Barbarian Assault. Killing Queen with One Omega Egg

It's funny how little is needed to give an incentive to train a particular skill. I've been shying away from training Agility for several years, then Jagex released auras, I chose Surefooted and suddenly found myself doing frequent 20 mins runs on the advanced Gnome Course and my Agility jumping from 81 to nearly 85. But that's not the topic I wanted to talk about.

I've been using Penance master horn when training Agility, so, naturally, I had to mix my 20 mins runs with Barbarian Assault games in order to refill the horn. This is my favorite Runescape minigame - no complains there :) I love it. Barbarian Assault is simply the best way to make new friends in Runescape.

There is just one thing that frequently tarnishes it: Barbarian Assault Myths...

The biggest culprit is the myth about the egg launcher. You know it: "don't shoot!!! we'll all loose points" and it's variation "don't shoot!!! I won't get as many points as I could for my role". Of course, both statements are completely false. No one looses or misses any points because of other players using cannon to kill penance creatures. But the myth persists and people loose their tempers because of it, name calling ensues and teams fall apart.

I think I got used to it, though. It seems like this myth won't disappear no matter what...

But now a new destructive myth appeared and I am worried about it having bad impact on the game: people insist on trying to kill the Queen with just one omega egg. It's actually not a myth, it's a glitch in the game which is possible to exploit. I found one video where it is shown, see here if you are interested. In a nutshell, it is possible (or used to be possible, I don't know if Jagex already fixed it or not) to load the cannot with some normal eggs, then everybody opens shooting interface and starts spam-clicking on the empty omega egg slot. Then the collector loads just one egg and boom, it goes multiple times, the queen is dead.

I actually don't care that much about this glitch. If it works it presumably saves a minute of the game time, who cares! What I care about is the fact that people start to force their teammates to try it. It is not very easy to do with spam-clicking and all that, so it NEVER works the first time! What happens next is just as bad as it is repetitive. The person who wants to exploit the glitch insists on trying again and the rest of the team begs him to forget about it and kill the Queen in a normal way. It goes on for a while (5-10 mins!!!), sometimes another unsuccessful attempt follows, finally, names are being called and someone quits the game. In short, I have yet to seen a Queen killed when someone mentions trying this "one omega egg glitch". Brrr...

So yeah, if that happens to you, my advice would be to run! As soon as the glitch is mentioned, quit the game and look for another team. Seriously. You'll save yourself 30 mins and spare the rest of the team from a nasty exchange.

Barbarian Assault for Skillers

I went to replenish my Penance Horn today (after half a year hiatus) and had a great time at Barbarian Assault. Played on three different random teams through all ten waves - and every one of those teams worked as smoothly as it could be! And now I wonder was I simply lucky, or maybe the minigame is old enough that only players who really like it (and thus are proficient) keep coming there?

Went searching for the answer and found this gem: "skillers fighting back" or "the first successful Barbarian Assault wave by a team of five pure skillers". Enjoy!



Here is a link to YouTube version (better quality): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGVgkXh7OM8

Killing Nomad with a Familiar

Great story from Gerasimos about the way his Turtle won the battle with Nomad. It is amazing, my battle with Nomad was also won by a familiar (Ice Titan) in the same fashion: I ran out of restore potions and simply drank sara brews while Ice Titan was damaging (and finally killed) Nomad. Now when it's not just me, I guess, it's becoming almost a valid strategy :-)

In other news:

• I am still playing War of Legends, but my patience is almost all but run down. Jagex did two (!!!) full resets of all account there in three days - it is unbelievably frustrating. It's like going through a tutorial island over and over again. Yes, I know, it's beta...
• But to compensate for WoL frustrations, I did play several Barbarian Assault games. What a blast!

Fighter Torso Sara and Barbarian Assault Guides

Great summary from Merch Gwyar: still ongoing saga about changing Fighter (Penance) Torso stats and list of in depth guides for various Barbarian Assault roles. This is my favorite minigame as well, so I'll be back there playing soon.

But meanwhile I am getting through the beginnings of the War of Legends game (which was just released). It does look and feel just like many other games out there. Not exactly a clone from Game Forge, but not different enough to make it very compelling. I'll stick to it for a week or so to see how player-to-player combat works, but I don't have high hopes at the moment. However, if you never played any of Game Forge games, I'd say, give it a try - you might like it, it is definitely not the worst one from its class.

Evil Tree and Rumors

An Evil Tree guide from the Informer. And it actually contains a picture of an Evil Tree sapling, which I haven't been able to spot so far. Doesn't look like a sapling, if you ask me, though definitely very "treeish".

Now, there is one thing that irks me. I am talking about a new Barbarian Assault type of rumor that lighting fires around an evil tree lessens the reward (or tree lifespan). Every time I attempt to light a fire under an evil tree, I get screamed at by at least half a dozen players. And it is getting worse... Neither Informer, Tip.it or Marlain talks about it, nor I see anything like that in Jagex's description of the minigame. I don't think anyone can actually measure it and prove/disprove the rumor, as there are always many players working on every tree and you never know what and how much influences to the tree's destruction.

So, until I see an official comment from Jagex about the way it works, I refuse to believe this rumor and encourage you to do the same. Don't fall for it and don't be shy to get your Firemaking reward from the minigame.

Runescape Minigames

Good article about Runescape Minigames from ZacharyB. Not an overview, but thoughtful look at the nature of these games and player's motives behind.

It is fascinating how huge is the minigames variety. I don't know anyone who would say that he/she does not like all of them. There are always at least one minigame that suites person's personality and style of play. It is also fascinating how different are people's preferences. Ask ten random players about their favorite minigame and you'll get 8-9 different answers!

P.S. Anyway, if you wonder, my favorite is Barbarian Assault. What is yours?

How to play Defender in Barbarian Assault minigame

Excellent guide from Merch Gwyar. I've been playing this minigame for so long, but there are still several things in this guide I had no idea about.

Barbarian Assault Guide for Advanced Adventurers

Seeing so much interest in my favorite minigame lately, I simply can't resist linking my Barbarian Assault Guide for Advanced Adventurers, which Joost kindly published on Runetower about a year ago.