Volcanic Cave/Guide

The Volcanic Cave is the first of the Master dungeons. The guide covers first run through to idling of the dungeon. Idling has a significantly higher skill and equipment requirements than manual clears.

Why Clear Volcanic Cave?

Clear 1 time:
- To unlock Volcanic Cave and Infernal Stronghold
- To get the Fire Cape which grants 2% DR
Clear 50 times:
- For a Township Task that gives Dragon Bones, and
- To start obtaining ancient armour in preparation for the Air God Dungeon
Clear 100 times:
- To unlock Ancient Magicks which gives you powerful spells such as Slicing Winds, Icicle Volley, and Ignite.
Clear 100+ times:
- To farm for the full ancient armour set
- To farm for the 10 Amulets of Fury needed for the Fury of the Elemental Zodiacs (FEZ). Check the FEZ/Guide for more details.

As an indication, to get the full ancient armour set it will likely take:

640 clears with a 50% probability
817 clears with a 75% probability
1377 clears with a 95% probability

According to a simulations.

Ancient Magick

After you clear the Volcanic Cave 100 times you gain access to Ancient Magick spells which are a more power form of magic. When you have Ancient Magick equipped, there are no curses available, but you can still use Auroras.

In general, the spells you receive are very powerful:

Winds is best used when your chance to hit is relatively low because you are guaranteed not to miss if your accuracy is 20,000+.
Ignite is a more powerful spell and has a good chance of killing monsters in one-shot.
Icicle Volley is a good all rounder, and can be used in all other cases.

Ancient Magick spells do not scale in the same way as standard magic (i.e. with equipment buffs and debuffs), but they are still impacted by the Combat Triangle in the normal way. Typically, when you first obtain Ancient Magick it is more powerful than the regular magic and so should used in preference. However, late-game these spells will not scale with gear and so will become less powerful over time.

Gear To Idle

The boss of Volcanic Cave uses the Melee style and so it is not recommended that you attempt this dungeon with Ranged due to the Combat Triangle penalties. It is also recommended that you have Auto Eat - Tier III.

This calculations in this guide are against the Hardcore/ Adventure modes, and so should work for most play styles, however if you have lower HP or DR than the guide recommends then check out Can I Idle or the Combat Simulator to see if you build will survive.

Melee

Volcanic Cave is usually done with Melee because the dragon armor set requires only Level 99 to produce. It then can be trimmed to provide 30% DR.

Below is the melee build that requires 820 Hitpoints to idle the dungeon on any game mode. However, pay attention that even slightly less DR or HP will mean death for this build because it hangs a hair breadth away from the max hit of Malcs. Check with Can I Idle or Combat Simulator to see if you can idle with your build. Also, the Sandstorm Ring is very important for your clear time.

Lower tiers of armor may be used if HP/DR is increased through other sources such as Agility, Summoning, or more Hitpoints levels.

Slot	Item	DR%
	(G) Dragon Helmet	6%
	(G) Dragon Platebody	6%
	(G) Dragon Platelegs	6%
	(G) Dragon Boots	6%
	Paladin Gloves	4%
	Knight's Cape	1%
	Elite Amulet of Defence	2%
	Sandstorm Ring	0%
	Sunset Rapier	0%
	(G) Dragon Shield	6%
Total		37%

Pre-Volcanic Magic

The other possible option is Magic. Clearing the Volcano with Magic from the start is not recommended because its adjusted clear time is slower and more complicated to set up than the available melee builds.

Fire Robes have the exact same stats as Air Robes. The secondary effect of robes (+20 minimum hit for matching spells) outweighs the damage increase of higher level spells, therefore, use the highest level spell and robe combination available to you.

If available to you, use the Ring of Spirit Power instead of the Aorpheat's Signet Ring

To idle the dungeon with the build below, you need 780 Hitpoints and Weakening III active.

Slot	Item	DR%
	Air Expert Wizard Hat	5%
	Air Expert Wizard Robes	5%
	Air Expert Wizard Bottoms	5%
	Air Expert Wizard Boots	5%
	(U) Ancient D-hide Vambraces	6%
	Skull Cape	3%
	Elite Amulet of Magic	2%
	Aorpheat's Signet Ring	0%
	Any Magic	0%
	(G) Dragon Shield	6%
Total		37%

100+ Volcanoes Magic

After clearing the Volcanic Cave 100 times, you will unlock Ancient Magicks.

Your first goal with this build is to reach 20k accuracy for Slicing Winds, which means the spell won't miss at all. Therefore, while the build only requires Level 72 at minimum, you will need at most level Level 93 or multiple Accuracy bonuses from various other skills to achieve 20k Accuracy Rating, including:

It's possible to farm the Volcanic Cave with the 20k-accuracy Slicing Winds on the following build if you have 880 HP and a Stone Skin prayer active.

To farm the dungeon with 33% DR and without the prayer or potions, you need 910 HP. Your biggest threat is Prat, the Protector of Secrets with the monsters Max Hit being inches above your Auto-Eat threshhold

Check if you can fulfil the accuracy quota with the gear available to you either with the Combat Simulator or by checking your out of combat stats. 20k accuracy is important because after that number Slicing Winds cannot miss, becoming a top-DPS spell against the dungeon at this point of progression.

With sufficient accuracy rating, Miolite Shield may be swapped out for a ranged or melee shield with more DR such as (G) Dragon Shield to lower other HP/DR requirements.

Slot	Item	DR%
	Ancient Wizard Hat	5%
	Ancient Wizard Robes	5%
	Ancient Wizard Bottoms	5%
	Ancient Wizard Boots	5%
	(U) Ancient D-hide Vambraces	6%
	Skull Cape	3%
	Elite Amulet of Magic	2%
	Aorpheat's Signet Ring	0%
	Magic Wand (Powerful)	0%
	Miolite Shield	2%
Total		33%

Weapon Choice

This table plots some Combat Simulator results adjusted by the time it takes to produce all of the required consumables with some assumptions made about the exact bonuses available for each skill.

You can view the spreadsheet here. Make a copy to tailor the resource values to match your own, there is also a column on each table that allows you to input your own Sim results. (link)

Weapon	Adjusted Chests per Hour	Potential Chests per Hour	Buff compared to previous
Pre-Volcanic	3.8	20+	0%
Dragon Sword	7.6	24+	20%
Dragon Claw	8	26.3+	9%
Ancient Sword	8.16	26.2+	0%
Sunset Rapier	9.6	31.4+	19%
Ancient Claw	10	34.7+	10%
Slicing Winds	23.5	25.8	0%
Icicle Volley	18.1	28.3+	0%

Magic builds using Ancient Magicks are generally better than their Melee counterparts when not using all buffs available to the player. Due to the large amount of runes required to cast, and the non-scaling nature of Ancient Magicks, eventually they fall behind Melee builds for adjusted clear times.

The usual food expenditure is approximately 200,000 HP to 250,000 HP per hour.

Gear Options

Gloves

Item	DR	Requirements
Paladin Gloves	4%	none
(U) Red D-hide Vambraces	4%	Level 60
(U) Black D-hide Vambraces	5%	Level 70
(U) Ancient D-hide Vambraces	6%	Level 80

The Ancient vambraces drop from the Dragons Den. You will very likely need them to idle the Air God Dungeon, so might as well get them now.
The Red and Black vambraces can be either crafted with Crafting or dropped from the Spider Forest.
Or you might just farm some Paladins for their Gloves.

Cape

Item	Upside	Downside
Knight's Cape	1% DR	Level 66 area unique drop
Skull Cape	3% DR	Screws up Melee accuracy
Firemaking Skillcape	XP boost	Level 99, no DR increase
Obsidian Cape	Spend less food	Rare drop, no DR increase
Fire Cape	2% DR	You need to clear Volcanic Cave once

Boots

The choice of boots is small because we don't want to drop in DR too much.

Item	DR%	Requirements
(G) Dragon Boots	6%	Level 60
(G) Rune Boots	5%	Level 40

Ring

Item	Benefit
Sandstorm Ring	Solid DPS increase for Melee, falls off in power if using enough buffs from other skills.
Silver Diamond Ring	1% DR
Aorpheat's Signet Ring	5% chance to double Elite Chest and 100% more money.
Ring of Wealth	7% chance to double Elite Chest.
Ring of Blade Echoes	Powerful melee dps increase, costs more prayer/potions per hit.
Ring of Spirit Power	Powerful magic dps increase, does not affect Ancient Magicks.

TLDR

In summary, the suggested order of equipment is:

Obtain the Sunset Rapier and the Sandstorm Ring
Perform 100 Volcanic Cave clears as Melee to unclock Slicing Winds
Do the remainder of Volcanic Cave clears with Slicing Winds with the Surge aurora.