Firemaking Week & PvM Revitalisation

Greetings! We're all fired up this week, because the long-awaited Firemaking update is finally here! We've also got the usual selection of changes and fixes, as well as a brand new slayer resource dungeon. Full steam ahead!

Incense Burners

We've been aware for some time that Firemaking just isn't as exciting as the other skills, and a large part of the problem is that training it doesn't feel worthwhile. That's why the biggest part of the new Firemaking update is the addition of incense burners.

Incense burners must be filled with incense sticks. When these sticks are lit, they release a variety of beneficial effects for 10 minutes. This effect can be extended up to 60 minutes by lighting more.

Each type of incense has a different buff which increases in potency every 10 minutes from level 1 to 4. Overloading the incense burner consumes 6 sticks but instantly provides the maximum potency.

To begin with you can only light one type of incense at a time. This limit is expanded to two types at Lv71 Firemaking and three types at lv95. If you light a second type of incense when you are below the required level to do so, the original burner effect will be overwritten by the new one.

So, how do you craft an incense stick? Just follow these three easy steps. First, you'll need to whittle down some logs into sticks. Then, you'll need to add either impious, accursed, or infernal ashes. Finally, add the required herbs. Hey presto! Now you're ready to try out incense burning.

Here are the new incense sticks and their effects:

• Guam: 10% chance per potency to gain additional logs from normal trees.
  
• Tarromin: 25% chance per potency to generate ashes in your bank when lighting a new fire.
  
• Marrentill: 12.5% poison damage reduction per potency.
  
• Harralander: 25% increase to run energy restore rate per potency.
  
• Ranarr: +1 Prayer bonus per potency.
  
• Toadflax: +12.5% chance per potency to avoid failing an Agility obstacle.
  
• Spirit weed: +10% summoning spell points recovery (natural and by potions etc) per potency.
  
• Irit: 25% poison damage reduction per potency. Is multiplicative, rather than additive, with marrentill, so they'll stack but 50% from marrentill and 50% from irit won't offer 100% reduction.
  
• Wergali: 0.5% chance per potency to produce a strung bow when fletching logs into unstrung bows.
  
• Avantoe: 5% per potency to automatically bait Hunter traps.
  
• Kwuarm: +2.5% weapon poison damage per potency.
  
• Bloodweed: 2.5% chance per potency to get double logs when cutting bloodwood trees.
  
• Snapdragon: +50% stat restore rate per potency.
  
• Cadantine: 2.5% per potency to not exhaust a resource (trees).
  
• Lantadyme: +30 seconds on potion timers per potency.
  
• Dwarf weed: 2% per potency to bank dropped or gathered items.
  
• Torstol: +0.5% base XP gain per potency.
  
• Fellstalk: +1% spawn chance to elite NPCs per potency.

Fire Spirits Improvements

Incense Burners aren't the only change we're making to Firemaking. We're also making some QoL changes to fire spirits.

• An audio queue will now play when a fire spirit spawns.
  
• Fire spirits will now display a timer counting down to when they will despawn.
  
• Upon catching a fire spirit, they will be placed in your inventory.
  
• When caught, the next few logs cut will give extra firemaking XP. Divine fire spirits will provide both firemaking and divination XP.
  
• Fire spirits will now specify which log they are from. Higher tier logs give better rewards.
  
• Clue Scrolls have been added to the loot table.

New Slayer Resource Dungeon

We always knew the Slayer Tower was a bit rickety, but we never expected to find a fully stocked resource dungeon in the foundations! The new resource dungeon requires 100 dungeoneering to enter and features 4 chambers full of abyssal demons and dark beasts. To keep things fair, you'll only be able to use cannons on the dark beasts. Not in the mood to walk all the way to Morytania? No worries - the Dungeoneering Achievement Cape, abyssal demon masks and dark beast masks all include a teleport to the new dungeon.

Nex: Angel of Death Changes and Fixes

We thought it was about time to give our favourite Zarosian general some love, so this update is bringing some much needed updates to the Nex: AoD boss fight.

• Kill timers will now be wiped on login.
  
• Kill timers will only be tracked with 7 people or fewer.
  
• When each of the mage minions die, they will now shout and a message will appear in chat to show the order they died in.
  
• Nex is now attackable while she is phasing, which allows players to build adrenaline and keep seamless combat. Damage is reduced by 99% during phasing.
  
• The health of the icicle slam icicle has been reduced to 20k, down from 100k.
  
• Icicle bleed is now applied after 6 seconds of being under the icicle.
  
• Players will be placed in the room instead of on the ledge when entering the instance. If the fight has already started players will still be placed on the ledge to spectate.
  
• A 'leave' option has been added to the flowing energy.
  
• Nex can spawn multiple shadow orbs in the same location, which means they can stack and will do more damage per tick the longer you wait there.
  
• The ice closing in around the edges of the arena in phase 1 has been removed. It was causing major FPS drops when spawning in. The fog has also been reduced.
  
• The banners that the mages use will now also be unlocked when unlocking the outfit. A login check has been added to give players the banner if they already have the outfit.
  
• A quick exit option has been added to the pillar at the end of the fight.
  
• Movement abilities will be taken off cooldown when the icicle is killed or removed, allowing players to get back into the fight.
  
• All players can now roll on a unique instead of 1 unique per kill.
  
• Nex will no longer cleave with her Melee hit.
  
• If Nex attacks with magic, she will hit the main tank after 3 cycles, allowing them time to react and switch prayer.
  
• Nex should no longer reaggro after any of her attacks or phasing.
  
• If a player dies, Nex will no longer reaggro onto another player (unless it is the tank that died.)
  
• Players are no longer punished for killing Nex with less than 7 players in regards to drop rate. Drop rate PP will be 142 x player count in the room.
  
• The off tank drop roll has been removed and replaced with a DPS roll.

Other PvM Fixes

• Legendary pets' scavenge ability now chooses the most expensive item from a pile of loot instead of a random one.
  
• Dungeoneering boss Stomp is now instakilled when placing the final set of crystals, instead of waiting for the current phase to end.
  
• The Ricochet ranged ability now targets secondary opponents at range 6, up from 4.
  
• 6th age circuit now teleports to Tormented Demons.
  
• Remora's necklace teleport is now unlimited.
  
• Groups may now enter Liberation of Mazcab in practice mode for initial NPC horde, Beastmaster Durzag, Yakamaru or Yakamaru mirage phase.

Patch Notes

• Hot air balloons now use a charge system to travel. Higher tier logs count for more charges and up to 4000 charges can be stored by giving logs to the balloon assistants. Now that you've got more fuel in there, balloon travel no longer has an inventory weight limit.
  
• There is a new camera mode - "Freedom", which allows for more extreme camera angles and zoom levels.

As always, if you're interested in lifting the curtain and finding out more about this week's update, you can see the documentation for the latest update here.

Bafta Game Awards

Pokemon Go is, like, a cultural phenomenon. Fortnite is, like, another cultural phenomenon. Roblox? The kids love it. Clash Royale? Mobile royalty. Brawl Stars? We can't stop playing! So as much as we like to indulge our friendly rivalry with Old School RuneScape, we shall momentarily doff our hats to our retrograde colleagues in recognition of Old School RuneScape Mobile being nominated to compete against the above titles in the EE Mobile Game of The Year gong at the 2019 BAFTA Game Awards.

It's the only award decided by public vote and if you like, you can chuck OSRS Mobile a nomination, via this link. Voting closes on March 29th and is limited to UK residents. If nothing else we think it would be amusing for an 18-year-old game to win an award against such incredible - and modern - competition.

Winter Sweepstake Winner

Remember our Winter Sweepstake that gave you a chance to win a Chillblast Gaming PC & 6 months of RuneScape membership. Well, time's up and the lucky Scaper is...

Ranger Hewki - Congratulations! We'll contact you shortly through your in-game inbox as well as the email address you used to enter the competition. You'll get seven days to claim your prize by replying to either of these messages. If it's not claimed within this time, another winner will be chosen.

We'd like to thank each and everyone of you who participated in this giveaway. If your name isn't up there don't fret, we've got lots of other surprises on the way this year. And in the meantime, don't forget that each week, we offer 3 Bonds to one of you who participates in our #FreeStuffFriday competition on Twitter. So, since we guess you wouldn't say no to some sweet Bonds, be sure to give us a follow on @RuneScape.

LootScape

Our live streams are always a great opportunity to grab some awesome in-game prizes. Each and every stream watched will give you a guaranteed random drop from one of the following: Prismatic small fallen star, Prismatic medium fallen star, Prismatic small lamp, Prismatic medium lamp, Spirit Ruby, Spirit Diamond, Advanced Pulse Core, Spring, Silverhawk down, Medium DG Token Box, Small DG Token Box, Uncut Dragonstone, Large Cash Bag, Medium Cash Bag or Small Cash Bag.

Postie Pete has returned to Burthorpe! To celebrate the hard work of our favourite bony parcelmeister, each LootScape in March will award you an extra parcel (uncommon or better). This will be the last week Postie Pete will grant you that extra parcel. After that, our LootScape will update with another round of amazing rewards, and oh boy we've got a great one (or several...) for you!

Exciting isn't it?! So don't wait up - connect your RS account to your Twitch account and find out more here. Once that's done, have fun and watch our streams during the day for a guaranteed drop.

Live streams this week

Each week, we host developer Q&As, exclusive in-game first looks and more. And it's all live on our Twitch channel, join us! Missed a stream? Don't worry, we keep them all on our YouTube channel. Be sure to Subscribe to be the first to know.

Tuesday, March 26th - 17:00 UTC (Game Time) - Big Questions Q&A

You've got questions? We have answers! You've been requesting more opportunities to exchange with us on current projects, or address all kinds of questions that could arise during your adventures in Gielinor. Well, now's the time: join us for a full hour of Q&A on the sofas! We will also be calling for questions on Facebook, Twitter and Discord, keep an eye out.

LootScape will be enabled (see all details above).

Sunday, March 31st - 18:00 UTC (Game Time) - PvM with Mod Lee: Helwyr Boss Mass

Our resident PvM expert Mod Lee knows no fear and he's ready to take you all on another round of boss mass this Sunday. From Vorago to the Kalphite King, the Corporeal Beast, the Angel of Death, if you've got a set to complete, an achievement to unlock, or simply want to hang out with friends and slay some, this is the place and time!

LootScape will be enabled (see all details above).

Pink skirts Events

Of course, adventures continue in Gielinor even when we're too busy (PKing) creating the adventures of tomorrow. Our PMods are here to welcome you in a range of PvM Boss Masses, Events and Q&As each week. Check out all the community events organised by the Pink Skirts on their official schedule here

The RuneScape Team