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Update: Demonic Spade

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Update: Demonic Spade

Update: Demonic Spade
Type Update
Videos 2 (first 2025-03-26, latest 2025-03-28)
Main source Final Reward Blog - Delve Boss Mokha (OSRS)

Update: Demonic Spade is an update topic that Gnomonkey covers in 2 videos between 2025-03-26 and 2025-03-28. This article is a stub: his statements are grouped by type, repeated ones merged.

Contents

Stats and numbers

  • The planned nerf gives two harvests per action with the spade rather than instant digging, which he says would mean nobody does allotment runs because harvesting allotments would still take too long.1

Gnomonkey's opinion

  • Gnomonkey takes a different view from nearly everyone else and argues the Demonic Spade nerf was necessary.2
  • Gnomonkey says players wanted to instantly harvest every patch, and the item was taken away before they even had it, which is why the Reddit vibe was angry.3
  • Gnomonkey says the spade's problem is not that XP-focused players' rates would change, but that it encourages doing hourly chores, which nobody likes.4
  • Gnomonkey says he is surprised Jagex caught the issue, as he had only thought about harvesting snape grass quickly on an ironman, not how much XP it would give.5
  • Gnomonkey considers it important for Jagex as developers to sometimes be the bad guy and remove things that add surface-level fun but harm the game.6
  • Gnomonkey says the spade is not quality of life because it has drastic implications beyond faster herb runs: it harms the economy and adds an unfun method everyone would be encouraged to do.7
  • Gnomonkey says he would be okay with something like the spade dropping from a Slayer monster and that he does not mind quest rewards being interesting, but he feels the spade is too powerful to be a quest reward and should drop from something.8
  • Gnomonkey says the spade as originally designed was broken: snape grass would have effectively added eight yew tree patches on a 70-minute cooldown, which he did not think was a fun training method.9
  • Gnomonkey says he did not want any more birdhouse-style runs and appreciates that Jagex mentioned Daily Scape in its blog; he dislikes hourly and daily content.9
  • Gnomonkey says he would still like a faster way to harvest herbs at some point.10
  • Gnomonkey says it is odd for a Farming upgrade to drop from an endgame PvM boss, comparing it to a hypothetical dragon harpoon being strictly worse than a boss-dropped item.10
  • Gnomonkey says he was okay with the spade dropping from Mokhaiotl but thinks shelving it is fair.11
  • Gnomonkey jokes that he personally killed the spade, taunting Redditors.12

Events

  • Reddit and Twitter reacted angrily to the Demonic Spade nerf, with posts getting thousands of upvotes.2
  • The Demonic Spade was a proposed reward (from the Doom of Mokhaiotl / Delve boss drops) that instantly digs up an entire farming patch and works on anything that uses a spade.13
  • Jagex nerfed the Demonic Spade after feedback and another review pass, saying it might disrupt Farming's balance by making crops such as snape grass and watermelons more XP-efficient than trees, effectively killing tree runs and causing big changes to the Farming economy.13
  • Jagex said the Demonic Spade as initially proposed was too strong, and that the version it was comfortable releasing did not feel right for this level of content.14
  • Jagex said it is responsible for stewarding the game's long-term health and evaluates feedback on its merits, and that it was keeping its decision on the spade despite the reaction.14
  • Jagex decided to remove (shelve) the Demonic Spade entirely, saying a nerfed version would have to be very common to make sense from this tier of content and would have negligible impact on the profitability of the Eye of Ayak.15
  • Jagex said it understands the want for something that benefits Farming, a skill with no impactful unique upgrade since the bottomless compost bucket, and believes it will offer similar functionality from a more fitting piece of content in the future.16

Revision history

Date Video Change
2025-03-28 Final Reward Blog - Delve Boss Mokha (OSRS) Added: 11 statements (event, opinion)
2025-03-26 Demonic Spade and WHY it was NERFED (OSRS) Page created: 10 statements (event, opinion, stat)
## References

  1. Demonic Spade and WHY it was NERFED (OSRS), 2025-03-26. ▶ 24:00 ↩

  2. Demonic Spade and WHY it was NERFED (OSRS), 2025-03-26. ▶ 0:00 ↩↩

  3. Demonic Spade and WHY it was NERFED (OSRS), 2025-03-26. ▶ 6:45 ↩

  4. Demonic Spade and WHY it was NERFED (OSRS), 2025-03-26. ▶ 30:16 ↩

  5. Demonic Spade and WHY it was NERFED (OSRS), 2025-03-26. ▶ 31:04 ↩

  6. Demonic Spade and WHY it was NERFED (OSRS), 2025-03-26. ▶ 31:31 ↩

  7. Demonic Spade and WHY it was NERFED (OSRS), 2025-03-26. ▶ 31:54 ↩

  8. Final Reward Blog - Delve Boss Mokha (OSRS), 2025-03-28. ▶ 8:00 ↩

  9. Final Reward Blog - Delve Boss Mokha (OSRS), 2025-03-28. ▶ 8:45 ↩↩

  10. Final Reward Blog - Delve Boss Mokha (OSRS), 2025-03-28. ▶ 8:59 ↩↩

  11. Final Reward Blog - Delve Boss Mokha (OSRS), 2025-03-28. ▶ 9:27 ↩

  12. Final Reward Blog - Delve Boss Mokha (OSRS), 2025-03-28. ▶ 12:54 ↩

  13. Demonic Spade and WHY it was NERFED (OSRS), 2025-03-26. ▶ 0:27 ↩↩

  14. Final Reward Blog - Delve Boss Mokha (OSRS), 2025-03-28. ▶ 6:03 ↩↩

  15. Final Reward Blog - Delve Boss Mokha (OSRS), 2025-03-28. ▶ 7:05 ↩

  16. Final Reward Blog - Delve Boss Mokha (OSRS), 2025-03-28. ▶ 7:30 ↩

Updates

Leagues 6: Demonic Pacts • Update: Yama • Update: Doom of Mokhaiotl rewards • Update: Blood Moon Rises • Update: Raids 4 rewards blog • Update: Demonic Spade • Update: Project Rebalance • Update: Summer Sweep-up • Update: Yama contracts • Poll: Bronzeman Mode • Update: Rubium and smithing nerfs • Forestry • Update: Varlamore fletching activity • Project Zanaris • Update: Sailing 10k XP hotfix • Update: Sailing Salvaging revert • Player Island Competition • Update history 2016-2023 • Update: Sailing pirate combat • Golden Gnome Awards • Update: Metal dragons task • Update: Nex • Update: Sunfire splinters removed from Doom of Mokhaiotl • Bugs and hotfixes (Doom of Mokhaiotl) • Poll: Mokha rewards • Update: Entry Mode CM CoX • Update: Membership price increase • Update: Sailing launch • Update: Sailing slayer monsters • Update: Sailing week 2 • Update: Slayer block lists per master • Update: Tombs of Amascut changes • Update: Wyrmscraig

Category: Updates