Fight Cauldron/Strategies

Within the Fight Cauldron minigame, players do battle with unlimited waves of TokHaar monsters who wish to test their might, and that of their opponent.

Requirements

 * Completion of the Grandmaster quest The Brink of Extinction, which requires:
 * 80
 * 80
 * 72
 * Completion of various prerequisite quests; see main article

Skills

 * 80+ in all combat stats:
 * is unnecessary, as familiars may not be brought into the Fight Cauldron.

Equipment
By far, the most effective equipment that can be used in the Fight Cauldron is the obsidian armour, which has level 80 multi-class stats and provides damage reduction as well as accuracy bonuses against TzHaar and TokHaar monsters. Its damage reduction can be temporarily improved by donating TokKul to the coffer just outside the Fight Cauldreon's entrance. 80 Defence and 90 Smithing are required to make and wear the full set of obsidian armour; the Smithing requirement can be assisted. However, as obsidian armour can only be made by killing creatures in the Fight Cauldron, it will not immediately be available to a player who is just starting out.

Players who do not own obsidian armour will want to bring the highest-tier equipment they have available for all three combat styles, and switch between them accordingly in order to match the weakness of the TokHaar monsters that spawn. Monster weaknesses in the Fight Cauldron are crush attacks, bolts, and water spells for melee, Ranged, and Magic respectively.

Strategy
There is no end to the Fight Cauldron. Wave after wave of TokHaar monsters will spawn until you die or leave. Therefore you are able to fight as long as you want, and since the Fight Cauldron is a safe minigame, there is no penalty for dying. Nonetheless, certain strategies may be taken to maximize one's survival time.

Priority number one is to keep an eye on the floor. Standing on a hot section of the floor will deal damage equal to 20% of your lifepoints every game tick, which can kill you in a hurry. A common cause of death among players is to get distracted by the fights and lose focus on the floor for a moment, at which point it heats up and begins to deal damage. The hot sections change at regular intervals, and with a little practice, you can learn the interval and mentally note the time at which you need to check your section of floor. Remember that the north-middle floor section is always hot, so avoid it at all times.

One tip for easily staying off the heated sections is to always stand near one of the four corners of the middle section, as these corners border four different sections. If the section you are standing on heats up, it takes very little time to move to a safe one. This can be more difficult when meleeing, but easier when ranging and maging.

Priority number two is to tailor your equipment to your enemies. If you are wearing obsidian armor and using otherwise multi-class equipment, you will only need to change weapons and helms in order to adjust your combat style. Otherwise, you will need to use the different equipment sets you brought in.

Most of the possible waves only contain monsters of a single combat style, but occasionally a wave will appear with monsters of three styles. When this happens, turn on the protection prayer of the style you're weakest against, if any, and quickly kill the monster against which you are strongest. Then, switch to a style that is best against the two remaining monsters, turn off your prayer, and defeat them. For example, if one of these waves appears and you are currently wearing Magic equipment, turn on Protect from Missiles/Deflect Missiles and kill the melee monster. Since Ranged and Magic monsters are left, switch to Ranged equipment and kill the Magic monster, then switch to melee equipment and kill the Ranged monster.

After each kill, be sure to gather the monster's obsidian shards, as these are the items used to make the powerful obsidian armor. The shards are guaranteed drops from the TokHaar within the Cauldron, in varying quantities depending on the level of the monster. The small and dark shards can be hard to see on the ground, so use the minimap to more accurately pinpoint their location.

Try to make obsidian armor as quickly as you can. You will need a total of 228 obsidian shards to make every piece of obsidian equipment. On average, this will take 66 kills in the Cauldron.