Abyssal whip

The abyssal whip is a powerful one-handed melee weapon which requires 70 Attack to wield. The whip is among the most powerful non-degradable melee weapons outside of Daemonheim and is capable of attacking at the same speed of daggers and scimitars at 2.4 seconds per hit. It may only be obtained as a drop from abyssal demons, which require 85 Slayer to harm, or by trading with another player, either directly or through the Grand Exchange.

Abyssal whips were introduced into the game with the release of the Slayer skill. The update added the Slayer Tower to a previously unoccupied area north of Canifis and placed abyssal demons, along with various other Slayer monsters, in the tower. Given the high Slayer level required to obtain abyssal whips and the slow speed of the skill, abyssal whips were fairly uncommon immediately after the skill's release.

On 12 July 2011, the abyssal vine whip, an extension of the abyssal whip, was released. The abyssal vine whip may be crafted by combining an abyssal whip with a whip vine dropped by mutated jadinko guards and mutated jadinko males, high level slayer monsters in the Jadinko Lair. The abyssal vine whip has tier 75 damage and accuracy as opposed to the regular whip's tier 70.

Unlike most one-handed weapons, the abyssal whip lacks a direct offhand counterpart due to animation difficulties. Instead, the enhanced excalibur is the offhand equivalent of an abyssal whip.

Special attack
The abyssal whip has a special attack, Energy Drain, which requires 50% adrenaline and steals 25% of your opponent's run energy.

Re-colouring
With the Barbarian Assault improvements update on 19 January 2010, players were given the option of purchasing abyssal whip paint in any of four different colours for a price of 50 honour points each. The whips may be coloured blue, white, green, or yellow, and colouring a whip renders it untradeable and non-lendable. However, the paint may be removed using a cleaning cloth, returning the whip back to normal. On 29 March 2010, the rewards interface was updated so that players could recolour whips indefinitely once the specific colour had been purchased. Prior to this, each time a whip was coloured, 50 honour points were required. Additionally, abyssal vine whips may be coloured just as regular abyssal whips are.

History
Since the whip's introduction into the game in 26 January 2005, it has undergone several graphical and functional changes. When PvP worlds were introduced, an abyssal whip was a possible drop from killing another player in PvP combat. However, on 16 June 2009, abyssal whips, along with other unique boss drops, were removed from the drop table. Jagex cited complaints on the forums as the reason for this move.

Immediately after its release, the market price of an abyssal whip was several million coins. Since its release, the whip's price has been greatly influenced by several updates, including those which changed PvP drop tables, added the ability to colour whips, changed the 100% drop of abyssal demons to infernal ashes, introduced the whip vine, and removed most macros from the game. Overall, the price of the abyssal whip has been in a relatively steady decline for the past few years. The price of the abyssal whip has been increasing (due to the combat rework which will allow any weapon to train all combat skills) yet seems to have whipsawed in price and is now heading down. The return of the "Old Wilderness" is probably the most likely reason the whip began to lose its monetary value because no whips were leaving the game, before briefly spiking up during the release of the whip vine addon. Despite being lower in strength than many weapons before and after EoC, its speed, accuracy, and low cost kept it as one of the best one-handed slashing weapons in the game in terms of damage per minute.

Trivia

 * The abyssal whip is featured in the emote for the max cape when the player latches the whip around the monster's waist and pulls it to the ground for the killing blow.
 * Mod Mark described the abyssal whip as the spine of an abyssal demon.
 * A fake abyssal whip may be obtained from an abyssal minion. When equipped, it will merely crumble to dust.
 * When the abyssal whip first came out, the special attack would have a 50% chance of you hitting your max hit, or a zero. This was later updated and changed to a special attack that drained run energy.
 * Until 17 June, if you went into a free to play world with an abyssal whip equipped, the old attack animation would be used instead of the new one.
 * When sheathed, the abyssal whip is located on the right side of the player - the side in which off-handed weapons are sheathed - while other main-handed weapons are located on the left side when sheathed.
 * It previously had a drop rate of 1/512 from Abyssal demons, but this was changed to 1/1024 with the demon drop table update.