HCCO/Guide: Difference between revisions

<noinclude>The majority of this guide is written by [[User:Username|Username]], [[User:Mazunki|mazunki]], @ERRORMONSTER#8764 and @Zxv#0157 of the Discord community. If you have any questions, or if anything is wrong, please make sure to reach out to any of us. Feel free to edit the guide or add anything to it as needed.</noinclude>

This is a bad thing for us, since we have no real way to farm a lot of runes yet. However, we can get started by farming some catalyst runes from the {{MonsterIcon|Vampire}} and the {{MonsterIcon|Master Wizard}}. The {{MonsterIcon|Vampire|nolink=true}} is probably best for now, since it is a {{Skill|Ranged|nolink=true}} monster, meaning we can strike it with our powerful {{Skill|Attack|Melee}}. Even considering the drop chance and drop rates are lower than from the {{MonsterIcon|Master Wizard|nolink=true}}, this will be faster overall.

Catalyst Runes are the runes you use to power up your spells, while Elemental runes select which element you’re using. You can remove the cost for Elemental runes with staves, which we will abuse to completely nullify the Air cost, and thus only use air Apells.

The {{ItemIcon|Staff of Air}} reduces the cost by 1, allowing you to cast up to {{Icon|Wind Strike|type=spell}} for free at 20 damage. The {{ItemIcon|Air Battlestaff|Battlestaff}} reduces it by 3, allowing you to cast up to {{Icon|Wind Blast|type=spell}} for free at 130 damage. The {{ItemIcon|Mystic Air Staff}} reduces it by 5, allowing you to cast up to {{Icon|Wind Wave|type=spell}} for free at 170 damage.

Keep in mind you will also need the Catalyst runes for each tier. Once you get to {{SkillReq|Magic|30}}, you can start wielding {{ItemIcon|Air Battlestaff|battlestaves}}, and should therefore also cast {{Icon|Wind Bolt|type=spell}}. {{ItemIcon|Mind Rune|Mind Runes}} are useful lategame as {{Icon|Water Strike|type=spell}} is the most rune-efficient spell to use for {{ItemIcon|Cloudburst Staff}} and {{ItemIcon|Ocean Song}}, so you may want to consider keeping them.

After you can cast {{ItemIcon|Death Rune|Death}} spells, you might want to go back and forth between {{ItemIcon|Chaos Rune|Chaos Runes}} and {{ItemIcon|Death Rune|Death Runes|nolink=true}}, since they both deal decent damage, and are both farmed decently at the {{MonsterIcon|Master Wizard|nolink=true}} for a while. Eventually, as you get more magic evasion through leveling {{Skill|Magic|nolink=true}}, you will only use {{ItemIcon|Death Rune|Death Runes|nolink=true}}, as the {{MonsterIcon|Necromancer}} stops hurting too much.

At least one of these combinations is needed to enable {{MonsterIcon|Rokken}} farming later down the line. As {{ItemIcon|Terran God Boots}} are the most common item from this dungeon, you can finally put your {{ItemIcon|(G) Rune Boots}} to rest; they've earned it. {{ItemIcon|Terran God Platebody|Terran Armour|nolink=true}} Terran isn't necessary to upgrade your melee gear further to {{ItemIcon|Ragnar God Platebody|Ragnar Armour|nolink=true}} and {{ZoneIcon|Fire God Dungeon}} is actually ''easier'' to complete in comparison to {{ZoneIcon|Earth God Dungeon}} (as it is completed with {{Skill|Ranged}}), but you will need a few Terran pieces to reach the DR threshold for later activities such as {{ZoneIcon|Into the Mist}} and {{ZoneIcon|Dark Waters}}. Again, the {{ItemIcon|Terran Godsword}} isn't worth grinding out due to the DR windows being tight, as there is no access to {{Icon|Damage Reduction Potion|Damage Reduction Potions}} for COs. A {{ItemIcon|Guardian Amulet}} is not terribly useful as it has quite a high DPS penalty, but it may be useful in certain builds as a last resort to reach an idle DR threshold. A {{ItemIcon|Guardian Ring}} from the {{ItemIcon|Earth Chest|Earth Chests}} is a useful ring to have for the same reason, but it doesn't carry anywhere near as heavy of a DPS penalty so it is somewhat more desirable.

| {{ItemIcon|Cape of Prat}}

* The best option for obtaining {{ItemIcon|Air Rune}} is {{MonsterIcon|Wizard}}. With the previous gear setup, one can expect to obtain about {{ItemIcon|Air Rune|qty=800}}/hr using melee and almost {{ItemIcon|Air Rune|qty=1000}} with ranged. The ranged setup will consume about {{ItemIcon|Ancient Throwing Knife|qty=1000}} per hour, so it essentially trades {{ItemIcon|Ancient Throwing Knife}} for {{ItemIcon|Air Rune}} 1:1. Lower tier knives are perfectly viable, as even {{ItemIcon|Bronze Throwing Knife}} is still better than the melee setup (around 840 {{ItemIcon|Air Rune}}/hr in the worst case scenario). A {{ItemIcon|Ranged Skillcape}} is also worth considering, as this drops the knife usage to around 650/hr, or down to around 400/hr if {{ItemIcon|Throwing Power Gloves}} are swapped for {{ItemIcon|Aeris God Gloves}}. This will cut the kills/hr by a noticeable amount. It should take about 70-85 hours to obtain all the {{ItemIcon|Air Rune}} necessary, depending on the method used.