As promised, we're back with a back-to-back blog update to talk Ruinous Powers. If you've not caught the original Ruinous Powers Greenlight blog yet, take a look by clicking here before reading through this blog!
We'll be going in to a good bit of detail about the tweaks and changes we've made, but if you're in a rush - here's a rapid-fire list of what's changing. Make sure to take a look through our more detailed reasoning if anything is unclear.
Summary of Changes
- Adjusted Gambit to be an offensive overhead that grants +8% Accuracy with all styles.
- Clarified a 'wind-up' mechanic on Metabolise, meaning its effects (including its deactivation effect) won't trigger unless it's been active for a few ticks beforehand. Similar to Preserve, which needs to be active for 15 seconds in order to take effect.
- Reduced Rebuke's increased damage taken from 25% to 15%.
- Clarified that Vindication's damage boost only lasts for 6 seconds (or 10 ticks) to prevent people 'pre-potting' its effect.
- Removed Conservation, Ancient Abundance and Ancient Offering.
- Removed Overprotection.
- Adjusted poll questions for overhead protection prayers, and proposed some alternate offerings to Dampen and Absorb prayers.
- Added 'Berserker', which extends the boost duration for Combat stats.
- Added some Ancient Element prayers called Vows. These are passive prayers that allow players to embody the elements of Ice, Blood, Smoke or Shadow.
The above looks like an awful lot, so let's dive in!
This section should cover all the things that we've changed since the original blog, making use of your feedback and survey responses. Some of them are simple, easy-to-explain tweaks. Others are clarifications for common misconceptions or things we worded poorly in the initial blog.
Gambit
Gambit was part of our initial proposal where we'd tried to lean in to the risk-versus-reward element and deliver on some of the low-life mechanics that we've seen some players ask for over the years. However, in tandem with Vindication, many players felt that they'd be spending too much time camping very low HP to extract maximum value out of the book. We also saw many players argue that sacrificing a Protection overhead to make use of Gambit is risky enough as-is, since trying to use it at the wrong time will result in some pretty hefty incoming damage in many places.
We think this is valid feedback, and as such we've decided to alter Gambit's effect. We've ditched the low-life mechanic, instead opting for Gambit to be an offensive overhead that provides +8% accuracy with all styles when used. Simpler to understand, easier to benefit from, hopefully less frustrating to use!
Metabolise
Metabolise is something that a lot of people seemed to like, but our initial blog was worded poorly and also raised some concerns from skillers in particular. To clarify, Metabolise doesn't allow you to wolf down food quicker than on the standard prayer book. Metabolise's function is to allow you to attack more quickly after eating a piece of food. We've included an optional but brief tangent here that might contain some useful information for any budding PvMers out there.
If you'd like to read a little more about food in Old School, click here! Otherwise, keep scrolling!
There are two 'delays' we keep in mind when talking about food in Old School
Action delay is the cooldown after eating a piece of food before you're able to perform an action (for example, attack) again. Eat delay is the cooldown after eating a piece of food before you're able to eat another piece.
Potions like Saradomin Brews or Guthix Rests have an action delay of 0 (meaning you can attack immediately after taking a sip) but an eat delay of 3 (meaning you need to wait 3 ticks before you can take another sip). Karambwans have an action delay of 2 and an eat delay of 3, while most food has an attack delay of 3 and an eat delay of 3.
Combo-eating, such as eating a Shark and then a Karambwan in the same tick will add their action delay together. This means that while you can eat a Shark and Karambwan to heal a large amount of HP in a single tick, you'd have to wait 5 (3 + 2) ticks before being able to attack again.
That's a lot of numbers, and 'delay' doesn't look like a word any more. Ultimately what we're trying to get at is that Metabolise does not impact 'eat delay' and allow you to eat consecutive pieces of food more quickly. All it does is allow you to perform an action (such as attacking) 0.6s (1 tick) faster after eating a piece of food. We thought it best to explain this a little, and adjust the wording in our original blog, since it was worded incorrectly.
With all that said, other concerns were raised around the impacts of Metabolise on skilling. Initially, we wrote that 'When disabled, your action delay would be reset to your weapon's attack speed'. Some knowledgable players pointed out that in this form, equipping a fast weapon like darts and flicking Metabolise off and on would allow players to perform 2-tick tick manipulation techniques in far more locations and would alter the skilling landscape forever. This isn't exactly what we're going for, so we've given Metabolise a wind-up, meaning you'll need to have it active for a little while before its effects come into play, this includes its 'deactivation' effect of resetting your action delay.
Rebuke
25% additional incoming damage when you're already giving up a Protection prayer is a lot. Many of you pointed this out, we agreed, so we've reduced this number to 15% for the time being - this still gives you potential for some Vengeance procs with a little more punch, but slightly reduces the odds of you getting absolutely obliterated. Still high-risk vs. high-reward, but with a little more balance thrown in.
Vindication
We don't have much to add here, but wanted to hopefully alleviate a common concern. We've adjusted the blog to reflect a 'timeout' window on Vindication, where this boosted damage will only apply for 6 seconds (10 ticks) before disappearing. To be clear, if your next hit is damage-boosted by Vindication, we'd give you a clear visual indicator so that it's easy to tell when you (or a potential opponent) can expect to see those extra hits.
Those are all the tweaks we've made so far. If any of the prayers above (or in the wider book, especially Ruinous Smite) make it into the beta, we'll of course be looking to make further tweaks based on any feedback we receive in a beta environment.
Conservation, Ancient Abundance & Ancient Offering
To rip off the band-aid, at this stage it feels like the correct thing to do is shelve these skilling-focused prayers for now. A large amount of community feedback and the survey we shared with you yesterday point to there being support for skilling prayers, but that the Ruinous Powers don't feel like the right home for them at this stage.
It could be the case that these (and others) make up for a standard prayer book expansion down the line, or help form the basis of a set of prayers dedicated solely to skilling. For the time being though, we don't have confidence in what we're offering on the skilling front and many of you feel they'd be better placed elsewhere.
Overprotection
We've decided to remove Overprotection for now. Players raised concerns on several fronts here. Some felt the self-Smite effect would punish less-skilled players too heavily in PvP, others felt that the potential to protect 2 items might empower and embolden raggers, and some argued that the increased max hits offered by the Ruinous Powers shouldn't bring with it the ability to risk less gear for more power.
We're especially interested in your feedback on this one and will be on the lookout for any interesting alternatives that fill a similar space to Protect Item, should any appear!
Ancient Vows
With a few prayers being removed and survey results suggesting you'd like to see a few more 'unique' prayers, we've come up with four new prayers (one for each of the ancient elements) to try and fill in some gaps.
Cruor's, Glacies', Umbra's and Fumus' Vow are new additions to the Ruinous Powers that let you draw strength from blood, ice, shadow or smoke to empower yourself in combat.
To save on clutter for now, the full details for these prayers can be found alongside the others further down in the blog.
Berserker
This one's pretty simple. Berserker is effectively Preserve, if Preserve only worked for Combat stats.
While Berserker is active, your Combat stat boosts last 50% longer. Lovely!
Now for something a little less simple...
Protection Prayers
These were among the most talked-about offerings of our initial proposal. We spoke in a little more detail in yesterday's blog update about our reasoning for offering slightly weaker Protection prayers as part of the Ruinous Powers.
88.4% of respondents to our survey yesterday feel that the Ruinous Powers should offer stronger offensive bonuses, but have weaker Protection prayers compared to the standard prayer book. While that is the case with our current proposal, it's clear that Dampen and Absorb missed the mark for many of you.
With that in mind, we've got some alternative approaches to overhead Protection prayers we'd like to share with you.
Approach one (Withstand): 100% protection from the relevant style (reduced to 40% in PvP scenarios), but your Defence is reduced while active. This is a suggestion we saw crop up a handful of times that allows you the same complete protection you're used to when praying correctly, but leaves you far more vulnerable to attacks off-prayer. It's worth noting that this approach would lead to more consistent damage in scenarios where you're tanking multiple damage types at the same time and leave you more susceptible to chip damage in encounters where you already take damage through Protection prayers, such as Muttadile or the Hunllef, since NPCs are less likely to miss.
Approach two (Deflect): 90% protection from the relevant style (reduced to 36% in PvP scenarios), but you deflect 10% of the correct style's pre-mitigation damage back to the attacker. Wordy, we know... For example, if an NPC is attacking you with melee while you have Deflect Melee on, if the NPC hits a 29, you'll receive 2 damage and deal 2 damage back to the NPC. Deflect prayers proved popular with over 75% of you in our survey from yesterday, and we think there's an argument to be made that they tie into the 'take more damage, do more damage' theming of the Ruinous Powers.
We've adjusted some of the poll questions surrounding these to try and ensure whatever we work on for the beta is something we're confident you'll be happy with!
Prayer Scrolls
We saw a handful of questions from players asking what happens to items like the Dexterous and Arcane Prayer Scrolls if prayers like Annihilate and Vaporise ultimately make it to Old School.
At this stage, this is a detail level above what we're asking about. We understand that concerns some of you have about circumventing prayers like Rigour and Augury, or feeling as though you might have wasted GP on a permanent unlock you're not sure you'll ever really use. We just want to make it clear that we've heard your concerns and will be bringing this topic up in more detail in future, beyond the beta.
In a similar vein, we know that some players are worried about the level of power being offered by this proposal for completing a single quest. While there is undeniably a large amount of power coming from the initial unlock, there will be numerous prayers unlocked via item drops from the post-quest bosses. We don't have specifics yet, since it's a level of detail beyond this blog, but wanted to reassure players that you won't be going from 0-100 as soon as you see the 'Quest Complete!' screen - some of the power available to you will need to be earned with some extra effort.
With all the changes so far out of the way, let's take a look at what the proposal is looking like now.
We saw some feedback that the table in the last blog was a little unwieldy, so we've tried presenting things in a different way. Let us know which of the approaches you think makes the most sense!
All of the sections below are expandable and contain an outline of all of the prayers within a category, as well as any relevant poll questions.
Note: None of these prayers will be entering Old School as a result of only this poll. These poll questions are for us to understand whether or not we should pursue any of these prayers for inclusion in a beta, and would be locked in during a subsequent poll after you've had a chance to participate in the beta
Protection Prayers (Click to expand)
Dampen Melee / Magic / Ranged
- Reduces damage from the appropriate style by 90% (36% in PvP scenarios).
- This value always rounds down, meaning damage between 1 and 9 would roll down to 0, or that an NPC who would deal 49 damage will deal 4 damage if you're using a Dampen prayer against the relevant style.
Absorb Melee / Magic / Ranged
- Reduces damage from the appropriate style by 100% (40% in PvP scenarios), but drains Prayer points by 10% of the mitigated damage.
- This value always rounds down, similar to the examples for Dampen.
Our initial proposal's intention was to use Dampen and Absorb in tandem, giving you options for different content or depending on your inventory setup. Since then, we've seen other suggestions gain traction and would like to propose some alternatives:
Withstand (placeholder?) Melee / Magic / Ranged
- Reduces damage from the appropriate style by 100% (40% in PvP scenarios), but reduces your Defence by 33% while active.
Deflect Melee / Magic / Ranged
- Reduces damage from the appropriate style by 90% (36% in PvP scenarios), but deals 10% of the pre-mitigation damage back to the attacker.
- For example, if you're using Deflect Melee and an NPC hits you with melee that would deal 49 damage, you'll receive 4 damage and deal 4 damage to the NPC.
With these alternate proposals in mind, we've got some new poll questions for you to mull over.
Question 1: Would you like to see the originally proposed Absorb and Dampen prayers, or an alternate approach to Protection Prayers to be determined by Question 2?
I'd prefer the originally proposed Dampen & Absorb Prayers
I'd prefer one of the alternate approaches to overheads
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Question 2: Of the possible alternate approaches to Protection prayers outlined in the updated blog, would you prefer 'Deflect' prayers or 'Withstand' prayers? The highest-voted option will be the proposal we focus on.
I'd prefer the Deflect prayers, which offer slightly reduced (90%) protection but deal damage back to the attacker.
I'd prefer the Withstand prayers, which offer 100% protection but reduce Defence by 33%
Skip
Offensive Prayers (Click to expand)
There's not a huge amount for us to say on these, nothing's changed since last time so enjoy a bunch of numbers and some aesthetic bullet points!
Ancient Precision
- +20% Attack
Ancient Strength
- +20% Strength
Ancient Sight
- +20% Ranged Attack
- +20% Ranged Strength
Ancient Will
- +20% Magic Attack
Trinitas
- +15% Attack
- +15% Strength
- +15% Ranged Attack
- +15% Ranged Strength
- +15% Magic Attack
Decimate
- +20% Attack
- +30% Strength
Anihilate
- +20% Ranged Attack
- +30% Ranged Strength
Vaporise
- +25% Magic Attack
- +4% Magic Damage
It's question time, there's a bunch of these, but the results should help us see if anything in particular feels out of line compared to any of the others!
Question 3: Should we develop the Ancient Precision, Strength, Sight and Will prayers outlined in the blog, for use in an upcoming beta, to be locked in at a later date?
Yes
No
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Question 4: If added, should we combine the Ancient Precision and Ancient Strength prayers into a single prayer?
Yes
No
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Question 5: Should we develop the 'Trinitas' prayer outlined in the blog, for use in an upcoming beta, to be locked in at a later date?
Yes
No
Skip
Question 6: Should we develop the 'Decimate', 'Annihilate' and 'Vaporise' prayers outlined in the blog, for use in an upcoming beta, to be locked in at a later date?
Yes
No
Skip
Overhead Offensive Prayers (Click to expand)
Gambit
- Provides +8% Accuracy in all styles when used.
Whether you're using this for better odds on hitting that juicy Dragon Warhammer Special attack or flicking between this and your protection prayers to maximise your damage output, we're confident players of all skill levels will be able to get value out of Gambit.
8% Accuracy might not look like much to some of you but combined with the other Offensive prayers above, finding any opportunity to throw Gambit into the mix will take your damage potential to new heights - even if it's something you only bring out for the occasional Special attack!
Rebuke
- Increases your damage taken by 15%, reflects 15% of any damage dealt to you.
This is pure risk vs. reward. Sacrifice a protection prayer for a chance at unleashing a devastating Vengeance, or just passively recoil damage in scenarios where you don't feel like you need extra protection.
Vindication
- When reduced below 10% of your maximum HP (without taking lethal damage), heal for 15% of your Prayer level and lose any remaining Prayer points.
- For 6 seconds after Vindication triggers, your next attack will deal 10% bonus damage.
While it's not entirely offensive and could save your life in a pinch, a well-timed Vindication might serve as a means for you to turn your near-death scenario into a swift change of fortune.
Question 7: Should we develop the 'Gambit' prayer outlined in the updated blog, for use in an upcoming beta, to be locked in at a later date?
Yes
No
Skip
Question 8: Should we develop the 'Rebuke' prayer outlined in the updated blog, for use in an upcoming beta, to be locked in at a later date?
Yes
No
Skip
Question 9: Should we develop the 'Vindication' prayer outlined in the updated blog, for use in an upcoming beta, to be locked in at a later date?
Yes
No
Skip
NEW - Ancient Vows (Click to expand)
These are the prayers you won't have seen before in our original proposal, we mentioned them earlier in the blog but didn't give much detail. The Ancient Vows allow you to imbue yourself with one of the ancient elements. You won't be able to activate two vows at the same time, but can have these up alongside any of the other Ruinous Powers.
It's worth pointing out that the numbers in here are perhaps a little conservative - we're more interested to see how you feel about the concepts at first, and can tweak numbers in line with feedback if any of these make their way to the beta.
Cruor's Vow
- While active, you have a 10% chance to heal 10% of damage dealt with any Combat style.
All this combat is thirsty work, consider keeping yourself topped up with a sanguine treat!
Glacies' Vow
- While active, you have a 20% chance to deal bonus Magic damage.
- This bonus damage rolls off of your equipped style against your target's Magic defence.
- The damage dealt is 10% of your initial hit.
Chill your target to the bone and shatter them with some recurrent damage.
Umbra's Vow
- While active, drain your opponent's Defence by 10% of your damage dealt.
- Umbra's Vow respect the same limit as Shadow spells, meaning Defence cannot be lowered by more than 15% of its initial value.
- This reduction would apply before other Defence reduction effects, meaning there's still value in using this alongside something like the Dragon Warhammer.
It's difficult to spend every waking moment with your guard up. Slip into the shadows and get the better of any terribly tanky opponent.
Defence reduction is extremely valuable in Old School these days. While the Accursed Sceptre introduced a means of lowering Defence from afar (a role previously only filled by the Bone crossbow), many players often feel like it's not worth the Special attack energy required. If you're able to pump the damage out, here's a reliable way of knocking those Defence values down (albeit with limited effectiveness compared to staples like the Dragon Warhammer or Bandos Godsword).
Fumus' Vow
- While active, attacks consume 10% of your poison severity, to deal the same amount as bonus poison damage to an enemy.
This one's a little confusing and perhaps best-illustrated by an example plus a look at how poison actually works in Old School. We'll use the Alchemical Hydra's poison pool for our example.
When you're inflicted with poison, while it might look like a number that just says 'you're about to take this much damage', there's a little more going on under the hood.
The Alchemical Hydra's poison pool will inflict you with a poison severity of 30.
Every time poison damage ticks, the damage you take is equal to (poison severity + 4) all divided by 5. You take some damage, your poison severity decreases by 1, rinse and repeat.
In this example, the poison that these pools inflict you with will deal 6 damage. Since 30 + 4 is 34, divided by 5 gives 6.8, which we round down to 6.
With Fumus' Vow activated, your next attack after being inflicted with this poison will deal 3 additional damage, and reduce your poison severity to 27.
Ultimately what we're driving at is perhaps being poisoned isn't all bad, and with Fumus' Vow you could remove some of that poison more quickly while converting it into some additional damage output. Perhaps this one's a bit more unusual than the other vows, let us know!
Question 10: Should we develop the 'Cruor's Vow' prayer outlined in the updated blog, for use in an upcoming beta, to be locked in at a later date?
Yes
No
Skip
Question 11: Should we develop the 'Glacies' Vow' prayer outlined in the updated blog, for use in an upcoming beta, to be locked in at a later date?
Yes
No
Skip
Question 12: Should we develop the 'Umbra's Vow' prayer outlined in the updated blog, for use in an upcoming beta, to be locked in at a later date?
Yes
No
Skip
Question 13: Should we develop the 'Fumus' Vow' prayer outlined in the updated blog, for use in an upcoming beta, to be locked in at a later date?
Yes
No
Skip
Utility Prayers (Click to expand)
Ruinous Grace
- While active, drain Prayer points instead of Run Energy.
- This drain rate is modified by Prayer bonus, and does not take into account effects like Stamina.
Ruinous Smite
- While active, reduce both yours and your opponent's Prayer points by 33% of your damage dealt.
It's likely that this one could use some tuning and tweaking too - we'll be keeping a close eye on any feedback relating to Ruinous Smite, especially if it makes its way into a beta.
Wrath
- While active, deal damage equal to 25% of your Prayer level in a 5x5 radius around you on death.
Rejuvenation
- While active, regenerate 1 HP every ~20 seconds.
Metabolise
- Reduces action delay (not eat delay) by 0.6s after eating
- Similar to Preserve, must be active for some length of time (e.g. 15 seconds) before taking effect
- After this 'wind-up' time, deactivating Metabolise will reset your action delay to your weapon's attack speed or left unchanged - whichever of these values is greater
Eat food, get back to fighting more quickly. Simple enough! We spoke about this one further up in the blog but just to reiterate again, Metabolise being active does not mean you'll be able to eat multiple pieces of food more quickly than before.
Berserker
- While active, Combat stat boosts last 50% longer
Question 14: Should we develop the 'Ruinous Grace' prayer outlined in the updated blog, for use in an upcoming beta, to be locked in at a later date?
Yes
No
Skip
Question 15: Should we develop the 'Ruinous Smite' prayer outlined in the updated blog, for use in an upcoming beta, to be locked in at a later date?
Yes
No
Skip
Question 16: Should we develop the 'Wrath' prayer outlined in the updated blog, for use in an upcoming beta, to be locked in at a later date?
Yes
No
Skip
Question 17: Should we develop the 'Rejuvenation' prayer outlined in the updated blog, for use in an upcoming beta, to be locked in at a later date?
Yes
No
Skip
Question 18: Should we develop the 'Metabolise' prayer outlined in the updated blog, for use in an upcoming beta, to be locked in at a later date?
Yes
No
Skip
Question 19: Should we develop the 'Berserker' prayer outlined in the updated blog, for use in an upcoming beta, to be locked in at a later date?
Yes
No
Skip
That's a wrap on everything that's changed since our first blog on the Ruinous Powers. Please make sure to get out and vote in the greenlight poll - your responses will give us a really clear idea of what's good, what's not, and what could be good with some tweaking. It also means that if it's clear there are several unpopular additions, we know exactly what to substitute out and replace with something different before the beta rolls around.
So get voting, and we'll be back to talk Ruinous Powers again soon as the greenlight poll wraps up!
You can also discuss this update on our official forums, on the 2007Scape subreddit, the Steam forums, or the community-led OSRS Discord in the #gameupdate channel. For more info on the above content, check out the official Old School Wiki.
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