Pest Control for Dummies [OSRS 2019]


Date	2019-07-16
Type	guide
Video	youtu.be/tMJcFMKEaOI

Summary

A guide to the Pest Control minigame covering the rules, monster types, efficient play versus AFKing, and a comparison of the void armor sets. It ends with point rates per boat, how many hours Void takes to obtain, and when it is worth getting. Data comes from Zaney_RS's Reddit statistics.

Outline

0:00 How a game of Pest Control works
0:30 Game rules and gear
0:43 Basic strategy
1:05 Monsters and tactics
2:02 Efficient playing versus AFKing and repairing
2:54 Void armor rewards
3:42 Gear comparison against Armadyl, Bandos and ancestral
4:40 Point farming: boats and hours to obtain void
5:20 Optimal leveling and when to get Void

Topics covered

Pest Control

(0:00) A Pest Control game has four shielded portals (Western, Eastern, Southeastern and Southwestern) that spill monsters trying to break through the gate and kill the player and the Void Knight.
(0:00) If the Void Knight is killed the game is lost immediately; killing all four portals wins the game immediately and returns players to the Pest Control dock. The Void Knight takes the portal shields down one by one over time.
(0:30) Pest Control is a safe minigame: dying sends the player back to the boat and they can run back in. If a player dies too many times or does not do enough damage they receive no points when the game ends.
(0:30) Gnomonkey says to bring best non-degradable armor and weapons, a spec weapon, and optionally stat-boosting combat potions for more XP an hour; food and prayer potions are not needed.
(0:58) The goal is to move from portal to portal killing each as quickly as possible, killing monsters in the downtime; RuneLite shows which portal's shield will drop next so the player can run to it beforehand.
(2:02) With fewer than four players attacking a portal it is best to kill spinners whenever possible; with a larger crowd players can out-DPS the spinners and kill the portal, which Gnomonkey calls the fastest and best option.
(2:02) If a spinner is alive when its portal is killed it explodes and poisons surrounding players, but the poison damage can be ignored given how short the games are.
(2:29) Gnomonkey does not recommend AFKing with auto-retaliate in front of the Void Knight, since many AFK players dramatically slow games and cause losses, and in his testing AFKing sometimes gets the player detected as a leech and awarded no points.
(2:29) Rushing the portals with teammates and killing monsters between shields almost always defeats the portals before the knight dies and makes games faster and more consistent.
(2:29) Players can repair barricades and doors to gain points without combat, which Gnomonkey says is really only useful for non-combat accounts and barely helps the team.

Pest Control

(0:58) Splatters have low HP and explode upon death dealing damage; Gnomonkey says to ignore them.
(0:58) Brawlers take up four tiles and cannot be walked through or shot past using ranged or magic.
(0:58) Defilers fire ranged attacks and can shoot through the wooden walls.
(1:28) Ravagers destroy barricades and doors, shifters use melee and can teleport like abyssal demons, and torchers use magic and can cast through the wooden walls.
(1:28) Spinners do not attack players but heal the portals, and Gnomonkey calls them the most important enemy to be conscious of.

Void Knight equipment

(3:00) A void set consists of void gloves, robe bottom and top, and a helmet; the full set gives a 10% melee damage and accuracy bonus for melee, 10% ranged damage and accuracy for ranged, or a 45% accuracy bonus for magic.
(3:00) The robe top and bottom can be upgraded to elite versions after completing the Western Provinces hard diary, for 200 points each; each piece provides an extra +3 prayer bonus for a total of +6, and a 2.5% damage boost for the magic and ranged sets.
(3:33) Gnomonkey considers the ranged void set by far the best set because ranged armor typically gives only accuracy and not a damage boost, making void ranger unique and useful in almost any ranged situation.
(3:33) Armadyl gives a larger accuracy bonus, so in niche cases against monsters with high defence it can provide more DPS, but Gnomonkey says void ranger is the best general ranged armor for almost every situation.
(3:33) Gnomonkey says Bandos armor always yields more DPS than melee void because it gives a strength bonus.
(4:03) Gnomonkey says melee void is still very useful against Corporeal Beast because it has positive magic defence while most melee armor has negative magic defence, which matters because Corp hits often and hard with magic.
(4:03) Gnomonkey thinks the magic void set is not very useful: elite gives only a 2.5% magic damage bonus and the 45% accuracy bonus typically does not help, since magic is usually used against monsters with level 1 magic and basically no defence.
(4:33) Wearing void means forgoing a tormented bracelet and ancestral robes, which provide an eleven percent damage bonus.

Pest Control

(4:33) The veteran boat gives 5 points a game and requires 100 combat; the intermediate boat gives 4 points and requires 70 combat; the novice boat gives 3 points and requires 40 combat.
(4:33) Games do not take longer on a harder boat, so Gnomonkey says to take the best boat available for faster points.
(5:01) On the veteran boat a regular void ranged set costs 850 points and takes about six and a half hours; a full elite void ranged set costs 1250 points and takes 9.5 hours on average; a complete set with all helmets costs 1650 points and takes almost 12.5 hours.
(5:27) Gnomonkey says void's power increases with Ranged level; if training early Ranged with Slayer, the Black Mask is more useful, but for cannoning or chinning Void can raise XP an hour by quite a bit.
(5:27) At level 40 combat, while training melee anyway, Gnomonkey says the novice boat is a fairly efficient place to train and obtain void at the same time, though XP an hour is much worse than Sand Crabs because Pest Control monsters have defence.
(5:53) The novice boat is 40% slower than the veteran boat for points; the regular void ranged set would take about 10 hours using just the novice boat.
(5:53) Gnomonkey thinks getting void on the novice boat while training melee, before having access to Nightmare Zone, is most efficient.

Zaney_RS

(5:53) Gnomonkey thanks Zaney_RS for collecting the Pest Control data used in the video, available in Reddit posts linked in the description.