Fist of Guthix


 * This article is about a combat minigame. For the minigame focusing on improving low skill levels, see Tears of Guthix (minigame)
 * Fist redirects here. For the form of combat, see Unarmed.

Fist of Guthix is a minigame that was released on 9 April 2008. The game employs tactics and strategy, and offers a substantial range of rewards to players; for example, the Runecrafting gloves double the experience gained when crafting a specific type of rune. To begin playing Fist of Guthix, players must first speak to Fiara. This is a safe minigame.

The Fist of Guthix themed worlds are: 20, 25, 35, 41, 44(m), 67, 75, 92(m), 93, 98(m), 107, 110(m), 119, 121(m), 128, 143(m), 149 or 179, but Fist of Guthix can be played on all worlds.

Location
The entrance to the Fist of Guthix lobby is a cave located in low level Wilderness (level 7), directly north of Varrock. If players head due north from Varrock's East bank, they will reach the cave entrance. There is a very slim chance that the player may encounter Revenants on the way to the minigame. If players are worried about this, they may bank all of their items before heading out into the Wilderness, and simply pick them back up at the bank in the minigame's lobby.

Lobby
After players enter the cave, they will be inside the main lobby. Here, the players can talk to Fiara to learn the rules of the game, access their bank, talk to Reggie who runs the shop, and finally enter the waiting room for the minigame. New players must talk to Fiara first before they are allowed to play the game.

There can only be 250 players in the minigame at once. If the game is full, players in the lobby will not be able to access the waiting room until the game has cleared out a bit. Players can simply wait a few minutes until the waiting room is open, or they may wish to switch worlds(world 19 is the best world to switch in because it has less people) if the current world is exceptionally busy.

Once inside the waiting room, players need only to wait until the game matches them with an opponent and they will then be teleported into the main Fist of Guthix arena.



Note that the combination can be of different players of different combat levels.

At the corner of the waiting lobby, there is an entrance where players can see but cannot click on it. (see the picture on the left). The examine text is "I should wait for my opponent first." . Thus, this is probably a decoration but not a sign of future update.

Gameplay
The minigame consists of two rounds and is 1 vs 1: In each round, one player is classified as the "hunted", and the other player is classified as the "hunter". In the first round, the roles are determined randomly. In the second round, the roles are swapped and all stats are restored. Therefore both players will have a chance to play each role; afterwards a winner is determined based upon number of charges you were able to collect during your turn as "hunted".

No food or runes are allowed in the arena, but the following items are supplied to each player at the beginning of the first round:

At the end of the game, all arrows on the ground will be returned to their original owners, so there is no need to pick them up while in the game. (Similar to the Duel Arena)

Hunted
The hunted player is where the player has it the hardest, but it is also the only round in which the player can score points. The basic objective is to gather as many charges from the "Fist of Guthix", a large energy well in the centre of the field, as possible before time runs out or the player dies.

To gather charges, the player must first pick up an energy stone from the outer edge of the field. The player must then wield the stone to gather charges. Note that the stone is two-handed, and can only gather charges when it is wielded (not just in the inventory), meaning that the hunted player will be completely vulnerable to attack while they are gathering charges. Players are also unable to fight back whilst wielding the Stone. Players can gather charges anywhere in the arena, although the closer to the centre (the "Fist of Guthix") they are, the faster they will gather charges. Players wielding the stone will gain charges in packets, with about three seconds delay in the packets.



Note that the hunted player will have their stats greatly reduced, meaning a level 100+ hunted player can still be extremely vulnerable to a level 40- hunter. The closer to the centre the player is, the more weak and easier to kill they will become. Hunted players will also gather damage as they are absorbing charges ranging from 0 to 10, so a watchful eye should be kept on your remaining hitpoints, even if your hunter is nowhere to be found.

Hunted players do have an advantage, however, in that they can use the teleport houses located around the arena. Hunters cannot access, nor see players inside these houses, so the hunted player is safe while inside them. There are warps inside to teleport the player to the other houses located around the field, however sometimes the warps will malfunction (NOT a glitch) and the player will appear outside of the teleport houses. Note that the player will take some damage when they walk into a house and while inside a house, and they cannot gather any charges while in the house. If a player has recently exited a teleport house, they will not be able to enter another house again for a short period.

Tactics for the hunted

 * Going quickly to a crowded spot before your opponent gets there as well, so that new players coming will keep pushing your username down until it can no longer be seen. When your opponent comes, they will have no way of killing you, unless you move or other players standing in your spot do.


 * Grabbing a stone and waiting until your opponent finds you and then using the tele-orb provided to you in the beginning of the game works well as the orb is widely believed to be useless as the hunter.


 * Wearing light clothing and weight lowering gear works well to keep higher energy as your opponent usually will be weighted down with armour. Dragonhide armour is suggested for its attack and magic bonus.


 * Staying around the outside and running from your opponent when you see an arrow works well as long as your weight and agility are better than the opponents'.


 * House hugging is a tactic that works best in conjunction with another tactic as it works poorly on its own. House hugging is when you hide in a house and leave when your opponent can not attack you. This does not work very well because of the penalties for going in and remaining in the house.


 * Another form of house hugging is waiting until your opponet sees you then diving in to the house, but instead of teleporting to a different house wait inside of that house while the hunter walks away to look to see which house he thinks you might have teleported to then when he is gone wait outside of the house and repeat the process.


 * While running from the opponent going through the middle for faster charge rate can give you a few more points needed to win.


 * Stay in the center when possible, as run energy(around 5 times faster), and charges(8 times faster), are gained much faster there.


 * Turn on prayer if one has a decent prayer level. Be aware of, and switch to adapt to what type of attack the hunter is using (often magic, as free runes are provided).  Protection prayers used in conjunction with equipment that have high prayer bonuses can be very useful.


 * Turning private chat off or setting it to "friends" is useless as your opponent can only see you when you're within range whether you are viewed green or not; this is effective if you go to the centre where the players are adjacent if not on the same square. The green dot will be more accurate then the arrow in this situation.


 * Keep moving since the hunter is probably moving around as well.


 * At the beggining of the match, run around the edges and wait until you get about 40 charges. The hunter will normally head the the centre but when he/she realises that you're not there, they set off around the outside. When you think they've left, quickly dash to the middle.


 * Once at low health and out of bandages, run to the fist to gain as many last-second charges as possible.


 * Another way is to stay near the barriers (Do not go into them). Staying near them allows 15 charges when near it. If your target sees you, you could just easily run to the barrier


 * Stay around the edges, and when your opponent finds you, quickly enter a barrier. Once they are out of sight, immediately return to the edges.  80 percent of the time your opponent will surrender in frustration.

Hunter
The hunter's objective is quite simple: Kill the hunted player with any means necessary. The player cannot gather any points while they are a hunter, rather their objective is to prevent the hunted player from gathering points. The hunter does not have a stat decrease and does not take damage from the energy charges, however they cannot chase hunted players into the teleport houses.

Tactics for the hunter

 * Ancient magicks freeze spells work to hold an opponent and can be devastating to an opponents health if using a dragon dagger or dark bow special attack.


 * Inflicting the opponent with poison is good if a player is along the outside or house hugging, since anti-poison potion is not allowed.


 * If an opponent is house hugging it works well to have ancient magic and a range weapon to go around the outside and cast a blitz or rush spell then attack the opponent for double damage as the delay after using blitz and rush spells to another combat style is very little.


 * When many players are on the same square in the middle it is much easier to find your target when you have chosen a spell, as it only shows the names of the people.


 * For melee/magic hybrids: Be sure to have magic armour in your inventory in case of running targets.


 * It is quite effective to use curse spells (Confuse, Weaken, Curse, Bind, Snare, Vulnerability, Enfeeble, Entangle, Stun) to further reduce the stats of opponents or to stop opponents for running for a short period of time.


 * It is also suggested to bring a staff with autocast option (battlestaves, staves, void knight mace etc.), as spells can still be cast if the opponent has run into the crowd in the center, or to the outside of the arena.


 * It is easier for the hunter to locate the hunted on the minimap by adding the hunted to the friends list, turning the dot green, instead of simply relying on the arrow(Note: This only works if said target has private chat on "On"); this is only effective if the hunted is within the Fist's area.


 * If an opponent is wall hugging just stay in the middle and eventually the hunted will come to the centre. When this happens feel free to attack.


 * Turn off the "assist" control to reduce the number of options in right-click menus, which will make it easier to find your target if they are standing in the middle.


 * Try to cover at least two sections of the combat triangle. For example, some players use Robes or Dragonhide to protect from the plentiful mage players, so having a melee weapon may prove useful.

Round End
A round will end under any of the following circumstances:
 * Time runs out
 * The hunted player gets killed
 * The hunted player gets the maximum number of charges (5,000)
 * Either player logs out or leaves the arena (If you have not had a turn to be the hunted yet, you will have 500 points and your opponent will have 0, resulting in a win for you)

When the first round ends, both players will swap roles, stat effects will be reset, and the second round will begin. After the second round, the player with the most energy charges (or the only player left in the event of a log out or forfeit) wins.



Rewards
Winning a match of the game will earn you:

Note that in some circumstances (such as surviving a long time), you may be awarded with a small number of tokens even if you lose.

The current number rating needed to be on the mini-game high scores is 500

Shop
Inside the main lobby, Reggie owns a shop where you can spend the Fist of Guthix tokens you have earned. The items here consist of various types of gloves that can increase your experience while training certain skills, magical robes which may supply certain runes for you or increase the potency of certain spells, and special types of armour that can give you strength or ranging bonuses.

Note that all items listed here will degrade over time (with the exception of gloves - see below). The items will also be untradable until the item has completely degraded.

To repair/recharge any degraded item, use the item with the shop-keeper Reggie, and he will recharge the item for you a specific cost of tokens.

To completely degrade an item, allowing you to trade it, simply use the item with Reggie and he will deplete the item for free.

Rather than degrading, gloves will simply crumble into dust after 1,000 uses. There is no way to repair these gloves - A new pair must be bought from Reggie after you have lost the old pair.

List of rewards
For a full list of rewards see the navigation box at the bottom of this page.

Money Making
Buying Green d'hide coifs at a cost of 150 tokens and selling them at market value ( about 85,000 gp) means that each token is worth 566 gp, making this semi profitable.

Accessing the game
Due to the very large number of people playing the minigame, many will find themselves waiting at the door of the game for as much as twenty minutes, because of the 250-player limit. If you click on the door, it will say that there is no current room and to try again later or on another server. However, this problem has almost completely disappeared as most players have now tried the minigame at least once.

Lag
Many players have complained about the massive amounts of lag in this minigame, and being logged out of the game due to lag is quite common. Therefore, players are strongly advised to play this minigame using the Low Detail setting - This will help reduce lag and lower chances of being logged out.

"Death Dotting" (DDing)
A common technique among the "hunted" is to group together on a single spot in the centre of the stage. These players can often be seen shouting "Dd here!" or "dd!". The purpose of this is to prevent "hunters" from killing players so easily, as all the hunted players are grouped together on a single tile, the hunters will have to scroll through a huge list to find the player they need to attack. This has caused much strife throughout the official Jagex forums and from players in-game.

Logging Out
Players experienced a problem that logged them out instantly while playing the game. Many players had come to the conclusion that when there are too many players, a few of them will be logged out. This was confirmed to be a glitch, and has been fixed.

House Hugging
A method that causes a lot of complaints from hunters, is the practice of hiding in the houses until the hunter is out of sight, and then going outside until the hunter is near, and then repeating this until the round is over, or the hunter forfeits in frustration. A recent update to the houses is to not allow immediate re-entry.

Combat Level Difference
This has caused critism among players with lower combat levels because players are paired randomly, regardless of combat skills, and can sometimes put those players at a large disadvantage.

Glitches
There appears to be a glitch, in which, when you enter the cave to access the Fist of Guthix mini game, the wild level will switch rapidly to 260 for a split second. It is unexplained why this happens but appears right after you enter the cave. Another glitch may occur on slower computers when the arrow indicating your opponent is on the miniscreen, giving you the idea that they are there, and frantically searching for them, but they are actually somewhere completely different. The best way to combat this is to run away so the arrow is off the miniscreen, and run back.

Trivia

 * When you ask Reggie to uncharge your items he will say "In that case hand me the item over what you want recharged." This typo has still not been fixed by Jagex.


 * In some rare cases the hunted will decide to wield a weapon and kill the hunter. This results in a restart of the round, meaning that the hunted player's charges are reset to 0 and must gather charges again, and the hunter must kill the hunted again.


 * It is impossible to trade while in-game, cast alchemy spells, make teleports.


 * On the second day after the release a group of people found out that if the hunted leaves he will only loose 8 rating's while the hunter would receive 21 rating and 12 tokens. They decided to tell a lot of the high levels online about it (Mostly those in a few Australian clans) and formed a group of 50 or so on a empty p2p world. With this they created a system where loosing only cost 8 ratings and winning gained 21 rating and 12 tokens. Within 4 hours there was 300+ people doing it. At one point (around 2 hours in) Jagex had a update to fix a bug in a quest, they however didn't remove this (It scared everyone online cause they assumed it would be removed). By time it had reached about 4 hours suddenly it was reduced to if the hunted left they lost over 40 rating and the hunter only gained 12 rating and 3 tokens. With this a few hundred people sky rocketed up in the ratings and tokens (Some people going over 5k rating and having 3k tokens and beyond letting these people have full access to the battle robes and other rewards).


 * In the instance that the hunted logs out or forefits a few seconds into the game without even picking up the stone, the hunter will be credited with 40 charges, as well as 10 rating points and two tokens.


 * The maximum amount of charges that can be stored is 5000.


 * Contrary to in-game rumours, two players both scoring 5000 Charges does not award you each 40 Tokens. The exact response is "You have lost 2 rating and been awarded 3 Fist of Guthix Tokens for good effort".