Dark Waters/Guide

This page was last updated for (v1.0.3).

T90 Farming

Following completion of Into the Mist, you now have access to Dark Waters, the penultimate slayer area. These 3 mobs drop fragments for the T90 weapons, the highest level, and often most powerful, weapons in the game that are extremely helpful in completing the following slayer area, as well as the Impending Darkness Event. These are extremely long grinds, and require quite a bit of preparation. Each weapon requires 100 fragments, and the fragments have a 2% drop rate. That's 5,000 kills on average.

We recommend acquiring them while fighting each monster as a slayer task, this will require you to turn OFF auto-slayer, and will encourage semi-frequent check-ins. Doing these on task will increase your damage dealt to them from various buffs, namely Slayer Skillcape. This will make the order you obtain the final weapons in effectively random, but if you want to do them in a specific order, we recommend the following:

• Shockwave - Made from Shockwave Fragment, dropped by Rokken
• Ocean Song - Made from Ocean Song Fragment, dropped by Ku-tul
• Tidal Edge - Made from Tidal Edge Fragment, dropped by Umbora

Additionally, you should also acquire the pet Otto whilst doing this grind, if you do not, continue farming whichever mob you kill the fastest on or off task until you get it.

Item fragments are very rare drops, and you should attempt to sneak in as much item doubling into your gear as possible. Using Combat Sim to measure your Drops/hr with no deaths is highly recommended. It can make the difference in literal days of grinding.

Order

The order you obtain these items in is not particularly important.

While it may seem that using these weapons to farm the other weapons would be beneficial, this is not the case due to the relatively weak power level of Tidal Edge and Ocean Song compared to other available weapons. The only suggestion here is to obtain Shockwave and use it to obtain Ocean Song

The common orders are:

- Shockwave then Ocean Song then Tidal Edge

- Tidal Edge then Shockwave then Ocean Song

Between those two, the required time is roughly equal.

Many people combine the grinding of these weapons with the grind for the master slayer gear. An added benefit is the increased damage given by the Slayer Skillcape and buffs from Astrology while fighting slayer tasks. Another benefit is the ability to buy prayer points, Light Runes, and Food at a profit with the use of Generous Resupply.

Requirements

There are very few hard requirements beyond the ability to survive and the entry requirement of  Slayer Level 90, but there are several skills and items that will make this grind significantly easier, and we would be remiss to not mention them

Suggestion	Benefit
Slayer Skillcape	25% Flat Slayer Area Effect Negation
Level 99	Less need for DR
Level 99	Pillar of Combat
Level 90	Dragon Synergies
Level 95	Battleheart
Slayer Helmet (Elite)	15% Flat Slayer Area Effect Negation
Slayer Cowl (Elite)	15% Flat Slayer Area Effect Negation
Infernal Claw	Outpaces Rokken's stun
Cloudburst Staff	Highest damage weapon in the game
Slayer's Crossbow	Highest damage non-T90 ranged weapon for slayer

Below are some gear suggestions. Depending on what Prayer, Potions, and Agility buffs you use or have access to, your optimal gear can change.

Buffs

Agility

#	Obstacle	Reason
1	X
2	X
3	Pipe Climb	No particular reason beyond being the only obstacle that grants any combat benefits.
4	Coal Stones	No negative modifiers, technically saves some food.
5	Cliff Balance	+20 hp. This does make your prayers cost more, but as you're buying your prayer points anyways, the cost increase isn't quite as painful.
6	Lake Swim	+3% damage, +1% DR. Rocky Waters may help as a first line of defense for surviving if you're mildly undergeared, but will not be considered the default.
7	Boulder Trap	No negative combat modifiers.
8	Spike Jump	+5% Chance to Double Items. Pipe Crawl will be slightly faster, but the negative to slayer coins hurts, especially for Magic sets using the Cyclops synergy.
9	Ice Jump	This obstacle does everything you want it to.
10	Lava Waterfall Dodge	Ocean Rafting is technically the best dps option. Lava Waterfall Dodge is recommended slightly above it, as you preserve some of your ammo and runes, earn more coins, and have an easier time swapping to skilling to restock.
P	Pillar of Combat	Lots of beneficial combat bonuses

Prayer

For Melee, use Battleheart and Piety or the highest level combat style prayers you have available.

For Ranged, use Battleheart and Rigour or the highest level combat style prayers you have available.

For Magic, use Battleheart and Augury or the highest level combat style prayers you have available.

Potions

For all combat styles, use Diamond Luck Potions

For Ranged, with Shockwave, it is sometimes possible that Ranged Strength Potion IV is stronger than Diamond Luck Potions. This should never be done without checking Combat Sim for yourself, and should never be done unless the potion is specifically Ranged Strength Potion IV, and not any lower mastery.

Summoning

For Melee, use Dragon and Minotaur

For Ranged, use Dragon and Centaur

For Magic, use Dragon and Witch

Notably for Magic, using Cyclops and Witch tablets will earn you significantly more coins at a fairly minimal loss of kills per hour. This is most obvious with Cloudburst Staff.

Tidal Edge

To be able to idle Umbora with Magic, you'll need 47 DR assuming you have 1000 HP.

Umbora can be killed with Normal Magic if you have a Cloudburst Staff or an Ocean Song, or with Ancient Magicks at a much slower rate. Note that Cloudburst is by far the fastest method, even if you have to squeeze in extra DR from Guardian Ring or Prayer

With Cloudburst Staff, use Water Surge or Water Wave (reduced rune cost), Anguish III, and Fury II.

With Ocean Song, use Fire Surge, Anguish III, and Surge II.

With an Air Imbued Wand or a Fire Imbued Wand, use Gust or Incinerate.

Use of Combination Runes is highly recommended for all methods.

Slot	Better to Worse
Head	Glacia God Helmet		Slayer Wizard Hat (Master)
Body	Glacia God Platebody		Slayer Wizard Robes (Master)
Leggings	Glacia God Platelegs
Boots	Glacia God Boots
Hands	Glacia God Gloves
Cape	Maximum Skillcape		Slayer Skillcape
Neck	Fury of the Elemental Zodiacs		Elite Amulet of Magic		Warlock Amulet
Passive	Chapeau Noir		Ring of Wealth		Aorpheat's Signet Ring
Ring	Ring of Wealth		Warlock Ring		Guardian Ring
Weapon	Cloudburst Staff		Air Imbued Wand		Magic Wand (Elite)
Offhand			Scaled Shield		Earth Layered Shield

Slayer Wizard Hat (Master) and Slayer Wizard Robes (Master) will kill you if used with Cloudburst Staff and the normal build above. If all you care about is fragments, it is possible to equip a build with Master Slayer armor that is approximately 4% faster than the above recommended build. This is accomplished by equipping Slayer Wizard Hat (Master), Slayer Wizard Robes (Master), Skull Cape AND Rocky Waters - all 3 pieces of equipment must be worn to outpace Glacia armor, and the agility course keeps you from dying. You need 1090 HP and 44 DR.

Ocean Song

To be able to idle Ku-tul with Ranged, you'll need 48 DR assuming you have 1,000 HP.

You'll be killing Ku-tul with either a Shockwave, Slayer's Crossbow or an Ancient Crossbow. Use of Jadestone Bolts is recommended, Emerald Bolts are not recommended as jadestone bolts should be plentiful enough at this point in progression.

Slot	Better to Worse
Head	Slayer Cowl (Master)			Slayer Cowl (Elite)
Body	Slayer Leather Body (Master)			Aeris God Platebody
Leggings	Aeris God Platelegs				(U) Ancient D-hide Chaps
Boots	Aeris God Boots				Sand Treaders
Hands	Aeris God Gloves				(U) Ancient D-hide Vambraces
Cape	Maximum Skillcape			Slayer Skillcape
Passive	Chapeau Noir		Ring of Wealth
Neck	Deadeye Amulet		Fury of the Elemental Zodiacs		Elite Amulet of Ranged
Ring	Ring of Wealth		Aorpheat's Signet Ring		Guardian Ring
Weapon	Slayer's Crossbow				Ancient Crossbow
Offhand	Scaled Shield		Dragonfire Shield		Earth Layered Shield
Ammo	Jadestone Bolts		Emerald Bolts		Ruby Bolts

40% slayer area reduction increases your dps against Ku-tul, and therefore, unless it will lead to your untimely demise, at least a Slayer Cowl (Elite) should be used.

Slayer Cowl (Master) and Slayer Leather Body (Master) positively impact the amount of fragments you receive, and if available, should be used.

Shockwave

While the other two weapons are pretty straightforward in terms of gear, the Shockwave is not.

Rokken is by far the most dangerous and is both willing, and able to kill you if you are not extremely careful in your setup. This monster is able to buff itself to an attack speed of 2.2s, and is able to stun you, which massively increases its damage against you. Your goal here is either to be able to survive the increased stun damage, or to never actually take the stun damage by having an equivalent or faster attack speed than the monster.

You need to use Melee for this grind, and as said before, it is highly recommended that you use an Infernal Claw to complete this. Tidal Edge is too slow to reliably survive Rokken's stun without significant extra work, requiring you to put on more DR that will massively affect your kill time. Assuming you were able to use the exact same setup with no Astrology buffs, Infernal Claw is only 1-2% slower than Tidal Edge. Adding buffs from Astrology, adding the additional DR or attack interval reduction required for Tidal Edge, and using summoning combat familiars invert this difference and make Tidal Edge up to 20% slower with no tangible benefit.

Slot	Better to Worse
Head	Slayer Helmet (Master)				Slayer Helmet (Elite)
Body	Slayer Platebody (Master)				Ragnar God Platebody		Terran God Platebody
Leggings	Ragnar God Platelegs				Terran God Platelegs
Boots	Ragnar God Boots				Terran God Boots
Hands	Ragnar God Gloves				Terran God Gloves
Cape	Maximum Skillcape				Slayer Skillcape
Passive	Fighter Amulet				Chapeau Noir
Neck	Fury of the Elemental Zodiacs				Fighter Amulet
Ring	Ring of Wealth		Aorpheat's Signet Ring		Ring of Blade Echoes		Guardian Ring
Weapon	Infernal Claw
Offhand	Dragonfire Shield				Earth Layered Shield

The Fighter/ FEZ is the best passive/neck setup, even beating out the item doubling from Chapeau Noir. Note that wearing FEZ is required to wear Master Slayer armor.

One major note is that the Ring of Blade Echoes is marginally faster for fragments/h than all other rings, however, due to its interaction of significantly increasing your use of consumables like Prayer Points and Potions, it is lower on the rankings.

Slayer Helmet (Master) and Slayer Platebody (Master) positively impact the amount of fragments you receive, and if available, should be used.

For this set-up to work safely without risk of death, the player's attack interval while in combat with this enemy must be less than or equal to 2.2 seconds, as this means the player is quick enough to avoid taking extra damage when Rokken attacks with the Shockwave special attack. To achieve this, we use a weapon that has a base 2.2s interval, and gather 40% total slayer area negation through Slayer Skillcape and Slayer Helmet (Elite).

Check your setup with the Combat Simulator before engaging Rokken.

At 1,000 HP, which can be achieved with Level 97 and +30 HP from Dragonfire Shield, this method requires 48% Damage Reduction.

Melvor Idle version v1.2.2 (Released: 15th November 2023)
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