Free-To-Play Duel Arena Guide

Description:
The Duel Arena is an area where players can challenge each other to safe fights in which no items are lost unless they are staked. It is located to the north of Al-Kharid and directly east of the entrance gate from Lumbridge.

How To Play:
Dueling is a great way to test your stats against other players. Fighting players of your same level or in your PVP world level range is good preparation for doing PKing as you can know how much danger you could be in.

Before a duel starts, you must challenge or be challenged by another player. There is no level range in the arena so you can challenge whomever you want, but for stakes you usually want to fight people using your same combat method and in your level range. Once a player accepts your challenge you can set the rules for a fair duel. For example, if a player has a better amulet than you equipped, you can mark off the amulet slot. Or, if you want to fight using only Magic you would turn on the options for “No Ranged” and “No Melee”. Other options for dueling include:
•    Fun Weapons: This option can only be selected if both players have a fun weapon in their inventory, i.e. a rubber chicken, an Easter carrot, etc.
•   No Food: This option prohibits the use of food in a duel. If staking with no food in your inventory, this option should be selected.
•    No Drinks: This option prohibits the use of any potions or brews. Always turn this option on if staking if you have no drinks of your own you may want to use.
•    No Prayer: This option prohibits the use of prayers in a duel. Select this option while staking if you have less than 43 Prayer.
•   Obstacles: This option places walls around the arena. Especially good if you want to use Ranged or Magic against an unsuspecting opponent. Always leave this option off if you are using only melee while staking.
•    No Movement: This option places both opponents next to each other. This can be used to prevent forfeiting, and should be used in conjunction with No Ranged and No Magic if using melee.
•    No Forfeit: This option prevents forfeiting from a duel. Always leave this option off, because you will always want to win a duel whether you are staking or not.

Staking is mentioned a lot in the options’ descriptions above, as it is very important in the Arena. Staking involves putting up items or coins as a sort of bet that they will win the duel that is restricted by the trade limit. Small amounts are usually staked, with a range from 3k to 5k coins. The staked items will disappear from both players’ inventories for the duration of the duel but will be given to the winner afterwards. A usual stake involves both players staking the same amount because then the trade limit would disrupt future stakes. The next few bits will be dedicated to explaining how to stake duels and what equipment should be used for each combat style.

Finding an Opponent:
While looking for a suitable opponent to stake against a player should take notice of the other player’s worn equipment and combat level. The chat message that many players send is usually something like this:

“Staking xk level xx and under my rules”

- “xk” can represent how much the player is staking, usually 3k to 5k.
- “Level xx” represents the level range in which opponents should be. For example, a player with level 96 combat might ask for level 100 and lower players.
- “My rules” means that they set the duel’s rules. This is often risky to trust and be sure that the options they select would be ones you think you would select too.

Oftentimes players will also say “Staking xk my levels my rules”, which simply means that they want players in a certain level range.

Selecting an opponent is also different from advertising for an opponent. Sometimes you can find a reliable player that can be staked against many times. To “lure” them in you can try losing a few times and then staking against them. Also, wearing false outfits can be a good way of gaining easy wins and money. Wearing lower-level items and weapons can attract lower-level players who may think they can beat you. Once the duel starts, quickly change into your actual armor and weapon and attack them. Before they die, try to change back so that other people in the lobby don’t see your disguise.
Of course, you can always shout out for an opponent. My advice is to “test out” your combat abilities in Friendly duels. If you end up dying too much, don’t start staking.

Staking With Melee:
Melee is by far the most popular way to stake or even duel in the arena. The equipment used should be at least full rune, with either a battleaxe, scimitar or 2h as a weapon. Rune gauntlets from Fist of Guthix are useful while fighting other meleers or rangers because they offer extra protection along with a +2 Strength bonus. Using a rune berserker shield instead of a kiteshield may also be preferable because of the +2 Strength bonus, but it has less protection and more offensive power than a kiteshield, so it’s your call. An amulet of strength should be used and a Prayer level of at least 43 is useful as well, although 28 is very good too as the Steel Skin prayer boosts your Defense by 15%. This used in conjunction with Protect prayers can easily be used to win a duel.
Options that should be selected: No Ranged, No Magic, No Food (if you have none yourself), No Potions (if you have none yourself), No Movement and No Prayer if your Prayer level is less than 43.

Staking With Ranged:
Ranged is a less popular but still effective way of staking. I would recommend only fighting other rangers unless the specific melee fighter is a much lower combat level. The best players to fight, though, are mages. Your Ranged level should probably be 50+, but you can specify a ranged level in a hunt for an opponent. For example, you could say, “Staking 4k under 50 ranged” if your Ranged level was at or under 50. You should wear green dragonhide chaps, vambraces and body. Use a rune full helm in the head slot to maximize your defense against melee and other ranged attacks, but remove it if you are fighting a mage and instead wear either a green dragonhide or normal coif. Use adamant arrows in duels as all fired arrows are returned to you after a duel is over, so no money is lost. And, of course, use a willow bow along with an amulet of either power or accuracy.
Options that should be selected: No Melee, No Magic, Obstacles, No Food, No Potions and No Prayer (if your Prayer level is less than 41).

Staking Using Hybrids:
Using both melee and ranged can be very effective in combat. To start off, wield a rune 2h and full rune, with a willow bow in your inventory and adamant arrows in your quiver. Run towards your opponent in the arena and attack with your 2h. They may activate protection prayers against melee, so quickly wield your willow bow and click to attack them again, even if they didn’t. Repeat this until they are dead. Using this method can deal a lot of damage especially if your Strength and Ranged levels are high. I would recommend setting quick prayers to any available prayers giving Defense boosts.
Options that  should be selected: No Magic, Obstacles, No Food, No Potions.

As you can see, the Duel Arena is a good way of making money, though obviously very risky. However, if you know the proper equipment and methods you won’t have any problems. Look forward to more guides coming soon! And now, contact me and send in any guide suggestions or submissions to thersmasters@gmail.com!

RSM Weekly #3: Skill-O-Mania!

Wow, what a week this has been. Not.

I decided to go for 70 Woodcutting, which has only been interrupted by a not-so-populous Clan Wars event hosted by the Rune Guys where I was the only one to show up – see the pics here. After that I went on to do some Clan Wars of my own, with a 70+ clan I was in winning all of our matchups. I was going to revisit the Wilderness Volcano just to unlock the new song, but I was too possessed to get 70 Woodcutting to do so. I have 6k XP to 66 right now, with my character hacking away at Falador’s yew trees as I type. After I get 66 I’ll go back to willows at either Lumbridge or Rimmington until I have 30k XP to 70, which, at that point, I’ll come back to yews.

But lately I’ve been rethinking about how I want to play the game. Sure, training combat would be nice, and I’d like to reach level 90, but making money for me before was a need for items like full rune (g), a strength amulet (t), etc., both of which I have absolutely no need for but desperately want to have a sort of recognition.

Instead, for the past few skilling levels I’ve gained, I’ve used up a ton of money; I still have 1.5k hardleather bodies just sitting there in my bank, unwilling to sell on the Grand Exchange. I knew I should have done tiaras – at least those sell to runecrafters. I’m considering alching them to get 67 Magic but get no new spells, but then I would have to spend 300k on nature runes and only get a 150k return, effectively losing half the money I spend but gaining 98k Magic XP, using up an hour and 15 minutes assuming that each spell takes 3 seconds and that I don’t “high alch lag” or bother to respond to all the level 20s that ask what spell I’m performing.

To me, spending money to get the benefits of higher levels is natural. I like levelling skills as opposed to combat because the rewards of having those higher skill levels are oftentimes much more bountiful than being able to hit more, hit harder or be hit less. Yes, combat is important and can be a source of great cash but all that is limited by luck. You can never know how many times you can kill a moss giant before you get a rune med helm. My brother got one on his first kill ever, but all the time I spent ranging them at Karamja produced not much more than black sq shields and the occasional mithril kiteshield.

On the other hand, cutting yews practically guarantees that I make profit, not only because their price skyrocketed from 440 to 500 GP but because I know that, even at my not-so-great-for-chopping-yews Woodcutting level is 66, I will still get logs fast – and in only about a total hour of chopping yews I have a 133k payout. That’s pretty good, and it will only go up from there because, as I said before, I’ll be cutting yews when I have 30k XP to 70, which means I’ll recieve an additional 172 yew logs, bringing my total money gain to 220k! It’s a step further to that rune (g) I most desperately want but most desperately don’t need.

The Greatest Free-To-Play Moneymaking Guide Ever Written

Part One: Repurposing Items

Making money by repurposing items in one of the most profitable ways to make money in RuneScape, be it by creating new items from other items, changing their form or putting things in them. Every moneymaking strategy involving this “repurposing” theme requires no skills and, as a result, can be used at level 3. Here’s a guide to the best methods of making money using this idea.

Filling Buckets:
This is by far a tiresome but profitable way to make money. Simply buy buckets off of the Grand Exchange and fill them, be it with milk from cows or water, then resell. Milk is a good way to go since the price difference is much higher than filling the buckets with water, but dairy cows are also further from a bank. You should always check prices before investing in the buckets. For example, buckets usually cost 1 GP apiece. This means that you would be better off waiting until buckets of water went up to three, four or even five GP each before buying the buckets to maximize the profit for the time you spend. You should use the water pump by the western Falador bank to fill them.

Tanning Cowhides:
The profit from this method got me my very first F2P 1m of cash. All you have to do is buy as many cowhides as possible, go to Al-Kharid and tan them into hard leathers. You’ll also need to save 3 GP for every cowhide you tan; for example, if you bought 1k cowhides, you’d need to save 3k coins for tanning the hides as Ellis charges 3 GP per hard and 1 GP per soft leather.

Making Soft Clay:
To start off, buy 14 buckets. You can also try to send through offers for buckets of water equivalent to the clay you buy, but this wastes money and lots of time as massive offers for thousands of buckets of water don’t usually go through fast.
All you have to do is withdraw your 14 buckets and 14 clay, then go to Falador’s west bank, run to the water pump, fill the buckets, make the soft clay and fill your buckets again, then withdraw more clay and your bank, make soft clay and repeat.

Part Two: Skills

Using skills to make money can be just as profitable; the only drawback is that sometimes the skill requires a high level to make the most out of doing something, like cutting yews with Woodcutting, or the skill is hard to train, like Runecrafting. But, at any rate, here’s my guide on how to make money-using skills.

Fishing:
This one is pretty obvious. Catching lobsters is great money and requires only 40 Fishing. However, like all other fish to catch, they become much faster and give more GP per hour at higher Fishing levels, preferably 55-60+. They can be caught at either Karamja or at the Wilderness, but Karamja is much more convenient if you have an explorer’s ring 3, along with the fact that there are no revenants. Swordfish can also be caught here, and, contrary to what most people do, I believe that keeping your tuna would give the same amount of money and require less dropping time, but then the banking time would be greater. It’s your call.

Woodcutting:
Yews are good at level 70+ (more on yews coming up on another post).

Mining:
Mining can be extremely profitable no matter what you mine. Ores like adamantite and runite are both very high-level but are very high-value too! However, to make the most money by Mining alone, mining coal in the Mining Guild can be very profitable because of the close proximity to the east Falador bank. Mining mithril ore alone is not recommended for making money because of the slow rate at which the ore comes back along with the fact that it is worth only 50 GP more than coal and mines much slower at any level. Mining clay at the southwest Varrock mine can also bring in good profit, as clay is worth more than 100 GP apiece.

Smithing:
Smelting the respective ores into metal bars can be very profitable but requires a higher Smithing level to make the most out of smelting. But even at level one you can make decent money – just buy equal amounts of tin and copper, then smelt at either Al-Kharid or east Falador into bronze bars. Pretty much any type of bar can be smelted to make profit, though the best ones are bronze and steel bars as they require the least inventory space to make the most bars (bronze is 14 bars/inventory and steel is 9 bars/inventory).
You should never smelt iron bars as they have a 50% chance of success, but even so those numbers can waver from getting seven iron bars an inventory or even 20 bars. Even though iron bars are twice as much cost as the ores, which balances out with the odds, the risk is too high. Also, silver bars are very low profit so they should not be smelted. Mithril bars are good to smelt for their high XP and low cost but steel bars are still preferable.

Magic:
Casting high alch on items, with both the nature rune and item bought, almost never results in a profit. However, supplying your own items that alch for over the price of a nature rune generates profit. A good way to train Magic is to mine and superheat mithril bars, then make into mithril swords on the anvil in the Dwarven Mines, then high alch, which grants 50 GP profit for every nature rune bought. Also requires 50 Smithing and 55 Mining.

Cooking:
Money can be made making anchovy pizza by purchasing the plain pizzas and anchovies separately and then using the anchovies on the pizzas (withdrawing 14 of each at a time) and reselling. This method requires 55 Cooking.

Runecrafting:
A simple way to make money using Runecrafting is to figure out the essence/rune ratio. In F2P, there are no ways to make profit using only one rune/essence, however, with, say, three air runes per essence you break even, and making 4+ gives a profit. So divide the cost of the essence by the cost of the rune and round up to find how many runes you need to be able to make (which requires a higher Runecrafting level than just one rune per essence) a profit or break even.

Part Three: Combat

This latest and last installment in this series of moneymaking guides on the RSM blog will deal with moneymaking using combat. Most of these suggestions will be for melee as it is the only skill where an investment does not have to be made (either into runes or arrows) and, hence, the profit is greater.

Killing Cockroaches:
In the Stronghold of Player Safety, cockroach drones, workers and soldiers can be killed for great profit. The drones, which are level 8, have the best drops in the game in relevance to their combat level, dropping various uncut gems, mid-level runes and small amounts of coins. These are good training for levels 15-20 as they hit relatively low and have a good amount of hitpoints. The workers are level 57 and have slightly better drops. Though they still aren’t as good to kill for drops as the soldiers they are good XP for level 65-70+ players and hardly ever have other people in the area. The soldiers are recommended to be fought with other players at level 70+ if not tanking and 80+ if soloing these giant bugs. They are famed to drop rune scimitars (rarely), which can be either high alched for coins or banked at Edgeville, though due to the risen price of rune items selling without alching is recommended. You should use full rune, rune gauntlets and a rune scimitar, battleaxe or 2h when fighting the soldiers and should use a berserker shield when not wielding a 2h if possible. Ranged highly not recommended because the soldiers shoot a powerful ranged slime attack, which can hit very high. If using Ranged, consider using the Protect From Missiles prayer and prayer flashing technique.

Killing Greater Demons:
See this article.

Killing Lesser Demons:
See this article.

The Stronghold of Security:
By far one of the most useful and popular places to train in all of RuneScape, the Stronghold of Security also has some monsters with great drops which are easy to kill with a decent combat level.
Minotaurs, located on the first level, are level 12 and 27. The level 12s can be killed at 20+ combat and the level 27s are good Ranged XP as there’s an excellent safespot in the room in the middle south of the level. They drop large quantities of iron arrows, cooked meat, uncut gems and right skull halves.
Zombies on the second level are level 30, 44 and 53. They drop large amounts of steel arrows almost one in every two or three kills. They also drop uncut gems, amounts of coins almost reaching 100 coins a drop and iron ore. The level 30s can be killed at combat levels 40+, the 44s at 50+ and the 53s at 65+ combat level. Also on this level are level 28, 35 and 41 flesh crawlers, which are excellent XP and have great drops, including most of the drops that zombies have, along with the sceptere bottom.
On the fourth and final level, you can kill ankous, which come in level 75, 82 and 86 varieties, all of which can hit up to 8, and fairly often, so bring food like tuna or better. They can drop left skull halves, adamant arrows, noted mithril ore in stacks of 5, rune essence and uncut gems. To fight any of them I would recommend 70+ combat since their defense is very low. Also, in one of the rooms with level 82s there is a safespot that makes it very effective to cast Crumble Undead on the ankous and skeletons located there.

Hill Giants:
These giant, erm, giants, are located in the Edgeville Dungeon. To get to there the quickest, bring a brass key and enter through the shed just northeast of the Barbarian Village, then simply head south into the cave. This place is oftentimes extremely crowded, so try a PKing world. Collect big bones, limpworm roots and any uncut gems that you receive as drops, then bank at the west Varrock Bank, or at Edgeville, though Varrock is probably better.
You can also kill moss giants on Crandor or in the Varrock Sewers for some money as well, casting high alch on black sq shields, various steel armor and mithril kiteshield drops.

That’s all for my epic moneymaking guide of epic proportions. You can email in any suggestions for these three guides and I’ll edit them in, with your name appearing in the credits at the bottom. Until next time, keep RuneScaping – and don’t forget to follow me on Twitter, subscribe to the Rune Guys Podcast, join the Rune Guys Forum and recommend this site to friends. =D

How To Train Combat

Instead of providing a list for combat levels, I wrote a guide to finding the best monster to train on.

First, the formula for XP/hour:

(h4)n x 60

h = the Hitpoints of that monster
4 = the damage multiplier for XP (works only in Attack, Strength, Defense and Ranged options, not shared combat options)
n = kills/minute
60 = minutes/hour

For example, let’s say I can kill five flesh crawlers in a minute. That would mean 25 x 4 = 100, 100 x 5 = 500 and 500 x 60 = 30,000, the experience per hour.

This is a basic list of the XP you should be able to get per hour at each combat level:
At level 3 you should be able to get 1k XP/hour
At level 10 you should be able to get 2.5k XP/hour
At level 20 you should be able to get 5k XP/hour
At level 30 you should be able to get 7.5kXP/hour
At level 40 you should be able to get 10k XP/hour
At level 50 you should be able to get 12.5k XP/hour
At level 60 you should be able to get 15k XP/hour
At level 70 you should be able to get 20k XP/hour
At level 80 you should be able to get 30k XP/hour
At level 90+ you should be able to get 40k+ XP/hour

Here’s a list of the easiest-to-kill monsters in free-to-play RuneScape:

• Chickens (level 1)
• Rats (level 1)
• Seagulls (level 2)
• Minotaurs (level 12/27)
• Flesh crawlers (level 28/35/41)
• Scorpions/king scorpions (level 14/32)
• Giant, deadly red and normal spiders (level 1/2/27/34/50)
• Skeletons (level 22/25/45)
• Ghosts (level 19/77)
• Lesser demons (level 82)
• Pirates (level 26)
• Cockroach workers/drones (level 57/8)
• Hill, moss and ice giants (level 28/42/57)

To find a good monster to kill, look in the range of 10-30 levels below your own combat level (the lower, the better). Try killing as many as you can in one minute, find out the hitpoints of that monster and enter those numbers into the formula, then use the XP/hour guidelines. Another thing to remember is how often you need to restock on food. The higher your Defense level, the longer you can go without banking, especially if you’re training Defense at the same time.
For example, I would look in the level range of 53-73. Ice giants! I can kill two per minute, which, when entered into the formula with 70 hitpoints, gives me 42k XP/hour, which fits my combat level guideline.

Finding a good monster to kill is easy. Nailing down the method is not. For example, lesser demons are very far away from a bank. This means that collected drops cannot be easily banked and food cannot easily be restocked.
Another problem is teleports. The closest teleport to bank is debatable, but my personal favorite would have to be the Falador teleport, with running to the west bank. However, this is not good for people who are fighting dangerous monsters that are hard to restock for, like lesser demons, because the two or three extra inventory slots required for the runes could be used for food or other supplies, with food being critical for lower levels. So I’ve gathered up some tips and tricks that I hope you’ll find useful as a companion to part one of this guide.
Noted trading: This method has players withdrawing a stack of noted food in their inventory, along with a lot of coins. If the training location is far away from a bank and a general/fish/food store is nearby, you can sell 26 of the noted food items to the store and buy them back. This will generate negative profit by selling & repurchasing, but it is faster and is useful in places like Karamja and other locations where general stores but no banks are located, like Rimmington (useful for training in the Ice Caves) and the Bandit Camp in the Wilderness (useful for training on the moss giants or hill giants).
Catching and cooking: This method is similar to selling and repurchasing, but requires more skills and time but less loss. All there is to this method is catching or acquiring raw food and cooking it. If the location has trees around, all you need is a tinderbox, hatchet, and method of catching your fish (net, harpoon, fishing pole, etc.) – using a net or harpoon saves one more inventory space used otherwise for bait or feathers. If the location has a general store nearby, bring noted logs and sell and repurchase them unnoted to light a fire and cook the fish. If the location has no trees and no general store nearby – which is pretty much nowhere in RuneScape except a few places in the Wilderness – then you’re out of luck! Good places to fish, cook and train are:
- Karamja: Harpoon and lobster caging, general store nearby.
- Northeast Wilderness: Cage lobsters for greater demons or revenant hunting. Cut down dead trees, burn and cook.
- Port Sarim: Buy from the fishing store or catch fish southwest of the docks, then cut down a tree and burn. Used for killing muggers, pirates, or even possibly ice warriors or giants in the Ice Caves.
- Barbarian Village: River bait or fly fish in the River Lum, then cook on the fire at the helmet seller’s shop to use in the Strongholds of Player Safety or Security.
- Falador: Since players usually kill cows for their hides and not their beef, collect beef on the ground at the cow field to the southeast of the south gate, cut down a tree, burn the logs, cook and use to fight guards at the gate. Also works in Lumbridge to fight goblins or cows at lower levels.
Useful banking teleports:
- The Stronghold of Security: Use cabbage-port from the explorer’s ring 3 to bank drops, or if no drops are collected, use Varrock teleport and run west to the bank to withdraw food, and then run west back to the entrance to the Stronghold. Alternative: Use Falador teleport to get food, and then use the skull sceptere’s teleport back to the Barbarian Village (only works for four teleports before being destroyed) – or just bank and restock at Edgeville.
- Karamja/Crandor: If you’re not catching your own food, use cabbage-port and run to Draynor to restock and bank, grabbing another 30 GP, using cabbage-port again, and then running south to the charter to Karamja.

The overall best teleports for banking are Falador and cabbage patch teleports. However, the cabbage-port is much easier because it requires no extra inventory space and is free to perform, as well as not requiring a Magic level to do, which is useful for pures and skillers not wishing to raise their Magic. Varrock teleport is useful for being in either of the Strongholds by the Barbarian Village because it’s still close to a bank but is also a short distance from the training location, as well as saving the risk of running out of the various levels of the Strongholds and risking taking even more damage.

I hope this guide helps you in finding monsters and locations to train at all levels!