Banshee

Banshees are Slayer monsters that require level 15 Slayer to kill. They frequently drop 13 noted pure essence, making them an alternative source of essence for low levelled players. Additionally, Banshees tend to drop lots of herbs.

Locations

 * Slayer Tower - Ground Floor
 * Desert Slayer Dungeon (Mighty banshee)

Strengths and weaknesses
Players use earmuffs, masked earmuffs, or Slayer helmets when fighting banshees, or their characters' combat statistics will be dangerously reduced. This includes hitpoints, so not wearing protection is actually deadly, not just inconvenient. Agility is also reduced, which can be annoying for players wishing to use the shortcuts in the slayer tower. Banshees have few Hitpoints and do not hit particularly hard. They are undead, so Salve amulets work on them.

Banshees use a magic-based melee attack. Their attack can also hit from a distance if players aren't wearing earmuffs. Protect from Melee prayer will work against them, but most players are likely better off using armour with a high magic defence bonus, such as dragonhide armour. Blue D'hide or better renders its attacks basically useless.
 * Banshees heal 1 hitpoint every 2 seconds without earmuffs.

Champions' Challenge
Banshees are one of the 'races' who have lesser champions in the Champions' Challenge minigame. To fight the Banshee Champion, the player must kill banshees until one drops a Champion scroll, which is a very rare drop.

Drops

 * 13, 26, 34, 35, or 36 Coins (common)

Weapons and Armour

 * Iron dagger (common)
 * Iron mace (common)
 * Iron kiteshield (rare)
 * 5 Rune javelins (very rare)
 * Mystic gloves black/red(rare)
 * Rune Spear (very rare)
 * Shield left half (extremely rare)
 * Dragon Spear (extremely rare)

Runes

 * 13 Pure essence (noted) (common)
 * 3 Air runes
 * 6, or 7 Fire runes (rare)
 * 2 Cosmic runes (rare)
 * 3, 6 or 7 Chaos runes (uncommon)
 * Nature Talisman (rare)

Herbs

 * Grimy Guam (common)
 * Grimy Tarromin
 * Grimy Marrentill (common)
 * Grimy Harralander (common)
 * Grimy Ranarr (uncommon)
 * Grimy Irit (uncommon)
 * Grimy Kwuarm (rare)
 * Grimy Avantoe
 * Grimy Cadantine
 * Grimy Lantadyme
 * Grimy Dwarf weed

Other

 * 7 or 15 Fishing bait (most common)
 * Eye of newt (semi-rare)
 * Iron ore
 * Uncut Gems (semi-rare)
 * Tooth half of a key (very rare)
 * Loop half of a key (rare)
 * Clue scroll (Level 1) (rare)
 * Champion scroll (extremely rare)

Other Information
They are popular for their tendency to drop high level herbs. Aside from banking distance they are a reasonable alternative to the popular chaos druids.

On a quick hunt, these creatures can profit a lower level character very well. Depending on the amount of Pure Essence, a lower levelled character can make anywhere from 100-200k here.

Banshees have a very high restore rate. They will restore a hitpoint between attacks with a fast weapon and two between slower weapons. They are popular for casting spells such as Weaken on because they'll restore the lowered stats extremely quickly, so it can be recast. Crumble Undead also works on Banshees.



Trivia

 * With the release of the quest Smoking Kills on the fifth of June 2008, the Banshee's appearance was updated.
 * The new appearance of the Banshees bears a striking resemblance to the Banshees from Warcraft III.
 * The name "banshee" comes from the Irish words meaning "Fairy Woman." Also in Irish mythology a banshee is said to scream when a person they know dies.