This is a beginner's guide for RuneScape Dragonwilds, with a starter guide for first-time players of survival games, as well as tips for both beginner and experienced players looking for to improve their gameplay.
List of Contents
This section is intended for beginners in the Survival genre. If you've already beaten other Survival games like Valheim, feel free to skip to the next section! |
If you're jumping into RuneScape Dragonwilds without much experience with Survival games, it's a good idea to understand what this genre entails before getting in too deep, and how it differs from other action and RPG games.
In RuneScape Dragonwilds, you will drop all of your gear every time you die and must return to the spot you died to reclaim it; in the early stages of the game, this can feel like a minor inconvience, but keep in mind that you need to master this mechanic to survive in later stages of the game.
The game will become much easier when approached with the right mentality, so try to follow the steps below and remember them each time you head into a new area.
When venturing into harder areas, it's inevitable that you'll fall in battle from time to time. The important thing is to prepare for this to happen and leave backup supplies at your base ahead of time. If you lose everything you own every time you die, it will be difficult to retrieve it with no gear available, especially when trying to retrieve gear from a dangerous new area.
At a minimum, you should have the following ready to go in case you drop all of your gear.
The further you go into a zone with tougher enemies, the worse position you will be in if you die and need to retrieve them.
Build a Lodestone to create a new Fast Travel point whenever you travel into an unfamiliar area; the game is mercifully generous with Vault Cores, which can be found in Dragonkin Vaults, and will respawn after some time has passed allowing you to re-enter completed Vaults to restock. Carry one of these Vault Cores with you, along with 32 Stones and 20 Rune Essence, when pushing past your boundaries, and use these materials to craft new Lodestones as you progress to mitigate risk.
Once you're secure in the new area, build a new base to reduce the need to fast travel back every time you need to sleep or craft gear.
It can be frustrating to suffer defeat, and it's tempting to try to run back with only a few supplies to grab your gear in a hurry. However, going in underprepared will increase your chances of dying again and losing more supplies.
It's important to give yourself the best possible chance of success in retrieving your gear on each attempt. Even if you do fail again, take the time again to restock and go in with a clear head.
With these tips in mind, it will become much easier to push forward even when you're weaker than the enemies. With a strong supply of backup goods, and effectively placed Lodestones and Bases, you'll be able to gradually increase your strength to handle new areas that you previously couldn't.
Food | Water | Rest | |
---|---|---|---|
76-100% | 2 HP/s | 6 Sta/s | 100 Sta, 100 Food/Water, 400 Weight |
51-75% | 1.5 HP/s | 4.5 Sta/s | |
26-50% | 1 HP/s | 3 Sta/s | 80 Sta, 100 Food/Water, 400 Weight |
1-25% | 0 HP/s | 0.75 Sta/s | 60 Sta, 75 Food/Water, 300 Weight |
0% | Same as 1-25%, and HP gradually drops to 1 | 40 Sta, 75 Food/Water, 250 Weight |
Although it can be a pain to keep the various bars up, there are significant benefits to making sure all of them stay in the top 25% consistently.
Food provides HP recovery, while Water provides Stamina recovery. When you're in a difficult fight, you want these to recover as quickly as possible, and you never know when you'll be ambushed, so don't let yourself get caught with low recovery rates.
Rest can fall as low as 51% with no drawbacks, but below that point, you'll have lower maximum stamina, and other limits are imposed at 25% and below. Unlocking Summon Shelter at Construction level 20 is recommended as it allows you to Rest anytime without having to return home.
When you get a notification that you are being hunted, that a warband is attacking your base, or hear the dragon roaring with foreboding music, you can easily escape from the situation if you have a Lodestone nearby by using it to Fast Travel to another area.
Your base will not be destroyed even if you do not defend it. On the contrary, if you stay inside your base, enemies will attack it and destroy the walls and furniture, while if you run away on foot, they will try to chase you down instead of attacking your base. Although it seems counterintuitive, avoiding your base is the best option.
If you don't have a Lodestone yet, the best method if you are not confident that you can defeat all the enemies is to escape from the area, as enemies will only follow you until a certain point, and the dragon attacks only affect a certain radius as well.
At Rune Essence Nodes, the floating Rune Essence rocks can be shot down with a single arrow from the Bow each, then easily mined! You'll need to build a Spinning Wheel to craft the Course Thread needed to craft a Bow.
By default, your Staff will use the Air Element, but the element can be switched to Fire by right-clicking a Fire Rune and selecting Equip. This allows you to throw long-distance fireballs, as well as use a combo which ends with a fire rain which can stunlock a group of enemies.
The Air Staff does feature a useful secondary attack which can knock down a group of enemies, but the Fire combo is highly effective when you have enough space from the enemy to pull it off; try both elements and choose depending on your preference or the enemies you're facing.
Vault Cores are essential items which can only be found in Dragonkin Vaults; they are used to craft Lodestones, the game's name for Fast Travel points, and endgame gear. Two are found in each Vault, but after some time, they will respawn allowing you to recollect them from a completed Vault. In addition, the majority of the enemies in Vaults will disappear after completing it, making it even easier to return to an earlier Vault and load up on Vault Cores.
Chests around the world and in dungeons also respawn regularly, so mark them on your map for regular collection of easy freebies.
When you die in PVP, the player who killed you can rob your gravestone to steal all of your valuable items; this is even more punishing than regular deaths as you have no opportunity to reclaim your lost items.
If you're playing to try to complete the story, this can obviously be a huge penalty, so keep PVP off, especially in a Public server. It's not worth the risk!
Once you've gotten a few materials from the Whispering Swamp such as Clay and Harralander, you can start crafting Healing Potions. You'll need to build a Pottery Wheel to make unfired Clay Vessels, a Kiln to make Charcoal and cook the Clay Vessel, and finally a Brewing Cauldron to brew the potion.
Healing Potion Recipe | ||
---|---|---|
Harralander x1 | Redberries x1 | Clay Vessel x1 |
- | Charcoal x1 | - |
The Antipoison Potion is one of the best potions to keep on-hand throughout the game due to its ability to grant immunity to poison for 5 minutes. This is hugely useful for progressing through the Whispering Swamp, as poison will quickly wear down your health and the swamp water prevents your escape.
In addition, Garou Druids are tough enemies which can throw homing poison arrows at you; one appears as the boss of the Goblin Diplomacy side quests, and others appear in Fractured Plains and later areas, so it's a good idea to pop an Antipoison Potion before engaging with Garou Druids.
Unfortunately, note that Antipoison Potions will not cure poison which has already been inflicted.
Antipoison Potion Recipe | ||
---|---|---|
Harralander x1 | Bittercap Mushroom x1 | Clay Vessel x1 |
- | Charcoal x1 | - |
The Abyssal Demon is a boss monster appearing in the northwest section of the Whispering Swamp.
Its primary weakness is that it is unable to attack an enemy that is on top of a roof, so you can use Windstep to jump onto one of the ruins in the area and unleash a rain of arrows onto it. The monster can be easily defeated in this way with no risk of damage to the player; just be sure to find a roof to jump onto before you engage it in battle.
The Abyssal Demon will drop most of the materials required for the Abyssal Whip, a Tier 4 weapon listed as a Masterwork. The only unavailable ingredient should be the 4 Ram Horns, which can be found as a drop from Rams in the Stomtouched Highlands northeast of the Fractured Plains. If you're feeling bold, you can try to reach the area early, drop a Lodestone, and escape; this should allow you easily farm enough Rams to nab an early endgame weapon!
Even after you've constructed multiple bases, Construction is one of the hardest Skills to max out naturally, but it has two of the most useful Spells in Summon Shelter at level 20, which lets you Rest anywhere, and Personal Chest at level 40, which lets you store supplies to withdraw anywhere.
Fortunately, you can grind Construction XP easily by crafting and deleting structures; deleting them will return all the materials used to make them, allowing you to do this endlessly. However, it's important to note that there is a cooldown on XP gains for the same type of structure.
The best type of structure to farm XP with are floors and roofs; they can be easily stacked on top of each other and when the bottom ones are broken, they will all fall down together. This also allows your Logs to land in the same spot for easy cleanup.
How to Level Up Construction Fast
After you unlock the Personal Chest spell, keep 1 Void Core, 32 Stone, and 20 Rune Essence in your Personal Chest at all times. This will allow you to easily place a Lodestone whenever you get too deep into danger and don't want to risk losing your gear, or don't have a needed item and can't proceed, so that you can easily return to your base and come back.
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Tips and Tricks: A Complete Beginner's Guide to RuneScape Dragonwilds
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