There are several monsters that you will be unable to kill in Old School Runescape without investing in Slayer skills and grinding tons of Slayer XP. Otherwise, these creatures are immune to normal damage, and can’t be slain. One of these creatures is the Dust Devil, which requires a level 65 slayer to be able to destroy them.
The Dust Devils have various tactics, abilities, and involvement in both Slayer tasks and quests, and this guide is going to cover all of that for you. Soon, you won’t be worried whenever you see one of these zipping towards your character, because you will know how to deal with it through this Slayer guide.
What Is A Dust Devil?
Dust Devils are slayer monsters who can be found in the Smoke Dungeon and the Catacombs of Kourend. This cave abomination also requires a facemask to fight it, otherwise it will blow up dust and ash to blind and disorient you. This reduces your stats and makes combat much harder to deal with.
Additionally, as you rise up the ranks and gain more Slayer points you can occasionally see Choke devils. This monster will spawn after you receive 150 reward points from a Slayer master following a Slayer assignment and unlock the Bigger and Badder achievement, and you will need a face mask or Slayer Helmet.
They have Kharidian Desert-style dust just like the dust devils, and if unprotected it will give you both damage and drained stats.
What Quests Have Dust Devils?
You will first encounter Dust Devils during the quest ‘Desert Treasure.’ They are in the western part of the Smoke Dungeon and once you gain access to the well, you will be able to explore the dungeon and battle your first dust devils.
Thankfully, the Smoke Dungeon requires a facemask to explore due to the smoke, so you won’t suffer the damage from the Dust Devils. These Dust Devils are combat level 93 and have 105 hitpoints with a max damage of 8.
You can also find the Dust Devils moving around the Catacombs of Kourend, although they are at 110 combat level with 130 hitpoints and a max damage of 10. They do magic damage, but are easily defeated with good magic defense gear, and can also be blocked with protect from melee.
These are the only two locations where you can find Dust Devils, making them perfect for Slayer tasks as you won’t just run into them in the wild. Instead you can prepare to battle them.
How To Best Defeat Dust Devils
One of the best ways to defeat dust devils is to pray with protection from melee, and then hammer them with ice burst and ice barrage. Both of these spells are available at level 70 magic and level 94 magic respectively.
Ice burst can immobilize targets for 10 seconds, can hit multiple targets in a 3×3 grid, and is learned during the Desert Treasure quest. Since that quest is often the first time you will encounter Dust Devils, you might be able to test the effectiveness of the spell right away as long as you have the right runes.
Ice Burst is also a pretty common spell in PvP arenas and minigames due to its crowd control capabilities, low level requirement, and low cost. You can use all these advantages to buy yourself some time when fighting Dust Devils due to their low magic defense.
Ice Barrage is the next level up and it can immobilize the enemy for 19.2 seconds at 30 damage a hit. When used against Dust Devils in the cramped Catacombs of Kourend for a Slayer task, you can level up a lot of Slayer experience and can do it fast every hour.
Granted, the high cost of the runes necessary to cast the spells is a cash drain, but the chance of rare loot drops can offset this.
You might barely break even when fighting Dust Devils this way, but the Slayer Experience is going to shoot up when you look at the XP per hour. Especially since all their melee, only damage can be 100% negated with protect from melee, so you can cut them down with the confidence they can’t do anything to you.
Grouping and Safespotting
If you want to kill the Dust Devils quickly, you can use one of two strategies. You can group them together or ambush them. The grouping strategy has you attack the devils with a fast ranged weapon and let them come towards you in a small room.
Once you clump them together, hit them with a barrage of ice and take advantage of the AoE attack, and they will shatter without too much difficulty.
You should be able to do some decent damage on the hit, but if you want to do more then make sure that you are wearing gear that will increase your max magical damage.
This includes Ancestral robes, the Occult necklace, and the Bracelet of Slaughter. You can also use the Kodai wand to increase your damage and receive infinite water runes as well.
You can also ambush them from corridors and shoot or cast at them without the Dust Devil’s seeing you. This is slower than grouping them around, but if you don’t want to turn on the prayer it’s the best you can do.
Chinning
Chinning is a term for using the Chinchompa bomb weapon to attack Dust Devils in the Catacombs of Kourend. You can either buy them from other players or use your hunter skill to catch them in box traps. You throw the chinchompa and just like the ice spells, you can hit targets in a 3×3 area.
You can treat them exactly the same as you would with an ice spell, running into the room and attracting a lot of attention, bunching several Dust Devils together, and then throwing a bomb. The only downside is that the chinchompa doesn’t freeze or immobilize the enemies that they hit.
The red chinchompas can hit 11 enemies in a 3×3 grid, and the black chinchompas can hit 12 enemies in a 3×3 grid.
The one problem with relying on chinning, for all its upsides, is that the damage done is for the entire group. If the blast hits for ten damage on one enemy, it will do ten damage to all of them, and the same goes for zero damage.
If you get lucky with the damage, then you can easily cut down the dust devils, and if not you might need to try the ice spells. Try comparing both methods together and see what you prefer whenever it comes to raw guaranteed damage.
Still, if you have protection from melee you aren’t worrying about the Dust Devil’s killing you, it’s just a matter of your patience and the investment. The time and gold investment for getting runes and chinchompas is something you need to consider.
What Can They Drop?
If you battle enough Dust Devils, you will find they drop a lot more than just bones upon death. Two of the rarest items they can drop are the Dust Battlestaff and the Dragon Chainbody chestplate. Let’s break those rare items down.
The Dust Battlestaff is a dust staff that provides the player with unlimited air and earth runes when equipped as well as the ability to autocast. You can wield it if you have 30 attack and 30 magic, and you will need this staff if you wish to upgrade it to the mystic dust staff.
The only real change between the two is the requirement for wielding is 40 attack and magic, and the better melee bonus if you find yourself having to hit someone with the staff.
Dragon Chainbody is the best chainbody in the game and it is also one of the rarest. Not just in terms of the dust devil drops, but also the rest of the ways you can get the armor. Still, despite the extreme rarity, or perhaps because of it, other bonuses from different sets of armor can overpower the defensive bonuses of the chainbody really easily.
You can make two variants of the dragon chainbody armor. One uses the dragon chainbody ornament kit to make a gold trimmed version of the dragon chainbody armor.
This golden version has no stat changes at all, and is purely cosmetic. If you have a dragon lump and dragon metal shard, along with 90 smithing you can forge a Dragon Platebody.
The platebody requires 60 defense and also is non-degradable, offering some of the best bonuses of any armor in the game. Other than that, however, it doesn’t have any strength bonuses. It can also be combined with a dragon platebody ornament kit to create the gold trimmed dragon platebody which is also purely cosmetic.
If you care about these rare drops or any other drops, that can be a strong incentive to farm Dust Devils. Even if you don’t you can still sell them and buy more runes to continue to cast the ice spells and lessen the cost a bit.
Dust Devil FAQs:
Question: Do I Need A FaceMask/Slayer’s Helmet?
Answer: Yes, this is not a recommended piece of equipment, but something that is completely required. Without some type of face protection, you will suffer increased damage to stats and loss of health as the dust blinds and disorients your character.
Even if you manage to slay a dust devil or two, you will be overcome by a war of attrition. Additionally, to encounter dust devils for the first time inside of the Smoke Dungeon, you need to be wearing a mask or the smoke will kill you.
You can get the facemask from a Slayer Master for 200 coins, and you need to be a level ten Slayer to wear. You can also use telegrab to get a mask that is inside a locked cage in Kourend Castle if you want to get it for free. You will also receive a facemask whenever you start the ‘Desert Treasure’ questline.
A facemask is one of the parts that is required to craft a slayer helmet, and if you have a Slayer helmet then you do not need a separate facemask as it is incorporated for you.
Slayer helmets also allow you to negate the screams of banshees, the smell of aberrant specters, and gives you the ability to fight sourhogs with reinforced goggles.
Question: How Do You Fight Smoke Devils?
Answer: One aspect of the Dust Devil family we haven’t touched on are smoke devils, as smoke devils are inside of the Smoke dungeon inside of a multi combat area. These Smoke Devils require a slayer helmet or a facemask to fight as well as an active slayer task and a 93 slayer level.
Smoke Devils do use magical ranged attacks rather than the melee attacks of Dust Devils, so you will need to use the Protect from Missiles prayer to negate their attacks. Still, hammering them with chinchompas and ice bursts and barrages will allow you to overcome their defenses.
The Nuclear Smoke Devils and the Thermonuclear Smoke Devil boss can also be fought the same way, although the Smoke Devil Boss does merit a guide all its own.
If you find yourself heading into the Smoke Dungeon, arm yourself with the same equipment used to battle Dust Devils and you will be fine. As long as you remember to defend yourself from missles rather than melee attacks.
Question: Are Choke Devils Different In Their Drops?
Answer: Not really, most of the choke devils have the same drop table as the regular dust devils, so aside from being harder to kill and having more health than the dust devils, you will get the same drops.
Additionally, you can also use the same tactics and strategies against Choke Devils that you use against the Dust Devils. You will need to cut through their higher health level, but other than that they shouldn’t give you too much trouble.
They are also armed with melee only attacks, and the protection from melee prayer will 100% negate their damage to you.
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