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RuneScape Skill Guides - Combat

Welcome to my combat skill guide! Although this guide isn't aimed particularly at magic or ranged combat players, there is some information which could be useful, e.g. collecting cowhide and how experience is gained. Combat is perhaps the largest part of RuneScape. It is basically fighting against monsters or other players. This page discusses melee combat. Combat is very difficult to master. When you right click on another player, it reveals his combat level. The highest combat level in the game is 126. Combat is intertwined with many other skills. For example, if you take up mining and you want to upgrade your pickaxe, you need a certain attack level to be able to wield the stronger pickaxe. When earning money, the ultimate goal is to have the strongest weapons, strongest armour, etc. And what are weapons and armour for? Combat!

Combat Level

Every RuneScape player has a combat level. The highest combat level in the game is 126 and the lowest combat level is 3. RuneScape determines your combat level using several formulas. They automatically relate your combat level to the type of combat you are using, e.g. melee combat or magic combat.

Prayer, defence and hitpoints will always contribute to your combat level. Ranged level affects the combat level of rangers and magic level affects the combat level of mages. Attack and strength affect the combat level of melee players.

Here are some important terms in RuneScape. To gain experience in attack, strength and defence, you must fight in their respective style (accurate, aggressive and defensive). The formula for experience gained is how high you hit, times by 4. Therefore, to roughly calculate how much experience you gain from a particular monster, you simply times their hitpoints by 4 (although monsters can occasionally heal themselves and monks will do it frequently). Please note that attack, strength and defence are pretty much equally important, and you should train them all during melee combat.

Attack: Your attack level dictates how often you give damage to monsters. This will help you avoid hitting 0's. For example, you could hit a 14 and then hit a 0 if your attack level is weak. Your attack level dictates what kind of weapons you can use.

Strength: Your strength level dictates how hard you hit on monsters. The higher your strength level, the higher you will hit a monster.

Defence: Your defence level reduces the chance that an opponent will hit you. This will help you win many fights as monsters will be unable to deal damage to you. Your defence level dictates what kind of armour you can use.

Combat Level Training

Now I'm going to detail a way to train your combat level up. This is a melee-based guide.

Note that players should be upgrading to the armour and weapon of the best metal they can wield when in combat. You can always sell the weapons and armour you buy to Grand Exchange or to their specialist stores to get most of your money back and you would have trained faster in the meantime.

Here is a charge depicting what level of defence and attack you can wield certain metals.

Attack or Defence level	Metal
Bronze	1
Iron	1
Steel	5
Black	10
Mithril	20
Adamant	30
Rune	40

Please note that attack, strength and defence are pretty much equally important, and you should train them all when fighting against monsters. Typically, one trains attack up first, then defence and finally strength.

Level 3

My favourite fighting area, especially at lower levels is with the goblins across the bridge from where the game begins and the cows in the cow farm not far from the goblin area. The are also rats to kill around the Lumbridge castle, but killing them is not as enjoyable because they do not drop items. At the start of these early levels, I suggest you to purchase full iron armour with an iron scimitar. There are instructions on how to do this in my RuneScape Beginners Guide.

- A goblin

Goblins are excellent training and they can leave a variety of things, including bones (always), coins, bronze square shields, iron daggers and beer. Players should get into the habit of burying the bones of every creature they kill, as this will increase their prayer level. Increasing your prayer will allow you to do prayer spells in battle, giving you an advantage over monsters. Chickens and cows are also useful kills as you can cook their meat. There is a cooking pot which can be used to cook in the chicken house opposite the cow farm. The chicken house is located further up the road on the way from the goblins to Varrock.

Goblins or cows?

- A cow

Many players continue to kill goblins for a long time, but cows actually give more experience. Move onto cows when you are able to defeat goblins fairly easily. One more reason to fight cows is that they leave cowhide, worth quite a bit of money (see above).

Level 5

Players with level 5 attack and level 5 defence can upgrade to steel armour and weapons. My weapon suggestion is the steel scimitar. You can purchase full steel armour (consisting of a full helmet, platelegs, a kiteshield and platebody) and a steel scimitar from the Grand Exchange.

Level 10

Players with level 10 attack and level 10 defence can upgrade to black armour and weapons. My weapon suggestion is the black scimitar. Black scimitars are considered a rare item and are quite expensive. They are not sold at the scimitar shop in Al Kharid and are expensive at the Grand Exchange. This is why I suggest you buy a black longsword as a substitute, either from the Varrock Swordshop or from the Grand Exchange, if you do not have much money. If you can afford it, you will get your money back by selling the scimitar back to the Grand Exchange or to another player. You can purchase full black armour and a black longsword from the Grand Exchange.

Level 20

At combat level 20, you can choose different monsters to fight against. Fighting against cows is still completely adequate and maybe even more profitable. If you want to train your combat level faster, you can choose to fight against monks.

Again, players should upgrade their armour and weapons again. Players with level 20 attack and level 20 defence can upgrade to mithril armour and weapons. My weapon suggestion is the mithril scimitar. You should be rich enough, especially if you have done to Stronghold of Security, to purchase a few additional items. Players should consider obtaining an Amulet of Power, a cape (black or red), leather vambraces and fighting boots. Fighting boots cannot be bought and must be earned as a reward from the Stronghold of Security. Note that when collecting your reward for the Stronghold of Security, fancy boots have the same stats as fighting boots, so you can choose either. If you don't want to go through all the trouble of obtaining those boots, leather boots would be a suitable replacement, with only slightly worse statistics. There is a leather boots respawn in the basement of Lumbridge castle. You can purchase full mithril armour, a mithril scimitar, an Amulet of Power, a cape and leather vambraces from the Grand Exchange.

- A monk

Monks are excellent training for lower-level players. Monks are located in the monastery, a two-storey building north-east of Falador and west of Edgeville. Monks don't hit very hard and they also heal themselves during battle, giving more experience for the player. In addition, if you are low on health, you can ask monks to heal you. The fact that you can kill a monk who has just healed you is often joked about.

Another choice is to train on goblins in the Goblin Village. The Goblin Village is a rather far walk, so I strongly recommend training on monks.

Level 30

At level 30, you are strong enough to face tougher monsters (or humans). Players with level 30 attack and level 30 defence can upgrade to adamant armour and weapons. My weapon suggestion is the adamant scimitar. You can purchase full adamant armour and an adamant scimitar from the Grand Exchange.

I suggest you take on level 9 Al-Kharid warriors. Al-Kharid warriors are located in the Al-Kharid palace. These warriors can be fought by multiple people at once, but multiple Al-Kharid warriors can attack players at once too. Al-Kharid warriors wield steel scimitars and steel square shields, and also leave a range of items including coins, iron daggers and iron medium helmets. Al-Kharid warriors probably give the most experience out of all the monsters around its level.

- An Al-Kharid warrior

Another option is to train on dwarves (level 10 or level 11). You will find plenty of dwarves in and near the entrance to the Dwarven Mines, south of Barbarian Village. Dwarves give lower experience than Al-Kharid warriors. Dwarves can drop coins, iron bars and coal. Level 25 dwarf black guards (in the same area as the dwarves) aren't as strong as their levels let you assume. You can also take on these guys.

- A dwarf

Players can also go down to the Stronghold of Security. There are level 5, 11, 13, 16 and 25 goblins as well as level 12 and 27 minotaurs. Their drops aren't great however.

Level 40

At attack level 40 and defence level 40, you can wear rune weapons and armour, the best in the game for free players. You don't need much help from now on, but I will briefly outline what you can do. But before I do, here is what I think is the ideal weapons, amulet and armour. Except for the fighting boots, you can buy all these items at the Grand Exchange.

Warning: Street prices may need updating

Name	Required Level	Street Price (gp)	Notes	Picture
Rune scimitar	Attack 40	15000-20000	-
Rune kiteshield	Defence 40	40000-50000	-
Rune platebody	Defence 40	39000-45000	You must complete the Dragon Slayer quest in order to wear this armour.
Rune full helmet	Defence 40	20000-25000	-
Rune platelegs	Defence 40	35000-45000	-
Fighting boots	-	-	This is a reward from the 4th level of the Stronghold of Security.
Leather vambraces	-	10	-
Cape (black)	-	1-10	All coloured capes have the same defence statistics.
Amulet of Power	-	2100-2400	-

Notes: When collecting your reward for the Stronghold of Security, fancy boots have the same stats as fighting boots, so you can choose either.

An amulet of power is simply an enchanted diamond amulet (by casting Enchant Level 4 Jewellery).

Rings do not give any bonuses and are only used for decoration in F2P.

The Dragon Slayer Quest is arguably the hardest quest in the whole of F2P RuneScape. Players have to take plenty of supplies and must have adequate combat capabilities. To be safe, players should train to combat level 50 before trying to complete the quest. Click here for a comprehensive walkthrough on the Dragon Slayer quest. Players who don't want to take on the dangerous Dragon Slayer quest can buy a rune chainbody as a replacement.

Players who are planning to complete the Dragon Slayer quest could consider buying a rune battleaxe instead. The dragon Elvarg (the enemy in Dragon Slayer) is slash-resistant, meaning that slash attacks will more often miss. Using crush and stab attacks will be more effective on Elvarg. The rune battleaxe has an excellent strength bonus and a fairly good crush attack. It is slower than a scimitar, but has greater power.

Tip: If you want to look big but do not want to complete the Dragon Slayer quest, wear a mithril platebody. It can be difficult for players to tell the difference. You can also try wearing full mithril with a rune scimitar.

Combat Level Training - Continued

Level 40 - Train on hobgoblins south of Falador or hill giants in the Edgeville Dungeon. Another good place to train is in the Varrock Sewers. You can find skeletons, ghosts and zombies down there. The Varrock Sewers is a multi-combat area. White knights can be found in the White Knights' Castle in Falador. White knights wield white two-handed swords, so a rune chainbody is even more resistant than a rune platebody.

Level 50 - The jail guards near Draynor Village give great experience. They are good training up to level 70 or even further. Moss giants can be found in the Varrock Sewers and they drop valuable "big bones". At this point, players should consider doing the Dragon Slayer quest, this is also a form of training and your combat level will improve after you finish the quest.

Level 60 - Players can consider going to the Asgarnian Ice Dungeon (also known as the blurite cave) and taking on some ice monsters. There are level 57 ice warriors and level 53 ice giants in the cave. These monsters have fairly good drops.

Level 70 - Continuing training on jail guards or attack lesser demons. Lesser demons give good experience and drops, sometimes dropping rune medium helmets.

Level 90+ - You have pretty much conquered RuneScape. Not many players (considering how many actually play) get up to this level. You can give greater demons a go now. They are level 92 and are one of the strongest monsters in the game. The next strongest monsters are wilderness Revenants, which can be extremely dangerous and not particularly worthwhile to attack.

Posted by Webmaster on Tuesday, December 29, 2009.