With this latest update, the damage soaking ability has been added to much of RuneScape’s armour, which means they will also now absorb a percentage of any damage you receive over 200 life points. Previously, only three Dungeoneering rewards had this ability (the farseer, eagle-eye and chaotic kiteshields), but it has been applied to many other shields, headgear, body and leg armour, in all three combat disciplines.

This ability has been added in line with the combat triangle, so you’ll find that magic armour is generally better at soaking melee damage, for instance. Also, how much damage you can soak is cumulative based on all the armour you have equipped, which should add an extra dimension to choosing what combat gear you wear.

All armour stat tables in the Game Guide have been updated with this new information, so you might wish to take a look there first. Most of these tables are found in the Skills category (particular in Magic, Melee and Ranged), but there are also some found in the Combat, Activities and Miscellaneous Guides categories.

To complement this update and provide further feedback during combat, you'll find we've also made extensive changes to the hitsplat system, as we first mentioned in the Damage Controlblog.

The main features of the new hitsplats are:

• New animated hitsplat graphics.
• Damage type is now displayed next to the hitsplat to help identify what damage you are taking - melee, ranged, magic - and hence what prayer/curse might help reduce or prevent the damage.
• Further damage types – you can now distinguish between cannon, deflected and other damage (e.g. desert heat, dragon breath).
• ‘Max hit’ splats – if you hit your max hit (or above it via use of special attacks) you'll see a different, more vibrant hitsplat that will show off your combat ability.
• ‘Faded’ splats – any damage caused or taken by either you or your familiar will be shown by a vibrantly coloured hitsplat. Any damage caused or taken by other players will be shown by a faded hitsplat. This allows you to see what damage you are taking or dealing if you are in a group, so now you'll really know if you were the big damage dealer in your group!
• If your armour helps you soak damage, you'll have another splat displayed alongside the damage, so you can see how much each hit has been reduced by.

Mod Chris L
RuneScape Content Developer

In other news...

Whenever the right-click menu is so long that entries are grouped together, you can now simply left-click on a group to perform the default action for that item (without having to go down into the sub-menu). For instance, on dropped items, the default action would be 'Take' (one at a time, to mimic the old functionality). We've also corrected the ordering of grouped right-click menus.

Duke Horacio has realised that players may want to have multiple anti-dragon shields, so will now offer another shield to any who ask.