Commander Zilyana


 * Commander Zilyana is a God Wars Dungeon boss and is called the 'Saradomin Boss' in RuneScape's Quick Chat feature.



Commander Zilyana is the leader of Saradomin's army in the God Wars Dungeon. She is an Icyene, an ancient race of winged beings, chosen by Saradomin to guard his hilt. Commander Zilyana uses a melee attack and a magic attack. She uses them randomly, and both attacks are quite accurate. She attacks with her multi-target magic attack when her sword glows with a bright blue aura and she raises it in the air. If the attack hits a player, a small wall of lightning will appear around the player. If her magic attack fails, nothing happens (no 0 life points splat, no splash). She attacks with melee when she simply slashes at the player with her sword. Her melee attack is not multi-target.

In addition, both her magic and melee attacks have a max of 3100 life points and they are both very rapid (approximately the speed of throwing knives), so players should be careful fighting her.

Commander Zilyana is located in the back room of Saradomin's Encampment. Players must have 70 Agility, two coils of rope, and 40 Saradominist kills to reach her. In addition, she has 3 guards: Growler (magic), Bree (ranged) and Starlight (melee).

Note: The two ropes needed to access her are only needed once, and can be used any time thereafter. The ropes cannot be recovered.

Commander Zilyana is extremely dangerous and should not be underestimated. She is the seventh strongest monster in RuneScape, after Nomad, General Graardor, K'ril Tsutsaroth, TzTok-Jad, the Spirit Beast and the Corporeal Beast. Thus, she is the sixth strongest attackable monster, as the Spirit Beast cannot be attacked.

Bodyguards

 * Starlight
 * Growler
 * Bree

Quotes
When in battle, the Commander shouts several battle cries while fighting the players that dare to venture into her domain:


 * "Death to the enemies of the light!"
 * "Slay the evil ones!"
 * "Saradomin lend me strength!"
 * "By the power of Saradomin!"
 * "May Saradomin be my sword."
 * "Good will always triumph!"
 * "Forward! Our allies are with us!"
 * "Saradomin is with us!"
 * "In the name of Saradomin!"
 * "Attack! Find the Godsword!"

Soloing Method
The soloing method involves a tactic known as Hit-and-Run, which can also be used when fighting in a group. It involves attacking Zilyana and quickly moving out of range before she can retaliate. If you melee, you will take 1 or 2 hits. However, if you range, you can keep hitting and running, restoring energy with Purple Sweets or Tireless Run Scrolls. Running away from her is absolutely necessary, because she is easily capable of killing a player with her strong, accurate, and rapid attacks.

Note: Using melee while soloing is not advised, except at high levels, because when meleeing, Zilyana has the opportunity to attack the player. Zilyana is capable of cutting through the highest Defence levels easily, so allowing her to attack is not advised. Experienced high levelled players using range will find they can stay for about 10 kills.

In addition, Players should run from corner to corner, as this will give you the most time in which to hit Zilyana.

If you need to eat or drink Saradomin Brews, do so while running from corner to corner until your health is full.

Zamorak Godswords are somewhat useful while soloing as the special attack freezes Zilyana for 20 seconds, giving you plenty of time to eat and prepare.

NOTE: Due to an update by Jagex in which they made the room smaller in size, the Hit-and-Run method has become considerably more difficult. Players will usually not get as many boss kills as they would have before this update.

Team Strategy
Usually, teams consist of 3-6 players. The team strategy is similar to the solo strategy. Because Commander Zilyana's attacks are so dangerous, it is ineffective to "tank" her. So, when in a team, a player should quickly run away (to avoid her attacks) when the Commander is going after that player, and attack Zilyana when she's chasing after or attacking another player. Commander Zilyana will switch to another target after unsuccessfully chasing her current target for 12 seconds.

For big teams (masses), all players assemble in the centre and pile Zilyana. If she is attacking a player in such a team, that player really doesn't have to run away from her, as it usually takes a few seconds for the team to kill her. However, if the team fails to kill her fast enough, death is a very real possibility for the player under attack. Therefore, praying magic is highly recommended before Zilyana spawns.

Some tricks / techniques the average team uses: 


 * When she spawns, a ranger is usually the first to distract Commander Zilyana, as the ranger is able to attack from a distance.


 * A team member freezes Commander Zilyana with a Zamorak Godsword special attack so she cannot move. This makes the kill slightly smoother, as players can simply step away from the Commander's reach. This results in less running around for the team.


 * Commander Zilyana and her bodyguards are very dangerous, so teams usually bring healing familiars (such as Fruit Bats, Unicorns, Titans), Guthan's armour, or Bones to Peaches tablets in order to heal and stay longer.


 * Players usually stand at the south wall while waiting for her to spawn.


 * Teams can rest in between kills. The "rest" feature allows teams to recover run energy and life points more quickly.


 * Teams pray at the altar when they're low on prayer points. It is ill-advised to pray at the altar when a player has high prayer points because the altar will only restore the player's prayer points once every 10 minutes.


 * Players wear Saradomin objects because the altar gives one bonus prayer point per Saradomin object a player is wearing when he/she prays there. This may not seem like much, but it adds up, especially when trips last 5+ hours.

Recommended Equipment

 * Head: Verac's Helmet/Helmet of neitiznot/Torag's helmet/Berserker Helmet/Saradomin coif


 * Neck: Amulet of fury/Amulet of Glory/Saradomin Stole/Zamorak Stole/Amulet of Strength


 * Torso: Torag's platebody/Saradomin d'hide/Zamorak d'hide/Bandos Chestplate/Verac's brassard


 * Legs: Verac's plateskirtTorag's platelegs/Dharok's platelegs/Bandos Tassets


 * Boots: Dragon boots/Rune boots/Climbing boots/Snakeskin boots


 * Cape: Fire cape/Skill Cape(trimmed, if possible)/Saradomin cloak/Zamorak cloak/Obsidian cape/Cape of Legends/Saradomin cape/Zamorak cape/Ava's accumulator(only if ranging)/ Ardougne Cloak 3 (for prayer bonus).


 * Arrows: If using a bow, Rune arrows or Dragon arrows; If using a crossbow, Ruby bolts (e) and Diamond bolts (e) (ruby for first half of health, then diamond for rest), Dragon bolts (e) (very effective special attack) or Onyx bolts (e) can do the trick.


 * Bow: If ranging, Dark Bow, Rune Crossbow (highly recommended)


 * Weapon: Godsword/Abyssal Whip/Zamorakian spear/Verac's flail


 * Shield: Divine spirit shield/Elysian spirit shield/Dragonfire shield/Toktz-ket-xil/Granite shield/Dragon sq shield/Crystal shield


 * Gloves: Barrows gloves/Dragon gloves/Rune gloves /Dragon Gauntlets


 * Ring: Berserker ring/Warrior ring/Explorer's ring 3/Ring of life/Ring of Wealth (only when soloing)

Weapons and Ammunition

 * Saradomin hilt
 * Godsword shard 1
 * Godsword shard 2
 * Godsword shard 3
 * Saradomin sword
 * 18-20 Adamant javelin
 * Rune 2h sword
 * Rune sword
 * 40-42 Rune arrows
 * 36 Rune dart
 * 95-105 Law rune
 * Rune spear
 * Rune battleaxe
 * 41-50 Death rune
 * 66 Nature rune
 * 150 Steel arrows
 * 5-10 Rune javelin
 * Dragon spear

Armour

 * Dragon medium helm
 * Rune plateskirt
 * Rune kiteshield
 * Adamant platebody
 * Rune sq shield

Potions, Food, and Herbs

 * 3 Saradomin brew (3) and 3 Super restore potion (4)
 * Prayer potion (3)
 * 3 Magic potion (3) and 3 Super defence potion (3)
 * 5 Grimy ranarr
 * 2 Ranarr seed
 * Magic seed

Other drops
Please note the drop rate numbers are estimates of the drop rate of Commander Zilyana and do not in any way guarantee the drop within the amount of kills. The numbers are quite accurate and are based on a 10k kill sample.
 * 19,000 Coins
 * Gems (uncommon)
 * Key half
 * Chaos talisman
 * Shield left half
 * Clue scroll (level 3)
 * Dragonstone
 * 100 silver ore

A detailed list of 10341 Commander Zilyana drop list can be found here: Media:10341sara.png

Trivia

 * The safe spot for Commander Zilyana was removed on 14 February 2008.
 * Her shield slightly resembles the Falador shield 3.
 * The "Hit 'n' Run" technique is now considerably more difficult to pull off due to Jagex introducing a new update, which made the room much smaller in size.
 * Although her weapon, the Saradomin Sword, is a two-handed weapon when equipped by a player, Commander Zilyana wields it in one hand. This is possible because, as stated on Funorb, the Icyene have godly strength flowing through their veins.
 * Due to the update on 18 August 2009, involving combat familiars now being more aggressive, familiars such as the Titan, Terrorbird, and War Tortoise are now causing Commander Zilyana to target and attack players at a random rate. This happens because if a player's familiar attacks the Commander, she will automatically target the owner of that familiar, regardless of whether or not she has just chased them.
 * Commander Zilyana is the only boss in the God Wars Dungeon to make a direct reference of the Godsword.
 * Before Zilyana hunted the godsword, she killed the demon Zebub, who at the time was attacking Entrana.
 * Closer look at the RuneScape art of Commander Zilyana will revela that actually her red hair were red feathers shaped to form her human-like hairstyle.