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Introduction
This guide is designed to teach players how to work their way through combat progression with the 
expansion. Due to the nature of independent, yet important mechanics, this guide will be broken into several major sections. There will also be less delineation between early, middle, and end game combat than other combat guides.
This guide, while functional, is NOT designed with the Ancient Relics gamemode in mind. Players looking for more information about that page should see Ancient Relics/Guide.
Barrier Combat
The primary mechanic added to the game in is Barrier, a powerful shield that is entirely immune to player attacks. In order to break barriers, the player must utilize 
Summoning Familiars that deal damage such as the 
Golbin Thief or 
Unicorn.
More information about the specific functionality of barriers can be found on its dedicated page, Barrier.
Unholy Prayers
See: Unholy_Prayers
Unholy Prayer Equipment Recommendations
This section is heavily WIP due to the number of different factors that can go into using Unholy Prayers, as well as the possibility of nerfs.
Unholy prayers do not help against Barrier enemies as they do not affect summoning damage.
Base Game
The gear listed below is the core REQUIRED to see good results with unholy prayers. Deviating or substituting this gear may result in massive damage losses, as the synergy between 3+ unholy items with multi-hitting weapons is what produces a majority of your damage. Using 2 unholy items with 2 unholy prayers results in 0 unholy marks on the enemy, and the prayers will not function.
As always, use the Combat Simulator to test these setups for YOU to ensure you are hitting the required slayer area negation and damage reduction to not die. If attempting to manually eat through a dungeon while relying on weapons with special attacks that hit multiple times, remember that eating interrupts your attack and guarantees that your next attack will be a normal attack.
The 
Eradicating Gloves (m) are a large upgrade to all styles, but require a larger investment into combat.
Magic
Using 
Water Strike over higher level water spells can be a minimal kph loss with a massive reduction in runes used.
Ranged
Ranged has bad options for multi-hit in the base game, so including additional unholy items such as 
Unholy Gem (m) or another unholy item in the passive slot may be a gain. Ring of barrage, and fast weapons such as throwing daggers may be a kph increase with increased levels of ammo/prayer points. 
Ghost Blunderbow and 
Engulfing Vortex Longbow are massive upgrades, but require a significantly larger investment into combat. 
Consuming Shield (m) or another unholy item may be moved to the passive slot if needed. Using only 
Reckoning as your only prayer may be a gain without a multi-hit weapon.
Melee
Blade echoes is particularly important as it grants a special attack with multiple hits to all melee weapons.
Throne of the Herald
Magic
Poison pods and Natures Bloom are small damage upgrades over cloudburst with a large amount of accuracy gained from crafted poison gear. This can enable manual kills of most 
dungeons as manual eating does not disable Archaic Magics as it does with regular spec attacks.
Ranged
Note: From level 100-115 ranged does not get any good multi-hit items from . It may become more desirable to farm Ghost Blunderbow or possibly Engulfing Vortex Longbow at this point to greatly speed up ranged until higher levels.
Melee
Royal Toxins Spear can replace 
Infernal Claw + 
Ring of Blade Echoes. Melee can get away with the light DR of Consuming Shield (m) early on, but this not sufficient in Golden Cloud Mountains to farm Arctair as normal prayer DR is required. You may use 
Ethereal Greataxe or Royal Toxins Spear with unholy prayers against Vorloran Watcher.
Post-Herald Throne of the Herald BIS considerations
With the best gear and most boosts, the main obstacles to increasing kills/clears per hour are monster respawn time and attack speed. With the massive amount of damage done, lifesteal can keep you alive in many situations where you would typically die, allowing you to sacrifice damage reduction for attack interval reduction or monster respawn time. Consuming Shield (m) is the weakest of the unholy items and it may be a gain to replace it.
Grudge Amulet (m)
Ring of Malice (m)
Agile Gem
Accuracy Gem
Cloudburst Staff
Destruction
Tidal Edge
Poison Mythical Wizard Robes
Archaic Wand
Poison Pods
Natures Bloom
Meteorite Crossbow
Meteorite Bolts
Battleborn
Combat:
