Free-to-play combat pure guide

Free-to-play combat pures are accounts designed to excel in player versus player combat. They are often created with the specific goal of engaging in player versus player activities in the free-to-play worlds. To gain an advantage in their respective combat level brackets, training of these accounts is often focused on the offensive skills, maximising the damage output at the cost of sacrificing the defensive capabilities.

In general, combat pures tend to focus on the offensive skills to gain an advantage in their particular combat level range. Free-to-play pures often limit their Defence, Prayer, and Hitpoints levels while focusing on Strength, Ranged, and Magic to maximise their damage output.

Attack affects the melee accuracy and unlocks melee weapons. Along with Strength, it is one of the melee combat skills with an equal effect on the combat level.

Many free-to-play pures choose to level attack up to 40 as it unlocks the rune weapons—the highest tier of weaponry available in the free-to-play worlds. Even without training the Attack skill further, rune weapons are accurate enough to consistently damage other players with low to medium Defence levels, particularly without an armour.

Strength raises the maximum damage dealt with the melee attacks and unlocks selected melee weapons. Along with Attack, it is one of the melee combat skills with an equal effect on the combat level.

Melee attacks allow dealing the highest maximum hits among all combat styles available in the free-to-play worlds, which makes it the most commonly used combat style to knock the opponents out. Because of that, Strength is a very commonly trained without restrictions among the combat pures.

Strength also allows wielding warhammers, which do not require any Attack levels to use. Warhammers are slow and accurate one-handed weapons with high strength bonuses, which makes them effective as knockout weapons. Melee-oriented accounts that that are focused on training Strength and drastically limit their Attack levels are referred to as strength pures.

Defence lowers the chance of receiving damage and allows wearing better armours. Along with Hitpoints, it is one of the defensive combat skills with an equal effect on the combat level.

A significant portion of the free-to-play combat pures tend to keep their Defence level at 1 to focus on the offensive skills and maximise the damage output instead. So-called one-defence pures tend to dominate the low and medium level brackets of the free-to-play player-versus-player combat.

Many combat pures also choose to level their Defence to unlock specific tiers of armour, with level 40 unlocking the rune armour being the most common target. Such accounts tend to start weaker than 1 Defence pures in terms of the raw damage output, but once they reach higher combat levels the offensive capabilities of both 1 and 40 Defence pures can be very similar—and eventually surpassed with access to more items that raise the accuracy and strength of ranged and melee attacks.

30 Defence level is necessary to achieve the highest equipment strength bonus offered by the free-to-play items by wearing the gold decorative boots. These boots are currently one of few pieces of equipment outside of the weapon and amulet slots that provides a strength bonus in the free-to-play worlds. A bonus of +1 strength that they provide is required to maximise damage with certain melee weapons such as the rune scimitar or rune warhammer. Additionally, 40 Defence level and the Dragon Slayer I quest are required to maximise the ranged accuracy bonus with green d'hide body or gilded d'hide body.

Ranged affects accuracy and maximum damage of ranged attacks. It also unlocks leather gear and ranged weapons.

Unlike in the case of melee combat style, Ranged is not split into two separate skills—it increases both the accuracy and damage of the ranged attacks. As combat pures tend to cap their Attack levels, their ranged attacks are usually more accurate and consistent than melee hits.

Shortbows used with the rapid combat style have the fastest attack speed in free-to-play worlds at 3 ticks, or roughly 1.8 seconds. The Ranged skill also unlocks some free-to-play medium level armours that have the best-in-slot bonuses for 1 Defence accounts including studded leather armour at 20, as well as green dragonhide armour and gilded dragonhide armour at level 40.

Magic increases accuracy of the magic attacks and the magic defence. It also gives access to numerous combat and utility spells.

Combat spells start with a very quick damage progression, outdamaging other combat styles. However, magic attacks quickly become inferior due to their relatively low speed and eventual damage cap. Magic max hit is achieved at 59 level after unlocking the Fire Blast spell and is permanently capped at 16 outside of the combat minigames, as it does not scale along with the level progression. Because of that, combat spells are rarely used in typical arranged 1-vs-1 player-versus-player combat.

On higher combat levels, magic attacks lack the speed of ranged attacks and the maximum damage potential of melee hits. Magic attacks usually have a much smaller damage-per-second value than ranged or melee combat styles, with the notable exception of fighting opponents with high Defence levels wearing metal armours such as rune. Combat spells remain viable only in the multicombat areas and in the deep Wilderness. Magic also gives access to the Bind, Snare, and Tele Block spells which are crucial when killing players in the deep Wilderness or the PvP worlds outside of the typical hotspots.

It is the only skill that directly affects both defence and offence of magic attacks, as well as the only combat skill beside Prayer that can be trained reliably without gaining Hitpoints experience in the free-to-play worlds. Even when not planning to use spells in combat directly, training Magic can be considered for the improved magic defence and unlocking all utility spells. Magic levels can be gained without raising the overall combat level, as long as its level is below or equal to Ranged or ⅔ of the sum of Attack and Strength.

Hitpoints affect how much damage can be received before dying. Along with Defence, it is one of the defensive combat skills with an equal effect on the combat level.

As standard training methods of the majority of combat skills involve gaining Hitpoints experience and high enough Hitpoints are critical to survive the incoming attacks, this is the only defensive skill commonly trained by the vast majority of combat pures regardless of their build. Notable exceptions include niche and specialised accounts such as the magic pures which can reliably train Magic without gaining Hitpoints experience to cast spells such as Snare or Tele Block on extremely low combat levels.

The overall combat level is affected equally by the Defence and Hitpoints levels. For example, both players with 1 Defence and 79 Hitpoints as well as 40 Defence and 40 Hitpoints would end up with the same combat level given similar Attack, Strength, Ranged, Magic, and Prayer skill levels.

Combat pures that train their offensive skills with methods that do not grant Hitpoints experience can outdamage their opponents with a similar combat level. Arguably, Hitpoints are not as vital in arranged 1-vs-1 combat since both players are expected to keep their health around the maximum hit to avoid overhealing (or safing). However, free-to-play players have no reliable way of gaining melee or Ranged combat experience without training Hitpoints with the exceptions being limited quest rewards, training on a dummy, and experience lamps. On the other hand, pay-to-play worlds do provide such training methods for every combat skill which gives an edge to accounts trained in the members worlds.

Hitpoints are not necessary to unlock any free-to-play items or abilities. However, at least 50 Hitpoints are necessary to survive the maximum damage from combined attacks of a maple shortbow with adamant arrows on rapid and a rune 2h sword at 18 and 31 respectively for a total of 49 damage.

Prayer unlocks skill boosts, gives access to various utility prayers, and raises the maximum prayer points amount. It has a lesser impact on the combat level than either Hitpoints or Defence and the offensive skills.

Prayers are necessary to achieve the highest possible ranged and melee maximum hits in the free-to-play world. Since prayers boost combat skills by a percent rather than a fixed value, their efficiency raises along with the levels of the boosted skills.

Besides unlocking new boosts, gaining additional Prayer levels does not increase efficiency of existing prayers. It only affects how long the prayers can be used before running out of the prayer points. Because of that, many pures choose to stop training this skill after unlocking specific prayers necessary for their build.

This section describes the differences between the account builds followed by free-to-play combat pures.

Combat pure builds are mostly defined by the sets of restrictions of their combat skills. In particular, the most significant differences stem from training secondary skills that do not directly raise maximum damage such as Attack, Defence, Hitpoints, or Prayer. This is because training these skills is a permanent choice that cannot be made up for by training other combat skills to optimise the build for any given combat level, as is the case with Ranged, Magic, or Strength. While training these secondary skills to a specific level can influence damage output by unlocking certain items or boosts, training them too high generally puts the player at a disadvantage by raising their combat level in exchange for minor to no advantages in combat. This is especially true in case of skills such as Prayer, which gives no advantages over 45 level other than being able to use prayers without flicking for a longer time.

Unlike the offensive combat skills, Prayer does not directly affect damage output. Instead, it unlocks passive boosts that improve other skills. Once a given prayer is unlocked, gaining additional Prayer levels does not improve its effect. Higher Prayer levels only increase the maximum amount of prayer points, which only affects how long the prayers can last before running out. Although higher Prayer levels are quite convenient and might be useful in the deep Wilderness, most combat pures choose not to increase their combat level without any effect on the maximum hits or damage output, and stop training this skill as soon as specific boosts critical to their builds are unlocked.

Decorative boots

The following table lists commonly used Prayer levels.

Some less common Prayer levels include:

• 25: unlocks Protect Item.
• 34: unlocks all offensive melee boosts including Incredible Reflexes.
• 43: unlocks all protection prayers including Protect from Melee.
• 45: unlocks all free-to-play prayers including Mystic Might. Has the same effect on the combat level as the 44 prayer level.
• 52: unlocks members-only Smite.

Note that due to the combat level calculation formula, all even Prayer levels can be trained 1 level further without affecting the overall combat level. As an example, a combat pure with 44 Prayer level for Eagle Eye can train it up to 45 to unlock Mystic Might without increasing the combat level, regardless of the other combat skill levels.

Getting all protection prayers is encouraged when planning on fighting players in the deep Wilderness. Protection prayers greatly improve the defensive capabilities of the low Defence pures.

When choosing the appropriate Prayer level for 1-vs-1 combat, players should check how many Strength levels it would take to achieve the same maximum hit improvement as provided by the next Strength-boosting prayer. If it takes fewer combat levels to increase the maximum hit via the unlocking the next prayer, players should consider doing that instead of training other combat skills. Many accounts created for 1-vs-1 combat stop at 31 Prayer level by unlocking the Ultimate Strength, although 44—45 Prayer levels are also viable and should be considered by maxed pures as well as players that participate in combat in the deep Wilderness to access the protection prayers and Eagle Eye.

While Magic-boosting prayers such as Mystic Lore and Mystic Might affect the magic defence and the accuracy of magic attacks, their modest magic damage bonuses have no effect on maximum damage of the free-to-play combat spells. As such, they are not crucial for the Magic-based builds. Note that the maximum magic hit with the free-to-play equipment is capped at 16 with the blast spells after unlocking the Fire Blast at 59 Magic level, or 19 with Castle wars bracelet inside of the Castle Wars minigame against the flag bearer.

It should be noted that when the prayer points run out, the player is left without any combat advantages until they are restored, and there are no prayer restoration items in the free-to-play worlds. This is worth consideration before choosing the final account build. Depending on the activities that players participate in, training Prayer might not be entirely worth the extra combat levels in every case.

In general, the following Prayer level caps are favoured by different groups of players:

• 1: low level combat pures, risk fighters.
• 4, 13, 31: melee pures, accounts for 1-vs-1 combat.
• 34: melee pures.
• 44, 45: maxed combat pures, accounts for multicombat activities and the deep Wilderness.
• 46+: specialised accounts such as the clan pures.

Maximum aggressive melee hits with 99 Strength, amulet of strength, and a strength potion are as follows:

Maximum ranged hits with 99 Ranged are as follows:

Note that the magic damage bonuses provided by the Magic prayers are not high enough to raise the maximum magic damage of free-to-play spells on their own.

When training melee skills, Attack and Strength can be kept in different proportions as both of these skills have an equal effect on the combat level. Neglecting Attack in favour of Strength can make the melee attacks reach higher maximum melee hits at the cost of the accuracy and the variety of available weapons. Players that do not train Attack can still wield warhammers up to rune, since they only have Strength level requirements.

The following table lists the optimal sum of melee skills that do not affect the overall combat level given the respective Ranged or Magic level. Since both melee skills have an equal effect on the combat level, they can be distributed freely. For example, with a sum of melee skills at 100, a player might have 1 Attack and 99 Strength or 40 Attack and 60 Strength with the same combat level assuming similar levels of other combat skills. When trying to determine the optimal melee skills sum, use the higher of Magic and Ranged levels as both have an equal effect on combat level.

Once the Ranged or Magic level surpasses 67, players have to start training Attack even with 99 Strength in order to optimise the build. Similarly, after Ranged or Magic surpass 93, players can start training Attack beyond 40 even with 99 Strength level without an effect on their overall combat level.

Training melee skills past the sum of 148, or 49 Attack with 99 Strength, always has an effect on the overall combat level making it melee-based.

Most viable builds for 1-vs-1 combat pair a reliable quick attack—such as the maple shortbow on rapid or the rune scimitar—with a powerful knockout attack like the rune 2h sword or a rune warhammer. Combat pure accounts often focus on specific offensive combat skills to maximise the damage output with both the main and secondary attacks like Strength or Ranged, with skills such as Attack or Prayer trained just high enough to unlock certain items or boosts.

The following table lists viable types of attacks used by players in both 1-vs-1 duels and multicombat areas that dictate which offensive skills the player focus on.

• Combat level can be based on either melee, Ranged, or Magic skills. To optimise the damage output with all combat styles on any given combat level, both Ranged and Magic skills should be equal to roughly ⅔ of the sum of Strength and Attack.
• Unlock Prayer boosts to maximise damage output. As a rule of thumb, if getting another prayer boost has a smaller effect on the overall combat level than training Strength or Ranged for the same maximum hit increase, Prayer should be trained instead.
• Do not train skills like Attack, Defence, or Prayer after unlocking specific items or boosts, unless the extra levels have no effect on the overall combat level. In particular, Defence should not be trained past 40 level unless aiming specifically for a tanky build.
• Train combat skills with methods that do not grant Hitpoints experience as much as possible to minimise the combat level. In particular, Magic has multiple such training methods in the free-to-play worlds.

Pay-to-play combat pure builds tend to have less restrictive limits on certain skills such as Attack, Prayer, Hitpoints, or Defence to gain access to the high level members-only equipment or prayers. As such, these pures might be suboptimal in free-to-play 1-vs-1 combat.

Free-to-play combat pures usually cap the Attack level at 40 to unlock the rune weapons. Since on this level there are no notable unlocks of members-only PvP weapons, it is rarely used by pay-to-play combat pures. Instead, member combat pures that choose to train Attack reach higher levels on average, often starting at 50 for the granite maul with 60 and 75 being also common among higher level accounts.

Many pay-to-play pures choose to train Prayer up to 52 level to unlock the Smite prayer, or even higher if they train Defence to access equipment like the spirit shield, or prayers such as Piety. In contrast, free-to-play pures often stop at 31 to maximise the maximum melee hit, or at 44 to unlock the protection prayers and maximise the maximum ranged hit. As a rule of thumb, there is no reason to train Prayer past 45 on free-to-play accounts, since there are no further unlocks past Mystic Might, and the prayer level does not affect the efficiency of the unlocked skill boosts or protection prayers.

Other than dedicated tanks or defence pures, free-to-play combat pures usually do not train the Defence skill past 40 level, which unlocks the rune armour, rune god armours and green d'hide body. While pay-to-play builds with comparable Defence levels do exist—such as the void pure at 42 or the berserker pure at 45—there are other viable builds with even higher Defence levels like 60 or 75 with access to high tier armours and prayers that are unavailable in the free-to-play worlds.

Additionally, free-to-play combat pures have no consistent methods of training melee and ranged skills without gaining Hitpoints experience such as cannoning. Combat pures trained with members-only methods, especially with the sole purpose of participating in free-to-play PvP combat, can have lower Hitpoints levels in general. However, due to the much higher damage potential of the members-only weapons and spells, pay-to-play combat pures do not benefit as much from restricting their Hitpoints levels outside of specialized builds for activities such as rushing.

To sum up, free-to-play combat pure accounts tend to have lower Attack and Prayer levels. Free-to-play accounts built with members-only training methods can benefit from lower Hitpoints levels. Free-to-play accounts also tend to cap Defence at lower levels such as 30 or 40.

This section lists viable free-to-play combat pure builds.

The following table contains builds that do not rely on training Defence.

Since there are no Ranged knockout weapons like the ballistae in the free-to-play worlds, ranged pures are rather uncommon and ineffective in typical 1-vs-1 combat. While they do find some use in multicombat areas, they are rarely the goal in practice. Similarly, Attack pures that do not train Strength are not viable in player-versus-player combat at all due to the extremely low damage output.

While Defence is the most commonly restricted skill of accounts built for player versus player combat, it does have its merits. In particular, defensive capabilities are especially important in the deep Wilderness where so-called "no honour" fights with protection prayers or spells such as Snare and Tele Block are very common. While low Defence pures dominate early combat level brackets, accounts with higher Defence levels tend to be more common in the late combat level ranges.

While not technically combat pures, main accounts (or mains) are the most common build at the latest combat level brackets—mostly due to the fact that specialised PvP accounts cannot reach the highest combat levels in the first place. Mains train all combat skills without any restrictions, surpassing other accounts with their accuracy and defensive capabilities. While often weaker than optimised pures on low and mid levels, mains dominate the PvP scene once they reach high combat levels.

Clans often restrict the Defence or the combat levels of their members. For example, some clans participate in ultra low level clan wars with a specific combat level restriction, others recruit only high level or maxed 1 defence pures, while different ones are focused on main accounts with maxed combat skills. In general, the goal is to make the account as strong as possible within the specific restrictions. This might lead to some accounts being not optimal for typical 1-vs-1 player-versus-player combat due to unusually high levels of the commonly restricted skills such as Attack or Prayer. Many clans that participate in free-to-play PvP activities also so do on members-only worlds which deviates their accounts further from the optimal free-to-play builds.

In general, it is best to investigate the combat level bracket or specific restrictions of the clan before creating an optimised account.

Ironman Mode is an optional account type that, among others, restricts players from trading. Additionally to the trading restrictions, players in Ironman Mode do not receive combat experience when attacking other players other than basic spell casting experience when using Magic. As such, they can be used to create unique accounts with combat skills at very specific levels—usually to gain advantage by restricting skills such as Hitpoints. Since they cannot level up through PvP activities, Ironmen can build accounts to target specific combat level brackets indefinitely. The main disadvantage of these accounts is the lack of ability to pick up loot after combat, or to replenish supplies via the Grand Exchange, looting, or trading. They can, however, transfer obtained loot keys by dying to an ally or an alternative account. Some activities, such as risk fighting, can be particularly tricky for these accounts.

Group Ironman Mode allows to group up to 5 accounts that can trade with each other. This is particularly useful for Ironmen that aim to engage in PvP activities, as it partially alleviates the problem of time-consuming supplies gathering: other group members or alternative accounts can obtain the necessary food, potions, and equipment. Alternative accounts with membership allow free-to-play Ironmen to access items that are normally restricted or difficult to obtain on free-to-play worlds without trading, such as the rune scimitar, rune warhammer, rune god armours, or gilded d'hide armour.

Refer to the free-to-play combat pure training article for the viable combat pure training methods.

Accounts trained on the members worlds have a distinct advantage of minimising the Hitpoints level by training skills such as Ranged or Strength with methods that do not grant Hitpoints experience. As such, they can typically achieve a higher damage output on the same combat level as their counterparts trained in the free-to-play worlds.

• Mooleta is an offhand item with a strength bonus dropped the Brutus boss that can be challenged after finishing The Ides of Milk quest. The quest also yields a cowbell amulet, a teleportation item with no requirements that can be used up to the 20 level of the Wilderness.
• Getting 57 Woodcutting allows to build the waka canoe, which can take the player to the Ferox Enclave, as well as the middle of the Wilderness from any canoe station. Since there are no Wilderness teleports in free-to-play worlds other than minigame teleports to the Ferox Enclave with a 20-minute delay, canoes are among the fastest ways of getting to many deep Wilderness locations.
• Unlocking and setting Edgeville respawn might be worthwhile when planning on killing players in the low level Wilderness. On free-to-play non-PvP worlds Edgeville respawn is closer to a bank than Lumbridge and very close to the player killing hotspot north of Edgeville.
• Unlocking and setting Ferox Enclave respawn can be helpful when planning on killing players in the mid and deep Wilderness. On regular free-to-play worlds Ferox Enclave respawn is the closest to a banker among all respawn points, and provides quick access to roughly 15 level of the Wilderness. However, keep in mind that it is a much less useful respawn on the PvP worlds, as both Lumbridge and Edgeville respawns have a bank chest nearby, while the one in Ferox Enclave remains unchanged.
• Unlocking loot keys at Ferox Enclave can be useful for players that frequent the deep Wilderness or the areas around the Ferox Enclave. Players have to pay 1,000,000 coins to Skully to be able to opt-in. When turned on, looted items will not drop to the floor after killing an opponent, and instead a loot key will appear in the killer's inventory, taking a single inventory slot. The loot can be retrieved from the loot chests currently located at the centre of Ferox Enclave, the Edgeville bank, and the Grand Exchange.
• Obtaining a skull sceptre allows to teleport to the Barbarian Village, which is among the fastest ways of getting to Edgeville in free-to-play. It also allows to autocast the Crumble Undead spell.]
• Arrows can be picked up directly to the ammunition slot after talking to the ranged combat tutor.
• Obtaining a barronite mace within the Ruins of Camdozaal gives access to a crush-based alternative to the rune scimitar with slightly lower offensive bonuses and a notable prayer bonus. This weapon is accurate against opponents in full plate armour due to its crush attacks.
• Obtaining the decorative armour from the Castle Wars minigame might be desirable for 5, 20, and 30 defence pures. These untradeable armours have bonuses equal to steel, mithril, and adamant respectively, but they are not lost on death outside of the deep Wilderness. Instead, they will retrievable from the gravestone without a fee, or will appear in the inventory in a broken variant and will be repairable for a small fee. Additionally, decorative boots provide the highest defensive bonuses in free-to-play, with the gold decorative boots having a strength bonus of +1, which can increase the maximum damage of some weapons such as the rune scimitar. Players with at least 30 defence level should prioritise obtaining the boots first.
• Turning on the maximum hitsplat trim in the settings allows the player to see the maximum damage done by the opponent, which makes it easier to heal properly without so-called safing during arranged duels.
• Getting 500 and 750 total levels in free-to-play skills unlocks additional free-to-play worlds that are usually less crowded. Some players leverage this to avoid player killers and access dangerous locations such as chaos temple, nature runes spawn south-east of demonic ruins, or the runite mine north of the lava maze. Getting a high total level can be necessary for finding and hunting these players.

This section describes the items relevant to the free-to-play combat. To find detailed item comparisons and example inventory setups, see the PvP equipment guide.

Free-to-play worlds offer a variety of metal melee weapons, wooden bows and magic staves. 40 Attack and 40 Strength, as well as 30 Ranged and 30 Magic levels are necessary to unlock the best available weapons including rune weapons, maple bows, and the Bryophyta's staff.

In 1-vs-1 combat, free-to-play combat pures typically use at least 2 weapons: a fast weapon that deals consistent DPS and a knockout weapon with a high maximum hit. Maple shortbow with adamant arrows and rune scimitar are the most commonly used DPS weapons, while rune 2h sword, rune battleaxe and rune warhammer are the typically used as switches for knockouts. Rune battleaxe and rune warhammer are both one-handed and slightly faster, while the rune 2h sword offers the highest strength bonus.

Warhammers are the only weapons in the free-to-play worlds that require Strength to wield instead of Attack. Most notably, rune warhammer requires 40 Strength level to wield and has comparable bonuses to those of the rune battleaxe which requires 40 Attack. This allows to create specialised strength pures that focus on training strength while limiting the Attack level.

Hill giant club is a crush-based alternative to the rune 2h sword with a similar accuracy bonus and an equal strength bonus. Although more accurate against players in plate armour, it is rarely used in typical fights due to its high price, unless both players agree to a so-called risk fight.

Bryophyta's staff is the strongest magic weapon that doubles as a melee weapon with a considerable strength bonus. It offers the highest magic accuracy bonus out of free-to-play weapons, can autocast combat spells, and stores up to 1,000 nature runes saving on inventory spaces. Although expensive, it can be a useful item in the deep Wilderness, allowing to cast Snares and serve as a backup melee switch. It requires 30 Attack and 30 Magic to wield.

Basic elemental staves offer high magic accuracy and defence bonuses, on top of the ability to autocast spells, and providing unlimited runes of the associated element. They are commonly used by magic pures, as well as during tanking to improve the magic defence.

3-tick melee weapons such as the goblin paint cannon, ham joint, and swift blade are sometimes used by strength pures as well as other 1 Defence pures for combos in PvP combat. In particular, the easily accessible goblin paint cannon has a custom long attack animation that can be leveraged for stalls and unusual combos.

Swordfish allows to heal 14 hitpoints in a single bite, while an anchovy pizza heals a total of 18 hitpoints in 2 bites, with 9 hitpoints per bite. A combination of these two items are commonly used to heal hitpoints in combat, with swordfish being more common in 1-vs-1 combat due to shorter delays between hits after eating a single piece of food, and anchovy pizza being more common for multicombat areas and the deep Wilderness due to higher overall number of hitpoints healed.

Additionally, pizzas are used for so-called combo eating. After eating the first piece of a pizza, another piece of food can be eaten immediately. Instead of eating the entire pizza, a swordfish can be eaten after the first pizza half to heal a total of 23 hitpoints in a short period of time. This technique is commonly used on higher combat levels, where a single attack can severely outdamage regular food.

Other less common types of food include lobster, tuna, meat pizza and plain pizza. These items are often used by low level players to avoid "safing" due to their lower overall hitpoints levels and maximum hits within low combat level brackets.

Strength potions are commonly used in combat to raise the damage output with melee weapons. This potion is necessary to achieve the highest free-to-play maximum melee hits outside of the Castle Wars minigame.

Energy potions restore 10% of the run energy per dosage, restoring a total of 40% per inventory slot. While not strictly necessary in typical 1-vs-1 combat, these potions are very useful in the deep Wilderness.

Outside of actual weapons, amulets are one of few other items that provide strength bonuses in free-to-play worlds. As such, they are necessary to achieve the highest maximum melee hits and are often considered more important than any other pieces of armour.

Amulet of strength offers the highest strength bonus of +10 among all available amulets. This is the most commonly used amulet in 1-vs-1 combat.

Amulet of power provides a notable strength bonus of +6, as well as some accuracy, defence, and prayer bonues. This is the best amulet for ranged combat. Every few Strength levels, it allows to achieve the same maximum hit with almost every melee weapon as the amulet of strength, although it requires more frequent strength potion dosage to maintain it. Commonly used in the deep Wilderness when relying on multiple types of damage.

Amulet of magic offers the highest magic accuracy bonus of +10. While commonly used by magic pures, amulet of power is often preferable due to its additional bonuses if multiple combat types are used.

Other niche amulets include the amulet of defence with slightly higher defensive bonuses than the amulet of power, and the holy symbol with the highest prayer bonus and slight defensive bonuses.

Metal armours ranging from bronze to rune offer protection against melee and ranged styles at the cost of ranged and magic accuracy penalties, as well as a magic attacks vulnerability. They require up to 40 Defence to wear and are typically associated with melee combat.

Leather armour, including regular, studded, green dragonhide and gilded dragonhide leather armours, offer decent defensive bonuses from all combat styles, including a notable magic defence bonus. They also offer ranged accuracy bonuses at the cost of magic accuracy penalties. Some torso armours including hardleather body, studded body, green d'hide body and gilded d'hide body have a Defence requirement, but most items require only the appropriate Ranged level up to 40.

In safe PvP activities, such as Clan Wars or Castle Wars, players are encouraged to replace green dragonhide armour pieces with their gilded dragonhide armour equivalents due to their higher defensive bonuses. Similarly, gilded dragonhide items can be used for dangerous activities as protected items, or when unskulled.

Magic equipment is limited to wizard robes and zamorak monk robes. They offer small magic accuracy and magic defence bonuses, with additional prayer bonuses in case of the latter. They have no requirements to wear.

Monk's robes provide the highest prayer bonuses.

As a rule of thumb, combat pures with a low Defence level should prefer offensive bonuses over defensive bonuses as armour efficiency scales with the wearer's Defence level. For example, wearing an iron armour with 1 Defence level lowers the accuracy of the opponents by a much lesser percent than wearing the same armour with a higher Defence level. A particular example of this is the mooleta, an offhand item with a strength bonus of +1 that is relatively rare among free-to-play items outside of the weapon and amulet slots. This is also relevant for the magic equipment since magic accuracy is critical when using combat spells, and it is often lowered by the leather and metal gear. Similarly, prayer bonus might be prioritised over defensive bonuses if any prayers are used in combat.

1 Defence pures have access to iron armour, leather armour, wizard robes, zamorak monk robes and monk's robes, as well as studded armour, green d'hide armour and gilded d'hide armour with the exception of the torso pieces. Only the studded and dragonhide items have a requirement of 20 or 40 Ranged level to wear respecitvely, other items can be worn immediately.

The optimal gear will differ depending on the situation. For example, during melee training on NPCs crush defences can be optimised with items like coif or iron chainbody, while in multicombat areas pures might use wizard robes over leather armour to maximise accuracy with spells like Snare or Tele Block. See the equipment guide for a detailed comparison of all relevant free-to-play items, or follow the guides of individual account builds or player-versus-player activities for more details.

Fancy boots, fighting boots, and fancier boots from the Stronghold of Security grant slightly better defensive bonuses than the leather boots. However, they lower the accuracy of ranged and magic attacks.

Players with over 40 Defence often use a combination of the rune armour and the green d'hide armour pieces, which grant them considerable defensive bonuses. Note that to wear the complete sets including the rune platebody, green d'hide body, and gilded d'hide body the Dragon Slayer I quest must be finished.

Gold decorative boots offer the highest melee defence bonuses among all available free-to-play boots, as well as a unique +1 strength bonus that allows to raise the maximum hit of certain melee weapons. In particular, it is one of the items (the other being mooleta) that allows achieving the highest maximum melee hit with a rune scimitar and a rune warhammer outside of the Castle Wars minigame. It also raises the max hits of both the rune scimitar and rune 2h sword when used with 1 Prayer. This untradeable item requires 400 castle wars tickets to obtain and 30 Defence level to wear.

Rune armour offers the highest defensive bonuses against melee and ranged attacks at the cost of ranged and magic accuracy, as well as the magic defence. Each individual piece requires 40 Defence level to wear, while rune platebody additionally requires the completion of the Dragon Slayer I quest. God armours are trimmed variants of the rune armour providing additional +1 prayer bonus on each piece. They have the same requirements as the non-trimmed rune items and should be preferred if using any prayers.

Green d'hide armour pieces add a significant boost to ranged accuracy and magic defence, as well as some melee and ranged defensive bonuses. However, they do lower the magic attack accuracy. They require 40 Ranged level to wear, and the green d'hide body additionally requires 40 Defence level and the completion of the Dragon Slayer I quest. Gilded d'hide armour offers higher defensive bonuses, but it is relatively expensive and rarely used in dangerous areas.

Chronicle is a shield-slot item that allows to teleport to a spot nearby the Champions' Guild and a canoe station. It cannot be invoked within the Wilderness, but does work in the PvP worlds. It can be bought from Diango.

Cowbell amulet allows teleporting out up to the 20 level of the Wilderness with no Magic level requirement.

Imbued skull sceptre allows to teleport to the Barbarian Village. Unlike the chronicle, it works up to the 20 level of the Wilderness. It also allows to autocast the Crumble Undead spell which might be somewhat useful for Magic training as it gives more experience per cast than Fire Bolt. Its pieces can be obtained from various monsters within the Stronghold of Security.

Ornate armour is a cosmetic armour with bonuses equivalent to iron and leather equipment. Since the individual pieces are not lost under the 20 level of the Wilderness and can be reclaimed from the gravestone, this armour might be more convenient to use for activities such as 1-vs-1 combat.

Since there are no special attacks within the free-to-play worlds, players rely on well timed combat style switching to maximise the damage in a short period of time. A common technique is to use a quick weapon such as a maple shortbow or a rune scimitar to wear the opponents down, and a slow but powerful weapon such as a rune 2h sword or a rune battleaxe to deliver the knockout hit.

When timed correctly, switching the setup after a rapid shortbow shot into a melee weapon allows to stack two hitsplats on the opponent, dealing a considerable amount of damage at once. A combo performed by a player with 99 Ranged, 99 Strength, and at least 44 Prayer can deal as much as 49 damage in a single tick, with 18 being the maximum ranged hit of a maple shortbow with adamant arrows and 31 being the maximum melee hit of a rune 2h sword.

While on free-to-play worlds there are no "combo foods" that can be eaten immediately despite delays, it is possible to perform combo eating with pizzas. In particular, anchovy pizza is often paired with a swordfish to heal a total of 23 hitpoints. The trick is to start with eating half of a complete pizza, and then following with a high healing food such as a swordfish. The overall attack delay after combo eating will be longer than after eating a single piece of food, so this technique should not be overused in typical 1-vs-1 combat.

Players are unable to eat food immediately after drinking a potion. When planning to drink a potion and eat some food, always start with the food and follow with the potion instead.

Free-to-play players often rely on movement to lower the incoming damage, as well as to perform unexpected combos. For example, advanced techniques such as sliding allow to immediately attack the opponent with a melee weapon from as much as 4 tiles away.

In typical 1-vs-1 combat, players should aim not to heal too much to make the knockouts possible for both sides. The majority of players choose to keep their hitpoints in a comfortable range where they cannot be killed by a regular attack, but can still die to a well timed or a high damage combo. Players that heal too much are often called "safers".

The damage of strike, bolt, and blast spells scales up to 8, 12, 16 respectively, matching the highest available unlocked elemental spell of the tier. With no free-to-play damage-boosting items that affect specific elements, air spells of each tier should be preferred in PvP to save on the runes cost. In particular, there is no reason to use Fire Blast over Wind Blast in PvP even if both are unlocked. With a staff of air, casting the strongest available spell only requires a single mind, chaos, or death rune depending on the tier.

For more advanced player-versus-player combat techniques, refer to the complete guide.

During arranged 1-vs-1 fights in single-way combat areas, most experienced players adhere to the following rules:

• Protection prayers (or "overheads") are not used.
• Snare and Tele Block spells are not used.
• Both opponents are expected to skull up or risk similar amount of money in gear or coins.
• In general, fights are voluntary and players ask for permission before initiating duels.
• Interrupting fights between players and attacking players that are currently looting is frowned upon.
• Players can run away from the fights when out of food, energy, prayer points or other supplies.
• Players keep their hitpoints relatively low, so that the opponent could take them out with a well timed combo.

Other locations such as most of the deep Wilderness has no such limitations, and players are expected to participate in no honour combat, where anything goes. For example, spells such as Snare and Tele Block are commonly used, and techniques such as farcasting are employed to wear the opponents down without any chance of retaliation.

• Healing too much in 1-vs-1 combat is called safing. Keeping the hitpoints too high forces a draw, as none of the players are able to score a kill. When being called a "safer" repeatedly by multiple players, consider healing less often or downgrading to a lower tier of food.
• Attacking unwilling players in 1-vs-1 combat areas without a possibility of a fair fight is called ragging. Player commonly referred to as raggers are often using defensive gear such as rune armour along with a high defence level, or use the Protect Item prayer along with a single weapon such as the rune scimitar. In particular, using a single protected item with no supplies and consistently attacking players after respawn is called 1-itemming.
  • Perming is a form of harassment that involves constant attacking of a player by raggers.
• Attacking unsuspected players in order to immediately knock them out is called rushing. Since typical attacks in free-to-play worlds are not powerful enough to take out entire hitpoints of fully healed players, rushing is often performed on players that are currently looting. Loot keys, capped damage in general, and the increased PJ timer greatly lower the impact of rushing on the free-to-play worlds.
• Player jacking is interrupting a fight between two players within a single-way combat area. In typical 1-vs-1 combat, it is often paired with rushing. However, within the deep Wilderness it might be performed by teams to protect their teammates and maximise the damage output on a single opponent. Note that due to the increased PJ timer and locking players in combat, this behaviour is no longer an issue in most activities.

Low level Wilderness north of Edgeville on the 308 world, as well as the areas near the Lumbridge castle on the PvP worlds are the most popular locations for arranged 1-vs-1 combat.

Ferox Enclave, as well as locations with mixed single-way combat and multicombat areas such as the runite mine north of the Lava Maze, are some of the locations where so-called no honour combat is common. These locations are often used by solo player killers and small teams.

Multicombat areas such as the nature runes spawn south of the Demonic Ruins are commonly used by teams of players and PK clans. Arranged wars between clans might also take place in other multicombat areas on specific worlds chosen by the clan leaders or within the Clan Wars minigame.

PvP worlds employ some additional mechanics:

• Players can engage in combat in the majority of areas except for safe zones around banks.
• The time after which the players can be attacked by a different opponent is increased. This makes it harder to rush players after they score a kill.
• Players are locked in combat in single-way combat areas. Fights between players cannot be interrupted by other opponents.
• Outside of the safe areas, players can attack opponents that have at most 15 less or more combat levels. In the Wilderness, this is further increased by the Wilderness depth level.
• Bank chests, armour stands and safe areas are placed around player respawn points. Most importantly, there are bank chests in front of the Lumbridge castle and in the Edgeville crypt.
• Each player has a separate K/D ratio within the PvP worlds.

Note that free-to-play players need at least 20 logged hours of play, 10 quest points and 100 total level to enter the PvP worlds, which makes them rather unpopular among low level players.

Refer to the PvP slang dictionary and the list of PvP techniques for more information about the PvP slang.

Returning players can see the comparison article to adjust their builds. In particular, the most notable changes include:

• Introduction of free-to-play PvP worlds.
• Addition of the elemental spell damage scalling, with each combat spell matching the maximum damage of the strongest unlocked spell in the respective tier.
• Changing the warhammer wielding requirements from Attack to Strength.
• Addition of the Ferox Enclave to the Wilderness.
• New accounts restrictions.
• Introduction of the loot keys.
• Increase of the PJ timer and PJ prevention within the Wilderness.
• New death mechanics.
• Addition of the Edgeville respawn and the Ferox Enclave respawn.
• New PvP minigames including Castle Wars and Last Man Standing.
• Minigames including Clan Wars moved to Ferox Enclave.
• Addition of the The Ides of Milk quest with a Brutus boss. The quest yields a cowbell amulet, a teleportation item with no requirements that works up to 20 level of the Wilderness, and the boss drops the mooleta, an offhand item with a strength bonus of +1 and no requirements.
• Addition of the gold decorative boots with a strength bonus of +1 and a 30 defence requirement.
• Reduction of the melee and ranged defensive bonuses of the green dragonhide armour.
• Increase of the ranged accuracy penalties of plate armours, including the platebodies, platelegs, plateskirts, full helmets, and kiteshields. Removal of the ranged accuracy penalty from the square shields and medium helmets.
• Introduction of the Snare and Tele Block spells to the free-to-play worlds.
• Bind and Snare are no longer shortened by the Protect from Magic prayer.
• Revamp of the clan system.
• Run energy depletion and regeneration rates were improved on all Agility levels including 1.

• Free-to-play PvP
• Free-to-play PvP equipment
• Free-to-play PvP techniques
• Free-to-play PvP culture
• Free-to-play account builds
• One-defence pure (free-to-play)

v t e Free-to-play PvP
Gameplay	Activities Dangerous Wilderness PvP worlds Safe Castle Wars Clan Wars Emir's Arena Last Man Standing Mechanics Skull status Team capes Loot keys Loot Chest Tick manipulation PID PJ timer Strategies Techniques Training guide Equipment guide Transportation guide
Account builds	Combat pure guide Account builds One-defence pure Main account 1 defence builds Ranged-melee hybrid Melee pure Magic pure Strength pure Ranged-magic hybrid Ranged pure Other builds Rune pure Adamant pure Tank Defence pure Magic tank Strength tank Clan pure
Community	Culture Slang Clans Chat-channels

v t e Free-to-play guides
Skills	Combat Melee Ranged Magic Defence Prayer Hitpoints Gathering Mining Fishing Woodcutting Processing Crafting Smithing Cooking Firemaking Runecraft
Achievements	Quests Quests list Quest rewards Optimal quest guide Other Adventure Paths Collection log Combat Achievements Steam Achievements
Account builds	Account builds Ironman guide Combat pure guide
Miscellaneous	Free-to-play PvP Clues Bestiary Food Music Money making guide Transportation guide Closest points of interest Cosmetic items

v t e Account builds and PvP
PvP gameplay	Terminology Strategies and Mechanics PvP account builds Tanking Skull tricking Advanced mechanics Combat milestones Clans Chat-channel Pid PJ timer Loot key Loot Chest Activities Wilderness PvP world Minigames Deadman Mode
Free-to-play combat pures	Combat pure guide Account builds PvP equipment PvP techniques PvP culture Main accounts One-defence builds Ranged-melee hybrid Melee pure Ranged-magic hybrid Magic pure Strength pure Ranged pure Other builds Rune pure Adamant pure Tank Defence pure Magic tank Clan pure
Pay-to-play combat pures	One-defence pure guide Account builds Combat pures 1-defence pure Low-defence pure Clanning pure Void pure Berserker 50 Defence Build Obsidian mauler Obsidian pure Medium-level build Main account Non-aggressor builds Defence pure Scout
Other builds	Ironman Mode Skill pure Combat only pure