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The guide is written with the goal of idling the dungeon. If you want to do it manually, the requirements are much more relaxed, although the more DR you have, the easier it is to do anyway.
Summary
- Get the
Sunset Rapier,
- Get the
Sandstorm Ring,
- Do 100
Volcanic Cave clears as Melee,
- Do the rest of Volcanic Cave clears with
Slicing Winds. Don't forget to enable the Surge aurora.
Why Clear Volcanic Cave?
On each clear, you get the 
Fire Cape that gives 2% DR.
Volcanic Cave is the place where you gear up in preparation for the 
Air God Dungeon. According to the simulation - the average amount of clears it will take to get the full 
ancient set, is 640 clears. It takes 817 clears to get the full ancient set with 75% probability and 1377 clears to get it with 95% probability.
It is also a place to farm 10 
Amulets of Fury for 
FEZ. Check the FEZ/Guide to see if it's the best option for you.
After you clear the Volcanic Cave 100 times, you will unlock Ancient Magicks - Slicing Winds, 
Icicle Volley, and 
Ignite.
Winds are used when the hit chance of everything else is not high. They don't miss if you have more than 20k accuracy;
Ignite is used to one-shot;
Volley is used for everything else.
Ancient Magicks are not affected by damage amplification in any way except the Combat Triangle. No curses, no debuffs, no gear buffs. Following normal progression, it is generally stronger than the basic magic at this stage. However, due to the non-scaling nature of Ancient Magicks, it is very easy to outgear them and render them obsolete, generally this happens when the player obtains the 
Cloudburst Staff, but many new items and buffs - most notably the 
Ring of Spirit Power now exist that make it possible for normal magics to be more powerful than Ancients.
Gear To Idle
The main heavy-hitter of the Volcanic Cave uses the 
Melee style. Therefore, clearing it with pre-Volcanic 
Ranged build is unfeasible due to the Combat Triangle penalties.
It is assumed that you have 
Auto Eat - Tier III.
All calculations are done for the 
Hardcore/
Adventure.
If you play Standard and have lower HP or DR, use Can I Idle or Combat Simulator to check if you can survive with your build.
Melee
Volcanic Cave is usually done with Melee because the 
dragon armor set requires only 
Level 99 to produce. It then can be trimmed to provide 30% DR.
Below is the melee build that requires 820 
Hitpoints to idle the dungeon on any game mode. However, pay attention that even slightly less DR or HP will mean death for this build because it hangs a hair breadth away from the max hit of 
Malcs. Check with Can I Idle or Combat Simulator to see if you can idle with your build. Also, the Sandstorm Ring is very important for your clear time.
Lower tiers of armor may be used if HP/DR is increased through other sources such as 
Agility, 
Summoning, or more Hitpoints levels.
Pre-Volcanic Magic
The other possible option is 
Magic. Clearing the Volcano with Magic from the start is not recommended because its adjusted clear time is slower and more complicated to set up than the available melee builds.
Fire Robes have the exact same stats as 
Air Robes. The secondary effect of robes (+20 minimum hit for matching spells) outweighs the damage increase of higher level spells, therefore, use the highest level spell and robe combination available to you.
If available to you, use the Ring of Spirit Power instead of the 
Aorpheat's Signet Ring
To idle the dungeon with the build below, you need 780 Hitpoints and 
Weakening III active.
100-Volcanoes Magic
After clearing the Volcanic Cave 100 times, you will unlock Ancient Magicks.
Your first goal with this build is to reach 20k accuracy for Slicing Winds, which means the spell won't miss at all. Therefore, while the build only requires Level 72 at minimum, you will need at most level Level 93 or multiple Accuracy bonuses from various other skills to achieve 20k Accuracy Rating, including:
It's possible to farm the Volcanic Cave with the 20k-accuracy Slicing Winds on the following build if you have 880 HP and a 
Stone Skin prayer active.
To farm the dungeon with 33% DR and without the prayer or potions, you need 910 HP. Your biggest threat is 
Prat, the Protector of Secrets with the monsters Max Hit being inches above your Auto-Eat threshhold
Check if you can fulfil the accuracy quota with the gear available to you either with the Combat Simulator or by checking your out of combat stats. 20k accuracy is important because after that number Slicing Winds cannot miss, becoming a top-DPS spell against the dungeon at this point of progression.
With sufficient accuracy rating, 
Miolite Shield may be swapped out for a ranged or melee shield with more DR such as 
(G) Dragon Shield to lower other HP/DR requirements.
Weapon Choice
This table plots some Combat Simulator results adjusted by the time it takes to produce all of the required consumables with some assumptions made about the exact bonuses available for each skill.
You can view the spreadsheet here. Make a copy to tailor the resource values to match your own, there is also a column on each table that allows you to input your own Sim results.
(link)
Magic builds using Ancient Magicks are generally better than their Melee counterparts when not using all buffs available to the player. Due to the large amount of runes required to cast, and the non-scaling nature of Ancient Magicks, eventually they fall behind Melee builds for adjusted clear times.
The usual food expenditure is approximately 200,000 HP to 250,000 HP per hour.
Gear Options
Gloves
The 
Ancient vambraces drop from the 
Dragons Den. You will very likely need them to idle the Air God Dungeon, so might as well get them now.
The 
Red and 
Black vambraces can be either crafted with 
Crafting or dropped from the 
Spider Forest.
Or you might just farm some 
Paladins for their 
Gloves.
Cape
Boots
The choice of boots is small because we don't want to drop in DR too much.
Ring
Conclusion
The suggested order of actions with the LEAST effort put into support skills is as follows:
- Get the Sunset Rapier,
- Get the Sandstorm Ring,
- Do 100 Volcanic Cave clears as Melee,
- Do the rest of Volcanic Cave clears with Slicing Winds.
(G) Dragon Helmet
(G) Dragon Platebody
(G) Dragon Platelegs
(G) Dragon Boots
Paladin Gloves
Knight's Cape
Elite Amulet of Defence
Sandstorm Ring
Sunset Rapier
(G) Dragon Shield
Air Expert Wizard Hat
Air Expert Wizard Robes
Air Expert Wizard Bottoms
Air Expert Wizard Boots
(U) Ancient D-hide Vambraces
Skull Cape
Elite Amulet of Magic
Aorpheat's Signet Ring
Ancient Wizard Hat
Ancient Wizard Robes
Ancient Wizard Bottoms
Ancient Wizard Boots
Magic Wand (Powerful)
Miolite Shield
Pre-Volcanic
Dragon Sword
Dragon Claw
Ancient Sword
Ancient Claw
Knight's Cape
Level 66 area unique drop
Skull Cape
Firemaking Skillcape
Level 99, no DR increase
Obsidian Cape
(G) Dragon Boots
Level 60
(G) Rune Boots
Silver Diamond Ring
Elite Chest and 100% more money.
Ring of Wealth
Ring of Blade Echoes
Combat:
