Dagannoth (Lighthouse)/Strategies

You'll quickly find that the Evolution of Combat brought along changes to monsters, and this very noticeable to the lighthouse Dagannoth. They are now far more deadly for the unprepared, and will cut your trip very short if you go in assuming you can kill them as you used to. Momentum and Soul Split simply are NOT sufficient to offset their damage, you will NEED to use abilities to stay alive. Unlike pre-EoC, the main damage you will take are from the ranged mobs, they are also more prevalent, thus you should gear up with them in mind. Using the area for general training is ill-advised.

Players should be very careful when using a Dwarf multicannon, as a lot of Dagannoth will attack. Indeed, so many Dagannoth can attack that they appear to overload the server, preventing players from moving or picking up items, and often forcing multiple clicks on the ability bar. One-click teleports do still work, which makes them a good item to carry just in case.

Note that Protect from Missiles or Deflect Missiles reduces all ranged damage to 1. Protect from Melee or Deflect Melee on the other hand, is not as effective against melee attacks. Therefore, praying ranged is recommended.

Shield (no food used) with cannon

 * Helm: Full slayer helm > Slayer helm > Black mask
 * Body: Verac's brassard > Bandos chestplate
 * Legs: Verac's plateskirt > Bandos tassets
 * Weapon: Chaotic longsword > Chaotic Claw > Abyssal vine whip > Abyssal whip > Dragon scimitar
 * Amulets: Amulet of fury > Amulet of glory
 * Gloves: Goliath Gloves > Culinaromancer's gloves 10 > Culinaromancer's gloves 9
 * Aura: Reverence
 * Boots: Steadfast boots > Bandos boots > Dragon boots > Rune boots
 * Ring: Onyx ring (i)/Sixth-Age circuit > Warrior ring (i) > Berserker ring(i)
 * Offhand: Any spirit shield > Blessed spirit shield > Dragonfire shield > Dragon kiteshield/Dragon square shield
 * Cape: TokHaar-Kal > Fire cape > Skill cape

Inventory
 * 6 Prayer potions
 * 2 Prayer renewals
 * 2 Overloads (if you can make it) or 2 super sets (the best you can use)
 * Steel titan > Iron titan > Unicorn stallion > Bunyip (and scrolls)
 * A few pieces of food (just in case)
 * One-click teleport
 * Cannonballs

Strategy
 * 1) Make sure your prayers are set to include either Protect from missiles or Deflect Missiles, use your best damage-increasing melee prayer on the side (ideally: Turmoil)
 * 2) It's pivotal to use shield-based abilities here: Anticipation and Resonance/Preparation (all basic) are great abilities to reduce damage taken, Revenge (threshold) allows you to deal more damage and Reflect (threshold) reflects damage to all attacking dagannoth. Finally, Rejuvenate (ultimate) should be used if you see your LP drop to half.
 * 3) Use basic melee abilities to deal more damage and increase your adrenaline. Don't forget to bind your Summoning button to your ability bar as well if you bring offensive-based scrolls (like Iron/Steel titan's)
 * 4) Bind your prayer potions to your ability bar and keep a close eye on your prayer points while down here.

Melee with Balmung/Saradomin godsword

 * Helm: Full slayer helm > Slayer helm > Black mask
 * Body: Verac's brassard > Bandos chestplate. Alternate: Proselyte hauberk
 * Legs: Verac's plateskirt > Bandos Tassets. Alternate: Proselyte cuisse
 * Weapon: Balmung > Saradomin godsword
 * Amulets: Amulet of fury > Amulet of glory
 * Gloves: Goliath Gloves > Culinaromancer's gloves 10 > Culinaromancer's gloves 9
 * Aura: Vampyrism
 * Boots: Steadfast boots > Bandos boots > Dragon boots > Rune boots
 * Ring: Onyx ring (i) > Warrior ring (i) > Berserker ring(i)
 * Offhand: not applicable
 * Cape: TokHaar-Kal > Fire cape > Skill cape. Alternate: Soul Wars Cape > Ardougne Cloak

Inventory
 * Unicorn stallion or Bunyip. N.B. Swallow whole scrolls are very tough to use in a timely way, don't bother.
 * 6 Prayer potions. Alternate: 1-2 Prayer potions, 1 Super-Defence potion, extra 2-4 food.
 * 2 Prayer renewals
 * 1-2 Attack, strength and defence potion sets (the best you can use)
 * 4-5 pieces of food (just in case) - Monkfish or better recommended.
 * One-click teleport

Strategy
 * 1) Make sure you're praying either Protect from missiles or Deflect Missiles (which means no Soul Split). Rapid heal is a good companion prayer, which doesn't drain much but adds up.
 * 2) Turn OFF auto-retaliate, or you can't fight effectively. The flip side is that you'll need to target and re-target enemies after they die, costing you attacks. The alternative is a relative inability to fight coherently, as you chase attackers randomly.
 * 3) Use your 2h abilities. Cleave (basic) is handy if you target the middle of a line of ranging dagannoth, and Hurricane (threshold) and Quake (threshold) as much as possible when surrounded by dagannoths. Position yourself so this happens often.
 * 4) If using a Saradomin godsword, enough damage can often be generated using these abilities to keep players' prayer up, using the Alternate Prayer equipment strategy which boosts your Prayer bonus past 20. With that combination, it's possible to do an entire slayer task at med-high level with a net loss of under 200 prayer points total, and no prayer potions. Take at least 1, though, just in case.
 * 5) Players using a balmung must rely on their familiars' healing abilities, extra damage channelled via Vampyrism, and prayer via more prayer potions.

Notes
 * Using bonecrusher and a suitable dungeoneering necklace will maintain prayer points (even using Rapid renewal), freeing inventory slots for other purposes.
 * With good enough stats and armour a bunyip provides sufficient healing, without the vampyrism aura.
 * The Dagannoth do eventually become non-aggressive, making the area easy, until they become aggressive again.
 * With the charming imp equipped, as well as the bonecrusher, much time can be saved picking up drops. A number of the seed drops are valuable, and should not be missed.

Magic
The level 112 melee dagannoths are weak against air spells. As magic armour offers high melee resistance, players may use magic to kill level 112s while negating almost all damage from level 110s with Protect from Missiles or Deflect Missiles.

Because of this, this area is good for high-level magic. Barraging the Dagannoths is a useful strategy, specifically using a combination of Blood Barrage and Protect from Missiles or Deflect Missiles. As long as you keep the prayers active, a majority of the damage taken in from the melee attacks is healed with the effects of Blood Barrage.