Discord
Tendrils
Blood Tendrils
Info
Blood Tendrils is a threshold Attack ability, requiring level 75 Attack to use. When activated, it summons tendrils of blood to inflict a damage-over-time (DoT) effect on both you and your opponent, the damage in your favour. Blood Tendrils can kill players who use it at low health.
The DoT damage is proportional to the initial hit, which is 36-180% ability damage. The opponent will take 1/2 of the original damage with each hit, and the user takes 5/36. Both DoTs hit for four times, giving a total of 108-540% ability damage to the target and 25-100% ability damage to the user.
Freedom will clear the bleed if it was caused by another player, but it cannot clear the self-inflicted effect of this ability. The self-damage will continue even if the target is killed.
Because Blood Tendrils damages the user, it is advised to use it with caution. This ability deals relatively little damage to the player compared to Smoke and Shadow Tendrils, the magic and range counterparts. It is best used with Soul Split or a scrimshaw of vampyrism against weaker monsters with many life points.
Like most other damage-over-time abilities, the damage of this ability is not increased by:
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damage-boosting prayers/curses,
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additional damage applied by having boosted levels (i.e. from potions - note that this is a separate damage increase to the raw increase from having a higher level),
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damage increasing abilities like Berserk
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all variants of Void Knight equipment,
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the black mask and all slayer helm variants.
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An alternative to Blood Tendrils is Slaughter, which is also a DoT ability. Blood Tendrils deals 108-540% damage and Slaughter does 250-625%, provided the target moves after its first hit. One should note that their target must move for Slaughter to deal maximum damage.
Blood Tendrils, along with Smoke Tendrils, Shadow Tendrils, and Ice Asylum, is learned by reading the Codex Ultimatus, which is obtained by talking to the Archaeological expert after The Dig Site quest.
Like with all damage over time abilities, the player is free to use other abilities while Blood Tendrils does damage to the enemy. The same does not hold for channelled abilities like Assault. This essentially means in terms of long term damage per second and assuming the enemy stays alive during the duration of Blood Tendrils, Blood Tendrils is just as good as an ability which does 108-540% damage in one hit.
Shadow Tendrils
Info
Shadow Tendrils is a threshold Ranged ability requiring level 75 Ranged to use. When activated, it summons shadow tendrils to inflict several hits on you in quick succession, before dealing a single hit on your opponent for double the damage. Shadow Tendrils, along with Smoke Tendrils, Blood Tendrils, and Ice Asylum, is learned by reading the Codex Ultimatus, which is obtained by talking to the Archaeological expert after The Dig Site.
Because Shadow Tendrils hurts the user, it should be used with caution, especially against strong boss monsters or other players. It is best used with Soul Split or the Vampyrism aura against weaker monsters with many life points. Under normal conditions and with the best ranged setup, it is possible to hit exceeding 14,000 damage.
Shadow Tendril deals up to 5 hitsplats of damage to the user before dealing damage equal to the double the combined damage of those hit splats. Shadow Tendrils is guaranteed to do at least 2 hit splats to the player, has 90% chance to do the 3rd, 80% chance to do the 4th, and 70% chance to do the 5th (so around 50% chance to do 5 hits). The damage dealt to the target by Shadow Tendrils will be increased by Death's Swiftness, but the self-damage will not be increased.
Each hit taken deals 16.5-50% ability damage (33.25% average). Thus, each hit taken contributes 33-100% ability damage (66.5% average) to the final hit dealt, giving an overall average (with the chances of the 3-5th hit) of 274.246% ability damage - at a cost of 137.123% ability damage to the user.
This means that Shadow Tendrils is in reality a scaled combined damage of up to 5 hitsplats rather than a single hit. Shadow Tendrils has much less probability of actually dealing close to 500% damage compared to a hypothetical ability that simply did up to 66%-500% damage in one hit (given all hitsplats are discretely uniform distributed).
Shadow Tendrils is comparable to Snap Shot, another ability with large damage upfront. Snap Shot has a considerably lower maximum hit (330%) and higher minimum hit (200%), offering more consistent damage without the self-injury, but Shadow Tendrils offers greater KO potential.
Smoke Tendrils
Info
Smoke Tendrils is a threshold Magic ability, requiring level 75 Magic. When activated, it summons tendrils of smoke to inflict damage on both you and your opponent over time, the damage in your favour. Smoke Tendrils, along with Blood Tendrils, Shadow Tendrils, and Ice Asylum, is learned by reading the Codex Ultimatus, which is obtained by talking to the Archaeological expert after The Dig Site quest.
Smoke Tendrils deals four hits, each hit more powerful than the last. The damage the user takes is proportional to the damage they deal. The first hit deals 20-100% ability damage and does not damage the user; the second hit does 25-125% ability damage and hurts the user by 1/5 the damage dealt; the third deals 30-150% and hurts the user by 1/3 of the damage dealt; the fourth deals 40-200% ability damage and harms the user by 1/2 of the damage dealt. As with all tendril abilities, it is possible to die from Smoke Tendrils' self inflicted damage if the player's life points are low enough.
The overall damage dealt is 115-575% (345% average) ability damage dealt to the target and 45-175% ability damage dealt to the user. The damage dealt to the target by Smoke Tendrils is increased by Sunshine and Metamorphosis, but the self-damage is not increased.
Usage
Smoke Tendrils is generally best used when Asphyxiate and Wild Magic are both on cooldown. Smoke Tendrils is mostly compared unfavourably to Asphyxiate: Asphyxiate has no requirements, a shorter cooldown, better damage range (150.4-752%, 451.2% average), stuns the target, and does not damage the user.
Alternatively, if one cancels out of Smoke Tendrils as soon as possible (after the global cooldown), only the first two hits can activate, dealing a combined total of 45-225% damage (135% average), at a cost of 5-25% ability damage to the user. This makes Smoke Tendrils slightly more damaging than Deep Impact (40-200%, 120% average). This is the recommended way to ustilise this ability. However, it should be noted that the Flanking perk, when applicable, makes Deep Impact more damaging than Smoke Tendrils.
It is worth noting that each hit of Smoke Tendrils is classified as a critical hit regardless of the amount of damage they actually deal and that they benefit from Tsunami's effect that causes each critical hit to generate 10% additional adrenaline. Thus, if all 4 hits of Smoke Tendrils connect, using this ability will generate 40% adrenaline after use. Because of this, Smoke Tendrils can be used to build up adrenaline after using Tsunami.