HCCO/Guide/11
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Level 99. Going above 99 HP reduces DR requirements allowing for more flexibility with substituting gear to optimize damage. Players are encouraged to test their current stats/gear with the Combat Simulator for optimal builds.Preface
This is the hardest event in the game, requiring the most preparation and highest stats. 
Impending Darkness Event currently requires 99 in all skills in order to access, which makes it inaccessible for Combat Only accounts. It has been confirmed that these requirements will be removed with the expansion, but in the meantime any COs interested in trying the event will need to use a script to remove the level blockout. This script by Xander will modify the 99 all skills requirement that the event has to a requirement of having 99 in all combat skills and 1 in all non-combat skills, making it accessible to COs.
This is designed to be the hardest event in the game. For a normal account the expected clear time is around 2 hours of mostly active gameplay (switching gear frequently and prayers). For a combat-only account without access to 
Diamond Luck Potion IV, 
Agility, 
Summoning etc the event takes around 3-3.5 hours, and is heavily influenced by how effectively you can reroll modifiers.
The event is quite similar to the experience on a main account with a three main differences. As such, the Impending Darkness Event/Guide for standard accounts is a good resource to also check, and one can just ignore any recommendations regarding inaccessible items or skills. Where this guide will branch out will be with the CO-specific considerations, which are:
Unhallowed Wasteland is the most demanding part of the run, due to the 5% heal these enemies have without access to Agility passive pillars. This heal has the potential to completely brickwall the run if the modifiers are not handled correctly, as the enemies can very easily outheal your DPS if they are the slightest bit stronger. The minibosses at the end of this zone dictate the whole event.- Rerolls are absolutely crucial. Out of the 12 possible modifiers, over half of them (7/12) make Unhallowed Wasteland enemies out-heal your DPS. The chances of not rolling any of the impossible modifiers at some point in the event is extremely unlikely, so rerolling is an essential mechanic for COs.
Melee 
Bane is impossible. Reroll every time. Melee is only viable with stuns and Bane is stun immune.
Remember, this event is a safe death for Hardcore characters, as dying inside the event will NOT delete your account. Instead, you suffer the standard death penalties, where a random item will be deleted if the 
Protect Item prayer is not active when you die.
As general advice for this event it is recommended to have a handheld calculator handy to calculate the HP threshold needed to auto-eat through different attacks on the fly (if anyone wants to make a mod for this, that would be appreciated), or hovering over the crab icon below the health bar to verify that your auto eat threshold is still above the maximum damage of the enemy's attacks. The AE threshold for each attack can be quickly calculated by taking the monster's most threatening attacks and simply dividing by 0.4. For example, one of Bane's attacks with a maximum hit of 324 would be able to be safely auto-eaten through as long as the player's maximum HP is above 810 (324/0.4 = 810). Once the affliction stacks accumulate and your HP drops below 810, you will have to manually eat to stay safe during these types of attacks. Multi-attacks are especially dangerous at this point, as the only safe threshold for these moves is N-times their maximum hit (i.e. double the max for a 2-hit move, triple for a 3-hit move, etc). These are pretty much impossible to safely deal with outside of spamming hold to eat, as 3 times the auto-eat threshold is over 100% of the player's HP once affliction stacks up. Luckily there aren't many high-damaging multi-hit moves, but there are a few which will be detailed in the respective sections.
Gearing up
As for actual gear, the items required are relatively simple. Unhallowed Wasteland requires a specific setup to get maximum negation, but the remainder of the zones and Bane himself don't require anything special. Throughout almost all of this entire event you will utilise one protection prayer alongside 
Battleheart. Battleheart works equally well with all styles which makes prayer switching easier, and the DR & minimum hit contribute nicely towards your DPS. In certain situations where accuracy is low, 
Rigour and 
Sharp Vision can prove to be higher DPS (as 
Shockwave has the most infrequent special attack, increasing its reliance on accuracy compared to the other weapons), but this shouldn't be necessary in order to complete the event.
Unhallowed Wasteland
Melee
| Slot | Item (most effective → least effective) | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 |  Slayer Helmet (Master) | |||
 |  Slayer Platebody (Master) | |||
 |  Ragnar God Platelegs |  Terran God Platelegs | ||
 |  Ragnar God Boots |  Terran God Boots | ||
 |  Relentless Fury Gloves |  Ragnar God Gloves |  Spiked Shell Gloves |  Terran God Gloves |
 |  Slayer Skillcape | |||
 |  Fighter Amulet | |||
 |  Hunter's Ring | |||
 |  Tidal Edge | |||
 |  Shield of Melee Power |  Earth Layered Shield |  Dragonfire Shield | |
 | Third Master Slayer Piece | |||
Either of the two pre-event shields are viable for the first encounter with Bane, and then upgrade to 
Shield of Melee Power for increased stun frequency for the remainder of the event. Using 
Ragnar over 
Terran is recommended to speed up 
Legaran Wurm as the main difficulty is being out-healed. DR is not as important as this event cannot be idled anyway, and it is not necessarily that difficult to eat in time for the enemy attacks. Legaran Wurm will mostly be stun locked from 
Tidal Edge+
Fighter Amulet combo, which is the only reason why Melee is viable at all. The necklace slot is non-negotiable, as without heavy stuns then this monster will out-heal your DPS. If the miniboss lands on Legaran Wurm in the 4th or 5th round (with most/all of the modifiers enabled) then you may have to reroll Unhallowed Wasteland to get one of the other three minibosses instead.
The lethal move from Legaran Wurm is its penetrating spike shot. You will need to keep an eye out for this move specifically and eat accordingly. It is a single-hit move, so as long as your HP is above about 400 (staying weary of any poison, burn or frostburn effects on your character that may drop your HP below the threshold). The other two moves have lower maximum hits and you will probably kill this boss before affliction stacks rise to the point where you cannot out-eat them. If the fight drags on this long you have probably been brick-walled and it's reroll time anyway.
Ranged
| Slot | Item (most effective → least effective) | |
|---|---|---|
|  Slayer Cowl (Master) | |
|  Slayer Leather Body (Master) | |
|  Aeris God Platelegs | |
|  Aeris God Boots | |
|  Poison Virulence Gloves |  Aeris God Gloves |
| Slayer Skillcape | |
|  Deadeye Amulet |  Fury of the Elemental Zodiacs |
| Hunter's Ring | |
| Shockwave | |
|  Shield of Ranged Power |  Scaled Shield |
 |  Jadestone Bolts | |
| Third Master Slayer Piece | |
Ranged is quite strong and shouldn't have any troubles pulling its weight during this event. Stick to the 
Scaled Shield and upgrade once you unlock 
Shield of Ranged Power after the second encounter with Bane. 
Jadestone Bolts are non-negotiable as they offer a substantial DPS increase and the main threat in this event is being out-DPS'd. You won't need many for the event, only a few thousand. This can be easily accumulated in around 2 hours of 
Hunting Greater Dragon farming.
The lethal move from 
Cursed Lich to watch out for is her cursed flames. This is a single-hit ability, so eat whenever your HP drops below around 400 to stay safe. With 
Protect from Magic active, affliction stacks should not accumulate enough to make cursed frost shards or cursed tether a death threat.
Magic
| Slot | Item (most effective → least effective) | ||
|---|---|---|---|
|  Slayer Wizard Hat (Master) | ||
|  Slayer Wizard Robes (Master) | ||
|  Glacia God Platelegs | ||
|  Glacia God Boots | ||
|  Burning Madness Gloves |  Glacia God Gloves | |
| Slayer Skillcape | ||
| Fury of the Elemental Zodiacs | ||
| Hunter's Ring | ||
|  Ocean Song | ||
|  Shield of Magic Power | Scaled Shield | Earth Layered Shield |
| Third Master Slayer Piece | ||
Magic is finally the heavy hitter of the three styles. Since this is a one-time event, you can let loose and use some of the insane DPS abilities that Magic always had but were prohibitively expensive for COs. As usual, swap to 
Shield of Magic Power once unlocked as it has ridiculous synergy with 
Incinerate.
You will be using Incinerate for almost all of this event. Its 100% accuracy is vital, and the frequent attacks mean that it activates the passive on Shield of Magic Power almost every single attack, stunning enemies every other attack and burning/frostburning them consistently. You will need a bare minimum of around 300 casts of Incinerate for this event, but it is recommended to have at least 500. This comes to 15,000 
Fire Rune, 5,000 
Ancient Rune and 5,000 
Havoc Rune. If you notice that you are running low on runes during this event, you can swap back to old faithful 
Water Strike, using 
Fury II and 
Confusion for 
Shrouded Badlands, 
Perilous Peaks and 
Dark Waters. Unfortunately 
Decay shares a crucial resource of Havoc Runes with Incinerate, so this spell cannot be used to save if you are running low on this type of rune. You should only be using Ancient Magicks for Unhallowed Wasteland anyway so it shouldn't be a consideration, but remember that 
Greater Skeletal Dragon is curse-immune, so don't waste runes trying to confuse this enemy.
Spiked Red Claw is actually the easier of the two enemies here. You will just need to set them on fire and eat whenever you are bleeding. Keep an eye on the max hit of Savage Spike, and if this ever increases due to you bleeding then just eat if you are low on HP. With Shield of Magic Power this enemy will almost be completely stun-locked, so it is a simple fight. This is the easiest monster in all of Unhallowed Wasteland, so rolling this miniboss is always ideal.
Greater Skeletal Dragon, on the other hand, is the scariest monster in the whole event, perhaps even more so than Bane himself. It is stun, freeze and curse immune, so it cannot be stun-locked into triviality like Spiked Red Claw. The lethal move from this enemy is Bone Crush, which has a moderate max hit, but when paired with Spiked Tail Whip and comboed with itself it is extremely deadly. Spiked Tail Whip lowers your DR by 10%, and Bone Crush can stun you. Suffering a Tail Whip → 2x Bone Crush combo can leave you suffering over 2x500 damage, which can kill you outright from any HP if you are not spam-eating. Always try to remove stuns when possible, and as a last resort eat and pray you don't get double max hit if you're in this deadly situation. This monster also accumulates affliction stacks faster than any other monster with its final special attack, Desecration. A miniboss of this monster is beatable due to the ridiculous power of Incinerate, but given how scary this monster is, you may want to reroll this miniboss to stay safe.
Badlands, Peaks & Waters
As these monsters do not heal, they intrinsically aren't any different to a standard account. You cannot be brick walled here with the event modifiers we will select, so just refer to the information in the Impending Darkness Event/Guide for more general information during this section. The general strategy is to swap gear to the corresponding style, swap to the corresponding protection prayer and DPS away. You will want to swap gear around slightly after completing Unhallowed Wasteland, as you do not need a third piece of Master slayer gear or a 
Hunter's Ring. In order to simplify the process of switching back and forth after each encounter with Bane, one can wear mostly Master slayer gear and opt to solely switch the passive and ring slots, as these are the most impactful slots and easiest to organise. You only really need to switch to full God Armour for the respective style that you use to fight Bane with.
Melee
The relentless combo (
Relentless Fury Gloves + 
Relentless Fury Ring) is very nice for this portion of the battle, as it contributes towards keeping enemies almost permanently stun-locked. However, only 
Rokken poses much of a threat until Bane (which you will never fight with Melee anyway), so your gear for this style does not matter too much. Overall it is not worth switching away from 
Slayer Helmet (Master) and 
Slayer Platebody (Master).
Ranged
Again, it is only necessary to switch rings and passive slot. No enemies should give you trouble outside of 
Ku-tul, which can be easily manual eaten.
Magic
Magic obliterates all Melee enemies with Incinerate. As noted above, you can switch to Water Strike, Fury II and Confusion for these zones in order to save on runes.
Bane
This is the main boss of the event. You will always reroll Melee Bane, as his heal cannot be out-DPS'd as you cannot stun him. The strategy for the final form of Bane, Instrument of Fear is the same, but you will have to manual eat during his Overwhelming Power attack at higher affliction stacks. It may be necessary to reroll to a Magic version for Bane, Instrument of Fear.
Remember, since you are fighting him in a slayer area with a slayer item requirement you must use 
Slayer Skillcape or 
Climbing Boots.
Ranged
It is worth switching away from Master Slayer for extra DR for Bane, but not entirely necessary. The fight itself though is quite simple. Use 
Protect from Ranged and Battleheart for this fight. Sharp Vision (and even Rigour) can also be used when Bane reduces your accuracy with Fragile Mind if you are comfortable switching prayers around quickly. Auto eat through Unknown Threat, eat if your HP is around 400 for Fragile Mind and keep your HP above 50% during Suffocate. If Bane starts to Suffocate you, you can generally finish getting your attack off before having to auto eat. Remember that 
Elder Crown's lifesteal will help keep your HP above 50% for Suffocate if you have a Shockwave special incoming.
Poison Virulence Ring is very strong here. The percentage maximum health and increased damage with Shockwave special attacks add a lot of damage, but it is entirely possible to kill Bane with just a 
Deadeye Ring.
Magic
The gear recommended here should put you above 20k accuracy with Battleheart, which means Incinerate will melt Bane. As a result, this is the easier of the two styles by a considerable margin. If your accuracy is reduced due to Fragile Mind, you will need to switch to 
Mystic Mastery (note that this is the second highest Magic related prayer, not the highest) in order to boost back above the 20k threshold. 
Tormented Ring is recommended over 
Warlock Ring as the latter has no benefits with Ancient Magicks and the former gives more accuracy towards the threshold needed.
During Bane's Suffocate attack, you will generally only need to eat one or two pieces of food and then Elder Crown's lifesteal should keep you above the 50% threshold.
Zone Order
This is the same as for main accounts. Unhallowed Wasteland → Dark Waters → Shrouded Badlands → Perilous Peaks. This ordering means that you finish the first two zones at the start, and then you will fight Bane with the least offensive slayer area effect of the four (evasion is entirely useless with 80% dodge due to protection prayers). It is also possible to fight Bane in Shrouded Badlands in order to remove the Slayer Skillcape requirement from the Bane fight, but overall this isn't worth the loss in accuracy.
Strictly speaking, only the last zone you choose matters, but there is little benefit to changing from the order given here. You need Master slayer gear for Unhallowed Wasteland and Dark Waters, but these items can be swapped for God armour for extra DR and damage for Shrouded Badlands, Perilous Peaks and Bane.
Event Modifiers
As a CO, your DPS is very limited and Unhallowed Wasteland enemies can heal. Any modifier that increases enemy healing or attack speed (even by 5%) will immediately make Unhallowed Wasteland impossible. This rules out 5 of the possible 12 modifiers. As a CO you cannot afford to lose the ability to stun, as this makes Legaran Wurm impossible, adding another modifier to avoid. As you cannot get the same modifier twice, this leaves you with 6 possible modifiers that can be taken. 4 are perfectly fine, 1 is painful but recommended and the last 1 is not recommended as it may brick wall when paired with a miniboss Legaran Wurm, but might be manageable otherwise.
The list of preferred modifiers are (you will always pick these for every Impending Darkness Event run):
- +20% Maximum Hit and -10% Maximum Hitpoints
- +20% Maximum Hit and +20% Accuracy Rating
- +2000 Maximum Hitpoints and -10% Maximum Hit
- +50% chance to apply poison when hitting with an attack and +10% Maximum Hitpoints
Of the next two, the first is recommended over the second. Frostburn will lower your attack speed, which essentially makes the enemies heal more relative to your DPS. This is not ideal, but it is less impactful than an overall 15% DPS, as it only applies when you are actually frostburned and can be mitigated by stunning your opponent. If you have a choice between any of the four above modifiers and either of these two, always pick one from the above four first.
- +50% Chance to apply burn when attacking and +50% chance to apply frostburn when attacking
- +15% Damage Reduction and +15% Global Evasion
Lastly, taking a single one of these modifiers will end your run. They either cause the enemy to heal excessive amounts of health or make an entire style obsolete (stun immunity). There is about a 10% chance that a Unhallowed Wasteland run can spawn no Legaran Wurm, but this reliance on RNG is less ideal than simply rerolling.
- +100% chance to ignore Stuns and Freezes and Immune to Sleep
- +100% chance to ignore Slow effects and -5% Attack Interval
- +10% Maximum Hit, -10% Attack Interval, and -10% Global Evasion
- +15% chance to apply affliction when attacking and +15% Lifesteal
- Slayer Area Effects are 5% Stronger
- Heal 4% of current hitpoints every 2 turns and +40% of Maximum Hit added to Minimum Hit
Reroll Mechanics
As COs completing Impending Darkness Event is already a knife's edge, you will have to become well acquainted with rerolling for the perfect combination of event modifiers listed above. Rerolling involves either keeping a second tab of the game around (which can be switched to in the event of death or impossible modifiers) or creating a cloud save at a particular point. Before every run of Unhallowed Wasteland and every fight with Bane, it is recommended to keep a backup tab around in case you die, but it is not necessary for truly hardcore players. As a last resort, it is recommended to have a third backup tab before every fight with Bane if you ever need to reroll a potential mistake (such as choosing the +15% DR modifier).
A backup tab is fairly self-explanatory, but cloud saving is more intricate. Firstly, you must have a Melvor Cloud account. Next, you must be logged in to the account on the game homepage. This is shown on the bottom left of the main character sign in page. Lastly, you must navigate to the settings page of your CO account and disable "Auto Save to Cloud" in the Melvor Cloud Settings. This option only shows up if you are signed in to the Melvor Cloud account, so if it is not present then return to the character selection screen and log in.
With automatic cloud saving disabled, you can freely create cloud checkpoints just before the two main reroll points, being Bane and event modifiers. These checkpoints won't be automatically overwritten as the non-cloud local save would be. The points that you need to create checkpoints for are:
- When on the final miniboss of Perilous Peaks
- Just before Bane dies
The first checkpoint will allow you to reroll Bane's attack style in case you land on Melee (as Bane's style is determined when the final enemy is defeated), and the second one allows you to easily reroll the event modifiers. If you create a cloud save a bit before killing Bane when your character is at full health and can easily idle to victory (i.e. most likely not during a suffocate attack when you are in danger of being put to sleep), then whenever you load the cloud save account Bane will be defeated and you can select from a list of 3 modifiers. If all 3 modifiers are bad, simply refresh the page and load from the cloud save once more.
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