The cost of Death

[Veggie]

For how often players interact with the mechanic of dying, it is surprising to me how little people pay attention or know about dying in this game. Granted, it is a mechanic which has changed frequently, and relatively recently. There are a lot of misconceptions, misinformation, and mistakes I see around. From people paying too much for death, to people spending a significant amount of their money to purchase a Ring of Death, to people sacrificing their gear. It's time you understand the death system in this game and start saving money.

 

There are three main ways to die in this game:

 

1. Dying with 3 or fewer items - excluding items that are always kept on death, such as air runes. You respawn at a local respawn point with all of your items. If you had a familiar, it dies and its items are dropped. Any item that is always lost on death, is lost.
    
2. Dying with 3 or greater items. You show up at Death's Office with no items other than those that are always kept, where he offers to sell your items back. If you had a familiar, it dies and its items are dropped. Any item that is always lost on death, is lost.
   
   There are two ways to handle this kind of death.
   
   Upon leaving Death's Office or after 5 minutes of being in Death's Office, your gravestone timer starts. This is between 105 seconds and 180 seconds, depending on your gravestone type. If you reach your gravestone, you'll see 3 boxes at the top. These items are "protected". In this instance, "protected" means that those items will not degrade. If you click an item in these boxes, it leaves the protected boxes, and if you click an item outside the boxes, it goes into the boxes, is it not drag-and-drop. Make sure your degradable items are in the boxes before claiming your items. If a degradable item is unprotected, it will degrade for 20% of its charge, with the exception of some degrade-to-dust items such as Sirenic, which lose 10% of their charge (10,000 charge if augmented). If an augmented item is unprotected, you will lose 2 hours of the item's charge drain rate in charges.
   
   The other option is to simply buy your items back from Death. You have up to 24 hours after dying to reclaim your items from Death before they disappear from the game. You will have 3 items at the top of the interface. These items are "protected". In this instance, "protected" means that these items cost no money to reclaim. Every item that is not protected needs to be paid for, and costs between 15% of the item's price for items below 10,000gp, up to 5% of the item's price plus 70,500gp for items over 10,000,000gp. These items are sorted by their item value, which means your most expensive items are automatically sent to the "protected" box at the top, with the notable exception of certain untradable items such as Asylum Surgeon's Ring or Dragon Rider amulet, which may be more expensive than your automatically "protected" items, in which case you should manually move them in place of your cheapest "protected" item. None of your items degrade.
   
   Death's interface features a "sacrifice" option, where you can delete an item in exchange for reducing the cost of your death by four times the reclaim value on an item. Using the sacrifice option always loses you money. The single instance in which the sacrifice option might be okay is if you don't have enough money to pay for your death, and you cannot make enough money before the 24 hours of Death holding your items is up. This should hopefully never be the case.
   
   There is no penalty for failing to make it back to your grave in time, other than that you'll have to resort to the option of reclaiming your items from Death. However, if you die with 3 or more items again and get sent back to Death, all of the items from your first death will be deleted from the game. Therefore, if you're going to travel to your grave, and it's in a dangerous area such as King Black Dragon or Kalphite King's gravestone area, it is important that you don't bring more than 3 items, even food - you don't want to risk dying and having your first death's items deleted. Furthermore, if you don't reclaim your items within 24 hours of dying, your items are also deleted from the game. I'm uncertain how this works with disconnects, but it's possible that if you disconnect and can't log on for more than 24 hours, you might lose all of your items with no chance of reclaiming them. Feel free to correct me on this, and it might be possible that customer support could help you out in this situation.
    
3. Dying with a Ring of Death equipped. The Ring of Death loses 15% of its charge. If the Ring of Death does not have 15% charge remaining, or it is not equipped, you default back to #2 or #1. You respawn at a local respawn point with all of your items. If you had a familiar summoned, your familiar stays alive with all of its items. None of your items degrade, other than the Ring of Death. Because a Ring of Death takes an Onyx to recharge 50% of its charge, the cost of dying with a Ring of Death is 30% of the cost of an Onyx, regardless of how high or how low your reclaim cost at Death's Office would have been. The wiki page automatically updates and tells you what 30% of an Onyx is. As of this post, it is 700,278gp.

 

In regards to dying in combat, #1 should almost never apply. So the three options become reclaiming from your gravestone, reclaiming from Death, or wearing a Ring of Death.

 

You can increase the amount of protected items to a limit of 5. The Protect Item prayer/curse protects 1 extra item, it protects 2 extra items if you have the Hoarding perk equipped on an augmented item with charge. A Portent of Item Protection (untradable, takes 92 Divination to make, costs about 27,000 to make at current prices) or having a Sign of Item Protection equipped will protect 1 extra item.

 

Gravestone

 

The benefit of reclaiming from your gravestone is that, other than your familiar dying, and losing items that are automatically lost on death (for example, mechanized chinchompas), it costs no money. The downside is that degradable items are incredibly expensive to leave unprotected. For example, an augmented merciless kiteshield at the highest charge drain reduction costs 3.6 divine charges packs (10,800 charges) worth of charges to die with - currently valued at 274,014gp. There are some degradable items which are cheap to leave unprotected, such as Berserk Blood Essence or Virtus Boots - these can be even cheaper to repair than a Portent of Item Protection costs - however, you do have to remember to recharge them.

 

Because of how expensive it is to have items degrade, you have to limit what gear you bring significantly if you plan on reclaiming from your grave. In a typical setup, that means you can have an augmented body, augmented legs, an augmented 2h weapon, and you have two slots for other items. Some options could be a Reaper necklace, an Amulet of souls, Nightmare gauntlets, Deathtouch Bracelet, Dominion tower gloves, 1h weapon and a shield, using dual wield and a shield, a Mobile switch, a Planted Feet switch, a scrimshaw, or a charged god book. In your other slots, you'll want a bunch of non-degradables.

Your options for non-degradables are as follows:

 

• For helmets, non-degradables are Anima core helms of Zamorak (range), Seren (mage), and Zaros (melee). Alternatively, Armadyl, Bandos, or Subjugation. Alternatively, you can use full void.
• For pocket slot, a non-charged god book. Alternatively, Berserk Blood Essence is cheap to recharge.
• For necklace slot, Dragon Rider amulet if you're choosing to not use Reaper necklace or Amulet of souls.
• For the shield slot, if you're choosing not to use high level or augmented shields, you could use unaugmented spectral/arcane/divine/elysian spirit shield, or a dark bow.
• For body and legs, if you choosing to not use augmented gear or don't have access, you could use unaugmented Anima core body/legs of Zamorak (range), Seren (mage), or Zaros (melee). Alternatively, Armadyl/Bandos/Subjugation. Alternatively, you can use full void.
• For gloves, Armadyl, Bandos, or Subjugation. Alternatively, Atrocious rogue gloves. Alternatively, you can use full void.
• For boots, Armadyl, Bandos, or Subjugation. Alternatively, Silverhawk boots
• For ring, you can use Asylum Surgeon's Ring since it does not degrade

 

If you're using a yak, try to not put a bunch of saradomin brews into it, because you will lose your familiar on death. Saradomin brews are situational in PvM, and if you have to bring them, it's preferable that they're in your inventory.

 

Reclaim from death

 

The benefit of reclaiming from death is that you don't have to worry about how many degradable items you bring. Furthermore, you have the option of bringing the best possible gear, since you get to wear the Asylum Surgeon's Ring (remember to protect it if you die). However, you do have to worry about how expensive the items you're bringing are. An incredibly common mistake I see is people using Nex boots. Pernix boots currently cost 157,293gp to reclaim, compared to 50,345 of Armadyl boots. For just 1 range bonus (roughly +0.1% DPS), you're paying 106,948gp more to reclaim them on death.

 

There are lots of tips for reducing the cost of death across the various item slots. Keep in mind, however, there is no need to downgrade if you don't think you have a chance of dying:

 

• For helm, Malevolent is cheaper than Torva, Pernix is cheaper than Sirenic, Virtus is cheaper than Tectonic. Alternatively, Armadyl/Bandos/Subjugation.
• For body, Malevolent is significantly cheaper than Torva, Pernix is the same price as Sirenic, Virtus is cheaper than Tectonic. Superior Morrigan's and Superior Zuriel's are significantly cheaper than T90 and T80.
• For legs, Malevolent is significantly cheaper than Torva, Pernix is more expensive than Sirenic, Virtus is cheaper than Tectonic. Superior Morrigan's and Superior Zuriel's are cheaper than T90 and T80.
• For your ammo slot, all runes in your rune pouch count towards the value at Death's Office, even, for example, air runes which are automatically kept on death if they aren't in the pouch. The same thing goes for arrows and bolts, whether they're held in the Tirannwn quiver or not. Therefore, you could take a modest amount of runes or ammo to reduce your death cost. Obviously you don't want too little ammo where you might run out, or if you forget to refill it.
• For your cape slot, if you aren't using a Completionist cape or Max cape, the next best for bonus are the TokHaar-Kal capes, however these cost 60,500gp to reclaim. Magic has the option of Saradomin/Guthix/Zamorak capes from the mage arena which are automatically kept on death and provide the same bonus, Range has the option of downgrading 5 bonus to the Ava's alerter which picks up ammo and costs 999gp to reclaim. Melee does not have a good alternative for a cape.
• For gloves, Nightmare Gauntlets are irreplaceable for ranged, suck it up and pay. Deathtouch bracelet is the highest damage output but is very expensive to reclaim, Dominion tower gloves are the next best damage, and could be better damage than Deathtouch bracelet at group bosses, they cost 50,000gp to reclaim. Armadyl gloves are more than 50,000gp to reclaim, Bandos and Subjugation are cheaper. Ascension grips and Celestial handwraps cost more than 50,000gp, Razorback gauntlets are cheaper. However, at just 1gp to reclaim, you can use Atrocious rogue gloves, which give +10 in all styles (compared to +11 of Armadyl/Bandos/Subjugation) as well as +250 HP. You get the Atrocious rogue gloves for 1800 Bounty Hunter points, which takes a few hours of Bounty Hunter to get. Bounty Hunter is a safe minigame near the bridge in Edgeville, it is boostable but people can also crash boosters. If you're looking to save money in the long-term and don't care about the maximum DPS from Deathtouch or Dominion tower gloves, it could be worth your time.
• For boots, Armadyl/Bandos/Subjugation are significantly cheaper than Pernix/Torva/Virtus. If there is any chance of you dying at a boss whatsoever, it is worth it for you to downgrade. This is one of the best places to save money. Alternatively, Silverhawk boots cost 1gp to reclaim even if they're charged with feathers, and they give +6 to all styles (compared to +11 of GWD1 boots or +12 of Nex boots). If you're really dedicated, Hardened Runner Boots from Barbarian Assault give +10 range and cost 3,000gp to reclaim.
• For a Planted Feet switch, the tier no longer matters, unless you use the switch for anything other than being a switch (maybe you cast Vulnerability with it or something). Wand of the Cywir Elders, which used to be the meta for a magic Planted Feet switch, costs 162,415gp to reclaim. The cheapest wand is Abyssal wand, at 10,122gp to reclaim. Karil's pistol crossbow is the cheapest mainhand for range, at about 15,812gp to reclaim, compared to Shadow Glaive being around 98,000gp, but Shadow Glaive is your best option if you want something that doesn't fire ammo. Armadyl crossbow is an option, at 51,380gp reclaim cost if you are using crossbows and don't want to run into wrong-ammo issues. If you're still running with a Sunspear, that costs 19,500gp to reclaim. And if you're using Enhanced Excalibur for dual wield, that costs 500gp to reclaim, but as a reminder equipping an Enhanced Excalibur would cancel your shield abilities, so that limits your ability in higher level PvM.
• For a shield, T90 shields are cheaper than spirit shields, if you needed any other reason to use T90 over spirit shields. T90 defenders are even cheaper, at a flat 12,000gp to reclaim. Strykebow costs an astounding 407,851gp to reclaim, compared to a Dark bow's 6,449gp.
• For a Barge switch (augmented with Aftershock to keep your stacks), a mainhand Drygore costs around 120,000gp to reclaim, Blade of Nymora about 30,000gp, Abyssal whip costs 6,475gp, Flowers (purple) cost 161gp. If you don't care about the actual damage from the Barge ability, go ahead and downgrade as you see fit.

 

Once again, don't fill your yak with saradomin brews, put brews in your inventory, food in your yak to save money in case you die.

 

Ring of Death

 

If your death cost is below 30% the price of an Onyx, you should not use Ring of Death, period. At the current price, that means if your death cost (including familiar and its items) is less than 700,278gp, you should not be using a Ring of Death. However, if it's above that, that doesn't automatically mean you should choose Ring of Death. You're still giving up the Asylum Surgeon's Ring to use it, and the Asylum Surgeon's Ring is a pretty good boost in DPS. However, if you're not using Asylum Surgeon's Ring at all, you can go ahead and use Ring of Death if your death cost is high. I'll also throw a jab and say if you don't do Ring of Vigour switch, you should wear a Ring of Vigour all the time instead of using a Ring of Death.

 

If you use a Ring of Death, that means you can bring absolutely everything, no stops. If you want to bring a set of Anima Core of Sliske to switch for the Saradomin/Zamorak warpriest damage reducing effect against Araxxor's shadows on path 3, you can do that without paying the ridiculous reclaim cost at death. You can tribrid at Kalphite King without a ridiculous reclaim cost. Furthermore, items that are always lost on death are no longer lost on death (note, Ring of Death does not work in the wilderness) - this means mechanized chinchompas don't disappear on death.

[Overvoltage]

nice.

[Astrofysicus]

Great post.

[Cam L]

This is hench. 

[Juanimax]

Good post

[James]

Very informative. Do you think in the future you could put out a DPS guide for the three styles for both single and AoE  (slayer) combat? I'd love to see a vigi-like analysis. 

[Veggie]

57 minutes ago, James said:

Very informative. Do you think in the future you could put out a DPS guide for the three styles for both single and AoE  (slayer) combat? I'd love to see a vigi-like analysis. 

Maybe

[Pizzas]

I didn't learn anything, but I enjoyed reading this. Thanks  

[Drake M]

Very helpful to me