Dungeoneering: A Guide/Review

Well it’s here. (typical intro to probably every single review or guide to this skill within the past week.) Released 12 April 2010, the new skill Dungeoneering was introduced into RuneScape. A very odd name indeed but if you were expecting a skill similar to Crafting or Slayer, put on your dragonhide and chef’s hat. Then put on your rage face. Overall, was this skill a disappointment? Of course it was, and I even argue that it’s not a skill. However, it’s not as bad as people have blown it out to be. It’s actually kind of fun and adds some variety to the endless grinding of skills like runecrafting and hunting.

What is involved in this new skill? Well basically you ‘raid’ dungeons and ultimately defeat the boss to gain expereience. You start out in the main room which houses initial supplies, a furnace (complete with anvils), a runecrafting altar, and a summoning obelisk. Once you have collected yourself, you begin to venture through the dungeon (each seperate dungeon is considered a floor). For some reason this skill reminds me of the old Legend of Zelda games for GameBoy. hahahah Anyway, to begin, you click on a door and the next room becomes visible on your screen without entering it yet. I like this feature just in case there is a high level monster inhabiting it that you rather not fight until later. However some doors require keys which can be found throughout the dungeon laying on the ground. They are all on the ground. None are hidden or monster drops. Simply use the corresponding key on each door to unlock it. There is one more type of door to unlock: Skill Doors. These require you to use a skill to unlock them or remove the barrier. These skills range from firemaking to prayer, to runecrafting to strength. One thing I strongly dislike is being faced with a door I cannot open with my level (even after potting). These rooms aren’t necessary to get to the boss, but I will talk about that later.Anyway, opening doors is the main way of advancing through the dungeon obviously. Each room will contain either monsters to kill or a puzzle to solve. Or my personal favorite, an empty room (with a key just lying on the ground lol). Anyway, usually if there are monsters or a puzzle you almost always have to solve the puzzle and/or kill off all the monsters in that room before you are able to open more doors in that room. Are you still following me? Hopefully you are.

Which brings me to my next topic. Resources. If you’re not confused already, this might throw a wrench into things. This skill is very similar to Stealing Creation in the sense that you have to collect your resources in order to make armor, runes, food, summoning pouches, potions, etc. Every skill is used in this skill which is actually interesting. However, beware. First timers will not recognize anything. Remember how Jagex said this could be a game on its own. Well they weren’t lying. Where’s the runite you ask? God only knows. At least you have Novite to Promethium. Hungry for a lobster or monkfish? Too bad, settle for a Salve Eel or a Blue Crab. In all honesty, it doesn’t take that long to get used to. That’s because the resources that ‘spawn’ or appear in your dungeon are, for the most part, the highest you can collect at your level. Rarely are you faced with an ore you can’t mine, or a fish you can’t catch even though it does happen sometimes. It’s not enough to make an impact on your overall progress though. You will also get most of your resources and money from monster drops. They drop about 5x more loot than regular monsters in RS. I advise collecting all the coins you can during your raid because you can buy resources from the NPC in the starting room. Also, the money does not stay with you after you leave the dungeon and go back to the surface, nor does it even carry on to the next floor with you. So if you’re about to face a boss, you might as well go all out and buy the best things you can to arm yourself beforehand.

‘Carrying over’ brings me to my next…er……point? Subject? Aspect? Whatever. Bottom line, now comes the somewhat tricky part that people have hard time understanding. Don’t feel bad if you don’t at first. I think a total of about 20 people did when it was released. Visit the RS Hiscores and click on Dungeoneering. You can see those 20 peoples’ names for yourself =P. Before I get to that though, I will breifly touch on Item Binding. Basically every floor you go to you will start with nothing and have to recollect your resources. Item Binding allows you to keep an item so it carries over with you everytime you start a floor (this includes if you completely leave the skill and go slay or hunt). Mainly it’s used for armor and weapons. At level 1 you can bind 1 item, 50 2 items, etc. I advise binding a weapon first. The next kind of confusing thing is Prestige. All this is is an exp bonus multiplier. Each different floor you complete you will get a prestige point. There is a current prestige (called current progress in game) and previous prestige (called previous progress in game). By resetting your prestige, your current prestige is ‘banked’ and replaces your previous prestige points. You floor completion is also cleared. So basically this means that you can go back and do floor 1 with a 21 previous progress and get a significant amount of experience compared to when you first did floor 1. Read up on this more at the knowledge base if you’re still confused. I advise (so does Jagex) to reset your prestige after you’re not gaining any levels after you complete a dungeon to maximise your exp.

Overall, this is an interesting ‘skill’. I am disappointed, but I’m not complaining and ranting my brains out like 90% of the RS population. I would recommend you to try it out. It’s worth a try. You may like it. I hate combat and I actually find it sort of enjoyable. Don’t just automatically think its gay. I did and turns out I was wrong. Then again I’m a die-hard skiller and I would prolly train anything Jagex throws at me. With all that being said, Happy Dungeoneering!

Until next time-

Đǻνǿ

~ by Davo on 20 April 2010.