Decaying avatar

The Decaying avatar is a monster encountered in the Nomad's Requiem quest. It can heal three times while the player fights it, if it can eat nearby roots. The player can destroy the roots to prevent it from healing. Meleeing these roots, as the spawn is some squares away, is difficult to do before the Avatar reaches them and eats them. Each root appears depending on the percentage of life points it has lost in 25% increments: the first time after dealing 2,500 damage, the second after 5,000 damage, and the last one after 7,500 damage. Failing to destroy all three roots means that 25,000 life points of damage must be dealt during the battle.

Unlike the avatars of Creation and Destruction, the decaying avatar will not drain your prayer when it hits you.

Note: This boss battle takes a lot of time, make sure you have time to spare. If you log or teleport out you need to start all over.

Note that the decaying avatar has extremely high melee and range defence so it will take a while to kill it even with ruby bolts(e) due to the occasional bad stroke of luck. Also, each subsequent root which appears should have a higher priority because it will heal more health. (As each root heals the avatar to its full life points, the third root would heal 3 times as much as the first.)

Strategy
One common method used to kill the avatar is to range it using ruby bolts(e) from a safe spot. Ruby bolts(e) can cause a maximum of 2,000 damage, which can help shorten the length of the fight. Once the last root has been destroyed, players may switch to diamond bolts(e) or another preferred method of combat.

An easy way to negate the avatar's high defence is with Verac's set as not only does it have a chance of ignoring his defence, it also provides a hefty prayer bonus for any prayers/curses.

The sap and leech ancient curses may also be used to drain his defence. However, since piety is required from the regular prayer book to complete the smoke chamber, it might be time consuming to switch between prayer books.

The avatar is weak to fire spells, and it has been tested to hit slightly more often than melee or range. This method is recommended for those with significantly higher magic levels than melee and range because magic will generally hit lower than melee/range. Beware of the healing roots if maging as healing the avatar will greatly increase the cost.

A very effective but highly expensive way to kill the avatar is with PvP weapons. Vesta's longsword and Statius's warhammer are extremely effective with their defence negating special attacks. (Vesta's longsword may be recommended as it can also be used against Nomad himself due to his weakness to stab. This is however presuming that the weapon will last long enough.)

If using a safespot: After finding your chosen safespot, remember to click around periodically to prevent your account from logging out. You will be taken to the surface, and all progress will be lost.

Trivia

 * The Decaying avatar is a prototype of the Avatar of Creation found in the Soul Wars activity. They both have the same combat level and lifepoints.


 * Roots spawn northwest then southeast then northeast and will heal the avatar to 100%. The player can have more time to destroy the roots by safe-spotting the Decaying avatar from the opposite end of the room from where the root will appear. For example, if the next root is the southeast one, the player should range the avatar from the west end of the room. Therefore, the avatar must walk farther to get to the root, and the player can run there and destroy it before the avatar reaches it. Activating Protect from Melee or Deflect Melee is highly advised when switching safespots.