For the best experience, view these guides on Desktop or Tablet.
Jumping into any new game can be daunting, jumping into any new MMO can be even more so - especially one as unique as Old School RuneScape. OSRS is a Sandbox MMO and is about adventure, self-discovery and most importantly carving your very own path.
In this newspost, we'll be discussing everything to do with combat, but if you're looking for what to do in Gielinor or more information about the game settings, then use the buttons below.



How Does The World Work?
The game runs on what we like to call ticks. Every 0.6 seconds information is sent between you and our servers, keeping your character up to date on what you're doing.
100 BPM PLAYING
STOPPED
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This is the core of understanding Old School from your early levels all the way to end game and while not essential to grasp straight away, it's a good thing to keep in mind when starting your journey.
While you can do most things within a tick, sometimes if your mouse clicks are fast enough, you can perform multiple actions in just one, single tick!





And, sometimes you'll find you can't perform a certain action straight after another, and that'll mean that particular action has a cooldown behind it.

How Damage Is Dealt
We're going to be giving you the top-level details of how combat works here, but if you want any more information - you can delve through the wonderful OSRS Wiki.
At it's very core, behind-the-scenes you're rolling invisible dice just like D&D, to see how much damage you're going to do to an enemy. But this is dependant on a few of things:
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(e.g. Slash Accuracy) |
(e.g. Slash Defence) |
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(+ Max Hit) |
(both Yours + NPCs) |
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(i.e. Elemental Weakness) |
(i.e Poison Resistance) |
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All of these factor into how much damage or if you're going to do any damage at all, with the most important being Accuracy (how likely you are to hit) and Strength (how hard you can hit).
The main point to note for combat is that the higher numbers you have against your enemy, the more likely you are to not only hit, but hit hard.
Here's some notable ways damage is shown:
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Regular |
No |
Poison |
Venom |
Disease |
Shield |
Burn |
As an added tip, if you venture to a player-owned house with a Combat Dummy inside, hitting it will automatically show your Max Hit!
Did You Know?
At Level 42 magic and for just 2 Body Runes and 2 Mind Runes you can cast Monster Inspect to get an enemies Aggressive stats, Defensive stats, vulnerabilities and immunities!

Combat Skills & Effects
Let's take a look at how each of your Combat Skills affects combat:
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Hit more accurately with Melee |
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Wield stronger Melee weapons |
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Increases Melee damage* |
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Sometimes needed to wield Melee weapons |
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Increased chance to avoid damage against ALL styles |
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Wear stronger armour |
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Increases your Ranged damage & accuracy |
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Equip stronger Ranged weapons & armour |
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Unlock combat & utility spells |
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Increases your chance to avoid Magic attacks** |
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Gives you more Health/HP |
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Some food heals more the higher your Hitpoints level |
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Unlock temporary combat aids |
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Total Prayer Points based on your Skill level |
* i.e. Max Hits
**This uses both your Magic and Defence levels (70% / 30% respectively)

Combat Options
As you go through the world, you'll passively train these skills by fighting NPCs with different weapons and styles and this tab is your best friend while doing so!
When clicking on the two swords icon, you'll see a few things here:
This is the combination of all of your Combat Skills and will give you a good estimate on how powerful you are. |
With this button, you can choose the option of whether to automatically attack NPC when you or it attacks! |
The big buttons with names like Chop, Slash and Block are the core component here and affect what type of damage you will deal and what kind of XP you'll gain.
There's two main things you need to know when it comes to these options:
Used to show what skills you'll gain XP in when using different styles. |
Certain types are more effective against different NPCs & dictates where combat will roll accuracy. |
Below, we'll break down each combat type and show you the differences for each!

Melee
By hovering over (or pressing and holding on Mobile) the different buttons you can see their Combat Type.
Here's where your XP will go based on the selected Combat Style:
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NOTE: The Controlled Style will split XP evenly across all above Skills. |
In order to defeat enemies efficiently, picking the right type of Melee weapon which has a strong Attack Type to combat the NPCs weakest Melee Stat is best practice!
Polearms, Spears |
Axes, Claws, Scythes, |
Bludgeons, Blunt Weapons, |
![]() Bronze Sword ![]() Mithril Spear ![]() Dragon Dagger |
![]() Iron Longsword ![]() Adamant Battleaxe ![]() Dragon Scimitar |
![]() Steel Mace ![]() Rune Warhammer ![]() Dragon Mace |

Ranged
What about when you're slinging arrows with Ranged? All Ranged options give Ranged experience, but there are some key differences!
The names of the boxes (i.e. Accurate, Rapid & Longrange) are actually the same across all ranged weapons, but each of them have a more obvious difference:
Standard |
Invisible +3 bonus to Ranged level |
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Rapid Fire |
You'll almost always use this option! |
Increased Attack Speed = Best DPS |
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Extended Range |
Invisible +3 bonus to Defence level |
Split XP over Ranged & Defence |
As for what's useful against different enemies, the 'type' we spoke about for Melee is actually embedded into the weapon/ammo you're using.
There are some other specific examples but you won't need to know that until later on:
Darts, Knives, |
Shortbows, |
Crossbows, Javelins |
![]() Bronze Knives ![]() Mithril Thrownaxe ![]() Dragon Dart |
![]() Oak Shortbow ![]() Maple Longbow ![]() Magic Shortbow |
![]() Dorgeshuun Crossbow ![]() Light Ballista ![]() Rune Crossbow |

Magic
Finally, if you wanna blast some foo's with powerful spells, let's talk Magic. This is one of the most diverse combat skills as not only do you have the option of combat spells, you've got plenty of support and utility variants too!
These spells are primarily used in combat as they offer great offensive capabilities. |
One of your best methods for travel in the game outside of ships and fairy rings. |
Huge helpful spells that can assist you in different skills like Cooking, Fletching, etc |
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![]() Wind ![]() Bind |
![]() Curse ![]() Fire |
![]() Home Teleport ![]() Varrock Teleport |
![]() Falador Teleport ![]() Camelot Teleport |
![]() Lvl-1 Enchant ![]() High Level Alchemy |
![]() Bones to Bananas ![]() Telekinetic Grab |
For combat, you can click on a spell from your Spellbook tab and then an enemy to cast it on them. Alternatively, with a staff equipped you can automatically cast Combat spells at them instead.
While the three options on the left are what Melee damage you'll do with your equipped staff, the two buttons on the right give you two options for auto-casting:
Will give you split XP in Defence & Magic ![]() |
Will give XP in Magic exclusively ![]() |
Just make sure you have enough runes to cast your spells...
Some NPCs have a weakness to certain elements that we call Elemental Weakness. Using the proper elemental spell can significantly increase your magic accuracy, damage, and experience gained:
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![]() Ghosts ![]() Flying Creatures ![]() Barrows Brothers |
![]() Demons ![]() Fire Giants ![]() Coloured Dragons |
![]() Skeletons ![]() Ammonite Crabs ![]() Trolls |
![]() Zombies ![]() White Wolves ![]() Moss Giants |

Prayer
Activating any Prayers from your Prayer tab drains your prayer points and once you have 0, you won't be able to use any until you recharge them at an altar or with Prayer restoration items.
The utility that the Prayer Skill provides is one of the most useful features for combat as it can provide buffs to help boost your stats, keep items on death and most importantly, protect against attacks.
![]() Skin Defence Boost |
![]() Strength Strength Boost |
![]() Attack Boost |
![]() Eye Ranged Boost |
![]() Will Magic Boost |
The three Protection Prayers are essential and against the majority of NPCs, fully protect you from damage of the associate style.
You'll need a total of 43 Prayer to access all 3 of these.
![]() Level 37 |
![]() Level 40 |
![]() Level 43 |
Outside of Quests, burying bones or scattering ashes that you find is a great start, there are even better ways to train your Prayer that you're sure to learn about down the line!
