Skill mastery

See Hiscores for the relative total rankings of the different skills.

Number of accounts at level 99 or more
212,258	240,048	132,412
236,179	101,003	128,850
222,842	160,742	150,857
209,828	115,999	204,671
165,071	117,362	199,750
235,348	173,715	180,555
105,350	148,441	102,949
101,331	102,010	144,434
119,157	96,752	All skills: 10,000
As of 04 February 2023

A player performing the Cape of Accomplishment emote from the Runecrafting cape for level 99 Runecrafting.

Skill mastery is achieved by reaching level 99 in any skill. Level 99 is achieved by reaching 13,034,431 experience points in a skill. Although 99 is the level required for skill mastery, Dungeoneering has a maximum level of 120, achieved at 104,273,167 experience points. The current maximum total level is 2,595 (level 99 in all skills and level 120 in Dungeoneering). When level 99 is reached in any skill, there is a different fireworks animation that can be heard by everyone nearby.

Pay-to-play players reaching level 99 in a skill are entitled to wear a Cape of Accomplishment for that particular skill. This cape is bought from a specific skill master for 99,000 coins. When operated, the player performs a unique emote and has their level in the skill boosted to 100 for a short time. Furthermore, if the player reaches Level 99 in more than one skill, the player's skill cape becomes trimmed and any more skill capes the player obtains will also become trimmed along with the newly received cape, in addition the trimmed cape adds a small prayer bonus.

File:Phantom Level 100.png

The skills interface prior to the Skill Interface update.

Before the Skill interface update, players with a level 99 skill could view the experience needed to earn level 100.

In RuneScape Classic, the maximum total level was 1,782. With the addition of Runecrafting (1,881), Slayer (1,980), Farming (2,079), Construction (2,178), Hunter (2,277), Summoning (2,376), Dungeoneering (2,496) and the newest skill to be released, Divination, the maximum total level is now 2,595.

Level 99 Jingle

Sound acquired at any level 99 skill.

Level 99 Parties

A Level 99 party is a party held by a player to celebrate his/her achievement in getting a level 99 in a skill. This party can happen anywhere; many players have them at their POH, and some choose to be near the skill master so they can get their cape quicker. There are mixed views on these parties, which also vary for different skills. Some players view "easy" 99s unworthy of parties, but this varies greatly.

File:99levelup.gif

A player gaining level 99 in a skill (click to play).

Celebrating

Players tend to invite friends to follow them as they level up from 98 to 99. After levelling, they usually head to the master of that skillcape (For example Wilfred near Falador who sells woodcutting capes or Hickton in Catherby who sells Fletching capes). The player will then buy the cape (value of 99,000) of the 99 skill and equip it. After buying it, it is unofficial custom for players to do the first skillcape emote with that cape, often with a group.

Alternatively, some players may get 99 in a skill (without any friends) and later go with a group of friends to purchase the skillcape.

Players may take videos or get a friend to take a video of their journey to 99 and of them getting their cape. These videos are some of the most common RuneScape videos shown on sites such as YouTube. These videos are made to congratulate, or in memory of another user, or the owner himself and to commemorate his efforts in receiving 99 in the particular skill he has achieved.

Partying

The player may then host a house party in their house or a friend's. The group of players will usually just have fun and relax. Alternatively, players may head to the Party Room and have a drop party. They may light origami balloons, use toy mice, or do anything else to celebrate. Players may also host normal drop parties (which involves the player dropping the items manually).

Announcements

Main article: Server Wide Announcements

When a player achieves level 99 in a skill, a message will appear in orange text to the other players on the same server.

Achieving 120 Dungeoneering, reaching 99 in every skill, or earning the right to wear the Completionist cape or its trimmed version will be announced on all of RuneScape's servers in red text. A similar message, again in red text, was displayed when the first player reached 99 in Divination (on 28 Aug 2013) reading: "Congratulations to ImChoice for being the first to reach 99 Divination!"

When a player achieves something and their private chat is set at least on 'friends', it will be announced in green text to all logged-in players on their friends list regardless of whether they are on the server.

However, one may only see other players' achievements if their game filter is set to 'on' and a player's achievement will only be broadcast to everyone if their private chat is set to "on".

Broadcasts may be disabled by selecting the 'filter' option under game chat.

First Players to Achieve Level 99 and Level 120

When level 99 stats first started appearing, players with such stats were often well known around the RuneScape community since they were one of the few to have a level 99 stat.

Below is a chronological list of the first players to reach level 99 and level 120 in their respective skill

The first player to reach level 99 in any skill and in Woodcutting.

The first player to reach level 99 in Smithing.

The first player to reach level 99 in all melee stats.

The first player to reach level 99 in Crafting.

Achievement	Date Achieved	Player
99 Woodcutting	28 August 2001	Everdred
99 Magic	21 October 2001	Bluerose13x
99 Smithing	13 December 2001	Bluerose13x
99 Cooking	8 January 2002	Tks
99 Firemaking	5 April 2002	Cowchicken 1
99 Fishing	16 May 2002	Tks
99 Attack	16 May 2002	Zonghui 2
99 Strength	7 June 2002	Ladykilljoy 2
99 Constitution	7 June 2002	Zonghui
99 Defence	7 June 2002	Zonghui 2
99 Thieving	3 August 2002	Swedemike
99 Mining	11 October 2002	Joe Bill64
99 Ranged	17 November 2002	Snake Slava 3
99 Agility	23 March 2003	Thehate
99 Crafting	30 March 2003	Ltangel
99 Fletching	9 April 2003	Chilipeppers
99 Herblore	9 June 2003	Halw Gnun
99 Prayer	17 May 2004	Lilyuffie88
99 Runecrafting	15 September 2004	Kale Stille
99 Slayer	9 July 2005	Zezima
99 Farming	27 September 2005	0xpx0
99 Construction	6 June 2006	Cursed You 4
99 Hunter	2 December 2006	Darkforest67
99 Summoning	8 February 2008	Nercychlidae
99 Dungeoneering	7 May 2010	Skiller 703
120 Dungeoneering	22 August 2010	Telmomarques
99 Divination	29 August 2013	Im Choice

First Players to Max Skill Totals

Achievement (Members)	Date Achieved	Player
1980 Overall	9 July 2005	Zezima
2079 Overall	4 October 2005	Zezima
2178 Overall	11 June 2006	N0valyfe
2277 Overall	8 December 2006	Thehate
2376 Overall	12 February 2008	Kingduffy
2475 Overall	7 May 2010	Skiller 703
2496 Overall	22 August 2010	Telmomarques
2595 Overall	29 August 2013	Im Choice

Achievement (Free-to-Play)	Date Achieved	Player
1494 Overall	28 January 2008	Syzygy
1593 Overall	11 June 2010	S Diamant Y
1614 Overall	9 October 2010	El Popo1

Notes:

1. ^ Cowchicken and Dragoon 787 reached level 99 Firemaking on the same day, but it is commonly accepted that Cowchicken reached it earlier.

2. ^ Attack, Strength and Defence did not appear on the highscores until 2004, making it very difficult to track who achieved 99 in these skills.

3. ^ Snake Slava was banned for macro use after Jagex mistook his English-Russian translator for cheating software. To prove that he did not cheat, while on vacation, he brought his computer to the Jagex headquarters. To prove that he could achieve it again, he trained his second character Snake Slavik to 99 Ranged as well before anyone else could do so.

4. ^ Cursed You was given a manual permanent ban later, removing his account from the hiscores.

Rarity of level 99s

Strength is currently the most common 99 skill in the game, followed by Magic, Cooking and Constitution. Divination, Construction, Agility and Hunter are the rarest. Below is a list of the order of the skills ranked by on the number of players having 99 in it. Most people consider Cooking and Fletching to be the easiest 99s to achieve. It should be noted however, that although they are considered the easiest by many people, they are not necessarily the fastest. For example, it is possible to earn several hundred thousand Construction experience per hour, but only by using extremely expensive methods. Opinions on skills vary greatly, so it comes down to the individual to decide for themselves which they prefer and dislike.

NOTE: The skills' difficulty, attention, speed and profit rating is based upon a typical player achieving 99 using the quickest methods. Combat skills (with the obvious exception of Prayer and Summoning) are potentially by far the most profitable to train through boss hunting and camping monsters such as frost dragons for their drops, although the majority of players usually train these skills using low-profit methods such as completing Slayer assignments.

• Difficulty: The amount of planning required to train the skill and the risks involved.
• Attention: The number of clicks it takes per minute to train the skill.
• Speed: The experience rate per hour.
• Profit: The amount of money earned from training the skill
• Cost: The amount of money needed to train the skill

Rank	Skill	Difficulty	Attention	Speed	Profit	Cost	Frequency	Reason
1	Strength	2*****	2*****	4*****	3*****	1*****	236,179	Strength is popular among many pures, who tend to have low Defence and very high Strength. Quick, easy and somewhat inexpensive (or profitable) to train, depending on the monsters chosen to fight. Strength is decreasing in popularity due to the Evolution of Combat, because Strength doesn't impact as much damage as it previously did. Weapons impact damage more.
3	Magic	1*****	1*****	5*****	3*****	3*****	235,348	Before the evolution of combat magic was possibly the most difficult combat skill to master. It was not particularly hard, but it requires a lot of time and attention and can be very expensive if trained using quick methods. Many prefer to high alch their way to 99. Use of String Jewellery GREATLY reduces the attention paid, since one click performs all the casts required to string the amulets in the player's inventory. Since the release of the evolution of combat magic became very easy and fast to train as magic xp is now based on the enemy killed not the spell casted or damage dealt. It is also approaching Strength in skill frequency as it is relatively easy and very useful. Most players prefer to train magic in areas with many agressive targets such as dagganoths using blood barrage/burst as this is a very fast method of training which requires little effort.
2	Cooking	1*****	2*****	5*****	3*****	2*****	204,671	Cooking is one of the fastest and easiest 99s to achieve. It requires little attention and is somewhat inexpensive (especially in conjunction with fishing training). As such, it is one of the most common 99s.
4	Constitution	3*****	2*****	2*****	2*****	1*****	240,048	99 Constitution comes passively with other high combat skills. Many players will achieve 99 in some other combat skill before they achieve 99 Constitution, making the untrimmed skillcape extremely rare.
5	Attack	3*****	2*****	3*****	2*****	1*****	212,258	Attack is also popular among pures, though pures and lower levels tend to level Strength first. Like strength and defence, it is cheap and easy to train.
6	Defence	3*****	2*****	3*****	2*****	2*****	222,842	Even though Defence is ignored by pures, it is quite common among tankers and players seeking maxed melee stats. Like Attack and Strength, depending on the methods, it can be somewhat inexpensive to train, requiring only some attention. Defence is becoming more popular with the release of the EOC, as Mages and Rangers use it and it's much more useful for all combat classes, including Melee.
7	Woodcutting	2*****	2*****	2*****	5*****	1*****	180,555	Woodcutting is a fairly easy 99 to achieve. It can be done quickly with no profit or slowly, earning quite a decent amount of money. It also requires little money to train. Not much attention is required. With the update of ivy, Woodcutting became much easier.
8	Fletching	2*****	2*****	4*****	3*****	1*****	173,715	Fletching is one of the easiest and quickest 99s to achieve. It doesn't require much attention and it's rather cheap (depending on the methods used), or even profitable, compared to other skills.
9	Firemaking	1*****	2*****	4*****	1*****	3*****	199,750	Firemaking is a very fast 99 to achieve. This skill can cost nothing or quite a lot, depending on how you choose to acquire level 99. ( It requires little attention after bonfire update.)
10	Ranged	3*****	3*****	3*****	2*****	2*****	209,828	Ranged used to be a fast skill with the usage of Red chinchompas. With the launch of the Evolution of Combat, this has changed dramatically since the experience is no longer given at each hit, but once the opponent is defeated. This also caused a huge drop in chinchompas' price. Nowadays, it's considered to be a skill trained at a slow-medium speed.
11	Prayer	4*****	3*****	4*****	1*****	5*****	165,071	Prayer is one of the fastest 99s to achieve. However, it is extremely expensive, especially if faster methods are used. It is relatively common however as it is very useful in combat.
12	Fishing	2*****	1*****	1*****	3*****	2*****	150,857	Though Fishing is not particularly fast, little attention is required, and it can be quite profitable. Although fast experience methods require to spend some money on bait at the beginning, the later training requires little money to max up the skill. A player can gain around 45-65 k/h, using the better methods, little attention is desirable.
13	Herblore	3*****	2*****	5*****	1*****	5*****	160,742	Herblore is a fairly fast 99 to achieve. It doesn't require much attention, but depending on the methods used, it may be extremely expensive. However it is quite common for its cost due to the very useful rewards it yields, such as extremes and overloads. With the release of Wilderness Warbands the frequency of this skill increased, as players had access to free daily xp.
14	Dungeoneering	4*****	5*****	4*****	1*****	0*****	119,157 (99+) 7512 (120)	Dungeoneering is not a difficult skill to attain mastery in. Like some other skills, it requires constant attention, as it involves all skills, boss fights and puzzles. It also requires a lot of planning and teamwork for fast training. In return, proper training methods will give very fast experience rates per hour. The skill does not have that much use outside Daemonheim, apart from a cape and several reward items as well as having access to resource dungeons. There is no direct cost associated with conventional training for this skill, but some resort to buying dungeon floors from various dungeoneering leech clans with a variety of prices. Some elite groups use Overload or Prayer Renewal doses for their lasting effect.
15	Runecrafting	3*****	2*****	3*****	2*****	0*****	105,350	Runecrafting is a moderately paced skill to train. In the Runespan, it's possible to obtain reasonably fast experience per hour without paying much attention (~100k+ /h at level 99), but at the cost of zero profit. Regular runecrafting at altars and to a less degree, the Ourania altar, affords a lucrative profit, particularly at high levels, but is very slow experience (~50-60k at 99)
16	Summoning	4*****	3*****	1*****	1*****	4*****	144,434	Summoning is one of the fastest 99s to achieve once all the charms are gathered. The gathering of said charms, though, is an impressive task that takes a vast amount of time. In addition, the other ingredients for the pouches are often quite expensive due to demand. (Faster methods will speed up the xp rate significantly, but at a greater cost.)
17	Crafting	2*****	3*****	3*****	2*****	4*****	117,362	Crafting can be a fairly fast 99 to achieve for those with the wealth to do so. It will be much slower without said wealth. Can be trained with little attention.
18	Slayer	3*****	3*****	1*****	2*****	2*****	148,441	Slayer is levelled alongside combat. Therefore, players will frequently achieve 99 in combat skills while reaching 99 Slayer. It is often achieved simply for the cape, but can be relatively profitable. Note that Slayer is one of the slowest skills in which to reach 99. In addition, it requires a lot of planning and having to buy supplies.
19	Thieving	3*****	5*****	4*****	3*****	0*****	115,999	Thieving is one of the fastest 99s to achieve with many players oblivious to its quickest methods. It does however require constant attention. The amount of planning needed depends on the level and method used. It can cost some money to spend on food required to heal after failing the skill.
20	Smithing	2*****	2*****	3*****	2*****	5*****	128,850	Smithing can be a fast 99 to achieve. It requires some attention and is generally expensive, depending on the method used.
21	Mining	3*****	2*****	3*****	3*****	1*****	132,412	Mining is a tedious 99 to achieve. It starts out slow, but when players are able to mine in the Living Rock Caverns it becomes a little quicker, and much less attention is required, and players achieving 99 can make decent profit. (around 150k+ /h, at level 99 from concentrated gold depending on prices.) Lava Flow Mine has made training mining a lot less attention-intensive, but is slower than concentrated gold and has little to no profit.
22	Farming	3*****	1*****	2*****	5*****	5*****	102,949	Farming is a slow and tedious 99 to achieve. It can be trained passively as plants can go unattended for long periods of time; however, depending upon how you train it, you will either gain or lose a lot of money. The skill is rather difficult to train due to optimal route planning. With the release of Wilderness Warbands, this skill increased in frequency as large amounts of free daily xp became available.
23	Hunter	3*****	5*****	5*****	5*****	0*****	102,010	Hunter is a tedious 99 to achieve. Although it may seem slow at first, at higher levels it becomes quicker. Constant attention is required, but it is a popular skill for money.
24	Agility	4*****	5*****	1*****	1*****	1*****	101,003	Agility goes at a slow-medium pace. Constant attention is required. Although it does not yield any profit, Agility is one of the few non-combat skills for which there is a benefit gained from each level. However, it may require some money for food and potions. (~65k+ /h, at level 93+ using barbarian adv course.) At higher levels player choose to use the penance horn as it can offer up to 700k bonus xp when fully charged.
25	Construction	3*****	5*****	5*****	1*****	5*****	101,331	Construction is currently one of the fastest skills to train as it is possible to get 99 in less than a week. However, it is without a doubt one of the more expensive skills at higher levels, and most players would find acquiring this sort of money much more of a challenge than training the skill itself. For example, leveling from 74-99 alone can cost around 200,000,000 coins or more (with the quick methods). Keep in mind that acquiring sacred clay hammers from Stealing Creation can reduce the cost of training this skill by as much as half the amount of cash needed. With the release of Wilderness Warbands and god statues offering free daily and monthly construction experience the rate of increase of skill frequency has increased substantially.
26	Divination	2*****	2*****	1*****	4*****	2*****	96,752	Divination is the brand new skill which also makes it the rarest level 99. It is also a very slow skill and if trained in a certain way, can be very expensive. It can be very profitable or very useful at the same time. Even though it's not an AFKable skill, it doesn't require too much attention in comparison with some skills.

See also

• Milestones
• 200 million experience
• Cape of Accomplishment
• Skill cape Emotes
• Hiscores
• Hiscore Table
• True skill mastery

References

• RuneScape Hiscores