RS3 Skills Overview: Best Skills According To Player Type

Skill Types

  • Combat skills involve fighting in combat using both magic and weapons, healing and defense. Combat levels are calculated using combat skills to show how strong you are and how hard you will be to defeat. Players start at level 3 and can reach up to level 138.
  • Gathering skills involve getting raw materials or resources from their sources. Many gathering skills go hand in hand with artisan skills. For example, you need to mine ores to smith armor.
  • Artisan skills involve the ability to take raw materials and make them into objects or useful items. These skills are important for players that want to make their own armor and weapons and craft their own supplies. However, for players who are fine with buying those objects then these skills are generally ignored.
  • Support skills are small skills that help the player with various activities or quests. Dungeoneering is the only skill available for free players. For member players, the Agility skill is often trained because of its use in exploring various lands in Runescape.
  • Elite Skills are skills that unlock once a player has two or more skills at a certain level. Currently, there is only one elite skill and it is a members-only skill.

Experience

Experience is the level of progress a player has made. EXP is gained by completing tasks that are related to the specific skill being trained. It can also be gained through completing quests, training the skills through training camps or on your own through exploration, and participating in various events and minigames found within the game.

Certain skills have a higher rate of skill milestones, for example, Constitution has one of the highest rates of players reaching levels 99,120 and 200, while crafting has a significantly lower rate of milestones. Skills that are for members only have a much lower rate of player milestones, due to a large number of free players.

Free to Play Skills

Combat

  • Attack is a melee combat skill and it determines the accuracy of a player’s melee attacks and the type of weapon a player can use. The higher the attack level means fewer misses during combat. Leveling attacks will also help level your overall combat level.
  • Strength is another melee combat skill that increases the amount of damage and player can inflict on their target. It increases the level by 2.5 points per level and allows you to be able to weird certain weapons and armor. It will also affect the agility skill of member players. This skill is one of the more popular skills among players.
  • Defense is a combat skill that grants players protection against attacks. The higher your defense skill the fewer successful blows your opponent will experience, regardless of combat type. Your defense level will also affect the armor you are capable of wearing, along with other equipment.
  • Ranged is a combat skill that involves using bows, crossbows, and thrown weapons against opponents. This skill will also grant the ability to wear various monster hide armors. Those that decided to specialize in this skill are rangers or archers. Rangers are strong against mages and weak against melee fighters.
  • Prayer is a combat skill that gives players specialized buffs during combat by evoking the power of the dead. All players have limited access to the skill to start. As they train by burning bones and scattering demonic ashes they will gain access to new prayers.
  • Magic is a combat skill that allows players to cast spells using the power of runes. While it is considered a combat skill it can be used in a variety of ways. The skill is extremely useful in combat because it allows for a variety of ways to incapacitate opponents along with ranged combat. The skill also allows players to teleport, enchant items, convert items to gold, and cure or heal players.
  • Constitution (health, hitpoints) is a combat skill that affects a player’s life points, which is the amount of damage a player or monster can take before dying.

Gathering

  • Mining is a gathering skill that allows players to extract various ores, gems, and rune essence from various resources. Ores can be smelted in a furnace to produce bars. Gems can be turned into jewelry and used for enchanting, while rune essence is vital for the rune crafting skill.
  • Fishing is a gathering skill that allows players to catch various fish. The higher the fishing level allows for players to catch larger fish and use different forms of equipment. Fish can be sold or cooked and eaten once caught making them a source of health and money.
  • Woodcutting is a gathering skill that allows players to chop down various trees and vegetation. Leveling the skill up allows a player to chop things faster, along with the ability to wield higher-level hatchets, which also increase speed. Additionally leveling up will unlock new species of trees.

Artisan

  • Cooking is an artisan skill that allows players to cook various types of food. Food is used to restore the constitution or give a temporary skill level boost. There are a variety of ingredients and places to cook among Runescape.
  • Crafting is a free artisan skill that allows players to create items, such as, jewelry armor, and pottery. They can use the items they craft or they can trade the items to other people. This is a great way to make some gold if you have a high-level crafting skill and can make a variety of items. When a player reaches level 40 they can enter the crafting guild.
  • Firemaking is the artisan companion to woodcutting and is often used to complete quests and minigames. Firemaking also allows players to cook various food sources and burnt-out fires leave behind ashes that have a variety of uses.
  • Runecrafting allows players to craft runes for magic spells using runecrafting altars. Runescrafting can be an expensive skill to train and it’s not very popular among players for that reason.
  • Fletching is an artisan skill that gives the player the ability to make bows and arrows. For those who wish to become proficient in the ranger or archer skill set, you will want to train alongside it.
  • Smithing is an artisan skill that allows players to create a wide variety of metal items from ore and metal bars. This is the companion skill to mining. Once ores are acquired you can smelt them in a furnace and hammer them into various items and armor pieces using anvils.

Support

  • Dungeoneering is the only free-to-play support skill. That consists of exploring the dungeons of Daemonheim and solving various puzzles, unlocking doors, and fighting various monsters. This skill allows groups of five people to train together, which allows for maxim experience per dungeon level.

Member Skills

Combat

  • Summoning is the only members-only combat skill and it focuses on the ability to call familiars from the spirit plane using summoning pouches. The quest Wolf Whistle is an introduction to the skill.

Gathering

  • Farming is a members-only gathering skill that allows players to grow crops by planting seeds and farming them. Different seeds are planted in their corresponding farming patches. These patches are found throughout Runescape. Once a player plants the seeds that can go about their business across Runescape. There is a chance that your crops can become disease or die during their growth process.
  • Hunter is a members-only skill that allows players to capture various animals across Runescape. Players are rewards for their efforts through bones, butterflies, animals furs, and other valuable rewards. At higher levels, players can hunt for charm slices, valuable potions ingredients, or even unorthodox crossbows.
  • Divination is a member-only gathering and artisan skill. To use this skill, you need to gather Guthix’s residual life force, which is found throughout Runescape. When a player gathers the life force that presents in the form of wisps then can then use it to make portents, signs, and divine locations.

Artisan

  • Herblore is a members-only artisan skill that allows players to make their own potions. While this skill can be trained quickly, it can be very expensive for players who need to buy all of the ingredients required. Players who want to gather the ingredients can take some time as it requires monster drops, farming, and exploring.
  • Construction is a members-only skill that allows players to build and customize their own houses. Houses are designed by arranging rooms and then decorating those rooms with various furniture pieces. As players achieve a higher construction level, they will be able to build different rooms. For example, a chapel can be built which can be useful in training, while a dungeon can be built to train combat skills. You can also choose rooms that are simply for decoration like a throne room. Construction is an overall useful skill in the game, as it doesn’t give any monetary payback. However, for those that have a decent amount of gold to spend and some time to kill this is a great skill that allows you to create your own little slice of paradise within the game.

Support

  • Thieving is a members-only skill that gives players to ability to obtains coins and various items from market stalls, checks, and pickpocketing NPC characters. Additionally, players will have the ability to unlock doors and disarm traps. If a player is caught while pickpocketing they will incur damage from the NPC that is equal to 30 hitpoints per every 1000.
  • Agility is a members-only skill that allows players to use various shortcuts around Runescape. Shortcuts require a player to reach a certain level before they can be used. Additionally, a player’s energy will recharge quicker when resting. Agility is trained by using agility courses found around Runescape, which are a series of obstacles a player completes to gain agility experience.
  • Slayer is a members-only skill that allows players to kill various monsters that are usually immune to damage. A player will receive a task from one of the eight slayer masters. For every assigned monster a player kills they will gain slayer and combat experience.

Elite

  • Invention is the only elite skill found in Runescape and it is a members-only skill. To train invention, players must first reach level 80 in divination, crafting, and smithing. Training the skill allows players to disassemble items to obtain new materials. Then a player can use the material to manufacturer-new devices and augment high-level weapons, armor, and tools.

Final Thoughts

Runescape has a wide variety of skills to satisfy all sorts of players. Whether you want to train combat, focus on dungeoneering or make and sell armor there is something for everyone. Combined with the lore-rich and expansive world of Runescape, there are hours of gameplay available.

FAQ

Question: What are Runescapes system requirements?

Answer: 
High detail
Processor: Intel i5 or i7 or AMD Athlon X2
Graphics: ATi Radeon HD, 512MB Nvidia GeForce G 100 or better
Memory: 4GB DDR3
Video Settings: Graphic Details on High. All options turned on.
Renderer: DirectX or OpenGL [ DirectX (32-bit/ 64-bit) or OpenGL (64-bit only)

Medium Detail
Processor: Intel i3 or AMD Phenom II X4
Graphics: Most ATi HD and Nvidia video cards
Memory: 4GB DDR3
Video Settings: Medium. Particles set to medium. Water detail set to low. Shadows set to static.
Renderer: DirectX or OpenGL [ DirectX (32-bit/ 64-bit) or OpenGL (64-bit only)

Low Detail
Processor: Intel Dual Core, Intel Core 2 Duo or AMD A-series, C series, E series
Graphics: ATi Radeon Mobility, Radeon Xseries, nVidia M and Go series
Memory: 2GB DDR2
Video Settings: Low
Renderer: DirectX (Windows) or OpenGL (Mac) [ DirectX (32-bit/ 64-bit) or OpenGL (64-bit only)

Safe Mode
Processor: Intel Pentium, Intel Celeron, Intel Core, Intel Mobile or AMD Mobile series/single and Dual-core.
Graphics: SiS, Matrox, Intel GMA series, Intel HD series, Via Chrome, GeForce 4, ATi Radeon 9000 Series
Memory: 1GB DDR
Video Settings: Safe Mode
Renderer: Safe Mode (runs directly off CPU)

Question: What systems are Runescape available for?

Answer: Runescape is available for Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, and Android. Runescape only recently became available on iOS, allowing for apple users to have some Runescape fun directly from their phones.

Question: Where can I download Runescape?

Answer: For Windows and Mac you can download Runescape through Steam or through their website here. For Android and iOS, you can download it from the app store.

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