Should you grind to obtain the Bloodbark armour?
The Bloodbark armour is a members’ only armour which is rather difficult to obtain because it involves a long process to obtain the scroll that teaches you how to make it, especially if you’re an ironman and level 81 Runecrafting which is another long grind on its own. As a regular account, you can shorten the process or buy the armour from the Grand Exchange, especially since the complete set only costs around 400k OSRS GP.
Recent Changes
Since the Bloodbark armour has received a lot of criticism because it requires pretty high skills (60 magic and 60 defence) but didn’t provide high enough stats to justify the high skills and the amount of grind needed to get it, Jagex has decided to poll a few buffs for the armour set. They did so in Poll 79, asking the community if they should adjust “the offensive capabilities of Swampbark and Bloodbark armour to better suit their requirements.” A majority of 91.7 answered yes to this question and in June, Jagex delivered the changes, making the Bloodbark armour more worth it.
Runescroll of Bloodbark
The Bloodbark armour cannot be dropped from monsters or bosses. Still, it can only be created at the blood altar by using blood runes on each respective piece of Splitbark armour after you have learned this ability by reading the Runescroll of Bloodbark.
The scroll is a tradeable item, so you can quickly obtain it from the grand exchange, and it only costs a few thousand GP. However, as an Ironman, you must obtain both the scroll and the Splitbark armour pieces yourself, and no amount of GP will help ease the grind, regardless of the OSRS gold price.
How to Get the BloodBark Armour
Requirements
To get the Bloodbark armour, you must have completed the Shades of Morton quest to access the minigame with the same name. A fast and reliable way to get there is by using the teleport on Morytania’s legs 3. Still, if you’ve completed enough clue scrolls and dropped enough Morton teleport scrolls, you could use those instead as an ironman or buy them from the GE as a regular account. Besides this, you will need a decent combat level, a high level of woodcutting and firemaking, and 62 crafting if you choose to craft instead of dropping the Splitbark armour.
Splitbark Armour
You can either go to the wilderness and defeat a high-level boss to drop all the necessary pieces of the Splitbark armour or craft it after you get the fine cloth from the Shades of Morton. Either way, as an iron, you will still need to deal with the Morton shades because the Runescroll of Bloodbark is only obtainable there.
Shades of Morton
To get the Bloodbark armour, you must play the Shades of Morton minigame to obtain sacred oil by repairing the temple until you get enough points and then sanctifying the olive oil, which you can get in the general store nearby.
Temple Repair
You will need timber beams, limestone bricks, and swamp paste to repair the temple. You will also need a hammer with you. You can pick between the regular hammer, the wieldable Imcando hammer from the Ruins of Camdozaal, or the minigame-specific Flamtear hammer. If you’ve got a Flamtear bag, that will also be useful since you can store more bricks and beams inside it and get more space for olive oil in your inventory. You can also benefit from having a Flamtear bracelet equipped to speed up the process. You should only do this minigame in the official World 377 since soloing is impossible. You will get some passive Crafting XP, besides the sacred oil, which can be profitable for regular accounts and a must for irons trying to get their Bloodbark armour or other Morton Uniques.
Pyre Logs
After you’ve obtained an acceptable quantity of sacred oil, you should make some pyre logs by combining various tiers of logs with sacred oil. This is not an automatic process, so you must manually click on each sacred oil vial and each log you want to turn into pyre logs.
Killing Shades
At first, you will need to kill shades and collect their remains in Morton. But once you access the shades catacombs, you can kill higher-level shades there.
Cremating Shades
Once you have enough shade remains and enough pyre logs, grab a tinderbox in your inventory and head towards one of the few pyre locations around Morton. If your combat level is not high enough, the shades will attack you, so you should safespot them by moving to the opposite side of the pyre. Once the cremation is completed, grab your loot which can be a key or gold. This process will give you small amounts of prayer and firemaking XP.
Shade Catacombs
Once you obtain your first keys, you should enter the Shade Catacombs located just North of Morton or west of the Morton temple. Inside, you must unlock chests, kill higher and higher-level shades, then burn the shade remains to get higher-level keys. You should continue this process until you find enough fine cloth (11 pieces) and the Runescroll of Bloodbark.
Chaos Fanatic
Alternatively, you can obtain the Splitbark armour pieces as drops from the Chaos Fanatic in the deep wilderness. You will need high combat stats to take this boss on and decent gear, and you will also risk being interrupted or even killed by PKers.
Blood Altar
After you have obtained and read the Runescroll of Bloodbark, make sure you have level 81 runecraft, grab the 1450 blood runes and the Splitbark armour, and head to the blood altar, where you’ll be able to infuse the runes into the armour to obtain the Bloodbark armour.