Barbarian Assault

OS

This is a safe minigame. If you die, you will not lose any of your items.

This article has a strategy guide. All information on mechanics, setups, and strategy are on the subpage.

The official world for Barbarian Assault is world 6 (P2P).

Barbarian Assault

Release date	4 January 2007 (Update)
Members	Yes
Location	Barbarian Outpost
Participants	5
Skills involved	Combat/None (depending on role)
Reward currency	Honour Points
In spotlight rotation	Yes
Next spotlight	8 December (wrong?)
Hiscores	Yes (total points per role)
Tutorial	Yes
Custodians	Captain Cain
Music unlocked	Assault and Battery, Pirates of Penance
Developers	• Original & 1st update: Tim C • 2nd update: Anthony W, Paul B, Oliver H

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Barbarian Assault is a cooperative, team-based safe combat minigame located at the Barbarian Outpost. A team of 5 players must work together in order to defeat 10 waves of Penance monsters and, finally, their leader, the Penance Queen. After completing normal mode once, you may challenge hard mode and the Penance King, Cacus. Teamwork and coordination are vital in order to achieve success at this minigame.

Introduction

Captain Cain, a barbarian leader

The barbarians at the Barbarian Outpost need your help to fight back the seemingly endless waves of Penance monsters. Captain Cain briefs you and your fellow adventurers on your tasks when you arrive. Without completing his tutorial, you cannot play. After gathering a party of five teammates, you can head straight into the battle. After fighting back enough waves of Penance, you'll have enough Honour points to buy a variety of combat-based and cosmetic rewards.

While the Barbarian Assault arena is isolated within the RuneScape world, there are several methods by which it can be reached:

• Games necklace teleport - The quickest way to reach the Barbarian Outpost. A games necklace can be made by casting Enchant Level 1 Jewellery on a Sapphire necklace.
• Barbarian Teleport - This spell from the Lunar spellbook teleports the player to the Barbarian Outpost. Level 75 Magic, three fire runes, two astral runes, and two law runes are needed to cast it.
• Agility shortcut - At level 37 Agility, players are able to scale the tree to the north east of the Tree Gnome Stronghold (The Grand Tree quest required).
• Enchanted lyre - Teleport to Rellekka, then approach the Outpost via the Lighthouse.
• If your POH is located at Rellekka, then house teleport and run from Rellekka following the same route as the Enchanted Lyre teleport method.
• On foot - Players may journey to the Barbarian Outpost from the south, via the Baxtorian Falls.
• Via Spirit tree (after completion of The Grand Tree quest) teleport to Tree Gnome Stronghold and use the shortcut to the north-east of the Grand Tree in the Gnome Stronghold (level 37 Agility).

Gameplay

Battling the Penance Queen

Barbarian Assault is a safe minigame and, as such, players do not lose any items upon death. As combat is the minigame's main component, high Defence and Constitution levels provide an advantage. Additionally, a high Agility level is beneficial as it allows players to run for longer periods of time, providing the opportunity to evade threats. A safespot used to be behind the horn of glory, which rendered all enemies unable to attack. However, this was removed with the update to the minigame. If a teammate is killed, the entire group must restart the wave.

Basics

Main article: Barbarian Assault/Basics

Details information regarding creating a team, brief role descriptions, and Penance monsters that are faced.

Gameplay

Main article: Barbarian Assault/Gameplay

Overview of basic gameplay technique. Includes information on the gameplay interface, battlefield layout and how to complete player roles.

Strategies

Main article: Barbarian Assault/Strategies

Contains information pertaining to more advanced, specific, and efficient gameplay techniques.

Winning a wave

Rewards

Main article: Barbarian Assault/Rewards

You must choose Honour points or Experience before each wave starts, or you continue to receive the same reward type as the previous wave.

Wave Breakdown

Main article: Barbarian Assault/Wave Breakdown

This breaks down every wave and tells you the amount of monsters in the wave.

Honour Points

You can trade in Honour Points in return for role level upgrades, equipment and for gambling. You may also spend Honour points on changing the colour of an abyssal whip or dark bow to blue, green, white, or yellow for 50 points in any role. After beating the Penance King five times, you may purchase insignias that boost stats and have effects outside of Barbarian Assault

Experience reward

You can get Bonus experience in either Firemaking, Agility, or Mining instead of Honour points. Points and penalties from the wave don't affect the bonus experience. The amount of experience is determined by the number of the wave, the mode used, and the current level of that skill. For example, having level 99 Agility yields 8,116.5 bonus experience from hard mode wave 1 and 12,175 bonus experience from hard mode wave 2. And having level 1 Agility yields less experience in both cases. If all three skills are the same level, Firemaking gives more bonus experience, followed by Mining, and lastly Agility. After each wave, the bonus experience gained is determined by the wave 1 initial bonus experience times by the multiplier for that wave. For example, the bonus experience from hard mode wave 1 at level 99 Mining is 11,704, so the bonus experience gained on hard mode wave 3 would be 23,408 because 11,704 x 2 = 23,408.

Normal Mode (Level 99):

Wave	Firemaking		Mining		Agility		Multiplier
	BXP	Cumulative	BXP	Cumulative	BXP	Cumulative	Number	Cumulative
1	5,035	5,035			1,965		1	1
2	7,554	12,589					1.5	2.5
3	10,072	22,662					2	4.5
4	12,590	35,252					2.5	7
5	17,626	52,878			6,878		3.5	10.5
6	22,662	75,541			8,844		4.5	15
7	30,216	105,757			11,792		6	21
8	37,770	143,528			14,740		7.5	28.5
9	47,843	191,371					9.5	38
10	60,433	251,804					12	50

Hard Mode (Level 99):

Wave	Firemaking		Mining		Agility		Multiplier
	BXP	Cumulative	BXP	Cumulative	BXP	Cumulative	Number	Cumulative
1	21,392.5	21,392.5	11,704	11,704	8,116.5	8,116.5	1	1
2	32,089	53,481.5	17,556	29,260	12,175	20,291.5	1.5	2.5
3	42,785.5	96,267	23,408	52,668	16,233.5	36,525	2	4.5
4	53,482	149,749	29,261	81,929	20,292	56,817	2.5	7
5	74,874.5	224,623.5	40,965	122,894	28,408.5	85,225.5	3.5	10.5
6	96,267.5	320,891	52,669	175,563	36,526	121,751.5	4.5	15
7	128,357	449,248	70,226	245,789	48,701	170,452.5	6	21
8	160,446.5	609,694.5	87,783	333,572	60,876.5	231,329	7.5	28.5
9	203,232	812,926.5	111,191	444,763	77,110.5	308,439.5	9.5	38
10	256,704	1,069,630.5	140,452	585,215	97,402	405,841.5	12	50

Tips

The building beneath which the minigame takes place

Connad, Cain, the Penance fighter statue, the blackboard and the bank chest

The ten waiting rooms in the basement

All roles

• The most important thing you need to do is call! Every 30 seconds the call changes and appears white. Make sure you call as soon as it changes every time. Even if your team-mate does not call, call for them to at least speed things up a bit. It can be useful to have a stopwatch that you can start at the beginning of every wave.
• Teams do NOT lose honour points by using the egg launcher. Many players believed that in contrast to experiments and Jagex's statements. Players gain points based on TOTAL number of penance killed; as long as a penance is killed, the player gains points, and whoever is assigned to that particular penance (Defender=Penance Runner; Healer=Penance Healer; etc.) still gets the double points, even if it is not the usual way of killing them (Runners killed with traps; Healers killed with poison food). The launcher aka cannon is thus actually beneficial for providing faster kills and support actions.
• Every team member loses points when a runner makes it to the end, so a good technique is to use the egg launcher to help the defender kill runners south of the north egg launcher rock; everyone on the team gets full points for all runners killed regardless of how they are killed. A trick for the defender is placing a line of bait from the exit to the trap. When a runner eats that bait (even if the wrong bait) the runner shouts Blurghh and takes some steps north, preventing it from getting to the exit.
• On wave 10 once all Penance creatures are dead, team members should gather near the Healing Pool. This is better for the Healers as they do not have to run far. An alternative for Waves 1 through 9 is for players to hide in one of the corners of the Egg Launcher "hills", where they can't be poisoned, ranged or meleed. This strategy does not work at Wave 10 due to the Penance Queen's ranged attack.
• It is helpful to other players if a person takes a role that is already being used, most preferably collector, and use the Horn of Glory at the south-east section of the cave, as this can be used to tell everyone what they need to do. This way players can focus on their jobs. The horn cannot be used on wave 10 when the Queen arrives.
• If a player's role is complete, it is recommended to wait by the cannon (on the stairs) to not be hurt by attackers/healers and to lure enemy to a single location.
• Players can see each other's chat from anywhere in the room.

Attacker

• The first priority for an attacker at the beginning of the wave is to run west around the cannon. This way, you do not lure the Penance healers west with you, and it makes the healer's job much easier. Be sure you run west around the cannon during the start of a wave. Some teams may kick you if you fail to follow this general rule.
• Runes cannot be brought into the minigame, so mages have to use the dispenser inside the game to get ammo and as a role are not recommended.
• The attacker role should always keep auto-retaliate off to prevent any penalties like injuries and loss of honour points due to having on the wrong attack style.
• The attacker gets calls for aggressive, balanced or defensive stances. These are under the constitution abilities in the ability book and appear once you have entered the game. Put all three stances on the action bar.
• In Legacy mode, using any weapon with the "fastest" speed, such as a Drygore mace, chaotic claw, or abyssal whip, you will be able to land exactly 7 attacks lapse at the start before styles switch, and 10 attacks thereafter for every later switch, assuming your collector calls within 2 seconds of the switch. Counting the number of attacks greatly reduces the chance of using the wrong attack style at the moment the styles switch on a Penance.

Collector

• The first priority for a collector at the beginning of the wave is to run west around the cannon. This way, you do not lure the Penance healers west with you, and it makes the healer's job much easier. Be sure you run west around the cannon during the start of a wave. Some teams may kick you if you fail to follow this general rule.
  • If you start a wave with free eggs, load them into the cannon and fire a green egg at the defender before collecting new eggs. This also allows idle players to kill enemies while you stock up new eggs.
• The Collector's primary responsibility aside from calling and picking up eggs is to load the cannon with (preferably the damaging Red) eggs as a backup in case the Defender requires support. Firing the cannon should generally be left to the team members who have already finished their roles to perform, not the Collector.

Defender

• The fastest possible way to Defend on certain waves (the waves where only one runner needs to be killed before the others arrive, such as waves 1 and 2) is to create a line of the three baits to the eastern trap with two correct baits one square north of the trap. After this, stand on the trap and runners are blocked from eating (thus dying). Done properly up to 8 runners can be lured next to trap without triggering, allowing you to run south and kill up to 8 runners at once. Then, repair and repeat.
• After killing all runners, the defender is responsible for the cannon. Use red eggs on large groups of penance monsters (Eggs hit in a 3x3 explosion).

Healer

• The healer role until wave 10 is rather simple - track and protect the health of players, while poisoning healers. It is recommended not to go near the eastern trap while in use by the defender, and if you need to heal, have the defender walk out a few squares to you.
• Healers could heal each other when there is more than one on a team, as opposed to using the pool directly.
• Solo healers are particularly at risk because they are generally unable to heal themselves at short notice. Thus, they should keep an eye on their life points, and if needed healing themselves at the healer pool.

Players in the Barbarian Assault, trying to get recruited by others

Personalities

• Commander Connad
• Sergeant Sambur
• Private Pierreb
• Private Paldon
• Private Pendron
• Private Paldo

Achievements

• Master of Assault ( 40) - Achieve maximum rank in each Barbarian Assault role.
• Penance to the King ( 20) - Kill the penance king in Barbarian Assault.
• Enough of the Crazy Walking ( 20) - Purchase the Mad Ramblings.

Music

The tutorial music

• Legion - Outside
• Assault and Battery - Wave 1-10
• Pirates of Penance - Wave 10 during the fight against the Penance Queen or King.

Gallery

Concept art of the redesigned penance creatures

Concept art of the weapon used to kill the Penance King

Trivia

• Previously, the role icons were equipped in the cape slot, preventing players from wearing cape slot items. After the 26 August 2014 rework, they are now equipped in the pocket slot, allowing players to do so.
• Cosmetic overrides are not allowed in the arena and are disabled at the start of a wave in order to allow players to display their role icons. However, the message that appears at the start of each wave incorrectly states that the area is PvP-enabled, when in actuality players cannot attack each other during a round. This was corrected in a later update to remove the reference to PvP; the message now reads "Only selected retro armour overrides can be displayed in this area, and only when displayed over equivalent newer-styled armour."
• A glitch may sometimes prevent the Barbarian Assault interface from appearing. This can be fixed by shouting through the Horn of Glory.
• Players must defeat the Penance Queen after the 26 August 2014 rework to unlock hard mode. Any defeats before the update do not count.
  • Accordingly, if players have not yet killed the Queen since the rework, they receive the message "You cannot turn hard mode on or off while in this room as your hard mode wave is not equal to your normal wave. Your current hard mode wave is 0 and your normal wave is 1." upon attempting to switch to hard mode. The wording of the message is likely an oversight because players cannot reset their wave below 1.
• Lots of locations can be seen from the basement using the orb of oculus. From the south-east, the Killerwatt Plane can be seen. From the south-west, one can see the H.A.M. meeting room from Death to the Dorgeshuun as well as the TzHaar obsidian mine. To the north-west, is the Easter Bunny's burrow, including the Easter bird.