Dragon claw



Dragon claws are a pair of claws made of Dragon metal. They were released on 26 November 2008, along with the While Guthix Sleeps quest. They are two-handed weapons, and players require an Attack level of 60 in order to wield them. They may only be obtained as a drop from Tormented demons. Tormented demons can only be killed during and after While Guthix Sleeps and are commonly thought to have a claw drop rate of 1/250. However, completing the quest is not a prerequisite to wielding them. However, as with all the other claws, the completion of Death Plateau is required to wield Dragon claws.

These claws feature a special attack, "Slice and Dice", which uses 50% of the special attack bar, and hits an enemy four times within one turn. When two specials are used back-to-back, a player can hit eight times in two attacks, which is similar to the dragon dagger's special. They are especially notable because their rune counterpart also have a special attack, making claws the only type of weapon where both the dragon and rune versions have a special attack.

Dragon claws, when first released, started in the Grand Exchange at 150,000 coins, but the high demand has pushed them up to relatively high prices (at several tens of millions). With the release of the Dragon claws, the price of the Dragon dagger dropped. This may be a result of dragon claws outdoing dragon daggers in strength bonus (a +56 bonus compared to the +40 of the dragon dagger), matching them in speed, and having a debatably better special attack.

However, dragon claws is still a two handed weapon, which means that players cannot use a shield or defender while wielding them. Using a rune defender along with the dragon dagger provides more defence and attack bonuses than the dragon claws. Using a dragon dagger and a Dragonfire Shield provides more defence than that of the dragon claws.

Slice and Dice
The special attack is based on the first hit. It then takes the first hit, divides it in half, then divides it by a further 1/2, and then it hits for the same again. For example, if a player hits a 40 on the first hit, the special would be 40-20-10-10. If it is odd, like 41, it may be 41-20-10-11, or 41-20-10-10, to average the 4 split hits with the first hit. This means that the Dragon claws essentially doubles the damage into four separate hits.

The claws can hit up to a 46, a 23, a 12, and an 11 (for a total of 92) under perfect conditions, which equals 184 with both specials, while under perfect conditions the dragon dagger can hit two 50s four times for a total of 400 damage from the four specials. However, in PvP, these damages would not be possible, as they rely on other factors, such as a Castlewar bracelet against the flagholder. Also, the dragon dagger's special attack, puncture, has a significant lag time after the first special attack has been used. Therefore giving the wielder's opponent enough time to eat food, before the dragon dagger's special attack is fired again. The advantage of the dragon claws over this is once the special is used, all 4 hits connect simultaneously, without stopping. The main disadvantage of the dragon claws however is many players find the price very high.

Market


Since their release with a starting price of 150,000 coins, the price of Dragon claws has risen dramatically by the highest percentage in the history of the Grand Exchange by player-demand only (not including Jagex's own price modifications of objects).

After just 30 days following their release, Dragon claws had risen by 2,142%, gaining a total of more than 6 million coins. As of 31 January, 2009, the Grand Exchange indicated a mid price of 38 million for claws, meaning they have risen 25,351% from their initial price. Now, the price of dragon claws is slowly decreasing.

On 15 July, 2009 Jagex introduced an update to PvP worlds and Bounty Hunter Worlds in which players were automatically skulled on entering the world and the Protect Item prayer was disabled. Dragon claws, a popular item used by one-itemers started to see a rapid drop in price along with other one-itemer weapons such as the Armadyl godsword and Saradomin sword. The Dragon claws suffered a 1.2 million gold loss the day after the update.

On 17 July, 2009 Jagex released Bounty+1 worlds, which allowed players to keep one item on death. The demand soon shot up with players buying for well above maximum price.

Trivia

 * Sometimes a player using the Dragon claw's special twice in a row on the second special may only hit 2 times instead of the usual 4. This is not a glitch. Since the special attack is 4 separate hits, if the enemy dies after one of the hits, the following hits do not occur. However, there are some occasions when the enemy is still alive after 2 hits and the special attack misses, hitting a 0 and a 1, or a 0 and another 0 if target was using Protect from Melee, but the 0-1 special happens reasonably often on good defence and/or armour.
 * On 20 October, 2009, Jagex included a sound effect for the Dragon claw's special attack.
 * When Dragon Claws first came out they were only 150k however they were very difficult to purchase in the Grand Exchange due to their high demand which caused their price to raise to over 30 million coins.