Barbarian Assault

Barbarian Assault is a team-based combat Minigame located at the Barbarian Outpost. A team of five players must work together to battle 10 waves of Penance and on to finally defeat the Penance Queen.

There are no requirements, but the higher your combat level is, the better you'll do. This is a safe minigame, so you won't lose any items if you die.

Starting off
Go to the Barbarian Outpost and talk to Captain Cain to begin the tutorial. After you've watched all of the lessons, you will need to deposit all of your runes and bronze to mithril arrows. It is also a good idea to empty your inventory, ridding yourself of everything except armour and a good weapon. If you're planning to be an attacker, take a weapon that can attack accurately, defensively, aggressively, and controlled. The best choice would be a scimitar, followed by a longsword.

There are 10 waves of Barbarian Assault, and you must play them in order. To start playing, go into the basement of the Barbarian Assault lobby. There are eleven rooms in here, one for each wave, as well as a "quickstart" room. Either enter the room with a 1 on it or the quickstart room.

It appears that Worlds 6 and 12 are particularly popular with players of this minigame.

Equipment Strategy
There are some advanatges and disadvantages to different types of weapons and armour while playing Barbarian Assault.

Rune, Dragonhide or Granite armour is recommended. Of these, Rune is a better canidate for Waves 1-9, as all damage received will be either Melee or Range. On Wave 10, however, the Penance Queen will attack with Magic, which may leave player suceptible to her attacks.

Weapons such as Spears and Axes should not be used in Barbarian Assault. Weapons such as these lack the ability to encompass all attack styles, and will either leave the Attacker vulnerable while he waits for the next Style, or the Attacker will be penalized for continued attempts to attack the Penance with an incorrect style. For this reason the Abyssal whip is also an unwise weapon to choose, as it has no aggressive style. The best weapons to use for Barbarian Assault are the Longsword or the more popular Scimitar.

Player Roles
Unlike Castle Wars, Pest Control, and Trouble Brewing, you are bound to a specific role when you play Barbarian Assault. Each team has five players on it, and must have at least one player to each role.



The Quickstart Room
The quickstart room is reccomended for ultimate beginners, since you can't get fired if you mess up your role. Simply choose one of the roles (or say "I'll do any role"), then enter the room. Once there is at least one person doing each role and at least five people in the room, the game will start, using the lowest wave for the people playing, so if a person is on wave 1, then the game will start on wave 1. If someone is killed or someone leaves, all other players will start back on the wave that was played, even after leaving the quickstart room. If the wave is completed then the team will be able to advance to the next wave after leaving the room. The team will not stay together after finishing the first wave.

The Numbered Rooms
To start a game in the numbered rooms, one person must take a recruitment scroll from the table and use it on four other players. They will then be able to choose their roles, and the recruiter will see their level in that role and be able to accept or decline their offer. The recruiter must also write down their own role.

Once the recruiter has their team, the wave will start after the recruiter has climbed down the ladder. The recruiter becomes the team captain and can decide whether or not to keep their team after each wave. If nobody leaves or gets fired, the next wave will automatically start after 60 seconds. One way of skipping the 60 second wait is for the recruiter to temporarily exit the room, come back in and go straight down the ladder - the next wave will start immediately.

Gameplay
The key to this game is teamwork. If just one team member doesn't do their job, then the whole team fails. The game ends when someone quits by climbing up the ladder or dies. You do not lose any items when you die, but you don't keep anything that you aquired through the minigame. The object of the game is to defeat all of the Pennace.

Horn
Everyone will get a horn in their inventory to contact their teammates about what they should do (this is very important for the game to work.)



The horn is separated into different functions. At the top right of the screen it comes in this layout for example.


 * DO what is next to the EAR icon
 * TELL / SHOUT out what is next to the MOUTH icon.

Depending upon role, when right-clicked the horn will give options for what to tell your partner:
 * attack style,
 * egg colors,
 * poisoned food, or
 * food to lure.

In the example, the Defender's Horn interface on the screen shows that the Defender needs to TELL (MOUTH icon) the partner (Healer) to use Poison meat to kill the Penance Healers by right-clicking the horn and selecting the Tell-meat option. The EAR icon shows that the partner (Healer) is telling the Defender what to DO: use Tofu as bait in order to lure Penance Runners to the trap.

Action items change about every 30 seconds; a player will need to check the Horn interface for changes and tell the partner any changes as well. It is important to tell the partner what to do as the player and team will lose points for every:
 * wrong attack style
 * wrong bait used which allows runner to get through
 * wrong egg picked up
 * wrong poison used

If you need healing, click on Medic so Healer will come.

There is also a "horn of glory" in the corner that can be used to contact everyone at once.

Waves One Through to Nine
There are four different types of pennace in these waves: Fighters, Rangers, Healers, and Runners.

The Attacker
It's the attacker's job to kill the Penance Fighters and rangers. Runes and arrows are available from the attacker machine near the entrance.

The attacker must also use their horn to tell the collector which coloured eggs to pick up.

The Pennace Fighters and Rangers will be weak against one type of attack at any given time. Using the wrong attack will cause you to lose 2hp and hit no damage. The collector will tell you which attack they are vulnerable to with their horn.

The four attack types are: Controlled/Wind/Bronze, Accurate/Water/Iron, Aggressive/Earth/Steel, and Defensive/Fire/Mithril.

Having a high combat level as an attacker is a significant advantage in the game.

The Collector
The collector gathers eggs dropped by killed penance monsters and loads them into the cannon that any teammate can fire.

The collector must also tell the attacker which attack style to use with their horn.

There are three different coloured eggs: Red, blue, and green. They are dropped by dead Pennace. At any given time, only one colour of egg can be picked up. The others will explode if you try. The attacker will tell you which colour you should pick up using their horn.

You will be given an egg sack to store the eggs in, but they can also be stored in your inventory.

When you shoot enemies with the egg launcher, you can use blue eggs to stun them for a few seconds, red eggs to damage them, and green eggs to poison them (1 damage per hit).

The Defender
The defender must drop the food the healer tells them to drop in order to lure the Penance Runners into traps. This is done by laying the food in a line that the runner can follow. Bait can be found in the defender machine near the entrance.

The defender must also tell the healer which poisoned food to use on the Pennace Healers with their horn.

There are three types of bait: Worms, tofu, and crackers. The runners will be attracted to one type of bait at any given time. The healer must tell the defender which one to use with their horn. The defender will then drop that type of bait on the trap and make a small trail leading to the north caves. With luck, the runner will follow the trail and get killed by the trap.

A hammer and two logs respawn at the north end of the cave. These are used to repair the traps (each trap can only kill two runners before it breaks) and build barricades at the caves, which stops the Penance from appearing for a few seconds. Building barricades is usually not worth the trouble since they delay the players (including the defender himself) from performing their roles effectively. The defender is better off concentrating on the runners.

The Healer
It's the Healer's job to make potions to heal their team and use poisoned food on the penance healers. Food and a healing vial can be found in the healer machine near the entrance.

The healer must also tell the defender which bait to use with their horn.

To heal yourself, drink from the healer spring to heal your hitpoints and cure poison. To heal your teammates, you must use the healing vial on the spring to fill it up, then use it on them.

Use poisoned food on Pennace Healers (they can poison you and your team for 2 damage per hit) to poison them. This poison hits four damage on them per hit. The defender should use their horn to tell you which poison to use. This will change as time goes on.

Wave 10
After you get through 9 Waves, you can then fight the Penance Queen in Wave 10. She is impervious to normal attack and must be killed by shooting her with an omega egg. Each person in the team must do their part to make the egg.

The wave starts out normal, but you'll notice that there is only one egg launcher instead of two. There are also poison springs, lava craters, and spiked mushrooms dotted around the edges of the room. One will notice that the levels of the Penace Attackers and Rangers have reduced levels compared to the Penace in Wave 9.

You must defeat all of the Penanace Fighters, Rangers, Healers, and Runners before you can damage the Penance Queen, so it is best to defeat them as quickly as quickly as you can before the Penance Queen actually appears.

When the Penance Queen does appear, she will be Level 209. She has a long distance ranged attack that can hit everyone at once. She will be accompanied by Level 63 Queen Spawn, which can be defeated by anyone with any attack.

Once the Penance Queen arrives, you need to make omega eggs. You can give the yellow eggs to other players by using them on them.


 * The collector needs to gather yellow eggs that the queen drops.  They then need to pass these eggs to the healer.


 * The healer needs to dunk the eggs in the poison pools at the side of the arena, once done, they need to be given to the attacker.


 * The attacker needs to add spikes to the egg from the mushrooms at the side of the arena. The eggs need to be passed along to the defender.


 * The defender dunks the eggs in the lava pools at the side and hands them back to the collector who places them in the cannon ready to be fired.


 * Remember the order: CHAD: Collector, Healer, Attacker, Defender and back to Collector.

Around 10-12 omega eggs are needed to kill the Penance Queen. Omega eggs may not be used by a player until they have dealt with all of their other allotted monsters.

When fighting the Penance Queen, the healer probably has the most work to do - most players will need far more healing than in earlier stages, they have to do the eggs and everything they normally do as well. For this reason it is recommended that the fifth member of the team be an extra healer.

It is also helpful if the attacker and defender wear Barrows Armour otherwise known as Full Guthans so that they don't need to be healed as often. Once all other enemies are dead it is also useful if players gather near the Healing Pool so that the healers don't have to run as far. Attackers and defenders should help the collector fire the cannon at this stage.

Rewards
Players gain honour points as they play. The amount of Honour Points that a player receives is based on their performance and how well they worked with their team, along with the difficulty of the wave. Players may spend these honour points by talking to Commander Connad, who can be found in the Barbarian Assault entrance hall, near Captain Cain. They can choose to:


 * Upgrade their Barbarian Assault skill levels
 * It costs 200 points in a particular skill to upgrade a level the first time, then 300, then 400, then 500.


 * Purchase specific equipment
 * Fighter torso
 * Fighter hat
 * Healer hat
 * Runner hat
 * Ranger hat
 * Runner boots
 * Penance gloves
 * Penance skirt
 * Granite body
 * Gamble their points which can yield items up to a Dragon chainbody
 * You can gamble low, medium or high costing 200, 400 and 500 points. however, you must have already beaten the Queen once in order to gamble 500 points. You do not however need to kill the Queen more than once for all the other items that require a "Kill Queen" point.

List of known gambling rewards

 * Low:
 * Flax
 * Unicorn horns (10, noted)
 * Sweetcorn seed (25)
 * Guam seed (49)
 * Guam Leaf (19, noted)
 * Raw Tuna (83, noted)
 * Oak Logs (394, noted)


 * Medium
 * Cadantine (5, noted)

Please note that the odds of getting a Dragon chainbody are pretty slim, seeing as it is a very rare and valuable item. As quoted from Jagex, "About the same odds as Zamorak suddenly deciding to give up his evil ways."
 * High
 * Loop Half key
 * Teeth Half key
 * Magic shortbow
 * Dragon chainbody
 * Rune scimitar
 * Rune full helm
 * Rune battleaxe
 * Rune pickaxe
 * Rune platebody
 * Adamant full helm
 * Ranarr weeds (50, noted)
 * Ranarr seeds (70)
 * Tuna potatoes (28, noted)
 * Raw swordfish (64, or 119 noted)
 * Teak logs (23, noted)
 * Teak plank (22, or 46 noted)
 * Uncut rubies (70, noted)
 * Iron ore (62, noted)
 * Blood runes (44)
 * 24,975 Coins
 * Death runes (37)(107)
 * Yew logs (168, noted)
 * Rune Kiteshield
 * Dragon medium helmet
 * Lava battlestaff
 * Magic Tree Seed
 * Rune two-handed sword
 * Berserker helm
 * Granite Shield

Music

 * Assault and Battery
 * Pirates of Penance