RuneScape skills

In the MMORPG game RuneScape, skills are abilities that enable players to perform various tasks. Some skills are members-only, and some skills are only in newer versions of the game. Many of the higher-level abilities in each skill are reserved for members-only. Players gain experience in a skill when they perform tasks related to that skill. A player's amount of experience points (xp) determines the level of that skill. New abilities are given to the player when they reach certain levels. Higher level abilities, in turn, give more experience points to compensate for the roughly quadratic increase in experience needed to reach each new level.

In alphabetical order:

Non-Member Skills

Combat

• Attack level determines how often you damage your opponent.
• Strength level determines how much you damage your opponent.
• Defense level determines how often your opponent damages you, but not how high he hits. this can be thought of as a "dodge", instead of defence

Cooking

RuneScape includes various types of food which, when eaten, will restore varying amounts of health (hp). The more rare or harder to make foods generally restore more health than more common ones; fish is generally regarded to be the best type of cooked food in terms of healing efficiency vs difficulty to obtain. Cooking is usually thought of as a supplementary skill to .

The Cook's Assistant quest introduces new players to the Cooking skill. As a player's cooking level increases, they will be able to cook more complex types of food, such as lobsters, pizzas, or cakes. Fish are ready to be cooked as soon as they are caught, but other foods such as cakes and pizzas must be prepared before cooked. To cook the raw food, you must use it with a fire, or a range. Some foods (such as pizza or cake) can only be cooked on a range, but these are commonly available in towns, and are free to use. Players with higher cooking levels are less likely to burn their food, and at certain cooking levels, stop burning certain food altogether. Burnt food is inedible and useless. The Cooking Guild, located west of Varrock, is open to all players with a cooking level of 32 or more. A chef's hat (dropped by imps or goblins, or purchased from the clothes shop in Varrock) must be worn to gain entry. The highlights of this guild are the flour mill, two stoves, and a small supply of ingredients and utensils.

The new Cook-X function in RuneScape enables you to cook a certain amount of food making it easier.

Crafting

Following this, players learn to work with metals, crafting them into Jewellery items: gold rings, necklaces and amulets and silver god symbols. With the appropriate level of , a crafter can add precious gems (obtained by ), to gold jewellery and enchant it with magic spells to amulets (abbreviated to "ammys" by players): amulets of magic, defense, strength and power. Members can also enchant jewelled rings to make magic rings: ring of recoil, dueling, forging and life. In addition members can add the rare and valuable dragonstone to gold jewellery and enchant dragonstone rings to make rings of wealth and dragonstone amulets to create amulets of glory. A newly implemented gem stone has arrived with a new mini-game for members. This is the onyx gem and cost's 300,000 tokkul to buy from the store. Very high level crafters can make an onyx ring, which turns you into a rock, and an amulet of fury which has amazing stat bonuses, though one cannot use it to teleport like the Amulet of Glory.

At a high crafting level members can craft dragonhide armour and make more advanced glassware objects including Orbs, which when enchanted can be used to craft the four types of magical elemental battlestaffs: water, earth, fire and air.

With crafting players can make baskets and sacks too, which help in the member only skill Farming.

From snail shells (dropped by snails in Mort Myre Swamp) players are able to craft snelms (special, decorative helms).

The crafting guild, near Falador, is available to both members and non-members with crafting level 40 or greater.

In the members only quest Shades of Mor'ton players should form groups and build the temple from Limestones using their Crafting skill.

Firemaking

Firemaking is the simple art of creating fire from logs and a tinderbox. Occasionally one will see a player or group of players attempting to raise their firemaking level quickly by cutting down entire areas of forests and setting them ablaze. Some players will also have fun with the skill and for example make shapes, words or clan names on the ground by dropping and lighting the logs on fire. Different logs will gain more fire making experiance and burn longer. For non-members, the only use of firemaking is for cooking simple foods such as meat, fish and stew but because cooking ranges are fairly common through out RuneScape this skill is considerd useless to non-members, for members though it can prove a lot more usefull. In the members-only Lumbridge swamp caves area a player will need firemaking in order to light lanterns. In the caves, with out a lit lantern a player will not survive. Just like wood the larger level to light a lantern the more experiance gained and the longer it will burn. This skill is also used to make pyres for the corpses of shades at the members-only swamp town Mort'on. Certain quests also require fire making to light candles and other objects.

Fishing

Fishing is a very valuable skill in RuneScape. It provides much of the food necessary for fighters to heal, and rarer food such as lobsters are always in high demand. Persistent fishers gain experience quickly and will soon find themselves able to catch extremely valuable lobster and swordfish. Fish can be over fires or ranges.

Fish are popular particularly because they are quick to prepare and eat - catching and cooking fish is a two-step process whereas the preparation of foods of equivalent healing ability usually requires several ingredients and cooking utensils. Fish also heal faster as they are eaten in a single action rather than being split into multiple servings like most other high-valued foods. There are several members-only fish, such as shark and slimy eel, and some that can only be caught in the Fishing Trawler mini-game, where players becomes hired hands on a leaky fishing boat.

Fishing can be thought of as a companion skill to cooking as raw seafood is inedible. A low cooking level also reduces the efficiency of fishing since a larger percentage of a player's catch will end up burnt and thus useless. Players without a high enough cooking level to cook their catch will be at a disadvantage as they must get others to cook their seafood in order to eat them. Also, raw seafood sells at a lower price due to inconvenience and the probability that some will become burnt. The fishing shop at Port Sarim buys and sells raw fish and all F2P fishing equipment, though killing chickens is a cheaper source of feathers for fly fishing.

After achieving fishing level 68, members may enter the fishing guild. Otherwise, they may drink a fishing potion (requires level 50 Herblore) to boost their fishing level by 3 points to enter the fishing guild.

• Tip: With 40+ Fishing level go to Karamja with a lobster cage. Fish for lobbies then cook them. Go to world one and sell them all for 200 - 350 each.

Magic

Once considered only a supplement to melee, magic is now a battle skill in its own right. Mages even have some types of armor specific to them, called splitbark armor, mystic robes, and Ahrim the Blighted's magic set. Mages may also wield various magic staffs and battle staffs to assist them.

With the appropriate runestones (runes) and skill level, players can cast a variety of spells, including curses, missiles, and teleports. Many higher-level spells are available only to members, such as the elemental waves. All spells are composed of one or more types of elemental runes (fire, water, earth and air), which give the spell its elemental alignment; and a "binding" rune, which gives the spell its type. Each type of binding rune is associated with one type of spell. For example, all "strike" spells are made from elemental rune(s) and a Mind Rune. All teleport spells use Law runes, and so on.

At level 66 magic, members may enter the Magic guild in Yanille.

Upon completing the Desert Treasure quest, which is members only, players are allowed to use the Ancient Magicks. The Ancient Magicks require a high magic level to perform. Although regarded as being costly in terms of runes, the Ancient Magicks are also quite powerful. The Ancient Magicks and the normal type of magic cannot be used simultaneously.

Mining

Mining is one of the widely used skills as many other skills run into it. Mining is used to get raw materials for making armour, weapons, nails, and supplies. Players need a Pickaxe (which can't be made) in order to use this skill. More expensive pickaxes will allow a player to mine faster and with less fatigue (in RuneScape Classic). As a player's level in this skill increases, they will be able to wield better pickaxes and mine more types of ores: Clay, Copper, tin, Iron, Silver, Coal, Gold, mithril, adamantite, blurite and runite, which is also known as rune. Members may also mine Limestone, which currently is only used for quests, though it may be used in the upcoming carpentry skill. The ores can be smelted with the skill and forged into valuable weapons and armor. Since rare weapons and armor are in such high demand, it follows that the ores they are made from are also in high demand. Miners who reach level 60 in mining can enter the Mining Guild in Falador, near the dwarven mines.

Gems such as sapphires, emeralds, rubies and diamonds can also be found randomly while mining. Shilo Village, restricted to members, has some gem rocks. Players can also get opals, Jade and red Topaz there. Jades and red topaz have no use except cutting and selling. Opals can be made into bolt tips. Players can get every type of gem here except dragon stone and the onyx gem. The gem rocks are for members only.

A recent update changed the appearance of some of the rocks, with those at the Rimmington mine now showing only a thin seam of colour when they are "live". From some angles, this can be hard to see, and it's almost impossible to see if the Iron rocks are available unless you are right on top of them. This is going to make things harder for opportunist miners, who try to keep more interesting rocks in their line of sight, while mining junk.

Prayer

Prayer is a skill based on the burying of bones that are dropped when creatures die. Though many players choose to ignore it, the prayer skill can be extremely valuable, particularly in the wilderness, and against high-level monsters. Depending on one's prayer level, (which could be interpreted as the character's devotion to the gods) a player can invoke many different blessings, from melee stat boosts to protection of items after death. The highest level prayers are available only to paying members.

When a player uses a prayer, their prayer points will gradually drop at a set rate depending on their level. Players can use multiple prayers at once; however this will cause their prayer points to drain faster. One's maximum prayer points are equal to their level in prayer. Prayer points can be recharged at any altar (usually found in churches). The "restore prayer" potion will also restore 35% of a player's full prayer level, although this is available only to members. The Prayer Guild (available to those with a prayer level of 31 or above) is located on the second floor of the monastery. The altar there recovers prayer to two points above one's prayer level.

Prayer experience is achieved by burying bones. Most monsters drop bones when they die. Regular bones, the most common, give 4.5 experience points. Big bones, dropped by ogres, giants and trolls, are worth 15 experience. However, as with most skills in RuneScape, the best bones are only available to members. Bat bones, baby dragon bones, jogre bones, dragon bones are all available from their corresponding monsters. The new Zogre Flesh Eater quest allows access to a training area where one can pick up zogre, fyrag, raurag and ourg bones (which give the most experience in the game).

After completing the Priests in Peril quest, players can gain entry to the ectofunctus, which through a tedious process, allows the user to get four times the amount of normal experience per bone. However, this process is usually only used for dragon bones and the new zogre bones, because it is not economical to use with the other bones. Additionally, this process is usually only used after completing the Ghosts Ahoy quest, which provides an ectophial that can be used to teleport to the ectofunctus.

Prayer experience can also be obtained by killing Ghasts (after starting the Nature Spirit quest). Each Ghast is worth 30 prayer experience. This is a relatively fast way to gain prayer experience, especially for players with low level combat experience. The blessed Silver Sickle and Druid Pouches are needed through this method to cast the 'Bloom' spell (subsequently recharging the druid pouch) and making the ghasts vulnerable to mortal weapons.

Prayer experience can also be obtained by burning shades during or after the Shades of Morton quest.

After finishing the Horror from the Deep quest, people are given a prayerbook. There's a choice between the three RuneScape gods: Zamorak, Saradomin or Guthix. After all four pages of the book are filled, the player will be able to preach. Damaged book (Guthix) - When completed, it gives +5 to prayer and +4 to all Attack, +4 to all Defense stats. Damaged book (Saradomin) - When completed the Holy book gives +5 to prayer and +8 to all Defense stats. Damaged book (Zamorak) - When completed the Unholy book will give +5 to prayer as well as +8 to all Attack stats.

People who rely on prayer in combat are often called "prayer beasts". They typically wear priest, druid, monk, or Zamorak robes, and wield maces; all of which give bonuses to prayer. Four types of amulets also lend power to prayer: the Amulet of Glory, the Holy/Unholy Symbols (of Saradomin/Zamorak respectively) and the Beads of the Dead.

Retribution, Redemption, and Smite are new prayers added in September, 2005. All three require a high prayer level to use. They are most useful for the wilderness, and have special effects such as healing when your hp falls below 10% of your total, damaging nearby enemies after you die, and draining your opponents' prayer points when you hit them.

Ranging

Ranging is another combat skill, dealing in the art of throwing or firing projectiles at opponents. Range attacks are particularly effective against mages and the armour (Leather or Dragonhide) provides defense to the powerful combat spells, making this useful when fighting magic users. The ranged skill is useful in fighting foes from a distance, possibly using hit and run tactics to avoid damage.

Ranging is also said to be a quicker skill than magic and melee to improve. Ranging is also intertwined with the skill of , as nearly everything made in fletching uses the ranging skill when used for its task. As result many players who develop one skill will work at the other at the same time. This is similar to some other skill complements, such as and . It is really more similar to the connection between and , though these skills are also heavily reliant on other skills; in the case of smithing it's normally linked to . In any case, ranging can be way to reap the benefits of other production skills and provide an alternative way to kill other players (in the wilderness only) and NPCs. For those who don't want to use , it's the only other way to do range attacks and is even more useful in that case.

The ranged guild, available to members with a ranged level of 40 or higher, is near Ardougne.

Runecrafting

The two components needed to create runes are rune essences and a talisman. Essences are acquired by rocks in a special cave, and to get access to this area the player will need to complete the Rune Mysteries quest. Unlike runes, essences are not stackable.

There is a different talisman for each type of rune you can make. Those for low-level runes are dropped by monsters, but higher-level ones such as the law talisman can only be acquired by completing a quest. A talisman can be used as a kind of Compass, giving the direction of the corresponding altar ruins. Upon placing the talisman on the altar ruins, the player is transported to the location of a rejuvenated altar. Using this altar will transform all rune essences the player is holding into runes of that type.

When creating runes (also known as 'runestones'), you receive a certain amount of experience. when you have enough experience as a runecrafter you can create multiple runes from one rune essence('ess') i.e. at level one you can craft 1 air rune per essence, at level 11 you can craft two per essence, and so on; however you only gain experience for the amount of essence crafted, not the number of runes.

The function of a talisman can also be transferred onto a tiara ( from silver) by using it at a runecrafting altar. After this enchanting process, the tiara can be worn to get access to the runecrafting altar without the talisman, freeing up an inventory slot. The act of binding a talisman to a tiara provides the same runecrafting experience as runecrafting five essences of the same rune type. If you have spare talismans, it appears to be most efficient to wear the plain tiara, take the talisman and essences, and then craft runes and one tiara on each run. If you cannot mine and smelt silver or craft a tiara, watch for surpluses at a general store near a furnace as silver smiths often sell large numbers that were crafted mainly for experience, depressing prices to 30GP.

As players progress in the skill they can create rarer and more valuable runes. Non-members are limited to the elemental, body, and mind runes. Members can also craft cosmic, chaos, nature, law, and death runes. Runecrafting is a very difficult skill to gain experience in, as the runecrafting altars are a long distance away from a bank where a player can store the crafted runes and fetch new rune essences. The use of and high help to speed up this difficult skill. At higher levels a player will also make multiple runes from each rune essence. In order to speed up the runecrafting skill, some players pay other players (known as runners) to bring them the essences and trade them for money or runes.

Players can make Combination runes, which can be used instead of two Elemental runes. Lava runes work like earth and fire, dust like earth and air, mud like earth and water, mist like air and water, smoke like fire and air and finally steam like water and fire. These runes are made using a talisman with a different Runecrafting altar (the talisman will disappear). It is possible to fail to produce Combination runes, but the necklace of binding gives 100% chance to success.

Member players also have access to The Abyssal Space. This is a faster but more dangerous path to all the runecrafting altars. The Abyssal Space (aka The Abyss) is located north of Edgeville in level 4-6 wilderness. To use the Abyss, a player must complete a small miniquest for a Zamorak mage who is found north of Edgeville. In the Abyss, players can also obtain four sizes of pouches to hold essences. Medium pouch is avaliable from lvl 25, large from lvl 50 and giant from lvl 75.

Although not in the game currently, it has been confirmed that talismans and altars for the highest-level runes will be added in future updates this year. Blood runes are rumoured to be next on the list, at level 77 runecrafting. As of October 18. 2005, Death runes can now be crafted by earning the talisman as a reward for the Mourning's End Pt.II quest.

Smithing

There are two stages for smithing: Smelting (obtaining bars by smelting them in a furnace) and forging the equipment. As a player's level increases from smelting and smithing, better types of bars and more valuable equipment will become available. Bronze, iron, steel, mithril (abbreviated: mith), adamant (abbreviated: addy), and runite bars (abbreviated: rune) are used to make corresponding armours and weapons. Gold and silver are used for making Jewellery. Arrowheads, wire, nails, and dart tips can also be created with smithing.

Drinking a Dwarven Stout temporarily increases your mining and smithing levels by one. This may enable you to make a more useful item sooner than you would otherwise be able to. There is also the rare Mature Dwarven Stout that will raise both mining and smithing by 2

There is no way to make black or dragon equipment. Dragon supposedly is from another world, but there is no word on why black is unsmithable. Some people speculate that black is made from pure coal, but in reality black armour supposedly comes from "impure" iron ore that has large amounts of carbon in it turning the armour a black color.

A new method of smelting ores has recently been introduced for members only. It allows a player to smelt ores with half the regular coal neccesary, but it has a few drawbacks. The Blast Furnace requires a multi-skilled team of 4 to operate it as the smelter runs to and from the bank, and is not thought to be worth the effort for high level smiths unless a team is already running the furnace.

Member-only Skills

Agility

When a player reaches a certain agility level, he or she will be able to complete certain obstacles with a 100% chance of success. A player with a low agility level will not be able to attempt most obstacles. Courses, formed by multiples of obstacles, provide excellent training for agility. Experience is obtained after the completion of each individual obstacle, and a bonus is added when successfully completing a course in a certain order. If a player falls while attempting to overcome an obstacle, damage may be dealt.

There are many agility courses across the world of RuneScape. The first course that is open to players is the Gnomes' course in the Gnome Stronghold. No health can be lost on this course. Another course is located at the Barbarian outpost, requiring level 35 agility and completion of the Alfred Grimhand Barcrawl. The most dangerous but best agility course to gain agility experience is the Wilderness agility course, which requires level 52 agility to enter. As it is located in the deep wilderness, there is a danger of PK'ers (Player Killers) there.

The Werewolf agility dungeon southeast of Fenkenstrain's castle contains two courses. The Creatures of Fenkenstrain quest must be completed to use these courses. The skullball course can be entered at level 25 agility and requires kicking a skull through 10 goals in order. Completing this course in under 4 minutes generates 750 agility experience. The course can easily be completed in about 3 minutes, and possibly as quickly as 2.5 minutes. The other werewolf course requires an agility level of 60 to enter and provides agility experience comparable to the Wilderness agility course.

The Brimhaven agility arena provides a set of 25 platforms connected by various agility obstacles. About once every 30 seconds or so a ticket dispenser on a random platform starts flashing. Tagging N flashing ticket dispensers in a row gives a player N-1 tickets. Tickets may be turned in for agility experience or other prizes. The arena costs 200 gold to enter, and may be entered with an agility level of 1. Obstacles within the arena require level 1, level 20, or level 40 agility experience to cross.

The Gnomeball field in the Gnome Stronghold can also be used to gain agility and ranging experience.

The Gnome Stronghold course provides the best agility experience (roughly 100 experience per minute) up to level 25 experience. (Players should store all armor, weapons, etc in the bank and wear boots of lightness (available in the Temple of Ikov) when using this course to maximize how long they can run.) From level 25 to level 53, the Skullball course will probably provide the best experience (about 250 experience per minute). (The Barbarian course provides around 200 experience per minute. The Brimhaven arena can probably provide experience about as fast as the skullball course for players who are level 40 or higher -- players only have time to cross a few obstacles in order to tag a dispenser before it stops flashing, so being able to cross level 40 obstacles is a must. The Gnomeball field provides minimal amounts of agility and ranging.)

Fletching

There are other things to be made besides bows though, like arrows, throwing darts, crossbow bolts, each of which follow a similar pattern of both high and low level versions. With the case of arrows, it's important to make arrows that which a bow can handle, as some higher-level arrows cannot be wielded on low level bows. Bolts do not have this restriction, and as of 2005 only coming in five types, normal, poisoned, Opal, Pearl and Barbed bolts. The throwing darts again require different skill levels to use a different material set similar to armor and swords, starting with bronze and going up to rune, with better darts needing a higher level of fletching. In the case of darts, the skill determines if it can be wielded. Making darts of too high a level for ranging skill means that the player cannot use them.

After completing the Zogre Flesh Eater quest one can make composite ogre bow and brutal arrows. Brutal arrows come in all the metals that and use nails instead of arrow heads. The composite ogre bows are made with an achey log and wolf bones.

Herblore

Herbs usually start off unidentified, and can only be identified if the player has reached the requisite skill level for the herb, usually a few levels less than that required to make a potion with that herb. To make a potion, the player needs a water-filled vial, an identified herb and the relevant second ingredient (e.g. eye of newt). Vials can be from glass or bought in stores, and filled at any water source. Some second ingredients such as unicorn horn, blue dragon scale and Chocolate must be ground with a pestle and mortar before use.

Some common herbs used to make potions include Guam Leaf, Marrentill, Tarromin, Harralander, Ranarr Weed, Toadflax, Irit Leaf, Avantoe, Kwuarm, Snapdragon, Cadantine, Lantadyme, Dwarf Weed. Typical potion effects are a temporary boost to stats, restoration of attributes such as hit points or prayer, and curing effects such as poison. There is also a weapon poison potion which can poison certain items such as arrows, daggers, spears, and throwing knives.

Easy herblore level. Kill men and woman, they drop a lot of guam leaves. Then go to Teverley buy vials and eye of newts then make a lot of Atk. potions. Go to world 2 with about 1k Atk. potions and sell them 100 - 150 each. You will get lots of money i assure you. BUYING GUAM LEAVES.

Farming

You can start farming at one of the main Farming Patches located at Falador, Catherby, Ardougne and Port Phasmatys. There are many locations for more advanced farmers throughout the Runescape world. Gardeners near these Farming areas provide some useful hints on how to farm, and will look after many of the crops you plant, for the right price. Gardeners will accept Farming items in payment for their services.

The major benefits of Farming include the ability to grow your own herbs for the Skill, growing hops and apples so that you can brew your own Cider and Beer using the Cooking Skill, and being able to grow the ingredients required for Extra-Strong Weapon Poison and Super Strong Weapon Poison to make some weapons extremely poisonous.

See the Runescape Farming Manual (This link will only bring you to the Runescape homepage, you then must navigate from there. Go into the manual, click on skills and then click on farming)

Slayer

Thieving

Upcoming skills

Carpentry

Summoning