Barrows: Rise of the Six

For the achievement, see The Barrows: Rise of the Six (achievement).

This article has a strategy guide. All information on mechanics, setups, and tactics is on the subpage.

This article has a money making guide here. Please add tips to the subpage, rather than the article below.

The entrance to the fight

Barrows: Rise of the Six is the sequel to the standard Barrows minigame. It was released on 13 November 2013. It features a team of one to four players fighting against all six of the Barrows Brothers: Ahrim, Dharok, Guthan, Torag, Verac, and Karil. All six brothers, however, have been greatly enhanced by Sliske's experiments in the Shadow Realm, each increasing from level 150 and 12,000 life points to level 650 and 50,000 life points. Players distribute themselves across the two sides or on one side of the arena and must defeat all six brothers within a 30 second time frame of the last defeated brother to obtain rewards.

The entrance to the minigame can be found west of the entrance to the Barrows within a well that is surrounded by four outbuildings (do not cross bridges). It is marked on the minimap by a well icon (blue water drop). The quickest way to get there is using Drakan's medallion, which is unlocked during The Branches of Darkmeyer. Alternatively, players may travel through The Hollows and use the swamp boat. Teams of four can use the Grouping System, though one player must have a Barrows totem with them. The table to the right shows the daily rotation of the brothers.

Obtaining all of Barrows: Rise of the Six unique drops and having unlocked all Barrows bobbleheads will unlock the [Name], Banisher of Shadows title.

7 August 2020

West		East
Karil		Ahrim
Torag		Dharok
Guthan		Verac
(wrong?)

The fight

Remember that this is a fight to the death! Players cannot teleport out of the fight; the only way out is through victory or defeat. Teleports are disabled in the dungeon.

Before the fight

The portal into the Shadow Realm

Each encounter requires an instance, requiring one Barrows totem each. Instances may be set to 1-4 players as of the 12 December 2016 update. Only the player making the instance needs to pay the Barrows totem. This is also true for Ironmen. Totems are obtained as a common reward from the original Barrows activity or bought from the Grand Exchange.

Once inside, there is a randomly generated corridor containing 0-4 bridges. At the end of the tunnel there are four pressure plates for entry into the fight area. All players in the instance must stand on the pressure plates to enter the fight area. The distribution of team members on the pressure plates does not matter - 2 and 2, 3 and 1, 4 together on one side, or any combination depending on the number of players allowed by the instance. If someone lobbies after entering through the first portal, they cannot re-enter by standing on the pads alone. The team members inside the portals can either lobby and re-enter the instance or create a new instance.

When all players are inside the arena, one of them must click to disrupt the portal. A mask of Sliske will ask them if they are ready to fight (a quick-fight option is available also). Upon accepting, the 6 brothers spawn with 3 on both sides. The distribution of the brothers changes daily at 00:00 GMT. Once the fight has begun, no one can join the instance or fight area if they have died, disconnected, or did not enter the fight area after the second portal. Dying in the fight will send the player's grave to the graveyard section of the dungeon, accessed by right-clicking the well.

After the fight

A cutscene will play once all 6 brothers are defeated, and a reward chest will appear on the west side of the arena. Players on the east side must jump over the chasm where the shadow portal was. Luck of the Dwarves can affect the rewards in the chest.

Should the player's inventory be full, rewards will be dropped on the ground. If the player's inventory is partially full the following priority is used to fill the inventory: Shield, Main Drop, Malevolent Energy, and then Charms. If assigned as a Soul Reaper task, the kill will only count if the player dealt damage and survived the encounter. Any players who died during the encounter cannot loot the chest and the kill will not count towards their Beasts tab and Soul Reaper assignment.

When a player steps over the western pressure pads (with the large chasm layout) or just before the stone arc (double fork), the dungeon will begin to collapse due to the destruction of the shadow portal which was supporting it. The dungeon also gains visual changes; the bridges have collapsed, and parts of the ground are now leaking harmful shadow energy which deals up to 1,000 damage every 2 ticks in a 4x3 radius. Parts of the wall and ceiling will also collapse as players escape the tunnel, dealing moderate damage to anyone caught in the rubble. In place of the destroyed bridges is a crossable ledge which is slower and only one player can cross at a time or a pillar/vine that can only support one player before disappearing for good. Players have 30 seconds to escape the tunnel before it starts exploding and dealing irregular hits of up to 1,200 damage.

The malevolent energy claimed from the chest is unstable until the player is safely out of the tunnel. Leaving the tunnel in any way besides running back through it will cause the unstable energy to be destroyed. All other regular loot will be kept.

Rewards

Rise of the Six has 5 unique rewards, including malevolent energy, which can be used to smith malevolent armour and create Bobblehead pets. The tier 90 kiteshields (Merciless, Malevolent, and Vengeful) are also obtained through this boss. Barrows amulets from the reward chest can be used for the regular Barrows minigame.

Estimated earnings

Individually the average value of each chest is 780,351.58 coins, consisting of 469,881 coins from malevolent energies, 75,438.95 coins from shields, and 235,031.64 coins from other drops.

100% drops

One energy is always received from the chest; however, there is a 50% chance to obtain a second piece of energy. It always comes in unstable form. In order to stabilize it, the player must escape the dungeon without lobbying or dying.

The value of 1 stable malevolent energy is 313,254 coins.

	Item		Quantity	Rarity	GE price	High Alch
	Malevolent energy (unstable) (m)		1–2	Always	Not sold	Not alchemisable

Charms

No charm
29–41%	9–17%	11–20%	15–25%	13–23%
Represents a 90% confidence range based on a sample of 177 kills. 4 charms are dropped at a time. Add data to the log (requires JavaScript).

Main drops

All drops share the same drop rate of 1/11.

	Item		Quantity	Rarity	GE price	High Alch
	Barrows amulet (m)		3–10	1/11	17,493-58,310	Not alchemisable
	Huge plated rune salvage		6–10 (noted)	1/11	231,408-385,680	240,000-400,000
	Magic logs		190–210 (noted)	1/11	75,050-82,950	36,480-40,320
	Raw rocktail (m)		120–150 (noted)	1/11	639,480-799,350	43,200-54,000
	Black dragonhide		60–80 (noted)	1/11	236,640-315,520	2,880-3,840
	Onyx bolts (e) (m)		50–65	1/11	388,350-504,855	450,000-585,000
	Battlestaff (m)		35–45 (noted)	1/11	102,935-132,345	147,000-189,000
	Banite stone spirit (m)		15	1/11	78,765	Not alchemisable
	Magic seed (m)		2–4	1/11	89,984-179,968	506-1,012
	Dwarf weed seed (m)		6–10	1/11	7,590-12,650	228-380
	Inert adrenaline crystal (m)		6–10 (noted)	1/11	282,228-470,380	14,400-24,000

Tertiary drops

	Item		Quantity	Rarity	GE price	High Alch
	Malevolent kiteshield (m)		1	1/240	6,329,090	300,000
	Merciless kiteshield (m)		1	1/240	5,965,435	300,000
	Vengeful kiteshield (m)		1	1/240	5,810,822	300,000

Achievements

• Shadows Below ( 50) – Survive the shadow beneath the barrows.
• Brothers in More Arms ( 40) – Defeat Rise of the Six on six different occasions, leaving a different brother to last.
• Family Affair ( 0) – Obtained a collection of unique drops from the Barrows Brothers: Rise of the Six.
• Barrowed Power:
  • Barrowed Power I ( 5) – Defeat the empowered Barrows Brothers. (X/5)
  • Barrowed Power II ( 5) – Defeat the empowered Barrows Brothers. (X/10)
  • Barrowed Power III ( 5) – Defeat the empowered Barrows Brothers. (X/25)
  • Barrowed Power IV ( 5) – Defeat the empowered Barrows Brothers. (X/50)
  • Barrowed Power V ( 5) – Defeat the empowered Barrows Brothers. (X/75)
  • Barrowed Power VI ( 5) – Defeat the empowered Barrows Brothers. (X/100)

Trivia

Concept art of the battle arena

• Upon release, a graveyard system was implemented but caused disconnections to players who entered at first. Within a few minutes, a patch was implemented that put the graves right outside the original Barrows entrance. After a hidden update, the system was fixed and graves now appear inside the graveyard rather than outside.
• If a bucket is used on the entrance well, Ahrim the Blighted will appear and fill it with water. He will even have the attack option, although selecting it will do nothing.
• The fight is the third non-quest fight to make use of a cutscene after victory, the first two being Bork and Vorago.
• When looting the chest for the first time, the mask of Sliske will appear and congratulate the player, telling them the rewards are theirs if they survive.
• There are several glitches that can occur during and after the fight:
  • When Karil/Ahrim teleports to the middle of the field to use Bombard and Shadow Pits respectively while in the Shadow Realm, they remain in the normal realm for the duration of the ability. An even rarer bug can occur where they fail to return to the Shadow Realm, causing the kill to be lost.
  • Karil's Shadow Dash and Ahrim's Shadow Pits can damage players during the cutscene.
  • If Guthan reclaims his spear just as he loses his health, he can still attack players despite being unattackable.
  • If the player uses Surge and lands in an area where debris was just about to fall, there is a slight chance that rather than being knocked back and being dealt with damage, they will get stuck. The only way to get out of it is by lobbying or dying.
  • Though unattackable by players when defeated, an offensive familiar may continue to attack a defeated brother. While active, they are immune to familiar damage. If the familiar lands a hit against a defeated brother, they will shake violently.
• After defeating the brothers the Adventurer's Log will say: "I defeated the wights of the Shadow Realm X time(s), sealing them back in Sliske's rift."
• Initially, the Shadow Realm ability of the brothers was completely different from the current ability. A brother would forcefully have the player possess their body in the Shadow Realm. The other brothers would follow the player at walking pace, and all five brothers had to be lured into the five gas clouds for the player to return to the normal realm. If they touched the player, they would deal them damage. In the normal realm, that brother would be the "player", where they followed the movements of the player in the Shadow Realm.
• Prior to the 12 December 2016 update, Barrows: Rise of the Six required four players in order to start the fight. This was changed to allow teams to start the fight without needing four players if they were in a smaller team.
• Players can still receive kill-count towards this boss without looting the chest, even though the kill-count is said to be how many chests have been looted in the Quick Chat dialogue.
• As of 1 February 2018, the highest kill count for this boss was 46,387 kills.
  • This had increased to 46,881 by 13 December 2018.

Update history

The update history project is a work-in-progress – not all updates to this topic may be covered below. See here for how to help out!

• hotfix 1 June 2020 (Update):
  • Fixed a bug in which the instance creator was unable to enter the boss arena due to the instance rework. Previously, there was a jumping animation before the instance interface appeared, which was removed with the said rework. In order for the creator to enter the arena, they had to leave their instance, then rejoin it on another player that was inside.

• patch 4 May 2020 (Update):
  • Runite stone spirits have been replaced with banite stone spirits.

• patch 25 November 2019 (Update):
  • 6-10 Inert adrenaline crystal replaced 6-10 lantadyme seeds on the drop table.

• patch 10 June 2019 (Update):
  • An issue stopping group members from teleporting to Barrows Rise of The Six has been fixed.

• patch 12 December 2016 (Update):
  • The RoTS entry mechanic has been changed to allow for fewer than 4 players. Instance creation remains unchanged and will still require one of your party to spend a Barrows totem. As such, you can now play this content with between 1 and 4 players. Simply standing on any of the platforms with that many players will let you begin.

• patch 13 April 2015 (Update):
  • Players can no longer teleport from inside the Rise of the Six well entrance as this was causing some camera issues.

• patch 16 February 2015 (Update):
  • Some floating torches in the Rise of the Six caverns have been brought back down to earth.

• patch 5 January 2015 (Update):
  • Dharok can now be killed by Sunshine or Death's Swiftness in Rise of the Six.

• patch 17 November 2014 (Update):
  • You can now add a requirement of 10 minimum kills for Rise of the Six.

• patch 13 October 2014 (Update):
  • Finishing a Rise of the Six kill from the Shadow Realm will now correctly award XP.

• ninja 7 July 2014 (Update):
  • There is now a 'quick-start' option on the Barrows: Rise of the Six portal.

• patch 3 March 2014 (Update):
  • An issue has been resolved in which Ahrim or Karil could get stuck on the ledge while the brothers enrage in Rise of the Six.

• patch 13 January 2014 (Update):
  • A section of map used in the Rise of the Six to ensure players have a means to escape when the world is collapsing has been tweaked.

• patch 3 December 2013 (Update):
  • Karil's attack animation in Rise of the Six has been updated to better fit his two-handed crossbow.
  • Players can no longer follow Karil through shadow portals to unintended places.