Nightmare Zone (NMZ) ended up being a place I was told could be some decent combat experience to level up some skills. I ended up discovering I was not quite ready for this place. It ended up eating up a chunk of the gold I've been saving up for some upgrades.
I do love the concept of NMZ. You get to go in and fight boss-like creatures you have already defeated in quests. While many might choose to only finish certain quests to try and ensure bosses, they want to fight will be the only ones they get. Since I've just been going ham on quests in general. This would end up creating some interesting times for me ahead.
I’m also willing to admit I'm far from fully understanding NMZ. I spent a bit over 80k in gold and several attempts trying to learn what I could. I’m sure at some point I'll return when I have some higher combat levels and some slightly better gear. For what I can only hope will be much better runs than what I was getting this time around.
NMZ has a couple of different modes to it. Since I wanted a rumble dream for the experience gains, I went with that quite quickly. Since it costs 22k gold per attempt I load 100k gold into the box that it pays from and loaded on into it.
That is when I realized mistakes were made and I was out 22k quicker than it takes some people to blink. It turns out I'd need to be farming something a bit easier to start with to get things going. While also having a better understanding of how this all works.
One thing I realized I was lacking right off the bat that I needed to get some was points to spend on potions while doing far more challenging things in NMZ where I wanted to grind for experience. Each dose of a potion alone costs 1k-1,500 points.
So, I ended up going into an Endurance dream. Outside of just test runs that cost you nothing at all. For only 1k gold I'd get to face each of the quest bosses I've taken out till I finished them all or died trying. It would end up being more of the dead trying.
It’s not that I was not able to defeat these creatures at all before. Some of them did feel like they were quite more powerful than when I had to deal with them. Some of them I've also not dealt with in forever, so I was just not prepared to face them again.
At least inside there are runes and some other objects that are provided. Some require certain tools to either deal with the massive amount of damage they deal or to even deal damage to them in the first place.
I was also going in full melee. I know in the past some of the kills I got were done with range using a safe spot. I have no idea if trying to safe spot here is possible. It looks like it would be a challenge to even find a spot for each fight.
The first couple of kills were easy. They barely did any damage to me and if things kept up like that I'd be racking in some much-needed points to buy potions for what I wanted to do.
The number of points I was going to earn per hour was also so lacking I was somewhat hoping things would become a bit harder. The sooner the better. I did however not want it to be too hard otherwise all the food I could bring in would end up quickly getting consumed with me going down in spiral of death.
I then ran into the dragon Elvarg. While I did have the shield equipped. I quickly discovered that the damage was not reducing enough of the being dealt to me. This thing was murder to someone in full melee trying to deal as much damage as he could before running out of food.
The next time I'd end up going back into NMZ I had bought a point within the combination of using the shield would reduce his fire damage down to nothing on me. I was hoping after that I'd get some fights I could as a melee deal with.
I’d end up going as far as I could till, I would run out of food each time and then get killed. At the very least I was racking up some points. It has not a lot. It would, however, be better than nothing.
So, I decided it was time to enter another rumble NMZ. This time I even blackballed some creatures I did not want to face off with. I went mostly anything I could fight with melee. It took a little time to investigate things. I, however, thought for sure this time around I'd be going in and getting some nice experience gains.
Rumble is also quite different than endurance runs. For one you get to use potions. Points I had farmed points for. Points that I even bought a single use of each for. Potions that I forgot to pick up before blowing another 22k gold.
The other thing I quickly learned was I would not be killing fast enough to be dealing with a couple of things at a time. Even more so when some of the tougher creatures I would end up getting rather early.
I also needed to learn about things called power-ups. Power-ups would spawn in at random and they could provide quite some powerful things. One of them that I ran into was white and it killed everything. I also noticed I did not gain any points, which was something I was rather needing.
One that seemed to allow me to gain points and experience was purple. I’d see it going around causing damage over time to anything that would be close to me.
After a couple more attempts, I decided to leave the place for the time being. I needed some time to think over what I had learned and how each of my attempts went. I am a little displeased with the costs, which I could see as a reason keeping me away for a while.
Hopefully next time I'll end up picking up my potions before going in. It might even be best if I end up spending some decent money on better food. It’s a shame I'm so far away from being able to fish and cook my sharks.
I also might need to consider taking my list of what I was willing to fight and blacklisting a few more creatures on it. While sure I could defeat many of these one at a time with a full inventory of food. Once I got a couple of them and no power-up nearby to deal with the situation. Things quickly came to an end.
Screenshots were taken and content was written by @Enjar about Old School RuneScape
