Thralls Guide (Arceuus Spellbook) OSRS


Date	2021-07-13
Type	guide
Video	youtu.be/26wPQVuqmNY

Summary

A guide to the thrall spells added in the Arceuus spellbook rework, arguing that Greater Resurrect thralls beat Vengeance in almost every PvM encounter. Gnomonkey does the damage maths against Vengeance, then goes through where thralls shine (Chambers of Xeric, Theatre of Blood, Nightmare, Callisto, Kalphite Queen, Dagannoth Kings) and where they fail (Kraken, Vespula, Vasa's crystals, Inferno).

Outline

0:00 Intro: Greater Resurrect cost, requirements and how thralls attack
0:58 Thralls keep attacking during downtime and through vulnerability phases
1:28 Thrall damage maths versus Vengeance
2:02 Kalphite Queen as the best case for Vengeance
3:06 Which thrall style to summon
3:34 Where to use thralls and where not to
4:08 Chambers of Xeric room by room
5:33 Theatre of Blood and other raid bosses
6:26 Standout uses: Callisto and Nightmare
7:28 Slayer bosses: Dagannoth Kings, Kalphite Queen, Cerberus, Grotesque Guardians, Sarachnis
8:29 Places thralls do no damage and conclusion

Topics covered

Greater Resurrect

(0:00) Greater Resurrect, the best thrall spell, requires 76 Magic and the Book of the Dead in the inventory, which is what Kharedst's memoirs turns into at the end of the A Kingdom Divided quest.
(0:00) Greater Resurrect costs 5 blood runes, 10 fire runes, 1 cosmic rune and 6 prayer points per cast, about 2k GP.
(0:00) Greater Resurrect costs twice as much as Vengeance but, since you would cast Vengeance twice in the time a thrall lives, Gnomonkey says it is roughly the same cost.
(0:00) The spell summons a helper minion in the combat style of your choice that attacks every four ticks with a max hit of 3, ignoring accuracy checks, and lasts one tick per Magic level, a full 60 seconds at 99 Magic.
(0:00) Gnomonkey says people complain about the max hit of 3, but because a thrall ignores accuracy checks and is basically free damage, unlike Vengeance where you have to tank damage to proc it, he considers it really, really good.
(0:58) Thralls continue attacking for a few attacks after you stop attacking a target, so they keep hitting during boss downtime, for example while you walk under the Kalphite Queen.
(0:58) Thralls can hit through many bosses' vulnerability phases, such as Verzik's energy shield in P2, and often during boss transitions.
(1:28) A thrall rolls randomly from 0 to 3 damage for an average of 1.5 per hit, completely ignoring defence.
(1:28) At 99 Magic a thrall attacks 24 times, for an average damage over its life of 37.125 (rounded to 37 by Gnomonkey).
(1:28) Thralls work on recoil-immune monsters where Vengeance does not work, such as Verzik P1 and P2, Pestilent Bloat, Xarpus and the Great Olm, and are free damage anywhere you do not need high alchemy or Pot Share.
(3:34) Gnomonkey says that anywhere you do not need high alchemy (or can use an Explorer's ring) or Lunar utility spells like Pot Share, the Arceuus spellbook with thralls is now the absolute best option, and he will not list the bosses because it would be almost every boss.
(8:29) Gnomonkey concludes thralls are incredibly good, have replaced Vengeance where it was useful and are now the go-to everywhere, and he expects blood rune prices to keep rising as the player base uses them more.

Thrall versus Vengeance

(1:28) In the time it takes Vengeance to cool down, a thrall on average deals 18 to 19 damage.
(1:28) For Vengeance to beat thrall damage on average, the monster's max hit needs to be 50 or higher, because a monster's hit is a random number from 1 to max after the defence check and Vengeance recoils 75% of damage.
(2:02) With an average hit of 25 on you, Vengeance returns about 18, the break-even point with a thrall, and Gnomonkey says that assumes you wear literally no armour so it is slightly worse than that.
(2:02) Vengeance is at its absolute best at the Kalphite Queen because you can pre-vengeance: a queen kill with a scythe averages 60 seconds, giving two Vengeances at the start plus roughly one extra in the second phase.
(2:02) The Kalphite Queen's max hit is 31, so an average Vengeance deals 11 to 12 damage, giving a best-case average of about 36 damage over the whole kill, still slightly behind a thrall's 37.
(2:02) Gnomonkey's summary is that thralls are almost always better than Vengeance on average.
(4:08) Gnomonkey says Vasa Nistirio is one of the only bosses in the game where Vengeance is significantly better than thralls, but if it is the first room you can pre-Vengeance before entering the raid and still enter with thralls.

Thralls

(3:06) Gnomonkey says the zombie (melee) thrall often wastes ticks walking around, so you typically want to avoid summoning that variant.
(3:06) The skeleton and ghost thralls are effectively the same, both with a range of six tiles.
(3:06) Where a monster is not completely invulnerable to a combat style, such as Dagannoth Kings or the Kalphite Queen, which have high defence rather than invulnerability, the thrall style does not matter and full damage goes through in all phases.
(3:34) At Callisto the mage thrall does no damage because he is completely invulnerable to magic.
(3:34) Many Chambers bosses have flat damage reduction to a style: the Great Olm's hands and head each have a 50% damage reduction against the wrong style, which must be kept in mind when choosing a thrall.
(5:02) Thrall style matters a lot at the Great Olm as the wrong-style thrall's max hit is reduced to one: use mage on the mage hand, zombie (melee) on the melee hand and skeleton on the head phase.

Chambers of Xeric

(4:08) Gnomonkey says thralls are really, really good in the Chambers of Xeric, giving free damage in almost every room.
(4:08) In the Chambers, thralls do not work on Guardians and Vespula because they cannot reach the portal.
(4:08) Thralls are extremely beneficial for Olm solos: if the thrall hits a hand while you attack the other, the Great Olm still will not turn towards the middle, giving a very low chance of Olm turning to the middle with a thrall active.
(4:38) Thralls shine at Tekton because of his very high defence and because they can keep hitting him while he walks to the anvil; Gnomonkey did not manage to get them to hit him at the anvil.
(5:05) Ice Demon's 66% damage reduction does apply to thralls, so their max hit becomes one and they only hit that one out of four attacks.
(5:05) In Gnomonkey's tests, thralls were unable to damage Vasa Nistirio's crystals but could damage Vasa himself; he says the crystals might be immune to anything but melee but he did not test it.
(8:35) Gnomonkey found thralls do no damage to Vespula because they cannot reach her, and no damage to Vasa's crystals for some reason.

Theatre of Blood

(5:33) At the Theatre of Blood the fourth and fifth members of a team can take thralls for free, as you only need two mages; Gnomonkey says it might be worth having one person freeze everything and the other mage use thralls, creating a new 'melee thraller' role.
(5:33) As of July 2021 there was discussion of a meta change where other team members also bring the runes for spellbook swapping and thrall spells, which Gnomonkey says wastes a giant section of the inventory.
(6:00) At Pestilent Bloat a thrall's damage is halved while he is walking.
(6:00) In the Nylocas room thralls can only damage the Nylocas of the style they match, but do not reflect damage or lock you out of any Nylocas, and a thrall can still attack a Nylocas you have accidentally locked yourself out of.
(6:00) At Nylocas Vasilias thralls only damage the boss on his correct style but do not heal or reflect damage for the wrong style.
(6:26) Thralls especially shine at all of Verzik's phases because she has high defence that cannot be drained, especially phase one where your damage is capped at 10, and phase two where they damage her through her energy shield.

Callisto

(3:34) The mage thrall does no damage at Callisto because he is completely invulnerable to magic.
(6:26) Gnomonkey says Callisto gets the highest DPS increase from thralls of any boss, roughly 20%, because of his insane defence.

The Nightmare

(6:26) Gnomonkey says thralls are exceptional at bosses with extremely high defence that cannot be drained, naming the Nightmare and Callisto as great examples.
(6:57) At the Nightmare, thralls are a huge DPS increase through the entire fight and the mage thrall deals double damage to the pillars.
(6:57) Gnomonkey says thralls make the Harmonised nightmare staff not worth using at the regular Nightmare because you have to choose one or the other.
(6:57) In Phosani's Nightmare, because the Nightmare has much lower health per phase and more phases with pillars, Gnomonkey says the harmonised staff is just barely better than thralls, with a few seconds faster kills according to the Gear Discord, but thralls are still very useful given the cost barrier.

Slayer

(7:28) Thralls work perfectly at the Dagannoth Kings and can damage whichever king you are attacking; with a Sanguinesti staff and Saradomin godsword you do not need Blood Barrage healing there.
(7:28) Gnomonkey names the Kalphite Queen as the standout Slayer boss for thralls, since they keep attacking when you go under her, can sometimes continue through her phase transition, and she has only defence rather than real prayers, so they hit both phases the same.
(7:28) At Cerberus thralls work as expected and just give free damage.
(7:59) At the Grotesque Guardians thralls give free damage and the extra damage helps hit the heal skip on Dawn more often, though time spent on the Explorer's ring menu might cancel the time saved; Gnomonkey says it needs more testing.
(7:59) At Sarachnis thralls lag behind and have some downtime, but once they reach the centre of the room they barely waste ticks, hitting her twice on each side, and they help clean up the minions after the kill; Sarachnis has really high defence.
(8:29) At Sarachnis an Explorer's ring is enough alchemy casts for the whole trip and also gives run restoration.
(8:35) At the Kraken no thralls do any damage, not even the mage thrall, which Gnomonkey says seems like a bug that hopefully gets patched.

Inferno

(8:35) Gnomonkey says thralls are pretty terrible for the Inferno because they use up prayer points and you really want to be on Ancient Magicks there, but thralls should be able to hit even Zuk, so there is some meme potential.