Etiquette
Fast and efficient dungeoneering is possible because of an assumed protocol or etiquette which everyone follows. The key to fast dungeoneering floors is that everyone follows this practice to facilitate easy communication, cooperation, and “smooth” floors. If everyone does their part, trust forms between teammates. That’s when you can really get good floor times.
That being said, everything that follows is but one system of dungeoneering etiquette. It is not the only one, but it is the system most commonly used among high level dungeoneers, and with good reason: it’s fast. Communication is key in good dungeoneering, so don’t hesitate to ask questions if you’re confused about anything.

Rushing
Rushing is a mindset, a strategy we employ to minimize effort and get through the floor as fast as possible. Rushing can mean slightly different things depending on context, but in general, the following conditions apply on a “rushed” floor.
1.	No “sideline skilling” – don’t fish, make armor, cut trees, or do anything else which doesn’t provide immediate contribution to the floor’s completion. Food should be only obtained via looting.
2.	Kill only what you must – don’t bother clearing out enemies you don’t need to. This saves time. Usually you’ll only kill enemies in guardian doors or enemies harassing you during puzzles.
3.	Don’t “surv prod” – avoid deaths (see survival tactics) but don’t excessively hoard food, especially when you run out of prayer.
Binds/Class ring
Currently you can have up to 4 items bound, along with ammunition. Here’s how your binds should generally fall out:
bind 1: primary offensive
bind 2: primary defensive
bind 3: secondary offensive/defensive
bind 4: secondary offensive/defensive
ammo: secondary combat style
Melee is the only reasonable style choice for everyone except extremely unbalanced pures. For your primary weapon, bind the highest tier 2h sword you can wield, or a maul IF AND ONLY IF you can wield a maul 3 tiers higher than the two-hander. The only other weapon worth binding is a primal battleaxe at 93 dungeoneering, which should be bound over the promethium 2h if you can wield it.
For your primary defensive bind, use a shadow-silk hood or a platebody. The choice of SSH versus plate varies by levels and dungeoneering experience, but in general, the hood provides about at much protection as a mid-high tier plate, and is more beneficial to those with low defense. The hood is interesting in that it changes the distribution of damage among teammates; hooded dungeoneers will be protected at the expense of unhooded members in mixed teams, which is why low-level conventions dictate that everyone has one.
Platebodies are beneficial in providing constant good protection without having to worry about magic based enemies (which should usually be prayed against). High level dungeoneers like plates because you receive a more constant, predictable damage over time with them, as opposed to the hood, which alternates between great protection and near uselessness upon being dehooded.
For your third/fourth bind, compliment your plate or hood defensively, or if you’re more offensive consider binding a hexhunter bow, blood necklace, or a staff; specialized tools which can help increase your damage per second.
For ammo, unless you have a hexhunter as a third bind, you should bind a celestial surgebox. This holds runes for air surge and can be used to quickly take down high-defense targets, like armored warriors and giants. This compliments your melee attack style and can greatly reduce floor speed; don’t underestimate it.
The final thing you should know about your binds is the power of the ring of kinship as a tool you can use. In any dungeon, go into your worn interface, right click the ring of kinship, and click customize. You’ll find tons of upgrades here, but we’re primarily interested in one: berserker under the melee class. Upgrade your ring as much as you’re comfortable with (this will cost tokens) by clicking the green plus sign, then slick on “switch-to” to activate the benefit.
You can also set a ring benefit to “quick switch.” This creates a new right-click option on your ring, allowing you to switch between two class styles on the go. Your quick switch setting should complement your ammo bind, which for surgebox users, means blazer, found under the magic class. Ideally, switch to blazer via quickswitch to maximize your damage per second. Be sure to quickswitch back to berserker when you’re done.

The Critical Path
The critical path is a connected sequence of rooms which eventually unlocks the boss. Strictly speaking, it is the minimum number of rooms required to complete a floor (reach the boss). Knowing where critical path is can be beneficial to time saving strategies such as gatestone placement (more on that later).
The critical path is contiguous stretch of (generally) around 30-40 rooms in a 64 room map. The critical path contains a lot of key doors, and all dead ends which are critical will have a key in them. If you’re unsure what to do with the group gatestone (ggs, gt), keep it on the critical path. This allows your teammates to split off and open up bonus areas which will (usually) dead-end quickly. In this manner, the group gatestone moves along the critical path and the team cleans up the trailing bonus.
So, how do we tell if we’re on critical path? The critical path has skill requirements within 10 levels of the highest–leveled team member the floor is weighted for. It’s important you get the hang of reverse-calculating the level requirements of a door based on the experience you receive as you unlock it.
The formula for this is as follows: (exp gain – 10) / 5 = level requirement
Eg: 460 exp – 10 / 5 = level 90 required to open.
Additionally, the critical path can only have resource tiers within two levels of this same person’s skills. This can sound a little confusing, so let me give you an example.
You’re dungeoneering in a 5-man team with me, 5:5. I’m 99 in all stats, so the dungeon is created for a maxed player. The critical path is generated having level 90-99 requirements. Any skill door in the team with a level requirement of less than 90 (less than 460 exp gain) is bonus. Similarly, I can gather tier 10 resources, so only tier 10 and 9 resources can spawn on the critical path. Thus, if you gain less than 460 exp from a door, or see tier 8 or lower resource, the room is bonus.
I’d like to point out now that the converses of these rules are *not* true. High tier resources and high leveled doors *can* spawn in bonus rooms. Don’t assume something is critical based on one data point. Continually look around for clues to help guide you, and know that since critical is contiguous, anything after a bonus room must be bonus.

Map Prediction
Earlier I mentioned it’s a good idea to keep the group gatestone on the critical path. While this is a decent rule of thumb, there’s actually more to it than that. Refining what I said earlier, you really want group gatestone to be near the largest unopened area of the map, as this path will spread out the most, meaning your team is best used here. IMPORTANT: Premature movement of the group gatestone can really hurt your time. Think about it this way: if you move the group gatestone, ensure the area you’re leaving is either a) gated by someone, or b) able to be opened by someone staying behind to do it *who has free gate*. Failure to follow this convention can lead to unopened doors in far-off places which then have to be run, slowing floors down greatly.
So, where should you move the group gatetone? A few factors should influence your decision: First, consider the edges of the map and previously revealed rooms; a path can only spread for as much room as it has. Next, look at the adjacent paths and rooms; paths (especially bonus ones) can be cut off by adjacent ones (especially critical). Areas equal, the path branching farther from current paths will tend to be larger.
Gatestone Practices
Gating a door is the placement of your personal gatestone nearby to facilitate movement to that door. You can either use your teleport spell to return to that door at a more opportune time (you have the key, etc.), or pick up group gatestone and use your teleport to move group gatestone, thereby moving the entire team to your gated location. A door is said to have been “gated” when someone’s personal teleport is sufficiently close to effectively cover the door. Someone has “free gate” when they haven’t gated a door.
“Gate Responsibly” -  In general, you don’t want to leave any door unopened and ungated, because you’re then forcing someone to run to the door later to go open it. It seems counterintuitive to not open as much as possible as quickly as possible: but think about it this way: If you’re pathing something and you’re unable to gate it, that is a door someone will have to later re-run and open, travelling farther than they’d have to if you had left the door unopened. By opening rooms, you spawn more monsters and spread out the workable area the team is operating in.
Make it a habit to call out when you gate an area (see abbreviations for conventions to follow when doing this). This helps others know what you have gated, and observant players will be able to quickly look where you are when you call out, and correlate your called doors to areas on the map. Remember, communication is key; you should also indicate to your team when your gated path has hit a dead end, and then proceed to path other  doors. IMPORTANT: If you gate multiple nearby doors (as you should) it is assumed you take responsibility for those doors. In other words, be sure you don’t leave doors ungated even if your path spreads out. Move group teleport as is necessary in this case.
Group gatestone is used most effectively when it is in an area where the team is most needed. A lot of times, this is at a guardian door which needs clearing, but it isn’t always best to leave the group gatestone there. If the entire team (or really, a sufficiently large portion of those who aren’t free gate) is already at the room where group gatestone is, it’s more efficient to keep group gatestone moving ahead of the team. This leads to another rule of thumb: always keep group gatestone slightly ahead of the team. At any given point, you want your team to be able to teleport to some unopened area where they’re needed.
On the best teams, people are teleporting almost instantly when they hit a dead end. In these situations, it behooves the group gatestone holder to hold the group teleport in their inventory as they open up more of the map, because they can just assume the team will continually teleport to them and clean up the unopened doors being left behind. In teams where people take longer to teleport, you often must leave the group teleport behind and path ahead (WITH FREE GATE) so as to move the team as soon as they’re ready.
The boss (and the ending door after) is just like other doors in that it should be gated, because eventually the team will need to be moved there. There is little more frustrating than an ungated boss (especially one far from base) to experienced dungeoneers, because the team is usually idle while the boss is being run. Moral of the story: don’t open up boss without free gate. If you have something else gated, let the team know. If you call boss gate, it is assumed you will gate the end if the boss is killed before the floor is done.
It occasionally happens that more than five areas of the map need gating. If this is the case, and you reach a door where no one has free gate, you occasionally need to break your previous gate. You’re looking at a tradeoff here, and the ideal solution is to minimize the amount of running someone will ultimately have to do. If the door is close to base, go ahead and leave it ungated, as your other door is probably farther. If two people have two gates near each other, you should “combine” their gates by having someone break their door to cover the new ungated door. If the door is far, the person whose door can most easily be run should break their gate in order to cover the new door. This is often someone who has a gate near home base (often referred to as a temporary gate because of this). This is ultimately a case-by-case basis, and while there is no “right” answer, remember that communication and knowing where everyone has their gates placed makes this process much smoother.
Abbreviations / Lingo
A recurring theme in this guide is that proper communication is the key to fast, smooth dungeoneering. Knowing and understanding dungeoneering terminology and slang facilitates quick efficient communication. It’s important to always ask if you’re unsure what someone is saying. It’s better to take 10 seconds to explain something than to have people acting unpredictably due to miscues.
buy… “give me…”
sell… “I’m giving you…”
fg – “free gate” translation: “I have a free gate”
nfg – “not free gate”
gh – “Got herb” translation: “I just looted a…” eg  “gh lyco”
nh – “No herb” used as a response or called in conjunction with a door, eg. “101 smith nh”
val – “valerian”
mage – “magebane”
lyco – “lycopus”
vml “valerian, magebane, or lycopus”
sage – “sagewort”
ww – “wormwood”
wint - “winter’s grip”
sww - “sagewort, wormwood, or winter’s grip”
csb – “celestial surgebox”
hex – “hexhunter bow”
gt – “group gatestone”
bgt – “buying group gatestone”  translation:  “give me the group gatestone”
mgt – “move group gatestone” – pick up the group gatestone and use your personal teleport. Most properly, followed by a door call or a person’s name, to avoid ambiguity.
sgt – “selling group gatestone” translation: “someone take the group gatesone”
gate/gated/g8 – “I’ve gated” Usually preceded by a door call. eg. “99 summoning g8” Or as a command:  “You gate this” eg. “Nerd g8 bco”
gd – “guardian door”
gdm – “guardian door marked.”  Run to the mark and clear the room.
gt… “Group teleport to…” Use group teleport and perform the desired action. Some common uses:
..b – boss. Enter the boss room.
..e. End the floor.
..emotes/emo – Mime room. Clear enemies, mimic the statues.
..gd – guardian door. Clear enemies out so the door can be opened.
..levers/lev – Levers room. Wait for the cue (usually 1, 2, 3) and pull a lever to open the door.
..o – open. Usually followed by a skill requirement, eg. “gto 93 mining”
..path – spread out and open doors generally.
Key doors are called by two designators, their color and shape. Color: b – blue, cr – crimson, go – gold, gr – green, o – orange, p – purple, s – silver, y – yellow. Shape: co – corner, d – diamond, p – pentagon, r – rectangle, s – shield, t – triangle, w – wedge. Calling out key doors is a simple matter of combining these two. eg. bco, yw, ss, gocr. Avoid using ambiguous terms like “gc”, which could be gold corner, gold crescent, green corner, or green crescent.
goats – “ghosts” (affectionate slang)
merc – “mercenary room”
mono – “monolith room”
ramo – “ramokee room”
Room Specifics
Jump Puzzle: The fastest route to the other side is to form a “field goal” Jump out on the center pillar, then out into the center again, then when the orb moves left or right, take the opposite side, then jump towards the far side again, thus dodging the orb.
Colored Lodestones: It’s possible to “auto-sync” the lights. If you active the lodestone when the flashing colors are on the outermost segment, the newly added color will already be in sync with the lights, saving you time.
Pondskaters: The one with the key always spawns in the southwest of the room, making this puzzle one-clickable.
Ghosts: The one with the “spirit” in it has much lower defense, and should be attacked. Upon a ghost’s death, the spirit moves to the ghost radially closest to the fallen one.
Monolith: Shades never spawn in the northeast corner, so don’t waste time by standing there.
Climbing Hook: Make a spare hook in case you lose one, and keep the spare for subsequent rooms.
Ferret (hunter): Left undisturbed, the ferret will reset at the middle of the room, or along a wall in a cardinal direction from its center spot. Place traps at these locations, then leave the room, to quickly catch the ferret.
Ferret (fishing): The ferret moves to bait diagonally first, then linearly. With practice, you can usually complete this puzzle in two or three throws.
Barrels: It isn’t necessary to push the barrel onto the pressure plate, so open up the doors as soon as the barrel is full.
Statues (moving): You can’t push through NPC’s, but you can pull through them. Use this to avoid having to clear the room.
Statues (crafting): Utilize the “spamming technique” (see below) to minimize time here.
Damaged Construct: See above.
Poltergeist: See above.
The “spamming technique:” You can avoid being interrupted by combat if you click your mouse and hit the number key of the menu at the same time. Timing this often takes a few tries, so you’ll often hit the key in rapid succession to ensure success. For example, to craft a stone sword, click on the block and hit the ‘1’ key simultaneously.
Survival Tactics
Sidestepping: Enemies in dungeoneering will not naturally stand on top of one another, and unless disturbed, cannot pass through one another. Until a player stands on an enemy, NPCs cannot move through that enemy, allowing you to trap melee enemies behind rangers and mages.
Your gatesone is food: You cannot take any damage during the personal gatestone teleport animation. Use this to your advantage in dodging attacks, especially large damaging attacks with warning in boss fights.
De-plating/De-hooding: It can be advantageous to remove your defensive bind. With a plate, remove it for monolith rooms (and pray ranged) or remove it when you’re exclusively taking magic damage with no prayer. With a hood, its best to remove your hood any time you see a mage, to avoid the deactivation penalty, then re-equip it as soon as you’re in a mage-free area.
Prestige
Prestige is calculated in the following way: MAX(previous progress, current progress)
Previous progress is the number of completed floors you did last time you reset; current progress is the amount of floors you’ve completed since your last reset. This mechanic is designed to encourage you to complete all available floors you have, rather than simply repeat the best floor you have available. That being said, the best way to maximize your prestige is to only reset your ring when you have no available floors. When you’ve completed every floor you can, reset your ring via the party menu outside of a dungeoneering floor.
Boss Tips
Skeletal Hoard: They spawn in a fixed pattern, starting to the left of the exit door and moving clockwise. Anticipate the spawn to control the hoard, praying against one style (for me, ranged usually) and ignoring skeletons of that type.
Geomancer: Don’t pray, and equip/unequip your platebody in accordance with the damage you’re taking.
Cursebearer: Easiest boss in dungeoneering. Pray mage, tank and spank.
Bulwark Beast: Its fastest to punch it (uses toolbelt pickaxe to break armor) then kill with melee. Protect from ranged.
Shadow Forger: Protect from melee and attack with melee, though you will take unavoidable typeless damage. Run behind the corner pillars when he starts to glow.
Bal’lak: He can disable prayer, so soul split is recommended if you have it. It targets someone based on Player ID (PID) assigned at login, so if you’re tanking, expect to tank all match. If he is meleeing you, be sure to lure him over the green pools to lower his defense, but don’t get caught over one yourself, as you’ll incur continual damage.