HCCO/Guide: Difference between revisions

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<p class="noexcerpts">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.</p>

'''At the end, you should have:''' {{ItemIcon|Amulet of Looting}}, {{UpgradeIcon|Auto Eat - Tier I}}, Full {{ItemIcon|Mithril Platebody|Mithril Armour|nolink=true}}, {{Skill|Attack|40|nolink=true}} / {{Skill|Strength|40|nolink=true}} / {{Skill|Defence|40|nolink=true}}, {{ItemIcon|Ice Sword}}, {{ItemIcon|Adamant Dagger}}

But before you visit the {{MonsterIcon|Mithril Knight}} you'll want to take a detour to fight the {{MonsterIcon|Mummy}} for {{ItemIcon|Silver Ruby Necklace}} and {{ItemIcon|Gold Topaz Ring}} to fill out your neck and ring slots. The {{ItemIcon|Gold Topaz Ring}} enables your character to obtain {{ItemIcon|Signet Ring Half (b)}} while in combat, which can be sold for {{GP|850000}} and will cut out a large portion of the {{UpgradeIcon|Auto Eat - Tier I|Auto Eat}} grinds. If you want to grind an {{ItemIcon|Elite Amulet of Strength}} from {{MonsterIcon|Mummy|Mummies}}, you may as it will help with {{ZoneIcon|Spider Forest}}, but it will be a little faster to do so in a bit. Note that the {{ItemIcon|Silver Ruby Necklace}} and the {{ItemIcon|Silver Topaz Necklace}} are both better than {{ItemIcon|Amulet of Strength}} in the early game.

Assuming you already have {{SkillReq|Slayer|60}} (and if you don't, then go get it; {{MonsterIcon|Giant Crab}} tasks are your friend here), the last thing to get before moving onto the next section is a better weapon. {{ZoneIcon|Deep Sea Ship}} is your next stop for a {{ItemIcon|Sunset Rapier}}, a great upgrade.

 

Don't bother getting any {{ItemIcon|Dragon Claw Fragment|Dragon Claw Fragments}} from {{MonsterIcon|Griffin}} yet, as they will just take up space. If you're lucky enough to get an {{ItemIcon|Ancient Sword}} before the {{ItemIcon|Sunset Rapier}}, then feel free to use it until you get to {{ZoneIcon|Volcanic Cave}}, as it will drastically reduce your food consumption and the associated food farming time. After that, you'll probably only want to use it outside dungeons due to the high monster damage reducing the benefits of the lifesteal.

Progression in {{Skill|Ranged}} can roughly be broken into three phases: preliminary, (1), training (1-85) and late (85-99). We only need to worry about the first two phases now, which will get us enough far enough to tackle {{ZoneIcon|Water God Dungeon}}, {{ZoneIcon|Fire God Dungeon}} and possibly even {{ZoneIcon|Into the Mist}} and beyond.  

From 40 onwards, the gear you will use will be a mismatch of dragonhide armour. Use whatever hides you obtained from the {{ItemIcon|Amulet of Looting}} and {{ZoneIcon|Volcanic Cave}} grind from earlier. It is not worth going out of your way to obtain any singular piece of dragonhide, as it only offers accuracy with no strength bonus, and your accuracy will quickly become saturated on the enemies you train ranged on. Using {{ItemIcon|Green D-hide Vambraces}} at {{Skill|Ranged|70}} for instance is perfectly acceptable. Green, blue and red dragonhide armour can also be easily upgraded in exchange for GP. Green d'hide costs 60k to fully upgrade, blue d'hide costs 225k and red d'hdie costs 630k. These only offer a small amount of accuracy and DR, but this will come in handy for monsters such as {{MonsterIcon|Master Wizard|Master Wizards}} and the likes, so it may be worth it.

You will need to farm {{ZoneIcon|Dragons Den}} for the almighty {{ItemIcon|Ancient Crossbow}} for {{Skill|Ranged|80+}} at some point before progressing. Again, as this dungeon doesn't rely on {{Skill|Ranged}}, this could technically be performed before commencing training. The singular goal of this dungeon is the {{ItemIcon|Ancient Crossbow}} as this is an incredible weapon for the two {{Skill|Ranged}} God dungeons, as well as in {{ZoneIcon|Dark Waters}}, however it is worth noting that all of the other items still have uses. {{ItemIcon|Twin Exiles}} are the best item in the game for farming low level mobs with low max HP so it is worth keeping for rune grinding and completionist farming purposes. Any elder dragonhide armour obtained here can be worn as an upgrade, but it is not necessary to grind for any piece. Use any leftover {{ItemIcon|Elder Dragonhide}} to upgrade elder dragonhide pieces before selling it all off to unlock some free collection log slots.

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}} is probably best for now, since it is a {{Skill|Ranged}} 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}}, this will be faster overall as it will crucially save more food. Killing {{MonsterIcon|Wizard}} until one piece of either {{ItemIcon|Green Wizard Hat|Green Robes|nolink=true}} or {{ItemIcon|Blue Wizard Hat|Blue Robes|nolink=true}} (at {{Skill|Magic|10}}) for each slot is recommended.

It's about time to get the {{ItemIcon|Fury of the Elemental Zodiacs}}. It has 1% more Damage Reduction than the {{ItemIcon|Elite Amulet of Defence}}, in addition to offensive and defensive bonuses. Refer to the [[Fury of the Elemental Zodiacs/Guide|FEZ Guide]] for getting all the materials to make it. You will also want to have completed the {{ItemIcon|Dragonfire Shield}} and {{ItemIcon|Scaled Shield}} grinds, as these items are essentially best in slot for their respective classes and give considerable offensive and defensive bonuses.

|helm1 = (G) Ancient Helmet

|helm2 = (G) Rune Helmet

|weapon1 = Sunset Rapier

|weapon2 = Ancient Sword

|gloves1 = (U) Ancient D-hide Vambraces

|gloves2 = (U) Black D-hide Vambraces

|gloves3 = Paladin Gloves

|boots1 = (G) Rune Boots

|ring1 = Sandstorm Ring

The optimal gear recommended above gives 1030 HP and 48% DR. You only need 42% DR with 1030 HP, or 48% DR and 910 HP to survive Air god.

As the God dungeons require fairly high stats and gear, efficiently farming will mostly be carried out after completing {{ZoneIcon|Into the Mist}} and {{ZoneIcon|Dark Waters}} grinds. The first two dungeons, {{ZoneIcon|Air God Dungeon}} and {{ZoneIcon|Water God Dungeon}} are easily farmed out with gear upgrades listed in the respective sections above (with obvious upgrades made where appropriate, such as {{ItemIcon|(G) Rune Boots}} → {{ItemIcon|Terran God Boots}}). On the other hand, both {{ZoneIcon|Earth God Dungeon}} and {{ZoneIcon|Fire God Dungeon}} will require a {{ItemIcon|Wasteful Ring}} to lower the efficient idle DR thresholds to CO-achieveable levels, and so are better left until later. This is because {{ZoneIcon|Earth God Dungeon}} is most efficiently cleared with melee over magic (as the latter is far fewer effective kills/hr due to rune gathering speed being very low) and the second to last enemy in both dungeons {{ZoneIcon|Fire God Dungeon}} ({{MonsterIcon|Mistral}} and {{MonsterIcon|Ignis}} respectively) counters the primary style we use for each dungeon. The necessity of {{ItemIcon|Wasteful Ring}} stems from simply being able to deal with these monsters while at a combat triangle disadvantage.

|shield1 = Recoil Shield

|shield2 = Scaled Shield

|helm1 = Terran God Helmet

|body1 = Terran God Platebody

One can tell that due to the complete upgrade to total tank gear that we are very much on the brink of obtainable DR for a CO. This is the only situation in the game where a {{ItemIcon|Guardian Amulet}} is completely necessary. It is unfortunate that it is the single rarest item from this dungeon, despite it being the sole use case for it. The optimal gear setup is 62% DR when under 50% HP, and the remainder of the needed DR given by the two DR pets or prayers. {{ItemIcon|Fighter Amulet}} is considerably better than {{ItemIcon|Fury of the Elemental Zodiacs}}, as the synergy with {{ItemIcon|Tidal Edge}} increases DPS drastically and cuts food usage in half. Even without {{PetIcon|Otto}} the player is still fast enough to avoid stuns from {{MonsterIcon|Terran}} as their attack speed is 2.85s.

{{Icon|Gust|type=spell}} at {{Skill|Magic|86}}. It is highly recommended to wait until {{Icon|Gust|type=spell}} to speed the fight up, which saves on runes and reduces the chance of dying due to affliction stacks ramping up, but if the player accepts these downsides then {{Icon|Slicing Winds|type=spell}} can just barely out dps the healing of the boss and can be used. Having a lower {{Skill|Magic}} level will also necessitate an offensive magic shield in order to meet the accuracy requirement.

Besides accuracy, the next consideration—as always—is DR. You want to try to get at least 50% DR in order to be able to auto-eat through the Fallen Light special attack even at full affliction stacks. The above setup with {{PetIcon|Leonardo}} gives 55% DR. With this DR, you can survive Shadow Burst as long as your max HP is still above 900. As soon as your max HP drops below this threshold due to affliction, you will need to hold to spam eat through Shadow Burst attacks. Hopefully you will be able to dodge enough attacks due to {{PrayerIcon|Protect from Magic}} to prolong this phase and maximise your DPS. Without {{PetIcon|Leonardo}}, the threshold is 920 HP instead.

Into the Mist healing the boss means this fight is a race against time. This is why we're going to use 100% accuracy [[Ancient Magicks]], as the magic defence on {{MonsterIcon|Ahrenia}} is extremely high. {{Icon|Gust|type=spell}} is a good choice, but {{Icon|Slicing Winds|type=spell}} will also get the job done, albeit with a much, much longer fight. Fallen Light can be survived with {{UpgradeIcon|Auto Eat|nolink=true}} at max affliction as long as you have at least 50% DR. It is important to use {{UpgradeIcon|Auto Eat|nolink=true}} for Fallen Light since that will allow you to attack without being interrupted by manual eating.

The overall {{Skill|Slayer}} task strategy is similar to the previous section, except there is no longer a preferred order for any of the monsters as the upgrades each one gives is minor. This means that if the {{UpgradeIcon|Auto Slayer}} task trick is employed again (detailed above in the T90 guide), there is a good chance (4/6) of rolling at least one task that you can tackle at any given time, and there is a 3/9 chance of rolling another {{ZoneIcon|Unhallowed Wasteland}} monster for free after completing a task. As master slayer gear has already been obtained, one should always extend their {{Skill|Slayer}} tasks here. All of these effects massively reduce the slayer coins needed to spend on rerolls. Doing this section on task is highly recommended, as the average amount of {{ItemIcon|Crab}} needed to complete this section is around 250k. Buying {{UpgradeIcon|Standard Resupply}} will almost entirely replenish all of the food used. One can further macro-maximise their rerolls by farming {{MonsterIcon|Hunting Greater Dragon}} tasks as they arise while farming {{ItemIcon|Jadestone Bolts}} as detailed in the {{MonsterIcon|Cursed Lich}} section. Because of the overall complexity of reroll strategies, reroll costs will '''not''' be factored into the overall calculations below. A very rough estimate for the total amount spent on rerolls for this entire section would be in the ballpark of around 750k-1m, essentially equating to 11.25-15k {{ItemIcon|Crab|notext=true}} and 1.5-2m prayer points over the cumulative values reported in the sections below.

|passive1 = Slayer Wizard Hat (Master)

|passive2 = Slayer Wizard Hat (Master)

|passive1 = Slayer Helmet (Master)

|passive1 = Slayer Cowl (Master)

|passive1 = Slayer Cowl (Master)

<span style="color:red;font-weight:bold;size:32px;">Due to the nature of affliction stacks, there is currently no 100% safe way to idle this monster. There will always be an extremely low chance of death (estimated around 1/16.7k per fight from combat simulator) if the enemy can stack enough affliction stacks on us before we kill it.</span>

If you are comfortable with that risk and plan to make regular backups of your character, then proceed. If you are not a HC character, you can swap {{PrayerIcon|Stone Skin}} for {{PrayerIcon|Protect Item}} and accept the occasional death while farming. Unfortunately without {{PrayerIcon|Stone Skin}} the death rate rises considerably to around 1/300, so it is a trade-off. Similarly, {{PrayerIcon|Battleheart}} can be used for an additional +4 kills/hr with the same increased death rate. {{PrayerIcon|Protect from Melee}} is non-negotiable (compared to the other monsters where it can technically be substituted for offensive prayers), as the dodge chance drastically slows the rate of affliction stacks accumulating. Without {{PrayerIcon|Protect from Melee}} the death rate is around 1/6.