The Fractured Archive (Raids 4): routes, specs, survival and loot

Before you go

• RequirementWhile Guthix Sleeps. Entering the lobby for the first time starts a short miniquest. The Wiki suggests about 90 Attack, 95 Strength, 95 Ranged, 95 Hitpoints and 75 Defence. It suggests 75 Magic, but surge spells need 81–95, so plan higher if you will cast them.
• Getting therethe entrance is in the Chasm of Tears. Teleport to Tears of Guthix with a games necklace and bring a lit sapphire lantern, or use a Guthixian temple teleport. Once you own one, the Archivist's folio (a raid drop) teleports you to the lobby (one Ascension shard gives 5 teleports).
• Team sizeyou can enter with 1 to 8 players. Boss HP is scaled for at least 2, and each player after the second adds about 44%. Jagex recommends 3 to 5. It calls duos "tough but manageable once you know what you're doing" and solos "very challenging".
• Deathsnot safe. A Hardcore or Group Hardcore Ironman loses their status. If the whole team dies, you are sent back to the lobby and your items go to a gravestone outside. Gravestone reclaim fees are 75% lower until you have 5 completions. Each death also raises the chance that your chest holds only cabbage.
• Practice Modeis not out yet. Once it is, you can replay any boss or phase you have reached, and your supplies are refunded.
• Who can't enter yetrestricted accounts that cannot finish While Guthix Sleeps, Ultimate Ironmen with items stored at Pete Kayer (take them back first), and players on the permanent Deadman world, which was locked out at release.

Pick your route

Every raid has five bosses in the same order. The Archive Guardian is always first and Ocellus is always last. On floors 2, 3 and 4 you pick the west or east door. Both doors on a floor give the same reward points, so pick the room your team clears fastest and safest.

Which route for which team

No meta has settled yet. These are our starting points, based on the mechanics, not rules.

• New team, first clears

  2Bork3Dreadnoth4Xarth

  Bork → Dreadnoth → Xarth. In our view it is the easiest route to read on the fly. Budget extra brews for Bork.

• Team that wants to save supplies

  2Ezekiel3Dreadnoth4Xarth

  Ezekiel → Dreadnoth → Xarth. Players report Ezekiel costs the tank food, but almost nothing for anyone else.

• Venator bow and a dedicated caster

  2Ezekiel3Moia4Trio

  Ezekiel → Moia → Trio. This is the "left, left, left" route: the west door on every floor. Air spells on the swords speed up Ezekiel, the Venator clears Moia's binders, and the caster handles the Trio's interrupts.

• Duo without a Twisted bow

  2—3—4Trio

  consider the Trio over Xarth. Players report Xarth's corpses and HP are the wall for small, low-damage teams, and the Trio's Defence can be drained to 0.

Defence cap and spec plan

Since the 21 October hotfix, most bosses' Defence stops at 60% of its base. Four targets can still be drained to 0: the Smorks, Dreadnoth, the Dagon'hai Trio and The Blade (Ocellus phase 2). Plan your specs per boss, so nobody wastes one on a boss already at its minimum.

Lowest reachable Base Defence Drains to 0 ◆Ocellus starts ↺Defence resets

Successful spec hits to reach each boss's minimum Defence

Boss	Defence (base → minimum)	Tank and melee		Ranged and Ralos
		Elder maul	Dragon warhammerDWH	Ralos hits (a spec hits twice)
Archive Guardian	260 → 156	2 (once grounded)	2 (once grounded)	4
Bork	300 → 180	2	2	11 (Bork's Magic is low)
The Smorks	220 → 0	Can't reach 0; finish with Ralos		10
Ezekiel	130 → 78	2	2	3
Moia	195 → 117	Out of melee range		2
Dreadnoth	125 → 0	Can't reach 0; finish with Ralos		5
Dagon'hai Trio	100 → 0	Can't reach 0; finish with Ralos		3
Xarth	170 → 102	2	2	2
Ocellus phase 1	215 → 129	2	2	2
The Blade (phase 2)	250 → 0	Can't reach 0; finish with Ralos		10
Ocellus phase 3	250 → 150	2	2	3

• Melee specs lower a share of the current Defence (Elder maul 35%, Dragon warhammer 30%), so they can never reach 0. On the four uncapped targets, finish with Ralos. Each Ralos hit lowers Defence by an eighth of the target's Magic level, and a charged special hits twice. Ralos rolls against light-ranged defence, which is very high on Ezekiel and Ocellus phase 3: use melee specs there.
• Ocellus resets his Defence at each phase change, so phase 1 and phase 3 each need their own drain. Since the hotfix he no longer resets between phase 3 quadrants, so drain him once at the start of phase 3, then use damage specs.
• Specs only lower Defence when they hit. The budget clear we cover below paired a Dragon warhammer with a Soulflame horn, whose special makes the next melee attack always hit.

Room by room

Each card covers what the boss is weak to, what to pray and the mechanics that wipe teams. The OSRS Wiki's strategy page has the full detail.

Every room at a glance

Gear, spellbook and supplies

Most bosses have their lowest defence against crush, and heavy ranged beats arrows on most of them. The Twisted bow still shines because most bosses here have very high Magic.

Our DPS calculator doesn't have the raid bosses yet. To compare two weapons now, enter a boss's Wiki stats under "Customise target stats"; elemental weaknesses aren't modelled.

Melee

BestStrongBudgetMelee

• BestObligator. It rolls damage up to four times and keeps the best roll, and its slower style also hits enemies lined up behind the target.
• StrongScythe of Vitur, Soulreaper axe, Inquisitor's mace.
• BudgetAbyssal bludgeon (Ezekiel, grounded Guardian), Emberlight (Ocellus).

Ranged

BestStrongBudgetRanged

• BestAscension crossbows and Twisted bow.
• StrongZaryte crossbow, Toxic blowpipe (Smorks once drained, Ocellus phase 1).
• BudgetArmadyl or Dragon crossbow with ruby bolts (e). Several players report the Bow of Faerdhinen underperforms here.

Magic

BestBudgetMagic

• BestTumeken's shadow, or a Harmonised Nightmare staff for elemental weaknesses.
• BudgetEye of ayak. The caster's main jobs are utility: freezes, interrupts and the Augmenters.

Specs and utility

Specs and utility

• Elder maul or Dragon warhammer, plus Ralos for the uncapped rooms.
• Venator bow for Moia, Xarth's corpses and imps. Chinchompas for Dreadnoth's jellies.
• Serpentine helm or antipoison, Sanfew serums. An Amulet of blood fury while learning.

Kits by role, with GE cost

Two price points per role at 27 October GE mid prices. "Earned" items come from minigames or quests; "upgrade" items are untradeable but priced at what their parts cost. They follow the Wiki's recommended gear; your exact switches depend on your route. Every slot is covered in our melee, ranged and magic gear guides.

Choose spellbooks before you enter

There's no bank or altar inside, so agree each player's spellbook before you enter.

One workable split: a freezer on Ancient Magicks plus a caster on the standard spellbook. Freezing corpses needs good Magic accuracy; a splash lets the corpse through.

Loot and what a raid pays

When someone gets a unique, the braziers turn purple and a special chest appears. Jagex has not published how often that happens. The shares below come from the OSRS Wiki's crowdsourced Drop Log Project (157,168 tracked completions). They show which unique you get when a purple drops.

Unique	Share of purples	GE price	Part of the average	What it is
Rondache	about 1 in 3	33M		What it is: Rondache Shield (80 Defence, +8 Strength) that blocks 2 damage per hit and stores it for an instant Shield Bash with its own special bar.
Zorya's tome	about 4 in 15	57M		What it is: Zorya's tome Two-handed magic book (85 Magic). Weak base hit; its special speeds up and strengthens the next casts.
Horn of Bran	about 1 in 5	556M		What it is: Horn of Bran Take it to Camelot to unlock Zeal: Piety plus 5 percentage points of Attack and Strength (needs 84 Prayer, 75 Attack, 75 Strength).
Ascension crossbows	about 2 in 15	425M		What it is: Ascension crossbows Dual crossbows (80 Ranged), 3 ticks or 2 on rapid, fires heavy bolts. Jagex calls them a raid-tier upgrade to the Toxic blowpipe. Their bolts need 86 Fletching.
Obligator	about 1 in 15	2.93B		What it is: Obligator Two-handed crush weapon (85 Attack). Up to four damage rolls, +20% damage on 2x2 targets and +40% on 3x3 or bigger, and multi-target. Its fast style drops the re-rolls.

What that means: 3 in 5 purples are a Rondache or Zorya's tome, worth 33–57M, so your typical purple is closer to 50M than to the 390M average. About half of that average comes from the rare Obligator. Without a purple, your chest rolls the normal table three times, worth about 310k on average at 27 October prices.

Also on their own drop rates: the Archivist's folio (about 1 in 16 until you own one), one of four elemental fragments (1 in 80 each; +2 max hit with that element), an elite clue (about 1 in 12) and the pet, Orion.

What a raid could pay you

Without an official purple rate, here is the range. If you personally get a purple once every…

Raid lengths are our assumptions: about 25 minutes for an experienced, well-geared team (one team reported 18–19 minute four-mans on launch day, before the Defence cap, and Jagex said the cap may lengthen some rooms) and about 40 minutes for a budget trio on about 100M of gear (from commenters' "about twice as long as a maxed team").

These are scenarios, not rates: we will update them when Jagex publishes the odds. Prices are GE mid prices before tax, and new raid items move fast; check the GE price tracker before you sell.

What changed since launch

• 20 OctRaid released. Nex's crush defence lowered from +60 to +35, which Jagex says will make the Obligator shine there too.
• 21 OctDefence cap: most bosses now stop at 60%, and Ocellus no longer resets between phase 3 quadrants. Ocellus phase bugs fixed. Launch-week advice to drain Xarth to 0 is now wrong.
• 22 OctDisconnects no longer lose food and potions. Zorya's tome special can no longer be pre-stacked on a POH dummy.
• Still open (Jagex, 22 Oct): a Jeweller's chisel can't make Ascension bolts, and the Ascension shard GE limit of 100 is too low.

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