HCCO/Guide/12

From Melvor Idle

To start, you should have: IDK!
At the end, you should have: IDK!

This section is still a work in progress, but will be updated with details as the meta develops. Make sure to double check and test all builds before committing to idling.

Ancient Sanctuary

Since version 1.1.1, Ancient Sanctuary is now required to access all expansion content beyond Jungle Labyrinth. The biggest downside of this change is losing access to Frost Walker Boots and the DR they offer, but luckily the dungeon is still completable as a CO. The main change is that progression now requires Ultima Godsword in order to out DPS Morellia's healing, which is unfortunate for 12B players.

In order to access Ancient Sanctuary you will need to assemble 5 key parts to form the Labyrinth Solution. Each key piece is obtained by a different monster in Jungle Labyrinth. The following build will comfortably allow you to idle 4 out of the 5 monsters in Jungle Labyrinth (all except the Magic enemy) and can be used for Ancient Sanctuary as well. The Bundled Protection Body and Perfect Sight Legs upgrades are obtained in Jungle Labyrinth directly from Alraune and Conda respectively, which can both be idled safely without the upgrades. The upgrades are only recommended for Ancient Sanctuary itself, although it can be tackled without them. It is recommended to kill Conda and Alraune while on a legendary slayer task to chip away at the 20 legendary task requirement for Slayer Gear Upgrade Kit (Legendary).

Note that 'deadly poison' is just the (poorly chosen) name of a stronger version of poison. It is not actually lethal, so there is no need to prioritise slayer area negation.

The final monster, Poison Toad, can be tackled with a standard ranging setup.

The Ancient Sanctuary can be idled with the above Melee build. The body and/or leg upgrades can be substituted with Holy Aegis and/or Stone Skin (one DR prayer per upgrade missing), as Ultima Godsword will carry you to an easy dungeon clear regardless.

Preliminary Upgrades

The name of the game is to obtain DR from any possible sources. Damage and evasion are secondary to DR. Without access to Smithing, Crafting or Runecrafting, our sources of DR are quite limited, but they exist. Note that all of the items in this section requires Impending Darkness Event to be completed. Because of the tight DR windows, this section of the guide assumes 120 and Finn, the Cat. It may be possible to supplement lower Hitpoints levels with Holy Aegis, Stone Skin, Guardian Amulet or a Wasteful Ring. Each of these options incurs a relatively large efficiency penalty or opportunity cost so they should used be a last resort. With lower Hitpoints it will be up to the user to consult the Combat Simulator and proceed with caution.

The item we seek in this section are Frost Walker Boots, Perfect Sight Legs, Slayer Gear Upgrade Kit (Legendary), which total an additional 16% DR over the gear at the start of this section. Bundled Protection Body can also be used for dungeons. The monsters we focus on are Large Ice Troll, Conda, Alraune and Spectral Ice Wolf.

Boots

The first item is the Frost Walker Boots from Large Ice Troll in Forsaken Tundra, which requires 105. These monsters are relatively weak and won't cause too much trouble, but the boots they give offer a whopping 12% DR. These count as legendary slayer tasks and so it is worth rerolling legendary tasks to help make a dent in the 20 tasks needed to purchase Slayer Gear Upgrade Kit (Legendary).

As usual, the spell of choice will be Water Strike.

Body / Legs

With the DR offered from Frost Walker Boots, the next easily obtainable item is Perfect Sight Legs from Conda in Jungle Labyrinth, requiring only 100. This monster is easily handled with Melee if your Hitpoints is high enough, allowing us to save on valuable runes. The legs give 12% DR. These count as a master slayer task, so feel free to reroll them to earn some slayer coins. Feel free to take on any Alraune tasks you roll, as the DR from Perfect Sight Legs is not needed for that monster. In addition, any of the other monsters in Jungle Labyrinth will also need to be killed at some point for their respective clue pieces, so killing them when you roll their slayer task is slightly more macro-efficient.

Another very easily obtained item is Bundled Protection Body from Alraune in Jungle Labyrinth. While this item is easier to obtain than Perfect Sight Legs, it is slightly less useful as the body slot contests with master and legendary slayer gear. This item will be useful for dungeons, however, as it also gives 12% DR. Unfortunately the passive on this item is not 100% reliable. There are situations where you could take fatal damage on the attack when the bonus DR fades. This means that the bonus DR effectively just reduces food consumption and doesn't enable us to fight stronger enemies.

It is not necessary to use Magic against either of these monsters, as it is possible to meet the DR requirements with obtained gear. If you don't have Perfect Sight Legs yet then use a Wasteful Ring to supplement your survivability against Alraune. With Ultima Godsword the Shield of Melee Power is the best option for the passive slot. With a 1h weapon instead, then the shield should be equipped in the offhand slot while wearing other typical passive slot items such as Elder Crown.

Melee Weapon

The next item is Spectral Ice Sword from Spectral Ice Wolf. This monster is quite difficult and requires a lot of DR. It is recommended to have Frost Walker Boots and Perfect Sight Legs first before attempting this monster. These are a legendary task and should be completed on task at all times.

Note that if you use an amulet other than Guardian Amulet for the necklace slot, then you will have to wear it in the passive slot or use Holy Aegis and potentially Stone Skin to make up for the lost DR.

Once you obtain this item, if you are not using an Ultima Godsword then make sure to use it on stab and not slash, as the stab bonuses are considerably higher.

Legendary Slayer Gear

After all of the above items have been obtained, the next goal is to continue working on Slayer Gear Upgrade Kit (Legendary). We need to complete 20 tasks and they take a long time. The upgrade offers 10% DR and 25% area negation (+4%/+5% respectively over master) per piece and will be a necessary source of DR and negation moving forward. Continue to farm Large Ice Trolls, Spectral Ice Wolves and possibly Polar Bears. The last monster has an unavoidable, 2 turn freeze attack which reduces your DPS considerably, so it may be worth simply skipping them. You will eventually need 15 Frost Walker Boots and 5 Spectral Ice Sword for upgrades in future, so farm either monster that you prefer. The gear will be the same as the relevant sections for the monsters while substituting any upgrades made along the way.

There are unique drops offered by enemies in Lava Lake, but as the area effect is particularly strong these enemies will waste a lot of food if we tackle them now. Best to wait until we have access to greater slayer area negation. In addition and perhaps more importantly, all of these items are solely for collection log purposes. The Ward of Flame Platebody and Burning Protection Platelegs require (P) Divine Platebody and (P) Divine Platelegs respectively, which are unobtainable on a CO.

Next Upgrades

With the preliminary upgrades obtained, we set our sights on Weakness Exploiter Cape, Ethereal Longbow, all of the items from Static Chest, Ethereal Greataxe and eventually Slayer Gear Upgrade Kit (Mythical).

Ancient Sanctuary

We start with working towards Ancient Sanctuary. To access this dungeon you first must acquire 5 clue pieces, each from the 5 unique enemies in Jungle Labyrinth. You will almost certainly already have Labyrinth Clue 4 and Labyrinth Clue 5 from Conda and Alraune respectively, so now just kill the remaining 3 monsters. You will need to make sure you obtain Weakness Finder Cape from Poison Toad as well before moving on. With Legendary slayer gear and other gear upgrades from the previous section it is extremely easy to bypass the DR requirements for these monsters, just make sure to use Ranged for the Magic enemy, Poison Toad.

With the five clue pieces obtained, purchase Labyrinth Solution from the shop in order to access Ancient Sanctuary. You will be looking to obtain 100 Weakness Exploiter Cape Material, which will require about 450 Ancient Chest. This cape is very strong for Ranged as it provides hefty range offensive bonuses, a nice 3% DR and -7% enemy DR when using Ranged. This grind is quite lengthy.

If you are using a 1h weapon then the Fighter Amulet is best worn in the passive slot to free the neck slot for Fury of the Elemental Zodiacs, or an Elder Crown. At this point it is no longer recommended to use Ragnar God Gloves, as the stun chance from the relentless combo is useful in stopping the boss Morellia from healing. You should not need a Wasteful Ring for this fight.

Phantom

Keeping with the theme of Ranged upgrades, we next seek to fight Phantom to obtain Ethereal Longbow. This monster is quite strong and will require a Wasteful Ring, Guardian Amulet and Holy Aegis to just barely stay alive. It will take about 20 hours to reach the drop rate for the item. It is worth killing this monster on task, as you will overall profit slayer coins as the legendary task pool is quite small. The increased DPS from the Superior Slayer Skillcape is very useful too.

This build prioritises -DR on enemies, as all of the monsters in Midnight Valley have 95% DR.

Lightning Region

With a lot of good Ranged upgrades under our belt, we can work on clearing our way through Lightning Region to obtain all of the goodies within. This dungeon is very dangerous, hence why we must prepare adequately for it. To access this dungeon we need to blitz through Underground Lava Lake once. This dungeon is very easily cleared with Ultima Godsword or possibly with Spectral Ice Sword using the same setup as Ancient Sanctuary, however you will have to take care to avoid fighting Magic Fire Demon while using Melee. These can very easily kill you outright, but are easily dispatched by swapping to Ranged (wearing Aeris God Platelegs / Aeris God Boots if you only have one set of Perfect Sight Legs / Frost Walker Boots) and then switching back afterwards. The boss Trogark will outheal our puny damage from Water Strike with Ocean Song, so we have to rely on the raw power of Ultima Godsword instead to get the job done.

We can now work on clearing Lightning Region. The boss will stun you frequently and heal a lot, but with the setup listed below you will be able to clear it. This dungeon is extremely lucrative, as every single item is useful. The Lightning Aura Helmet is our first 12% DR for the helmet slot and synergises with stuns so it is useful for Melee and Magic. Lightning Coil 2H Staff with Fire Strike (any elemental spell is fine, but Wind Strike uses 2 Air Rune while the other strike spells only use 1 Air Rune and you will likely have an abundance of the other elemental runes) completely replaces Ocean Song and you cannot leave this dungeon without it. You will want 5 Lightning Strike 1H Sword in order to make FrostSpark 1H Sword, which heavily synergies with stuns and the rest of the gear from this dungeon. This sword will probably replace Ultima Godsword as our go-to Melee weapon. You will want 15 Lightning Boots and 15 Lightning Amulet, as those upgrades are very useful and help with dealing with stuns and capitalising on enemy stuns.

Note that there is a small chance of dying while using Slayer Cowl (Legendary), so to ensure 100% safety until you can secure Lightning Aura Helmet use the prayer Stone Skin.

After obtaining the relevant items from Static Chest, now is a good time to return to Legendary slayer and obtain the remaining frost items. With all the gear upgrades obtained so far, using Melee against Large Ice Trolls is perfectly safe. Ethereal Longbow will obliterate Spectral Ice Wolf, which yields considerable slayer coin income. Keep killing these monsters until you obtain 15 Frost Walker Boots and 5 Spectral Ice Swords.

Underground Lava Lake

With Lightning Coil 2H Staff, we can also idle our way through Underground Lava Lake. The main item we need from this area is Blazing Helmet. This becomes our go-to helmet for the foreseeable future as the burn damage adds a considerable amount of dps. With magic we make sure to prioritise DPS prayers that lower enemy DR or increase attack speed, as Magic accuracy and Magic damage are useless with the unavoidable, fixed damage special attack of Lightning Coil 2H Staff. This makes prayers such as Divination completely worthless.

Ice Hydra

With our very good set of Ranged upgrades, it is possible to work on completing Ice Hydra tasks which count as mythical tasks. In fact, Ice Hydra is the only mythical task we have access to. At the time of writing this guide, there is an issue where you can never roll the same Slayer task twice in a row, even if that is the only Slayer task you have available for that tier. There is a Mod available in the Official Mod Manager which fixes this issue. If you choose to use the mod to fix the issue, then simply equip you pimped out Ranged gear and begin working towards 20 mythical tasks through Ice Hydra to obtain Slayer Gear Upgrade Kit (Mythical), leaving Auto Slayer on for the first time since elite slayer (which feels wrong somehow). If you decide not to use the mod fix, then still don your drip and prepare to manually reroll tasks by selecting an easy task after each Ice Hydra task and then selecting another mythical task.

It is recommended to reroll lengthy tasks (above 200 or so) in order to expedite this process, as Ice Hydra is very slow slayer coins/hr. Even with rerolling, these 20 tasks are expected to take several days to a week of continuous Slayer, with a few days spent replenishing the approximately 50,000 Static Jellyfish that will be consumed.

Ice Hydra is extremely strong, tanky and powerful. It requires a lot of DR in order to survive its basic attacks and it can freeze us, making it more deadly. Against this monster in particular, we rely on status effects for over half of our DPS through Blazing Helmet and Poison Virulence Ring+ Poison Virulence Gloves. Without these items our kills/hr is cut in half. Protect from Magic results in more kills/hr (and more effective kills/hr by saving a lot of food) than offensive prayers due to reducing the amount of time spent frozen considerably, allowing more status effects to be applied. Once you've killed enough Hydras for 5 Frostshield Amulet, make your first FrostSpark Amulet and equip it in the amulet slot. Again, less time being frozen increases kills/hr more than raw stats.

The alternative to tackling Ice Hydra now would be to manual one completion of Lair of the Spider Queen in order to obtain access to Afflicted City to fight Plague Doctors. This monster drops Area Control Potion III which can be used to combat the intense slowing aura of Forsaken Tundra. This will speed up the Mythical tasks by about 35%, but farming Plague Doctor takes more time overall than the time saved on Ice Hydra. The advantage is that you will also accumulate a healthy stack of Penetration Potion III in doing so, which will be helpful for future dungeons.


Polar Bear

After obtaining Mythical Slayer Gear, a good upgrade to get next is the Freezing Touch Body from Polar Bear. The bonus frostburn dps from the body will be nice for dungeon clearing, even though the DR matches that of Slayer Platebody (Mythical) and Bundled Protection Body. Mythical gear helps considerably with this grind, as not only does the extra area negation speed up kills, but without the +4% DR then we would be forced to use a Wasteful Ring instead of Hunter's Ring or Relentless Fury Ring, which cuts our DPS down a lot. Note that the extra HP and DR from FrostSpark Amulet keeps us safe when Polar Bear freezes us.

This is quite a fun loadout as we are able to make use of 2 independent sets of item synergies spanning 5 individual items, and the special attack of FrostSpark 1H Sword naturally synergies with Fighter Amulet in the same way that Tidal Edge did. It even occurs more frequently, albeit it is now an avoidable special. Again, make sure to use the weapon on stab as this is significantly more accurate.

Note that even though with FrostSpark Amulet equipped we should be within AE threshold while stunned, this item suffers from the same issue as Bundled Protection Body and will not 100% reliably keep you safe. Without Holy Aegis, the Polar Bear max hit is 501 while you are frozen, so there is a small chance of the enemy stunning you on the attack it takes you to 485-501 HP which would not trigger Auto Eat as FrostSpark Amulet only activates after the attack. The monster could then follow up with a max hit to finish you off.

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