This Olm Strategy Guide offers an in-depth view of how to take on the Great Olm, the final boss of Chambers of Xerics.
This is a strategy guide and does not cover information some information such as how to prepare for the Olm Fight. For information on prep, please refer to our CoX Guide (link below)
This article is part of our Complete CoX Guide.
Import Olm Tile Markers
To make positioning at Olm easier, we mark the tiles for the Mage hand, Melee Hand, and Melee Thumb (for portals) on both sides of the room.
Here’s an example of the marked tiles:
You don’t need to mark tiles for Olm manually, you can import them into your Runelite!
Here is the code you need to import your Olm Tile Markers:
[{"regionId":12889,"regionX":37,"regionY":43,"z":0,"color":{"value":-1,"falpha":0}},{"regionId":12889,"regionX":37,"regionY":45,"z":0,"color":{"value":-1,"falpha":0}},{"regionId":12889,"regionX":28,"regionY":45,"z":0,"color":{"value":-1,"falpha":0}},{"regionId":12889,"regionX":28,"regionY":43,"z":0,"color":{"value":-1,"falpha":0}},{"regionId":12889,"regionX":37,"regionY":38,"z":0,"color":{"value":-1,"falpha":0}},{"regionId":12889,"regionX":28,"regionY":38,"z":0,"color":{"value":-1,"falpha":0}},{"regionId":12889,"regionX":37,"regionY":41,"z":0,"color":{"value":-16777216,"falpha":0}},{"regionId":12889,"regionX":37,"regionY":50,"z":0,"color":{"value":-1,"falpha":0}},{"regionId":12889,"regionX":28,"regionY":47,"z":0,"color":{"value":-16777216,"falpha":0}},{"regionId":12889,"regionX":28,"regionY":50,"z":0,"color":{"value":-1,"falpha":0}}]Copy this code and then right-click on your World Map and select import.
Assigned Team Roles for Olm fight
Everyone in your team will be assigned one of the 3 roles:
- Mage Hand
- Melee Hand
- Runners
Mage Hand
This is considered the easiest role and only one person is assigned this role. As Mage Hand you start Olm by equipping your melee strength gear and delivering one special attack to the melee hand before switching to your Mage Gear and retreating to the Mage Hand.
Your job is simple: deal damage to the Mage hand until it’s destroyed. Then help out with the melee hand.
Lightbearer meta: If lightbearer is equipped, mage roles can deal 2 specs per phase. (Start with one spec as usual and do another spec once mage hand is down)
Melee Hand
Melee hand is considered the hardest role, and assigned to just one player (ideally the one with the highest DPS gear/stats). As Melee Hand you will deal damage to the melee hand during each phase.
Whenever the Melee Hand curls up and deactivates, switch to magic gear and help with the magic hand WITHOUT moving from your spot by using Long-Range.
Deal one special attack before switching to your tentacle whip/DHL.
Lightbearer meta: If lightbearer is equipped, deal 2 specs at the start of each phase
Runners
The remaining players will take up the role of runners. These players have Magic Gear equipped and help out by dealing damage to the Magic Hand.
The job of the runner is to stand in the center and move from side to side in between each one of Olm’s Basic Attacks. This forces Olm to continuously move his head since Olm will always look in the direction of the room with the most players.
Just like the Mage hand, runners will start Olm by dealing 1 special attack to the Melee hand before retreating to their running position.
When the Mage hand dies, help out with the Melee hand.
Lightbearer meta: If lightbearer is equipped, runner roles can deal 2 specs per phase. (Start with one spec as usual and do another spec once mage hand is down)
Olm’s Mechanics
Room Scan
Olm can only attack where he is looking at. He will always look at the side of the room with the most players in it. This is why we assign roles for Olm so that runners can tip the balance and force Olm to continuously look in each direction.
By forcing Olm to look, the players assigned to Mage hand and Melee Hand don’t continuously get hit by Olm’s attack.
Olm Phases
Olm has 4 phases.
- Phase One: Olm will spawn on a random side of the room and your team has to focus on destroying the mage and melee hand
- Phase Two: identical to Phase One
- Phase Three: Destroy the mage and melee hand at roughly the same time (you have a ten-second window) otherwise the hands will heal to full
- Phase Four: Head phase. Equip Ranged and target Olm’s head while avoiding the falling crystals
In between phases, Crystals will fall from the sky. These crystals deal AoE damage in a 3×3 range. Their landing zone is indicated by a shadow cast on the floor.
Olm’s Attacks
Olm has five different attacks:
- Auto Attacks
- Phase Specific Attacks
- Special Attacks
- Prayer Orb Attack
- Falling Crystals
Olm’s Attack Cycle
He will always attack in the following cycle:
- Basic Attack
- Empty Event
- Basic Attack
- Special Attack: Crystals
- Basic Attack
- Special Attack: Lighting
- Basic Attack
- Empty Event
- Basic Attack
- Special Attack: Portals
- Repeat
Basic Attacks are made up of his basic Ranged & Magic Attacks but can also be replaced with phase-specific attacks.
During the head phase, Olm doesn’t use any of his special attacks but AoE crystals will fall from the ceiling and he still uses all of his Basic Attacks (all phase-specific attacks + the basic Ranged/Magic Attack).
Strategy for each phase
Phases 1 & 2
Every role dumps one Special Attack on the melee hand before assuming their position. DWH should always go before BGS!
When Mage Hand goes down, Runner role and Mage hand role focus on the melee hand.
When Melee hand curls up, Melee Hand Role focuses on Mage Hand using Long Range WITHOUT LEAVING THE TILE.
During Portals Special attack, meet at Melee Thumb.
Phase 3
Every role dumps BOTH special attacks on the melee hand and continue to damage the melee hand until the infinity symbol shows up.
DO NOT HIT the hand when the symbol shows up as this will trigger healing.
Only after infinity symbol appeared does everyone get to their assigned positions.
Melee Hand will Long-Range Mage Hand until the infinity symbol clears at which point they will return to damaging the melee hand.
The end of this phase is where it gets tricky as both hands need to go down at roughly the same time.
Be sure to communicate with your team and don’t kill off either hand if the other isn’t ready to go down as well.
Phase 4: How to beat Head Phase
Equip your Ranged Gear and start attacking Olm’s Head.
All roles should remain on their side of the room to allow runners to continue to do their job to tip the balance.
Since AoE crystals come down from the ceiling (the same crystals that occur between each phase) you will have continuously move 2 tiles from where they will land while also dealing damage to Olm.
Lightbearer meta
With the arrival of Tombs of Amascut, we have a new light-bearer meta.
Using lightbearer, players are able to do two special attacks per phase thanks to its passive ability to regenerate special attacks at 2X speed.
According to WeDoRaids, Bandos Godsword in combination with Lightbearer beats Dragon Warhammer.
Final Tips & Words of Encouragement
Olm is a tough boss to beat if you aren’t already familiar with raids and end-game bossing activities. But he is far from the hardest boss in OSRS and it is possible to beat him without dying as long as you meet stat & gear requirements (check out our CoX Guide).
Prepare to die during your first couple of attempts, this is completely normal.
I expect you’ll get the hang of phases 1-3 pretty quickly but head Phase is by far the most chaotic and least forgiving phase of the Olm Fight.
If you keep dying during head phase, consider filming yourself and figure out what you are doing wrong. It’s possible there are mechanics that you don’t fully understand, if you suspect this may be the case, come back to this article and give it another read.
A common mistake I’ve noticed learners do is they panic causing them to sip brews like there’s no tomorrow and spam-click without checking the destination tile. This doesn’t work. Pull yourself together and avoid panic-sipping. This will only cause you to make mistakes.
When you catch yourself panicking: focus on avoiding the falling crystals and paying attention to Olms Attacks. Once you recollect yourself, start hitting Olm again.
Best of luck and go get that 1kc T-bow!
Continue learning About Chambers of Xeric
This article is part of our in-depth CoX Guide which covers everything you need to know to get started with Raids 1. All your questions about CoX are answered in this guide: how to get to CoX, Stat Requirements, Gear Requirements, How to scout, Runelite Plugins, Strategies for each room, how to find teammates, and the list goes on!
Return to our Complete CoX Guide.
