NEW RAIDS 4 REWARDS AND BLOG UPDATE (OSRS)


Date	2026-07-07
Type	news-opinion
Video	youtu.be/lNaYz-3A15Y

Summary

Gnomonkey reacts to Jagex's updated Raids 4 (Fractured Archive) rewards blog, using his calcs to look at the Rondosh shield, Ascension crossbows, the retuned TzHaar-Ket Breaker, the removal of the hybrid armor, the new Gatekeeper's cane mage spec and the proposed Zeal prayer. He likes the cane concept and Zeal but wants the cane's accuracy buffed and worries the Breaker is now too niche.

Outline

0:00 Introduction: updated Raids 4 rewards blog
0:23 Rondosh shield clarifications and the Avernic attachment idea
2:52 Ascension crossbow bolt changes
3:51 TzHaar-Ket Breaker retuning and calcs
5:57 Hybrid armor removal and why Gnomonkey agrees
10:11 Gatekeeper's cane reveal and calcs
15:17 Zeal prayer proposal
18:00 Does Zeal change armor metas
20:06 Overall verdict and upcoming videos

Topics covered

Update: Raids 4 rewards blog

(0:00) Jagex published an updated blog about the rewards for Raids 4 (the Fractured Archive), including new items and clarifications of how older proposed rewards work.
(0:00) Gnomonkey says he put the proposed Raids 4 rewards into the calcs (Gearscape) before making this video so he could see how they work in the game as a whole.
(9:43) With the hybrid armor removed, the Fractured Archive is left with only three tradable rewards on offer, so Jagex says it has more space to fill.
(9:43) Jagex says it would rather ship Raids 4 with five rewards players are excited to see than three exciting rewards plus four that make players roll their eyes, aiming for no dud drops.
(20:06) Gnomonkey considers the updated Raids 4 reward list a solid offering; his main tweak would be making the Gatekeeper's cane spec more accurate.
(20:39) Gnomonkey is worried the Breaker mega rare is now too weak and may never be used unless a boss has crush as its lowest defense, where it was previously too strong; he thinks a balance somewhere in the middle is needed.
(21:11) Gnomonkey says he will make a Maggot King opinion video soon and another Inferno teaching stream using giga max gear, with the new Seeker arrows and the new necklace of rupture.

Raids 4

(0:00) Gnomonkey says he is very excited for the Fractured Archive raid to release so he can mess around with all the new reward items.
(6:22) Jagex bills the Fractured Archive (Raids 4) as Old School RuneScape's toughest raid yet.

Rondosh

(0:00) The Rondosh is a proposed Raids 4 shield that gives you a charge attack when you block enough damage thanks to flat armor.
(0:28) Jagex said it may split the special attack orb so a spec weapon and the Rondosh charge each get a separate orb; Gnomonkey thinks splitting would be better but it depends on how hard it is to add.
(0:28) The Rondosh's flat armor does not work against magic on purpose, as Jagex does not want it to be good against bosses that use magic; it can be used at the same time as a Granite maul spec.
(0:56) The Rondosh charge buff rolls plus 6 accuracy per stack up to 20 stacks, for plus 120 crush accuracy on top of armor and jewelry bonuses, but it does not work with your weapon's accuracy.
(1:26) Players argued the Rondosh's offensive stat line was stepping too close to the Avernic defender, devaluing the Theatre of Blood reward offering, particularly with the Breaker absorbing all of the Scythe's crush use cases.
(1:26) Jagex's proposed options were to lower the Rondosh's strength bonus and raise shield bash damage, or to remove all its strength bonus and attach it to the Avernic defender (for example via Avernic studs) to bring the strength bonus back to plus 8.
(1:26) Gnomonkey would not hate the option of lowering the Rondosh's strength bonus and increasing shield bash damage, since it focuses on chip damage mitigation, which he finds interesting.
(1:56) Gnomonkey dislikes the idea of attaching the Rondosh to the Avernic defender, calling it arbitrary that a new raid would suddenly require every account to have two Avernic defenders, and expects pushback for saying so.
(2:28) Gnomonkey prefers the option of lowering the Rondosh's strength bonus, so players might bring the Avernic defender and the Rondosh to different raid rooms and the Avernic would not lose as much value.

Ascension crossbow

(2:32) Jagex said it will stick with limiting Ascension crossbow bolt effects to regular diamond and onyx bolts, leaving ruby bolts off the table because rebalancing them is a big task.
(2:52) Gnomonkey would not hate if sapphire bolts were added as another Ascension bolt type, so the crossbow could be used at Muspah.
(2:52) Jagex wants players to have enough Ascension shards to make bolts and charge the Breaker, so there is never a massive grind for an hour of crossbow usage, and would like an AFK way to obtain them similar to ancient essence or demon tiers.
(3:31) Gnomonkey says plentiful bolts would be good, as it is very annoying for Iron Men when a certain ammo type takes forever to obtain.

TzHaar-Ket Breaker

(3:51) Gnomonkey says the Breaker mega rare was disgustingly overpowered in the first proposal and has now been retuned to be reasonable.
(3:59) The retuned Breaker rolls damage once by default, then an additional two times for every melee defense value higher than crush, so an NPC weakest to crush gets five rolls; previously it also compared magic and range defense, which were nearly always higher, giving two free rolls.
(4:25) Jagex reduced the Breaker's damage bonus scaling with NPC size from 25-50% to 20-40%.
(4:25) Because Nex is weakest to stab, then crush, then slash, the retuned Breaker gets three rolls on her.
(4:57) In Gnomonkey's calcs the retuned Breaker is not best in slot over the Osmumten's fang, which is 6% better on Nex.
(4:57) In Gnomonkey's calcs the retuned Breaker is no longer best in slot over the Scythe of Vitur in any Theatre of Blood room.
(5:25) Kephri is half weak to crush so the Breaker rolls three times, and the Osmumten's fang is quite a bit better there.
(5:25) Gnomonkey thinks the Breaker may now be too niche, a mega rare only good against crush-weak monsters, though he does not think it is terrible and it is far less useful than before.
(5:25) The Breaker's range is not three tiles: it hits three tiles in front of where you swing, but you attack from adjacent and are dragged like a normal Scythe.

Hybrid armour

(5:53) Jagex is removing the proposed Fractured Archive hybrid armor from the raid rewards and will explore giving a toned-down version from other content at an appropriate power level.
(6:22) Gnomonkey thinks the hybrid armor was way too powerful and endgame players would have used it in nearly every raid, except possibly certain roles in Theatre of Blood (mages would use it).
(7:22) Gnomonkey says in his calcs the proposed hybrid armor was 1 to 2% worse than Torva, Oathplate and Ancestral everywhere, with slightly worse defensive bonuses than Bandos.
(7:49) Gnomonkey argues the hybrid armor would have devalued Torva, Oathplate, Bandos, Ancestral and Virtus all at once, and on an Iron Man would be the only armor needed for everything except ranged (Masori and probably Void).
(8:21) Gnomonkey says the armor also made Ballorva and Radiant Oathplate, aspirational kit sets, pointless, and the annoying gear switches were a lesser concern than the devaluation.
(9:16) Gnomonkey thinks hybrid armor makes sense from non-raid sources, such as a Desert Treasure 2 style boss dropping a much toned-down version, like Moons armor or a slightly better mid-game boss hybrid set.

Gatekeeper's cane

(10:11) The Gatekeeper's cane is a proposed magic DPS spec weapon (a powered staff) with stats identical to the Eye of Ayak, including a three-tick attack rate, but a lower base max hit of 8 compared to the Eye's 21.
(10:48) The Gatekeeper's cane gives plus 30 mage accuracy and some defense bonuses with no inherent magic damage percent.
(10:48) The cane's special attack costs 50% energy for a hit with 100% increased accuracy and 50% increased damage; if it connects and deals damage you gain a buff for your next three attacks with 100% increased accuracy, 50% increased damage, and a two-tick attack rate.
(11:12) Gnomonkey likens the Gatekeeper's cane to mage claws: a mage DPS spec that is not terrible, which has long been missing as magic basically had only the Eye, a poor scepter, and a volatile staff that is never used in PvM.
(11:54) In Gnomonkey's calcs, against Phosani's Nightmare totems (guaranteed accuracy) the Eye of Ayak is about 23.36 DPS while the Gatekeeper's cane is about 47.5, though it does not reduce time to kill much there.
(12:25) Gnomonkey finds the Gatekeeper's cane spec generally not quite as good as a Zaryte crossbow, but very strong against low mage defense targets such as Akkha, Thermonuclear smoke devil, Dagannoth Rex and Kraken.
(12:52) Gnomonkey thinks the cane's only good endgame use may be Phosani's Nightmare, where it may beat a Kodai-style spec, and finds it odd for a raid reward to be mainly good at low-level bosses.
(12:52) Gnomonkey would buff the accuracy bonus the cane's buff gives (for example from 100% to 150-200%) without changing its base accuracy, so it could replace claws or a Zaryte crossbow against mage-tanky bosses such as Akkha.
(13:51) Gnomonkey says the cane's concept of speccing, buffing up and then using very fast attacks is a really cool idea and decent on paper, but he wants it a bit better.
(13:51) Jagex listed bosses where the cane is okay: Kalphite Queen, all God Wars generals, Dagannoth Rex, Zalcano's magma phase (Gnomonkey thinks they mean the serp phase), Whisperer, Ultimate Ulm's hand and others.
(13:51) Gnomonkey thinks Jagex is reaching with some examples: in his calcs the cane is actually weak on the Whisperer, tankier targets like Zalcano's magma phase and Ulm's hand are poor, and it is okay in normal mode but not good in challenge mode there.
(14:49) Gnomonkey likes that the cane's spec can spread damage across multiple targets, for example swapping between the melee and mage Vanguards, as it is quite accurate against both.
(20:39) Gnomonkey says a good indicator for whether the cane is good enough is whether it beats a Zaryte crossbow against Akkha, since you would be maging him normally and he has fairly low mage defense.

Zeal

(15:20) Jagex proposed Zeal, a Piety upgrade prayer inspired by requests for Turmoil, as a Raids 4 reward giving objective best in slot upgrades.
(15:53) Zeal would require level 84 Prayer to unlock and give +28% strength, +25% attack and +25% defense, versus Piety's same defense, +5% more strength and +5% more attack, with the same drain rate and no drawback.
(15:53) Zeal grants some extra accuracy and an additional six strength levels for 99 strength players using potions, which Jagex says makes it a must-have.
(16:25) Jagex says Zeal is not expected to be the most common reward and is not set on how it unlocks, hoping for something cooler than reading a piece of paper in the bank as Rigor and Augury do.
(16:25) Gnomonkey says Zeal is the weakest Raids 4 reward and a bit boring and obvious, but still fine, safe and very strong; he cites others saying it is about a 5% DPS increase to the Scythe and a lot of accuracy.
(16:25) Gnomonkey notes a Zeal unlock would be a permanent account upgrade like prayer scrolls or the Avernic kilt, meaning duplicates are useless and cannot be resold.
(17:30) Gnomonkey thinks Zeal fits in raids thematically, like Rigor and Arcane from Chambers of Xeric, and may be the strongest reward up until the mega rare.
(19:40) Gnomonkey notes Jagex heavily implies Zeal is a tradable drop but did not say so outright, and hopes it is tradable.

Torva armour

(18:00) In Gnomonkey's calcs, Zeal does not change armor choices: at Maiden fully drained, Oathplate with a Torva helmet is 1% worse than full Torva, but two Oathplate pieces plus a Torva helmet still reach the 52 max hit needed.
(18:32) In Gnomonkey's calcs, at Verzik phase 2 the Oathplate-with-Torva-helmet setup is 4% worse than full Torva, so the Theatre of Blood armor meta stays the same with Zeal.
(18:32) Gnomonkey says you still run full Oathplate in Chambers of Xeric challenge mode for the higher overload strength boost, while in teams you can run full Torva where you can drain defense to zero.