Zaryth

Zaryth is the hardest fight in the realm: 3,500 hitpoints at Faloden, and the throne the god wars were fought under. He opens only once you have killed all four generals — Warlord Grondar, Commander Zephyra, Krylth the Defiler and Skyrender Kharra — at least once each.

He attacks every three ticks and picks a new style for every single attack — the same style for everyone fighting him, so the whole party reads one prayer off the screen. Ranged hits for up to 60, magic for up to 40, melee for up to 35, and his defences shift with the style he is in, so there is no prayer you can set and forget. Every few attacks he summons a sentinel — a Blade, Bolt or Rune Sentinel, 150 hitpoints, hitting up to 15. Leave them standing and they pile up: he fields up to four at once, and every one of them is swinging at you. Sentinels drop nothing and do not count as kills, but clearing them is the only thing that keeps the incoming damage down, and another always follows.

Fight him as a group and he attacks everybody at once. There is no safe back line: each member rolls their own accuracy and protection prayer against the same swing, and only his sentinels stay on one target. You may only attack one enemy at a time, but every enemy attacks you — turning to cut down a sentinel does not stop Zaryth swinging. Skipping the fight costs 20 credits.

His table averages around a million coins a kill before uniques, in large rune stacks, food, potions, onyx dragon bolts (e), seraphic arrows, herbs, ore and master clue scrolls. The uniques are the best melee gear in the game:

• Zaryth Helm, Platebody and Platelegs (1/256 each) — best in slot for melee accuracy, defence and damage.
• Zaryth Vambraces (1/128) — the best ranged gloves in the realm, and the only Zaryth unique you can also pull from the Vaults of Xyren.
• Zaryth Crossbow (1/256) — the strongest crossbow in the realm. Its Empty Bolt special cannot be turned aside: it always hits, for up to 150% of your ranged max.
• Zaryth Hilt (1/256) — Zaryth never drops the godsword itself, only this. Attach it to all four other godswords at Smithing 99 to forge the Zaryth Godsword, the hardest-hitting two-handed weapon in the game. Its Empty Lord's Cleave strikes for up to 150% of your max hit and restores half the damage it deals. Forging consumes all four godswords, so it is a one-way trade.

Zaryth is modelled in 3D, and it is the one boss that animates differently depending on how it is attacking: it lunges when it comes at you in melee, and strikes from where it stands when it switches to ranged or magic. Watching which it does tells you the style of the swing before the damage lands. In the open world it also burns the colour of the phase it is about to swing with — red for melee, green for ranged, blue for magic — so you can set the prayer from across the room. It has an instanced open-world room there, the Empty Throne, where a group fights it live in its own private copy of the vault.