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RuneScape - Combat Update

Game Updates
RuneScape - Combat Update

Combat has always been one of the core aspects of Runescape, touching areas across the game - from questing to slayer through to bigger challenges like bossing.

With the release of our 4th combat style 'Necromancy', we made several improvements to how it's combat functioned under the hood as a potential template to modernise combat. It quickly became clear there was a big desire to see many of these improvements make it to the other styles - and so, the big Core Combat Update project was born!

It quickly became clear that players wanted to see similar improvements come to the other styles of combat to bring them up to speed and so this combat update project was born.

After 4 months of player-partnered testing and feedback through our Combat Beta, we're finally ready to release this update on March 4th 2024! We'll be getting into all the details below, but for the TL;DR among you, here's a brief summary of the most noticable changes you'll experience once it launches:

  • Hit Chance is Gone: Accuracy now impacts damage rather than chance to hit, removing splashing from RuneScape, Never miss an Ultimate again!
  • Damage Consistency: Improvements to Critical Strike and the damage ranges of abilities so that you are more consistently in control and less at the mercy of RNG.
  • A More Fluid Combat Experience: Improvements for the original 3 styles to modernise them closer to Necromancy.
  • Easier to Learn & Understand: Clearer tooltips, labels and channeled ability UI to help you understand combat and make decisions in the moment.

Check out our Dev Diary below for more of an overview!


From Here to There

Our work on this project started last November as a Beta, where we integrated several of the changes that Necromancy had pioneered - such as removing accuracy and replacing it with a damage scaling system, updating how 'Critical strikes' function and raising damage caps, over to the existing styles to align them with a more modern design. Throughout, we were discussing these changes with players of all skill levels and combat goals to bring these great combat improvements to life.

We continued on with patches in December and January to try out some design ideas and to continue iterating with player feedback on how these systems functioned - and with your help, we're now confident it's ready to launch.

This is just the start of an ongoing process. Combat is a gargantuan aspect of the game and this is just one step of a continuing project with our community to improve the quality of RuneScape combat.

We want to take a moment here to thank each and every player who joined the beta and gave constructive feedback on how they see Runescape's combat in the future. Your insights have helped shape this update and it has been a wonderful experience to work with you all! We look forward to future collaborative efforts on this and many more projects.

What is changing?

If you have been avidly following the beta or just dipping your toes into the news posts, most of these changes will not be new to you but to summarise them there are :

  • Core Combat System Improvements (e.g. Hit Chance, Damage Potential, Crit Strike & Damage Caps)
  • Combat Styles Improvements (e.g. Melee ability/special attack improvements)
  • Other Miscellaneous Improvements (e.g. New Channel Bar & Tooltip Updates)

Below we will go into a bit more detail on some of the core changes!

Damage Potential

"Implemented necromancy's accuracy system to the other combat styles. This means you'll no longer miss attacks, instead, your damage will be reduced, based on your hitchance, combat will be more consistent and less frustrating."


Example: If your hit chance against a monster is 70%, you will hit for 70% of your damage with each hit instead of hitting 70% of the time and missing 30% of the time.

  • Replaced the 'roll to hit' system with the 'damage potential' system for Melee, Ranged and Magic combat against NPCs

Critical Strike

"Implemented the modernised critical strike system introduced with necromancy, to the other combat styles. Critical strikes are easier to understand, and more impactful when they do happen."


Example: if you have 10% Critical Strike Chance and 50% Critical Strike Damage then 10% of the time your attacks are going to deal 50% increased damage.

  • Modernised the 'critical strike' system for Melee, Ranged, and Magic
  • Players now have a base Critical Strike Chance of 10%
  • Players now have a base Critical Strike Damage of 10%, increasing with levels up until 50% at level 90

Damage Cap

"Previously, there was a damage cap of 10,000. In high-end combat, this meant players were less likely to see the benefits of various buffs & combos when applied together, and raised the impact of multi-hitting abilities instead. We've raised the damage cap from 10,000 to 30,000 to allow styles like Melee to be less negatively impacted by it. "


  • Damage cap: 10,000 → 30,000
  • Removed and replaced several effects from items that affected the hit cap or were affected by the hit cap as they were no longer relevant.

Damage Ranges

"Reduced the amount of variance present in damaging abilities. Typically, abilities would have 80% of their total damage as a random roll, meaning one ability could hit for 1000 damage, or it could hit 5 times as much. We've narrowed these damage ranges to reduce this type of variance, and to have it interact nicer with the new critical strike system."


Example: The sacrifice ability had a damage range of 20%-100% damage, with an average hit of 60%. This abilities range was narrowed to maintain the same average but with far less variance e.g. 55%-65%.

  • Narrowed the damage range for Melee, Ranged, Magic, and Constitution abilities and special attacks.

Tooltips

"Modernised and created guidelines for tooltips so they're more consistent and more accurately represent the abilities"


  • Updated tooltips for all Melee, Ranged, Magic, and Constitution abilities
    • Inclusion of relevant iconography and keywords
    • Adrenaline consumption is visible on Threshold abilities
    • Actual damage values are visible when equipped with appropriate weaponry
  • Defined stricter guidelines for tooltip consistency going forward

Channelled Abilities

"Channelled abilities were hard to track as they were hidden among the buff bar and it wasn't clear when it was active or for how long, and had some niche interactions that made them more confusing than standard abilities. We've added a new channel bar UI element and made several changes that improve this and support more unique channelled behaviour going forward."


  • Added a 'Channel bar' component to the top-level interface that is now displayed when using a channelled ability.
    • Removed channelled ability presence from the buff bar.
  • Channelled abilities cast out of range will now cause the player to run into range and cast as expected
  • Fixed several issues with Revolution being slow to act after finishing a channelled ability

Action bar Improvements

"Modernising the action bar is an iterative process so we're making a few smaller improvements that should increase general readability."


  • Action bar slots will now be highlighted briefly with a gold outline when interacted with
  • By default, action bar slots will now show their cooldown with a centred timer.
    • Note: This feature can be moved to the top right of the ability bar slot or toggled off/on via: Settings → Combat & Action Bar → Action Bar
  • Removed the white flash that occurs at the end of the global cooldown rotation graphic
    • In the future, we would like to add something subtle. But for now, this is to keep flashing relevant to the specifics of abilities as opposed to having your entire action bar light up
  • Action bar slots that have no relation to the global cooldown will no longer display it unnecessarily (e.g. 'Teleport War's Retreat')
  • Action bar slots will no longer flash unnecessarily when swapping weapons after having been used in the current play session
  • Reduced the size of key bind information as it was taking up a large amount of real estate when only contextually relevant
  • Shortened modifier keys (e.g. Alt-C → a-C)
    • Alt → a
    • Ctrl → c
    • Shift → s

These core changes will be coming to all combat styles and lay the foundations of a similar modern standard across all Combat Styles. This will not instantly balance each of the styles overnight - there is still plenty more work to be done and we'll continue working with you as we iterate and improve.

This will mean that sometimes there will be a larger focus on particular styles or systems - for example, Melee got more of an overhaul in this beta then Magic which was in a relatively stable spot. Next update, the reverse is likely to be true. This will be part of the ongoing process of balancing - and as with any balancing, an ever-evolving game like RuneScape means this balance window is in constant flux!

If your favourite combat style isn't quite where you feel it should be, we invite you to join the discussion as we look to continually improve each style going forward.

What Next?

The team is already brainstorming some ideas for combat focused updates and we aim to bring players along on that journey in the near future.

Our first priority with this launch is to closely monitor for any issues that arise and addressing them as early as possible. From there. we'll be aiming to reach out to players on more specific updates around combat - this can take the form of surveys, discussions, streams or even another beta period.

Full Patch Notes

If you're all about the details, we've prepared an extensive list of patch notes below covering all the changes that are part of this update.

Damage Potential

  • Replaced the 'roll to hit' system with the 'damage potential' system for Melee, Ranged and Magic combat against NPCs
  • Removed a number of hidden buffs that increase your hit chance when using special attacks or ultimate abilities
  • Reduced the minimum hit chance required to damage an NPC under the new system
    • 25% → 1%

Critical Strikes

  • Modernised the 'critical strike' system for Melee, Ranged, and Magic
  • Players now have a base Critical Strike Chance of 10%
  • Players now have a base Critical Strike Damage of 10%, increasing with levels up until 50% at level 90
  • Adjusted the damage of guaranteed critical strike abilities such as Shadow Tendrils and Smoke Tendrils to take into account their extra guaranteed damage
  • Reduced the adrenaline gain from the critical strike buff from Meteor Strike, Incendiary Shot, and Tsunami to account for the player's additional base critical strike chance
    • 10% → 8%

Damage Hit Cap

  • Damage cap: 10,000 → 30,000
  • Removed and replaced several effects from items that affected the hit cap or were affected by the hit cap as they were no longer relevant.

Channeled Abilities

  • Added a 'Channel bar' component to the top-level interface that is now displayed when using a channelled ability
    • Removed channelled ability presence from the buff bar
  • Channelled abilities cast out of range will now cause the player to run into range and cast as expected
  • Fixed a number of issues with revolution being slow to act after finishing a channelled ability

Action bar Improvements

  • Action bar slots will now highlight briefly with a gold outline when interacted with
  • By default, action bar slots will now show their cooldown with a centred timer.
    • Note: This feature can be moved to the top right of the ability bar slot or toggled off/on via: Settings → Combat & Action Bar → Action Bar
  • Global cooldown will no longer display the ability cooldown in text form to remove visual clutter
  • Removed the white flash that occurs at the end of the global cooldown rotation graphic
    • In the future, we would like to add something subtle. But for now, this is to keep flashing relevant to the specifics of abilities as opposed to having your entire action bar light up
  • Action bar slots that have no relation to the global cooldown will no longer display it unnecessarily (e.g. 'Teleport War's Retreat')
  • Action bar slots will no longer flash unnecessarily when swapping weapons after having been used in the current play session
  • Reduced the size of key bind information as it was taking up a large amount of real estate when only contextually relevant
  • Shortened modifier keys (e.g. Alt-C → a-C)
  • Alt → a
  • Ctrl → c
  • Shift → s

Hitsplats

  • Hitsplat fade delay: 70 (1.4s) -> 60 (1.2s) client cycles
    • Hitsplats will appear as expected, allowing newer hitsplats to always replace older hitsplats if all slots are full

Damage Clarity

  • Removed all linked damage rolls such as 'Snapshot', 'Greater Ricochet' & 'Snipe' (with Enchanted Nightmare Gauntlets)
    • These abilities' damage will now interact as expected with various damage buffs.
  • Removed damage per level granted by boosting Melee (Strength), Ranged and Magic stats
    • Note: Potions will still boost accuracy and damage, however it won't be done via two different systems
    • Ability damage ranges have been rebalanced to account for the loss of DPL (damage per level)
  • Removed skewed damage rolling from all abilities, such as 'Dismember', 'Fragmentation shot' and 'Combust'
    • Note: The average damage of these abilities will now be higher than before

Melee

Core Systems

  • Abilities now respect the true centre of NPCs (e.g. Using an attack that hits the target and enemies around the target within 1 tile will correctly hunt in a 5x5 area if the NPC is size 3x3)
  • Reworked ability priorities to reduce/remove the idea of 'hidden' attacks where mechanics were not correctly synced up with their animations
  • Modified various hit timings to better match the visuals
  • Rewrote all melee abilities to be easier to adjust and work with
    • Note: This is a buff to development and allows faster, more efficient changes going forward
  • Channelled abilities now allow movement while remaining within attack range of the target

Updated Damage Ranges

"Abilities damage ranges have been narrowed, and their average damages have also been increased in many cases to account for the removal of potion stat boosts (AKA DPL)"


  • Slice: AVG 95% → 105%
  • Punish: AVG 75% → 85%
  • Sever: AVG 112.8% → 120%
  • Barge/Greater Barge: AVG 75% → 85%
  • Havoc: AVG 94.2% → 110%
  • Decimate: AVG 111.8% → 120%
  • Bladed Dive: AVG 75% → 85%
  • Kick/Backhand: AVG 60% → 70%
  • Cleave: AVG 112.8% → 120%
  • Chaos Roar: AVG 75% → 95%
  • Flurry: AVG 225.6% → 260%
  • Greater Flurry: AVG 376.8% → 440%
  • Assault: AVG 525.6% → 560%
  • Destroy: AVG 451.2% → 520%
  • Frenzy: AVG 610% → 730%
  • Hurricane: AVG 265% → 285%
  • Stomp/Forceful Backhand: AVG 120% → 130%
  • Quake: AVG 131.4% → 145%

Hit Timings

"A number of ability hit timings have changed with the melee rewrite and we've tweaked a few of them further based on feedback."


  • Tuska's Wrath
    • Hit splat is 1 cycle faster
  • Quake
    • Hit splat is 1 cycle slower
  • Overpower
    • Hit splat is 1 cycle slower

Dive / Bladed Dive

  • Weaponry is no longer hidden during the dive animation

Fury

"Fury struggled as a 'noob trap' ability due to its weak build-up and short cooldown, so we've brought it more in line with Greater Fury and made it more consistent at the cost of a longer cooldown"


  • Fury now hits once and is no longer a channelled ability
    • Amended its damage to account for this
      • AVG Damage: 120%
      • Increases the Critical Strike chance of your next melee ability by 25%
    • Cooldown: 5.4s → 15s

Greater Fury

"Greater Fury's effect was underwhelming, making it a low-impact upgrade, we've made it much higher impact but with a longer cooldown to justify the power."


  • Increased base damage to correctly act as a Greater variant of Fury
    • AVG damage: 105% → 130%
  • Increases the Critical Strike chance of your next melee ability by 25% → Your next melee ability within 15s is guaranteed to Critically Strike
  • Cooldown: 5.4s → 15s

Sever

"Increasing the cooldown of Fury could make rotations for melee a little more complex due to lacking a 5s basic, so we're pushing Sever into that role."


  • Cooldown reduced 15s → 5s

Shard/Sliver of Leng

"The Leng swords needed a new effect given their old special attack doesn't work post-combat beta, so we've given them a full redo to both special and passive as collectively we don't think the old passive effects offered much in the way of gameplay or stylization and ultimately was going to result in Lengs becoming a switch just for hurricane if higher tiered weapons released."


  • Replaced the old special attack, set effect, and passive effect of the Leng swords (both Tier 85 & 95)
  • Added new main-hand passives
    • Frost (T85)
      • Attacks have a 5% chance to apply a 'Primordial Ice' stacking buff with each hit.
    • Endless Frost (T95)
      • Attacks have a 10% chance to apply a 'Primordial Ice' stacking buff with each hit.
  • Added new offhand passives
    • Chill (T85)
      • Attacks have a 1% chance to apply a 'Primordial Ice' stacking buff with each hit. Whenever you apply a 'Primordial Ice' stack gain “Frostblades” for 6s
      • Frostblades: Attacks deal an additional 24% of your ability damage stat on-hit.
    • Boundless Chill (T95)
      • Attacks have a 2% chance to apply a 'Primordial Ice' stacking buff with each hit. Whenever you apply a 'Primordial Ice' stack gain “Frostblades” for 9s
      • Frostblades: Attacks deal an additional 24% of your ability damage stat on-hit.
    • New 'Icy Tempest' special attack.
      • T85 mainhand now also has access to the 'Icy Tempest' special attack
      • 30% adrenaline cost reduced by 12% per stack of ''Primordial Ice''
      • Hits Primary target for AVG 110% damage
      • Hits AOE on all targets around the player for AVG 165% damage (including the primary target)
      • Consumes all 'Primordial Ice' stacks when activated.
        • Deals an additional 20% damage to enemies for each primordial stack.
      • 15s Cooldown.
      • 'Primordial Ice' stacks up to 10 times.
        • Note: Single target 0 stack special = 275% damage for 30% adrenaline (27% with vigour)
        • Note: Single target 1 stack special = 315% damage for 18% adrenaline (15% with vigour)

Ranged

Updated Damage Ranges

"Abilities damage ranges have been narrowed, and their average damages have also been increased in many cases to account for the removal of potion stat boosts (AKA DPL)"


  • Piercing Shot: AVG 90% → 100%
  • Snipe: AVG 172% → 185%
  • Ricochet: AVG 60% → 70%
  • Greater Ricochet (additional single target hits): AVG 30% → 35% / 10% → 12.5%
  • Demoralise/Binding shot: AVG 60% → 70%
  • Dazing Shot/Greater Dazing Shot: AVG 94.2% → 105%
  • Needle Strike: AVG 94.2% → 105%
  • Snapshot: AVG 265% → 285%
  • Tight bindings/Rout: AVG 120% → 130%
  • Rapidfire: AVG 451.2% → 560%
  • Bombardment: AVG 131% → 140%
  • Unload: AVG 610% → 680%
  • Deadshot (initial hit): AVG 112.8% → 120%
  • Salt the wound: AVG 112.8% → 120%

Bow of the Last Guardian - Balance by Force/Perfect Equilibrium

"Critical Strike changes and narrowing damage ranges made the bow of the last guardian much stronger, throughout the beta, it's been contentious: we've brought it down then up then down again then up again and now finally we're bringing it up again slightly to better match its pre-beta power.


  • Stored damage AVG 42.5% → 35%
  • Base damage AVG 11% → 14%
  • Balance by Force (Special Attack): AVG damage 275% → 245%
  • Perfect Equilibrium now stores damage before critical strikes roll
    • This means you no longer double up on power if the attack that triggers 'PE' rolls a crit.
  • Buff icon changes
    • Increased buff bar priority so it falls closer to the front of the bar
    • Buff is no longer hidden at 0 stacks to prevent it from 'flickering'
    • Buff is no longer redrawn when the player activates the special, preventing it from shifting position
    • Special attack duration is now shown on a separate buff icon

Seren Godbow

"Simplified the SGB so it's less complex, but just as effective"


  • AVG damage: 140% (per shot)
  • The initial shot always targets the centre of the NPC
  • Subsequent shots target tiles within a 5x5 area around the centre
    • Note: This means that 5x5 enemies will always be hit 5 times

Shadow Tendrils

"A while back, smoke tendrils had a little quirk that forced it to critically strike and we built that into the abilities identity. In the live game, shadow tendrils have the same quirk if the player is using certain buffs, so we're cementing it into the abilities identity. We're also removing some of the unnecessary variance that the ability had with the randomness in hits."


  • Shadow tendrils are now guaranteed to critically strike
  • Hit count: 2-5 → 5

Ruby Bolts - Blood Forfeit


"With the Critical Strike changes and increased damage cap, ruby bolts were overperforming. We have redesigned them to reduce both damage and complexity; meaning it will no longer reduce your damage in certain situations, it's no longer hard to figure out its proc chance, and it no longer has a hidden cooldown."


  • Deals 20% of the target's current health (capped at 10,000/12,000) → Increases the damage of the attack by 25-125% ability damage based on your target's current life points.
  • 6s cooldown → 0s cooldown
  • Deals 10% of your life points as recoil damage → Deals 5% of your life points as recoil damage
  • 5% proc chance, reduced by 1% for each 1m HP your target has → 5% proc chance

Wen Arrows


  • Special abilities now also consume 'Icy Chill'
  • Updated the base damage and hit chance increase for each 'Icy Precision' stack
    • Threshold abilities - 2% → 3%
    • Ultimate abilities - 3% (unchanged)
    • Special abilities - 0% → 3%

Magic

Updated Damage Ranges

"Abilities damage ranges have been narrowed, and their average damages have also been increased in many cases to account for the removal of potion stat boosts (AKA DPL)"


  • Wrack: AVG 90% → 100%
  • Wrack and Ruin: AVG 180% → 200%
  • Dragonbreath: AVG 112.8% → 120%
  • Chain/Greater Chain: AVG 60% → 70%
  • Shock/Impact: AVG 60% → 70%
  • Sonic Wave: AVG 94.2% → 105%
  • Greater Sonic Wave: AVG 115% → 125%
  • Concentrated Blast: AVG 147.6% → 162%
  • Greater Concentrated Blast: AVG 160.2% → 168%
  • Wild magic: AVG 265% → 280%
  • Horror/Deep impact: AVG 120% → 130%
  • Detonate: AVG 225% → 250%
  • Asphyxiate: AVG 451.2% → 480%
  • Magma Tempest: AVG 96% → 220%

Special Attacks

"We've modernised and narrowed the damage ranges for all special attacks, as well as made some minor tweaks to costs, damage, and in some cases effects of different special attacks. We don't consider special attacks 'complete' but this gets them into a good enough state to allow us to easily work with them more in the future."


  • Special attacks now display their cooldowns and target type in their tooltips
  • Updated and narrowed the damage ranges of most special attacks

Click Here for the full list


  • Noxious Weaponry - Mirrorback
    • Spiders HP increased to 10k
    • Now reduces incoming damage even if there's not a target to reflect at.
  • Dragon Battleaxe - Rampage
    • Moved the damage buff over to a multiplicative bonus (was additive)
    • Added necromancy into the stat reduction effect
    • Removed a hidden debuff that increased NPCs / other players' chance to hit you under the spec, stacking with the existing defense debuff
  • Dragon Longsword - Draconic Cleave
    • "Upped average damage slightly to account for the loss of the hit cap raising effect"
    • AVG 250% → 270%
  • Dragon Claws - Slice and Dice
    • AVG damage: 400% → 360%
  • Armadyl Godsword - Armadyl's Judgment
    • "Upped damage to be more in line with Dragon Claws"
    • AVG Damage 235% → 400%
  • Bandos Godsword - Warstrike
    • "Simplified the stat draining effect as it was hard to determine its value"
    • Now reduces ALL the targets' stats by 0.5% of damage dealt, instead of 1 stat at a time.
    • Removed a secondary modifier that was being applied as a 'curse drain'
  • Saradomin Sword - Saradomin's Lightning
    • Both hits are now magic damage
    • AVG Damage 105% → 270% per hit
  • Vesta's Spear - Spear Wall
    • Now reduces incoming damage even if there's not a target to reflect at
    • AVG Damage 45% → 100%
  • Keenblade - Aimed Strike
    • Special renamed from Critical Strike to reduce confusion with the Critical Strike mechanic
    • AVG damage 130% → 140%
    • Hitchance bonus 25% → 20%
    • Adrenaline 75% → 35%
  • Korasi Sword - Disrupt
    • Dominion Tower / Quest version updated to pull data from the reward version
    • Added walk merge to the special attack animation (attack will no longer stall the players' movements)
  • Darklight - Weaken
    • Stat reduction changed from 1 level + 5% of levels → 6% reductions
  • Barrelchest Anchor - Sunder
    • "Ability was too random, whilst random CAN be good, this one was just a bit too whacky for players to get their heads around"
    • Randomness has been removed → Now always applies the +4 base hit chance increase and reduces the targets' damage dealt
  • Brackish Blade / Brine Sabre - Liquefy
    • Now both weapons share the Liquefy ability instead of having different, but very similar attacks.
    • No longer has an underwater restriction
    • Stat boost is no longer based on damage dealt (It was almost always hitting the internal cap) → Now just boosts stats by 3 flat levels + 10%
  • Magic Shortbow - Twin Fang
    • Special renamed from Snapshot to reduce confusion with the Snapshot ability
    • Adrenaline 55% → 50%
  • Dark Bow - Descent of Darkness
    • AVG damage: 240% → 210%
  • Magic Shieldbow - Powershot
    • Hitchance bonus 20% → 40%
  • Guthix bow - Balanced Shot
    • Adrenaline 55% → 35%
    • AVG damage 90% → 180%
    • Heal: 100% of Damage over 60s → 60% of damage over 15s
    • Heal cap of 400 removed
  • Saradomin Bow - Restorative Shot
    • Adrenaline 55% → 30%
    • Average Damage 60% → 140%
    • Heal: 200% of damage over 60s → 100% of damage over 15s
    • Heal cap of 400 removed
  • Zamorak Bow - Destructive Shot
    • Adrenaline 55% → 40%
    • Average Damage per hit 60% → 170%
  • Zanik's Crossbow - Defiance
    • Adrenaline 50% → 40%
    • Average Damage 110% → 250%
    • Simplified PvP bonus damage: Varying damage increase based on which prayers are active → Flat 10% bonus damage for each prayer active
  • Hand Cannon - Aimed Shot
    • Adrenaline 50% → 35%
    • Average Damage 115% → 330%
  • Eldritch Crossbow - Split Soul
    • Players soul split icon will now visually change to a split soul icon whilst the effect is active
    • Added an audio queue when split soul ends
  • Quickbow - Twinshot
    • Adrenaline 75% → 35%
    • Average damage 65% → 60%
    • Hitchance increase 25% → 50%
  • Seercull Bow - Soulshot
    • Adrenaline 60% → 50%
    • AVG Damage 60% → 110%
    • Damage now increases based on how high the target's current magic level is (2% per magic level)
    • Now drains a flat 5% of the target's magic level instead of scaling with damage dealt.
  • Decimation - Locate
    • Adrenaline 50% → 35%
  • Morrigan's Javelin - Phantom Strike
    • Applies in PvM
    • AVG Damage 72% → 130%
    • DoT portion has been modernised
      • AVG Damage 35% per hit
      • 5 Hits
  • Morrigan's Thrownaxe - Hamstring
    • No longer drains run energy
    • Now prevents the target from using movement abilities for a short duration
    • AVG Damage 72% → 160%
  • Strykebow - Deep burn / Dark burn
    • Removed damage thresholds where values would change → Now stores flat 50% of damage taken
    • Simplified damage storage
    • Special Now has an initial hit: AVG damage 195%
    • DoT damage now occurs every 1.2s instead of every 0.6s for visual noise
    • Now releases 12.5% of the damage stored per hit. (was 2.5%)
  • Iban Staff - Iban Blast
    • AVG Damage 320% → 365%
    • 50% Adrenaline
  • Penance Trident - Reap
    • AVG Damage 130% → 290%
    • 45% adrenaline
    • Refunds 20% Adrenaline if it kills the target
  • Mindspike - Rune flame
    • Adrenaline 75% → 35%
    • Zuriels Staff - Miasmic Barrage
    • Adrenaline 100% → 50%
    • code centralization: debuff should now be more consistent
  • Obliteration - Devour
    • Now has an initial hit
      • AVG damage 220%
    • Adrenaline 100% → 50%
    • Debuff duration 10.2s → 15s
    • code centralization: healing debuff should now be more consistent & work in more places
  • Staff of darkness - Power of Darkness
    • Added buff/debuff visibility
    • Now reduces damage if no target to reflect at
  • Armadyl Battlestaff - Tempest of Armadyl
    • Damage per hit lowered 55%→50%
    • Now deals 5% increased damage with each subsequent hit
      • AVG total damage 270% → 300%

Global Cooldown Abilities

Less combat experienced players often fall into issues with abilities that can be cast during the global cooldown, but only sometimes. Namely; Surge, Escape, and Dive, where if players use them on specific cycles these abilities would consume their global cooldown and generate adrenaline. We have made it so that these can always be cast during the global cooldown so you're less reliant on a specific ability order."

  • 'Surge', 'Dive' and 'Escape'
    • Can always be cast during global cooldown
    • No longer generate adrenaline
    • Are now classed as 'Abilities' rather than 'Basic Abilities'

Equilibrium

"The Equilibrium aura and perk don't pair well with the new narrowed damage ranges on each of the styles, as a result, we're giving them a redo to keep them relevant."


  • Equilibrium Aura has been redesigned
    • Aura Effect: Now increases the player's ability damage stat by 12%, but prevents the player from critically striking.
  • Equilibrium Perk:
    • Now increases your ability damage stat by 0.5% per rank.
      • This will now apply at the base level, increasing damage over time, poison and other effects.
    • Has been renamed 'Eruptive'
      • The old name implies positive and negative which no longer fit the new effect.

PvP Damage Effectiveness

"Burst damage can be quite an issue in PvP and as most abilities are designed around PvN combat this can cause a number of issues. We've implemented a 'PvP Damage Effectiveness' feature that can be applied to abilities going forward to make simple changes where needed."


  • Volley of Souls
    • 55%
  • Death Grasp
    • 40%
  • Overpower (Igenous cape)
    • 60%
  • Omnipower (Igneous cape)
    • 65%
  • Icy Tempest (Leng swords)
    • 70%
  • Balance by Force (Bow of the last guardian)
    • 70%

Miscellaneous Changes / Bugfixes


  • Updated magic's animation priorities
    • This should lead to more fluid animations, and reduce attacks firing whilst hidden/without animations
  • Combat dummies
    • Updated 'Max hit' mode to guarantee critical strikes
    • Updated how the player who modifies the mode is stored so that the dummy remembers who they are if they logout
    • The combat dummy at War's Retreat will now correctly play a defend/flinch animation with each hit inflicted
  • Vestments of havoc's increased adrenaline no longer works with non-melee styles.
  • Fixed several issues with Magic ability animation priorities
  • Revolution no longer delays the player after casting channelled abilities such as 'Greater concentrated blast'
  • Fixed an issue with 'Guthix's Blessing' and the 'Brief Respite' invention perk where the maths was being calculated incorrectly
  • All targets affected by Greater Chain will now benefit from the additional hits granted by Wrack and Ruin's secondary Combust extension buff.
  • Auto-attack damage range: 0-100% → 20%-100%
  • Mobile perk / Shadow's Grace no longer causes 'Barge'/'Greater Barge' or 'Bladed Dive' to generate half adrenaline.
  • Blood Tendrils
    • Cleaned up how self-damage was calculated
    • Hits added through the Spear of Annihilation now get appended to the end of the ability, instead of placing them in front of the double damage initial hit
  • Greater Barge / Barge
    • Greater barge no longer forces channelled abilities to attack every four cycles and instead uses the same rate the ability would naturally do
  • Now uses the correct barge animation rather than the kick animation
  • Berserk has been updated to be a multiplicative modifier as opposed to an additive modifier
  • Flurry now deals full damage in both single-target and multi-target scenarios
  • Assault has had the animation updated to better match the ability and hit timings
  • Magma Tempest targeted variant now applies an auto-attack delay when cast to match standard ability casts
  • Wrack and Ruin combust extension effect is now stack-based, benefiting from abilities such as 'Greater Chain' that cause it to hit multiple enemies
  • Metamorphosis has had its damage bonus increased from 62% → 66% (PvP: 31% → 33%)
  • Greater Dazing Shot:
    • Hit Chance Debuff: Now active for the full 4.2s and is not cleared on-attack
    • The hit chance debuff is now reapplied when the ability is used as previously it wouldn't which meant it could time out

- The RuneScape Team

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