Soul Wars OSRS Guide

Soul Wars is a PvP minigame that was initially added to Runescape 3 as a way for high-level players to test their mettle against one another.

However, the minigame’s popularity in the newer version of Runescape prompted an in-game poll to see if Old School Runescape players would be interested in seeing it added.

The game’s approval passed with flying colors, bringing Souls Wars to OSRS so all players could enjoy it. So, if you’re looking to get into Soul Wars or want to improve your performance in the mode, here is everything you need to know.

Key Info Up Front

• Members Only: Yes
• Number of Players: 20
• Minigame Type: Combat
• Official Worlds: 320, 350, 535
• Player Requirements: Combat Level 40, Total Level 500

Soul Wars Overview

Soul Wars is a PvP minigame that tasks two teams of ten players each. Throughout the minigame, each team works to empower its Avatar of the gods while trying to weaken and ultimately kill the other team’s Avatar at the same time.

To do so, players can kill members of the other team or focus on performing tasks that are not focused on PvP.

Soul Wars can technically be played on any world, but three are dedicated to supporting Soul Wars players, so I recommend playing on those. These are World 320, 250, and 535.

To participate in Soul Wars, you’ll first need to reach a Combat Level of at least 40 and a Total Level of 500 or higher. Once you meet those requirements, you’ll need to make your way to the Isle of Souls. There are a few ways to do so:

• Use Fairy Ring code BJP
• Group teleport
• Teleport using the Amulet of Glory, Combat Bracelet, or Ring of Dueling
• Use the Paddewwa Teleport

Starting a Soul Wars Game

Once you arrive at Soul Wars, you’ll need to complete the game’s tutorial. This can be started by talking to Nomad in the Soul Wars lobby. When entering the tutorial or classic games, you’ll be unable to bring any Potions or Food with you. You also can’t be diseased, envenomed, or poisoned.

After completing the Soul Wars tutorial, you can join classic Soul Wars matches. From the main lobby, there are two lobbies that you can enter to join a game.

To the west, there is the standard lobby that players can enter to be matchmade in a classic game. In these games, teams are balanced depending on their Combat Level to be as balanced as possible.

If players go into the eastern lobby, they instead join clan-based matches. In that lobby, teams from clans can go into the hall and look for another team to play against.

This is done by the captains of each clan team, which can challenge other captains to match and accept challenges. This can only be done by clan captains while in the lobby.

Soul Wars Gameplay

Avatars

Each Soul wars match caps out at 15 minutes. During that time, both teams must try and kill the other team’s Avatar as often as possible to earn points. The red team supports the Avatar of Destruction, while the blue team supports the Avatar of Creation.

At the start of the match, both Avatars will have a damage reduction value of 100%. This task teams with reducing the damage reduction of the enemy’s Avatar before they try to kill it. However, it is essential to note that Avatars will fight back when the enemy team tries to damage them.

While fighting the enemy team, Avatars will target one player near them, but they damage every player in front of them while attacking.

Soul Obelisk

Players have to make offerings at the Soul Obelisk to lower the damage reduction value of the enemy team’s Avatar. To do so, players must kill monsters found throughout the map to collect their Soul Fragments. Soul Fragments must then be turned in at the Soul Obelisk to take effect.

Before doing this, however, the player’s team should be in control of the Soul Obelisk by having more team members near it than the other team.

Players can still turn in Soul Fragments at the Soul Obelisk if their team isn’t in control of it, but doing so redeems them for only 1/3rd of their typical value. Because of this, I don’t recommend doing so unless your team is in control of the Soul Obelisk.

Bones

When your team’s Avatar has lost damage reduction, it is not gone forever. To counteract the decline, players on your team can collect bones and bury them in the graveyard to recharge the Avatar.

Doing so works similarly to the Soul Obelisk in that players need their team to control the cemetery. Otherwise, the bones are worth 1/3rd their average value.

The amount of damage reduction recharged from a single set of buried Bones depends on how low your Avatar’s health is. The lower their health, the more bones it will take to increase their damage reduction value.

PvP

Killing enemy players is an integral part of Soul Wars, but it should not be a team’s entire focus. While playing in Soul Wars, players must equip a cape associated with their team.

This allows players to attack enemies more quickly by setting the default to left-click option to be attacked, like a standard monster.

Activity Bar

Throughout a game of Soul Wars, players have an Activity Bar displayed on the screen. This is filled by participating in the game, and how filled it is throughout the match determines how much Zeal players get at the end. If players are inactive for too long during matches, their Activity Bar will deplete.

If a player’s Activity Bar depletes completely during a match, they are kicked from the game for inactivity. If this happens, they are also restricted from joining other Soul Wars matches for ten minutes. The Activity Bar can be filled through these actions:

• Burying Bones
• Capturing a Graveyard
• Capturing the Soul Obelisk
• Damaging an Avatar
• Destroying Barricades
• Healing allies
• Killing enemies
• Killing NPS
• Lowering the enemy Avatar’s health

Soul Wars Strategies

A few essential aspects of Soul Wars are to consider when playing through a match. First, you’ll want to ensure you use your team’s resources effectively.

At the start of the game, your team will have a supply of Bandages to heal, Barricades to disrupt enemy movement, and Explosive Potions to destroy enemy Barricades.

There are a few different mentalities regarding getting the most out of these items, but I have a few general tips. First, do not use Bandages if you aren’t fulfilling a PvP role. PvP is the most dangerous combat in Soul Wars, and your teammates doing it will need many Bandages to be successful.

I also recommend using Barricades to cover areas that you know the enemy will have to travel down at some point during the game.

This can help you get damaged while they approach your Avatar and have to pause to destroy Barricades, for example. If you place them all around, there is a higher chance of them being wasted and not impacting the match.

When strategizing for a game of Soul Wars, you’ll need to divide and conquer with your team. Teams can usually be split up between four roles that are defined below.

Attacker

If you want to fulfill the Attacker role during a game of Soul Wars, you’ll need to have a high combat level and Slayer level. Throughout the match, the enemy team’s Avatar level will increase, and you will need an equal or higher Slayer level to deal damage to do it.

This role is all about putting pressure on the enemy team and dealing damage to the enemy Avatar. So, if you play in this role, you’ll need to have a high combat level since you should expect a lot of PvP.

While you are waiting to push offensives on the enemy team’s Avatar, you should spend most of your time disrupting the enemy team and trying to kill their weakest players or prevent them from completing their tasks.

For this role, I also recommend using a tank build so that you can survive while fighting other players or the enemy Avatar as much as possible. The form I use is:

• Helmet Slot: Helm of Neitznot
• Body Slot: Bandos Chestplate
• Leg Slot: Bandos Tassets
• Weapon Slot: Saradomin Sword
• Shield Slot: Dragonfire Shield
• Feet Slot: Dragon Boots
• Hands Slot: Barrows Gloves
• Neck Slot: Amulet of Fury
• Ring Slot: Ring of Recoil

Capturer

Capturers are responsible for keeping control of the Graveyards and Soul Obelisk as much as possible. This role tends to have the most PvP, so don’t attempt it until you are comfortable with fighting enemies throughout the entire game.

However, this role is vital, as controlling areas is necessary for your team to influence both Avatars in the match. The sites also work as respawn points for your teammates during the game.

Having this for your team is excellent so that when your allies die, they don’t have to spawn back by your Avatar and run back to essential areas of the map.

When playing a Capturer, one can take a few different approaches. Adopting the tank build of the Attacker is a viable option, as is focusing more on damage to kill opponents as quickly as possible.

If you want to use a magic build, you can use the one described in the Collector section below. Otherwise, this is the Ranged build that I prefer to use for damage:

• Head Slot: Armadyl Helmet
• Body Slot: Armadyl Chestplate
• Legs Slot: Armadyl Plateskirt
• Weapon Slot: Dark Bow
• Ammunition Slot: Dragon Arrows
• Feet Slot: Ranger Boots
• Hands Slot: Barrows Gloves
• Neck Slot: Amulet of Glory
• Ring Slot: Archers Ring

Collector

As a Collector, your primary responsibility is collecting Soul Fragments from the Pyrefiends and Jellies found throughout the map. If your combat level is too low, you may have to avoid the Jellies since they are combat level 78.

I recommend bringing a Ranged or Magic combat loadout for this role that focuses on killing them as quickly as possible.

You’ll also need to communicate well with the rest of your team to ensure that you coordinate your attacks on the enemy Avatar with a reduction in damage. This will help prevent the enemy team from rebuilding their Avatar afterward, so you can get as much damage as possible.

Once your team pushes forward to attack the enemy, you should also go along but stay back and focus on dealing damage, allowing your Attacker team members to take most of the damage with their tank builds. This is the Collector build I usually run:

• Head Slot: Ahrims Hood
• Body Slot: Ahrims Robe Top
• Legs Slot: Ahrims Ropeskirt
• Weapon Slot: Ancient Staff
• Shield Slot: Any God Book
• Feet Slot: Infinity Boots
• Hand Slot: Infinite Gloves
• Neck Slot: Amulet of Fury
• Ring Slot: Seers Ring

Guard

A team’s Guards are its defensive component that bears the responsibility of protecting the team’s Avatar from attackers. Like all roles in the game, this is extremely important. Killing enemy players also drop Bones that you can take to a Graveyard to bury after pushing off an attacking force.

Your team should have multiple players fulfilling this role, and you should aim to cover a range of builds and attack options to better counter-attacking forces.

So, you can use any of the above forms if you wish, but don’t be afraid to move to a different role if you don’t fit into a good mix of your teammates for guarding.

Soul Wars Rewards

Each game of Soul Wars you complete will be awarded a unique currency called Zeal, depending on your performance. You will get a comprehensive breakdown at the end of the game to help you understand how much Zeal you are given and how you did throughout the game.

If your team wins a classic match, the utmost zeal you can receive will be 60, with the losing team maxing out at 40. If the game ends up in a draw, members of both groups would instead be able to get a maximum of 50 Zeal.

If your Soul Wars game was clan-based, the Zeal rewards are also limited to a maximum of 30 to dissuade boosting.

Once you’ve built up some Zeal, you can spend it at the Soul Wars reward store by talking to Nomad. The different types of rewards that players can purchase are below.

Experience Boosts

One handy way to spend Zeal is to purchase experience for combat skills. This can only be done for combat abilities at least level 30 but can help players level up even faster, making Soul Wars games a decent grinding method.

The number of experiences players ggetfor each point of Zeal spent changes as the combat skill’s level increases, which you can find in the table below.

Items

Players can also spend their Zeal Tokens to purchase a range of products and reward their effort. Some of these are unique to Soul Wars, while the Spoils of War item allows players to get randomized loot for their actions.

Most of the items in this table, however, are focused on PvP as they are consumables that can only be used while in the Wilderness.

Item Upgrades

The final use for Zeal Tokens is to imbue particular objects. This increases their effectiveness or adds new bonuses to the ones they already provide.

If you invest in an item and eventually decide that the upgrade wasn’t worth the investment, you can un-imbue them for an 80% refund. The possible imbuements are in the table below.

FAQs

Conclusion

Soul Wars is a unique minigame in OSRS because of its complexity and the different approaches players can adopt. It also has some great rewards for players to earn by grinding for Zeal throughout matches.

So, if you’re looking to test against other players in some of the best OSRS content available, you can test your mettle in the Soul Wars.

Here are other interesting readings for you:

• Ring Of Wealth OSRS Guide
• Smoke Devil OSRS Guide [2022]: The Mutant Cousin Of Dust Devils
• Combat Bracelet OSRS Guide

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Arron Kluz

Arron is a featured team writer and lifelong gamer. Ever since he started playing games on his old SNES, he has been hooked ever since. He has a particular love for games like Pillars of Eternity, Skyrim, a variety of beloved indie titles, and also a few online shooters to serve as a means of avoiding open-world fatigue. Outside of gaming, he enjoys watching arthouse movies, playing Dungeons & Dragons, and writing fiction.

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