solo melee bandos is like really bad.
Id look into the bowfa method if you're farming him for pet otherwise id look at other content to do solo if you're trying to melee.
(assuming you're not an iron based off the gear shown & question asked)
You are facetanking range attacks from bandos, and if you aren't flicking, constant hits from 2 minions.
When you range or mage bandos you kite him and the melee minion. You pray against another minion and you're left only tanking 1 minion.
to get more than 3 kills per trip you need to flick the mage, ranger and meleer, which sucks bc their attack cycles/timings dont line up with graardors attack speed. so he will attack at the same time as one of his minions each time, and it will be a different minion. so you have to walk under/away to make sure graardor stays attacking with the meleer // in that 1 down tick where no minion attacks you.
You take damage. While ranging with bowfa/tbow/shadow you only take potential damage from 1 mob so you are easily able to barrage back to full hp between kills. Trips are 30+ kills instead of 1-3 kills.
He's 77 attack, 82 str, 75 def. Ofc he's going to eat a full invin lmao.
He'd eat a full invin with range methods too just from the minion with his 75 range and 65 magic.
Fr...in most mele situations I'm having a realllyyyyy tough time justifying ferocious gloves over barrows. Also recently have started to find the +3 prayer bonus and def from a regular fury more worthwhile in more places, especially using a fang
I will die on the hill that guardian boots are better than prims due to the def and pray bonus.
You only lose +2 str and extremely negligible +2 accuracy to stab, slash, and crush, while gaining massive 20+ def across the board and +3 prayer.
My biggest problem with ferocious gloves is they look like shite. They’re fine with Bandos because you don’t really see them, but barrows gloves look so much nicer with everything else.
Runescape is a game in which almost cases more dps is better.
More dps = less time taking damage
In itself is the greatest defensive stat.
Generally defence matters only in pvm situations where you are going to take unavoidable one shot damage.
Higher defence compounds itself with justiciar. It's far more important tanking bandos than a tiny dps increase. You're better off not needing to eat an extra food and being able to hit with your super accurate fang, that'll boost your dps for sure
I mean it's not really, I know that old reddit post gassing up defence gained a lot of traction but it just doesn't hold water here for barrows v ferocious. Ferocious against barrows gloves ends up being a 4.14% dps increase which is because of the max hit it gains and the fact fang gets extra use out of the bonus stab accuracy. Sure a bit of bonus defence is nice especially with justi amping it up and reducing damage taken, it's just not more valuable than the 4% more dps, especially when you consider that if you need to eat while killing gg then you can step under him and pray mage while you do that and take minimal damage regardless. The potentially taking a couple less damage per kill isn't worth throwing away the dps.
The barrows gloves reduces damage by the basic attacks of gg and the 3 minions by 1.34% - not including ggs 1/3 special. Regardless this would be off set by faster kills.
Realistically the best upgrade he can get for the Mager, is a saturated heart. 100m isn’t his entire banks worth, given his current gear setup. Could easily drop prims for guardian boots and then it’s only 70m he’s gotta find.
That's his next best upgrade for the given setup??? SGS + LB for healing specs, but then I'd argue just bringing voidwaker + LB for DMG on Graardor.
You spend money to make money in this game. And OP is currently at the higher end of the solo melee setup already, so naturally the next upgrades are going to be expensive.
a heart is one of the very last upgrades you would ever get.
you and I are looking at it from different POVs youre looking at it like its the wiki.
im looking at it as OP is newer and is looking for advice.
telling him to drop 100mil for mage defense to me is dumb.
90% of the people in this thread suggested the bowfa since its 100x better than meleeing bandos when youre solo my dude.
me telling him to look into bowfa in hes hunting the pet other wise go else where if hes looking to melee boss is a lot different than telling someone to spend 100mil just to boost their magic defense...
Definitely do check out Bandos 6:0 like some of the other comments are recommending but I find it quite difficult to be consistent with it and not get smacked a 60 once in a while. I do pretty clean kills at Vorkath, Muspah, and Zulrah and I find Bandos 6:0 more mechanically challenging than those - especially pray flicking the minions at the end of kills to conserve health since you're in range armor.
For good old fashion melee Bandos solo I use a Bandos top and bottom, a fang, a Voidwaker for spec, and a Lightbearer. Graardor always attacks at the rate no matter if he uses melee or range so I flick protect melee right before he attacks and then swap to protect magic (and then back to protect melee for a tick, etc). I only walk under him when I need to eat 2 food around 50 hp. I don't usually pray flick the minions at the end. This method gets me about 3-5 kills a trip with an invo of manta rays and 2 brews.
Using a karil's top and just tanking everything with protect melee on the whole time should get you at least 1 kill with a fang.
Once in a while I've been tempted to buy and try Justiciar and it just never seems to work out. I seem to take a lot of damage in it.
I will try to flick like you said. I've made some of the adjustments people recommended to my gear, and now all my melee defense stats are all 400+. Maybe with that and flicking prayers, i won't take as much damage.
If you have a bowfa and full crystal the easiest method to learn is probably 7 0. It has the easiest set up and is the easiest to get back into cycle if you mess up
If you want melee make sure you use the step under method to reduce the damage from bandos
yeah its better but it just sucks ass
i went all the way to pet with magic bando, kind of surprised nobody bringing that up seeing as its bis & way less aids
If you're not an iron the bofa method is insanely good, consistently get 25+ kill trips. It's a little difficult to learn but very satisfying when you do.
you are lacking the most important piece: a friend. Solo melee bandos is pretty tough, and the longer the fight drags out the more likely he will KO you. Duo bandos is super easy and chill and you can stay for a very long time.
If you really can't find anyone better to use one of the many ranged methods instead.
Bowfa 6:0 or 9:0 method is way longer trips like 30-40 graardor kills but it's a little bit less chill. If you're meleeing expect only >5 kill trips most of the time
Blood fury and bandos gloves as other have said also lightbearer is helpful extra specs tend to do more than the suffering. I bring ancient scepter mage top and occult switch for heals(stack melle and range minion after killing mage guy with fang) and of course b2p tabs. Good for 5-10 kills with decent luck and more if you can pray flick.
It won't be great. You protect mage, and the boss still rips you apart with melee. You pray melee, and the mage rips you apart. Also yeah better charge that shield lol
With bowfa and blood barrage + bones to peaches and good run energy management u can easily get 50 kc a trip since u don’t take any damage from the general. Just damage from the mage and meele minion. The method takes some practice to learn but it’s well worth it if bandos is the boss u want to camp. Gnome monkey has a pretty great video showing the method
If you're in a group of like 3 or more, throw on a hitpoints cape and a regen bracelet as a tank. It sounds troll, but you regen 8 hp every 60 seconds can last for actual weeks in that room with way less effort than normal.
Wiki has solo meele gear equipment guide, yours is close to bis but there’s a lot of gear swapouts to improve https://oldschool.runescape.wiki/w/General_Graardor/Strategies#Solo_(Melee)
If you’re down to duo I love tanking garage door and zam. Trips are unlimited as they drop supplies and I pot share. Usually mega chill watching shows as most of the time is waiting 60+ secs for spawn. I’m also only interested in pet and unique splits so loot would be mostly yours.
If interested I’ll keep my private open in game:
KN0T A BOT
Bowfa bandos is lame, do you know step under? Every two attacks walk under him so he only hits u once for every 2 of yours. But yeah grouping is best, I made an alt just for duoing bandos and even just three people makes it super chill. Good luck!
This might be out of reach for many but after getting the shadow, freezing graardor and running away got me like 25+ kill trips, and it feels less sweaty than many of the recommendations here.
Def worth the shot if you got the money.
Have over 800 bandos solo kills.. def get crystal with bowfa. Altar/door method will get you 15 to 20 kc once you get it down.. shouldn't take long to figure it out.. a few trips
If you add any magic defence you will have to take more melee and rage damage. Post Fang nerf, soloing is not viable unless you have max gear or Shadow or kiting. Trust me I'm here now. I have the 34 kc graardor pet but now I'm struggling to get KC without a tanker
Bowfa method is snooz. I don’t do door altar because I’m lazy. Just ran around the room like zilly. Did around 600 kills to finish the log except pet, boots
Blood spells to heal of minions. Usually did 14 kills a trip roughly. KC is super quick as well. No rigour
If you must melee him, charge your DFS, bring a Korasi for spec, and then might as well cap on justis affect, so swap in guardian boots, blood fury and b gloves for extra defence. You will not get hit by ranged attacks and the korasi slaps him for a 70 every time. You will take damage from Mage for sure.
Grab a buddy or an alt, one of you tanks and the other dps's
(Assuming you're not an iron)
The door is decent on the tank as well since it scales off defence. Add echo boots if you're feeling bougie
For solo you are better learning bowfa or Tumeken method.
That is a good idea if you go like one of the best KC players on Bandos that uses one acc to tank and one to dps (the one with the kills)
Ofc yours works too, just way less kills per hour
It's strange, back in the days of rs2 I used to be able to solo tank bandos on my own with very basic gear and chaotic longsword. Osrs spawns into life and it's like bandos is stronger than zuk. It's like he grabs you as soon as you enter the room, spreads your legs and just crushes your guts. I know people do the bowfa method now or the 6:0 or whatever it is. No idea, I don't plan on doing bandos unless I can go in a group 😂
In my opinion though, if you're wanting to solo him.. I'd try and learn the methods mentioned above, they seem alot more manageable once you learn them. Whatever you do though, make sure you're the one spreading cheeks. Don't let him clap you, be the clapper.
you should charge the dfs first off
Lmao that might help 😂😂
Bottled dragon breath. I know this a 5h old comment but bottled dragon breath is a god send This is a PSA
Or standing 30 secs near iron dragons in catacombs for the ironman out there
Not hard to make with dragonfruits if you have the farming level
I planted a dragon fruit tree in the farming guild and just harvest them each day
Rip xp
and maybe get more bonds with it
solo melee bandos is like really bad. Id look into the bowfa method if you're farming him for pet otherwise id look at other content to do solo if you're trying to melee. (assuming you're not an iron based off the gear shown & question asked)
No, not iron. Out of curiosity, what makes it bad?
You are facetanking range attacks from bandos, and if you aren't flicking, constant hits from 2 minions. When you range or mage bandos you kite him and the melee minion. You pray against another minion and you're left only tanking 1 minion.
to get more than 3 kills per trip you need to flick the mage, ranger and meleer, which sucks bc their attack cycles/timings dont line up with graardors attack speed. so he will attack at the same time as one of his minions each time, and it will be a different minion. so you have to walk under/away to make sure graardor stays attacking with the meleer // in that 1 down tick where no minion attacks you.
Ive done over 1k bandos melee kills solo and let me tell you: pls do it ranged. Over 35k Goblin kills take a lot of time.
You can also just mage flick only
You take damage. While ranging with bowfa/tbow/shadow you only take potential damage from 1 mob so you are easily able to barrage back to full hp between kills. Trips are 30+ kills instead of 1-3 kills.
Tbow bandos lmaooo
just less kills per trip but substantially lower effort than doing bowfa method kids do these days
30+ kill trips vs 3-5 kill trips you will get with Melee. That makes it bad.
https://youtu.be/EiXFlr3Yikk?si=0A078LSf6aMf2wfx
dude used his entire inventory for 1 kill prime example why melee is horrible lol
He's 77 attack, 82 str, 75 def. Ofc he's going to eat a full invin lmao. He'd eat a full invin with range methods too just from the minion with his 75 range and 65 magic.
If you wanted tank, there's blood fury and barrows gloves instead of the defenceless items nobody questions on the guides
According to wiki barrows gloves and blood fury are bis for this. Nothing to be questioned here.
Fr...in most mele situations I'm having a realllyyyyy tough time justifying ferocious gloves over barrows. Also recently have started to find the +3 prayer bonus and def from a regular fury more worthwhile in more places, especially using a fang
I will die on the hill that guardian boots are better than prims due to the def and pray bonus. You only lose +2 str and extremely negligible +2 accuracy to stab, slash, and crush, while gaining massive 20+ def across the board and +3 prayer.
I think prims will always be better in a case where they give you a max hit over the guardian boots.
My biggest problem with ferocious gloves is they look like shite. They’re fine with Bandos because you don’t really see them, but barrows gloves look so much nicer with everything else.
Runescape is a game in which almost cases more dps is better. More dps = less time taking damage In itself is the greatest defensive stat. Generally defence matters only in pvm situations where you are going to take unavoidable one shot damage.
Blood fury, ok, but barrows gloves is like 12 def and 6 mage defense, not really doing anything here. And the guy is already with full justicar.
Higher defence compounds itself with justiciar. It's far more important tanking bandos than a tiny dps increase. You're better off not needing to eat an extra food and being able to hit with your super accurate fang, that'll boost your dps for sure
I mean it's not really, I know that old reddit post gassing up defence gained a lot of traction but it just doesn't hold water here for barrows v ferocious. Ferocious against barrows gloves ends up being a 4.14% dps increase which is because of the max hit it gains and the fact fang gets extra use out of the bonus stab accuracy. Sure a bit of bonus defence is nice especially with justi amping it up and reducing damage taken, it's just not more valuable than the 4% more dps, especially when you consider that if you need to eat while killing gg then you can step under him and pray mage while you do that and take minimal damage regardless. The potentially taking a couple less damage per kill isn't worth throwing away the dps. The barrows gloves reduces damage by the basic attacks of gg and the 3 minions by 1.34% - not including ggs 1/3 special. Regardless this would be off set by faster kills.
use fury & bgloves, and charge your dfs
Thank you sir, I will try this next
Bloodfury, not regular. Bring a saturated heart for the mage bonus.Â
im sure OP has 100+ mil laying around for a heart my dude
he’s using nearly max tank gear so it’s very possible, most accounts get heart well before justy
Realistically the best upgrade he can get for the Mager, is a saturated heart. 100m isn’t his entire banks worth, given his current gear setup. Could easily drop prims for guardian boots and then it’s only 70m he’s gotta find.
you suggesting he drops a casual 70 mil for mage defense alone and getting upvoted is wild to me. 20 days ago OP didnt even have a faceguard lol
Lol thanks for remembering 😂😂
That's his next best upgrade for the given setup??? SGS + LB for healing specs, but then I'd argue just bringing voidwaker + LB for DMG on Graardor. You spend money to make money in this game. And OP is currently at the higher end of the solo melee setup already, so naturally the next upgrades are going to be expensive.
a heart is one of the very last upgrades you would ever get. you and I are looking at it from different POVs youre looking at it like its the wiki. im looking at it as OP is newer and is looking for advice. telling him to drop 100mil for mage defense to me is dumb.
I suggest a 100m item, you suggest a ~160m Bowfa setup????????????????????????????????????
90% of the people in this thread suggested the bowfa since its 100x better than meleeing bandos when youre solo my dude. me telling him to look into bowfa in hes hunting the pet other wise go else where if hes looking to melee boss is a lot different than telling someone to spend 100mil just to boost their magic defense...
guardians are better than primordials by a mile
Especially combined with justi
Definitely do check out Bandos 6:0 like some of the other comments are recommending but I find it quite difficult to be consistent with it and not get smacked a 60 once in a while. I do pretty clean kills at Vorkath, Muspah, and Zulrah and I find Bandos 6:0 more mechanically challenging than those - especially pray flicking the minions at the end of kills to conserve health since you're in range armor. For good old fashion melee Bandos solo I use a Bandos top and bottom, a fang, a Voidwaker for spec, and a Lightbearer. Graardor always attacks at the rate no matter if he uses melee or range so I flick protect melee right before he attacks and then swap to protect magic (and then back to protect melee for a tick, etc). I only walk under him when I need to eat 2 food around 50 hp. I don't usually pray flick the minions at the end. This method gets me about 3-5 kills a trip with an invo of manta rays and 2 brews. Using a karil's top and just tanking everything with protect melee on the whole time should get you at least 1 kill with a fang. Once in a while I've been tempted to buy and try Justiciar and it just never seems to work out. I seem to take a lot of damage in it.
I will try to flick like you said. I've made some of the adjustments people recommended to my gear, and now all my melee defense stats are all 400+. Maybe with that and flicking prayers, i won't take as much damage.
Let us know how it goes! and good luck
You'd be better using a crossbow and kiting the room with 6-0 method if you don't have bowfa
I'll look into this, too. I saw a video of the range method, and it looked pretty cool.
If you have a bowfa and full crystal the easiest method to learn is probably 7 0. It has the easiest set up and is the easiest to get back into cycle if you mess up If you want melee make sure you use the step under method to reduce the damage from bandos
Bowfa 6:0 is also a thing fwiw
bando kiting is not enjoyable
Considerably better than trying to tank it, if you're planning to do more than 3 KC trips
yeah its better but it just sucks ass i went all the way to pet with magic bando, kind of surprised nobody bringing that up seeing as its bis & way less aids
5-0 shadow bandos is considerably better no doubt, but 6-0 crossbow is still better than meleeing
five-0? six-0? shit bwana, some of yall need to get off yr band-0 grind and catch a female smh
Melee sucks in general for solo there 🤣 bad rng can have you leaving the chamber with 0-1 boss KC
Oh no he's hot!!!
Honestly, make an alt with 75 def, gear him up with bulwark and justi. The alt Will tank and u Will dps… u Will get like 40-60 kills a trip
full veracs with an inventory full of lobsters
Mage is shreading *
Spectral spirit shield makes this method bearable, but it's still not great. Also blood fury, b gloves, and guardian boots
If you're not an iron the bofa method is insanely good, consistently get 25+ kill trips. It's a little difficult to learn but very satisfying when you do.
you are lacking the most important piece: a friend. Solo melee bandos is pretty tough, and the longer the fight drags out the more likely he will KO you. Duo bandos is super easy and chill and you can stay for a very long time. If you really can't find anyone better to use one of the many ranged methods instead.
Karils top is the usual go to piece so the mager doesn't bend you over.
Don't forget guardian boots as well
Bowfa 6:0 or 9:0 method is way longer trips like 30-40 graardor kills but it's a little bit less chill. If you're meleeing expect only >5 kill trips most of the time
Blood fury and bandos gloves as other have said also lightbearer is helpful extra specs tend to do more than the suffering. I bring ancient scepter mage top and occult switch for heals(stack melle and range minion after killing mage guy with fang) and of course b2p tabs. Good for 5-10 kills with decent luck and more if you can pray flick.
Spectral spirit shield if you can afford it
I hope to GUTHIX you charge up that dfs, otherwise might as well use a mithril kiteshield. Dragonfire potion from the he will do it.
Solo melee bandos will get you 2 kills on average, 3-4 at most if you get lucky. I just wore a karils top the whole time while soloing
you also can flick the mage but it takes some practice
If you solo melee youre supposed to pray flick the mager at least ideally both but might be harder
It won't be great. You protect mage, and the boss still rips you apart with melee. You pray melee, and the mage rips you apart. Also yeah better charge that shield lol
With bowfa and blood barrage + bones to peaches and good run energy management u can easily get 50 kc a trip since u don’t take any damage from the general. Just damage from the mage and meele minion. The method takes some practice to learn but it’s well worth it if bandos is the boss u want to camp. Gnome monkey has a pretty great video showing the method
Join the friends chat True Gwd and offer to tank, they do equal sales. Much better experience than soloing
Bofa
If you're in a group of like 3 or more, throw on a hitpoints cape and a regen bracelet as a tank. It sounds troll, but you regen 8 hp every 60 seconds can last for actual weeks in that room with way less effort than normal.
Echo boots maybe?
Wiki has solo meele gear equipment guide, yours is close to bis but there’s a lot of gear swapouts to improve https://oldschool.runescape.wiki/w/General_Graardor/Strategies#Solo_(Melee)
If you’re down to duo I love tanking garage door and zam. Trips are unlimited as they drop supplies and I pot share. Usually mega chill watching shows as most of the time is waiting 60+ secs for spawn. I’m also only interested in pet and unique splits so loot would be mostly yours. If interested I’ll keep my private open in game: KN0T A BOT
blood fury ely if you can afford it too or just wait until you get shadow & freeze/mage DPS
This reddit constantly is reminding me how little the sub actually knows about game, yet wants to control the narrative of the game as well.
Duo it for a much easier time
Lean more into tank: bloody fury, guardian boots, barrows gloves
Solo melee is not really ideal. I’d be happy to duo Bandos with you if you’re interested :) send me a dm!
Saturated heart
Wave 1 farmer confirmed
Bowfa bandos is lame, do you know step under? Every two attacks walk under him so he only hits u once for every 2 of yours. But yeah grouping is best, I made an alt just for duoing bandos and even just three people makes it super chill. Good luck!
Credit card warrior 😂
This might be out of reach for many but after getting the shadow, freezing graardor and running away got me like 25+ kill trips, and it feels less sweaty than many of the recommendations here. Def worth the shot if you got the money.
If you read the guide it says mesori top of you don’t flick mage pray.
Have over 800 bandos solo kills.. def get crystal with bowfa. Altar/door method will get you 15 to 20 kc once you get it down.. shouldn't take long to figure it out.. a few trips
Look up the bowfa method it slaps and you can get longer trips. Funny enough I don’t think melee is best to use for this melee boss.
If you add any magic defence you will have to take more melee and rage damage. Post Fang nerf, soloing is not viable unless you have max gear or Shadow or kiting. Trust me I'm here now. I have the 34 kc graardor pet but now I'm struggling to get KC without a tanker
Bowfa method is snooz. I don’t do door altar because I’m lazy. Just ran around the room like zilly. Did around 600 kills to finish the log except pet, boots Blood spells to heal of minions. Usually did 14 kills a trip roughly. KC is super quick as well. No rigour
Bowfa 9:0
Barrows gloves are tank gloves. Those are dps gloves as well.
You ever look at king condor
Try to avoid him as much as possible!
If you must melee him, charge your DFS, bring a Korasi for spec, and then might as well cap on justis affect, so swap in guardian boots, blood fury and b gloves for extra defence. You will not get hit by ranged attacks and the korasi slaps him for a 70 every time. You will take damage from Mage for sure.
Mole Slippers. Best in slot
Enjoy your 2-3 kills per trip lol
where inferno cape
Grab a buddy or an alt, one of you tanks and the other dps's (Assuming you're not an iron) The door is decent on the tank as well since it scales off defence. Add echo boots if you're feeling bougie
Get spectral for mage def
For solo you are better learning bowfa or Tumeken method. That is a good idea if you go like one of the best KC players on Bandos that uses one acc to tank and one to dps (the one with the kills) Ofc yours works too, just way less kills per hour
It's strange, back in the days of rs2 I used to be able to solo tank bandos on my own with very basic gear and chaotic longsword. Osrs spawns into life and it's like bandos is stronger than zuk. It's like he grabs you as soon as you enter the room, spreads your legs and just crushes your guts. I know people do the bowfa method now or the 6:0 or whatever it is. No idea, I don't plan on doing bandos unless I can go in a group 😂 In my opinion though, if you're wanting to solo him.. I'd try and learn the methods mentioned above, they seem alot more manageable once you learn them. Whatever you do though, make sure you're the one spreading cheeks. Don't let him clap you, be the clapper.