This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/2007scape by /u/Jeppesk on 2025-08-04 10:01:21+00:00.
Let's start with the good: I genuinely think this boss is some of the best solo content in the game. I love the difficulty of waves 8 and above. Once you get the timing of the double boulder attack down, it has a really nice rhythm to it, and it's very satisfying to get a gear switch and a bow shot in between prayer flicks. The things this boss does right really show how good the dev team is at utilising the combat mechanics of OSRS. On that basis, this boss ranks together with content such as inferno and awakened DT2 bosses for me. I have killed it over 2700 times with over 550 of those being at waves 8 and above. While I do wish that I could just get the boots, I would not have been able to be this dedicated to the grind if the boss wasn't very enjoyable.
There are, however, detractors from the enjoyment. I will list them here, organised into categories of bugs, unfair mechanics, and my personal gripes.
Bugs
- If you melee punish early on waves 8+ and Doom autoattacks you rigth after, the autoattack will land on the same tick as the last attack from the second boulder, making you risk taking an unavoidable 60+ hit.
- If you're standing under the boss when a rock lands anywhere in the arena, you get pushed out and stalled. This is especially unfair in combination with the melee punish charge attack and melee demonic larvae going to the boss during the initial phase on waves 8+ (death from yellow clicking or chasing a larva into getting pushed out and 99'd).
- Sometimes the boss will start its melee punish charge attack, but then a few ticks later transition into the shield phase charge attack. It even inherits the charge. This happens at the same time as the boulder attack, so you're busy flicking your prayers, leaving you little time to switch to a demonbane weapon and reset the charge.
- The boss itself.
Unfair mechanics
- Demonic larvae spawning in the volatile earth phase, especially those of the melee persuasion.
- Triple demonic larvae spawn (already acknowledged by Jagex), especially those of the melee persuasion, especially during the volatile earth phase or the melee punish charge attack.
- Rocks that were supposed to land on a tile that happens to have acid on it will just not spawn, meaning that after something like wave 10, the only viable option to deal with the stomps in the burrowed phase is to stall the initial phase long enough to get boulder attacks that you use to place rocks for protection. Otherwise there are simply not enough rocks. It's telling that the meta used to be parked car and is now rock-block.
My personal gripes
- Even when using a twisted bow, you can sometimes get such bad hits that you don't make the 75% HP threshold within a certain amount of time. The boss then further punishes you by transitioning to volatile earth phase. Watch the Synq clip titled "Synq pressed to the limit of his abilities" or something and tell me that this is fair. I think the bad DPS is punishment enough by itself.
- The clickbox is very finnicky (already acknowledged by Jagex). This isn't only when doom jerks open the shield, but also sometimes while in its charging animation. You may have seen someone on reddit say "Click on the eye, time to die". I've definitely had that happen where I click directly on the boss during the charging animation, and my character just books it under the boss. This is deadly during the melee punish attack on waves 8+.
- You can attack the volatile earth while on weapon attack cooldown, but it resets your attack cooldown. This is inconsistent with how the larvae behaves and feels wrong and wonky. I wish it was 0-tick just like the larvae, although I understand that this would directly make it easier.
- Having the boss activate its prayers on the same tick as you attack feels awful. I wish there was an animation cue to tell you that prayers are coming or that the prayers were only functional after having been displayed for a tick. This mostly applies to the earlier waves where the attack is spammed much more.
- The melee attack and range attack sound very similar, and I wish they were more distinct. Compare the sounds to those of Leviathan where the melee attack has a deep booming sound. I've been hit more times than I can count because I'm focused on running to a safe rock and then not switching from range to melee prayer, because I quickly misidentify the attack based on the sound.
- Venom isn't cleared between waves. It's such an insanely powerful and punishing mechanic, and at late waves it's literally impossible to not step in a pool from time to time. So if you forgot antivenom or araxxyte sacks, it's just instantly a run-ender. In colosseum, venom is at least cleared at wave end, and I wish that were the case here too. It's definitely the least of my gripes though, and I welcome "skill issue"-comments about this one.
I think that's just about it. The boss is just so close to being a masterpiece, but the rough edges and sharp corners detract quite a bit of enjoyment from it. I feel strongly about it, because I so want this boss to be as good as it can be (and is really close to being). Thanks for reading.
