Royal crossbow

The royal crossbow is a level 80 two-handed crossbow that bears the likeness of the Queen Black Dragon. Using the royal crossbow requires: It is currently the strongest two-handed crossbow in the game, and as a level 80 weapon, it is comparable to the zaryte bow and chaotic crossbow & off-hand chaotic crossbow, all of which are currently the 2nd highest-leveled Ranged weapons available to players, only beaten by the ascension crossbow & off-hand variant.

IMPORTANT: You must be facing her when you brandish the unformed or degraded crossbow, otherwise it doesn't work.

To create the crossbow, players must get Thurgo to assemble its pieces onto the coral crossbow, then expose the weapon to the Queen Black Dragon's most intense dragonfire, the only source of heat extreme enough to forge the components together. The royal crossbow will degrade after 10 hours of combat; and can be repaired by re-forging it in the Queen Black Dragon's dragon fire. NOTE: If you destroy the royal crossbow you will be able to receive a coral crossbow from Sir Rebrum.

The 4 components you need are:

The total cost of the components of the crossbow when bought from the Grand Exchange is. (Excluding the coral crossbow, which is rewarded free upon completion of Song from the Depths.)

You must charge the crossbow the first time by choosing the Brandish option in front of the Queen Black Dragon's Extreme Fire Breath (4th phase). Thereafter the crossbow can be recharged by fighting the Queen Black Dragon and re-brandishing it once it has reached 0%.

As the royal crossbow is used, it begins to degrade. It will last 10 hours in combat before degrading fully and becoming royal crossbow (degraded). In this state, it can be repaired in one of two ways: It can be taken before the Queen Black Dragon's Extreme Fire Breath attack and brandished, or it can be taken to Thurgo to be repaired, though this will require each of the four royal crossbow parts to be added once again.

It should be noted that once the royal crossbow has been forged by the Queen Black Dragon, it can never be split apart again, so it becomes permanently bound to the player unless lost on death or if you destroy it, in which case it will not be reimbursed. Upon death in the Wilderness, 5,000 coins appears on the ground to the killer.

Parts
The core of the royal crossbow is the coral crossbow, which is untradeable but freely obtained after completing Song from the Depths. Players who have lost their coral crossbow may retrieve another from Sir Rebrum outside the Grotworm Lair. Aside from the coral crossbow, four other items are required to assemble the royal crossbow, all of which are tradeable and available as drops from the Queen Black Dragon.

Process
Once a player has acquired the four pieces plus the coral crossbow, they must take them to Thurgo at Mudskipper Point, who will gladly combine the pieces into an unforged royal crossbow. He will also comment that incredible heat will be required to complete the weapon, far greater than any furnace can provide; in fact, only the fire of an ancient dragon could produce enough heat. At this point, the crossbow gains a left-click "Brandish" option, as well as an option to disassemble the weapon into its pieces.

The only ancient dragon remaining in RuneScape is the Queen Black Dragon, who slumbers deep beneath Asgarnia in the Grotworm Lair. Players must enter her lair and battle her up to her fourth form, at which point she will begin using her extremely hot dragonfire attack. (See her strategies article for more information.) The Queen Black Dragon's normal dragonfire attack is not hot enough to forge the crossbow; it must be done in her extremely hot attack. Players must stand directly in the middle of the attack, taking its full damage, and brandish the unfinished royal crossbow. Doing so will forge its components together into a usable weapon. Note that the Queen Black Dragon is a very dangerous, very powerful monster, and standing in the middle of her extremely hot dragonfire will result in very high damage. Actually defeating the Queen Black Dragon is not a requirement for forging the crossbow - even if you die, you can select to keep it on death.

Once forged, the royal crossbow loses its brandish and disassemble options, and becomes untradeable. Destroying the crossbow will not provide a refund of any sort.

Analysis
As a level 80 Ranged weapon, the royal crossbow is among the strongest and most accurate ranged weapons in the game. It shares this position with the zaryte bow, as well as the chaotic crossbow with its off-hand. While it is slower than the zaryte bow and the chaotic crossbows it has a longer range, meaning it can shoot targets further away. Unlike the zaryte bow, the royal crossbow gains extra damage from its ammunition. It can fire any type of bolt.

The royal crossbow's purchase cost is a small fraction of the zaryte bow's, though depending on the ammunition fired, the royal crossbow may be more expensive per shot than the zaryte bow. Use of one of Ava's devices to automatically retrieve bolts can significantly reduce the cost per shot of the royal crossbow. In addition, since abilities do not use bolts (and consequently, no durability charges are spent), normal usage of the royal crossbow does not necessarily require much maintenance or upkeep cost, given that royal bolts, the most commonly used ammunition, cost each.

With regards to abilities, the only difference between using the royal crossbow and two chaotic crossbows is that Incendiary Shot is available instead of Unload and Dazing Shot replaces Needle Strike. Each of these abilities is powerful in different ways, and their relative usefulness is situational.

Trivia

 * Prior to the Evolution of Combat, the royal crossbow was a one-handed weapon with a requirement of 85 ranged rather than 80. It could only fire royal bolts. It also had a unique ability in that all shots fired would deal their damage to targets in a damage-over-time effect, rather than dealing their full damage all at once. The total damage dealt per shot tended to be higher than with other crossbows. It was designed to be most useful when fighting boss monsters. It was also ineffective against players, dealing very little damage onto them.