Zalcano OSRS Guide: Slaying The Imprisoned Demon

Most of the time, whenever you clash with an enemy in a boss fight, the focus is on doing more damage to your enemy than they are doing to you. You arm yourself with your best weapons, your best armor, and all the buffing and healing potions that you can spare. However, for some bosses, this strategy doesn’t work and Zalcano is one of those bosses.

Rather than defeating her through the strength of your sword arm, you defeat her through the strength of your pickaxe! This boss is made of stone and is immune to traditional combat damage, so you will need to use your skills to defeat her. Here’s our guide on how to do it.

How Do You Defeat Zalcano

You can find Zalcano imprisoned beneath Prifddinas after the final Elf Quest quest “Song of the Elves” where you access it for the first time. You can teleport to her location through the trahearn district and then discover that she is immune to all of your attacks! However, after leaving the battlefield and talking to the elves, you discover that she does have a weakness.

You will need to level your mining, smithing, and runecrafting skills to create imbued tephra from the tephra inside of Zalcano’s chambers. To make the imbued tephra, you will need to mine tephera from the chamber, either from regular rock formations or growing ones that will yield more, and then head over to the furnace in the prison.

The furnace will allow you to create refined tephra, which you can then take to the altar in the same prison to get imbued tephra. The entire mining and refining process will get you mining and smithing experience as you work. After you have some imbued tephra, you will be able to defeat Zalcano.

Battling Against Zalcano

Once you have some imbued tephra in your arsenal, you will be able to start fighting Zalcano, with the damage you deal is dependent on your smithing and runecraft skills. You can either strike at her while you have the imbued tephera in your inventory, or simply throw them at her.

The attacks damage her armor by 10 hit points each, and her armor has 3000 hp. Now, if you manage to stand on a blue symbol that occasionally gets summoned into the room, the damage increases to 15 points for each blow. After you shatter her armor, you will need to equip the strongest pickaxe you have and start swinging away. That does actual damage to her health and eventually, you will be able to slay her.

What Are Zalcano’s Moves?

Zalcano has 6 different attacks that she will use throughout the fight, and you will need to watch out for all 6 of them! Sadly all of Zalcano’s attacks are typeless as well, so you won’t be able to use prayers to reduce the damage.

First, she will stomp on the ground and cause rubble to fall from the ceiling, and you will see pebbles and dirt fall before the larger boulders crash down. Make sure to step at least one tile away, and you won’t take the 40+ damage!

She will then cause blue and orange symbols to appear on the ground. You can stand on the blue symbols to attack Zalcano with your Imbued tephera to do more damage, but the orange symbols will cause you to take damage and also slow down as you step through it.

Next, like every other boss, she will summon a golem to attack you and support herself. If the golem manages to get close to her, then it will heal her armor based on its health. So make sure to attack the golem with the imbued tephra in your inventory to kill or at least weaken it before it reaches her. If you manage to kill the golem, then it will drop even more imbued tephra for you to use.

She will also fire a red ball of energy at a red rock formation, and that formation will teleport away into a new location. If you happen to be nearby during this attack, you will take damage from the teleport.

If you cause her enough damage, then Zalcano will fall over and then rise again, creating a shockwave that causes damage to you and also destroys any normal tephra nearby. Finally, her last attack is an unavoidable barrage of pebbles, but you won’t take too much damage from the attack.

What Does She Drop?

Other than the standard drops that monsters have, she has four unique drops. First is the crystal tool seed. This elven crystal can be turned into the crystal axe, crystal harpoon, or crystal pickaxe. All of these crystal items have more benefits for you. The crystal pickaxe is better at mining speed, the crystal harpoon has a better catch rate, and the crystal axe gives you a better increase to woodcutting.

She also drops a Zalcano shard which you can use on the dragon pickaxe to create an upgraded dragon pickaxe. This is a cosmetic upgrade that makes the axe have its appearance from RuneScape 2 but does not have a stat increase for the pickaxe.

Perhaps the cutest thing this boss drops is ‘Smolcano’ where it is a much smaller form of Zalcano. It’s an adorable pet that will either appear as a follower or as part of your inventory, so make sure to have a free inventory space available!

Finally, the last drop is uncut onyx, which is the 2nd rarest item in the game besides zenyte. This gem can be upgraded into cut onyx which can be used for very powerful and expensive jewelry.

What Should You Use To Fight Zalcano?

Unlike traditional bosses, you are going to be picking gear that improves your mining, smithing, and runecraft skills. The higher that you have these skills, the more damage you are going to do while you fight her. One of the best things you can wear is Varrock armor, which gives you a higher chance to mine multiple tephra for every swing of your pickaxe.

You can also look for items that can help you extend your hitpoints, including items like the hitpoints cape and the regen bracelet. Finally, you should bring your strongest pickaxe, which should be either the dragon pickaxe or the crystal pickaxe, which does +1 and +2 damage respectively to Zalcano.

Who Is Zalcano?

The lore for this monster is very interesting. She was the sister of Skotizo and both were generals in Zamorak’s army during the God Wars. Skotizo was sent to steal an artifact for his god, but instead stole it from his forces and fled. Zamorak held his sister responsibly and cursed her to start to turn to stone, and would lift it whenever she brought him back.

Zalcano moved towards the elven lands, and the Trahaearn clan of elves managed to capture her, seeking to study the strange curse. They placed her in a prison underneath the city and watched the curse accelerate, and after she broke down and only said ‘Skotizo’ to her interrogators, they simply left her there in her petrified state.

What Quest Do I Need To Complete To Access Zalcano?

The quest “Song of the Elves” is what you need to complete to access the elven city of Prifddinas, where Zalcano is located. In the quest, you will need to expose the truth that you have learned about in the previous quests: That the plague is a hoax and Lord Iorwerth and King Lathas are traitors who are attempting to summon the dark lord.

After saving one of your allies who has been imprisoned for attempting to share the truth about the plague, you will work with the resistance to overthrow the King and stop their plot. After you rile the people against the king, you and the resistance fighters will battle against the king’s forces. Most of the time, you will be able to complete the battle without taking too much damage, and after three stages of the battle, you will finish the first half of the quest.

With King Latha’s execution, you get taken to Iorwerth’s camp and are about to be taken prisoner, before the resistance comes to save you. After retreating, you investigate the Waterfall Dungeon to learn more about Seren, who is central to the quest

After solving a few riddles and puzzles, you will learn more about the history of the eleven goddess and how she affected the elves who followed her, before creating a dark fragment of herself to rid the elves of a curse. Unfortunately, she was forced to lock this fragment away, and you need to unlock the fragment and defeat the darkness within.

While you hunt for the orb, you end up facing down Lord Iorwerth after he attacks an elven village and then pursuing him deep into the caves at the Underground Pass with the elf army. However, during the battle Lord Iorwerth will summon the fragment of Seren who will whisk the player away, and you will need to destroy the darkness once and for all. After a tough battle, the fragment will be destroyed and the city of Prifddinas will be restored. Then you will have full access to all it can do for you.

This will give you access to crystal items and weapons, divine potions, a player-owned house, and several new areas and objectives. Along with the ability to battle against Zalcano!

Zalcano FAQ

Question: Do I Need A Dragon/Crystal Pickaxe For The Fight?

Answer: Getting a dragon or crystal pickaxe can be a tough endeavor, and if you have completed Song Of The Elves and the elf questline on some lower levels, you might not have the skills needed to get these special pickaxes. You don’t need them, especially because most of the damage is pre-done for you. No matter what you do or how you hit Zalcano with the imbued tepera, it will deal 10 damage.
Once you crack her armor open, you will be able to strike at her with your pickaxe. Now the dragon and crystal pickaxes do +1 and +2 extra damage respectively to her, but you don’t need them. Just equip the best pickaxes you have and most of the time that should be enough.

Question: Will I Be Attacked Getting The Tephra Imbued?

Answer: Given that the steps to creating tephra to imbued tephra are to mine the tephra, place it in a furnace and then place it on an altar, and all of those steps have to be done in the same room as the boss this is a reasonable question.
Yes, the boss fight starts without you having any tephra in your inventory. So you will need to run to one of the pillars (preferably the glowing one) and start mining away. Thankfully, Zalcano is not an aggressive boss and will not attack you directly with too many attacks that do high damage. It’s her indirect attacks you need to look out for, which can deal high damage but also can be avoided.
So your best bet is to complete the creation of the imbued tephra process as quickly as you can. Then start hitting her and take down her armor before going after her with your pickaxe.

Question: Should I Farm Zalcano?

Answer: Zalcano is an optional boss who isn’t required to be defeated for any quests or story missions. You could go through the entire game never fighting her if that is what you want, or you can fight her every day to try and get rare drops or sell the loot that she drops after she is slain. It’s really up to you about how you want to face this stone-coated demon.
If you find her high-level drops interesting you can farm her, or you can simply forget she exists. No matter how you choose to play, do what makes you happiest.

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