Nex is the general of the Zaros Godwars Faction in Runescape 3. She was once one of the strongest bosses in the game, but has since been superseded with various new content releases and bosses. She is best known for dropping some of the zaros armours and weapons. Torva, Pernix, Virtus, which were some of the best melee armours, range armours and magic armours in the game when they were originally released and still remain the best for tier 80.
How to get to Nex in RS3?
Nex is located in the Ancient Prison, which can be found in the God Wars Dungeon. The frozen key must be created to gain access, this requires players to kill the four other god wars dungeon bosses – Armadyl, Bandos, Zamorak and Saradomin. Players can teleport to the God Wars Dungeon area by the following methods:
- Boss Portal at War’s retreat
- Boss Portal at Max Guild
- God Wars Dungeon Teleport
- Trollheim Teleport and run north to entrance
- Trollheim Farm Teleport and run east to entrance
Players can also run from burnthorpe, this takes significantly longer, but if it is your first time and you do not have access to other methods it may be necessary.
Gear & Presets for Nex
- Use your best range gear
- Use your best overloads
- Book of law
- Essence of Finality or reaper necklace
- Have dark bow spec in eof
- Nightmare guantlets to snipe while moving
- Bolt switches for minions and after blood phase
- Vigour for using special attacks, dbow and ecb
- Enhanced excalibur for healing
- Powerburst of vitality for ice prison
- Magic notepaper for brew/restore drops
- Vuln bombs
- Adrenaline urn (preference)
Basic Preset
Can change anything out for your best range gear.
Experienced Preset
- Dominion mines for killing minions
- Asylum surgeon ring for using thresholds
- Runes for disruption shield
Best in Slot Preset
- Expensive spice amulet to heal 50 more lifepoints per blubber
- Dominion mines for killing minions
- Asylum surgeon ring for using thresholds
- Runes for disruption shield
Nex Mechanics
Nex has 5 phases, Smoke, Shadow, Blood, Ice and Zaros each phase has 40,000 life points. After each phase you will need to kill a minion before starting the next phase. It’s best to make an instance and teleport out after every kill so that Nex doesn’t deflect range prayer on the second kill. The five phases are as follows:
Smoke Phase
First special attack is the virus, it drains your stats every time you cough this can be ignored with overloads. The second special attack Nex will say “There is… No Escape” and if you are standing in the crossways in the middle of the room you will dragged to the center and hit a 4-5k hit, have your prayers disable and be stunned for three seconds.
During this phase Nex’s magic attack has a chance to drag players towards her and stun them and disable prayer for three seconds. It is advised to use anticipate right before the kill and save freedom in case you get dragged towards her. Her attack cycle is as follows: Virus -> 5 attacks -> no escape – > 5 attacks – > repeat.
Strategy
- Anticipate at 14 seconds to avoid getting dragged
- Save freedom in case getting dragged
Shadow Phase
During this phase Nex will yell “Fear the shadow!” and a shadow will appear under you if you don’t move out of the way it will hit you for 3-4k damage, note that the first shadow appears right after nex phases into shadow phase the second right after her next special then every 3 attacks after that. Additionally, Nex will yell “Embrace the Darkness!” turning the room darker and placing a shadow under you, stay out of Nex’s melee range to avoid getting bled 400-700 damage per tick.
Strategy
There’s two ways to deal with Nex’s melee bleed can run her while using abilities or you can equip a melee helm and boots if you are really struggling with this phase. Note that when wearing sirenic armour a tier 90 helmet and tier 70 boots are required for this to work.
Blood Phase
After phasing Nex into blood phase she will yell “A siphon will solve this!” any damage done to Nex in this time will heal her. Furthermore, Nex will do 3 auto attacks then say “I demand a blood sacrifice!” this will turn the player red and if you don’t move at least 7 squares away you will be dealt 1k damage and heal nex 10,000 life points, the best way to deal with this is to escape or surge away.
Note all bleeds on Nex during this phase will heal her and her attack cycle will be as follows during this phase: Siphon -> 3 auto attacks -> sacrifice -> 3 auto attacks -> repeat.
Strategy
- After phasing into blood you have time to do two defensives then start channelling your snipe, your snipe will hit nex just as she stops siphoning.
- Or you can just wait for Nex to raise her wings to the top the starts channelling snipe.
Ice Phase
The order of Nex’s special attacks depends on the last special she did on Blood phase, if siphon was her last special attack Nex will start with Ice Prison, if her last special was sacrifice she will start with Ice Barrage.
For Ice Prison, Nex will yell “Die in a prison of ice!” the player will be trapped in a prison of ice for 6 seconds stunning the player and disabling protection prayers then dealing 6,000-7,000 damage, the best way to deal with this is either anticipating before or using freedom to break the stun eating up and using a powerburst of vitality to double your life points. For Ice Barrage, Nex will yell “Contain this” and run at you and about 3 seconds later icicles will appear around nex, if you are beside nex you will take 3,500 damage be stunned and have prayers disabled.
The attack cycle during this phase will be as follows: First special -> 3 attacks -> second special -> 3 attacks -> repeat.
Strategy
- After phasing Nex, use anticipate this will stop you from getting stunned from either the contain this special or the ice prison.
- Save freedom in case you get prisoned/
- When you get prisoned eat up and drink Powerburst of vitality.
- Using resonance during ice prison will prevent you from getting stacked from prison + nex auto.
Zaros Phase
After phasing Nex into Zaros her life points will go up to 73,333. During the phase, Nex’s magic attacks will do increased damage, up too 5,500 if not protected against. Moreover, Nex has a soft hit cap, reducing damage over 2,000 by 75%. She also uses soulsplit healing her 2,500 if she lands an attack and after she dies she will do damage in a 5×5 square around her.
Strategy
- Best abilities to use during this phase are abilities that hit low and often over high damage abilities because of the soft hitcap
- Bleeds, rapid fire, deadshot
- Dragonstone bolts are also good during zaros phase
- Try not to get hit with magic attack without protection prayer
General Tips for Nex
There are a few general rules and tips you can stick to when killing Nex that will help you get faster, more efficient kills. These are as follows:
- Use ruby bakrinimel bolts during Smoke, Shadow, Blood phase
- Switch to hydrix or dragonstone bolts for minions
- Need to place mines as soon as possible or else they wont do damage
- Minions have a soft hitcap over 1000 damage, for this reason its best to use bleeds and rapid fire
- Using ricochet to last hit minion will also phase Nex if she is standing close
- Best to pray magic except during shadow phase, Nex will start using range attacks after “Embrass the Darkness”
- Have time to do one defensive after phasing Nex to next phase before she is attackable again
- Use surge right after using an ability to not waste a global cooldown