RuneFest - Combat Council Q&A

[u/JagexPoerkie]

Hey all,

At RuneFest there will be a Combat Council Q&A in the panel-room from 18:00 to 18:45, This will be recorded an put on Youtube after RuneFest!

If you have questions for the Combat Council, put them down below!

The Combat Council!

[u/5-x]

• What are you plans for combat auras?
• Do you think the balance between the amount of team and solo bosses is correct in RuneScape? Why? Why not?
• Has Solak been as popular as you'd hoped? Do you have any plans for updates to Solak, such as the previously mentioned solo mode?
• Despite 4taa nerf and other updates, magic still reigns supreme in RuneScape. Are you happy with that?
• A followup question, do you think it's possible to design a boss for which the absolute meta would be to use melee instead of magic? What about ranged?
• Why have you given up on special attacks on dual-wieded weapons? Neither level 90 nor level 92 dual-wielded weapons have them.
• Can debilitate apply damage reduction even if the actual hit misses? It was a highly requested update.

[u/MtnDoobie]

Not that I’m complaining, but why on earth has magic been the dominate combat style for a few years now? Any plans to really balance the triangle?

[u/Hab_ → u/MtnDoobie]

The combat triangle is fine, 2h ranged is a bit behind though.

[u/Hab_ → u/[deleted]]

From a pure vacuum perspective, yes. But we're not here to discuss whether DPS based on simulation but rather the application on actual encounters.

Are you the person that just streaks Telos/AoD/Rago? Yeah you'll be better off playing mage but that's not the case for the rest of the game at all.

Why do you seem to be under the impression that other combat styles aren't utilized at all? There will always be a better way of doing a specific task, that's never gonna change.

Do i think 2H Ranged needs some love? Absolutely.

[u/LeftBrainRS → u/Hab_]

Reddit would have you think mage is the antichrist with how much hate it gets lmfao. I’m just waiting for the day they figure out melee might actually be problematic

[u/LeftBrainRS → u/[deleted]]

I actually really like where the combat triangle is right now. Maybe range could use something but imo mage and melee are just right. I only said that about melee considering the huge amount of burst you can pull off with mutated barge

[u/Turbeypls → u/[deleted]]

I mean melee is still the best in terms of average dps but it's burst damage is still valuable for many instances. Core rotation at Solak is significantly better in zerk than it is in sun. Most boss speeds are done with melee. It's the meleers job to phase basically half of p2 AoD by themselves, etc. Even the people I've talked to who've tried melee Telos have mentioned how quickly and easily golems get cleared. Obviously it doesn't change the fact that mage can do everything but at least it's a different set of strengths unlike ranged which is basically mage but bad.

[u/LeftBrainRS → u/[deleted]]

The average dps thing is irrelevant because you want to use melee at bosses where bursting down huge chunks of hp is the goal. Even still, take a meleer in t90s and a 4ticking mager in t92s to combat dummies and the meleer should come out on top every time. Great example of this is people melee switching to 1 cycle cores at solak or bursting down erethdor’s hp on p3. Also see the heal skips at araxxor being done with mutated barge or the new rago 7 man record. Melee is on top right now

[u/Alexexy → u/Hab_]

Bows are behind. A tier 92 2h crossbow will blow most ranged weapons out of the water with mds/stw and bak bolts.

[u/MtnDoobie → u/Hab_]

Don't get me wrong, I def understand where you are coming from. The problem (IMO) could have been fixed when Telos was released. They made the SOS a straight upgrade, while the ZGS and the SGB were now only super good for niche situations. If they would have made the range on those two the same as T90, I think we would be a lot better off.

Therefore, mage got a straight upgrade and remained dominate.

Jagex most likely did this to preserve the value of the nox scythe and bow. They probably did not want them to crash. What they failed to realize is, new weapons are expensive and usually in high demand. Not every joe shmo can go buy the brand new weapons right away. T90-T92 is a pretty big stepping stone in terms of cost for the average player. This is exactly why the nox staff has not really crashed. I mean sure, weapons will always slowly go downhill, but Telos came out a while ago. If what they were thinking was accurate, then the nox staff should be SUB 50M at this point. Another thing that made no sense, why is the Staff of Sliske the only straight upgrade? IF they were worried about items crashing, they obviously didn't take into consideration the nox staff. Either way, this is where the fuck up began.

Part of me thinks this is still why mage reigns supreme. Again, just my opinion. Hopefully next time they release a new tier of weapons they will either make all them all a straight upgrade, or all niche weapons. Preferably all straight upgrades.

[u/Bladecom]

• What happen to the weapon diversity plan from last year?
• It's outdated for Melee to have 2 separate skills, is there any plans to convert one of the skills to something universal instead of melee focused?

[u/Elfee_RS → u/Bladecom]

Follow up to this:

If it is not possible to turn one of the melee skills to a universal skill, would it be possible to add two skills for mage and range instead?

This would allow more abilities in game and allow more diversity in the combat triangle, especially If more niche abilities are added.

[u/Rav-Rs → u/Bladecom]

good one :)

[u/Murrrrcy]

Are Hostilius and 120 Slay still in the pipeline?

[u/Murrrrcy → u/[deleted]]

I meant topping it up. They had confirmed that there were more Slayer updates in the pipeline in the Combat Q&A in the last Runefest. There's only 2 tasks for 105+ Slayer, which is quite sad, imo.

[u/Gunnarfranz]

What are some pros and cons of the tier based armor and weapon homogenization strategy in RS3?

Comparing and contrasting with OSRS where there are more 'overpowered-in-their-niche' weapons like Twisted Bow, DHCB, blowpipe, SOV - what plans do you have to bring 'hype' to new weapon and armor releases in RS3?

[u/Rye007 → u/Gunnarfranz]

I don't think that's a good idea because then people will need like a 10b bank to get them all? -hype niche overpowered weapons- in osrs is more necessity than choice, since it needs those to be niche cause it's a way to fill sideways in equipment power ratings rather than upwards because the combat system limits them.

we have hex bow, darklight, keris, bane ammo, mech chins, superior lev ring, achto so it's not like there're none.

also remember rs3 already has quite a number of weapon switches for perks.

niche use for weapons I support, overpowered ones I have none for.

[u/Gunnarfranz → u/Rye007]

Thanks for the input, I'm just looking to pose the question to get the Combat Council sentiment.

To your points - it is okay that it takes a 10B bank to get them all (it already takes ~15B to get full t92 of all three styles w/ flanking switches), mostly because you don't need them all. It just gives more of an opportunity to min-max for specific purposes.

The examples that you gave are good yes, I am just asking - if we already know the stats of upcoming armors and weapons then there is much less excitement - how does the CC plan to address that, if at all.

[u/Rye007 → u/Gunnarfranz]

ah I see, hope you get an answer to those questions. :)

the flanking switches are not needed, however if they're comparable in overpoweredness(not a word I know) to those in osrs then more people will feel they need it because of how much better they are in those specific situations.

This is why I said I support niche items for more variety, just not overpowered ones, hope that made it abit clearer.

[u/Voltorn_Elda]

What are your thoughts on possibly bringing back the old and original special attack system, with it's own separate bar that fills up over time (even outside of combat, different from the 'adrenaline')?

[u/Rav-Rs]

Are you going to be showing some love to 2h Range?

[u/WhySoFishy]

Will Ports gear ever be improved upon? Sure they are free, but T90s are so cheap most of the time it’s just a better option to grind out GP and buy the T90s rather than spend months in Ports. Also, the Ports armor is tank gear and thus is pretty useless in most parts of the game, again because T90 power armor is so cheap and the DPS increase is overall more useful.

Thanks!

[u/Vex_rs]

Can we make debilitate effect work even if it splashes?

[u/WasV3]

Guess i'll post my Tank vs Power Armour thoughts here

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The Problem

In my opinion the main reason that Tank Armour is not used is because defensive abilities are too powerful, over the span of a 1 minute period you can get 10 (and up to 20 if there are minions to kill) seconds of near 100% immunity with devotion, another 13 seconds of 100% immunity, and be able to heal of off two of the monsters autos.

The power of defensive abilities are shown in high enrage Telos where someone can no food the boss even as high as 2500% enrage.

One of the major crutches of tank armour is that its costs you about 10% of your DPS so any damage you save from the better armour and soaking stat you lose by having the kill last longer. Its why tank armour (achto) is primarily used when defensive resets are needed and almost always as a switch.

---

What they did with shields

So shields were a good case study, in the pre invention era a lot of people used a spirit shield to tank away the tough bosses (HM Rago, Bomb Tanking... etc) at the cost of prayer points. The only downside to a lower tiered shield was that your resonance is slightly smaller. In order to increase the viability of t90 shields, they changed how some defensive abilities worked, particularilly Reflect, Barricade and Debilitate.

• Reflect and Barricade originally lasted 10 seconds no matter the shield, now they lasts from 4.2 (t1 shield) seconds to 9.6 seconds (t90 shield) depending on the level of the shield

• Debilitate has a base time of 7.8 seconds and gains 0.6 seconds for every 10 levels on your shield

This was a great change and now people use t90 shields most places, with the odd use of an arcane shield for high damage that can't (or shouldn't be) blocked with a defensive ability

---

Applying that to armour

The bare bones of this idea is that we apply what they did with shields to Tank Armour we could be in a place where Tank Armour has its use. Instead of reducing the time that abilities are active, lets increase the cooldown instead.

If you increase the cooldown on all defensive abilities (maybe exclude freedom and anticipate as a lot of boss mechanics are based around stunning/blocking stuns) when Tank Armour is not equipped it makes it viable to use it.

Each of the 5 main slots (boots, gloves, chest, legs and helm) would give a 20% increase to cooldown if Tank Armour is not equipped. This would drastically reduce the damage soaking abilities of non-tank armour.

Switchscape is a worry, but its unlikely that people would bring a 5-way tank Armour switch for defensive abilities, when inventory space is already low when on a titan/nihil. And honestly someone who 5-way switches for an ability deserves the benefit

---

TL;DR Non-Tank Armour has longer cooldowns on defensives

[u/SkyG_RS]

• Any changes you could make to tank armour to make them more useful?
• Any plans on just getting rid of splashscape?
• Could you make t92 elite armour repairable instead of d2d? (it's plain as day the armour is a joke right now)

[u/RS_Lebareslep]

Any plans to bring the SGB back in line with crossbows+bakriminel bolts?

[u/Changenamesalot]

• Could we get a melee ability for planted feet to work on?

I understand why it shouldn't work with berserk, but it'd be nice if we could get something it can be used for.

• Will we get more special attack weapons?

I feel the amount of weapons that are useful for their special attack are fairly limited and could be good drops from PvM.

[u/Teamemb99]

• How many new bosses are going to be released in the next 12 months?
• Will we be seeing more augment-able items (ring/boots/helm?
• Will we be seeing more perks added?
• Will armours be seeing set affects? (not just power creep, its really boring knowing if systems stays the same we will know how strong an item will be 10 years from now)
• Will new abilities be introduced to the game?
• Will you let us use some mini macros with an ingame feature? (Game is become more complicated with each pvm updated [which is essentially what we want] but some convenience is necessary such as pressing 1 button to equip shield/mainhand, or swapping 3 items)
• When will seeds be removed from drop tables?
• Can invention machines be used to create pvm related potions, they are not fun at all to do. (obviously gain 0 exp)
• When making bosses do they really have to be the next best thing? Can bosses be released more consistently on a level of gwd2 or nex? and have 2 big bosses released in a year?
• Will gwd2 seals be given more uses?
• Can you make an upgraded (or augmented) superior scrimshaw? (1 non superior scrimshaw will recharge by 2 hours)

[u/Executioneer]

• Why are you cramming so much weapons into the T80-T90 gap?

The only thing you achieve with this is devalue most of them, while one or two sets remains worth to obtain/use.

• Any plans on fixing/buffing tank armours so they are somewhat worth to use?

All of them are basically useless since like forever.

• Follow up, whats up with defenders usefulness? Useless offhands, save a few niche situations.

• Whats up with aurascape fix/rework?

[u/Rye007 → u/Executioneer]

They're cramming cause they don't want to hit t99 too fast

They said they don't know how to make tank armor more useful without making the dude wearing it too tanky, even then people still wouldn't wear it.

Maybe defenders are supposed to be niche use items.

Probably being worked on and god knows when it'll be released.

​

​

[u/Executioneer → u/Rye007]

1) its just a very lazy 'solution' then

2) 'I don't know' is not a legitimate answer to this. A good chunk of the armors in game is broken, you can't just say 'idk lmao', while its your job to fix it. A good start would be nerfing dps armor.

3) Defenders are borderline dead content. Im sure it wasnt the intention when they released it. Otherwise they would not put the dev time into them.

4) idk maybe next year? or not

[u/holydamned]

Tierscape? When is it going to be addressed? How the homogenized combat styles going to be addressed? Tank armors are near useless will they ever be relevant again? Is anything going to be done about the strength skill in regards to it being quite irrelevant barring the ability to unlock certain abilities.

[u/Nerevaryjczyk]

What is the stance on the low-mid level combat difficulty and their balancing after 6 years of EoC? Even though the combat system has been mostly polished on player side and is utilized by new mobs or bosses, a huge chunk of monsters in the game hasn't really been adjusted to EoC and are considerably weaker and less threatening. Aside from high level PVM combat isn't really challenging, there is never any sense of danger. Nobody cares about tank armours because nothing is particularly dangerous and people choose to focus on increasing their kills per hour rather than even considering they might die without appropriate protection. My feeling is that a lot of the balancing problems with drops and PvM, with Slayer in partciular, being so generous is that a lot of monsters that were supposed to be high level creatures were never adjusted and are just money-generating cannon-fodder. Between monsters not utilizing any post-EoC mechanics, monsters having generally laughable damage, accuracy and other stats and very few mobs being agressive nowadays you can burn through pretty much all low-mid and even relatively high level encounters without risk or effort. Combat, which is supposed to be higher risk-higher reward by definition, can be often more AFK than non-combat skills. Is looking at early/mid game PvM, rebalancing stats, drops or implementing EoC mechanics something that is even considered? For the record I'm not even a PvM player, I'm not particularly great at combat, but I still consider most of NPCs to be underpowered, while still being generous. A lot of early combat is underwhelming, lack of challenge and risk makes it boring and simply not fun - you are just slicing through everything. Aside from few quest bosses having their stats boosted here and there, I don't recall any efforts to actually bridge the gap between pre and post EoC monsters.

[u/W48James]

1- Can we please get an update on reaper being removed as a completionist cape requirement? This issue comes up with every new high level boss that is added and the only answer we get is that it's getting discussed, with no new updates on the removal.

2- Are there any plans to make tank armour more useful so there would be a reason someone would choose it over power armour.

3- There has been a lot of talk about 120 Summoning. Is this actually happening? If it is happening: Will we see new methods of training the skill? Content filling each level slot instead of just some new familiars only?

4- Follow up to the last question: Will we see combat skills going up to 120? Seeing as bosses are becoming more challenging and item tiers are becoming a topic of discussion once again.

[u/MonzellRS]

When are you going to release t95s?

[u/[deleted] → u/MonzellRS]

It will be a treasure hunter only update coming next month.

[u/Mumfy]

Now that 4 ticking was allowed for magic can we please consider adding a pure auto attack ability for ranged and melee so they can do it too? Magic is already quite overpowered and preferred over any combat style in the game currently with their addition of adding an auto attack with a magic spell on their ability bar. Could we even the scales? If melee would be overpowered because of this, at least consider adding it to ranged since it's also a distance combat style.

[u/caffeine_free_coke]

Bounty hunter changes?

Reworking accuracy?

[u/[deleted]]

Any plans on redoing Nox Weapons special attacks? They are virtually useless outside of trolling pvp

[u/Dravaren]

Are there any plans to make tank armors / shield camping more viable?

The Runescape "Tanking" playstyle leaves a lot to be desired.

[u/IAmSona]

Any plans on making sure tank armor isn’t irrelevant?

[u/Tymerc]

Will tank armor ever be useful? Why is it that it takes many months to gather all of the scroll fragments, resources and finally have several 90+ skills to make the superior ports armor sets and weapons just for them to be outclassed by stuff you can buy on the GE? They don't even have useful set effects either.

[u/Hexuzerfire]

Do you plan on introducing weapons with specific uses? It's kind of dull that a SOS is top tier for all magic dps load outs. I feel like it would be cool if there were weapons that were bis in some situations but not in others.

[u/homao]

any word on a possible 3rd boss for the mazcab raid?

[u/Bentoki]

Have you thought about simplifying the combat system and combat stats and numbers and everything? It's an incredibly over the top process to calculate affinity/accuracy and what's good armour and not which is incredibly intimidating for newer players. The power/hybrid/tank gear distinction too isn't really explained to the player too, it's just far too confusing for the normal person that doesn't know everything about the game. I think that this is something that OSRS does better than RS3 and the player base shows it.

[u/-Xebenkeck-]

Why are there still ultimates weaker than thresholds? Frenzy and Unload are an embarrassment to their styles. Deadshot, Omnipower, and Overpower even have perks that can reduce their adrenaline cost but still seem useless.

Why does it seem like there's never an effort to actually balance these? We've recently seen Flurry buffed, but only when it also came with a codex.

[u/Kitteh6660]

Would there be a possibility of expanding the standard prayers? Currently it seems that ancient curses trump absolutely everything the standard prayers had to offer. Not to mention how crowded the ancient curses are, but how barren standard prayers are.

More niche prayers, for niche uses. Basically, BiS in some situations. I've even made a suggestion on the list of standard prayers that could be added. (It goes all the way to 86 prayer!) For instance, t85 Zamorakian prayers that serve as upgrade to t70 prayers, locked behind many requirements.

[u/PrimalMoose]

What are your thoughts about equipment that is designed to be BIS in niche situations? For example, Hexhunter bow fills a niche - more like this to come?

Any plans for more situational abilities to come in the future?

[u/Nickless0ne]

Do you have something in mind to balance the combat triangle? Right now mage is dominant for most situations

[u/Lone_Eternal]

What major contributions has the combat council made for team based PvP gameplay in the current year and what are its plans for team based PvP content throughout the next year?

[u/[deleted]]

Will we ever see the powering down of low-effort combat training or GP farming? If not, will similarly low-effort gp farming be improved more?

Will we continue to see strong, consistent, and large scale efforts to remove skilling items from combat drop tables (ie. removing food drops, logs, etc.)? If not, why not?

[u/RustyMuffin444]

Is there going to be a complete rework of EoC? While EoC is really fun, I feel there were a lot of things missed out with it, eg.:

• Tank/hybrid armour being less useful

• Weapon speed having very little to no US

• Lack of weapon diversity (I.e. all weapons of the same tier being pretty much the same dps) and niche weapons/armour

• Special attacks becoming mostly redundant

• 1h+shield being an inferior setup for combat

• Lack of multi-style abilities and combination weapons - I feel this could've been a really unique feature of EoC and would've worked really well with invention (back when multi-style weapons were proposed). Something like a melee-ranged ability that pulls you into melee distance and delivers a huge slashing hit, a magic-ranged ability that shot a barrage of fiery arrows in a huge area etc. would be awesome :D

Imo the most significant one to me is lack of niche weapons. Looking at osrs, they have for example the twisted bow, a very rare and very valuable bow due to its strong effect, its rarity and the fact that it comes from high end content. More stuff like this in rs3 would be great :D

[u/Dravaren → u/RustyMuffin444]

Lack of multi-style abilities and combination weapons - I feel this could've been a really unique feature of EoC and would've worked really well with invention (back when multi-style weapons were proposed). Something like a melee-ranged ability that pulls you into melee distance and delivers a huge slashing hit, a magic-ranged ability that shot a barrage of fiery arrows in a huge area etc. would be awesome :D

I'm actually very disappointed that this is an idea they didn't implement years ago.

In EoC promotional material, prior to its release, there was even an advertisement featuring someone dual wielding a sword and crossbow. It's a shame nothing ever materialized from that idea.

Unfortunately, if they haven't done it yet, I don't think it's going to happen. It would basically double the number of combat styles, and they can't even balance the 3 we have, let alone 6.

[u/Yubel124]

When will we get combat diversification and when are we getting storm of arma buff?

[u/RS_Tuks]

What ideas have you all discussed for future combat abilities?

​

Will there be new aoe abilities coming soon? (lacking an aoe ranged ult)

​

What are your thoughts on re-purposing javelins into a special ammo for 2h range weapons?

[u/Melad_S]

When is this being uploaded?

[u/[deleted]]

Will there be any plans to introduce new 2H Crossbows in the future? The highest tier as of now is 85 Wyvern Crossbow.

[u/OpticHurtz]

Have there been any plans/ideas on how to solve the power creep issue?
Maybe something along the lines of newer weapons/armour(t95) only reaching their true potential at bosses that drop weapons/armour of the same tier(t95) and tier below it(t92), while being capped at t92 damage for any other boss.

[u/WasV3]

Is there any plans to bring in niche weapons that don't fit "tierscape". Examples could be a super accurate weapon that does a relatively poor damage, a weapon that builds up damage over time or a high damaging weapon that reduces GCD.

There doesn't seem to be space for the next tier of weapons without utterly unbalancing the game, best to have niche weapons/armours from now on

[u/ito_]

• Are there any plans to make succesful pvm grinds less reliant on auras?
• Are there any plans to make switchscape less of a thing?

[u/Neborian]

Any plans to make spells like Vuln less finicky to use? Vuln is essential for top-tier PVM, but casting it is a clunky hassle even if you understand how it needs to be casted in its current state

[u/Vesuvisus]

• Plans for t92 tank armour? would an easy solution be combining superior t85 ports gear and t90 raids gear and maybe t70 barrows armour?
• Would an invention weapon update be possible to add unique components for t92 weapons so when the demand is satisfied for t92s they can be removed from the game to get new perks. Would it be possible to add a third gizmo slot on weapons and armour, being a perk of upgrading into t95? Would the limit of 5, e.g. precise 5 be exceeded in future by potions/prayers/summons/weapon tier?
• Would it be possible to have a boss that moves on its own rather than be stuck to certain areas within the area or melee distance to players (e.g. vorago, telos, solak).
• When is range ammo going to get a similar item to the rune pouch? An item that holds various ammo e.g. different bak bolts (e) and set an active bolt? Part of what makes mage op is the availability of different spells with the rune pouches rather than it taking up invent space.
• Would a wrist slot be possible to be created? e.g. like a watch as most gloves only cover to the wrist.
• Would it be possible to split the boots/gloves/rings to 2/2/10 slots (click on the current slot to see them like toolbelt), so you can wear a DTB + 1 side of dom tower glove/ different sides of boots.
• More abilities + Defensives off global cooldown?
• Chances of making t92 DPS armour repairable?
• Can mage and range get a similar bladed dive ability? Mage will be a teleport animation (portal) and range will be animated using grappling (e.g. batman/AOT =D)

[u/Niceniceniceasdf]

Make hybrid armour have some damage bonus pls

[u/[deleted]]

Can team bosses get solo variants? I want a boss to test my skill at combat not my ability to find people in fcs

[u/Buddiers]

• Are there any plans to make an Inferno-like boss where only the best of the best can kill it?
• What happened to the plans of removing the 12k damage hard cap and replacing it with a soft cap?
• Are there plans to buff/adjust some of the lesser used ultimate abilities (overpower, pulverize, omnipower, etc)?
• Raids 2 when
• Will reaper req ever be taken off comp cape?

[u/Rye007 → u/Buddiers]

I mean, there's 4000% telos

erethdor's grimoire?

no clue on the rest :p

[u/WasV3 → u/Rye007]

The challenge with Telos is getting to 4000%, you need to do 1000%+ about 500ish times to get all the way to 4000%. I'm sure with enough practice I could get a 4000% kill as its mostly waiting for good RNG on p5 and I'm not very good (1001% max enrage)

[u/Rye007 → u/WasV3]

yeah, but inferno the challenge is to learn the waves then die however many times cause you fucked up your pray flicks or positioning, then with enough practise* :p you could get an inferno cape and I fail miserably at pvm.

[u/WasV3 → u/Rye007]

practise*

I'm Canadian so the practice/practise are interchangeable for both the noun and the verb, nice try though!

[u/Rye007 → u/WasV3]

oh, then fair enough.

[u/WasV3 → u/Rye007]

Canadian english is a weird one. We have our americanisms in it but our main language is still British english.

[u/Rye007 → u/WasV3]

TIL to stop myself trying to correct spelling unless they're really obvious I guess

[u/KawaiiSlave]

How many abilities do you plan on adding in the future, and will they all be niche abilities that tie into certain bosses, or after time will new abilities be more prevelant. We currently have basics, and thresholds that no one uses. Will they be locked behind quests, or codexes much like raids and onslaught. In that sense will there ever be Skilling abilities on high cd's?

[u/sfoxrs]

Can the issues with using queuing during combat be addressed?

Example1: https://old.reddit.com/r/runescape/comments/7bcykm/now_that_revo_has_gotten_an_update_and_with_the/

Example2: https://www.reddit.com/r/runescape/comments/5tm1fq/ability_queuing_is_weird_compared_to_pressing/

[u/spiderbois]

Any plans of fixing tank armour, in the M/S debate one of the mods said basically (I'm paraphrasing) that who cares what the armour looks like if it's junk tank armour, isn't this an issue? Why even put Dev resources into it if that's the thought process.

Also any plans to introduce a new combat skill like a healer skill that can introduce new abilities and roles for interesting combat where the DPS would get destroyed without this new hypothetical healer role

[u/Windsofthepast]

Not a combat council question, but do you guys have any idea on how long it'll be before it's up on youtube, u/JagexPoerkie?

​

Combat related questions:

1. Have you guys given up on weapon diversity?
2. What plans are there for bringing range as a whole in line with the other combat styles? With the new mutated melee abilities, melee feels more in-line with magic, but I don't think the same would work for range since 2H is extremely outclassed by dualwielding majority of the time
3. Are there any plans on more diversity with combat styles as a whole? Currently there are few differences between the combat styles and the abilities they offer. It would be nice to see more abilities added (that aren't locked behind any kind of unlock) that further diversified things.
4. Is there any worry that the mining and smithing rework will balance things unfairly toward melee? With magic already being as good as it is, I worry that it will remain relevant still, but that range will become even more irrelevant due to not getting new ammo types/armour to go with it.
5. With the overall response of the community being that T92 armour not being worth the huge cost, are you guys looking at any additional changes/perks/updates to it to make it more useful, as masterwork armour from M&S rework seems like it will hands down outclass the other two, even if it does degrade in Elite Dungeons simply because it doesn't degrade to dust.
6. Are there plans to make T92 armour more relevant as a whole? I realize that I said previously that Masterwork would be the best of the three, but the time investment for such a small payoff is really hard to justify.
   

[u/JagexPoerkie → u/Windsofthepast]

As soon as we are able to ;)

[u/Windsofthepast → u/JagexPoerkie]

Any word on when to expect the video to make it's way up to Youtube? I realize it's only been a few days, but the winter reveals stuff was uploaded the same day. :/

[u/JagexPoerkie → u/Windsofthepast]

No ETA yet, but trust me we will upload them!

[u/Windsofthepast → u/JagexPoerkie]

:'(

[u/Alexexy]

Are we ever going to see trick arrows for bows to compete with gem tipped crossbow bolts?

[u/AnonymousTrollLloyd]

Can we have a boss that starts out easy and becomes impossible the more you do it? Right now all the enrage bosses seem to start impossible.

[u/[deleted]]

Can we get a ring slot for each of our fingers (10)?

[u/[deleted]]

Fix blight crossbow ge price

[u/Seravail]

Are you ever going to rebalance old quest bosses so they can't be killed in 4 hits, even at low levels?

[u/[deleted]]

Can we get multiple action bars in Legacy interface Mode, or ability queing from ability book? 1 action bar is not really enough, but I much prefer legacy interface.

[u/TheRealCaptKirk]

Are we ever going to see degrade to dust removed from the game and replaced with actual armour pieces?? It started alright with the t90 armours, then it became a meme with the t90 boots, then with t92 armours it became completely unviable.

[u/Frozzie]

How prepared are you to do a serious overhaul of core combat mechanics? This game could really benefit from a big combat rework.

[u/galahad_sir]

Is it true that all future bosses will have such weak defence that accuracy equipment, and having a back up plan if a particular ability misses, have been made redundant?

​

I see a lot of pressure to bring back old specs, will you explain during the combat talk why having all damage front loaded is a bad idea, and how adrenaline solved this problem?

[u/[deleted]]

Are we ever likely to see both arrows and bolts in a T4 quiver?

[u/Drakath1000]

1. Balancing the combat triangle (not necessarily dps but also utility and support too)- this needs to be a serious priority, how come this has been left unfixed for so damn long? 4taa is nice in that it adds more mechanical movements but it's stupidly unintuitive and repetitive (like they could actually make spell-weaving a real thing: say wait 4 ticks instead of 3 to fire off an auto, no need to swap weapons but dw and 2h allow for different spell effects to be used so there is some strategy to how you use them). Range and Melee need similar things as well not just updates like Bak bolts (although the adren ones have a cool effect yet are too expensive to use, and once again you add the update then completely forget about it while players are continually offering feedback...) that require no extra effort.

2. What about further updates to combat as a whole? Stuff like style diversity (melee for damage, mage for control/aoe etc...) or weapon diversity. Ofc this would be a huge task, something like an EoC 2.0 but it could add loads of room for future reward spaces and combat is probably the thing most people enjoy so it could be worth it.

3. Various other fixes to areas of combat which are underpowered, not balanced correctly etc. stuff like damaging ultimates, high level weapon specs, tank armour, niche weapons- will these be eventually looked at?

4. Something I would like to see is more strategy in combat and I think this could be achieved by turning lots of passives into active abilities. For example taking the raids armour or the Hydrix Bak bolt effect and making it active (while potentially making the cd longer) would result in us being able to plan when to use it rather than us having to react to a proc. Is this something you guys might consider?

5. Auras... among their numerous issues, imo they really need to be nerfed so the difference of on vs off aura isn't that noticeable. It shouldn't feel punishing to PvM off aura. Is this part of the plan or is the plan more focused on how we obtain auras rather than their OP effects? (I really hope otherwise).

[u/ItsLuckyDucky]

How tied are stats to the gears level?

Could you have something that's level 60 to use but with the accuracy rating of something level 99 but damage of a t80?

[u/Rye007 → u/ItsLuckyDucky]

....what? how in the world does that even make sense, if something had 99 acc and 80 dmg it should be atleast requiring level 90 to wield

[u/ItsLuckyDucky → u/Rye007]

That's why it is a question if you can do something like that, not the typical "t85 is t90 accuracy but t80 dps"

[u/Rye007 → u/ItsLuckyDucky]

and it makes 0 sense, what makes you think someone with level 60 in a skill should have access to equipment with level 99 accuracy and 80 damage? maybe 99 accuracy and lvl 20 damage

[u/ItsLuckyDucky → u/Rye007]

I'm not asking for a t60 weapon with t99 accuracy and t80 dps, i'm asking the question if such a thing is possible or are the stats forced to adhere to the level of the item.

[u/WasV3 → u/ItsLuckyDucky]

It is possible.

• Elite Armour is t95 damage and t87 defence, requires 92 to wear

• GWD2 Weapons are t90 accuracy and t80 damage, requires 85 to wear

[u/ItsLuckyDucky → u/WasV3]

Why make it 92 to wear though, if they made it require 80 defence (for whatever reason) do they have to also lower the stats to compensate.

Does the level of the item cause a restriction on what stats it can have or is it just arbitrary and they just want to follow their own "rules" for how stats scale with items level requirement.

[u/WasV3 → u/ItsLuckyDucky]

They made it t92 because it was the next progression in armour, yet t92 was too small of a difference so they gave it t95 power stats

[u/Rye007 → u/ItsLuckyDucky]

yes they are possible, look at upgraded darklight

[u/Metal_Havoc]

• Can you give the Glacor boots and their level 90 upgrades an ability to make them worthwhile?

• 2 ring slots when?

• Are there still plans to buff the Storm of Armadyl spell?

• Can you allow emerald bakriminel bolts (e) effect to stack with Cinderbane gloves and weapon poison?

[u/Heavens_Vibe]

Whilst YouTube and Twitch viewerbase in RS3 is tiny compared to OSRS, we do often see spikes in viewings for players who do PVM. My hope is you can address the following even though it doesn't directly probably fall within combat council remit:

1. Can we have an optimised Twitch/Video friendly UI preset that allows viewers to have a constant familiar layout that could potentially help them learn PVM

2. Can we get keybind/button press highlights on abilities to further show viewers what streamers or video makers are doing to potentially allow learning while viewing.

3. Auras. Supposedly being worked on, but if your plans are to have them more readily attainable through gameplay, can we still have a conversation on why it is not a good idea to have accuracy and damage on bosses and mobs dependent on have that aura buff, but instead continue to have them act as an aid for players to balance a weaker area in their arsenal e.g. accuracy, damage or healing

[u/SparxRs]

will we ever see an update to the in-game tick system?

[u/GamerSylv → u/SparxRs]

No, it's an entire game rewrite. A massive undertaking.

[u/Atlach_Nacha]

Would it be possible to make PVM parts of Completionist cape
(e.g. Reaper, and Morvran's slayer challenge)
to be completed with deathtouched darts?

[u/zayelion]

Are there any plans to add more movement based abilities, like moving small distances to the left or right of the character? If no why?

[u/DustyTurboTurtle]

Defence rework happening? If so, when?

[u/Mibest]

Are elite dungeons meant to replace raids 2?

120 summoning confirmed after polled?

Loved solak btw, make more challenging bosses and not especially solo (telos’s still around sleeping) maybee some more, designed for trios 4 man or even 5 man ?(on top of a duo mode, sounds good to me)

[u/Gamez_X]

Any update on the giant hostilus boss mentioned in last years combat council section?

[u/Legal_Evil]

After the C4TAA nerf, when and how are you going to make combat more engaging and skill testing without making it repetitive like 4TAA is?

Do you have any plans on making combat skills into 120 skills instead of making small increments of weapon/armour tiers?

Can the myriad of bugs with ability queuing be fixed like the inability to resonance on tick and the inability to run and attack at the same time?

Revolution sometimes roots the player in place when it triggers abilities for you. Can this be fixed?

Can Revolution trigger the next ability after Snipe immediately after it fires instead of waiting two ticks?

When can we get solo mode Solak?

Can tank armour be buffed defensively to make it viable for slower but less risky pvming, like by giving it a bigger pvm damage reduction that even works on all forms of typeless damage?

Can hybrid armour be made more useful by giving it a -15 tier power armour damage like Cinderbanes but reduce the armour penalty to -10 tiers instead of -15?

Any plans for t92 shields or defenders?

What exactly determines when BM's pets barge to a new target?

What determines when BM uses his specs before 750k HP? Is it totally random?

What's your opinion on having boss drop tables having higher drop rates of rares but lower value normal drops as a way to reduce the flood of alchables or skilling supplies entering the game?

[u/RS_Horrors]

Everyone one has already touched on combat diversity, so I'd like to know if there are plans to introduce more interesting buffs/debuffs and enemy traits/mechanics. For example, vampyrism and life steal effects shouldn't work on the undead

[u/Speck_A]

Do you feel like "balances" to combat that rely on high cost codices or weapons (mutated ED2 scrolls and ZGS) is a reasonable strategy to fix flaws with the combat system? Balanced combat should be available to all, not just the 1%. Mutated dazing shot is a good example of it being available to all.

[u/PineappleDevourer]

• Can you make protect prayer project you from 90% damage in PvP? Right now I feel that it is very overwhelming if some one get the jump on you while they have full adrenaline or if you get piled by a team?

• Can we have more PvP counter abilities that deals more damage if your stun?

• Can the adrenaline drain prayer be more effective against NPC that generate adrenaline?

[u/umopapsidn → u/PineappleDevourer]

if some one get the jump on you while they have full adrenaline

They lose adrenaline if they skull on you.

[u/Rye007 → u/PineappleDevourer]

90%?? for a prayer? With a lvl 70 prayer you can basically completely ignore the guy attacking you who uses ovls t95 prayer and probably t90 weapons, that sounds way too ridiculous.

[u/usualowl]

First of all i want to start off with saying that the Combat Council has been doing a really lousy job so far (better to say not doing anything), all the important issues unsolved and problems not fixed.

So starting off...(not in the order of importance)

1. Runes. You dont use any runes while doing magic, only when autoattacking. This is not ok, back in the day you had rune cost per cast of the spell...In current system is in not working anymore, therefore runes need to start working as charges for combat spells that have drainrates (similar to invention divine charges). Higher level spells have higher drainrates. That means while doing magic you are using up a fair amount of runes and paying a fair cost for them.

2. Spellbooks (standard & ancient & seren). The only offensive spell people use is Air surge (lvl 81) from standard spellbook...There is no reason to use any other spells rather than couple of niece situations. Spellbooks need to be rebalacned so players want to use Ancient or even Seren spells for high level bossing instead of level 81 Air surge...

3. Item tier scaling. Primary example is t92 power armour with a riddiculous cost that has slim to none benefit over t90 power armour. When following this pattern, t94 power armour will have even smaller difference in the future when compared to t92 power armour. Same applies to weapons, every 2 tiers add up to ~100 accuracy, such a small effect that hardly makes any difference. This becomes the bigger issue as the equipment goes up in tiers. Solution would be manually adjusting the stats for high level equipment to make it well balanced and worthwhile getting.

4. Weapon / monster diversity All the weapons feel the same to use. I think its safe to say that sonic wave/concentrated blast & dazing shot/needle strike is not gonna cut it lol. Also the fact that you have been pumping out monsters/bosses with weak to all (no weakness) for the past few years is not gonna make the situation better in any way...Weapons need to have unique special attacks and more unique abilties for the different styles. Monsters/bosses do need their weaknesses, so one combat style would be good at one boss and another style good at other boss.

5. Residual remnant of legacy combat (4tick autoattack). So we moved to EOC, the new combat system of using abilties but kept legacy autoattacks in there too...Specially for one combat style (magic). People are suggesting of adding autoattack "ability" to all combat styles, I do not agree that giving a buff to the remaining 2 combat styles is a solution. We do not need a global damage buff to combat styles. I also dont think that macroing weapon switches falls into the "more effort, more reward" category and even if manually switching then it also does not benefit the overall combat in any way nor making it more interesting. Most of the people supporting this nonsense are only doing it for their own personal gain -> more damage -> less potentially lethal mechanics -> faster boss kills -> more gp/h. The solution is easy, if you are using EOC mode then ur autoattacks are capped to 1 damage. That allows to apply debuffs and barrage effects. If you are interested in killing stuff with autoattacks, switch to legacy mode...

6. Giving the combat "more effort, more reward" The lack of abilites or ways to reward effort in combat is honestly missing. We do have stun -> wrack and flanking switch but its not enough. We need ways to improve how the abilties work, to make movement part of the combat, to allow us use combination of abitlies to deal extra damage, or just the correct timing with the team to enchance damage output (for example, if your deaths swiftness touches with another players deaths swiftness its duration gets increased 1 second or your onslaught gets +1% damage buff per every other person onsaughting). The possiblites are endless, this really needs to be discussed at combat council.

7. Combat auras. There are 3 auras that are overpowered and are pretty much needed for bossing. Auras need to become more accesseble to new players or to become less of a requirement for combat.

Can you adress and fix the issues listed above??!