HCCO/Guide/7

Revision as of 01:18, 7 November 2022 by Zxv975 (talk | contribs) (Added UGS recommendation and told people to hold their godswords)

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

Pre-Gods

Now is a good time to get the   Fury of the Elemental Zodiacs. It has 1% more Damage Reduction than the   Elite Amulet of Defence, in addition to significant offensive bonuses. Refer to the FEZ Guide for getting all the materials to make it, noting that as a CO killing   Bounty Hunter is not recommended due to the high food consumption and lack of access to powerful magic spells that an unrestricted account would have. You will also want to have completed the   Dragonfire Shield and   Scaled Shield grinds before progressing to the God Dungeons, as these items are essentially best in slot for their respective classes and give considerable offensive and defensive bonuses.

It is recommended to have   99 /   99 /   99 melee stats at this point, but base 90s are fine. As CO accounts have limited sources of damage reduction and bonus HP,   99 is a requirement for most of the game beyond this point. You will need   85 for   Aeris Armour Aeris armour and   85 for   Glacia Armour Glacia armour during this section. This section will assume both   Finn, the Cat and   Leonardo for +10 HP and +1% DR respectively.

Throughout this section the optimal setup will be discussed, and HP/DR thresholds revolving best case scenario will be primarily considered. Use Can I Idle to verify if any other DR/HP combination you might have will suffice.

Shrouded Badlands

There are a lot of upgrades to be made in this area. Three out of the four enemies here give necessary upgrades for progress, with one being absolute best in slot (passive slot) for the entire game, another being the second best melee weapon and the last being a universally useful DPS ring. The downside is that the monsters in this area are quite powerful and the items have a relatively low drop rate, therefore a lot of food should be budgeted for this section and the recommended gear is hefty.

Although the last monster in the area,   Bounty Hunter, would appear to be a viable source of amulets for the   FeZ grind, the food used at this stage of the game makes it less efficient overall than the alternative sources.

Darksteel Dagger

The   Darksteel Dagger is an iconic CO weapon. Not only is its raw DPS output quite high with its consistent bleed special attack, when combined with an   Elder Crown (which is passive slot compatible) it will alleviate a lot of food usage from the partner item's 100% bleed lifesteal. To obtain this item you need   80 and either a   Blazing Lantern or a   Slayer Skillcape. The latter is much more effective, but it has a much higher requirement that probably won't be met until beyond the point where obtaining the   Darksteel Dagger is recommended.

You need to kill   Rancora Spider to obtain the dagger. Luckily this is a   Ranged enemy, so we benefit from triangle bonuses. However, the damage sustained is on par with   Volcanic Cave, which is why we wait until full   (G) Ancient armour to increase DR and save food. It is perfectly feasible to farm for this item with   (G) Adamant armour pieces, albeit at a higher food usage. Since you will likely be using a   Blazing Lantern, you can complete this grind before obtaining   Dragonfire Shield. You will be using the highest offensive prayers you have available, with the priority being   Chivalry >   Piety >   Incredible Reflexes >   Ultimate Strength, as you benefit more from accuracy than strength here.   Protect from Ranged is not terribly useful as almost half of the spider's attacks are unavoidable.

Having a   Fury of the Elemental Zodiacs is probably the biggest upgrade you can make, with a   Elite Amulet of Glory is a close second. Since you kill relatively few monsters per hour, you can simply check every hour or so to collect your loot instead of relying on a   Amulet of Looting. If you have access to it,   Elite Slayer Gear will increase your kills/hr considerably (to upwards of 80/hr), but it is not recommended to do elite slayer without the   +   combo.   Strong Slayer Gear is about equal to   (G) Ancient armour as it has faster kills but more food consumption. However, the basic tier is a downgrade so is not recommended at all.

Expect in the ballpark of 2-4k   Trout per hour, depending on levels and overall DR. The drop rate is 1/451 and you can typically expect about 50-70 kills/hr. Should budget about 15-30k   Trout for this grind.

Elder Crown

You need to kill the   Elder Vampire for the   Elder Crown to complete the sustain combo. This monster, as its name states, is a vampire and will heal off the damage it does. This makes this fight a DPS race, therefore maximising DPS and DR are pivotal. It is possible for this monster to out-heal the damage you do if you attempt it with poor gear. This monster is where having the   Fury of the Elemental Zodiacs makes a considerable difference, as the huge offensive bonuses and DR can increase kills/hr by 15%+ by itself. You will use the   Darksteel Dagger on stab as your weapon and overall gear is similar to   Rancora Spider, with   Elite Slayer Gear >   (G) Ancient armour >   Strong Slayer Gear. Prayer recommendations are the exact same as the Vampire's drain ability is unavoidable and more than half of its attacks.

The drop rate is 1/401 (better than spider) but the food usage is slightly higher and the kills/hr are lower at around 40/hr. The food budget should be a bit higher at around 20-35k   Trout for this grind.

Tormented Ring

This item is optional but very good. It is part of the recommended gear setup for   Ahrenia (the magic boss of   Into the Mist) and can often be a DPS upgrade over   Sandstorm Ring. You will need to use   Ranged for killing   Cursed Maiden, meaning   Ancient Crossbow is required (or a   Confetti Crossbow at the very least) if you do not have   99. It is ideal to wait until after obtaining full   Aeris God Armour, as the ring isn't as big of a priority to rush as the previous two items are. The DR and DPS from Aeris will make this monster less of a   Trout drain than the previous two monsters. The drop rate is 1/453 and can be killed at roughly a rate of 60/hr, so you should budget about 10-15k   Trout, or the equivalent in   Crabs as unlocking the sustain combo (  +  ) unlocks elite slayer as a viable food source.

Aeris

Recommended gear

To survive this dungeon you only need 42% DR with 1030 HP, or 48% DR and 910 HP. This gives leniency in this God dungeon to substitute a defensive helm with the   Elder Crown to increase kills/hr and drastically reduce food usage. You will likely need to open a few scrolls to obtain Aeris pieces for extra DR before the   Elder Crown can be safely substituted in, however. The   Tormented Ring is a DPS increase over   Sandstorm Ring when paired with   Darksteel Dagger, as that weapon has relatively low accuracy and a large part of its DPS comes from bleed damage which relies on accuracy above all.

The optimal gear assumes the player has manually completed the   Infernal Stronghold once for the   Infernal Cape. If you wish to idle that dungeon, then you will need   Glacia Armour Glacia gear from the next dungeon in order to do so.

Your goal is to get full   Aeris God Armour from the   Scrolls of Aeris, with the   Stormsnap being optional. You will eventually want 5   Aeris Godsword as they are needed to eventually make the   Ultima Godsword, which is one of the best weapons until well into the late game. Don't worry about getting all 5 just yet as it will be quicker to farm in future, but don't sell any you obtain. You will also want to keep 10   Aeris God Gloves for upgrades, but duplicates of the rest can be sold for GP.

You'll want to hold on to the   Air Shards which can be upgraded into   Air Chests, containing various Crossbow bolts. These won't be enough to supply you for the   Water God Dungeon but will at least save you some time grinding ammunition in the future. The   Deadeye Amulet and the   Deadeye Ring are good DPS increases for   Ranged, but DR is so tight in most god dungeons that you may not be able to use it over the   Fury of the Elemental Zodiacs. You will eventually need 10   Deadeye Ring for later game upgrades, but it is much more efficient to grind these out later on with better gear.

Glacia

Recommended gear

  Water God Dungeon will be done with   Ranged. Your goal is 49% DR. The optimal setup shown above gives 55%, well in excess. The easiest way to reach this threshold is with the   Ancient Crossbow from   Dragons Den and a   Dragonfire Shield. You can gather bolts from either   Air Chests and   Slayer resupplies, the latter being a relatively good source. Arrows can easily be obtained from   Raging Horned Elite or from   Slayer resupplies.   Scaled Shield is much higher DPS than   Dragonfire Shield, so this shield is the top recommendation, but the latter is an option if one needs extra defensive stats to reach the idle threshold. An alternative if you have   Level 80 is to use the   Stone Skin Prayer and a   Stormsnap or   Ancient Longbow. Otherwise, you'll have to use a shield.

If you do go the   +  /  route, then   Aeris Armour provides enough damage reduction for you to wear otherwise fully offensive gear, including the   Deadeye Amulet,   Deadeye Ring, and the   Cape of Prat or   Ranged Skillcape.

Regardless of your gearing, the goal is full   Glacia Armour and to save any   Glacia Godswords for the 5 needed for   Ultima Godsword from the   Scrolls of Glacia. Again keep 10   Glacia God Gloves and sell the other duplicates. The   Warlock Ring from   Water Chests is a neat bonus but can be skipped for now, as we will eventually return to farm all 10   Warlock Ring in future. The   Warlock Amulet is not useful at all due to its poor stats and effect, and the   Cloudburst Staff is bad for a CO account. The staff doesn't provide any   Air Runes, which are required for all standard spells, so where you can use a staff you'll likely want to use your   Mystic Air Staff to minimise the need to farm   Wizards for   Air Runes. Alternatively you will use   Ocean Song in the later game for much more rune-efficient DPS. In many cases   Cloudburst Staff is worse effective kills/hr than   Mystic Air Staff when you factor in time spent gathering runes.

  Water Chests are actually the best place to farm   Ancient Runes due to the low drop rate and amount from   Magic Chests. You will need enough runes to cast   Gust around 75-100 times, which is upwards of 500   Ancient Runes, 1,800   Air Rune and 500   Havoc Rune for   Into the Mist later down the line. It may be worth stockpiling more than these amounts in case any issues arrise during the fight. If   Slicing Winds is used instead (not recommended), one should collect enough runes for at least 200 casts. Hold on to a   Magic Wand (Elite) if you get one and have the bank space to spare, as it's the best one-handed wand you'll have access to for awhile and is used for   Into the Mist.

Now is a good time to return to   Infernal Stronghold to obtain your   Infernal Cape if you have not already done so. Using   Magic means the dungeon can be safely idled. If you wanted, you could also farm up a   Dragon Claw and   Ancient Claw to make an   Infernal Claw, however it is worth noting that since the expansion this item is heavily outclassed by   Ultima Godsword, so it can be skipped in favour of efficiency.

  Dragon Claw Fragments are farmed from   Griffins in the   High Lands, while   Ancient Claw Fragments are farmed from   Pegasi in the same area. You will need 100 of each to make the claws. These can then be combined into the   Infernal Claw with 10   Infernal Core from completing the   Infernal Stronghold 10 times. As it takes quite awhile to finish   Infernal Stronghold 10 times, it is best to wait until one can safely idle the dungeon, which is only possible on a HCCO with full   Glacia Armour or very high   Hitpoints. With all this being said, it is overall faster account progression to skip the long   Infernal Claw grind entirely.   Darksteel Dagger is preferable for bosses and fine for general grinding until one obtains   Ultima Godsword.

Terran

The first thing to notice about this dungeon is that since   Magic is the recommended style, farming the dungeon efficiently will have to be done at a much later point.   Magic on a CO account is either awful DPS with rune-saving spells like   Wind Blast+  Surge II (around 1.2 effective kills/hr: 1.9 kills/hr and 40 minutes farming   Death Rune from   Necromancer) or incredibly rune intensive with a good dps weapon in   Ocean Song (around 2.7 effective kills/hr: 7.4 kills/hr and 2.6 hours farming   Air Rune and   Mind Rune).   Cloudburst Staff is unfortunately not very useful, as the effective kills/hr are lower than even that of lowly   Wind Blast due to the intense rune consumption. Ancient magics is the same story: not worth the rune costs.

The second thing to note is that this dungeon is one of the first places where HC/Adv and standard characters deviate in their path. This typically only happens at points where   Magic is the primary style needed within a dungeon, and   Earth God Dungeon and   Infernal Stronghold are the first instances where this happens. Standard CO characters, with their lower combat triangle penalties, can idle this dungeon with melee and a   Wasteful Ring at 52% DR. A   Tidal Edge is the most efficient item, but   Darksteel Dagger is also viable. HCCO and AdvCO can never idle this dungeon with melee without almost all of the items from   Earth God Dungeon in the first place, as the DR requirement is 64% with a   Wasteful Ring.

As for the actual mechanics of the dungeon,   Terran pretty much can only be tackled with   Magic as he has a very tight window for gearing and Damage Reduction. Specifically, your attack speed needs to be faster than 3 seconds and you need 47% DR. In a worst case scenario,   Terran will increase your attack interval by 33% for 2 turns then stun you for 1 turn. If he hits you while you're stunned, you'll take an additional 30% damage, drastically increasing your necessary DR to safely idle.

As with the   Water God Dungeon, there are two ways to do the   Earth God Dungeon: you can use a   Mystic Air Staff and use the   Surge II Aurora to just barely make your attacks fast enough to avoid being smacked while stunned and slowed, or use a   Magic Wand (Elite),   Miolite Shield (or   Dragonfire Shield if you're lazy), which is fast enough to not worry about needing   Surge II, but has increased rune costs and therefore less effective kills/hr.

The goal of the dungeon is to get any of the following combinations:

At least one of these combinations is needed to enable   Rokken farming later down the line. As   Terran God Boots are the most common item from this dungeon, you can finally put your   (G) Rune Boots to rest; they've earned it.   Terran Armour isn't necessary to upgrade your melee gear further to   Ragnar Armour and   Fire God Dungeon is actually easier to complete in comparison to   Earth God Dungeon (as it is completed with   Ranged), but you will need a few Terran pieces to reach the DR threshold for later activities such as   Into the Mist and   Dark Waters.

Again, you will eventually want 5   Terran Godsword, and this is one of the first 2H weapons to boast DR, making it the most viable standard Godsword to use for bosses. A   Guardian Amulet is very useful for the super end game content, but for general use it has quite a high DPS penalty and should therefore be used sparingly. A   Guardian Ring from the   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. You may eventually want 10   Guardian Ring and 10   Terran God Gloves, although these gear upgrades are much less desirable than the other 3 God dungeon ones as   Spiked Shell Gloves are rarely used in practice (only when exactly 1% DR is needed to survive) and   Spiked Shell Ring is never used in any situation.

Ragnar

Gear

  Ragnar is completely optional for game progression, as   Ragnar God Armour actually has LESS damage reduction than   Terran God Armour, though it has much higher Strength and melee attack bonuses. In addition,   Slayer Helmet (Master) and   Slayer Platebody (Master) are arguably better for late game grinds, as well as being deterministic to obtain. Elite slayer gear is also utilised heavily before master. Knowing this, skipping   Ragnar God Platebody and the   Ragnar God Helmet completely is perfectly fine.

It is easy to manual clear   Fire God Dungeon, as long as the player has   Dungeon Equipment Swapping unlocked. The second-to-last enemy,   Ignis, has a 52% DR requirement when using melee and the final boss,   Ragnar, has a 56% DR requirement when using Ranged. The recommended setup has 55% DR, and requires either a DR pet such as   Leonardo, prayer like   Safeguard or the   Guardian Ring switch for the ring slot. However, if one wishes to idle the whole dungeon from start to finish then a   Wasteful Ring and either   Guardian Ring (with the   Wasteful Ring in the passive slot) or   Guardian Amulet is required as a HCCO in order to survive   Ignis while using   Ranged. Check out the section below on late game farming for the optimal fully idle setup, but a   Wasteful Ring and   Guardian Amulet combo is the only pre-ITM combination available for idle, and both of these items are hard to obtain on a HCCO.

It is beneficial to delay farming the items above until after unlocking the passive slot, as   Earth God Dungeon and   Perilous Peaks are notoriously resource intensive and benefit a lot from good gear and the passive slot. Otherwise, grab some   Climbing Boots or a   Slayer Skillcape, head over to the   Perilous Peaks and kill some   Wicked Greater Dragons. Do note that these monsters are designed to waste food (upwards of 5,000   Crab per hour). While you're there, you can also stock up on   Jadestone Bolts from   Hunting Greater Dragons, if you have the food to spare. While they're the best bolts in the game, the food necessary to grind them out in any notable amount may dissuade you from changing away from   Topaz Bolts or   Sapphire Bolts from   Slayer resupplies. You will need several   Hunter's Ring eventually so picking one up won't be a waste of time, but it would be better to wait until the passive slot to help with DPS and reduce food wastage. You will be using 65,000   Jadestone Bolts in the very late game grind of   Unhallowed Wasteland and will most likely obtain everything needed during that farming period.

Strategy

Range is your best option for the   Fire God Dungeon due to the 1300 Magic max hit of the final boss,   Ragnar. Even once you have your   Wasteful Ring equipped, you'll need 63% DR to idle   Fire God Dungeon, which at this point, can only be done with the   Guardian Amulet or the   Erran pet from   Earth God Dungeon plus   FEZ and otherwise full tank gear. We only have access to 66% total DR from   Ranged until after   Into the Mist. Full   Aeris,   Earth Layered Shield,   Infernal Cape, and   Stone Skin will only get you to 60% DR.

If you aren't after full collection log completion and just want to speed your way to   Into the Mist and T90 weapon farming, pick up enough pieces of   Ragnar Armour to replace any remaining   Ancient Armour. Between   Terran and   Ragnar, you should have a piece of T85 armour for each slot, with possibly the body and/or the helmet slots missing as these can be filled with Elite and Master slayer gear down the line. Eventually you will want 5   Ragnar Godsword, 10   Ragnar God Gloves and 10   Fighter Ring, as all of these upgrades are very strong for the   Melee class.

As far as standalone stats goes, the   Ragnar Godsword is one of the better Godswords, as it is just behind   Tidal Edge for farming   elite Slayer tasks. The slow attack speed of Godswords reduces the prayer used per hour by about half, which can be further coupled with a   Prayer Skillcape down to around 6-7k/hr. The other Godswords are viable, but only   Ragnar Godsword is better than   Infernal Claw in terms of slayer coins/hr. All four Godswords are, however, better than   Darksteel Dagger for elite   Slayer, so if you have opted to skip the   Infernal Claw grind, then any of the four will be useful to you.   Big ol Ron is wholly useless.   Sandstorm Ring is still useful as it can actually be better than   Fighter Ring in a few situations, specifically against high defence enemies. However, due to the 100% accurate special attack of   Tidal Edge,   Sandstorm Ring eventually becomes a DPS loss in every situation and should be completely swapped out for   Fighter Ring,   Hunter's Ring or even   Guardian Ring.

The stun effect of the   Fighter Amulet is one of the strongest combinations with   Tidal Edge as the first hit of its special attack reliably activates the stun effect while the second hit enjoys a +30% damage increase due to the enemy being stunned. The amulet is borderline required to unlock the full potential of the weapon. This can be farmed later after the passive slot and   Shockwave, as it is a considerable grind.

Late Game Farming

As the God dungeons require fairly high stats and gear, efficiently farming will mostly be carried out after completing   Into the Mist and   Dark Waters grinds. The first two dungeons,   Air God Dungeon and   Water God Dungeon are easily farmed out with gear upgrades listed in the respective sections above (with obvious upgrades made where appropriate, such as   (G) Rune Boots  Terran God Boots). On the other hand, both   Earth God Dungeon and   Fire God Dungeon will require a   Wasteful Ring to lower the efficient idle DR thresholds to CO-achieveable levels, and so are better left until later. This is because   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   Fire God Dungeon (  Mistral and   Ignis respectively) counter the primary style we use for each dungeon. The necessity of   Wasteful Ring stems from simply being able to deal with these monsters while at a combat triangle disadvantage.

One will note the prevalence of Master slayer gear in the recommendations. This is because the doubling effect from Master slayer gear is overall more beneficial than the slight increase in DPS from God gear. Where DR allows for it, Master slayer gear is preferred. It is not worth using offensive prayers to boost clears/hr, as the additional clears/hr save less time than the equivalent amount of elite slayer required to replenish the prayer points used.

The DR thresholds for all of the dungeons are listed here

Dungeon HP DR
  Air God Dungeon 1030 42%
  Water God Dungeon 1000 49%
  Earth God Dungeon (Magic) 1000 47%
  Earth God Dungeon (Melee,   Wasteful Ring) 1030 52% (SC) / 64% (HC)
  Fire God Dungeon 1000 56% (SC) / 71% (HC)
  Fire God Dungeon (HC,   Wasteful Ring) 1030 (HC) 62% (HC)

Note that there are differences for hardcore and softcore players for the two later dungeons.

Below are suggested gear setups that are optimal (or close to, as they ignore items from   Unhallowed Wasteland and beyond) that can meet the DR requirements listed in this table. The optimal gear set will always meet the DR requirement if the player has all three defensive pets. Any substitutions should be checked to see if it still meets the DR/HP requirements.

Air God

Remember that if you opt for a Godsword then you will need to make up for lost DR through prayer or gear switches.

Water God

This gear setup aims to maximise efficiency in the form of shards/hr and chests/hr while still maintaining good food, bolt and prayer economy. The optimal setup shown here has exactly 47% DR with the remainder being bridged by both DR pets (  Leonardo and   Erran). A   Ranged Skillcape is ideal to halve bolt use, but swapping this for an   Infernal Cape easily allows the player to utilise a   Deadeye Amulet for marginally more DPS over a   Fury of the Elemental Zodiacs if desired. The prayers   Safeguard and   Stone Skin can be used if the player needs more DR to hit the threshold, as the prayers only consume 1,000 and 3,000 prayer points/hr respectively. These slight prayer costs reduce the efficiency by about 1.5% / 4.5% (determined by doing elite slayer to replenish lost prayer points), which is marginal but on par with most gear substitutions listed here, therefore opting for a gear setup that saves prayer is very slightly better. Downgrading the shield to a   Dragonfire Shield is not recommended as this is around a 10% DPS loss so other gear swaps should be performed first, such as the ring slot.

Earth God

This dungeon is very easy to clear with magic, but the time spent gathering runes heavily diminishes the effective kills/hr (about 2-3 with   Magic versus 6-7 with   Melee). The strategy therefore is to work towards obtaining the necessary gear to meet the   Melee DR threshold for the player's game mode and then finish the dungeon using   Melee. If one wishes to make progress towards   120, then utilising   Magic with   Ocean Song for this whole dungeon is recommended over   Melee and later training   Magic using alternative methods.

Earth God (Melee, Softcore)

The optimal setup shown here is 49% DR with the remainder bridged by the   Stone Skin, one DR pet and either   Safeguard or the other DR pet. It is not worth attempting this dungeon without   Tidal Edge, as it is more than 3x faster than the next melee alternative. If Master slayer gear is not used then pieces of Terran can be replaced with Ragnar, with gloves having priority over boots.

Earth God (Melee, Hardcore)

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   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 58% DR when under 50% HP, and the remainder of the needed DR given by the two DR pets and both DR prayers. Without   Erran, one needs to swap a Master slayer piece for Terran Armour, ideally the helmet before the platebody.   Fighter Amulet is considerably better than   Fury of the Elemental Zodiacs, as the synergy with   Tidal Edge increases DPS drastically and cuts food usage in half. Even without   Otto the player is still fast enough to avoid stuns from   Terran as their attack speed is 2.85s at worst when slowed.

Fire God (Softcore)

The optimal setup here is 51% DR, so it requires   Stone Skin, one DR pet and then either   Safeguard or the other DR pet. If substituting for   Deadeye Amulet then one must also substitute   Guardian Ring and include   Safeguard or   Aeris God Platebody. This latter combination is very slightly worse by about 1-2%, so   Fury of the Elemental Zodiacs is overall preferred.

Fire God (Hardcore)

Note the switch to   Dragonfire Shield. The additional +30HP reduces the DR requirement by 2%. This gear setup gives a total of 57% DR, with the remaining DR given by   Stone Skin,   Leonardo and one of either   Safeguard or   Erran.

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