Fight Cave Talk

Post discussion here about the hardest minigame in OSRS, the Fight Cave! How was your experience with it? Do you need advice? Do you have advice for others, perhaps?

The Fight Cave is one of the most fascinating challenges in not just Runescape, but in all of gaming. The waves get linearly harder as one progresses, except for the final wave, which is 100 times harder than the one before it. Tztok-Jad is not difficult because of any video game skill requirement; he is hard to kill because there's no great way to practice for it, and because extreme tension will sink into even the bravest adventurers who get to Big 63. Personally, I think the Fire Cape makes the top 5 list of best items to own, even if one counts extremely expansive items like 3rd age stuff. Some grind-oriented players never attempt it, some ragequit while trying to get one and give up. But those who do get it, and are smart enough not to risk & die with it, will forever have a changed perspective on wealth. This is because it doesn't matter how much money one spends attempting the Fight Cave, or how long it takes to get one. But what matters is simply whether or not one has one. Most people feel devastated if they fail one or a few attempts, and they may feel like it isn't as worth it to get the cape for financial reasons. But let me tell you guys one thing: If you get a fire cape, you won't care how long it took. It's a priceless item that doesn't follow the same rules of time efficiency and effort of obtaintion that other items follow. You get one, and you're set for life. The most important skill in getting one isn't being perfect at prayer point efficiency, or even prayer switching. The most important skill in getting a fire cape is the ability to try again after failure. Someone who is skilled enough at the Fight Cave to have a 40% chance of success, but with very little patience will likely lose a couple times, then rage quit from the minigame for a year plus. But one skilled enough for a 20% shot at a cape who is determined to keep trying no matter what, will end up getting one; it'd be mathematically almost impossible for them not to. I believe that everyone with good enough stats who tries their hardest in preparation and execution...is skilled enough to have at least a 1/3 shot at a cape. Don't think that failing more times before getting a cape somehow devalues the achievement. When someone wants to know if you can drive them somewhere, they ask if you have a driver's license. They don't ask "Do you have a driver's license, and how many times did it take you do pass the test?" Personally, I think failing Jad more times before a cape makes one even cooler than someone who got it on their first try. If one beats the Fight Cave on their first try, then it shows that their good at a game. If one beats the Fight Cave after failing 5 times however, then it shows something about their character; they are willing to fight through any obstacle to achieve greatness.

My Fight Cave story:
In the end of pre-EOC, as EOC Beta was coming out and the combat system was soon to change the game forever, my one goal was to get a fire cape before EOC ruined the achievement. It took me ages to get through the caves on both of my serious attempts (about 5 hours), which increased the stakes of winning. The first attempt saw me dieing early on, and wasn't really noteworthy. In the second attempt, I got to the healers, but couldn't see Jad's health bar. I lured the healers, but for some reason, Jad wasn't dieing even though I was hitting him for a few minutes. Eventually, time went on long enough for the 5% chance I had of messing up a prayer to come true and kill me. This was the last straw for me, as EOC was coming out which I knew I might quit from anyways. I gave up on Jad and RS, thinking that forever I would never get a cape, because I saw no joy in going through the Fight Cave with the wonky RS3 mechanics; doing the Fight Cave in RS3 just wouldn't be the same legendary challenge. But then, OSRS came out, and with it the old Fight Cave. After two and a half years, my account was finally strong enough for me to attempt it again. This time, I got 80 range in preparation, though the 360 magers still proved very time consuming to get through. On the Jad fight, I thought for sure I'd be calm, but that inevitable marathon runner heartbeat kicked in. I messed up prayers a couple times early on, but the roulette of Jad hits didn't KO me. As I was luring the healers, my mind was maxing out, as it wasn't used to the pressure that comes with having to focus with this level of intensity. Even though I'm a hardcore SSBM player (one of the hardest games in the world to play competitively), Wave 63's requirement of 100% continuous focus is tough on me. SSBM (Super Smash Bros. Melee) at the competitive level is so fast and beyond human reflexes that most players can't give 100% of their focus through a whole game. Like boxing, one can afford to lose focus for a bit if they string together some combos in a streak of focus that powers one to victory. But the contrary continuous focus required in the Jad fight would get to me as I tried to lure the final healer. While one healer away from the "home stretch", my mind got tired of the constant focus, and naturally let up for a moment to take a breath, so to speak. Of course Jad's meteor hit a 90 on me, and I died. Though I am very thankful for the result of this attempt, because I came close to dieing several times before Jad, and if I had died any of those times, I would not have gotten very crucial Jad experience. Now the smart thing I did on this attempt was to do it in the morning on a day off. I had the whole rest of the day to go to the store IRL, relax, and form a game plan for not just the next attempt, but for the eventual attaining of a fire cape. My plan was not to go all-in with my expectations in attempt #2, but instead focus on forming a desire to keep trying again if I lose. I figured I had about a 1/3 chance of beating the caves with each attempt. I promised myself that I wouldn't be too disappointed with a loss if I got more crucial experience. The next morning on October 6th, 2015, I progressed through the caves again, and at first it felt nice and casual. I was progressing a lot smoother, and only had about 1 moment in waves 1-62 where i could have died. It didn't take long to figure out that not going all-in with expectations on a Fight Cave attempt is easier said than done; as soon as one realizes "Wow, it's taking a while to get through these waves, and if I lose, I have to do this all over"... as soon as one realizes that, it's very difficult not to go all-in with expectations and be extremely disappointed with a loss. Near the end of a run that was very time consuming, largely due to me doing Guthan's healing antics like flinching the 180s, I was on Wave 61, the last wave where one can trap a monster to take a break. While my character Shaby15 stared at the 180 he had trapped behind the Italy Rock, I did the only thing I know how to do to prepare for Jad: I opened up a screenshot I took of the prayer book in MS Paint, and shrinked the Paint window so that it only showed the book. Then, I found a video of someone killing Jad with sound, and put the screenshot over the prayer book in the video. I clicked the prayers as I watched the video. Pic of what I mean:

After being satisfied with my success rate of playing along with the video, I concluded my final break point and proceeded to Wave 62. Now those of you who think Wave 62 is nothing but an easy wave, you're wrong. What Wave 62 does by having only two 360s, is it means one can't trap a monster to take a break right before Jad. Since 360s don't require any concentration to kill, this means one's mind can only focus on two things: one's impending doom to Jad, and how much is on the line. I killed the second 360, prayed range, and went into the corner with auto retaliate and my ears on. But Jad wasn't attacking me. This confused me so freaking much for some reason that I just sprinted in a random direction until he attacked me. It turned out that Jad spawned right behind the Italy Rock, but by the time I noticed that, I ruined this advantage by sprinting right near him. The distraction of Jad not attacking messed me up enough for me to miss a prayer and get nailed for 2/3 of my health. This automatically activated my strategy of "When you don't know what to do, focus only on prayer switching". I didn't immediately go for a saradomin brew, but pray switched until I felt focused enough to drink 1 dose of potion in between every Jad attack. Kept auto retaliate on to lessen the clicks required. I got my HP back up. And started to get in the groove of prayer switching. Doing any unnecessary clicking except prayer switching was absolutely out of the question at this point, as I wanted 95% of my focus just for that. So I ended up positionally like I usually do against Jad - distanced too far away and with a down low, straight-at-him camera angle. I couldn't see his health bar or my hit splats, which helped me focus a bit more on staying alive, but also made it more intense. I assumed I was damaging him (I had exp pop-ups turned off), and sure enough I was, because the healers came. My ability to calmly switch my attack style to longrange for the healers, something I learned in my pre-EOC Jad attempts, kicked in and I very slowly lured the healers. I spent a long time between attacking each healer, because I wanted to be 100% sure that I was focused enough to do something besides prayer switching. If I was praying range, I would repeat in my head constantly: "If you hear the retribution sound effect, switch to mage. Retribution? Mage protect. Otherwise don't click. Retribution? Mage protect." If I had protect from mage on, I'd repeat "Slams his legs? Range protect. Otherwise don't click." I had on two pieces of Guthan's, giving me tankability, so the last thing I was worried about was surviving the healers' attacks. But my tankability would soon be a growing question. As I slowly lured the last healer, I realized I had gotten further than the last attempt, but quickly shook this idea out of my head because starting to get comfy and think about things is why I lost the first time. During Jad, your mind wants to think about all kinds of things, but you have to stuff those ideas away as much as possible and save them for after the fight. After I lured the healers, I thought "This is the home stretch!". But then I saw something I couldn't believe: A yellow aura shined on Jad. He was being healed. The only immediate solution to this problem I came up with was literally "pretend you didn't just see that, and maybe It won't happen again!". Then it happened a second time. I thought "But I lured the damn healers and they aren't adjacent to him!" I started the Jad fight with plenty of saradomin brews left (three of them), but I was starting to run low because the fight was taking a very long time. I knew my limits, and I knew I would never be able to focus on lining up the healers all hunky dory like the guides say to. All I could do amidst the prayer switching was act on whatever idea I came up with first; no time to wait for the perfect solution. I started to just kill the healers, and move back a bit, hoping that would solve the problem somehow. During this chaos, I messed up my prayer switching once, and a possible other time, but survived somehow. I often didn't know what the heck my range level was, because checking my stats would have lead to loss of focus; could have been anywhere between 50 and 80 for a lot of the fight. Jad was likely still getting healed by 1 healer this point, and I suddenly had my worst problem yet: I was out of saradomin brews and the healers were starting to wreck me. Almost all of my mental focus was still devoted to prayer switching, so I was literally incapable of realizing that I could have switched to Guthan's and healed on the healers. Though if I did this, my auto retaliate could have made me attack Jad close up. I flashed back to the time I lost to Jad in pre-EOC, which was a very similar situation; Jad just wouldn't die after I lured the healers, because of reasons, and the fight kept going on and on. With my HP approaching red and with no way for it to reverse direction, I figured out the only possible solution: Hope Jad has low HP and kill him before the healers kill me. Without seeing Jad's HP bar or my hitsplats, I fired blind at him. Multiple healers wailed on me as I attacked Jad with Accurate. The only thing indicating possible damage was the sound of my diamond bolt special activating, and that sound was actually a bit soothing. My HP hit red and I accepted my fate of losing my second attempt. As my HP winded down towards zero, I went through the stages of accepting defeat, and thought to myself, "Man, I sure have a lot of good character for being okay with losing here. I will keep trying and eventually succeed through sheer number of attempts. I got experience in this fight and-" But then, after my HP got knocked down to 13, Jad suddenly dropped to the ground! I was somehow out of the cave with fire cape in my inventory. A cape out of nowhere. I did not feel sheer excitement, but more of a dazed mix of extreme relief and thankfulness. The infamy of the Fight Cave is that losses come when one thinks they have it under control. Deaths come when one doesn't expect it, such as unfair lag-outs or while running up to Jad. The Fight Cave always seems to steal people's victory away from them, like it's a scam. My fire cape victory was a typical defeat in reverse; instead of someone thinking they have things under control, then getting gipped with a sudden death... I was someone thinking I had nothing under control, then getting blessed with the surprise gift of victory. I was able to experience the fight in this way because I don't have OS Buddy, which would have showed me Jad's HP bar.
Moral of the story: OS BUDDY SUCKS.
But seriously, it's features would have detracted me more than helped.

On another Fight Cave topic, I heard that Jagex had the idea of extending the caves with more waves? Not sure if this is a rumor, but it's very interesting anyways. What would they do for Wave 64? Jad and a lvl 22? Then Jad and two lvl 22s, then Jad and a lvl 45? To have this much Jad, I think that Jad probably shouldn't have healers on waves after 63, except maybe for special waves later on. Though it would be epic to see pros deal with both healers and other monsters. There's a few design obstacles to avoid impossibility of getting further, such as running out of even max efficiency supplies, and how you'd die for sure against Jad and a lvl 360.

"On another Fight Cave topic, I heard that Jagex had the idea of extending the caves with more waves? Not sure if this is a rumor, but it's very interesting anyways. What would they do for Wave 64?"

There are gonna be waves with more than one jad. Also they are adding a new, "Stronger jad" so a jad 2.0 so to speak.
The cape will be bis, but they haven't decided if it will be a magic, range or melee cape.
It will be very hard. They said they don't think anyone will get it the first month of release. (Just watch the runefest presentation to hear about it, and some other cool stuff)