Runescape 3 - Jad Revisited, more than two years later

Hello again, old friend!

After finishing Dungeoneering and Divination, I've just been bumming around Geilinor recently.  Go where the wind takes me, do whatever sounds interesting... it's nice not to have any major goals for a while.  Other than rebuilding my bank (spent a lot getting those last 99's), just following any old whim.

A few days ago, I started missing my old friend Jad.  The first time I ever beat him was March 25, 2011.  (I checked, it was on my blog that day when he finally keeled over.)  That was back when you could use Deflect Curses through the entire Jad fight.  It circumvented the healers, and Jad basically killed himself.  All you had to do was prayer switch, which even I could handle.  When Jagex nerfed the deflect technique, I learned to beat him using ranged, but it wasn't nearly as easy.  After beating him maybe 4 times in my entire life, it was over between us.

That's not to say he was no longer a presence.  His progeny, Baby Jad, is my favorite pet.  Mine were twins... one in the Player Owned Home, one to roam around with me.  After all that work, and all that hate, then adopting his kids, somehow, I wound up liking Jad.

Back to the present, 2 and a half years later:  Things have changed a lot with Jad and the Fight Caves.  After EOC, the Fight Cave changed so often that the guides online don't 'quite' work any more.  Two things stood out, though.  Ranging is bad.  Now most of the monsters are weak to water spells.  The other thing is Obsidian Armour and the Tokkul-Zo.  Both give big advantages when fighting TzHaar.  Obsidian Armour will reduce damage by around half.  55% with the shield, 45% without.  That helps all the way through the fight cave, but especially with Jad.  (More on that shortly.)  The Tokkul-Zo ring boosts damage against TzHaar by 10%.

The armour is made by collecting Obsidian Shards and making Obsidian Bars, then smithing the entire set.  It takes 228 shards to make the full armor set, including the three styles of helmet.  Wearing it requires at least 60 in one of the combat skills.  I blew it off for a long time as too 'low level'.  In reality, with that huge damage reduction, it's amazing.  To get the shards, I wore my best range gear, and jumped into the Fight Cauldron.  Every few fights, I walked out to make sure of getting my shards.  If you get killed before collecting them, you only receive half.  The Obsidian Armour degrades, but is repairable with more shards.  Since the Cauldron is MUCH easier while wearing Obby Armour, it's easy to keep enough shards in stock to repair it.  

One nice thing about the Obby armour, it's considered an 'all combat' class.  Just change out the helm, and you're good to go.  There's a melee helm, mage helm, and ranger helm.

Not so easy for the Tokkul Zo ring.  After 4000 total hits, it loses all charge.  50,000 Tokkul will recharge it completely.  That's pretty hard to come by.  But still, if it means beating Jad I'm okay with it.  Just have to remember to pick up my free 8,000 per day for doing the Karamja Elite tasks.

For my full gear, I wore the Obsidian Armour - Mage helm, plate legs, plate body, gloves and boots.  Additionally, The Chaotic Staff (from Dungeoneering), Max Cape, Fury Ammy, Vampyrism Aura, and scrimshaw of the elements (because I accidentally made a bunch non-tradeable).  In the long run, I forgot to use the Aura, but that's okay.

For inventory, a couple Overload flasks, 5 Prayer Flasks, a Vecna Skull (which I also mostly forgot to use), a bunch of Rocktail soup, and all the Blood and Water runes I have.  Overkill?  Maybe... but you have no idea what a klutz I am.

My spell was Ice Barrage, from the Ancient Magic spellbook, and Curse prayers to deflect damage back to Jad.  The Action bar is as follows:  Wrack, Impact, Chain, Combust, Dragon Breath, Metamorphosis, Asphyxiate, Deflect Missiles, Deflect Magic, Torment, Regenerate, and Guthix's Blessing.  (I'm pretty sure I saw this or something similar on several forums, but by now I can't remember where or who recommended it.)

In the fight caves, it went amazing.  No food until time for Jad.  Regenerate kept me topped up, and the monsters fell like kindling to the axe.  The waves before Jad were fast, and easy.  Then I hit the action bar glitch.  My protection prayer keybinds are W for Deflect Missiles, and E for Deflect Magic.  The W key worked fine, but the E key was dead.  By the time I figured out what was happening, I'd missed a bunch of prayer switches, and had eaten most of my food. 

The amazing thing is, Jad didn't kill me!  Came close, but with the Obsidian Armour cutting his damage in half, I still had a chance.  And wound up winning a fire cape.  First try in two and a half years, bad glitch in the action bar, and the Obby Armour still saved my bacon.

So, if you're wondering... it's really really worth the effort! 

Now, I'm feeling the urge to try again, and will hopefully do better as I know to watch out for the glitch.  Wish me luck.