For your first team Olm clears, learn three jobs in order: attack the correct hand, respond to the visible mechanic, then coordinate both hands during the final hand phase. When only the head remains, switch to ranged, avoid falling crystals and stand in a blue healing pool when the siphon arrives.
This guide is for normal Chambers of Xeric in a small learner team. It covers the complete encounter and the calls that make it repeatable. Solo 3:0 and 4:1 movement, advanced skips and Challenge Mode speed tactics need their own timing lessons; they are not prerequisites for understanding team Olm.
Prepare before crossing the final barrier
Take the supplies you need from storage before entry. Once you cross into Olm’s chamber, you cannot simply walk back out for the forgotten weapon or potion. Confirm the team’s runner, hand assignments, portal convention and a way to open fire walls.
Bring working magic, melee and ranged setups. A powered staff can cover the mage hand, a suitable melee weapon the melee hand and a practical ranged weapon the final head. Dragon hunter weapons are useful upgrades here, but an upgrade list does not replace charges, ammunition, the intended attack style or a manageable switch.
For a first clear, keep essential switches compact enough that you can find healing while moving. Prepare more recovery supplies than a speed-oriented no-prep inventory assumes. Have overload, Prayer restoration, healing and any planned prayer enhance accessible; agree how the team will share doses rather than discover a shortage mid-fight.
CoX overloads remove 50 Hitpoints on consumption and return that health when the effect expires. Drink with enough health and in a controlled moment; do not refresh blindly while critically low under falling crystals. Xeric’s aid heals but drains offensive stats, while revitalisation restores stats and Prayer. An active overload periodically reapplies its boost, but that does not make every badly timed brew harmless.
Target | Use | Common mix-up |
|---|---|---|
Olm’s right claw, the mage hand | Magic | Calling it by your screen’s left/right after the camera changes |
Olm’s left claw, the melee hand | Melee | Attacking through its healing symbol in the final hand phase |
Head during hand phases | Focus the hands instead | Head damage is healed before the final phase |
Head in the last phase | Ranged | Forgetting to change from the hand weapon |
Agree positions and understand why the head turns
Olm looks towards sections of the arena and prioritises where players are standing. A runner uses position and timing to turn the head, reducing attacks the team must receive. A learner who randomly follows the runner can put another player back in view and change the intended turn.
Ask for the team’s starting positions and stay in the assigned area unless a mechanic requires movement. If you need to cross for a portal or escape danger, make the required move and return when appropriate; do not remain in the runner’s next destination without a reason.
The marked edge positions in the image illustrate areas used to influence head turns. They are not permanent immunity tiles. Whether Olm can see you depends on the side he occupies, his facing and everybody else’s position. Weapon range also matters: clicking a hand from too far away can pull you into a different zone.
For your first attempts, a caller and a stable assigned role are more useful than memorising a solo ratio. Once the encounter cues are familiar, practise a running role deliberately, with a route suited to your weapon speed.
Basic attacks and spheres use different colour rules
Ordinary attacks are magic or ranged. The large green magic projectile calls for Protect from Magic; the smaller crystal chunk calls for Protect from Missiles. Correct protection reduces the damage rather than making the whole encounter hit zero.
Spheres are a separate attack, with a warning and three possible colours. Red means Melee protection, green means Missiles protection and purple means Magic protection. A green sphere therefore asks for a different prayer from the ordinary green magic projectile. Read the cue, not the colour in isolation.
A sphere can turn off your existing overhead and drain Prayer. Reapply the matching protection before it connects, check that Prayer points remain and then return to the appropriate protection for the next ordinary attack. Clicking a prayer with an empty bar does not protect you.
Do not let a projectile switch consume all your attention. A seed under your feet, approaching lightning or a nearby bomb can need movement at the same time. Select the overhead and make the clear movement click before opening a longer inventory action.
Visible cue | Response |
|---|---|
Ordinary large green projectile | Protect from Magic |
Ordinary crystal projectile | Protect from Missiles |
Red sphere | Reapply Protect from Melee |
Green sphere | Reapply Protect from Missiles |
Purple sphere | Reapply Protect from Magic |
Lightning hits you | Recover and check the overhead again; it can be disabled |
Early hand phases: keep the correct target and space
A small team of up to seven normally has three hand phases followed by the head phase. Each early hand phase has a named power: acid, flame or crystal. The power determines extra mechanics, while the recurring crystal-burst, lightning and teleport specials remain important.
Use magic on the mage hand and melee on the melee hand. In the early phases, teams often finish the mage hand before the melee hand so the latter’s clenching does not delay progress. If the melee hand closes and becomes invulnerable, stop wasting attacks into it and use the team’s available target.
Defence reduction affects the part actually hit and does not carry unchanged through every new phase. Follow the assigned special plan rather than spending all energy on the wrong hand or the head while somebody else waits for the intended reduction.
When both hands are disabled, Olm retreats and crystals fall. Move off their shadows while healing and prepare for him to emerge on the other side. Do not stand still over a dropped potion assuming the phase transition is a safe inventory break.
Recurring specials: seeds, lightning and portal swaps
Crystal Burst plants a seed beneath players. Move off the growing crystal before it erupts. A short clear move is enough when it takes you outside the dangerous tile; a far diagonal sprint may drag you through a teammate’s problem or disrupt the head turn.
Lightning travels along the chamber. Watch the lanes and step clear rather than run along the same bolt. Getting hit can bind you and disable protection, so restore the overhead when possible instead of assuming the prayer remained active.
For a portal swap, match the team’s pairing convention and meet your linked teammate on the same tile. Distance between linked players causes damage when the teleport resolves. Do not have both players run to each other’s starting tile and pass in the middle.
Agree a meeting point or which partner moves before the fight. If you are not selected in an odd-sized group, avoid blocking the pair’s meeting area. Solo uses a marked destination instead of a teammate; that difference is one reason a team portal lesson is not a complete solo timing guide.
Power attacks: separate movement from team spacing
Acid pools punish standing on them, and an acid trail creates pools as its target moves. Use a controlled clear route without covering the team’s main positions. Antipoison treats the poison status; it does not make acid-floor damage safe.
During the flame power, a deep burn makes a player call “Burn with me!” Keep separation so it does not spread between teammates and restart the problem. Restore drained stats when appropriate; the effect is more than an isolated damage hit.
A fire wall traps a strip of the room. Click a flame segment with a suitable water or ice spell available to open it, then leave through the cleared gap. Assign this responsibility and carry the required runes before entry. Being on a spellbook without the intended spell is not a fire-wall plan.
During the crystal power, the red-aura target should keep moving away from falling spikes without leading them through teammates. Move well away from a deployed crystal bomb; its explosion reaches beyond the exact tile it occupies. Learn these visible cues before adding a runner pattern that assumes a specific special has been skipped.
Final hand phase: lower both, then finish together
The glowing-head hand phase is the penultimate phase. Both hands must be disabled within a short window or the defeated hand returns with full health. Bringing one down while the other remains high creates unnecessary repeat damage and does not award fresh points for endlessly repeating the restored hand.
Call both health bars, bring them low and pause damage on the lower one. Leave enough margin for queued attacks and the weapons actually being used. A fixed hitpoint target from another team is not universal across scales and damage setups.
The melee hand can display an infinity symbol and turn incoming damage into healing. Stop attacking it during that period, including avoidable continuing damage where you can control it. Watch the symbol clear before resuming the planned finish.
Once both are ready and the healing window is clear, coordinate the kills close together. Many teams finish the melee hand first, then quickly complete the mage hand. The important part is a shared call and a finish the team can actually deliver, rather than two players independently deciding that their own target is low enough.
Head phase: ranged, falling crystals and healing pools
Once the final hands are disabled, attack the head with ranged. Falling crystals continue throughout this phase, and Olm can use the power attacks and spheres. The earlier hand specials—Crystal Burst, lightning and portal swaps—are removed, so use the visible head-phase cues instead of waiting for the old repeating sequence.
Move away from falling-crystal shadows while maintaining a workable ranged distance. A short-range weapon can drag you forward when you click from too far away. If that repeatedly breaks the route, adjust the position or use an appropriate longer-range option instead of assuming every ranged weapon fits the same tiles.
When blue projectiles create healing pools, stand on one of those pool tiles before the siphon resolves. Either pool protects you; the whole team does not need to guess which single one is correct. Players who miss them take damage and give Olm healing, which can prolong the phase considerably.
Keep healing reachable, maintain the relevant overhead and stop spreading burn or acid while chasing the last hit. When the head finally collapses, collect the reward from the opened exit area and empty any personal storage you need before the next raid.
Review one mistake before learning a faster method
If you run out of supplies, identify what spent them: missed spheres, spreading burn, failed pools, repeated final hands or disrupted head turns. That explanation is more useful than buying a larger weapon switch and repeating the same mistake.
Regular Hardcore Ironmen do not lose status from CoX deaths; Hardcore Group Ironmen lose a group life. Death still costs points and drops raid supplies. Do not import a repeated-death solo practice plan into a Hardcore Group account or mistake a safe death for an efficient clear.
A useful first milestone is a complete team kill where you can name the current target, recognise the sphere colours, meet the portal partner and help finish the final hands together. From there, reduce missed movement, learn the runner’s job and only then choose a separate solo or advanced timing project.
Fit this encounter into the complete raid
Use the Chambers of Xeric learner guide for the complete raid, preparation and team expectations. The raids preparation guide helps separate useful upgrades from access requirements.
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