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Phosani's Nightmare

This article is compiled from the videos of GnomonkeyRS. It records what Gnomonkey said, with sources, not verified game fact. See About.

This article is about the solo version. For the group boss see The Nightmare.

Phosani's Nightmare

Phosani's Nightmare
Type Boss
Requirements 90s combat stats; Attack level matters much more than usual1
Weakness Crush1
Phases 3 (was 4 before the summer 2025 update)23
Kills per hour About 5.5 in max gear3
Gp/hr Upwards of 8m with good gear, up from about 3m3
Rating A tier, below Nex45
Videos 5 (first 2022-03-19, latest 2025-07-04)
Main source Phosani's Nightmare Max and Budget Guide (OSRS)

Phosani's Nightmare is the solo version of the Nightmare and pretty much replaces the regular boss.67 Gnomonkey is not a huge fan of it and says he honestly hates the boss, but after the summer 2025 update, which removed an entire phase and left the loot exactly the same, he finds her much more tolerable.633 In 2022 he rated it A tier, saying it takes a lot of skill and practice but lacks something: the skill is not making a mistake against a high-hitting boss, and he prefers content that pushes towards better times or more damage. In the final ordering he placed Nex above it.45

After the update, kill times are similar to a solo Yama: kills are quick, deadly and completely solo.8 He found about 5.5 kills per hour in max gear fairly consistent, just under grandmaster time, which means upwards of 8 million gp/hr with good gear against about 3 million gp/hr before.3 He describes the update as effectively a kills-per-hour and loot buff, bringing the long fight closer in line with Yama kill times and making drops easier to get.2

Contents

Requirements

The fight needs pretty high stats, at least 90s, and the Attack level matters much more than usual because of her very high defence.1 She has a heavy weakness to crush, so a crush weapon is basically required, and both melee and magic are used in the fight.1 Almost any mistake is punished by 60 to 80 damage, so any two mistakes will kill you almost instantly.8

Preparation

  • Void Waker: Getting one before the fight is incredibly important if possible, because it is over two times better than other special attack options.9 Without one, using a worse special weapon such as claws or the melee ring, Dinh's (bulwark special) is also a good option for specing husks when she spawns them, as it instantly kills them.10
  • Mystic Vigor: He highly recommends getting it from the Royal Titans first, since it is the same as Augury in almost every case and maxes the same at half the prayer drain while maging.11

The fight

The fight is the opposite of the regular Nightmare, which is a slow group boss with constant chip damage that does not punish mistakes hard.8 The regular boss only requires catching prayers before they land and some very basic movement, and its only real difficulty is that it is a very long fight.12 Phosani's mechanics are not harder than the regular Nightmare's except that she punishes mistakes with very high damage; solo, she is easier because the fight is much shorter and there is no chip damage through prayer.7 The regular boss has a big health pool hit with crush, very high defence, and a totem phase where players eight-way into magic to kill the totems, with husks, parasites and shadows as special attacks.13 Phosani's added solo-only play, which removed the one aspect the Nightmare had going for it, the ability to do it with friends.7

Phases

In each cycle the player damages her shield to zero, then kills all four totems in the corners with magic. The totems then hit her for chunks of her health bar and a set of sleepwalkers spawns.14 Sleepwalkers must be killed before they reach her or the player takes massive or even lethal damage; the cycle is repeated three times in total.14

After the final set of four sleepwalkers she spawns in the middle of the room, heals 150 health and constantly spams shadow claws while sleepwalkers walk towards her, each chipping the player for 15 health when it reaches her. Depleting her remaining 150 health finishes the kill.15

Attacks

She has three attack styles that must be prayed after the animation, and all of them max over 70 damage; game sounds give clear cues for each.15

Style Animation
Ranged A repeated back snap before hurling a spike.
Magic Red particles, with arms swung in a circle.
Melee The most dangerous and fastest: she places her arms behind her and swings towards the player.

15 The melee attack can also be avoided by simply stepping away, causing it to miss.16

She can only use two special attacks per phase and then uses two new specials the next phase, cycling through them. They are amped-up versions of the regular Nightmare's specials and can one-shot the player who blinks more than once in a row.17

Gear

For mage gear, only max hit matters because magic is guaranteed to hit.10

Weapons

  • Top three: The Scythe of Vitur (slightly ahead), the Inquisitor's mace and the Soul Reaper axe.1 The Soul Reaper axe needs constant recharging after maging, but there are a couple of transition cutscenes where charging can begin early by hitting her for zeros.18
  • Next best: The Osmumten's fang, the Bludgeon and the Blood Moon set are close. He prefers the fang even though the bludgeon beats it by about 2% DPS, because the fang lets the player five-tick the shadow phases.18
  • Lightbearer: Much better than people give it credit for. By his maths, camping it while maging saves over double the time of a Magus ring, and camping it with a Scythe loses only around 3 seconds over the whole kill despite the 6 max hit loss.19
  • Magic: The Harmonised nightmare staff is technically best in slot with Sunfire runes, but losing double death charge and thralls makes it slightly worse than the Tumeken's shadow. A four-weight Trident of the Swamp is plenty good at about 20% worse than the shadow setup.10

Armour and rings

Inquisitor's armour is best in slot for melee, then Torva, and then Oathplate, Bandos and Blood Moon are acceptable downgrades with identical strength bonus.9 Blood Fury can be nice while learning, but the accuracy and max hit boost of the Ring of Rancor is incredibly important here.9

Downgrade setups (2024)

In 2024 Gnomonkey tested the wiki's downgrade setup: a Dwarven helmet for crush bonus, an amulet of glory, an obsidian cape, Verac's armour, an obsidian shield, a combat bracelet, guardian boots, a ring of suffering, a dragon mace as special weapon and a Trident of the Swamp.20 He mocked the use of Verac's, since her hits are guaranteed and cannot be blocked, so one might as well wear nothing, and a ring of suffering does nothing there.21 The Dwarven helmet's crush bonus does not apply to the Osmumten's fang, so it gives no strength bonus with a fang.21

He found the wiki-recommended dragon mace special one-shots a parasite, though he later noted that parasites may have around 55 HP and that it does not always do so.22 The fang is not good on her: even if every hit maxed it would not get a grandmaster time, and a cudgel is still better. It worked better before its first nerf, and its special does not bind her.2322

Setup Result
Wiki downgrade gear About 13 minutes, four food, three restores and a dose; "surprisingly not that bad".24
Gearscape-suggested Maracas setup About 11 minutes, roughly two and a half minutes faster, despite mistakes and a triple parasite heal.25
Lowest recommended budget setup (2025) Around 6.5 to 7 minutes per kill.26
Max setup (2025) Around 5.5 minutes per kill.26

He concluded that the fight shows why bots can kill her in terrible gear.27 He also praises her hitbox as one of the best in the game, with clickboxes on its runes and a full box around it, making it hard to misclick.20

Update history

In May 2025 an update removed a phase, so the boss has three phases instead of four, without nerfing the loot.2 The summer update did the same, removing an entire phase while leaving the loot exactly the same.3 He says the fight now feels a lot better, more approachable and less of a slog after the sleepy tablet and phase removal, and recommends trying it even if the rewards have kept players away.26

Revision history

Date Video Change
2025-07-04 Phosani's Nightmare Max and Budget Guide (OSRS) Changed opinion: now much more tolerable; added about 5.5 kills/hr and 8m gp/hr (was about 3m gp/hr), plus the full 2025 gear, mechanics and attack guide.
2025-05-30 Summer Sweep - BEST UPDATE EVER (OSRS) Added phase removal (four phases to three) and the loot buff view.
2024-05-06 WIKI GUIDES: Phosani's Nightmare (OSRS) Added hitbox praise and downgrade gear tests (13 and 11 minute kills).
2023-07-30 A Plea To Jagex (OSRS) Added comparison to the regular Nightmare and solo-only change.
2022-03-19 PVM Boss Tier List (ALL BOSSES) OSRS Page created: A tier rating below Nex, not a huge fan, description of the Nightmare.
## See also

References

  1. Phosani's Nightmare Max and Budget Guide (OSRS), 2025-07-04. ▶ 0:26 ↩↩↩↩↩

  2. Summer Sweep - BEST UPDATE EVER (OSRS), 2025-05-30. ▶ 7:51 ↩↩↩

  3. Phosani's Nightmare Max and Budget Guide (OSRS), 2025-07-04. ▶ 0:00 ↩↩↩↩↩↩↩

  4. PVM Boss Tier List (ALL BOSSES) OSRS, 2022-03-19. ▶ 10:10 ↩↩

  5. PVM Boss Tier List (ALL BOSSES) OSRS, 2022-03-19. ▶ 1:30:02 ↩↩

  6. PVM Boss Tier List (ALL BOSSES) OSRS, 2022-03-19. ▶ 9:14 ↩↩

  7. A Plea To Jagex (OSRS), 2023-07-30. ▶ 7:33 ↩↩↩

  8. Phosani's Nightmare Max and Budget Guide (OSRS), 2025-07-04. ▶ 3:33 ↩↩↩

  9. Phosani's Nightmare Max and Budget Guide (OSRS), 2025-07-04. ▶ 1:28 ↩↩↩

  10. Phosani's Nightmare Max and Budget Guide (OSRS), 2025-07-04. ▶ 2:33 ↩↩↩

  11. Phosani's Nightmare Max and Budget Guide (OSRS), 2025-07-04. ▶ 3:05 ↩

  12. A Plea To Jagex (OSRS), 2023-07-30. ▶ 6:03 ↩

  13. PVM Boss Tier List (ALL BOSSES) OSRS, 2022-03-19. ▶ 9:41 ↩

  14. Phosani's Nightmare Max and Budget Guide (OSRS), 2025-07-04. ▶ 4:03 ↩↩

  15. Phosani's Nightmare Max and Budget Guide (OSRS), 2025-07-04. ▶ 4:30 ↩↩↩

  16. Phosani's Nightmare Max and Budget Guide (OSRS), 2025-07-04. ▶ 4:56 ↩

  17. Phosani's Nightmare Max and Budget Guide (OSRS), 2025-07-04. ▶ 5:24 ↩

  18. Phosani's Nightmare Max and Budget Guide (OSRS), 2025-07-04. ▶ 0:54 ↩↩

  19. Phosani's Nightmare Max and Budget Guide (OSRS), 2025-07-04. ▶ 1:59 ↩

  20. WIKI GUIDES: Phosani's Nightmare (OSRS), 2024-05-06. ▶ 0:26 ↩↩

  21. WIKI GUIDES: Phosani's Nightmare (OSRS), 2024-05-06. ▶ 0:55 ↩↩

  22. WIKI GUIDES: Phosani's Nightmare (OSRS), 2024-05-06. ▶ 6:17 ↩↩

  23. WIKI GUIDES: Phosani's Nightmare (OSRS), 2024-05-06. ▶ 5:22 ↩

  24. WIKI GUIDES: Phosani's Nightmare (OSRS), 2024-05-06. ▶ 8:42 ↩

  25. WIKI GUIDES: Phosani's Nightmare (OSRS), 2024-05-06. ▶ 17:04 ↩

  26. Phosani's Nightmare Max and Budget Guide (OSRS), 2025-07-04. ▶ 10:11 ↩↩↩

  27. WIKI GUIDES: Phosani's Nightmare (OSRS), 2024-05-06. ▶ 10:25 ↩

Bosses

Nex • The Wardens • Akkha • Doom of Mokhaiotl • Yama • TzKal-Zuk • Kephri • Zebak • Ba-Ba • Alchemical Hydra • Great Olm • Zulrah • Sol Heredit • General Graardor • The Nightmare • Vorkath • Araxxor • Corrupted Hunllef • Verzik Vitur • TzTok-Jad • Tormented Demon • Phosani's Nightmare • JalTok-Jad • Shellbane Gryphon • Vanguards • The Hueycoatl • Kree'arra • Tekton • Maggot King • Vasa Nistirio • Kalphite Queen • Maiden of Sugadinti • Muttadile • Ice Demon • Vespula • Sotetseg • Grotesque Guardians • Xarpus • Corporeal Beast • Smoke devil

Category: Bosses