What to Expect in the OSRS Wilderness Boss Rework

January 25, 2023, is bringing the hugely anticipated Wilderness boss rework. This represents a vast update both from a PvM perspective and a PvP perspective since the new bosses will be a new hotspot in the Wilderness for group PKers and anti-PKers alike. Besides this, the reworked bosses bring new rewards that you will find helpful.

A Short History Lesson

Jagex announced their plan to rework three Wilderness bosses in August 2022 with the design blog. On top of this, Jagex opened a few beta worlds so that you could get a feel of the new Wilderness bosses. In September, Jagex gave another update on the Wilderness boss rework and briefed the community about the rewards these stronger bosses would bring.

This was followed up by a fair amount of community feedback and afterward by a poll blog and a poll in October. The poll specifically asked about the new rewards to be introduced with the reworked bosses, but further community feedback revealed that one of the weapons needed to be in line with what was wanted.

At the beginning of November 2022, Jagex made another poll linked to the Wilderness boss rework, asking about the basic weapons already in the game and which would receive upgraded forms from the new Wilderness bosses. In early January 2023, Jagex teased the community one last time before the official launch and included more updated info about the Wilderness boss rework in their Secrets of the North blog.

Group or Solo?

With the reworked bosses, Jagex has considered both the original intention behind these three Wilderness bosses and, at the same time, accounted for how players were already killing them. At a practical level, this means that you’ll always be able to choose whether to kill with a group of friends or solo because you’ll have both strong group variants of the bosses in deep Wilderness and solo-able versions in under level 30 Wilderness.

This is crucial because, under level 30 Wilderness, you can always use enchanted Dragonstone jewelry, such as the inexpensive Ring of Wealth or Amulet of Glory, to teleport back to safety. You can even go cheaper than that with Slayer Rings that also function up to level 30 Wilderness, or you could use the free Royal Seed Pot, but this one will take you farther away from a bank than the Amulet of Glory or Ring of Wealth.

The solo bosses will represent a safer method to obtain the uniques from the bosses, but, at the same time, will bring you less GP per hour than the stronger variants.

Talking Layers

From the design phase, Jagex has stated that the three bosses will be removed from the Wilderness’s surface and placed within their own layers. However, in their January announcement, they confirmed that the group and the solo bosses would have their own layers.

A huge controversy regarding the big bosses’ layers is that Jagex originally stated and tested a multi-combat zone inside the layers in beta. However, after feedback from players, Jagex decided that the bosses’ layers would be single-plus areas, like the Revenant caves. This has stirred much controversy amongst players, especially since you’ll have the ability to teleport out of the cave.

The Dragon Pickaxe

The Dragon Pickaxe is a huge change closely linked with the Wilderness boss rework. Unlike the Dragon Axe and the Dragon Harpoon, the Dragon Pickaxe could only be obtained as a unique drop in the Wilderness. This has given a tough time to a particular category of loyal players: the hardcore ironman players, who could quickly lose their status by getting killed by main accounts while trying to obtain this unique. Jagex finally agreed to give some safe alternatives to players who would rather have a long grind for a unique than risk dying in the Wilderness.

As such, Jagex has officially announced that starting on January 25th, both the Kalphite Queen and King Black Dragon will drop the Dragon Pickaxe at 1 in 400 and 1 in 1000 rates.

If you hate bossing, you’ll also be able to obtain the Dragon Pickaxe from the Fossil Island exclusive Volcanic Mine. You’ll be able to buy ore packs that have a chance to contain a broken pickaxe, which you’ll need to repair at a high cost of 2.5 mil GP. This is Jagex’s way to preserve the pickaxe’s relatively high value.

The Spoils

Even if the Dragon Pickaxe was all that interested you from the Wilderness bosses, now you’ll have more reasons to go in the Wilderness and kill their new variants as they will drop even more nice stuff. The wilderness bosses could drop their respective revenant weapons. Still, even though that’s a decision that is not yet official, you’ll be happy to hear that you’ll be able to obtain upgrades for each of the revenant weapons: Thammaron’s Sceptre, Accursed Sceptre and Webweaver Bow.