Combat pure


 * ''Pure may also refer to pure essence, a type of rune essence.

A pure is a player who works solely on certain skills, focusing all their attention to make those skills stronger. However, this leads to a pure having relatively low skills in other areas. Pures fall into two categories: Combat pures and Non-combat pures.

Combat Pures
Combat pures train only combat skill levels. Combat pures are more common than non-combat pures, and are usually made for player killing. The purpose of having a combat pure is to be specialized in one combat skill, thus being very good at a low level. Defence and prayer are normally sacrificed when being a combat pure, as they always add to combat level. Though prayer does contribute to the combat level at a lower rate, it has a few advantages, such as the protect items prayer.

At the Tutorial Island, any skill can only be trained up to level 3, so you can come a way from there with Attack level 3, Strength level 3, ranged level 3 (arrows will be replenished by the instructor, so train on rapid) and all your magic practice done (runes will be replenished only if you were unlucky enough to miss with every spell). Although getting all of your combat skill levels up to level 3 raises your combat level to level 5, it is well worth it. Even a pure Ranger or Mage should avail themselves of the 100% pure training in Attack and Strength, since the early level-up to level 6 (warrior) will put you outside the aggressive limit of level 2 giant rats, and training the preferred skill to level 7 and beyond will make it the determining factor for combat level. It also means that you can equip a steel weapon.

Some quick tips:
 * To avoid training Defence, do not fight in a defensive or controlled style. Always double check the attack style you are using. Doing so prevents unwanted levels being gained.
 * To avoid training Hitpoints, train on the dummies until no longer able to, or make the most of the Tutorial Island, as all training there appears not to result in any hitpoints gain. For warriors, you can get complete the Vampire Slayer Quest to earn 4825 Attack experience.
 * To avoid training Prayer, do not bury bones and do not take on or complete the "Restless Ghost" quest.

Combat pures vary with their combat class (ranger, mage, or warrior), so they are discussed below.

Pure Warrior
Trains Attack and Strength for melee fighting, often referred to as a warrior. Defence is sometimes trained in controlled amounts, including 20 defence for wearing Initiate, a prayer-enhancing armor, and 45 for several weapons and types of armour that give strength bonuses. Some pures are also known as "Barrow Pures", these pures will have 70 defence to wear Barrows. Such pures usually use Dharok's armor, as they tend to have very high level Strength for their combat level. (i.e. A level 103 can have 80 Attack, 95 Strength, 70 Defence, 86 Hitpoints with 60 Prayer, meaning with Dharoks, he/she would be able to hit around 70 when at very low Hitpoints.)

The pure warrior should wield a weapon of the finest metal they can use or afford, and wear full iron armor (Full helm, Platebody, Platelegs, with Kite shield unless using a two-handed sword), ideally self-made so it can be replaced easily when you die. The pure lives fast and dies often. Using leather armour or none at all is better against magic. However, defense bonuses of armor, such as iron are usually subsituted with prayer-boosting clothes, such as Monks Robes.

Useful extras for a pure warrior are level 15 or better mining and level 33 (or 32 plus a Dwarven stout) Smithing, to allow smithing of full iron armour.

In P2P melee puring, five general strategies have been made with lower levels.

The first involves having a low attack from 10-20, and 60+ strength for the Tzhaar Maul. With this method, a player can switch from a scimitar to the maul and hit tremendous damage at much lower levels. This method can get the player easy kills if your opponent is not aware of the maul or keeps their hp very low before eating.

The second involves getting an attack of 50, and a somewhat high strength level. Players will use a rune scimitar as their basic weapon, but switches to a granite maul when their opponent gets low on health. With the granite mauls special,"Quick Smash", players can easily "KO" others.

The third strategy involves getting 60 attack, but sacraficing a higher strength level. This way players can wield dragon and still hit quite high and accurately at lower strength levels. With the ability to poison the dragon dagger, and its powerful special attack, players can easily "KO" players that have low health.

The fourth strategy involves getting 70 attack and 70 defence with lower strength for Barrows, powerful sets that increase you stats up a lot of some equipment can give you additional bonuses. The problem with this is that you will be a higher combat then most others. Please note this is usually only done with stakers.

The final strategy involves getting 70 attack for the Abyssal whip, a powerful weapon that combines strength and speed. This strategy is used mostly by higher levels in unison with higher prayer levels. Due to the fact that the Abyssal whip costs 1.7 million gp, protecting this item is a good idea.

Other useful techinques include: Training magic to level 25 and carrying 1 fire, 3 air and 1 law rune (Varrock teleport) gives you a potential escape route (true with the teletab).

Wearing an amulet of strength, power or (members) glory may be useful, but expensive to lose. An amulet of defence may be a good choice for other tasks, as it balances the defensive weakness, however, it is not recommended.

Taking on Hobgoblins (several dungeons) and getting red spider eggs (Varrock sewer, deep levels) enables you to obtain the ingredients for the basic Strength Potion, which can be made by the Apothecary in Varrock. Members can use a wider range of potions.

Pure Mage
A description often used casually for any character that routinely fights using the Magic skill, instead of using it on easy targets to train magic for other uses. Pure mages can hit for lots of damage at a low level, ideally killing their target before it has a chance to run, but at higher levels, the mage is greatly weakened.

Fighting in the accurate style when not maging, the "pure" mage may find it useful to build their Attack level to wield a good quality pickaxe when mining rune essence, and to wear full iron armour for defence at any time they are not carrying combat runes.

For combat, the F2P mage should wear wizard robes, leather chaps (no mage penalty, small defence increase) and an Amulet of Magic. Using the best spell of each type, the F2P mage would wield a Fire Staff and carry a large stock of air runes and the appropriate missile runes (mind, chaos or death). Teleport runes (law plus whatever) and Bind spell runes (Natures) may be useful, as may the runes to deliver a full set of curse spells (the full set being Confuse, Weaken and Curse).

In P2P, low-level (30-40s) pure maging is higly discouraged with the large population of pure rangers and improved dragon hides that weaken the accuracy of mage spells immensely. However, the most common strategy with a mage is to use a God Cape, a God staff, a mage amulet, blue wizard robes, Wizard hat, Zamorak Prayer Book, and zamorak robes. With 60 mage, mages can hit up to 20 with god spells, but with the low mage bonus, it often fails. The use of mystic is rare due to the fact, that it needs 20 defense, and is an expensive loss, if the player dies. Although, in more recent times, the stategy of using prayer to enhance the accuracy of mage spells has become more common and favored, because the player does not risk any expensive types of mage clothes. Teleport escape spells should soon be within the reach of any serious combat mage.

The pure (zero defence) mage has no use for low level prayer - even protect item will not save runes, though it may be worth it to save a (members only) battlestaff or a piece of members mage armor. The "protect from" prayers begin to get interesting though, but it's a long way to go before they are reached.

Training
The mage has a tough time of initial training, at least until you manage to kill something that drops a Mind talisman, as Mind and air runes are often low stock and high priced at the rune stores - though if you make your own air runes, you want the stock to be low so the price is better when you sell them to buy minds.

Alternatively, mine and sell 100 rune essence (ess) noted at the Varrock east bank, for 20 gp each or better (some players pay up to 30) and you will have a reserve to buy runes, a staff, or upgrade your pickaxe to mithril. Don't think that because rune essence has a low mining level, that it will not reward better miners and equipment - the speed of mining can be a lot faster. Wearing full metal armour, no amulet of magic, will result in most of your spells missing (splash effect). You gain magic experience but not hitpoints for spell misses.

For this tip, even full bronze will do. A Full Helm, Kite Shield, Plate Body and Legs or Skirt will give you a total magic attack penalty of -65, so you could probably strike away at a penned opponent for ages without a single hit, though using an elemental staff will contribute +10, for a total of -55. You'd still be luck to hit a barn door at ten paces - just remember to run if attacked - this tip should not be used where there is a risk of aggressive monster attack.

Curse spells (also confuse and weaken) also give magic experience without hitpoints, but must be cast individually from the spells menu.

Pure Ranger
A description often used casually for any character that routinely fights using the Ranged skill, instead of using it only for training or trapped targets.

The ranger may find it useful to build mage skills to 20, so they can bind their target to prevent them running away or closing in (for 5 seconds), or to level 25 for teleport escape.

For combat, the ranger should wear full leather, with hardleather body, preferably self-crafted and wield the best bow they can - short for best firing rate, long for maximum distance, but avoid using "long range" as that distributes experience to defence.

A ranger with 40 defence, 40 range, Dragon Slayer quest completed and wearing full green dragon may be a better player killer than a zero defence pure in plain leather. The downside to this is that Dragon Slayer will give 18,650 possibly unwanted Strength experience, which will raise a player with 1 Strength to level 33.

Since defence is only required to wear the body section of the leather armour, a level 20 ranger can upgrade to Studded chaps and a Coif, and a level 40 with no defence can wear green dragon vambraces and chaps, Coif and the basic leather body.

For P2P rangers, it is best to wear the highest-level dragonhide that is available for your range level. The magic shortbow is a must for pking, as it has a special attack unlike the other bows. With the use of rune arrows, medium to high level rangers prove quite deadly. Rangers succeed most in the high level 30s to the low level 40s. At higher range levels, rangers also train their strength level to use the Obsidian Maul, which hits extremely high at low level attacks, because of the loose requirements to wield the weapon. Using the Obsidian Maul is very helpful when the player runs out of special energy.

The pure (zero defence) ranger has no use for low level prayer - even protect item will not save arrows. The "protect from" prayers begin to get interesting though, but it's a long way to go before they are reached.

Fremennik Pures
Some pures choose to raise their Defence to 45 and complete the Fremennik Trials quest to be able to wear a Fremennik helm. This helm increases the strength, magic attack or ranged attack bonus of the player, as well as giving good Defence bonuses. Other items, that become available to players with 45 defence, include the fighting torso, and the dragon gloves.

However, there are disadvantages, such as the combat level increases.

Hybrid
There is also something called hybrids. It is a term usually referred to combat pures. One who is a hybrid works on multiple skills. The most common hybrid is a range and mage. It is a tough trick to pull off, but it should be possible to have equal primary statistics in two or even three classes of combat or at least a working ability in one or two other combat classes. Usually it is best to work on only 2 different combat types, rather than working on 3. Otherwise your combat will be high and your combat skill level will not be the best it can be. But it does make up for a tricky fight!

Carrying two or three different sets of equipment would leave you with a lot to lose and very little space for food, but enable you to stand in two or three points of the combat triangle.
 * Armoured warrior is weak against Mage (if you have no other choice, take off your armor and charge the mage if you are willing to take a risk.)
 * Mage is weak against Ranger, as range armour is better defensively against magic than mage gear is against arrows.
 * Ranger is weak against Warrior (use bind to stop the warrior approaching if mage-range hybrid, and make good use of obstructions such as forest or fences).

At the very least, the Mage or Ranger should carry a backup weapon and train attack and strength to do worthwhile damage with it, better than hitting with their staff or bow when out of ammunition. A slashing weapon is also needed to enter areas protected by a web.


 * Range/Mage: Speedy damage and a huge blast to finish them off. At higher levels, mage is merely used to teleblock and bind other players.
 * Melee/Ranged: Uses dragonhide legs/vambs. The player switches from the bow when the opponent is low on hp to a Maul, or a Dragon dagger poison.
 * Any/Mage: Enables teleport spells and bind, increases resistance to magic.
 * Any/Melee: Does more damage when out of runes or arrows, able to wield better pick or axe instead of just carrying.

Using Prayer
Less pure, but can be useful. In addition to 5, 10 or 15% boosts to your stats (don't bother with defence, as it would be poor value for the prayer drain), at level 25, you can save an additional item if you die while the prayer is active (and only one item, if you are "skulled" for attacking other players - still gives you a chance to save your weapon).

At level 31, you can use the Monastery altar to recharge to two above your prayer level, and may have a silver-crafted holy symbol blessed, giving you a cheap piece of neckwear with a small defence boost and a larger prayer boost.

At level 37, you gain the "protect from magic" prayer, very useful, as the warrior is weak against magic, though as you still take 50% damage against low hitpoints, this can be of limited use.

Protection prayers are generally discouraged in fights, but they can be used defensively when running away from your opponent when you run out of food.

Prayer Beast
At what point you actually become a Prayer beast is uncertain, though one significant figure is level 31, since you can have a holy symbol blessed and collect Monk's robes, while already being able to use the protect item prayer.

Since the only item in the free-to-play prayer beast kit that is not easily replaced (assuming you build the necessary supporting skills) is your weapon, the protect item prayer can be very useful even if skulled, not only that, but other players will hate the rotten loot you drop, especially if they had to use expensive runes.

Reaching the "protect from" prayers is another milestone, and getting to level 43 only raises your combat level by 5, but finally alleviates the defensive weakness, though the level progression means you need to bury an awful lot of bones to get from 37 to 43.

Non-Combat Pure
Non-combat pures only work on one or two skills, getting them really high. These skills usually go together, such as: Mining and Smithing, Fishing and Cooking, and Woodcutting and Firemaking. This type of pure also avoids combat. Non-combat pures usually make a good sum of money. Members may buy Party Hats, which is a good way to silence a player making fun of your low combat level. It may take a while to get enough money for even the cheapest Party Hat, but it can be well worth it. But remember, dont go near any monsters that can attack and kill you with it on! Some other good items are boaters, cavaliers, and obsidian capes.

Criticism
Because pures only work on few skills, they are weak in different aspects of the game.

RuneScape is filled with people who criticize low level accounts. Due to the nature of the pure not to get high levels in skills outside of their chosen few, pures may be subject to these criticism.

Defence pures are extremely weak to dragonfire and therefore dragonstone bolts with a crossbow - this is one of the few damage calculations that takes defence into account. Whereas a player with normal defence takes only a little damage from the special of dragonstone bolts, a "pure" with low defence is likely to be hit around 50 each time the special takes effect.

For anyone who uses a more balanced character to make and give things to their pure fighter, attention must be drawn to Rule 8 of the rules section on runescape.com.
 * Rule 8.
 * You may create more than one RuneScape account, but if you do, you may not log in more than one account at any time, and they must not interact with each other in any way. This includes 'drop trading' or any other method of item transfer.