Evolution of Combat

The Evolution of Combat is a complete rework of RuneScape ' s combat system, planned for release on 20 November 2012. Billed as "one of the largest updates in RuneScape ' s history", the evolution brings a variety of new content, including powerful abilities, dual weapon wielding, new Magic and Ranged equipment and Prayers. In addition, the combat triangle has been massively balanced, monsters have new attacks, and the combat level formula has been revised.

To accommodate the enormous changes, Jagex is running a beta, where players can enter specialised worlds with the new combat system loaded on them. These worlds are segregated from the rest of RuneScape: nothing done on them has any effect on the live version of the game. To this effect, there are non-player characters around major cities that give away free equipment.

Intentions
Jagex have introduced the Evolution of Combat for many reasons that they have stated:
 * To balance out the Combat Triangle. Currently, Melee is very overpowered in comparison to Ranged and Magic
 * To make the combat system "more fluid, interactive and exciting for everyone"
 * To refocus combat to be more about player skill
 * To encourage a variety in combat equipment

Leak


On 4 May, five images of ability icons were uploaded to the Official RuneScape Wiki by a Jagex Moderator. Each picture showed 12 different abilities, in Attack, Strength, Defence, Ranged and Magic. They were soon noticed by the community.

News
On 11 May, the first news about a combat update was posted. It laid the groundwork for the future posts, explaining that there would be a beta prior to the full launch. Additional posts were made in the next weeks, showing off pictures of the evolution and explaining the beta registration process. A Combat HQ page was set up that gave more concrete details, including the first explanation of abilities and the ability bar. A week later, there were posts about buffs and weaknesses, adrenaline, and a day before the beta, dual wielding.

Og Blogs
Mod Mark (Og) wrote four substantial blogs about upcoming update, enumerating Jagex's goals, and explaining many of the major concepts of the evolution for the first time.

Videos
Before the Evolution of Combat beta was released, the official Jagex YouTube channel released four videos regarding some changes to the new combat system.

The first video briefly showed some different types of abilites with melee, ranged, and magic. It did not include much content as it was just a mention of the Evolution of Combat.

The second video first talked about the hit splats that occur, where it was revealed that "no background" hits are normal hits, whereas the red background hits are attacks done with abilities. The video also introduced a new interface which shows the weaknesses of an opponent and the effects currently on them, such as being bound or being boosted by a potion. Another interface was also introduced which allowed the player to choose where the experience would be obtained in from attacking in that style.

The third video introduced the concept of Adrenaline and the action bar. Different categories for abilities were released: the basic, threshold, and ultimate abilities.

The fourth video revealed dual wielding and how it all works. Most weapons have their own offhand equivalent, and that some weapons in the main servers which only have a use for its special attack, such as the Enhanced Excalibur, will turn into an offhand weapon. Magical orbs and ranged shields were also shown.

Forums
Just before the Combat Beta was released, Mod Rathe and other Jagex Moderators were hosting Question and Answer threads about the Evolution of Combat on the forums. Many details were mentioned about many topics about the Evolution of Combat.

Combat beta
Players had to register before the release to gain access to the worlds, and not everyone was accepted to the beta. To do this everyone was given a combat beta contract where a link was found to register the account to play the beta. Players with 12 months of consecutive membership were automatically accepted to the beta, and 50,000 other members were picked. The servers were released on 26 June 2012, but later on all members had access to the beta worlds on weekends.

Action bar
A customisable interface module, the action bar, was added above the chat interface. The action bar consists of five palettes of twelve slots, into which players may add shortcuts to abilities, spells, prayers, items, and even some special interface actions like the quick prayer button. Each shortcut is assigned to a key on a player's keyboard; the default keys are the 1-0 numerical keys, as well as the - and = keys. Players have the option of customising each slot's keybinding to any alphanumerical keyboard key. Players can cycle through the five palettes of slots by clicking on the up/down arrows on the right of the action bar, or by using a keyboard modifier (Ctrl, Shift, Alt) that can also be defined by the user, then pressing the number key that corresponds to the desired palette. For example, if a player who wishes to switch to the third palette has the Alt modifier key set, he or she would press Alt and 3.

Other features of the action bar include a lock icon that fixes each shortcut in place and prevents them from being moved or deleted. While the action bar is unlocked, players can remove shortcuts from the action bar by dragging them into the trash icon beneath the lock icon. The adrenaline bar is at the top of the action bar. Finally, players may minimise the action bar by clicking the small minimise icon in the top-right; right-clicking this icon also allows players to sheathe/unsheathe their weapons, as well as change targets. While the action bar is minimised, shortcuts cannot be used.

Shortcuts are added to the action bar by dragging and dropping an ability, spell, prayer, item, emote, or special interface action into a slot. When a shortcut is triggered, either by clicking on it or pressing the key that is assigned to it, it acts as though its target has been left-clicked. For example, abilities will activate, prayers will activate/deactivate, and items will have their left-click option activated (so a piece of food, or a dose of potion, will be consumed). In this manner, the action bar can be useful for training non-combat skills, as players can keybind activities that would otherwise require repetitive clicking.

Because the action bar's shortcuts can be bound to any alphanumeric key, players must first press the Enter key in order to type into chat. Minimising the action bar allows players to type into chat without first pressing Enter.

Abilities
To replace the old system of weapons having special attacks, Jagex introduced abilities, combat techniques that characters learn and keep with them at all times. There are multiple abilities for every attack style; melee abilities are separated into abilities for Attack and Strength, while Ranged and Magic have multiple abilities of their own. Additionally, there are abilities for Defence and Constitution that primarily focus on defence and healing. Most abilities require a certain level in their associated skill to use, and many have equipment requirements; for example, some melee abilities require a two-handed weapon, and some Ranged abilities require dual-wielded Ranged weapons. Additionally, once an ability is used, players must wait for its cooldown period to expire before it may be used again.

Abilities are separated into three classes, depending on their adrenaline requirements. Basic abilities require no adrenaline and may be executed at the beginning of combat. Once the adrenaline bar is 50% full, threshold abilities may be used. Threshold abilities are much more powerful and effective than basic abilities. When using, they drain the adrenaline bar minimally. Ultimate abilities may only be used once the adrenaline bar reaches 100% capacity. Ultimate abilities are, as the title suggests, a player's most powerful techniques, and the use of an ultimate ability can easily turn the tide of a battle. Once an ultimate ability is executed, the adrenaline bar drains to 0%.

When not using abilities, players will automatically attack their targets with auto-attacks, with a rate that is dictated by their equipped weapon's speed. The damage of auto-attacks can be increased using the ability Momentum, an ultimate ability found in the Constitution tab.

Effects
Abilities can have a wide variety of effects. Some, such as Slice, merely deal extra damage to the target. Some abilities have damage-over-time effects that deal a certain amount of damage over a period of several seconds, in many small damage splats rather than one larger splat. Chain and Ricochet are two abilities that can hit multiple enemies at once. Some abilities stun targets for a short time, which prevents them from taking any action. The abilities for the defence skill can reduce damage taken, reflect damage back at the attacker, heal the user, and even bring the user back to life if the player dies.

Dual Wielding
Many one-handed weapons can now be dual-wielded, with one weapon in each hand. Dual-wielding allows for faster attacks and an overall higher damage per second (DPS) value, but it sacrifices the defensive advantages of a shield. Some melee and Ranged abilities require that two weapons be wielded. Magic spells cannot be dual-wielded, but players can equip spellbooks or orbs into the off-hand, which increase casting speed. This results in roughly the same effect as dual-wielding.

Special off-hand versions of many one-handed weapons exist. For example, instead of equipping two regular dragon scimitars, players must equip one dragon scimitar and one offhand dragon scimitar. The offhand versions of these weapons are obtained in the same manner as the regular versions, either through monster drops, NPC stores, or the Smithing, Crafting, and Fletching skills.

Make-X
The Make-X interface allows players to control how they produce items. It can be opened by using two items on eachother (like bow strings on unstrung bows) or clicking on a tool like a range or an anvil. Depending on your membership status, skill levels and materials in your inventory, you will be able to process certain items through the Make-X interface, in skills like Smithing, Crafting, Cooking, Fletching and Herblore. Once a recipe has been selected and the skilling begins, a new interface will appear, displaying the experience gained, number left and time remaining.

Equipment
As part of the Evolution of Combat, many aspects of equipment were entirely overhauled.

Weapons
Weapons give bonuses to Accuracy and Damage (damage dealt) to their respective classes. Each player now derives their offensive potential almost entirely from their equipped weapon(s). This solved a balancing issue that had previously existed for years, wherein melee users could wear any set of armour and still be offensively effective, but rangers and mages had to wear their class' respective armours. Weapon speeds were refined, reducing the number of available speeds. While some melee weapons may have had multiple attack styles, such as a longsword having stab and slash attacks, all weapons now have only one attack style. As a result, longswords and swords now give the same bonuses, and the only difference is their attack style.

All weapons of the same equipment tier (for example, all rune weapons) have had their stats adjusted in order to have roughly the same damage per second (DPS) value. Slower weapons such as rune spears and rune battleaxes are as effective in combat as faster weapons like rune scimitars and rune daggers. This has essentially rendered the concept of different weapons useless. Two-handed weapons have a 50% higher DPS than one-handed weapons of the same tier, to compensate for the lack of an off-hand item. Additionally, two-handed crossbows were released to give Ranged an equivalent to the various melee two-handed weapons. Magic staves were all made two-handed, with slower casting speeds, but providing a significant damage increase in return.

Armour
Pieces of armour now give bonuses to the Armour value of their respective class, which is a single value as opposed to the multiple possible defensive bonuses previously available. The Armour value is combined with a player's current class in order to determine their defence against different attacks. A player who equips a set of melee armour will have a high Armour rating that is of the melee class. According to the combat triangle, that player will have a strong defence against Ranged attacks, a moderate defence against melee attacks, and a weak defence against Magic attacks.

Many, if not all, pieces of armour boost lifepoints, in a similar manner as torva, pernix, and virtus armours do currently. However, the boosts are much more substantial; players who equip armour sets that are appropriate for their levels receive as much as 60% of their total lifepoint pool from their armour - more if wielding a shield. Currently, with the best tier of armour and shield, it is possible to reach about 10,000 maximum life points.

Armours of different classes, but of the same tier, were adjusted to have the same stats. For example, a dragon platebody is of the same tier as a black d'hide body and a grifolic poncho, as all require level 60 Defence to wear. These three items all give the same bonus to Armour and the same life points boosts, but each gives its armour bonus to its class (Melee, Ranged, and Magic, respectively).

Weaknesses
Player and monster weaknesses in combat were expanded and made more prominent. The combat styles tab was replaced with the Combat tab, where players can view certain information about themselves and their opponent, such as remaining life points, any active buffs or debuffs, and weaknesses. Players have weaknesses as dictated by the style of armour they wear; a player wearing ganodermic armour, a type of Magic armour, will have a weakness to Ranged attacks. Players who attack a monster with that monster's weakness will be more effective offensively, although players are not outright prevented from fighting a monster with a style other than that monster's weakness.

Weaknesses could simply be melee attacks, or stab/slash/crush attacks in particular. Monsters could be weak to Magic attacks in general, or specifically weak to air, water, earth, or fire spells. Different Ranged weaknesses include bolts, arrows, and thrown weapons. However, players will only be weak to one of the three combat styles, not any of the more specific weaknesses.

Most boss monsters, such as generals in the God Wars Dungeon, have no weakness. Against these monsters, all attack styles are equally effective, and players may use whichever offensive styles they like. This was part of an effort to balance the combat triangle, and to make Ranged and Magic more effective in combat. Players may also have no weakness if they equip armour with Armour bonuses to all classes, such as Void Knight equipment. However, such armour usually has lower bonuses than class-specific armour.

New content
New armour types exist to fill gaps in Ranged and Magic armour and to thus balance the Combat triangle. Additionally, there exist new shields and boots for all classes.

New melee equipment
For melee, there are new offhand weapons, such as the offhand chaotic rapier and offhand dragon scimitar. Some new shields, such as the Bandos warshield, were planned for the Evolution of Combat but were released beforehand into the main game. As the claws were separated into a main-hand and an off-hand weapon, players who had any kind of claws in their banks before the release of the EoC, were automatically rewarded with the offhand counterparts.

New ranged equipment

 * New Ranged armour was created to fill in a low-level tier. Carapace armour can be crafted from Carapace, and it requires 30 Ranged and Defence.
 * Hard leather armour and Studded leather armour were given boots, gloves and shields to fill out the sets.
 * Ranged armour sets from leather to black dragonhide now include dragonhide shields.
 * Longbows have been turned into shieldbows, which in addition to their offensive bonuses also give Defence and lifepoint boosts.

New magic equipment
New Magic armour was released to fill in missing tiers.
 * Imphide robes - Crafted from imphide. Requires 10 Magic and 10 Defence.
 * Spider silk robes - Crafted from Beta:Spider silk. Requires 20 Magic and 20 Defence.
 * Batwing robes - Crafted from Beta:Batwing. Requires 50 Magic and 50 Defence.

In addition, all magic armour sets were updated to include one-handed main weapons (wands), off-hand weapons (orbs) and shields (books). Other sets like Virtus and Ganodermic were given boots and gloves.

Combat level
The combat level formula has been greatly simplified; it is now $$x + Defence + 2$$, where $$x$$ is a player's highest skill level among Attack, Strength, Magic, Ranged and Summoning. Consequently, players will start off at combat level 4, and the maximum combat level is 200. Constitution and Prayer no longer affect combat level.

Experience gain
Previously, players would get combat experience for hitting their opponent after every successful hit. However, players now get the experience after they defeat their opponent. This has removed some popular training methods, such as throwing red chinchompas at mummies and attacking a Dagannoth sentinel in the Dominion Tower. To balance this out, there is an interface where you can choose where your experience goes for each combat style. For example, while attacking an opponent with melee, a player can choose to receive all experience in Attack, Strength, Defence, or all; while attacking with Ranged, a player can choose to receive experience in either Ranged, Defence, or both.

Multi-Combat
Everywhere on RuneScape is multi-combat, including the Wilderness. As a result, familiars can be used anywhere and attack anything. Due to complaints over the multicombat Wilderness, the Single-Way Wilderness was introduced that allows you to swap from Multi-combat to Single-combat in the Wilderness, or vice-versa. Anyone who has chosen single-combat in the wilderness can not be attacked by anyone in the multi-combat, and the latter have skulls on their heads.

Wilderness
Along with the combat updates to the Wilderness, players are now automatically skulled. This means that if you die, you will lose every item, unless the Protect Item prayer is active.

Food
The healing power of food has been drastically altered. Each piece of food has an optimal Constitution level where that type of food heals more than any other. The amount healed starts off at 200, and is equal to 16 times your Constitution level, up to the optimal level, then it will heal 20 times your Constitution and stop increasing. This optimal level is usually tied in with the Cooking level requirement for the food, if any.

For example, level 80 Constitution is Shark's optimal level. At that level, eating a shark will heal 1600 lifepoints, and eating a Rocktail will only heal 1280, even though the rocktail is of a higher tier. This creates a demand for many types of food, as the best food is dependent on your Constitution level.

Prayers
Protection prayers and Deflect curses no longer provide full protection from monsters, but only reduce the amount of damage taken. The Augury and Rigour prayers are no longer unlocked through Dungeoneering. They are available by completing the Knight Waves Training, and any dungeoneering tokens used to purchase them were refunded

There are two new Ancient Curses, unlocked after completing The Temple at Senntisten. Both require 95 Prayer.
 * Anguish - Ranged version of Turmoil.
 * Torment - Magic version of Turmoil.

There are three new spells in the standard prayer book that increase Magic Strength:
 * Charge
 * Super Charge
 * Overcharge

There are three new prayers in the standard prayer book that increase Ranged Strength:
 * Unrelenting Force
 * Overpowering Force
 * Unstoppable Force

Ammunition
Rune requirements for spells have changed, and on the whole are significantly lower. For example, it is possible to cast Wind Surge using only air runes, instead of air runes, death runes, and blood runes. Ice Barrage costs two blood runes and five water runes. Rush and Burst spells use death runes, whereas Blitz and Barrage spells use blood runes. Additionally, only auto-attacks consume ammunition for rangers and runes for mages; abilities do not consume ammunition.

Poison
Previously, poison was applied to specific weapons (spears, daggers, arrows) and stayed on permanently. Now, poison works in a manner similar to other potions; drinking a dose of weapon poison will temporarily poison all weapons for a predetermined period. The poison counts as a buff for the player. While fighting monsters, there is a small chance that they will be poisoned for about a minute, and a small poisoned hit will be displayed every ten seconds.

Miscellany

 * Magic blastboxes and celestial surgeboxes provide unlimited air runes in the off-hand slot, instead of storing runes for combat spells.
 * The Inspiration aura affects the adrenaline bar instead of the special attack bar.
 * Barrows equipment and Void Knight equipment still retain their set effects. However, they only trigger on auto-attacks, not when abilities are used.
 * Godswords' special attacks were replaced with passive abilities that mimicked their former special attacks. The enhanced excalibur, now the offhand abyssal whip equivalent, has a passive healing effect.
 * Untradable potions such as extreme potions and overloads are usable in the Wilderness.
 * The ring of vigour allows players to retain 5% of the adrenaline bar after using an ultimate ability, instead of the bar draining to 0%.
 * Korasi's sword has had a stat increase, to compensate for its loss of special attack, and is now stronger than the Abyssal vine whip.
 * All Dominion Tower gloves are now wielded in both hands and are now the equivalent of a level 80 weapon of their combat style. They still retain their previous special effects.
 * The Polypore staff has had its spell removed from the staff and placed in the spellbook instead. The staff must be wielded to cast the spell, and still degrades based on usage.
 * With the addition of new equipment, some of the old equipment's level requirements were rebalanced to better fit on the new scale. Among the prominent changes, Rune equipment was raised from level 40 to 50 Attack and Defence, Ganodermic armour was lowered from 85 to 75 Magic and Defence, and Glacor boots were raised from 75 to 85 Defence and relevant combat skill.

Market effects
The removal of special attacks and the reordering of equipment have caused significant price changes in the main game, even prior to the implementation of these changes. In the lead-up to the combat beta, the future removal of special attacks and the equality of godswords was announced. This caused dragon claws and the more expensive godswords to gradually crash to historic lows, although much of this loss was later made up as the Evolution of Combat took so long to implement. When the full release was announced on 7 November, many staples of the old combat system like amulets of fury, dragon claws, dragonfire shields and berserker rings immediately, with the claws specifically losing half of their value in a matter of hours. Torva armour, Pernix armour and the more expensive Spirit shields also gradually lost value as the release date approached.