Proper preparation prevents piss-poor performance

Last Sunday, I dutched up and completed Monkey Madness. I'd put it off for a long time, holding back until I got 50 range for the jungle demon fight. I did get the range level thanks to the circus and had to wait on getting blue dhide and sharks. The dhide bought in an hour, but the sharks were in limbo for three. I didn't want to wait any longer, knowing I'd push it back again if I did, so I hopped into Merch's chat and asked if someone would sell me 60 cooked sharks. Vaskor offered and we met at CW. I thought 60 would be just enough since I thought I'd be getting punched frequently by gorillas and might die.

Amazingly, I only ate three. Two were consumed during the two tunnel runs and one when I got cornered by a scorpion behind the jail. The jungle demon went down like a wilted pansy thanks to protect from magic. When I teleported to the arena, I stood where I'd landed with my prayer turned on while the demon stayed four squares away.

Saturday, I went through Underground Pass twice (once for the quest and once for Regicide) with nary a hitch. I had too much food until I met up with Iban (kept stunning me until I put on protect from magic [which isn't suppose to work]) and only fell off the bridges once.

A trick I read about on the RSWiki for Roving Elves: when fighting a moss giant in Glarial's tomb, first kill a zombie until one drops a sling, then safe spot the moss giant. It totally worked! Took maybe five minutes to kill it with a sling, but so awesome to use a workaround like that.

I'm finished with serious combat training. Working to get enough cash for dragon armor to wear so I don't look like a noob (rune plate, Neit helm, d skirt, d boots).

Haters gonna hate

The ides of March proved fruitful for free to play (F2P): a new permanent quest in nearly eight years. With it are three new combat items, a mask, a new dungeon and, for those with 300 quest points, a helm. Though a few of us are excited over this, many denigrated it by claiming the rewards "are useless".

The Blood Pact (spoiler link) is fairly simple even for a new player and teaches the basic form of the combat triangle (melee>range; range>magic; magic>melee). At the start, a new player might bring some food and a melee weapon to deal with the first enemy, but you can take the items of the remaining opponents and use them throughout the rest of the quest. The final rewards are the equipment of your defeated foes (which all look quite nifty imo), a good supply of arrows and runes and enough melee combat experience to get you to level two in all of them. You'll receive access to the dungeons where you can practice your newfound fighting skills on relatively easy foes (definitely not more difficult than a cow) though the dungeon boss may give you pause. Throughout the dungeon, monsters will drop mask pieces which you can put together to make the Mask of Dragith Nurn (+1 attack and defense bonuses across the board). For people who have 300 quest points, you'll get a special Helm of Trials, while having no bonuses, looks very good (especially with the quest cape).

Not every person will be happy with a quest's rewards. They can be too much, too little and/or not quite what they should be. This is the first time I have seen so much bile spewed over a simple mask and helm. The haters are claiming these items are useless and should have better stats or be able to be combined with other helms. Of course, I should mention these haters are typically combat-oriented types rather than the skillers or new players. All I can say is: if you do the quest, just drop the mask/helm and stop bickering over it. I got caught up in an arguement with one such hater, trying my best to get across the notion that not all items have a point to them. 

I am happy over this quest and its rewards. I feel this is something worth having as a beginner in RuneScape.