To be able to fight the Beast, you'll need to complete the Summer's End quest. As with everything else, and due to the Beast's difficulty in particular, your best guide is first hand experience, with this text being a basic overview.
I recommend reading it twice, as I wrote it in the way the trip advances, which isn't necessarily makes it immediately comprehensive.
Preparation:
The Beast uses multiple attack types, none of which can be completely blocked by protection prayers, so high level Cooking-based food is your best option here, due to its ease of use. Saradomin brews pose an option for more experienced players.
There are no graves allowed inside the Beast's room, which limits your choice of equipment by a considerable margin.
Equipment:
Taking that into account, the equipment assembly guideline is 'cheap, and effective', for both rangers and melee, with rangers actually having more breathing space.
Two main items stand out however, and these are the Zamorakian spear, and ruby (e) bolts - something everyone will have to either buy or obtain. It's also recommended that each players in the team would bring either a bone dagger or a Darklight to user their special attack on the beast - both have a stab attack and an effect that lowers the target's Defence level.
Melee equipment suggestions:
Ranger equipment suggestions:
Inventory:
Similar to other repetitive raids, the inventory should be made out of a 'special' weapon, boosting potions (prayer and combat stats), lots of food, and a way to get back to the start point. In this regard, the Beast is perfect, as it takes no longer than 5 minutes (if you're really slow) to get back to the room's entrance refilled.
Melee and ranger inventories:
Track:
As mentioned, getting there is a piece of cake. You'll need to obtain a few Games necklaces, and just pick the wilderness volcano as a destination. Run a bit north and you'll reach the bank. Once ready, go down the stairs, do a U-turn and run north until you see a cave entrance. Get in and keep running east until you get to the Beast's room.
Battle:
Overview:
If you've some experience fighting other bosses (such as GWD ones), you probably remember the bold text in guides, saying that if you do something wrongly, you might get killed in two-three hits, while in practice, even 6 hits deaths are rare. The Corporeal Beast however, just does it - and it's something players will have to get used to. Getting killed by this thing is a part of the learning curve, and I'll be very disappointed if someone tries to imitate the RSOF dumbasses, bring an armour set and then lose most of it.
Anyhow, being level 785 (not important), having 2,000 HP (is important) and striking up to a 50 on players (for poopy and giggles) - fighting the Beast requires coordinated team work.
The team is usually made up from 8 players and up, out of it two are rangers, and the rest using a Zamorakian spear, as the beast is weak to stab attacks.
The melee fighters job is to stand around the beast, filling its southern and eastern boundaries, and stab it, and the rangers job is to take a greater distance and shoot it with ruby bolts, as well as stunning the dark core it poops (more on that later).
Attack Types:
The beast has three main attacks. The first is a straightforward melee attack, which hits high. The second is a single-target homing missile of different shapes, which hits very high, but its damage can be softened up with the magic prayer to hit high. The third is a non-homing 'splash' attack, which lands somewhere (usually on someone) and splits into smaller splashes. Each of the splashes has a 1 square radius, so if it lands near you, you might still get the full blast of it. The latter hits in the low 20s (can't recall the exact numbers), but thanks to its splashes, it can accumulate to the same amount of damage as the other attacks has.
Each of the attacks can eventually go up to a 50, so it's important to maintain HP up, and not to stay in the same spot (in regard to the splashing attacks), especially if you're the target.
Behaviour:
Understanding and exploiting the Beast's behaviour is the most important part in fighting it. In a logical advancement, it goes something like this:
- When initially lured, sometimes the Beast would still change its target to the player that just got in. I don't know what causes it, although I think it has something to do with the amount of players outside the room, but it's best that only one player gets in to check out the area after it's lured.
- Standing under the Beast for too long will make it stomp on you, which hits high.
- The Beast gets stuck on players, although this as well isn't 100% bound to work, and it might move a few squares south and players might get stomped. To minimize it as much as possible, players that leave the room are required to run north immediately. It's very important to have at least two players blocking its eastern boundaries to keep the room's safespot unreachable for the Beast.
- Every now and then the Beast will get locked on a player, and won't switch a target for about 5 attacks. You can endure these attacks by eating like a madman, but it's best to run to a safespot and come back once its switched to a different player.
- Eventually the Beast will poop the dark core. When the dark core gets in a radius of one square from any player, it'll start leeching life from you and transfer it to the Beast. If you think the core is jumping towards you, run to a different direction but try to stay at the same boundary to keep all of the safespots available. It's the rangers job to neutralize the core by 'stunning' it with emerald (e) bolts. It's recommended that only one ranger would be in charge of it (the more experienced preferably) to avoid killing it. Once the core is stunned, it's safe to walk by it - be very careful not to kill it, as stunning it isn't as easy as it might sound.
Safespots:
There are two safe areas available for this guide's strategy. The first is simply leaving the room and walking north afterward, so you'd be able to return to it without being stomped. The second is running north inside the room, and sticking to a wall where the Beast's attacks can't reach you. The latter is only available if someone's blocking the Beast from its east boundary (which they should).
Tactic:
Before anyone enters the room, a volunteer enters it first (for a brief second) and makes the beast follow him to the cave's entrance. After that, the volunteer should head north (a square west from the entrance) so that the beast would leave no space in its north and west boundaries. Once this is done, everyone can freely enter the room (but not attack) and start blocking it from every direction.
Melee fighters - set your special weapon to Stab and turn the special attack on, drink your boosting potions, turn the Protect Item, Protect from Magic and Piety prayers on, and wait for a call from one of the team members to start.
Rangers - set your special weapons to Stab as well, turn Protect Item and Protect from Magic on, and make sure you're wielding the ruby bolts. Boosters aren't necessary as you rarely hit the beast with standard attacks.
Once the call is given, start attacking it. Be sure to set your spears to Stab and crossbows to Rapid when you switch back to them.
Sooner or later, the dark core would pop up. It's up for the team to run away from it, while the ranger in charge switches to emerald bolts and tries to snipe it. You'll know that it's stunned once you see a green smoke-like animation under it. Usually it doesn't take more than one hit to stun it. When it has been done, the sniping ranger should stand in its radius, otherwise it'll start jumping again soon.
Once the Beast is wasted, pick your stuff up and exit the room. You can then choose whether you want to bank or just wait till the next spawn and the rest of the team.
Death:
It's something you shouldn't rely on, but there is an option to retrieve some of your items if you've died inside, depending on your speed, as the items stay laying there for about two minutes before disappearing.
To pull it off you'll need to run quickly to the bank and take a Game's necklace, a super energy potion, a teleportation tablet and about 10 pieces of food. Teleport as quickly as you can to the volcano, and just run back to the room. Once there, you'll probably have 10-20 seconds left before your items will disappear.
Final Notes:
* I'll say again that your best tutor here is first hand experience. This here is a pretty heavy read, and it's not worth much without trying out, killing it a few times, getting killed by it a few times, and getting a few drops.
* About the Protect Item prayer - when fighting with melee, you'll notice that prayer goes down fast (makes the Beast's HP go down fast as well). It's better to drink a single dose of prayer potion often, than drinking two once in a while, since you'll never know when the server might lag or you missing to pay attention at bad timing.
* The Beast is apparently an undead creature, which means that the Salve amulet should have an effect on it. I haven't tried it, nor seen anyone else try it, so it's up to you.
* Recommended levels - put in here last for the simple reason that anyone can come on clan events.
I recommend at least 80 HP for survival, 70 Attack to be able to wield the Zamorakian spear, 70 Ranged and Defence to be able to wear black dragonhide and 60 Prayer for breathing space.
Note that the Zamorakian spear cannot be compromised. It has no competitors in terms of speed and accuracy, and you'll have to either buy one or lend it out from some of our members.
