Bounty Hunter has returned to the lands of RuneScape. After months of waiting, did it live up to the hype? Is it like it was before? What are some of the things that I liked best and disliked about this update? All will be answered and more!

For starters I have been waiting for something like this to come back to the game for along time. This is an update that I think will really bring the PK’ing community back to the game, or create a new one altogether. I started by entering the EoC only Bounty Hunter world, w106 (w97 legacy), and was greeted by hundreds of floating skulls over players heads. I was immediately filled with nostalgia. There were so many players online in one place. I know that day or release is always crazy, but if this update holds up which I believe it will, there might not be much more need to work on rejuvenating the wilderness.

I regret to say that I have yet to land a successful bounty kill since release but I assume it will become easier once the tables fill out and people who actually do bounty hunter are better matched. It will also help when the wilderness dies down slightly. I wouldn’t complain if it didn’t die down though. Part of what makes this update great is the wait time between bounties. There is around a 5 minute wait which is more than enough time to get another kill in if you wanted.

The reason this update works so well is that it’s so close to straight up pvp. The entire experience is a mad rush and is not really hard to learn. I will go over my setup later. For those who did not so Bounty Hunter in the past, when you get assigned a target the map will point you to the player. Players can get assigned as long as the player is in the wilderness or Edgeville. Crossing the wall and chasing down the target is refreshing and fun. There is nothing else in the game that can compare to this. Chasing down the target, be aware of anyone that wants to attack you, it is the wilderness after all.

One thing that I wish Bounty Hunter did show like in the past was different color skulls to show level danger and a gold stack to show carried wealth. Maybe this is left out because it’s not in an enclosed volcano anymore so anyone can go after eachother. I have not got a chance to get any kills so I haven’t got my hands on any rewards but I think that recycling the crucible items for cheaper and adding other rewards was a great idea.

Well, here is what I was using for my first few attempts. I tried magic. Using full Ganodermic, Polypore staff, and a magic amulet. For food I used rocktails but would recommend sharks, super restores, and overloads. If you are lower level, using supersets works as well. For prayers I used ancient curses. I would recommend not using the Polypore staff and using the level 80 Chaotic Staff from Dungeoneering and ancient magicks. Blood barrage or ice barrage work well. I used curses but classic prayers would be more than likely the better choice for newer pvp players.

My action bar consisted of mostly stuns and thresholds but not ultimates. Make sure to have freedom as well as anticipate to help prevent stuns. In pvp it’s really important to always have your guard up for stuns so anticipate as soon as able every time it refreshes and leave freedom for the time in between when the anticipate wears off and you are vulnerable. I would recommend saving two slots to better quick switch prayers. Surge (magic ability) or escape (ranged ability) are important to help get away from other pkers faster. If I wanted to play more risky I would move up on my weapons to the next tier and protect item. So weapons such as the Noxious Scythe or the Noxious Staff would do really well. Depending on the amount of items that are saved on death, for me it was 4 with my prayer enabled I would say that going in with three powerful pieces is the best bet. During release though, I would recommend not using anything that you would hate to lose if something were to go wrong. If you are living on the edge make sure you always have prayer when carrying 4 items. This gives the smite prayer some use again when going after someone with more than three really great items.

Melee PvP Action Bar

Magic PvP Action Bar

Ranged PvP Action Bar

Some other items I would recommend to get started on the right foot in EoC Bounty Hunter are adrenaline potions and a familiar if you feel so inclined. I have yet to fight someone who was using one as death rates are high and it’s a waste of food and familiar pouch. Sniper or arcane stream amulets from Dungeoneering pushes the top damage ceiling much higher which can help surprise your opponent to a quick death from half health.

Pvp is all about speed so for beginners I would recommend with really fast weapons. For more seasoned pvp players, branching out to combo weapons such as d-claws with dual drygore maces would be a pretty deadly combo.

When choosing an attack style I would recommend going with something with range, therefore magic or ranged. This allows for getting away from attacks and saving on food. The strategy for this is to successfully bind, back step, or sidestep depending on the attack style and threshold from a distance while the opponent needs to freedom out to get to you. Melee is only recommended if your opponent is also running a melee set up, and even in that case I would probably take magic over the two. Styles are really important as a pvp mage will get destroyed against a pvp ranger in seconds. Same goes for the other combat triangle scenarios. I don’t see many with melee for bounty hunter so worrying about getting destroyed as a ranger is not to much of a concern.

The release of this update went as smooth as one would expect. I am sure that any pvp update comes with a massive bag of unexpected scenarios and bugs. There were some issues with pvp in the wrong places like in Edgeville. Most of the issues seemed to be pjing (pile-jumping) problems where people could jack the pvp fight and get all the rewards.

If anyone has ever wanted to try pvp, I would highly recommend giving this update a try. It’s an easy way to learn that also allows for whatever risk amount willing to be put up. Not everyone would be able to say this but I had fun doing pvp again even though I was dying. If anyone wants to practice pvp, dueling is an option that was released earlier this year that makes it easy to risk free try pvp combat with the items you would intend on using. If anyone has questions or wants safe practice for this update please shoot a message my way and I can set something up or answer any questions you have such as item combos, attack style questions and strategy.

That’s all for now, happy gaming.