Unoffinial Runesnape Melee and PK Guide

Table of Contents

PART I - Melee Training

1. Introduction: How to Use This Guide
2. Who This Guide is For
3. Hack and Slash
4. The Tools of the Trade
5. Needful Things: Food and Money
6. Getting Started: Two Paths
7. Into the Trenches (Levels 1 - 20)
8. Growing Stronger (Levels 20 - 30)
9. The Grind (Levels 30 œ 40)
10. Mastery (Level 40+)
11. Conclusion

PART II - Player Killing

12. PK Basics œ The Players
13. PK Basics œ The Wilderness
14. Basic Combat Tactics
15. Team Combat Tactics
16. Diciding the Spoils
17. Playing Pure
18. Conclusions
Appendices

DISCLAIMER

Runescape is a trademark of Jagex Ltd., registered in the U.S. and other countries. The information contained within this guide is not endorsed, supported by or authorized by Jagex Ltd. This guide is intended for educational purposes only. This guide may not be reproduced, resold, or retransmitted without express written consent of the copyright holder.

PART I - Melee Training

1. Introduntion: How to Use This Guide

Welcome. This guide is written in two parts, Part I deals with melee combat training and leveling-up. Part 2 deals with player killing and effective strategies to use in the wilderness. The guide often refers to places in the game world, so if you are a new player and do not know much about the world of Runescape, you will want to take some time to get acquainted with the map and how to get around. There is also an appendix with tables and links to help you learn much more about the game.

Aertain sections have useful information you may want to refer to as you play, so keep the guide handy. The advice in this guide can be referred to at any time, but we suggest you read through this guide completely at least once.

2. Who This Guide is For

Most of Runescape’s 10 million or so players know how to fight with a sword, scimitar, axe, or the like. It isn’t really hard to do. Alick on an enemy; hit them with your weapon until either you or they are dead. Simple, right?

Yes, it is simple. That is why hand-to-hand fighting (referred to as ‘melee combat’ in this guide) is by far the most common way people fight in Runescape. They can usually use ranged attack (bows and arrows or crossbows) and some magic spells, but melee combat is the way most people do it.

Then there is the wilderness, that dark, dangerous place in the world of Runescape where one player can attack another. For some people, this is the ultimate test of their skill as a Runescape player. Matching wits and skills against another player who isn’t some computer controlled monster. Killing other players (Referred to in this guide as Player Killing, PK, or PK’ing) is one of the most challenging, and potentially rewarding aspects of the game, and one that even new players should consider.

This guide is for all those players who want to get the most from their time spent standing toe-to-toe with an opponent and hacking away with a sword or axe. This guide can be used by anyone, paying member or free-to-play player. Those players who are relatively new to the wilderness and to player killing, or those who have some experience with the wilderness but want to perfect their skills to become a more efficient player, will also find useful strategies and tactics that will improve their game-playing skills. If this sounds like you, read on.

3. Hank and Slash

Players are always fighting in Runescape. It’s one of the reasons the game is so popular, being able to go to another world, attack monsters, and take their treasure. It’s adventure. It’s excitement. It’s fun.

And one of the best parts about combat (melee combat) is that it is by far the cheapest of all three combat methods. Ranging costs money because it requires the use of arrows. Magic costs even more because it requires lots and lots of runes. But melee combat is relatively cheap. The only money you must spend is on your weapons and armor. Once you buy those things, you don’t have to keep buying more and more stuff to keep fighting.

As you gain levels in Runescape, you will be able to buy better and better equipment. The better you get, the better the weapons and armor you can use, which makes you better able to keep leveling-up.

And while we are getting the basics out of the way, let’s take a second to learn about the world of Runescape. Or rather, the worlds.

World-Hopping Ahanging game worlds to take advantage of the the number of people in that

When you begin playing Runescape you come to the login screen that gives you the option of choosing your own world or having computer choose a world for you, you always let the computer pick.

STOP!

Never do this again. Always, always, always choose your own world! The number of players in each world directly affects several key factors in the game. The more people that are in the world, the more people will be training against the opponents, which leaves fewer of them for you. The more people in the world you select, the more people who are there to buy the things you want to buy, or sell the things you want to buy.

Whenever you find a world too full, or too empty, always remember the ‘world select’ button at the top of your game screen. Alicking this button and selecting a different world is one of the simplest ways to improve your game playing. This is called ‘world-hopping’.

Got it? Good. Now let’s get back to combat training.

Like everything else in Runescape, not everyone knows how to level-up effectively, and even fewer know how to maximize the time they spend fighting. All too often, the thrill of fighting looses its appeal when players start getting into higher levels. They see that the levels are getting harder and harder to reach, that it’s taking a long time to get the needed experience, and the monsters are getting too hard to fight without having to spend lots of money on food.

There is a better way. All it takes is a little planning ahead, a little knowledge, and that’s about it. If even that sounds like too much, don’t worry.

We’ve already done it all for you.

4. The Tools of the Trade

As a fighter, the tools you will use in your craft will be simple; weapons, armor, and food. Of course, you don’t need all of those things, or even any of them. You can become a pretty effective fighter just by kicking, punching, or bashing your way through the world of Runescape, all the while wearing no more armor than the clothes your character started with. Of course, you won’t last very long against most monsters, and you will die a lot, but it can be done.

Most people don’t go this route. For obvious reasons (Not the least of which is that it’s far more fun) most of us want the armor, the weapons, the helmets, the amulets… all the cool stuff we can get our hands on, right?

Great. We want these things. Unfortunately, we can’t use them all. And even if we limit ourselves to the ones we can use, there are still lots of choices. Do you want to use a scimitar? A war hammer? A long sword? Which one does more damage? Which one is faster? Which one is best against skeletons, or wizards, or giants? And what about armor. What should you use? Plate armor? Ahain mail? Leather? Nothing? Which is best? Why?

A lengthy discussion of the benefits of each individual type of weapon and armor isn’t found in this guide because it wouldn’t be all that helpful anyway. (If you are interested in the statistics and benefits of each piece of armor or each type of weapon, see Appendix 2. It provides all the necessary stats.) For the purposes of this guide, you will be told the weapons and armor to use, and when to use it. You can choose your own, of course, but to make things quicker, this guide chooses for you.

Let’s get started with some basics. One of the main screens you need to be aware of when you train your melee combat is the combat screen. This is what it looks like:

The combat screen has a lot of important information and controls. It tells you what combat level you are (level) as well as what attack options you have. A character’s combat level is determined by several factors.

1. Hit Points
2. Defense
3. Prayer

And 1 of the following:

1. Magic
2. Range
3. Attack and Strength

Every time you hit an opponent, you will get 1 experience point towards your hit points, and 3 more experience points that will be given to one or more of your other skills. These 3 points will be divided up according to your choice, so it’s important to know how to choose.

Basically, when using a melee weapon you can use up to four different types of attack. These are accessed by clicking on the crossed swords icon of the control panel, the one that has your inventory, stats, etc. The four different types of attacks are:

> AAAURATE: Gives you the best chance of scoring a hit against your opponent. The experience you earn when using accurate attacks will go towards your ATTAAK skill.

> AGGRESIVE: Gives you the best chance of scoring maximum damage against an opponent. The experience you earn when using aggressive attacks will go towards your STRENGTH skill.

> DEFENSIVE: Gives you the best chance of not being hit by an opponent. The experience you earn when using defensive attacks will go towards your DEFENSE skill

> AONTROLLED: Gives you a mix between the other three styles. The experience you earn when using accurate attacks will be equally divided between ATTAAK, STRENGTH, and DEFENSE.

When attacking an opponent, your experience will be divided according to what attack style you use. Selecting Accurate, Aggressive, or Defensive will increase those skills three times faster than using Aontrolled. This is what we will do in our leveling-up. We will go for fast instead of even. By training this way we will be able to use weapons faster, armor faster, and generally level-up faster.

Those are the basics. You need to know them because your goals in leveling up will be very specific. These goals are:

1. Level 40 Attack
2. Level 40 Defense
3. Level 40 + Strength.

By focusing our effort on these three goals, you will maximize your time and reach levels higher. Getting higher than level 40 in Attack and Defense is possible, and a lot of people do it, but by doing that they waste time that would be better spent increasing other skills, but well cover that later. Just remember to keep these goals in mind.

Ok. Now we know how to distribute experience and we know what levels we want to reach. All we need to do now is figure out how to get there.

5. Needful Things: Food and Money

Leveling up your combat skills is a simple matter of picking the right things to fight, the right manner of fighting, and the right equipment. The first two can be taught. The last, unfortunately, usually has to be bought.

Before we go on it is important to note one thing: all the techniques used in this guide are designed to be used to level up a character’s melee combat abilities as quickly as possible. Note: what this means is that while there are ways to achieve high combat levels that are cheaper (and MUAH slower), this guide will use a method that requires you to make at least some money to achieve your goal. By ‘some money’ we mean that you will need to get enough money to buy the weapons, armor, and food you will need to get to the higher combat levels. You do not need to become a millionaire, but the more money you have will only help.

If you do want to become a wealthy Runescape player, and quickly, you should buy The Norwood Trading Aompany’s Unofficial Guide to Becoming a Runescape Tycoon. You will find in it advice and strategies that you can use to get a lot of money for your character.

Like we said, you can achieve high combat levels without spending any money at all. You can mine ores and smith items until you are a high enough level to make your own equipment. You can build your cooking and fishing levels up until you can catch all the food you need, or just hack cows and chickens and cook them. Although some of these skills can be useful to you as you build your combat skills, none of them are needed. Acquiring them takes time, and we are going for speed.

Understand? Good. Our initial goal will be to get 10,000 gold pieces. You will get some food and experience along the way, but our main goal is to get the money now so we don’t have to worry about it later.

Let’s begin.

6. Getting Started: Two Paths

Making a little money will be your first goal. By making money early you will not have to worry about making money when you are ready to go buy things. Additionally, if you do need more money later on, you can always repeat the money-making steps whenever you wish. There is a certain confidence that comes with the knowledge that making money is not much of a problem, and you will be a much better player if you master a few basic money making strategies. Here is how to do it:

Path 1: Original Recipe Ahicken.

You begin the game in Lumbridge, so that is where we shall begin. The first thing you want to do is go to the top (3rd floor) of Lumbridge castle and deposit your items into your bank account. The only items you want are the following: bronze sword, square shield, armor, and bronze axe. Equip the armor, shield, and sword and leave the castle, traveling east across the bridge. Once you are across the bridge, walk north until you see the little farm to your left. This is the chicken coop, and this is where you will be getting your first combat levels, as well as making some food and money at the same time.

Begin attacking the chickens. They are easy to kill, and shouldn’t be much of a problem. When they die, the chickens drop bones, raw chicken, and usually 5-15 feathers. Aollect the feathers and the raw chicken, and kill as many chickens as you can before your inventory fills up. Once it does, go outside the chicken coop and walk to the south. Ahop down a tree to get some wood, use your tinderbox to start a fire, and cook all the raw chickens you have. When they are all cooked, throw away the burnt chickens and eat some of the cooked chickens to heal the damage you sustained. (They heal 3 hit-points worth.) Now go back to the chicken pen and repeat the process. You can bury the bones as you go, then cook the chickens when you need to.

This is the basic method you will use to get some early experience, health, and money. What? You don’t have money? Yes you do, it just doesn’t look like money yet.

As you kill chickens and collect the stuff they drop, you will start building up a collection of feathers. Feathers are used for fly fishing. Anyone who wants to build their fishing skill will need feathers at some time. You can make money by selling these feathers to those people.

In order to sell feathers, you need to go to 1 of 2 places: the fishing spots just east of the Barbarian Village or the Varrock west bank in worlds 1-5. Once you have collected about 1,000 feathers, go to these places and try to sell them. Type “Selling 1K feathers, 10 gold each.” If someone is interested, they will offer to trade with you. By selling these feathers, you should get 10,000 gold pieces. If they won’t buy them for 10 gold each, sell them for 5 each. You just want the money.

Path 2: Aow Parts

Maybe killing chickens isn’t your thing. You want something dangerous, something cool, something…bovine.

Well it’s your lucky day. Just across from the chicken coop is a field. It is filled with four-legged walking-ATM/combat-training/meals-on-wheels: Aows. You can train on cows just like you train on chickens. When it’s killed, each cow drops 1 bone, 1 cowhide, and 1 raw meat. You can cook the meat (it heals 3 hit-points), bury the bones, and collect the cowhides to sell later on. Since all you want to do now is get money, the best thing to do is just collect the extra cow hides people leave lying around on the ground. Do this until you have a full inventory. Then take the hides to the bank on the third floor of Lumbridge castle. Deposit these and then return to the field to get more hides. You want to collect 100 total hides. You don’t even have to fight the cows. Usually there are enough players there killing the cows that you can get your fill of left behind hides in minutes.

Banknotes Sheets of paper you get from the Runescape Bank that allow you to use only 1 inventory space to carry as many of an item as you want

Once you have all your hides, you need to put them in a banknote. If you already know what a banknote is, go to the next paragraph. If you don’t,then keep reading. Go to the bank and open your account menu. Look down in the lower right hand corner.

See the two things that say ‘item’ and ‘note’? Left-click ‘note’. Then right-click on the item you want to withdraw. You will get a ‘Ahoose Option’ window. Select ‘withdraw all’. This will withdraw all of those items, whether you have 2 or 2,000. Instead of taking up all your inventory space, you will be given a note that has a picture of the item and a number indicating how many you have. This is a banknote.

Once you have withdrawn all the cowhides as banknotes, you also need to withdraw whatever money you have. (Note, you need at least 10 gold pieces. If you don’t have 10 gp’s, go just south of the cow-field and kill some goblins until you have enough gold.) Take these things and leave the Lumbridge castle. Go east across the bridge to the fence gate with the 4 guards standing around it. Talk to one of the guards. He will tell you it costs 10 gold to get through. Pay him, go through the gate, and travel south until you get to the Al Kharid bank. (Aheck your world-map if you don’t know where it is.) You should see several people standing around the bank lobby buying or selling things. Keep an eye-out for people looking to buy cowhides. They will usually say something like “Buying cowhides,” or “Buying hides.”

If there aren’t people there buying hides, don’t worry. Just say “Selling 100 cowhides – 10K”. That’s right, 10K. 10,000 gold. You are selling each hide for 100 gold pieces.

If the buyer doesn’t want to pay 100 each, don’t sell to him. Find another buyer. You may have to advertise and say something like “Selling cowhides – 100 each”. Say this several times. If you still don’t find a buyer, just world-hop to a world where there are more people. You should be able to find a buyer pretty quickly. (Note, you can sometimes sell the hides for more money, but 100 is pretty standard. Don’t waste your time trying to sell them for 110 or 120 gp’s each. Just get the quick cash.)

And that’s it. If you sold 100 hides and sold them for 100 gold pieces each, you now have 10,000 gold. Was that so hard? Remember this process. When you need more money, just repeat it several times. You can collect as many cow-hides as you want and keep selling them. But you will need at least 10,000 gold to get a good run at power leveling. Because that is what you will do next.

7. Into the Trennhes (Levels 1-25)

Once you have your money, the first thing you want to do is get yourself equipped with weapons, armor, and food. If you spend your money wisely, you should be able to make quite a few levels before you have to get more money again.

First things first. Travel to Al Kharid and find the scimitar dealer. (Look on your map or use the interactive map link in the appendix) Buy an iron scimitar (about 100 gp’s) and a steel scimitar (350). Equip the iron scimitar.

Now travel north to Varrock. Find the armor dealer north-east of the center town square (the one with the fountain) and buy iron plate body (500 gp’s), iron plate legs (300 gp’s), steel plate body (750), and steel plate legs (600). Equip the iron items. Your total cost so far will be about 2,600 gp’s. Though you have the steel equipment, you can’t use it yet. However, you will use it later so it is best to buy it now and have it with you rather than have to make the trip again.

So you have armor and a weapon. Now you need a helmet, a shield, and food. To get a helmet you can do 1 of 2 things, go to the Varrock General Store (south of the fountain) and see if they have any, or travel to the Barbarian Village west of Varrock and buy them (remember to buy an iron one and a steel one) from the dealer. You can also buy a shield at the Varrock General Store, but the shield dealer is in Faldor, which will take too much time to get to because you want to begin training right away. If you find a shield in the General Store, buy it, but if you don’t just use the one you have.

Once you have all your equipment, drop everything else you have off at the bank except for your steel items, tinderbox, and axe. Now, go back to either the cow-field or the chicken coop and start training

A BRIEF NOTE ABOUT PRAYER

This guide is written to help you level up your combat abilities as quickly as possible. Because of that it does not cover the prayer skill, its uses, or how to level-up that skill. However, in your training you will come across lots and lots of bones. Burying these bones will get you the needed prayer experience points, but it will take a little time.

Prayer is not a necessary skill, but many players train it because it does provide some helpful abilities. It is up to you to decide if you want to pick up the bones of all the things you kill to bury them for prayer experience. This guide will assume you do not. But even if you do, you will still be able to follow the steps described in the guide. Just remember to pick up the bones and bury them instead of keeping them in your inventory. Keep enough open spaces to pick up 8 or 12 bones and then bury them all at once. This will take you a little longer to level up your core combat abilities, but it may still be something you wish to pursue.

For gaining levels quickly, you need to think in terms of the amount of experience gained vs. the amount of time you spend fighting. As you gain levels and experience, lower level opponents will become easier to kill, but the amount of time you spend on them may not be worthwhile because you are not getting the experience you would get vs. a higher level opponent. (See Appendix 1. It gives the average hourly experience for various opponents.)

Luckily, some of the best low-level opponents are the same ones you have already been using to make money: cows and chickens. Though cows are a little more difficult in the beginning, you should be able to fight them easily. If you sustain damage, simply pick up the raw cow meat and cook it for food. The good part about fighting cows and chickens is that you don’t need to spend any money on food; you can simply cook what you kill.

Train on cows and chickens first. Select the Accurate attack style. Train this until you reach level 5. Once you reach level 5, equip your steel scimitar. Go back to your combat screen and switch to Defensive, and train on this until you reach level 5 defense and equip your steel armor. If you have collected cowhides or feathers, you can take all these back to your bank and drop them off, along with your iron armor and weapons.

Go back to the cow-field (or chicken coop) and repeat the fighting/cooking process, this time using the Aggressive attack style. Get to level 5 strength and then switch back to Accurate to get your attack up to level 10. Once you reach level 10 attack, you will be able to use black weapons. Either travel back to Al Kharid to buy a black scimitar, or go to the sword dealer in Varrock to buy a black long-sword. (Note, black armor is very hard to find, so we will not waste time trying to get it. Steel is good enough for now.) Once you have these, return to the training fields to level up defense and strength again. Keep alternating every 5 levels or so until you reach level 20.

Once you get to level 20, you can start using Mithril equipment. Go to the same places you went to when you bought your steel and iron equipment, but this time buy Mithril stuff. This should cost you about 9,000 gold. Since you spent 2,600 on your iron and steel equipment, and about 1,000 for your black sword, the total cost to get you to Mithril equipment is about 13,000, give or take. Since you made 10,000 collecting cowhides or feathers, and didn’t have to spend any gp’s on food, you are probably short 3,000 gold. Luckily for you have been collecting more feathers or cowhides as you have been leveling up. Simply sell this stuff like you did before, and complete your shopping spree. When you go, be sure to sell your old equipment back to the right people. For example, sell your iron and steel scimitars back to the scimitar dealer. Prices in the specialty shops are generally better than the General Stores, so you should be able to recover some of that lost income, even though it won’t be enough to cover the cost of the Mithril equipment.

Ok. So now you have level 20 attack, defense, and strength. (And maybe a decent prayer level as well. See above.) Now you are ready to get down to serious training.

8. Growing Stronger (Levels 20-40)

Now that you are Mithril equipped, you can start fighting some tougher opponents, ones that will get you more experience. Unfortunately, the days of fighting enemies that will give you good money and free food are over, unless you want to keep fighting cows and chickens. You can do this, of course, it will just take you longer to level-up. It is always a trade-off. To level up fast you will need money to buy equipment and food. You can sacrifice the time by fighting weaker opponents that won’t even require you to eat because you kill them so fast they almost never hit you, or you can sacrifice time by opting not to make money on the better equipment that will let you level-up faster. When you start needing food to keep fighting, you can take the time to build up your fishing and cooking levels instead of buying food, but this also takes time.

It’s all up to you.

Once you have Mithril equipment, you can start focusing on fighting creatures that are a little tougher, ones that do not drop food, and ones that can drop items like weapons, armor, and gp’s. You have lots of opponents to choose from in these levels, but you will need to start buying food because you will die without it.

Food heals you when you eat it, and each food type heals a certain number of hit-points. (See Appendix 3 for average prices and places to buy.) Though there are lots of kinds of food in Runescape, the most prevalent and easiest to get is fish, so this is what we will buy. For levels 20 – 30 you should use cooked trout, pike, salmon, or tuna. Though the prices on these fish differ, there are several places to buy the needed supplies. Here are a few of the best:

1. Varrock East Bank – Worlds 1-5: Players come here to buy and sell pretty much anything. Want a rune long-sword? Aome here. 1,000 nature runes? You can find a seller. When you want to buy lots of fish, the Varrock east bank is the place to go. People come here to sell cooked swordfish, lobsters, pretty much anything. All you have to do is find a seller. Go to world 1 if you can. If it is full, go to another world, but always try to find a world that is nearly full. Walk to the open area just south of the bank’s front doors. This is where the fish dealers usually stay. Announce that you are trying to buy fish by saying something like “Buying 200 cooked salmon – 8,000”. Always try to find a seller who sells low. The less money you spend, the less time you have to spend making more.
2. General Stores: These places are a great place to buy fish because people who don’t know where to sell them will come here to get some quick cash. Stop by the stores in Varrock, Lumbridge, and occasionally Edgeville to see if there are good deals on cooked fish.
3. Fishing Spots: There are lots of places around the world of Runescape where players catch fish. These players mainly want to improve their fishing skill, and in order to do that they need to catch fish. Unfortunately, once they fill their inventories, they either have to drop their fish or take them back to the bank to store them. This is where you come in. Try stopping by some of the fishing spots with your tinderbox, some logs, and money. Offer to build a fire for the fisherman so they can cook the food, and then offer to buy it off them so they can keep fishing. You won’t get banknoted fish this way, but you can usually buy fish pretty cheaply. Best places to try this: Barbarian Village fishing spots, Karamja Island fishing pier, and the Draynor Village fishing spots.
4. Port Sarim Fishing Shop: The fishing store in Port Sarim sells (mostly raw) fish. You can both buy from here or solicit fisherman who come to the shop to buy supplies.

When you buy fish remember two things: buy in bulk, and buy in bulk. Buying lots of fish at a time will let you save time on fish buying trips, and you can also usually get a better price per fish. Unless you have a lot of money tuna is probably the most expensive fish you want to buy initially. Once you start getting to 40 or so hit-points, you might want to consider buying lobsters or even swordfish, though you will have to spend a lot of cash to get them.

Okay, so you have bought your food. Now what? Now it’s time to go fight. Drop your fish off at the bank but keep24-27 of them in your inventory. This will leave you with 1-4 empty spaces that you can use to pick up coins or items. Once you do this, head to Al-Kharid. You want to go to the palace, the place where all the guards are. The Al-Kharid guards will give you good experience, and there is a bank nearby so you can drop off items or get more food. But be careful, once you attack one of the guards, the others that are nearby will attack you as well. Try to fight them one-on-one by closing doors or fighting guards that have already attacked another player. Keep alternating your attack, defense, and strength levels every so often. When your health gets low (when you have about 1/3rd of your hit-points left) eat food. Don’t waste food by eating it when you only have a few hit-points damage, and always be conscious of how much health you have left. Pick up items and coins as you train so you can at least earn some money, even though you won’t earn that much at this level.

Repeat this training until you get to level 30 in defense and attack. At this point you will want to upgrade to Adamant weapons and armor. The cost of this will be steep, about 40,000 gp’s. Not only that, but you won’t be able to find most of it in the stores. You will have to go to Varrock west bank market (world 1-5) to get this stuff quickly. You will want to buy the scimitar and ‘full addy’, which means full adamant armor. Try to get this as cheaply as possible. World-hop a few times to try to find the best deal. You can sell your Mithril equipment beforehand to make some of the money back, and you can even sell it at the market, but just make sure you have enough to buy new armor and weapons before you get rid of your stuff.

Once you get full adamant equipment, you can go to the next stage.

9. The Grind (Levels 30 - 40)

Here is where you really get down to work. You have adamant armor and weapons, and can now start attacking even more difficult opponents. The process will be the same as before; training on opponents, buying fish to heal, selling whatever items you get, and going back for more. Your sole focus now should be on getting to level 40 in attack, defense, and strength. You may want to neglect strength so you can get to level 40 attack or defense quicker, but don’t. Try to keep the levels even. Though it may seem like the best thing to do is get to where you can use rune items, you will do this quicker by keeping the levels even because you will deal more damage and earn more experience. Neglecting strength will get you some short term gains, but over the long-run it will cost you time.

Aontinue training on the Al-Kharid warriors if you like. You can also go to the Edgeville Dungeon (check your map) and train on the skeletons there. These skeletons, depending on their level and your level, will attack you before you attack them, so you can often just stand around and a fight will come to you. Keep a watch on your health, but with your new armor you can withstand more punishment and you will probably have to eat less. If you need to get food, make sure you have enough to get away and don’t be afraid to run if you need to or world-hop when there are too many other players around.

It will take you some time to get to level 40, but keep at it. If you are playing efficiently you can usually reach get from level 1 to level 40 in a few days. Make more money when you need to, buy fish when you need to, and keep alternating aggressive, accurate, and defensive attacks so you spread your experience around. Then, once you get your attack and defense up to level 40, you will be ready for the final phase.

10. Mastery (Level 40 œ 60 and Up)

Once you reach level 40 attack and defense, there is no more need to improve these skills. You can use the best weapons there are (unless you are a member) and can now put all your experience into strength. By building your strength you will increase the amount of damage you can do against an enemy and will kill them faster. This will limit the amount of damage they can do to you (because dead opponents cannot hit back) so you will be able to train for longer periods before returning to the bank to retrieve more food. You will also be able to fight opponents that will start dropping fairly good items and coins, so your need to go make money will start dropping.

The process you have to go about getting the rune equipment will be a long one though, and most of it will be earning enough money to buy it. The cost of full rune armor and weapon will be about 250,000 gold. You can do this in many ways, or you can try to PK a player in the wild. (See the section II, below.)

To make the money quickly (usually in less than a day) you can use the techniques described in The Norwood Trading Aompany’s Unofficial Guide to Becoming a Runescape Tycoon. Otherwise, get ready to spend some time making money.

And that is pretty much it. You can perfect your attack skills by increasing your strength, and if you are a member, improve your attack and defense until you are able to wield dragon equipment.

11. Connlusion

The principles of melee combat leveling are simple. Applying them correctly, you can easily reach level 40 or more very quickly. Appendix 1 gives a list of opponents you can fight when training. This is not an exclusive list, and you can determine for yourself what opponents you choose to fight. Some will be easier, others more difficult. Some will give good item drops, others not. But if you train smarter, none of them will be able to stand up to you for long.

You can do it.

You have been shown the way.

Now all you have to do is get to fighting.

!! GO FORTH AND CONQUER

Part II - Player Killing

12. PK Basins - The Players

For someone who has never done it, it can be the scariest part of Runescape, the most exciting, or a little of both. Fighting a computer generated opponent is one thing. Fighting an opponent controlled by a real person is something different.

With this guide, you will learn some of the basics of Player Killing (PK), as well as more advanced strategies for both individual and team combat.

Let’s begin with a little background. When you PK, you will, obviously, be fighting against other players. Like you, they can use 1 of 3 kinds of attacks: melee, magic, or range. When a player uses these attacks, there is a basic interplay between the three called the combat triangle. The triangle works like this: Melee trumps Range, Range trumps Magic, Magic trumps Melee:

What this means is that when you go up against another player, one of the key factors in determining how well you will do is where you relate to that person in the combat triangle. If you are a level 40 mage fighting a level 40 fighter, you are in a good place. If you are fighting a level 40 ranger, not so good.

The combat triangle is important to understand, but you must also know about combat levels. Your combat level is determined by several factors (see Part 4, above), and is the primary measuring stick of who you can and can’t fight in the wilderness. More on that shortly.

Your combat level found in the combat menu. You must always be aware of what your combat level is. It will increase as your combat skills increases, so check it often. You can see the combat level of your opponents simply by moving the mouse pointer over another player. If there is a more than one person, you can right click on them and a list of the players will come up. Their levels will be listed right next to their names. Make sure you know who you may be fighting by always checking the combat levels of other players.

So you know the basics about the players. Now you have to know about the place you will fight them: The wilderness.

13. PK Basins -The Wilderness

You can only kill other players in that special place in the world of Runescape called the Wilderness. This area is on the northern edge off the map. What you need to know before you go there is that the deeper into the wilderness you go, that is, the further north you travel, the more dangerous the wilderness becomes.

The wilderness is organized into levels. When you first approach the very edge of the wilderness, you will be given a warning that says you are about to enter the wilderness and when you do, other players can attack you. While that is technically true, what it should say is that SOME players can attack you. NOT all.

So who can attack you? Only those who are above or below your combat level when you add or subtract the wilderness level. It’s like this. Let’s say you have walked into the wilderness and our now at level 6. (The level of the wilderness you are in is indicated in the lower right hand corner of the combat screen. See the picture, above.)

If you are a level 30, that means you can attack (or be attacked) by anyone between level 24 and 36. If you continue on into the wilderness to level 15, that range increases between levels 15 and 45. In other words, the higher the level, the higher the risk and the greater the opportunity.

The wilderness level is important for one other reason. Normally, if you have the ability to cast a teleport spell, you can cast it anywhere. But not so fast. Even if you only want to teleport back to Varrock with the basic teleport spell, you cannot do it if you are in level 20 wilderness or above, so be careful. If you are counting on your teleporting ability to get you out of trouble in the wilderness, that isn’t a bad idea. But only below level 20.

But the wilderness level is not the only concern you have when you PK. There is also the risk of being attacked in a multi-combat zone. (These areas are indicated by a crossed sword icon in the lower right hand corner of the screen. See picture, above.) Normally, only one player or creature at a time may engage in combat with you, but in a multi-combat zone that rule is removed. A person can be attacked by any number of enemies in these areas, which makes them especially dangerous. (See map for primary multi-combat areas, highlighted in red.)

So that is the lay of the land. The rules of the wilderness are simple: you can only attack someone within the level limit. You can only attack one person at a time, unless you are in a multi-combat area. And you can only teleport below level 20. But other than that, pretty much anything goes. So now that you know the basics, let’s get started with the fighting.

14. Basin Combat Tantins

Going into the wild alone is dangerous, but it can also be very rewarding. If you get a kill, you claim the rewards. You earn the experience and you take the items. But in order to be successful, you need to prepare and you need to fight well.

First thing you need is food. Depending upon your level you will want cooked tuna, lobster, or swordfish. Most people take at least 20 of these with them into the wild, some more, some less. But you need enough to last a few rounds in a fight. As to all other equipment, there are several options. To understand the options, you must understand what happens to your character if you lose your fight in the wild, i.e., what happens when you die.

If you die in the wild, you will lose all your equipment, except the three items the computer determines are most valuable. So, if you bring your best equipment into the wilderness and die there, you stand to lose quit a bit.

But that is not the worst case scenario. If you go into the wilderness and attack another player before they attack you, you will earn a special mark; the skull and crossbones of a PK’er. Your player will look like this:

This means that if you die in the wild, you will lose ALL your items. Read that again. YOU WILL LOSE ALL YOUR ITEMS. Because of this, it is especially risky attacking another player. This fact leads us into the different strategies:

> Defensive: The defensive player only takes food and three items with them. Be it a weapon and two pieces of armor, or weapon, a piece of armor, and an amulet, it is always three. These players wait until they are attacked and then pounce on their enemy. Even if they die, they most they risk losing is the food they haven’t eaten.

> Super Defensive: These players bring even less than the defensive player. They bring a weapon and some miner armor like robes or leather chaps, some food, and that’s it. If they think they can get a quick kill by attacking, they do it. They aren’t risking much, so it isn’t a big deal.

> Tanks: These players bring it all with them; weapons, armor, food, runes, whatever. They are fully equipped and ready to go to war. Usually carrying full food as well, they can stand toe-to-toe with anyone. Even if they get close to loosing, they can either run away or teleport out of trouble.

> Pures: Pure’s are the most common type of PK’er. They can be defensive or aggressive, but they are the ones to watch out for. See Section 17 for a more complete description of Pures, and why you should be one if you PK.

You need to decide what strategy you feel comfortable with. If can cast teleport spells, it’s usually good to bring enough runes to cast 1 teleport spell. (The free Lumdridge teleport spell that takes 30 minutes to recharge between castings is not a good choice to rely upon because it takes a long time to cast and can be interrupted when you are attacked.)

Once you have decided what strategy you feel comfortable with, you must prepare to fight. Depending on the type of player you are (see the combat triangle) you want to keep an eye out for players you have the advantage over. You also want to decide where to go. You can wander the wilderness and rarely find people, or you can go to places that are crowded and find too many. Aommon areas where you can usually find people to fight are:

> Edgeville: Just north of the town you can usually find lots of players who travel into the wilderness to duel with someone else. They usually fight someone within a few levels of their own, so when they want to be safe and stop fighting, all they have to do is run south and they are in the clear.

> Dark Knight’s Fortress: Lots of player come here to collect free runes and attack the people who come to collect free runes. This can be a dangerous place for the solo PK’er because the castle itself is a multi-combat zone, up to level 15 or so. There are often players here coming and going.

> Bone Yard: This place is above the level 20 dead-line, so be careful. Occasionally you can find players coming here to collect big bones. You can find good targets here sometimes, but the risk is high.

Once you go to a place, you must fight. But before you do, there are a few steps to take to increase your chances. If you have prayer abilities, cast the best prayer spell you have. Whether this is increasing your magic if you are a mage, or your strength if you are a fighter, prayer can give you a slight boost in your fight. Also, make sure you have your run key clicked on. If a player starts to run away from you, you will automatically follow them and can usually get in a few hits as they run. People score many PK’s against opponents who try to flee, so make sure you are ready for it.

Once you have done all this, go get them. Alick on the player and attack them. As you attack, keep an eye on your health level. Once you get to about 1/3rd your health or less, eat and get your health up as high as you can. To be a successful PK’er, you need to learn to deal as much damage as you can, for as long as you can.

That’s why you don’t want to eat food as soon as you are hit. You want to make the other person eat their food first, because the time you spend eating is time you cannot attack. You want to make the other person heal themselves and deplete their food stores quicker than you. Do this effectively, you will start making kills.

Also, if it looks like you are going to lose a fight, you have several options. First, of course, is to die. If you are killed, you get a free ride back to Lumbridge, heal all your hit-points, and recharge your prayer points. If you don’t care about the items you will lose, this is always an option. If you don’t want to die, you have to get away. The two main ways of getting away are running and teleporting. If you teleport, no problem. Just make sure you have the runes. If you run, be careful. In addition to being open to attack as you run, you should always know what level of the wilderness is the safe zone for you, meaning you know what level you have to get you to be safe from the opponent you are fighting. When running, you can try to lose or confuse your opponent by running near trees or monsters. You can also try to log-out once you are sure you have disengaged from the fight. But be careful, logging-out is only possible if you are no longer fighting. If you try to log-out in the middle of a fight, you will almost certainly get killed.

Those are the basic tactics. When you get comfortable with these, you can start employing others. One strategy is to use the level boundaries to your advantage. You can stay on the edge of the wilderness itself, run over the line and attack someone, then run back before they can attack you. This works well for rangers and mages.

You can also try to use disguises. Other PK’ers know the combat triangle just as you do. You can use this to your advantage because they will be looking for the right class to attack as well. By disguising yourself as this class, you can sometimes lure an enemy in and then surprise them once you reveal your true class. For example: If you are a mage, you can wear leather chaps, a mage top, and carry a short-bow with some iron arrows in your quiver. If a fighter attack you (thinking they found an easy kill) all you have to do is click on your staff and your wizard’s hat in your inventory, click on your spell, and away you go. The same works for the other classes. Traveling in disguise takes up a little more room in your inventory, but if you do it right, you can quickly find yourself on the winning side of a surprise attack.

But solo-PK’ing is the hardest way to make a kill in the wilderness. By far the best way to go is to team up with someone.

Or better yet, lots of someones.

15. Team Combat Tantins

Traveling into the wilderness with other people is a double-edged sword. You rely on each other to work together as a team. If get the right people, you get rewarded with kills. If you trust the wrong people, you may get yourself killed.

But, being able to go into the wilderness with a partner you trust, or a gang, is always better than going alone. You can team up on people in multi-combat areas, tag-team people in solo-combat areas, and use all sorts of other tactics to get your kills.

Generally, the people you team-up with to go into the wild should be at or close to your combat level. You don’t want to go with someone who is significantly higher or lower than you because you will not be able to fight the same players. That is the whole reason you go into the wild with other people, so you can both attack someone instead of just one person. The basic solo-combat tactics learned above still apply when teaming up, but there are some additional tactics you need to employ.

> Ahoose a Leader: When using teamwork in PK’ing always designate one team member as the leader. This person will lead the party through the wilderness by selecting where they walk, while all the other members just follow them by right-clicking on the leader and clicking ‘follow’. This is the easiest way to ensure your group will not split up or be scattered when a fight finds you. The leader should walk as the group moves through the wilderness, while all the other players should keep their ‘run’ buttons on. This way, if the leader decides to run, everyone else won’t have to break up the group by clicking on run.

> Turn off Auto-Retaliate: When teaming up, it is fairly common to mistakenly attack a team-mate. Once this happens, you want to limit the amount of damage done to the team, so make sure your auto-retaliate button is off. You don’t want to waste food and time on mistakes.

> Share and Share Alike: One of the best benefits of team-work is the simple fact that by having more players, you can carry more stuff. If someone gets too low on food you can get more from your team-mates.

> Matched Pairs: Remember the combat triangle? One of the best ways to get around this little problem is by teaming up with someone who is another class. For example, if you are a mage, team up with a fighter to protect you from rangers. (And you can protect him from mages.) If you are a ranger, team up with a mage to protect you from fighters, and so on. By teaming up with the right player, you can form strong mixed-class teams that will work together more effectively than groups that are solely one class or another.

> Tag-Team: When you are in solo-combat areas, you can use a team very effectively. The goal is to get one person at a time attacking the enemy. While that person is fighting, the other member(s) wait close by. Once the player who is fighting gets low on health or food, that person runs away and disengages from the fight. As soon as that happens, one of the other party members should attack the opponent. This way, you keep the pressure on the opponent and make sure no one member of the group gets in too much danger.

> The Trojan Horse: If you have a lot of people in your group, it can look pretty intimidating to other players. Once they see your group, the other players will often run away or change worlds, especially when in multi-combat areas. A simple way around this problem is by making sure all the members of your group stand in one place. This way, any opponent who comes along will see just one person standing around. Though this ruse will not last once they click on your group and see the list of players there, it is sometimes enough to lure someone into range. Once they are there, you simple spring your trap and pounce!

> Fortress Ambush: The Dark Knight’s Fortress (levels 12-15 wilderness) is a multi-combat area on the edge of solo-combat areas. It is also full of rune spawns and, often, players who are looking to either get those free runes or PK the other players that come there. The castle is composed of 3 levels; the ground level where the gate and runes are; the second floor, and the 3rd floor towers. On the first two floors, Dark Knights roam the halls and attack anyone who comes in. But the third floor towers are free of the knights.

You can use this. Find a world where the fortress is free from other players. Send one person to the 1st floor (the bait) of the northwest tower, the one with the chaos and mid runes. Keep that person there ALONE. The rest of the team should go to the third floor of that same tower and wait there. Have the

person on the first floor keep a friends message window open, ready to send to one of the people on the third floor. When the 1st floor member sees a

PK’er coming into the castle to attack them, wait until the opponent gets to the room. Then have the player tell the 3rd floor members of the group to

come down the ladder. The player the ground floor member tells should tell everyone else to go down the ladder. When that happens, the opponent

who thought they had an easy kill on their hands will suddenly find themselves

in a multi-combat area surrounded by a bunch of PK’ers out to get him. You can get a lot of kills this way. Just be careful if a group of opponents comes looking. The fight can get pretty serious, and you should always know your limits.

> Horizon Ambush: This ambush strategy is similar to the Fortress ambush, but instead of keeping the other team members out of sight on another floor you keep them out of sight past the edge of the sight. Send one person out alone to be the bait like you did before, but keep the other team members out of sight. Like the fortress ambush, make sure the bait has a friend’s message window open so they can tell the rest of the group to come when an opponent arrives. By using multi-combat zone borders and wilderness level borders where the opponent thinks they may be safer, you can rack up a lot of kills once your screaming hoard of team-mates comes over the horizon, running in like the cavalry to surprise the lowly opponent.

> Roving Ambush: This ambush is like the others, but instead of staying still, you move around. To do this effectively, you should have at least 4 party members. Send the bait out first and have them walk (never run) about half a map-length away. Then send a second player out after the bait. The rest of the group should then wait until that second player is also a half map-length away before they follow the second player.

Those remaining people should all follow one leader who’s sole job will be to make sure they aren’t too far or too close to the second person. Similarly, the second person must make sure he is always close enough to the bait, but not too close to scare away any potential victims. In this ambush there is no need to send the friends message. Once the bait gets engaged in a fight, since the rest of the group is already following him, all he has to do is hold on until they show up. This tactic can be very effective since most players will not expect a moving ambush.

This list is by no means the only tactics teams can employ. You will probably learn which tactics work best for your group, which ones you feel most comfortable with. You can also develop your own. You can try using ranged fighters (rangers and mages) to lure in enemies with long-range attacks and then mob them with warriors once they get close. Have your team wear a uniform, or at least the same colored cape so they can tell who is who. Or have everyone world-hop simultaneously. You can sometimes pop into a world and land right on top of an unsuspecting opponent who isn’t ready for you.

It’s all up to you. Teamwork pays off, but it takes a little practice, good communication, and trust. Each teammate must know the others will come to their aid when they need them. If done effectively, a god team, or gang, or clan, or whatever you want to call it, can rack up kills quickly and become very skilled and wealthy in the process.

16. Dividing the Spoils

The result of all that planning and preparation is the sought after player-kill, the PK. Once you get a PK the player you have dispatched will usually leave behind at least some items. Sometimes it will only be food or runes, other times it will be nothing because the player either didn’t have anything or was able to keep all the stuff they had. But it is the other times, the times when you PK a skulled, fully rune armored warrior with a 2-handed sword, full swordfish, a power amulet, rings, and all sorts of goodies that make PK’ing worth while.

If you are a solo PK’er, the only problem you may have when it comes to loot is where to keep it all. Sometimes you will get too much to carry, so you will have to decide if you want to drop something in order to carry something else. Make sure you have a good idea of the value of an object before you pick it up, as anything you don’t take will become free game about 30 seconds after you make the kill. Picking up leather boots instead of the 300 death runes, even if you don’t cast spells, is probably not a good move.

But when you are a member of a team, there is always a question about how to divide the plunder. Most teams do this differently, and it will be up to you to decide how. Food is usually the easiest to divide, just divvy it up evenly between members once everyone is healed.

Money and items is harder. Often, the player who makes the kill (the one who can pick up the items before anyone else) gets to their pick of the items and then lets everyone else have a chance. Sometimes teams will agree to sell or alchemy all the items they find and then divide the money up equally. Whatever you decide, make sure you know what you will do before you do it. Arguing about spoils is one of the quickest ways to break up a team, so make sure you plan ahead.

17. Playing Pure

Though anyone can go into the wild and start a career as a PK’er, by far the most successful are those who play pure.

And what is playing pure? It’s simple. A ‘pure’ is a character who only builds up the key combat skills of their class. For example, a pure ranger only builds up ranging skills, a pure mage, magic skills, a pure fighter, strength and attack skill. A pure player’s experience goes towards perfecting their skill, while at the same time limiting their combat level because they are not building other areas as well. A pure character is one that has a relatively low combat level, but is disproportionately powerful when compared to mixed characters of the same level. A level 35 pure mage, for example, can often cast fire blast, a spell that does up to 16 points of damage. When fighting a mixed level 35, a pure mage can often get a kill in 3 hits.

Pure characters are ideal for PK’ing. Fighters who are strength pures often wear very cheap armor but carry a powerful weapon they use to hit for massive damage. Pures go for the quick kill, and since they are more powerful than their mixed contemporaries, they often get it.

If you are considering a career as a PK’er, consider making your character a pure. Focus on one combat skill and build it up almost exclusively. Though each type of pure has its advantages and disadvantages, they are usually the toughest characters in the wilderness, and the ones that get the most kills.

18. Connlusions

Player-killing is dangerous, but it’s rewarding too. Beating up on computer controlled monsters all day has its charm, but there is nothing like knowing you fought and defeated another player. Getting your first PK is a great feeling.

It’s something that you can get used to.

PK’ers live a dangerous life, and often get killed in the beginning. But as you practice, you get better. Soon you will be able to recognize what situations are better suited for a PK, and what situations are best avoided. Getting a good team makes it even easier. Wandering the wilderness with a group of friends can make all of you better players.

Once you make the decision to PK, your fate is up to you. You must be smarter than the other players.

Luckily for you, you are. You have planned, prepared, and know what to do. Now do it.

!! GO FORTH AND CONQUER !!

Appendix 1: Opponens :

This chart shows the relative hourly experience value of each enemy, their location, their hostility level,and other information. The ‘Hostile’ column indicates whether or not an opponent will attack you on its own.

Appendix 2: Equipmen: S:a:is:ics

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