Rammernaut

Rammernaut Hoskins is the captain of the Rammernaut Guard in Bilrach's army, and a boss monster fought at the end of a dungeon while training the Dungeoneering skill.

General info
Rammernaut is a well-built melee combatant. He can be treated as a fully-armoured warrior, but several of his special abilities should be taken into consideration. Firstly, he has very high defence against melee and ranged attacks, and a vulnerability to magic. However, he is immune to all ensnaring spells. He uses four kinds of special attacks. His well-known Charge attack begins after he yells "CHAAAAARGE!!" and runs towards a player to bump him/her away. Unless he is stopped by a wall and falls onto floor with a painful "Ooof!", he won't stop and any player hit by him is pushed several spaces back, along with their prayers disabled and heavy damage dealt. His second attack is an unblockable ground-crushing attack, and affected players will have their defence reduced regardless of the damage dealt. This attack usually follows the Charge attack. His third attack is an area attack ranged 2 squares from him that also reduce defence if hit. The damage from this particular attack is blockable. The lesser-known attack does disable protection prayers but Rammernaut attacks the player in the same way he does with his normal attack.

Tactics
One way to defeat him, without taking any damage, is to mage/range him and run around the room when he comes close to you. A good strategy when fighting in teams is for the player that the Rammernaut is currently attacking to run around the room, while the others attack the boss. When he switches targets, the new targeted players starts running around the room and the other players attack the boss. These are similar in fashion to the Saradomin boss strategy, or one of the Corporeal Beast strategies.

The best way to defeat him is to have some players blocking him in near a wall while the others mage him with their best spells. This way he is unable to fight back and he will not do any damage. If you manage to do this, every time he does the "CHARGE" attack he will fall down on his back while saying "Oooof". The reason he will always fall is because he always has to make a turn before charging straight at you, and this turn runs him right into the wall. This is useful because he cannot disable your prayer, making it possible to just melee him, provided you have enough food and high enough level. Sometimes he will not move from the corner for the whole fight and so will not attack any person in the team that moves away from the charge.

It is possible to avoid the "CHARGE" attack, but only if you can anticipate it in advance and move away, out of range. This is best done if you are out of range to begin with. You can also avoid it by standing close to a wall, and moving away right on time. This will cause Rammernaut to hit the wall and fall down for about 1 second. Also, if you can manage to corner him, it is quite likely that when he starts his charge attack, he will back up into the wall, causing him to fall down without ever coming near you. However, if you are hit with this attack you'll temporarily lose the ability to use prayer (in a similar manner to the special attack of the Dragon scimitar). As such, it is strongly advisable to bring an inventory full of the best food possible (at least tier 3+). Further, once you have been hit with this attack, you will be stunned for a few seconds and unable to move. During this time, Rammernaut will follow-up with a second spinning attack in which he reduces your defence. If you are hit and stunned, heal immediately until you are nearly at full health (you cannot attack during this time anyway). Staying at higher health will help you solo this without dying.

Since Rammernaut is a melee boss, it is advisable to mage him if your Magic level is high enough. Fire Surge is much more accurate against this boss than any promethium equipment. Rammernaut is also immune to Entangle and other binding spells. Ranged is effective for nearly 30 seconds, then he will start following the player around the room, even his charge can follow the player around the room though he can easily be outrun.

Using a familiar is extremely useful, as it will continue to attack while you are running around or stunned. While maging or ranging, a combat familiar can temporarly stop Rammernaut from progressing towards the player, offering more time to safely hit him. A stormbringer familiar (83 or 93) is capable of ensnaring Rammernaut to prevent the charge attack if you are standing away when he charges, as he can not be bound by normal entangling spells.

Another way to kill Rammernaut, especially if you are in a members dungeon and are using melee, is to take advantage of the Frostbite dagger if you have one. This proves very useful, as it ignores all defence, and Rammernaut has extremely high defence.



Quotes

 * "CHAAAAAARGE!" (Before Special Attack)
 * "Oooof!" (Hitting a wall during Special Attack)

Drops

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Trivia

 * The name "Rammernaut" is probably a portmanteau of the words 'Rammer' and Juggernaut.
 * The Captain of the Rammernaut guard is named "Hoskins," as stated on the "Equipment Requisition Orders."
 * When Rammernaut calls out his charge attack and gets hit by any familiar he won't pursue players; instead he stands idle until someone gets close enough to be hit again.
 * The charge attack that he uses occasionally does not function properly. This includes Rammernaut running in the opposite direction of the player or running directly into a wall. If Rammernaut uses his special while being adjacent to a wall, he may fall over instantly.
 * The weapon that he wields slightly resembles a larger version of the Granite mace.
 * In the adventure's log, the name "Rammernaut" appears as "Rammernaught". This is probably a spelling error.
 * Rammernaut can either be very easy or very hard. He's generally easy if kept close to a wall or if being maged, but if he lowers your defence then he can keep lowering it and hit easily 200+ on successive hits.
 * Rammernaut shares the same walking and death animations as the Unholy Cursebearer, as well as the same walking sounds. His face is also similar to the Unholy Cursebearers.
 * Rammernaut was given his mace for the reason stated in his Equipment Receipt, stating : 'This man is huge; our standard maces are like a childs toy to him'.

Rammernaut