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 defence and hitpoints levels are, the easier you'll find it.

Starting off
Go to the Barbarian Outpost and talk to Captain Cain to begin the tutorial - the fastest way to get there is by using a games necklace. After you've watched all of the lessons, you will need to deposit all of your runes and bronze - 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. A longsword is a very good choice.

There are 10 waves of Barbarian Assault, and you must play them in order. To start playing, go into the basement of the 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 world 12 and 9 are particularly popular with players of this minigame.

Equipment Strategy
There are 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 candidate for Waves 1-9, as all damage received will be either Melee or Range. On Wave 10, however, the 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 an Attacker vulnerable while he waits for the next Style, or the Attacker will be penalized for continued attempts to attack 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. However, many players use a dragon dagger and a whip, switching between them as required.

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 doing each role.


 * Attacker - The Attacker's job is to kill Penance rangers and Penance Fighter.
 * Defender - The Defender's job is to lure Penance runners into Runner traps, repair the traps, and to build barricades.
 * Healer - As one might expect, Healers heal allied players, and poison Penance Healers.
 * Collector - Collectors gather eggs dropped by Penance, load egg cannons, and fire the cannons.

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, besides things like eggs and bait that are found ingame. The object of the game is to defeat all of the Pennace.

Everyone will get a bugle horn in their inventory to contact their teammates about what they should do (this is very important).

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

Wave 6 - The current wave the player is on.

Blue Eggs - The duty the player must do as their role as heard from the other player.

Aggresive/Steel/Fire - The duty the player must tell the player below.

Attacker - The player whom the owner shouts to.

When right-clicked the horn will give options of what attack style, egg colors, poisoned food, or food to lure.

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

Waves one through nine
There are four different types of penance 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 start.

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

The Penance 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 help.

Attackers gain points by killing Penace fighters and rangers and lose points by using the wrong style of attack. Formula shown below:

(Penace fighters killed + Penace rangers killed) - Wrong attack styles used

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 Penance. 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 and changed into different eggs using the collector vendor. The chance of each egg surviving depends on the collector lvl and can only be used at lvl 2 collector or higher.

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).

Blue eggs are next to useless, so collectors should use the time when blue eggs are set to be collected to fire the cannon instead.

Collectors gain points by picking up correct eggs and lose points by picking up the wrong ones. Formula shown below:

(Correct eggs picked up - eggs exploded)/4.5

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.

Defenders gain points for every runner they kill and lose points for every runner that reaches the cave. Formula shown below:

Penace runners killed*1.8 - Runners that reached the cave*3

Defenders recieve no penalty for dropping the wrong type of food; this gives rise to a tactic of dropping all kinds of food around the mouth of the exit cave to prevent runners from escaping. A trail can then be left from the cave to the trap, as the runners will follow the trail regardless of what kind of food it is. Once the trail reaches the trap, the defender can drop the right kind of food if they know what it is, or all kinds of food if they do not. As long as the food around the cave is regularly replenished, the runners can never escape.

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 Penance 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 have to fight the penance queen in the last one. 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. Take note that the different actions needed for each player to call out changes more frequently than the previous waves.

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 Penance Attackers and Rangers have reduced levels compared to the Penance in wave 9 but there are many more of them than the previous wave.

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


 * Around 10-12 omega eggs are needed to kill the queen (even though they do near 40 damage each). Omega eggs may not be used by a player until they have dealt with all of their other allotted monsters.

When fighting the 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 full guthans so that they need to be healed less. 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.

Scoring for the tenth wave, the Queen battle, is different than the previous waves. There are no penalties! Victorious players earn a fixed 80 points for their role, and five points for each of the other three roles.

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 work 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


 * 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.

List of known gambling rewards

 * Low:
 * Flax
 * Unicorn horns (10, noted)
 * Sweetcorn seed (25)
 * Guam seed (49)


 * Medium
 * Cadantine (5, noted)


 * High
 * Loop half key
 * Magic shortbow
 * Dragon chainbody
 * Rune scimitar
 * Rune full helm
 * Rune 2h
 * Rune Pickaxe
 * Adamant full helm
 * Ranarr weeds (50, noted)
 * Ranarr seeds (70)
 * Tuna potatoes (28, noted)
 * Raw swordfish (64, noted)
 * Teak logs (23, noted)
 * Uncut rubies (70, noted)
 * Iron ore (62, noted)
 * Blood runes (44)
 * 24,975 Coins
 * Death runes (37)