Comprehensive Dungeoneering Guide - Part 1

[Fothas]

Part 1 - The broad strokes of Dungeoneering; the basics

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This guide is designed to be a fully comprehensive look at the Dungeoneering skill, and aims to be an updated/more general version of Kevinsaurus' excellent older guide to keying which you can view (here). Although this guide is excellent the skill and Runescape in a whole has changed a lot since its release, hopefully this will bridge any gaps that have developed.

An introduction to Dungeoneering

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Dungeoneering is in my opinion the most complex and demanding skill in Runescape, to complete floors efficiently it requires a large amount of knowledge and the ability to put this into practice quickly. Being generally a team based skill, communication plays a huge part, and being able to communicate information properly to your team is vital. Dungeoneering is also a ‘stupid mini-game'…apparently. If you believe that you should maybe stop reading and go back to woodcutting!

Setting up a floor

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I won't insult you and tell you how to get to Daemonheim, and I will also assume you have a ring of kingship already. In order to begin a dungeon you need to bank all of your items except from your ring of kinship (there are exceptions but we can go into this later).
The first option (left click) on your ring of kingship is ‘Open party interface'. Clicking this will bring up the menu pictured below. Clicking form party will make you the leader of a party and allow you to choose floor number, complexity and who to invite.
Teams can vary between one and five people, with five giving the maximum amount of experience. The leader of the group will need to invite members to join them using either the invite button on the party interface or right clicking ‘invite' on the player while in Daemonheim.

Floor types

There are six floor types, these are;

Frozen – Floors 1-11
Abandoned 1 – Floors 12-17
Furnished – Floors 18-29
Abandoned 2 – Floors 30-35
Occult – Floors 36-47
Warped – Floors 48-60

The general rule is that floors increase in difficulty as the type goes up, with warped floors being the hardest. It is worth noting that if you have completed a floor, and do that same floor again, the next floor in that type will be ticked off. However if you have completed all the floors of one type you will not receive prestige for that floor (prestige is explained below).

Floor size

Floors are available to be completed in three sizes; small, medium and large. A small floor is up to 16 rooms, medium floors are up to 32, both of these are available in teams with only one member. Large floors can contain up to 64 rooms but can only be accessed with three or more members. The larger the floor the more difficult it will be to complete, especially with less members. This is why smaller teams tend to do smaller floors, with larges being reserved for 5 man or 4 man groups.

Floor Complexity

A floor's complexity can be chosen from 1-6. Each complexity unlocks more skills involved in the dungeon, as well as increasing the difficult of the monsters and bosses encountered. By dropping the complexity below 6, the floor will become easier, however there will be a significant experience penalty incurred and is generally not a good idea. The complexity of the floor can be chosen in the party interface menu, as shown above.

Prestige

Prestige is a part of Dungeoneering that many people misunderstand however it is a relatively easy system.
Prestige plays a large part in determining how much experience is gained from completing a floor. Your prestige is equal to the number of floors you have completed between resets. Ideally this will always be maximum number of floors you are able to access. For example, if you can do floors 1-10 and you complete all of these, you will have 10 prestige. At this point you should reset, reducing your current process to 0 while keeping your prestige at 10. Resetting early will reduce the experience you gain for every floor as your prestige will be lower than it's possible maximum.
If you do a floor in a group of floors you have already completed without resetting you will suffer a 50% experience penalty to prevent people being able to repeat the highest level floors over and over without doing the lower level floors.

[Fothas]

Binds and suggested set ups

Armour in Dungeoneering comes in 11 independent tiers, each with increasing level requirements. I won't go through appropriate binds at each level but rather an overarching set up that you can adapt to your levels. At level one you are only able to bind one item, this increases up to 5 at level 120 with one additional ammo/rune bind.
- 1st Bind; 2 handed melee weapon (2h>Maul>Spear)
- 2nd Bind; Defensive bind, Shadow silk hood or a platebody
- 3rd Bind; Secondary weapon, Shortbow or a staff depending on best/preferred secondary combat style
- 4th Bind; Blood necklace > Defensive bind (Plate/SSH/LEGS)
- 5th Bind; Defensive bind
This leaves you with the ideal set up being;
Primal two-hander, Shadow silk hood, Sagitarian shortbow, Blood necklace, Primal plate (see picture).

In this scenario your ammo bind would be the best arrows you can use. I strongly suggest range as the secondary combat class as mele/range combo far outstrips mele/magic in total DPS. However if your magic is much higher levelled than your range then this might not be the case.

Potion bind

Once you have completed the medium task set at Daemonheim you can access your potion bind once during every floor. This is situated in your bind set up menu, see red square on the picture above.
There are several different potions to consider binding, however if you mostly solo or don't have a permanent team there one that is better than the rest;
Strong artisans potion!
This potion boosts five skills (Smithing, crafting, fletching, construction and firemaking) unlike the other skill pots which all boost only 4. This is obviously a better option as you have a larger chance to be able to easily boost a skill door you do not have the levels for. Be aware that a potion bind is still useful if your levels in a skill is 99 as you can get doors or puzzles that require 100+.
A strong artisans potion requires 93 herblore to make and is created with a lycopus herb and red moss.

Many people will suggest you should bind a strong melee potion...this is a terrible idea. It is very unlikely to allow you to boost a door or puzzle, and if you Overload before the floor begins the boost is even more useless.

Changing bind set ups

The menu shown above is the bound items setup menu. This can be accessed at the smuggler. To change between load outs, click the arrow on the right hand side of the binds you want, and if you wish to start the floor with that bind, then click the box on the left hand side.

Ring of kinship

It is possible to level up your ring of kinship during a dungeon using the customise menu (see picture below). These levels require tokens gained as a reward for completing floors. Each upgrade confers a specific bonus to your ring while in a dungeon. The best option for upgrade is ‘Beserker' with your secondary upgrade being either ‘desperado' (if ranged secondary) or Blazer (if mage secondary).
Although these upgrades may seem expensive at lower levels the extra bonuses they grant is well worth the cost. It will increase your overall damage dealing potential and help you complete floors quicker and easier.

[Fothas]

Combat in dungeons – The Evolution of Combat

Since the evolution of combat, fighting across the whole of Runescape has changed, this change did not skip Dungeoneering. It is important now to have correct ability bars set up for your primary and secondary combat skills, as well as being comfortable knowing when and how to use your abilities. Although at first it might seem a good idea to use momentum in dungeons to allow you to concentrate on everything else, I believe it is better to get used to it as soon as possible, as it will greatly increase your clearing speed. The correct use of abilities and the right sequence can be the difference between 7-8 minute solo meds and 12-15 minutes.

As you can see with all three ability bars bellow, there are some common choices regardless of which combat style you are using. On every ability bar I use in dungeoneering I bind 'Group Gatestone teleport (A), Gatestone teleport (S) and Create Gatestone (D) exactly the same. This means that as I use it more and more often it becomes second nature to create a gate or tele to one and eventually requires no thought at all. I highly recommend doing this as it is much quicker than clicking from your magic menu, and try never to change which keys these skills are bound to as you will be using them constantly and accidentally creating a gatestone when you mean to tele to it can be very detrimental.

The biggest thing to understand when using any combat style in the EOC is ability cycling, this basically means constantly using abilities and utilising the different cool downs to not have to resort to auto attacking while waiting for them to be usable again.
The key to this is to use the 3 second cool down basics in-between every other ability, the example below uses the melee action bar suggested below.
Order of abilities pressed:

1 (slice), 2, 1, 3, 1, 4, 1, q, 1, w, - Threshold, Using abilities like this is the best way to do large constant damage and is something well worth practising.
Below I will go through each combat style and discuss the best set ups for each combat style:

Melee abilities and bar set ups

Melee is my main combat style, and if you have even stats it should be yours to, also you should always be using a 2h weapon so all these abilities will work for that.
I'm not going to go through each ability in detail just a few of the important ones:

1: Slice - This is your most basic and most used melee ability, as it's only on a 3 second cool down you should be using this as often as possible!
Q: Fury - Just a damage dealing spell, however it has a cast time of 6 seconds meaning it can be frustrating or difficult to do other things during this time, one to avoid if you may have to react quickly to something e.g. Thunderous specials, Guelga 1hp special.
W: Sacrifice - The defensive ability from WE2 and probably one of the best basic abilities in the game. It gives you 25% of your damage dealt back in health or 100% if it KO's your target. In floors I use this every time it's off cool down.
E: Hurricane - The first Threshold, this ability is incredible in guardian rooms as it does damage to all adjacent targets, however be sure to gather as many minions around you as possible before you use it. (Note: This ability is the reason you should never kill level 4-10 monsters (crawling hands, spiders) as this ability always kills them as collateral, saving you attacking them directly.
R: Assault - Last but not least, this is your boss killing, big single target damage ability. It usually does about 6k damage and is well worth using when ever it is available.

Ranged abilities and bar set ups

I use Range as my secondary attack style with a 2h bow.

1: Piercing shot - The range version of slice, use this every time it's off cool down.
3: Ricochet - A really nice multi-target damage dealing, great in guardian rooms
Q: Sacrifice - The defensive ability from WE2 and probably one of the best basic abilities in the game. It gives you 25% of your damage dealt back in health or 100% if it KO's your target. In floors I use this every time it's off cool down.
W: Rapid Fire - Effectively the range version of assault, excellent single target burst, should be used vs bosses and high level mages
E: Bombardment - Range version of hurricane, use this on large groups of monsters to quickly clear guardian dungeons
R: Anguish (Curse) - I use Turmoil on my quick prayers so this allows me an easy way to switch to the range version. Could be switched for something else if preferred.

Magic abilities and bar set ups

I am no in-dungeon mage expert as it is by far the weakest class, however this is a set up I would recommend.

1: Wrack - The magic version of slice/piercing shot - Use this as often as you can
2: Dragon Breath - A small AOE spell, nice in guardian rooms
W: Sacrifice - The defensive ability from WE2 and probably one of the best basic abilities in the game. It gives you 25% of your damage dealt back in health or 100% if it KO's your target. In floors I use this every time it's off cool down.
E: Wild Magic - Good single target damage
R: Asphyxiate - The magic version of Assault and Rapid fire, great for bosses.

Defensive abilities

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Defensive abilities in general aren't all that useful in dungeoneering as most of the time you shouldn't be using a shield at all. However, the two abilities circled are very useful!
Number 1; Anticipation - This ability makes you immune to stuns for 10 seconds. This is exceptional for running through rooms which are not guardian doors but do contain mages who can stun you or de-hood you. Anticipation prevents both of these and 10 seconds is normally plenty of time to get out of the room.
Number 2; Freedom - Freedom breaks you out of any stuns, and gives you immunity for a further 6 seconds. This is very useful if you get stunned by a mage or by a boss. As you can see above I carry this on every single action bar I run as the ability to spam it quickly is very helpful. This can often be the difference between dying and surviving.

Constitution abilities

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Momentum: If you have to use this, then it's ok, but it will seriously slow you down
Sacrifice: I've already mentioned this, a really incredible ability and used for every combat style
Regenerate: Excellent outside dungeons, not so good inside as you will rarely have enough time out of combat.
Guthix's Blessing: Very rare to reach 100% adrenaline in dungeons if you are using thresholds on cool down, however if you do this might be the best ultimate to use as it heals a large amount of HP.

[Fothas]

How to begin a floor

Beginning a floor in the correct manner every single time you start is actually one of the best and most simple ways to improve your floor times. With the introduction of the new Daemonheim task set the optimal start has changed slightly.

Starting with no tasks completed;

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The first thing you need to do, is run to the starting table and grab something you can sell for a reasonable amount of money; katagon arrows/armour or weapons are ideal for this. In a perfect world you want to be able to pick up and sell one thing only, reducing the time you spend at the starting table. This item needs to be sold to the smuggler and then you need to purchase;
- 50 feathers – This purchase is important, unlike all other puzzle rooms where the items needed for completion are provided by your tool belt, fishing rooms require feathers. Buying them right off the bat is the best way to save you from having to go back to the start room later on in the floor.
- Rune essence – Spend the rest of your GP on this by clicking the buy 250 option. This then needs to be crafted into a roughly even number of cosmic and law runes (40 of each should be plenty).
If you have extra essence left over, drop it next to the altar just incase a team mate needs it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-HHpKl8C9k

Starting with completion of the Daemonheim task set up to medium

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Unlike before the task set you no longer need to loot the table at all, woo! Not only do you start the floor with plenty of cash, you can also talk to the smuggler and claim 40 laws and 40 cosmics. This makes the floor incredibly quick to start, as demonstrated in the video below. As well as this you are given a potion bind, discussed above; this is accessed by choosing the bind options menu at the smuggler. It is best to collect your potion now to prevent you having to go back and collect it if it's needed. All that is left is buying your feathers as normal.

UPDATE: After a recent patch your potion bind now appears in your inventory at the start of every floor so there is no need to collect it. I'll upload a new video when I get a chance.

After you have your feathers and runes, using either method, you want to get out of the starting room and doing things quickly, however before you do that it's best to make and drop a gatestone in the starting room (only important if there is more than 1 path from HT). This gatestone is easily broken but one in every 5-10 floors you may do a short dead end path and need to get back to HT quickly, this quick gate costs no time and so is well worth doing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_7bhECxBGY

Please ignore me examining the gate stone and then running towards the side of the room with no door on it....I'm a noob

[Fothas]

Dungeoneering acronyms

Communication in dungeons is very important; especially when 5 people are running around, because of this Dungeoneering has developed its own set of acronyms to help get information across quickly. Learning these will save you a lot of typing time, and with the new combat system this is great because you will need your keyboard for abilities. Below are all of the major acronyms and the ones you are likely to come across.

Key colour;
• Green – GR
• Gold - GO
• Crimson – C
• Yellow – Y
• Purple – P
• Blue – B
• Silver – S - There is no silver ok...give me a break!
• Orange – O

Key Shape;
• Diamond – D
• Triangle – T
• Rectangle – R
• Pentagon – P
• Corner – Co
• Crescent – Cr

This leaves you with a quick way of communicating any key/door combination possible e.g. Blue diamond becomes BD.

Floor types

When offering a floor these abbreviations are often used to advertise the type of floor that is going to be completed.

• Frozen – Fro
• Abandoned 1 – Aba1
• Furnished – Furn
• Abandoned 2 – Aba2
• Low occult – Locc
• Fleshspoiler floor (42-44) – FF
• Thunderous floor (45-47) – TF
• High occult - Hocc
• Warped - Warp

Weapons
• Hexhunter bow – Hex/hhb
• Blood necklace – BN
• Sagittarian shortbow – SSB
• Celestial catalytic staff – Ccs
• Main-hand – Mh
• Off-hand – Oh
• Primal two hander – P2H

Gate stone and path abbreviations
• Guardian door – GD
• Group Gatestone – GGS/GT
• Personal gatestone – PGT
• Home teleport – HT
• Gate this path/door – Gate (x)
• Guardian door at the group gatestone (tele and clear) – GTGD
• Hold the group tele and be ready to take it to your path – HGT
• Move the group gatestone – MGT
• Carry/drag the group gatestone – CGT/DRAG
• GGT at boss – GTB
• GGT to end the floor – GTE
• GD at mark on the map – GDM
• Fork in the path, help to explore it – Fork/paths
• Drop the GT now – Buy gt
• Take the GT somewhere interesting – Sell gt

These are less useful since the global key change but you still may have use for them;
• Got key/about to pick up – GK (X)
• Dead end – DE
• Dead end no key – DENK
• Dead end with key – DEWK

[Oobz]

Awesome so far, thanks for spending the time to create it, I look forward to the rest of it

[Dr Brad]

Grand stuff! Woot!

[Fothas]

Finally got round to polishing off the combat part of this, so this part is finished...I think

[Milly]

Great guide! Definitely need to figure out how to get that WE2 ability looks really useful

[Gridenough]

Thanks. I am really going to get going on this, but there is so much to learn all at once. I will have to read this more than once to really get what is going on. Obviously I am missing out on a lot to leave my dg exp to tears.

[Wynn Andye]

Wow! So useful... Thanks for doing this, Fothas!

Wynn :-D

[Touristguide]

I will use this the next time i go into dung and not look so much like a newb. Thanks Fothas

[Dr Brad]

Fothas, one comment about defensive abilities: When ranging, I frequently use Reflect and Resonance because the bow acts like a shield in dung. (This is NOT the case outside of dung.)

We're ready for Part 2!!!

[Imp334]

Thanks for the guide
Maybe it's just me being old school, but does it really make much of a difference to have the teleport spells in your action bar instead of having the magic tab open to click on? I always feel like I'll do something stupid like click make gatestone, drop gatestone, teleport group gatestone but the game doesn't read the middle one because I did it too fast and I end up ruining the floor

[Fothas]

Thanks for the guide
Maybe it's just me being old school, but does it really make much of a difference to have the teleport spells in your action bar instead of having the magic tab open to click on? I always feel like I'll do something stupid like click make gatestone, drop gatestone, teleport group gatestone but the game doesn't read the middle one because I did it too fast and I end up ruining the floor

Nope, it doesn't really make a difference, although it may save time to make them with the keyboard rather than moving the mouse to the tab. However it really is a matter of preference. I've been doing it this way since EOC was released so it's muscle memory now. It's worth noting that I do use the magic tab for the secondary gatestone.