NEW Ancient Prayers Ideas OSRS


Date	2023-01-07
Type	news-opinion
Video	youtu.be/bJsOQWJY45Q

Summary

After Desert Treasure 2 passed its poll along with a new prayer book, Gnomonkey lays out what he would and would not want from it. He argues against an RS3 Curses-style direct upgrade and for an offense-at-a-cost book that works like a spellbook, adding choices rather than replacing normal prayers.

Outline

0:00 Intro: Desert Treasure 2 and its prayer book passed a poll; he speaks as a PvMer
0:08 What a new prayer book means for PvM
1:42 RS3 Curses, deflection, leech, turmoil and Soul Split
2:02 Judgment prayer that failed its poll and the ideal book as a spellbook-like option
2:50 Offense at a cost: partial protection, trading health for power
3:24 Redemption-style prayer with a damage buff
4:21 Defence-draining prayers as overheads
5:20 Run energy prayer, stronger piety prayers and low-HP prayers
6:17 Directions he does not want: skiller, healing and defensive prayers
7:11 Conclusion: do not release it overpowered or strictly better

Topics covered

Opinion: New prayer book design

(0:00) Gnomonkey says a prayer book is a major change to PvM that can greatly increase its depth or, if handled poorly, seriously weaken it.
(0:00) Jagex gave no hint of what would be in the new prayer book at the time of this video, so Gnomonkey describes what he would and would not want to see.
(0:00) Gnomonkey notes he is a PvMer, not a PKer, so his suggestions are aimed at PvM and might not work in PvP.
(2:02) Gnomonkey says ideally a new prayer book would be like a new spellbook, adding options for different encounters without replacing the original.
(2:50) Gnomonkey thinks the theme of the new prayer book should be offense at a cost, with a serious trade-off for the power it provides.
(2:50) Gnomonkey would not include full protection prayers in the new book, suggesting roughly 70 to 80% effective protections so that 20 to 30% of damage goes through.
(2:50) He wants prayers that increase damage received (not reduce defence), trade health for a benefit, and powerful offensive prayers that are better at low HP.
(3:27) Gnomonkey wants players to choose between the safer regular prayer book and riskier ancient prayers when going to a boss or raid, with the ancient prayers giving speedier kills that would be impossible on normal prayers rather than longer or safer trips.
(7:11) Gnomonkey says the worst thing Jagex could do is release the new prayers in a completely overpowered, game-altering state, as happened when Soul Split first came out in RS3.
(7:20) Gnomonkey does not want a prayer book directly superior to the original or one that is incredibly broken; he wants it to increase skill expression and flesh out combat in general.

Update: Desert Treasure 2

(0:00) Desert Treasure 2 passed a poll, along with a set of new bosses attached to the quest and a brand new prayer book.
(6:17) Gnomonkey notes Desert Treasure 2 features blood magic, but he thinks healing prayers would creep too far into Soul Split territory for his liking.

RS3 Curses

(0:32) RuneScape 3's ancient prayer book is called Curses and is a direct upgrade over the standard prayer book except in rare cases.
(0:32) In RS3 Curses, protection prayers are replaced by deflection prayers that protect the same amount but also deflect 6.7% of damage on average.
(0:32) RS3's Curses book includes Wrath, described as a better Retribution, and still has Protect Item.
(0:32) In Curses the passive boosting prayers are replaced by leech curses, which give the same boost but also drain the stats of the target and give them to you over time.
(1:05) Turmoil is the capstone passive boost curse in RS3: it starts a bit stronger than Piety when activated and, as it leeches the target's stats, becomes significantly more powerful than Piety.
(1:05) Soul Split is an additional RS3 overhead that gives back a percentage of damage dealt as HP; it was initially 25% and later nerfed to 10%, and it can still be flicked between deflection prayers by good RS3 PvMers.
(1:35) Gnomonkey says the RS3 prayer book is pretty much exactly what he does not want in Old School: everything is a direct upgrade, especially Turmoil, so there is no interesting choice.
(2:02) Gnomonkey says Soul Split broke the game wide open in RS3 and made every PvM encounter use Soul Split every attack for free HP; he likes the idea of a useful non-protection overhead but says it provides ridiculous sustain.

Judgment prayer

(2:22) Jagex offered a prayer called Judgment, to be added to Theatre of Blood as a reward, but it never passed a poll.
(2:33) Judgment was designed as an overhead prayer boosting melee attack and strength by 10%, cutting defence by 50% and consuming one-sixth of the damage dealt as prayer points.
(2:33) Gnomonkey says Judgment left the player incredibly vulnerable and drained a lot of prayer for a very powerful melee buff, which is why it failed, but it is the kind of thing Jagex should try to implement in the new prayer book.

Redemption

(3:27) Redemption triggers when you are attacked at under 10% of your max HP (typically 9), taking all your prayer points and healing you 24 HP.
(3:27) Gnomonkey says Redemption is one of his favourite prayers because it needs careful planning, knowledge of the opponent's max hit, or a well-placed tick eat to safely proc it.
(3:54) Gnomonkey proposes an ancient prayer that activates like Redemption, taking all prayer and healing, but also buffing your next attack's damage by roughly 5-10%, to encourage playing at low HP and prayer and timing special attacks or slow weapons after activation.

Defence draining prayers

(4:21) Gnomonkey thinks leech prayers were fun in concept but boiled down to better offensive prayers, and he finds defence draining annoying.
(4:21) He suggests new prayers that passively drain the defence and/or magic level of targets; this would somewhat curb the defence training meta and work well as an overhead flicked between protection prayers.
(4:51) Gnomonkey says Old School is in desperate need of defence draining with non-melee weapons, as the only options currently are Seercull and Flames of Zamorak.
(4:51) He proposes a small flat drain of about 1 to 2 defence levels per successful hit, leaving room for the Dragon warhammer on very high defence targets.
(4:51) He would use such a prayer less on top bosses and more on bosses like Tekton or Akkha, which regenerate defence, Tombs of Amascut bosses that only need a small amount of draining, and targets you cannot reach with melee drain specs like the Sulphur-style portal or Zebak.

Opinion: Passive and low-HP prayers

(5:20) Gnomonkey would like a prayer that reduces run energy drain, given how often players are at the weight cap now that Masori armour weighs 20 kilos, possibly with a hefty prayer drain as compensation.
(5:20) He would welcome more powerful versions of Piety, Augury and Rigor that passively increase incoming damage by roughly 10 to 20% as a trade-off.
(5:47) Gnomonkey thinks the low-life effect of Mysticism-style prayers would suit this new prayer book better, and suggests prayers that are buffed or only usable at lower health.
(5:47) He says Vengeance has taken a back seat since the release of thralls and suggests a prayer that buffs recoil damage, fitting the idea of camping low HP and trading health for benefits.

Opinion: Prayer book directions to avoid

(6:17) Gnomonkey says a skiller prayer book would be incredibly disappointing; some skilling prayers would be fine but a whole book dedicated to skilling would be a letdown.
(6:17) He would not want healing prayers unless they had interesting drawbacks, and says he cannot think of a fair enough drawback for healing from a prayer, which is insanely powerful.
(6:50) Gnomonkey does not want a defensive prayer book because defence rarely matters in the game and flat damage reduction would be boring.
(6:50) He says there is no real tank role at most bosses, even where a tank is chosen at Nex, Nightmare or Verzik, since the tank's defence is irrelevant, so damage reducing prayers will not add depth.
(7:20) Soul Split trivialized nearly all PvM in RS3 when it first came out, requiring multiple nerfs that never brought it fully back in line.

Gnomonkey

(0:00) Gnomonkey identifies himself as a PvMer rather than a PKer when discussing prayer book ideas.
(7:32) As of January 2023 Gnomonkey says he has basically mastered the Tombs of Amascut and plans to learn Challenge Mode Chambers of Xeric, of which he has very little experience, aiming for a decent time.