Splitshadow's Guide to Runescape ~Introduction~ I decided I wanted to write a guide, no reason in particular, other than I'm really amazed at how horrible the guides are on Neoseeker. My name is Splitshadow, and I've been playing since 2005. I'm mostly going to cover the skills, because that's what I know the most about. If you want to use this guide, e-mail me at splitshadow13@yahoo.com Feel free to pm me with questions or comments. ~Table of Contents~ PART 1: Skills A1. Attack/Strength/Defence A2. Magic A3. Ranged A4. Prayer A5. Runecraft A6. Construction A7. Agility A8. Herblore A9. Theiving A10. Crafting A11. Fletching A12. Slayer A13. Hunter A14. Mining A15. Smithing A16. Fishing A17. Cooking A18. Woodcuting A19. Firemaking A20. Farming PART 2: Money Making Techniqes B1. Other B2. Skills PART 3: Mini Games C1. Pest Control C2. Castlewars C3. Barbarian Assault PART 4: Pking ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ PART 1: Skills ~Introduction~ Skills are most definitely my favorite part of Runescape. They are mostly the point of playing, and they can help you earn some cash. So let's get started! A1. Attack/Strength/Defence: Well, I would reccommend combat over magic or range, for one simple reason, weapons and armor last forever. I think it would be best for a meleer to be balanced, because you level faster. Now, I think the most efficient way to explain this would be by level. Lvl 3: Chickens (North of lumbridge) Not much to say here, make sure you take feathers, bury bones, and cook the meat. Lvl 10: Cows Similar to chickens, kill the cows, bury bones, cook meat, and use the cowhides for crafting. I would recommend that you do prince ali rescue first. Lvl 10: Men If you're p2p, which for the remainder of the guide I will assume you are, the best things to kill are men. TAKE the herbs and clue scrolls, bury bones, and save the herbs. I recommend you do druidic rituial before starting. Lvl 30: Hill Giants Now you really start getting some xp. Make sure you take the steel arrows and bury the big bones. I trained to lvl 70 on giants, and the prayer levels help enormously whilst fighting high leveled monsters. Lvl 50: Flesh Crawlers If you are bored of killing giants, switch to flesh crawlers, they make some good money. Pick up the fire runes, herbs, and iron ores and such. Lvl 70: Ankou You'll make an extreme amount of money, which you will need to use to buy food at your level, they drop lvl 3 clue scrolls and blood runes! Lvl 100: Mithril Dragons You can get some serious drops here, you can also kill kalphites, black dragons, greater demons, or tzhaar monsters. A2. Magic Well, magic is one of the easiest skills to raise, you can fight with it.. but i dont recommend it. Magic is the most powerful way of combat in Runescape. Ancient Magicks are ridiculously overpowered, and you will slaughter everyone with this skill. Lvl 1-45: Fight Monsters Fight monsters mentioned in att/str/def above. Lvl 45: Teleport to Camelot Buy law runes, or check the forums to find a person to run ess to entrana for free runes. *check runecrafting for more info.* Lvl 55: HIGH ALCHEMY Simply use high alchemy on yew longbows or other items. *check fletching for more info.* A3. Ranged Ranged is very very similar to combat, I don't see a need to add that much. I would suggest killing blue dragons and fire giants more than if you train combat. NOTE: buy a cannon. A4. Prayer Prayer is hard to explain in a guide. Basically when you start out, bury all of your bones, and kill giants and baby dragons often. Use port phasmyths or a guilded altar if you have access. A5. Runecraft As you level up from level 1, just make each new kind of normal rune until you get to chaos. Don't make chaos, just get to lvl 44 and then continue on with nature runes, I suggest you skip chaos because it is much slower. *NOTE: On the forums, you can search for "law/nature running," you run taking 24-26 essence to an elemental altar, and then you get your essence back noted along with 24-26 runes.* A6. Construction I know nothing about construction, sorry, there is nothing really to know, just waste your cash if you want to raise your total level... *NOTE: if you get high enough level, the only reward is that you can get 350% exp per bone you bring.* A7. Agility Agility is not difficult, but it is extremely boring, just do the courses each time you level up. Bring weight reduction armor, energy potions, and food. A8. Herblore After you do druidic ritual, you can start the hardest skill in the game. Well, there's not much to say, just buy all the ingredients. You use too much time getting them yourself, because you could be using that time to make money using your other skills. Use ALL of your dragon teachers, genie lamps, and your one small favour quest lamps on herblore. You'll thank me later. A9. Theiving Theiving is extremely easy to level up. Start out on cake and silk, work your way up to ardougne nature rune chest, and blood rune chest, and pickpocket guards and knights. A10. Crafting Ok, when you get to level 10 and kill cows, use that to raise your level. Spin flax into bowstrings to raise money and crafting levels. Buy green dragonhides, make the armor and high alch it. Don't try to raise your level with jewellery or pottery. A11. Fletching Fletching is so simple it makes me laugh.. well just fletch normal and oak logs till you're level 40. Now that you're level 40, you have 2 options, buy enough willow logs to get to 70 fletching, or continue cutting willows and maples if you dont have the money. Don't worry, you'll get that money back. Now make yew longbows. (you can buy the supplies and sell for more than you paid!) You can also alch them and make a small profit depending on the current market. You'll get lots of quick xp, and you can make lts of cash. Don't make magic longbows, you get less money. A12. Slayer Get a task from the best slayer master you can. If it's too hard, talk to the one in burthrope. No guide will help you here. A13. Hunter Hunter is fun to raise because It's very different. Lvl 1-53: Yes 53, The birds only, they're the best experience. Lvl 53-63: Chinchompas Lvl 63-99: Red Chinchompas A14. Mining Lvl 1-15: Mine tin and copper Lvl 15-50: Mine iron (NOT coal) Lvl 50-60: Mine coal Then mine mith and coal, addy and coal, rune and coal, get a rune pick asap. A15. Smithing Use all your ores and smith them into weapons and armor and sell. Simple no? If you dont want to, buy coal and iron, smith into bars and sell for more. Be warned it will take forever but make decent $. A16. Fishing! I love fishing, it takes very little attention. It makes good money and is easy to raise. Always cook your fish until you get lvl 80 cooking. Lvl 1-20: Shrimp Don't do anything else, It's a waste of time. Lvl 20-40: Trout/Salmon Keep those feathers from raising your combat. Lvl 40-63: Lobster SELL, and use for food. Lvl 63-99: Monkfish Only fish sharks for money, monkfish are better experience. *NOTE: Complete swan song to catch monkfish* A17. Cooking JUST COOK FISH. Period. A18. Woodcutting Switch with the guidelines, you don't need to skip nething. Maybe cut yews a bit longer than 75. A19. Firemaking Burn logs. Period. A20. Farming I have no idea about farming, It's a waste of time. PART 2: MONEY MAKING ~Introduction~ Money making is one of the most important aspects of playing runescape. There are many ways to make money, and I'll just tell you the ones I have found useful. ALWAYS USE THE FORUMS. B1. No Skill Requirement: 1. Nature/Law Running In nature and law running, you take 26 pure essence to a person at the nature or law altar, and trade them for 26 noted pure essence and 26 nature or law runes. 2. Bowstrings This does require 8 crafting but I mean cmon.. that's not a requirement. Close to seers bank there is a field of flax. Pick flax here and go upstairs in the first building along the path. Spin them into bow strings and sell for 150-200 gp each. This makes very good money early on. 3. Merchanting Merchanting is hard to explain, but what you do is you find items with the biggest range in prices, EX: 150-250k for an item, and you constantly buy at the lowest price, and sell at the highest. This makes the best money in the game. 4. Gathering Some items that take a long time to gather such as bowstrings, flax, planks, water filled vials, and secondary herblore ingredients, will sell very easily on the forums for ridiculous prices. B2. Skill Related Money: 1. Fishing You have three options, fish lobster, shark, or monkfish. I recommend shark as soon as you can. 2. Woodcut Cut magic or yew logs and sell. 3. Fighting Kill metal dragons, tzhaar monsters, kalphite queen, king black dragon, or best of all a lvl 87 monster in account security named ankou. 4. Runecraft Take trips of pure essence back and forth to the nature altar. 5. Herblore Kill men and id the herbs. Rannar weeds can sell EXTREMELy high. 6. Fletching Fletching makes good money depending on the market. Buy yew logs and bowstrings, make into yew longs and either alch or sell to people who will in turn alch them. 7. Slayer Kill dust devils or abbysal demons to get dragon chain or abbysal whips. 8. Hunter Trap red chinchompas and sell. 9. Theiving Makes the least money, steal blood runes or sharks. 10. Mining Mine coal, iron, mith, or pure ess and sell. 11. Smithing Buy 2k coal 1k iron, make 1k steel bars, then sell or make 4k cannonballs for more money. You can also buy mith and coal, make into bars and sell. Also make iron knives and sell to pures for extreme amounts. 12. Farming Well, farming is absolutely noobish, but you CAN buy rannar seeds and sell the rannars to make a small profit. PART 3: MINI GAMES ~Introduction~ Mini games are a fun and sometimes beneficial part of runescape. C1. Pest Control Pest control is the best mini game if you're looking for a reward. By winning you get experience points in any combat stat you want. Guide to playing: First tip to know, always get in the low level boat, you get much faster experience. When you get in the game, don't dawdle, run straight up and fight monsters, until a portal goes down, then run straight to that portal, and continue going after portals. Now, if you are at a portal, and there is a spinner, KILL IT, no matter what you have to kill the spinners, or else they will heal the portal. If you're lower lvled (<70), make sure all the gates are closed. C2. Castlewars Castlewars is plainly fun, and has almost no rewards, but I would like to say it's a nice place to relax and end your day. To get there, you use a ring of dueling. (emerald ring) Guide to playing: There are three real things you can do. They are as follows: protect flag, protect castle, or attack. First I will cover protecting the flag. Now, the best way to protect the flag is with barricades, but don't go crazy. Fill up your bag with cades because there will always be that noob who doesn't want it there, even when it stops people from scoring. I would advise using 2-3 barricades. 1st: where you enter the flag room. They can get in, but they cant get out. 2nd: Just outside of the flag room so that they cant get to it. 3rd: Again at that stairwell so it takes a long time for them to break free. Here's what always happens. They get into room 2, they break down the cade taking some damage from the flag guards, then he goes upstairs and grabs the flag. As he is breaking through the barricade, he suffers massive damage if not dying. When he comes back down, he has one more cade to go through, which will almost always stop him. If he gets any farther, try to beat him downstairs and block off his escape. Ancient mages make capturing the flag 100% impossible. If you defend, make sure you cary 10 explosive pots in case you mess up your cades. I won't go into much detail about defending the castle, because it's very straight forward. Basically, attack people trying to get in the castle, and carry a few barricades and therest you should just carry all med packs to keep your run and health up . It's a waste to barricade the center, but go ahead and barricade the stepping stones. Just kill everyone who goes in or out. Don't get ahead of yourself, I'm not done. You also need castle defenders underground, and like that crappy song, this ones for the noobs!(girls) Well, all you do is bring a pickaxe and a pack of explosives, and use them on the cave walls. When someone on the enemy team approaches, mine it for them, and when they try to get through, collapse it on the with and explosive potion. Also try to do some creative things with barricades to stop them from getting through, such as putting one under yourself. Now for the best part! Don't try this if you're under lvl 75 or dont have 43+ prayer. You're an attacker now, and that means the most diverse pack. I suggest getting at least 6 explosive pots, 2 barricades, and filling the rest up on med packs for run and healing. I suggest you always go underground. Well start by blasting your way through the mines and popping up in their castle.Go to the 2nd floor and put on your melee protect prayer. Go all the way up using your remaining explosive potions to bust up any cades that stand in your way. After you get the flag, on your way back to the mines, set up a cade before you go down the ladder. If they bust through it and keep chasing you, drop ur last cade when you get low on health and run out of med packs, drop it where it blocks their path completely. NEVER use the catapult people. The next part of the guide, I don't condone, but I think I will explain to you. It's called flag holding. You see when some noob takes your flag and dies before he makes it back to his own base (he has to be closer to his base than yours) you can hold your own flag. As log as you dont go back inside your castle, they can't score on you. So rally the troops and start making your personal guard. Then just hide and you will most definitely win. I hope Jagex changes this soon, as it is very unfair. Ok that's it for castlewars.' C3. Barbarian Assault This is the last mini-game that I think is worth playing *I don't consider barrows a mini-game* This game is incredibly difficult, and I guess I'll try to explain it the best I can. It's divided up into 4 roles, attacker, healer, defender, and collector. Each wave (1-10) you get 5 players. Use the 5th player wisely, make it an attacker early on, then switch to healer. Don't bring runes or arrows. Barbarian assault has some nice rewards, namely the granite plate, fighters torso, and penance gloves. (lightness) Attacker: You call for the collector, you have the 2nd easiest job, all you have to do is kill the monsters using the attack style the collector tells you. Tell the collector the egg color with your horn. Collector: You have the easiest job. You're only purpose is to call for the attacker. Pick up the eggs he tells you and call for him EVERY TIME it changes. Defender: You have the hardest job. Call for the healer as much as you can. When you start, stock up, and drop the food the healer tells you on the eastern runner trap, then drop 2 more leading to it 4 spaces apart to lure 1 or 2 in. Grab 2 logs and a hammer and close up the two western caves. Take two more logs because you need them to repair the trap. Keep dropping the food the healer tells you on the trap, and drop a trail leading them to the trap. When you get down to low food, what you can do is drop the food, and when the runner gets close, pick it up, move 3 spaces, and drop again. I'm proud of this strategy I made up. It is a myth that the cannon lowers your points when fired at penance runners. Healer: You have the 2nd most difficult job. Sorry but you have to call for the defender every time, and be quick about it. Thankfully, you get the most points because you get points for healing. Your jobs are to heal the entire team, and kill all of the enemy healers with the poison food the defender tells you. This is why in the later games, there are always two healers. Quick notes: Never join a team with two collectors or defenders. To kill the queen, you must have killed all the runners,rangers,fighters, and healers. Do the tutorial and read the queen killing book, it explains it very well. Never use the horn of glory. Well that's the end of my guide, I hope you liked it. If you have any problems/questions or comments, pm me in game, or email me at Splitshadow13@yahoo.com, also please ask if you want to host my guide anywhere other than Neoseeker. Well, thanks for reading! ~Splitshadow