Advanced Dungeoneering Guide

Introduction

The immensely overwhelming process of going through dungeon after dungeon is often a mental roadblock to players. The amount of time wasted in casual dungeoneering can be frustrating, and so it is important to find a way to efficiently navigate and complete floors as fast as possible. Advanced Dungeoneering is a conventional method among high-levels that is recommended for those who are more experienced with the odds and ends of Daemonheim. If you have not yet started training the skill, you should familiarize yourself with the information in our general Dungeoneering guide, and navigate some floors of your own before proceeding.

Preparing to Raid a Dungeon

Equipment Binds

Your character will be able to start out with certain items of your own choosing at the beginning of every floor. There are several important items that you should be aware of that are considered conventional to bind. Below is a table of suggested items, however you can always use the combination you prefer.


Item Picture Description
Primal 2h Sword Primal Battleaxe Promethium 2h Sword The First Bind: Primary Weapon - In order to be helpful in a dungeon you need to be able to kill monsters. Melee is the style of choice with the most damage per second (DPS), with the two-handed sword considered the most effective in combination with the Berserker class ring. The general convention for the order of best weaponry is: Primal Two-Handed Sword > Primal Battleaxe = Promethium Two-Handed Sword > Your highest available Two-Handed Sword. The spear covers all of the attack styles but cannot be used in conjunction with class rings, and is therefore not recommended. If your character is a strength pure you may want to consider using a maul.
Shadow Silk Hood The Second Bind: Shadow Silk Hood - Some teams will require this item. The Shadow silk hood cloaks you from a variety of monsters within Daemonheim, with some exceptions. Having this item will speed up rooms incredibly and reduce the amount of food you need to survive. If you cannot obtain one, bind a platebody or other defensive item until you do.
Celestial Catalytic Staff Primal Rapier Hexhunter Bow The Third Bind: Offensive/Defensive Item - The third bind has a little more room for variation. You may want to use a unique slayer item, such as the Hexhunter bow or Blood necklace. Some players think that an alternate offensive weapon is helpful for a team in order to cover a wider range of combat and attack styles, allowing for faster room clearing. However, you may want to bind a defensive item to better protect yourself. Use your own judgment.
Blood Necklace Primal Platebody The Fourth Bind: Offensive/Defensive Item - The options increase with the final fourth bind. Choose your bind based on your most common role on the team. For instance, if you are primarily a keyer, bind something defensive.
Sagittarian Arrows (p++) Celestial Surgebox -dungeoneering- The Ammunition Bind: Runes or Arrows - If you use a bow primarily, you will want to bind the best arrows possible. However it is much more common to bind law runes (especially for speeding up Complexity 1 floor rushing) or combat spell runes within a Celestial Surgebox. Having runes bound saves some time in the beginning of the dungeon when players craft their initial runes. After completion of the Salt in the Wound quest, players can bind up to 225 arrows or spell casts.
Using Class Rings

Class rings are an extremely important dynamic that affect your efficiency as a team member. Spending tokens on ring upgrades may seem expensive at first, but in the long run it is entirely worth it. If you feel you want your tokens back, you may reset your ring for a full refund of tokens one time only. Follow the following priority guidelines for the class upgrades:

The berserker ring should be your primary class ring. In an effort to maximize your DPS, you should upgrade this ring whenever you have the chance. Remember to use the aggressive attack option at all times. Your ring has a quick-switch option, and you should have one of the following rings set as your "secondary" ring based on your bind setup.

  • Blitzer/Blazer: both of these mage class rings are helpful in improving your DPS with magic. Use this ring if you have bound a Celestial Surgebox.
  • Desperado: this ring is essential when using the Hexhunter bow. It is also helpful to have upgraded when facing the Necrolord boss.
  • Gatherer: if you have another ammunition bind, such as law runes, have this ring as your secondary so that you can best contribute to your team's resource gathering.
Floor Selection

To maximize your experience rates, you will want to do certain floors at low complexity and others at higher complexity. While the exact distribution depends on your level, in general, most people like to use Complexity 1 or 2, Small size, set to 5:1 for around floors 1-29 (up to the Abandoned 2 theme) for short quick floors just to check them off the list. After that, they will do Floors 30+ on Complexity 6, Large size, set to 5:5 for large experience rewards. The idea is to get the most experience in the least amount of time for each reset.

Sometimes players will want a certain boss monster (for example, when hunting for a boss-only drop), or want to avoid one. Keep in mind the fact that bosses will tend to appear most on the floors at which they are unlocked and those following.

Choosing Your Party

Sometimes you should not choose the first player who asks to join your party. It is highly advantageous to have people with high total levels to open bonus skill doors, as well as high combat for efficiently taking out guardians and bosses within Daemonheim. Find a clan or group of regular friends to dungeoneer with, as you will better know these individuals and their respective abilities. Finding a party of random players in bustling worlds can lead to later nightmares, such as people quitting halfway through the dungeon or standing idle in the Smuggler’s room most of the time.

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Starting the Dungeon

Designating Roles
There are three conventional roles for parties in Dungeoneering. It is helpful to have these chosen beforehand, but roles are often decided once the dungeon starts.

  • The Keyer: this is the most challenging and important role. The Keyer leads the party throughout the dungeon, collecting keys and calling out locations of Guardian Doors. The Keyer should be experienced and knowledgeable. This role will be explained in depth later.
  • The Non-Keyers: the purpose of Non-Keyers is to make the Keyer’s job as easy as possible. These players will respond as soon as possible when the Keyer calls them, and help clear Guardian Door rooms so the Keyer can move through the rest of the dungeon. This role will be explained in depth later.
  • The Skiller: usually Non-Keyers will also act as skillers and resource-gatherers, but sometimes low combat skillers are present among teams. These players usually do not participate in heavy fighting; instead, they gather resources and create armor/weapons/potions for other teammates to use.

First Steps Inside
As soon as everyone appears at home base, there is usually a race to grab as many allocated items as possible on the tables. This is not helpful or efficient. Unless the Keyer has sufficient armor bound, any defensive items should be given to him or her. Food should be split evenly among team members. All players should have a toolbox in case they are needed to complete or check levels for skill doors and rooms. Because the allocated cash is not enough to purchase toolboxes for everyone, any unused items such as Katagon Arrows should be sold to the Smuggler. The Keyer should have the Group Gatestone. Individual inventories should be geared towards their purposes. Below are sample inventories of both roles.

Adgkeyerinvent Adgnoninvent
Keyer: Group Gatestone, Gatestone, Law Runes, Cosmic Runes, Astral Runes (optional, for cure), food, Toolbox equipment Non-Keyer: Gatestone, Law Runes, Cosmic Runes, Astral Runes (optional, for cure), food, Toolbox equipment, miscellaneous items (collecting for your team)
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The Keyer

As a Keyer, all teammates will be looking to you to guide them throughout the dungeon. To be optimally efficient, try opening a dungeon planner, such as Tip.it’s Dungeoneering Map Planner, or recording on a notepad the doors you run into. The most amount of time in Dungeoneering is wasted when the Keyer loses track of what doors are where, and therefore runs around searching the whole dungeon for doors that may or may not exist. Your main tools are the Group Gatestone and your personal gatestone. These time savers will allow your team to easily navigate the dungeon and direct your team to quick victory. Thekeyer
Here are some guidelines for keying:

  • Pick up every key you see.
  • You should be set as the party leader to allow you to mark targets.
  • If a room has a Guardian Door, drop the Group Gatestone in a safe place nearby and ask all teammates to teleport there to clear the room.
  • If a room has a skill door or puzzle that you cannot complete, ask a teammate with appropriate levels to teleport to you.
  • Use personal gatestones as much as possible. If you find a door that you cannot unlock, far away from the rest of the team, drop a gatestone by the door and continue exploring.
  • To avoid angry teammates, try to have the Group Gatestone location be as safe as possible. Call out any necessary prayers that might be needed when asking people to teleport to it.
  • Ask teammates to place their own gatestones at locations if you have already placed your own somewhere else. Remember, you can have up to five gated locations, which can speed up a dungeon immensely.

The common process for keying is relatively simple. However it involves complete concentration throughout the entire dungeon raid. As you approach a room, scan it for its doors and guardians, and determine whether you should enter the room. Unless there are very few monsters, it is generally best to wait for your team to help with Guardian Doors. If there are no guardian doors, but you have a way to unlock one of the doors, go in and rush through, ignoring monsters. Proceed to the next room and repeat this process until you are done. If you encounter a room with doors for which you have no keys, place a gatestone at the location and move on.

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The Non-Keyers

While your role as a Non-Keyer is much less taxing on memory and focus, you are still important to the progress throughout the dungeon. Your most important job is clearing Guardian Door rooms as quickly as possible, and gatestoning locations at the request of the Keyer.
Guardianadg
Here are some guidelines:

  • Respond as quickly as possible to calls from the Keyer. The faster you help, the faster the dungeon can continue.
  • Only clear the rooms that must be cleared. Do not waste time clearing dead ends unless you are in desperate need of food drops.
  • Gather resources whenever you are not needed. Resources are essential for preparing weapons, armor, and potions for the inevitable boss fight.
  • Since teams often spread out, the Keyer is sometimes unaware of uncovered rooms and the doors within. Call out all doors you see and their location. The Keyer should acknowledge you and make decisions on team action.
  • Unless the Keyer is far away and there is a key on the ground for a door in the same room, you should not touch keys. Call out the key and its location and wait for further instructions. Having random members with random keys defeats the purpose of a Keyer and leads to wasted time and confusion.
  • Non-Keyers are the main fighters on the team. While the Keyer is the leader, a leader without soldiers is useless. You must be alert and quick to respond to get through the dungeon. Use your own judgment as to what tasks take priority over others.
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Using the Gatestones

The team can use a maximum of six gatestones while dungeoneering: the group gatestone, and five personal gatestones. Using as many gatestones as possible eliminates a large amount of commonly wasted time running to different ends of floors to open doors or gather important resources. In general, the group gatestone should be used by the Keyer to summon the rest of the team for room clearing. However, it is also used to take the team to personal gatestone locations.

Gating

For instance, in the floor map above, if the green player is a non-Keyer and does not have a key to open the bonus room to the south-east, he or she should leave a personal gatestone there, for later use when the Keyer finds the correct key. When the key is found, the green player should group gatestone teleport, take the group gatestone, and then teleport to his personal gatestone. Now the entire team can move across the dungeon to the "gated" location.

Clearing Rooms

As you enter a room, survey the guardians within and be aware of their attack styles. If the room must be cleared, begin doing so as quickly as possible. Activate the appropriate prayer to protect your weaknesses. If you approach a Guardian Room alone, alert your team and begin clearing. If it is too difficult to clear on your own, gate the location and bring the rest of the team there. Other teammates should try to help as much as possible with Guardian Rooms. It is not helpful to lag behind and allow others to be piled and killed, and this frequently leads to individuals quitting halfway.
It is important to prioritize which monsters to kill first so that you save as many prayer points and food as possible. If there are multiple combat styles present, use prayer to protect against one, and attack the foe using the style you are not protecting against. It is better to have your team pile single monsters so as to eliminate combat styles from the room as quickly as possible. Several monsters in Daemonheim are significantly more powerful than their combat levels would suggest. Here are some common monsters you should look out for:

  • Dragons: while antifire shields are available, people rarely wield them unless using the Tank class ring. Therefore any room with a dragon automatically has another devastating attack type added to it that cannot be protected against. Using Protect from Magic is highly recommended.
  • Mysterious Shades: these foes use both penetrating magic and ranged attacks, and the higher-leveled shades can hit in the 300s. They also can see players wearing Shadow silk hoods, so they should be a top priority in kill order.
  • Necromancers/Reborn Mages: not only can they reveal hooded players, but they can summon several highly powerful creatures to aid them, bringing yet another combat style into the room. Kill them as fast as possible, and the minions will eventually die away, some slower than others. Reborn monsters can teleport to you even if you go into another room!
  • Mages: most teams use hood protection, and forgotten mages or similar monsters can lift the cloaking spell. Eliminate these as soon as possible so your team is not exposed for too long to the rest of the dungeon.
  • Other "Non-Hood safe" Monsters: Eliminate any other monsters that are able to see through the shadow silk hood cloaking spell.
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Important Resources

As you walk around the many rooms of your dungeon, you may pass potentially useful trees or ore deposits that, while seeming unhelpful at that point, might actually be essential towards the end. To save inventory space, it is highly recommended that you deposit resources in the Smuggler’s Room in an organized way as shown below, allowing for easy boss preparation later. However, do not spend time resource gathering instead of clearing Guardian Rooms. Guardian Rooms are always more urgent.

Resourcesadg
If your boss, for instance, turned out to be Necrolord (cannot use melee), you would be better prepared to create ranging equipment if resources were gathered beforehand. Time is sometimes wasted looking for resources after the dungeon has been explored completely, but before the boss, and so it is more efficient to be on the lookout for these items at all times:

Picture Description
Salveadg Food – while this may be intuitively obvious, most fishing spots or food drops below bouldabass are left behind, potentially causing problems later on. Web snippers and short-finned eels are often underrated.
Chestadg Chests – these either contain large amounts of cash (sometimes over 100k), herbs, or charms. At least one member of your team will almost always be able to open chests on your floor. Remember chest locations if you cannot quite open them and see if you are later in need of cash.
Bovitreeadg Various Trees – You need 5 Bovistranglar branches to build an altar, an often useful addition to the start room. Low tier trees are uncommon when teammates have high woodcutting levels. With high enough runecrafting and fletchng levels, you can create and imbue staves which can greatly increase DPS from mages. Look out for high tier wood for firewood that will cook food with lower burn rates.
Zephoreadg Various Ores – You need 5 Zephryium bars to build an altar. Low tier ores are uncommon when teammates have high mining levels. High level ores, such as Promethium, are used as a secondary component for Blood rager pouches, which are vital for most boss fights.
Dinoadg Bovimastyx - If you are a ranger, it is in your best interests to trap and skin these beasts whenever possible so that you can craft accuracy boosting armor. This is especially helpful for those using the Hexhunter bow. Make sure however that you are not impeding the progress of the dungeon as you take time to do this.
Herbadg Herbs - Usually most teammates will have the farming level to plant the medium level herbs, but not always high level herbs such as Lycopus and Buckthorn. Save these herbs for potion-making later on. One method is to designate one team member as the herb collector. This player, whenever idle, should also have secondary ingredients and vials of water in his or her inventory so that boosting potions can be made immediately when required.

The Boss

When all possible rooms have been opened, it is time to prepare to attack the boss. This is when previously gathered resources are most beneficial. Based on your boss, prepare appropriate combat potions and equipment. Refer to this section of the Dungeoneering Guide to know how to approach each boss.

The bloodrager familiar scroll special attack is extremely useful for boss fights. The attack is an accurate, damaging attack that lowers your opponent's defence stats. In addition, the familiar provides an invisible boost to your melee stats. All members of the team should have these familiars summoned beforehand allowing for quick scroll use, and hopefully a shorter battle.

Once all players are ready, the group gatestone should be placed in an appropriate location so players can easily access the boss again if they die. For certain bosses, such as Yk'Lagor the Thunderous, it is more practical to have the group gatestone inside the boss room. For others, the room before the boss can be a better place (if easily clearable without taking too much time). It is also helpful to have personal gatestones at a nearby altar for quick recharging, if you did not build one at the Smuggler’s Room. Make sure each player has sufficient law runes to teleport out in case of emergency. Teleporting-out methods are popular for some bosses, such as Necrolord and Bal’lak the Pummeller.
Runeboundadg
Be mindful of your teammates. All players should go into the room close to the same time to avoid piling. Once the boss is dead, congratulate yourselves and finish the dungeon!

Team Communication

Efficient dungeoneering requires communication as quickly as possible between teammates. To save time typing out long sentences, a number of common abbreviations have developed, listed below.

Key Colours
  • B, Bl - Blue
  • C, Cr - Crimson
  • Go, Au - Gold
  • Gr - Green
  • O, Or - Orange
  • P, Purp - Purple
  • S, Silv - Silver
Key Shapes
  • Co, Corn - Corner
  • Cr, Cresc - Crescent
  • D, Dia - Diamond
  • P, Pent - Pentagon
  • T, Tri - Triangle
  • R, Rect - Rectangle
  • S, Sh - Shield
  • W, Wed - Wedge
General Commands and Phrases
  • Denk, Dewk [key] - Dead end no key, dead end with [key]
  • Fg - Say this to indicate that you have a free gatestone to use
  • G8 [door, location] G8d - Gated
  • Gt [location] - Group Gatestone, use Group Gatestone teleport to go to [location]
  • Gt [level] - Someone with a particular skill [level] please teleport to the Group Gatestone
  • Gtb - Teleport to the boss room, the Group Gatestone is there
  • Gd - Guardian Door, room with Guardian Doors
  • Gk [key] - Found a [key]
  • Gdm - Guardian Door room that has been marked
  • Gtgd - Group Gatestone teleport to help clear a Guardian Door
  • Hgt - Hold Group Gatestone
  • Ht - Home Teleport, Starting Room
  • Mgt [location] - Move Group Gatestone to where you are or [to a location]
  • Mgtb - Move the Group Gatestone to the boss
  • [Location1]>[Location2] - A particular door at [location1] led to a [location2]

Example of using abbreviations: Gt @ merc, do merc then mgt gdm.
Translation: The Group Gatestone is in the mercenary leader room. Kill the mercenary leader and then move the Group Gatestone to the marked Guardian Door room.

Example of using abbreviations: G8 cr co and gt emotes.
Translation: Gate the crimson corner door and teleport to the Group Gatestone at the emotes room.

Some players like to use voice chat programs to communicate. If you choose this method, keep in mind that it only works well if all teammates are online, as having to constantly update a non-voice chatting player wastes a large amount of time.

Dungeoneering Etiquette

This is not a rigid code of behavior, rather a suggested outline of how to best get along with teammates, whether they be friends or strangers. Many dungeons are made or broken by people’s attitudes.

  • Be friendly and cooperative. Don’t let anybody order you around if they’re not supposed to, but be reasonable and helpful to the team.
  • When starting out, it is usually best to follow the requests of the Keyer, rather than deviate onto your own solo path. At the later stages of the dungeon, you may be assigned to finish up certain dead end paths that don't require the entire team's help.
  • Don’t walk into a Guardian Door room as the last monster is slain and claim all the drops. People will become frustrated if you are stealing their “earned” food.
  • Do not leave your computer for extended periods of time (known as "AFKing" or being Away from Keyboard). Give a heads up so your team knows you are not usable at that point. AFKing as a form of leeching is obvious once noticed and extremely detrimental to the team’s progress throughout the dungeon. AFKing leads you the risk of being kicked.
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Credits

Original Guide by: Warriormonkx

Thanks to: All_Bogs, Jaffy1, Nifflin, Obtaurian, Quyneax, Rare_Pain, Saradomin_Mage, Sonikku, Zaaps1

Last updated by: Aurhora

Last updated on: 10-Sep-2012


RuneScape 2007
Find this page on the Internet Archive with a date as close to Aug 10, 2007 as possible.

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