren't even close to being fun or that profitable.

That being said, I have done this before, and I got the hammer around a whopping 1,800 kills. I don't have proof of that number quite since I have killed more since, but I do have proof in the collection log of receiving the hammer at least once.

Another highly sought-after item is known as the Basilisk Jaw, which turns a powerful helmet into an even more powerful version, which is very useful for several bosses and dungeon raid events. This jaw is dropped from Basilisk Knights at a rate of 1 in 1,000 while on a Slayer task (worse if not).

Barrows, a mini-game focused on robbing some undead heroes or whatever for their gear, is a thing I have spent a lot of time actually doing. It has one of the best chances of getting Elite clue scrolls, which are needed to make Master clue scrolls. I would like to knock out the Barrows collection log to say I have gotten one of everything.

High-value items here would be the Ahrim's Robetop and bottoms for great magic bonuses in Raids, Karil's Leather top and bottom for great magic defense in fighting Thermy and maybe even God Wars Dungeon. A full Guthan's set of armour would be nice because it's useful in some places. The other stuff is.... Meh.

Rebuild Plans

The goal is to re-build my wealth through whatever means necessary. I want to obtain my full melee strength and ranged gear again. I want to maybe acquire one or two more pets if I can. This means I have a few options ahead of me to really "rebuild".

• Take on a bunch of Slayer tasks I really don't want to. This means Vampyres, Basilisk Knights, Lizardmen Shamans.
• Take the fight back to the Demonic Gorillas. They're not so bad.
• Go back to Alchemical Hydra and Kraken. I don't have that Kraken pet after all.
• Finish off my melee stats and acquire 99 Attack and 99 Defence.
• Consider alternate Slayer bosses like Grotesque Guardians, Thermonuclear Smoke Devil, and maybe Cerberus.
• Finish the entirety of the Barrows collection log.
• Get a Skotizo pet. It seriously has to happen eventually.
• Maybe, just maybe, get a TzTok-Jad pet. This will take many attempts in the Fight Cave.

Dragon Warhammer, Second Saga

Lizardmen Shamans were my first idea to go back to. I unlocked them on my Slayer task lists, so now I can receive them as tasks again. This isn't something I am going to look to sell when I get it, I actually want to use it for bosses and raids.

The upside is Lizardmen don't need a whole lot of gear to fight efficiently. This setup is roughly 12-15mil, and utilizes a Toxic Blowpipe, Necklace of Anguish and Blowpipe, which I can easily afford.

This grind can take anywhere between 1 task and 50 tasks, and I can kill about 60 shamans per hour in solo areas, and probably twice as many in a multi-combat zone. So give or take anywhere from 1 to 100 hours. Keep your eyes peeled for this one.

Basilisk Jaw Hunting (again)

Being over 3,000 kills isn't fun when you've only received one jaw, but gettng a jaw may be my best bet on wealth creation. Maybe even several.

The loadout for fighting Basilisks has changed a bit. I used to use a crossbow with expensive bolts, but now it seems to have been dropped down to simply using Rune Knives. So I don't need a whole lot to do this grind.

Update 2021-09-27: I've done a task or two with no luck, so I've decided to pause this grind and take it off my tasks list. Reasons being:

• It doesn't have a pet
• Melee is inefficient here, and I would use ranged combat instead
• I already have 99 ranged, so the XP is kind of moot
• I can lose money doing this

Blood Shard

The Blood Shard is an item that enhances the Amulet of Fury into the Amulet of Blood Fury, which gives it an additional effect of allowing a player's melee damage to restore the player. It's life-steal, but at the extreme cost of needing blood shards to constantly infuse an Amulet of Fury.

The Blood Shard itself is dropped from a Vampyre called the Vyrewatch Sentinel. These guys are not a Slayer-specific enemy, but can be done on task. But because they aren't specific to Slayer... it's flooded with bots. It's not easy to find a world. Because of that it's a very annoying task to do.

I want a single Blood Shard so my collection log will be complete. That's all.

Hydra Claw Clipping

The Hydra Claw is one of the most sought-after unique items in the game because it turns an okay spear into an amazing lance that is used for multiple types of encounters and Slayer. I would most likely have to sell this to get myself back up to where I was, but it sells for a good chunk of change around 40mil gold.

It's drop rate is 1 in 1,000 from Alchemical Hydra. I will need to get a task, then actually do the task (shudders).

Update 2021/10/1: I received a task of 159 Hydras on Sunday evening, and it took me the entire week to finish it. I did a bunch of Zulrah to get scales to offset the huge supplies cost, but overall I was doing anywhere between 20 to 40 hydra kills a day.

This isn't the full loot since I play across multiple computers, but this is the gist of it. I didn't receive anything special unfortunately, aside from one unique which I already had (Hydra Tail). I don't feel 13mil richer since I had to use a ton of prayer potions which are expensive, so unfortunately this didn't lead me to much wealth. Oh well.

Zulrah

I actually don't care what I really get from this too much, but I'm shooting for an Uncut Onyx and a Magic Fang. The Onyx would let me make an Amulet of Fury, while the Magic Fang would let me create a Trident of the Swamp. The Fury would keep me satisfied until I scored a Zenyte shard from Demonic Gorillas to make a Torture, but the Fury is a good second place contender.

My setup for Zulrah on a budget is currently simply using Elite Void Knight armor. The helmets make it dead simple to switch gear between phases, and I can use the Toxic Blowpipe and regular trident easily. Getting an Onyx or a Fang would take some luck.

Update 2021-10-11: After I don't know how many Zulrah kills since starting this adventure, I finally got a Zulrah unique (again).

I don't need this until I do Theatre of Blood, which I unfortunately may never have the time to even begin learning. Could have been a Tanzanite Fang, but oh well. 🙁

Demonic Gorillas

Demonic Gorillas are a fun lil' monster to fight when you have a Black Demon or Monkey task in Slayer. They have 380 HP, packing 380 Slayer xp per kill, and the drops are huge, sometimes averaging to over 30k gold per kill, which is, in my eyes, actually good. The problem is they are a pain in the butt to kill.

Because of how much health gorillas have, they take a bit of effort to kill, and also time. The drop rate for the Zenyte shard is a 1 in 300 chance. Sometimes it takes me up to a minute to kill a single gorilla, meaning it would take me five hours to hit the average drop rate for the Zenyte.

Kind of long, but I don't actually mind these guys. These might be my primary money makers if I'm actually lucky, but I don't want to do this more than once every few days, as they offer no pet, and I kind of care about pets now.

Kraken

Kraken is an easy task that I can do pretty mindlessly. I have extended this task in particular for the sake of pet hunting - I am long overdue for this baby Kraken, and boy am I excited for him.

Gear for Kraken is completely inexpensive, so it makes sense to do Kraken kills as a budget player currently. I can earn fully charged Tridents, or Kraken Tentacles, or other valuable loot randomly. Unfortunately I've been 99 Magic and 99 Slayer for a long time now, so it's not like I'm here for XP at this point, mostly just the pet. Simply looking to cross something off my list forever.

Update 2021/09/29: I have been stuck between Zulrah and Alchemical Hydra for days now. I am fighting Zulrah to fill up my Toxic Blowpipe to go fight Alchemical Hydra. In the mean time, my friend has been fighting Kraken as of late... and he got the pet at a fraction of my kill count.

Not my personal achievement, just a fun snippet to include (😢).

Thermonuclear Smoke Devil ("Thermy")

At the time of writing the original post, I was at about 580 kill count for Thermonuclear Smoke Devil, and I plan on doing more up until I get the pet. The loot is fairly rewarding, but not crazy on the levels of Vorkath, Gorillas or Hydra. He can drop goat horns and tinderboxes.

The nice part about Thermy is he can be pretty budget friendly. He has only 240 HP, and can take about a minute to kill or so. So I can realistically do about 60 kills an hour in my budget setup. Food wise, you only need prayer potions and combat boosts, so it's not a big deal doing this, but it takes a lot of focus.

King Black Dragon

Not something I plan on doing all the time, but every time I get a black dragon task, I will be taking it to King Black Dragon. It makes sense to do so. He isn't hard, and he has a pet. Why not? Sometimes he also drops the Dragon Pickaxe, which I do kind of need for mining purposes.

Barrows

I did mention I would like to complete the Barrows grind at some point. The good thing about completing this log is that it's completely random about what I actually receive as rewards. I need to eventually get a full outfit of Karil's Armor again, but I might not receive any pieces of this set at all as I complete the collection log. Or maybe I will! That's the kind of exciting part is it's fun to get loot, any piece of gear at all.

It costs almost nothing to do Barrows so this will be an interesting grind for sure.

Chambers of Xeric

Not that I'm a hard-core raider by any means in RuneScape terms, I do a lot of duo Chambers of Xeric with my friend, who is also bankrupt after being phished. We can still do duos in Chambers, but it'll be a lot harder without the gear that we once had. In fact, we're probably going to be using Elite Void, being those players at raids.

I don't expect us to be doing this until we have enough cash saved up for a [Bandos God Sword][bgs] or at least a Dragon Warhammer, the latter has it's own grind involved