Runescape 3 is a game that focuses highly on PVM. Unlike Old School Runescape, this game has a lot of abilities, weapons, armors, perks and different kinds of buffs that can aid you greatly in battle. However since there is so much stuff in the game, it can get confusing and overwhelming to even begin to grasp what to do and what to wear. In this 5 part series, we will go over all styles (including hybrid) to basically give you a cheat sheet to look at, so you can know which abilities and perks to use and what to wear in any given situation.
Melee Weapons & Perks
Depending on your melee stats which consist of: Attack, Defence and Strength, you will be able to equip a variety of different weapons. There are 3 different melee weapon setups you can do, you can go with a two-handed weapon, you can dual wield weapons or you can wield a weapon and a shield. Each of these options are situational or they are completely up to your preferences but usually it is a good idea to go with the one that has the highest DPS. Depending on what you use, you will also be able to utilise different abilities, that’s why high-end PVMers bring switches so they can utilise both the two-handed and the dual-wield threshold abilities.
Pick the weapon best suited for your account and bank.
Standard 2H recommendation: Noxious scythe, it has increased range and AoE, good damage and accuracy, decent special attack, not that expensive.
Standard Dual-wield recommendation: Drygore weaponry, has 3 versions for each attack style, good damage and accuracy, really cheap.
Not all the melee weapons will be listed, only the ones that are deemed important for its tier will be listed.
Two-Handed
Tier | Weapon | Cost | Notes |
74 | Necronium 2h greataxe +4 | 760K | Requires 70 Attack. |
75 | Godswords | 1M - 7.5M | Godswords have identical stats but their respective special attack separates them. Armadyl godsword is a popular one as its special attack deals up to 375% damage. |
79 | Bane 2h sword +4 | 740K | Requires 80 Attack. |
79 | Abyssal bane 2h sword | 1.1M | Has the same stats as the previous one but it additionally deals 25% more damage to abyssal demons. Also requires 80 Attack. |
80 | Terrasaur maul | 269M | Has the following passive effect: +12.5% damage boost against range-classed enemies. +10% hit chance against ranged-classed enemies. +5 affinity buff to the user on targets that have a weakness to crush.
Against ranged-classed enemies, this weapon performs about tier97 in damage. It’s accuracy can range between tier 89 and tier 92. Extremely situational weapon. |
82 | Masuta’s warspear | 1M | 2 Tile attack range Increases the size of AoE abilities |
82 | Laniakea’s spear | 11.5M | Increases the chance and the damage of weapon poison by 5%. When used with cinderbane gloves, poison damage increases by 55%. Tier 90 damage and tier 75 accuracy. 2 Tile attack range Increases the size of AoE abilities |
85 | Dragon Rider Lance | 25.9M | 2 Tile attack range Increases the size of AoE abilities Tier 80 Damage Tier 90 Accuracy |
90 | Elder rune 2h sword +5 | 2.5M | Tier 85 damage Tier 90 accuracy |
90 | Noxious scythe | 321M | 2 Tile attack range Increases the size of AoE abilities Has a special attack that summons a mirror back spider, this spider lowers and reflects damage by 50% for 10 seconds. |
90 | Spear of annihilation | 65M | - |
92 | Masterwork spear of annihilation | 256M | Duration of melee damage over time abilities increase by 50% |
92 | Zaros godsword | 242M | Has a special attack that creates a blackhole in a 7x7 tile for 21 seconds.Grants 25% melee damage and damages the current target. |
95 | Ek-ZekKil | 1.3B | Berserker necklace provides a 5% damage bonus to this weapon. Special attack: Igneous Cleave Cleave your target for 62%-190% initial ability damage, before inflicting a bleed of 6 hits. The base number of bleed hits can be increased to 9 if the special attack is stored in an essence of finality amulet and used with a Masterwork spear of annihilation. The first hit of the bleed deals 30%-105% ability damage Each subsequent hit deals a multiplicative 5% increased damage compared to the previous one. If the target that is bleeding with this gets another bleed or burn ability applied to it, an additional Igneous Cleave is added. Up to 5 additional bleed hits can be inflicted this way.
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Dual Wield
Main Hand
Tier | Weapon | Cost | Notes |
74 | Necronium battleaxe +4 | 500K | Requires level 70 attack. |
75 | Abyssal vine whip | 194K | - |
79 | Bane longsword +4 | 417K | Require level 80 Attack. |
79 | Abyssal bane longsword | 700K | Same stats as the one above. Requires level 80 attack. Deals an additional 25% damage to abyssal demons. |
85 | Blade of Nymora | 2.3M | Tier 80 damage Tier 90 accuracy |
85 | Ripper claw | 784K | When used with its off-hand variant, it deals more damage the further the target’s health is below 50%. |
85 | Dark ice Shard | 21M | Tier 88 damage Tier 85 Accuracy Hurricane and Destroy no longer share a cooldown, if used with Dark sliver of leng or Dark ice sliver. |
90 | Drygore longsword/mace/rapier | 12M-17M | Mace uses crush, rapier stab and longsword slash. Mace has the fastest attack speed. Mace also has a+9 prayer bonus. |
92 | Khopesh of Tumeken | 51M | Not recommended, since the weapon has no special ability or passive. |
92 | Abyssal scourge | 114M | On any damaging attack 100% chance to apply a stack of parasites to deal 5 times 18-31 bleed damage over 9 seconds. Each additional activation within this timeframe adds additional stacks, caps at 937 to 1562 damage per hit. At max stacks, deals about 40K damage per minute. If an enemy dies with this effect, 50% of the parasites will spread to all nearby enemies. |
95 | Dark shard of leng | 1.1B | Hurricane and Destroy no longer share a cooldown, if used with Dark sliver of leng or Dark ice sliver. Special attack: |
Off Hand
Tier | Weapon | Cost | Notes |
74 | Necronium off hand battleaxe +4 | 570K | Requires level 70 attack. |
79 | Bane off hand longsword +4 | 427K | Require level 80 Attack. |
79 | Abyssal bane off hand longsword | 774K | Same stats as the one above. Requires level 80 attack. Deals an additional 25% damage to abyssal demons. |
85 | Off-hand ripper claw | 593K | When used with its off-hand variant, it deals more damage the further the target’s health is below 50%. |
85 | Dark ice sliver | 22M | Tier 88 damage Tier 85 Accuracy Allows the use of Hurricane when dual-wielding. Hurricane and Destroy no longer share a cooldown, if used with Dark shard of leng or Dark ice shard. |
90 | Off-hand drygore longsword/mace/rapier | 12M-15M | - |
92 | Khopesh of Elidinis | 105M | Not recommended, since the weapon has no special ability or passive. |
95 | Dark sliver of leng | 1.1B | Hurricane and Destroy no longer share a cooldown, if used with Dark shard of leng or dark ice shard. |
Shields
Tier | Shield | Cost | Notes |
70 | Blessed spirit shield | 1.1M | 297 Defence +3 Prayer bonus Requires 70 Defence and 60 Prayer. Requires completion of Summer’s End. |
70 | Dragonfire shield | 1.2M | 297 Defence Provides protection from dragonfire. |
75 | Divine spirit shield | 11M | Absorbs 30% of incoming damage in exchange for draining 6% of the original hit in prayer points. Requires completion of Summer’s End. Requires level 75 Prayer. Strongest non-degrading shield. |
80 | Chaotic kiteshield | 200K Dungeoneering tokens | 384 Defence, 385 Hitpoints Degrades Requires level 80 Dungeoneering |
80 | Attuned crystal shield | 1K Harmonic dust with attuned crystal armour seed | 384 Defence, 385 Hitpoints Requires 90 Smithing and the completion of Plague’s End. Requires level 50 Agility. Degrades |
80 | Linza’s shield | 1.8M | 384 Defence, 385 Hitpoints Degrades |
90 | Malevolent kiteshield | 14M | 491 Defence, 735 Hitpoints Degrades |
Invention Perks
Here are the perks that you need to know:
Precise increases your minimum damage by 1.5% per rank of your maximum damage.
Ruthless increases your damage by 0.5% per rank for 20 seconds whenever you kill an enemy, you can get up to 5 stacks.
Aftershock deals an additional AoE damage, for every 50K damage you deal. The damage dealt is up to 40+ ability damage per perk rank.
Eruptive increases ability damage by 0.5% per rank. You can get this by using 8 timeworn components on an ancient gizmo.
Genocidal: Deals up to 7% extra damage depending on how far you are through your Slayer task.
Early Game Perks
Main-hand: Precise 2
Off-hand: Eruptive 2
High Level Perks
End-Game Perks
Halberd (Scythe, Laniakea’s spear): Gizmo 1: Aftershock 4, Precise 2 - Gizmo 2: Eruptive 4, Ruthless 3
Getting the best in slot PvM gear in Runescape 3 costs a lot of gold, you can especially get unlucky with the Invention perks and waste millions upon millions on resources. If you want to jump straight into Runescape 3’s end game with the best possible setup consider buying gold on our website here.
Melee Armours & Perks
There are two types of armour for any given combat style in this game, one is a tank armour which focuses more on the defensive stats and the other is a power armour which has less defence but more offensive stats. You should always use power armour in any given situation as it directly increases your dps which inturn allows you to kill your enemies quicker. Unless you are doing a specific coordinated raid activity or if you are unsure about whether or not you can kill a boss, you should always use power armors.
The recommended armour sets goes like this:
Bandos → Anima core of Zaros → Trimmed masterwork → Vestments of Havoc
Tier | Armour set | Cost | Notes |
70 | Bandos | 1.8M | Beginner power armour, very cheap. Does not degrade. |
80 | Torva | 208M | Requires 80 Constitution. Has prayer and life points bonuses compared to Anima core of Zaros armour. |
80 | Anima core of Zaros | 81M | Recommended alternative to Torva. |
85 | Jaws of the abyss | 343K | This is only a helmet. Has a passive effect that provides the player with 2% additional adrenaline, for each damaging basic ability per bleed damage over time on the target. |
90 | Malevolent | 91M | Costs a lot to repair. Masterwork is recommended over this due to being cheaper. |
90 | Masterwork | 60M | - |
92 | Trimmed masterwork | 327M | When wearing 3, 4, and 5 pieces of the set:
Damage incoming towards the player is lessened by 30, 40, and 50%, respectively. Any remaining damage is inflicted as a bleed, delivering 20% of the retained damage in five consecutive hits every 2 ticks until the retained damage is exhausted.
Restoration requires an equivalent piece of untrimmed masterwork armour (along with divine charges if augmented). Does not degrade in elite dungeons. Can be made into custom fit armor, this makes the equipment untradable, it is irreversible, this reduces the cost of maintenance by half. Custom fit armor does not degrade while slaying Slayer creatures or Soul Reaper tasks. |
92 | Vestments of havoc | 441M | Depending on how many pieces of the set you wear, you unlock the following bonuses: With two pieces, regenerate 15% adrenaline over 18 seconds, after casting an ultimate ability. If you manage to cast another ultimate ability while this effect is still active, you will regenerate 20% instead, this happens instantly and the effect will end. This effect only triggers with Attack or Strength abilities. With 3 pieces, your berserk abilities duration is extended by six seconds. With 4 pieces, Your maximum adrenaline is increased by 20%.
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Invention Perks
Perks that you need to know:
Crackling: Deal 50% of your ability damage to a creature per rank. 60 second cooldown.
Biting: Adds 2% critical strike chance to your weapon per rank.
Invigorating: Increases adrenaline gainage with auto-attacks.
Enhanced Devoted: Grants a chance to make protection prayers reduce the damage to 1.
Relentless: Grants a chance to not use adrenaline when using, threshold, ultimate and special attack abilities.
Devoted: Grants a chance to trigger the effects of devotion.
Impatient: 9% chance per rank to add 3% extra adrenaline when using basic abilities.
Mobile: Reduces the cooldowns of Dive, Bladed Dive, Barge, Dreater Barge, Escape and Surge.
Turtling: Reduces the duration and cooldown of barricade by 10% per rank.
Basic Perks
End Game Perks
Capes
Cape | Style Bonus | Notes |
Obsidian cape | 13.4 Hybrid | Strongest tradable range and magic cape. |
Cape of legends | 17.3 Hybrid | Requires Legends’ Quest |
Spirit cape | 17.3 Hybrid | Requires 50 Defence, Summoning, Dungeoneering. Costs 45K Dungeoneering tokens. Reduces the familiar’s special moves cost by 20%. |
Skill Cape | 21.6 Hybrid | Requires level 99 in a skill. Each cape has a different unique passive and the player should decide which one to use. |
Fire cape | 26.3 Strength | Reward for beating Fight caves. |
Max cape | 31.5 Hybrid | Requires level 99 in all skills. Can be imbued with 3 skill cape perks. |
Tokhaar-Kal-Ket | 33.5 Strength | Reward for beating the Fight Kiln with mostly melee damage. |
Igneous Kal-Ket | 43 Strength | Requires 90 crafting to make. The crafting materials can be obtained only from beating TzKal-Zuk. Reduces adrenaline cost of Overpower to 60%. Overpower hits twice. |
Igneous Kal-Zuk | 43 Hybrid | Requires 90 Crafting. Requires completing a flawless hard mode run against Zuk. Grants effect of its constituent capes. |
Pocket Slot
Pocket Item | Style Bonus | Cost | Hourly Cost | Notes |
Scrimshaw of vampyrism | None | 824,767 | 274,922 | Requires 80 Attack level to wield, this item grants the user a healing effect equivalent to 5% of the melee damage dealt. Its effects persist for a duration of 3 hours and become untradeable once activated. Superior versions of this item exists but they are untradable. |
Scrimshaw of attack | None | 873,501 | 291,167 | Requires 85 Attack level to use. When used the item becomes untradable and increases the players melee accuracy by 2% for 3 hours. |
Holy wrench | None | N/A | N/A | Requires the completion of the quest “Rum Deal”. Increases the number of Prayer points restored by potions. |
Adrenaline urn | None | N/A | N/A | Obtained as a drop from Kal'gerion demons, this item accumulates charges when the player's adrenaline surpasses 100%. Upon exiting combat, these charges are utilized from the urn instead of draining the player's adrenaline. Notably, this functionality operates from both the pocket slot and the inventory. |
Blood essence | None | 312,109 - 376,648 | Varies | Requires the completion of the quest River of Blood. Must be charged with congealed blood. |
God book | 5 | 57,907 - 392,051 | 16,885 - 117,096 | Requires level 30 Prayer and completion of Horror from the deep. Created by filling a damaged book with corresponding god pages. When charged with pages, it grants special effects. |
Illuminated god book | 7 | 57,907 - 392,051 | 16,885 - 117,096 | Upgraded variant of the god book, requires, One Piercing Note. |
Erethdor's grimoire | 7 | 217,539,374 | 6,239,072 | When charged with torn grimoire pages, it grants 12% critical hit chance and increases the critical hit cap to 15K. |
Scripture | 8 | 23,059,797 - 320,732,953 | 13,032 - 999,100 | Has different versions, “Ful” being the best one. Each version has a different power when activated. |
Necklaces
Necklaces | Style Bonus | Cost | Hourly Cost | Notes |
Saradomin’s Whisper | 36.8 Strength | 228K | - | |
Reaper Necklace | 36.8 Hybrid | 57M | 37K | After every effective strike, you gain a bonus of 0.1% to your chance of hitting, capped at a maximum of 3%. This bonus persists for up to 54 seconds following your most recent strike. Once equipped, the item becomes untradable. It wears down over time and requires onyxes for recharging. It can be upgraded by a ornament kit, this increases the style bonus by 2.
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Brawler’s knockout necklace | 44.1 Strength | - | - | Requires 80 Attack and 70 Dungeoneering. Made by combining a Saradomin’s whisper and a chaotic remnant. Costs 100K Dungeoneering tokens Can be combined with blood necklace shard.
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Amulet of Souls | 46.3 Hybrid | 56M | 37K | Has a 50% chance to increase soul split heals for 25-50%. Protection prayers block 10% more damage. Repairs with onyxes. Can be further upgraded with an ornament kit, this increases the style bonuses by 2.
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Essence of Finality amulet | 56 Hybrid | 258M | 512K | Has the effects of amulet of souls and reaper necklace. After sacrificing your weapon, you can special attack whilst using any weapon of the same style. Becomes permanently untradable. Must be repaired with alchemical hydrix dust. Can be upgraded with the essence of finality ornament kit. This increases the bonuses by 3.
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Rings
Rings | Style Bonus | Cost | Hourly Cost | Notes |
Ring of vigour | 12 Hybrid | 50K Dungeoneering token | - | Requires level 62 Attack and Dungeoneering. When an ultimate ability or a special attack is used, it consumes 90% of the adrenaline instead of 100%.
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Luck of the Dwarves | 17.3 Hybrid | 78M | - | |
Asylum Surgeon Ring | 21 Hybrid | - | - | Requires level 85 Defence. Requires the completion of the Broken Home quest and all 3 replay challenges. Grants 10% chance to prevent adrenaline loss when using threshold abilities and 40% chance to save 25% of a special attack’s cost. Can be upgraded with 10k Teci, this increases the bonuses by 2.4.
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Ring of Death | 25.2 Hybrid | 56M | 37K | Has a 50% chance to restore 5% adrenaline when a target is killed. Instead of dying, you’re teleported to your spawn with all your items when you die. Costs 15% charge. Can be recharged with onyxes. Can be upgraded to with 15K Teci, Increases its style bonuses by 2.5.
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Reaver’s ring | 27.7 Hybrid | 149M | - | Created by combining 10 Berserk rings and a Heart of the berserker. Requires level 70 Crafting. Has a 5% critical hit chance and -5% accuracy.
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Champion's ring | 30.4 Strength | 34M | - | Created by combining 10 Warrior rings and a Heart of the warrior. Requires level 70 Crafting. Provides 3% critical hit chance against bleeding targets.
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Aura Slot
Aura Slot | Cost | Tiers | Duration | Cooldown | Notes |
Vampyrism aura | 5k Marks of War | 2 | 1 Hour | 3 Hours | Heal for 5% of the damage you deal. |
Dark magic aura | 12.5K Marks of War | 3 | 1 Hour | 3 Hours | Has a chance to inflict corrupting damage. |
Berserker aura | 25K Marks of War | 3 | 30 minutes | 5 Hours | Increases your Attack and Strength, but at the cost of your defence. |
Mahjarrat aura | 1K Reaper points or 3 Bonds | 5 | 1 Hour | 23 Hours | Increases damage dealt by 5%. |
Penance Aura | 23K Loyalty points | 2 | 1 Hour | 3 Hours | Gain prayer points equal to 5% of the damage you receive. |
Inspiration aura | 23K Loyalty points | 2 | 1 Hour | 3 Hours | Your attacks that hit generates an additional 0.5% adrenaline. |
Brawler aura | 4250-107K loyalty points | 1-4 | 1 Hour | 3 hours | Melee accuracy is increased by 3-10%. |
Action Bar
Action bar is arguably the most important part of your kit. The way you use your abilities greatly increases your damage output. An unorganised ability bar will cost you tons of missed DPS. Some of the abilities will require quests or expensive codexes.
Two-Handed Melee
Basic
No greater abilities or blood tendrils.
Intermediate
Blood tendrils unlocked.
End Game
No restrictions.
With Masterwork Spear of Annihilation
Dual-Wielded melee
Basic
No greater abilities or blood tendrils.
Intermediate
No greater abilites. Blood tendrils unlocked.
End Game
With greater fury and Blood Tendrils.
With Dark shard and Sliver, Ring of Vigour, Impatient
Familiars
Storage
Spirit terrorbird - 52 Summoning, 12 storage slots.
War tortoise - 67 Summoning, 18 storage slots.
Pack yak - 96 Summoning, special move sends items to your bank, has 30 storage slots.
Pack mammoth - 99 Summoning, has 32 storage slots. It’s special move will heal you using the food stored in his storage.
Damage Enhancer
Blood/Shadow/Smoke/Ice nihil - 87 Summoning
Blood reaver - 73 Summoning, deals damage to the enemy when the player character is healed.
Kal’gerion demon - 90 Summoning, 1% forced critical strike chance.
Ripper Demon - 96 Summoning, Increases your damage by 0-5% depending on your target's lost health. Special move deals 200%-320% of ripper demons max hit to the target. This familiar is the strongest in game even without using the special move scrolls.
Tank
Bunyip - 68 Summoning, passively heals you.
Unicorn stallion - 88 Summoning, special move heals you.
Hellhound - 45 Summoning, tanks 20% of any damage dealt to the player.
Archaeology Relics
Basic
Requires level 70 Archeology.
Shadow’s Grace: Cooldown of Surge, Escape, Bladed Dive and Barge is reduced by 50% but they no longer generate adrenaline.
Berserker’s Fury: Your damage increases up to 5.5% the lower your life points are.
Font of life: Increases maximum health by 500.
Intermediate
Requires level 97 Archegology.
Advanced
Requires level 120 Archeology.
Best combination is Conservation of energy, Berserker’s fury and Font of life.
Best In Slot Melee Gear
Vestments of havoc
Ek-ZekKil
Essence of finality (or)
Reaver’s ring
Igneous Kal-Zuk
Scripture
Brawler aura
The total cost of this, including the perks and abilities comes out to be around 4B. If you just want to get to the end game and enjoy Runescape 3 to its fullest, consider buying gold on our website, with cheap rates!
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