Volcanic Cave/Guide
This page was last updated for (v1.2.2). |
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
Air God Dungeon and
Infernal Stronghold
- To get the
Fire Cape which grants 2% DR
- To unlock
- Clear 50 times:
- For a Township Task that gives
Dragon Bones,
and
- To start obtaining
ancient armour in preparation for the
Air God Dungeon
- For a Township Task that gives
- Clear 100 times:
- To unlock Ancient Magicks which gives you powerful spells such as
Slicing Winds,
Icicle Volley, and
Ignite.
- To unlock Ancient Magicks which gives you powerful spells such as
- 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.
- To farm for the full
According to simulations, 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
When to Clear Volcanic Cave?
There are no downsides to attempting Volcanic Cave early, however, it will be a significant challenge to complete if you attempt this dungeon if under-levelled. In general, you will want to be at least Level 80 and you should be able to complete
Dragons Den relatively easily before attempting this dungeon. Ideally, you will want to have sufficient
Auto Eat to survive the dungeon without resorting to manual eating.
Ancient Magicks
After you clear the Volcanic Cave 100 times you gain access to Ancient Magicks which are a more powerful form of magic. When you have a Ancient Magicks spell 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 useful.
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% |
---|---|---|
![]() | ![]() | 6% |
![]() | ![]() | 6% |
![]() | ![]() | 6% |
![]() | ![]() | 6% |
![]() | ![]() | 4% |
![]() | ![]() | 1% |
![]() | ![]() | 2% |
![]() | ![]() | 0% |
![]() | ![]() | 0% |
![]() | ![]() | 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% |
---|---|---|
![]() | ![]() | 5% |
![]() | ![]() | 5% |
![]() | ![]() | 5% |
![]() | ![]() | 5% |
![]() | ![]() | 6% |
![]() | ![]() | 3% |
![]() | ![]() | 2% |
![]() | ![]() | 0% |
![]() | Any | 0% |
![]() | ![]() | 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% |
---|---|---|
![]() | ![]() | 5% |
![]() | ![]() | 5% |
![]() | ![]() | 5% |
![]() | ![]() | 5% |
![]() | ![]() | 6% |
![]() | ![]() | 3% |
![]() | ![]() | 2% |
![]() | ![]() | 0% |
![]() | ![]() | 0% |
![]() | ![]() | 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 |
---|---|---|---|
![]() |
3.8 | 20+ | 0% |
![]() |
7.6 | 24+ | 20% |
![]() |
8 | 26.3+ | 9% |
![]() |
8.16 | 26.2+ | 0% |
![]() |
9.6 | 31.4+ | 19% |
![]() |
10 | 34.7+ | 10% |
23.5 | 25.8 | 0% | |
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 |
---|---|---|
![]() |
4% | none |
![]() |
4% | |
![]() |
5% | |
![]() |
6% |
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 |
---|---|---|
![]() |
1% DR | |
![]() |
3% DR | Screws up |
![]() |
XP boost | |
![]() |
Spend less food | Rare drop, no DR increase |
![]() |
2% DR | You need to clear |
Boots
The choice of boots is small because we don't want to drop in DR too much.
Item | DR% | Requirements |
---|---|---|
![]() |
6% | |
![]() |
5% |
Ring
Item | Benefit |
---|---|
![]() |
Solid DPS increase for Melee, falls off in power if using enough buffs from other skills. |
![]() |
1% DR |
![]() |
5% chance to double ![]() |
![]() |
7% chance to double ![]() |
![]() |
Powerful melee dps increase, costs more prayer/potions per hit. |
![]() |
Powerful magic dps increase, does not affect Ancient Magicks. |
TL/DR
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.
Melvor Idle version v1.3 (Released: 15th November 2023) | |||||||||||||||||||
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