Instanced God Wars Dungeons (members only)

Ever geared up for a jaunt to the God Wars Dungeon and found yourself competing with other loot-hungry adventurers for your prize? No need to worry about that, with Instanced God Wars Dungeons.

Once you've reached the kill count for your boss of choice, you'll be directed on the minimap to a safe area by an orange arrow. Once within the area, you'll see the door leading to the boss, and clicking on this door gives you a number of options: including entering the non-instanced version of the boss room; starting a new instance in either standard mode or the new hard mode; joining an existing instance; or returning to an existing instance that you've left.

Starting your own instance costs a set amount of gold coins per hour (listed here), varying depending on the boss, and anyone entering the instance can top up the time by paying again. You can set a maximum number of participants from 1 to 100 for your instance, as well as a minimum combat level. You can also add a numeric entry key, in case you want to limit the instance to players of your choice. Finally, please note that it's not yet possible to fight Nex in an instance.

Hard mode is for those of you hungry for a real challenge. Any of the God Wars bosses (with the exception of Nex) can be fought in a hard-mode instance, where they'll use the additional tactics and abilities seen in The World Wakes, but with greatly increased stats. Yields of non-rare drops are increased in hard mode, and there's a good chance of getting a new soulstone as well. These count your boss kills, which can be stored up and used in lieu of regular monster kills to gain entry for a future boss run.

New Armour System (free players and members)

All armour has now been assigned one of three types - geared towards offence, defence or versatility - and has had its stats optimised for its purpose.

Tank gear is built for defence, giving you plenty of life points and no major penalties. This type is the most common in the game - including gear such as rune armour, dragonhide armour and spider silk robes, along with higher-end gear such as Player-Owned Ports armour - and is best used in situations where you don't want to take risks, such as boss fights.

Power gear offers a 10% boost to the damage you deal, but with much lower armour rating and life points than you'd find on tank gear of the same level. This type is excellent for Slayer assignments and combat training but dangerous if you're taking big hits, and includes Bandos armour, demon slayer armour, robes of subjugation, and all Nex gear.

Hybrid gear has lower base stats than the other types, but had a big advantage in that it has no style weakness: it's equally effective against melee, ranged and magic. You won't get the high life points you'd get from tank gear, or the big max hits you'd get with a power setup, but you'll be ready for whatever's thrown your way - invaluable in PvP or complex combat minigames. Void Knight and obsidian armour are examples of hybrid gear.

For full details of how armour works, take a look at our wiki page here.

Hit Chance Changes (free players and member)

We've increased the benefits that you combat-related skill levels have on the chance you have to hit your opponents. There's now an accuracy bonus in the related style with each level in Attack, Ranged and Magic, so the accuracy of attacks will increase as you level - all the way up to 99. Defence also benefits from the same contribution, so for every level of Defence you gain you will be granted bonus armour rating.

Put simply, higher levels will now enjoy greater accuracy from their attacks than even before, and those levelling will notice a bigger difference from level to level.

Finally, this update means that potions that boost your combat levels have been given a new lease of life - the increased benefit of levels meaning they're more effective than before. We've also changed how accuracy-boosting Prayers work, so they now use a similar mechanic - granting a bonus equivalent to a level boost in your related combat skill.

For full details of how hit chance is calculated, visit our wiki page here.

We really hope you have fun getting to grips with these improvements, and that some of the gear you'd perhaps stopped using after EoC will enjoy a new lease of life. As always, your feedback is the most important thing to us when deciding on future combat updates. If there's anything you'd like to see in the future, don't hesitate to let us know on the forums.

Enjoy!

Mod Chris L & Mod Avatar

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Behind the Scenes Video

Mod Chris L and Mod Avatar take you through today's combat update in our latest Behind the Scenes video:

Don't forget that you still have time to vote on which quest series you'd like continued: Pirates, Gnomes or Dwarves.

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