Runescape: Taking a break from Dungeoneering to get 99 Slayer

Surrounded!

Monique finally achieved her goals in Dungeoneering.  She got the Bonecrusher, the Herbicide, and I think she even got the Farming one that sometimes gives you seeds back when a tree dies.
This is good... and bad.  To the good, she reached her personal goals and accomplished something she worked hard to get.  Also to the good, I want to get the upcoming baby TzRek Jad, so now I'm free to focus directly on level 99 Slayer now.  But to the bad, it was a lot of fun dungeoneering with her.  I really enjoyed duoing the dungeons together.  It took a while, but our playstyles had evolved to where we partnered extremely well.  Since both of us liked taking our time in the dungeons and actually 'playing', there was no pressure to just rush all the floors.
Now that she's reached her goal, I don't think she'll be Dungeoneering that much any more.  :^(

Herbicide

Looking forward, though... like I said, I'm working on my 99 Slayer.  I enjoy Slayer, so that's cool.  It's generally fun and/or profitable.  I've gone through Hellhounds, Abyssals, dragons, Black Demons, and multiple assignments of Spiritual Mages and Mutated Jadinkos.  It's all okay, except for the Jadinkos.  Those guys are slow to kill, and I can't find any real guides online with step by step proven techniques.  They're easy enough to kill.  It's just that they seem to have good defense and high hit points.  So when I'm trying to blast through my assignments (I go to Kuradel), these guys bring me to a screeching halt.  I even switched to doing the babies.  Thought they'd be a lot faster, kind of like Kalphite assignments.  Instead, the babies are level 90, and yes, they're easier and faster to kill than the adults.  But still slow.  Darn.

Entering the Jadinko Lair

I've seriously considered taking Mutated Jadinkos off my list of tasks, but when I'm not trying to rush, I enjoy them.  And I don't want to waste 100 Slayer points knowing they'll be put back on my list later.  So for now, I'll just do the babies as fast as I can to zip through.

In the meantime, my current task is Black Demons.  I love slaying Black Demons.  They're fast to kill, easy risk-management if you Prayer flash.  Even easier if you bring an Enhanced Excalibur.  And very profitable.  They drop a decent amount of alchable items, and the ashes are very valuable for Prayer training.  Or just selling on the GE.

Business as usual in the Black Demon Cavern

This morning, I was settling down with my breakfast and coffee, just in time to see there were only 7 minutes left before System update.  Decided to use those 7 minutes.  Black Demons are excellent subjects for Prayer flashing, and I'm still getting the hang of it.  So during that time, there was plenty of chance to get a feel for when to click.  After the update, started Prayer flashing again, and the response time was greatly improved.  I don't know if that was deliberate to the update, or just me having a better-than-usual internet connection, but it was really nice.  Almost real-time.

I haven't seen anybody else mentioning it yet, so maybe it was just me.  But I'm looking forward to seeing how well the overall speed runs later tonight.  I hope it's consistent, reliable, and Runescape-wide.

My last kill this morning leveled up to 94.  Only 5 levels to go!!!

Runescape Jadinko Lair - Getting the Rare Whip Vine

 

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!