Dragon claw

Dragon claws are a pair of claws made of dragon metal. They were released on the 26th of 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 be obtained as a drop from tormented demons or traded from another player or bought from the Grand Exchange. Tormented demons can only be killed during and after While Guthix Sleeps. Completing the quest is not a prerequisite to wielding them.

These claws feature a special attack, "Slice and Dice", which uses 50% of the special attack bar and hits an enemy four times with 1 special attack. 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, but much faster. The efficiency of the special attack is especially noticeable in Kuradal's dungeon, where the use of the ferocious ring adds +40 life points to successful hits of the 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 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 arguably having a more potent special attack (aided by that the claws are far more accurate due to the bonuses).

However, dragon claws are two-handed, which means that players cannot use a shield or defender while wielding them (they provide some defence bonus though). Using a rune defender or dragon 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. The right claw is used for slash attacks, while the left one is used for the stabbing. Both claws are used during the special attack.

Note: With the Ancient Curse prayers, the threat of dragon claws is much less dangerous as a Sap spirit or Leech special attack may render a back-to-back special impossible.

Dropping monsters

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Slice and Dice Sequences
Slice and Dice special is: Four very quick attacks performed at once, with a good chance of inflicting a lot of damage.

The Dragon claws does not only have one special attack sequence. There are four, which are:


 * The normal special attack, which first deals a high amount of damage, then half of that, and finally two attacks that add up to the previous attack. For example, You may hit a 300-150-70-80.


 * If the first hit misses and the second one hits, the 3rd and 4th hits will each deal half of that damage.


 * If the first two attacks hit 0-0, the 3rd and 4th will do damage at the same level as the first attack. For example, instead of hitting 300-150-75-75, it may instead hit 0-0-300-300.


 * If the dragon claws have hit 3 initial zeros, the last hit (if it hits) would have a 50% damage boost; e.g.: 0-0-0-450.


 * If the first three attacks fail, and the fourth attack also "fails", the fourth attack almost always hits a low number instead of a 0-- approximately between 1 and 7 lifepoints. A player with protect from melee, divine/elysian shield, 90+ defence, or with the Staff of Light special attack active can sometimes completely defend against dragon claws.

The reason many players view this weapon to be overpowered is because of its potential to hit 2x normal damage, compared to the Armadyl godsword's 1.25x damage. It also has 4 different sequence hits, and almost never completely misses, making its special attack one of the most reliable in the game.

Slice and Dice is also the reason the Claws are so sought after on God Wars Dungeon teams. Many players will find that teams on the forums are looking exclusively for people who have claws to spec with.

With the new damage soaking update, dragon claws are now even more powerful since while the "slice and dice" sequence deals massive damage, the actual hitsplats are small and so the damage absorption is minimum due to the 200 damage requirement for absorption to occur.

Market
Since their release with a starting price of 150,000 coins, the price of dragon claws has risen dramatically by one of the highest percentage in the history of the Grand Exchange by player-demand only (not including Jagex's own price modifications of objects) and without including event items such as partyhats and santa hats. Players wanted them badly and began to offer up to 80 million coins for them, causing prices to rise.

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 the 31st of January, 2009, the Grand Exchange indicated a mid price of 38 million for claws, meaning they have risen 25,351% from their initial price. From there, the price of dragon claws would slowly decrease.

On the 15th of 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 the 17th of 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.

Since the introduction of Korasi's sword their value has dropped, due to it being a much cheaper pvp weapon, being easy to rebuy, the spec is magic-based and goes through melee armour's soak bonuses, and being able to deal a similar amount of damage.

Trivia

 * The special attack of the claws is almost exactly the same to the dragon dagger in terms of damage, as the claws' special attack is one hit, then the next three hits are just the first hit split up. For example, someone could hit 100-50-25-25 with the claws while someone could hit 100-100 with a dragon dagger. Both would add up to 200.
 * Sometimes a player using the dragon claws' special attack 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 the 20th of October 2009, Jagex included a sound effect for the dragon claw's special attack.
 * Dragon Claws may be a two-handed weapon, but when attacking normally only one hand is used to hit the enemy.
 * On the 26th of October 2009, Dragon claws reached their all time high of 42.2m, and experienced an almost smooth decline, with a few sharp jumps in price mainly due to updates.
 * Like all dragon metal weapons, the dragon claws are much more expensive than their runite counterpart. However, the difference in price between rune and dragon claws is more than 20,000,000 coins, which is much more of a difference than all other rune and dragon items, except for the Dragon Full Helm.
 * Due to a recent update, claws were thought to be changed to now have the "wield" option instead of "wear", however on dragon claws still say "wear"
 * Dragon claws can be considered the fastest two-handed weapon in Runescape, faster than the Saradomin Sword and Zamorakian Spear, as the Special attack hits four times in just 2 game ticks (1.2 seconds), which would mean that while doing the special attack the claws are faster than any other weapon in Runescape.
 * Despite the name, dragon claws are not similar to the actual claws of a dragon.
 * When lent, the red circle that shows that it is lent is barely visible, due to how close the claws are in the inventory view.
 * Some players consider the claws' damage to be disproportional seeing its comparatively low stats. In a test, a dragon dagger paired with a dragon defender along with a Super Strength potion and Turmoil consistently dealt less damage than the claws with the same attributes.

Dragon claws