Abyssal whip

The Abyssal whip is commonly considered to be one of the best melee weapons in RuneScape, along with the Godsword, due to its high accuracy, strength, and speed. It has the same attacking speed as scimitars, but has higher accuracy and strength. Whips are more expensive than some of the barrows weapons, but without the barrows set effects (full set needed) the whip is better.

Whips are dropped by Level 124 Abyssal demons which require Level 85 Slayer to kill. Players require 70 Attack to wield the whip. The whip has a Special Attack called Energy Drain, which makes the attack more accurate and, if used against a player opponent, transfers 10% of their run energy to the attacking player. It uses up 50% of the special attack bar.

The Abyssal whip has a max hit of 25 with no additional equipment or strength bonuses. With the right equipment, potions, prayer, and special bonuses (including a salve amulet (e) used on an undead creature), the whip can hit up to 55 damage. The Black mask or Slayer helmet bonus does not stack with the Salve amulet, therefore a Berserker Helm or Helm of Neitiznot would be a better choice.

Training


It is impossible to use the Aggressive training option using the Whip. Therefore, the only remaining way of training the Strength skill is through the Controlled method.

Many whip users find that their Strength levels begin to fall behind that of their Attack and Defence, weapons which whip users turn to for a boost in Strength are a Dragon Scimitar and Rune Defender combination, or some other dragon weapon.

A less common replacement for the whip is the Saradomin Sword which offers identical bonuses, but has an option to train Strength. However, the cost is approximately 6 times that of the whip, and that is something which a lot of players remain unprepared to pay for a weapon which is identical in bonuses to the whip, with no shield or defender option (Although the Saradomin Sword does arguably have a much better Special Attack).

Trivia



 * This weapon is not recommended in Barbarian Assault because the fighter can not choose all of the attack styles with it.
 * Originally, the special attack would only hit zero or the max hit. This was changed in an update and labeled as a bug.
 * When the Abyssal whip was released, it was priced for upwards of 20,000,000 coins. The price has slowly declined since. Players used to consider owning an Abyssal whip a feat of perseverance, due to its cost.
 * Before the release of the Grand Exchange, the price of the whip stabilised at 1.3m to 1.7m, with an occasional 1.2m on the forums. After the release of the Grand Exchange, the price dipped about 400k, but currently has rebounded to around 1.2m.
 * The whip is subject to a graphical bug; it appears in a player's inventory as having black and red stripes, but when it is held, sections of it are clear. Requests have been made on the forums to change this.
 * When walking with the whip equipped it sways back and forth, but when running with the whip equipped it becomes curled up in a spiral like how it appears when it is in the inventory.
 * The whip is gradually going up in price due to the release of pvp worlds.