Pay-to-play melee training

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This article provides information for members about effective ways to train Attack, Strength, Defence, and Constitution through melee combat. It contains some general training tips and suggestions for suitable monsters to kill for a wide range of levels. In this article, monsters are sorted according to the level of the skill being trained, not the recommended overall combat level.

This article assumes that players are training Attack, Strength, Defence, and Constitution more or less equally. If not, go to the pure melee guide.

General training notes

 * Use the best gear you have and a weapon that has a style they are weak to.
 * Complete Slayer tasks whenever possible in order to train Slayer while training other combat skills. Additionally, a higher Slayer level allows players to kill stronger Slayer monsters, which are generally profitable because of their unique drops. The use of a black mask or slayer helm during a task also allows for faster training. However, remember that Slayer tasks may give you monsters with weaknesses to ranged or magic, rather than melee.
 * You may want to consider wearing a ring of wealth whenever fighting a monster that drops items on the rare drop table if you are interested in valuable drops rather than slightly faster experience rates from rings with combat-related stats.
 * An emergency teleport that can be activated with one click can be useful to avoid death. A simple house teleport tablet is cheap and could end up being a lifesaver.
 * Use potions in order to boost skill levels and increase experience rates. A super set (consisting of super attack, super strength, and super defence potions) is recommended.
 * When fighting monsters that are aggressive, turn Auto Retaliate on to reduce the number of clicks you have to use.
 * Completing the easy quests Fight Arena, Holy Grail, Waterfall Quest, Scorpion Catcher and Tree Gnome Village gives efficient combat experience if done at a low combat level.
 * Pay attention to your foes weakness. Try to attack monsters weak to the attack style of the weapon you are using. For example, moss giants are weak to slash attacks so it is a good idea to attack them with weapons such as the abyssal whip or the dragon scimitar rather than weapons using crush or stab.

Abilities

 * Healing abilities are a must for extending the length of a training trip. The Resonance ability is a basic level Defence ability, that causes the next hit to heal instead of damage you. Rejuvenate is an ultimate Defence ability that restores 40% of your life points over several seconds. Regenerate is a basic Constitution ability that uses whatever adrenaline you have left to restore your health if you're not in combat.
 * Although the Resonance and Rejuvenate abilities require a shield to be equipped, you only need to equip the shield for as long as it takes to activate the ability if you prefer to dual wield or use two-handed weapons.
 * Consider using threshold abilities instead of ultimate ones; the damage done by thresholds is lower, but they use less adrenaline, meaning more than one can be used in a row.
 * Set up your action bar before you go into combat, making sure all the abilities you want to use are on there, and that all the abilities are ones you can use with the weapons you have. Remember that you can have multiple bars set up at once, and there is no penalty for changing which one you're using.

Weaponry

 * Each weapon has  one  attack style (stab, crush or slash) but  all can train strength, defence and attack.
 * Utilise monster weaknesses. Using a crush weapon against a monster weak to crush gives a much higher chance to hit against that monster, and significantly higher hits. Monsters who have a weakness to ranged attacks will have a very high defense to melee attacks.
 * Always use the best tier of weapons you can wield. Better weapons ensure higher damage output and a higher chance to hit.
 * The abyssal whip is a very popular weapon for combat training due to its rapid attack speed, relatively low cost, and the fact that it is only one-handed, meaning it can be paired with an off-hand weapon or shield.

Armour
For extended combat training, armour with a good defensive bonus is generally recommended. Consider rune, dragon, Barrows, or Bandos armour depending on your Defence level. Bandos armour is particularly good, for those who can afford it, due to its high defensive and life point bonuses. Barrows armour is a cheaper alternative, although it degrades with use meaning that it will incur a maintenance cost.

Sacred clay equipment, rewards from Stealing Creation, doubles the experience gained from combat, even if only one piece is worn. It offers the same defensive bonuses as rune armour. Most players choose to use their Stealing Creation on skills that cost money to train rather than combat, which is usually profitable.

Healing
After the Evolution of Combat, food is much less neccesary than it was before. Generally speaking, most of the time you will not need food if you use healing abilities such as Rejuvenate, an ultimate ability which restores 40% of your health (but requires a shield), Regenerate, which can be used outside combat to convert remaining adrenaline into health, and Resonance, which makes the next attack to hit you heal you instead of hurting you.

Other methods of healing include:


 * Using food
 * Guthan the Infested's equipment has excellent defence bonuses and a set effect, which players can use to heal themselves. However, use of Guthan's has a few downsides. Use of guthan's helm prevents the use of other head-slot items, such as a slayer helm or face mask. Guthan's spear is merely an average weapon. For these reasons, some players bring a set of Guthan's in addition to their regular armour set, and switch between the two as necessary when needing to heal.
 * Bones to Peaches is a spell unlocked at the Mage Training Arena which allows players to convert bones and big bones into peaches, each of which heals 80 life points. Players who have not unlocked this spell can instead buy and use bones to peaches tablets.
 * Soul Split requires 92 Prayer and access to the Ancient Curses. It heals its user 20% of the damage dealt if it is activated during a successful hit against a monster. Because of its rapid drain rate, many players use the prayer flashing technique to drastically reduce, or outright nullify, Prayer point drain.
 * The saradomin godsword's passive effect, Healing Blade, has a 25% chance of healing the player for the damage dealt with every hit.
 * Auras such as vampirism help by healing the player by 5% of damage dealt with every hit.

Potions

 * Potions are well worth the extra cost. They increase your training xp/hr rate significantly.
 * It can help to get 96 Herblore for overloads which makes training much faster. Other extreme potions such as extreme attack, strength, and defence are also worth the added cost.
 * If unable to create overloads or extremes due to low Herblore, super sets work well too.
 * Regular combat potions are more cost effective than attack potions and strength potions because they combine the effects of both while being cheaper than the two individual items combined.

Suggested training monsters
''Note: These level guidelines are for all three Attack, Strength and Defense. For example: levels 1-10 kill chickens. Meaning, for levels 1-10 in all three Attack, Stength and Defense you should kill Chickens. Once all three have reached level 10, you can then move on.''

Level 1-10

 * Chickens are the easiest npcs to kill for the first 6 levels; they are right next to the Lumbridge cow pen. Use a bronze scimitar, then a iron scimitar when appropriate.
 * Men are also a great thing to train on, they hit quite low, drop rare herbs like ranarr, lantadyme, and dwarf weed which can give low level players tens of thousands of gold per inventory full. You can find them in one the houses in Edgeville on the brink of the wilderness. This can used up until level 20 if you are not pleased with other methods. You should start out with dual wielding bronze scimitars then iron then etc.

Level 10-20

 * Cow.png Cows give good xp when compared to the difficulty of killing them, and their hides are also valuable. Killing cows is one of the best ways to get your melee stats up until about level 15. Cows can be found on fields such as near the Crafting Guild, Lumbridge or Falador farm.
 * There is a field next to Beefy Bill where you can collect cowhides and bank them with him. However he will take anywhere from 1-4 of your cowhides and bank the rest for you. (He takes 4 if you have a full inventory.) This method is especially good for starting players who want to make money. Banking hides will lower xp rates, though the additional money can help fund future equipment improvements. This field can be found by following the path north from Lumbridge (towards Varrock), past the goblins and the milk seller to an area slightly north. Alternatively you can home teleport to Varrock lodestone (not Varrock teleport) and head south-west past the Champions' Guild, mining area and farming patch.

Level 20-30

 * Al Kharid Palace is a good training location at this level. With a moderate Defence level, the Al Kharid Warriors (37 xp) here will deal low damage while also dropping grimy herbs quite frequently.
 * At level 25 use a black scimitar (duel-wield for more damage or a 2h) if you can afford it.

Level 30-50

 * The barbarians in the Barbarian Village give better xp rates for these levels. Baracading yourself in the longhall (the large building on the north side of the village) seems to be a nice way to keep the barbarians in a small, dense area and prevent yourself from having to run all over the village to kill them. Remember to use the best equipment for your level.

Level 50+

 * Deadly-red-spider.png Killing deadly red spiders found in the Chaos Tunnels and Varrock Sewers can provide very great amounts of experience for many players with melee stats in these ranges, as each kill is worth 557.5 experience (along with 184 constitution experience). They are weak to crush, so using dual-wielded crush weapons and super attack and super strength potions, one could easily manage to gain over 35,000 experience per hour in any given melee skill while using Momentum.  After testing done with attack and strength levels around 90, and using abilities, experience rates reached between 150,000 to 200,000 experience per hour.  For maximum experience, use weapons that have the best possible crush bonus, such as Torag's Hammers, Saradomin Sword, or the Chaotic Maul.

Level 60-70

 * One way to train exp is in the Tzhaar fight pits, which give you over 300 exp per kill.
 * Playing Pest Control can also be a good training method.

Level 70+

 * The TzHaar area is fairly useful after the Evolution of Combat update, using abilities one can get an estimated 50k experience an hour while making a fair profit. Using the Regenerate, Resonance and Rejuvinate ultimate ability one can eliminate the need for food. The area is rarely crowded, and the monsters can be killed by low levels, though the expected experience rates will be less impressive for those with lower levels.
 * At level 70, dagganoths are your best bet. It is really worth it. Use a combination of a 2H weapon for their Area of Effect capacities, and of a 1H / Shield for the healing capacities of the shield.
 * Killing fire giants at 70 Attack and above can provide large amounts of experience. These giants are weak to slash, so use of slash weapons such as the abyssal whip is recommended. A Dragon Halberd is also highly recommended and even though it is a 2h weapon, with the use of abilities it provides one of the fastest experience gains at Fire Giants.
 * If you have 65 Slayer, dust devils can give up to 250k xp/hr if using a chaotic maul and the Berserker ability.
 * The Living Rock Caverns provide a great way to gain experience. Over 500 experience per kill (380 to the designated skill, the remaining to Constitution). They provide great drops, and aren't crowded (unless on the living rock caverns world). High leveled players can make up to 400k an hour while leveling up fairly quickly.

Level 80+

 * Mutated jadinkos offer very high rates of xp/hour, easily exceeding 200k/hour. The downside is that you will need dual drygores to earn the maximum xp/hour and a Slayer level requirement of 86.
 * Killing the followers the zamorak boss can be very rewarding. The werewolves and goraks can easily be killed for 500+ melee xp. The only downside to this method are the longs trips to the bank to restock on food. This can be shortened by scarificing two inventory spaces for a trollheim teleport.