Fist of Guthix

Fist of Guthix is an activity that was released on 9 April 2008. The game employs tactics and strategy, and offers a substantial range of rewards to players. To begin playing Fist of Guthix, players must first speak to Fiara. Please note that this is a "Safe" activity. You will not lose any items if you die in the activity. Fist of Guthix happens to be one of the few activities which you can have a highscore rank in. The current number rating needed to be on the activity high scores is 500, and there are about 700,276 players ranked. It is also a great way to train Magic because runes provided are free. However, due to the short span of a match, it is faster to train with your own runes, although more costly.

The official Member's Fist of Guthix worlds are: 92 and 98. There are also Free-to-Play worlds, including: 20 and 25. Although there are designated worlds, Fist of Guthix can be played on all worlds, however it may be more difficult to play the activity due to the lack of players on some worlds.

Location
The entrance to Fist of Guthix is located in the Gamers' grotto just north of Falador. Before 1 February 2011 the entrance was in level 7 wilderness north of Varrock.

A Ring of Duelling has a teleport that leads directly to the arena. The Games Necklace has a teleport to the Gamer's Grotto. From Gamer's Grotto the Southern portal will take you to the Fist of Guthix arena.

Lobby
After players enter the cave, they enter the main lobby. Here, the players can talk to Fiara to learn the rules of the game, access their bank, talk to Reggie who runs the shop, talk to some of the druids like Alran, Getorix and Pontimer to learn more about the history of this place and finally enter the waiting room for the activity. New players must talk to Fiara first before they are allowed to play the game. She is a giant earwig like creature, a Guardian of Guthix.

There can only be 250 players in the activity at once. If the game is full, players in the lobby will not be able to access the waiting room until the game has cleared out a bit. Players can simply wait a few minutes until the waiting room is open, or they may wish to switch worlds if the current world is exceptionally busy.

Once inside the waiting room, players need only to wait until the game matches them with an opponent and they will then be teleported into the main Fist of Guthix arena, as long as there are enough players in the room.

At the corner of the waiting lobby, there is an entrance that players can see but cannot click on it. The examine text is "I need an opponent first." This is probably a decoration and not a sign of a future update.

There appears to be some crates with a Farseer Helm on top. The helm is non-stealable.

Gameplay
The activity consists of two rounds and is 1 vs 1. In each round, one player is classified as the "hunted," and the other player is classified as the "hunter." In the first round, the roles are determined randomly. In the second round, the roles are swapped and all stats are restored. Therefore both players will have a chance to play each role; afterwards a winner is determined based upon number of charges you were able to collect during your turn as "hunted."

Some items cannot be brought into the game arena. Any food, runes (including essence), skilling supplies that cannot be equipped (such as a tinderbox, logs, etc.), all afros, holiday items (except for clothing), and potions cannot be brought in. There will be a warning if you attempt to bring an item that you cannot use.



The following items are supplied to each player when a player goes into the waiting area, and taken away if they leave it:

Playing Fist of Guthix has become a common way for players to level their magic level without paying for runes and while playing the activity, they provide you with runes to use.

Hunter
As the hunter, players must hunt down the other player and kill them as fast as possible in order to prevent them from collecting charges. Hunters can use melee, range, or magic to attack their opponent. Hunters typically use a combination of attack styles in order to deal maximum damage against their opponent, and counteract any prayers or armour.

It is possible for the hunter to be killed by the hunted but this mostly appears when there is a big difference between combat levels. If killed, the hunter respawns at his starting point.

Hunted
Being the hunted player is usually considered much more challenging, and is the only role in which the player can collect charges. The basic objective is to gather as many charges from the "Fist of Guthix", a large energy well in the centre of the field, as possible before time runs out or the player dies.

To gather charges, the player must first pick up a stone of power from a stone dispenser, and then wield the stone to gather charges, the maximum number of charges being 5000. The stone is two-handed, and can only gather charges when it is wielded (not just in the inventory), meaning that the hunted player will be unable to fight back whilst wielding the Stone. Players can gather charges anywhere in the arena, although the closer to the centre (the "Fist of Guthix") they are, the faster they will gather charges. Players wielding the stone will not gain charges individually, but will instead gain a number of them at a time. The hunted can attack the hunter, but no spells can be used and the hunted can only rely on melee or range. If the hunted kills the hunter, the hunter respawns in a random location.

Hunted players do have an advantage, however, in that they can use the teleport houses located around the centre. Hunters cannot access these houses, nor see players inside them. Automatic lock-on is also cancelled, so the hunted player is safe while inside them. There are portals inside to teleport the player to other houses circled around the centre. When the player teleports he/she will lose 20 charges. Note that the player will have some lifepoints drained when they enter a house, and often take 40-30 damage while they are in the house. Players cannot gather any charges while in the house. If a player has recently exited a teleport house, they will not be able to enter another house again for about 20 seconds. A hunted player with less than 20 charges cannot use the portals in the houses. When teleporting there is a chance that the teleport will fail, returning you near the house or at the centre of the arena.

Round End
A round will end under any of the following circumstances:


 * Time runs out
 * The hunted player gets killed
 * The hunted player gets the maximum number of charges (5,000)
 * Either player logs out or leaves the arena (If your opponent logs out and you have not had a turn to be the hunted yet, you will have 500 or 150 points and your opponent will have 0, resulting in a win for you)

When the first round ends, both players will swap roles, stat effects will be reset, and the second round will begin. After the second round, the player with the most energy charges (or the only player left in the event of a log out or forfeit) wins. If both players got the exact same amount of charges (e.g. 647-647), both players will lose.

At the end of the game, most of the arrows on the ground will be returned to their original owners, so there is no need to pick them up while in the game (Similar to the Duel Arena).

Facilities of the fighting area
The fighting area is composed of a large circular area, with teleport houses and ruins surrounding the centre. At the edges of the arena, there are stone dispensers for hunted players to grab a stone of power. The stone can be equipped and used to gather charges. The teleport houses near the centre, or Fist, of the arena, protect the hunted when entered. It makes the hunted invisible to everyone else and it disables any "locking on" effects but also drains the hunted's life points initially, causing your hitpoints to decrease by thirty every five seconds. There is also a portal in these houses, but it takes 20 charges to activate, and has about a 90% chance of teleporting you to another house. The other 10% of the time, a player will be teleported to the outside ground in between houses. Any player standing on the Fist of Guthix will have their run energy rapidly restored, and provides a good hiding place, as long as you stand atop other players. (This does not actually work, as the opponent will see a large yellow arrow above your head, however even with the arrow, it may still be difficult for your opponent to actually click your name, seeing as the majority of players go to the centre.) The Stone of power will gain faster and more charges the closer it is brought to the centre. The Stone of power does not charge unless the player is wielding it.

Rewards
At the end of a match, the victorious player will be rewarded with the following:

If two players tie, which is very unlikely, both players will lose a small amount of rating and receive one token, unless they forfeited recently. In that case, they will not receive a token.

Players receive one token for good effort if they lose. Players who forfeit are flagged as a forfeiter and will receive fewer tokens from the next game.

Shop
Inside the main lobby, Reggie owns a shop where you can spend the Fist of Guthix tokens you have earned. The items here consist of various types of gloves that can increase your experience while training certain skills, magical robes which may supply certain runes for you or increase the potency of certain spells, and special types of armour that can give you strength or ranging bonuses.

All items listed here will degrade over time (with the exception of gloves and gauntlets - see below). The items will also be untradeable until the item has completely degraded. To repair/recharge any degraded item, use the item with the shop-keeper Reggie, and he will recharge the item for you a specific cost of tokens. To completely degrade an item, allowing you to trade it, simply use the item with Reggie and he will deplete the item for free. Rather than degrading, gloves will simply crumble into dust after 1,000 uses. There is no way to repair these gloves - A new pair must be bought from Reggie after you have lost the old pair.

Gauntlets bought at the Fist of Guthix do not degrade over time, but simply degrade completely when the player dies. This does not apply when the player dies while participating in a safe activity. You can restore the gauntlets power if you pay a small price. You can also sell your degraded gauntlets on the Grand Exchange.

Lag
Many players have complained about the massive amounts of lag in this activity, and being logged out of the game due to lag is quite common. Therefore, players are advised to not play this activity with High Detail on - This will help reduce lag and lower chances of being logged out. Sometimes, big amounts of lag will cause the arrow to stay in the position where the hunted player was before, but the hunted player wouldn't be there.

Death Dotting (DDing) and Screen spamming
A common technique among the "hunted" (especially with high level "hunted") is to group together on a single spot in the centre of the stage. These players can often be seen shouting "Dd here!" or "dd!". The purpose of this is to prevent "hunters" from killing players so easily, as all the hunted players are grouped together on a single tile, the hunters will have to scroll through a huge list to find the player they need to attack, with the name of the hunted being "lost" under floods of "Trade", "Follow", "Req assist" and "Walk here". (known to some as a screen spam). This has caused much strife throughout the official Jagex forums and from players in-game.The reason this happens as a player can only attack through the right click menu in this game, but the chances of being lost have been reduced due to the Right-Click update, which makes tabs of players or items and you can manually scroll down to either walk there, attack, or trade with player.

House Hugging
A method that causes a lot of complaints from hunters, is the practice of hiding in the houses until the hunter is out of sight, and then going outside until the hunter is near, and then repeating this until the round is over, or the hunter forfeits in frustration. A recent update to the houses prevents immediate re-entry after exiting a house, although it is still possible to house hug. House hugging also refers to running around a house so that Magers and Rangers will get stuck on the other side, which frustrates the other player.

Combat Level Difference
This has caused criticism among players with lower combat levels because players are paired randomly, regardless of combat skills, and can often put those players at a large disadvantage. For example, even if a level 30 player is waiting to play and there are many other players around their level, they could likely be paired with someone at a much higher level; even as high as level 138 and vice versa. Unlike most other PvP activities, this gives higher-levelled players a large advantage of being able to more easily kill lower levelled players. A good way of reducing your chances of playing against a high level is to avoid less crowded worlds, as many high levels tend to play in these worlds. In addition, while some low level Fist of Guthix players may be experienced enough to take on high levels (such as experienced runners), for the majority of players, it's better to just intentionally lose (go to the centre and let your opponent kill you) and hope that you'll get an easier opponent next time. DO NOT forfeit as you will lose a lot of ranking and receive fewer tokens in your next game.

This has sparked many suggestion threads in the "Suggestions" part of the Official Forums, saying that there should be a level difference cap, or that pairs should just be more equal in combat level.

Opponents Running
This common method has made many players frustrated and angry. The "hunted" runs around the game arena, hoping to not get attacked. They sometimes go to the Fist of Guthix to collect charges and recharge their run energy. Hunters in the first round may threaten to do the same in the next round, as a way to fight fire with fire, so to speak. However, this tactic is often ineffective, since the hunted can gain as little as 3 charges a time, compared to 28 charges when standing on the Fist of Guthix.

Pures
Fist of Guthix is a popular activity for Magic pures, since the activity offers free Magic runes that you can use only during Fist of Guthix and decent rewards for the tokens. This is especially effective for Magic training, as there is no cost to casting combat spells because of the free runes. However, the downside to this is that very few experience points are gained.

Magic Training

 * Experience gained in this activity is simply reduced to half (Wearing Sacred Clay Armour does not increase xp received during the activity at all but you will lose charges nonetheless).

Fist of Guthix is a popular place to train magic, because of free runes.
 * The hunter wears whatever provides the highest possible magic attack bonus. The hunted should wear whatever provides the highest magic defence bonus. The hunted could stay near the edge for higher defence but less charge or in the centre for lower defence but more charges, and the hunter should go through the middle , trying to find the hunted.
 * The hunter wears whatever provides the highest possible magic attack bonus. The hunted wears whatever provides the lowest possible magic defence bonus. This should generally be used by lower level mages, where the xp from the damage matters more, because a low Base XP is given. This technique requires the trainers to pay more attention, and there is always the chance of being paired with someone else in the waiting room. The hunter should stay near the edge, and the hunted should stay near the middle as possible, and be carrying the stone of power.
 * Somewhere in between these two techniques.
 * It's a good idea to turn on rapid heal prayer.

Glitches

 * When you are in game, there seems to be no time in display (glitch).
 * When in Fist of Guthix arena opening items kept on death will show the activity as if it were unsafe, although it is a safe activity.
 * Previously when you entered the cave to access the Fist of Guthix activity, the Wilderness level would switch rapidly to 260 for a split second, despite the fact that the Fist of Guthix lobby isn't in the Wilderness.
 * There used to be a glitch where if you brought a law rune into the arena, the screen that said not to bring any runes did not appear, and the Law rune could be brought into the game.
 * The arrow indicating your opponent's location often does not show up, especially in situations where a player is lagging a lot.
 * A glitch will sometimes occur that makes the win (or loss) text not appear - the player just appears in the lobby.
 * Occasionally at the beginning of the game your opponent's name will not appear, it will just display the word Name.
 * If you die at the right moment of attacking someone, after you die, when the game is over, you may still have the attack option outside of the Fist of Guthix area. This has also happened in Castle Wars.
 * In the game lobby players can sometimes step on the same square as Fiara.
 * When you are in the waiting room and use a spell on another player when starting the game, the spells in the spell book will not light up but can be used.
 * If the hunter and hunted kill each other at the same time they both respawn in the same role, giving the Hunted an extra LP bar.
 * When the round ends and you click quickly, you can run towards that square while you are counting down when starting round 2.
 * Sometimes the time on the time left bar won't decrease.
 * Occasionally when someone has forfeited it won't say the other player forfeited.
 * When Stealing Creation was released, there was a glitch where players could drop their elemental and catalytic runes just before the game ends, and when you appear in the lobby it will show up dropped beneath you. Players could then pick up the runes and use them. This was fixed shortly after.
 * If you do the juggle emote with the squirrel ears while holding the stone of power, then the stone will be floating in the air while you are doing the emote.
 * Players could be logged out instantly while playing the game. This happened usually when a player went into a house.
 * There is a minor glitch where the message please take a stone of power will appear even after you have taken one.
 * There is a glitch which when the player teleports to the middle, the player would not be holding the stone of power and the stone will be floating in front of the player.
 * When you use a Training bow, the training arrows will stay on the ground and will not appear in your inventory after the round is finished. This has yet to be fixed.
 * There is also a glitch when you are attacked by a player while wielding the stone of power and using the Tele-orb at the same time, you will not see yourself throwing the Tele-orb on the ground but the animation still occurs when the Tele-orb hits the ground (the small ball of smoke).
 * If carrying a invalid item, like a tinderbox, banking it and clicking the Equipment Stats the message "The following item is not allowed in the arena:(tinderbox)" will appear.
 * If you teleport in the middle while in a spot with a few players, other players don't appear, and may later on appear, commonly due to lag.

Trivia

 * When first released, when asked if he could recharge an item, Reggie would reply, "In that case hand me the item over what you want recharged." Jagex cleaned up the awkwardly worded statement to "Just hand me the item you want recharged and go away!"
 * It is impossible to trade while in-game, drop items or cast alchemy spells, Bones to Bananas, Superheat Item, or any Teleportation spells. A screen saying "You are not here to do this" will appear if a player tries to perform such actions.
 * The music was originally named "Guthixs' Hunter". This has since been changed "Guthix's Hunter".


 * Near the Forfeit Caves players can see symbols similar to Saradomin Symbols. a Postbag from the Hedge has cleared this up and states that the symbols were caused by Saradominists attempting to make the place their temple. Fiara forced them to flee, and they carved the symbols there before leaving.
 * It was possible for a player to do an emote while in the waiting room and they would not enter the arena and could continuously skip rounds. This was useful if a player was a low level in the waiting room with a bunch of higher level opponents. Give Thanks, Around the World in Eggty Days and Skillcape emotes were most popular because the emote duration for each is very long. However Jagex has now disabled emotes in the lobby.
 * A lot of people that escape from their hunters decide to teleport to the centre because their run energy recharges more quickly here. The downside is that you are very weakened in the centre.
 * The Charge Centre in the middle of Fist of Guthix looks like the imprint of where the Stone of Jas used to be. This is likely to be true, since the Stone of Jas' other name is 'Fist of Guthix'.
 * Strangely, the clocks on the scoreboards have their minute hand moving, but the hour hand stays at about 4-o-clock.
 * If you run to the south-west corner of the waiting room, you will see a seemingly useless "Entrance" which can be examined but not used in any way. This is most likely the entrance to the game itself. If you examine the cave it will say you must wait for someone else, proving that the cave is the entrance to the Fist of Guthix.
 * Some Mages use this game to level Magic as the game supplies 1300 free runes to use in one game.
 * On the 3rd of December 2009, the tokens to recharge the items were reduced.
 * The FunOrb game Armies of Gielinor has a unit called "druid", and resembles the druids in the lobby.
 * In the forfeit cave, there seems to be a Fremennik farseer helm on a crate.
 * The symbol on the centre of the area resembles the Stone of Jas, suggesting that the area might once be where the Stone of Jas was stored, and probably the charges players needed to collect during the activity is the energy emitted from the Stone of Jas that radiated into the place where it was held.
 * If both players receive 5000 charges it will result in a loss for both, lowering their rank by 2 and giving 3 Fist of Guthix tokens.
 * When Entering the Cave in the Wilderness, you are going in a Northward direction, but the stairs going down to the lobby are going in an east direction, meaning a right turn was made on the stairs.
 * In the lobby, there are many items players use all the time on the North side of the area, these items include: Steel Arrows, standard bow, Farseer Helmet, Dwarven Helmet, Steel Boots, two new kinds of metal boots of an unknown metal type, a very small steel shield (neither kite nor sq.), a normal steel kiteshield, a rune dagger, steel heraldic helmet, Khazard helmet, and a pair of gloves you can obtain from Reggie's shop.
 * Alran, Getorix, Pontimer, and Reggie, all appear to walk with their arms and legs almost completely straight, as if they were soldiers.
 * Your opponent will always be the opposite direction in the arena (North-South, West-East).
 * On the top right shelf of Reggies shop, there appears to be a Steel Helmet (H2). This item is not currently ingame. There is also an Iron Med Helm with a white trim around it instead of red, and Rupert's helm from The Grim Tales quest.
 * Even though the arena is Multi-Combat, you can only attack your target.
 * A good idea for members who are looking to fight someone who is not using a high level weapon (such as Dragon claws or the Abyssal whip) is to move to a non-members world, where many high level weapons cannot be used.
 * Even though the Fist of Guthix has moved out of the wild it is still referred to as "the area in the Wilderness where people are tasked by druids to gain energy from that weird imprint in the floor" during While Guthix Sleeps.
 * Game guide: RuneScape Game Guide - Fist of Guthix
 * As you can see the full helmets of the statues in game still have the old graphics.

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