Pay-to-play Dungeoneering training

This article's aim is to teach the basics of successful Dungeoneering training that is not covered in the free-to-play guide. 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 Dungeoneering 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. Improving your skills will go a long way to improving your Dungeoneering, but is not necessary.

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 the burning of food. 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. You will take a lot 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 higher your Slayer level, 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 the Sagittarian longbow has a higher ranged bonus at 99 Ranged.

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 considered superior to Protection prayers in that they can deflect damage and have the same drain rate.

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 and your teammates or to summon healing and combat familiars. At level 91, Sachem Bloodragers may be summoned, which are considered by many to be the most useful familiars due to their high damage output.

Helpful Terminology
You may come across players using many terms and acronyms that can be confusing at first. Learning such acronyms is very beneficial however, so one should take the time to do so if one plans on training Dungeoneering with other players.


 * Crim - Crimson (referring to charms or keys)
 * Cures - Refers to the spell which 'Cure' players from Poison.
 * De - Dead end (room with no doors other than entrance)
 * Denk - Dead End No Key (room with no doors other than entrance, does not have a key).
 * Dewk - Dead End With Key (room with no doors other than entrance, has a key).
 * Gc - Gravecreeper, either the wood or the boss
 * Ggs - Group Gatestone or Group Gatestone Teleport
 * Gd - Guardian door
 * Ggs Gd - Group gatestone for guardian door (meaning you must kill all monsters in the room to move on).
 * Ggs mage/range/melee - Group gatestone with that prayer on.
 * Ggs 88/93/99 crafting/smithing/herblore - Meaning to group gatestone to do a door/puzzle if you have the level.
 * Gorg - Gorgonite
 * Gs - Gatestone (referring to the regular Gatestone, not the group one)
 * Gsed - Gatestoned (meaning the player has placed a gatestone near a door or resource. Later, they can bring the Group Gatestone there for other players to access)
 * Merc - Mercenary Puzzle Room
 * Necro - Necrolord (boss) or Necromancer (monster)
 * Sag - Sagittare (boss) or a Sagittarian ranged item
 * Pent - Pentagon (referring to keys)
 * Prom - Promethium
 * Purp - Purple (referring to keys)
 * Rect - Rectangle (referring to keys)
 * Silv - Silver (Referring to keys)
 * Ssh - Shadow Silk Hood
 * T1, T2, etc. - Referring to Class Rings or Resources, saying they are "Tier 1, Tier 2, etc.
 * Tri - Triangle (referring to keys)

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, starting solo is recommended to get used to the skill.

By unlocking all 6 Complexities, your experience 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 experience 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 experience 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.

Prestige
Knowing when to reset prestige is key to getting greater amounts of Dungeoneering experience for completing higher-level floors. For example, you will get less experience 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 experience 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 experience.

Your previous progress also affects the amount of experience 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 experience reward would be an average of the base experience from completing Floor 1 and the prestige bonus from Floor 10.



Suggestions

 * Go to the deepest floor as you can with the Dungeoneering level you have and reset prestige when you have done all the floors you can.


 * 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.


 * Maximize your experience 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.


 * 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.


 * Maximize 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 experience penalty, complexity 5 has a 30% experience 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 experience and base prestige experience 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 or if your boss is particularly Ranged-weak.


 * 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.


 * 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 armour.

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.

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.

Optimizing floors
This is the fastest method to train Dungeoneering. This table shows how to do different floors at different Dungeoneering levels.


 * Rush: Small size, Complexity 1, be in a party of 5 people to storm through floors with a difficulty of 5:1.


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


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


 * Large: Large size, Complexity 6. Be in a party of 5 players.

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 killed without any of it. 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.


 * Bonus rooms will give at most an extra 13% at the end of the dungeon, but it is not worth the time to making potions for doors on small floors. 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.

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. Listed below are the suggested requirements for various roles.

Keyer: Often, the leader of the group is the keyer. This is because the leader is able to mark enemies and direct the other members of the group as needed. 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.

Other players: Everyone should have tools (including the keyer), all players should also have laws/cosmics (and maybe astrals for cure spells) for gatestone/group gatestone spells. Other players should be ready to do any task the keyer assigns them, the most common one being clearing a guardian door. They will also need to gatestone doors that can not be unlocked yet. This will enable the team to complete the dungeon in the shortest amount of time.

Tips

 * 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 much faster.


 * Having sufficient food and prayer before attempting the boss will make the boss battle smoother.


 * 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. Generally, you should enter the boss room as a team together.