Free-to-play Ranged training

Ranging in the free worlds, while having less equipment and features than the member’s world, provides some fun on battling monsters and players who are otherwise be out of reach. While member rangers are revered and considered dangerous even from sight, a well armed ranger of the free world still packs quite some power – enough to bring down an unprepared warrior with full rune armour in a few shots.

This guide will provide the steps and choices of ranging depending on the player style and taste in training.

Weapons
Rangers are advised to wield the best weapon their level can allow and to prepare money to buy the next bow they would need as their level will later allow them to wield. For new players, training arrows and bows are advised to save money at the start, they can replaced with stronger bows later on.

Short bows

As far as starter’s training is concern, short bows are better as they can shoot faster and have a comparable hit rate as long bows. This makes the short bows the most ideal range weapon for training.

Long bows

Long bows have a much longer range and maximum hit than shortbows. However, what the long bow possess in power, it lacks in speed - causing it to fall behind against the short bow in rapid shooting and taking longer time to kill a monster. Long bows are only recommended for players with high ranging level (70 and above) as at this level, the ranger has enough skill in ranging accuracy to shoot accurate enough to make little difference in leveling up between using a short bow or a long bow.

Crossbows

Bronze bolts are the only crossbow ammunition for free players. Two crossbows are available to free players – the regular crossbow and the phoenix crossbows – both of which have the same stat bonuses. Crossbows have a slower fire rate than a short bow but faster than a long bow. Crossbows, however, tends to deliver slightly higher damage than short bows but long bows surpass the crossbow in terms of range and damage power.

Crossbows allow players to wield a shield on their shield slot, allowing rangers to add up some defences against melee and range attacks. However, wearing shields will also result in ranging penalty with kite shields providing more penalty than a square shield.

Crossbows are considered ideal only for new players or players with low ranging level, especially on the goblins which drop bronze bolts (which serves as ammunition to the crossbows). However, once the player can wield the willow short bow or long bow (at level 20 ranging), the crossbows of the free world becomes obsolete and outmatch in term of accuracy and power and would no longer be recommended as a training weapon starting at these level.

Armour
Rangers must wear the best ranging armour their money and level can provide or allow. Most ranging equipment sets are cheaper than their melee counterpart and should be no trouble for most players. Free players can also craft the most basic ranging armour such as the leather chaps up to the hard leather body.

Rangers are advised to get the best full ranging armour from head and body down to vambraces. Better ranging armour not only provides better overall protection from magic, melee, and range attacks, it also provides improve ranging attacks and accuracy, which can be even more helpful in making a hit and raising the ranger’s experience points in ranging. However, ranging armour is weaker to both range and melee attacks than their melee armour counterpart so rangers who were once training on melee must take this weakness as a consideration.

Level 1 – 9 Defence

Players should get a cowl, a pair of leather chaps, a pair of leather vambraces and a leather body. These items have no skill requirements are made from cowhides, fairly easy to craft (in Al Kharid which is Lumbridge's neighboring city) and the materials are easy to acquire. For more information about the leather armour and how to craft them, please see their articles and the skill crafting.

Level 10 – 19 Defence

Rangers should replace their leather body with a hard leather body (which is tends to be in high supply in the general stores of Lumbridge, Al Kharid, and Varrock). Alternatively, rangers can craft cowhides into hard leather body when their crafting level is 28 or higher.

Level 20 Defence and Ranging

Rangers are recommended to buy a coif, a studded hard leather body, and a pair of studded chaps. The studded hard leather body and the studded chaps can be sold in Varrock though Horvik but these items to be in low supply because only members can craft them. The coif can be sold from the Champions Guild (which requires 32 quest points to enter) and can only be crafted by members.

At level 40 Defence and Ranging

Players can now use green dragonhide chaps and green dragonhide vambraces, both of which can be sold from the Champion Guild. The green dragon body can only be worn after achieving defence and range level of 40 and after finishing the quest dragon slayer.

Amulet
Players who can possess or afford amulets are advised to wear the Amulet of defence protection or the amulet of accuracy (which is acquired from imp catcher quest) to improve their ranging accuracy. Wealthier players can acquire the amulet of power for better overall defence and accuracy.

Arrows and bolts
For new players, the training arrows are the best as they are free and are the only arrows that cannot be picked up from other players. However, as the ranging level advances and strong monsters to be fought becomes tough enough to withstood the training arrows, players would be advised to get stronger arrows.

Any player wielding an oak bow or stronger bows should be prepared with bronze arrows; sometimes in the hundreds. Depending on the player’s financial capacity and willingness to spend, and the monsters to fight, and the players’ desired result, player can train on any arrows in any amount (adamant arrows being the most powerful available to free players. However, steel arrows are considered as the upper limit as gathering hundreds or thousands of mithril or adamant arrows would cost hundred of thousands of coins.

Training arrows

All new players should train on the training arrows using the training bow first until they reach level 10 ranging. At this level, they can wield the oak bows (which training arrows cannot be equipped with as ammunition). Note that training arrows can serve as ammunition only to training bow and training bow cannot use any other arrows as ammunition.

However, players wishing to still save money can keep training on training arrows but by the time players reach level 20, training using the training arrows becomes impractical as it takes much more experience points and therefore much more arrows to train well. This impracticality stems on the fact that:
 * Only the range tutor can provide training arrows
 * training arrows cannot be traded from other players
 * the ranging tutor gives only 30 training arrows at a time
 * training arrows cannot be dropped but can be destroyed
 * it takes 30 minutes of time elapsed before the range tutor can give more arrows
 * its not possible to keep much more than 30 training arrows as the range tutor will not give training arrows to players who still have training arrows in their inventory or bank (even if it is just 1 training arrow)

Bronze arrows

Bronze arrows wielded with the an ordinary short bow (which is weaker than oak bows) are about equally strong as training arrows on training bows. Bronze arrows are advised for players who will not or cannot find practicality on training arrows, such as power ranging (those who keep training ranging round the clock) as well as those using oak or stronger bows.

However, since bronze arrows are weaker than iron and since the addition the stronghold of security's minotaur (which is known to drop large amounts of iron arrows frequently) and the notoriety of bronze arrows getting sold out from arrow or ranging shops, bronze arrows are not as popular or as good to train at than iron arrows.

Yet ranging players on training are advised to keep collecting bronze arrows and buying them from general shop (which sometimes can have a small supply of bronze arrows) when they get a chance as an extra set of arrows to keep pushing their supply up.

Iron arrows

Iron arrows are stronger than bronze arrows but are more expensive. The cost of iron arrows to limit its use in ranging were overcome with the update of the Stronghold of Security and the Minotaur in it (which had been known to drop plenty of iron arrows).

Iron arrows are much better in ranging than bronze, being more accurate and causing more maximum damage.

Players training on ranging should take every opportunity to go to the stronghold of security and fight the minotaur at the vault of war to get iron arrows.

Steel arrows

Steel arrows are more powerful than iron arrows – known to deal 12 points of damage to a high level ranger. Unlike iron or bronze arrows, steel arrows are hard to acquire for most rangers in training.

Steel arrows are considered the most expensive arrows that are still practical for training – in terms of cost and supply. Players may buy steel arrows from shops and other players with each steel arrows costing almost five times as much as iron, depending on the supply of the ranging shop and the prices the selling player declares.

Another way of getting steel arrows are to kill the zombies at the stronghold of security in the catacomb of famine level (level 2 dungeon). This method, however, is very tedious because of the following:
 * The catacomb of famine has very limited safe spot from zombies,
 * The zombies are aggressive and are of higher level (unlike the Minotaur),
 * The place is not a multi combat area, forbidding more than two players fighting one monster.
 * Zombies drop much less steel arrows than minotaurs drop iron arrows

Nevertheless, steel arrows are still the choice of arrows for demon-killing and giant-hunting rangers as it does pack quite a punch against these tough monsters.

Monsters for training
Goblins (combat level 2) and chickens (combat level 1)

For starters, training on Lumbridge is considered the best as there is are plenty of chickens to kill and plenty of goblins around the area. In addition to these monsters, Lumbridge also has plenty of food available - a tutor fishing spot in the south, a fishing spot near the goblin house, a cow ranch. Many tutors are also stationed in Lumbridge, guiding and providing information to new players and sometimes providing free items.

Goblins drop many items, including bolts for crossbows which can help players keep a supply of ammunition. Chickens drop raw chickens which can be cooked for food in training as well as feathers which can be used for fishing and fletching (for members)

For most part, the advantage of ranging goblin and chicken lies in their low combat level - they can barely hit a player.

The disadvantage of these monsters arise when the player's ranging and overall combat level becomes high that the health points of these monsters become too low that they often die in one shot and their drops becomes unsatisfactory as higher-level players would seek stronger monsters to supply their material demands.

Wizards  (combat level 7 - 20)

For players achieving level 20 or higher range level, the two wizards in Draynor Village, found among the willow trees, near the bank, provide good ranging training as there are poorly effective against studded armour of rangers.

For players level 41 in combat and over 30 range can start fighting wizards at Delrith’s circle south of Varrock as they drop even more runes and are in greater number giving less likelihood of training overcrowding from other players.

Wizards drop copious amounts of runes which can be sold to other players or magic shops or can be later used for magic training.

Players are, however, advised to have a good supply of food against wizards as they can have a maximum hit of 8, even against rangers with over 70 defence and wearing full green dragon armour.

Minotaur (combat level 20 - 32)

The minotaur can be fought once players reach level 25 combat and ranging level over 20. Minotaurs are non-aggressive (attacking only if it is attacked first), allowing an inexperienced or distressed player not to be mobbed down.

Since minotaurs are weaker to melee than range, players who have good strength, attack, and defence and are yet to experience ranging minotaur should bring with them a melee weapon just in case minotaurs prove harder to range than expected. For experienced and high level players, minotaurs are easy to kill.

The minotaurs are found in the vault of war (the first level of the stronghold of security, which is found in the barbarian village) and because of their ease to kill and their drop of iron arrows, minotaurs tend to be heavily trained and fought over many players, leading to training overcrowding.

Minotaurs drop a large amount of iron arrows (more than what is spent). As a result, players wanting to save money or wanting to train pure rangers can keep training on minotaurs until they reach their desired level.

Moss giants (combat 42)

For players achieving 45 or higher ranging level, moss giants are good to train at. These monsters are found at:
 * Crandor Island,
 * The wilderness (not a recommended location to train)
 * At the deepest end of the Varrock sewer.

Moss giants have stronger defences than minotaurs and wizards to any arrows and much higher health points. However, moss giants have very good drops including big bones (which it always drops and provides much high prayer experience points than regular bones), black square shields, steel bars, runes, and coins.

The moss giants are among the most popular training monsters for player, usually among warriors and rangers. As a result, training on moss giants tend to have a problem of overcrowding training and monster killing - so it is advised for players to change worlds should the area get too crowded.

Rangers new to training on moss giants are advised to bring iron or better arrows to train, a mithril or stronger weapon (not dagger), a teleport rune set (e.g. teleport to Varrock) and 10 salmons or better foods in case of emergency. It is suggested that rangers must restock their food supply whenever their food runs out (even with full health).

Lesser demons (combat level 82)

The lesser demons in Karamja and Crandor are attractive targets for the strongest players of RuneScape because of their expensive drops but seldom recommended to train at.

Lesser demons have significantly higher defence than moss giants. While experience players training their lesser accounts would start attacking lesser demons at level 55 ranging, it is advised that new players must reach level 65 or higher ranging before fighting the lesser demons.

The lesser demons, while weak against warriors in full runite, can deal significant (sometimes continuous and devastating) blows to rangers even if they are wearing full green dragonhide armour. Rangers are advised to bring or equip the following before fighting these monsters:
 * Bring hundreds of steel arrows (or stronger arrows if the can afford a massive amount of these),
 * Wear full dragon with coif, amulet of defence, and maple short bow,
 * Fill the rest of their inventory with tuna or better food
 * Teleport runes set or the skull scepter (Teleport to Varrock for example)

Power amulets are not recommended for new players fighting lesser demons these amulets require a high crafting level, requires a diamond (which is hard to find), are very expensive (can worth up to 10,000 coins) and are not readily sold in any shops.