Commander Zilyana


 * Commander Zilyana is a God Wars Dungeon boss and is called the 'Saradomin Boss' in RuneScape's Quick Chat feature.



Commander Zilyana is the leader of Saradomin's army in the God Wars Dungeon. She is said to be an Icyene, an ancient race of winged beings, chosen by Saradomin to guard his hilt. Commander Zilyana uses a melee attack and a magic attack. She uses them randomly, and both attacks are quite accurate. She attacks with her multi-target magic attack when her sword glows with a bright blue aura and she raises it in the air. If the attack hits a player, a small wall of lightning will appear around the player. If her magic attack fails, nothing happens (no 0 damage splat, no splash). She attacks with melee when she simply slashes at the player with her sword. Her melee attack is not multi-target.

In addition, both her magic and melee attacks have a max of 30 damage but they are both very rapid (approximately the speed of throwing knives), so players should be careful fighting her.

Lastly, Commander Zilyana is located in the back room of Saradomin's Encampment. Players must have 70 agility as well as two coils of rope and 40 kills on Saradominists to reach her. In addition, she has 3 guards: Growler (magic), Bree (ranged) and Starlight (melee).

Note: The two ropes needed to access her are only needed once, and can be used any time thereafter. The ropes cannot be re-obtained.

Again, as stated above, Commander Zilyana is dangerous and should not be understimated, as she is the sixth strongest monster in RuneScape, after General Graardor, K'ril Tsutsaroth, TzTok-Jad, the Spirit Beast and the Corporeal Beast, and so is the fifth highest levelled attackable monster, as the Spirit Beast cannot be attacked.

Bodyguards

 * Starlight
 * Growler
 * Bree

Quotes
When in battle, the commander gives several battle cries while fighting the characters that dare to venture deep enough to kill her:


 * "Death to the enemies of the light!"
 * "Slay the evil ones!"
 * "Saradomin lend me strength!"
 * "By the power of Saradomin!"
 * "May Saradomin be my sword."
 * "Good will always triumph!"
 * "Forward! Our allies are with us!"
 * "Saradomin is with us!"
 * "In the name of Saradomin!"
 * "Attack! Find the Godsword!"

Soloing Method
The soloing method involves a tactic known as Hit-and-Run, which can be used when grouping her. It involves attacking Zilyana, and quickly moving back before she can retaliate. If you melee, you will take 1 or 2 hits. However, if you range, you can keep hitting and running, and restoring energy with purple sweets or with Tireless Run Scrolls. Running away from her is absolutely necessary, because she is very capable of knocking a player out with her strong accurate and rapid attacks.

Note: Using melee while soloing is not advised, except at high levels, because when meleeing, Zilyana has the oppurtunity to attack the player. Zilyana is capable of cutting through the highest defence easily, so allowing her to attack is not very advisable. Experienced high levelled players using range will find they can stay for about 10 kills.

In addition, Players should run from corner to corner, as this will give you the most time in which to hit Zilyana.

If you need to eat or drink Saradomin Brews, do so while running from corner to corner until your health is full.

Zamorak Godswords are somewhat useful while soloing as the special attack freezes Zilyana for 20 seconds, giving you plenty of time to eat and prepare.

NOTE: Due to an update by Jagex in which they made the room smaller in size, the Hit-and-Run method has since become considerably more difficult, and one will usually not get as many boss kills as they would before this update.

Team Strategy
Usually, teams consist of 3-6 players. The team strategy is similar to the solo strategy. Because Commander Zilyana's attacks are so dangerous, it is ineffective to "tank" her. So, when in a team, a player should quickly run away (to avoid her attacks) when the commander is going after the player, and attack Zilyana when she's chasing after / attacking another player. Commander Zilyana will switch to another target after UNSUCCESSFULLY chasing her current target for 12 seconds.

For big teams (masses), all players assemble in the center and pile Zilyana. If she is attacking a player in such a team, that player really doesn't have to run away from her, as it usually takes a few seconds for the team to kill her. However, if the team fails to kill her fast enough, death is a very real possibility for the player under attack. Therefore, praying magic is highly recommended before Zilyana spawns.

Some tricks / techniques the average team uses: 

When she spawns, a ranger is usually the first to distract Commander Zilyana, as the ranger is able to attack from a distance.

A team member freezes Commander Zilyana with a Zamorak Godsword special attack so she cannot move. This makes the kill slightly smoother, as players can simply step away from the Commander's reach. This results in less running around for the team.

Commander Zilyana and her bodyguards are very dangerous, so teams usually bring healing familiars (such as Fruit Bats, Unicorns, Titans), Guthan's armour, or Bones to Peaches tablets in order to heal and stay longer.

Players usually stand at the south wall while waiting for her to spawn.

Teams rest in between kills. The "rest" feature allows teams to recover run energy.

Teams pray at the altar when they're low on prayer points. It is ill-advise to prayer at the altar when a player has high prayer points because the altar will only boost the player's prayer points every 15 minutes.

Players wear Saradomin objects because the altar gives one bonus prayer point per Saradomin object a player is wearing when a player prays there. This may not seem much, but it adds up especially when trips last 5+ hours.

Weapons and Ammunition

 * Saradomin hilt (Very Rare - Approx. 1 out of 300 kills)
 * Godsword shard 1 (Uncommon)
 * Godsword shard 2 (Uncommon)
 * Godsword shard 3 (Uncommon)
 * Saradomin sword (Rare - Approx. 1 out of 120 kills)
 * 18-20 Adamant javelin (very rare)
 * Rune sword (very rare)
 * 40 Rune arrows (very rare)
 * 37 Rune dart (common)
 * 95-105 Law rune (semi-common)
 * Rune spear (semi-rare)

Armour

 * Dragon medium helm (rare)
 * Rune plateskirt (common)
 * Rune kiteshield (common)
 * Adamant platebody (common)
 * Rune sq shield (rare)

Potions, Food, and Herblore

 * 3 Saradomin brew (3) and 3 Super restore potion (4) (uncommon)
 * Prayer potion (3) (uncommon)
 * 3 Magic potion (3) and 3 Super defence potion (3) (common)
 * Grimy ranarr (5) (common)
 * Ranarr seed (2) (semi-common)
 * Magic seed (rare)

Other Drops

 * 19,000 Coins (very common)
 * Gems (uncommon)
 * Key half (uncommon)
 * Chaos talisman (very rare)
 * Shield left half (extremely rare)
 * Nothing (rare)

Trivia

 * Unlike the other bosses in the God Wars Dungeon, Commander Zilyana is a Commander opposed to the other 3 bosses being Generals. There is no known General for Saradomin and no explanation for why she is only a Commander.
 * The safe spot for Commander Zilyana was removed on 14 February 2008.
 * Her shield slightly resembles the Falador shield 3.
 * The "Hit'n'Run" technique is now considerably more difficult to pull off due to Jagex introducing a new update, which made the room much smaller in size.
 * Although her weapon, the Saradomin Sword, is a two-handed weapon when equipped by a player, Commander Zilyana wields it as a single-handed weapon.
 * Due to the update on August 18, involving combat familiars now being more agressive, familiars such as the titan, terrorbird, and war tortoise, are now causing Commander Zilyana to target and attack players at a random rate. This is due to the reason that if one's familiar attacks the Commander, she will automatically target the owner of that familiar, regardless of whether or not she has just chased them. It is not yet known whether this is intentional or a bug.