What to level first

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There is no right or wrong way to progress in the game, and you will rarely, if ever, be punished for experimenting. Melvor Idle is about the journey not the destination. This guide gives one method for how to start your Melvor Idle journey. The goal is to give players a helping hand in the early stages of the game. It is not a complete walkthrough, nor optimal for all play styles.

Why not to use this guide?

This guide is intended for Standard and Hardcore Game Modes:

Before you start

In general:

  • You should expect some parts of these guide to take many days and weeks to complete, so feel free to deviate from the guide at any time.
  • Melvor Idle has true offline progression, when the game is opened after being turned off, it will automatically calculate the difference in time and reward all progress made in the time spent offline up to 24 hours.
    • If you find the 24 hour timespan too limiting, it can be extended with the "Unlimited Offline" Mod. Longer periods of inactivity may lead to long load times.
    • Mods to any game always come with inherent risk, use your own discretion before downloading mods and keep regular backups.

Skills That Buff Other Skills

These skills are mostly centered around "if you invest in this skill, other skills will get stronger". Some of these skills also provide some direction about what order to work on other skills, because the bonuses that work on other skills unlock in a specific order. For the sake of simplicity, this section only discusses non-combat bonuses. See the full skill pages for how they provide buffs for combat skills.

A far more comprehensive list of what skills do can be found in the Beginners Guide.

If you wish to see how Skills effect other Skills please expand the column below.

Skill Description Order of unlocks for other skills
Astrology This is the most straightforward Skill that buffs other skills. Study constellations to unlock "stars", then purchase permanent bonuses with Stardust. * Farming
* Woodcutting
* Smithing
* Firemaking
* Fishing
* Mining
* Cooking
* Cartography
* Archaeology
* Fletching
* Runecrafting
* Agility
* Thieving
* Crafting
* Herblore
* Summoning
* Astrology
Summoning Create Summoning familiars that provide a bonus to the corresponding skill, using a combination of materials that use ingredients from the skill and materials bought for GP. Much stronger bonuses utilizing synergies are unlocked as a reward for heavy usage of multiple familiars. * Woodcutting
* Mining
* Fishing
* Cooking
* Runecrafting
* Thieving
* Crafting
* Smithing
* Herblore
* Firemaking
* Agility
* Astrology
* Fletching
* Summoning
Firemaking Firemaking provides XP bonuses for all skills: Skill XP in the form of Firemaking Skillcape, and Mastery XP from the pool checkpoint and achieving 99 item mastery. It's also required to unlock better cooking fires. * Cooking
Herblore Most skills have at least one potion that provides a bonus. Potions provide passive effects while active, and consume one "charge" for each action performed in the relevant skill. * Firemaking - Controlled Heat Potion
* Astrology - Secret Stardust Potion
* Mining - Perfect Swing Potion
* Agility - Performance Enhancing Potion
* Runecrafting - Elemental Potion
Agility Build obstacles that provide bonuses to specific skills. The higher your skill level, the more obstacles you can build, at higher tiers. These obstacles can be expensive in both GP and items, but they also provide some of the strongest bonuses in the game. There is no single "best" agility course. Agility has bonuses for all skills in no particular order.

Raw Material Gathering Skills

These skills provide items that usually are necessary for training other skills.
Herblore and Agility aren't explicitly included because the materials for these skills come from everywhere.

If you wish to look at which Skills power which other Skills, please expand the table below.

Skill Description Primary skills powered by these items
Woodcutting Chop trees. Get logs. * Firemaking
* Fletching - Bows & Javelins
* Farming - Bird Nest and Raven Nest
* Crafting - Hardwood Armor
Mining Hit rocks. Get ore. * Smithing
* Crafting - Gems
* Runecrafting - Rune Essence and Pure Essence
Fishing Catch fish. * Cooking
* Crafting - Gems
Thieving Steal all kinds of things. Each thieving target gives different stuff from all over the game. Thieving targets also provide unique items that can provide unique bonuses for many different skills. These items are used everywhere.
Farming Plant and harvest crops. Farming is passive output, you don't activate Farming. * Cooking - "Allotments" or vegetables
* Herblore - Herbs
* Woodcutting - Logs
Archaeology Go to dig sites, and find cool stuff. Most of these items don't impact other non-combat skills, but there are some exceptions. * Woodcutting
* Crafting
* Summoning

Artisan Skills

These skills provide finished items, primarily used for combat.

If you wish to look at these skills, please expand the table below.

Skill Description Primary skills powered by these items
Smithing Make bars (ingots), then turn them into metal items. * Melee weapons and armor.
Fletching - the metal components for Javelins, Arrows and Crossbows.
Crafting Make items that you wouldn't use a forge for. * Ranged armor
* Jewelry (a wide variety of uses)
* Consumables (also wide variety of uses)
Fletching Ranged weapons and ammunition. * Ranged
Runecrafting Transform Rune Essence (from Mining) into Runes and Magic equipment. * Magic
* Alt. Magic

Before Settling on Desired Gameplay

Before we get into the actual different ways to play. It is advised to get a feel for the game and how each skill works / interacts with other skills by leveling each skill to around Level 30-40. Once done, you should have a better understanding of how the game works. The core game mechanics won't really change much at higher levels, just a bit more complex interactions. The process of leveling each skill to around level 35 should take only a few hours. Switch to Astrology if in doubt about where to go next.

  1. Open the Township menu and select a worship. Aeris grants the most useful benefits of the various gods.
    • Township is trained passively and will be important later, however, completely ignore it for now.
  2. Train Astrology until at least level 40.
  3. Train Woodcutting and Summoning at the same time.
    • Summoning is a very important skill that benefits all your other skills, and it is leveled by equipping and using Summoning Familiars (tablets). It levels slowly while training other skills, and cannot really be sped up, making it an important skill to train early.
    • Train Woodcutting until you get your first mark of the Ent.
    • Sell some of your logs and use the money to buy Summoning Shard (Green) to make Ent tablets.
    • Repeat (remember to change to Oak Logs and Willow Logs as they become available) until Summoning Level 15.
  4. Next, train Fishing and Cooking (and more Summoning).
  5. Finally, train Agility.
    • This skill has bonuses for Woodcutting, Cooking, Agility, Herblore, Firemaking, Mining at low levels.
    • Switching Agility Obstacles can be quite pricy at these levels, especially before you have a good source of income. Choose a single obstacle in each tier and leave them for now, optimizing Agility itself can come later.
    • At Agility Level 20 build Pit Jump as your Tier 3 obstacle with the fish you saved from the previous step. See the next section for more options in Agility.
  6. Follow these basic outlines to level rest of the skills to Level 30. Some Artisan Skills may pose an issue as the raw materials may not be accessible yet, come back to these later.

There are several ways to earn GP in this Game. Below are some suggestions on how you can obtain them effectively. The first 2,500,000GP should go to Auto Eat, Multi-Tree, and a pair of Gem Gloves

Skill Level Method Comment
Thieving 54 / 57 / 77 At appropriate levels Thieving provides very good income, but requires a bit of investment in the form of Gloves of Silence or Thieving Gloves, as well as time spent in Thieving to obtain the Chapeau Noir, Golbin Mask, Thiever's Cape, Sneak-Ers. Enabling the "Continue Thieving on Stun" option if you have plenty of Food available
Fishing ?? Fishing is an easy and accessible method to grind out the first few millions.
Mining 0 Low Level Mining with Gem Gloves can provide passive income while mining, as well as providing raw gems for Crafting
Mining 85 With , Mining becomes a serious contender for early GP. Pure Crystal sells for 750GP each, which racks up quickly. Perfect Swing Potion multiplies how much effective HP the rock has, and helps the player mine for much longer before waiting for the rock to respawn.

With this minor preparation of our skills, we're now ready to start choosing a way to play the game, be it Skilling or Combat you should be set for both!

Ways To Play The Game

There are several ways to play the game, depending on your goals and preferred gameplay. Here are some suggested ways to play the game and a guide on how to do it.


Laid Back

This Guide is aimed at people that don't have a lot of time, or don't want to log in more than once or twice a day. If you have 10-20 minutes to play and want to do something else than is suggested here, feel more than free to do so, the majority of these things will take a long time, 10 to 30 minutes won't impact the overall progress that much.

  1. We start off with a little preparing to do some minor Combat.
  2. Level Mining to Level 50. This gives us access to Mithril Ore.
    • Save all the Ore you mine for the next step.
  3. Level Smithing to Level 57. - Has a minimal Guide here.
  4. Sell all the Crafted Smithing Items and sell all the rest of your Ores.
    • This should get you closer to 1,000,000GP.
      • Either go Fishing or mine Crystal in Mining (Requires the Atlas of Discovery Expansion) until you reach 1,000,000GP
      • Once 1,000,000GP has been obtained, buy Auto Eat from the Shop.
      • If you still have some food from leveling Fishing to Level 30, equip the food and you're ready for some Combat.
      • If you're out of Food Fish up some Shrimp and cook those in Cooking so they can be eaten.
      • To consume food, it must first be equipped through the Bank and then selected using the food drop-down menu on the Combat or Thieving page.
      • The suggested target for now is the Master Farmer. He drops Seeds which will be needed for Farming. With Auto Eat and Hitpoints Level 30 this should be completely safe as long as you don't run out of food. Killing Master Farmer will Auto Eat around 420 Shrimp per hour. If you have higher healing food than Shrimp you will be using less than 420 per hour.
  5. Plant a few of your found Seeds in Farming Farming Plots.
    • Be sure to this once every so often to passively Level Farming.
      • If you run out of Seeds that you can plant, you can always get more from the Master Farmer.
  6. Astrology is our next Skill.
  7. The first large goal is to reach Astrology Level 99, this increases Mastery and Stardust gains.
    • Start with Deedree and work your way up through the other Constellations when they unlock.
    • If they're close to Level 80 Mastery it will be worth waiting a little while then switch as soon as they reach Level 80 Mastery.
    • Once you're Astrology Level 99 buy the Astrology Skillcape from the Shop and equip it.
    • Keep training Astrology until all Constellations are at least Level 80 Mastery, this allows you to Purchase 5 of the 6 Stars.
    • If the Throne of the Herald Expansion is owned, this skill can go to Level 120.
      • In which case it's worth sticking to Astrology.
      • Haemir’s benefits aren't all that useful at this point, however it does give the most xp/h so it's only purpose is to level Astrology faster if you're not at Level 110 yet.
        • If you're already at Astrology Level 110 you can completely ignore Haemir, the rewards from this Constellation will not provide any bonuses for now.
      • Rosaniya is a very good Constellation and should be fully maxed to 99 Mastery and Purchase all the stars.
      • Ashtar is also extremely powerful, but can be skipped until you start combat. If you do combat in the times you are online, it is highly recommended you max out this Constellation to 99 Mastery too and Purchase all the stars.
  8. The next step is to make some GP
    • This is the start of the Money Making Method, for an alternative Method go here
      • It is still advised you start by following the Woodcutting, Fishing and Cooking steps first. As the other Method will take time to set up.
    • We start by Woodcutting.
    • Keep Woodcutting until you find the Ent Mark
      • Craft Ent Tablets until you're out of wood.
        • You'll need to buy some Summoning Shards from the Shop, which you should have enough GP for from selling all the stuff you got from leveling everything to Level 30.
        • You will need to craft at least 1 Tablet to be able obtain more Marks for the same Familiar.
        • Equipping the Tablet doubles your chances of getting Marks.
    • After the Ent tablets have been crafted, equip them.
    • Then continue Woodcutting until you find Ent Mark Level 2.
    • Don't Sell your Normal Logs for now. Keep 630 Normal Logs in the Bank, they will be needed later.
  9. Fishing is our next target.
    • Start by buying the Iron Fishing Rod from the Shop for 100GP.
    • Buy further Fishing Rod upgrades when they unlock at Levels 10, 20, 35, 50, 60 and 80.
    • Fish the highest experience Fish you can, there is a list of the experience/second to be referenced here. Alternatively you can installed the "ETA" Mod which will tell you exactly how much Experience per Hour you'll get on each Fish.
    • Just pick the highest one until you get to Shark then keep fishing Shark until Fishing Level 85
    • Open any Treasure Chest you get in the hopes of getting a Amulet of Fishing. Equip it as soon as you find one.
    • When a Pirates Lost Ring is found, you should also Equip it as soon as possible.
      • At Fishing Level 85 it is best to switch to Manta Ray until Fishing Level 95
      • At Fishing Level 95 it is best to switch to Whale
    • Keep Fishing until you find a Octopus Mark
      • Make a bunch of Octopus Tablets and Equip them in the other slot than where Ent is equiped
        • 2 different Familiars together offer what is called a Synergy, when the Synergy is active the arrows in between the 2 Familiars will turn Green. This means the Synergy is active, it will use 1 Skill Related Tablet per action (in this Case Octopus) and when the Synergy is Active it will use an additional Related Tablet and 1 Synergy Companion Tablet, so in short, it will use 2 Octopus and 1 Ent as soon as the Synergy is active.
          • Synergies require Summoning Marks to be a certain Level, their current Level can be viewed in the Summoning Menu. In this Case with Octopus and Ent it will require both Marks to be Level 2. As soon as you find enough Octopus Marks for another Level, the Synergy will activate.
      • Keep Fishing until your Summoning reaches Level 25 and your Octopus is Mark Level 3.
  10. Start by Cooking the Fish you caught in Fishing.
  11. The Pig SynergyIcon.png Octopus will give a 75% chance to give you a Cooked version of the Fish you're fishing.
    • Keep Fishing selling all the Raw and Cooked fish you obtain. Your goal is around 47,000,000GP to prepare for Agility
    • You can also keep Fishing for more GP to buy some Bank Slots. How many slots is up to the Player, a minimum of 100-150 would be suggested.
  12. This is also a good time to upgrade to Auto Eat - Tier II for 5,000,000GP and then Auto Eat - Tier III for 20,000,000GP. This makes your Auto Eat more effective.
  13. Visit Township and check out the Tasks some are quite easy to do and very worth your time.
    • You can buy Bar Box I, Wood Box I and Herb Box I after completing 40 Tasks and having Level 40 in the relevant skill. These boxes will help a lot while leveling Smithing, Fletching and Herblore.
    • Now that you have a way to make GP start investing in your Town. Build buildings that increase your resource generation.
      • You can't completely mess up your Town, if you don't notice in time that one of your resources is running low and you're not producing very much of it, all that it is gonna do is cost you time. Production of resources never falls to 0 so you will be able to build some buildings eventually. It just might take time.
      • Looking up a Guide for how to build your Town is not needed, almost all guides relating to that are from before the rework of Township and are no longer relevant.
  14. If Atlas of Discovery Expansion is owned Agility is next.
  15. The next Skill is Cartography
    • Visit This Wiki Page for more information on how to level it.
    • The goal here is Cartography Level 120 and Full Hex Mastery.
    • If is NOT owned, skip this step and go to step #19.
  16. Continue training Agility
  17. The final Skill covered in this Guide is Firemaking.
  18. This is where the Guide ends. Feel free to look up how to level other Skills by visiting their Guides.
    • The order in which Skills get leveled does not matter a whole lot, as the remaining Skills don't have Global Bonusses. There is however a relationship between Gathering and Artisan Skills, this can be found here.
  19. When you're active and online it is advised you do some Combat. Especially at the start Combat sessions don't last long and desired items are gotten rather quickly.
    • You can also follow the Combat Focused Guide from this point, you'll have a leg up when you start that after following this Guide, just skip the steps you've already done.
  20. Please don't forget to return to the Step you were on when you're going offline again. Offline Combat can kill you if you run out of Food.


Alternative Money Making with Atlas of Discovery

This takes a while to set up due to having to grow Herbs to level Herblore. There is a guide to leveling Herblore here.
It is however much more GP per hour than Fishing.

  1. Start by leveling Mining to Level 85.
  2. Level Herblore to Level 53.
    • Craft Perfect Swing Potion, preferably until you reach Level 90.
      • The higher Tier Potion, the better effect you're getting.
  3. Buy Mining Gloves from the Shop.
    • Keep an eye out for how many charges you have left on your gloves, they double all the Pure Crystal you get.
  4. Mine Pure Crystal for profit and sell them all.
    • This will net you approximately 4 to 39.5 Million GP per hour.
      • Ways to increase the profit per hour can be found here

Combat Focus for Max efficiency with Throne of the Herald / Atlas of Discovery

This Method aims at clearing Throne of the Herald as soon as possible for the Harold pet. This gives:

  • Max Pool Mastery Cap increased by 25%
  • 2% Global Interval reduction
  • 0.1s Attack Speed Interval reduction
  • 5% Global Mastery Gain
  • as well as many more useful things.

Doing this first has many benefits to every skill.

This will be combat focused. Level as little non-combat as possible to rush Harold for the benefits, after which skilling and attacking will be faster/easier. It's the biggest boost one can get in the entire game.

It is recommended you completely ignore Township buildings after setting Aeris as your Worship.


Before going into Combat it is recommended to Level these Non-Combat Skills:

Skill Level Reason
Astrology 60 Max out the first stars (They give Global Accuracy which applies to all Attack Styles)
in the Constellations Iridan, Terra, Vale, Syllia and Arachi. If there is not enough Stardust obtained, try to balance out where you spend it and maximize the amount of Accuracy Gained.
Runecrafting 85 For Ancient Runes & decently crafted Wizard Equipment.
Mining & Smithing 40 At 40 Mining and 40 Smithing you can mine & craft Silver Bar and Gold Bar, which are required to upgrade Melee Armour to (G), so they actually get their Damage Reduction.
Agility 70 To start with Agility Level 50 will be enough. Agility Level 99 should be the aim once Impending Darkness Event is beaten.

Later Aims should be:

Skill Level Reason
Herblore or Cartography 90 Both these Skills grant access to Damage Reduction Potion IV which is very helpful, especially in the Throne of the Herald Expansion.
When Herblore is chosen it will also need Level 90. In Cartography 1000 can be obtained at (31, 19) The Sand-Covered Treasure. These can be turned in for 5,000 Damage Reduction Potion IV with Township Task Hard 15.
Archaeology 90 Only when also doing Cartography Level 90, since this allows access to Underwater Ruins which has the very powerful Engulfing Vortex Longbow. This is quite a grind but well worth it; the weapon shreds through Throne of the Herald content
Archaeology 118 This is highly Optional Not required but very fun to play with, Merman Pendant and Pirate Hook are 2 very powerful items only obtainable from very high Archaeology. You can defeat the entire game without them, they will however make some parts of the game faster/more fun.

Starting Off Your Journey

Once you've got all the skills at around Level 30, with Astrology at level 60, Agility at Level 50, Runecrafting at Level 85 and Mining & Smithing at Level 40. You're ready to start your Combat Journey.

  1. It is assumed that Combat Stats are also at Level 30.
  2. When you're roughly level 20-25 in Combat Skills (or 30 from Leveling everything to 30), it's time to switch to Mithril Equipment. Seeing as our Mining and Smithing isn't high enough to craft this, we can get these items from Mithril Knight.
  3. Continue Farming Slayer while leveling your Combat Skills.
  4. You will also need to level your Magic and Ranged.
  5. At this point you should have all 3 Combat Styles available to you. Keep fighting Slayer tasks until you reach Hitpoints Level 77.
  6. This is where this guide ends. You should have grasped the basics of Combat and Upgrading at this point.
    • Further Guides can be found with each Dungeon. They all have a list of recommended/required Equipment and Skill Levels.
    • The Dungeon Guides have been kept as low as possible on the Requirements and Gear needed.
    • If you want to know what the next objectives are, look at the Next Dungeon guide. This should give you Items and Skill Levels to aim for.
  7. After defeating Throne of the Herald.
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