Pay-to-play Dungeoneering training

This article's aim is to teach the basics of successful Dungeoneering Training. In it are described how to reset your progress, when to do so, the optimal sizes for dungeons and how best to approach each dungeon.

Useful Skills
Dungeoneering does not require any additional skills to train. However, it does incorporate every skill in its mechanics, meaning that having skills will better your Daemonheim experience. Having many 99s will make you a welcome addition to 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. Level 90 is required for cave morays, but higher will prevent all of it from burning. 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. Higher defence allows for higher tiers of armour, tier 11 (boss drops) requiring 99. Although, you will take alot of damage while Dungeoneering, so higher Defence is advised.

Slayer: Night spiders, keepers of the Shadow silk hood, require a Slayer level of 41. 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 level 98 Ranged, and is considered useful in dispatching mages, though not as useful as a Sagittarian longbow, at 99 Range.

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

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

Runecrafting: A Runecrafting level of 77 will allow you to make blood runes, which are needed for higher level magic spells, and level 99 will allow you to create an empowered catalytic staff, second only to a Celestial catalytic staff. Level 54 may also be helpful to create law runes used for transportation spells,and 65 for death runes as they help in making vengeance spells.

Summoning: Summoning can be used to summon Beast of Burden to carry items for you, or your teammates. Healing familiars are also available for use.

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.

Prestige
Prestige, and knowing how to utilize it, is key to getting greater amounts of Dungeoneering XP for completing higher-level floors. For example, you will get less XP from Floor 1 than from Floor 10; but once you have successfully raided Floors 1-10 and you do not have the Dungeoneering level to access the next floor, you should reset your progress.

By resetting your progress, you are setting all previously completed floors to incomplete, in order to receive optimal XP each time you complete them (because the completion of a floor that has already been completed severely reduces the XP reward at the end). Also, once you have completed all accessible floors again after resetting your progress, you will most likely have gained enough experience to reach the required Dungeoneering level to access deeper floors than your last previously accessible floor, yielding even more XP.

Your previous progress also affects the amount of XP you receive from each individual dungeon. Your previous progress will be equal to the number of floors you had completed before resetting your progress; so, in the example above, your previous progress after resetting would be 10, as you would have raided 10 floors successfully. After resetting, each dungeon will give you experience based on the average of the floor completed and your previous progress. If completing Floor 1 after resetting with a previous progress of 10, the XP reward would be an average of the base experience from completing Floor 1 and the prestige bonus from Floor 10.



Training rules
In order to get the best Dungeoneering XP, and to take good care of your Prestige, you should follow these rules:
 * Go as deep as you can with the level you have.


 * It is best to do the floors in order. Do not go to the deepest floor as soon as it is unlocked, but rather wait until you've completed all previous floors. It is better to do a deep floor with its equal prestige than with the prestige you had from your previous circuit.


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


 * Maximize your XP on the deeper floors. Do them on large, 5:5 difficulty and complexity 6. It'll give you much better experience for the deeper floors.

Starting up (levels 1-6)
Upon first coming to Daemonheim, you will only have access to minimal dungeon set ups, namely Complexity 1 and Floor 1. For low Dungeoneering levels, you should definitely go in solo to get known to the skill, plus teaming up isn't really worth it yet anyway.

By unlocking all 6 Complexities, your XP bonus will be modified so that you'll receive the next Dungeoneering level, and so up to level 6. Now when you have unlocked all Complexities, keep doing Floors in solo, Small size, and remember to follow the first 3 Rules.
 * Talk to the Dungeoneering Tutor by Daemonheim's entrance; he will give you a Ring of Kinship.Ring_of_kinship_party_details.png
 * Form a party and enter a Dungeon entrance (either the one to the left or right, not the waiting rooms).
 * You will start on Floor 1 on Complexity 1. Complete the floor. 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 modified so that you'll get Dungeoneering level 2.
 * Keep doing Floors on the best Complexity you can. Follow the previously mentioned rules, but ignore the last one, because you will team up later.

It is also possible to get large 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
As you might notice, when you start a new dungeon, all your previous items were left behind. That's why you're given a special ability - Binding items. Bound items are always with you.

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 two downsides are the inability to wield a shield at the same time and their non-functionality with certain class ring (such as a berserker ring), making it sometimes recommended to use a Promethium 2h sword, which some people find to be better than the spear.

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.

The first item bound should be a weapon. Without a weapon, you'll have a hard time dishing out damage. The optimal second/third items bound should either the highest platebody (that your defense will allow) or the shadow silk hood for the concealment benefit.

Further Training
This is the fastest method to train Dungeoneering. This table shows how to do different Floors at different Dungeoneering levels.


 * Super Rush; do on Complexity 1 and storm in solo through the Floors.


 * Small; do on Small size, Complexity 6. Decide whether you want more people in or not.


 * Medium; do on Medium size, Complexity 6. Decide whether you want more people in or not.


 * Large; do on Large size, Complexity 6. Be in a party of 5 players.

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 minimising 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 (25-60): 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
This strategy for larger floors is generally agreed upon by most players. However, different parties have different preferences. As always, this is just a guideline. On larger floors, there are two important players, the keyer and the tooler. These roles should be decided upon before leaving the Smuggler's room. Listed below are the suggested requirements for various roles.

Keyer: The player who collects all the keys and opens the key doors. The keyer should have a high defence and constitution level. This is to enable them to run through a room full of monsters, grab a key, and run back out again without taking too much damage. As well as being able to "tank" dead-end rooms with a key on the floor, the keyer needs to be able to memorise the locations of locked doors. Usually, the keyer takes on a leadership role within the party, and will mark enemies for other players to attack.

Tooler: This role is usually accepted by the player with the highest total level, as they are more likely to be able to unlock the majority of skill doors and puzzles. The role of the tooler is to always have a basic dungeoneering toolkit (hatchet, pickaxe, fishing equipment, knife, hammer & tinderbox). This avoids other players wasting inventory spaces with duplicate tools, but ensures the party has a full complement of useful equipment.

Healer: The healer is the player who has the highest class of healer ring. This player will pick up most of the food, and use it to heal other players. This ensures the most LP is restored per food item, and prevents time being wasted fishing. The healer may also wish to carry a number of antipoison runes, in order to cure other players.

Strategies
Rush: In a rush, the aim is to get the floor completed as quickly as possible. Some tips include: do not mage (runecrafting takes time), only kill monsters required to unlock a Guardian Door, and do not spend time "skilling" (mining, woodcutting etc.). A true rushing team will fight the boss as soon as they encounter it, or after stocking up on food. No bonus rooms will be unlocked, saving considerable time, unless the dungeon has sprawled itself out into complex twists. Rushing is fastest on a low difficulty ratio, but higher ratios won't deter players by much. This strategy should only take half an hour, and even with problems arising, no more than an hour can conceivably be spent.

Semi-rush: A team that is semi-rushing a dungeon is typically more laid back than a full-on rush to the end. Semi-rushing a dungeon involves clearing rooms (but leaving dead-ends), and only mining the bare essentials required for armour. This strategy is the most common method of approaching a large dungeon. Unlike rushing, all rooms that can be unlocked, will. The boss fight will also be saved for last, when everyone has a decent stockpile of food, a familiar, armour, weaponry, and an understanding of how the boss should be attacked. Good teams should be able to complete a dungeon with this method in an hour or less, with an hour and a half being the maximum. Any more than this, and the usefulness of your team members is questionable.

Full completion: Some teams agree to complete a dungeon in its entireity (or very close). They will typically kill every monster, in order to get a +10% bonus at the end of the dungeon. In this strategy, resources may be exhausted as part of training in various skills. It is the longest strategy, taking up to two hours to accomplish. It is not suggested unless skills other than Dungeoneering are being trained in Daemonheim, as the time spent on that little extra percentage will not likely be worth it.

Whatever strategy your team has agreed upon, it is important to follow the following "rules":


 * Always stick together: a team of five can kill even a high-level monster in seconds when they all attack at once. The party leader should mark targets for everybody to "pile". However, if your team has selected a keyer, he can be seperate from the team as his job is opening all doors ASAP and shouldn't stay to help kill monsters if there are other rooms that he is able to open.


 * Unless you have agreed to finish the dungeon completely, avoid entering "dead-end" rooms (rooms with only one door). It is likely you will take massive damage from all the monsters attacking you at once.


 * It's generally not a good idea to attack bovimastyx, as you can hunt them for more hides. However, using soul split prayer, some players find it a great idea to attack them just to heal.


 * Pick up herbs, and drop them back in the smuggler room the next time you are there. This helps you out a lot when you encounter a skill door that you don't have the levels for, as you are able to make the potion needed way faster.


 * Ensure everybody has full food and prayer before attempting the boss.
 * Creating herblore pots before facing the boss (most notably melee and defence pots) significantly reduces chance of dying and increases speed to kill the boss.


 * In most cases, you should not solo a boss. Go in as a team with protection prayers activated, and ensure everybody knows how to kill it.

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 notable 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.

Finding a party
Parties for large floors can usually be found in one of two ways. If you are looking for a one-off party, going to world 117/77 is the easiest way. If you are looking for a more permanent party, posting on the forums usually works the best. If you are a lower level (e.g. 70), it is advisable to avoid being in a party with exclusively higher levels (120+). This is because the monsters will have much higher combat levels than you are likely to be able to fight, and you are likely to die often. Finding a party on the forums should be reserved for one of two scenarios: you are looking for a group you can party with on regular intervals, or you are a low level who is unlikely to find similarly levelled players on world 117. While it is always advisable to group with players around your levels, a one-off party can often contain a vast range of levels, and for quick experience being nitpicky about level requirements can be time-consuming. High level players, however, will want to avoid low level ranges as they may be unable to help out the team. For these reasons, only mid to high leveled players are common on world 117/77.

When getting a permanent party, one that meets on regular periods of time or one that can be counted on to be there for a raid, there are some guidelines for selection. First, find players that have similar levels. A range of five or ten in both directions is decent, though the higher you are, the lower this range should be. When looking for a permanent group, you can afford to be picky. Make sure that the people in the party know what they are doing and are trustworthy enough to not hoard food, resources, etc. Players looking for a permanent party should also make sure that the party dungeoneers at a time that is good for them, and that the members are reliable and always online at the correct 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 1-30 if you have over 40 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.
 * Turn off guide mode: 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.
 * Fight wisely: As Melee is the strongest combat class in dungeoneering and Ranged is the weakest, you rarely want to use a bow. Binding a celestial surgebox in the ammo slot is a great idea as it greatly improves your ability to switch to Magic when you need it in dungeons. Ranging is rarely a good idea, only if it's your highest combat stat.
 * 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 runes/arrows (up to 125 'ammo'). 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, you can also bind a 2nd item. 2nd binded item should be Shadow silk hood or a piece of armor.

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.

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.

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 levelled 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 levelled 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 95%, as seen when a level 138 parties up with a level 3). 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.