Sliske

As each day passes, players of RuneScape are given new content to keep them interested in the game. This whole month and dare I say several months since it’s announcement this has been the trend; God Wars II is finally here. With striking resemblance to its predecessor I couldn’t be more conflicted.

To start off, the hype seems to be forced down the throats of every player type combat fans or skillers alike, and God Wars II is not the first to do this. Having seen the hype train begin to blossom at the time of Vorago and even Nex, bossing is something that Jagex really takes pride in with their game and their new flashy combat mechanics. Getting to the mechanics later, I felt that this time around Jagex didn’t do such a bad job. This is accomplished by showing the users the new bosses with mini backstories that took relatively high level requirements to complete.

The biggest issue, however, is the amount of content that the players are allowed to see. I don’t think Jagex was bought out by a movie studio that has the idea of showing the people a quarter of the content before release is the only way to do things.

With that said, the visuals that were shown for God Wars II were not really impressive. The Mods boast that the graphics will look great in the new client when released and I guess I will have to wait to see if they’re right, but I don’t think they are. The battlefield is surprisingly interesting enough to put me to sleep. It reminds me of the issue of how close everything is to each other in the game map. The conflicting environments so close to each other just seems like bad practice that hasn’t been beat out of the graphic artists just yet. The area I see as the most appealing though would be Zaros, I am sure some Mods would have lost their jobs if the beloved did not have the most atmospheric area of the four. Everything else I have seen before so I don’t really care to continue on about it.

The way the mechanics work for kill count is quite nice. I love the idea of a multiplier and working with others to really boost up that kill count. I can imagine going with friends to get kill count is much more enjoyable now. The creatures that need to be killed are fairly diverse and at a decent level as to make it a challenge if playing solo and I really like that. They way the entire room is set up however can really make it harder to get used to for a first time God Wars player.

Now to the bosses, and I want to start with each general… Or generals? Anyways, Zaros has two generals mashed into one boss fight. Vindicta & Gorvek are really well designed. They look menacing but surprisingly small for a dragon and its rider. This fight requires 80 Attack. The boss fight has two phases even though it’s mostly the same fight, just one involves the small dragon. The mechanics are extremely lackluster but pretty. A wall of purple flame (because it’s Zaros) comes across the room and deals magic damage, a twirl attack from Vindicta that will cause the most damage of the fight, and Gorvek taking a poop on the player’s head. Yes, you heard me right.

This boss fight was very easy and I was able to get it on my second try as a solo. I decided to go with melee armor because I was comfortable with DPS and DPS is what is needed in order to fight this boss more than once per 40 kills. I enjoyed this fight, the mechanics were at par, nothing flashy. I would recommend melee for this boss, I did not try magic, but I could see that it might be the better method as dps with thresholds will do wonders. Melee hitting them with a bleed ability that requires hits hard when the boss moves will also save the day.

The next general, Helwyr, who fights for Seren, is also very well sculpted. I love the character model Jagex gave him. This fight requires 80 Magic. It really teaches you why some mushrooms are bad for you, and really that is almost all there is to this fight save wolf spawns and a claw slash because he is a wolf in a bear’s body. This fight I found to be annoying as there were just too many mushrooms with their poison cloud that doesn’t count as poison damage. It should, the clouds are green. But the fight was not that bad, just not my favorite of the four. I was able to get this my first try, it was slightly harder than Vindicta & Gorvek, but once you know the attacks, it’s just about eating food at the right times. DPS is also important here. I would say that this boss could swing in any direction for attack styles but I would lean towards magic as the wolves fall faster and the mushrooms are not to much of a bother.

The Twin Furies. Zamorak is at it again, what would a war be without the embodiment of RuneScape evil right? Well these character are fine, but my least favorite of the bunch. The fight requires level 80 Ranged. Their attacks are pretty boring and are really easy to learn making this one of the easier ones to fight. They have a change attack where they come together and charge their tails that is basically a DPS waiting game, move before the bomb goes off. One of them will jump off the walls, a trick that looks alot like the Kalphite king. The ceiling falls in also several times. This is probably the boss fight I would recommend starting with because of the simplicity of it. Players can get a feel of what the rest of the dungeon will have to offer. I would recommend melee for this boss because the method that work best for me was keeping the Twin Furies close even when they were using abilities.

I had to save Gregorovic for last. This is Sliske’s puppet. This requires 80 Prayer to enter the fight. The character model is beautiful, my favorite of the models for these bosses. Accurately sized, dark and menacing. The fight is the most challenging in my opinion, even though I can pick out all but one of his attacks being borrowed from other fights. The QBD ghost healing takes on the form of buffing the boss this time around, the black spots taken from the Nex fight in the shadow phase, etc. The shadows that Gregorovic can take form of are new as far as I can remember and should be killed right away, actually anything that is not actually Gregorovic should be the number one concern in the fight, otherwise the fight is going to get much harder. I was torn whether I liked this boss the most or not and though I may now, I don’t think it will be the boss of choice for me in the future. DPS is important for all the times the player is not fighting Gregorovic, otherwise, I would almost recommend tank armor for this fight. I would recommend Ranged for this fight because it will reduce movement when attacking the shades and the shadows while avoiding the falling ceiling shadows ability.

The rewards are quite nice, I won’t go over them much unfortunately as I don’t think the inflated price will be of much value to hear about. The armor is well designed though and I welcome the new items to pick from with open arms.

Overall the God Wars II update came as close to living up to the hype as I would have expected it to. The bosses are not really that special but are a nice taste of fresh air that players can have fun with on their own or with friends. There is no paywall to these boss fights as all the fights are instanced. They bosses look great, the environment is pretty dull. The important part is that I had fun, and will really enjoy going to these bosses as well as the original God Wars to have fun with clan mates and friends like I have done in the past.

If you are unable to give this update a try I really recommend getting the levels to give it a go with someone else so you can begin to learn bossing, or just simply have fun. Thank you Jagex for the good effort, I can tell that there was some pride in this project. Now we wait and see if this God Wars can hold it’s own, or if the original God Wars will become the next big piece of dead content that it avoided becoming over the years since Nex.
If you have any questions that are more in depth with the boss mechanics feel free to message me in game on post here on the forums and I will be sure to get you the answers. Until Nex time, happy gaming.