Jagex continues its promise on making each front of Elder God Wars Dungeon unique, with the third front, The Croesus Front, featuring the first skilling boss in RuneScape 3. The front, sent by the Elder God Bik, will be releasing on September 27th, 2021. Details of the new front was revealed on the developer livestream.
The Covid boss
Let me explain because the lore behind the boss is quite interesting. During the second age of Gielinor, a new time of fungus was discover by Zaros’ Empire. Scientists from the empire believed they could turn it into a weapon: a botanical plague to use against enemies of the empire.
After experiments on slaves and augmenting its abilities, Croesus grew powerful. There was a massive breach and were ordered to stop their work, but they continued.
Continuing their work led into another breach, infesting the city. Anyone that tried to stop it would only die and their corpse would serve to fuel it.
Even after destroying miles of the city to contain it and the empire’s Legion were almost completely wiped out, the infestation continued. Eventually, Lord Zaros was forced to intervene and quarantined the entire district and and buried it.
However, Bik found Croesus and used it to assault the cathedral. Seren, another of the gods, sent Varrock and Falador guards to help fight against it, but were powerless. Now, it is up to us to destroy Croesus.
Croesus Front
The Croesus Front is designed to up a true piece of skilling content, as even the army itself consists of fungal growth on corpses that are essentially skilling nodes.
There are Woodcutting, Fishing, Mining, and Hunter nodes. The nodes mutate, which is indicated by particle effects. These have higher level requirements, but offer better rewards.
Credit: Jagex Credit: Jagex Credit: Jagex Credit: Jagex
More content will be included in the Croesus Front that have not been detailed in the reveal.
RuneScape 3 skilling boss
The new skilling boss in RuneScape 3 is Croesus, which cannot be killed by weapons and can only be driven back and weakened until the fungus goes dormant. The developers aimed to make it different from skilling bosses that already exist in Old School RuneScape.
Throughout the fight, Croesus will drain your stats instead of damaging you. This will empower Croesus and if enough mistakes are made, the encounter will result in a fail.
Although Croesus is a group experience based around skilling (similar to minigames), it will still feel like a boss and will have that sense of urgency. Players cannot die, however.
The boss can be massed with a maximum of 50 people, but having more people may be more difficult due to its mechanics. The recommended group size is 8 for this boss. It may be possible to solo, but the boss was designed to be a group boss.
The boss can be faced in a private instance like other bosses, but there is also a public instance that players can join in on. Ironman players can group with non-Ironmans in a public encounter.
Regardless of the fight, you will only earn rewards proportionate to your contribution to the boss.
Rewards
A plethora of rewards are available from Croesus.
- Tier 90 Magic tank armour
- Skilling Offhands
- Tier 95 Arrows
- Seed bag
- Scripture of Bik
- Another upgrade for Shadow Pontifex Ring
The T90 Magic tank armour is incredibly different from the Raids armour, which already features T90 tank armour. The Cryptbloom armour comes with a set effect the grows with each piece you have equipped, minimum of 2 pieces equipped.
| Pieces equipped | Effect |
| 2 | Incoming magic damage is reduced by 12% Incoming melee damage is reduced by 8% |
| 3 | Incoming magic damage is reduced by an additional 6% Incoming melee damage is reduced by a further 4% These bonuses are doubled if your primary spell is earth type |
| 4 | Every time you take damage, you have a 6% chance to infect your target with Croesus’ death spores Croesus’ death spores will increase the target’s damage taken from behind by 10% This is useful, as the tank will have the monster’s aggro, allowing other group members to damage from behind |
| 5 | When you fall below 20% HP, you’ll gain a fungal shield (scaling with armour rating and Defence level) for 15 seconds. The shield has a 120 second cooldown. |
A new rune pouch will also be released, which requires the regular Large Rune Pouch. The Grasping Rune Pouch can hold up to four rune types and grants a +4 Prayer Bonus. Additionally, it has a 25% chance to not use runes when using combat spells.
This rune pouch will be extremely useful in conjunction with the Fractured Staff of Armadyl, a reward from the Nodon Front. Its special attack causes an extra spell to be fired for each critical hit, which eats up a lot of runes.
Two new skilling offhands are also part of the rewards.
| Offhand | Effect |
| Tagga’s Core Hammer | +10% critical strike chance and +35 critical strike damage when Mining. When mining ores, you’ll have the chance to receive Deathspore Arrowtips. The higher the ore level, the higher chance to get arrowtips and the more you’ll get. |
| Sana’s Fyrtorch | +6% chance when Woodcutting and 20% chance to get an extra log. When cutting trees, you’ll get a chance to receive Splintering Arrowtips. The higher the tree level, the higher chance to get arrowtips and the more you’ll get. |
There are two new Tier 95 arrows introduced in the Croesus Front.
| Arrows | Effect |
| Splintering Arrows | Any attack within 4.2 seconds of using Greater Dazing Shot also applies Puncture stacks. The maximum number of puncture stacks will be increased from 10 to 13. |
| Deathspore Arrows | Boosts critical chance by 3%. For each critical hit, gain a stack of Feasting Spores. At 5 stacks, your next Ranged ability that would normally cost adrenaline will be free when cast within 9 seconds of gaining the buff. 60 second cooldown, but each critical while using the arrows reduces the cooldown by 1.8 seconds. |
The Seed Bag is an item that stores up to 40 different types of seeds up to their max stack. The Seed Bag is craftable with materials collected from the Croesus encounter.
And, with all the other Elder God Wars Dungeon rewards, there is an upgrade to the Shadow Pontifex Ring and a God Book for the new front.
The next tier of the Shadow Pontifex Ring reduces the stat drain during the Croesus encounter.
The Scripture of Bik provides Nature’s Veil. When using non-combat skills, you will occasionally reveal a catalyst of alteration, which can be interacted with for rewards. Upon gaining the rewards, you will receive a 5% XP boost for 1 minute.
And that’s all the current information regarding the new skilling boss in RuneScape 3.
