PvP Arena Revised Rewards
The PvP Arena (known by the Al Kharidians as the Emir's Arena) will be opening its gates to adventurers very soon!
Soon, Gielinor’s most skilled players will descend on the Arena to battle against similarly skilled opponents in controlled environments, and even tournaments, while using a huge variety of builds and setups at a moment's notice!
While the thrill of combat, climbing the ranks, or emerging victorious with up to 63 fallen combatants scattering the arena might be enough of a reward for some, we're still hopeful that dedicated fighters may be able to make use of the Arena's armoury to show off their skills and diversify their gameplay in other PvP content.
The PvP community and wider playerbase alike made it clear to us that our previous proposal missed the mark (a summary of the previous poll and its results can be found in this Poll Summary Blog). As a result, we've gone back to the drawing board and tried to work with contributors from various communities via the PvP Feedback Discord to to put together a fresh set of rewards that will hopefully address the key concerns raised, whilst also adding a little variety into the mix for players.
In the initial PvP Arena blog, we dove into the Calamity Armour, Maoma's, Koriff's and Saika's headgear. Throughout discussions in the PvP Feedback Discord, it became clear that approaching these armours similar to Void with percentage increases for both accuracy/damage wasn't hugely popular, especially in cases where builds would have access to equipment with extremely high defences, and in many cases without losing any max hits.
However, it was clear to us that there was a level of appreciation for diversity in builds and gear setups.
In our latest proposal, we're aiming for the following conditions:
- Armour sets should not outright replace current setups with minimal downsides.
- We should avoid requiring multiple full sets of armour in order to obtain bonuses in PvP.
- Players seemed to get behind the idea of 'helm-switching' being a priority for the set, in such a way that it works with current gear setups, but with drawbacks that make their use a choice rather than an obligation.
- New armours from the PvP Arena should not increase damage bonuses or add additional max hits beyond currently established gear.
- The focus should instead be on increasing accuracy and consistency, at the expense of some defensive bonuses and KO potential.
- New armours should fit into established metas, rather than trying to create new ones.
We've reworked both the Calamity armours and the respective headgear sets so they provide raw stats without any special effects or bonuses, with an increased emphasis on the PvP combat triangle. They also fit nicely into existing builds, increasing their overall usability.
One of the major concerns voiced by players was the feeling that the PvP Arena would result in 'skipping' significant or iconic pieces of content, namely the Wristbands of the Arena and the Centurion Cuirass, as both could be obtained without completion of Recipe for Disaster and Barbarian Assault respectively.
With the potential of new armour sets from the PvP Arena, adding another chest piece felt a little too much. After much discussion, we've opted to shelve the idea of the Centurion Cuirass and will not be looking to repoll it with the PvP Arena, though we may resurface it again in future content. As for the Wristbands of the Arena andwe've outlined our thoughts on a new approach further down in the blog.
Headgear Sets
Let's take a look at the headgear sets first! These helmets will provide accuracy and defensive bonuses with respect to the combat triangle. This means they provide negative offensive and defensive bonuses for the 'wrong' style. If that sounds like a mouthful, check out the images below to see exactly how this works!
Maoma's Headgear
Maoma was the corrupt captain of the Emir’s guard. Her job was to oversee fights at the arena and ensure that order was upheld – but in reality, she was taking bribes to look the other way. Some say she even instigated some of the fights to make the Arena more popular and recruited prisoners to bolster the fighters’ ranks!
Maoma's Headgear is made up of three untradeable helms. They give the wearer good offensive bonuses when attacking with Melee, but we wouldn't expect you to hit as many arrows or land as many spells with a head encased in metal! As per the combat triangle, these helms will help you deflect those pesky bolts and arrows a little more often, but leave you very susceptible to Magic.
We know that Melee accuracy bonuses on a helm might look a little scary (unless you're familiar with the Fighter Hat!), but want to reiterate that in a meta often dominated by camping a Berserker Helm, Serpentine Helm or - for you high-rollers - a Neitiznot Faceguard, Maoma's collection has less Strength bonus, more negative bonuses for Ranged/Magic, and less defensive stats across the board.
These should slot in as 'glass-cannon' pieces, letting you land a couple more of your Whip spec misclicks than before, at the expense of defensive stats and potential max hits!
Maoma's Med Helm requires 1 Defence and 70 Strength to equip.
Maoma's Full Helm requires 40 Defence and 70 Strength to equip.
Maoma's Great Helm requires 70 Defence and 70 Strength to equip.
Koriff's Headgear
Koriff was the crowd-pleaser. Perhaps the most notorious of all, she would always be the centre of attention at the Arena. With a charming personality, she'd make sure the richer visitors had a particularly good time, pampering them with the best seats and service possible. Little did they know of her collaboration with Saika, Maoma, and the thieves they paid to pick the rich guests' pockets.
They say that fighters couldn’t help but come back for more bloodshed, even at the cost of their own life expectancy. They also say that Koriff had a direct hand in encouraging them back to the Arena, only for them to die shortly after. When crowds became tired of certain competitors, you could bet that their bodies would be carried out pierced with barely-visible crossbow bolts – and that Koriff had earned a windfall betting against them.
Koriff's Headgear is made up of 3 untradeable helms (can you see where we're going with this yet?). They'll give you some nice bonuses for Ranged and help you shrug off an extra Ice Barrage or two, but leave you susceptible to Melee attacks. Mages should also beware – trying to fire off spells in these will leave you splashing like Tempoross.
Koriff's Headband requires 1 Defence and 70 Ranged to equip.
Koriff's Cowl requires 40 Defence and 70 Ranged to equip.
Koriff's Coif requires 70 Defence and 70 Ranged to equip.
Saika's Headgear
Saika was the puppet master. She was in charge of the Arena’s economy, making sure to profit from the crowds that came to watch the fights. Her greed knew no bounds as she fudged the numbers for years - claiming the cost of running the place was so high that it barely made any profit. These sketchy numbers made their way to the Emir, and he kept shelling out to keep it going. Unfortunately for him, the funding would go straight to Saika's pocket. She would pay destitute citizens a pittance to pretend they were working, just to keep up her ruse.
Saika's Headgear is made up of - you guessed it - 3 untradeable helms. Their light, breathable fabric might help you clear your mind as you focus on casting spells and shrugging off Melee attacks. Just like Koriff's and Maoma's, if you're wearing these magical pieces then don't expect to shine with a bow or melee weapon, and expect to get hit much more often by incoming arrows and bolts!
While simple on paper, it's worth noting that Magic in Old School is probably the trickiest combat style to get right. Short of adding extreme Magic accuracy bonuses, it's difficult for Saika's Headgear to deliver on the theme of trading defences for high accuracy without leading to imbalances where spells become perhaps a little too accurate. Instead, Saika's Headgear (especially when combined with our proposed armour set) delivers what Splitbark tries to do, and offers players a chance to live out a little bit of a battlemage fantasy.
Saika's Hood requires 1 Defence and 70 Magic to equip.
Saika's Veil requires 40 Defence and 70 Magic to equip.
Saika's Shroud requires 70 Defence and 70 Magic to equip.
Calamity Armour
These headgear sets still perform best when worn with existing armour like Karil’s, Ahrim’s, Inquisitor’s or even Torva. But that’s a lot of clicking about, isn’t it? With that in mind, we’ve worked with players to repurpose the Calamity Armour as a ‘tribrid’ gear set that works with all three combat styles. No set bonuses, no special effects – just 100% natural, organic stats.
Calamity Armour is weaker defensively than your typical tank gear and has lower Ranged and Magic accuracy than Dragonhide and Robe options at the equivalent tier. The tradeoff trade-off here is one of convenience; you’ll be able to focus exclusively on swapping out the Headgear, rather than messing about switching up your whole outfit. This means you save Inventory space and extra clicks in already-intense battles, at the expense of becoming a great deal squishier than opponents wearing the current meta setups.
You'll note that we've added Melee Attack accuracy bonuses to the Calamity pieces. While the helm slot has the Fighter Hat already, armour outside of Inquisitor's hasn't typically provided Melee accuracy bonuses in the past. The reason we've opted to add it to the Calamity pieces is due to Maoma's headgear. Adding Melee accuracy bonuses to Maoma's headgear would have made it too powerful as a standalone item, so to compensate, we've shifted some of the accuracy that would have been attached to it onto the Calamity armour instead. This means that as a set, Melee users will still experience the higher accuracy and lower defence that we're aiming for, whilst preventing a single helm switch heavily increasing your chance to hit those big KOs with weapons like the AGS or Granite Maul.
The Calamity Chest and Breeches require 1 Defence, 70 Ranged, 70 Strength and 70 Magic to equip.
The Superior Calamity Chest and Breeches require 40 Defence, 70 Ranged, 70 Strength and 70 Magic to equip.
The Elite Calamity Chest and Breeches require 70 Defence, 70 Ranged, 70 Strength and 70 Magic to equip.
The Full Picture
Phew! That’s a whole lot of numbers, but what do they actually mean?
While we can’t possibly say how these rewards will perform until players are trying them out in the wild, we’ve been able to compare stats and run a whole bunch of DPS calculations against current meta setups. We reckon that our new offering will make these rewards competitive, without being best-in-slot.
Offensively, the full sets slide in somewhere between Void and the other current meta setups. Void still excels versus low-Defence targets, while the Calamity Armour and Headgear sets deal more DPS against high-Defence enemies. However, the percentage damage bonuses on Void give players significantly more max hits, which leads to greater KO potential – and as we all know, KO potential is king.
With the right helmet equipped to defend against your attacker’s combat style, the 40 Defence Calamity Set ranges from on par with to slightly better than Void. The 70 Defence set sits far below the oft-seen Barrows setups, but they’re still better than getting caught out in robes.
In cases where the proposed gear competes with or marginally outcompetes current gear, we’ve decided that it should confer a higher risk to compensate, alongside other situational drawbacks like reduced offensive or defensive bonuses.
On the topic or risk, we’d like to see these rewards be obtainable in a broken state, requiring Perdu’s repair services to make them usable in PvP. We worked with players to come up with repair costs and price points that reflect each piece’s utility. Here’s what we’ve got:
- Any piece with a 1 Defence requirement has a 250,000 GP repair cost, meaning the Armour and all three helms would cost a total of 1.25 million gold to repair.
- Any piece with a 40 Defence requirement has a 500,000 GP repair cost, meaning the Armour and all three helms would cost a total of 2.5 million gold to repair.
- Any piece with a 70 Defence requirement has a 1 million GP repair cost, meaning the Armour and all three helms would cost a total of 5 million gold to repair.
We saw a lot of feedback, especially from players who don’t engage with PvP, that this set has the potential to be a fantastic kit for learning the ropes, letting them get competently equipped to fight back against PKers without having to figure out advanced equipment-switching tactics.
To build on that, we’ve considered making this equipment usable in any PvP-related area, so that players can seamlessly hop from killing revenants to defending themselves against other players.
We also saw widespread support for giving players a damage and accuracy bonus similar to that of the Slayer Helmet, for Wilderness PvM. We’re more than happy to offer this as a poll question, especially with the Wilderness Boss Reworks looming on the horizon!
That said, a great deal of Wilderness activity – and the associated PKing opportunities – lie beyond level 20 Wilderness. Given the high repair costs, we’d be open to letting players keep these rewards even above level 20 Wilderness. While we’d love to give players a reason to revisit the PvP Arena now and then, we don’t want every death to be punished with a massive grind, and we don’t feel like players will be happy using expensive Trouver Parchments on this particular set of gear.
(As an aside, we’re actually looking into the Trouver system as a whole. We’re aware that it feels too clunky and punishing for PvPers and the wider playerbase alike, so watch this space!)
In the event that the armour, gloves, and headgear all make it into the live game, we will of course be keeping a close eye on your feedback. We want them to be perfectly balanced, fun to use without being under- or over-powered. We really hope this new proposal delivers on the diversity we’ve promised PvP players – and hey, they look pretty stylish to boot!
Fighter's Wristwraps
Now let’s talk Wristbands of the Arena. Actually, let’s not – let’s talk Fighter’s Wristwraps.
These glove-slot items replace the Wristbands as a reward from the PvP Arena. They function as an attachment for the Culinaromancer’s various Gloves, meaning that players will need to have completed at least a little bit of Recipe for Disaster to use them.
They have a fixed value of 100,000 GP, which will be dropped to PKers in full should they claim a victim wearing them. When used on any pair of the Culinaromancer’s Gloves, the Gloves will lose all defensive bonuses and instead be granted the following stats:
- +9 to Slash, Stab, Crush and Ranged Attack Bonuses
- +3 to Magic Attack Bonus
For higher-levelled builds like Meds and Maxed Mains, this should serve as a slightly higher-risk alternative to standard Barrows Gloves, although the reduced defensive bonuses will leave Barrows Gloves as a great option for players engaging with an outlast scenario.
For lower and mid-levelled builds, like Pures and Zerks, the Wristwraps provide a stat boost that just might narrow the gap for those punching up against higher-bracketed builds. The downside is that you’ll take more of a beating in return – and with a little extra risk, too.
As we think about Bounty Hunter and the potential resurgence of so-called ‘Edge-Style’ PvP, these attachments will give players a way to up the ante in fights.
Here’s some images of what the most popular Culinaromancer’s Gloves' stats might look like with this attachment, next to their usual statline:
Mithril Gloves alongside their Wrapped counterpart.
Rune Gloves alongside their Wrapped counterpart.
Barrows Gloves alongside their Wrapped counterpart.
We hope the removal of the Centurion’s Cuirass and the replacement of the Wristbands of the Arena will alleviate concerns about players skipping content, while also giving prospective fighters some extra options.
Tertiary Rewards
Imbue Scrolls
Given how well Imbue Scrolls did in the previous poll, we feel it's reasonable to repoll them alongside our new offering.
Currently, Imbued (i) status is only lost on PvP death, so it’s natural for players to want to grab some for the PvP Arena. Those most likely to use their imbues will have the opportunity to reobtain them and head right back into battle.
Blighted Wave and Blighted Surge Sacks
Similarly, we’d like to give these another go alongside our newer offerings, as we reckon they perform much better in light of our improved proposals.
For those of you who missed the memo, these untradeable Sacks contain all the Runes you need to cast any given Wave or Surge spell.
On death below 20 Wilderness they’ll be protected or sent to your Gravestone upon death. Above that, they’ll be converted to 100 coins on PvP death.
Ornament Kits
A lot of you said that you liked some of the Ornament Kits we proposed, but not all of them. As such, we’ve decided to re-poll them all individually to give you all a bit more choice in the matter.
You can check them all out in detail in the previous poll blog, or, if you’re too lazy to click through (we get it, no judgements here) you can see them all below:
Dragon Claws and Elder Chaos Robes Ornament Kit items.
Heavy Ballista and Armadyl Ornament Kit items. Note: one kit is required for each piece of Armadyl gear.
Dragon Warhammer Ornament Kit. Justiciar Armour is model’s own.
Elder Maul and Bandos Ornament Kit items. Note: one kit is required for each piece of Bandos gear.
Humble Piety and Humble Chivalry
These proved unpopular among all types of voters, so we won’t be offering them as part of this proposal.
That wraps things up for today! If you like the look of these items, keep your eyes peeled for a post outlining our final poll questions next week – and don’t forget to vote!
We're also running a short survey to gather some extra feedback on these rewards and to allow us to make a couple of extra tweaks where necessary before polling. You can take part in the survey using the button below:
Whatever the results, the PvP Arena will open its glorious gates sometime next month. We hope you’re ready for a scrap!
You can also discuss this update on our official forums, on the 2007Scape subreddit, the Steam forums, or the community-led OSRS Discord in the #gameupdate channel. For more info on the above content, check out the official Old School Wiki.
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