Fist of Guthix

Fist of Guthix is a minigame that was released on April 9th 2008. It is also a name of a RuneScape clan founded by Queen Camel on October 23rd 2005. 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 (about 7-10 level), 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 switcch 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.

Gameplay
The minigame consists of two rounds and is 1 vs 1: In each round, one player is classified as the "hunter", and the other player is classified as the "hunted". 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 acquired during the game, and the results are shown.

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.



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 and the player will appear outside of the teleport houses. Note that the player will take some damage when they walk into a house, 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

 * Grabbing a stone and waiting till 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.


 * 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, and charges, 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).


 * Turn private track off or set it to "friends" so your opponent won't be able to track you by putting your name on his friend's list.

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").


 * if an opponent is wall hugging just stay in the middle as you get points approximately 10 times faster in the middle so they will eventually get bored and come to the middle where you can freeze them before they get to the middle

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

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 battle robe bottoms can currently sell for 1,600,000 at a cost of 1,000 tokens making every token worth 1,600 coins.

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. If you click on the door, it will say that there is no current room and to try again later or on another server.

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 your chances of being logged out. Many players also report being logged out as soon as they enter a house, even on low detail and with few players in the arena. Fist of Guthix is also notoriously known for it's lag, and often ends up having players losing their games because of it. This has still not been fixed by Jagex.

"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 you to run back into a house immediately

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

 * Originally Fist of Guthix was only designated on the set worlds (Which was a mistake according to 1 Jagex moderator on the forums) After 10 hours of its release Jagex did a late update and made it all worlds. Before this as many people could go in it as well so the center had over 500+ people on the worlds standing there causing much lag, this was fixed by minimizing it to 250 inside at once.


 * 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.


 * There is a clan called Fists Of Guthix which was founded by Queen Camel on October 23rd 2005. It has come under the public eye of copying the new minigames name for publicity, but in actuality it has been going around much longer.


 * 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.