OSRS Kicks Off the Summer Sweep Up: A Kinder Gauntlet, Gear Buffs and the Maggot King's Combat Achievements

On July 22nd, Old School RuneScape received the first batch of the Summer Sweep Up, the annual round of adjustments where Jagex tidies up old content instead of adding new. This one lands on two fronts: gear and PvM, headlined by a foundational rework of Gauntlet prep that players have been asking about for years. On top of that, the Maggot King now has its Combat Achievements. The full breakdown is in the official Steam changelog, and the long-form reasoning behind each change still lives in the dedicated blog Jagex put out in June.

Set your expectations accordingly: this is the first batch. The second targets Agility, and the third bundles Hunter with the loose ends — Chivalry drain rate, bonfire UX, Aerial Fishing — plus new items like the elemental amulets and the Necklace of fangs. If your favourite change isn't here, it still has a slot.

This is the heart of the patch. There are now four guaranteed demi-boss spawns in the north-, east-, south- and west-most rooms from the centre: the positions are fixed, but which demi-boss you meet is still random. Their attack range dropped from 16 to 10, and non-demi-boss enemies now share standardised defensive stats, so killing a wolf is never better than killing a scorpion. Weapon frames are guaranteed from your first low-tier NPC kill, and Phren Bark, Crystal Ore and Linum Tirinum now stack. Crystal Shards go straight to your inventory and drop in a much tighter range.

Crafting costs shifted too, and not all downward: the Tier 1 weapon needs no shards at all (down from 20) and the Tier 2 weapon drops to 50 (from 60), while Tier 3 armour rises to 100 per piece (from 80). The intent is stated plainly: Jagex doesn't want Tier 3 to become a must-have, but a trade of comfort against time lost. In practice, a Tier 1 set with two Tier 3 weapons falls from 280 to 250 shards, while the full Tier 3 set climbs from 700 to 750.

Since all of that trims run times, Jagex tightened the speed Combat Achievements so they don't become freebies: Gauntlet Speed-chaser now needs under 4:45 (from 5:00) and Speed-runner 3:45 (from 4:00); in Corrupted, 7:05 and 6:05 respectively. If those CAs were on your list, the window narrowed exactly as the run got smoother.

Phantom Muspah no longer swaps forms until you've hit it at least 4 times (with damage thresholds per form), and its Homing Spikes special now lasts 34 ticks instead of 50, ending early if Muspah phases into its blue shield form. Demonic Gorillas follow the same logic: no prayer swaps until they've taken 4 hits and 70 damage with a style. At Skotizo, destroyed totems stay down for a full minute and the arena shrank. The Ice Demon's demonbane vulnerability rises to 115%, and the Wardens in Tombs of Amascut are no longer immune to life leech from the Sanguinesti Staff or the Amulet of Blood Fury. Two quality-of-life wins worth gold: autocast settings survive death, and looting your gravestone re-sorts your inventory to match its layout before the disaster.

The Sanguinesti Staff now heals on 1 in 5 attacks (up from 1 in 6) and deals 8 extra damage whenever the heal procs — averaging out to +1.6 per hit — with +1 base max hit and a cost of 2 blood runes per cast instead of 3; you'll be refunded one rune per charge on login. The Soulreaper Axe gains +4 Strength, its stacks take 50 ticks to start decrementing (up from 20) and — most importantly — no longer drain HP; the special now scales at 12% accuracy per stack (60% at max) and adds 6% minimum hit per stack.

Elsewhere on the list: the Ghrazi Rapier and Blade of Saeldor gain +6 accuracy and +4 Strength, Pegasian Boots pick up +1 Ranged Strength, the Master Wand jumps to +10% Magic damage, and the Ancient Sceptres also reach +10% (up from 5%). The Rosewood Blowpipe can now fire darts up to rune, the Tonalztics of Ralos special drains 12.5% of Defence per hit and grants +50% accuracy, and Belle's Folly goes from 1/256 to 1/75. The Inquisitor pass — "it wouldn't be a Summer Sweep-Up without Inquisitor changes", the team jokes — brings each piece in line with its Oathplate equivalent, strips the negative Stab/Slash bonuses, and hands the Inquisitor's Mace +7 Strength and +7 Crush accuracy, guaranteeing an extra max hit across setups. PvP takes some cuts: the Eclipse Atlatl fires every 4 ticks unless you wear the full set, and the Soulflame Horn's special-attack accuracy boost drops to +50%.

Read this part carefully, because it did not ship with the patch: it's a proposal up for discussion. Jagex wants to retune CoX unique weightings to bring the raid closer in line with the others. Ancestral pieces would become over 50% more common (64% in Challenge Mode), while Prayer Scrolls would fall roughly 40% in regular raids and 52% in CM. The team admits the numbers "look a little scary" and expects individual prices to move, but reckons the raid's GP/hr shouldn't drop dramatically. If you have an opinion on CoX, this is the week to put it in writing.

After a few weeks of letting players get familiar with the boss, the task table is live: from Maggot Squasher (Hard, kill it once) to Perfect Maggot King (Master, no avoidable damage taken and no healing allowed). In between there are some tasty restrictions, like Trying to fit in — kill it using only weapons found in Vampyrium — and Cordoned Off, which pins you to the back row of tiles. There are no Grandmaster tasks, and Jagex takes the time to explain why: they couldn't land on one that genuinely changed how you approach the fight without feeling contrived. It's an honest call, and a rare one in a genre that usually ships content out of inertia.

The Blood Moon Rises gets an anti-AFK tweak: engorged bloodwood trees will occasionally require an extra interaction — a Letvek crawling into your bucket — so gathering isn't fully hands-off, though it stays semi-AFK. Jagex also published the pet rates players had been asking about: 1/969,283 per chop swing on bloodwood trees and 1/319,283 with the engorged-tree AFK method. In Leagues VI, the 'Twisted Vision' and 'Oath Breaker' cosmetics drop from 1000 to 200 Slayer points, with an automatic 800-point refund for anyone who already bought them. And the PvP rota moved to Period B, with the Arena running 'Zerker' loadouts this week.

On the near horizon: The Fractured Archives reward poll blog slipped to July 30th, with voting opening August 3rd — delayed because they want to put several visual identities for the Breaker to a ranked-choice vote — and the Crusader Classic: PvP All-Stars 2026 finale runs July 25th and 26th, with twelve creators fighting over a $10,000 prize pool. The short version: a patch that adds no new content but strips friction from a pile of things players touch every single day. The kind you appreciate more a week later than on announcement day.