Last time, I mentioned I've been exclusively dungeoneering, with one exception. That exception is related to the newest content release to date, the Jadinko Lair. Meant to be a multi-skill training area, it looks pretty good in general. But, I'm not that interested (right now) in the skills. I'm interested in the Whip Vine drop.
The Whip Vine is a rare drop from the Mutated Jadinko Guard, and Mutated Jadinko Males. The Guard is level 145, and the Males are level 201, and both are slayer beasts, requiring a Slayer level of 86, and 91, respectively. The Whip Vine gets attached to an Abyssal Whip, and increases it's stats. Not by much, just plus 4 to attack, and plus 2 to strength. But it also gives a chance of poisoning, and a very nice special attack.
The special attack summons a vine that will hit your opponent 10 times for 125% of your accuracy, and 20% of your strength. The attacks will only hit as long as your opponent is in range. Sounds pretty cool, right? Apparently, lots of people think so. At first, it was selling for 25 million on the Grand Exchange. Plus the cost of Whips went sharply upward. (By the next day, it was already down to 9 million.)
There's a bit of a catch. Aside from the Slayer requirement to fight the Jadinkos, there's a requirement of 80 Slayer, and 85 Attack to wield it. It can only be sold or traded as the Whip Vine. Once the Whip Vine is attached to the Abyssal Whip, it's untradeable. You can easily UN-attach it, if you ever decide to sell it.
Like everybody else, when I saw the new content yesterday, I was all set to run down, kill a few beasties, and get my Whip Vine... but it wasn't that easy. Aside from the fact that it's a rare drop, and I knew it would probably be just as hard to get as an Abyssal Whip is, there was a bigger concern.
Turns out, Jagex put a limited number of Mutated Jadinkos in the caverns. There were 3 to 5 players to every beast, and most of them were young kids with far faster reflexes than me. I think I finally found an lesser-populated place in Australia, because the server there was horribly slow and kept hiccuping. Most people didn't want to risk getting killed (and it's a serious risk with the Males), which was good for those of us crazy enough to go there anyway.
Once I found a good place, the killing commenced. Hours yesterday, maybe 30 minutes this morning before work, and still no Whip Vine. I'm guessing this could take days, or weeks if I'm really unlucky. If it goes on too long, I'll just go back to dungeoneering, and buy one when they get cheaper. But I'd rather get my own!
I went with a combination of melee gear, wound up going strictly Guthans, with food, prayer (Soul Split), and a unicorn. This was pretty effective. I may try Armadyl and range them later today, seeing if that's any better. Not that the first setup was bad, I managed to stay for several hours in a single trip. But every now and then, the Mutated Zadinko Males would hit hard with magic, and take me down more than 300 points. So I'm thinking, range, wear magic resistant gear, and see how that works.
If, like me, you want to get your own Whip Vine, I wish you good luck. Maybe we'll see each other down in the caverns!
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