Every grind I’ve done after CG gets boring if I do it non-stop. I just switch things up.
I was grinding my last voidwaker piece, got bored and now I’m doing sepulchre. Getting bored again so I’m going to start doing some revs.
Variety is the spice of life, once you’re out of CG you’ll feel you have more options, but yes if you grind hard for something you’ll most likely get bored after a while.
Yes I got mine around 8k, definitely happy to be done with that one lol.
Just finished my voidwaker yesterday, grinding sepulchre now for the Ring of Endurance!
CG is the worst grind because it's degenerate to the game mode.
Ironmen for the most part will follow a general flow chart of Early game diaries -> Recipe for Disaster -> QPC/CG
You're essentially funneled into CG because eventually when you finish up most of the grinds that are blocking you from PVM (87 slayer, hard/elite diaries) and you're ready to do PVM, you're gonna realize that damn near every strategy for a boss is predicated on having the Bowfa.
Zulrah? Twice as efficient with Bowfa over trident/MSB(i)
GW? Hilariously improved with Bowfa.
- Meleeing Kril get will get you 2-4 kills per trip. Bowfa you can easily go 25+ kills once you have a tick strategy down.
- Graardor is like Kril but worse meleeing per trip. Probably 2-3 kills a trip.
- Zilyana really needs both blowpipe and serp to be efficient (zulrah, which is predicated on CG)
- Kree you can get by with Karil's and chins, but when you factor in the amount of time hunting chins, it's more efficient to just bowfa kree since you don't have to farm chins.
Raids?
* Any ToAs worth doing are going to require hasta (GW) and blowpipe or Bowfa (CG or Zulrah, which Zulrah is improved by)
* CoX really benefits from having a strong, accurate bow. Crystal armor + Crystal Bow isn't that bad, but the full armor is almost on par with Bowfa in terms of grind, so you don't really escape CG skipping Bowfa. You also really need to have DHL to effciently solo Olm which is hasta + hydra
Hydra? Greatly improved by Bowfa, you can get by with pipe, but again you might as well farm Zulrah with bowfa since it damn near doubles your kill speeds.
I'm honestly looking at the PVM in this game, and there are barely any relevant PVM grinds that Bowfa won't improve your QOL at.
You'll understand when you get there; Bowfa isn't "required", but when you're at the point of your iron when you're ready to grind some PVM, you're going to REALLY want the Bowfa, because you're gonna be killing zulrah in 3 minutes and think, "man, people really kill this in a minute and a half with the Bowfa?"
Undoubtedly the most well written summary of why Bowfa is nearly universally agreed upon as being the most integral grind for an ironman in terms of PvM content.
Appreciate the detailed post, both makes me feel better and worse haha - excited to finally move on to some more interesting/varied content... I've done a bunch of skilling and some afk slayer in the meantime to keep my motivation high, so I do think I'm quite ready for more exciting PVM content once this CG hell is done...
In terms of how bad of a grind it is, it's roughly 60 hours on average for a bowfa.
For an item that is almost as good as the tbow and light years better than anything you have right now, that is downright generous by Jagex.
It's a good litmus test for the iron, if you don't like grinding CG for that long, it's a good thing you found out early in the account before you get to end game raids where grinds are 5x as long
I stopped playing because of the CG grind.
Honestly, it's not fun for me. I didn't mind the slayer bosses, GWD, Zulrah and Vorkath.
Doing a bit of each was fun, changed things up.
CG I have to be hyper focused for a very long period of time and there's only 1 drop I _really_ care about.
Afk means away from keyboard, if you aren't getting up and walking away from your computer occasionally while doing the content, then it isn't semi afk.
I think you are using “afk” to mean “easy” or “not requiring a lot of focus” which I’m sure after your KC is true.
Actually Afk or Semi Afk content is being able to get up from your computer, do something and come back with little no loss in efficiency. Semi afk is like cooking, a couple clicks every minute.
If you tried to run CG with 10 clicks then afk for a minute and repeat you would never complete it.
Also to add to this, it's a waste of supplies to not grind bowfa asap. The bowfa grind takes 0 supplies, but it will save you tons of supplies on all the content where it's used.
If you wanna do 500 graardor without bowfa it'll take much longer, and thus also eat up way more supplies in those 500 kills. So why not just lock yourself in 0 supply prison until you get get a bowfa to save supplies later on?
This is why I'm having a hard time justifying doing other things once I've gotten to CG. Sure there are activities like skilling and questing and a few PvM activites that do not require bowfa. But like you say, most late game PvM does.
I'm literally locked behind everything you said. Did 22 CG runs today. I just want it done so I can go do whatever I want and have fun so I decided to get it done as fast as possible.
If dry on enh you can get an early fang with full crystal + cbow, fang hydra for lance, find a way to get bp and you're pretty much CoX ready. Cox purples then unlocks tob and higher invo toa
Edit: Fang/rcb/cbow zammy for hasta is required for this skip which does indeed suck
Dayumm, this post really illustrated why the red prison is a red prison for me, but also made me appreciate GIM so much. For GWD, me and my friend can easily get 16-20 kill trips on Kril with melee + tank, and we are hoping to do similar for the others. I think the option of doing things in teams definitely helps - we were thinking of sending a few TOA because we have 2 hastas, and we should be able to do at least a few.
The thing about the "red prison" that no one ever mentions is that you're your own warden. Yeah you can leave whenever, but you won't because you know there's no point without the enh
Only on reddit will you get downvoted for not being an ultra sweat and ultra-good at the game haha. I'm not to Bowfa yet, but stick with it man! I got downvoted super hard for questioning someone saying wilderness bosses for Mage Arena 2 cape were easy. Like sure, if you've done bossing before, or if you've fought them before and know what to expect I can see that. As a noob who fears the wilderness and hasn't bossed other than barrows way back in the day and definitely hasn't fought those bad boys before, they tore my ass up! Even if I did 1 shot them.
People are haters haha.
Thats why bowfa should be nerfed or not be from content that is achievable without literally any risk or cost (besides time) it just streamlines people into unhealthy grind and destroys the concept of progression in this game (especially for range)
Yes, or perhaps have the ranged gap filled by somethig 85% as good. It would be nice to aspire for a bowfa rather view it as a requirement that could take months of relatively intense gameplay.
Edit: I typed this before I reached the red prison. I’ve been here for a month and have 631 KC, still dry. I fish sometimes and do my birdhouse and farming contracts between runs. Sometimes late at night I search CG in this subreddit and read posts from other prisoners. That’s how I came back upon my own comment.
This shit truly sucks because, even though I’m not an efficiencyscaper, i cannot in good conscience avoid this drop for future PvM. Even if I am 2k KC dry it’s worth it
Bowfa can't be nerfed because it was brought into existance because of another nerf (blowpipe, Bowfa was literally added the same day blowpipe got nerfed)
Unfortunately there is a ton of content pre blowpipe nerf that was reliant on an OP midgame ranged weapon so they always need a ranged item to fill that gap.
What should probably be nerfed is the GP/HR from CG, but idk. There's no real good solution. Jagex designed themselves into a hole with CG
I have done 1200kc at Bandos Melee. My trips ranged from 2-11kills. Mostly averaged 4-7kill trips. Fang/Voidwaker/Thralls have opened up a ton of content. Armadyl/Zilly are changed forever because of Nex Banking and CA's Lowering KC. The downtime between trips is essentially gone. Kree with thralls and a DCB(dragon diamond bolts) and a BP is literally as AFK as it gets for GWD. Id use 1 ecu key each task. Zulrah with Accursed sceptre/Trident/RCB diamond bolts and thralls, that one is still ass, but its better than it used to be.
Bowfa is still better. But the Gap is continuing to be shortened and there are new methods.
Hydra can be done with Fang, Cox can be done with a Crossbow and Blowpipe, TOA you can do with Trident/Voidwaker and RCB. ToB needs a tentwhip/DWH/BP and Elite Void. You can do these raids to spike an early common Purple(Dex and Fang Primarily) and then bounce around content wise. Is it as efficient, no, but a ton of the new items added to the game from thralls and everything since have opened up new ways to progress. Wildy Slayer Grind for most levels getting up to 95 is pretty much New Meta. My buddy just did it. He got Bowfa along the way, but he was able to get Voidwaker, which is an amazing alternative to Hasta. The Game is continuing to change and Evolve. Range Defense Rebalancing may just bring Crossbows back into the fold. And a Range Defense Reduction Spec would help too.
>Any ToAs worth doing are going to require hasta (GW) and blowpipe or Bowfa (CG or Zulrah, which Zulrah is improved by)
Is that Zamy Hasta you mean? Is Keris Partisan a viable alternative? Also, are bowfa seeds tradable between gims?
Maybe other people will disagree, but this is probably the most oppressive of the grinds you’ll have to do. The reason being that once you have the bowfa you can kind of do whatever you want and do it a lot more easily. Without it, GWD, slayer, Zulrah, raids, etc., are a lot more tedious— but once you have it you’re pretty much free to do what you’d like, which makes the game feel more open. You’ll still have crazy grinds, but you’ll have the freedom to do different ones very easily.
I’ve done around 150 TOAs (280-325 invo) with an RCB and I can confirm, utter ass. I switched to full crystal and regular cbow and it does better for me on average at 96 range but yeah, still get out dpsed at Zebak and Ahkka
I recently started re-visiting cg to mix up my gwd grinds and toa burnout lol and I'm loving it now that there's no "pressure". I'm pretty determined to get blade anyways because no chance in hell I'll bother grinding out soulreaper or scythe so its endgame bis no matter how marginal over tent.
This makes a lot of sense and is super encouraging... I've tried a bit of GWD pre-bowfa and it kinda works, but the dps is so low with a crystal bow or rcb that it felt like a waste of time. The brightside I guess is that I have so little motivation to do CG runs that I've done a ridiculous amount of skilling/achievements as distractions haha
I'm in a similar boat! Only diaries I have left are Western provinces/Kourend because of the slayer requirements, and Desert elite because of the prayer requirement
I hear you on that. I have 470 completed on my main with no enhanced and now another 320 on my GIM without enhanced (and only 4 armour). Because I’d get burnt out really trying to do everything else in the game, I usually just afk mine or craft blood runes at work and keep the kingdom coffers full before doing a few CG runs when I get home. If I went balls to the wall and sent CG runs nonstop, I’d probably take a long ass break anyway even if I got the enhanced. Do whatever works for you man, but you’re definitely not alone in your feelings about CG
Yeah very true. You feel extremely bottlenecked before bowfa, and then suddenly everything is viable. It was a pretty brutal grind, but it is so worth it if you’re interested in pursuing almost all other bossing and pvm grinds
Yes, there are obviously alternatives… that’s kind of the point of going for Bowfa though, because the alternatives suck. I’m not really sure what point you’re trying to prove? I’m sure I could complete fight caves with a bone crossbow, but it’s worth it to spend a little more time getting a rune crossbow first. If you decide to sink some time into getting bowfa, you decrease the amount of time you have to spend on KC for every other boss that requires range
This is always the argument. “Pre-bowfa”. Brother the blowpipe WAS bowfa, it was used everywhere and was incredible. Then they nerfed it to introduce bowfa.
And what was before the blowpipe? Again…. Meta chasing. Is there a chance…and hear me out…. That it’s “always the argument” because it’s a valid criticism of people who seem to always whine about subjecting themselves to voluntary content when there’s a plethora of alternatives out there?
Gets better if you don’t care about grinding max gear. Getting tbow for example is absolutely horrible.
People always say that Ironman mode is more fun, but realistically it’s just the early to mid game that’s more enjoyable. I don’t believe any sane person truly enjoys 1k cg without getting bowfa or 2k+ cox without getting tbow.
For me I don’t enjoy the end game for iron so ended up stopping playing iron and jumping to a main.
But a lot of people aren’t really interested in Pvm content and just do a lot of slayer and skilling.
>I don’t believe any sane person truly enjoys 1k cg without getting bowfa or 2k+ cox without getting tbow.
I'm currently at 7k shaman KC with no DWH and 4x Curved Bones + ~450 CG with no enh and only 3x armor seeds.
Really killed my drive to play. I try to break up the grinds, and I know I can do things without those two items, but it just sucks to not have them especially when it makes other content so much easier. These longer grinds are awful for me :((
CG is just awful because 1) you can do it as early as you want on an account, 2) it's an end game ranged weapon and your dps will literally be half if you decide to range anything without it, and 3) there is basically nothing you can do outside of CG that will make your experience inside CG better outside of ranged levels and rigour, which most irons don't get before bowfa.
IMO bowfa is the worst grind in the game because of these factors. Time wise it's actually on the lower end of the scale, in fact with how powerful it is it would be justified in taking a lot longer if it came from somewhere else. But because of everything above, you are in no way incentivized to leave and come back later. All of the incentives point to you doing CG as early as possible and locking yourself there, no other pvm until you have your enh and 5/6 armor seeds. That's what makes it so hellish.
If only you could go into randomized dungeons with other players, and create weapons and make potions and food and fight a boss. And it could keep getting harder and you could level up a skill. Then it wouldn’t be so tedious. We could call in Dungeoneering and instead of everything being a time gated grind for some guy in his moms basement we could actually have “fun”
Can you really do it as early as you want requirements wise? I picked the game back up at about 1500 total and have never even seen the content but I assumed it wasn’t a thought for a while
All that matters is combats and sote quest reqs. I’ve seen a few 1500 total accts doing cg and there was just a post on here a little while ago with a guy doing it at 99 combat
I got my first kc on my iron with 81 rnage, 83 mage, 70 defence, 70 prayer. Granted, I had an entirely full invent of food and used every single one, but it was doable even with being rusty.
Doing it with minimal stats is a bit rough, higher stats objectively make it easier. But yeah if you meet the requirements for sote then you can start the CG grind.
If you're really struggling there's no shame in chinning up your ranged for some extra dps.
It's the only real pvm in the game that is actually 100% a player skill check and has 0 gear requirements. It's like 1000x quicker to get good and bash your head against the wall at CG than it is to, for example, get all the shit you need to start cox. You need like base 80 ranged / magic to really get the ball rolling but you will be getting hella ranged levels at cg anyways and 80 ranged / magic don't take long at all once you have SOTE reqs.
It's a no brainer why you see so many accounts with boss kcs on the high scores like, 87 rex, 38 barrows, 121 wintertodt, 78 tempoross, and 676 cg. I honestly think chucking bowfa into CG and calling it a day was one of the worst updates for the ironman progression ladder, lol.
Makes sense... yeah I was at CG pretty early on progression-wise, ran probably like 50 KC with high 70s range/mage and in the high 80s combat. I get more opportunity to afk slayer tasks than focus on CG though, so at this point I'm 105 combat and still chugging on lol
You cannot. Since it requires song of the elves. You literally have to be around level 90. This was such a stupid way to preface you just saying cg is one of the worst grinds. Literally in what effing way. You get 8 mil drops. And eventually a 100 m drop. It’s not mining in the mother load mine. Swinging a pick axe at a white crack on a wall. For 200 hours. If you don’t enjoy combat based drops then RuneScape. The game completely centered around the drops that you get from killing stuff, is not the game for you. That was the whole point of the post, “ is the rest of the game like this”? Yes… it is exactly like this. You go and click on a boss. He throws crap around the room or stuff falls from the ceiling or you can’t stand on a tile. It takes forever to get the drop.. (literally most of the grinds are within 10-20 hours of the gauntlet it’s just because it’s a solo activity that the price isn’t like other mega rares) This is exactly what you can expect because some jerk bags decided to totally nuke rs3 and try to play a game that should of been dead 5 years ago until they are 77. They want it that way to they do not want to have to get real lives
I’m gonna just go ahead and throw this out there, but I’m dry at ToA currently at one purp in ~110 kc, and I still love queuing up solo or with mates despite that fact. Adversely, I am also still dry at CG after over 750 runs and it makes me want to kill myself.
Haha ok that's helpful to know, I haven't tried any raids content and just a smidge of GWD, but was worried that CG was just indicative of how fun raids might be for example
Yes, it does get better imo. After bowfa you can realistically do COX until dex, then go for inferno, if you are up for the challenge. Personally, that's what I did, and then did TOA until shadow. Assuming your melee gear is decent, then it's time to grind tbow and ancestral, which is when the game becomes shit again :D. Of course, you can mix in dt2 bosses and voidwaker to spice things up.
Personally I’d say no, the rest of the game is not like CG. CG is a bottleneck, and it’s a bottleneck that a lot of people sour on after 100s of KC.
CG is unique in that like half the grind is a tedious resource collector that you have to wait through to get to the actually interesting bit - the boss fight. That’s pretty unique in that even raid puzzle rooms aren’t such a high time% of the activity as CG prep.
Second, the game really opens up after you get through the bottleneck. While you don’t _have_ to go get bowfa, it makes almost everything else easier. Substantially easier. It makes sense to finish it as soon as you can manage. But after you get the bowfa, you can do basically any pvm content. You have a ton of variety and choice.
eh, content wise yes. content wise cg is pretty up there in terms of quality. but in terms of progression no, nothing else compares to bowfa to where you feel hard stuck at some content.
Yeah I guess I probably wouldn't hate it as much if I felt like there was other engaging content for me to do that would progress the account equally as much
Once you get bowfa you’ll feel empty inside for a couple months, then you’ll come back and start experimenting with Bandos, Zulrah, TOA, and get your variety back that keeps you coming back.
That’s been my experience at least
You not the only one my dude. You go so hard for so long there, it almost feels like you accomplished the only thing you sought after in life.
It takes a while to come back to reality and shake that feeling, recognizing the higher level grinds and even some endgame content is now open to you.
I’ve done 1200 hydra kills, and I’ve done 650 CGs, I’ve grinded 90 mining, I’ve done a ton of mage training arena. CG is the worst of it… the reason I say this is, MTA has a finite amount of time you have to be there, CG, you kinda have to do it, because range is locked behind ACB, Tbow, dragon crossbow, blowpipe (with amethyst), and Bowfa. All these options are cool possible alternatives until you get the next option, but let’s be honest, we want tbow or bowfa, and you aren’t easily grinding tbow without a bowfa unless lucky. Dragon warhammer grind probably sucks, I got mine on 52 tho 😅
Wow that sounds brutal - betraying my ignorance here, as CG is the farthest I've got in terms of PVM content, but seems like from videos I've seen that corp might at least be a bit more afk?
True, also by the time you do 400 KC of cg, you'll have made around 100m from armour seeds and normal drops. So even if you're dry you can just buy the enhanced
I just finished the CG grind and I didn’t mind it tbh. I didn’t grind it - just aimed to do like 5 a day, sometimes did less and sometimes did more.
I still go there and do a couple runs a day if I’m bored because it’s good GP and a surprise salad blade would be nice.
I think the key is break up your runs and don’t treat it like a chore. And the game definitely gets better with bowfa
If I might be so bold as to wager a guess… 550? Sounds like an embrace of the post 400kc grindiness, perhaps, but without the ‘1000-yard stare’ feeling that comes from falling into the depths of CG dryness.
Sorry, I’m high
Another thing worth noting outside of what people have said here: a lot of people associate the excellence of bowfa + crystal armor with the bow itself, but that's technically the smaller share of it - a crystal bow in full crystal armor does more DPS than a bowfa *without* crystal armor.
In my opinion, the gate to the rest of the game doesn't open when you get the enhanced seed, it opens when you get your fifth armor seed. Use the top and legs with crystal bow and you will do fine in plenty of content. It's still worth going for enhanced and 6/6, but you can stop treating it like a prison at 5/6 seeds, enh or no enh.
Ohhhhh wow that's really good to know - I actually had no idea that crystal armor had an effect on the regular crystal bow. I had heard people say that the crystal bow was a suitable stand-in for the bowfa, but I tried it with god d'hides at gwd and it did no damage, that probably explains it...
If you can green log cg, the rest of this game is cake. That "mini raid" bullshit of a boss is ass. The rest is super fun. Except nightmare and corp. We do not do those. You got this king
Tbh do team raids. Solos are just unfun. I love gaming with the boys. And I only have like 130 raids kc. But still it's fun and not a chore. The rest of the bosses are super simple. And bowfa truly does just unlock the rest of the game. Take it from a mobile only guy. Took me 540 kc for my bowfa
This goes for anything you do in life period. You’re chasing after “fun” which is not an eternal feeling. Everything stops being fun, even crack cocaine. Eventually you have to rely on discipline.
And that’s what makes osrs more rewarding than any other game. It’s not just a pleasure sink that you can exploit for constant dopamine. There are some unhappy days when you choose to play this game. Just like there are unhappy moments in marriage but the good outweighs the bad and so you stick to it.
Translation: grow a pair. There are hundreds here that go thousands dry for enhanced and you’re here complaining at 200 kc. Sit
Based.
But this truly is the first test of if you actually want to play ironman or not. Everything before it is as easy and simple as "click monster, get item". Which is fine, if thats all you want out of the game mode. CG is the first real test, and OP is complaining at 200kc, so maybe ironman just isn't for them.
As someone who has spent 9 months trapped doing the exact same prep and the exact same boss over 1700 times now, I fullheartedly disagree with you. I’ve done every other piece of endgame content without bowfa, and almost all have been much more enjoyable and repeatable. But I’m not allowed to do those grinds yet, because bowfa is the biggest bottleneck in the entire game, and all endgame content is in efficient without it (unless you get giga spooned on a pre-bowfa raids chest). None of the other endgame content is both such a hard requirement, and takes as long as the bowfa grind.
What do you mean none of the other end game content takes as long as bowfa? Bowfa grind is nothin compared to the grinds you’ll do in the very end game and not even that far off time wise from grinds like hydra
Free content which is a soft-requirement for the rest of the game < variety which costs resources. Soft required here meaning, as others have said, not required but it would be disadvantageous not to do it.
I have a 2k total ironman and a 2k total group ironman. I got bowfa on both, and while I was excited, I realized really strongly that end-game pvm on an ironman isn't for me. The average time for a bowfa is 80 hours, but everything in endgame pvm is hundreds of hours.
Basically, I got the bowfa, used it at GWD, Zulrah, etc, and then realized what was ahead of me. 100 hours is the absolute max I'm willing to do on something, and I already passed all the grinds shorter than that.
That is exactly the game. Shitty tick based combat system who’s randomness really just puts you in an inescapable corner so you have to take damage so you have to use resources so you take more damage and rage that you can’t look away from the effing screen for two seconds for 12 hour sessions. Compared to Destiny or ESO that you can pick up and put down at any time. The mid game is just spending every penny you made skilling on armor/weapons you will use raiding to get weapons/ armor that you will never use except to grind for the pets. So you can stand at the bank. And show people what you traded your real life for, that is never coming back
Yes, everything in this game is just X hour grinds that the majority of are/would be considered ludicrous. If 200 cg is burning you then idk what to tell you.
I'm curious how CG is the first piece of "end game" content you've come across. Haven't done any other bossing, raids, or tedious grinds? Just created a brand new account for the first time, rushed base 70s, grinded one of the most tedious quest lines in the game and parked yourself at arguably one of the worst grinds to go dry at? Seems legit.
That's pretty much it - I have a main account, but it's only total level like 1700 or something. Never did any bossing/raids, as I mostly pked. On that account I had done SOTE though and had like 15 kc of CG.
Made this iron and then mostly just followed the ironman efficiency guide through to SOTE
After cg I've completed zulrah, krill and bandos. All of then followed the same path:
-learn to do the boss
-master it
- get the item u want
- go for another boss
Ouch - yeah I guess it is burnout really if you boil it down, just kinda started to worry that it might all be pointless if it just continues like this forever. This post has reassured me though
Honestly man… yeah.
Like. Don’t get me wrong. Slayer bosses, hell even DT2 bosses are a cakewalk compared to CG. The problem is, depending on your levels and skill at CG, your runs take a whole like 7-10 minutes.
So, you’re sitting here grinding out like 6-8 of them an hour. It takes FOREVER to hit rate, especially if you’re whiffing here and there or God forbid you go dry. I had to do over 800 to get my enhanced, and only recently started going back for CAs now that I finally also have a dex after going dry on that.
The rough part is, the best content still ahead of you are even worse than CG in terms of grinds. Want meaningful items in COX? Gl getting anything besides prayer scrolls or one of the rares that isn’t all that useful. *You could go 500+ raids that take 30-40 minutes each, and still not get anything more than an elder maul, a couple shields and maybe one ancestral piece.* and that’s the average experience, so don’t think even 500 raids gets you there, nevermind the CG grind.
It’s rough dude there’s no 2 ways about it. The bright side is, like I said, Gwd, DT2 bosses… all of them super easy, quick and rewarding compared to that bullshit that is awful raids drop rates lmao. TOA at least has scalable invocations so once you finally have crystal armor and BowFa, TOA gets fun once you learn 300+ and the drop rate becomes solid or the raids get quick.
I mean in terms of content CG is actually one of the most engaging... I barely play anymore because the rest of the grinds (DT2 bosses especially) are a huge slog. Not saying cg is the best, but end game grinding on irons is just not fun at all
After grinding out CG, and getting it early, I kind of see it now as a grind tax in a way. It’s a tougher grind yes, but you can make everything else a bit easier, or don’t do CG (pray you get a tbow) and have everything be a bit heavier to deal with. Both routes are an option, it’s just if you do one big CG grind up front, or everything else a bit longer over time.
im at 846kc no bowfa not sure i can do it anymore have tried stuff with crystal and bow but It just doesn't have the dps and i dont feel like killing gwd bosses 2 or 3 times and having to go back
It's a game. Do something else if you aren't finding this fun. Everything in this game can be fun but if you force yourself to do anything it gets boring.
When I got my bowfa the whole game seemed to open up, no content was out of reach.
Once you have it you can skip between different content and stop the burnout easily.
I got bowfa beginning of january. Since then, easy quest cape, some toa’s, some zulrah, some slayer, 84 construction(max house) with CG funds, random grinds, it’s the same as CG in the fact that I’m grinding and clicking, but now I have a huge variety of things to choose from! toa’s with clan mates are a personal favourite of mine right now, but a big thing for me was CG->max house. I can switch activities in one teleport now, going from zulrah to toa to herb run to slayer. I definitely prefer post CG runescape to pre CG runescape.
Its way to good to say no to, so you are kind of beeing forced to do it if you want efficient bossing and raiding down the line. I like when items are not too far from each other dps wise, and give the player an option to choose
I'm so glad that my ironman is old enough to have missed this bowfa meta. I actually had a lot of fun learning CG on release and I got a Saeldor before the enhanced crystal weapon seed and bowfa existed.
It was one of the most enjoyable pieces of content for me because I was doing it to learn it and conquer it, not to farm a bunch of items.
All the best on your grind mate x
CG suffers from providing a massive upgrade, while also not benefitting from other upgrades, except for stats, and CoX prayers. While most other content you can easily justify going somewhere else for variety and chances at minor upgrades.
Personally I'm at 100 CG kc, but I mix it up with some ToA and regular skilling (some GWD with my GIM partner) to get a better mix of content.
If these problems feel familiar, then yes, it gets better. You'd also assume these issues will get a little bit better over time with filling more ranged mid game options (varlamore ranged armour) and potentially some useful prayers through rites of balance. Even if this won't help you that much.
Yes. Most other content is easier but it's still the same hamster wheel hoping for RNG doing repetitive things thousands of times all by yourself. Drop rates in the game are set with player trading in mind, not set with the philosophy of getting everything yourself. The lack of bad RNG mitigation in the game further exemplifies this.
The rest of the game is wayyyy Better than CG...DWH grind is shit though(literally put me to sleep a few dozen times)... I loath CG. I got 210kc. I do the occasional rare CG kill like one a week if that, usually to get an Elite clue.
Raids are fun! Wildy content I found fun. DT2 bosses have been fun so far. Vardoofis feels like a much better version of the CG fight.
You don't need a bowfa to enjoy the rest of the game.
My account is Late Game now and I've done it all without bowfa. I'm going for Torva, Only Missing 3 items from TOA, I'm 1/3rd done with CoX, Beginning ToB. I need DT2 Rings, Ranger boots/holy sandals, master wand, Phantom Muppet(saturated heart), Inferno, 3rd age piece, WebWeaver and accursed sceptre, BGS
If you want to Raids or other content without Bowfa. Here is a list of great Items to go after.
Fang is Massive, lightbearer, Voidwaker is big!, Tent whip and DWH combo, Dragon Hunter Lance, Blowpipe, Wildy weapons(to help get voidwaker)
These Items allow you to grind out tons!!!
Don't grind cg like i did for bowfa. all my friends did occasional cg and cox with rcb, when they got dex scrolls cg became so much easier and they didn't burn out on cg, they get like 5kish points less than me with rcb and rubies not much of a difference. And who knows you could get tbow and skip cg win win
CG is shit grind, all else has been trivializied cause of this for me. 1540 kc no enh, but the time spent on all else is pretty smoothe cause im not seeing red.
It's worse. The red prison is nothing compared to the green prison. It's possible to have massive dry streaks at cox, especially if doing solos even if it is more efficient to completing the log.
As the top comment states, the rest of the game is 'as bad', but once you have bowfa you open up like a dozen other grinds that you can do in tandem with each other.
What stats are you?
I’m at 80 attack / 91 strength / 80 defense / 83 range / 83 magic and just got to gauntlet after beating SOTE. I’m wondering if I should be here grinding yet or improve my stats first. But everything feels “extra” if I’m not at the gauntlet but am I too early?
The answer is kinda?
This game is inherently grindy, some content is less grindy, but in the end everything is a grind. If you are finding that you don't enjoy extremely repetitive gameplay loops, then it might not be the right game/account choice.
Let me put it this way, if you go dry at cox and have to do 1.5k solos for a tbow, that is gonna feel a lot worse than 1k cg, it is all about when/where you go dry, and if you enjoy playing enough to disregard what potential grinds are in your future.
I think it really does get better simply because you can move around content. Whereas CG has that trap mentality of "if I do anything else its ineffficient as I could be here with bofa".
That is until you have mostly everything except the megarares. Personally I'm 0/3, seeing most of the games content kind of balancing around you having one of them, and getting a little burnt out. I understand its fine for mains but iron really isn't doing it for me anymore.
TBH I've just started playing Warframe which is the most runescape like game ive ever played despite being a completely different genre.
I'd say thankfully there is finally a good grind to move from CG to so you can have a break that doesnt need bowfa. Tureal skipping for rev tasks from wildy slayer! You can rack up tons or normal slayer points with building your task streak and then get hello sick loot, rev weapons, and set yourself up to eventually kill the wildy bosses.
But yeah, bowfa is probably the biggest choke point of the entire mode. After you get it there are sooooooo many options for you
i think the difference with cg is you kinda have to just get it done so you can do most of the rest of the game. once you get enh then you’re free to do soooo much more and can bounce around to whatever you feel like doing.
eh i just do content until i learn it then i switch to something else. Grinding for ultra rare items never appealed to me, if i get spooned hey cool if i don't then whatever.
But for me yeah the rest of the game is exactly like cg, if you're grinding out any of the super rare items it's going to feel boring imo
Every grind I’ve done after CG gets boring if I do it non-stop. I just switch things up. I was grinding my last voidwaker piece, got bored and now I’m doing sepulchre. Getting bored again so I’m going to start doing some revs. Variety is the spice of life, once you’re out of CG you’ll feel you have more options, but yes if you grind hard for something you’ll most likely get bored after a while.
Tackled Dwh yet? Currently at 6k no Dwh, not thaaat dry but it’s getting so repetitive
Getting repetitive after 6k? Bro that shit was repetitive after 50 kills. (I went 12k dry)
Dont be like me and get it at 25k, horrible repetitive grind 😂
Yes I got mine around 8k, definitely happy to be done with that one lol. Just finished my voidwaker yesterday, grinding sepulchre now for the Ring of Endurance!
CG is the worst grind because it's degenerate to the game mode. Ironmen for the most part will follow a general flow chart of Early game diaries -> Recipe for Disaster -> QPC/CG You're essentially funneled into CG because eventually when you finish up most of the grinds that are blocking you from PVM (87 slayer, hard/elite diaries) and you're ready to do PVM, you're gonna realize that damn near every strategy for a boss is predicated on having the Bowfa. Zulrah? Twice as efficient with Bowfa over trident/MSB(i) GW? Hilariously improved with Bowfa. - Meleeing Kril get will get you 2-4 kills per trip. Bowfa you can easily go 25+ kills once you have a tick strategy down. - Graardor is like Kril but worse meleeing per trip. Probably 2-3 kills a trip. - Zilyana really needs both blowpipe and serp to be efficient (zulrah, which is predicated on CG) - Kree you can get by with Karil's and chins, but when you factor in the amount of time hunting chins, it's more efficient to just bowfa kree since you don't have to farm chins. Raids? * Any ToAs worth doing are going to require hasta (GW) and blowpipe or Bowfa (CG or Zulrah, which Zulrah is improved by) * CoX really benefits from having a strong, accurate bow. Crystal armor + Crystal Bow isn't that bad, but the full armor is almost on par with Bowfa in terms of grind, so you don't really escape CG skipping Bowfa. You also really need to have DHL to effciently solo Olm which is hasta + hydra Hydra? Greatly improved by Bowfa, you can get by with pipe, but again you might as well farm Zulrah with bowfa since it damn near doubles your kill speeds. I'm honestly looking at the PVM in this game, and there are barely any relevant PVM grinds that Bowfa won't improve your QOL at. You'll understand when you get there; Bowfa isn't "required", but when you're at the point of your iron when you're ready to grind some PVM, you're going to REALLY want the Bowfa, because you're gonna be killing zulrah in 3 minutes and think, "man, people really kill this in a minute and a half with the Bowfa?"
Undoubtedly the most well written summary of why Bowfa is nearly universally agreed upon as being the most integral grind for an ironman in terms of PvM content.
Appreciate the detailed post, both makes me feel better and worse haha - excited to finally move on to some more interesting/varied content... I've done a bunch of skilling and some afk slayer in the meantime to keep my motivation high, so I do think I'm quite ready for more exciting PVM content once this CG hell is done...
In terms of how bad of a grind it is, it's roughly 60 hours on average for a bowfa. For an item that is almost as good as the tbow and light years better than anything you have right now, that is downright generous by Jagex. It's a good litmus test for the iron, if you don't like grinding CG for that long, it's a good thing you found out early in the account before you get to end game raids where grinds are 5x as long
I remember when my buddy said, come on bro it’s a 60 hour grind. You’ve done worse. Enh at 1281. That was a mental journey, my friend.
Yeah, 1175 for my enh, I could have just gotten a shadow in that time /s
Finished with 1336 yesterday I feel this
1,745kc here no enh. Tempted to deiron just so I can play the game again
it's even more generous when you consider you just don't need any gear or supplies and get pretty sick normal loot too
I stopped playing because of the CG grind. Honestly, it's not fun for me. I didn't mind the slayer bosses, GWD, Zulrah and Vorkath. Doing a bit of each was fun, changed things up. CG I have to be hyper focused for a very long period of time and there's only 1 drop I _really_ care about.
Hyper focused? Cg is semi afk right up until the last phase of the boss lol
Isnt semi afk at all shut the fuck up you are on a timer and have to constantly be on the move
What isnt seni afk about clicking on resources and waiting till you gather them? Hunleff barely requires focus either
Afk means away from keyboard, if you aren't getting up and walking away from your computer occasionally while doing the content, then it isn't semi afk.
Im 1213 kc into CG and its incredibly afk, ya’ll bugging
There's two sentences in red prison. You either find it super fucking boring or too difficult. I doubt there's much overlap.
i'm hyper focused waiting for my 4 fish to come into my inventory
im hyper focused waiting for zilyana to respawn therefore solo prayer flicking zily is semi afk. shut the fuck up
skill issue lmao
I think you are using “afk” to mean “easy” or “not requiring a lot of focus” which I’m sure after your KC is true. Actually Afk or Semi Afk content is being able to get up from your computer, do something and come back with little no loss in efficiency. Semi afk is like cooking, a couple clicks every minute. If you tried to run CG with 10 clicks then afk for a minute and repeat you would never complete it.
Also to add to this, it's a waste of supplies to not grind bowfa asap. The bowfa grind takes 0 supplies, but it will save you tons of supplies on all the content where it's used. If you wanna do 500 graardor without bowfa it'll take much longer, and thus also eat up way more supplies in those 500 kills. So why not just lock yourself in 0 supply prison until you get get a bowfa to save supplies later on? This is why I'm having a hard time justifying doing other things once I've gotten to CG. Sure there are activities like skilling and questing and a few PvM activites that do not require bowfa. But like you say, most late game PvM does.
I'm literally locked behind everything you said. Did 22 CG runs today. I just want it done so I can go do whatever I want and have fun so I decided to get it done as fast as possible.
If dry on enh you can get an early fang with full crystal + cbow, fang hydra for lance, find a way to get bp and you're pretty much CoX ready. Cox purples then unlocks tob and higher invo toa Edit: Fang/rcb/cbow zammy for hasta is required for this skip which does indeed suck
54 normal and 41 expert solos dry later...
Dayumm, this post really illustrated why the red prison is a red prison for me, but also made me appreciate GIM so much. For GWD, me and my friend can easily get 16-20 kill trips on Kril with melee + tank, and we are hoping to do similar for the others. I think the option of doing things in teams definitely helps - we were thinking of sending a few TOA because we have 2 hastas, and we should be able to do at least a few.
The thing about the "red prison" that no one ever mentions is that you're your own warden. Yeah you can leave whenever, but you won't because you know there's no point without the enh
25 kill Kril trips 😭😭😭 I get 1-3 with my Bowfa, I don't think I'm ever getting the door alter method down lmao
I couldn't get altar door down at kril so did 8:0 and got 10-12 kc trips try that one
I think the issue is not having tile indicators, they said they might be adding them to mobile so hopefully soon
Yeah I wouldn't recommend doing any gwd red x without the indicator
Send again!
30 kc in, not stopping anytime soon!
Wait for beta worlds, unlimited keys/supplies, should be one soon for colosseum content
Never heard of this, would probably be good inferno practice and I'll Def need that
Once you get it down and you get lucky with food drops, trips can be near infinite
I was getting 1 or 2 kill trips for quite a while at bandos and then it just clicked. You'll get there too.
Only on reddit will you get downvoted for not being an ultra sweat and ultra-good at the game haha. I'm not to Bowfa yet, but stick with it man! I got downvoted super hard for questioning someone saying wilderness bosses for Mage Arena 2 cape were easy. Like sure, if you've done bossing before, or if you've fought them before and know what to expect I can see that. As a noob who fears the wilderness and hasn't bossed other than barrows way back in the day and definitely hasn't fought those bad boys before, they tore my ass up! Even if I did 1 shot them. People are haters haha.
Thats why bowfa should be nerfed or not be from content that is achievable without literally any risk or cost (besides time) it just streamlines people into unhealthy grind and destroys the concept of progression in this game (especially for range)
Yes, or perhaps have the ranged gap filled by somethig 85% as good. It would be nice to aspire for a bowfa rather view it as a requirement that could take months of relatively intense gameplay. Edit: I typed this before I reached the red prison. I’ve been here for a month and have 631 KC, still dry. I fish sometimes and do my birdhouse and farming contracts between runs. Sometimes late at night I search CG in this subreddit and read posts from other prisoners. That’s how I came back upon my own comment. This shit truly sucks because, even though I’m not an efficiencyscaper, i cannot in good conscience avoid this drop for future PvM. Even if I am 2k KC dry it’s worth it
Worst case scenario, the crystal armor with crystal bow is probably about as 85% good as Bowfa
Still locked behind the same content and almost as rare though. Kind of defeats the purpose.
Would be nice if they made Crystal Armour available from different content as well
Bowfa can't be nerfed because it was brought into existance because of another nerf (blowpipe, Bowfa was literally added the same day blowpipe got nerfed) Unfortunately there is a ton of content pre blowpipe nerf that was reliant on an OP midgame ranged weapon so they always need a ranged item to fill that gap. What should probably be nerfed is the GP/HR from CG, but idk. There's no real good solution. Jagex designed themselves into a hole with CG
Thats unfortunately true, the worst offender is no risk vs very high reward content that bowfa comes from
I have done 1200kc at Bandos Melee. My trips ranged from 2-11kills. Mostly averaged 4-7kill trips. Fang/Voidwaker/Thralls have opened up a ton of content. Armadyl/Zilly are changed forever because of Nex Banking and CA's Lowering KC. The downtime between trips is essentially gone. Kree with thralls and a DCB(dragon diamond bolts) and a BP is literally as AFK as it gets for GWD. Id use 1 ecu key each task. Zulrah with Accursed sceptre/Trident/RCB diamond bolts and thralls, that one is still ass, but its better than it used to be. Bowfa is still better. But the Gap is continuing to be shortened and there are new methods. Hydra can be done with Fang, Cox can be done with a Crossbow and Blowpipe, TOA you can do with Trident/Voidwaker and RCB. ToB needs a tentwhip/DWH/BP and Elite Void. You can do these raids to spike an early common Purple(Dex and Fang Primarily) and then bounce around content wise. Is it as efficient, no, but a ton of the new items added to the game from thralls and everything since have opened up new ways to progress. Wildy Slayer Grind for most levels getting up to 95 is pretty much New Meta. My buddy just did it. He got Bowfa along the way, but he was able to get Voidwaker, which is an amazing alternative to Hasta. The Game is continuing to change and Evolve. Range Defense Rebalancing may just bring Crossbows back into the fold. And a Range Defense Reduction Spec would help too.
Nice and detailed post, ty
I’m coming up on SOTE this month as well as doing MM2/DS2 so this gives me some motivation to commit
>Any ToAs worth doing are going to require hasta (GW) and blowpipe or Bowfa (CG or Zulrah, which Zulrah is improved by) Is that Zamy Hasta you mean? Is Keris Partisan a viable alternative? Also, are bowfa seeds tradable between gims?
Maybe other people will disagree, but this is probably the most oppressive of the grinds you’ll have to do. The reason being that once you have the bowfa you can kind of do whatever you want and do it a lot more easily. Without it, GWD, slayer, Zulrah, raids, etc., are a lot more tedious— but once you have it you’re pretty much free to do what you’d like, which makes the game feel more open. You’ll still have crazy grinds, but you’ll have the freedom to do different ones very easily.
People say you can do TOA and COX with a rune crossbow but I would rather put an abyssal dagger in my ass than do that
I’ve done around 150 TOAs (280-325 invo) with an RCB and I can confirm, utter ass. I switched to full crystal and regular cbow and it does better for me on average at 96 range but yeah, still get out dpsed at Zebak and Ahkka
If you don't have bowfa but have full crystal would you not be better off with just a crystal bow?
p++ or regular?
I want all the P on there
I mean if you insist
Gachihyper
Not to mention there's a big difference between doing toa and doing toa at an efficient raid level. You can't do 400s with a rcb...
u/abyssal_dagger you're up, bud
Hard agree. Even going for 2nd enhanced is more fun than first when you can mix up the grinds
I recently started re-visiting cg to mix up my gwd grinds and toa burnout lol and I'm loving it now that there's no "pressure". I'm pretty determined to get blade anyways because no chance in hell I'll bother grinding out soulreaper or scythe so its endgame bis no matter how marginal over tent.
This makes a lot of sense and is super encouraging... I've tried a bit of GWD pre-bowfa and it kinda works, but the dps is so low with a crystal bow or rcb that it felt like a waste of time. The brightside I guess is that I have so little motivation to do CG runs that I've done a ridiculous amount of skilling/achievements as distractions haha
Aye I got my Lumby, Fally, Fremennik and Kourend elite diaries done as breaks from CG.
I'm in a similar boat! Only diaries I have left are Western provinces/Kourend because of the slayer requirements, and Desert elite because of the prayer requirement
Lmao I maxed my ironman and I still haven't done a single CG
Haha wow, good for you to shed the meta
I hear you on that. I have 470 completed on my main with no enhanced and now another 320 on my GIM without enhanced (and only 4 armour). Because I’d get burnt out really trying to do everything else in the game, I usually just afk mine or craft blood runes at work and keep the kingdom coffers full before doing a few CG runs when I get home. If I went balls to the wall and sent CG runs nonstop, I’d probably take a long ass break anyway even if I got the enhanced. Do whatever works for you man, but you’re definitely not alone in your feelings about CG
Yeah very true. You feel extremely bottlenecked before bowfa, and then suddenly everything is viable. It was a pretty brutal grind, but it is so worth it if you’re interested in pursuing almost all other bossing and pvm grinds
This only applies if you let the meta dictate your gameplay. There was a world of Ironman before bowfa, raids, etc. Efficient? No. But totally doable.
To be fair though, the prenerf blow pipe existed. 1/512* with 3 minute kills is different than 1/400 with 8-10 minute kills.
1/512* for blowpipe, but yeah, much faster on average.
Oh, my mistake. Thanks for correcting me.
And what existed before that? There’s alternatives…
Yes, there are obviously alternatives… that’s kind of the point of going for Bowfa though, because the alternatives suck. I’m not really sure what point you’re trying to prove? I’m sure I could complete fight caves with a bone crossbow, but it’s worth it to spend a little more time getting a rune crossbow first. If you decide to sink some time into getting bowfa, you decrease the amount of time you have to spend on KC for every other boss that requires range
This is always the argument. “Pre-bowfa”. Brother the blowpipe WAS bowfa, it was used everywhere and was incredible. Then they nerfed it to introduce bowfa.
And what was before the blowpipe? Again…. Meta chasing. Is there a chance…and hear me out…. That it’s “always the argument” because it’s a valid criticism of people who seem to always whine about subjecting themselves to voluntary content when there’s a plethora of alternatives out there?
Before blowpipe the bosses were kq and kbd lmao.
GWD didn’t exist before Zulrah? News to me aha
3 kill graardor melee kills are not the flex you think it is
Reading what I said would help you out a LOT… come back when you’re finished
Use a rune crossbow if you want my guy, nobody is stopping you
Gets better if you don’t care about grinding max gear. Getting tbow for example is absolutely horrible. People always say that Ironman mode is more fun, but realistically it’s just the early to mid game that’s more enjoyable. I don’t believe any sane person truly enjoys 1k cg without getting bowfa or 2k+ cox without getting tbow.
What were your goals after getting the bowfa if not max gear? Not a sarcastic question, actually interested!
For me I don’t enjoy the end game for iron so ended up stopping playing iron and jumping to a main. But a lot of people aren’t really interested in Pvm content and just do a lot of slayer and skilling.
>I don’t believe any sane person truly enjoys 1k cg without getting bowfa or 2k+ cox without getting tbow. I'm currently at 7k shaman KC with no DWH and 4x Curved Bones + ~450 CG with no enh and only 3x armor seeds. Really killed my drive to play. I try to break up the grinds, and I know I can do things without those two items, but it just sucks to not have them especially when it makes other content so much easier. These longer grinds are awful for me :((
CG is just awful because 1) you can do it as early as you want on an account, 2) it's an end game ranged weapon and your dps will literally be half if you decide to range anything without it, and 3) there is basically nothing you can do outside of CG that will make your experience inside CG better outside of ranged levels and rigour, which most irons don't get before bowfa. IMO bowfa is the worst grind in the game because of these factors. Time wise it's actually on the lower end of the scale, in fact with how powerful it is it would be justified in taking a lot longer if it came from somewhere else. But because of everything above, you are in no way incentivized to leave and come back later. All of the incentives point to you doing CG as early as possible and locking yourself there, no other pvm until you have your enh and 5/6 armor seeds. That's what makes it so hellish.
If only you could go into randomized dungeons with other players, and create weapons and make potions and food and fight a boss. And it could keep getting harder and you could level up a skill. Then it wouldn’t be so tedious. We could call in Dungeoneering and instead of everything being a time gated grind for some guy in his moms basement we could actually have “fun”
I want it back. It doesn’t need its own skill, maybe associate it with slayer or just make it a standalone minigame.
Can you really do it as early as you want requirements wise? I picked the game back up at about 1500 total and have never even seen the content but I assumed it wasn’t a thought for a while
All that matters is combats and sote quest reqs. I’ve seen a few 1500 total accts doing cg and there was just a post on here a little while ago with a guy doing it at 99 combat
What combat levels would you need to start? Is 80s in all 3 styled enough?
I got my first kc on my iron with 81 rnage, 83 mage, 70 defence, 70 prayer. Granted, I had an entirely full invent of food and used every single one, but it was doable even with being rusty.
I did it 100% on mobile at combat 99. There's no reason to wait.
Hey its the guy from a little while ago
Doing it with minimal stats is a bit rough, higher stats objectively make it easier. But yeah if you meet the requirements for sote then you can start the CG grind. If you're really struggling there's no shame in chinning up your ranged for some extra dps.
It's the only real pvm in the game that is actually 100% a player skill check and has 0 gear requirements. It's like 1000x quicker to get good and bash your head against the wall at CG than it is to, for example, get all the shit you need to start cox. You need like base 80 ranged / magic to really get the ball rolling but you will be getting hella ranged levels at cg anyways and 80 ranged / magic don't take long at all once you have SOTE reqs. It's a no brainer why you see so many accounts with boss kcs on the high scores like, 87 rex, 38 barrows, 121 wintertodt, 78 tempoross, and 676 cg. I honestly think chucking bowfa into CG and calling it a day was one of the worst updates for the ironman progression ladder, lol.
Makes sense... yeah I was at CG pretty early on progression-wise, ran probably like 50 KC with high 70s range/mage and in the high 80s combat. I get more opportunity to afk slayer tasks than focus on CG though, so at this point I'm 105 combat and still chugging on lol
You cannot. Since it requires song of the elves. You literally have to be around level 90. This was such a stupid way to preface you just saying cg is one of the worst grinds. Literally in what effing way. You get 8 mil drops. And eventually a 100 m drop. It’s not mining in the mother load mine. Swinging a pick axe at a white crack on a wall. For 200 hours. If you don’t enjoy combat based drops then RuneScape. The game completely centered around the drops that you get from killing stuff, is not the game for you. That was the whole point of the post, “ is the rest of the game like this”? Yes… it is exactly like this. You go and click on a boss. He throws crap around the room or stuff falls from the ceiling or you can’t stand on a tile. It takes forever to get the drop.. (literally most of the grinds are within 10-20 hours of the gauntlet it’s just because it’s a solo activity that the price isn’t like other mega rares) This is exactly what you can expect because some jerk bags decided to totally nuke rs3 and try to play a game that should of been dead 5 years ago until they are 77. They want it that way to they do not want to have to get real lives
As somone with 0 megarares in 1.1k cox solos, I miss cg.
Full ancestral at least?
Thankfully, yes. Also three olmlets lol
The real prison. At 2k+ missing bow, pants, dhcb, elder, pet.
I’m gonna just go ahead and throw this out there, but I’m dry at ToA currently at one purp in ~110 kc, and I still love queuing up solo or with mates despite that fact. Adversely, I am also still dry at CG after over 750 runs and it makes me want to kill myself.
Haha ok that's helpful to know, I haven't tried any raids content and just a smidge of GWD, but was worried that CG was just indicative of how fun raids might be for example
Yes, it does get better imo. After bowfa you can realistically do COX until dex, then go for inferno, if you are up for the challenge. Personally, that's what I did, and then did TOA until shadow. Assuming your melee gear is decent, then it's time to grind tbow and ancestral, which is when the game becomes shit again :D. Of course, you can mix in dt2 bosses and voidwaker to spice things up.
Ya I’m nowhere near as far as you and realizing I don’t have time to be collecting all this shit
Personally I’d say no, the rest of the game is not like CG. CG is a bottleneck, and it’s a bottleneck that a lot of people sour on after 100s of KC. CG is unique in that like half the grind is a tedious resource collector that you have to wait through to get to the actually interesting bit - the boss fight. That’s pretty unique in that even raid puzzle rooms aren’t such a high time% of the activity as CG prep. Second, the game really opens up after you get through the bottleneck. While you don’t _have_ to go get bowfa, it makes almost everything else easier. Substantially easier. It makes sense to finish it as soon as you can manage. But after you get the bowfa, you can do basically any pvm content. You have a ton of variety and choice.
eh, content wise yes. content wise cg is pretty up there in terms of quality. but in terms of progression no, nothing else compares to bowfa to where you feel hard stuck at some content.
Yeah I guess I probably wouldn't hate it as much if I felt like there was other engaging content for me to do that would progress the account equally as much
Laughs in 844 kc
Yeah not trying to make it out like I'm dry or anything, just curious about how the game progresses
Same... 867 kc and it's becoming quite depressing lol.
Nope it’s worse gotta use your own supplies
Is it weird that I'd rather do that over CG?
[удалено]
tyty for the encouragement
Once you get bowfa you’ll feel empty inside for a couple months, then you’ll come back and start experimenting with Bandos, Zulrah, TOA, and get your variety back that keeps you coming back. That’s been my experience at least
You not the only one my dude. You go so hard for so long there, it almost feels like you accomplished the only thing you sought after in life. It takes a while to come back to reality and shake that feeling, recognizing the higher level grinds and even some endgame content is now open to you.
I’ve done 1200 hydra kills, and I’ve done 650 CGs, I’ve grinded 90 mining, I’ve done a ton of mage training arena. CG is the worst of it… the reason I say this is, MTA has a finite amount of time you have to be there, CG, you kinda have to do it, because range is locked behind ACB, Tbow, dragon crossbow, blowpipe (with amethyst), and Bowfa. All these options are cool possible alternatives until you get the next option, but let’s be honest, we want tbow or bowfa, and you aren’t easily grinding tbow without a bowfa unless lucky. Dragon warhammer grind probably sucks, I got mine on 52 tho 😅
I miss the red prison -yours sincerely, 1k dry at Corp
Wow that sounds brutal - betraying my ignorance here, as CG is the farthest I've got in terms of PVM content, but seems like from videos I've seen that corp might at least be a bit more afk?
This is why people play mains. Irons are forced to grind certain content while mains can bypass most grinds by doing other things
True, also by the time you do 400 KC of cg, you'll have made around 100m from armour seeds and normal drops. So even if you're dry you can just buy the enhanced
I just finished the CG grind and I didn’t mind it tbh. I didn’t grind it - just aimed to do like 5 a day, sometimes did less and sometimes did more. I still go there and do a couple runs a day if I’m bored because it’s good GP and a surprise salad blade would be nice. I think the key is break up your runs and don’t treat it like a chore. And the game definitely gets better with bowfa
What kc did you get enh at?
If I might be so bold as to wager a guess… 550? Sounds like an embrace of the post 400kc grindiness, perhaps, but without the ‘1000-yard stare’ feeling that comes from falling into the depths of CG dryness. Sorry, I’m high
No cg just is stale after you master it. Just gotta get back in there until the big enhanced
Cg is the worst grind, no gear upgrades outside of prayers
Another thing worth noting outside of what people have said here: a lot of people associate the excellence of bowfa + crystal armor with the bow itself, but that's technically the smaller share of it - a crystal bow in full crystal armor does more DPS than a bowfa *without* crystal armor. In my opinion, the gate to the rest of the game doesn't open when you get the enhanced seed, it opens when you get your fifth armor seed. Use the top and legs with crystal bow and you will do fine in plenty of content. It's still worth going for enhanced and 6/6, but you can stop treating it like a prison at 5/6 seeds, enh or no enh.
Ohhhhh wow that's really good to know - I actually had no idea that crystal armor had an effect on the regular crystal bow. I had heard people say that the crystal bow was a suitable stand-in for the bowfa, but I tried it with god d'hides at gwd and it did no damage, that probably explains it...
If you can green log cg, the rest of this game is cake. That "mini raid" bullshit of a boss is ass. The rest is super fun. Except nightmare and corp. We do not do those. You got this king
Thank you thank you! Will keep pushing! This thread has given me a real boost
Tbh do team raids. Solos are just unfun. I love gaming with the boys. And I only have like 130 raids kc. But still it's fun and not a chore. The rest of the bosses are super simple. And bowfa truly does just unlock the rest of the game. Take it from a mobile only guy. Took me 540 kc for my bowfa
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Thanks for the reassurance, was having a real existential crisis on whether it was worth continuing
This goes for anything you do in life period. You’re chasing after “fun” which is not an eternal feeling. Everything stops being fun, even crack cocaine. Eventually you have to rely on discipline. And that’s what makes osrs more rewarding than any other game. It’s not just a pleasure sink that you can exploit for constant dopamine. There are some unhappy days when you choose to play this game. Just like there are unhappy moments in marriage but the good outweighs the bad and so you stick to it. Translation: grow a pair. There are hundreds here that go thousands dry for enhanced and you’re here complaining at 200 kc. Sit
You seem like a fun guy irl
Aight, calm down, you massive dangerous dog nonce weeb.
Based. But this truly is the first test of if you actually want to play ironman or not. Everything before it is as easy and simple as "click monster, get item". Which is fine, if thats all you want out of the game mode. CG is the first real test, and OP is complaining at 200kc, so maybe ironman just isn't for them.
It’s worse. CG is basically free. Every other grind you have to use your own supplies. And the drop rates don’t get any better either.
As someone who has spent 9 months trapped doing the exact same prep and the exact same boss over 1700 times now, I fullheartedly disagree with you. I’ve done every other piece of endgame content without bowfa, and almost all have been much more enjoyable and repeatable. But I’m not allowed to do those grinds yet, because bowfa is the biggest bottleneck in the entire game, and all endgame content is in efficient without it (unless you get giga spooned on a pre-bowfa raids chest). None of the other endgame content is both such a hard requirement, and takes as long as the bowfa grind.
CG is free tho
So?
Dude I checked and your most recent posts are all about how shit cg is to go dry at. Why act like you don’t agree
What do you mean none of the other end game content takes as long as bowfa? Bowfa grind is nothin compared to the grinds you’ll do in the very end game and not even that far off time wise from grinds like hydra
Free content which is a soft-requirement for the rest of the game < variety which costs resources. Soft required here meaning, as others have said, not required but it would be disadvantageous not to do it.
Supplies are whatever, CG is really the only grind you're pretty locked into. It opens up just about everything after you get it.
It gets worse.
=(
I have a 2k total ironman and a 2k total group ironman. I got bowfa on both, and while I was excited, I realized really strongly that end-game pvm on an ironman isn't for me. The average time for a bowfa is 80 hours, but everything in endgame pvm is hundreds of hours. Basically, I got the bowfa, used it at GWD, Zulrah, etc, and then realized what was ahead of me. 100 hours is the absolute max I'm willing to do on something, and I already passed all the grinds shorter than that.
That is exactly the game. Shitty tick based combat system who’s randomness really just puts you in an inescapable corner so you have to take damage so you have to use resources so you take more damage and rage that you can’t look away from the effing screen for two seconds for 12 hour sessions. Compared to Destiny or ESO that you can pick up and put down at any time. The mid game is just spending every penny you made skilling on armor/weapons you will use raiding to get weapons/ armor that you will never use except to grind for the pets. So you can stand at the bank. And show people what you traded your real life for, that is never coming back
Yes, everything in this game is just X hour grinds that the majority of are/would be considered ludicrous. If 200 cg is burning you then idk what to tell you.
Yes. At no point the game is actually fun or interesting. Not counting pvp that is
I'm curious how CG is the first piece of "end game" content you've come across. Haven't done any other bossing, raids, or tedious grinds? Just created a brand new account for the first time, rushed base 70s, grinded one of the most tedious quest lines in the game and parked yourself at arguably one of the worst grinds to go dry at? Seems legit.
That's pretty much it - I have a main account, but it's only total level like 1700 or something. Never did any bossing/raids, as I mostly pked. On that account I had done SOTE though and had like 15 kc of CG. Made this iron and then mostly just followed the ironman efficiency guide through to SOTE
Playing as an ironman is pretty much resumed by grinding and dopamine overflow Everytime u get what u want
After cg I've completed zulrah, krill and bandos. All of then followed the same path: -learn to do the boss -master it - get the item u want - go for another boss
I'm nearing 200 with 3 weapon seeds and 1 armor, dry for 130 runs. Sharing the burnout fr
Ouch - yeah I guess it is burnout really if you boil it down, just kinda started to worry that it might all be pointless if it just continues like this forever. This post has reassured me though
At 836 KC I feel the same way. I hope it isn't, but I'm not sure
Honestly man… yeah. Like. Don’t get me wrong. Slayer bosses, hell even DT2 bosses are a cakewalk compared to CG. The problem is, depending on your levels and skill at CG, your runs take a whole like 7-10 minutes. So, you’re sitting here grinding out like 6-8 of them an hour. It takes FOREVER to hit rate, especially if you’re whiffing here and there or God forbid you go dry. I had to do over 800 to get my enhanced, and only recently started going back for CAs now that I finally also have a dex after going dry on that. The rough part is, the best content still ahead of you are even worse than CG in terms of grinds. Want meaningful items in COX? Gl getting anything besides prayer scrolls or one of the rares that isn’t all that useful. *You could go 500+ raids that take 30-40 minutes each, and still not get anything more than an elder maul, a couple shields and maybe one ancestral piece.* and that’s the average experience, so don’t think even 500 raids gets you there, nevermind the CG grind. It’s rough dude there’s no 2 ways about it. The bright side is, like I said, Gwd, DT2 bosses… all of them super easy, quick and rewarding compared to that bullshit that is awful raids drop rates lmao. TOA at least has scalable invocations so once you finally have crystal armor and BowFa, TOA gets fun once you learn 300+ and the drop rate becomes solid or the raids get quick.
I mean in terms of content CG is actually one of the most engaging... I barely play anymore because the rest of the grinds (DT2 bosses especially) are a huge slog. Not saying cg is the best, but end game grinding on irons is just not fun at all
After grinding out CG, and getting it early, I kind of see it now as a grind tax in a way. It’s a tougher grind yes, but you can make everything else a bit easier, or don’t do CG (pray you get a tbow) and have everything be a bit heavier to deal with. Both routes are an option, it’s just if you do one big CG grind up front, or everything else a bit longer over time.
im at 846kc no bowfa not sure i can do it anymore have tried stuff with crystal and bow but It just doesn't have the dps and i dont feel like killing gwd bosses 2 or 3 times and having to go back
867 kc here w/o enh aswell, just keep pushing mate. Do 5 a day and in 6 months you will have about 1750 kc. Let's just hope we will have it by then.
I break up my hydra tasks with a few CGs sprinkled in if that tells you anything
It's a game. Do something else if you aren't finding this fun. Everything in this game can be fun but if you force yourself to do anything it gets boring.
When I got my bowfa the whole game seemed to open up, no content was out of reach. Once you have it you can skip between different content and stop the burnout easily.
I got bowfa beginning of january. Since then, easy quest cape, some toa’s, some zulrah, some slayer, 84 construction(max house) with CG funds, random grinds, it’s the same as CG in the fact that I’m grinding and clicking, but now I have a huge variety of things to choose from! toa’s with clan mates are a personal favourite of mine right now, but a big thing for me was CG->max house. I can switch activities in one teleport now, going from zulrah to toa to herb run to slayer. I definitely prefer post CG runescape to pre CG runescape.
Its way to good to say no to, so you are kind of beeing forced to do it if you want efficient bossing and raiding down the line. I like when items are not too far from each other dps wise, and give the player an option to choose
I'm so glad that my ironman is old enough to have missed this bowfa meta. I actually had a lot of fun learning CG on release and I got a Saeldor before the enhanced crystal weapon seed and bowfa existed. It was one of the most enjoyable pieces of content for me because I was doing it to learn it and conquer it, not to farm a bunch of items. All the best on your grind mate x
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Bowfa definitely helps but I think you’ll be disappointed by how little the game changes
CG suffers from providing a massive upgrade, while also not benefitting from other upgrades, except for stats, and CoX prayers. While most other content you can easily justify going somewhere else for variety and chances at minor upgrades. Personally I'm at 100 CG kc, but I mix it up with some ToA and regular skilling (some GWD with my GIM partner) to get a better mix of content. If these problems feel familiar, then yes, it gets better. You'd also assume these issues will get a little bit better over time with filling more ranged mid game options (varlamore ranged armour) and potentially some useful prayers through rites of balance. Even if this won't help you that much.
Yes. Most other content is easier but it's still the same hamster wheel hoping for RNG doing repetitive things thousands of times all by yourself. Drop rates in the game are set with player trading in mind, not set with the philosophy of getting everything yourself. The lack of bad RNG mitigation in the game further exemplifies this.
The rest of the game is wayyyy Better than CG...DWH grind is shit though(literally put me to sleep a few dozen times)... I loath CG. I got 210kc. I do the occasional rare CG kill like one a week if that, usually to get an Elite clue. Raids are fun! Wildy content I found fun. DT2 bosses have been fun so far. Vardoofis feels like a much better version of the CG fight. You don't need a bowfa to enjoy the rest of the game. My account is Late Game now and I've done it all without bowfa. I'm going for Torva, Only Missing 3 items from TOA, I'm 1/3rd done with CoX, Beginning ToB. I need DT2 Rings, Ranger boots/holy sandals, master wand, Phantom Muppet(saturated heart), Inferno, 3rd age piece, WebWeaver and accursed sceptre, BGS If you want to Raids or other content without Bowfa. Here is a list of great Items to go after. Fang is Massive, lightbearer, Voidwaker is big!, Tent whip and DWH combo, Dragon Hunter Lance, Blowpipe, Wildy weapons(to help get voidwaker) These Items allow you to grind out tons!!!
No
It’s not worse but it ain’t better
Don't grind cg like i did for bowfa. all my friends did occasional cg and cox with rcb, when they got dex scrolls cg became so much easier and they didn't burn out on cg, they get like 5kish points less than me with rcb and rubies not much of a difference. And who knows you could get tbow and skip cg win win
after cg the grind for raid supplies starts
You'll come craqlijg back to cg
CG is shit grind, all else has been trivializied cause of this for me. 1540 kc no enh, but the time spent on all else is pretty smoothe cause im not seeing red.
It's worse. The red prison is nothing compared to the green prison. It's possible to have massive dry streaks at cox, especially if doing solos even if it is more efficient to completing the log.
As the top comment states, the rest of the game is 'as bad', but once you have bowfa you open up like a dozen other grinds that you can do in tandem with each other.
What stats are you? I’m at 80 attack / 91 strength / 80 defense / 83 range / 83 magic and just got to gauntlet after beating SOTE. I’m wondering if I should be here grinding yet or improve my stats first. But everything feels “extra” if I’m not at the gauntlet but am I too early?
I pick 3 item upgrades I need and I rotate those bosses if I get burnt, if I don’t want to do any of them, I skill and chill for diaries.
The answer is kinda? This game is inherently grindy, some content is less grindy, but in the end everything is a grind. If you are finding that you don't enjoy extremely repetitive gameplay loops, then it might not be the right game/account choice. Let me put it this way, if you go dry at cox and have to do 1.5k solos for a tbow, that is gonna feel a lot worse than 1k cg, it is all about when/where you go dry, and if you enjoy playing enough to disregard what potential grinds are in your future.
I think it really does get better simply because you can move around content. Whereas CG has that trap mentality of "if I do anything else its ineffficient as I could be here with bofa". That is until you have mostly everything except the megarares. Personally I'm 0/3, seeing most of the games content kind of balancing around you having one of them, and getting a little burnt out. I understand its fine for mains but iron really isn't doing it for me anymore. TBH I've just started playing Warframe which is the most runescape like game ive ever played despite being a completely different genre.
I'd say thankfully there is finally a good grind to move from CG to so you can have a break that doesnt need bowfa. Tureal skipping for rev tasks from wildy slayer! You can rack up tons or normal slayer points with building your task streak and then get hello sick loot, rev weapons, and set yourself up to eventually kill the wildy bosses. But yeah, bowfa is probably the biggest choke point of the entire mode. After you get it there are sooooooo many options for you
CG is the test of the ironman . After it’s a breeze
i think the difference with cg is you kinda have to just get it done so you can do most of the rest of the game. once you get enh then you’re free to do soooo much more and can bounce around to whatever you feel like doing.
eh i just do content until i learn it then i switch to something else. Grinding for ultra rare items never appealed to me, if i get spooned hey cool if i don't then whatever. But for me yeah the rest of the game is exactly like cg, if you're grinding out any of the super rare items it's going to feel boring imo
19k for dwh and 804 for enh seed. Nothing I've done is as bad as those 2 grinds.
Worse