Ranged





Ranged is the combat style that allows players to attack enemies from a distance with projectiles. Players who practice the ranged combat style are often referred to as rangers or archers.

According to the RuneScape combat triangle, Range is effective against Magic, and weak to Melee. Ranger armour provides high defence against Magic, but is relatively weak against Melee.

Ranged combat, like magic, allows players to attack from afar. This makes it possible to avoid taking any damage by hiding behind an object that you can shoot over but that your target cannot get around.

Attack Styles
Ranged combat has three Attack Styles: accurate, rapid, and long-range.

All of the attack styles provide ranged experience and Hitpoints experience. The amount of experience gained by each style is shown in the table below.

The Rapid attack style will fire projectiles at an increased speed, while Accurate and Long-Range attack more slowly. It is recommended that players train using the Rapid attack style. This will give a high rate of experience, but will use a greater number of projectiles compared to the Accurate style. Long-range allows rangers to attack from an increased distance, and offers increased Defence experience, with reduced ranged experience.

Range bonus


To the right of the inventory menu is the equipment menu. Here, players can see their statistical bonuses. These bonuses give players advantages and disadvantages in combat.

Ranger armour has some of the the highest magic defence bonuses, along with giving a range attack bonus and range defence bonus. The higher the magic defence bonus is, the better defence a player has against mages.

Range bonuses increases the accuracy of your ranged attacks.

To increase the damage of your ranged attacks use different weapons and metal types (bronze-dragon). Longbows hit harder than shortbows, but are slower. Crossbows hit harder and are slightly slower, but are one-handed so the player can equip a left-handed item like a shield.

Players can also use ranged prayer spells to give themselves an extra boost while ranging.

Shortbow and longbow
Bows are the original ranging weapon, and require two hands to wield. Both the shortbow and longbow of all types of wood require arrows as ammunition.

Higher level bows can use increasingly powerful arrows. For example, shortbows made of the lowest level wood (normal) can only use bronze or iron arrows. Non-members can use only arrows up to adamant with maple bows.

There are two kinds of bows: shortbows and longbows. Longbows are the more accurate and fire arrows farther, though they do not shoot as fast as shortbows. It is usually recommended that players use a shortbow when ranging, especially when training, to deal more damage over time. Using a longbow requires fewer arrows, and thus better arrows can be used without wasting as much money.

Crossbows


Crossbows are one-handed ranged weapons (leaving the left-hand slot free for something like a shield) that well-liked by rangers for their power. They require bolts instead of arrows, which can be enchanted for a chance of a special effect when striking, or poisoned. Crossbows can fire mithril grapples as well.

Crossbows are much stronger than bows. A player can hit well into the 50s with onyx bolts and a rune crossbow. Consequently, they are the favourite item of player killing teams in Bounty Hunter or on PvP worlds. Although crossbows and bolts cost more, they offer high amounts of damage in combat situations.

Throwing weapons
Members have a wide range of throwing weapons at their disposable. Though not as popular as bows or crossbows, some players prefer them over other ranged weapons due to their speed. These are the fastest weapons in the game, meaning they give faster experience.

Throwing weapons are mostly used in training, and not in situations such as PvP or GWD where the goal is to kill your target, instead of gaining experience.

Popular armour
Rangers have their own sets of armour made out of various materials. Ranger armour is good against magic, though weak against melee. Also, all armour designed for ranging give no strength or prayer bonuses (with the exception of Armadyl armour, which gives a +1 bonus to prayer with each piece worn), and most give no stab, slash, or crush attack bonuses.

Leather armour
Leather armour is good for beginning rangers. It is very cheap and can also be crafted. Leather armour can often be found in Al Kharid's general store, as crafters often sell leather items there.

Snakeskin armour
Snakeskin armour is only available to members. Snakeskin armour can be made through the crafting skill from snakeskin, which can be obtained by killing snakes that appear in the Tai Bwo Wannai Cleanup, Temple Trekking minigames or by killing level 35 snakes at Mos Le'Harmless Island.

The whole snakeskin set is hardly worn by rangers due to the huge amount of snakeskin hides needed. However, the snakeskin boots and bandanna offer most rangers a much cheaper alternative to the highly priced ranger boots and Robin Hood hat.

Spined armour
Spined armour is Fremennik armour for rangers. It is notable for its crush defense bonus. Spined armour can be bought from the Rellekka armour store after completing The Fremennik Trials. Note that you must bring the raw materials in order to buy the armour, which can be obtained from killing Dagannoths and their kin in the Waterbirth Island dungeon.

Dragonhide armour
Dragonhide armour is the most popular and the recommended armour players wear when ranging. Free players can only wear green dragonhide armour, and must complete the Dragon Slayer quest in order to wear the green d'hide body. Blue, red, and black dragonhide is only available to members. Members can also craft dragonhide armour from tanned dragon hides.

Karil the Tainted
Members can obtain a set of ranged barrows equipment, Karil the Tainted's, as a reward from the Barrows minigame. When a player is ranging with the complete set, including Karil's crossbow, some ranged attacks have a chance of reducing the opponent's agility. Before the December 2007 Wilderness updates, many Karil's rangers would go to the wilderness agility course and lower the agility of the target, making them unable to escape. It is, however, useless in most situations.

Other weapons


Members also have access to different kinds of weapons. They are:


 * Dwarf multicannon
 * Holy water
 * Crystal bow
 * Ogre bow and ogre arrows
 * Ogre composite bow and brutal arrows
 * Seercull
 * Experimental crossbow
 * Salamanders
 * Chinchompas
 * Dark bow
 * Dorgeshuun crossbow

Training
It is advised to use Battle Tactics for each of these strategies in order to conserve health.

Members training
The Dungeon of Tolna can be an excellent area to level Ranged for players who have finished Animal Magnetism and have Ava's accumulator or Ava's attractor. Creatures can be ranged from the central lobby without retaliating; as the device will collect arrows as they are fired, Ranged can be trained without fear of damage or having to pick up arrows.

A good way to make money whilst training range is to kill chromatic dragons for their hides and bones. Blue dragonhides can fetch over 2k coins each and red and black 3-3.5k. Black hides are not recommended for collecting to be sold though as black dragons have high defence as well as the hide price in comparison to Red's makes it impractical.

If going to a dragon location for the first time it is recommended to take an anti-fire shield and a one handed ranged weapon (javelins, crossbow, etc) to check a safe spot works. Pures need to take extra care as they are at higher risk to dragonfire.

Temporary boosts

 * Ranging potion - Boosts ranged level by 3 levels plus an additional 10%, up to a maximum range boost of 13.
 * Sharp Eye. Ranged Prayer - Increases ranging by 5%
 * Hawk Eye. Ranged Prayer - Increases ranging by 10%
 * Eagle Eye. Ranged Prayer - Increases ranging by 15%
 * Wild pie - Boosts ranged by 4

The maximum boost can be achieved using a Fully Charged Crystal bow, Armadyl armour, Ranger boots, Archer ring, Ava's Accumulator, Barrows gloves, Ranging potion and Eagle Eye prayer.

The Void Knight Ranging Set exchanged for 850 Pest Control points increases accuracy and maximum hit by 10% and so is very useful in training Range.

- Max Hit (Free to play): Using adamant arrows, with a maple shortbow or longbow, the Eagle Eye prayer activated, and level 99 Ranged, a player's maximum damage (max hit) is 18.

- Max hit (Members): 150, on a steel titan using Ruby bolts (e).

Free-to-play and members

 * Al-Kharid Warriors (steel:2)
 * Ankous in the Stronghold of Security (Adamant:5-14)
 * Barbarians in Barbarian Village (Bronze:15)
 * Catablepon (mithril:1-3)
 * Guards (Steel:1, members: iron bolts)
 * Hill Giants (iron:3 and steel:10)
 * Ice Giants (adamant:5)
 * Ice Warriors (adamant:2 and mithril:3)
 * Men (bronze:7)
 * Minotaur (bronze:9 or iron:5-12)
 * Moss Giants (iron:15 or steel:30)
 * Zombie (steel:5-9)
 * White Knights (mithril and adamant)
 * Black Knights (mithril:3)

Members only

 * Dust Devils (Rune:12)
 * Fire Giants (Rune:12)
 * Red Dragons (Rune:4)
 * Dark Beasts (Rune:42)
 * Chaos druids (mithril bolts:2-12)
 * Waterfiends (mithril arrows: 90)
 * Dagannoth (steel arrows: 15)
 * Skeletal Wyverns (varies)