Pest Control Guide

Overview

Introduction

Pest Control is a fun player vs. NPC combat-based minigame in which you can win bonus experience on top of any experience you gain while fighting. To start the Pest Control minigame (you must have a combat level of 50 or higher), make your way to the Void Knights' Outpost. The designated worlds for Pest Control are worlds 53 and 69.

To get to the Void Knights' Outpost, go to the southern dock in Port Sarim, (not the most southern – that's where the trading ships are), where you will find a Squire. The easiest way to do this is to teleport to Port Sarim using the Lodestone network. You can also use a void knight seal to teleport here at the cost of one charge.

Talk to the Squire and she well send you by boat to the Void Knight Outpost, which has conveniences such as a bank, magic shop, anvil, and a friendly NPC who will fix your Barrows armour. After you are prepared for battle, head down south to one of the three boats to begin your journey.

Each boat has a specific combat level requirement. The lander will automatically set sail after 25 people are in it, or every 3 minutes if there are less than that. However if there are less than 5 players, the boat will not sail at all. If there are more then 25 people, 25 of them will be randomly chosen to go. If you are not chosen, you will gain a priority level. If you have a higher priority level then others (default is 0, highest is 4), you will have a higher chance of being picked for the next game. While you are waiting in the lander, the top left corner of the screen tells you how long until the next departure, how many people are in the lander and how many commendations you have.

The flag in the bottom right hand of the screen tells you which lander you are on. The Novice (east-most) lander has a requirement of 50+ combat. The Intermediate (central) lander has a requirement of 100+ combat. The Veteran (west-most) lander 150+ combat.

Your objective in this game is to help the Void Knights fight off evil creatures which come out of 4 portals. Your victory can be achieved in one of two ways:

• Keep the Void Knight alive for 20 minutes, or
• Destroy the 4 portals from which the evil creatures exit before they can kill the Void Knight.

Note: You must do at least 5000 points of damage to receive any reward points.

It's very rare that a game will go on for 20 minutes. Even lower-level players should be able to knock out the portals in 5 minutes or less (assuming there's 25 of them). If you are playing Pest Control as a way of getting fast combat experience safely, then it is in your best interest to go for the portals as fast as possible.

Preparing for Battle

Players can choose to fight with either range, magic, or melee. While all forms are useful in this event, melee will require the least amount of consumable resources. If you are a lower level in combat, you may want to bring some food, but nothing better than lobsters should be necessary. The bank is easily accessible between rounds, and rounds are too short to provide a need for sharks. If you die in this minigame, you will not lose your items!

Since you will not lose items if you die, wear your best armour and bring your strongest weapons. If you range or mage, the arrows or runes you use are entirely dependent on what you are willing to spend. As said previously, no class of fighting appears to be any more useful than the other, which is why most players use melee.

You can bring food, although it isn't needed to be successful. The field rations available from the outpost store can be used on the Void Knight to heal him. This can be useful if a game is running long and the knight's health is getting very low.

If you do die, you'll be resurrected in the docked lander, with all your stats restored, and can run straight back into the game again. You *should* use prayer the entire game, since it will be completely restored (along with your life points) at the end of the game. Some people use protection and stat boosting prayers, but other prayers (including Retribution if you about to die) can also be helpful.

While the game is in progress, the top right corner of the game window will display the health status of the portals. If there is a grey semi circle in the portal picture, it means that the portal's shield hasn't dropped yet. The top left corner displays the Void Knight's health status, the amount of damage you've done and the time left to play.

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The Pests

When you arrive on the island, the evil creatures (Pests) will start coming out of the portals, trying to kill the Void Knight, whom you wish to protect. Here are the creatures which you will face:

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Strategies and Tactics

Obviously, destroying the 4 portals is a much faster and easier task than trying to keep the Void Knight alive for 20 minutes. While it is helpful to have a few players killing the Void Knight's attackers, a majority of players should be focusing on the 4 portals. Here is a breakdown of what each player should do.

Portal Destroyers

Those killing portals should head as soon as possible to the portal which is first to be unshielded. The first unshielding occurs 15 seconds into the game. If any Spinners are in the vicinity of the portal they must be killed as quickly as possible as they can heal the portals. This is also a priority as when a portal is destroyed, any nearby Spinners will explode, poisoning you and nearby players. Also, if you see a Ravager appear, you should kill it before it can break down gates. Otherwise, your full attention should be on destroying portals, and you should not even bother attacking the other unspecified NPCs. For the best chance of success have all Portal Destroyers attack and destroy each portal as it becomes unshielded. A new portal becomes unshielded every 30 seconds. Moving as a large team should allow you to destroy the current portal before the subsequent portal becomes unshielded.

Note: The Brawlers will block your movement, so it may take extra effort to get around them. Fortunately, Brawlers will present the same problem for the other pests, as well. This makes them ideal for use as walking barricades to protect the knight, which brings us to...

The order of the portals follows a set of rules, so you can follow these to speed up getting to and killing the right portal:

• The southwest portal is never first to drop.
• The second portal is always on the other half of the island, if the island were to be cut down the middle from North to South. That is to say, if the first portal is either East or Southeast, the second portal will be West or Southwest.
• The third portal is the other portal on the same half as the second portal.

Note: There is one exception to this rule: with the combination "East, Southwest, Southeast, West".

Void Knight Protectors

You can bring a hatchet and hammer to repair gates. Repairing barricades and gates earns you 5 crafting xp per log and 1000 damage towards the minimum 5000 damage you need to earn points. Make an effort to keep gates closed and attack almost anything you can that hits the Void Knight. You may even want to have one or two protectors to the south, on the other side of the gate, to attack any defilers that may be ranging the Void Knight.

The Void Knight gets healed 600 points each time a portal is destroyed. They can also heal themselves a few points at timed intervals.

If you want to have an assured victory, have about 5-8 of your 25 people be Protectors. Have 2 of them stand in front of the East and West gates, open or closed, to block the NPCs that walk in (as they can not walk through you). These players will get experience fighting them off as they come to the gate, so their position is not a fruitless one. Alternatively, these players can lure Brawlers onto the platform to block for them. Have the others kill the various shifters or other creatures that managed to get through by some way or another, and protect the southern gate.

This will greatly help protect the Void Knight while the other players work on portals, making you never have to worry about if the gates are broken down. Make sure the 2-3 players blocking are in their position the entire time. If they move, the line will break up and they will not be able to block your enemies alone. Remember, if you are blocking at the East or West gate, you can ONLY attack the NPC adjacent to you. Ignore the Ravagers and Splatters that may wander through you, and just attack the enemies in line as they approach you.

These forms of blocking will entirely prevent any monsters from the East or West gates, and any from the South gate if blocking with a Brawler, attacking the Void Knight. Of course, the exception being those pesky teleporting Shifters.

Players blocking the East or West gates can choose to do so outside with gates closed or inside with gates open. In either case, if you are not blocking a gate then do not go near them. Also, do not kill brawlers being used for blocking. Walking through these players or killing these Brawlers allows the enemies to pass, so even though you may be trying to help repair a gate or get a little xp/zeal, your actions could be counter-productive.

Prayer for all Players

At the end of each round all your stats are restored, so don't bother to conserve prayer - spend it! If you are meleeing, you can switch on curses such as Soul Split and Turmoil for the healing stat boosts, or players that have completed Kings Ransom Quest can use Chivalry or Piety in the normal prayer book. Rangers can use Anguish, Hawk Eye or Eagle Eye and Mages can use Torment, Mystic Lore or Mystic Might. If you die, your prayer will also be restored so if you can do it, use Retribution or Wrath to make sure you go out in style! Your run energy will also be restored at the end of the round, so go ahead and run - walking wastes precious time.

Advance Tactics

Taking a range of weapons is advised, as every portal has a different weakness. Use this to deal more damage and speed up each game.

Players with 45+ Ranged may wish to use Chinchompas as their exploding attack will deal a massive amount of damage to the monsters surrounding the portal. The attack damages up to 9 monsters in a 3x3 area surrounding the targeted monster.

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Rewards

Upon success, you will receive some Void Knight Commendation Points. Each boat gives a different amount of points per victory:

• The Novice boat gives 2 points.
• The Intermediate boat gives 3 points.
• The Veteran boat gives 4 points.

You can also obtain Commendation Points by playing the Conquest Minigame.

After you have 1000 points, you cannot collect any more. With each point you may choose experience in any combat skill (note, Slayer is NOT a combat skill), or you may choose to purchase Void Knight armour/weapons, certain summoning charms*, or herb, seed or mineral packs. Just go to any of the Void Knights wandering around the Outpost and right click on him/her to get the option to "Exchange". When spending your points, you will see a table like this:

 

If you exchange 10 points at once, you get a 1% bonus on top of the per-point amount. And if you exchange 100 points at once, you get a 10% bonus. For example at level 99 attack, 100 points would get you 106100 experience. 10% of 106100 is 10610, so that's 116710 (106100 + 10610) experience in total. It's like getting 10 points for free! Points can only be spent 1 at a time, 10 at a time, or 100 at a time, so spending them individually would involve a *lot* of clicking! For these reasons, it's worth saving up until you've got 10 or 100 points and using them at once on one skill.

Alternatively, points can be used to purchase Void Knight armour. The Void Seal can be worn as an amulet and, when operated, deals damage to all Pests adjacent to you. It can be used 8 times before being destroyed, and can also teleport you to the Void Knight Outpost for the cost of one charge. You can also receive this as a random drop to be added to your inventory for killing a void pest (as well as the potential for extra commendations, if you're not at the limit). It is worth noting that wearing the complete set of Void Knight armour (that is, one of the helmets plus any other three pieces) gives a +1% accuracy and +3% damage bonus to the respective combat style, and +3% accuracy and +5% damage for the Elite items.

*To purchase the Void Knight Deflector you must have a rank of 1250 or higher in the Conquest Minigame.

Other options include purchasing seed or herb or mineral packets, which consist of a certain number of random seeds or herbs or ore of a minimum level.

† After you have completed The Void Stares Back quest, you can get an updated version of the Void armour known as Elite void. To do this you will need to talk to Commodore Tyr on the Void Knight outpost about swapping your Void knight robes for the elite versions. You will need a to bring the Void robe and 100 commendations to exchange them. The colour of your elite armour will depend on your decisions in the Void quest series. If you wish to change the colour, talk to Commodore Tyr and pay 100k. You can choose between white (guardian), grey (justiciar) or black (executioner). Elite Void armour requires level 42 Attack, Strength, Defence, Constitution, Ranged, and Magic, and level 22 Prayer to wield.

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Hybrid Armour

Hybrid armour is a possible reward from playing 5 of the combat based mini-games. Each of the armours require level 85 in three of the following skills: Strength, Defence, Magic, and Ranged. There are three sets of this armour, which are called Battle-mage (Mage/Melee), Trickster (Range/Mage) and Vanguard (Melee/Range). Whilst in the normal game, these sets of armour are purely cosmetic. However, in Castle Wars, Fist of Guthix, Soul Wars and TzHaar Fight Pits, they deal additional damage to other players. This damage is calculated per item of armour.

Although Hybrid armour is obtainable in Pest Control, the boosts from the armour DO NOT apply in the game itself. Each of the games only give a certain piece of each of the three sets. By playing games of Pest Control you have a random chance of gaining a pair of boots of your choice from the sets. Hybrid armour is not tradeable.

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Summary

In summary, you'll want to make sure that you can destroy all the portals FASTER than the Void Knight dies. Keep the gates shut and kill any Ravagers and Spinners you see, and you should be on your way to a nice healthy reward. Also, if you were planning on going with friends, do not expect to always be teaming up with them. The boat sometimes fills up with 25 players quickly, and it is likely that you will have trips which separate you from friends who are also there.

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Credits

Original Guide by: oddfaery2

Revised Guide by: Omnitec

Thanks to: Adam007, Baffler, Beethovens29, Bojangles, Cheshy458, dcba41, eyehawk78, Grasle, Jaffy1, Juhniz, Kwimbob, Ikbendebest0, Lady_Shahdie, mAdshadow, manoman, Mchainmail, misplacedme, Omnitec, Rien_Adelric, SaidinWoT, Taraji, TheLeonardo, vox1st, Wizard111111

Last Updated by: Arceus

Last updated: 10-Nov-2014