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 suggests 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.

Tips

 * 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, some of which have very valuable drops. Additionally, the use of a black mask or slayer helm during a task allows for faster training.
 * Wear a ring of wealth whenever fighting a monster that drops items on the rare drop table. It is possible, although rare, to receive drops worth many millions of coins.
 * Carry an emergency teleport at all times. 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 on Auto Retaliate for an easier training experience.
 * Training in the Wilderness is generally a bad idea, due to the threat of player killers. Most monsters that are found in the Wilderness can be found elsewhere, or have better alternatives in non-Wilderness locations, unless you wish to use your combat brawling gloves, received from Revenants.
 * Completing the easy quests Fight Arena, Holy Grail, Waterfall Quest, Scorpion Catcher and Tree Gnome Village will give you a huge boost to your combat level if done at a low combat level.
 * Make sure you wear the best armour you can at your level and wield the best weapon that you can afford.
 * Offensive ultimate abilities do a lot of damage, but thresholds are also powerful and don't drain as much of the adrenaline bar, meaning that, potentially, more damage can be done in a shorter time than if an ultimate ability had been used.
 * Alternatively the use of momentum can be used to increase the damage of basic attacks at the expense of not using any abilitys, however, abilites may be used automatically increasing damage even more.
 * Pay attention to your foes weakness as it will be much faster to train. For example Hill Giants are weak to Air Spells, this can be used to increase mage stats much faster than normal.

Weaponry

 * Each weapon has  one  attack style but  all can train  all skills .
 * Utilise monster weaknesses. Using a crush weapon against a monster weak to crush gives a higher chance to hit against that monster.
 * 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.
 * Generally speaking, when fighting monsters with low Defence, a fast yet weak weapon is preferable over a slow yet strong weapon. Players should avoid training with most two-handed swords (with the exception of the Saradomin sword), including godswords.
 * Weapon poison is not recommended. While poison may help achieve faster kills, no experience is awarded for poison damage, thus stealing needed experience.

Armour
For extended combat training, armour with good defensive bonuses is generally recommended. Such armours include rune, dragon, Barrows, and Bandos. Bandos armour is particularly popular among players who can afford it, due to its high defensive bonuses. Barrows armour is a cheaper alternative, sacrificing strength for defence, although the fact that it degrades with use means that players will incur a maintenance cost while using it.

Some players prefer to use Void Knight equipment, which sacrifices some defensive capability in exchange for increased offensive power. The Void melee helm, when worn with the rest of the set, increases Attack and maximum hits by 10% each.

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.

Healing
Food is the most common, and one of the most simple, ways to restore lifepoints in the game. However, the problem with food is that only a certain amount, defined by available inventory space, can be brought on a training trip. In order to reduce banking time, and therefore increase experience rates, many players use alternative sources of healing in addition to, or instead of, conventional food.


 * Bunyips, requiring level 68 Summoning, are familiars that heal their summoners 146 lifepoints every 15 seconds. Over a 44 minute lifetime, one bunyip can heal up to 25,696 lifepoints (equivalent to roughly 32 lobsters or 16 sharks).
 * Unicorn stallions require 88 Summoning and have a special move, Healing Aura, which restores up to 15% of the total lifepoints of the summoner. The special move expends 20 special move points, and can be used three times in a row before the special move bar needs to recharge. Additionally, unicorn stallions can cure poison at the cost of a couple of Summoning points.
 * Guthan the Infested's set of Barrows equipment is a popular choice for combat training because of its high Defence bonuses and its set effect, which players can use to heal themselves. However, use of Guthan's has a few downsides. Each of the pieces of equipment degrades when used in combat, eventually breaking after 15 hours of combat; they must then be repaired before they can be used again. Use of Guthan's helm prevents the use of other head-slot items, such as a slayer helm or face mask. Furthermore, Guthan's spear is merely an average weapon. For this 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 lifepoints. Players who have not unlocked this spell can instead buy and use Bones to Peaches tablets.
 * Enhanced excalibur is a reward from completing the hard Seer's Village Tasks. It is an upgrade to the Excalibur. Its passive effect has a chance of healing the player with every hit.
 * 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 1/4 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 and can cut off hours when training for high levels.
 * 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 extremely beneficial.
 * If unable to create Overloads or Extremes due to low Herblore, Super sets work well too. To cut down on expense, regular combat potions should be used instead of attack potions or strength potions because combat potions combine the effects of both attack and strength potions while being cheaper than the combination.

Level 4-10

 * Chickens are the easiest npcs to kill for the first 6 levels, they are right next to the cow pen. Use iron, then steel scimitars, skip over black becuase they are more expensive and is not worth the 2.5k.

Level 10-15

 * Cow.png Cows give quite much xp for the difficulty to kill them, and their hides are worth a lot too. 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 beeefy Jack 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. (Takes 4 if you have a full inventory) This method is good especially for starting players who want to make money, but banking hides will lower xp rates.
 * The 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 of there.
 * 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 40-50 (-60)

 * Deadly-red-spider.png Killing Deadly Red Spiders found in the Chaos Tunnels can provide very great amounts of experience for many players with melee stats in these ranges, as each kill is worth 419 experience (along with 139.7 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.

Level 60+

 * Killing Fire Giants at 70 attack, strength and defence with the Dharok's set effect can be used to gain as much as 400k experience/hour. Fire giants are weak to slash, so use of slash weapons such as the Abyssal whip is recommended.
 * During next week's double minigames rewards, minigames such as Pest Control, Soul Wars, or Castle Wars would be an ideal place to train.

Level 70+

 * At level 70 Dagganoths or Cyclops are your best bet. Though cyclops require a total of 130 levels added together between your attack and strength and Warriors guild tokens, they really are worth it.
 * If you have 65 slayer, Dust devils can give up to 250k xp/h if using a chaotic maul and the Berzerker ability. Dust devils are also recomended if you would like to earn some money by getting a Dragon Chainbody (note: it is very rare).