Pay-to-play Dungeoneering training

This article's aim is to explain you the basics of Dungeoneering Training. You'll learn what is the right way to reset you progress and doing the dungeons themselves.

Useful Skills
Dungeoneering does not require any additional skills to train. However, it does incorporate every previous skill in its mechanics, meaning that having skills will better your Daemonheim experience. Having 99s will make you a commodity in any party, though don't think it's necessary to have one to get in. You should always be able to find people around your skill levels, if not on world 117 then on the forums. The following skills are handy to have in almost any dungeon or party.

Magic: Level 32 for the Gatestone, 64 for the Group Gatestone Teleport. These two are very useful for transportation. 71 and 94 with Lunar Diplomacy completed give Cure Me and Vengeance respectively, which can help in combat, though aren't critical.

Fishing: This allows the ability to catch higher fish. The best, cave moray, is caught at level 90.

Cooking: Minimizes burns. 90 is required for cave moray, but higher will prevent all of it from becoming useless. Note that fires in Daemonheim are tiered by logs used, so a gravecreeper fire will cook better than a tangle gum one.

Defence: The Shadow Silk Hood requires level 45, so if you think you're going to want it, this level is a must. Higher defence allows for higher tiers of armour, tier 11 (boss drops) requiring 99.

Slayer: Night spiders, keepers of the Shadow Silk Hood, require a Slayer level of 41. Again, if you're after the hood, you'll need this level. The better your Slayer, the more special monsters will become available in the dungeons, and therefore the more special drops that can be acquired. At 99, the Soulgazer can be killed, which drops the Hexhunter bow. This bow requires 98 Range, and is considered useful in dispatching mages, though not as useful as a Sagittarian Longbow, at 99 Range.

Prayer: 43 Prayer allows for Protection prayers, which can save your life in Daemonheim. If you don't have this level, you may rely more on food, and therefore your Fishing, Cooking and Firemaking. Level 71 gives Deflection prayers if you've completed Temple at Senntisten, which are vastly superior to Protection prayers, in drain rate and abilities.

Construction: The highest useful Construction level is 75; this gives the ability to construct a prayer altar at base. Construction is only useful in that it allows for special facilities to be available close to home, or the odd skill door. The facilities themselves require a fair bit of resources, the altar for example needing 5 each of zephyrium bars and bovistrangler branches.

Runecrafting: 77 will obviously give you the highest rune, blood, and 99 will allow you to create an empowered catalytic staff, second only to a Celestial one, but a more reasonable number is 54, for law runes, used for the teleport spells.

Summoning:

Improving your skills will go a long way to improving your Dungeoneering, but is far from necessary. No stat is a must, and you should always be able to find a party. The key with skills is to group yourself with players around your levels, so no one will be left hanging around while others skill and open doors, or have to beg for equipment and food.

Training to 99 & 120
This is a guide about Dungeoneering training to 99 or 120. Please note that this guide assumes that you are familiar with the very basics of Dungeoneering.

Main words

 * Always do all the floors you can.


 * Don't do the recently unlocked floor if you haven't done the previous floors, or your Prestige will be affected.


 * Reset when you have done all the floors you can.


 * Aim to get the best XP on the deepest floors.

Starting up (Levels 1-20)
Upon first coming to Daemonheim, you will only have access to minimal dungeon set ups, namely complexity 1 and floor 1. As your level increases and you complete floors, you will get access to all 6 complexities and 47 floors. To start:


 * Talk to the Dungeoneering Tutor by Daemonheim's entrance; he will give you a Ring of Kinship and explain some of the basics.
 * Open the party interface from the ring. Choose to form a party, then go to either of the two tunnels on either side of the main entrance. From here click confirm twice, as you will be unable to change these settings yet. Note that it is possible for you to join a larger party, but this is not advised. It is best to choose a Small floor for the first runs.
 * You will start on Floor 1 on Complexity 1. On completion you will receive an XP penalty and bonus, the penalty for the low complexity, the bonus for your first run. The complexity will then be increased for the next dungeon. The Bonus XP will be modificated so that you'l get Dungeoneering level 2.
 * Reset you Progress. Do the Floor 1 again, and you'll get level 3. You may now enter Floor 2.
 * Repeat that. Always do all the floors you can on the highest Complexity you can, and reset you progress only after that.

All Complexities are unlocked. It is advised that you stay on Complexity 6, as this will offer you no penalty. Every time you reach the lowest floor you can, reset your progress to avoid repeating floors. Repeating floors will halve your experience, and so it is best to go through all of the previous ones rather than grind the same floor until you move on. Up to level 20(ish), you should gain one level per Floor.

It is also possible to get good amounts of experience for uncovering the Resource dungeons spread throughout RuneScape. As soon as you get to the required level, head to the dungeon. For lower levels, (1-20) it is guaranteed that you will level up 1-5 levels per visit to a dungeon. Please note that if you gain the level requirement for a new floor, you must also complete the floor before it to unlock it in Daemonheim.

Binding
You should bind a good weapon right away, and 125 of one type of Runes or Arrows. As a melee weapon, it is highly recommended to bind the best spear you can use. Spears are highly versatile and powerful, not to mention poisonable. Spears possess all three types of attack (stab, slash and crush) which makes it unique and useful in Daemonheim. Their only downside is the inability to wield a shield at the same time and it won't work with Melee Class Ring.

Levels 20-93
Now is about the time to consider joining larger groups of people, duoing through the floors, or trying out Medium dungeons. There are two main ways to level Dungeoneering. The first is maximising experience per floor, by doing large floors on 5:5 difficulty all the way through. The other is rushing floors, generally by taking 5 people and storming small floors. Difficulty levels vary for rushing, though the fastest would be 5:1, though this will give penalties if the range of player levels is noticeable. Both methods offer benefits and consequences; maximising experience can be slow, especially for lower floors which do not give much experience in the first place, though it does mean resetting less frequently, and generally offers a plethora of resources for each floor. Rushing is fast, but may not be considered fastest, as each floor offers fractions of what's possible. For the most part, you have to ask yourself, am I looking for an enjoyable Dungeoneering experience, or do I just want the level?

Up to level 93, it is not advised to maximise every floor, as your prestige will not be maxed, and even onwards few will suggest it. It is best to do a combination of rushing the lower floors (mostly Frozen and Abandoned 1) and maximising the higher ones (Furnished, Abandoned 2 and Occult). You should especially maximise when close to level 93, so as to get it before the next reset.

At level 50, you will be able to bind another item. If you are finding the spear unwieldy and want something that allows for a shield, consider using both a longsword and a battleaxe; this will give you the full range of attack options, but will take up a space for other equipment. Most advise a platebody, or if you have been lucky in your drops from a Night spider, a Shadow silk hood, which will hide you from the sight of humanoids. The Blood necklace is also useful, dealing 40 damage to surrounding enemies every 10 seconds, while healing you for half of the damage it deals, though it is a rare drop from the rare Edimmu. In the end, you yourself will have to decide what works best for you; defensive armour or powerful weapons? Promethium spear or Sagittarian longbow? Rare Slayer drop or Primal pickaxe? Through most dungeons you will be plagued by such dilemmas, so take those opportunities to experiment with each.

Main training method (levels 60+)
The idea of this method is to rush the high floors, and do the lower floors on Large. Before every reset, you should aim for a bigger prestige up to 47.

Frozen floors (1-11): Some people call this Frozen Runs. You should always complete these in solo and Complexity 1 (size will be automatically small). The idea of the Frozen Runs is to complete the Frozen Floors as fast as possible. This is because they give relatively small XP for your level and are not worth doing on Complexity 6. The main purpose is to get these floors done.

Abandoned 1 (12-17): The method of doing these floors is self-dependant. You still shouldn't complete these on Complexity 6. Just do the same as in Frpzen Runs.

Furnished (18-29): Some people keep rushing them on Complexity 1, or doing them on Complexity 6. Sometimes even in 5:5 parties for faster XP. If Your Dungeoneering level is like 60, you should do the last 5 floors on Large.

Abandoned 2 & Occult (30-47): The higher your Dungeoneering level, the lower floors you want to do on Large, thus, bigger quantities. For example at level 69 you can do Floors 30-35 on Large. At level 79 you can do Floors 32-40 on Large. It is always up to you. The higher your prestige, the deeper floors you want to do on Large.

Alternative method
While the experience for the higher floors is poor, it does not necessarily have to be ignored. Your objective for the first 24 floors or so is admittedly to get through them as fast as possible, so as to reach the better experience of the deep floors. Small, Complexity 1 floors will rob you of a major percentage of your experience from a run-through. It is possible to compromise by doing instead Complexity 6, giving a greater percentage, and a better chance of levelling before the deeper floors are approached, therefore giving access to even more of them, and minimizing the number of resets and low experience floors.

Higher floors (1-24): Frozen, Abandoned 1 and the first half of Furnished are generally not worth a Large floor, as the experience is not proportional to the amount of time spent, as they are considered too simplistic to be awarded big XP bonuses. At a Small size, on Complexity 6, it is conceivable to do about 4 an hour. With 3 to 5k XP (depending on prestige) on a Frozen floor, this can add up to 12 to 20k an hour, about the same with a good party on a Large Furnished floor, or a poor party on a Large Abandoned 2 floor. This experience will increase with each passing dungeon, making it more and more worth your while. On a fairly pessimistic estimate, the total for the first 24 floors can be in excess of 72k over the course of 6 hours.

Deeper floors (25-47): These floors are the best candidates for doing on Large, and the opportunity to do so should be taken. With a good team, these can be done in roughly an hour, give or take 30 minutes. Again, experience will be dependant on prestige, but players will be looking at at least 20k a floor. Abandoned 2 will average in the 40s, and Occult even higher. You may find that the deeper you go, the less useful the earlier ones become, meaning you can include them in the Higher floors section above. For example, once the Occult floors have been breached, it may be advisable to move all of the Furnished floors into your higher floors strategy, whether that may be to rush them on Complexity 1 or make them a little more useful on Complexity 6. Always go as deep as you can; when the next floor is accessed, complete it. This will give you the highest prestige you can acquire, giving better experience on your next run-through. Try to do the floors in order, as this will increase your prestige with your floor: doing floor 37 with prestige 36 will not be as high as doing floor 37 with prestige 37.

Large Floors:
First of all, you should know the roles:

Keyman: The player who collects all the keys and opens the key doors. This is the most important role and should earn the most respect. He may not want to participate in the fights. The Keyman must have good memory and navigation skills, and thinking with gatestones. Shadow Silk Hood is extremely helpful.

Toolman: This role is usually accepted by the highest total level-having player. In the beginning of the dungeon, he buys a pickaxe, hatchet, tinderbox, fishing rod, some feathers, vial and a knife, all of which can now be found in the toolkit. He usually opens the skill doors and completes the puzzles if he happens to have the required skills.

Finding a party of 5 on world 117 is probably your best bet, but make sure you know what your getting into; party leaders will usually advertise 'Trade F## Rushing' or 'Trade F## Large', with added 5:5 on some. Some will descriminate against levels, saying '130 plus' or something similar. These parties will likely have several 99s, and be able to open up any bonus room, while facing down much tougher creatures and a boss with a massive level. The '130 plus' can be considered a mercy, as lower level players would face creatures in every room twice their strength and doors they're some 40 levels off opening. However, tagging along on one of these trips may grant huge experience, having 'completed' a high difficulty dungeon. This is considered leeching, as the low level does nothing, but receives experience for it.

The above mentioned positions of Keyman and Toolman are crucial, but generally only the Keyman post is agreed upon at the start of a dungeon, and even then there is no real debate over it, merely a volunteer. Halfway thorugh a floor, the position may change to someone it has now been shown to be more suitable. The Toolman post falls to anyone who happens to want it, often someone who wishes to skill through the dungeon. Their usefulness is limited to opportunistic doors that they have the skill for and happen to be in the same room.

The suggested strategy for a Large floor will vary with teams. Some will insist upon killing everything in it, time consuming but adds 10% to your final experience. Others will seige a floor as fast as they can. In both instances, it is best to stick with the group, because as a group piling creatures will down them in seconds, as opposed to the food-consuming method of one-on-one, or more often getting piled yourself. A team with varying skills will likely have to wait for the highest skiller to open up pathways, and so the group gatestone (ggs) is incredibly handy, as are gatestones (gs). Sacrificing the Group Gatestone Portal, however, may be necessary if there are no altars in the dungeon. Avoid entering deadends (de) even for resources, as you will likely be piled by the creatures the team has deemed too time consuming to bother with. As well, join your team for guardian doors (gd) as they will need your help to kill everything in the room. Leave the bovimastyx you find, as there might be someone on the team who finds them useful. Take note of the resources you want, and try finding their room on a map. Time for skilling may be hard to come by, and the best time to do so is when the rest of the group are finding key doors or collecting food and other dropped items. When it comes time for the boss fight, make sure everyone knows how to do it, and when you're attacking. Never solo a Large boss and always join your team before they go in. Full armour is not always necessary, and lack of combat familiars should never prevent you fighting. The only real things to worry about before a boss fight are food and prayer, which all team members should assist in getting for you.

Small Floors
This size allows for fastest completion. Strategies will change for how much you value experience per floor and overall experience per hour. Maximising Small floors involves doing them as quickly as possible while on Complexity 6. Rushing them is only different in that they use Complexity 1. In either case, certain loose guidelines should be regarded:
 * Avoid skilling; armour, food, potions and familiars are not often necessary for defeating the boss, or even completing the dungeon. When you see a resource of a tier you know you work well with, it may not be the best idea to waste time collecting it. Some 5 minutes can be needlessly expended by collecting ores, woods and hides only to find that the boss can be downed without any of it. Some notible bosses that may cause some difficulties include Icy Bones and the Hobgoblin Geomancer, while those such as the Gluttonous Behemoth and the Skeletal Horde will need a minimalist's set up.
 * Bonus rooms will give an extra 13% at the end of the dungeon, but it is never a good idea to waste time making potions for doors you almost have the level to open. If you require a potion, ignore the door and move on.
 * Killing everything in the dungeon may give a few extra experience points, but is rarely worth all the effort. Kill everything when a guardian door is involved, but never when its a dead end. If low on food, weigh the options; it may be faster to fish and cook an inventory of salve eels than hope to get some from a room at the other end of the dungeon.
 * Don't over-prepare. For a boss fight on a Small floor, you shouldn't need anymore than half an inventory of food, half of your equipment slots filled, a somewhat decent familiar and prayer points. Potions will likely take too long to make, and make little difference. If your charm hasn't dropped or you've lost it, don't bother looking for one, you'll most likely survive. In Small floors, hesitation will cost you valuable time.

Ways to improve experience rates

 * Party with people like you: It is always a good idea to group up with people near your combat level and with similar skill levels. This ensures that the monsters in the dungeon and skill requirements will not be too hard for any one person. Also, you should be able to agree on how you progress through a dungeon, killing everything, skilling all the way or rushing.
 * Pick a keybearer: It is common for teams in large dungeons to assign one person the role of "Key runner." This person picks up all the keys and notes down where the key doors are so that he/she can come back to them later with the correct key. Often they will also be given the group gatestone. The assignment of a key runner will mean others don't have to worry about who has which keys. The key runner will still be useful in other areas, such as guardian doors and puzzles, so still explore as a group if possible. Players who are not the key runner may also set a gatestone near far-away key doors so that they can be given the key and the door can be opened quickly.
 * Max your mods: Set the complexity and difficulty to the highest possible, kill as much as you can and open all doors you have access to. Complexity 6 has no XP penalty, Complexity 5 has a 30% XP penalty, and each Complexity thereafter has another 5% penalty, all the way down to 50% penalty for Complexity 1. Difficulty won't give a penalty unless there is a large range in player levels, but can give a big bonus for sometimes little work. Additionally, using a lower complexity and difficulty actually carries a much larger penalty than the 30%-50% modifier that you see. The base floor XP and base prestige XP are affected by several unseen factors, two of which, either directly or indirectly, is complexity level and difficulty ratio. However, an exception to the rule to use highest complexity is when you are trying to move through the low floors (typically 1-24 if you have all 35 floors unlocked) at maximum speed in order to maximize your experience rate by spending more time doing deep large floors. Killing things will increase your level mod, but that can be time consuming, and it is up to you to decide whether it's worth an extra 10%. Bonus rooms should always be opened, as they offer up to 13% extra experience for almost nothing.
 * Go in blind: Always set guide mode to off as this gives a negative bonus of -6 to -12% (possibly more) which can seriously affect your experience and token gain.
 * Don't be the hero, be the survivor: Don't die. Each death has a huge penalty (between 10% and 15% per death depending on how you die). If it looks like you're going to die, run out as fast as you can, your teammates will understand.
 * Explore: It is highly recommended that you explore every room before you end the dungeon as this gives a notable bonus for what could take 2 minutes of your time.
 * Fight wisely: Try to take the Combat triangle into consideration (e.g. if the monster is Magic based then use Ranged).
 * Be a team player: Join your team when they call out 'gd', as this is a guardian door and they'll want your help. If you see a key, make sure your keybearer knows about it, same with doors. Don't go into a room if they say 'de', its a dead end they don't want to explore. If a team member asks you to make them some armour, ask them to get you the materials, and vice versa. If someone needs food and they're out, do some good and feed them some of yours. All this can speed up a run through the dungeon.


 * A little something on top: Dungeoneering tokens can be spent on experience for 1 experience per token.
 * Get the most out of your bound weapons: Bind the best weapon you can find. Remember, you can bind a weapon and a rune/arrow. So, you can bind a Katagon longsword and Gorgonite arrows. However, there is a limit on how many runes/arrow you can bind, a maximum of 125. Note: A tier 7 Two-handed sword might be worth binding over a tier 8 rapier or dagger, keep that in mind. Binding a spear is also very useful, as monsters are vulnerable to many different attack styles. Upon reaching 50 Dungeoneering, binding a piece of armour or another weapon can be a good idea.
 * A good party for some: A great way to get better XP rates per hour is to group with 3-4 people, bring 1 high level combat player (The higher the better, usually 90+ combat stats) and 2-3 low level skillers (Level 3 is ideal, slightly higher still works). The skillers can avoid combat while making armour, weapons, food, potions, and the like. The high level player gets the advantage of lower monster levels, since monster and boss levels are averaged based on the levels of the players within the dungeon. This makes the combat player's job easy as the lower leveled monsters will be much easier to kill, which will allow the group to move through dungeons much quicker.

To gain the best experience per hour then you must take into account whether it's worth getting small boosts. For example, if you don't kill ALL the monsters in the map then you can miss out on about 5% experience, but if you spend over 5% of your time in the dungeon doing this then it won't be worth it.

If you don't need food/cash, then don't kill any monsters. Just focus on exploring all the rooms and doing all the puzzles.

Note: If a room has a guardian door then the monsters inside must be defeated in order to open the door. See Rooms Page, Doors section

Dungeoneering is unique in many ways, one of which is its use of all other skills. You may find that by levelling your other skills dungeons will progress faster, as you have access to more resources and methods of obtaining them, giving you better armour, food, and familiars. It is also advised to keep your skills fairly even; at 80 woodcutting, you'll be getting corpsethorn and entgallow trees, but if your fletching and/or firemaking isn't up to the levels for these trees, you'll be forced to buy them from the smuggler, or beg your teammates for some help. Also be aware that your teammates levels are incorporated into the dungeon, and if their levels are higher than yours, you may find yourself surrounded by resources you can't use, let alone gather.

Prestige mode/Resetting
Once you have completed all the floors prior to the highest level you can reach, faster experience is gained by resetting the ring.

Best experience per hour can obtained by "rushing" all dungeons with 5 "pro" adventurers (probably 5:3 or 5:5), doing small dungeons from floor 1-29, if "pro" team are nowhere near to be formed, duoing with a "pro" gives the second choice.

Then from the higher floors doing 5:5 large dungeons, accessing all rooms and leaving unnecessary monsters. With a good Keyman and teammates with high combats, floors can be completed in approximately 40 minutes. It is possible to obtain 40-50k experience from one of these floors.
 * Only reset your progress once, otherwise your Prestige will be affected.
 * Prestige is a bonus given to how many unique levels you have done since your last reset.
 * Example run:


 * 1) Floors 1-20 will give a Prestige bonus of 20.
 * 2) Reset your ring so all the floors have a blank completion space next to them on the Floor screen. This will change your "Current Progress" from 20 to 0, but your "Previous Progress" will change from 0 to 20.
 * 3) Do Floors 1-20.
 * 4) As you have already received a Prestige bonus of 20, that will stay with you from Floors 1-20 after the reset.
 * 5) If you level up enough to move on to Floor 21 then complete it, you will have a Prestige bonus of 21, equivalent to 21 unique Floors completed.
 * Repeat with your new Prestige bonus, or, if you can, first do up until your highest available Floor for a greater Prestige bonus.


 * The higher Prestige bonus carried through levels 1-maximum for the second time will give you significantly more experience than the first.


 * Note: Once you reset don't reset again until all the floors you can do are completed. In other words, do not reset, then reset again right after, as this will result in your prestige returning to 1, significantly reducing XP gain.

Base Floor Experience
The key to the amount of experience earned per floor lies in the base floor experience, as well as the prestige, which is not covered in this section. Floor experience is determined by a number of factors, some of which are currently unknown: In summary, those dungeons giving the most experience are large, long, labyrinthian, filled with high leveled creatures, and locked by high-end skills. Several of these factors are beyond the control of the player, but can be best approached by using large dungeons on a 5:5 difficulty ratio and complexity 6, perhaps with a mix of low and high leveled players.
 * Your level - Your combat level will determine the levels of the creatures you face, and in turn the difficulty each room poses. As well, it has been stated that on an f2p server, levels over 90 will have reduced experience rates
 * Number of rooms - The amount of rooms you face while going through a dungeon will deter you, increasing the complexity of the maze. This can be controlled by Dungeon Size, and high levels to open bonus rooms.
 * Complexity - This will allow for puzzle rooms to be toggled. More puzzle rooms means more problems faced in the dungeon.
 * Time - Each room is set an approximate time in which it can be feasibly completed. This is not a limit you have to reach, rather an indicator of how hard the dungeon is, used for the singular purpose of calculating floor experience. Repeat, you do not have to complete the dungeon in the approximate time to maximize experience, although it does give a special title at the end.
 * Difficulty - This is more crucial than a mere 19% modifier; the difficulty ratio determines whose skills will be used when picking critical path rooms, and how many creatures will be found in each room. At a 5:1 ratio, with high level players and one low level, the low level's skills will be chosen and the creatures limited to few with small levels. This means that everyone will have an easy time traversing the dungeon, the low level will receive normal experience, while the high levels all receive massive deductions (supposedly up to 64%). At a 5:5 ratio, the same scenario will mean the low level is essentially useless (considered a handicap for taking up a space) and the high levels will have a much tougher time going through the dungeon. At the end, the high levels will receive more appropriate experience, and the low level should get a massive boost.
 * Challenge each room offers - Mostly this affects the above mentioned time factor, but it also influences the overall difficulty of a dungeon.