A day at Barrows - RuneScape Reflections

The Barrows is a very popular, challenging and dangerous minigame in the massive online game called RuneScape. Many players make big money at the Barrows, but many - even the experienced Barrowers like myself - risk loosing millions worth of items due to bad luck or not being alert. I am Barrowing a lot to get my mage and range levels to 99 (currently range 96, mage 97, combat 91). Barrowing is great mage training as the loots from the chest often provide me with the necessary runes to cast Magic Dart of Slayer (slayer lvl 55 required). I have so far done well over 100 runs in the Barrows, and have acquired more than 3000 boltracks and blood runes and about 8k chaos runes. I don't keep count of gp or mind runes, but I am never out of stock of needed runes. The most treasured loot I've gotten so far from The Barrows is: * Torags Platebody * 2 Guthans Helms (sold for 3.35 mill gp each =)) * Veracs Helm * Veracs Brassard * Veracs Plateskirt * Karils Skirt. Not to mention all the half keys - at least 4. Most people pray Protection against melee attacks and thus don't have to hide and run like I do, they just activate prayer and let their character autoattack with a magic spell they have set. So these players spend a lot of prayer potions to finish off the brothers in the crypts. When you enter one of the crypts (spade needed) your prayer will be drained by approximately 10+ every 10 seconds or so. Without the sip of a prayer pot Barrows would be impossible to do except for those very high levelled accounts. My way of barrowing is very risky but it saves me expenses on prayer potions. I have a moderately high combat lvl with 70 defense, but I only mage and range at Barrows as I have quit training melee altogether. Here is a simple description of how I do the Barrow runs. I stock up with runes for entangle spells (79 magic required) and magic dart spells (55 slayer required). I don't use pray on the melee brothers at all - I simply search their tomb and instantly entangle the brother that emerges. Then I run off a couple of squares and attack with magic dart. The tangle spell holds my foe to the spot for 15 seconds, enough time to cast 4 magic darts. Before the tangle spell breaks I run behind the tomb and waits 5 seconds before I repeat with a new entangle. After a hold spell has been cast and worn off, your enemy will be immune to any hold spells for 5 seconds! Therefore it is important to keep your distance from physical contact with the melee brothers if your prayer is off - their "embraces" aren't exactly like the ones you get in momma's arms =p Finishing off the Melee brothers like I do is very risky. You must know how to hide behind the tombs the proper way. I use a technique that is similar to "side-stepping", two of the corners of each tomb give this possibility. Side stepping is used by high levels that fight close up with the brothers - when they need to eat and regroup they have positioned themselves at a corner of the chest such that when they just move a step off from their foe which will be stuck on the corner of the tomb. I keep getting questions and comments on why I don't use Melee Prayer like everyone else. My initial thought was to save on prayer pots so I started using ancient magick. Again without praying melee. With my high magic level I can use Ice barrage - it holds the enemy for 20 seconds and deals massive damage. Ancient Magick turns out to be is very expensive, so I would start with an Ice Barrage and then continue my attacks with Ice Bursts. I made profit anyway (guess I was lucky with my lootings) - but I'd rather use my blood runes for some proper pk'ing. After some experiments and testing I decided to continue with Modern Magic instead, and haven't regretted since. The risk has increased, but it only makes it more entertaning. If I should die and loose my Ahrims mage outfit or Guthan helm - well I hope the finder will be happy =p. So far I have been lucky - yesterday I got Veracs Plateskirt! Now I only need Veracs Flail for a full Verac set. Aaaa! - the satisfaction of picking up free stuff! This happened on the same day as I got Veracs Skirt! I was in Dharoks tomb preparing to take him down - as always with butterflies in my stomach - killing Dharok without melee prayer on is VERY DANGEROUS (that guy can deal at least 58 damage in one hit when his health bar is close to zero). Suddenly I see a player getting massive blows to his character, it happens so quick that he has no chance to escape. And voila! On the ground is the remains of this poor player - and what riches he dropped! I picked up: Obsidian Shield, Black mystic top and bottom, 200+ rune arrows, Berserker helm, black ranger set and so on. My inventory was full of lobs and I unfortunately had to see some of the things this poor player dropped being picked up by others as I couldn't gobble up them lobbies fast enough. With a newly "looted" obby shield and a fresh Verac Plateskirt in inventory I decided to teleport to closest bank and have a break from the game. No need to test my luck further =P Anyway - Dharok is still waiting for me at the Barrows.