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. The current minimum requirement to be ranked (at rank 2,000,000) on the hiscores for Ranged is level 50.

According to the RuneScape combat triangle, Range is effective against Magic, and weak against 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 the player can shoot over but that their target cannot get around.

Ranged is a favoured attack choice in PvP worlds - it's fast and accurate and could kill someone in a matter of minutes, or even less.

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. The Accurate attack style shoots slower, but hits generally higher. 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.

Using crossbows will give players an extra 0.2 Ranged experience per damage if they are using either Accurate or Rapid attack style. For Long-range, the extra experience will be split evenly to both Ranged and Defence.

Ranged 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 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 ranged attacks.

Despite common perception, longbows are not more accurate than shortbows. Longbows have a slower rate of fire than shortbows but compensate with a longer range. Crossbows are extremely accurate, but their rate of fire is considered relatively slow. Crossbows also have the option of the player equipping a left-handed item like a shield or Prayer Book.

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

Ranged Strength
In the equipment menu, Players can also see their Ranged strength. Ranged Strength is how much strength the ammunition that the person is wielding has.

To increase Ranged strength you must use stronger metal types (bronze-dragon) A player can also use onyx bolts, and bolts with jewels being the tip instead of a normal metal.The higher type of metal or stone you use results in a higher Ranged strength.

Ranged strength affects how high you can hit, with a high ranged strength allowing you to hit high, much like normal strength.

Shortbow, Composite, 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 arrows or iron arrows. Non-members can use only arrows up to adamant arrows with maple shortbows or longbows.

There are three kinds of bows: shortbows, composite bows, and longbows. Longbows fire arrows farther, though they do not shoot as fast as shortbows. Composite bows are a compromise of power and speed, providing a balanced ranged style. 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.

The crystal bow cannot be obtained as both a longbow and a shortbow. The crystal bow degrades as you shoot until it turns into a crystal seed, much like Barrows Armour. The crystal bow can only be obtained after completing the Roving Elves quest, as an optional reward (Requires 70 ranged and 50 Agility to wield).

Crossbows
Crossbows are one-handed ranged weapons (leaving the left-hand slot free for something like a shield) that are well-liked by rangers for their power, being commonly used against higher level monsters or on other players. They use 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, used to pass agility obstacles.

Crossbows are much stronger than bows. A player can hit up to 69 with dragon bolts and a rune crossbow, and even up to 200 on the soul wars avatars, using the enchanted ruby bolts' effect. 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 higher amounts of damage in combat situations.

Throwing weapons
Members have a wide range of throwing weapons at their disposal. Though not as popular as bows or crossbows, some players prefer them over other ranged weapons due to their speed. Among 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 Player vs. Player or God Wars Dungeon 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 strong 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 made with the Crafting skill. 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 not usually worn by rangers due to the large amount of snakeskin hides needed. However, the snakeskin boots (+3 range bonus) and snakeskin bandanna (+4 range bonus) offer most rangers a much cheaper alternative to the highly priced ranger boots (+8 range bonus) and Robin Hood hat (+8 range bonus)

Spined armour
Spined armour is Fremennik armour for rangers. It is notable for its crush defence 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 dragonhide body. Blue, red, and black dragonhide is only available to members. Members can also use Crafting to make dragonhide armour from tanned dragon hides.

There are also variants of dragonhide, with fur-trimmed and gold-trimmed green and blue dragonhide bodies and chaps available from treasure trails. Also, there are god-blessed dragonhide with the equivalent bonuses of black dragonhide which require 70 range and 40 defence for all the pieces. (Note that all trimmed and god-blessed dragonhide do not offer additional stat bonuses and are purely for aesthetical uses, besides the blessed dragonhide coifs which do not degrade like a normal black d'hide coif.)

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. Some rangers in PvP worlds still use this tactic. Many rangers have asked for the set effect to be changed. Nevertheless, it is considered to have little to no use in most other 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
 * Zanik's crossbow
 * Toktz-xil-ul

Training
It is advised to use Battle Tactics for each of these strategies in order to conserve health. Members may also find it useful to use sacred clay weapons or armour for training, as these double the amount of experience gained.

Temporary boosts

 * Ranging potion - Boosts ranged level by 3 levels plus an additional 10% of the player's Ranged level, 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
 * Geyser titan (1 + 3% of your level)

The maximum boost can be achieved wearing Void Knight equipment, using a ranging potion and Eagle Eye prayer.

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

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 using rapid style and 19 with accurate style.

Members
150, on a Steel titan using ruby bolts (e)(Avatars in Soul Wars minigame have max hit with ruby bolts (e) set to 70). But when the game first came out, the avatars of the mini-game "soulwars", it was possible to hit up to 200 with Ruby Bolts(e) and maxed out ranged.

Free-to-play and members

 * Al-Kharid Warriors (Bronze arrows: 9 and Bronze Bolts: X)
 * Ankous in the Stronghold of Security (Adamant arrow: 3-14, depending on level)
 * Barbarians in Barbarian Village (Bronze arrows: 15)
 * Barbarian Woman in Barbarian Village (Bronze arrows: 10)
 * Black Knights (Mithril arrows: 3)
 * Catablepon (Mithril arrows: 5-14 and Bronze arrows: 2, depending on level)
 * Archer Guards in Falador (Steel arrows: 1-5 and Bronze arrows: X)
 * Guards in Falador (Steel arrows: 1-5 and Bronze arrows: X)
 * Varrockian guards (Steel arrows: 1-5, Bronze arrows: X, and Bronze bolts: 1-20)
 * Hill Giants (Iron arrows: 3, 6 and Steel arrows: 10)
 * Ice Giants (Adamant arrows: 5)
 * Ice Warriors (Adamant arrows: 3, 5 and Mithril arrows: 5)
 * Man (Bronze arrows: 7 and Bronze bolts: 3-12)
 * Minotaur (Bronze arrows: 3, 6 or Iron arrows: 1-14)
 * Moss Giants (Iron arrows: 15 or Steel arrows: 30)
 * White Knights at Falador Castle (Mithril arrows: 2-9 and Adamant arrows: 2-9, depending on level)
 * Woman (Bronze arrows: X)
 * Zombie (Iron arrows: 8, Mithril arrows: X, and Steel arrows: 5-14, depending on level)

Players can also collect arrows dropped from players when playing in PVP worlds, but this is not recommended as it is easy to get killed unless you are in a safe spot.

Members only

 * Abyssal demons (Rune arrows: 42-45 and Steel arrows: 150)
 * Armoured zombies (Mithril arrows: 8)
 * Dagannoth (Steel arrows: 15 and 7-30, depending on level)
 * Dark Beasts (Rune arrows: 42)
 * Dust Devils (Rune arrows: 12)
 * Chaos druids (Mithril bolts: 2-12)
 * Fire Giants (Rune arrows: 12-42 and Steel arrows: 150)
 * Guards in Ardougne (Steel arrows: 1-5, Bronze arrows: 1-5, and Iron bolts: 4-12)
 * Guards in Burthorpe (Steel arrows: 12 and Bronze arrows: 12)
 * Guards in Ranging Guild (Mithril arrows: X, Steel arrows: X, and Iron arrows: X)
 * Mutated Bloodvelds in Meiyerditch Dungeon (Rune arrows: 6)
 * Red Dragons (Rune arrows: 4)
 * Skeletal Wyverns (Adamant bolts: 5-19, Bone bolts: 4-29, Mithril bolts: 20-33, and Rune bolts: 7, 13)
 * Waterfiends (Mithril arrows: 90)
 * PvP freeload in PvP to get any arrow (but only if your lucky you will manage to pick up good arrows)

Trivia

 * The symbol for ranged while in the stats interface appears to be a normal shortbow firing a dragon arrow, although the only bow that can fire a dragon arrow is a dark bow. The arrows also resembles a steel arrow with a red topaz shard attached, like the steel bolt.
 * Thrownaxes, when equipped look very different from the picture in a players inventory. Also, if you look closely, the throwing animation still uses the old version before the graphical update.
 * When ranging monsters that take up more than 1 square, (brawlers, giants, etc.) ammo will always fall to the south-west corner of them. This also applies to Portals in Pest Control.
 * The Void Knight equipment with Void ranger helm does not give Attack bonuses and very little Defence bonuses. When wearing the full robes set, you will still get a higher amount of damage even if these do not give the Ranged Attack bonuses.
 * Ranged strength was made visible in the game (Jagex did not put it in; they just simply allowed us to see it) on the 25th March 2009. Putting an end to several debates (mainly the strength of Broad-tipped bolts and Bone Bolts).
 * Range held the maximum hit in the three combat class with 150 on steel titan with ruby bolts (e) shot from a rune crossbow. It still does, even though after Soul Wars was released the new max hit became 200 on one of the avatars, while using the same equipment.
 * When at the Port Phasmatys you can meet Robin, he claims to be the master of ranged but he does not wear or sell the Ranged cape.